This Calder Sky (7 page)

“No.” Her head was turned away from him, her eyes tightly shut as her hips continued to strain from him. “Don't.” Her voice was husky, disturbed, but not pleading.

He stroked her hair with a trembling hand, brushing his mouth across her jaw and cheek. “It's too late, Maggie. I can't stop now,” he muttered thickly. “Don't pull away from me. It will only make it worse. It always hurts the first time, but don't fight me, honey. I swear it won't hurt for long.”

After a long second, Chase could feel her forcing her body to relax, but she kept her face turned away from
him. He began kissing her neck while his hands slid down to hold her hips still. When he moved against her again, she tensed but didn't struggle. Chase was as gentle as he could be, but he knew it wasn't enough as her fingernails dug into his shoulders and a choked sound of pain ripped through her throat at his penetration. With slow, steady strokes, he carved out the opening. The shuddering tension of near-satisfaction grew hard within him, but he knew it was too soon and forced himself to stop to contain it.

When he ceased his movements, she slowly brought her face around. He concentrated on the ivory smoothness of her features and the vivid contrast of her black hair. He was shaken by the rare combination of pride, beauty, and strength.

“I didn't know anyone could have such beautiful white skin and hair so black—blacker than a midnight sky.” His heavy-lidded gaze wandered slowly over her face and hair in loving approval.

“Is it over?” It was a quick, tightly worded question, disillusionment clouding her green eyes.

The look reminded him of a child given a lollipop that promised sweetness and tasted like chalk. A smile gentled the hard angles of his features.

“The pain is over, honey,” Chase assured her softly. “Now the pleasure starts.”

He brought his lips to hers, kissing them softly while his hand cupped and caressed her breast. The sure, steady stimulation by all parts of his body soon persuaded her hips to move in instinctive rhythm with him. Beads of perspiration formed on his upper lip as he sought the right ways to please her and lift her to the crescendo pitch of satisfaction while holding off his own.

Blood pounded through his veins, pulsing molten hot. He began to lose his grip on reality. There were no longer two heartbeats—only one. There weren't two
bodies, but two matching halves coupled in a frenzied reunion. It went on and on for an eternity of minutes until their joy in each other reached a shuddering climax.

Holding her close against him, Chase lay on his back and stared at the dazzling blue sky overhead. Both of them were quivering in a kind of stunned aftershock. His hand was burrowed into the slight dampness of her hair, while she rested her cheek on the hard pillow of his chest. Thoroughly content, he angled his head to see the way she curled against him.

“I was right, wasn't I? I did give you pleasure.” He wanted to hear her say it, to know beyond any doubt that it had been a shared experience.

She tipped her head way back to meet his eyes, boldly proud, exhibiting no shyness. “Yes.” The simple affirmative answer told him all he needed to know and more.

Chase took a deep breath and forgot to let it out as his eyes ran over this girl who was all woman. In his twenty-two years, he'd known only two kinds of women—the ones you respected, and the ones you didn't. He dated the first kind and bedded the second. Yet Maggie didn't fit into either category. She was fifteen going on twenty-six. She had been a virgin when he'd taken her, but there were no recriminating tears in her eyes now. As crazy as it sounded, he had more respect for her now than for the women society indicated deserved it. Chase realized that he didn't want it any other way.

His arm tightened around her middle to carry her with him when he sat up. He slipped a hand under her knees to lift her into the cradle of his arms as he pushed to his feet. Automatically, she curved a hand around his neck for support. Her glance was curious, but she asked no questions.

Chase stopped beside the upright stick he'd draped his shirt on. “Grab my shirt.”

He waited until she had unhooked it, then carried her to the river, setting her feet down by the water's edge. Taking the shirt from her, he dipped it in the water, then turned back to her to gently wash the dark stain of lost virginity from between her legs. When he had finished, she reached for the shirt. Puzzled, Chase hesitated before releasing it to her. He watched while she rinsed it, then straightened to wash him. He was moved by the pink color in her cheeks, a sign she was slightly embarrassed by her boldness.

Taking the shirt away from her and tossing it aside, he crooked a finger under her chin and lifted it. She looked into his eyes with a natural directness, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulder. The smallness of her made Chase feel massive, the protective male instinct surging strong within him.

“Maggie.” All the hundreds of things he didn't know how to say were wrapped up in that one word. His hands framed her face as he bent to kiss her with a gentle fierceness. Her slender hands gripped his wrists, holding onto him. Reluctantly, Chase lifted his head, unaware of the stirring breeze that swept his shirt into the river, where the sluggish current caught it and carried it downstream. “It's getting late.” A grim smile touched his mouth as he let her go and walked back to the dying fire.

Pulling on his pants, he didn't bother to zip them yet and reached to pick up his nearly dry socks, standing on one foot to put them on. He was tugging his boots on when he noticed Maggie watching him, his jacket clutched in front of her for warmth, still naked beneath it.

“What's the matter?” Chase straightened, raising a puzzled eyebrow.

“You haven't given me back my clothes,” she reminded him.

The sound of his throaty laughter made her smile.
The world had never been more perfect than it was at this minute. Maggie wasn't sure what she was feeling, except that it was right. Which was why she didn't examine it too closely, in case its beauty faded like one of her father's elusive dreams.

Chase's horse had wandered under the cottonwoods to graze on the tender young stalks of grass growing at the base of their trunks. The trailing reins had kept it from straying very far. It shied when Chase approached. A softly spoken command had it standing quietly while Chase untied the bundle on the back of the saddle. Returning to the fire circle, he tossed the clothes to her.

While she dressed, he walked to the river's edge for his shirt, not staying to watch her, as she had watched him. Maggie supposed there were some people who would have considered it improper the way she had stared so openly at his physique. But she didn't understand why it should be wrong to admire a man's body. Men stared at women all the time. She was tucking her shirt into her jeans when Chase came back, still shirtless, to pick up his jacket.

As he shrugged his shoulders into it, Maggie asked, “Where's your shirt?”

“It must have been blown into the river and sunk.” He didn't sound concerned about it, but she guessed he probably had a closetful of shirts. So what was the loss of one? He kicked gravel onto the fire and scattered the embers. “Are you ready to leave?”

“Sure.” She piled her hair under her hat as she walked to the log where she'd left her horse tied.

Chase was in the saddle and waiting for her when she mounted. “I'll ride with you part of the way,” he said.

Maggie led the way through the trees and up the shallow ravine to the wide, open plains. Facing the broken ridges to the north, she set her horse at a canter. Chase moved his mount abreast of hers. They
cut the trampled trail the Shamrock cattle had left and turned onto it. It was a short mile to the boundary fence where strands of barbed wire forced them to stop.

Dismounting, Maggie walked to a wooden post and kicked out the stone, wedging it in the posthole. Drooping wire permitted the post to sag flat on the ground. Chase stepped on it, holding it down while Maggie led her horse across the downed barbed wire. Together, they set the post in the ground again, Chase steadying it upright while Maggie stomped the wedging rock into place. When it was finished, they stood on either side of the fence, postponing the parting a moment longer.

“I'll be seeing you,” Chase stated, dissatisfied with the phrase, but finding none other that he was willing to say.

“Take care.” She kept her response casual. Standing on tiptoes, Maggie took the initiative and leaned over the top wire, prompting Chase to kiss her one last time.

She turned away from the fence before Chase did, gathering the reins to her horse and stepping into the saddle in a quick hop. As she reined her horse toward the sloping rise to the ridge top, she waved to him over her shoulder, and received an answering salute. She felt suddenly sad to hear the hoofbeats galloping away from the fence while she started her bay up the slope.

Near the crest of the ridge, Angus O'Rourke sat silently on his horse, shadowed by a clump of pines. He had come back to see what was keeping Maggie and pulled up when he saw her approaching the fence, accompanied by none other than Chase Calder. His first thought was that she was being escorted off Calder land. And he'd been angry—but not angry enough to ride down and confront the man. His muttered abuse of the high-handed and arrogant ways of the Calders had been issued from afar.

But Maggie had kissed him … with the ease of a
pair of lovers. The sight shook him all the way to the bone. She was just a little girl. He damned the Calders a thousand times over for corrupting innocent children. It was time he was having a talk with her, explain some of the facts of life to her. If only Mary Frances was here, he thought. She would handle it so much better—woman to woman. It was difficult for a man to put it in terms delicate enough for a young girl's ear.

He watched her ride up the slope, unknowingly coming straight toward him. His horse whickered at its stablemate. The serene smile went from her expression when she saw him. She briefly checked her mount, then let it continue on.

The sharp look she gave him made Angus explain his presence. “I came back to look for you.” The ground became rocky, forcing her to bring her horse down to a walk the last couple of yards.

“Sure, Pa.”

Something in her attitude irritated him—a vague smugness, as if she knew a glorious secret that she wasn't going to share. “How come the Calder boy was with you? Where'd you meet up with him?”

“At the river.” Her gaze never left the land breaking in front of her.

Her answer didn't tell him anything, certainly not what was uppermost in his mind. “He kissed you.”

“Yes, he did.” She turned her head to give him a cool look.

Suspicion crowded into his mind. There was a swollen softness to her lips and a secretive aura about her. “What else did he do?”

She didn't hold his gaze, but turned her head to stare straight ahead, her chin jutting forward at a defiant angle. “I don't think that's any of your business.”

Reaching over, he grabbed the reins to stop her horse. “I'm your father and that makes it my business. Now I demand to know what happened.”

“Why?” she challenged, meeting his anger with an unshakable directness, temper flashing in her green eyes. “If something happened, what would you do, Pa? Would you even try to do anything about it? Or would you just walk around making empty threats to the air?”

“So help me, God, if he laid a hand on you, I'll—”

“Yes? What will you do?” She taunted him openly. “Tell me, Pa.”

Angus swallowed his rage, needing to know first if he was being goaded without cause. “I want to know if he … did anything to you.” He stumbled over the words, his voice low and trembling.

Maggie watched the red flush come and go in his face. Her own defensive anger faded at his uncomfortable attempt to ask a question. It was probably harder for fathers to deal with their daughters' sexuality, she supposed. She discovered some pity, an emotion she thought her father had already used up, for the pathetic figure wanting so desperately to uphold her honor and not possessing the guts to carry it through.

“Yes, Pa, he made love to me,” she sighed tiredly. It never occurred to Maggie to lie.

There was a long moment of silence while he turned his head from her, his eyes blinking furiously. “These damned Calders!” he cursed in a vibrating voice. “They always gotta have it all.”

“Oh, Pa, can't you just once put the blame where it belongs?” she demanded in weary exasperation. “If it's anybody's fault, it's mine. It was what I wanted. I could have stopped Chase, but I didn't want to.”

He shook his head, denying that. “A man will always have his way with a woman. Calder deserves the whip for forcing himself on you.”

“Pa, you're not listening to me.” Her protest seemed hopeless. Why did he always have to twist things to put the blame on others? In a flash of wisdom, Maggie realized that her father couldn't accept the truth that
she had been a willing participant, because to him, it would mean that he had somehow failed as a parent. Her father couldn't accept personal failure. It always had to be caused by someone bigger, stronger, or more powerful. The Calders acted as a natural scapegoat for all his problems.

“Don't worry, girl. No one is going to ruin my daughter and get away with it.” There was a malevolent gleam in his eye. Here was another reason to hate the Calders—a reason any man, any father, could understand.

But all Maggie saw was how much he loved the role of the martyr. She didn't. She slapped the horse with her reins, sending it bounding forward.

Leaving Maggie, Chase put his spurs to the blood bay and raced it in a flat-out run. There was going to be hell to pay for keeping his father waiting. The fact that he'd forgotten all about it until a couple of minutes ago said something for his total absorption with Maggie.