Winter Fire (28 page)

“Does that mean I can pet you now and have you fall asleep peacefully in my arms?” she asked.

He nuzzled against her neck, yawned, and rolled onto his side, taking her with him.

“If you like,” he said very softly. “For a while.”

Just a dream. Just for a while
.

A dream, that's all
.

Just a dream
.

Despite the tears burning against her eyes, Sarah kissed Case's neck, his shoulder, the hard hand that was cradling her cheek. She tasted the salty sleekness of his skin, tested the muscular resilience of his biceps with her teeth, caught the hair on his chest between her lips and pulled.

There was no teasing in her caresses, no seduction, no demand. She simply was experiencing his textures in every way she could. Slowly she worked her way down his big body, turning her face from side to side, smoothing her cheeks over his chest and belly, inhaling the elemental scents of man and woman and completion.

The line of hair that arrowed down from his navel to his groin intrigued her. It tickled her lips in a way that made her smile. She was still smiling when her mouth brushed against firm male flesh that was becoming increasingly familiar.

It was increasing, period.

Her head lifted until she could look at his face. He was watching her with a smoldering intensity that even night couldn't conceal.

“Is this a permanent state with you?” she asked softly, perplexed.

“Never was before.”

“Before what?”

“You.”

“Oh. Is that…good?” she asked.

“I don't know. It's never happened before. But I'm looking forward to finding out.”

Sarah put her cheek against him. Her breath sighed out over his swelling arousal.

She kissed him.

Rather distantly Case wondered if he had died and gone to heaven instead of to the hell he had always assumed awaited him.

The tip of her tongue drew a line of fire over the pulse that beat so heavily in his rigid flesh.

“It's good,” he whispered roughly. “It's so damned good I can't believe I'm not dreaming.”

“You are, remember?” she asked, tasting him. “Just a dream.”

“For a while. Until dawn.”

Sarah closed her eyes.

Dawn, when all dreams ended. But until then she could dream a lifetime of dreams, enough to last her until she died.

“Until dawn,” she said. Then, so softly that she hoped he couldn't hear, she whispered, “I love you, Case.”

Despite her care, he heard the fragile confession. He wanted to protest the pain he knew loving him would cause her.

Yet he couldn't speak.

He couldn't even breathe for the hot, sensuous pressure of her mouth around him.

He stopped trying to speak, to think, to breathe. He simply reached for the golden flame of Sarah the way a dying man reaches for life.

And like life itself she came to him, hot and sweet and generous.

S
arah awoke
with the warmth of Case surrounding her and his heart beating beneath her cheek. She murmured lazily, snuggled closer, and fell back asleep.

When Case felt the small movements, he was torn between pain and peace.

Pain because he never should have been in her bed.

Peace because he was.

What if she's pregnant?

The question had haunted him throughout the night, keeping him from sleep.

I can't let it happen again
.

Even Case didn't know whether he meant making love to Sarah, or feeling responsible for a child's life, or losing that child to death. He knew only that a chilling fear had settled in his gut. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before, even during the bloodiest of the war.

Concealed by darkness, he had smiled.

Hidden in silence, he had laughed.

Last night he had lost himself in Sarah's generous passion.

Never again
, he thought bleakly.
I can't go through it again, the laughter and the loss
.

Sighing, Sarah burrowed closer to him. Her trust kept breaking over Case in waves that were hot and cold, ex
hilarating and chilling, threatening every certainty he had.

She loves me
.

I can't love her
.

I'll hurt her
.

I can't hurt her
.

She loves me
.

I can't!

Thoughts circled and swooped, raking Case with a pain that should have made him bleed, but was all the more agonizing because it didn't.

“Sis?” Conner called quietly. “Are you feeling all right?”

Case felt the change that went over Sarah when she heard her brother's voice. The tension of being fully awake shot through her, stiffening her.

“What's wrong?” she called softly.

“The sun is up and you aren't,” her brother said. “I thought you might be sick.”

“Never felt better.”

She yawned, stretched…and fully realized for the first time that she was naked beneath the covers.

The look on her face almost made Case smile.

Almost, but not quite. The price of laughter was simply too high.

“Hunter said to let you be, you'd probably had a hard time out here last night,” Conner said, “but I was worried.”

Case felt the heat of Sarah's blush as clearly as she did.

“Uh, yes, a hard time,” she muttered.

When she heard her own words, she blushed even more hotly.

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He fought it to a flat line, but couldn't deny the tenderness that shivered through him when she hid her scarlet face against his chest.

“What was that?” Conner asked. “You sound funny.”

She cleared her throat with unnecessary force.

Case opened his mouth, only to have her small hand clamp right over it.

“I'm just fine,” she said distinctly. “Hunter is right. Sleeping out here wasn't as restful as being inside, that's all.”

“You'll get used to it,” her brother said cheerfully.

She doubted she would ever get used to anything as elemental as Case in her bed, in her body, in her very soul. Heaven at midnight in the full flight of dreaming. Hell at dawn, when all dreams ended.

The eyes of her lover said that dawn had come.

“Go on into the cabin,” she said quietly to her brother. “I'll be along in a few minutes to make breakfast.”

“Morgan is doing it. Have you seen Case?”

One black eyebrow rose in silent query as he looked at her over her hand. His eyes were shadowed with ghosts and vivid with the life he refused to accept.

“Blazes,” Sarah muttered, lifting her hand.

“What?” Conner asked.

“Yes, I've seen Case,” she said.

All of him
, she thought.
Every bit
.

I tasted him, too
.

Lord, I didn't know how bittersweet life could be, heaven and hell and everything in between
.

“Where is he?” her brother asked. “I have an idea about spying on the Culpeppers that—”

“Case is right here,” she interrupted.

There was a short silence.

“Oh,” Conner said. “Uh…”

“Yes. Uh…” Sarah repeated sardonically. “Now, would you mind letting us wake up in peace?”

“Well, shoot, how was I supposed to know?”

“By using your head for more than a hatrack,” she shot back.

“Are you, uh, all right?”

When she heard the combination of love and protectiveness and embarrassment in her brother's voice, her
irritation evaporated into affectionate laughter.

“I've never been better,” she said.

“Aren't you going to ask after me?” Case said blandly. “Your sister is a mighty fierce woman.”

“Case Maxwell, if you weren't too big to paddle, I'd—” she began.

“But I am,” he said across her words. “So you won't. Go on in, Conner. We'll be along shortly.”

The boy's laughter came back through the thicket like a second dawn. He was still laughing when the cabin door finally closed behind him.

There was no laughter in Case's eyes.

“Sarah,” he began.

“No,” she interrupted.

“What?”

“No. Just plain no. Don't ruin it by telling me how you don't love me. I know you don't. I don't need to hear the words.”

He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the pain in hers.

And in his own.

“We can't do this again,” he said, his voice tight.

“Can't?” She laughed raggedly. “You're as hard and full of life as ever. Don't talk to me about can't.”

He could hardly argue the point. He was pulsing against her hip as though he hadn't had a woman in years.

“All right,” he said through his teeth. “We must not do this again.”

“Why?”

“I could make you pregnant!”

She shivered and shifted her hips slightly, measuring his readiness.

“No doubt about it,” she agreed.

“Then I would have to marry you, and—”

“Why?” she interrupted.

He stared at her as though she had gone mad.

“I'm a rich widow, not a poor virgin,” she said matter-
of-factly. “Besides, next time I'll use what Lola gave me.”

“There won't be a next time.”

“Then it's not pregnancy you're really worried about, is it? What's wrong? Didn't you enjoy what we did?”

Case's mouth shut with an audible clicking of teeth.

Even beneath his beard Sarah could see that his jaw muscles were clenched.

“You know damned good and well I liked it,” he said through his teeth. “Hell, I more than liked it. It's the best I ever had.”

Or ever will have
, he acknowledged bitterly to himself.

“Then there's no problem.” She smiled brightly at him. “Come on, lazy man. Let's go see what kind of cook Morgan is. Unless you'd rather see if we get better with practice…?”

With a muttered curse Case shot out of bed. He dressed quickly in the cold air. His speed was helped by the fact that admiring gray eyes were memorizing every inch of him.

“Get dressed,” he said.

“I can't find my drawers or chemise. What did you do with them?”

He looked around with something close to desperation. Her chemise peeked out from the foot of the bedroll. Her drawers were dangling from a low branch of sage, flung there by a hand that had had better things to do than worry about tomorrow.

While he gathered her underwear, he remembered peeling off soft, warm muslin and finding ever softer, hotter flesh beneath. Hastily he tossed the garments in the general direction of the top of the bedroll.

A naked, elegantly feminine arm came out from under the covers and dragged the underwear beneath, where it was warm.

Warm, hell
, Case thought.
She's a fire in winter. I'll die remembering what it was like to sink into her
.

Salt and sweet, all woman, hot honey on my tongue, on my body. Winter fire burning just for me
.

A shudder of raw hunger went through Case. It was all he could do to stuff his unruly flesh into his pants.

“Need some help?” Sarah asked.

Humor and admiration and memories ran through her husky voice like heat through flames.

“I've been dressing myself for some years now,” he said roughly.

“How about helping me? I'm just a beginner.”

The sensual teasing in her voice made his blood run even hotter.

“So was Eve,” he muttered, “but she learned quick enough.”

Case looked up in time to see his words quench the laughter in her eyes.

“Sarah,” he began.

This time she didn't interrupt. She simply disappeared. The blankets seethed and rippled as she dressed beneath them. Very quickly she emerged fully dressed but for her boots.

“In the interests of keeping Conner from knowing how much you dislike me,” she said evenly, “could you try to be civil to me in front of him?”

“I don't dislike you.”

“Fine.” She yanked on her right boot. “Then being civil to me shouldn't be a problem.”

Her tone of voice told Case that she didn't believe a word he had said about not disliking her.

“Men don't spend nights like that with women they dislike,” he said tightly.

“Of course.”

She jammed her left foot into the other boot and stood up quickly.

“Damnation, listen to me!” he snarled.

Cool gray eyes cut over to him.

“I'm not only listening to you, I'm agreeing with you,” she pointed out.

“But you don't mean it.”

Cinnamon eyebrows arched in two elegant, disbelieving curves.

“If you say so,” she murmured.

“What?”

“I'm being agreeable. You should try it. Just for the practice, of course. I won't expect it when Conner isn't around.”

Case took a grip on his temper. Then he took a deep breath and another, tighter grip.

She was like nettles under his skin.

Rather distantly he wondered where his usual discipline had gone.

Memories of taking Sarah and being taken in turn went through him like hot black lightning, telling him just what had happened to his self-control.

I never should have done it
.

But he had. Now he would spend the rest of his life regretting it. Winter seemed so much colder when he knew that there was a fire burning just for him.

Just beyond reach.

It must stay that way
.

Beyond reach
.

 

“Have you seen Conner?” Ute asked.

Surprised, Sarah turned from the pot of beans that was bubbling over the fire. She had just finished slicing one of her hoarded onions into the pot, along with several of Ute's lethal green chilies.

She hoped they would burn Case's mouth.

What am I complaining about?
she asked herself wryly.
This morning I asked him to be civil to me, and by God, he has been
.

He's been so civil he makes my back teeth ache
.

And so distant
.

She sighed and resumed stirring the beans.

Ute cleared his throat.

Sarah jumped. She had forgotten that he was there, waiting for an answer.

“I haven't seen Conner since breakfast,” she said, hoping her blush would pass unnoticed. “Why?”

At least Conner didn't tease me about Case. Other than a grin that split his smug face, of course
.

Saying nothing, Ute looked at the pattern of sunlight cast across the dirt floor by random holes in the chinking. The light was a rich, buttery yellow.

Late-afternoon light.

“Breakfast, huh?” he asked.

“What's wrong?” she asked sharply.

He shrugged, but she wasn't fooled. She had become very good at reading the older man's weathered, falsely angelic face.

“Ute,” she said.

She didn't have to say any more.

“He was due up on the rim two hours ago. When I didn't come in, Lola come along to see what's what. She's up there now, taking Conner's turn so I can rest and eat.”

Frowning, Sarah gave the beans a final stir and added a stick of wood to the fire.

“Maybe he's with Case,” she said. “They've been doing a lot of six-gun work together.”

“I looked. Ain't there.”

Uneasiness rippled through her.

“It's not like Conner to miss his watch,” she said.

“Yep. That's what I'm thinking.”

“Where is Case?”

“With his brother, planning ways to bury Culpeppers.”

“What about Morgan?”

“Spying on Culpeppers.”

Silently she added another piece of wood to the fire and watched the flames bite into the branch. She wiped her hands on her flour-sack apron.

“I'll look for him,” she said.

“Figured you would.”

“Is someone watching Lola's goats?”

“Ghost.”

“Hope he doesn't lose that black and white one again,” she muttered.

Ute paused on his way out the door.

“Weren't the dog's doing,” he said. “That she-goat is plumb contrary. Minute Ghost chases one herd quitter, she high-tails it in the other direction.”

“You always stand up for that dog.”

“Been a stray myself. Hard life.”

The door shut behind him.

Instantly Sarah's expression changed, showing every bit of the fear she felt. She had just remembered what her brother had said that morning.

I have an idea about spying on the Culpeppers
.

“Conner,” she whispered. “You weren't foolish enough to go alone, were you?”