Big Sky Rancher (3 page)

“I don't think so.” It was as firm a refusal as she could muster. Arguing didn't seem to be doing much good, so she clearly stated her case, denying his right to her presence in his bed.

“Shall we fight this out now or after dark?” he asked, his manner that of a man who knows he has the upper hand.

“I don't intend to fight with you,” she told him. “If you'll tell me where the food is, I'll concede that I'm obligated to fix a meal for you. That's as far as I go.”

“That'll do for now,” he murmured, his arms tightening around her waist. “At least, that's almost enough for now.”

She saw his head duck toward hers and felt her eyes open wide. Surely he wouldn't. But he did. His mouth met hers for
the second time, this kiss a far cry from the sample of her mouth he'd taken in the parsonage. Now he nibbled and plucked at her lips, his teeth joining in the play as he explored the contours of her mouth and investigated the soft, vulnerable flesh just inside her lip line.

She tried to clamp her lips together, but it was no use, for his hand touched her chin and she felt the pressure of his strength against her jaw as he forced her to open to him. “That's a good girl,” he whispered, and she wanted to laugh. She felt about as far from being a
good girl
as any woman ever had, what with this man's tongue touching hers, his mouth opening over hers, his laughter echoing in her ears as he took advantage of her lesser strength to invade her as might a man set on seduction.

For surely that was where he was headed, if she knew anything at all about it. And very little did she know, in actuality. Only that a good girl could get in the family way by allowing a young man to kiss her in a familiar manner. Oh, not that the kissing itself would turn the trick, but what came afterward could get her in trouble.

She'd heard her mother say, more than once, that a good girl never let a man touch her body without a wedding ring around her finger first. And that such goings-on led to perdition. As a growing child, Jennifer had heard much about that dreadful place, but never could figure out where it was.

She knew now. Directly due west of the town of Thunder Canyon, perdition was staring her in the face, if she knew anything about it. It wasn't a spot on the map, but a man…her husband, in fact. A man seeming to have no qualms about placing her in peril.

He looked down into her face and she was swept up in the dark glow of eyes filled with dangerous lights. A faintly wolf
ish expression lit his features and he towered over her, making her feel insignificant. Then he moved one big hand to the front of her shirtwaist again and his long fingers cupped her breast.

She shrieked, a noise fit to wake the dead, as her papa had told her more than once. He'd declared she had a voice that would carry a country mile and she remembered wondering if a country mile was longer than a city mile. No matter today, only that the volume of her cry had penetrated the absorbed expression of the man who held her. He blinked at her, his hand tightening in an automatic gesture, and then he smiled. That same, feral grin that told her he was set on hauling her up those stairs to his bed.

“No, Lucas,” she said, her voice hushed.

“Lucas, is it? Are we done with Mr. O'Reilly now?”

“I don't know about you, but I'm done with this whole misunderstanding,” she said, determined to escape his grasp, eager to move to the other side of the room, hopeful he would not follow her there.

“You're the one with the misunderstanding, sweetheart. I'm dead certain of what I'm doing here. As soon as you figure it out, we'll be in business.”

“That's what I'm afraid of,” she whispered. “I don't want to be in business, with you or any other man. I don't know what I was thinking of, to come here like this. But I've made a dreadful mistake. I see that now.” She paused for breath and hastened on, hopeful of his cooperation.

“Please just put me on a stagecoach headed East. I'll pay you back as soon as I can.”

“Where East?” he asked, his brow puckering as if he considered her request valid.

“Anywhere,”
she said. “Anywhere but here.”

“I couldn't possibly allow my wife to run off before we've even begun our marriage,” he announced after a moment's deliberation. “I promised to cherish you until death parts us, and I haven't even started with that part of the bargain.”

“I don't want to be cherished,” she blurted, only too aware of where this conversation was heading.

“You don't?” he asked. “I'd think being cherished would make a woman, or a man, for that matter, feel kinda special, sorta like a present waiting to be opened and enjoyed.”

“I'm not a present. I'm a woman.”

He grinned. “Yeah. I noticed.”

Indeed, he could hardly help but notice, she thought. Her front was plastered up against him, and now that he'd moved his hand a bit, she felt the pressure of his chest against her tender breasts. Not to mention a strangely formed part of his anatomy that persisted in nudging her belly, as if offering a reminder of something she needed to know.

“Stop it,” she said, responding to the pressure of his body against hers.

“Stop what?” he asked, one big hand against her lower back, the other on her chin again, as if he could not decide just where his lips would take hold. It seemed that her mouth was elected, and he suckled her bottom lip, then transferred his attention to her throat, where he nuzzled and murmured faint words she strained to hear.

None of them made any sense to her, her ears only catching a mishmash of sounds that seemed foreign to her. Something about her being sweet and soft, and smelling good. And wasn't that a bit of nonsense.

She'd never been called sweet, having been a sassy child,
forever in trouble because of her determination to have the last word in any dispute. And not by the greatest stretch of the imagination could she be described as smelling good. She wore no perfume or toilet water, and the only scent on her skin was that of soap and the powder puff she used after bathing, a vanity that seemed to getting her deeper into trouble by the minute.

She bent her head to one side, then the other, straining to remove herself from him, all to no avail. He was persistent, his hands roving over her hips and then to her waist, his long fingers almost circling her ribs. His thumbs were pushing at the bottom curve of her breasts, lifting them higher, pressing them together and causing her to shiver.

He leaned back a bit and looked down at his accomplishment. She was almost indecent, her bosom outlined by her shirtwaist, her flesh mounded over his hands as though her breasts might spill out of her clothing, given any encouragement at all. And Lucas seemed to be very good at encouraging illicit behavior in several parts of her body.

She tingled in places she'd rarely been aware of in her twenty-three years. Even as she looked down, the man ran his fingers over the prominent crests that puckered at his advance. She shivered again, feeling a slender thread of fire take hold in the depths of her belly.

“I think we've messed around long enough,” Lucas said, his face taut, his eyes half hidden by long lashes as he watched her. A line of ruddy color touched his cheekbones and his breathing seemed erratic.

“Then let me go,” she managed to whimper, fearful of his next move.

“I'm going to take you upstairs and show you your new
bedroom,” he told her, and she caught her breath. The ways and means of how men and women came together in the act of marriage was a secret her mother had not seen fit to share with her.

Neither had her sister, Alma, but then, there hadn't seemed to be any love lost between that gentle soul and Kyle, the brute she'd married. Being a part of her sister's hours of labor, watching as the beloved link between the two of them was severed, she'd mourned not only the mother, but the child left behind with only Kyle as a champion.

Staying there had been an option she'd shrunk from, so she'd chosen the lesser of two evils, this trip to Montana, answering the letter from the agency she'd contacted about the matter of looking for a husband. Answering the mail-order bride ad had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. But upon contemplation, she'd decided that anything was better than facing life in the same house as Kyle.

She'd left the cemetary quickly, sad at abandoning her sister's newborn child, but too fearful of the infant's father to do otherwise. She rued her decision, watching from the sidelines as Kyle made a hash of being a father. There was nothing she could do but wait for news that would complete her journey to wedded bliss.

Now she stood in the arms of another man and searched her mind for any minute detail of married life she might have heard from Alma. She recalled nothing worth her attention, only a shuddering tale of shame on Alma's part, a painful using of her body by the man who'd promised to
cherish
her.

“I know about cherishing a woman,” she said, recalling Luc's words. “I don't want any of it directed at me.”

“How many men have directed anything at you?” he asked, his eyes on her, as if he thought she might be counting the number of masculine persons she'd allowed to touch her.

“I'm not interested in men or what they have to offer,” she said.

“You're not?” he asked. “I'd have sworn you kinda liked me kissing you. And you didn't seem to take offense at my touching your—”

“Just stop right there,” she blurted. “I don't welcome your advances, sir.”

“I'm not a
sir
to you, sweetheart,” he said. “I'm your husband, the man you're going to live the rest of your life with.”

He turned sober then, his lips pressing together, and he bent to pick her up, holding her high against his chest. Her feet dangled, her arm hung limply over his back and she felt like a sack of oats hanging from his embrace.

“Put me down,” she ordered him, aware that her position made her extremely vulnerable to whatever he had in mind. And what he had in mind was certainly not what she had planned for today.

He left her no choice, marching from the kitchen into the small, square hallway, then up the flight of stairs to the second floor of the farmhouse.

The hallway was apparently carpeted, for his footsteps were muffled as he walked. And then he halted in front of an open doorway and sidled into the room, taking care that he not bump her head on the door frame. From her position, she could see little of the room, aware that it held massive furniture, a large chifforobe and a matching chest of drawers.

Lucas lowered her to the floor, catching hold of her as if he feared she might try to escape. His grip was tight, but left her
free to look around her, and she turned her head to view the big bed behind her. High posts adorned each corner. The headboard was tall, and resembled the one on her parents' bed at home.

The quilt covering the mattress reflected some woman's skill with a needle, for Jennifer caught sight of tiny stitches that bound the pieced patches together.

“This is my room?” she asked, already knowing the answer she would hear.

“I thought I made it clear that we would share this bed,” Lucas told her, his voice patient, as though he spoke to a child who was extremely dense. “Now sit down, Jennifer.”

“Where?” She looked up at him, dazed and frightened by the turn of events.

“Right here, sweetheart, on the mattress.”

She looked down at the quilt, glanced at the pillows, fluffed and waiting for a weary head to be cushioned by their fullness, and then looked back at the man who expected her to comply with his wishes.

“I'd prefer a chair,” she said, her challenge obvious, even to a man as thick-headed as Lucas O'Reilly appeared to be.

“How about my lap?” he asked, and then turned to perch on the mattress, pulling her across his lap. It was a soft bed, a fluffy feather tick it seemed, and she felt Lucas sinking into its depths.

“Please, Lucas,” she managed to whisper and then her throat went dry and she lost her ability to speak.

“You still think I'm going to hurt you?” he asked, and it seemed he was sincere in his concern. “I have no intention of causing you harm, honey. I was joking before when I told you I'd brought harm to another woman. Never have. Never will.” He grinned at her, holding her upright on his muscled thighs.
They felt like two solid logs beneath her, with no give to cushion her bottom.

“I'm not afraid of you,” she said, denying the panic that threatened to choke her.

“Yes, you are,” he said, apparently more aware of her state of mind than she'd given him credit for. “But there's no need, Jennifer.”

With a few easy moves, her placed her on her back, then lay beside her, his arms holding her, his legs trapping hers. “Comfortable now?” he asked, rising on one elbow, his free hand caressing her cheek.

He was going to kiss her again. As surely as she knew the sun would rise in the morning, she knew that look in his eyes. She turned her head away as he bent to her.

“S
EE NOW
,
this isn't so bad, is it?” His drawl was more apparent when he lowered his voice.

“I don't want to be in your bed,” she whispered. “And I lied. You frighten me, holding me down, making me a prisoner.”

“Then just relax, honey, and cuddle up with me for a minute or two.” He adjusted his position, sliding one arm beneath her head and lying down. She was pulled up tightly against him, her feet barely touching his shin bones, her head cushioned by his shoulder.

“I've never done this before,” she protested. “I'm not accustomed to—”

“I surely hope you're new at this sort of thing, sweetheart. In fact, I'm counting on it. That way I can teach you how to be a wife, and you won't have any notions stuck in your head about being modest and ladylike.”

“There's nothing wrong with being modest. And I
am
a lady.”

“I don't doubt that for a minute, honey. And just to let you know, ladies are some of my favorite people.”

Her mind swung back to the watching women who'd peopled the balcony above Pete's Saloon in town. “I'll just bet they are,” she said, her vivid imagination able to envision
him climbing a set of stairs to a room, wherein waited several of those lush beauties.

He frowned and changed his tack. “A little modesty goes a long way when it comes to two people in a bed,” he told her. “Especially when those two people are married.”

“I wouldn't know. I've never been married before.”

“Well, you are now. And you're about to become a wife.”

He'd waited long enough, given her enough time to get used to his touch, and his trousers were about to burst open on their own, given the pulsing erection he knew had to be pushing at her even now. Curved against him, surely she knew his problem. Certainly she had some glimmer as to what went on in bed between male and female.

And then a thought struck him. What if she didn't know? What if he'd married not only a virgin bride, but an
ignorant
virgin bride?

“Jennifer?” He spoke her name softly, trying his best to reassure her. “Didn't your mother tell you anything about marriage?”

She tilted her chin up and shook her head, her eyes wide with what looked like fright. And well they might. She was pinned beneath a man almost twice her size, lying in the depths of a feather tick in his bedroom, the sun going down outside the windows, and no notion of what he intended. Yet she did not flinch from him, her body forming to his, softening against him, even as tears blinded her vision.

“Hell and damnation,” he blurted, rolling from the bed, watching as her head fell to the pillow as he rose to his feet. “I can't find it in me to force myself on a woman, no matter how horny I am. Even if that woman is my legal wife.”

Jennifer sat up in the bed, which he knew was no easy task,
given the soft contours of the feather tick beneath her. “Do you mean that?” she asked, wiping at the moisture on her cheeks.

“I told you before, I don't say anything I don't mean,” he pointed out, his barely concealed anger emphasizing each word.

“Well, in that case, I'll just go down to the kitchen and make you something to eat,” she said, relief apparent in her voice as she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and blew her nose. “Just tell me where you keep the food and you can go about your chores while I put something together for supper.”

He nodded as she clambered out of bed. “Leave the jacket off,” he said. “You're home now. You don't need to be formal here. In fact, there's an apron of my mother's you can put on over your clothes if you want to.”

“Your mother's apron?” Her eyes were shiny with fresh tears as she faced him and he felt more than a twinge of guilt that he'd put so much pressure on her. She was young and inexperienced at any number of things, it seemed. Yet, her youthful body pled silently for his touch, for he'd felt her breasts firm up beneath his hands, had noted the way she'd curled against him on the bed.

“It was packed away in her things,” he replied. “I'll get it for you and locate something for you to cook.”

“I'm not very good at such things,” she warned him. “Things like cooking and such, I mean. My mother had a lady who kept our house and made all the meals.”

“Your mother didn't teach you to cook?” he asked, stunned by her revelation.

“I never needed to.” Her eyes were frantic now, seeking the bedroom door, as if she might flee down the stairs and onto the back porch, given half a chance.

“Well, you're about to learn the hard way, ma'am.”

He turned her around and escorted her from the room, then down the stairs to where he kept his food in a large pantry just off the kitchen. A curtain hung over the doorway, a limp bit of a rag. When he pushed it aside to allow them entry, it fell from the nails that held it in place, falling in a dusty heap on the floor.

“In here,” he said, waving at the shelves, where cans and crocks held his supplies.

Jennifer lent a dubious look to the collection, then stepped inside the small room and peered beneath the plate that covered a crock of pickles. “I don't think you'll want these for supper,” she murmured.

A can of beef caught her eye and she snatched it up, then peeked carefully into a wide crockery bowl that held his supply of eggs. “How about fried eggs and sliced beef?” she asked.

“Anything you fix will be just fine,” he told her, hoping to encourage her efforts.

She caught sight of the calico apron then, hanging from a hook on the wall and lifted it from its resting place, placing the loop over her neck, allowing the apron to hang from her bosom to cover most of her dress.

Luc turned her around, tied the strings in a credible bow and backed from the pantry. He'd given her enough of a shock for one day, he decided. Hanging around while she found her way in his kitchen was too much to expect her to accept.

Jennifer gathered up the apron front, placed four eggs in the pocket formed there, and held it with one hand as she lifted the can of beef again and scanned the shelf for any more likely prospects.

Coffee. If she could figure out how to make a decent pot
of coffee, that might appease him. But first the pot must be washed, and then she'd find the supply of ground coffee.

The kitchen was a welcome sight after standing in the confines of his pantry, with him so close to hand. He lifted a hand to her, waved a farewell and headed out the back door.

“I'll be the better part of an hour, by the time I do the milking and feed the stock.”

And what feeding the stock entailed, she had no idea. In fact, she had no notion of what
stock
meant. Unless it referred to his cow and team of horses. And somewhere he must have a flock of chickens, given the presence of eggs in the pantry.

She placed the four specimens she'd chosen on the table and sought out a clean pan. There didn't appear to be one without some residue of food clinging to its surface, so she chose the least grimy of the lot and took it to the sink. Some glimmer of her mother's cook wiping her iron skillets clean lingered in Jennifer's head and she decided to forego the soap and water she'd thought to employ, depending instead of the services of a handy rag, dampened with clean water from the pump.

The pan cleaned up nicely, much to her relief, and she replaced it on the stove. Only a faint warmth rose from the iron stovetop and she lifted one of the lids with a device stuck into it, bending to examine the coals within the black behemoth. There was an almost total lack of the blazing fire she'd hoped to find there. He'd left her with a cold stove and expected her to cook a meal.

However, a nearby box held wood cut into assorted lengths, and she gathered several pieces in her arms. Most fit neatly into the hole from which a modicum of heat warmed her hand.

She nudged three logs into place and watched with satisfaction as they settled down in the coals and took residence there.

The clean pan was placed on what she hoped would be the hottest spot on the stove, and she turned to the coffeepot, pumping water into it, then rinsing it thoroughly before she scrubbed at it with her rag. For this task, she added a bit of soap, found beneath the sink on a chipped saucer.

After a good washing she decided it was as clean as it was going to get, and filled it with water from the pump. At least the man had a good supply of what appeared to be clean water. That was a relief. She wouldn't have to carry buckets from a well into the house.

Back in the pantry, she found a metal can holding coffee grounds, from which she poured a generous portion into the coffeepot. And then, just for good measure, she filled the palm of her hand with more dark grounds and allowed the contents to float on the surface of the water. The pot would have to share the hot spot on the stove, she decided. She would wait for a few minutes before she cut the meat to put in the skillet, then cook the eggs last.

Recalling the cook's generous use of butter in her skillet, Jennifer searched for a covered dish on the kitchen cabinet and lifted the lid. To her relief, a full round of butter met her gaze. She found a knife in the dresser drawer and sliced off a hunk for her frying pan.

Within ten minutes the coffeepot was bubbling away and she opened the can of meat, slicing it into thick layers in the bottom of the skillet. Placing it on the stove, she watched as it sizzled and sent forth an appetizing scent.

Plying a utensil that appeared to be a pancake turner, she browned the meat on both sides and then watched in dismay as it flaked from neat slices to a mishmash of beef scraps.

This was definitely not what she had planned, but there was
no use in fretting about it, she thought. All she'd promised was food, not a gourmet feast, and food was exactly what he was going to get. Eggs and beef, mixed together, with perhaps a slice of bread alongside, if she could find a stray loaf in the kitchen.

A covered plate contained held a partial loaf and she sliced it into uneven wedges, hoping Lucas wouldn't care that his meal was not neat and tidy. The cook at home had always said that men were more interested in quantity than quality, and Jennifer was beginning to understand the basis of that statement.

She broke the four eggs into the skillet and watched as they mixed readily with the meat. Sort of like hash, she decided, turning them in a haphazard manner, three of the four yolks breaking as she plopped them atop the simmering meat.

She'd found two clean plates in the cabinet and searched out an assortment of knives and forks in a drawer. By the time Lucas arrived at the back door, a bucket of milk in one hand, a pan of eggs in the other, she was ready for him.

He placed the milk pail in a corner, the eggs in the pantry, and headed for the sink. Water cascaded over his hands from the pump and he used the soap, much to his credit.

She poured coffee from the pot into a cup for him, noting the dark grounds that floated on the surface but intent on ignoring them. Not so Lucas O'Reilly.

“Didn't you pour in a cup of cold water to settle the grounds?” he asked, pointing to the floating bits that emphasized her failings.

“I didn't know you were supposed to,” she said stiffly, ladling out a portion of her meal onto his plate.

He looked down at it and frowned. “What's this supposed to be?”

“Supper,” she told him, daring him with a stern look to make any more inappropriate remarks. “Eat it before you complain.”

Spreading butter over his hunk of bread, he did not call her attention to the odd-shaped slice, only placing it on the side of his plate and then picking up his fork.

“Aren't you going to say grace first?” she asked, eyeing his laden fork as he aimed it toward his mouth.

“Grace,” he muttered. “What are you? One of those missionary women, wanting me to mumble words over my food?”

“No, only a churchgoing wife, sir,” she said. “And if you won't spare a moment to be thankful for your food, I'll do it for you.” She bent her head and murmured words that somehow seemed insincere, even to her own ears.

“I haven't found much so far to be thankful for,” he said, chewing as he spoke. Picking up his coffee cup, he sipped the thick brew and sputtered the contents of his mouth onto his plate. “What the hell did you do to the coffee?” he shouted. “It tastes like you used the whole damn crock of it for one pot.”

“I put in a handful,” she responded, holding her cupped palm to demonstrate her method.

“Your hand isn't big enough to hold the amount of coffee you used,” he argued. Reaching for it, he uncurled her fingers and examined her palm, as if some hidden message might be there for his interpretation. “Are you sure you only used one handful?”

“I think so,” she said, “but now that you mention it, I'm not entirely sure. I may have added a bit more.”
May have?
She knew very well what she'd done and made a mental note to measure more accurately come morning.

“This isn't fit to drink,” he said, frowning at her. “Pour some more water into the pot and let it simmer for a while.”

“I told you I wasn't much of a cook,” she said, even as she rose to do as he'd asked. Asked?
Ordered
might be more to the point, she thought, wondering if she should protest his high-handedness. She thought better of it as she looked over her shoulder at his grimace.

“I believe you now,” he told her, lifting his fork again to his lips, valiant in his effort to eat her offering of food.

“It's not bad-tasting,” she ventured, sitting again to finish her own meal.

“Well, it sure as hell isn't what I'd call a meal fit to eat,” he said. “Surely you could have found something else to do with this meat. Maybe make some gravy and put it on a slice of bread?”

“Gravy?” she asked, frantically searching her mind for a vague memory of flour and water being stirred together and dumped into the drippings from a roast.