Caress of Fire (21 page)

“Think about how you would've felt had the tables been turned.”

“That's why I don't trust you. I think you're out to get me.”

“I bear no grudge over your vanishing with the tax money,” Hatch lied. “Matter of fact, that's why I sought you out, once I heard you were in town and were in the–shall we say–cattle business. I know you're as mean as I am vengeful. You see, I want nothing more than to wreak havoc on McLoughlin's livelihood.”

“Why him and not me?” asked Hitt.

“After McLoughlin burned the fields as well as our home, I would have lost Charlwood anyway. I was trying to keep the property for Mother and Mary Joan, but I knew it was useless, what with ruined fields and no money to pay darkies.”

Again Hitt fingered his cravat; the diamond stickpin twinkled in the lamplight. “The story goes Charlwood was the abomination of the south. Your mother and stepsister had starving slaves chained to–”

“Enough!” Hatch rose to his feet, toppling his chair against the wall. In Georgia, neighbors–supposedly loyal Confederates–had tried to shame him over their acts. Never again would he allow anyone to defame anyone connected to Charlwood. “I'll not having you criticizing my kinswomen!”

“Don't raise your voice at me, Hatch. I'm not deaf. And sit down. I don't fancy looking up at you.”

Settle down. Remember your purposes.
He sat down again. “Hitt, are y'all with me or not?”

“We are.” Smith and Pierce nodded, and Hitt leaned forward to say, “Jimmy Two Toes is up in the Territory. We'll pick him up along the way to Kansas.”

“What do you mean, Kansas?” Hatch asked Hitt. “I've been up to my eyeballs in filth for weeks.” He shuddered. “What's wrong with stealing the herd now?”

“For one thing, Texas lawmen would be on us. And second, what would we do with three thousand longhorns? Use your head, Hatch. There's no market for cattle here in Texas. Let McLoughlin have the headache of getting them through the Territory and close to the railhead. Then we move in.”

Hatch didn't like having to depend on others for help, but what could he do? He couldn't handle the job alone. Moreover, Hitt's advice made sense. He must suffer the road. “All right, we take them in Kansas.”

Rattler Smith mused aloud, “Three thousand head. Thirty, maybe forty dollars each. That's a tidy sum, even divided up.”

“Now you're whistling ‘Dixie.' ” Appeased at his own conclusions as well as the bean counter's, Hatch laughed. “And there McLoughlin will be. His cowboys looking for pay. No cows to sell. Stuck up in Kansas.”

Hitt prompted, “Tell me about these men you've got on your side.”

Grinning smugly, Hatch recalled the previous night. After another parlay with the Southerners, the allegiance had been expanded to include two more.

“There's a Mexican, Ochoa. He's in it strictly for the money. The other two are Confederates. Jackson Bell, out of Virginia. Wink Tannington has been with me for weeks.”

“Are you sure we can trust them?”

“Most positively.”

“Good.” Hitt squinted at Hatch. “And we divide the money up. Nice and even.”

Hatch had no intention of letting anyone but himself leave Kansas with Four Aces loot. No one.

“Right, Hitt. Nice and even.”

Now it was time to make other plans. Cactus Blossom must pay for tossing his precious bundle over Dead Buffalo Bluff. This corner of revenge he could handle on his own, but not now.

Tonight he would revel in his dreams of getting even with that Yankee dog McLoughlin.

“Lisette . . . talk to me. Let's not waste our time together. I'll be leaving on the morrow, and I want to spend tonight in your arms.”

She didn't reply, and Gil frowned. For the last half hour she'd been sitting on that horsehair sofa, right here in the house behind Ruth Craven's boardinghouse, not paying a damned bit of attention to him. She continued to sew lace on a baby bonnet.

“I'm sorry for upsetting you out on the trail.” He wasn't one for apologies, but it came easier than he had imagined. “I don't want you upset.”

She snipped a thread with her teeth, picked up another piece of lace, and began to hum some damned song. Annoyed that he'd apologized for nothing, he crossed the sitting room to pick up the half-gallon jar of beer he'd bought after leaving Matthias and Cactus Blossom. He poured himself a glass and set another on the table next to his wife.

“Thirsty?” he asked, and might as well have been asking the wall.
Okay, fine, let her be that way.
He kicked off his boots. Entering the bedroom and exaggerating a yawn, he called over his shoulder, “Sweet dreams.”

Silence met him as he yanked off his clothes. He pulled back the covers and slid between the sheets, naked. The bed was set to an angle where he had clear view of the horsehair sofa. The lamp adjacent to it illuminated Lisette.

His annoyance vanished. Mesmerized, he watched the shadows as she lifted her arm to make stitches in the baby bonnet. In six months' time, their child would be wearing that bonnet. Gil smiled, trying to imagine the babe. Would it be a girl or a boy?

His eyes went to Lisette. The material she stitched was blue. “Hoping for a boy?” he asked.

“All men want sons, so I pray for a male child.”

Thank God. She was talking.

“Wouldn't bother me if it's a girl.” Gil rolled to his side, leaned on an elbow. “I fancy the idea of a little blond lass with big cornflower-blue eyes–just like her mother's.”

“Go to sleep, Gil.”

Damn. He thought he'd made headway. Here they were, on the verge of being separated for months, and they weren't making love. Hellfire, could he do anything to please her?

“I want to make love to you, darlin'.”

“Gil, go to sleep.”

He wished his bagpipes weren't with the chuck wagon; a serenade might prove advantageous. Then again, he got the impression bagpipes wouldn't have worked tonight. He reached for the glass of beer next to bed. Draining it, he continued to watch Lisette.

She stood, stretching her arms above her head, her breasts straining the material of her simple calico dress. His blood warmed. When Lisette moved to a sideboard and its pitcher and bowl to splash her face with water, his eyes moved with her. And then she was unbuttoning her dress; it pooled at her feet to leave her garbed in her chemise alone. The lines of her back enthralled him. His breath in short supply, he felt his shaft elevating the sheet.

She dipped a washrag into the bowl, lifted it to wash beneath her arms. He got a ripe view of one proud-crested breast. Again she moistened the washrag ... but this time she hesitated before putting it to her flesh. He caught the tiny movement of her head.
She knows I'm watching her.

It wasn't distance she wanted.

She lifted her chemise to cleanse the apex of her thighs, and he could take no more. Quickly he was out of bed, through the doorway, across the parlor. Still, she presented her back. Stopping close enough to get a whiff of lilac-scented soap blended with the warm scent of his woman, he settled his hands on her hips. Sliding them up and down the swells, he inched closer.

“You feel good to me, Lisette–like silk. Warm, smooth silk. And your hair–you must have washed it while I was out. It smells like lilacs on a warm spring morning.” His nose circled through those locks. “I love the way you look. And smell. And feel.”

“Your silver tongue matches your silver eyes.”

“My tongue is capable of many things. Shall I show you?”

“You mean there's something we have yet to do?”

“Yeah. Lots of somethings.” Even more blood swirled to his shaft. “Let's talk about it.”

Her arm moved backward, her fingers scooting between them. “Old Son is especially randy tonight,” she murmured.

“Every night, for you.”

“What . . . what will you two do while we're apart?”

“Dream of you. Night and day.” His fingers spread across her lower abdomen. “And I'll be thinking of our babe. She'll be growing where I'll long to be.”

“He, Gil. He.”

“She.”

Lisette chuckled, and Gil nuzzled her neck. His palms smoothed to her waist and higher, his fingers pressing her breasts. Her head eased back, her hair tickling his shoulders and chest. She trembled. He kissed her hair, her ear, the long column of her throat. He turned her, pulled up her chemise, then lifted her atop the table.

“I want you,” he whispered. “I want you right here in this sitting room. I want to suckle your breasts as if I were your babe. And I want to kiss every inch of your body.”

Stepping between her legs, he lowered his head to her bosom. Her fingers spread at the back of his head as he cherished the place where their child would be nourished. Yet she pushed him away.

“Gil, we mustn't settle our differences like this. When we make love, it should be with harmony between us.”

“What better way to harmonize than this way? I want you. You want me. Let's don't deny ourselves.”

“I ... I don't need you to want me. I want you to need me.”

“I need you.”

“Not just for
this.”

“I need you, Lisette. For this . . .” His hand swept slowly to the top of her thighs, his fingers to the sensitive nub. “And for everything else.”

She fought against her desire, saying, “If you insist.”

“You act as if you're performing a duty.”

“You ask for much, Gil.”

“Yeah, I do.” He scooted her closer and placed her legs around his hips. Surging upward, he groaned as her tightness enveloped him. “Put your arms around me, honey. That is, if this is something more than your just letting me have husbandly rights.”

It was, and she did.

 

 

Gil wasn't too specific about the
everything
he needed her for, not that night nor the next morning, and Lisette decided not to make too much of it. They had the rest of their lives to settle their differences; she'd had enough of the silent treatment. Beyond that, she wanted to make the best of their last hours together. They had made the most of the night. The musk of their loving hung heavy in the air. Her breasts and thighs remained tender from the rasp of his jaw. Did other husbands do that to their wives, lave the most tender part of their women?

As she left the bed, a rooster crowing from Ruth Craven's coop, Lisette turned to her husband and asked, “What would you like for breakfast,
Liebster?”

“You.”

“Don't you ever run out of energy?” she teased.

“I do not.”

“Well, you'll have to settle for food. We've a wedding to attend, and you've a herd to take north.”

He said nothing, and she eyed him. Gil lay on the bed, the top sheet tangled around the lower reaches of his hirsute form. His eyes were half lidded, his mouth half parted.

“Come back to bed, wife.”

She wanted to comply; her veins throbbed with desire once again, but . . . But! “Gil, we have to eat a meal, and the wedding is at noon, and I must buy a new dress beforehand.”

“Your clothes have gotten snug.” He perused her naked form. “I'd say you're showing a lot.”

She laughed nervously. But why? Did it have to do with the odd way Gil was looking at her? She didn't care for that unreadable look.

“You look beautiful to me,” he said. “You always have.”

He wasn't one to compliment, and his remark surprised her, pleasantly. She stepped to the bed, sat down, and leaned toward him as he said, “I'll never forget the first moment I laid eyes on you. You were strolling out of the Lutheran Church. Fall leaves were drifting into your braids, and you were laughing and slapping them away while you chatted with some woman. From your description, she must've been your friend Anna. My eyes weren't on her. All I saw was you. You and your pretty blond braids and your sweet smile of laughter. I knew right then I had to have you.”

“I wish I'd known you were watching me.” A delicious shiver climbed up Lisette's spine, compelling her into more of her own admissions. “I'll never forget that morning I approached you. All I wanted was a job, but when I looked at you, I knew you were all man. And I was a woman appreciative.”

“Did your feelings have anything to do with why you chased after me and my cows?”

“I'll admit, I didn't think so at the time.” She blushed. “But thinking back on it,
you
must have been more attractive than the job prospect. I could have stolen Adolf's gold or something, hidden in some cart on its way to a stage line, and gotten to Chicago on my own.”

He leaned forward, taking her hand. “Lisette, it pleases me, your saying that.”

“I'm glad. Because I . . .” Should she say it? Yes. “I love you, husband. Love you with all my heart.”

They went into each other's arms, and her feelings soared when he admitted, “You're wonderful, my darlin'. Wonderful! And I want you to know something. I feel as you do. I never put too much stock in love, but that's got to be what I feel for you.” His fingers splaying across her hips, he whispered, “I love you.”

Had she heard right? She jiggled her head to make certain her ears were working. Fastening her eyes to the silver and blue of his, drinking in his smile, feeling the warmth of his touch, she added her own smile. This was the moment she had yearned for.

“Tell me again,” she whispered, her finger tracing his night-roughened jaw.

“I love you.”

“Oh, my darling Gil. Oh my.”

She laughed with glee, with heart, with pure pleasure, then arched against her beloved husband. Two hours passed before they stopped admitting, and acting on, their love. This was the best way to ease the pain of his departure.

Sated, she leaned above him and kissed his lips. “We had best get dressed. We have much to do before the wedding.”

“I won't be attending.”

“You can't be serious.” She straightened. “Matthias and Cactus Blossom are my friends.”

“Your friends, not mine.”

“So, we're back to yours and mine.”

“Don't start in, Lisette.” He climbed out of bed, grabbed his britches. “I want the herd past the city limits by noon. Oh. Did I tell you? Oscar Yates has agreed to be strawboss; I don't trust Tannington with the job, even though he's the best cowhand I've got left. I've put Cencero Leal in charge of the chuck wagon. The boys like spicy food.”

“I'm sure everything will be just fine.”

What was the matter with her? Yes, Gil would be leaving and the outfit would do just fine without her, but she should be ecstatic, after his admissions of love. What was love without understanding? And she didn't understand her husband. Not at all.

Again, Lisette fell to silence. She washed and dressed, fixed a breakfast, and watched as her husband ate bacon and eggs, but she didn't say another word. At the cookstove, she watched from the corner of her eye as he scraped the leavings from his plate into a pail, then rinsed the earthenware in the wreck pan.

“Lisette,” he said, “I know I'm a tyrant at times, and I may be too old to change my ways, but I'll work on them.”

What more could she hope for? And did she want him to change? If he did, he wouldn't be the man she'd fallen in love with.

Maybe she'd never understand him. Maybe it wouldn't matter.

Closing the space between them, she replied, “If we never argue, think of all the excitement we'll miss in making up. Aren't a few disagreements worth that pleasure?”

“That's right. Turn my words around on me.” He laughed. “You never cease to be amazing.”

“As long as you keep loving me, think whatever you please.”

“Nothing could make me stop wanting you.”

Even though he was leaving–she wouldn't see him for months on end–Lisette reveled in his words.

And then Dinky Peele and the quiet Northerner, Deep Eddy Roland, called on them. “It be time to leave, Mister Mack,” said Dinky. “How you doin', Miz Lisette?”

“I'm fine”–
as can be expected.
“How are you, Dinky? And you, too, Deep Eddy?”

The Northerner nodded and fiddled with the lariat that was never out of his hand. Dinky, on the other hand, smiled broadly and elaborated on his good health, as well as on his excitement at getting back on the trail.

“Miz Lisette,” Dinky said, “we sure gonna miss you. Dat ole trail, it ain't gonna be right wit'out you.”

Hearing this from one of the cowhands, especially one who was so special to Lisette and to her husband, fashioned a smile on her face. She stepped forward to hug the diminutive black man. “Thank you for saying that, Dinky. I'm going to miss you, too.”

“Well, I be seeing you ‘bouts, um, well, I don't know 'zactly when, Miz Lisette, but whenever Mister Mack be back, I be wit' him.”

“I'm counting on that,” she said.

Dinky and Deep Eddy waved, then exited the house. Gil, a bundle of belongings under his arm, hesitated at the door. “How about a last kiss before I leave?”