Dorothy Garlock (34 page)

“Why don’t you leave with him? The two of you would make a good pair!”

Annie Lash almost shrank from the fury that radiated from him. The raking tone of his voice as he ground out the words, the burning darkness of his eyes as he glared at her, told her she had stirred up a raging demon in him, but she met his trembling rage with well-feigned assurance.

“I’m sure he would escort me as far as Saint Louis.”

“Goddammit! Don’t push me!”

Annie Lash had not stirred from behind the chair, but when Jeff came toward her, snarling in the red glory of his rage, she moved quickly and was by him in a flash, running out the door, through the dogtrot, and into the yard.

“Annie Lash! Come back here!”

She hurried past the shed, darted through the barnlot, scattering clucking hens, and turned toward the creek. Only then did she stop and look back. Thank God, he hadn’t followed her!

Anguish overshadowed reason. She had to be alone to sort out her thoughts. So much had happened it was hard to comprehend it all. She walked quickly along the path she and Jeff had taken the night they walked to the river. A poignant wave of homesickness for her father and Zan overwhelmed her as she walked among the trees they loved. Tears filled her eyes, and she longed with all her heart to be back with them in the cabin on the Bank.

It was cooler in the woods, where only an occasional bright ribbon of sunshine hung between the big trees. She picked her way unhesitatingly and surely, detouring around brush growth and logs, avoiding the soggy depressions, keeping to solid ground. She had never been this far from the house alone, but her mind was so full of the events of the last few hours there was no room for fear.

The river lay ahead, hidden by the trees. She reached the bank where Jeff had lifted her down. This time she turned to crawl down the steep bank backward and came out onto the bluff overlooking the river. The long ribbon of water shone like burnished pewter. A narrow sandbar, white as alabaster, stretched from the opposite bank and was lost in the distance.

Annie Lash sat down on a felled log and gazed downstream. It came to her that the river was a gateway to all the land beyond. As she watched the river race on, a multitude of buzzards landed on the sandbar, stretched their wings, and turned their backs to the sun, low in the west. Two deer ambled out of the woods to drink in a pool formed by the back water, and a whippoorwill swooped overhead, trailing his melodious, repeated cry. Behind her, the woods came alive with pleasant cheeps and chirps and rustlings. The late afternoon was serene and beautiful. With her hands clasped tightly together in her lap, she sat stone still and blocked all thought from her mind.

There was no movement and no sound that she could recall. Abruptly, she was swept backward over the log. A hand from behind her clamped over her mouth and nose and an arm tightened about her throat. She had only a moment of panic before she lost consciousness.

*  *  *

When Jason saw the opportunity to leave the house without having to answer questions, he took it. He was totally fed up with his brother’s high-handedness. How was he to know that Hartley was Burr’s agent? Damn Hartley! He’d used him to get to Jefferson. There wasn’t going to be a keelboat business. He could see that now. By God! He’d been dragged back into this godforsaken wilderness for
nothing!
He recalled the last thought because it wasn’t true. The trip, facing Jefferson, the beating by Will had all been worthwhile. He would get money from Will to divorce Callie, and he had found a
jewel
that, when polished, would make him a fortune.

Maggie had been constantly in his thoughts. Even while stunned by the news that Hartley meant to kill him, he was angered by the thought he would have died without having had her. His heart beat wildly at the prospect of seeing her again. He put his heels to the horse and rode down the rutted path toward the Cornicks. When he came onto their land he skirted around so he wouldn’t be seen passing, and rode on toward the Gentrys’. He didn’t have a plan. He hadn’t decided if he was going to make a formal call or hang around in the hope of seeing her. It was decided for him.

Several miles past the Cornicks, almost in the same place where Jefferson had waited for him and she had appeared out of the woods, he saw her. He pulled up the reins so suddenly that the horse reared. Forced to gentle the animal, he had to take his eyes off her, and when he looked again she was gone. He cursed under his breath and had to restrain himself from punishing the stupid horse. She wouldn’t have gone far, he reasoned. She was more likely watching him from behind a bush or a tree. He smiled slyly to himself and dismounted. He walked around his frightened horse, patted him and talked softly to him, all the while scanning the dark woods for a sight of her.

Suddenly she was there, standing beside a tree as she had been the day they met by the river. She blended so perfectly with the background it was almost as if she were a part of it. The skirt she wore was nut brown, the shirt only slightly lighter in color, the sleeves rolled up past her elbows, revealing arms as pale as her face. Wrapped around her tiny waist was a wide piece of buckskin that brought her small pointed breasts into prominence. She stood as still as a doe, one hand resting on the rough bark of the tree.

With great effort, Jason let his eyes pass over her while his heart pounded like a hammer on an anvil. He turned his head slowly away from her and then slowly back again, and saw that she had moved closer, like a small, shy animal. He gave much thought to what he would say before he spoke.

“Hello, Maggie. I think you frightened my horse.”

He glanced at her and then away, but the picture of her stayed in his mind. She stood with one thin shoulder against the tree trunk, as though she had been there for quite awhile studying him. Silence surrounded them. Jason was quite sure he had never waited in such breathless anticipation before. Every nerve was attuned to her.

“Ya hurt him.” Her voice came from the side and he turned slowly to see her coming toward him.

He stood stone still as she approached. Her movements were so fluid that she seemed to skim the ground. Jason couldn’t take his eyes off her. She had eyes only for the horse. She passed beneath the animal’s head without the top of hers touching it, reached up, and put her hands on either side of its face and pulled its head down so she could whisper in its ear. The sounds she made were soft coos and low murmurs. The animal stood quietly, its ears twitching as if listening, and Jason stood watching her as if mesmerized.

Close up, her beauty had an even more devastating effect on him than it did from a distance. He caught his breath and at that instant she looked up at him, fixing her eyes on him in a faintly sulky expression. They were long eyes, genuinely hazel in color, like a flashing gem between her beautiful, thick, dark lashes. They attracted and held his attention irresistibly, as did the pale, warm gold of her skin and her soft, red mouth that looked so innocent.

“Why do ya look at me like that?”

He had thought he’d spent no more than a few seconds in his scrutiny, but it must have been longer because she looked suspicious and resentful, like some tiny, shy bird that would take wing and fly if he made a sudden move. He was careful not to do so.

“You’re very beautiful and I like to look at you.”

“Yes,” she said, and shrugged.

“How old are you?” He smiled his most charming smile.

“I’m not a child,” she said quickly. The sulky expression dropped from her eyes and was replaced with one of haughtiness. “I’ve had my woman’s time for this many years.” She held up four fingers.

“Oh, I never for a moment thought you were a child,” he said gravely. “I knew you were a woman full grown.”

She moved around to the side of the horse, then behind it.

“Don’t go behind the horse!” Alarm caused him to say it rather sharply.

She laughed and Jason knew why she had haunted his thoughts, drifted in and out of them like a strange, sweet mist. He’d seen that smile before! It was on a painting in one of the great mansions in New Orleans. An artist had painted a portrait of the face of a girl he had seen in a dream. It was a great work of art, and many people would have paid a high price for it; but he refused to sell. He had carried his picture all over the world searching for the girl. When he failed to find her, he had killed himself. This was the girl! This beautiful, elusive creature was the girl in the painting, and if he could get her to New Orleans—

“He won’t hurt me. See?” Maggie swung gently on the horse’s tail, patted his rump and the hind legs that could lash out with such devastating force. The animal stood perfectly still.

My God! he thought. She’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before! If she beckoned, a man would cross half the world to get to her. She whirled around. The full skirt of her dress flared out to reveal tiny feet encased in low, beaded moccasins. Jason had never seen anything so perfect, had never known anything like the tide of feeling that swamped him when she looked at him and smiled. He knew that whatever he had to give, whatever he had to do, he had to have her.

“Do you dance, Maggie?” he asked casually when she whirled again.

“A’times.”

“Will you dance for me?”

“No.”

“I’ll give you something pretty.”

“I’m no beggar,” she said haughtily.

“I didn’t mean that,” he said quickly and cursed himself for a fool when he saw that he had offended her. “I just meant that you are so very beautiful you should have beautiful things.”

“I am beautiful, but I don’t want anythin’.” She said it completely without vanity.

“Where did you live before you came to Missouri?” Jason was desperate to keep her talking.

“Kaintucky.”

“Have you been to a town bigger than Saint Louis?”

“I don’t like towns. People’re hateful.” Her mouth looked unhappy and sullen.

Jason laughed. “Not to you. I don’t see how anyone could be hateful to you.”

“They are. Women hate me. They called me a witch and were goin’ to burn me. Pa had to move.”

Jason laughed again. “Are you a witch?”

“I don’t know.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. Not a trace of a smile touched her mouth. “I only had to look at their men and raise my hand. They’d leave their women and come to me.” She tilted her head defiantly. “I did it sometimes ’cause they were mean and hateful to me and to Ma and Pa.”

Jason felt a tightness in his chest and a throbbing ache in the pit of his belly that made him painfully aware of his desire for her. He had never practiced abstinence and he had been awhile without a woman. Indulgence of his sexual appetite was one of his greatest pleasures. He’d had many women. He’d pleasured himself in every possible way with women of every color and creed. None of them had ever set his blood afire like this little backwoods nymph.

“How would you like to see New Orleans and wear fine silk, have men bow at your feet and bring you jewels?” Jason showed her a ring he had taken from Hartley’s pack just before he’d left the house. “This is a fine gem. See how it sparkles? Would you like to have it?”

“I don’t like it.”

“It’s worth a lot of money.”

“I don’t need money.”

“But it’s beautiful. The color matches your eyes. It would make you even more beautiful if we put it on a ribbon and tied it about your neck.”

“I don’t want to be more beautiful.”

Jason’s patience snapped and his hand lashed out and grasped her arm. “Then what do you want, dammit?”

Instantly, she began to struggle and hit at him with her free hand, but her strength was nothing compared to his. He held her easily and drew her to him.

“I didn’t want to do this, but I will if it’s the only way.” He was breathing hard, not from the exertion of holding her, but from the lust within him that tore at his loins like cruel, sharp spurs.

It was like holding a small, spitting cat. She hissed and clawed. She tried to bite him and when she couldn’t, she butted him with her head. Her struggles only made him the more determined to have her. She pursed her lips and let out a long shrill whistle before his mouth clamped down on hers. Holding her wrists behind her with one hand, he fastened the other beneath her chin and pried her jaws apart with his thumb and forefinger. His tongue lapped the sweetness of her mouth and white, hot flames licked at his groin.

As soon as his mouth left hers, she whistled again. Jason scarcely noticed that, or the fact that their struggles had frightened the horse and he had shied away. He threw her to the ground and fell on top of her. Her struggles were beginning to irritate him and he slapped her. Almost instantly he was sorry, but it was too late to recall the blow. She would never be his now, except by force, and by God, if that was the only way he could have her, that’s the way it would be!

He yanked her skirt up and saw that she wore nothing beneath it. Dark curls nestled between her legs and he buried his hand there while she writhed under him. She whistled again. He withdrew his hand and slapped her again, hard.

“Stop that!” he snarled, and jerked at the fastenings on his pants. His fingers fumbled in their frenzied haste to release that part of him that was swollen and rigid and ached so desperately.

Small mewing and gasping sounds came from her as she fought to free herself from his pressing weight.

“God, but you’re beautiful! Even fighting mad, you’re beautiful. Will I be going where no other man has ever been?” His happy, jubilant laugh rang out.

He shifted his body to lie full-length on hers, pressing his sex against her writhing body. She whistled again, but the sound was lost as he clamped his mouth to hers and ground his lips against her clenched teeth. He lifted his head just enough so he could see her face.

“You beautiful little . . . slut. I want to ram this up into your belly!” He flexed his hips and pushed the hard length of his arousal against her. “I can’t wait to feel
that
inside you!” He continued to talk to her while he pried her legs apart with his knees and lowered himself onto her, breathless with anticipation, his insides churning to a painful depth. He grasped his elongated sex in his hand, desperately seeking admittance into her small, writhing body.