Jane Bonander (10 page)

“Did Serge’s kisses make you respond like that?” His voice was a husky whisper.

“That’s none of your business.” Her voice shook.

He drew closer. “Oh, I think it is. After all, you
are
my wife, legal and binding.”

She willed her legs to hold her, but an aching weakness tunneled into her belly, scooting from the place between her legs, down the insides of her thighs to her knees. She wanted to pull away, truly she did, but she didn’t have the strength. “That doesn’t mean anything, McCloud, and you know it.”

She gazed up at him, studying the tiny lines that fanned out from the edges of his eyes, the clearness of his light brown skin, the slight stubble on his cheeks and chin.

“It
will
mean something, Miss Julia.” He pressed another kiss on her palm. “Make no mistake about that.”

A confusing tumble of emotions spun inside her head, leaving her fuzzy as well as aroused. She’d always been able to control her head, if not her heart. She was beginning to wonder if that was true anymore.

“Did Serge’s kisses make you feel like this?” His mouth came down on hers, pressing hard, demanding entrance.

She made a sound in her throat, intending for it to be a sound of resistance, but when it came out, she wasn’t sure. She wanted to fight him, but …

She opened her mouth and accepted his tongue. Sounds of pleasure oozed from her, for never had she experienced such excitement, such elation. The firmness of the kiss changed, and became a subtle seduction, coaxing from her a response she’d never known she possessed. He nibbled, he licked, his tongue touched hers, his breath was hot; it made her weak.

He pulled her tighter, grinding against her, briefly grazing the sides of her breasts with his thumbs. Her nipples hardened even though they hadn’t been touched.

She was drowning in sensations. Flinging her arms around his neck, she returned his kisses, melting against him, aching with a hunger new to her.

He raised his head. “That’s my girl. There’s passion in you, Miss Julia. I knew there was passion in you.”

She could feel him, long and hard, against her abdomen. Her own senses were awash with lingering desire, and she rested her head on his chest, listening to the thundering of his heart. A tiny thrill passed through her; he had not been unmoved by the kiss.

“Miss Julia?”

She raised her head. “Yes?”

He nodded toward the bedroom, and her heart zinged into her throat. He wanted her! He wanted to bed her! Oh God, oh God, oh God.

“The baby.”

“Wh-What?”

“The baby is crying,” he said.

Julia shook her head, hearing Marymae’s wail for the first time. She stumbled backward, anxious to get away. “Oh. Of course. The baby.” Her limbs trembled, her heart clubbed her ribs.

As she made her way to the bedroom, she wondered how she was going to survive having him around. It was one thing to know he was out there, somewhere, building a cabin on her property. It was quite another to realize that until it was ready, he would sleep under her roof, mere feet from her own bedroom.

“You saw him? This … this man who married Julia?” His mother accepted the healthy shot of brandy he handed her.

“I saw him, Mother.” Serge poured himself a drink.

She straightened her purple velvet skirt, then lifted her chin high and put her arm on the back of the settee, as if posing for a portrait. “And?”

He shrugged, feeling uncomfortable when his mother interrogated him. “And, what?”

“And what’s he like?”

Serge frowned. “I’m not sure.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, her voice strident.

“I don’t know, Mother. He … he appears to be a very nice man, actually.”

She made an exasperated sound in her throat. “We should never have gone back East. All of this happened because we weren’t here.”

Serge fiddled with his glass. “I guess we just weren’t supposed to have that land, Mother.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Serge, must you act like such a … a castrated fool?”

The derogatory reference to his masculinity hit him like a slap across the face. Not that it was the first time. She enjoyed putting him down, reminding him that he wasn’t the son she’d either expected or deserved. He gritted his teeth, knowing that one day he’d prove to her that he could be what she wanted.

“Mother, I don’t know what else to say. We were gone when Amos died. We—”

“Yes, we were, Serge. But you returned before I did,” she reminded him.

“Mother! Are you suggesting that
I
had something to do with the poor man’s death?”

“I should hope not. There are other ways to curry my favor.” She held out her empty snifter toward him. After he poured her another brandy, she continued castigating him.

“I do so hate it when you simper and whine like a weak woman. And
now
what are we going to do? I want that land, Serge. How am I going to get it if you don’t marry Julia?”

He often wondered how he could love his mother and hate her at the same time. He was certain that on some level, hate was there, often stronger than love. But he also knew that he would do anything in the world she asked him to, on the chance that she could forgive him for being what he was, and not what she wanted him to be.

He hadn’t forgotten what he’d learned on their trip East. She thought she held all the cards, but he had an ace up his sleeve. He suddenly realized he was learning to play by her rules, for now they were equal: he had a weapon. He’d discovered her dirty little secret.

J
ulia had trouble sleeping. Visions of McCloud kissing her wouldn’t leave her alone. On top of that, she’d only remembered her vow to give him frostbite long after she’d responded to that kiss. She’d had no will of her own once he touched her. It was a terrifying realization.

Rolling onto her side, she looked out the window, into the night. Tule fog had not blocked out the moon, for it shone through, casting eerie shadows off the trees.

Try as she might to concentrate on something else, she found McCloud creeping back into her thoughts. She had no idea how she would deal with it, for the longer they were together, the more often she thought about him.

She couldn’t hate him for forcing her to at least think about seeing Serge as he saw him. He could very well be right.

If Serge
was
that way, it in no way lessened her feelings for him, for they were friends. Even if McCloud was right about him, that friendship wouldn’t change. And McCloud didn’t sneer and belittle Serge’s affliction—if indeed he had one—as other men would have. Frank Barnes, for one, she thought.

No, McCloud was nothing like Frank Barnes. Her father had known that. She hadn’t. Or had she purposely painted McCloud with a dark brush because of her embarrassing attraction to him? She rose up onto her elbow and punched her pillow, hoping to find some comfort in the bed and finally get some sleep.

She was just dozing off when a cry pierced the darkness, bringing her bolt upright.

McCloud.
She scooted from the bed. With shaky fingers she lit the lamp and hurried from her room, her heart in her throat. She flung open his bedroom door and stepped cautiously inside.

“McCloud?” She inched forward, the lamp lighting the way. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. Her pulse raced. “McCloud? Are you all right?”

He raised his head, his expression bleak. “I’m fine. Go back to bed.”

As she drew closer, she saw that he was bathed in sweat. “What is it? What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

“No, I’m not ill.” His voice was laced with impatience. “Go back to bed.”

Ignoring his order, she grabbed a towel off the bar by the dry sink and sat down beside him. He flinched when she dried off his back, but he didn’t move away.

“You’ll catch cold like this.” She felt the grooved scars on his back and something inside her hurt, as if she’d been attacked herself.

Gripping her arm, he pushed her away. “Julia, get out of here.”

Never before had he sounded so fierce. And rarely had he not prefaced her name with “Miss.” “But McCloud, you’re—”

“Julia.” His voice threatened.

Her gaze moved over his naked chest to the pillow on his lap, and down over his bare legs and feet. Remembering how he slept, she swallowed hard, understanding. Peering up at him through the veil of her lashes, she noticed his hardened features.

“You’re right, Julia,” he said, as if reading her mind, “but tonight I’m not even wearing a smile. Now, go back to bed. Please, damnit, before I …”

Her eyes grew wide and her heart almost sprang free from her chest. “Before you what?”

He swore again. “Julia,
please
get out of here.”

Feeling light-headed, she rose. As she floated toward the door, she turned for one last look. Her lamp cast just enough light for her to see how dark he was. His bare calves were tight and well-muscled. The only men’s legs she’d ever seen in her life were her father’s thin, hairless white ones. McCloud’s were brown and hair-dusted. His were beautiful. The urge to tell him so was so strong, she almost said so aloud, but thought better of it. She wasn’t sure she could speak of it, anyway.

“Good night, McCloud. I hope you can get some sleep.” She closed the door and slipped away to her own room. But once in her bed, sleep further eluded her, for the vision of McCloud’s nudity beneath the pillow he’d held over his lap wouldn’t go away. Despite her inability to conjure up a picture of what he would look like, she felt a throbbing between her thighs.

So, what are you going to do about it?
Do? she wondered. Why, nothing, of course. She rolled to her side, their conversation in the kitchen before he’d kissed her coming back to haunt her. Seduce her.

You are my wife, legal and binding.

That doesn’t mean anything, McCloud, and you know it.

It will
mean something, Miss Julia, make no mistake about that
.

Whatever did he mean? That he meant to make their marriage real? Closing her eyes, she turned her face into her pillow, her breath coming in shaky gasps. The words were clear. Stirrings of the kiss returned, furrowing deep, flooding her with hope-mingled dread. She wondered if his words had been a threat. Or a promise.

Wolf groped for his jeans and slipped into them, knowing he wasn’t going to get any more sleep. He hadn’t had that particular nightmare for months, that suffocating, choking feeling of being buried alive.

Shaking away the residual feeling of panic, he buttoned his jeans, put on a shirt, and left the bedroom. In the darkness he made his way into the kitchen, where he lit a squat candle and placed it on the table. Leftover coffee sat in a small pot over the reservoir attached to the stove, and he discovered it was warm. He took a cup from the shelf near the pie safe and poured himself some, then sat down at the table, his thoughts turning to Serge Henley.

He smiled, though if someone were to have seen him do so, they would have seen the cynicism in it. Serge Henley. His half brother. All of his life he’d had an instinct that had not been nurtured, but had remained strong, nevertheless. The moment he’d come across Meredith Columbo’s name on that list of people who had crossed the prairie with the Hardin party, an odd sensation had played over his skin. He’d been looking at those lists of settlers for months, not knowing just what he expected to find. He saw her name and he knew. Somehow, he knew.

Then, when he discovered a notation in an old Sacramento newspaper, listing her marriage to Gordon Henley, his skin had prickled again. And today, when he’d met Serge Henley face-to-face, he felt the same damned reaction.

Through all of this there was another sensation, one he hoped would be satisfied once he met his mother. It was an unfinished feeling, a feeling of being only half a person. He could never describe it to anyone else. It wouldn’t make sense. It didn’t even make any sense to him.

His gaze wandered over the dimly lit kitchen, coming to rest on Julia’s apron, which hung over the back of the chair next to him. He picked it off and pulled it to his face, inhaling the scent that lingered. Through the superficial cooking smells, he detected her scent. It burrowed into his chest with all the reality of an arrow dipped in an aphrodisiac.

As a boy, he’d learned to discern between those things that were Angus’s and those that were Baptiste’s by the scent of each man. It was one gift he’d honed, and now he was glad. He knew that if he were thrown blindfolded into a room filled with women, he could find Julia in an instant.

Even now, with just the apron in front of him, he not only felt desire, but a strange sense of peace. Permanence. He swore, wondering what she’d do if she knew how she affected him. Having her sit beside him in her nightgown, knowing she was naked beneath, had nearly been his undoing. He wanted her. He wondered if he’d ever have her.

Serge dug out Grandmama Rosa’s journal, which he’d discovered in her attic on his recent trip back East. They’d packed her up and moved her out to live with them; he didn’t understand why. Meredith appeared to hate her own mother. He lifted an eyebrow. Perhaps hating one’s mother ran in the family.

Turning to the page he wanted, and careful not to destroy the fragile paper, he read again the passage that had stunned him. His grandmother’s beautiful script, in Italian, leaped out at him. He knew enough Italian to translate and understand.

In essence, she’d written of their stop in Dakota Territory, and Meredith’s rape by a savage. And the difficult birth when they arrived in California. And her own agony when Meredith ordered her to get rid of—the words were hard to translate. The closest word he could come to was “evidence.”

He closed the book, his fingers stroking the battered edges. His mother had ordered Grandmama to get rid of the child. How? He found pleasure in the knowledge that his mother had such a terrible secret. It was almost arousing, made more exciting by the fact that she didn’t know he knew. But what frustrated him was that nowhere in the journal was there a mention of how the bastard was “gotten rid of.”

He closed the book and stared into the fire. Boy or girl? When he’d first learned of it, he had wondered where his half sibling was, then realized there was a slim chance at best that the savage was alive. A white woman who spawned a savage’s brat never kept it. Never wanted it.

Closing his eyes, he tried to remember his own father. He’d been seven years old when the man had died. The only memories of Gordon Henley that came to mind were bland ones, overshadowed by his mother’s domineering presence. Of course, he’d been rich. Had he known his wife’s secret? Serge doubted it. Queen Meredith only allowed people to know what she wanted them to know, he thought with a disparaging look of scorn.

Again the secret aroused him. He rose from his chair by the fire, put the journal into its secret hiding place, and left his bedroom in search of some satisfying company.

The morning was cold. Shivering as she stepped from the bed, Julia crossed to the window. Although it was dark, she knew there would be frost on the grass and the rooftops. She glanced at the barn, noting the faint glimmer of light coming from the stalls where they kept the milk cows. McCloud was up.

Pressing her forehead against the cold glass pane, she closed her eyes and let the images from the night before frolic through her mind. Again, the kiss, and her childish assumption that he wanted to bed her when he’d nodded toward the bedroom door. What had she been thinking, anyway? She smirked, a snide salute to her foolish innocence. She’d been so awash with feelings, she hadn’t been thinking at all. That’s what happened when he touched her.

There was no help for it. Just imagining his mouth on hers made her all tingly again. She hugged herself, drinking in the mental and physical sensations his embrace created. How odd it was to be kissed that way. Touched that way. Exciting, but odd. In her youthful daydreams, she’d wondered about such things. In private, of course. Never had she shared her dreams with Josette, for Josette would have laughed at her. After all, who would want to kiss her when Josette was available? So she’d kept her daydreams to herself even then, presenting a picture of coldness. Aloofness. But she’d been a private dreamer, a discreet romantic in a life that was anything but. It was not until Frank Barnes that she even began to think such things could happen to her. Even then, when she knew he hadn’t meant a word he’d said, she’d wanted to believe his fiery declarations of love.

Marymae made a gurgling sound, drawing Julia to the cradle. “What’s to happen to me, sweetheart?” she asked as she lifted the child into her arms. “Am I going to fall head over heels, only to find I’ve once again discovered hell instead of the raptures of heaven?”

But even now she knew that her feelings for McCloud were stronger by far than any feelings she’d had for Frank Barnes. That made it worse, for when she was tossed aside, it would hurt just that much more.

She muttered a mild oath, scolding herself for letting her thoughts race like wildfire. She changed Marymae’s diaper and dressed her. “Wouldn’t McCloud cluck his tongue at me now?” she said softly. “All this thinking could give me a headache.” She kissed Marymae on the cheek. “I can’t afford to suffer from one of those wretched things.”

She dressed and went to the kitchen, stopping in the doorway when she found McCloud building a fire in the stove. She stood and watched him, remembering the terrible scars on his back and shoulders and how they’d affected her. She felt a physical pain when she thought about them.

He turned when the baby began to babble. “Good morning, Miss Julia.”

She made an impatient sound as she tied Marymae into her seat with a dish towel. “Honestly, McCloud, I think you can dispense with the formality. ‘Julia’ will do.”

He started making a fresh pot of coffee. “I can’t do that.”

She studied him, surprised. “Why not?”

“I’m not ready.” He turned, and there was an odd gleam in his eyes.

She put her fists on her hips. “You called me ‘Julia’ last night,” she reminded him.

“That was different.”

“Why?”

“I was angry.”

One hand went to her throat. “At me?”

He shook his head. “No. At myself.”

“But why? I—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Miss Julia.”

It was like he’d shut off his emotions. She decided it was best not to probe further. “When do you think you’ll be ready to dispense with the formalities, McCloud?” She didn’t know why it mattered, but it did.

His gaze lingered on her, moving over her breasts, her waist, her hips. “I’ll know.”

There was a quivering in her chest. “I see.” She didn’t.

“In the meantime,” he said with a lopsided grin, “don’t you think you should call me Wolf?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“And why not?” he asked.

She smiled a secret smile of her own. Every instinct she had warned her that once she did that, all of her defenses would come crumbling down. “I’m not ready, either.” And may never be, she vowed.

She prepared Marymae’s oatmeal, sensing McCloud’s gaze behind her. It was almost a physical thing, and it shook her resolve further. He sat at the table while she fed the baby.

“Tell me,” she began. “Were you actually attacked by a grizzly?”

He gave her a nonchalant shrug. “What of it?”

Her jaw dropped. “What
of
it? Good heavens, McCloud, you could have been killed.”

He gave her a heart-stopping smile. “Would you have missed me?”

Shoving away her feelings of breathlessness, she scoffed, “I wouldn’t even have known you. And why do you always have to play the fool? I don’t believe for a minute that you actually take that sort of thing lightly.”