Kary, Elizabeth (37 page)

Something
like respect flickered across his features before he turned toward the door.
"That should be very obvious, Leigh. You're staying here until I return,
locked right in this cabin."

"I
will not stay here! You can't lock me in!"

"Oh,
yes, Leigh, I can and I will. If you were foolish enough to stow away, you can
hardly expect any say in how you'll be treated. It's quite comfortable in here,
really. There is a bed and a desk and things to read, and I'll see that meals
are brought to you." He paused for a moment. "Have you had anything
to eat since we left St. Louis?"

"No,
just water from the rain barrel."

Hayes
sighed and shook his head. "I'll send someone by with breakfast,
then."

"Hayes,
wait!"

"No,
Leigh. I have a great many things to do before tomorrow night, and your
presence is hardly conducive to getting them accomplished. I'm not sure how
long I'll be away, but when I return, Leigh, there will be a score to settle
between us." With that threat hanging in the air, he left, closing and
locking the door behind him.

Leigh
rushed across the room to test the strength of the solid wooden panel with her
shoulder. "Hayes Banister, don't you dare lock me in! I want this settled
between us here and now! Come back here this minute! Hayes, please come back.
Hayes. Hayes? Hayes!"

May 30, 1862—Off Randolf, Tennessee

Silence.
Soft,
soothing silence, broken only by the rushing sound of the river's passage and
the faint wheezy creak of the ropes that shackled the
Barbara Dean
to
the forested bank. There were guards posted on the deck, sitting hidden by the
night, their pipes smoldering and their eyes alert for any movement in the
trees or on the surface of the river. But to Hayes Banister they were
invisible. He was almost too tired to see, too exhausted and disheartened to
think of any more than the expanse of bed that awaited him and the delicious
oblivion of slumber.

His
body ached with weariness, and his mind was numbed with failure, knowing full
well what his inability to find Nathan Travis might mean. The web of agents who
had helped smuggle runaway slaves north before the war was the basis for
Travis's scouting operations, and though Hayes had visited the people they'd
known and the places they'd frequented during their years with the Underground
Railroad, he had found no sign of the other man. Either Pincheon's information
was wrong, or Travis had stumbled into danger. The latter was a grim thought,
and Hayes refused to dwell on it. Nathan Travis was a man with an incomparable
instinct for survival, and now he had the most important reason in the world
for coming home safe: a woman who loved him.

As
Hayes approached his own cabin, he turned his thoughts to the woman locked
inside. He was glad for the late hour so he need not face her questions and
accusations. A confrontation was inevitable between them, but he did not want
it tonight, not with his wits dulled by weariness, not while he was distracted
by concern for Travis. With stealth tempering his movements, he turned the key
in the lock and slipped inside his stateroom. In the faint light that filtered
through the transom, he could see that there were subtle changes in the cabin
since he had left it five days before: a book lying open on the seat of the
chair and more piled up by the bed, a half-finished puzzle laid out on the
desk, and a feminine scent in the air. The copper tub sat at one end of the room
as if Leigh had recently used it, and the thought of being clean again held a
powerful appeal.

With
stiff movements Hayes stripped off his sweat-stained clothes and poured water
into the basin. Standing naked in the moonlight, he lathered his face and chest,
then splashed away the soap, bent to wash his legs and feet, rubbing the wet
cloth slowly upward. Water beaded on his shoulders, then trickled down his
spine, tracked a pathway along his legs to pool on the floor around him. While
he shaved away the five-day growth of whiskers by the light of the summery
moon, the breeze from the open window dried, refreshed, and renewed him.

Barefooted,
he approached his bed and the woman sleeping there. She was beautiful in the
half-light, a woman of strength, character, and will. And though her face was
placid in slumber, Hayes well knew the fire within her. He was not looking
forward to answering her questions and recriminations in the morning and was
glad for these reflective moments when he could simply drink in her loveliness.

Smiling,
he noticed Leigh had commandeered one of his shirts as a nightdress, and where
the oversize garment gaped away, even her ample, long-limbed body seemed
delicate and fragile. Hayes teased the covers lower until the curves of her breasts
were exposed, until the hazy halos of her nipples were visible through the
soft, loosely woven fabric.

She
lay half on her side, sleeping peacefully, but her tousled hair and the sheets
tumbled in disarray gave evidence of long, fitful hours before she slept. What
had made her so restless? Hayes wondered. What had robbed her of her sleep? Had
he been in her thoughts these last few days as much as she had been in his?

It
was already impossibly late, not the time to ponder such questions. And though
Hayes knew he should not linger at her bedside, he did not want to go. How
delightful it would be to share his own wide bunk with Leigh, he found himself
thinking, to wake and find her snuggled in his arms. What a pleasure it would
be to share her warmth, stretched out close beside her.

The
thought was as intriguing as the woman herself, and the urge to act on it grew.
He was seeking companionship, not intimacy, he argued with himself, sleep, not
seduction. He was too tired to do anything more than hold her, anyway. What
harm could it do if they shared a bed one night in the midst of the war? Who
could it possibly hurt if he didn't try to make love to her? But even as he
raised the covers and settled gingerly on the edge of the mattress, Hayes knew
he was making neither a wise nor rational choice.

In
the grainy, moonlit darkness, he was very aware of Leigh: of the strands of
russet hair that slithered across the pillows to tease and tickle his skin; of
the tendrils of her warm, sleepy scent that crept up from the sheets to enfold
him. The purloined shirt had ridden high, and as he tried to wriggle closer, he
met bared flesh from hip to knee and was seared by the heat of her skin. His
reaction was sharp and instantaneous, and he lay as if turned to stone, waiting
for her to stir. Yet he heard nothing but the rhythmic flow of her breathing,
felt only the boneless weight of her limbs, and saw the thick, dark fluff of
lashes lying motionless on her cheeks.

He
moved carefully after that: one hand, one arm, one foot, easing deeper, seeking
purchase toward the center of the bed. Shifting slowly against the pillows, he
fit his body to the shape of Leigh's until their shoulders were aligned, until
his legs followed the contours of hers. Through it all, Leigh lay still, lost in
the void of sleep, defenseless and unaware. Finally satisfied, Hayes nestled
into the mattress and slowly let out his breath. He was wholly content as he lay
there, Leigh's body entwined with his own. Smiling into the darkness, he let
his eyelids close.

Exhaustion
drifted over him, and his thoughts were floating free when Leigh murmured
something under her breath and turned toward him in her sleep. The soft, slight
shift of her weight brought one hip across his loins, and Hayes came awake
abruptly with a flare of unexpected desire. He was instantly, vividly aware of
Leigh's cheek against his arm, of her hand curled limply across his waist, and
of her thigh between his legs. Heat from that intimate contact radiated through
him in giddy waves, and it did not matter that moments before he had only
wanted to hold her close. Breathing deeply, Hayes tried to regain control, to
turn his mind from thoughts of Leigh. But with her sprawled against his body,
with her flesh yielding against his own, it was impossible to think of anything
but his growing need to make love to her. He remembered the taste of her mouth
and skin, recalled the thrill in her artless caress. Hayes willed himself to
leave the bed, but it was already far too late.

From
the moment he had found Leigh stowed away, half-dressed and half-asleep in one
of the empty cabins, he had known this moment was inevitable. He wanted her too
much, had denied himself too long to ever let her go. For months he had hated
his ever-present desire and her continued coldness, his weakness and her
strength. But this time his weakness would prevail. And when weakness meant the
triumph of love over loneliness, of pleasure over pain, how could weakness be
wrong?

Slowly
he lowered his mouth to the curve of her cheek and brushed it with a kiss. She
was passive with sleep, limp and accepting as she might not otherwise be, and a
ripple of guilt stirred through him for taking more than she might want to
give. Yet beneath her borrowed shirt his hand crept unerringly upward, encountering
first the rise of her hip, and the swoop of her waist beyond. It skimmed the
high-arched crest of her ribs to the swell of her supple breasts. Almost
reverently Hayes molded his hand to the shape of her, the fullness conforming
to the curve of his fingers, the nipple ripe against his palm. With the certainty
that this was meant to be, Hayes began to stroke her gently.

Leigh
stirred beneath his touch to turn her head away, and as it fell back against
his arm, her throat was bared to tempt him. Like a man caught in the slow,
sweet magic of a moonlit dream, Hayes bent to kiss her skin, to savor the
exotic, subtle spice of her throat, her cheek, her mouth.

Leigh
lay full against him now, the weight of her thigh against his loins where his
body was hard with need, the contour of her breast shaped to his hand as his
touch grew bolder still. His blood swirled sluggishly through his veins as he
lost himself in her: the subtle velvet nap of her ivory skin, the rough raw
silk of her hair, the lick of her breath across his throat, and the span of her
hips against him. His limbs felt hollow and weightless, melted and waxen, as if
their bodies had already begun to flow together.

Deliberately
he deepened his kiss, no longer content to play the phantom seducer. It was time
to awaken Leigh to the intimacy of this night and the rapture that loving could
bring. It was time she came to know the full measure of desire and the extent
of intransigent ecstasy. When she had come to him before, she had been a lost
child seeking comfort, an untutored virgin neither knowing nor understanding
the price extracted from those who sought solace in pleasure. She had learned
those painful lessons well, and now it was time to teach her the rest, the sum
of what loving could mean. His lips moved slowly over her in a rackingly gentle
caress, then deepened with burning persistence until her mouth began to cling
to his.

Leigh
rose from the mires of sleep to a hardly less dreamlike world where a strong,
dark man bent above her, raining kisses on her face. Then his mouth was
covering hers, his lips a brand, his tongue a dart of heat probing the
uncharted depths of her.

"Hayes!"
she whispered breathlessly in recognition. "Oh, Hayes."

Her
voice was sultry and low as she whispered the word, and with a smile of
satisfaction he claimed the sound of his name from her lips. He took the name,
her breath, her thoughts and made them his own. Took them, and claimed them,
and owned them all, before she had a chance to deny him.

Turning
gently, Hayes pressed her back against the pillows, kissing her fiercely and
long, and with the flush of awakened passion, Leigh began to kiss him back.

It
did not matter that once he had hurt her, nor that she had pledged loyalty to
Lucas Hale. She could not hold back for sanity's sake or for what surrender
might mean. In this moment, with this man, the rest of the world fell away.
There was nothing but sweeping desire and the need to hold him close. A shudder
of something wanton and primitive swam through her blood, and for now, for
tonight, without regrets, Leigh gave herself to Hayes.

Hayes
instantly felt the change in her, from acceptance to welcome, from confusion to
joy in his caress. Without guile, without remorse, without conscious thought,
he renewed his demands on her.

His
fingers splayed across her back, stroked down along her spine, spanned the
curve of her narrow waist, then slid lower to cup her hips. Wrenching the
buttons from the holes of her shirt to bare the inner slopes of her breasts, he
pressed his lips to the valley between with a murmur of pure satisfaction.

"Leigh,"
he whispered against her, his voice silky soft and low, "there's so much I
want to teach you, so much for you to learn. Please, Leigh, let me make love to
you; let me show you what passion's about."

Leigh
closed her eyes for a moment, as seduced by his words as by his touch, as
caught in the web of his promises as in the one he had spun of delight. Beneath
the cover of the open shirt, his hands claimed and held her breasts, his thumbs
circling her satin-smooth nipples, his palms filled with her milky-pale flesh.
Then his tongue was tracing hot, impatient patterns from her throat to her
loins, lacy, intricate patterns that left her shaken and aching with need.
Sensation flowed through her body, in lightning-swift strokes of delight,
leaving smoldering trails of desire in response to his kisses and touch.