Lacy (28 page)

"I'm trying!" She gasped.

He felt her body trying to reject him, and he
stilled his body over hers. His mouth brushed hers, gently. His hand slid
between them, smoothing over her flat stomach, her thighs, gently caressing,
reassuring.

"You're part of me," he whispered.
"Your body is especially designed to allow the invasion of mine. I want to
feel you around me, as you were that night. I want to know the soft, moist
wonder of your femininity enveloping me."

She shivered. The words were evocative,
arousing. She felt herself sinking into the mattress as she gave in, finally.
His hips moved, just slightly, and all at once it was happening.

It didn't hurt. Her mind registered that even
while it was assimilating the shock of penetration, the raw intimacy of what
they were doing.

"It's so intimate!" she blurted out.

"Yes." His mouth found her eyes,
kissing them closed. His hips began a soft, slow rhythm that shocked her with
the sharp pleasure every thrust produced.

She clung to his arms, tiny sounds escaping her
throat as the springs creaked under them, and she was grateful that Marion's room was far enough away that she wouldn't hear them. Because now Lacy was
starting to move with him, making the noise even louder. He was making her
hungry. She lifted, fell, lifted with him, clinging, straining with jerky
breaths as the pleasure came close and then darted away.

She chased it with him, her hips searching for
the pressure and rhythm that would bring it back.

He felt her helpless movements, heard her
breathing suddenly change. She began to go rigid, and he knew now exactly what
to do.

He did it, with a skill he hadn't known he
possessed. She went into convulsions and cried out. If Turk hadn't told him
what to expect, the way she reacted would have frightened him out of his wits.
But he knew that it was the culmination of her pleasure, and through his own
violent excitement, he gloried in the knowledge that he'd given her a taste of
heaven.

Seconds after she began to relax again, he
stiffened over her and groaned harshly as ecstasy rippled down his spine and
exploded in his body. He collapsed on her, his heartbeat audible in the heated
stillness.

He heard soft weeping, but this time he smiled.
It wasn't pain that had caused her emotions to spin out of control. No, this
time it wasn't pain.

He rolled away from her and gathered her up
close against his side. "And they say we can't fly without airplanes,"he
murmured drowsily. "Oh, Cole," she breathed into his shoulder.
"Cole!" "Was it enough?" he asked gently. "Yes."
She shivered. "Yes, it was enough."

His hand smoothed her hair and he lay holding
her for a long time without speaking, drinking in the peace and pleasure of
being with her. Finally he turned toward her, his lips finding hers with tender
pressure.

He felt her mouth tremble under his, heard her
breathing jerk softly. He moved to find her breasts with his lips and caressed
them until she was shivering.

"I want to make love again," he
whispered into her mouth. "Do you?

"Yes!"

He smiled against her lips until the heat and
passion of her response made him too hungry. It was hours before they finally
slept.

When Lacy woke, Cole was dressed and gone. She
looked beside her, but the only evidence of his occupancy was a dent in the
feather pillow. She stretched, wincing at the soreness of her muscles, and then
she blushed, remembering.

She got up and went to make breakfast, smiling
to herself. For the first time, she felt married.

Cole had strutted into the barn just after
daylight, looking so smug that Turk forgot his misery and laughed.

"No smart remarks," Cole said
challengingly as he started to saddle a horse.

"I didn't say a word."

Turk smiled as he saddled his own mount.
"My wife and I knocked the slats out of the bed so many times the first
week we were married that we finally put the mattress on the floor and slept
there instead."

Cole flushed. He and Lacy hadn't knocked the
slats out, but he knew the mattress springs were damned near sprung!

"Don't look so ruffled,"Turk said.
"Sex is a beautiful part of a relationship. It isn't something dirty and
unnatural that needs to be hidden and glossed over. A passionate woman is worth
her weight in gold."

"I'm still in the learning stages about
passion." "You'll get the hang of it." He pulled the cinch
tight. "Heard from Katy?"

"Yes," Cole replied. "Some song
and dance about having to stay with her husband."

Turk's hands stilled. He looked at the older man
curiously. "Are we talking about the same Katy who hitchhiked to San Antonio to see Lacy when you refused to drive her?"

"Yes. I'm concerned. I don't like that dude
she married. There's something vaguely sinister about him," Cole said
flatly. "I wish I could get her down here long enough to find out what's
going on. The letter she wrote to Mother wasn't much more coherent than the one
I got. Something's wrong."

Turk felt the old guilt again. He'd wished a
hundred times that he'd stopped Katy from leaving. He knew he could have, with
a single word.

"Maybe she's pregnant," he said
through stiff lips, and wondered even then if she could be, by him. That would
sure as hell complicate everyone's life.

"Surely she'd have said so," Cole
said.

"I guess she would've," he replied
dully, but he wasn't convinced. The possibility existed.

"We have to dress up tonight for that party
of Lacy's. Ben's bringing his fancy woman."

"I can hardly wait,"Turk drawled.
"Suppose we let Taggart and Cherry in the house so they can dance with her
in honor of the occasion?"

"If we let those two in the house, there
won't be an occasion."

"Just a thought, boss. Let's get to work,
shall we?" He glanced at Cole musingly. "If you can sit comfortably,
that is." "Damn you!" Cole burst out laughing.

Turk rode on ahead, glad that at least
Cole
seemed
happy. He didn't dare think about Katy or he'd go mad.

DAWN CAME COLD
and
unwelcome in Chicago. Katy was lying, wide-eyed, in a white hospital bed, but
she didn't seem to hear or understand anything that was said to her. She was
out of shock now, but her mind seemed to be affected.

Danny had been taken away by the coroner, with
Mama Marlone screaming and then yelling obscenities at Blake Wardell who'd,
cold-bloodedly, killed her little boy. For Katy she hadn't even spared a
thought, or for the big, dark man who was taken away by the police before he
could try to talk to Katy, to apologize. The two morgue attendants had taken
Danny away, snickering at the obvious menage a trois that had ended in tragedy.
"Some high livers, these mobsters," they'd said. "Plain
degenerate. And this moll of Marlone's must have been pretty hot stuff."
She'd been in a strange condition when they'd arrived, lying on a bed with her
eyes wide open, but without moving or seeming aware of her surroundings. Must
be the shock, they'd thought.

The doctors agreed it
was
the
shock. She wasn't aware of anything. Danny's treatment of her—and the
circumstances of his death—had snapped her mind. She'd most likely have to be
committed, they agreed, but first her family had to be told. That caused a real
stir, because nobody knew where or who they were, and the victim's mother had
to be sedated. She wasn't able to tell anyone anything. That left Blake
Wardell, who was in jail for murder. Well, someone could be dispatched to the
city jail to question him. Surely he knew where the girl's people lived.

All that took time. It would be hours before
they knew anything.

Meanwhile, at Spanish Flats, Lacy and Marion were dressing for a gala party to which all the neighbors were invited.

Chapter Thirteen

(Spanish Flats Ranch had never looked so
elegant, Lacy thought proudly as she surveyed her handiwork. Colorful Japanese
lanterns adorned the wide, long porch and even the living room. The long buffet
table in the dining room was decorated with fall foliage, its linen tablecloth
pristine, set with food in silver trays. Lacy's best china was set out, along
with a silver-and-crystal punch bowl and dainty crystal cups. Considering the
number of friends and neighbors she'd invited, a buffet was the only possible
way to serve. She hadn't enough tables and chairs to accommodate a sit-down
affair.

The gramophone was set up in the living room and
the rugs had been moved so that people could dance. It promised to be a gala
evening. The house might be old, but it had class. Perhaps Ben's city friends
wouldn't look down their noses. She prayed they wouldn't. Not that she was cowardly,
but a scene would be terrible.

Lacy was wearing a Paris original silk dress
with a soft V neckline. It draped seductively over her slender curves and fell
in soft layers to her ankles—its length a concession to rural convention. Her
gray shoes buckled, and she was wearing her aunt's diamond necklace and
bracelet. She looked not only lovely, but expensive. That was deliberate—just
in case Ben's intended thought she could look down her nose at the locals.

Marion
's dress was dove-gray.
The older woman's silver hair was pulled into a soft chignon, and she smiled as
she spoke to the ranchers' wives who made up the serving line.

Even Cole was smartly dressed. Lacy's loving
eyes clearly approved of his dark suit and string tie and pristine white shirt.
He looked very elegant and quite sexy. She wondered if she dared tell him that.

Beside him, Turk was glowering at the need for
"dressing up," even if he did look smart and handsome in his dark
gray suit and conventional tie. His blond good looks were a foil for Cole's
darkness.

"Just in case any gentleman guest looks too
hard at you, Mrs. Whitehall, you might mention that I've just cleaned my
pistol," Cole said dryly as she joined them.

She blushed; she hadn't seen him until now. He'd
gone straight out to work before she awoke, and she was in the kitchen already
dressed for the evening when he came home to scrub up.

Cole grinned at her expression. He felt a little
embarrassed himself, but it wouldn't do to show it. Remembering the feel of
Lacy in his arms the night before made him ripple with pleasure.

She smiled back, glancing at Turk. "You
both look very nice," she murmured.

"We're not a patch on you, sugarplum,"
Cole said softly. "Maybe I'd better display that pistol..."

She moved close to him and tucked herself neatly
under his shoulder with a confidence she'd never felt in their turbulent relationship
until now. "Just keep me right here and you won't need to," she
whispered, nuzzling her cheek against his chest.

His heart jumped. "I think I'll do
that," he said.

Turk knew when he was superfluous. "I'll go
out and check on the side of beef on the spit,"he volunteered. He
hesitated. "I don't suppose Katy and her husband will be coming?"

"I thought it best not to invite
them," Cole replied quietly. "Let me rephrase that," he added
curtly. "Ben was disturbed that his fiancee and her father might think he
was in the habit of associating with Chicago's criminal element."

Turk's face hardened. "I see. The fact that
Katy's his sister made no difference?"

"Ben's very young," Lacy said,
defending him gently. "He has yet to learn that wealth and position aren't
everything."

She looked up at Cole as she spoke, and his eyed
kindled with dark fires. Turk left, and they didn't even notice.

Cole's tall, fit body was reacting violently to
Lacy's nearness. He almost choked on desire for her. His eyes went to the
bodice of her dress and he remembered vividly what was under it, how her skin
smelled, how it tasted.

"Oh, don't," she pleaded shyly,
blushing. "I'll swoon if you keep looking at me that way, and what will
people think?"

"That Valentino's got nothing on me,"
he whispered, laughing at her scarlet flush. "Do I embarrass you?"