Magic and the Texan (16 page)

“Jon Marc?” Beth repeated, “Will you throw me away?”

He wanted to be done with her.

Yearned to toss her into the river.

He hungered to scream an “Argh!” to the night sky and ribbon his flesh with knife wounds, as the Comanches did at time of loss and grief.

Jon Marc longed never to see Beth Buchanan again. But she wasn't a miss. She was Mrs. O'Brien. In the eyes of God and the State of Texas. Having married in the Catholic Church, having been unable to stop himself from plunging into her body, time after time, they were bound. Until death did one of them in.

He squinted up at the stars, not wanting to look at the deceiver who was his wife. “Go away, Beth. Go back to bed.”

“I-I can't.”

“Dammit! Go, before I lose my temper.”

“I can't,” she repeated. “Not yet.”

Then he would go. The night promising no sleep anyhow, why not collect his vaqueros to ride after Hoot Todd?

Jon Marc did an about-face, meaning to get the hell away from the riverbank. He stopped short. Beth had one knee bent, had a foot in her hand. Even in starlight, he could see blood. Blood that should have flowed in the marriage bed.

While he almost hated her at this moment, he couldn't watch her bleed and do nothing. “I'll help you.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

He had no choice but to carry her to the house, where a lantern would light the chore of picking stickers from her feet. How different it was this afternoon, when he'd carried her to the river. Yet a damnable hunger for her still raged in his veins.

Sex and cheap vanilla clung to her nightgown. Before he'd stomped down here to get rid of picnic reminders, he'd poured the flavoring into the ground and tossed the bottle away. He never wanted to smell vanilla again, not as long as he lived.

Yet the demon within him cried out for more of what good sense told him to avoid. It caused him to hold her too closely, allowed mussed hair to tickle his nose. Let his rod stiffen anew.

Dammit.

He kicked open the parlor door, then deposited his wife on the settee. “Tweezers around here someplace,” he muttered.

“In the drawer of the corner cabinet.”

“What an organized little homemaker you are,” he said snidely. “A place for everything, and everything in its place.”

Georgia Morgan O'Brien, for all her proclivity for the forbidden, had kept a tight house.
History repeats itself
.

Jon Marc lit the lantern, then found the tweezers. Not resigned to the course of his life, he dropped down next to her—not too closely—and yanked a foot onto his lap. Yet he wasn't mean enough to wrest those stickers out of her feet. Gently as possible, he tugged one after another out of her flinching foot. Finished, he brought the other foot forward. This one wasn't a bad as the other. Nonetheless, she had a thorn deeply imbedded in her big toe. Just as he started to pluck it out, he noticed Beth's nightgown. It rode up sleek legs. This was the first time he'd ever seen them, really seen them.

The craving to run his tongue along that smooth flesh, to lave her knees . . .
Show her what that French phrase means!

He wouldn't. Bending over his task, he tweezed the thorn out of her toe.

“Ouch!”

She jerked upward. The nightgown rode higher. The black triangle at the apex of her legs displayed itself.

He bit down on a groan.

“Thank you.” She jerked the nightgown hem to her ankles.

“I'd better get some rags and wrap your feet,” he said, his voice seeming to come from somewhere else.

“That's not necessary. I'll take care of myself from here on out. With your permission I'll retire to the bedroom.”

“You're not going anywhere. Not on those feet. I'll get rags and soap, and whatever.”

He left the parlor, collected supplies, and ducked into the bedroom to add a fresh nightgown to them. Returned to the parlor, he set a bucket of water on the floor in front of her. “Wash yourself. Wash yourself good. Get rid of the vanilla.”

What his demon self wanted to do was watch her, but Jon Marc wouldn't. He turned his back. Heard the sounds of her toilette, later hearing her say, “I'm finished.”

She'd even wrapped her feet. The nightgown, a flannel one too warm for this climate, was buttoned to the chin. She stood, but jerked when her bandaged feet made contact with the floor.

Pain greater than physical echoed in her voice as she whispered, “Good night, sir.”

He knew bravado bore her out the door to the bedroom.

Slumped into the settee, he plunked elbows on his knees and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. What a mess. What a damned mess. After all the trouble he'd gone to get a perfect bride,
this.
He laughed. Laughed and cried. What a chump he'd been, thinking he could do better than Connor and Burke had done. Thinking he might avoid the pitfalls of romance.

It was a curse, being the beneficiary of Tessa's well-meant wish on a magic lamp.

“What now?” Jon Marc said to himself, his gaze on the rafters. “What the hell do I do now?”

He couldn't have the marriage annulled, not after consummating it. He couldn't divorce her. The church would excommunicate him, and his soul would burn in hell. Nothing said he had to live with her, though. The rough part was, he didn't know if he could live without her.

Did he love her? He didn't rightly know. What was love, anyway? He'd never been in the vicinity of true love between a man and a woman. He did know he despised her. A poet once said that hate was but a spark from love.

“Forget love,” he muttered to those rafters.

He'd expected her poetry and music to fill the air too often cracked by gunfire. All he'd heard were lies.

Yet he couldn't stop thinking about how she'd felt in his arms. When he'd realized she didn't have a maidenly shield, he'd wanted to pull out, thus saving a chance for an annulment. The hellion within him hadn't allowed it, not after Beth had pressed her breasts to his chest, then made green material seem to melt away. At the same moment she'd clutched him even tighter.

Damn.

Double damn!

He laughed insanely, knowing he'd reached the depths.

Once more he was hard as a poker.

She was his wife. Why do without her? Why should he sit here, miserable, while Beth lay alone in
his
bed? Why not go to her? Why not take his fill of her, until she was out of his system? Didn't a wife have a duty to her husband?

“Don't push a woman where she doesn't want to go.”

She'd pushed him further than he'd ever, ever intended to be pushed. “You owe me,” he muttered, lowering his gaze to the open doorway. “If you turn your back on me, Beth O'Brien, I'll turn you off the Caliente.”

That was when Jon Marc started shucking his clothes.

 

 

Too heartsick to cry, too pained to feel her brutalized feet, Bethany huddled in the sheets. How simple it seemed, before tonight, thinking she could bluff her way through a marriage bed.

If he wants you to leave, you'll have to do it. You must.
Never to know his kisses again? Never to feel him inside her again? How could she leave?
No matter how badly you want to stay, you've got to think about Jon Marc for a change.

He needed her.

Needed her to help him heal the wounds of the past.

No. She was simply another wound.

On the other hand, she would never do wrong by him. Not again. Oh, really? What about the rest of it? What about the fact she hadn't been Beth Buchanan to begin with?

“Beth . . . ?”

Jon Marc. What did he want? To turn her out in the night, as he'd been rejected in Memphis? Somehow, she would have to go, even if it meant walking away on these feet.

She swung toward the doorway. He stood there, night painting his body, his absolutely nude body, in silver relief. His staff protruded in full arousal.

Her pulse tripped wildly. Her womanly place stirred, went tight and moist, as if preparing for his entry. She wanted it. She would always want it.

But how long would he want her?

Well, she would be his for however long that might be.

She lifted her fingers, offering whatever he desired.

“Get rid of the gown,” he growled. “Take it off slowly.”

She gathered up hems, easing them above her hips. His eyes followed her every motion. Her trembling fingers worked the buttons free, then she wadded the nightdress and dropped it over the side of the bed. By now he had walked toward her. How long would he stand there, taunting her, as her body ached for his?

The sinew and muscles of his lean frame captured her attention, her gaze then centering on his sex. His lovely long sex. His long, big sex. And then she saw it. A jagged scar that marked his abdomen, running parallel to his arousal. What had happened to him?

“I was gut-shot,” he stated, reading her expression.

“When?”

“The war. Would've died, no doubt.”

Bethany shuddered. A strange feeling, a terror lashed through her, as she considered how close he'd come to death. How awful her own life would be, if she'd never had the chance to meet him. No matter how their marriage turned out, she would never, ever regret whatever time Jon Marc allowed her.

“Thank God—” this was the first time she'd used such gratitude, she realized “—you're alive.”

“I would've died. Was on the wrong side when Sherman burned his way to the sea. The magic lamp saved me. My aunt—Phoebe, that time—made a wish on the lantern. She wanted me to leave the war with my boots on. She got her wish.”

That lamp. Did it have magical powers? Another quiver ran through Bethany, terrifying as well as intriguing her. She could not help but think of what a lamp like that could do. How could she get her hands on it, in order to make her own wish for forgiveness, acceptance, and happily ever after?

“Wanna know what I'd wish for?” he asked into the quiet. “I'd ask not to want this from you.”

His knee dug into the mattress. As if climbing into the saddle, he swung a leg between hers. Then came his other leg. He levered above her, his elbows propped beneath her armpits. His thumbs hooked behind her ears, he lowered his lips to hers.

It was a kiss of fury, yet it eased into an embrace of desire that whetted her senses for more of him, even before his fingers trailed lower, his hands cupping her breasts.

“You're beautiful. Too beautiful. You let beauty ruin you.” The pads of his thumbs circled her flesh. “It captivated me, watching you walk, and talk, and move about. Yet for all your beauty, you made this place a home. I can see you doing for me. And for Hoot's little girl. But how much of that is a lie?”

How could she form a lucid argument, when he was touching her thusly?

“Who else will you ruin, Beth?” he goaded while teasing the tightened peaks.

She must think, must speak. “I love you. You. Only.”

At the same moment he squeezed her nipples, he lowered his head, trailing his lips to her navel. And lower. “Wh-what are you doing?” she asked, shocked at his exploration.

“Showing you what
mange-moi
means, like you don't know.”

She tried to force his face away. Fingers clamped her wrists, holding them at her sides. Then she was beyond objecting. Scaling the walls of passion, she felt her heart beat in a savage staccato. Everything centered in the area that he flicked. Once more she reached the high point of ecstasy.

“Like what you asked for?” he goaded.

“Yes” came out in a hiss.

He moved upward to press his staff against that which he had teased. She writhed beneath him, out of her mind, as he surged upward again and again. Pleasure spasms radiated from where he lunged, rippling like white caps on a stormy lake.

Her legs wrapped around his back. He rode her hard. She reveled in it. In the second that pain met rapture, she bucked, crying out in her completion. Yet he wasn't finished with her. Still imbedded deeply, he sank his lips against her collarbone and nipped her, as a stallion would bite a mare.

She liked it.

She wanted to be marked as Jon Marc's.

Forever.

But, her passions afire as they had never before been aflame, she could take no more of quiescence. “If you would be a stallion, sir, I intend to ride you.”

He went still for a moment, his eyes widening in the muted light. “What do you intend to do?”

Bethany shoved his shoulders, ushering him to his back. So as not to disturb their joining, she rolled with him. Atop him. Her hair a curtain to his chest, she bore down on his sex. Moaned. So filled, so filled. And then, as if she were on a race to the finish line, she gave it her all. Her womb convulsed once and then again. But Bethany never let go.

She needed control of her mount, lest Jon Marc ride away from her.

Jon Marc rode from the Caliente before dawn. Without saying good-bye to Bethany. She hadn't figured he'd steal away like a thief in the night. But he had. Without listening to reason about vengeance against Hoot Todd.

At least he hadn't sent her away.

For that she could be glad.

She hugged her arms, trying to recall what it felt like to be enfolded in her husband's embrace. It just wasn't the same.

She supposed she should be thankful he hadn't left her alone at the Caliente. Isabel arrived, but Bethany, not wanting chatter or questions, asked her to go home, and stay there until sent for. Isabel left without argument.

After breakfast Catfish Abbott dropped by to say he would be “keeping an eye on the place.”

Idly swinging a lariat, Catfish stood hatless in what served as the front yard.

The sun in her eyes, Bethany visored her brow with fingers. She took a long look at the mustachioed young man. Already she knew his age as twenty; Isabel had once mentioned it. His hair grew dark, the darkest of browns that matched his eyes, and curled to his shoulders. He was olive complected, not unlike many Mexicans around here.

She hobbled to the hitching post to lean against it, where the sun wouldn't interfere with her study of this ranch foreman who had links to the O'Brien family. Perhaps through Catfish, she could understand more about her husband.

“I'm told your aunt is married to Jon Marc's brother,” she fished.

Catfish lassoed a pecan branch. “Yep.”

“I believe her name is India.”

“Yep.”

This wasn't going to be easy. Bethany took a different tack. “Would you care for a cup of coffee?”

“No, ma'am. Got work to do. We got horses corralled down Salado Creek. Need to check on them.”

“Surely that can wait awhile. You and I should get acquainted, since we're family now. I really do need to sit down. My feet, you see.”

An eyebrow quirked as he wound the lariat into a circle. “Guess I could have one cuppa coffee.”

He was kind enough to lend a shoulder to help her get to the kitchen. He did the pouring, too. They sat across the table from each other. Catfish didn't appear comfortable.

Bethany jumped in with nosiness. “Being strawboss of a ranch like the Caliente is a big job for a fellow your age.”

He shrugged. “I've carried my weight since I was nine. Civil War, you see. Had to help my family run the plantation.”

Having grown up in the Oklahoma Territory, before moving to Liberal, Bethany hadn't been touched much by the war, now seven years from the last battle. Of course, she'd seen soldiers leave town, many never returning, but Pa had skated around conscription. If the Rebels hadn't surrendered, though, his skates might have snagged. Nevertheless, she knew war had been horrific for many, especially those near battlefields.

“Did Jon Marc send for you, since he knew you're a hard worker?” she asked.

“No.”

“Plantation life, at least after the war was over, must've been more exciting than the lonely life of a brush popper. I'm surprised you didn't stay in Louisiana.”

He said nothing.

“Most cowmen want their own place, as soon as they can manage it. Do you plan to work for Jon Marc from here on out?”

“Nope.”

If she was going to get anything out of this man, she must mold queries requiring more than a yes or a no, or dead silence. “What brought you to Texas?”

He fiddled with one end of his mustache. “Came to see my Aunt Persia.”

“Aunt Persia? Who is she?”

“My aunt.”

Bethany rearranged aching feet under the table and tried not to frown at the laconic Catfish. “Is she India's sister? Or sister to your father? And where does she live in Texas?”

“She and India are sisters. Persia lives in San Antonio.”

Not once had Bethany heard Jon Marc speak of family in that city. Peculiar. “So . . . you went to visit your aunt in San Antonio, but ended up at the Caliente. How?”

“Jon Marc hired me.”

“Was he visiting your aunt's home?”

“No.”

This was like pulling teeth. Bethany ground hers before asking, “Where did you meet Jon Marc?”

“Uncle Tim was reading poetry at the ruins of the Alamo.”

“May I assume Uncle Tim is married to your aunt?”

“He's dead now.”

Which meant India O'Brien had a widowed sister living within a hundred miles of the Caliente. “Jon Marc had nothing to do with your aunt and uncle, I guess.”

“He didn't cotton to Tim Glennie. Most men didn't. Sorta sissy acting, Uncle Tim. Ran a school for aspiring poets.”

“Jon Marc was chummy with your aunt?”

“Never been a man who didn't have eyes for Aunt Persia.”

Was she the widow Jon Marc got his experience from? If so, he evidently hadn't had enough “eyes” to ask for her hand. “Did your aunt have eyes for Jon Marc?”

Catfish snickered. “She has eyes for every man.”

Fingers were pointing more and more to a connection between Persia and Jon Marc. If nothing had happened between the two, wouldn't he have said something, at least in passing, about family being as close as San Antonio?

Likely, her husband caroused with Connor O'Brien's sister-in-law, yet he expected Bethany to be pure as the driven snow.

Catfish drained his cup. “Gotta go.”

 

 

Best to keep busy, Bethany decided after Catfish left. She refused to do too much thinking about Persia and Jon Marc, although it did irk her, his double-standards and virulent charges. What a rotten thing to do, cavort with a widow, then make Bethany feel even more rotten for giving in to blackmail. Men were like that.

She also didn't want to think about what her husband would face on his trip, or what they'd face as a couple upon his return.
You'll simply have to show faith in him.

Yet her injured feet wouldn't allow manual labor, not for three days. Three long days. The fourth morning after Jon Marc rode out, Bethany scrubbed the kitchen and washed linens, set out vases of roses and picked up the parlor, where the water bucket and her discarded nightgown sat abandoned from the wedding night.

The wedding night.

She couldn't fault his experience.

Her wanton thoughts wandered down a worn path.
There once lived painted ladies at the Long Lick, who swore an untried cowpoke be easy t' pick; in bed he would jump, for a smooth hump; yet his stick would go off—way too quick.

The widow Glennie had taught him not to do that. If everything were even, Jon Marc ought to be glad his bride hadn't spent their wedding night sobbing at the pain, or acting too modest to give the bridegroom a chance to fire a second round.

All things were not even.

That he wanted her body did give Bethany some hope for the future, though. She could count herself extremely fortunate Jon Marc hadn't discarded her, like used wash water. Whatever the case, her best chance was to show him her worth, both as a wife and a ranch woman.

She tossed the wash water, wishing mistakes and disappointments could be discarded with the same ease.

No matter how many chores she found to busy herself, she got more and more restless. Where was Jon Marc? Would he return as he had from the war, with his boots on? Or would he take another bullet? What if he returned, but—

She inspected the smokehouse, and saw fish, fish, and more fish to go along with enough beef to feed an army. Jon Marc didn't like fish, either. Recalling the ham he'd scrounged for their ill-fated picnic, she thought of Padre Miguel's pigs.

This ranch could use a few pigs.

If nothing else, for fish disposal.

Her mind on how she could barter for swine, she wandered through the rubble of the Wilson home, finding a music box that still worked. After cleaning it up, she decided Sabrina might enjoy the tinkle of music.

Sabrina. Bethany needed something—
someone
—besides chores and too-frequent thoughts of Jon Marc to occupy her mind. Perhaps she needed to feel important to another human being, she wasn't quite sure, but she knew that a visit with her niece would be a breath of fresh air.

After lunch, she decided. This afternoon she would ride to town and visit Sabrina.

But that was not to be.

 

 

“Howdy. Been missin' your neighbor?”

“What are you doing here, Hoot Todd?”

“Visitin'.” The outlaw who happened to be Bethany's brother shoved past her and into the kitchen, where she'd baked cornbread. He eyed the steaming skillet of bread, fresh from the oven. “Slice me up a slab of that, missus. I'll take a glass of milk, too, if you've got it.”

Had Hoot come here to gloat about doing her husband in?

Her years in the Long Lick Saloon had acquainted her with no-goods like Hoot Todd. Best never to show your weaknesses, never let them think they have you on the run.

“I used up the milk.” Bethany folded arms over her chest, daring the bully to argue. “You want cornbread, you slice it.”

Hoot rubbed a fingertip beneath his eyepatch, then got a knife from a sheath that was strapped to his calf.

He cut into the cornbread. “Looks good, Sis.”

Sis? Why did he call her Sis? Reason surfaced. It wasn't unusual for Texans to call women “Sis.” Of course, that was generally used in the familiar. Anyway, she wouldn't stand here while Hoot gobbled her lunch, not without finding out if Jon Marc had crossed his path.

“My husband's been looking for you,” she said.

“Oh, that reminds me.” Hoot peeled back his lips to smile unwinningly. “Congratulations on gettin' hitched.”

Quite a wizard of etiquette, her brother. “Did you run into him?” she asked and held her breath.

“Naw. Sent Peña and Xavier off. Made it look like I went with them. Don't worry. They won't hurt your sweetie pie. My boys are gonna lead him around for a spell, then send him home tired. And beat.”

She didn't know whether to believe him, but wanted to. Not that she relished the idea of Jon Marc chasing geese. “I should imagine your chums will have their hands full.”

“He ain't no pussy, your sweetie, I'll grant.” Hoot bit into cornbread, hummed with appreciation, then wiped his mouth with a shirtsleeve. “Figured old Jonny boy would come gunnin' for me, seeing's how I lightened his Rockport purse.”

“Strange, your not trying to deny guilt.”

“Wouldn't be no fun, claimin' otherwise.”

Hoot slid the knife back in its scabbard, then straddled a chair, perfect guest that he was. He might look like Pa in his younger days, somewhat, but Hoot could benefit from a drinking habit. Alcoholism might elevate him to a better person.

“Gets me to laughin', when your man tries to outdo me,” Hoot confided, like a schoolyard bully. “Never happen.”

“From the looks of your nose, I wouldn't quite agree with that statement.”

He got a nasty gleam in his single eye. “Things ain't always the way they look, wouldn't you agree?”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Using his fingers, he dug more cornbread from the skillet. “Don't want the bride worrying about her man, for one.”

“Why would you care what I think?”

“You might say I've got me a vested interest in you.”

“I don't think so.”

“Doncha now?” Again he scratched beneath his eyepatch, probably at a flea. “Why don't you be a good girl and run get ol' Hoot a fistful of O'Brien money?”

“You've gotten enough already,” she replied. “And I want it back.”

“Sure you do. Greedy little thing, ain't you?”

“Quit talking in circles. What do you want, Hoot Todd?”

“Give me a fistful of O'Brien money.”

“You take it on your own. Why do you need me to hand it over?”

“ 'Cause it'll hurt Jonny boy more, if you give it to me.”

Suspicions began to resurface. They didn't set her at ease. “I'll do nothing to hurt my husband.”

“That so,
Beth?
You know, the way I look at it, you've got two ways to go. You can give me the money, then answer to your man. Or I'll just wait till he gets back from his snipe hunt, then call him aside for man-talk. He might be interested to know about my recent trip to Austin. And Round Rock.”

Blood rushed from Bethany's face, pooling in her feet. It took all her strength to make it to a chair and plop down. “That's blackmail,” she uttered.

“It is.”

“I won't be blackmailed.”

Once, but never again. What was she going to do? The breech-loader was in the house, on the bedroom wall. Hoot had a pair of guns and a knife, right here in the kitchen. She could scream, but who'd hear her? Catfish wasn't anywhere nearby. Albeit, guns and screams would show fear—what Hoot Todd expected. She needed to throw him off course.

“Do as you please, Hoot Todd. Tell Jon Marc whatever strikes you as clever. He won't believe you.”

“All he'd need to do is mosey on up to a certain Catholic cemetery in Round Rock. Sis, one look at that gravestone— you picked out a nice one, by the by—and he'll know you ain't never been no Buchanan.”