The Rawhide Man (8 page)

All at once he set her back down on her feet and stood glaring at her, his face showing mingled anger and reluctant satisfaction.

She drew away from him, surprised that he let her, and turned back to the table. “Katy…and I are going to services in a few minutes,” she said, shaken. “Would you like to go with us?”

“No, I would not.”

If she hadn’t been so shaken, she might have noticed the rasping sound of his voice, the quickness of his breath, which betrayed how moved he’d been. But she didn’t, and he turned away.

“I’m going out for dinner,” he said coldly. “You can gush over Katy all by yourself!”

“She’s your daughter, Jude,” she said, her voice soft and hurt and shaking.

He stopped, his back to her, and said something rough. “I can’t stay here with you,” he ground out after a minute.

That was deliberately cruel, but she didn’t react.

“Don’t worry, Katy and I will be out of the house for at least two hours,” she retorted.

“I’d still rather go to town. I’ve had about all the high society I can stand,” he added before he slammed out the door.

She turned her back and went toward the kitchen to see how Aggie was coming with supper. But she hesitated outside the door and dried the tears that insisted on falling, no matter how hard she tried to stop them.

She put on a happy face for Katy, making some excuse about an unexpected business meeting that Jude had to attend. It pacified the little girl, but her disappointment showed. She had her long hair brushed around her shoulders, and she was wearing the ruffled pink dress Bess had bought for her. She looked so lovely. And Jude didn’t even care enough to stay and see her. Bess could have shaken him.

Later, when it was bedtime, Katy came into Bess’s room and they sat in their nightgowns on Bess’s bed while the older woman told her about Christmases at the Georgia estate where she grew up.

“Do you miss your mother a lot?” Katy asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I miss her terribly. But she was very sick and she’s so much better off.”

“She’s in heaven,” Katy said, understanding. She held Bess’s hand. “You aren’t sorry you came here, are you? You aren’t sorry you married Daddy?”

“No, I’m not sorry,” Bess said softly, and smiled. “Look what a beautiful daughter I got.”

Katy blushed and grinned. “Bess, did you have parties at Christmas when you were a little girl?”

“Not a lot of them,” Bess said, sighing. “But when my stepsister got big enough, her father insisted that she have them. She had lots of boyfriends.”

“Did you?”

Bess shook her head. “No, darling. I’m very plain, you know.”

“Daddy doesn’t think so,” Katy said. “I heard him tell Mr. Teague that you were a vision. Doesn’t that mean pretty?”

“There are different kinds of vision,” Bess said sadly, thinking Jude probably meant she was a nightmare. Remembering the way he’d kissed her downstairs, she went hot all over. Why had he done that?

She stretched, bringing the elasticized bodice of her nightgown precariously low, but she didn’t notice. “Darling, I’m tired, and tomorrow is Christmas. Let’s get some sleep,” she told Katy. “Tomorrow we’ll make some roasted pecans to snack on, all right?”

“All right,” Katy said, getting up. “Bess, I’m so glad you came to live with us.”

“So am I,” Bess said, and was about to elaborate when Jude walked in.

He hadn’t even bothered to knock, and he looked a little wild. His black hair was hanging untidily down on his forehead and his green eyes were hard and glittering.

“Have a party?” he asked, his voice slightly slurred.

“Just saying good night to each other,” Bess said, sitting up straighter even though the action brought her bodice still lower. She felt a sense of power at the expression that went over his hard features, and she didn’t follow her first impulse, which had been to pull up the slipping fabric.

“Good night, Daddy,” Katy said, standing on tiptoe as he lowered his cheek so she could kiss him. “You should have come to church with us, it was lovely. The minister said I looked pretty,” she added, grinning. “‘Night, Bess.”

“‘Night, darling,” Bess said, cringing inside when Katy went out with a wicked smile and deliberately closed the door behind her.

“Church,” Jude growled. “And Christmas trees and turkeys and turning my damn house and my life upside down.” He was breathing roughly, and Bess suddenly realized that he’d been drinking.

Her lips parted on a rush of breath. “The service was very nice,” she said after a minute. “And Katy did…look lovely.”

“So did you,” he ground out, staring pointedly at her bodice. “All lace and ruffles…did you wear that thing deliberately?”

She swallowed nervously. “What thing?”

“That gown,” he said, moving closer to the bed with a little less than his usual elegance of movement. He sat down heavily beside her, still staring at the gown.

“I…couldn’t have known…you’d come in here,” she managed through tight lips.

“Oh, of course not,” he muttered, glaring at her. “But you let it slip deliberately, honey,” he added with a glittering smile. “You saw my eyes on you and you liked it.”

He caught both her nervous hands in one of his and locked them together over her waist, pressing her back in a sitting position against the pillows. The other hand went to the elasticized bodice, and his eyes were suddenly cruel. “If you want me to look at you, Bess, you don’t have to play teenage games. Just tell me.”

As he spoke, he ripped the bodice down to her waist, baring her small, taut breasts to his hot eyes.

He stared down at them as if he had every right, letting his eyes take in each line, each soft curve, each contrast of color from soft pink to mauve.

The hand holding hers tightened as he studied her, and his face went curiously rigid, leaving only his eyes to express his churning emotions.

Bess couldn’t move. His intent stare kept her still. He was looking at her in a way no man ever had before, and there was an expression in his eyes that puzzled, excited. Her breath came in unsteady gasps while sensation after sensation washed over her like flames.

Finally, finally, his eyes wandered back up to hers, to read the wonder and faint embarrassment in them.

“Yes, you do like it, don’t you?” he asked curtly. “Haven’t you ever been like this with a man?”

She shook her head slowly, but words were beyond her.

His eyebrows rose slightly. “Never?” he asked, as if that were incomprehensible.

“As you, yourself, said…my blessings are small,” she said in a whisper, turning her face away.

“Don’t,” he breathed. He freed her hands and drew her face back to his eyes. “Don’t. You’re exquisitely formed, as delicate as the inside of a seashell, pink and cream….” He caught his breath as he looked back down at her body, his eyes fiercely possessive. “My God, I’ve never seen anything so sweet as this!”

He’d been drinking, of course, she told herself as she watched him. But he was making her feel things she’d never experienced, and she loved having his eyes on her. She wanted him to bend down and put his mouth there,
there.

Her thoughts shocked her and she caught her breath.

His eyes came back up to hold hers. “We’re married,” he reminded her quietly. “There’s no shame in this.”

Her breath stopped in her throat. “Yes, I…I know,” she said.

He reached out a gentle hand and touched her cheek, then eased his fingers into her hair. “You’re so young,” he said in the tenderest voice she’d ever heard him use. “So untouched by ugliness and pain. I should have had enough humanity left to keep you away from me.” He drew in an angry breath and stood up, standing rigidly with his back to her as he lit a cigarette.

She lay there helpless, puzzled by words she didn’t understand. “Jude?” she asked softly.

He turned, his eyes going helplessly to her soft bareness. They closed, almost painfully. “Oh, God, will you cover yourself up?” he asked under his breath as he turned away again. “I’ve had three neat whiskeys, Bess, and it’s been months since I’ve had a woman.”

She tugged her bodice back in place with trembling hands. “And you don’t want me. You needn’t bother repeating it,” she said in a cool tone that hid her wounded pride.

He actually laughed, but bitterly. “You might be surprised at the things I want, but I’m a realist these days. I know my own limitations.”

“You, with limitations?” she scoffed, dragging the coverlet over herself. “How shocking.”

He glanced back and then turned around, lifting the cigarette to his mouth as he studied her flushed face. He looked so masculine and sensuous that she wanted to climb out of the bed and throw herself at him. The way he’d looked at her body had been unspeakably beautiful, and she knew that despite the fact that he’d been drinking, she’d treasure the memory of this night forever. A kiss and then this…It was like having her secret longings all fulfilled at once.

“You aren’t really cool at all, are you?” he asked quietly. “It’s a kind of armor you wear, a form of protection.”

She flushed wildly. “Stop taking me apart.”

He shook his head. “I’m not doing that. You’re much too complex. But, downstairs—” he watched her flush with the memory of it “—you were with me every step of the way. I hadn’t expected you to kiss me, even when I told you to. I was…teasing.”

Oh, God, she thought miserably. She closed her eyes and drew in a steadying breath. Please, please don’t let me give myself away, she pleaded silently.

“Would you mind finding some other method of torture in the future?” she asked unsteadily. “As you said yourself, I’m too green to know the difference.”

“Did it hurt?” he asked, as if it mattered.

She laughed bitterly. “I wouldn’t let you hurt me. Not in a million years.”

He made a rough sound in his throat and crushed out his cigarette, even though he’d only finished half of it. “Damn it, what I had in mind for us was a simple merger, a marriage based on business concerns, not emotion. I haven’t changed my mind. I wanted the shares, not complications.”

Her eyes fell to the coverlet, which her fingers were worrying. “Then stop creating them,” she said.

“Stop helping me,” he shot back, glaring at her. “I’m human. I respond to temptation just like any other damned man.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Try again.” His eyes darkened as he studied her, and she looked away because she couldn’t outstare him.

“I won’t forget,” she said on a sigh.

“See that you don’t.” He paced the room angrily.

She studied the coverlet as if it fascinated her. “Jude, why haven’t you ever had a Christmas tree before?”

He glanced at her briefly. “Because I never realized how much it meant to Katy until now.” He laughed shortly. “All this time she pretended that she didn’t care. And I was too damned busy.” He lifted his chin and studied her thoughtfully. “She shines like a new penny these days. You’ve got her heart in your pocket. Just don’t set your cap at mine, lady.”

“That frozen thing?” she asked with a calm she didn’t feel. “Why should I want it? Anyway, you don’t want me,” she added quietly.

His eyes pinned her to the bed. “I wanted you downstairs,” he said, shocking her.

Her face went bloodred, and he watched it with lifted eyebrows.

“My, my, what an interesting reaction,” he said. “Very virginal.”

“Not exactly by choice,” she said coldly. “There was little opportunity for me to attract men as long as Crystal lived at home.”

“Tinsel usually overshadows gold,” he said thoughtfully, looking at her. “Your stepsister is beautiful, all right. Did she steal all your boyfriends?”

“Every last one.”

“Then they couldn’t have cared very much,” he said. “It’s probably better that you kept your chastity.”

“It will be a great comfort to me in my old age,” she agreed.

His eyes searched hers. “You won’t change a lot with age, I don’t think,” he mused. “You have beautiful bone structure.”

She returned the long, searching glance and slowly, poignantly, an idea began to form in her mind. He wasn’t quite as unapproachable as he usually was. If she could find a way to capture his attention before Crystal showed up, if she could…

Her lips parted nervously. “Jude…are you…very tired?” she asked hesitantly.

His darkening eyes wandered slowly over her. “Are you offering me your body?”

She swallowed down a quick denial and caught her nervous fingers in the coverlet. “Do…do you want it?”

His chest rose and fell roughly. “Oh, yes,” he said with self-contempt. “I want you.”

She stood up, feeling wildly reckless and inhibited at the same time. She forced herself to face him. Her fingers went to the gown and slowly, deliberately, eased it down her waist, over her smooth hips and onto the floor.

Jude stared at her as if he’d never seen a woman in his life. His face flushed slightly, and his eyes exploded with a desire that darkened them almost to black.

“Grace and elegance,” he breathed. “I imagined you’d be proud even when you offered yourself. You are so lovely, Bess,” he added with deep emotion. “So lovely. Don’t tempt me, honey. I’m hungry and it’s been a long time.”

He started to turn away, but she touched his arm, daring everything.

“Would…would it be so hard?” she whispered, her voice shaking with embarrassment.

“No.” He shook his head. “Quite the contrary. But if you got pregnant…”

Her face brightened, changed, and her eyes softened. “Oh, I’d like that,” she breathed. “I’d like being pregnant with your baby.”

He actually trembled. “Bess…”

“Don’t you want a son, Jude?” she asked, looking up with her whole heart in her eyes.

He reached for her, crushing her bareness to every hard line of his body, burying his face in her soft hair.

“Yes,” he ground out achingly. “I want a son. I want you. But…”

“But what?”

His fingers tightened at her back. “Bess, you know that I served in Vietnam, that I saw combat?”

“Yes.”

He sighed heavily. “My unit ran into an ambush, and I caught a lot of shrapnel. My right hip and thigh look like a road map of the moon. The scars have faded some over the years, but I’ve had women ask me to put out the light….”