To Have and to Hold (Cactus Creek Cowboys) (22 page)

She came away from the window. She wondered where he was now. She couldn’t imagine living alone in any of the places they’d passed since leaving Independence. Where would he live? What would he eat? What would he do?

She had to accept that none of that concerned her any longer. She had to put him out of her mind just as she was certain he had put her out of his. She was headed toward a new life, one that would need all the attention and effort she could give it. It wouldn’t do her or anyone else any good to have her mooning over a man who’d turned his back on her.

She walked over to the bed and settled on the edge. The mattress wasn’t soft, but it was better than sleeping on the ground.

The problem that faced her now wasn’t the mattress but finding a way to fall out of love. It would have been so much easier if Colby had been cruel, thoughtless, or dishonorable, but he was the opposite of all that. How could he have held her like he did, kissed her senseless, if he hadn’t loved her at least a little bit? He was an honest and straightforward man.

It wouldn’t do any good to keep thinking of all the reasons why he should have stayed. He was gone and that was that. She got in bed, and pulled the covers over her. The sheets smelled freshly laundered. Now if the mattress had only felt a little less like a board, she might be able to drift off to sleep.

She was aware of voices coming from the street. They were a mixture of English, Spanish, and dialects or languages she’d never heard. That seemed so strange after living her whole life among people who spoke only English and with the same accent, but in some way Colby had made it seem almost normal.

She turned on her side and pulled the pillow over her head. She had to stop thinking about Colby. Maybe it would help if she could block out the voices from the street below. She would try to imagine she was back home in Kentucky in her own bed. She would make a list of the chores she had to do the next day, arrange them in order of importance, and decide what she needed to complete each job. By the time she did all of that, she’d always been on the verge of falling asleep.

Only it didn’t work anymore. She wasn’t in Kentucky, she wasn’t in her own bed, and everything was so different she hardly knew where to begin. The future was a huge blank. How could she sleep when she couldn’t stop thinking about it? The worst part was that she felt terribly alone. It didn’t seem to matter that she had her father and two brothers, or that the rest of the community would be with her. Colby had a way of making sense of this new and daunting world, a way that made it seem less frightening and threatening.

A knock on the door broke her train of thought. What could her father want, and why was he knocking so softly?

She sat up, shoved her feet into her slippers, and then got up. There was enough light coming through the window that she didn’t need to light the lantern. The soft knocks came again followed by a whispered request to open the door. Thoroughly confused, Naomi decided not to open the door just yet.

“Papa, is that you? What’s wrong?” When the answer came, it left her so weak she wasn’t sure she could stand.

“It’s Colby. Let me in.”

Naomi’s hand shook so badly she could barely work the key in the lock. The moment the door was open, Colby rushed in and closed it behind him. She opened her mouth to say something—she had no idea what—but he took her in his arms and kissed her until any thought seemed superfluous. Colby was here, and she was in his arms.

“What are you doing here?” The answer seemed obvious, yet the deeper meaning was not.

“I love you.”

She had been certain those words would answer every question, banish every doubt, but they didn’t.

“Why have you come sneaking into my room like you’re afraid someone will see you?”

They hadn’t moved. Colby still held her in an embrace, and the room remained in shadows.

“If they find me, they’re liable to try to hang me. I didn’t tell you this before, but I set fire to Elizabeth’s father’s house. That’s why they won’t let me back in Santa Fe.”

Naomi never doubted that Colby could be a dangerous person when provoked, but she hadn’t expected anything like this. “That was horrible.”

“I know.” He kissed her. “Now I don’t want to talk about that anymore. I came here to tell you that I love you, that I was a fool to think I could leave you, and that I want to marry you.”

Naomi disengaged herself from Colby’s embrace and stepped back. She needed light. She had to be able to see his face, look into his eyes. She lit the lamp, adjusted the wick, and motioned for Colby to sit on the edge of the bed next to her. “What made you change your mind?”

Colby sat next to her, took her hands in his, looked into her eyes. Even in the limited light of the lantern, she could tell he was seeing her with different eyes. There was a warmth there she’d never seen before, a softness—and a vulnerability. She’d always felt he’d been honest with her, but despite the kisses and the embraces, he’d managed to maintain a distance. That had disappeared. He was here now, all of him.

“I was camped on the foot of the mountains just outside of town. I got on my horse intending to ride away. Instead I turned toward Santa Fe despite knowing I would be jailed if I was caught.”

“How did you find me?”

“I have my ways.”

“You still haven’t told me what happened to make you change your mind about love,” Naomi said.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you. It’s like we’re connected. I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but when I left I felt like a part of me was missing. Everything I saw reminded me of you in some way. Everything I did—saddle up, light a fire, top a rise—reminded me of times we did them together. You were all I dreamed about.”

She could see his expression soften.

“You would grin at me like you knew a secret you wouldn’t share. Other times you’d disappear, and I wouldn’t be able to find you. There were times when I would wake up in a terrible state.”

Naomi didn’t need an explanation of what happened in those dreams. She was thankful for the dim light that hid her blushes. Yet if what Colby said was true, why had he shown no signs of that attraction when he was with her?

“You were always a gentleman with me.”

“Do you think it was easy? You are a beautiful woman, Naomi.”

He reached for the lamp and pulled Naomi to her feet. By holding the lamp close to the window, he was able to cause the glass pane to reflect Naomi’s image. “Look at yourself and tell me what you see.”

Naomi felt rather foolish staring at herself. Everything looked the same, her nose, her eyes, her skin, her hair. She wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t beautiful, especially when compared to Sibyl. Nor did her body have Laurie’s curves. She wasn’t even as pretty as Cassie.

“I see an ordinary face that shows the strain of enduring nightmares, leaving my home, and traveling through a wilderness to a land I know nothing about. I used to think I still had a bit of my youthful look. Now it’s gone.”

“I see a woman, not a girl. Someone who has experienced life and knows something of its joys and sorrows, someone who’s able to appreciate the present without forgetting the past or ignoring the future.”

Naomi peered at the shadowy image before her. Where did he see any of that? In her eyes? In her expression?

“I see a woman of principle who knows what she wants from life and won’t settle for less.”

He was making this up. How could she show on the outside what she couldn’t figure out on the inside?

“I see a woman who will rise to any challenge, conquer it, and then ask for more.”

He was wrong there. She had wanted to go back to Kentucky from the moment they left.

“I also see a woman of strong passions and great determination who doesn’t know that she’s capable of much more than even she imagines.”

She turned around to protest, but he guided her to back to the window.

“I see a woman who is beautiful in the eyes of everyone else even if not in her own. Your eyes are always alive. At times they sparkle with excitement or mischief, but they’re always welcoming.”

“Nonsense. Ben says my eyes scold him more severely than my words.”

Colby ignored her interruption.

“I’m particularly fond of your lips, and not just because I like to kiss them. When you smile, they make your eyes shine brighter. I especially like them when they pucker because you’re trying to keep from laughing.”

This was ridiculous. Whoever talked about lips like they were a separate part of the face?

“I especially like your hair when you’re not wearing your bonnet and it falls over your shoulders.”

He was exaggerating. Her skin was chapped and sunburned, her hair as dry as straw.

Colby slipped his arm around her waist and drew her to him. “You would make any man hunger for you. You can’t know how many nights I couldn’t sleep because you were so close I could reach out and touch you. Just having my arm around you is making me want things.”

Much to her surprise, Naomi felt an unfamiliar stirring in her belly, a kernel of warmth that was expanding much too rapidly. Could this be the kind of warmth Colby was feeling? If so, did it mean for her what it meant for him? She had felt a physical attraction to men before, but it had been a kind of excitement, maybe giddiness, but not this heat that was invading every part of her body. What she felt for Colby was much more than physical attraction. She was in love with him. She wanted to marry him. She wanted to sleep next to him and bear his children.

That meant she wanted to endow him with her body as well as her heart.

She had known this in an abstract way, but there was nothing abstract about Colby’s arm around her or the nearness of his body. There was nothing imaginary about the emotions stirring inside her nor, she was certain, the feelings stirring inside Colby.

Colby placed the lamp back on the table and took her in his arms. “I’ve been thinking about holding you and kissing you practically every minute since I left. I kept thinking I would never see you again.”

“I didn’t think I would see you again, either.”

“Did you think of me?”

She couldn’t repress a smile. “I opened the door for you. I’m in a hotel room alone with you. What do you think?”

He returned her smile. “I was afraid you’d be so angry you wouldn’t want to see me. I wouldn’t let myself believe that because then I really
would
bury myself in some remote valley.”

“I want to marry you, too, but I can’t leave my father and brothers. I don’t know where we’re going or what we’re going to do when we get there. Norman is looking for—”

“I know the perfect place in Arizona. I was thinking about going there myself. I’ll talk to your father and the others tomorrow.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to go somewhere just because I’m there.”

“I can’t think of a better reason. Now stop worrying about the future and concentrate on the present.”

That was an invitation that had profound implications.

Naomi didn’t trust herself to speak. His declaration was all she had hoped for and more.

“I’ll follow you wherever you go,” he said to fill the silence. “I’ll make a nuisance of myself by asking you to marry me at least once every hour. I’ll waste away so badly your father will have to take me on as a permanent patient.”

“Stop!” Naomi couldn’t repress a chuckle. “I’m not marrying anybody just so they won’t starve themselves to death.”

“I can think of lots of other things to do.”

“I’m sure you can, but they won’t convince me to marry you, either.”

“What will? Tell me, and I’ll do it.”

She leaned forward and kissed him.

Colby embraced her. Their kiss was long and heated. Having finally removed the barriers to admitting their love, they couldn’t get enough of each other. Being seated made it awkward so Colby stood and pulled her into an embrace. If his kisses had seemed intense before, they were overwhelming now. She couldn’t imagine how a man full of such passion could have thought he could hide. One day all of this warmth, this unused heat, would have burst into flame and destroyed him.

She was more than willing to share his heat. She loved her family, but she’d always felt a little lonely, different, out of step. No man had appealed to her. Certainly none had awakened the fire that Colby stoked with so little effort. The intensity of what she felt for him scared her, but she was eager to embrace it. Her future was full of unknown challenges and nameless dangers, but she wouldn’t hesitate to face it as long as Colby was by her side. She found it almost miraculous that such a man could have fallen in love with her.

She felt naked in his embrace, the thinness of her nightgown hardly a barrier against the hardened muscles of his body. It was merely a tissue separating her warming skin from his rough hands as they wandered over her back. It was easy to imagine it didn’t exist, that he was caressing her flesh. The feel of his hands on her body was as unsettling as it was impossible to resist. Never before had she wanted to share herself with a man. She’d always insisted on keeping a distance between them.

Now that had changed.

It was almost impossible to feel too close to Colby. She had tried so hard to convince herself this would never happen that she was finding it hard to believe. A sliver of fear that all this might still be snatched from her caused her to hold him tighter. Being in his arms was more wonderful than she had ever imagined. She wanted to sink deeper and deeper into his embrace until they had become inseparable. She held him tighter, kissed him harder, but more wasn’t enough. They were still separated. She wouldn’t be content until each had been absorbed by the other, until they became one in spirit if not in body.

The hardness pressing against her thigh left no doubt about the effect of their closeness on Colby. When his hands moved from her back to cup her breasts, she had no question about the effect on her. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her.

With a moan muffled by their kiss, she pressed against him. She suffered a shock when his hands left her breasts, but it lasted only until she realized he was loosening the tie that secured her nightgown. When he pulled the gown off her shoulders and let it slide down her body and pool around her feet, she shivered from the chill of excitement, of anticipation. Colby lifted her in his arms and lay her on the bed. She held out her hand beckoning him to join her.

“In a moment.”

Watching him undress was an erotic experience. She had already seen him in his underwear, the wet cotton clinging to his body, but this was different. She could watch the play of muscles along his shoulders, over his back, through his thighs with the certainty that she would soon feel these muscles against her skin, under her fingertips. The heat coursing through her body increased so rapidly she squirmed in anticipation. He unbuttoned the top of his long underwear to reveal a scattering of dark brown hair. She barely had time to take that in before he lowered his clothes below his thighs and his erection sprang free.

She snapped her eyes shut. The thought of having to accommodate him inside her body threatened to turn her chills of anticipation to shivers of apprehension.

She opened her eyes when the bed sank under his weight. He lay down next to her and pulled her to him. “You know I’d never hurt you, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Her voice was only a thread.

“If I do anything that hurts or upsets you, promise you’ll let me know, and I’ll stop.”

She nodded.

Rolling up on his elbow, he took her in his arms and kissed her. Welcoming his embrace, she threw her arms around him. A network of fine welts across his back reminded her of what she’d seen the day her father treated his injury. She broke the kiss. “Where did these welts come from?”

“It’s not important.”

He tried to kiss her again, but she pushed him away. “It is important. I have to know.”

He sighed. “My father thought he could make me into the son he wanted by beating what he disliked out of me. Now let’s not think about it anymore.”

How could she
not
think about it? Her brothers had been punished, but never in a way that would cause scars. What kind of man had his father been? She had to know what he had done to warrant such brutal punishment.

But Colby sabotaged her by turning his attention to her breasts. When he teased her nipple with his thumb, it made it hard to remember what she wanted to ask him. When he took her nipple into his mouth and nipped it with his teeth, she forgot his father, the scars, everything. Nothing mattered except what he was doing to her body. She found it hard to believe any part of her body could so completely dominate the rest of her.

Squeezing gently, he alternately laved her nipples with his tongue and nipped them with his teeth until she writhed under him, moaning in appreciation of exquisite sensations she hadn’t thought possible. When his mouth forsook her breasts, wove its way down her belly until it reached her navel, she was positive she’d reached the height of decadence. Surely God would never approve of anything so deliciously marvelous. No sooner had that thought crossed her mind than she decided she was mistaken. No one else could have made such a wonder possible.

It was so wonderful she didn’t realize Colby’s hand had moved down her side and along her thigh until it slipped between her legs. She tensed. She didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help it.