Widow Woman (21 page)

She smelled of fresh water and the newness of spring, and of herself. A scent he'd come to know too well in their nights together. He wondered if she'd taste the same.

"Why'd they come?” His harshness was for himself and his foolish thoughts, though she wouldn't know that.

"I told you all at supper,” she said evenly. “To tell us roundup's starting in a week."

"Didn't take Wood and Dunn to say that. And it didn't take that long."

She remained silent, her face revealing only one emotion—determination.

"Are they pestering you? After you to sell?"

"I'm not selling."

"I know that. What I asked was—"

"I know what you asked, Nick. And I'm telling you I can take care of it."

A sharp reply came to his lips, but he stilled it. Studying her face in the color-robbing light, he thought she looked pale.

"Tell me about the letter, Rachel."

He saw her draw away from the command, but he also saw the worry flicker in her eyes.

"I don't—"

He cut across her refusal because he saw she needed to tell him. His needing to hear didn't matter. “Shag write it?"

"Yes."

"He's better?"

"He says so. But...” She frowned, and worried her lip. He waited. After a time, she released a long, deep breath that seemed to loosen her tight shoulders. “Shag's letter says he was going on to Cheyenne. To hire on more hands—no, by the date on his letter, he's been there and halfway back, so it's too late to stop him."

"Why would you want to?"

"That's a long trip. It can be a rough trip, too. Mud, flooding. And Shag ... Shag's been real sick before, but not like this. I don't know ... I don't know if he's near strong enough yet."

"It's done. Nothing you can do."

"No, there's not.” Agreeing didn't ease her frown.

"What else?"

She stared at where her fingers lugged a sliver of wood loose from the edge of the top door. “His letter said something about making sure anyone hired is really our man and not someone else's."

"Sounds like a good idea."

"I'm not so sure. If a man's looking to get the better of you, and he thinks he's done that, but you know what he's up to, and you can live with it, live around it, sometimes it's better to let it be. You understand?"

"No."

What he understood was that without Shag, she'd continue carrying the full load of running the place. And even when Shag returned, she'd carry more than her share to keep from burdening her ailing foreman. Nick's frustration was he couldn't take that load from her. Because the only way to do that was as her partner, as her equal.

He knew better than to let his thoughts linger there. That wasn't in the cards for Nick Dusaq.

"You don't? I thought of all people you'd understand about just letting something be."

Her tone—tense with an overlay of unconcern—sharpened his attention to the here and now. “Why?"

"Well, it seems your way of handling certain situations—” No question she wasn't talking about the ranch, but about them. “—to let things be, without facing it square. To live around something you come to regret—"

He had regrets about bedding her, but not the ones the bruised look of her eyes and the sharp color in her cheeks reflected.

"—or something that you come to realize, after a while, that you were mistaken about entirely. That you thought was something you wanted, but turns out to be not that at all. That you change your feelings—"

Thought didn't enter into it. Rachel stood before him, head high, hands clenched in desperate dignity, doubting that he wanted her.

He scooped her to him with an arm across her back. A faint gasp escaped her as her breasts met the hardness of his chest, but she remained supple and willing in his arms, her head tilted, making it so easy ... so damn easy.

He kissed her, with more than an edge of desperation. He'd needed this. He'd missed her. God, how he'd missed her. The feel of her softness against him, the warmth and mystery of her mouth, the slide of her tongue against his.

Mistaken? No, he hadn't been mistaken about her.

He was the mistake. And she was making it.

"No more."

He molded his forehead against hers, and pressed his palms to her shoulder blades, wishing her bones could cut into his flesh so pain would distract him.

"Why?"

"Any more and we won't stop at all. And this is no place."

He thought she understood until she brought her hands between them, fingers stroking along his shirt above his pants.

"Rachel,” he groaned in warning.

For all her strength he could easily put her away from him. But the bruised look had gone from her eyes and the color in her cheeks had softened. Could he risk causing them to return? Better if she stepped back herself.

"Rachel."

She rose to kiss him, gliding her tongue into his mouth, capturing him totally. When she took a step back to rest against the stall wall, he followed.

He ended the kiss, but didn't have the power to move away. With another small smile she raised her hands to the neck of her dress and began to unbutton. When she reached the swell of her breasts, the backs of her hands brushed his chest. He should have stilled her hands. He should have covered them and ended this. He didn't. When she had finished, and the bodice fell open, he took the gift she offered.

Parting the fabric, he lowered his mouth to take her nipple through her chemise. She gasped and arched into him, brushing against his arousal, so he moaned deep and raw.

He drew on her deeply, accepting her soft sounds like a caress on his skin, knowing the movement of her hips against his as a benediction.

They moved against each other, trying to find an answer to the ache that grew with each effort to ease it. He lowered his hips, then raised them, parting her legs, forming a place for his hardness against her. She made a low sound, approving but still anxious. He rocked against her and her teeth raked delicately against his throat.

He felt a rub against his outer thigh and realized she'd raised her leg instinctively. Grasping her calf in his palm, he drew it higher, hooking it over his hip as he bent his knees to delve as deeply as he could into the opening still covered by layers of cloth.

"Nick?” Her longing made it a question.

"No."

Only the thin knit of her stocking separated his hand from her calf. Her skirt had ridden up. As he slid his hand over her knee, it slipped under the hem of the skirt, over her stocking, and higher still.

Sweat gathered at his hairline, and lined the center valley of his chest between where her breasts brushed fire against his flesh. Lower, where he pressed against her, he strained against the coarse material separating them.

"I want you."

A need to take that edge of near desperation from her voice sliced through him, past every thought, every defense, and latched hold of instinct.

He jerked his head around and spotted a barrel in the corner. He'd give her the satisfaction he could. “Hold on."

Immediately, she clasped her arms around his neck. With one arm under her buttocks, the other around her back, he carried her two strides to the barrel, setting her down gently, so the raised rim didn't scrape her delicate flesh.

She accepted his touch between her legs with a soft sound. He feasted on her mouth, her throat, her breasts, while he touched her, feeling the heat and moisture of her readiness. He could bring her satisfaction quickly, before his own resistance wore to shreds.

Then he felt her hands at the opening of his pants. With nothing beneath his outer clothes, her fingers quickly met his flesh.

"I wondered.” she murmured.

Nick wasted no time considering her wonderings. He reacted, hot and full, in an instant. It was nearly too much.

Grasping her wrists, he dragged them away, putting them around his neck, then holding her close. The feel of her against the part of him exposed by her questing hands made the cure nearly as dangerous as the ailment.

"I want you,” she said in confused protest.

"I'll ease your ache, Rachel.” Easing his body slightly away from the temptation of her, he returned his hand to her wet heat and felt her answering quiver at his first touch. “Let me do that."

"Don't you ache?"

The truth wrenched from him. “Yes."

"Then what of your ache, Nick?"

"I'm just going to touch you, Rachel."

She surprised him by using her hold on his neck to draw his face to hers. She kissed him, openmouthed, hot. A kiss he couldn't break, even when she released his neck, slid her hands down his chest and deftly curled around him.

"I want you."

It wasn't confused or a protest or a question. She drew him toward her, toward brushing instants of hands and heat, softness and hardness, then he was there, at the entrance of her welcoming body, and nothing in the world or in him could stop him from plunging into that blazing, melting sanctuary.

Nothing.

Nothing existed except her. She clung to his shoulders, her breath hot on his neck and jaw each time he thrust, her freed breasts against his bare chest, her legs wrapped around his hips. Nothing existed except them, and the pain of pleasure. Nothing except sliding nearly free of her, then thrusting so deep he was sure he must touch her soul.

He came to himself reluctantly, trying to hold on to that being he'd believed himself to be for a handful of minutes, even as it tore away from his clenched fists. As long as she stroked his hair, fingers sifting through the ends of his collar, couldn't he stay that other person?

No.

He knew who he was, what he was. He'd always known. Forgetting was the danger. To himself and to her.

Forcing exhausted muscles to obey, he straightened.

She smiled, but that wasn't what he saw. He saw a woman who'd been roughly handled, who'd been taken in a barn stall on a barrel with the only cushioning the few clothes he'd left on her.

With his jaw clenched so tight it throbbed, he drew her to a full sitting position. Arranging her clothing, hooking her light corset, closing buttons, were all a penance of discipline.

His gaze scraped across hers, and he saw concern. When his look went past hers without stopping, she placed two fingertips low on his cheek.

"What is it, Nick? What's wrong?"

Everything. If things were different—But they weren't. He'd learned a long time ago not to pine for what wasn't.

He couldn't offer her what she deserved, what he wanted her to have. So he'd leave her alone. He had to.

"I made a promise, and I broke it."

"I wanted this, Nick."

"It doesn't matter."

"Doesn't it?” She gave him a quizzical look. She didn't understand. So it was up to him.

"It won't happen again."

"But that's—"

"It can't,” he said with such harsh desperation she winced. He didn't relent. “Go in now, Rachel, and forget all this."

"What if I don't want to? What if I want this to happen again and again? What if—"

"It can't.” This time the words were cold and smooth, allowing her nothing to hold on to, nothing to fight.

"You are the most stubborn man—"

He saw her blinking against tears she didn't want to shed, and he didn't comfort her. She turned to hide them and he didn't console her. She walked away from him and he didn't stop her.

He couldn't take the risk.

Any contact could make him want to make love with her again. And he might not be able to let her go the next time. Then he'd destroy her.

He stood in the dark outside the barn and watched the dim glow of a lamp in her room. Before any more shadows could tempt him, he turned away.

But he didn't sleep.

He wanted her. All the time. And he wondered if wanting could eat you from the inside out.

Nick released his rope from a newly branded and ear-notched calf, freeing it to scurry, bawling, to its bellowing mother.

First day of roundup was going well. Men and horses were well rested. The Circle T hands showed a special zeal, perhaps because Shag, noticeably thinner and slower, was well enough to be on hand, though Nick was the roundup foreman. Spread across the assigned section, men from area ranches had ridden all morning, drawing in enough head to keep them busy with branding to sunset.

As Nick rewound his rope, he watched Davis bring in a calf, while a trailing cow expressed maternal outrage.

Bert Overton, the whip-thin hand who'd moved from the Circle T to Dunn's KD outfit, looked at the cow's flank.

"KD!” he hollered to the men by the fire waiting to know which branding iron to use on the calf.

Davis's head jerked around in surprise. He opened his mouth, but Nick caught his eye and gave a shake of his head. Andresson shut his mouth, though the dark frown so out of place on his pleasant face remained.

As if on his way to the milling herd for another calf, Nick shifted Brujo close to the mother cow. But after a keen look at the brand on her hip, he made no pretense when he cut off the man bringing a red-hot KD iron, prepared to mark the animal Thomas Dunn's property.

"If that's a KD calf, Overton—” Nick's slow voice turned every man in its vicinity to listen “—you better teach Thomas Dunn's calves to stop nursing from Circle T cows."

A spurt of laughter rose, and Overton's narrow face darkened.

Though the man holding the iron stood transfixed, Arnold Brett, one of Natchez's top hands, eased nearer the cow in question.

"You don't know what you're talking about, Dusaq. That's KD brand, big as day,” Overton blustered. “That might be your idea of a joke in Texas, but it ain't funny here."

"It isn't funny anywhere.” Nick's even, cool tone distilled pure challenge.

Overton opened his mouth again, but before anything came out, Brett called, “Looks like Circle T to me."

Overton cut a dark look at the man he'd worked with at the Circle T before they'd left—one to KD, the other to Lazy W—and shut his mouth.

Two other Lazy W hands moved in, apparently eager to make their own reading. The cow started sidestepping nervously, and Bob Chapman, the Lazy W underforeman, waved them away. Chapman looked from Overton to Nick.