by Nan Ryan
Tall and handsome, he was walking directly toward the group of girls. Never had he been more attractive. He wore a fine superbly tailored suit of heavy gray linen, the exact color of his smoky eyes. The frock coat was stylishly short; the tight trousers, their sharp creases still intact, snugly fit his slim hips and long legs. He put a lean hand into his trouser pocket, pushing his suit coat back. He wore no waistcoat like the other gentlemen, and beneath his snowy-white linen shirt the thick blue-black hair of his chest was a shadowy reminder of his virility. At his throat, a slim, well-tied bow of shiny black silk complemented his black onyx studs. On his thin lapel, a blood-red rosebud added a small splash of color. He was grand. He was the epitome of elegant masculine beauty, and Angie, like all the other appreciative females present, fancifully wished for an instant that he did indeed belong to her.
Angie smiled as he approached and hoped for the best. Nodding warmly to the admiring young women, Pecos spoke, his voice deep, caressing. “How lovely you all are this evening, ladies.” He went directly to Angie’s chair, smiled down at her, touched a wispy golden curl on her neck and said, “May I borrow my sweetheart for a few minutes? I want to take her for a short stroll around the fort; she’s not been here before.”
His smile was dazzling, his even teeth white against his dark skin as he easily charmed the gathering. “You will excuse us?” He bowed grandly from the waist, put a hand beneath Angie’s arm and helped her to her feet while every pair of feminine eyes clung to him and each heart beat just a bit faster.
Angie could have kissed him. Flashing a coquettish smile at the group of envious women, she slipped her small hand around Pecos’s arm, picked up her skirts of silk and strolled away, looking up into his warm gray eyes. None of her newly found friends doubted for a second that the tall, handsome man was Angie’s adoring beau.
Wordlessly, Pecos led Angie away from the buildings, the crowd, the soldiers, toward the black basaltic peaks of Sleeping Lion Mountain, just east of the fort. When Angie was certain no one could hear what she was saying, she asked, “Pecos, did you … that is, could you hear what we were saying when you joined the group of ladies?”
Pecos patted the hand clinging to his arm and gave her a rakish smile. “No, but I bet I can repeat it verbatim.”
Angie jerked her hand from his arm. “You think you are so smart! Just what were we speaking of, then?” Her emerald eyes held a challenging look, her chin was raised defiantly.
Pecos laughed. “I’d say the conversation went something like this.” He raised his voice to a high, shrill shriek, mimicking an excited female. “Will you look at that tall, handsome man with Donaldson and Hanna. Why, my stars above, he’s just the best-looking thing I’ve ever seen! I tell you, girls, if he so much as smiled at me I’d …” Pecos stopped speaking, and deep laughter rumbled from his chest while Angie glared at him, furious.
“They said no such thing, Pecos McClain! You think all … you imagine that all women want you …”
“All but you, Angel.” He stopped laughing, stopped walking and again took her arm. “All but you. Why don’t you want me, Angel?” His luminous gray eyes were on her mouth and Angie automatically moistened her dry lips with the small tip of her tongue. “We’re away from the others. Show me you want me, too, Angel.”
Angie trembled. “I don’t want you!” she said as she pulled away. “I don’t, I don’t.” She did, and it frightened her. They were now away from the fort. The lights and music were far behind them. Pecos was bearing down on her with a determined look in his eyes. Angie began to run. Suddenly terrified of him and what he was doing to her, she mindlessly ran farther from camp instead of turning back to its safety.
Pecos didn’t run after her, but he followed, his steps determined, his intention to hold and kiss her. He’d come to the party at the last minute, deciding that it might be amusing to see the contained jealousy of his father, Barrett McClain. Pecos had drunk and gambled with the young soldiers at Fort Davis on many occasions; he knew they were a spirited, lusty lot and he was certain they’d not miss the charms of Angie, nor would they hide that fact. Pecos knew that Barrett would have to control his jealousy if he didn’t wish to appear the old fool, so Pecos had decided to come along and watch in amusement.
It hadn’t worked that way. The dashing young soldiers had indeed noticed the beautiful, blond Angie. Hot-eyed youths could barely contain their desires, and while Pecos circulated among his drinking friends he’d heard coarse remarks about what they’d like to do to the creamy-bosomed beauty. Pecos found to his irritation that the remarks rankled, disturbed, upset him. While he said nothing, he bit back the anger and realized it was he, not his father, who was suffering from possessive jealousy. He was jealous! He didn’t want other men looking at Angel, much less boasting of what they would do should they get her alone.
Pecos was stalking her now, half-angry at her for being capable of making him jealous..He felt foolish and it was her fault. It made him want to hurt her, and while he took long strides following her, he was not too sure just what he might do when he caught up to her. Angie could sense his anger. She ran, skipping clumsily over the loose rocks, climbing higher up the dark slopes of Sleeping Lion Peak.
The small heel of her slipper caught in a crevice. Angie lost her balance and fell flat on her stomach, her hands out in front of her. Pecos saw her going down and called frantically to her. His anger evaporated; his heart raced with fear and he was at her side in an instant. He fell to his knees beside her and lifted her into his arms, unaware he was babbling foolishly. “Sweetheart! Are you all right? My precious Angel, are you hurt?” He pressed her cheek to his heaving chest, pulling her close, cradling her head and kissing its crown.
“Pecos—” her words were muffled against his warm chest “—I’m fine, but please, you’re smothering me.”
“Honey, I’m sorry,” he breathed, relieved, and set her back, still clinging to her shoulders. “Oh, no,” he murmured, looking at dozens of tiny sharp stickers protruding from Angie’s soft white throat and shoulder. “Prickly pears.”
“Yes,” she echoed, “prickly pears. I fell right into them.” She looked down at herself. Tiny stinging stickers were pricking her sensitive skin from just below her left collarbone all the way down inside the low bodice of her silk gown. “Pecos, what shall I do?”
A devilish gleam appeared in his eyes. “Angel, I suppose you’ll just have to bear it.”
She knew Pecos; she read the double meaning and the mischief in his eyes, but she, too, laughed and pushed him away. “Next you’ll suggest removing the stickers with your teeth.”
He laughed. “They are quite sharp and I’m always eager to help out a lady in distress.” He bared his white teeth and growled.
Pecos had never called her a lady before. Angie knew it was only a figure of speech, but she loved the way it sounded, coming from him. “I appreciate your concern, sir, but I shall …” She started pulling away from him.
“Don’t honey,” he said softly, the laughter gone from his voice and his eyes. “I won’t use my teeth, but I will pull them out for you. Here, lean back against my knee and I’ll go to work. I’ll be careful, honest.”
Angie did as he instructed. Deftly, gently, Pecos pulled the worrisome little thorns from Angie’s soft skin while the harvest moon rose to bathe them in silvery light and the smell of the wild Texas roses made them dizzy. Angie closed her eyes and let her head rest against Pecos’s strong leg. She didn’t see the look of tenderness in his great gray eyes nor the shaking of his lean brown hand as he picked the last of the sharp stickers from the warm swell of her breasts.
More nervous than he’d ever been with a woman in all his life, Pecos sought to quickly right the frightening situation. Aiming to shock her and once more gain the advantage, he said, “That’s it, Angel, all done.” She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Now,” he said, purposely leering down at her, “how would you like us to strip off all our clothes and make love out here on a
bed of wild roses?”
Angie was on her feet with a quickness that surprised them both. “You, Pecos McClain, do not know how to behave and you never will!”
Chapter Eighteen
THE FOLLOWING MORNING Angie, back from her morning ride, was surprised to find Pecos and Barrett together in the library. Barrett sat behind his big oak desk and Pecos was draped lazily in a high-backed chair across from his father.
“Am I interrupting something?” she asked politely, looking from one to the other.
Barrett, rising immediately, smiled warmly at her. “Don’t be foolish, my dear. We’re almost finished, won’t you sit down.”
“Yes, Angel.” Pecos didn’t bother to rise. “Make yourself at home.” He didn’t give her his usual taunting grin; he looked tired and distracted. She quietly took a chair beside him and listened as he spoke to his father.
“Either we round them up now and ship them, or you’ll lose all of them. Alamijo Creek is bone-dry; Cibolo is a shallow mud hole, just like every other stream and watering hole on the range. They’ve nothing to eat or drink and we’ve already lost hundreds. I’m telling you, hold out much longer and we lose everything.” Pecos’s voice was calm, slow, but Angie could sense in it an air of urgency.
“I just don’t know …” Barrett McClain rose and paced the floor. “It could rain any day and …”
“Yes, and it could go for six more months without raining. Damn it, let me round ‘em up and sell. I’m just as concerned for the future of Del Sol as you are and I’m telling you, this is the only answer.”
Barrett McClain, his back to them both, rubbed at the tense muscles in his neck. His shoulders slumped as he slowly turned to face Pecos. “I suppose it’s best,” he said, sighing heavily. “I don’t like it, but I’ll agree to it. Why don’t you take some of the best vaqueros and in a couple of days go …”
Rising lithely, Pecos said authoritatively, “We’ll leave before lunch.”
“Pecos,” his father said, exasperated, “it’s already as hot as blazes outside. At least wait until dawn tomorrow when it’s cooler.”
“Sir, as we speak, cattle are dying out there. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.” He hurried from the room, never casting a parting glance at Angie. For some reason, she felt slighted and surprised.
Barrett came toward her, smiling. “My dear, did you wish to see me about something? I’m sorry I was tied up with Pecos; this terrible drought has me so worried. I kept thinking surely it would finally rain but it’s been months and months.” He shook his white head in despair.
Angie rose from her chair. “I wanted nothing, Barrett. I’m sorry you’re so worried. I wish there was something I could do to help.”
“You are a help, Angie,” Barrett said. He took her hand and Angie once again noticed his icy touch. Hair stood up on her nape. “Just having you here at Del Sol is a great comfort to me. I’ve told you, dear, you’re like my own daughter.” His brown eyes twinkled and he clasped her hand tighter. “Promise me that after dinner this evening, you’ll read to me, or better yet, that you’ll sit on the veranda to catch the night breezes with me.”
“I promise, Barrett.”
THE MORE THAN TWO WEEKS that Pecos was away from the ranch rounding up the Del Sol cattle should have been the most pleasant ones Angie had known since coming to Texas. The first couple of days were fine. It was relaxing not to be constantly on guard against Pecos’s relentless teasing. With him away she felt a new freedom. In the hot still nights, she strolled in the big silent courtyard after the household had gone to bed, knowing she was safe. The devilishly handsome man whose bedroom opened onto the courtyard was far, far away, unable to tempt her to do things that were unholy.
The joy of his absence was short-lived. Much as she hated it, she missed him terribly. Despair filled her as she realized that his being in residence at Del Sol was the very thing that made life on the large West Texas ranch so exciting and so much fun. She was shocked and disheartened to find that without Pecos around, she was lonely and restless.
Angie began to count the days until his expected return. Not daring to ask the elder McClain when Pecos and his men would get back, Angie hung on every word exchanged between Barrett and his ranch hands. Insisting that she would like to walk with him down to the stables late one evening, she so charmed Barrett with her request, he promptly took her up on it. Possessively holding to her arm, Barrett guided her along between adobe outbuildings where the employees of the vast McClain empire and their families lived. Angie enjoyed getting out of the hacienda, and she was overjoyed with the words of one of the three ranch foremen to Barrett McClain.
“Pecos and the boys will be back the day after tomorrow, Barrett, and when they …” Angie did not hear the rest of the weathered foreman’s words. She’d heard all that she was interested in knowing. Anxious only for the conversation to come to an end so that she might retire to the privacy of her bedroom, Angie felt her stomach fluttering with excitement, and she mentally went about choosing the dress she would wear for Pecos’s arrival.
She had dozens of pretty new dresses now, thanks to Barrett McClain’s generosity, and she knew just how she’d spend the rest of the evening. She’d plead tiredness, escape to her room and try on dresses. She would have to be careful not to overdo it and arouse Pecos’s suspicions. She’d not chose one of the dresses she wore for Sunday church services, but maybe one of the cool pastel shades with short puff sleeves and a low curving bodice, and she’d be sure to dab a bit of her new French perfume behind her ears and between her breasts.
“Dear, I said, are you ready to go back to the house?” Barrett was looking at her intently.
“Oh, I … yes I am, Barrett. Sorry if I seem distracted; I’m growing a little tired.”
“I understand,” he said, again taking her arm, “it’s this abominable heat. Even with the sun setting, it’s still extremely warm.”
“Yes, it is. I think I’ll just go straight to my room, take a cooling bath and try to rest.”
“A good idea, my dear. I don’t want you to overdo, but I’ll admit I’m a bit disappointed that I’ll not have your sweet company out on the porch tonight.” He cocked his white head, hoping she’d change her mind and agree to join him.
Pressing a hand to her forehead, she lamented, “I’d love to, Barrett, I’m simply too exhausted.” Her small twinge of conscience lasted only until she had reached her room.
ANGIE HAD EXPECTANTLY waited throughout the long, hot summer day for Pecos’s return. A full week into September had seen no end to the arid, scorching weather, and Angie, longing to look cool and fresh when Pecos arrived, fretted silently that she would surely wilt and be a sight for his homecoming. After her early-morning horseback ride with Roberto Luna, she’d gone straight to her room to bathe and prepare herself. She chose an emerald-green dress of soft cotton. She picked it purposely because it brought out the green of her eyes and its low neckline showcased her shoulders and neck, and because Pecos had never seen her in it. Foregoing the coronet of braids she usually wore, Angie brushed her hair and let it fall loosely down her back, just the way Pecos liked it. Smiling at herself in the gilt-framed mirror, she trailed the glass stopper of expensive perfume down between her full high breasts and felt a shiver run up her spine.
The September sun was a sinking red ball on the western horizon as the family sat for dinner. At long last Angie heard the clanking of big-roweled spurs announcing Pecos’s arrival. He strode into the candlelit room, sweeping his soiled Stetson from his dark head, nodding in a slow, encompassing gesture to all, and addressed his father.
Angie felt the food in her throat expand. She swallowed convulsively, her watering eyes riveted to the tall commanding man relating details of the Del Sol cattle drive. Pecos had not shaved since he’d left. His beard, as blue-black as the hair on his head, was thick and scraggly, and flecked with dust. His open gray cotton shirt was stained. Chamois chaps encased his long lean legs, leaving only the circular cut
out over his groin unleathered.
Angie couldn’t take her eyes from him. Never before had she seen the immaculate Pecos unkempt. Now he was unshaven, sweaty, dirty. He looked wild and threatening. He was, to the young woman falling hopelessly in love with him, the most virile, glorious sight on earth. He exuded an animal sensuality that drew her like a powerful magnet. She laid her fork aside and literally clung to the table’s edge to keep from jumping up and running straight into his long arms. His imposing presence filled the room and his forceful smell of sweat and horses and manliness filled her senses. Shocked and terrified by the magnitude of her response to him, she lightly shook her golden head, as if she could clear him from it.
“… the last of the herd should roll out of Marfa in the morning. I left a dozen men in place with the cattle.” Pecos stood speaking to his father. His deep voice was tired, soft.
“That’s fine, Pecos,” Barrett answered. “We’ll take a loss, but …”
Pecos sighed heavily. “Of course we’ll take a loss, but a loss is preferable to the alternative. You know damned well that …” He fell silent, shrugging his broad shoulders. His hard gaze softened the minute he turned to Aunt Emily. A broad, warm smile split his hair-covered face, his teeth starkly white amid all that blue-black hair. “I’d hug you, sweetheart,” he said, letting just the knuckles of his gloved right hand slide down her pale cheek, “but I’m too dirty even to be in the same room with a lady.”
His words were not lost on Angie. Pecos didn’t say “with ladies.” He was pointedly not including her as a lady. It stung her badly and her thrill at his homecoming quickly fled. Thinking sadly that she’d been a fool to look forward to this moment, she stiffened when he ambled around the table in her direction, speaking as he came.
“Think I’ll grab myself a bottle of brandy and a cigar and go straight on out to my room.” He was standing beside Angie’s chair. She continued to look straight ahead, but from the corner of her eye she could see his leather-covered thigh only inches from her shoulder. “Yes, I’ll strip off all these smelly old clothes and lower my tired, naked body into a tub of hot water.” Angie held her breath as his gloved hand slowly came toward her plate. “When I’m presentable, maybe I’ll find something to satisfy my appetite.” With thumb and forefinger he picked up a crispy breast of chicken, raised it to his lips, took a bite, made a face and lowered the chicken back to her plate.