Sweet Autumn Surrender

by Vivian Vaughan

  When they dismounted, she immediately set to untying the pack behind her saddle. “I’ll begin supper while you water and picket the horses,” she suggested.

  With a nod Kale handed her the sack of food and his saddlebags. “You’ll find everything you need in here.”

  Everything except a congenial dining partner, she thought. But at least he seemed agreeable to her suggestions. After locating a skillet, plates, eating utensils, and even a bucket for carrying water, she gathered wood and began a fire in a spot where she and many before her had made campfires through the years. She recalled being here with Benjamin and Armando—the jovial nature of their conversations, the excitement of being on the trail of treasure, as Armando referred to their treks to the cliffs.

  By the time Kale returned, she had water boiling for coffee and sausage frying in the skillet.

  He tossed their bedrolls toward the back of the small clearing. “I would’ve hauled the water, Ellie.”

  Her heart felt heavier than the iron skillet she held in her hands, as heavy as his own tone of voice. “I thought it best to get started.” She forced a pathetic laugh. “If you’re as hungry as I am, you’re half starved to death.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t let you eat breakfast.”

  She stared across the fire to where he stood fidgeting with the toe of his boot in the hard earth. “I’ve gone hungry before and it never hurt me,” she said.

  When he didn’t move or even look at her, she suggested, “Drag us up a log to sit on; supper’ll be ready in no time.”

  While the sausage fried, she sliced bread. When she glanced up again, he stood in the same spot, held the same position. She squinted through the smoke of the campfire, beginning to worry. He looked up then, and the gravity of his expression alarmed her.

  “Marry me, Ellie.”

  His abruptness startled her; the words he spoke didn’t make sense. “What?”

  “Marry me.”

  She stared at him, saw his somber expression. His arms were trembling. “Why?” she demanded.

  Her response appeared to snap him out of whatever trance had held him mesmerized. “Why? What kind of answer is that?”

  “It isn’t an answer. It’s a question. Why would you ask me such a thing?” Tears formed in her eyes, and she turned quickly, lest he see. If he’d stabbed her with the knife she’d just sliced the bread with, he couldn’t have hurt her any more. Her own arms trembled as if in imitation of his, as if the two of them were engaged in some sort of sadistic, mutual bloodletting. She clasped her arms across her chest so he wouldn’t notice.

  Marry him? Didn’t he know she wanted nothing in the world more than to be his wife, to spend the rest of her life beside him?

  “Why?” His voice echoed her words, her confusion.

  She squeezed her eyelids, trying to keep the tears from overflowing. Didn’t he know how she felt? Did he expect her to agree to marry him when she knew how badly he wanted to remain free?

  “I know you want to, Ellie.” His voice was low, almost weak, as if it had been diluted with pain. But his words were no less dangerous for it. What was he trying to do, get her to admit her love for him?

  Was he so vain he needed to hear it, even if the saying of it would destroy her?

  Destroy? No. No, he wouldn’t do that.

  Determination flushed her with anger, and she whirled to face him.

  “And I know why you asked,” she replied. “Because I’m your brother’s wife and you feel obligated.”

  “No,” he protested. “That isn’t true. I need—”

  “I also know what you need, Kale Jarrett, and any girl at Lavender’s can sell it to you. For that matter, I can go to Lavender’s myself.” Her voice rose, stimulated by growing anguish. “I am not dependent on your charity. Your offer is humiliating.”

  Moving more swiftly than he had all day, he grabbed her arms, stopping her words in her throat. “Damn it, Ellie, don’t make it so hard. I’m not good at this. I may not know the words to express my needs, my feelings…”

  His declaration startled her. She raised her eyes to meet his. The determination she saw there matched her own, weakening both her hurt and her will to resist.

  “…but I’ve never felt these things before.” He shrugged while his eyes pleaded with her. “Whatever it is, it’s different, what I feel for you. It isn’t always pleasant, but somehow it’s special, and…I guess I love you.”

  Her mouth fell open the same moment her heart stopped beating. “You guess?” she managed.

  “Hell, Ellie, how would I know? I never even thought that word before I met you.”

  Her brain held nothing now, she was sure, except a muddled mixture of mush. Her puzzlement over his daylong indifference combined with her hurt over his initial proposal of marriage left her as weak as a newborn lamb. If he hadn’t been holding her arms, she knew she’d have fallen flat on her face.

  But despite it all, a strange sort of joy began to bubble inside her, and she wanted to keep it from growing.

  Feeling her relax, he drew her to his chest, an effort to regain his own strength as much as to comfort her.

  Her arms clasped about him, bringing warmth and feeling back to his body, which had been numb for hours now, ever since his damned brothers had come up with that cockeyed notion to draw straws for her.

  Strands of her hair whispered about his face; he felt her nuzzle against his neck, showering him with fiery traces of desire. Her heart beat steadily against his own, reassuring his worried mind, regenerating his dormant passion.

  Slowly he drew her head back and kissed her. They were the same sweet lips he remembered from his dreams. His hands slipped inside her jacket and stroked the length of her back. In his mind he saw her in that green slippery garment. The image of her satin skin roused the need for her that grew continually inside him.

  Finally she moved her lips. “We’d better eat.”

  “Hmm,” he moaned, lips touching lips. “I’m not hungry…except for you.”

  She smiled, willing her own passion to subside for a time. They still had that astonishing proposal to deal with. “We have all night.”

  Acknowledgment lit his eyes, so she repeated her initial request.

  “Why don’t you drag us up a log to sit on?”

  She pan-fried the bread she had sliced earlier, using grease from the sausage. When he returned, she handed him a plate of food. He took it, seated himself on the log, and began to eat.

  She filled her own plate and sat beside him, eating, thinking, wondering what in the world had precipitated such an outlandish proposal of marriage.

  “You’ve worried over this all day,” she mused between bites of sausage and fried bread.

  “Well, hell, Ellie, it’s a damned hard decision.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “It’s a very hard decision. How did you come to it?”

  He glanced at her, then looked back at his plate, recalling in gruesome detail the encounter with his brothers, the evening spent by the creek. He dared not tell her of the scheme his brothers had hatched. He might not know a whole lot about women, but he did know enough to be certain Ellie would be offended. It still made him mad as hell, thinking back on it.

  Finally he heaved a heavy sigh. “I just did.”

  “By yourself? No prompting?”

  He frowned, wondering whether she already knew. “Prompting by whom, Ellie?” They exchanged grins at that, then he returned to the business that troubled her. “Where’d you get such a notion?”

  She recalled Ginny saying just this morning how it was obvious she and Kale had something special between them. Had the others noticed it, too? “You told me you Jarretts take care of your own. I thought perhaps your brothers might have urged you to stay and take care of me.”

  “You don’t need taking care of, Ellie.” He said it because he knew it was what she wanted to hear; he certainly didn’t believe it himself. He said it, too, because she was coming dangerously close to the truth
of things. Then he followed it with the truth. “But I want to take care of you, anyhow.”

  “What about California?”

  He wiped his plate clean with the last bite of bread, stuffed it in his mouth and washed it down with a swallow of coffee. “I’ve been trying to picture myself in California.” His eyes were soft when they caressed her face. “Fact is, Ellie, I can’t see me there without you.”

  She tried to smile, but her lips quivered. His words left her body limp, her brain numb. All day she had watched him struggle with a demon, wondering what troubled him. Now she knew. And it was a surprise to beat all surprises.

  “Don’t ever say you don’t know the right words,” she whispered.

  While she cleaned their plates and the skillet, using the rest of the water in the bucket, he spread their bedrolls beneath the shelter of the thicket.

  Afterward he came to stand in back of her, encircling her from behind, pulling her against his chest. “Ellie, Ellie, this has been a tormenting day.”

  Turning in his embrace, she put her arms around his neck. “Good,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t want you to propose to me without giving it considerable thought.”

  She felt his chest heave, heard a moan escape his lips. When she looked, he was grinning. “Why don’t you crawl under the covers where it’s warm and change your clothes? When I finish banking the fire, you can answer my question.”

  At her astonished look, he frowned. “What’s the matter?”

  “I didn’t bring any nightclothes.”

  “You left that slinky green thing at home?”

  She laughed. “I don’t sleep in that. The only time I ever put it on was…” Suddenly self-conscious, she ducked her head.

  Tipping her chin, he kissed her lips. “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll be there to keep you warm.”

  True to his promise, he returned in record time, crawling into the bed he had made for them, pulling the covers over them both.

  When they came together, she felt the cool outer layer of his skin kindle against her own, becoming hot and satiny to her touch.

  “It’s just as well you left that little piece of silk at home,” he mumbled. “It would have gotten in our way.”

  She snuggled against him, her breasts swelling into his furry chest. “You feel so good.”

  Ignited by the flames lit with their first encounter, strengthened by their subsequent efforts to deny that passion, fueled now by the difficulties they faced, they loved with an urgency they had not felt the first time.

  Now that she knew how glorious the outcome could be, she strove to attain it. And now that he knew the heights to which he could take her, he resolved to settle for nothing less.

  The blankets smelled of him, and when he held her close, filling her with deep, sensuous kisses, she tasted the essence of this man who had confessed his love in such a strange manner that it was tempting to believe him.

  “This is much better,” she sighed.

  “What, honey?” he mumbled, trailing his tongue across her chin, down her neck.

  “Your tactics,” she answered, thinking of his moodiness during the day.

  His fingers traced her hips, her belly, burrowing deep to the core of her. “This?” he whispered. Capturing one taut nipple in his mouth, he mumbled, “Or this?”

  “No.”

  “No?” He raised his face to hers, even though they could see nothing within the confines of the blankets. His nose brushed hers; his fingers continued their devastating attack. “What could be better?”

  “Oh, Kale,” she expelled his name on pent-up breath, “…nothing.” She wriggled against him. “Hurry.”

  Without further talk, he complied, filling her with himself, covering her mouth with his kisses, driving away the torment they both felt with the force of their mutual needs.

  Lust, he heard her call it. At this moment, yes…lust. What then was love? That complicated word which still stuck in his gullet every time he so much as thought it.

  Afterward she clung to him. Instead of feeling secure since his proposal, she felt threatened, terrified now that she’d had more time to know him, to care for him. After their last night of lovemaking, he’d rejected her, saying he didn’t want her to fall in love with him. Now he professed to love her.

  How could he have changed his mind so soon? What had happened to change it for him?

  “I’m sorry it was so quick,” he whispered against her temple. “Was it…?”

  “Perfect,” she responded. “It was perfect, and we have plenty of time. We have—”

  “Forever,” he prompted. “That is, if you…are you ready to answer my question?”

  “Kale, you aren’t supposed to rush a girl.” Quickly, more to cover her own fears than his, she suspected, she kissed him. “Give me till morning.”

  They fell asleep after that, exhausted, what with his sleepless vigil the night before and all the worrying he had done this day, and she struggling to decide what his new sullenness had meant. Kale slept soundly until morning light.

  But Ellie awakened sometime during the night, shivering from doubts aroused by her dream.

  She had dreamed of a pet squirrel Benjamin found under the cottonwood tree. His leg had been broken, and she mended it. They kept him inside the house, where he learned to be content, bringing joy to them both. Then one day she had propped the door open while mopping the kitchen, and he saw the outdoors for the first time since his accident.

  She had closed the door quickly enough to keep him inside, but afterward he had never been content in the house again. He became frantic, dashing to the door, jumping at the windows. Finally they had to set him free.

  “It’s the wild in him, Ellie,” Benjamin had told her. She had loved that little squirrel, and she missed him dreadfully. “It’s the wild,” Benjamin said. “You can’t ever tame the wild out of them.”

  You can’t ever tame the wild out of them…you can’t ever tame the wild out of them…

  Over breakfast she gave Kale her answer.

  “What do you mean, you won’t answer me until I get back from California? I told you, I’m not going.”

  She traced his cheek with her finger. The cool morning air left his skin dry and chilled. She lay her palm there a minute, recalling the past night, how her skin had warmed his, and his, hers. “I want you to be sure.”

  He studied her, wondering why he’d ever believed the men who called women the weaker sex. This woman was strong as nails, and she could see right through him. At times it was a comfort; right now it was a trial.

  “I told you what a desperate day I had, deciding. That included a sleepless night, too, if you want to know. I sat on that damned slab down by the creek all night pondering this thing, Ellie. I’m sure.”

  “When you come back from California, you’ll be even more sure.” If you come back…Quickly, she put the dreadful possibility out of her mind.

  Taking his plate, she set it with hers in the skillet and returned to him. She kissed his lips. “You’re wild, Kale Jarrett…wild and free. You’ve been that way so long you might not be able to change.”

  “Now, Ellie—”

  She kissed him again, and he pulled her to him and held her close. “You know how I feel about the ranch,” she said. “It’s my home. I can’t run around the world, not even for you.” Looking at him, she implored him to understand. “Not even as much as I love you.”

  “Love?” he whispered.

  She nodded, holding her bottom lip between her teeth. Finally, she grinned. “Lust, too.”

  She watched his Adam’s apple bob. “I feel both, too, Ellie. I’ll change.”

  Fiercely she buried her face in the crook of his shoulder and hugged herself to him. “I don’t want you to change. Please don’t think that. Don’t you understand how much I love you? I couldn’t bear to see you cooped up on that little ranch when the whole wide world is beckoning.”

  Chapter Ten

  He didn’t like it, she could tell. B
ut she also detected a feeling of relief in him when he held her and caressed her back with long, gentle strokes. And that would have worried her, except that she knew she was right. She could not cage him up on the ranch; neither could she let him cage himself out of a sense of duty.

  At least she wouldn’t have to endure another day of his morose silence, she discovered after they packed the horses and headed up the trail.

  Soon after they left camp, the draw opened into a canyon which was wide enough to allow them to ride side by side. The country itself became more rocky, traveling more difficult.

  Kale studied the trail ahead of them. Centuries of runoff water had washed away any semblance of dirt, leaving for a trail, if indeed it could be called that, nothing more than a jumble of rocks separating two walls of limestone. Several varieties of cactus grew here and there; the base of each hill on both sides was thick with oak and cedar.

  “How’d you ever find this route?” he questioned. “Surely it would be easier to travel the stage road, even if it is longer.”

  She shrugged. “Benjamin and Armando located it. I just followed them.”

  He winked at her. “All duty and patience.”

  She laughed. “Not entirely, so don’t go getting any notions about the future.”

  After a couple of hours they came to a fork in the canyon. Drawing rein, Kale removed his hat and wiped his forehead with his arm. “Which way, guide?”

  She pointed to the left, where directly ahead of them a sheer limestone cliff rose a hundred feet straight up. Cottonwood trees grew close to the cliff and towered upward to its height. The trees were matted with a covering of wild mustang grapevines, their silvery green leaves glimmering in the sunlight. A small spring gurgled through the rocks and fell into a clear pool. Approaching it, he saw bugs skittering on the surface of the inviting water.

  He held Ellie’s reins while she lay on the ground, sipping water from her hand to prevent getting a mouthful of waterbugs. When she finished, he did the same, after which he slackened his hold on the reins so both horses could drink.