As she reached the end of the hallway, Cassie thought she heard humming. Pausing in front of the door, she cocked her ear. It was humming—and it sounded like Shane. She pounded impatiently on the door and heard him answer, “Come in.”
Entering through the door and stalking rapidly inside, Cassie began talking. “I know you’re behind this and don’t deny it! I…” Her voice trailed off, realizing what she’d intruded upon.
Shane’s gloriously naked body was submerged in a tub of sparkling water and nothing else. At first, his face registered shock. Then amusement replaced the shock as his lips curled up wickedly.
“I can guess what I’m supposed to deny, but you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t rise to the occasion. After all, I told you that you wouldn’t win.”
His amused tone threw Cassie off guard. She didn’t know whether to be more mortified because she’d intruded on his bath or because she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from the magnificent picture he made. Regardless of what they’d shared, this vaulted her beyond every boundary of propriety.
“I, I…” Words failed her, and to her increasing embarrassment, that just seemed to amuse Shane even more.
“I suppose it’s not proper for me to remain seated while in the presence of a lady.”
Cassie watched in fascination as he prepared to rise from the tub. When it became apparent that he was going to carry out his intention, reason penetrated her numbed senses. “You, you…”
Before Cassie could move, Shane rose from the tub, shaking the water from his body like a great beast. As her throat suddenly went dry, she remained still while his arms pulled her close. Feeling the moisture from his body penetrate the cotton fabric of her work shirt, Cassie sucked in her breath.
Pulling her against the undeniable evidence of his desire, she found herself arching toward him instead of backing away. When his hands cupped her bottom, molding her to him, she felt the moisture from his hands dampen her pantalets and sear her skin.
With a few easy movements, Shane unbuttoned her work shirt and unlaced the camisole. Her breasts peaked at their sudden exposure to his roaming hands. Just as abruptly, those same hands left her aching nipples, tugging impatiently at the fastenings of her breeches. Pulling them open and then peeling them off along with her pantalets, Shane grasped her close, setting her throbbing flesh over his leg. Rubbing her against the length of his muscled thigh, Cassie called out his name, begging for release. Shane lifted her, placing her on his shaft.
Gasping, Cassie slid toward him, unable to believe her actions, unable to believe the sensations Shane was creating.
Thought deserted her as she wrapped her legs around him, instinctively holding on to him for support. Lowering his head, Shane nipped at one breast, never stopping the long, piercing strokes.
Her breath coming shorter, Cassie recognized the weakness in her limbs, the drug of passion that coursed through her body.
Panting, she ran her hands frantically over Shane’s body, reveling in the hard muscles beneath her fingers, the soft pelt of fur covering his chest. His strokes deepened, as though he were searching for her very soul, and Cassie arched her back, unable to still the sudden cry that rose to her lips.
Shuddering, she felt Shane reach his climax. Half gasping, half panting, they drew back. Staring at one another in astonishment and incredible satiation, neither spoke.
Gently, Shane lifted her down, setting her on the chair that held his fresh denims and shirt. Breathing in shallow spurts, they continued to stare at one another without speaking. Cassie glanced at her clothing strewn about the floor, unable to believe the coupling—like that of animals in season—and unable to believe she’d wanted the sudden passion as much as Shane, savoring every moment so much she still felt a throbbing of desire.
Finally pulling her eyes away from him, Cassie glanced down at the floor and spotted the restraining order she’d ridden over to show Shane.
Sudden shame filled her. Lust for Shane had driven away all thoughts of her family’s welfare. Angrily, she reached for her clothes and dressed hurriedly, fastening her breeches and buttoning her shirt with trembling fingers.
Shane’s voice was tentative. “Cassie…”
“I’ll speak to you in your parlor,” she answered stiffly. He made a move to follow her. “After you’re dressed.”
Stalking from the room, Cassie moved ahead blindly. Tearing down the stairs, she reached the parlor, pacing the suddenly confining room. At the sound of Shane’s approaching footsteps, Cassie froze, then slowly turned in the direction of the sound, mesmerized by the sight of him padding forward, barefoot, dressed only in his form-fitting denims and the rough cambric work shirt that hung open to the waist. She found she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the chestnut hairs that swirled in a beguiling fashion from his muscled chest to the lean tapering…
Her response to him was automatic. Turning her back on him, she hoped he would fasten the buttons on his shirt before she capitulated and threw herself at him again.
“Cassie?”
Slowly she turned about, unwilling to meet his eyes.
“Is this what you came to show me?”
A glance at his outstretched hand showed the crumpled paper she’d planned to confront him with, which she’d apparently forgotten in her headlong flight from his room.
Cassie salvaged a bit of her pride when she remembered her original mission. “You know it is,” she challenged, still not fully meeting his amused glance.
“Ah, Cassie,” he sighed, raking his freshly washed hair with one hand, while further crumpling the paper in the other.
Cassie tried not to notice the droplets of moisture still clinging to the sheen of his chestnut hair. It was too easy to remember those same droplets trailing a path down his muscled torso, rivulets that caressed…She mentally shook herself, wishing she had a bucket of cold water with which to douse herself.
“Do you deny your part in getting the restraining order?” she demanded.
“I told you it was a fool idea and you’d be stopped.”
“I suppose you had no part in it?”
“Not directly.”
“Not directly! Your solicitor’s signature is on the bottom of this order.”
He merely shrugged his shoulders in response.
“It’s certainly convenient to have a crooked solicitor on the payroll, isn’t it?”
“Now that you mention it, I guess it is, especially when I have a damn fool neighbor who wants to run everyone else off the range.”
Since he had drawn himself up to his full height, Cassie found that she had to tip her head back to meet his blazing look. But confront him she did. Face to face, eye to eye, breath to breath.
“Grand words from the man who wanted to run me off the range before I ever got here!”
The gauntlet was thrown, the challenge too provocative to ignore. “Maybe it would’ve been a hell of a lot better if I’d succeeded. I wouldn’t be standing here arguing with you now…”
He wished they’d never met? Her face blanched at his unexpected verbal assault. While she’d mentally reminded herself at each of their encounters that his only interest was her land, to have it thrown in her face after their lovemaking was more painful than she’d realized. Her own pain was too great to see the remorse that shadowed Shane’s face as soon as he’d issued the hateful words.
Cassie’s huge violet eyes seemed to deepen with pain as she met his glance.
“Perhaps it would have.”
Without further words she bolted from the room. Cassie scarcely heard him as he called her name and tried to run after her. Mounting her horse, she tore away before Shane could even begin to find his boots. And long after Cassie had ridden off, he stood on the wide veranda, cursing his ill-suited choice of words and kicking his bootless feet against the undeserving veranda pillars.
29
Millicent carelessly scattered feed around the yard as the worrisome chickens pecked and squawked at the hard dirt. H
er mind wasn’t on chores; she was thinking of Ringer and their last time together. She shivered, remembering the feelings he’d aroused. She wondered what the culmination of those feelings would have been had he not let reason intervene and stopped before they crossed that special line.
She’d lain awake at night, remembering the intensity of his eyes, the incredible feeling of his hands on her aching flesh. Millicent felt no shame, only a burning need to resolve her frustrations. Remembering Ringer’s blazing eyes, she knew he was feeling a similar measure of slow torture. But, he told her, he respected her far too much to dally with her in the field. She was beginning to think that respect was greatly overrated.
Millicent glanced upward beyond the chicken yard, and a sudden frown marred her face. Cassie was crossing into the barn, her steps leaden, her face downcast. Ever since the letter from the lawyer had come, Cassie hadn’t been herself. Millicent could hardly believe that Cassie had expected to win the first round so easily. No, it must be something else. But Cassie had remained stubbornly silent. Whatever was bothering her was buried too deep to be easily solved.
Millicent put the chicken feed away and pulled off her apron. She was determined to take her friend’s mind off her problems, whether Cassie liked it or not.
As they pulled up to the mercantile, Cassie noticed a growing crowd gathering in the street. Plucking Millicent’s sleeve to get her attention, Cassie pointed down the street. “What do you suppose that’s all about?”
Millicent stared at the increasingly rowdy crowd. Cassie stood up in the box of their wagon, trying to see over the heads of the crowd. Perplexed, she turned to Millicent. “It looks like just an ordinary family.”
Cassie and Millicent climbed down from their wagon and moved forward to the wooden boardwalk. Cassie, unable to conceal her curiosity, turned to one of the ladies nearby who was also trying to see past the crowd.
“Excuse me, but can you tell me what all the fuss is about?”
“Homesteaders,” the woman replied briefly, obviously still trying to peer over the broad shoulders of the man in front of her.
“What does that mean?” Cassie persisted.
“They’re farmers, putting claim on the range.”
“But why is everyone so angry?”
The woman finally turned her full attention to Cassie. “Because they build fences!” This was said in a tone implying that Cassie was painfully ignorant and that fences were an abomination.
“Oh,” Cassie murmured, automatically sympathizing with the luckless homesteaders as one underdog to another. “You mean everyone’s that angry over fences?”
The woman swept a contemptuous glance over Cassie’s calico-clad figure. “I’ll say so. I can’t think of anything that’d make a cattle rancher angrier—except maybe a Dalton.”
Cassie smiled at the gleaming new fence posts with pride. Sunlight glinted off the twisting strands of barbed wire, providing her with a deep sense of satisfaction. She ignored the bothersome reminder that perhaps she was acting out of revenge—and anger at being spurned and made to feel like the spinster she was. Instead, she told herself, the fences were for her family’s much-needed protection.
Ignoring her annoyingly active conscience, Cassie walked the newly blatant property line between her spread and Shane’s. As though the fence posts had put out a silent beckoning call of their own, Cassie spotted the rising dust of an approaching rider. With little more than a shadowy outline in the distance, Cassie could almost guarantee who the rider would be. With a small sigh of reluctance, she squared her shoulders, preparing to meet his resistance.
Shane rode his horse dangerously close to where she stood. Unnerved, Cassie stepped back as Shane abruptly dismounted, closed the small space between them, and took her shoulders in a furious grasp.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” His voice was low and unmistakably angry.
Cassie swallowed a suddenly large lump in her throat, trying to sound calmer than she felt. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“More obvious than you realize, lady. Trying to start one war over the water wasn’t enough for you. Now you’ve gone and put up fences!”
She forced herself to sound confident. “They’ll keep my sheep in, and your cattle—”
“You’re not fooling me for a minute, Cassandra Dalton.” Cassie’s head jerked upward at the use of her full name. He’d never seemed so angry before. “You’re waving a red flag in front of a herd of bulls, and you damn well know it.”
“I know no such thing! I’m protecting my property the only way I know how. I have every right—”
“Every right to get yourself ambushed for being such a dim-witted fool, you mean. You’re not putting up protection—you’re issuing an invitation to battle. I want you to tear down these fences now, Cassie.” His voice softened almost imperceptibly. “For your own sake.”
“And what if I refuse?”
His words hardened into shards of iron. “Then I’ll tear them down.” Just as abruptly as he’d grabbed her, Shane released his hold, leaving her swaying momentarily without his support. Dazed, she stared after him as he mounted his great sorrel. As she continued to stare, he gaited the horse backward, looking deeply into her upturned face.
“Remember, Cassie, I meant what I said.”
He turned to leave, his grim words slapping backward into the mocking wind that rocked about her.
As dusk melted into darkness, Cassie rode to the barn and slowly dismounted. She noted that Ringer’s horse was hitched to the rail near the front porch. At least one of us has a gentleman caller, she thought dispiritedly. The intensity of Shane’s feelings had shaken her more than she’d thought they would. She’d meant to anger him, hoped he’d feel a fraction of the hurt she did but still she had been unprepared for his reaction.
With leaden feet she forced herself to the front door and tried to summon a cheerful face for Millicent and Ringer. One look at their serious faces told her the pretense was unneeded.
Ringer scarcely let her enter the room before he advanced on her. “I’ve met my share of fool-headed, stubborn women in my day, but you beat all, Miss Cassie.”
Cassie opened her mouth to answer, but he didn’t allow her time to interrupt.
“What could you be thinking? Putting up fences on cattle land!”
“Now, wait—”
“No, you wait. You gotta know you’re fixing to start up a nasty war—and you’re planning to put Milly and your brother right in the middle of it.”
“I think you ought to let Millicent speak for herself.”
Millicent’s face mirrored her determination. “All right, I will. I told you before you put up the fences that it was foolish and I’ll tell you again now: I think you’re crazy for defying the entire countryside.”
Cassie’s face fell as Millicent echoed Shane’s and Ringer’s sentiments. Would no one stand loyally beside her?
Cassie’s voice was heavy as she replied, “So, you’ve decided to stand against me too.”
Millicent moved closer, her body a study of earnest persuasion. “No one’s against you, Cass. We just don’t want to see you or Andrew hurt.”
Ringer clasped an arm about Millicent. “Or you, Milly.”
Cassie watched painfully as the two gazed at one another, their love obvious and requited. It made the gaping ache in her heart seem to throb even more intensely. Was this to be her destiny—watching others fall in love and be happy while she garnered more enemies than one person need ever have?
Slowly she turned away from them, stepping quietly to the door and easing onto the porch. She doubted that Millicent and Ringer even missed her presence.
Automatically her eyes picked out the constellations she’d learned as a child. Somehow, with the vast inky darkness cloaking the seemingly endless land, the sky seemed larger and more encompassing than it ever had in Boston.
An unwelcome chill of loneliness chased up her spine, settling uncomfortably in the already aching region o
f her heart. How she missed Shane’s strength. She had felt headstrong and brave when first confronting him, but now…With both Millicent and Ringer solidly lined up against her, she didn’t feel nearly so brave, nor as certain she was right. She couldn’t fence her entire property, and when Andrew and Hector had to shift the flock to a different grazing pasture, the fences would be for naught. Solitary reminders of a futile gesture.
Cassie leaned her cheek against the cool, splintered wood of the porch column. She gazed into the stars that seemed to dip in her direction and beckon in an unspoken plea, as though even the stars wanted to retain their hold over the vast, unfettered land.
All right, all right! I can’t fight everyone. Cassie smiled sardonically as the stars seemed to brighten in the shrouded night.
Cassie laid down her breakfast napkin and pushed away from the table, determined to set things right and not let the gloom of the previous evening cloud her day. But still a picture of Shane’s face flashed through her mind, reminding her of what she now missed.
Pausing on the front porch, she allowed herself a moment to appreciate the undisturbed beauty of the cloudless azure sky. Absently she wondered why Star wasn’t nipping at her feet. She checked on the ewes in the pen and, satisfied, turned to check the shed. Seeing Millicent cross the yard with a basket of laundry, Cassie waved and sent her a large grin. Taken aback, Milly waved weakly and answered with a smile that showed her obvious surprise.
Cassie continued her early-morning inspection, thinking wryly of the still gleaming fence posts that would have to be torn down. Feeling a moment of shame, Cassie realized the only true intention behind building the fences. She had wanted to hurt Shane in the same measure as he had hurt her. Instead she had divided family and friends into enemy camps. And, Cassie realized sadly, fences were no defense against Shane’s rejection. She and Shane were oil and water, and nothing would change that. Certainly not fences.
But even as her mind tried to overrule her heart, she found herself wavering. Thinking of Shane, Cassie found herself missing the strangest things. Like his eyes—the way they crinkled at the corners from years of laughter and countless days in the searing sun—and his winsome smile, the way it touched her heart with its enduring charm.
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