Her sons weren’t listening. Buck gained the top position. He levered back on his knees and landed a punch square in Bowie’s face. Blood exploded from Bowie’s nose. He let out a sound that could only be called a battle cry. With a mighty heave, he shoved Buck off him, gathered his legs under him and jumped to his feet. Buck rolled and got upright, too.
They traded more blows. Blood was flying everywhere. A lamp went over and Chastity swore. “That does it,” she said. She took off through the hall doorway, just as Bowie leapt on Buck again.
For the second time, the brothers went down, breaking Chastity’s coffee table in the process. The sounds of splintering wood joined with the heavy male grunts and the sickening thuds of fists on flesh.
“Holy Mary, the tree!” cried Glory.
“Grab it,” said B.J. In unison, they turned to the tree and grabbed the trunk from either side.
“Get back,” Glory shouted. She held the tree steady and kicked out at Bowie as he rolled too close. “You get back from this tree, Bowie Bravo, or I will kick you silly.”
“Oof! Ow!” Bowie grunted and groaned as Glory kicked him from behind and Buck hit him, a rapid-fire series of punches to the midsection.
“Get away from the tree!” Glory shouted again.
“Okay, okay.” Buck got Bowie by the leg, dragged him clear of the tree and then sat on him. “Had enough?”
“Get offa me, you—”
Buck hit him again as Chastity reentered the room. Nobody noticed she had a revolver in her hand until she aimed at the ceiling and fired.
Eighteen
The shot echoed and plaster rained down. Glory cried out.
And then there was silence, except for Bowie’s groans.
Buck armed blood off his face, dragged himself off Bowie and staggered to his feet. Bowie just lay there, clutching his stomach and groaning some more.
“Look at this mess,” muttered Chastity, shaking her head at her ruined coffee table, her broken lamp, the flattened boxes of decorations and the glittering shards of shattered ornaments littering the floor.
Buck pressed a cut on his lip. Blood seeped through his fingers. “I’ll pay for all this, Ma, don’t worry. We’ll get everything back good as new.” He stood over his vanquished brother. “Bowie?” he growled.
Bowie groaned some more.
“Now,” said Buck.
“Awright, awright. B.J., I’m sorry I called you a bitch.”
“Apology accepted.” B.J. spoke up loud and clear.
“Good, then.” Buck held down a hand.
But Bowie wouldn’t take it. Moaning low, he rolled to his side, gathered his legs close to his chest, and rolled again, groaning sharply as he got his knees beneath him. He dragged himself upright, still clutching his ribs, blood dripping from his nose. “Damn,” he muttered, glancing around at the damage. “Sorry, Ma…”
Chastity only shook her head some more.
Bowie turned his bloody face to Glory then.
“Oh, Bowie…” Her frustrated love for him was clear to see in her shining brown eyes.
They shared a long, aching glance. He whispered, “Glory…” as if her name held all his hurt and angry confusion—and his one slim chance for redemption, as well.
She gave a cry and took a step toward him.
But he put up a hand. “Don’t.” And then he turned and staggered out, disappearing through the doorway that led to the dining room.
Several seconds later, they heard the back door slam shut.
Chastity surveyed the devastation. “Well. The good news is, right at the moment, none of my guests are in the house.”
Glory’s longing gaze was locked on the dining-room doorway through which Bowie had vanished. She spoke to the man who was already gone. “Oh, Bowie…” The words faded off into a heart-heavy sigh.
“Go on, then.” Chastity made a shooing motion with both hands. “Go after him. See if he’ll let you patch him up a little.”
With a tiny cry, Glory rushed off the way Bowie had gone.
Chastity scooped up a fallen box of tissues from the floor and shoved it at Buck. “Stop bleeding all over my parlor.”
He yanked out several and dabbed at a cut on his temple and another one on his cheek. Since his lip was still dripping, he ended up pressing the wad of bloody tissues to that.
“B.J.” Chastity was all business now. “Take Buck upstairs, will you? Bandage him up. There’s a first aid kit in his bathroom—check the cabinet under the sink.” She dropped the tissue box on the marble-topped side table and sent a glance Lupe’s way. “I’ll need a little help here.”
Lupe dared for the first time to step away from the corner where she’d piled her equipment. “No problem,” she said. “Whatever I can do…”
Upstairs in Buck’s bathroom, a tiny cubicle containing a commode, a sink and a narrow shower stall, B.J. flipped down the yawning toilet seat. “Sit.”
Still pressing the bloody tissues to his cut lip, Buck dropped to the seat. B.J. turned for the sink and the cabinet beneath it. The first aid kit—a white plastic box with a red cross on the lid—was right where Chastity had said it would be.
B.J. set the kit on the back of the toilet. She ran water in the sink and wet a few washcloths. Armed with a wet, wrung-out cloth, she turned to her patient.
He studied her face. “You mad at me?”
She didn’t answer, only took the wad of tissue from him and tossed it in the wastebasket that was tucked into the tight space between the commode and the wall. Carefully, she set to work cleaning up his poor, battered face.
The cuts on his temple and his cheek had pretty much stopped bleeding. They were both turning a deep purple-black. She gave him her cloth. “Press this to your lip for the moment, will you?”
He did as instructed, seeking eye contact—which she carefully avoided. She turned again to the sink and wrung out a second cloth. When she faced him once more and began dabbing at the cut on his temple, he nudged her leg with his knee.
She paused to tap the offending knee. “Stop that.”
“You are mad at me.”
She grimaced as she dabbed and swabbed, thinking it had to hurt him.
Buck seemed oblivious to the pain. “B.J.? Come on…” He turned his head enough to brush the uninjured half of his mouth across the inside of her wrist.
She resolutely ignored the way her skin heated at his touch. “Will you sit still?”
He grabbed her wrist. “Think about it. What was I supposed to do? He called you a bitch.”
She jerked free of his grip. “Oh, let’s see. You might have just…let it alone, maybe?”
“Stand there and do nothing while he called you an insulting name? Uh-uh. I don’t think so.”
“Believe me, I’ve been called worse.”
“Not while I was around.”
“Buck. Listen carefully. I don’t need my honor defended—and if I do, I’ll defend it for myself.”
“But you weren’t defending yourself. You were letting it happen.”
“So what? That was my choice—the wisest choice, by the way. Look at you. All cut up and bruised and bleeding. And think of the mess downstairs. If you’d left it alone, I wouldn’t be patching you up right now. Your mother wouldn’t be down there cleaning up the disaster that used to be her front parlor.”
His hand dropped to his thigh and a heavy sigh escaped him. He looked beyond her, toward the open door to the hallway.
Fine, she thought, don’t look at me, then. She finished cleaning the cut at his temple, spread some healing salve on it, and bandaged it up. The injury high on his cheek came next. She cleaned it, too, and put on the salve.
“Your right eye is swelling up.” She applied a butterfly bandage to the cut on his cheek.
He squinted at her through the eye in question. “Well, yeah. So?” He lifted one shoulder in an eloquent shrug, one that said he’d had black eyes before and was not impressed that he had another one.
“I’d bett
er get some ice for it.” She straightened and turned for the door.
He caught her hand. She stopped in midstride, but refused to turn back to him—not even when he raised her fingers to his battered mouth.
His lips touched her skin in a light kiss that sang through every nerve in her body. “Somebody had to call Bowie on the way he’s been acting. He needed taking down a notch.”
“I don’t think brawling solves anything.” She remained resolutely facing the door.
He lowered her hand and gave it a squeeze. “As a rule, I would agree with you. But with Bowie, we’ve pretty much run out of alternatives. Sometimes, when a man gets too far out of control, the only thing that will bring him up short is a hard right to the jaw—and besides…” He let the word trail off.
Reluctantly, she turned to him. “Besides, what?”
He tugged on her fingers. “C’mere.” When she finally gave in and stepped between his spread knees, he let go of her hand and tipped his head back. Those gorgeous dark eyes gleamed at her, one of them soon to be no more than a swollen purple slit. “I didn’t start it. You were there. You know I didn’t.”
Her fingers itched to soothe the bruise on his jaw. “You challenged him.”
“Somebody had to.”
She realized he was probably right—much as it went against the grain to have to admit that she’d let Buck get in a fight for her sake and done hardly anything to stop it. “Okay. I understand. I guess…” She allowed herself the touch she’d been longing for. Lightly, she stroked the sore spot at his jaw.
He prompted, “But?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Right there at the end, I realized…”
“That?”
“Oh Buck, he really loves her. It’s more than…animal attraction. More than just possessiveness because she’s having his baby. He loves her truly and deeply, I think. And she really loves him.”
“That’s right.” His tone said he knew already—he’d always known.
And she supposed that he had. “He’s not very good at loving, is he?” Buck shook his head and she added, “It’s just so sad, that’s all.”
“So you’re not mad…you’re sad?”
“Life can be so cruel, you know?”
“It’s always possible that they’ll work it out, eventually.”
“How? Like we did?”
He captured her hand again. Gently, he twined his fingers with hers. It felt good—right—to have her hand in his, their fingers woven together. “Hey, come on. It may be six years later, but look at us. Right here. In this dinky bathroom. Together.”
But for how long? she thought.
She didn’t say it, though. It didn’t matter for how long. For now, she was sticking with this moment, and this moment only.
She felt the tender smile as it trembled across her mouth.
He said, “There you go. A smile. Much better.”
“Your eye is looking more swollen and purple by the second. Mind if I get the ice now?”
“Only if you hurry back.”
“Won’t be a minute. I promise.” He allowed her fingers to slip free of his. “Keep that cloth against your mouth,” she chided. “That gash worries me. You could need stitches there.”
“Get the ice, B.J. I’m going to be fine.”
Nineteen
“B.J.…” It was Buck’s voice, soft and tempting in her ear.
She sighed and snuggled deeper under the covers.
“Wake up, you sleepyhead.”
Reluctantly, she rolled to her back and opened an eye. Buck’s battered face loomed above her. She frowned up at him. “You look truly terrible.”
He grinned—or at least, he tried. With his cut lip, it was a lopsided attempt. “I may be ugly, but I feel great. Incredible sex will do that for a guy.” Last night, he’d followed through on the threat he’d made after their snowball fight. It had been a most delicious revenge. For both of them.
She suggested, “I’d stay away from young children for a few days, though. One look at you and they’ll run away screaming, damaged for life.”
“Heh-heh-heh.”
“Excuse me?”
“That was the evil laugh of a sex-crazed monster.”
“Oh. Well. Consider me terrified.” She stretched and yawned. “What time is it?”
“Seven-o-two.”
“Ugh. Too early. Wake me up in an hour.” She tried to roll back over onto her side.
But he caught her shoulder. “I’ve got something to show you.”
“Can’t it wait?” She yawned again, a big, wide one.
“Uh-uh.” He threw back the covers.
“Eek. It’s freezing.” She looked down at her naked body. “I’ve got goosebumps on my goosebumps. Give me those covers…”
He shook his head and pointed toward the French doors. “Look.”
Beyond the glass, the sky was silvery gray, the clouds thick enough to obscure the rising sun. And that wasn’t all.
She let out a cry of delight. “Hey. It’s snowing.” Fat, white flakes drifted softly down. Goosebumps forgotten, she scooted up to her knees. “Oh, Buck. Just what we needed…”
He nodded. He looked extremely pleased with himself, as if he’d been personally responsible for creating the Christmas weather the Alpha feature required. “If it keeps up, Lupe can get a bunch of great exterior shots, right here in town.”
“Yeah. With the snow on the rooftops, and piling up along the front walk. That would be perfect.”
“It would, wouldn’t it?” He caught her shoulder again and neatly rolled her beneath him.
“Hey!”
Nudging her legs apart, he settled between them. “There. Now, that’s perfect.”
And he was right. She raised her hips to him, rocking, teasing him. His response was immediate and gratifying. She felt him tucked against her, growing longer. Thicker…
She whispered, “The sex-crazed monster rises again.”
He lowered his head and nipped a line of kisses up over the slope of her shoulder and across her collar bones. She moaned and tossed her head on the pillow—and he lifted up and away from her, going to his knees.
“Get back here,” she commanded, and tried to pull him close again.
But he resisted. “Always so impatient…” He looked down at her, his gaze burning a path along her naked body. Below, she felt herself growing wet already, felt the softening, the silky liquid slide between her thighs. He bent his head close enough to whisper in her ear, “I do love the taste of you…”
Had she really been chilly just a moment ago?
He nibbled her neck, then licked his way down her body in a zig-zagging path, pausing briefly to tease each nipple between his teeth, to dip his tongue into her navel and give the platinum ring there a tug. She moaned as he ran his wet tongue over the inward curve of her waist.
At last, he reached the neatly trimmed curls that covered her increasing arousal. She clutched his silky dark head as he parted her.
Within seconds, she was writhing and moaning. He caught the tight bud of her pleasure lightly in his teeth and he worked it with his tongue.
She went over the edge, just like that—a quick, hot ride to the peak and a swift, shimmery slide down.
He levered up over her body again and kissed her on the mouth—a half kiss, really, as he was careful to use only the uninjured side of his mouth. She tasted her own wetness and excitement, and marveled how, even when he had only half a mouth to kiss with, he still managed to do a better job of it than any other man she’d ever known. She reached down between them to clasp him, but he moved his hips out of reach.
“Later,” he vowed, pressing a kiss to her throat.
She sighed. She loved to please him—and there was nothing like the feel of him inside her. “Wouldn’t take a minute,” she coaxed.
He laughed then, a wonderful, rough, sexy sound. “A little anticipation only makes it all the sweeter when the moment finally comes.” He sat and swung his legs over t
he edge of the bed. “And I have somewhere I want to take you. I’m afraid if we don’t get going, the snow could be a problem.”
“Going, where?”
“Today, I want to show you the family gold mine.”
“Gold mine?”
“You’re gonna love it.”
“Er, just one tiny question.”
“Ask.”
“If the snow could cause problems getting there, what about coming back?”
“We’ll manage.”
“You say that with such confidence.”
“B.J. Trust me.”
“No sensible woman trusts a man who says ‘trust me.’”
“Make an exception, in my case.”
“Hah.”
“Listen. We’ll be fine. The road’s pretty good most of the way, a lot of it unpaved, but well-maintained. It only gets iffy the last few miles.”
“Oh. Good to know.”
“I swear it to you. Not a problem. Brand told me he had extensive work done on the roughest part of the road just last summer. And we’ve got four-wheel drive. Plus, I happen to know that Ma has a set of chains to fit the SUV.”
“Why do I find myself nodding my head? I have to be crazy….”
He winked at her with his good eye. “Sometimes crazy is the best way to be. You’re going to love this.”
Buck told her that the mine was called the Red Robin. The mineral rights to the Red Robin had come down from Chastity’s side of the family. Brett, Brand and Bowie took turns doing the yearly work necessary to hold on to the rights. And there was a cabin—a cabin kept in good repair, stocked with canned goods and plenty of wood for the stove.
“I’m thinking,” Buck told her, after they’d both showered and dressed, “that we could stay overnight. Picture it. Just you and me, in a cozy cabin, with a double bed and a blazing fire…”
It was probably a sign of how far gone she was on him by then, that the idea actually appealed to her.
She asked, “What about Lupe?”
“Uh-uh. Not part of my plan—and she doesn’t need to go, anyway. She can stay here, get some snowy location shots around town. And fly back to New York tomorrow.”
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