Wild Dawn

by Cait London

  Big and tough, warrior and father, he rested helpless now in her arms, needing her strength.

  She found herself stroking his hair, unable to stop the tears sliding down her cheeks. To soothe them both, she began singing Greensleeves softly.

  ~**~

  Damn it, woman. You don’t need to know how to shoot a gun or throw a knife,” MacGregor snapped a month later. The first week of December had wrapped them in the snow-covered valley.

  He tossed the cleaned snowshoe rabbits down on the table and pointed to the blanket she had placed across a rope strung between the cots. “But then, you’ve got fool notions for a married woman. Man and wife weren’t meant to sleep apart. Damn, you’re tough as rawhide when you get a fool notion inside that pretty head. You’ve cleaned and scrubbed everything, got me cleaning my boots before I come into my own house.”

  Regina stopped reading the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and placed her marking ribbon by “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.”

  Running her finger around the rim of the violet pattern on the china, she looked up. Neatly shaved, MacGregor’s dark, strong jaw tensed with anger that had been brewing since he’d healed. “Shh, Jack is napping. I expect you to act like a gentleman and see us through this bad patch.”

  She took a deep breath and continued, “Stop looming at the doorway like a grizzly about to pounce on a rabbit.”

  “A grizzly would be a mite more friendly than I feel now. You shaved me when I was sick, and I figured that wouldn’t hurt me if it was what you liked. Well, I’ve been shaving every day, waiting for you to decide what was best for you.”

  He ripped off his coat, glared at her, and deliberately tossed it to her cot. He pointed to his chest. “Husbands! I’m the only one around—tell their womenfolk how to hop. I’ve got the marriage paper—”

  Regina rose to her full height and tapped his wide chest with one small finger. “So I signed a ridiculous paper when I was high in my cups. You can’t expect me to abide by it.”

  “Drunk, Violet. You were drunk and willing.”

  She brushed her hand across her temple, trying to keep her temper. Patting the braids wound like a crown on her head, she swallowed and counted the sheep grazing in the shallow snow. She adjusted her lace blouse, her short skirt swirling around the leather leggings as she turned. Taking care to wrap a shawl she had fashioned from a soft blanket around her shoulders, Regina faced him and raised a slender eyebrow. “I may have been a little excited over our victory...”

  MacGregor took a step nearer her and unfastened the top buttons of his red woolen long johns. In the afternoon shadows with her eardrop catching the light in blood-red colors, he frowned down at her. Regina took a step backward, her hip hitting the table. He took another step, and his hand shot out to snatch the wooden stick that had been holding her thick braids in place.

  “You’ve got queer ways. I knew that when I took you. But when a man’s wife spends more time with her sheep and his baby than mating with him on a cold night, he has plenty to complain about.”

  Toying with her cup, she asked the question plaguing her. “If I had not been with you at the catwagon, would you....?”

  MacGregor’s black eyes skimmed down her throat, and he placed a finger on the pulse beating rapidly at the base of it. His voice softened and deepened. “Not after you. I’ve an idea that no other female could tempt me with swaying hips and sweet honey kisses. You’ve ruined me for any other woman, Violet MacGregor.... You’re jumpy as a doe guarding a fawn or a rabbit set to run right now.”

  Catching his wrist, she looked up at the harsh angles of his face and the sensuous curve to his mouth. “But you enjoyed being fondled by those women.”

  His thick brows went up. “Fondled? With your blade ready to gut any trespasser?”

  Placing her hands on her waist, she glared at him. “Their hands were everywhere but in your pockets.”

  Staring at her blankly for a moment, he muttered, “Didn’t notice. Had what I wanted tucked against my side. All I had to do was to look down at you. Everything sweet and clean and loving when the time was right.”

  Something melted within her, warming and softening her heart. “Truly, MacGregor? You found me more desirable than all those women?”

  “Truly. Hell. You’re more woman than I’ve ever known. Is that what’s been eating at you?” When she bit her lip and looked away, his warm fingertip prowled down her chest until it reached the lace bodice. He flicked open one pearl button. “I like what’s under here—silky, soft sweet skin. From now on when you wash, I won’t keep to the other side of that damn blanket.”

  In another quick movement he bent and lifted her high against his chest. “I gave you a slack rein because you’d been hurt. But you’re sassy as hell now, and I’m wanting you.”

  “MacGregor, you have no idea how to—”

  “I have plenty of ideas, Violet, and all of them have to do with those sweet kisses and the way I remember your breasts....”

  He paused, studying the thrusting curve of her blouse. In a lower, husky tone he murmured, “There’s more to you now. Can still put my hands around that tiny waist, but the other parts ...” His black gaze strolled down her hips and legs covered by the short skirt and leggings. “Makes a man want to put his face between all that softness while he’s—”

  Trembling with the image of MacGregor’s warm lips on her skin, Regina blushed hotly. “Oh, that’s just what I mean. You go from kisses to—”

  “Mating. Me in you. You holding me tight and hot and getting hotter. Feels like hot, wet satin in there, near as I can remember. You think it’s easy waiting for Jack to get better and you to settle down? When you move like that?”

  “What?”

  “You move like a willow sways, bending, turning, looking over your shoulder at me with those purple eyes and that hair spilling everywhere but in my bed. The cabin carries your scent, and it drives me mad. At night I can see your body through your clothes with the firelight just so.... I’m not waiting anymore, Violet.”

  His black eyes tasted her lips, and his arms tightened around her. “This time I’m going to ride you until you know where you belong.”

  She stared at him, her body aching for the heat of his. Clearing her throat, she managed, “Egad.”

  Against her hand his skin was hot. MacGregor’s lips were hard, demanding on hers as he carried her to the bearskin pelt in front of the fire. Lowering her carefully, he placed his tall body over hers.

  “Now. Tell me how and what you want. Quick,” he breathed against her mouth, his tongue probing gently at the corners.

  “MacGregor,” she managed shakily as his hand went skimming down her clothing, leaving her exposed to his mouth.

  Before she could react, his head was at her breast, the hot tugging of his lips and tongue drawing her into his mouth.

  “Cinnamon,” he whispered against her skin, his face so hot against her as he nuzzled aside the cloth covering her other breast. Licking the hardened nub gently, he nibbled around it, his breath sweeping across her skin. “Strawberries and cinnamon... and hot, wet satin underneath,” he murmured before taking the softness into his mouth.

  She couldn’t move, his hands trembling as they moved over her skin. Fighting her rising passion, Regina placed her hands on his chest to push him away.

  Her fingers met crisp hair, the strong muscles moving beneath the dark skin as he shifted more fully over her. Braced on his elbows and resting his hips against her, MacGregor looked down at her tenderly.

  The warm look caught and tangled her senses. His fingers moved carefully through her braids, loosening them. Taking care to be gentle, MacGregor spread her hair around her head. He lifted a rippling strand to the light. “Catches the sun like a raven’s wing. Blues and purples dance in the black.”

  Winding a length in his hand he studied the effect on his dark skin. “Sometimes at night I dream of how warm and soft this is next to my skin. Feels like warm feathers sliding on me. Sme
lls like nothing I’ve ever known.”

  Regina blinked, trying to fight the sudden softness in her body as MacGregor’s aroused weight fitted snugly between her spread thighs. Under him and shaking with emotions, she swallowed heavily. “MacGregor. You’ve got to stop this—”

  He stared at the path of his large hand sliding gently over her breast. He caressed the soft pale weight, exploring the contours with a reverence she’d never known. His fingertip ran around the perimeter, touching the dusky tip as though it were a fragile flower. His expression softened as his fingers stroked her skin up toward her throat. “I can feel the blood move in you. Beats hard against my touch.”

  He slowly eased aside and stared down at her breasts. “So soft. I can fit my hand from tip to tip.”

  He experimented, moving his palm and fingers across her skin, as though fitting her for his touch. Then sliding his hand upward, he wrapped it around her throat, stroking the taut cords lightly with his thumb. Trailing the underside of her jaw, he stroked her cheek. “Softer than doe skin, like the petals of a rose soft in the morning dew.”

  She wanted to fight him, to move away, but she wanted to see his face, watch the fleeting expression cross his hard features. MacGregor treated her like a special gift, wrapped and waiting just for him. His fingers skimmed her flesh featherlight, leaving a heated trail downward.

  His large hand slid under her skirts to unknot the muslin drawers. Loosening them and sliding away her skirt, he studied her from her masses of black hair down to the leggings just below her knees.

  One fingertip traced her hipbones slowly, and MacGregor watched the trail, his eyes darkening. “Day or night,” he said quietly, as if to himself. “I feel you taking me deep as a knife in a sheath. Holding me tight,” he whispered raggedly, his hand trembling as he placed it carefully over the raven curls above her thighs.

  “MacGregor...” The aching deep tone of his voice snared her, and she saw her hand stroking his cheek. “My dear....”

  He caught her hand, pressing it harder against his skin, his eyes closing as though placing the memory inside him. “What do you want from me?” he whispered roughly, looking down at her.

  “I want more,” she whispered back after a long moment.

  He frowned, tracing the shape of her ear. “I’m strong and I can protect you. You won’t be hungry or misused. What else is there?”

  She had to make him understand, bridge the gap between their worlds with carefully chosen words. “I know little of you. You love your son. You’ve killed and been wounded as a child. But there’s more.... there’s love and sweet words.”

  He traced the shape of the ruby eardrop thoughtfully. “Right now, I’d rather—”

  She placed her fingertips over his lips. “Shh. That word is so rough. It sounds like two animals tearing at each other in a fever.”

  Against her fingers his hard mouth smiled. “Felt like that in the lean-to. You came at me so fast, I was gone before—”

  “MacGregor!” She stiffened as his hand flattened on her stomach. “How unlike a gentleman to mention what happened!”

  He frowned, placing his hand possessively on her breast. “That’s just what happened. For all your hiding behind this blanket, you took what you wanted.”

  He grinned suddenly, smoothing her hot cheek. “Rode me—”

  “MacGregor!” Regina tried to dislodge his heavy thigh, catching her clothing to her. “Oh, you are an animal. A rutting, primitive animal in heat.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Sure was. But you were there before me.”

  “Oh! Oh!” She squirmed from beneath him and sat upright in the tangle of her hair and clothing, drawing her blouse to her breasts.

  “Damn, you’re a pretty female, Violet MacGregor,” he whispered before taking her easily beneath him. He grinned as he pinned her wrists over her head. “I might as well make use of having all these clothes half off you.”

  When MacGregor’s hot mouth fitted over her breast, she gasped. Desire went ripping through her as his tongue laved the sensitive nub, and she groaned. In another moment he had slid deeply into her body, and she forgot everything but the blinding heat as his fullness throbbed heavily within her.

  She soared high into the blinding emotions, straining to reach the pinnacle and falling softly.... Before she could move away from the sated aftermath, MacGregor kissed her softly, nuzzling at the tender spot behind her ear and whispering his need of her.

  Then she was reaching for him again.

  “You fill my heart,” he whispered huskily against her cheek when they drifted into sleep.

  ~**~

  Chapter Ten

  “MacGregor’s his name. A metis, a white and red breed—mean as a skunk and draws like quicksilver. Quick with a blade, too,” Tall Tom said after swishing Covington’s prime twenty-year-old bourbon through his teeth, then swallowing the fiery liquid. “Met a preacher who married them, name of Buzzard. Says the woman was half-grown, dark-skinned, and had strange eyes. There war’n’t no squawbaby, though. The woman matches the likes of the boy who shot off my toe. Never will forget those eyes... dark pewter in the campfire.”

  He wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve and glanced around the large hunting lodge. The lodge nestled against the base of the Sangres, the scent of freshly cut pine logs blending with tobacco and heavy incense. Prime antlers and horns lined the main hall, fringed rugs and pillows blended with gleaming brass and silver. The Englishman sat in a chair made of longhorns and padded with velvet.

  Tall Tom eyed the heavy jeweled rings covering the Englishman’s hands and the large gray pearl studding his knotted tie. “MacGregor stepped right up for the fancy little bastard—female. If old John Barleycorn and me hadn’t fandangoed together, that mixed blood’s hide would have been skinned and tanned proper now. Heard Jack Ryker’s been taken down. Tough one, Ryker. Only a man like MacGregor would take him on. Or me.... They worked like a pair of mated wolves. One hamstrung me, and the other moved in for the kill.”

  Covington kicked aside the man who had been polishing his knee-high black boots. “Leave us, lackey,” he ordered, straightening his velvet jacket and flicking a bit of dust from it. “Christmastide is this month, and I’m faced with Mortimer-Hawkes descending out of hell at any moment,” he muttered.

  He leaned forward in his chair, studying the rough mountain man, who lounged with his boots on the dining room table. Regina had vanished into the mountains without a sign. He suspected that once Krebs and his men left camp, they’d never be back.

  Slapping the riding quirt against his tight buff breeches, he stalked to the roaring fire. “I thought I was dreaming when I saw those eyes the night of the fires,” he said, as if to himself. “Yes, that heathen savage blood of hers would take to a man like the metis, this MacGregor. It’s a wonder Mortimer-Hawkes dirtied his title with that bitch whose grandmother was brought from Africa, even for her fat dowry.”

  Covington poured whiskey into a small crystal glass on a silver platter, drank it down quickly, and poured another. He swirled the drink against the sparkling glass, studying it. “They slid into camp at dawn and took the horses, firing the tents. Regina looked like a savage. She took that bloody morocco saddle and her hideous shawl.”

  “She’s gone Injun. Should be easy to track with a squawling baby and that skinny all-legs dog. Talked to a trapper who passed a catwagon down Taos way. The whores had seen a man matching MacGregor’s size with a small woman and baby. They thought it was strange the way he treated her, careful like. The woman slit a whore’s hand for touching the metis.”

  Tall Tom tipped the crystal decanter up to his mouth and drank noisily. “I’ll slit that cat from ear to ear,” he said, wiping his hand over his mouth. “She shot off my toe. Marked me. He moved in then, broke my leg. Mean pair of renegades.”

  Covington tapped the hunter’s boots with his quirt. “Speaking of the lady’s ears. Did you notice rubies—red stones—in her ears?”

  The mountain m
an thought for a moment. “No. Couldn’t see nothing but those eyes, looking up at me. Black lashes all around those eyes. But the whores said the breed sported a red pretty in his ear.”

  “Mmm. Regina would have paid him for her passage, and her eyes are a bloody shade of purple, the mark of those savage Mortimer-Hawkeses,” Covington murmured thoughtfully, then turned to the mountain man. “My good man. You bring me her ears with the rubies still in them, and I’ll make you richer than you ever dreamed. Agreed?”

  “Hell. I’d skin her and MacGregor for a plew a piece,” Tom agreed, rubbing the ache in his mended leg. “I’ll take out soon as the snow stops.”

  Covington turned to the flames, watching them dance along a huge log. The sight reminded him of Regina’s shawl, swaying along her lithe, small body. “Wrap her ears in that bloody heathen shawl she treasures so much. Looks hideous with red and yellow flames and flowers.”

  His thoughts swung to Mortimer-Hawkes. The marquess had sent word that he would arrive in the Colonies before spring. As stubborn as his daughter, the marquess needed proof that his daughter was dead. In their agreement for the marriage, Mortimer-Hawkes had specifically and repeatedly told Covington that whatever happened to Regina, she was still Mortimer-Hawkes’s property. The marquess was adamant that his daughter live until his death.

  Covington narrowed his eyes on the orange and red flames. He’d seen men fascinated with their daughters before, keeping them for their private stock. But he’d never known a man so determined to hold his daughter’s spirit. “He’s obsessed with the little dark-skinned wench. Well, apparently the lady has taken another man, Lord Mortimer-Hawkes. This MacGregor may want to own her as badly as you do.”

  ~**~

  Mortimer-Hawkes stared out at the storm-tossed sea, his ship’s cabin musty and close. The small window caught his reflection, the hollow cheeks and eye sockets, his hair matted and tangled.