by Diana Palmer
Amelia's father was able to get out of bed the next day and acted as if he'd never felt better.
"It is amazing," he told her. "I feel my old self again." He smiled, although his eyes were strange. "I shall go to work."
She hesitated to question him, fearful of inciting him to violence even now.
He turned to look at her. "You should buy some fabric and sew yourself a new frock, Amelia," he said unexpectedly. "My word, you look dowdy!"
She cleared her throat. "I there is not sufficient money for luxuries, Father."
"Nonsense," he scoffed. "Have them put it on the account at the dry goods store."
She wondered if miracles did still happen, because his improvement made her heart lift. "Alan has asked me to eat with his family today," she said.
"Then, go, by all means! You know that I approve wholeheartedly of Alan."
"Thank you. I shall."
He picked up his hat and cane and gloves, pausing at the doorway. For a moment he was a little unsteady on his feet. "Odd, my head feels light." He laughed. "It must be the medicine Dr. Vasquez gave me, you know. It has helped."
"I am glad."
He turned and looked back at her. He scowled. "I struck you."
Her eyes widened. "Well, yes"
"We must talk, Amelia," he said slowly. "I deeply regret this bad behavior. I am aware that I have not been quite myself, but I begin to feel a substantial improvement."
"I'm glad, Father," she said, and smiled.
He smiled back. "I will see you this evening."
She danced around the parlor when he left, so happy that she could barely stand it. He was better! He realized that he had behaved badly, and he was sorry. Things would change. Life took on new beauty, and she felt radiant. The doctor must have misdiagnosed her father's condition! A man with a deadly tumor wouldn't change back to his old self like this without warning. She felt a sad loss of faith in Dr. Vasquez and at the same time a joy that she could scarcely contain.
Alan noticed her mood immediately and was delighted to see her smile.
"We shall have a lovely day," he informed her. "All the better for the lack of King in it," he added darkly. "He will be visiting the Valverdes."
"You sound as if you're glad."
"Indeed I am," he replied. "He has been difficult lately."
"Because of me," she guessed sadly, and sighed. "Oh, Alan, why does he hate me so? I've never done or said one thing to antagonize him. Well, perhaps just one. I did call him an animal in French."
"You what?" he asked on a shocked laugh.
"I called him an animal. Indeed, there are times when he behaves like one."
"Not King."
"You may think him perfect, but I do not. He's arrogant and rude and unmanageable. Not to mention impatient, irritating"
"Have we time for this diatribe?"
She laughed softly. In her blue suit and white blouse, she looked neat and very elegant. The pert wide-brimmed hat with its blue satin and black veil matched the black frogs that held her jacket together.
"You look very lovely today," he remarked.
"Thank you. My father was much better. He went to work. I feel that the doctor must have been mistaken," she added and then stopped, having given away more than she meant to.
"What did the doctor say?"
"Oh, that it would take much time for Father to improve enough to work," she said quickly. "Alan, are you certain that your parents don't mind my coming out here today?"
"Absolutely. They have to go to a reception for some friends this afternoon, but they will be home long enough to eat with us. They look forward to seeing you."
"You have wonderful parents."
"Not a wonderful brother, though?"
"I met Callaway only once, but I found him nice enough in a very abrasive sort of way," she said, alluding to the middle brother. "He is more like King than you."
"I was talking about my brother King, as you well know."
"I do not like King."
"You seem to find him fascinating enough," he teased. "You can hardly stop looking at him."
She cleared her throat. "It is with the fascination of someone watching a snake to make sure they can move aside fast enough when it strikes."
He burst out laughing. "What a comparison! I shall have to tell King."
"You dare, and I will never speak to you again!" she raged.
"He isn't the monster you make him out to be," he said in a more subdued tone. "In many ways, he's a lonely and sad man. You only know him from a distance. He's much more complex than he appears."
"I do not wish to know him, thank you."
She'd stiffened on the seat beside him. He gave up his efforts in King's behalf and began to talk of the drought and the latest news of the bandit Rodriguez, who had been seen reportedly heading for Juarez with his two brothers and several of his murderous companions.
"Is Rodriguez such a bad man?" Amelia asked seriously. "I've heard rumors that the booty from his raids is given to people in the pueblos, that he keeps nothing for himself."
"I've heard the same rumors. But he has killed men," he added. "In fact, King has reason to want him dead."
"King does?" she asked, curious.
"An old grudge. And in addition to the robberies, Rodriguez is still wanted for several murders which occurred almost ten years ago, including a charge that he killed a man on the outskirts of town and stole his children, spiriting them across the border. One of the children was a young girl. No one knows what happened to her. Some say he killed her."
"One wonders how it is possible to know the truth about anyone. Gossip and rumor add so many lies to it."
"This is true."
He drove the buggy down the long road that led to Latigo, through the fence and up to the front steps. There were three people standing there. One of them was King.
"You said !" she began, unnerved.
"He told me he would not be here," Alan said firmly. "I promise you, he did."
King came forward with his parents. He was wearing working jeans, without the familiar batwing chaps, and a blue-checked shirt that made his silver eyes look almost blue. It clung to the muscles of his broad chest, emphasizing the strength of his arms. His hair was clean and neatly combed. He was so handsome that Amelia's heart tried to climb into her throat just at the sight of him. To disguise her nervousness, she spoke to his parents as Alan escorted her onto the porch and ended by greeting King without really looking at him.
"I've just put everything on the table. Come along, Amelia," Enid said with a warm smile.
She moved into the room beside Alan, deeply aware of King at her back, watching her without saying a word, his turbulent eyes at odds with his impassive expression. He seated her, and she found herself much too close to King, who ended up beside her with Alan across the table from her.
"How is your father?" Brant asked from the head of the table.
"He's so much better that I rejoice," Amelia said with a smile. "He went to work this morning."
"I'm glad for you," Brant said. "You look very nice, Amelia. Blue suits you."
"It suits King, too," Enid murmured, glancing at her son. "I always think it is one of his best colors."
Her remark drew everyone's attention to the fact that, in colors, Amelia and King matched perfectly. Amelia flushed at the unexpected realization.
"Say grace, Brant," Enid said guiltily, noticing Amelia's discomfort.
Brant led in prayer, and then Enid started the platters and bowls of food around the table. Amelia felt King's powerful thigh against her leg as he moved to take the big ceramic bowl of mashed potatoes from his mother just as she reached for it.
"This is too heavy for you," he said quietly. "I'll hold it while you fill your plate."
She fumbled with the silver spoon and almost dropped it twice before she finished. She looked up into quiet, intense silver eyes that made her breath catch. She dragged her gaze down to her plate with a murmur of thanks.
There was little conversation while they ate. But all the while, Amelia felt the heat from King's body, the strength and vivid presence beside her. He made her heart race whenever he looked at her, and she could hardly hide the feelings he aroused. It was not fair, she thought frantically, that he should do this to her. He must know that she was vulnerable. He was unsettling her deliberately, in another attempt to save Alan from her. If he only knew how little she cared for Alan!
After they ate, the elder Culhanes excused themselves to leave for their social obligation while Rosa worked to clear away the dishes and wash them.
Alan and King went into the parlor with Amelia, but quite suddenly Alan was called away by an urgent question from one of the well-drillers.
"Can't you go?" Alan asked King.
"What do I know about well equipment? You're the drilling expert," he reminded the other man, who had studied engineering.
Alan glanced at Amelia and read the panic in her face. "You can come with me, Amelia."
"Don't be absurd, it's much too hot out there and too rough for a lady," King returned with a lazy smile. "I'll entertain Miss Howard in your absence."
"You were supposed to be lunching with the Valverdes," Alan recalled.
"Darcy has a cold and is unwell, so I decided to stay home." He stuck both hands in his pockets, staring his brother down. "She'll be quite safe," he added firmly.
Alan didn't think so, but he allowed himself to be convinced. After all, he'd secretly gone to the driller early in the morning and asked to be persuaded out to the site. It was all part of his scheme to make King admit his feelings for Amelia. But now that he'd accomplished his end, he was worried. King looked odd. In fact, he looked as if he were plotting something himself. Alan didn't want him to hurt Amelia, and he might in his attempt to prevent what he thought was going to become an engagement between Amelia and his brother. King had a sharp tongue and no scruples to make him pull his punches when he thought he was in the right. He could verbally take the skin off Amelia if he wanted to, and Alan's conscience began to twinge. Of course, he told himself, Rosa was back in the house. Yes. Rosa would be within earshot, and even King would stop short at giving the help something to gossip about.
"It will take an hour or so to ride out there and get back," Alan told Amelia. "You don't mind?"
She shouldn't be such a fool, she told herself. She had nothing to fear from King. Rosa was in the kitchen, rattling pans. "I don't mind, if your brother doesn't."
King only smiled, but his eyes didn't.
Alan remembered that after he changed clothes and mounted his horse to ride out with the driller.
"Mind telling me why I had to invent an emergency for you to handle?" the driller asked Alan pleasantly.
"It's all in the interests of my brother's happiness," Alan returned with a grin. "Never mind my motives. Let's ride."
Amelia fidgeted with her small bag while King lounged idly against the door facing and stood just watching her in a stiff silence. The tension was almost at breaking point when Rosa came into the hall, wrapping her shawl around her thin shoulders. She spoke in Spanish to King, who replied in the same rapid-fire language, and quite fluently.
Amelia's head jerked around at what he'd told Rosa. She was fluent in Spanish herself.
The front door closed, and Amelia got to her feet. "How could you tell her that I wished to be alone with you, to leave us unchaperoned?" she asked nervously. "The impropriety will lead to gossip !"
King turned toward her and moved forward. His silver eyes were intent on her flushed face, and what she read in them made her take a step backward.
"You speak Spanish?" he asked, surprised.
"Yes, I speak Spanish. What are you doing?!"
He took her small bag and tossed it into the chair. Then, with a faint sigh, he pulled her into his arms.
"Do you need to ask, little one?" he murmured quietly. His eyes fell to her mouth, and he bent without hesitation to kiss her startled lips.
It was like flying, Amelia thought dizzily as the kisses grew from tiny nibbles to open-mouthed teasing and then to passionate, hard fervor in the space of a few breathless minutes. She had neither the experience nor the will to resist him. After the weeks of excited infatuation and the growing hunger, it was like a dream come true to be in his arms at last, being kissed as if he could never get enough of her mouth.
When he touched her breasts, she panicked and started to pull away. But he gentled her, teasing her mouth with his, while his fingers lazily explored and tempted her body into relaxing and accepting his caresses. They made her feel funny. Weak-kneed and boneless. Her nipples grew very hard and began to ache for more than his cursory teasing. Her body began to tremble.
When it was that he lifted her and carried her down the hall, she didn't quite know. She was lost in him, aching for more than the feel of his mouth. He took her into a room and kicked the door shut behind them. She knew in the back of her mind that this was wrong, that she should not allow it. But he was very strong, and his kisses were masterful, expert. She was alive only while he held her, while he kissed her. Drowsily, she whispered his name, his given name, against his tender mouth.
"Jeremiah," she moaned.
The bed was under her back, and his powerful body was above her, against her. He kissed her again. His fingers worked at hooks and buttons, and she helped him, because even the light touch of her clothes against her burning skin was unbearable. She wanted the cool air on her breasts. She wanted him to see them.
He lifted his head and held her eyes while he eased off the jacket and blouse and then the light cotton chemise that was the last covering. His silver eyes glanced down, finding the creamy perfection of her in a silence that was broken only by the faint sounds of birds and wind outside the window.
King touched her breasts then, his fingers lightly exploring, his eyes darkening with passion. "Your skin is very soft," he said quietly. "And your breasts have the silkiness of gardenias."
She gasped at the realization of what she was doing, and her arm started to come up, to cover herself.
He caught her wrist and brought it to his mouth, savoring the faint perfume there. "Do you think I mean to let Alan have you?" he asked roughly, his eyes blazing down into hers. "When I want you so desperately for my own?"
She stared at him blindly. Did he mean, could he mean, that he loved her? Her heart raced madly.
While she was trying to think, his dark head bent and his mouth hovered over a firm, pretty breast, his warm breath teasing it.
"I want you, Amelia," he said. His breath made tiny ripples along her nerves, and she ached suddenly for him to move down, to touch her there. "I want you for myself."
She could bear the torment no longer. In thrall to her senses, she reached up suddenly with trembling hands and tugged at his nape.
"Do you want my mouth on you?" he whispered softly.
"Yes. Oh, yes, please, King, please, King !"
Her frantic little sobs made his body clench with pleasure. He opened his mouth and brushed it very lightly over her, just barely touching her hot skin. She pulled at his head convulsively, but he held back, deliberately tormenting her until she was moaning in anguish. Then, only then, did he allow her to draw him closer, and his warm, moist lips closed slowly over the throbbing tip of her breast and began to work on her flesh.
She cried out and shivered, her nails biting into his nape as she experienced the first sensual touch of her entire life.
King was shocked by her response. His only plan had been to bring her in here and make a little love to her, make her realize that she couldn't marry Alan when she was this attracted to him.
But the feverish response she gave him pushed him over the edge. It had been months since he'd had a woman. His body was starved for fulfillment, and here was Amelia, warm and soft and obviously ready for a lover.
Why should he hold anything back? his body asked his brain. She was playing Alan for a fool, because she didn'
t love him. She only wanted to marry Alan because he was wealthy and would help her escape from her father's overbearing presence. It would be for Alan's sake, he thought blindly. It would be to save Alan from what King had endured, from the humiliation of loving a woman who only wanted his bank account. It was no more than Amelia deserved, after all.
He gave in to all the rationalizations, realizing as he began to undress her with expert seduction that it all boiled down to the fact that he would die to have her. Protecting Alan didn't matter. Nothing did, except that Amelia's silky warm body was in his arms and trembling with pleasure as he touched it.
"Oh, no, you must not," she wept, but he kept on.
His mouth fed on her softly swollen breasts while his hands eased away the covering under her skirt and touched her silky thighs in an agony of soft sensuality. He touched her where she was a woman, and she wept at the shock and embarrassment and then at the pleasure that made her body tighten all over and tremble.
Her legs parted for him without any coaxing. She held him and sobbed, because her need was as great as his own. She felt him move and even with her eyes closed became aware of the sound of clothing being moved aside. She couldn't look. She didn't want to move, to do anything that might stop the shameful pleasure he was making her feel.
His hair-roughened chest was suddenly against her bare breasts, moving abrasively, making her clutch at him. His mouth settled over hers insistently then, and she felt his powerfully muscled bare, hair-feathered legs between her own. Her eyes flew open, because she realized now what her foolishness had led to, only now, when it was too late.
He was breathing roughly, and the eyes that met hers were silver fires. "That's it," he whispered hoarsely. "Look at me. Look into my eyes as it happens!"
His lean hand caught her thigh in a bruising grip to stay her sudden jerk as he pushed into her with a violent downward motion of his hips.
Her eyes dilated. Her mouth opened. There was burning, tearing pain, and she cried out piteously and tried to get away, but he held her mercilessly with that steely hand and the pressure of his body over hers.
"King, please, no!" she wept.
His teeth were clenched, and his face had gone ruddy. His eyes blazed as he moved on her in a rough, fierce rhythm. "My God, Amelia," he choked. His eyes closed, and he began to shudder. "Oh sweet Jesus!"