But he only loosened the sash, shrugging out of the buckskin shirt, placing the garment about her shoulders. It was large; her hands were lost in the too-long sleeves, and the tail hung well down past her knees—thank God--providing her with the modesty she had wantonly abandoned but a moment ago.
Puzzled by his actions, Reagan frowned up at him. “Why’d you do that?”
When he replied, his voice was surprisingly soft and liquid, his faint accent growing slightly more pronounced. “Because it isn’t safe for you to be out here, looking as you do. You’ll cause a stir—mayhap start a war, and I dislike the thought of having to kill someone this early in the day. It would bring ruin down upon my morning.” He paused, drawing closed the sash, knotting it at her waist with an audible sigh. “And besides... at the moment you seem to have more need of it than I do.”
“I’m sorry.” The apology slipped from Reagan, surprising her, bemusing him. “I misjudged you. I thought that you would... that after what you said back there, you were going to….”
He had started to turn away; then he paused, his indecision clearly imprinted upon his hard-featured face. “I thought about it,” he said truthfully. As if of its own volition, his hand came up to grasp the trailing ends of her sash, to toy with the fringe. “In all candor, I am thinking about it still.”
Reagan’s imagination ran wild. She was a healthy young woman, and the juices of life ran thick and hot in her veins. She knew what desire was, knew what it was like to awaken in the heart of the night aching for something, someone she could not name. It was the outcome, the end result of succumbing to that passion which remained a mystery... a mystery that she sensed that this man, and only this man, could solve.
Unconsciously, she strained toward him, in a far more blatant invitation than the one he had mentioned before.
He accepted with alacrity, bringing one hand up to capture her chin, tipping her face up to his intense scrutiny. “For the sake of my immortal soul and the preservation of your innocence, I should resist you. Yet you offer yourself up so prettily. It would take a better man than I to simply walk away.”
Gripping her shoulder with one large and capable hand, he tipped her face up as his dark head descended.
Reagan knew that a profound truth was to be found in his words. He should have walked away; she should have pulled back, should have scalded his male pride with a stream of verbal vitriol. She should have done many things, but as his arms came around her, wrapping her in his vital, animal warmth, something rose up inside her... something so soft and feminine and melting, she simply forgot to resist.
Instinct and a good measure of curiosity rendered her more acquiescent than she’d ever been. She did not merely surrender to the possession of his hard mouth, she welcomed it, straining on tiptoe to reach him, entwining her arms about his neck, all the while incredibly aware that the supple leather hunting shirt was all that stood between them. It was a fragile barrier, so easily breached, a point brought forcefully home when she felt the warmth of his hand on the cool, damp skin of her derriere. Strong fingers splayed, he urged her hips against the hot, hard evidence of his raging ardor.
In that moment Reagan nearly succumbed. It was readily apparent that he wanted her, and she could not deny that she desired him, was intrigued by him, was curious as to what it would be like to lie in his arms and see him rise naked above her.
Then the bushes beside them rattled ominously, and a soft and sibilant hiss insinuated itself into the passionate haze currently clouding her thinking, dragging her attention away from the raven-haired rogue intent upon stealing away her virtue, and focusing it on the source of the sound. Suddenly impatient, she dragged her lips from his, not quite ready to push from his arms completely. “What was that?”
“Hmm?” he answered.
“That noise. You must have heard it.”
Sighing, he studied her face for the space of an indrawn breath, then bent to his task again, devoting all of his attention to nibbling the turn of her jaw. “I heard nothing,” he said, his voice heavy with passion, “save for the thunder of my heart in my ears, and, of course, the sound of your sweet voice. I can only think to lay you down and finish what we’ve started, yet rest assured, I shall remain attentive to your smallest request. You have but to say what you will, and I shall be your slave, cherie... sexually speaking, that is.”
“I don’t want a slave, you jackass!” Reagan said in a growl, pulling away so that she could turn enough to peer at the pair of disembodied yellow eyes that stared back at her from the midst of the sagebrush.
A jolt of fear shot through Reagan, so strong, so potent, that it paralyzed her. Eyes widening, she stared hard, picking out details she had overlooked before: the tawny fur glimpsed here and there through the sparse vegetation, the graceful outline of a large feline head and the curve of a powerful shoulder. Sweet Jesu, a mountain cat crouched behind the sagebrush, less than two yards away. Crouched—ready to spring, to kill, or maim—and Jackson Broussard was totally oblivious of the danger they both were in. “Your pistols,” Reagan said softly. “Give me one of your—”
Jackson was not paying attention. He caught her hand as she fumbled at the waistband of his leather trousers, bringing it to his lips. “My lovely, you need no weapon with which to conquer my affections. You have but to come back to my arms.”
“Are you crazy?” she demanded. “We’re about to be carved up for breakfast and all you can think of is what you’ve got in your breeches!”
His passion slowly ebbing, Jackson frowned down at her. She was staring fixedly at a rather large clump of sagebrush, behind which a tawny feline rump twitched from side to side, a maneuver Josephine often employed to check her balance just before she sprang on some unsuspecting deer mouse. Jackson had always thought the maneuver charming, but he could tell at a glance that Reagan was nearly breathless with panic. “There’s nothing to fear,” Jackson said in an effort to reassure her. “It’s only Jos—”
Before he had the chance to explain, the cat sprang.
Letting go with a war whoop that would have done a Blackfoot proud, Reagan Dawes clawed for possession of the pistol still thrust through Jackson’s wide leather belt, but as her fingers found purchase, the piece went off with a deafening roar.
“Mother of God,” Jackson said prayerfully, his throat suddenly as dry as sun-bleached bone. The whiz of the ball passing precariously near his manly pride was almost more than he could bear. The stricken look on the small white face of Reagan Dawes when she realized the enormity of what she’d done might have been laughable in any other circumstance.
Jackson was not laughing.
“Jesu!” she swore again. “You didn’t lose your—is everything still—are you all right?”
Summoning the steel to survey the damage, Jackson glanced down at the blackened hole in his buckskins, a mere inch and a half to the right of his crotch.
He shuddered to think what might have happened had he not been fully aroused and standing at attention. Squeezing his eyes shut, he drew a deep breath, letting it go slowly, and when he opened them again they were brimming with anger. “Am I all right? Am I still intact? Yes, damn it, I believe that I am, no thanks to you! What in hell were you thinking, trying to seize my weapon just now? You might have killed me, or worse!”
“There’s no need to shout!” Reagan shot back defensively. “I didn’t mean to put your nether parts in danger. It was an accident. And anyway, it’s your fault. If you hadn’t been so intent upon using that thing, you might have listened when I tried to tell you there was a panther in the bushes!”
Jackson swallowed hard, but it did little to contain his rising fury. “My fault. My fault? Who came to the river, then lingered there naked, hoping to be found in that state of undress, knowing that I would not be able to resist so tempting a prize?’ ’
“I was takin’ a bath, for heaven’s sake! A bath, I might add, that you interrupted!”
“A bath!” Jackson said emphati
cally, as if that somehow proved his point. “And you did it solely to entice me!”
“Entice you?” Reagan screeched. She’d felt repentant for all that she’d done, sorry for nearly emasculating him, until now. Now she was thinking that he’d gotten precisely what he deserved, and she ached to give him even more. “You’re an idiot,” she said, picking up her freshly laundered clothes. “And it would have served you right to have lost that thing in your britches. Maybe then your brain would go back into you skull where it ought’a be in the first place.”
She stomped back the path to camp, Jackson reluctantly following, his gaze fixed on the tail of his hunting shirt, aware that his narrow escape hadn’t taught him a damned thing.
Seconds after the two combatants had disappeared, the observer stepped from the cover of a cottonwood and stood, staring down the trail they had so recently traversed. “Patience, old son,” he said softly to himself. “Patience. That whelp of a French whore has friends hereabouts. To try and secure the chit now would be a hasty, ill-begotten business. Better to bide your time, catch old Seek-Um somewheres out there, when Strickland and the other ain’t around. Then you do for him right and proper, carry L’il Sister off to her rightful home, and leave his bones for the buzzards.”
Reagan sprinted into the clearing, a grumbling Jackson hot on her heels. Clutching her sodden clothes to her bosom, she put the campfire between them. “Stay where you are, Seek-Um. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
Jackson snorted. “Somehow I am unconvinced... but then, your attempt at emasculation may have something to do with that fact.”
“I done told you, that was just an accident,” Reagan insisted. “I was tryin’ to save your life.”
“It’s told,” he said, impatiently shoving his hair back out of his eyes. “’I told you.’ The word done has no place in that sentence. Done means finished, completed.”
“I know what it means,” Reagan replied. “I ain’t stupid, and you didn’t tell me nothin’. In fact, as I recall, you weren’t doin’ much speechifyin’ with that mouth o’ yours.”
He shifted his stance, quirking one black brow. “I did not hear you complaining back there.”
Reagan put her nose in the air, indignant that he would be so ungentlemanly as to remind her of her moment of weakness. “Wouldn’t have done me much good to complain, now, would it, since I was naked, and you had the upper hand?”
Before Jackson could reply, a large tawny cat came slinking out of the lean-to and headed straight toward him. It looked like the same cat she had seen last night, and again just moments ago, by the river. Torn between fear and fascination, Reagan looked around for a weapon, unsure if she wished to save Jackson’s life a second time, or let him be devoured.
The feline did not pounce, however, just rubbed cat-fashion around his legs, prompting Jackson’s odd half smile. “Hello, petite," he said, reaching down to scratch the cat’s black-tipped ears while Reagan gaped.
“That beast belongs to you?” she said skeptically. The young lion flopped down in the grass, rolling onto her back in an open invitation for her master to scratch her belly.
Reagan rolled her eyes. “What am I sayin’? Why, of course it does.”
He crooned softly to the cat, then turned his attention once again to Reagan. “She is a she, not an it,” he corrected her. “Josephine, this is the young woman I was telling you about, Miss Reagan Dawes, the one who has caused such a stir. Kaintuck, Josephine.”
Reagan grimaced at his use of the sobriquet. “Kaintuck” was a title tacked onto boatmen and Westerners by dandified city folk, and anything but a compliment.
“I wouldn’t be too free with name-callin’ if I were you,” she said. “After all, I ain’t keepin’ company with no catamounts.”
Jackson ignored her rebuff. “You may pet her if you like.” But Reagan couldn’t force herself to get so close to a natural enemy. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll pass.”
Jackson seemed to have no such compunction. He thumped the feline’s broad breast in a less than gentle show of affection, then sprawled in the grass and propped his head on his hand. The cat curled in a large tawny ball near his feet and, yawning once, settled into a nap. “Set aside your caution and warm yourself. There are bacon, biscuits, and plenty of strong, black coffee.”
Sensing that the danger had passed, Reagan sat, but she continued to watch him as she nibbled a strip of bacon. Jackson made a great show of ignoring her, pouring himself a cup of steaming coffee, then sugaring it in a shameless fashion.
“You mind tellin’ me just how the two of you came to be... acquainted?” she asked, foregoing the coffee and helping herself to a dipper of water instead.
“I came across her early last autumn. Her mother had been killed by a grizzly down on the Green River. There were two cubs, but the other one had already perished. Josephine had hidden herself beneath a rocky outcropping, and she hissed at me as I passed by. She was such a sad little thing, completely alone in the world. I simply could not bring myself to leave her to her fate. And so I took her home to Saint Louis. Surely you could not fault me for that?”
Reagan shook her head. She could not fault it, but neither did she comprehend it. “I am not sure that you did her a great service. She is a wild thing, and she belongs in the forest.”
“Indeed. She’s wild, just like you—or rather, she was. But in time she gentled to my touch, grew to adore me... as will you, eventually.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of myself, if I were you,” Reagan informed him, though, privately, the mere thought of his touch thrilled her, raising a welter of gooseflesh on her torso and upper arms.
Reagan watched as he added a third lump of raw sugar to his cup and stirred it with a twig.
“I didn’t figure a man who keeps company with mountain lions to sweeten his coffee,” she said after a while. “You seem more the type to gulp it straight from the pot, and strain the grounds through your teeth.”
He smiled at that, though a trifle grimly, saluting her with his cup. “Youth and naiveté do not make for sound judgments. That’s why women your age need guidance.”
“What would you know about women my age?”
“Enough to procure a fitting mate for you without a great deal of difficulty, providing, of course, that you cooperate.” His words chilled her to the marrow. Clutching her cup, she gaped at him. “Mate... as in husband? You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am,” he assured her. “I have given the matter a great deal of thought, and it seems the best, most efficient way to secure your future. I do realize, of course, that it won’t be easy. Your beauty is unspoiled, it’s true, yet there are other facets of your personality that shall require some... shall we say, refinement?”
Reagan choked on her last bite of bacon, staring in disbelief as he went doggedly on, blissfully unaware of the storm gathering once more around him. “Luckily, I am not without resources, and shall see to the task of making you over the moment we arrive in Saint Louis. A new wardrobe and lessons in speech and deportment shall make a marked improvement in no time.”
Reagan could take no more. Lifting her cup, she slowly, deliberately poured the contents onto the fire, watching as steam shot up and Jackson jumped back to avoid being spattered. “The matter? You call it ‘the matter’? If I may be so bold as to remind you, it’s my life we’re talkin’ about, and I don’t want no damnable husband!”
He frowned, looking quite formidable. “That choice, unfortunately, is no longer yours to make. As I am now your guardian, it falls to me to decide what is best, and you will do as I say.”
Reagan gave a loud and unladylike snort. “Guardian, my arse! You’re just another man who’s full of hisself, and burnin’ to throw his heft around! Guardian, ha!”
Jackson was on his feet before the words left her mouth, grasping her arms in a hold that hurt, pulling her up and onto her toes before him. “Guardian, yes,” he said silkily, “to put it nicely. Yet, since
you seem to prefer straightforward talk, I will remind you, my dear Miss Dawes, that I own you, body and soul, at least while we’re in these mountains.”
Reagan was quivering inwardly, yet the same obstinacy that had kept her unwed in the face of Luther’s disapproval would not allow her to show her fear in the face of Jackson Broussard’s wrath. Standing nose-to-nose with him, bearing up under the weight of his ominous glower, she curled her lip contemptuously. “What gives you the right—” she began, only to have him cut her off.
“Two thousand five hundred dollars gives me every right to do with you as I will, and if you do not believe me, then, pray, take a good look around you. You may have been reared in Kentucky, but you’ve landed smack in the middle of hell—a place where a man can sell his unwanted daughter to a stranger, and not a man steps forward to stop him. I could put you over my knee right now and blister your ass for your rebelliousness, or take your woman’s body right here in the open, and no one would dare to question me.” He gave her another slight shake, as if to underscore his words, then abruptly released her. “I suggest you think on that while you finish your breakfast, and kindly make haste. We’ll leave here as soon as your clothing is dry.”
Reagan’s gaze was brimming with chilly resentment as she watched him walk away. He was trouble, pure and simple, from the crown of his raven head to the toes of his beaded moccasins, and Reagan wished to God at that moment that she had never clapped eyes upon him.
Contemptible and arrogant, determined to direct the course her life would take, he was as changeable as the wind. Seducing her one moment, trying to intimidate her the next—he was a confounding puzzle of a man, and she could not seem to fathom what was real and what was a lot of empty bragging where he was concerned.
Nor did she intend to find out.
What she did intend was to bide her time and allow him to assume the role of her protector, though that role would be blessedly brief.
Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) Page 6