“What do you think about when you are dancing?” she murmured.
“About the railroad, I guess.” No, you don’t. You think about Jeanne.
She swallowed. “I never stop thinking about it. It has changed everything. I feel…lost. Everything I have worked so hard for is gone. It makes me feel—how you say?—helpless. Marooned, like a ship with no place to go.”
Wash nodded, grazing her forehead with his chin. “Partly I’m sorry about it. But partly I’m glad, too.”
“Are you glad for this? For the dancing?”
“Some,” he answered honestly.
“It is not comfortable for you, then? Why is that?”
At that moment he forgot everything except the feel of her pliant body in his arms. He forgot why he was here in Jensens’ barn. He forgot to move his feet.
She tipped her head back to look at him. “Why?” she repeated.
He stopped dancing. She didn’t seem to notice, but stood still, closed in the circle of his arms. “Because,” he said at last, “I can’t be near you and not want you.”
His words hung in the air between them, as if a bell were summoning them. For a long time neither of them moved, but then she dropped her head to rest her cheek against his shoulder. When she reached her hand up and curved her fingers across the back of his neck, Wash gritted his teeth. He was finding it hard to breathe. Hard to think. He wanted to hold her close enough to feel her breasts against his chest. Oh, he wanted to taste her nipples.
He wanted to— Oh, hell. Her hand was clasped in his in proper waltz position; he drew it to his breastbone and folded his fingers over hers.
What in hell was wrong with him? He began to move slower, and he forgot to think about the steps. They moved at the periphery of the other dancing couples, past the refreshment table, past the musicians in the corner.
Jeanne closed her eyes. She drew in an uneven breath and let herself drift between the sob of the violin and the thrum of his heartbeat. She liked his smell, of leather and sweat and…ah, it did not matter what else; it was just good. All of him was good. Très beau.
She needed some lemonade.
Non, she needed some whiskey.
Mon Dieu, she needed…him.
The music stopped, but they kept moving together, their bodies almost touching. His mouth grazed her forehead; the yellow ruffles on her bodice brushed against his shirtfront.
The violin struck up a reel. Jeanne heard the faster tempo but she did not want to stop their slow journey together. It was almost like making love, his body asking, hers answering. At the thought she sucked in a gulp of air and felt tears sting into her eyes. It was such pleasure being close to him! It made her nerves sing in a way they had not since she was a girl in France.
Mon Dieu! Was she falling in—?
A rough hand grasped her forearm and yanked her out of Wash’s arms. She stumbled, then found herself dragged against another man’s body. “Aye, señora,” a silky voice said. “Now I will have that kiss, no?”
The Spaniard! The one Wash had chased away that night. She opened her mouth to shout, but another voice, low and menacing, interrupted.
“Take your hands off her, Montez.”
For a second nothing happened. The Spaniard tightened his hold, and then Wash slipped one arm about her waist and simultaneously rammed his other elbow into the man’s windpipe.
The man doubled over, gasping for air.
Wash propelled her to the sidelines. “Let’s get out of here.”
He spun at a woman’s cry from across the room. Montez had halfway straightened and now he was pulling a knife from inside his boot. Wash thrust Jeanne behind him and stepped forward. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rooney lift Manette onto a chair protected behind the refreshment table. Rooney could smell a fight a mile away.
Jeanne gave a stifled cry. Damn, he didn’t want her mixed up in this; he’d have to keep himself between her and Montez until she could leave the barn.
Montez crouched, the blade in his right hand sweeping in an arc as he advanced. The man’s steps were slow and deliberate, his eyes glittering, his breathing raspy. Wash had had plenty of practice during the Sioux skirmishes, but at least he’d had a knife of his own. Now, he had nothing. It wouldn’t be fun, but he’d done it before.
He lifted both arms and began circling to the left, drawing Montez’s attention away from Jeanne. If he could get in close enough, under the Spaniard’s blade…
He crouched and kept moving to the left, drawing closer bit by bit. He couldn’t take his eyes off the shiny knife Montez brandished—some kind of silvery blade with a carved black handle. The Spaniard would have to raise his arm to stab downward at Wash. Or he could strike up from waist level and catch him in the rib cage.
He moved in. “Come on, Montez. Come and get me.”
The Spaniard’s lips drew back in a feral grin. “I will kill you, Boss Man.”
“I don’t think so.” Wash feinted with his left hand, and when Montez followed with his knife, Wash lunged inside the blade’s arc, close enough to the man’s body to hamper his thrust. Before Montez could rip the blade into Wash’s side, Wash shot his right fist into the man’s shoulder and with his left arm knocked Montez’s elbow up.
Montez yelped, and the knife clattered onto the barn floor.
Wash dived for it, but the sheriff stomped out of nowhere and pinned it under his boot. Then he lifted his coat back to reveal his holstered sidearm.
“Come along, Montez. Got a nice cool jail cell waitin’ for ya.”
Wash was breathing hard, but inside his gut the knot of anger and fear was dissolving in a rush of masculine triumph. He watched the sheriff march the Spaniard out the side door. Outside, he found Jeanne leaning against the side of the barn, her eyes huge, her fingers clasped over her mouth. Rooney appeared with Manette clinging to his hand.
“Thought I’d have to patch you up, Wash.”
Wash barked out a half laugh. “Maybe next time.”
“Huh! Guess I’d better stock up on bandages. And whiskey,” he added with a grin.
Wash chuckled. All at once he realized how tired he felt, as if his legs had turned to lead. His hip hurt like hell.
“I’m getting too old for this,” he muttered.
“Get some sleep,” Rooney advised. “You got a carload of Chinese track layers comin’ tomorrow.”
Wash groaned and turned away to see Jeanne and Manette starting for the wagon. He’d just see them safely back to MacAllister’s bunkhouse and then…
He couldn’t think clearly beyond that. Maybe he didn’t want to.
Chapter Thirteen
Wash guided the mare away from Jensen’s barn and used the moon’s light to pick out the path between the bare fields. Seated next to him on the wagon bench, Jeanne twisted to the side and leaned over Manette, who had wrapped herself in a soft quilt and curled up in the wagon bed. “Are you comfortable, chou-chou?”
“Oui, Maman. But I am sleepy. I have danced a long time with Monsieur Rooney.”
Beside her on the bench Wash chuckled. He lifted the reins but he was watching Jeanne and he dropped one leather line. “Damn,” he said under his breath. “Guess I’m a little shaky. Sorry the evening had to end in a fight.”
Jeanne reached a still-trembling hand to pull the quilt up over Manette’s shoulders. “D-damn,” she repeated with a soft laugh. “I, too, am shaky.”
Wash shot her a quick look as he urged the horse and wagon forward. Her face was white as flour, but she held her head high and looked straight ahead. She sure didn’t show her feelings.
He could understand that. He rarely showed his own feelings, especially about a woman. Just one small shove would push him back into the safe cave he’d built. Feelings were scary things. And dangerous.
Jeanne settled her hands in her lap. “I do not like the West very much,” she announced.
Wash nodded. “Life out here can be hard. There’s not many who can stick it out.”
> “But I have nowhere else to go.”
“Would you want to go back to France?”
There was a long silence. “I do not know. My maman is now dead. Even the cottage where I grew up is gone.”
“Do you want to leave Smoke River?”
“I want a small piece of land to farm,” she said. “I will find one here.”
He heard the determination in her words but her voice said something else. She was scared. Not of Montez, but of being vulnerable. With looks like hers, he guessed she’d rebuffed a number of overamorous men. He’d fought Montez to protect her, but maybe she didn’t need protecting. This woman seemed more concerned about finding farmland than avoiding the unwanted attention of a randy Spaniard.
Suddenly she pointed at something beside the path. “Look!”
An old abandoned plow sat in the stubbled field. Moonlight bathed the metal in silvery light, and Wash slowed the horse to admire the picture it made against the dark earth.
“Pretty,” he remarked.
“Useful,” she said instantly. “I will come back for it tomorrow.”
“You want that old rusty thing?”
“Oui, I do want it.”
He flapped the reins to speed up. “Well, I’ll be… What the he— What for?”
Her laugh rang out. “To plow with, of course!”
“Jeanne, is that all you think about, farming? Growing your lavender?”
“Ah, no,” she said slowly. “But it is of importance, you see, because of Manette.” She glanced over her shoulder at her sleeping child. “Compris?”
No, he didn’t “compris.” But maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe he would never understand this woman beside him, but he knew one thing: the brush of her skirt against his thigh, the hint of her warm body underneath all those yards of calico, was enough to make his mouth dry and his palms sweaty.
He turned his face away and gulped in air that didn’t smell of lilacs and something spicy. He wanted her. How he wanted her. He was so hard he ached. If he wasn’t careful he’d forget all about his safe little cave.
He circled the mare around the bunkhouse and parked the wagon next to the wall. It was a relief to climb down and ease the turgid pressure from inside his jeans. He loosened the mare’s cinch but left the horse hitched up to the wagon for Jeanne.
She rose with a swish of her skirt and waited. He didn’t dare lift her down from the bench; he knew he’d be unable to lay his hands on her waist and stop there. She’d be in his arms in a heartbeat and he doubted he could bring himself to release her. She’d feel the bulge in his jeans and she’d know everything.
And, dammit, if he kissed her, as he ached to do, he’d be a goner.
Instead he reached into the wagon bed and lifted the sleeping Manette into his arms, snugging the quilt close around her small form. Jeanne climbed down, unlocked the bunkhouse door and swung it wide for him. He heard a match rake across something—the stove top, he guessed—and then the glow of a kerosene lantern washed the small room in soft light. She held the lamp up high so he could see.
Wash angled his burden inside, feet first, then sent Jeanne a questioning look. She murmured something in French and pointed to the top bunk. He heaved the sleeping child up onto the waiting sheets and tucked the quilt around her.
Jeanne dipped water from a bucket into her speckled blue coffeepot, then turned toward Wash. In the flickering light his face looked set and stubborn. And his eyes, which were usually gray with flecks of dusty blue, were now almost black.
“Café?” she asked quietly.
His mouth tightened. “No.”
“I make it anyway, for myself, so is no trouble.”
“No.” He turned away from her. “Thanks anyway,” he added, and moved toward the door.
Such a man. So strong and yet so gentle with Manette. Why was he not that way with her? He had kissed her, she reflected. Twice, in fact. But both times he had been angry. She could not remember the circumstances, only the taste of his firm mouth on hers, the scent of his skin, smoky and sweet at the same time. She also remembered the look in his gaze when the kiss had ended—as if he’d been shot between the eyes.
Mon Dieu, he was looking at her now in that same way. Alors, do you not want him to look at you? See all of her, see past the fear that she would not be able to feed her daughter, the pain of being uprooted from her home. And the determination that she knew thinned her lips into an unsmiling line.
They had danced close to each other tonight, so close that she could not read his expression without tipping her head back and breaking the spell. What was he thinking? What did he want?
She swallowed. What did she want?
He had reached the door now. What did she want? She wanted to matter to someone. To him.
She stepped toward him and laid her hand on his arm. When he turned to face her, she uttered a single word. “Stay.”
Wash groaned softly. “You’re sure you want me to?”
“Oui, I am sure.”
“Jeanne…Jeanne, you know I want you. Don’t ask me to stay unless—”
“I am sure,” she repeated. “I have been sure for three days.”
He unfolded his fists and closed his fingers about her shoulders, pulled her close and kissed her. He took his time, let his lips do all the talking that was needed—or maybe not needed. When he broke the kiss she felt a quiver of disappointment. More. She wanted more.
She raised her face to his. He bent to blow out the lantern, then gathered her tight in his arms. “Where do you sleep?” he whispered.
“Below Manette. There.” She tipped her head toward the bottom of the bunk.
“We’ll wake her.”
Jeanne shook her head. “We will not wake her.”
He lifted her into his arms, took a single step toward the bunk and then set her on her feet again. The next thing she knew he was cupping her breasts, then pressing her hips into his groin.
“Buttons?” he murmured.
She could not stop smiling into the dark. “Oui.”
He gave a half groan, half chuckle. “Not if, Jeanne. I mean where?”
Without speaking she guided his hand to her throat, where the top button was hidden beneath a ruffle.
Wash let his fingers trail down the front of her dress. Twenty buttons. Twenty damned buttons. How many buttons did a woman need to close up a dress? And these were little tiny ones.
His fingers shook, but he began to slip the buttons free. When he was halfway to her waist, she lifted her hands to start on his muslin shirt. Under his knuckles he could feel her body’s heat, feel her heart beating steadily as he worked his way down. His thumbs brushed across her breasts, and she moaned softly.
Her nipples hardened, and the instant he could open the bodice of her dress he slid his hands inside to touch her. She wore only a camisole underneath, tied with a ribbon bow. He jerked it free and smoothed his hands over her breasts, then moved around to her back to feel the small, lumpy bones of her spine, then back to cup the firm globes against his palms.
He bent to take one nipple in his mouth. She tasted sweet, like ripe cherries, like a ripe pomegranate he’d tasted once in Mexico. He closed his lips over the erect bud and heard her breath hiss inward.
Good. Maybe she was as starved for this as he was.
“Take my shirt off,” he whispered.
She undid the rest of the buttons quickly, pushed the fabric off his shoulders, and then her hands dropped to fumble with his belt buckle.
He gritted his teeth. He’d never last until he got her undressed; the drive to take her, to be inside her, was too hot and insistent. He lifted his head and forced his hands back to the little pearl disks that held her dress together all the way to her belly. When he had freed them all, her dress dropped to her feet. The loosened camisole followed.
He caught her hands, busy with the metal closings of his jeans, and lifted them against his bare chest. Quickly he shrugged his shirt off one shoulder, then tore the garment
free.
She made a small sound and moved to the bed wearing only her lacy drawers. Wash shucked off his own drawers and reached for the tie at her waist. It came away in his hand. He splayed his fingers over the subtle swell of her stomach, then over the curve of her buttocks.
For a moment he couldn’t draw breath. She turned to face him and his throat closed up. She took one step forward and lifted her arms around his neck.
He could feel her naked body from his thighs to his chest. He caught her mouth under his and edged them to the bed.
Not much room in the bottom bunk. He wrapped his arms around her, pushed her down on the mattress, and rolled on top of her. He bit his lip. The mattress—her cornhusk mattress, he realized—made a scratchy rustle, and she choked off a laugh.
“Not funny,” he murmured. “Can’t move around much.”
She blew out a long sigh. “Then don’t.”
She arched upward and he forgot to breathe. He was poised right at her entrance. If she moved again he’d…
Then he was inside her, enveloped in velvety heat and softness, her hands urging him to thrust. He forgot all about the crackly mattress and did what she invited.
It was brief but intense. At his climax he kept himself from shouting aloud by biting down hard on his lower lip, but when her body began to spasm with her own release, she cried out and he covered her mouth with his.
Later, when their breathing returned to normal, they made love again, face-to-face, and slowly.
For hours afterward, Wash lay holding Jeanne in his arms, her warm body pressed against his, her head nestled between his neck and his shoulder. He hadn’t had a woman in four years, and yeah, he was more than a bit in need. But nothing—nothing!—had ever been like this. He felt different. Alive.
And scared like he’d never been before.
When the faint light through the gingham-curtained window shaded from gray to peach, he carefully edged away from her sleeping form, pulled on his jeans and shirt and carefully stepped out of the door carrying his boots in his hand.
Chapter Fourteen
Jeanne woke to find herself alone. She scrambled out of bed and flung open the door of the bunkhouse, but Wash’s horse was no longer tied up beside the wagon. In its place was the old rusty plow she’d seen last night. He must have ridden back to find it and dragged it over to the bunkhouse after…after they had made love last night.
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