Sweet Savage Love

by Rosemary Rogers

  Carl could feel his own breathing come harder, almost ragged. Her body was molded against his now, and desire swelled in him. By God, he thought, By God, she was his—he could take her, and she would not stop him. He forgot who she was and who he was, feeling only the urgency of the male need in him, the softness of her woman’s body. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman—too long. Almost involuntarily, his arms tightened around her, and he heard the soft expulsion of her breath. All this time, she had neither responded nor rejected, merely accepting his kiss, but now, suddenly, he felt her hands come up and push against his chest, her head twisting to escape his lips. What in hell kind of game was she playing? And then the thought—had he frightened her with the ardor of his lovemaking?

  “No, Carl, no!” she was whispering, face turned away from his now, small clenched fists still pushing against him.

  “Ginny—honey, you’re so beautiful, so—”

  “Carl—” her voice stronger now, more urgent, “that’s enough, Carl—you mustn’t—we mustn’t—”

  “Oh, God, Ginny! I’d never hurt you, I swear! But you’re enough to set any man crazy, just being near you—”

  He let his arms loosen around her, in spite of the blood pounding in his veins that urged him to take her, push her up against the wagon and make her cry out to him with a need as big as his. But she was a Senator’s daughter, and a decent woman—not the kind a man could force or seduce in a night. She’d want to be courted, of course, he had to be careful—

  “Carl—I—I really think I ought to go inside now, I—”

  “I love you, Ginny,” he said almost desperately, arms still holding her, “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt or upset you, you know that. I want to marry you, if you’ll have me—I’ll speak to your father.”

  “No!” she said sharply. “Carl—no!” And then, as if she regretted her sharpness she added hesitatingly, “It’s too soon—I don’t really know you yet. And—and I don’t really know myself!”

  He could not help himself—the more he felt her withdraw from him, the more he wanted her. Hating himself for pleading, he could not prevent the words.

  “One more kiss then, Ginny—please, honey, just one more. And I won’t push you, I promise, I’ll let you take as much time as you want deciding—Ginny, let me kiss you—”

  Because she was trapped, and she had deliberately led him into this impossible situation, Ginny turned her lips up to Carl’s again, closing her eyes against the abject, hungry look in his face. Carl’s mouth attacked hers again, his kisses wet and searching, and she shuddered uncontrollably, a shudder he mistook for desire. Why couldn’t she feel anything when Carl kissed her? Minutes ago she had wanted his kisses, had deliberately led him to this moment, but when he’d put his arms around her she had merely felt stifled; when he’d kissed her she’d found it faintly repulsive. And now, she felt she couldn’t stand the feel of his mouth on hers another instant. Instinct made her push fiercely against him until he released her, and with a mumbled “I’m sorry, Carl!” she picked up her skirts and stumbled away from him, back to the safety of the embered fire and her own wagon. And only the strongest amount of self-control made her wait until she was inside the wagon before she snatched up a damp washrag and dragged it fiercely across her lips, rubbing away the damp feel of his kisses.

  Sonya called softly from her bunk, “Ginny? Is anything wrong, love?”

  “Nothing—I’m sorry if I woke you—it’s so hot, that’s all!”

  Ginny was ashamed of herself the next moment, for having sounded almost harsh. Poor Sonya! And poor Carl too, she thought as she stripped off her petticoats and lay down. What is the matter with me?

  Ginny felt as if she had hardly fallen asleep when the camp was aroused the next morning by shouts and the pounding feet of excited men. It was Pop Wilkins who broke the news. One of the guards they had posted had been found dead, with an Apache arrow in him; his body still warm. And there had been an attempt to stampede the herd which had failed, Pop said fiercely, because these cattle weren’t as easily stampeded as longhorns would have been.

  “Good thing them cowpunchers was kinda prepared for trouble,” he explained briefly as the mules were being hastily harnessed. “Shot a couple of ’paches, they said, but the devils took their dead away with ’em like they allus do.”

  Ginny had to bite back the question that almost leaped to her tongue. Where had the scouts been? She remembered, last night, that Steve Morgan had said he’d be leaving before dawn. Suppose—

  Surprising her, Sonya asked the question.

  “Mr. Wilkins, one minute, please! Our scouts, are they all right?”

  “Morgan, he’s the one found poor Blackie. He took off after the ’paches, an’ sent Davis to warn the men lookin’ after the herd. Guess he got there just in time—they said he had about six Apaches screamin’ after him.” Seeing the expression on the women’s faces, Pop said quickly that they weren’t to be alarmed, they would move ahead very slowly, with armed men riding alongside each wagon.

  Ginny insisted on driving the wagon, Sonya beside her with a loaded rifle across her lap. Thank God Sonya knew how to use a gun. And thank God for the reassuring feel of the pistol she had concealed in the pocket of her own dress. It didn’t quite seem real. They had come all these miles without seeing a hostile Indian, and now, the knowledge that somewhere out there were hard-faced brown men in whose breasts burned a hatred for all white men and the desire to kill—well, it did not seem possible!

  They camped just before noon, when Steve Morgan rode back to confer with Pop Wilkins; the wagons circling with the ease of long practice. But this, Ginny was soon to discover, was to be no ordinary nooning. They were going to prepare to defend themselves—already the men were working with grim efficiency, driving the mules and horses into a hastily constructed remuda—“sheeting” the wagons with extra thick layers of canvas stretched from wheel to wheel; linking the wagons together with heavy chains.

  There was no time now to ask questions. Biting her lip, Ginny had to be content with keeping busy, helping Sonya and Tillie pile boxes, anything heavy against the side of the wagon from which the attack would come, with spaces between for rifles. Later, there would be bullets to make, extra powder and lead to be distributed to the men. Sonya worked silently, with a film of perspiration beading her pale face. Tillie was frankly terrified, her usually nimble fingers all fumbles.

  From overhearing the men talk, they knew there was a large band of Apaches concealed somewhere in the bluffs ahead of them. Men who called this vast and forbidding country their home and knew every inch of it. Ginny found it hard to analyze her feelings. She was afraid—and yet the feeling of unreality was still too strong. It didn’t seem possible that she was in the middle of this strange and unfamiliar emptiness, instead of being safely home in her beloved France. California seemed eons away now—would she ever get there, would any of them? And even her father’s great plan, the heavy gold concealed so snugly in the false bottom to their wagon, that too seemed part of a dream.

  What would happen? When would they attack? If she closed her eyes for an instant, Ginny could see them in her imagination—a horde of painted warriors, brandishing their weapons, screaming their war cries. She suddenly remembered the way that Steve Morgan had ridden into camp on that evening, his blue eyes bright with devilry, yelling defiantly like a Comanche warrior. And then the forbidden, shameful thought, why do I have to think about him? Why couldn’t it be Carl’s kisses that make me feel weak and helpless?

  She had seen Carl that morning and he had smiled at her a trifle shamefacedly, but since their nooning he had been busy with their preparations for defense. Suddenly, some two hours later, she looked up from loading one of their pistols and he was there, his face serious.

  “I’m going now with some of the boys to see to the cattle, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Mistaking her silence for concern he said reassuringly, “Don’t worry, Ginny, it’s no
t likely they’ll attack just yet. I was talking to Paco Davis a while back and he says they’re still mourning their dead of this morning. He says it takes them quite a while. But I have to see that the cattle are bedded down someplace safe.”

  “Be careful, Carl.”

  There was nothing else she could say. He leaned down from his horse and caught her hand, squeezing it a moment longer than necessary.

  “I’ll be careful. I’ve got reason to be. You’ll stay in the wagon, won’t you? Anyhow, stay within the clearing.”

  Silently, she watched him ride away, aware of Tillie’s sudden presence at her side.

  “Sure is a handsome gentleman, that one,” Tillie commented, and Ginny wondered how much the girl really observed.

  The cook had a fire going already, and with Zack’s unwilling help was starting to prepare supper. Occasionally, one of the men wandered over and helped himself to a cup of hot coffee.

  Sonya was resting, having declared that she knew she wouldn’t sleep a wink all night, and Ginny, who privately agreed with her stepmother, told Tillie that she might as well get some rest too.

  “But Lord, Miss Ginny, how’s a body to rest knowin’ any moment them painted devils could come rushin’ out at us?”

  “I told you, Tillie, we’ve done everything we can. And we have enough men and guns to hold off a small army. Papa made sure of that before we left San Antonio. They’ll attempt to attack us and we will beat them off. And that will be the end of it.”

  Ginny’s words sounded braver in her ears than she actually felt, but having said them, she felt better. The sun beat hotly down on her, its burning heat seeming to seep into her body, and she was young and alive and the possibility of dying was unthinkable.

  And yet, she thought a little later, walking with Tillie to the water wagon to refill their water casks, and yet if I’m to die today or tomorrow I’ll be sorry at that moment, because I haven’t really lived yet; there is so much I’ve not experienced, or only half-felt—there’s so much more I want to know before I die.

  She was to remember this thought later, when it was night and a quarter moon hung in the sky and after interminable hours of waiting the Indians still had not attacked. They had all eaten early, with little appetite, and the only fire permitted was a very small one, hardly more than a bed of embers in a scooped out depression in the ground. Two large coffee pots stayed warm here, but there had not been the usual talk and laughter over coffee that night.

  They had waited all afternoon, keyed up and tense, and nothing had happened. And Paco Davis had said, with a reassuring look at the women, that Apaches seldom attacked at night.

  “Look out for the first light, though,” he added in warning to Pop. “They figure that’s the best time to catch a man off-guard, when he’s been up without sleep all night an’ it’s just beginning to catch up with him.”

  “Ain’t gonna catch us nappin’ though!” Wilkins said fiercely. His white-bearded face looked bleak and craggy in the dim light. Ginny remembered the story she’d heard about how Pop had come back from town one day to find his cabin burned and his wife and children dead and horribly mutilated. It must be a terrible thought for a man to live with, she thought; eating into him. No wonder he hated Indians so much!

  And then there was Steve Morgan, who with his soft, strangely graceful walk was like an Indian himself, and had even lived among them and fought with them. She remembered the Apache scalps at his saddle and shivered. He was a violent man. He’d fight with the Indians and against them—and he’d kill a white man as easily as he would an Indian. For pay. He was no more than a mercenary, and she must keep reminding herself of that, especially when his eyes met hers, as they sometimes did accidentally.

  Night was a strange half-light on the restless plains and ridges. The movement of the wind could be the movement of Apaches, creeping on their bellies like snakes, and just as soundless. Men stayed awake, taking turns, while others slept under the wagons.

  The small clearing in the center of the circled wagons looked completely deserted when Ginny, the moon and the night-sounds making her restless, pulled aside the canvas flap to peer out. Tonight even Cookie slept inside a wagon, concealed like the rest of the men from eyes that might watch.

  Two wagons away, she knew that Steve Morgan slept under the heavily constructed wagon that held their spare guns and ammunition. When Paco, half-joking, had declared that he sure wasn’t going to be the one blown up in smoke by a chance fire arrow, Steve had shrugged laughingly.

  “Don’t make any difference to me. I’ll take that one.”

  She’d watched him take his blanket roll and spread it under the wagon, only half-aware of the pressure of Carl’s hand on hers.

  “Ginny,” he had whispered, “take care. Try to get some sleep.”

  She’d promised she would, and yet now, while Tillie and even Sonya slept heavily, tired out by the waiting and the tension, it was she who could not close her eyes.

  It was intolerably hot and stifling under the heavy canvas top of the wagon. No air here, and yet outside the wind stirred tall grass and coyotes howled. I’m afraid, she thought, and then quickly, no, I’m not afraid, I’m just—I don’t know, just restless. It’s the waiting, the stillness, the not knowing. And being alone.

  She was half-tempted to make enough noise to wake Sonya, so that they could huddle together and whisper their shared fears.

  Ginny opened the flap again, and the faint glow of ashed coals, the black outline of the coffee pot drew her. If she had a cup of hot coffee it might help, although this western coffee was like nothing she had ever tasted before—only bearable when drunk very hot, so that the burning would take away some of the bitterness.

  She had undressed for sleeping, wearing only her lightest shift, but now, hardly thinking, she pulled the sweat-damp garment roughly over her head, and put on one of her dark cotton dresses. Strange, and somehow almost sensuous, the feel of the soft material against her bare skin. Why were women forced to wear so much under their clothes?

  Stepping very carefully over Tillie’s sleeping form, picking her skirts up high, Ginny lifted the canvas flap and left the wagon.

  She could not remember afterwards if she had somehow known or only sensed it would happen. She crouched by the small warmth of the burned-out fire, reaching for the coffee pot, and she felt his hands in her hair. She could not move, did not turn, but she knew who it was, just as if she had been waiting for him.

  “You shouldn’t be out here.”

  “I know. I couldn’t sleep. Why couldn’t you?”

  She hadn’t turned her head yet, but she heard him chuckle softly.

  “I’m a light sleeper. And then again—”

  His hands moved slowly down the back of her neck, lifting the heavy coil of hair, and she trembled at the light, warmly caressing touch of his lips.

  “Nights like this, when even the wind is hot and the coyotes howl at the moon and I know we’ll be in a fight—I don’t usually sleep much. I’d like to be riding, or maybe just running, no place in particular, like the Apaches do.”

  She turned around quickly, trying to read his shadowed face.

  “But you’re a man. If not tonight, then there can be other nights. You’re free to ride where you please, when you please. It’s so frustrating to be a woman, to have to wait until someone accompanies you. Sometimes I feel that being a woman is worse than being a child—we have the intelligence and the feelings of adults, but we aren’t permitted to show them.”

  “Was that why you couldn’t sleep? Because you feel frustrated and restless?”

  They were both kneeling, staring into each other’s face. Her fingers plucked nervously at her skirt until he put his hand over hers, stilling its movement.

  “I wish—it seems as though every time we meet we are either quarrelling or—or—can’t we talk?”

  “This isn’t the time or the place for talking, and I’m in no mood to play the gentleman and flirt with you under the stars,
Ginny Brandon,” he said roughly. Before she could answer he had pulled her to her feet, holding both her hands.

  “If you know what is good for you,” he continued, still with the same note of suppressed violence in his voice, “you’ll pick up your skirts and go back to bed to dream your safe little virgin dreams. Because if you stay out here I’m going to take you under that wagon with me and make love to you. You know that, don’t you?”

  He was too close to her, she thought feverishly. There was no time for thinking, and how could she think clearly when he was already taking her with him?

  It was warm and dark under the wagon, like a cave, isolating them both. Her body felt stiff and unyielding as he lay down beside her; like a board, she thought—that would splinter and break if he touched her—and then his arms took her and held her close against him, and after a while, because he did nothing else, she could feel herself beginning to relax.

  He held her quietly, his breath warm against her cheek, and as some of the tenseness left her she began to tremble slightly. Bemused as she was, from somewhere she found the strength to whisper, “I—I don’t even know what—what it is I’m supposed to do—what—”

  “Hush. There’s nothing you’re supposed to do. I’m going to kiss you, that’s all. Turn your face to me, Ginny.”

  Blindly, not daring to open her eyes yet, she moved her face up to his, and he kept kissing her for a long time until some of the warmth of his body and his mouth had penetrated to hers and she began to kiss him back. Gently, gently, while they kissed, she felt him take the pins from her hair, letting the heavy mass of it fall over her back and shoulders.