He didn't have to give in to it, he reminded himself.
He stretched out and stared at the ceiling, drumming his fingers on his chest. She was sound asleep, and even if she were not she would surely not be particularly fond of him at the moment.
A minute later he was on his side, just watching her. He throbbed, he ached, his desire thundering, clamoring for release.
He touched her hair again and reminded himself that it should be black. He didn't love this girl.
He slipped his hand beneath her gown and slowly, lightly stroked her flesh, following the line of her calf, the length of her thigh, the curve of her hip. He rounded her buttocks with a feathery touch, then gently tugged her around and pressed his lips against hers.
She responded, warmly and sweetly and instinctively, to his touch. Her arms swept around him and her body pressed against his. Her lips parted and he plundered the honey-warm depths of her mouth with his tongue. His body pressed against hers intimately. He pulled her gown up farther and wedged his hips between her bare thighs. Her eyes remained closed. She was barely awake.
Then she awoke fully. Her eyes widened, and she pressed furiously against his shoulders. He thought he saw tears sting her eyes as she pronounced him a son of a bitch.
"I know," he told her.
"If you know —"
"I'm sorry."
He tried to kiss her again, but she twisted her head, and his lips fell against her throat.
"You behave like a tyrant."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"You treat people like servants —"
"I know. I'm sorry."
"You behave —"
Her mouth was open, and he caught her lower lip between his teeth and bathed it with his tongue. Then he began to move against her. He caught her cheeks between his palms and stroked her hair, and when she stared up at him again, gasping for breath, he kissed her again quickly, speaking against her lips.
"I am sorry. So damned sorry, for so damned much."
She was silent then, staring at him in the darkness. She was very still, very aware of his sex throbbing against her, so close. If she fought him he would leave.
She didn't fight him. She continued to stare at him, and he met her eyes. Then he moved, thrusting deep inside her. She let out a garbled little sound, and her arms came around him and she buried her face against the hard dampness of his shoulder. Her long limbs came around him, and he sank deeper into her and then deeper still.
She was instinctively sensual, and she offered him greater solace than he could ever have imagined. When it was over he lay with her hair tangling over his naked chest and reminded himself again that it was blond and not ebony black. They were strangers who had stumbled together. They had answered one another's needs, and that was all.
If he closed his eyes he would see her, Elizabeth, racing toward him. Running, running, running…
But it was not Elizabeth's face he saw in his dreams. Sweet blond hair flowed behind the woman who ran to him in his dreams. Kristin raced to him in the night, and he wanted to reach for her, but he was afraid to. He was afraid he might fail.
He was afraid he would take her in his arms and find her blood on his hands. He was afraid he would see Kristin's exquisite blue eyes on his and see her blood running red onto his hands.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When Kristin awoke, she could hear gunfire. Looking out the window, she saw that Samson and Delilah were practicing with Cole's six-shooters. She dressed quickly in a cotton shirt and pants and boots and hurried downstairs and out to the pasture. Delilah stumbled from the recoil every time she fired, but she had a set and determined expression on her face. Samson laughed at her, and she gave him a good hard shove. Cole actually grinned. Then he looked at Kristin and saw that she wasn't happy at all. Perched on a fence, he nodded to her and arched a brow, and she flushed. The nights they shared were real, she thought. But the nights were one thing, and the harsh light of day was another. She wasn't going to act like a child again, and she wasn't going to try to pretend that he hadn't touched her in a way she would never forget, that he hadn't awakened her to something incredible. What if it was wrong according to all moral and social standards? Murder was wrong, too. The world wasn't run according to moral standards anymore. She didn't mind getting close to Cole. He knew how to treat a woman, knew when to be tender, knew when to let the wild winds rage. Even now, as his eyes flickered over her, she felt the warmth of their intimacy, and it wasn't an unpleasant feeling, despite her current impatience. Cole just didn't seem to understand what he was doing to her. He didn't speak. He watched her. Waiting.
"Miz Kristin, I am going to get this down pat!" Delilah swore.
Kristin tried to smile. "Delilah, you can master anything you set your mind to. I've seen you." She set her thumbs in the pockets of her pants and said to Cole, "May I speak with you a moment?"
"Speak," Cole said flatly. He had said he was sorry about lots of things, but his manner toward her didn't seem to be much better today than it had been before. And he didn't come down from the fence.
"Alone," she said.
He shrugged, and started to climb down.
"Don't you bother, Mr. Slater," Samson said behind her. Kristin whirled around in surprise. Samson looked at her, his expression almost sorrowful, and gave her a rueful grin. "Meaning no disrespect, Miz Kristin, and you know it. But you're gonna tell him that you don't want him teaching us any more about gunfire. 'Cause of us being free blacks. She thinks that if we don't shoot they'll just put us on a block and not think to shoot us or string us up. Delilah and me talked about it a long, long time. We're in this together. If there's more trouble, we got to stick together. Delilah's got to shoot just like everybody else. You see, Miz Kristin, I been a free man now a long time. And it's mighty sweet."
"Samson…" Kristin swallowed and closed her eyes. "Samson, if you're alive, you can get free again. If you're dead —"
"I believe in the good Lord, Miz Kristin. And one day there's going to be a meetin' 'cross that river. And I ain't going to that meetin' being no coward, or a man who didn't live up to what I believe in. We're in this together, Miz Kristin."
She stared furiously at Cole. He shrugged.
"You fool!" she snapped at him. "Samson is a black man."
"Samson is a man," he replied. "A free man. Your daddy made him so. The way I see it, he's made his choice."
They were all staring at her. No one said anything, and no one moved. The sun streamed down on them all. Cole kept watching her. She couldn't begin to read the emotions in his eyes. I don't know this man, I don't know him at all, she thought in sudden panic. But did it matter? she asked herself. It couldn't matter. The die had been cast.
"I've got to get back to the house now," Delilah said. "I've got to get Daniel and let Shannon come on down here."
"Shannon?" Kristin whispered.
Cole hopped down from the fence at last. He took his gun from Delilah, and he slowly and deliberately reloaded it. His hat shaded his eyes from her when he spoke. "You want your little sister to be defenseless?" He looked straight at her.
Kristin smiled sweetly and took the gun from him. He had a row of bottles set up on the back fence. She took her time, aiming as slowly and deliberately as he had loaded. She remembered everything her father and Adam had ever taught her. Remember the recoil, and remember that it can be a hell of a lot for a small woman to handle. Squeeze the trigger gently. Don't jerk back on it…
She didn't miss once. Six shots, six bottles blown to bits, the glass tinkling and reflecting the sunlight as it scattered. With a very pleasant smile, she turned to Cole, daintily handing him the Colt.
He wasn't amazed; he didn't even seem surprised. He studied her. He slipped a second Colt from his gun belt and handed it to her.
"What happens when the target moves?" he demanded.
"Try me."
Cole nodded to Samson. Samson grinned approvingly. He picked up a bottle and sent it flying high and
fast into the air. Kristin caught the missile at its peak, just before it curved back downward to earth. Once again the sun shimmered on the exploding pieces, and they fell in a rainbow of color.
"Not bad," Cole murmured. He nudged back his hat and looked at her sharply. "And Shannon?"
Shannon was already on her way to the yard from the house. Delilah had gone inside. Shannon was dressed like a ranch hand today, too. She seemed all the more feminine for the way her budding curves filled out her shirt and breeches. She glanced slyly at Kristin, and Kristin knew that she was thinking of the fiasco at dinner the night before. She was tempted to give her a sharp slap, but that would be wrong, and she knew it. She decided to ignore her sister's amusement. "Shannon, Cole wants to see you shoot."
"I know." She smiled at Cole. Shannon liked him. A lot. Kristin wanted to spin her around and shake her. He'll be gone in a blink one day! she wanted to tell her sister. Don't care too much!
Then she wondered if Shannon needed the warning, or if Kristin did.
"Show him," Kristin suggested.
Shannon proceeded to do so. She was an even better shot than Kristin, and Cole told her so. He didn't seem to give anyone lavish praise, but he was always gentler with Shannon than with anyone else.
"Good. Damned good," Cole told her.
Shannon flushed, delighted by the compliment.
Kristin turned on her heel and headed for the house. He didn't want her riding away from the house, and he would insist that she stay. If she didn't, he would leave her to the mercy of the bushwhackers. She was going to be mature today, mature and dignified, and she wasn't going to get into any fights over the ranch.
"Kristin!" he called to her.
She turned to look at him.
"What are you doing?" His plumed hat was set at a cocky angle, his hands were on his hips, and his frock coat hung down the length of his back. There was something implacable about him as he stood there, implacable, unfathomable and hard. But that was why she had wanted him. He couldn't be beaten. Not by Quantrill's gang. Not by her.
That last thought made her tremble slightly. She clamped down hard on her jaw and wondered just how long the war could last, and wondered if maybe she shouldn't run after all.
"Paperwork," she told him calmly. "I wouldn't dream of going against your rules, Mr. Slater," she said, and walked away.
He rode out later. She knew when he rode out; she heard the sound of his horse's hooves as she sat in the office, trying hard to concentrate on numbers. She walked out front and watched him, and she was restless. This was hard. She had always been such an important part of things.
But they were playing for high stakes. Damned high stakes. She forced herself to sit down again. She weighed the prices she could receive for her beef against the distances she would have to take the herd to collect the money. Then her pencil stopped moving, and she paused and chewed the eraser, and she wondered what it would be like when he came home for dinner that night.
If he came home for dinner that night.
It didn't matter, she told herself. She was forgetting that this whole thing was business. She was certain Cole never forgot for a moment that it was a deal they had made and nothing more.
She had to learn to be aloof. Polite and courteous and mature, but aloof. She had to keep her distance from him. If she didn't, she would get hurt.
Maybe it was too late already. Maybe she had already come too close to the fire. Maybe no matter what happened she was doomed to be hurt. She wasn't so naive that she didn't know she pleased him, but neither was she so foolish as to imagine that it meant anything to him. There was a coldness about him that was like a deep winter frost. It wasn't that he didn't care at all — he did care. But not enough. And he never could care enough, she was certain.
She gave herself a mental shake and decided that she would have to remember herself that it was business — all business. But still she wondered what he would be like if he returned for dinner, and she swore to herself that her own behavior would be the very best the South had ever had to offer.
Cole did return.
And Kristin was charming. She dressed for dinner again., elegantly, in a soft blue brocade with underpanels and a massive, stylish skirt. She remembered her mother, and she was every bit as gracious as she had been. She was careful to refer to him as "Mr. Slater" all the way through the meal. He watched her and he replied in kind, perfectly courteous, as if he'd been trained for society in the finest drawing rooms back East.
When the meal was over, he disappeared outside. Kristin tried to stay up, but at last everyone else had gone to bed, and she walked up the stairs and to the window. She could see him out on the porch, smoking one of her father's fine cigars and drinking brandy from a snifter. He was leaning against one of the pillars and looking up at the night sky.
She wondered what he was thinking, where his heart really lay.
He turned and stared up at her, there in the window. Her face flamed, but he smiled at her.
"Evening," he said softly.
She couldn't reply to him. He watched her curiously for another moment, and his smile deepened, striking against his well-trimmed beard and mustache.
"I'll be right up."
Her heart hammered and slammed against her chest, and she nearly struck her head trying to bring it back in beneath the window frame. She clutched her heart and reminded herself that she had decided to be mature and dignified and not get as flustered as a schoolgirl.
But she was still trembling when he came up the steps. She heard his footsteps in the hallway, and then he opened the door and came into the room. She was still dressed in her blue brocade. He stared at her for a moment, watching the way her breasts rose and fell above the deep decolletage of her gown. He saw the pulse that vibrated against the long, smooth line of her throat. He smiled, and she sensed the curious tenderness that could come to his eyes. "Come here," he told her softly. He held out a hand to her, and she took it and found herself in his arms. And there was nothing awkward about it at all. He kissed her and touched her face, and then he turned her around, and the touch of his fingers against her bare back as he released her gown set her skin to glowing. Like her heart, her flesh seemed to pulse. It occurred to her that he disrobed her so expertly because he had done the same for many women, but it didn't really matter. All that mattered was that her clothing was strewn on the floor and that he was lifting her in his arms and that the soft glow of the moon was with them again. He carried her to the sleigh bed and set her down, and she saw the passion rise in his eyes and come into his touch. She wrapped her arms around him and sighed, savoring the exquisite feel of him against her, the masculine hardness of muscle and limb, the starkly demanding feel of his shaft against her. Somewhere the tumbleweeds tossed, and somewhere the wind blew harsh and wicked and cruel, but here a tempest rose sweet and exciting, wild and exhilarating.
Somewhere battles raged. Somewhere Northerner fought Southerner, and the nation ran with the blood shed by her youth. Blood washed over Kansas and Missouri as if some shared artery had been slashed, but for tonight, Kristin didn't care.
She was alive in his arms, feline and sensual. She was learning where to touch him, how to move with him and against him and how to leave the world behind when she was with him. No drug and no liquor could be so powerful as this elation, so sweet, so all-encompassing.
That night he slept. She stared at his features, and she longed to reach out and touch them, but she did not. She decided that even his nose was strong, long and straight, like a beak against his features. His cheekbones were high, his forehead was wide and his jaw was fine and square beneath the hair of his beard. She wondered at the fine scars that criss-crossed his shoulders and his chest, and then she remembered that he had been with the Union cavalry before the war, and she wondered what battles had done this to him. She longed to touch him so badly…
She reached out, then withdrew her hand. He was an enigma, and he was fascinating. He drew her like the war
mth of a fire, and she was afraid. There was so much she didn't know about him. But her fear went deeper than that, for she sensed that though he cared he would never stay. He liked her well enough. He could even be patient with her temper and her uncertainties. He could be careful, and he could be tender, and he seemed as immersed in this startling passion as she was.
But she sensed that he would not stay, could not stay. Not for long. Worse, she sensed that he could never love her, and that she could fall in love with him all too easily. Already, she thought, other men seemed to pale beside him.
Other men… if any remained when the carnage was over.
She walked to the window and looked out at the night. The moon was high, and the paddocks and the outbuildings looked so peaceful there, rising against the flatland. She sighed. For the rest of the country the war had begun when the first shots had been fired at Fort Sumter back in April of '61, but Kansas seemed to have been bleeding forever, and Missouri along with it. The Army of Northern Virginia had defeated the Army of the Potomac at Manassas twice, while along the Mississippi the Union troops were faring a bit better. The North had won the Battle of Shiloh, and just last April New Orleans had fallen to Union troops under Farragut.
It should matter, she thought. It should matter to her who lost and who won. She should care. At Sharpsburg, Maryland, by Antietam Creek, both sides had suffered horribly. She had been in town when the list of the dead had arrived, and it had been devastating. The papers had all cried that the single bloodiest battle of the war had been fought there, and that men had slipped in the blood, and that bodies had fallen on top of other bodies. All she had seen was the tears of the mothers, the sweethearts, the lovers — the families of boys who had left to join the Union Army and the families who had sons fighting with the Confederacy. She had looked for Matthew's name, and she had not seen it, and she had thanked God. But then she had felt the tears around her, felt the agony of the parents, the sisters, the brothers. And yet sometimes it felt as if the real war were remote here. Here the war had been reduced to sheer terrorism. Men did not battle men; they set out to commit murder.
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