Whisper My Name

by Raine Cantrell

  Despite aching, sore muscles Domini came to sit beside him. She had known he was a big man, and she measured his shirt against her own body, from where the shirttails hung to her knees to the shoulders that slid down to nearly the crook of her elbow. Domini had always felt awkward about her height and size, but wearing his shirt made her feel small.

  Her mouth watered for hot coffee, and her stomach rumbled as the dough baked in the bacon drippings. “Luke, why should it matter that other men are camped—”

  “I told you. You’re worth your weight in gold. Or a bullet for me.”

  Keeping her voice to the same husky whisper as his, Domini leaned closer to him. “Then why risk a fire to cook if you’re worried?”

  “I’ve been wondering that very thing. Fact is, I didn’t think you’d make it any farther without rest and hot food.”

  “Oh.” She hadn’t really showed him that she was stronger than he thought.

  “Soon as we eat we move out.”

  “Move out? Why can’t we stay here? You said—”

  “We’ve been here almost four hours.”

  “And I slept all the while.”

  He could almost sense the turn of her thoughts to him calling her useless. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I let you sleep. Otherwise I’d be packing you prone across that saddle.” He shifted forward to give the pan a half turn. “Won’t be long now. While we wait, why don’t you tell me why you lie a lot.”

  Domini shot him a startled glance. She pushed her hair back from her face, but didn’t attempt to repin it.

  “I told you that? Yes, I must have. Or how else would you know?”

  “I told you, your eyes give you away. I could also say that I can read your thoughts like my own. But then, I might be the one lying.” Slick as water sliding over moss strewn rocks, the words and the lie beneath them fell from his lips. Luke looked away from her. He had a feeling that Domini did a little deep looking herself, and he didn’t want to know what she saw in him. He’d learned a long time ago to stop looking. Rage wasn’t a comforting sight to see.

  The pan dough was beginning to brown and he leaned forward to poke one finger in its center.

  “Almost done.” He paused, then pushed her. “So, you gonna tell me?”

  “They’re only little lies. I always ask the Lord’s forgiveness for them now. But the nuns worked very hard to cure me of the habit.”

  “Did they?” His voice sharpened against her reminder that she’d intended to make her vows before Toma sent for her. He didn’t want to think about her shut away, bound up in a stifling head-to-toe-covering black habit. Not when he couldn’t stop thinking about peeling cloth off inch by inch to taste the storm wild skin that trembled at his touch.

  “A lie’s a lie. The reason doesn’t matter. But why did you ever start?”

  “Survival.”

  It was so soft, so unexpectedly a tiny sound that he was compelled to look at her. The stark truth waited like a snare in her green eyes. Survival. He knew everything about it. The easy lies told to others, and the worse kind, the lies you told yourself.

  “And the knife. Did its skill help you become a survivor, too?”

  She closed her eyes against the commanding blackness in his. “Yes.” The word hissed out between clenched teeth as she fought the terror he had brought to life.

  “Why?” He didn’t understand himself badgering her for answers she would rather not tell. He knew he was right. Her body no longer appeared pliant, but ready to spring at any danger that neared. “Tell me.”

  “It was the only way they learned to leave me alone.”

  “The nuns?”

  “No. They were my refuge.”

  Like the stark truth in her eyes, the words revealed memories of nightmares. He looked away from her flushed cheeks and pale lips, feeling something close to shame for pushing her. But he had to know more.

  “Who were they?”

  Domini wrapped her arms around her waist. She began to rock back and forth. “It was a long time ago. Leave it be.”

  “And if I won’t?”

  She closed her eyes briefly, fighting shivers of terror. “Why should my past matter to you?” She stared at his back. “Don’t you have things in your past, Luke, that you won’t talk about because remembering hurts as much as what happened?”

  “We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you. And when I ask you a question, you answer.”

  “You don’t ask. You demand.”

  “Same thing.” He rocked back on his boot heels, pivoting to face her. “Since I’m the one risking his life to take you up to the devil’s caldron, you’ll make it worth my while. Since the only thing you’ll give is talk, talkin’s what you’ll do.”

  “Risk your life? What are you saying? I don’t want—”

  “Ain’t your choice now.”

  “Tell me what you meant.”

  “Last ruckus I had with Colfax, he said he’d kill me if I set foot on his land again.”

  “Kill you? Why? Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you worked for him.”

  “I never said that.”

  Domini paused, thoughtful for a moment. “No,” she finally admitted, “you never did.”

  “It’s nothing to get worked into a lather over. The old man’s made threats like that at least twenty times that I can recall.”

  “What kind of a man makes threats about killing people?”

  “Colfax. The devil’s own. A law unto himself. Like I said, forget it. Let’s go back to where you learned to use a knife. Somehow I can’t swallow the nuns teaching you how. And I want to know why.”

  “It’s not important.”

  “I say it is. Tell me.”

  He was as hard and unyielding as the stone of the mountains surrounding them. Domini saw it in the slant of his jaw, the steely determination in his eyes that raked her from head to toe, and heard it in the relentless intensity of his voice. She stopped rocking to curl her legs tighter to her body.

  “I’m waiting to hear. I’m not real high on patience.”

  “I c-can’t.” Her hand inched toward the knife hilt hidden in her moccasin. He wasn’t going to leave her be. But she had taught others the lesson of leaving her alone.

  “You’re hiding something. I want to know what it is.”

  She couldn’t hold his gaze. Her eyes darted to the fire, but all she saw was the black pan. It had been very dark, almost as black that night, too. Trying to hold the caged memory in place, Domini shook her head in denial. The pins began slipping from her hair as the shaking grew faster. The straight, heavy weight whipped back and forth over her face as she heard within her mind the whispers.

  “No. No,” she repeated, refusing to allow him to pry open the lid on the memories she had buried as deeply and as surely as she’d seen her mother in her grave.

  Without thinking, Domini withdrew the blade.

  Luke eyed seven inches of gleaming steel, and the way her hand wrapped the slender handle, with her thumb extended, pressing on the blade. He couldn’t see all of her face through the black curtain of hair, but he had no doubt that she would use the knife on him again.

  Her body was tense, coiled to spring at him if he made one move toward her.

  “Don’t you have things in your past that you won’t talk about because remembering hurts as much as what happened?” He repeated her words, heard the desperation when she had spoken in his mind again. He wished he could remember. Then the stalking nightmares would have a name, an ending he could put to rest.

  “Please, Luke, don’t force me to hurt you again.”

  Her hot-honey, husky voice drove itself into his senses. He looked up. She had pushed her hair back from her face. The plea in her voice was repeated in her eyes. But there was more than a plea within her dark green, narrow gaze. She watched him as a wary mustang would, ever alert to the danger of a man’s approach, nostrils flaring in fear of a man’s touch,
ready to lash out against any loss of freedom that touch would bring.

  As he stared at her, a faint smile that had nothing to do with amusement curled his lips. There was a wild, untamed, passionate willingness to fight to protect herself and her secrets from him. He wondered if she would ever bring such passion to a man’s bed. The thought of being the man to draw that primitive passion from Domini brought a hot rush of blood that shocked him. The ache that had never subsided made him curse his masculine vulnerability.

  “Keep your secrets,” he whispered in a voice gone dry with need. For now. He swung back to the fire and removed the pan. As if the past few minutes had never happened, he slid his own knife from its sheath to cut the pan-sized biscuit and began filling its steaming inside with the bacon.

  Domini sat frozen in place. She had heard him, even repeated his words to herself, but she couldn’t take her eyes from his back, couldn’t believe the danger had passed.

  Her ragged breathing filled her ears. Her heartbeat refused to slow, for blood still rushed with sizzling tension through her body. He had pushed her, pushed her hard into a corner where she had no choice but to show him what she would do to protect herself.

  She didn’t understand why. Was he testing her? But what reason could Luke have for doing that? It made no sense.

  She had to accept that it was over.

  Domini wasn’t sure how long she sat there with her fingers still clenched around her knife, watching him.

  He finished with the bacon-filled biscuits and set them on the slab of rock. The coffeepot had been emptied into his canteen, and he was already scooping handfuls of dirt on the fire.

  She blinked rapidly as the last ember was smothered. The darkness was absolute. She strained to hear him move.

  “L-Luke?”

  “I’m right here. Filling my belly. Something you’d better do. Soon as I’m satisfied, we’re riding out.”

  She closed her eyes briefly, willing herself to complete calm. With a sure motion she replaced her knife in its sheath and came to her knees.

  “I can’t see.”

  “Hold out your hand.” He counted the seconds she made him wait. “Can’t trust me now?”

  “Can I?”

  His answer was to wave the tantalizing smell of bacon under her nose. “Take it and eat.”

  She forced herself to eat. His swift change of mood left her unsettled. His night vision was better than hers, for the moment she licked the last crumb from her fingers, he handed over the canteen of coffee. It was hot, thick, and strong, but she welcomed the liquid heat that curled down to her belly.

  Domini drank again, realizing that she could make out his shadow separate from the night that enfolded them. She handed him the canteen.

  “Had enough?” he asked before drinking deeply from the warm place her mouth had rested.

  “Yes. I promise I’ll be better tomorrow. You won’t have to make camp and cook.” To reinforce her promise, she sat back, stretching out one leg and bending the other so she could knead the sore muscles of calf and thigh.

  A scream like a woman in pain filled the night. Domini felt the hair on her back rise in alarm. “Luke!”

  “Cougar’s cry. Too faraway to bother us.” When it came again, Luke added, “That’s a mating call.”

  “Mating call? Lord spare the poor female. Sounds like she’ll be ripped apart.” She tried to make sense of her instinctive trust in his word that the continuing cries were those of an animal about to mate and not a woman in agony. She switched legs and resumed her kneading.

  “For some animals a violent mating is nature’s way of insuring the survival of the strongest.”

  Domini’s hands stilled. She looked up to where he sat. It was only the night, she told herself, that added a soft, heated intimacy to his voice that awakened a new, more dangerous tension inside her. Please, let it be that.

  “And for some men. Violence is their way of proving how strong they are.”

  “Not always. A stallion in the wild chooses only the strongest mares to mate with. She’ll snort and squeal, kick and bite, forcing the stallion to be just as relentless until she’s ready to stand, quivering and willing to take him. But she knows he’s conquered her challenge. When he runs from danger she’ll follow him because he is the strongest, and survival’s bred in every living thing.”

  She blamed the dark that she couldn’t see him and stop the image coming to mind. Only it wasn’t the scene he had starkly created. Domini saw Luke and herself. A mating born of a wild storm’s fury, burning down everything in its path.

  With the image came a frightening excitement. Need like a hunger too long denied coursed through her. The chill of the night disappeared from the burning inside her body. She didn’t know how to control the vivid sensations that he so easily brought to life.

  And he hadn’t even touched her.

  She felt empty, and aching, and wanting all at the same time.

  Domini denied it. But she couldn’t speak the words. She could almost touch the heavy, aroused waiting tension in him. It sharpened her senses. The sweet smell of the pines grew overpowering, cutting off the air she needed. Every scurrying noise in the forest around them seemed too loud, too close.

  She licked her lips, memory quick to supply the heated taste of his hungry mouth closing over hers.

  “L-Luke?”

  Her husky, trembling whisper of his name slid through him. Hot. Fast. Deep. Just the way he had wanted to take her.

  “I’m here. Right here. Say it, Domini. All it takes is one word and the way you whisper my name.”

  Chapter 6

  All it takes … one word … just one. The air thickened with tension until Domini couldn’t draw breath.

  There was no need to see him. Her mind supplied the image of the hard-edged features that made her think of Lucifer, the most handsome of fallen angels. Black as the night was, Luke was the darker, more powerful force impacting her senses. Everything about him was dark, from the unadorned clothing that bore no flash of silver or brass to his boot-blacked blunted spurs, from his hair as black as her own to the eyes that drew her to discover the dark, seething emotions stirring within them.

  The dangerous stillness in him whispered to her of hunger and dark passions. She fought to remember more than the first sharp, exquisite sensations he had awakened with a kiss. She had to force herself to remember how easily her strength of will had dissolved.

  He had thought her a fancy woman to be bought by whoever had the price. The mention of her father had stopped him. And that’s what she had to remember now, her reason for being here, of her need for answers about the man who had abandoned her and her mother.

  One word. That was all it would take.

  “No.”

  He had his whisper. Not his name. Not the word he wanted. He came to his feet in a controlled rush.

  “Then we ride.”

  Domini realized the heat and tension were gone as if they had never been. “Luke, wait. I want to tell you, to explain—”

  “Honey, there was one thing I wanted to hear. You didn’t say it.”

  She knew he was up and moving by the sound of his voice. She ignored the soreness of her body and rose. Starting toward him, she stopped.

  “You don’t understand, Luke. I made a promise. One I can’t easily break. But more than that, I couldn’t give myself to a man who cares nothing about me. And that’s all it would be, Luke. An empty satisfying of a need, like eating when hungry or drinking when thirsty. The hunger comes back, so does the thirst. Because they’re needs of the body.

  “They don’t satisfy the needs of the soul, Luke. They don’t make your inner spirit rejoice. That’s why I say they’re empty. And that’s what I’d be if I said yes to you. Just someone you’d use to satisfy a need and leave empty—”

  “Empty? Hell, no, honey, you’ve got that all wrong. If I wasn’t a careful man, I’d leave you with a belly full of—”
/>
  “And still walk away,” she finished softly, sadly, but an accusation firm with the conviction that she was right.

  Silence answered her. Moments of silence when she believed that he wouldn’t answer her at all. Moments when she prayed he would deny her accusation. Moments more when hope she didn’t know that she harbored rose within her that Luke wanted more than a body to slake his lust. With the stretching silence came her answer long before he finally spoke.

  “And I’d walk away,” he answered at last. “Like I said, we ride out.”

  A wash of relief that the danger had passed left her shaking. Domini remained where she was, knowing he had moved off to get the horses. She didn’t understand why she had wavered, even for a little while. She knew what she wanted. A man like Luke had no place in the life of a woman who would take her vows and live behind the protection of habit and convent walls.

  Domini, about to turn to get the blanket, stopped dead. What was she thinking? She had never admitted protection as the reason she wanted to take the vows that would allow her to minister to the ills created by greedy men but never suffer them again.

  No. It was Luke that had made such a horrifying thought surface. She loved the peace and order of the days spent with the nuns. She cherished the moments when a smile curved the lips of a child whose hunger was sated. Pride was a sin she was guilty of, but Father Dominick told her she would overcome pride, for she had been blessed with compassion for the sick and the dying. Every week when he came to say mass at the mission and hear confession, he told her this.

  She knew where the compassion to sit with the sick and dying had come from; she had discovered it watching her mother die. Watched and knew that all the medicines Sister Benedict made, all the good food and clean linens had come too late to save her. She had promised God she would devote her life to those who needed her most. Luke only wanted her body, he did not need her.