Although it troubled her deeply when Cloud left her alone to go and play cards with Liza, she hid it. If he were intending to answer some of the invitations hurled his way, there was little she could do about it. As she crawled into bed, she wished she could accept that instead of having doubts and fears gnaw at her, keeping her awake. She put the pillow over her head to block out the increasing noise and wished she could as easily block out the images jealousy put in her mind.
“It’s getting late, son,” Liza said as she idly shuffled the cards. “One more hand. I still have the vain hope
I’ll do more than break even with you, Liza.”
She laughed and dealt the cards. “She’s a cute little thing, your Em. Real polite too. That’s good breeding, that is.”
He nodded. “She’s got that all right.” He frowned slightly. “It seems a little rowdier here than it used to be.”
“That’s desperation you hear. They know this town is dying, that they’ll have to move on. Men can get a little wild when they know all their dreams’re worth squat. Haven’t had any real trouble, though. Your Em’ll be safe.”
Even as Liza spoke, a scream pierced through all the other sounds in the house. Cursing viciously, Cloud bolted toward the stairs. Liza hurried after him but was hard put just to keep him in view.
Using curses she had learned from Cloud, Emily fought to get out from beneath the big, hairy, and very drunk man who had sprawled on top of her, waking her out of a sound sleep. He kept calling her Tiffany, but he was too drunk to heed her denials. In the increasingly vain hope that someone would hear her and come to help her, she screamed and screamed again. She was just about to do so a third time when the door to the room was slammed open and, an instant later, her attacker was ripped off of her. Emily saw Cloud fling the larger man to the floor, then saw a panting Liza appear in the doorway.
To Emily’s extreme embarrassment, a half-dozen people quickly appeared behind Liza to peer in at her. Emily yanked the sheet up to her neck.
“Easy now, Cloud,” Liza said. “That’s Jake and he’s harmless enough. He’s drunk, too. Thinks your lady’s Tiffany, I’ll wager.”
“Yes, he did keep calling me that.”
After a searching look over Emily, which revealed her frightened but apparently unhurt, Cloud looked at Liza. “How the hell’d he get in here? The door was locked.”
“Reckon Tiffany gave him a key. Girl never did follow rules. Joe, Leroy, get this fool friend of yours outta here and try to make him understand Tiffany ain’t here no more.” Even as the two men hurried to pick up a dazed Jake, Liza fished through his pockets and got the key. “Damnation. Hope that fool girl didn’t hand out any others. You all right, miss?”
“Just frightened, Mrs. Little. I was asleep and suddenly he was there.”
“That’d startle a body all right. Reckon that ends our card game, Cloud. See you at breakfast.”
“Yeh, thanks, Liza.” As soon as he had shut the door after everyone and locked it, Cloud looked at Emily. “You sure you’re all right?”
“I thought you said this place was safe.” She hopped out of bed, hurried over to the washbowl and proceeded to scrub her mouth clean, needing to be rid of the whiskey-soured taste of her inept attacker. “I swear I have not been safe since I left Boston. I have been leered at, propositioned, compromised, kidnapped, held at knife point and attacked by a drunken sot wailing for a Tiffany.”
She glared at Cloud as she stomped back to the bed and got in with a decided flounce. “Now I find myself sleeping in a room where every place I look I find myself staring back at me. It would serve this territory right if I wrote a letter to all the papers back east enumerating every travail I have endured.”
He could not fully suppress the laughter in his voice as he exclaimed, “Hell, Em, if you did that, no woman’d travel west of the Mississippi.” He started to undress.
“Exactly. Not many men would either, for their wives would sit down in St. Louis or Independence and refuse to take another step.”
Shaking his head and laughing softly, he shed the last of his clothes and slid into bed beside her. “You’re in a real snit, aren’t you?”
Although still tense with anger, she did not resist when he tugged her into his arms. “I was sleeping peacefully and was rudely awakened by a huge, hairy man stinking of whiskey and a great deal more. It was not a pleasant experience.”
“Poor Em. I’m sorry. It is safe here. Trust me. You would’ve been perfectly safe if that girl, Tiffany, had stuck to the rules. Liza doesn’t allow room keys handed out. If nothing else, it would allow for some private—er, interaction, which is like stealing from her. It’s also dangerous. It means someone can get in and out of a room with one of her girls without her knowing who, when or where. She’d lose control over the situation and that could lead to some real trouble.”
He slowly stroked and nuzzled away her anger and the touch of fear that lingered. Once he was certain that she was fully responding, he made slow, gentle love to her. Ruthlessly ignoring her protests and changing them to cries of delight, he left no part of her untouched or untasted. She turned to fire in his arms and he revealed it.
Emily peeked at the man sprawled in her arms, blushed, and looked away. She could not believe the things she had allowed him to do nor the way she had responded to his intimate kisses. Although she could not believe Cloud was given to any strange perversions, she could not fully believe that the intimacies they had just shared were quite right.
Glancing up at Emily, Cloud smiled faintly over the color staining her cheeks. He was not surprised to find her fretting over her abandonment in his arms once the glow of passion had faded. Her innocence and modesty insured her embarrassment. He simply hoped he could think of all the right words to soothe her, for tasting Emily from her now furrowed brow to her delicate little toes, with a lot of lingering in between, was something he decided he had a positive craving for. Pleasuring Emily in such a way was a pleasure for him and not simply a rarely used and calculated move to ready her for him to seek his own gratification.
“Em, you think too much.” He nuzzled her neck. “Sometimes it’s best just to feel, just to enjoy.”
She sighed and wished it could be so easy. “I do not know if I can. Some things seem so scandalous they cannot possibly be right.”
“Trust me, Em. I’m not given to any strange twists of taste.”
“Well, I couldn’t really believe that you were.”
“I’m not. If it’s something that pleasures us both, I figure it’s okay. You’re a prude, Em,” he goaded.
“Quite probably, although I hardly think that my finding it shocking to roll about in total abandonment with a man who is not my lawful husband is prudish. That should shock anyone with a sense of modesty or morality.”
Rolling onto his back, he dragged her on top of him and winked at her. “Total abandonment, hmmm? I like the sound of that.”
“Yes, you would.” A sound much like an Indian’s war whoop echoed through the hall and Emily gasped. “Cloud? Did you hear that?” Her first start of fear faded rapidly when she realized that Cloud was laughing. “Stop laughing and tell me what it was.” When he just laughed harder, she suddenly realized what had caused the sound and blushed even as it echoed through the hall again. “Oh.”
“Old James sure must be enjoying himself.”
At first Emily was embarrassed, but then curiosity proved stronger. “That was James? No, it can’t be. He is such a gentleman.”
“Oh, it’s James all right. Honey, you put a man in a bed with a willing woman and his fine manners slip away fast.”
“Well, I wouldn’t know about that, seeing as the only man I have been in a bed with doesn’t have any fine manners to let slip,” she drawled, then ruined the effects of her coolly delivered insult by giggling over his mock look of outrage.
For a little while they playfully wrestled, and Cloud discovered that Emily was ticklish nearly everywhere and Emily discovered
that Cloud had only one ticklish spot—the bottom of his feet—but that it was a very ticklish spot indeed. When they finally stopped their nonsense, Cloud was sprawled on top of her and they were both breathing heavily. A moment later Emily realized that it was not only Cloud’s laughter that had been stirred by their tussling. “Again?”
“Got some objections, do you?”
Since his skillful stroking was already making her purr softly, Emily decided that that was a very foolish question.
Unsuccessfully smothering a yawn, Cloud adjusted an equally sleepy Emily more comfortably in his arms. “Your journey will be over soon, darlin'. A week left at the most.”
Emily felt as if someone had just punched her in the heart. She had realized that they were getting close to the San Luis Valley, but she had not realized that they were quite that close. Reluctantly, she admitted to herself that she had not thought about it, had indeed done her best not to think about it. She felt panicked about how little time there was left. It seemed far too short a time to make any further headway into Cloud’s heart. She could not help but feel that she had lost the battle for his love.
“Only a week?” She hoped he would attribute the soft huskiness of her voice to weariness and not guess that she was very close to bursting into tears.
“Or less. The last leg of our journey could go smoothly, but I never bet on it. Soon you’ll see that brother of yours.”
“That will be nice.” And you will drop me at his doorstep like a lump of hot coals, she thought despairingly.
Chapter Eleven
Dawn was just streaking the sky when Cloud nudged Emily awake. He felt a sense of rising excitement. Wolfe’s ranch was not quite a day’s ride away. Not only would he see his brother for the first time in almost a year, but he would be back on his own land. He realized that it was the first time since he had bought the plot of land that he was eager to see it, to get planning on what to do with it. Glancing at the delicate woman who was sitting up and rubbing her eyes, he had the feeling she had something to do with his change of attitude. She had started him planning, was part of his thoughts on the future.
“Cheer up, Emily. This is the last day you have to ride Carolynn.”
She managed a smile, then watched as he moved to check on the coffee he was already brewing. He was obviously in high spirits and that hurt. It might not be because he would soon be rid of her, but there was no ignoring the fact that that was what would happen soon. She would be dutifully delivered to her brother by the day’s end.
Trying to shake off her sadness, she tended to Thornton. Soon she was caught up in the many chores entailed in breaking camp. The work kept her from brooding, but she could not fully shake her depression. When she was finally mounted and riding there was so little to distract her that she felt almost overwhelmed by sadness. It took most of her concentration simply to keep herself from weeping.
Cloud kept glancing at Emily but her crestfallen expression did not change. He had seen her in all sorts of moods but never so sad, and he decided he did not like it.
When they stopped at noon for a brief rest and a light meal, Cloud managed to manuever Emily to a spot that gave them a little privacy. As he watched her pick at the bread and cheese Mrs. Little had kindly given them, he wondered what to say or do to pull her out of her mood.
“Em, is anything wrong?”
Barely glancing at him, she shook her head. “No, nothing. I am just weary.”
“Well, you’ll have a proper bed to sleep in tonight.”
“That will be nice.” She managed a smile. “And a bath?”
“A hot one.”
“That will be heaven.”
After a few more vain attempts at conversation. Cloud gave up and joined James, who watched Thornton as the boy crouched in some long grass searching for interesting bugs. He sat down by his friend, and said, “Something’s bothering Emily.”
“Just noticed that, did you?”
“No,” he snapped. “I noticed it from the start. What I want to know is what the hell is it?”
“Is the great womanizer of the West asking advice from a novice like me?” James met Cloud’s furious look with a smile. “Why don’t you just ask her what’s bothering her? Simple’s sometimes the best.”
“I did ask her. If she didn’t consider it indelicate, she would probably just grunt. Being such a polite little thing, she does give me at least two, three words at a time. She’s telling me diddly. I’m up against a wall. Hell, she looks ready to cry.”
“And that’d bother you, would it?”
“Yeh,” Cloud ground out. “How about a little help here?”
“Well, the only thought I have is probably not one you want to hear.” He glanced toward Thornton to assure himself that the boy was not wandering away.
“I’ll listen to anything at the moment.” Cloud ran a hand through his hair in an uncharacteristic gesture of frustration. “Think it’s her female time? Women can get strange then.”
“Nope, what I think ails her is that, very soon, you’ll be dropping her at her brother’s doorstep like so much excess baggage.”
“And who said I was going to do that?”
“It was the plan, wasn’t it?”
“It was.” Cloud did not feel like telling anyone what he had decided just yet. “Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”
“Going to keep her?”
“Well, I ain’t dropping her at Harper’s door like—what did you say?—so much excess baggage.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Nope.”
“Then perhaps you should.”
“Thought I’d wait until we could be private at Wolfe’s.”
“Then get used to her mood, for I suspect it’ll be around until you do.”
“You really think that’s the problem?”
“Seems the most logical. Girl does have some pride if nothing else.”
Cloud nodded absently. James’s theory cheered him. If that was what made Emily look so forlorn, it meant she had some feeling for him and would like to stay with him. His proposal would probably have a good chance of being accepted.
For a moment he was tempted to propose immediately, but he resisted that urge. He wanted to be able to at least tell her what sort of life he planned on, and he was not quite ready to do that. It would take a week or two before he had any set ideas or plans to set before her. Then he would propose. He was sure she would be safe at Harper’s until he did. He kept that decision firm while stoutly refusing to think on how he would be sleeping alone during that time.
It was late in the afternoon when Cloud rode up beside her and pointed to a large ranch house in the distance. “That’s Wolfe’s place. He’s worked on it some since I last saw it.” Cloud halted for a moment.
Emily was pleasantly surprised by what she saw. After the places they had stopped at on the way, she had expected something much rougher. It was no Boston mansion, but it was a far cry from a two-room cabin.
“It’s very nice.”
“Our pa was a farmer, but he had a real skill at building too. He taught us everything he knew.”
“Wolfe lives there alone?”
“For now. He decided he might as well build big because he plans to stay and had the funds to do it.”
“Very sensible.”
“Well, let’s go fill up his house.”
That remark puzzled her, but before she could ask exactly what he meant, Cloud was starting toward the house. She nudged her horse to follow him and hoped that he would recall his promise of a hot bath. Glancing at the sky, which aleady held the promise of night, she hoped she would have the time before he hurried her off to Harper’s.
Even as they reined in before the house, a tall young man stepped out. Cloud vaulted from the saddle and the two were soon laughing and roughly embracing each other. She noticed that there was a strong family resemblance between the pair as James helped first Thornton, then her down from their horses. It was impossible not to
wonder if Wolfe Ryder was as great a libertine as his brother. When men looked like that, she mused a little bitterly, it was probably inevitable.
Wolfe Ryder’s eyes were the color of amber. She murmured a response to his friendly greeting and wondered, a little wildly, if anyone in the Ryder family had eyes of a common color.
Things grew very confusing for a while. Wolfe mistakenly tried to put her in with James, only to be sharply corrected by Cloud. She got no chance to ask about when she would be taken to Harper’s and soon found herself alone in the room she had been shown to, a steaming bath readied and waiting for her. Setting aside all her questions a little while longer, she started to shed her dusty clothes.
Sinking into the hot water with a sigh of near ecstacy, Emily felt almost cheerful.
There was nothing, she decided, that could better soothe any pain than a soak in a hot bath. She hoped it would work to lift her spirits. There was very little time left to be with Cloud and she did not want to spend it sulking. Closing her eyes as she soaked, she told herself firmly that she would not give Cloud any reason to think that his callous disposal of her mattered one little bit.
Cloud frowned as he watched Emily seated across from him at the kitchen table. She was in much better spirits and, although the meal Wolfe had set before them was hearty, he doubted it was the cause of her greatly improved mood. It irritated him, for he could no longer feel certain that she cared about leaving him.
“By the way, Cloud,” she asked, interrupting his increasingly dark thoughts. “When do I go to Harper’s?”
“In the morning.”
It was not only his curt reply that surprised her but the news that she still had one more night with him. She was cross that he was so slow to tell her what plans had been made, but she quickly shook that irritation aside. She was being given one more night with Cloud and she was determined to make the best of it. It could well be the last chance she had to change his mind about leaving her and to make a few more memories to cherish in what began to look like a very barren future.
Compromised Hearts Page 13