His words shocked her, but intrigued her, too. He could see it in her eyes and the slight lift of her brows. “And if you want to know what it can feel like when all that hunger in your body explodes with satisfaction around me, you’re going to have to make a decision.”
“I don’t understand.” Her voice was shaky due to her uncertainty and the fact that he was still rasping the damp towel over her nipple.
He stopped and used the edge of the towel to tip her face up. “You’re going to have to choose me, Angel.”
“I married you.”
“I want all of you. I don’t want there to be any question of where you are and whose orders you follow. In your mind or anyone else’s.”
He pinched her nipple again for the simple reason that he loved the way her eyes darkened and her lips softened when he did. “I want your full commitment.”
“Being married isn’t enough?”
He released her nipple. “I’m a demanding man. I don’t take ‘no’ well.”
Her brow furrowed as she stared up at him. “I still don’t understand.”
“If you come to me, I’ll never leave you hurting. I’ll make this sweet body come so hard you’ll turn inside out, screaming for me, but I’ll take you too. Every way a man can take a woman. I won’t let you tell me no along the way. You’ll have to trust me and follow my orders.”
Her hand clenched over his where he held the towel. Her respiration increased, but he couldn’t tell whether she was aroused or scared. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“I won’t, but I might scare the hell out of you with what I expect.”
Her fingernails bit into the base of his thumbs. “And if I decide I can’t live with that?”
“Then you stay here with Doc and Dorothy, and we live separate lives.”
“You’ll end the marriage?”
He’d never do that. “No. I promised you my protection and you’ll have it, but we won’t be husband and wife in any real sense of the word. There won’t be children.”
“Oh.” Her lip slid between her teeth. He honestly couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so blunt, but he wasn’t a ladies’ man, and he wanted her too badly to play courting games. “When I come back next week, I want an answer.”
“You’re leaving me?”
He pulled her close and kissed that tempting mouth, using the towel to draw her up on her toes so he could nudge her lips open with his tongue, dipping his inside to taste her. “I’m giving you room to decide,” he clarified as he pulled back.
“And if I decide I want to be married to you?” she asked, her hands flattening against his bare chest.
He smoothed his thumb over her moist lips. “Then you get as much of me as you can take, for as long as you can take me.”
Her breath shuddered out of her chest. “Is that an incentive?”
“That’s what you need to decide.” He stepped back. “Just be sure, because once you come to me, there’ll be no going back. For either of us.”
Chapter Ten
Mara sat in the wagon in Dorothy’s front yard, staring at the endless expanse of grass before her. Cougar had promised to come for her in a week. A week had passed and he hadn’t come, and now at the end of the second, she was restless and unsure. Waffling between yes and no, she was a nervous wreck, dreading and anticipating the day he’d return. To make matters worse, the Reverend had shown up the day after Cougar left with a new dress for her, and a decision to court her if she decided to end her marriage. She’d counted on Cougar coming to collect her to set things right, but then he hadn’t, and she had a whole new set of choices to wrestle with.
“Are you sure you want to do this, honey?” Dorothy asked.
Mara settled herself a little deeper into the wagon seat. “Actually, no.” She picked up the reins. “I’m not sure of anything right now except that I can’t live like this any longer. A wife but not a wife. It’s driving me crazy.”
“At least let me go with you.”
Mara shook her head. “You know you can’t leave that poor little child in there. Her fever barely broke an hour ago.”
Dorothy ran her hand wearily across her brow. “You’re right about that, darn it.” She sighed. “It’s just that I don’t want you haring across the territory chasing trouble.”
Mara straightened in the seat. “Do you think he might hurt me?” She hadn’t even considered that possibility when she’d arrived at her decision.
“Cougar?” Dorothy scoffed. “He may take a few layers of flesh off your hide with his tongue when he discovers you traveled all that way on your own, but he won’t beat you.”
Mara relaxed. “Then there’s nothing to stop me, is there?”
“Nothing but thieves, Indians and general no-goods.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me.” Mara reassured the older woman for the hundredth time. “You said yourself that I can’t miss the place. I just head due west for a half hour and turn right at the big wooden arch proclaiming the boundaries of the Tumbling M.”
“I wish Horace were here.”
Mara shrugged. “He wouldn’t be able to stop me anymore than you can. I want this settled.”
“He darned well could knock you unconscious and tie you to the bed,” Dorothy retorted. “Anything but allow you to strike out on your own across this lawless land.”
Mara softened her voice. “I’ll be all right, Dorothy. I know you’re worried, but I have to go.”
“You could just wait for Cougar here. I’m sure there’s a reason he hasn’t come before now.”
Mara clenched the reins a little tighter in her hands. She was well aware of that. One of those reasons could be because he was having second thoughts. The roan pranced and tossed his head in protest. The harness jingled. A breeze blew across the yard, bending the grass. The balmy summer weather of the last two weeks had deteriorated into the cool reality of a Wyoming Fall. Mara shivered and huddled a little deeper into one of Doc’s borrowed coats. She took her time answering.
“I can’t,” she finally confessed. She shook her head. “Not anymore. My whole life I’ve been afraid of doing the wrong thing. I spent hours practicing to be the perfect little girl, the perfect daughter, and the perfect woman, and where did all that practicing get me? Except to the Pleasure Emporium?”
“And you think going to Cougar is the wrong thing?”
“I think going to him is the biggest risk I could ever take.”
“So why do it?” Dorothy asked.
Mara forced her fingers to unclench on the reins. She shrugged and smiled wryly, “Because it’s the biggest risk I’ll ever take.”
And because she trusted Cougar in an elemental way in which she couldn’t make herself trust Brad.
Dorothy hesitated. “He’s not an easy man, you know.”
“I know.”
“By the time Doc and I adopted him, he was already pretty set in his ways.”
“How did you come to adopt him?”
“His mother and Clint’s mother were sisters. When Cougar was thirteen his mom died, and then his father. Cougar came back here looking for Clint.”
“And?”
“He was a wild thing, always expecting the worst, looking for a fight, not accepting any help from his family.” Dorothy sighed and shrugged. “Clint’s mom married up with a decent man, Doc’s half-brother, but Cougar’s dad was a wastrel. A handsome one, but a wastrel all the same.”
“Clint’s family wouldn’t take him in?”
Dorothy grimaced. “Jared made the mistake of mentioning doing his Christian duty by Cougar. Cougar told him to go to hell and wouldn’t speak to him again no matter how often he tried to fix things.”
Mara could easily imagine Cougar, even as a boy, being too proud to be a charity case.
“How old was Cougar when you adopted him?”
“Thirteen, and almost as tall as he is now, but all gangly boy.”
“So why did you do it?�
� She couldn’t imagine anything scarier than Cougar out of control.
“Because no matter how much he was always expecting the worst, he was always giving the best and he needed someone to care.”
“So Doc brought him home?”
“No. I did.” Dorothy smiled and shook her head at the memory. “He was sitting in the alley behind the saloon eating scraps. He saw me watching him and he scowled at me.” Dorothy avoided Mara’s gaze for a second. “I’m ashamed to say I moved right along.”
“I imagine even as a boy he could be intense.”
Dorothy shook her head, anger creeping into her expression. “He was just a scared, hungry boy who was alone in the world. What else did he have but pride?” Dorothy’s mouth tightened with disgust. Whether at herself or circumstance, Mara couldn’t tell. “That occurred to me about three steps away from the alley,” Dorothy continued.
“You went back?” Mara wasn’t sure she would have.
“Yes. And I was just in time to see him feeding what little food he had to a mangy dog that was in as bad a shape as he was.”
“Oh.” She could see it, and despite herself was touched. “What happened then?”
“I marched up to him and asked him if he wanted to come to my house for supper.”
“And he went?”
Dorothy smiled with remembered fondness. “He told me to go to hell just like he’d told everyone else.”
That she could see. Cougar wouldn’t take charity, but still part of her felt sorry for the orphaned boy forced to scavenge for food and a place to belong. “So how did you get him home?”
“I grabbed him by his ear, marched him to Doc’s office, washed his mouth out with lye soap for every curse word he said along the way, and then took him home and fed him.”
Mara eyed Dorothy with new respect. “I don’t know how you had the courage.”
“Courage didn’t enter into it. I was mad and frustrated, and I tend not to think straight when I have my dander up. While he ate, I talked to him about what I remembered of his Mom, how sweet and gentle she was and how in her memory, I was making him my responsibility. I told him in the way of his mother’s people, I was claiming him for my own and from that day on he was my son, like it or not.”
“And he accepted that?”
Dorothy sent her a pitying glance. “Cougar’s no different than anyone else for all he looks big and mean. He always wanted to belong, he just needed someone to sit up and take notice in a way he could understand.”
Mara couldn’t see Cougar needing anyone. He was a law unto himself, but maybe he’d been different as a boy. Her thoughts must have shown in her face because Dorothy said, “The boy never gave me a lick of trouble after that and has been the best son a woman could ask for, but you’d do well to remember this story when you get to his place.”
“Why?”
“Because Cougar still has a tendency to bluff when he’s unsure. And,” she sighed, “he’s naturally bossy.”
You’ll sleep in my bed, accept my touch, accept me into your body. This time, Mara’s shiver had nothing to do with the cold.
“I know.”
“And you still want him?”
Mara considered that for a moment. Did she want a man who gave orders as naturally as breathing? Did she want a man who had enough pride for two people and a tendency to snap and growl when thwarted? A man who was apparently as loyal as he could be deadly? Wind gusted around the corner of the cabin, whipping both women’s skirts around their legs. Dorothy shielded her face with her hand while Mara tugged her straw bonnet a little lower over her eyes.
“What happened to the dog?”
“What?” Dorothy wiped dust from her eye.
“What happened to the dog Cougar shared his meal with?”
Dorothy stared at her a moment, uncomprehendingly, but then a smile slowly lit her face from within. Her voice was soft with understanding as she said, “Cougar brought it home, and it lived with us for the rest of its life.”
Mara was willing to bet it never wanted for anything again. “Then yes, I want him.”
“Women have always wanted Cougar,” Dorothy said. “Either for his looks or his reputation, but I think it matters more to you who he is on the inside, and I’m glad of that. Cougar deserves a woman who wants him for what he is.” She leaned forward and put her hand over Mara’s. Her palm was firm and slightly rough, her grip as comforting as her gaze was anxious. “But honey, why do you have to go today?”
Mara bit her lip. She wished her bonnet had deep sides so she could use it to shield her expression. “Because I’m afraid,” she whispered. “I’m so afraid of the way he draws me, I almost ran away three times this week.”
Dorothy’s fingers tightened over Mara’s. She took a breath and released it slowly as her gaze rose to meet Mara’s. “I know that feeling. Before I agreed to toss my safe, comfortable, pampered existence to the wind and marry Horace, I knew that fear well.”
Mara searched her eyes. “And?”
Dorothy pulled the wool blanket a little higher over Mara’s legs. She patted it smooth with brisk efficiency. “Sometimes a woman just has to take a chance.”
“Exactly.” And this was going to be the biggest chance of her life. She was afraid of being with a man. Cougar knew that. It was entirely possible he’d left her here because of that. She couldn’t blame him if he had, but that didn’t mean she was going to accept his decision without trying to show him that she could get past her fear.
Dorothy stepped back, drawing Mara’s attention, one hand holding her hair from her face, the other planted on her hip. “You take care on that drive. Keep that rifle by your side at all times. Anybody rides up to you, you shoot first and ask questions later.”
Mara was tempted to salute. She smiled instead. “Yes, Ma’am.”
The wind gusted again. Dorothy clutched her skirts. “Just remember, if it doesn’t work out, you’ve always got a home here with us.”
Mara clutched her courage. “Thank you.”
She slapped the reins gently on the obedient gelding’s rump and headed West.
* * * * *
The sign was too big to miss.
It sat in the middle of a huge meadow, standing at least fifteen feet high, and it proclaimed Cougar’s aspirations loud and clear. Mara halted the wagon beneath the huge sign. Looking straight up, she read the ornately carved words. Tumbling M. A Fool’s Dream.
She shook her head and wondered if it were a sign from above, because she couldn’t think of a more unlikely pair of dreamers than Cougar and herself. He for his determination to carve a future from this wilderness. She for her determination to carve happiness out of this marriage.
As she bounced up the rutted path, she rehearsed line after opening line to explain her presence. Cougar had said he wanted her, but she wasn’t sure he hadn’t changed his mind in the interim. If he did, however, she was going to jump on the nearest chair and slap him. It wasn’t every day she worked up the courage to do something risky and if he killed her first try, she would never forgive him.
The wagon hit a deep hole. The jolt reverberated up her spine. Her cheeks sucked in on a quick breath, and as the wagon rounded a bend, she forgot to let it out. Her eyes glued to the structure before her, Mara pulled slowly back on the reins. The roan obligingly stopped, his head swinging down to lazily snatch at patches of grass.
This was Cougar’s house? This, this…palace? She forced her slack jaw taut. She would not be intimidated by the size of Cougar’s house. So it wasn’t the comfy little cabin she’d been dreaming of. It was still Cougar’s home, and had no real bearing on her plans to fit into his life, but it was a lie and she knew it.
The huge, two-story log home had been built by a man who meant to leave a mark. Clearly, Cougar meant this to be a central gathering place for influential people. A place where important decisions would be made. The woman who graced this house would be expected to know all the social intricacies of well brought up society.
She looked up at that great big house with all its expensive glass—glass!—windows and felt a burst of indecision. The woman who lived in this house would have to be perfect. She was a far cry from that. Which might explain why Cougar hadn’t come back for her. With her background, it was entirely possible that he was having second thoughts.
Mara untied her bonnet and chewed her lip. She looked at the house again, and one by one, squashed the fears nipping at her from all directions. Whatever Cougar had or had not planned for her decision to be, it was her decision and she had made it. She set the brake and looped the reins around the pole. She was Cougar McKinnely’s wife. She put her bonnet on the seat. They were both just going to have to deal with it.
She climbed down from the wagon. As her feet hit the ground, she straightened her spine. I am a Kincaid. I can do this. She headed for the porch steps and then paused as she realized no one here knew her. She was Cougar McKinnely’s wife, but a stranger. She glanced at the wide wraparound porch and the ornate wooden door dead center. They may not even let her in.
A totally cowardly impulse had her considering turning tail and running. Disgust at the impulse carried her up the four steps to the porch and had her rapping on the door. When no one came to answer her third knock, she lifted the latch, and stepped inside. Two steps into the room, she stopped dead.
This was worse than she’d imagined.
The house was, quite simply, the most breathtaking creation she had ever seen. The floor plan swept away from the entry in two open wings with a staircase bisecting them and gracefully sweeping up to the second floor balcony. Everywhere she turned, there was the golden glow of oak. To the right was a large dining area with two fieldstone fireplaces. To the left was what she supposed was the living area with additional fireplaces, but any space for sitting had to be carved out of piles and piles of wooden crates. Even that clutter couldn’t hide the elegance of the room.
Taking in the velvet curtains and elegant paintings on the walls, Mara became acutely aware of her tattered dress and dusty appearance. She shook her skirt out unobtrusively and caught sight of the floor. Any dust that tumbled from her clothing was indistinguishable from the heavy coating of dirt marring the golden beauty.
Promises Keep (The Promise Series) Page 15