by Janet Dailey
Missy crimsoned at the detached criticism in Colter’s reply. Natalie felt her heart reaching out to the young girl in sympathy. Fear was an awesome thing. Missy was not naturally adventurous, which only increased fear’s hold.
FIVE
COFFEE FOLLOWED dessert for the adults while Ricky and Missy excused themselves from the table to enjoy the last of the sunlight outdoors.
A scarlet-orange disc was hovering over the treetops when Natalie finished helping Mrs. Donaldsen with the last of the dinner dishes and went in search of Ricky. There was a halfhearted assertion that he wasn’t tired, but a yawn accompanied his statement and Ricky followed Natalie to his bedroom.
There was a bathroom situated in the hallway between his room and Missy’s. While Ricky bathed, Natalie unpacked his cases, barely filling the empty drawers of the dressing-table and the roomy closet. She was just turning back the covers of his bed when he padded into the room.
“Will you read me a story? I washed real good.” He held out his small hands for her inspection.
Long, curling lashes fluttered down to conceal bright brown eyes long before the Three Bears discovered Goldilocks in their home. Natalie tucked the bedcovers tightly about him, brushed a kiss to the forehead covered with silky brown hair and tiptoed out of his room, leaving the door slightly ajar in case he called for her in the night.
Before Natalie returned to her own room, she looked in on Missy. She was sitting in bed with a book propped on her knees. Her nondescript brown hair was free of its braid, flowing down her shoulders to her waist in crisp waves. Its length made the young girl’s face look longer and thinner. Natalie silently resolved to persuade Missy to have her hair cut into a shorter style some future time when they were better acquainted.
“I stopped in to wish you a good night,” Natalie smiled.
“Is Ricky in bed?” Missy asked.
“In bed and already sound asleep, and he wasn’t tired,” she laughed softly, and received an answering smile of understanding at Ricky’s initial reluctance to go to bed.
Then the smile faded from Missy’s face as she darted a shy look at Natalie. “I’m . . . I’m glad you and Ricky came to live with us,” she offered hesitatingly.
“So am I,” Natalie nodded calmly, knowing this was not the time to grasp too firmly at Missy’s tentative hand of friendship. “Good night, Missy, and have a nice night.”
“Good night — Natalie.”
As Natalie opened the door to her room, there was a satisfied gleam in her eyes. Ricky was adapting easily, as only a child can, to his new life, and Missy was on the verge of accepting them both completely and without reservation. The future seemed to hold a very rosy glow.
Her suitcases stood at the foot of the bed. As she approached them to begin her own unpacking, she spied the door, to what she had thought was a closet, standing ajar. The glimpse of lush carpet and shining porcelain revealed that it was not a closet.
Curious, Natalie stepped through the open doorway, gazing with pleasure at the spacious private bath. Contrasting the three white walls, the fourth was covered with a mural of a green landscape. But the most striking feature of the bathroom was the sunken tub, luxuriously deep and large.
Thick bath towels hung on a gold rack. A glass shelf near the tub held a dish of yellow-gold soap in the shape of rosebuds. Beside it was an unopened container of lavender-scented bath salts, no doubt a peace offering from Mrs. Donaldsen.
The prospect of lazing in the sunken tub filled with fragrant bubbles was infinitely more inviting than unpacking the suitcases in the adjoining room. And, Natalie told herself, she could always unpack after a relaxing bath.
Thus convinced, she turned on the gold taps and adjusted the water temperature, liberally adding the lavender-scented salts. In her bedroom, she shook out the gold lounging robe from the smaller of the two suitcases and carried it and the cosmetic case into the bathroom.
Nearly three-quarters of an hour later, Natalie stood in front of the vanity mirror above the gleaming porcelain sink, feeling clean and refreshed and blissfully feminine. Fluffing the ends of her shining honey-brown hair with a comb, she tried to recall the last time she had felt free to spend so much time on herself. It seemed very long ago.
The cowled neckline of her robe curled in a wide circle about her neck, revealing the delicate hollows of her collarbones and the graceful curve of her throat. The muted gold shade intensified the sparkling amber lights in her hazel eyes. Her features were no longer etched with worry and tension, but soft and alluringly beautiful with her new-found security. With the pinched look of strain gone, Natalie didn’t look nearly so thin.
With a satisfied smile turning up the corners of her mouth, she switched off the bathroom light and walked back into her bedroom.
Her expression froze at the sight of Colter standing near the bed in the act of tossing his shirt on the chair.
“What are you doing in here?” Natalie demanded in a less than commanding tone as she stared in disbelief at the leanly muscular and naked chest.
He spared her a sliding glance of unconcern as he unbuckled his belt and slipped it from the waistband of his trousers. “Getting ready for bed.”
“But . . . but this is my room,” she faltered, her heart beating wildly.
“Yes, it’s your room, too,” Colter agreed, emptying his pockets on to the dressing-table top.
“Too?” she echoed weakly, still in the grip of surprise. “But I thought —”
Colter turned slowly, his dispassionate face examining her startled expression. “What exactly did you think?”
Natalie whirled away from his compelling gaze, her hand clutching the zippered front of her robe. Striving to achieve a calmness she was far from feeling, she breathed in deeply. The short burst of derisive laughter that followed her movement nearly brought back the sense of panic.
“You didn’t honestly believe this was going to be one of those ‘in-name-only’ marriages, did you?” Colter jeered.
Her temper flared instantly at his cynical tone. “Last night —” she began indignantly.
But he interrupted with cutting swiftness. “Last night accommodation with suitable privacy couldn’t be arranged.”
“You may as well know now that I have no intention of going to bed with you.” Natalie tilted her head to a defiant angle. “We may have gone through the formalities of a marriage ceremony, but we are not truly man and wife.”
“Not yet,” qualified Colter, his hands resting complacently on his hips.
“Not ever!” she flashed, spinning away from the unmistakably masculine figure to seek some place of safety.
With the swiftness of the cougar she had likened him to, Colter had a steel grip on her arm and was jerking her rigid body around to face him. His narrowed gaze raked her face with its look of outrage.
“Did you honestly expect to live in this house the dozen or so years before Ricky is grown without ever once having me touch you?” His other hand closed suggestively over her hip bone and pulled her against the taut muscles of his thighs. “I’m a man, Natalie. The urge to possess a desirable and attractive woman like you is natural and I have no intention of denying it.”
Natalie had no idea what she had thought, if she had even given it a thought. She stiffly maintained the pressure against his hold, glaring at him coldly.
“I’m not a slave to be taken whenever the mood strikes you,” she stated sharply. “You may have provided me and Ricky with a home and security. I’m grateful for that, but not even gratitude will make me submit to you. No one has ever touched me, and if you try, I’ll scream.”
“And who will hear you?” Colter whispered softly, but with an undercurrent of derision. “Flo is on the other side of the house, no doubt fast asleep, and her hearing isn’t as keen as it once was. Your voice wouldn’t carry to the quarters of the ranch hands. The only ones that would hear your cries would be Ricky and Missy.”
Natalie paled at the undeniable truth of his wo
rds. Fear took the edge from her anger as she frantically examined his aloof expression for some sign of compassion or mercy. Nothing. The only thing that gave her hope was the lack of desire burning in his eyes. She had seen the look that came into men’s eyes when they wanted to make love to a girl, and it was noticeably absent in Colter’s.
“You don’t want me,” she asserted breathlessly.
His hold on her arm and hip didn’t slacken. “It’s just as well that I’m not ruled by passion,” the hard line of his mouth moved into a mirthless smile, “if, as you say, no man has ever touched you before.”
She gasped sharply as waves of panic assailed her. With her free hand, she tried to push herself away from his chest, to struggle free, but his strength was far superior to hers. He crushed her against him, almost denying her breath.
“If you fight me, I’ll have to be rough,” he growled near her ear. “If you’ll let me, I’ll be gentle.”
The roar of blood in her ears seemed to deprive the rest of her body of its strength. With the iron band of his arms pressing her against him, Natalie felt the nakedness of his skin burning through her robe, singeing her nerve ends until she felt nothing but him. She bent her head back, as far away from the hard chest as his hold would permit.
Fear and loathing glittered in her eyes that stared into his darkly tanned and impassive face, ruthlessly set with the implacability of his intent. Breath came in tiny gasps for air through parted lips.
“How can you do this when you know I’m not willing?” Natalie demanded, knowing her protest was useless, but refusing to submit like some passive slave.
Frosty blue-green eyes travelled lazily over her upturned face. “I mean this marriage to begin as I intend it to go on.”
As she twisted her head away, Colter shifted his hold, pinning both arms behind her back in the grip of one hand. His free hand moved to her throat, the touch against her skin sending convulsive shudders quivering through her. Foolishly Natalie didn’t guess his intention until she felt the zipper of her robe opening against her skin.
“No!” The word was torn from her throat in breathless panic.
She struggled desperately to impede the zipper’s progress, succeeding only to a limited extent. With her bare foot she kicked at his shins. A wince of pain flashed across his face, but Colter didn’t lessen his hold. Instead he swung her off her feet into his arms and carried her to the bed, dumping her on to the exposed sheets like a sack of potatoes.
Before Natalie could recover and slide off the opposite side, the overhead light was switched off and the weight of his body was on the mattress beside her, his hands instinctively finding her in the dark.
With all the power at her command, she fought him off, kicking and clawing at him like a wild thing. Occasionally she felt the warm wetness of blood where her nails had made their mark on his shoulders and back. Her frantic violence only sapped her energy, leaving her exhausted and weak on the bed, her arms stretched above her head by Colter’s hands, her robe tossed somewhere on the floor.
A moment to catch her breath, that was all she needed, she told herself, and stiffened as she felt the warmth of his mouth on the cord of her neck. During all her struggles, he had not touched her, only warding off her flailing arms and legs and keeping her on the bed beside him. Her robe had been stripped from her, but the hands that did it had not been interested in the bareness beneath it.
Weakly Natalie tried to pull her wrists from his hands and twist her body free of the pinning weight of his chest. Her attempts were pathetic and she knew it.
“Stop fighting,” Colter ordered quietly. “You’ll only hurt yourself.”
“And you won’t?” she hissed bitterly.
Her mistake was in turning her head to glare at him. Immediately his mouth took possession of hers, branding his ownership with burning thoroughness. At some point in the provocative mastery of his kisses, a whirling void opened up and Natalie was pulled into the burning blackness.
It was much later before Colter rolled away from her, not leaving until he had drawn an involuntary gasp of pleasure from her lips. For interminable seconds, Natalie lay weak and spent where he had left her, struggling to surface from the fiery sensations that swamped her consciousness.
In one part of her mind there was nothing but loathing for the man who had truly become her husband. The rest was still reeling from the sensual shock of his lovemaking, its aftermath not as unpleasant as she wanted it to be.
Rolling on to her side, she was filled with self-disgust at the admission, despising herself as much as she loathed Colter. If tears could have erased the memory, she would have cried. Instead she curled into a tight ball of misery.
The moon had risen above the treetops. Its light was streaming through the sheer curtains at the window, laying a silvery path across the bed. The droning song of the cicadas sounded in the distance, punctuated by the call of the bullfrogs, and a night bird trilled to the stars. The world should have stopped, but it hadn’t.
“You’ll live to regret the day you married him,” Flo Donaldsen’s words came flying to her mind.
Fiesta. Natalie had married Colter on the last day of Fiesta San Antonio, a celebration of independence. Imprudently she had not guessed he intended to use her to satisfy all his needs. The gold band on her finger was a symbol of ownership and Natalie didn’t intend to be a slave. If she and Ricky had to walk all the way back to San Antonio, she would not stay in this house another night.
“Natalie.”
Colter’s fingers closed over her arm as he spoke. His tone was detached and impersonal, disregarding the complete intimacy they had shared only moments ago.
A shiver of sensual awareness danced over her skin, igniting an answering spark within her. The involuntary response of her body angered Natalie and she wrenched her arm free of his touch.
“Leave me alone,” she demanded tautly.
His reply was a punishing grip on her shoulder that pushed it back on to the sheet and held her flat. There was no more reason to fight, so Natalie lay in rigid unresistance, keeping her head turned away from him.
“Look at me,” he commanded. When she didn’t comply, Colter took hold of her chin and twisted her face to his. “I said look at me,” he repeated in a firmly relentless voice as she kept her gaze averted.
Resentment flamed brightly when Natalie focused her gaze on his face, moonlight shimmering white-gold on the sun-bleached hair falling across the smooth forehead. Metallic chips of blue steel looked back at her, immune to the loathing in her eyes.
“Don’t touch me,” Natalie ordered contemptuously.
A brow flicked upward in cynical mockery while his other hand slid over her silken skin to the swell of her breast, effectively reminding her that she was not the one to give orders. Natalie breathed in sharply, but didn’t draw away. It would have been useless.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Colter stated evenly.
“Do you?” she jeered.
“You’re thinking about running away,” he answered. Her brown lashes fluttered slightly in surprise, but there was no other admission in her expression that his guess was anywhere near accurate. “Where would you go? You can’t go back to your apartment because you know I’ll follow. You don’t have any money to get a new one. Without a job, how do you intend to support yourself and Ricky? Or were you planning to leave Ricky here?”
“Of course not,” Natalie retorted. Her teeth sank into her lower lip, too late to bite back her words of admission.
“What would you accomplish by running?” Natalie refused to reply to the quiet mockery of his question. “Would it change what happened tonight? Would you be able to forget that it ever happened?”
He knew the answers to his questions before he asked them and she closed her eyes tightly to avoid seeing the truth he was trying to force her to admit.
“Little has changed,” continued Colter. “You still have the security you wanted for you and the boy, the freedom from want, a
decent home and clothing.”
“But look at the price I had to pay.” This time her voice was choked with emotion, her eyes still closed to shut out the image of his handsome face — only to have her mind’s eye visualise it.
“Women of your age are rarely virgins,” he mocked. “It isn’t my fault that you were. And it was something I couldn’t know until tonight.”
“It’s your fault that I’m not now!” Natalie flared.
“Did you intend to remain inviolate the rest of your life?” The mouth that had aroused her desire curled into a derisive smile. “Or did you think to take a lover at a future time while you denied your husband his marriage bed?”
“I didn’t think about it at all.” Her reply was truthful.
She had been too relieved at having Ricky’s future secured and the responsibility lightened on herself to consider her own personal future. Colter’s own indifference had lulled her into believing the physical aspect of their marriage was not important.
“We’re married. That’s a fact you can’t ignore,” Colter reminded her.
“And you don’t intend to let me forget it,” Natalie responded bitterly.
“No, I don’t,” he agreed. His pinning grip relaxed. “So stop forcing a hysterical reaction that you don’t feel. We both know it wasn’t an experience totally without pleasure for you. There’s no reason to pretend that it was. Leaving here would accomplish nothing and change nothing. Go to sleep, Natalie, and let someone who’s a more convincing actress play the role of the outraged female.”
In the next instant she was free of his hold and his touch, trembling with an urge to strike out at him as he lay beside her. She suppressed it, knowing that Colter would not think twice about retaliating. She rolled on to her side away from his long length, curling her arms about the pillow and hugging it tightly to her.
Sleep was nearly immediate, denying Natalie the opportunity to consider what her alternatives were. There was not another conscious thought until morning when she became aware of the sunlight trying to shine through her closed eyes and the sensation that someone else was in the room with her.