by Janet Dailey
“He’s more of a gentleman than you are,” Natalie retorted.
Colter’s ever alert gaze studied her with amused indifference from his handsome but otherwise impassive face. He tossed his shirt to her.
“Throw that in the dirty clothes basket,” he ordered.
Fuming silently, Natalie wadded the shirt in her hands, toying with the idea of throwing it back at him, only to dismiss it. In the end, she would pick it up and put it in the hamper anyway. He was watching her face, seeing the silent argument flitting across her features, and his mouth quirked in satisfaction as she walked to the hamper.
At his mockery, Natalie threw caution to the wind, hurling the shirt back to land at his feet. “Throw your own dirty clothes away!” she flared. “I’m not your maid!”
“Deirdre said you might be upset,” Colter said lazily.
Fury carried Natalie across the room, halting her a couple of feet in front of him. Before the rubbery sensation that was attacking her legs could take hold in the rest of her, she struck out at him. The paralysing sting of her palm felt oddly pleasant as she glared her dislike. The lean hard cheek bore the pale imprint of her hand that he hadn’t attempted to stop, the colour slowly changing to red while his eyes glittered with cold blue fires.
“I don’t want that woman in my house!” Natalie raged.
“Your house?” The searing softness of his voice was like a rapier thrust through velvet.
“Yes, my house,” she repeated, her wrath too fully aroused to notice Colter’s. “I legally sleep with you, which makes it as much my house as yours — if not more, since I take care of it. And I don’t want that woman to set foot in it again!”
“If she so desires, Deirdre will continue to come here whenever she likes,” Colter stated. His mouth thinned into a forbidding line.
“No! I don’t care how many mistresses you have, but I will not tolerate the humiliation of having them paraded beneath my nose!” she insisted vigorously.
“The only things you tolerate are my money and my home.” His sarcasm lashed out at her.
“And your touch,” Natalie jeered.
Colter’s lip curled derisively. “What makes you pretend that you don’t like my caresses?” he demanded contemptuously. “Is there some virtuous part of you that denies physical desire exists?”
“You egotistical beast! What makes you think you’re so irresistible?” She tilted her head back to look full into his face with haughty disdain.
Blue diamond chips raked her length with suggestive thoroughness and Natalie’s blood started to race like fire through her veins.
“Shall I show you?” he asked with a growling purr.
The blazing topaz flames in her eyes sputtered and died, her bravado rapidly fading. Her senses churned with quivering awareness, traitors to her pride. The cutting edge of his diamond gaze slashed away the attempt of her lips to form a protest.
Mutely Natalie spun away. A retreat, however cowardly, was more strategic than the unconditional surrender Colter had planned. But her move was anticipated as his fingers closed over the soft flesh of her arm and pulled her back. With her free hand, she tried to push herself away from his naked chest, a futile attempt that failed when he applied pressure to the small of her back, moulding her to his muscular thighs.
There was no mercy in his slow, torturing embrace. His strength was superior. Even when she gained the use of her other hand after he had released her arm, Natalie could not ward him off.
Arched away from him, her face twisted to the side to elude his kiss, she felt the scorching touch of his mouth against the slender curve of her throat. Unhurried, Colter explored the pulsing vein of her neck, the hollow of her throat, and, pushing aside the collar of her blouse, sought out the sensitive areas of her shoulder.
The unending assault retracted its leisurely trail to her neck where Colter nibbled sensuously at her earlobe, sending waves of unwilling ecstasy shuddering through her body. That insidious, primitive desire was growing inside her. It was only a matter of time until he claimed her lips and she would be lost.
“Damn you!” Her whispering curse sounded more like a sob. “Let me go!”
His mouth moved along her cheek and she felt it curve into a smile as Colter rubbed his jaw against her smooth skin.
“Not yet.” The seductive pitch of his voice was riddled with mocking laughter.
Her fingers closed over his jaw and chin and tried to push away the mouth that was roaming at will over her eyes, cheeks and forehead.
“Please, stop,” Natalie gasped, unwillingly begging for her release, her pride cast aside to be regained, she hoped, when she was free of his touch. “Deirdre can come any time,” she promised. The corner of her mouth was being teased by his warm lips. “You can start a harem in the house. I don’t care! But let me go!”
“Would you have me ignore my wife for a harem?” Colter mocked huskily.
“You have to go to San Antonio,” she protested as his mouth slowly began moving over hers. His hand was cupped under her chin, preventing her from moving away.
“Kiss me,” he commanded against her mouth.
He was being deliberately provocative, tantalising her lips with the nearness of his without kissing her. There was a building hunger to know the elemental mastery she had experienced before.
“No,” Natalie refused, fighting with every stubborn fibre of the resistance she possessed.
The arm around her back tightened with crushing force. “Kiss me,” Colter repeated with ominous softness, “or we’ll still be here when Missy and Ricky come home.”
A helpless moan escaped her trembling lips. Instantly the tense muscles around her mouth relaxed. Instinct and experience gained from Colter guided the tentative movement of her lips against his. At first he remained passive under her touch, letting Natalie find out for herself the fine art of initiative rather than response as she began an intimate and mobile exploration of his lips, growing bolder until she felt the answering warmth of his.
Not another action was directed by conscious thought. For Natalie it was like almost drowning, then bursting to the surface and feeling more alive than ever in her life. His bruising ardour was matched by the urgency of her lips. Shock wave after shock wave quaked with primitive tremors through her body.
When Colter gradually eased his mouth from its possessive claim of hers, Natalie was incapable of the slightest movement. Shaking hands rested on his naked shoulders while her head remained tilted back. Behind her closed lashes, she could feel his gaze inspecting the passion still written on her lips.
“Tell me again,” Colter jeered softly, totally in control, not reeling from the physical impact of their embrace as Natalie was, “that you only ‘tolerate’ my touch.”
Tears of hurt anger shimmered in her eyes, stinging and smarting like salt on a wound. “I did what you ordered,” Natalie said in a choked, trembling voice. “Now will you let me go?”
The expressive lift of his shoulders mocked the stubborn hold on her pride in the instant before he released her completely. Yet the distance between them didn’t erase the memory of his hard body pressed against hers, nor the exciting fire that had consumed her. She couldn’t meet his eyes that glittered now with a greenish hue. She walked slowly to the hallway door, pausing in its frame.
Without turning around, Natalie said, “I hate you, Colter. Or is hate another emotion that you don’t recognise?”
His only reply to that question was an abrupt laugh. “I shall be home for dinner tonight, my loving wife,” he mocked sardonically. “So, please, no poisonous mushrooms or arsenic, or I shall be forced to make you eat it so you can die with me.”
“And I was planning to spend the rest of the afternoon looking for some deliciously deadly mushrooms,” Natalie quipped sarcastically, and hurried into the hall, knowing her barbs were ineffectual but needing them just the same.
The next week Natalie threw herself into a frenzy of activity, inventing cleaning where it wa
sn’t needed, outdoing herself in the cooking of their meals, taking part in excursions with Missy and Ricky, working until all hours of the night to avoid the bedroom. She was never entirely certain that Colter was asleep when she did slip between the covers. He never said a word, viewing her devotion to the house and children with derisive amusement.
Her weight loss was becoming apparent again and the weary circles of exhaustion were faintly making their presence known. Natalie had not thought the telltale signs were visible to anyone but herself.
As she glanced into the oval mirror in the dining room, she pinched her cheeks in an old-fashioned effort to bring colour to her face before entering the living room to let Colter and Travis know that dinner was ready. As had become her habit of late, Natalie addressed her announcement to Travis, her tired spirits brightening a little under the warm glow of his regard.
“Ricky and Missy are at the table, so dinner is ready whenever you are,” she said.
“How about giving me five minutes to finish this beer?” Travis asked, holding up his half-empty frosty glass of beer. “I’ve been dreaming about a tall, cold one all day and I hate to rush it down.”
“It was warm today,” Natalie agreed, not looking directly at Colter but supremely conscious of his sinewy length stretched out in the chair.
“Warm?” A black brow was raised by Travis at her understatement. “It was practically a furnace out at the pens,” he corrected quietly. “A case of cold beer would have been as refreshing as a blue norther sweeping in from the Plains for the hands out there today. I hate to think about tomorrow.”
Natalie remembered how gritty Colter had looked an hour ago when he came in from the spring round-up. His shirt had been stained with perspiration and dirt. The bleached brown of his hair had been a dusty shade even with the shield of his wide-brimmed hat. At the time he had looked hot and tired, not the vitally fresh and masculine man that was visible in her side vision now.
“Why don’t you ask Natalie to bring out a case of beer tomorrow afternoon, Travis?” Colter suggested lazily, studying the film of foam coating his empty glass when she glanced at him in surprise.
Travis gave him a long look before draining his glass. “Natalie has plenty to do without running out to the pens.”
“Oh, she won’t mind.” The hard line of his mouth turned upward at the ends in a mirthless smile as Colter directed a darkly sardonic glance at Natalie. “My wife,” he said with sarcastic emphasis, “enjoys filling every waking hour of the day with an endless assortment of tasks.”
Her gaze fell away under his abrasive thrust, catching for a split second the questioning and concerned glance that Travis gave her. The blood mounted briefly in her face, Colter’s subtle jibe finding its mark.
Fixing a bright smile on her mouth, she turned to Travis. “Of course, I’ll bring out some beer tomorrow. It won’t be any trouble. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ll go and dish up the soup.”
“We’ll be right there,” Travis answered.
No other mention was made of the way Natalie was working. During the meal Travis kept the conversation centred on the children and their activities. After they were finished, Travis stayed only for coffee, then left. Natalie had no idea where Colter disappeared to after the table was cleared. She didn’t think she had heard the car leave, but she wasn’t going to check.
With the same determination that had got her through the week, she spent the biggest share of the evening with the children. At eleven o’clock she was still in the kitchen, cleaning the overhead hanging lamp. The night air was still and uncomfortably warm.
Standing on the table top, Natalie wiped the perspiration from her brow with the back of her hand. The downward movement of her head brought a figure into focus standing in the doorway. She turned with a jerk, nearly upsetting the soapy pan of water at her feet. Water sloshed over the side as she recognised Colter leaning against the door jamb. She turned quickly back to her work.
“Did you want something?” she asked icily.
“I thought I would show you the way to get to the cattle pens tomorrow,” he answered coolly.
“You’re going to show me tonight?” Natalie laughed scornfully. “It’s dark outside.”
“I meant on the map,” responded Colter drily.
Reaching up to wipe the chain with which the lamp was suspended from the ceiling, Natalie hoped she concealed the guilty flush at her own ignorance.
“I’ll be finished here in a minute,” she said, striving for the coolness of a moment ago.
“No hurry,” Colter drawled.
She had been taking her time, but under his watchful eye, she hurried to finish the task. The exertion of stretching to cover every inch and the layers of heat that clung to the ceiling brought a sudden wave of suffocation. The first one Natalie fought off, but the second one had her reeling with a strange giddiness. In the next instant, a pair of hands had closed around her waist and were lifting her on to the floor.
“I’m all right,” Natalie protested weakly.
Colter let her lean against the table, removing the hands that disturbed her equilibrium as much as the heat. “Of course you are,” he mocked harshly.
“I am. It was just the heat,” she insisted.
“I don’t particularly care.” A thin thread of impatience was in his voice. “You can work yourself into an early grave or simply collapse from exhaustion. Either way, I’m not the one who’s suffering the consequences. You are. You can stay here and work for another three hours, but I would like to go to bed. So if you don’t mind I’ll show you the map now.”
If Natalie had thought to gain his sympathy, he had cruelly informed her how misguided her attempt had been. His indifference to her as a woman, a human being, was just as cutting. Suddenly she felt hopelessly defeated.
Silently she followed him as he walked from the kitchen to the small study-ranch office that she never entered except to clean. Her mind had a difficult time concentrating on the pencil tip moving over the large map of the ranch. Natalie could only hope that she remembered the way in the morning. It didn’t seem too complicated.
“Can you find it?” Colter asked crisply.
“Yes,” she answered dully, resolving to return to the study in the morning after Colter had left to examine the map again.
“Never mind,” he sighed in disgust. His eyes had narrowed into blue-green slits as he minutely inspected her face. “You’re too tired to even know your own name. I’ll show you in the morning.”
With that, he turned off the desk lamp, threw Natalie a curt goodnight and walked from the room. Dazed by his complete lack of interest, more hurt than she cared to admit that he couldn’t even pretend concern and suggest that she go to bed, too, Natalie stared after him in silence.
He had been right. She was the only one who was suffering. And she had Ricky to think about. What had she hoped to prove? That because Colter was treating her like a slave, she was going to work like a slave from sun-up to sundown?
Colter was in bed when she entered the room. He glanced at her uninterestedly and turned on his side. She continued through to the adjoining bathroom, bathed and changed into her night-clothes. Colter didn’t stir when she crawled into bed beside him. A tear slipped from her lashes for no reason that Natalie could think of and she drifted into a tired, troubled sleep.
The house was nearly immaculate from her earlier efforts so the next day Natalie made no attempt to find herself work. As he had stated the night before, Colter showed her the route to the cattle pens. It was remarkably easy and she wondered why she hadn’t grasped the directions last night.
Ricky was home in the morning and they spent most of it outdoors before the sun had reached its zenith. He had always been content playing by himself. This morning Natalie sat idly on a lounge chair and watched.
Lunch was not the extensive meal she usually prepared, but just as filling for all its simplicity. She had learned her lesson. She was not going to prove anything else to Col
ter Langston. Although Natalie still wasn’t certain what she had set out to prove in the first place.
The ice chest was filled with cold beer already cooled in the refrigerator, packed with ice cubes to maintain the frigid temperature inside the cans. It was a struggle loading it in the back seat of the car, but Natalie got it in and started for the cattle pens.
It was almost mid-afternoon and it was hot. To hurry would kick up dust on the dirt roads that laced the various sections of the ranch together. Natalie was content to keep a leisurely pace.
Again wildflowers dotted the route, pointing up the greenness of the spring grass and the darker green shade of foliage of the oaks and cedars. She recognised wine cups, bluebonnets, Indian blankets, Mexican hats, and white prickle poppies among the others she couldn’t identify. The air was fragrant with their perfumes.
Butterflies and moths flitted from blossom to blossom with the bees while birds encouraged their efforts in song. A silver ribbon twisted through the meadow, and as Natalie turned on to the road that would lead her to the pens, she heard the stream chuckling over the rocks in its bed.
The sound died away and the bawl of cattle began to grow increasingly louder, reaching its fever pitch of intensity as Natalie slowed the car to a stop near the dusty haze that hung over the large pens. As she climbed out of the car, the combined heat of man, beast and sun closed over her with a suffocating hand. The stench of sweat, burning hair, animal discharge and some medicinal odour filled her nose with almost sickening results.
There was activity and movement everywhere as Natalie approached the board pens. Dipping, branding and ear-tagging were carried out with steady efficiency by horse and rider or the man on foot. The rope-swinging, leg-slapping and fast riding so often depicted in western movies was not in evidence. Despite the acrid smells and the unceasing din, Natalie watched it all in helpless fascination.
Shielding her eyes from the incredible glare of the sun, she studied the human occupants of the pen. A few of the men noticed her standing on the roadside, but she was soon forgotten in the unending demand of their work. All of them were dressed nearly the same, dark blue Levi’s, the colour of their shirts and hats almost indistinguishable now due to the dust that coated everything.