Cherished

by Jill Gregory

  Just because she’d been a belle in St. Louis, did that make her think she could snare the interest of any man she wanted? Cole Rawdon had merely made use of her while she was near at hand. Then his interest had waned. She’d better accept that and forget him.

  But she had to swallow hard to choke back a sob of pain.

  “Come here, little sister.” Wade drew her to the corner. His hand clamped her shoulder firmly, but it emanated loving warmth. It was the first time he’d ever been called upon to offer advice for this particular type of ailment—Lord knew, Tommy would have slugged him for it—but the look of misery on his sister’s face left him no choice. He couldn’t bear to see her so unhappy any longer, and only prayed, even as he prepared to scold her, that he would never be afflicted with these despicable pangs of love. “You don’t have to put on any playacting with me. I can see what’s troubling you, Juliana—the same thing that’s gnawing at Rawdon.” Wade sighed. “Hell, why don’t you just go out there and talk to him? Or better yet, give him a kiss and tell him all is forgiven!”

  Juliana’s mouth fell open. Then she shut it with a snap. “Wade, you’d do well to mind your own business. There is nothing to forgive. There is nothing between me and Cole Rawdon at all. Except perhaps ... gratitude. He did save my life on more than one occasion.”

  “Ahuh.”

  The skeptical expression on his face made her sputter, “Oh, you’re almost as insufferable as he is. Men—how do women ever learn to tolerate you? Even my own brother ...”

  “What’s this?” Tommy loped up, throwing an arm across her shoulders. “Is big brother giving you trouble, peanut? Say the word and I’ll wipe the floor with him.”

  “Think you can?” Wade’s impatience at having this private conversation interrupted showed in the cool sparkle of his eyes.

  “Easy,” Tommy returned. “Just watch me ...”

  But Juliana threw herself between them. “I remember when Mama used to have to send you to opposite corners of the store and give you both chores to do till nightfall to keep you from fighting. Do I have to do the same thing?”

  The challenging look left Tommy’s face. “Do you remember her, Juliana? Mama, I mean. You were so little back then ...”

  “I do.” Strangely, her mother’s memory was with her now stronger than it had been for many years. Being with Wade and Tommy, so different in some ways from the rambunctious boys she remembered, yet in other ways so much the same, was bringing the memories back as strongly as good warm kitchen smells wafting out an open window, beckoning her back to a childhood before death and loss had left her alone.

  “She used to sing while she was cooking supper. All different snatches of songs, all mixed together. They sounded pretty, the way she did it. And I remember how her hair felt like satin when she used to brush it out at night. We’d take turns. She’d brush mine, and then she’d let me brush hers—oh, a hundred times.”

  Tommy’s eyes had taken on a faraway look. “She smelled like lemon verbena. I swear I never smell lemon verbena without thinking of her.”

  Wade’s usually keen expression had softened as the memories flooded over him as well, warm as summer rain. “She was a fine woman,” he said in a low tone. Of the three of them, he probably remembered her best. “She was sad a lot of the time. I think ... she was always grateful for Pa marrying her and taking her away from that saloon where she used to work. She hated it there, she told me once. It’s hard to imagine Ma in a place like that, but I guess she had no one to help her and she needed the money. But Ma—a saloon was the last place she belonged. Ma was always gentle, quiet. When I fell off Elam Potter’s roof and broke my arm, I remember how that night she tiptoed in my room when she thought I was asleep and just stroked her hand across my cheek, over and over. It was light as a swan’s feather.”

  “You’re right,” Tommy said slowly. “Even when she’d be so angry with us you’d expect her to shake us, she’d just tell us how disappointed she was and set us some chore to do, but she never laid a hand on us in anger.”

  “Pa didn’t either, but more times than not he was sorely tempted,” Wade put in dryly. “Do you remember when we decided to teach Juliana how to row a boat after Sunday school, and she fell in the creek and got her new dress muddier than the Mississippi?”

  “I remember that day!” Giggling, Juliana stared from one to the other of them. “Mama had just finished sewing the dress the night before. It had pink and white ribbons on the sleeves and a cunning little pocket made of lace. By the time you fished me out of the water, the pocket was torn and there was a tadpole inside it!”

  “And you were muddy from head to toe!” Tommy finished, groaning.

  “And mad as a hornet! You kicked both of us in the shins and accused us of dunking you on purpose!”

  “We did.” Tommy grinned from ear to ear.

  Juliana gasped and grabbed him by the shirt. “I always knew it,” she cried. “But you two denied it up and down for days.”

  “Pa punished us by making us chop wood for old widow Dodd for a month. Without accepting a cent of payment. When I think of the blisters I had ...”

  “Pa could have done a lot worse,” Wade retorted. “When I think of some of the pranks we pulled ...”

  Suddenly, Juliana’s eyes filled with tears. Happy tears, mingled with those of sorrow. Their parents were gone, murdered by drunken outlaws ransacking the store, but Wade and Tommy were here. They were living reminders that once she had had a home, a family all her own, maybe not the grand house in St. Louis that belonged to Uncle Edward, but a cozy place that had been all Montgomery, with love and kindness and shared talk and meals and dreams. How different their lives might have been if only that day hadn’t happened, if only she had not come home from school all alone and found the blood ...

  “You never let me see them,” she said suddenly, and Wade shot her a sober glance. “Mama and Papa. I remember coming up on the porch—and there was blood seeping under the door. You and Tommy were behind me, playing tag, and you ran up suddenly and saw me just reaching for the door. You grabbed me back and wouldn’t let me go in.”

  “Good thing too.” Tommy cleared his throat. “It wasn’t anything too pretty.”

  “As it was you had nightmares for a week following. Maybe longer. We don’t know all that happened after you went to live with Uncle Edward and Aunt Katharine.”

  I still had nightmares. But my imaginings were far worse than anything I might have actually seen. Those dreams ... She wouldn’t let herself continue the thought. Not seeing what those outlaws had done had perhaps been worse than if she had seen. Her mind had visualized it all a thousand times, each scene more bloody and gruesome than the next. Maybe that was why the very sight of blood always affected her so intensely. It always reminded her of that puddle seeping out under the door....

  “Wade, Tommy.” She grasped both of them by the hand. “You’ve never ... hurt anyone in any of your holdups, have you?”

  “No, Juliana.” Wade squeezed her hand. His expression was fixed intently upon her as he looked down into her earnest face. “We’ve never hurt anyone, except some gun-totin’ polecats who’ve tried to shoot our heads off first. There seem to be a lot of ‘em out there.”

  “That bounty hunter of yours,” Tommy put in darkly. “Did you ever ask him that question? He’s the kind of hombre who might harbor a mean streak.”

  “You’re wrong, Tommy.” Wade shook his head. “Rawdon’s not the mean kind—just fast. Fast as he needs to be.”

  “Think he’s faster than me?” Intrigued, Tommy raised his brows.

  “That’s one thing we’ll never need to find out,” Juliana informed him firmly. “We’re all working on the same side, remember?”

  “I reckon so, but it sure seems strange. I’m used to avoiding bounty hunters, not inviting ‘em to sleep in my hideout.” He gazed about through suddenly narrowed eyes. “Where is Rawdon anyway?”

  “He left.” Juliana would have let it go at that,
but Wade wasn’t ready to give up.

  “He said he’d be camping out down by the gully. I gather he’s not used to a lot of company,” he remarked, trying to catch her eye.

  Gil Keedy appeared at Juliana’s elbow at that moment. “Another dance—or are you too tuckered out?”

  She hesitated, gazing into his flushed, eager face, reading the warmth in his eyes. Maybe Gil was just in love with love—maybe he didn’t yet know if he preferred her or Josie—or if he fancied himself in love with both of them, as she’d heard Tommy was fond of doing.

  Why couldn’t it be Cole? she asked herself miserably. Why couldn’t Cole be looking at me like this, with puppy dog eyes, and his arms outstretched, waiting?

  Because that isn’t the kind of man he is. He doesn’t show his emotions, he locks them away. Except for that night ... the night he had told her about Fire Mesa, shared the horrible ordeal of his childhood, and turned to her for comfort. That night he had made her feel loved, trusted, desired. Cherished in a way she had never felt before.

  “Juliana?” Gil’s voice recalled her to the cabin, to Gray Feather and Yancy absorbed in their checkers game, to Skunk repairing his saddle, to Wade and Tommy looking at her as though she were drifting on a sea a thousand miles away. And to Gil, dear Gil, waiting for his dance.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, meeting his gaze directly. Sorrow filled her heart. She wished she could return his feelings, she wished she didn’t have to hurt him. “I don’t feel up to dancing anymore.” She made a decision. “I need some air.”

  Wade smiled. Tommy regarded her through narrowed eyes.

  “Excuse me ...”

  And she was gone, flying through the cabin door and out into the star-frosted night. Letting her eyes adjust to the dark, she moved off toward the gully. Down the trail, past the clump of rocks, beyond the rise where the piñóns stood like sentinels and the ground dipped, she worked her way through the darkness until she saw the faint glow of his campfire up ahead.

  Cole was on his feet at the first sound of her approach, gun drawn. When he saw her slender figure, her yellow organdy gown shimmering in the moonlight, the breath caught in his throat. She came toward him like a ghost in a dream.

  The gun went back in his holster. “You shouldn’t be out here,” he said. What he really wanted was to seize her in his arms.

  Juliana forced a smile. “That isn’t for you to decide.” She couldn’t resist adding, “I’m not your prisoner anymore, remember?”

  “Wade should have more sense than to let you wander around in the dark alone. Hell, even Tommy should have more sense than that.”

  “I make my own decisions,” she reminded him.

  “Then maybe you should be sure they’re the right ones.”

  She let that hang in the air between them for a moment, then whispered, “I am sure, Cole.”

  A muscle worked in his jaw. He was fighting the impulse to kiss her. If he started, he wouldn’t stop. And all his resolutions—made for her own good, as well as his—would go up in smoke.

  “Where’s Keedy?” he asked in a hard voice as he hunkered down cross-legged before the fire once more. Joining him, arranging her skirts prettily upon the blanket she sat on, she saw that he had been doing another carving, similar to the horse’s head she had seen in his pack that other time. This horse was a beauty, too, a replica of the white stallion they had watched together. With a regal flowing mane and proud neck, the chiseled figure, though incomplete, showed promise of graceful, powerful lines.

  “What did you say?” she asked absently, absorbed by the fine work he had done.

  “I said, where’s Keedy?”

  “I don’t really know—or care.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  A flame of hope leapt to life within her, glowing in the very center of her heart. He was jealous, after all. Maybe. Maybe she wasn’t making a complete idiot of herself, then, coming out here like this, ready to throw herself at him. Just maybe, he wanted her here more than he could admit.

  “Have you thought of a plan to get McCray?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “As far as I can tell, there’s no one around. You can tell me ...”

  But in glancing facetiously around the small clearing where he had made his camp, her gaze fell on his saddle pack just behind him, faintly illuminated by the glowing flames of the fire. Protruding from the pack was the lacy edge of a blouse. What in the world ...

  Juliana reached back and pulled the pack forward, staring into it in amazement. When Cole groaned and made a move to take it from her, she pushed his hand away and then withdrew the creamy blouse and bright Mexican skirt folded inside. As she did so, a small rawhide pouch spilled out, and she heard a jangle from within.

  “You might as well see it all,” Cole said between clenched teeth, and dumped the contents of the bag into her palm.

  A gold bracelet, and blue and red hair ribbons. What was all this?

  “Cole—is there a naked woman lying in the brush waiting for me to leave?” she demanded, only half joking.

  The look he gave her made her heart quake with fear that it was true. “Come on out, Maria,” he called, then burst out laughing at her dismayed expression.

  “Don’t be an idiot, Juliana,” he told her, running both hands through his hair. Part of him wanted to laugh at her crazy assumption, and the other part wanted to curse the fact that now he’d have to tell her the truth.

  “I lied the other day when I told you I didn’t get that surprise I promised you. I did get it. Only ...”

  “These are for me?” Delight swept across her face. Even in the firelight, her green eyes glowed with pure feminine wonder. “Oh, Cole, they’re beautiful. But why didn’t you tell me? Why did you lie?”

  Embarrassed, he turned back to stare into the flames, unable to meet her gaze another moment. “I ...” Damn, his voice sounded as hoarse and choked as a strangled prairie dog’s. “I didn’t think you’d want ‘em. They’re nothing much compared to those things your brothers gave you.”

  Suddenly she understood. “But they’re beautiful,” she said quietly. “I wouldn’t trade them for diamonds and silks. How could you keep them a secret from me?” She held up the skirt, the bright folds sifting through her fingers like a kaleidoscope of gorgeous colors. “This is so lovely. And the lacework on the blouse is exquisite.”

  She jumped up and began working at the long row of pearl buttons on her dress.

  “What are you doing?” he growled. He came to his feet, regarding her in shock and a good deal of fascination as she began stripping off the fancy dress, wriggling as it slid down her arms, to her waist, over her hips.

  “I’m going to put them on.”

  His eyes narrowed. He knew that too sweet air of innocence. She was trying to drive him mad, that’s what she was doing, standing there in her chemise, bold as brass, that delectable smile curving her lips. He could see the rosy tips of her nipples beneath the filmy chemise. Her skin glowed with the pearly luminescence of the moon itself as she stood before him, daring him to touch her. His heart galloped in his chest. As she gazed up into his eyes, her expression was so hopeful, so loving, that his insides turned to fire, and all his resolve withered like old bones in the dust.

  “Unless you have a better idea,” she whispered.

  He pulled her up against his chest. “I just might ... Juliana.”

  He snaked his arms around her waist so tightly, she gasped, but he silenced her with his mouth. He kissed her hard and thoroughly, saying with his mouth what he could not put in words, his arms clamped around her as if he was afraid she would disappear into the clear, cold air in a puff of smoke. But she was soft and real in his arms, and she smelled of lilac.

  He never stopped kissing her until her mouth was sore and swollen. He felt her trembling as he gathered her close in his arms, and buried his face in the rippling, scented waves of her hair.

  “Oh, Cole, make love to me,” she whispered. H
er mouth burned from his kisses, and triumph made her dizzy. Her heart rose as she saw the yearning in his eyes, the tenderness that she had feared she’d never see again. There was doubt, too, tempering his passion, and she knew suddenly, instinctively, what he was thinking, what was holding him back.

  “I don’t care about tomorrow—don’t think about it,” she begged. “Let’s just have tonight. One night—for us, Cole. I love you. Please, let’s have one night just for us.”

  “One night won’t be enough,” he said, his voice so low and fierce it sent shivers down her spine. His mouth was hot against the pulse at her throat. She could feel his breath, the pounding of his heart against hers. “Juliana, you would tempt a saint.” He laughed suddenly, an exultant, tortured sound caught between savagery and tenderness. “And if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a saint.”

  I love you. That’s what she’d said. He ought to send her packing and then ride as far as he could go. But he only held her tighter.

  His eyes were dark, silvery blue in the moonlight. Glinting with a desire Juliana could not mistake. But beneath the desire, she saw the longing, the gentleness that she had never seen when he looked at anyone else. He needs me too, Juliana realized, as much as I need him. Overwhelmed by an almost painful rush of warmth and love, she melted against him, cupping his face in her hands, kissing him with all the fervent love in her heart. That he wanted her as much as she wanted him was all that mattered. There were the two of them, the stars, soft earth, and the wild Arizona night.

  They needed nothing else.

  * * *

  Hot kisses. Sweet, sweet words.

  Snow-puff clouds drifted overhead through a sky dark as blood, while beneath the towering shadow of the mountain, deep within the velvet-grassed gully, Cole and Juliana spoke the language of lovers in a poem as timeless as the earth itself. The air was cold, sharp with the biting tang of pine, but their passion was hotter than the scorching plains of the desert.