“I don’t think we need to worry about no Grant when we got Jeb Stuart and Ol’ Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee with the Army of Northern Virginia,” Charlie declared solidly.
Harry grimaced, then gazed at Brent, frowning until he had followed the Confederate captain’s eyes to the kitchen and Kendall. Then he grinned and asked, “What about you, now, Brent McClain?”
Brent at last turned his eyes to Harry.
“What?”
“Where are you and your crew of roughnecks heading, Captain?”
“Oh . . . uh, west. We’ve got to get some things in and out of the Gulf area. Then we’re going to make a run to London. Sell some cotton, and make a few deals to purchase arms. We’ll take Kendall to London. Get her a place under an assumed name—”
“What?” Kendall suddenly screeched, dropping an unsliced carrot into the pot.
“I said I’m taking you to London,” Brent repeated with sharp aggravation.
“No, you’re not! I don’t want to go to London!”
“Oh?” Still leaning with apparent nonchalance against the mantel, he lifted his brandy snifter along with a caustic brow. “You’d rather return to Fort Taylor?”
Kendall set down her knife and placed her hands on her hips. “No, Captain McClain, I wouldn’t. But I’m not going to London when the war and everything I love is here!”
“I can’t watch over you through a whole damn war, Kendall!”
“You don’t need to watch over me at all!” Kendall protested furiously.
“The hell I don’t!” Brent growled, his fingers growing white-knuckle tight around his snifter. “You need to be watched every damn second!”
Kendall forgot that they had an avid audience in the other three men. She stalked to Brent where he stood at the mantel, her eyes blazing a static blue fire.
“No one is asking you to watch me, Brent McClain. And I’m not one of your slaves, a piece of property to be safeguarded for later use! I am not going to London. I can stay here with Harry and Amy. And if I prove to be a burden on them, I’ll return with Red Fox to his people. And don’t you dare tell me that I’ll endanger them again. The captain at Fort Taylor was furious when he heard about the massacre. He won’t allow any of his men near the Indians again!”
The line of Brent’s lips compressed until it almost disappeared between mustache and neatly clipped beard. He set his glass down on the mantel with such a sharp click that Kendall was amazed it didn’t break. He tossed his cheroot into the fire, then dipped a low bow to the other men. “Will you excuse Mrs. Moore and me, gentlemen? I’d just as soon not paddle some sense into her in front of spectators!”
His hand clamped down on her arm before she could protest, and he jerked her so roughly that she lost her breath. No help came from the other men in the cabin; as she was dragged in seconds flat to the door, she could hear their gruff and amused laughter.
“Stop it!” she finally gasped in protest, trying to grab at the door frame. “Brent McClain, stop it! Let me go. Amy’s soup is going to be ruined.”
“Don’t fret none, Kendall. I can watch the soup!” Harold promised cheerfully.
“Now, you can come along like a lady,” Brent hissed in her ear, “or you can come along over my shoulder. But you’re coming with me!”
“No! Brent—”
The combustible anger in him really frightened her now. She had waited for him so long, aching to feel his touch. But now it seemed that nothing could really be right between them, and it all should have been so beautiful. Tears sprang to her eyes when she saw that she could elicit such violence in the man she loved—the man she also resented and feared.
“Brent, wait! Listen—”
“Over the shoulder is fine with me,” he said impatiently, and her grip on the doorframe was broken as he brought action to follow his words. There was nothing gentle about his broad hands and powerful arms as he swept her cleanly off her feet and threw her over his shoulder. Her midriff landed hard on his shoulder, and once again protest was knocked from her along with her breath.
Where was Amy, Kendall wondered, when she needed a woman’s help so badly?
That answer came quickly to her. Amy was in front of the cabin, beyond the flower garden, turning the huge side of beef on its charred pine spit.
“We’re off for a walk and a bit of a talk, Amy,” Brent said pleasantly enough as they passed her by.
Kendall strained against his back with her fists and tried to plead with the woman.
“Amy . . . Mrs. Armstrong—”
“Have a nice time, dears!” Amy called, waving a large napkin cheerily after them.
Kendall at last saw the barn with its paddocks as Brent stalked on by it with her. He kept on going, through another slender trail in the pines. “Kendall, it’s time you learned you’re nothing but a woman,” he said as she struggled wildly against him, anger gripping his voice.
“Only a woman?” she raged. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You can’t fight a male! You really don’t understand that. And since you need to learn, I might as well teach you.”
“What are you talking about?”
Her words were cut off as he finally came to a halt and set her down. Kendall gazed about her in confusion for a moment. They had come upon water again. But here the sand was white, and the small beach was flanked by thick trees and bushes. She stared at Brent and saw that he smiled grimly with his hands once more firmly set on his hips.
“Oh, we’re alone, Mrs. Moore. Quite alone. You can scream and rage your head off, and not a soul will hear you or see you.”
Her heart began to thump and squeeze painfully as she surveyed him standing there, so rigid that his muscles visibly bunched and a pulse ticked in his cheek. His gaze was hard, and as cold as a deep winter snow. There was certainly no love in his eyes. No tenderness. Only anger, barely restrained.
Kendall planted her own hands on her hips and tossed back her mane of hair. “I don’t begin to understand you, Captain McClain. You didn’t bring me here! I got here all by myself. I may be just a woman, I grant you, but I did arrive—”
“And you might have killed yourself! With no need. Your friend Travis had promised to get you out, but oh, no, you had to set off like a little idiot—”
“I couldn’t wait!” Kendall protested, feeling a squirm of discomfort. Just how well had he come to know Travis? “And I’d like to know just how the famous Night Hawk, the king of Confederates, happened to extract all that information from a Yankee! Are you playing two sides of a field, Captain McClain? Are you really such a great war hero? Or are you running the blockade just for profit like the others?”
She backed away when the words were out of her mouth. His expression hadn’t really changed, but he had taken a step toward her and there was something so menacing in his step that she was forced to realize just how badly she had goaded him.
“I would kill a man for less than that,” he said quietly. “But then you’re not a man, are you? And that’s the point of this conversation.” His hand shot out suddenly, his fingers gripping her wrist, jerking her hard against his body. Then before she could gasp an outraged protest, she felt herself being spun about and backed to a tree. He moved his form against hers so that there was no space between them, and placed his hands on either side of her head, entangling her hair in his fingers.
“Now,” he murmured, his tone more conversational but his muscles still taut with restrained tension, “tell me, Kendall, what do you do? You can’t move. You’re a prisoner. It’s a sad fact, my sweet, but the male of the species is stronger. I can do anything I choose—and you can’t do a thing about it.”
“So what is this supposed to prove, you insolent—”
His lips fell upon hers with a savage hunger that stole both words and breath. She wanted to protest the ruthless violation, yet even as she tried to rebel, treacherous longings arose. It had been many long months since she had seen him last; months made up of endl
ess days spent yearning so vividly for his touch that she could not deny it now, no matter how brutally bestowed. With all the need and sweet thirst of her heart and soul she returned his kiss, her response as wild and demanding as his assault.
His lips moved from hers at long last and he drew a ragged breath before brushing soft kisses over her brow, her eyelids, and her cheeks. A soft sob escaped her as she met his storm-cloud eyes again, met them with a plea for understanding and all the naked emotion that she could never attempt to deny him.
“Kendall, damn you, you’ve got to learn—”
“Learn what, Brent?” she cried in sharp interruption. “What would you teach me? That the world is dangerous, that life can be cruel?” Tears started to well in her eyes and she blinked them back in a fury. “Dear God, don’t you think that I know that? I’ve lived through the worst horror imaginable since I saw you last! I wasn’t even sure at times that I really wanted to survive. Every waking moment was a nightmare and the only good dreams I ever had were—”
She broke off abruptly, staring at him. The world did stretch between them. Their time together seemed destined to be filled with action and emotion, anger and passion. Yet no matter how very little time it was they managed to share, it was the magic of her life. He had become her reason for living, and she didn’t want it to be a dream.
His eyes were on her so intently then, seeming to stake and hold her where she stood, reach into her soul. She had thought at first that he would hold her. That he would envelop her in his arms, for the tempest she had lived through had been a knife within his heart as well. Other things seared his mind and soul as well, she knew. Battles she never saw, private wars he fought alone. So much between them. But he didn’t hold her. He watched her with a gleam of fire within his eyes. When he spoke then his voice was hoarse, so deep, almost shattering in its demand. “The only good dreams were what, Kendall?”
She held her breath. Stared at him in return. She had given away so much of herself, of her heart. A strange fear simmered within her. A fear that he couldn’t have longed for her as she had longed for him. For a moment, she couldn’t speak herself. But then the very cruelty of the life that surrounded them touched something within her, and she knew that she could only be honest, give her heart, and pray that he would take it gently.
“You,” she whispered. She inhaled, and felt the breeze. The palms swayed around her. She heard the cry of a seabird, and still felt the power of his eyes as he stared at her.
“You!” she whispered again. “Dreams are you, life is you, waiting is . . . you. I—I love you, Brent.”
“Oh, God!” he exclaimed. “Little fool! I’ve forgotten war, life, death, and honor—because I love you!” he told her with somewhat of a pained and bitter twist to his words. Then his hands were on her shoulders, hard, taut, fingers biting into her. “That’s why you’ve got to pay me heed, it’s why you have to listen to me!”
“Oh, please, Brent! I don’t understand you, and I do love you, and the time we have together is so infrequent and so terribly brief! Please, Brent, please . . .”
“Kendall,” he murmured huskily, dragging her into his tender embrace. “What can’t you understand? I’m frightened to death to leave you here again! You can’t fight alone. John Moore could come back here, and you would be as powerless as you were before. I can’t protect you from him and fight a war—”
“Brent! You couldn’t have protected me in the swamp! There were too many of them! A bullet can kill a man as easily as it can kill a woman. I swear to you, Brent—”
“We’ll discuss it later,” he interrupted her suddenly. “I can’t stand it anymore.”
“What?” Kendall murmured in confusion, putting her slender hands against his chest to stare into his eyes.
“Love me, Kendall,” he murmured huskily.
“I do love you, Brent,” she replied in all innocence.
He groaned softly and pressed her to him again while holding her eyes captive with his smoldering gray ones. The imprint of his body suddenly seemed branded upon hers despite their clothing. A bolt of heat shot through her with a flash of fevered excitement and exhilarating danger. A rose blush splashed across her cheeks.
“Here?”
He lifted a finger and brushed a straying lock of hair from her face. “Umm-hmmm.”
She suddenly felt as if she were going to fall. He sensed her shivery weakness and swept her into his arms, then lowered them both to the sand. His hands caressed her lovingly as he kissed her mouth again, slowly, lingeringly. They were such powerful hands, she thought vaguely. However he touched her, she thrilled at the strength of him.
“Brent?” she whispered against his lips.
“Hmm?”
“What if someone comes?”
“No one will come.” Long fingers found the hooks at the back of her dress.
“Brent?”
“Hmm?”
“What about the Armstrongs? What will they think? We’ll be missed.”
“They’ll think we found a beautiful spot along the shore and that we’re making love.”
“Brent!” Her dress slipped from her shoulders, and his lips pressed against her naked flesh. She moaned at the contact, and lay limply against him with no further protest.
He lowered her down on the sand and stared at her with passion and tenderness, his eyes darkening to a charcoal that held her transfixed with wanting him. He stripped away his coat, and lifted her head to place it on the gray cloth, spreading the tendrils of her hair in a fan about it, watching each touch of his fingers on her with a yearning fascination. His shirt went next, and when she saw the bare bronze breadth of his chest she could remain passive no longer. With a little cry she bolted against him, burying her face in the crisp, tawny curls that roughened that expanse of male flesh. “I cannot bear to be away from you,” she murmured with a little sob.
He didn’t reply. He massaged the nape of her neck with the palm of his hand, then reached for the hem of her skirt to pull the garment over her head. The rich length of her hair fell back in a riot of sleek waves to curl about her breast, and he had barely tossed the garment aside before he uttered a hoarse cry and enveloped her in his arms, his hands making a thorough exploration of the naked mounds and valley before him. He kissed her throat, her lips, her breasts, lavishing a passionate hunger on each that made her strain to him, made her forget that they lay on a bed of sand, and that the sun-streaked blue of the sky was their ceiling. Sweetness swept through her. Unbearably sweet fire. And a need to touch in return. She threaded her fingers through his hair, kneaded his back with her palms. Touched with love and need and tenderness every part of him that she could reach.
She felt his fingers slip beneath the band of her pantalettes and teasingly graze her belly. Like a kitten she arched to his touch, losing all inhibition in the wild beauty of the sheltered cove. Something as primitive as the beach welled within her, a longing to please the man who could so masterfully draw her into the maelstrom of his consuming passion.
He sat back on his haunches, and leisurely tugged the drawstring of her pantalettes, watching his movement. Then he placed his hands on her hips, arching them upward as he eased the cotton fabric from her body. But he did so slowly, stooping to kiss each new expanse of silken flesh bared to his pleasure. His mustache teased her flesh, his lips and tongue stroked it with a damp, tantalizing heat that drew a riot of convulsive shudders from her. Still he continued his sensual torture, seeking a complete intimacy that drove her wild and left her quivering and calling out his name.
He at last rose from her and removed his scabbard and sword and boots, but when he began to touch his breeches, she was there, kneeling before him, seeking to do the service herself. And she understood his need to touch her so thoroughly for the wildfires flaming within her blazed ever higher as she loved him, knowing the strength of his thighs, the smooth flatness of his belly, the full potency of his masculinity.
He sank to his knees to meet her in t
he sand and eclipsed her with his arms, finding her lips again, running his hands along her back, caressing her spine, cradling her buttocks and drawing her to him tightly to savor the simple pleasure of their naked bodies melding. Then again she felt herself lifted, and laid on the sand. And he was above her, tense in features and form as he parted her thighs to wield himself within her in a passionate, explosive drive that was itself a shattering wonder. The heat touched all the way through her, riddling her with wonderful little shocks of glory, and she luxuriated in it, embracing him as he filled her.
Hovering over her, he stared into her eyes, and she looped her arms around his neck, not fearing to meet his eyes in the wonder of sensation. The waves beat a gentle pulse beyond them, and the pines swayed softly. The sand was warm upon her back. All these things she knew, yet they were but a subtle enhancement of the primal delight of having him take her, of having him so fully within her, making her so totally his for that spellbound moment of time.
“I love you, Brent,” she whispered. “I love you so very much.”
He smiled, and replied against her “I love you, too, little Reb. I love you, too . . .”
He kissed her, then held himself slightly above her, watching her as he began to move. Tenderness gave way to flaming hunger, hunger to deep thrusting demand. Slim hips arched to his with mounting, writhing fever, and the supple, giving beauty of the woman drove his passion to raging bounds that seemed to know no end. And yet there was. He heard her shivering cry of sweet fulfillment, and his seed burst from him in a moment of shuddering glory. So volatile, so complete . . .
He held on to her in contented silence, then shifted his weight and stared up at the sun as he idly stroked the damp flesh of her arm. The pines shaded them from the direct glare, and all he could think was that everything was so beautiful. She lay with him unafraid in the golden daylight, and her form was as naturally beautiful as the sun and sea.
For a long while they remained silent, savoring the time together, the gentle touching that followed the explosion of mutual desires appeased again after so many nights of dreams. It was Brent who spoke at last.
Tomorrow the Glory Page 23