Drew came to sit beside her on the bed and reached for the row of glass-domed buttons at the front of her bodice. His knuckles grazed her skin as he worked over them. Cassie shivered with a strange, anticipatory heat.
As her gown fell open, a swath of skin, her corset and chemise lay revealed in the widening vee.
"God, you're beautiful," he breathed, tracing his fingertips along a line from the hollow of her throat to the gathers at the top of her chemise. "More beautiful than I remembered."
In response to those whispered words, Cassie lifted one hand to his cheek and guided his mouth to hers again.
As their kisses deepened, Drew slipped his hand through the opening at the front of her gown and cupped her breast. The possessive way he held her, the slow, gentle kneading, the sweet, melting sensation as he circled her nipple with the pad of his thumb turned Cassie soft with longing. Something warm and fluid pooled down deep in her loins, something she dimly recognized as feelings of eagerness and pleasure.
It had been years since she had responded to any man, since she had done more than lie with her eyes closed and her fists knotted at her sides when a man thrust into her. She had wondered if she would ever feel the slow, sweet seep of need, the hard-driving hunger of desire. Now that she knew Drew could make her feel what a woman felt, Cassandra gave herself to him, mind and body, soul and spirit.
Trembling a little with her own daring, Cassie sought the buttons down the front of his uniform tunic and the ones on the well-worn shirt beneath. When she had freed them all the way to his waist, Drew pulled her to her feet beside the bed.
They stood for one long moment staring into each other's eyes. There was still the gulf of time and pain and the past between them. But there was also the bridge of their mutual desire. Drew hesitated for a moment then moved to span it.
He eased the sleeves of her opened bodice down her arms. Cass helped him shrug off his tunic and shirt. He loosened the tapes at her waist and pushed her skirts and petticoats to the floor. She splayed her fingers against his chest, aware of his breadth, his warmth. He ran his palms along the stiff-boned corset and spanned her waist with his hands.
He pulled her hard against him. The thrust of his arousal prodded her, and she lifted her hips against him.
Drew sucked in his breath as if he weren't sure he'd have another chance. "Oh Cassie," he moaned. "How could I have forgotten the way it was between us?"
He took her mouth again, ravenous and devouring. Together they fought the laces down the back of her stays and fumbled with the buttons on the front of his pants. Drew released his hold on her only long enough to slide the trousers down his hips and shuck his knitted underdrawers.
Cassie loosened the ties at the neck and dropped her chemise to the floor.
The last, lingering hues of daylight highlighted his broad shoulders and the long, hard-muscled contours of his flanks. They pinked the swell of her breasts and the gentle curve of her belly.
Drew ran one palm from her throat to her hips as if to reacquaint himself with every curve. Cassie let her hands stray over him, discovering a new manliness to him, a wondrous solidity and strength. She skimmed over the smooth, pale flesh where he'd been burned, sensed the echo of pain in his old wounds.
The touching was a ritual of renewal that neither of them questioned. Gradually the brush of hands became less a rediscovery and more a seduction. A strong, compelling eagerness drew them together. Their hips aligned, their bellies brushed. That contact was harsh and elemental, basic and irresistible.
Cass breathed his name.
Drew bound her to him as if he never meant to let her go. His mouth took hers with a swift, rough passion that blotted out everything but the scalding desire boiling up between them.
They fumbled toward the bed and sank down on it together. He rolled above her, his body hovering, sheltering hers. She trailed her hand along his side, closed her fingers on the jut of his hip, and pulled him nearer.
He lowered his head and took her nipple in his mouth.
Cassie arched against him, twisting and crying out as sweet, white heat melted through her. Tendrils of pleasure unfurled along her limbs. Deep at the core, her body throbbed.
Drew skimmed his big work-roughened hand down her body, across the smooth pale flesh of her belly to the nest of soft, damp curls between her thighs. The hot, wet suction of his mouth on her breast, the slow, rhythmic pressure of his fingers dipping inside her sent her senses spiraling. Her world dissolved around her. She was lost, adrift in sensation, moving restlessly beneath him.
She reached for him. "Please," she whispered, brushing her fingers along his shaft. "I want you. I want to be with you."
She felt the thrust of his manhood at the juncture of her legs and opened to accommodate him. He bound her to him, filling her body with his, claiming her passion, touching her soul.
She rose against him and called his name.
His mouth took hers with rough desire that denied memory and obligation and identity. It blotted out everything but the scalding need boiling up between them. Then there was only the wildness and the passion and this man. The heat, the frenzy, and the delight. And when their world came apart in a sweet-hot swirl of completion, they spun away into the bliss of the rosy dark.
* * *
It was late when Cassie finally stirred. There was cold, fresh moonlight spilling through the window. The air in the room tasted crisp and thin. She felt fragile, newly born, as if she might find the husk of who she'd been discarded on the floor among their crumpled clothes. The husk of Cassie Morgan. The husk of Sweet Grass Woman. The remnants of her past.
She was Cassandra Reynolds now. Cassandra Reynolds, the captain's lady. She was the woman she'd been born to be.
She looked across at Drew. His hair was tousled with sleep, his mouth bowed and soft, his face breathlessly compelling in repose. He had been the source of her rebirth. He was the one who had given her this new beginning. In the wonder of their joining, she had found the essence of a self she thought she'd lost. With his love and his passion, Drew had given her the means to reconcile the years of torment and move ahead.
She nestled against him, feeling grateful and contented.
But even the slight movement of her body against him jerked Drew awake. He grabbed her hard, rolling over her, pinning her to the bed. His eyes were bright and hostile.
"Drew?" she breathed. "Drew?"
"Cassie?"
He loosened his hold on her and lay staring into her face as if he couldn't quite believe that she was there with him.
"I'm sorry, Drew. I didn't mean to startle you."
"It's all right."
She felt the tension in his muscles ease, felt his weight shift against her.
"It's just that I've learned," he continued as if he felt compelled to explain, "never to sleep too soundly. Soldiers who do don't live long."
She nodded and reached up to stroke his cheek. "I won't hurt you, Drew," she promised. "You can sleep safe with me."
"Can I, Cassie?"
"Yes," she whispered and reached up to seek his mouth. She let her lips glide over his.
It was a slow, provocative seduction, hazy and languorous, blurred by the silent, sleepy hour and the moonlight. Her hands skimmed down his back, fingertips trailing, palms gathering in his texture and his heat. Her flesh slid beneath his, sleek satin against the hair-roughened skin of his chest and legs. Soft, sinuous curves and hard, taut muscles.
With a whisper of invitation, she opened to him, welcoming his power and his vitality deep into herself. His weight bore her down into the feather tick as they moved together, prolonging each moment, sharing each sigh.
Drew closed his eyes and breathed her name as if he were invoking other times and other places. Cassie lying in the grass beside the stream. Offering herself in the darkened hayloft. Whispering that she loved him.
"Cassie. Cassie," he cried out.
And she came to him without reserve. Rising against him.
Sobbing with joy, shivering with elation. Humbled by the power of the bond between them.
He found his delight in her and, locked in each other's arms, they drifted away.
The moon was down when they stirred again, shifting together as if the contact skin to skin was something precious. Cassie smiled with new contentment, new security. If tonight were any indication, she'd found a home at last. She sighed and nestled against Drew, resting her palm above his heart.
"Oh Drew," she whispered, pliant and elated, and secure within herself for the first time in years. "I'm so glad you were the man who made me a woman, the man who showed me what loving could be."
At her words, he went stiff and still beside her. So stiff and still, she wasn't even sure he was breathing.
Cassie raised her head. "Drew?" Her aura of well-being evaporated.
"Drew?"
He shrugged away and moved to the edge of the bed.
"Drew, please."
He rummaged through the clothing on the littered floor.
She trembled, realizing suddenly what she'd done. She had told him the truth, let reality intrude when both of them had been pretending.
"Oh, Drew, I didn't mean—"
But she had. She had wanted him to know how important it was for her to have experienced the wonder of making love before she'd learned about the humiliation and the pain. And Drew had taught her very well about the wonder.
Beside her, he pushed to his feet and jerked on his trousers. He threw on a shirt and left the room without a word.
Cassie wrapped a sheet around her and trailed her husband through the house.
She stopped in the doorway to the kitchen, watching as he snatched a tin cup and a pewter pitcher from the shelf of the makeshift pantry. Without once looking in her direction, he took them to the table and sat down on the bench.
Her discarded cloak lay pooled beneath his bare feet, crushed and forgotten.
He took a whiskey bottle from the pitcher, uncorked it, and poured a dram into the cup. He corked the bottle up again and downed the contents in a single draught.
"Drew," Cassie pleaded, fear crushing the air from her throat. She had wanted this to be their new beginning, and now she'd ruined everything.
"Go to bed, Cassie," he all but snarled at her. "I don't want you here."
There was such cold finality in his voice that Cassie went.
Chapter 10
"This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," Drew grumbled as he guided his horse toward Lila Wilcox's cabin the following morning. "No one with sense goes on picnics in the winter." Drew had had plenty of "winter picnics" with the army and spoke with some authority.
Cassie glanced across at him, silent and adamant. She'd come out of the bedroom this morning, announced that they were taking Meggie on a winter picnic, and he hadn't been able to change her mind. Drew supposed he should be glad that Cassie had come up with something to do. After the way their wedding night had ended, with her alone in bed and him painting until almost dawn, he wasn't sure what she would say or do this morning.
He scowled, thinking back on the night before. He hadn't realized how much he'd hoped that once he and Cassie were married they could recapture some of what they'd felt for each other years before. Last night he had determinedly shut his eyes and drawn on his memories of Cassie, of the simple wonder of their love, of their first erotic discoveries.
Yet from the moment he touched her, Drew had known this Cassie was different from the Cassie he had known when they were young. She was stronger and bolder, more skilled at making love. Her passion and willingness to offer herself for his pleasure had shattered any illusions he might have had.
He should have been angry and repulsed by the change in her, but instead her practiced kisses had turned his blood to flame. He had taken her mindlessly, helplessly, losing himself in the sweetness of her mouth, in the damnation of her flesh. Drew wasn't sure he could ever forgive himself for doing that. He wasn't sure he could forgive her for reminding him that he had been the first of many men to have her.
And the last.
He hadn't known how to face her this morning, so when Cassie emerged from the bedroom and began poking through their stores, Drew had been glad for the diversion. While she'd been tucking things into a burlap sack, he had gone off to saddle the horses. He figured that after her years with the Indians, she would ride astride and as if she had been born in a saddle. He hadn't been wrong on either count.
As they pulled up in front of Lila's cabin, Meggie burst out the door and headed straight for him.
"Where have you been, Papa?" she demanded, stretching her arms toward him, wanting to be taken up in his saddle. "Lila said you'd be here hours ago."
Lila appeared in the doorway. "I didn't tell her any such thing. I said you'd be coming along when you'd finished up your business." She cast a glance in Cassie's direction. "And truth to tell, I didn't expect you for some time yet."
Drew ignored the laundress's gibe. "And did our Miss Meggie behave herself?"
"She was a perfect little lady," Lila answered. "I even took her to Sunday services."
"And you know, Papa, I slept in a funny little bed that pulled out from under Lila's big one. We had popcorn last night, and played a guessing game with walnut shells and a pea."
"Teaching her to gamble, are you, Lila?" Drew asked, telegraphing his disapproval with a raised brow.
"It wasn't me that taught her," said Lila with a laugh. "It was my boy Josh. He learned some mighty sinful ways when he was off fighting in the war."
"I'll have to have a word with his sergeant," Drew threatened.
"And what did you do last night, Papa?"
Under Lila's speculative gaze, Drew blushed so hard he thought steam might be billowing out from around his collar.
"I married Cassie," he finally said.
Meggie didn't spare so much as a glance for her father's bride. "So is Cassie going to be my mother now?"
"She's my wife," Drew answered slowly, wondering why he hadn't worked this out ahead of time. "So I suppose..."
"Your mother will always be your mother, Meggie," Cassie intervened. "What I'd like to be is your friend."
Meggie looked at Cassie speculatively, not quite willing to believe her. "My friend?"
"I thought perhaps today we could do something to mark the start of our new friendship," Cassandra went on. "I thought the three of us could go on a winter picnic."
"There's no such thing as a winter picnic," Meggie proclaimed without hesitation, proving herself every inch her father's child.
"That's only because you've never been on one," Cassie answered.
Drew figured he'd better step in to curb his daughter's stubbornness. "Look at it this way, Meggie," he suggested. "Do you think it would be more fun to ride out and try one of these winter picnics, or head on back to the cabin?"
"Picnic," Meggie answered, as Drew knew she would. Anything that involved riding horses won Meggie's immediate approval.
"Do you want to ride on my lap or astride?"
"Astride, please." For once in her life, Meggie had decided to be biddable.
Drew swung his daughter up into the saddle before him and looked across at Lila. "We'll come by later to pick up her things."
By some stray miracle, the weather had decided to cooperate with Cassie's plans. After nearly two weeks of gray skies and intermittent snow, the sun was beaming down so hard that Drew could almost hear the hiss of melting snow.
They crossed the bridge to the north side of the river and followed the track along the bank to the south and west. Red Buttes was about four miles out and had been the site of an attack on a supply train a summer or two before. Still, going there was safe enough this time of year, when the Indians were holed up in their winter camps.
As the three of them left the rutted trace that had taken thousands of settlers to Oregon, the river stretched off to their left. Today, after weeks of cold, it was hardly more
than a glistening ripple of dark water bordered by a wide, grayish skim of ice. Meggie sang as they rode along, and Drew thought he recognized the words of a hymn, one she must have heard at services this morning. Cassie gradually picked up the tune, though most of the words eluded her.
They reached Red Buttes just before noon. Cassie set to work making a fire while Drew saw to the horses. Once he was done, he and Meggie scrambled up the ridge of sandstone bluffs. From the top they could look back across the Platte River valley, follow the iced-over stream as it cut a swampy channel from southwest to northeast between the groves of cottonwoods. It wouldn't be long before those trees would be in leaf, Drew found himself thinking. Lush spring grass would carpet the valley below. And with the spring, the Indians would come.
They'd conspire to cut the telegraph line, to steal stock from the way stations and the travelers passing through. They'd harass the railroad survey parties down to the south. Drew smiled to himself. All he had to do was bide his time, and the enemy he'd been yearning to fight for all these years would come to him.
Since the snow had receded from the rusty red outcroppings at the top of the buttes, Drew settled himself at the edge and nestled Meggie between his legs.
"Look, Meggie," he said, bending close to point. "The eagles are fishing in the river."
The big birds swooped along mere feet above the surface of the ribbon of open water. They banked and dove and flapped away with fish clutched in their talons. They were magnificent, soaring into the azure sky, graceful and dark against the sun.
They had been watching the eagles for some time when Meggie turned her head to Drew. "So, am I sus'pose to be nice to Cassie now?"
Meggie's sudden question caught Drew like an elbow in the belly. He fumbled for an answer. "It would make her happy if you were nice," he finally said. "And if she is happy, I guess I'll be happy, too.
"Besides," he went on, "Cassie's going to be taking care of you when I go fight. It would ease my mind considerably if I knew you two got on."
Meggie considered his reply at length. "She's got that mark."
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