Lady Sundown (#1 of the Danner Quartet)

by Nancy Bush

  And look what it got you.

  He was going to have to forget her. There was no other solution unless he offered false proclamations of love and asked her to marry him. But if he didn’t, she would marry Jace, and he would rather lie to her then see her bound to that scoundrel.

  With a growl of frustration he considered his options.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  The moon was round and full, painting a ghostly white glow over the crusted ground as Lexie walked the last few feet across the hardened mud to the gate. She laid her arms on the top rail, panting. Part of her wanted to laugh hysterically. How had she ever fooled herself into believing she loved Jace? She slipped the catch on the gate, then noticed yellow light spilling out of the crack between the top and bottom half of the stables’ Dutch door.

  Tremaine, she realized. Then, Sugartail!

  She ran through the door, forgetting about Jace in an instant. Tremaine was in Sugartail’s stall, his broad back turned her way, his gaze fixed firmly on the pregnant mare who was standing backward in her stall, her hindquarters strangely rigid.

  As Tremaine glanced up, Lexie asked anxiously, “Has she foaled yet?”

  “No. But the afterbirth’s already out.”

  “Oh, no…”

  She moved to the stall just as Sugartail’s flanks convulsed in a hard contraction. The mare paid scant attention to either Lexie or Tremaine. Her eyes were dull and glassy.

  “The foal won’t survive,” Lexie said around a lump in her throat. “It might already be dead. This is what happened last time.”

  Tremaine didn’t answer her. He laid his hand on Sugartail’s straining hide, his face a mask. Lexie hadn’t a clue to his thoughts, nor did she care anyway. She could have cried aloud at the unfairness of losing Sugartail’s foal. The mare’s offspring were always beautiful and spirited. Lexie had broken more colts and fillies than she cared to count, but Sugartail’s were always her favorite. Tantrum was out of Sugartail.

  At that moment Sugartail’s side protruded outward, and Tremaine said with more excitement than Lexie would have credited, “It’s still alive!”

  “We’ve got to get it out fast,” Lexie answered quickly.

  “We’ll have to pull it.”

  She jerked her gaze to his and found him assessing her with those hard blue eyes. “I’ll do it,” she told him, shouldering past him. There was no time to waste with hot water and sterilization. The foal had to be pulled down the birth canal before it was asphyxiated.

  Tremaine didn’t argue. “Then I’ll help,” he said, rolling up his sleeves as Lexie flung off her cloak and touched the mare’s sweaty coat. In that tense moment Sugartail emitted a half whinny so pitiful that Lexie automatically glanced back — in time to witness a tiny hoof and leg slip from the birth canal.

  “Tremaine…”

  “It’s turned wrong.” He was terse and controlled. “Get back, Lexie.”

  “What are you going to do? You don’t have time to turn it. It’ll suffocate.”

  “I know.”

  Lexie dug her fingers into his arms, her face taut and pale as she looked up at him through the flickering lantern light. “Tremaine, it can’t possibly survive. The air’ll be squeezed out of its lungs before—”

  “I know, Lexie. I know!”

  “Let me do it.”

  “Dammit, Lexie.” He slammed her against the railing, his hand at her throat. “Shut up.”

  She could only stare, hollow-eyed. A moment later he released her, regarding her wordlessly for a long, deep moment. They both knew it was too late to try to turn the poor foal. There was nothing left but to pull it out.

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked in a strangled voice.

  “I’m going to try to bring the other leg out, then I’m going to yank hard, as hard as I can. We don’t have much time.”

  She nodded, her heart pounding terribly. “I’ll help.”

  “Lex, I don’t know if you’re—”

  “I’ll help,” she hissed through her teeth.

  He didn’t argue further. Turning, he ran his hand down Sugartail’s haunches but the horse didn’t protest. Quickly, efficiently, he reached inside and worked to find the other back hoof and leg. Dry-mouthed, Lexie sidled next to him, shoulder to shoulder. She slid her hands above Tremaine’s, wrapping her fingers around the foal’s tiny legs. Seconds ticked by.

  “When I say three, yank with all your strength. All your strength. Do you understand?”

  He spoke hard and fast. Lexie nodded jerkily. “One,” he muttered between his teeth. “Two.” Lexie’s fingers tightened and she could feel Tremaine’s shoulders stiffen.

  “Three!”

  Lexie strained with all her muscles, bowing backward. The foal was yanked from the birth canal, slipped from her hands, dropped with a crashing bounce against the straw-covered floor.

  Lexie fell back against Tremaine, stumbling. His arms encircled her. No fluid gushed. It was a dry birth. “Is it all right?” she asked, trembling. “Is it all right?”

  She knew it couldn’t be. She stared at the huddled form on the floor of the box stall. Sugartail had already turned, the effects of the birth not stopping her from snuffling the small foal, licking its damp, furry hide. She whinnied and Lexie thought her heart would break.

  A tiny hoof moved. “God almighty,” Tremaine murmured in awe, his breath stirring her hair.

  Lexie clambered away from him. She stood tense and afraid, watching the little filly with the same fiery intensity Tremaine had come to respect and admire in her. If she could have willed the filly to survive, she would have.

  But she didn’t need to. The foal raised its heavy head and looked around dazedly, already trying to pull its legs beneath it.

  “My God,” Lexie breathed, dragging a breath into aching lungs. “Oh, Tremaine.” She turned shining eyes on him, her mouth a curve of pure happiness. “I think — I don’t know how — but you did it!”

  “We did it,” he corrected her, smiling.

  “Sugartail did it,” Lexie amended with a laugh. “I don’t think she’d like us to forget her part!”

  “I imagine she won’t thank us later when she begins to feel the result of our efforts.”

  “No, I guess not. But she’s okay. And the filly is gorgeous!” Oblivious to everything but her consuming delight, Lexie hugged Tremaine’s waist. She didn’t notice how the uncomplicated gesture turned him to stone. She was riding high on a crest of joy and jubilation.

  But Tremaine was instantly, terribly aware of Lexie. His blood pumped madly. The elemental drama had worked a kind of primitive magic. He was consumed with the desire to bury himself inside her. He wanted to pull back her hair and ravish her mouth with hard, burning kisses. He wanted to drag her to his unyielding contour. He wanted to soothe his throbbing ache in her pliant loveliness.

  His hands found her forearms, blindly, and he tightened his hold. “I can’t wait until Pa gets home,” Lexie was babbling happily. “He was so worried, and he had a right to be. I don’t know if Sugartail should foal again. This may have to be her last. I don’t think my heart could stand another birth like tonight. I—” She broke off suddenly, peering up into his face. “Tremaine?”

  “Lexie, if you have any sense at all, let me go,” he said stonily.

  Amazed, she stepped back. Her face flushed. Without another word Tremaine strode out the door. He headed straight for the back porch and the pump. The water would be icy cold, numbing, painful. He hoped to God it would cool his blood.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Steam rose from the claw-footed porcelain tub sitting in the center of the bathing room as Lexie poured in a potful of boiling water. The tub was already half-filled with room temperature water, the water Annie had pumped earlier in the day.

  Lexie dropped her wrapper in a silken pile, stepping into the delicious water, sinking for one luxurious minute into the warm depths, fighting to keep her mind on nothing but the sensual feel of heat and solitude and buoyancy. She w
anted to bask in the triumph of Sugartail’s perfect little filly.

  Her self- indulgence lasted the space of ten heartbeats, before she remembered Tremaine’s cold words in the stables. Cold words stemming from hot need. Instantly her body reacted and she suddenly longed for him in a way that embarrassed her. Emitting a frustrated sigh, she opened her eyes, reached behind her to the lilac-scented bath salts on the vanity, and picked up the sponge.

  She scrubbed herself furiously with the puffy gold-colored sponge, trying not to think. But her skin was sensitized beyond bearing. How, she wondered dismally, could Tremaine melt her with a few harsh words when Jace’s touch made her skin shrivel with loathing?

  Swearing softly to herself, she finished bathing and stepped from the now tepid tub, hastily toweling herself off, throwing her wrapper around her still damp body. In the fogged mirror of Eliza’s vanity, she saw her pinkened flesh and the blue bruise at the base of her throat, where Tremaine had pinned her against the stall rails.

  Tremaine. Her heart slipped. He was somewhere outside. He hadn’t returned from the stables and the house seemed strangely quiet. Shivering, Lexie mounted the stairs, pausing halfway up. Where was he? He hadn’t left without telling her, had he?

  Above her, through the paned French doors leading to the widow’s walk, Lexie could see the silvery moon. She had no idea what time it was but she knew it was well after midnight. Pa and Mother and Samuel and Jesse were undoubtedly spending the night at the Cullens’.

  Wondering if she could have somehow missed Tremaine, she walked to the door at the opposite end of the hall from hers, rapping softly. “Tremaine?” she called. When there was no answer she twisted the handle.

  His room smelled like leather and buckskin. On the oak dresser sat his black medical bag. With a pang Lexie remembered the day she’d sneaked inside this very room and pilfered the carbolic acid and catgut from his bag. It seemed such a long time ago.

  Retracing her steps, she was almost to the stairs when she heard the kitchen door bang shut. Below her, Tremaine’s distinctive footsteps rang purposefully across the plankwood floor toward the den.

  Lexie heard the clink of glass against glass that meant Tremaine was helping himself to Pa’s liquor supply. Curious, and still smarting from his harsh words, Lexie descended the steps, walked barefoot into the arched opening to the dark pine-paneled room. She stopped short.

  Tremaine stood in front of Pa’s hand-carved, mahogany liquor cabinet, bare to the waist, clad only in his boots and buckskin breeches, the latter soaked with water stains. He was just closing the diamond-paned doors upon a row of crystal decanters. He turned upon hearing her enter, his blue eyes cool and impersonal. Lexie’s gaze slid away to the remaining decanter on the sideboard, whose amber liquid was in serious decline — if the brimming glass next to it was any indication.

  “You’re drinking,” she said.

  “Your powers of observation never cease to amaze me,” he agreed equably. “Want some?” He was already reaching for the cabinet door. “I’m drinking whiskey, but as I recall,” he added with faint humor, “you prefer scotch.”

  “I don’t prefer anything. Why are you — dressed like that?” She gestured helplessly to his bare broad shoulders and muscular chest.

  Tremaine was intent on pouring her a drink, however, and didn’t see her movement. At her trailing voice he glanced around. “What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?”

  “What happened to your clothes?”

  “I took off my shirt to wash. Here.” He strode toward her, pressing a cool glass into her hand. Staring down at her shimmery dark blue wrapper, he lifted a brow and said, “I could ask the same of you.”

  Lexie drew her silken cover more closely to her neck. “I took a bath in the tub. But you didn’t come in. You were outside.”

  He nodded. “That’s right. I used pump water.”

  “Pump water!” She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “But it’s freezing. Whatever possessed you to do that?”

  He shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Tossing back half his drink, he grimaced as the burning fluid raced down his throat.

  His mood was hard to discern, leaving Lexie faintly discomfited. “I don’t understand you at all.”

  He gave a short bark of laughter. “Well, that makes two of us. Was there something you wanted?”

  “No.”

  “How was your dinner at the Garretts’?”

  So that was it. Lexie drew a breath and, remembering how Jace had looked sprawled across the barn floor, she smiled to herself. She was unaware that Tremaine misinterpreted that secret smile to mean something entirely different. “It was a disaster. Lucinda had her eagle eye on me all evening, and Kelsey looked as if she wanted to be anywhere but where she was. The mayor of Malone was there.”

  “And what about Jace?” he asked in a dangerous voice.

  Lexie couldn’t help enjoying his jealousy. At least it meant he cared. “Jace gave me an engagement ring.”

  He glanced sharply at her hands, saw they were bare, then stared down into his glass. By the implacable set to his jaw, she knew he wasn’t going to ask where the ring was, and that made her angry enough to bait him.

  “What? No comments on how I ought to run my life? No words of caution about my future husband?”

  He lifted dangerously simmering blue eyes to hers. “For all I care, you can do anything you damn well please, Lexie.”

  “Then my marrying Jace Garrett doesn’t bother you?”

  “If you can’t see Garrett for the man he is, then your marriage will be a match made in heaven.” Tremaine swallowed the rest of his drink and turned to the cabinet for another.

  Lexie was furious. She might be naïve when it came to the opposite sex, but it didn’t take a master of deduction to see that Tremaine was emotionally involved, whether he wanted to admit it or not. “Whom would you rather I married?” she asked, sipping the pungent scotch. The fiery liquid stole her breath and she nearly choked.

  “I don’t give a goddamn what you do,” he said chillingly. “Just leave me alone.”

  “Fine.” She set her drink down on the sideboard. She’d had enough. Tossing her head, she said coldly, “I don’t give a goddamn what you do either. Good night.”

  His hand shot out and grabbed her as she tried to leave. Lexie’s temper flared, her every muscle tensed. She glared at him, green eyes sparkling with suppressed anger. But her breath lodged in her throat at the hunger in his gaze.

  She calmly pulled on her arm, but the pressure of his grip didn’t lessen. “Whatever’s upset you, it has nothing to do with me.”

  “Oh, hasn’t it?” he asked silkily.

  “No.”

  He laughed softly without humor. “You are the worst liar I’ve ever met. It has everything to do with you — and you know it.”

  Her heart started to pound in irregular beats at the cold anger emanating from him. She’d asked for this, she realized. She’d deliberately baited him, forced him to confront her. It had not been her most inspired idea, she realized belatedly, her gaze fixed on the wall of his chest.

  Tremaine’s blue eyes glittered with a dangerous flame but he made no sudden moves. It slowly dawned on Lexie that he was fighting for control of his emotions — which she found unnerving to the extreme. She hadn’t meant to push him so far.

  But then he suddenly released her, and where she should have felt relief she was crushed with disappointment. “Good night,” he said, striding out of the den. She heard the front door crash closed behind him.

  Lexie stood frozen for the space of two heartbeats. She’d be damned if she would let him just walk out on her when she was boiling for a fight! Cinching her silken wrapper, she yanked open the door behind him, half walking, half running across the moon-drenched ground behind his purposeful, shadowy figure.

  She caught him at the barn. He’d just lighted a lantern when she appeared at the open door, winded. “I wasn’t through talking!” she d
eclared furiously.

  “Christ, Lexie! What are you doing?” He glared at her as if she were a bothersome child.

  “You didn’t give me a chance to explain about Jace.”

  “I don’t want to hear about Jace.”

  “All I wanted to say was—”

  “Shut up, Lexie, and go to bed. You’ll freeze to death out here.”

  “Me? You’re the one without a shirt. If you’d just listen to me—”

  “I’m dead tired,” he cut her off. “I’ve been up over thirty hours already and I just want to put you out of my mind.”

  “Tremaine—”

  “I want to take you to bed,” he said bluntly. “Get out of here unless you feel the same way. Now.”

  “Wasn’t Jenny McBride enough for you?”

  It was a mistake to talk him. He was across the barn floor in two strides, pinning her against the wall. Lexie’s impulsiveness was her bane. The flame of anger lighting his eyes said she’d crossed the limits this time.

  “I have not been with Jenny McBride,” he said through his teeth.

  Her heart soared. She couldn’t help herself. Of course, she didn’t believe him. Why should she? But, well, maybe it was true and if that was the case…

  Her tumbling thoughts were abruptly cut off when his hands plunged into her silken blond tresses. “What are you doing?” she demanded, dry-mouthed.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Lexie. You know,” he muttered, bending his head to capture her lips in an earth-shattering kiss.

  She thrilled to the feel of his warm lips. Still, she had to remember just what Tremaine wanted from her. There was a big difference between lust and love.

  Reluctantly, she tried to twist away but his mouth was expertly persuasive. His hand invaded her heavy mane, holding her head back, lifting up her face. Her lips trembled against the force of his. She pressed on his chest to thrust him away, but his icy cold skin diverted her attention. He had washed himself with the pump water.

  “Tremaine,” she murmured on the soft breath against his hot mouth.

  For an answer he redoubled his efforts, holding her more possessively, his lips insistently shaping and fitting hers to his own needs. It was as if he wanted to blot out her voice. His kiss was so forceful, so hot and demanding that Lexie went numb. She forgot, for an instant, that she was intent on pushing him away. Dazedly she felt a now familiar wanton tingling sweeping up her legs, settling between her thighs.