Judith Bowen

by The Man from Blue River

  He took her hand and they left the room. Two other couples waited at the elevator, and he didn’t dare look at her until they were alone. Both couples got off on the floor below theirs, chattering about the snow conditions and the weather forecast and where they planned to ski the next day. To Fraser, they might have been on another planet.

  Then they were in their room, the door shut behind them. And she was in his arms again, her head thrown back, his mouth on her throat. The softness, the scent, the vulnerable gesture sent his blood boiling. He felt the pulse beating in her neck, fast, faster. Desire, yes, and fear, too, he realized when he lifted his head to look into her eyes.

  His mouth met hers, lightly at first, then deeply as he braced himself against the door, cradling her hips against his. He felt her pull back a tiny bit, just a reaction, he thought—perhaps she’d been off-balance?—but then he remembered the faint shadow of fear he’d seen in her eyes before he kissed her, and he held her close and rested his head on the door, leaning back, remembering. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t kiss him either. She was quiet, like a bird trapped in the cage of his arms.

  In a moment she raised her head, looked at him. He saw the conviction, the firmness of purpose. She knew what she wanted; she was determined to see it through. It hurt his heart to see it.

  “You use the bathroom first,” he said, amazed that he could even speak, that his words made any sense. “Go ahead.”

  She nodded, swallowed, then spoke. “All right.” She crossed to the side of the room where they’d put the suitcases and began to rummage in one of them. He closed his eyes, listened to the slowing thunder of his heart, felt something deep and vital clutch at his throat.

  Then he allowed himself to remember again exactly why she wanted him—to give her a baby. She required him the way any rancher required a good stallion for his mares or a sound herd bull to serve his heifers. Thick as nausea, the nightmare rose before him, and his muscles clenched as he felt again the revulsion, the horror, when he’d tried to pry the tiny dead child from Charlotte’s arms. Her weak pleading, the mewl of a dying broken creature. Please, don’t take it from me, she begged. Not this one, too.

  Fraser took a deep shuddering breath, forcing back the forbidden. And now this woman wanted the same from him. A child. That was their bargain. That was their understanding, what he’d said he’d do. Those were her terms.

  He heard the bathroom door click softly shut and then, as softly, the unmistakable sound of the lock being gently eased into place.

  Nausea rose again. Blindly Fraser grabbed for the jacket he’d thrown over a chair earlier. Then he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

  MARTHA HEARD the door slam. She knew he was gone. She sat down on the closed seat of the toilet and burst into tears.

  This wasn’t going to work. This was never going to work.

  Here she was, a woman of nearly thirty-six and with two or three lovers in her fairly ordinary past, shaking like a leaf at the thought of going to bed with the man she’d legally married. Her husband, for Pete’s sake!

  Not a real husband, said a nasty voice inside. You asked him; you made him marry you on your terms. What choice did he have? He doesn’t even like you all that much.

  “Oh, go away,” Martha sobbed. “Damn, damn, double damn!”

  She stood up and washed her face with cold water. Methodically, she brushed her teeth, took down her hair and stepped into the shower. Five minutes and she was out, wearing the new nightie she’d bought in Pine Ridge for the big night. Forty percent polyester. You couldn’t even get one hundred percent cotton in Pine Ridge.

  Martha damp-dried her hair—she didn’t have the energy to bother drying it completely—and gathered up her various toilet articles and put them back into her case. She zipped it shut.

  Maybe he’d be back. Maybe he’d forgotten something down in the dining room. Or remembered he’d wanted to buy a newspaper. They’d been having a good time, hadn’t they? They’d laughed a few times over dinner, they’d talked about the girls, she’d almost felt she was getting to know him. And then he’d asked her to dance….

  Martha shivered and turned on the bathroom fan to get rid of the steam from her shower. She could still feel his arms around her, still hear his voice, rough and urgent when he’d asked if she wanted to go upstairs.

  She had. She wanted him desperately. Wanted his body, wanted more than his body—she wanted to know him, who he was. She wanted him to care that he had her, Martha, in his arms, not the ghost of his dead wife.

  Because wasn’t that what this was all about? Charlotte Mae. The woman he’d loved more than a man should love a woman, according to Birdie.

  Martha felt tears rise again but angrily brushed them away. She walked out of the bathroom. The room was empty. She noticed that his jacket was gone, and she knew what that meant. He hadn’t gone down for a newspaper. He’d left. He’d gone for a walk. Or a drive. He might be back soon. He might not be back at all.

  She didn’t care. Besides, what was the big deal? So what if they didn’t make love—have sex, she reminded herself—on their wedding night? A week and a half ago, neither of them had known they’d be in this situation. It took getting used to, for her and, obviously, for him. She could wait. She’d waited a long time for this opportunity to have a child of her own. She wasn’t going to jeopardize everything by being ridiculous now.

  She slipped off her robe and stood for a moment before the floor-length mirrors, arms half-raised in the dim light. You’re no raving beauty, Martha Virginia. You’ve always known that. You’re too tall and you’re too plain. Good sturdy stock, Welsh miners and Danish farmers. She looked at her palms, then turned them over and looked at the gold band, brand-new and shiny, on her left hand.

  She pulled back the coverlet on one of the beds and climbed in. It was nearly midnight. She turned off the bedside light and drew the blanket up over her shoulders. She felt cold. She felt sad. She felt lonelier than she’d ever felt in her entire life.

  Amazingly she slept. How long, she wasn’t sure at first, but she awoke suddenly, very aware that she was no longer alone in the room. She wrinkled her nose. What was that smell?

  She heard a dull thud and a low curse and then a heavy thump as a chair fell over. Fraser was back. At least she hoped it was Fraser.

  Martha lay there, barely daring to breathe. There was another low curse, then the sound of someone walking heavily toward the bed in stocking feet. He stopped. Martha dared to open her eyes a crack. Yes, it was Fraser. He had his shirt off and his hands at the fastening of his trousers. What in the…?

  Then he lurched forward and half fell, half kneeled beside the bed. Before she could think what was happening, he had his mouth on hers and was kissing her. She tasted stale whiskey and cigar smoke. Cigars? He didn’t even smoke.

  “Yech!” She pushed him, twisting her head away and feeling the heat of his bare skin under her hands. “What do you think you’re doing?” she whispered fiercely, although why she felt she ought to whisper she didn’t know.

  “Kissing you, sweet Martha,” he whispered back, blasting her with alcohol fumes. “Making love to my new wife, tha’s what.”

  “You’re crazy!” She rolled away from him, but he’d managed to heave himself fully onto the bed, and his upper torso pinned her down. He was heavy. His mouth sought and found hers again. He kissed her, over and over, with a naked hunger that fanned the embers of what she’d felt earlier. When they’d danced.

  Despite herself, despite her disgust at the condition he was in, she found herself tempted to kiss him back. Despite everything, she found this man attractive, desirable…sexy.

  Lost for a few seconds, she quickly came to her senses when his hand encountered her breast. “Stop that!”

  “Why, sweetheart?” he mumbled. “You want me, don’t you?”

  “Yes…no-”

  “Just like I want you, dammit, and you know it,” he growled, and muffled her protests with his mouth. She
struggled, then found one traitorous hand reaching up to slide into his hair, to hold him closer. Her body, defying all good judgment, strained against his, only the thin fabric of her nightgown and the sheet between them.

  As though sharing her thoughts, Fraser rolled to one side and ripped away the sheet and fumbled with the front of her nightie. “Oh, sweet, sweet Martha,” he whispered hoarsely. “You’re driving me mad, you know that? Crazy!” Then he swore. “How the hell do I get into this thing?”

  “Buttons,” she heard herself whispering urgently. “Three buttons at the front…” Why was she doing this? Why was she helping him? He was drunk. Did he have to go out and get drunk to find the courage to make love to her? Was it as bad as that?

  “Hell!” He ripped the buttons from her nightgown and slid his hand under the fabric, unerringly finding and cupping her breast. She gasped, couldn’t help herself.

  He groaned her name, then dipped his head to find her nipple, tight and aching. He took it in his mouth, and she thought she’d die. Flames shot through her veins, scorched every vital organ, turned her muscles limp, her mind to jelly. “Fraser!”

  “Darlin’?” he mumbled, his hands finding secret places, wicked pleasures, hidden delights. He didn’t stop.

  This was insane! She didn’t want her wedding night to end like this. She didn’t want her first time with Fraser to be some quick furtive midnight coupling that one of them, at least, would have no memory of in the morning. She twisted from under him with every shred of energy she could summon, and somehow, suddenly, he was off her. She felt an icy chill at her bare wet breast. But he hadn’t let go of her, and before she knew what was happening, he’d twisted, too, and now she was on top of him and he was laughing softly and running his hands along the length of her back, her bare back, under the skirt of her nightie. “Gotcha!”

  “Fraser! For God’s sake—”

  “Whassamatter?”

  “You’re drunk!”

  “You talk too much, d’you know that, darlin’?” He pulled her head down to him with one large hand, the other clamping her hips against his. She felt the urgent swell of his flesh beneath the half-opened zipper, pressing against her bare thigh. The sensation excited her unbearably.

  Then—she wasn’t sure exactly how it had happened—she was alone on the bed, lying there panting, one breast still exposed, nightie pushed up to her hips. Fraser had fallen off, taking most of the sheet with him.

  She wanted to laugh, sudden hysteria seizing her middle. She didn’t dare. She knew if she laughed she’d never stop. Not to mention what it might to do the much-vaunted male ego. She lay there, her mind ablaze, her body on fire, only half-curious as to what might happen next.

  Beyond a grunt and a curse, she hadn’t heard anything from Fraser. Then she did. The unmistakable sound of snoring reached her ears. She sat up. “I don’t believe this!”

  She scrambled to the side of the bed. It was true. Her husband of just over fourteen hours was flat on his back on the carpet, arms sprawled, sheet half covering his bare chest, which rose and fell rhythmically. He was sound asleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  FRASER AWOKE stiff and sore on the floor beside the bed. He had a hell of a headache, his mouth tasted like the bottom of a roadhouse ashtray, and all he had on was a pair of half-zipped pants and a twisted sheet. Martha, mercifully, was nowhere to be seen.

  He wiped the steam off the bathroom mirror after his shower and took a good look. God, he didn’t blame her for leaving. He needed a shave and a decent night’s sleep—not on the floor of some hotel room, either.

  How had he ended up there, anyway? Whatever had happened, it wasn’t going to reflect too favorably on him, he was pretty sure of that. All he knew was he’d run into a couple of buddies last night and wound up celebrating old times. Old times, hell! What kind of man went out and got drunk with a couple of buddies on his wedding night?

  Wedding night. Fraser stared at himself in the mirror and didn’t much like what he saw. He frowned. He had a vague memory of walking back to the hotel last night. and a few sweet sinful shreds of recollectiongetting into bed with her, kissing her…

  Then what?

  He tracked Martha down on the slopes just after lunch. When he spotted her at the bottom of one of the intermediate runs, slim and swift in her pale green ski gear, laughing at something the good-looking guy with her had said, he felt himself bristle immediately. The depth of his reaction surprised him, but he didn’t take time to think about it.

  Her smile cooled when she noticed him, and that hurt, but she introduced him politely enough. Turned out the guy was some dentist from Cody, skiing with his teenage son.

  “Thanks for looking after my wife,” Fraser said, regretting his words when he saw the stormy look on Martha’s face. What a dope. Just the kind of thing she needed to hear. Why had he made a dumb comment like that, anyway? Only to wipe off the other guy’s smirk. Testosterone talking.

  The dentist had been pleasant enough, simply waved and glided off with his pimply-faced son. Martha hadn’t said a word yet, beyond her terse greeting. Could he blame her?

  “You want to go up again?” he asked, feeling he had to say something. Somebody did.

  “Sure.” She shrugged and skied toward the lift.

  Then they were on the chair lift, swinging thirty feet above the pine trees. His stomach felt queasy, his head was killing him, the glittering snow made his eyes throb, even with goggles on. If he’d known of a bear den nearby with a single occupant holed up for the winter, he might have crawled in to keep him company.

  It’d no doubt beat what he had to face with Martha.

  “I might be your wife,” she finally said icily, “but I sure as heck don’t need anybody looking after me. Thank goodness.”

  “Sorry.” He winced. “It was a stupid thing to say.” There was no way he was going to argue with her, not after what had happened last night. What had happened? He wished he could say for sure.

  The chair lift swung wildly, then stopped. Great. Now some novice had to get tangled up in his ski poles somewhere and stop the lift. He wanted off. He wanted to sleep this whole thing off somewhere dead quiet, then he wanted to saddle up Banjo and ride hell-forleather up into the mountains. Alone. In the fall. After roundup. Maybe ten years ago, when he was pushing thirty, not forty.

  “I thought you told me you weren’t a drinking man,” she said, still not looking at him. “When we first met.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Really?” she snapped. “Could’ve fooled me last night.”

  “Not generally, I mean.” He wanted to ask her what had happened last night, but he didn’t dare. “I told you, I pay like hell for it the next day.”

  “So do other people,” she said quietly. Just then the lift started again with a lurch, and he automatically tightened his arm on the back of the chair to steady her. She stiffened.

  “Dammit, Martha.” He pushed up his goggles. The light stabbed through his head. “Look at me.”

  After a few mutinous seconds, she turned to him. He could see the sheen of tears in her eyes. He’d felt like a jerk before, now he felt worse. “I’m sorry.” He raised his hand. “That’s all I can say—I’m sorry.”

  She nodded tightly.

  “I…I don’t know what got into me last night. I just…I just had to get some air all of a sudden. Had to get out of there. It was all too—” he shook his head, struggling to find the right words “—too intense or something.”

  “What you mean is, you had to get drunk before you could bring yourself to touch me.”

  He stared at her. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Was that what she thought?

  “God, Martha.” She held his gaze, chin up firmly, eyes unwavering. He could see the hurt deep beneath the blue, hurt she was trying desperately to hide. How could she get it so wrong? What she must think of him, what she must think of herself…

  “Why don’t you just admit it!”

  �
��Because it’s not true,” he said. “It’s not true. You want to know the truth? You want to know the real reason I went out and got hammered last night?”

  She nodded. They were nearing the top of the mountain. Suddenly he was angry that she was forcing him to say what he didn’t want to admit, not even to himself. “I went out and got drunk because I felt too damn much, that’s why.”

  He glided off the lift and replaced his goggles. In a way, he hoped she’d just leave him to ski down by himself. But she glided up and stopped in front of him. She adjusted her gloves, then seated her hands firmly in the straps of her poles.

  “So why’d you come back then and try to make love to me later? Have sex, I mean. Why’d you even bother?”

  Try to make love…

  “You just won’t let it alone, will you, Martha?” He wondered if she could see his expression behind the colored plastic of his goggles. He hoped not.

  She shook her head.

  “Okay.” He was angry now, definitely angry. “Because that’s part of our deal. And when I make a deal, I keep my end of it.”

  She turned abruptly and skied away—and didn’t look back even once to see whether he followed.

  Damn. Why had he hurt her like that? On purpose. It wasn’t even true, none of it.

  What was true?

  ATWO-HUNDRED-MILE road trip in the dead of winter to deliver a trailer full of frisky ram lambs gave a man plenty of time to reflect on what kind of an ass he’d been.

  Fraser released his grip on the steering wheel. Another thirty miles and he’d reach the Blackwell ranch. He planned to stay overnight, then head back tomorrow. It was getting too late to even think about starting back tonight. Besides, he could use an evening with Dave. And Jeannie. He liked Dave’s wife and their three boys. He and Dave had grown up together in the Wind Rivers, then the Blackwells had moved away when he was twelve and Dave was thirteen, about the age of Dave’s youngest son now. They’d seen each other maybe once, twice a year since then. But they were still best buddies. Friends stayed friends.