Emma felt called upon to take Sing Cho’s part. She gripped Steven’s uninjured arm and said quickly, “He had to put alcohol on the cut—to prevent infection.”
Steven let out a long sigh and sat down on the apple crate again.
While Sing Cho was sorting through his big carpet bag for the makings of a bandage, Emma washed her hands in what remained of the water she’d carried from the creek. She splashed her face, too, and the cold made her breath catch.
“I’ll do that,” she said, when Sing Cho started to wrap Steven&8217;s arm.
Steven nodded at him. “Go ahead and catch up with the herd. We’ll be right behind you.”
Sing Cho bowed, and sparing not so much as a glance for Emma, turned and trotted back to his wagon, taking his carpet bag with him.
“You could at least have thanked him,” Emma scolded as she bent to wrap Steven’s wound.
“Look at me,” he said hoarsely.
Emma brought her eyes to his face and swallowed hard. It was so good to be close to him again, in spite of everything, that she wanted to weep.
“What are you doing here?”
“I told you,” she said with some effort, gently knotting the bandage to make it stay. “I wanted to warn you about your brother.”
He stood and led her around behind a stand of trees and brush, where he took a seat on a birch stump. Then he pulled her downward, so that she was sitting astraddle of his lap. “You took some big chances, Miss Emma. I want to know why.”
Emma lowered her eyes. “Because I love you, Mr. Fairfax,” she replied in a soft, broken voice.
Steven was silent for such a long time that Emma feared he was going to send her away. When she finally brought herself to meet his gaze, she was amazed to see that he was smiling. “You love me?”
“Yes, God help me,” Emma sighed. Her arms went around his neck. “I love you so much, it hurts.”
“Even though you’re not sure whether I’m a killer or not?”
Emma nodded sadly.
He laughed, and it was a joyful, raucous sound. His hands interlocked at the small of Emma’s back, he planted a noisy kiss on her mouth. “If I didn’t know those cowboys up there would tell the story around the campfire for years to come, I’d take you right now.”
She would have responded wholeheartedly, but she fancied she could hide the knowledge from Steven.
He put his hand under her chin and lifted. “I love you,” he said firmly.
Emma had feared never to hear those words from him, and relief made her sigh and rest her forehead against his. She tensed, though, when she felt his hand unfasten the row of big buttons in the placket at the front of her skirt.
“Steven,” she complained. “You just said—the cowboys—”
He put his hand down inside the skirt, and slid it deftly beneath her knickers. “They can’t see through the trees,” he whispered against her mouth.
Emma gave a soft moan because it felt so good to have him touch her in that warm, moist place between her legs.
“Open your blouse,” he went on, as he continued to caress her with a gentle rhythm that was making her soul spin wildly within her.
Emma could barely breathe. “Dear God, Steven—”
“Do as I tell you, Emma,” Steven said, tracing the circumference of her lips with the tip of his tongue. Emma’s mouth opened for him, just as another part of her body was doing.
She reached up with fumbling fingers and began unbuttoning her blouse.
“Lift your camisole,” Steven ordered, when she was through.
“Steven—”
“Do it.”
She bared her breasts and leaned back with a moan. Steven took one of her nipples into his mouth and sucked even as he flicked at it with his tongue.
Emma whimpered helplessly and let her head fall farther back. His fingers glided in and out of her while his thumb worked that taut, tingling nubbin of flesh hidden in her delta. At the same time, he drew greedily on her breast.
Her body began to buck wildly as she rode his hand. “Steven,” she whispered desperately. “Oh, Steven—”
He moved to her other breast and took nourishment there, all the while continuing the ruthless, skillful motion of his fingers.
Emma’s legs stiffened and moved wide of her body when the delicious contractions began, deep inside her. She cried out loudly and arched her back, surrendering without reservation to Steven’s hand and his mouth.
When it was over, she let her forehead rest on his shoulder, gasping for breath. He gave her a lengthy caress, meant to assure that she would want him again, very soon, then withdrew his hand. Conscientiously, he rebuttoned her skirt, pulled her camisole down over pebble-hard nipples that were still moist from his mouth, and closed her blouse.
Emma doubted that she’d even be able to stand when he entangled his fingers in her hair and pressed her mouth to his. His kiss was as compelling and masterful, in its own way, as the delightful paces he’d just put her through.
“Why did you do that?” she demanded, when it was over.
“Why did I kiss you, or why did I make you ride my hand?”
Emma’s cheeks burned. “Both.”
“The days ahead are likely to be rough ones.” He spoke gently, and his voice was hoarse with emotion. “I want you to remember, whatever happens, that you loved me and that things were very, very good between us.”
Emma searched his face with worried, bewildered eyes. “Steven, please tell me Macon was lying.”
“We’ll talk about that later, when there’s more time. Right now, we’ve got to catch up with the herd.”
Emma’s heart fell. It was plain that Steven was keeping something from her, and she knew only too well what it was. “Steven, please,” she begged.
He set her on her feet and stood. Sing Cho had poured water onto the fire before he left, and there was nothing left of it but several chunks of blackened wood.
Steven walked down to the edge of the creek and squatted beside the water, and when he came back, his face and handy, verye clean. He still had the beginnings of a beard, however, and his hair was rumpled where Emma had run her fingers through it.
“Let’s go,” he said, coming to stand beside the gelding and extending a hand to Emma.
She let him help her up into the saddle, and closed her eyes for a moment as her tender femininity made contact with the hard leather. Mounted behind her, Steven put his hands briefly on her breasts again, as if to stake a claim on them. His breath was warm and soft as it passed her ear.
“I told you I’d have you wherever I found you,” he reminded her. “That was the best I could do.”
Emma was still trembling with pleasant aftershocks. “Some folks would say you aren’t a gentleman,” she said.
“I don’t give a damn,” he answered, spurring the horse toward the cloud of dust that marked the passing of the herd. They had to ride hard to catch up, and Emma felt as if every pore in her body was clogged with trail dirt by the time they did. She could feel it even between her teeth.
Steven maneuvered the horse among the cattle that strayed from the herd as easily as if Emma hadn’t been mounted in front of him, whistling and waving his hat at times. In calmer moments, he told Emma about Fairhaven, his home in Louisiana. He told her how many children they were going to have, and exactly where each one would be conceived. When they got to Spokane, he promised, he was going to take a hotel room and keep her tossing on the mattress for a full day and night.
Emma was warm with arousal and frustration by the time they stopped to make camp that night, next to a broad stream.
Cattle lowed in the twilight, and the cowboys talked self-consciously among themselves, trying not to stare at Emma yet unable to help stealing glimpses. The cook built a roaring fire and began to prepare biscuits, stew, and coffee.
Emma offered to help with the food, but Sing Cho shook his head and shuffled her off with a shooing motion of his apron. Steven was busy going over the
next day’s travel with the scout, and he didn’t spare as much as a glance for her.
A feeling of abject loneliness came over Emma as she looked up at the first stars glimmering distantly in the sky. She’d given her heart to Steven Fairfax, and he hadn’t even tried to deny the charges against him.
She might have become Mrs. Fulton Whitney, with practically all of the Idaho Territory at her feet. Now she was an outlaw’s woman, shamelessly baring herself to his every whim.
Steven was planning to go back to Louisiana and stand trial, and Emma meant to go with him. Whatever happened, she would be at his side. She swallowed hard. Suppose Macon was right? Suppose she had to watch the man she loved taken to the gallows and hanged?
There were tears in her eyes when she felt Steven’s hands grip her shoulders. “It’s time we talked,” he said softly, escorting her away from camp and into the privacy of the gathering night.
They walked upstream, parallel with the wide creek, until they were out of sight of the others, and Steven seated Emma on a boulder near the water. He leaned against a tree and folded his arms, gazing down at her.
“I love you,” he said again.
The landscape around them glowed with the silvery light of the moon. “I know,” Emma answered softly, looking up into his face. She’d been working up her courage for hours, and the question wasn’t easy to ask. For all that, she needed desperately to hear the answer. “Did you kill your nephew and that girl, Steven?”
He was silent for a long time. Then he replied hoarsely, “In a roundabout way, yes.”
Emma was still as the stone she sat upon, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on Steven’s leafshadowed face. Despite the picture of serenity she presented, her insides were churning.
Steven leaned against the trunk of a towering birch and folded his arms. His gaze met hers with a reassuring steadiness, but he didn’t speak. He seemed to be memorizing her features, as though he thought he might never see her again.
Emma could bear it no longer. “Tell me why, Steven,” she whispered brokenly. “Tell me how you could—could kill your own nephew—”
“I fired the shot that ended Dirk’s life,” Steven broke in hoarsely, tilting his head back to study the starspeckled sky for a moment. “At least, indirectly.”
Emma didn’t speak, but her eyes pleaded with him.
Steven sighed and met her eyes again, then laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Illegitimate sons seem to run in the Fairfax family,” he said, and the words did nothing to reassure Emma. “Macon was only about sixteen when he fathered Dirk by one of the delicate young ladies in his social circle. The girl died in childbirth, and her family brought the baby to Fairhaven, making it clear that Dirk would end up in a foundling home if Macon’s people rejected him.
“Macon was a kid himself, and he wanted to let Dirk go to the orphanage. My father agreed, but my grandfather—Cyrus—wouldn’t hear of a Fairfax being turned away from his rightful home. He insisted the baby be raised at Fairhaven and his word was law. Still is.
“Anyway, Dirk grew up as a full-fledged member of the family. By the time I came along, after my father’s death, he and Macon were pretty close. And Dirk was in love with a young woman in town named Mary McCall.”
Steven paused to study the sky again. He seemed to take courage from the drapery of stars spread out overhead. “Mary had a fancy for me, as it turned out. I was involved with someone else at the time and didn’t pay any real attention to her. I just thought she was a flirt, like a lot of girls her age.”
Emma found herself wondering about the woman he’d been “involved with.” She wanted to know her name, and whether or not Steven had loved her, but she kept her peace. There would be time for those kinds of questions later.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. Even in the half-darkness, Emma could see that his bandage needed to be changed. “Evidently, Mary was more serious than any of us guessed. She told Dirk some pretty creative lies—that she and I had been meeting secretly, that we’d been intimate, that we were planning to run away together.
“I wasn’t exactly a welcome addition to Fairhaven as it was, and Mary’s stories made the situation impossible.”
Listening, Emma felt sorry for Steven, and in a strange way for Mary, too. Knowing what it was to love him, she felt pain even in imagining how badly she would be hurt if he spurned her. She laid her hand over his, where it still rested on her shoulder, and encouraged him to go on with a nod.
“Dirk was bitter. Whenever we ran into each other, be it at home or in town, he either glared at me or tried to pick a fight. I ignored him as long as I could.
“Finally, though, his animosity reached into every corner of my life.
“I could have left, but New Orleans was home. Besides, I liked Fairhaven and I loved my grandfather.” He paused and rubbed his beard-stubbled chin, and Emma saw the anguish in his eyes.
“One night, in a club, Dirk challenged me to a duel. I could have refused, of course, but I couldn’t make myself do it. So Dirk and I agreed on a time and meeting place and, early the next morning, we both showed up with the customary seconds. He brought my grandfather’s dueling pistols.
“While I’d been fighting in the war, Dirk was in England, going to school. I knew he didn’t have a chance against me in a real duel, and even though we certainly weren’t close, I didn’t want to kill him.” Steven sighed. “We went through all the motions, though, and it was plain from Dirk’s face that he’d like nothing better than to kill me. I let him fire the first shot, in fact, and he missed by six yards, just as I figured he would. He was like a crazy man—he screamed curses and dared me to shoot him.
“I didn’t give a damn about my honor, but I knew he’d hate me even more if I made him walk away a loser, so I shot him.” At the sudden tensing of Emma’s face, Steven cupped his hand under her chin and shook his head. “I didn’t kill him, not then. I hit him just above his left elbow—I figured that would do the least damage.”
Emma ran the tip of her tongue nervously over her lips. “What happened then?”
“There was a doctor on hand, and he went to look afte. Dirk. I walked away, with my second. Dirk bellowed insults until I was out of earshot.”
“Did he die?”
Steven sighed heavily and shook his head. “Not then. But an infection set in, and eventually his arm had to be amputated just beneath the shoulder. If Dirk had hated me before, he wanted to unravel my insides by then.
“He told me once that it would have been more merciful if I’d killed him on ‘the field of honor,’ as he called it.” Steven’s expression was one of profound contempt. “He started drinking even more than he normally did, and then he discovered opium. By that time, Mary wouldn’t give him the time of day. One night, after a loud argument with Cyrus, he went to the opera, stood up in the middle of an aria, and blew his brains all over the walls with a thirty-eight.”
Emma was instantly ohe feet, and her arms moved gently around Steven’s middle. “My God,” she whispered.
He let his forehead rest against hers for a moment, his breathing unsteady, his eyes closed. “Macon already saw me as an outsider, since I was the son of his father’s mistress. Dirk’s death gave him an even better reason to hate me.”
Emma kissed him lightly on the lips and continued to hold him close. “And Mary?”
Steven gave a ragged sigh and trembled slightly in Emma’s arms as a cool breeze flowed upward from the creek. “She decided to propose to me, since Dirk was out of the way. She walked up to me at a ball a few months later and asked me to marry her.
“I didn’t want to embarrass her, so I told her as gently as I could that she was going to have to look elsewhere for a husband.
“She was furious, and there was a scene. She screamed that I had to marry her because I’d compromised her. As I’ve told you, I’d never touched her, except to dance with her occasionally. I figured she was probably carrying Dirk’s baby, and I
felt sorry for her.” He shoved one hand through his hair. “After all, if I hadn’t come back to Fairhaven after the war, none of it would have happened. She and Dirk probably would have married and had a houseful of kids.
“I wanted to protect her from any further scandal, so I made my apologies to the hostess and offered to take Mary home.
“She was all smiles, thinking I was going to give in and put a ring on her finger. Instead, while we were riding back to her place in the carriage, I told her that I couldn’t marry her because I didn’t love her. I offered to see that she and the baby were both taken care of, if she was carrying my nephew’s child.
“She started to cry and said her life was ruined, and no decent man would want her.
“I didn’t know how to comfort her, since I couldn’t give her the one thing she really wanted, so I left her off at her father’s house and went on to the club to play cards and have a few drinks.
“The next day Mary was found strangled in her room. The general opinion was that I had murdered her to keep her from telling the world she was going to have my baby. I got out of New Orleans about five minutes before I was to be arrested.”
Emma put her arms around his neck. “Surely someone would have believed you—your grandfather, for instance. Your friends.”
“I found out I had fewer friends than I’d thought,” Steven answered, his lips moving against Emma’s forehead, “and even though Cyrus is ten times meaner than Macon and me put together, he couldn’t have stood against the whole of Orleans parish.”
Emma believed Steven’s story, though she had her doubts whether it was because it had the ring of truth or because she loved him so desperately. “I want to go back with you, Steven,” she said. “I’ll stand by you, no matter what happens.”
To her surprise and hurt, Steven shook his head. “No. You’re going to Whitneyville, not Louisiana. Until I’ve cleared my name, I won’t have anything to offer you. Besides, what if I8217;m convicted, and I’m not there to protect you from Macon?”
A chill travelled down Emma’s spine, for she knew Steven could just as easily hang as be acquitted, given the fact that his adversary was Macon, a determined man bent on revenge. “If you don’t take me with you,” she said, “I will follow you to New Orleans, and if you don’t believe me, just wait and see. I won’t be left behind, Steven.”
Emma and the Outlaw Page 22