California Caress

by Rebecca Sinclair

  Pain shot up her arm, surging from the hand wrapped around the door knob. She pulled away with a gasp, looking down in horror at the flesh of her palm. It was black and bubbled, burned beyond recognition.

  The music stopped abruptly as Hope’s scream cut the night.

  Hope? Hope, wake up.

  “No! Let me go! I have to help them!”

  Stop it, Hope. You keep fighting like this and you’ll rip those stitches wide open. Neither of us needs that. Now wake up, dammit!

  The voice was stern. It echoed from the inky black sky and not from the man who had forcefully carried her away from the certain death of a fiery inferno.

  “Go away!” she yelled, thrashing out. Her fist collided with something solid and warm. Something that grunted.

  Hope awoke from the nightmare with a blood-curdling scream. Her lungs burned, as though the misty smoke of her dreams had really cut her throat. Her fingers were trembling. Slowly, she willed herself to focus, and found herself looking into Drake’s face. Her eyes still wide with horror.

  “Let me go!” she demanded, trying to turn from the steely grip encircling her upper arms as she lashed out with a fist. It collided with his jaw, and the stubble there scratched the back of her hand. “Let me go! I have to help them!”

  “Killing yourself isn’t going to help anyone.” Drake forced her back to the mattress. She arched against him, tears pouring down her cheeks. “Stop it, Hope. There’s no one to help. Listen to me! There’s no one to help anymore but yourself.”

  “No!” she shook her head vigorously, straining against the weight that crossed her waist, pinning her to the bed. “No, I don’t believe you. I want Luke. Where’s Lu—?”

  The words caught in her throat as pain shot through her like a knife. The fire. Papa, Luke, even Old Joe. They were dead now, and Drake was right. She couldn’t help them anymore.

  With a sob, she collapsed back on the mattress. Drake’s body still weighed her down, but she no longer pushed him away.

  “It was so real,” she whimpered. Instinctively, her hands reached up around Drake’s back, clutching his shirt. She bunched the smooth cloth in her fists and pulled him closer. Her nose filled with the scent of sweat and trail dirt.

  “I know,” he whispered soothingly in her ear, as his fingers stroked her tear-dampened cheek. “It was only a dream, Hope, a nightmare. It wasn’t real.”

  “But it was!” she cried. Burying her face in his shoulder, she let the soft flannel soak up the tears that refused to stop. “It was real. I could see the house, and—”

  “Shhh.” Drake’s breath was like a warm caress against her cheek. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

  Hope nodded and swallowed hard. Her throat still felt rough and scratchy, but the pain had eased. The agony that sliced through her heart, however, had not. Her tears continued to fall. She clutched his back, his shoulder muffling her heart-wrenching sobs.

  Drake comforted her as best he could. He wasn’t used to hysterical women, though, and his words and actions were stiff and stilted.

  Carefully, he rolled his weight to the inside of the mattress, bringing Hope’s trembling body along with him. His movements were gentle so as not to put any pressure on her injured shoulder. Instinctively, she burrowed against his side, her sobs muffled by his shoulder. Drake rested his cheek against the top of her head. One hand stroked her upper arm while the other ran soothingly down the dampness of her cheek. She smelled fresh and soapy, an enticing aroma that lingered from her noontime bath.

  He let her cry, feeling no repulsion as her tears soaked into his shirt. She clung to him desperately at first, giving free rein to the emotions the dream had evoked.

  To Drake, it was the sound of bittersweet music. He had worried when she seemed to accept her family’s death so easily. The emotions such pain brought had been buried, and buried well. Now, at long last, they were being resurrected. Although he died a little with each ragged sob that escaped her lips, he knew the pain was necessary. It was the only way for her to come to terms with the tragedy.

  What he couldn’t understand was why her pain sliced through his heart like a knife, why he felt her loss as though it was his own. What was it about her tears that twisted unmercifully at his gut?

  In slow degrees, her grip loosened. Eventually, all that remained of her panic-stricken cries and demanding clinging were ragged gasps of breath and a gentle caress against his torso.

  As Hope relaxed, so did Drake. And as the sobs ceased to rack her body, he became more aware of the gentle curves pressing intimately against him.

  The skin that glided beneath his palms felt like a bolt of rich satin. His thoughts were inundated with the wonderfully fresh scent clinging to the chestnut tresses that tickled his cheek and neck. Earlier, he’d helped her into a clean chemise, but the crisp cotton was now a barrier between his flesh and hers. For that matter, the thickness of his flannel shirt and tough denim trousers might as well have been cast aside along with the comforter she had thrust from her body during the nightmare. His memory served him well enough to know how perfectly the generous curves would fit against his naked side.

  Without thinking, he turned his head until his lips were nestled in the shimmering softness of her hair. She shifted, leaning against him still more. The movement of her leg being thrown across his middle made him groan. His body burst with rigid awakening, excruciatingly aware of every soft inch that pressed against him. They stayed like that for what seemed to Drake like tormentingly long hours.

  “Hope?” His voice was a low, throaty whisper. “Are you asleep?”

  A second moan escaped his lips as she shifted her weight, moving against him in a way that was both provocative and innocent. Diligently, he stifled the sound as he willed away the flaming stiffness in his body. Did she know the effect she was having on him? Did she care?

  Hope wiped her eyes dry on his shirt, then tipped her chin up. She was instantly captured by his hooded gaze. Frowning in confusion, she pillowed her chin on the hand that lay on his chest. The feel of his heart beating steadily beneath her palm was unnerving in an exciting sort of way.

  “No,” she said finally, sniffling. Of its own accord her hand reached out and cupped his cheek. The stubble of whiskers scratched her palm.

  His brow knit in concern. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.”

  Her voice was thick with conviction, and Drake wondered if she was trying to convince him, or herself. “You’re sure?”

  She nodded, then snuggled her head in his shoulder. “I—I’m sorry about... I didn’t mean to lose control that way.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about.” He pulled her fingers to his lips, his tongue tasting the tips of each one. “If anyone has a right to cry, it’s you. Tears are nothing to be ashamed of.”

  A shiver curled up her spine as she became aware of his tongue against her skin. “I don’t like to cry,” she said simply. She couldn’t say more. It was growing too difficult to think. She waited until her heart had stopped its wild throbbing and her breathing returned to normal, then said, “I’ve been thinking of how nice you’ve been to me.” Her eyes narrowed in confusion. “I’ve been thinking about how you tended me all by yourself. Why didn’t you ask the doctor to stay on?”

  “He had places to go.” Drake sighed, as though his efforts toward her recovery were minor. “And I don’t trust doctors.”

  “And now?” she pressed. “Why are you here now?”

  Drake scowled. “I heard you screaming. You were making an awful ruckus, sunshine, and...” his mind went blank.

  “You could’ve waited. The dream would’ve passed.”

  He shrugged and she felt a twitch of pain in her shoulder. “I suppose I could have, although I don’t see what good it would have done. I wasn’t about to just sit around twiddling my thumbs and listening to you scream. I had to do something.” He gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. “You’re my responsibility, Hope, and gentleman or not, I don’t ta
ke my responsibilities lightly.”

  Her voice hardened. “I’m my own responsibility, Drake. No one else’s.”

  “Fine,” he snapped, his tone equally as cold. Now why had her words angered him so much? They were defensively spoken, yet they grated. “Let’s say tomorrow you start assuming some of that responsibility by riding as scout. And when you’re not doing that, you can fix the meals and scrape the dishes. I’m sure I’ve got some shirts that and trousers that need washing and mending. You can do that in your spare time—if you have any. There, does that make you feel better? More independent?

  “If you don’t think I can do it, think again.” Lifting up, Hope met his angry glare. “My mother always said one woman could do as much as any man—and twice as fast—all she had to do was put her mind to it.”

  “Is that a fact?” he chuckled sarcastically. “Well, you introduce me to her sometime and I’ll gladly set her straight.”

  Hope’s expression fell as she collapsed against the solid chest. The pain in her heart sliced deep. “I can’t. She died five years ago.”

  “Oh, damn. Look, I’m sorry, sunshine, I—”

  “Sorry?” she asked tightly. “What are you sorry for? You just all but said you wouldn’t have liked my mother even if you’d met her.”

  “That isn’t fair, Hope.”

  “Isn’t it? Why not? It’s the truth.”

  Ignoring the dull throbbing in her shoulder, she pushed away from him. She lay on the mattress, her eyes staring sightlessly at the dark outline of the wagon’s canvas hood. She would have given anything for the strength to climb out of the wagon bed and seek the solitary company of the dusk. Instead, she lay in the quickly diminishing light of day, constantly aware of the warm virility of the man stretched lazily beside her.

  The mattress shifted as Drake rolled to his side. Rising himself up, he propped his weight on one elbow. His palm itched to reach out and stroke the creamy cheek playing hide and seek with the shadows. He didn’t dare. “You act as if you are the only person in the world who ever lost someone they loved. Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that I might have lost someone, too?” His words were soft, his meaning was not.

  Hope turned toward him, squinting into the shadows that sculpted his features. It was almost dark now. “No,” she said frankly, a frown marring her brow. “It never has. I guess I just thought... oh, I don’t know what I thought.” She turned away, then turned back again and continued the thought without being asked. “I never thought men like you had any family to lose.”

  “Did you ever stop to think that losing a family might be what it took to make a man like me?”

  The question was direct and to the point. She answered it with the same bluntness. “Did it?”

  He shrugged. “In an indirect way, yeah, I supposed you could say that.”

  He didn’t offer any more information, but Hope couldn’t let the matter rest there. Of its own accord, her hand reached up, the palm drawing slowly down the hard, bristling line of his jaw. The muscles beneath her fingertips stiffened, and to her surprise, instead of trying to pull away, he turned his face so his lips grazed her wrist.

  “Tell me who you lost, Drake.” Her drawl thickened and her voice deepening to a pitch huskier than normal. Her hand continued to caress his cheek, drinking of its warmth.

  “Everyone.”

  The single word, so solemnly spoken, settled around Hope like a thick, dark cloak. Her gaze softened as she stared at his silhouette, but she doubted there was enough daylight left for him to see the emotion swimming in her eyes. The hand caressing his cheek slipped past his ear. Her fingers buried themselves in the silky curls clinging to his nape as she pulled his head down and pillowed it atop her right shoulder. His hair tickled her cheek and his warm breath seared through the thin cotton chemise, washing over the sensitive flesh beneath.

  “You have no family then?” she asked softly, her fingers stroking his temple.

  Drake stiffened, his tone hard and unyielding. “I have a brother in Boston, and, I would imagine by now, a sister-in-law. However, the three of us are not...friendly.”

  Hope swallowed hard. A brother. God, what she wouldn’t give to have hers back! “Your brother and his wife, do they have any children?”

  “When I left, Charles and Angelique weren’t even married. If there’s a God, the two will never procreate.”

  “You don’t like him very much, do you?” she asked softly. The tightening in his shoulders told Hope all she needed to know.

  “I hate him. Almost more than I hate his wife.”

  His unconcealed anger took her by surprise. “But he’s your brother, Drake,” she persisted warily. “Surely any differences between you can be smoothed over. After all, his children will be your nieces and nephews. You can’t hold his sins against innocent children.”

  “Keep out of this, sunshine. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe not, but I do know what it’s like to have a brother.” Her voice cracked. “Until recently I had one myself. Luke and I had our differences, but I loved him. And I would have loved any children he had.”

  “And what if your precious brother had stolen the heart of the only woman you ever loved?” he growled. “How would you have felt about him then?”

  She gasped. That his brother’s wife had been the only woman to capture his heart hurt her more than she would admit. “Angelique?” she asked, her voice a throaty whisper.

  Drake relaxed, his tone forcibly light. “It doesn’t matter. It happened a long time ago. It’s in the past now, where it belongs.”

  “But—”

  “Leave it alone, sunshine. It doesn’t concern you.” Reaching up, he cupped his hand over hers. Turning it over, he placed small kisses on the tips of her fingers, her knuckles, the center of her palm. His tongue darted out to taste the hollow in her wrist, running a moist path over the pulse throbbing there.

  There was no denying her body’s immediate response to his touch. The shock of her reaction rippled down Hope’s arm in a way that was breathtakingly spontaneous and irresistible.

  A blatant form of wildly sinful torture, she thought, as warm kisses trailed up the column of her arm. His lips had reached her upper arm, and she bent her elbow and let her fingers sink into the golden mane of hair.

  “You’re avoiding my questions, gunslinger,” she whispered, her voice a husky sigh.

  “Are you complaining?” he countered, nuzzling her shoulder. His fingers pushed aside the white cotton chemise and his breath kissed her skin. He tasted the flesh there only briefly as thoughts of her healing wound cut through his mind. Good God, he didn’t want to hurt her!

  “I know I should be, but no, I’m not complaining.”

  “Good.” He shifted, planting a leisurely kiss on her brow before he made to leave the bed. His palms burned where they had touched her warm flesh. “Save that thought for later. Right now you need your rest and you need your strength. And I need a bath.”

  The mattress sagged as he reluctantly slipped his long legs over the side. Hope reached out and grabbed his arm before he could stand. “Where are you going?”

  “To fix us some supper.”

  “Now?” A pout turned her lips as she settled against the mattress. Although she knew he was right, she couldn’t help feeling cheated. She wanted him back on the mattress with her. Maybe she shouldn’t, and maybe she hadn’t healed enough for such antics, but that was what she wanted—it was what her heart and body screamed for. He hadn’t moved, but sat there staring at her. She regarded him through a shield of lashes, a sly grin turning her lips.

  “Well,” she sighed heavily, “I suppose if you must go I shouldn’t stop you....” The lashes lifted and her gaze clashed with his. She drowned in those sea-green pools. “There is one thing, though.”

  A slow grin spread over Drake’s lips as he leaned toward her. He pushed a chestnut curl from her temple, his fingers lingering on her cool brow. “And what’s that, sunshi
ne?”

  The grin blossomed into a wicked smile, and her eyes sparkled with mischief as she reached up and cupped his cheeks in her palms. “Incentive.” She breathed the single word with tantalizing slowness as she pulled his lips down to hers.

  A groan tickled the back of Drake’s throat as he grudgingly pulled his lips from Hope’s. “Your shoulder—”

  “Is fine. Believe me for once, gunslinger.”

  His gaze darkened as it roved her face, then cleared with relief and a goodly portion of desire. “In that case I suppose supper could wait. Nah, you must be starving... so maybe I should....”

  Hope fixed Drake with a stern look.

  “Ah, hell.” He could resist the temptation no longer. With a growl, his mouth crashed down on hers. “Payment,” he whispered hoarsely against her lips as he devoured her honeyed softness.

  She lost herself to his kiss. Unconsciously, she slipped her hand beneath the neck of his shirt, letting her fingers glide over the smooth muscles rippling in his shoulders. Trail dirt still clung to his skin but Hope didn’t care. She was enticed by the feel of his flesh gliding beneath her hands, and the magic of his deepening kiss.

  Slowly, Drake lowered himself to her side, careful not to let his weight or hands brush against her wounded shoulder. The risk of what he was doing was lost to the scent of her hair, the feel of her hand on his back, the sweet, buttery taste of her tongue. A small corner of his mind remained alert to any sign of pain as he let his hand trail down her arm. His index finger drew a slow circle on her palm before sliding over to the gentle curve of her hip. With a moan, he stroked the white cotton that covered her skin. Lying down on the mattress, he pulled her hard against him and arched into her side.

  A moan of pleasure rumbled in her throat. She drank fully of him, her tongue matching his in the game they played, while her hand strayed to the paper collar of his shirt. One by one she slipped free the buttons, exposing the golden hair that matted his chest in a widening vee. When she reached the bottom, she spread the shirt wide and slipped it with delicious slowness over a broad, sun-kissed shoulder.