by Diana Palmer
The Gadsden Hotel was, he considered, the ideal place to get local gossip about the border situation. The hotel was majestic, a meeting place for the rich and powerful, not to mention a gracious lodging. He found the information he sought within minutes of entering, from the good-natured desk clerk, and was soon on his way out of town.
It was one of the dustiest days in recent memory. His men wore their bandannas pulled snugly over their mouths and noses to keep from choking on the yellow grains. Douglas frequently sprinkled her streets with water to try and keep the dust down, but it only made matters worse. Each porch boasted a feather duster, which was used by guests to brush themselves down before entering the house. Like the sprinkling, it really did very little good.
It was a pleasant day, just cool enough to feel good as they rode down the long road toward the ranch. Morris’s eyes darted from right to left, searching for signs of invaders. Inevitably, he thought, Mexicans were going to boil over that border and start trouble. He hoped the military would be able to cope with it.
Blackwater Springs Ranch was hardly impressive, he thought as they neared the frame ranch house. The fences were sagging from their posts and in obvious need of repair. The scattered herds of cattle were emaciated, and there wasn’t much feed. If there was an operation in trouble in Arizona, this was it.
Easterners, he thought, were so sure of themselves until they knew the reality of ranching here in the desert. It was no place for tenderfeet, but they all had to learn the hard way.
He had his driver pull up at the house. He halted his small mounted column and waited for someone to come out on the porch.
Jack Lang was pleased and somewhat shocked to find a troop of cavalry on his doorstep, but he introduced himself and invited the colonel inside with his usual exquisite manners.
“No time, thanks all the same,” Morris said curtly. “Listen, I want to know about the trouble you had.”
Jack flushed a little at the abrupt tone, but he told the officer what had happened. He didn’t mention that they’d crossed the border to apprehend the raider; only that they’d questioned him and released him.
“He said he wasn’t part of Madero’s force?”
“That’s right.”
Morris looked thoughtful. “There are always men on the fringe of armies who commit crimes on their own, but this bears watching, Mr. Lang. We can’t allow Mexican patriots to defend their cause on United States money.”
“I agree. The problem is trying to prevent it. I have a limited number of hands.”
“This is usually the case in outlying areas. We will, of course, increase our patrols. I will also alert the troops in Douglas and those in the San Bernardino Valley near the Slaughter Ranch—assuming that you have not.”
“But I have,” Jack protested. “At least, my neighbor, Thorn Vance, has.”
“Vance.” He said the man’s name with a little apprehension. “Yes, I know of him. Well, that’s good, then. We’ll step up our patrols and hopefully prevent a repetition. I’m sorry to hear of your trouble.”
“We recovered most of the stolen cattle,” Jack told him.
“The prisoner?”
“We let him go,” Jack said.
“Wise of you,” Morris agreed. “Mexicans are vengeful. You wouldn’t want them down on your head for holding one of their own against his will.”
“That’s what Vance said.”
“He’s lived out here all his life. Not a bad idea to take his advice. It’s sound.” He touched his hand to his hat. “I’ll say good day.”
“Good day, Colonel.”
Jack watched him speed away and wondered why he’d come. There was so little the military could do about his situation. It was a big country—with plenty of hiding places for men and cattle. He sighed and went back into the house.
David went back through Douglas and ordered his men to proceed back to the fort while he conducted some private business in town. There were no comments, but two of the men snickered as they rode out of town. It was an open secret that the colonel had a kept woman.
After sending his driver off on a few errands, for appearances’ sake, David made his way to the small boardinghouse where Selina worked.
She was sitting at one of the tables, very correctly dressed, her black hair in a soft bun, wearing a pretty pink dress that covered most of her body. She glanced up with a pert smile when she saw Morris sweep off his hat and approach her.
“David, how lovely to see you!” she said in her softly accented Spanish, her eyes lighting up just at the sight of him.
She got up from her chair and took his hand, lowering her eyes demurely in case anyone was watching them. The house was mostly empty this time of day, though, and no one was.
“Do come and see the new sofa the owners have put in the library,” she coaxed.
He went with her, his heart pounding madly in his chest. She led him into a small reading room and closed the single door. She leaned back against it, and there was a click as she locked it.
“You’re covered with dust,” she complained as she went into his arms.
“Never mind the dust. Kiss me!”
He found her mouth and kissed her with unbridled hunger. He moaned sharply as he felt her hips lift and thrust violently against his.
“It’s been two weeks,” she moaned.
“I know!”
His trembling hands bunched the skirt of her dress up until he could find her dark, soft thighs. He stroked them while his mouth devoured hers, delighting in her whispery moans and the fury of her small hands at the front of his tunic.
He backed her up to the door and lowered himself. His hand found the fastenings that separated them. He lifted his head and looked into her flushed face as he suddenly caught her hips and lifted her into the hard, urgent thrust of his aroused body.
She caught her breath. “Da…vid! We can’t!”
His mouth covered the laughing protest, holding her still as his body ground into her rhythmically. The door made faint clicking noises as the pitch increased, and then began to slam as his hips drove for fulfillment in a mindless oblivion.
Selina smiled sadly as she felt him convulse. She’d never wanted anyone so much, but like most men, he wanted his own pleasure more than he wanted hers.
He leaned his forearm against the door while he shuddered, barely able to breathe. He relaxed then, his body heavy and throbbing on hers. “I’m glad the house was deserted,” he whispered ruefully.
“Yes. Let me go, David,” she said quietly.
He lifted his head then and looked at her with lazily sated eyes. “You never look as if we’ve made love,” he speculated. “It’s just for my sake that you allow this, isn’t it? You love me, but you have no interest in sex.”
She shrugged. “It does not matter.”
His lips pursed. “Perhaps it’s time I thought more of your pleasure, little one.”
He lifted away from her and proceeded to remove his clothes. It was broad daylight. She’d never seen a man naked. She was faintly shocked to see that David was still erect, capable, when he stood in front of her. He had a good body, very muscular and lean.
“This is the library—” she began.
“So it is. We’ve never made love on the floor, have we?”
She blushed. His big hands went to her clothing and began to remove it with deft skill. She didn’t protest once, not even when she was nude and his eyes were making a meal of her full breasts and long, elegant legs.
“What an expression.” He laughed softly. Then he bent and took her breast into his mouth and began to suckle it. At the same time, he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the huge Persian rug that lay between the chairs and the velvet-covered sofa. He laid her down on it and knelt between her thighs. For minutes that stretched like hours he simply looked at her, touched her lightly. Then his head went down against her stomach and he began to caress her with his mouth in ways that no man in her life had ever touched her.
She gasped when he clenched both thighs in his hands and bent his head hungrily to her core. She struggled, but the heat of his mouth was so sweet, so incredibly pleasurable, that she couldn’t hold out against it. He drew her through layers of exquisite sensation to a place that pulled her into a thread of pure aching tension.
When she was sobbing, clutching at him, begging, he drew into a kneeling position and jerked her body up to encompass the swelling need of his. She convulsed at the first hard, violent thrust. The spasms went on and on as he pushed inside her taut body. She laughed, and cried, and clung to him as he took her all the way to paradise before he finally shuddered and collapsed on her.
Much later, she sat dazed in a chair, fully dressed, and couldn’t even look at him.
“It was like taking a virgin,” he said with satisfaction, standing over her in his uniform once more. “Like our first time together, except that you were nervous and shy and afraid then.”
She stared at her fingers. “Do you do that…with your wife?”
“I’ve never done that with anyone,” he said curtly. “And I never will. Only you. I love you. Hasn’t that occurred to you?”
Her face lifted, white and strained. Her dark eyes met his. “Love…me?”
“Love you,” he agreed.
“But I’m—I’m not a lady, or anything,” she blurted out.
“You are to me,” he said firmly.
“How can you care for me? For a lowborn woman like me?” She wept.
He framed her face in his hands, smiling with faint triumph at the unexpected vulnerability he found there. “You’re quite a woman, Selina.”
He kissed her, and then she clung to him, her cheek on his chest. “Please tell me that I’m the only one, even if it isn’t true,” she whispered.
“You are the only woman,” he said honestly. “And you’ll be the last in my life.” He bent and kissed her with slow tenderness. “I’ll be back.”
She watched him leave, her mind whirling with the experience he’d just given her. The days were going to be very long before she saw him again.
She thought of his wife and her blood ran hot. That was a situation she’d have to do something about eventually. She didn’t want to share him with another woman. But for now, she’d bide her time. If he really loved her, and she was almost certain that he did, he wouldn’t ask her to share him. He must not love his wife, she decided. He must not care about her at all. She began to hum as she went about her chores.
CHAPTER SIX
TRILBY WATCHED THE colorfully garbed Mexicans dance to the throbbing rhythm with a sense of pleased detachment. In all the long months they’d been in Arizona, this was the first celebration of its kind that she’d seen. Despite her natural reticence, she found the blurs of color and the festive atmosphere beckoning.
Beside her, Thorn leaned idly against an adobe wall, twisting a piece of rawhide in his lean fingers. He hadn’t dressed up for the occasion. Neither had Jack. Trilby and her mother were the only people who looked Eastern in the entire crowd. Most of the Mexican women wore white blouses with colorful skirts and the men wore white trousers and bright ponchos. Trilby grimaced at her neat navy blue dress with white lacy trim and buttoned-up high heels. She tugged nervously at the high collar of her dress.
“Don’t fidget,” Thorn chided softly. “You look fine.”
“I didn’t realize how overdressed I would be,” she protested. “It’s so—so casual.”
“These people don’t have the kind of money they’d need for fancy duds,” he said simply. “But they’re happy, for all that.”
“They seem to be that,” she agreed, somehow envying them their exuberance. Her own was always tightly contained, held back. “It isn’t dangerous to be here—with the Mexican trouble, I mean?”
“Even if some of these people are sympathizers, we’re in no danger,” he consoled her. “I know most of the villagers here. Some of their relatives work for me.”
“Oh.” But she wasn’t relaxed. Even now her fingers were clenched tightly together. Thorn glanced down and saw them. With a faint smile, he put the rawhide into the pocket of his long-sleeved white shirt and reached down to take Trilby’s soft hands in his.
“Relax,” he told her, his eyes quiet and steady on hers. “You’re always so tense, little one, so brittle.”
“It’s—it’s difficult for me,” she faltered, while the music played loudly around them, interspersed with the laughter and noise of happy people. Odd sensations were winding around inside her as the look lasted just a little too long for conventional politeness. She felt as if he were seeing right inside her.
“What is? Enjoying yourself?”
“I suppose so. We’re much more subdued back home.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Is that so? I thought that the Cajuns at least were wild.”
“But I’m not a Cajun,” she said. “Not really. My people were originally from Virginia. They came to Baton Rouge after the Civil War and settled there. My family has been there ever since.”
His grip on her hands became gentler, caressing. “Don’t you ever wear your hair down?”
“I…well, no, I don’t,” she murmured. “You always thought of me as a—a loose woman. It seemed to me that wearing my hair down was somehow bad…”
He grimaced. “I don’t know why Sally said what she did,” he told her, his eyes narrow with regret. “If I’d known you even a little better, I’d never have believed her.”
“Your cousin was only being friendly,” she said defensively. “He was kind to me. That’s all he ever was. Only kind.”
He brought her palm to his lips and kissed it slowly, making her body tingle. “I’ll be kind to you, if you’ll let me, Trilby,” he said softly, looking up into her eyes. “I’m genuinely sorry for the way I squared off with you. Nothing I’ve ever done in my life disturbs me more.”
She fought the delicious pleasure his level stare kindled in her. She felt drawn to him despite her resolve, and she didn’t like it. He was a ruffian, nothing like her Richard.
“I don’t hold it against you,” she said slowly. “You didn’t know me.”
“I want to,” he said huskily. His eyes seemed to darken—and they held a wisdom and certainty that made her more uneasy than she already was.
The band was now playing a slow, sultry tune. He drew her among the throng of dancers and brought her very correctly into his arms. “Dance with me, Trilby.”
He began to move to the rhythm. He didn’t do anything to offend her, but the feel of his warm, strong hand at her waist and the faintly caressing grip of his fingers around her own made her feel weak-kneed. She looked into his eyes and was lost, caught there.
“Am I beginning to seem less a savage to you, Trilby?” he asked quietly. “Or can’t you forget what you saw when I brought the Mexican back to the ranch?”
She colored delicately. “I suppose one does get used to such things, eventually.”
“One has to,” he said, mocking her gently. “Toughen up, little one. You’ve got nerve. You only need to develop it.”
“I’ve thought about going back home,” she said abruptly.
His tall frame stiffened. “Why?”
“I—I miss it. I miss Richard,” she blurted out in a vain attempt to stop her heart from beating so madly as he held her.
“You’ll forget him, in time,” he said curtly. Suddenly his hand slid completely around her and brought her close to him, his cheek resting against her hair.
“Don’t!” she pleaded breathlessly. His broad chest was crushing her soft breasts, and in the intimacy of the embrace, the enveloping warmth of his strong body, she felt her heart run wild. “Thorn!”
The sound of his name on her lips thrilled him. His hand caressed her back slowly. “I won’t let you go,” he said under his breath.
“I’m not…suited to this life,” she managed. Her eyes closed helplessly as the feel and scent of him got through her defences, making her vulnerabl
e. “To this place. I’m a city girl.”
“You can learn to be a country girl.”
“It isn’t your decision.”
“Don’t bet on it,” he said grimly.
She started to protest, but just as she formed the words, Samantha tugged at her father’s sleeve and stopped them.
“Papa, may I have a fried pie?” she asked. “They’re called tamales.”
“They’ll burn your tongue.” He chuckled, letting Trilby go so that he could kneel in front of his daughter. “This is pure Mexican fare, child, not the watered-down version Maria makes us at home.”
Samantha warmed to the unfamiliar affectionate smile he was giving her. “For certain sure?” she asked, big eyed.
He nodded.
She grimaced. “Oh, very well.” She glanced up at Trilby shyly. “You look very nice, Miss Lang,” she added.
“So do you, Miss Vance,” Trilby replied, with a gentle smile.
Samantha smiled back and shot off toward the vendors.
“She’ll do it in spite of me, and she’ll have a bellyache all night long,” he groaned.
“She’s very like you, isn’t she?” she asked.
He looked down into her eyes. “In some ways, yes.” He touched her soft mouth with his fingertip. She jumped at the sensation it produced and stepped back. He smiled, because he knew why. “You’re very flushed. Dancing with me makes your heat beat like a drum. I could feel it while I held you.”
She colored. “You don’t talk like a gentleman.”
“I’m not a gentleman,” he reminded her. His dark, intent gaze fell to her mouth. “I’d like to drag you behind a building and kiss you until you couldn’t stand up. I’d like to make your mouth as red as the bandanna on that Mexican over there.”
“Mr. Vance!” she protested.
He looked around for her people. They were talking to some other people, and he chuckled softly as he suddenly clasped Trilby’s hand and tugged her along with him down a narrow, dark alley.
“What are you doing?” she whispered frantically. “What will people think—?”