by Lyn Horner
“The pleasure is all mine, sweetheart,” he murmured, running a finger along her collarbone below the necklace. His gaze turned sultry. “Later, I’d like to see how you look wearing only the pearls.”
Jessie caught her breath and felt her knees wobble. She had all she could do to remember they were expecting company.
* * *
Stationed nearest to the open front door, Reece welcomed his guests, leaning lightly upon the new gilt-tipped black walking stick David had picked up for him in Waco. Like David, he wore black tonight except for his gray vest and white shirt, and he looked uncommonly imposing. Standing to his right, with David on her other side, Jessie took pride in both men.
She smiled at the latest arrivals, a dour-faced man named Gardner and his plump, unsmiling wife. Offering them polite greetings, she tried to ignore their rude stares, but seeing how coldly they behaved toward David, she gritted her teeth. They weren’t the first to display hostility because he’d fought for the wrong side in the war. What they considered the wrong side.
When the couple moved off to join the growing crowd in the dining room, where Anna had laid out a sumptuous buffet, Jessie glanced up at David. His jaw muscles flexed angrily, but meeting her gaze, he smiled and laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. However, his hand abruptly fell away as more footsteps sounded on the porch. Turning her head, Jessie gasped in shock when she saw Lil Crawford pause in the open doorway.
The gangly cowgirl had been transformed. Gone were her careless braid and britches. Now her glossy brown hair was pulled back in a wavy fall and she wore a thoroughly feminine gown of blue silk that flattered her light copper coloring – a trait inherited from her half-Indian mother, Jessie had learned from Reece. The gown’s full skirt was years out of date, but it’s narrow waist and dipping neckline showed off Lil’s slim, high-breasted figure, a fact Jessie noted uneasily. Taking in the other woman’s boldly female features and meeting her snapping brown eyes, outlined by thick, dark lashes, she also recognized what she hadn’t seen before: Lil Crawford was actually beautiful.
While the two of them exchanged hostile stares, Reece said, “Come on in. I’d about given up on you folks. Del, Jeb, bring that pretty gal over here so I can greet her properly.”
Only now did Jessie notice Lil’s father and uncle standing behind her. As Del Crawford frowningly nudged his daughter forward, Jessie stole a glance at David and sucked in her breath sharply. He was gazing at Lil with an entranced expression on his face, his eyes seeming to caress her. Jessie’s heart constricted at the sight; then anger blazed high, searing in its intensity.
The bligeard! How could he look at the woman that way? And after uttering such seductive words to her only a short time ago. So Lil was no more than a little sister to him, was she? Liar! Awash with pain and fury, Jessie barely fought down a frenzied urge to slap him. On its heels came the memory of her water vision on that hot summer night in Salt Lake City. She recalled with a sickening feeling that the woman she’d glimpsed in David’s arms had been dressed in blue.
“My, my, the butterfly has emerged from her cocoon,” Reece said, deepening Jessie’s agony. “You look mighty pretty, Lil.”
“No need to make a fuss, Reece, just because of some old dress,” the ungracious female said. “Anyhow, Ma made me wear it. Uh, she couldn’t come on account of her rheumatism,” she added, studying the floor.
Struggling to retain her dignity, Jessie clasped her cold hands together and glanced numbly at Reece. He lifted one gray eyebrow, the gesture so similar to David’s familiar habit that it hurt Jessie to watch.
“Well now, I’m real sorry to hear that, Lil,” he said. “I was hoping to see her here tonight.”
Even through her pain, Jessie wondered at his skeptical tone. Then she recalled him saying Lil’s brother had been killed in the war and how it had affected her mother. She guessed it was hatred of Yankees, and David in particular, that had really kept Mrs. Crawford from attending the party.
Wishing the daughter had stayed away, too, she stared at her clasped hands. All she could see was the bedazzled look on David’s face as he’d gazed at Lil. She wanted to run and hide somewhere and lick her wounds, but she refused to be outfaced by her rival. When Lil paused rigidly in front of her seconds later, she lifted her chin, met the woman’s stony gaze head-on and gave her a sugary smile.
“Good evening, Miss Crawford. I’m so happy ye could come.”
“Evenin’,” the brunette replied without any effort at friendliness.
“Make yourself at home and do try the buffet,” Jessie said, gesturing toward the dining room across the hall. Aye, and I hope ye choke on a chicken bone!
“It’s good to see you, Lil,” David murmured fondly when she stepped over to him. He went on to tell her how lovely she looked, making Jessie bite her tongue to contain her rage.
“Heck, I’m just a skinny tomboy dressed up like a real woman,” Lil scoffed.
Startled by her self-disparagement, Jessie darted a glance at her, catching the bitter twist of her lips. David sighed and muttered that he was sorry, and Lil dropped her gaze.
Jessie looked away, wondering if he was apologizing for not seeing her in the past few weeks. Or had he? For all she knew they could have been meeting every day while he was out, supposedly overseeing the ranch. She closed her ears to the rest of what he said and forced herself to greet Del Crawford courteously. His grudging reply let her know he wanted no more to do with her than she did with him and his daughter.
Jeb Crawford greeted her in a friendly fashion, and Jessie managed a pleasant reply. By the time the last guests arrived a while later, her smile felt etched in place and Reece was leaning heavily on his cane. Seeing him grimace with pain as they walked into the dining room, she touched his arm.
“Maybe you’d best be sitting down.”
He nodded grimly. “I reckon so. Blasted leg!” Grasping David’s shoulder for support, he limped over to one of the chairs that had been pushed back along the walls and gingerly lowered himself onto the seat.
“Shall I fix a plate for ye?” Jessie offered.
Sighing, Reece smiled up at her. “That’d be real nice, missy.”
When she returned with his loaded plate minutes later, he was deep in conversation with several other men who’d clustered around him. He accepted the plate, thanked her distractedly, and went back to arguing over the Army’s latest efforts to pacify the Comanche Indians. It wasn’t a topic Jessie cared to listen to. She had yet to encounter any of the fierce Indians, but she’d heard enough horrific tales about their raids not to want to hear any more.
David stood a few feet away, talking to a stocky man with curly chestnut hair and a pinned up coat sleeve where his right arm should have been. Beside the man, his pretty, flaxen-haired wife gazed at him adoringly and laughed at something he said. Jessie had met them earlier but couldn’t recall their names. Seeing the man return his wife’s loving gaze, she swallowed hard. A short while ago she had lost all hope of ever seeing that look in David’s eyes – the look she had dreamed of and prayed for. If he were to love any woman, it would no doubt be Lil Crawford.
Jessie started to turn away just as David called out her name. She hesitated then reluctantly walked over to him. When he casually slipped an arm around her shoulders, she went stiff. He gave her a questioning look but didn’t comment about her reaction.
“Jessie, you remember Steve and Eliza Mason, don’t you?” he said.
“Of course.” She smiled at the couple. “I hope you’re enjoying yourselves. Have ye visited the table yet?”
“No, we surely haven’t,” Eliza Mason replied in a slow southern drawl. “Would y’all care to join us now?”
“Good idea,” David said.
Soon, Jessie found herself seated next to Eliza on the parlor sofa with a plate of fried chicken, barbecued beef and all the trimmings perched in her lap. David and Steve sat in the chairs by the hearth. Lil and her family were gathered in the dining room with so
me of their friends. Glad to get away from them, Jessie was surprised that David had suggested sitting in here, but then he probably didn’t care for Del Crawford’s resentful glares.
While they ate, David compared war stories with Steve Mason and Jessie let herself be drawn into conversation with Eliza. It was easy to do; the woman was open and friendly, and she readily told how she and her husband had come to Texas after the war. Their native Georgia had been laid waste in the conflict. It had also cost Steve his arm, yet the couple did not seem bitter over their losses. When Jessie hesitantly remarked about this, Eliza shook her head.
“Life’s too short. Steve and I made up our minds to that a long time ago. Besides, we have a new home and three beautiful children. And we have each other. Who could ask for more?”
“No one, to be sure,” Jessie replied in a husky voice, dispiritedly picking at her food. Why had she taken so much? She had no appetite.
Glancing at David, she encountered his watchful, frowning gaze. He had finished eating; now he rose abruptly. “If you folks will excuse us, I reckon Jessie and I had better see to some of our other guests. There’ll be dancing out back in a while.”
“Wouldn’t miss it. We’ll see y’all then,” Steve replied.
David nodded, cocked an eyebrow at Jessie and extended his hand to her. She unwillingly accepted it and let him draw her to her feet, clutching her nearly full plate in her other hand. He gripped her arm and towed her into the hall, toward the front door.
“Stop pulling on me!” she hissed, struggling to smile at the people they passed.
He didn’t so much as glance at her as he dragged her outside onto the porch. The night was mildly cool but not cold, perfect for dancing, just as Reece had hoped for.
“Let go of me!” Jessie demanded more loudly.
“Keep your voice down,” David snapped, taking the plate from her and depositing it on one of the porch chairs. He had hung lanterns over the steps earlier to light the way for their guests. The yellow light played harshly over his scowling features when he turned to face her.
“Now, what the devil’s the matter? You haven’t spoken six words to me in the past hour. When I put my arm around you a while ago you turned stiff as a board, and every time I look at you I get the feeling you’d like to take my head off. And you barely touched your food. What’s wrong, Jessie?”
She narrowed her eyes, hands clenched at her sides. “Ye want to know what’s wrong, do ye? ’Tis that brown-haired witch ye couldn’t take your eyes off of a while ago, that’s what!”
His eyebrows shot upward then dropped into an even heavier scowl. “Do you mean Lil Crawford? Christ! I thought we’d settled all that.”
“Meaning ye hoped I wouldn’t notice how ye drooled over her when she walked in!”
“Drooled! Jessie, tonight’s the first time I’ve ever seen her look like a woman. I was stunned, I’ll admit, but I hardly drooled over her.”
“Oh, and I suppose I only imagined all the sweet words ye whispered to her.”
Sighing, he replied with exaggerated patience, “I did not whisper. And if you heard what I said, then you should know I was trying to make peace with her. Nothing more.”
“Phah! Is that what ye call it now?”
Anger glittered in his eyes. “This is getting us nowhere. Believe what you want. I haven’t got the time to convince you otherwise now. We have guests. So you’re coming back inside with me and you’ll be polite and smile. After while you’ll dance with me because that’s what they all expect. And when I ask Lil to dance –”
“No! I’ll not stand by and watch –” she cried, but he grasped her shoulders and shook her to silence.
“When I ask Lil to dance,” he repeated through his teeth, “because if I don’t everyone will wonder why not, you’ll hold your tongue and act like a lady. You will not make a scene and shame my father in front of all his friends. Do you understand?” When she only glared at him mutinously, he shook her again, harder. “Do you?”
“Aye! I understand perfectly!”
“Good.” With that he dragged her back inside.
Jessie hated to obey him, but she really had no wish to embarrass Reece, or herself. So she smiled and acted the gracious hostess, enduring David’s hand upon her elbow or at her waist as he drew her from one group of guests to another. Later, he would find out just how furious she was, so help her!
Before long, the two musicians – a fiddler and a guitar player Reece had enlisted from among his neighbors – began to play. Jessie was in no mood to dance, but she wasn’t given a choice. Walking her out to the torch-lit courtyard, David pulled her into his arms.
She clamped her jaws together and refused to look up at him. Yet, as he whirled her around to the romantic strains of a waltz, her senses reacted to his nearness, to the heat of his body and his familiar masculine scent. Her pulse quickened and she felt an aching desire to relax in his arms and lay her head against his chest.
Sweet Mary! How could she let him affect her like this when she was certain he had betrayed her? Forcing her treacherous senses under control, she smiled and nodded to the other dancers they passed. She wasn’t prepared for the touch of David’s lips upon her temple. She sucked in her breath sharply and stumbled on an uneven flagstone. He tightened his hold, steadying her.
“Do you know how hard you are to resist?” he murmured in her ear, causing her to shiver and her eyelids to flutter shut. “Do you know your hair is like a dark flame in the torchlight and your skin puts those pearls at your throat to shame?”
Jessie’s heart beat wildly. She was on the verge of lifting her lips to his, not caring how many people might be watching. Then she recalled how he’d gazed at Lil. It was like being doused with ice water.
Stop him!her mind screamed. Eyes flying open, she threw her head back to glare at him and deliberately misconstrued his words. “Well, perhaps ye should give them to Lil. Mayhap she would do them justice.”
Her barb found its mark. David jerked his head up and rage swept over his face. His arm clamped tight, crushing her breasts against the wall of his chest. “Madam, there are times when I could cheerfully break your neck,” he growled.
She opened her mouth to retort, but just then Eliza and Steve Mason danced past, and she ordered herself to smile. She refused to look at David again as he whirled her over to where his father sat on a stone bench beneath the covered gallery that ran along the back of the house. Reece was smoking a pipe and drumming his fingers on the bench in time to the music. He looked up in surprise when Jessie was practically dropped in his lap.
“She needs a rest,” David barked. Then he pivoted and stalked away, leaving her to glare after him.
“Missy? What happened?” Reece asked as she sat down next to him.
“N-nothing. I’m just a wee bit tired,” she said, using David’s lie. Watching him approach Lil Crawford and offer her his hand, she gnashed her teeth. The tomboy-turned-beauty looked flustered for a moment, but then she hesitantly accepted his hand.
Jessie shot a desperate glance at Del Crawford, hoping he would intervene. He scowled irately and made a move after his daughter, but his brother stopped him with a hand on his arm and a stern shake of his head. Pressing trembling fingers to her lips to hold back her anger and despair, Jessie watched David take Lil in his arms and smile at her, playing out the scene she had already witnessed in her hated vision. She longed to rush over and tear them apart but couldn’t seem to move – until a wild, hurt-filled idea suddenly sprang into her head. Perhaps there was a way to get back at her dastardly husband.
“Excuse me,” she said, ignoring Reece’s puzzled stare. Before she could lose her nerve, she marched over to a tall, swarthy rancher named Haywood who had arrived alone. His heavy black eyebrows rose in surprise when she asked him if he would care to dance, but then he grinned.
“Why, I’d be happy to, Miz Taylor,” he drawled with a playful wink.
He waltzed her around the courtyard a couple of times
, past David and Lil – both of whom Jessie pointedly ignored. Then the tune ended. The musicians immediately began a reel and, rather than releasing Jessie as she expected, Mr. Haywood swung her into the lively dance. The fast pace allowed little chance for talking. Not that her partner wanted to talk; he was too busy eyeing her bosom whenever he got the chance. She was glad when another man claimed her for the next dance.
After that, she was deluged with partners. Wearing a mask of gaiety, she passed from one man to the next, laughing breathlessly as they swung her around to the foot-stomping melodies. She even managed to smile when Haywood claimed her for the next waltz. Gritting her teeth, she let him hold her a bit too close, hoping to vex David. Instead, she was the one who saw red when she spotted him circling the courtyard with Lil once again. Murmuring to her with an earnest look on is face, he seemed oblivious to everyone else, including his own wife.
Haywood tightened his arm, crushing Jessie’s breasts against his chest. Shocked, she pushed at his shoulder and glared at him. “Sir, I’ll thank ye to keep a proper distance between us. I’m a married woman, in case you’ve forgotten!”
He scowled. “I ain’t forgot, missus, but I figured you did when you came sashayin’ up to me a while ago, battin’ your eyes at me. If you don’t want a man to get the wrong idea, you oughtn’t to lead him on thataway.”
Flabbergasted, she jerked free of him. “Excuse me!” she snapped and stalked off. She had not batted her eyes at him. Led him on, indeed! All she’d done was smile at him and invite him to dance. Still, she suddenly felt ashamed of herself for approaching him. Why had she even bothered? It certainly hadn’t gotten David’s attention. He was too busy sweet-talking Lil Crawford.
When he finally remembered Jessie existed and forced her to dance with him again – because it was expected – she vented her outrage. “How dare ye preach to me about not makin’ a scene and then carry on like a lusty hound after her?” She slashed a detesting glance in Lil’s direction.