None of this was right, none of it was in accordance with what she had been taught, and none of it fitted into the plans she had made for herself. Yet if she had been given the chance to leave for Baltimore at that very moment, she would have asked for a later ticket. Whatever drew her to Slade Morgan was more powerful than anything she had left behind in Maryland.
Chapter 8
It wasn’t yet dark when they stepped out onto the porch.
Looking down the canyon to the entrance of the valley, Slade watched the fiery desert sunset streak the horizon orange and purple and rose. In contrast, the shadows of the valley deepened until the evening air turned a dusky blue. Cool air, channeled by the high ridges, flowed down from the mountains to rustle the leaves of the oaks which surrounded the house. Slade breathed deeply of the sweet air.
Higher up on the ridges juniper and ponderosa pine whispered to one another and box elder rustled noisily. Spring had blessed the valley and consecrated it with lush flowers and new grass nourished by the bountiful winter rains. Great masses of golden poppies cloaked the hillside, their brilliant mantel of color polka-dotted by the many hues of the tulip-like mariposa lilies.
There was softness in the air, a touch of gentle warmth in the midst of the cool draft. It reminded Slade of summer evenings in Texas. He could almost believe he was standing under the spreading arms of a hundred-year-old pecan with the breeze stirring the leaves of the wild grape thicket down by the gate, soft light streaming from the windows of neighboring houses illuminating shadows without being bright enough to intrude. It gave the night a friendly feeling.
The door closed behind him, and he turned to face Pamela.
“Why did you do it?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“Any of it. The barn, Mongo, your beard. Why didn’t you just get on your horse and ride out?”
Slade was sure he would be making a fool of himself if he answered with the only word which would be the absolute truth—“You.” Instead he responded with a question of his own.
“Didn’t you ply me with enough questions this afternoon?” He waited for her to decide where to sit. “I think we ought to stick to business.”
Realizing he didn’t intend to give her an answer right away, Pamela walked over to the large sofa-like chair which had been supplied with several plump, enticingly thick cushions. She sat down. Slade sat down next to her without waiting for an invitation.
She stifled a gasp. She couldn’t think with him that close. Forcing her mind to block out his nearness, she said, “When a man like you shaves off his beard for the first time, it could mean any number of things, all of them important to the woman who hired him yesterday.”
She was telling him the truth. He was still a stranger, but it was almost impossible to keep her mind on her questions or his answers. She had been aware of his tremendous magnetism from the very first but never more so than when he sat down next to her. She didn’t lean back against the cushions. She couldn’t. Her body was stiff with tension.
Her nipples were so hard they almost hurt and the slight touch of material brushing against the peaks sent rivers of fire coursing down her body. Her secret female parts were hot and embarrassingly wet. It was hard to sit still and just talk. She wanted to touch him.
His physical attraction was almost overwhelming. Even now she could recall the feel of his corded muscles under her fingertips as she cleaned his wounds. She could picture every detail of his broad chest, muscled shoulders and powerful arms. Even with his left arm virtually useless, he radiated the sense of a powerful and dangerous animal.
She found her eyes straying toward the full bulge behind the zipper of his jeans. She fought to keep the warm blush from staining her cheeks. A lady simply didn’t have these carnal thoughts. Her mother would be horrified.
Before she had felt like she was being drawn to a faceless man, someone she couldn’t quite reach, but that was gone now. She could see the man behind the mask, and she liked him more than she ever thought possible. His eyes could be cold, his lips compressed, his jaw rigid, but there was an element of humanity about his face which could not be erased. He was the most appealing man she had ever met.
And that included Frederick.
“You haven’t answered my question,” she said, forcing herself to look into the gathering dusk rather than at Slade. She wondered if he would. He might consider it none of her business. To her surprise, she realized she considered everything about him her business.
“I did it because of you.”
Pamela whipped around to stare at him. As soon as the words were out, she knew that was the answer she had been hoping for. But having gotten it, she was thrown into confusion. What did he mean by I did it because of you? Those words could mean so much. They could also mean so little.
“Gaddy told me you didn’t like beards. He said you were sure a man with a beard had something to hide.”
He did it for the job. He didn’t really care what she thought of him just as long as she gave him the job. Well, she shouldn’t have expected a declaration of eternal devotion. He’d given her no reason to expect it would be forthcoming, and she’d give him every reason to think she would reject it if it were.
“I also did it for me. It’s a way of coming face to face with myself. Whether or not I like it, this is my face.”
She wasn’t sure she could believe that. How could any man not be happy to look like he did? She had never met anyone who could compare to him, not in Baltimore, New York, or Newport. Frederick would probably have given half his fortune to look like that.
“I also hoped it would make you look a little more favorably on me.”
Her heart beat faster.
“I found I had an unaccountable hankering to sit beside you in the moonlight. I was afraid the beard would keep you away.”
Pamela’s heart started to race. There was no doubt about what he meant by that. The only question now was what did she want him to mean. She wasn’t sure. Something about this man defied explanation, but then she wasn’t looking for explanations.
At least not right now.
“You could have asked.” Pamela was shocked by her own words, even more so by what they implied. Quickly she added, “Of course, asking doesn’t guarantee you’ll get the answer you want.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. I told you before, I’m not very good with ladies. They don’t usually cotton to me. Besides, I started out on the wrong foot with you.”
“Not all ladies like the same things.” And not all ladies know what they like. Until yesterday, she would have sworn she would never ever be interested in anyone like Slade Morgan, yet here she was, sitting with him in the moonlight. And, God help her, she was hoping he would kiss her.
“What do you like?”
“Yesterday I thought I knew. I was so sure I had everything figured out, that it would go just the way I planned. But that was before you wandered in here. Now I don’t know.”
“How could I have confused you? I haven’t said much of anything.”
She looked up at him and a slow smile spread across his face. His stomach fluttered uncomfortably.
“You had me confused before you reached the porch,” Pamela admitted. “By the time I finished patching you up for the third time, I didn’t know what I wanted. I still don’t.”
“You want to sit out here with me?”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Then at least you do know a few things.”
“Tell me why you wanted to sit with me. “
“Only if you promise not to laugh.”
“Why should I laugh?”
“Trish did, only I don’t think she felt too much like it at the time.”
“I’m not Trish.”
“No, you’re much prettier.” Pamela felt a blush steal over her cheeks. “Much nicer, too.” She turned to face him. “And your dad’s a lot richer.”
“Slade Morgan!” Pamela exclaimed before she hea
rd his soft chuckle. “You’re teasing me,” she said, pretending offense. “You meant to upset me.”
“No, I just didn’t want you to think I had gone all soft the head.”
“And what makes you think I would take nice compliments as a symptom of a soft head?”
“Everybody’s after something.”
“Well I’m not. No, I am too, but it’s not something you can buy or keep or control or make do what you want it to. It just is all on its own.”
“You mean like the hankering I have to touch your cheek? Should I tell you how velvety soft your skin is?” Slade’s fingers brushed the softness of her skin and Pamela felt herself go all weak. No one, not even Frederick, had had this effect on her. Why should Slade?
“Yes, something like that,” she replied in a breathless whisper.
Slade slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Does the desire to hold you in my arms count?”
Pamela was almost unable to move, she felt like a lump of melting butter, but she managed to mold herself into a comfortable armful as she settled against him.
“Everything counts,” she murmured.
“I must be dreaming,” Slade murmured as he took her hands in his. Please, God, don’t let it stop, he added silently.
“You don’t look like the kind of man to spend a lot of time dreaming.”
Slade sat up to look deep into her eyes. “Don’t you think I’ve dreamed of sitting on a porch like this, holding a woman like you, and busting a gut wanting to kiss her? I have, many times. I just never thought I’d be doing it.” His warm intimate voice sent shivers down her spine. It seemed to caress her just like his hands would.
“You aren’t doing it. Kissing me, I mean.”
“If I was to do that, would you laugh at me?”
“Why should I?”
“I haven’t kissed a girl in ten years. Not really kissed her.”
“Next you’ll be telling me you forgot how.”
“I’d remember a lot better if you helped.”
Pamela smiled. She leaned forward and took his face in her hands. Gently she leaned it to one side. Then leaning her head in the opposite direction, she kissed him. Gently, tentatively.
“Is it coming back?” she asked, her lips not entirely separated from his.
“Yes, but I could do with a mite more reminding.” Pamela kissed him again, only not so tentatively this time.
“That help?” she murmured. Her hand reached into his hair to draw him even closer.
“I think I can take it from here,” Slade said huskily. He closed his arms around Pamela and took her in a powerful embrace, an embrace as devastating as his kisses were gentle.
“I think I’d better rest up a bit now,” Slade said after a kiss that was not really gentle at all. “I didn’t remember that kissing could wear at a man’s heart so. Mine’s beating fit to bust my chest wide open.”
“Mine is too,” Pamela said and placed his hand over her heart.
Slade thought he would explode. His manhood was hard and swollen behind his jeans. This gentle teasing was almost more than he could stand. If they kept this up he was going to embarrass himself. Only by employing the greatest self-restraint did he manage to keep his fingers from the mound of her breast. He longed to take it greedily in his grasp.
“If you want me to be fit for any kind of work, you’d better give me back my hand,” Slade said in a constricted voice. “Much more and I’m liable to keel over dead right here.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Pamela said, smiling in the dark, “but it was a sweet thing to say.”
“You won’t think so when you’re trying to explain to Belva why I’m lying dead with my arms locked around you. Your father wouldn’t appreciate it much either.”
“You don’t look that feeble to me.”
“I never was till now. My Daddy always told me some women could have a mighty unaccountable effect on a man, but I never knew what he meant until this moment.”
“You’re teasing me. I can’t believe a man like you has never been excited by a woman.”
“Hell, I’ve been excited hundreds of times, but this is not the same.”
Pamela suddenly grew rigid in his arms. “I should hope not hundreds of times.”
“Every time a nice looking female looked at me. When I was with the carnival, that happened nearly every night. But I didn’t get a craving to sit with them in the moonlight.”
Pamela relaxed against Slade.
“Is it okay to talk at a time like this? I got a powerful lot of things inside just bursting to get out.”
“It’s not necessary, but I guess it’s okay,” she said, hoping his words would drown out the pounding of her heart.
“Did you ever think much about the moonlight? It’s not anything like the sun. The sun throws everything into bright color. Into conflict. There’s so much going on, a person can get so caught up in it he forgets himself. He just acts like he thinks he’s supposed to act. But everything is different in the moonlight.”
“I never thought about it like that.”
“The same world is still out there. You can see it and you can hear it, but it’s not pulling at you, making you go places and do things you don’t want. Everything fades into the shadows and you’re left alone in a quiet so deep that sometimes you think you’re the only one alive. But you can finally see what it is you really want.”
“And what do you want, Slade?”
“I want to be sitting like this fifty years from now, looking at the moon and holding the woman I love in my arms. I want her to love me as much as I love her. I want to have children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will do a lot more than I have done. And I want a place like this, somewhere I can stay and be content until it’s time to move on for the last time.”
“You want a lot.”
“Wishes are free. It’s just getting them that costs so much.”
“You’re a strange man. I never knew cowboys thought about things like that.”
“There’s nothing like sitting with a cup of coffee over a campfire on the backside of a mountain to get a man thinking. There’s all that quiet and nothing to disturb his thoughts. Most of us don’t have much money, nor any hopes of getting any, but it costs nothing to dream.”
“What do you want to do with your life, Slade?” she asked dreamily.
“I don’t know that I want to do much of anything with it. It’s just fine like it is.”
He obviously didn’t understand what she meant. “I mean what do you want to become?”
“I don’t reckon I want to become anything except what I am.”
His words struck a discordant note, and she became quite unromantically alert. “But you can’t want to remain a cowhand all your life, working for somebody else, never having much of anything to call your own.”
“A man doesn’t need much to make him happy. I’d like a small cabin somewhere, preferably in some hills like those behind the house. I’d like a view so I could look out over the cows.”
“You want to be a rancher?”
“Not a rancher exactly. About thirty or forty good cows and a couple of well-bred bulls would be all I’d need. I don’t know that anybody would exactly call that a ranch. More like a spread.”
“Don’t you want anything else?” Pamela asked, unable to keep the disappointment out of her voice.
“Like I told you, I want a wife and a bunch of kids. I always wanted children. I think I could cotton to them.”
“No doubt, with just a small spread, you’d have plenty of time to spend with them.” She couldn’t conceal the impatience in her voice. She didn’t try. “Your thirty or forty cows wouldn’t take up much of your time. What do you plan to do for money, Slade? How are you going to buy your wife and children clothes? How will you send them to school or get them started in life?”
Pamela had become so exasperated with Slade’s total lack of drive and ambition she failed to notice his drawl became mo
re pronounced as her disapproval increased. It was positively glaring now.
“My wife could weave homespun cloth, at least for a while. A kid doesn’t need much until he goes a-courting. They don’t need much learning except reading and writing. I can teach them that. As for setting them up in life, they can set themselves up. Nobody set me up, and I got along fine.”
“No you didn’t, Slade Morgan,” Pamela said jumping to her feet. “You’re a grown man and all you can do is gun tricks and chase cows. That’s not getting along fine at all.”
“I know it’s not much by some people’s standards. But houses in town and fancy dresses and traveling about in trains aren’t for me. I don’t need any of that. A few years up on one of those hills and I bet you wouldn’t even remember there are such things.”
“Oh yes I would, even if I did spend a few years up in those hills, which I will never do, not even if you held a gun to my head. A woman needs to have nice things, Slade Morgan. She doesn’t expect love to turn her into a broodmare, or to sew clothes out of homespun, or cook and clean until she’s too old and too tired to care about new clothes or dancing or traveling on trains. You can have your old cabin in the hills, and you can absolutely drown it with moonlight, but you’ll sit up there alone.”
Pamela stalked into the house more angry than she’d been in a long time, but if she could have seen Slade’s face, she would have fallen into a rage. He was grinning from ear to ear.
“Barring the bit about the moonlight, old son,” Slade said to himself, “she hasn’t liked a thing you’ve said tonight. But it’s upset her. For a while there I thought she was going to slap your face. No female gets that upset unless she cares about a fella.”
Yep, Slade was sure of one thing. Pamela White cared about him. And she cared a lot.
Pamela flipped the pages of her school photo album with sharp, rapid movements, but the images of the young ladies and men she had known in Baltimore hardly registered. She was too upset to do anything as humdrum as look at photographs, but she was too irritated to do anything else. She wasn’t sure who made her more angry, Slade or herself. After a moment she decided it didn’t matter. She was furious enough at both of them.
Scarlet Sunset, Silver Nights Page 12