Scarlet Sunset, Silver Nights

by Leigh Greenwood

  “You think he’s in trouble?”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.” Pamela didn’t have to think about it. She had felt in her heart for some time that something had happened. The minute Belva said her father hadn’t written, she knew it. In all her years at school, his letters never came late. Why should he change a lifelong habit now?

  “I’ll get Gaddy on his way while you get ready for your friends,” Slade offered.

  “Will you come up to the house when you’re done?”

  Slade nodded his agreement, but Pamela thought the look in his gaze had grown more quizzical than usual.

  Pamela tried to steady her nerves. She didn’t know why she should feel so underhanded about asking Slade to move his things into the bunkhouse. This was her home and she had every right to decide who stayed in it. True, she didn’t need the room, there were more than enough for a dozen guests, but Slade would undoubtedly feel more comfortable in the bunkhouse until he left tomorrow.

  She wasn’t exactly throwing him out. He had already told her he was leaving. With Frederick arriving any minute now, he didn’t need to postpone his plans any longer. Gaddy had gone for her father and Dave was back on the job. She had everything under control. He could be on his way to California.

  But Pamela had to be honest with herself. She wasn’t doing it for Slade’s benefit. She had thought entirely of herself, and that didn’t make her very proud.

  She no longer tried to deny her helpless infatuation with Slade. She ought to be thankful that Amanda and Frederick had decided to come early. If she were left alone with him for just a few days, well, she didn’t want to think of what might happen. The odd feeling of weakness that coursed its way through her abdomen underscored the strength of her attraction to this man. She had become obsessed to the point of ignoring her own values, plans, common sense for that matter. He was like an addictive drug. As long as he was around, she couldn’t think of anything else. She would be miserable after he left, but having Frederick here ought to make it easier. He would be a living example of the kind of man she hoped to marry, an unspoken rebuttal to the kind of man Slade Morgan was.

  Too, she would be mortified if Amanda so much as speculated about her attraction to Slade. And she knew Amanda wouldn’t have to be in the room with them for more than five minutes before she would begin to suspect. Give her a full day and she would know everything. Trust Amanda for that.

  And then there was Mongo’s insinuation that somehow Slade had something to do with her father’s failure to return on time. She didn’t believe that, there seemed no way the two could possibly have crossed paths, but the fact that it kept popping into her mind disturbed her. It had to be because of his reputation as a gunslinger.

  Slade was a gunslinger, and gunslingers were not to be trusted. Her mind was clear on that part. Her confusion came from the fact that her body was saying something very different. She could feel her heartbeat. She was so much more aware of it when she was near Slade. It, the physical part of her, not her mind, was the driving force in her life now. Her belly felt hollow, hungry—and not for food. Her walk was different, too. She’d felt it, like there was some natural sway he triggered. Her hips felt looser. She wondered if he saw the difference. Did it show?

  Her heartbeat was slow now, steady and clear, but her mind was still foggy, and Pamela continued to argue with herself until Slade entered the room. One look at him and she wondered how she could ever send him away. And if he did go, how could she keep from following?

  Why didn’t her father come home? She needed him to be strong for her. She needed him to tell her to do what she couldn’t do on her own.

  “Gaddy’s on his way,” Slade said as he came into the living room where he found Pamela. “We should know something in a few days. I’ve given him a route off the main trail.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s shorter and faster for one thing. If someone did harm your father, they may still be on the lookout for anybody leaving this ranch. I doubt there’s anything in that,” he added quickly when he saw fear come alive in Pamela’s eyes, “but it’s better to make sure.”

  “I really ought to thank you. You’ve handled everything so quickly.”

  “It’s not necessary. That’s a foreman’s job.”

  “But you’re not foreman any longer.”

  “Yes, well neither of us wanted it to last forever.”

  “I’d be much happier if you’d let me pay you,” Pamela said. The words came out in a rush.

  “You mean you wouldn’t feel so beholden to me?”

  “That’s part of it. The work had to be done, it’s a natural part of every ranch, and we expect to pay for it. I don’t like having to be grateful to anybody for something I would have been perfectly willing to pay for.”

  “It would also make you feel so much better if you didn’t have to be grateful to someone like me.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Pamela assured him quickly. “I know how I acted in the beginning, and I’m sorry for that, but I don’t feel that way any more.”

  “But you still feel you couldn’t marry a common cowboy.”

  “I was talking about a job,” Pamela said, abruptly lowering her gaze. “Marriage is something entirely different. It has to be a voluntary relationship built on love, trust, and respect. Even that can’t last if two people don’t share some mutual interests and common values.”

  “And all we share is a lust for each other,” Slade rasped crudely.

  “I never said …”

  Without warning, Slade swept her up in his powerful arms and pressed her so close to him she almost swooned. Her breasts swelled against the hard ribs of his chest; her fluttering abdomen caught against the swell of his groin.

  “Tell me you don’t want me,” Slade challenged. His mouth descended on hers, his tongue inching its way into her mouth, probing, seeking, caressing until he almost swept her away by the power and sweetness of his kiss. His hands lifted her arms to encircle his neck and brushed her sensitive breasts in passing. The heat from his body turned her into an inferno of desire. “Tell me you don’t want me,” Slade said again.

  “I want you,” Pamela answered, her breath ragged with desire. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.” Her hands moved into his thick hair in a burning caress.

  “Then why are you sending me away?”

  “I’m not sending you away.”

  “You haven’t said the words yet, but you will.”

  Pamela hid herself in Slade’s embrace, hid from his words. “We don’t have any future,” she whispered into his shoulder. “You said so yourself many times,” she added quickly before Slade could protest. “I may want you,”—Pamela paused to look up at Slade’s face—“I do want you so badly I sometimes lie awake in my bed shaking with desire. But I want more than a relationship based on desire, no matter how tempting that might be. Marriage requires so much more.” S he looked at him, hard. “And I do mean to be married before I give myself to a man.”

  He stared back, his eyes growing sea-grey. “You once said that if you loved a man, you wouldn’t need anything else.”

  “I don’t remember. …” Pamela temporized.

  “Do you love me?”

  His stark question shook Pamela down to her foundations. She just might love Slade. She hardly knew what she felt, but she did know she had never felt about anybody like she felt about him.

  “How can I love you when I don’t know anything about you? Not any of the important things.” To her shock and surprise, her heart already had the answer. If that man was Slade, it wouldn’t matter.

  “So we’re back to my past, my family, are we? Do you think I’m a monster with some dark past that haunts me?”

  “I’m not talking about your past now. I’m talking about you! I don’t know who you are. I don’t know anything about you. For all I know, you could be twice as rich as Mongo or the murderer the marshall is looking for.” Oh God, she hadn’t m
eant to say that. But it had preyed on her mind so much it slipped out before she could catch it.

  “Do you think I’m a murderer?” Slade asked.

  “I don’t know what to think! You wander in from the desert and refuse to say anything about yourself. Two weeks later Marshall Alcott comes asking about a man whose description fits you tighter than your boots. What am I supposed to think?”

  “If you had asked me. I’d have told you what you wanted to know.”

  But Pamela couldn’t ask. As much as she wanted to know, she couldn’t summon the words to frame the question. She was petrified of the answer he might give. She only had enough courage for half measures, and half questions.

  “Let’s say you didn’t kill those men, that you never heard of them. Can you swear you never killed anybody else? Or that you won’t kill anybody in the future?”

  “No.”

  “No to which question?”

  “Both.”

  Pamela staggered, and something inside her died. Hope, probably, but she couldn’t summon the energy to care.

  She slipped free of his arms.

  So he had killed; whether these men or some other, he had killed. Could she even consider loving such a man? No. It was impossible.

  “I was wrong about what I said earlier,” she said. “Love isn’t enough. There has to be more. And it’s not money,” she added quickly. “I could love a poor man if I believed in him, if I admired and respected him.”

  “And you don’t admire and respect me?”

  She was silent. She hardly knew which words to choose.

  “I thought I’d done a right fair job around here in the last couple of weeks. Doesn’t that earn me some kind of respect?”

  “I do respect your work,” Pamela quickly assured him. “And I trust you. It’s just that…”—she paused, unable to decide which words to choose—”… I can’t accept a man who believes in killing.”

  “I don’t believe in killing, Pamela. I believe in survival. If I hadn’t killed those men, they’d have killed me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Pamela said, making sure she didn’t look into Slade’s eyes, “my brain may be able to accept that, but my heart can’t.”

  “Doesn’t look like I stack up very well next to your precious Frederick, does it?”

  “I’m not comparing you to Frederick.”

  “Yes, you do, every time you look at me.”

  “I don’t mean to.”

  “Is he the kind of man you want to marry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you have married him if he had asked?”

  “Once.” That answer startled Pamela into realizing she no longer wanted to marry Frederick. Two years ago, before he married Amanda, she would have jumped at the chance to become his wife. Now, oddly enough, even though her admiration and respect were unchanged, she had no desire to marry him.

  “Once?”

  “Yes. Ages ago, perhaps, but not now. And don’t you dare ask me why.”

  “What can I ask you?”

  “Nothing,” Pamela snapped. “And don’t you dare tell me about all the things I’ve done for you. On more than one occasion I specifically asked you not to. And you refused any pay or reward.”

  “I didn’t do anything because it was a job, and I refuse to let your money turn it into something it isn’t.”

  “Why are we talking like this?” Pamela suddenly felt empty, drained of all energy. It couldn’t change anything. It was pointless to keep going over the same territory. She just wanted it over. “I don’t want you to leave with bad feelings.”

  “I didn’t know I was leaving.”

  “Aren’t you going to California? You said you’d leave when the roundup was over.”

  “It’ll take a day or two to get a rig together and buy some supplies.”

  “I can let you have anything you need.”

  “Just as long as I leave today?”

  “You can use the bunkhouse as long as you need.”

  Slade had been on the verge of giving up. He never doubted that Pamela kept him at a distance because of the marshall’s mention of the man wanted in Texas. He’d even given up trying to prove to her that anybody could equal her wonderful Frederick. He had figured to remove his things from the house and disappear quietly while she and her friends were busy. But her effort to hurry him off made him dig in his heels.

  In a way it was even worse than the night Trish told him to never come back. Trish had never made any bones about wanting money and social position. She would never have said she’d stay in Arizona for love, not if she could have gone to Baltimore instead.

  But Pamela had said that and more. Only a fool would believe her, but he had believed and let himself hope that at last he had found a woman who was different, one who could love him without demanding anything more than his love in return.

  The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. Dammit, he wouldn’t leave, at least not yet. Maybe she couldn’t make up her mind, maybe her principles were in a fierce battle with her desires, but he was in just as fierce a battle. He was fighting for a chance at a future he thought he had lost ten years ago, and he wouldn’t give up this easily. He’d show her she couldn’t give up either. He’d prove he had just as strong a hold on her as she did on him.

  “If you’re running me off, I guess I’d better take my goodbye kiss now.”

  At that moment, Pamela wanted him to kiss her more than anything else in the world, but she didn’t know if she could and not call him back the instant he reached the door.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “I’ll take one anyway,” Slade said, pulling her not unwilling body into his arms. “It’ll give you something to remember me by.”

  You’ll haunt my dreams for the rest of my life Pamela thought as she eagerly met his lips. The kiss came hard; his tongue demanded entrance to her mouth. Slade’s body grew rigid against her, his hold became unbreakable, but Pamela didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything as long as she could cling to Slade this one last time, share in one last kiss.

  But Slade didn’t stop at a kiss. His lips found her eyelids, her forehead, her ears; he lit up any part of her he could reach with a trail of blazing desire. He pressed her painfully close to his body; he crushed her breasts against his chest; his inflamed groin ground against her abdomen. Pamela’s whole body, now flooded with desire, begged to stay in his embrace until they merged into one.

  She fought for release and lost. But if she didn’t get away now, she might never be able to let him leave.

  Slade refused to let her go. He covered her averted face with kisses, not tender but fiery hard and demanding.

  “Let me go,” Pamela whispered.

  “Not yet,” Slade said. His voice rasped from the physical hunger which had him in its coils. “I want you to remember me for a long time.”

  His hand trailed down the small of her back to cup her buttock. Slade pressed her more firmly against his engorged manhood.

  “Don’t…” she moaned, her protest swallowed by a kiss so all-consuming Pamela didn’t have the strength to object. Nor did she want to. When Slade’s other hand slipped inside her blouse and covered her breast, Pamela’s nipples hardened against his fingers. She no longer tried to pull away. Slade captured her leg between his forcing intimate contact along the whole length of his inflamed body.

  “Please,” she murmured, not knowing whether she was asking for more or begging him to stop. His kiss deepened, his tongue probed more fiercely, his left hand rubbed her breasts until they swelled with an almost painful desire; his right hand, pressed into the small of her back, forced her body into contact with him from ankle to lips.

  “You’ve tormented me for weeks,” Slade rasped in her ear before he nibbled her throat. “Always just out of reach” … his mouth kissed the base of her neck … “hiding behind your facade of eastern manners”… his mouth went lower … “but your desires are no different from mine” … his
mouth followed his hand as he lifted away the edge of her blouse … “You want me just as much as I want you.”

  She trembled. “No,” Pamela insisted, but her body screamed another message.

  Slade edged her against a wall and hurriedly unbuttoned her dress down to the waist. He paused to look at her as he pulled her bodice open. “You’re so very beautiful, Pamela.” He lowered his head slowly until he took her firm nipple between his teeth and tugged gently. Pamela almost screamed with the sweet agony that ripped through her body.

  “Slade,” she murmured, arching her back to meet him.

  Her legs threatened to buckle, and Slade gradually allowed her to slip to the floor. But he did not release her nipple. His fingertip gently massaged the other aching nipple until Pamela’s frenzy increased beyond the limits of her control.

  Now it didn’t matter that Slade was not like Frederick. It only mattered that he was driving her out of her mind.

  “I want you to remember me,” Slade whispered as his lips deserted one tortured breast to nibble on the other. “I want you to know what it’s been like for me to be around you and be held at a distance. I want you to feel the agony you made me feel.”

  Pamela waited only a minute before she understood what he meant. Slade’s hand burrowed under her skirt and his hand began to gently explore the burning, secret place between her thighs.

  “Dear God!” she shrieked. No one had ever touched her so intimately. Her body bucked against him, but that only brought her into closer contact with his engorged manhood. Such a small matter compared to the fact that he had stripped off her panties. Her innermost self was bared to his invasion.

  “Slade, please, if you ever felt anything for me…”

  “Why should I care about your feelings? You’ve used me and now you’re throwing me out.”

  “I never did that. I’m sorry … ooohhhhh.”

  The palm of his hand found her, began to gently massage between her thighs. Spirals of desire coursed through her body, weakening her resistance, arousing even more need than she had ever expected.

  “Slade,” she protested again, but the tone in her voice had changed to one of wonder and surprise.