by Pat Tracy
“As long as we’re both awake, I don’t understand why we can’t talk about your experiences with Night Wolf.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re stubborn, Victoria?”
“Just my mother and my father,” she mused idly. “Oh, and my sister, along with a few close friends. My grandparents might have alluded to it a time or two, I suppose. The Reverend Golly made reference to it on several occasions, and my teachers at finishing school were inclined to lecture upon the subject, but other than that, no one has really dwelled upon the point.”
“I see.”
“Besides, I would rather think of it as determination rather than simple stubbornness.”
“The difference being?”
“There’s an enormous difference,” she felt compelled to explain. “Stubbornness is a failure to listen to reason. Determination is a sign of character. It’s what drove Columbus to persevere in crossing the ocean and enabled George Washington to lead his men to victory against the tyranny of King George. It’s what enabled Abraham Lincoln to save the Union.”
“Determination?” Logan repeated dryly.
“Exactly!” she agreed with satisfaction.
Needing something to occupy her hands, she began to idly brush her fingertips against the backs of his wrists, which lay joined across her midriff. The springy texture of the hair dusting his skin felt oddly compelling. “Oh, some people might call it fortitude or even pluck. But, whatever it is, it’s certainly more than simple stubbornness.”
“I doubt there’s anything simple about you, Victoria.”
She warmed to what she viewed as a compliment. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he responded gravely.
She missed hearing the sound of his heartbeat, but it was pleasant to have his deeply pitched voice rumble through her.
“So, when did you meet Night Wolf the second time?”
Logan’s laughter embraced her. It made no sense, but she found herself smiling again.
“What’s so funny?” she asked.
“Nothing. Everything.”
“Oh, well, that’s clear enough.”
“As clear as anything else in our crazy lives,” he said with a sigh.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I’m a grown man, and you’re a grown woman, but it sounds as if you want me to tell you a bedtime story.”
Her smile deepened. She couldn’t imagine anything more incongruous than Logan Youngblood reciting a bedtime story.
Picturing the rugged man with a toddler nestled upon his lap was beyond her ability to imagine. And yet there was something sweetly poignant about the thought of this tough Westerner subjecting himself to a young child’s needs.
“Since there’s no warm milk,” she teased lightly, “I very well might need a story if I’m to fall asleep.”
He tucked the corners of the blanket more snugly around her. The casual movement made her stop running her fingertips across his arms. When his hands returned to their former resting place, they seemed higher than before. Without a tape measure, she had no way of knowing for sure, of course. But it seemed that a smaller distance now separated his hands from the underside of her breasts. Her fingers resumed their restless stroking.
“Anything to settle you down,” came his husky voice.
Anything? Of course, a kiss would hardly settle her down, but she found herself thinking about it. Had it been only this morning that he brushed his mouth against her startled lips? It seemed a lifetime ago. She firmly put all thoughts of the kiss from her mind. Or, at any rate, she tried to.
“The second time I ran into Night Wolf was the next spring. News reached us of a wagon train that had been attacked by Indians. The men in town rode out to investigate.”
“Isn’t that something the military would handle?”
“The fort hadn’t been built yet. It was the assault on the wagon train that led to the cavalry being dispatched to this part of the territory and Fort Brockton being constructed.”
“Were there survivors?”
“Quite a few. It turned out that only a small band of renegades took part in the ambush.”
“I wonder when peace will finally come,” Victoria mused. “Imagine what it would be likeif everyone could get along.”
“It must be what the preachers call heaven. It’s going to be interesting how the Almighty works everything out behind those pearly gates of his so the angels get along.”
“Goodness, Logan, what a peculiar thing to say.”
“Do you suppose the Indian angels will beat tom-toms instead of strumming harps?” Logan inquired, amusement lacing his tone.
A startled giggle escaped Victoria. It sprang from visualizing angels with exotic headdresses and beaded moccasins. But the more she contemplated the image, the more she liked it.
“There’s no way to know what heaven is going to be like until we get there,” she pointed out.
“And you’re thinking I’ll never find out.”
“Thank goodness, mere mortals don’t decide who gets in and who doesn’t.”
“Such a diplomatic answer.”
There was no way of mistaking the sarcasm that edged his words.
“Please continue with your story about your second encounter with Night Wolf,” she instructed for her own peace of mind.
“I like it when you say please.”
The husky timbre of Logan’s tone so shook Victoria that she felt it in her toes and her stomach. “I’ll endeavor to say it more often, then.”
He drew her closer. She felt the hardened bulge of his masculinity and wondered if that was a natural occurrence for him every time he assumed a reclining position.
Perhaps all men’s bodies behaved in a like fashion. She sighed, wishing she wasn’t so ignorant about the ins and outs of male anatomy. What a pity that women didn’t have the opportunity to discover such facts about men from books, where one wouldn’t be unduly influenced by the powerful currents of awareness that a close proximity with the masculine form seemed to induce.
“I was a greenhorn when I came west.”
“Where did you come from?” she asked curiously. It seemed that everything he told her had a way of spawning more questions.
“The East,” he said vaguely. “That afternoon, a group of us were following tracks left by the renegades. When we reached the hills, we separated. It wasn’t far from here that I stopped to refill my canteen at this stream. When I turned around, I was facing Night Wolf. He was on horseback, I was on foot. My rifle was secured on my horse and I hadn’t taken to weanng my Colt yet.”
“You must have been terrified,” she said sympathetically.
“Victoria, men are never terrified,” he corrected firmly. “That’s something that happens only to women.”
“Don’t be silly. All humans are subject to trepidation, and that certainly includes men. Go on with your story.”
“Not before we clear this up, honey.”
She sucked in a breath. He’d called her “honey” again. Somehow, with the wind and darkness roiling about them, the endearment wasn’t repugnant. “Logan, it’s all right to admit you were frightened when you faced an Indian without a weapon to defend yourself. Even Hawkeye was afraid from time to time.”
“Who the devil is this Hawkeye person you keep mentioning?”
“Oh, you know, the brave scout who protected Cora and her sister Alice from Magua.”
“How can you call him brave and frightened at the same time?”
“As I stated before, the terror would come upon him occasionally, when he feared an imminent attack from Magua.”
“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Magua. Who is he?”
“He was the villainous savage who wanted revenge against General Munro.”
“You’re talking about characters from one of those books of yours, aren’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Of course,” he repeated in a tone of disgust. �
�Well, real men don’t behave like characters in books.”
“Some do,” she protested, not willing to hear him disparage her heroes.
“Real men,” he continued, clearly unaffected by her defense, “avoid certain words like the plague.”
“Pray enlighten me,” she instructed loftily.
“Why are you talking like my grandmother all of the sudden?”
She twisted in his arms. “You have a grandmother?”
“Two of them,” his answered forbiddingly.
His eyebrows were drawn together in a fierce scowl. She hadn’t the vaguest notion why he was upset.
“What are they like?” she inquired curiously, again fascinated by any tidbit of information she could glean about Logan.
“That does it.” He shocked her by rolling on top of her.
“Do get off me. I can’t breathe, Logan.”
“Try harder,” he said unhelpfully, even as he raised to his elbows to provide her with sufficient room to draw air into her lungs. “We’re going to get a few things straight, Miss Amory.”
“All—all right,” she whispered solemnly, staring up into his battle-bruised features with a tinge of awe. Good grief, the man looked like a fearsome warrior, spoiling for an opponent to demolish. She couldn’t imagine what had set him off. From her point of view, they had been conversing most satisfactorily.
“First, running into Night Wolf without a gun in my hand didn’t terrify me. Men don’t get terrified, just like they don’t get the vapors or faint. Got that?”
She nodded. “Uh, Logan, I should tell you, though, that Hyrum Dodson was a man, and he fainted.”
“Let me guess. It was when you shot him?”
She nodded again. “He didn’t faint right away. At first he hopped around a bit. Then he saw the blood. And then he…”
Her explanation trailed off under Logan’s ominous scowl.
“He did not faint,” he corrected succinctly.
“But you weren’t even there,” she felt obliged to point out.
“He passed out,” Logan clarified softly.
“You mean it’s a matter of semantics?”
“It’s a matter of accuracy,” he stately firmly. “Men pass out. Women faint or succumb to the vapors. Women become terrified. Men become…cautious.”
“So you were feeling cautious with Night Wolf?”
“Exactly.”
“Logan,” she said, struggling to control the mirth his explanation triggered, “do you honestly believe that?”
“I honestly believe you’re driving me crazy, Victoria.”
Her humorous mood evaporated. “How am I doing that?”
“Every time we have a conversation, you go off on a dozen different tangents. One minute we’re discussing Indians, and the next you’re asking me about my grandmother. I find that taxing.”
“You would prefer I stay on one topic at a time?” His was a complaint she’d heard more than once. It was just that when she became excited about something, she sort of lost her focus.
He shifted against her, insinuating himself more deeply between her parted legs. A wave of heat stung her cheeks.
“Haven’t you noticed how hard I am?”
His hoarse question shattered the remnants of her composure.
“Wh-what?”
“See how distracting it is when someone suddenly changes the subject?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
Yes to everything! “I can see how confusing changing one’s topic of discussion can be,” she breathed. “And, yes, I’ve noticed that you are…er…that is to say.somewhat firm.”
He closed his eyes. In the moonlit darkness, his frowning features looked as if they’d been chiseled from granite by a sculptor in a bad mood.
“We’ve got a lot of night left,” he murmured starkly. “Something’s got to give.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
And she really didn’t want to know, either. There was something about his hungry gaze that made her think it not be prudent to gaze directly into it. Perhaps Logan’s warning about the dangers of staring into campfires should apply to him, also. At the moment, he appeared very much like a two-legged predator, and she wasn’t at all prepared to deal with him.
“Do you have any idea how good you feel to me?”
The gruff question melted a significant portion of her insides. She tried to think of an appropriate answer for the darkly intimate query, but her mind seemed to have shut down.
What if he weren’t a criminal on the run? What if he were instead a respected member of society? What if he were her legally wedded husband? Then she would be free to stroke his roughly bearded jaw. She would be free to trace the outline of his lips with her tongue. She would be free to wriggle her lower person against him and feel the delightful tingles and tremors any direct contact with him provoked.
But, because Logan Youngblood was not a man she could ever call husband, he was utterly forbidden to her, as forbidden as the shocking yearnings he stirred within her racing heart.
“You really must get off me.”
His head lowered, blocking the meager moonlight. No longer did she hear the mournful cry of the wind.
His taut countenance hovered above her. “You’re right.”
“Then back away, Logan. Please.”
At the final word, something hot and elemental sprang to life in his eyes. Her stomach rolled over.
“You do please me, Victoria.”
“But I can’t. This isn’t right.”
“I know.”
“Then, surely, you must—”
“No more talking.”
A flash of white-hot light erupted around them. It momentarily transfused the cramped space under the wagon with a burst of dazzling brightness that revealed with numbing starkness the harshly etched lines of Logan’s tensely held features. Seconds later, a blast of thunder rocked the clearing. The patter of raindrops striking the canvas-topped wagon followed.
“I just want to know what you taste like,” he breathed. “I won’t hurt you.”
Surely there could be no harm in a kiss. Besides, she wanted to discover how he tasted, too.
Even though an intimate knowledge of this man was forbidden to her, she would savor what her conscience permitted. A few heated kisses. Perhaps a caress or two. No one would ever know. After Logan disappeared from her life, she would have these treasured memories to warm her during long winter nights. “Then do it,” she whispered. “The waiting is killing me.”
There was another flash of lightning. Another overwhelming glimpse of Logan’s savagely carved features. Her toes curled. Her insides turned to bubbling molasses.
With the cannonlike blast of thunder raging in her ears, she felt Logan’s mouth upon hers. Ravenous need seemed to drive him. She encircled his corded neck, drawing him closer. His lips were hot, searing. His tongue was. persistent. She felt the tip of it probe her sealed mouth. It seemed he wanted inside. The novel thought scarcely registered before that was exactly where he was. Inside. With his hot, flicking tongue.
Startled, but not repulsed, she accepted his unexpected invasion. He’d been serious about tasting her.
She realized she was making faint moaning sounds as the kiss spiraled to new heights. She realized, also, that his hands were charting their own bold course across her body. They were on her breasts, fondling, lightly squeezing, restlessly stroking. Her hips rotated against his, and she rubbed his arms.
And the kiss. It had a life of its own. Logan’s fingers moved to her bodice. She pretended she didn’t notice what they were doing, so that she wouldn’t have to call a halt to their. It was called lovemaking. There wasn’t another word for it.
Then his callused palms touched her bared breasts. Rough skin against her naked flesh. He pulled his mouth from hers and trailed steaming kisses along her throat.
“Ah, Victoria, you feel better than I imagined. And you taste.” He took the tip of a breast i
nto his mouth. Victoria bucked helplessly.
What was he doing to her? She knew she had to make him stop, but, dear God, stopping was the last thing on her mind. Wherever this tempestuous passion led, she wanted to follow.
His tongue moved slickly over a tight, tingling nipple.
“Damn the darkness,” he said hoarsely. “I want to see you.”
Hot flickers of fire shot from the tips of her breasts and careened through the rest of her.
“Oh, Logan…” His name was a breathless rush of air.
“Yeah, honey, that’s it. Say my name just like that.”
His large hands bunched up her skirts. She felt his fingers on her thighs. A tingling contraction gripped her womb. She was aware of a surge of indescribable warmth, his heavy breathing, and her own runaway heartbeat. Nothing else existed. Nothing else mattered.
His fingers moved higher. She gasped again, and clutched at his arms. She sensed him adjusting the front of his trousers.
“I’ll make it right,” he said, his mouth moving to her other breast. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
She thought he meant he’d make the painful ache that held her in its pitiless thrall go away. Before he could do so, however, a huge fist seemed to shake the wagon.
“What the hell?”
He raised and looked around. Another wood-groaning shudder seized the overhead structure, causing it to lurch. Logan peered out between the tall wheels.
Victoria concentrated on not shattering into a million pieces The interruption, whatever its origin—earthquake, volcanic eruption, typhoon—had permitted her overheated flesh to cool and allowed her brain to function again. She couldn’t believe what had almost happened between herself and this man.
None of it made sense. They had nothing in common, no abiding affection, no marital contract…How was it that whenever they got close, sparks seemed to fly off his body to hers?
Her fingers went to the buttons on her bodice.
“Damn, it’s the oxen,” Logan muttered.
There was a momentary lull in the thunderous tumult raging around them. In that fleeting pool of quiet, a spinetingling shriek rebounded through the night.
Victoria shuddered. “Good Lord, what was that?”
“A mountain lion,” Logan answered succinctly. “It and the storm are spooking the animals.”