by Pat Tracy
She blinked at the irrelevant question, but answered anyway. “Most people would say 1066, but I believe 1055 is the more accurate response.”
“And the year Lincoln became president?”
“1861.”
Gradually, the inescapable conclusion swept through Victoria that there was something gravely amiss with the man presently grilling her on historic milestones. Clearly, he was not in full possession of his faculties. She wondered if this mental malady was a recent development, so recent that even Mr. Pritchert had no inkling of his employer’s descent from sanity to lunacy. Though, in this particular man’s case, Victoria had the feeling the trip had been a short one.
“Very good, Miss Amory,” he said in a tone that was obviously dissatisfied.
When he rose to his feet, Victoria also stood. She had no wish to deal with a madman, no matter how virile or handsome, from a sitting position.
Bleakly she questioned why lately her life seemed fraught with so many disasters—from the incident with the crazed bee in her bedchamber and its vicious attack upon Horace Threadgill, to an unsympathetic wagon master who couldn’t understand the importance of her books, then her discovery of an abandoned felon locked in a military stockade, and now a bizarrely eccentric employer. It seemed her existence comprised one ignominious mishap after another.
“I’m relieved to know that both your eyesight and your memory are in good working condition.”
Victoria forced an amiable smile to her mouth while inching toward the door. Her situation was precarious, she realized. There was no way she could remain in this lunatic’s employ. She’d given all her immediate cash to Logan Youngblood to start a new life. That meant another disaster loomed. How on earth was she going to acquire the funds she needed to return to Boston?
And, even if she managed to reach home, she was not anticipating a cheerful reunion with her father. Oh, dear, things were rapidly going downhill. She wondered with a flash of desperation whether she might be able to find work in Trinity Falls. Perhaps Newt, the miner of gargantuan proportions, needed an apprentice?
“Where are you going, Miss Amory? Our interview isn’t completed.”
“Uh…” With her back to the door, she groped for the doorknob. “I’m feeling a bit unwell, sir. I think a breath of fresh air would—”
He rounded the desk. “You’re not going anywhere, Victoria.”
Before she could open the door, two large hands closed around her arms.
Stunned as she was by the man’s bold assault, it took a second for her to think to scream. When she did open her mouth to cry for help, it was summarily crushed beneath the hotly urgent trespass of her employer’s hard kiss.
Several moments of panicked resistance followed. Then the strangest thing happened. Her body slowly yielded to the inexorable mastery of the man who’d swept her into his embrace. The surrender, she supposed, began in her mind and in her swimming senses. She tasted Logan, she smelled Logan, she felt Logan.
Swamped by the wild confusion racing through her, Victoria kept her eyes open. The male tongue that had gained
entry to her mouth leisurely sampled its interior. She was put in mind of a sleek panther padding into its secret lair. His broad hands cupped her buttocks and held her close to his hard heat. His breathing was harsh and shallow. His taste was darkly inviting.
She stared at him through trembling eyelashes. And in his sensually glowing eyes she discovered the unassailable truth.
Logan Youngblood held her.
Chapter Eighteen
For an instant, Victoria thought it was she who’d lost her mind. How could the impossible be possible? How could this handsome, sophisticated man be her Logan? Her untamed, lawless lover, dressed in a suit? Now that was the stuff of madness.
Their kiss continued, sensuously intimate, hotly contested. And, for a few moments, being in his arms was enough. To feel his hands cupping her to him, to feel his tongue rhythmically stroking her, to feel his male heat embracing her. To know it truly was him and that he’d somehow contrived to meet her…
It was more than enough.
Gradually, however, as much as Victoria tried to resist them, doubts began to plague her. What was Logan doing here? Surely he’d risked his freedom—if not his life—by returning to Trinity Falls. Why was he in her employer’s office, an office that just happened to be located in a.bank?
Suddenly Victoria stopped yielding and started resisting.
She wrested her lips from his tender possession. “Logan, you shouldn’t be here.”
His seeking mouth moved to the sensitive column of her throat. “Why is that?”
His casual manner exasperated her. “Will you stop kissing me, and tell me what you’re doing here?”
He raised his head and regarded her with laughing eyes. “Kissing you.”
She struggled to free herself from his hold, which was difficult, considering that she was exactly where she wanted to be. It didn’t help the situation to feel his bold hands gently massaging her bottom.
“Logan, this is no laughing matter. It was very foolish of you to risk seeing me.” Even as she chastised him, she wondered whether he’d come to the bank because of her or because of the money locked inside its safe. Several more concerns emerged. “What have you done with my employer? How did you reach town before I did? Whose clothes are you wearing?”
A horrible vision surfaced in her mind, that of the man who’d hired her being tied up and reduced to his long johns. At any moment she expected the hue and cry of outraged bank tellers charging into the office, with the law not far behind.
“Victoria, relax. You’re as white as a ghost.”
“You’re going to know firsthand what a ghost looks like if you don’t tell me what’s going on!”
From the smile that softened the hard line of his mouth, she realized he didn’t take his precarious situation seriously. Clearly the man didn’t learn from past mistakes. He’d probably been laughing his fool head off when they marched him into that stockade.
“Honey, settle down. There’s nothing to worry about. Everything is under control.”
“Logan, nothing is under control,” she said sharply. “You’ve got to get out of here before somebody discovers you’ve snuck into this office. And please tell me what you’ve done with my poor employer. You haven’t hurt him, have you? I mean, other than stealing his clothes?”
Logan’s features sobered, making Victoria fear the worst. Surely, he hadn’t.killed anyone. She refused to believe that of him. Or maybe she just didn’t want to believe she could have fallen in love with a murderer.
Logan reached out and gripped her shoulders, giving her a slight shake. “Victoria, I swear, if you accuse me of one more crime, I’m going to turn you over my knee and paddle you.”
She stiffened. “Don’t think you can bully me by threats of physical mistreatment. Unlike my employer, who is probably frail and old, I am quite capable of defending myself.”
“Oh, hell.”
“It’s not that you don’t look very fine in the suit, Logan,” she continued earnestly. “Why, with your hair trimmed and your beard shaved, I hardly recognized you.”
“Hardly recognized,” he repeated, his tone inexplicably irate. “Lady, I made love to you yesterday, and today you didn’t even know who I was!”
It occurred to her that Logan was angry at her for failing to identify him at once in his fancy clothes. She flushed. She supposed it didn’t say much for her powers of observation not to have known immediately it was Logan.
In her own defense, however, she’d never really had a clear look at his face. Initially, when they met, his features had been horribly swollen and disfigured. Later, his countenance had been obscured by a thick black beard and mustache.
“Pardon me, but you were the last man I anticipated encountering in this office.” She stared at his remarkably splendid visage and swallowed. “Allow me to say that you clean up very nicely, Logan.”
His scowl softened. “So do
you.”
Under his warm and approving gaze, Victoria’s heartbeat quickened. “I am glad to see you, but you took a dreadful risk coming here.”
“Victoria, if you’ll just listen, you’ll find out that everything is okay.”
She wanted to believe him, but feared the worst. It was possible, she supposed, that he’d used the money she’d given him to purchase his suit of clothing. She clung to that hope. “How did you get to town so quickly?”
“I borrowed a horse.”
“I see.” She interpreted that to mean he’d stolen one. Her heart sank. “Were you the rider that passed me on the road about dusk?”
“I was.”
“And you didn’t stop because…”
“I wanted to get to town before you. I was the one who sent Martin Pritchert out to meet you.”
Nothing he said made any sense. “I don’t understand.”
He gently squeezed her arms. “I wanted Martin to escort you to make sure you were safely settled your first night in Trinity Falls.”
“But how did you know where to find him? Trinity Falls is a big place.”
“And getting bigger every day,” Logan observed. “Honey, I know Martin because he works for me. I told you the truth when I said I was wrongly locked up in that stockade and left to die. I did bring the warning to the fort. I am the owner and president of this bank. I’m also acting mayor. Madison is my ward. And I’m your new employer.”
Logan’s manner was very convincing. For the first time since they’d met, Victoria wondered if she’d been mistaken in her assumptions about him. There was a curious humming in her ears. She felt as if the earth were shifting on its
axis and gravity suddenly had ceased to have any effect upon physical objects.
“When I told you to begin a new life…” She took a deep breath. “You already had one?”
He nodded. “So you see, honey, everything is all right.”
All right? Oh, no, not by any stretch of the imagination was everything all right!
A hot anger began to boil in Victoria’s blood. She had been duped and deceived by this conniving man. All the while they’d been together, all the while she’d tried to reform him, all the while she’d been falling in love with him, he’d been secretly laughing at her. It didn’t help her temper for her to realize that her naivete had been grandly worthy of his amusement.
The plain and simple truth was that she’d been an absolute ninny, an idiot of the first magnitude, with this man, her new…employer. The title made her cringe. Under no circumstance did she intend to work for Logan Youngblood. He might not be a thief or a murderer, but he was bad enough. He was a rogue and a scoundrel.
“Well, haven’t you anything to say?”
His question lit the fuse on her rapidly climbing fury. “Why, yes, Logan, I do have something to say.”
It was all she could do to get the words past her clenched teeth.
Looking self-satisfied, he smiled at her. “I’m thinking a two-week courtship should be ample. Of course, I realize two or three months probably would be more acceptable to the town gossips, but there’s no way I’ll tolerate delaying our wedding that long.”
Victoria stepped back, breaking the contact of his hands upon her arms. She wasn’t sure she could trust herself to utter a single word, when all she wanted to do was scream.
“Naturally, we’ll sleep together each night of those two weeks,” he continued. “There’s no way I’m going to deny myself the incredible feeling of you climaxing with me deep inside you. We’ll just have to be careful, so we don’t get caught. It’s going to help matters considerably that your hotel room is next to mine. After Madison is tucked into bed at night, I’ll slip into your chamber. As I said, everything will work out quite nicely.”
She strolled to his desk and stared at the items covering its surface with detached interest. There was a stack of neatly arranged papers, a silver letter opener, a pen resting in an inkwell, and a chunk of shiny pink crystals he probably used as a paperweight.
“Victoria?”
Her palm closed around the blunt object. Even though she was furious with Logan, she really couldn’t see herself attacking him with a letter opener. Blood was so difficult to get out of one’s clothes, and this was her best outfit. She’d surely be needing it to find another post.
“Hmm?”
“You’re being awfully quiet.”
Crystal in hand, she turned to face him. “Am I?”
He eyed her warily, as if anticipating an explosion of some
kind. Smart man.
“I expected you would be a little upset when you finally learned that I wasn’t the rascally outlaw you seemed determined to view me as. But you’ve got to admit, you weren’t willing to believe anything I tried to tell you to the contrary.”
She hated it when he was right. Regretfully she laid the crystal paperweight back down on his desk. She wasn’t a violent woman, one prone to outbursts of temper, shouting tantrums or stamping her foot in frustration. More the pity, she thought.
“Loathe as I am to admit it, I wasn’t willing to accept that you were falsely imprisoned,” she conceded. “My father’s a judge. I was raised to respect the law and all it stands for.”
The cautious look in Logan’s eyes faded. “I’m more than willing to accept your apology, honey.”
Victoria’s hands clenched. “I haven’t offered it.”
He moved toward her. “That’s all right. You don’t have to come right out and say the words. I don’t like admitting when I’m wrong, either. We’ll just pick things up from here.”
He extended his arms to gather her to him. Victoria dodged his grasp.
“Don’t you dare touch me!”
Even as Logan’s arms fell to his side, something elementally primal flickered in his dark eyes. “Calm down, Victoria.”
“I don’t want to be calm. I don’t want to be reasonable. You made a fool of me, Logan Youngblood! And.and you had no right to. to make love to me without me knowing who you really were. That was vastly unprincipled of you. So.so even if you aren’t a robber or a murderer, you most certainly are no gentleman, either!”
“I didn’t mean to make love to you,” he growled bleakly.
Victoria felt as if she’d been dropped into an icy river. “That’s a despicable thing to say.”
“It’s the truth, and from here on that’s the only thing we’re going to have between us—the truth.”
“Are you saying that I seduced you?” she demanded angrily.
“Of course not. I had to work like hell to get you to take your clothes off at the hot springs. Luckily for me, you happen to be a woman who can’t resist a bath.”
His sarcasm brought a hot flush to her cheeks. “Then how can you stand there and brazenly state you didn’t intend to make love to me?”
“I only meant to warm you up, honey.” He strode forward and swept her into his embrace before she could stop him. “I knew that when we finally reached Trinity Falls, you would likely be upset, and I decided I needed an edge that would help me. tame you.”
Victoria’s spine became rigid. She knew intuitively that she wasn’t going to like Logan’s explanation, but she was morbidly curious to discover the dark workings of his masculine mind.
“So you made love to me in the mountains in order to. tame me?” It was all she could do to get the reprehensible words past her stiff lips.
“I made love to you because there was no way I could feel your soft, naked body against me without being inside you.”
His potent words brought with them the recollection of how it had felt to feel herself pressed against Logan’s hot, muscular flesh. Victoria quivered at the sweet, sensual memory.
“I wanted to make you feel connected to me, Victoria,” he went on to say, his voice a husky rasp. “I wanted to caress you, to stroke you, to cherish you in ways you’d never experienced. I wanted to taste your hard little nipples, and I wanted to touch your wet, trembling he
at and show you how it feels to shatter into a million pieces.
“I wanted you to experience all that and know I was the one who was making it happen. What I hadn’t planned on was how sweetly passionate you would be and how feeling you climax beneath my fingertips would drive me out of mind. I intended to show you how good it could be between us, so that you wouldn’t be able to walk away from me. But I didn’t know that watching your golden little body come apart in my hands would push me over the edge.
“There’s no way I could resist you, even though I knew it was wrong. So I guess, in a way, it was you who ultimately seduced me. And the only thing I regret is that we didn’t have hours instead of minutes to experience that blaze of passion. But, come tonight, I intend to make up for our hurried lovemaking. We’ll have a soft bed, and the whole evening to explore each other, to drive ourselves crazy with desire.”
Victoria sagged in Logan’s arms. She bit her lip and commanded her sinful nature to behave itself. There was no way she would let Logan’s sultry words woo her into another disastrous surrender of the flesh. Surely she had the strength of character to resist his shameless attempt to seduce her.
It didn’t escape her attention that he hadn’t mentioned one particular word, however. Love. Clearly, he suffered from no such noble emotion. It was evident from his justification of the passionate interlude they’d shared that Logan Youngblood’s entire range of sentimental inclinations resided below his belt. While it astonished her that she’d somehow managed to arouse this virile man’s lust, she wasn’t obligated to satisfy it.
As for his talk of marriage, she considered it just that. Talk. It was obvious he wanted two hedonistic weeks of unrestricted lovemaking from her, and then he would probably dismiss her. Good grief, it was possible she was one in a long line of Eastern tutors he’d tricked into coming west so that he could have his wicked way with them.
Slowly Victoria eased herself from Logan’s embrace. “Uh, well, I…”
Say something, you ninny! Something that will get you out of this office and out of this man’s frightening sphere of power.
“Yes, honey?”