Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy)

by Shirl Henke

  He put his head in his hands and leaned his elbows on the kitchen table. “Damned if I know,” he muttered, then said in a hoarse, pained whisper, “Whatever I feel for her, she's made it clear what she feels for me. Every time I touch her she responds—loses herself just like I do. But as soon as it's over she freezes up, as if she hated herself for giving in—and hated me for seeing her weakness. She doesn't want to be my wife. Hell, she doesn't want to be a woman!”

  “Partly you're right—she is afraid of being a woman and a wife.”

  Lee flashed her a look of surprise and dismay, but said nothing.

  “Didn't you ever think about why?”

  “She'd rather be out marching with Stella Wolcott or risking her neck for a newspaper story than tending to a home and family,” he replied angrily.

  “Her causes are symptoms of her problem, Lee, not solutions to it. She wants to uplift the downtrodden because she's identified with them all her life. For the first twelve years of her childhood, she was shuttled back and forth between St. Louis and New Orleans. Rafe wasn't around to be a real father to her, and his mistress certainly wasn't a fit mother. She's afraid to show you how much she cares because you, my proud, mule-headed crìollo, have made her feel pretty damned unworthy. Or do I miss my guess?”

  At his dawning look of guilt, she went on, “Throwing her mixed blood and her crusading career at you is her way of protecting herself from more hurt and rejection.”

  Lee's dark brows rose sardonically. “And you think she loves me?” The way he asked the question spoke volumes.

  “Yes, I do,” Charlee replied simply.

  As he rode into town late that evening, Lee mulled over what Charlee had said. He admitted to himself that he'd hidden his real feelings from Melanie. Perhaps, she had done the same. The only way to find out was to confront her. Since Jeremy Lawrence had told him about her latest dangerous escapade, Lee had a legitimate excuse to stop at the boardinghouse and talk with her.

  When he reined in Sangre, it was quite late. The realization struck him that she might already be asleep. But if she were asleep and he awakened her, she just might be disoriented enough to tell him the truth. He headed for the side porch entry to the kitchen, thinking to slip up to her room undetected. Then, he saw the dim light from the study.

  Peering through the lace-curtained window, he saw Obedience and Melanie seated on opposite sides of the desk. They were sipping something from fancy etched crystal glasses. Obedience poured another refill of clear liquid. No, it couldn't be! But it was. Wash's incredibly potent white lightning. How well he remembered his confessions when the Oakleys had plied him with the smooth brew last year. Grinning to himself, he walked to the side door and entered the long dark hall.

  Hearing soft, murmuring voices emanating from the study, he opened the door and looked inside. Obedience sat behind the desk while Melanie leaned limply to one side in an overstuffed chair. His tiny wife looked like an arrestingly innocent waif swallowed up in the large cushions.

  “Can an interloper join the party?” he asked with a smile, letting himself in.

  Obedience's broad face split in a wide grin and she stood up, stretching her Amazonian frame and yawning. “Jist th' feller I wanted ta see. Me ‘n th' leetle gal here been drinkin'—temperately, now mind yew. But I'm plumb tuckered ‘n I'd admire if 'n yew'd see yore wife gits ta sleep all right.” With a wink, she scooted past him and out the door, moving with surprising speed and grace for one of such bulk.

  Melanie sat with her head swimming, only half paying attention to Obedience's lecture about Lee, when the subject of their argument sauntered into the room as if conjured up.

  “Obedience, did you plan thish—this?” Melanie tried to stand and reach out to her hastily departing drinking companion, but the big woman was too quick for her.

  Lee towered over her, surveying her wrinkled blue linen suit and tousled hair. Self-consciously, she ran her fingers through the loose hair, remembering how she had taken it down because the pins had been uncomfortable. Melanie could feel Lee looking at her as he stood, hat pushed casually back on his head, fingers hooked arrogantly in his belt. She refused to meet his glowing eyes.

  “Well, my little Night Flower, looks like you've been dipped in ninety-proof dew,” he whispered, sniffing from the delicate glass she had deposited on the table. “Your petals must be all curled up.”

  She stood in affronted dignity. “I am not crilled—curled up,” she said carefully, angry because her mouth refused to obey her brain.

  “Your tongue sure seems to be,” he said with a small laugh, reaching to steady her as she teetered precariously to the right.

  “Don't touch me, Lee,” she said in a small, plaintive voice.

  He held on to her despite her plea, for the first time not angered by her apparent rejection. “Why not, Night Flower? Don't you like it when I touch you?” he whispered.

  “No—yes—I don't know. I do at first, but afterward it's always the same. You never—” She was babbling!

  When he saw that she had forced herself to stop talking, he drew her closer into his arms and began to rain soft, light kisses across her forehead, temples, eyelids, and cheeks, nuzzling her neck and then gently tipping her chin up so she faced him with lips breathlessly parted. He could feel her body melting into his, her arms stealing around his waist, her mouth expectantly waiting for his kiss.

  “Open those golden eyes, my beautiful little Night Flower. Look at me.” He held her chin, willing her to comply. When the thick dark lashes fluttered unwillingly open, what he saw in her eyes took his breath away. And he knew the same emotion was mirrored in his own.

  Very slowly he lowered his mouth to hers, experimenting, savoring. She tasted sweet and he recognized the faint hot glow of the moonshine. It warmed his tongue as he twined it with hers in a delicate dance of desire.

  “Mellie, oh Mellie, what fools we've both been,” he murmured against her silky hair. She pressed against him like a small soft kitten, purring deeply in her throat, the liquor loosening all her inhibitions. Lee reached down and scooped her up into his arms. “I think it's time Mrs. Velasquez went to bed.” Obediently, she slid her arms around his neck as he carried her from the office and up the long stairs at the end of the hall.

  When he reached her room, he opened the door and carried her inside to the bed, where he deposited her. It was rather small but would serve, he decided as he turned and quickly closed the door, sliding the bolt against any unexpected intrusion.

  Melanie sat on the edge of her bed, watching the movements of his lean, pantherish body avidly, making no attempt to conceal her interest. When she began to unfasten the buttons of her blouse with unsteady fingers, he brushed them aside, saying, “Here, let me.”

  Slowly, Lee unbuttoned the silk blouse, peeling the sheer fabric back to reveal the rich swell of her golden breasts, barely shielded by a lacy camisole. He slipped his fingertips inside and teased the dark rosy crests until they hardened into points. Her breath caught at the tingling pleasure and she gasped, arching into his caress. When he pulled the open jacket and blouse off, she helped him, shrugging them carelessly from her shoulders, languorously baring her flesh for his hands and lips.

  “Raise your legs—one at a time, Mellie,” he commanded as he knelt by the side of the bed and removed her delicate kid slippers and silk stockings. Then, he pulled her up to stand in his arms so he could unfasten her suit skirt and the tapes to her petticoats. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him ardently while his fingers worked deftly until the whole weight of her skirts slithered to the floor.

  Lee stood back and spanned her tiny waist with his hands. “So perfect, so delicate, like a small, golden figurine,” he breathed as he slid his fingers up and unhooked her camisole, freeing her breasts. Lifting one in each hand, he lowered his head and suckled, alternating between them until she cried out her pleasure in a wordless, incoherent moan. Then, he laid her back on the bed to watch him as he stripped.r />
  He seemed to shimmer before her eyes like a bronzed god, lean corded muscles flexing as he shrugged off his shirt and reached to unfasten his trousers. With her eyes, she traced the intricate symmetry of his curly black body hair, longing to feel the crisp, springy texture of it rubbing against her skin. When he kicked off his boots and peeled down fitted buckskin breeches from his long hard legs, she stared unashamedly at the swollen proof of his desire, feeling a quivering response between her legs.

  “Lee,” she breathed softly as he sank down alongside her on the narrow bed. He quickly unfastened her pantalets and pulled them down her sleek little legs. She raised her buttocks and helped him free her of the unwanted encumbrance of clothing. Then, his hand fastened around one delicately slim ankle. He raised it and leaned over to kiss the arch of her foot, trailing soft nibbling kisses along the curve of her calf, over the back of her knees, then up the inside of her thigh.

  His fingers grazed the soft inky curls between her legs. “You're wet and sweet with passion, Night Flower,” he breathed as he lowered his mouth to kiss and caress where his hands had just been. She arched up in frenzied pleasure, her head tossing from side to side in wild abandon. His tongue flicked and teased at the sweet, silky core of her until he could feel the pulsating waves of her orgasm. He raised his head and watched her writhe and quiver in ecstasy, then kissed a scorching trail up her belly to her breasts as he positioned himself between her legs.

  Still in a haze from the aftershock of intense pleasure, Melanie opened to him as he plunged into her with a harsh, rasping cry, betraying the cost of holding back his own release. He stroked frantically for a moment, then gradually regained control of his desperate hunger, slowing his pace to long, languorous caresses. She arched to meet him and her nails dug into his biceps, pulling him down to her eager, open mouth.

  The cool night air was heavy with the heady, dizzying scent of their lovemaking. It intoxicated her even more than Obedience's liquor had. Melanie felt him tense and shiver with the aching need to spill his seed. Crying out his name from deep in her throat, she kissed him fiercely and tightened her legs around his hips for a last hard, long explosion. Again, again. She never knew if she spoke the words aloud or not; but she could feel his swelling, pulsing climax as he joined her in surfeit, collapsing on top of her soft, small body.

  They clung to each other in the quiet of the night, sweat-soaked and panting. Finally, he rolled his greater weight from her and pulled her to curl against his side. She sighed and fell instantly asleep. For a long while he watched her in the moon-drenched silence of the small room before drifting off himself.

  When the bright rays of autumn sunlight filtered across the bed, Lee opened his eyes and blinked. It was well past dawn. Raising himself up carefully on one elbow, he looked down at her small, beautiful face, so serene and youthful in repose. Quickly, he thought of the headache she'd have upon arising. Perhaps, explanations were better left until after this mess was settled with Walkman and Blaine. Still, he couldn't just leave her without a word. Softly he kissed her eyelids, cheeks, lips, feathering light kisses across her face until she opened her eyes.

  Melanie looked up at her husband's smiling face, darkened by a bristling shadow of beard. ‘‘You look like a bandit,” she said. Her voice surprised her with its raspy edge. Then, when she turned her head and tried to rise, she plopped abruptly back down. “Ooh! God, what was in that stuff! Stella Wolcott is right! I'll never again drink anything stronger than coffee!”

  She could feel the bed rock from his laughter, and it added to her aching misery. Melanie struggled to remember what had happened last night after the first two drinks of that wicked brew Obedience fed her. She had a shadowy recollection of Lee's arrival and Obedience's abrupt departure. After that, he had spoken to her in the office and she had told him—what? Gingerly, she rubbed her aching head, but could not remember. She did remember their wildly abandoned loving, his tenderness. Something more niggled at the periphery of her consciousness, but she could not dredge it up. Then she felt his fingertips graze her cheek and turn her chin so that she was forced to look into his eyes.

  “Mellie, last night I learned some things,” he began hesitantly, uncertain of how to phrase what he wanted to say. Seeing the wary, withdrawing expression that began to shutter her eyes, he leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Don't pull away from me again. I know now—”

  Just then a sharp knock sounded on the door. Swearing under his breath, Lee tossed back the covers and reached over to the crumpled heap of his buckskin breeches, which had been tossed in a corner. The whole room was strewn with their hastily discarded clothing. As he donned his pants, the rap sounded again. Barefoot and bare-chested, he strode across the room and slid the bolt on the door. He was greeted by the grim face of Jeremy Lawrence.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Lee demanded furiously as he noted the tall ranger's eyes traveling past him to the bed where Melanie sat with the covers pulled up to her neck.

  Lawrence shifted his gaze quickly back to the scowling, furious man in front of him. “I figured you'd be here since you said you were coming to town when I left you at Bluebonnet yesterday afternoon. One of my scouts just came to get me. Seems he spotted Zeb Brocker and a couple of Gall's braves creeping around your herd. He thinks they might hit tonight. We need to get the men lined up and alert Slade.”

  “I’ll be right down. You ride to get Jim. I'll head for Night Flower and check with my men to see what they know.” Lee quickly closed the door as Lawrence turned and departed. Looking at Melanie's wide-eyed fright and confusion, he cursed the rotten turn of events. They had laid out the bait for Walkman and had waited for weeks. Of all the miserable timing—now the bastard comes after it!

  “Jeremy told me you were working together to catch Blaine and Walkman, but he wouldn't say anything specific. What's going on, Lee?” She leaped from the bed, ignoring her usual modesty and the pounding in her head. Walking over to a small chest, she opened a drawer and began to pull out some lacy underwear.

  “You're staying here,” he said flatly, ignoring her question as he pulled on shirt and boots. His face bore a hard, shuttered look that she recognized immediately.

  “Why should I? I've been waiting for this story for weeks,” she replied angrily as she slid her riding skirt on and reached for a blouse.

  “You are staying here, Mellie, because I'm your husband and I say so. It's going to be dangerous and no reporter—male or female—is going to get in the way before the trap is sprung,” he added, struggling for patience.

  “I could at least wait at the ranch,” Melanie retorted.

  He reached over and whirled her around, holding her tightly by her shoulders. “You stay here.” He bit off each word.

  “What will you do if I refuse, Lee? Lock me in a closet?”

  He gritted his teeth in fury. “I'm considering it. What do you think you can do—shoot Comanches?”

  “I don't want to shoot anyone. I just want to get the story.” I want to be with you and see that you're safe, she suddenly realized.

  Lee was already out the door, calling over his shoulder, “Stay in town. Moses French has retired!”

  “The hell you say,” she muttered under her breath. Did he really want her to stay here out of concern for her safety? Or did he just want her out of the way, not complicating his life now that their lovemaking idyll of last night had ended? If only Jeremy hadn't interrupted. She knew Lee had been about to say something revealing to her. But what?

  Pushing aside her brooding, confused thoughts, she finished dressing and raced down to the stables to get Liberator.

  Gradually, Melanie calmed down and began to think more logically about a plan of action. Jeremy hadn't said where the herd that they were using as bait was located. Night Flower was an enormous ranch. She could ride around for hours and not find the right spot, or worse yet, blunder onto the Comanche and get herself killed or captured. Now that Lee was gone, she was left
with a cold trail.

  But Jeremy had gone to Bluebonnet to warn Jim. Maybe Charlee knew something! At least it was a lead. As she rode briskly through the deserted streets in the early morning light, Melanie did not know the cold gray eyes of Seth Walkman watched her from behind the window of his hotel room. “Where the hell is that little bitch going this time of the morning?” he muttered to himself as he stretched and scratched his bare chest. Too bad she wouldn't be at her husband's ranch tonight. Gall would enjoy her. He chuckled mirthlessly to himself as he dressed.

  * * * *

  Jarvis Phelps was nervous. He fidgeted with his glasses, polishing and repolishing them as he watched Laban Greer go through the deeds—those very same land titles that shameless female reporter had asked to see yesterday. Should he tell Mr. Greer or not? Phelps was afraid to meddle in the powerful speculator's business. He was also smart enough to figure that the business wasn't altogether legal, but that was not his affair. Still, he didn't like meddlesome females, especially ones who were Indian lovers and temperance crusaders to boot.

  “Er, Mr. Greer.” Phelps cleared his throat uncertainly. “There's something I think you might want to know....”

  Within five minutes Greer had located Seth Walkman at the Golden Nugget Saloon, hunched over a breakfast of greasy fried potatoes and silty black coffee. Looking around to see if they were observed, he noted with satisfaction that the fat old Mexican cook had returned to the kitchen out back and the Irish bartender was more interested in swatting flies with his dish towel than in drying the glasses from last night's business.

  “What you want at this piss-ass hour?” Walkman snarled, knowing whatever it was that brought Laban Greer to town this early could bode no good for either of them.

  “That damnable female reporter, Melanie Velasquez, has been snooping around the land office, asking to see the title transfers for Ryan's and Broughton's places, among others that I've acquired in the past several years,” Greer said levelly.