The woman beneath him gasped. Her hands clutched his head, but only to hold him closer. Someone moaned. He wasn’t sure who, and didn’t care.
He trailed hot, wet kisses up her chest and neck, along her jaw, and settled his mouth on eagerly parted lips. He eased his tongue in. She pulled hers away shyly. When he retreated, she didn’t follow.
Through the fog of lust in his brain, Matt realized that her body knew all the right moves, her hands knew to touch that place on his neck and drive him wild, but her mouth was inexperienced. He cupped her breast and opened his eyes a fraction, peering through his lashes, awake now, trying to discern just who this enchanting creature was.
Her eyes were closed. He kissed her again, teasing with his tongue. He was so close to her that her features were a blur. There was nothing he could even focus on except for her temple, where a white streak—
Jesus God Almighty!
Matt jerked away, his whole body rigid with shock, his gut churning in horror at what he’d nearly done.
Serena whimpered in protest at the sudden loss of the warm hand on her breast and the moist, hungry lips on hers. In that hazy, dreamlike state halfway between sleep and wakefulness, she groped blindly for her mysterious dream lover.
“No!”
The harsh voice startled her awake. She blinked at Matt in confusion. Comprehension came quickly. She bit back a sob. She’d never seen such a look of revulsion on a man’s face in her life. He looked like he was going to be sick, and she felt like it. “Matt…I—”
“No! Rena, don’t say anything. I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know…I was asleep, and—”
“It’s all right.” Serena lowered her eyelids to hide the sudden gathering of tears. She rolled away from him and sat up, hugging herself against a sudden chill. “I…that is, you were so cold…last night. You couldn’t stop shivering. I had to warm you. I guess I…fell asleep.”
“Damn, Rena.” Matt clenched his eyes shut to block out the sight of her thick black curls tumbling around her shoulders in disarray and the look of pain and betrayal on her face. “You should have let me freeze,” he said harshly.
“It’s all right, Matt. Just forget about it. Nothing happened.”
“Nothing happened?” he laughed harshly. “Nothing happened. I just damned near raped my own sister.”
Serena reached out a hand to touch him. “Oh, Matt—”
“No! Don’t touch me!”
Serena didn’t know whether to laugh or cry over the irony of a thirty-year-old man begging a nineteen-year-old virgin not to touch him.
“Listen to me.” She took a deep breath to calm her rapid pulse. It didn’t help. “I said it once in anger, I’ll say it again, this time calmly and with no malice.” The directness of her gaze prevented him from looking away. “I am not your sister.”
Things were never the same between them after that. Matt retreated to some private corner of his mind and would have nothing to do with her. If she was in the house, he went outside. When she went out, he came back in. He spent nearly all his time either stumping his way through the hills alone or feigning sleep indoors.
One night at supper, Serena handed him his plate and their fingers accidentally touched. Matt jerked away as if he’d been burned. The tin plate hit the floor; food scattered everywhere. Matt stared blankly at the mess while Serena choked back tears of frustration and cleaned up the mess. She refilled his plate and slammed it down on the table before him, nearly spilling the food again.
Neither said so much as a single word.
Serena had her own problems to contend with. Before that accursed storm hit, her longing for Matt had been a longing of the heart and soul. But since that night another more disturbing longing had awakened. The longing of the flesh.
Not an hour went by that she didn’t recall the feel of his hands on her body, the long, hard length of him pressed against her, his lips teasing her breasts and mouth, the pressure of his hot, hard arousal against her thigh. And every time she saw him or thought of him, the juices of her body flowed to that secret, dark place between her legs and set up a throbbing like she’d never known before. Her nipples puckered and her lips tingled.
And he acted like he wished a hole would open up in the ground and swallow one of them—probably her.
Why did her mother have to marry Travis Colton? Why did Travis have to adopt her and Pace? Why did she and Matt have to be raised as brother and sister when she wanted something else entirely?
Foolish questions, she scolded to herself. Foolish questions from a foolish heart. But she couldn’t stop her heart from wanting him. She didn’t even know how to try.
“What are you doing with that?”
The sound of Matt’s voice startled her, nearly making her drop the razor. It was the first time he’d spoken to her except in answer to a direct question in days.
“I’m going to shave you.”
“I’m growing a beard.”
“So I noticed. You’re starting to look like a derelict again.”
She approached the bed where he lay and knelt beside him. The shaving brush rattled in the mug as she whipped up a lather. A few moments later, she reached toward his face with the razor. That she was slightly unsteady was an understatement. Matt grabbed her wrist and stared at her trembling fingers. She was shaking every bit as badly as he had been in the beginning.
“I was drunk for the past year. What’s your excuse?”
Serena stared at the long blunt fingers next to her smaller, tapered ones and didn’t answer.
“You’re terrified of me, aren’t you?”
She jerked her head up and stared at him in surprise. Or shock. “Of course not. Why should I be?”
“I think we both know the answer to that.”
“Oh, come off it, Matt.” She yanked her hand free. “So you kissed me. Big deal.”
“I did a damn sight more than that, or don’t you remember?”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “I remember.” She looked at him again. “What I’d like to know is who you blame the most, yourself or me?”
He sat up abruptly. “I don’t blame you for any of it.”
“Then why have you been treating me like I’ve got the plague?” she cried, her anger matching his. “I don’t bite, I won’t contaminate you, and I promise I’ll try real hard not to attack you.”
“You’re angry.”
“No kidding.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Would you stop apologizing?” she shrieked. “You were half asleep and you felt a nearly naked woman pressed up against you. It was a perfectly normal reaction.”
“Not when the woman is your— Not when she’s someone you’ve always thought of as your sister.”
“And not when you still think of her as a little girl, right? Well let me set the record straight.” She slammed down the razor and wiped her hands on a towel, then looked him in the eye. “That was no little girl in bed with you the other night. Since you don’t seem to have noticed, I happen to be a woman, not a child. I stopped thinking of you as my brother when I was eight years old.”
She got up and rummaged through her carpetbag. “And further more,” she said, pulling out a small mirror on a stand and crossing back to his side, “I liked what happened between us the other night.” She dropped the mirror in his lap, tossed her head defiantly, and marched out the door.
Let him think about that for a while. She stomped off to the brush corral, kicking dirt with every step until her moccasined toe connected with a rock by mistake.
Cursing under her breath, she picked up a piece of burlap and started rubbing down Matt’s horse. Gradually, her anger drained away to be replaced by sadness. She’d always known she’d never have Matt. She’d had more of him, felt closer to him these last days than she’d ever dared hope. She should be willing to settle for that. It should be enough.
But it wasn’t. It wasn’t nearly enough.
He’d been miserable when she fou
nd him. Then, for a while, he’d seemed carefree and happy. Now he was miserable again, and this time it was her fault. She should never have crawled under that blanket with him. To him, pneumonia would have been preferable to his present feelings of self-loathing and guilt.
She finished grooming the gelding, then gave him, the chickens, and the goat fresh water. After searching for eggs and finding none, she finally headed back to the house. A sad little chuckle escaped her. She couldn’t decide who she felt sorrier for, Matt or herself.
When she stepped around the corner of the house, she came to an abrupt halt. Matt was outside, leaning against the adobe wall, a crutch tucked up negligently under each arm. But it was a different Matt from the one she’d been seeing lately.
Spitshined. That was the word that came to mind. And gorgeous. He wore a clean shirt tucked into dust-free trousers. Where had he come up with a clean shirt? The bear claw necklace teased from the open vee of his collar. He wore a boot on one foot and a sock—a clean sock—on the other. His hair was neatly combed and damp around the edges, and he’d shaved.
And he looked so damned good. She leaned toward him, but her feet stayed glued to the spot. What could she say to him after that last parting shot? What was he thinking?
Matt pulled slowly from the wall and crutched his way toward her. He stopped a few feet away, his dark, troubled gaze locked with hers.
The silence—or what passed for silence, considering the horse, the goat, a dozen cackling hens and countless birds—was broken by the jingle of a harness and a feminine voice calling out, “Hello, the house!” Kali’s voice.
Matt closed his eyes briefly in frustration, then scowled when he saw Kali wasn’t alone. Next to her on the padded leather seat of the shiny black buggy sat the man called Caleb.
Kali pulled the buggy to a halt beside the house and called out, “Thought you two might be getting bored out here, so we decided to visit.” She secured the reins and, without waiting for Caleb’s help, climbed down from the buggy.
With her hands on her hips, Kali watched Matt and Serena approach. “Well, you look like a new man, Matthew.”
“Why, thank you kindly, ma’am,” Matt drawled with exaggeration. “You look pretty nice, yourself, if I may be so bold.” He swept a crutch out before him with a flourish.
“You, sir,” she purred, flicking a long elegant finger against his nose, “may be as bold as you please.”
Serena gritted her teeth and swallowed painfully. Was this why Matt couldn’t see her as a woman? Was his mind already centered on Kali? And was Matt the first brother Kali had mentioned, the one she knew better than she should?
No wonder Matt couldn’t take his eyes off the woman. She was stunning. The yellow satin dress draped over her hourglass figure breathed coolness on this hot morning. Silk daisies trimmed the low, scooped neckline and framed the upper half of her breasts in open invitation. Her auburn hair was curled artfully atop her head, crowned with a frilly yellow hat bearing more silk daisies.
She wore powder and rouge on her face. Her brows and lashes, above laughing black eyes, were artificially darkened, but on Kali, the look was glamorous rather than cheap.
Serena cringed inwardly, comparing her own appearance to Kali’s and coming up severely short. She had on one of Pace’s old white shirts with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her drab gray skirt was covered with dirt and horse hair. Her hair hung loose down her back and over her shoulders. She definitely felt dowdy.
But she’d be darned if she’d act like it. She nodded to Kali, then stepped past the woman and extended her hand. “Caleb,” she said with a warm smile. “What a pleasant surprise. How nice to see you again.”
Serena watched Caleb kiss her hand and missed Matt’s scowl, but Kali saw it and smiled to herself. That was definitely not brotherly concern she saw in his eyes.
“I hope you two haven’t eaten yet,” she said, digging around beneath the buggy seat and piling items into Caleb’s arms. “We’ve brought a picnic.”
They spread a quilt beneath the outstretched limbs of the Arizona white oak a dozen yards from the house. Kali emptied the baskets of fried chicken, potato salad, corn on the cob, freshly baked bread, juicy dill pickles, hard-boiled eggs, cherry pie, apple pie, and china, silver and crystal. She even brought two bottles of wine.
Throughout the meal, Kali had a hard time controlling the urge to laugh. Caleb couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off Serena, or his hands, either, for that matter. Every time he brushed against the girl accidentally or touched her on purpose, Matt’s scowl grew more fierce. Kali half expected him to leap up any minute and throttle poor Caleb.
Since no one else seemed to have anything to say, Kali kept up a running monologue to fill the silence. She paid particular attention to the fact that Serena and Matt refused to even acknowledge each other’s presence.
Kali filled Matt and Serena in on everything that had happened in town and abroad. On July 2 some attorney in Washington named Guiteau shot President Garfield, but the president had survived—for now.
“Closer to home,” she said, “I guess you’ve heard about the Indian raids.”
“What raids?” Matt and Serena demanded.
Ah ha, Kali thought. Now she had their attention. “That old renegade, Nana, is at it again, terrorizing everybody for five hundred miles. Why, in the last two weeks alone he’s stolen over a hundred horses.”
“How many men ride with him?” Matt asked sharply.
Kali grimaced. “I knew you’d ask that.” She heaved a sigh. “No more than a handful. A dozen at most.”
“Well, then,” Caleb said. “Why hasn’t the army put a stop to it?”
Serena’s lips twitched. “I imagine they’ve tried. How many troops are after him?” she asked Kali.
Kali heaved another sigh. It was embarrassing. Downright embarrassing. “Around a thousand.”
Matt hooted.
Serena flashed a glare his way. “It’s not funny. It will only cause more trouble at the reservation.”
“You’re not kidding,” Kali told them. “The way I hear it, the army’s afraid Nana will ride in and break all the Chiricahua out of San Carlos. They’ve sent in hundreds of extra troops.”
“Yes,” Serena said. “And that’s got The People stirred up.”
“How bad?” Matt asked.
“Bad enough that they’ve started listening to an old White Mountain shaman called Nocadelklinny, who says he can raise enough dead warriors from the grave to rid the world of all white men.”
Matt pursed his lips and whistled.
Serena leaned toward him. “Maybe when you’re well you could find Nana, talk some sense into him. If he backs off, maybe the army will, too.”
Matt snorted. “I doubt it. Besides, that old war horse would just as soon skewer me as look at me. I’d do more good at San Carlos.”
“You’re right. He never did like you.” Serena frowned. “Maybe Pace and I could get him to—”
“No!” Matt cried. “Absolutely not. You go anywhere near Nana and his renegades, girl, and I’ll tan your hide.”
“You and what army, buster?”
Matt made as if to rise.
Kali bit back a grin and put a hand on Matt’s chest. “Now, children, no squabbling. It’s much too nice a day. Besides, poor Caleb hasn’t got a clue to what you’re talking about.”
To forestall further argument, Kali dished out more potato salad and changed the subject. With a combination of relish and horror—she still didn’t know how she felt about it—she told them about Tombstone’s Independence Day celebration. When she mentioned the holiday, Matt and Serena both looked blank. It was plain to Kali neither had realized the date had come and gone. She was sure they weren’t even listening when she told them about the town’s historical first hanging in the afternoon and the spectacular fireworks that night.
“The next day,” Kali said, “Doc Holliday got himself arrested and tried for killing that stage driver, Kinnear, duri
ng the holdup last March. Doc’s…ahem, wife, Big Nosed Kate Elder, testified Doc had bragged about the holdup and the shooting. Doc swore he’d been playing cards over in Charleston that day, and Wyatt Earp backed him up. Doc was acquitted.”
The others only half-listened to her, but Kali didn’t care. “Just the other day, Kate got soused—again—and Virgil Earp arrested her. She had to pay a twelve dollar and fifty-cent fine for drunken and disorderly conduct. Served the old biddy right, turning on Doc the way she did. She left town they day after Virgil turned her loose. Good riddance, I say.”
Everyone was so preoccupied with private thoughts—Matt trying not to look at Serena, Serena trying not to look at Matt, and Caleb trying not to take his eyes off Serena—that Kali was able to orchestrate the entire afternoon like a symphony conductor leading a Sunday concert. Before anyone realized how it had happened, Caleb and Serena were off for a walk in the hills and Kali and Matt were left alone.
“He’s a nice looking man, don’t you think?” Kali asked innocently, staring after the departing couple.
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, take it from a woman who appreciates a nice looking man—he is.
“If you say so.” With each passing moment, the crease between Matt’s eyes grew deeper.
“He seems respectable enough, and I understand he’s got some money. Serena could do a lot worse for herself.”
Matt’s eyebrows nearly touched his hairline, he had them raised so high.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Kali cried. “She’s well past marriageable age, you know. You can’t expect her to remain your little sister forever.”
Another furrow appeared in his brow.
“And it’s plain as the nose on your face that Caleb adores her,” Kali went on relentlessly.
Matt lowered his gaze, afraid to let Kali see how her words troubled him. What the hell was taking those two so long anyway? What was so fascinating about the damned hills? What were they doing that they couldn’t do right there in front of him?
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