A Lady of the West

by Linda Howard

  “How can you tell?”

  He wasn’t about to get into one of those discussions with her, so he tousled her hair and said, “Practice. There were always a lot of cats around when Ben and I were young.”

  “Show me how to tell.”

  Victoria was watching with glee, waiting to see how he got out of that. Luis had turned his head to hide his grin.

  “You’d need a male and a female side by side, so I could show you the difference.”

  “I suppose.” She sighed with disappointment. “At least now we know to name it a male name.”

  “Call it Tom,” he suggested. “That’s a name, and it’s a tomcat, so it fits.”

  “Tom.” After a minute’s deliberation she nodded, and returned the kitten to its saucer of milk.

  Jake held out his hand, and Victoria placed hers in it for him to draw her to her feet. He guided her inside with his hand on the small of her back.

  When they were out of earshot, she asked, “Can we trust Luis with Celia?”

  “As much as anyone. She’s too beautiful to expect the young bucks not to notice her, but he won’t force himself on her, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “It is, I suppose. It’s just that she’s so innocent. I don’t want something awful to happen to her.”

  His green eyes gleamed. “Awful?” he asked in a deep voice.

  Victoria blinked at him, realizing abruptly that he was escorting her up the stairs. She blushed hotly. “What are you doing?” she demanded in a fierce whisper.

  “Taking you to bed.”

  “Jake, it’s the middle of the day!”

  “I know. What about it?”

  “Everyone will know what we’re doing.”

  “Do you think they don’t know what we’re doing when we go to bed every night?”

  “People go to sleep at night. It’s obvious we wouldn’t be sleeping if we went to bed now!”

  The pressure of his hand was inexorable. “We’re married. It’s legal.” He was determined to break through her defenses, one way or another. He didn’t know why, but she kept building barriers between them. When he came back to the ranch house every night, he always found an invisible wall between them, locking him out of her thoughts. Every night he would smash it down, but she would busily rebuild it during the day. He had come back to the house specifically to make love to her now, to see if he could destroy the barrier once and for all. He wanted all of her, every little bit of her, with the greediness of someone dying of thirst; he felt as if he’d been given a glass of water but told he could drink only half of it.

  He locked them in the bedroom and stripped both her and himself. As he placed her on the bed, he saw the despair in her eyes. Despair filled his own heart. Why did she feel she had to resist him? Then she closed her eyes and twined her arms around his neck. For him, as well as for her, the why ceased to matter.

  They came together in a rush of heated flesh, straining toward each other, already desperate with passion. The rest of the world was shut out during their lovemaking, but afterward, when she was trying to sort out her clothes, he saw the reserve in her eyes and knew he had failed.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Long after Jake had returned to work, he remained lost in thought. Victoria was his wife, but he couldn’t say that she belonged to him. The knowledge ate at him. What was it that caused her to keep him that small, careful distance from her? Did she regret their marriage?

  Her inner reserve hid secrets from him; he could sense their presence, even though he couldn’t get inside her mind and read them. She was hiding something from him, and he was at a loss to know what it was. For the first time in his life a woman had gotten inside his emotional walls, stinging him to resentment by making him vulnerable, and doubling the resentment because he couldn’t get to her as she had gotten to him. What was it? What was she hiding? Was it something about her marriage to the Major? Was there some lingering evidence of what he had done to her? It wasn’t something she had done, he didn’t think, but rather something that had happened to her.

  The possibilities made him go cold. He was afraid to even ask her what was wrong, afraid he wouldn’t be able to bear the answer. Every time he thought of her in the Major’s bed he was filled with a bitter anger. He hadn’t been able to bear seeing McLain’s personal possessions and he’d had them all thrown out, but he couldn’t throw out McLain’s wife. She was his wife now—or was she? Was part of her mind still caught in a dark pit of memories? Was it more than that, something she couldn’t deny or ignore?

  There had been real fear in her eyes the first time he’d made love to her, but he brushed it aside thinking it was merely a result of the situation. He’d thought he’d won when she turned all sweet and hot in his arms. Surely she knew by now she had nothing to fear from him?

  But it wasn’t fear of him. It was something else, something that tormented her, and instead of coming to him for comfort she was locking it inside. Maybe she thought he wouldn’t understand, maybe she thought he would blame her for whatever it was.

  What had the Major done to her?

  If he pushed her, she simply withdrew further. He had to teach her to trust him, and the only way to do that was to show her over and over how much he wanted her. As their intimacy deepened, so would her trust, and one day he would breach that wall in her mind. Whatever it was, he thought, he’d hold her and keep her safe and love her again. It wouldn’t matter what it was, as long as he knew. He could fight dragons for her, but not ghosts.

  Emma spent much of her time during those quiet summer days out riding. Their hasty flight had shown her how necessary it was to be in good physical shape in this country. Victoria rode out with her most days, and sometimes Celia would join them. On this particular day, however, she’d gone out alone because Celia had been off somewhere with her kitten and Victoria had been writing a difficult letter to her parents, informing them of McLain’s death and her subsequent remarriage. They would be profoundly shocked no matter how she told them and she had been wrestling with it all morning.

  Emma unsaddled her gelding. When she turned around to sling the saddle over the fence, she collided with a hard wall of flesh. She said, “Uummph!” and staggered back under the impact. Ben’s hands shot out to break her fall. He steadied her, his hazel eyes intent as he looked her over. She was acutely aware of how disheveled she was; her hair was straggling down, she had gotten dirt on her white shirtwaist, and she suspected her face was dusty. A flush of embarrassment burned her cheeks.

  Ben took the saddle from her hands and placed it on the rail. He took his time about it. She was usually so starched, but today she looked wonderfully tousled with her hair curling damply about her face. When he turned back to her she was still standing with her arms limp at her side, but now her face was tense. She felt it, too; he wished she didn’t, because a one-sided attraction was much easier to resist than one that was mutual.

  “Were you riding alone?” he finally asked, needing to break the silence between them.

  She nodded. “I couldn’t find Celia, and Victoria was busy.”

  “I don’t like it. Don’t do it again.”

  Another flush heated Emma’s face, but this one was from anger. “You don’t have the right to tell me what to do.”

  His brows drew together and he took a step closer.

  “Don’t fight me,” he said softly. “I said that for a reason. It’s too dangerous for a woman alone, even when you’re on our land.”

  She bit her lip, wishing her reactions weren’t so swift and so close to the surface with him. “You’re right, of course. I don’t know why I snapped at you.”

  “Now you’re lying, because we both know why.” He reached out and trailed his finger across her collar bone, the light, delicate touch making both of them shudder. “You can always change your mind, you know.”

  She swallowed, her pale throat working. “And then what?”

  “Then we can stop avoiding each other. We have a
n itch we need to scratch because it isn’t going to go away until we do. Then we can sleep at night, instead of lying awake.”

  Emma whirled, turning her back to him. “Thank you very much,” she said in a stifled tone. “I don’t think I should waste my time on a man who thinks I’m no more important than a mosquito bite.”

  Ben put his hands on her waist and carefully drew her back until she was pressed against him, fitting her bottom into the cradle of his thighs. He rubbed his hips against her in a slow, circular rhythm. “I’ve never wanted to do this to a mosquito,” he murmured, and bent his head to kiss the side of her neck.

  She shuddered, and her head fell back against his shoulder. Her hands reached back convulsively and clamped on his thighs. His hot mouth raised chills wherever it touched, chills that raced over her and caused her lower body to quicken. “Oh, God,” she whispered in despair. How could it be like this?

  Ben smoothed his hands up her front until they closed over her breasts. He groaned aloud feeling the way they filled his palms. He wanted her naked, he wanted to lie naked with her. His hands were almost rough as he turned her around, his mouth hard and hungry as it closed over hers. Emma arched into his embrace, her arms twining around his neck. She was burning up, and the only thing that could give her ease was his bare skin against hers. She was wanton and knew she should be ashamed, but she wasn’t.

  Ben dragged his mouth from hers and pressed it to her eyelids, cheeks, and mouth with quick, hard, desperate kisses. “Lie down with me,” he coaxed in a ragged voice. “I need you bad, Emma girl.”

  She could barely think. She was dizzy, clinging to his broad shoulders because her legs felt so wobbly. Lie down with him. She wanted to, she needed to …

  “Where?” she asked. Dimly she noticed that her voice sounded as drugged as she felt.

  Ben shuddered, and he actually took a step to push her toward an empty stall before he realized he couldn’t just tumble her in the hay, right here and now. It was broad daylight. Men were constantly coming and going in the barn; it was a miracle that someone hadn’t already interrupted them. He sure as hell didn’t want some cowhand gaping at Emma’s smooth white body. She was his, and no one else was going to see her.

  It took every ounce of his control to drag his hands away from her breasts and cup them around her face. He kissed her again, fiercely. “Come to my room tonight,” he said.

  Her big brown eyes were dazed, and she licked her lips as if tasting him. Anguish stole into her gaze, along with reality. “I can’t,” she whispered.

  He ground his teeth together. She had to leave this second, or he’d forget what few good intentions he had. While he still could, he released her and sent her on her way with a small push. She went without looking back, stumbling a little as if her legs didn’t work right. Ben leaned his head against the top rail of the stall, breathing hard. It was five minutes before he straightened and left the barn, his face taut and pale.

  In the loft Celia rolled over onto her back and stared at the dust motes floating above her head. Her eyes were both troubled and curious. Ben had been doing some bad things to Emma, but she hadn’t seemed to mind. He’d done the sort of things that Victoria had warned Celia that Garnet and the Major wanted to do to her, thinking of them touching her like that made her feel sick to her stomach. But watching Ben do them to Emma hadn’t made her sick; she had felt funny, sort of shaky and excited. Emma hadn’t looked sick, either.

  Maybe those things were bad only when bad people did them. She felt confused, but was also aware of a calm certainty growing in her. What she had just seen hadn’t been wrong. It was new and a bit frightening, but not wrong.

  The kitten pounced on her stomach, and absently Celia rubbed its little body. She lay in the dusty loft, staring at the sunbeams, and took the first step into womanhood.

  Luis found her late that afternoon over a mile from the house, sitting under a tree and teasing the kitten with a leaf. She looked up and smiled when he rode up, but didn’t speak. He swung down from the horse and let the reins trail on the ground. “Your sister is looking for you,” he said, sitting down beside her. “Why did you walk so far?”

  “I didn’t intend to. I was thinking and ended up here. But it’s pretty and peaceful here, don’t you think?”

  Luis studied the endless land around them; it housed so many dangers he never thought of it as peaceful. It was wild, big, but never peaceful. At this moment, however, it was empty and clear of any visible dangers, so he said, “Yes.”

  Celia lifted the leaf over the kitten’s head. It reared up and batted with its tiny paws. She seemed content just to sit and play with the kitten.

  Luis said, “We need to go back.”

  She sighed. “I suppose so.” But she didn’t get up. She hesitated. “If I—Luis, will you tell me something?”

  “If I can, chica.”

  She turned her head and looked at him. Her face was pale, her dark blue eyes grave. “What men do to women—is it always bad?”

  At her words he felt breathless, as if someone had hit him in the stomach. He didn’t want to talk about this with her. She was so beautiful. Until now her youth had protected her from him; he had thought of her essentially as a child, despite the ripe swelling of her body. The look in her eyes now, however, was not that of a child.

  He inhaled, long and deep. “No,” he murmured. “It’s bad only if the woman doesn’t want to do it, if the man forces her. If they’re in love, then it’s a beautiful, loving thing for them to do.”

  She nodded and turned her attention back to the kitten. It rolled onto its back, grabbing at the leaf with all four feet.

  “And it makes babies,” she said.

  “Yes. Sometimes. Not every time.”

  “I’ve been afraid of it, afraid someone—a man—would try to do that to me. Garnet wanted to, and so did the Major. They tried to catch me alone, and the thought of them touching me made me sick.” It was easier talking to him if she kept her eyes on the kitten. But she could feel his attention on her; it was like the intensity of sunshine. “I thought it was bad. But it was bad only because of them, wasn’t it? It isn’t bad by itself.”

  “That’s right.” His voice was very grave and gentle. “It’s people who make it bad. It’s like this gun I wear. By itself it’s nothing. But when someone holds it, it can be good, it can protect, it can feed—or it can murder. What it does depends on the person who holds it.”

  The kitten had tired of the leaf and spied Luis’s spurs. Flattening itself on its belly, it crept forward in a slow, comical stalking motion. When it was close enough it pounced, batting at the star and making it twirl.

  “I don’t know anything about men, about their bodies. It seems frightening because I don’t know exactly what they look like, or how they do it.”

  Luis concentrated very hard on the kitten. He knew what she was going to say before she said it, but he prayed that she wouldn’t, because he didn’t know what he would do if she did—

  “May I see you, please?” she whispered. “I want to know. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

  His heart stopped, and he closed his eyes. “Chica, no.”

  “Why?” Then abruptly her face flushed and she turned away. “I thought—because we’re friends—but it’s bad, isn’t it? What I asked of you.”

  “No, not bad,” he croaked. He, who was always at ease with women, who always knew the right thing to say and how to touch them, was at a loss and shaking with tension. “It’s just—chica, this thing that men and women do, this lovemaking—I would like to do it with you. You’re very beautiful and sweet, and I want you very much. But you should learn these things with someone you love, not with—”

  “But I want it to be you, Luis,” she said softly. “You’re beautiful, too, and you make me feel safe, and warm inside. I want to see you, and touch you, and learn how you’re made.”

  He was simultaneously numb and in pain. She wasn’t asking for sex, only for knowledge. She w
anted to examine his body. He didn’t know how he could say no, when he thought he would die for the pleasure of her hand on him.

  He slowly unbuckled his gunbelt. The kitten played around his boots, but he no longer noticed it. Celia moved closer, until she was on her knees beside him. The afternoon sunlight dappled her face and hair, washing her in a golden light. He could barely breathe. Dimly he noticed that she was breathing in soft pants, too.

  He unbuckled his other belt and began unfastening his pants. He didn’t wear a full union suit, preferring two separate pieces so he could remove the top during the summer when it got hot. He thought of all the times he’d so casually undressed in front of a woman. This time his heart was pounding as he peeled his garments off his hips and down to his thighs.

  A slight breeze wafted over his naked flesh. Celia’s lips parted and an expression of wonder lit her face. Very gently she reached out and touched him with one finger.

  His manhood began to stir. He’d prayed it wouldn’t happen, knowing it would. Her warm little palm closed around him.

  She gave a soft murmur of delight as he grew to full tumescence in her hand. “You’re so beautiful,” she said low. “I didn’t know it would look like this, or feel so hard and soft all at the same time.”

  He closed his eyes, groaning with exquisite pain. “Celia, chica. You have to stop—now.”

  She didn’t stop caressing him. “But I don’t want to stop.”

  When his eyes flew open, she smiled at him, a warm, slow, very female smile. “I want to know everything, and I want you to teach me.”

  It was raining. Victoria thought the weather suited her mood, though she would have preferred the drama of thunder and lightning to this gray, steady drip, drip, drip. The night before, lying in Jake’s arms, she had thought she would die from the sharp ecstasy, but today in the gray light she wondered how much more of herself she could lose before there was nothing left. She had been drowning, mindless with sensation and love, her last frail defenses wavering, when she had opened her eyes and seen him watching her with shrewd calculation. He had been gauging her response to him, deliberately taking her higher and higher while feeling none of the giddiness himself. It had been like a dash of cold water, and she had turned her face away from him.