by Donna Cooner
His hand slid down the length of her inner thigh. His palm pressed against her, his fingers caressed her, teased her, entered her. Thrusts of velvet fire seduced her mouth, and stroked against the most erotic and feminine places, swept her into a sweetly drugged splendor, into fierce longing.
Hungry kisses, savage, then light, rained down upon her, bathing her breasts, her throat, the hollow of her abdomen. Where his fingers had trod so boldly, his liquid caress followed. Cries escaped her, protests, gasps. Desire shot into her explosively, ecstasy, anguish, a building inferno.
Cascades of wonder seemed to explode within her. As if in a half-drugged state she felt the weight of his body, the hard swell of his sex. His kiss came against her earlobe, teased her throat, consumed her lips. And still the shock of his body thrusting hard into hers was a fire that lit into her all anew, and to her amazement she was swiftly swept into the ferocity of his desire once more, undulating to his rhythm, flying again, reaching.
A soft cry ripped from her lips as white stars seemed to burst and soar against the very darkness of the night. She lay on clouds, yet she was so intensely aware of him, of his slick bronze flesh against hers, of the wild constriction of his muscles, of the hard thrust of his sex into her body, again and again.
And then she seemed drenched with him. A deep groan echoed in the golden shadows, and his body shuddered against hers. Then his arms were around her, strong and gentle, as he eased himself to her side, holding her. She curled against him. His arm remained around her, his fingers dangling over her abdomen. She closed her own fingers around them. Her heart still pounded fiercely; her breath came in shallow gasps as she asked softly, “Do you really have to leave?”
He eased up, a brow arched as he looked at her. “Was this wondrous seduction nothing but a ploy to keep me here?”
“I don’t remember seducing you,” she said, itching to slap him.
“You but breathe, and it is seduction,” he said, and she wasn’t sure if he was taunting her or not.
“I thought you liked your women to breathe,” she retorted.
“I do—see how much?”
She groaned, closing her eyes, only to feel his arms encircling her once again as he lay back down beside her. He was silent for a moment, and though she bit her lip, wishing she dared pull away from him after his comment that she had seduced him to gain her way, she held still as well.
He spoke, and his words were tormented and vehemently sincere, startling in the darkness of the night. “If I didn’t have to go, I would not!” he said.
Tears threatened hotly against her lashes, and she blinked them back furiously. He meant what he had said. She didn’t reply. She lay there, her back to him, his arm around her. She didn’t try to draw away, yet there was nothing for her to say.
“I’ll be back as quickly as I can,” he told her.
She could still think of nothing to say.
“I have a great deal to come back to now,” he added.
Still, she could not tell him that it was fine for him to go, and she closed her eyes very tightly, unaware of just how stiff a body he held.
Perhaps he had nothing else to say, either, for he was silent a long time. Despite her certainty that anxiety alone would keep her awake, she began to drift. Yet even as sleep all but claimed her, she found herself in his arms again, found that she was the one quite well seduced that night, and that she had no protest against his lovemaking.
Still later, she did open her mouth when she felt his touch, the blaze of his eyes again. Ah, he wanted her! Yet he was so set upon leaving her!
“Will you want me so when I am minus my scalp and a great deal of hair?” she challenged him reproachfully.
“You’ll keep your hair,” he told her, and his next words were whispered against her own lips. “And you will remember me when I am gone.”
It was very, very late when she really fell asleep. Perhaps that was why she dreamed and dreamed so vividly and with such terrifying detail.
She was running again. The Indian was at her back, knife in a sheath at his waist, tomahawk raised high to break her skull. She didn’t dare look back to see his face, because she was so afraid that it would be the very man she had married, intent himself upon killing her.
She had to stop running, because when she looked before her, she saw William. Someone was holding him up by his hair, and there was a knife at his throat, ready to slash through his flesh.
Words seemed to echo in a strange, savage wilderness, haunting her. “Come back, Tara. Pay the price, pay the price, save him.…”
“William!” she screamed his name again and again, certain that she could save him if she could only reach him.
But the Indian was behind her. She had led the Indian right to William, and it was the Indian who threatened him now. Her scalp, or William’s.
“Tara!”
A hand clamped suddenly over her mouth, and she awoke with a start. Jarrett was naked, straddling her, smooth and sleek like a great, agile panther in the night. His eyes were black as coal and hard as ice.
“I will have half a regiment of men breaking in here any second now to see if I’m murdering you,” he said somewhat harshly, but his hand eased from her mouth.
Her eyes were wide, her heart was pounding viciously. “There’s no company of men here. You told me that Captain Argosy and Rice and Culpeper went back to the ship.”
“I didn’t want you screaming before,” he admitted offhandedly, “and I had no idea in hell you’d be screaming as if I were committing some horrific evil in the middle of the night!”
“You lied—” she began to accuse him.
“Who’s William?” he demanded.
She couldn’t help it; tears sprung to her eyes. She was still shaking.
“Tara, who’s William?”
He looked as hard and merciless as tempered steel. Well, she had known that he could be that, even as she had known that he could be strong, protective, passionate—and even tender—at times.
She opened her mouth, wet her lips. But before she could speak she started shaking again and a soft sob escaped her. To her amazement she found herself swept up, cradled in his arms. He asked no more questions. His fingers moved gently through the length of her hair, smoothing its tangled length from around her face.
“It’s all right,” he told her. “It’s all right now. You can sleep, I’m with you.”
But you won’t be with me tomorrow! she almost cried out.
“You’re safe here,” he whispered to her. “I swear it—on my land you’re safe, Tara. You’re safe.…”
The words stayed with her. Gradually she ceased to tremble. “Rest, Tara,” he commanded her. “Rest, you’re safe with me.”
His strength and tenderness surrounded her. The dream faded. She was so very, very tired.
When she finally slept, she did so deeply.
She woke from the depths of that sleep slowly, as if heavy clouds sat over her as she tried to struggle to consciousness. She wanted to remain asleep. But someone was shaking her.
She opened her eyes.
Her reprieve was over.
Jarrett’s taut features loomed before her. He sat at her side and leaned over her, arms like bars on either side of her. Despite the fact that the room was barely lightened by the coming of dawn, he had been up for a while it seemed. Perhaps he had never slept. He was fully dressed in form-hugging brown breeches, a white shirt open at the neck, a muted green waistcoat, and a heavier, earth-colored frock coat. He wore high boots, coming almost to his knees. His black hair was queued at his nape, making his handsome features sharp and strong and, at the moment, menacing.
“Who’s William?” he demanded.
She shook her head. “No one you need be concerned with.”
“Who’s William?” he repeated.
“Jarrett—”
“Who the bloody hell is William?” he demanded anew. His hands fell upon her shoulders, his fingers biting into them. She found he
rself dragged up to face him, the sheets falling from her naked body, her hair becoming a wild fall that tangled around them both.
“Jarrett!” she protested.
“Who?” he demanded again, and the word thundered out to her.
No questions! He had promised her.
Yet it seemed that this was one question she had to answer, and answer now.
“My brother!” she cried out. “William is my brother!” she repeated, swallowing down the sob that caught at her throat. She wrenched herself from his touch and fell back to the bed, twisting away from him and onto her stomach, closing her eyes tightly, praying that she could fall back into the deep, deep, comforting sleep that had been hers just moments ago.
She still felt him by her.
“Your brother? You swear it?”
She let out a muffled oath of aggravation that must have assured him she was telling the truth.
She felt his hand upon her back, sweeping the fall of her hair from it. She felt the fire of his lips upon her bare flesh, just a touch.
“We’ll talk when I get back,” he said.
They’d talk, indeed! He’d ply her with questions and refuse to answer any himself!
But his touch had left her. A second later she realized that their bedroom door had opened and closed, and that he was gone.
She bolted up in the bed and started to leap from it. She realized she was naked, wrenched up the sheet, and raced for the door again.
Too late. She could already hear him below, calling out something to Jeeves as he mounted Charlemagne. Even as she hurried to the window, he was riding away. She trailed her sheet back to the bed and sank down to the foot of it, suddenly fighting tears. She hadn’t wanted him to go! She had wanted him to stay.
And not just because she was afraid.
But because she had been so glad and warmed to sleep beside him, feel his arms through the night.
Because she did, indeed, love him.
Chapter 12
During her first few weeks of residence in her new home, Tara learned a great deal about Cimarron.
To begin with she quickly realized her husband didn’t rely on goodwill alone for his safety.
Armed men guarded the property, almost as if it were a little kingdom unto itself. It wasn’t an armed camp, per se, but after a few days she noted that there were always men watching from vantage points atop the buildings at each end of the dock. Rutger rode from docks to fields throughout the day with others at his side, and even along the small stream and woods that bordered the Indian country, men were stationed right in the branches. By the fourth night of Jarrett’s departure Tara actually slept well and deeply, finally feeling safe at Cimarron. By then, of course, she was so exhausted that if any dreams did come along to trouble her, she was not aware of them.
She learned about the house itself as well, and the learning was not an unhappy experience. Jeeves showed it to her in its entirety, and it dawned on her slowly just how great an American empire it was that her husband had fashioned out of cypress hammocks, marsh, and swamp. The house had been beautifully designed and elegantly furnished, yet it was exceptionally comfortable as well, a welcoming place. Though his room had seemed exceptionally masculine when she had arrived, little by little it was becoming her room as well. Small things changed it. Her toiletries now sat on the dresser. Jeeves had brought in a long swivel Queen Anne mirror and a dressing table to match.
Throughout the rest of the house, she had discovered, the furnishings had been carefully chosen to complement the home and each sector of it. One guest room was furnished with seventeenth-century French pieces, another was decorated in Tudor style with a large, dark wood canopied and curtained bed. Jarrett’s library and office were both more sparsely furnished with cleanly carved pieces straight from New England. The hall, or breezeway, was most elegant with its settees and mahogany tables, but even there the brocade- and velvet-covered chairs and settees seemed to beckon one to sit comfortably.
Only one occurrence during her extensive tours with Jeeves disturbed her, and that was the afternoon he brought her to the small library on the second floor.
There were two windows here, with a broad section of wall between them. It was an area perfect for a large painting and that’s exactly what had been placed there. The painting was of a woman. There was no perspective within the painting from which to judge her height, for she stood by a small flower stand, dressed in sunflower-yellow, a gown with a low-scooped bodice and the picturesque sweep of a train. Her neck was long and slender, her stance regal. Her eyes were a deep almond brown with a slight cast to them that gave her an exotic appeal. Her hair was a deep mahogany brown, swept cleanly off her beautiful neck. She had smiled for the artist, and it was a beautiful, whimsical smile that instantly caught the eye of the beholder, compelling, engaging one to smile as well.
Yet Tara felt a hollowness within herself as she studied the painting, for she knew without being told that the lady was the true mistress of Cimarron—Jarrett’s “real” wife. Lisa. She had been exceptionally beautiful, and if the painting spoke truly of her, she had been vibrant and sweet as well. She had surely been the perfect social match for Jarrett, the perfect mistress of his home. She had set the standards, here at Cimarron.
But she was dead! Tara reminded herself. She was ashamed to feel such jealousy again, but she was certain that Lisa had shared far more with Jarrett—his thoughts, mind, heart, and soul!—than Tara ever would.
Tara tried to stay away from the painting. Trying made it worse. Sometime during each day she found herself in the library, studying the painting.
When she wasn’t studying the painting, she tried to stay occupied, but in attempting to busy herself in any way with the house, she found that, with every task she performed, she wondered if Lisa had done things in the same manner she was doing them. How much soap had Lisa made, how many candles? How much meat was salted, how much smoked? Under Jeeves, of course, the plantation house all but managed itself, and yet he and the others were unerringly courteous to her and anxious to serve her. She quickly discovered, however, that no one would answer the multitude of questions she was always eager to ask. Jeeves, of course, was the one she asked first, asking point-blank how Lisa had died. But Jeeves had replied with a long sigh, and then he had told her point-blank that Master Jarrett would surely want to explain the situation himself. She tried again with Cota, but Cota knew nothing, and Hattie just rolled her eyes and all but mimicked Jeeves, assuring her that Mr. McKenzie would scalp her sure as a Seminole might if she went talking out of turn.
One night she sent for Rutger, ostensibly to ask him if there’d been any news along the river. He supped with her in the dining room, telling her that one trader had passed by, stopping briefly and assuring him only that Tampa had not been attacked, not as yet. But Rutger either knew nothing about Lisa, or was quite a skilled actor himself, for when Tara tried more subtly to gain information, he slipped from her questions every time.
Great beings might have swept down out of the sky to spirit Lisa away for all the information Tara could gain on her predecessor.
But nothing that elusive had happened, she discovered, for Jeeves did at least have a bit of a heart about her curiosity. One afternoon when he discovered her in the library staring up at the portrait, he suggested that she might like to see Lisa’s grave, and—feeling just a little bit morbid—she quickly agreed. He took her out far past the last of the outbuildings and into a copse of trees, where a beautifully crafted wrought-iron fence encircled a burial plot. There were several graves toward the rear of the plot, but she barely saw them at first, for an exquisitely carved stone sarcophagus with a winged angel above it lay in the center of the graveyard. Tara stepped through the gate to the burial plot as Jeeves opened it for her and stared at the angel as she came close to the grave. She ran her fingers over the engraved words on the stone as she read them. Here lieth the earthly remains of Lisa Marie McKenzie, born St. Augustine, Florida, 1806, ta
ken by the Angels to Heaven, there to dwell, from her own earthly Paradise, January 18th, 1833. Beloved wife, blessed lady, mourned by all, yet she will live in our hearts forever.
The words on the stone were not all that helpful. Tara swung around to ask a question of Jeeves, but Jeeves had brought her here and then managed to disappear very quickly. Tara bit her lip and started to leave, but then she observed the rest of the stones in the graveyard and began to read them. She was puzzled when she read one that simply said, One Who Runs, and she thought that perhaps Jeeves would answer her about that grave. The one beside it read, Mary Lyde, born Dublin, Ireland, 1811, died Cimarron Plantation, Florida Territory, 1831, also, her infant son, stillborn. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, God will bless his children.
Poor Mary Lyde! Tara thought. And poor Lisa, both so very young.
A chill breeze suddenly seemed to stir as she stood there. There was just one more stone, set back a bit from Lisa’s. The large angel on Lisa’s grave had overshadowed it, but Tara saw, stepping around the above ground tomb of Lisa’s monument, that the memorial was a fantastic piece of art in itself. There was a small but beautiful stone sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ child. Upon the tiny slab of marble that stretched out from it two simple words were etched out in elaborate print.
