He turned and his eyes were amused and questioning, as if he were wondering at her motives. “Cantrell.”
“Ward Cantrell!” she breathed.
“How did you know that?” he asked, frowning.
She smiled, enjoying his surprise. “You rob trains too, don’t you?” she asked. Somehow, realizing he was the train robber brought an involuntary flush to her cheeks.
Ward turned to her again, amused. “Why is it I can’t do anything without you being there?”
“I would just as soon have passed on this one,” she said, shrugging a slender shoulder. Ward laughed but didn’t reply. He knelt and rubbed his hands in the sand, using it like a rag to wipe off the smelly salve.
“On the train,” Leslie couldn’t help saying, “you had another Mexican girl at your side.”
“Oh, yes.” Ward nodded. “Belen.”
Leslie lapsed into silence for a moment. She was remembering what someone on the train had said about his having a taste for only Mexican girls and not giving white girls a tumble. “Is it true?” she asked.
“Is what true?” Cantrell countered.
“That you love only Mexican girls?”
Ward was surprised into silence while he thought about it. “Where did you hear that?”
“Someone on the train said it,” Leslie answered, waving her hand around. “Is it true?”
Ward was slow to answer. “Maybe,” he said. “I never thought about it.” He fed the horse and then took some cans out of his saddlebags.
By the time he handed her a tin plate with beans, bacon, and a dry biscuit on it, she took it without response, making him slant a suspicious look at her. She knelt in the dirt, eating absently, and he shook his head, marveling at what a good appetite she had for such a slender little thing. Maybe it takes a lot of energy to feed that temper of hers, he thought. He finished eating, rinsed the utensils in the creek, packed them away, and started unbuckling his gunbelts. He laid them down, out of her reach by several feet, and then began to unbutton his shirt.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, fear clamping icy fingers around her throat in spite of the stifling heat from the setting sun. She had never been given to hysterics and despised girls who were, but her heart began to pound frightfully, and her stomach lurched in terror.
Ward didn’t respond to her nervous question, suspecting coyness. He was going to take a bath, and he couldn’t undress near the water, because he would be leaving his guns and clothes within her easy reach. And, he rationalized, it wasn’t like Younger’s woman would be seeing anything new.
He undressed as if he were alone, efficiently, matter-of-factly, unselfconsciously, until he was down to his thin cotton drawers, and even through her fear, or perhaps because of it, she was struck by the arrogant, smooth-muscled strength and masculinity in that sun-gold frame.
She had never seen a naked man, except on canvas, and only the Greeks had ever caught the lean, straight-limbed grace of line she now saw. The artist in her watched unashamed, as she would have viewed any new art form. In the light of a sinking sun, his skin was golden and rife with rippling power—more Herculean than Adonian with those muscular shoulders tapering into long, narrow sinews that were flat and smooth at his waist, lean and powerful in his long legs. Part of her rejoiced in the subjective pleasure of critical analysis, but the female in her was remembering, crazily, the face of the young Mexican girl who had come out of the wagon in Phoenix with him—that young, plaintive face, all dewy and adoring. But fear, that hard knot of heavy pain, filling her throat and chest, stifled even that wicked thought when he started to approach her.
She had been so dazed, watching him, that she was taken by surprise. He glanced at her, his eyes narrowed, and he froze for a second. Frowning, she watched him move slowly toward his gun. He scooped the revolver into his hand, crouching, and said, “Don’t move.”
“What?”
He pointed the gun at her, fired, and missed, but Leslie was on her feet, running, before he could aim again, completely forgetting the rope that was around her neck. She heard him yell, but she did not heed his cry. She raced away from him. At almost the same instant that the rope snapped taut he caught her arm, else she might have broken her neck.
“No!” she gasped, her voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she would surely die. He turned her and shoved her back toward where she had been sitting. Leslie screamed and began to fight like a wild thing, but he forced her back to the blanket she had been kneeling on. “See that,” he growled.
“Ohhh!” she gasped, recoiling from the sight of a broad, clumsy-looking lizard that was moving quickly away from the spot she had been sitting on. Its fat, stumpy tail was wagging from side to side as it hurried out of sight.
“I wasn’t shooting at you,” he said unnecessarily.
“Echhh!” she squealed. “What is that thing?”
“A Gila monster…”
She turned on him, furious. “Well, you could have told me! You almost scared me to death!”
“If I had politely engaged you in conversation first, he might have bitten you! Would you rather I scared hell out of you or he filled you with deadly venom?”
She jerked her arm out of his steely grip. “You’re hurting me!”
“Well, dammit,” he growled, “make up your mind what you want to fight about.”
“Leave me alone,” she whimpered.
He dragged in a furious breath, but the fury was only partly at her. He was blaming himself for almost getting her killed. When he had seen the giant lizard waddling toward her, he had realized the full extent of how he had interfered in her life. If she had died, her blood would have been on his hands. But the danger was past, and he was in no mood to let her out of his sight again. He picked her up and carried her to the water.
“What are you doing? Put me down!”
“I’m giving you a chance to cool off before you bust something.” He put her on her feet in the knee-deep water.
“Ohhh!” she gasped, preparing to strike out at him or bolt again. To forestall the eventuality, he pushed her down and straddled her body. To silence her, he pushed her head under the water and brought it up. “Shut up or I’ll drown you.” She sputtered and he prepared to dunk her again.
“You understand?” he asked. She coughed and sputtered and slowly stopped struggling. “I’m here to take a bath,” he said grimly. “Get your clothes off. They’re all wet anyway. You might as well have a real bath too.” Her eyes filled with terror. “You going to behave yourself?” he asked, shaking her.
His knees were on either side of her breasts, and she could feel his manhood against her belly with only the cotton drawers to contain it. She would have agreed to anything to get out of that position. She nodded and his hand left her face. “Get your clothes off,” he growled.
“I…I…won’t,” she stammered, looking like she was going to cry. She might be a little doxie, he thought, but she looked like a frightened sea nymph with her hair still dripping around her face and shoulders. He wondered what the hell she thought he could do to her that Younger hadn’t already done.
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. I can cut them off, but then you won’t have anything to ride in, will you?”
Leslie bit back a groan. He left her to go back for soap, and she staggered to her feet, her skirt hanging like lead around her. She stood there uncertainly, not knowing what to do, but she felt the cold silky water on her legs, and suddenly she didn’t care what he did. She wanted a real bath. Besides, he would do what he wanted anyway. She might as well resign herself to her fate. If it wasn’t him, it would be Dallas Younger. She realized she was no longer in control of her life. Her control had been an illusion only. Either Younger or Cantrell would take her before the week was out. She had become some sort of prize, to be fought over and won. She shivered and was unable to tell whether it was from her thoughts or from feeling the cold water against her calves. She decided that
she might as well do what she wanted.
Ward saw her begin to comply and couldn’t believe it. Only a second ago she had looked like a cornered bobcat—ready to take his eyes out—now she was undressing as if she were there alone. He would never understand the female mind.
She took off the cumbersome riding habit and left it to soak in the shallow water. Now, wearing only a lacy, ruffled chemise and slip that was of fine textured material, she removed her shoes and poured the water out of them before she tossed them onto the bank with a look of disgust that told him he had probably ruined the fine leather. She refused to remove the chemise and slip, but when she turned back and began to wash herself, the water soaked through the thin fabric and it became so transparent that it conveniently disappeared. Her firm young body took his breath away—hard pink nipples darkened the tips of crazily tilted, cone-shaped breasts, pointing straight up as if begging to be kissed. The provocative underswell fairly called out to his hands to cup the tender whiteness. Her waist was firm and slim, flaring gently into sweetly curved buttocks and graceful legs. The skin he could see was like creamy white carnation petals. She was a brunette with skin like a blond—no visible body hair.
She washed herself, oblivious to his admiring appraisal. She seemed satisfied that she had maintained her modesty, and he smiled, knowing she would be mortified if she knew how useless her protective garment had become. He sighed, appreciating her rich female gracefulness while she basked in girlish self-absorption. Completely unnerved, he held out the soap.
She took it and lathered herself all over with it, reaching under her chemise and slip, glaring at him until he turned his back. The water was cold, but it felt better than anything she had ever felt. Her spirits were immediately lifted. She hated being dirty and hot; she hated having a rope around her neck; she hated him, but since she had no choice, she decided to make the best of it. Why not? She’d never been given to brooding or depression. She despised girls who cried all the time.
“What are you up to now?” Ward asked, scowling at the way she seemed to have adjusted. Leslie turned wide green eyes on him, looking over her slender white shoulder; the sweet curve of her back and buttocks tempting him.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Why are you cooperating?”
“Because I wanted a bath. It was a good idea, even if it comes from a rotten animal like you.”
He grinned then, his straight white teeth like a flash of summer lightning. He had the most soulful eyes she had ever seen. She could read volumes in them, but now she just wanted to put them in her pocket, after she had ripped them out.
“Do you just change like that?” he asked, snapping his fingers. “If it pleases you?”
“Of course. I do exactly what pleases me. Why shouldn’t I?” she asked, tossing the long black mass of tangled wet curls.
Jesus! he thought. In that second, with her pretty chin up and green sparks shooting out of her eyes, she looked like a brunette version of Jenn. He could almost hear his sister’s sultry, haughty voice as she explained to him eight years ago that she didn’t fall in love with all her lovers. Very modern. Very independent. Just like this little white-skinned, sweet-curving female who had probably survived a lot more than most women twice her age. Younger was rough stuff. Ward could hardly recognize his own voice when he finally spoke.
Chapter Fourteen
“You’re pretty cocky for such a slender little thing.”
The tone of his husky voice set off a small pulse in her throat, and her voice was strangely whispery. “Look who’s talking.”
He grinned in spite of himself. “I’m not cocky.”
“You do exactly as you please,” she corrected, feeling a jolt of strange energy and visualizing herself at the front of a passenger coach, holding a gun on the startled passengers while he moved up the aisles relieving them of their guns. Her cheeks flushed with heat, and she said the meanest thing she could think of. “I’m sure all men rob trains and kidnap women.”
He lifted an eyebrow in a gesture that told her she had won that round, and they both fell silent. Almost in unison they turned their backs and began to wash seriously.
She finished as quickly as she could and then began to scrub the soggy garment she had worn for two days, trying to wash the grime off it. It was torn in dozens of places.
“Think I could use the soap?” he asked.
She glanced up and was instantly sorry that she had. He was facing her, standing over her, and his wet drawers concealed nothing from her startled gaze. She turned her head away and held out her hand with the soap in it. She felt his warm hand close around the soap, brushing her skin. Without looking up again, she wrung the water out of her garment, then waded out of the stream and spread her clothes on the mesquite bushes.
By the time Cantrell came out of the creek and pulled his trousers on, she was settled in the middle of their bedroll in her wet chemise and slip, admiring the colorful sunset. Red, gold, and purple clouds swaggered like flamboyant galleons sailing above the western horizon. Off in the distance, beyond the trees that grew along the slender creek, she could see a black tableland rising up to the horizon, its outline spikey with slender, pointed trees that she guessed were either pine or spruce. The setting sun bathed the foreground in heavy gold glamour, intensifying the contrast. She longed for the tools to capture that marvelous natural display.
One of the horses snorted and stamped, and she sighed, remembering that she wasn’t there to marvel at natural phenomena. She was concerned now with survival, and suddenly it pleased her that it wasn’t the same dreary type of survival her friends at school had talked about. This was real life-and-death, trial-by-fire survival. “I suppose you intend to sell me to the Indians,” she said, remembering his earlier remark.
His eyes widened momentarily. Then a smile flickered in the blue depths. “They aren’t as uninformed as you might think. Besides, there are laws about taking advantage of them.”
“What are you going to do with me? Why am I here?”
“Don’t ask so damned many questions,” he said, his forehead puckered with his displeasure. Angered, she stood up, and he noticed she had taken the rope off. It lay beside the blanket. “You little hellcat. How did you get that off?”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t so hard,” she said defiantly.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he said to her back as she turned and strolled away. There was no urgency in his question, because he was too distracted by the sight of her firm rounded buttocks beneath the wet, clinging fabric. He was already hard from the ordeal of bathing next to her. It might not be such a bad idea to bed Younger’s woman after all. Anyone who could put up with Younger would not be injured too badly by anything he could do to her.
“I’m going to the powder room,” she said, the lift of her chin haughty.
“Stay close by,” he growled.
“I will not!” she said, horrified by the thought of his hearing or seeing her while she was so intimately engaged.
“Might want to look where you’re going,” he said dryly.
She turned, and her look of defiance turned into fear. The animal in front of her, a small ground squirrel, stood up in alarm on its hind legs, and she stopped, her heart pounding frightfully. Then, before she could move, a large bird, its wings spread wide in flight, swooped down and caught the squirrel in its talons. Leslie was looking into its eyes at the instant it realized its doom, and she felt the hopelessness and dread of the small animal transmitted to her. But worse than that, the look in the bird’s eyes, so matter-of-fact and efficient that it stunned her, reminded her of Cantrell. Before she could react, the bird flew away with its kill, and Leslie turned her back and began, quite unexpectedly, to cry.
She sat down in the dirt, sobbing, and she did not know whether it was from the frightening ordeal she had managed to endure or for the poor little squirrel.
Ward watched her for several moments; then he walked over and lifted her to her feet
. Leslie allowed herself to be pulled up into his arms. He held her close, stroking her head while she cried, and it was strangely comforting to her. Partly because she knew it would be harder for him to mistreat her in the future if she could soften his heart toward her now, however momentarily.
Leslie pressed against Ward shamelessly, feigning complete unawareness of their intimacy. Unfortunately, he was using her collapse to his advantage as well. His warm hand caressed her spine and moved down her waist to press her hips against his. She felt the bulge of his manhood through his trousers. Remembering the way it had looked through that transparent cloth—she felt strangely unable to assert herself against him. She was suddenly recalling what one of the girls at school told her—that a man’s member had a bone in it. But it hadn’t looked that way at all. It had looked soft, almost touchable, she thought, flushing at the wickedness of her thoughts. But now, strangely, it felt bony against her belly. His warm hand came up to touch her face, brush her lips.
“What are you doing?” she asked nervously.
“I think I’m going to kiss you.”
Startled, she searched his handsome face for some sign. She knew that she could not allow him to take even a small liberty—her position was too vulnerable—but she was incapable of resisting. Her heart leaped into a hard, fast rhythm that made her feel breathless. Before she could think of a reply, his warm fingers lifted her chin, and he lowered his head. The pulse under her chin leaped. She felt flooded with weakness. His soft lips brushed hers, and her legs went rubbery. She wanted to protest, but nothing about her seemed to be working.
After that first tentative kiss, his embrace tightened.
“Open your mouth,” he whispered.
For some reason that she could not imagine, her lips parted in response. This time when his lips covered hers, his tongue darted into her mouth, causing a warm ache in her belly.
“Put your arms around my neck,” he murmured against her cheek. She moaned, but her arms obeyed him. This time when he kissed her his tongue explored her mouth, and his warm hand slid again to her cheek, then down to her breast.
The Lady and the Outlaw Page 10
