She was so different from Sandra, who pursued him publicly, acting as if they were lovers, as if she didn’t remember she was furious with him for refusing her offer.
Seeing the angry set of Cantrell’s jaw, Leslie sighed. Now it appeared he did not want to be drawn into conversation, and somehow, knowing that made her absolutely determined that he should be. “So how long have you known the Kincaids?”
He shrugged. “I guess I’ve known Mrs. Kincaid quite some time. I don’t really know Mr. Kincaid all that well.”
“They’re very nice, aren’t they?”
“She is.”
Leslie looked at him curiously. “Don’t you like him?”
“I don’t feel like I know him well enough to decide if I like him or not.” A muscle bunched in his cheek, above the lean, square-cut jaw. “He seems to be what she wants,” he said, shrugging. He pulled her closer, and she bristled, bringing a look of sardonic amusement into his blue eyes.
“Were you in love with her?”
Surprised, Ward looked down at the flying feet of strangers skimming over the smooth marble dance floor. “She married him. I can’t change that.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Maybe I don’t see that it’s any of your business.”
Leslie flushed. “I still can’t believe they just let you out like that. Do you suppose they can be that irresponsible?”
“Thanks,” he said dryly.
“Well, it just seems like you should be in jail somewhere,” she said, realizing perversely that she was beginning to enjoy herself.
“Probably should be,” he said grimly.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Why aren’t you in jail?”
“What did the Kincaids tell you?”
“I didn’t ask. They mentioned something about a conditional pardon…But I don’t really know what that entails.”
“Then you know as much as I do about it. Conditional pardon means they have the right to keep me on a short leash while I do their dirty work, then jerk it back when I’m done. If I please them, they might—might— lengthen my leash.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Maybe they’ll hang me. I don’t know…”
“Please them at what?”
“Guarding the railroad,” he lied.
“Set a thief to catch a thief?” She laughed. “How fitting. How have you done so far?”
He shrugged. “My heart’s not in it, but they seem to be patient, probably hoping I don’t get a better offer.”
“They’re right to worry…”
Strangely stung by her words, he kept his tone light, teasing. “Maybe I could go straight.”
“Why would you?”
“Why not? Kincaid’s paying me almost as much as I used to make robbing his trains.”
“You just do whatever is easy?” she demanded, contempt obvious in every carefully measured word.
“Don’t you?” he asked, glancing at Tim Summers, his husky voice caustic.
“Tim wants to marry me,” she said defiantly.
Blue eyes fairly danced with devilment; his low, well-modulated voice was freighted with awe. “A real catch. Think how respectable you will be.”
“You, you…”
“Bastard?” he asked courteously.
“If the shoe fits…”
“There’s a lot of bitterness under that satiny little veneer you show the world, isn’t there?” he asked softly.
Leslie was strangely breathless. She had danced too many waltzes. “Why should I be bitter?”
“I don’t know, but maybe I’ll find out,” he drawled. They were beside the raised portico where the orchestra played. The french doors opening onto the veranda were only steps away. It was apparent he didn’t care who saw him whirl her forcefully out the doors. If she weren’t so bemused by the ordeal of dancing with him and trying to carry on a decent conversation, she would have protested, but he gave her neither time nor opportunity.
Once outside, away from the prying eyes of Phoenix’s cadre of humorless matrons who watched the young people with envy and suspicion, she turned on him, her eyes glittering like a cat’s in the moonlight. “What are you trying to do? Ruin the lives of half the girls in Phoenix?”
“You mean Trinket? What about her?” he asked, frowning.
“Marybelle was Trinket,” she corrected him.
He shrugged. “What about her?”
“You’ve got the whole town talking about her.”
“Correction. She’s got the whole town talking about her. I didn’t touch her…”
“I hope your happiness is not dependent upon my believing that.”
“No more than yours is.”
“Ohhh!” She turned away. “It’s a beautiful night, isn’t it?” she gritted, her voice painfully brittle.
He didn’t answer. He turned her, pulled her firmly into his arms, and set his mouth over hers. Leslie couldn’t tell if she cried out or only wanted to. Darkness closed down, shutting her off from reality. Moon, stars, even the strains of music and activity on the other side of the wall, faded out of consciousness. Her fisted hands, white fluttering butterflies against his black coat, made one futile attempt at resistance before they slid up to twine and cling around his neck.
His lips were ruthless and plundering. His hands slid down to caress her back, pulling her against him, crushing her breasts into his warm sturdy chest. This was trial by fire, and Leslie felt herself losing control. He kissed her until her body was aflame and trembling with a recurrence of the hunger she hadn’t felt since the last time he held her.
When the kiss ended, he stepped away from her to lean against the banister and roll a cigarette. Trembling, she watched bitterly as his deft fingers quickly and efficiently completed the task. His lean brown hands cupped the blue flare of the match and he shook it out and dropped it. Was there some symbolism there for her? He could light them and he could put them out. What was she to him? Just a girl he had kidnapped once? He wanted her now, though, at least momentarily. But how long did his passions last? A week? Two days?
“Why did you kiss me?” she asked.
“Because I wanted to.”
“Why?”
“You keep turning up in my arms, Leslie. I want to know why.”
“So, did you find out?”
“Maybe—maybe not.” He was holding back now and not sure why. He wanted her, and the kiss told him he could have her, but suddenly he needed more—maybe to punish her for giving herself too easily to Summers.
“Well”—she turned away, hiding the sudden bitterness that welled up within her—“let me know if you come up with anything useful.”
She was almost to the door when he stopped her and shoved her against the wall, letting his control drop away, leaning his warm, hard-muscled body into hers, trapping her there while he flicked away the cigarette he had used as a diversion and let his hands cup her face.
“I just thought of something,” he said, his voice gruff with some unidentifiable emotion. His warm mouth, only a hair’s breadth from hers, brushed lightly over her parted lips, and Leslie had to stifle a groan. Damn him! He was toying with her now, enjoying the effect he had on her! Could those hateful blue eyes see every weakness? Could they see her blood turning to steam because his body was molded into hers, or did his hand, caressing the curve of her cheek, feel the tumult in her traitorous arteries?
“Come home with me, Leslie,” he whispered huskily.
“I didn’t know train robbers had homes.” She was stalling now, praying for strength.
“Will you come or would you like to be kidnapped—for old times’ sake?”
“Would what I want make a difference?”
“Try me. It might.”
Then so quietly that she almost didn’t hear it or didn’t believe she heard it: “Give me a chance.”
She was suddenly quiet, the frustration and confusion of the past days and weeks strangely stilled in her, everythin
g fading except his presence. Even the urge to issue a witty, cutting remark subsided.
His eyes held hers; a rich current of energy moved through him to her similar to the dark flood of passion he normally aroused in her, and yet richer, more peaceful, awakening a hunger for pure, nonsexual closeness with him she hadn’t felt before.
A door edged open and a couple slipped out onto the veranda. The girl was giggling nervously, soft and breathlessly, but the young man’s voice was low-pitched, urgent. They moved as far away as possible, partly shaded from view by an encroaching tree, and their negotiating continued.
Leslie looked back at Ward. His eyes had not strayed from her face. Behind him, the moon cast a silvery glow on the roof of the stable at the back of the Lewises’ property. Small electric lights encased in festive Chinese lanterns lit the garden pathways with colored light. Laughter and music mingled with the sounds of soft wind and an occasional horse neighing. A dog barked. The other couple was silent now, engrossed in each other, unaware of anything else. The smell of flowers from the garden mingled with the dry night smells of sage from the unseen desert.
“Wait here,” he said on impulse.
Bemused, Leslie watched as he leaped over the wooden railing and dropped catlike into the soft earth beneath them. He sprinted to a bush, broke off a flower, walked quickly up the steps, and bowed low before her.
“A flower for a beautiful lady,” he said softly.
Leslie had seen a hundred expressions on his handsome face—its mobility of expression was part of his attraction—but never this one. He looked like a little boy, his eyes filled with something so sweet, innocent, and youthful that she felt a melting sensation that started low in her spine and swept upward, bringing a flush of heat and moisture so overpowering that she couldn’t speak. She blinked back the heated rush of tears, unwilling to let him see how touched she was. She took the flower, a small, delicate native ornament from his warm hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Chapter Thirty-One
What would have happened if Marybelle Lewis hadn’t chosen that moment to fling open the double doors nearest them and step outside, sending a wide arc of light onto the balcony beside Leslie and Ward?
“Ward, darling,” she drawled. “Are you out here?”
Ward stepped away from Leslie, shielding her from Marybelle’s sight. “Here, Trinket.”
“Oh, sorry to interrupt. Mr. Kincaid was looking for you. I thought you would want to know.”
“Thanks. Tell him I’ll look him up in a few minutes.”
She didn’t look like she wanted to leave, so he walked over, pointed her in the right direction, opened the door, and guided her skillfully inside with a firm hand on her small waist that reminded Leslie of too many unpleasant things about him.
“Sorry about that,” he said as he returned to her side.
“How many Trinkets do you have?” Then without waiting for him to reply, “They have names. Why don’t you use them?”
“I have a lousy memory for names.”
She laughed, and it was a soft, bitter sound that probably told him far too clearly that she resented his having so many women that he couldn’t remember their names. “Maybe you have a terrible memory, but I don’t.” Furious, flooded with a sudden consuming anger that had kindled when he touched Marybelle’s waist in that casual, proprietary way, she stepped away and moved to brush past him, but he caught her arm, pulling her against his warmth and hardness again, his mood as transformed as her own.
His lean fingers biting into her arm were like a narcotic on her senses. She could feel her heart pounding wildly; she wanted him, but she refused to be another one of his Trinkets.
“Let me go!” she hissed.
He leaned down and found her mouth, kissed her lightly, his warm lips searing into her like a shock wave, but she refused to respond. Then, just as abruptly, he relinquished her lips and stepped away from her.
“All right,” he said softly, grimly. He opened the door for her, and Leslie stifled the urge to throw herself against him to tear his hateful eyes out. She forced a smile and stepped back into the pandemonium.
Ward singled out Debra Denning, and she didn’t stand a chance.
Debra was her closest friend in Phoenix and too sweet and unsuspecting to deserve what was happening to her. Leslie tried not to watch, but her eyes found Ward Cantrell in spite of her attempts to the contrary, cutting a lithe and graceful figure on the dance floor. The waltz was all the rage, and Ward looked handsome gliding and whirling his rapt partner over the floor.
When the music paused, Ward slipped something into the hand of one of the musicians, they broke into the strains of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, and Ward bowed low and formally to Mrs. Kincaid. Jennie’s face glowed with happiness as he twirled her out onto the floor.
They danced beautifully together, seeming to float in time with the rhythm, swept along by the melody. Couples stopped dancing to watch them. Leslie glanced past Tim’s shoulder and found Mr. Kincaid. He was standing alone, watching them with a look of rapt pride and happiness that jangled her nerves. If a man like Cantrell, with his reputation as a womanizer, were dancing with someone Kincaid cared about…
Elizabeth Cartright moved to stand beside a heavyset matron Leslie knew only casually. They exchanged pleasantries and then Elizabeth dropped her tone to one that was obviously conspiratorial.
“Mrs. Kincaid and Mr. Cantrell certainly dance beautifully together, don’t they?”
The matron lifted her chin and sniffed. “They should. I heard from a very reliable source that they were lovers in New York. Of course, that was years ago.”
“No!” Elizabeth gasped, feigning shock.
“Yes. I heard there was a terrible scandal surrounding it, too. Mary Freake, the McCormicks’ cook, used to work for the Astors. She told Sarah, my downstairs maid, that the Kincaids separated for quite a spell, and it wasn’t that long after they were married. Sounded to me like Jennie may have married on the rebound, regretted it, and just took off. I’ve heard of that happening before. Of course, I don’t know that Ward Cantrell was the reason for that split-up, but she certainly seems quite taken with him for a married woman.”
“Mary said the separation was caused by another man?” Elizabeth prompted.
“That she did. Mr. Kincaid took it right hard too, from what she told my Sarah.” The matron lifted her lorgnette and expanded her lungs. “Heavens! Well, Mr. Cantrell is a fine specimen of a man. I daresay if he put his mind to it, there aren’t many women who could resist him.”
Elizabeth sighed. “But one would think a married woman would be a little more discreet.”
Debra Denning and her escort joined Leslie and Tim. The two women listened as Tim and Winslow exchanged greetings, then Debbie winked at Leslie. “I imagine the mothers of all the single females in town are giving thanks this night that Mr. Kincaid had the foresight to marry Jennie.”
“What do you mean?” Leslie asked, frowning.
“Well, she looks like the stiffest competition around, doesn’t she? I’m sure they’re all grateful she’s already taken.”
Leslie frowned Debbie into silence.
“Sorry, I meant no disrespect. The Kincaids are dear friends of mine. I don’t believe that dreadful gossip. I know Jennie is totally devoted to her husband. I was being facetious.”
“Sorry,” Leslie murmured. “Oh…well…they are attractive together, aren’t they?”
“You have truly mastered the art of understatement, Leslie Powers,” Debra said, sighing. “Truly mastered it.”
“I personally think all that washed-out beauty is overrated,” Tim said, reaching to take Leslie’s glass from her fingers. “Let’s give them something to watch besides blonds.” He set her glass on the buffet and swung her out onto the dance floor, and Leslie gratefully lost herself in the music. The sonata ended, another waltz began, and Chane Kincaid cut in on Ward to reclaim his wife. Ward rescued Debbie from Winslow Br
eakenridge, who was a graceless dancer at best.
When the next dance started Leslie saw Cantrell making his way toward her through the crowd. Tim saw him also.
“Looks like you’re about to be singled out for the high honor of the evening,” he said, his eyes watching her closely.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Cantrell is headed this way to do his duty by you again.”
“He has no duty to me,” Leslie said, flushing with anger.
Tim laughed. “Easy, darling. No insult intended. I was merely remembering something I overheard to the effect that perhaps Cantrell has eyes for only one, but as a pseudogentleman, he is being careful to dance with a number of young ladies…to disguise his real interest.”
“Dance with me, Tim.”
Ward danced two more dances with Debbie, concentrating all his considerable charm and attention on her while Leslie danced intermittently, sipping at the champagne Tim brought her.
Debbie smiled a lot, obviously enjoying whatever she and Ward were discussing. He had made another conquest—that was apparent—especially to Sandra McCormick, who watched him with barely concealed petulance.
There was tension everywhere. Leslie felt hot and jangled. Tim was watching her with what seemed like cool speculation in his black eyes. He didn’t say anything more, but the tension between them was intolerable.
The Lady and the Outlaw Page 26
