The Renegades: Nick

by Dellin, Genell

  And he didn’t even know about the baby. Oh, dear Lord, would he throw her out for not telling him beforehand? How would he feel when he found out he’d taken on still another mouth to feed?

  Vance’s baby wouldn’t come until spring, though, and by then she’d be moving out of Nick’s house. It wouldn’t be right to take half his land or let him build her her own cabin, but at the moment she wouldn’t argue with him. If he could help her survive through the winter, that would be all she could accept from him.

  Once the baby had come and the Chikaskia school, which she really believed would be hers, had been assigned, she would make other plans. Surely six months or so of providing for her would fulfill his sense of obligation.

  Soon he was at her side again, carrying a small cloth sack full of food and a canteen, pulling her out into the sun again, striding off toward the livery stable. He seemed to be growing more tense by the minute.

  “Everybody was all right when you left this morning?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, hurrying to keep up with him. “I threw hay to the young ones, but it was too dark for me to really look them over or see any of the mares in among the trees.”

  She stood in the shade while he collected her team and wagon and the yellow filly, paid the man, tied his young horse to the wagon, and drove to her. Exhausted, she nevertheless tried to climb up over the wheel by herself, but he got down to help her. Then he handed her the sack of food and slapped the lines down on the backs of her team.

  She ought to insist that he ride his horse and let her drive her wagon, but the very thought made her know that she was stretched to the limits of her endurance. Her arms ached and her head hurt, and if she had to use them to try to control Judy and Joe, she would break into a million pieces. Or into tears.

  “Eat,” Nick said.

  Pulling at the drawstring, she opened the sack. The fragrance of buttermilk biscuits and fried ham floated up to her and her stomach growled. She didn’t feel hungry, though. She felt sick, and so defeated she could die.

  The baby had to have food, though, so she forced herself to choke one sandwich down. Nick slid the strap off his shoulder and held the canteen out to her.

  She drank long and deep, also for the baby, and then put the food on the floor and stood up.

  “I have to rest,” she said, and went back into the box of the wagon.

  She wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she had to lie down because she couldn’t hold her body upright anymore. Never had she felt so broken and drawn down. She felt bent toward the earth as if she were dying. She had done just what she’d sworn not to do: she’d given up the only land she’d probably ever own.

  It didn’t count that she’d also broken her vow not to give a man power over her life. Nick didn’t want it. All he wanted was for her to be gone—but she had no place else to go.

  The stars were out when she woke, the wagon stood still and Nick was gone. Quickly, her mind panicking, she sat up.

  He was in the pen with the young horses, talking to them in a low, sweet tone that blended his words into the sultry air. Home. They were home.

  Her heartbeat slowed upon seeing he was safe, then picked up again. How could she think of Nick’s cabin as home when she’d only been staying here for a few days, when it didn’t belong to her and it never would?

  Now she had no home.

  The back of this wagon, right here, where she sat all covered in grimy dust and dried sweat, was the closest thing to a home that she owned.

  The knot in her throat grew huge and threatened to choke her. She scrambled down off the wagon, forcing her stiff arms and legs to work, and flew into the house, grabbed some towels, then a pitcher from the kitchen, and ran out the back door. When she reached the spring, she stripped down to her skin and poured the cool water over her grimy body, head to toe, over and over again.

  It shocked her hot skin and woke her completely, but it did nothing to wash away the battering day just past or to cool her feverish heart.

  Nick would do the chores before he ate, Callie knew, so by the time he came in through the back door carrying his boots, with his hair slicked back, his shirt off, and his wet jeans clinging to his skin, she had fresh, cool water poured into mugs and a semblance of a supper laid out on the table. She would earn her keep; she would maintain her independence; she would manage her life separate from Nick’s.

  In spite of the fact that the sight of his copper skin gleaming in the lamplight made her want to stare at him for the rest of the evening. His skin called so relentlessly to her hands that she ached to touch him.

  She turned her back and moved things around on the table.

  The nap in the wagon had unsettled her, that was all it was. This whole, long day she had been torn apart by too many emotions that ran too deep, and now she didn’t know what to feel or how because her plans were gone and her life was raging out of control.

  From the corner of her eye, she glanced at Nick, to see whether he was ready to be called to the table. His wet pants clung so tightly to the powerful muscles in his thighs that she couldn’t look away.

  He really made her furious. If they weren’t going to behave as husband and wife, then why was he walking around half-naked in front of her? Was he planning to do this all the time?

  “Helps to wash off the dust, doesn’t it?”

  His low voice was as calm as if this had been just any old day like any other.

  The ragged edges of her feelings tore a little more.

  “Yes,” she said sharply, barely keeping her voice steady, “we were probably the grimiest bride and groom that preacher ever married.”

  He chuckled and bent to set his boots down beside the door. His arms and shoulders rippled with muscles, and her palms itched to slide over them. Oh, how she needed to feel his warm arms around her!

  “You were a beautiful bride, Callie. The dust didn’t show on you at all.”

  “How can you say that?”

  The words burst out uncontrollably as she whirled to face him, a fork in one hand, a case-knife in the other.

  Startled, he walked toward her.

  “Because you were,” he said gently. “I thought that while we were saying our vows.”

  The trembly feeling inside her had never really gone away all day, not since the minute she’d waked. Now it took hold of her in a frantic grip.

  “I was not a bride!” she cried. “Have you forgotten already what you said?”

  He stopped in his tracks and stared.

  “Well, did you want to be? What I said was that I wouldn’t lay claim to my husband’s rights. I sure as hell didn’t say I wouldn’t accept them if you offered.”

  She stared back at him, shocked speechless.

  “Are you offering?”

  He was looking at her tenderly, from the damp hair clinging around her face to her bare feet sticking out from under his big white shirt she’d commandeered from the cupboard in his room. It came all the way down past her knees, nearly to her ankles. She was decently covered, but his eyes said he could see her body beneath it.

  “No!” she said, after a lifetime had passed.

  “All right,” he said, with the ghost of his smile starting to play on his lips, “I was only asking.”

  He strolled toward her, his feet soundless on the wood plank floor. It was all she could do not to run to meet him and throw herself into his embrace. She needed that, oh, she needed it so bad.

  “What’s the matter, Callie?”

  He sounded as if he really wanted to know.

  But he was only going to make love to her if she offered. What man wouldn’t take any willing woman?

  “I’m not beautiful, either, besides not being a bride,” she cried, as the tears that had been threatening began to pour from her eyes. “I’ve never been beautiful or my looks considered womanly—never!”

  “Then there must be something about the fine air of the Cherokee Strip that suits you right down to the bone,” he said softly,
and at the sound her very bones began to melt.

  She cast about desperately for a defense.

  “If our … marriage … is going to be in name only,” she said, trying to sound properly indignant, “you need to put on some clothes, Nick.”

  He stood directly in front of her now, looking down at her, searching her face. Then he gave her that rare, crooked grin of his that would charm the birds from the trees.

  “Let me take your weapons,” he drawled. “And I will.”

  He lifted the utensils from her upraised hands and reached around her with both arms to lay them on the table behind her.

  His body pressed against hers, wet and cooling, yet full of heat. Hard heat. He enveloped her in it. He was almost holding her.

  His scent made her drunk. He smelled of the fresh spring water and the night air, and his wet jeans held the fragrance of horses and dust and hay. But it was the aroma of his skin that made her dizzy—the man-scent that belonged only to Nickajack.

  She wanted to kiss the hollow in the middle of his chest. It was all she could do not to press her lips against his smooth skin.

  But that would be too dangerous. He already thought she was asking him to truly make her his wife. She’d already given him the wrong impression, and she needed to set him straight.

  Try as she might, though, she couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about.

  “You will do what?” she said slowly, managing to recall his last words.

  “Put on some clothes.”

  He took his arms from around her.

  She felt abandoned, forsaken, lost.

  Until he lifted his hands to the top button of his shirt, which she’d fastened just above her breasts, and began, slowly, to undo it.

  “Nick …?”

  She tilted her head back to look into his eyes.

  “You tell me to stop if you want to, Callie,” he said, “and I will.”

  But how could she? She was mesmerized. He was weaving a spell with his nimble, callused fingertips brushing fire into her skin.

  He moved on to the next button.

  “I meant put on some … clothes … of your own,” she said, taking in a deep draught of air, as his hands moved against the swells of her breasts.

  “I am. This is my shirt.”

  “I meant … a shirt of yours … that I wasn’t wearing,” she said, gasping each time he touched her.

  He leaned back to see her face and raised his eyebrows, feigning great surprise. With one fingertip, he traced a wandering, tantalizing line from the hollow of her collarbone down and down, in between her bare breasts, his knuckles barely brushing one, then the other. A shivering thrill raced through her.

  “Oh?” he teased. “Well, then, why didn’t you say that to begin with?”

  She couldn’t even frame a reply, much less speak.

  He unfastened another button.

  She had to stop him. He had said she only had to say the word.

  Stop. She must say it, Stop.

  The shirt was hanging open now. Soon it would be all undone, and he’d see she was wearing nothing underneath. His scent and his touch and his handsomeness were making her shameless, and she didn’t even care.

  Her little voice of truth flashed the warning of danger—if she made love with this man who wasn’t really her husband, she would want to again and again, just as she always wanted more of his kisses. And when spring came he’d be lost to her, because she’d be gone from this claim which also wasn’t really her own.

  She must push him away.

  He undid the last button of the shirt and stood back with his head cocked to look at her. The breeze from the window lifted one side of the shirt, then let it fall.

  Nick’s eyes never left hers. He intended to know every thought, every feeling inside her, they said. He was searching to see what she wanted and he wasn’t going to quit until she showed him.

  She must not let him learn she desired him so desperately that she couldn’t breathe anymore. She must keep that a secret, or be lost.

  His wet, black hair glinted blue sparks in the dim light, and clung endearingly to the noble shape of his head. She couldn’t help herself, she reached up and smoothed it back with her palm.

  He leaned into her hand.

  That tiny, beguiling, unguarded gesture, so unlike him, broke her heart.

  She didn’t care about next spring. She didn’t care about tomorrow. She needed Nickajack—only Nickajack.

  “All right,” he drawled, “what do you say? Are you going to give me back my shirt?”

  “N-o-o,” she managed to say, mimicking him, “I’m not. You’ll have to take it.”

  Chapter 15

  His gray eyes warmed to the color of smoke and a smile played around the corner of his lips.

  She thought he was bending to kiss her, but he scooped her up into his arms, held her nestled against him, where she fit like a dream, lifted the lamp chimney with one hand, and blew out the light. A trembling came over her and she had to wind her arms around his neck and press her cheek against his chest.

  It was broad and hard and warm. She wanted more; she wanted all of him. She stroked his neck, his shoulders, and he held her closer until he laid her down.

  “Do I have to give your bed back, too?” she said, breathlessly teasing him. “First it’s your shirt, then …”

  “We’re sharing this bed,” he said firmly. “From now on, we’re sleeping here together.”

  From now on …

  Instead of scaring her, that thrilled her. A reckless abandon was growing inside her.

  She pulled him back down when he started to let her go.

  “We’ll have everything sopping,” he muttered, but he said it against her lips and then took her mouth in a kiss that plundered her soul.

  In the kitchen, there by the table, she’d thought that she wanted him. She had honestly, secretly thought that she’d wanted him the first time they’d kissed.

  But she had not known what wanting was.

  Wanting took hold of her like a swirling tornado and ripped her right up off the earth. No gravity pulled at her anymore, no connection held her to the planet. Her only bond was to Nickajack, and he was creating it with his hot mouth and his tormenting tongue and his unbridled lips.

  Heaven help her. Now she wanted more and more, wanted him to do she didn’t even know what, wanted him never to stop this …

  She felt his hands leave her and go to the buttons of his jeans, but she wouldn’t let him move away; she couldn’t live without his mouth. Shameless, she sat up and moved with him, took his head in her hands so as not to break the kiss, then tried to help him peel away the stiff, wet, heavy cloth.

  She wanted all barriers away from between them. Then she wanted Nickajack inside her and around her and with her, skin to skin.

  She pulled her mouth from his only long enough to whisper one word against his lips.

  “Hurry.”

  He groaned and kissed her again, quick and hard, dragging his tongue along the seam of her lips as he turned away to peel down his jeans. Then, as she knelt up to reach for him, to run her hands over his back, his slim waist, and brazenly down onto his hard bottom, he caught her hands in his and held them away from his body as he turned to her.

  She gasped.

  In the moonlight, he was magnificent. She could not take her eyes from his hard manhood, which looked huge and ready and …

  “I want to see you, Callie.”

  There were no curtains at the long windows. The moon was rising fuller and brighter by the minute and its light poured in, falling across the bed like the dawn.

  He sat down beside her and cradled her head in both his big hands, but he didn’t kiss her. Slowly, he stroked the sides of her neck and her shoulders, ran his hands down over her arms. Even through her sleeves, his touch set her on fire.

  And then his hands came together at the front of the shirt, parted it, and gently, gently drew it down over her shoulders and off.
Nothing lay between them now.

  Tenderly, he laid her down again, pushing the pillow beneath her head.

  Nick caressed her with his gaze and she felt it as warm as the stroking of his hand would be on her skin. Some small corner of her mind marveled that she felt so easy about it, so truly comfortable with something so new and bold as this.

  “You are beautiful, Callie,” he said hoarsely. “You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  Tears sprang into her eyes.

  “Ah, Nick,” she said, and held out her arms, “come here to me.”

  And he did. He came to her and enfolded her; he kissed her senseless and then pulled back to look at her again, laying one hand on her hipbone as if it were a brand.

  By then she was writhing beneath him, ready to beg but unable to form words. Only one. Nick. That was all she could say.

  “Nick,” she whispered, reaching for his hard shaft, “Nick.”

  He groaned pitifully as she took him into her hand, and rolled over on top of her. He pushed her legs apart with his knee, then thrust into her with a fierce need that matched her own. His mouth and hers fit together again with an old, familiar passion. Inside the magic circle of his arms was where she was meant to be.

  Everything about them was meant to be.

  They moved together to the rhythm of their deep, wild heartbeats. She clung to him, digging her nails into his back so as not to go flying off into the universe—yielding, then demanding, then incredulous that pleasure could be so strong, so all-consuming. She had known nothing before this. Nothing.

  Then the pleasure built and built into a whole new storm that grew wilder yet. Nick swept her into it and through it to the peak of a mountain of joy, where lightning struck her, heart and soul. She could not think, she could only feel, as he collapsed with his face against hers and his ragged breath against her ear.

  With her primal instincts, she knew one thing: never, ever would she be the same.

  The dawn light, the earliest pale shadings of gray, told her how it was that she would never be the same. They lay entwined, her head on Nick’s shoulder, her leg thrown over his, his hand cupping her bottom.