Widow Woman

by Patricia McLinn

  “I’ll be there.”

  Nick was the last to take a seat at the long table, after a last-minute change to the new striped shirt he’d bought in Hammer Butte.

  The Circle T’s owner wore a dress he hadn’t seen before. Its gray material looked as if it would be as soft to the touch as it was to the eye. White lace formed collar and cuffs. Around the bottom of the skirt, more fashionably narrow than most he’d seen her wear, was a band of velvet of so deep a red it neared black. The same material marked the front and the sleeves. A paisley shawl around her shoulders mixed the gray and a lighter shade of red.

  That color also seemed to be reflected in her cheeks as she flicked a look at him before picking up the book. When she began reading, even the scrape of utensil against plate became muted, and finally fell silent.

  Nick had never seen anything like it. As a rule, hands didn’t make much conversation at a meal and they never lingered. They finished eating, they left the table. There was too much to do for it to be any other way. But here they sat, not one leaving. “’So, as Tiny Tim observed. God Bless Us Every One,’” she finished, and closed the book.

  “If that don’t beat all,” said Henry among general mutters of approval. “Guess old Scrooge learned his lesson right enough.”

  Mrs. Terhune smiled. “He did, indeed. Now, what we have to learn is how to get ready for this afternoon’s arrivals in no time at all.”

  The men moved the desk and table to one side for dancing in the dining room and set out chairs in the parlor. About the time they finished, guests started arriving. Arnold Brett, his wife and boy from Natchez along with a couple single hands. The Murchisons, a family with two young sons running a bit of land southwest of the Circle T. And the Schmidts, whose road ranch served travelers up the stage road toward Miles City, came with their daughter, Gerta.

  And each brought delicacies they added to the kitchen table already loaded with Ruth and Fred’s bounty. Besides the women’s cakes and pies, the single hands from Natchez brought tins of oysters and lobster. There would be another feast tonight.

  Dancing started as soon as Mr. Schmidt warmed up his fiddle, and with the men far outnumbering the women, every female was kept spinning and whirling, even Anna Brett, who was obviously increasing again, as well as rotund Mrs. Schmidt and gray-haired Ruth Shagwell.

  Nick leaned against the wall and watched. Davis, flushed and triumphant, joined him after a particularly spirited dance with Rachel Terhune.

  “Nick, you know how Shag and Mrs. Terhune knew where I was?”

  “No.”

  “From the Schmidts. I’d been by their place and they happened to mention it to someone who stopped the next night at the Circle T, and that’s how word came along. I don’t think they know—” Davis’ fair skin reddened. “I mean, I think they think I’m just squatting there.”

  “That won’t worry anybody any, because they know you’re not rustling.”

  Davis nodded. “That’s how I figured it. Might even suit ‘em having somebody they know in that cabin since it’s not all that far off the Circle T.”

  “Might.” But how would it suit the Circle T owner when she knew Nick Dusaq owned that cabin?

  “Aren’t you going to dance?” Davis asked.

  “Seems the ladies have plenty of partners.”

  Davis gave him a look that bordered on mischief. “Don’t think they’d turn you down.”

  Nick lifted an eyebrow and retaliated. “Don’t see you taking your turns with young Gerta.” The other single men had clustered around the Schmidts’ comely sixteen-year-old daughter.

  The younger man’s face grew thoughtful. “She seems awful young. All that gigglin’, I guess.”

  Nick nodded. Seemed Davis had more sense than he’d given him credit for.

  “No sense denying the others when they’d rather be dancing with her, when dancing with the married ladies is fine with me.”

  You danced with Rachel Terhune and she’s not married.

  Nick pressed his lips tight, but it didn’t stop the thought.

  Rachel Terhune was no foolish girl but, worthy as Ruth and Mrs. Schmidt might be, he couldn’t for the life of him understand any man lumping her with them. Rachel Terhune was a woman in her prime. A woman any man would want to hold in his arms. The sort of woman who should have a man by her side, and be breeding a babe.

  A knot formed in Nick’s gut. At least one man had made it clear he was more than willing to put Rachel Terhune in that position. There were likely others.

  “Where you going, Nick?” Andresson’s question followed him as he headed toward the kitchen.

  “Get some air.”

  He barely noticed the aromas swirling in the warmth of the kitchen, but strode through the deserted room and out the door, welcoming the slap of cold. He breathed in deep, filling his lungs so it would freeze any foolish notions lingering in his chest. It stripped his senses of the lure of warmth, music, food and laughter inside.

  In the sharp, cold air of a Wyoming winter evening, Nick came to a decision.

  He’d tell Rachel Terhune he’d bought the Wallace place.

  Right now. If she fired him on the spot, he’d ride out without looking back. If she wanted him to work out the winter, he’d do that. But one way or another, he was going to tell her, and that would put an end to this.

  Chapter Seven

  Nick stepped into the kitchen in time to sight a swirl of gray skirt trimmed with deep red velvet disappearing around the edge of the door to the cellar pantry.

  Fate held him to his word. Right now it would be.

  He strode across the empty room. She hadn’t closed the door. He did. It latched silently behind him.

  Four steps down reached a dirt-packed floor covered with stretched canvas. Being underground helped cool it even in summer’s heat. Shelves to the ceiling stocked foodstuffs to last a long, isolated winter.

  At the far side and with her back to the door, Rachel Terhune stood on her toes, the hem of her skirt lifting to show her raised heels. A scuff marked the back of her right low-heeled slipper. Above showed a pale swatch of stockinged ankles as she stretched toward a wooden tray protruding from a shelf above her head. With the tips of her fingers she nudged the tray, topped by a round tin. Her fingertip-reach unsettled it, but couldn’t secure the tray, and the tin threatened to slide right off and onto her head.

  The tray teetered. He moved quickly.

  “I’ll get it.”

  Rachel sucked in a startled breath, then couldn’t seem to release it.

  Even if she hadn’t thought herself alone, this was the last voice she’d have expected.

  Nick Dusaq.

  She’d glimpsed his unsmiling eyes on her while she danced. The echo of his voice jolted up her spine and she brushed the underside of the tray again. The tin of nuts she’d come after rattled. Before she could react, he’d stretched both arms over her to steady the tray. He surrounded her, leaving no space, no air. Abruptly, she dropped to her heels, brushing against him.

  “Hold still.”

  A half step allowed him a hold to lift the tin, a half step that brought him full against her. She obeyed his order to be still because she couldn’t move. His outstretched arms suspended the tin overhead.

  Turning only her head, she followed the tin’s path as he brought it to the side and laid it on a shelf. She felt the solidity of his chest against her shoulder blades, the strength of his thighs behind her legs. And the heat of his desire.

  Shadows filtered across the pantry. Like the shadows that had fallen across her room those nights Edward Terhune had come to her bed. She should be frightened, repulsed.

  She spun around, bracing her hands against his chest to ward him off.

  In the instant of that touch, the shadows burned away, leaving the heat of summer, the blaze of clear sky and the sparkle of sun on water. It dazzled her. Unable to move. Unable to think. Just as she had been that day at Jasper Pond.

  He dipped his head a
nd the fleeting brush of his lips across hers flashed through her body. When he raised his head, he didn’t move away, his broad shoulders and dark head blocking the light. But the darkness didn’t frighten her now.

  His lips touched hers again. Not simply a brush, but a meeting. They slid along her mouth, stopping to press, then shifted for another angle.

  He ended the kiss. They held there, so close but not quite touching, while motion and time and intent hung suspended.

  Rachel knew she could end this, knew she should. She made no move—not toward him or away.

  A sound escaped him, a low hiss of a word that touched her lips as a breath and slid a shiver down her spine.

  And then his mouth was on hers again, full, hard, demanding. His hand cupped the back of her neck, holding her to him, and his tongue pressed at her lips, seeking entry. Gaining it. Sliding into her mouth, exploring, commanding.

  She didn’t know this. Hadn’t experienced this kind of kiss. Hadn’t felt this kind of heat. It came from all around. From the air that seemed to crackle with it, from this man’s body, and most disorienting of all, from some hidden source deep inside her. It rose up in her to meet his heat and blend with it. And she didn’t know how they could not be burned.

  Nick felt the fire, inside and out. So hot he nearly shivered with it. So hot it would scar.

  Her mouth’s moist heat drew him in like a drowning eddy. Her hands on his chest seemed to burn through the covering cloth and right into his skin.

  She stayed still, not fighting as he might have feared, not answering as he might have dreamed. And suddenly Nick couldn’t stand the stillness. Let her push him away or let her hold him, but no more of this stillness. Loosening the strict hold on his desire, he blatantly drew her lower body against his. His other hand tilted her head to consume her mouth.

  This was why he hadn’t danced with her, some part of him recognized—because he never would have been satisfied with the polite embrace of dancing. The roomful of people wouldn’t have stopped him, he’d have demanded more.

  How many times had he absorbed her sweet, tangy smell? Now he tasted it, feasted on it. Acknowledged his hunger for it in a primal communication. And she responded. Her tongue touched to his. A tentative caress, so brief.

  It didn’t always take a bolt of lightning to start a range fire. Sometimes it needed only a tiny spark.

  He raged with it. It licked at the restraints he’d so carefully built, over months with her, over years with himself.

  Sliding his tongue against hers, rocking his hips against hers, he wanted more . . . needed more.

  She broke from his kiss with the gasp of a drowning person. The full power of her arms, pushing against his chest bought her only the breath of space he allowed. Their eyes locked.

  Through the haze of desire, he recognized the wide stare of fear in her eyes. Beneath the slash of color across her cheeks, he saw a stark paleness that looked to him like terror.

  What a fool. What a damned fool.

  Heat burned between them, no denying that. But heat could destroy what it set out to warm.

  He shoved her away, not bothering to gentle his rough hands, and she gave a small gasp.

  He could take her. He knew it. Here in the shadows and the dust, with a houseful of people a room away, he could slide inside her, deep and hot, and they’d both buck and writhe and sweat until they finally completed what had started that day at Jasper Pond.

  And when it ended the fire would cool, and he would see among the ashes what was left in her eyes. Disgust

  “Don’t forget the goddamned tin.”

  He turned on his heel and walked out. Guided by a brightening moon before him and clawing memories behind, he didn’t stop until he reached the shack.

  * * * *

  Every rule of politeness learned from her mother, every lesson in survival drilled by her father, every instinct to salve hurts in private born into her came together to carry Rachel through the dragging hours of that long, long night.

  Dancing, singing and eating went on all night. Couldn’t go home in the dark, could they? reasoned her guests. A rare bit of sociable fun snatched from a long, lonely winter, so make the most of it. Until the sun’s rise denied them their excuse. At last, they called farewells, still gay in exhaustion—there’d be time enough to rest up.

  Davis helped return furniture to order, but he too left before midmorning. Shag, Henry and Fred did chores, then slipped away. After she and Ruth righted the worst of the damage, Rachel sent the older woman to rest, saying the work would keep until afternoon, or tomorrow.

  Then she repaired to her bedroom.

  She stepped from the skirt Ruth had helped her fashion from another of her mother’s old dresses and laid it carefully on a chair. Her fingers mechanically unfastened the closely set buttons on the matching bodice. As she put that aside, a scent stopped her. Leather and wool, soap-scrubbed skin with a tang of wind. She started to draw the cloth to her face.

  What was she doing? Was she losing her mind, imagining that the scent of Nick Dusaq lingered on her clothes? Even if it did, she had no cause to seek after it.

  Hastily, she put the bodice down, unhooked the corset’s front busk and slid off petticoats, then her stockings. Wearing her chemise, she slipped between the cold sheets, and told herself to sleep.

  Behind her closed eyelids arose images and sensations she’d kept at bay all the long hours.

  Sitting, she wrapped her arms around her bent knees.

  She didn’t want Nick to touch her that way, to hold her so tight her breasts pressed against his chest, her hips cradled his. She didn’t want to feel that way. Did she?

  Edward Terhune’s visits to her bed had frightened her at first, and brought pain. She’d resolved to endure the pain, and knowing she could endure soon eased the fright. Though the creaking of her bedroom door in the night had never ceased to drop a weight to the pit of her stomach.

  Nick’s caresses brought a strange sensation there as well. Not the same, but no less disturbing.

  She touched two fingertips to her lower lip. It felt tender. Full and warm. Faintly moist.

  Was that how it had felt to him?

  Edward had kissed her sometimes, his lips soft and wet. She had been grateful he never kissed her long, proceeding to other intimacies, which also didn’t last long.

  Nick’s lips had not been soft, though his mouth had not been nearly as hard on hers as she might have imagined from the harsh, stern line it usually held. Not that she had imagined. Except, perhaps for some mad summer moments beside Jasper Pond.

  His kiss had not been wet, either, though she’d felt the trail of moisture left by his tongue on her lips. Top and bottom, and where they met . . . until his tongue entered her mouth.

  Her lips parted now, and one fingertip slipped inside. She met it with the tip of her tongue, remembering the sensations, imagining new ones.

  God help her, she had wanted him to touch her that way, to hold her that way. And more.

  Not only by Jasper Pond, but that night at the calf branding. And definitely last night, as he had held her in his arms and kissed her.

  Rachel hugged her knees tight and shivered, alone, in her bed.

  * * * *

  Not three weeks after Christmas, Nick brought Marley into the shed after a day in the saddle, to find Shag’s roan stabled there.

  In no mood to mince words, Nick swung open the shack door and demanded, “What are you doing here, Shag?”

  Come to fire me? Come to put a hole through me?

  Shag might do either—or both—if Rachel Terhune had told her foreman what had happened.

  Shag looked around from his whittling. “Thought I’d see how you’re doing. You took off sudden at Christmas.”

  So, she hadn’t told him. “It was late. I wanted to get back.”

  Shag nodded slowly. He looked older. Or maybe he just looked tired. “That’s what Chell said. Said you decided it was time to head out. Seemed edgy, Chell di
d, but when I asked what burr got under her saddle, she said I’d imagined it. My coddling streak acting up, she said. Got to admit, I’d do my best to make sure nothing and nobody hurt her.”

  The implicit warning hung in the air. Nick left it there, not denying, not taking up the challenge, not pointing out Rachel Terhune did a damned good job of taking care of herself.

  Shag nodded, as if silence gave an answer. “’Course, sometimes she’s hurting herself. But that’s the way with women. My Ruth, bless her, she . . .” The foreman began an affectionate grumble.

  No talk of Christmas intruded as they prepared beans to go with the biscuits Shag had brought from Ruth’s morning batch. Shag didn’t eat much and rubbed hard at his gut when he thought Nick didn’t notice. They finished eating, and sat before the fire, Shag whittling while Nick braided strips of rawhide.

  “How’s Joe-Max’s camp?” Nick asked after a while.

  Shag shrugged. “ ‘Bout what we expected. Only a fool don’t expect to lose cattle over winter.”

  “Maybe. Maybe it doesn’t need to be so many.”

  Shag snorted. “How? Trail ‘em to Texas for the winter?”

  “The way they drift south, it wouldn’t be hard to convince ‘em. But I had in mind something different.” He left it, for Shag to ignore or pick up as he chose.

  Guiding the knife with the pad of his thumb, Shag cut out a precise curl of wood. “What’d you have in mind?”

  “I was thinking of those breeding horses at the main ranch.”

  “What about ‘em?”

  “Why not treat cattle the same come winter? Pasture them close and feed them.”

  “This is open range country.”

  “Not forever.”

  The older man winced, and Nick guessed Doyle Shagwell had seen that the way of life he knew would end someday. Vast as open range remained, it had dwindled in a few short years. Homesteads, towns, railroads, mining all ate away at it, at the same time more cattlemen put more head on less land.

  “Profit in cattle comes of keeping costs low raising ‘em, and that’s because they graze the range. It would cost to feed a herd all winter. Either by raising hay, which would need a heap of workers you don’t have—”