by Janet Dailey
Her features hardened into a palely golden mask as she shot him a cold look. “I came out for a breath of fresh air, but it’s become a bit suffocating out here. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll turn in.” Kit quickened her step, catching the flash of white and hating him and his silent laughter.
The heel of her slipper caught the hem of her robe and tripped her. Kit stumbled forward. A muscled arm hooked the side of her waist to catch her and pull her to the steadying length of his body. The shock of the near fall and the sudden contact with his hard male shape momentarily froze her into stillness.
Her hipbone felt the pressure of his muscular thigh. His fingers were spread over the curve of her waist, extending to the lower edge of her rib cage. The unfamiliar touch of a man’s hand seemed to burn through the thin fibers of her robe, throwing her senses into a turmoil that Kit rejected violently.
“I’m all right. Let me go,” she ordered in a vibrantly husky voice.
“Of course,” Reese acquiesced without hesitation.
The arm around the back of her waist loosened its hold. As his hand fell away from her waist it made an absent and light exploration of the curve of her hip and the firm roundness of her buttocks. Kit jerked away, her skin tingling through the material where he had so intimately and indifferently felt her. She blamed the rising heat in her cheeks on anger at his liberties with her person.
Reese seemed aware of what he had done and Kit muffled her indignant reaction to offer a frigid “Good night, Mr. Talbot.” She turned toward the porch steps to her home.
His voice pursued her. “Who did this to you, Kit?” he asked quietly and curiously. “Who hurt you?”
His questions stopped her, but she didn’t turn around. “I don’t know what you are talking about.” She injected an even cooler temperature in her reply.
“Was it a man?”
A bitter, choked sound like laughter came from her throat. “Yes, you could say that.”
Before Reese could make any further inquiries, Kit hurried up the steps. The light streaming from the back door briefly silhouetted her feminine shape, changing the cotton material of her robe to gossamer. Then she was inside, the screen door slamming.
IT WAS AN EPISODE that Kit couldn’t so easily close her mind to. Its memory came back many times in the following ten days; its revival marked by each time she saw him. Her only means to combat it was to be harder and colder toward Reese than before.
With long, impatient strides Kit crossed the ranch yard toward her house. It was well past one o’clock, nearly two. The sun was high and hot overhead and her stomach was rumbling. She had been too busy at lunchtime to eat. Perspiring from the heat, and hungry as well, Kit hurried toward the house, hoping a quick snack would take the edge off this feeling of irritability.
“Miss Bonner? Kitty?”
The sound of a female voice brought her up short and she turned toward the Big House and the middle-aged woman standing on the porch, Mrs. Kent, a widowed lady Reese had hired to take care of the house and his meals. Kit still hadn’t gotten used to having a woman around the strictly male-oriented ranch.
“Yes, Mrs. Kent, what is it?” Her demand was abrupt; she was anxious not to be delayed.
The woman smoothed a hand over her plump, aproned figure, betraying an inner nervousness. “Have you seen Mr. Talbot?”
“No, I haven’t,” she was glad to say.
“Oh.” The answer plainly didn’t please the pepper-haired woman. “I thought he might be with you.”
Frowning, the housekeeper lifted her gaze to the south where the windbreak of trees didn’t obstruct the view of the ranchland.
“He isn’t. I haven’t seen him at all today,” Kit enlarged on her previous answer. Mrs. Kent’s behavior forced her to ask, “Why? What’s wrong?”
“He left shortly after breakfast this morning and said he’d be back for lunch, but I haven’t seen a sign of him.” She looked back to Kit. “I’m getting worried.”
Compressing her lips into a thin line, Kit breathed in deeply. “Did he say where he was going when he left this morning?”
“I thought he mentioned something about going for a ride.”
Kit made a sweeping inventory of the yard. Reese’s car was there and so was one of the pickups. She had just seen Frank by himself in the other truck so that eliminated the possibility Reese had taken one of the vehicles.
“Is he maybe with one of the others?” Mrs. Kent asked hopefully.
“No.” Kit had seen all three of the hands within the last hour and a half. Reese had not been with any of them. Her gaze searched over the horses in the corral next to the barn. The buckskin was missing and she knew Reese had taken to riding him. “Damn,” she cursed under her breath.
“What do you think we should do?” The housekeeper’s anxiety increased as each possibility was cast aside.
Kit didn’t answer immediately, looking to the wild land where a landmark could disappear in a maze of others of similar shape. Reese had said he was going riding and the buckskin was gone. Knowing the vagaries of his mount, it was possible he had been thrown. Even the best riders can be bucked off. But Kit was convinced that it was more likely he had ridden too far and become lost in the bewildering terrain.
“I’ll go out and look for him,” she said with decision. “Tell Nate what’s happened while I saddle a horse. He can take the truck and go look for him. If we aren’t back with him by the time Lew and the others show up, you’d better send them out, too.”
With a bribing pail of oats, she caught the bay gelding and saddled him with a swift economy of movement. As she rode into the yard her grandfather was just climbing into the cab of the pickup. Kit paused to speak to him, splitting up the directions they would take to widen the search for Reese. Little more than that was said. Getting lost was serious business in this wild country.
The gnawing hollowness in her stomach was forgotten as Kit rode out. She kept to the ridges, bluffs and mesas, the places where her view was expanded by the vantage of height. She pushed her mount to cover as much territory as possible. The bay lathered up quickly in the heat of the afternoon, but he was game.
Kit, too, felt the effects of the heat. Perspiration trickled down her spine and formed a rivulet in the hollow between her breasts. The cotton shirt clung to her sweat-damp skin, hugging closely to her curves. There was a salty taste to her lips and the pungent aroma of hot horseflesh assailed her sense of smell.
For well over an hour Kit searched fruitlessly, her eyes straining at the sight of each dark shape on the land only to have it turn out to be a cow or a boulder-sized chunk of scorialike rock that had tumbled from a cliff face. The sun was brilliant even beneath the wide, shadowing brim of her hat.
On the point of a bluff Kit turned the bay to send him down a gentle slipe dotted with rain pillars, tablelike pedestals of sandstone that the underlying sediment beneath the hard rock had eroded by wind and weather. Her peripheral vision caught a glimpse of movement to the far left. Kit reined in the bay and stared at the point where she thought she had seen something.
A narrow valley was formed by two ridgebacks. Willows and young cottonwoods followed the winding path of a creek bed through its center, a creek that the summer’s heat had probably reduced to a mere trickle. It was in those trees that Kit thought she had detected movement. The horse’s side heaved beneath her, glad of the short rest.
A few seconds later her patience and alertness were rewarded. Reese came riding out of the trees on the buckskin. Relieved satisfaction washed through her at having found him. It didn’t last long. The sight of him riding along so calmly as if he didn’t have a care in the world filled her with a seething anger.
Kit reined the bay to the left and urged it down the steeper slope. A patch of loose shale clattered noisily beneath his hooves, attracting Reese’s attention. Kit gave the bay his head as he slid and lunged down the hill to the other horse and rider.
Reese glowered at the sight of the lathered neck
and flanks of the bay. “What do you think you’re doing riding a horse that hard on a day like this?” His harsh voice slashed across her already irritable nerves.
“Is that all you can say when we’ve been turning this ranch upside down looking for you?” Rage quivered through her voice. “Of all the stupid, greenhorn stunts to pull, you had to go and get yourself lost!”
“Lost?” He seemed to relax indolently in his saddle, amusement twitching around his mouth. “I’m not lost.”
“What do you call it then?” Kit challenged.
“I was just doing a bit of exploring on my own.”
“Is that why you didn’t turn up back at the Big House for lunch today, the way you told Mrs. Kent you would?” She didn’t spare the sarcasm.
“Is that what this is all about?” Reese looked surprised — in a mocking sort of way. It did little to appease Kit’s temper.
“Yes, that’s what all this is about!” she snapped. “The poor woman was half-out of her mind when you didn’t show up! Nate is out along the river looking for you. And by this time the boys have joined in the search, as well!”
“I did tell Mrs. Kent I’d be back in time for lunch,” he admitted unremorsefully. “When the noon hour came around I wasn’t hungry so I didn’t bother to go back. It never occurred to me she’d be alarmed.”
His bland indifference to the furor his absence had caused caught at the breath in her throat. It was soon expelled in a rush of abuse.
“Of all the arrogant, insensitive excuses, that has to be the worst. Let me set you straight on a few things, Mr. Talbot,” Kit raged, fire blazing in her dark brown eyes, animating her usually frozen features. “When someone doesn’t show up when he says he is going to, it is a cause for alarm around here. And when that someone is also unfamiliar with the lie of the land, the cause for alarm becomes more real. This isn’t a friendly land, especially to those who are unaware of its dangers.”
“Your point is well taken, Kit,” he acceded.
She was much too angry to notice the leisurely way his gaze was roaming over her, taking note of the way the man’s shirt revealed the definitely female curves beneath it and the agitated movements of her breasts in rhythm with her breathing. The flush of anger in her cheeks gave an attractive vibrant glow to her skin.
“Is that all you have to say?” Only in the broadest sense could his response be termed an apology.
“No.” With an unconscious, masculine grace, Reese swung out of the saddle. “I think we should walk for a while and give you and your horse a chance to cool off.”
It was on the tip of her sharp tongue to inform him that she had no desire to cool off, but a glance at the shiny, wet neck of her horse stopped it. The bay did need a breather after the way she had pushed him in her search for Reese.
As he moved to the head of her horse, Kit placed a hand on the saddlehorn and started to swing a leg over the saddle. His hands gripped the sides of her waist and Kit stopped, standing in the air with one foot in the stirrup. Twisting to glare at him, she leaned against the saddle skirt.
“I have been getting on and off horses by myself for years. I don’t need your help!” she lashed out angrily.
A steely glint entered his eyes. “That’s too bad, because you are going to get it.”
His fingers bit into her flesh to increase his hold. Kit swung at his arm, in too precarious a position to offer more than a brief resistance. Already he was lifting her clear of the saddle as if her slender body weighed no more than air. Her feet touched the ground and she tried to wrench away from his hands, hitting at him and kicking.
With consummate ease Reese turned her around, a muscled arm across the middle of her back crushing her to his length. Her arms were pinned against his chest and Kit knew she was trapped by his superior male strength. Immediately she ceased struggling to hold herself rigidly still in his grip. Adrenalin surged through her system and her heart beat wildly in rage at her impotence.
Tipping her head back she glared at the aggressive lines of his face, complacently male and cynically amused by her struggles. Her chin jutted forward at a belligerent angle, her jaw hard and set.
“I’m on the ground. You can let me go.” Kit issued the order through savagely clenched teeth. The heat of his body, so hard and unyielding, was making itself felt and she didn’t like the sensation.
There was a dangerous glint in his eyes as if he enjoyed having her at his mercy. His gaze lifted a few inches, that arrogant and rough half smile playing with his mouth.
“Do you know I’ve never seen you without that damned hat?” The low, huskily amused sound of his voice seemed to come from deep in his throat.
His words registered with a flash of warning. But other than a strangled “No!” there was nothing Kit could do to stop him before he had tugged the weathered brown hat from her head arid a cascade of chestnut gold hair tumbled about her shoulders.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” There was a chuckle in his murmur of surprise as he wound his fingers into the silken strands shimmering with highlights of liquid gold in the sunshine.
“Stop it.” Kit tried to twist away from his touch, straining against the iron band of his arm across her back, and closing her eyes against the feel of his hand running through her hair.
“Why haven’t you chopped it off like a boy?” Reese mocked, but with a thread of curiosity.
“Because,” she breathed out heavily, frustrated and unable to cope with the situation, “it’s too much trouble getting it cut all the time.”
“Is that the real reason?” he taunted skeptically.
“Yes!” Kit flashed, her eyes snapping open with bitter recrimination for doubting her words.
Something in his hooded look paralyzed her. A shiver ran clown her spine as she felt the hard, vibrant intention of his body. His attention had shifted to her lips. Instantly Kit stiffened and would have renewed her struggles. But a fistful of hair tugged her into motionlessness and Kit was helpless to elude his mouth, descending with deliberate slowness.
“No,” she moaned against the touch of his male lips against hers, but it came out muffled and completely unheeded.
Their touch was firm, faintly ravaging in their exploration of her softness. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out his image and the awareness of the solid flesh of a man’s body molded to hers. Relentlessly he plied the sweetness of her lips, dominating, mastering and driving out all other thought but his possession. The heat of the afternoon seemed to intensify the hot, male odor of him, smothering her breath as well as all other smells.
The brilliant sun seemed to be affecting her. Kit felt dizzy and strangely weightless. With her arms pinned, her fingers clutched at his shirt front, feeling the granite wall it covered. Something warm and urgent was being unleashed inside her and Kit fought it, whimpering in her throat like a child at this unknown quality she didn’t understand.
Immediately at the sound, the locking hold of his arm around her seemed to relax, as if Reese believed he had conquered her. With a quick, frightened twist she was out of his arms, turning away to push the tousled disarray of tawny brown hair away and conceal her expression with her hand. Kit was more shaken by the kiss than she cared to admit.
“You are full of surprises,” Reese declared in a husky, mocking tone. “It looks as if there’s some truth in that saying about letting your hair down.”
Her back was to him and his hands settled caressingly on her shoulders, his warm breath fanning her hair an instant before Kit stepped away, shrugging free of his touch.
“Don’t be too sure about that.” Thankfully her voice was fairly steady even if her heart was still thudding erratically in her chest.
“Admit it, Kit.” He made no further move to approach her. “That hard shell of yours cracked. Maybe I should have peeled it away layer by layer.”
“Better men than you have tried.” She turned to face him, confident she had regained enough of her composure to battle him.
“Bol
d words,” Reese insisted with a knowing glitter in those unsettling hazel eyes. “And lies. I tasted the inexperience of your lips. Not that many men have tried.”
Her gaze faltered for an instant. “That’s what you think.”
“That is what I know,” he stressed softly. “I doubt if your experience goes beyond a few stolen kisses behind the barn. I’d swear you never made it to the hayloft.”
She drew herself up to her full height, summoning all her pride to not be intimidated by the way he towered so closely before her. “Is that something I should be ashamed about?” Kit challenged.
“No, on the contrary.” Lazily he reached out, his fingers closing around the shirt button nestled in the vee of her breasts. “Every man likes to be the first.”
Trembling in a white-hot rage at the intimate brush of his hand, Kit slapped it away. “You have the time and place mixed up.” Her voice was raw with the fury of her reaction. “This is not the eighteenth century or jolly old England. You may be a lord but you can’t take your pick of the local virgins.”
His eyes narrowed dangerously, a muscle twitching along a tightened jaw. “By ‘every man’ I was not necessarily referring to myself. I don’t go around seducing every virgin I meet. The women who come to my bed are willing. They are not taken by force.”
“Women. In the plural,” Kit tossed back contemptuously.
“Yes, in the plural.” His voice was threateningly low. “I don’t get tied down to one. And my reference to you was to indicate that the man you chose would be grateful for the gift.”
“It will never be you!”
“That’s your choice,” Reese snapped. “And believe me, I’m not at all sure I’d want you.”
“Good.” Something was strangling her throat, making her voice tight and huskier than normal. “You just stick to dainty little blond-haired dolls that will fawn all over you, all female and subservient.”
“I have never preferred blondes over brunettes or vice versa,” he said coldly. “But one thing is sure. Whomever I make love to, it’s someone who isn’t afraid of being a woman.”
