Texas Blonde

by Victoria Thompson

  Felicity tried to resist. If she meant so little to him, she would not surrender, but she was no match for his strength. When his mouth finally found hers, he held her so tightly that she could not even turn away. She felt a groan rumble from deep in his chest and the bulk of his weight shifted over her, smothering all her protests.

  As if from a great distance, Felicity heard an ominous creaking sound. For one awful moment, she imagined that all her bones were breaking, crushed under this unwanted burden. And then they both fell with a loud thump.

  With difficulty, Josh and Felicity untangled themselves from the bedclothes and each other to find they were now lying on the floor surrounded by the high sides of the enormous bed.

  "What the hell?"

  "What happened?"

  Slightly dazed, Felicity could not quite get her bearings. She sat up carefully, feeling for the headboard and sides of the bed so she would not bump her head. She heard Mr. Logan swearing some more. "What happened?" she asked again.

  "The bed ropes broke, I guess," he said, twisting around to a sitting position beside her. "Nobody's slept in this bed for years. The ropes must have rotted."

  "But Candace said she put new ones on," Felicity remembered. Candace had carefully listed all the preparations she had made to the room as she was undressing Felicity. Felicity recalled this one in particular because Candace had mentioned the bed would now be able to hold up to a lot of tossing and turning, a remark that had made Felicity blush.

  "Are you sure?" Josh asked, but he was feeling along the side of the bed where the ends of the ropes still dangled. "Somebody cut them!" he informed her in outrage.

  "Cut them? Who would do a thing like that?" she asked in confusion.

  "Somebody who's going to regret the day he was ever born when I find out who he is," Josh muttered furiously.

  But Felicity was remembering another conversation she had had earlier in the day. "I don't think it's a 'him,'" she said thoughtfully.

  "You know who did it?" he asked ominously, turning to her in the darkness.

  Felicity hesitated a moment. "I… I think it might have been Blanche."

  "Blanche?" he echoed incredulously. "Why would she have done it?"

  "She was… disappointed when I told her you weren't going to let the men have a shivaree. She said maybe she'd think up some mischief herself…" Felicity let her voice trail off, and she winced at a new spate of profanity.

  For a long moment neither of them spoke. Sitting there in the dark, on the floor, among the ruins of their marriage bed, Felicity began to feel a little ridiculous. She tried to remember that only moments ago she had been trying to fight off her husband's amorous attentions because she was angry with him, but somehow that seemed very long ago and far away. Now he, too, was sitting on the floor, fury having replaced passion as his most dominant emotion.

  Although his large body was only a darker shadow in the blackness, Felicity could picture exactly how he would look, his broad shoulders stiff with frustration, his handsome face scowling grimly, his gray eyes glittering with rage. And his silver head the only thing visible above the side of the bed, had anyone happened to see them at that moment. His whole head and only the very top of hers. And they were sitting on the floor.

  The absurdity of it all twitched at her lips. She slapped a hand across them, but the twitch continued. Before she could stop it, a bubble of laughter burst in her throat. She muffled it as best she could and it came out as a strangled sob.

  "Felicity? What's wrong?" he asked in alarm. "Are you hurt?"

  His concern, under the present circumstances, struck her as hilarious, and she had to use both hands to check the squeals trying to escape from her mouth.

  The awful sounds raised gooseflesh along the back of Josh's neck. He reached for her with gentle hands. Good Lord, she was trembling. "What is it?" he insisted. "Where are you hurt?"

  This undid her and she convulsed, collapsing against his chest. "I'm… not… hurt…" she gasped between shrieks.

  She had to repeat it twice before he understood, and still he held her as tenderly as if she were spun glass. "Then what's wrong with you?" he demanded, though his voice and hands were infinitely gentle.

  "We're… we're sitting… on the floor!" she explained raggedly, still half choking with her laughter. "It's so funny!"

  His hands tightened on her arms. "Funny?" he repeated. "Funny! Are you laughing?"

  She nodded her head furiously against his chest, too limp to even straighten up.

  "Funny!" he said again, incredulously, sending her into another fit. Instinctively, he pulled her closer to allow her laughter to spill over his bare chest. The sensation was fantastic, much the same as receiving a refreshing rain shower on a sultry day. He smiled in the dark as her small body quivered against his. He had never heard such a wondrously joyful sound. His own smile began to twitch.

  Felicity felt his laughter before she heard it. The silent quaking shook her and then the sound came pouring out like a jubilant geyser to splash over her.

  Josh sank backward onto the pillows, carrying his wife with him, clinging to her until the last rumbles of their mirth died away and they lay together, weakly gasping for breath.

  After a long time, he spoke. "What do you think we should do now?" he asked a little breathlessly.

  "Do?" Felicity repeated stupidly, too drained to even figure out what he was talking about.

  "Yes, do. About our bed."

  Felicity found this cryptic remark entirely beyond her depleted ability to analyze. "Huh?" she asked, lifting her head attentively.

  He sighed with exaggerated patience. "Our bed is broken. Remember?" he said slowly. "I could, of course, carry you off to one of the other bedrooms, but I'm not exactly dressed for a move."

  The word "dressed" lodged in her mind. What did he mean, he wasn't dressed? Suddenly she realized that the fuzz beneath her cheek had been hair. And naked flesh. Tentatively, she moved the arm draped across his waist. Her fingers grazed bare skin.

  "You aren't wearing any clothes!" she squeaked, jerking her hand away. She would have jerked the rest of herself away, too, but he was holding her too tightly.

  "No, and you're wearing too many," he said, running his hand up and down her back, testing the warmth of her through the thin fabric. The desire that the fall had quenched proved only to be banked. It now flickered to life again, but the raw edge of his need was gone, replaced by a languorous sensuality. His other hand reached for her face and drew it down to his.

  Had he tried to force her, she might have resisted once more, but this time his touch was light, almost teasing. When her lips grazed his, all thoughts of resistance vanished.

  "Mmmm, you taste so good," he murmured against her mouth as he nibbled at her bottom lip.

  And he did, too, she realized. The whiskey flavor was no longer offensive, but intoxicating. Unconsciously, she lifted her hand to his face and slipped her fingers into the soft silver of his hair to deepen the kiss.

  His moan of response emboldened her, and when he shifted her to lie on top of him, she cooperated gladly. His tongue was doing such marvelous things inside her mouth that she barely noticed the way his hands had rearranged her nightdress until one of them cupped her bare bottom. Her breath caught in her throat as a thousand sensations rippled through her, every one of them deliciously pleasant.

  He moaned again, coaxing her until her legs parted and she was straddling him. She felt the heat of him, and sensed the strength beneath her, strength willingly restrained. Testing her own power, she tightened the grip of her knees against his flanks and playfully nuzzled her hips to his. He made a strangled sound down in his throat and retaliated by clutching at her thighs. His rough fingers mercilessly teased the sensitive inner flesh until her hips bucked against his out of need. And all the time his mouth continued to play with hers, tasting and probing and nipping, until she thought she might well drown in the wonder of it.

  Then the whole world turned upside do
wn, and he was looming over her, a faceless silhouette in the darkness. "I'm going to take your nightdress off," he whispered raggedly.

  "Are you?" she asked faintly, vaguely aware that he was already working at the buttons.

  He did not bother to reply. In a few more moments, the garment slipped over her head, leaving her naked and aching with need. Grateful for the darkness that hid her body, she was equally grateful that it hid her face. Surely her love for him must show in her eyes. It heated her blood until she feared her very skin might glow.

  Knowing that her secret was safely hidden, she reached for him hungrily. He came to her, but it was he who devoured. His fevered kisses rained over her body, exploring every inch of her. When she was a quivering mass of desire, he leaned down to taste of that desire.

  The shock of his touch shook her, and she cried out with the force of her pleasure. He lifted her higher and higher until she knew she could not stand another moment.

  "Please!" she begged.

  "Please, what?" he teased, his breath a scorching torment against her throbbing flesh.

  "Please!" she repeated, not knowing the words to ask for what she wanted.

  But he understood. Slowly, torturously, he stroked his way up her body. Her hands clutched at him in a silent entreaty to hurry, but he took his time. When his face was over hers, she felt the gentle nudging below. Her hands grasped his hips to urge him on, but he held back.

  Josh stared down at her, trying futilely to see her face. His own control was dangling by a single thread of willpower, but he needed one thing from her first. "My name. Say my name," he rasped.

  "Please!" she almost sobbed. "Please, Joshua."

  He filled her in one swift thrust, but even that was not enough for her. She wrapped her legs around him in an effort to draw him even closer, into her heart. Into her soul.

  This time there were no colored lights, only a blinding flash of brilliance that seemed to consume them both in a white-hot flame. Felicity fell into a contented sleep in the afterglow.

  Candace hummed softly as she made her way to her tiny cabin behind the main house. The last of the guests had gone, so she no longer needed to stand guard over the master bedroom. She smiled again over the memory of her own reaction to the loud thump she had heard from that room earlier. Rushing to listen at the door, she had caught Mr. Josh's outraged."Somebody cut the ropes!" That, she realized, would explain why the Delano woman had been looking for a sharp knife earlier in the day.

  Remembering the sounds of laughter she had heard next from the bedroom made her chuckle. She was still chuckling when she entered her cabin. The single room was pitch-dark, but Candace moved with the confidence of familiarity over to where a lamp rested on a table in the center of the small room. Feeling for a match, she struck it and lighted the lamp.

  "Hello," a masculine voice said from the shadows behind her.

  Candace cried out in alarm, the lamp chimney slipping from her startled fingers. It smashed onto the floor as she whirled to face the voice.

  The man stepped into the circle of light. An evil smile twisted his coffee-colored face, and his brown eyes glittered ominously.

  Candace looked up at that face. "Who are you?" she asked with false bravado, one dark hand pressed to her clamoring heart.

  The man stepped closer, making Candace aware of how huge he was, how powerful. And how dangerous. "Don't you know me, Mama?" he asked, tilting his head as if such a possibility were inconceivable.

  Candace stared at him. The flickering lamp cast eerie shadows over the room, increasing her sense of unreality while she studied the stranger's face, a face that was as familiar as her own. "Jeremiah," she whispered, not wanting to believe it but knowing she was right all the same. Jeremiah. Her Jeremiah. But not at all the way she remembered him.

  "Ah, so you do remember me," he said, taking another step toward her. Instinctively, she backed away until she bumped the table. Her hands clutched convulsively against its edge. "I thought maybe you'd forgotten that you even had a son," he added, his voice tinged with sarcasm.

  "No!" she said, and her mother's heart echoed, "Never!"

  But something told her not to say it to him, not to reveal the depth of her emotions. The fright she had felt upon first hearing his voice only increased now that she knew his identity and heard the hatred in his voice. "What… what are you doing in Texas?" she asked, trying to still the tremor in her own voice but only partially Succeeding.

  "This and that. Mostly I came to see the place that might've been my home if my loving mama had brought me along with her when she left." His lips were still twisted in that parody of a smile, but Candace could feel the hate emanating from him like a palpable force. She swallowed to ease her dry throat.

  "I couldn't bring you here. You must know that," she said, still trying to remain calm. Surely someone had explained it to him, how she had begged to bring him along and how they had refused to let her. How she had left him with her mother to raise, knowing that at least he would be well loved and taken care of.

  If so, he gave no indication. Instead he said, "I also wanted to see Joshua Logan, the boy you raised instead of me."

  The implication was vicious and Candace gasped. "I didn't-" she began, but he cut her off.

  "Oh yes, you did," he corrected maliciously, closing the small distance remaining between them. "And don't try to tell me they wouldn't let you come back home. Mrs. Logan told me different. She was only too happy to tell me different, time and time again, over and over and over." His hands came up, clutching at her shoulders until Candace cried out in pain. "She told me how she wanted you to come back with her, back home to your son, but you wouldn't come. You wouldn't leave the other boy."

  The loathing in his eyes was a flame that seared her very soul, but that pain was nothing compared to the old agonies she had endured, the agony of leaving him behind in the first place, so long ago. She had to make him understand. "But you were twelve years old then, practically a man, and I'd been gone since you were three. You wouldn't even have known me! And you didn't need me! You had my mother and my sisters. They raised you! They loved you, didn't they?" she challenged.

  Something flickered in those hate-filled eyes, a hint of secret torments, and Candace continued desperately. "Joshua was so little and he didn't have anyone! His mother left him and he only had his father…"

  Those dark eyes grew cold again. "Oh yes, his father," he repeated mockingly. "We all have to do what his father says, don't we? He wouldn't let you bring me along to Texas because a little nigger bastard might embarrass Mrs. Logan, isn't that right?" But he didn't pause for her reply. "And when he wanted you to stay here, you stayed here, with his son!"

  At the time her reasons had seemed so important, but in the face of his hostility, she knew they were meaningless. The words she would have spoken in explanation died on her lips. She spoke the only ones that still seemed to matter. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

  "Sorry!" he exploded, shoving her away from him in disgust. The table behind her toppled with a crash, and she fell amidst the broken glass. A shard sliced the palm of her hand, but she did not even feel the pain.

  His hands balled into fists as if he would strike her, and that was when Candace noticed the guns he wore. Two guns, slung low on his hips and tied down to his lean thighs the way a gunfighter would wear them. "No!" she murmured in protest at what her son had become.

  But he misunderstood her. "Don't beg! I'm not going to hurt you," he informed her with contempt. "Even though I have every reason to kill you for what you did to me, I'm going to let you live so you can see what I've got planned for Joshua Logan."

  "No! Not Joshua!" she cried, scrambling to her feet. She could not let the two of them fight. If they did, she knew one of them would not survive, and she could not bear to lose either of them. "I'm the one who hurt you! Joshua never did anything to you!" In desperation, she grabbed at his arms.

  Jeremiah's broad mouth curled into that evil smile again. "He
stole everything that should have belonged to me. I'm going to get a little of it back. I might even take his bride!"

  "No!" Candace screamed, frantically clutching at him as if she might somehow shake him loose from his evil intentions.

  But he shoved her away again. She staggered, almost falling. "Don't do this, Jeremiah, please!" she begged, but he only laughed, a horrible sound that sent prickles of terror racing down her spine.

  Then she noticed the crimson stain on his sleeve. "You're bleeding," she said with genuine concern.

  He glanced down to where she was pointing and plucked at his sleeve in momentary confusion. Then he noticed her hand. "That's your blood, old woman. How fitting. Your blood in me and now on me. It's like a baptism. And pretty soon, with a little luck, I'll have Logan's blood, too!"

  With that awful promise, he slipped silently out the door and disappeared into the shadows of the ranch yard. "Wait!" she called, but he was gone. For one instant she considered raising an alarm, calling out the men to hunt him down and bring him back. Then common sense stopped her. He had, after all, done nothing except threaten and frighten her. Perhaps that was all he wanted to do; perhaps that would be enough to satisfy his craving for revenge. Although her mind knew she was grasping at straws, her mother's heart longed to believe the lie. She remained silent, weeping in the doorway until the throbbing in her hand grew so intense, she could no longer ignore it.

  Josh awoke with a start, disoriented and confused to find himself still abed with the sun shining so brightly outside. And what was wrong with the bed? The sides were so high and… Then he remembered. He turned his head on the pillow and smiled. All he could see was a cloud of yellow hair. She was lying on her stomach, her face buried in the pillow, one hand stuffed beneath it.