“Are you teasing me?”
He shook his head, a slow movement that was a threat in itself. “I don’t tease, sweetheart. I might coax you, or seduce you, or even swat your sweet little behind, but I don’t tease. If I tell you something, you’d better believe it, ’cause I don’t tell lies and I don’t say anything I don’t mean.”
She’d latched on to only a part of his soliloquy, that bit where he’d spoken of swatting her behind, which was neither sweet nor little as far as she was concerned.
“Swat me anyplace on my anatomy and you’ll be sorry,” she muttered. “I mean it, Mr. O’Reilly. I don’t take kindly to threats against my person.”
“I didn’t think you would, ma’am, but believe me when I tell you that I’ll keep you in line any way I have to, and if that involves treating you like a child, then just make sure you act like a grown woman and we won’t have any problems.”
“And how does a grown woman act, in your estimation?”
“In your case, like a grown, married woman. Like a woman who’s come clear across the country to be a wife to a hard-working man, who’s promised to love, honor and obey that man, and who is about to set to work, cleaning up this house and cooking a meal for that hardworking man, while he goes out to do the chores.”
She stiffened her spine and jutted her chin forward. “You made the mess in here, mister. You can just clean it up yourself if you want it set to rights.”
“You’re telling me you won’t keep house and take your place as a wife?” She noted that his jaw was rigid again and his shoulders squared as if he prepared to do battle.
“I’ll cook something for myself to eat,” she began, “and if there’s any left over, you can have a bit. But don’t expect to give me orders and have them followed.”
“Well, don’t expect access to the food supply unless you plan to include me in your plans,” he said. “I’m not about to feed a wife if I’m to be left out of mealtimes.”
Her glance around the kitchen left her with no clue as to where he hid the food. “I don’t suppose you have any supplies on hand, do you?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He smirked. There was no other word for the gleam of enjoyment in his eyes as he laughed at her.
“I don’t suppose I need to eat after all,” she said. “I’ve managed to go without food for the past day or so. One more meal isn’t going to make much of a difference, to my way of thinking.”
He sobered swiftly. “What are you talking about? You haven’t eaten? Since when? Yesterday? What happened to the money I provided for your meals?”
She shrugged. “A thug stole my purse two days ago on the train, just as I was getting off, in fact. I already had the ticket for the stage tucked into my—” She halted, unwilling to reveal the hiding place she’d used for the purpose.
“Tucked into—where?” he asked, his eyes making another slow survey of her person. Her shirtwaist seemed made of some transparent fabric, for she would have sworn he could see beneath it to the lacy vest and chemise she wore.
“None of your business,” she retorted. “And as to my eating, I’ve been without food more than once in my life. Another day or two won’t kill me.”
“You’ll eat,” he said. “While you live in my house, you’ll eat.”
“You just got done telling me—”
“Never mind what I told you. I’ve changed my mind. You’re entirely too skinny, and you need regular meals.”
She looked down at herself in disbelief. “I’m not skinny. In fact, my mother once told me—” She halted again, taken aback by the expression he wore, as if he could see into her mind and knew her very thoughts.
“Yes? Your mother told you—what? That you were well-endowed?” He grinned. “She would have been right on that account. Your bosom is beyond reproach.”
“Well, thank you very much, Mr. O’Reilly,” she sputtered.
“As to the rest of you, I’ll warrant I could trace every rib if I were so inclined, and I’d be willing to bet you haven’t an extra pound of weight on your —” His pause was long, his words slow in coming. “On your sweet little behind,” he finished softly, as if the words held some special import.
“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t say things like that.”
He frowned down at her, and then in a swift movement that caught her off guard, he tugged her off balance and held her in a tight grip. “You’d better get used to it, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I plan on saying a lot more such things in the future. You seem to forget that you are my wife. Maybe in name only for now, but legally, and that’s what really counts. We’re married, honey, like it or not.”
“I don’t,” she said. “You weren’t what I expected at all. I thought I’d marry a gentleman, someone with class, the founder of a town, a man with dignity.”
He hooted, his laughter rebounding from the walls. “You want a man with dignity? You wouldn’t know what to do with such a man. I could introduce you to the banker, Walter Powers. He’s dignified. But then, he’s also as ugly as the back end of a mule, so I can’t see where you’d be any better off with him than with me.”
“What makes you think you’re so great to look at?” she asked, even as she considered the question to be most foolish. He was rough and uncouth, but with the dark hair and sparkling eyes and the smiles that caught her unaware, he was a handsome man. And the idiot knew it, she’d warrant.
“I’ve been told I cut quite a figure,” he admitted. “Not that I care about what folks think of me.”
“Only the feminine part of the population.”
“Well, there is that,” he conceded. And then he sobered. “I care mostly what you think of me, honey, and right now, I don’t think your opinion of me is very high.”
“I won’t argue with that,” she agreed. “I’ve seen rats in the city with more to offer than the one I found here in Thunder Canyon.”
“Did any of them offer to marry you?” he asked “I not only paid your way here, but I married you without any hesitation. What more could you ask?”
“A little choice in the matter.”
“You made up your mind when you got on that train. Hell, even before that. When you accepted the money for your fare, you were committed to me.”
“I didn’t know you then,” she said.
“You don’t know me now. But, you will, sweetheart. Sooner than you think.”
“I’m not sleeping in the same bed with you,” she told him, anticipating his insistence on that issue. “You can stay right down here in the same bed you’ve been using and I’ll go upstairs and find somewhere else to put my pillow.”
“What pillow?” He grinned. “I have custody of all the pillows in the house. Not to mention the sheets and feather ticks.”
“You’d deny me a bed to sleep in?”
“Now,” he began, with a smile that threatened to become a full-blown chuckle, “you know better than that. I’ve got a nice, clean bed, soft as goose down, with clean sheets and nice, fluffy pillows. It’s right at the top of the stairs, just waiting for you to set your dainty little feet inside the bedroom door and take possession.”
“I don’t think so.” It was as firm a refusal as she could muster. Arguing didn’t seem to be doing much good, so she clearly stated her case, denying his right to her presence in his bed.
“Shall we fight this out now or after dark?” he asked, his manner that of a man who knows he has the upper hand.
“I don’t intend to fight with you,” she told him. “If you’ll tell me where the food is, I’ll concede that I’m obligated to fix a meal for you. That’s as far as I go.”
“That’ll do for now,” he murmured, his arms tightening around her waist. “At least, that’s almost enough for now.”
She saw his head duck toward hers and felt her eyes open wide. Surely he wouldn’t. But he did. His mouth met hers for the second time, this kiss a far cry from the sample of her mouth he’d taken in the parsonage. Now he nibbled
and plucked at her lips, his teeth joining in the play as he explored the contours of her mouth and investigated the soft, vulnerable flesh just inside her lip line.
She tried to clamp her lips together, but it was no use, for his hand touched her chin and she felt the pressure of his strength against her jaw as he forced her to open to him. “That’s a good girl,” he whispered, and she wanted to laugh. She felt about as far from being a good girl as any woman ever had, what with this man’s tongue touching hers, his mouth opening over hers, his laughter echoing in her ears as he took advantage of her lesser strength to invade her as might a man set on seduction.
For surely that was where he was headed, if she knew anything at all about it. And very little did she know, in actuality. Only that a good girl could get in the family way by allowing a young man to kiss her in a familiar manner. Oh, not that the kissing itself would turn the trick, but what came afterward could get her in trouble.
She’d heard her mother say, more than once, that a good girl never let a man touch her body without a wedding ring around her finger first. And that such goings-on led to perdition. As a growing child, Jennifer had heard much about that dreadful place, but never could figure out where it was.
She knew now. Directly due west of the town of Thunder Canyon, perdition was staring her in the face, if she knew anything about it. It wasn’t a spot on the map, but a man…her husband, in fact. A man seeming to have no qualms about placing her in peril.
He looked down into her face and she was swept up in the dark glow of eyes filled with dangerous lights. A faintly wolfish expression lit his features and he towered over her, making her feel insignificant. Then he moved one big hand to the front of her shirtwaist again and his long fingers cupped her breast.
She shrieked, a noise fit to wake the dead, as her papa had told her more than once. He’d declared she had a voice that would carry a country mile and she remembered wondering if a country mile was longer than a city mile. No matter today, only that the volume of her cry had penetrated the absorbed expression of the man who held her. He blinked at her, his hand tightening in an automatic gesture, and then he smiled. That same, feral grin that told her he was set on hauling her up those stairs to his bed.
“No, Lucas,” she said, her voice hushed.
“Lucas, is it? Are we done with Mr. O’Reilly now?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m done with this whole misunderstanding,” she said, determined to escape his grasp, eager to move to the other side of the room, hopeful he would not follow her there.
“You’re the one with the misunderstanding, sweetheart. I’m dead certain of what I’m doing here. As soon as you figure it out, we’ll be in business.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be in business, with you or any other man. I don’t know what I was thinking of, to come here like this. But I’ve made a dreadful mistake. I see that now.” She paused for breath and hastened on, hopeful of his cooperation.
“Please just put me on a stagecoach headed East. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”
“Where East?” he asked, his brow puckering as if he considered her request valid.
“Anywhere,” she said. “Anywhere but here.”
“I couldn’t possibly allow my wife to run off before we’ve even begun our marriage,” he announced after a moment’s deliberation. “I promised to cherish you until death parts us, and I haven’t even started with that part of the bargain.”
“I don’t want to be cherished,” she blurted, only too aware of where this conversation was heading.
“You don’t?” he asked. “I’d think being cherished would make a woman, or a man, for that matter, feel kinda special, sorta like a present waiting to be opened and enjoyed.”
“I’m not a present. I’m a woman.”
He grinned. “Yeah. I noticed.”
Indeed, he could hardly help but notice, she thought. Her front was plastered up against him, and now that he’d moved his hand a bit, she felt the pressure of his chest against her tender breasts. Not to mention a strangely formed part of his anatomy that persisted in nudging her belly, as if offering a reminder of something she needed to know.
“Stop it,” she said, responding to the pressure of his body against hers.
“Stop what?” he asked, one big hand against her lower back, the other on her chin again, as if he could not decide just where his lips would take hold. It seemed that her mouth was elected, and he suckled her bottom lip, then transferred his attention to her throat, where he nuzzled and murmured faint words she strained to hear.
None of them made any sense to her, her ears only catching a mishmash of sounds that seemed foreign to her. Something about her being sweet and soft, and smelling good. And wasn’t that a bit of nonsense.
She’d never been called sweet, having been a sassy child, forever in trouble because of her determination to have the last word in any dispute. And not by the greatest stretch of the imagination could she be described as smelling good. She wore no perfume or toilet water, and the only scent on her skin was that of soap and the powder puff she used after bathing, a vanity that seemed to getting her deeper into trouble by the minute.
She bent her head to one side, then the other, straining to remove herself from him, all to no avail. He was persistent, his hands roving over her hips and then to her waist, his long fingers almost circling her ribs. His thumbs were pushing at the bottom curve of her breasts, lifting them higher, pressing them together and causing her to shiver.
He leaned back a bit and looked down at his accomplishment. She was almost indecent, her bosom outlined by her shirtwaist, her flesh mounded over his hands as though her breasts might spill out of her clothing, given any encouragement at all. And Lucas seemed to be very good at encouraging illicit behavior in several parts of her body.
She tingled in places she’d rarely been aware of in her twenty-three years. Even as she looked down, the man ran his fingers over the prominent crests that puckered at his advance. She shivered again, feeling a slender thread of fire take hold in the depths of her belly.
“I think we’ve messed around long enough,” Lucas said, his face taut, his eyes half hidden by long lashes as he watched her. A line of ruddy color touched his cheekbones and his breathing seemed erratic.
“Then let me go,” she managed to whimper, fearful of his next move.
“I’m going to take you upstairs and show you your new bedroom,” he told her, and she caught her breath. The ways and means of how men and women came together in the act of marriage was a secret her mother had not seen fit to share with her.
Neither had her sister, Alma, but then, there hadn’t seemed to be any love lost between that gentle soul and Kyle, the brute she’d married. Being a part of her sister’s hours of labor, watching as the beloved link between the two of them was severed, she’d mourned not only the mother, but the child left behind with only Kyle as a champion.
Staying there had been an option she’d shrunk from, so she’d chosen the lesser of two evils, this trip to Montana, answering the letter from the agency she’d contacted about the matter of looking for a husband. Answering the mail-order bride ad had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. But upon contemplation, she’d decided that anything was better than facing life in the same house as Kyle.
She’d left the cemetary quickly, sad at abandoning her sister’s newborn child, but too fearful of the infant’s father to do otherwise. She rued her decision, watching from the sidelines as Kyle made a hash of being a father. There was nothing she could do but wait for news that would complete her journey to wedded bliss.
Now she stood in the arms of another man and searched her mind for any minute detail of married life she might have heard from Alma. She recalled nothing worth her attention, only a shuddering tale of shame on Alma’s part, a painful using of her body by the man who’d promised to cherish her.
“I know about cherishing a woman,” she said, recall
ing Luc’s words. “I don’t want any of it directed at me.”
“How many men have directed anything at you?” he asked, his eyes on her, as if he thought she might be counting the number of masculine persons she’d allowed to touch her.
“I’m not interested in men or what they have to offer,” she said.
“You’re not?” he asked. “I’d have sworn you kinda liked me kissing you. And you didn’t seem to take offense at my touching your—”
“Just stop right there,” she blurted. “I don’t welcome your advances, sir.”
“I’m not a sir to you, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m your husband, the man you’re going to live the rest of your life with.”
He turned sober then, his lips pressing together, and he bent to pick her up, holding her high against his chest. Her feet dangled, her arm hung limply over his back and she felt like a sack of oats hanging from his embrace.
“Put me down,” she ordered him, aware that her position made her extremely vulnerable to whatever he had in mind. And what he had in mind was certainly not what she had planned for today.
He left her no choice, marching from the kitchen into the small, square hallway, then up the flight of stairs to the second floor of the farmhouse.
The hallway was apparently carpeted, for his footsteps were muffled as he walked. And then he halted in front of an open doorway and sidled into the room, taking care that he not bump her head on the door frame. From her position, she could see little of the room, aware that it held massive furniture, a large chifforobe and a matching chest of drawers.
Lucas lowered her to the floor, catching hold of her as if he feared she might try to escape. His grip was tight, but left her free to look around her, and she turned her head to view the big bed behind her. High posts adorned each corner. The headboard was tall, and resembled the one on her parents’ bed at home.
The quilt covering the mattress reflected some woman’s skill with a needle, for Jennifer caught sight of tiny stitches that bound the pieced patches together.
Big Sky Rancher Page 3
