by Beverly Long
It had startled the hell out of him that first time, thinking that there were small people inside the screen, but he’d figured it out soon enough and understood it was some kind of electric signal.
There was much about the future that he liked. The food was tastier, the choices more. There was almost immediate access to information, either in the form of a newspaper, television, or radio. The clothes were softer and the carpet on the floor as thick as some beds he’d slept in.
Melody leaned toward him just as dessert was being served. “You handled the speech thing beautifully. Thank you.” She sounded tired.
“How do you feel?”
“Fine. I guess I’m hoping people have the good sense to go home early.”
But Pearl had other ideas. Ten minutes after the dessert plates and the fancy coffee cups were cleared, she rose from her place at the head of the table. Within seconds, the chatter ceased. “I hope you’ve enjoyed your meal,” she said. “Now, if you’ll join me in the living room, the bride and groom will have the first dance.”
Chairs were pushed back and napkins thrown on the table. Men loosened their ties and their wives slipped their shoes back on. Everyone seemed to be in motion. Everyone but him. He couldn’t move.
Hannah had loved to dance. And whether it was a crowded Friday night social, a noisy Saturday afternoon chivaree, or an intimate evening in their own home, he’d indulged her.
He felt too warm, like he couldn’t breathe. There was noise all around him but he wasn’t part of it. He danced with Hannah. Only Hannah.
“George?” Melody said. She stood next to him, her violet eyes filled with concern. “What’s wrong?”
He opened his mouth but it felt like his throat had closed. He could feel fresh sweat on the back of his neck. “I’m sorry,” he managed.
“It’s all right,” she rushed to assure him. “Whatever it is, it’s all right. I’ll make our excuses to Grandmother,” she said. She turned quickly and walked away.
He barely caught up with her by the time she’d reached the piano room. “Wait,” he said. He extended his hand to her. “I. . .” He stopped. There was nothing he could explain, nothing that would not leave her with doubts and concerns and more questions than he could ever answer. The past was better left in the past. “We shouldn’t disappoint your grandmother. May I. . .have this dance?” he asked.
She hesitated and then suddenly she was in his arms and they were dancing. She smelled sweet and fragrant, like a new rose, and her skin was warm and very soft. And with each calming breath that he took, the room slowly came back into focus. Pearl had dimmed the lights and the woman who’d been playing the harp had moved to the piano. The double doors leading to the back porch had been opened and he felt the cool night breeze.
The others had taken their places at the edge of the room, watching, offering smiles and gentle nods of approval. He and Melody were the center of attention but he felt strangely detached from all of it. It was as if they were alone, separate from the rest of the world.
It was just her. And him. And while he knew it was weak of him, he gave into the need to hold her. He pulled her close enough that she was pressed up against him and the top of her head just brushed the underside of his jaw.
They danced that song and another and at some point, he wasn’t sure when, others left their spots next to the wall, took the hands of their partners, and joined them. The room was full of people dancing. Bernard and Rebecca, the Tripperts, even Bessie had shed her apron and was enjoying the company of a man.
He knew that for a man who had sworn off touching, he was doing a poor job of keeping his promises. And as he might have predicted, his body was beginning to ache with what was becoming a most common response. He shifted, hoping to hide his need. He knew the decent thing to do would be pull away, but having Melody in his arms felt too good, too right.
Melody’s slight stumble and the tap on his back came almost simultaneously. It was Bernard, with Rebecca on his arm. “It’s time for my dance with the groom,” she said.
Oh, Christ. He couldn’t dance with someone else. “I. . .uh. . .I can’t—”
“He can’t because I’m getting a little tired and he’s going to walk me to our room,” Melody said, smiling sweetly at Rebecca. She had her fingernails pressed hard into the palm of his hand. Heat flooded his face. She knew exactly how the dancing had affected him.
“Bernard,” she said, “would you be a dear and let Grandmother know. Tell her I’m fine, just a little tired.”
Bernard nodded, evidently relieved not to have to let Rebecca free to dance with another man. Melody pulled on his arm and before he knew it they were at the staircase, up the stairs, and behind closed doors in their bedroom. She sat on the bed and he leaned his body against the solid wood door.
“Thank you,” he said. There was, after all, no sense ignoring what had just happened. He’d been poking into her and there was no excusing that away.
“My pleasure,” she said. She didn’t sound angry. She got up off the bed and walked with purpose toward him.
“Don’t,” he begged, shaking his head.
She didn’t listen. She got close and then leaned forward and gently kissed his lips. He willed his body to stay still, to endure but the collar of his shirt felt too tight around his neck and when he tried to swallow, it was like his throat had forgotten how. She ran her tongue across his lips and he curled his hands into a fist. She suckled on the very edge of his bottom lip. It was a light touch, barely there, and yet it seemed to pull on his body, to where he thought he might just break through his own skin.
“Melody,” he said. She had to stop.
“Open your mouth, George,” she whispered.
And like a greedy fool, he did. And then her tongue was inside. He felt the pull all the way to his wanting cock.
He gripped her arms, near her shoulders, and gently set her away from him. “You’re dangerous,” he said.
She smiled and undid the top button of his shirt. Then the second and third.
He knew he had to stop her now. But the need and the want of her were too powerful, too much for him to deny.
When all the buttons were undone, she pulled his shirt open and off his shoulders. He pulled his arms out and let the fine garment drop to the floor. His naked skin felt hot, then cold, and when she bent her head and took his flat nipple in her mouth, it was pleasure and pain and he knew that he’d passed a point of reason.
“I want to—” he stopped. Oh, Christ, her hand was pressed against his cock. He moved his hips forward, straining against her. Her head jerked up and he knew at that moment, she’d realized he was a lost man.
He wrapped one hand in her hair and kissed her with untamed urgency. They consumed each other with lips and tongue and heat.
“I want to lay with you,” he said, his breath coming in spurts.
“Yes, yes. Now,” she begged and he knew that she was as far gone as he.
He shifted his arms and lifted her up. She let her head drop back and pieces of her hair, long since pulled from her fancy clip, hung over his arm. She was wantonly needy and the urge to service her, to make her his own, to have her cling to him in madness, made his blood hot.
He wanted to howl at the moon.
He wanted to possess her.
“I’ll be careful,” he promised. He would hold back, no matter what it cost him. “We’ll take it slow,” he said, depositing her gently on the bed.
She smiled, shook her head, and reached for his belt buckle.
“Have mercy, Melody,” he begged. Christ, he was seeing stars.
And they were exploding in his head and—
Jesus. It wasn’t the stars exploding, somebody was pounding like hell on the door.
“George, its Arturo. Open the door. I need your help.”
Melody yanked her hand away and he staggered back, practically falling on his ass. What the hell? He looked at Melody but she was busy pulling down her dress.
He
whipped the door open and one look at the man told him that something was very, very wrong.
“What happened?”
“The woman who Pedro spent last night with, she is married. He swears he didn’t know.” Arturo was speaking fast, using his hands. “I believe him. After the fight with Rafael, he told me that he would not have been with her if he’d known about her and Rafael. I know he would never take another man’s wife.”
This had trouble written all over it. “The husband knows?”
“Sí. He has called Pedro out.”
“Called him out?” George repeated.
“Challenged him. They’re to meet at the quarry. Pedro’s got some crazy idea that he loves this woman, even after all this, so he’s already on his way.”
He heard Melody moving behind him. She grabbed his arm. “It’s a rock quarry, about five miles straight east. Arturo, did he go by car?”
“Yes.”
She looked at George. “You can get there much faster by horse.”
He looked at Arturo. “Can you ride?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll call the police,” Melody said.
Arturo shook his head violently. “No. Her husband is white, a businessman in town.” He turned to George. “It’ll be his word against Pedro’s. You have to know I took a chance coming to you.”
George wished like hell he had his gun. But none of that could be helped. He turned to Melody and put his hand on her arm. “Wait. If your police need to be called, then I’ll do it. But let us go now.”
She kissed him. A hard, bruising smack on the lips. “Be careful,” she hissed. “If you do something stupid, I swear to God, I’ll kill you myself.”
George grabbed his shirt off the floor and buttoned it as Arturo led him down a set of backstairs George hadn’t even known were there. Then they ran across the yard, saddled the horses quickly, and rode east.
It reminded him of how he’d ridden with John Beckett and Fred Goodie. Only that night, he’d been hell-bent to kill a man and now he was hoping like hell he wasn’t too late to stop one man from killing another.
Arturo’s horse was no match for Brontë but he handled it well and it didn’t slow them much. George understood why Melody had said it would be easier on a horse. The ground was rocky and rough with weeds so tall they brushed against his boots.
The sky was dark with only a few stars and the air was sticky and heavy. Both horses and men were breathing hard by the time they got close to the quarry and it didn’t help their hearts any when the ringing echo of a gunshot split the quiet night.
The son-of-a-bitch was shooting at them.
In one smooth motion, George slid from the saddle and took cover behind a big rock. Arturo dropped in beside him. “George, where the hell did that come from?” he whispered.
“A hundred yards up, at the edge of that stand of trees.” George shifted, just far enough that he could see around the edge of the rock. The shooter had taken cover. But George had gotten a good enough look to know it wasn’t Pedro.
“Mister,” George called out. “We mean you no harm. Put your gun down.”
Silence. Finally, there was a stirring from the trees. “Who the hell are you?” the man asked.
“I’m George Tyler,” George answered automatically, then cursed himself when he realized that he’d used his own name. He didn’t look at Arturo, could only hope that the man hadn’t noticed.
“This isn’t any of your business,” the man said.
“Well,” George said, “if you’re gunning for a man who works at Pearl Song’s ranch, then I think I might have to debate that. I would, however, prefer not to do it over a rifle barrel.”
There was no response. George closed his eyes and listened. The man was moving, circling around to George’s left.
Damn. Why wasn’t this ever easy? George motioned for Arturo to stay behind the rock and he moved, melting into the trees behind him.
George waited and listened, judging the man’s progress. He heard the snap of a twig, just close enough, and he rushed him. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs and the man’s rifle flew. It was no contest. Within seconds the man was flat on his stomach, his face in the dirt, with George’s booted foot resting solidly in the middle of his back.
There was just enough light that George saw Arturo scramble and pick up the man’s gun. He offered it to George but George waived it away. They needed to settle this without anybody taking any shots.
“Calm down,” George said to the man.
“You son of a bitch,” the man said.
George lifted his foot, bent down, grabbed the man’s coat, and flipped him over to his back. Then he planted his foot once again, inches away from the man’s throat. “My patience is wearing thin, mister. First you shoot at me and now you’re swearing at me. You need to understand something. I’m not going to let you hurt one of my men.”
“Bastard slept with my wife.”
George nodded. “And that was wrong. But he says he didn’t know.”
The man squirmed under George’s foot. “He’s lying.”
George did not want to have to tell this man that Pedro wasn’t the only man his wife had been entertaining while she should have been working. That was not the kind of news a man told to a stranger, even when that stranger had been shooting at you. “Is that what your wife told you?” George asked carefully.
“She. . .she. . .” The man shut his eyes, his body tensed under George’s foot, and he dug his fingers into the hard dirt under his body. A minute passed before the man’s body relaxed, almost seeming to sag into the ground.
“Damn her,” the man said, all trace of fight gone from his voice. “Damn her to hell. She says she leaving me. That she loves him.”
George heard the sound of a car off to his left and he motioned for Arturo to go intercept whoever was arriving. Then he lifted his foot and stepped back. “Killing my man won’t make her stay,” he said. “It will only make more trouble for you.”
The man rubbed his hand across his face. “Do you think I don’t know that?” he said, his voice heavy with pain. “I should have known it would never work with her. We’re too different.”
Sort of like him and Melody. Couldn’t be more different. They hadn’t even been born in the same century. Just what the hell had he been thinking when he’d stuck his tongue in her mouth and his hand up her dress?
The man on the ground shifted. “What are you going to do about this?” he asked.
George figured he ought to get down on the ground and kiss the man’s feet. If Arturo hadn’t knocked on the door, he’d have bedded Melody. That would have been a terrible mistake.
“Depends,” George said. “What—” he stopped when he once again heard the sound of a car engine. Perhaps Arturo had convinced Pedro to leave altogether rather than just stopping him from coming further. “What do you want to do?”
The man looked surprised. “What I want to do is go home. She’s already cleared her stuff out.”
“Then what?” George asked.
The man thought for a minute. “I don’t think I have much choice,” he said, sounding resigned. “I guess I’ll go about my life and pretend that everything’s fine.”
George understood that pretending was sometimes the only defense a man had. “Then go.”
George could see suspicion war with hope. “Just like that?” the man asked. “I took a shot at you.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” George said, offering the man his hand to help him up. He waited until the man was standing and then looked him in the eye. “Understand this. If you come after me or one of mine, you won’t walk away a second time.”
The man took a step back. “I don’t suppose I’m getting my gun back?”
George shook his head.
The man didn’t argue. He just walked away, in the opposite direction of where Arturo had gone.
George whistled for the horses and both ambled up. He swung up on Brontë and grabbed t
he reins of Arturo’s mount. When he got over the hill, he pulled up tight.
There were two cars parked there. One he didn’t recognize, so he assumed it was Pedro’s. The other one was Melody’s. She was standing next to the car, talking with Arturo and Pedro. She’d left the car door open and light from the interior illuminated her backside.
She’d pulled all the pins out of her hair and it lay in soft waves to the middle of her back. She had her party dress on still but she’d pulled an old shirt over it, obviously more concerned about haste than fashion. From the back, she didn’t even look like she was carrying a child. She was slim-hipped and sexy as hell.
She must have heard the horses because she turned and when she saw him, her face lit up. When he got close enough for conversation, she asked, “Are you all right?”
She sounded sort of breathless, like she had in the bedroom, right before she’d said, take me.
“Are you all right?” she repeated.
How the hell could he be? She was driving him crazy. One look at her and he was ready to forget all his good intentions. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
She jerked back. “I was worried,” she said, sounding hurt.
He knew he’d been harsher than necessary. But he didn’t want her waiting for him to come home, worrying about him. That was the thing someone did when they cared and he didn’t want her caring about him. He sure as hell didn’t want to care about her.
“It’s late,” he said, looking past her. “Go home and get some sleep.”
She stiffened. “In a minute. Where’s the other man, the one the rifle belongs to?”
She needed to get the hell out of here. Her shirt didn’t button in the front and from his vantage point, he could look down her dress. Her breasts, her plump, full breasts, were there for the taking. “That’s none of your business.”
She didn’t say anything for a long minute. When she did, her voice was hard. “That’s where you’re wrong. It’s my family’s business, my family’s ranch, my family’s everything.”
