Yes, she mused, taking a deep breath birthed of pride and love, Travis Coltrane was a handsome man and a joy to live with, satisfying her in every way.
Colt appeared at her side a few moments later. “So he’s back,” he said. “And I just missed him. Is everything all right?”
Kitty explained that Travis had gone to speak with the President. “Maybe it’s about his new assignment, though I hope there won’t be one for a while,” she said worriedly. Then, remembering her son’s distress, she quickly changed the subject. “Where is Charlene? I’m afraid I was very rude, running off and leaving her that way, but when I saw your father…”
“No ruder than I was, Mother. I suppose I should go find her, smooth things over.” He looked around the room as he spoke. “But I don’t see her.”
People were starting to move toward the dining rooms. “Maybe you should look for her,” Kitty suggested, “while I wait for your father.’’
Colt nodded. “I think it’s time I had a long talk with Charlene. If,” he added irritably, “she can hear me at all over the wedding bells ringing in her ears.”
Kitty laughed, and Colt shook his head ruefully as he walked away. She couldn’t blame Charlene for wanting to rope Colt in and brand him, but she doubted he’d be branded for a long time to come. Travis had been well into his thirties before he married, and had never truly settled down, married or not.
Twenty minutes passed, and Kitty found herself standing alone, her only company the waiters moving around retrieving discarded champagne glasses and napkins.
She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Travis was with the President, she reminded herself, and that was important. But she was having a hard time being patient, because she wanted to be with the man she loved.
At last Travis appeared, his expression one of thoughtful resolution, and Kitty grew anxious. Without a word, he wrapped his hand around hers and led her outside, into the night.
“Where are we going?” she protested. “We’re already late for dinner, Travis, and John Travis is expecting us—”
He silenced her with a deep, smoldering kiss, then hurried her along.
A short distance away was a small park, with many clumps of high shrubs. The city had not yet brought streetlights in this far, for the government officials did not feel it was justifiable to bring the expensive Edison tube, a copper conductor wrapped with jute and placed in an iron tube, to so little-used an area.
Travis started to enter the shadowed, dark park, and Kitty balked. Stamping her foot, she demanded, “Travis Coltrane, just what are you up to? You drag me away without a word of explanation, and now you’re heading into the woods. I’ll snag my dress on something and—”
“And you talk too much.” Travis picked her up, easily tossing her over his shoulder, and continued on his way. “To hell with your dress. We can afford a thousand new dresses.”
Kitty continued her litany of complaints and queries, kicking her feet and beating on his back with her fists, but they both knew she wasn’t really angry. Finally, when they reached a secluded spot far from the street, Travis set her on her feet. He pulled her close to him.
Kitty continued to feign indignation. “Have you taken leave of your senses? Walking out, missing dinner—”
“You are all the food I need, Kitty.”
Tilting her head to one side, lavender eyes shining seductively, she murmured, “Will you ever grow up, Travis Coltrane? We aren’t newlyweds anymore.”
He gently scooped her breasts from the bodice of her dress in one swift movement. Kneading the firm flesh with gentle fingertips, he huskily whispered, “When we’ve been married over twenty years, I will still want you every night.”
Kitty thrilled to the memories of ardent lovemaking they had experienced every night they’d ever been together. Never had she denied Travis, for to have done so would have been to deny her own hunger.
He bent, kissing each nipple to taut erectness. Then he pulled her down to the grass, lying beside her. He removed her gown expertly, continuing to kiss her nipples as he maneuvered her gown away from her body. Soon she was naked, her china-white skin glistening in the faint moonlight.
He unfastened his trousers, releasing his manhood and rubbing it against her enticingly. She felt the pulsating strength of his desire and moaned softly. She longed to tell him of her great need but knew Travis had never wanted words when making love. His body was all the communication he offered.
He spread her legs, bending her knees at the same time, and pushed himself inside the velvet recess of her waiting womanhood. She gasped as he filled her with his massive rod, marveling that she could take all of him. Her hips began to undulate, matching his steady rhythm. Release would come soon, she knew, for it had been so long. Travis did not attempt to prolong the ultimate ecstasy. He knew just how to drive and move within her to take her to sweet joy, and then he allowed himself to explode furiously.
It was, in that brief moment, two hearts, two souls, melding into a single entity. Both gasped as the magic flowed through them, entwining their very beings.
They lay in silence, arms and legs around each other, until their breathing quieted. Only then did Travis roll to the side, still holding her close against him.
“It never ends,” she whispered, awed.
“It never will. Not until we die,” said Travis. “And who’s to say we won’t find our own little cloud in heaven and spend eternity in passion?” He chuckled softly. “Maybe that’s what heaven is, anyway—one long peak of ecstasy.”
Kitty playfully cuffed his chin. “Travis Coltrane, you are going to burn in hell for being so…so blasphemous.”
“And you will burn with me, princess, because you made me this way.”
They lay quietly for a time. Finally Kitty couldn’t suppress her curiosity any longer, and asked, “What did the President want you to do?”
She felt him stiffen slightly.
“Travis, tell me,” she begged, suddenly alarmed.
He released her, lying on his back and gazing thoughtfully into the star-studded night.
Kitty, with great effort, restrained her anxiety, knowing that Travis would speak when he was ready to. That was his way, and no prodding would hurry him.
After several moments, Travis came out of his reverie and announced softly, “Kitty, we’re moving to Paris.”
She stared at him, openmouthed.
“Paris,” he continued. “We’ll be moving to Paris. The President feels I could be of some use there as a diplomat. With the monarchists and the Bonapartists and the radicals all keeping things stirred up, he thinks America had best keep a close watch on things.”
He paused to take a deep, tense breath, then finished. “He wants us to leave by the end of the month.”
Kitty couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. A hundred emotions were surging through her. Paris? The end of the month? But what about the mine, the ranch, Colt? What about home? Why didn’t Travis ask if she wanted to go? Maybe she ought to’ve been consulted, for pity’s sake!
He sat up to embrace her, understanding well enough what she was feeling, for he had felt the same way an hour ago. “It will be a new life for both of us, Kitty, an exciting life. I’ll never have to leave you again, don’t you see? The President promised he wouldn’t ask, and I told him it wouldn’t do him any good if he did.
“John Travis can run things at home. It’s time he took some responsibility for the family interests. Besides, the mine is such a big operation now, it practically runs itself.”
He held her close. “We’re going to have a good life there, princess. And just think,” he added with a chuckle, “there’s enough to see and do in Europe that my wanderlust—which you’ve always found so annoying—will be satisfied for years.”
Kitty did not share his humor. It was all too much to be absorbed at once.
Travis’s smile faded, and he lifted her face to meet his imploring eyes. “Tell me you’ll go with me, Kitty. Please.”
/> That did it. She spoke for the first time. “You don’t think I’ll let you go without me, do you? But… I need time, Travis, to think about all of this. I can’t just leave my home as though we were taking a two-week trip. I’m not sure I want to leave, Travis.”
He nodded sympathetically, and she went on, laughing nervously, “Oh, Travis Coltrane, you have outdone yourself this time. You’ve just handed me the biggest shock of my whole life.”
His eyes searched hers, and Kitty understood that there was more to come. She knew well though what it was. Sure enough, Travis confided sadly, “We may just get another chance with Dani if we go to Paris.”
Kitty felt his pain through the misery in his voice. Although they had not discussed it for a long, long time, she knew the agony was always there for Travis, the disappointment and the heartache over the estrangement of his daughter, Dani.
The girl was in twenty, and neither Kitty nor Travis had seen her since she was six. Kitty had tried to raise her, to love her as her own, but when Dani’s mother’s sister, Alaina, moved to Silver Butte, trouble started. Alaina undermined everything Kitty and Travis did. She delighted in Travis’s anger, and Kitty, no fool, understood intuitively that the real reason for Alaina’s bitterness was something that had happened between her and Travis in the past, something Kitty knew nothing about. Kitty asked no questions, for she wanted no answers.
Alaina’s scheme to disrupt Travis’s home and take Dani away from him succeeded after a year of hell for everybody. Within that year, Dani changed from a sweet, happy, obedient child to a willful, spiteful, complaining brat. Kitty was at her wit’s end. Their lives had become unbearable, and the day Kitty scolded Dani for something and Dani slapped her, Travis sent word to Alaina that she had won. Perhaps, he reasoned to Kitty, the child would be better off growing up around her mother’s people in Kentucky.
The day Alaina came to the ranch, gloating, to take Dani away, John Travis’s temper exploded. It was a powerful temper, even at his young age. He screamed at Alaina that she was taking his little sister away and he hated her. He told Alaina that she was the reason Dani had turned into such a hellion in the first place. Dani, protective of the aunt who had spoiled her so terribly, turned on John Travis in a rage, kicking and screaming. Kitty and Alaina had to pull the two apart, and John Travis’s last words to his sister were, “I hate you! I hope I never see you again!”
“I hope you die, John Travis!” Dani screamed in return.
John Travis still carried a tiny scar at the corner of his left eye, the result of that fight, and to the present day, Kitty could not recall his ever mentioning his sister.
The painful memories tore at her, and everything she was feeling showed on her face, as it always did. Travis pulled her closer as she said, “Maybe Dani would like another chance, too, Travis. It’s been a long time. Maybe she grew away from Alaina’s influence.”
“If she had, we’d have heard from her,” he said grimly. His eyes narrowed as he mused, “She’s living in the South of France now, but that’s all I know. When Alaina married that French count she’d been stalking, she and Dani went to live on his estate. I know no more than that about my own daughter.”
“Can you get an address? You can write and let her know when we’ll arrive in Paris.”
He nodded. “The bank in Silver Butte has it. You know I’ve sent money all these years, though Dani never once acknowledged it.”
Kitty squeezed his hand. “Maybe things will be different. She’s older now. She must have seen through Alaina by this time.”
He said nothing to that, and she knew he was trying not to hope for too much.
“Now then,” she said jovially, dressing quickly and getting to her feet, “let’s make ourselves presentable and go tell our son the news.”
Travis reached for her hand and roughly pulled her down beside him again. Rolling on top of her, he whispered huskily, “That was just the appetizer, my dear. Now let’s devour the main course.”
Kitty succumbed once more to the love and passion she felt with every beat of her heart.
Chapter Two
France
July, 1889
Staring, mesmerized, into the gilt-edged mirror, Gavin Mason studied his reflection.
He liked what he saw.
Average height, a physique accented neither by obesity nor by thinness…he could find no fault with his body.
Gavin smoothed his blond hair back from his forehead, frowning. Curls. Little-boy curls, tousled and mussed. Damn it, how he hated them. Because of those blasted curls, he hardly looked his twenty-five years, even with the mustache.
He hated the color of his hair as much as he hated the curls. It reminded him of egg yolks, bright yellow. Still, women liked the shade—and the riot of curls. Well, things weren’t all bad, he guessed.
He leaned forward to brush a tiny speck from the corner of an eyelid. Blue eyes. Once, one of the many demimondaines he had encountered in his lustful life told him in a fit of anger that he had eyes like a snake—a blue-eyed snake—and that he’d surely been sired in hell by Satan himself.
A sneer touched his thin lips. Snake. He liked that, liked it a lot. Some of the men he caroused with had begun calling him “Snake”, and that pleased him, too. It made him sound mean, tough…like his father. Yes, he recalled proudly, Stewart Mason had been one of the bravest men in all Kentucky, and would probably be alive today if not for that goddamn Travis Coltrane.
Anger mottled his face. He’d been very young, but he remembered all of it, remembered when they brought his pa’s body home and laid it on the kitchen table. His mother had screamed and screamed and then fainted, and young Gavin got sick to his stomach and puked all over the floor. Shot right between the eyes, Pa was. Dead center.
Alaina Barbeau had come to the house with the men who carried Pa’s body. She’d been the one to tell Gavin the story of how his pa believed in one thing, Coltrane in another. She said Gavin was going to hear all kinds of stories about how his pa had been on the wrong side, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, doing terrible things, but she said he wasn’t to believe any of it. Stewart Mason, she said, was the bravest of the brave, because he’d dared to stand up for what he believed in. What he believed in was niggers in their place, and white supremacy. Gavin was never to think any other way…and Stewart’s son never had.
His mother withered after that, lost all her will to live, and just lay down and died within a year. Gavin’s only relatives, an aunt and uncle, didn’t want him. He was too boisterous for those childless people. They decided to send him to the state orphanage, but Alaina stepped in, saying she’d never allow Stewart’s son to be raised by strangers or dependent on charity. So Gavin went to live in the big, fancy Barbeau mansion, and nothing was ever the same afterward. He found out what it was like to eat on the high side of the hog, have good clothes, never be without shoes. Alaina went away for a while, and when she came back she had Dani Coltrane with her, and, Lord, did he go into a rage. Live with the daughter of the man who’d shot his pa? Hell, no! He wouldn’t do it. He’d rather live in the orphanage, that’s exactly what he told Alaina. She slapped him, told him she never wanted to hear that kind of talk again. Dani couldn’t help who her father was. She was Alaina’s sister’s daughter, and a Barbeau, and that was all that mattered.
Well, it had taken some getting used to, but Gavin learned to get along. And as Dani and he grew older, he started to like what he saw. She radiated a quiet, gentle beauty. Her eyes were the color of coffee laced with the richest cream. Her gleaming hair was the color of vibrant cinnamon. Her body ripened into sheer delectability, and Gavin was constantly struggling with himself to refrain from attacking the sweet, succulent fruit.
During their growing-up years, Alaina’s father died, and Alaina rapidly mismanaged the family estate until they were almost broke. So when Count Claude deBonnett proposed, they all heaved sighs of relief and moved to France with him. DeBonnett owned a fancy château perched on a cliff
along the Maritime Alps, on the Mediterranean, near Monaco.
Those first years; Gavin was terribly homesick. All he wanted was to go home to Kentucky, but he eventually settled down, and even began to see the benefits of his new life. Thanks to Prince Charles III granting a charter thirty-three years ago to build a gambling casino, Monaco—or Monte Carlo, as the Prince wanted it called—became a luxuriously beautiful playground for the world’s wealthy. Life there was exciting, glamorous, and Gavin loved it. He stopped thinking about returning to America, and began to dwell on how it would be when he was old enough to indulge in all that was available.
Gavin recalled with a wave of disgust that the Count developed a penchant for gambling at the casino, and when he got himself killed in a duel, just a year ago, it was revealed that he’d lost most of his fortune. Since then, Alaina had barely been squeaking by on what was left.
Things were so bad that Gavin approached Alaina and asked why she didn’t request more money from Dani’s father. Coltrane was quite wealthy, the owner of one of the largest and most productive silver mines in Nevada.
Alaina heard him out, then shook her head, explaining that Travis would never agree. After all, he hadn’t heard from his daughter in fourteen years.
Gavin found that incredible. “Is Dani crazy? He’s one of the richest men in America, and she won’t have anything to do with him? How can she be so stupid?”
Alaina regarded his outburst coolly, then confided to him that Dani actually thought it was the other way around, that her father did not want to be in touch with her. “You see,” she smiled at him, “Dani has written to him over the years, many letters that I destroyed. Since she never had an answer to any of her letters, she thinks he wants nothing to do with her. She believes he’s angry because she wanted to live with me.” She shrugged, smiling again.
Gavin exploded, calling her a bitter old fool. Thanks to her stupidity, they were practically penniless. In defense, she sputtered that there’d been no way of knowing the Count was gambling away all their money. She’d thought they were secure.
Love and Fury: The Coltrane Saga, Book 4 Page 2
