Wild Dawn

by Cait London

  MacGregor’s soft chuckle brought her color rising, and she rounded on him. “Rosebud doesn’t give milk easily. She’s not used to me yet.”

  “You know how to milk?”

  Regina studied a patch of daisies, white splashes against the dark green meadow. “Actually, I’ve always wanted to. My father didn’t want a milkmaid for a daughter, and I was barred from the fields and the kitchens.”

  She studied Rosebud’s udders. “I squeezed, but nothing happened.”

  MacGregor walked to the creek and wet the towel, then returned to wash the cow’s udders. He crouched and milked the cow easily, squirting the streams of milk into the pail. Looking over his shoulder at her, he said, “She’s full. Come here, I’ll show you how.”

  When she hesitated, he positioned the cow near a log and sat on it. He edged back, preparing room for her and spread his thighs. “It helps to sit. Come here.”

  In moments she was sitting between his thighs, bending to the cow’s teats. MacGregor’s strong hands took hers, demonstrating the pulling, squeezing motion. A stream of milk squirted into the pail, and Regina grinned up at him. “This is wonderful. Rosebud doesn’t seem to mind at all.”

  “She’s lost her calf. If she isn’t milked, she’ll hurt. Same as a woman full with milk.” His voice had deepened against her temple, the muscles of his upper arms brushing her breasts.

  His hands squeezed again, and another stream shot into the pail. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he kissed the side of her cheek. “You do it. Just keep up an easy pull.”

  Concentrating on her task, Regina adjusted her body position, scooting back against MacGregor. Within a few minutes the pail was full. Delighted with her accomplishment, she looked over her shoulder at MacGregor. “How wonderful!”

  The angles and planes of his face caught her, his breathing slow and heavy. In the next instant she was lifted to his lap. His hand slid beneath the loose shirt to cover her bare breast, caressing it gently.

  “I wondered,” he said rawly, reverently, as he traced the full, sensitive contour, warming her with his palm.

  Caressing her, MacGregor bent to kiss her slowly, tenderly, and she curled her arms around his neck to draw him closer.

  The steady plop-plop of the mist falling from the trees settled around them like a magical song. Regina pressed against the warmth of his hand, needing to be nearer.

  A large cold drop splattered on her hot cheek, startling her from the velvety warm cloak of MacGregor’s kisses. She opened her eyes to find herself lying across his thighs, the press of his arousal against her buttocks.

  In a swirl of petticoats and skirts, Regina scampered from his lap, sending him to the damp grass. Rosebud snorted and stepped into the pail of milk, shook free, and galloped off a few yards to graze peacefully.

  Regina shivered and jerked her shirt down, smoothing it primly when she wanted to tug his trousers off and— Who was this wild woman she’d become, who wanted to dismiss every grace she’d learned and simply devour this man? Why couldn’t she control herself when he smiled that way at her? “Gracious MacGregor. Have you no decency? You’re set to rut at a moment’s notice!”

  His devilish grin stopped her, and she stared at him as he stood lithely, brushing the bits of grass and dew away. “With another woman and Jack in the cabin, I had to take what—”

  “Take what you could get?” she repeated, outraged. “You use the faintest excuse to crowd me into a corner, ogle my chest—”

  When he eyed that part of her and grinned widely, she glanced down to find her hardened nipples thrusting at the thin cloth. “Oh!”

  Regina crossed her arms protectively in front of her. She avoided looking down MacGregor’s powerful body, and stared up at him. “You’ve made me very angry, Mr. Two Hearts MacGregor. You’ve caused the first butter and milk we could have had to be wasted. You swagger into my valley as if you came to collect me, and you haven’t the slightest idea”—she tapped his chest pointedly— “about staying out of my affairs.”

  “Your affairs?” he asked, running the flat of his hand along his unshaven jaw.

  The scraping sound slid across Regina’s sensitive skin, and she frowned up at him. Shaking her finger beneath his nose, she continued. “You are not playing gunfighter because Lord Covington and my father are lurking about the woods. We’re not in England now, and I’m perfectly able to handle the both of them. I have not appointed you my protector, nor do I appreciate your intervention in matters that do not—I repeat, do not—concern you,” she finished hotly.

  MacGregor ran his fingers through his hair. “Damn it, Violet. I want to protect you. Take care of you, like any man wants to take care of his wife. Covington and your father are running with Tall Tom, a bad mix. Yet you’re telling me to step aside? That’s like waiting for a rattler to strike before you stomp him. Women need protecting. Wives let their husbands do the protecting—”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Really, Mr. Two Hearts MacGregor? You’ve decided all that on your own, have you?”

  He stared down at her, the muscles in his jaw contracting. “Women,” he stated finally. “They’re like messing with whiskey. A little makes you feel good. Too much and you wake up with hammers in your skull.”

  “How sweet.” Regina picked up her skirts daintily as though she were on a London street. She leveled a dark look at him over her shoulder. “MacGregor, you shoot anyone because of me, and I’ll never speak to you again—”

  “Violet.” MacGregor traced her stiff back as she walked to the cabin.

  The gentle sway of her hips drew his gaze. The high grass, laden with dew, brushed along her legs and dampened the cloth until it clung. MacGregor’s gaze locked on the twin rounded curves flowing beneath the cloth.

  “Hell! I ache from head to toe,” he stated between his teeth. Taking a deep breath, he stripped again and stalked into the stream’s icy water.

  ~**~

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mortimer-Hawkes intently surveyed the ram’s trophy set of curved horns. Poised on a high bluff, the massive ram stared down at the hunting party winding through the firs and jutting rock shelves.

  Mortimer-Hawkes lifted the brass spyglass and nodded at Tall Tom. “Perfect set of horns for my lodge in England. Wonderful matched curl... tips intact... give me my rifle.”

  Easing the gun to the leather shoulder pad of his hunting jacket, Mortimer-Hawkes adjusted his cheek to the stock. He closed one eye, sighting in on the ram, and squeezed the trigger slowly....

  The shot echoed through the mountains, and a cloud of blue smoke drifted away into the lofty firs, the pungent odor of sulfur slicing through the juniper scents.

  The ram stared down at the party with elegant disdain for an instant, then leapt unscathed to a higher bluff and out of sight. The rifle slipped from his hands into the wet grass. The ram represented his bad luck without the Mariah, the woman. Once his power was strong, now she was gone, the Mariah Stone and Pagan were gone, and nothing was right.

  That night Mortimer-Hawkes stared at the campfire, sipping brandy steadily from his tooled silver flask. Mariah taunted him from the dancing orange and yellow flames, her heathen fringed shawl rippling in the sparks shooting up into the night.

  Pagan. Mortimer-Hawkes brooded and drank, lounging back on the Oriental carpet and satin pillows covering the pine needles. He crushed the gauzy dancing costume in his fist, then smoothed the embroidered bodice. After a proper beating, Mariah’s satiny body had rippled when he made love to her. The perfume of her terror had hardened his manhood into a weapon, slashing in her silky depths.

  The marquess closed his eyes, remembering the sudden ecstatic gush of his juices... the bliss of turgid manhood. Abruptly he raised the flask to his mouth and drank to the dregs.

  Pagan. Almost a lighter replica of her mother, Pagan’s dusky heritage and unique savagery made her a suitable mate for him. With her and the Mariah ruby in his gloved fist, he’d never miss another trophy shot.... The legends were
true: Power and wealth lay in possessing the woman of the Mariah Stone.

  And Pagan’s power lay just within his reach. Tall Tom’s Indian runners had brought word of a small Englishwoman who had settled outside the mining town of Primrose.

  “Violet MacGregor,” he muttered, ignoring the startled looks of the other men. “You chose your name well, my dear. Yes, of course. Violet for the Mortimer-Hawkeses’ unusual eye color, and MacGregor for that uncouth half-breed who’s running with you....”

  Mortimer-Hawkes shifted on his luxurious pallet, narrowing his eyes at the sharp silver knife used to cut his meat. He picked it up slowly, studying the razor-sharp blade. “Yes, this will do nicely to slice his manhood away. Before he dies, I’ll savor destroying him, inch by inch.”

  Mortimer-Hawkes cut a bead from the bodice carefully and stared darkly at Lord Covington, who had been fondling a half-white camp follower. “Eat this,” he ordered quietly, handing Covington the bead. “Then show me and the rest of the camp how you can ride that slut like a man.”

  Minutes later Mortimer-Hawkes lashed Covington’s white rump with a riding whip. “Faster—ride the slut harder!”

  But his own body remained soft and useless...because he didn’t have Pagan and the ruby.

  ~**~

  Wrapped in her shawl against the night’s chill, Regina sat on the bench outside the cabin. A cloud slid in front of the full moon, and she pressed her lips together tightly. The Mariah Stone heated her palm, filling it until she couldn’t close her fingers.

  Her daughter would not be served to Mortimer-Hawkes’s cruel grasp.

  With a fierce scowl MacGregor had taken to the mountains, salving his pride.

  Two Hearts MacGregor could beguile her at the oddest moments... when he took Jack to bathe and play in the stream; when the two of them returned with matching wide grins; when he dropped a bouquet of tiny blue flowers— forget-me-nots—and pink primrose into her apron.

  MacGregor’s hungry black eyes followed her closely. His tender kisses flavored her lips, haunting her. MacGregor— she’d come a continent away from England to find him. Tall, strong, and oddly vulnerable—affected deeply by the simplicity of an embroidered violet on his shirt cuff. Touching her with his large, scarred hands as though she were lace. Shivering beneath her fingertips, his skin had rippled as she traced a trail across the scars....

  MacGregor acted like her knight, protecting her honor with his life.

  MacGregor. Coming to her with his son. Giving her his daughter.

  She caressed the baby nestled in her womb. He’d never leave her to settle the past alone if he knew....

  Regina sighed and looked up into the starlit sky. A meteor slashed downward suddenly, cutting a path across the inky sky as boldly as MacGregor had entered her life.

  The Mariah’s sharp edges cut into her palm, reminding her of her father looming in her past and thrusting into her future. The wings of an owl sailed across the moon; the breeze rustled the sumac bushes, and a wood rat scurried through the underbrush.

  ~**~

  Madam Joy lifted her long clay pipe and smoked deeply. The smoke made her feel young and desirable, causing her to forget for a time that her body was shriveled and her hair thinning.

  Drawing her long, curved lacquered nail across the black enamel of a small chest, she frowned. Her rival saloon, Lacy’s, a weathered-board tavern in front of the whores’ cribs, enticed men admired in the wilderness.

  The madam sneered, puffing her long stemmed pipe. Lacy’s catered to a certain breed of man, while Madam Joy offered more sophisticated entertainment for those wishing to pay. The madam sipped a heady wine and thought of Lilly.

  “The girl is willful and disobedient,” the madam hissed, smoothing the enameled chest. “Stupid.”

  A woman riding an Indian pony on a sidesaddle eased through the muddy street and stopped near the dry goods store. “That Englishwoman,” the madam hissed, leaning closer to the window. “She will regret taking Lilly.”

  The madam entered the dry goods store a few moments later, dressed in her best black silk gown. When Regina turned, the madam smiled coldly. “You are Violet MacGregor. The woman who cannot keep MacGregor in her bed. Perhaps soon he will bring both Lilly and you to me. I would pay well for you, my blossom,” the madam crooned.

  She leaned closer to Regina to hiss, “You dry English miss. MacGregor crawls between the legs of Lacy’s women even now. The countryside knows you cannot keep such a man, even though you are breeding with his brat. If he rolls on another now, when you are big-bellied, he will laugh at you.”

  The madam leaned closer, reveling in her revenge when the Englishwoman paled. The unusual shade of her eyes fascinated the madam. “So that is why you are called Violet.”

  Regina straightened her shoulders, drawing up to her full height. Shopping for lengths of flannel for her baby had soothed her nerves momentarily. MacGregor’s disappearance had cost her sleep, and the madam was the perfect person to encounter just now.

  She smiled tightly. “Madam Joy, I presume.”

  Placing her paper-wrapped parcel carefully on the counter, she tugged her kid gloves higher. Worn to keep MacGregor close, his ring circled her finger, and she smoothed it thoughtfully. “Lilly has recovered from your beating. I’ve often wondered what I would do if you crossed my path.... Now I know.”

  In the next instant Regina stepped near the madam, swishing her skirts and petticoats aside. “Before you harm another innocent girl, please remember this—”

  The madam staggered with the blow to her jaw, knocking over a display of dried herring boxes. She slithered to the floor and blinked up at Regina, who was dusting the madam’s rice face powder from her kid gloves. She straightened her gingham dress primly. “I detest violence, but on occasion there is need.”

  Stepping over the madam’s rumpled form, Regina picked up her parcel. “If you come anywhere near Lilly or myself, I shall repeat the performance. I’ve just gotten tea.... Lilly is baking cakes, and you are not invited to our ladies’ tea on Thursday—however, if any of your... staff wants the shelter of my home, they shall have it.”

  “I would kill them,” the madam hissed, slashing the straw brooms toppling down on her.

  “Then I shall see you again. They tell me there is a slight pop when a scalp is jerked free of the skull. Yours should be very easy to trim,” Regina returned calmly, then stepped out onto the boardwalk.

  ~**~

  MacGregor leaned back in his chair and studied the whiskey in his glass. The smoky gloom of Lacy’s had sheltered him for two days and kept the bright morning sunlight from burning the back of his eyes. A fresh breeze swept into the room from the open door, and MacGregor shuddered, his head aching. He ached from brawling with Peterson, who shared his table and his bottle. One of Lacy’s girls sat on Pierre’s lap and nuzzled his ear.

  Nancy’s purple dress reminded MacGregor of Regina’s eyes, and he glared at the Frenchman from the bruised slit of his left eye. “Violet is a mean woman.”

  “Pah! She is one damn fine woman, my friend,” Pierre answered easily, his hand running appreciatively down Nancy’s ample hip.

  MacGregor slammed his glass down on the table. “She denies our marriage. Denies me her bed.”

  Another Lacy’s woman slid her hand around MacGregor’s chest, foraging for the hair beneath his muslin shirt. “Honey, anytime you want, you just come up to Belle’s—”

  “Violet MacGregor, she calls herself,” MacGregor continued darkly, pouring another glass of whiskey. “Takes my boy to her cold heart. Spent the winter with me.... Takes my name and takes my baby in her belly. Takes everything but me....” he brooded as Belle slid into his lap and draped her arms around his neck.

  Her ample breasts quivered over the top of her tight bodice, and she pressed them against him as she poured whiskey.

  Shifting against the pain of his bruised ribs, MacGregor rested his hand on her waist. Belle’s soft, voluptuous body nestled closer, and he t
hought of sweeter fare, the scent of cinnamon and musk and Regina’s body arching in his arms. Pale thighs meeting his thrusts, the soft cries deep in her throat as she clung to him.

  MacGregor swallowed the whiskey, waiting for the sharp bite to wash away his memories of Regina’s eyes, dark with passion. The way the shawl clung to her like flame, tantalizing him with a length of long thigh, a shimmering thrust of pale breast. Her mouth was like hot silk, burning his skin. Her hair sliding across his skin with the scent of cinnamon— “Oh, hell, Pierre. Order another bottle.”

  Belle smoothed the beard covering his jaw and toyed with his hair. “Anytime, honey. My bed is fancy. A big man like you can stretch out nice and easy on it.”

  “My friend wants to suffer in pain alone,” Pierre stated easily with a wry smile.

  “The hell I do, you damned Frenchman,” MacGregor threw back.

  Peterson shook his craggy head and stared blankly at the three empty whiskey bottles on the table. “Woman trouble can drive a man insane. Bad for their man parts. I’ve heard of a man’s balls shriveling away to the size of peas when—”

  Belle ran her hand across MacGregor’s jaw, toying with his black beard.

  “It’s true,” she added sagely, settling closer on MacGregor’s lap and squirming against him. “The next thing happens is they get mountain fever. Go crazy.”

  Settling her massive bosom beneath MacGregor’s chin, she urged his face into the deep crevice just as Regina stepped into the bar.

  “Violet!” MacGregor stood, unseating Belle, who slid to the floor. “What the hell are you doing in a saloon?” he demanded, stalking over to her and placing his hands on his hips.

  Cool purple eyes stared up at him, then slid to Pierre.

  “Lovely, just lovely,” she said, swishing around MacGregor with all the disdain of her breeding to inspect the smoky depths of Lacy’s. She pivoted to him with the air of a gun- fighter. “You sulk about this... lair for two days, while I worry about your bloody life.”

  Tossing aside a long curling lock that had escaped her tortoise-shell combs, Regina sauntered toward MacGregor. Her gaze strolled down his hair, mussed by Belle’s roving fingers, to his battered face. Her eyes swept slowly down his neck to the opened shirt, then upward to meet his.