by Texas Lover
A half mile from the farmhouse, however, she was forced to hang her head over the side of the wagon. Much to her humiliation, Shae turned the horse around and carried her up to her bed. Ginevee and Merrilee volunteered to nurse her, which made Rorie feel twice as miserable, so she insisted above their protests that they all ride on and have a good time at the party without her.
That had been nearly four hours ago. Now she was feeling almost human again—human enough for an attack of the jitters. The long, golden rays of afternoon were deepening to twilight streaks of orange. Soon it would be night. Soon Wes would come, and she would have only Shae's young friend, Jasper, to defend her.
She didn't doubt for a moment that Wes would ride to the farm once he learned she was alone. Whether he came on the pretext of her sickness, or to keep her safe from Dukker, the fact remained: He would come. He would test every vow she'd ever made to stand strong against her endless aching for him. Even now, she sensed him lurking out there somewhere, preying on her nerves as stealthily as he preyed on her restless dreams.
The fact that he'd been prowling her grounds for eleven nights without a single attempt to seduce her rankled. Her logical self knew he was only abiding by her request to keep his hands to himself.
Her proper self heartily congratulated her for having the conviction not to change her mind and creep downstairs to his bedroll, which he'd spread so invitingly a few yards from her door.
Her lonely, hurting self, told her she deserved a little happiness, and she was a fool to throw even a moment's worth away.
That was why she'd come downstairs to sit on the front porch with Jasper. Loneliness was an insidious and clever companion, one that could tempt her to do regrettable things, like lose her heart to a man who considered her nothing more than a pleasant distraction.
Smiling bitterly at the thought, she plied her fan and poured Jasper his third glass of lemonade.
"Would you like another slice of pie, Jasper?"
The boy grinned bashfully above his scrupulously scraped, crumb-free plate. "If it ain't too much to ask, ma'am."
She ignored his grammatical error. "Of course it's not. You are my guest." And my protector, God help you.
She tried not to picture the boy squaring off with Dukker. Jasper was a great big tow-headed teddy bear, and she feared he wouldn't fare well in confrontations requiring cold-blooded grit. That's why she had Wes to defend her.
She glanced anxiously past the thickening canopy of the magnolia. The sun winked behind the breeze-riffled leaves with all the earthy fire of a ruby. A flash of heat spread through her, one which even the wind couldn't cool.
Wes was coming. Soon now. She felt him as surely as she felt the rush of anticipation tingle all the way to her toes.
You goose. Nothing will happen, she told herself firmly. This night will pass as uneventfully as all the others, because Wes has accepted your conditions, and he respects your wishes.
But oh, if he only knew what she really wished for...
"It was so kind of you to stay behind, Jasper," she said quickly, desperate to find some safe, polite topic that would restore the genteel dignity she'd known before she'd first gazed into Wes's wicked, laughing eyes. "I'm sure you'd much rather be square dancing."
Jasper shook his head, mumbling between swallows. "Naw. I ain't much for hoofing, ma'am. I'd just as soon hunt me a twelve-point buck. Besides, your sweet 'tater pie is heaps better than any old greased-up, barbecued pig."
Her stomach roiling at his imagery, Rorie nevertheless managed a faint smile for his compliment. "Thank you, Jasper, but I'm afraid it's Ginevee's sweet potato"—she pronounced the word carefully in the hopes he might correct his speech—"pie you're eating."
"Oh."
He made smacking noises as he licked his fingers, which didn't set well with Rorie's hair-trigger stomach. Hastily, she turned her eyes away.
It was then that she felt a prickling at the nape of her neck. Like a shivery, instinctive knowing, the sensation crept down her spine, causing her less alarm than unease. She didn't feel in any danger, but she did feel as if she were being watched.
She knew then, in a blaze of raw, unladylike desire, that Wes had arrived.
Her heart speeding like a runaway train, she glanced around the yard, trying to spot him without appearing overtly concerned, or even worse, eager. In the dusky rose and inky violet of twilight, she could glimpse no trace of him, although she knew with a primitive certainty that her mate was nearby, hungry for her in the shadows. She wasn't accustomed to knowing anything without clear-minded logic, and the blistering intensity of her intuition scared the living daylights out of her.
Since she couldn't ignore the persistent sense of him heating up her skin, she decided to do the next best thing. She directed her thoughts and her conversation toward Ethan.
"Mr. Hawkins is fond of apple pie," she said. "He's always so appreciative when I bake it for him."
Jasper blinked at her with pale, uncomprehending blue eyes. "Mr. Hawkins?"
She nodded vigorously, raising her voice so Wes could hear. "Yes, Mr. Ethan Hawkins. He has a rather prosperous cattle ranch a little ways south of here."
Jasper seemed to lose interest, his gaze flickering toward the privy.
Rorie's tongue quickened in direct proportion to her mounting panic. "It's true we're not exactly neighbors, but Mr. Hawkins was a close friend of Sheriff Boudreau's. I expect he'll take the news of Gator's passing very badly. Mr. Hawkins is due back from his cattle drive in a week or two, and then I'm sure you boys won't be needed to protect the children and me any longer."
Jasper shifted, grunting, "Uh-huh."
Rorie felt immensely guilty, holding him as a captive audience, but not guilty enough to dismiss him just yet. "Have you ever met Mr. Hawkins?"
Jasper crossed his legs. "Uh, not that I recollect. But Pa said he's a fair man, shrewd about business, but with a real generous spirit. He loaned the Parker family some seed money when a wildfire swept through their cotton crop. You know, after Mr. Parker took that Comanche half-breed as his second wife, there weren't nobody in Elodea who'd see fit to give him a loan."
Rorie nodded. Actually, she hadn't known that about Ethan, but she was glad to hear it, especially now, when she was trying so hard to remember why she was seriously considering a suitor more than twenty years her senior.
"Yes, Mr. Hawkins is a fine and honorable man."
"Ain't you two been sparking?"
Rorie felt her face warm, but she silently blessed the boy's indelicacy. "Why, yes. Mr. Hawkins has been courting me. No doubt you can understand why I am so looking forward"—she gave those last words added volume—"to his return."
The pining note in Rorie's voice was the final straw, as far as Wes was concerned. Hoping to see her at the barbecue, he'd made the dreaded trip to the barber for a haircut and shave. After learning she was ill, he'd ridden an acre or two out of his way, braving bees and thorns in Gator's fallow north field, to bring her a bouquet of wild roses.
The last thing he'd needed, as he circled Two-Step to the front of the house, was Rorie sitting on the porch swing—which he'd repaired, by God—singing the praises of Ethan Hawkins.
That damned cowpoke hadn't so much as nailed down a loose board for her, not to mention his notable absence in the face of the Dukker threat. Still, Rorie sighed over the man as if he were another Ewen Cameron, the Texas legend whose heroics had led to the coining of cowboy. It made Wes, mad enough to eat fire and spit smoke.
Flinging the hapless roses to the ground—and letting Two-Step feast on them for good measure—Wes yanked his hat brim low over his eyes and stalked around the corner. He arrived at the porch just in time to hear the slamming of the front door and the clicking of the bolt. He spied Jasper disappearing at a trot down the privy path.
Wes ground his teeth. If Rorie thought a measly little iron rod was going to lock her out of his reach, she had another thing coming!
With the ease of a man who
'd spent many a night vigil perched high above a robber's roost, he swung up into the magnolia tree, vaulted over the veranda railing, and crawled through the open window of the first bedroom on the right.
Chapter 18
Rorie didn't go to bed immediately. As tired as she was, she knew she wouldn't sleep, not with her body parts so achingly sensitized, conjuring scents and sounds of Wes from thin air. She could feel his pervasive, hungry presence no matter where her restless feet carried her inside the house.
This unsettling sensation made her mind susceptible to unspeakable imaginings. The most shameful one was her fantasy that he would burst through the door, sweep her up into his arms, and kiss her with such tender savagery that she'd lose all sense of place and time—not to mention her lady's code of honor. What might happen after that, even her wanton nature dared not predict.
Maybe that was why she had to pull out both of the sloppy hemlines she had sewn.
Disgusted with her mending, she gave up and blew out her lamp. The waxing crescent of the moon had risen, so she decided she might as well dress for bed. The children weren't due back for another hour or two. She could catch a few winks of sleep before their excited footsteps woke her, and she went downstairs to hear them recount the adventures of their day.
Besides, if Wes was going to break down her door, he would have done it by now. It was high time she started thinking and acting like an upstanding, moral Christian again.
Her feet well-accustomed to every warp and splinter in Gator's stairs, she needed no light to show her the way to the second-floor landing. It gleamed above her with the silvery translucence of moonshine. She suspected that pale glow poured in through her open window, and remembering the young man on watch outside, she decided to draw her curtain against prying eyes before striking a flame. She closed her shutters, too, despite the heat, since that niggling prickle of wariness had returned, growing stronger each moment she spent in her bedroom.
Shaking her head at her addlepated trepidations, she fumbled along her dresser top until she found her match-safe and candle. As the wick sputtered to life, she turned, only to blow the candle out with her gasp.
"Wes!"
Her hands shaking so badly she nearly dropped both match and holder, she somehow managed to relight her candle and set it on the dresser. Then she stared at the man who had invaded both her privacy and her heart.
As far as she could tell, he hadn't moved a muscle since she'd first spied him, sitting in a corner on her tipped-back chair, his boots propped up on a bedpost. His hat brim lay across the bridge of his nose, and his fingers were laced peacefully across his stomach. She might have thought him asleep, except for the uneven rise and fall of his chest. She had half a mind to grab his ear.
"What on earth are you doing in my bedroom?"
He raised his hat and had the audacity to look her up and down. "Now you just go about your business, ma'am. Don't you trouble yourself over me. I'm here to keep you safe and sound for that ranching paragon of virtue, Ethan Hawkins."
He let his hat slant back across his face.
"How dare you!"
Stalking to his side, she knocked his long legs to the floor and snatched off his Stetson. Too late she realized she'd been deceived. His relaxed pose and wiseacre drawl belied the anger smoldering in his eyes. For a moment, her own outrage ebbed as she watched him slowly unfold from the chair. He towered above her like Zeus on Mount Olympus, the threat of thunder rolling across his brow. She recognized his Ranger's edge, that unpredictable streak of ferocity that could trigger at the slightest challenge.
Still, she raised her chin. He was a lawman, wasn't he? Trespassing in a woman's sleeping quarters was a crime even in Texas courts, so he was legally bound to leave her in peace once she told him to march his impudent hide back to his bedroll.
"Since the doors are locked," she said, "I can only assume you climbed through my bedroom window. If I were a man, I'd call you out for such effrontery."
"If you were a man, I wouldn't have bothered," he said flatly.
"And I should be flattered by this?"
Wes scowled. As angry as he was at her for locking him out of the house, for refusing him contact with the children, for avoiding him as if he were some kind of rabid cur dog no matter how hard he tried to make amends, her indifference hurt even more.
It hurt so much, in fact, that he'd actually considered going on a forbidden bender to deaden the never-ending pain. Why couldn't she show him one-tenth of the Christian kindness she would have shown any other repentant sinner?
"You could do a helluva lot worse than a man like me," he growled.
"Indeed? You always were blessed with a healthy self-esteem. Just what do you think you're doing in my bedroom? Did Elodea's cathouse run out of—what was it you called me? Oh yes." Her eyes flashed. "Whampus cats?"
He gritted his teeth. She'd lived in Texas long enough to know the legendary whampus cat was part wolf, part badger, and part puma, not a full-blooded whore.
"Quit putting words in my mouth. I never called you an alley cat, and I've never treated you like one. What happened between us was special to me. I told you I've never been with a lady before. And I meant what I said about wanting you to come back."
She stiffened, her cheeks paling. "No doubt you do. No doubt it pleases you to have a conquest to help you while away the hours while you're searching for murder witnesses. But I will not be your paramour, Wes."
"That's not how I think of you."
"And yet you've come here tonight to fornicate, have you not? Let us call a spade a spade, sir. I am nothing more than a game, and when you get bored, you'll find new sport."
"That is not true, Rorie."
"You really don't know when to stop lying, do you?"
"Dammit, woman, I'm not lying!"
"No?" She swallowed, and her rigid body began to shake. "So what are you trying to say, Wes? That you won't ride away after you make your arrest? That I can count on you to stay here and help me raise my children?"
His heart slammed into his ribs. "No! I mean..." His brain froze in a desperate attempt at a better answer. "I can't give up Rangering!"
"Then what do you want from me?!"
"I don't know! I just know I want you more than I've ever wanted any woman in my life, and that scares the hell out of me!"
She swayed, and the last of her color drained from her face. Suddenly, she staggered, groping for balance.
"Rorie?" He caught her hand, but she sank, wheezing. Only his arm saved her from crashing to her knees.
"Rorie?" Fear squeezed his heart. "My God, what is it? What's wrong?"
She was gasping now, clawing at the buttons on her collar. "Can't... breathe." Panic glazed her eyes.
He didn't waste time thinking. Dropping to his knees, he rent her gown from bodice to waist. He wrenched apart the hooks on her corset. Her breath whistled through her teeth then, and she sagged, clutching great handfuls of his shirtfront.
"Damn," he muttered, relieved to see her color returning. "I don't know why you women insist on wearing these things."
Without ceremony, he yanked the corset from the tangle of undergarments and tossed it across the room. Leaving her tattered gown and petticoats in a heap on the floor, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. She didn't protest for once. Instead, she rolled weakly to her side, shivering as she pulled her knees to her chest. Fearing she might go into shock, he kicked off his spurs and dropped his gunbelt, then climbed behind her on the mattress.
"You're all right, honey," he murmured, holding her against him. "Just breathe. That's it, sweetheart. Breathe deep for me."
He reached across her shoulders and pulled the quilt edge up, wrapping her clammy body in a cocoon of rose and lavender. She trembled, sinking into the warmth of his length. It was then that his reflexive calm—that gunfighter composure he'd honed over the past six years of facing sudden death—slipped away. Shuddering, he closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair
.
My God. I could have lost her.
"I'm—I'm all right now, Wes."
"Shh."
"I didn't mean to scare you."
He smiled weakly.
"I swear I've never fainted before."
"Don't talk, honey. Rest."
She fell silent. He could feel her heart skittering beneath his arm, and he thought how typical it was of her, trying to reassure him when she was the one who'd had such a fright.
Smoothing back her tumbled hair, he felt the surge of raw feelings once more—feelings so volatile and confused, he couldn't immediately give them names. They whirled with cyclone force through his body, making his chest ache and his throat tighten and his stomach flutter in a giddy, unsettling way. He hadn't felt this needy and hopeful, this elated and scared, since...
Since he'd fallen in love with Fancy.
"Rorie, I'm sorry. I wouldn't have come to your room if I'd thought—"
"It wasn't your fault, Wes. Really. I haven't been feeling well all day."
He pressed a soft kiss to the nape of her neck. "What's wrong?"
She sighed wearily. "My lunch didn't agree with me."
He fell quiet. Resting his cheek against her hair, he watched the gleam of candlelight dance along the wavy mass and inhaled the sweet, lingering fragrance of honeysuckle. A heady warmth spread through him, one he couldn't recall experiencing in all his twenty-four years. Still, it felt ancient and familiar somehow. He wanted her to feel it too. He wanted her to know he cared so much more about her than about the pleasure they could share.
"I wasn't lying, Rorie, when I said you were special to me," he said huskily. "I care about you and the children. But I need time to... to sort things out. Please. Be patient with me."
Rorie held her breath, then slowly, tremulously released it. Words, she thought. They were nothing more than words. Nevertheless, her traitorous, hopeful heart quickened.
"I don't believe in promises anymore, Wes."
"I know." His rumbling voice flowed around her, over her, through her. "That's why I won't make you one I can't keep."
