And yet when she looked into his haunted eyes, she could almost forgive him. He still grieved for his first wife. Still loved the ghost of another woman.
She couldn’t fight a ghost, or compete with such a hallowed memory. Yet she would not, could not, stop trying to get close to him. Even though she greatly feared he would break her heart in the end.
He came home on Thursday, in mid-afternoon, just after she had put Janna down for a nap. Heather’s heart did a somersault when she descended the stairs to find Sloan in the kitchen.
He seemed to be waiting for her, one hip lounging casually against the wooden table. He looked dangerous and a bit disreputable with his sleeves pushed up to expose corded, tanned forearms, his thumbs hooked into the gun belt riding low on his hips. A rough stubble shadowed his lean cheeks, while his skin seemed very bronzed. He exuded raw male attraction, every hard male inch of him.
Heather felt her pulse leap with sexual awareness, while all her senses honed to him. The air was suddenly fraught with dark undercurrents of passion.
He watched her, his ice-blue eyes intense, as he slowly unbuckled his guns and dropped them on the table. Her mouth went dry.
“Janna asleep?” he asked, his voice low, husky.
“Yes. I just put her to bed.”
“Good. Come here.”
That was all he said, all he needed to say. Her heart alive with excitement, she went to him. Almost roughly Sloan drew her into the hard cradle of his thighs. In response, hunger flared inside her, fanned into instant life at his touch. The heat of his body seared her through their clothing.
Heather closed her eyes, savoring the smell of horse and man rising from that seductive heat. Eagerly she raised her mouth to his.
Sloan held himself back for only an instant. He’d told himself he wasn’t going to attack her the minute he got home, but for the last ten miles, all he could think of was her naked body, pale and frenzied as he took her. He wanted to be locked deep inside her, feeling her heat, making her moan for him. He wanted her clawing at his back and arching her hips for him.
His arousal was hot and throbbing. He could feel his cock pressing against the rough denim of his pants, a pleasure-pain.
“I’ve been hard since I left you,” he muttered.
“And all day today…” He pressed her hand to the straining fabric of his jeans. “I’m so hard now, my guts are hurting. I want to be inside you.”
“Yes,” she breathed in reply.
His lips seized hers in a kiss as darkly intimate as the mating of their bodies had once been, while his fingers fumbled with the buttons of her shirtwaist. Her clothes were in his way. He wanted to strip every stitch of them from her body. He needed to get between her long legs and make her feel things she’d never felt before. He needed to make her as hungry for him as he was for her.
He managed to pull her blouse down over her shoulders and free her flesh from the top lacy edge of her corset. Her jutting, naked breasts rose above the tight whalebone, bared to his heated gaze. His fingers closed over the pale, high-swelling curves like they were his property. She was so damn beautiful that looking at her made him ache.
He rubbed her budded nipples to hard little points of fire, so that she arched into his touch with a whimper.
“I have to taste you,” he muttered.
Turning her, he lay Heather back on the kitchen table and bent over her hungrily. She gasped as his lips traced burning kisses around her full swells. His mouth was hot, his tongue rough and wet on her sensitive skin, arousing the peak to a pebble-hard point of pleasure, setting the rest of her body on fire. With a hard sucking motion, he assaulted her, his devouring lips dragging across her breasts, pulling at her flesh, nipping softly. He was tasting her to his ruthless satisfaction, staking a claim.
But it wasn’t enough, for either of them. Still suckling her fiercely, Sloan pushed her skirts up to her waist. He felt a shock as he realized she wasn’t wearing drawers. She was naked from the waist down, open for his pleasure. When her bare legs parted, the sweet scent of woman rose to his nostrils.
Raw need bolted through him like a wild horse. His gaze lifted abruptly, silver-blue smoke.
“Such an accommodating wife,” he murmured hoarsely in approval.
He slipped a finger into her cleft, feeling the heat and dampness and need of her. She was so wet, so trigger-hot, she nearly came right then. She made a soft whimpering sound of need as she reached for him, but Sloan clenched his teeth and held back. She made him shudder with the urge to pound deep and pour his hot seed inside her, but he wanted her to plead.
His hard lips closed wetly over her nipple. His hot mouth seared her with a lash of pleasure that was almost cruel, while his fingers stroked fiercly.
“Sloannnnn…” His name was a keening moan which changed to a strangled cry. The orgasm that shook her was powerful, instantaneous, shattering.
Sloan held himself still as tremors shook her lush, magnificent body, fighting the raw lust that ran rampant through him. His body pulsed against hers while his hardened shaft cramped beneath his pants. He wanted her, wanted to impale her until he drowned in her.
Abruptly he rose above her, tearing at his pants until they opened and he could push them out of the way. He had to have her or go crazy. In a rush of heated flesh, he plunged into her.
When Heather cried out again and wrapped her legs around him, he spread his fingers and clasped her bare buttocks hard to draw her closer. Her breathy whimpers were driving him mad. He’d never been so hungry for a woman before, so hot. He’d never felt this kind of need, mindless, relentless, endless.
He rode her hard and fast. Wildly, he drove himself into her, big and hard, his lean, powerful body trembling with almost angry need. His lips drank in her wild moans as she clawed at his back.
In only a moment, fire exploded where her slick, heated flesh sheathed him. When in the same moment she began to convulse around him once more, his body contracted. He shook violently, shuddering with a pleasure so piercing it was almost unbearable.
In the breathless aftermath, Sloan collapsed, sinking his head on her breast in panting surrender. He could still feel the ripples caressing him.
God, he wanted her still. It would only be a minute before her warmth could make him hard and ready again, but he didn’t want it to be here, like this.
He would take a bath first and wash away the grime of the trail. Then he would take her to bed and do it all over again, slower this time, using his mouth on her breasts, between her legs, till she was hot and wild and sweet and burning up with wanting him.
He raised his head. She looked lush and wanton and well-loved.
“Now that,” he said, a grin playing at one corner of his hard mouth, “was one hell of a welcome. No drawers. Seems like you’re learning to be a proper wife after all.”
She flushed a delicate rose.
Sloan chuckled at the ladylike display. The duchess still hadn’t shed her modesty—but he would work on it.
He kissed her again, refamiliarizing himself with the dark recesses of her mouth. Then, easing away from her, he smoothed down her skirts and helped her to stand. “Why don’t you come upstairs with me and join me in a bath?”
“You want me to bathe with you?” Heather repeated rather weakly.
“It’ll be a tight fit, but the tub’s big enough for two.” He turned and sauntered to the door. Pausing to cast a glance over his shoulder, Sloan smiled, a slow sexual smile that burned right through her. “If we’re lucky, we have another hour till Janna wakes. And that new plumbing cost a fortune. We need to make good use of it if I’m to get my money’s worth.”
Once roundup was over, Sloan had more time to devote to his campaign, and they often discussed the subject over supper. Heather cherished those private moments with him, for it usually meant that he let down his guard.
To her surprise and gratification, though, Sloan earnestly sought her opinions.
“I want your advice,” he sai
d two nights after he’d returned from Denver. “Cat and Jake have offered to host a meeting between cattle ranchers and sheep men to let me present my views on the issues. It might be wise. I’ve made some enemies over the years,” he admitted, “and it would give me a chance to mend some fences.”
“I think it’s a marvelous opportunity,” Heather replied. “Perhaps you could pay a call on all your neighbors beforehand to issue an invitation to the meeting. You could talk to them personally … find out their concerns and tell them your aspirations.”
“Will you come with me?”
Her eyes widened. “If you like.”
Sloan nodded. “I think it would help my cause. The ranchers here never could resist a beautiful woman. They’ll be more willing to attend the meeting if the invitation comes from you.”
It was some consolation that Sloan thought her beautiful, even if he saw her primarily as a political advantage. But she didn’t intend to quibble. “That makes sense, but as long as we’re talking about persuasion … you shouldn’t neglect the ranchers’ wives. Even if only men can vote in Colorado, women can influence the outcome of an election.”
His eyebrows rose thoughtfully, as if he recognized the truth to her observation. In addition to offering advice, though, Heather encouraged him to talk about his plans and tried to help him frame his ideas.
“People respect passion and conviction, Sloan. They need to understand why the election is so important to you, that you want to protect the land and help salvage people’s ranches. You know what it’s like to live with hardship. If you simply tell them the truth, if you speak from the heart, they’ll listen.”
For a rare moment, his smile reached those bright, unreadable eyes. A thatch of wheat-colored hair fell over his forehead, making him look boyish and incredibly masculine at the same time. She felt her heart melt.
Heather swallowed, trying to ignore the sensation. When he brushed it back out of his eyes, she suggested thoughtfully, “If you mean to start making public speeches, you might consider getting a haircut.”
He gave her a long, vaguely amused look. “My hair isn’t fancy enough for your tastes?”
“For a cowpuncher it is perfectly adequate, but a shorter style would look better if you don a suit. I doubt a shaggy bear is the image you want to portray with voters.”
“You’re the fashion expert, duchess.”
She trimmed his hair in the kitchen the next morning, and greatly enjoyed the task. At just that moment, Sloan looked carefree and relaxed. There was no sign of the dark, brooding stranger she had wed. Indeed, as she drew a comb through his longish hair, he even began flirting with her, showing the reckless, charming side that had won the hearts of all the local belles.
“I hope you’ve had more practice with those things than you have with a shotgun,” Sloan murmured, eyeing the shears. “You don’t mean to scalp me, do you?”
“I only hope to give you an air of refinement—no small task for a rugged cowboy, I must admit.”
Sloan shifted in the chair like a small boy.
“Would you please hold still?”
“What if I don’t?” The corners of his mouth kicked up in amusement. “You gonna rap my knuckles and send me off to the woodshed like one of your wayward pupils?”
“I might at that.”
He crossed his arms over his chest but obediently stopped moving. “Very well, your highness, I’ll be good.”
“Your grace.”
“What?”
“I believe the proper form of address for a duchess is ‘your grace.’ Not that you give a fig about proper social deportment, but if you’re elected senator, you’ll likely find yourself in situations which will require you to exercise polite manners.”
Sloan chuckled. “I can be polite if I have to. Even if you think I’m an… uncivil, ill-tempered ogre. Isn’t that what you once called me?”
“I suppose you have managed to improve on further acquaintance.”
“So have you. You’re not so full of starch and vinegar.” He reached around her and palmed the bustle of her skirt. “You wearing drawers today?”
Heather jerked the scissors back. “Yes!”
“Too bad.” Sloan regarded the table where he’d taken her with such sizzling passion. “A bare bottom might make this ordeal more fun.”
Trying to steel herself against the insidious warmth curling around her heart, Heather glanced at his young daughter, who was playing quietly in her corner. “Will you behave, Sloan McCord?”
“Yes, ma’am, if you insist.” He grinned and the effect was dazzling. “But I get a reward afterward.”
Heather turned away in dismay. His lighthearted mood was more dangerous than his savage temper. When he was like this, it was too easy to love him, to need him, to want his arms around her.
And yet finding those small chinks in Sloan’s defensive armor heartened her. She desperately wanted to counter his reserve and chip away at his coldness, to draw out his softer side and win his trust.
At least he no longer saw her as his enemy. He actually seemed grateful for her efforts with Janna. And surprisingly, he didn’t fly into a rage when he was reminded poignantly of his beloved late wife.
That afternoon, they were leaving to pay calls at all the neighboring ranches when Janna insisted on carrying the raven-haired doll Heather had brought her from St. Louis.
“Want Va-va,” Janna babbled when Sloan picked her up, reaching down toward her basket of toys.
“What’s she saying?” he asked. “She wants water?”
“No,” Heather replied. “Her doll. We named it after her mother, but she can’t pronounce the words fully.”
When Sloan went rigid, Heather regarded him warily.
“Mehe-vaotseva … that was Doe’s Cheyenne name, was it not?”
His gaze hardened. “Who told you that?”
“Rusty.”
Sloan stared at her, and she could see pain in his eyes at some long-ago memory.
“You said,” she added softly, “that you didn’t want Janna to forget her heritage.”
“No.” His whisper had a raw edge. Bending to retrieve the doll for his daughter, he tightened his hold on Janna and kissed the top of her raven head. “Thank you,” he said, his eyes shut.
Heather swallowed the ache in her throat as Sloan stole another piece of her heart. He was trying, she realized. He was endeavoring to put the past behind him and move on with his life.
She had to hold on to that—and hope that his future included her.
The personal visits to neighboring ranches paid off for Sloan’s campaign. Nearly everyone they called on agreed to attend the political meeting to be held Sunday afternoon at Jake’s place. Heeding Heather’s advice, Sloan invited the ranchers’ wives as well.
Sunday morning dawned bright and clear. Sloan drove his family over early, so that he and Heather could help set up.
The carriage ride through the rugged foothills was breathtaking, with a warm blue sky that heralded the onset of summer. A golden eagle soared high overhead, the slopes covered with Douglas fir and lodgepole pine, while blue columbine had begun to blossom in the emerald-green meadows.
Holding a bright-eyed Janna on her lap, Heather realized she was glad she was here rather than St. Louis. She didn’t miss the stifling existence of her past life in the least. The wildness of this land had conquered her heart, and so had the man sitting beside her.
Caitlin and Jake were waiting proudly with their tiny but healthy new daughter, whom they’d named Elizabeth after Jake’s mother. Janna was fascinated with the baby, and a boisterous Ryan happily entertained both young ones. He took his cousin to the back porch to play while the grownups discussed the arrangements for the meeting, which was to be held picnic-style in the yard.
Heather had brought several pies and she busied herself arranging tables for the food, as did Sarah Baxter and her husband Harvey, who were among the first arrivals. They all helped Sloan greet the ranchers, who ca
me in droves. The men mostly wore Sunday trousers and good boots, the women dresses and fancy bonnets, and the gathering took on the festive air of a holiday.
Heather, passing out lemonade along with Caitlin and Sarah, watched as Sloan moved easily through the growing crowd, shaking the men’s hands and working his rugged charm on the ladies.
“It’s a shame women don’t have the vote,” Caitlin suggested.
Sarah laughed and nodded. “If they did, Sloan could get elected president.”
Heather had to agree. He exuded raw male attraction, and she couldn’t suppress a thrill of pride that he was her husband.
When the crowd finally settled on blankets in the yard, Jake, still holding his baby daughter, called the meeting to order. He said a few words to introduce his brother, before Caitlin stepped forward to address the sheep men in the crowd.
“I know we’ve had our differences in the past,” she observed earnestly, “but that’s all over now, thanks in large part to Sloan McCord. As you all know, he had a big hand in ending the feud. Now he’s running for state senator and he needs your vote. This is your opportunity to learn about his views. All we ask is that you give him a fair hearing.”
The first question was thrown out by a stalwart, red-bearded man in almost a hostile tone. “Why in tarnation should we vote for you, McCord? For twenty years your pa tried to run our sheep out of the territory. How do we know you ain’t got the same notion up your sleeve?”
Sloan smiled and replied easily, “I’ve got nothing up my sleeve, John. You’ve known that for over twenty years, ever since we first went skinny-dipping together in Bear Creek when we were eight.”
Several men in the crowd guffawed, while the women tittered.
Sloan’s expression grew serious. “We’d be fools to turn our backs on sheep. The hard truth is, the cattle industry is going bust, and sheep are still profitable enough to support our county.”
“You aren’t suggestin’ we all become woollyboys, are you?” a cattleman called out incredulously.
“No. But we have to face reality. Our way of life is changing, and we have to change with it if we hope to survive. It’s hard even for the big outfits like mine to make ends meet. The small ones don’t have a chance unless we all stick together. And that requires going against the mining barons who’ve taken over the Colorado legislature. We need laws that will give us a square deal. We need someone in the government who’ll look out for our interests.”
The Heart Breaker Page 18
