"There's a vegetable stew in the pot. Help yourself." Evie went back to adjusting her petticoat so the wet side faced the fire.
Tyler watched through hooded eyes as she played the part of homemaker. She was always playing some part or another. He ate his stew while she shook out the bedcovers and inspected the mattress for insects. He sipped his whiskey while she scoured the plates and pot. She was beautiful, efficient, and eerily silent. He liked it that way. They had nothing to say to each other.
But when Evie left the cabin to avail herself of the privy before retiring for the night, other ideas stirred from somewhere in Tyler's insides. He knew he was halfway to being drunk. He didn't often indulge, but the occasion seemed worth the effort. Still, even knowing he was drunk, he couldn't keep the visions from forming in his head.
Evie returned with a length of rope from his saddle, and Tyler watched in bemusement as she looped it around a peg in the wall and carried it across the room to loop it to another. He waited in drunken anticipation for the whole thing to come tumbling down when she proceeded to knot a sheet over the makeshift line, but she evidently had some experience in creating cloth walls. She was now effectively hidden behind the sheet. All he could see of her was her trim ankles when she removed her shoes.
Tyler contemplated Evie's bare toes beneath the sheet when she sat on the bed and pulled off her stockings. Just looking at her toes made his loins ache. They curled against the rough wooden floor while she worked at the rest of her clothing. He wanted to take those toes and cup them in his hands to keep them from the splintery wood floor. He would rub their softness until she sighed with pleasure. In his imagination Tyler slid his hands from those soft feet to slender ankles. The alcohol rushing through his brain pushed his hands farther, up the long curves of shapely legs. From there, he could only close his eyes and imagine the satisfaction to be achieved when his fingers reached the place where her legs came together.
He'd gone too long without a woman. It couldn't be good for a man's health to abstain this long. Tyler took another swig of whiskey as he surmised the movements behind the sheet represented the removing of her corset. He summoned a vision of that willow slim waist free of steel encumbrances, curving into full hips, rising to firm breasts, and his trousers were suddenly too tight. He took another drink and hoped the heated sensation would go away.
* * *
Still wearing chemise, drawers, and her under-petticoat, Evie climbed into bed. Fear tickled at her insides and edged along her skin, but she forced herself to remain calm. Tyler was a gentleman. The heroes in Daniel's dime novels were always gentlemen at heart. She would rely on that. She could do nothing else. She couldn't stay awake all night and watch him drink himself into a stupor. One of them had to have a clear head in the morning.
She lay quietly, listening to any movement from the other side of the sheet. The fire was dying, but they didn't need the warmth. She could hear the crackle of a branch breaking and crumbling into ash. The faint scent of cooked turnips hung in the air. The paper over the window had been torn in several places, letting in a draft of clear air but also letting in a mosquito. She could hear the whine overhead. Evie listened to the drone and tried to talk herself into sleep.
She couldn't relax. The cornhusks in the mattress rustled with her every movement. She heard Tyler get up and go outside, and she held her breath. Maybe he would sleep in the barn. She heard him splashing in the pail from the well. An animal howled in the distance, and she shivered. She had imagined adventures when coming to Texas, but this wasn't the kind she had imagined. Pecos Martin never touched women, but Tyler did.
All she had wanted to do was find her parents. She wanted to know why they never came back for her. The lawyer's letters had explained nothing. She couldn't believe they had abandoned her on purpose. Something had to have happened to them. And she meant to find out what.
She had imagined many things in her pursuit of the truth, but she had never imagined Tyler Monteigne. Even as she heard the door open again, her heart beat faster. There weren't any extra blankets for him to lie on. She knew what he meant to do, but still she lay there, hoping she was wrong.
She had been wrong to run from the stagecoach; she knew that now. But there was no turning back the hands of time. Perhaps she was wrong in coming to Texas, but she couldn't imagine spending the rest of her life wondering. Everyone in St. Louis knew she didn't have parents. She could dress herself in the finest gowns and do all sorts of charitable works, but without family, she was nothing, nobody. So she had to come to Texas. It was inevitable.
Just as Tyler's pulling back the sheet wall now was inevitable. The dying light of the fire illuminated the golden-brown expanse of his bare shoulders as he stood there for a moment, holding the sheet back from his head. Light glimmered in his hair, and Evie could still see water droplets glistening on his skin from his hasty washing. She pushed to the far side of the bed, leaving him plenty of room. This could still work, if he would just be reasonable. It wasn't quite like the prince coming to rescue Rapunzel, but he looked like a prince. She could pretend he was one for just one night. It wasn't at all difficult to do.
Tyler sat down on the bed's edge and began pulling off his boots. Evie could feel the heat emanating from his naked back, and she had the overwhelming urge to stroke that wide expanse of smooth flesh. She could see how his broad chest tapered to slim hips and flat, muscled stomach, but she didn't want to know any more than that. Just the glimpse of his bare front had caused sensations she didn't want to describe.
She attempted to draw the quilt up around her as she sat up, but Tyler was sitting on it. Abandoning this last thread of protection, Evie started for the bottom of the bed. Pretend as she might, she could put only so much trust in Tyler's gentlemanly instincts. His silence lacked the reassurance she needed.
He turned and caught her with one strong arm, hauling her back down to the bed. He leaned over her briefly, pinning her with his unwavering gaze. "Stay," he ordered.
She almost obeyed, until he stood up and began unfastening the buttons of his trousers. She had no desire to become that well acquainted with male anatomy, no matter how curious she was. She grabbed the quilt and tried to escape around him.
Tyler caught her and tossed her back to the bed as if she were no more than a sack of grain. Evie stared as he peeled off his trousers, revealing the white knit of his drawers. Even in this dim light she could see the mysterious male bulge that had so fascinated her peers in school when they talked of men. The bulge seemed to grow even as she looked at it, and she hastily looked away.
"Let me up, Tyler," she said quietly. "I'll take the quilt and sleep by the fire."
She ought to be panicking. She could feel the grief in him, feel the black gulfs of anguish swirling in his soul, and knew he wasn't in his right senses. But Tyler had never hurt her. Even now, when he tossed her back to the bed and came down beside her, he was gentle in his touches. He was abrupt, demanding, sometimes irritable, and often furious with her, but he had never raised a hand to her. The one he raised now merely caressed her cheek.
Evie held herself still as Tyler's lips feathered across hers. Maybe this was all he wanted—a little comfort in his time of sorrow. Her heart went out to him. She knew what it was like to be all alone. Tentatively, she touched his hard jaw. She could feel the stubble of whiskers and the way the muscles tensed beneath her fingers.
And then Tyler's mouth was closing more forcefully against hers, and panic replaced her need to hold and comfort. Evie shoved at his shoulders as he moved over her, but Tyler was bigger and heavier and there was nothing she could do to budge him. Her fingers bit into his biceps as he nipped at her lips and parted them until his tongue could find entrance. She cried out a protest at the invasion, but something warm and wonderful was happening to her insides at the same time.
She wasn't really frightened. She ought to be. This was the last thing in the world that she wanted to happen if she thought about it, but there was a se
nse of inevitability to it if she didn't think. If she let Tyler's kisses drug her into insensibility, she could almost enjoy the masculine musk surrounding her, the sense of power and security his large body held for her. She liked the way his muscles tensed beneath her touch. She craved the pure sensuality of his tongue exploring the recesses of her mouth, his lips possessing hers with a hunger that matched her own. She wanted to be held and loved, and she wanted to make this man hold and love her. She could feel the power of the forces drawing them together, and she craved the sensation.
But she knew the instant Tyler's hand reached between them to caress her breast that he didn't mean to stop with kisses and hugs. Evie protested as his hand cupped her through the chemise, but Tyler merely covered her mouth with his own again, suffocating her cries with his kiss.
"Tyler, no!" she whispered frantically as his mouth moved to nibble at her throat. But she made no effort to stop his hands when they unfastened the buttons of her chemise.
Her breasts felt like they were swelling upward, ripe and ready to pop as he uncovered them. Taking one in his mouth, Tyler moaned low in his throat, and Evie lost herself in the sensation of his lips and tongue teasing her into a white hot heat that she didn't understand.
She held him to her, ran her hands through the rich thickness of his hair, offered herself to his anxious kiss as she felt the grief and sorrow rush through him. She felt Tyler's back heave as he bent his head and finally gave vent to a drunken sob of sorrow against her breast. Caught up in her compassion and desire, she placed kisses along the harsh plane of his jaw everywhere she could reach.
In return, Tyler jerked her chemise back until her arms were pinned by the material. Evie struggled out of the hampering cloth while he pressed and stroked her breasts into tingling mounds of sensation. His touch created ribbons of desire that crept through her middle and down to her toes. She wanted his kiss on her mouth again, and he gladly obliged, but this time she could taste his tears, and she cried with him.
The light mat of hair on Tyler's chest brushed her breasts, and Evie lifted against him to feel more. She was as terrified of herself as she was of him, but she didn't seem able to stop. It was as if this was meant to be, as if some unseen hand wrote her actions on the page.
* * *
Oblivious to where he was or who he was with, Tyler gave into the comfort of a woman's welcoming body washing away his pain. Another woman had taught him how he could drown his sorrow in this physical joining, and he had never forgotten the lesson.
The momentary closeness, the sense of oblivion, the physical release—all rendered the pain to a distance that he could deal with later. He was very successful at distancing himself once he overcame the immediate shock. That was all he needed now, the brief physical pleasure to separate him from the beast within tearing him apart. He pushed up the flimsy piece of clothing protecting her and untied his drawers.
Tyler knew his error the instant his body thrust into hers. A woman's cry of pain and disappointment echoed in his ear, but it was too late now. Closing his eyes, he lunged forward and took possession of the satin haven that would save him from the beast.
He didn't need to know who she was. He only needed the temporary shelter she offered.
Her newly opened body quivered as he filled her completely, but she was wet and he was ready. He moved out and slid deeper until she was crying and heaving in tandem with his exertions. That was all he needed to know.
He came quickly, immersing himself in multiple explosions that buried him deep within her heat. He accepted with relief the solace of this physical release and her hands braiding through his hair and refused to think of what he had done.
That would come on the morrow, when the beast was back in his cage again.
Chapter 8
Evie curled near the wall as far as she could get from the large man lying beside her. She had never thought Tyler particularly large until confronted with the obstacle of his body between herself and the door to safety. His bare shoulders loomed immense, blocking out all view of the room but the ceiling.
She was grateful he was turned away from her. She didn't think she could tolerate the sight of his broad chest without jumping out of her skin. Fantasy had met reality last night, and fantasy had lost. Stripped of the protective shelter of her dreamworld, Evie shivered in her nakedness.
The early morning sun cast a sliver of light across the log joists she could see above Tyler's arm. The light glimmered golden against the hair of his skin, but Evie tried to concentrate on what she had to do. Her mind was useless while she was totally aware of the naked man not inches away. She now had full awareness of the strength behind the deceptive suppleness of his lean frame. And she was terrified of what would happen should he turn over and use his powerful maleness against her once again.
She still ached from last night's encounter. There was an unpleasant stickiness between her legs where he had been, and the feeling of violation was strong. She despised him for what he had done, but she despised herself worse.
She had sworn this would never happen to her. Even though she had painted pretty pictures of her parents in her head, she knew what she was—a bastard. Everyone knew it. That was why she could never hold her head up in St. Louis society despite her wealth and looks. She had sworn never to allow a man to do to her what one had done to her mother. And now look at her.
Clenching her lips, Evie sought some means of escape. Because of her birth, she had studied the subject of bastards as carefully as it was possible for a gentle lady of means in society. She knew how children were created, and she fully meant to be married before she had any. She knew there were ways of preventing children and ways of getting rid of them. She knew very little about those ways, but common logic told her where to find the answer when she needed it. She prayed she wouldn't need it, but the chances were far better if she got out of Tyler's bed right now.
She tried to pull the quilt over her breasts as she sat up, but Tyler had it wrapped around his hips and was lying on it. She struggled to find her chemise in the tangled debris of the bedding, but he seemed to be lying on that, too. Her toes grazed his leg, and she jumped backward from the contact, but it was already too late.
He turned on his back and stared at her. Stricken, Evie couldn't look away from his eyes. They weren't amber any longer but a deep, festering brown that had none of the laughter and charm she associated with him. She couldn't look away even when she knew his gaze had dropped from her face to her breasts. She merely fought to pull up the quilt.
Glowering, Tyler jerked the quilt away, wrapped it around himself, and got up. Evie tugged the tangle of her petticoats back around her legs, but not before the motion exposed the dark stain marring the cotton. Still cursing, he tore away the sheet wall and threw it at her before stalking out.
Evie watched him go with a mixture of relief and disappointment that gave way to outrage. Keeping the sheet wrapped around her, she hobbled over to the hot ashes and the pot of water she had left hanging there. Thank goodness she'd had the forethought to set out water for their morning ablutions.
She scrubbed herself viciously with the old cake of lye soap she had found the night before, all the while contemplating with pleasure the image of Tyler washing in the icy cold well water. That should take some of the starch out of him.
She dressed hastily in fear of his return. It was obvious that whiskey and grief had been the influence the night before, but she couldn't be sure that he wouldn't decide to come back for more now that the damage was done. She was rather uncertain about how a man's mind functioned. Or his body. She knew men liked to look at her. She knew they often wanted to do more than look at her. But except for those few stolen kisses at times of excitement over other things, Tyler had done a very good job of ignoring her. She wasn't at all certain that he really desired her in the way a man does a woman.
And she had no wish to find out. She buttoned up her bodice waist as far as it would go despite the fact that the air w
as already warm. She dragged on all her petticoats and ignored her rumbling stomach.
She was just finishing fastening the buttons of her shoes when Tyler walked back in.
He had slicked back his hair with well water and donned fresh clothes from his saddlebags. He evidently didn't possess any of the colorful shirts Evie had seen on some of the men here in Texas. The one he wore now was of the same respectable white linen he wore in town, although he didn't bother fastening a collar or cravat to it. She tried to keep her gaze from straying to the tight crotch of his fawn-colored trousers, but she was aware of it, just the same. She pulled her skirt down farther and returned to buttoning her shoes.
"If you're ready, I've got the horses saddled."
Evie's head went up quickly, but she didn't say a word. What did one say to a man who had just taken one's innocence? Judging from Tyler's behavior, it wasn't "Good morning, darling." Her book reading and imagination failed her.
She followed him out to the brightness of a Texas morning and watched as he brought the two horses forward. The one she recognized as his, but the other wasn't the one Ben had ridden. She turned him a questioning glance.
"I reckon it belonged to one of the thieves. I found it wandering out by the road last night. You can ride, can't you?"
"No." She glanced again at the tall horse, the western saddle, and down to her gabardine traveling skirt with its heavy train draped over the bustle at her back. She knew what ladies wore when riding, and she was definitely not wearing it.
"Then you'll just have to sit in the saddle and hang on while I lead you. I don't have any idea how far away we are from civilization, but we'll get there faster on two horses."
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