by Thea Devine
No! Now her consciousness denied it, even as she savored his kiss and demanded his caresses. Damn, he aroused her so quickly just by his sensual, erotic kisses. She had to beware of his ravishing tongue as well as his enchanter's hands. And she was the one standing in the barnyard, allowing him to devour her in the most enticingly arousing way. She was almost at the brink of something. Her hands moved, she knew they moved; they were feeling his chest and his shoulders and the texture of the muscles corded beneath them. And she felt him pressing against her, ready to possess her.
This was impossible, she wanted to cry—impossible place, impossible dress. She couldn't reach for him, he couldn't feel her, not an inch of naked skin except her
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neck and face; she could lift her skirts, and he could ease the ache in her there, that way. But ... no!
She felt herself reacting by pulling away. She didn't want that, she didn't want it that way. She was panting with the force of her yearning. His lips were an inch away from hers, touching her in quick little motions on her cheeks and lips, her chin, her neck, delving into her mouth again, kissing her tongue, biting her lips. "Kalida ..." Her name was a hoarse rasp on his lips as he waited for her to say what next would be done. But he did not ease the iron grip of his arms holding her, and his kisses did not burn her the less. He wanted her there and then, but he did not demand it. He would not force her.
She wrenched away, her whole body heaving with the torture of unfulfilled desire. "No!" she ground out, hanging onto one shred of her heretofore firm resolve. "No." Her voice became steadier as anger overtook her emotion. "Not again. Not again, Deuce. Don't touch me again."
His eyes burned charcoal at her words. "That's a joke, you wanton bitch." Hell, his anger was every bit as steep and grinding as hers; she was denying every last thing between them once again, and he couldn't take that. He was going to force her to her knees one way or another, and he knew just how he wanted to do it and what he would do once he got her there. "Don't touch you. That's why you didn't walk away, right, that's why you stayed here, just demanding to have me put my hands on you. Don't touch you. That's all you want, you selfish fool, and I wouldn't touch you now if you were the last woman in Montana." He swung away from her in a towering fury and disappeared into the bunkhouse.
She watched him go, calm in some center that she did not know she possessed, undisturbed by the words; they were the very words she had wanted to hear, and now she had them and she felt a shimmer of contentment.
Perhaps now he would realize she was serious and he
would leave her alone. It was just what she wanted. Just exactly what she wanted.
She felt like a weight had been lifted from her, tension dropping like a huge yoke from her shoulders. She leaned against the bunkhouse wall, breathing deeply.
"Miss Kalida." A tentative voice broke into her reflections. She looked up, startled, and met the speaking hazel gaze of Jake TJanton. "You're all right?" he asked with concern, hiding a certain excitement in himself at what he had just witnessed and what he had felt as he watched. And Deuce's words that confirmed everything he had felt about her—everything.
"Yes, of course," Kalida said firmly. "Why do you ask?" she added, a slightly sinking feeling inside her wondering whether he had seen Deuce mauling her in that appalling way.
'-'You looked out of sorts there for a minute; maybe it's the heat?" Jake suggested, wanting now to allay the fear he read in her cobalt gaze. He couldn't let on he understood, not yet, even though he had heard Deuce's words very clearly and had seen her responding to Deuce very, very clearly. Though why she had trussed herself up in that costume on a day like today, especially if she had intended to entice a man like Deuce, was beyond him. But now Deuce had disappeared in a rage, and he was alone with her. Jake was willing to give her time to get used to him, to be assured she could trust him. Nothing threatening. He hoped he could hold his desire in check. Just the thought of that ungirdled luscious body bared solely for his delectation was enough to send his male senses spiralling to new heights. He hardly heard her answer; he inferred it from her expression.
"Yes, the heat," she agreed. "The dress is too confining."
Oh, it is indeed, he thought gleefully, bending his head to catch her next words and to get a better look at the
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swell of her breasts under the tight bodice and march of glittering buttons. "You should have worn a hat," he chided gently, all concern for her predicament.
"I should have," she confirmed lightly, drawing tightly on her good manners to keep her talking rather than returning abruptly to the house. One more comment, and then she could leave. "But tell me, I thought you and Deuce were staying on at the branding corral."
"We slept there, sure, but Deuce is recording the first tallies this morning; then we go back. Tomorrow we bring down the mommas and their calves. Maybe you might want to watch that." I hope to God you want to watch that, he thought, remembering the look of her astride her horse, thighs gripping its flanks, breasts jouncing with every movement.
"I might," she said noncommittally. "I appreciate you telling me about it. And now I think I had better get back to the house."
He nodded wordlessly and watched the sway of her hips beneath the provocative draping of the dress. Suddenly she turned back to him as if she had had an unexpected thought. And in fact it did abruptly occur to her that he had been with her father when he had gone back to the ranch, and she felt an inexplicable urge to ask him what it was like there—now. "You've been to my home since—"
"You wouldn't want to go there," he broke in roughly, "honest you wouldn't." Hell, what am I doing? he wondered. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his shirt sleeve. She had flinched at his words, but her expression firmed up again. She looked at him with those glimmery navy eyes and said, "Yes I would."
"Miss Kalida . . ."
"Truly, Jake. I should see it, I should."
"Maybe." And maybe she was looking for an excuse to be alone with someone now that Deuce had tossed her
aside. "Maybe you should," he agreed, his voice becoming hoarse with that consideration.
"Maybe you could come with me," she went on recklessly, and she knew.why: She wanted to strike back at Deuce. But she didn't care. Deuce would never let her get three feet off the property; didn't he as much as say so? And hadn't Jake offered his help?
"It isn't pretty there any more," he said, warning her, warning himself that he should at least make a slight attempt to discourage her to ease his conscience. The same conscience that would replay his dreams tonight once again, dreams of her, framed in a window, but this time beckoning to him, and when he was within, slowly revealing her nakedness only to him.
"I need to go back," she said firmly.
"Well sure, I can see that," he agreed finally. "In a couple of days, Miss Kalida; I'm sure I can work a couple of hours free. We'll go."
"Thank you, Jake." She turned away, trembling. She knew, really she knew, exactly what she was doing. She went over it in her mind as she strode back to the house. She was playing on Jake's sympathy for her arid Deuce's ridiculous anger about it, that was what she was doing. And she wasn't in the least afraid of touching off an explosion.
Deuce had preceded her into the parlor by only a minute or two, she deduced by the tail end of Ardelle's comment, ". . . didn't expect to see you so soon."
"I'm running an initial tally this morning," he said brusquely.
Ardelle's voice again: "Any trouble last night?" Her words held just the right note of disinterest, as though she were aware he would recoil from any further mention of the elusive thieves that had decimated the Santa Linaria
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stock. It was a sore point with him, although Kalida was not aware of it, but she made the connection instantly as he answered, "No, curiously; we didn't run a patrol last night either, and everything was fine. Too fi
ne. We moved out the Linaria, and I'm not telling anyone where. That's the last of that, and I'm wiring up the boundary after we get this load to market."
"Good idea," Ardelle said briefly. "Do you need help on the tally?"
"Ellie can help me," Deuce said, turning then and looking straight at Kalida, who was standing in the frame of the parlor door. He had finished dressing in a thin chambray shirt and silver tooled belt that emphasized his hips. His hair was freshly brushed back, and his face was as hard as stone. His eyes, however, burned with that dangerous charcoal light as he motioned to Ellie, who glided after him demurely, throwing Kalida a snide sideways back glance as she followed him down the center hallway to the old house and his office.
Kalida stood still as a statue watching them, happy at the successful conclusion of her first-stage plan —that Deuce was turning to Ellie. She was happy. It made her supremely happy to see him choose Ellie to help him.
She couldn't let her expression reveal even a nuance of her agony. She turned back to Ardelle, who was already halfway across the room on her way out. She brushed past Kalida without a word, leaving the young woman alone with the stiff furniture and the stiffer silence.
She sank onto the little velvet sofa. What were they doing in that room? Her imagination began percolating with speculation, and she did not like the direction her thoughts were taking at all. She got up restlessly and began pacing. They were merely conducting business. They were closeted alone in that room counting cows. Counting calves. He was counting and she was writing, listing the numbers and the brands. The syndicate mem-
bers. Of course. He was not bending over her to check her neat flawless handwriting nor staring down the vee of her neckline at the swell of her breasts. He was detailing numbers and she was copying them down and that was all.
She stared out the window that overlooked the front porch and the extended green fields in front. A timber fence enclosed the pasture, to separate it from the dirt and gravel drive in front of the house. She saw it, and she didn't see it, as her imagination ran riot.
And what if he put his big hand on her fragile shoulder in a complimentary gesture and he leaned over her all at once, to check again what he had said. Perhaps he had made a mistake; he was probably reading from roughly annotated crumpled pieces of paper that he had detailed right in the branding corral. And what if his hand gently slid downward and ever so discreetly brushed the tip of her breast —what then?
What then was didn't bear thinking about. She put her hands over her ears almost as though she were shutting out voices rather than obstreperous thoughts.
And there went Ardelle, limping quickly across the drive, in a hurry to get somewhere — unusual for her, she noted abstractedly, deterred for a moment and interested in what Ardelle might be doing outside. She was acting very strangely for a woman whose actions and opinions were usually so precise. She had made her way to a point midway between the house and the back field, which was still visible from the parlor window, and then she paused. And she waited, her cane tucked up under her arm. She just stood and waited.
And Kalida watched her, intrigued now, her thoughts deflected from what could be going on in Deuce's office. Why would Ardelle be standing in the middle of the drive and waiting?
A small mantel clock ticked away the minutes as Ar-
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delle waited patiently and Kalida watched. After a while, Ardelle moved forward a few steps, and then back, almost as if she were wrestling with a decision to leave.
And then her face lifted and she moved forward again, quickly this time, and moments later hailed a rider who was coming from the stables. As he came closer, Kalida identified Jake Danton by the way he sat the horse.
Well, Jake ... Of course Ardelle would need to speak to him occasionally about something.
He bent over courteously so Ardelle should not have to shout, and she said what seemed to be very few words to him before he straightened up, wheeling his mount back in the direction he had come, and Ardelle turned back to the house.
So much for intrigue, Kalida thought sardonically. The only intrigue that was going on was in that office in the old house, and now Ardelle was on her way back. Kali-da's mind immediately jumped back to the possible reasons for their taking such a long time writing up a tally.
Prestina poked her head in briefly. "What you doing here by yourself?" she asked kindly.
"Thinking," Kalida said. The short, sharp answer had its effect: Prestina withdrew abruptly, and Kalida felt instantly ashamed of herself. She ran after her and apologized. "I am at wit's end anyway; look at me. I look like some porcelain doll that Miss Ardelle wants to keep on the mantel. I can't ride; I can't do chores. All I can do is stand still and let that obnoxious Madame measure me for more dresses like this one." ■
Prestina chuckled sympathetically, and Kalida looked at her consideringly for a moment. "Would you help me?" she demanded.
Prestina's open cheerful face became suspicious instantly. "You are trying to turn this house upside down, Miss Kalida. What you want me to do?"
"I need a skirt and a shirtwaist. I will absolutely
collapse if I have to wear this dress another minute."
"You will have to," Prestina said darkly. She ran her eye over the neatly fitting blue dress. "This is a good dress for you; I am helping Madame make the rest, you know. We'll see, we'll see." She turned away without committing herself further, and Kalida threw herself back into the parlor in a fury of frustration.
No one wanted to help her—no one except Jake Dan-ton. Damn, what a situation. Deuce was busy doing who knew what to Ellie in the office, Ardelle was busy giving instructions to Jake and the dressmaker, and Prestina was sewing underwear or something. And she had to twiddle her thumbs, awaiting everyone's pleasure and everyone's decision about her life!
It was so unfair that she felt like beating down the door to that stupid little office and killing Deuce. He had no right to buy her and then go off and make love to Ellie Dean.
Later, she did not know how she contained herself. It seemed she sat in that parlor for hours before anyone else joined her, and it made her intensely determined to change what was happening and take some charge of herself.
But while she waited, she could not control her feelings or her imagination. She was tortured with visions of Deuce's hands all over Ellie Dean's willing body as they set aside the puny pieces of paper that were a mere excuse for them to closet themselves alone together, an excuse for Deuce to pay her back for denying she wanted him and to prove to her how easy it was—even if it was her suggestion—for him to find someone who did.
But she didn't want him; she just didn't want Ellie to have him either. But since he was so arrogantly, bullhead-edly male, he would, of course, have to prove her wrong. And since Ellie was so blatantly hungry and desperate, she would grab any chance. Forget that she, Kalida, had
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concocted such a scenario for them so she could be left alone. It was becoming obvious, in point of fact, that nothing would change. Deuce would just keep her and Ellie.
That conclusion made her shriek with rage. She would kill Ellie Dean first before she would stay in the same house with Deuce making love to her. Doing the same things —my God—to Ellie that he had done with her . . .
Ellie was no temptress, one rational part of her mind pointed out with some sanity as a molten blue haze threatened to envelop her brain.
Neither am I, Kalida thought, and look at how he stormed my body with his caresses and his male dominance. Look at how hard I fought. What if Ellie succumbed so easily, in the same way; what if he were sliding her dress off her right at this very moment? . . .
"Kalida, dear-"
That oily voice . . . Kalida looked up, her eyes hot navy pools, and there was Ellie, smiling conspiratorially at her, her black eyes glittering knowingly, as if she saw every moment of Kalida's torment and was glad of it.
"We
have lunch and fittings this afternoon," Ellie said, straightening up, and Kalida searched every detail of her appearance for some sign of disarray. Oh, but Ellie was clever; she would never do anything blatant. It would be some small sign, something only Kalida might notice.
An unfastened button on her bodice. Two. Kalida counted them; had Ellie been in such a hurry then? Or was it a lie? She stood up abruptly. It didn't matter now. It was war once again between her and Ellie, and this time Deuce —not her father—was the prize.
Chapter Eleven
There were no surprises for them in the array of dresses awaiting their inspection after lunch. Madame bustled around them, holding up each one to measure against size, coloration, suitability. Of necessity, the garments were simple—as simple as Kalida's blue dress—and her limited wardrobe was the one Madame had worked on first, since she had the least suitable apparel. Madame had altered the ready-made gray dress originally chosen by Ellie and had stitched up two more besides, a simple blue and white checked gingham pinafore, with white sleeves, and a blue plaid cotton that was trimmed with a white eyelet collar and undercuffs.
These suited her much better, Kalida thought as she tried on the gingham. They were not as fitted and they allowed her a freedom of movement —the freedom to breathe, she amended ruefully, taking that one off and sliding the mournful gray over her head. Even that, with the addition of a little trim and a little letting out, fit her better, and she felt a small jolt of gratitude, which she did not expect to feel, for the kindness and prosperity of the family that could afford to rescue its neighbors and never count the cost.
But then, she was also sure that her father would repay this benevolence as one of his first obligations, so that accepting Deuce's bounty did not trouble her at all. She lifted her arms and allowed Madame to wrap around her
