by Thea Devine
"You caught him with that . . . with Kalida, in a situation she provoked."
Kalida's eyes jolted open in shock. Ardelle's animosity was tangible and real —what she had hoped to arouse, yes, but never thought to hear her voice. But worse than that was the story Jake had told her, Jake's version: They were together, and she had provoked it. Her eyes blazed navy, and she tipped her hat back onto her head and forward slightly to hide her expression from Ardelle. She knew she wasn't going to like the rest of what Ardelle would say, and she didn't even know if Deuce would defend her.
He braced himself against the front porch steps with
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one dusty boot and leaned against his muscular thigh. Kalida could see how tautly he was holding himself and that Ardelle perhaps could not perceive his anger was about to be unleashed on her. Depending on what she said. On what he chose to believe.
Kalida sat very still as Deuce contradicted softly, "He deliberately got her away from camp to harass her, even to the point of drawing a gun on her. I don't care what he told you."
"And I don't care what you believe. You obviously have no notion of what a reprehensible slut this woman is, and you never have. I'd believe anyone over her, anytime," Ardelle shot back angrily, "and she's cost us a good foreman in the bargain." She stamped to the center of the porch where she could look up at Kalida. "Your father's no good, and you're no good, as you've taken great pains to show me this week. And now I believe it, and I hope to hell Deuce gets rid of you and comes to his senses about Jake. He can operate more successfully without you than he can without Jake Danton, I'll tell you." She whirled back to Deuce. "You'd better think about that, Deuce. You'd better rethink all your plans, for that matter."
She turned and hobbled away, and the thrust of her fury stayed behind. Deuce stared after her thoughtfully, and Kalida cringed. Her words seemed to have had an effect on him. She couldn't believe the nightmare this was becoming.
And then Deuce catapulted himself onto the porch and into the open doorway of the house, shouting for Prestina. She came at once, and Kalida watched as he spoke with her, his words seemingly quick* and sharp, and Prestina's comprehension immediate and forthcoming because she glided down the steps with Deuce and they approached Kalida.
Deuce held out his arms for her, his stormy gray eyes kindling with something she couldn't read as she allowed
him to lift her down from her mount. "Prestina will take care of you this evening—" he started to say and she interrupted.
"Why? Do I need taking care of?"
"I think you might," he said consideringly, still holding her, still searching her softening cobalt gaze for something he could not see beneath the brim of that almighty huge hat. "Go with Prestina, and don't get in Ardelle's way until I clear this up with her."
"You won't clear it up," Kalida said. "I made very sure to be on my very worst behavior this week. She'll believe what Jake told her." She gave him an unsure smile as he released her. "The question still remains, do you?"
He took her arm and walked her up the steps. "I believe you need a good hot bath, and I believe I'm a man short in the field is what I believe. And I believe nothing will be accomplished today by talking about it. Maybe tomorrow," he added sharply at her stricken expression.
"After you spend a long hard night thinking about it, you mean," Kalida hissed in disgust, pulling her arm away from him. "Fine. You do that. I'll sleep easy tonight because I do know the truth."
"Mr. Deuce say you take this same bedroom tonight," Prestina said as she stopped in front of Kalida's "privacy" bedroom. Kalida's spirits sank a little further. There was no undoing what had happened, and beyond that, Deuce had to take her word on faith. His relegating her back here told her that he didn't —at least today.
On the face of it, she knew it sounded impossible. And who knew Jake better than Deuce? Of course it didn't seem probable to him that Jake, armed with a gun, hadn't forced her to do all kinds of unspeakable things. And of course Jake would be vindictive—she had escaped him, hadn't she? All his plans and dreams had slid through his
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fingers. She had lied to him and he probably felt she had cheated him out of what he felt she had promised.
And she had; she had done what she needed to to get away from him.
She turned to Prestina. "You don't have to try to make things better. I think a bath sounds very nice. My skin is all burned and dusty and chafed from these horrid denim pants."
"Yes," Prestina said, lifting the hat off her head. "You have not had so good a time as you thought. You pay for someone else's malice."
"Yes," Kalida whispered, awed that Prestina understood, "I pay."
"I hear him say all those things to Miss Ardelle," Prestina said, helping her undress. "I don't believe him. You care for Mr. Deuce; you don't go doing those things when your heart is with someone."
Kalida stared at her. "I care for Deuce? Nonsense. You don't know what you're saying."
"I know," Prestina nodded. "I know." She patted Kali-da's shoulder and.helped her into bed. "You rest. I draw the water and heat for your bath. You be still."
But Kalida couldn't be still. After Prestina had gone, it seemed like her mind filled to bursting with a hundred different images, and all of them were Deuce. Her mind was full of him, and his seeming rejection of her was almost unbearable. The afternoon's events superimposed themselves over the picture of him, blotting it out, totally obliterating it in fact as well as in her reverie. Deuce would never want her again with the fury and passion that he had. Never touch her again if he thought Jake had put a hand on her. Never kiss her again. God, the thought was enough to drive her insane. Never arouse her body to exquisite culmination. Never look at her in that burning flinty gray way of his, or whisper her own innermost feelings to her. Oh yes, she cared for him. Too late to
know it now. He had known it, even before he had put that outrageous proposal to her father. He must have, to have even suggested it.
And what she had put him through!
Her whole body flinched at the thought that it could have been different if only she had been just a little bit honest with herself. Just let herself admit the feelings that he aroused in her. Then there never would have been all this tussling; there never would have been this sensual war. Jake never would have weaved a fairy tale about her and acted on it; Ardelle would not be angry with her. There might not, she thought, even have been a fire; no Ellie, no complications.
Just her and Deuce and all those warm, delicious feelings he knew just how to evoke.
And now there was nothing.
Deuce was gone, and Jake's insinuations were going to ruin everything.
Everything.
The heat of the bath warmed her aching muscles, and nothing more. She lay in the bed wide awake, wrapped in the rumpled silk robe, letting Prestina take care of her, feed her, cosset her, reassure her.
But in the end, she was dead alone in the dark room, unable to sleep, listening for certain footsteps that she did not hear, that would not come.
She paced the room, looking out the window at the futile darkness that was unrelieved by even a hint of a moon. The night sounds did not comfort her. Nothing could comfort her but Deuce.
And hadn't that taken her long enough to figure out, s'te thought disgustedly. She wanted him. She felt frantic with wanting him, and she knew she had no right to want him. Not now. Not with Jake coming between them.
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She threw herself back onto the bed. She couldn't even recreate yesterday's ecstasy. It seemed as though her life had begun anew when Jake had brandished the gun and commanded her to strip. And because of that, she could not have Deuce now that she finally admitted she desired him. She wasn't even free to love him—now that she knew she was coming to love him-because the possibility existed he believed Jake and not her.
If only she had acknowledged all of this just one day earlier. One day.
She wasn't aware of the tears coming; they just seemed to be there suddenly, with nothing to cushion them but her own guilty conscience.
She buried her head in the pillow, her silent sobs shaking her whole body.
Ten minutes of self-pity was all she could stand. Tears were a weakness, and western women did not cry easily. Kalida Ryland did not ever cry at all. She couldn't remember ever having cried about anything—except when her mother had died.
It was insane to cry over circumstances she could not now change. Her tears diminished abruptly.
And then she heard his step in the hallway.
It was interesting to him, as he paused at his own bedroom door, that he would not have been surprised to see Kalida in his bed waiting for him.
And he did not know whether or not he was disappointed that she wasn't. He didn't even know why he had come back to the house when he could just as easily have bedded down in the bunkhouse.
He threw his gear bag down on the far side of the room and whipped out of his shirt and boots.
Kalida! Her name was a siren call; he knew why he was back. She was a fever in his blood, beating away: Kalida, Kalida. Kalida and Jake. Kalida and Jake. At the Ryland barn. At the stream. In the stable? In the fields? What did Jake know about Kalida that he didn't? The thought pounded away at him all night as he rode over Morgan field and the Balsam range. He couldn't concentrate for thinking about it; he was damned sorry he had elected to ride and damned ecstatic when Joe Slim turned up to relieve him.
Kalida. She hadn't even known Jake before she came to stay at Sweetland. She had been innocent. He couldn't imagine what had happened in the space of time since her arrival to drive Jake to that kind of excess.
What had Kalida done to him?
He had been over that one all night, and he just couldn't conceive that she could want anything from Jake.
He knew Kalida; her response to him was perfect and all-consuming. There was nothing Jake could give that he couldn't. Nothing.
Or did he just want to believe that?
Nothing. But she had driven Jake to pull a gun on her and she had taken off her clothes.
She had been alone with him and the gun and her nakedness, and she expected him to believe that nothing had happened between them.
God, he hadn't even asked her the details; he wasn't sure he would be able to listen with equanimity. She had diwsed for him and undressed for Jake, and he couldn't see farther than that without blood-red anger coursing t'irough his body. He couldn't even sit still thinking about it. He was up and pacing, staring out the window, unaware even of the flickering light of the ever-present
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kerosene lamp that limned his bare upper torso with intriguing planes and hollows.
If someone waved a gun at him and told him to strip, he would tackle him, he thought grimly. But of course Kalida could never have done that. She had truly been at the mercy of Jake's gun —and her wits. And she had gotten away from him.
But what had happened before that? Why had Jake taken her off alone like that, planning enough in advance so that he had a gun to threaten her with?
What did he imagine she had done to him?
It was the first time he had posed that question to himself, and for some reason the tight tense knot inside his gut unraveled slightly.
He leaned against the window frame, staring out into the black, black night, thinking of Kalida standing naked before Jake.
The picture tortured him. What else could she have done?
She could have screamed.
He would have shot her instantly.
She could have tried to talk him out of it.
Maybe she did.
Try.
And still, Jake would have wanted to and he must have reached out and touched that satiny skin. . . .
He ran an agitated hand over his face.
It wasn't possible that that hadn't happened. He had to
conclude that Jake had had his hands on her, and he
wasn't sure if he could live with the knowledge of that —
and Kalida. *
And then he looked up and she was there, half in and half out of the room, hanging onto the door as if it were her only support, looking impossibly exotic and desirable.
He hadn't thought what he would do if she showed up in his room. His first thought, as he paced toward her
very slowly, was that if he had a gun on him right this very minute, he would draw it, then make her undress and show him every last goddamned thing that Jake had made her do with him. And his second thought . . . There was no second thought. He thrust his hands into her tumbling midnight curls roughly and pulled her to him, covering her mouth as though he could blot out Jake by force.
He sought her deeply from an endless wellspring of torment that could not be assuaged. Had Jake tasted her? Had he reached for her in just this way? Did he know her shape and texture, Her passion to be kissed like this? Did he know the subtle wanton shape of her body against his, her eager hands, her passionate femininity? . . .
He pulled away from her mouth violently, sliding one hand down to surround her neck. His other hand tugged her hair, pulling her head back slightly so he could read her dew-wet eyes. She had been crying. For whom?
For her damned self, probably. He bent over her and took her upper lip between his own so softly, so gently, that she felt the tug straight through her whole body. His tongue delicately rimmed the silky inner skin, constricting his lips around it, pulling away ever so slightly and returning once again to hold it between his lips, savoring the taste of it in a way that was so totally opposite his ferocity of the moment before.
And then he played with her lower lip the same way. She felt shooting stars of pleasure all up and down her body, which should have reassured her and didn't. She met each light caress equally, pressing her body, a little bit closer to his each time, her hands on his taut muscular arms and moving with each rich little kiss.
She hadn't expected this; she had expected pure molten anger from him, violence, words. That could all still come. The way he was looking at her with those flinty gray eyes, the taut restraint of his body against hers, did not bode well.
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"Deuce—" she murmured against his lips.
His whole body tightened. "What is it, Kalida? Isn't this what you've come for?" His mouth covered hers ruthlessly, and she could not pull away. He held her against his body with brutal strength, hot hard strength that made her struggle against it. He believed the worst; and he believed he could wipe away Jake from her consciousness by his very violence.
And then it let up. She could feel his arousal; his body lengthened, hardened, elongated against her. He didn't want that; she felt it in him. He did not want to be seduced by her tonight. He thrust her away from him angrily.
"You'd rather hate," she said acidly, even as she understood what he was feeling. She was aching for the gentleness again. Why couldn't he be that gorgeously gentle with her and let go of the rest? But he couldn't, and she felt bereft.
"It's hard not to." He was back by the window, his arms folded almost like a barrier against her. His body burned from the pressure of hers against it, and he felt as though the soft fullness of her breasts was imprinted on his chest. She could get to him; she could get to anyone. God knew she had gotten to Jake.
Hell. "Go back to your room, Kalida."
That flat, awful voice. She had to crack through it. "I need you tonight," she whispered.
"How the hell do you know what you need, Kalida? How the hell do I?" he said disgustedly.
"You know," she said plainly, coming farther into the room, closer to him, close by the bed.
"That was not the story last night," he countered.
"You were a
t great pains to tell me it was," she retorted, coming still closer. "I found out it was."
"Really, when?" he shot back, and she drew a sharp breath at the implication. He could easily think it was
after Jake had gotten done with her. Damn it, damn him, damn him. She wanted him so desperately at that moment that she thought she might do anything to entice him, to accomplish the same end that he had tried with his suppressed violence —to get the vision of her and Jake together out of his mind.
And he thought she looked ravishing, standing before him in that slide of a silk robe with its riotous flowers reflecting his vacillating feelings to a perfect degree. Her face was flushed from his insinuations, and it only made her cobalt eyes stand "out even more blazingly against her skin and the color of her robe. Her tumbling midnight hair reflected the restlessness of her night alone in the other room. She is gorgeous, he thought dispassionately. The crumpled robe only enhanced the line of her body; it draped around her like a waterfall. Her breasts were fully visible through it, to the thrust of her nipples against two huge white silk blossoms on her chest, and it fell alluringly around the curves of her hips and buttocks.
If he just put out his hands to her, he could drown in the solace of her luscious body and never think of what might have happened.
He couldn't stop thinking about it. His smoky gray gaze rested tellingly on her breasts, and she saw exactly what he was looking at. Her breath quickened with anticipation, but she saw from the set of his face that he was not going to touch her. And that he wanted her terribly.
She had to do something. She could not leave the room with nothing resolved. Her eyes darkened to navy as she considered what she must do. She held his smoky gaze, challenging him to demand that she leave.
And she saw that he did not have the strength to do that. Her hands lifted almost involuntarily and touched her silk-shrouded breasts. His eyes fired up, and she moved her hands slowly downward on either side of her
