by Thea Devine
"Oh yes, Ellie was ... so very clever," Kalida whis
pered, seeing it all pass before her eyes, paling in compar
ison to what she had known with Deuce. This wouldn't
even be a kind of substitute; this would be an absolute
living hell. "I understand things better now," she said to
Charlotte, and Ellie, listening avidly through the door,
nodded with satisfaction. ^
She was sure Kalida did understand now. It only re-
mained to drive the point tellingly home.
And it wasn't Mr. Humas whom she enlisted to help her. It was almost as if Providence were watching over her, and the gods smiling. Joe Slim came striding down the main street of Bozeman late that afternoon, in town doing errands for Deuce and seeking to assuage his own loneliness.
Ellie grabbed him right off the street, and he was more than passing glad to see her. "Have dinner with us," she invited. "You know, the boarding house? You could even stay the night if you wanted to."
He looked around Ellie's neatly ordered living room, felt the thick homey aura of the house, and nodded, "I'd be right happy to, ma'am."
And during dinner, as he was shooting direct fulsome brown looks at Charlotte, Ellie leaned over to him and asked whether he was so lonely he wanted to get acquainted with Charlotte—or perhaps another lady she had in mind who was upstairs.
And Joe, diffident Joe, who would rather die than confess to having carnal thoughts about Charlotte, who was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, chose to go upstairs to meet Miss Ellie's more willing, experienced friend.
Ellie opened the door slyly, calling, "I have someone here to meet you, my dear; I hope you're presentable." And Joe blushed, while inside the room Kalida leapt to her feet and backed up against the window, fully expecting to see the salacious Mr. Humas walk in the door.
But . . . "Joe!"
His knees buckled. "Miss Kalida!" He whirled toward the door but it was closed now, and as he tried the knob, locked.
"Oh God, Miss Kalida ... I can't-I couldn't . . ."
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"No, of course not. Oh Joe, she's keeping me prisoner here."
"Surely not, Miss Kalida." Joe looked around him and regained his equilibrium somewhat. The room was luxurious, the bed looked comfortable and clean, the furniture was polished. "No, you're imagining things. I'm sure Miss Ellie brought me to the wrong place. It's good to see you're settled fine here with her. It relieves me to see you so comfortable. I think Miss Ellie made a mistake. She . . . invited me to dinner, you know. She made a mistake." He went back to the door just as Kalida cried.
"Joe, listen to me. I'm a prisoner here. She won't let me go."
"No, no, you went with her, I remember," Joe said, turning the knob and relieved this time to find it was open. "You're not a prisoner here; you could walk out anytime, just like me." He opened the door and turned to Kalida. "Have you been all right, Miss Kalida? Is there anything you need I could tell Mr. Deuce?"
"No," Kalida snapped, watching him walk out the door. She darted to it the minute it slammed shut, but it was too late. Ellie had locked it again. She heard the low murmur of voices beyond, receding. Ellie had made a mistake.
Ellie didn't make mistakes, she thought wildly. Ellie made plans. And now Deuce would know; how could Joe help but tell him? Tell him what? That he found her ensconsed in a nice room raving about Ellie's maltreatment of her. God, she had never thought anyone's hate could run as deep as Ellie's: Ellie wanted to torment her. Ellie wanted to give and take away and show her exactly who had the power over whom. Ellie wanted to reject her.
Ellie returned shortly thereafter. "My apologies, my dear. He didn't believe you, and I told him you had been rather under a strain since the theft of the cattle and Deuce's turning you out. But he'll tell Deuce, don't you
think? And Deuce will come, of course, if only out of curiosity. Deuce," she added lightly as she turned away again, "knows all about me." The door closed softly, the lock clicked into place, and Kalida allowed herself to feel this further betrayal.
Deuce knew about Ellie. He knew about her father, he knew all about Ellie, and he never did a thing, never said a word. Welcomed everyone and put Kalida in the middle so he could blame her when her father finally deceived them all. She was meant to be a pawn all along, she thought with a finely wrought new insight. She was meant—what was she meant for? she wondered despairingly. Not to be Ellie's dupe. Not to be the object of revenge. Not to lie down for the mighty King Deuce Cavender, about whom she had been outrageously right all along.
She had to get over that hurdle, her ungovernable feelings for Deuce. If she could make that—and what better way to do it, she thought suddenly, than to reduce the memory of the sex between them to a commodity she could bargain with. To use what he had taught her, to use the body he had for that brief time cherished, to turn their fierce joining into something any man could buy for any price. It might make her forget him; it might reduce the memory of the ecstasy to something manageable, maybe even a nightmare she once had. It might demean her so totally she could never rise back up again. But what did that matter? He would see-if he even cared to see—that the sensual delights she had found in his arms wtre obtainable elsewhere, and that to her, their union was nothing special, just a waystop on the road to other th'ngs.
Yes, she thought, falling into her bed, wouldn't that be perfect, hellishly perfect? And she couldn't even cry for the loss of that innocence.
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Mr. Humas returned, chafing and eager to see Miss Kalida who, Ellie assured him was ripe and ready to see him. But didn't he want dinner first?
"Oh no," he assured her. "I've been dreaming long hard dreams about that little gal and I want to see her as fast as you can get me to her."
Lovely, Ellie thought, leading him upstairs to Kalida's room. Just lovely. "Yes," she said in a low voice, "you know, Kalida has been so sorry since you left that she wasn't a little nicer to you. I mean, she knows how hard you work and how little time you have to play and find companionship. She was beside herself that she might have hurt your feelings."
"No account, no account," said Mr. Humas, who was shaking with anticipation to see whether Kalida was as lusciously beautiful as he remembered her.
Ellie surreptitiously slid the key in the lock while she rapped briskly on Kalida's door. "Kalida! Mr. Humas is here to see you."
Kalida sat up in her bed, her resolve in place, and called back, "Fine," and Ellie repressed her elation. She could not have asked for anything better. She swung open the door and they both gazed at Kalida's seductive pose. She lay on the bed, in a nightgown and wrapper that Ellie had supplied her, her body curved temptingly, her cobalt eyes blazing feverishly, and her inky hair in disarray all over her pillow. "Come in," she said huskily, swallowing hard, feeling that now the moment had arrived she couldn't possibly go through with it, even though she had been preparing for it for at least a day and a half.
Ellie was going to test her now, and, she had better perform. Ellie said it in her sweetest conversational tone, but Kalida knew she meant it. And since she herself had determined to do it, she didn't object at all. She gowned herself accordingly and waited. .
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And waited.
And now finally the moment was here, and it was the lecherous Mr. Humas whose eyes almost popped out of his head at the sight of her. He looked as if he would devour her without any preliminaries whatsoever, and Kalida shrank back, flinching at the sound of the lock turning as Ellie discreetly withdrew, throwing an airy little salute in Kalida's direction.
"Mr. Humas," Kalida began, her voice a throaty scratch.
She felt under the gun again, helpless, not in control at all. Yes, this would make a mockery of what she had felt with Deuce, and yes, it was fitting to let it end this way, but she couldn't do it, she just couldn't do it. She watched wide-eyed as he approached the bed.
. . .
Ellie listened outside the door for a moment, then went away satisfied, her obsidian eyes gleaming. She had bent Kalida to her will, and it hadn't been all that hard to do. Deuce had crumpled her pride, her father's perfidy had smashed it, and Ellie's plans reconfirmed it. Nothing could be better.
She went out of her way to say a special word of thanks to Charlotte. "The things you told her must have hit a nerve. She received Mr. Humas without a protest. He's up there with her . . ." She broke off as Lorena poked her sultry head into the parlor.
"There's someone here asking for Kalida," she whispered, motioning behind her.
A jolt of fear shimmered along Ellie's nerves for an instant. It had to be Deuce. She hadn't expected him quite so soon; she had been sure he would simmer over Joe's information for at least a week.
"Tell him," she said sweetly, "that Kalida is occupied at the moment."
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"Occupied —how?" Deuce demanded, shoving Lorena aside and stalking into the room. "What the hell is she doing here anyway?"
"What you would expect," Ellie said in that same sweet reasonable tone. "I made her an offer and she made a choice. A good one, too. I think she'll be quite popular." Her black eyes kindled as they swept over his long muscular body. God, she would have loved . . .
"Bitch," he spit at her. He reached into his pocket and threw a thick wad of bills at her. "Take me to her; I don't care what the hell she's doing. I just bought the rest of her time for tonight." His stone hard eyes stared her down, daring her to make another light suggestive comment, daring her to try his patience one step over the line.
But she was experienced enough with men to know when not to push. "As you wish," she said neutrally, thumbing through the money, the generous money for a man who had thrown the bitch out of his house. Damnation, he was getting to her again. He was willing to pay for Kalida, and he never would have stepped foot into her house if Kalida weren't here. "I'll take you to her," she said, concealing the rage that was starting to lick at her vitals. She would be very happy to take him to her. She wanted to revel in the pain on his face when he saw her servicing the voracious Mr. Humas.
She led the way upstairs slowly, and he followed behind
her, a seething presence that could erupt any which way at
any moment. A dangerous man—she liked that, she
would have liked it better if it had been for her. But it was
for that child-bitch Kalida, and he deserved what he was
about to see. *
Again, she surreptitiously inserted the key as she listened at the door for some clue as to what was happening within. All she heard was Mr. Humas grunting and groaning, "Oh honey, oh beautiful, did you miss me? Don't fight me, honey. Tell me you want . . ." And she
knew Deuce was hearing every word too, because the look on his stony face told her he had heard enough. He shoved her aside violently and slammed down the door like some towering avenging angel.
The sight that met his eyes made him see blood red. "Get off of her." The words were not a command, they were a threat. The portly older man was lying directly on Kalida, trying to pull her gown off her shoulders, and while she looked flushed and breathless, she did not look in the least mortified to have Deuce break in on them. "Get off of her." The second command was an animal growl, which was followed by his grabbing the man by his neck and heaving him off Kalida's barely clothed body. "Get him out of here. Get him away. I'll pay his time, just get him the goddamned hell out of this room or I will kill him."
He issued this threat in a more normal voice as his flinty eyes raked Kalida's body ruthlessly, yet no one in the room was in doubt that he meant what he said.
The man scrambled to his feet, with Ellie taking his arm and murmuring to him as they left the room. Deuce backed up against the open door, still observing Kalida and not liking her blase attitude at all. He slammed it shut with a savage backward kick of his foot and folded his arms across his chest in a rough movement that told Kalida he was just that short of folding his hands around her neck.
Too bad for him, she thought defiantly, shifting her body up against the headboard and giving him a lightning-bolt blue glance that told him better than words she was not grateful for his interruption. She'd be damned betoe she let him see that.
His mouth tightened and he paced toward her like he wag stalking her. She supposed he would rather have her cowering and mewling at his feet, she thought, but she would not back down to him. Not to him. She hated him;
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she hated his coming here and seeing her like this. And she refused to back down an inch to him. He didn't scare her. His fury was just a lot of noise in her ears. He was the one who had abandoned her, after all.
He stopped just shy of the bed. "So, my feline Kalida, you landed on your feet, right at home in the cathouse."
The words shocked her into anger; he had gone one step too far now. She slid off the bed and reached for the bowl and pitcher on her washstand. With one unholy thrust, she heaved it at him, her blazing navy-darkened eyes triumphant as he ducked and the china smashed against the door.
He crawled to the side of the bed, swooped up, and vaulted across the bed to grab at her. She eluded his grasp, just barely, and darted across the room to the bureau, her hand groping across its top to find an object to throw. Her fingers picked up a china pin box, and she hurled it forward with all her strength. It crashed against the wall above his head.
He levered himself upward just in time to see her grab an oak-framed lithograph that was hanging above the bureau and fling it at him. Down on the floor again, in a crouch this time, with enough momentum to catapult himself at her and tackle her to the floor before she could reach for something else to throw at him.
His weight was so familiar. . . . She couldn't allow herself to relish it. She squirmed frantically, working her body upwards; his hands held her hips, tugging them toward him.
"You don't understand, Kalida-cat. I bought you for the night," he hissed in her ear, and she whipped her wildly tousled head back and forth in negation.
"You bought my removal from Sweetland," she retorted harshly, "nothing else."
"Don't say that, you vixen; Ellie would be up here like a shot, and you'd see the full depth of her depravity. You
take what you get in this business, and tonight you have me."
Her eyes blazed molten blue as her face set in stubborn, unheeding lines. Oh yes, he could already tell she would fight him full bore. She wanted nothing to do with him, even on a paying basis; she would have preferred that pig, Humas.
He pulled himself off her, taking her limp right hand to draw her to a sitting position. "Come, my cat. We'll have the night, and perhaps, if you please me, I'll retain your services from now on."
She went for him with her nails, managing to scrape them across his cheek before he wrestled her hands behind her back. "Oh, you are the 7'xen, Kalida. One week on the town has turned you into a pouncing cat. It makes me wonder whether you didn't lure poor Joe in here with your lurid tales just as bait to get at me."
"Why would I do that?" she demanded sweetly as he pushed her toward the bed. "I never wanted to see you again."
"Surely that's why you stayed in Bozeman," he drawled, thrusting her face down onto the mattress.
"What was I supposed to do?" she snapped, wriggling against him as he straddled her legs.
"Get out of town while you could," he growled, coming down heavily on her writhing body. "And now it's too late, Kalida. Now that you've discovered your full potential, I'm sure there will be no stopping you. And I'll be the one to be first in line. I'd rather buy you, my cat, than keep you."
She saw red. She saw a pinwheel of colors explode biiore her glazed navy-dark eyes. She felt strength in her arms and she felt it flow in volcanic heat through her '->ody. She felt like killing him. She tightened her whole body into one galvanic spring of muscle power, so unexpected that when she heaved hers
elf upwards, bucking
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like a wild horse, he reeled backward and toppled to the floor.
She scrambled across the mattress to face him, crouching, on the other side of the bed. He lifted himself up slowly, slightly dazed, in awe of her insane strength and determination. She looked like a primitive warrior woman across the span of mattress, her body arched, ready to jump, her night-black hair in a wild tangle around her pale face, her eyes a blazing navy-blue, her mouth drawn back in a snarl. Her fingers curved, ready to attack. There was something uncivilized in her eyes, as if she were looking at the enemy. . . . And she was looking at the enemy, the man who wanted to kill her, the man whom she wanted to kill.
The atmosphere steamed with the force of their emotion. He had never wanted her more. Her hate, her disdain, were barbaric. She didn't lie down and let him step over her, and he would have hated it if she had. She was a fighter; she had an unbendable pride, and he wanted to break it. He wanted to snap it in two to show her who was the stronger. Who had the power.
She made a sudden movement, and his body lurched in response. There was no way she could escape. Even if she got out the door, she would have to contend with Ellie. His flinty eyes never left her face. There was no slackening of tension in her; the line of her mouth revealed it clearly even as her face remained impassive and her eyes burned with loathing.
He made a subtle movement forward, and her eyes flickered. He was determined to have her now. Something in his face must have changed because her whole body tightened again, becoming primed to fight him as he kept her relentless gaze pinned to his.
