"Sorry. I haven't had much time lately for the little niceties of life."
When she reached Debutante, he was there beside her. She didn't want his help, but he was determined to give it anyway. He lifted her onto the mare's back and grinned up at her.
"I may have to accept your generous offer."
"My generous offer?"
"Yes." His eyes suddenly seemed dazzling. Smoke and silver. His smile lent youth and humor to his features. He laughed. "I may have to bed you yet. To save you from yourself."
She wanted to say something. She wanted to say that her offer was no longer valid, that she would rather go to bed with Zeke and every single one of his raiders than spend a single night with him, but the words wouldn't come. They weren't true. And it didn't matter, anyway, because he had already turned away. He picked up the reins of his big black horse and leaped upon the animal's back with the agility of long practice.
Kristin started out of the forest, heading for the house. She didn't look back. She rode ahead all the way. He rode behind her, in silence.
By the time they reached the house she was trembling again. She didn't want to see him, she didn't want to talk to him. The whole thing had been a deadly mistake. He needed to get his night's sleep and head out in the morning.
She didn't even know who the man was! she reminded herself in dismay.
When they had dismounted she spoke at last, but without looking at him. "The hands eat out in the bunkhouse at about six. Sleep well, and again, thank you for rescuing us all. I really am eternally grateful."
"Kristin —"
She ignored him and walked Debutante toward the stables. Her heart began to pound, because she imagined that he would follow her. He did not.
She didn't rub Debutante down as she should have. She led the mare into the stall and removed her bit. In a worse turmoil than she had been in when she had left, she walked to the house.
Cole Slater was no longer in the yard. Kristin walked into the house. It was silent, and the drapes were drawn against the afternoon sun. Kristin bit her lip, wondering what to do. Depression suddenly weighed heavily upon her. It (was all lost. She would have to leave, and she would have to be grateful that they were alive and accept the fact that nothing else of their life here could be salvaged.
She wasn't sure it mattered. They had already lost so much. Pa. Adam. Her world had been turned upside down. She would have done anything to save it. Anything. But anything just wouldn't be enough.
With a soft sigh, she started up the stairway. At the top of the stairs, she paused, her heart beating hard once again.
There was someone there, on the second floor with her.
There was someone in her parents' bedroom.
She tried to tell herself it was Delilah, or Shannon, but then she heard Delilah calling to Shannon below and heard Shannon's cheerful answer.
"Oh, God," she murmured, her hand traveling to her throat.
Something inside of her went a little berserk. She couldn't bear it if Zeke or one of his cronies had managed to enter that room. Her father's room, a place he had cherished, a place where all his dreams remained alive.
She ran toward the doorway. If Zeke had been in the room, she might have managed to kill him with her bare hands.
But it wasn't Zeke. It was Cole Slater. He had his blanket laid out on the comforter, and he was taking things from it. He looked up at her in surprise as she stared at him from the doorway. He frowned when he noticed the way her breasts heaved and noticed the pulse beating hard at the base of her throat. He strode to her quickly.
"Kristin, what happened?"
She shook her head, unable to speak at first.
"I — I didn't expect you. I mean, I didn't expect you to be here," she said.
He shrugged and walked back into the room, taking a shirt from the blanket and striding toward her father's armoire. "I didn't intend to be here. Delilah insisted there was plenty of room inside the house." He paused and turned back to her. "Is there something wrong with that? Do you want me out of here?"
She shook her head and had to swallow before she could speak again. "No… uh, no. It's fine." He was going to come toward her again. Quickly, before he could come close enough to touch her, Kristin turned and fled to the sanctuary of her own room.
She didn't know what seized her that afternoon. She didn't dare sit and think, and she certainly couldn't allow herself to analyze.
She went out in the early evening to speak with the hands. There was Jacob, who was nearly seventy, and his grandsons, Josh and Trin, who were even younger than she was. Their father had been killed at Manassas at the beginning of the war. And there was Pete, who was older than Jacob, though he wouldn't admit it. That was all she had left — two old men and two young boys. Yet they had survived so far. Somehow they had survived so far.
Cattle were missing again. Kristin just shrugged at the news. Zeke's boys had been through. They had simply taken what they wanted.
Pete wagged a finger at her. "We heard what happened, missy. I think it's time you got out of here."
She ruffled his thin gray hair. "And what about you, Pete?"
"I've gotten along this far. I'll get along the rest of my days."
She smiled at him. "We'll see."
"Hear tell you've got a man named Slater up at the house."
Kristin frowned. "Yes. Why? You know him, Pete?"
Pete looked down at the wood he was whittling, shaking his head. "Can't say that I do."
She thought the old man was lying to her, and she couldn't understand it. He was as loyal as the day was long.
"You just said his name. Slater."
"Yeah, I heard it. From someone. Just like I heard tell that he managed to get rid of the whole lot of the thieving gutter rats." He looked up, wagging his knife at her. "You can't beat the likes of Zeke Moreau, Kristin. He doesn't have a breath of mercy or justice in him." He spat on the floor. "None of them do, not the jayhawkers, not the bushwhackers. It's time to get out."
"Well, maybe," Kristin said distractedly. She stood from the pile of hay she'd been sitting on. "Maybe."
"Your Pa's dead, Kristin. You're smart and you're tough. But not tough enough to take on Zeke on your own."
He looked at her expectantly. She felt like laughing. Everyone thought she could help. Everyone thought that all she had to do was bat her eyelashes at Cole Slater and he'd come straight to their rescue. If they only knew.
"We'll talk about it in the morning," she told him.
When she returned to the house, it was dinnertime.
Delilah had set out the good china and fine crystal again. She'd made a honeyed ham, candied yams, turnip greens and a blueberry pie.
Shannon and Cole Slater talked all through the meal. There might not have been a war on. There might not have been anything wrong with the world at all, the way the two of them talked. Shannon was beautiful and charming, and Cole was the perfect gentleman.
Kristin tried to smile, and she tried to answer direct questions. But all she could remember was that he had rejected her — and that she needed him desperately. She hated him, yet trembled if their hands so much as brushed when they reached for something at the same time.
She drank far too much Madeira with dinner.
When he went out back to smoke a cigar afterward, Kristin decided to take another bath. She hoped Delilah would think she hadn't been able to wash away the miserable stench of the morning.
Shannon was a sweetheart, tender and caring. Kristin realized when Shannon kissed her goodnight that her sister was suffering more then she had realized. She was just taking it all stoically, trying to ease Kristin's pain with smiles and laughter.
Shannon went to bed.
Kristin dressed in her best nightgown. It had been part of her mother's trousseau. It was soft, sheer silk that hugged her breasts in a pattern of lace, then fell in gentle swirls around her legs.
She sat at the foot of her bed in the gown, and she waited. She w
as still, but fires raged inside her.
She had to make him stay, no matter what it took.
This was something that she had to do.
She heard his footsteps on the stairs at last. She heard him walk down the hallway, and then she heard the door to her parents' room open and close.
She waited, waited as long as she could, as long as she dared. Then she stood and drifted barefoot across the hardwood floor. She opened her door and started across the hall. She nearly panicked and fled, but something drew her onward. She wondered if she had gone mad, wondered if the world really had been turned upside down. Nothing could ever be the same again.
She hated him, she told herself. And he had already turned her down once.
One day she would best him.
She placed her hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly. Then she pushed open the door.
The room was dark. Only a streak of moonlight relieved the blackness. Kristin stood there for several seconds, blinking, trying to orient herself. It was foolish. She had waited too long. He was probably fast asleep.
He wasn't asleep. He was wide awake. He was sitting up in bed, his chest bare. He was watching her. Despite the darkness, she knew that he was watching her, that he had been waiting for her and that he was amused.
"Come on, Kristin," he said softly. He wasn't whispering like a man afraid of being caught at some dishonorable deed. He was speaking softly out of consideration for the others in the house, not out of fear. He wouldn't give a damn about convention, she thought. And yet he seemed to expect her to respect it.
Men.
"I, uh… just wanted to see if you needed anything."
"Sure." He smiled knowingly. "Well, I don't need anything. Thank you."
The bastard. He really meant to make it hard for her.
"That's a nice outfit to wear to check on your male guests, ma'am." He said the last word with a slow, calculated Southern drawl, and she felt her temper flare. Where the hell was he from?
"Glad you like it," she retorted.
"Oh, I do like it. Very much."
This was getting them nowhere. No, it was getting her nowhere.
"Well…"
"Come here, Kristin."
"You come here."
He grinned. "If you insist."
She should have known he would be lying there nude beneath the sheets.
Well, she had come to seduce him, after all.
She just hadn't imagined his body. The length of it. She couldn't remember what she had imagined. Darkness, and tangle of sheets… She had known it involved a naked man, but she hadn't known just how a naked man could be.
She tried to keep her eyes on his, aware that a crimson tide was rushing to her face. She wished she had the nerve to shout, to run, to scream, but she didn't seem to be able to do anything at all.
Her eyes slipped despite her best efforts, slipped and then widened. She knew that he saw it, and she knew that he was amused. But she didn't move and she didn't speak, and when he stood before her at last, his hands on his hips, she managed to toss her head back and meet his gaze with a certain bravado.
He placed his hands against the wall on either side of her head. "Like what you see?" he inquired politely.
"Someone should really slap the living daylights out of you," she told him sweetly.
"You didn't do badly."
"Good." She was beginning to shake. Right now it was a mere tremor, but it was growing. He was so close that… that part of his body was nearly touching the swirling silk of her gown. She felt his breath against her cheek. She felt the heat radiating from him. She bit her lip, trying to keep it from quivering.
He pushed away from the wall. He touched her cheek with his palm, then stroked it softly with his knuckles. She stared at him, unable to move. She knew then that he could see that she was trembling. His eyes remained locked with hers. He moved his hand downward and cupped her breast.
The touch was so intimate, so bold, that she nearly cried out. He grazed her nipple with his thumb, and sensations shot through her with an almost painful intensity. She caught her breath, trying desperately to keep from crying out. And then she realized that he was watching her eyes carefully, gauging her reactions.
She knocked his hand away and tried to push by him, but he caught her shoulders and threw her against the wall.
"I hurt your feelings before. But then, I don't think that you were lacking in self-confidence. You must know that you're beautiful. Your hair is so golden and you have the bearing of a young Venus. Kristin, it isn't you. It's me. I haven't got any emotion left. I haven't got what you need, what you want. Damn it, don't you understand? I want you. I'm made out of flesh and blood and whatever else it is that God puts into men. I want you. Now. Hell, I could have wanted you right after I ripped another man away from you. I'm no better than he is, not really. Don't you understand?"
She drew herself up against the wall. She hated him, and she hated herself. She had lost again.
"I only know that I need you. Emotion! I saw my father murdered, and Adam…"
"Yes, and Adam."
"And Adam is dead, too. So if you're worried about some kind of emotional commitment, you're a fool. I want help against Zeke Moreau."
"You want me to kill him."
"It's worth any price."
"I told you… I don't murder men in cold blood."
"Then I just want protection."
"How badly?"
"Desperately. You know that."
"Show me."
She stepped toward him and placed her hands around his neck. Suddenly she realized that she hadn't the least idea of what to do. Instinct guided her, instinct and nothing more.
She stepped closer, pressing against him so that she could feel the length of his naked body through the thin silk of her gown. She wound her arms around his neck and came up on tiptoe to press her lips against his, summoning up the memory of the kiss he had given her. She felt him, felt the instrument of his desire pulsing against her. She felt the muscles of his chest and belly and thighs. Then she felt his arms, powerful around her.
Then she plunged her tongue into his mouth and the world began to spin. She had come to seduce him, and she was ready to fall against him, longing for him to sweep her away.
To help her…
She felt the passion in him as he held her, and for a moment, victory was hers. She burned, she longed, with an astonishing hunger, and she could not know where it would lead. His lips held hers, his mouth devoured hers, and with each second that passed she entered deeper into a world that was pure sensation. Her pulse soared, and there was a pounding in her ears that was like the rush of the sea. His kiss was her life, his body was her support. She was afraid, and she was ecstatic.
And then he suddenly pushed her away. His breathing was coming rough and ragged. He watched her for a long, long moment. She felt his eyes on her, felt them as she would have felt an approaching storm. Then he shook his head.
"Go to bed, Kristin."
She inhaled sharply, furiously. "You let me make a complete fool of myself and then you — Damn you!"
Kristin slammed her fists against his shoulders, catching him off guard. He staggered, and she found the doorknob. Throwing the door open, she tore across the hall. She threw herself onto her own bed, tears hovering behind her lashes, fury rising in her throat.
The door crashed open behind her, and she spun around. He had followed her across the hall without even bothering to dress.
"Get out of here!" she snapped, enraged.
He ignored her and strode calmly toward the bed. Kristin shot up, determined to fight. It was all to no avail. His long stride quickly brought him to her. She came to her knees hastily, but he joined her on the bed, grabbing her hands and pressing her down.
"I should scream!" she told him. "Samson would come and —"
"Then scream."
She held her breath. He pressed her down on the bed and straddled her.
"Why wo
n't you leave me alone?"
"You wanted to make a deal," he said harshly.
"What?"
"You said you wanted to make a deal. All right. Let's talk. I'm willing to negotiate."
PART 2
The Lover
CHAPTER FOUR
Kristin was glad the room was steeped in darkness. His features were shadowed, his body was shadowed, and she prayed that her own emotions were hidden by the night. She wanted to hate him. She could not. She wanted to think, to reason, and she could think of nothing but the hard male body so hot and intimate against her own.
He had come here, naked, to accept her proposition, it seemed. And yet he was angry again, angrier even than before. Hard and bitter and angry.
Moonlight cast a sudden soft glow over the room. She saw his features, and they were harsh, taut, almost cruel, as if he were fighting some inner pain.
"Negotiate?" she whispered.
"First, Miss Kristin, if you're going to play a game of chance, make sure you're playing with a full deck."
"I don't know what —"
"Exactly. That's why I'm going to explain things to you. I'll meet any man in a fair fight, but I won't go out and commit murder, not for you, not for myself, not for anyone. Do you understand?"
She nodded. She didn't understand him at all, but she was suddenly too afraid to do anything else. She had lost her mind. The war and the bloodshed had made her insane. She, Kristin McCahy, raised to live up to the highest standards of Southern womanhood, was lying on her bed with a naked stranger.
And she wasn't screaming.
"No involvement, Miss Kristin." The mock drawl was back in his voice, making her wonder again where he hailed from. She was filled with awareness of him. His muscled chest was plastered with crisp dark hair. She thought of how quickly he had drawn his Colts and his rifle, and she shivered. He carried with him an aura of danger that drew her to him despite her best intentions.
His sex pulsed against her belly, and she fought wildly to keep her eyes glued to his. It was all she could do to remember that she had intended to seduce him, to leave him gasping and longing and aching, his tongue hanging out for her.
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