by Jill Gregory
Instead of trying to escape, maybe she’d try to figure out what it was.
And then she had no more time to explore this idea because Cal turned again to speak to her.
“Devil’s Creek is a rough little town, but it’s got one halfway decent hotel. We’ll be able to pick up some supplies in the morning, and then, if the weather clears, we’ll head out to the cabin.”
“Cabin?”
“Where you’ll be staying for a while.”
She drew in a breath as she realized he hadn’t said, “Where we’ll be staying for a while.” Did he mean to leave her at this cabin alone?
Melora had a vision of herself tied up in some filthy, godforsaken shack like the one Jethro had taken her to while Cal went off to carry out heaven knew what plan against Wyatt.
“No! No, Cal. This is it!” she exploded, pulling her mount to a halt. “I’m not going one more step until you tell me exactly what you’re up to.”
Cal circled back and studied her, his expression grim.
“This isn’t the time to cause trouble, Melora.” As if to punctuate his words, the wind gusted then, swirling dirt and tumbleweeds around them and biting into her skin with a sting like gnats. “This town I’m taking you to, Devil’s Creek, it’s not nearly as civilized and law-abiding as what you’re used to in Rawhide. If you’re smart, you’ll keep quiet, you won’t talk to anyone, you won’t stir up any trouble. There’s no law within thirty miles of the place,” he warned, his eyes narrowed. “It’s filled with men like our friends Strong and Lomax—and Jethro. No one there’s going to listen or believe a word if you start blabbering out some foolish story about being kidnapped...”
“It’s not foolish, damn you. It’s the truth!”
“But no one’s going to care. Or stick their neck out to help you. Savvy?”
“Perfectly,” she snapped. Her chin thrust out. “I’m not stupid.”
“Then prove it,” he said roughly. “Come on.”
“No.” Melora’s lower lip came out in a pout. “I won’t go on—not another step—until you—oh, damn you, Cal, what are you doing?”
He seized her without any further ado and yanked her off her horse and into the saddle before him. He slid one lean arm tightly around her waist as his other hand grasped her horse’s reins.
“If you think I’m going to waste time arguing with you, Princess, you’re wrong.”
He spurred Rascal to a gallop, and they thundered through the aspens, even as the first few sprinkles of rain began.
Fuming, Melora bit back all the stinging retorts that sprang to her lips. What good would they do? Cal was too infuriating, too bullheaded, too arrogant and mulish ever to listen to reason.
She hated him anew, suddenly and passionately, her frustration and rage boiling to the surface all over again.
Worse than everything else, she was blisteringly aware of the intimate pressure of his arm around her waist, of his long, taut calves against hers. His closeness, the strength of him, the musky male scent and proximity of him created a tingling sensation everywhere their bodies touched. It caused her heart to speed up like a locomotive, and her cheeks to flame with heat.
Damn you, Cal.
* * *
The town of Devil’s Creek was every bit as ominous-looking as Cal had described. It consisted of nothing more than a few false front buildings, most of them saloons or brothels with broken shutters or boarded-up windows. As she and Cal rode down the street, squint-eyed men lounging against storefront walls and hitching posts viewed them with suspicion and glinting interest. Suddenly, as those intent, wolfish gazes scrutinized her, Melora found herself very glad of Cal’s solid presence.
And why not? she told herself, fighting against this sensation. He has a gun and you don’t. If you were armed as he is, you wouldn’t worry a whit over any of them.
But a small voice inside her whispered that she would. There was something raw and decaying about Devil’s Creek, a sense of lawlessness, of cruelty and violence that permeated the dusty streets and even the tumbleweeds blowing through the alleys. It creaked in the broken wooden boardwalk and in the partially hinged shutters that banged in the wind. She found herself unconsciously leaning back in the saddle, brushing against Cal’s tall frame, reassuring herself that he was there and she was not alone.
They stopped before a crumbling two-story building that looked as if it had never seen better days. WICKE’S HOTEL read the yellowed sign overhead.
When they walked inside, Melora surveyed her surroundings in dismayed silence. Dirt encrusted the lobby’s peeling green walls; the steps were uncarpeted; the dining room to the right looked dingy and uninviting.
She could just imagine the dampness of the bed linens, the shabbiness of the rooms. But it’s better than sleeping outside in the storm, she reminded herself uneasily as thunder roared outside.
A huge, scowling clerk with the shoulders of a small mountain squashed a fly on the counter with his fist before handing Cal a key.
“Room two-oh-three,” he barked. “That’ll be two dollars. Pay in advance.”
Cal peeled off the bills and thrust them at the man, whose menacing demeanor lightened a bit as Cal met his stare with steel-edged calm.
“Enjoy your stay in Devil’s Creek,” the clerk added sourly when they started up the stairs. Just then a thick-necked cowboy in soiled buckskins, black leather vest, and a plaid bandanna hurtled down the steps two at a time, nearly crashing into Melora. Cal yanked her out of the way just in time. He seized the man’s arm as the bruiser went past and hauled him up short.
“Ought to be more careful, mister. You almost knocked down my wife.”
“So?”
“So I think you should apologize to her.”
The cowboy gave a short laugh. He looked as if he were about to sneer something unpleasant, but suddenly he actually peered into Cal’s lean, hard face, and whatever he saw in those icy green eyes made him think better of it. He cleared his throat, then threw a milder glance Melora’s way.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
“That’s better.” Cal released him in disgust and took Melora’s arm, escorting her up the remainder of the steps.
“I thought you said we should keep our mouths shut and not look for any trouble,” she remarked the moment they were locked into the tiny, dank-smelling room.
Cal shrugged, amusement flickering briefly in his inscrutable face. “I said you should keep quiet,” he pointed out, flashing a glance about the grimy, dimly lit premises. “I’ve never been able to keep out of trouble much myself.”
“Me either. Look at me now.”
“Must I?” he drawled, hooking his thumbs in his gun belt as he studied her from beneath the wide brim of his hat. Some devil made him bait her. “You’re not nearly the illustrious creature you were when I nabbed you out of your bedroom in your pretty little nightdress.”
Mouth agape, Melora whirled to face him beside the narrow bed. Her cheeks flamed a bright poppy as she balled her hands into fists.
Yes, her once-lovely green velvet habit was now soiled and disheveled, the beautiful lace sadly torn and limp, and her cravat coated with travel dust. Yes, she felt vile and filthy and smelly and as unattractive as a bale of hay, but what Cal seemed to have forgotten was that it was all his fault. Now he had the gall to add insult to injury by reminding her of just how scruffy she looked!
“You did this to me, you mangy outlaw... you kidnapper! You and your disgusting friends, you’ve reduced me to a—a hag, a filthy hag. Before I met you, for your information, half the men in Rawhide had proposed to me or were planning to do it. They fell all over me—before I met Wyatt, that is,” she added hastily, coloring an even deeper shade of red. “And by rights, at this very moment, I ought to be on my honeymoon, in a sumptuous, opulent, beautiful hotel suite with my beloved husband, sharing a bed and—and other things with him—”
“If it’s a honeymoon you want, Princess,” he shot back, eyebrows raised, “I reckon I ca
n try to oblige. After all, I told the clerk at the desk we were married.”
“If you so much as touch me, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” he demanded. For some reason Cal couldn’t fathom, he stalked over to her, placed his hand beneath her adorable, stubborn little chin, and tilted it up.
She promptly smacked his fingers away.
“Princess,” he growled, “I can’t have you thinking you’re no longer a desirable woman. Because even as you are right this very moment, you’re hardly—what did you say—a hag.”
“A compliment of the highest order,” she retorted, her eyes sparkling with anger. “Why, if that’s an example of your form of address, you must be downright beloved by the ladies, Cal. In fact now I understand why you snatched me from my bedroom; you must have to kidnap a woman to get one to notice you.”
She thought he’d be angry, but instead he laughed. A spontaneous, rumbling laugh that emanated deep from his broad, solid chest. And he was grinning from ear to ear. “Well, you’re not far off, Melora,” he admitted ruefully. “I’m not exactly a ladies’ man.”
She threw him a scathing glance from beneath her lashes. “No! What a shock.”
But her sarcasm bounced off him. Cal was too busy noticing the fetching picture she made in her crumpled green velvet riding habit, travel dust and all. “Maybe I need some lessons in proper courtship,” he heard himself say. Then he groaned inwardly.
Why was he talking to her like this? He’d never flirted with any woman in his life, had never known the first thing about how to make amusing small talk or to throw out flattering compliments. That had been Joe’s specialty, he thought. I’m the tongue-tied one, the one who always went solo to those town dances or who made up excuses not to go at all.
And to flirt with Melora Deane, of all people, the woman pledged to his enemy, a breathtaking beauty he’d made up his mind to dislike before he ever met her, one who’d had an army of suitors, who’d proved to be as headstrong and annoying as any female that had ever walked the earth, and who was his prisoner.
It was wrong-headed and thick-skulled. Bordering on lunacy. He’d never been able to pay a compliment without stuttering to anyone but little old ladies and maiden aunts back home. How in hell did he think to trade flirtatious sallies with the belle of Wyoming?
As thunder cracked through the charged air outside the window, and Devil’s Creek shook with a rising, howling wind, and a gust as cold as mountain snow swept through the pitiful little room, Cal forgot all that. He forgot his awkwardness with women, his damned shyness. He was aware only of how close he stood to Melora Deane and how utterly, bewitchingly exquisite she was. Even with her thick gold hair cascading in wild tangles over her slim shoulders, even with her smart outfit looking more like beggar’s rags than what it truly was, even with all that, she was purely, heartbreakingly lovely. Those startling, vivid tawny eyes flecked with gold, the rich texture of her hair, the luminous glow of her skin that no amount of caked-on trail dust could diminish. And her lips. Cal caught himself staring at her lips.
Naturally pink and full, gracefully shaped like a satin bow, they looked more luscious than ripe strawberries, and he suddenly wanted fiercely to taste them.
He didn’t realize what he was doing, but his arms went around her faster than a rattler springing at its prey. Then slowly, watching her eyes widen with disbelief and fury, he lowered his head and touched his mouth to hers.
Shock coursed through him at the explosive contact. At the same moment lightning rent the night outside the window, filling the sky. But not only the sky, Cal thought in astonishment. It had struck them, both of them, sure as he stood here.
Hadn’t it?
His shoulders shook. And his loins tightened. Heat soaked through his denim shirt.
A current had flashed between them, soldering them together, him and this woman he’d been determined from the start not to care about. Yet here he was, his mouth locked on hers, burned and searing. As rain began to pelt down upon the dust and debris of Devil’s Creek, the slender fragility of Melora Deane was branded against his frame, and the soft thrust of her breasts against his chest knocked his breath away.
Wonderingly he kissed her, exploring the luscious honeysuckle taste of her. He entwined his hands in the velvet thickness of her hair, hair more golden than the sun, and kissed her some more. Kissed her thoroughly, hungrily. Consumingly.
He’d kissed only whores before now. But this was so entirely different, sort of like the joy of riding an unbroken bronc, Cal determined, knowing somehow Melora would have skinned him alive if she’d heard the comparison. He deepened the kiss as he parted Melora’s satin soft lips. Yep, just like riding a bronc. It let you in for a hell of a wild ride, and the trick was to stay on till you were shook off.
Thunder and lightning lit up the night outside the Wicke’s Hotel window, but though the night tossed like a horse bucking the devil himself, Melora Deane didn’t shake him off.
Didn’t even try.
Chapter 9
Melora couldn’t breathe. She never even heard the thunder or saw the lightning slashes outside the window. But she gasped as Cal kissed her, igniting a golden wildfire inside her, a wildfire that licked through her with hot, sweetly dancing flames.
What on earth was he doing? How dare he? With all her being, she wanted to struggle against him—she actually lifted her arms to beat against him—but her limbs felt soft as butter, and her arms fluttered down again, resting instead across his broad shoulders.
It’s shock, she told herself as Cal’s mouth burned across hers with demanding force, stifling her resistance with a jolt of pleasure so electric it made her brain feel like a sausage deep-fried in the skillet. As she responded without conscious thought, her arms swooped around his neck, clinging, begging, tugging him nearer.
With a soft moan her lips parted, then melted beneath his. His hat toppled off as she thrust her hands through the soft thickness of his chestnut hair.
Kissing Wyatt never felt like this, she thought dizzily, and then as Cal’s mouth scorched kisses across her cheek, down her neck, into the delicate hollow of her throat, she thought nothing more but merely trembled like a poppy in the wind. Then his body moved against hers, and she felt the heat and strength and hardness of him.
She looked into his eyes and became engulfed in smoky green fire. Then, deliberately, his mouth claimed hers again with rampaging kisses, kisses that brought sensations so pleasurable the floor seemed to spin away, and she clung to him to keep from falling.
She felt herself under siege, being conquered, utterly vanquished, deluged. She couldn’t think, for she was rapidly surrendering. Dissolving into a thousand shards of glass, each one a brilliant rainbow of sensations she’d never experienced before—not with Wyatt, not with anyone.
And then a gunshot louder than thunder rang out from the street below, and Cal was recalled to his senses, pushing her away in shock as if she were a red-hot branding poker.
Flushing, Melora pressed shaking hands to her cheeks.
They stared at each other then until another shot rang out, at which point Cal recovered himself and swung toward the window.
“Just some drunken fool shooting his rifle in the air, gettin’ good and soaked,” he mumbled as he slammed the window shut, yanked the burlap curtain across the sill, and turned back to her.
Melora’s arms trembled. A drunk? If only I were drunk right now, then I could have some excuse for what happened, what I allowed to happen. I’ve gone loco; that’s the only explanation, she thought wildly, fighting to ignore the tingling in her lips, the electricity that still charged through her body.
You’ve betrayed Wyatt. With this—this desperado who stole you away from everything and everyone you hold dear.
She clung to one thought: She mustn’t let Cal see the effect he’d had on her.
And dear Lord, what an effect it was. She didn’t know whom she despised more at that moment, Cal or herself.
She fo
rced herself to move, to counteract physically the effects of Cal’s kisses. Somehow she wove her way to the old bureau, on which rested a single wax-coated iron candlestick. With one motion she yanked the candle out and spun around, raising the candlestick high over her head.
“If you try that again I’ll knock you cold,” she vowed.
Cal came easily away from the window, but instead of approaching her, as she half expected, he flopped his body across the bed and plumped a pillow up behind his shoulders.
“Wouldn’t think of it, Princess,” he assured her casually.
“You shouldn’t have thought of it before!”
“Didn’t exactly think of it.” He shrugged. He was cool. Calm. She thought she detected tension in the set of his shoulders, but she couldn’t be sure. “It just... happened.”
Melora ground her teeth. “It’d better never happen again! Never, do you hear me?”
“I think the drunks down in Hurley’s Saloon can hear you,” he commented dryly. He arranged the pillow more comfortably against his neck. How could he look so damned composed, so tranquil?
Thunder boomed, making Melora jump. She clutched the candlestick tighter as Cal continued in a smooth tone. “Only problem is, folks in town might think it strange for a wife to be shouting things like that at her husband. I’d lower my voice if I were you.”
“Folks might think it strange? Strange? Don’t talk to me about strange!” But Melora forced herself to lower her voice as he continued to stare at her with raised brows. “You’re the strangest man I’ve ever met, and this kidnapping is the strangest event of my life!” she hissed. “How long are we going to go on like this? And just what do you hope to accomplish by taking me into the Black Hills?”
“Not this again.” Cal frowned. He reached down to the floor and retrieved his hat, then plopped it over his face. “Think I’ll take a nap.”
A nap? Melora’s mouth dropped open. She stared in boiling, all-consuming rage at this cretin who had ruined her life and tricked her into—into wrong behavior, into crazed behavior. Her lips still burned from his kiss, her body would never again feel quite the same after being pressed against his, and he was going to take a nap?
