by Jill Gregory
The heat of his hand gently cradling her chin tingled through her. She felt that flicker of hope inside her igniting into a thin, straight flame, and she tried hard to contain it as she swayed slightly on her feet.
Cal’s arm slid around her waist to steady her. The hand that had cupped her chin now strayed to her hair and wound slowly through the silken strands.
“You were saying...” She prompted him, noting the slight upward curl of his lip as he grinned at her.
“I was saying that—hell, you know damn well what I’m saying!”
“I’m not sure I do.”
“Melora,” he grated, and suddenly his hand tightened in her hair. He yanked her close to him, and she could feel the hard strength of him pressed roughly against her own quivering body. Heat jumped between them, and for a moment she read danger in the cool green eyes as they caught and pinned hers.
“If you’re playing games with me, I’m going to make you very sorry,” he said.
“Games?”
“You look at me with that look in your eyes, the way a woman looks at a man when she really wants him... when she really loves him. If it isn’t real—”
“How do you know how a woman looks at a man when she really loves him if you’ve never had yourself a decent woman before?”
“Some things a man knows,” he growled, and then he moved so swiftly she never even had time to blink before he hauled her around, switching places with her. Melora found herself spun about with her back against the door, Cal holding her there, hemming her in with his body.
“Before we left that barn the other night, I said some things that hurt you, Melora. I’m real sorry for that. But I was trying to protect you. I knew you were mixed up on account of having just found out the truth about your fiancé. I reckoned you didn’t know your own mind. And I figured it was a pretty lowdown thing I did, taking advantage of you—”
“You didn’t,” she whispered, suddenly feeling that if they weren’t honest with each other now, they never would be. Her heart thundered inside her chest, pounding so hard it hurt. “You never have taken advantage of me. I knew exactly what I was doing.”
He stared at her, studying what shimmered within the depths of those glorious gold-flecked eyes, as if he would penetrate the secrets in the hidden places of her soul.
“And what was it you were doing exactly?” He scowled.
“Making love to you.”
“Why?” he demanded. “Why did you want to make love to me? Because it felt good? Because you wanted to feel safe... comforted? Because there was nothing else to do in that damned barn?”
“Because I love you, you imbecilic, pea-brained numskull!” she exclaimed. “And yes, it felt good, and yes, I wanted to feel safe and comforted, but not just with anyone. With you!”
For a moment Cal only stared at her, his eyes searching her flushed face with harsh scrutiny, his breath lodged in his lungs. His muscles were taut, unbearably taut, and there was an aching heaviness in his loins it was becoming more difficult by the moment to ignore. He saw the passion in her eyes, the truth shining in them bright as gold, and at last, at last, he began to believe.
When he pulled her to him and kissed her, something wild broke free between them. The power of that kiss singed them, seared them, rocked them like a red-hot avalanche, sending feelings tumbling through them, jarring into them like mountain rocks careening over a precipice. But as the kiss deepened, they catapulted beyond caution, beyond wariness and fear. Unchained passion fused their bodies. Then Cal was tangling his hands and his lips in her hair, drowning in its texture, in its scent, and in the soft, pliant feel of her as she melted against him, their bodies fitting together as if they were vines, sinuously, naturally, desperately wound together.
“Lord, how I want you, Melora.” It was such an understatement he almost laughed. Need licked through him, hotter and more potent than whiskey, as he ran his hands down her back, cupped her sweet rounded bottom, devoured her mouth until she moaned in pure delight. “I want you so much—all of you.” The words came quickly, between kisses and touches that set her afire. “Tell me now if you’re not sure, if you have doubts—”
She answered by dipping her mouth to his, her tongue slipping through his lips, tasting, discovering, promising. Cal’s response left her shaking as he pressed her against the door, his mouth attacking hers with rough, hungry greed, and his hands scraping like sandpaper all over her body.
“Cal, I never knew, I never knew,” she gasped when he wrenched back again and they both gulped air like drowning swimmers. “I never knew before what love was. I was so wrong, so foolish. This is different from anything I felt with him. What I want now, what I feel—”
“I know what you want.” His hand was already unbuttoning her shirt. He was grinning, a hard, dangerous grin that made her pulse rush. But she grasped his hand as he tugged the ends of her shirt from her jeans. “Not here, Cal. We can’t. The children...”
His fingers closed around hers, tight and strong. His grin widened. “Come on then.”
He dragged her out the door, then scooped her up into his arms to carry her down the porch steps and past the vegetable garden while all the while their mouths clung.
“Not the barn,” Melora managed to say shakily when at last they drew breath as Cal strode with her beneath the cool white stars.
“I know.” His eyes gleamed wryly beneath the slanting brows. “Will. And Jesse will be coming back.” He tightened his grip on her, his long strides smooth and even despite the darkness. “Woman, you’re sure a lot of trouble.”
A stifled giggle rose above the excitement sweeping through her. “I’m worth it,” she declared.
“You’d better be.”
An exultant laugh flew from her throat and winged its way quietly through the night. “Where are you taking me?”
“Someplace where you can’t escape me. And where no one will bother us. Someplace that’s as wild and lovely as you are.”
He carried her past the well house and the barn. The mountain air was cold, but his arms were warm.
Above them the stars twinkled against a blue-black sky, tiny gems glowing with pristine fire to guide them.
Melora was trembling with eagerness when they reached a natural hollow in the land and Cal set her down upon the grass. She saw that they were in an exquisite clearing that shimmered like a jewel in the starlight. The grassy enclave was sheltered from the wind by a wall of granite rock. Late-summer flowers and low shrubs made a delicate bower. Pillowy grass shivered in the light wind that danced down from the mountains.
They were some distance from the house and the barn and nowhere near the trail. With a breath of delight Melora turned slowly around and around, surveying the hideaway. They were hidden from all the world by the rock wall and by the spruces and the steep rise that sloped upward between this gentle spot and the farm.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered, going into Cal’s arms as the wind played with her hair. “Absolutely perfect.”
“Glad you like it.” His embrace was rock-hard, crushing her so fiercely her ribs trembled and her breath caught in her throat. “Because unless you change your mind,” he murmured, his mouth brushing tenderly across her eyelids, then dipping down to ravish the length of her throat, “we’re going to be here for quite a spell.”
“Promises, promises,” Melora gasped, closing her eyes, dizzy from the sensations fluttering up wherever his warm mouth pressed. “I won’t change my mind,” she whispered.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Just hold me.”
This time it was different from the time in the barn. This time when they sank down upon the grass and grew lost in kisses, when their clothes were shed with desperate haste and tossed in heedless piles, when their bodies locked in sweet combat, when their self-control snapped and they careened together into a realm of madness, this time she knew where she was headed. As they rolled across the grass, and Cal devoured her creamy nakedness with
his eyes and drove her wild with his hands and his lips, this time she knew how to touch him, how to make him as frenzied and needful as she, how to draw from him those grunts of pleasure and of primitive desire that sent a heady satisfaction spinning through her.
She learned quickly. And she loved with all her heart. She gave and she received, arching, twisting, coiling around him with a wanton delight born of release and freedom and trust. The pleasure kept coming, wave after wave. He stunned her, made her shudder as flashes of tenderness warred with rough demand.
Cal was all man, and he made her feel all woman. When he caressed her breasts, and his tongue softly explored their hard, sensitive tips, the craving inside her grew. Unlike the cruel way Rafe Campbell had touched her and hurt her in the Peacock Brothel, Cal’s touch was smooth and gentle, arousing wonderful sensations. They were wise hands, wicked hands, Melora thought on gasp after gasp of pleasure. And deliciously loving hands. She kissed his fingertips, then moaned as his mouth slid down the length of her body, tasting and nibbling on its journey.
Despite the night wind, sweat glistened on Melora’s skin as she and Cal rocked and tumbled like wild forest creatures on the carpet of grass. When he spread her hair out across the sea of dark green and leaned back, panting, to survey her, her eyes gazed up at him, glazed bright with desire.
“I... do love you, Cal,” she cried. She held her breath as he spread her legs with his knee and held himself poised above her. Tonight she could see the magnificence of his body, the rough, muscled chest, the corded splendor of his powerful arms and oak-like thighs. The sight of him cut her breath to fevered gasps. “I love you so much, so very much.”
“I’m dying from love of you,” he told her, his voice hoarse. She was so beautiful he could almost imagine he was dreaming. Her skin was like silk beneath his hands, her eyes more luminous than all the stars. Taking her mouth again, he captured it in one more mouthwatering kiss before he lowered his frame upon hers and slid his shaft boldly inside.
With a soft cry she opened herself to him, opened everything to him. Her body and heart and soul blossomed like a flower, and she clung to his shoulders, whispering, “Love, my love, my love,” over and over again.
Cal answered her with powerful thrusts. As he plunged inside her again and again, all restraint disappeared. Faster and harder he drove into her, bringing Melora to a state of wild delirium. A fever raced through her blood. It swept her away, hot and powerful and dark, yet sweeter than any wild honey that had ever glided down her tongue. Cal was inside her, he was one with her, and there was no space for thought, or reason or sanity; there was only she and Cal and the driving fury of a storm so strong, so heated and furious it whipped at their souls, shook them to madness, shot them to heaven and around the stars in a tearing blaze of white-hot thunder. Thunder and lightning, fire and light, sweetness and wildness tore through them, lifted them, shattered them, and at last left them sated and exhausted—but wondrously, brilliantly whole.
* * *
It was hours later that they strolled back to the house in soft amethyst darkness, arms entwined around each other. Melora was convinced that no two people had ever been as close or as happy.
“I almost forgot.” Cal stopped short as they reached the farmhouse door. He kept his voice low, aware that Will and Jesse were asleep in the barn, while the three little girls were within earshot inside the house. “I have something that belongs to you.”
“Your heart, I hope.” Smiling mistily in the starlit darkness, Melora leaned against him. Her arms wrapped around his neck as she raised up on tiptoe to kiss him yet again.
“Uh-huh, that... and this.” He pulled a small pouch from his pocket, and as she watched, he drew out the cameo he’d taken from her that first morning after he’d kidnapped her.
Melora went perfectly still.
“I can’t.”
“You can. And you will.”
She shook her head and stared miserably at the lovely treasure in his hand. “It was from him—from Campbell. He stole it from you, didn’t he? Otherwise you wouldn’t have made me give it to you that morning.”
“That’s right, Melora. He stole it, along with so much else. But he can’t steal the memories behind this cameo. Not unless I let him.”
She studied him in surprise. “Memories?”
Cal’s fingers closed around the delicate necklace. “This belonged to my grandmother Grandma Edda Davies Holden. A great lady, Melora. As family-minded and devoted as they come. Before she died, she gave something special of hers to each of her grandchildren, and this cameo is what she gave to me.”
“It’s beautiful.” Melora smiled and touched his hand. “I’ve thought so since the first moment I saw it.”
“Exactly what I thought about you.” He rested his gaze upon her, taking in the rippling fall of satin hair, her expressive, glowing eyes and delicate features. Then his glance shifted down to the fragile cameo in his palm.
“Grandma Edda told me: ‘Give this to the woman you love. To the one you want to marry. To spend the rest of your life with.’ “ Deliberately he reached out and brushed his knuckles lightly across her cheek. “And that’s why I’m giving it to you.”
Give this to the woman you love. To the one you want to marry. Marry?
Melora swallowed past a sudden lump in her throat. “In that case,” she murmured, trying to keep from jumping to any conclusions, for she was not sure if she had correctly discerned a proposal in his words or not, “I gratefully accept.”
She trembled as he clasped the cameo around her neck. In her mind’s eye she pictured Edda Davies Holden handing over this treasure to her grandson. And the question she was suddenly shy with teetered on the edge of her lips. She thought Cal had just asked her to marry him, but she wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to misunderstand something as significant as that. “Cal...”
“Hmm?”
He was nibbling sensuously around the delicate shell of her ear. “Does this mean... Was that a marriage proposal?”
“Sure was.” A tiny pause. “Was that an acceptance?”
“Sure was.”
Laughter bubbled from her lips. Cal grinned at her. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t exactly the most flowery or specific proposal she’d ever heard. It didn’t matter. God willing, he’d never have the need to make another one.
And there were more pressing matters to discuss.
“When should we have the wedding?” Melora wanted to know, her arms clasping around his neck. “I need to invite all my neighbors and all the folks in Rawhide to my next wedding with Mr. Wyatt Holden.”
He caught her around the waist, his eyes gleaming. “You sure you’ve got the right one this time?”
“Absolutely sure.”
“Then let’s plan on getting married the first of October.”
“October?” Dismay washed over her. “That’s a whole month from now!”
“It can’t be helped, Melora. There’s a lot to do first. For one thing I have to sort out all the legalities involving the deed to Uncle Jed’s ranch. And then I have to sell the farm and move everybody to the Diamond X, get the ranch running and... some other matters. But I wish like hell it could be tomorrow, Princess,” he growled, cradling her nape in his hands and kissing her with a hunger that left no doubt of his feelings.
“October,” she repeated, pulling back, troubled.
“It’s only a month away, Melora.”
“It’ll seem like a year.”
His tone was gentle but held an undercurrent of firmness that made her stare. “The separation and the delay will give you a chance to think things over. Make a clean break with the past. Be sure in your own mind.”
“Cal Holden, I am sure!” she cried indignantly.
Cal dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Then you’ll be more sure,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s settled. October first.”
“It would serve you right if I did change my mind!” she exclaimed, though she
kept her voice low, mindful of the sleeping family members in both the house and the barn. Suddenly she broke free of his embrace and jumped back just out of reach to glower at him.
“Cal Holden, you are infuriating. You’re the most stubborn, mulish, irritating, high-handed man—”
“Come here, Melora.”
“I will not,” she whispered furiously. “If you think I’m going to take orders from you after we’re married and go meekly along with everything you say, you have another thing coming—”
“Come here, Melora.” He grasped her arms as he spoke, hauling her up against his chest.
“I will not give in to you on every point—”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Cal grinned. “If I thought you were some mealymouthed little worm, I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you. Do you know how adorable you look when you get your back up?”
“Don’t try to change the subject on me. I’m talking about this October business—”
“Melora—”
“Why can’t we—?”
“Melora!” He silenced her with a kiss that stole the fight right out from under her. His lips claimed hers with a heat and need that completely obliterated all of her anger.
“Oh, very well, I’ll give in to you just this once,” Melora said shakily when she could speak again. “October first we’ll join the Deane clan with the Holdens.” Her saucy smile teased him, making him want her all over again, as she had intended it to do. “I suggest we seal the bargain with another kiss.”
“Only one kiss?” Cal’s mouth seared the tender hollow at her throat.
His hand found her breast. His stroking intensified the fresh waves of desire that were already sweeping over her. Melora moaned as her body thrummed alive beneath his hands, and desire waged a battle with responsibility.
“As many as you like,” she gasped, “but, Cal, we can’t... not right here... the children—”
“When we’re married, I’m building a separate wing for the children,” Cal growled. He tugged her away from the door. “Come on, I know another place.”
