by Sandy James
“Why won’t you tell me? It doesn’t look like a dime novel or anything.” She drew up on her knees as if to stand up, probably to see for herself.
“It’s Shakespeare,” he blurted out. “Just some Shakespeare.”
The smile on her face washed over him. “I love Shakespeare.”
Launching into a story from his past, he tried to divert her attention. “Grace and I read his work all the time. Hell, we wore the spines out of some of the books. We’d play a game some days on the trail. We could only quote Shakespeare all day—none of our own words.”
“Oh, my. That had to have been a challenge.”
“Yes, ma’am. But neither of us wanted to be left without a reply. Sure didn’t want to lose the game. Drove the other cowboys plum loco ’cause they had no idea what we were talking about.”
“Which story did you bring? I’m partial to Romeo and Juliet, but Daddy taught me to appreciate Hamlet and Julius Caesar, too. You could read aloud to me.”
He wished he’d brought a book of plays instead of sonnets. What would she think of him to know he was moved by words of poetry? Heaven knew he’d bloodied several noses over the teasing he’d received from uneducated cowboys who’d been amused by his tastes in reading material.
Victoria got to her feet. “Is it Midsummer’s Night Dream? Twelfth Night? I like both of them. Maybe I could read it too? We could take turns reading the parts.”
Matthew stopped her hesitant steps with an outstretched palm. “It’s not any of his plays.”
“Then what are you—”
“Sonnets! I’m reading Shakespeare’s sonnets! Are you satisfied now?”
With a frown, she sank back down next to the fire and turned the rabbit hard enough he was surprised it didn’t flip right off the skewer.
What kind of ogre was he to yell at a beautiful woman because he was embarrassed to admit he loved Shakespearean sonnets? “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
She narrowed her eyes and set her lips into a tight line.
“I’m sorry, Victoria.”
The silence was deafening.
“Would you like… I mean, I could…read some of them to you.”
“You would do that? For me?”
He nodded, hating how easily her moods could sway him.
He would have to keep his guard up around her or he’d find himself nothing better than some little lapdog, jumping at her beck and call. Grace had always told him the day would come when he’d meet a woman special enough to turn his life upside down. He’d always laughed in response.
Until the day his horse tore down Victoria Morgan’s laundry.
Reading gave him something to do while she finished cooking their supper—something other than trying to make conversation with a woman who made him so tongue-tied he felt like an imbecile.
Sinking into the text, he read his favorite of the Bard’s sonnets, the thirteenth.
O! that you were your self; but, love you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give:
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again, after yourself’s decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.
Who lets so fair a house fail to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the storm gusts of winter’s day
And barren rage of death’s eternal cold?
O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,
You had a father: let your son say so.
Too late, Matthew realized his error. This sonnet, above all the others, kept Victoria firmly in his thoughts. While he wasn’t an old man—only twenty-seven on his last birthday—he often felt as though life was passing him by.
He had no home. No wife. No son. There was no one waiting for him at the end of each long drive. There was no family looking forward to his return. And as the Bard advised, time was short. Soon, he’d be past the age to marry and start a family of his own.
Oh, he’d made plans. None that he’d followed through on. He and Grace squirreled away money whenever they got paid, hoping to one day own a spread of their own. Then they could stop running and settle down.
But it was nothing more than a dream.
Stephen Shay’s strange and dangerous obsession with Grace made sure those plans never came to fruition. At the end of almost every drive, the bastard was there, sitting like a king in his fancy Pullman car and trying to get to her. Too many times, Matthew had to grab their pay and sneak his sister out of town as if she were some common criminal.
Stephen Shay was dead now—his soul finally in hell where it belonged. For the first time in his life, all Matthew wanted might be within his reach.
He stared at Victoria. She sniffled a little, as though holding back tears. Before he could say anything, she pulled the cooked rabbit from the fire, used her pocketknife to cut off a leg that she dropped on her own plate, then handed the skewer to Matthew.
They ate in awkward silence until she dropped her rabbit leg and jumped to her feet. “I–I’ll be back.”
He watched her head into the small grove of trees, wondering if her desire to weep came from the same melancholy he felt after reading that damned sonnet. The woman had a tender heart. Yes, she was more stubborn than should be allowed, but she also had one of the sharpest wits of anyone he’d ever known—including Grace, whose intelligence constantly flustered cowboys who thought women were the weaker and less clever sex.
Everything about Victoria appealed to him. Those eyes that could change from hazel to green. That hair that he wanted to unbraid, spread over her shoulders, and watch spill down her back. That body that he’d fantasized touching, running his fingers and his palms over every hill and valley. Just thinking about her made him hard.
She was taking an awfully long time. Maybe she’d wept for a spell and was now attending to some personal needs. Still, she shouldn’t be away so long. His mind went wild, imagining the dangers that could befall a woman alone in the woods. Snakes. Wildlife. Just plain getting lost.
He got to his feet. “Victoria?”
Only crickets answered his call.
Scolding himself for being a nervous ninny, he took off after her, following the clear path she’d left. “Victoria? Where are you?”
She stood in a clearing, standing in a shaft of moonlight that painted her dark hair blue. Her back was to him, her arms wrapped around herself in a hug. All he could do was stare until he saw how her shoulders shook.
If she was sobbing that hard, it wasn’t because of Shakespeare.
Striding over as fast as his legs could move, Matthew shouted, “What in the hell happened?”
Victoria jumped and whirled around to face him. Tears glistened on her cheeks, gleaming like ice in the moonlight. She tried to wipe them away with her sleeve. “What the devil? You scared the life outta— What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
He knelt next to her and ran his hand down her legs, still surprised that the woman had the gall to wear pants. They made it difficult for him to find out what had been making her cry. “Was it a snake? Where’d he bite you? Or did you twist your ankle?”
Her hands kept pushing his away as he worked his way up her body, and she swatted at him each time he touched her. “I’m fine. Leave me be. Stop.”
By the time he’d risen to his full height, panic had him fully in its grasp. He turned her by grabbing her hips until he was staring at her backside. “Did you fall on your—” He put both palms on her behind.
“Stop it!” Victoria turned around and took a step back. “Stop touching me! What made you think I was hurt?”
“You were crying.”
She gaped at him.
When she didn’t make any move to explain, Matthew ran his hands over her arms
, checking for broken bones. “Did you fall or something?”
Victoria jerked her arms away. “I told you, I’m fine. I just needed some privacy.”
“Your privacy was taking an awfully long time. Why, when I take a piss, I’m not gone more than—”
“Matthew!”
Damn it, but he constantly forgot there were different rules on what a man could say to women. How was he supposed to remember when he seldom spent time in their company? Grace would box his ears if she’d heard. “Sorry.” The contriteness fled as he remembered why he’d come after her. “You made me worry.”
Victoria stared at him, wondering if he realized how frightened and angry he looked when he’d burst through the trees to find her—like an enraged, charging bull. She’d indulged herself in some much needed tears to try to wash away the hurt she’d felt when he’d read that blasted sonnet, but he’d interrupted.
He couldn’t possibly know that the Bard’s thirteenth was a knife through her heart, rending her soul with words about family and future. All she’d ever known was that she wanted children of her own. A home. A man to care for. A man who cared for her. She wanted what her parents enjoyed in the years they’d shared.
Yet here she was, a single woman in a territory full of men who outnumbered her nine to one, and she still remained alone. Oh, there had been plenty of proposals, mostly from miners or cowboys who couldn’t honestly be considered husband material. They were after her money or simply wanted her because she was a woman, not because she was the right woman. Few men were brave enough to face her father, and he protected her like a treasure.
Twenty-one—an old maid with no real prospect for ever being anything else. And now that her father was making plans for a new life with Grace, Victoria would not only be an old maid, she would be the old maid in the way.
The spinster daughter her father would have to care for the rest of her life.
The tears threatened again, so she turned her back, not wanting Matthew to see them. God, how she hated showing him any weakness. The man was smug enough. To let him know he’d gotten to her, that he’d wounded her heart?
He spun her to face him so fast he made her dizzy. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head and tried to cover her face with her hands.
He grabbed her wrists. “Why are you crying again?”
Her throat hurt with the need to scream at him that he was the reason she was crying. He was everything she wanted and could never have. “Why do you even care? You hate me, remember?”
“Hate you? Where in the hell did you get that ridiculous notion?”
Weeping or not, she lifted her face to his and gawked at him. “You told me so.”
“I never—”
“Yes, you did.” She jerked her wrists free, pulled her hat off her head, and threw it to the ground. “You hate my hat.”
“For Christ’s sake, I don’t hate your hat.”
Her trembling hands ran down her thighs. “You hate my pants, too.”
“I don’t hate them. Just think women should wear women’s clothes and do women’s work. You need to stop pretending to be something you’re not.”
Victoria gasped, her sadness quickly giving way to anger. Matthew Riley knew exactly what to say to set her off with the intensity of a stick of dynamite. “Women’s work? Pretending to be...” Drawing in a breath between clenched teeth, she hoped to find some calm. It eluded her. “Are you saying I wasn’t helpful in picking out those mares?”
A hand waved in dismissal. “No. That’s not what I meant. You did a great job. Doubt too many women could do half as good as you did.”
She gave her eyes an exaggerated roll. “Careful. That bordered on a compliment. You sure wouldn’t want someone to hear you praise me. He might think you didn’t hate me.”
Matthew took a stride forward, set his hands against his hips, and glared down at her. “I already told you. I don’t hate you.”
His nearness set her heart to pounding, making her want to take a step back in retreat. She stood her ground, refusing to give him that kind of power over her. “Doesn’t matter. All I want is for you treat me like any other cowboy.”
“Impossible.”
“Why? Why is that so impossible?”
“Because I never wanted to do this to any other cowboy.”
Before she understood his intentions, he drew her into his embrace and covered her mouth with his.
This wasn’t at all the chaste kiss Kenny Barlow had given her after the harvest dance. It wasn’t the kind of kiss Ty stole when he had the crush on her back when she was seventeen. This was a possessive kiss that she’d never thought to receive from a man who made her weak in the knees just to look at.
And, heavens above, how he could kiss. She opened her lips to his probing tongue, rubbing hers against his in a caress that sent lightning racing through her body.
Her arms raised of their own accord, slipping around his neck as she wantonly pressed herself against him, wanting to get closer and closer, wanting to be swallowed by his heat. He growled, his hands sliding down her back until his palms rested against her backside. When he pulled her against him, the hard proof of his desire was there for her to feel.
He dragged his mouth away and buried his lips against her throat. She arched against him, drowning in all the sensations he sent ripping through her. Her blood was hotter than a branding iron. A moan slipped from her lips.
“You’re so soft,” he whispered against her ear before he ran his tongue around the edges. “Do you know how much I want you? How hard it’s been to see you every day and not be able to touch you?”
As if she could possibly form a coherent response to such enticing questions. Her heart beat wildly and her breath came in ragged gasps. She should stop him. She should push him away. A good girl would. The magic he worked on her body sure didn’t make her feel like a good girl.
A hand rose to cover her breast. The newness of the contact made her tense.
Everything came tumbling back to Matthew the moment Victoria stiffened against him. Her body went as rigid as a board.
What in the hell was he doing? She wasn’t the type of woman to give herself to a man for the sheer sake of sharing some passion. She wasn’t a widow or a working girl. She was the wealthy daughter of the owner of one of the largest ranches in Montana, and Matthew was trying to tumble her in the grass.
A virgin to boot.
He jerked away from her, giving a small push away. “I–I’m sorry.”
The confusion on her face almost broke his heart. She’d felt it too—the passion that flared between them so hot and sweet. Her features hardened until her mouth twisted into a fierce scowl.
“How dare you?” she whispered, though the words hit as harsh as a shout.
She had a right to her anger. Hell, he’d been pawing her. He hung his head in shame.
“Why?”
“Why what?” he asked.
“Why don’t you want me?”
At that moment, he decided that he would never understand how the woman’s mind worked. “You think I don’t want you?”
She blinked a few times before nodding.
“Sweet Lord, Victoria… I don’t know how to explain it to you.”
All the softness he’d seen as he’d kissed and caressed her vanished. She squared her shoulders and marched past him, heading back to the camp.
He grabbed her upper arm. “Wait.”
Her eyes closed.
“Let me explain. It’s not what you think.”
She jerked her arm away, opened her eyes, and glared at him. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
“Victoria, please—”
“Ever.” Breaking into a run, she left him alone in the clearing to mentally kick himself for his stupidity.
Not want her?
Matthew had never wanted another woman half as badly as he wanted Victoria Morgan. The images from their walk returned—the images of what the two of them could build, of
how they could make a family.
Not want her?
Hell, yes, he wanted her. And damned if he didn’t realize that there were some tender emotions hiding in all that desire—feelings he’d never acknowledged before, probably because he’d never felt them for another woman.
Not want her?
He loved her.
He loved her enough to leave her be.
Chapter Eleven
“We’ve got to ford here.” Matthew stared at the river, wishing he could come up with a better solution. “After those rains last week, it’s still high. Best place we’ve found. If we go any farther south, we’ll have to camp another night.”
That was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. After the awkward ending to their evening, he wasn’t sure he could handle being alone with Victoria without making a horse’s ass out of himself again. As it was, he hadn’t caught a wink of sleep. Through the long night, he’d stared at her slim figure as she slept, wishing and wanting things that could never be.
She thought the whole situation over for a moment as if he’d asked her opinion. He was the one who had the experience at moving animals. She should listen to him and do exactly what he told her to.
Victoria finally nodded, raising his temper. “As good a place as any. You cross. I’ll start sending them after you.”
Hearing his sister’s scolding voice in his head, he bit back a sarcastic reply. He returned her nod and forded the river.
Six of the seven mares made it across before a duck hiding in the reeds panicked. With a loud quack and the frenzied rustle of wings, the mallard took flight, spooking the last horse. The mare squealed and ran, but she headed up the river bank instead of across the water.
“Damn it!” The best of the breeding stock was running away.
About to tell Victoria to come on across so he could ride out to try to chase the horse down, he swallowed the words when she jerked her horse around and galloped out in pursuit.
“Victoria! Get your ass back here!”
Her response was drowned out by the sound of the river rushing on by as if things hadn’t just gone to hell.
