A fat drop of rain hit Domini’s cheek and she looked up. She loved the first moments before a storm—when the wind rushed and the clouds piled and billowed before spilling their precious, life-giving rain. Exhilaration filled her as lightning split the sky and lit the undersides of the dark clouds. Here was raw power as only nature could unleash. She was distracted by curses as the door behind Luke was flung open and four men staggered out to the wooden porch.
Since Luke stood dead center, and showed no inclination to move, the men split to go around him. Domini saw that Luke didn’t even turn to acknowledge being told that he couldn’t get a room here; they were full. He just remained where he was, waiting for her.
Domini could smell the incoming rain now, and with it the stench of unwashed bodies. Two on each side of Luke, the men came down the steps toward her. She caught Luke’s gaze on her, but sensed he was very aware of the four men. She glanced at the two nearest her, then back at Luke. He had set her bag down, but it was the only move he had made.
“Bless my bleary eyes! We got ourselves a woman.”
Domini stilled, as a fawn hiding in a thicket would still when a hunter approached. Only she had nowhere to hide. To run would have them on her like a pack of wolves. She never once thought to call out to the man who waited for her. She had been on her own for so long that she depended upon no one but herself.
They wouldn’t expect her to fight. Violence was against her beliefs, but she had been trapped by men like these before, and the Lord didn’t need another lamb. Domini closed out the sound of their voices, blurring in her mind their crude words, just as she had done with the other men when she arrived.
Luke, snared by a fierce hunger that flooded his loins with heat, was caught up in her obvious enjoyment of the coming storm. The four men were circling her now. He waited for her plea. It took a few moments for him to realize that the plea was not coming, and he was filled with an explosive possessiveness.
“Caully.”
One man turned at the soft murmur of his name. “That you, Luke? Thought you were gone.”
“Well, I’m right here, Caully.”
“Didn’t mean to cut you out. Plenty to go ’round since we’re sharing.”
“That’s not how I figure it.” Luke came down the steps and never once looked at the woman.
But Domini couldn’t take her eyes from him. He moved with a mountain cat’s grace, supple, primitive, and dangerous. A shiver walked up her spine. She stood forgotten when Luke reached out his right hand and gathered up Caully’s shirtfront, and with a twist of the material he lifted the man up on his toes.
“Now, Luke—”
“Now, Caully. Just listen. You don’t look. You don’t touch. An’ you never make the mistake of thinking that I share. Ever.”
“Nooo sireee, Luke. Caully ain’t gonna make that mistake again. Just let him go and we’ll leave, Luke.”
“Always said you were a smarter man than some, Ramsey. Take him an’ get the hell out of my sight.”
“Com’on, Caully, he’s wild tonight,” Ramsey muttered as he grabbed hold of his friend’s arm and hurried with the other men past Domini.
“Who are you?” Domini rubbed her arms, ignoring the rain and staring up at him.
“About the only man who can get you out of the rain tonight. Coming?”
Never share. Domini heaved a weary sigh. So the battles were not done. But one was better odds for her. Still caught in the tension of the past minutes, Domini hesitated. He removed his gloves, tucking them into his gun belt, and held out a hand to her. Rain pelted them both. She knew as she reached out to take his hand and looked into fathomless black eyes that on some deep, instinctive level she trusted this man.
He didn’t say a word as he opened the door and ushered her in before him to the hotel desk.
“Sorry, we’re full up—”
“Harold, I need a room.”
Domini saw the flustered look of the desk clerk when Luke reached over and spun the register around.
“You never stay in town on Saturday night, Luke.”
“I’m here tonight.”
“If you’re just looking for a place for a few hours, I work all—”
“Harold, you ain’t writin’ no newspaper. An’ room six is no longer occupied by Lagen. Don’t bother going up. I’ll explain to him.”
“But he just checked in…” Harold Doverville’s voice trailed off. He wasn’t about to argue with Luke. He didn’t like arguing with anyone. If Luke wanted to dispossess one of the Gold Bar C hands, that was his business.
“Send up some hot water.” Luke glanced at her. “Make that later, Harold. Much later.”
“You can’t do this.” Domini would have said more, but the cynical twist of his lips silenced her. She had her first look at him in the light. His hair, the little she could see of it beneath his hat, was as black as her own. There was a scar on his right cheekbone, a jagged mark that hadn’t been stitched before healing. His eyes were for a woman to lose herself in, and against the sudden racing of her heart she heard a warning.
Abruptly he headed for the stairs, carrying her bag. Domini took one step, then another. There was no choice. All the doubts she’d had about coming here surfaced, but as she climbed the stairs behind him, the certainty that she could trust him returned.
“Wait here.” His order was given in the same soft voice he had used all the while. She glanced down at her bag, which he had set beside her, leaned against the wall of the dimly lit hall, and closed her eyes.
“Lagen. Lagen, open the door. It’s Luke.” He had to repeat it twice before the sounds of swearing revealed that the man had heard him.
Domini did not open her eyes when she heard Luke’s order for him to get his gear and leave. The protest from Lagen that he had a woman with him brought Luke’s suggestion that Harold had offered his room for a few hours. She didn’t want to see the knowing looks of the man and the woman with him as they left.
She sensed his nearness, although he hadn’t made a sound. There were his scents that she had marked without knowing, of damp leather and horse, of whiskey and smoke, of power. All masculine. All intriguing. The rain slashed against the window at the far end of the hall, and she heard its force drumming on the roof. The room would be dry and, once she explained his mistake about her, safe. Domini went inside.
Luke had lit the lamp and stood holding the still smoking match. “I want to see you in the light.” He saw the delicate twitch of her nose as she caught the reek of sex and liquor from the tangle of sheets on the bed. Luke walked past her to close the door, securing it with a straight chair wedged beneath the handle.
“Are you giving me a choice?”
“About the light? Sure. It’s the only one.” He came to stand behind her. But he didn’t touch her. Not yet.
“You’re wrong about me.”
“You’re not a woman? Fooled me but good,” he whispered, smelling the rain that mingled with her clean scent. She stepped away and reflex made him grip the end of the shawl, stripping it and whirling her around to face him.
Straight and smooth, her ebony hair was coiled in a thick knot at the base of her neck. “These have to go.” He reached out for the combs and pins. Hunger to taste her lips made him catch her head between his hands, dragging her close.
Domini went still as his fingers touched the delicate flesh just behind her ears. She was suddenly afraid to move, afraid she would lose the shimmering anticipation that trembled to life. It was not submission to his greater strength. His eyes bore into hers, drawing her into his need. There was a natural hard edge to his temptingly handsome features that whispered of hunger and darker passions. Hard-edged, yes, and filled with a simmering promise of danger.
“I’ve wanted to touch you from the moment I saw you,” he murmured.
Domini closed her eyes and saw again his face in the match’s flare against the night. Something wild inside her cut loose fro
m its mooring. Shocking, dizzying longing to answer the hunger in him intensified with the slow brush of his body against hers. Stormy excitement rose, each sensation sharp and exquisite. His mouth was closing over hers, and she had her first taste of a man’s hunger. It would be so easy to stop him. She had to stop him. But her will, that indomitable strength of will that helped her survive, was dissolving with the emotions colliding inside her.
The generous shape of her mouth was soft beneath his. Soft enough to ease a man’s pain. Luke rejected the thought even as it formed. There was nothing soft in him. Not anymore. There was only a need to know her mouth, to savor its taste and feed the sweet, hot ache that filled him. He’d think later about the strange yearning for her mouth. Luke had never kissed any woman, whore or lady. He had thought it an intimacy that gave away too much of himself. But he wanted her kiss. There was no soft, coaxing touches—he captured her lips with his, and felt her explosive answering need meet his demand.
Domini let his kiss take her on a wild, potent ride for long moments. He was a storm, flooding her with a torrent of emotions that had no names. Their harsh breaths mingled like the rush of the wind in a dizzying force around them. But she could not let this be.
Luke pressed his body to hers, his tongue delving deep in her mouth, passion a hot, driving force that took him right to the edge. His hips ground against her softness and for seconds before she struggled, he was aware of the pliant yield of her body against his. Her hand slid around his waist, the move a warning flare, but she rocked her hips and he thought she was trying to climb into his skin.
It was seconds before he realized that the cold press on the side of his neck was his own knife blade. He eased his mouth from hers but didn’t move. “Honey, you just made the biggest mistake of your life.”
“No. It’s you who made the mistake. And”—she pressed her point home with knife tip and words—“your life that’s at risk.” She knew how awkward her position was. He could easily twist away and be free. There was no time to think, or be weak. “I’m not what you think. I tried to tell you—”
“Like hell you ain’t.” He saw within the darkened green of her eyes that she would use his knife on him. Her hand wasn’t shaking, only her lower lip gave a betraying quiver. Luke brought his arm down hard, slamming into the crook of her elbow, and twisted free. She didn’t release the knife. It ripped down his shirt, blood welling to fill the long cut.
“You bitch!” The words were without heat, but then the heat had disappeared and cold fury had replaced it.
“No! I’m protecting myself. You think I’m a whore for sale. I’m not.” She backed away from the murderous look on his face, knowing the knife against his gun offered no protection at all. The brass bedstead brought her up short.
“You’re not?” he repeated. “Like hell. You trotted after me willingly enough back on the street. Do I look like some fool samaritan ready to pay for a room and not get something in return?”
Domini remained very still, studying him. “No, you don’t look anything like a samaritan. But I believe there is good in everyone and—”
“Never mind! If you’re not Matt Colfax’s whore, then who the hell are you?”
He made no move to stanch the blood dripping down his arm, or to take the knife from her. Domini couldn’t help herself. “You should wrap your arm,” she whispered, wary and holding the knife out before her.
“The hell with my arm. Answer me. Who the hell are you?”
“I don’t know Matt. Toma Colfax sent for me. I’m Dominica Kirkland.”
“The devil you say.” Luke shook his head, staring at her with disbelief. “Kirkland? You’re Jim Kirkland’s wife?”
“No. My mother is dead. I’m his daughter.”
He threw back his head, flooding the small room with laughter. There was no joy, no welcome at all when he ceased abruptly and looked at her. “Welcome to hell.”
Chapter 2
It wasn’t a welcome at all, and Domini didn’t mistake it for one. She wanted to deny the absolute certainty in his voice, but couldn’t do that, either. But she could use this as an opening to have some of her questions answered.
“You sound very sure of that. Why? What is it that you know? Who are you really?”
“I do know exactly what I’m talking about. That’s all you need to know. You bought yourself a ticket to hell.”
His look was forbidding and Domini heeded it. Her questions would have to wait a while longer. But she could not just stand there and let him bleed.
“Hell might be where you’ll head if you don’t take care of that arm.”
Luke glanced at the bleeding wound, then back at her. “I’ve had worse and survived.” He eyed her wary stance, the way she still held the knife. It wouldn’t stop him, but she didn’t know that. She didn’t know him at all. And from the anxious way she questioned him, he was for keeping it that way.
With her shawl gone, the lush curves of her body were revealed despite the high-necked gown. As quickly as the cold fury had come, it left him. The heat was back, and with it the need to take her down beneath him until he had his fill of the wildness he had tasted. Nor did it make sense that he was having this strong a reaction to her.
Drink had only blurred the edges for him; boredom still ranked high. That might explain it. He didn’t often give in to curiosity, but it bothered him that she didn’t react to what he had said.
“You heard me, didn’t you? You’ve put yourself in hell’s own caldron coming here.”
“Have I?” Domini refused to let him see how much his words disturbed her. Her gaze skimmed over the jagged scar on his right cheek. “I’ve survived worse.” She didn’t doubt it.
“I’ve already explained that I was sent for.”
“Yeah, right. Stolen letter. Stolen money.”
“You don’t believe me.” She didn’t ask it, so she was not surprised that he ignored her. “Just so you know, I’ve learned to be a survivor, too.”
She saw his dark eyes, as black as the thick, wavy hair that brushed the collar of his coal dark shirt, narrow. A frightening shiver of awareness coursed through her.
Taking his time, he let his gaze drift down from her green eyes, straight nose, expressive, generously shaped lips to her hair. The plain dark blue gown with its long sleeves was travel-stained and confirmed his earlier thought that she wasn’t wearing a corset. His attention lingered on the flare of her hips before he looked back at her face.
“I’ll just bet you have.”
With a tension burning like fox fire, a charged silence filled the room. Domini knew her strength, and it was ebbing quickly. She was desperate to distract him from another bold pursual.
“If you won’t take care of that arm, let me.”
“Feeling guilty? First rule of a survivor, honey. Don’t have pity for anyone.”
“I couldn’t live that way.”
“Then you won’t survive.”
“Your arm?”
“What the hell makes you think I’d trust you? Take a peek in the looking glass, innocent. Your eyes give you away. You’d as soon as cut me again as take another breath.”
“No. You’re wrong about me. Again.” Even as she spoke, Domini shifted her hold on the knife, balancing the blade between her fingertips. She brought her arm back to throw the knife. His look was level and challenging. He didn’t move or flinch, didn’t take those black, fathomless eyes from hers.
There was little risk to her. He couldn’t know that she had a knife of her own. Perhaps the gesture was foolish, certainly dramatic to prove him wrong—although she didn’t understand why it mattered to her—but she threw the knife.
The blade whistled close to Luke’s head before landing with a solid thunk in the door behind him. “Nice throw. But the wrong move. What’s to stop me now?”
His overpowering maleness filled the room. Domini had to reach behind her to brace herself by gripping the bedstead. His vo
ice held a low-pitched timbre of sensuality that stroked her. She didn’t understand what was happening between them. She listened to an instinct that warned her to be still.
“Forget it. It was a good throw. You plannin’ on using a knife on Toma?”
The breath she had been holding escaped her lungs with a swift release of tension. “Why would I want to kill him? I told you he sent for me.”
“Funny how I keep forgetting that. Maybe it’s because I know him and you don’t.”
“Then tell me!”
“I only paid for the room for one night. And it wasn’t to waste time talking about him.”
She bowed her head for a few seconds, allowing this second refusal to talk about Toma to stand.
“There’s whiskey left in the bottle on the chest.”
Domini looked at him. Anxious to be done with feeling pinned in place, she released her grip on the bed. She wanted to make amends for cutting him. Starting for the chest, she faltered when the knife sailed by to land in the center of the top drawer.
“Just so you know I favor my left hand but there’s nothing wrong with my right.”
She whirled and faced him. “Don’t you trust anyone? I gave up the weapon to defend myself. Didn’t that prove anything to you?” God, forgive the small lie. It is one of my necessary ones.
“Like I said. Look at yourself, honey. You’ve got a regular army’s arsenal of weapons to use.”
“No.” She went quickly to the chest, levered the knife out of the wood, and grabbed hold of the bottle. “Sit on the bed and I’ll clean that up.”
When she turned, he was already sitting near the headboard. She shook her head. She had not heard a sound.
“You told the clerk to bring up hot water. I’ll tell him we need—”
Whisper My Name Page 2
