Her eyes narrowed at the outrage. At least now she knew why Dorothy always got so tight-lipped when she mentioned Cougar’s housekeeper. This place was a disgrace. Whatever Cougar was paying the woman, she decided as she spotted cobwebs hanging in a corner, it was too much.
“Hello. Is anybody home?”
There was no answer to her call, but as she moved deeper into the room, she thought she heard a noise from upstairs. She cocked her head and listened more closely. Yes, there it was again. Hopefully, that was the housekeeper and hopefully, she was hard at work.
Mara headed for the stairs. If not, she and the housekeeper were going to have words. Mara hated sloppy work and the laziness that created it. Clutching the banister tightly, she climbed the stairs. At the top, she followed the noise to the open door down the hall to the left, the bright red Oriental carpet under her feet muffling her footsteps.
There was no door to open. Nothing to block out the shock of what she was seeing. There was only unrelenting reality. That was her husband stretched out on the bed, his face a contortion of pain, but it wasn’t pain he was feeling. Mara was sure of that, because there was some black-haired hussy sprawled upside down across his torso dining on his manhood as if it were a feast. One she wasn’t about to relinquish, by the looks of things as she waved Mara away without even lifting her attention from her duties.
Pain, humiliation and shock struck Mara like blows. So fast, she couldn’t separate one from the other. Nausea welled. She pushed it back. She was Mara Kincaid, that was her husband, and she’d be damned if she’d run like a whipped cur. She stiffened her spine, gnawed her cheek until it bled, and stood her ground. At least her indecision was over. She would not share her husband with anyone. Not for anything.
As she debated her choices, she heard it. Her name whispered on a ragged moan. A guttural utterance of need, confusion, and…pain?
She looked closer. Nothing had changed. The hussy was still attached to her husband like a leech, but the hussy wasn’t who Mara was interested in. All she could see of Cougar was his shoulders and face above the woman’s big hips, but those parts didn’t look right. He was pale, very pale. That he was aroused, was prodigiously evident, but there was something about his face…
“Go away.”
Mara glanced at the woman crouched above her husband, her mouth inches from the glistening head of his manhood.
“Since the man you’re attached to is my husband, I believe that should be my line.”
“As you can see,” the woman proclaimed before pausing to leisurely lap Cougar’s manhood from base to tip, chuckling triumphantly when his hips arched off the bed in search of more of the caresses she withheld. “El Patron has no need of a flat as a board wife like you when Nidia is here.”
“You seem very sure of that.”
The woman nipped his manhood, absorbing his start with her lips. “I know who you are and where you come from.” The sneer in her voice bled into her expression. “He has no need of one such as you.”
Amazing that a woman doing what this woman was doing had the nerve to look down on her.
“Seeing as you aren’t his wife, your opinions don’t count for much.”
Beneath the woman, Cougar stirred. His head thrashed from side to side.
“Hush, Patron,” the woman soothed. “Nidia is here to take care of your needs. Just hush and let me ease you.”
Mara thought she was going to puke as the woman redoubled her efforts.
“If you would leave us, Senora,” the woman paused in her frantic bobbing to sneer the title. “I believe El Patron would like a taste of Nidia’s honey.”
If anyone needed a taste of something, it was Nidia. Mara reached through the slit in her skirt and fondled the handle of her knife. Cougar had yet to acknowledge her presence in the room. That rankled. He couldn’t help but see she was there. Not unless he was both blind and deaf.
Cougar tossed again, jostling the woman who lost her balance. What the move revealed had Mara’s hand tightening on the hilt of her knife. His side was a mess of blood-soaked bandages.
She was on Nidia in a heartbeat.
“You bitch!” She grabbed Nidia by the hair and flung her off the bed, surprising them both with her strength. Nidia sprang to her feet. She rushed Mara, her eyes slitted to narrow openings. Mara was more than ready for her. She simultaneously whipped out her knife and side-stepped Nidia’s headlong charge. As the other woman crashed onto the bed, Mara buried her knee in her back, grabbed her hair and hacked off every strand she could find. As she hacked a curl over Nidia’s ear, Mara lost her balance. Nidia took advantage and scrambled out from underneath her.
Cougar groaned on the bed. Panting and furious, Mara jerked the knife in the door’s direction. “Get out of my house.”
Nidia didn’t move or cower, though she did keep her eyes on the knife in Mara’s hand as she tossed the remains of her hair.
“I will leave only when El Patron tells me to.” Her hand slid over her full hip. “He brought me here for his pleasure. I’ll not leave until he tells me he no longer finds me pleasing.”
Mara immediately came up with a thousand ways to ensure Cougar never looked at this witch again, but when push came to shove, she knew she wasn’t any real threat. Men kept mistresses. It was a fact of life.
“Suit yourself,” she said coldly. “But if you stay, keep the hell out of my way and out of my sight or you won’t like the consequences.”
Nidia tossed her head again. “When the patron is better, he will call for me. I will be waiting.”
“If he’s alive tomorrow, you can take it up with him.”
Nidia hesitated, but then adopted that stance that challenged so well. “El Patron is very strong. It will take more than a bear to kill him.”
Hells bells, he’d been mauled by a bear? “Let’s hope your faith will carry the day. In the interim, get me some hot water. Boiling hot,” she added as Nidia balked.
“I do not take orders from you.”
“You do if you want this comfortable life to continue, because if he dies,” Mara snapped, approaching the bed, “I guarantee you’re out on your ear.”
Nidia left without another word. Hopefully, to return with hot water.
Cougar still lay as Nidia had left him. His manhood lay red and engorged against his stomach. Intimidating. Mara flicked a corner of the sheet over the threatening appendage. Pouring some cool water into the basin, she gathered up a cloth and started to soak the blood-caked mess of bandages off Cougar’s chest. The instant the cloth touched his skin, Cougar grabbed her wrist and forced her hand lower.
“Mara.” His voice was hoarse from fever and passion, but she heard the need. The plea. Startled, she looked up and realized his eyes were closed. There was no way he could know who touched him. Unless he had been dreaming about her all along. Mara ground her teeth as he pressed her hand against his erection. How dare Nidia take advantage of her memory this way! She shot a glare at the door, but any threat she thought to make died as Cougar snaked his free hand into her hair. The ease with which he dragged her up his body scared her silly.
He’d touched her before, but always with control. She pulled her hand free and braced it against his stomach. His dry, hot lips found hers, roughly prying them open for an exploration. She pushed away, but he held her where he wanted her with disheartening ease.
“Dammit,” he groaned as she pushed again. “Don’t tease me like this.”
“Let me go!” she demanded as his fingers coiled around her wrist.
Cougar’s eyes opened to slits. They glittered with a wildness that scared her.
“So this is how you want your revenge,” he ground out. “Well, it won’t wash, honey. If you play with fire, you’re going to get burned.”
It’s the fever, Mara told herself. The fever manipulated by Nidia that was making him different. He twisted, taking her with him, and down became up. The knowledge that he wasn’t himself didn’t help her nerves one bit when
she was on her back, her wrists anchored in one of his huge hands above her head.
“Let me go, Cougar,” she ordered.
He paused and the look in his eyes was distinctly predatory. “No.” His hair, tangled and damp with sweat, fell against her shoulder. His lips found her cheek as he drawled, “In bed, Angel, I give the orders.”
His fingers tugged at her hair as he shifted and pushed up. The tugs of pain blended with her panting breaths.
He was straddling her torso now, his muscular thighs tucked against her ribs, his knees wedged into her armpits. His balls rocked against her stomach as he brought his hips forward until his penis towered above her mouth.
She turned her head away. His fingers on her chin were gentle, yet inescapable as he brought her face back.
He stroked his cock in one hand, working its engorged length downward with each pass of his hand as he asked, “Do you know how long I’ve been dreaming of your mouth, Mara? Of feeling it wrapped tight around me, sucking me? Your hot little tongue stroking the tip, driving me wild until I can’t help but give you what you want?”
No. She hadn’t and she didn’t want to know now, but try as she might, she couldn’t escape. Oh God, she had wanted so much more than this between them. The first sob caught her by surprise. The second shamed her with her inability to keep it back. The third hit the air, and Cougar with the snap of a blow.
In an instant, he was off her and by her side on the big bed. The mattress listed as he pulled her into his arms, against his chest, his hands stroking her back gently. “Don’t cry, Angel,” he crooned against the top of her head as if he hadn’t been the source of her tears. “Don’t cry. I’ve got you. You’re safe now. I’ve got you.” He nuzzled his mouth against her temple. “I’ve got you,” he sighed one last time. His arms wrapped tighter around her, sheltering her in his strength.
Mara blinked, and slowly absorbed the fact that he was now intent on giving comfort. And because she was still feeling the aftershocks of fear, because she needed someone to hold her against the confusion her life had become, she turned her face into the solid strength of his shoulder and took it.
A few moments later, she heard footsteps on the floor downstairs. Nidia, no doubt. A door opened and closed. Cougar’s arms loosened and he fell back. A quick check revealed he was sleeping again. Slipping free of his grip, Mara stood. Cougar lay where she’d left him, the white sheets casting his big muscled body in sharp relief. She placed her hand on his stomach below the bandages. He was burning up.
She slid her hand over the deep ridges of muscle covering his abdomen. They crisscrossed the flat plane. She ran her hand over the hills and valleys. Below his navel, they cut inward in a sharp vee. A line of dark hair spread out from the center of his stomach just above his hip bones. She stopped her explorations when she reached the sheet covering his hips. She tried to pinch his skin, but she couldn’t. There wasn’t an ounce of excess flesh on his massive frame. He was all hard bone and solid muscle. A scar puckered the skin above his left hipbone. It stretched and smoothed as it angled toward his stomach. She touched it gently, marveling that he’d survived such a wound.
There were other scars on his torso. A small circular one on his right shoulder. A long curved one covering his ribs on the left side. A wicked rough-edged one pitted his upper arm just below his right shoulder. If she had any lingering doubts that her husband was a warrior, they were dispelled by the evidence before her. He was a man in his prime, tested by life, alive because of his skill.
He moaned and she petted his stomach soothingly, her finger catching in his navel. His skin was sticky with dried sweat. He needed a bath. Medicine. Care. She needed help. Now.
She left the bedroom, calling for Nidia. There was no response. No one else came to see why she was screeching like a banshee. There was just the hollow echo of her voice in answer. Great.
She threw open the front door. She’d lost her home, her virtue, and nearly her sanity in the last few months. She’d be damned if she was going to lose her husband as well. To her right, she spotted some outbuildings. One of them had to be a barn and one had to be a bunkhouse. Two places she might find help. She hit the bunkhouse first. Not only was it filthy, but it was empty. The barn, in contrast, was neat as a pin, and boasted one cowhand sitting on a bale of hay mending a bridle. His left leg was splinted and propped out to the side.
He had the gall to be whistling. A bright happy tune as if there wasn’t a care in the world. Mara grabbed up the pitchfork propped against the wall and advanced on him. He never heard her come up behind him. She shifted the pitchfork in her grip and poked him in the ass.
The whistling shrilled to a halt. He stood and spun around on his good leg, the bridle flaring out. She leaned back. The metal bit just missed her jaw.
“Dammit, woman. What in hell are you doing?” the man demanded. He had the same dark skin as Cougar, similar features but his eyes were black as sin and she wouldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.
She kept the pitchfork pointed at his stomach. “I believe that’s my question.”
He took a hopping step forward and she stabbed at his midsection. He paused and his head cocked slightly to the side as he studied her.
She motioned with the tines toward his hand. “Drop the bridle.”
He slowly lowered it to the hay bale. “What are you doing down here whistling when Cougar’s up at the house dying?” she demanded.
He shrugged, his hands open and away from his sides. “Mending a bridle.” His dark eyes narrowed slightly as he asked a question of his own. “You mind putting the pitchfork down and telling me what makes you think Cougar’s dying?”
“Yes, I mind.” He didn’t appear affected at all by her response unless she counted the gathering of muscles beneath the cotton of his blue shirt. She tightened her grip on the pitchfork. Too late.
In a smooth move that looked lazy and unthreatening, the cowboy yanked the weapon out of her hands. With the same apparent indolence, he caught her by the arm when the subsequent pain in her ribs threatened to send her to her knees. He lowered her to the bale of hay.
“Are you all right, Ma’am?”
He asked the question with utmost courtesy, but his grip on her arm was iron-tight.
Mara sagged in his grasp. What was she going to do? If nobody on this Godforsaken place lifted a hand to help her, Cougar would die. She glared at the cowboy. He stared back at her, his expression relaxed if she discounted the intensity in his gaze as he waited for her to answer. It dawned on Mara that maybe he didn’t know about Cougar.
“I’m fine.”
His grip on her arm didn’t relax. “Are you Cougar’s new wife?”
“Yes.”
He tipped his hat to her with his free hand. His smile was a practiced slide of his lips across his teeth that didn’t touch his eyes, but was charming anyway. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
She’d just bet he had. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“I hear you’re part angel, part hellcat and the sweetest thing Cougar’s seen in a coon’s age.”
Defiance left her on a soft “Oh.” Cougar said things like that about her?
“Now, tell me what’s wrong with Cougar?” the man asked, his grip on her arm reminding her there were more important things to focus on than the fact that her husband had been bragging on her.
“Nidia said a bear attack.”
He frowned. Again, it was only the slightest shift of expressions, but she caught it because she’d been staring at him so hard. “Nidia’s been taking care of him?”
“Yes.”
“Shit!”
Those had been her sentiments. Apparently, he was well acquainted with Nidia because there was resignation in his voice as he asked, “How bad is he?”
“I just got here a half hour ago. When I saw him, Nidia was…” She ducked her head. What Nidia had been doing wasn’t something she wanted everyone to know. “When I saw him,” she began again, �
��he was out of his head with fever. I haven’t had a chance to examine him further.”
The cowboy shifted his weight fully onto his good leg. Bits of hay drifted up to float through the sunbeams. He looked like he was going to say something, checked himself, and with another of those deceptively lazy movements, resettled his hat on his head.
“Damn. We need Doc.”
At last. Reason. “Yes.”
“I’ll get him.” He turned toward one of the stalls.
“Don’t you be worrying, Ma’am,” he called as he disappeared into the stall. “Cougar’s too ornery to die from a few bear scratches.”
No doubt, he meant to reassure her, but Mara had heard about Cougar’s immortality one too many times already. She got to her feet, slapping at the straw on her skirt. “His reputation may be immortal, but I assure you the man can die as easily as the rest of us.”
He glanced at her as he dragged the hand-tooled saddle off the rail it had been sitting on. “He’s that bad?”
“Yes.”
“You get back in the house and do what you can for Cougar. I’ll ride like the demons of He…Hades.” He grunted as he moved deeper into the stall. Maneuvering that saddle must be hell on his leg. “I’ll be back with Doc before you know it,” was muted as he worked.
“You can’t ride with a broken leg.”
“Not a problem,” came the unconcerned response from inside the stall. She stood on tiptoe to see over the stall wall. She glimpsed a flash of brown as the saddle swung high and then there was only the sound of leather sliding across leather. The cowboy limped out of the stall leading a fine looking buckskin.
Mara met him halfway into the corridor created by the six stalls on either side. She grabbed the reins out of his hands. “I can’t afford you falling off midway between here and Doc’s.”
He took the reins back. “I haven’t tumbled off a horse since I was in knee-high to a grasshopper.”
She grabbed the reins again, but this time he didn’t let go. The buckskin tossed his head and nickered nervously at their tug of war. “Well, Mr. Whoever you are, today is not going to be the first time in a long time.”
Promises Keep (The Promise Series) Page 16
