Comanche Eagle

by Sara Orwig

  And once again, he was pleased with Crystal. If she could teach him and Turtle River and Zachary to read, she would easily be able to teach Jacob. And Travis was learning that the stern person who was a Cheyenne judge could also be a caring, pleasant woman.

  He was beginning to see her as a woman. When she tried to teach him sounds, telling him to look at her mouth, he suspected she did not have the faintest notion of the effect it had on him. Her lips looked full and soft and rosy, and more than once he had had to abruptly end the lesson. Why did she keep such a barrier up around herself? And why didn’t she want to go back home to Baltimore? He remembered Ellery saying they no longer had any family there, yet she grew up there and had friends and she had to have liked Baltimore better than Cheyenne, the town she constantly referred to as a wild, waterless, windswept collection of petty criminals.

  Travis swung the hammer and thought about her inflexible stance on the law. He would have to counter that with Jacob because he didn’t want his son to grow up accepting the white man’s rules as absolute. Some were wrong. It would be wrong to give Zachary back to his father.

  Travis raised another board in place and hammered it, the sharp bang of the hammer against the nail carried away on the wind. He picked up a hinge, fitting it against the wood and looking at a bump along the log that kept the hinge from fitting flatly against the board. Searching his pockets, he remembered he had used his knife last night; it was probably still lying on the kitchen table. He strode back to the house. His sweatband was soaked and sweat ran in rivulets down his back and chest. He was in moccasins, the shoes he often preferred, and he covered the distance in swift, long steps.

  He bounded onto the porch and crossed it, swinging open the door. “Crystal—”

  Ten

  Travis halted in shock, his gaze riveted on her. Jacob slept in the nearby cradle, but Travis saw only Crystal.

  She was standing in the tin tub, just reaching for a towel, water dripping and running off her body. She was half-turned, half-facing him, and she was as naked as a newborn babe; but it was no baby he faced. Her skin was pale, flawless, covered with a silvery sheen of water.

  Her breasts were small, high, and firm with rosy-tipped nipples, and her waist was tiny. He saw the enticing curve of her firm bottom and then her endlessly long legs. The woman was beautiful.

  His jaw dropped and his breath caught.

  In that one frozen second when both of them were startled into immobility, her green eyes were round and huge, her mouth open in an appealing O. In that brief second of time, he realized she was all woman and she had kept herself hidden more than he’d realized, but then had he ever really looked at her? Her curves were feminine and lovely, her skin pale and splendid. Her breasts could fill his palms and her long legs were shapely, perfect. A sweet rose scent hung in the air, along with the damp odor of water. It was a moment frozen in time, filled with shock and clarity, to be forever remembered.

  His body reacted, startling him. Stunned, he had thought he was numb, dead to attraction, his masculinity of no importance to him. But one long look at Crystal’s body and his own responded instantly. He was hard, hot, having a reaction to her that held a fiery intensity. Steeped in mourning since his dreadful loss, he had felt lifeless, but that changed in an instant as his body revived and responded.

  Her red hair was piled on her head, strands falling over her shoulders. The wet locks were a deep, burnished russet, with short auburn tendrils curling around her face.

  “He ’e ’yo!” he exclaimed under his breath, reverting to his native tongue.

  She gasped and flung her arms across her breasts to cover herself, dropping down into the tub with a splash, sending water sloshing over the sides. “Sir!”

  He had already spun around, throwing up his hands. “Sorry, Crystal,” he said, his voice husky. “I didn’t think about you bathing. I thought you would be cleaning. I left my knife here this morning.”

  He spoke fast, telling her the truth, yet his thoughts were spinning. All that was clear was that one frozen second when he had glimpsed her naked. The woman was beautiful. He was astounded and just as shocked at his reaction to her. He needed to get out of the cabin and to hell with his knife. His reaction would be as plain to her as to him if he had to face her again. He strode outside where it felt cooler when hot air blew over him than it had in the house.

  He stood in shock, forgetting where he was or what he had been doing. He glanced over his shoulder at the door that he had swung shut behind him. “Damn,” he whispered, knowing she could have easily had proposals from over two-dozen males in town if she had dressed differently, taken down her hair, and turned down the appointment as judge. If men knew how she looked …

  His thoughts took an abrupt turn. He didn’t want men to know how she looked. And that included Zachary.

  Stop. Travis told himself to stop such thinking. He didn’t want to feel possessive about his wife in name only. He didn’t want to feel any stronger about her than he had yesterday or the week before or the day he’d met her. Yet his body indicated that no matter what common sense told him, he would not forget what he had seen or be able to keep from reacting to it. He would know now what was beneath her prim, high-necked dresses and ankle-length skirts and black judge’s robe.

  Damnation! He wiped his sweaty forehead and moved away from the house, fighting the urge to glance over his shoulder. Conscience attacked him. He had married her and ruined any chance she would have for a decent and loving marriage to a man who adored her. He hadn’t given it much thought because at the time he’d thought of her totally as a spinster. Everyone did. Judge Spinster. He shook his head and wiped his forehead again, fighting the images that danced in his mind. Her body was beautiful, taunting, unforgettable.

  How would he sit beside her for an hour or more tonight, trying to concentrate on letters, when all he would be able to think about was how she looked when she was bathing?

  And he knew she was aware of him as a man. He had caught the looks she had given him, seen her look at his chest and the pink flush of her cheeks. Her awareness had meant nothing and occasionally had given him mild amusement because beneath all her primness and spinster ways, there was a female who responded to a male.

  Now he knew there was more than just a female behind her prim exterior. There was a beautiful woman with a body to burn a man to cinders.

  It didn’t change their relationship. No matter what his body was doing or wanted, his heart still belonged to Elizabeth and he had too much respect and regard for the judge to violate the promises he had given her.

  And in spite of the looks she had been giving him, he could not imagine that the judge would be willing to have more than a name-only marriage. No matter what kind of body she had, she was still prim, particular, a spinster. She kept barriers around her heart … and around her body.

  And even if he didn’t still hurt too much over Elizabeth to forget his vows to her and seduce his wife, he never wanted to risk falling in love again. Never again would he go through the hell of losing the woman he loved. And any woman who would succumb to lovemaking would also run the risk of having a babe. And of dying from it like Elizabeth.

  He went back to the barn, hammering more boards in place and trying to shove images of Crystal out of his mind—and failing.

  Zachary joined him at the barn. He hoped Crystal would hereafter bar the door when she bathed. The boy was cow-eyed over her now and he had never seen her hair down, much less the rest of her. If Zachary walked in on her—Travis felt an annoying and puzzling clench to his insides. He could not possibly feel one shred of jealousy over the judge—and never could he feel it about a boy. His gaze ran over Zachary, who was still a child even though he must be over six feet now and filling out, losing the lankiness of a boy.

  Turtle River appeared and they worked silently until Turtle River picked up boards from the stack of lumber at the same time Travis did. Turtle River gave him a long look. “Are you well?”
/>   “I’m fine. It’s hot in the sun.”

  The Indian kept his gaze on him, then shouldered a load of lumber and moved away.

  What the hell had Turtle River noticed? Travis couldn’t imagine, but the full-blood had the ability to pick up the merest hint of change.

  Travis focused on a board and tried to shut out everything else. Losing his concentration, he slammed the hammer against his thumb and swore, shaking his hand and glaring at the house, still shocked, unable to forget how the woman looked. She was beautiful! It astounded him. She wasn’t like other women he knew, and now he wondered why not.

  Without question she was one of the most intelligent women in the Territory. She said she had kept records for her brother and grandfather, and he knew that they had had a law practice which had given her the background to be appointed judge.

  Realizing he was staring at the house and still shaking his injured hand, he found Turtle River watching him. The Cheyenne turned away and bent over some boards with his hammer.

  The past three nights had been cooler and Travis had slept in the cabin. The judge’s horsehair mattress was far more comfortable than even a buffalo robe on the ground, but now he suspected he would have to sleep outside again until the disturbing images of her body faded from his mind.

  He picked up his hammer and tried to concentrate, working swiftly, tormented by a vivid image that refused to vanish.

  Long after Travis had left the cabin, Crystal sat with her arms crossed in front of her, staring at the door. Burning with embarrassment, she tingled from head to toe, vividly remembering the moment he had walked into the room and halted, his jaw dropping and his dark eyes raking over her as if they were burning flames consuming her. She couldn’t recall his ever coming back to the house during the day after the first week of her arrival and she hadn’t given any thought to leaving the door unbarred. None of the men were at the house until night, and Zachary and Turtle River never entered without knocking.

  Travis wouldn’t think to knock because the cabin had been his home long before she’d become a part of it. She burned with embarrassment and thought about Elizabeth, her dainty size and her full breasts that had sometimes looked as if they might spill out of her dresses. Crystal knew she was too tall, too long-legged, too small in the bosom.

  “It won’t matter,” she said aloud. He would forget and it meant nothing to him. He was legally her husband, for heaven’s sake! She should not almost faint because he saw her in the tub. But she felt faint. The glittering, dark-eyed look he had given her had not been disinterested or impassionate. And it had not been her imagination running wild. His look had been swift, but it had been consuming and thorough.

  She was hot, embarrassed, and prickly. She sponged off, stood, and toweled dry, stepping out of the tub and walking to the window. She could see him working on the new barn. He talked to Turtle River and then turned to glance over his shoulder in the direction of the house. She stepped back from the window, her heart pounding. She was acting foolishly and would feel ridiculous if he saw her watching him.

  She spent the day in a fog, still remembering and tingling from the shock of the encounter, knowing she was making too much out of a moment he had probably already forgotten but would remember when he walked through the door tonight.

  Tonight. She closed her eyes and clutched her arms in front of her until she realized what she was doing and dropped them to her side. Jacob was kicking and cooing, lying on a blanket she had spread on the floor, but for once he had lost her attention. How would she face Travis tonight? She blushed just thinking about his return and looking into his knowing brown eyes.

  “He is my husband,” she declared aloud, looking at their small one-room home. He was bound to see her undressed, just as she was bound to find him that way someday. And that thought shook her more than the others. She drew a deep breath, her body on fire.

  “Land’s sake!” she exclaimed. “I’m married to the man.” She threw up her hands and shook her head. With a thinning of her lips, she worked swiftly, cleaning and getting out potatoes to start dinner, trying to forget the morning and not think about when he would come home in the evening.

  Yet as the shadows lengthened in the afternoon, she studied herself in the mirror. She braided her hair tightly, winding it around her head, trying to look as plain and unnoticeable as possible. She clamped her jaw closed and pulled on the hot, scratchy, black woolen dress, buttoning it to her chin and pulling the sleeves to her wrists.

  Jacob woke from his nap with a loud fretful cry, and for the next hour, nothing would satisfy him. She forgot the slab of meat she had placed in the oven with potatoes around it and didn’t remember until she smelled it burning. She set down Jacob, stirring up another fury of protests from him. While he kicked and screamed, she yanked out the roasted meat and potatoes and surveyed their charred crust.

  She ran her hand across her forehead and wanted to get the wagon and go to town to her courtroom where there was order and she could control people and cope with cases.

  She was burning in the black dress and the heated house. Jacob couldn’t be pacified no matter what she did. Her hair was falling around her face; supper was a charred crisp.

  “Now he will forget this morning,” she told herself. He will eat and leave for the night. “And you are not helping,” she whispered to Jacob, cuddling him against her shoulder.

  “Sweetie, what’s wrong with my baby?” she asked, trying to soothe him and jiggle him. “What’s the matter with my precious boy?” she cooed, patting his back as she headed outside where it was cooler. Jacob was hot and damp from crying, hiccupping yet still bawling as he clung to her shoulder.

  “Jacob,” she said softly, wondering if something hurt him. She stepped outside as Travis opened the door to enter. They collided, and his strong hands steadied her.

  Momentarily they stood without moving. His gaze swept over her, intense, dark, and glittering. He remembered. She knew he was thinking about the morning. His dark eyes stripped away every stitch she wore, leaving her as naked as she had been this morning.

  Suffocating, she couldn’t get her breath. And as always, he was bare chested, half-naked himself. Her gaze dropped and she looked at the broad chest in front of her, inches from her, and remembered being in the tub. Her breasts tightened, tingling.

  “Sorry,” she stammered, at a loss, looking up into his dark eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I keep barging in,” he apologized quietly. His attention shifted to Jacob, who was screaming lustily again.

  “Ho, what’s wrong here?” he asked Jacob, taking the baby from her, his hands brushing her throat and shoulder and arm. The moment he lifted the baby into his arms, Jacob stopped crying.

  “Thank goodness! Nothing I can do pleases him.”

  “What’s all this crying?” Travis asked, swinging Jacob slightly in his arms, and Jacob hiccupped.

  “Your papa’s home,” she remarked, watching the two of them and feeling a pang that she wasn’t part of the moment. She longed to step up and hug them both, to wrap her arms around baby and father. Travis laughed and she gazed at him, forgetting herself and her surroundings. How seldom he relaxed and laughed; yet when he did, he was handsome beyond belief! She was mesmerized by the flash of his white teeth, the creases that appeared in his cheeks, the fine laugh-lines that fanned from the corners of his eyes. And his eyes twinkled, a merriment dancing in them that she seldom saw.

  “You say I hardly ever smile,” she said quietly, touching his cheek with her fingertip and feeling his slightly bristly skin. “Yet you laugh only on rare occasions. Your laughter is very nice,” she added.

  His dark eyes focused on her, and there was a change in their depths. She had his full attention. More than that. He was remembering again. She wanted to swear, and at the same time, she felt hot and embarrassed again. How long would it take before they could have any kind of encounter and not think about this morning? And how long would it take her to become accustomed to living
with this vital, handsome male?

  She turned away abruptly, fingering the top buttons of her dress and realizing she had left them undone. She patted her forehead. It was unbearably hot and stuffy in the house and she felt Travis’s eyes on her even though her back was turned as she got down plates for supper.

  When Zachary walked through the door behind Turtle River, her cheerful greeting died in her throat. He wore a fresh chambray shirt that had once been Travis’s. His wet hair was sleeked back from his face, but what startled her was the dark bruise below his eye and his swollen lip.

  “What happened, Zachary?” She glanced at Travis and back at Zachary, whose face flushed. He grinned, yelped as the smile hurt his mouth, and shook his head.

  “I didn’t duck when I should have.”

  “Didn’t duck from what?” she asked, her temper soaring. Had Travis or Turtle River tried to hurt the boy?

  “Travis and Turtle River have been teaching me to fight,” Zachary said happily.

  “To fight?” Her temper soared even more, and she spun around. Travis was busy talking to Jacob and had his back to her. “Travis!”

  He glanced at her and held up the baby. “Look at him smile!”

  She glanced at Jacob and saw his big grin for his father as he held his little arms out and for a moment she almost forgot her anger, but then she looked at Zachary. Turtle River had disappeared outside.

  “Why are you teaching him to fight? Of all the horrible things and it’s illegal—”

  “Crystal, ma’am, begging your pardon, I need to know. I like learning.”

  “You shouldn’t fight. Violence is inexcusable.”

  “Zachary, why don’t you take Jacob out to Turtle River,” Travis said easily and handed the baby to him. Zachary scurried outside quickly, and Travis placed his hands on Crystal’s shoulders.

  “Out here, a man needs to know how to defend himself; and of all people, that boy needs to know how so he never has to take another beating like he’d had when we found him.”