by Sara Orwig
An hour-and-a-half later, Travis wiped sweat from his face as he looked through a window and saw Crystal heading toward the livery stable. He put down his tools and watched her. Standing with his hands on his hips, he looked at her slender body and the skirt that covered her long legs. She wore a bonnet on her head and a black cloak that swirled around her. She was covered from her head to her toes, with only her face showing, yet his pulse jumped and he mentally whisked away all the layers of clothes.
He wanted the woman damned badly. He would like another child, but he was so frightened about losing her.
Rufus Milligan rode up beside her. She smiled up at him and Travis clenched his fists, wanting to stride outside and tell Milligan to keep moving. Rufus Milligan would not be half-demented trying to make such a decision as whether to bed Crystal or not when she desperately wanted it. Nor would any other man in town except Will Barnesdall, who had lost a wife in childbirth.
“Hellfire!” Travis snapped, returning to the anvil. She had him in knots, muttering and swearing to himself.
He saw Andy watching him with curiosity that was no stronger than the curiosity he often saw in Zachary’s eyes.
Then she swept in the door. Her nose was red, her cheeks pink, and he wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss her.
“You should rescue Andy. I think our son has worn him to a frazzle.”
She smiled, her eyes sparkling. “Where is my baby?” she asked, sailing past him as if he were part of the fixtures in the room. He heard her cooing and chattering with Jacob and he swore again beneath his breath. “Damn, damn, and double damn.”
“Travis, what’s wrong?”
He looked up at Andy. “Nothing I can’t fix,” he snapped. “Get some money out of the box and go get us all supper at the cafe.”
Crystal appeared in the door. She was in one of her black dresses, her hair wound around her head; but he knew too well how she looked most of the time to see the stern judge that he used to see.
“We’re eating here?”
“Yes. I’ll stay until about nine. I told Zachary and he’s taken the wagon.”
She smiled. “I’m glad you gave him today without work and let him ride into town with us.”
“Crystal, he can take off any day he wants,” Travis said dryly. “He just doesn’t get paid when he doesn’t work.”
“I know, but he feels he needs to work. All he talks about is Agnes. I think he’s falling in love.”
“Do you really?” Travis asked, amazed at his shrewd wife who was so blind when it came to men.
“So, you knew this long ago?”
“I think he fell in love with Agnes Blair the night of the Mandeville’s party. At least he no longer is blind in love with my wife.”
She laughed merrily. It annoyed him and he knew his reaction was unreasonable. “That’s absurd, Travis. If he even remotely was attracted to me, it is over. Frankly, I don’t really think he ever was.”
“Crystal, you can count on it. And I saw Rufus stopping to talk to you.”
“Rufus has become downright friendly.” She shook her head in bewilderment. “He used to be very unfriendly. But then a lot of people have become friendly.”
“A lot of men.”
Her smile broadened, and she turned her attention to Jacob. He wiggled to get down and she took him into the office and closed the door. Occasionally Travis heard her laughter ring out and he wanted to put his work aside and join her.
All the way home, Zachary talked about Agnes Blair. Riding high on the wagon seat, Zachary drove while Travis, Crystal and a sleeping Jacob rode in the bed of the wagon. Travis held her close to him and Jacob was curled in his other arm. Halfway home, Travis could no longer resist and leaned over to kiss the corner of Crystal’s mouth. She turned her face and his mouth covered hers, and Zachary’s words about his day with Agnes were lost.
“Crystal, what do you think?” Zachary asked loudly.
She pushed Travis away, and he raised his head.
“Crystal?” Zachary repeated.
Travis ground his teeth but refrained from telling Zachary to shut up. Didn’t the boy have any notion that Travis wanted to kiss his wife and stop being bothered with conversation about Agnes Blair?
“Tell me again, Zachary,” Crystal said patiently, showering light kisses on Travis that made him tighten his arms around her. He set Jacob on a blanket and covered him and turned to pull her onto his lap, rearranging the blanket around them while she and Zachary discussed the next time he could take Agnes out.
“Crystal, I want to order a locket for Agnes. Will you go with me and help me get the right thing?”
“Yes, I will,” she said, closing her eyes while Travis tried to kiss her.
“When do you think you can go?”
She pulled away and Travis wanted to poke Zachary in the back; but he suspected Zachary was so wrapped in thoughts about Agnes, he would think the jab was an accident.
“Next week would be fine if you want to go to town. Or next Saturday. Eloise Knudsen asked me to come over. She’s having Agnes and Myrtle and some friends for lunch.”
“If I can get away, Saturday would be good,” Zachary said.
Travis pulled Crystal back to him, tightening his arms around her and brushing her lips with his.
“Crystal, I want to write a poem to Agnes. Will you help me with it?”
“Why don’t you do that later, Zachary?” Travis asked politely, and Crystal shook his shoulder, frowning at him.
“Oh, I’ve already thought of the first lines. Listen, Crystal. Agnes with your eyes so brown; you are my love, you are my crown.”
Travis held his head, and Crystal shook her finger at him.
“How does that sound? Is it all right?”
“I don’t quite understand why you call Agnes your crown,” Crystal replied sweetly, feeling Travis’s fingers slipping beneath her cloak to stroke her nape.
“She makes me feel like a king.”
Travis choked, and Crystal shook her finger at him again. “I think that’s fine, Zachary.”
“Crystal, could we ever invite Agnes and her family to the ranch?”
Travis growled deep in his throat, and he heard Crystal’s soft laugh. “Of course, we can. Won’t that be fine, Travis?”
He thought about Elwood Blair, who was friendly enough, but into hardware and that was all he could discuss. And Travis knew Mrs. Blair did not approve of him. She barely spoke. “Yes, that’s fine, Zachary,” he answered perfunctorily, wondering if there was anything that would shut Zachary up so he could go back to kissing Crystal without the damned interruptions.
“I can help you cook. What do you think would be best?”
Travis leaned his head back against the wagon and played with Crystal’s hair, winding it around his fingers and then tracing the line of her jaw, the curve of her ear, while she and Zachary discussed food. If he wanted his wife to himself, he supposed he would have to wait until he reached home and could shut Zachary out and bar the door.
It seemed eternity until he lifted down Jacob and swung Crystal down with his other arm and told Zachary good night. As soon as he placed Jacob on his bed, he turned to look at Crystal. She had taken off her cloak and was unwrapping her muffler from her neck.
He unbuttoned his coat and dropped it on the floor, tossing his hat on a table. “Crystal, I’ve been waiting all night,” he said in a husky voice and reached for her, pulling her into his arms to kiss her hungrily. Too soon she would stop him, but for the next few moments he could kiss and fondle her freely and he had been waiting and dreaming of this time all day long.
The next week as he rode across the cold land, checking on his cattle, his thoughts still on Crystal, he knew he wanted to take the chance on another child. She wanted one, and surely he wouldn’t lose two wives in that manner.
The possibility terrified him, but he couldn’t go through life like this. And his control around her was pushing closer and closer to the edge. Soo
n he was going to lose it, and then what he felt would no longer matter.
He would tell her his decision. He thought what he felt for her was a lot of things—respect, desire, friendship, but not the soul-deep love he had known with Elizabeth. But Crystal hadn’t required that of him. Only to give her a child. And that he could do. He turned his horse and looked back over his shoulder at his house in the distance. Smoke rose from the chimney. Tonight he would tell her.
Dark came earlier than usual, the northern sky growing bleaker and blacker. Then after night fell, a raging blizzard struck. The temperature dropped and the wind tore at the house and the world was a swirling white that drove the men inside early. They shed snow-crusted coats and hats and ate several helpings of her steaming stew. Travis kept the fire roaring, but beyond the bright firelight, the room was chill.
“I will be back after I see about the horses,” Travis said, pulling on his coat and hat and gloves. He left with the others, but at the door he paused. “I’ll be freezing when I get back. Set water on to warm for a bath, would you?”
She nodded and closed the door behind him. He bent forward in the wind, running to catch up with the others.
He worked in the biting cold, his fingers becoming numb as he checked gates and made certain the horses were safe inside the barn. He saw the smoke spiraling up from Turtle River’s tipi and from the narrow chimney of the small cabin where Zachary lived. Both men had fires going.
He pulled his collar high and stepped out of the barn, fighting the wind as he closed the door. He tucked his chin down and headed back to his house while the gusts and squalls whipped him. When he stepped inside, Crystal looked up. Travis drew a sharp breath.
She sat in the rocker in front of the fire, her long legs curled under her. Her hair was a fiery halo around her head and she wore her gown and her wrapper. The tub was placed on the other end of the hearth, a screen in front of it. While Crystal bathed during the day when he was away, he bathed at night when she was there, so he had made the screen to give them privacy.
“Thanks for readying a bath.”
“I’ve already bathed,” she said. “You’ll have to share the water, but it’s quite hot.”
“I feel like ice clear to my bones,” he remarked, knowing it was a bald lie because all he had to do was stand and watch her and he would heat to an inferno.
He stood in front of the fire, tugging off his buckskin shirt. He turned to look at her and his heart drummed as he gazed into her wide green eyes. Her gaze lowered, drifting over his chest, and he saw the change in her expression from cozy longing to burning desire.
“Are the animals all right?”
“They’ll be fine if this storm doesn’t last too long. That’s when it gets bad. When they can’t eat is when it’s dangerous,” he answered perfunctorily, his mind on her. Her hair spilled over her shoulders and he remembered its softness. He crossed the room, taking down the bottle of whiskey. He held it out to her. “Want some?”
“No, thank you. Not ever.”
“Crystal, if you have a drink sometime, it does not mean you will turn into a sot like your father and grandfather.”
“Perhaps not, but I see no reason to partake.”
“That’s fine with me. I didn’t want to wed a drinking woman, God knows.”
Her eyes narrowed. “That was a criteria?”
“Yes. I asked you at the time. I wanted someone intelligent, capable, dependable, trustworthy, kind. You seemed to be all of those things.”
“Thank you,” she said, smiling mischievously at him. Setting down the whiskey, he crossed the room and placed his hands on the rocker arms on either side of her.
“I’d give what I earned Friday to know what is running through that mind of yours.”
“I’m not certain you saw any such qualities at the time. All you wanted, Travis Black Eagle, was a live, breathing woman who was caring and whom you could browbeat into matrimony. There has never been a day any man, including you, has given a whit about a woman’s intelligence.”
He wound his fingers in her hair, rubbing her head, and tilting her face up. “That’s not so, Crystal. I’m thankful Jacob will have a mother with intelligence.”
“Only because you had no intention of ever having to kiss me when you entered into this bargain.”
He released her, moving his hands to her waist to pull her up into his arms. “If I had intended to kiss you, you’d still be wrong. Flat wrong. I couldn’t bear a flighty, silly woman or a timid rabbit who would cower when I raise my voice, no matter how pretty she was.”
“If you had found such a woman and she had been a beauty and would have married you, I would never have known you and you cannot possibly convince me otherwise. Although, I find it refreshing to know that I have not lowered myself in your estimation by my loss of temper.”
“See, you have boxed me into a corner. Either I admit that I am happy with your tossing pans at me or I admit that beauty is more important than intelligence.”
“So, which is it?” she asked, her voice growing husky and her gaze on his mouth as she ran her fingers lightly over his bare chest.
“If we carry on this conversation one minute longer, my bath will go to waste,” he drawled in a rasp. He moved away from her, piling the fire high with logs. He picked up his drink and stepped around the screen. He was aroused, wanting her and not wanting to take time for a bath, but tonight was important and she deserved time and a long, slow loving. And he suspected she had no idea of his change of feelings.
Now that he had capitulated, he wanted her so badly he could barely breathe when he thought about her. It still struck terror into his heart to think about her going through childbirth. It was a cold, sheer terror such as he had never known on a battlefield, not once, even in the midst of hand-to-hand combat. But he decided that was partly the impetuosity of youth and the anger that had burned in him toward the soldiers who had taken him from his people.
This was a cold, stark fear that he would lose her as he had Elizabeth. And that Crystal would suffer. Travis couldn’t look back. The past was done and over, but he prayed that this night was not leading him into the same hell again. All the same, Crystal deserved her chance to be a woman and a mother and he was not going to stand in her way.
He sneered at himself for thinking about it as if it were a sacrifice on his part. He was so eager, he shook. And he was already hard, hurting, and he had been aroused too many times during the day and tonight.
He stripped, stepping into the hot tub and sinking down, wanting to get Crystal and pull her in with him. But he had sworn this first night he would love her long and slowly as she deserved.
Crystal rocked, listening to him splash, imagining him naked, but her imagination only carried her so far. She was abysmally ignorant of men and their bodies, knowing basic anatomy, but nothing about Travis and how he looked beyond his waist. Nor would she know when he emerged from the bath. She expected him to dress in fresh pants and join her as he had so many nights lately.
She pulled the wrapper close beneath her throat and listened to the wind howl and thought about their conversation. Intelligence, indeed! If Zachary cared that Agnes Blair had a thought in her head, it didn’t show in his hours of raving about her big brown eyes or her curly golden hair.
Crystal smiled at the thought of Zachary. He was incredibly smitten, and she hoped Agnes did not break his heart. Agnes seemed sweet enough, but Crystal suspected Agnes’s parents had higher aspirations for her than a boy like Zachary, who had nothing of his own and was still wearing clothes given to him by Travis.
Still, he was saving his money, and within the month he intended to buy a horse from Travis. She rocked and gazed into the fire, contented to have Travis close at hand. She longed for his kisses, wanted more than kisses from him, but she kept reminding herself to wait. Patience, patience …
He was changing. She knew that and she knew he wanted her more each day because he showed it in so many ways. She heard deep s
plashes and then a rustle. He was drying and would dress and join her.
He came around the screen finally, and he was wearing his denim pants and moccasins and was bare-chested. The firelight gave orange tints to his dark skin and highlighted the bulge of hard muscles in his chest and arms. Her mouth went dry as she looked at him.
All her quiet satisfaction transformed to a burning need. She wanted to be pressed against his hard, lean body, to feel his strong arms band her, and to have him kiss her into ecstasy.
His dark eyes that enveloped her in a blackness that was hot and consuming. She couldn’t take her gaze away and the air all but crackled between them as the tension grew tighter.
Without taking his eyes from hers, Travis crossed the room with deliberation. Once again he leaned down to put his hands on her waist and pull her up to face him. She placed her hands against his chest. His heart pounded swiftly and fiercely and she knew he wanted her with the same intensity that she wanted him.
“Crystal,” he whispered, his voice a deep rasp. “I’ve come around to your way of thinking.”
Her heart clenched. A tremor shook her as she clutched his arms and stared at him.
“If you want a baby, then I’m willing to try to give you one.”
Seventeen
Crystal stared at him as his words poured over her. Joy spread in her. Fulfillment. Love. So many things she had dreamed of, once thought impossible to know in her life. Now he held them out to her. Travis. He would make love to her. His heart might still be locked away, but she suspected he couldn’t lock all of it away. This tall man whom she loved with all her being was going to give her so much. She slipped her arm around his neck as she gazed into his dark eyes and met a steadfast, clear look.
“You’re sure?”
“As much as I ever will be. Yes.”
She pulled his head down, brushing his lips with hers.
He groaned, his arm tightening around her, pulling her against him while his mouth covered hers and opened hers. His tongue thrust into her mouth in a hot, silky demand.
