He joined the girls on the quilt. Sunny looked up at him. No, she wasn’t trying to get rid of him. The look in her eyes was one of hunger. And not for fried chicken. A shudder ripped through him.
“Can we go wading?” Amy asked.
Without taking her gaze from his, Sunny answered. “Take off your shoes and stockings and watch out for snakes.”
All three girls raced to bare their feet and get to the water.
“Don’t get your clothes wet,” Sunny called after them. Then to Ash she said, “What would you like to do first?”
I will not grab her and kiss her. He cleared his throat. “Why don’t we join the girls?”
With the recent spring rains, the creek was too deep for the girls to cross without getting their dresses wet. But along the bank it was shallow. And ice cold.
After about half an hour of wading and exploring up and down the bank, Ash left to check on the horses so the girls could dry off and put their stockings and shoes back on.
The sight of Sunny’s bare ankles had been enough to dry out his mouth. Visions of what her bare legs would look like sent his heart pounding.
He met the girls back at the quilt and Sunny started unpacking food from the basket while he helped Katy pour lemonade from a jug.
“Enjoy that,” Sunny told them. “I’ve saved those lemons all winter just for the first picnic of the year, and it’s the last of them. There won’t be any more for a while.”
Ash sipped his, savoring the tart sweetness. The first taste made the insides of his jaws tingle.
Rachel was in charge of passing out the tin plates and forks. Amy gave everyone a napkin.
There was fried chicken—the first Ash had tasted in more than five years, and he thought maybe he’d died and gone to heaven—potato salad, fresh bread and butter, and baked beans. By the time they got to dessert, dried apple pie with fresh cream, Ash was stuffed.
“You’ve got cream on your lips,” Katy told Sunny.
Sunny laughed. “So do you.”
Katy closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “Mmm-mmm.” She made a real show of licking off the cream.
The girls laughed, and so did Ash.
Then Sunny copied Katy’s actions.
Ash stared. His laughter died. He couldn’t take his gaze from the arousing sight of her tongue slowly, breathtakingly, wiping the cream from her lush lips. He felt his heart slam against his ribs, felt his tongue reach out and lick his own lips. Startled by his own response, he looked away. I will not grab her and kiss her. I will not grab her and kiss her. I will not grab her and kiss her.
He pushed himself to his feet. “Think I’ll walk off some of this food.”
Sunny opened her eyes and saw him stalking off into the trees. Instead of the slow, careful steps she was used to seeing, his legs seemed to eat up the ground forcefully. His shoulders were stiff. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides. She wondered what had gotten into him.
The day dimmed a little for her after he left.
“Help me pack all this stuff up, then you can play some more,” she told the girls.
“Let’s hurry,” Katy said.
“Yeah,” Amy agreed. “Maybe we can find some more frogs.”
The basket was repacked and the girls had scampered off to the creek again. Sunny suddenly felt lonesome sitting on the quilt by herself. Before she could think about what she was doing, she was up and following the path Ash had taken.
Beyond the small grove of cottonwoods and willows with their shiny new green leaves, sat a huge familiar boulder. She’d visited and played on this creek so many times, the whole area was nearly as familiar to her as the inside of her house. On the other side of the boulder she knew she’d find a strip of sand and a large, flat rock where she could sit in the shade and look down at the creek.
Overhead a hawk screeched. She craned her neck and watched the redtail drift lazily on an air current.
With her neck arched back, her gaze locked on the circling hawk, she backed around the boulder and ran smack into something tall and solid. She shrieked and lost her balance.
She heard a grunt and waved her arms frantically to regain her balance. She twisted to catch herself. It was too late. She fell.
But instead of landing on the hard-packed sand, she landed on something almost as firm, but not as hard. And it gave slightly.
She opened her eyes—when had she shut them?—to find herself sprawled spread eagle atop Ash McCord. “Oh!” Stunned, she stared at him. Hot blue eyes stared back. So blue, so hot, that they would have taken her breath away, if she’d had any.
His body was rock hard beneath her. His arms held her securely. She wanted to ask if he was hurt, but he didn’t look hurt. And it would sound like mothering. He didn’t like mothering.
Suddenly he squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in his breath. She felt it then. A new ridge of hardness forming against her abdomen.
Her cheeks flamed. “Oh.”
His lips moved. “I will not grab—” He opened his eyes. “Ah, to hell with it.”
And he kissed her. Fiercely. Hungrily. Like he was starving for the taste of her. Sunny felt herself melt against him. Her blood rushed, her heart pounded, her lips parted. She’d wanted this so badly since the first time he’d kissed her, the night of the fire.
His lips were firm and demanding. She gave all he asked, and more. When he kissed her she felt more alive than at any other time. She felt like she could fly. By the time he tore his mouth away they were both breathing hard.
“Oh,” she whispered, her eyes still closed.
Her lips sought his again, this time gently, softly. Oh! The taste of him. The feel, the smell.
Soon gentle wasn’t enough. His hands roamed frantically over her back and shoulders. He groaned and she felt it, tasted it, heard it with her heart.
The emotions his kiss and touch evoked made her eyes sting. This! she thought. This is how it should be between us.
Then she was rolling onto her back. He followed, covering her yearning body with his. When his hand slid down and cupped her breast she felt her whole body respond. It was impossible for her to hold back the sounds of pleasure coming from her own throat.
Suddenly she was free, lying alone in the sand. Ash rolled sharply away and sat with his back to her.
“Christ!” he said. He peered at her over his shoulder, his eyes hard and angry, his chest still heaving. “Don’t you know any better than to roll around on the ground with a man? Do you have any idea what almost happened here?”
With her heart still pounding, her head still swimming, she sat up and reached for his shoulder.
He jerked away from her touch.
“Why did you stop?” she asked.
His brows raised, his mouth dropped open. “Why did I—” He struggled to his feet. She knew the effort it took for him to push himself up from the ground on still-weak legs. Her heart sank that he should want to get away from her so badly.
“Good God, woman, you need a keeper. You’re dangerous. Or stupid, I’m not sure which.” He started pacing. “The minute I had those reins in my hands I should have headed that wagon straight for town and got out while I had the chance.” He jabbed a finger toward the pale sand that still held the imprints of their bodies. “What just happened here was a mistake. If you don’t know enough to make sure it never happens again, I do. It was a mistake.”
His words knifed into her chest and sent a stabbing pain straight to her heart. “I just…“
“Just what?”
She blinked at the sudden stinging in her eyes. “I just experienced the most beautiful, most exciting, most wonderful thing in my life. You felt it too. I know you did. How can you call it a mistake? How can you even think it?”
“Because it’s the truth.” His jaw looked like it was carved from the boulder beside him. “You don’t belong with a man like me. I can’t give you what you want, Sunny.”
“Can’t, or won’t?” Her own voice surprised
her. It sounded angry. Where had that come from?
Wherever, she welcomed the anger, hot and deep and red. It cauterized the wounds he’d just inflicted. It crushed the pain. She encouraged it, welcomed it, wanted to roll in it. Her chest swelled with it. Suddenly she felt bigger, more powerful.
He hadn’t answered her. She rose to her feet and planted her hands on her hips, then gave her head a toss to shake her hair away from her face. Where had her hat gone? And the pins holding her hair up?
“You’re right,” she told him.
He looked at her sharply, suspiciously. “I am?”
She nodded. “You should have driven the wagon to town when you had the chance.” She started brushing dirt and twigs from her skirt. “But since you didn’t, we’d better get going.”
“Going?”
“To town. I’ll round up the girls.”
His eyes narrowed. “Just like that? I’ve been trying to get you to send me to town for weeks. Hell, I didn’t want you to take me home with you in the first place. But you’ve argued every step of the way, saying I wasn’t ready for town yet. Now I’m ready? Just like that?”
She tossed her head again. “I don’t know if you’re ready or not. But I am. You were right. I don’t belong with a man like you.”
For just an instant his eyes flickered. Could that have been pain? More likely it was relief.
“I’ve been telling you that all along.”
She waved is words away. “Oh I don’t mean a man with a prison record. I couldn’t care less where you spent the last five years. But I don’t have room or time in my life for a man who thinks so little of himself that he starts believing the lies other people tell about him. I don’t want a man who isn’t strong enough to take the best thing that’s ever happened to him and hold onto it. I want a man with enough courage to stand up to the liars in town and face them down. Who can hold his head up with pride rather than defiance. No, you were right. I don’t belong with a man like you.”
Without waiting for a response, she picked up her straw bonnet from the ground, brushed past him and called the girls to get ready to leave. And ignored the sick feeling in her stomach and the violent trembling that shook her from head to toe.
Within minutes they’d loaded the wagon and were headed away from the creek. She was still angry, and planned to stay that way. It felt good. It felt damn good.
“Excuse me,” she said with false sweetness, “but town is that way.” She glanced at him and pointed east.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I believe I know my way around these parts at least as well as you do.”
“Couldn’t prove it by me. I thought you wanted to go to town. In fact, you’ve talked of nothing but going to town for days.”
“That’s right, and I’ll get there. But not today.”
“Yes,” she said firmly, trying to keep from shouting. “Today. Right now. Just turn the wagon toward town and get out of my life. I don’t want you in my house any more, Ash McCord.”
He chuckled. It sounded grim. “Now there’s a switch. You’ve been fighting me every step of the way, trying to get me to stay, now you want me to leave. And I will, but not today.”
“Why not today?”
“It’s too late. It’d be dark long before you got home.”
There he went again, thinking of her welfare, her safety. Trying to take care of her. Being protective. The anger she’d fed and urged and relished drained from her in an instant.
Thunderation! The man was going to drive her insane.
She spent the rest of the trip home trying to revive her anger. It was no use. Even the softening she’d felt over his protective attitude waned. Instead, she felt a vast emptiness looming before her. He was going to leave. Tomorrow. And she would never again know the thrill of his touch, the lifting in her heart at the sight of his smile, the sound of his laughter.
She’d never know what it was she’d almost learned this afternoon in the sand beside the boulder.
For she knew in her heart she’d never feel the same with any other man.
She lay in bed that night, wide awake, restless and aching with longing.
He was leaving tomorrow. She’d likely never see him again.
Sunny curled into a ball beneath the sheet and hugged her knees to her chest. Why, why had she gotten angry this afternoon? Why had she told Ash to leave?
Because he was being a stubborn jackass, that’s why.
How could he possibly think what happened between them when they touched, when they kissed, was a mistake? It wasn’t a mistake. It was good and right and the most wonderful feeling she’d ever known. It wasn’t a mistake.
Still, he would leave tomorrow. She knew that. He was afraid of getting involved with her, afraid of hurting her.
Did he think his leaving wouldn’t hurt?
She stretched her legs and rolled to her other side. This was the last night Ash McCord would spend under her roof. She wished she could just fall asleep so the hours until he left wouldn’t seem so long. So lonely.
But the thought of never knowing his touch again, never feeling his lips on hers, never experiencing the ultimate fulfillment she knew he could give her, the fulfillment she knew she would find with no other man, those thoughts tormented her.
Her whole future loomed before her, a giant, dark chasm of uncertainty.
All she would ever have of Ash McCord, she’d already experienced. In a few short hours, the sun would come up and he would leave.
In a few short hours.
The thought made her heart race. If all she had were a few short hours, why was she lying here alone, wasting them?
She kicked the sheet back and crept from the room, closing the door softly behind her. She checked on Amy and Rachel, found them fast asleep, and closed their door, too.
Then she walked steadily toward the door at the end of the hall and reached for the knob.
Chapter Sixteen
Ash stared at the wide patch of moonlight on the foot of his bed, willing it to move faster. Willing the hours of the night to pass. He stubbed his cigarette out in the saucer on the bedside table.
He’d hurt her today. He hadn’t meant to. But better to give her a small hurt now, than the much larger one she’d have if he let her life become linked with his.
But God, how he wanted her. Even now, hours after she’d stumbled into his arms near the creek, he ached for her.
He thought he heard a sound in the hall. He stopped his restless shifting and listened. Nothing. He was just jumpy.
Then the doorknob rattled.
He groped along the floor beside the bed for his revolver.
The door swung open.
He raised the gun. And recognized Sunny. “Christ!” he cried. The gun shook in his hand. “I nearly shot you. What the hell are you doing in here?”
Instead of answering, she closed the door softly behind her and stepped into the shaft of moonlight.
His breath caught in his throat. She hadn’t put on a robe. Her white cotton nightgown covered her in soft folds from her neck to her toes. The long sleeves were gathered at her wrists, with a ruffle hanging down almost to her knuckles.
She was trembling. “I didn’t wake you, did I?” she asked softly.
“No.” He placed the pistol on the bedside table and then sat up and fumbled for a match.
“No, please,” she said. “This will be a lot easier in the dark.”
He tensed. He felt her eyes on him. “What will be easier? Why are you here, Sunny?”
“Are you really leaving tomorrow?”
“You came in here in the middle of the night to ask me that?”
“Are you?”
Emptiness engulfed him. “Yes.”
In the silence that followed, he could hear her breathing.
“Is there anything I can do or say to change your mind?”
He wanted to groan aloud. “Don’t do this, Sunny. You know I can’t stay.”
“Are you leaving bec
ause of what happened today at the picnic?”
“I’m leaving because it’s past time for me to go, for both our sakes.”
She nodded jerkily and looked down at the floor.
He couldn’t imagine how much courage it must have taken for her to come to him this way, to ask him to stay. He was hurting her again.
“It’s all right, Ash. I understand.”
“Do you?” His voice felt rusty.
She nodded again. “Since you’re leaving tomorrow then, and since I’ll probably never see you again, I’d like to ask a favor.”
Ash felt his pulse race. Why did he feel like he was about to drown? A favor. He owed her that much, at least. “Name it, and if it’s within my power, it’s yours.”
She raised her head slowly and shook her hair back from her face. Her smile was on the shaky side. “Thank you. I was hoping you’d say that.”
Her soft voice sent chills down his arms and heat through his veins. “What is it you want?”
He watched the ruffle at her throat bob with her swallow. Then she licked her lips.
He tore his gaze away and looked down to find himself twisting handfuls of sheet in his fists.
“About this afternoon by the creek.”
At the creek. With her in his arms. He cleared his throat. “What about it?”
“You…you said I didn’t know anything about…about what almost happened.”
“Sunny, I—”
“You were right. I don’t know. But I want to. Will you show me?”
He couldn’t answer. Heat gathered in his loins. He surely hadn’t heard her right. He watched, mesmerized, as she raised trembling hands and started down the row of tiny buttons that ran from her neck to her waist.
This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. He was too weak to resist an all-out attack on his senses. Too damn weak!
She finished the buttons. All he could do was stare, his tongue locked against the roof of his mouth.
She shrugged the gown from her shoulders. It fell to the floor.
He sucked in his breath. “Sunny—”
Wild Texas Flame Page 19
