“More lemonade, Ross?” Sarah asked, interrupting the rancher’s dissertation on the merits of cross-breeding cattle.
He scowled, obviously not pleased that she had broken into his lecture, but he held out his glass anyway. “Thank you kindly, Sarah.”
Sarah lifted the pitcher and poured. Once the glass was full, Ross nodded at her, gulped back half the lemonade, and then continued on with his oration as if she had never interrupted.
Sarah sighed and stared out at the starry night. She had to admit it; she was bored. Ross had shown up unexpectedly this evening, and she’d had no choice but to sit with him for a spell on her front porch. Her mother was working on Betty Ames’s wedding gown in the parlor, far enough away to allow a certain amount of privacy to Sarah and her suitor, but close enough to qualify as an appropriate chaperone.
She glanced at the rancher sitting beside her. Ross was good-looking enough and certainly a prime catch for an unmarried girl, yet his conversation centered around himself and his cattle—morning, noon and night. Never once did he ask about her: what her dreams were, what she liked to do. It was if she existed just to be an extension of him, someone to bolster his ego and add to his consequence. She imagined it would only get worse if she became his wife.
Could she really marry such a man? Could she give up all of her dreams to make just one of them come true?
“Evenin’, Miss Calhoun,” a male voice called out from the darkness.
“Oh, no,” Sarah murmured. Ross spluttered to a stop as two cowhands rode up to the picket fence, rifles resting across their saddles.
“Just wanted to let you know that I’m done with my shift, ma’am,” said the rider who had greeted her. “This here is Sam Watkins. He’s takin’ over until I come back at sunrise.”
“Evenin’, ma’am,” Sam said.
“We didn’t want you to be worried when you saw a fella that wasn’t me hanging around outside your house,” the first man continued. “I’ll be back to relieve Sam in the morning.”
“Thank you, Clem.” Sarah ignored the look of growing outrage on Ross’s face.
“You have a nice evening, ma’am.” Clem tugged his hat brim, as did Sam, and both riders disappeared into the night. A few moments later hoofbeats faded into the distance, though Sarah knew Sam now watched over the house from a short distance away.
“Would you care to explain?” Ross asked with pointed sarcasm.
Sarah stared into the ruddy face of her almost-fiancé and suddenly knew she couldn’t do it. She could never marry a man as hidebound as Ross Turner, even if he was her last hope to have a family.
“Those men are watching the house,” she explained. “With an escaped convict in the area, it seemed like a wise precaution.”
“Those are Donovan’s men,” Ross snapped. “If you need protecting, why didn’t you come to me?”
“I didn’t ask him to post a guard on me,” she protested. “But he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“I’ll handle Donovan,” Ross replied, rising to his feet. His entire body radiated with anger.
Sarah rose as well. “What do you mean, you’ll handle him?” she asked, carefully keeping the annoyance from her tone. “He was only trying to help.”
“You don’t need help from his kind, Sarah.” Ross shoved his hat on his head. “I’ll put a stop to his interference once and for all.”
“Ross, I think you’re taking a neighborly gesture way too seriously.”
“Neighborly! I know what he’s up to, and let me assure you, being your neighbor has nothing to do with it.” He sneered. “Even if you can’t say no to the man, I can.”
The insinuation hung between them for a long, charged moment.
“Just what do you mean by that?” she asked quietly.
He looked uncomfortable. “Nothing, Sarah. It’s just talk.”
No one knew more than Sarah Calhoun how severely just talk could wound. “Ross, if you’ve got something on your mind, you’d best say it now.”
He opened his mouth, no doubt to bluster some more, but a glance at her face apparently changed his mind. His tone grew placating. “Well heck, Sarah, how does it look, having Donovan’s men watching your place when everyone knows you and I are courting? Donovan showed up out of nowhere, flaunting his money like it grows on trees. Anyone who looks at him can see he’s not one of us, but those idiots still listen to him like he was some sort of god. And it’s no secret he’s had his eye on you. Well, he’s not going to have you.”
“I see. And when did you start making the decisions in my life, Ross Turner? We’re not engaged, and we’re not married. Why do you assume you can speak for me?”
“Now, Sarah, don’t get upset.” Ross gave her an indulgent smile. “Women need a man’s guidance. You just sit back and let me handle it.”
“No.”
Ross stared. “What did you say?”
“I said no, Ross. You’re not going to handle anything for me. And I’m not going to marry you.” She clenched her hands tightly at her waist. “I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean, you’re not going to marry me?” he snapped, amiability vanishing from his face. “Of course you are.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m not.”
“You little tease!” he spat.
“I’m not a tease.” She tried to keep her voice steady. She had expected that Ross would be stung by her decision, but she hadn’t expected him to get this upset. “I’ve been thinking about the situation, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we wouldn’t be a good match.”
“You don’t consider me a good match?” His eyes bulged with astonishment, then narrowed in hostility. “I was doing you a favor, Sarah. Before I started courting you, no decent man in town would have ever considered you for a wife!”
She flinched; she couldn’t help it.
Ross went on, his tone tight with animosity. “I was willing to put my reputation on the line and give you my name, despite your past. Not only that, I was considering not sending my girls back east like I had originally planned. I figured you might make an adequate mother after all. I even wondered if the stories about you had been exaggerated.”
“How generous of you,” she murmured through stiff lips.
He leaned closer, meanness underscoring his tone. “Tell me the truth, Sarah. Are you a decent, God-fearing woman? Or is it like everyone says? That you’re just a slut who can’t keep her legs closed, not even for the scum who killed her father?”
“I think it’s time for you to leave, Ross.” She met his eyes squarely. His accusation stung like a slap, and he obviously took pleasure in rubbing her face in the dirt of her past. But if he thought she was going to show him her pain, then he was in for a surprise.
Ross waited, but she remained impassive. With a curse, he shoved past her but paused at the steps. He whirled back. “It’s Donovan, isn’t it?” he demanded. “You’re throwing me over for that saddle bum!”
“This has nothing to do with Donovan.”
He laughed, but it was an ugly sound. “Well, Sarah, I wish you luck. I have a feeling there’s more to Donovan than anyone knows, and none of it good. He has the eyes of a killer, and you’re right in his sights.”
“Get out.”
“You deserve each other,” he sneered. “The saddle bum…and his whore.”
“I said get out, Ross.” His face flushed with increased temper and when he clenched his fists at his sides, she reminded him, “Don’t forget, the house is being watched. You just might get a bullet in your belly if I start yelling.”
His startled look indicated that he’d forgotten about the guard. She wanted to laugh at his expression, but she was afraid she would cry. For a moment, she had been afraid that he would strike her.
“Fine. I’m going. Just don’t expect me to come back once Donovan shows his true colors. This was your only chance, Sarah.” Turning, he stormed down the stairs and headed for the gate.
“If you come back,” she ca
lled after him, “I’ll shoot you myself!”
He stiffened but didn’t look at her, just headed around back to where his horse was corralled. Moments later he came galloping past the house at a breakneck pace. As Sarah collapsed down into her chair, she hoped he did break his neck.
Though it was a warm night, she was shaking as if it were the middle of winter. She folded her arms close to her body and hugged herself, trying to will his hurtful words away. But they lingered in her mind like cigar smoke at the saloon.
He hadn’t really wanted her, just a woman who would be grateful enough to live under his thumb for the rest of her days. He hadn’t even considered her fit company for his girls. And he had implied that he thought she was being intimate with Donovan. Wouldn’t he be surprised, she thought with a hysterical giggle, if he knew Donovan didn’t want her as a wife? She laughed at the thought of it, laughed until she started to cry, her dreams in tatters around her.
Donovan found her that way a few minutes later, sitting curled up into herself with her eyes red and puffy from crying. He hadn’t meant to let her see him. He’d just wanted to walk off some of the fury that that still churned in him, and then decided to take a stroll past Sarah’s place to make sure she was all right.
Obviously, she wasn’t.
Her quiet sniffles bit at him like spurs on a horse. He took the steps two at a time and knelt down in front of her, touching her gently on the arm. His first thought was that Petrie had somehow gotten to her, despite the guards he had set. He glanced over her quickly, but he saw no rips in her clothing, no signs of blood. What he did see was the aching despair in her eyes.
He cursed, scooping her into his arms and then sitting down in the chair, cuddling her in his lap. He really didn’t know what to do with a crying female—but holding her seemed a damned good idea.
She turned her face into his neck, her hand resting helplessly on his chest, as her bosom rose and fell with shuddering breaths. He could feel her trembling and tightened his arms around her. What happened? Who had done this to her? Whoever it was had better damned sure stay clear of him; he was still in the mood to pound someone.
They sat that way for a while, listening to the wind whisper through the trees and the insects chirping to each other. Finally Sarah’s breathing steadied, and she raised her head from his chest.
“You can let go of me now,” she said quietly.
“I don’t want to.” He shifted, pulling his bandanna from his pocket and wiping the tears from her cheeks. “You okay now?”
She took a deep breath that hitched in her throat, then let it out slowly and nodded.
“Good.” He cupped her cheek in his palm and made her look at him. “Who hurt you, sassy girl?”
Her lips quivered, and something broke apart inside him. Lord, this woman did something to him like no one else ever had. Somehow she had gotten to him. He stroked loose tendrils of hair back from her face with a tenderness that he hadn’t known he possessed. Her eyelids slid closed, and she turned her head so that her cheek touched his hand, her expression one of utter contentment, as if all she needed was his touch to make her world complete. Emotion welled up in him, clogging his throat and making his hand tremble against her cheek.
Sweet Jesus, was this what love felt like? This need to touch her, to hold her, to rip apart anybody who hurt her? The humbling emotion seemed so much larger than anything he had ever experienced. Part of him was scared spitless. The other part of him rejoiced. Somehow Sarah had crawled inside him, changed him. And he would never be the same again.
“I had an argument with Ross,” she said. Donovan jolted at the other man’s name. He’d forgotten about Turner.
“What about?” he asked, trying to sound casual.
“He was…angry that you had posted your men to watch the house,” she explained. “He said I should have gone to him.”
“You shouldn’t have to go to him,” Donovan said, annoyed. “He should have thought of it himself, and he would have, if he’d really been concerned about your welfare.”
“I don’t think Ross is interested in anything but himself.”
Donovan raised his brows. Well, well. So Turner was showing his true colors, was he?
Sarah wiggled in his arms, distracting him. “You can let me go now,” she said.
“You don’t like me holding you?” He relished the feel of her soft bottom squirming in his lap. Another few seconds, and she was going to have him hotter than a convict after a five-year sentence.
“Your lack of social graces is showing again,” she shot back with a little of her usual spirit. “This is utterly improper.”
“Yeah, well, I like it. And I think you do, too.”
Color flooded her face. “Can’t you act like a gentleman, just once?”
“Being a gentleman is no fun, sassy girl. And if you keep rubbing yourself against me like that, I’m gonna forget everything except that I’m a man, and you’re a woman.”
She grew completely still, her back ramrod-straight. He took one look at her face and barked with laughter. Her expression was a comical combination of nervousness and feminine curiosity.
She scowled at him. “Do I amuse you?”
“All the time, sweetheart.” He raised her hand to his lips and planted a smacking kiss on her palm. She gasped and jerked her hand away, but he noticed how her fingers curled closed, as if to hold on to his kiss.
“You’re impossible,” she muttered.
“Good thing you like me that way.”
“Mr. Donovan, I never said I liked you at all.”
God, he loved that uppity tone of voice. “I guess you forgot about what I said about my name, Sarah, and the snooty way you say it.”
Her eyes widened, but by then it was too late. He cupped a hand behind her head and pulled her close for a deep, hungry kiss.
He’d been starving for this since the box social. She resisted at first, sitting rigidly in his lap. Then her mouth softened beneath his, and her fingers curled into his chest. He made a sound of pleasure and angled his head to take more of her mouth. The kiss changed, becoming softer, more intimate. Her arms slipped around his neck and he savored her, tasting her in a slow, tender blending of lips and tongue that was more than sex, more than he had ever thought himself capable of offering a woman.
She shifted in his lap, pressing her breasts against his chest and rubbing her soft buttocks against his aching erection. The blood pounded in his ears, yet he found himself cradling her against him, cherishing her rather than seducing her, enjoying the sweet torment of arousal without needing to satisfy his physical cravings.
Not that he didn’t want to, but his relationship with Sarah had taken a very complicated turn. It was emotional now as well as physical. And he wasn’t sure yet how comfortable he felt with that.
He broke the kiss, softly touching her face when she made a sound of protest. Her eyes slowly opened, and the sultry heat he saw there almost undid all his good intentions. He smiled at her. “Any more of this, sassy girl, and Sam out there is gonna get an eyeful.”
He knew the instant his words penetrated her passion-induced daze. She gasped, color blooming in her face, and she jerked out of his arms, stumbling to her feet. He let her go and watched with affectionate amusement as she grabbed the porch railing for balance, leaning against it while she regained control. He waited, knowing that when she recovered herself, she’d be back to spitting and clawing just like always.
Shaken by the powerful emotions that held her captive, Sarah grappled for control of her body and mind. The desolation and hurt caused by Ross’s words had faded, like a nightmare in the face of sunrise. But now she felt confused and vulnerable, and she didn’t know what to think.
“I don’t know what you want from me.” She glanced at him, so dark and male on her pretty white porch. The look on his face made her heartbeat quicken. She could see the way desire lingered in his eyes, the way it tightened his sharp features. His deceptively relaxed pose couldn’t
hide the tension of his body or the conspicuous bulge in the front of his pants. Yet he didn’t act on his obvious arousal, which only puzzled her more.
“I told you what I want,” he answered. “I want you, Sarah.”
“But what does that mean? Do you want me as a friend? A lover?” She twisted her fingers together. “I need to know.”
“I want you to be my wife.”
She jerked her gaze to his. “What did you say?”
He rose from the chair and came to stand in front of her. “I said I want you to marry me.”
“No more games, Jack.”
“I’m not playing games.” He stroked the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “You’re the only woman for me, Sarah. Say you’ll marry me.”
She started to speak, but the words stuck in her throat. She took a step back to put some distance between them. “Jack, if this is about Ross, I think you should know that he’s no longer interested in me.”
“He said that to you?” She nodded, and he cursed. “Did he say anything else?”
“Nothing I haven’t heard before.”
Her face must have given something away, because he pulled her into his embrace, holding her as if he would never let her go. “Don’t you listen to him, sassy girl. He’s a damned fool.”
Something long imprisoned broke free inside her at the conviction in his voice. Whatever else he thought of her, it was obvious that Jack Donovan didn’t consider her the sordid creature that other people believed her to be. But she knew what Jack wanted in a woman, and she had only just realized this evening that she could never be that woman. She could be nothing other than herself. Anything else would be a lie.
She pulled back from his tight embrace, but he kept his arms around her waist. Comforted by the sensation of being held, Sarah allowed him that.
“You say that you want me to marry you.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand, halting the words before they left his lips. “If you truly mean that, Jack, then I should tell you I have no intention of giving up the paper. It’s too important to me.”
“Keep the damned paper,” he answered. “I want you, Sarah, just as you are. Marry me.”
Donovan's Bed: The Calhoun Sisters, Book 1 Page 13
