Denim and Lace

by Rice, Patricia

  Impatience was his middle name. The sound of it in his voice now shouldn't send a shiver down her spine. Sam cast a surreptitious glance to the man sprawled—fully clothed—on top of his blankets, his hands propped behind his head as he watched her. She could go over there and lie down beside him now and get this over with. He would use those big, competent hands to undress her and then himself. Then he would straddle her body, and she would feel the weight of him pushing her into the blankets and the cold, hard ground. She couldn't fantasize any further than that.

  That was quite far enough. Her hands were shaking as she shook out her bedroll. "I want sheets and a decent bed," she informed him calmly, as if she said these kind of things every day.

  He grunted disapproval, then sat up to pull off his boots. "Bring your blankets over here," he ordered.

  Sam continued spreading them out where she was—on the opposite side of the fire from him.

  When she didn't move, he growled under his breath, picked up his own bedroll, and came around the fire. Then he went back to fetch his boots and rifle.

  She stared at him as if he were a serpent. When she wouldn't even sit down and remove her boots, Sloan's expression revealed his irritation. "We're likely to shoot each other in the cross-fire if something wakes us in the night. Lie down. I'm not going to get up in the middle of the night to rape you. I could do that no matter where I put my bedroll."

  Sam reluctantly lowered herself to the blankets. Sloan was little more than two feet away and pulling off his shirt. Her insides clenched and froze. She couldn't even bend over to remove her boots. Firelight gleamed over taut muscles and bronzed skin. She tried to tell herself she'd seen all this before, but that didn't work. Knowing she could reach out and touch him, and knowing what he wanted her to do made his presence much too real. She tried not to stare at the soft, dark fur on his chest, but her breasts tingled at the thought.

  When Sloan leaned over and jerked at her boot, Sam nearly toppled over. He held her leg with one powerful hand and pulled with the other. His touch shot straight up her leg, and she thought she would be paralyzed for certain. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the sensation when he reached for the other boot. The feeling only intensified. She could feel him right in the center of her, and it made her pretty damned uncomfortable.

  She heard amusement in his voice when he spoke. "You can open your eyes now. I'm getting between the blankets."

  "Why can't you wear underwear like everybody else?" she grumbled as she turned her back on him and pulled her blankets up. She wasn't about to sleep undressed, but she unbuttoned her pants for comfort.

  "I could ask you the same thing," he said with the same amusement. "I know you're not wearing a corset under those things. Are you wearing long johns or one of those frilly lace things? Does a lady who wears pants wear drawers?"

  "My father refuses to let us wear corsets. He says they're unhealthy. And for the rest, you'll just have to guess, won't you?"

  "Not for long," he replied with satisfaction. "By tomorrow night I'll know all your little secrets." He hesitated, then continued, "And for once, I'm in agreement with your father. All that whalebone and steel is crippling. They ought to shoot whoever invented it."

  Sam snuggled down inside her blankets, then pulled her rabbit coat over the top. It was getting damned chilly out here. "I figure a man who hates women invented corsets. It couldn't have been a woman. Women aren't allowed to invent anything."

  "Women don't have minds of their own. They like being told what to do. That's why they don't invent anything."

  Sam laughed out loud. "And women wear corsets because that's what they've been told to do. I guess men are going to have to tell them to stop wearing them."

  "That's what your father did," he said, suspicious of her good humor.

  She giggled. "So he did. And we obeyed."

  "It's good to know that you obey someone, at least." Instead of sounding satisfied, he sounded mystified.

  "When we feel like it," she admitted.

  "Are you telling me you wouldn't obey him if you didn't feel like it?"

  He was getting closer. Sam adjusted the saddle she used as pillow. "I'm telling you I wouldn't wear a corset if you paid me."

  "So by telling you not to wear a corset, your father only told you to do what you were already doing."

  "Very good," she said softly. "You'll catch on one of these days."

  "The hell I will," he answered irritably, turning his back on her. "Any woman of mine will do what I tell her or pay the consequences."

  She giggled again. "Good luck, Mr. Talbott."

  Disgruntled, he ignored her taunt.

  The shoe was on the other foot when they finally rode into town the next day. Ariposa was a run-down mining town, barely more than a shanty town, but Sam still felt self-conscious and uncomfortable riding in wearing a long gabardine skirt that hiked up over her boots to show her stockings while she sat astride. Sloan's interested looks didn't help any. A person would think he'd never seen legs before.

  It was nearly impossible to get down from her horse gracefully in this getup, and she was forced to accept Sloan's assistance. He grasped her waist as if he had every right to do so and swung her down so easily it left her breathless. She was left standing nose to chest with him, and she grimaced. He was taller than any man had any right to be. She liked it when she could look a man in the eye.

  She stepped backward hastily as soon as he released her waist. "Where do we begin?" she asked, filling in the awkwardness. She was scarcely aware of where they were or who was watching. Sloan seemed to encompass her entire world at the moment.

  He chuckled. "I know where I'd like to begin. I like that little frilly thing you're wearing behind that gawd- awful bodice. Where do you get your clothes anyway? They never fit."

  The man had more nerve than a pride of lions. Sam tugged at her bodice, trying to pull it up, but the dress had belonged to her mother, and she hadn't tucked it in enough when she'd altered it. She pulled her coat around her. "This was my mother's," she answered defiantly.

  His eyebrows raised slightly. "I get it. All those rags you've been wearing belonged to your sisters or your mother. Don't you own any gowns of your own?"

  "I outgrew them and I don't wear them much and I don't sew. Let's just get on with this, shall we? My wardrobe isn't any business of yours." Hastily, before he got the wrong idea about her poorly worded demand, she said, "Where's the first place to ask about my father?"

  "The livery. He rode a horse as hot-blooded as that one you're riding. They're not much use in the mountains, but there's a few people down here who want to raise them. Someone will remember the horse."

  Sam wondered if he was being deliberately insulting by assuming people were more likely to remember a horse than her father, but she wouldn't antagonize him by challenging him just yet. She followed him to the livery, trailing Gallant behind her.

  He was right. The men at the livery remembered the horse. They thought it had been through sometime early last summer, but they couldn't remember when. They didn't know where the owner was going when he left, either.

  Sam pulled out the miniature daguerreotype she kept in her pocket. "Is this the man?" she asked.

  The men passed the photograph around, frowned, nodded, and studied it some more. "Looks like it. Been a while, but he seems familiar."

  She wanted to stamp her feet and rage and demand that they be certain, but she merely returned the miniature to her pocket. If these men knew what they were talking about, then her father had actually left the mountain alive. She glanced hesitantly at Sloan's stony expression. Maybe she had been falsely accusing him of murder in her mind.

  She hadn't believed it of him for a long time, but it was a relief to have it confirmed. She was as bad as he was, each thinking the other capable of murder, but still making this insane agreement. She didn't like realizing they had more in common than she would admit.

  "Where now?" she murmured as they stabl
ed the horses and walked back through town.

  "The hotel."

  Alarmed, Sam halted where she was. Her skirt dragged in the dust, and she knew her brimmed felt hat scarcely resembled a lady's bonnet, but she disregarded the stares she drew. "One question is scarcely sufficient, Sloan Talbott. If that's what you consider your end of the agreement, then this whole thing is off."

  He came back and looked down at her, and she felt like the half-pint he called her. He might stand only a head taller, but he was twice as broad where it counted. She was acutely aware of the way his muscles bunched beneath his coat when he reached for her.

  He caught her arm and dragged her forward. "Your father would have stayed at the hotel," he growled. "If I have to explain everything to you, you can stay in the damned room until I'm done."

  Of course. She was too nervous to be reasonable. She would have to get a grip on herself. She hurried after him.

  The hotel clerk remembered her father from the photograph well enough. "He tried to tell the Chinamen working on the railroad that they were being exploited. He wanted them to organize and file a complaint. Never heard the like. He was lucky to escape without tar and feathers. We need that railroad."

  "Did he say where he was going?" Sloan asked without looking at Sam.

  " 'Frisco or Sacramento, I imagine. He was pretty hot under the collar about it. He got the names of the railroad board and lit out in their direction."

  Sloan laid a bill on the desk. "Give us a room. We'll be staying the night. Does Hawkins still hang around the Emporium?"

  The clerk didn't even question his command. He offered the register and let Sloan sign them in as Mr. and Mrs. "Far as I know. He's not a man whose path I mean to cross."

  Sloan slammed the pen down. "Have someone bring up a hot bath." He shouldered their saddlebags and started for the stairs.

  Sam gathered up her skirts and hurried after him. She wasn't ready to call it quits yet. She wanted to go on to San Francisco. People always remembered her father, so he shouldn't be hard to trace. They'd just seen an example of that.

  "How far is it to Sacramento?" she asked breathlessly, hurrying after Sloan's long strides as he took the stairs.

  "Your father would have figured on catching the board meeting in 'Frisco, and that's a day's ride, at least." He turned down the hall, found the door he wanted, and inserted the key.

  "Couldn't we go? It's still early morning. We could almost be there by nightfall." She was too interested in pleading her case to hesitate on the threshold. She followed Sloan in and didn't even quiver until he slammed the door behind her.

  She quivered then. Sloan stopped in front of her, and the look in his eyes was totally masculine. She could almost feel him touch her, though he hadn't lifted a hand. Her breast tingled, and she clutched her coat closed again.

  "The agreement was for Ariposa only. I'll hire Hawkins to go into 'Frisco." He dropped the saddlebags.

  She jumped an inch and continued to clutch her coat. "Maybe we could extend the agreement?" she asked tentatively, uncertain exactly as to what she meant, but hoping he'd put it into words.

  The question raised a spark of interest. Sloan removed her hat and ran a hand through her tangled hair, squeezing it between his fingers, then massaging her scalp. Sam tried to hold still, but she was quaking in her shoes. Her insides felt incredibly odd, and she wondered if she was coming down with something.

  "Forty-eight hours?" he asked speculatively.

  Her eyes widened. She'd thought she'd understood what men did to women when they got them in bed, but even horses couldn't do it for forty-eight hours. She gulped and nodded. "After we go to 'Frisco."

  She could see he didn't like that notion. He frowned and ran his hand through her hair some more. She still had the coat wrapped around her, but she could tell where he was looking. He wasn't content with looking. He dropped his hand to the front of the coat and pushed her hands aside. The coat fell open, and he pushed it back. Her bodice didn't fit tightly as it should—it hung like an old sack—but he could apparently see something that she couldn't in it. He nodded slowly.

  "All right, but we're going to ride like hell. You'd better not complain you're too sore when we get there."

  She hadn't thought about that. She'd continue not thinking about it. When he bent to pick up the saddlebags, she hurried to help him. "What about that bath you ordered?"

  "They can give it to somebody else." He threw open the door and started down the stairs at a pace Sam could barely match.

  She was going to regret this, she knew. She already regretted it. As Sloan threw the key and some money on the desk in front of the astonished clerk, she hurried out the door, hiding the color in her cheeks. She wondered what the clerk thought they'd done up there in that brief amount of time. It didn't pay to wonder.

  She had just agreed to give Sloan Talbott forty-eight hours with her behind the closed doors of a room just like that one. She hadn't paid much attention to the bed while in there, but it rose before her mind's eye now. It hadn't been a very big bed. It had just enough room for two people to lie side by side. With someone the size of Sloan, they wouldn't even have space between them. He would see to it that they wouldn't have space between them. They would be naked and on top of each other.

  Maybe she would die before this was all over. Maybe she'd just keel over dead before she had to share that bed with him. It had all seemed rather abstract before, but now that they'd spent twenty-four hours in each other's company, it was becoming a little too real.

  She heard Sloan's boots on the walk behind her. He was beside her within seconds. He didn't say anything as he let her set the pace. She knew he was there, every masculine inch of him. She just might break out in hives any minute now. She could still feel it where he'd brushed her coat aside.

  "You see to getting the horses saddled. I'm going to find Hawkins." He finally broke the silence as they reached the livery.

  Only then did she realize she hadn't even changed out of her dress. She gazed down at the skirt in dismay, then nodded dismally. It was going to be a hell of a long ride.

  Sloan lifted her chin with the side of his hand. His eyes were almost warm as they met hers. "I like the skirt. It will give me something to think about while we ride."

  Then he was gone, leaving her hot all up and down as she stared after him.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Sam had the horses saddled and ready to go by the time Sloan returned. He checked the fastenings, nodded in approval, and threw her up on her horse. He could feel her stiffen at his touch, but he didn't have time to waste on proprieties. He knew he'd just committed himself to another day and night of torment, but the price was worth it. He would simply have to make certain she didn't try this little gambit again until he'd had a taste of what she'd promised.

  He could almost look forward to chasing her damned father around the state if he knew every night he would have this redheaded witch in his bed. It was winter. Business was slow. The men wouldn't miss him for a while. He could afford a week, maybe even two, of total self- indulgence. Wasn't that what he'd worked toward— enough money to enjoy himself?

  Riding out of town behind her, watching her rear end sway in the saddle, he almost convinced himself. It didn't matter that she wasn't like any other woman he knew. It just mattered that she was a woman and willing. That's all he wanted.

  But as they rode at a steady pace across the valley, Sloan found himself pointing things out to Sam, knowing how quickly she would grasp their significance, looking forward to her eager questions. She knew considerably more about farming than he did, and more than once he had to keep her from veering off their course to ask questions at some nearby household. It had been a long time since he'd been able to converse with anyone of equal intelligence. It rather dismayed him to discover that a woman could be his match.

  Oh, Emmanuel Neely had made a pleasant conversationalist the first few nights he'd spent in town. Sloan could respect his mind if not hi
s far-fetched beliefs. But talking with Emmanuel wasn't the same as talking with Sam. Emmanuel knew everything and wasn't much interested in anyone else's opinion. Sam's mind was wide open, willing to snatch up every piece of information and work it through the incredible store of knowledge she already possessed. She dismissed popular beliefs with incisive logic, and granted careful thought to notions Sloan considered little more than superstitions.

  They still argued over the right of the railroads to lay down tracks at the cost of lives versus the necessity of growth and expedient communication when it came time to stop for the night. Sam still naively defended the argument that the end never justified the means when Sloan pulled her down from the horse.

  "I'm going to kiss you," he warned her. "You tell me if the end justifies the means when I stop."

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he merely took advantage of the situation. He closed his lips across hers and dipped his tongue inside.

  She nearly bolted from his arms. When she settled down, she responded with a surge of electricity that jolted Sloan right down to his boot heels. She'd finally learned to wrap her arms around his neck, and he lifted her to fit more exactly against him. It was like toasting himself against a hot furnace. He couldn't get enough.

  He'd only meant to shock her into shutting up, but he was having difficulty letting her go. Her unbound breasts pressed against him, and her hips wriggled for a better placement right where he ached the most. If he didn't peel her away soon, they would be rolling on the ground without benefit of even a bedroll, and certainly not bed and sheets.

  She tilted her head back to gasp for air, and he moved in on her throat. She had a lovely throat, long and slender and smelling faintly of lavender. She tasted delicious, and she made no move to stop him. Already he had his sights on a more luscious part of her anatomy—but the unwieldy bodice sagged in his way.

  It apparently buttoned up the back. He didn't have a chance of getting up beneath her heavy coat to release those buttons without raising her hackles. Sighing, Sloan finally admitted surrender. He kissed her cheek and her brow, and taking a deep breath, he lifted his head to look down at her.