Lady Sundown (#1 of the Danner Quartet)

by Nancy Bush

  “I haven’t been with Jenny!”

  “Not much you haven’t. She saw you together at her place.”

  Tremaine was speechless. He was stunned that Ella knew so much about him and Lexie, astounded that she had the nerve to upbraid him for his actions. But more than that he was growing cold and sick with the certainty that Lexie had somehow witnessed Jenny snuggling up to him on her cot. He groaned inwardly. He’d hurt Lexie in so many ways, when all he wanted to do was protect her.

  Ella was staring at him with all the fire and scorn of a wronged woman. Taking his life in his hands, he kissed her forehead soundly. “Thank you,” he said with solemn gratitude.

  Ella gazed after him in wonder. She sighed. If the old reprobate she was marrying could show an inkling of the kind of gallantry Tremaine Danner possessed, life wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  Chapter Twenty

  The train whined and wheezed as it slowed, its wheels slipping and grinding to an ear-splitting stop. The tiny mountain town was little better than the train station, hotel, and mercantile. As Lexie stepped from the puffing train, she could see the whole place in one sweeping glance.

  Her reticule stuffed securely under her arm, she walked along the weathered plankboard sidewalk to the Katieville Hotel. She was tired, hungry, and filthy. It was too bad there wasn’t time for a bath, but the train was due to pull out again in an hour. She would have to settle for a meal and a quick face-wash in the ladies’ washroom.

  A pitcher of water and a porcelain bowl sat on the counter and Lexie poured cold water into the bowl. She dipped a towel into the liquid and quickly wiped the grime from her face and neck. At least now she was in the Rockies. It wouldn’t be too long before she reached Denver.

  When she was finished, she left a coin on the counter and thanked the washroom attendant. Refreshed, she walked down the narrow hallway in the direction of the hotel dining room.

  The familiar figure lounging negligently against the archway nearly stopped her heart. Tremaine! Lexie could only stare openmouthed.

  “By God, I’ve struck her speechless,” he drawled.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you.”

  He stepped toward her, for all the world as if he owned her, and Lexie, furious, decided to set matters straight. She pulled her pistol from her pocket, letting him see she wasn’t to be trifled with.

  His blue gaze grew incredulous as he saw the pistol, barrel pointed toward the floor but trembling violently in her hand nevertheless. “You’ve got a gun? Good Lord, Lex! You don’t even know how to use one.”

  “I’m a quick learner.” If she had the nerve she would have leveled the barrel at his chest, but her experience with Jace in the carriage, so gratifyingly victorious, had left her with little taste for bluffing her way free with the gun. Not only that, if the hotel owner should spy her she would likely be arrested.

  Still, the memory and humiliation of finding Tremaine with Jenny made her burn for retribution.

  “Put that away.” Tremaine couldn’t believe his eyes. Lexie had always been wild, but he thought she’d learned something from that fancy finishing school. Strangely, this reversion to her former self pleased him, though he wasn’t eager to test her skill with a pistol.

  He held up his palms in surrender and Lexie returned the pistol to the pocket of her skirt. “How did you find me?” she asked.

  “Ella said she dropped you off at the train station. When I got there, your train hadn’t left yet, so I boarded it, too.”

  Lexie blinked. “You mean you’ve been on the train all the time?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “Because I just didn’t.”

  Lexie gazed at him helplessly. He was as dusty and travel-worn as she felt, yet he still possessed that indefinable male vitality that made her foolish heart squeeze and send echoing vibrations down her limbs. But then she remembered all his lies. With an effort she dragged her gaze from his and examined the floral pattern of the hotel carpet beneath her feet. “I’m going to Denver.”

  “I know.”

  “I won’t let you stop me,” she warned belligerently.

  His answer to this was a tolerant smile that made her want to throw herself against him, kicking and pounding. Why, oh, why, did she have to love him? It was impossible to let him weave in and out of her life, slowly destroying her respectability, yet she was powerless to do anything else. If only he loved her just a little, not like a sister, but like a woman.

  And if only he hadn’t lied about Jenny McBride.

  Lexie didn’t realize what a profound effect she was having on Tremaine as well. He felt like a man drowning. Her blond hair was tied in a rope over her shoulder, and soft wisps framed her face and stuck to her moist skin. Her lips were pink and soft, a sensual invitation that stirred his blood. Her eyes were full of green fire and joyful wonder, as if seeing him was something so miraculous she couldn’t believe it was true. His heart wrenched.

  “I’m not going back to Rock Springs,” Lexie stated positively. “I’m going to Denver to become a horse doctor.” She glared at him. “You can’t make me go back.”

  “Have I said I wanted to?”

  “No, but why else would you be here?”

  Tremaine regarded her from between narrowed lashes. Though he wasn’t about to tell her the situation at home — that would send her back to Rock Springs quicker than the speed of light — it was definitely time for a little honesty. “Because I wanted to see you.”

  Lexie hardened her heart. His hooded eyes gave nothing away and it was damn near impossible to guess his feelings. “You could have seen me any time you wanted in the past few weeks. I doubt you would chase me to Denver unless you had a good reason.”

  “Ella led me to believe that you had — uh — misunderstood me. I thought it was time we cleared up a few things up.”

  Lexie flushed. “You don’t have to feel sorry for me, Tremaine. I can take care of myself.”

  Tremaine sighed hugely. He guided her toward the hotel stairs and the private alcove. “Lexie,” he said with weary patience, his tone causing her to glance up warily just as his head bent to hers. “Shut up.”

  He was going to kiss her! Automatically, she turned her face away, infuriated that he thought he could tame her into submission by a mere kiss. What an incredibly arrogant male trick!

  His mouth never made contact with hers but, undaunted, Tremaine began an assault on the downy curve of her jaw line, right below her ear. Lexie made a pitiful sound of protest. Her hands were taut against his rigid forearms; she intended to push him away, but the sweet pleasure of his mouth gently tasting hers stopped her cold.

  “Lexie, Lexie,” he murmured, gathering her to him in an intimate way that left nothing to her imagination.

  She was not so naïve anymore. She knew where this was leading, even if he didn’t. One hand was stealing down her back, moving perilously close to her buttocks. Lexie’s face flamed. Lord, they were right out in public, in front of God and everybody! She squirmed against him. “Tremaine!” she hissed.

  His answer was a groan of pure anguish, his hands holding her to him in a thoroughly arousing way. Her knees turned to water, when he moaned, “I ache for you, Lexie. I’ve ached so long.”

  “Like you ache for Jenny McBride!” she cried, thrusting her hands against his chest.

  This time his mouth crashed down on hers with unerring accuracy. Lexie clamped her lips shut in a vain attempt to stop his sensual battery. But Tremaine persisted, sliding his bottom lip over hers, his tongue touching, testing, flicking, probing, daring her to remain unmoved.

  Liquid desire was a demon in her veins. The edges of reality blurred. Against her will, she pressed herself closer to him, her hands tightening and clenching the fabric of his shirt, little moans of frustration issuing from her throat. Her mouth opened wide for his glorious invasion and Tremaine seized the opportunity to plunder what she ga
ve.

  I love you. I love you. I love you, she thought incoherently.

  He brutally pulled his mouth the way, breathing hard, but his hands still held her pressed against him. “We can’t stay here,” he muttered unevenly.

  Lexie was half hypnotized by his heartbeat. She would have willingly done whatever he asked.

  His soft laughter jarred her well-being, but then the shaking breath he drew gave her a sense of supreme power.

  “Come on,” he said gently, holding her to him as he led her toward the stairs.

  Her foot on the bottom step, Lexie balked. “Where are we going?”

  “Upstairs. I have a room.”

  “A room?” She was appalled at his treachery. He meant to seduce her, and she had fallen into the trap so easily, so quickly. Oh, how she hated herself! “Sorry to disappoint you, Tremaine,” she said through her teeth, “but I’m leaving in less than thirty minutes!”

  His blue eyes darkened in frustration. “The hell you are! You’re staying with me.” Seeing her pain and fury, he remembered what she thought she’d witnessed. “Lexie, I never slept with Jenny McBride. I haven’t slept with another woman since that night with you.”

  “I saw you, you wretched liar! Ella told you, didn’t she? Oh, I could kill her! Let go of me! I’m tired of your sick lies!”

  “I’m not lying. I was bone tired and sound asleep that day. Jenny slipped herself in beside me, thinking I might be receptive to a little lovemaking.”

  “And you were loving her right back!” Lexie reminded him harshly, pride scalding the back of her throat.

  “Only for a moment. Until I woke up and fully realized I was with her, not you.”

  “What pretty lies. You think I’ll believe them?” Lexie’s body with quaking with emotion, and she was powerless to stop herself.

  His patience snapped. Tremaine wasn’t used to explaining himself to anybody, least of all a recalcitrant woman. “Damn it all to hell, Lexie,” he muttered, and with complete and utter arrogance, he half dragged her, half carried her, up the flight of stairs.

  “I’ll never forgive you for this!” she hissed, but Tremaine was past listening to her. He pushed open the door to his room, slung Lexie inside, then turned the lock behind him.

  She glared as he stalked toward her.

  “This is not happening to me,” she said in disbelief. “You can’t seriously think I’ll stay here with you.”

  He lifted an implacable eyebrow, grabbed a wooden chair, placed it between her and the door, straddled it backward, and waited.

  The train whistle sounded and Lexie dashed to the window. She tugged on the sash, swore, and finally pushed it upward. The filmy lace curtains fluttered in the mountain breeze. The sky was as blue as the gentians flourishing in the hilly meadow at the edge of Katieville. And the drop to the ground was a bone-breaking thirty feet.

  She swore pungently beneath her breath. Tremaine laughed. “Come here, my love, and stop talking like a railroad man. It’s hardly fitting for a Miss Everly—”

  “Oh, shut up and let me think.”

  The truth was, the way he’d said “my love” had disarmed her, and Lexie, certain she would regret it a thousand different ways, was beginning to enjoy this interlude with the man she loved. But she’d rather die a horrible death that admit as much. She had to think, and think hard, to save the rags of her respect.

  “Lexie.” Tremaine’s voice had grown alarmingly quiet.

  She stiffened her shoulders and refused to look at him. Her every sense was attuned to him and, when she heard him move, she whipped around wildly, ready to make a dash for the door. But he only shifted position in the chair, and the amused look on his face at her abrupt move infuriated her.

  Then she remembered the pistol. Deftly she reached into her pocket only to find it gone!

  “Looking for this?” he asked innocently, pulling it from the pocket of his buckskin breeches.

  “You slimy, miserable, blackhearted, cheating—”

  “Bastard?” he offered helpfully.

  “I truly hate you.”

  “The last time we were together” — he glanced meaningfully toward the bed — “you said you loved me.”

  “Well, I wasn’t thinking straight then,” she flared. “That was a terrible moment in my life! You had just — used me — and I —”

  The chair suddenly banged against the door with such a harsh, furious clatter that Lexie gasped. Tremaine had thrown it. Before she could move, he strode over to her and encircled her wrists with his hands. “Used you?” he repeated in a dangerous tone. “I used you?”

  Lexie had the grace to blush. “Well, I suppose I was partly to blame,” she admitted tautly.

  “And it just kills you to admit it. Well, to hell with reasoning with you.” His hands slid sensuously up her arms, causing goosebumps to rise in their wake, and rested lightly on her collarbone, his thumbs rubbing across the lacy cotton of her shirtwaist. “Kiss me, Lexie,” he ordered softly.

  “Of all the nerve! Whatever you want, you’ll have to take,” she challenged boldly.

  His eyes glittered dangerously. Without another word he captured her mouth again. Lexie closed her eyes and shivered inwardly. She realized belatedly that she’d tendered just the invitation he’d been waiting for.

  He was ruthlessly determined, sinfully persuasive. Lexie felt the heat of his marauding tongue on her lips and in the deep recesses of her mouth. He kissed her expertly and thoroughly, eliciting a response she continued to fight even when she knew the battle was already lost.

  “Lexie,” he whispered, his mouth now leaving flaming kisses on the arch of her throat. Dimly, she realized that he was no detached seducer; the timbre of his voice declared he was just as affected as she was.

  Her heart lifted. This was what she wanted! She opened glazed green eyes and met his wordless gaze. This time when his mouth moved persuasively over hers she responded, lifting her face to his gentle prodding. Her hands stole around his neck and locked themselves in the silky richness of his hair.

  “God, Lexie,” he murmured, shaken.

  They seemed to sink to the bed as one. She’d forgotten how much she wanted him, but now she seemed to ache in a hundred different places. She felt the whisper of her shirtwaist and skirt against her skin, the quick, expert unlacing of her drawers, the cool removal of her chemise. She was undressed and unabashedly naked beside him before she really gave the matter any thought. When she did think about it, she lifted her hands protectively to cover her ivory breasts.

  “Don’t.” The breath-stopping tone of his voice made her drop her hands.

  “Aren’t you” — she licked her lips nervously — “going to take off your clothes, too?”

  “In a minute.” He smiled, then kissed her so reverently that Lexie could only lie still beneath him in passive bemusement. His tongue drove into her mouth, filling it, then withdrawing. His hand caressed her breast, squeezing the nipple, bringing it to a hard button. Lexie whimpered, but instead of releasing her, his fingers moved downward and slipped into the heat of her, matching the action of his tongue, plunging and withdrawing.

  Lexie was no proof against his sensual invasion. She gave herself up to him, her head tossing to and fro on the pillow, her hands reaching for him, drawing her to him. Feeling her surrender, Tremaine lay on his side, pulling her toward him. Lexie’s eyes were slumberous jade gems as she gazed at him with love. He inhaled swiftly.

  “Help me,” he suggested in an oddly restrained tone. At her uncomprehending look, he brought her fingers to the buttons of his shirt. She undid them quickly, pulling the shirt over his broad shoulders, marveling at the smooth, hard texture of his muscles.

  She tried to pull his mouth down to hers but he emitted a sound that was part laughter, part groan. “What about the rest?” he asked.

  “The rest?” she repeated blankly.

  This time he drew her hands down to the buttons of his breeches. Daringly, hardly aware of what she was doin
g, Lexie touched straining evidence of his manhood through the soft buckskin. Tremaine’s arms tightened around her. Thrilled with this unexpected sense of power, Lexie undid the buttons and explored him some more.

  Her tentative, innocent touch drove him wild. “Lexie,” he muttered on a strangled laugh.

  “What?”

  His blue eyes were slits when they gazed down at her. Her own eyes were filled with suppressed laughter. Tremaine almost laughed aloud. She knew what she was doing, the little minx!

  “Don’t I please you?” she asked, running her hand over his flesh in a silky, sinuous movement. For an answer he threw her on her back and she had just drawn in a breath of laughter when his knee was wedging itself between her legs.

  “Yes, you please me, as you well know,” he growled. “God, where did you learn to be so bold?”

  “From the man I love.”

  She hadn’t meant to tell him again but the words sprang from her heart. Tremaine’s touch grew incredibly gentle, his mouth moving down her heated flesh to cover one rosy nipple. Lexie moaned and arched, her fingers digging into his back. He moved with a tormenting slowness that had her twisting and turning and softly crying his name.

  When he entered her it was with infinite patience, torturous gentleness. Moaning, Lexie arched her hips, her hands pulling his hips to her. Tremaine slid into her welcoming warmth and moved slowly, rhythmically. The pace was too slow for Lexie, but Tremaine refused to be cajoled to move faster no matter how frantic with need her clawing fingers were, no matter how exciting her soft whimpers were, no matter how pleasurable her thrusting hips were.

  “Tremaine,” she gasped, her face fevered and flushed. “Love me. Please, love me.”

  And then he plunged into her, full-length, bringing a strangled cry of pure pleasure from her throat. Lexie hit her tumultuous climax so quickly and so thoroughly that Tremaine, who had always prided himself on offering pleasure before taking pleasure himself, felt his own throbbing release only seconds later, her name torn from his lips in an agonized gasp.