by Gigi Moore
He wondered if maybe he should be enthusiastic himself.
It was after all always better to keep one’s friends close and one’s enemies even closer.
Wyatt had yet to decide into which category Dakota fell.
Chapter 6
Since the infamous day in the hallway with Wyatt, Lily did everything she could to avoid Dakota. Except for the times of days when she checked his bandages and brought him food and drink, she barely spoke to him or put herself in his company more than necessary.
She needed space and time to sort out her feelings for Wyatt and Dakota, and being in the same house with the two men to whom she found herself irrevocably attracted did nothing to help her emotional equilibrium.
Lily had never been so torn in her life. She had never been indecisive about what she wanted. From the time when she was a little girl and had discovered the joys of reading as well as growing up near Wyatt, she had been sure about three things in her life. She knew that she wanted to be a teacher and share her joy of learning with other children, quenching their thirst for knowledge as she quenched her own, and she knew that she wanted to be a wife to Wyatt and a mother to his children. She hadn’t had any more elaborate plans beyond being the best teacher, wife, and mother that she could be.
Her attack, rescue, and time with the Kiowas had changed all that, rearranging her priorities until she didn’t know whether she was coming or going.
Now Lily thought if she could make it from one day to the next without grieving all that she and Wyatt had lost, she was having a good day.
She wanted more than good, though. She wanted more than just existing and moving through life, insubstantial and empty, like a ghost, as Rebel had put it.
Lily looked out the window on the sun-soaked late-spring day as Wyatt tilled the acres of their rich fields. Even this early in the growing season, and despite the recent drought, she could see the harvest looked like it was going to be a good one and it was due to no small effort on Wyatt’s part.
She had no complaints where that was concerned. Whether a cowboy, carpenter, farmer, or in the capacity of any other trade at which he had tried his hand, Wyatt had always been a capable, hard worker and a good provider. What he lacked in the areas of verbalizing how and what he felt, he more than made up for with his actions and ethics.
Lily watched him lean on the handle of the shovel he had been using to dig. He tipped the Stetson he was wearing back on his head and wiped the back of a hand across his moist forehead.
She followed a trail of perspiration as it made its way down from his temple, to his chiseled jaw, and farther down the front of his throat where it disappeared beneath the red bandana he wore tied around his neck. She swallowed hard at the view, her nipples tightening when she remembered the way Wyatt had pushed himself against her in the hallway. He hadn’t hurt her, nor had he been too rough. He had been just rough enough to rouse her desire and make her hot and moist between her legs for him.
He hadn’t touched her like that in a long time, with the kind of urgent need that called out to her soul and everything in her that was female. He hadn’t made her pussy throb with longing for him since before the attack.
Lily understood Wyatt’s hesitancy and fear to initiate intimacy since she’d come back, but she’d wanted him right then more than she ever had before. Yet, her desire for her husband hadn’t dampened her desire for the exotic man who lay in their guest room just several feet away with Doctor Malloy tending to his wound. If anything, Wyatt’s possessive behavior toward her made her greedy enough to want two men at the same time. Not just any men, of course, but her husband and Dakota.
Lily shook her head against the decadent thoughts and wondered if there was anything to the stories she’d heard about Maia, her husband Doctor Malloy, and his brother Cade. If there was, how in the world did Maia handle it? How could any woman handle trying to please not just one man but two?
Maybe she was looking at it all wrong, though. Maybe it wasn’t just about her pleasing them, but them pleasing her. Two sets of skilled hands, two hungry mouths, and two probing tongues roaming her body…the possibilities were absolutely sinful and unimaginable.
Maybe, too, it wasn’t just about the physical pleasure that the three of them gave each other, but the emotional comfort and support. Speaking from experience, Lily knew the latter two were just as important in a relationship as the former, sometimes more important.
Would Wyatt ever agree to such an unholy trinity? Who was to say that Dakota wanted her enough to risk Wyatt’s wrath or that he wanted to fly in the face of convention that way?
God, this was a mess, but she didn’t regret making Wyatt bring Dakota back home so that they could take care of him. She would never regret that. She wouldn’t have been able to live with herself had they left Dakota out in the woods to die knowing that there was something they could have done to prevent it. Despite Wyatt’s animosity toward Indians, she knew he felt the same way and wasn’t as hard-hearted as he pretended to be with Dakota.
Lily blinked against the almost blinding sun to focus on the tall, well-muscled figure of her husband as he began to plow the earth again with the shovel. He had taken off his shirt and for a long moment she just watched him work, admiring his tanned skin taut over powerful back muscles and his flexing biceps as he dug, turned, and lifted shovels full of dirt.
Before her attack, Lily would have been right out there beside him, if not helping Wyatt then providing him with a midday snack and a cool glass of lemonade to quench at least one of his thirsts while she satisfied herself sneaking appreciative glances his way. Since she had returned, however, Lily had been relegated to doing only her “woman’s work” and restricted mostly to the house as if Wyatt was trying to hide her away from the world.
Sometimes she wondered if it was to protect her or because he was ashamed of her.
Wyatt allowed her to continue doing her usual domestic chores like care for the poultry, make butter, garden, sell eggs, provision the household with the staples of meat, eggs, bread, vegetables, and fruit, and pay for food items such as spices, cornmeal, coffee, and clothing. These were the household tasks without which their farm wouldn’t thrive and which were essential to their overall survival.
Wyatt, however, drew the line at her helping him in the fields with the crops and dealing with the large livestock the way she used to.
Helping Wyatt in the fields had been one of her biggest joys in life and had never felt like work to her since she didn’t consider spending time with her husband a chore, even if she was spending it doing heavy lifting. She was a fit woman, always had been. She didn’t take pleasure in idleness and she liked to stay active. Next to teaching and her and Wyatt’s sex life, her time in the fields with her husband during the days had been something to which Lily looked forward.
She had never been into neighboring, a common practice in which the married women in the territory took part that involved visiting and providing comfort and friendship in the absence of their husbands. Since her return she was even less apt to participate in this activity. She didn’t have anything against neighboring or the other women. She just didn’t have that much in common with them anymore despite growing up just outside of Elk Creek like a majority of them. She had been changed by her experiences. She was a different woman, and except for the independent and bold women in Elk Creek like Maia, Sabrina, and Rebel, Lily could no longer relate to the other females.
With the heavy farming taken away from her since Wyatt seemed to think she was too fragile to handle anything more demanding than her female chores, Lily had much more time on her hands to fret about the situation with her husband and Dakota.
Lily sighed and let the curtain fall back into place over the window, shutting out her vision of Wyatt moist with perspiration and working beneath the afternoon sun. When she turned from the window she found Dakota standing not several feet behind her and slapped a hand over her bosom with a gasp. “Goodness, you scared the bejesus
out of me!”
“I am sorry, Lilybelle. It was not my intention.”
“What are you doing out of bed anyway?” Lily closed the space between them and put a hand under his elbow, easily leading him toward the nearest chair as if it was the most natural thing in the word for her to do.
She caught his smile as he took a seat, and suspected that she had only succeeded in getting him to sit down because he had allowed her to manhandle him. His next words confirmed this suspicion.
“You have the perfect personality for a school teacher.”
“Is that a nice way of calling me bossy?”
“Is that what you are? I would call you…persuasive.”
Lily chuckled. She liked his playful tone and the teasing gleam in his blue eyes. “Yes, persuasive. That’s a good word to describe me, I guess. It’s certainly a diplomatic way.”
“Why have you never returned to teaching?”
Lily shrugged and took a seat on the sofa opposite the chair he was sitting in. “It wouldn’t be a good idea.”
Dakota frowned, and before he could express the question she saw forming, Lily asked, “Do all your people kajika the way you do?”
His eyes widened and she laughed at his shocked expression.
“I picked up a few things while I was with the Kiowas.”
“I am sure you picked up more than a few things.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Yes, walking with no sound is a skill that many of my people learn at an early age.”
She wanted to ask him where his people were and why he wasn’t with them. She wanted to ask him what had happened to him out in the woods the evening she and Wyatt found him.
She suddenly realized that she knew next to nothing about Dakota. She wanted to remedy that. She was interested in him and wanted to know as much about him as she would want to know about anyone she considered a friend.
A friend with whom you want to be more.
“I missed the pleasure of your company,” Dakota whispered, answering her initial question, and Lily felt her heart skip several beats in her chest. “I missed your voice, especially when you sing.”
She shrugged, too choked up to say anything.
“Why would returning to teach not be a good idea?”
Lily smiled at how easily he changed the subject. Evidently, Dakota didn’t have the same qualms about asking her questions that she had about asking him questions. “I’m not the same person I was several years ago. Things have happened.”
“Does it have anything to do with why you and Wyatt are so distant from each other?”
“You picked up on that, did you?”
Now it was Dakota’s turn to shrug. “It was difficult to miss.”
Heat surged to her face and she lowered her head. She wanted to crawl under the floorboards and hide when she remembered the way she had confided in this man over the last few days while he had been unconscious. Aside from picking up things from her and Wyatt’s behavior toward one another, she was sure he had caught and instinctively retained some things she had said to him.
“Please do not be ill at ease.”
She raised her head to see him sitting beside her when he grasped her hand in his. She hadn’t even heard or seen him move. She was awed by his skill as she had never mastered the art of kajika and doubted that she would no matter how long she had stayed among the Kiowas. She had learned the tribe’s language and some daily rituals and special ceremonies, but her white skin and blood always made her an outsider.
At four her son had been more of a natural Kiowa than she had, but then it was all he had ever known. The tribe was his people, his family. He’d lived among them since his birth and he’d died with them.
Lily’s free hand flew to her mouth to smother an unexpected sob. She had thought by now that she had gotten over the loss, but every now and then the grief crept up to choke her with its cruelty. It reminded her of the little life she had barely gotten to know. It reminded her of the little boy that Wyatt had been deprived of knowing at all.
Despite everything, Lily knew she had been blessed, if only for the four years of her son’s life she had shared with him. At least she had gotten to know Little Wyatt. She had gotten to love her son as much as she loved his father. For the longest time the idea and finally the reality of Little Wyatt had been the only thing that had kept her going, the only thing that had given her something to look forward to in the mornings besides learning Indian customs and adjusting to her new life with an Indian tribe.
“Tell me how I can make things better for you, Lily, and I will do it.” Dakota lightly squeezed her hand.
Lily blinked to try and clear the tears from her eyes, but it didn’t help. She stared at him through tear-blurred vision, tasting the salt as several drops slid down her face and she automatically licked her lips.
Dakota cupped her face with one hand and caught some of the deluge with his thumb, gently massaging her cheekbone.
The slow, steady motion hypnotized her as much as his intense expression. Her breath caught in her chest and her nipples tightened as they had the night before with Wyatt.
When Dakota leaned toward her a moment later, she wasn’t surprised. Her body vibrated with anticipation and he finally placed his mouth against hers. Lily parted her lips, making room for the tip of his tongue as if welcoming him home.
She tilted her head to one side and closed her eyes as his tongue explored just inside the entrance of her mouth. He circled the rim of her lips like a bee buzzing around before it pollinates a flower. When his tongue finally thrust inside, Lily groaned and turned her body into his, seeking his heat. She moved her hands up to his head, sliding her hands into his ebony hair, the strands just as silken as but much longer than Wyatt’s.
He was so different from Wyatt yet not, and as Lily squeezed her eyes tight as if to deny and shut out the sin she was committing, she saw her husband and Dakota before her mind’s eye, their features melding and shifting until there was just one perfect man in her arms kissing her—a perfect man with Dakota’s blue eyes and Wyatt’s azure eyes, a perfect man with Dakota’s shiny dark hair and Wyatt’s full, golden-blond hair, a perfect man with Dakota’s copper skin and Wyatt’s olive skin.
Dakota’s touch grew more insistent, one hand sliding down to cup the base of her skull with restrained force as he pressed her face against his to deepen the kiss.
Lily panted against his mouth, tangling her tongue with his in a duel of desperation and relief. Her heart pounded behind her rib cage, and she felt liquid heat flow into her underwear when Dakota’s other hand found one of her breasts and caressed the underside just enough to make her nipples painfully stand at attention.
What was she doing? What if Wyatt walked in?
These thoughts, however, did nothing to slow her progress or change the inevitable path she had been on from the moment she and Wyatt found Dakota injured in the woods and decided to bring him home to nurse back to health.
Her touch now had nothing at all to do with nursing his body and everything to do with nursing her soul and appeasing the throbbing ache between her legs.
Lily broke the kiss, but only long enough to bury her face in the crook between Dakota’s neck and shoulder. She took a deep breath, infusing her senses with his fresh woodsy aroma—familiar, so familiar—an intoxicating mix of his own scent and the freshly laundered shirt he wore that still bore a whiff of Wyatt.
Her memories of another night in the woods clashed with her memories of finding Dakota in the woods just several days ago. The memories came into and went out of focus, shifting and blurring until she didn’t know what reality was and what reality wasn’t.
Dakota framed her face with both hands, searching her gaze with his. “You are so beautiful, Lily, so brave and strong. You deserve so much better than what you have been given. I wish that I could give you what you deserve. I wish that you were mine.”
She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’
t make her sound like she wanted to have her cake and eat it, too. She knew very well how Dakota felt. He had been making it painfully clear since they’d brought him home. She felt the same way. She wanted to belong to him and Wyatt. She wanted both men to belong to her in the only ways that counted, and how wrong was all that?
She was a married woman! She had a man who loved her, a man she loved. Why couldn’t she be satisfied with that when so many women in the territory had no men at all or had lost their men to disease, war, and other societal ills?
God would certainly strike her down for being so greedy, for wanting more than one woman could ever need in a lifetime, more than her fair share.
Dakota leaned in again to kiss her and she put a hand on his chest to stop him. The frantic beating against her palm excited and pleased her as much as it filled her with a sense of dismay and hopelessness. “I love my husband,” she murmured. The instant the words left her mouth, Lily heard a floorboard in the front vestibule creak beneath the weight of a distinctive boot.
She gasped and jerked her head toward the door, gaze wide and searching.
“Lily?”
She stood from the sofa, barely hearing Dakota address her above the wild pulsation of her heart. She drifted toward the doorway, dread suffusing her as she reached the doorjamb and paused on the threshold. She took a deep breath before stepping into the hallway, not knowing what to expect.
No one was there.
Lily didn’t know whether or not to be relieved.
Could the noise have been her imagination running wild because of her guilty conscience? Had the savage who attacked her gotten bold and, believing her alone again, returned for more after all this time?
“What is it, Lily?”
She felt Dakota’s steadying hand on her shoulder as he stood behind her, but his touch did precious little to comfort her because she knew in her heart her worst nightmare had come true.
Wyatt had seen them kissing.
Chapter 7
