That’s when something dropped out of the tree above her, took her from her saddle as he fell with her to the ground, knocking her breathless.
Cayenne screamed in terror, struggling for her life as her face pressed into the dry sand. Indians! Indians!
As she fought her hat came off, tumbling her red hair down around her shoulders, and her attacker abruptly paused, chuckling softly. “Well, I’ll be damned!”
He rolled her over, still sitting astraddle her slim waist. It was Maverick.
She sighed with abrupt relief, sure he could feel her heart still thudding against his thigh. “Oh, Lord, you scared me! I thought I was about to lose my scalp!”
But he made no attempt to move, still sitting astride her small body. He tipped his hat back. “Cee Cee, you’re lucky to be alive! I almost picked you off with my rifle before it occurred to me if there was a war party anywhere close, I didn’t want to give away my position. You whistle like a man!”
She struggled a little, getting more annoyed by the minute. “Well, I’m not, as you can plainly see! How long ago did you spot me?”
He made no attempt to move, looking down at her in amusement. “The minute I left Wichita. Don’t ever try to sneak up on a Comanche, Rebel.”
Cayenne frowned with anger and distaste, remembering that she hated them. “Comanche! You’re Comanche?”
For a moment, she thought he would deny it. The look that crossed his rugged features betrayed that he hated them as much as she did. Did he have as much reason to?
But instead of answering her question, he said, “I thought you were a drygulching hombre plannin’ to rob me, not knowing I left the herd money with the bank.”
She struggled again, his weight getting heavier by the minute. His thighs were warm, gripping her slim body so that they pressed into the sides of her breasts. “My stars! Do I look like a man?”
She didn’t realize her shirt was partially opened until she followed his gaze, knowing he looked down at the soft curve of her breasts. She felt his manhood swell and grow hard against her body.
“No, Cee Cee, you sure don’t. But from a distance and in men’s clothes . . .” He took a deep breath, grinning. “Vanilla. If I hadn’t been upwind from you, I’d have known you by your perfume.”
Now that she wasn’t frightened, she felt hot, tired, and angry. “Get off.”
“What?”
He made no move to obey her, his gaze still on the open neck of her shirt. As she struggled, she gasped for breath, and he smiled as her breasts moved when she breathed.
“Dammit!” Cayenne lost her temper completely now. “You’re supposed to be a gallant Texas gentleman! Get up!”
Now it was his turn to look annoyed, but he made no attempt to move. “Just what is it gonna take, miss, to get you to stop trailing after me like a lost calf?”
“I resent that!” She tried to pound on his thighs with her fists but his knees pinned her arms.
“Resent all you want!” He shrugged but he didn’t move. “I’ve behaved like a gentleman almost as much as I can, Cee Cee. I’m just a man after all and you keep throwing yourself at me. . . .”
“Throwing myself?” She almost shouted, “Throwing myself! You just knocked me from my saddle, crawl all over me, and you say I was ’throwing myself’?”
The amusement left his face, and when he frowned, she realized suddenly how menacing that scar made him look. “I can’t decide whether to pull your breeches down and spank you until there’s red prints all over that nice little behind or show you what a man can do when he loses control.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” She was a little frightened now and not sure what he might do. After all, she had tried his patience and they were a long way from town.
“Don’t push me, Reb,” he whispered. “Don’t ever push me!” His hand came down very slowly. One finger stroked along the open neck of her shirt.
“Stop that.” She was both frightened and excited at the feel of his fingers stroking her bare skin. She was helpless, she realized suddenly. He could do whatever he wanted to her and she wasn’t big enough to stop him.
His fingers stroked the rise of her breasts. Did she want to stop him? Cayenne wouldn’t even admit to herself how good it felt, that she had to fight her body to keep from arching up against the tips of his fingers.
“Maybe if I scared you enough, you’d stay in Wichita where you belong!”
His words snapped her out of the thrill that had gradually enveloped her emotions, and her temper got away from her. “They didn’t name me Cayenne for nothing!” she said, and before he realized what she was up to, she turned her head and sank her teeth in his thigh right at the knee.
“By damn!” He jumped up, rubbing at his leg, looking down at her. “What’re you tryin’ to do? You bite like a coyote bitch!”
Cayenne scrambled to her feet. “It’s all a damned Yankee sympathizer deserves,” she sniffed, pushing the tumble of hair out of her eyes.
He attempted to pull his pants leg up to see the bite but the pants were too narrow.
Had she really hurt him? She felt sudden concern. “Here, let me look.”
He brushed her away. “No, you’ve done enough damage. I swear, I knew it was gonna be a rotten day when I first got out of my bedroll. If you were a man—”
“I know, that saloon girl said you would have killed me already.” Her curiosity got the best of her. “Is that girl good at what she does?”
“What?” He stopped and looked at her. “That’s no question for a lady.”
Cayenne came over, looking up at him with frank interest. “I’d still like to hire you.”
“Haven’t we been over this before just a couple of hours ago back in town?”
She could tell by his expression that he was looking right down into the open neck of her shirt. She wore nothing beneath it. “I’ve offered eighteen dollars and twenty-five cents. That’s almost a month’s pay for a trail hand.”
His expression changed to one of desire. His eyes turned smoky gray like campfire ashes shielding banked coals. She felt the color rise to her cheeks but she made no move to button her shirt.
“Lady,” he murmured, “I’m the trail boss. I come higher than that.”
Cayenne couldn’t stop looking at his lips, remembering the taste of them, remembering the embrace of his powerful arms. Behind him thunderheads built on the horizon, the pair of eagles whirling and screaming above them in a sky the color of faded denim.
He looked up at them and his expression changed, as if he were remembering some other time, some other place. He whispered something she didn’t understand.
“What?”
“Eagle’s Flight,” he said softly in English, still watching the majestic birds wheeling in lazy circles overhead. Then he shook his head abruptly, as if chasing away some memory that hurt too much, and looked back at her. “Just what in the world am I supposed to do with you now, Cayenne?”
Kiss me. The words came to her mind unbidden as she stood looking up at him. But she said, “I—I don’t know. We’re a long way from town. Maybe I could ride along with you and we’ll talk about it?”
Kiss me, her heart said again, and he looked at her as if he’d heard it. The blood pounded so hard through her veins she wondered if she heard that, too. He moved close enough for her to feel the virile heat radiated by his muscular body.
“Maverick,” she whispered, her hand going up to cover her heaving breasts. “Maverick, I—”
She went into his arms then without realizing it, just because they opened for her, and her lips turned up to his as his mouth covered hers, demanding, dominating.
His tongue probed hotly between her lips as her head tilted backward, and his big hands burned through the thin fabric of her clothes as he pulled her hard against him.
Cayenne ran her hands around his neck into the open throat of his shirt. She couldn’t stop herself from pressing against him all the way down their bodies, and she felt his hard manh
ood pulsating against her. She was both afraid and excited, and suddenly she trembled violently.
He held her out from him at arm’s length, breathing heavily. “I—I must be loco! To even think about tumbling you in the grass like some cheap whore!”
She felt the blood rush to her face at her own unchecked, innocent passion. “Well, if we’re going to be married anyhow—”
“What?” He looked at her blankly.
She gestured. “You know. Aren’t you accepting my offer?”
“Now wait just a minute. No one said anything about marriage. . . .”
“My stars! I did, too!” She felt both humiliation and anger. No, maybe it was disappointment at the way he was backing off like a skittish wild mustang. “My papa doesn’t have any sons, only five girls. He could use a son-in-law to take over and run the ranch.”
Maverick looked bewildered and backed off. “Whoa now! You mean what you said back in Wichita, you meant marriage?”
He sounded incredulous, which puzzled her. Of course she had meant marriage. She had a sudden vision of Papa’s little country church all decorated with Blue Bonnets, scarlet Indian Blanket and Indian Paintbrush blooms.
She smiled at him, imagining him all dressed up, reaching out to her as she came down the aisle in white. “I come with a dowry,” she said hopefully. “The Lazy M’s a nice spread. Like I said, I’ve got four little sisters and no brothers to inherit it.”
“I think we’re back where we started,” Maverick said wryly, reaching into his vest for cigarette “makins.” “I don’t need a ranch, Cayenne. Maybe you didn’t understand. I’m the old Don’s adopted son. I come in for a share of the Triple D.”
The giant Triple D empire that spread across two counties, and she’d been trying to buy him with eighteen dollars or the dowry of her papa’s modest ranch!
“I feel like a fool.” She brushed her hair back and gestured helplessly. “I. . . . don’t know what to say. You could have told me your last name was Durango.”
He rolled a cigarette expertly one-handed. “Last names never seemed to have come up today, Miss—? Miss—?”
“McBride,” she answered haughtily. “Cayenne Carol McBride. And I suppose now that you’ve let me completely humiliate myself, I’ll just get my horse, ride back to Wichita, and try to find someone else. . . .”
“McBride,” he said softly, the cigarette halfway to his lips. “McBride. A common-enough name, I reckon.”
“I reckon,” she agreed, leaning over to pick up her hat off the ground. “Why, do you know a McBride?”
His hand seemed to tremble as he stuck the cigarette between his lips. “No. I never met a man by that name.” His tone seemed suddenly hostile, guarded. “The family’s from Texas?”
She reached for the bay’s reins. “You should know from my politics that we’re not just Texans, we’re Southerners.”
He lit a match with his thumbnail and studied her with a searching look that made her uneasy. “Couldn’t be,” he murmured so softly, and she was not quite sure she caught the words.
“What did you say?” Cayenne watched him smoke and study her, as if really seeing her for the very first time. The storm clouds built even higher behind him, all silver gray and lavender. Above, the eagles flew up into the sun until they were only tiny black dots against the golden light.
“I guess I’ll be heading back to town,” she sighed regretfully when he didn’t answer but just stared at her. She patted the bay’s nose. “Papa Joe’s going to be awfully disappointed when I don’t get there.”
“Say that again?” There was something about his expression that scared her. It was a mixture of shock—no, something worse; something dark and ugly.
He was only weary and put out with her, that was all. She supposed he couldn’t be blamed for that. Cayenne had created problems for him. “I said Papa Joe would be disappointed—”
“Cayenne,” he said very slowly, deliberately, “just where is your family from?”
She checked her stirrup, made ready to mount. “Kentucky. I told you Papa was a Southerner.”
Maverick had gone loco from the heat. At least that was her first thought from the look on his face. She was even more startled by the way he threw his head back and laughed long and loud. “Well, I’ll be damned!” he said. “I’ll be damned! All these years lookin’ and to think we almost passed and went our ways without knowing—”
“I don’t understand,” she shrugged. “Have you met my papa?”
She couldn’t read his expression. “No,” Maverick said, and he hesitated. “But maybe we had a mutual acquaintance once a long time ago.”
“Oh?” Cayenne brightened. “Well, that’s almost the same as knowing him! Isn’t it a small world after all?”
He blew smoke like an angry dragon. “It’s probably not even the same Joe McBride.”
Cayenne felt sudden hope. “Maybe it is,” she said, smiling. “Did your friend say Joe was a preacher? He’s met a lot of men that way.”
A look of regret crossed Maverick’s dark face as he smoked. “My friend thought very highly of Joe McBride.” Then her words seemed to sink in and the half-breed shook his head in apparent amazement. “Preacher? Your old man’s a preacher?”
“Just when the circuit rider doesn’t get there.” She tied her horse to a bush and came over to Maverick.
“A preacher,” he said to himself. “A preacher!” And then he laughed and laughed. “I never would have thought to look in a church!”
Cayenne reddened. “Don’t you laugh at my papa! He’s brave and good! Why, when the Comanche—”
No, she’d better not tell that. Maverick’s relatives might have been involved that terrible time eight months ago.
He tossed away the cigarette with a deliberate gesture and came over to her. “Does your offer still hold?”
She blinked in confusion. “You mean, the eighteen dollars and—”
“No,” he said very coldly, “your body!”
“That’s a crude way to put it, but if you’re asking if I’d marry you to get escort home, why—”
“No, baby, that’s not what you said, that’s not what you offered me.” Before she could say anything else, he grabbed her, pulling her into his embrace, and his hot mouth came down to cover hers.
For only a moment, she went stiff in his arms as he kissed her, as his hands ran up and down her back. Of course he was putting it badly; he meant marriage. After all, he’d been so gallant before and he and Papa shared a mutual friend.
But all she could think of was the taste of his mouth burning into hers as he caught her small face between his two big hands, holding her so she couldn’t move. His tongue flicked along her lips, teasing, tantalizing.
Swinging her up in his arms, Maverick’s gaze burned into hers with fire lust that left no doubt what he was thinking.
“Not—not here,” she protested weakly. His chest heaved as he breathed deeply, looking down at her with an expression that confused her. Was it passion? Anger? Hate? But she’d done nothing to make him hate her with the cold steel glint she saw in his eyes.
“You made me a deal, remember? I want payment in advance!”
She hadn’t expected this treatment from the gallant cowboy. Something had happened to change him. Cayenne felt his heart thudding against her breast as she swung there in his arms. His face moved lower, his breath warm against her bare skin as he moved to nuzzle her shirt open.
“Maverick, I—I don’t know—”
“Don’t tell me no,” he commanded, carrying her with masterful strides to the grass in the shade of the trees. “Baby, don’t tell me no! Not as bad as I want you!”
As big as he was, could she stop him if she tried? The eagles screamed again and her eyes flickered open, looked up. Maverick looked up, too.
The smaller eagle whirled so that her golden breast turned upward to the sky. As she plummeted toward the earth, the great male caught her claws in his, locked with her.
Caye
nne watched the birds locked together, plummeting toward the earth. “What’s happened?” She sat up in alarm. “They’ll fall! They’ll die!”
“No, they won’t.” He smiled mysteriously at her, and past his shoulder she saw the eagles suddenly part, flying up into the sun again. “Eagles mate in midair, in flight.”
She looked from the majestic birds to his face, knowing what was coming even before he enveloped her in his arms and fumbled with the buttons of her shirt. And as his hot mouth came down to cover her breast, she gasped, arching up against the heat of his tongue on her nipple. “Oh, Maverick, Maverick! You shouldn’t!”
But though her mind protested, her body pressed up against his heat, against his stroking hands.
“Love me, baby,” he commanded. “Love me!”
“I don’t know how!” She ran her hand inside his shirt, along his ropy muscles, hating herself for her ignorance. “I never—”
“Just relax and let it happen,” he whispered against her ear. “Let it happen, baby, it was meant to be.”
His tongue probed the innermost recesses of her ear, sending shivers of delight through her, and she moaned aloud.
“You like that? Beg me! Beg me for it!” His eyes were wild, angry, and she had a sudden feeling that he was being cruel, humiliating her. For a split second it almost seemed as if he hated her. Why should he hate her?
“I—I can’t,” she whispered, shamefaced as she turned her head. But he caught her face and turned her to look into his eyes.
“I’ll make you want me that bad,” he promised, “just like I want you!”
She felt him slip out of his pants, reaching to pull hers off and jerking her shirt open. Automatically, she tried to cover herself with her hands but he slapped them away. “You’re beautiful! God, you’re beautiful! You know that? Let me look at you before I take you!”
She tried to twist away but he caught her wrists, pinning them above her head so that her breasts arched up to his lips. Cayenne couldn’t stop herself from moaning aloud as he sucked her nipples into erect pinkness.
Without thinking, she managed to free her hands and reached out to embrace him, clawing at his muscular back in her frenzy.
Comanche Cowboy (The Durango Family) Page 4
