She steeled herself against feeling anything. When did Creighton Stewart ever let what other people thought bother her? Not for a long, long time, and she certainly wasn’t about to start now. Rip’s betrayal made no difference at all in her attitude toward other people’s opinions. No difference at all.
“You go on up with Amy,” Creed urged. “I’ll be in the parlor long enough to write a letter for Luke to deliver to your father.”
The letter to Rip would say they’d fallen in love and eloped and were on their way to Galveston for an extended honeymoon. Cricket had tried to convince Creed that Rip would never believe such an outlandish story, but had to agree that even if he did try to find them after he received the message, he’d never think to look for them at Lion’s Dare.
“I’ll be up to join you soon, darling,” he added, giving Cricket a gentle shove in Amy’s direction.
Darling? Cricket fought a grimace at the endearment. Wasn’t that carrying things a bit too far? She’d agreed to this charade without knowing how fully Creed had planned to play the game. She glared back at the tender expression in Creed’s eyes. For the moment, he had the upper hand, and she had no choice but to go along. But she’d find a way to turn the tables, and then Jarrett Creed would pay for every kiss, every caress, every endearment she was forced to endure.
“This was Jarrett’s room when he lived at Lion’s Dare,” Amy said as they entered a room dominated by a large bed with a heavy oak headboard and footboard. “We’ve kept it ready for him exactly as he left it.”
Cricket noticed the bed frame held two feather mattresses so high off the ground she was going to need steps to reach them. She tried to imagine herself sinking down into that bed with Creed, but couldn’t. The thought was too appalling to even consider. What if he tried to do “it” to her again? Of course he’d said he wouldn’t, but what would she do if he did? She didn’t dare make a scene, or he might call off the bargain. Then Sloan would go to jail, and she’d be sent home to marry Cruz Guerrero. How had she ever gotten herself trapped like this?
Cricket tore her eyes from the bed and perused the rest of the room. A table on one side of the bed held a small candle and a well-worn book. Cricket picked up the book and discovered it was a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
“Creed reads poetry?”
Cricket didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until Amy responded, “Beautifully. He read a short verse for our wedding.” A dreamy look came across Amy’s face as she recited:
“So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season’d showers are to the ground.”
Cricket gulped and dropped the book back on the table. She didn’t want to think about Creed’s Tennessee voice reading love poems. She tested the feather mattress with her hand. It was soft, all right. She and Creed were going to end up sleeping together in the middle of that bed, if it sank down like she thought it might.
She looked around the room for some other place to sleep, but there wasn’t any. The furnishings were spartan. A wardrobe stood along one wall, and a dry sink along the other, with a pitcher and bowl sitting atop it. A simple ladder-back chair with a rawhide seat had been placed in the corner. Unless she slept on the floor, she was going to know Jarrett Creed a whole lot better before they left Lion’s Dare.
“I had Belle put water to wash with in the pitcher, and there are some towels inside the dry sink. I’ll have Belle press one of your dresses and bring it up to you.”
The time had come, Cricket thought, to reveal at least a part of the truth. She dreaded seeing the scorn with which she was so familiar replace the friendliness in Amy’s blue eyes.
“I don’t have a dress to wear.”
“Oh, you poor dear! Jarrett dragged you away without even giving you a chance to pack? But then . . .” Amy hesitated, then finished with a shy smile, “the Creeds are lusty men, are they not?”
Cricket watched Amy’s blush rise, astounded at the woman’s admission and unsure how to reply. Amy’s incorrect assumption gave her a plausible excuse as to why she was without proper female clothing. Why deny it?
“What a thing to say to a new bride,” Amy apologized, when Cricket made no response. “Excuse my forwardness, please, Cricket. I only thought . . . Tom is . . .” Amy’s fingers came up to pinch the growing frown of distress between her eyes.
Cricket felt her heart go out to the young woman. It wasn’t Amy’s fault she and Creed weren’t really sharing a marriage bed. She supposed Amy was probably right. After all, she’d spent a night with Creed and supposedly enjoyed it immensely. Cricket only wished she could remember more about what had happened in Creed’s bed.
“You’re right, of course,” Cricket reassured Amy. “It’s . . . I just . . .”
“I know, dear,” Amy said, a tremulous smile brightening her features, “they are rather overwhelming, aren’t they.”
Cricket didn’t know what else to do, so she grinned gamely back at Amy.
“At any rate,” Amy said, all efficiency again, “I’ll have Belle let down the hem on one of my dresses for you. Except for our heights, I do believe we’re very much of a size. If you need anything else, come to the door and give a call.” Amy approached Cricket, and Cricket knew she was going to embrace her again. As awkward as she found it, she wrapped her arms around Amy. When she began to feel a warm glow inside, she stepped back abruptly, tearing herself from Amy’s grasp.
“I’m so glad you’re a part of the family, Cricket,” Amy said, smiling again. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you better.”
With those words, Amy left Cricket alone in the room. Cricket pursed her lips in dismay. She didn’t know when she’d spent so much time grinning back at someone like an idiot. She fumed and sputtered, but there was nothing she could do about it. She liked Amy Creed. And when Belle showed up with Amy’s dress, Cricket knew she’d put it on and pretend she liked wearing it . . . because she wanted Amy to continue liking her.
The insidious pretense had begun.
Cricket crossed to the dry sink and poured some of the water into the bowl. The water was cool, and she did feel fresher, she admitted, after she’d rinsed her face and hands. She groped for a towel, and as she dried her face, she wandered over to the open window and looked down into the front yard where Creed and Luke stood under a budding oak.
She watched Creed hand a letter to the young Ranger with the admonition, “Make sure if Rip comes looking for us you head him in the wrong direction, and keep a close eye on Sloan. I want to know the truth, Luke.”
“Sure, Creed,” the youth answered. “You can count on me.”
“I know I can. Good luck.”
“You, too.” Luke paused and grasped Creed’s arm before he added in a quiet voice, “Take care of her.”
“I will.”
“You’d better. Because if you don’t, you’ll have me to answer to.”
When Luke was gone, Creed turned and looked up at his bedroom window. Cricket stared back down at him, not bothering to hide her puzzlement at the exchange between the two men. She hardly knew Luke, and the time on the trail with him hadn’t been particularly enlightening. He was a loner, polite but distant. Why was he ready to fight with Creed over his treatment of her?
Creed swore under his breath before turning and marching into the house. In moments, the bedroom door opened, and he stood before Cricket.
“Do you always listen in on other people’s conversations? That’s how you got yourself into this mess in the first place, if I’m not mistaken.”
Cricket had spent too much time under Rip’s tutelage not to recognize a distracting feint when she saw one. Undeterred, she asked, “Why is Luke so willing to defend me? We just met.”
Creed shot back, “Luke’s always fighting for the underdog. He can’t help the way he is. But I can certainly cure you of eavesdropping before we head for New Orleans. In fact, that’s only one of a long list of bad habits I’m planning to break.”
Cricket didn’t bother to hide her irritation with Creed’s announcement.
“You know, this isn’t going to work. Your brother and his wife are going to figure out we’re not the loving couple we’re supposed to be.”
“How are they going to do that?”
She took a deep breath and said, “Because I’m not going to let you put your hands on me like you did when we arrived . . . and I’m not going to sleep in that bed with you, either.”
Cricket waited warily while Creed took the few steps that brought him close to her. She could feel the heat of him. His breath touched her face. He was . . . overwhelming. But Cricket was determined not to be overwhelmed. She stood her ground even when Creed closed the distance between them until they stood breast to breast, actually touching each time one or the other breathed. Cricket was forced to look up to meet his gaze. What she saw there made her gasp. She wanted to back away from the fire in his golden eyes, to escape from the heat. But Cricket never retreated unless it was tactically necessary. She wasn’t about to start now.
She stood her ground as Creed slowly wound his strong arms around her body and pulled her close. She managed to get her palms up on his rock-hard chest, to keep a small distance between them, but he lowered one hand to cup her buttocks and lifted her until her femininity cradled his blatant masculinity.
Cricket stared at Creed, refusing to acknowledge their closeness. However, without her being able to control them, her sooty black lashes slowly, ever so slowly, lowered over her smoky gray eyes.
The spiraling sensation deep inside her intrigued Cricket. She waited to see whether it would change with time, or stay the same. Creed rocked his hips once, sliding his hard body across her soft one. Cricket’s fingertips curled on Creed’s shirt, and her lips parted in an unvoiced exclamation, but she kept her eyes closed as she willed him to move.
Again.
As though he’d heard her plea, Creed repeated the rocking motion, cupping her with both hands to give him better leverage for his thrust.
There it was, that same spiraling sensation, only stronger this time. When Creed thrust the third time, Cricket countered with her own hips, and the feeling was so powerful she felt her knees weaken in response. She grabbed Creed’s shirt in both fists and leaned her cheek against her hand, aware suddenly that her breathing had become uneven, and that Creed was in no better shape.
“Ready to cry uncle?” Creed whispered in her ear.
Cricket raised her head off his chest and looked up into eyes that blazed like topaz jewels. She met his challenge with the rasped warning, “I never give up.”
“So be it.”
Cricket waited, almost detached, as Creed lowered his head toward hers. She saw his tongue come out to moisten his lips, which parted as his mouth opened slightly. He was going to kiss her! As Cricket saw it, she had two choices. She could let Creed kiss her, or she could back away. Either way, Creed won the battle between them. He was too clever by half! Cricket had only moments to make her decision. She admitted reluctantly that the time had come to make a tactical retreat.
As Creed’s lips touched hers, she wrenched herself from his grasp. He hadn’t been expecting her to move, so she was free before he realized she was gone.
Creed stood spread-legged, breathing harshly, his fists bunched and his face a mask of desire.
“So, Brava,” he taunted, “you never retreat?”
“That wasn’t a retreat,” Cricket replied. Why couldn’t she catch her breath? Her body quivered with nervous energy, and she had the craziest urge to seek out that spiraling sensation again.
“Not a retreat? What was it, then?”
Cricket stuck her hands behind her back to hide their trembling. “A temporary disengagement,” she managed with a shaky grin, “while I plan my counterattack.”
“So,” Creed murmured, his voice soft and husky. “You can’t wait to come back for more.”
Cricket couldn’t drag her eyes away from his mouth. He’d taken a step toward her when a loud knock resounded, breaking the spell. Cricket recognized reinforcements when she heard them and started for the door.
A tiny Negro woman stood at the portal. She pushed her way past Cricket into the room. “I’m Belle. Missus Creed wants you to try this dress on so’s I kin stitch it up to fit you.”
Creed’s glance skipped from Cricket to Belle and back before he shook his head in frustration and headed for the door. “I’ll be with Tom,” he said as he left. “We’ll continue this later.”
Creed found his brother in the parlor, sitting at the desk from which he conducted all his plantation business. Creed poured himself a brandy and sat down in the large leather chair next to Tom. He took a gulp of brandy, then leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes.
He felt a tremendous sense of well-being in Tom’s presence. Tom was six years older, which had always given him the advantage of age and experience. Tom was wise and all-knowing. Tom could solve any problem. It was Tom who’d kept him sane when he’d returned to Lion’s Dare after he’d discovered his Comanche wife and his son dead of cholera.
Even now Creed tensed at the memory. He’d wanted to murder his father; in fact, he’d come back to Lion’s Dare precisely for that purpose.
“I’ll kill the sonofabitch!” he’d raged. “I’ll flay him alive. I want him to know what it means to suffer.”
Tom was not physically larger than his brother, but when he’d enclosed Creed in his broad, loving arms at the steps leading up to Simon’s room, Creed had hesitated to fight him. Then Tom had said, “You’re too late, Jarrett. He died a week ago.”
He’d howled in pain, as he yanked himself from his brother’s arms and pounded his fists against the wall. He’d cursed Simon in Comanche. He’d cursed him in English, and even in the French he’d learned at the school where his father had sent him, so far away from his wife and child. When his rage was spent, he’d sagged to the steps, his bruised knuckles pressed into his aching eyes. Tom had sat down beside him, not touching, just a comforting presence.
“It’s okay, Jarrett,” Tom had said. “It’s okay for you to cry.”
Creed had fought the tears harder then, to prove he didn’t need to cry. But when Tom had laid his hand on Creed’s head and smoothed the hair back from his brow as their mother had when he was a child, he had turned into his brother’s arms, and the tears had scoured their way down his cheeks.
Tom had held him until the pain was gone, and he’d been dry and hollow inside.
“Why did he do it, Tom? Why didn’t he let me go back?”
“He thought he was doing what was best.”
“And Ma? Did he do what was best for her, too?”
“You know how he felt. Would you have wanted Ma here, knowing that?”
“You would have brought her back, though, wouldn’t you, Tom?”
“I . . . it wasn’t my decision to make.”
“But you don’t think less of Ma for what happened to her, do you?”
“Does it really matter what I think? What’s done is done. Now you have to go on with your life.”
Go on with his life. Creed had done that. He’d left Lion’s Dare and become a Texas Ranger. But what goes around comes around. He was back at Lion’s Dare with Tom and supposedly married for the second time. And once again he needed Tom’s understanding and wisdom.
Tom crossed his hands on his stomach, stretched his long legs out in front of him, and leaned back in his chair, watching his younger brother speculatively. Creed looked almost asleep. But Tom knew better. He’d seen the coiled tension in his younger brother’s body. When Creed opened his eyes at last, Tom said, “You look tired. Long night?”
“Yes, but not for the reasons you’re thinking.”
The two brothers shared a companionable chuckle.
Creed took another swallow of brandy and said, “I need your help, Tom.”
“Name it, and it’s yours.”
“It’s not that simple, I’m afraid,�
�� Creed said. “It’s about Cricket.”
Tom’s face remained blank. “What about her?” he asked cautiously.
“It’s hard to explain. What do you know about Rip Stewart?”
“He controls the flatboat trade up and down the river and he’s got several of the cotton agents in Galveston in his pocket. Rich as Croesus, I understand.”
“Cricket is his daughter.”
Tom whistled appreciatively. “He doesn’t approve of the marriage?”
“No. But that’s not the problem.”
“So, what is it?” Tom asked, his curiosity piqued.
“It’s Cricket.” Creed paused, unsure exactly how to explain what he wished of his brother and sister-in-law.
“She’s pregnant,” Tom guessed.
“Hell, no,” Creed blustered. He figured he’d better say what was on his mind before Tom started making other guesses about Cricket which might prove even more embarrassing. “It’s the way she was raised by her father. Cricket has some habits that . . . that aren’t acceptable in polite company. I’d like your help, and Amy’s, of course, in teaching her some things that’d help her get along better in New Orleans.”
“You know we’ll help however we can, but I don’t understand how the daughter of someone as rich as Rip Stewart wouldn’t know how to manage the kind of company you’re going to be seeing in New Orleans.”
Creed heaved a gusty sigh. “It’s a long story. I hardly believe it myself.”
“I’ve got plenty of time,” Tom said, “but maybe I ought to get Amy, and you can tell us both what you want from us.”
“That’s fine with me. The sooner I get this off my chest, the better I’m going to feel.”
Tom sought out Amy and brought her back to the parlor.
“Is something wrong with Cricket?” she asked concernedly when she saw Creed’s distress. “She seemed fine when I left her upstairs.”
“She’s fine, Amy,” Creed reassured her. “I need you and Tom to help me with a small problem.”
Amy perched on the settee with Tom beside her while Creed recounted what he knew of Cricket’s upbringing. He skimmed over their relationship, leaving the impression that he and Cricket had fallen in love at first sight and married despite Rip’s disapproval.
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