Frontier Woman

by Joan Johnston

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he replied. “You said so yourself.”

  “I can do anything I set my mind to. You want to bet I can’t last a day in this room by myself?”

  “No, Brava, I don’t.”

  “You just don’t want to lose,” she said cantankerously.

  “All right, I give up. You want to stay cooped up in this room all by yourself to prove your point, be my guest.”

  “Fine. I will.”

  Before Cricket had a chance to think about what she’d agreed to, Creed had grabbed his pants and shirt and left the room, slamming the door behind him. The bed was all hers now, and the room, too, for that matter.

  Cricket fell back on her pillow and grabbed her head in her hands. What had she gotten herself into this time? How was she going to last a whole day within these four walls? She hated staying indoors. Her whole life had been based on the assumption she didn’t need anyone. Wasn’t it a little late to be worrying about proving it to anybody now?

  Oh, well, she’d made her bed, and now she’d have to lie in it. But she’d prove to Jarrett Creed that he was wrong. She could stand the solitude and the confining space for one measly day. She was counting on it.

  Chapter 14

  BY THE TIME BELLE SLIPPED CRICKET’S BREAKFAST inside her bedroom door, she was up and pacing the room like a caged animal. She spent the entire day staring out the window at the sunlit fields of cotton and wondering how Creed had managed to back her into this corner. The truth was, she admitted disgustedly, she’d caught herself in a trap of her own making. It was no less frustrating to know she only needed to walk through the door to be free.

  She’d expected to hear Amy and Seth puttering about the house, or at least the sounds of the servants working, but it was quiet as a fox-hunted fawn all day. She wondered where everyone was but refused to leave the room to find out. She’d said she could spend the entire day in this room alone and she’d meant it. At least, when she’d said it, it had sounded good.

  By the time she finally heard Tom and Creed come in to share the day’s events with Amy, she was nearly frantic for company. She opened the door to race downstairs and then realized what she was doing. Her hand tightened on the doorknob before she slowly closed the door again, pressing her forehead against the cool lacquered surface. Creed or Amy would come hunting for her soon, so all she needed to do was wait.

  It was a long wait. At dinnertime Belle slipped a plate of food inside the room, but no one came to see her. No one even knocked at the door to ask how she was doing. She wondered what Creed had told Amy to keep her away. Even if a person was sick you came to visit them . . . unless they had something very contagious.

  If Cricket was anything, she was stubborn. She gritted her teeth as she crossed to sit in the ladder-back chair in the corner. Creed had to come to bed sometime. Only, it got later and later, and he didn’t come. Cricket fought her drowsiness, but the day of boredom finally caught up with her. She eyed the feather mattresses with longing, but she wasn’t about to give Creed the chance to join her in bed. She rearranged the quilt on the floor, blew out the candle she’d lit to fight the darkness, and dropped to the rug, covering herself lightly.

  Perhaps she’d been too hasty, Cricket admitted as she drifted off to sleep. Perhaps Creed was right, and she needed the company of others more than she’d thought. In the past, she’d always avoided strangers because being around them meant subjecting herself to censure, so she’d spent much of her time off riding or hunting by herself. Still, she hadn’t expected the day to chafe quite so much as it had.

  When she thought about it, she realized how many times she’d come back from a day alone on horseback to share her adventures with Rip, Sloan, or Bay. At least she’d managed to get through the whole day alone, so there was no reason to admit defeat to Creed. She was glad she hadn’t been so impulsively foolish as to promise more than a day of being so absolutely, totally, unbelievably, incredibly alone.

  Creed leaned against an ancient oak watching the bedroom window and waiting for the candle to be extinguished. When it finally was, he forced himself to remain outside until he was sure Cricket was asleep. As he climbed the stairs, he wondered how well she’d gotten through the day. It had been hard not to come upstairs to find out, for he’d discovered something unexpected as a result of his argument with Cricket. He’d missed her.

  It had come as something of a shock to find himself thinking about Cricket as he worked with Tom on the foundation for the new cotton gin, and he’d wanted nothing so much when he’d arrived home as to pull Cricket into his arms and hold her, as Tom had held Amy this evening. Considering this was a sham marriage, and he was eventually going to send Cricket home to Rip, Creed thought maybe leaving her alone for a day or two wasn’t such a bad idea.

  However, when he saw Cricket sleeping, he couldn’t resist kneeling down to kiss her good night. Just as her consciousness surfaced he murmured, “Good night, Brava.” Then he stripped in the darkness and got into bed.

  As soon as Creed was settled, Cricket’s eyes popped open. She was wide awake. Listening to his steady breathing, she knew it wouldn’t be long before he’d be sound asleep. He hadn’t spoken a word to her. Or had he said good night? Was that all he was going to say, after she’d spent the whole day alone?

  “I did it,” she said.

  For a moment she wasn’t sure he was going to answer her. Then he drawled, “One day. What does that prove?”

  “It proves I could do what I said I could.”

  “All right, Brava.”

  He turned over and pulled the covers up over his shoulder.

  She wasn’t going to let him goad her into extending that miserable bet. She just wasn’t going to let him do that to her. . . .

  He turned back around and sat up in bed. “Oh, by the way. Amy and Belle will be away for a day or so. One of Amy’s good friends delivered a baby daughter yesterday, and they’ve gone over to cook and keep an eye on the other four kids.”

  “Then I’ll come with you and Tom to the gin tomorrow,” Cricket said. She wasn’t about to spend another day cooped up alone in this house.

  “Amy said if you were feeling better she’d appreciate your help polishing the silverware while she’s gone.”

  “Oh. I can do that when—”

  “She said she wouldn’t ask, but she isn’t going to have much time before the party to get it done herself after she gets home,” Creed finished. He lay back down and turned away again, pulling the sheet up over his shoulder.

  Cricket’s lips were pressed flat as a flapjack with no leavening. If it hadn’t been for the baby, she’d have sworn Creed had arranged this set of circumstances to prove his point about her needing other people. At least she’d be able to visit with Creed morning and evening, she thought. She needed to talk to someone.

  “I thought we could talk—”

  “Not tonight, Brava. I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ve got a long day tomorrow. Can it wait?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then good night.”

  “Good night, Creed,” Cricket muttered. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  But things didn’t turn out quite as Cricket had expected. The next morning Creed kissed her awake in time to tell her he was leaving with Tom for the gin, and that evening he woke her up only to kiss her good night. By the time Creed left on the morning of her third day of confinement to an empty house, Cricket was talking out loud to herself. She did not find that a laughing matter. In fact, she was going to go crazy if she didn’t have a real conversation with someone soon.

  Cricket had heard Amy and Belle returning at first light and was only waiting until she was sure Tom was gone from the bedroom before she sought out Amy. She donned the hand-me-down dress Amy had provided and made her way down the hall, only to discover Amy was gone. A quick search of the upstairs revealed that Seth was gone, too. She began calling Creed every name she knew, fearing that he’d somehow arranged to spirit everyone
away again. By the time she found Belle polishing the last of the silver in the dining room, she was getting frantic.

  “Where’s Amy?”

  “Missus is out back workin’,” Belle said. “Best you get a hat ’fore you goes out there, missy. Sun mighty hot this mornin’.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Cricket said as she headed out the back door of the dining room. An arbored path led to the kitchen in one direction and branched off toward the backyard in another. Cricket took the path to the back, unconsciously hurrying. She needn’t have worried that Amy would escape her, for it was apparent as soon as she saw her that Amy wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

  “What are you doing?”

  Amy turned and smiled delightedly when she saw Cricket. “I’m so glad you’re feeling better,” she said. “Jarrett said you needed absolute rest and quiet and he wouldn’t let me see you and I was so worried that—”

  “What are you doing?” Cricket repeated, dropping to the ground next to Amy, who was on her knees in the rich, black soil of what was, to all appearances, a garden. The dirt covered Amy’s hands up to her elbows and smudged across her nose and brow. Beside her, Seth sat digging in the earth with a wooden spoon.

  “Why, weeding my vegetable garden, of course,” Amy replied. “I’ve got sweet and Irish potatoes, corn, beans, peas, and—”

  “You’re weeding the garden?”

  Amy laughed. “Who did you expect to do it? We haven’t enough hoe hands as it is, and Belle doesn’t have the knack for it.”

  “Tom makes you do this?”

  “Tom can’t stop me. I enjoy doing it,” Amy explained to an incredulous Cricket. “I love planting things and helping them grow.”

  “But—”

  At that moment, Seth flipped a spoonful of dirt into Cricket’s face, catching her full in the mouth.

  “Dir’,” he said.

  Cricket sputtered, spitting dirt and wiping it from her face with her sleeve, leaving streaks of mud across her cheeks and chin.

  “Oh, Seth,” Amy chastised. “You mustn’t throw dirt.” Amy grabbed the hem of her apron to help clean up Cricket. “I can’t believe he did that. He—”

  At that moment Seth flipped a spoon of dirt into Amy’s face. Startled, Amy blinked quickly to clear her eyes, then turned to Seth, who was giggling at the two women across from him.

  “Dir’,” he said, pointing at his mother with the spoon.

  “I’ll give you ‘dir’, you little imp,” Amy threatened. “Come on, Cricket, let’s get him.” She put her hands down and began crawling on her knees toward Seth, growling as she came. Seth turned onto all fours and scuttled madly away from them. With a lunge that sent her full-length into the dirt on her stomach, Amy caught Seth’s ankle and held on. He curled into a ball with his arms surrounding his head and waited for doom to descend.

  “Get him, Cricket,” Amy urged.

  Cricket wasn’t sure how she was supposed to “get him,” and her confusion must have registered because Amy added, “I’ll keep him pinned down, while you tickle him.”

  The instant Cricket put her fingers on Seth’s ribs, he shrieked with laughter and rolled over onto his back, pulling free of Amy’s loose grasp. Cricket warmed to her task as Seth rolled into a ball, trying to escape her. His bubbling laughter was contagious, and when Amy joined the fray, the three of them scuffled around in the dirt giggling and shrieking with delight.

  When Cricket looked up, Creed was standing there watching them. Caught in the mood of the moment, she grinned happily up at him and was surprised but very pleased when he grinned right back.

  Amy interrupted their mutual admiration when she said, “This little mischief-maker attacked us, and we had to defend ourselves.”

  Seth stood up and held out a handful of dirt to Creed.

  “Dir’,” he said.

  “Right,” Creed agreed, coming down on one knee before the small boy.

  Cricket swallowed hard. Nearly three days by herself in the confines of the house had made her extraordinarily aware of sights and scents and sounds. Creed wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his chest shimmered with sweat. She couldn’t avoid inhaling the healthy odor of hardworking man which emanated from him. It was a scent distinctly Creed’s, one Cricket found decidedly and inexplicably appealing.

  “I’m glad to see you managed to get outside today, Brava.”

  There was no taunting satisfaction in Creed’s voice, merely pleasure, so Cricket let the mellow Tennessee rumble come inside and fill all the gaping hollows that three days of solitude had left on her soul.

  Creed couldn’t have explained why he needed so desperately to touch Cricket—he only knew he did. He reached over to smooth away a smudge on her face, letting his thumb caress her soft skin. His thumb lingered, trailing down to the edge of her mouth, testing the fullness of her lower lip.

  Cricket held herself from flinching in response to Creed’s delicate stroking. After all, he was merely doing her a service he would have done for anyone, and preserving appearances in front of Amy. There was no other reason for him to be touching her so gently. She let her gaze meet Creed’s.

  It was a mistake. What she was seeing in Creed’s eyes was a mistake. For desire burgeoned there. And hope. And promise. Cricket brought her hand up to stop Creed, her fingers wrapping firmly around his thumb. The rest of his fingers captured her hand and brought it toward his lips.

  “Don’t.”

  When Creed looked questioningly at Cricket, who was trying to pull her hand from his grasp, she added quickly, “I’m all dirty.”

  Creed opened her hand and brought her palm slowly, but surely, up to his mouth.

  Cricket closed her eyes at the sensation of Creed’s tongue on the center of her palm. It was . . . delicious. “Creed, please stop,” she whispered.

  Creed wanted to scoop her into his arms and carry her down to the grassy banks of the river, to strip her bare and then bare himself and wash them both clean. He wanted her tall, sleek body pressing next to his own, her long hair unbraided and floating behind her. He wanted her arms around him and her belly joined to his. He wanted to be deep inside her, giving her pleasure and being pleasured in return.

  Cricket’s eyes widened as she received Creed’s unspoken message. She opened her mouth to reply, but never got the chance, for at that instant Seth slung a handful of dirt at Creed.

  “What?”

  “Oh, Seth, no,” Amy said, grabbing her son into her arms a second too late.

  “Dir’,” Seth announced proudly, holding out his empty hand to his uncle.

  Creed gave the small boy a rueful smile, then reached up to wipe away the dirt.

  Cricket stopped him. “Let me,” she said.

  It was the first time Cricket had willingly touched Creed, and he wondered what had given her the impetus to do so now, when he felt himself at the farthest edge of his self-control.

  Cricket lifted the hem of her skirt and found a clean spot, then cupped Creed’s chin in her hand and turned his face away so she could see to work. The dirt had landed on Creed’s neck below his ear and left a muddy trail in the sweat along his throat to his shoulder and part of his arm and chest. Cricket looked forward to the coming task with an eagerness that was new for her. Amy and Seth might have disappeared for all the notice she took of her audience while she worked on Creed.

  In fact, Amy saw the turn events were taking and gathered up her son, discreetly leaving the entranced couple alone.

  Cricket’s thin muslin skirt was not enough barrier to contain Creed’s body heat, nor the suppleness of his skin, nor the tautness of the muscles beneath it, but she was nonetheless frustrated because she didn’t want anything between her skin and his. Touching Creed became a need that must be satisfied. And so, when she had wiped away the sweat and grime, her fingertips reached for the ridge of bone along his shoulder and traced the hollow above it and the rippling muscle below.

  Creed held his breath, afraid that if he moved he’d break the spe
ll. He didn’t question the miracle that was occurring, he simply enjoyed it. It took all his willpower to remain still when Cricket’s fingertip found the scar that began below his left nipple and traced it across his chest.

  The skin was still slick with sweat where Cricket touched now, and she noticed that Creed’s nipple had peaked when she touched him. The tiny bud drew her attention, and her fingertip followed the scar back up again until she caressed him there. Cricket heard Creed’s sharp intake of breath and wondered at the power she had to make him tremble. It was a power that both shocked and delighted her.

  Cricket brought both hands flat against Creed’s chest and, sure enough, the muscles tightened beneath her fingertips. She slid her hands down to his belly, and he gasped again. A smile rose on Cricket’s lips. This was . . . fun.

  She wondered what his skin tasted like and indulged her curiosity. The tip of her tongue reached tentatively for the sweaty flesh of his shoulder. He was definitely salty. Cricket felt Creed shudder and smiled again. Would that tiny bud on his chest be equally salty? Cricket lowered her head and took Creed’s nipple between her teeth, letting her tongue run across its pebbled surface.

  “Brava—”

  Creed’s raspy plea brought bubbling laughter from Cricket’s chest, and she released her hold to look up into Creed’s face. What she saw there excited her beyond measure. His narrowed eyes smoldered with avidity, his nostrils flared to bring him the scent of her, his mouth had parted to ease his uneven breathing. His head was tipped down to her, his entire body strung tight as a bowstring with suppressed desire.

  She had unleashed the savage in Creed and greeted his primeval need with joy and exultation. The knowledge rose in her that she was capable of matching his passion. She held herself in readiness, waiting for the panther to end its stillness, to commence its hunt. It was the tension of waiting that made her nervous, not the fear of what was to come. A frisson of the first real sexual need she’d ever known raced through her like a wildfire when Creed slowly lifted her up in his strong arms and headed toward the river.