“Advertising where?” She had to concentrate on the conversation. Deck’s thumb was rubbing small circles in her palm, and a tingling heat began to spread through her body at the familiar touch.
Marty cast his brother a ferocious frown that reminded Silver of his daughter’s little face earlier in the evening. “Shut up, Deck.”
But Deck ignored him. “In the personal ads.”
That did get her attention. “In the personals? You mean the newspapers?”
Marty raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Why does everybody sound so shocked by the idea?”
“It just seems like a…a rather impersonal way to find a spouse,” she told him. She was doubtful and it probably showed. “Good luck.”
“You sure you don’t want to dump Deck and marry me?” His grin was pure devilment as Deck’s blue gaze grew fierce.
“You ask her that one more time and you’re going to be doing your wife hunting without a few of your teeth.”
Marty laughed as he got to his feet and headed back the hall to bathe his daughter. “That’s what I love about you, little brother. You’re so predictable.”
Silver laughed as Marty’s voice died away, but the laughter faded to a whisper as Deck put an arm around her and drew her close. His eyes were blue steel and she searched his gaze without success. “What’s wrong?”
He bent his head and set his lips on hers, pushing his tongue into her mouth and molding her body to his. When the kiss ended, she hung in his arms, breathless and bewildered. “You’re mine,” he growled against her lips. “My brother can find his own woman but he’s not getting you.”
“Of course he’s not,” she agreed, seconds before he took her mouth again.
They didn’t stay long after that. In fact, she was almost embarrassed by the speed with which Deck hustled her out of the house and drove her back to her brother’s place. He didn’t even ask if he could stay this time, simply took her hand and led her to the bedroom where she’d lain with him last night. His big hard hands streaked over her, baring her ivory flesh to his bold mouth and bolder touch and she gave him the total response that her heart demanded she share.
And if she was disappointed that he didn’t speak of love or marriage or the permanence a part of her was longing for, she was sure it was simply that he wasn’t quite ready for how fast their relationship was moving.
Six
The next evening Deck packed a light supper and two bedrolls and took Silver down to the southwestern end of the ranch, where the Badlands began in earnest. His grandparents and his parents each had lived in the little two-room cabin briefly after their marriage before they moved up to the big house.
He wasn’t sure why, but he had a strong compulsion to show it to Silver. Not that it was any big deal. He reminded himself, for at least the twentieth time in the past few days, that this was a temporary relationship, begun for one specific purpose. The fact that her brother had gone away had given Deck extra hours to enjoy her before the inevitable day when he finally finished the business he had with Cal McCall.
And while he would regret it mightily if it affected his relationship with Silver, he still was resolved to do exactly that. But it didn’t give him the pleasure it once would have. Instead of relishing the moment of reckoning, his mind shied away from imagining that confrontation. His dispute with her brother wouldn’t affect Silver and him. He wouldn’t let it.
His horse tossed his head, and Deck returned to the present in time to see a rattlesnake slither away through the rough rock. No sense in ruining the time he had left with Silver brooding about the future. He was going to take every minute he could get.
The ride down through the eroded buttes and gullies was beautiful in the late-day sun. In the places where the soft rock had already begun to wear away, thousands of years of history lay revealed in the striations of pink, orange, burnt umber, black and gray that characterized the Badlands. Their path took them south along the eastern edge of the rocks and then turned slightly east.
The land around the trail grew greener again, with cottonwood trees defining areas where there was water and hardy plum trees and aspens forming small stands of cover. He pointed out a wild turkey, a flock of sandhill cranes and an antelope that made a mad scramble for cover when it saw them coming.
In a little valley around the side of a hill stood the cabin, with the stable and shed ranged behind it like reinforcements. The land was green, and Indian paintbrush with striking scarlet tips grew along the small front porch of the cabin.
“This is beautiful,” Silver said, and he could hear an almost reverent note of pleasure in her voice.
“My grandfather built it,” he told her. “The bedrooms are the original sod house that he and my grandmother lived in when they first married. He built the front room and the porch later.”
They dismounted and he showed her the inside of the cabin. She exclaimed in delight over the small front room, with its rock fireplace dividing the kitchen from a living room area. He checked the bedroom for critters, then they swept out the main room and shook out the rag rugs that his grandmother had made. Silver insisted on doing a quick dust job while he built a fire. If they were staying longer than a night, he’d turn on the generator but there was no need. The fireplace would give them what light they needed tonight and they’d brought food.
Besides, he thought, grinning to himself, it wouldn’t matter whether or not they had light for the activities he had in mind.
And it hadn’t, he thought with satisfaction as they drove into town the following day. He glanced across the truck at Silver, noting the lavender shadows beneath her striking eyes. “We’re going to have to start sleeping some of the time we’re in bed.”
Her face softened as she smiled at him, a warm, intimate expression that made his body stir restlessly in a response he’d have sworn he couldn’t manage again right now. “Maybe we should sleep apart once in a while.”
The suggestion was jarring. “That’s the only option that’s not an option,” he said gruffly.
There was a small silence. Then Silver laid her palm on his thigh, squeezing lightly. “It was a joke,” she said mildly. She stroked her palm gently up and down the length of his thigh in a reassuring touch. “Don’t you know there’s nowhere I’d rather sleep than in your arms?”
He felt better immediately. But his body was reacting with surprising vigor to her caress on his leg, and he took his arm from where he’d had it around her shoulder and clamped his hand over hers. “What I know,” he said deliberately, “is that if you keep that up, I’m going to stop this truck right on the side of the road and show you what you’re doing to me.”
Her eyes widened, and he caught her involuntary glance down at his lap. “Amazing,” she pronounced. “Don’t you ever get…tired?”
“Apparently not where you’re concerned,” he said wryly.
She laughed in delight. “That’s good.”
They were entering Kadoka, and as he turned right onto Maple Street he put both hands on the wheel. There would be enough gossip going around after people saw Silver and him come into town together without him fondling her in front of a crowd. He turned right on Main Street and headed for the elevator at the end of town, driving around a metal chair to which was taped a paper sign that reminded people of the rummage sale at the fire hall this weekend.
At the elevator, Silver stayed in the truck while he got out and went to find Sev. Stumpie was behind the cash register and Deck was inordinately grateful that the little man hadn’t been in his usual post on the porch.
“Hey, Deck,” the little man greeted him.
Deck nodded. “Stump. Where’s Sev?”
“Had to go over to the clinic. Etta Milsap’s littlest boy cut hisself up purty bad foolin’ around with his daddy’s ax.”
Deck winced in sympathy. “Bad business.” He fished a list from his pocket and handed it to Stumpie. “Here’s some stuff my brother wants. You got it all?”
Stumpie
glanced over the list and nodded. “No problem.” He slid off the stool and headed for the door. “You back the truck around and we’ll get her loaded.”
He went back out to the truck and moved it into position, but when he got back out, Silver opened her door and slid out before he realized what she was doing.
“Get back in. I’ll be loaded in a minute,” he told her.
But she smiled across the truck bed at him. “I’ll help.”
Stumpie heaved a sack of grain onto the truck bed with his one good arm just as Silver came around the end of the truck.
“Well, hello,” he said, offering her his hand. “I’m Stumpie. You must be McCall’s sister. Heard you was hanging around with this one, though nobody can figure out why.”
Silver laughed, but Deck narrowed his eyes at the talkative little man. “It’s nobody’s business but ours.”
Stumpie got the message. “Far be it from me to mess in your business,” he said. He grinned at Silver. “Boy’s a mite touchy today, ain’t he?”
But Deck was too preoccupied to give Stumpie grief. It was the first time he, or anyone, had referred to Silver and him as a unit. Though the word ours had rolled easily off his tongue, the sound of it had hit him with the impact of a balled-up fist. It was a good feeling, one that warmed him in a way he never had felt before.
And he stomped on the little voice inside that reminded him he was merely using Silver because she could help him achieve a goal.
The dogs’ barking dragged her from a sound sleep. She was warm and her head was pillowed on Deck’s hard bicep. He slept beside her, apparently undisturbed.
A sense of wonder stole over her. Could this be for real?
Of course it could. Somehow a full nine days had slipped by since the first time Deck had made love to her beneath the pines. Since then they’d spent every moment together, when he wasn’t working, and though she felt a little disoriented by the speed with which he’d moved himself into her life, it was a pleasant feeling. More and more, she caught herself looking into a rainbow-hued future in which she woke like this every day, in a home she and Deck had made together. They’d be busy with the ranch, but not too busy to add a child or two to fill their home.
The dogs were still barking, and their noise had taken on an edge of hysteria. Something was wrong. That wasn’t just the stupid, “there’s-a-rabbit-in-my-yard” bark. That was a for-real guard-dog sound. She sighed, knowing she’d better go see what the problem was.
She began to turn her head to check the clock beside the bed, but her hair was caught beneath Deck’s body, and she squeaked when it painfully pulled at her scalp.
“Wha—” Deck shot to his feet. “What’s wrong with those dogs?”
“I don’t know.” She chuckled. “You always go from asleep to awake that way, don’t you?”
In the moonlight, she saw him smile and shrug as he shoved a foot into his jeans. “Yeah. I guess I do.” He was still zipping his fly as he started for the door.
She’d been staring. She snatched up his shirt and followed him out the door, very aware that he hadn’t bothered to put on underwear beneath the jeans. It was an erotic thought, and she had trouble focusing on the problem at hand.
At the bottom of the stairs, Deck cocked his head. “I hear an engine.”
“An engine? Who in the world would be driving back our lane in the middle of the night?”
As one, they moved to the living room that stretched across half the front of the house and peered out the window. The vehicle crested the ridge and came around the corner, but it was too dark to see more than headlights.
“It’s a truck,” Deck said. He pulled her against him for a short but thorough kiss, then released her. “Once we get rid of whoever this is, we go back to bed.” He glanced around. “Are your brother’s guns in the study?”
She nodded, wondering how he knew Cal has asked her to place his gun rack in his study until she remembered the two men had been neighbors during their childhood. She supposed Cal’s father also had kept his guns there.
“Stay here. Do not go outside until I get back.” Deck hesitated until she nodded, then he turned and headed for the study.
Only a moment later he was back at her side, and she was shocked to see the rifle in his hand.
“Do you really think you need that?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Probably not, but why take chances? If this was someone coming with an emergency, they’d be blowing the horn and carrying on instead of just creeping along like that.” He indicated the vehicle, which was just drawing to a stop.
“Oh.” She peered through the curtains as a man got out of the truck. At least, she thought it was a man, as big as the person appeared. Then he walked under the floodlight on the way up the walk, and she gave a start. “Oh, my God. It’s Cal.”
“I thought he wasn’t due home for another couple of days yet.” Deck’s voice was cold and flat.
“He wasn’t.” She was a little perturbed herself. Even if the two men had been childhood friends, this was going to be extremely awkward. “You can put the rifle back. I’ll go out and talk to him.”
Deck immediately disappeared. She watched as Cal came up the path toward the house. Of all the nights in her entire life for a big brother to show up, this might be the worst. She twisted the knob of the front door and stepped onto the porch. “Hello. You’re home early.”
“Hey!” Cal gave her a hug as he stepped onto the porch. “Why are you up so late?”
“I was sleeping until the dogs started barking,” she said, punching him playfully in the arm. “They scared me.”
“Sorry.” Cal looked over his shoulder at the two mutts, tails wagging eagerly at the foot of the steps. “I guess they haven’t learned to recognize my truck yet.”
“Either that or they’re always going to greet you so enthusiastically.” She cleared her throat. “I wasn’t expecting you yet.”
“Things wrapped up much faster than I’d expected. The guy panicked when the numbers didn’t look right—it wasn’t a big deal to get him straightened out.” Cal gestured toward the gate. “Whose truck? Don’t tell me you bought your own. I told you I had plenty of wheels around here.”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t buy a truck.” She hesitated. There was just no way to say it gracefully. “Cal… I, uh, I have company.”
“Oh, okay. I thought you might get lonely out here.” He hefted the briefcase in his left hand. “It’s fine by me. They’re welcome to stay as long as they like, if they can stand the remodeling mess. Friends from Virginia?”
“It’s not a ‘they.”’ Silver twisted her fingers together and took a deep breath. “It’s a ‘he.”’
Cal had started to reach for the handle of the screen door. He froze. Slowly he turned and looked at her in the weak light, and she saw him eyeing the shirt that was all she wore…a shirt that clearly didn’t belong to her. “A guy? Oh, hell. I really am sorry.”
“Are you?”
She whirled, startled as much by the naked aggression in Deck’s voice as by the way he’d silently come up to the door. Cal spun around as the screen door swung open. The man framed in the entry flipped on the porch light, and his beautiful features were stern in the harsh shadows from the overhead light.
“Welcome home, McCall.” Deck gave his neighbor a slow, insolent stare. He was fully dressed except for his shirt, and she realized he’d gone back upstairs for his clothes while she’d gone out to talk to her brother.
Cal didn’t say a word. But Silver sensed his sudden stillness as he took in the sight of the man.
“I guess you two already know each other.” She stared hard at Deck, willing him to stop this…this whatever it was and be civil.
“Yeah.” Cal’s voice was expressionless. “We do.”
“We do,” Deck repeated.
“You son of a bitch!” Cal’s briefcase hit the porch floor with a thud as he reached for the door. He yanked it open and grabbed a fistful of Deck
’s V-necked T-shirt.
As he drew back his fist, Silver launched herself at the two men, grabbing Cal’s arm and hanging on with all her strength. “No! Cal, stop it!” She was screaming. “Just stop it! What’s the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with me?” Her brother normally was one of the calmest people she’d ever met. Nothing seemed to get under his skin. She’d never seen him in anything approaching the rage that distorted his face now as she clutched his thick forearm, trying to stop him from pummeling Deck. “What’s the matter with me? Did you sleep with him?”
“Did I—that’s none of your business.” She, too, normally was slow to temper but hers was boiling to a head.
“None of my business. Right.” Cal shook his head like a bull enraged by a red scarf. He released his grip on Deck’s shirt and spun to face her fully, shaking off her hand. “You mean it’s a coincidence that my sister’s been seduced by the man who believes I killed his sister?”
Killed his sister…killed his sister…killed his sister.
The words reverberated in her head and tore the air like roughly ripped sheets of paper, the ugly edges ragged and uneven.
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. “What?” she whispered through frozen lips. “I don’t believe it.”
Cal took her by the shoulders and roughly turned her to face Deck. “Believe it,” he said. “The only reason he romanced you is because he wanted to make me suffer.” He directed his voice at Deck. “Isn’t it?”
Deck was watching them with that same deep, unreadable look in his eyes that she’d seen before.
“Deck?” It was a hoarse appeal as she stretched out a hand to the man she loved.
He pivoted away from her.
It was only a movement, she told herself. So how could it have the power to break her heart in two?
She stuffed a fist against her mouth to stifle the agony that threatened to burst free. Cal put his hands on her again and drew her close, cradling her against his chest as if she were a small child.
Seduction, Cowboy Style Page 10
