by Ann Major
The curtains were drawn, and the room was dark. But it was as though he made love to her in a brilliant kaleidoscope of constantly changing colors. One moment he was gentle and worshiping. In the next he was rough and demanding.
His body was lean and tough; he was insatiable and wild. His passion inflamed hers, his appetite made her ravenous. He knew how to keep her at a fever-pitch excitement until she screamed for release.
“Take me, Cutter! Now! I can’t wait! Oh, please take me!”
“Only if you’ll agree to marry me,” he whispered, rolling completely off her.
“Why?”
The emotion in his eyes was deep and dark.
How strange his looking at her that way made her feel. She was all light and jumpy, breathlessly alive, thrillingly happy. But he didn’t profess love.
She had used him to get Jeremy back. Was he just using her to hold on to Jeremy?
“Just make love to me,” she replied evasively.
“I want more.”
She opened her eyes and found that he was still staring at her in that same strangely compelling way. “Marry me, Cheyenne.” When she still hesitated: “Damn it. Say yes!”
She felt the force of his powerful will demanding her acquiescence.
When she nodded, he pulled her to him, letting her straddle him this time.
As always they were a perfect fit.
“How can we marry when the past—”
“Maybe if we forget the past for now and concentrate on the future, we’ll be okay.”
Then he was inside her, filling her with himself, positioning her beneath him after a dozen or so hard strokes. As he drove into her, she arched her body backward and rode a hot wave of endless rapture that took her higher and higher. So high that she felt like a glorious comet spinning out of control, leaving a trail of shimmering ecstasy behind her.
Then it was over, and they were sinking into the warm bed together. He was laughing, holding her close, wrapping her against his heavy body, kissing her again and again.
She lay there in his arms, loving the dampness of his skin and the hardness of his muscled body.
She had thought once would be enough.
But this was better than the island. She wanted more nights with him. Many many more.
Cutter had won.
Whether he loved her or not, she belonged to him now.
Later, when she thought he was asleep, she went to the window and drew back the heavy folds of the drapes with her fingers.
The sun shone with a hard brilliance in the tall trees. It was early yet, a new day; but a day that had lost its morning softness in spite of the flowers that blazed everywhere. The magnolia tree was solid white.
Cutter was not asleep after all. “Come back to bed,” he said, his voice tender and yet strangely tense, too. He was holding the squashed magnolia blossom that had fallen from her hair.
He had issued an order, no matter how softly he had spoken.
She dropped the curtain and padded back to the bed where he said, “Later, after we’ve made love again, I’ll go outside and pick another flower for your hair.”
And that last time when he took her once more into his arms, she didn’t once close her eyes. All her pain and distrust seemed to flow out of her when she climaxed.
He sensed the change in her. Afterward he clung to her, whispering her name and mingling it with husky words of love.
Touched by his tenderness, she lay in the dark wondering if he really meant them.
The night was alive with firelight and fast Spanish guitars, but Jose Hernando, who prided himself on his strength and his machismo, was not in the mood to celebrate. He felt as weak and violated as a woman he’d once seen after she’d been beaten by a pack of vicious barrio jackals.
Outside his men were drinking and laughing together. José could not join them as was his custom. Not when his mood was so dark.
The barred windows and doors were open in his enormous living room, which served as his big game trophy room, too. Mounted heads of lions, and elephants, and tigers decorated the three-story plaster walls. In one corner stood an entire giraffe. From his heavy leather chair where Hernando sat in sullen drunkenness, he could hear his mariaches singing and strumming below in the velvet, flowerscented darkness of the courtyard of his luxurious and seemingly impregnable hacienda.
But no place was impregnable. Not even his home. That bastard Cutter Lord, el genio, the international genius, had taught him that.
José could smell wood smoke and beef burning as well as horse dung from the corrals. He could hear his men’s laughter grow louder with liquor. He alone could not take part in the festivities.
El genio thought he’d made a fool of him.
It was a warm spring night. There was much rejoicing behind the high adobe walls surrounding Hernando’s ranch in northern Mexico. Black-haired women in rebozos stood in doorways surrounded by clusters of dark children. The older boys were each taking a turn with the new bulls in the ring. A valuable wild ocelot that had been caught in a trap had been released as a sacrifice to an ancient god who had been kind.
Gracias a Dios Isabella had been returned unhurt. She’d thrown her arms around her father and with her enormous black eyes focusing on his ruthless face, she had said in her sweetest voice that she didn’t want Papá to worry, that the men who had taken her had been very nice, that they’d treated her like a princess. They had joked with her and fed her papas fritas and hamburguesas.
Hernando had stared at her exquisite Spanish face with its patrician nose, classic brow and shapely, rosy lips. She had worn a white mantilla in her hair. She was so innocent. Never had she looked more like her aristocratic mother. Never had he loved her more. He had wanted to die when her mother had died.
Family was everything. Isabella was everything.
Then he had thought of Cutter Lord, the genius, who could do no wrong, and never had José hated more, nor lusted for revenge more.
Not even when José had been the poorest and dirtiest boy in the barrio with no real family and the other children had despised him because his plump mother had been a whore had he hated this much. Not even when those gangs of older boys had beaten him with regularity.
Back then he’d had to fight for every scrap of food or starve. Back then he had longed to have a father and a decent mother. To go to school. But the beatings and the poverty had made him tough and hard and determined to rise above that life.
Cutter Lord had been born rich. Everything had come to him the easy way.
Nobody—nobody—ever struck out against José and got away with it now that he had power.
“You are a princess, my love,” José had whispered, somehow concealing his murderous emotions from her. “I would have died if anything had happened to you.”
José was slightly above medium height, with a thick chest and wide shoulders. His features were swarthy. He had a broad, Indian nose, olive dark eyes and the cruel expression of a Spanish conquistador.
“Don’t hurt them, Papá,” she had pleaded, sensing the darkness behind his smile. “They are my friends.”
“No, mi preciosa, I won’t,” he had lied in his softest voice even as his rage had threatened to consume him.
A lie was no crime to a man like Hernando. He would be guilty of a far greater crime if he did not avenge his honor. Anger and the fierce desire for vengeance against the man who’d ordered Isabella’s kidnapping burned in Hernando’s heart. Every time he thought of what could have happened to his precious daughter, he felt the hatred well up within him again, choking him like a fist around his throat, so he could hardly breathe. His men would despise him if he didn’t find a way to outsmart the cocky bastard who had made a mockery of him by taking his daughter.
Nobody played José Hernando for a fool.
Nobody.
The ancient juices of vengeance stirred within the black heart of José Hernando.
Cutter Lord had to die.
And so did h
is family—his woman and her son.
José hadn’t killed a human being in a long time.
But this was personal.
He felt his blood race with a wild predatory thrill.
He would do the hits himself.
He would kill the woman and the boy first. He would let Cutter Lord beg for their lives. He would make him crawl.
Then he’d kill him.
Seven
Cheyenne stood at the long windows, staring out at the Gulf, wishing the island wasn’t as beautiful as she remembered. She would have preferred any other view to that of dunes cloaked in a green mat of vegetation with dancing pink and yellow wildflowers. Anything would have been better to white beaches and blue surf.
The island stirred painful memories. If Cutter wanted her to forget the past, why had he brought her here?
Cheyenne had another problem with Cutter. In the week that had passed since Jeremy’s return, Cutter had grown edgier than ever. And after Jeremy’s nightmare three nights ago Cutter had begun prowling their Houston mansion nightly with his gun.
If the danger was past, why was he so uptight? Why had he insisted on leaving Houston and flying them all to his remote island without telling any but his closest associates?
She had wanted to return to Westville to nurse her mother, but he had insisted the island was safer.
Safer?
He had refused to explain what he’d meant by that. For years Martin had refused to explain himself or the unseen dangers she had sensed. She couldn’t face that sort of life again.
She had quarreled with Cutter.
To no avail.
When she had put him on the phone so he could talk to Ivory’s nurse, and he had found out that her comatose mother was stable, Cutter had become more adamant that Cheyenne would accomplish nothing by sitting and waiting at her mother’s deathbed. Then he had rushed her and Jeremy to his island, saying that marrying her was his number one priority.
“We could get married in Westville—” she’d pleaded.
“We’re going to Lord Island. The sooner the better.”
Only last night when they’d still been in Houston and she had been making spicy enchiladas from scratch, she had lost her patience and told him that she would never forgive him if he took her to the island instead of to Westville.
“I’ll risk it.”
Steam and smoke from her bubbling pots had wafted furiously around her.
“No marriage can succeed without trust,” she’d said.
“So trust me.”
“Or compromises,” she’d persisted, stirring a pot so dramatically juice slopped into the flame with a hiss.
“Then you compromise,” he had retorted, turning a gas burner lower on the stove top.
“Don’t touch a single one of those knobs,” she had snapped, batting at his hand with her spatula.
“Your beans were about to burn.”
He was right. A fact that infuriated her.
“Do you always have to have your way?” she’d demanded, realizing that she was close to losing control.
“Only when it’s important, or I know I’m right.”
“Which you think is all the time.”
He changed the subject. “Do you want me to add water to the beans?”
“Never add water to beans,” she snapped. “How can you be so impossibly insensitive? My mother is dying!”
When he laid a hand on her shoulder, she cringed even though his touch was warm and comforting.
His expression darkened. “If it’s any consolation, she wouldn’t even be aware that you were there.”
“How do you know? Anyway, I’d know.” She drew a deep, trembling breath. “I’ll know the rest of my life.”
He saw the glimmer of tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Cheyenne,” he said softly. “But we have to go to the island.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.
Her throat got tight. She was on the verge of tears, and it was all his fault.
She had fought back by sulking.
All through their gourmet Mexican dinner, which she had served in Martin’s elegant dining room beneath the Steuben chandeliers. And later she had continued to be moody long into the evening, which they’d spent in the library sorting through Martin’s bills.
Cutter had gobbled enchiladas and chalupas, complimenting her cooking, saying she really should write another cookbook, even as he advised her that for normal fare he preferred low-fat meals.
“I will cook whatever I please.”
“And your mother says I have to have my way,” Cutter teased, winking at Jeremy as he seized a homemade tortilla and smeared it with chili. “I suppose we’ll all get as plump as piglets. I do want to warn you, Cheyenne—I prefer slender women.”
When he tried to pass Cheyenne the tortillas, she icily refused the platter.
He raised his eyes and smiled.
She stared at him silently with a dark, glazed expression.
His smiles broadened as he pretended to ignore her scowls and dark silences, but in the end, she’d made him and Jeremy miserable.
Yet, what bothered her the most was that she sensed Cutter wasn’t denying her to be mean, or because he was indifferent. No. There had been kindness and compassion in his eyes.
There was real danger. Uneasily she remembered that when he’d been preparing to pay Jeremy’s ransom, he hadn’t met with his bankers. No. Cutter had assembled an army. He’d loaded his jet with rifles and high-capacity assault weapons.
What had he done?
She would have to ask him again.
The high grasses in the dunes, which were aflame with wildflowers, swayed in the wind. Cheyenne did feel safer on the island with Cutter than she had in a long time. A million flowers had burst into bloom when their plane had landed. Even so, she could scarcely take her eyes off Jeremy when he played outside. Neither could Cutter who had guards posted everywhere.
From the window near the fireplace she watched Jeremy on the deck as he chucked great handfuls of popcorn into the air. He was laughing and she smiled as greedy gulls whirled and dived, screaming in frenzied excitement all around him.
He had been so afraid at first after he’d come home, but Cutter and she had reassured him. Slowly he regained some of his old confidence. Then just when Jeremy had begun to talk of venturing outside and climbing trees again and calling his friends again, he’d had the nightmare.
He had awakened, screaming that he’d seen and heard Baldy and Kurt in his bedroom. Cutter had taken Jeremy seriously. Within minutes the house had been filled with cops and Cutter’s men. By odd coincidence, Kurt had disappeared that same night and all the roses in her garden had withered.
An all points bulletin had been put out on Kurt, but he hadn’t been found.
Every night since, Cutter had waited till he thought she was asleep. Then he’d taken his gun and prowled through the house, checking every window, every latch, and every door, especially those near Jeremy’s room. Once when she had followed Cutter on his nightly rounds and tripped over a throw rug, he’d whirled and aimed his pistol at her heart.
“Hold it right there!”
She had screamed.
He had jumped and let his gun fall against his jean-clad thigh.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Cheyenne?”
As if it were her fault.
But his harsh voice had been as raspy with fear as her breathless scream. When he’d come to her, he’d been shaking almost as much as she.
“Cutter, what are you doing with that...that thing?”
“Just checking around.”
“Why?”
“Because—” He looked at her, his eyes bleak and lost. “Just because.”
“You shouldn’t even have a gun. You could shoot the wrong person. You could have shot me.”
He nodded slowly. “You’re right. This whole thing has me crazy.”
“Why?”
“I can’t ta
lk about it.”
He reached out and touched her face tenderly as if he wished he could explain, and she knew that her entire arsenal of feminine wisdom against guns stood no chance against his fierce male need to protect and defend.
Blindly she let him take her into his arms, where she buried her face against the hard warmth of his muscular chest. His silence was like a wall between them.
In the safety of his arms, she swallowed a hoarse sob. “Sometimes, even though Jeremy’s home and safe, I still feel so scared. Like...now—”
“I know.” He stroked her hair.
“Please tell me what’s wrong. Not knowing reminds me of how it was with Martin. He never told me...”
“Shhh—I’m not Martin. I’m going to take care of you. Forever. I swear.” He wrapped his arms around her more tightly.
Being held was so wonderful, she stopped asking him questions. Though he didn’t confide in her, his silence began to speak to her in a new and magical way. He understood her fear. He shared it. She suddenly felt the depth of his caring, the depth of his need to protect her and their son.
His mouth touched hers, gently at first, and his tongue was warm as it coaxed her lips apart. His rough fingertips began to slide reverently down her cheek. His open palm caressed her breast. Her emotional restraints fell away. So did her fear.
Maybe Cutter didn’t love her.
Maybe he never would. Maybe, even though Martin was dead, she would always be a pawn in their war. Maybe he was just using her for sex. Or to get close to Jeremy.
When he had led her back to bed, she had let him make love to her, and the wildness of his need as well as his tenderness, had carried them both to profound new heights.
Fortunately Jeremy had had no more nightmares, and today, as she watched him play outside, he seemed almost normal.
Beyond the smiling boy and his birds, beyond the white beach, a thick lavender sea mist blurred the horizon.
She wished her mother was all right. Maybe then she could enjoy being here with Cutter and her son. But only last night she had dreamed of her mother’s marsh drying up and becoming exactly like the arid ranch land that surrounded it. She had dreamed of her mother in her coffin. When Cheyenne had awakened, Cutter had taken her in his arms as she tearfully confessed that she already missed her mother even though she was still alive.
