by Lind Howard
Webb came out of one of the stalls where he’d been patting the inhabitant, a frisky yearling who had gotten into rough play with some other yearlings and a kick had opened up a cut on his leg. “Your salve still works magic,” he said to Loyal. “That cut looks like it’s a week old instead of just two days.”
He took the reins from Loyal, and they swung into their saddles. Roanna felt her body change, the old magic sweeping over her muscles the way it always had. Instinctively she aligned herself with the horse’s rhythm from the first step he took, his strength flowing upward into her lithe, graceful limbs.
Webb held his horse a pace back from hers, mainly for the pleasure of watching her. She was the best rider he’d ever seen, period. His own horsemanship was of the quality that, had he had the desire, he could have competed successfully in either of the opposing equestrian poles, show jumping or rodeo, but Roanna was better. Sometimes, every decade or so, there would be an athlete on the scene whose grace of movement transcended the sport, turning every meet, game, or competition into a work of art, and that was what it was like to watch Roanna ride. Even when the pace was easy, as it was now, and they were riding simply for the pleasure of it, her body was fluid as she adjusted to and controlled every nuance of the animal’s motion beneath her.
Would she look like that if she were riding him? Webb’s breath caught. Would her sleek thighs tighten and relax, lifting her, then letting her slide down onto his erection, so that she enveloped him with one smooth motion while her torso moved in that graceful sway—
He cut the thought off as blood rushed to his loins, and he shifted uncomfortably. Getting a hard-on while horseback riding wasn’t a good idea, but it was difficult to dispel the image. Every time he looked at her he saw the curve of her buttocks, and he remembered touching them, caressing her, driving deep and hard, and coming inside her with a force that made him feel as if he were exploding.
He was going to do himself a serious injury if he didn’t stop thinking about it. He wiped the beads of sweat from his brow and deliberately wrenched his gaze away from her bottom. He looked instead at the trees, the horse’s ears, anything except her, until his erection had subsided and he was comfortable again.
They didn’t talk. Roanna was so often silent anyway, and now she seemed totally absorbed in the pleasure of the ride and he didn’t want to disturb her. He enjoyed the freedom himself. He’d been working almost from the minute he set foot back on Davencourt land, and he hadn’t taken the time to acclimate himself. His eyes were accustomed to stark, dramatic mountains and an endless sweep of sky, to cactus and scrub bushes, to clouds of dust and air so clear you could see for fifty miles. He was used to dry, searing heat, to arroyos that would abruptly flood from a rain the day before, far upstream.
He’d forgotten how damn green this place was, every shade of green in creation. It soaked into his eyes, into the pores of his skin. The air was thick and hazy with humidity. Hardwoods and evergreens rustled softly in a breeze so slight he couldn’t feel it, wildflowers nodded their technicolor heads, birds darted and soared and sang, insects buzzed.
It hit him hard, low down in the gut. He’d developed a real love for Arizona and would never give up that part of his life, but this was home. This was where his roots were, sunk generations deep into the rich soil. Tallants had lived here for almost two hundred years, and hundreds of years longer than that if you counted the Cherokee and Choctaw heritage that ran in his family.
He hadn’t let himself miss Alabama when he left. He had concentrated solely on the future and what he could build with his own two hands in the new home he’d chosen. But now that he was back, it was as if his soul had revived. He’d handle his family, ill-tempered and ungrateful as some of them were. He didn’t like having so many Tallants living off the Davenports and not doing a damn thing to earn their keep. Lucinda was the tie between the Davenports and the Tallants, and when she died … He looked at the slim figure riding in front of him. The family hadn’t been prolific, and untimely deaths had decimated their ranks. Roanna would be the only surviving Davenport, the last of the line.
No matter what he had to do, he would hold the Davenport legacy intact for her.
They rode for hours, even skipping lunch. He didnt’ like for her to miss any meals, but she looked so relaxed, with a flush on her cheeks, that he decided it was an acceptable trade-off. He would make certain from now on that she had time for a ride every day if she wanted, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea if he applied the same decision to himself.
She didn’t bubble over with enthusiasm the way she once would have done, talking nonstop and making him laugh with her quirky, sometimes rowdy observations. That Roanna would never return, he thought with a pang. It wasn’t just trauma that had changed her into this controlled, reserved woman; she had grown up. She would have changed anyway, though not to this extent; time and responsibility had a way of transforming people. He missed the mischievous imp, but the woman got to him in a way no one else ever had. This volatile mixture of lust and protectiveness was driving him crazy, the two instincts warring with each other.
He’d stood on the balcony the night before and watched her through the windows while she read. She’d been isolated in a soft pool of light, curled in a huge chair that dwarfed her slender body. The light had picked up the red in her chestnut hair, making it gleam with rich, dark tones. A modest white nightgown had swathed her to her ankles, but he could see the faint shadow of her nipples beneath the cloth, the darkness at the junction of her thighs, and he knew that the gown was all she wore.
He’d known that he could go into her room and kneel down in front of that chair, and she wouldn’t protest. He could slide his hands under the gown to cup her bottom and pull her forward. He’d been hard as rock, thinking of it, imagining the feel of her sliding down onto him.
Then she had looked up, as if she’d felt the heat of his thoughts. Her whiskey-brown eyes had been mysterious, shadowed pools as she stared back at him through the glass. Beneath the white cloth, her nipples had hardened into tiny peaks.
Just like that, her body had responded to him. A look. A memory. He could have had her then. He could have her now, he thought, watching her.
Was she pregnant?
It was too soon for her body to show any sign, but he wanted to strip her naked anyway, turn her this way and that with his big hands so he could minutely examine every inch of her in the bright sun, memorize her so that in the future he would be able to tell even the smallest change in her.
He was going to go out of his mind.
Roanna reined in. She felt exhilarated from the ride, but her muscles were telling her that it had been a while since she’d been in the saddle for such a long time. “I need to walk for a while,” she said, dismounting. “I’m getting a little stiff. You can go on if you want.”
She almost hoped that he would; it was a strain, being alone with him, riding with him in such perfect accord, the way they had before. Relaxed, with her guard down, several times she had almost turned to him with a teasing comment. She had caught herself each time, but the close calls made her nervous. It would be a relief to be alone.
But he dismounted as well and fell into step beside her. Roanna glanced at his expression and just as quickly looked away. His jaw was set, and he was staring straight ahead as if he couldn’t bear to even look at her.
Stricken, she wondered what she had done wrong. They walked in silence, the horses clopping along behind them. She hadn’t done anything wrong, she realized. They had barely spoken. She had no idea what was bothering him, but she refused to automatically take the blame on herself the way she had always done before.
He put his hand on her arm and drew her to a halt.
The horses stopped, shifting behind them. She gave him a questioning look and went still. His eyes were a deep, intense green, glittering with a heat that had nothing to do with anger. He stood very close to her, so close that she could feel the damp heat of his sweaty body, and
his broad chest was rising and falling with hard, deep breaths.
The impact of male lust hit her like a blow, and she swayed. Dazedly she tried to think, to pull back, but something inside her responded of its own volition. He wanted her! Happiness bloomed inside her, an internal golden glow that blotted out years of sadness. The reins dropped from her limp fingers, and she surged forward as if pulled by an invisible chain, rising on tiptoe as her arms went around his neck and her soft mouth lifted to his.
He stiffened in her embrace, just for a second, then he too dropped his reins, and his arms went around her, crushing her hard against him. His mouth was just as hard on hers, his tongue plunging deep. He was almost savaging her, the pressure of the kiss bruising her lips, his grip compressing her ribs. She could feel the ridge of his erection grinding against the soft juncture of her thighs.
She couldn’t breathe; a giddy blackness began to creep over her consciousness. Desperately she wrenched her mouth away from him, her head falling back like a flower too heavy for its fragile stem. Her body was on fire and she didn’t care, didn’t care what he did to her, let him take her here, now, on the ground without even a blanket to cover the earth. She had craved his touch, ached for him—
“No!” he said hoarsely, putting his hands on her hips and forcing her away from him. “God damn it, no!”
The shock was as staggering as that blatant look of lust had been. Roanna stumbled, her knees too wobbly to hold her upright. She grabbed her horse’s mane, clenching her fingers on the coarse hair and letting the big animal take her weight as she leaned against him. All color washed out of her face as she stared at Webb. “What?” she gasped.
“I told you,” he said in a savage tone. “What happened in Nogales won’t happen again.”
An icy hollow formed in the pit of her stomach. My God, she had misunderstood. She’d misread that expression on his face. He hadn’t wanted her at all, he’d been angry about something. She had wanted so desperately for him to want her that she had ignored everything he’d said and listened only to her own eternal, hopeless longing. She had just made a colossal fool of herself, and she thought she would die of shame.
“I’m sorry,” she managed to choke out, backing away from him. The well-trained horse backed up, too, keeping pace with her. “I didn’t mean—I know I promised—Oh, God!” With that despairing wail, she threw herself onto the horse’s back and kicked him into a gallop.
She heard him yell something, but she didn’t stop. Tears blurred her eyes as she bent over the horse’s neck. She didn’t think she would ever be able to face him again, and she didn’t know if she would ever be able to recover from this final rejection.
Webb stared after her, his own face white, his hands knotted into fists at his side. He cursed himself, using every vicious term he’d ever heard. God, he couldn’t have handled that any worse! But he’d been in an agony of desire all day, and when she had thrown herself against him like that, he’d lost it. The red tide of lust had swamped him, and he’d stopped thinking, plain and simply. He’d have pushed her to the ground and taken her right there, pounded her into the dirt, but she had pulled away from him and her head had fallen back as limply as any rag doll’s, and he’d realized how roughly he was treating her.
He’d forced her into bed with him in Nogales, using blackmail as a means of slaking his lust for her. This time he’d been about to use brute force. He’d hauled himself back from the edge, but just barely. God, just barely. He had only kissed her, hadn’t even touched her breasts or taken off any of her clothes, and he’d been on the verge of orgasm. He could feel the dampness of preliminary semen on his underwear.
And then he’d pushed her away—Roanna, who had already suffered so much rejection that she had withdrawn from everyone rather than give them the power to hurt her again. Only he retained that power, he was her only vulnerability, and with raw, savage frustration blinding him, he had pushed her away. He’d wanted to explain, to say that he didn’t want to take advantage of her the way he had in Nogales. He wanted to talk to her about that night; he wanted to ask when her period was due, if she was already late. But the clumsy words that had come out of his mouth had been like a blow to her, and she had fled before he could say anything else.
There was no point in trying to catch her. Her horse wasn’t the fastest thing on four legs, but then neither was his. She had the advantage of weighing about half what he did, and being the better rider to boot. Chasing after her would be a wasted effort, and hard on his mount in this heat.
But he had to talk to her, had to say something, anything, that would chase the haunted, empty look from her eyes.
Roanna didn’t go back to the house. She wanted only to hide and never have to face Webb again. She felt shredded inside, and the pain was so new and raw that she simply couldn’t face anyone.
She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever. She was bound to Davencourt for as long as Lucinda lived. Somehow, tomorrow, she would find the strength to see him and pretend that nothing had ever happened, that she hadn’t literally thrown herself at him again. Tomorrow she would have her protective shell rebuilt; maybe some cracks would show where she had mended it, but the walls would hold. She would apologize, pretend it hadn’t been important. And she would endure.
She stayed away for the rest of the afternoon, stopping at a shady creek to water the horse and let him graze on the soft, fresh grasses nearby. She sat in the shade and blanked her mind, letting the time drip away as she did at night when she was alone and the sleepless hours stretched before her. Anything could be gotten through, one second at a time, if she refused to let herself feel.
But when the purple and lavender shades of twilight began to darken the world around her, she knew she couldn’t delay any longer and reluctantly mounted the horse and turned his head toward Davencourt. An anxious Loyal came out to meet her.
“Are you all right?” he asked. Webb must have been in a black mood when he returned, but Loyal didn’t ask what had happened; that was her business, and she’d tell him if she wanted. But he did want to know if she was physically okay, and Roanna managed to nod.
“I’m fine,” she said, and her voice was steady, if a trifle husky sounding. Odd; she hadn’t cried, but still the strain was evident in her tone.
“You go on up to the house,” he said, his brow still furrowed with concern. “I’ll take care of the horse.”
Well, that was twice in one day. Her protective shell must not be as far along in reconstruction as she’d hoped. She was tired enough, devastated enough, that she simply said, “Thanks,” and dragged herself toward the house.
She thought about sneaking up the outside stairs again, but somehow that seemed like too much effort. She had sneaked up those stairs too often in her life, she thought, instead of facing things. So she walked up the front steps, opened the front door, took the main stairs. She was halfway up them when she heard the thud of boot heels and Webb said from the foyer, “Roanna, we need to talk.”
It took every ounce of strength she had, but she turned to face him. If anything, he looked as strained as she felt. He was standing at the foot of the stairs, his hand on the newel post and one foot on the first step, as if prepared to come after her if she didn’t obey. His eyes were hooded, his mouth a grim line.
“Tomorrow,” she said, her voice soft, and turned away … and he let her go. With every step she expected to hear him coming after her, but she reached the top of the stairs and then her room, unhindered.
She took a shower, dressed, went down for supper. Her instinct was to hide away in her room, just as it had been to take the back stairs, but the time for that was past. No more hiding, she thought. She would face what she had to face, handle what she had to handle, and soon she would be free.
Webb watched her broodingly during supper, but afterward he didn’t try to maneuver her into a private conversation. She was tired, more exhausted than she thought she’d ever been before, and though with what had happened weighi
ng on her mind she doubted she would even doze that night, still she wanted to lie down, had to lie down. She said good-night to everyone and returned to her room.
As soon as she stretched out in her comfortable bed, she felt the odd, limp weightiness of drowsiness come over her. Whether it was the ride, the accumulated lack of sleep, the stress, or a combination of all of it, she fell deeply asleep.
She didn’t know when Webb silently entered the room through the balcony doors and checked on her, listening to her deep, even breathing to make certain she was asleep, watching her for a while, then leaving as quietly as he had entered. On this night, she wasn’t awake to watch the hands on the clock sweep inexorably around.
She didn’t remember dreaming; she never did.
In the deepest hour of the night she left her bed. Her eyes were open but strangely unseeing. She walked without haste, without hesitation, to her door and opened it. Her bare feet were sure and silent on the carpet as she drifted down the hall, ghostly in her white nightgown.
She wasn’t aware of anything until a sudden bursting pain shot through her head. She heard a strangely distant cry, and then there was only darkness.
CHAPTER 17
Webb bolted out of bed, instantly awake and horribly certain that he’d heard Roanna crying out, but the sound hadn’t come from her room. He grabbed up his pants and jerked them on, fastening them as he ran out the door. The cry had sounded as if it came from the direction of the stairs. God, what if she’d fallen down them—
The rest of the family had been awakened, too. He heard a babble of voices, saw lights coming on, doors opening. Gloria poked her head out just as he ran past. “What’s going on?” she asked fretfully.
He didn’t bother to answer, all his attention focused on getting to the stairs. Then he saw her, lying crumpled like a broken doll in the front hall that ran at a right angle to the stairs. He turned on the overhead light, the chandelier almost blinding in its brilliance, and his heart almost stopped. Blood, wet and dark, matted her hair and stained the carpet beneath her head.
