by Linda Howard
What Luis was thinking was that he should have known she would suffer under a massive load of guilt, and he ached to comfort her. Poor darling, she really had no idea about the physical side of life. Olivia had been raised too conventionally and was herself too ladylike by nature for it to be any other way. She didn’t even know how to rid herself of Bellamy’s unwanted attentions.
Luis looked around, and his gaze settled on two of the Bar B’s ranch hands, men he knew to be hottempered. They were almost always contesting each other in one thing or another, and tonight was no exception. The object of their competition tonight was a pretty little farm girl whose face was flushed with pleasure at so much male attention.
Luis eased his way through the crowd. Both men held drinks in their hands, supposedly punch, but he knew the drink was well laced with whiskey. In the jostling crowd it was easy to reach out and bump one man’s arm enough to make him spill the contents of the cup all over the farm girl’s best dress.
He quickly moved back out of the way, blending into the crowd and listening to the growing sounds of altercation he left behind him. The man who had spilled his punch was accusing the other of deliberately pushing his arm. The disagreement erupted into a full-scale fistfight before he could make his way back across the room.
Kyle scowled with annoyance when he saw that the combatants were two of his own men. He said something to Olivia and left his seat, swiftly crossing the room. It wouldn’t do his standing in the community any good if his men were so rowdy, and Luis knew that Bellamy was very proud of his respectability.
Luis looked at Olivia’s pinched expression and silently berated himself. He had almost pushed too hard that afternoon, so now she was remembering her shame rather than the pleasure of his kisses. It would take all of his charm to repair the damage.
He made his way through the crowd toward her. She saw him before he could reach her and immediately spun away, retreating from him.
She was afraid of him! Luis was thunderstruck at the realization. No woman had ever before feared him, so why did it have to be this particular woman who ran from him, this woman whom he wanted as he had never before wanted anyone?
Her action angered him. He was a man, instinctive and possessive, and he intended to claim Olivia as his without examining the whys and wherefores of it. He increased his pace and caught up with her before she could reach the safety of her mother’s side, stopping her by the simple means of putting his boot down on her skirts. She jerked to a halt and threw him a pleading look over her shoulder, but she had the choice of either staying where she was or having her skirt torn off.
“Dance with me,” he said, only for her ears. “Please.”
“No!” She gasped the refusal. She was so distraught that she couldn’t be in his arms again without somehow betraying herself.
“Then walk outside with me.”
“No!” This time the refusal was tinged with horror. Another invitation to do something improper! How could he ask her to walk with him again, after what had happened that afternoon? But that was probably the reason he asked, she thought bitterly. He expected to find her as easy again.
Luis put his strong hand on her arm and turned her. “Go outside, Olivia. Now.”
She hadn’t heard that hard, commanding tone from him before, and it silenced her. Numbly she let him guide her out of the meeting hall where they always held the annual dance, and down the steps.
The cool air washed over her hot face as he led her across the street and into the shadow of a huge tree. She could still hear the music and the laughter, the cacophony of conversation from a multitude of throats at once, but it was all muted and far away now, overlain by the sounds of the night.
“What do you want?” she whispered almost fearfully. She tried to free her arm, but he tightened his grip.
“I want you to stop looking as if you expect to be stoned to death,” he retorted angrily.
Olivia’s spine stiffened at his tone. She wasn’t given to temper, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t stand up for herself if she felt under unjust attack. “I’ll look any way I please,” she retorted, embarrassed that the best she could think of was such a childish reply. She was at a disadvantage, having had little experience with arguing.
Apparently he noticed it, too, for his grasp eased, and a faint smile teased the corners of his mouth. “Remind me someday to teach you how to fight,” he said. “What you should have said was something that would make me feel guilty, too.”
She bit her lip, immediately reminded of her own lack of decorum. “Why should I?” she asked, the words troubled. “What happened was my fault. I never should have gone with you.”
“Ah, darling.” He laughed softly and enfolded her hand, carrying it to his mouth. He delicately licked one of her knuckles, and she trembled. “Don’t take all the blame on yourself when my shoulders are so much broader. I at least knew what I was doing.”
“I’m not a child, Mr. Fronteras.” She was irritated that he evidently thought her so stupid she hadn’t been aware of the inappropriateness of going off alone with him. “Of course I knew what I was doing.”
He still looked amused. “Did you? I don’t think so. If you’d had any experience at all, you wouldn’t be so upset now. Has anyone else ever kissed you?”
She knotted her fists. “Of course,” she said indignantly.
“Really? How?” He sounded skeptical. “Closed-mouth pecks that didn’t even give you a taste?”
Abruptly she realized the absurdity of what she was doing, trying to convince him of experience she didn’t have when she had been worried that he would think exactly that of her. She jammed her fingers against her mouth to stifle her laughter, and Luis grinned, too.
“That’s better,” he said. He gently caressed her cheek. “What happened today is what happens between two people who are attracted to each other. It isn’t shameful, though it certainly should always be private. Do you think your friends haven’t felt a man’s touch on their breasts? I assure you that most of them have.”
“Most of my friends are married,” she pointed out. “I assume that married people are—are more free with each other,” she finished carefully. She could feel her face heating at his bluntness.
“Some more than others,” Luis drawled, thinking of the poor souls who probably did no more than ruck up their nightshirts and finish within five minutes. Poor men? Poor ladies! “But you can bet that they made love at least a little even before they married.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, disconcerted at the idea.
A couple of cowboys left the meeting hall just then, their joking voices loud in the still night air. Luis put his arm around her waist and drew her to the other side of the tree, out of their sight. She felt the rough bark against her back and leaned thankfully against the sturdy support.
“Of course they did. It’s so enjoyable, after all.”
She was finding it difficult to keep the point of the argument in mind. “Enjoyable or not, Mr. Fronteras—”
“Luis.”
“—I should never have allowed you such liberties today, and I’m ashamed of myself for such behavior.”
“Moralistic little darling,” he said tenderly.
“I am not your darling! Please don’t call me that.”
“But you are. You just haven’t admitted it yet.”
She took a deep breath, trying to compose herself and reorder her thoughts. “Our relationship is far too casual for me to permit such incidences between us, and I won’t allow it to happen again—”
He put both hands on the tree, bridging her rib cage and effectively hemming her in. “Don’t,” he said quietly, interrupting her. “Don’t make statements you’ll then feel obliged to live up to.”
“But I must,” she replied just as quietly.
Luis drew a deep breath. He couldn’t allow her to turn him away. It wasn’t just the protectiveness she stirred in him, or the desire, it was the overwhelming need to have her
for himself. He couldn’t just seduce her; Olivia would consider herself “ruined” and would never marry, just to keep her sordid secret. She was sweet and honorable and deserved better.
He felt as if he were only slowly beginning to understand his own mind, but suddenly he knew what he wanted. He wanted Olivia, and he would do whatever it took to get her.
He leaned close to her. “No, there’s no need. My intentions are honorable. There’s nothing to fight against, unless you dislike me so much that you only want me to go away, and I don’t think that’s the case. Even if it were, I wouldn’t go,” he finished with iron determination.
Her breath caught. She tilted her head back against the tree, looking up at his lean face revealed by the moonlight spilling down through the gently shifting leaves. She was so stunned that she groped to order her thoughts.
It was almost impossible to comprehend. He wanted to marry her? That surely was what he meant by “honorable intentions.” Yet how could he? He was a drifter, by his own admission. He had no home. Though she had dreamed of travel, there had always been an image of home in the back of her mind, the center to which she returned. “Home” wasn’t her parents’ house in those dreams, but a warm, welcoming home she had made with the man she loved. They would have children, so of course there had to be a home. How could she even consider marrying a man who couldn’t provide that?
“Nothing to say?” he asked with a wry smile. “You don’t love me yet, Olivia Millican, but you will. I won’t give up until you do.”
Then he leaned down and began kissing her, and her breath caught all over again, for if his kisses had been thrilling that afternoon, they were even more so now that she knew what to expect. She had the brief thought that she should resist, but she ignored it. She didn’t want to resist, she didn’t want to think about what she should or shouldn’t do; she wanted to enjoy, to seize this moment of pure pleasure.
She found that having once traveled a road, it’s difficult to keep your feet from turning down it again. His bold hand searched her breasts, burning her with his heat, and she couldn’t find the inclination to refuse him. Instead her own hands stroked up his muscled back, kneading the hard flesh with delight as she learned the differences between his body and hers. She found his black hair thick and silky as she ran her fingers along the nape of his neck. He shivered a little, and her heart leapt at the knowledge that her touch excited him.
A thick groan broke from his throat, and he eased away from her, his breath coming loud and heavy. “Go back inside,” he said, “or we’ll do more than kiss, and this isn’t the place for it. Tomorrow is Sunday, so I won’t be working. Will you go for a ride with me?”
She couldn’t think. What would she tell her parents? They wouldn’t approve of her riding with anyone they knew nothing about, much less a Mexican drifter.
He seemed to realize all of that without her saying a word, and he smiled bitterly. “Of course not,” he said, answering the question for her. “I understand. I should have thought before asking you such a question.”
“Luis,” she said hesitantly, “it isn’t—” But it so obviously was that she broke off in midsentence.
“It is. But when you love me, it won’t matter.” He kissed her again, lingeringly, then caught her shoulders and turned her back toward the meeting hall, toward music and lights and laughter. “Go on, go back, before your pretty dress gets all mussed up. But if you decide to go riding tomorrow, try the north road. I’ll be riding there myself around two o’clock.”
He gave her a little push, and her steps carried her automatically back to the meeting hall. She stepped inside and was engulfed in warm air and noise. She was still dazed and couldn’t concentrate, but the crushing burden of guilt seemed to have fallen away. She didn’t know what to think. It seemed as if in a matter of a few hours the course of her entire life had been re-routed, and she didn’t know where she was going.
How odd that she had felt despair at the thought of a marriage proposal from Lucas, who could give her everything in the way of material wealth, yet the thought of marrying Luis, who could give her nothing but adventure, made her feel shivery and excited, even frightened, but never despairing. Luis was right in saying that she didn’t love him, for she barely knew him and was too cautious to plunge headlong into anything—wasn’t she? Yet she hadn’t denied him, hadn’t turned him down flat as she was sure she should have. Instead she had let him kiss her and fondle her, after swearing to herself that it would never happen again. And she couldn’t get his proposal out of her mind.
He hadn’t actually proposed; he had just said that his intentions were honorable, a curiously formal phrase from a drifter.
She saw Kyle Bellamy making his way toward her, and she quickly reached Honora, who was flushed with pride at how well everything had gone during “her” year.
“I’m going to go home, Mother,” she said quietly.
Instantly Honora blinked and frowned, switching her attention from the dance to her only chick. Olivia could almost feel the motherly concern being focused on her.
“Are you feeling ill, darling?”
“I have a headache, and the noise is making it worse.” It was the most time-worn excuse in the world, but Olivia wasn’t accustomed to lying to her mother and couldn’t think of anything more original.
“I’ll get your father to walk you home.” But right before leaving in search of Wilson Honora gave her daughter such a look of sympathetic concern that Olivia sighed, knowing her mother was thinking the same thing everyone else was. It would be all over town tomorrow that she and Lucas had had a fight, or something else that would explain why he wasn’t at the dance and she was leaving early with a headache.
She would have to tell her parents that she had mistaken Lucas’s intentions, that he was after all only a good friend. They would be disappointed, but she couldn’t let them continue to look on Lucas as her suitor. Not tonight, though. She had far too much on her mind.
Wilson dutifully walked her home, and Olivia went straight upstairs to bed. She lay in the darkness and thought of all that had happened that day. She remembered the way Luis’s mouth had closed over her tender breast, and she blushed, clasping her hands over the suddenly throbbing mounds. She should never have let him—
But she had.
She shouldn’t go riding tomorrow, she thought. Whatever she did, she shouldn’t go anywhere near the north road. She told herself that and knew she wouldn’t listen to her own advice.
10
THE TOWN WAS STILL QUIET FROM THE PICNIC AND dance the day before when Lucas rode in the next afternoon. Church was already out, and people had gone to their homes to rest off the aftereffects. It being a Sunday, when few men could justify stopping by the saloon for a drink, the establishment was occupied only by a few cowhands who had no duties for the day.
Both of the saloon girls were sitting and talking with the drinkers, as that encouraged them to drink more. Tillie looked up and smiled her slow smile at Lucas, and he gave a little jerk of his head. Her eyebrows rose, then she murmured a few words to the cowboy whose table she had been gracing and excused herself.
When she had sashayed close enough Lucas said softly, “Let’s go upstairs.”
Tillie looked amused. “You still have woman trouble?”
“Upstairs,” he repeated, not wanting to say anything where they could be overheard.
She walked in front of him, leading him up the narrow stairs. Lucas could feel eyes boring into his back and smiled wryly. If they only knew why he was there!
Tillie’s room was small, most of the space taken up by the double bed, though there was a washbasin and a dresser crammed into one of the corners. It was surprisingly clean and sweet-smelling.
She sat down on the bed and crossed her elegant legs. “Do you want anything special?” she asked in that slow, warm voice, and despite himself Lucas couldn’t help thinking that her “special” might be almost enough to kill a man.
“A favor,�
� he said.
She laughed aloud. “Somehow I knew my luck wasn’t running true today. Well, maybe another time. What can I do for you?”
“Do you have any of the little sponges that keep women from conceiving?”
Those enormous brown eyes twinkled at him, and he grinned back, at ease with the request. Tillie wouldn’t ask questions and wouldn’t gossip, and her amusement was without malice.
She got up and sauntered over to the dresser. “So your woman troubles are over. You didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would let it go on too long anyway, so I’m not surprised.” She hummed a little as she opened a door and extracted a handpainted ceramic box. “How many do you need?”
It was his turn to laugh. “I don’t know. How many do I need? Isn’t one enough?”
She giggled, a sound rich and musical. “Here, take three. You know—just in case.”
He snorted as she put the three small round sponges in his hand, but the smile still played around his hard mouth.
“Just soak one in vinegar,” she instructed. “I suppose you know what to do with it, because it’s a sure bet your lucky woman doesn’t.”
Lucas shook his head in amusement at the thought of the fight he would probably have getting Dee to use these. Then again, he was always surprised by the battles she chose to fight and the ones she ignored, so it was possible she wouldn’t say anything at all.
Tillie’s dark eyes were suddenly serious. “You take care of that woman, Lucas Cochran,” she said sternly. “It wouldn’t do at all for folks to find out about you and her, not after all the trouble she’s had from some of the men around here.”
Lucas’s head jerked up, his eyes narrowing dangerously. Tillie held up a placating hand. “Word won’t get out from me,” she said.
“How did you know?” His voice was silky smooth and deadly. “Did anyone see us?”
