Lonesome Rider and Wilde Imaginings (9 page)

She seemed to need him in turn, even hunger for him. Her delicate ivory fingers were so sensual upon his dark, bronzed flesh. It was wrong, perhaps. But it was a part of this strange paradise, and so the early days passed with a touch of magic.

Then it began. And perhaps what was most amazing of all was that she didn't realize he followed her.

Actually, the first night, she didn't ride. She rose, slipped on a robe, and went out to the barn. The first time she had started to rise he had asked her what was wrong and she had gone stiff, saying nothing and pretending to sleep once again. The second time, he had let her go. But he had followed her. And in the barn she had paced over the entire space, stomping in each stall. It went on at length, until she grew tired and frustrated and returned to the house.

He had slipped into bed just two seconds before her. He had almost demanded an explanation, but then he had decided to wait.
She
would tell
him
what she was doing.

She didn't.

The next night, she rose and dressed silently, slipped from the room, and headed for the stables. He followed her as swiftly as he could.

The moon was full. She could see easily enough, and she seemed to have an abstract idea of where she was going. They rode south along the corral and over a small hill to a clump of large, scattered rocks. The stream ran just behind them; he could hear the bubble of water even as he carefully lagged behind her.

She dismounted, looked about with dismay, then began to try to push the rocks. They were good-sized, to say the least, each weighing well over two hundred pounds. He might have pitched in and helped her. He watched her with astonishment instead.

When a rock or boulder seemed set in the ground, she gave up and started on a new one. In all, she managed to move perhaps two or three before she paused, looked at the moon, then looked around herself, shivering. She didn't see him because he'd been very careful to take a stance behind the grove of trees to the extreme south of her.

She was going for her horse, he realized. He swiftly mounted his bay bareback, and easily beat her to the ranch and back into bed.

She joined him within a matter of minutes, anxiously watching his face to assure herself that he slept, crawling in very carefully beside him.

He waited, aware that she lay there, still as a candlestick, waiting for him. He kept his eyes closed, and at last, it seemed, she sighed and slept. Baffled, he lay awake.

They made plans the next day for a trip into Jackson Prairie for more supplies, for cattle and hopefully, a few hired hands. They would go at the end of the week.

That night, she rose again. And he followed her. And she tried to push stones. Once again, he beat her back to the house. And she slipped in beside him. And he lay awake, absolutely confused. What in God's name was she doing? And why the hell didn't she trust him?

When she slept, he came up on an elbow and studied her. She had curved against him already—naturally. Her hair was a golden sweep around the two of them, her delicate features so perfect and serene against her pillow. Her vision caught upon something in his heart. Even the touch of her flesh against his was newly evocative.

He was tempted suddenly to pinch her awake. To demand an explanation. Instead, he lay watching her. He didn't pinch her. He swept his arms around her and held her closely to him.

But the next night, he determined, was going to be it.

It started the same. Stew for dinner, coffee before the fire. They were both rather silent. When her eyes touched his, he didn't say a word, just set down his mug, swept her up, and made love to her. Hard, passionate love, created by his anger with her silence. He drew from her a fiery response that evoked his ultimate tenderness in the end, and when she was captured gently within his arms again, he knew that he was in love with her.

The past still hurt. It was a huge void in his heart. He owed Mara, he owed his father, he owed his unborn child. But when that debt was paid, he would love the golden blond Yankee beauty, who might well be maddened by moonlight.

She rose again, just as she had the past two nights. He waited. He followed her. And she went back to shaking those damned rocks. He wasn't going to ride back ahead of her, he decided. Tonight, when she finished, he'd be here. Right here, in her path, waiting.

But even as he stood there, watching her, he heard a noise from the east, just past the spring, and was instantly wary. He blended against the trees and watched.

There was another man watching Jessica that night. He had a scar across his face, starting below his eyes, continuing to his jaw. A big-brimmed hat hid his eyes. He was atop a charcoal gray horse, waiting silently, watching.

Then suddenly, he was moving toward Jessica.

He spurred his horse to gallop close, then suddenly leapt from the animal. Jessica had, at the last moment, seen him coming. She had drawn a small pistol from the pocket of the simple gingham skirt she was wearing, but the man had flown upon her before she could begin to fire the weapon. Blade heard her gasp and hit the ground, hard. Then he heard her scream, and suddenly fall silent, even as he was on his way to her. The man was talking to her. Heatedly. “I'll have those papers, Mrs. Dylan. The captain ain't coming back to haunt me now! I'll have his papers, and I'll have his wife, by God!”

She could fight. Jessica could fight. She was wild beneath the man—biting, clawing, scratching.

But he was stronger. And infinitely pleased to discover she was naked beneath her simple blouse and skirt. As he wrenched up the latter, Blade was upon him, silent as the night behind him, striking like lightning. Maybe he'd meant to kill from the beginning. Maybe he'd been so furious to see the man's brutality toward Jessica. Maybe it had just been that he was touching Jessica. Maybe it was just happenstance …

Blade pried the man from her. The stranger turned, snarling, reaching for the knife at his calf. Blade belted him in the jaw and the man spun around. He fell on his knife, dead even as he hit the ground.

Jessica cried out softly, trembling. She looked up, meeting Blade's eyes, swallowing hard. “Thank God—” she began.

“What the hell is going on here?” he demanded furiously, reaching for her, jerking her to her feet. She was still trembling. Maybe he should have given her a little sympathy, he chided himself. After all, she had come so close to rape, perhaps worse.

But Jessica had been in trouble since she had come here. This man had known who she was. She had needed a bodyguard. She had wanted protection from this man. She wanted more. And Blade was willing to give it. She was forcing the game, and she wasn't letting Blade play with a full deck. He couldn't give her the least bit of sympathy. Not one iota of tenderness. She'd just get herself into worse trouble.

“Blade, damn you, you have no right—”

“Oh, madam, you are wrong! You've given me every right—”

“You're paid for your services!” she cried wretchedly.

He was amazed at just how cutting the words seemed to be, how they tore into his heart. He grabbed her shoulders suddenly, wrenched her against him and shook her. “I'm not paid to be a fool, Mrs. Dylan, and maybe I'm just not paid well enough for your lies!”

“I've never lied to you!”

“You've never told me the truth!”

She fell silent, pulling away from him. She was still shaking. He gritted his teeth, then came behind her, shoving her along.

“What—?”

“Go back. Now. I'm going to bury this fellow, and then I'll be right behind you. And then you can tell me who I just killed and why. And I want the truth, Jessy. Damn you, I want the truth!”

She didn't seem to move very well on her own, so he picked her up bodily and set her on her horse. When she was gone, he looked around, then picked a spot in the grove and buried the man. Dirty, sweating and exhausted, he returned to the house. She was sitting before the fire in the rocker, staring at the flames. The whiskey bottle was at her side. She'd poured a shot for him. And one for herself.

She heard him enter. It was a moment before her eyes slid to his, then back to the fire again. He walked over to stand behind her, picked up the whiskey, swallowed it down. His hands fell on her shoulders.

“Let's have it, shall we, Mrs. Dylan?” he said softly. “No lies.”

“I never lied to you. My name is Jessica Dylan, my money came from my father, and I was married to a Captain Charles Dylan who was …” She hesitated a moment, clenching her jaw. “He was my best friend all of my life. I loved him with all my heart.”

Blade moved to the fire, staring at her from a position at the mantel. “You loved him so much. You married him. But you never made love with him?”

Her eyes rose to his. “You don't understand, maybe you can't understand.”

“Try me.”

She lifted her hands. “I was an only child. My mother was dead, my father was always away. Charles lived near me. He was older. He came to my schoolroom, he made snowmen for me. He read me stories. He gave me the world. At the beginning of the war, he finally asked to marry me. Things moved too quickly. We had a wedding, at which he was burning with fever. I sat with him through the night. Before he really recovered, they had ordered his troops to move, and he was sent West in an army ambulance. I would have come. He wouldn't let me.”

“And in all that time, he didn't come back?”

“There was a war on. And it wasn't
all that time
,” she added softly. “He was killed at the end of 1863.”

Blade lifted his hands. “All right, Mrs. Dylan, you've still got me, I'll admit. What does all this have to do with the man I killed tonight?”

She shivered, drawing her feet up on the chair, hugging her knees to her chest. She started to speak, but fell silent.

“Jessica, now!”

“Charles was worried. He was third in command of the fort out here, and, due to conditions back East, he was being sent a number of Confederate prisoners. They kept escaping, and Charles was being blamed. But he knew that there were two men, at least, who were aiding and abetting the escapes. One was an enlisted man, Manson Jenks—”

“The fellow I just killed?”

Jessica nodded, swallowing hard. “I imagine. I never met the men, either of them, I just received letters from Charles about them. The other man was the commanding officer of the camp, Lieutenant Harding.”

“Harding!” Blade exclaimed.

“You've heard of him?”

He shrugged. He'd heard of Harding. He'd outrun him once. “He's a colonel now, I believe. He's still stationed at the fort. Still running it, I believe. But I don't understand. Why are these men after you?”

“Charles found some correspondence between them that proved they were taking bribes from the Confederates to release them. Charles didn't dare mail the letters to me, but he did let me know he had buried the proof on the property he bought. He—he loved it out here. He was fascinated by the different Indian tribes, even the Apaches. He loved the landscape, the vistas. He thought that I might, too. And so he bought this property.”

“And then?”

She shrugged. “There was a major uprising among the prisoners. Someone had given them weapons and had helped them escape. Charles was killed. And even then, well, he was blamed for the whole episode. It's on his military records. I just couldn't leave it that way.”

“But you little fool! You were willing to risk your own life—”

“Don't you see?” Jessica asked. “He was my life. For years. And he was a good man. He deserved so much more. There was no one left to fight for him—just me. I had to come here, and I still have to find those damned letters and prove the truth!”

“Harding might well be after you now,” Blade warned her.

She nodded. “I know. I have to find the letters fast.”

“Why didn't you tell me? Why the hell didn't you just tell me the truth and let me help you?”

“Well, you're not fond of Yankees,” she reminded him. “And I was afraid that you—”

“That I would what?”

“That you might try to stop me. I have to do this. I can never go forward, never really live anywhere, until it's done.”

You're a fool, he wanted to tell her. Charles is dead and gone, and none of us can do anything for him. He turned away from her, facing the fire. “Go to bed,” he told her briefly. She didn't move. He swung around on her. “We'll find the damned letters tomorrow night. I assume you have some idea of where you're looking and that you weren't trying to lift rocks for the hell of it?”

She nodded, her face pale. “He had a cache in the stables once, he had written to me. But he mentioned the stream and rocks in another letter, so he must have grown worried that he might have been seen around the barn and moved whatever he had. I—I didn't just come out here blindly.”

“No, you just walked into outlaws and Apaches by blind fool chance!”

She stood then. “And you!” she reminded him softly.

He was silent a minute. “And me,” he agreed, turning to the fire. A moment later Blade heard her rising, approaching him. “Go to bed!” he repeated.

She turned and did so. He stared at the flames a while. He wondered why he was so damned mad when he understood.

Because he couldn't bear to see her in danger, hurt. He sighed and rose and went into the darkened bedroom. He splashed water from the pitcher into the bowl and scrubbed his face and hands, stripped off his shirt and scrubbed his chest.

He felt her delicate fingers on his back. He felt them touching his shoulders. He heard her voice, soft, entreating.

“Blade …”

He stiffened. “Go to sleep, Jessica. Just go to sleep.”

Her delicate fingers withdrew as if his flesh had burned them. She was gone.

He finished scrubbing, grabbed a towel and dried himself, roughly. He threw down his towel at last, and crawled onto his side of the bed. He couldn't bear it any longer. She'd used him because she'd loved another man so deeply. Maybe that was what hurt, too. He really didn't know.