Beloved Outcast (16 page)

“Don’t worry,” came her cheerful assurance. “I wouldn’t want to miss this.”

Despite the current of sizzling heat that snaked through Logan’s groin, he managed to set a brisk pace through the trees. There were some pleasures a man hated to delay.

Once they arrived in town, he had every intention of courting Victoria properly. It had come to that, he admitted. Since he had no intention of sharing her with another man and had every intention of sampling each delectable inch of her sweetly curved body, he was going to have to make the supreme sacrifice and surrender his bachelorhood.

There would be rewards other than those of the marital bed, he knew. There would be the satisfaction of waking up each morning with her in his arms, of watching her incredible eyes light with excitement over some incomprehensible bit of drama from her books and hearing her voice, with its distinctive Boston accent, daintily assault his composure.

He could make her love him. He was convinced of that. Hell, it would be easy, once she knew he wasn’t Logan the larcenous marauder of the West. Of course, there was bound to be a rough patch when she realized he’d withheld
his true identity from her. But he was convinced he could sweet-talk her out of that little snit.

Everything considered, he was sure that, once they reached civilization, she would bend to his superior will. He would bring her flowers. Women liked that. He would get Martin to write her a poem or two, which Logan would then recite to her. He’d escort her to the hotel dining room for a dozen dinners and woo her with Pierre’s outstanding French cuisine. Hell, with her finicky appetite, that act alone would earn her undying love.

He’d buy her jewelry, too. Robeena had always responded well to the diamond-studded trinkets he lavished upon her.

The thought struck him that it might be worthwhile to borrow Nate Bushletter’s guitar and serenade Victoria under her window. Nate had done that with the young widow Harding, and the woman had been so overcome she climbed down her own trellis and, wearing nothing more than a cotton nightie, threw herself into Nate’s arms. Reverend Donally had pronounced their vows the next morning.

Evidently, guitars were effective with females. Of course, Nate did have an outstanding singing voice….

Logan shrugged away the thought. His courtship of Victoria was going to have to be circumspect. He wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize her reputation or endanger Madison’s chances of living in a respectable household.

That meant no guitar and no…no anticipating their vows. At least not flagrantly. Nor would there would be visits to Dancing Belle’s or The Golden Spur to work off his frustrations. Victoria wasn’t the kind of woman to tolerate unfaithfulness in a would-be beau. That suited Logan just fine. He found no temptation in the good-time women who’d formerly satisfied his appetites. They were a part of his past.

Not that he hadn’t enjoyed the benefits of his reputation as a womanizer. Accompanying some of the town’s fancy women to the Prairie Rose Hotel was just the thing to discourage the town’s doting mamas from peddling their virginal
daughters as prospective brides. Nor had his reputation interfered with his business activities. Actually, it was just the opposite. Men tended to admire his casual approach where women were concerned.

The town council had picked him as the temporary mayor until the next election. To his way of thinking, that proved his reputation hadn’t hurt him. Anyway, his past involvements with other women weren’t any concern of Victoria’s. He just hoped she would never hear anyone refer to him by the ridiculous name Windham had used, “Passion’s Pirate.”

The scent of the bar of soap he carried teased Logan’s nostrils. He glanced behind him. Pink-faced, Victoria was right behind him.

He stopped and rearranged the things he carried under one arm, extending his other hand to help her over a couple of boulders. “We’re here.”

V
ictoria accepted Logan’s tug, allowing herself to be lifted over the rounded bellies of several exposed boulders. The sound of falling water rumbled through the formerly quiet forest. When she reached his side, she looked across the cliff to the other side of the gorge, where three magnificent columns of cascading water plummeted from uneven precipices of several hundred feet. The frothy sheets of tumbling white liquid resembled gracefully shimmering wedding veils worn by brides of differing heights.

“They’re so beautiful,” Victoria said softly.

She turned to share her awe with Logan and received a terrible shock. He’d draped his arm around her waist, and his face was turned toward her. Her heart rammed up hard against her ribs.

I love him…

The horrible realization swelled inside her chest until she found it impossible to breathe. How could she have sunk so low?

“It’s from these falls that the town gets its name.”

Dry-mouthed, Victoria nodded at the obvious explanation. She knew she should pull away, but she couldn’t. Instead, she stared at his lean, hard lips, now framed by a black mustache and beard. Goodness, if she was to stand on tiptoe and wind her arms about his neck, she would be able
to plant a kiss squarely upon his unyielding but strangely beckoning mouth.

She ought to tear her gaze from his beloved countenance and experience the wild splendor of the falls presently roaring in her ears. She rationalized, however, that in his own way, Logan, too, was a natural, wild splendor. Besides, when he was gone, she surely would have ample opportunity to return to this place to enjoy the view.

“Why aren’t you looking at the falls? You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

Only the heights where I suspect you can take me.

She shook her head. “Looking down from high places has never overset me.”

“Good.”

With a mighty burst of will, she removed her gaze from his mouth. Before she could return her attention to the falls, however, his darkly penetrating eyes trapped her in their unfathomable depths.

His head lowered, so slowly that at first she thought she imagined the descent. Then his mouth touched hers. She sighed once, quickly balanced herself on tiptoe and twined her hands behind his neck. Everything was just as she’d visualized it.

And more.

His lips molded against hers. His tongue was bold and possessive. It invaded her mouth and stroked deeply. Beneath her skin, rivulets of excitement raced willy-nilly in a mad dash to nowhere.

She shook with such intensity that she felt the way a tuning fork must when slammed against a hard surface. Within her, a fierce vibration commenced. She couldn’t find the strength to draw free from Logan’s sensual aggression and end the rioting sensations flooding through her. The internal commotion he stirred was too powerful to resist.

Logan broke off the kiss with a groan. “Victoria.”

“Yes?” It was not a question, but an answer. She wondered whether he understood that.

Her breasts ached to feel his hands upon them. His mouth, too, she thought dizzily. Suddenly her clothing was a burden.

“Come on, I’ll show you the hot springs.”

She forced herself to loosen her grip around his neck. How embarrassing for him to have to pry himself from her impassioned grasp. Dazed by her strong reaction, she stepped back.

“Watch out!”

Logan’s shout hurt her eardrums. His hands clamped around her waist and jerked her away from the airy void that yawned below.

“Did you forget we’re standing on a cliff?”

“I must have.”

A scowl gripped his set features. “Well, pay attention.”

The man must be wrought from the same stone as the boulders they’d just traversed. How else could he think of such inconsequential matters as hot pools and mountain ledges?

“I’ll be more careful.” It was difficult to get the humbling words past her tingling lips.

If anyone deserved an apology, it was she. Logan should beg her to excuse his trespass upon her mouth. Then he should apologize for ending the interlude before she was satisfied.

His timing was dreadful. She wanted to be held in his arms far more than she wanted a bath. He should know that without her telling him so. As a gently bred woman, she wasn’t permitted to issue such an invitation herself. Propriety demanded that the man take the initiative in situations like this. It was then up to the woman to decline or accept his advances.

Propriety? Victoria hated admitting it, but she feared she’d left such virtues somewhere between here and the fort. Perhaps it would have been better to sacrifice a book or two, rather than her integrity.

She supposed she ought to be grateful to Logan for having caught her before she tumbled into the river that flowed beneath the falls. He’d saved her life. But she wouldn’t have lost her balance if he hadn’t kissed her senseless. When one pondered the point, the blame was his for advancing and then retreating with nary a thought for her bursting lungs and overwrought inner tickings.

He continued to stare at her with a mean look in his eyes. Two could play that game. She raised her chin. If he insisted on acting as if the kiss they’d just shared were a normal part of their daily dealings, and unworthy of comment, so be it. She could be as blase as the next person.

“Well, where are these hot springs?” she inquired briskly.

“I’ll show you.” Keeping one arm securely around her waist, he turned from the falls. He used his free hand to scoop up the bundle he’d laid on a nearby boulder. “They’re just beyond that stand of cedars.”

Victoria noticed that on this high mountain plateau the trees grew sparsely. There seemed to be an abundance of dead limbs and fallen pines. A faint whiff of sulfur reached her.

When they stepped through the cedars, they entered a small clearing washed in sunlight. The sulfurous smell was stronger, and the ground was dotted with a few resilient clumps of yellowish mountain grass and moss-covered rocks. There was a steamy density to the air that made it cling to her skin and hair.

The first hot pool they came to looked deep and inviting.

Logan set the towels and Victoria’s change of clothes on a flattened slab of granite. “These pools are great for bathing.”

Victoria looked around uncertainly. She spied four more nearby depressions filled with water, above which steamy vapors rose. The area was so open and unprotected, however, that it made her hesitate to peel to her bare skin. And there was the matter of Logan standing beside her.

Surely the toe-curling kiss they’d just shared was at odds with his assurances that he would behave as a gentleman. Perhaps the gentlemanly aspect of the unexpected liberty he’d taken when kissing her, she mused, came to bear in the way he’d abruptly terminated the intimate contact.

Victoria made the disheartening discovery that she wished Logan would act like the person he well and truly was—a man with no scruples, a man who would boldly take her into his arms and share the forbidden secrets he seemed to know about her body, secrets that were well kept from herself.

And if those marvelous sensations were rained upon her by his aggression and not her own surrender, then she couldn’t be held responsible for what happened.

You’re a coward, Victoria Amory…and a hypocrite.

The truth hurt, but did nothing to ease the dull throbbing centered in her female core.

“Don’t tell me.” Amusement laced Logan’s voice. “Modesty prevents you from taking off your clothes and jumping in.”

“A man of your nature may mock my modesty, but…”

But what? Are you going to lie and tell him you want him to leave?

Victoria closed her eyes and struggled for control, as well as with the gall to convince him that her thoughts were as pure as they’d been before he entered her life. “I admit I’m not the kind of woman who would permit a man who’s not my husband to gaze upon my nude person in broad daylight.”

There—she’d stated her position clearly, if not altogether honestly.

“What about in the dark?”

“There would be little point if it was dark.”

Logan’s dark eyes seemed to grow hot. Victoria ran her finger around her suddenly too-tight collar. Goodness, it was amazingly warm, standing so close to the hot pools.

“But you would let your
husband
look his fill at you? Without any clothes on? In broad daylight?”

Victoria swayed. She was in the midst of another highly improper conversation with Logan Youngblood that should be stopped before it went any further. And yet, as shocking as the words they exchanged were, they filled her with a surge of excitement. That excitement proved too seductive to resist. And, after all, when one got right down to it, they were only
talking.

“I haven’t given the manner much consideration, but I suppose, if my husband had a valid reason for wanting to…see me in an unclothed state, I would accommodate his wishes.”

Logan’s gaze turned speculative. “What you would call a valid reason?”

“I imagine that if I were ill or injured and he needed to ascertain my degree of unwellness…” She shrugged with affected negligence. “Under those circumstances, it would be reasonable to make such a request.”

In one bold movement, Logan’s smoldering eyes seemed to sweep over her. “Suppose you weren’t ill or injured.”

“Well, I, uh—”

“Suppose he just wanted to look at your soft body without your clothes getting in the way.” Logan’s voice lowered to a husky murmur that both caressed and scraped her nerve endings.

Her heart thumped against her ribs. “To my husband; I would grant such a liberty.”

“Lucky man.”

She flushed. “But what I would do with my husband, if there were such a person, is neither here nor there.”

Logan’s expression became shuttered. “So it appears.”

“Then our discussion is utterly meaningless.”

His lips curved into an infuriatingly cheerful grin. She was sorely tempted to push him into the nearest pool, clothes and all. Just to wipe that smug expression off his face.

“I’ll turn my back while you strip,” he announced with brazen directness.

“I’m not sure I trust you.”

She swallowed.
Or myself.

“You did back at the clearing,” he reminded her. “You said that I’ve been a gentleman up to this point, and agreed there would be no risk in us taking advantage of the pools.”

How convenient that he failed to mention the two occasions when his body had covered hers and he’d aroused a storm of unfulfilled longing within her.

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

“Before you kissed me again.” She drew herself to her full height. “You’re not going to stand there and deny that less than five minutes ago you kissed me senseless.”

His gaze sharpened. “Senseless, huh?”

The temptation grew stronger to shove him into a puddle of steaming water. “I exaggerated. Your kiss was merely.”

What?
her brain demanded. Merely a raging conflagration that seared her entire being, merely a wild tempest that swept her into its swirling vortex, merely a thousand suns bursting in her soul…

“Merely…unexpected.”
Like stepping off a cliff and having nothing beneath me save a thousand-foot drop to oblivion.

He cocked his head. “You do like to challenge a man, Victoria. But then, I suppose it’s natural for a woman of your temperament to race recklessly into danger.”

A woman of her temperament? Race into danger?
What was he talking about? “Obviously, you don’t know me very well. I’m nothing like that.”

“I see. You’re just a shy, retiring miss who wouldn’t say boo to her own shadow.”

“There’s no point in trying to frighten one’s shadow,” she observed repressively, hoping to put him in his place.

“You’re just a simple little homebody,” he continued, undaunted, “who doesn’t live on the edge, place herself in reckless situations and risk life and limb in careless abandon?”

“That’s correct,” she agreed. “I am none of those things.”

He laughed at her.

With no premeditation whatsoever, she raised her palms and shoved against his wide chest A look of astonishment crossed his rugged features. But darned if he didn’t catch his balance and sidestep the pool located so conveniently behind him.

His hands came up, and he gripped her wrists. “Honey, sometimes you just don’t know when to quit.”

“I’m not your honey!” Nor was there any sense in mourning the fact that she never would be. Clearly, the man was destined to end his brash life by a hangman’s rope.

“But you could be, if you weren’t so dead set on believing the worst of me.”

She glanced at her trapped hands. “Release me.”

“Say please.”

She tugged instead.

Nothing happened.

She debated kicking him. She had on her nice sturdy walking shoes, the ones she’d purchased especially for her Western adventure at Mr. Hempstead’s Shoe and Bootery.

She scowled. “Why are you acting so contrarily?”

“Maybe I’m tired of you not trusting me.”

“Not trusting you! In case you forgot, I found you in a—”

“Stockade. I’m hardly likely to forget it, since you remind me of it every chance you get. But you’ve been around me long enough to form your own conclusions about my character.”

“I have formed my own conclusions!”

“Based on a dismal first impression,” he shot back.

She looked at him helplessly. What did he want from her? She was already closer than he could possibly know to becoming the reckless woman he’d mistakenly accused her of being.

“I’ve already told you—just a few minutes ago, if you’ll recall—that I do trust you. After a fashion.”

His thumbs gently rubbed the inside skin of her wrists. “That’s pretty vague.”

She tried to ignore the delicious sensations caused by his callused caress moving back and forth across the sensitive area.

“Then I’ll make it simple for you. My confidence does not extend to bathing naked in full view of your roving eyes! Is that clear?”

If she said it loud enough, surely it would be true.