Dorothy Garlock (35 page)

Logan tied his horse to a hitching rail outside the low board fence surrounding the yard and went to the screened door. It was one of the few he’d seen since he came West. From what he could make out through the screen, the inside of the house was what would be considered luxurious in a frontier town but moderate back East. He wondered how the small congregation could afford such luxury for their preacher. He lifted his hand to knock, but before he did a man came to the door from the side of the room and Logan knew he had been watching from the window.

“What do you want here?”

Logan eyed the man for a moment before he spoke. He was a small, thin man with sparce gray hair and a hooked nose. The high stiff collar was too large for his neck and black trousers held by the suspenders were too large for his skinny frame. The upper lip of his small mouth was raised as if he were smelling something unpleasant. It’s not going to be easy, Logan thought, but then he knew it wouldn’t be.

“Are you the preacher?” Logan asked at last, knowing that he was, but wanting him to say it.

“I’m the Reverend Gerald Abernathy,” he said haughtily. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you. Do you want to come out, or do you want me to come in?”

“Say what you’ve got to say from there. I’ve heard about you. I got nothin’—” The door was jerked open and the big man was crowding him away from it before he could finish the sentence. “Just what’er you tryin’ to pull off here? This is a house of the Lord. It ain’t for the likes of you! You can’t come in—” he sputtered.

“I’m in,” Logan said softly.

“Get out! You’re a . . . heathen, an Indian!” he spat the word as if it were nasty in his mouth.

“Shut up or I’ll wring your scrawny neck!”

If Logan had reached out and slapped the man, the effect could not have been more startling. His slack jaw dropped and he stared at him with disbelieving eyes. The Adam’s apple leaped convulsively in his scrawny neck and his voice came out, high-pitched and strangled. “You dirty, stinkin’ half—”

“Don’t say it,” Logan said in an unruffled voice, and with an easy motion fastened his hand to the man’s shirt front and pulled him so close to him that his head was tilted far back. He looked him full in the face, his eyes cold. He spoke softly, but every word struck the preacher like a shower of ice chips. “You’re a marrying preacher. I’m bringing my lady here in a few minutes and you’re going to marry us all legal and proper. If you put your filthy tongue to one word about us while we’re here, I’ll make you wish to God you’d never learned how to talk. Do you understand my meaning?”

“I—I’ll . . . it ain’t right for you to marry a white woman . . . even if she’s—”

Anger, like a white-hot heat, surged up from his toes and worked its way all through him. His powerful hands clamped onto thin shoulders and he shook the man so viciously his head flopped back and forth like a watch fob on a chain. When he realized that he could easily kill the man, he slammed him down in a chair and stood over him.

“Goddamn you, you mealy-mouthed sonofabitch!” he gritted between jaws clenched with hate. “I’m bringing Miss Spurlock here, and if you say one word to spoil her wedding day I’ll see you boiled in oil! Better yet, I’ll pass the word to my Cheyenne brothers. They’ll come in the night and burn this place to the ground—with you in it! Or they may take you with them and burn you at the stake in a ceremonial orgy after they take the skin off you an inch at a time.”

The preacher’s eyes were rolled back in his head, his small mouth was open, and he gasped for breath. Logan stood looking down at the speechless man and realized that if he had finished saying what he had started to say about Rosalee he would have destroyed him. It was the first time in a long time he had allowed his iron control to slip, and the experience made him weak.

“Get yourself together,” he snarled. “I’ll be right back. You better remember what I said and be here.” He turned on his heel and walked out the door.

Della spent her first night in the room above the saloon wishing she was downstairs. She could hear the loud male laughter, smell the smoke from the cheap cigars, and hear the clinking of glasses over the scraping of bootheels on the rough plank floor. It excited her and she almost envied Bessie when she heard the pounding of whiskey bottles and beer glasses and the lewd, suggestive remarks after she finished her song.

Bessie had complained, as Della knew she would, and the bartender had rapped on her door. Instead of rebuking her for taking Bessie’s room, he had asked if there was anything he could do for her. His beady eyes had danced with the knowledge he would have interesting news to tell the bar patrons. Della knew that and didn’t care. She ordered him to have her meals sent over from the restaurant for the next few days. She vaguely wondered how long it would take Adam to find out she was there and how angry he would be when he came to take her home.

The next day, while waiting for her noon meal to arrive, she pulled a chair to the window and idly watched the people go in and out of the mercantile across the street. She also had a view of the livery stable, behind and to the side of it. When she saw Logan Horn, sitting tall in the saddle of a big roan and leading his freckled stallion, she jerked to attention. There was no mistaking him; she’d seen him in her mind’s eye a thousand times since she first saw him on the street. She leaned forward and waited, her eyes glued to the door, until he came out of the livery and rode behind the row of store buildings. He wasn’t leaving town! He would be back to the livery for his horse and his dog.

Della hastily threw off the peignoir she had been lounging in and carefully pulled a fresh white dress over her high-piled curls. She adjusted the neckline and tied a blue satin ribbon around her waist and another with a cameo pinned to it around her neck. After applying rosewater to her arms and throat, she picked up her white umbrella and left the room.

*  *  *

Riding back to the livery from the preacher’s house, Logan was so angry he was almost sick with it. Doubt that he and Rosalee could make a decent life together in this country touched him more strongly than ever before, but he closed his mind to it. He’d finish what he started, by God, or die trying! It was a hell of a thing for a man to be in a black mood on his wedding day, he thought grimly. He rode his horse through the big doors of the livery stable, wanting a minute or two alone before he went into the store to tell Rosalee the preacher was willing to marry them.

At first he didn’t see the woman standing in the shadowed corner. If he had been as alert as he should have been, he would have noticed Brutus hunkered down beside Mercury, his eyes riveted on the far corner of the stable. Logan was dismounting, swinging his leg over the rump of the horse, when he saw her. He paused, then with both feet firmly on the ground, he looked at her over the horse’s back. She stood smiling at him, a vision all in white. Her blond hair, against the rough, dark, plank wall, gleamed; her skin, milk white; her lips, red as tulips. She was beautiful. He knew immediately that she was Della Clayhill.

“Hello, Logan Horn. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Ma’am.” He politely put his fingers to the brim of his hat. He tied the roan to the rail and walked behind the horse.

“Is that all you have to say?”

“What else is there to say?”

“You’re not curious to know why I’ve been waiting for you?” Della hadn’t moved from the corner, but her eyes had moved over him like oil on a hot skillet.

“I reckon you’ll tell me if you want me to know.”

Her quick laugh broke the quiet of the barn with a throaty vibrance. Her lips remained parted. A frankly appraising glint shone in her eyes as they made a leisurely examination of him. It was done, from head to toe, with painstaking care to detail, lingering deliberately on his torso below his belted overshirt. Her starkly naked gaze reflected blatant, unmistakable desire.

“I don’t think I have to tell you. You’re a man, aren’t you?” she said finally. He’d almost forgotten what he had said to cause her to say it.

“Yes, ma’am. But I’m not starving.”

She was openly amused. “Come over here and . . . we’ll talk about it.”

“No!” If it was possible to shout in a whisper he had done it. His mind was spinning with thoughts of getting rid of her without a fuss. She spelled nothing but trouble.

“No!” She echoed his word. “You’re saying no to what I’m offering? Well, goddamn you!” Her face reddened and her mouth thinned. “Who are you to he sayin’ no to . . . me!”

Knowing he had made a mistake and that this was an explosive situation, he smiled, slowly and deliberately, although he felt as if his face would crack.

“I’m saying no to
now.
I don’t want to get strung up before I finish what I start.”

“That’s more like it, big warrior.” Her mouth curved into a smile once again and she beckoned him with a crooked finger. “I can be a help to you. I’ve got Adam Clayhill wrapped right around my finger.”

She put her hands on her hips and threw her shoulders back so that her breast stood out against her dress. She flattened her belly and swayed. Then, without taking her eyes from his, she unbuttoned the top of her dress, showing the milky whiteness of her breasts, and taut dark nipples.

Logan breathed deeply. He grew cold, then hot. Somehow her nakedness was more than nakedness. The way she displayed herself was—obscene.

“Don’t you want to kiss me, Chief? Don’t you want me to touch you?” Her voice had a husky, excited tremor.

“Of course, I do.” The lie came thickly from his throat.

She laughed and moved her body in such a way it made his flesh crawl! She was truly a thing of beauty nourished in filth. Cold chills dashed the anger from his veins and he wanted to get away from her as fast as he could. Beautiful as she was, he’d sooner mate with a bitch dog.

“Are you afraid of Adam Clayhill?” she asked with a taunting sound in her voice.

“I’m not afraid of any man.”

“He’ll kill you if he can. He says if you stay others will follow. He thinks you’re dangerous. Are you?”

“I suppose I am . . . when cornered.” He faced her squarely.

“Consider yourself cornered. You want me, don’t you?”

“Yes, but not here where it would be hurried. Tonight. Where are you staying?” He forced the smile on his lips to reach his eyes.

“You’ll come to me?”

“Do you think me a fool?”

“Nooooo . . .” She drew the word out. Her pale blue eyes were fixed on him, knowingly amused. “I’m staying above the saloon. The front room on the right.”

“Is there a back door?”

“Right up those stairs, Chief. You can see them from here. I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

“I’ll be there.” He lowered his voice and the words came out thick and unsteady.

Della held out her arms. “Come kiss me. Tonight I’ll make you feel things you’ve only dreamed about. Then we’ll talk. I can be a big help to you. Together we can beat that old bastard at his own game.” She laughed. It was a beautiful sound, but it fell on Logan’s ears like the grating of an axle badly in need of grease.

He stepped close to her; there was no avoiding it. She grasped his arms and pushed them aside and came firmly against him. She encircled his waist in both her arms and leaned the upper part of her body back, her hips pressing against him.

“I knew you’d be like this; cautious, hard to get.” Her voice came out in a throaty rush. “You’re worried now—afraid we’ll get caught in here. They’d kill you, string you up in a minute if I screamed rape! What a waste—” She broke off, drew a long, shuddering breath, and moved her hips demandingly against him. “Tonight I’ll make it so good for you, you’ll never be satisfied with another woman. I’ll make you rock hard, again and again. And when you think you can’t do it again, you will. Do you believe it?” she demanded softly. Her hand, gentle at first, then with persistent, skilled fingers, worked its way between them to burrow between his legs.

“Of course I do. You’re . . . some woman.”

“Kiss me, you . . . sweet savage!”

Her unloosed hunger rendered him momentarily at a loss. He was so repulsed that it left him trembling and constricted his chest until he thought he would suffocate. He wanted to fling her to the floor and kick her away from him and was mortified that he was forced to stand and suffer her touch. Willing himself to play out the game, he crushed her to him and put his mouth to hers with vicious impact. The pressure was hard and swift, but she managed to plunge her tongue into his mouth. He lifted his head quickly, thinking he would gag. He grabbed her shoulders and put her from him. He was breathing hard. He had the feeling he was being devoured.

“Go!” he said harshly. “I can’t take much more.”

“Ohhh . . . God!” she whispered breathlessly and rubbed against him. “Since that day on the street, I’ve thought about you and felt you inside me.” Thinking he was as aroused as she, her hands moved along his narrow flanks. As they approached his sex, he grabbed them.

“No! Tonight. Go back to your room. I’ll wait in here for awhile, then I must leave.”

Della’s eyes shone like silver stars. She buttoned her dress and picked up her parasol. “Sweet, sweet . . . savage! I’ve waited a long time to meet a man like you. Come to me tonight. I’ll be waiting.”

“It’ll be midnight or later. I’ll have to be careful.”

“I know.” She came to him and lifted her lips. He forced himself to brush them with his. “Bye, for now . . .”

After she was gone, Logan leaned on the roan horse. He was sweating profusely. The ordeal with Clayhill’s stepdaughter was far worse than the one he’d been through with the so-called man of God. He felt dirty and filled with a shame that made his stomach queasy. God almighty! Would they never leave him alone? Rosalee, Rosalee, my sweet bride, that woman wasn’t fit to live in the same world with you.

He stood in the shadows and looked across the street toward the saloon. From the front window she had been able to see the livery barn by looking over the small, low building beside the mercantile. He cursed silently, then moved swiftly. He was sure she hadn’t had time to reach the room, so he led the horses out of the barn and tied them on the other side of the store. They could be viewed from the street, but Mercury wouldn’t be so noticeable without Brutus. He had to chance it. He went to the back door of the store and called the dog to him.