Fair Is the Rose (47 page)

"Make love to me," she whispered against his chest.

"You've had a fright."

"Make love to me," she repeated, holding on to him as if she couldn't quite believe he was there, warm, vibrant, and alive.

"Tell me about the dream—"

He couldn't finish. She rose on her knees and kissed him, demanding he do as she asked. If before she had been a reluctant maiden, now she was a fiery siren. She wanted to forget. She would do anything to forget.

He groaned and stiffened beneath her hands, as if he was afraid of taking advantage of her. But the gentleman in him had his limits. With every soft, needful kiss upon his mouth, his resolve seemed to weaken. Until finally the gentleman disappeared, and in his place was the outlaw Rebel she knew so well, the one with proven carnal appetites, the one who took before asking.

With a moan of satisfaction, she felt him return the kiss, his arms iron-hard with the fury of his desire, his lips rough and devouring,
his
tongue grinding against her teeth until she shook with the pleasure of his first thrust into her mouth.

"More," she demanded, breathless after they separated.

"Tell me what frightened you."

Her hands trembled as she reached for him. She needed to feel him on top of her, his hard body pounding life into her.
"Afterward."

He took her hands captive in his and stopped her roaming, even though his eyes flickered down at her breasts. "Tell me now, Christal. I need to know what frightened you."

"Afterward."
She twisted her wrist, frustrated that he was stopping her. Eventually she quieted, and looked into his eyes. He wanted an answer. Slowly she broke down. "Promise me there'll be no other time, no other place but now and here."

His face was grave, etched with concern. "If that's what it takes. Just tell me. For once, trust me, Christal."

"I will," she sobbed. "I will trust you. But now take me and make me forget. Just for a little while."

He nodded, then kissed her, long and deep, moving his lips to her face, her neck, her breasts, as if his passion might take away some of her fear.

"Take me," she whispered, wanting nothing more than to feel his heart beat against hers, feel the cold air racing her blood, his naked body, racing it even faster.

He uttered die words like a vow. "From now on, there is no man but me, no place but this, no past but the one we are going to make right now."

He brought himself up on his arms. She parted her thighs, desperate for him to fill her, to take away the emptiness she felt whenever she thought of life without him.

"I love you, Macaulay. No matter what happens, I love you. I love you," she whispered as he thrust into her, as his lips burned in the hollow of her throat, as his hungry soul assuaged her own.

The half-breed followed the Appaloosa's tracks in the snow, his own paint not nearly so nimble, or so quick. Still, he made progress. He was halfway down the valley, past Dog Tooth Peak and the Meadows. Cirque of the Towers
lay
ahead, the setting sun blinding him as he headed west.

He'd found her. The girl he'd danced with last night was the girl the man in St. Louis wanted dead.

Dead.
He thought upon it, his eyes squinting as he did. He'd never killed such a pretty girl before. There was that woman in Laramie. She'd been pretty too.
But not quite as pretty.
The blond hair made all the difference. Perhaps because he was dark, he wanted to see what that girl's blond hair looked like twisted in his hand. If he could have, he would have touched her hair last night, but he knew she wouldn't have let him.

He smiled. There was something about killing a woman that made the power of it rush through his veins like the wind rushed through the grass on the prairie. Even as a child he'd thought about killing women.

Stopping the paint, he let it drink in the shallow waters of the Popo Agie. He was going to have to kill the man too. It'd been a stroke of luck finding him. He'd asked about the girl in Camp Brown. Nobody really knew her. But they remembered a man brooding after a girl with her description a few months back. The man's name was Macaulay Cain and they told him he was now some kind of sheriff up by South Pass. It had taken less than a day to find him in Noble. And less than an hour for him to find the girl herself, guilelessly selling dances in a two-bit saloon.

He reached the cabin near dark. There was a horse hobbled in front of it, an Ap. The half-breed felt the blood surge in his head. He became almost light-headed. The thrill was intense and sweet.

He dismounted and huddled beneath a granite overhang. The cabin door was outlined in firelight. He wished he could invade the cabin now, but he knew the cabin door would be bolted from inside. It was a white man's cabin and white men didn't sleep with the doors unbolted. Not if they liked their scalps.

The bolted door was no bother. He could wait. The door would open eventually, and in the meantime it wouldn't be a bitter-cold night. Already the snow was getting too soft to dig into and form a shelter.

He untied a bearskin rolled up behind him and wrapped it around his torso, his eyes seeking the outline of that door.
A firelit rectangle.
The passage to hell.

He waited.

"Are you warm?"

"Mmm."
Christal snuggled deeper into Macaulay's shoulder. The fire crackled and hissed, releasing azure flames that licked at the hearth.

"Tell me about the dream."

She tensed. It was a luxury to lie by the fire in the arms of the man she loved, her body sated by lovemak-ing, her thoughts quiet and introspective. She was reluctant to see the moment end.

"It was a dream about my parents. A suitor came to call at my parents' house."

"Who was the suitor?"

"You," she answered, locking gazes with him.

His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. "And because I came to call on your parents you woke screaming? I could see some fathers doing that, but not a daughter."

She almost laughed. "No, it wasn't because of that. They approved of you, in fact." She rolled over onto his chest. "I was glad."

He touched her hair, twisting it in his hand.
A sensuous gold rope.
"So what frightened you?"

Her eyes darkened. Her gaze lowered to the scar circling his neck. She touched it with her finger, surprised that he flinched. "You said they hanged you by mistake. You could have been killed. It was a miracle you survived."

"I had an angel on my shoulder that day, I guess."

She laid her head on his bare chest, reassured by the steady beat of his heart. "If they had killed you, I'd have never found you." She paused, swallowing the emotion that threatened to make her cry. "I dreamed I saw you hanged."

"Were you hoping to save me? Is that why you cried out? Were you too late?"

"Yes," she whispered desolately.
"Too late for everything."

He held her, his strong hand running the length of her hair until he squeezed her bare buttock. "Christal, why can't you take me to your parents?"

She shut her eyes, unwilling to remember the details.

Not now, while they were so far from everything that might intrude. "They're dead. They died in a fire. I might have saved them, but I didn't get to them in time."

He was silent for a long moment, his hand still stroking her hair. Finally, as if to ease the tension, he whispered, "I love your hair, Christal. It always smells of roses."

"There was an old woman who sold roses on Washington Square. My father bought my mother one every day.
Until he died."
She released a long, heavy breath. It was difficult even to think of the happy times without the nightmares.

"
It's
guilt that hurts you, girl, isn't it?"

A tear ran down her cheek, then another and another.

"Tell me the rest."

"It's—terrible." She wept.

"I want to hear it."

"I'm afraid."

"Don't be. You and
me
in this cabin will change your mind."

"Change my mind, Macaulay." She lifted her tear-streaked face and he kissed her. For the moment, he asked no more questions and she offered no more confessions. They just lay by the fire, his hand petting her hair
until,
at last, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, in his arms, safe even from nightmares.

"Where are you going?" Christal whispered as Cain rose naked from the bed and pulled on his jeans. It had to be the middle of the
night,
the day had come and gone, unnoticed in the darkness of the cabin.

"Something's botherin' the Ap." He spoke as if his thoughts were elsewhere, and his accent slipped into his words.

"Could it be wolves?"

"No . . ." Outside, the
Ap
gave a nervous nicker. Cain stared at the bolted door, worry creasing his brow.
"Maybe a bear.
Maybe it's hungry after the long sleep."

"Don't go." She held out her hand. "I saw a grizzly once take down a deer. The thing had it ripped apart before you could blink."

Cain strapped on his guns, his movements clean yet uneasy. "Bolt the door when I'm gone. If it's a bear, it'll smell the food and be in here .before I can stop it." He glanced over at the table where the saddlebags lay, still packed.

Christal slipped on her chemise. "Are you going to kill it?" she whispered as he shrugged into a flannel shirt and his fringed jacket.

"Maybe.
Let me see what it is."