Paxton Pride (29 page)

“Shut up.”

Karen looked at the man she thought she knew, thought she loved. His hair was wild and unkempt from the ride. There was blood on his clothes, his hands, even his face. Blood from the man he had killed.

“I told you to stay here.”

“I am not some trained underling to do as she is told. You had business more important than being with me on our first day here. I decided to …”

“Dammit, none of this would have happened if you'd done as I said.”

“How could I know that?”

“By listening to what I've been telling you for the last four days. By not being so big-headed you thought you knew everything, thought your eastern ways worked out here. You could have gotten Billy killed. You did kill Bodine.”

“I didn't shoot him, Mr. Paxton. You did. You and your gun.”

Vance stood stock still, staring at her. “That's right I did, didn't I.” He turned and walked to the window, held the curtain back and stared out. When he spoke his voice was low and troubled. “I killed Roscoe Bodine. He was a good man on the trail—a good man all around. Good enough to have saved my life twice during the war and once on a trail drive. And I repayed the debt by putting a bullet through his chest!” He slammed his hand on the wall and turned violently back to her, his voice shaking with rage. “I warned you on the trail, but you were too bull-headed to listen. Your flirting brought a man to his death, shot down in a damned filthy bar for no good reason. This is not Washington.”

“It most certainly is not. Civilized men do not attack women. Civilized men do not carry guns and kill people.”

“What would a ‘civilized' man do had he left his wife, whom he takes to be a lady, at their hotel, only to find her in some saloon back room, half naked and behaving like a painted slut?”

Karen slapped him across the face. “You forget yourself,” she said, panting with emotion.

Vance grabbed her by the shoulders, his bloodstained fingers bruising her flesh. “Don't you ever do that again.”

She lashed out at him, her anger overriding the shock of the afternoon's experience. Her fists pummeled his face and chest. Like a tigress she fought, sobbing and crying bitterly. Vance shoved her back, tripped on her gown and fell against her, sending both of them tumbling onto the bed. She struggled furiously to free her arms as he pinned them to either side of her head. Her bodice was already torn and as the struggle intensified the fabric ripped open the rest of the way, exposing both breasts, the nipples erect with the excitation of the fight. Her hair was spread out on the bed cover, adding to her wild beauty.

Suddenly Vance sought her mouth with his. She struggled violently but found herself no match against the power of his arms and shoulders, imbued with even greater strength by the charged emotional state in which he found himself. He had been near death only moments before. He had taken a life. Now the very essence of life, the body his own had so fiercely desired, lay beneath him. He managed to free one hand and cup her breast.

His touch was fire. Awash with the anger of the moment, their uncontrollable hunger for each other so nearly released at Three Rivers once again took command. As her fists pounded his back her mouth sought his. Blindly, the tears springing from her eyes, she felt him rip the gown from her, then fumble with his belt. Her anger rekindled, she renewed her contention, but in vain. How, she never knew, but suddenly she lay naked and exposed, his muscular thighs forcing themselves between her own, bringing his virile organ inexorably closer to the gateway of his desire. Even as she fought him, Karen felt once again the betraying moisture from her loins. His manhood, swollen and hard, touched her in brief dalliance then pressed into the moist warmth. She could resist no longer. Her legs rose and clasped around his waist and she thrust herself upon his passion-swollen staff, moaning and crying out as he drove himself deep into her and parted the maiden's veil.

The pain subsided rapidly, forgotten in the feverish crescendo of desire, forgotten in the heat of motion and the excruciating sensation of him filling her as the swollen scepter of his love slid in and out, in and out, thrusting, thrusting, touching all of her.
Oh God! This is what it's like. This … this
.… Surprised, she felt herself swell against him, hold the swollen organ more and more tightly to slow the strokes which came with a driving, primitive rhythm.

And then ecstasy. Deep inside, the hard contractions started and built, surging through her as Vance's seed erupted and spilled into her, filling her, scalding her. She feebly tried to push him off but her loins betrayed her will with an insistent demand for more. Contracting again and again she could feel the pulsing organ press deep to touch the tip of her womb and lave it with life-giving fluids until the flame slowly subsided and her body relaxed. Sated, she felt her legs drop to the bed and she became aware of his weight on her. His mouth was close to her ear and he whispered over and over again, “Karen. I love you, Karen. I love you.…”

She knew then what it was to be a woman, the hard muscles of a man pressed against her, his manhood still swollen and warm, nestled moistly in her, still moving, but gently and tenderly. Tears of gratitude and fulfillment welled in her eyes and she turned her head so he wouldn't see.

My God …! My God
…! His hand, still covered with the bloody stains of another man's life, lay in front of her, inches from her eyes.
What has happened? What have I done?
It was all wrong. Wrong! She wanted to enjoy the happiness, to revel in the fullness of the moment. Wanted desperately.…

She felt the dress bunched obscenely under her waist and the image of the man on the prostitute filled her vision, blurred by the tears of shame which coursed down her cheeks. A roar of rushing water filled her ears. Suddenly silence threatened, and in the silence, the voice of the prostitute. “You lose somethin', honey? You lose something', honey?”

CHAPTER V

Karen lay on her side and stared at the still form next to her. She had waked some hours earlier and remained utterly motionless in the darkness, longing for morning. Finally the first hint of day brightened the curtains and she felt the man stir, saw him, through slitted eyes feigning sleep, open his eyes. Wide awake at once, his gaze lingered on her a moment then scanned the room thoroughly before he rose without warning in one fluid, easy motion and moved quickly and silently from the bed to his clothes, strewn all over the floor. Once dressed, she thought he intended to wake her, for he stood by the side of the bed and laid a tentative, hand on her naked shoulder before evidently thinking better, removing his hand and soundlessly slipping from the room. Karen heaved a faint sigh of relief.

Where was he going? More than likely to see to the preparations for the trip to the ranch. She rolled over on her back and pushed away the covers. Her blood had stained the sheets and left a dark smear on her inner thigh, a sign of his passage and her loss. Her loss? The driving weight of his body and his hardened manhood ramming her as if to pin her to the bed lingered in her mind and she blushed with shame at the tangible kinetic memory of the exquisite sensation to which she had responded with such lust and abandon. And then the fierce jetting of his seed driving her into paroxysms of furious contractions as her body betrayed its involuntary craving for the fluid of his fulfillment.

The bed creaked as she rose and crossed the room to peer through a slit between the curtains and see Vance stride purposefully away from the hotel. When he disappeared around the corner she sagged against the window sill, more alone than ever before in her twenty years. In front of her the sight of the rumpled sheets so like a battleground overrode the sensuous memories of the night before. All the emotions, the clashing currents of a tortured stream, surged and eddied in her mind until, shivering, she stumbled from the window and gripped the iron bedpost lest she fall. Their union had been far from an exquisite culmination of love's utter longing. More like a contest, or a battle of wills, they had used their bodies as carnal weapons to subjugate the other. Sex had been a tool, been employed, not shared as she had planned, not enjoyed as she had dreamed in Washington. The delight she had envisioned in the garden and during the final magic weeks of their courtship had been but a mirage. In vain she fought to control the tears that threatened to brim and flow down her cheeks.

Control shattered with full realization. Across the room a blurred vision in the mirror struck her, tore at the very fabric of her soul, the treacherous catalyst being the twin black-red smears on her shoulders. The blood of a dying man brought all the terrible events back with a rush. Sobbing wildly she ran to the basin, wet a cloth and scrubbed the telltale marks. Scrubbed and scrubbed the telltale marks as had Lady Macbeth.
What, will these hands ne'er be clean …
the helplessness, the filthy horrid room …
Here's the smell of blood still
… the ugly placidity of the harlot … Bodine, so pitiful, so dangerous, so frightening … Vance standing in the doorway … thunder in a dark room … acrid smell of gunpowder and violated flesh …
Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him
?… a man dying … dying!

The girl in the mirror stiffened, a towel hugged to her, and stared at herself as the tears ran down her face. She had seen a man die, seen, felt, watched—close enough to touch—at the moment the precious spark of life left the parted lips and the single hurt and questioning eye rolled back, relieved of pain, the questions meaningless. And Vance's anger had been directed at her. He had raised his bloody hands to her face, hands metamorphosed into the talons of a beast. And he had blamed her!

Through the vision her own rage took form and grew. Angry at her? Blame her? Bodine had attacked her, would have raped her, yet Vance was furious with
her!
The woman in front of her changed, stared back at her with tight, angry eyes.
My fault Bodine was drunk and behaving like a beast? No thank you, sir! My fault you chose to use a gun to subdue my attacker? Not hardly, sir! My fault a man is dead? No thank you, indeed!

The Vance Paxton she loved in Washington had changed and in his place she saw a stranger revealed whose inimical behavior was totally foreign to her heart. She did not want, nor would she have, a man who wished to dominate her and bend her to his will.
I am Karen Hampton, the most sought-after young woman in Washington
. She squared her shoulders, trying to convince the woman in the mirror.
Who does he think he is?
The woman in the mirror stared coldly back at her. “You are not in Washington, you are in …”…
a brutal, terrible land where people you thought loved you appease their carnal appetites by force, where a man whose gentle openness won my heart killed a man and blames me for the deed. He is capable of the vilest insults. He is domineering, capricious, stubborn, ill-bred and ill-tempered …
“He is the man you chose.”

Karen reeled from the mirror and slumped onto the bed, the tears flowing easily and the sleek lines of her body shuddering with each racking sob. And like the most violent of storms, this too passed, all the more quickly for its furious nature. She fought for control and won. Brushing back the long meadow-gold tresses from her face she rose from the bed and crossed the room, unsteadily at first, to stand once more before the mirror. Coldly, she studied herself, cupping each breast then running smooth hands across her stomach and down to her thighs where a faint ache from his entry still lingered. The coldness was a calculating chill she had never before known, out of which grew a renewed and resolute strength.

Washington was closed to her, at least for the while. She had broken those ties and whatever rebuilding was needed must be begun in Texas. She had made her choice and was determined to hold her course. The Vance Paxton with whom she had fallen in love would be the Vance Paxton she married, and with whom she would find the happiness which first filled her dreams. But dominate her? The woman in the mirror straightened determinedly.
No, Mr. Paxton, you shall never again make me weep
. And should her resolve be tried? She smiled at the contours of her body, the soft, full curves and angles of desire so capable of arousing men and filling their heads with silly, never-to-be-fulfilled notions. Only now she was free to use more than just enticing promises. She would use all her natural gifts, but hide from him until he acquiesced the one ingredient to make them complete … her love.

Vance pulled the buckboard around to the front of the hotel, climbed down and adjusted the harness, checked the trunks in back and generally attended to all the little things he'd already seen to. Anything to keep from returning to the hotel and Karen. When there was nothing more required he headed across the street to the tiny cafe and ordered coffee. Coffee to get his blood running again, to clear his head, for already he'd spent a difficult two hours. The obligatory talk with Sheriff Hodgdon had consumed most of the time, but in the end they'd cleared up the whole mess and parted friends, with Vance free to go as he pleased. It was from Hodgdon he learned all the details of the previous afternoon. Karen had been guilty of no more than bad judgment easily attributed to her recent arrival and consequent ignorance of what a Texas bar could be like. If she had only stayed in the hotel as he'd told her … the thought ran through his mind over and over again, irritated him beyond dismissal. If … if …

After the talk with the sheriff there had been supplies to see to, the renting of the buckboard and the mules, loading and so on. He'd kept busy in an attempt to keep the wild running thoughts from his mind. And during all the chores, no matter how badly they needed doing, one other thought lurked in the back of his mind: stay away from her as long as possible.

The door swung shut behind him and he found a place at a table. The coffee was in front of him. He dumped in the sugar, stirred. Find her in a place like Miller's bar room and with Bodine! If she hadn't flirted with the man in the first place.… Dammit, he'd warned her back on the trail and she hadn't listened. Now a good man was needlessly dead, killed by the combination of frustration, too much whiskey and the proximity of a beautiful, flirtatious woman. Why couldn't she have stayed where he told her? Doubts assailed the wisdom of his decision to bring her to Texas. The frontier was no place for a prima donna, nor was the Paxton ranch. He should have known something like this might happen. The fragrant romanticism of Washington nights had been burnt away by the fierce glare of the Texas sun. He thought again of their confrontation, how words of anger and spite had turned to heated passion and the breaking of his resolve. But she was so lovely.… No. It was more than that. Her hair unfixed, her dress torn and disheveled, the weeks of nearness, of touching and seeing without possessing, the tension and the explosive emotions elicited by Bodine's death and his own near brush with death, the raw sensuousness and elemental voluptuousness he had known all along lurked beneath the veneer of girlish civility and frivolity.… A torn gown had tripped him in more ways than one, and that tumble onto the bed followed by her frantic struggle underneath him had finally broken all bounds of restraint.