Savage Impulses (8 page)

Sizzling sensations started to run up her
legs, and, before she quite understood what was happening, she
could feel her body start to convulse again.

“Oh, oh please, Jake...!”

“Reach for it, darling, I'll give it to you,
just reach for it.”

That gentle encouragement was all she needed,
and, when she did, it was as easy as a bird taking flight. She had
a moment to marvel at the perfection of their bodies together, and
then she was shaking and could think of nothing at all. This time
she could feel his climax as well. Her body tightened around him
like a silky fist, wringing his pleasure from him and making him
shake.

Marigold had never realized how much she
loved his climax before, but now she could feel all of it, from the
trembling of his frame to the sudden rush of liquid heat between
her legs when he was done. The thought of him inside her made her
shiver.

In response, Jake wrapped his arms around her
shoulders, kissing her ear and her jaw.

She was drifting in that blank and satisfied
spot when Jake finally pulled away from her. She murmured sleepily
as he stood her up, but, when he started to dry her, she purred
with pleasure. He took his time, rubbing her down briskly with a
soft clean towel. When he was done, she was feeling so relaxed that
she was nearly asleep.

He laid her down gently on the bed.

When he stripped and joined her, she found
that she could not close her eyes.

“Are you going to keep me?” she asked,
finding a courage in the dark that she did not have in the
light.

“Do you want to be kept?” There was a teasing
note to his voice, but there was something terribly serious
underneath it as well. He was drawn to her as much as she was drawn
to him, and that made her brave enough to continue.

“You're... you're the most exciting man that
I have ever known,” she said. “I had never dreamed of a man like
you in Bristol, where it takes at least a bit of a dowry to make a
marriage of any sort.”

“Ah, bride price,” he chuckled. “Among my
mother's people, the men pay for the woman's worth. It shows his
regard for her and how well he values her.”

Marigold smiled at that thought, of someone
coming to the garret she had shared with her sister Elspeth and
offering her money for her to be his wife.

“Would you pay a great deal for me?” she
asked softly. She held her breath while he thought about the
question.

“A fortune,” he said softly. “Buffalo robes.
Beads. Guns. Horses. You would be worth all of it and more.”

She smiled, blushing and burying her face in
his chest.

“Do you miss your mother's people?” she asked
curiously. When he hesitated, she stroked his chest soothingly and
patiently.

“Sometimes,” Jake said at last. “I was almost
five before I noticed I was different from them, and, not long
after that, my father found us. He was the one who took me back
east, and it took more than ten years of hell-raising before he
gave up and decided that I was better off out here.” He paused,
considering.

She snuggled closer. She could read a
lifetime of pain in his light words, and she wanted to fix it for
him. She couldn't go back in time and comfort the child he was. Now
all she could do was hold the man he had become.

“I was... a handful for him. I got up to a
lot of trouble, and some of the mildest involved gambling.”

“You were playing in a game when I met you,”
she said, remembering his appearance at the table.

He shifted uneasily next to her.

She wondered if he was uncomfortable.

“I was playing again tonight,” he said. “I...
I am very good at it, let's leave it at that.”

“You make it sound like you have some kind of
gift from the devil himself,” she said teasingly.

“I'm very good,” Jake responded. “Some of the
people back in Boston did say that I have the devil's own luck when
it comes to the tables, but I think it's just that I watch, and I
listen. A simple thing, but few people have that gift.”

“You watch and you listen,” she echoed
dubiously. “Is that all it takes?”

“You'd be surprised. There was plenty I saw
in you that night when I stopped being a fool long enough to
look.”

“Really?”

“Hmm, yes. When I stopped to look, I could
see that you were terrified. You didn't want to be there, and you
might have fallen down on your knees if I offered to take you
away.”

There was a pause, and she wondered if he had
fallen asleep, but then he gathered her up in his arms and held her
close.

“I'm sorry for that,” he whispered. “I was
too much of an idiot to see how frightened you were or how much you
needed gentleness. That was... not well done of me. In the future,
I pray I will do better.”

She fought back the tears that welled up at
his tender words, pressing her body against his, trying to tell him
that she forgave him.

“Will you go into town again tomorrow?” she
asked softly. Suddenly she wanted him to stay by her. The idea of
the two of them settling in this quiet area with nothing to hurt
them appealed to her, and she didn't want him far away.

“I'm not sure,” he admitted. “I need to go
back to town again, but I did win a mare tonight. If I keep this
up, the good people of Langtry are going to start thinking I'm
using marked cards. It's happened before.”

“A mare?” she asked, confused. “Another
horse?”

“Yes, a man offered her up as a stake because
he didn't have any more cash. It wasn't a good idea. The stakes had
already gone higher than he was prepared to go, and he had a poor
hand. He spent the rest of the night cursing his luck, but now I
have a new horse, I suppose.”

In Bristol, horses had been beasts of burden,
but expensive ones. A man's livelihood was wrapped up in his horse,
and the idea that someone would gamble it away stunned her. Then
she thought of her own position in that first poker game and
winced.

“She's a fine horse,” Jake continued. “Sweet
and gentle. Not the money I needed, but I might keep her for a
while, see how she gets on with Tamu.”

Jake went on to tell Marigold about the money
that he was trying to raise to help his niece in Boston. She
listened, but a part of her was far away, thinking of her own
sister in Bristol.

Elspeth must be worried sick,
she
thought, turning over to go to sleep. With Jake's warm weight
against her back, she couldn't stop her mind from turning over
thoughts of her sister, who had now gone more than two months
without word. The thought of her sister's fear sent a lance through
her heart, and Marigold knew that she had to do something to fix
this.

The thought of the new horse in the stable
floated through her mind. Tamu was a brilliant animal, but she was
far from sweet and gentle. If this new horse proved to be more
tractable, she might make it into town and be back before Jake knew
she was gone.

Her mind full of thoughts and plots, she
drifted off to sleep.

When she awoke, Jake was gone, but he left
her a paper-wrapped package with her name on it.

Opening it up, she found a well-made dress of
dark calico with sprigs of berries on it. It looked like the
clothing worn by the townswomen, and she stroked it gently, awed
that he had thought of her. It fit her well, and she gladly
consigned the taffeta skirt to the rag bin.

After she had eaten a simple breakfast, she
dressed herself in the clothes that he had provided. They were
sturdy and clean, and though they were less showy than the garb she
had discarded, she marveled at how lovely they were. When she tied
up her hair and looked down at herself in the dark dress, she
looked like a respectable homesteader, a woman with a life and a
purpose, and she couldn't help but smile.

The new mare turned out to be just as sweet
as Jake had promised, and Marigold even managed to saddle her
securely. The ride to town was accomplished swiftly and easily, and
by the time she got there, she was delighted with herself. She
could be back before Jake even realized she was gone, and with the
little bit of money she had filched from the jar where he kept some
cash, she could bring back something delicious for dinner as
well.

She hitched the horse to the posts in front
of the general store, and it was only when a man stepped aside to
let her come up the steps and another opened the door for her that
she understood the difference.

Marigold realized that her clothes and her
tidy hair made her a respectable woman in the eyes of the town, and
indeed, everyone seemed to smile when they saw her. A
nicely-dressed little girl dropped a doll, and when Marigold bent
to retrieve it for her, her mother smiled a thank-you.

Marigold found her way to the store owner, a
kindly older man with a heavy mustache.

“I... I have a telegraph to send,” she said
shyly. “To Bristol.”

His eyebrows raised at that.

“Now that's a fair ways,” he said. “You must
need to talk to someone powerful bad.”

“My sister,” she explained. “I've been out of
touch, and she must be ill with worry.”

The man clucked his understanding, and
offered her his chair while he went to send off her missive. It was
brief so it would not be so expensive, but it would set Elspeth's
mind at ease greatly.

After it was done, she browsed the store. It
was primitive compared to the shops in Bristol, but there was a
simplicity to it that appealed to her soul. People smiled at her,
and one woman complimented her on her dress.

Marigold realized that she might have found a
home in this country, with its wide open spaces and its easy-going
people. The thought swelled inside her, making her feel like she
was flying on the wings of a dream she had never thought possible
before, and then it all came crashing down to earth when a
terrifyingly familiar man came into the store.

“Well, well, looks like you got away from
that bastard after all,” Black sneered.

He strode over to where she stood, ignoring
the disgust and the glares of the other people in the store.

As he reached for her, Marigold felt herself
freeze.

* * * *

After the cattle were tended, Jake made his
way to town. One more good night at the tables would likely see him
making the money he needed for his niece, and if it were a very
good night, he might not even need to sell the new mare. She was a
sweet-footed, sweet-natured animal, and he liked the idea of
Marigold having a mount of her own. Just the thought of her riding
by his side was enough to make him grin. As he rode into Langtry,
he thought about how lucky he was.

He had come to town just a few nights ago to
make money. He had never anticipated the thought that he might find
himself a beautiful, spirited woman who wanted the same things that
he wanted, that thrilled to his touch as much as he thrilled to
hers. He had been lonely, and he had thought that that was the way
it was going to be. Then Marigold had appeared, and all thoughts of
his loneliness had fallen away.

Jake pulled up to the main street, realizing
that it might be hours yet before any of the games where he could
win the money he needed were due to start. The general store was
still open, however, and he suddenly realized that he certainly had
enough to buy Marigold a treat. She had likely never had sweet
honeycomb before, and it was the right season for jars of the stuff
to be on sale. The idea of the two of them sharing the sticky
dessert was wonderful, and he hitched Tamu up to the post.

He almost went up the stairs, and then with a
moment of dawning rage, he realized that the horse next to Tamu
looked startlingly familiar. It was the chestnut mare that he had
won the night before, and there was only one reason why she would
be anywhere except the ranch.

He took a moment to catch hold of his temper,
and then he climbed the steps two at a time.

* * * *

“I'm sure you must be mistaken,” Marigold
said, her voice high and afraid. “I'm not who you're looking
for.”

Black snorted.

“You can put a dress on a pig and it don't
make it a woman, and you can put a whore in a dress and it still
don't make her honest.”

“Please, leave me alone,” she said, a tremor
coming to her voice. She looked around at the other people in the
store, but they knew of Black and his reputation, and even if they
had wanted to help her, she could see that they wouldn't.

“The hell I'm going to,” he snapped. “You got
away from me once too easily, and damned if I am going to see it
happen again.”

His hand circled around her wrist, and
suddenly she was back on that train coming west, when the man who
had delivered her to this country handed her over to Black. She had
felt a deep and endless terror when Black first took hold of her,
and now she felt it again, threatening to overwhelm her and pull
her down.

She froze, but when he started to pull her
away, she dug in her heels. She thought desperately of Jake, and
she realized that she could not let this man carry her away.

“No!” she cried. “I won't.”

He laughed at her, but now he found that she
was resisting, trying to pull away.

“Come on, damn you...”

“You have the wrong woman,” she said
desperately. “I'm not who you're thinking of...”

“The hell I do, I know who you are, slut,
nothing wrong about it.

“You've got the wrong woman because that is
my
woman.”

The words were spoken quietly, but there was
such terrifying menace to them that Black took a step back. Though
his hand was still clamped like a band of iron around Marigold's
arm, Marigold felt her heart soar when she saw Jake standing
there.

He stood easily, watching everything out of
his quick dark eyes, but she could see that his gun was out of its
holster. It was pointed at the ground, but she had an idea how fast
he could be with it.