Stands a Calder Man (28 page)

His mouth thinned into a silent line. He wasn't about to apologize for the question, so he drank his coffee instead and let the conversation die.

Outside, the storm prowled around the shack, isolating them on an island of warmth. The two of them were blizzard-bound alone. Webb had known this could happen when he had turned around. There was a part of him that had counted on it. He wasn't responsible for the storm, but he had used it, fully aware that Lilli would never turn him out in it. He didn't feel too damned honorable when he considered it, either. A man liked to think he'd do the decent thing, but his father had warned him there was good and bad in every man. Webb just never thought he'd learn it about himself. Yet he'd known all along there was just one room in this cabin—and just one bed. And it was night.

The clatter of dishes broke the lengthening silence as Lilli began gathering them off the table. Webb got up from his chair and walked to the stove where his outer clothes were drying.

“I'd better put my boots on,” he said, feeling the need for words, “before the leather dries stiff and hard.”

His own socks were a little damp, but not enough to be uncomfortable. Webb took off her husband's pair and put on his own, then forced his feet into the slant-heeled boots. He heard the slosh of water as Lilli added some from the bucket to the heated water in the dish basin. He reached for his coat and hat and began putting them on.

Out of the comer of her eye, Lilli saw what he was doing and turned to frown at him. “Where are you going?”

“Outside.” With the scarf tied over his hat to protect his ears, Webb pulled on his gloves. “I thought I'd get a couple pails of snow and bring them inside so we'll have a supply of water come morning.”

Lilli turned back to her dishes, aware of him taking the two empty pails and walking to the door. When the door was opened for the brief moment it took for Webb to step outside, the wind roared louder. Its whipping cold rushed over her face, then was gone. The room felt strangely more empty without Webb.

It was all so different than when Stefan was here. With all his quietness, she almost regarded him as a piece of furniture at times, forgetting he was even there. It was impossible to do that with Webb. He filled the room with a kind of vitality that unsettled the quiet tenor of her existence. It was a difference that was rooted in personality rather than the attraction she felt toward him. Webb stimulated, mentally and physically, while Stefan soothed. Lilli closed her eyes against the confusion of emotions as the door opened and Webb returned, stamping at the cold and snow.

“It's bitter out there.” He shook off the snow like a great dog and took off his outer clothes to move vigorously toward the stove.

“How long do you think it will last?” The dishes were nearly done, leaving no more tasks to occupy the time.

“The worst of it will pass in about twelve hours. Then it will just be blowing snow and cold.” He held his hands over the stove, warming them. “Do you need any help?”

“No, I'm finished.” Lilli wiped the last dish and put it on the shelf.

“I'll add some more coals to the fire and get it stoked for the night.” As he reached for the coal bucket, Webb was aware of the tension his remark had created. His side glance noticed her wary expression that she didn't fully conceal. “I'll bed down here by the stove, if that's all right.”

“I'll get you a quilt.” She walked across the room to the trunk and knelt down to open it. The folded spare quilt made an awkward bundle as she lifted it out and stood up. A pulse was hammering in her throat when she turned to carry it to Webb. He met her halfway to take it from her.

Lilli surrendered it to him without meeting his gaze, without looking at his strong, chiseled features. She was on guard against the stirrings inside herself; yet, at the same time, she was unsettled by his failure to make any amorous advances toward her as he'd done in past encounters. Lilli was aware of the contradicting feelings that both wanted him to and didn't want him to try something. Tempering her silence was the desire not to be guilty of inviting anything.

When she'd given the quilt to him, she turned and walked to the foot of the bed, listening to the sound of his footsteps going toward the stove. She reached behind her and pulled the heavy sweater over her head. Under the circumstances, Lilli deemed it best to sleep in the blouse and long skirt she was wearing.

So far, Webb felt he was winning the struggle with his low urges as he laid the quilt on the floor in front of the stove. Its width would allow him to sleep on half of it and cover himself with the other. The wide pool of light from the lantern was showing him too much of the other side of the room where Lilli was standing by the lone bed.

“I'll turn the lantern out.” He announced his intention before moving to the center of the room.

Webb started to take her silence for assent, but as he reached up to turn down the wick, he glanced at Lilli to
make certain she had no objection. Her back was turned to him and her hands were above her head, pulling the pins from her hair. The dark red mass tumbled down her back. A raw tightness gripped his chest, catching his breath.

“Your hair is beautiful.” Somehow he'd known she'd make a stirring picture with her long hair all loose about her shoulders. As she turned with the sound of his voice, Webb moved toward her, drawn by a compulsion stronger than his control. He stopped short of her, still staring and searching for anything that would reveal her thoughts at this moment, but she wasn't letting him see anything.

“Are you happy, Lilli?” He needed to know. Maybe if she could convince him she was, he'd find the decency to walk back to the other side of the room.

“I was—” Lilli cut her answer short, stunned to hear herself speak in the past tense, because it revealed something she hadn't meant Webb to know. She tried to turn away, but his hands were on her shoulders to keep her facing him.

“Does he make you happy?” This time it was a demand, not a question.

“I don't know. I'm so confused anymore that I—” She looked at him and knew it was a mistake. His hair gleamed black and thick, as dark as his eyes gleaming down on her. His features were handsome and rugged. Her gaze lingered on his mouth.

“Don't look at me like that, Lilli, unless you want me to kiss you,” he warned thickly, his voice a deep well of emotion.

“Don't you see? That's just it. I do want you to kiss me.” The admission tumbled from her in an emotional protest at her own confusion.

But Webb didn't hear the protest within the admission as he gathered her into an embrace that they both had fought against and lost. The long, urgent kiss they shared was drugging in its force. Her arms were around him, pressing him ever more tightly against her, while his fingers combed into the thick tangle of her hair and
held its weight against the back of her neck. The blood was pounding through her veins, making her feel light-headed and giddy, weak at the knees and in need of his body to support her.

His roaming hand was alternately caressing and arching her spine to press her more fully to his male form. When his mouth slid off her lips to roll moist kisses over her cheek and temple, she could hear the labored rhythm of his breathing that sounded as disturbed as her own. His moist breath warmed skin that already felt feverishly hot. Passion and desire were new sensations for her, and Lilli wasn't comfortable with them.

“I knew this would happen if you ever came back,” she murmured in a choked voice. His hard chin was near the corner of her mouth, the smell of him exciting her senses.

“Haven't you realized yet that you can't keep me away?” Webb asked, resting his forehead against her so their mouths could nearly touch and their breaths mingle. “God knows I've tried, but I can't stay away from you.”

The tantalizing nearness of his mouth was more temptation than she could bear. She shifted her arms to curl her hands around his neck and bring his head down while she lifted herself on tiptoe. This small display of aggression sparked his, and the driving pressure of his responding kiss forced her lips apart. When his invading tongue mated with hers, Lilli shuddered at the igniting impact on her senses.

There seemed to be no right or wrong in what was happening. It was all too inevitable. Having Webb kiss her, hold her, and caress her seemed to be the reason she was born. When his lips began exploring the lobe of her ear and the curve of her throat, chills raced over her skin, awakening her already aroused flesh.

While his nibbling and intimate kisses on her neck arched her backward, his fingers made short work of the little buttons on her blouse. Some thin undergarment barred him from her flesh, but it was like a second
skin. When his cupping hand closed on a tautly rounded breast, he felt the hardened point of her nipple in his palm.

Lilli moaned silently with a need she couldn't express. All this kissing and touching had not been part of her experience, and certainly she had never been aroused like this before. With Stefan, he had merely expressed a desire to mate, then mounted her with few preliminaries, and even those had been tentative. She was beginning to understand that this hollow ache she felt in her loins was a direct response to the virile hardness of Webb.

“I love you.” His mouth rocked over her lips as he murmured his declaration, “God help me, how I love you.”

Those were words she'd heard from only one other man in her life, and that was Stefan, her husband. A sense of guilt invaded her, bringing with it the first resistance she'd shown to his embrace. Lilli averted her head from him and brought her hands down to his shoulders.

“Don't say that.” She was all tangled again in confusion.

“I love you,” he repeated and cupped her face in his hand to turn her toward him. “Not saying it won't change the way I feel.”

The gleaming darkness of his eyes seemed to draw her into them. He almost made it seem possible, but it wasn't. Despair began to deaden her senses.

“When this storm blows over, we'll leave here together,” he began in a low, urging voice. “We'll go away somewhere and find a place of our own.”

“I can't.” She slowly shook her head. “I'm married. This is my home.”

“Leave him and come away with me,” Webb persisted. “You don't love him, not like this.”

“No, not like this,” Lilli admitted, only half-aware that she was admitting she loved Webb. “But I am his wife.”

“Only as long as it takes to get a divorce. Then we'll be married and you'll be my wife,” he stated.

“Divorce Stefan?” She looked at him with a sad anger. “On what grounds? That he's kind to me and good? That he trusts me?” The acknowledgment of her betrayal pushed her out of Webb's arms. “I can't leave him. I couldn't hurt Stefan like that.”

“What about me?” His features darkened in a frown. “I love you. Do you have any idea of the hell I'm going through? The physical pain of wanting you? The agony of loving a married woman?”

“What about what I'm going through?” she stormed in anger, near tears. “I made a promise before God. At the dance, you claimed your word meant something. I gave my word to Stefan, and that means something to me! And you want me to forget that.”

He straightened, pulling back from her, his features hardening into a mask. Lilli faced him, rigid and proud, hurt by his lack of understanding for her position. When Webb pivoted sharply away from her, something splintered inside. It was a full second before she realized he was putting on his hat and coat. By then, he was striding to the door.

“Where are you going?” She blinked her eyes in bewilderment. “You can't leave in this storm.”

“I'm going to sleep in the shed with the horses,” Webb snapped.

“But—” She never had a chance to finish her protest as he cut in.

“Don't ask me to sleep in here, because if I do, it will be in that bed with you!” he declared thickly. “As crude as it sounds, this thing between my legs doesn't have any conscience and I've only got a scrap left of my own, so allow me this one act of decency.”

Then he was out the door, slamming it closed behind him. Lilli trembled, feeling suddenly very cold, but it was an inner cold, not one caused by the icy draft and swirling snow that had managed a brief invasion of the shack.

The black gelding turned its head and whickered a curious inquiry when Webb stalked into the shed. After the lantern was lit, the horse snorted its disapproval for the noise its rider was making. Brisk and grim, Webb kicked more straw into the pile along one wall, then hauled the saddle and blanket over to it to serve as pillow and pad. It was cold in the shed, but he'd slept in colder places. And the cold was what he needed to freeze out his desire.

With his straw bed as comfortable as he could make it, Webb walked to the lantern. The door burst open and he swung around to face it. He went rigid at the sight of Lilli, the shawl slipping off her head.

“What are you doing here?” he growled and immediately didn't want to know, “Get out!”

“I brought you the quilt.” She smoothed her hand over the folded bundle in her arms. “I thought you'd need it.”

Lowering her gaze, she crossed silently over to his straw bed and knelt down to lay out the quilt. Webb swayed like a man caught between two conflicting forces. Then he finally moved to take over the chore.

“I'll do that.” He didn't want Lilli making his bed.

“I'm almost through,” she protested, then sat back on her heels to watch him finish it. Her gaze lingered on the harshness of his features, knowing she had caused it. “Webb. I am sorry.”

He paused with his hands on his thighs and turned to look at her across his shoulders. His dark eyes were narrowed and hard. “I guess we're both sorry about a lot of things,” he concluded grimly.

There were so many things she wanted to say, but it would only make the situation worse. So she said the mundane instead. “Will you be warm enough?”