Sunset Embrace (32 page)

Lydia went weak. His kiss robbed her of conscious thought save how marvelous it was to share this intimacy with him. She left her hands where they were on his forearm trapped between their bodies, but leaned closer so that the backs of her knuckles were digging into the muscles of his stomach.

Repeatedly, on delicious forays, his tongue dipped into her mouth. She heard her own murmur of desire and need. Hie impulse was strong to open her knees and hug his between them. She settled for pressing her thighs against his.

Ross was made dizzy by the weight of her breasts on his arm. He wanted to drop the rifle, to carry her into the wagon, to see her naked, to touch her softness, to forget about everything except losing himself in her again. But he couldn't, so he spared himself further pain.

He withdrew slowly. First his tongue left her mouth, but paused to flirt with her upper lip. Then he brushed her mouth with his lips and moustache. Finally he pulled away and opened his eyes to meet a gaze as slumberous and confused as his own must be. "I'll be careful," he said hoarsely. Then he eased his arm free of her hands, let go of the curls that were tangled in his fist at her nape, and left.

* * *

He was gone for the rest of the day and well into the night. Lydia passed most of the time with the Langstons. Ma held her children close and they wept. It was both wonderful and horrible to see. Lydia had had no one to cry with over her mother's death. At least the Langstons could help each other bear the sorrow. Zeke found solace in working and busied himself around the wagon, periodically moving to Ma and resting a gnarled hand on her shoulder in silent communication. The family shared their grief.

Everyone except Bubba, who sat alone within sight of the wagon but detached from everyone else. Lydia's heart twisted every time she looked at him. The boys had fought between themselves, but they had loved each other. Bubba's grief frightened Lydia. It absorbed him. To the point that he forgot to care for Ross's horses.

Lydia did the chore. It was tiring, but she felt a great sense of satisfaction that she could do it for Ross. She tried not to dwell on recollections of his kiss that morning. For when she did, her knees liquefied and she felt flushed and shaky all over. She wanted to touch her breasts, to rub them until the nipples, which seemed inclined to pout embarrassingly, relaxed. The place between her thighs ached each time she thought of the way Ross's mouth had moved over hers and the surging power she had felt in his thighs. She thought about him without his shirt, about the way his body hair grew in swirling patterns over hard muscles. She speculated on how the rest of him was made and her face would go hot with color and shame. But it was a thought she couldn't leave alone, and at intervals throughout the day, she would indulge her fantasy and think on it.

Try as she might, she couldn't put out of her mind the way he felt when inside her, thick and hard and warm and pulsing. She couldn't forget the sensations that had rushed over her with each thrust of his body into hers. Ma had been right. With the right man, it could be very good.

Moses came to her wagon at sunset, shyly asking if she had meant what she said about his watching Lee while she prepared dinner for him and Winston. She assured him she had been serious and sent him to walk Lee around the camp while she fried cornmeal batter in bacon grease to go with the rabbit stew she had had simmering since early afternoon.

When she, Moses, and Lee went to the Hill wagon, they were surprised to see Winston sitting outside sipping sherry. Lydia declined his offer for a glass, but commented on his apparent good health.

"I'm feeling much better." He sampled the stew and complimented her profusely. When he was finished eating and had set his plate aside, he said, "Lydia, Moses has told me about what happened this morning. I don't blame anyone. I know how these things can get started and how ordinarily peaceful people get caught up in them. However, I do want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for defending Moses in my absence."

She glanced down shyly. "No thanks are necessary. The two of you are my friends."

"An ex-slave and a consumptive. Moses, you'd think a lovely young woman could find finer friends than us."

She laughed with them, but little did either know that they were among the few friends she had had in her life.

Ross returned to the wagon late, but Lydia was still awake. She had heard the men ride in and waited until she heard him outside the wagon. Crawling to the rear of it, she called out softly, "Ross?"

"I'm sorry I woke you."

"Did you find who killed Luke?"

There was a long silence while he sighed loudly. "No. It was just as I thought. No camp. No tracks. Nothing."

He was spreading his bedroll. "Why don't you sleep inside?" she asked hesitantly. "With the sides rolled up it's as cool as outside." When he didn't reply she added, "I know you're tired."

"Very."

"Then you'll rest better in here."

He seriously doubted that, but he climbed inside the wagon anyway. The moment Lydia saw he had made that decision, she scooted back to her own bedroll, not wanting him to think she expected anything. But hoping, praying . . . She watched through the shadows as he took off his shirt and boots and lay down on the other side of the wagon.

"How was Lee today? I didn't get to see much of him."

Squelching her disappointment that he hadn't lain beside her, she said, "He got his fingers tangled up in my hair and I thought I'd never get them out without scalping myself."

He laughed, and in the darkness it was a nice, comforting sound. "I can see where that might happen." Dammit, he hadn't meant that the way it had sounded. The words hung in the still night air while he held his breath and hoped she hadn't taken offense.

Lydia, sensitive to her unconventional appearance, took his remark the wrong way. "I know my hair is ... different . . . wild. It's not like . . . corn silk." Not like Victorias, she thought.

"It's very pretty," he said softly, flexing his fingers, remembering what it felt like to have the russet strands coiling around them.

"Thank you," she whispered, tears gathering in her eyes. He had said few complimentary things to her. She would cherish this one.

"You're welcome." You goddamn hypocrite, he thought to himself. You're lying here reciting polite phrases when you're thinking about what it was like being with her and how you wish you had another excuse like drunkenness to do it again. Irritated with himself, he said a terse "Good night," and turned away from her.

For a long while they lay in the darkness, knowing that the other wasn't asleep, but not saying anything. Tired as Ross was, his eyes seemed full of grit every time he tried to close them to sleep. At last he heard her gentle breathing that let him know she had fallen asleep.

This is no good, he thought as he rolled to his back once again, hoping to relieve the part of his body that was adamant about keeping him awake. His sex was hard and angry with him for this stupid, self-imposed denial. In the long, dark hours of the night, Ross began to think it was stupid too.

So she had a past. So had he. She wasn't all that Victoria had been. She was many things Victoria hadn't been. They were married legally. Unstable as local governments were these days, it might not be that easy to obtain a divorce. They might be married for a long time. What was he going to do? Live like a monk or buy women by the hour?

He thought of the lonely night in Owentown and knew he didn't want that.

He wanted Lydia.

And maybe once he had her, he would be over whatever ailed him. The night he had taken her, he'd been drunk. Maybe his imagination was making him remember it better than it actually had been.

Who are you kidding? No one has ever been that drunk.

But it was a good arguing point when he was trying very hard to convince himself to move over to her now, kiss her awake and . . .

No. Then she would think that was all he wanted from her. And, much as his body craved surcease, that wasn't exclusively what he needed. He had come to depend on her quiet efficiency, the meals she prepared for him, the way she always knew where things were, her loving care of Lee. He wanted those things too. And he liked the way she listened to him when he talked. It made the things he said seem important. He wanted her to worry a little about him when he rode off as he had done today. It wasn't just her body he wanted surrounding him, but her spirit as well.

One thing was certain, he couldn't go on like this, with a constantly stiff rod in his pants and a mind torn in two. Sooner or later he was bound to do something obscene like he had done the night of the Fourth and he didn't want to see that fear on her face ever again if he could help it.

Tomorrow. He would start treating her more like a wife tomorrow, and then maybe she would start feeling more wifely and one thing would eventually lead to another. First thing in the morning he would launch his campaign. Maybe he would kiss her good morning. Yes. In the morning.

He fell asleep tasting that kiss.

But in the morning she was gone.

H
e awakened at once, feeling fully rested after only a few hours of sleep. It wasn't yet dawn. The sky was dove gray, with no streaks of light yet showing in the east.

Ross sat up, his eyes flying immediately to the bed on the other side of the wagon. He blinked against the dim light, thinking that his eyes were playing tricks on him, because it looked like the place where Lydia always slept was empty. He moved closer and his heart stopped before beginning again to pound rapidly. He touched the linens to confirm what his brain refused to accept.

She wasn't there.

He checked the crate and Lee was still sleeping peacefully.

Lydia would never leave him alone. Not voluntarily. And there was a killer about.

Ross lunged for the back of the wagon and ripped open the canvas flaps. Nothing. No one in the camp was stirring. Last evenings fires were only gray mounds of cold ashes. He reached for his pistol, mechanically checked to see that it was loaded, and crammed it into the waistband of his pants. Forgetting his boots, his shirt, his hat, he swung himself over the tailgate and landed on silent feet on the dew-damp ground. He glanced around the camp once more, but he didn't see any movement anywhere, not even in the Langston wagon where he thought Lydia might have gone.

He took off at a swift trot, knocking tree limbs and grapevines out of his path as he thrashed his way through the dense woods in the direction of the river. That was the only place she might have gone alone. He heard nothing except the rushing of his own breath in and out of his chest and the thunder of his heart as he imagined Lydia at the hands of a man who could maliciously slay an adolescent boy.

Or had she simply run away, as he had thought she was likely to do one day? Had she tired of him and Lee and gone back to whatever she had been doing before the Langstons found her? And what was that? Why would she just sneak away in the dead of the night?

She wouldn't, Ross told himself. The thought gave him no comfort because the alternative was worse. He began to run faster. He came to the creek, his chest heaving with exertion. He propped his arm against a tree trunk and gulped in deep breaths. His eyes scanned the banks on either side. At first he didn't see her, only her dress hanging on a forsythia bush. Then he spotted her diminutive figure on the for bank. She was lying on her side facing away from him. Her knees were curled up to her chest.

Was she hurt? Unconscious? Dead?
God!

Taking the pistol from his waistband and holding it high, Ross ran into the river and splashed his way across the shallows. He came out on the other side, dripping oceans from his heavy cloth pants. "Lydia!" he cried.

She sat up, startled, and whirled her head around to see him emerging from the river. The clear water rolled down his chest and arms, molding his pants to his form. She had crossed the river after she had washed, and her chemise was clinging damply to her torso and thighs. The morning humidity had brought her hair to an uncontrollable curling wreath about her face and down her back. Upon seeing him, her tear-laden eyes overflowed and the crystal drops trickled down her moist cheeks. Surprise parted her lips and she mouthed his name.

Ross stopped dead still. He tried to regain his breath, but it seemed to accelerate, as did his heartbeat, at seeing her near nudity, the dewiness of her exposed skin, the wildness of her hair unrestrained, the air of expectancy about hen He dropped his pistol on the ground and advanced toward her. His knees hit the soft, grassy turf as he rested his hand along her cheek and picked up a tear with his thumb.

"What are you doing here? Jesus, Lydia, you scared hell out of me when I woke up and you weren't anywhere to be found."

"I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd wake up before I got back." She didn't realize that she was speaking as rapidly and breathlessly as he, or that her hand had gone to his hair, or that she was threading her fingers through the dark strands. "I didn't get to bathe yesterday because everything was ... I didn't sleep well last night . . ."

"Why were you crying?" His other hand was at her nape, lifting the heavy mane away from it and caressing the soft skin beneath with his fingertips.

Her tears began to cascade again. She couldn't explain them to him any more than she could to herself. "Luke, I suppose. It was so awiiil yesterday, Ross, before you got back. I was sad and then afraid when they . . . Moses . . . and I wanted you here and was so glad to see you."

"Don't cry, don't cry," he chanted even as he lowered his head and began picking up the tears with his moustache, his lips, his tongue. When his mouth took hers it was with the desperation, the urgency, that boiled inside both of them. He slanted his lips over hers and they parted. Then his tongue was swirling inside her mouth, plundering gently, taking, giving. She made a purring sound in her throat.

His hands scaled down her shoulders to cup her under the arms and lift her up. He held her against his chest and his wet nakedness redampened her chemise. Her nipples beaded against his, already erect from the cold water. She trembled slightly, and he hoped that the shudder wasn't from fear, but from a desire as rampant as his. He buried his face in the curve of her neck. She let her head fall back, allowing him access. Her generosity made him bold; he skimmed the satiny length of her throat with his mouth, planting kisses along it.