The Rawhide Man (12 page)

Bess froze. “In a few days, I suppose. I’ll have Aggie fix a tray,” she murmured as she left the room.

“What did I say now?” Crystal asked the coffee table with a sad smile.

Bess paused in the hall to get herself back together. Why didn’t Crystal just go with Jude if she wanted his company so much? He’d let her. She laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks. He’d let Crystal go anywhere with him, and at the same time, he wouldn’t notice Bess if she dropped dead at his feet!

“Bess?” Crystal, hearing the unfamiliar sound of weeping, had come to the door and was standing aghast at the sight of her normally composed stepsister in tears.

Bess dried the tears with the hem of her blouse. “Sorry,” she muttered, “I…think about Carla sometimes,” she lied, letting it go at that.

“I know you miss her, darling,” Crystal said gently. “I miss her, too. I don’t suppose I realized just how much I cared until it was too late to tell her.” She reached out toward Bess, but drew back before her fingers could make contact. “Say, you don’t really mind my staying, do you? Or getting Jude to help me with this financial tangle I’m in?”

“Of course not,” Bess said with magnificent carelessness.

Crystal, taking the statement at face value, relaxed. “Thank goodness. I mean, I hoped you weren’t jealous or anything.”

Which intimated that she had reason to be. Crystal couldn’t have missed the coolness between husband and wife, the pointed way they had avoided each other ever since that wild afternoon in the woods.

“I’ll get the coffee,” Bess said tautly.

Crystal stared after her quietly. Her lovely face was strained.

* * *

The day Jude came home Katy and Aggie had gone with Crystal to shop in San Antonio. Bess was sitting in the porch swing alone when he drove up, and her stupid heart went wild at the sight of him.

He walked up the steps as if he was bone tired, his attaché case held firmly in one lean hand.

“Isn’t it a little early in the year for swinging?” he asked curtly.

She was wearing his leather jacket with jeans that, strangely enough, wouldn’t fasten at the waist, and a pale yellow sweater. Her hair was in a French twist. She hadn’t noticed the cold.

“I like swinging,” she returned.

“Yes, I remember,” he murmured, watching her closely. “Where’s Crystal?”

Her face closed up and she stared out over the bleak landscape. “Gone shopping with Aggie and Katy.”

His fingers contracted on the handle of the case. “Damn it, why do you do that?” he ground out.

She glanced up at him, startled. “Do what?”

“Close up like a flower whenever I come close,” he said. His eyes swept over her face. “Do you think I haven’t noticed? I can walk into a room when you’re playing and laughing with Katy, and the color drains out of you the second you catch sight of me.”

She lowered her eyes to his chest. “What do you expect me to do, run to you?”

He was rigid for an instant, his eyes narrowed. “I can’t imagine you doing that,” he said heavily. He set the case down on the settee and eased himself down beside Bess, lighting a cigarette on the way.

The feel of him so close was unnerving. It had been weeks since he’d touched her, since she’d been near him physically. She had to clench her hands in her lap to hide her nervousness.

“You used to spend quite a lot of time out here in the summer,” he remarked, leaning back to rock the swing back into motion. “God, you were a pretty little thing, all long tanned legs and smiles.” He looked down at her assessingly. “Away from your stepsister, you blossomed. But the minute you got in the same room with her, you turned it all off. You’re still doing it.”

“How can I compete with someone who looks like Crystal?” she asked, as if she didn’t mind. Her eyes studied her folded hands. “She could charm a dragon.”

“I suppose she could. But it isn’t because she’s beautiful, Bess,” he said. “It’s because she has a bubbly personality. She reaches out.”

“Is that a dig at me?” she asked curtly, glancing up.

“You don’t reach out at all,” he returned. “You never have. Is that why you’re so eaten up with envy that you can’t even stay in the same room with Crystal? Because she can communicate and you can’t?”

She hated that mocking smile. She hated what he was saying. Her hand lifted toward his face without her being aware that it had moved.

He caught her wrist, and a fierce heat blazed in his green eyes, in the half-amused smile on his dark face.

“Did it hurt?” he asked curtly.

“Let go of me, you savage,” she breathed furiously, her eyes glittering, her face bright with anger and frustration.

He laughed harshly as he jerked her across his lap and held her there despite her struggles. He pitched the unfinished cigarette off the edge of the porch and wrapped her tightly in his arms.

“Jude!” she protested, wriggling.

“Keep that up, honey,” he breathed unsteadily in her ear, “and we’ll wind up the way we were in the woods that day. Can’t you feel what’s happening to me?”

She was still instantly as the feel of his body got through to her. She lay quietly in his arms, aware of the sharp tang of his cologne, the clean smell of him, the warmth of his body as he held her. The hand curled around her wrist was strong and bruising. The arm at her back was just as steely. And she was awash in sensation.

He laughed softly at her embarrassment, and he released her wrist to tilt her face up to his hard eyes.

“Society girl,” he growled, studying her quiet body in his arms. “Do you hate it here? Do you hate living with a man who can’t recite Shakespeare and discuss the latest bestseller with you?”

She gaped at him, stunned. “You’re college educated,” she managed.

“I took my degree in business, with a minor in economics,” he reminded her. “I didn’t have time for the arts.”

She searched his eyes in dead silence. “I…I don’t have much time for reading these days, and I can’t…recite Shakespeare, either.”

He seemed to hesitate, and the fingers holding her chin relaxed, became caressing. “Do I know you at all?” he wondered quietly.

Her lips parted on a rush of breath. “Probably not, and what difference does it make? You wanted a mother for Katy and my share of the stock. Isn’t that enough?”

“Apparently it is for you,” he said, his voice cutting. He searched her eyes. “You can do without me very well, can’t you, honey?”

Her eyes fell to his jutting chin. “You’ve been avoiding me just as hard,” she said curtly.

“Do you miss me when I go away?” he challenged. He tilted her chin back up and searched her shadowy eyes. “No, hell, no, you don’t.”

“Why should I?” she demanded, her voice breaking.

His face hardened and a curtain fell over his darkening eyes. “I haven’t been particularly kind to you, have I, Bess?” he asked after a minute. “Dragging you out here, forcing you into a marriage you didn’t want, and for all the wrong reasons.” His fingers touched her lips gently, softly, and he looked at her as if he’d never taken the trouble to really see her before. “Married, but not married.”

“And with no way out,” she said with a weary sigh.

“Yes.” His voice was curt, as if he didn’t like admitting that. “And up until now neither of us has made any effort to live up to our vows, have we?”

She studied him warily.

“I haven’t cheated on you,” he said coldly, “if that’s what that searching little look was all about. The only woman I’ve had since we married was you.”

She blushed and looked away.

His hand moved into the thickness of hair at her nape and stroked it gently. “Even that wasn’t much to look back on, was it?” he asked bitterly. “Both times, I gave you hell afterwards.”

“I’m sorry I was such a disappointment,” she said coldly.

“You’ve never disappointed me,” he said under his breath. “Not ever.”

That brought her eyes wavering up to his and held them.

“I was like a boy with you,” he breathed, grinding out the words. “I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t control what I felt. You…made me vulnerable, and I hated you for it.”

Her eyes searched his, and she could hardly believe what he was admitting. “Me?”

“You.” His hand stroked her throat, then moved down over the softness of the sweater, touching her hesitantly with fingers that were unexpectedly gentle. “It’s been like this since I carried you out of the darkness that night you were fifteen, Bess,” he said quietly, holding her eyes. “If I’d kissed you that night, we’d have gone for each other like starving wolves. We start burning up the minute we touch. You see?” he breathed, running his fingers lightly over the taut thrust of her breasts, dropping his eyes to them. “In broad daylight…”

Yes, she knew. Something inside her had always known how much he wanted her. But it was only desire, and that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted love.

His fingers were under the sweater now, on bare flesh, and he was watching her as they moved up.

“No bra, Bess?” he asked as his hand brushed lightly over warm, swollen flesh.

Her bras were too tight, and she hadn’t had time to replace them, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. She caught his wrist as the old familiar weakness began to smother her.

“Jude, don’t,” she pleaded, removing his hand.

“You’re mine,” he said curtly. “All of you. Why shouldn’t I touch you when I want to?”

Her lower lip trembled. “What’s the matter, Jude, have you been missing Crystal’s company so much that even I can stand in for her?” she burst out.

He froze. A black scowl darkened his face. “What did you say?”

“You want her, don’t you?” she whispered. “Even if you haven’t made love to her yet.”

His chiseled lips parted. “Are you jealous of me?” he asked slowly.

Her eyes fell to his chin. “Let me go, please.”

“No, not yet. Answer me. Are you jealous?”

Her long eyelashes swept down over her cheeks and she relaxed against him with a weary sigh. Her hand rested against the vest beneath his jacket, and he was pleasantly warm against the chill.

“Ask me why I spend time with Crystal and I’ll tell you,” he said over her head.

But she didn’t want the answer. She didn’t want to know. Impulsively, uncharacteristically, she let her head slide back onto his shoulder and curved an arm up around his neck. He looked as if she’d hit him.

She felt the advantage and took it, smiling breathlessly at the look in his glittering eyes. Her lips parted and she ran her fingers through his thick hair, carelessly dislodging the hat as she did.

The recklessness she felt was mirrored in his hard face. “Is this what you felt?” he asked curtly, winding his own hand into her hair to jerk her head back. “This, Bess?”

His mouth opened on hers, forcing her lips apart, penetrating deeply in an assault that was all wild tenderness. She arched in his arms, both hands in his hair now, her mouth answering his, demanding, needing.

The swing stopped and was still. His hands slid under the sweater again and took the warm, swollen weight of her breasts. She trembled and moaned sharply.

He lifted his dark head slowly, staring down into her hungry eyes. His thumbs edged over the taut peaks in a lazy, maddening rhythm, and all the time he looked at her, watching her helpless reaction to him.

“When are they coming back?” he asked in a voice that sounded unusually thick.

She licked her lips. “I don’t know.”

He bent and brushed her open mouth with his. “We could lock the bedroom door,” he whispered.

“Yes.” She arched again, crying out, as the pressure of his hands increased. She was unusually sore, and he drew back instantly.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked tenderly.

“I…I’m sore,” she said, and laughed nervously. “I don’t know why.”

“I’ll be careful with you,” he said, studying her eyes. “I’ll be gentle this time, I’ll take longer. I’ll treat you like the virgin you were that first time, Bess.”

She trembled softly in his arms as he slowly got up from the swing, cradling her against him.

“You…laughed the first time,” she remembered shakily.

“You were wildfire in my arms, blazing with the pleasure that I was giving you,” he said quietly. “My God, I was so proud…you were a virgin, and I was making you feel that way.”

She caught her breath. “I didn’t know.”

“I couldn’t tell you.” He bent and kissed her softly. “Do you really want me this time?”

Her lips parted on a wild breath. “Oh, yes, I want you,” she whispered feverishly. Her arms locked around his neck and she trembled. “Jude,” she moaned, arching up.

His eyes flashed as he walked into the house with her. Inside the doorway he bent, his open mouth pressing down on the high mounds of her breasts even through the fabric, and she cried out.

His heart was thundering as he walked with her toward the staircase, and she felt the same wildness they’d shared that day in the woods. He might not love her, but he wanted her. He wanted her! And, God, she wanted him!

But even as his boot touched the first step, the loud sound of a car approaching burst into the silence, and Jude cursed roughly.

“Not now,” he ground out, burying his face against Bess. “Oh, God, not now!”

Her hands cradled his head and she struggled to regain her lost composure. Slowly he put her down, regret and bitterness mingling in the expression on his hard face.

She turned away, tidying her hair as best she could with her back to him.

“Bess?” he asked softly.

But before she could answer him, the door burst open and Katy and Crystal descended on them in a swirl of skirts and laughter.

“So you’re finally back,” Crystal called, following Katy’s example as she ran into his arms and kissed his tanned cheek soundly. “About time, too. We’ve missed you, haven’t we, girls?”

“
Si,
we miss the sound of yelling from the study, all right,” Aggie murmured with a grin as she carried packages into the living room.

“Welcome home, Daddy!” Katy laughed.

Jude, caught up in it, was laughing, too, his face more relaxed than Bess had ever seen it, and she mourned the little taste of happiness she’d just lost. She turned and walked off toward the kitchen as Jude was coaxed into the living room to look at the purchases.