Winter's Touch (36 page)

Today, as the light grew stronger, she stood with her arms around herself to ward off the morning chill and stared out over the rows.
There!
What was that? It looked like…like moss. They had not planted moss, she was sure of that.

Stooping for a closer look, Winter Fawn’s eyes widened. Slowly, tentatively, she ran one finger over the tiny green growth.

Radishes.

Oh! Oh! “They sprouted. Oh, my. They sprouted.” They didn’t look like radishes, but they would. Oh, they would! She knew what they were because she had made herself memorize the location of every type of seed they had planted, and Gussie had said the radishes should be the first to sprout. There were dozens and dozens, so tiny and tender, like a small green blanket over the soil.

“Look at them,” she breathed.

Behind her came a low chuckle. “We’ll make a farmer out of you yet.”

On her knees and totally oblivious to the dirt she was grinding into her new dress and apron, Winter Fawn turned to smile up at Carson in wonder. “Aren’t they beautiful? There are so many!”

Carson laughed. “You’ll thin them down to give them room to grow.”

Her eyes widened in horror. “Thin them down?” She didna like the sound of that, no, not at all. “You mean…
kill
them?”

This time Carson’s laughter boomed and echoed through the trees along the river beyond the garden.

Gussie, Bess, and Megan rounded the house just then, on their way to have their own daily look.

“Gussie,” Winter Fawn cried. “Gussie, come look! We have radishes! Carson says we must kill some of them to give them room to grow. He canna mean it! After all our work?”

As gently and mater-of-factly as she could, Gussie explained the concept of thinning to Winter Fawn.

Winter Fawn did not like it, but she saw the sense in it and resigned herself. But pulling up so many of those tiny, beautiful seedlings was one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life. It
hurt
.

But soon she was too busy in the garden to worry about those small plants she was forced to pluck from the ground. The emergence of the radishes, it seemed, was a signal to the rest of the seeds that it was time to send down roots and sprout leaves. Winter Fawn spent hours thinning, pulling grass and weeds, irrigating. She spent even more hours simply standing beside the garden and staring at it in growing wonder. It was a miracle, this business of gardening.

Sadly, she acknowledged that when she returned to Our People in the fall, she would never be able to plant another garden.

Maybe she wouldn’t return to the tribe. Or perhaps when they moved out onto the plains again next spring she would simply stay in their winter valley and plant a garden there.

Alone?

The mere thought of living her life alone, even for only the spring and summer seasons, brought an unbearable ache to her heart. She could not live alone, with no one to talk to, no one to love. It was not the way of Our People to live alone. It was not her way.

Shaking off the depressing thought, she vowed that if this were to be her only garden, she would work to make it the best it could be.

Standing at the corner of the house, Carson thought he could almost read her thoughts as her expression changed from delight to pride to sadness. Damn her stubbornness.

Hell, if she wouldn’t marry him, maybe he could hire her to be his gardener.

He tugged on the brim of his hat and strolled toward her. “It looks good,” he told her.

She took a deep breath. “Aye, it does, doesn’t it? Of course I’ve never seen a garden before so I have naught to compare it to, but to me it is a beautiful, miraculous thing.”

“If the corn does well,” he said casually while tension tightened his shoulders, “we should plant a couple of acres of it next year.”

“Perhaps you should.”

“Don’t,” he said sharply. “Don’t exclude yourself that way, as if you won’t be here next year. I won’t let you go, Winter Fawn.”

She turned on him with anger in her eyes. “Am I as a horse to you, that you think you can control me? Own me?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I will chose my own staying and leaving, and you will have naught to say about it, Carson Dulaney.”

Dammit, he thought as she stomped away from him. He always managed to say the wrong thing to her. He either made her mad, or sad, no matter what he said.

They should stop talking. They did much better together when the didn’t talk.

He didn’t think of her as his property, like a horse. But she was still
his
, by damn. All he had to do was figure out a way to make her realize it.

Two nights later, a sharp crack of thunder woke Carson sometime after midnight. For one unguarded moment, before he was fully awake, he thought it was cannon fire. He bolted upright and for three beats of his heart, he didn’t know where he was.

Then he heard the loud roar of rain pounding on the roof.

Home. He was home on the ranch in Colorado. No cannons. No war. No piles of dead bodies. It was only thunder, only a storm.

As his pulse slowed and his mind cleared, his first thought was to worry about Winter Fawn’s garden. His second was to worry about Winter Fawn herself. She was frightened by storms. Had the thunder and lightning awakened her?

The thought of her huddled in the corner of the sofa with her hands ice cold and shaking with terror drove him from his bed. He would check on her, he thought as he stepped into his pants and fastened them. It wouldn’t hurt to check on her.

As he stepped out of his room a shaft of lightning revealed her right where he feared she would be, huddled in a tight little ball in the corner of the sofa.

“Ah, honey.” Sitting next to her, he slid his arms around her. “You’re freezing.” It was like putting his arms around a block of ice. A shivering block of ice.

“I’m all r-right.” Her teeth were chattering. “I d-didna mean to w-wake ye.”

“You didn’t wake me, the storm did. Come here.” He scooped her into his arms and stood. “Let’s get you warm.”

His only thought in taking her to his room and climbing beneath the covers with her was to warm her. She was too shaken for anything else, and her terror certainly did not arouse his passion. But it was sweet, so damn sweet, to feel her curl into his arms and snuggle her cold nose into the crook of his neck.

“That’s it,” he whispered against her ear. “Get warm, honey. I’ve got you now. The storm won’t hurt you.” He kept talking—speaking low but not whispering, knowing Gussie wouldn’t hear his voice over the noise of the wind and rain. He talked about anything and nothing, hoping the sound of his voice would ease her.

“You should see your brother work those mustangs. Have you seen him work with horses? I guess you probably have. I’ve never seen anything like it, myself.”

While he spoke, he absently threaded his fingers into her braids, undoing them.

“That boy can take an ornery, green-broke mustang that would just as soon kick and buck as eat, and he can have him trotting around the corral with a saddle, bridle, and rider like it was some old gray mare taking the family to church for the hundredth year in a row. It’s sheer magic what Hunter can do with a horse.”

With her hair freed from its braids, it spread across his hands like heavy silk. He brought a handful up to his face and inhaled the smell of flowers. “Are you getting warm yet?”

“Aye. Thank you.”

“Feel like talking?” he asked quietly.

“Are you running out of things to say?” There was a smile in her voice.

He chuckled. “Just about.” He sobered and brushed his nose across her cheek. “You’re not scared anymore, are you? I promise you’re safe.”

She rolled onto her back and let out a long breath. “’Tis not for myself that I fear storms.”

“Then what? Talk to me, Winter Fawn. Tell me.”

She was silent a long moment before speaking. “My mother was killed by lightning. I saw it happen.”

Carson tightened his hold on her. “How old were you?”

“Twelve. I was playing at the creek, but I should have been helping her pack. She came after me. If she hadn’t come after me…”

“It wasn’t your fault. You have to know that.”

“A week later Da got on his horse and rode out. There was a storm then, too. He just rode away and didna come back for two years, and then only for a few days. I hate storms,” she said with feeling. “Storms take people away.”

“Ah, honey, I’m sorry.” He kissed the delicate skin beside her eye. “Come to think of it, it was storming the night my mother died, too.”

“How old were you?”

“I was fifteen. It was the night Bess was born.”

“Oh, no. Bess never knew her mother at all?”

“No. Nor our father, either, really. He just couldn’t find it in himself to go on after Mother died. He lasted until Bess was about four, then he heard about the gold rush out here, and that was the last we saw of him until he came home to fight in the war.”

“Our fathers, it seems, have a lot in common.”

“That’s what Dad told me. He said that was what drew him and your father into friendship. They had lost their wives and run out on their children, and they both felt guilty as hell about it.”

If he hadn’t had his face so close to hers he might not have heard her small
sniff
.

“Winter Fawn?” He brushed a finger across her cheek and felt wetness. “Now I’ve made you sad. I’m sorry.” He pulled her close and stroked her back. It was then that he realized she wore a thin night gown, and nothing else. And she was in his arms. In his bed.

His body’s response to the realization was swift and unmistakable. He sifted away to keep her from feeling his arousal.

“No,” she whispered, pushing her thigh firmly against him. “Don’t go.”

Carson barely stifled a moan when she pressed against him. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” She kissed his chin, his jaw, his cheek. “Give me something else think about next time it storms. Something other than my fears.”

Her light, feathery kisses, her knee against his groin, and her hand splayed across his bare chest. Simple things, yet they had his heart pounding and his lungs wondering what happened to the air in the room.

A clap of thunder directly overhead shook the house.

Winter Fawn flinched and latched on to Carson.

“I won’t have it said that I took advantage of your fear.”

She pressed herself flush against his chest. “Then show me how to take advantage of yours.”

God, the feel of her breasts against him was heaven. “You’re doing just fine without my help.”

“I canna do it alone,” she protested breathlessly. “Show me, Carson. Show me how to make you feel the things I felt that morning in the mountains.”

He knew he shouldn’t. She was afraid, vulnerable. But when the next flash of lightning lit the room and he saw her face, he saw no fear there. He saw a hunger to match his own. With a low groan, he gave in and kissed her.

She responded instantly, honestly. The taste of her, the feel of her tongue sliding against his, played havoc with his mind, not to mention his body.

Easy, easy,
he warned himself. He had to think. There was something…did this mean…?

No, he couldn’t fool himself into thinking her eagerness for him meant that she had changed her mind and decided to marry him. This might be his one chance to make love with her. Fear of losing her drove him on, when reason should have stopped him.

But there was no room for reason, no time for thought. There was only Winter Fawn, and the storm, both driving him on, pounding in his blood. He kissed his way down her neck and lower until, through the thin fabric of her gown, he found one tight, beaded nipple.

When his mouth closed over the tip of her breast, Winter Fawn nearly screamed, the pleasure was so startling, so intense. She had wanted to feel what she had felt before, but this was more, so much more. And she wanted it, wanted it all, for she feared this might be the only time he would give in to her need and his.

When he pulled his mouth away, she moaned in protest. “Don’t stop.”

Instead of answering, he kissed his way down the slope of her breast and up the other until he reached that peak. This time when he latched onto her and suckled, she arched clear off the bed. It was magic. He suckled at her breast, and she felt it in her womb, a hot tingling, a yawning emptiness that demanded filling.

She whispered his name and ran her hands frantically over the hot, smooth skin on his back.

His name on her lips touched something deep inside Carson. God, how he wanted her. And she was his. For this night, this moment, she was his.

With hands that weren’t quite steady, he pulled her gown up and off over her head. Now he could feel all of her, and he did, tracing his hands greedily across her flesh. “God, you’re so soft. So perfect.”

He didn’t give her the time or opportunity to speak. He had to taste her mouth again, wanted it, needed it. Was starved for it.

He felt her hands at the waist of his pants. She fumbled at the fastenings. He tore his mouth from hers and tried to see her face in the darkness.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Be sure, Winter Fawn.”

Her hands cupped his cheeks. “I have never been more sure of anything in my life. This is right, what we do here. I feel the rightness of it.”

God, so did he, and he hoped he wasn’t just fooling himself. He hoped she thought it was so right, so good between them, that she never wanted to leave him. But he couldn’t bring himself to say the words for fear of her answer.

He reached for the fastenings on his pants, undid them. He pushed the pants down and kicked them off onto the floor.

Now there was only flesh against flesh, and it was exquisite. His blood pumped hotter, his heart beat faster. He ran a hand over the curve of her hip, down the outside of one thigh, up the inside. He tortured them both by stopping short and moving to the other thigh. Down the inside, up the outside. Then he took her mouth with his and made the trip in reverse.

Again and again he stroked his hand between her thighs, each time going higher, closer to the core of her. She began to move, to shift against his hand, to whimper against his lips.