Claudia Dain Page 25

  "Sure they do," he said, "and why not? You work damn hard at being agreeable."

  "There's nothing wrong with being agreeable."

  "No?" he said, pulling her up short just before they reached the light that flooded from her home to light the dust of Abilene. "Even when you go against what you want to do?"

  "I do exactly what I want and right now I want to go home," she said.

  "You do exactly what you want? Every time?" he prodded.

  "A person should do what's right, should want to do what's right," she said.

  "Then how come you keep kissing me?" he said and she could see his grin shine white in the dark.

  "I just knew you'd say that," she flared and jerked her arm out of his and marched up the steps. "If you were so offended, you should have just... shot me. In fact, since the fact that we've kissed a few times seems to rile you so, you won't want me for your wife and that's fine with me. More than fine. Perfect."

  He grabbed her around the waist and turned her to face him. "Nice try, Anne, but no go. I'm the man who does what he wants." He pulled her into his embrace, his arms wrapping around her. She didn't fight much. Did she ever? "I asked you to be my woman. For always. Nobody made you say yes, but I'm the man who's going to hold you to it."

  His words made her stomach drop to her feet and flutter there like a June bug in September. Could anything be for always? She wanted something in her life to be for always.

  "Why should I marry a man who thinks I act like a halfwit?" she mumbled, her face almost pressed against his chest. He smelled like soap and clean cotton.

  "Now you're fighting like a woman," he said with a smile. "Makes me feel like we're married already. I never said you act like a half-wit; I said you were treated like one."

  "But I wouldn't be treated like one if I didn't act like one," she said, pulling back. Her ma was watching from the window, and one of the Walton kids, the one who worked for Powell, was standing in the street and making kissing noises on the back of his hand. She was making a spectacle of herself and Jack was helping.

  She didn't like it. She should put a stop to it. Lots of things she should do. Had she ever done any of them?

  "You just need to stand up for yourself more," he said calmly. "Take care of yourself better." How did he have the nerve to instruct her on proper behavior? He seemed almost amused.

  "So you're saying that I do act like a half-wit?"

  "Of course not, it's just that, well, you shouldn't go around letting men kiss you," he said in an angry rush. At least she wasn't the only one mad now.

  "I don't let men kiss me!"

  "You let me kiss you! Again and again!" he said, taking off his hat and slamming it against his leg. Dust flew.

  "Well. I'm so sorry," she bit out, turning her back on him and walking up the stairs with stiff little steps. "You won't ever have to suffer through it again since I'm not about to marry you!"

  "Not marry me?" he said slowly, his voice deep and severe. She'd never heard him like that; it made the hair on her arms stand straight up. "Oh, you'll marry me. I asked. You answered. That's that. Understood?"

  She didn't look at him. Didn't dare, really. He sounded mad enough to kill and, though she was learning to talk to him like she couldn't with anyone else, she still didn't enjoy all this fuss. If she'd eaten any more of that pie, she'd have thrown it up, right now. She wondered what the Walton kid would have done with that.

  "Fine," she said, showing him her back.

  "Good," he said.

  "You can leave anytime," she said stiffly. "I'm perfectly capable of making it inside, half-wit that I am, without any help from you."

  "I'm getting damned sick of people telling me I can leave. I'm staying."

  "Stop cussing," she said, her chin up and quivering.

  "Stop meeting the train," he said, "Whoever you're waiting for won't get off. And you're not getting on."

  She turned and fired, verbally, for he'd hit hard and in her most vulnerable spot, but she wasn't going to admit the worst of it. "I'm sure you're right," she said, her voice quaking with suppressed emotion. "I'm sure I'll never get out of Abilene, just like I'm sure you'll never stay. One day it'll be you who climbs on and leaves and never comes back." No one ever comes back. Hidden tears scrambled up her throat to lodge in her mouth.

  Jack's scowl was wiped clean off. He moved toward her, his arms open, and enfolded her within his strength. She let him. She didn't have the strength to fight him. Let him call her a half-wit. She didn't have the heart to fight him.

  "I'm not leaving, Anne," he whispered against her hair. "I'm not ever leaving."

  "Everyone leaves," she mumbled against his shirt, swallowing her tears. She never cried about this, not anymore. All her tears had been used up. She had promised herself never to cry about it again.

  "Not me," he said forcibly. "You've had a rough time, but you won't be getting a rough time from me."

  Not a rough time? He was all rough time; impossible to manage, difficult to ignore, and determined to stay. Were they all just as determined to stay before they finally left? Had they believed their own lies of constancy? Did Jack?

  She didn't want him to stay. She didn't need him now that Bill was gone. She didn't need these vows from him. He could go. She wanted him to go, just like she wanted to go, leaving Abilene and all the trouble of family behind.

  "So you say," she said.

  "I mean it," he said.

  "You called me a half-wit," she mumbled, turning her head to rest it against his chest. Let the Walton kid do what he liked; she was going to press herself against Jack because he was a wall she could lean on. Just for now.

  "I'm not going down that trail again," he said. She could hear the smile in his voice.

  "Coward," she whispered, wrapping her arms around him. He was lean and hard and warm. Safe. Even though it was a lie, it felt good. Maybe this was why women kept believing the lie; it felt so much better than facing the truth.

  "You'll never be alone again," he promised. "I'll never leave you." He kept saying it. Why did he think she needed to hear him say it again and again? Why did she let him keep repeating the words?

  "That's if I marry you," she said.

  He turned her face up with his hands and kissed her. Hard. He obviously didn't give a damn whether her ma or the Walton kid saw them or not. After a while, she didn't care either.

  His arms wrapped around her, pulling her in tight, his hands pressing her hips to his. She could feel the hardness of him, the unrelenting masculinity of him, and wanted more. Her nipples were tight and they rubbed against his shirt, that blue cotton shirt he was wearing that had a broken button. She wanted to pull that shirt off him and run her hands over his hard body, feeling the muscle and the skin of the man who promised he wouldn't ever leave her.

  She didn't give a damn what her ma saw or what Miss Daphne found out.

  He was that dangerous.

  When he finally let her go, she almost stumbled and had to lean her head against his chest to get her balance. Her breath was ragged and short, her vision blurred.

  Jack smiled and ran his thumb over her cheek.

  "And give that up? Yeah, you'll marry me."

  She pushed him away and he dropped a step down. "You're not winning me over talking like that."

  "I already won, Anne. Can't you see that?" He shrugged, hooking his thumbs in his pants. "But you want me to stop? I'll stop. But you gotta tell me."

  He was everything she didn't like about men: arrogant, selfish, hard with pride. Except that she liked him anyway. That was what was wrong with women; they had all the facts, facts as hard as any man, and they still made the wrong choices.

  But not her. Not her. She wasn't going to be like her ma; she wasn't going to raise a child on her own, living in the haze of a past she remembered wrong, like a dream turned inside out. She was going to leave here and she was going to do it alone.

  "Go away," she said, planting herself firmly on the porch, t
he light from the windows at her back. She could see him clearly in the light, his blue eyes hard with amusement, his lips lifted in good humor. All at her expense.

  "Nope, I won't go away," he said, stepping up to the porch. "You don't have the words to make me go. You only have the words to make me stop. To make me stop touching you. And kissing you. And wanting... you."

  Her heart hammered underneath her suddenly aching breasts. She told her heart to shut up and keep still.

  "You better find those words right quick, 'cause here I am. I'm going to kiss you, Anne. I'm going to kiss you and take us both outta here with the sweetness of it. This kiss is going to take you clear out of Abilene."

  She stood, her feet planted on the boards of the porch as if someone had nailed her to it. His eyes were intense, buried beneath the long slant of his brows; he licked his lips and touched her, his hands on her waist, his eyes on her and nothing else. Like she was the only thing on God's green earth he wanted to be looking at. Like she mattered.

  His touch, the look of him, sent her pulse running and her breath hopping. She couldn't breathe, not with him so close. He smelled like sunlight and apple pie, like leather and gunmetal, like promises and vows.

  No man could smell like that. No man could be all that. She was losing her mind like she was losing her breath.

  His hands swept around her back to enfold her, pulling her to him, pressing her against his length. He was hard all over, up and down, front and back. She could feel the movement of his muscles underneath his shirt and she sighed at the sensation. His mouth brushed over the rim of her ear, moving down, licking the lobe, skimming the skin of her throat, her pulse against his lips.

  All while she stood on Miss Daphne's front porch.

  "You shouldn't do this," she said. It was a whisper, breathy and high.

  "Why not?" he said, his voice a tickle against her skin.

  Why not? There must be a reason, some reason why he shouldn't be touching her like this, holding her like she was precious and beautiful, kissing her like... like... like she wanted him to. Like he always did. Like he wanted to drown in her, learning to swim in her blood, sharing his breath with her, breathing in harmony with her. Sharing her life. Sharing her dream.

  Merciful God, he was in her blood. He was tangled in her blood and in her very breath. How was she going to get free of this?

  "You gotta stop," she said, his lips hovering over hers so close that she tingled with the nearness.

  "Tell me to stop," he said and then he kissed her, his tongue surging into her mouth with such powerful strokes that she had to remind herself to breathe.

  Her hands wound around his neck and she stood to meet him, her mouth open under his, her heart laid bare. She throbbed for him, a low, demanding pulse that tore at her heart. She clung to him all the more fiercely, stupidly.

  He lifted his mouth from hers and trailed kisses across her face. "One of these days, I'm gonna kiss every freckle on you. That'll take some doing," he said, his breath a caress.

  "Stop," she said, her head buried against his chest, hiding her weakness from herself. "Please. Stop."

  He ran his hands over her hair, stroking her, and pulled her in closer. Then he backed her up against the porch post and pressed into her. Her legs opened of their own will and he nestled into her. The throbbing between her thighs pounded in her ears.

  "Make me stop," he said.

  Make him? She couldn't make him. She couldn't make herself do what she wanted; how was she supposed to get him to do anything, anything at all?

  She drew in a sharp breath and then sighed it out. "I can't," she said, lifting her face to his. "I can't make you. I can't even make me."

  "You can," he said. "You got more grit than you think." He pressed against her and she could feel the hard length of his manhood against the soft cushion of her petticoats.

  She moaned and pressed back, kissing her way up his throat, hungry for the taste of him, the pure male heat of him. Grit? She was mash, nothing but mash.

  "I don't," she said. "I can't. You—"

  "No," he said, cupping her breast with his hand. "You can. You only gotta say you don't want me. Then I'll stop."

  She was throbbing from unseen wounds. She couldn't stand. She couldn't see straight. She was lost in him and because of him and she hardly even remembered that she didn't know her way out.

  Not want him? She didn't want him. He was a man and she didn't want any man. Wasn't that what she had decided? Wasn't that what she'd worked out in the quiet of her thoughts? That was the trouble. She couldn't think. How could she be smart if she couldn't think?

  "Tell me to stop. Make me stop," he said, his voice a throaty command. "Damn it, Anne, you gotta fight me."

  "Why?"

  She lifted blind eyes to his, her mouth open and seeking. Why did she need to fight him? There was a reason, she had decided that long ago. She knew she had to push him out of her life. No, no, that was wrong. He was never supposed to have gotten into her life in the first place. How had he come close enough to touch her life?

  "Please," she said, her voice barely audible.

  "What?" he said, his voice raw like an open wound.

  "Don't stop," she said.

  He kissed her, his mouth on hers hard and hot, his tongue invasive, his touch possessive. All the things she had vowed to reject. All the things she had told herself to hate. All the things she craved.

  With a moan, she melted against him, welcoming him into the heat between her thighs.

  With a grunt, he escaped her, holding her off and keeping her back.

  "No," he said, holding her back by the shoulders when she would have crumpled against him. "No, it's not gonna be that way. Three days. We got three days."

  Three days. Could she last three days?

  Chapter 21

  "You don't want me to stop, do you?" he asked.

  She hesitated, dropping her head, but not moving off.

  "I think you should. This ain't proper," she said. But she didn't say it real convincingly.

  "Well, if you think I should, then I will. I won't do anything to dishonor the woman I want to marry," he said.

  Her head lifted, her dark eyes full of surprise and pleasure. Yes, this was what they all wanted, what they all held out for. Dangling the promise of marriage was to hold a woman's heart, a woman's very life, in your hands.

  "Marry?"

  He smiled and held out his arms to her, welcoming her in. Unlike the others, this one hesitated.

  "But... we hardly know each other."

  "I knew you were the one from the first moment I saw you. A man doesn't like to admit to being felled by a woman, and so quick, but there it stands. I love you. I want you for my wife."

  Yes, words of love and devotion always sat well on a woman's heart. There was not much she could do to fight against that. Only one woman had ever said no to him and she'd paid hard for that mistake.

  She smiled, her vanity caressed, and took a step nearer.

  "We should go talk to my pa," she said, toying with a strand of her dark hair.

  "And we will," he said. "Just one more kiss. Please?"

  * * *

  "Come on, Anne, if you're going to shoot it, you got to clean it," Jack said.

  "Well, I don't have to shoot it."

  "We're not going over that again," he said.

  The prairie stretched out around them, comforting them by its very expansiveness. Kansas was all sky and cloud held down by the thinnest line of earth. A man could breathe in the space of Kansas.

  "I think the one who is making me shoot should be the one who has to clean."

  "Yeah, you would think that," he said, grinning.

  They'd been spending time together every day. Jack had eased off on his kissing. Anne didn't need any more of that, not now. What they needed was time to get to know each other so that Anne could walk into marriage clear-eyed. She was confused, any fool could see that, and he didn't want her that way. Hell, he wanted he
r any way he could have her, but he was going to take the high road, no matter how much Grey laughed.

  He was spending too much time with her, valuable time, when he should be out hunting a killer. In three days' time, a girl could get killed. But he wanted to give Anne that three days to get to know him. She didn't want to get married, he knew that; it was his job to get her to change her mind. Once she was his, he'd go off and find his man and finish the job. No more dead girls. Not one more dead girl. Anne married meant she was safe. He'd be free to go, knowing she was safe. It was those other gals who weren't safe.

  This sitting around was about killing him, but he'd do it. He'd give Anne that. He just wished he could settle down some in his thinking about that killer. What was he doing now? What gal was he planning to kill?

  "I think I'm getting better," Anne said.

  Jack shook off his thoughts and watched her. She was holding her gun a bit more comfortably now, not so heavy-handed. Her shots weren't too far off either. She still flinched with the first round and it took her some time to get up the grit to fire it off, but once she had heard the first retort, she got used to it and then fired off all the rounds real quick. She hit with about two of them. Still, a loaded gun was a powerful deterrent; it might be enough to keep her safe. Trouble was, she still had trouble firing off that first shot. A gun wasn't much use if you wouldn't pull the trigger for fear of the noise.

  "Yeah, you look pretty good," he said.

  She looked at him over her shoulder as she loaded in more shells. "How do you mean that?"

  Damn, but she was a flirt. He sure did like that about her.

  "I mean it just the way you want it," he said, picking up the empty shell casings. You just never knew when you might have to load your own shot.

  "Good," she said, grinning.

  She sure wasn't the skittish thing he'd found when he first came to Abilene. She was a bit more able to speak up for herself—all to the good as far as he was concerned. He knew it wouldn't go down smooth with her family, but they were wrong. A woman needed to speak up, same as a man. The world wasn't an easy ride; he wasn't going to have Anne tromped to death and have her say nothing against it.