The Temptress Read online

  Chris sputtered for a moment. Was he actually asking her for sympathy? “So now you’re…and I’m supposed to…of all the dastardly, disgusting, repulsive things—I want you to know that Asher asked me to marry him. He didn’t ask for a quick assignation, he wanted to marry me, to live with me forever.”

  “He wants to live with your father’s money forever.”

  “So what’s the difference between you two? He wants my money and you want my body. Neither of you seem to want me. Well, let me tell you, Mr. Tynan,” she advanced on him, “I’m not sure I want either one of you. I certainly don’t want what you offer.”

  He caught her arm. “Chris, you do want me. I know it. I can see it in your eyes. And I want you, so why not?”

  She gave him a serious look, the muscles in her jaw working. “And do you plan to include marriage in your offer?” she asked softly.

  He took a step back from her as if she’d just contracted a contagious disease. “Marriage? Chris, you know that’s impossible. Your father would send me back to jail on a life sentence and then you’d have no husband. I couldn’t do that to you.”

  “Men!” she gasped. “What convenient memories you have. My father said that you’d return to prison if you touched me, yet you were more than willing to risk that because it was something you wanted. But now you hold it up to me when the matter of marriage is mentioned. Listen to me, Tynan, and listen good. I am not going to go to bed with you again and you can believe me.” She turned on her heel and started up the hill toward the spring, grabbing the bucket in anger.

  “You’ll give in,” Ty said after her, “and you’d better not let Prescott touch you.”

  “You hardheaded, vain…cowboy, I’m never going to let you touch me again!” She dug the bucket into the spring water, then, on impulse, stuck her face under the cold water. She wasn’t sure whether she needed cooling off from her temper or from Tynan’s kisses, but, whichever it was, her blood was steaming.

  She stayed at the stream for a while before returning to the cabin and settling down beside Pilar to sleep. She woke repeatedly during the night, sometimes sitting up with a jolt and looking around her. Each time she woke, she saw that Tynan was still leaning against the post, still watching the old man.

  By the time morning came, she felt as if she’d not been asleep at all. She sat up, rubbing her aching back and looked around her. Ty was gone from his post and Asher was in the yard in front of the cabin saddling his horse. She walked toward him.

  “The old man’s giving Ty trouble,” Ash said in the way of a greeting. “We may have to tie him on his horse just to get him out of here.”

  Chris stifled a yawn. “I hope he ties him face down over the saddle.”

  Asher caught her arm and pulled her close to him. “This is the last time I’ll see you for a while. I hope you’ll miss me. I hope you’ll think about my proposal. I hope you’ll…” He began to kiss her neck. “I hope you’ll say yes.”

  The next minute, Asher was on the ground as Tynan jerked him away from Chris. Ty stood over him, feet apart, fists ready.

  “Come on, Prescott, get up. You’ve been asking for this for a long time. Or aren’t you man enough to maul somebody your own size? Do you only pick on women?”

  “For heaven’s sake!” Chris said, going to Asher to help him up.

  Tynan advanced on the man.

  “If you touch him again,” she said, “so help me, I’ll ride out of here with him. What in the world is wrong with you?”

  Tynan lowered his fists and there was a bewildered expression on his face. “I don’t know,” he said in wonder. “Prescott, you better go now so you can use all the daylight. The old man will go with you but you’ll have to watch him every minute. I think he understands now that we’re hiding out so he’ll do what he can to make money off that knowledge.”

  As Asher stood, Tynan looked a bit sheepish for a moment, then he turned back toward Chris. “You wouldn’t go, would you? I mean, I’d have to bring you back and someone needs to stay with Pilar.”

  Chris looked at him for a long moment. “No,” she said at last, “I won’t leave. Not if you don’t hit Asher again. Now, could you leave us alone? I’d like to say good-bye.”

  Tynan didn’t move a step. “You can say good-bye right now. He has to leave.”

  “If you think—” Chris began, ready to give him a piece of her mind, but a call from Pilar stopped her. “Yes, I’m coming,” she answered, then deliberately turned and put her arms around Asher, meaning to kiss him good-bye, and show Tynan that he had no right to give her orders. But her lips never reached Asher’s because Tynan pulled her away from him and held her to him, her back against his front.

  “Get on your horse, Prescott,” he said in a deadly voice.

  Asher hesitated for a moment, but, then, with a sigh, he put his foot in the stirrup. “We’ll settle this later,” he said, glancing back to the old man who was sitting atop Tynan’s horse and ready to leave.

  Tynan, still holding Chris, stepped back. “Make sure you watch him night and day. Don’t give him a minute or he’ll take all you have and maybe your life with it.”

  “Yeah,” Asher muttered and, with one quick look at Chris, reined his horse away. “Come on, old man,” he called over his shoulder and then was gone from sight.

  Chris pushed away from Tynan. “Release me, you oaf!”

  She turned to look at him, anger in her eyes. “What right do you think you have to tell me what to do? Just who do you think you are?”

  Tynan looked completely confused, seemed to want to say something but, instead, turned on his heel and went up the hill toward the spring.

  Chris stood there for a moment, glaring after him, before she went to Pilar.

  “I thought there was going to be a fight there for a moment,” Pilar said as Chris handed her a full canteen.

  “I’d like to take a club to his head,” Chris said. “He doesn’t want me but then he hits anyone else who does want me.”

  Pilar leaned back against the hay as Chris began unbandaging her shoulder. “Oh, he wants you all right. He wants you badly.”

  “And I know exactly how he wants me.” Pilar smiled. “I’ve never seen him like this. Even that time with that rancher’s daughter, he wasn’t like this. We all hoped then that he was going to settle down, but it didn’t work out.”

  “Was that when he ended up in prison?”

  “Red tell you about it?”

  “Most of it. Pilar, how do you know Tynan? Why were you living with him at Owen Hamilton’s?”

  “He saved my husband’s life.”

  Chris stopped cleaning Pilar’s wound. “Your husband?”

  “I used to work with Red when I was younger. Tynan was there, the prettiest, sweetest little boy you ever met, and we all adored him. After the old man took him away when he was six, I hardly ever saw him again. And when I did see him, I’d see that he’d grown harder. He’d seen a lot in his short life and it’d made him cynical. But by then I’d married a rancher and we had a couple of kids of our own and I wanted to forget where I’d known Ty.”

  “Children?” Chris whispered.

  Pilar smiled. “Two little boys. They’re nine and seven now.” She paused a moment. “One day I was in town and I saw Tynan on the street. He grinned at me and started toward me, and all I could think of was that he was going to let the ‘good’ townspeople know where I came from and they were going to see that I wasn’t the respectable rancher’s wife they thought I was. I hate to say it, but I ducked into a store and acted as if I didn’t know him. Ty was the perfect gentleman and two days later when I ran into him again, he acted as if he’d never seen me before in his life.”

  “So how did he save your husband’s life?”

  “I don’t like what I did then. I wouldn’t speak to Ty on the street but a week later, when my husband was being threatened by a big rancher trying to drive us off our little place, I didn’t hesitate to ask Ty for help—and Tynan didn�€