The Temptress Read online

  She pulled her arm away from his. “I don’t want to put a noose around your neck. Marriage is different. It’s for two people who love each other and I stupidly thought that’s what we did that night—made love. I was in love with you or I wouldn’t have done that…I wouldn’t have let you touch me. But it wasn’t love to you. You don’t love me, you never have. You got what you wanted, but I didn’t.”

  She turned away to hide her tears.

  He pulled her to him, turning her so that her face was buried in his chest. “Chris, I don’t think I’ve ever had a woman in love with me before, and I have no idea what it means to be in love. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to hurt you. Maybe you just think you’re in love with me because I can handle a gun and I’m not like anyone you ever met before and—”

  She looked up at him. “I’ve met hundreds of gunslingers and hundreds of outlaw criminals and I resent your telling me that I don’t know my own mind. I can tell you that—”

  She stopped because Tynan kissed her, hungrily drinking from her lips, caressing her back, pushing her hips into his, trying to envelop her with his hard, hot body. Chris knew she wouldn’t last long if he continued touching her.

  “Please don’t,” she whispered when his lips moved to her neck. “Please don’t touch me. I can’t bear it. I can’t resist you.”

  “I don’t want you to,” he said as his teeth took her earlobe.

  It was when his lips touched the corner of her eye and he tasted a salty tear that he stopped. Abruptly, he drew away from her. “Go on then,” he said with suppressed anger in his voice. “Go back to your cold bed and stay there alone.”

  Chris’s tears began in earnest then and she fled down the steep, dark path to the cabin. Pilar didn’t say a word as Chris fell down onto the pallet beside her.

  Chris cried for a long time before she made a decision. She didn’t care whether he married her or not, and she didn’t care if he loved her or not. Right now all she felt for him was desire and she wanted it to be the way it was that night in the logger’s cabin. She wanted to feel his hands on her body, wanted him to make love to her again.

  Sniffing, but feeling better now that there was no more indecision, she got up and left the lean-to shelter. She knew that Tynan slept not far from them, a little way into the trees so that, should anyone come to the cabin during the night, he’d not be seen. She went to his sleeping place but he wasn’t there.

  Slowly, with deliberation, she removed all her clothing, stretched out on his blankets and waited for him. When he didn’t come, she went to sleep, smiling at the thought of how he’d waken her.

  “Chris,” Tynan said, pulling her into his arms. “Oh my beautiful, lovely Chris.”

  Sleepily, she opened her eyes. It was daylight, the birds were singing, the smell of the early morning forest was all around them—and Tynan’s hands were on her body, pushing away the covers and caressing her skin. His hands ran over her hips with the eagerness of a boy’s with his first puppy.

  “You came to me,” he whispered. “You came to me. I didn’t sleep last night. I just wandered in the forest. Oh Chris, you’re driving me crazy. My beautiful, beautiful Chris, you are making me more miserable than when I was in prison.”

  Chris could feel her skin glowing with the joy of his words. She sincerely hoped that she was making him miserable—at least as miserable as he was making her.

  He brought her head up to his and kissed her as if he never meant to let her go, his hands in her hair.

  Her arms went around his neck to pull him close. This is what she’d wanted for so long, but what she’d been fighting against for what seemed to be forever.

  He stretched her out on the blankets and moved to lay beside her, touching her gently, while, at the same time, removing his own shirt.

  With his leg between hers, he rubbed his rough clad skin against hers while kissing her.

  Abruptly, he pulled away from her and put his head up as if he were listening. “I have to go. Someone’s out there.”

  “It’s just Pilar,” she said, trying to pull him back down to her. “She won’t come here.”

  Tynan moved away from her and pulled his shirt back on. “Someone’s coming up the trail.” He gave Chris a look of resignation. “It’s my luck that it’s your father here all ready.” Chris thought he looked on the verge of tears. “You’d better get dressed. If it’s not him, we can continue this later and if it is, he might not stop to ask questions if he found his little daughter kissing the hired hand.” When she opened her mouth to speak, he stopped her. “Don’t give me any argument, and don’t make this harder for me, just please get dressed and let me see who this is.”

  Tynan moved away from her, standing and watching her with eyes that bore an expression of sadness, desire and pain. When she was dressed, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. “I’ve aged twenty years since I met you. I hope with all my might that this is anybody except your father.” After a quick kiss, he released her, took her hand and led her into the cabin clearing.

  Chris could see Pilar’s sleeping form under the lean-to.

  “Go look in my saddle bags and you’ll find a pair of field glasses. Bring them to me.”

  Chris ran to do what he asked. Pilar raised on one elbow to look at her.

  “Happy this morning?” Pilar asked.

  “I’ve been happier,” Chris said, searching inside the saddle bags. “I would be extremely happy if Tynan’d bothered to return to his sleeping roll last night.”

  Pilar groaned, then asked, “What’s going on now?”

  “Ty says he hears someone coming up the trail. I haven’t yet heard anything but he’s gone to see. Ah, here they are.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Pilar said and was out of her sleeping pallet in a second and was soon running down the hill behind Chris.

  Tynan was stretched out on a rock, as flat and as unnoticeable as a lizard and he had to call to the women before they saw him. “It’s them,” he said with great sadness in his voice. “I knew it would be.” He reached out his hand to Chris for the glasses.

  Chris and Pilar climbed on the rock beside him. “You’re sure it’s my father?” Chris asked, excited.

  “Whoever it is, I hope they’ve brought us some supplies,” Pilar said.

  “From the size of the group, I think Mathison’s brought his entire ranch.”

  Chris took the glasses from him. Her father was unmistakable, sitting on top of the horse that looked too small for him, riding with his back as straight as a railroad tie—and even at this distance he looked angry. She put the glasses down and saw that Ty was looking at her with a teasing smile on his face.

  “Want to borrow my gun to protect yourself?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “Who’s the man with him?” Pilar asked, looking through the glasses.

  “Never saw him before,” Ty answered.

  Chris heaved herself up from the rock. “I guess I better get this over with. If either of you have delicate sensibilities, you’d better leave now. My father’s temper is…” She couldn’t think of anything that would adequately describe it.

  She took a deep breath for courage, then started down the hill toward her father and the men who rode with him. She was hesitant at first, but as he came more clearly into view, she began to pick up speed until he saw her.

  Del Mathison spurred his horse forward in a burst of speed that left the others standing.

  Chris lifted her skirts and took off running as fast as her legs would carry her—and Del’s horse came charging toward her. When he reached her, he didn’t slow, but extended his arm and hauled her up to toss her in the saddle behind him. It was a trick he’d taught her when she was a child, and it’d come in handy in her life, such as the time Tynan had run his horse through the freight office.

  As Chris held onto her father, she saw that Ty had followed her down the hillside, gun drawn, protecting her as she’d run away from the shelter of the camp. She turned to see the man wh