The Temptress Read online

  Tynan had rigged himself a piece of canvas supported by two poles in the front. It left the sides and the front open and, as long as the wind didn’t blow the rain about, the occupant could stay dry. Ty was stretched out, his head on his saddle, a book in his hand when Chris arrived.

  “I brought you some soup,” she said above the rain.

  Sitting up, he reached out and took the pot from her as she withdrew biscuits from under her slicker. “May I sit down?”

  “I don’t think that…yes, of course,” he said at last, looking at her hard. No one could miss the fact that she’d been crying for many hours.

  “I’ve been awake all night and I’ve been thinking about what you told me and I’ve come to some decisions.” She took a deep breath. There was no use stalling. “First, I’d like to say that I thank you for telling me what you did. I’m sure it’s not something that you tell everyone.”

  She lowered her head and didn’t look at him as he stared in open-mouthed astonishment. “I think the best way to say this is just to get it out. I don’t know very much about love, never having experienced it before, at least not love between a man and a woman, but I think I have sense enough to recognize it when I see it. I don’t know how or why, but I’ve fallen in love with you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I know your secret now and, after much thought—I don’t want you to think that I say this lightly—I know it doesn’t matter. I’ve never made love to a man before so I’ll never have any idea what it is that I’m missing and, as for children, I have some contacts in New York and if it’s all right with you, we can take in an orphan or two.”

  Chris stopped and looked up at a sound from Tynan. For a moment, she was astonished because he seemed to be having a sort of fit. Was epilepsy what was wrong with him?

  “Tynan,” she said, moving toward him.

  He had his hands on his stomach, his legs drawn up, his mouth open and he didn’t seem to be breathing.

  She was ready to call for help when she suddenly realized that he was laughing.

  She sat back on her heels, watching him as he finally caught his breath and began to laugh as she’d never seen anyone laugh before.

  “An orphan or two!” he gasped. “I don’t know what I’m missing. I’ll take you anyway.” With each word, he doubled over harder and laughed more deeply—and Chris’s backbone grew more rigid.

  “I am certainly glad that I am a source of amusement for you, Mr. Tynan. May we pretend that this conversation never took place?” With that she moved out of his shelter and started back to her own tent.

  Ty caught her skirt hem. He was still laughing and weak from the effort. “Don’t be mad, Chris, it’s just that I—” He broke off and went into fresh peals of laughter at a new memory and Chris wondered how she could ever have thought she loved this idiot of a man. At the moment she wished the earth would open and swallow him.

  “Come in out of the rain,” he said, making a valiant effort to control himself, but his lips were twitching and his eyes watery.

  “No thank you. Please release my skirt so I can get back to my own tent. I don’t think we have anything to say to one another.”

  He began to sober somewhat, although he seemed too weak to stand as he reached up, took her by the waist and pulled her into the shelter. It was like trying to manipulate a stone statue.

  “Chris,” he began and, again, he gave a little laugh.

  Chris tried to get away but he pulled her into his lap and held her there, her hands held firmly against her sides.

  He took a full minute trying to calm himself. “Chris,” he said at last. “As long as I live I will remember this…ah, proposition of yours. I have certainly never been offered anything like it nor have I even heard of something like this being offered to anyone else. It is kind and generous of you.”

  “May I go now?” she asked, making a move to get off his lap.

  “Not until you let me explain. When I said that I couldn’t make love to you, I didn’t mean that I—” He stopped for a moment and worked to control his smirking lips. Chris stiffened even more in his lap. “I didn’t mean that physically I couldn’t, I meant that there were other reasons as to why I can’t touch you.”

  “You seem to have been doing enough of that,” she said through tight lips.

  “Sometimes I can’t help myself. By ‘touch’ you I mean to make love to you. That I can’t do.”

  “It’s me, isn’t it? If I were like Mr. Lanier’s maid with her big bosom and hips you wouldn’t have any problem at all, would you?”

  “Damn it! It isn’t physical! It’s—”

  Her nose was almost touching his. “I thought that if the woman was willing then the man always was. That’s what my mother told me. I’ve been fighting off men all my adult life and now I offer myself to one and he can’t. If it’s not me and it’s not you and it’s not fat ladies, what is it”

  Tynan ran his hands up her arms. “Oh Chris, you are killing me. I had it easy in prison compared with this. Why did you pick me and not Prescott?”

  Chris started to get off his lap but he pulled her back down. “I won’t bother you again, I assure you.”

  He moved so that his face was near her neck and she could feel his soft, warm breath on her skin. “You’ll always bother me. Every time you take a breath, you bother me. And I can’t stand to see you with Prescott. Chris, I’ve never wanted anything so badly in my life as I’ve wanted you since that first night I held you. I have nearly gone insane in the last few days. I think about you all the time. I can’t even stay in the camp when you’re there because I’m afraid that I’ll do something like throw you on my horse and take you away with me.”

  “But I offer myself to you and you laugh at me. You’ve done nothing but yell at me to get away from you since I first met you. I don’t understand! Can you make love? You’re not physically impaired?”

  “If you weren’t so innocent, you’d know the answer to that right now from where you’re sitting on my lap.” He began to bite her earlobe and Chris just about melted into him. “If I make love to you,” he said, moving down her neck, “I…”

  “Yes,” she whispered, her head back so she could enjoy his touch more.

  “If I make love to you, your father will send me back to prison.”

  “Oh,” Chris murmured, not really hearing him. Then she sat up and looked at him. “My father will what?”

  “He’ll send me back to jail. Look, Chris, I didn’t want to tell you this and I really tried to get around it, but the truth is, you have been declared off limits to me.”

  She drew back from him, moving off his lap. “I want to hear the whole story.”

  With a sigh, Ty leaned back on his arm and looked at her. “I was in jail on a life sentence but your father got me out to rescue his daughter. When you said that he had enough money and power to get what he wanted, you were right. He got me out but he holds the papers and he’s made the rules: I touch you and I go back to prison.”

  “Well, we shall see about that,” Chris said. “My father has been giving me orders all my life and I’ve only obeyed half of them—if that. We’ll just go back to him and tell him that he can’t do that to us.”

  Ty took her hands in his. “Chris, he’s right. He doesn’t want his only child to marry somebody like me. I don’t even know how to treat a good girl like you. I don’t know how to live in a house like that big one of your father’s or even how to stay in one place for very long at a time. I’m not husband material and your father knew it. He didn’t want me doing anything to his daughter short of marriage and we both knew I wasn’t the marrying kind. Do you understand?”

  “No,” she said softly, looking into his eyes. “I love you and—”

  “No you don’t. You’ve just been too busy with your newspaper over the years to notice men and now you’re worried that you’re getting old and you think you’re in love with the first man you see.”

  “Then why aren’t I in love with Mr