Angel Creek Read online

  What Luis was thinking was that he should have known she would suffer under a massive load of guilt, and he ached to comfort her. Poor darling, she really had no idea about the physical side of life. Olivia had been raised too conventionally and was herself too ladylike by nature for it to be any other way. She didn’t even know how to rid herself of Bellamy’s unwanted attentions.

  Luis looked around, and his gaze settled on two of the Bar B’s ranch hands, men he knew to be hottempered. They were almost always contesting each other in one thing or another, and tonight was no exception. The object of their competition tonight was a pretty little farm girl whose face was flushed with pleasure at so much male attention.

  Luis eased his way through the crowd. Both men held drinks in their hands, supposedly punch, but he knew the drink was well laced with whiskey. In the jostling crowd it was easy to reach out and bump one man’s arm enough to make him spill the contents of the cup all over the farm girl’s best dress.

  He quickly moved back out of the way, blending into the crowd and listening to the growing sounds of altercation he left behind him. The man who had spilled his punch was accusing the other of deliberately pushing his arm. The disagreement erupted into a full-scale fistfight before he could make his way back across the room.

  Kyle scowled with annoyance when he saw that the combatants were two of his own men. He said something to Olivia and left his seat, swiftly crossing the room. It wouldn’t do his standing in the community any good if his men were so rowdy, and Luis knew that Bellamy was very proud of his respectability.

  Luis looked at Olivia’s pinched expression and silently berated himself. He had almost pushed too hard that afternoon, so now she was remembering her shame rather than the pleasure of his kisses. It would take all of his charm to repair the damage.

  He made his way through the crowd toward her. She saw him before he could reach her and immediately spun away, retreating from him.

  She was afraid of him! Luis was thunderstruck at the realization. No woman had ever before feared him, so why did it have to be this particular woman who ran from him, this woman whom he wanted as he had never before wanted anyone?

  Her action angered him. He was a man, instinctive and possessive, and he intended to claim Olivia as his without examining the whys and wherefores of it. He increased his pace and caught up with her before she could reach the safety of her mother’s side, stopping her by the simple means of putting his boot down on her skirts. She jerked to a halt and threw him a pleading look over her shoulder, but she had the choice of either staying where she was or having her skirt torn off.

  “Dance with me,” he said, only for her ears. “Please.”

  “No!” She gasped the refusal. She was so distraught that she couldn’t be in his arms again without somehow betraying herself.

  “Then walk outside with me.”

  “No!” This time the refusal was tinged with horror. Another invitation to do something improper! How could he ask her to walk with him again, after what had happened that afternoon? But that was probably the reason he asked, she thought bitterly. He expected to find her as easy again.

  Luis put his strong hand on her arm and turned her. “Go outside, Olivia. Now.”

  She hadn’t heard that hard, commanding tone from him before, and it silenced her. Numbly she let him guide her out of the meeting hall where they always held the annual dance, and down the steps.

  The cool air washed over her hot face as he led her across the street and into the shadow of a huge tree. She could still hear the music and the laughter, the cacophony of conversation from a multitude of throats at once, but it was all muted and far away now, overlain by the sounds of the night.

  “What do you want?” she whispered almost fearfully. She tried to free her arm, but he tightened his grip.

  “I want you to stop looking as if you expect to be stoned to death,” he retorted angrily.

  Olivia’s spine stiffened at his tone. She wasn’t given to temper, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t stand up for herself if she felt under unjust attack. “I’ll look any way I please,” she retorted, embarrassed that the best she could think of was such a childish reply. She was at a disadvantage, having had little experience with arguing.

  Apparently he noticed it, too, for his grasp eased, and a faint smile teased the corners of his mouth. “Remind me someday to teach you how to fight,” he said. “What you should have said was something that would make me feel guilty, too.”

  She bit her lip, immediately reminded of her own lack of decorum. “Why should I?” she asked, the words troubled. “What happened was my fault. I never should have gone with you.”

  “Ah, darling.” He laughed softly and enfolded her hand, carrying it to his mouth. He delicately licked one of her knuckles, and she trembled. “Don’t take all the blame on yourself when my shoulders are so much broader. I at least knew what I was doing.”

  “I’m not a child, Mr. Fronteras.” She was irritated that he evidently thought her so stupid she hadn’t been aware of the inappropriateness of going off alone with him. “Of course I knew what I was doing.”

  He still looked amused. “Did you? I don’t think so. If you’d had any experience at all, you wouldn’t be so upset now. Has anyone else ever kissed you?”

  She knotted her fists. “Of course,” she said indignantly.

  “Really? How?” He sounded skeptical. “Closed-mouth pecks that didn’t even give you a taste?”

  Abruptly she realized the absurdity of what she was doing, trying to convince him of experience she didn’t have when she had been worried that he would think exactly that of her. She jammed her fingers against her mouth to stifle her laughter, and Luis grinned, too.

  “That’s better,” he said. He gently caressed her cheek. “What happened today is what happens between two people who are attracted to each other. It isn’t shameful, though it certainly should always be private. Do you think your friends haven’t felt a man’s touch on their breasts? I assure you that most of them have.”

  “Most of my friends are married,” she pointed out. “I assume that married people are—are more free with each other,” she finished carefully. She could feel her face heating at his bluntness.

  “Some more than others,” Luis drawled, thinking of the poor souls who probably did no more than ruck up their nightshirts and finish within five minutes. Poor men? Poor ladies! “But you can bet that they made love at least a little even before they married.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, disconcerted at the idea.

  A couple of cowboys left the meeting hall just then, their joking voices loud in the still night air. Luis put his arm around her waist and drew her to the other side of the tree, out of their sight. She felt the rough bark against her back and leaned thankfully against the sturdy support.

  “Of course they did. It’s so enjoyable, after all.”

  She was finding it difficult to keep the point of the argument in mind. “Enjoyable or not, Mr. Fronteras—”

  “Luis.”

  “—I should never have allowed you such liberties today, and I’m ashamed of myself for such behavior.”

  “Moralistic little darling,” he said tenderly.

  “I am not your darling! Please don’t call me that.”

  “But you are. You just haven’t admitted it yet.”

  She took a deep breath, trying to compose herself and reorder her thoughts. “Our relationship is far too casual for me to permit such incidences between us, and I won’t allow it to happen again—”

  He put both hands on the tree, bridging her rib cage and effectively hemming her in. “Don’t,” he said quietly, interrupting her. “Don’t make statements you’ll then feel obliged to live up to.”

  “But I must,” she replied just as quietly.

  Luis drew a deep breath. He couldn’t allow her to turn him away. It wasn’t just the protectiveness she stirred in him, or the desire, it was the overwhelming need to have her