A Lady of the West Read online

  “How can you tell?”

  He wasn’t about to get into one of those discussions with her, so he tousled her hair and said, “Practice. There were always a lot of cats around when Ben and I were young.”

  “Show me how to tell.”

  Victoria was watching with glee, waiting to see how he got out of that. Luis had turned his head to hide his grin.

  “You’d need a male and a female side by side, so I could show you the difference.”

  “I suppose.” She sighed with disappointment. “At least now we know to name it a male name.”

  “Call it Tom,” he suggested. “That’s a name, and it’s a tomcat, so it fits.”

  “Tom.” After a minute’s deliberation she nodded, and returned the kitten to its saucer of milk.

  Jake held out his hand, and Victoria placed hers in it for him to draw her to her feet. He guided her inside with his hand on the small of her back.

  When they were out of earshot, she asked, “Can we trust Luis with Celia?”

  “As much as anyone. She’s too beautiful to expect the young bucks not to notice her, but he won’t force himself on her, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “It is, I suppose. It’s just that she’s so innocent. I don’t want something awful to happen to her.”

  His green eyes gleamed. “Awful?” he asked in a deep voice.

  Victoria blinked at him, realizing abruptly that he was escorting her up the stairs. She blushed hotly. “What are you doing?” she demanded in a fierce whisper.

  “Taking you to bed.”

  “Jake, it’s the middle of the day!”

  “I know. What about it?”

  “Everyone will know what we’re doing.”

  “Do you think they don’t know what we’re doing when we go to bed every night?”

  “People go to sleep at night. It’s obvious we wouldn’t be sleeping if we went to bed now!”

  The pressure of his hand was inexorable. “We’re married. It’s legal.” He was determined to break through her defenses, one way or another. He didn’t know why, but she kept building barriers between them. When he came back to the ranch house every night, he always found an invisible wall between them, locking him out of her thoughts. Every night he would smash it down, but she would busily rebuild it during the day. He had come back to the house specifically to make love to her now, to see if he could destroy the barrier once and for all. He wanted all of her, every little bit of her, with the greediness of someone dying of thirst; he felt as if he’d been given a glass of water but told he could drink only half of it.

  He locked them in the bedroom and stripped both her and himself. As he placed her on the bed, he saw the despair in her eyes. Despair filled his own heart. Why did she feel she had to resist him? Then she closed her eyes and twined her arms around his neck. For him, as well as for her, the why ceased to matter.

  They came together in a rush of heated flesh, straining toward each other, already desperate with passion. The rest of the world was shut out during their lovemaking, but afterward, when she was trying to sort out her clothes, he saw the reserve in her eyes and knew he had failed.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Long after Jake had returned to work, he remained lost in thought. Victoria was his wife, but he couldn’t say that she belonged to him. The knowledge ate at him. What was it that caused her to keep him that small, careful distance from her? Did she regret their marriage?

  Her inner reserve hid secrets from him; he could sense their presence, even though he couldn’t get inside her mind and read them. She was hiding something from him, and he was at a loss to know what it was. For the first time in his life a woman had gotten inside his emotional walls, stinging him to resentment by making him vulnerable, and doubling the resentment because he couldn’t get to her as she had gotten to him. What was it? What was she hiding? Was it something about her marriage to the Major? Was there some lingering evidence of what he had done to her? It wasn’t something she had done, he didn’t think, but rather something that had happened to her.

  The possibilities made him go cold. He was afraid to even ask her what was wrong, afraid he wouldn’t be able to bear the answer. Every time he thought of her in the Major’s bed he was filled with a bitter anger. He hadn’t been able to bear seeing McLain’s personal possessions and he’d had them all thrown out, but he couldn’t throw out McLain’s wife. She was his wife now—or was she? Was part of her mind still caught in a dark pit of memories? Was it more than that, something she couldn’t deny or ignore?

  There had been real fear in her eyes the first time he’d made love to her, but he brushed it aside thinking it was merely a result of the situation. He’d thought he’d won when she turned all sweet and hot in his arms. Surely she knew by now she had nothing to fear from him?

  But it wasn’t fear of him. It was something else, something that tormented her, and instead of coming to him for comfort she was locking it inside. Maybe she thought he wouldn’t understand, maybe she thought he would blame her for whatever it was.

  What had the Major done to her?

  If he pushed her, she simply withdrew further. He had to teach her to trust him, and the only way to do that was to show her over and over how much he wanted her. As their intimacy deepened, so would her trust, and one day he would breach that wall in her mind. Whatever it was, he thought, he’d hold her and keep her safe and love her again. It wouldn’t matter what it was, as long as he knew. He could fight dragons for her, but not ghosts.

  Emma spent much of her time during those quiet summer days out riding. Their hasty flight had shown her how necessary it was to be in good physical shape in this country. Victoria rode out with her most days, and sometimes Celia would join them. On this particular day, however, she’d gone out alone because Celia had been off somewhere with her kitten and Victoria had been writing a difficult letter to her parents, informing them of McLain’s death and her subsequent remarriage. They would be profoundly shocked no matter how she told them and she had been wrestling with it all morning.

  Emma unsaddled her gelding. When she turned around to sling the saddle over the fence, she collided with a hard wall of flesh. She said, “Uummph!” and staggered back under the impact. Ben’s hands shot out to break her fall. He steadied her, his hazel eyes intent as he looked her over. She was acutely aware of how disheveled she was; her hair was straggling down, she had gotten dirt on her white shirtwaist, and she suspected her face was dusty. A flush of embarrassment burned her cheeks.

  Ben took the saddle from her hands and placed it on the rail. He took his time about it. She was usually so starched, but today she looked wonderfully tousled with her hair curling damply about her face. When he turned back to her she was still standing with her arms limp at her side, but now her face was tense. She felt it, too; he wished she didn’t, because a one-sided attraction was much easier to resist than one that was mutual.

  “Were you riding alone?” he finally asked, needing to break the silence between them.

  She nodded. “I couldn’t find Celia, and Victoria was busy.”

  “I don’t like it. Don’t do it again.”

  Another flush heated Emma’s face, but this one was from anger. “You don’t have the right to tell me what to do.”

  His brows drew together and he took a step closer.

  “Don’t fight me,” he said softly. “I said that for a reason. It’s too dangerous for a woman alone, even when you’re on our land.”

  She bit her lip, wishing her reactions weren’t so swift and so close to the surface with him. “You’re right, of course. I don’t know why I snapped at you.”

  “Now you’re lying, because we both know why.” He reached out and trailed his finger across her collar bone, the light, delicate touch making both of them shudder. “You can always change your mind, you know.”

  She swallowed, her pale throat working. “And then what?”

  “Then we can stop avoiding each other. We have a