hesitantly.
'How about something to eat? Flapjacks and bacon?'
Her stomach was rumbling. She was starving. She hadn't had any supper, and she hadn't had any breakfast. She stood up and slid her hands into her back pockets.
'Flapjacks sound great.'
'Fine. Come along.'
'Delilah, wait.'
Delilah hesitated there in the doorway. She met Kristin's eyes.
'Delilah, am I doing the right thing?'
'Honey, you're doing the only thing.'
Kristin shook her head. 'He made a fool out of me last night, Delilah.'
'You let that happen.'
'Yes, I did. But —'
'We need him,' Delilah said bluntly. Then she smiled and gazed at Kristin, and Kristin was sure she was blushing beneath the gold and mahogany of her coloring. 'We need him, and I like him. I like him just fine. You did well.'
Kristin blushed herself. 'I didn't marry him, Delilah. I'm… I'm his… mistress, Delilah.'
'You did well,' Delilah repeated. 'I like him. I don't care what he seems to be, he's a right honorable fellow.' She was silent for a moment. 'You come along now and have something to eat.'
Kristin did.
Then she set to the housework with a vengeance, cleaning and sweeping. Later she went out to the barn and spent some time grooming the horses that weren't out with the hands. She came back in and bathed, and while she sat in the tub she decided that although her feelings about him were entirely different from her feelings about Zeke, she still hated Cole Slater. She couldn't even take a bath in peace anymore. She kept thinking about him the entire time. She wanted to be clean, and she wanted to smell sweet, because she could just imagine him…
She promised herself she would be cool and aloof and dignified through dinner and all through the evening.
She promised herself she would be cool and aloof and wouldn't allow him to touch her.
But he didn't come back for dinner. He didn't come back at all. At midnight she gave up and went upstairs. She managed to stay awake for an hour, but then she fell asleep. She had taken care to dress in a high-necked nightgown, one with a multitude of delicate little buttons at the throat.
Cole stayed out for a long time that night, waiting for her to fall asleep. He smoked a cigar and sipped a brandy and wondered where Quantrill's boys might be.
Quantrill was no bargain, Cole thought, but he wasn't the worst of the lot. He rode with some frightening company. Bill Anderson was a blood-thirsty soul. Zeke was a horror. Cole had heard that some of the men liked to fight the way the Indians did, taking scalps from their victims.
Quantrill for the South…
And the likes of Lane and Jennison for the North. Killing anyone and anything that stood in their way. Making a jest out of a war that was being fought desperately on both sides for different sets of ideals.
Smoke rose high above him, and he shivered suddenly. He hadn't been able to get Elizabeth's face out of his mind all day. But now, curiously, when he closed his eyes, he saw Kristin. Saw her fighting for all she was worth. Saw her fallen in the dirt.
He stood up and dusted off his hands on his pants.
Kristin was alive, and Elizabeth wasn't. Elizabeth had died because of Doc Jennison and his jayhawkers; Kristin had been attacked by the bushwhackers.
He was angry with her for being alive, he realized. She was alive and Elizabeth wasn't. And he knew he couldn't explain that to her.
He threw his cigar down in the dirt and snuffed it out with the heel of his boot. Then he turned around. He couldn't back down on any of the demands he had made of her. Not ever. It was just part of his nature, he supposed. And it was important that Quantrill know that he was living with her — intimately.
He looked up at the house and swore, then entered it quietly. For a moment he paused in the darkness of the entry. It was a good house. It had been built sturdy and strong, and it had been made into a home. It had grace.
He paused and inhaled deeply. Then he started for the stairway and climbed the steps silently. He reached his room and opened the door, thinking that she must have returned to her own room.
She hadn't. She was curled up on the bed. Her hair spilled over on his pillow.
He cast aside his clothes impatiently and approached the bed, but before he could pull back the covers, his hand brushed a tendril of hair that lay on his pillow, and its soft scent rose up to greet him. Heat immediately snaked through him. He didn't want it this way. But all he had to do was touch her hair and see her innocent form and he was tied into harsh knots of desire.
He didn't have to give in to it, he reminded himself.
He stretched out and stared at the ceiling, drumming his fingers on his chest. She was sound asleep, and even if she were not she would surely not be particularly fond of him at the moment.
A minute later he was on his side, just watching her. He throbbed, he ached, his desire thundering, clamoring for release.
He touched her hair again and reminded himself that it should be black. He didn't love this girl.
He slipped his hand beneath her gown and slowly, lightly stroked her flesh, following the line of her calf, the length of her thigh, the curve of her hip. He rounded her buttocks with a feathery touch, then gently tugged her around and pressed his lips against hers.
She responded, warmly and sweetly and instinctively, to his touch. Her arms swept around him and her body pressed against his. Her lips parted and he plundered the honey-warm depths of her mouth with his tongue. His body pressed against hers intimately. He pulled her gown up farther and wedged his hips between her bare thighs. Her eyes remained closed. She was barely awake.
Then she awoke fully. Her eyes widened, and she pressed furiously against his shoulders. He thought he saw tears sting her eyes as she pronounced him a son of a bitch.
'I know,' he told her.
'If you know —'
'I'm sorry.'
He tried to kiss her again, but she twisted her head, and his lips fell against her throat.
'You behave like a tyrant.'
'I know. I'm sorry.'
'You treat people like servants —'
'I know. I'm sorry.'
'You behave —'
Her mouth was open, and he caught her lower lip between his teeth and bathed it with his tongue. Then he began to move against her. He caught her cheeks between his palms and stroked her hair, and when she stared up at him again, gasping for breath, he kissed her again quickly, speaking against her lips.
'I am sorry. So damned sorry, for so damned much.'
She was silent then, staring at him in the darkness. She was very still, very aware of his sex throbbing against her, so close. If she fought him he would leave.
She didn't fight him. She continued to stare at him, and he met her eyes. Then he moved, thrusting deep inside her. She let out a garbled little sound, and her arms came around him and she buried her face against the hard dampness of his shoulder. Her long limbs came around him, and he sank deeper into her and then deeper still.
She was instinctively sensual, and she offered him greater solace than he could ever have imagined. When it was over he lay with her hair tangling over his naked chest and reminded himself again that it was blond and not ebony black. They were strangers who had stumbled together. They had answered one another's needs, and that was all.
If he closed his eyes he would see her, Elizabeth, racing toward him. Running, running, running…
