Though she was several yards away, he had sensed her, the trace of lilac, the subtlety of woman. He straightened, and just as she had looked her fill of him, he looked his of her.
She might have stepped from a cool terrace to walk in a garden. The wind played with her skirts and her hair, but gently. The backdrop of the setting sun was like glory behind her. Her eyes, as she walked toward him, were wide and dark and aware.
“You’ve got a way of moving, Duchess, that makes my mouth water.”
“I don’t think that’s what the good sisters intended when they taught me posture. But I’m glad.” She moved naturally to his arms, to his lips. “Very glad.” For the first time in his life he felt awkward with a woman, and he drew her away. “I’m sweaty.”
“I know.” She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at his face. “What are you doing?”
She made him feel like a boy fumbling over his first dance. “You said you wanted pigs. You need a pen.”
He picked up his shirt and shrugged it on. “What are you doing?”
“Watching you.” She put a hand to his chest, where the shirt lay open. “Remembering. Wondering if you want me as much as you did.”
He took her hand before she could tear what was inside of him loose. “No, I don’t. I want you more.” He picked up his gunbelt, but instead of strapping it on he draped it over his shoulder. “Why don’t we go for that walk?”
Content, she slipped her hand into his. “When I first came here I wondered what it was that had kept my father, rooted him here. At first I thought it was only for me, because he wanted so badly to provide what he thought I’d need. That grieved me. I can’t tell you how much.” She glanced up as they passed the rise that led to his grave. “Later I began to see that even though that was part of it, perhaps the most important part to him, he was also happy here. It eases the loss to know he was happy.”
They started down the path to the stream she had come to know so well.
“I didn’t figure you’d stick.” Her hand felt right, easy and right, tucked in his. “When I brought you out here the first time, you looked as if someone had dropped you on your head.”
“It felt as though someone had. Losing him… Well, the truth is, I’d lost him years and years ago. To me, he’s exactly the same as he was the day he left. Maybe there’s something good about that. I never told you he had spun me a tale.” At the stream she settled down on her favorite rock and listened to the water’s melody. “He told me of the fine house he’d built after he’d struck the rich vein of gold in Sarah’s Pride. He painted me a picture of it with his words. Four bedrooms, a parlor with the windows facing west, a wide porch with big round columns.” She smiled a little and watched the sun glow over the buttes. “Maybe he thought I needed that, and maybe I did, to see myself as mistress of a fine, big house with curving stairs and high, cool walls.”
He could see it, and her. “It was what you were made for.”
“It’s you I was made for.” Rising, she held out her hands.
“I want you, Sarah. I can’t offer you much more than a blanket to spread on the ground.”
She glanced over at the small pile of supplies he’d already brought down to the stream. She moved to it and lifted the blanket.
It was twilight when they lowered to it. The air had softened. The wind was only a rustle in the thin brush. Overhead the sky arched, a deep, ever-darkening blue. Under the wool of the blanket the ground was hard and unforgiving. She lifted her arms to him and they left the rest behind.
It was as it had been the first time, and yet different.
The hunger was there, and the impatient pull of desire. With it was a knowledge of the wonder, the magic, they could make between them. A little slower now, a little surer, they moved together.
There was urgency in his kiss. She could feel it. But beneath it was a tenderness she had dreamed of, hoped for. Seduced by that alone, she murmured his name.
Beneath her palm, his cheek was rough. Under her ringers, his skin was smooth. His body, like his mind, like his heart, was a contrast that drew her, compelled her to learn more.
A deep, drugging languor filled her as he began to undress her. There was no frantic rush, as there had been before. His fingers were slow and sure as they moved down the small covered buttons. She felt the air whisper against her skin as he parted the material. Then it was his mouth, warmer, sweeter, moving over her. Her sigh was like music.
He wanted to give her something he’d never given another woman. The kind of care she deserved. Tenderness was new to him, but it came easily now as he peeled off layer after layer to find her. He sucked in his breath as her fingers fumbled with the buttons at his waist. Her touch wasn’t hesitant, but it was still innocent. It would always be. And her innocence aroused him as skill never could have.
She removed the layers he’d covered himself with. Not layers of cotton or leather, but layers of cynicism and aloofness, the armor he’d used to survive, just as he’d used his pistols. With her he was helpless, more vulnerable than he had been since childhood. With her he felt more of a man than he had ever hoped to be. She felt the change, an explosion of feelings and needs and desires, as he dragged her up into his arms to crush his mouth against hers. What moved through him poured into her, leaving her breathless, shaken and impossibly strong. Without understanding, without needing to, she answered him with everything in her heart.
Then came the storm, wild, windy, wailing. Rocked by it, she cried out as he drove her up, up, into an airless, rushing cloud of passion. Sensations raced through her-the sound of her own desperate moans, the scrape of his face against her skin as he journeyed down her trembling body, the taste of him that lingered on her lips, on her tongue, as he did mad, unspeakably wonderful things to her. Lost, driven beyond reason, she pressed his head closer to her.
She was like something wild that had just been unchained. He could feel the shocked delight ripple through her when he touched her moist heat with his tongue. He thought her response was like a miracle, though he’d long ago stopped believing in them. There was little he could give her besides the pleasures of her own body. But at least that, he would do.
Sliding upward, he covered her mouth with his. And filled her.
Long after her hands had slipped limply from his back, long after their breathing had calmed and leveled, he lay over her, his face buried in her hair. She’d brought him peace, and though he knew it wouldn’t last, for now she’d brought him peace of mind, of body, of heart.
He hadn’t wanted to love, hadn’t dared to risk it. Even now, when it was no longer possible to hide it from himself, he couldn’t tell her.
“Lucius was right,” she murmured against his ear.
“Mmm?”
“It’s a pretty night.” She ran her hands up his back.
“A very pretty night.”
“Am I hurting you?”
“No.” She gripped her own wrists so that she could hold him closer. “Don’t move yet.”
“I’m heavy, and you’ve got some colorful bruises.”
If she’d had the energy, she might have laughed.
“I’d forgotten about them.”
“I put some on you myself last night.” He lifted his head to look down at her. “I don’t know much about going easy.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“You should.” Fascinated, he stroked a finger down her cheek. “You’re so beautiful. Like something I made up.”
She turned her lips into his palm as her eyes filled.
“You’ve never told me you thought I was beautiful.” “Sure I did.” He shifted then, frustrated by his own lack of words. “I should have.”
She curled comfortably against his side. “I feel beautiful right now.”
They lay in contented silence, looking up at the sky.
“What’s an enigma?” he asked her.
“Hmm? Oh, it’s a puzzle. Something difficult to understand. Why?”
“I guess I heard it somewhere.” He thought of her diary, and her description of him, but couldn’t see how it
