applied. He’d always seen himself as being exactly what he appeared to be. “You’re getting cold.”
“A little.”
Sitting up, he pushed through her discarded undergarments for her chemise. She smiled, lifting her arms over her head. Her lips curved when she saw his gaze slide over her skin. When he pulled the cotton over her, she linked her hands behind his neck.
“I was hoping to stay warm a different way.”
With a laugh, he slid a hand down over her hip. “I remember telling you once before you were a quick study.” Experimentally he pushed the strap of her chemise off her shoulder. “You want to do something for me?”
“Yes.” She nuzzled his lips. “Very much.”
“Go on over and stand in that stream.”
Confused, she drew back. “I beg your pardon?”
“Nobody says that better than you, Duchess. I’ll swear to that.” He kissed her again, in a light, friendly manner that pleased and puzzled her.
“You want to go wading?”
“Not exactly.” He toyed with the strap. Women wore the damnedest things. Then they covered them all up anyhow. “I thought you’d go stand in the stream wearing just this little thing. Like you did that first night” “What first night?” Her puzzled smile faded as he traced his fingertip along the edge of her bodice. “That first-You! You were watching me while I-” “I was just making sure you didn’t get yourself into any trouble.”
“That’s disgraceful.” She tried to pull away, but he held her still.
“I started thinking then and there how much I’d like to get my hands on you. Had some trouble sleeping that night.” He lowered his lips to the curve of her throat and began to nibble. “Fact is, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since I set eyes on you.”
“Stop it.” She turned her head, but it only made it easier for him to find her mouth.
“Are you going to go stand in the stream?”
“I am not.” She smothered a laugh when he rolled her onto the blanket again. “I’m going to get dressed and go back to the house to check on Alice.”
“No need. Lucius is keeping an eye on her.”
“Oh, I see. You’ve already decided that for me.” “I guess you could put it like that. You’re not going anywhere but this blanket. And maybe the stream, once I talk you into it.”
“You won’t talk me into it. I have no intention of sleeping outside.”
“I don’t figure on sleeping much at all.” He stretched out on his back again and gathered her close. “Haven’t you ever slept outside before, looked at the sky? Counted stars?”
“No.” But, of course, tonight she would. She wanted nothing more. She turned her head to study his profile. “Have you ever counted stars, Jake?”
“When I was a kid.” He stroked a hand lazily up and down her arm. “My mother used to say there were pictures. She’d point them out to me sometimes, but I could never find them again.”
“I’ll show you one.” Sarah took his hand and began to draw in the air. “It’s a horse. A winged horse. Pegasus,” she added. Then she caught her breath. “Look, a shooting star.” She watched, his hand held in hers, as it arced across the sky. She closed her eyes quickly, then made a wish. “Will you tell me about your mother?”
For a long moment he said nothing, but continued to stare up at the sky. The arc of light was gone, without a trace. “She was a teacher.” Sarah’s gaze flicked up quickly to his face. “She’d come out here from St. Louis.”
“And met your father?”
“I don’t know much about that. He wanted to learn to read and write, and she taught him. She set a lot of store by reading.”
“And while she was teaching him, they fell in love.”
He smiled a little. It sounded nice the way she said it. “I guess they did. She married him. It wouldn’t have been easy, with him being half Apache. They wanted to build something. I remember the way my father used to talk about taking the land and making it work for him. Leaving something behind.”
She understood that, because it was what she wanted for herself. “Were they happy?”
“They laughed a lot. My mother used to sing. He always talked about buying her a piano one day, so she could play again like she did in St. Louis. She’d just laugh and say she wanted lace curtains first. I’d forgotten that,” he murmured. “She wanted lace curtains.” She turned her face into his shoulder because she felt his pain as her own. “Lucius told me what happened to them. To you. I’m so sorry.”
He hadn’t known he needed to talk about it, needed to tell her. “They came in from town…eight, ten of them, I’ve never been sure.” His voice was quiet now, his eyes on the sky. He could still see them, as he hadn’t allowed himself to see them for years. “They lit the barn first. Maybe if my father had stayed in the house, let them shoot and shout and trample, they’d have left the rest. But they’d have come back. He knew it. He took his rifle and went out to protect what was his. They shot him right outside the door.” Sarah held him tighter, seeing it with him.
“We ran out. They tasted blood now, like wolves, wild-eyed, teeth bared. She was crying, holding on to my father and crying. Inside the barn, the horses were screaming. The sky was lit up so I could see their faces while they torched the rest.”
And he could smell the smoke as he lay there, could hear the crackle of greedy flames and his mother’s pitiful weeping.
“I picked up the rifle. That’s the first time I ever wanted to kill. It’s like a fever in the blood. Like a hand has ahold of you, squeezing. She started to scream. I saw one of the riders take aim at me. I had the rifle in my hands, but I was slow. Better with a bow or a knife back then. She threw herself up and in front of me so when he pulled the trigger the bullet went in her.”
Sarah tightened her arms around him as tears ran fast and silent down her cheeks.
“One of them hit me with a rifle butt as he rode by. It was morning before I came to. They’d burned everything. The house was still smoking-even when it cooled there was nothing in it worth keeping. The ground was hard there, and I got dizzy a few times, so it took me all day to bury them. I slept there that night, between the two graves. I told myself that if I lived until morning I’d find the men who’d done it and kill them. I was still alive in the morning.” She said nothing, could say nothing. It wasn’t necessary to ask what he’d done. He’d learned to use a gun, and use it well. And he had found the men, Or some of them.
“When Lucius came, I told him what happened.
That was the last time I told anyone.”
“Don’t.” She turned to lay her body across his.
“Don’t think about it anymore.”
He could feel her tears on his chest, the warmth of them. As far as he knew, no one had ever cried for him before. Taking her hand, he kissed it. “Show me that picture in the sky, Sarah.”
Turning, keeping her hand in his, she began to trace the stars. The time for tears, for regrets-and, she hoped, for revenge-was done. “The stars aren’t as big in the East, or as bright.” They lay quietly for a while, wrapped close, listening to the night sounds. “I used to jump every time I heard a coyote. Now I like listening for them. Every night, when I read my father’s journal-” “Matt kept a journal?” He sat up as he asked, dragging her with him.
“Why, yes.” There was an intensity in his eyes that made her heart skip erratically. “What is it?”
“Have you read it?”
“Not all of it. I’ve been reading a few pages each night.”
He suddenly realized that he was digging his fingers into her arms. He relaxed them. “Will you let me read it?”
Her heart was steady again, but something cold was inching its way over her skin. “Yes. If you tell me why you want to.”
He turned away to reach casually in his saddlebag for his tobacco pouch and papers. “I just want to read it.”
She waited while he rolled a cigarette. “All right. I trust you. When are you going to trust me, Jake?” He struck a match on a rock. The flame illuminated his face. “What do you mean?”
