Authors: Sarah McCarty
Yes, he had.
But that was all later, and right now she just wanted to stay in this tub, floating in the water, floating on her cloud until she floated away like nothing had ever happened. That’s all she wanted.
Time passed. She didn’t know how much. Hester chatted. Petunia didn’t know about what, but when Hester tried to get her out of the tub, she knew one thing. She wasn’t going anywhere.
* * *
W
HEN
A
CE
KNOCKED
on the door an hour and a half later, he expected to be greeted by Pet’s anger, at the very least a sharp “go away.” He would have preferred either to the way he’d left her lying there like a ghost of her former self, pale and listless like the spirit had already left her, and she was just waiting for the body to follow. He would never let that happen.
He knocked again. A hard tap of heels across the floor preceded the door being thrown open. Hester stood there, the front of her gown wet, locks of hair falling free of her bun in tight curls. Her eyes were as red as her face.
“You do something with her!” she said, stepping back and flinging her hand at the tub.
Ace took a second to take in the scene. The problem was evident. Pet sat in the tub, her lips slightly blue, looking amazingly content.
“What the hell?”
“She’s gonna catch her death,” Hester said. “I can’t add any more water to that tub without overflowing, and I refuse to throw another bucket out that window to drain it out.”
“She been like this since I left?”
Hester nodded. “She won’t get out of that damn tub. You try to take her out of that tub, she goes for your face, tooth and nail.”
That explained Hester’s battered appearance.
“Are you hurt?”
“Hell, a little thing like her couldn’t hurt me.”
Ace looked at her again. For all Hester’s talk she really wasn’t that big. She was a curvy, kindhearted woman who’d had a tough turn at life, but she wasn’t a giant.
He walked over to the tub. He could see the gooseflesh on Petunia’s white shoulders where her chemise pulled away. He could see the slight rise of her breasts beneath the water, the pucker of her nipples against the now transparent cotton shirt, feel the utter desolation of her spirit.
Hester came up behind him. “The only joy of my evening was when one of those buckets of water landed smack-dab on Brian Winter.”
“Has he given you any trouble?”
“Well, not before I dumped that bucket on his head. But he did say afterward he was going to see the sheriff.”
Ace nodded. “Do me a favor, go fetch Luke.”
“Why would I want to fetch that man?”
“Because I want to talk to him, and he needs to talk to the sheriff.”
“You don’t need to talk to him for that.”
He cast her another knowing look. “Do you think he hasn’t noticed the way you’ve been avoiding him of late?”
“It’s not of late. I’ve been avoiding him from the get-go.”
“Agreed. You want me to talk to him, or do you want to talk to him?”
“If you talk to him—” with a jerk of her chin she indicated Pet “—do I have to deal with her?”
“Somebody has to.”
“Then I’ll talk to him.” She waved her hand toward the tub and headed for the door. “That is yours alone.”
Through the whole conversation, Petunia hadn’t moved. She just kept skimming her fingers slowly across the top of the water, humming some song. He wasn’t even sure it was a song. It was just noise under her breath, even and slow, in rhythm with her breathing. Kneeling by the tub, he caught her hand.
“Hey.” No response.
If it was any other woman after any other event, he’d force her to look at him, but Petunia had been through enough, more than he’d probably ever know, more than he ever wanted to know. And no doubt in the way of women, she felt somehow it changed her, but it didn’t. Not in his eyes.
“Hester says you don’t want to get out of this tub. Any particular reason you’re sitting there freezing your tits off?”
The words were chosen deliberately. He wanted to shock her. Not even by a ripple did he see any sign of it. She was well and truly entrenched in wherever she had gone. Taking the passive way out when his Pet was a fighter.
“You get her out of there yet?” Hester hollered up from the street.
He went over to the window, not because he necessarily wanted to answer Hester but because he didn’t want to stand there anymore and look at what he’d caused to happen. Leaning out the window he saw Hester standing with Luke. Neither one looked happy, but he could tell from the set of Luke’s shoulders that the woman had his whole attention, and it dawned on him that the reason there was always those sparks between Hester and Luke might just be because there was something else between them, too. Damn, that would be complicated.
Luke always had a perfect image of his perfect woman in his perfect world. Hester didn’t fall anywhere near that, but the woman had a heart of gold. Maybe Luke couldn’t see that, or maybe the whole problem was that he did. Ace stored the information for later.
“No!” he called down. “She’s just lying there like a potato popped out of the field.”
“She stays in that water much longer, she’s going to catch cold.”
“Well, what do you suggest I do to get her out that you haven’t already tried?”
Luke looked at Hester then up at Ace. He said, “I always find that getting the woman riled tends to move them out of a stuck spot.”
“You want me to piss her off?” He looked over his shoulder. He didn’t think even Brian White could piss her off in her current condition.
“I don’t know. What do you usually do with women who aren’t doing what you want?”
Find their weakness. Find their security. Play one off the other until the friction was the only thing in their world, the heat the only thing they could think of and him the only thing they could cling to.
He looked over his shoulder again. And smiled. “Good idea.”
Hester gasped. “Ace, she’s not one of your saloon girls, don’t you go...”
Luke grabbed her arm and shoved her down the street. “Hush, woman. The man has an idea,” he heard Luke say as they moved down the street.
“Where you taking me?”
“You wanted to go see the sheriff.”
There were more words back and forth, but he couldn’t hear them anymore. The film of dirt on the upper half of the window blurred his reflection, softening the angles of his face. He and dirt got along fine. It was the whole proper whitewashed civilized world that he had an issue with.
He returned to the tub. But maybe in this instant Petunia didn’t need a civilized man spouting civilized nonsense. Maybe she just needed someone to make her understand, to tell her who she was, to show her how she mattered. He took his hat and hung it on the top of the poster. That he could do.
Taking the empty bucket off the floor, he carefully siphoned some of the water out of the tub. It was cold, colder than the lake. He dumped it out the window without even looking. He guessed he didn’t hit anybody from the lack of shouts below.
“Figures you’d have to have a front-facing bedroom,” he said. “A room in the back would have been much more convenient.”
Two more trips and the water level was depleted enough that he could go downstairs and get some hot water off the fire. It was heavy work lugging it up the stairs, which explained all the wet marks on the stairs. Through it all, Pet sat there, her fingers making small circles in the remaining water. Little by little, he added hot water to the tub. He tested it; it was still cool. The second bucket brought the water up to her waist and the heat to acceptable. He set the buckets on the floor and reached up to the top button of his shirt.
“You understand,” he said as he unbuttoned his shirt, “that if I do this there is no going back?”
Still no response.
“If I bring you into my world, you won’t be satisfied with any other man.”
That wasn’t technically true, but he intended to make it so.
“I fought this for a long time, but you tempted me too long and once I make you mine, that’s it.”
That might have been a twitch in her fingers. Cooler air hit his chest as he tugged his shirt free of his pants and tossed it onto the bed a few feet away. His undershirt came off next. She didn’t move as he kicked off one boot then the other, just stayed in that place that he hated, and as each article of clothing hit the floor, his anger grew. And so did his determination. When he stood naked by the edge of the tub, his own words came back to haunt him.
There’s no going back.
“I hope to hell you know what you’re doing.”
He wasn’t sure who he said it to, her or himself, but in the end, it didn’t matter. The line had been crossed. The decision made. With his hand on the middle of her back, he pushed her forward. She went easily with no resistance. He took it as agreement.
“On your head be it, my Pet.”
The double entendre didn’t hit him as wrong, which should have been a warning sign but he was pretty much past warning. He’d always been the type to go for what he wanted, to play the odds, to take the chance. He might not have ever played for stakes this high, a woman’s sanity was a hell of a thing to risk, but his instincts had never steered him wrong, and right now every single instinct directed that he lift Pet up and slide in behind her.
Water sloshed as he sat down. Her breath expelled in a slight gasp as he brought her down on top of him. There was no way she could miss his erection, but it shouldn’t shock her. He’d wanted her since the day he saw her. His own personal wild card. He’d always thought it was a mistake to pull for the wild card. But in this case...
Pushing her hair aside, Ace wrapped his arms around her just under her breasts and pulled her back against him. She was warm, the water cool. In a moment that should have been full of pain and agony, there was just peace. He looked up.
It wasn’t often he spoke to God. It wasn’t like they weren’t on speaking terms, it was just he never felt the need to reach out too often. Today was a reaching day. “You picked a hell of a way to make your point.”
Petunia sat in his arms, stiffer than before, and her hands weren’t making those restless movements but they did kind of drift about as if she didn’t know what to do with them. He leaned against the high back of the tub. He wished it were bigger. His knees poking out looked silly as hell.
“You can put your hands on my knees if you want.”
She didn’t move.
“It’s a pretty unthreatening place to touch a man, in case you didn’t know.”
It was a lie. Anywhere she touched him was going to burn like fire but well, if this was the lie he was going to hell for, God just didn’t have a heart. He needed her cooperation before he could build her trust. And he only knew one way to do that. Working from the bottom up.
Taking her left hand, he pressed a kiss into the palm before settling it on his left knee. The little catch in her breathing gave him pause. But when she left her hand there, it gave him hope.
“See? That’s how we’ll do it. Nice and easy.”
He gave her a moment to protest. When she didn’t, he scooped up her right hand and repeated the procedure. The test came when he took away his support. She left her hands where they were. When he leaned back, she followed. Soft, sweet and trusting.
He sighed, releasing the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “One step at a time.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
O
NE
STEP
AT
A
TIME
.
Her battle cry reflected back to her in this moment of peace. Petunia sat in the warm water, feeling the soothing rhythm of Ace’s steady breath, and the persistent pressure of his arousal, and wavered between calm and panic. Peace and turmoil. Ace summed up in one poignant moment. Frowning softly to herself, she drew her middle finger up his hand. He had to be exhausted—she knew she was—but instead of curling up with one of his lady friends in the saloon, he was here with her, coaxing her to where she didn’t want to go with the same sleight of hand he manipulated the cards with.
A woman had to admire a man like that. Probably as much as she should be scandalized by her own behavior at being with him so, but after the past twenty-four hours, she truly had nothing to lose. Her reputation was forever ruined. At least here where it was known. She could run naked through the streets and all it would do was refer people back to the bigger scandal of her abduction. For the rest of her days, she’d be the schoolteacher with whom the Comanche had had their way. Nothing she could ever do on her own would top that.
Ace hummed in his throat and turned his hand. She stroked her finger over his palm as she mulled that reality over. It was oddly...freeing.
Ace’s grip shifted. “What are you thinking?”
“That I’m forever ruined now.”
His growl was rich in her ear. “The hell you are.”
She added two more fingers to her stroking. “However do you manage to be so successful in gambling when your emotions are so easily provoked?”
He snugged her up a little tighter. “The rest of the world doesn’t provoke me.”
She sighed and accepted the truth no one else likely would. “It’s all right, you know. I don’t mind.”
“Damn it, woman.”
She twisted and leaned back just far enough so she could see his expression. It was tight and about as stubborn as she felt inside. “I don’t. Having nothing to protect means I also have nothing to lose.”
With a slight shake of his head, he asked, “Is that what you’ve been...quiet about all night?”
“A little.”
The hiss of his breath tickled her ear. “You need to stew some more if that’s the fool notion you came to.”
“There were other things.”
His hand moved against hers, and when they aligned, he wove his fingers through hers, anchoring her. “Like what?”
She thought she’d known all there was to know about the violence in the world, seen all there was to see, prepared herself for the increased frequency in the West, but she hadn’t realized there was no preparing oneself for the raw reality. It was scary, terrifying, actually, to know that you could be plucked from your life at any random moment into a world where you had no control and then just as quickly plucked out of the evil and dropped back into your life as if that transition hadn’t happened. The past twenty-four hours felt like a nightmare she’d dreamed, and if she just opened her eyes, she’d be in her bed with all her possessions and she’d know nothing had changed. But she knew if she opened her eyes that wasn’t going to be the case. She’d be stuck in that nightmare she was calling a dream. And it would become truth. But dreams were flexible. They could be anything the person dreaming them wanted. The thought lingered, settled into the rhythm of their breathing, oddly in sync and yet different.
She studied the pattern because it gave her something to focus on rather than the reality that was getting stronger and stronger. Ace’s breaths were deeper than hers so he started first, then her, then him, then her. Him, her, him, her, in a slow, even rhythm. Safe.
“Hey, you still down there?”
“Yes.”
“Want to share?”
“No.”
His chest puffed out in what could be a chuckle. Or exasperation. Without seeing his face or hearing his voice she couldn’t be sure. His fingers opened on her abdomen, moving in lazy, small circles. She liked where she was, surrounded by his arms, surrounded by warmth with the sounds from the street muted. It made it easy to believe there was nothing more in the world than this moment, this time with this man.
“You realize, my Pet, this water is going to cool soon, and I’m not so fond of procrastination that I’m going to stay in it until my balls turn blue.”
He was preparing her for the intrusion of reality. “I understand.”
She felt the featherlight brush of his lips across her hair.
“I know you don’t want to think,” Ace continued in that low, tender drawl she could listen to forever. “I know you want to run away. But you can’t stay stuck. You’ve got to take things one step at a time, and the first step you’re going to take is when I say it’s time, you’re going to stand up and you’re going to get out of this tub, brush out your hair, get in your nightgown. And then you’ll lie down and get some sleep.”
“All that’s going to happen just because you decree it?”
This time she felt his smile. “Yup.”
She knew he could. He might not be able to make his words true, but he could make her leave her dream. And when she stood, the nightmare was all going to be there, screaming in her face. She so didn’t want that. She was still in that dream world where anything was possible, and if anything was possible then anything could be changed. This was her dream. She could make it what she wanted.
The thought lingered, lazying around the quiet, making its presence known with an occasional poke. She pondered it harder, wondered longer, and a little kernel of determination started to blossom.
This was her dream; she could control it.
Opening her hands over his knee—he had bony knees—one by one she stretched her fingers, testing her emotional balance. The world didn’t tilt, and the howling stayed muted. She tested further, grazing her hands back down his thighs just a little distance, just to see.
His breath sucked in. “Pet?”
“I’m just seeing something.”
He relaxed his grip; she started to float. When she grabbed his knees, he snugged her up safe. And she realized, as long as he held her, she had balance.
She controlled the dream.
And if she controlled the dream, the dream could end the way she wanted. Such a tantalizing deception to play upon herself, to take this moment in history and rewrite it. How many times had people wished they could do that very thing, and now she had this opportunity to take something ugly and finish it beautiful? All she had to do was dare? That had been the catch her whole life, daring. People thought she was so bold because she did so many things that no one believed should be done but the truth was, it took a lot of anxiety and debate before she steeled herself to do anything. Did she dare?
It had taken her four years to decide to strike out from her home. To put aside her family money and prestige, the safety of her culture, and go out in the world, determined to make a difference. It was one thing to be the protected, pampered daughter of a wealthy man and do good within those circles. Safe little protests where her father showed up for her in ten minutes to pull her out of jail, or paid off those upset. No real consequences beyond his exasperation and threats of forced marriage and the safety of knowing he loved her. It had been safe but it hadn’t been enough. So she’d left her little feathered nest and had gone into the world knowing that if things got bad, she could always contact her father, not understanding things could go bad with no recourse, and when she could place that telegraph or write that letter, it would all be over, and she’d just be picking up the pieces. He’d told her she didn’t understand the real world, and she hadn’t. Now she did, and she needed to decide what she wanted to do about it.
“You all right?”
He kept asking her that. She didn’t have an answer. She needed to find a way to have an answer. Rubbing her thumbs on the insides of his knees, she debated her options. She could feel his cock pressing into her back, feel that subtle hum of tension under his skin.
She was old enough and experienced enough to know what that pressure meant. He wanted her, but he wasn’t doing anything about it, which just went to show he had to suspect the worst. Lord knows, she would.
“Ace?” Her voice was barely a sound. She was surprised when he responded.
“Yeah?”
She didn’t know how to put what she wanted into words. His hands left her stomach and floated on the water, touched the outsides of her arms, sending little chills up her skin. There was always such a sense of possession in his touch as if he knew something she didn’t, but that wasn’t true. She knew as much as he did, she was just fighting it harder. Not the sexual attraction but the other, the emotional. She didn’t want to be tied down to a man, subject to his rule with no life of her own. She’d seen how that happened. How her suffragette friends started out all full of vigor and conviction and then they married and suddenly became the pillars of community, who couldn’t say boo to a ghost, who tried to push away from the ideas they’d once said were so valued. She didn’t want to be that person, but she didn’t want to be who she was now, either. Somewhere there had to be a middle ground.
“What is it, Pet?”
She shook her head; she didn’t have the words for what she wanted and honestly, she thought as his fingers curled around her upper arms and slid upward to her shoulders, maybe it just wasn’t one of those times when words would suit. Maybe it was just one of those times when a woman had to act.
Water sloshed as she sat up.
“Ready to get out?”
She shook her head again and kept her hands on his knees pushing up, trying to turn without too much intimacy, which was stupid considering what she wanted. After a few seconds of fumbling, she came to the conclusion there was no graceful way to do what she wanted to do so she just did it. With a grunt, she turned on her side, feeling the seductive slide of his flesh against hers, the prickle of hair and the culmination of his skin against hers as his cock pressed into her stomach in silent demand. At least he still wanted her. That would make everything so much easier.
His big hands settled in the hollow of her back, warm and calloused, imbued with that sense of possession she relished. This was Ace. He was...safe.
His eyebrows rose right along with her hands as she slid them up his hard, muscled chest. He had hair there, too, and it tickled her palms.
“Why the smile?”
“The hair on your chest tickles.”
“It can tickle other places, too.”
She just smiled, wincing as the cut on her lip stung. He frowned. Touching her fingertips to the furrow between his brow, she smoothed it out. He was such a sexy man, handsome in a harsh sort of way. The only softness on him was the emotion revealed in his eyes right now. He was a maverick, a force to be reckoned with. But so was she. It gave them common ground.
It was awkward in the tight confines of the tub to move. Her knee jerked up into something soft, and he grimaced and his breath expelled a harsh, “Careful!”
The seduction wasn’t going so well. Meeting his gaze with hers, she touched her thumb to the corner of his mouth the way he did her, the way that always centered her attention and made her feel special. She surrendered to the inevitable.
“Help me.”
His fingers slid down her arm around her elbow and up to her wrist. Holding her hand he pressed a kiss into the palm.
“You ready to get out of the tub?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think I understand what you’re asking for.”
“Help me forget.” Forget the loss of control, the loss of self, the terror, the pain.
His eyes narrowed. The flickering glow of the lamplight sent shadows dancing across his face. “I think it’s probably a bit too soon for that. We need to get you cleaned up. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
He was turning her down because he thought he knew what was better for her, but he didn’t know. Nobody knew. They didn’t know how she felt inside, and she didn’t know how to explain. She just knew that if she wanted to rewrite the nightmare, she had to do it now.
“I don’t want to go to bed.”
He looked at her, his gaze steady, his eyes assessing. It felt like he was looking through to her soul. She hoped so because she didn’t think she could put into words that anybody would understand what she wanted right now.
“You said there’s no going back,” she reminded him.
He nodded.
“Then I only have two choices left. I can stay here, or I can go forward.”
She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t ask for clarification. Ace seemed to understand her at a level that went beyond the simplicity of words.
“You’re not thinking straight.”
But she was. She really was.
“I know what I’m doing.”
She rose to her knees and started to unbutton her shirt. She expected him to reach out and stop her, but he didn’t. He just kept watching her with that steady assessment as she fought with the wet fabric. He wasn’t looking at her body, or her breasts, which she knew showed clearly through the material. He just kept staring into her eyes, into her soul. Her fingers fumbled on the second button, and her breath caught in her lungs. This wasn’t going to work.
“Touch me. Please.”
Reaching over her shoulders, he lifted the wet rope of her hair, fanned it out over his hands, let the silky mass fall over shoulders. The strands tangled on his fingers. “Tell me why.”
“What’s happened to me the past day or so might very well be the most life-changing thing I’ll ever endure. I’ll have to live with it the rest of my life. I don’t have a choice in that. But if I have to remember it, then I don’t want it to be because of a bad thing.”
“You want me to make love with you.”
It was a statement. “I want you to make me feel good.”
“It’s been a long time, my Pet, since I’ve simply made love to a woman like you’re talking.”
Did he think he could scare her more than fourteen screaming Comanche? “Does that mean you can’t?”
This time it was his hand that touched her face and his fingers that stroked and his thumb that centered her.