“Liar!” The word burst from her in bitter rage. She was shaking all over and felt something inside her giving way. “Damn you,” she sobbed. “Damn you to hell! She’s too convenient, too willing, for you to get rid of.”
“I think you’d better explain that.”
“Oh, she offered to share you with me. She said you were . . . man enough for both of us!”
He did not speak or move. The silence pounded in her ears. When she thought she could bear it no longer, he spoke.
“You believed her!” Anger flared momentarily, but died in weary resignation. “I was ready to build my life around you. I thought I had found a woman to
share my thoughts, my dreams, my future. Someone to love and cherish. I thought in time you would come to care for me that way.” She sensed his eyes on her, willing her to look at him. She refused, and his voice continued bleakly. “But you folded under the first blow.”
“But . . . she said . . .” Tucker’s bewilderment temporarily surpassed her anger.
“I don’t want to hear what she said.” He stood up. “I guess the rain has let up. I’ll take a turn around.” There was no softness in the harsh lines of his face, no hint of warmth in the piercing gray eyes. The lips that had once kissed hers in tender passion now twisted in icy indignation.
“But . . . you can’t sleep on the wet ground.” She remained where she was, a confusing feeling of defeat settling over her.
“There’s a tarp tied to the side of the wagon; I’ll use that.”
He was leaving! Well, what had she expected? Lucas would never fall all over himself denying Cora Lee’s claims. He had too much pride for that. Her heart thumped, then picked up speed until it was galloping. Then something snapped in Tucker’s aching mind and, to her horror, she heard herself say in a rapid, choking voice she almost failed to recognize as her own: “Lucas! Don’t go!”
Then she was crying. Tears spurted to her eyes and sobs tore at her throat. She whirled to move away from him, but his arms went around her, holding her to him. For a moment she resisted the pressure of his
embrace, then suddenly she hid her face against his chest in a rush of anguished despair.
“Red!” His voice was husky, tender. He was holding her fast and kissing her wet cheeks. “Red, don’t cry,” he murmured again and again. Tucker leaned against him, holding onto him while her head spun crazily. The pent-up tension of the past several days came flooding out in the form of tears that poured down her cheeks and seeped into her mouth.
“I didn’t want to believe her,” she sobbed. “I wanted to think she was lying, but she’s so sure of herself and so . . . beautiful.”
He stopped her words by lifting her chin and putting his mouth lightly against hers. “Hush.” He was holding her tightly and speaking soothingly. “You’re much more beautiful than Cora Lee. How could any man want her after seeing you?”
Her eyes sparkled through the tears spiked on her lashes. “I’ve been so miserable.” She couldn’t keep the pain from her quivering voice.
“No more than I.” He hugged her even closer. “We’ve not spent much time together and I may have expected too much of you. I feel I’ve known you forever and didn’t realize how little you knew about me.” He sank down onto the trunk and pulled her into his lap. His hand began stroking her forehead, pushing her tousled hair back and smoothing it caressingly. She sighed and he kissed her gently, his lips lingering on hers. Held close against him, feeling his heart pounding heavily against her breast, her confidence gradually returned and pushed away the waves
of despair that had threatened to drown her. She slid her arms about his neck and gave him a long, grateful kiss.
“I can’t bear for us to quarrel,” she whispered.
She felt laughter shake him. “But we will, my fiery redhead. We’ll quarrel, we’ll fight, and we’ll make up.” He paused, then said in a different tone, “You’re my woman.”
She lifted trembling hands and stroked the hair back from his forehead. Then, with her palms against his cheeks, she leaned forward and kissed his lips warmly before resting her head on his shoulder. This was bliss! He adjusted her on his lap and cuddled her close. She snuggled in the circle of his clutch, feeling his heart beating as wildly as her own, and wrapped her arms lovingly around his neck.
“I love you, Lucas. I love you, love you.” Her voice was the softest of sounds.
He searched her face for confirmation of her words, and when she smiled radiantly at him he could see the love in her eyes. With a groan, like a wounded animal returning to the comfort and safety of its lair, he rested his cheek against hers. It was a moment removed from sexual desire; all that mattered was the need to be close to each other, to be unified and strengthened. He didn’t seek her lips, but pressed his warm mouth close against her temple with a gentle reverence that stirred her heart. His hands caressed her, and he threaded his fingers through her coppery hair.
“I want to tell you about myself,” he breathed
huskily. “I want you to know all about me, and I want to know all there is to know about you.”
They sat on the trunk, Lucas with his back to the wagon side, Tucker held tightly in his arms. She told him in detail about the throwaway farm and about how lost and lonely she had been until Laura arrived.
“For the first time in my life I had someone of my very own, someone who loved me and depended on me. Can you understand that?”
Between kisses he told her about his home in the Piney Woods, about his mother and sisters buried there, and of the mountains in California. He told her about the cabin beside the stream, about his father, and about Shining Star.
“Did you love her?”
“Yes, I loved her. She was sweet and gentle and needed someone to be kind to her.” He looked into her eyes for understanding. “She was like a lost little rabbit.”
“And me?”
“A green-eyed wildcat!” His eyes teased her, and he chuckled happily before his lips found hers in a kiss of deep dedication that told her she was one of the truly fortunate women who had the exciting, turbulent, entirely devoted love of her man. Their lips met again and again, as if each kiss were sweeter than the one before. His hand moved down her back and over her hips, stroking, caressing. Gradually his kisses became more forceful, and she gave herself up to the awesome knowledge that it was she who was causing this powerful body to tremble so. He
whispered endearments during the brief intervals when he was not taking the lips she offered so eagerly. They kissed and murmured to each other and were both lost in the wonder of the moment.
Finally Lucas lifted his head. “Red, oh Red. . . .” His voice was a groan in her ear. “I’m going to have to leave you, or I’ll do more than just kiss you.” His lips moved to hers as if he couldn’t stay away from them, and he kissed her like a long-starved man. They clung together as waves of passion swept over them.
“Don’t go!” She whispered the words in his ear, and the shiver of excitement that went through her was sheer heaven. She felt tremblingly alive under his urgent mouth, and she pressed her body to his in an abandonment of pure delight. As his mouth assaulted her lips, his fingers fumbled with the front of her dress. With a growl of impatience he moved away from her so he could remove completely the barrier between them. In the flickering light from the occasional lightning, her breasts were twin hills of pure white.
He looked into her eyes with great tenderness, then enfolded her in his arms. With a long, deep, shuddering breath he slid them both from the trunk to the floor and they lay down together, his heart thundering against hers.
“Lucas, Lucas. . . .” She stretched the full length of herself against him and wound her arms around his neck. The sweet burning pressure of his lips on hers fused them together, blotting out everything else. Then his mouth found her breasts and traveled over
them, tantalizing her with the movement of his lips and tongue. She arched her body toward him and almost cried out in the urgency of her desire. She wanted to possess every inch of him and never be done with him. “Lucas, oh Lucas. . . .”
Half kneeling, half lying over her, his lips left hers for an instant as he pushed aside the last vestiges of her clothing and quickly shrugged out of his own. “Ssshhh . . . be quiet and let me love you.”
She tangled her fingers in his dark hair and the strands fell across her breasts in an exquisite caress. His mouth and hands explored the hollows and curves of her body with sensuous roughness, as if compelled to know every inch of her. His fingers found the moistness between her thighs, and she lost all track of anything but the basic, primitive drive and the storm of emotions that surged through her.
What happened between them was wondrous, miraculous, incredible. His muscular body atop hers and his velvety touch between her thighs started a fire that surged through her, causing involuntary little shudders of delight. He spoke in snatches of tender words, soothing her, quieting her.
“Be still, my sweet love,” he murmured. “Let me love you. Let me be yours. Oh, God! I knew it could be like this.”
Now she would be forever his, body and soul. She could feel his powerful arms and legs twined around her, and yet she had the strange sensation of not knowing where his body ended and hers began. She was floating in suspended warmth.
When he entered her it was slowly and reverently, making no sharp or hard thrusts. Then he lay still for a while. She felt his great body tremble with the effort it took to hold back. He lifted his face to look at her. His gray eyes, dark with passion, burned into hers. He leaned his face closer to hers, his mouth over her mouth, his breath and her breath as one. He caressed her lips with his and then began, ever so slowly, to penetrate her deeper and deeper with a slow, sensuous motion. He had never before had a woman who had not yet had another man, and the miracle of the barrier that resisted his throbbing passion sent waves of delightful shudders through him.
His hands held her in a vise; his body, muscular and hard, delighted her senses beyond belief. She clutched him tightly and ran her hands over the warm skin of his back. Heat radiated from his body to hers, sending her into a rapture of love so exquisite it made her head spin with the desire to know all of him.
He kissed her without haste, feeling the most wonderful of all touches as the membrane thinned and yielded to his hardness. There was a sharp thrust of pain. The cry that escaped her was lost in his mouth. And then ecstasy! There were the strokes that came with a driving, primitive rhythm; there was the giving, the mutual surrender. They were one, belonging, possessing, and they soared higher and higher. They reached the highest mountain and the world exploded, lifting them up on a cloudlike formation that cradled them and took them spinning out into a warm, misty darkness. Tucker felt as if her soul were reeling
somewhere above her as Lucas’s seed erupted and spilled into her, filling her.
When they settled to earth once again, he lay still, breathing deeply, with his face nestled in her tumbled curls. At last he stirred and eased himself up on his elbows. He smiled into her jade green eyes and kissed both lids, one after the other, cradling her head in one strong hand.
He removed himself from her and covered her with his shirt. She stretched her legs, a powerful feeling of enchantment engulfing her. She had not noticed the cool air when her body was bared, nor the hard floor of the wagon. Lucas’s warmth had covered her, cloaked her. They lay next to each other for a long time in a silent harmony that needed nothing to make it perfect. He turned her face toward him and looked into her eyes; they were solemn, and he lightly kissed the tip of her nose.
“You’re mine, Tucker Red.” He said the words slowly and carefully. “Nothing will change that.”
Tucker, suffused with joy and wonderment, lay warm and secure in his renewed embrace, experiencing a strange sense of peace. There had been a little pain, but no shame. It had been the most beautiful experience of her life. She sighed contentedly and reached to kiss his neck and rub her palm against the roughness of his cheek. He raised a finger and leisurely traced a line down her neck and over the swelling curve of her breast. Her soft mouth parted with yearning, and he leaned to kiss her waiting lips, touch the tip of his tongue to hers. Her eyes grew dark, like two
bottomless green pools staring up at him, and her face glowed as radiantly as the moon on a clear night. Their moist skins clung together, and he kissed her long and tenderly.
“Well, Tucker Red, that was the first of a million times for us.” His voice in her ear was lazily teasing, but underneath there was a hint of determined possessiveness.
She laughed against his cheek and twisted her fingers in his thick, dark hair. He chuckled and nibbled at the soft flesh of her neck, and his hand found one small, firm breast. He trailed his fingers over the tender nipple, and she thrust it harder into his palm in eager anticipation. His wandering caresses made her quiver, and his kisses on her mouth were warm, devouring, fierce with passion.
“I’d better get up now or it may be quite a while before I do.” He raised himself up on one elbow, a shock of dark hair falling across his forehead. “I’ve got to look around and make sure someone doesn’t sneak up on us.” He got to his feet and pulled her up beside him.
Tucker laughed when his head connected with the wooden bow that held the canvas cover over the wagon. He grabbed her playfully, happily, and his fingers found her ribs. She couldn’t stop the laughter that brimmed up in her throat. They dressed quickly and she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. Lucas strapped on his gun belt and lifted her down from the wagon with infinite care.