Ashes and Memories (26 page)

She could hear his labored breathing, feel the coarseness of the hair that dusted his chest, his thighs, the cradle of his sex. His other leg was between hers, and he kissed her throat and she clung to him, even as he gazed into her eyes again and sought entry to her body.

Instinctively she tried to jerk away, but he whispered her name and soothed her with words and kisses, and she felt the hard shaft slide into her and the pressure that became a dull pain.

“Emma,” he whispered, his breath rapid, shallow.

His excitement frightened her more than the gradual invasion of her body.

“Emma,” he repeated as if he couldn’t speak beyond muttering her name. “Your maidenhead,” he said on a moan that sounded almost painful.

She didn’t want to talk or to hear him talk or to look into his eyes while he was inside her. She couldn’t bear it, the intimacy, the idea that he knew what she felt like inside where no one had ever been before, and she wondered when it would be over.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She would have screamed in the next instant had his lips not covered hers. He thrust into her, severing her in half, or at least that was how it felt. Pain ripped through her, leaving her trembling in its wake.

He released her mouth and with it the sob that had lodged in her throat.

It was as if he had become someone else, a stranger who had hurt her. Even his face looked different, harsher. She struggled against the tears that welled in her eyes, but they slipped silently past her fragile control.

His face grim, he pushed further into her, filling her, pressing her legs farther apart as he withdrew and thrust again, slowly, and the pain she expected did not come, not the searing fire that had shattered her, though there was a dull ache as she felt her body stretching, conforming to him.

He caressed her face with his, his beard like coarse silk against her skin. He wiped away a tear with his thumb, whispering that he was sorry he’d hurt her, that he would never hurt her again, that everything would be all right. And she believed him, and she trusted him with her body, her heart and her life, trusted him as she had never trusted anyone before.

He kissed her ardently. He caressed her hair. His body moved over hers, against hers, inside hers in a kind of controlled violence.

“Emma. Oh, Emma,” he rasped, and the pain and passion and yearning in his voice sent a shaft of tenderness to pierce her heart and a blaze of passion to fire her blood.

He groaned as he filled her again, released a ragged breath as he withdrew, and she marveled that she -- her untutored body -- could produce such a reaction in this worldly man.

Her body arched to meet his thrusts, and that small movement seemed to ignite a firestorm inside him. His thrusts became stronger, faster.

His whispered endearments warmed her and melted her heart. His mounting excitement and brutal tenderness sparked a response deep inside her that intensified at the feel of his hand caressing her breast, tracing the curve of her hip, sliding beneath her.

And, oh, she nearly cried out as he ground himself against her, touching that nerve that sent shock waves of sensation through her trembling body, and whatever tenuous hold she’d had over her own body disintegrated.

She clung to him, carried away by his passion and his strength, overwhelmed by the pain, the violence, his ardent gentleness. He stole her will, quenched her fear, and conquered her heart.

The tension in her body forced a small cry from her lips that seemed to intensify his passion another degree. He thrust emphatically, and she felt the warm rush of wetness inside her as a shuddering groan ripped through him and he went still.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Reece jerked awake with a start, opening his eyes to darkness. His breath rasping in his chest, he reached for the money pouch on the bedside table but encountered nothing but air. The acrid taste of panic rose in his throat, strangling him, and he sat up on a gasp.

Morning -- it would start again.
 

Would they come now, or would it be one of those days when they waited, prolonging the anticipation, the dread? Or perhaps they wouldn’t come at all, or they’d wait until sundown when he’d begun to hope....

He struggled to breathe, to calm the thundering of his heart.

“Reece, what’s wrong?" The feminine voice behind him restored his sanity and calmed his terror. Closing his eyes tightly, he concentrated on slowing his rapid breathing as relief flowed through him. He ran a hand through his hair, silently cursing his weakness.

He wasn’t in prison. He was in Emma’s bed. She lay warm and soft and naked beside him. Some wild insanity had taken control of his senses, and he’d made love to her last night. Stifling a groan, he tried to steer his mind away from the enormity of what he had done. He’d made love to her, taken her virginity.

He wanted her again. Now.

He flinched at the feel of her hand against his shoulder, soft, tentative, offering comfort. Desire shot through him and he turned, wrapping his hand in her soft hair, covering her lips with his. He lowered his body over hers, forcing her back on the bed. A soft moan rumbled in her throat as he caressed her breast with his other hand.

Better sex than affection, he decided, drawing his mouth away from hers. Her breath turned shallow as he trailed kisses down her throat to her tormented breast. When his lips closed over her nipple, she gave a short, soft cry, arching toward him.

She was already wet when he caressed the silken hair between her thighs. He plied the sensitive flesh, heightening her excitement and his own, bringing her near the point of release and then removing the pressure, running his hand down the inside of her thigh, gently coaxing her legs apart, settling himself between them. He clasped her hips, lifting her toward him as he filled her with one slow thrust that tore a gasp from her throat.

Burying his head against her neck, he kissed her shoulder as he thrust inside her, her silken flesh sheathing him, her arms wrapped around him.

He lost himself in her woman’s softness, gave himself completely to the passion and yearning that pounded in his blood, believing for a moment that she could take away his pain, chase away the fear and make him whole again.

#####

“I have to go,” he whispered a few minutes later, kissing her tenderly. “It’s almost daylight.”

Emma lay in a languid stupor, floating somewhere between dream and reality. But his words pierced her contentment, chasing away the pleasurable fog, and she opened her eyes to find him sitting on the bed beside her, buttoning his shirt.

“Stay,” she said, running a hand down his arm, hating herself for her weakness. She wanted him to hold her again, to whisper sweet words in her ear, to tell her he loved her. He’d never said he loved her.

He pressed another kiss to her lips. “I can’t. What if someone saw me leave?”

Reality slammed into her as if someone had thrown cold water in her face. Was he protecting her reputation or his own? It wouldn’t do for the good citizens to find out their leader was sleeping with the newspaper lady. She clutched the covers to her as he stood and tucked his shirt into his pants then pulled his suspenders over his shoulders.

“Besides,” he said, strapping on his gun belt, “I have to check on Ralphy.”

“Of course,” she said, watching as he gathered his hat and gloves then lifted his discarded duster from the floor where he’d dropped it last night.

He didn’t look at her again as he made his way to the door where he hesitated, his voice reaching out to her in the semi-darkness. “Will you be all right... here?”

Emma hadn’t even thought of where she was or the fact that he was leaving her alone here. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered but the hollow ache in her heart.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she murmured past the catch in her throat.

Reece placed his hat on his head, finally turning to look at her. She thought he might speak, but he only nodded and left the room.

She listened until the sound of his boots on the stairs died, struggling with the tears that had lodged in her throat.

He’d never said he loved her and he wouldn’t because he didn’t. He had been distraught over Ralphy’s injury. He’d needed comfort, and she’d provided that comfort. How could she have been so foolish as to think she could make him love her?

Seeing him so distressed over Ralphy had filled her with hope because he was still capable of feeling and capable of caring, even if he didn’t care for her the way she wanted him to.

She remembered his gentle, ardent lovemaking, but more than that, she remembered his tenderness afterward as she’d lain curled against him. He’d held her throughout the night, his heartbeat strong and steady beneath her hand.

He had not been successful in killing his humanity. And the man who could be so distraught over a child’s injury, the man who would defy his own vow and risk his life to save her, then show her such tenderness and understanding, was a man she could love and a man worth saving.

And God help her, she did love him. When had that happened? Was it watching him with Ralphy? Or had it been his gentleness the night he’d dragged her from this room and saved her from her own darkness? Or was it before that, maybe the night he’d comforted her here when she’d cried over her father for the first time?

She had to try and reach him, try and make him realize he was destroying himself before it was too late. But to do so she would have to risk being destroyed herself.

Was reaching him worth the danger to her own heart? Yes, she decided. She couldn’t bear the thought of his pain. And she believed with all her heart that the man trapped inside was worth whatever she had to endure.

She loved him, and there was nothing she could do to change that. And she knew with a kind of fatal inevitability that he would break her heart, and that there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

Maybe he already had.

#####

“How is he?” Reece asked as he entered the makeshift hospital to find Doctor Stevens leaning over Ralphy’s still form.

“His fever broke around midnight.” The doctor pulled the sheet over Ralphy’s chest before turning to look at Reece. “My God, I thought you were going to get some rest.”

Reece ran a hand over his unkempt beard, remembering that it had been two days since he’d shaved. He’d been in such a hurry to get away from Emma this morning he hadn’t even bothered to look in a mirror. And though he’d slept last night, he hadn’t really rested. He must look a fright.

“Did he wake up at all?” Reece asked, ignoring the doctor’s comment.

“No, but that’s to be expected. He’s still very weak.”

Reece nodded, trying to assimilate the information along with all the other thoughts and feelings bombarding him. He’d made love to Emma, an act that was irrevocable and inexcusable. What the hell had come over him?

She’d kissed him, touched him, damn her. Damn her. Why had he ever thought he could seduce her and just walk away? How could he do anything else now?

“Emma never made it back last night.” Stevens tucked the sheet around Ralphy and stood, turning to face Reece with a disapproving frown.

Steeling himself against the raw emotions roiling inside him, Reece chose not to answer the doctor’s comment. “I’m going to get some coffee, maybe some breakfast.”

“She’s not one of your easy women, Reece.”

Reece shot the doctor a sardonic glare. “Mind your own business, doc,” he warned before stalking from the lobby to the dining room next door. He sat at a table by the window and ate his breakfast, watching the sun rise over the mountains in the distance.

She would expect things from him now, want him to change. Maybe she would expect him to marry her. Maybe he should marry her.

Reece must have laughed aloud at that thought because the few patrons in the room were suddenly staring at him.

“What the hell are you looking at?” he asked the man sitting closest to him, and they all looked away nervously.

How had he let this get so far out of hand? Why did it matter? It wasn’t as if she was the first woman he’d ever made love to. He couldn’t count the number of lovers he’d had since the war, and he’d managed to walk away from every one of them when the time came.

But he was the first man to ever make love to her. She was a virgin, a lady, not the kind of woman you just took pleasure in and then walked away from.

He was going in circles and accomplishing nothing.

It was her fault, damn it. She’d kissed him, offered herself to him. Hell, if she’d told him to leave, he would have, and.... No, he couldn’t blame her.

A conscience was a terrible burden. He’d thought he’d tamed that particular monster, but from the time she’d first come into his life, Emma had shown him otherwise.

He didn’t have time to think about Emma. He should be more concerned about Ralphy. Ralphy was still in danger, even though he’d gotten past the most crucial period. But no, he shouldn’t be concerned with Ralphy either. He shouldn’t care. He didn’t want to care.

His mind should be on the town and on catching the Garretts.

Damn, he should be at the saloon. He’d told his men to meet him there at first light.

Reece leaped to his feet with a curse, overturning his cup and splattering coffee all over the table and his clothes. A waitress came running over and wiped the spill from the table while he scrubbed futilely at the stain on his vest and trousers.

Giving up, he flung the napkin on the table, along with enough money to pay for his meal, and stalked from the hotel.

By the time he reached the saloon, his men were already assembled, some on horseback, some on foot, all eager to get this day’s work underway.

“We’re ready, Mr. MacBride,” Stanton said as Reece came to stand on the boardwalk.

“I want half of you men to form a posse,” Reece announced. “Mr. Stanton will lead and he will have the final say as to who goes. The other half will stay here and assist the sheriff in guarding the town. I want the posse to search the whole area all the way to the mountains and the badlands. Two days, gentlemen, you are to return to town two days from today. If the Garretts aren’t found, the men who remained in town will continue the search at that time. Understood?”