Harlot at the Homestead (3 page)

Darn it, he was so mad he was knocked galley west and he didn’t know how in the hell he was going to recover. How could this have happened? He’d tried so hard to accept that Catherine was gone and now here she was, all pretty, sweet and vulnerable and he was likely to end up in a hoosegow if he didn’t master his emotions.

He was horrified that she’d been hurt. Those marks on her arms had turned his stomach. He’d battled the anger within him since the day he’d been told of her disappearance and done his best to squash it down but every time a memory had surfaced or a nightmare had tortured him, he’d been all churned up again. Catherine had been the woman he was meant to protect, but he had failed.

Or he’d thought he had. Each time he’d followed what seemed to be a fresh lead in his continued search for her, it had come to a dead end and he’d finally been persuaded to give up. But he’d never stopped thinking about her.

Now it seemed that she’d actually made a choice and left him. Sure, she seemed ashamed of her scars but she’d been in no rush to explain them to him either. Maybe she’d gotten them leading some other fool into a false paradise.

So the grief he’d suffered had been an illusion and he’d been a fool. But now her jig was up and there was no way he was going to fall for her sweet deception again.

Catherine stood at the window and stared out into the darkness. Her head ached from crying but she was warmer now and the faint that had claimed her outside had passed. She’d walked all day without any food and the relief at arriving at the Duggan homestead had welled up in a swirl of emotion that had made her dizzy.

She could see her hazy reflection in the glass and she looked into her own eyes. Her pupils were so dilated that the green was barely visible and she felt that their ebony centers reflected the blackened hollow of her heart. She had done wrong and her soul was tarnished. Fear climbed up her spine like a dead man’s fingers. What if the darkness kept on growing until it swallowed her whole?

She had loved Kenan and been devoted to him, but circumstances had taken her away from the path she had chosen. If she had felt that she’d had a choice then she would have followed that path unerringly, but she’d been torn apart and had made the only decision that she could have made at that time, as a young woman with people relying on her. She had owed her aunt and uncle her loyalty—they’d taken her in when she’d had no one else. It would have been wrong of her to abandon them when they had faced their own private troubles, but she wished that there had been another way.

Her lips trembled as she recalled of Kenan’s words. He’d called her a harlot. The term churned in her gut and forced a sour taste into her mouth. She was no harlot, not really. She hadn’t wanted to do what she’d done but sometimes life was unkind and it led her in directions she’d rather not have gone. Women didn’t have as many choices as men in this world. Sure, things were improving and some women had even set up their own homesteads and businesses but it took courage, a strong will and self-belief.

Catherine hadn’t needed to worry because she’d come fresh from college and the teaching examination to her uncle’s farm where she’d met Kenan. Prior to college, which she’d been late attending because her Mama had needed her at home, she’d only wondered what it would be like to become a teacher. She had wanted to work with the children of the west before settling and having her own. Meeting Kenan had only confirmed to her that being a wife and mother was all she wanted in life. They would have carved out their path in the American landscape. It had been their mutual aim. How cruel it had been then when that simple dream had been stolen away.

A movement outside the window caught her eye and she leaned her forehead against the cold glass.

He was out there. He’d come back. She hurried over to the door and flung it open, ignoring Rosie’s shouts and the fierce wind that whipped at her skirts as she ran out into the rain.

Kenan slumped against the gate, gazing into the darkness, fighting the urge to just lie down and be done with it all. He couldn’t give up. He had responsibilities. But he felt so worn out, so much older than his thirty-two years. By now, a man should be wed and raising his children, not grieving daily and feeling so churned up all the time.

A noise startled him. He could just about make out a figure dashing toward him through the rain. It stopped in front of him on the other side of the gate.

“Catherine.” Her white face was illuminated by the moonlight which peeped through the heavy clouds. She was a fallen angel. Her red hair clung to her cheeks and her cotton dress was like a second skin.

“Kenan.” She held his gaze.

“You’re getting drenched, Catherine. You’ll catch cold and you’ve only just warmed up.”

“I don’t care, Kenan. I need to talk to you. To try to make you understand.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know that I can understand, Catherine.” He couldn’t let down his guard. She would just hurt him again and he couldn’t afford that. The rain became heavier and way off in the distance, lightning pierced the sky.

“Please, Kenan.” She reached out and touched his face, pressing the flat of her trembling palm against his cheek.

Her touch stirred him and he had to swallow hard against the pain in his throat. He covered her hand with his own and watched the spark ignite in her eyes. It brought a host of memories rushing back—times when he’d seen her eyes flash in that way when she was needy, passionate, eager. In spite of his doubts about her and in spite of his anger, another powerful feeling coursed through him. Desire. He desired her still. He desired her body, her touch and her fulfilment, which made his own all the sweeter. And he desired to lose himself, just for a moment, in order to escape the living hell he’d come to accept as normal.

“Come on.” He opened the gate then walked through.

Thunder boomed like an angry cannon and large raindrops plopped into gathering puddles like tears from the heavens.

“Where?” she questioned and he could resist no longer. He leaned over and planted a kiss upon her luscious lips.

“Our old haunt.”

He took her hand then headed toward the barn. She hurried to keep up with his large strides. As they approached, the door swung open and Matthew and Emmett emerged.
Darn it
. He’d forgotten they were out there. He pulled Catherine behind the oak
tree that grew in the yard and placed a finger against her lips. The lightning illuminated the yard as it struck just feet away, causing Catherine to jump. Kenan covered her mouth with his hand and shook his head.

When his brothers had passed and gone into the house, he led Catherine into the barn.

He secured the door with the wooden bar. Then he turned to her. The dry warmth of the barn with its musky animal scent was comforting and it brought a wave of memories of times when he’d been here with Catherine before.

His heart beat so hard he felt like he would pass out. Excitement and fear coursed through his veins and he trembled with their effects.

As if echoing his inner turmoil, thunder cracked directly overhead. Catherine grabbed his shirtfront.

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “The storm will soon pass.”

She leaned her head against his chest and he held her that way until her breathing and her trembling slowed. Droplets of water ran off the ends of her hair and soaked into his cotton shirt and he realized that she must be cold.

“I’ll grab some of the blankets we keep for the horses. You’d better get out of your wet clothes.”

She peered down at herself then back at him. In the darkness, the only illumination came from the intermittent flashes of lightning as they pierced small holes in the wooden walls, so he sensed, rather than saw, the uncertainty in her eyes.

“I…I don’t know, Kenan.”

“Catherine.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “It’s pitch black in here. I can’t see a thing so I’m not going to be able to see you changing, am I?”

He held his breath as he waited for her response.

“Then light the lamp.” She stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his mouth. The cool featherlight touch of her lips against his sent fire through his body and he knew that he had to have her. He needed to feel her yielding beneath him, harlot or not. There was no going back as desire swirled like a hot fog through his mind and limbs, possessing him as he yearned to possess her.

He lifted the kerosene lamp from the peg by the door and lit it, then returned to Catherine’s side. He watched the speedy rise and fall of her chest and wondered if it was due to fear or anticipation.

“Kenan?” Her voice fluttered over his skin like a butterfly’s wings.

“Yes?”

“The blankets?”

He shook his head to clear the trance.

“Of course. Wait here.” He pointed at her as if to hold her in place—as if to stop her from leaving his sight and his life again.

When he had retrieved two thick blankets from the tack room, he hurried back.

The center of the barn was empty. He lifted the lamp higher, creating a wider circle of light that reached the stalls, causing the beasts to stir. Catherine was gone. The circle of light shook and he turned around and around then rushed to the corners to check that she wasn’t hiding. He’d known that it was too good to be true. Her presence must have been a figment of his imagination, a fever caused by being out in the storm. She really was dead, taken two years ago and he was alone. Grief, his familiar companion, began to swirl in his belly and sour bile filled his mouth.

“Kenan!”

An urgent voice from above caught his attention.

“What are you doing? I’m up here.”

He raised the lamp and looked toward the trapdoor where a white oval face peered down.

“Come on up.”

He rubbed his eyes. Of course she hadn’t disappeared. He wasn’t mad, hadn’t invented her return. She’d merely climbed up to their own secret space where they’d spent many summer days and nights wrapped around each other, pleasuring their bodies in every way they could imagine. He grew hard at the memories and hurried toward the ladder.

Chapter Three

Catherine moved away from the trapdoor and crawled across the upper floor. When she reached the point where the ceiling was highest, she got to her feet and waited.

Just moments ago, as she’d looked down on Kenan, he’d appeared lost, his face blanched, his expression one of terror. She knew because she’d seen it upon her own face whenever she’d looked in the mirror during her time in New York. But why was he afraid? Did he believe that she had left him again? Her heart ached for all that he had suffered. For the things she’d put him through.

He had warmed to her during the course of the evening but she wondered how much. He needed her comfort, to be near her physically, and she could give him that much at least. Lord knew, she wanted it, too. But she doubted that she’d ever be able to mend him completely. She could see it now, even more clearly than before. He had loved her as much as she’d loved him and being separated from her had ripped him apart.

The light from the lamp reached the hatch then flooded the upper section of the barn. It threw shadows across the room, which increased her longing to be held in his strong arms. She wanted to feel safe again. She had dreamt of this reunion, yet never believed that it would really happen. She hadn’t even known if she would make it back here or if he would be here if she did. The far off rumble of thunder brought a faint smile to her face. The storm had passed, for now. She leaned over and pulled off her wet, muddy boots, savoring the feel of the straw beneath her soles.

Kenan crawled toward her then stood. He had to hunch over, even at the roof’s highest point and he looked so awkward. It reminded her of how he’d been when they’d first consummated their love. He’d been gentle, tentative, almost reverent in his perusal of her body. Though he’d not been totally innocent, he’d acted like a man making love for the first time and she’d appreciated it because she’d given him her virginity and wanted to feel that he was doing the same. He had admitted afterwards that he had lain with another woman but it had been different, not an act of real desire but a perfunctory act, a rite of passage.

“Why don’t you sit?” She gestured toward the floor.

He put the lamp down then opened one of the blankets and flicked it out across the straw covered wooden boards. He lowered himself onto it and sat cross-legged, his hands on his knees.

Catherine summoned her courage. She would seize this moment and savor it. She might not get another chance. Kenan had been so angry with her earlier and she knew that once his tiredness cleared and his desire was spent, it could well return. Grief worked in strange, irrational patterns and she didn’t want to give it the opportunity to claim him again just yet.

She pushed her wet hair over her shoulders and began unbuttoning the front of her housedress. She fumbled with the buttons because the wet material clung to them but the eagerness she saw in Kenan’s eyes drove her on.

When she dropped her dress to the floor, he shifted his position and she could see the tell-tale bulge at his groin. She was exciting him and it thrilled her. She slipped down her petticoat and stood before him in her flimsy chemise, corset, bloomers and stockings. He was breathing heavily now and had shifted to his knees.

She froze.

“Please…keep going.” His voice was husky with need. “Don’t stop…”

“Of course not,” she shook her head. She would not stop until she had eased his sorrow and hers. Temporary relief was better than none at all. They would live in the moment, be together for now.

She bent to peel off her stockings, but he pushed her hand away.

“Let me.”

Catherine straightened up and stretched out a leg so that her foot rested upon his groin. She rubbed his crotch. He moaned and gripped her ankle, grinding against her toes.

When he slid his hands up her leg to her stocking top, it was her turn to gasp at the shivers his touch sent through her. Heat flickered between her legs. He peeled down the stocking then did the same with the other one.

“Nearly naked,” he growled, as he slid his hands up to her waistband.