Sunset Embrace (37 page)

Lydia's eyes went wide over the ridge of his hand and he cackled. "I see that got your attention."

Gradually he lowered his hand, though he didn't replace the knife in its scabbard. Lydia was too stunned to move. He was the fiend of her nightmares embodied, a ghoul resurrected from the dead. The wound on his head had left a hideous scar that made him even more repulsive to look at. He stank. She wondered how she had lived with him for ten years, much less . . .

She swallowed the scalding bile that filled her mouth. How could he still be alive? How? She had seen him fall against that rock, heard the crack of his skull, seen the blood.

"Thought I was dead, didn't ya?" He leered, reading her thoughts. "You fought me real good when I caught up with you just this side of Knoxville. Like a she-wildcat you kicked and clawed till I lost my balance and fell down. I like spirit in a woman. As you no doubt recollect." His reptilian ryes slithered down her lecherously and she shivered with loathing and fear.

"But I'm mad as hell at you, little sister, for making me lull against that rock and bust my head open. Hurt like hell lor weeks, made my eyes all blurry. But I can see clear now. Yes, sirree. I can see clear." His eyes scaled her once again. "And ain't you somethin' to look at all gussied up like this."

"If my husband finds you here, he'll kill you," she said with far more bravado than she felt. Inside she was quaking with fear. Fear that Clancey would even now get his revenge for her fleeing and almost killing him, and an even greater fear that Ross would discover what she had been to this man. The thought sickened her.

"Your
husband, huh? Did you know he has another wife?" he asked slyly. "A rich one?"

"Victoria? She died."

"Died?" he repeated stupidly. Clancey was nonplussed for a moment, then he shifted his shoulders back arrogantly. "Don't see that that makes much difference to my plans."

"Well, if your plan was to tell me my husband was a bigamist, you've wasted your time. You can leave now."

"Not so fast," Clancey said silkily. "We got a lot of visitin' to catch up on." His eyes wandered around the wagon, nodding his approval. When he spotted the crate where Lee was sleeping, he stepped over to it and looked down. Lydia, free to bolt out of the wagon, didn't dare. She couldn't leave Lee alone with Clancey and she didn't want to alert anyone that he was here for fear he would tell them who he was.

"This my kid?" he asked, pointing the knife down at Lee.

"No!" she cried softly and shoved the man out of the way, putting herself between him and the child. "Your baby was born dead. This is Ross's baby. Victoria died birthing him."

Clancey scratched his thick, whiskered neck with the blade of the knife as he studied Lee. He laughed chillingly. "Likely story."

"Its true!" Lydia cried, sensing his suspicion. "The baby you got on me was dead when I delivered it in the woods. It was buried."

Clancey shrugged. "It don't much matter. This is a right smart cute kid. I'd just as soon have this 'un. 'Course if he ain't mine, I don't rightly care if he's took good care of or not."

Lydia's heart stopped only to start banging against the cage of her ribs. Her throat went dry. "What do you want?"

Clancey laughed. "Now you're gettin' neighborly. I always said you wasn't no dumb bunny. Always did say that."

Lydia was frantic, terrified of what the man might do, and terrified that Ross would return and find him there. It was time for him to come back to camp. The others were at their fires cooking supper. Would she be missed? Would someone come looking for her? Would Ross come back and find her here with Clancey?

No! God, please, no.

"What do you want?" she repeated.

"You stepped up in the world, little sister. Sure enough you did. Now I was thinkin you could give your poor ol' stepbrother a boost up, so to speak." His beady eyes bored into her as he said quietly, "By turnin' over to me them jewels your husband stole from his first wife's pa."

Lydia stared at him blankly. "What are you talking about?" she asked in a thready voice. "What jewels? There are no jewels, and Ross is not a thief."

Clancey propped himself against a crate and fished in the front of his shirt for the wanted poster he had been carrying for almost two months, the one that had cost the Owentown whore her life. "Clap your eyes on that," he said, shaking out the creases that had almost worn the paper through. "This fine, upstandin' husband you're puttin' so much stock in ain't the saint you believe."

Lydia stared at the sketch and compared it to her husbands face. Younger, longer hair, no moustache, but undeniably Ross Coleman's eyes and brows and jaw. Sonny Clark. She read the list of crimes he had allegedly committed and the blood drained from her head. She felt dizzy and gripped the edge of the chest to keep from fainting.

She wasn't sure, but the numeral five followed by the three zeros must represent a sizable amount of money offered as a reward to the person knowing Sonny Clark's whereabouts.

She lifted defeated eyes to Clancey. "You're going to turn him in for the money."

He scratched his greasy hair. "I ain't a greedy man. I figure them jewels must be worth more than that five thousand, and there would be no involvin' the law, if ya take my meanin'. So what I figured is that you could turn over that jewelry to me and I'd be on my way. We'd part friends and I'd leave your husband and the young'un in peace."

Lydia spread her arms wide. "But there aren't any jewels. I told you I don't know what you're talking about."

He grabbed her then and hauled her up to him, thrusting his face into hers. "I tell you there is, girlie. I seen his dadddy-in-law talkin' to some fancy gentleman what looked like the law to me. They're after your husband for kidnappin' his own wife and takin' the jewelry to boot."

"Ross wouldn't—"

Clancey shook her hard. "Stop sayin' that. He's a killer, ain't he?"

Lydia tried to think. She couldn't. Ross a killer? The way he handled guns. But a killer? Murder. Bank robbery. Train robbery. It wasn't possible, and yet the poster said it was. "There are no jewels that I know about. Ross loved his wife. They were going to Texas to start their own stud farm. He didn't kidnap her."

"Well, that's what her daddy thinks. And he's just hankerin' to hear what happened to 'em. And I'll see that he knows, unless you find that jewelry and turn it over to me." He pinched the fleshy part of her arm. "You ain't lyin' to ol' Clancey, are ya, gal? 'Bout them jewels."

"No," she said, and he knew she was telling the truth. His hands around her arms relaxed but slightly. "If there is any jewelry here, I don't know where it is."

"It'd be in your best interest to find it."

"Ross got rid of Victorias things when he married me. I think he buried them or gave them away. I don't know. There would be no way to track it down now. Besides, I can't steal from my own husband!" she exclaimed.

"You rather him end up like that towheaded young'un I had to kill? Huh? He was a friend of yours, weren't he?"

Lydia went completely still and white. "Luke?" she gasped. "You killed Luke?"

"Was that his name? We didn't get acquainted fore he went chargin' toward the camp, gonna tell somebody 'bout my trailin' y'all. I had to stop him, didn't I? And stop him I did." He chuckled maniacally.

Lydia covered her mouth as it filled with bile once again. Luke Langston had died because of her. After he had found her in the woods and seen to it that she was nursed back to health, the boy had died senselessly.

"I'd hate to have to do somethin' so messy again. I truly would, but if that kid there ain't mine, as you say . . ."He trailed off threateningly fingering the blade of the knife as he looked at Lee, who had awakened and was happily gurgling and thrashing his limbs. "And if I turned your husband over to the law, well, then that'd only leave you and me again. Not that that'd be too bad." He ran the evil tip of the knife down her breast and circled the nipple tauntingly.

With misplaced bravery, she swatted his hand away. "I ... I'll look for the jewelry, but I don't think I'll find anything. If I don't, you'll leave us alone, won't you?"

"You look real hard, little sister. 'Cause if you can't find nothin', then I guess I'll have to get me some cash somewheres else, like from the law when I tell 'em I know where Sonny Clark is." He bent toward her and breathed his fetid breath hotly over her face. "He as good at humpin' you as I am? Huh, little sister?"

"Stop calling me that! I'm not your sister."

"No, I reckon you're not," he said, scratching his stubbled chin. "Maybe a common-law wife, though.' She paled considerably, and he let go with that repugnant laughter again. "I ain't thinkin' 'bout that now, though. I got to look after my future." He sheathed his knife and stepped toward the opening of the wagon. "I'll be comin' to see you fairly often. You got your work to do." He looked once again toward Lee. "Sure is a cute young'un. Shame if somethin' bad was to happen to him.

Then he was gone.

Lydia collapsed to the floor of the wagon, her muscles finally giving way to the debilitating shock she had sustained at seeing Clancey alive and back to make her life a hell on earth.

She crawled to the bedroll and lay down, bringing her knees up to her chest protectively, the way she had done after the times Clancey had brutally assaulted her. And now, as then, she wept, for he was violating her just as thoroughly this time. He was violating the new life she had made with Ross. He had soiled her on the inside before she even knew what loving could be about. He had tainted her. Because of his vileness, she had felt herself unworthy until Boss had made her feel clean and valuable as a human being.

Now Clancey Russell was going to destroy her life again.

"Lydia?"

She heard Ross calling her from outside and hurriedly wiped away her tears. He mustn't know. If at all possible she must keep him from finding out. He would despise her. It would make him sick to learn that he had turned the care of his son over to a woman who had been intimate with someone like Claneey. Not to mention the revulsion he would feel at having been with her himself. She would do everything possible to keep him from finding out.

He parted the flaps of canvas and peered inside. "Lydia, what—" He saw her lying on the pallet and was immediately concerned. "What's wrong?" He leaped inside and knelt down beside her, taking her hand and pressing it tightly.

He was beautiful to her, even with his clothes dusty from the trail, with his hair mashed down from wearing his hat all day, even with the red stripe the hatband had made across his forehead, he was beautiful and she loved him.

She loved him. The emotion washed over her, filled her, flowed into the outer extremities of her body. Even if he had been a killer, an armed robber, no matter what he had done or what his real name was, she loved him. He must never know about Clancey. Never.

He saw the tears standing in her eyes and swallowed with difficulty. A fear he couldn't have imagined before gripped him. "Lydia, are you sick?"

She shook her head vehemently, and pressed his hand against her cheek. "I'm not feeling too well, but I'm not sick. Just tired, I think."

He was visibly relieved. His shoulders relaxed as he released a pent-up breath. "Everyone deserves a nap now and then." He touched her throat and felt the pulse pounding there. "You're sure you're all right."

"Yes, yes," she said, sitting up. "I'm fine now. I'll just feed Lee and then I'll get supper—"

"Hold on," he said, laughing and placing restraining hands on her shoulders. "Before I think about supper, I'd like to sample something I've been thinking about all day." With her chin lightly pinched between his thumb and forefinger, he lifted her mouth to his. He applied gentle pressure at first, then opened his lips and claimed hers with that sweet suction that was uniquely his.

Lydia, feeling sullied by Clancey's presence, freed her mouth and pulled away. She considered her stepbrother a disease that had infected her for ten years and she didn't want Ross to catch it. "I think the beans are burning." Before he could stop her, she left the wagon.

Her mood was such for the rest of the evening. Ross couldn't figure it out. She was nervous, jumping at the least little sound. Usually she was talkative. Tonight he couldn't coax a complete sentence out of her. She was even cross with Marynell and Atlanta, who came by after supper offering to babysit Lee so she and Ross could take a walk together.

He rose from his stool expectantly. The last time they had taken a walk after sundown, they had gone far enough away from camp to make love in a field of clover.

As they had rolled in the sweet-smelling pasture, kissing madly, he had fumbled with her bloomers beneath her skirt. She hadn't objected to his fondling hands, but had been dismayed when, still clothed, he had rolled her atop him.

Exclaiming his name, she asked, "What are you doing?"

"Can't you tell?" he asked devilishly as he molded his hands over her bottom and pulled her over him.

She gasped with delight as he speared into her, touching her in a new way and making her senses sing. She looked so maidenly with her skirt spread out in a circle around her as she straddled him. But there was nothing demure about the sexy quality in her eyes when her body's instincts dictated that she rock above him.

Ross had stroked her thighs, up, up, to the place where their bodies were joined. Watching as her head went back and her hair tumbled down her back, he drew his thumbs through the tuft of hair to the very apex of her body and ever so gently massaged the key that unlocked all her womanliness. The pads of his thumbs seductively worried that enchanted kernel and he felt her body closing around him like a squeezing silken fist.

She cried his name to the heavens and fell forward, bracing herself above him with her arms. He pulled the shirtwaist from the waistband of her skirt, shoved it up and opened her camisole. He kissed her breasts, tracing the shape of her nipples with his tongue. Such tenderness was contrary to the violent explosion in their loins.