The Rustler's Bride (5 page)

The shirt fluttered to the ground as Declan loosened his grip on it. He lifted one hand. Steely fingers curled around her wrist. “It’s not a good idea,” he said. He paused, and then he made a sound of scorn, although to Victoria’s ears it sounded false. “What did you come here for?” His hold on her wrist tightened. “To taunt me with what the law gives me the right to claim but honor stops me from taking?” His eyes narrowed on her. The swelling had almost gone down, and now twin beams of blue bored into her. “Is that it?” he demanded. “Are you amusing yourself by testing your feminine powers on me?”

“No!” Furious at the accusation, Victoria tried to jerk her arm free. “I came to take your measurements. You need new clothes.” She poked the toe of her boot into his shirt that lay in a heap on the sawdust covered floor. “This one’s going to disintegrate in the next wash.” She used her free hand to rummage in the pocket of her buckskin jacket. “See?” she said, holding up the tightly coiled roll of tape. “A measuring tape. If you let go of my arm and turn around, we can get started.”

Declan contemplated her for a long moment. Victoria felt her cheeks flush beneath his searching gaze. “Turn around,” she said sharply. “I haven’t got all day.”

He released her and turned his back to her. Victoria’s hands shook as the uncoiled the length of tape with lines drawn across it to mark the inches.
What had she come here for?
Now that his knowing eyes were averted, she could admit the truth to herself.

He’d been right.

She’d come to tempt him.

 “I can buy my own clothes.”

The abrupt remark startled her. She’d been standing still, the measuring tape uncoiled between her hands. Prompted into action, she stretched the tape across his back, shoulder to shoulder. “Don’t tell me you have money,” she said as she craned upward to read the mark inked into the tape. “Twenty-one inches,” she muttered, and committed the number to memory.

“I have money.”

“Rustling must be a profitable business. No costs, only revenue.”

Declan stiffened at her tart tone. Victoria gathered the tape and reached both hands around his waist. As she brought the tape together in front of him, her body came into contact with his. Her cheek almost pressed to his shoulder blade. She could feel the heat that radiated from him, could smell the mingled scents of sweat and sawdust and soap on his skin. She could not move. She simply stood there, her arms around him, her breasts pressed against his back, the tip of her chin nearly resting on the ridged groove of his spine.

“Victoria—” Declan’s voice was a strangled moan. “Don’t.”

She yanked her hands apart, thumb and forefinger pinched over the tape to mark the spot. She lifted the tape to her eyes to read the measurement. “Thirty-two inches. Turn around,” she said, and heard the tremor in her voice.

Declan turned to face her. His jaw was set. His eyes glittered cobalt blue.

Victoria reached the tape across his chest. An expanse of lean muscle. A sprinkling of light brown hair. Two flat male nipples. A trembling seized her hands. She could feel perspiration beading on her skin beneath her clothing. Her breasts tingled. The blood in her veins moved in heavy, languid beats that made her drowsy and alert at the same time.

She lifted the tape away from him and read the measurement. Twenty-one inches across the shoulders, same as at the back. “Lift your arms,” she ordered. When he did, she raised her hands to line up with those flat brown nipples and reached her arms around him. The motion brought her face right in front of his.

“Ria…don’t…,” he groaned and closed his eyes.

Ria.
As if he lacked the strength to say her name in full. She tilted up her face, no longer even pretending to be occupied with taking measurements. Her voice deepened to a sultry, breathless murmur. “When the preacher wed us, he forgot the last part of the ceremony.”

Declan stood absolutely still. His eyes flew open, but his gaze locked on the stacks of firewood that surrounded them. Heat sweltered in the windowless barn. In the far corner, a cat pounced after a mouse that squealed and scampered off in terror. Behind them, a trapped insect bombarded the timber wall, making popping sounds, like distant gunshots.

But nothing could break the spell that had fallen over them as they stood facing each other, their bodies almost pressed together from breast to knee.
Almost. Almost.
Victoria knew that Declan could feel the thudding of her heartbeat as she felt his, that he could smell the lavender on her skin as she smelled the dust and leather and soap on his.

“What?” Declan said finally. “What did the preacher forget?”

Victoria lifted up on tiptoe and tilted her head. “You may kiss the bride.”

Her mouth halted within a fraction of his. She could feel Declan’s body quiver with the effort of not moving, of not breaching the single inch that separated them. She rose higher on her toes. Their lips were nearly touching. She could feel the warm puffs of his breath as they mingled with hers in the still, pine scented air of the windowless barn.

“You may kiss the bride,” she repeated in a soft whisper. As she spoke, her lips grazed against his, the contact as light as a butterfly’s wings.

With a harsh growl of defeat, Declan reached out and hauled her body against his. His arms banded around her. His mouth settled over hers. She could taste desperation in his kiss—desperation and hunger and longing, and the dark shadow of loneliness. It took her by surprise, the current of understanding and empathy that flowed through her in his embrace.

His kiss told her of days and years spent in hiding. It told her of social exclusion and the dearth of human contact. It told her of a life that lacked a future beyond the next sunrise—a life with a dark void where hopes and dreams should have been.

Greedy and wild, his mouth devoured hers. Seconds turned into minutes. Gradually, Victoria could feel the tension in Declan’s powerful body ease. His lips gentled, until they slanted over hers with a tenderness that made her ache. In that moment, the vague ideas Victoria had been afraid to accept burst into full bloom in her mind.

She wanted to offer him dreams.

She wanted to offer him hope.

She wanted to offer him a future.

Victoria felt bereft when Declan finally lifted his head from hers. His hands slid down to her waist. Gently, he eased her into a backward step, separating their bodies.

“No, Ria,” he said in a low voice. “This is not a good idea. This never happened. It will never happen again.” He withdrew his hands from her waist and, lifting one arm, he swept the back of his wrist across his lips, as if to wipe away the kiss.

She’d been floating in a sensual haze. Now, the gesture that had rejection stamped all over acted like a bucketful of cold water upon her. Reality came crashing in, reality and all the constraints of polite society she’d been brought up to respect. And yet, the knowledge of what she wanted did not fade away. I merely hardened into an understanding that there would be obstacles in her way.

“Why is it not a good idea?” she asked bluntly.

“Ria—” Declan paused, shook his head in frustration. “You heard what your father said. You need to be careful. It’s easy for a woman to ruin her reputation.”

“I see.”

Had Declan known Victoria better, he might have recognized the warning note in her voice—a stubborn edge that said she was going to dig her boot heels in and refuse to budge, even an inch.

Footsteps and masculine voices drifted by outside. Declan froze. He cocked his head to listen. When the sounds had faded into the distance, his posture relaxed. He returned his attention to her once more and said, “You need to go now, Victoria. Before anyone notices how long you’ve been alone with me.”

Victoria recalled how a few minutes ago Declan had feigned scorn, and she chose to do the same. She lifted her chin and smirked at him. “Are you afraid of my father?”

His eyebrows lifted in a way that told her he’d caught on to her bluff. “No,” he said. “But I’m afraid of you. Afraid
for
you.” He reached out one hand and touched the strands of hair that had broken free from her upsweep. “When this is all over, you’ll need to find a man to take care of you. You need to marry one of your rich, influential suitors. They can give you the kind of life you deserve.”

Her eyes flashed in anger. “You’re as bad as my father.” She craned forward and poked her finger into his bruised chest, not caring if he flinched in pain. “I’m not going to marry by someone else’s command,” she informed him. “I’ll marry whomever I want. And if I don’t want to marry anyone at all, my father will continue to enjoy the privilege of taking care of me.”

A shadow fell over his features. “Victoria…”

“Victoria?” she mimicked, the sting of his unexpected rejection making her tongue sharp and her temper edgy. “What is it now? More marital advice?”

Declan seemed to stop breathing, he went so still. His expression grew shuttered. His mouth set in a hard line. “Go back into the house,” he said brusquely.

“You can’t order me about.”

“I can, and I will.” He stepped up to her, placed his hands on her shoulders and spun her around to face the doorway of the barn, where a square of sunlight flooded inside. She could feel the powerful contours of his body behind her as he leaned down to speak into her ear.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Victoria?” he asked.

“What?” she muttered, the flash of anger already fading.

“It’s too late for you
not to marry anyone at all
. You already married
me
. And that means I
can
order you about. I believe there was a little something about obedience in the promises you made in front of the preacher.”

She let out an angry huff. Then it escalated into a cry of indignation, as Declan lifted his hands from her shoulders with a tiny shove, slapped her on the rump, and said, “Go back inside. Now.”

She scuttled off. At the barn door, she turned around. “Remember,” she said, and there was a deceptive sweetness in her voice. “You promised that if I obeyed, you’d cherish. Fine. I’ll obey. I’m going inside. And that means I’ll be expecting some cherishing.”

Hah. You find a reply to that
, Victoria thought as she set off striding across the yard, squinting in the bright sunlight. Perspiration itched beneath her clothing. She fought an unladylike urge to scratch. Her brows came together in a frown as her brain shifted through the flurry of emotions battling inside her.

It all seemed so clear now.

She’d been at pains to decide between the Boston banker, and the shipping magnate, and the English earl, and the senator, and God knows who else, and that was because she didn’t want to marry any of those men. She felt no love for them, but that was beside the point. The point was that they would all take her away from Red Rock Ranch. Away from the Arizona Territory, to the cultured East, where she would be expected to spend the rest of her life crammed into corsets, making feminine small talk, riding side saddle, and eating with silver knives and forks in hushed, quiet dining rooms… The list of horrors was endless.

No. She wanted something different.

She wanted the desert sun and the flash floods and the snakes and scorpions and Gila monsters. She wanted the uncouth cowboys and the mewling cattle, and the lawmen and the outlaws with guns riding at their hip. She wanted the untamed frontier that had been her home for as long as she could remember.

She wanted Red Rock Ranch.

She wanted never to leave home again.

And that meant she needed to marry a man capable of operating a cattle business. Running a ranch couldn’t be so terribly different from trading in stolen cattle. You just owned the livestock, and had to spend a bit more time looking after the animals, but to compensate, you didn’t need to waste your time running from the law, or worrying about being strung up at the end of a rope.

Simple.

So very, very simple.

Declan had told her that honor kept him from claiming her as his wife, but it was as clear that he was struggling to hold on to his resolve. There had been no mistaking the male hunger that had rubbed and strained against her belly while they kissed.

Persuading him would be the easy part. The main hurdle was to get her father to accept Declan as the man who would take over the ranch after him. Her father’s will was legendary for its unbending quality. There was only one way he’d ever accept the marriage.

If he had no other choice.