The Temptress (25 page)

“I expect more from a man than just beauty and a nice voice. And Tynan doesn't seem capable of giving that.”

In the distance, they heard the sound of a rifle shot. “I think he got us something to eat. Let's go and meet him,” Pilar said.

When Chris seemed determined to stay where she was, Pilar took her arm. “In a few days your father will be here and you'll never have to see Ty again. This is the first rest any of us have had in ages, so let's make the most of it, all right?”

Reluctantly, Chris allowed Pilar to pull her forward. She wasn't about to show anyone how the thought of never seeing Ty again made her heart jump into her throat.

When they found Tynan he was already skinning a small deer and Chris built a fire. Soon the smell of roasting venison filled the air.

“Nice place, isn't it?” Ty asked, handing Chris a piece of meat.

She looked around and realized that this was the place he'd just described—the place where he'd wanted to make love to her. “It's all right,” she said coolly. “Pilar, why don't you tell us about the joys of married life? And about your children? How old are they?”

She ignored Tynan's heartfelt groan as she turned her head and began listening to a homesick Pilar as she told about her husband and children. She didn't gloss over the hardship of their lives, or dismiss the constant poverty and struggle, but there was a lovely sense of togetherness that Chris knew she wanted in her life. In turn, Pilar asked Chris about her newspaper stories and said how exciting all that must be.

“It was, but I'm ready to settle down.”

“She's been ready ever since a certain party jumped out of a clothes wardrobe,” Tynan said from behind her, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “She thinks that if a man touches her, he has to marry her.”

“That's not true at all!” Chris said, turning on him. “I don't know why I ever thought I was in love with you. You are insufferably vain and are too used to getting your own way. I doubt if I'd marry you now if you were to beg me.”

“Don't hold your breath. A week from now, I'm going to be free. I won't have the responsibility of taking care of some spoiled little rich girl who thinks she can have whatever—or whoever—she wants merely by asking. I'm going to be
free,
you hear me? Not you or anybody else is going to take away my freedom.”

“Stop it, both of you,” Pilar said. “You sound like my two boys. Look, we have to spend the next few days together so why don't we try to get along? Ty, you're probably angry because you haven't had any sleep and your leg hurts. Why don't you lay your head in Chris's lap and she'll tell us a story? I'd offer my lap but I plan to stretch out here and sleep myself.”

Chris didn't look at Tynan and there was a long moment of silence. “All right,” she said at last. “Maybe we do need some rest. You may use my lap.”

“Only if you swear this won't be taken as a marriage proposal.”

“If you were one of my children,” Pilar said, “I'd smack you for that. Now lay down there and behave yourself.”

Chris leaned back against a tree and Tynan lay his head in her lap. For a moment, they were very stiff, touching as little as possible.

“I read a book in French last year,
Le Comte de Monte Cristo,
I could tell that story,” Chris said.

“Only if the people don't get married and live happily ever after,” Tynan said, his head turned, his eyes closed.

“It's a story about greed, betrayal, infidelity, murder and revenge. I think it might be your autobiography.'

“Sounds all right,” he said, snuggling his head in her lap.

“I'm sure the French nation will be pleased that you approve.” She started her story, telling of the revenge that began over two men in love with the same woman.

“Figures,” Ty grunted, but said nothing else while Chris's voice began to soften as she told the story.

Within minutes, she heard the soft sounds of Pilar's breathing as she slept in the drowsy afternoon. Tynan also seemed to be asleep, and, feeling safe, she began to stroke his hair back from his face. He looked so young with his face relaxed. There was a dirty bandage on his leg, dirty from his constant moving about the forest, showing through the hole in his trousers that the bullet had made.

She kept on with her story, even though she knew that both her listeners were asleep, but she liked stories and she liked to tell them. At the tragic end of the story, she stopped, her hand on the side of Tynan's face, her fingers buried in the curls of his dark hair, and listened to the birds.

“I liked that,” he said softly into the stillness.

“I thought you were asleep,” she said and started to move her hand away.

He caught it in his own. “No, I wanted to hear the story. A store clerk told me that at about the time I was born, the miner sold him a book. I always wondered if it was a book from my mother and, if it was, what it was. I've always liked stories.” Idly, he began to kiss her fingertips, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.

“Will you stop that?”

“Chris, if I were going to get married, I swear, you'd be the first woman I'd consider. In fact, thinking about living with you is the most tempting offer I've ever had. You're pretty, enthusiastic in bed—”

She gave a sharp look at Pilar but she seemed to be sound asleep.

“And you're the most interesting woman I've ever met. I've talked to you and told you things I've never told anybody, but, the truth is, I'm just not marriage material. I don't think I could stay in one place for very long—that is, if I ever get out of jail where your father would throw me if I dared think I was going to marry his precious daughter. Don't you see that it just wouldn't work?”

Chris didn't let the anger she felt show. It seemed that men could rationalize anything. He didn't want to get married—was probably terrified of the idea—so he tried to tell her that he couldn't because he was only thinking of her. “I understand completely,” she said with sympathy in her voice. “You don't want to get married and I refuse to sleep with a man who won't marry me. We'll leave it at that.”

He turned his head to look up at her. “But, Chris, shouldn't we take what happiness we can find? When we can find it? Before we're separated forever and never see each other again?”

She gave him her sweetest smile. “Not on your life.”

For a moment, she thought he was going to start yelling at her again, but there was just the hint of a smile on his full lips. “You can't blame a man for trying.” He turned his head again and resumed kissing her fingertips. “By my calculations, we have at least four more days before Prescott returns with your father. Who knows what will happen in that time?”

“I know what will
not
happen,” she said smugly, but Tynan didn't seem to believe her as he began applying his teeth to her sensitive palm.

• • •

“There you are, old man,” Asher Prescott said as he readjusted the smelly man's bindings for the third time. There was a part of Asher that was bothered by what they'd done: they'd taken the man from his home and now he was being bound hand and foot, yet the old man had done nothing to merit such abuse. So, when the old man had complained that the ropes were too tight, Asher had had pity on him and loosened them.

“I'm going to get some sleep now,” Asher said, rubbing his eyes. He'd been in the saddle for almost two days and he knew that if he didn't rest, he'd never make it to Del Mathison's house.

With one last look of sympathy at the old man who huddled against a tree, his little dark eyes looking suspicious, Asher settled down to sleep, using his saddle as a pillow.

The old man seemed as if he too slept, until he heard the soft snores from Asher, then he wiggled his hands and the ropes fell away. “Fool,” he muttered, looking at Asher's sleeping form with contempt as he untied his feet. “Fool.”

He stood, making no noise at all, looked around a bit until he saw a large rock nearby then picked it up and crept toward Asher. He brought the rock crashing down on Asher's head as he slept.

The old man stood over Ash for a moment, looking at the unconscious form before ransacking his pockets. It took him only fifteen minutes before he'd taken everything of value from Asher, leaving him lying there in his underwear only, his saddle and gun gone, no money, no boots. For a moment, the old man contemplated taking his underwear or at least cutting the buttons off, but he heard a horse in the distance and decided to get out of there.

As he mounted one horse, leading the other one, he began to mutter, “You think you're so smart, Mr. Mother-Killer Tynan, but I know somebody that'll pay to know where you are. I know somebody. I'll show you.” He cursed and muttered as he traveled north toward the Dysan estate.

Chris tried her best to stay away from Tynan for the next two days, but it was almost impossible to do. If she went for water, there he was. If she stopped for a moment to look at the scenery, there he was, his eyes on her in invitation. Once, she jumped when she heard something in the underbrush and Ty was there to put his arms around her and hold her. They heard shots in the distance on the morning of the second day and her heart was in her throat as Tynan, with rifle in hand, crept down the steep path to see who it was. She nearly cried with relief when he came back to tell her that it was only hunters and they were far away.

“Worried about me?” he asked, his eyes hot and showing his desire for her.

Chris picked up her skirts and fled from him.

“Anything wrong?” Pilar asked innocently. She'd taken over the cooking ever since Chris had ruined some of their precious flour trying to make biscuits.

“That man is the worst!” she said, her heart pounding.

“He certainly does like you.”

“Well, I don't like him.”

Pilar snorted. “Didn't your mother teach you not to lie?”

“I think there were many things my mother didn't teach me,” Chris said softly. “Such as how to say no to persuasive gunslingers. Pilar, I think I'm weakening. Two more days of this and I won't be able to say no to anything he asks of me.”

“I have an idea Ty knows that.”

“Well, I have to be strong. I am
not
going to give into him and that's final. No matter what he says to me, no matter how he looks at me, I'm not going to give into him.” She looked at Pilar with great sadness and worry in her eyes. “But if he kisses the back of my neck one more time, I'm lost.”

Pilar turned back to her biscuits with a smile on her face.

Chris succeeded in staying away from Ty for the rest of the day but that night he asked her to take a walk with him.

“I didn't ask you to run off with me, Chris, just take a walk,” he said when he saw her lips form the word ‘no.' “I swear I won't touch you since I know you can't trust yourself with me, but at least—”

“Can't trust myself with you! I most certainly can trust myself with you. I could spend the rest of my life on a tropical island with you and still resist you,” she lied.

“That's great,” he said with a grin. “Then you can go with me into the moonlight right now.”

Chris knew she'd talked herself into a corner and so she appealed to Pilar for help, but Pilar refused to go with them, saying that her arm hurt too much. Of course it hadn't hurt while she'd pounded dough, but now it was too painful for her to even move.

Reluctantly, Chris started walking up the little trail toward the spring, Tynan behind her.

“Are we competing in a road race or are you afraid to walk beside me?” he asked.

She stopped and turned toward him. “Of course I'm not afraid to walk with you. It's just that you don't realize how slow your sore leg makes you.”

“Is that it?” he said, smiling in a knowing way. He took her arm in his. “Then maybe you should help poor little invalid me,” he said.

They walked together for a few moments, Chris trying to stay away from him in spite of their locked arms.

“A few weeks ago, I couldn't get rid of you. Every time I turned around, there you were, demanding that I take off my shirt or shoes, and the first few times I saw you, you weren't wearing a stitch of clothing. Now, you'll hardly get near me.”

“That was before,” she said, looking straight ahead.

“Before the night in the logger's cabin? Before the night we made love and had such a wonderful time?”

“It wasn't such a wonderful time to you. You told me you wanted nothing to do with me, that I was just one of many women to you.”

“Maybe I was a little hard on you that night, but you scared me to death with your talk of marriage and kids. Can't you forget that and we could start over? We were getting on so well until you decided you just had to put that noose around my neck.”

She pulled her arm away from his. “I don't want to put a noose around your neck. Marriage is different. It's for two people who love each other and I stupidly thought that's what we did that night—made love. I was in love with you or I wouldn't have done that…I wouldn't have let you touch me. But it wasn't love to you. You don't love me, you never have. You got what you wanted, but I didn't.”

She turned away to hide her tears.

He pulled her to him, turning her so that her face was buried in his chest. “Chris, I don't think I've ever had a woman in love with me before, and I have no idea what it means to be in love. I'm sorry, I don't mean to hurt you. Maybe you just think you're in love with me because I can handle a gun and I'm not like anyone you ever met before and—”

She looked up at him. “I've met hundreds of gunslingers and hundreds of outlaw criminals and I resent your telling me that I don't know my own mind. I can tell you that—”

She stopped because Tynan kissed her, hungrily drinking from her lips, caressing her back, pushing her hips into his, trying to envelop her with his hard, hot body. Chris knew she wouldn't last long if he continued touching her.

“Please don't,” she whispered when his lips moved to her neck. “Please don't touch me. I can't bear it. I can't resist you.”

“I don't want you to,” he said as his teeth took her earlobe.

It was when his lips touched the corner of her eye and he tasted a salty tear that he stopped. Abruptly, he drew away from her. “Go on then,” he said with suppressed anger in his voice. “Go back to your cold bed and stay there alone.”

Chris's tears began in earnest then and she fled down the steep, dark path to the cabin. Pilar didn't say a word as Chris fell down onto the pallet beside her.

Chris cried for a long time before she made a decision. She didn't care whether he married her or not, and she didn't care if he loved her or not. Right now all she felt for him was desire and she wanted it to be the way it was that night in the logger's cabin. She wanted to feel his hands on her body, wanted him to make love to her again.

Sniffing, but feeling better now that there was no more indecision, she got up and left the lean-to shelter. She knew that Tynan slept not far from them, a little way into the trees so that, should anyone come to the cabin during the night, he'd not be seen. She went to his sleeping place but he wasn't there.

Slowly, with deliberation, she removed all her clothing, stretched out on his blankets and waited for him. When he didn't come, she went to sleep, smiling at the thought of how he'd waken her.

“Chris,” Tynan said, pulling her into his arms. “Oh my beautiful, lovely Chris.”

Sleepily, she opened her eyes. It was daylight, the birds were singing, the smell of the early morning forest was all around them—and Tynan's hands were on her body, pushing away the covers and caressing her skin. His hands ran over her hips with the eagerness of a boy's with his first puppy.

“You came to me,” he whispered. “You came to me. I didn't sleep last night. I just wandered in the forest. Oh Chris, you're driving me crazy. My beautiful, beautiful Chris, you are making me more miserable than when I was in prison.”

Chris could feel her skin glowing with the joy of his words. She sincerely hoped that she was making him miserable—at least as miserable as he was making her.

He brought her head up to his and kissed her as if he never meant to let her go, his hands in her hair.

Her arms went around his neck to pull him close. This is what she'd wanted for so long, but what she'd been fighting against for what seemed to be forever.

He stretched her out on the blankets and moved to lay beside her, touching her gently, while, at the same time, removing his own shirt.

With his leg between hers, he rubbed his rough clad skin against hers while kissing her.

Abruptly, he pulled away from her and put his head up as if he were listening. “I have to go. Someone's out there.”

“It's just Pilar,” she said, trying to pull him back down to her. “She won't come here.”

Tynan moved away from her and pulled his shirt back on. “Someone's coming up the trail.” He gave Chris a look of resignation. “It's my luck that it's your father here all ready.” Chris thought he looked on the verge of tears. “You'd better get dressed. If it's not him, we can continue this later and if it is, he might not stop to ask questions if he found his little daughter kissing the hired hand.” When she opened her mouth to speak, he stopped her. “Don't give me any argument, and don't make this harder for me, just please get dressed and let me see who this is.”

Tynan moved away from her, standing and watching her with eyes that bore an expression of sadness, desire and pain. When she was dressed, he grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. “I've aged twenty years since I met you. I hope with all my might that this is
anybody
except your father.” After a quick kiss, he released her, took her hand and led her into the cabin clearing.

Chris could see Pilar's sleeping form under the lean-to.

“Go look in my saddle bags and you'll find a pair of field glasses. Bring them to me.”

Chris ran to do what he asked. Pilar raised on one elbow to look at her.

“Happy this morning?” Pilar asked.

“I've been happier,” Chris said, searching inside the saddle bags. “I would be extremely happy if Tynan'd bothered to return to his sleeping roll last night.”

Pilar groaned, then asked, “What's going on now?”

“Ty says he hears someone coming up the trail. I haven't yet heard anything but he's gone to see. Ah, here they are.”

“I'm coming with you,” Pilar said and was out of her sleeping pallet in a second and was soon running down the hill behind Chris.

Tynan was stretched out on a rock, as flat and as unnoticeable as a lizard and he had to call to the women before they saw him. “It's them,” he said with great sadness in his voice. “I knew it would be.” He reached out his hand to Chris for the glasses.

Chris and Pilar climbed on the rock beside him. “You're sure it's my father?” Chris asked, excited.

“Whoever it is, I hope they've brought us some supplies,” Pilar said.

“From the size of the group, I think Mathison's brought his entire ranch.”

Chris took the glasses from him. Her father was unmistakable, sitting on top of the horse that looked too small for him, riding with his back as straight as a railroad tie—and even at this distance he looked angry. She put the glasses down and saw that Ty was looking at her with a teasing smile on his face.

“Want to borrow my gun to protect yourself?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Who's the man with him?” Pilar asked, looking through the glasses.

“Never saw him before,” Ty answered.

Chris heaved herself up from the rock. “I guess I better get this over with. If either of you have delicate sensibilities, you'd better leave now. My father's temper is…” She couldn't think of anything that would adequately describe it.

She took a deep breath for courage, then started down the hill toward her father and the men who rode with him. She was hesitant at first, but as he came more clearly into view, she began to pick up speed until he saw her.

Del Mathison spurred his horse forward in a burst of speed that left the others standing.

Chris lifted her skirts and took off running as fast as her legs would carry her—and Del's horse came charging toward her. When he reached her, he didn't slow, but extended his arm and hauled her up to toss her in the saddle behind him. It was a trick he'd taught her when she was a child, and it'd come in handy in her life, such as the time Tynan had run his horse through the freight office.

As Chris held onto her father, she saw that Ty had followed her down the hillside, gun drawn, protecting her as she'd run away from the shelter of the camp. She turned to see the man who'd been riding beside her father stop and help Tynan mount behind him.

Del didn't waste any time when he reached the cabin. Before he even dismounted, he began yelling at Chris.

“Of all the damn fool, stupid things you've ever done, this is the worst. So help me, I'm never going to let you out of my sight again. You and your mother's whole family, none of you ever had a lick of sense.”

Chris stood on tiptoe and put her arms around his neck. She was glad to see that he looked as good as he always did: big, handsome, with the head of a lion, thick gray hair spreading out like a mane around his handsome face.

He hugged her back for a moment, then pushed her away. “Do you know what hell you've put me through? Do you have any idea the number of people that've come to me and told me you were within inches of being killed?”

“How many?” she asked solemnly.

“Don't you get smart with me, young lady, I'll do what these men
should
have done with you. Where is that young pup I sent after you? He was supposed to
protect
you.”