Cactus Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) (21 page)

      
Lee and Weevils had both made it clear to him what they thought of his cavalier treatment of the innocent girl he might have left carrying his baby. He was not at all certain what he would do if she was pregnant, but he would at least be obligated to support the child. Dreading the need, he knew he had to ask. Looking straight into her luminous green eyes, Jim saw obvious embarrassment and confusion there.

      
Why was he reminding her of their night together? It obviously meant nothing to him, so why dredge up humiliating memories just to taunt her? She tried to break free of his imprisoning grasp. “If you want to celebrate the anniversary of my loss of innocence, you can do it alone!” she whispered furiously.

      
“I want to know if you're pregnant, you dense little fool,” he hissed hastily, holding onto her wriggling, silk-clad body. “You were raised on a farm. Surely, you can't be that naive.” One look at her stricken face convinced him that she could be.

      
Oh, Lordy, she'd never thought of that unlikely possibility! She stood very still now, frozen in horror, her mind gone blank.

      
Not daring to breathe, Jim asked in a quiet and deadly voice, “Have your courses come in the past month?”

      
She felt certain her face was as red as her dress when the realization dawned on her. How utterly stupid! He must think her a complete moron now as well as the hoyden he'd always believed her to be. “Yes. Mr. Slade. You can wipe that stricken look of terror from your face,” she spat icily. “Not that I'd marry you even if I were with child.”

      
Just as she broke free, he whispered tauntingly, “As I said once before, don't flatter yourself. I only intended to take care of my responsibilities toward the child. That didn't include an offer of marriage.” He stood there watching her stalk toward the side door of the ballroom, head held high with no backward glance.
Why did you say that, dammit! You know you'd have married her if she were carrying your child
. An inner voice confronted him with the truth he was loath to face.

      
What was it that always made the two of them incite one another to do and say such rash, cruel things? Slade swore to himself and walked over to the table where servants were handing out generous glasses of whiskey to the gentlemen. He needed one.

      
Charlee could hear Paul Bainbridge's voice calling to her as she fairly ran out the side door, narrowly avoiding a collision with several dancers in the process. Once the blessedly cool night breeze hit her flaming cheeks, she took some calming deep breaths and forced down the tears.
Please don't let me humiliate myself by crying,
she pleaded silently to no one in particular. The sour taste of bile was still lingering in her mouth when Paul finally found her sitting on a garden bench, but at least her face bore no telltale evidence of tearstains.

      
“I brought you some lemonade, Charlee.”

      
Paul was built solidly as a tree trunk, with crisply curling brown hair and wide brown eyes. Many of the girls in town fancied him, since he was attractive and his father owned the largest general store in San Antonio. Charlee had accepted his invitation to the dance more out of curiosity than anything else. He was one of the few bachelors in town who had not courted her yet. Now, after one brief evening, she decided the other girls could fight over him. He was boring and tended to put his hands in places where she didn't want them.

      
Smiling thinly, she accepted the glass and said, “Thank you, Paul. The fresh air out here is wonderful tonight.”

      
“I think the climate's so healthy in Texas a body plumb has to go somewhere else to die.” His eyes were fixed on her cleavage as he spoke.

      
She considered the joke about renting out Texas and living in hell, then decided against sharing it. “Well, a few folks have died, I think, Paul, even here in Texas,” she said gently.

      
“I don't want to talk about dyin', pretty lady. No siree. You and I have a whole lot of livin' to do,” he rasped, while one hand took the empty glass from her hand and deposited it carelessly on the ground. Then, he reached for her shoulder and her waist, pulling her to him before she could protest.

      
For a minute, Charlee let him kiss her, just to see what it felt like. Billy Wilcox's kisses were boyish and sloppy, as were Sam Knox's. She was becoming a connoisseur of technique, she decided, grudgingly admitting that none of the callow youths in town measured up to Jim Slade. Bainbridge certainly didn't—ugh! She tried to break free; but her struggling only seemed to inflame him more, unlike the other boys who had quickly and apologetically desisted.

      
“Why so prim 'n cold, Charlee? I seen you dancin' with Jim Slade like he was a prince or somethin'. What's he got that I ain't? My family's rich as the Slades, 'n we ain't got no greaser blood in our veins neither. You oughta be glad to be shut of him, honey.”

      
With that he renewed his assault. Charlee gasped and then went limp against Bainbridge's chest. When he loosened his hold on her in surprise, she reared back in his arms and gave him a sound smack across his square, stolid face. Before he could retaliate or she could continue her counterattack, a cool, gravelly voice interrupted.

      
“I think the lady wants shut of you, Paul. And this is one greaser who'll damn well see to it you honor her wish.
Comprende?
” Slade emerged from the shadows. He presented a decidedly menacing figure silhouetted in the moonlight. He had left by the front door, thinking to avoid the unsettling chit, then had heard the sounds of their struggle carried on the still night air. He'd consumed just enough whiskey to be spoiling for a fight, and Bainbridge's slurs were a perfect opening.

      
Charlee sprang free of Paul now that he was distracted by Jim. Brushing her skirts and rubbing her hand across her mouth, she whirled on her rescuer in humiliated fury, killing mad at men in general. “I could have handled this without your help. All you want, both of you”—she shot her fiery glance back at Bainbridge, who was standing with fists clenched now—“is to have a fight. Neither of you gives a tinker's damn about me!”

      
“Stay out of my way, Charlee. I brung you, 'n I'll take you home, but first I'm gonna fix one meddlin' half-breed.”

      
Bainbridge easily outweighed Slade even though he was several inches shorter. His chest and torso were massive, and he had a reputation in town as a brawler. But Slade was lightning fast, a veteran of dozens of Indian fights, a survivor of deadly combat in war. His reach was longer than Paul's, his aim surer, and his wits cooler. After half a dozen roundhouse swings that stirred the breeze but failed even to ruffle Slade's cravat, Bainbridge charged in like an enraged longhorn.

      
Slade's face split in a slash of white teeth as he grinned like a wolf. It was all over so quickly Charlee could scarcely see what happened. One minute, Paul was ramming his body toward Jim; the next, he was sprawled on the patio, rather like the sack of spilled flour in her kitchen last week. Slade had punched him once in the solar plexus and chopped the back of his neck wickedly as he went down. Bainbridge lay groaning.

      
“Well, are you satisfied? He's scarcely more than a boy. You could’ve broken his neck.” She seethed.

      
“A. skull that thick has to be carried on a neck that can withstand a lot more punishment than I gave it. He outweighs me by a good thirty pounds, for Christ's sake! Anyway, in case you've forgotten, he was getting rather familiar with you. Or was I mistaken? Did you really enjoy his classy seduction? Just playing coy, Charlee?” Each accusation was laced with sarcasm as his golden cougar's eyes raked her disheveled form.

      
“You rotten, arrogant bastard! Ooh!—I promised Deborah I'd quit swearing, and I haven't slipped once in the past month—not until I encountered you! Now just why do you think that is,
Don
Diego?” She pulled herself up to her full height, now glad of the extra inches the high-heeled slippers added. Glaring murderously at him, she stormed, “Don't use me as an excuse for any more of your drunken brawls, you abominable—”

      
Her words were cut short as Slade grabbed her and pulled her to his long, hard body without warning. Gold eyes dueled with green eyes as his lips descended slowly, inevitably down to fuse with hers.

      
The intensity of the kiss stole the breath from both of them, then sent them plunging into a hot, panting frenzy as they pillaged each other's mouths. He growled deeply and lifted her off the ground, molding her tightly to him. As she melted into him she ran one slim little hand up to tangle in his thick, gold mane of hair, pulling him down to kiss her all the more savagely. Their hips pressed intimately, instinctively together.

      
Charlee could feel his arousal even through her layers of skirts. Blindly, heedless of their surroundings, she teased him and rubbed her lower body against his, answering from some deep, unsatiated wellspring of need. Oh, she wanted this, wanted him, wanted something so desperately, something only he could give her. She could feel Slade tremble as he reached down to pick her up, scooping her tiny body into his arms effortlessly without breaking the fiery seal of the kiss.

      
What in hell was he doing? What had she done to bewitch him? Jim could feel her abandoned response, as well as his own need to show her what she craved, to give her what he had not that first time. He took a few long, uneven strides, and then Bainbridge, reviving, gave a long, plaintive bleat of pain and began to struggle into a sitting position. Slade cursed as he nearly fell over the youth.

      
Quickly, he set Charlee down and tried to collect himself, all the while eyeing Bainbridge, half with anger, half with gratitude for preventing a rash act, the consequences of which he preferred not to even imagine.

      
Charlee stood on wobbly legs, fighting waves of dizziness and breathlessness, yet too proud and humiliated to reach out to Jim for support. She could see that he, too, was shaken and laboring for breath. At least there was that consolation. Whatever had possessed her to react so instantaneously and obviously to his rough advance? She called herself every name she could think of, foolish and foul. How would she ever live this down? If it hadn't been for poor, stupid Paul, she'd have let Slade drag her into the bushes and ravish her. Who was she kidding? She'd have ravished him!

      
Suddenly, she felt Jim's strong fingers on her elbow, propelling her toward the front of the yard. “Polvo is tied out front. I'll take you home.”

      
“No, I won't go anywhere with you,” she hissed, wrenching free with a mulish set to her jaw.

      
He stood still then, dropping his hand and looking her up and down in contempt. “And exactly what do you plan to do? Let your gallant escort back there waltz you home? Or perhaps go back into the Pearsons' house with your hair half unpinned and your lips swollen from kisses. You give yourself away, lady.” He reached out and lightly touched the pink flush across her collarbone and the tops of her breasts. His fingertips affected her like a burning brand, and she gasped, suddenly aware that he was right. She was disheveled and disoriented. He had marked her, and her reputation would be ruined if she appeared inside in this condition.

      
Hating him for his knowing smirk, and aware that he was as glad as she that Bainbridge had forestalled their folly, she grudgingly said, “I'll go back to Deborah's with you.”

      
Slade swung effortlessly onto the big buckskin and then bent down to pull her up in front of him. He kept an arm around her to hold her steady on the trotting horse. Her stiff, unyielding posture told him that she was willing him not to touch her. He could see her profile in the moonlight, her little chin stuck out mutinously as she forced down the tears welling under her thick lashes.

      
She had pride, he would grant that, as well as startlingly unexpected grace and beauty, he added grudgingly. That must be what led him to that fit of furious temper, seizing her and beginning the savage kiss that had nearly undone them both. What had come over him?

      
They rode in silence down the wide, tree-lined streets, deserted at this late hour in the sedate residential neighborhood. They finally came to Kensington's boardinghouse and Slade reined in Polvo. He could feel Charlee begin to wriggle down, eager to escape his presence. A flash of perverse anger coursed through him. A few minutes ago, she would have let him take her right there on the ground in Pearsons' garden. Now, she acted as if he were a leper. As quickly as it came, the anger fled. He had acted abominably, just as she had said, certainly aiding and abetting Bainbridge in spoiling her gala evening. He sighed, gently but firmly holding onto her until he could dismount. Then, he helped her down so as not to tear the beautiful dress she wore.

      
Charlee froze in terror when she felt his hands on her, keeping her from fleeing as she so devoutly wished to do. She had controlled her tears and her temper so far, but she could not stand to have him touch her much longer without breaking down completely. When he reached up and lifted her from Polvo, she shivered as her breasts brushed across his shoulder. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her face.
Coward,
she cursed herself, yet she was afraid to look into his face. She turned toward the front of the house the instant he released her, but then his voice stopped her retreat.

      
“We have to talk, Charlee.” It was that same low gravel voice she had heard in her dreams so many nights, and it still had a hypnotic effect on her. Her step slowed, but she did not turn. Then, his hand reached out and caught her wrist with surprising gentleness. “Please wait.” Perhaps it was the firm warmth of his big hand over her tiny wrist, perhaps the plea in his voice that made her turn and face him.