Cherished (30 page)

Cole Rawdon gripped her arms suddenly, his
eyes glinting like blue sparks in the moonstruck darkness. “Yes, I
killed Slocum, Juliana. I’ve killed many men, so many I don’t even
know the number. Do you despise me for that? I don’t blame you.
You’re a woman, you’re from the East, what do you know of life out
West? From what you’ve seen so far, I would think you might
understand. But, no. I can see by your face you don’t. You’re
scared of me. Maybe you should be. Maybe I am no better than an
animal.”

“No!” Juliana clutched his arm as he started
to turn away. “I do understand ... in a way. I hate guns and I hate
killing ... but I see the need. You ... are not an animal. You are
not like Knife Jackson or Cash Hogan or those others. Don’t you
think I can see that, Cole? Don’t you think I know what kind of man
you are?”

Furious tears sparkled suddenly on her
lashes. “You think I’m a complete fool, don’t you? That I can’t
understand anything about you or this wild country or the men who
inhabit it.”

For a moment he just stared at her, seeing
her trembling lips, her lashes moist with tears, her eyes brilliant
in the pearly gleam of the moon. And then he started to laugh, a
husky, desperate laugh. “Oh, God. I think that you, Juliana, are
the damnedest woman I ever met—and if you don’t stop looking at me
like that, I can’t answer for the consequences.”

“Consequences?”

The wind caught her hair, sending it dancing
like a golden halo about her head. Cole captured it in his fingers,
crushed the fine, velvet-soft curls in his hand.

“I warned you,” he managed to say in a deep,
breathless tone as she continued to gaze at him with the most
hypnotizing luminosity in those beautiful shining eyes. “Back off,
Juliana, before it’s too late or—”

For answer she stepped closer and threw her
arms around his neck.

“Or what?”

Her voice was a purely feminine invitation.
Soft, playful, the voice of an irresistible minx. Cole felt his
control slipping dangerously.

Juliana smiled, feeling as though she was on
the verge of a sweetly perilous adventure. The most delicious
pleasure surged through her at the surprise in his face, followed
immediately by a darkening of those keen, vivid blue eyes. There
was no mistaking the passion in his voice when next he spoke.

“I do believe you’re calling my bluff, Miss
Montgomery ...”

“Never threaten—or promise—a woman something
you’re not prepared to follow through, Mr. Rawdon,” she began in a
softly lecturing tone, but her words were cut off by powerful arms
imprisoning her with a suddenness that snatched her breath away,
and in the same instant, his mouth clamped down on hers with a
sublime impact that left her shaking.

He kissed her hard. It was a fierce, powerful
kiss. He didn’t need her, damn it, he didn’t need anyone, but he
sure as hell felt like he did. A savage desire pounded through him
as her honeyed mouth kissed him back with startling abandon. It
wasn’t fair, Cole thought desperately, what she’d been doing to him
since the first moment they met, dogging his thoughts, distracting
him, making him want her. He’d make her want him just as badly,
even if it was just for tonight. She’d asked for it, she’d
practically dared him. What kind of a wild woman was she, this
fragile easterner who burned like a candle flame in his arms,
kissing him bold as any saloon girl, her mouth open, her body
squirming against his. Tenderness and wonder warred within him.
Pressing his mouth over her lips, his hands moving up and down her
body, rough and heedless and demanding, he drank in the scent and
heat and feel of her. His mind reeled, he knew only driving need
and a deeper emotion, something tangled and confused, but strong as
whiskey, and he swept her off her feet, into his arms, and carried
her into the cabin with single-minded purpose.

Cole carried her to the feather bed, set her
down, and leaned over her, his hands sliding inside that damned
shirt....

Juliana lost herself in his eyes, in his
arms. Passion rained over her like a summer storm, growing more
insistent, pounding, pounding, until she was drenched in the
downpour, and the wetness was everywhere, even between her thighs.
She opened her body to him like a flower and begged him to taste
the pollen. Legs flung about his legs, thighs pressed together,
both of them naked now, she scraped her hands over the muscular
power of him, caressing that broad powerful back, touching him
everywhere, gasping at the strength and size and beauty of him. She
felt driven by wonder and a rapturous curiosity that made her
forget girlish modesty. Tenderness radiated from him, in the way he
held her, touched her, even when his mouth and hands seemed rough
and hungry. She was not afraid. She was caught up in a tide of
eagerness that bore her along a turbulent, sizzling river,
uncontrollable, unstoppable, plummeting deeper and deeper into the
raging waters. Her nipples were hard and taut beneath his probing
fingers, she strained to meet him, every part of him, her breath
coming in long, heated gasps, and when he entered her, she gave a
scream at the sudden flash of pain, then felt herself soothed by a
kiss as tender as a feather against her lips.

“Juliana. You’re so beautiful, oh, angel, so
damned beautiful ...”

He was the beautiful one, but she had no
breath to tell him so. He was moving inside her now, thrusting, and
the sensations that drove through her melted her tongue and made
her want to burst. She was going to burst, to burst into flame,
yes, any moment now—and the shudders of delight that gripped her
carried her to a plateau higher than any mountain she’d ever seen,
hotter than any sun that ever shone. Floating, floating on a cloud
of fire, so vibrantly alive, she rocked and tossed with him in the
cabin bed until the peak of bliss left her soaring, shuddering, and
then she was floating downward, feeling as still and whole and
perfect as a dove who has completed a graceful, perfect flight.

She lay naked in his arms, dazed and dreamy,
her temples damp, her skin glowing. In the golden warmth of the
kerosene lamp, she saw the black curling hair of his chest, felt
the bulge of muscles beneath her cheek. How could a man be so
fierce and strong, and at the same time so loving and gentle, he
melted your heart? She didn’t know, she only knew that she was
happy. For the first time in so many years, she was happy.

Cole lay with eyes closed, breathing in the
scent of her. She was incredible. Beautiful, spirited, and so
amazingly gentle. She had given of herself with such abandon it
stunned him, and she felt so exquisitely right in his arms it
terrified him. He never wanted to let her go, and yet he feared
that if he moved or spoke, she would vanish like a puff of smoke,
and he would never see her or hold her again.

“My Aunt Katharine is a very stupid woman,”
she whispered suddenly, drawing him from his reverie.

“What made you think of
her
?”

His bewildered expression elicited a
giggle.

She pressed a teasing kiss into his neck,
feeling strangely comfortable, at peace, as if she’d known him all
her life. “The night before I ran away from Twin Oaks, Aunt
Katharine told me that I would have to perform my wifely duties
after I wed John Breen, and she described to me—in a very
unappealing way, and with a great deal of embarrassment—what I had
to look forward to, or rather, not look forward to, when we began
our honeymoon.”

“Did she now?”

“Yes, and she did not make any part of it
sound the least bit enjoyable.”

Cole’s muscles tensed at the thought of
Juliana in bed with another man. His arms tightened protectively
around her. “But this was?” he asked with a slow grin. Damn, she
was soft. Her body was all sensuous curves and silken flesh,
arousing him with every breath she took, every tiny movement she
made against his own rock-solid frame.

She struggled free, laughing up at him,
batting her eyelashes in the adorable way that made his insides
fire up.

“Whatever gave you that idea, Mr. Rawdon?”
she teased, then giggled as he grabbed her around the waist and
drew her down on top of him once again.

“Certain clues,” Cole said purposefully, his
eyes gleaming into hers. His grin made her shiver all over with
heady anticipation. “Reckon I’ll have to show you what I mean.”

“Is that really necessary?” she cooed,
rubbing his calf with her foot.

“Absolutely necessary.”

They forgot they were exhausted. They forgot
they were sore, battered, hurt by more than fists and boots,
bruised by the emptiness of the past.

Each found what they sought in the other’s
arms. An hour after dawn, with peach light edging across the sky,
they slept at last, curled together in the narrow bed, cleansed of
sorrow and pain, spent but whole, like sailors who have found safe
harbor from the raging storm.

Cole woke several hours later, lying with
Juliana snug in the circle of his arms, pondering that everything
good he’d ever wanted or possessed in his life had been taken from
him, thinking with taut fear in his chest that she was the best
gift, the most prized treasure he had ever known.

* * *

Storm clouds gathered over Twin Oaks as John
Breen reread the telegram from Plattsville.

“Sheriff Lucius Dane,” he spat, tapping it
against his palm. “I reckon he’s hungry for the reward.”

“What’s that you say, darlin’?” Jet Reeves,
the newest dance-hall girl from the Lucky Dog Saloon, purred from
his bed.

Breen scowled at her, then folded the
telegram and flung it on the Louis XVI bureau. “Nothing. I guess
this weather has me talking to myself.”

“It’s that telegram that has you talking to
yourself, honeykins. Ever since Bart brought it up here you’ve been
... different. On edge, all upset about Lord knows what. I guess
it’s up to me to think of some way to relax you.”

Relax? That was the last thing on Breen’s
mind. He felt fired up in a way he hadn’t in months—not since
Juliana Montgomery first vanished from his life. Unbelievable that
in all that time no one had found her. None of the bounty hunters
had turned up with her in tow, none of his men had uncovered a
trace of where she’d gone after she’d sold that mare in Amber
Falls. It was as if the woman had disappeared into thin air—until
today. Until that telegram arrived.

Well, Sheriff Lucius Dane—whoever the hell
he
was—would have his reward, if this tip proved valid.
And if it led him at last to that gorgeous little bitch’s capture.
That snotty little golden-haired debutante who’d turned up her nose
at him right from the start. No one turned up her nose at John
Breen—no one had dared in the past twelve years.

It rankled deep within that he’d been bested
by a woman—but, of course, he hadn’t. He’d only been delayed by
her. He’d have Juliana Montgomery back, he vowed to himself as Jet
held out her arms to him. He’d have her in his bed, in his complete
control, on his own terms, and before the month was out.

He was leaving for Plattsville himself in the
morning, storm or no storm.

As if to challenge him, a blast of thunder
shook the sky, and heavy splatters of rain smashed down against the
leaded windowpanes.

“Sweetie pie, come to bed.” Jet’s black hair,
from which she took her name, swirled over her shoulders and
partially hid her large, drooping breasts. “I know how to keep you
safe and warm,” she promised with a sidelong smile.

“Get out of here, Jet.” Breen had no patience
with her. Just seeing Juliana Montgomery’s name in that telegram
—after having had no sign of her for months—had him wrapped up in
her all over again. She was like a fever in his blood. “I’ve got
thinking to do,” he dismissed the dark-eyed girl curtly. Her
perfume, as gaudy and overpowering as the dresses she wore in the
Lucky Dog, was clogging his nostrils, making him want to retch.
“And I need to pack. I’m going on a trip tomorrow.”

“But honeykins, it’s so early—not even eight
o’clock—and it’s starting to pour. You can’t send me all the way
back to town in this weather.”

Breen reached her in three strides. The back
of his hand caught her full across the face. She fell sideways
across the bed with a scream.

“Don’t tell me what I cannot do, you two-bit
slut.” His shout rang through the house like a steel gong. “I said
get out and I mean it. Now. And if I call you back in an hour,
you’ll come. You’ll come on foot, if I tell you to—you hear
me?”

She started sniveling, her cheek blotchy
where he’d struck her, the vivid fear stark in her narrow, painted
face. Breen seized her by the arm and literally threw her out the
bedroom door, then hurled her clothes after her.

Seething impatience pumped through him. He’d
had his fill of Jet and her ilk. What he wanted was that eastern
vixen with her snooty airs and emerald eyes so deep you could drown
in them. He longed to see on Juliana Montgomery’s face that same
fear Jet had shown. He longed to have her in his bed, doing what
he
told her to do.

And he would have her there, right where he
wanted her. Unless this fool sheriff Lucius Dane was drunk or
lying, he’d have his hands on her very soon.

It was a vision out of a dream, Juliana
thought as she lay in the long grass of the valley beside Cole,
watching as the wild white stallion grazed along the opposite
stream bank with his herd of mares. “He’s magnificent,” she
breathed, unable to remove her gaze from the proud figure of the
snowy mustang, ghostly in the morning light. Beyond him was Eagle
Mesa, and beyond that a series of rocky outcroppings dipping among
aspen and sage, but along the streambed, junipers and
piñón
pines flourished, and the
horses watered and grazed peacefully, momentarily vulnerable, in
the open spaces beneath the tranquil opal sky.