Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (29 page)

Oh, God! Amy thought. She loved him so much. She tilted her head and rested it against his shoulder. After the tension of the day, it was heaven. Her mind fluttered to a stop when he pressed his cheek firmly to hers. Rain, her beloved, was holding her. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the joy of leaning against his chest, his arms around her, her hands on his wrists, feeling the silky hair that covered them. Mindlessly, she lifted her hand to caress his other cheek. It was warm and rough and his whiskers scraped gently against her palm. Her fingers moved to his ear and fondled the nick in his earlobe. It occurred to her that the nick had been there for a long time, and she hadn’t known about it until he came back to Quill’s Station.

Rain moved his head and his lips slid across her cheek in search of hers with an impatient urgency. She turned her head and met them with equal insistence. His lips were gentle at first, then hardened, and her own parted under them, admitting him, submitting. She touched the tip of her tongue delicately against his mouth and felt him tremble. The strength and taste of him filled her senses. Locked in his embrace, glowing waves of pleasure spread like wildfire throughout her body. She was not even aware of the horse moving beneath them or the fact that they were in plain sight of the others at the wagon. Nothing existed for her except his warm, demanding lips and the powerful beat of his heart against her shoulder. Rain lifted his head. She could feel his eyes on her face. She quivered at the singing tension between them.

“Open your eyes and look at me.” The command was made in a noncommittal voice.

Amy’s heart beat wildly and a shudder rippled under her skin. She raised gold-tipped lashes and immediately became lost in the dark, narrowed pools of his eyes. For an endless moment their eyes held, their faces so close his breath was warm on her wet lips. She felt the throbbing beat of her pulses, high in her throat, fluttering to her very ears, as she watched his firm lips form words.

“You’re
my
woman.” He snarled the words bitingly. His eyes held a cold, austere light.

“Yes. Oh, yes.”

“You’ll be my wife from here on, and when we get to Belle Point you’ll be my wife in name.”

“It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

“You’ll sleep in my blankets tonight and every night.” He turned his chin slightly, his eyes never leaving hers, his face stern and angry. His arm tightened as if he expected her to pull away.

“Are you still angry about Tally?” She knew he was and didn’t know why she asked. He ignored her question.

“We’re a pair. We’re mated for life.” It was a simple, positive statement.

“I’m not sorry about . . . Tally.”

Rain swore. “Goddamn it, I’m not talking about
him!”

“I understand why he wanted to get away from Papa and his mother.” Amy’s voice quivered, but she was determined to say what she had to say.

Rain swore under his breath. “He wants you for his woman.”

“I feel sorry for him,” she said softly. “I’ll never be
his
woman.”

“That’s right. You won’t. You’ll never be any man’s woman but mine.”

“I’ve been yours for a long, long time.”

“The Frenchman wanted you.” He shook his head angrily and frowned deeply. “I’d not be surprised if that bastard showed up too.”

“You’re mistaken—”

“I mean what I said about my blankets. You’ll make a place for us with my blankets and yours.”

“All right.”

He turned the horse into the shadowed woods and pulled him to a stop. Amy’s hand went to his cheek. He looked at her for a long moment, then folded her in his arms, gently now, but securely. His heart was pounding, and that surprised her, because he seemed so confident. He jerked at the sash around her waist. When it came loose, his hand slid up under her shirt and his fingers gripped her firm, bare breast. He turned his head and covered her lips with his. His lips were not gentle, they were hard, forcing her mouth open. His tongue flicked hers as if he had to show his possession by invading her. His kisses and his hand on her nipple sent hot fires shimmering along her inner thighs and a wetness to her woman’s cove.

He shifted his weight in the saddle and she felt the hard knot of his aroused masculinity against her hip. She drew back slightly.

“Don’t let it scare you.” His voice was a husky whisper. “I’m not going to throw you to the ground and have my way with you.”

“I’m not scared.” Then, in a hesitant whisper she said, “I’d not be mad if you did.”

He pushed her face into the curve of his neck. “Oh, Amy, sweet woman. I get this way just looking at you.” His lips were pressed to her cheek and his husky voice came to her through a cloud of unreality.

“I’m glad.” It was unreal to her that she would be with him like this, talking about the hard object pressed to the side of her hip. Suddenly and unexpectedly, laughter burst from her lips. Her hands moved up to his cheeks, scraping across the growth of whiskers and into the thick, dark hair at his temples. Her fingers pulled.

“Ouch! What’s that for?” His magnificent dark eyes were smiling.

“That’s just a sample of what you’ll get if I see you looking at Eleanor and . . . getting this way.”

Unembarrassed and uninhibited, she eased her mouth up to his. Her lips parted softly as they touched his chiseled mouth. She felt the hand on her hip press her against his hard, elongated erection. His mouth opened against hers, yet he made no attempt to control the kiss although she sensed his growing hunger. It was hotly exciting and so maddeningly good to have her way with him that it goaded her to kiss him with a renewed, fiery hunger. Her tongue darted through his parted lips to taste and she rode the crest of the wildest, sweetest abandonment she had ever known. The need for air forced her to turn her face away and press her lips and nose against his cheek.

“Whoa!” His voice was a ragged breath in her ear. “I’m going to have to dunk myself in the river before I’ll be decent enough to show myself to Eleanor and Mrs. Badker.”

“Ah . . . poor Rain.” Amy burrowed her hand down between them to feel the rock-hard object of his discomfort. When he grabbed her wrist and snatched her hand away, she laughed happily.

“Stop that, you little imp!” He spoke sternly, but there was a painfully savage grin on his face.

“I love you,” she said earnestly, placing the tip of her nose against his. “I love you. I’m going to tell you that every day of my life.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then tilted his face and kissed her mouth. It was a soft, lingering kiss. When he lifted his lips his face was so close to hers they were breathing the same air, so close she could not look into his eyes.

“You’ve got years of making up to do. I’m going to see that you do it.”

Fifteen

Hammond Perry, hands clasped behind him, rocked back and forth on the elevated heels of his shoes. He stood in the corner of his office, as far as possible from the nervous, fidgeting group of men gathered just inside the doorway. Hammond never stood close to anyone taller than he was if he could help it. He hated looking up at a man and giving orders. He hated more to have his plans thwarted by a bunch of ignorant louts. He silently chewed the cigar in his mouth and looked at the men with small, sharp eyes, letting the tension build. Finally, he took the cigar from his mouth and held it between his ringed fingers.

“I’m thinking,” he said slowly, “that all you’ve got between your ears is shit.”

Bull stepped away from the wall. “It ain’t like ya think it was, Mr. Perry. We was agoin’ to stop ’em from takin’ Red’s boat but somebody warned ’em.”

“‘Somebody warned ’em,’” Hammond mimicked. “Ten of you couldn’t pull a sick whore off a piss pot, much less get a woman away from two men and a girl.”

“It was like this—”

“Shut up!” Hammond roared. “You’ll be lucky if I don’t have every inch of skin flogged off your back!”

“Now see here—”

“You see here. You not only failed to get the woman, you took one of my boats out and lost it!” By the time Hammond reached the end of the sentence he was shouting. His voice was loud for a small man. He knew how to use it to intimidate, too. He did that now. “I thought you were the most man around here, Bull. Seems like I heard you bragging you could whip a bear with a willow switch. Hell! You let a Scot and a woman take Miss Woodbury away from you.”

“How’d I know she was the one you wanted? ’Sides—” Bull’s mind was so sluggish it took a while for what Hammond said to find root. “Woman?”

“The
boy
in buckskins was Amy Deverell from Quill’s Station up on the Wabash.”

“Woman?” Bull repeated dully. “Are ya sure?”

“Are you calling me a liar?” Hammond shouted.

“No, but I don’t know no woman like—that.”

“All the women
you
know are those sluts at the tavern.”

“They ain’t so bad!”

“I don’t need your sass, either. The boat you sank carried eight ton. You’ll work off the cost or I’ll have you towed behind a keelboat to New Orleans and back until all that’s left of you is a hunk of raw meat.”

“We didn’t sink it,” Bull whined. “It was Tallman with them stinkin’ fire arrows.” The rest of the men bobbed their heads in agreement but were too intimidated by Hammond to speak up.

“All you had to do was kill him,” Hammond said softly, smiling a most unpleasant smile.

“If’n ya knowed Tallman ya’d know it ain’t easy,” Bull grumbled. “If’n I’d knowed ya wanted a woman, I’d a got ya one. All kinds of ’em come through all the time.”

“You stupid idiot!” Hammond’s anger blossomed into rage. “I don’t want
any
woman. I want
that
woman.”

“Why? She don’t look strong enuff ta stand up ta a good night a screwin’, if’n ya ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you! Get the hell out of here! The lot of you make me want to puke. Go on! Get down to the docks and get to work. Now!”

Hammond waved them out the door and then stood at the window and watched them amble toward the quay. They stopped on the corner and gathered around Bull. He seemed to be trying to explain something to them.

“Bah!” Hammond snorted. He turned from the window and began pacing back and forth, his heels pounding on the floorboards. The wheels of his mind were turning, grinding out plans, discarding them, grinding out more. Five minutes passed, then ten before he came to a decision. He flung open a door to a room adjoining his office. The thin, gray-haired man bending over the ledger looked up. “Get that Frenchman, Efant, and bring him here.”

After the man scurried away, Hammond sat down at his desk, leaned back in his chair, and propped his feet up on the corner of the desk. He tried to recall every scrap of information he had ever heard about Antoine Efant.

It was said the Frenchman, the second son of a wealthy New Orleans family, loved danger, adventure and beautiful women. It was also said he had been a spy for the British during the war, an assassin for a foreign government, and a scout for Zeb Pike. It was rumored that Efant was the leader of a raiding party that stole furs from the warehouses of both Lisa Manuel and the Chouteau family and sold them to the Hudson Bay Company.

Hammond lit another cigar and considered all these things that favored his hiring Efant to take Will Bradford’s bride away from Rain Tallman. There was one more. The Frenchman had a weakness. He was honorable! Hammond chuckled. Efant considered a man’s word his bond and had been known to kill a man for breaking it.

It was time, Hammond thought, that he take his place in the social life that was flourishing across the river in Saint Genevieve. He would do it with Miss Eleanor Woodbury on his arm. There were several methods he could use to make sure she was an obedient wife, pleasant in the company of others, docile in the privacy of their home. First he would take her himself, establish his possession of her. Ah, sweet revenge, he thought with a sigh. Then, if the woman proved to be troublesome, there were several ways he could tame her. One way would be to threaten to send her to a tavern like the Boar’s Nest or to the streets in New Orleans. Ah, yes, she would stay with him all right, and she would be grateful for the chance to have a roof over her head and food for her belly.

Smiling around the cigar he held in his teeth, Hammond clasped his hands over his chest and began thinking of the different stories he could tell Efant to make him believe he had an
honorable
right to Miss Woodbury.

*   *   *

Antoine Efant was not a big man. He was of average height, but broad shoulders and legs like tree trunks made him appear larger than he was. His usual merry disposition was also deceiving. He had a quick temper and a quicker hand with a knife or gun. The mop of curly hair that hugged his head and the shiny black beard on his face made him appear young and carefree, but in truth he was a man nearing thirty years, the last ten having been spent doing exactly what he wanted.

He left Hammond’s office with a sack of coins hanging on his belt. It was a considerable amount of money. But, Antoine mused as he stepped on the boardwalk, Hammond Perry was the type of man who did not value a person if he came cheap. Antoine detested Perry, but the man had been dealt an injustice. Even a weasel like Perry was entitled to claim what had been given to him.

Antoine headed for the tavern where Perry’s man had found him an hour before. The group around Bull stopped talking when Antoine walked by. The town was buzzing with the news that Bull and his cohorts had been sent out to stop Red Cavanaugh’s boat from crossing the river and that Perry’s boat had been set afire and sunk. Eight men had come ashore, one with a bullet wound in his leg. Two others hadn’t been heard from, but no one seemed too concerned about them. Bull was hatching a plan to save his face, Antoine thought wryly. He would have to do something to regain his title of town bully, or else his friends would turn against him and he would be forced to leave town.

What Bull did or did not do was of no concern to Antoine. He never worked with more than two men. For this job he thought he would need only one—Hull Dexter. There was one thing about Hull he liked: the man followed orders without asking questions. One thing about him he did not like was the rumor that Hull had been in charge of a train of wagons about eight years earlier and had left the women and children to be massacred by river pirates. If Antoine ever found that to be true, he would shoot the bastard himself, not because of the women, but because of the children.