Harlot at the Homestead (2 page)

She hadn’t died. Hell, if this wasn’t the opposite of an afterclap.

But images of the broken woman he’d imagined after her kidnapping resurfaced like flotsam on the sea, so he quickly snuffed his burgeoning hopes. He’d grieved for this woman once and no matter how she was here, how she’d survived, it would make no difference to him.

He had no intention of grieving for the titian-haired Catherine Montgomery a second time.

Catherine shook all over. Though this had been her intention all along, she couldn’t believe that she was actually here, looking at Kenan once more. In the two years she’d been away, he’d matured and grown leaner. Yet he was even more desirable than she could remember. His hair was still thick and black, though there was a dusting of white at his temples as if age had tried to claim him but had lost the battle against youth. His jaw was still square, his mouth still full and his eyes…still so deep and dark. She had always been able to lose herself in his eyes.

But he looked shocked and furious and no wonder. He had probably just returned home after months on the
Texas to Montana trail, expecting to rest up before heading out again. Instead, he’d been surprised by her arrival. How did she expect him to feel?

What a mess.
She had never wanted it to turn out like this, never dreamt that it would. They’d had a good life mapped out, had been due to get wed and they had hoped to raise a family. It had been all she’d wanted, all he’d wanted. Their joy in each other had been so complete and intense that they’d neither wanted nor cared for anything else.

Even though she’d known that the life of a homesteader could be tough and harsh—especially for a woman—she’d still been happy to live that life, as long as it was with Kenan. The thought of their wedding had thrilled her and she’d even been excited about the
charivari
. Catherine had dreamt of how she’d keep their little farm in apple pie order and raise big strong boys to help Kenan out on the land and make him proud.

But after all that had happened, all the time that had passed, she doubted if there was any way to put it all right. Surely there was no way to ever recapture the innocence of their love. It would be like wading through quicksand—impossible and hopeless.

Catherine bit her lip. How awful to feel so estranged from the man she’d loved with all of her heart.

“We need to talk,” Kenan gestured toward the table. “Sit.”

Kenan lowered himself onto the bench at the rectangular pine table. He’d helped his pa make the long benches, but he wished they’d made them higher. At just over six feet tall, he had to sit with his knees almost pressing against his chest. He felt awkward and cumbersome, though he knew that his feelings had more to do with the new addition to his household than anything else.

He reached for his coffee and realized that he was shaking. Anger and grief boiled inside him and memories of the day he’d been told of Catherine’s demise flashed before his eyes. He saw himself riding over to her uncle’s homestead, jumping down from his horse, striding across the front porch, hovering his hand ready to knock…already aware that something was different, something was wrong. Usually, his arrival brought Catherine immediately to the door but this time she was nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly, her uncle had stood before him, eyes red, face blanched, a broken man.

“Kenan?” He was dragged back to the present.

“Huh?”

“Kenan?”

He jumped as the voice he’d believed he’d never hear again broke into his thoughts. She’d moved across the room like a spirit. For a moment his heated brain wondered if she was. Some folks believed that the spirits of the dead roamed the earth. Maybe she’d returned here to haunt him and she really was dead. The old familiar pain thudded though his skull like a tomahawk.

Catherine stood opposite him, hovering like a nervous bird beside the table.

“Sit down.”

He gazed at her hand with its petite fingers and lightly freckled skin, as she placed it on the table. That hand belonged to the woman he had adored. He had showered it with kisses, held it over his heart when he proposed. She had gripped him with passionate ferocity when she had sought to pleasure him in return for the sensual delights he relished offering her. He hardened beneath the table as images of her encircling his erection and caressing the length of him before taking him between her breasts, flooded his mind.

“Kenan, are you okay?”

He shrugged, not meeting her eyes, not looking at her face. He couldn’t. Instead, he drained the dregs of his coffee then stared into the bottom of the pewter cup, willing his cock to go down.

“Kenan?”

He tightened his hands around his drink.

“Kenan, please?”

The voice persisted, breaking into his consciousness, seeping into his soul like the warmth of the sun. It penetrated his tension, permeated his grief and reached down to his broken heart like a healing salve.

It carried him back
to the summer they’d shared three years ago when she’d agreed to marry him. It had been the
best summer of his life. He’d been helping her uncle with some work around his farm when Catherine had arrived, fresh from
teaching college in the east. As her parents had both been taken by smallpox during her time at college, she’d had nowhere else to go than the home of her paternal uncle. She’d been delivered by wagon like an unwanted package one July morning. Kenan had watched her arrive. He’d been fascinated by her beauty in her green satin traveling attire, all wide eyes and fiery hair. His curiosity had been provoked and he had known at that moment, that she was the one for him, and that he’d do whatever it took to make her love him.

He slammed his cup on the table.

“What in the hell happened, Catherine?”

He glared at her.

“How are you here?” He gestured at her. “Alive?” His voice cracked on the final word.

He hung his head and ground his teeth. He would not submit to his grief and confusion. He was the man of the house, he had to be strong.

When he had reined in his emotions, he looked at her face. Her eyes glistened with tears like green pools freshly filled in a rainstorm.

“I’m so sorry, Kenan. I never wanted to hurt you.”

He glanced around the room. Rosie was darning socks at the fireside now, attempting to give them some time to talk.

“Hurt me?” He frowned at the understatement.

“Well, yes…” She wrung her hands together on the table top. “I know that I’ve hurt you.”

“You think that you hurt me, huh?” He sniffed. “Your uncle and aunt told me that you were dead, Catherine. Dead… Murdered by Indians, most likely the Sioux,
on your way back from purchasing material for your wedding gown.”

“For our wedding.”

“But they lied.”

“They did,” she whispered. “It was wrong of them but please don’t blame them…they had their reasons.”

Kenan fought the urge to tell her exactly what he would do when he got hold of her uncle, reasons or not.

“So are you gonna explain? Or keep me hanging around for another two years so I can really feel the ache in my heart start to drain away my will to live?”

She stretched a trembling hand across the table toward him, the movement causing her sleeve to ride up her arm. He shivered as her cold fingertips met his skin and he swallowed hard to suppress the emotion rising in his throat.

Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed hold of her wrist.

“What in God’s name is that?”

Chapter Two

Catherine tried to pull her arm away but Kenan’s grip was too powerful. She struggled for a moment but he held on and the movement hurt. So, she gave in and slumped against the table. The wood was unforgiving beneath her breasts and she had to spread her legs to maintain her balance. Though she knew that the timing was wrong, she felt the flame of arousal flickering inside. The heat of Kenan’s grip, the pressure against her hardening nipples and her open thighs, all combined to ignite her desire. She wished that she could clamber over the table top and cover his mouth with her own, push her tongue against his and run her hands through his thick, dark hair. It had been a long time since she’d felt such strong desire.

“What are these marks, Catherine?” He dragged her back to reality.

She tried to read his eyes—not so mad at her now but clearly confused.

She lifted her chin. “I burnt my arm on the stove.”

“On the stove, huh? What”—he held her fast in one hand and ran the forefinger of the other over the scars—“ten, maybe twelve times?”

Heat filled her cheeks and she looked down at the table.

“Let me see the other arm.”

She considered refusing but what would be the point?

He pushed up her sleeve and his touch made her jump as if a lightning bolt had struck her. Her heartbeat quickened and her body stirred like the creek bed when the first rains came. Kenan still roused her passion and though her mind screamed with fear at the idea of him discovering her secrets, her body responded to him, yearned for him, needed him. If only he’d gather her into his arms and press her against his chest, hold her close like he used to do.

“This one’s worse, Catherine.” He ran his finger over the red welts then gently released her, watching as she pulled her sleeves down. “What happened to you?” His tone was gentler now as if he sensed some of what she’d endured. But she couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell anyone. It was awful and she was ashamed.

“I was told that you were dead.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Why would they lie unless…they had something to hide?”

She squirmed on the bench. He wasn’t going to be fobbed off.

“Did someone hurt you?”

She bit her lip.

“Where did you go?”

Her stomach churned and she forced herself to meet his eyes.

“Catherine, if you’re embarrassed…and your aunt and uncle were too…then you must have done something wrong.” His words pierced her heart like an arrow.

He believed that she was to blame, just like her uncle had said he would.

“Did you run off with someone and your folks tried to hide their shame by telling me you was dead?”

The tears in her eyes brimmed over and trickled down her hot cheeks.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” he demanded. “You ran off with a man.”

She watched helplessly as his anger took him farther away from her.

“You’re nothing more than a harlot, Catherine Montgomery. You made me believe you loved me then you ran off with another man and your folks were so ashamed they had to make up some story about the Indians taking you.”

She shook her head, the tears running down her chin and dripping onto her chest.

“Well explain it to me then.” He stood, scraping the bench backwards as he did so.

“I can’t,” she choked out, hugging herself now as protection against his fury.

“I thought you were dead.” His eyes were wide and wild. A lock of his dark hair tumbled over his forehead and she fought the urge to jump up and smooth it back.

Rosie appeared at Catherine’s side and she rested her hands on the younger woman’s shoulders.

“Kenan!” Her voice bore the assurance of the woman of the house. “This won’t do any good. She’s exhausted. Can’t you see she’s been through an ordeal?”

“An ordeal of her own making.” He thumped the table with his fists. “I have grieved for you for two whole years, so smitten with you that I couldn’t even look at another woman properly, let alone think of taking one to wife. No one could hold a candle to ya. It hurt so bad that even when I was full as a tick, I couldn’t shake off your memory. And then you waltz back into my life, my home, my family…as if nothing ever happened.”

He stepped over the bench and glared at her, making her heart lurch.

“Please, Kenan…” she proffered her shaking hands toward him. “Please don’t be so mad at me.”

“I want nothing to do with you. Nothing.” He glared at her and when he spoke again his voice was dangerously low. “You can get yourself some rest for a few days but soon as you feel better, I want you out of here before anyone finds out. I’ll not have people saying that the Duggans are the type of family to tolerate a harlot at their homestead.”

Catherine watched, as powerless as a newborn foal, as he stormed off into the night, banging the door behind him. She sat still, frozen in time, listening carefully to the tearing of the seams at the edges of her composure. One by one, they unpicked until the grief came tumbling out and she hunched over her knees, surrendering to sobs that rendered her breathless. The guilt, the pain and the anguish came flooding out of her and she submitted to them all, no longer forced to suppress them.

Rosie rubbed her back and stroked her hair, then enveloped Catherine in her arms. The tender act brought more tears and Catherine cried until she was empty and her eyes were sore and swollen.

“He doesn’t mean it, Catherine. He’s just shocked to see you again is all. It’s an enormous shock for him…for every one of us.”

Catherine looked up and wiped her sleeve across her face.

“He’ll never forgive me, Rosie.”

Kenan’s sister reached out and smoothed the hair from Catherine’s face then took hold of her hands.

“Maybe not, Catherine, maybe not. Give him time and let him make up his own mind. But you’ll have to be honest with him. A man and woman can’t base a relationship on lies. You may never find the innocence of the love you had before but you may be able to salvage something. Even if it’s just friendship. But you must tell him what really happened.”

Catherine’s eyes filled up again and she struggled against the choking pain in her throat. Tell him what really happened? That could never be. He was convinced that she was a harlot, that she’d willingly betrayed him. And in a way she had.

Kenan strode into the black night, oblivious to the rain that pelted his body, soaking him instantly and causing his clothing to cling to his skin. He walked right out of the gate and onto the path that led to the surrounding land then he began circling the perimeter fence. He took long strides, his pace increasing his heartbeat and forcing him to breathe quickly.