Only My Love (29 page)

Swaying to the music, Michael wended her way around the tables to the stage. She pirouetted gracefully as she cleared the footlights, raising her arms above her head and turning slowly, elegantly, her back arched slightly and the line of her throat exposed. She turned once, then again, and again, then she was spinning across the stage, still in time to the music, still with the same beautiful symmetry of motion, but it was different somehow, as if she had given herself up to the music and moved because it compelled her to move.

Her feet seemed to make no sound on the platform as she danced. She had a cat-quickness, a lightness of expression that was all feline grace. Her arms and hands stretched out in a shapely arc, extending the soul of the music to her fingertips.

Ethan had had as much as he could tolerate. He stood up and headed for the staircase, determined to let Michael fend for herself when the music ended. She was so hellbent on proving how independent she was. Let her, he thought. He started to climb.

Michael stumbled briefly on her feet when she saw Ethan start up the stairs. She called to Lottie to change the tempo. Michael took up an imaginary partner and started to waltz, twirling about the stage in large elegant curves. At Michael's signal Lottie played faster and Michael abandoned the waltz and her invisible partner. Her steps became quicker, the sway and arch of her body more exaggerated, the dance more frantic. The dreamy quality of her form and movement was abandoned. Her expressive green eyes were sultry. Her hair whipped across her face as she turned and twisted in a frenzied rhythm.

Ethan was near the top of the stairs now. He didn't want to watch what she was doing on stage but he couldn't help himself. And as he watched he realized he couldn't abandon her to the crowd. It would be a miracle if she wasn't attacked right on the stage. Even as he thought it there was a surge toward the platform as the music ended. Michael made a grand curtsy, then dropped to the floor as if she had collapsed from the frantic energy of her dance.

"Dramatic," Ethan said under his breath. He reached for his gun and held it up over his head, coming down a few steps. "All right, fellas," he called. "She's had her fun. It's over." A few men near the foot of stairs heard him and stopped. Lottie glanced up from the piano and pounded out a few minor chords. Ethan punctuated the dying notes with a single shot from his Colt. There was complete quiet after that. Ethan slipped his gun back in the holster. "Come on, Michael. You can dance your way up here now." There was a low rumble of laughter from the patrons as they started to return to their seats.

Michael raised her head and fixed Ethan with a hard stare. She blinked. He seemed to fade in and out of focus.

"Kitty!" Ethan called. "Josie! See if you can't help her up. I don't think she's going to dance again this evening."

Kitty and Josie leaped quickly to the stage. Lottie started playing again and the other girls began serving drinks. Detra had watched the entire drama from behind the long bar. She cast a sidelong glance at Houston who was leaning against the bar across from her.

"You see what she is?" Dee asked.

Houston pushed away from the bar. "I see what she's becoming," he answered. He went to help Josie and Kitty.

Ethan was setting a fire in the stove when he heard footsteps approaching in the hallway. "Get her over to the bed," he said, shutting the stove's grated door. He stood up and turned. It was Houston who was carrying Michael, not Kitty and Josie. "Oh, it's you."

"It's me."

"Put her on the bed. I'll see to her from here."

Houston's black eyes were cold as they rested long and hard on Ethan. "You haven't seen too well to her since she's been here."

"That's odd coming from you. You made no secret in the beginning that you would have preferred her dead rather than company."

"That's before I knew her." He laid Michael on the bed. The covers had been turned back. He raised the sheet around her shoulders as she turned on her side and curled against one of the pillows. "You should take more care with her, Ethan. She'll be mine in a month."

"I saw you kiss her this morning."

"Then you know she pushed me away." He stepped back from the bed. "But she won't always do that. She doesn't know what to make of me." He smiled slowly. "I think I've intrigued her."

"I'm sure you have."

Houston went to the door. "Are you going to fight for her at all?" he asked.

"It depends."

"On what?"

"On whether she wants me to."

Houston thought about that as he stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

Ethan cast a disgusted look in Michael's direction then latched the door. "Why in God's name didn't you just stay in New York? Why aren't you raising babies instead of raising hell?" He didn't expect a reply and he didn't get one. After removing the bullets from his gun, he hung the belt on the hook by the door and stripped down to his drawers to get ready for bed. He took fresh linens and blankets from the wardrobe, laid them out on the floor as he'd done every night except the last one, and tossed down a pillow from the bed.

That's when he deviated from routine. Sliding one arm beneath Michael's shoulders and the other under her knees, he lifted her off the mattress and eased her onto the floor. She barely stirred in the process. He covered her, tucking the blankets around her curled form. "I told you I wasn't giving up my bed again," he whispered.

Ethan extinguished the lamps and slid between the sheets that Michael had already warmed. The scent of her filled his nostrils. It took a lot longer for him to get to sleep than he had ever anticipated.

* * *

Michael knew a moment's disorientation when she awoke. When she realized where she was and who it was sleeping just above her, enjoying the soft comfort of the mattress, she made a quietly derisive sound at the back of her throat. She turned on her side, then on her back, then on her other side. She tried lying on her stomach, her arm under the pillow, then her arms at her side. It didn't matter. Nothing worked. Worse, every time she moved the slightest bit her head thudded abominably. She swore she could feel the blood coursing through her veins and rushing to her head, then rushing back to her leaden feet. She was dizzy and light-headed one moment, steady and immobile with heaviness in the next. Blinking hurt.

It was not as difficult to remember what she had done below stairs as it was painful. The vision of herself, first behaving outrageously at the poker table, then later on stage, dancing with such sensual provocation, caused Michael to grimace with embarrassment. She prayed none of it was true. Her fingers slipped under the bodice of her dress and between her breasts. Her horrible suspicions were confirmed when she found the cigarette. "Oh, God," she moaned softly. For all the good it did her head to whisper she may as well have screamed the words. She nudged the cigarette under the bed and out of the way.

Michael sat up gingerly, holding her head in her palms as she did so. She clutched the bedframe, then the foot post, and carefully raised herself up on her knees. When she was steady and could stand the drumroll in her head, she slowly got to her feet. Every movement was accompanied by a soft little grunt or groan.

"You sound like you're dying," Ethan said tiredly. He turned on his side to watch her halting progress to the bureau.

"Trust you to state the obvious," she said lowly. "And, for God's sake, don't yell. That's cruel."

"I'm whispering."

"Then do it softer." She leaned against the chest of drawers and closed her eyes. "I don't drink. I
know
I don't drink. I know I
can't
drink. So why did this happen to me?"

As forlorn as she sounded Ethan wasn't moved to help her. "Because you're a willful, stubborn woman with no more sense than a box of rocks."

"That's one explanation." She placed her forearm across the top of the bureau and buried her face in the crook of her elbow. "Don't rush to my aid. I'm sure I can manage."

Ethan wanted to remain angry with her but he was finding it difficult not to laugh. How she could be so pathetic and still find it in her to admonish him with sarcasm and humor defied explaining.

Michael inched back from the bureau and used touch to search out the second drawer with her fingers.

He heard her fumbling in the dark. "Would you like me to light a lamp?"

In her mind she imagined the torturous brightness of a glaring sun. "Don't you dare."

Ethan rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, glad she couldn't see that he was smiling. "Did you find the nightshirt?"

She nodded, then moaned. "Yes," she said finally. "I found it." She laid it on top of the bureau. With cautious movements Michael pulled the pink taffeta gown she was wearing over her head. She let it drop on the floor, not caring that she'd have to pick up after herself later. The strings of her corset proved obstinate at first. When she finally loosened them she felt as if she had won a major field campaign. Her petticoats followed the dress. Leaning against the bureau again, she rid herself of her shoes, stockings, and garters. Turning her back to the bed, Michael took off her chemise and short pantalets and put on the nightshirt. When she turned around Ethan was sitting up in bed.

"I need a drink," he muttered. He was rock hard. The light from the coals in the stove, though meager, hadn't prevented him from seeing the curve of her hip or the line of her leg. There were twin dimples at the base of her spine, no less alluring than those on either side of her mouth when she favored him with a smile. He found himself lying there, hoping she would turn just enough to give him a glimpse of her breasts. That's when he sat up and ground the heels of his hands against his eyes until sparks of color appeared. He didn't need her tantalizing him when she was as in control of herself as tumbleweed in a dust storm. Ethan watched her wobble to the washstand, a pale, unsteady wraith in her white nightshirt. Sighing, he got up and searched out the whiskey, uncorked it, and drank a long swallow straight from the bottle. He was putting it away when he noticed Michael had finished washing her face at the basin and was heading for his bed.

"Oh, no," he said, catching her by the shoulder as she placed one knee on the mattress. "The floor."

She winced at the pressure of his fingers against her skin. "You're not serious. You'd really make me sleep on the floor for the rest of the night?"

"That or share the bed."

Michael looked longingly at the bed, then at her feet where she was standing on the blankets she would have to wrap around her. "You don't mind sharing?"

"I mind like hell."

"Oh. Then I'll take the floor."

He stopped her again when she began to move away. "But not for the reasons you're probably thinking. Go on, get in. And move all the way over this time. As close to the edge as you can without falling out the other side." And just because he knew he could get away with it this once, he gave her a little pat on the backside as she crawled in.

She twisted her head to glare at him and the effort simply made her collapse.

"Well," he drawled, sliding in after her, "it's not far enough, but I suppose it'll have to do."

Michael gently placed a forearm over her eyes as if she could contain the pressure in her head. "Tell me it will be better in the morning."

He gave her a little push to make room for his legs and brought up the sheet and comforter to cover them. "It will be better in the morning."

"Really?"

His laughter was low and slightly wicked. It was also very near her ear. "No," he said. "It will be worse."

* * *

It was every bit as brutal as Ethan had warned her it would be. He found great amusement in the fact.

"Shouldn't you be helping the widow this morning?" she asked as they shared breakfast in the kitchen. Because of the earliness of the hour it was deserted except for them. "Or blowing up something in the mines?"

"Like myself you mean?" He cut her off before she could answer. "Mrs. Johnson doesn't need me for a few days. She's got John Gibbs to help her. And there's nothing more for me to blow up at the mine until they clear the rubble away. So you see, I'm here for the day. And probably again tomorrow."

Michael dunked the tip of her hard crusted bread in her coffee, softening it. Even chewing hurt. She would have liked to have slept longer but when Ethan left the bed she woke and couldn't fall back to sleep. He hadn't said a word about her curled all around him. She couldn't even pretend it had been the other way around. It was her arm he'd had to move and her leg he'd had to untangle before he could slip out of the bed. Michael couldn't even thank him for not mentioning it.

"What exactly do you do there?" she asked. The least she could do was ignore his amusement at her condition and resolve to be polite.

"The silver's in veins that run deep underground. I set the explo—" He stopped because she was shaking her head.

"No, I mean at the widow's. Mrs. Johnson?"

"Emily Johnson," he said, nodding. Ethan cut off a bit of steak and speared some scrambled eggs. "In the beginning there was a lot of work to do on the roof. When she and Georgie bought the place it was pretty run down. They did quite a bit but there wasn't time to get to everything." He stopped for a moment, looked away from Michael, alone with his own thoughts, then began again. "I've been laying a new floor for her in places where the old boards have rotted, clearing some land so she can have a garden in the spring. Mostly it's just this and that kind of work. I do what I can. Usually a few days a week."