The Angel and the Outlaw (16 page)

He kissed her and kissed her again, his hands moving over her willing flesh, until she writhed beneath him, until she took him in her hands and guided him home once more.

She was like a fire in his arms, a living, breathing flame that purged his heart and soul, burning away the darkness, the loneliness, replacing the emptiness of his life with warmth and hope.

* * * * *

J.T. woke slowly, gradually becoming aware of a warm body curled against his own, of a slim bare leg lying over his. He took a deep breath, and his nostrils filled with the musky scent of woman.

He smiled faintly as he lifted a lock of her hair and wound it around his finger. She was his woman now, in every sense of the word. They had made love the whole night through, until he knew every sweet curve, every seductive valley, each gentle peak. He had made love to other women, but he had never loved a woman, or had a woman who loved him.

Only now did he realize what the act of love was all about. Now he knew why he had always felt vaguely dissatisfied with other women, why he had felt cheated. Comparing what he’d had before with what he had now was like comparing the luster of a star to the brilliance of the summer sun. Until last night, he had never realized that there was more to the act of love than the physical act itself. When consummated with the right woman, it was more than a brief joining of the flesh; it was a uniting of the mind and the soul, a melding of two hearts. She was his now, and he was hers, and nothing would ever be the same again.

She stirred against him. His reaction to the sweet abrasion of her flesh against his was instant and unmistakable. That quickly, he wanted her, needed her.

“Brandy?” He rolled onto his side. Leaning on one elbow, he tickled her cheek with the lock of hair in his hand. “Brandy, are you awake?”

“No.”

He heard the subdued laughter in her voice as he ran his tongue around the edge of her ear.

“Brandy.” He called her name softly, pressing his body against hers, letting her feel how ready he was.

“Go away.” She turned her back to him to hide her grin, suppressing a giggle as she waited for him to tease her some more. But nothing happened and when she glanced over her shoulder, she saw him sitting up, his jaw clenched. “J.T., what’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed.

“Nothing. You told me to leave you alone.”

“But I didn’t mean it!” she exclaimed, mortified to think he had taken her seriously. “I was just teasing.”

He looked at her then, his dark eyes vulnerable and shadowed with pain.

“J.T., you must have known I was kidding.”

“I don’t ever want to hurt you, Brandy, or force you. Or make you do something you don’t want to do.”

“J.T., I’m sorry.” She hesitated a moment. “Didn’t any of the…” She took a deep breath. “Didn’t any of the other women you’ve made love to ever tease you?”

“No.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “It was usually business, quickly done, quickly forgotten.”

Tentatively, she touched his arm, stroked his shoulder. Had no one ever loved him? Teased him? Played with him? “I’m sorry,” she said again.

He shook his head. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. Forgive me, Brandy. I’m new at this. I guess I’m not very good at it.”

“That’s not true,” she said vehemently, and taking him in her arms, she set out to prove that he was the best, most wonderful man she had ever known.

* * * * *

It was late afternoon when they emerged from the lodge. Brandy knew a moment of embarrassment as people turned to stare at her. By now, everyone knew they had been married the night before, and why they were so late in rising. She felt her cheeks grow hot. There was nothing to be ashamed of, she thought. She was J.T.’s wife, after all, but she couldn’t help feeling as if she was standing on a street corner, stark naked for all the world to see.

J.T. spoke to those they passed on their way to the river. Brandy nodded, her embarrassment fading as she wondered what the Lakota would think if they knew she was Crow.

And then she forgot everything as J.T. found a secluded spot downriver. The water was warm and clear, shielded from casual view by a stand of cottonwoods and berry bushes.

She hesitated as J.T. shucked his clothes and slid into the water.

“Come on,” he called.

Brandy bit down on her lower lip. She’d never gone skinny dipping before. She’d never thought of herself as a prude, but she was reluctant to undress out in the open, to bathe in a river in full view of anyone who happened along.

“Brandy?”

“I’m coming.” She sat down on a rock and removed her moccasins. Glancing over her shoulder, she unfastened the laces of her tunic, then stood up and stepped out of it. She heard J.T. whistle softly as she stood before him in her underwear, felt the full weight of J.T.’s gaze as she removed her bra and panties, then bolted for the nebulous cover of the water.

He swam toward her, his dark eyes aglow with desire.

“Not here,” Brandy exclaimed. “Surely you don’t mean for us to… Not here.”

“Why not here?”

She glanced around. True, the place was secluded, but there was always the chance that someone else might come along: kids exploring beyond the camp, another couple looking for a quiet place to be alone.

She shivered with anticipation as J.T. took her in his arms and kissed her. She felt the length of his body against hers, wet and slick and fully aroused. That quick, she forgot every doubt, every qualm, everything except her need for this man. He caressed her, and it was as though it was the first time. She wound her arms around his neck, needing his touch, his kiss, the sound of his voice, low and gruff, whispering her name.

A faint breeze feathered across the water as he backed her up against the grassy bank, his body covering hers, his hands teasing and tantalizing, his lips brushing across her face, her throat, the curve of her breast.

“Brandy. Brandy.”

Just her name, over and over again as he possessed her, filling her, making her complete. His arms tightened around her, his face was against her shoulder.

“I love you,” he whispered fervently. “Ah, Brandy, you’ll never know how much.”

“I know.” She strained against him, needing to be closer, and then she was spinning out of control, oblivious to everything but the soul-shattering pleasure of his touch, the wondrous sense of fulfillment, of completion. Of belonging.

Gradually, she became aware of other things: the heat of the sun on her face, the water lapping against her thighs, the scent of sage and pine, the chirping of birds. A soft sigh escaped her lips as she opened her eyes and smiled at J.T.. She wanted to shout, to tell the world how happy she was. She wanted to stay there forever, with his arms around her and their bodies entwined. She wanted to have his child. A boy, she mused, with J.T.’s dark hair and eyes.

J.T. quirked one brow. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly.

“It looks like something to me.”

“Only that I love you so much.”

“Will you be happy here?”

Brandy hesitated a moment, thinking of her family and friends. She missed them, would always miss them, but this was where she wanted to be.

“Brandy?”

“Very happy,” she replied fervently, knowing she would be happy anywhere, as long as he was with her.

He made love to her again, slowly, tenderly, and then he retrieved a bar of soap from the shore and bathed her from head to foot. It was the most sensual thing she’d ever experienced, and the most natural thing in the world to take the soap from his hand and return the favor.

Later, Brandy washed out her underwear and spread it over a low-hanging limb to dry.

Leaving the water, J.T. pulled on his clout while Brandy slipped her dress over her head, and then they sat in the sun, their feet dangling in the water, while they waited for her things to dry.

“It’s just like I always imagined it,” J.T. mused after a while.

“What is?”

“This place. My mother used to talk about it sometimes, usually late at night when she’d had too much to drink. It was peaceful, she said, the only place where she’d ever been happy, but she never talked about coming back.”

“Why not?”

“She was ashamed of what she’d become, ashamed to come back and face her parents and admit they’d been right about my father. She said Tasina Luta had warned her that the day would come when Frank Cutter would look on her with scorn. My mother never found the courage to come back here and admit that Tasina Luta had been right, Frank Cutter couldn’t measure up to the kind of man her father had been.”

“How sad.”

“Yeah. She taught me to speak her mother’s language and sometimes, when she was homesick, she wouldn’t talk to me except in Lakota. Sometimes, when she was feeling really low, she’d beg me to forgive her for marrying my father.”

“Was he cruel to her?”

J.T. took a deep breath before answering. “He beat her.”

“Did he beat you, too?”

J.T. nodded. “Sometimes.”

She knew such things happened. There was a child in her class whose parents had abused her. Try as she might, Brandy had never been able to understand how a man could beat his wife, or how a parent could beat a child. “I’m sorry, J.T..”

He shrugged. “It didn’t matter. I could tolerate the beatings. It was just hard, knowing…” He paused, staring into the water lapping quietly against the shore.

“Knowing what?”

“Knowing that he hated me.”

She took his hand in hers, her heart breaking for the pain she saw in his eyes, for the hurt in his voice.

J.T. looked down at their joined hands. “I don’t know why we’re talking about this. None of it matters anymore.”

“Of course it matters.”

“Split milk,” J.T. said curtly. “Over and done with.”

“Is it?”

He looked up at her, his expression pensive. “What are you trying to say?”

“I don’t know exactly. I mean, the things that happen to us in the past shape the future.”

“Go on.” He was watching her carefully now.

“Well, it’s just that, if you’d had a better childhood, you might not have turned to a life of crime.” She finished the sentence in a rush, wishing she’d never brought it up at all.

“Are you telling me that it’s my mother’s fault that I turned out so bad?”

“Well, not exactly.” She fidgeted under his probing gaze. “Well, yes, sort of. I mean, if you’d had parents who…who gave you a better home life, you might not have turned to a life of crime.” She looked up at him, willing him to understand what she was trying to say.

“No one’s to blame for the way I turned out except me,” J.T. said flatly. He took Brandy’s hand in his. His mother’s hands had been rough, the nails uneven. She’d had a nasty scar on the back of her left hand, souvenir of a nasty burn a customer had inflicted with a lit cigar. Brandy’s skin was smooth and unblemished. There were no callouses, no sign that she had ever done a hard day’s work in her life.

“I’m sorry, J.T.,” Brandy said contritely. “I didn’t mean to imply that your mother failed you in any way.”

“Didn’t you?” He dropped Brandy’s hand back into her lap, then stared out across the river.

When his mother’s pregnancy began to show, she had lost her job at the saloon. J.T. had looked for work, but no one wanted to hire a fourteen-year-old boy who looked more Indian than white, so he had turned to stealing. And he’d been good at it. He had quick hands and a light touch, and he’d never been caught. He had been afraid his mother wouldn’t approve of what he was doing, so he had never told her where the money came from.

Now, looking back, he realized she must have known all along, and yet they had been so needy, she had let him steal. But then, to the Lakota way of thinking, perhaps it hadn’t been stealing at all. It was considered a coup to steal from the enemy, and back then, J.T. had viewed all whites as the enemy.

“She did the best she could,” he murmured, more to himself than to Brandy.

Brandy stared at J.T.’s profile, trying to imagine what it had been like for him to grow up that way, feeling that his father hated him, knowing that his mother sold herself to support him, then having to steal to support her. She was only surprised that he hadn’t turned out worse.

“What did you do after she died?” she asked, needing to know the rest.

J.T. shrugged. “I started hanging around with a bunch of young outlaws who were trying to make a name for themselves. Called themselves the Fenton Gang.”

“I never heard of them.”

“I’m not surprised. They wanted to be famous, but it never happened. I stayed with them until I was, I don’t know, sixteen, seventeen, and then I struck out on my own. By then, the gang was getting pretty small. A couple of them had been killed. Three were in jail. I decided I could do better on my own.”

J.T. met Brandy’s gaze. “I’m a fair hand at poker, and I was a damn good thief. Never got caught.”

“Until you stole that horse.”

“Yeah,” J.T. agreed ruefully. “Until I stole that horse.” He stood up and offered Brandy his hand. “Come on, let’s go back.”