The Passionate and the Proud (15 page)

“I disagree,” he called back.

Damn, she thought. I can deal with him perfectly logically, but only when he’s not around.

Emmalee was too busy sewing, darning, patching, and stitching to think about Randy or Garn for the rest of the day. At twilight, when cooking aromas from the chuckwagon drifted her way, Emmalee’s eyes were fuzzy and almost crossed from concentration and her stomach burned with hunger. Thin strips of fried mountain goat, purchased in Denver, assauged her emptiness, along with fresh-baked bread. There was even dessert, to make the blessing full: mountain berries with cow’s milk. Emmalee felt satiated, sanctified. She returned to her wagon—she was back with the Bent family again—to find Garn leaning against the Conestoga.

“Moon’s coming up,” he said. “Too many people around. Let’s take a stroll.”

Two of the Bent girls, Cynthia and Darlene, poked their heads out from behind the Conestoga’s canvas flaps disapprovingly.

Garn took her hand as they walked away from the wagon. Emmalee tried halfheartedly to pull free of him, but, as he’d done on the deck of the
Queen of Natchez,
he held on. “It’s all right,” he said. “We’re old friends, aren’t we?”

“Where are we going?”

“Away from camp. Maybe up there in the boulders on that pine-covered hill. Good place to watch the moon rise.”

“What if I don’t care to watch the moon rise?”

“You will. It’s easy to see that you’re a person who relishes beauty.”

Emmalee realized that he was working his usual magic upon her. She felt excited, despite her better judgment, for such a feeling, with him, was dangerous. She would think matter-of-factly and dwell upon concrete things. She saw that he was wearing freshly polished boots, dress trousers, and a white silk shirt. He wore his hat too. It seemed different to her for a moment, until she perceived that his headband of silver pieces was missing.

“Wagering again, were you?” she asked wryly.

“What do you mean?”

“Your headband.”

“Oh, that. It was nothing. I didn’t want the silver anyway. Only a feather to replace the one piece I gave you in Cairo.”

“And I’m the feather?” Emmalee found that she was enjoying the turn of the conversation. She ordered herself not to. Badinage like this was one of his tricks. After all, he’d never change. He had gambled away his precious hatband again. She wondered who had it now.

“No, you’re my good-luck piece, remember? But I always seem to lose that hatband when you’re around.”

“Can’t blame me for the second time,” she said.

He laughed. That was just like him, to treat everything she said as a joke, especially when she was trying to be serious.

“I don’t want to get too far from camp,” she said, after they had climbed a short distance. “What do you want to talk to me about?”

“Don’t you know?”

“You’re probably going to tell me that business about needing me, and everything.”

“I guess you wanted to hear it. Here you are.”

The hill above camp was not especially high, but it was fairly steep. From the bank of boulders upon which they stood. Garn and Emmalee could see the wagons circled below like a necklace of grayish-white pearls. Denver lay in the distance, a few lights beginning to twinkle here and there as night fell. Garn, still holding her hand, eased Emmalee carefully down from the rocks. A narrow, grassy meadow separated the rocks from pine trees that covered the top of the hill.

“I didn’t expect to hear anything in particular,” Emmalee said. “From you.”

She saw his gleaming, mocking smile. “I’m just curious, that’s all,” she added. “Besides, you were holding my hand too tightly. It would have made a scene in camp to jerk away from you.”

“Must watch our reputations, mustn’t we? Torquist could still dump us in Denver for upsetting the innocent pilgrims. Don’t worry, I can get you to Olympia.”

“Why do you even want to go there?” she asked him. “Are you interested in farming or ranching?”

“No, but something profitable is likely to turn up.”

“Just as I thought. You’re not interested in anything.”

“False accusation.” He grinned lazily, leaning toward her. His eyes were warm and sparkling. Emmalee realized that she was smiling too. He was the same Garn Landar, all right, but she felt at ease with him this time. Watch it! she warned herself.

“You’ve led poor Ebenezer along, haven’t you?” she asked. “Letting him think he’s going to get rich!”

“It’s a possibility.”

He was very close to her now, his eyes holding hers. She did not feel like moving away. I’m completely aware of what’s happening, she told herself. There is no chance of my losing control. If he grabbed her and pulled her close, she’d be prepared. He wasn’t going to catch her unaware this time, nor bewitch her body before she had a chance to think.

“The only thing you’re interested in is yourself,” she said quietly, still smiling, teasing him really.

“Not true…” he murmured, lifting his hand and resting his fingertips against her cheek. Emmalee felt pleasant warmth, but not the usual jolt his physical touch engendered. I’ve overcome his charm, she thought. I’m strong enough to resist him now.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked again, making her voice crisp and businesslike.

“I guess it can wait,” he said.

His lips were inches away. She felt the softness of his breath against her mouth.

“But this can’t,” he whispered.

Then he came forward the final measure and his lips met hers, a very gentle kiss, hardly a kiss at all, not at first. There was no need to struggle, or to try to twist away from him, because this was different from the time under the wagon and Emmalee was totally in command of her emotions. It was a wonderfully languorous kiss, and in her confidence she even let herself kiss him back. Yielding to that first wave of pleasure felt quietly voluptuous, especially since she knew that she wasn’t really going to yield at all. Emmalee felt sensation stir from deep within her being rise and flow. Garn’s music surged through her, the symphony of his body and his tongue, and she pressed herself close to him, feeling every hard inch of him straining against her. His mouth sought her and his voice was sweet. “Emmalee, Emmalee.” His voice was music, all shimmer and dazzle and glow. The music rose in her body, then in her soul, as he touched her with stunning kisses, pulled away her shirtwaist, his lips upon her breasts now, as with his hands he keyed the fragile, glorious notes of ultimate desire. She felt her skirt sliding away, all clothing gone. Night air tingled upon her bare and burning body. She was open to the sky, the stars, and Garn. He was not forcing her to do anything and so she did not have to resist. I can stop anytime I wish, Emmalee told herself, and I suppose I should stop pretty soon.

Garn drew her down upon the meadow grass, he prepared to take her, she prepared to give, rousing in her yet another tide of pleasure with the caresses of his hand, where the folds and petals of her body sang, abloom with rosy dew. Anytime I wish…

“I am the kind of man,” he whispered urgently, “who will ask but once for what he truly loves.”

She heard his words, but as from far away, dulled by the vast waves of pleasure he was giving and by the greater ecstasy he was preparing to bestow. She felt him poised between her thighs, where she was open with desire, the long, dark shape of his body over her, heard him whisper the one crucial question he would pose but once.

Anytime
…

“Will you come with me and always be mine, no matter what?”

“liiiii
…” She gasped, feeling the shape of him, big as a fist, at the portals of her emptiness and need.

But the words of his question resounded slowly within her consciousness, like an echo:
Will you come with me and always be mine, no matter what?

Come with me.

Always.

Be mine.

The exclusiveness, the finality of those words startled Emmalee back to awareness.

What was that question again? What had happened? How had she let things get this far?

“Always?” she asked, her voice hoarse and strange. He hesitated above her, seeming to desire an answer before he continued. Emmalee was fully alert now. But she did not struggle to get out from beneath him.

“Not yet,” she heard herself say. “I don’t think…”

Then they heard a sound, a scratching, grating noise. Someone was climbing toward them over the boulders below.

They leaped up and began pulling on their clothes.

Oh, my God! Emmalee was thinking. What I almost did! Garn had changed his tactics. Instead of approaching her in his overwhelming, cavalier manner, he had insinuated himself tenderly and had almost possessed her. She had been on the verge of surrender, completely witless. Her flying fingers managed only to get her shirtwaist half-fastened and Garn was still shirtless, buckling his belt, when Randy clambered to the top of a boulder and looked down at them.

“Emmalee!” he cried, his voice full of pain. Then his eyes rested on Garn. “I demand an explanation, sir,” he said.

He lowered himself carefully from the big rock and moved cautiously toward Garn, his fists at the ready.

“Don’t be a fool. Clay,” Garn said quietly.

“I want to know what’s going on here!”

“Nothing, anymore,” answered Emmalee, her voice tight.

“What did happen, then?” Randy amended, circling Garn warily.

“Nothing
,” cried Emmalee.

“The lady’s right. Clay,” said Garn, following Randy with his eyes. “Emmalee and I came here to talk. It was my idea. I take full responsibility. I made her a proposal—”

“Oh, I’ll bet you did!”

“—which she declined, and then—”

“And then,” Randy interrupted, “you tried to have your way with her, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes,” admitted Garn, in his easy, candid manner, “but I assure you that the fault is all mine.”

“And so you shall pay the price,” vowed Randy, leaping forward, his fingers closing around Garn’s throat.

“Pleasssssee!” cried Emmalee. “Please stop.”

While it was certainly true that Garn had wanted her, it was also true that she had done nothing to resist him. Whatever his motives were, and however honeyed his words had been, he was not completely at fault.

It was too late to explain these ambiguities to Randy, though. He had forced Garn down onto the grass. Emmalee tried to pull the men apart.

But Garn gathered his great strength, jerked, twisted, and tossed Randy into the air. Garn was on his feet instantly, crouched on the meadow grass. Randy rushed him. Garn dodged, swung to one side, caught Randy’s arm as he passed, and with a sudden, deft, brutal movement, brought Randy’s arm down across his bent knee like a stick of dry wood. The crack of broken bone was separated from Randy’s cry of agony by an instant too small to be measured.

“Landarrrrrrr!” Randy screamed.

Emmalee was aghast. “You didn’t have to do that!” she cried.

Garn stood like a savage in the twilight, his teeth gleaming in the waning light. Emmalee thought with horror of what this man had almost persuaded her to do, just moments ago. It seemed as if she had been another person completely when under his influence. But she had been rescued, if not from Garn then from herself. Randy had rescued her, and now he stood holding his sagging, mined arm, grimacing with excruciating pain.

“It was instinctive,” Garn was saying. “I didn’t mean to hurt the kid, but he came at me like a mad dog and…”

Horace Torquist, Lambert Strep, Jasper Heaton, and several other men appeared on the ring of boulders bordering the meadow. There was a look of horror, mingled with disbelief, on the wagonmaster’s face as he interpreted the scene. Emmalee disheveled; Randy, wounded in an effort of salvation; and Garn, looking for all the world like the last survivor of a wild, lost race.

“It wasn’t Emmalee’s fault,” Garn said again. “It was mine. I forced myself on her but she didn’t really…”

He’d meant to say “didn’t really want me,” but the wagonboss interrupted.

“You all right, Miss Alden?” asked Torquist nervously, as the other men formed a wary circle around Garn.

“Yes,” she said, “yes,” buttoning her shirtwaist. No, she thought. “Nothing…happened,” she faltered.

“Get out of here, Landar,” ordered Torquist, assuming a stance of rectitude and judgment.

Emmalee went to Randy, who was trying to keep from crying out. She winced at the sight of his savaged arm; a sliver of broken bone had pierced the skin. She realized how deeply he cared for her.

Garn gathered up his shirt and hat.

“Don’t worry, I’m going,” he told them, his voice perfectly calm and composed. “Sorry, Emmalee. I shouldn’t have wanted you so badly. Guess it’s for the best that I only ask once. But I can see you’re in good hands with Randy.”

The meaning of what had almost happened came down upon Emmalee when she returned to camp. All the men had been embarrassed, she herself had been mortified, and they’d had to carry poor Randy down from the hill since it hurt him too much to walk.

“I hope this will be a lesson to you, Emmalee,” Torquist could not resist preaching. “You owe Darlene Bent a profound debt of gratitude.”

“Darlene?”

“Yes. She and her sister, Cynthia, said they saw you literally being dragged away by Landar. When Randy Clay came to the wagon after supper to talk to you, as the two of you had apparently planned…”

“Yes, that’s so.”

“…they told Randy what they’d seen. He instructed them to tell me and then he set out looking for you.”

Emmalee said nothing. A series of closely woven happenstances had led to disaster for everybody. She felt responsible, especially toward Randy, who would now have to cross the Rockies with a cast on his arm. Yet if he had not come in search of her, she would certainly have given herself to—and been taken by—Garn Landar. And who knew what might have happened then?

But was she better off the way things had turned out? Emmalee guessed so. Garn had revealed his real savagery by what he’d so expertly and unthinkingly done to Randy. A man who fought that well did not have to hurt an opponent so badly, Emmalee reasoned. Garn could have subdued Randy with less violence. It was in his nature, beneath the charming facade, to conquer. A man like Garn was out to conquer women, too, in whatever way he could. She knew it fully now.