The Rogue (26 page)

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Try it on,” Diana urged.

“No.” Her laugh was just faintly self-conscious. “The children are the ones who need clothes, not me. I have a closet full of skirts and dresses from when I was teaching school.”

Which was almost ten years ago. “They’re out of style by now.” The flush that crept into Peggy’s cheeks made Diana wish she had bitten off her tongue.

“They’ll come back in style. In a couple of years I’ll be the best-dressed woman around.”

“Every woman needs a new dress now and then. It’s good for her ego.”

“Maybe, but I’ll pass on this one.”

Diana suddenly became determined that her friend, who had so little, should have this dress. “It was made for you, Peggy. If it’s the money that’s bothering you, I’ll buy it as an advance Christmas present.”

“I know your heart is in the right place, but I can’t
let you do it. Alan would guess and his pride would be hurt. Besides, where would I ever wear a dress like that? With the kids, we hardly ever go out. And that dress is too bold for Sunday church. Thanks just the same, Diana.”

Damn Alan and his pride, Diana thought as she left the store with Peggy. Damn him for asking Peggy to scratch out a living with him on that two-bit ranch. They couldn’t afford the first child, and damn him for getting her pregnant with two more. Her hand closed over the flap of her purse, aware of the key that burned inside. Damn all men!

“Alan is probably waiting for us at the hotel.” Peggy was oblivious to the anger that had whitened Diana’s face. “Shall we head back?”

Alan mustn’t be kept waiting,
Diana added bitterly in her mind. “Yes, we might as well,” she agreed with almost deadly calm.

At the crosswalk opposite the hotel, a smile lighted Peggy’s face. “See? I told you he would be waiting for me.”

Alan Thornton was standing at the hotel entrance. The frown that had been on his face cleared when he saw them across the street with the light.

“Is your shopping all done?” He took the packages from Peggy’s arms and crammed them in his own.

“All done. Have you been waiting long?”

“Not long.” He turned to Diana. “I saw Holt in the hotel about twenty minutes ago. He said you were riding home with him.”

“Yes. I’d better go see if he’s ready to leave.”

“I’m glad you stayed, Diana. It was fun. Come over to the ranch sometime soon and visit me, okay?”

“Soon, Peggy,” she promised.

With a wave to the departing couple, Diana entered the hotel. A search of the casino and restaurant found no sign of Holt. She hadn’t expected it would. She knew where he would be waiting for her.

Anger seethed inside her like a bubbling volcano before an eruption. Opening her purse, her fingers
closed around the room key. Furtively, she stole a glance at the number before hiding the key in her closed fist.

Climbing the stairs to the second floor, Diana walked past the ladies’ powder room, entering the corridor of hotel rooms. The hallway was blessedly empty. No one was about to see her glancing at the numbers on the doors.

When she found the right room, she knocked once and waited. No sound came from inside. Diana hesitated only a second before inserting the key into the lock and turning it. She opened the door and saw Holt standing at a window, staring out the panes through a veil of smoke curling from the cigarette in his hand. She swept into the room with contained fury, her skirt whirling about her legs.

At the click of the closing door, Holt gave her a sidelong look without turning from the window. “Somehow, I didn’t think you’d show up.”

“Didn’t you?” she fumed. “What did you think I would do?”

“You’d better keep your voice down unless you want someone complaining to the management.” He walked to an ashtray and calmly crushed out his cigarette.

“What do you suppose the management is thinking now?” Diana hissed. “Do you think they aren’t speculating about why you rented a hotel room?”

“They know why.” Holt smiled without humor. “As a matter of fact, I rented three rooms: one for the pilot, one for the co-pilot, and one for the handler who’s accompanying the stallion. They will be staying over for the night and flying back to California in the morning.”

“And whose is this?”

“Does it matter? I’m making temporary use of it until the switchboard relays the message that the plane has arrived. It’s better than standing around downstairs waiting for the call.”

Wary, still not completely believing what he said,
anger sparkling in her eyes, Diana questioned, “How much longer before the plane arrives?”

“A couple of hours.”

“That’s what you said the last time.”

“So I did.” He was regarding her lazily through his masked expression, a coiled alertness in his indolent stance. “Weather delayed their takeoff.”

“And you expect me to wait here for two hours?” she demanded.

“It’s less boring then being downstairs.”

“You’re bored, is that it?” Diana was so angry she was trembling. “Am I supposed to entertain you? What do you want me to do? Strip off my clothes and hop into bed like some whore? Here’s your key!” She hurled it at him. “You know what you can do with it. I’m leaving.”

It bounced off his chest and clattered to the floor. “Alan and Peggy have already gone.”

“So what? There’s more than one way of getting back to the ranch.” She hesitated, knowing where he was vulnerable and using it. “Such as calling Guy and having him come and get me.” A blazing fire leaped into his eyes before they narrowed dangerously. “He’ll be glad to rescue me from your clutches.” Diana added more fuel with malicious satisfaction and pivoted to leave.

She had taken one step when Holt seized a handful of hair at the back of her head. “Like hell!” He yanked her back, twisting her into his arms all in one motion.

The vicious tugging at her tender scalp drew a gasping cry from Diana, which Holt ignored. She lifted a hand to the back of her head to try to ease the pain and found herself locked in the steel trap of his arms.

With her head forced back by the continued pulling of her hair, Holt stared into her eyes for a long minute. Her breath was stolen by fear and something else. She couldn’t speak, not in protest or pain.

“Damn you,” he muttered.

His mouth came down hard on her lips, grinding them against her teeth. Diana heard the whimpering
cries muffled in her throat. The ever-tightening circle of his arms flattened her breasts against his chest, the buttons of his shirt digging into the soft flesh. Blackness swam at the edges of her mind.

The pressure of his mouth changed subtlely, cruelty becoming demand. Diana answered it, the treachery of her senses releasing the floodgates and letting the passion flow forth. His hands rubbed her sore scalp, fingers tangling in the black silk of her hair. Her arms were around his neck, lifting herself on tiptoes to more easily reach his mouth. A steel band circled her waist, lifting Diana the rest of the way off her feet. Carrying her thus, Holt walked the few steps to the bed, following her down to the mattress.

The volcano of anger that had been simmering near an eruption became an explosion of desire. His touch, his kiss, the feel of his body burning against hers aroused her, as always, to the primitive animal needs of the flesh. The spouting fires grew hotter and hotter at the wayward caress of his hands and the nuzzling of his mouth along the pulse point of her neck. He was driving her to the edge, knotting her stomach into a tight ball of need, a pulsing ache twisting her body. Her frustrated writhing had worked the length of her skirt around her waist. Her hips were moving in instinctive and automatic reaction to the teasing massage of his hand.

“Do you want me to stop, Diana?” His voice throbbed huskily against the curve of her neck. “Do you?”

A soft moan of protest came from her throat, knowing what her answer was and hating him for making her say it. Why didn’t he take her and be done with it, satisfy the needs that were assaulting them both?

Holt levered himself away from her. “Do you?” he demanded again.

She closed her eyes against the blazing sheen of his. “No,” was her barely audible reply.

But she didn’t receive the assuagement of his hard
kiss. Instead, Holt pushed himself off the bed. “Take off your clothes.” At her choked cry of protest, Holt began unbuttoning his shirt with savage impatience. “I don’t want to be explaining ripped clothes when we leave the hotel, and the way I feel right now—” His mouth snapped shut on the rest of the sentence as he turned away.

With shaking hands, Diana pulled the blouse over her head and unfastened the waistband of her skirt. She stepped out of it as she rose from the bed, trembling with shame and a desire that she couldn’t control. Removing her sandals and nylons, she balanced alternately on one foot, aware of the sounds of Holt undressing behind her. As her nylons fell soundlessly on the pile of her other clothes, there was silence. Diana turned, lifting the sides of her hair and holding it away from her face.

His gaze swept slowly over her long legs, slim hips, and full breasts, stopping finally at her face. For the first time in her life, Diana was conscious of her nakedness, as well as his. One coarse or demeaning word from him and she would have fled rather than face the humiliation of surrendering. Conflict warred in the expression on his hard, lean features. His hand lifted, his fingers barely touching the jutting curve of her cheekbone.

“Why do you have to be so damned beautiful?”

Diana knew. In that flashing second, Diana knew. Holt wanted her more than he despised her. He couldn’t control what he felt any more than she could. He, too, was caught in the dangerous whirlpool of passion and it was dragging them both down. With the desperation of two lovers reaching for each other in death, they came together and let the whirlpool take them where it wished.

Afterward, weak and exhausted, Diana lay in the crook of his arm. She closed her eyes, afraid to speak in case words diminished the wonder of what she had experienced. Holt gently wiped the tears from her
cheeks and drew the bedcovers over them both. With the comfort of his arm around her, Diana let herself drift away, floating on a cloud that avoided reality.

Once something disturbed her and Diana stirred restlessly. A soothingly low voice near her ear quieted her. “Ssh, baby. Sleep.” And Diana obeyed the gentle command.

Sometime later a coolness began to chill her skin. She rolled over to snuggle closer to the fiery heat of Holt’s body. When she didn’t immediately encounter his solid form, her hand groped beneath the covers. The fact registered through the haze of her half-sleep that he wasn’t there.

An instant later her eyes opened, her mind surfacing to full consciousness. The room was empty. His clothes were gone. A long, rectangular patch of yellow sunlight streamed through the window. It was late, nearly sundown.

Diana sat up in the bed. With a groan, she buried her face in her hands. Why did she have to wake up alone? It would have made it all so much more bearable if she had awakened in Holt’s arms. Diana bit her lip to hold back a sob.

With a burst of movement, she threw back the covers and slid out of the bed. She walked to the bathroom and stopped at the sight of her sleepy and love-drugged face in the mirror, and the lost look in her eyes. Pivoting sharply away, Diana turned on the shower. She wrapped a towel around her hair to protect it from the wetness of the spray and stepped into the tub-shower, drawing the curtain shut. The needle-like jets of water pummeled her skin, driving out the numbness. She stood beneath the spray, her head back, her eyes closed, her hands raised, her palms open in silent worship to the reviving water.

The rushing deluge flooding over her deafened Diana to any other sound. When the shower curtain was jerked open, she cried out in startled alarm. Holt stood there, impassive in his regard. Her breath came back
slowly. She stepped closer to the tiled wall, letting the shower spray come between them as if it shielded her somehow.

“Where have you been?” Her question accused and quivered with hurt.

“The plane arrived.” He continued to hold the shower curtain aside, watching her, his gaze not lowering from her face, shiny and beaded with water. “I had to get the stallion loaded in the van and bring the crew back here.”

“The crew.” Diana remembered that this hotel room belonged to one of them. “I’ll make the bed up as soon as I am out of the shower. I suppose they’re waiting downstairs.”

“The pilot and co-pilot are bunking together, so there’s no hurry to vacate the room.” Holt let go of the curtain and turned to the side. It remained partially open and Diana could see him undressing.

“What are you doing?” She sounded breathless.

Her eyes rounded into large, blue saucers as Holt stepped into the shower. He seemed taller, his shoulders, wider, dwarfing her. His shoulders and back shielded her from the brunt of the spray. She stared into his eyes, darkening into charcoal. His lean, muscled form seemed larger than life, all bronze sinew rippling under the cascading water.

A reborn heat was firing her veins, but Diana didn’t move as Holt took a bar of soap from the shelf and lathered his hands. Her lashes fluttered down at the sensual touch of his soap-slicked hands on her neck. There was a crazy, wild singing in her ears as he lathered every inch of her with slow, massaging caresses. Fingers, palms, breasts, legs, navel, all tingled with the erotic cleansing of his hands. Diana was clinging to the hard flesh of his shoulders when her passion-weakened limbs would no longer support her. His mouth closed over hers in a long, drugging kiss.

Water ran over their faces and their entwining bodies. Its warm temperature was nothing compared to the fiery heat that fused them together. The water
turned cool before they did. For long minutes Holt held her in his arms, waiting for the tremors to end in his own body, as well as hers.

Then he was lifting her out of the shower and wrapping a towel around her. The towel around her head was sodden, her hair damp when Diana shook it free. She saw the swing of velvet-black hair in the mirror and glanced at her reflection. She looked so very different from how she ever had before. Without vanity, Diana admitted to a radiant beauty that frightened her a little.