Lone Star Bride, page 13
“I’ll see to it,” she said smugly. “Just be nice to me and I’ll see what I can do for you.”
“I thought I’d been pretty nice already,” he said, teasing her again, tasting the sweetness of her breasts with lips that tantalized and tempted.
“I’ll give you two days to stop,” she said softly. “In fact, how about fifty years?”
“That sounds more like it,” he murmured. “Fifty years ought to just about do it.”
If the hired hands shot him sidelong looks of envy, and if Hank looked at his daughter as if searching out signs of abuse, it was to be expected, James thought. And surely even Hank, indulgent father that he was, could see from the get-go that Alexis was glowing. She’d never looked so pleased with herself, even the first time she’d gotten on the three-year-old pinto mare. There was a glow about her, a triumphant gleam in her eyes and a smug look of satisfaction on her smiling face.
Ellen seemed, of all of them, the one to understand the bride’s elation at crossing the bridge from girl to woman. With a sly wink and a hug around his waist, she approached James and whispered in his ear, “She seems happy, James, my boy. And I know who to thank for it. You’ve put a spring in her step and a look of happiness on her face. Bless you, young man.”
That was high praise, James decided, given that Ellen was set in her ways, old enough to write volumes about men and their faults, and certainly the closest thing to a mother Alexis was liable to have for the next little while. He grinned his thanks at the cook and felt a flush creep over his cheeks.
“She’s easy to love,” he said, as if that were the final word. And then sat down at the table as the woman in question entered the kitchen. She passed behind his chair, halting long enough to drop a quick kiss on his cheek and placing her hand on his shoulder in a proprietary way before she took her own chair.
“Sleep well?” Ellen asked, her back to Alexis, her tone normal as she asked the daily question of the girl.
“Not really,” Alexis said sweetly, “but that’s all right. I’ll catch up tonight.”
“You hope,” Ellen said smartly, turning to dish up eggs on Alexis’s plate. “With this scalawag around, you may never get a good night’s sleep again.”
“Tell me I didn’t hear what I thought I just heard.” From behind him, James heard the rough voice of Hank as he made his way to the table.
At the stove, Ellen was red-faced, fumbling with the skillet, making an inordinate amount of noise as she ignored his words. And James was having a difficult time hiding his laughter from everyone. Alexis kicked him beneath the table and then set to with a will, making short work of her fried eggs. A slice of bread was buttered and a spoonful of strawberry jam spread on its surface before she looked up at her father.
“What’s on the list for today, Dad?” she asked, effectively schooling her expression to one of innocence and sobriety.
“Those horses aren’t performing well for anyone else,” he said. “You’d better plan on a long session out there today.” He looked at James then. “And you’ve got a length of fence down on the north forty. I sent out two men early this morning, but you may want to ride out and have a look yourself.”
“Thanks, Hank. I appreciate you taking care of it,” James said, thinking of how he could talk Alexis into riding with him.
“Why don’t I go out with you?” she asked him, neatly solving his problem. “I can spend the whole afternoon working with the three-year-olds, can’t I?”
“That sounds like you have it all figured out,” James told her, shooting her a look that showed his pleasure in her plan.
“Well, we’ve got that settled,” Hank said. “You got a letter yesterday, Jamie. Chet brought it home from town for you. It’s on your desk.”
James nodded his thanks, and excused himself from the table. “Let me know when you’re ready to go, Alex,” he said, touching her hair as he walked past her chair.
“About half an hour,” she called to him as he walked into the hallway and down to where a small room held two desks and chairs and the files needed to run the ranch. Even though James had made it clear that Hank was in charge of all financial records and had a free hand with the men and the running of the operation, Hank had gladly moved his own desk over to make room for James’s weeks ago. The men shared the office without problems.
He sat down at his desk, glanced at the stack of papers in front of him and wondered idly if Hank would notice if he moved them all to the other desk. Unable to be so unwilling to do his share, James decided instead to spend the evening here, sorting through things and doing this part of his job, distasteful as it was.
Now he searched out the letter, and found it just beneath the top sheaf of papers, listing the newborn calves and foals for his approval. He tossed those doing with business aside to be read later and settled back in his chair to read the word from Benning, the place he’d called home for so long.
It was from Sarah, Brace’s wife, and James grinned as he read the salutation. Dear Jamie, (or are you too dignified to still answer to that?)
“Never,” he murmured beneath his breath. After all, it was what Alexis called him and he gloried in the soft syllables as she spoke it in the night hours, her arms enclosing him, her lips offering their bounty to his own.
He shook his head, dismissing Alexis for the moment, and went back to the letter. Sarah was talkative, telling him of Stephen, of how he’d grown proficient at riding, was thinking about learning to use a lasso and how much the boy had grown in the months of the summer just past.
James looked out the window. He hadn’t even paid attention to the changing of seasons, to the turning leaves and the chill air of autumn. So involved in his courtship of Alexis, he’d allowed the weeks to go by without paying much mind to the longer nights and shorter days. Only the thought of marriage to Alexis had possessed him, and now he took a deep breath, and read on, freshly aware that it had been months since he’d left Benning.
Sarah wrote that they had thought of traveling across the state to visit James, that Stephen wanted to see the ranch his grandfather had left him and Brace said he could take time from his job for a week or so. Would it be all right for them to come?
James grinned widely, looking out the window, envisioning Brace walking beside him, saddling a horse by the barn and riding with him across the fields. And then he backed up a bit. He’d have to find a mount for Stephen, too, and include the boy in their exploration. Surely Stephen would be excited at seeing his property close up.
And Sarah. Just the thought of her meeting Alexis was enough to set his heart beating faster. Seeing the two of them together would be wonderful, a pleasure to behold, and on top of it all they would bring the twins with them, he was certain. He and Alex would have to fit out a room for them to stay in with the girls. And another for Stephen.
His mind worked a mile a minute as he made plans. And then, with a rush that sent his chair rolling back to the wall, he rose and headed for the kitchen, his letter in one hand. Looking for Alexis, he stopped dead in the doorway. She was nowhere to be seen.
“She’s gone up to change clothes,” Ellen volunteered. “She told you a half hour, James.” And as he turned toward the stairway, Ellen called after him. “If you’re planning on going to town anytime this morning, you’d do well to stay down here and leave her alone to get ready.”
James smothered a chuckle. The woman had him pegged, that was for sure. Going to their room would be a big mistake right now, and Ellen had nicely put him in his place. He solved the problem by shouting Alexis’s name up the stairway.
She opened the bedroom door and answered. “I told you a half hour and I’m way ahead of schedule. I’m almost ready, James. Just hike out to the barn and saddle our horses. You’re not doing any good at all standing down there, hollering at me.” With a bang, the bedroom door slammed shut, and James laughed aloud.
“She’s a sassy one,” Hank said from the kitchen. “You might as well do what she told you, son. She usually manages to have the last word.”
“So I’ve already found out,” James said, trying to look put upon, and not succeeding. Ellen’s grin told him he was transparent, and Hank’s parting words were about what he expected.
“I think she’s got you broke in pretty good, son. You’ll be dancing to her tune if you’re not careful.”
And did that bother him? James halted on the porch and wondered at his acquiescence to Alexis’s words. She could be a bossy little sass box, that was for sure, but he wasn’t sure he’d want her any other way. She suited him just fine. And with that in mind, he walked to the barn and took care of saddles and bridles. By the time she came out a mere ten minutes later, he was about ready to ride.
But first, he needed to set her straight about one thing. He left the two horses tied to a sawhorse and went to her, aware that his eyes were even now sending her a message of frustration. She backed up a step and put up a hand to halt his progress.
“What’s wrong, Jamie?” she asked, and then burst into a litany he was in no mood to hear. “I wasn’t serious when I told you what to do. But I’d already told you a half hour and you were shouting at me and it made me…upset, I suppose,” she said, the last words uttered in a mild manner.
“I wasn’t shouting at you. I called your name.” And that was the truth.
“I know. But you were being impatient with me, and I didn’t like it.”
“Well, get used to it, baby, ’cause I don’t have a long lead line on my temper. When I call your name, you can answer without biting my head off, can’t you?”
She stepped toward him, her eyes flashing, her hands propped on her hips and her face showing the anger she’d tried to control. “Are we fighting? Because if we are, I can really make a fuss, and you won’t like it, Mr. Webster.”
He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her almost off her feet, so harshly did he move her toward him. She stumbled, clutching at him for balance and then he held her securely, her arms trapped between them, unable to move until he should allow it.
“Let me tell you, sweetheart. We’re not fighting yet, but if you want to, I’ll oblige you. But I warn you, Mrs. Webster, I’m a dirty fighter, and I don’t pull my punches.”
“You’d punch me?” Her eyes widened.
“Hell, no, I wouldn’t punch you. That was just a figure of speech, but you can bet your bottom dollar I’d get my pound of flesh in some way or another. Do you want to test me out right now? Or are you ready to call a truce?”
“Your pound of flesh? What on earth does that mean?” And then as he shot her a look that reminded her of the stud sniffing at a mare, she understood his threat. And knew that if they had some privacy and time alone, she’d take him up on his words. She’d like to see how Jamie followed through on his claim.
“You know damn well what it means, baby,” he murmured, bending to kiss her, a dark, avid blending of their lips that sent lightning sizzling through her body. She’d seen a tree go up in flames when a summer storm had shot just such a bolt through it, and now she understood what the tree had felt as its branches burned. As if magic had touched it with a flaming wand. As if she had been burned by the fire that raged within Jamie now.
She felt it surround her, knew the touch of his passion in the hands that ran with deft thoroughness over her, touching where he would, leaving her with no defense, only the need to be taken by him with the fury of desire he seemed unable to control.
“The tack room,” she whispered, unable to speak aloud.
“You mean it?” His brow cocked and his mouth thinned, his eyes blazing as if the fire would leap from them to sear her soul.
“I mean it.” She waited, compliant and willing to do whatever he needed of her.
In two minutes she’d found out, for he’d carried her to the tack room, bolted the door behind them and had her out of her clothing, and was stripping from his own.
“This won’t be sweet and gentle,” he warned her.
“I know.” And she did know, knew that now she would see and feel the animal that lurked inside Jamie, the dark side of his being that would take her as a marauder. Yet she felt no fear, for he was innately gentle, a man who had vowed his love to her, and though she might wear a bruise or two, she would welcome this display of his passion.
He was right. It was neither sweet nor gentle. Rather, it was hot and quick, a blending that shot power through her body, turned her from an innocent girl—for she had been loved carefully and tenderly until now—into a woman who knew the depths of a man’s passion, knew the desire he could not contain or control.
There was warmth and a trace of tenderness in his touch as he lifted from her, and perhaps a bit of concern and fear in his eyes, she thought. But the arrogant sweep of his lashes as he stood and viewed her naked form plainly labeled her as belonging to him. And then he knelt by the cot and kissed her. It was a far cry from the wet, biting, sucking kisses he’d spent on her just minutes before. And his words told her she had gauged his fear well.
“Did I hurt you?” He sounded contrite, she thought, as if he worried she would not forgive him for his actions. “Are you ready to get out your gun and shoot me?”
She looked up at him soberly. “Am I hurt? Of course not, Jamie. You didn’t marry a shrinking violet. I’m a woman, and I’m capable of holding my own with you. I wasn’t sure just what you had in mind, but let me tell you, mister, that anytime you get upset with me, you can have your pound of flesh, if that’s what you want to call it.”
Chapter Eight
Christmas Eve 1903
They would arrive within minutes. Alexis was sure of it. And she was ready for them, for all of them, even though her heart beat faster as she thought of what they might think of her. She was a rancher’s daughter, and Jamie was…Jamie was a man among men. But best of all, he was hers, and that alone should give her the courage she desperately needed right now.
The tree was up, the candles ready to light, the ornaments hung and the garlands fell in great loops from the branches. She’d worked hours on them, as she did every year. Hank had said once, years past, that she put an awful lot of toil into something that would only last for two weeks. But she didn’t care. If the ranch hands didn’t mind getting the pine branches for her, she surely didn’t mind the job of twining them together and forming the long ropes that decorated the house. And on Christmas Eve, when the men who were here for the holidays came into the house for the celebration, she knew they felt a sense of pride when they saw the results of their contribution to the decorations.
She’d helped Ellen bake cookies, had frosted and then sprinkled nuts and bits of sugar candy on them, decorating what seemed like a million of them. Now at least four dozen hung from the branches of the magnificent tree, catching the light from the kerosene lamp overhead. The canes and ribbon candy were strung on pieces of red yarn and placed on the ends of many of the branches, and those branches that didn’t hold candy were decorated with small metal candle holders, with white candles ready for the match, once the company arrived and ate their supper.
She’d had little company over the years. Perhaps that was why she now was so imbued with excitement and a twinge of fear at the prospect of Jamie’s family coming as well as Brace, Sarah, the twins and Stephen. What if they didn’t like her? she asked herself for the tenth time. And Jamie’s words resounded in her mind.
They’ll love you. You’re my wife.
He’d assured her just yesterday, “Sarah is about bustin’ her buttons to get here. And Brace has Stephen all wound up, wanting to see his ranch firsthand.”
“What about Loris?” she’d asked, fearful that Jamie might still hold a bit of love in his heart for the girl who had borne his child. And buried it.
“She’s my sister now,” Jamie had said firmly. “I want you to stop worrying about everything.” He’d seemed to have a sudden thought and he’d turned to her abruptly. “You didn’t tell your father or Ellen—”
She shook her head, knowing without hearing the words spoken just what he feared. “I wouldn’t do that, Jamie. You told me in confidence, and I’d never repeat it. Not to anyone.”
“I thought not,” he’d answered softly, his love glowing in his eyes.
Ellen had supper about ready. All that was required were a number of chairs to be filled around the table plus a long bench for the children at the far side.
At eight years of age, Connor’s daughter, Rose would be old enough to sit up and eat with the adults, she thought. And perhaps the little boy, Jacob, would be able to sit on a pillow, beside his sister, enabling him to reach the table. He was six years old, Jamie had said. And then there were Brace and Sarah’s twins, and Stephen. Her heart sang with the thought of meeting all of Jamie’s family, of knowing the two women he cared for.
The yearning to carry Jamie’s child beneath her heart struck her suddenly. She hadn’t thought of it much until lately, only that it would keep her from riding for a while. But now it filled her mind, and she rejoiced silently, touching the flat surface of her tummy, aware that it contained, even now, the tiny being who would call her “Mama.”
With the coming of four youngsters, Jamie’s nephew and niece and Brace and Sarah’s twin girls, the idea of children around the house seemed to make Christmas more fun. Stephen was older, still a child, but yet hovering on the verge of manhood. And seeing his property for the first time would be an occasion for him to cherish.
A shopping trip a week ago had been fruitful, and they’d come home loaded with their purchases. She thought of the gifts she’d wrapped for the children, the boots Jamie had bought for his brother, with another pair almost identical to them for Brace, and the new capes he’d chosen for Loris and Sarah from the catalog. Alexis had been without a clue as to what to give them, until she thought of hand-tooling a bridle for Connor and a second for Brace. And then she’d thought of Stephen and had spent long hours on a bridle for the boy, knowing that he was a very special child, the very light of Brace’s eye. Several hours had then been spent making leather purses for Loris and Sarah.
