Lacy

“You didn’t go back there after the war,” she murmured.

His eyes darkened as they studied her averted face. She was fishing. Always fishing, always wondering about him. He wondered about her, too, but it wouldn’t do to let it show. Cole had said hands-off, and he owed Cole too much to argue. Besides, he told himself, Katy was just a kid. She’d get over him.

“There was nothing to go back to,” he said. His eyes grew dull and sad as the memories came back. “Nothing at all.”

“Don’t you have family anywhere?” she asked curiously.

That shouldn’t have set him off, but it did. Sometimes Katy irritated him with her constant probing into his life. He didn’t like it. He didn’t want her any closer than she was right now. In that, he and Cole were almost too much alike. Okay. If she wanted the truth, she could have it. He stared harshly down at her. “I had a wife. She died one winter, while I was away selling cattle. She froze to death sitting up in a chair. She’d gotten sick and couldn’t build a fire. She was pregnant.”

Katy felt her body go rigid with the words. She looked up into a face like stone…and suddenly understood so much. A wounded man. A badly wounded man, heart dead, and he wanted no more of love or commitment. And now it all made sense. The way he’d avoided her, the way he went through women as if they were no more than toys with which to amuse himself. Of course. There was safety in numbers. If he had a lot of women, he didn’t have to worry about the risk of involvement.

Her face went white. She stared at him helplessly, all her dreams dying slowly in the green eyes that went quietly dead in her face.

He saw that, and his conscience stung. “Yes,” he said curtly. “Yes, I thought so. Bringing that Northern hoodlum down here, running wild, all of that was because of me, wasn’t it? Because I wasn’t dancing attendance on you!”

It hurt to hear it put into words. It stung her eyes and made them water.

He saw the tears and felt vaguely guilty. She was just a kid, after all. And even if he wanted her as much as she wanted him, there was no way it could work. He wasn’t sure he had anything to give. Like Cole said, Katy was too vulnerable for a quick affair.

“Katy, I’m sorry if that hurts. But, girl, I’ve got nothing left to give,” he said softly. “I don’t want your young heart, Katy. I can’t give you mine. I lost mine when I lost Lorene. If it weren’t for Cole, I wouldn’t even be alive. Don’t you understand? I loved her,” he said roughly. “I can’t ever love anyone else!”

“I haven’t asked you to love me! I don’t feel like that…” she burst out, hurt pride and frustrated passion making her wild.

“I’m not blind!” he tossed back, his gray eyes stormy. “You’ve followed me around, sighed over me, made love to me with your eyes for the past few months! You’ve done everything to make me notice you except strip naked!”

She drew back her hand and slapped him across the cheek as hard as she could. Her face was wet, and she didn’t even realize that it was soaking with spilled tears. She sobbed as she looked at the redness her fingers had made. “Damn you! Damn you! I don’t care about you. I never could!”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he growled. It was all getting out of hand. He started to reach for her, to try and explain.

But she shrugged off his hands and ran, blind, uncertain of the direction she was taking. She ran past the corral where the remuda was kept, through the spread of mesquite trees with their feathery, thorned fronds blowing softly in the wind, down the trail into the hay barn. Sobbing, she fought her way through the bales to a dark, quiet corner and lay in the yellow, sweet-smelling hay, her body shaking from the force of her pain.

Her heart had fed for years on the hope of someday having Turk for her very own. She went to sleep dreaming of how it would be if he kissed her, if he loved her. She planned a future that was based on loving him, that included marriage and children. And now, none of it would ever happen. He had nothing to give. She didn’t know how she was going to stay alive….

Footsteps sounded behind her, but she wouldn’t look up. She knew she was in disgrace. Shame washed her in blushes. She couldn’t face him.

“You little fool,” Turk muttered. He knelt beside her, forcing her onto her back with hands that had no gentleness. He glared down at her, feeling impotent, hating the indignity of her behavior for both of them. “This won’t help, Katy.”

“Leave me alone,” she whispered, shaking. She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Go away and let me be by myself.”

He caught her wrists and pulled her up, holding her in front of him, his gray eyes fierce as they held her tear-soaked green ones. “Listen to me, young lady. I came out of the war alive—when more than any damned thing, I wanted to die. Your brother forced me to go on; he got me off the bottle and gave me a job and I owe him for that. He said hands-off where you’re concerned, and by God, hands-off it’s going to be. Do you understand me?”

“You don’t need that for an excuse,” she shot back. “We both know you don’t want me!”

“Do we?” he asked under his breath.

The way she looked was tearing him apart. Loyalty to Cole stopped him only for a second. He’d watched her, too, although he hated admitting it. He’d watched her and wanted her for a long time, and only his conscience had kept him from running screaming to her room in the darkness. He wanted her. God, he did! And she wanted him, too. He could see it, almost taste it. Would it be so wrong, just one time, just once to hold her and touch her and end the exquisite torment of desire she aroused in him? Afterward, would she hate him? He tried to think of afterward, but the scent of her—the vulnerable tenderness in those big green eyes—made him reckless. Oh, to hell with it! She was going to give in to somebody, maybe that lousy gangster. So why should he hold back? At least, he wouldn’t hurt her….

His hands went out to her hips. In his kneeling position, he drew her roughly to his body and pressed her belly into his. He watched the shock in her eyes dilate the pupils until they were black, and he laughed bitterly as he felt her body stiffen in the blatantly intimate embrace.

“Do you feel that, Katy? Has your Chicago gangster taught you what it means?” he asked suggestively, dragging her hips slowly against the hard thrust of his to let her feel graphically the tangible proof of his desire.

Her nails bit into the hard round muscles of his arms through his brown-patterned shirt and she trembled. Her eyes were on his mouth now, because what he was showing her embarrassed her.

“I’ve seen you in your room at night,” he said his lips against her forehead, his voice husky and rough, “standing in front of the curtains to undress, your arms lifted, your breasts straining against those thin gowns you wear. And I’ve gone running into town to have a woman, to forget, to get rid of what you’ve done to me.”

“I didn’t…know,” she whispered, her voice as unsteady as his. She could feel her breasts swelling against him, even through the two thin layers of fabric. His chest was warm and hard, and she felt the cushy springiness of hair that must cover it.

“Does he make love to you, that slick gangster?” he whispered.

“Not—not yet.”

“Are you going to let him, Katy?” he asked under his breath.

“Yes!” she said recklessly. “Yes, because you won’t!”

“Oh, but I will, tidbit,” he breathed, bending. His hands slid down her hips to her waist, then up still farther to her unbound breasts. He cupped their small softness, taking their warm weight, his thumbs teasing the nipples hard. She bit back a cry, and he slid his mouth down to hers to take it into the warm darkness past his lips.

It was the first kiss, the very first one she’d ever shared with him. Her eyes closed, her head went back to give him full access. Her mouth opened hungrily, eagerly, letting his tongue probe inside, letting it tangle with her own in the hot, still darkness of the barn.

His fingers had a faint tremor now. She felt them on the buttons of her dress. She stiffened, but she didn’t stop him. This was all she’d have of him when she left with Danny. Because she was going. After this, after what she’d told him, after what she was going to do with him in this dark barn, she’d have to leave.

“You know what this is going to lead to?” he asked, his mouth poised just above her own as he found the last button at her waist.

“Yes,” she said, shaking. “I’ll be…leaving with Danny,” she told him. She would, she’d have to, because of what was going to happen now. She’d have to ask Danny to take her away, today. He would, she knew. She couldn’t tell him why, but he’d do what she asked. Meanwhile, she wanted this man obsessively. And these few minutes with him, even without his love, would last all her life. “You don’t have to love me. Just be my lover. I’ll live on it…all my life!” Her voice broke. “Because I lied. I do love you. I always have, always will. I love you, Turk!” Her voice broke as his hands moved.

“You little fool! You’re not old enough to know what love is. This is just sex,” he whispered angrily. But it didn’t feel like just sex as he pulled the fabric slowly away from her pretty pink breasts and peeled it down to her waist, his darkening eyes sensuous on the creamy flesh with its dark pink tips gone hard with desire. “And speaking of little…” he murmured, reaching out to touch the tips with warm, slow fingers, watching her body tauten and tremble, her breath indrawn sharply.

She let him lay her down, let him remove the dress and the chemise and the garter belt and hose and shoes, until she was nude under the dark warmth of his eyes and the scent of her own body filled her nostrils.

“Cole and I used to talk about women when we were overseas,” he whispered, kneeling over her as he stripped off his shirt. “He said that your grandfather was a full-blooded Comanche, and that the old man used to say that Indians could smell a woman. Now I know what he meant.” He tossed his shirt aside and reached for his belt, smiling sensually as she watched him. “Don’t turn your face away, Katy,” he said gently as he began to lower the tight jeans and shorts he wore under them. “You let me see you. Now I’m going to let you see me.”

Her eyes widened as the jeans slid away from his body…and she saw for herself the wild difference between man and woman, between male and female.

“My God, what an expression!” He laughed softly as he moved away long enough to remove the rest of his clothing.

“I’ve never seen a man…like that,” she whispered as he stretched alongside her.

“Not even the Chicago hood?” he taunted.

“Oh…no,” she said, her voice faltering, her eyes widening as he loomed above her.

“Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you too much,” he said softly, Cole’s warnings and his own misgivings drowning in a passion too-long denied. His hand smoothed down her body, feeling the softness of her breasts, brushing over her belly and down to the exquisite softness below it. He touched her with blatant intimacy, and she flinched and caught at his hand.

“Shh,” he whispered. He opened his mouth on hers, tasting its soft trembling, and ignored the dainty little hand tugging halfheartedly at his fingers as he found a moist opening and began to play around it.

Her body arched and her voice broke on a faint little cry.

His lips lifted until they were just brushing hers. “I don’t have anything to use,” he whispered. “And I’m just not confident enough to try rolling away from you in time. So we’re going to make love this way. I’m going to be your first man, but not technically. Do you understand? I’m going to fulfill you without the risk of pregnancy, and then I’m going to show you how to do it to me.”

“But…” she protested as his fingers moved again. She cried out, gasping, as he found more sensitive tissue and began to stroke it.

“Look at me,” he whispered as he increased the pressure and the rhythm, holding her shocked eyes. “Let me watch you.”

Her face went bloodred as he stroked and tormented. She began to writhe helplessly, and his dark eyes were all over her, watching her breasts swell and tauten even more, watching the restless movements of her long, elegant legs, hearing sweet, whimpering sounds that aroused him unbearably.

He was hurting. Worse. Dying. He grasped one of her hands and pushed it against his swollen flesh, wrapping it around him, holding it there when she would have jerked it away.

“God, I hurt,” he whispered, his voice tormented even as his hand grew more bold where it touched her. “Like this…Help me!”

He taught her the movement, whispered explicit, embarrassing instructions that she was too aroused to protest. She touched him, stroked him, closed around him, and felt him throb. Her eyes looked up into his, and he saw her pupils beginning to dilate.

“Turk!” she cried out, her voice frantic, rasping.

His free hand was behind her neck, holding her still, his other hand feverish, his eyes shockingly thorough as he held her wild gaze. “Now,” he whispered roughly. “Feel it, Katy. Feel it. Feel it, and let me watch!”

Spasms of hot lightning shot through her virginal body. She arched up against that tormenting hand and cried out, forcing him to fulfill her. Her body went into convulsions, and he watched, feeling them as his hand probed gently past the maidenhead. He shook all over, and in that moment of feverish arousal, forgot caution.

“To hell with this!” he groaned. He forced her back into the hay with the hot pressure of his open mouth. His body rolled onto hers and he thrust her legs apart with his hand. He went into her with rough, piercing motion, burying himself, and she was so involved in her own culmination that she didn’t even feel pain. She welcomed him, arching up to his hard, hot body, her hands finding his hips, her nails digging in.

He rocked furiously above her, his breath dragging out in gasps, his thighs shuddering as he arched down again and again, his eyes on her, his jaw clenched with the most exquisite pleasure he’d ever had.

“Take me inside,” he whispered, his voice strained, deep with mingled arousal and passion. “Take me, Katy!”

It happened to her again. The whispered words, the rough motion of his body, the feverish rhythm with which he drove into her made it happen again.

She closed her eyes and arched her head back with a peculiar little cry, her nipples hard and pointing. One of his hands swallowed one of them roughly. His mouth forced hers open and penetrated it in the same motion, with the same rhythm, as his body. She heard the noise of the sliding hay under them, smelled the hot, pungent smell of their union, heard his heart slamming in his chest, felt the wiry roughness of his body hair against her soft skin. And then he cried out, with such achingly wild pleasure that her eyes opened and she looked up, seeing him arched above her, his neck corded with muscle, his face violently red, his eyes closed, his teeth clenched. He convulsed again and again with rippling muscle, and she looked down to where they were locked together and watched as he suddenly drew back and covered her body with his. She felt a wetness on her belly after his body shuddered and then collapsed on top of her, gasping for breath. “Oh, God,” he breathed unsteadily. “I hope it was in time! I couldn’t stop…!”

Her hands touched him with wonder. He’d said that he wouldn’t and then he had, suddenly, as if he hadn’t been able to hold back. Her eyes closed as she drifted in the soft aftermath, a little sad because she knew that this would be the last time, the only time. Because she loved him, and would lose him. He had no heart to give her, only a body that knew no emotion past fulfillment; any woman would have done.

“Are you all right, Katy?” he asked, lifting his sweaty head to look at her with soft concern.

“Yes, I’m all right,” she replied, with the shreds of her pride. She even managed a smile, but she couldn’t quite look at him.

“And this is why I wouldn’t touch you before,” he said gently, watching her move slowly away and start putting her clothes on again. “Because afterward comes shame…and then guilt.”

He was being tender, and she hated it. Hated what was only pity mingled with conscience. She drew her underpants back on and her garter belt over them. There was no self-consciousness left, at least. Danny would like that. He didn’t know she was a virgin. He’d even said that he wouldn’t want one. So all her problems were solved at once. She’d given her virginity to the only man she’d ever love—to pave the way for the only man who loved her.

“Say something,” he said quietly, watching her, vaguely ashamed of his own loss of control. He hadn’t meant to let it happen. His big body still trembled softly with the force of his fulfillment. Was it because she’d been a virgin that it had been so intense? he wondered dazedly. He’d never felt it like that.

“I’m all right!” she said roughly. Would the shame never stop? She knew he didn’t love her, but she’d thought the experience with him would be profound, reverent. And it had only been sex. Very pleasurable, very nice. But without his love, it was only physical. She wondered if she’d always remember it with the same degree of bitterness.

She pulled the chemise over her head and then pulled on her dress. Behind her, she heard him putting his own clothes back on and tried not to remember the beauty of his body without them. Hard muscles covered with dark blond hair, strength and beauty in every sinew. She’d never forget this. He would, of course. There would be other women. Her eyes closed; she didn’t want to know about them. She was only one in a line, and that’s all she would ever be. Now she wouldn’t even have the dignity of being the one that got away. And when it was too late, she finally understood why he’d kept his distance. He’d wanted her to keep her illusions. Now she had none left.

With her hand on the last button, she stepped into her wide-heeled shoes and turned to face him with her chin proudly lifted.

“Thanks for the lesson,” she said quietly.

He actually winced. “No,” he said under his breath, searching her dark, wounded green eyes. “No, don’t make it into something cheap. It wasn’t.”

Her lower lip trembled, threatening to leave her defenseless. She forced herself to smile. “Okay.”

He moved forward, catching her arms as she tried to get away, to run.

“Don’t go,” he said. “Don’t let that man make you into a plaything. He’ll use you and throw you out.”

She looked up, loving him with her eyes. “So long, cowboy.” She smiled faintly, sadly. “I loved you, Turk,” she whispered. She touched his hard face, feeling the muscles harden. “I always will, until I die. I may have other men, but I’ll never give all of myself again.”

“He’ll hurt you!” he ground out, hating this, hating the pain. He hadn’t expected that it would hurt when she left, that he wouldn’t be able to take her in his stride and walk away.

She touched her fingers to his firm mouth. “No. You’ve seen to that,” she said, her voice exquisitely tender. “No one could possibly have made it as perfect as you did. He won’t hurt me.” Her eyes searched his one last time, sad and resigned. “I’ll love you until I die, Turk.”

She turned and moved quickly away, so that he wouldn’t see the tears. It was good-bye. They both knew it.

Long after she’d left, Turk sat on the steps of the barn loft, smoking a cigarette, his eyes blank and sad. After Lorene, he’d never wanted anyone else, not permanently. He’d wanted to have Katy; he couldn’t deny that. He’d only kept his distance so long because he’d promised Cole. But now…

His body ached. Despite the feverish fulfillment he’d had with her, a completion he’d never known with another woman, ever, he was hungry all over again. He remembered her small, taut breasts under his chest, the nipples arousing him as they rubbed against his muscles….

He got up abruptly and took the cigarette outside to grind it out under the heel of his boot. His face set into harsh lines, he went back toward the house. He owed Cole so much, but there had to be a way out of this. Maybe he could talk to her, maybe they could work something out.

It had only been thirty minutes or so since she’d left the barn, long enough to smoke three cigarettes. So it came as a shock when he got to the house and found it empty.

Cassie came back into the kitchen from the pantry to find him staring toward the staircase.

“If you looking for Miss Katy,” she said shortly, “she ain’t here. She done gone, luggage and all, with that Chicago gangster.”

He felt his heart sinking. He turned, his eyes dark, quiet. “When?”

“Not five minutes ago.” She sighed. “Mr. Cole going to be like a wild man. And how is I going to tell Miss Marion?” Her tired, lined eyes misted. “My baby, gone off with that—that man! How come you let her go, Mr. Turk?” she demanded.

“She’s of age,” he said harshly, when all his fighting instincts were screaming for him to go after the man and kill him. But what could he offer her? He didn’t want to get married. And after what had happened, it would be impossible all the way around if she stayed here. His friendship with Cole would be at risk; Katy would grow to hate him. And that Chicago man did seem sincere enough, explaining patiently to Turk the night before that their late arrival had been innocent. He cared about Katy, he’d told Turk. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. Perhaps he’d marry her…

Why should that hurt so much? He turned on his heels and stalked out of the house. Cassie was crying softly as he went out the door.

The shock was almost too much for Marion Whitehall. She came home to a tearful Cassie and was hit with the news just as she put her purse down on the hall table.

Her elegant features contorted; her dark eyes filled with tears under their frame of curling, silvery hair. “Gone?” she exclaimed. “My Katy, gone? To—to live with a man? Why didn’t someone stop her?”

“Mr. Turk got here too late, and Mr. Cole ain’t come home yet, that’s why,” Cassie moaned. “And I was out in the garden. Nobody was here to stop her. Mr. Turk said she was of age—and he just stomped off somewhere in a temper. Mr. Cole going to be so mad!”

Marion sat down. She felt sick all the way to her shoes. Katy. Her baby. How could she do this? “Has Ben come home?” she asked.

“I doesn’t think so,” Cassie said, sobbing. “He didn’t come down for breakfast, so I looks in his room, and he ain’t been in it. So I reckon he ain’t here. Oh, Lord! What a terrible day this is! What a terrible homecoming for Mr. Cole!”

Marion felt the tears running down her cheeks. “Did she leave a message? A note? Anything?”

“I’ll go look,” Cassie said, ambling toward the staircase.

Just then, the front door flew open, and Ben Whitehall came rushing through it, his dark eyes wild, his dark hair disheveled like his once-immaculate gray suit. “I got it!” he burst out, “I got it! I got it! He hired me!”

He grabbed Cassie and spun her around in an impromptu dance, too exuberant to notice that nobody was smiling. “I’m going to work for a brand spanking new San Antonio newspaper.” He laughed. “They hired me to write news. I’ve been out with the owner and his daughter, and I have to go back—” He stopped, frowning as the somber faces of his mother and housekeeper penetrated his enthusiasm. He let go of Cassie. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Your sister just left for Chicago,” Marion said miserably, her face a study in desperation and shame. “To live with the owner of a speakeasy!”

Chapter

Four

Ben’s face froze. He straightened, running an idle hand through his thick, dark hair. He stared at his mother. “She left with that gangster?” he asked, as if he could hardly believe what he’d heard. “Why didn’t somebody stop her?”

“Turk apparently didn’t get here in time,” Marion said quietly, her eyes wet with tears. “My little girl…in that terrible place! Oh, Ben! What will become of her?”