Felicia Andrews Read online

  Olivia, she knew, would be shocked to find her here, alone with a man like Trevor Eagleton. But Amanda had no doubt that given warning, she would be able to take care of herself.

  If the occasion arose. If she permitted the situation to develop that far. .

  And that, she knew, was the key to it all. Her decision; it was her decision and no one else's what she did with the body she had. Shock and convention be damned. If she wanted to give herself to a man, there was no one in the world who would be able to stop her-no one.

  And did she want to give herself to Eagleton?

  The idea had amused her in the beginning, to feed his male ego by pretending to submit to his wiles and his machinations. But now she doubted her intentions. She did not want to be hurt, and she did not want to hurt him. If it were going to happen, she wanted it to be without the taint of deception, the stain of self-delusion.

  "I'll tell you something, " he said when they had returned to the sitting room and had taken space on the couch, "if Lu Chang ever decides to return to her country, I think I'll kill myself. "

  The meal was indeed something to remember. A large number of green vegetables and sprouts that she did not recognize, laced with what she knew were almonds and several different cuts of meat, not all of it beef. It had an aroma that was somewhat alien, tangy in places, cloud soft in others-so much so that she wondered if she had imagined the scent at all. She placed a hand over her stomach and grinned.

  "I'll get fat quick enough if I have too many meals like that."

  "Ah, but that's the trick, you see," he said, turning to face her, one leg drawn up to the cushion. "You don't let her spoil you. Most of the time you demand a good, hearty meal that's nothing at all to get down. You save what you had today for special occasions."

  "I see," she said softly. "And is this a special occasion?"

  She groaned silently when she heard herself, chided herself for behaving like a girl fifteen years younger.

  Trevor poked a finger at the hand that still lay on her stomach. "I think it is, Amanda. "

  "You only think it is?"

  He grinned. "All right. It is. A special occasion. "

  "Why?" she asked suddenly and hated herself for it. "So you can tell your friends that you had an Indian squaw in your house?"

  He backed away from her vehemence, and she could see the hurt cloud his eyes. It lasted only a moment, but there was no time for regret. Instead she reached out a hand and stroked the side of his jaw.

  "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."

  "I expect you've had plenty of call for it before, though. I'm right, aren't I?"

  She nodded and did not pull away when he captured her hand in his. "It . . .happens."

  ''I'll bet. "

  "Not often . "

  "I'll bet on that, too."

  She could see him leaning closer to her, felt a distant pounding in her chest as he neared her lips. And just as he was about to kiss her, she placed her palm over his mouth. He did not draw away; he only gazed at her.

  "Lu Chang, " she said, her voice caught in a husky whisper.

  When she dropped her hand, he smiled. "Lu Chang is a remarkable woman, Amanda. She has quarters downstairs. She knows when to use them. "

  "There have been others, then?" she said coyly, trying to bait him.

  He would not take the hook. "Which of us will answer first," he said.

  She would not permit him to wait for her answer. Instead she placed her palms on his cheeks and drew his face to hers, his lips to hers, and closed her eyes to heighten the sensation as his arm snaked around her shoulders. It was a long kiss, and strangely chaste as she felt herself grow increasingly tense in spite of the tenderness of his embrace. There were images of other men-Guy and Douglas-that she banished with a tremor; and he mistook the tremor for ardor, increased the pressure on her lips, and sent his tongue probing.

  She admitted it several seconds later, just as sheets of rain washed down the street and splattered against the panes. The reflection of the water rippled over them, and in the sudden immense comfort of the room she slid her hands to the back of his neck, tilting her head toward the armrest as he sought the warmth of her throat-its hollow, the sleek road of her skin that led to the path between her breasts.

  She did not feel it when his free hand worked swiftly over her blouse, only knew that the touch of his fingers over her flesh was laced with sparks of electricity, sparks that made her muscles jump, made her swallow convulsively when his lips followed suit.

  She felt herself being lowered until she was prone upon the cushions, felt his weight press her deeply against the silken upholstery. Somehow the blouse was gone. Somehow her boots were drawn off, and his kisses found her arches, instep, while his hands caressed her legs in upward strokes that brought her attention to the core of the furnace beginning to ignite somewhere beyond the boundaries of sensation.

  A small groan escaped her lips.

  The wind increased, and the rain was like pellets of ice against the window.

  The room darkened perceptibly.

  He cupped her breasts gently and kissed them reverently, found his way back to her lips and covered them, released them, poised a moment above her, and then swung himself to the floor. She stared at him, feeling as though she had been drugged with a potion that determined nothing but sensual pleasure. His shirt vanished, and there was nothing but the hard ridges of his well-muscled chest, the hair that covered it so fine as to be almost invisible. His stomach was flat and planed, not even a suggestion of a roll about his waist. He knelt, kissed her hard, then slipped his hands under her shoulders and buttocks and lifted her in a single, dizzying motion.

  She swayed and buried her face in the crook of his neck, her lips touching his skin and tasting the faint film of perspiration that had broken there.

  There were stairs, and there was a door. There was the welcome pressure of a mattress giving beneath her back.

  The light was dim, made dimmer as he walked swiftly to the tall and arched windows and drew the heavy draperies across them. Night dark. Night silent. She felt cool air on her thighs, her calves.

  She sighed loudly as he lay beside her and enfolded her in his arms. Lips and tongue working in tandem to caress and tantalize her ear, jaw, back to the throbbing hollow of her throat, while his fingers danced lightly, too lightly over the sleek curves that ached for a grip, a touch, a kneading to enhance the billowing flames seeking release from the mouth of the furnace.

  And finally, when she could stand his ministrations no longer, she grabbed his hair and pulled him roughly over her, clamped her legs tight around his hips, and forced him to enter her.

  The furnace burst outward in a brilliant white-hot explosion that engulfed her before she could prepare herself, and the cries that she heard slipping from her lips were at once those of intense pleasure and inexplicable fear. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she laughed as she wept, laughing harder when she opened them and saw Trevor still above her, staring at her in absolute bewilderment.

  "Never mind," she whispered as she traced her nails along his spine to grip his buttocks. "Never mind. Just don't stop. For God's sake, don't you dare stop!"

  "I don't intend to," he said, his voice suddenly deep and rolling. "But why do I get the feeling this wasn't my idea at all?"

  She rolled her hips suggestively and tightened her legs'grip. "You'll never know, white man," she said.

  "Wonderful," he said. "What do you think you are, some kind of witch?"

  She almost told him. She almost let him hear the legends that had grown up around her. But she kept her silence by raising her head and finding his lips, crushing them until he moaned in simple pain and returned to the stoking that she had been denied for too long.

  Later, she thought while thought was still with her; I'll tell him later.

  And she knew she wouldn't. And she did not know why.

  SEVEN

  Amanda stretched her arms high over her head, feeling the ple
asant ache of her back and shoulder muscles as she strained them to the limit. Then she sighed and finished fastening her blouse and tucking it into her trousers. Her hair she brushed with her fingers until its center part cleared and she was able to slip on the headband. There was no mirror in which she could check her appearance, but she was positive of one thing-if she did not relax the smug, extraordinarily satisfied grin on her face, there would be too many questions for her to answer. She laughed, shook her head, and drew a handful of hair over each shoulder as she left the room and made her way down the stairs.

  The storm had ended nearly half an hour earlier in a violent concussion of thunder and lightning she felt sure was going to bring the house down around her. She had leaped from the bed in a panic, and it had taken several ice-laced seconds before she realized that she was alone, that Trevor had already left her. She had considered calling out but quieted herself when she heard voices floating up the stairwell. Lu Chang, she decided and began to dress lazily, her fingers slowly retracing those paths Trevor had taken to awaken pockets of desire in her she had almost forgotten.

  She had giggled like a schoolgirl. It was like sneaking out of the house when she was a child and her father was working over the company books in his room-sneaking out of the house and down to the river where she would sit on a bale or crate and watch the water sparkling in the moonlight or the crews loading and unloading the packets. And all of it made all the more enticing and thrilling because she knew he would not approve.

  Just as she knew Harley would not if he had known what Trevor had done to her that afternoon.

  The sitting room was empty. Outside, the gray sky had lightened but not broken, and there was a steady wind that bowed the trees spaced along the pavement. She frowned and looked around her, hesitated for a moment, and hurried through the house to the courtyard in back. She found no one. And even the table and chairs had been taken inside.

  A thought confronted her: she had been right in the beginning, that Eagleton was only fulfilling some challenge presented to him to take her into his bed. And once he had done so, he had left her to fend for herself. That taint of cruelty about his mouth was not an illusion, and she had just been given a taste of the reality.

  "Bastard, " she muttered as she strode angrily back into the sitting room and yanked on the summons pull by the hearth. She would give Lu Chang a message for him. Perhaps it would not be precisely in the kind of language she would forward, but Eagleton would not be able to mistake--

  "Yes, miss?"

  Lu Change stood in the doorway, her hands buried in the voluminous sleeves of her shimmering silken dress. She was smiling expectantly.

  Amanda's hands were firm on her hips, and her eyes narrowed as she sought for the coldest way imaginable to deliver her broadside. "Mr. Eagleton-"

  "Ah, yes," the old woman said with a quick nod. "Mr. Eagleton, he have a visitor little while ago. "

  The voices, Amanda thought suddenly.

  "He say . . . " Lu Chang frowned momentarily, as if she were determined to repeat clearly what she had been told. "He say if you are ready by seven of the clock this evening, he will be most pleased to arrange for your transportation to the house on the cliff for dinner. " She smiled. She frowned. She shook her head slowly. "I sorry, miss, but I do not understand. "

  It took nearly a full minute for Amanda to first stifle her still-growing rage, then make sense of what she had heard. House of the cliff? Then it struck her, and she smiled.

  "Cliff House , " she said. And when Lu Chang still stared at her in bewilderment, Amanda smiled and crossed toward the door. "It's a restaurant, Lu Chang. Just north of here, on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Very elegant, very expensive. "

  "Ah," the woman said, nodding. She rushed to open the door, her smile broad now, her eyes nearly closed in her beaming. "You will come again?"

  "I hope so," Amanda said. "If only to taste one of your incredible meals again. "

  Lu Chang ducked her head in embarrassed acceptance of the compliment and closed the door quickly.

  Amanda stood on the pavement for a while, staring at the house and its neighbors while the wind tossed her hair over her face in a soft, whipping veil. Then she grinned and began the hill's steep descent, her arms swinging as though she were marching, her head high and her eyes darting from side to side to take in as much of this portion of the city as she could. She was, she knew, seeing it in a different light. Less than three hours before she was grumbling about the climb and the ease with which Trevor seemed able to take it. Now, however, everything had been washed clean by the rain, and it was not at all difficult to imagine the sharp blue sky just waiting to break through the overcast.

  She laughed and startled several women who were peering into the dark recesses of a small tailor shop.

  She whistled once and sent a roan and its rider to plunging in the middle of the street.

  A young man in a seaman's striped shirt and wool cap was standing on a comer. His left leg ended at the knee, and below that a gleaming wooden peg had been carefully and exquisitely carved into an intricate design of beasts and flowers. He was playing a mournful tune on a mouth organ, and though most of the pedestrian traffic passed him by, Amanda reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. She stared at them for a moment, then grinned and dumped them all into the copper mug he had placed on the pavement beside him. He was so amazed he did not know whether to doff his cap, stop playing, thank her, or throw his arms around her. As it was, the sounds that broke from his instrument suddenly sounded like a strangled cat.

  A lovely day, Amanda thought; what a beautiful, beautiful day!

  By the time the slope had leveled somewhat, however, she had managed to calm herself. She did not particularly mind if she were making a spectacle of herself on the street, and she did not care at all about the shocked glances other women sent in her direction. They, she thought, were the poorer for not feeling as good as I do.

  But calm was necessary before she had to face Harley and William again, and by the time she had turned into the avenue where the fire had been, she had collected her vagrant and springlike thoughts into a corral where she knew she would be able to retrieve them as soon as she returned to her room.

  "Ridiculous," she muttered softly to herself, then. "And who cares?"

  There were almost a dozen huge wagons at the curb when she reached the site of the conflagration, and twice that many men loading charred and splintered timber into the backs. The horses pulling them were huge, thick at the shoulders and covered with a fine film of gray dust. Shouting filled the air as directions were given, warnings issued, and it took her some time before she was able to find Harley, down at the far end of the work space, watching the sky gloomily. He only grunted when she stood beside him.

  "Didn't get wet?" he said at last.

  She shook her head. "Trevor has a taste for exclusive places. Chinese, this was. You should have been there, Harley. It was delicious!"

  He glanced at her sourly, and she laughed as she poked his arm playfully.

  "I thought you wanted me to have a good time?" she said.

  "I did. I do. "

  She stared at him closely before taking hold of his arm and hugging it, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. "Then don't spoil it, Harl. I've got three days more. Only three days. Let me have them before I go home. "

  He put a hand to the small of her back and squeezed gently as he nodded. And it was, abruptly, an awkward moment: her impulse was to plant a grateful kiss on his cheek, but she knew too it would be the wrong gesture. From the moment she had arrived at Four Aces, Peterson had taken her under his wing . . . and had let her fly once she had learned all he had to teach her. Over the years, then, she had come to depend on him not only for the work that needed doing on the ranch but also for the strength of his stalwart loyalty.

  A loyalty that, though perhaps he did not even realize it, had slowly turned into a distant, painful love.

  Fortunately she was s
pared. William took the slack by breaking through the clots of men working at clearing the debris and greeted them heartily. Again she was forced into admiration for his courage, though she noted quietly that his eyes were beginning to betray the strain he had put himself under. They darted from side to side, not entirely focusing on anything for any length of time. And his hands, blackened and lined with scratches, kept wiping themselves on his trouser legs as though stained with blood.

  "Amanda! Did you enjoy your lunch?"

  She smiled and nodded. "Dinner, too, I hope."

  "Really?"

  "At the Cliff House. Mr. Eagleton is sending a carriage for me at seven. "

  William raised his eyebrows. "The Cliff House, is it? Mighty fancy doin's, don't you think?" He did not wait for an answer. Instead he turned to Peterson. "Harley, I'm going to have to stay here for the night, it seems. Johnson's all right when it comes to law, but when it comes to moving men around, he isn't worth a damn. I hate to ask this of you, but would you mind escorting Amanda here back to the house and telling Sarah what's going on? I should be able to make it back by midday tomorrow. LeFevre says the foundations are worka-able. Me, Johnson, and the others have put in the pot to keep him here until the job's done. "