Johanna Lindsey - Brave the Wild Wind

“You didn’t feel that way last night.”

“I was a fool last night.”

That made him angry. “Maybe we both were fools. But the fact remains that there’s a special spark between us, Jessie.”

“Don’t kid yourself. You just happen to be the first man who touched me. You won’t be the last, believe me.”

He reached her in two strides and grabbed her, his eyes dark with anger and desire. “What happens with you and me doesn’t happen with just any two people,” he said huskily. “You can deny it, but you know you want me, Jessie. Marry me. Say yes.”

He wouldn’t let go of her, so she punched him, hard enough to gain her release but only surprising him. She followed that with a stinging slap.

“Does that prove I don’t want you?” she cried, her chest heaving. A lump in her throat made it difficult to get the words out. “You might give a good tumble, but I sure as hell wouldn’t marry you for that. It takes a little respect to make a marriage, and I’ve got none for you!”

“Then maybe I ought to give you some,” Chase growled, a threatening glint in his eyes.

Jessie backed away, but not quickly enough. He caught her wrists and dragged her to the bed, but his intention was not what she thought it was.

“Damn, but I’ve wanted to do this since I first met you,” he told her. His voice held pure satisfaction.

He pulled her onto his lap. Jessie gasped at the first stinging blow to her backside. Another followed, and another. She wanted to scream but refused to give him the satisfaction. She fought instead, struggling and squirming to get off his lap, but he threw one leg over both of hers, clamping her legs between his, and pressed the palm of his free hand into her back to hold her immobile. Her struggling had caused her shirt to rise, and his hand was striking bare skin.

Jessie had to bite her lips to keep from crying. He wouldn’t stop.

“I’d like to say this hurts me more than it does you, but it doesn’t,” he said as he continued to hit her glowing backside. “Someone should have done this a long time ago, Jessie. Maybe then you wouldn’t be so quick to throw punches anytime you feel like it.”

Her eyes were overflowing with tears, but he couldn’t see that. He saw only the fiery red of her bottom. Forgetting why he had been so brutal, he leaned over and kissed the injured area.

Jessie didn’t feel it. She was burning too much to feel anything but pain. Chase didn’t know that, either, and he was annoyed with himself for feeling the need to comfort her at all. He lifted her off his lap and onto the bed. Then he stood up and stomped to the door. He opened it and was even out in the hall before he remembered the note in his back pocket and pulled it out. He went back inside just as Jessie was sitting up, her back to him, her glorious hair spilling around her. The sight stirred him, and every muscle in his body stiffened.

“I have something for you,” he said. He dropped the note on the bed, but she didn’t turn around. “It would have been a wedding gift, but since it cost me no more than the turn of a card, why don’t we call it payment for pleasures received. That way, we’re even.”

He had hoped for some kind of response to his cruel barb, but he got nothing, not even a glare.

She wouldn’t look at him. He left the room and closed the door behind him. He was not going to let it bother him. His parting shot hadn’t been any meaner than many things she had said to him. It would not bother him. He was free of her now.

JESSIE didn’t sit a horse too comfortably for a week, and every time she rode, she thought of Chase.

He had left that following morning. She had stayed in her room until after he was gone, and he hadn’t come to say good-bye. He had argued with Rachel before he left, and Jessie couldn’t help but hear most of it.

“I asked her to marry me. She refused. Damn it, Rachel, what more could I do?”

“You could have left her alone!” Rachel had actually screamed at him. “I trusted you!”

“What do you want from me, Rachel? It happened. You think I didn’t regret it when I found she was a virgin? But it was too late to stop.”

“You didn’t want to stop!”

Their voices lowered after that, and Jessie didn’t hear any more until the final slam of the door when Chase left the house. She was curious about his attempt at being noble. They both knew that she was the one who hadn’t let them stop. Yet he let Rachel think he was wholly to blame. Stupid. What was he trying to prove?

Jessie thought a lot about that in the weeks that followed. She couldn’t help but think about it. Rachel reminded her of it constantly with her woebegone, pitying expressions. It was absurd. The woman acted as if the most heinous of crimes had been committed. How could she be such a hypocrite, whore that she was? The loss of virginity had not mattered to Jessie, but Rachel acted as if she’d been raped.

Rachel didn’t speak Chase’s name again, either. It was as if Jessie were suddenly breakable, as if the slightest wrong word would shatter her. Utterly ridiculous.

Rachel’s behavior was irritating in another way, too. Her sympathy was not only unwelcome, it also made it impossible for Jessie to forget about Chase Summers, which she dearly wanted to do.

Both mother and daughter despised him now, but for different reasons. For his ill treatment of her, for his getting in the last lick but good before riding out of her life, Jessie would never forgive him. But she would never see him again, never have a chance to even the score. It infuriated her beyond measure.

It was a blessing when Jessie got sick in the middle of October, for the illness served to take her mind off everything but herself. The first few days she was ill, she figured it would run its course quickly. She was annoyed to be sick at all. But when it didn’t pass quickly, she began to worry. She managed to keep her illness from everyone, although that was difficult. She didn’t want anyone fussing over her, especially Rachel. She’d hardly been sick a day in her life, and she wasn’t used to it. After a week, she decided it was time to see a doctor, but she wasn’t feeling up to a long ride on Blackstar. She came up with an excuse for using the buggy simply by breaking the heel on her riding boots.

Jessie hadn’t counted on Billy wanting to come along, but she didn’t refuse him. It was easy to shake him once they got to town, for he was only too willing to go and register them at the hotel for the night. As soon as he was out of sight, she headed for Doc Meddly’s office.

Whether he was a real doctor, a horse doctor, or just a man who knew a little about doctoring, she didn’t know. But Cheyenne was lucky to have any medical help at all. Many western towns didn’t. And he seemed to understand his business, asking the right questions, concentrating like he knew what he was doing. The trouble was, he wouldn’t stop frowning when she finished explaining. She was getting awfully nervous.

“Well, what is it?” she demanded. “Is it contagious? Am I dying?”

The man was clearly flustered. “Fact is, Miss Jessie, I got no idea what’s ailing you. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were pregnant. But you being an unattached youngun, I have to scratch that. But nothing else fits. You get gut-sick only in the mornings, and you’re fine the rest of the time.”

Jessie didn’t hear a thing he said... beyond the word pregnant “But it’s too soon... I mean, it’s only been three... no, four weeks since—damn!”

After the stammered confession, Doc Meddly cleared his throat uncomfortably and set about rearranging the papers on his desk, avoiding Jessie’s eyes. “Yes, well, it don’t take long at all to figure if you’ve conceived... ah, that is, if you’ve been with a man... ah, shoot, Miss Jessie. I ain’t use to discussing this. The women round here don’t come to me for such a delicate matter. They see to each other.”

“Then you really think I’m pregnant?”

“If you were married, Miss Jessie, I wouldn’t hesitate to say yes.”

“Well, I’m not married!” Jessie said sharply. “And I’d rather think I was dying!”

Outside the doctor’s office, Jessie stopped and leaned back against the door, desperate to get her thoughts together without letting rage interfere. But there was too much to think about. A baby!

Jessie got to the hotel without even being aware of having crossed town. Billy was waiting for her, and he followed her to her room, perplexed. He’d never seen her so preoccupied. “Is something wrong, Jessie?”

“What could be wrong?” She laughed in a high-pitched voice, on the too-soft bed in the bleak room. She groaned and put her hands to her temples, as if warding off pain.

Billy frowned. “I... I thought maybe you heard about Chase Summers, that you were upset because he’s still here.”

Jessie sat up very slowly. “Here? What do you mean?”

“He’s still in town. He didn’t leave like we thought. He’s staying here in the hotel, in fact.”

“You saw him?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?” she snapped.

“Two men told me.” He shrugged. “They said they saw you and me come into town. They said they knew Chase worked for you, and if you were looking for him, you could find him over at the saloon. I suppose they were just being obliging, Jessie.”

She jumped off the bed. “It’s been three weeks since he left the ranch. He’s got no business still being here.”

“Are you going to see him?”

“No!”

Billy took a few steps away from her. “Are you sure you’re all right, Jessie?”

“No... yes... oh, I’ve just got a splitting headache that’s going to have me climbing the walls soon if it doesn’t go away. I need some quiet. Why don’t you go on down and get yourself some supper, then go to bed?” Then she added, giving a thought to him at last, “Will you be all right alone?”

He drew himself up, insulted. “Sure. But you need to eat, too.”

“No, I don’t, not tonight. I think I’ll just go to bed now, to sleep this headache off. I’ll wake you in the morning when it’s time to leave.”

“What about your boots?”

“I’ll get them before we leave. And, Billy, if you happen to see Chase, try not to let him see you, okay? I’d rather he didn’t know we were here.”

“You sure don’t like him, do you, Jessie?”

“What’s to like about an arrogant, pigheaded—” She caught herself before she lost control. “No, I don’t like him.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Why?” Jessie asked incredulously.

“It’s just... you and him could have... oh, never mind. I’ll see you in the morning, Jessie.”

“Wait a minute—” But Billy had already closed the door.

CHASE had become quite fond of the bottle and its magic cures. He had even gone on a binge for an entire week when he first got to town. But after he sobered up, he got down to the business of making money—money that would get him to Spain. It was time. Spain was so far away. He needed the distance. In Spain, he wouldn’t be tempted to come back to this area.

It was difficult staying there in the meantime, though, and that was why the bottle was never far from his reach. The point was, he kept telling himself, the railroad came through Cheyenne, and there were many saloons for a gambler’s needs. It just didn’t make sense to go on to Denver or back to Kansas to catch the train east, not when he could do that from where he was.

The difficulty was in being only a day’s ride away from that jewel-eyed termagant who kept coming to his mind no matter how much he drowned his thoughts in drink. Twice it had even been so bad he’d considered riding back out to the Rocky Valley Ranch. But Rachel wouldn’t welcome him, and Jessie never had.

He got drunk enough to stop those foolish notions whenever they came over him.

He was drunk just then, after hearing that Jessie had come to town. What the hell was it about her that made it so difficult to put her out of his life? She had damn well turned his life upside down already. He had never before had this trouble forgetting any woman he’d gotten involved with. And liquor didn’t seem to help this time, not even a little. With Jessie so close, he needed something more.

His eyes roamed the saloon from where he stood at the end of the bar. He saw Charlie and Clee, Bowdre’s two obnoxious sidekicks, sitting at a table by themselves. Chase could have shot them for telling him Jessie was in town. To get his mind off her, which the drink wasn’t doing, he considered picking a fight with them. But then he spotted Silver Annie crossing the room. She would suit his needs even better than a fight.