"Sneaking up on me!"

"I wasn't sneaking up on you. You told me it was time for supper, so I followed you."

"Whoa!" Shannon murmured, looking at her sister. "Kristin, you've been drinking!"

"Yes!" she snapped, glaring at Cole. "And I'll probably do a whole lot more drinking before… before…"

"Oh, hell, will you just sit the hell down!" Cole growled. He caught her hand, pulled out a chair and directed her into it with little grace. Her wide skirts flew. He pressed them down and shoved her chair in.

Kristin wanted to be dignified. She wanted to be sophisticated and elegant, and most of all she wanted to be in control. "You arrogant scallywag!" she said quietly, her voice husky with emotion.

"Kristin, shut up."

That was it. She started to push herself away from the table, but his hand slammed down on hers, holding her fast. "Kristin, shut up."

"Bas—"

"Now, Kristin." He came closer to her, much closer, and spoke in a whisper. This was between the two of them. "Or else we can get up and settle this outside."

The whiskey seemed to hit her anew right then, hit her hard. She thought she was going to scream. She burst into laughter instead. "Outside? With pistols?"

"Hardly, but you can call it what you want, darlin'."

The buzz of the liquor was nice. If he stayed around too long, Kristin thought, she'd find herself turning into a regular old drunk.

"Shall we eat?" Cole asked politely.

There was silence in the room. Shannon was staring at him. "Sit!" he told her.

Shannon sat hastily, then lowered her head before looking surreptitiously over at Kristin, who hiccuped loudly.

Cole groaned, then he looked up at Delilah. "Don't you and Samson usually eat?"

"Oh, no, sir!" Delilah protested. "Why, you know it just wouldn't be right for black folks —"

"Delilah, cut the… er —" He broke off, looking from Samson to Kristin. Shannon was about to laugh.

"Manure," Kristin supplied.

Shannon did burst into laughter. Even Delilah grinned. Cole said, "Get your husband, woman, and sit down and eat. I once had the opportunity to discover that a black man could save my hide as good as a white one. Let's just have supper and get it over with, shall we?"

"Yessir, yessir," Delilah said, chuckling. "My, my, my," she muttered, moving off toward the kitchen.

Kristin sat primly, her hands folded in her lap. Her dress felt ridiculously heavy, now that she was sitting. She felt as if she was about to fall over. She realized that Cole was looking at her, but it didn't matter very much, and that was a nice feeling.

Delilah walked back in from the kitchen.

Cole gazed at her expectantly. "You've never washed her mouth out with soap, huh?" He indicated Kristin.

Kristin decided that she could sit straight. She told Cole that he reminded her of the stuff that people needed to wipe off their boots before they came in from the barn.

Shannon gasped, and then she began to giggle. Delilah stood stock-still. Samson, coming in behind his wife, turned an ashen color.

Cole was dead still. Explosively still. And then explosively in motion.

He was up, and Kristin sobered enough to know a moment's panic as he came around behind her and purposely pulled her chair away from the table. He lifted her, and her petticoats and hoops and skirt went flying. Kristin swore at him and pounded on his back.

"Cole!" Kristin gasped.

What manner of man had she let loose in her home, she wondered.

He started for the stairs.

"What are you doing?" she shrieked.

"Putting you to bed."

"I don't want to go!"

"My rules, Miss McCahy."

They were all watching her, Shannon and Delilah and Samson, and they weren't doing a thing to save her. They were just staring. She raised her head and saw that Delilah was openly grinning and Samson was hiding a smile.

"You son of a bitch!" she yelled.

"We are going to have to do something about that mouth of yours," Cole vowed grimly.

"This is my house!"

"My rules!"

She told him what he could do with his rules, but it was too late. They were already up the stairs. He booted open the door to the room he had decreed they would share, and before she knew it she had landed on the bed. She wanted to get back up, but she groaned instead and clutched her temples.

His leering face was above her.

"Why, what's the matter, Miss McCahy? Why, I would have thought you could drink any man west of the Mississippi under the table."

"Madeira," she whispered. "Not whiskey."

He showed her no mercy. Suddenly his hand was on her leg and he was pulling off her shoe. She managed to pull herself up to a sitting position and pummel his back. "What are you doing?"

"Taking your shoes off." But her shoes were off, and his hands were still on her, slipping along her calf, then her thigh. When his fingers touched her thigh, she gasped and tried to stop him. "Damn you Cole Slater —"

Her words ended in a gasp, for he turned quickly, pulling hard on her ankle so that she was lying flat on her back again. Her silk stockings came free in his hands, and he tossed them carelessly on the floor. She tried to rise, and he came down beside her on the bed, his weight on her.

"Where the hell are the damn ties to these things?" he muttered, working on her hoop.

Kristin struggled to stop him, but he found the ties. She reached for his hands, but they had already moved, freeing her from her hoop and petticoats, and he pulled her up, working on the hooks of her gown. In seconds he had it free and she was down to her pantalets, chemise and corset.

"Come here!" he demanded roughly. Kristin cried out, trying to elude him, but he pulled her back by the corset ties. He loosened the ties, and she gasped, amazed by the air that rushed into her lungs. But then she was naked except for her sheer chemise and pantalets, and his presence was overwhelming.

She began to protest. He caught her shoulders and slammed her down on the bed.

"Calm down and sleep it off!" he commanded.

He was straddling her, and his eyes were like steel. She wanted to slap his superior face. She tried. She missed by a mile, and he caught her hand.

"My rules."

She told him again what he could do with his rules.

"Stay here alone, or I'll stay here with you."

She went still, trying to grasp the meaning of his words. The room was spinning madly.

Then she understood. He stared at her. Then he lowered his head toward her and kissed her, and somewhere, within her hazy mind and her bruised heart she knew that he did desire her.

And she knew, too, that he didn't love her, not at all.

His kiss was hard and demanding and, in its way, punishing. But then it deepened, and it was rich, and it betrayed a growing passion and hunger. She felt her body respond. She felt his hands move over her, felt him grow warm and hard. She began to tremble and suddenly she wanted him, but she wanted him loving her, loving her tenderly, not just wanting her with the raw desire that had finally brought him to her.

His mouth opened and closed hungrily upon her flesh. His teeth grazed her throat, and the tip of his tongue teased the valley between her breasts. He was a flame setting on her, seeping into her, and she was stunned that he could so easily elicit this willingness…

This eagerness…

Within her. She stiffened, fighting the whiskey haze in her heart and in her mind. She had to stop him. He hadn't meant to do this, not now. He had stayed away from her on purpose, she was certain of it. He wanted no involvements.

And she could too easily fall in love with him.

She forced herself to feel nothing, to allow the bitterness of the last years to invade her, so that his searing warmth could not touch her. When he rose above her, she met his steely gaze and spoke to him in a quiet, toneless voice.

"Who was she? Your wife?"

She might have struck him. All the heat left him. It was as if he turned to ice. He stared at her, his jaw constricted, his features as harsh as a desert. He rolled away from her and sat on the side of the bed. His fingers threaded through his hair, and he pressed his hand against his temple as if he were trying to soothe some awful pain.

"Go to sleep," he told her. "And stay off the hard stuff from now on."

Kristin cast her arm over her eyes. "Your rules," she murmured.

"I don't like this kind of a fight, Kristin," he said dully, "but…"

"But?"

"You start it, and I'll end it. Every time."

She felt his weight lift from the bed, and she started to shiver. Suddenly she was warmed. He had laid a blanket over her, and he was close by her again.

"Go to sleep," he said softly, his voice almost tender again.

Almost.

He got up and walked away. She heard the door close quietly, and to her great dismay she closed her eyes and started to cry as she hadn't done since they had come to tell her that Adam was dead.



CHAPTER SIX

It was the liquor, Kristin thought. Lying in the darkness, feeling miserable, she put her arm over her eyes and felt her head spin, and she wondered what had made her drink so much so fast. She was humiliated, but it was her own fault, and she was in no mood to do anything about it, except to suffer in silence.

And, in a way, she wasn't sorry. She could dimly hear the sounds of dinner, and she wondered if Samson and Delilah had sat down to eat. Cole Slater was an unusual man. A very unusual man.

The darkness closed in and whirled around her. She knew she ought to be sorry she had let the liquor ignite her temper, but instead she was glad of it. She didn't feel the awful pain for once. She didn't remember what it had been like to see Pa die, to see Matthew turn his back on his own people and ride away with the Union forces.

She didn't even quite remember what it was like to be with Cole Slater. To be so nervous that she lost all the wisdom her harsh life had taught her. To be afraid in a way, and yet to want something, some intangible thing, so badly.

Curiously — bless the liquor — she felt at peace.

She closed her eyes, and she must have dozed. Then she must have awakened, or else she was dreaming, because when she opened her eyes, the room was bathed in moonlight. Her mind was still spinning, and she still felt at peace.

He was in the room with her.

He had come in quietly, and the door had closed softly behind him. He stood just inside of it, his hands on his hips, and watched her where she lay upon the bed. The moonlight fell on his features, and they were both harsh and curiously beautiful. For the longest time he stood there. The wind seemed to rise, not to a moan, but to a whisper. She imagined that outside tumble-weeds were being caught and tossed in the strange, sweet dance of the West, buffeted as she was being buffeted. Her heart rose and fell like that tumbleweed, tossed around heedlessly.

No…

He was a marvelous creature, sleek as a cougar, sharp as an eagle. He was still standing there, his hands on his hips, his head at an angle, as if he were waiting, as if he were listening to the curiously tender whispering of the wind.

Then he moved. He unbuttoned his cuffs. He took off his boots and stripped off his socks. He came to her in silence, barefoot, and he dropped his gun belt beside the bed. Then he looked down at her, and saw that her eyes were open. "You're still awake."

She nodded gravely, and then she smiled. "I'm sorry. I was out of line this evening. And I… I don't want to fight."

Unbuttoning his shirt, he sat beside her on the bed. His eyes remained on hers. He reached over and touched her cheek. "I don't want to fight, either, Kristin. You've had a hard time of it, and you've done well. Someone else might have shattered a long, long time ago."

The gentle whisper of the wind was in his voice, and there was an evocative tenderness in his fingertips as they brushed her cheek. She didn't reply, but kept her eyes on his, and then the whisper of the wind seemed to sweep into her, to permeate her flesh and fill her veins. She was warm, and achingly aware of herself, and of the man. Surely, she was still asleep. Surely it was all a dream. It was a spell cast by the moonlight. It lived in the clouds of imagination.

But it was real. Very real. He leaned over then and caught her lips in a curious kiss. It was light at first. He tasted her lips, teasing them with the tip of his tongue. Then he plunged his tongue deep into her mouth, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and felt the rugged, steel-muscled frame of his chest against her. She felt his hands on her, rough and tender. Then his hands were in her hair, threading through the tendrils, and he was stroking her arm as he moved his lips over her throat and down to the place where her breasts spilled provocatively from her lace chemise. His mouth fastened over her nipple through the sheer fabric, and she cried out softly. He shifted swiftly, taking her mouth again, taking her cry into him.