As he approached the Lopez house, he noticed that the lantern hadn’t been lit inside. He swore and hurried up the steps, envisioning her running away or pulling some other fool female stunt. In his haste, he threw open the door with such force that it hit the interior wall.
He found her in the nearly dark kitchen. She stood at the dish board, calmly slicing a piece of venison, a picture of domesticity, except for her Indian attire, the lack of light, and the stricken expression on her face. Jake felt foolish. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets and watched her for a moment. She looked as if someone had just slapped her—bruised, shaky, and perilously close to tears.
His anger ebbed a little. Though it infuriated him to think of the embarrassing lies she had told her parents about him this morning, he had to admit the last few days had been miserable for her. She was probably fighting back the only way she knew how. The least he could do was bear that in mind and keep his temper.
He fetched the lantern from the sitting room, lit it, and carried it to the kitchen.
“Will you be needing more wood for tomorrow?”
Her expression didn’t alter by so much as a twitch. “I’ll bring it in.”
Her reply came out in a monotone, clipped and unfriendly, punctuated by an eloquent thunk of the knife blade as it sliced cleanly through the venison and bit into the cutting board. Jake had the nasty feeling she was pretending that slab of meat was his neck.
“I don’t mind getting it.” Determined to be patient and reasonable, he went out and grabbed an armload of wood. When he reentered the house, she had finished slicing the meat and had begun peeling potatoes. With feigned cheer, he said, “The storm passed us over. So many days of sunshine has to set a record.”
Her response was stiff silence. Jake clenched his teeth and went back out for more wood, cursing females and their war strategies. Maybe Hunter could laugh about it, but Jake couldn’t. He’d be damned if he would put up with this from Indigo every time he crossed her.
Determined, Jake returned to the kitchen and carefully unloaded the wood into a neat stack in the wood-box. “There you are, Mrs. Rand. That’ll get you through until tomorrow night.”
She didn’t say thank you. Nor did she acknowledge that he had spoken. Jake observed her thoughtfully as she clamped a lid on the skillet of potatoes and began laying floury pieces of butterflied venison across the piping hot griddle. Anger was evident in every line of her small body. Patience, he reminded himself. It occurred to him that maybe she was afraid to vent her feelings for fear he might retaliate.
He rubbed his neck. “Honey, I know you’re upset.”
Grease popped off the griddle, and she jerked.
Jake waited for her to reply, realized she didn’t intend to, and pursed his lips. “Can’t you look on the bright side? If you don’t have to work for the next few days, maybe you can spend some time with your mother.” He paused a moment, then added in an even voice, “Or time with your animals. Toothless maybe.”
She threw him a startled look. Jake watched the expressions that flitted across her face. Guilt? He couldn’t be certain. After a moment, she seemed to regain her composure. Shoulders set, she returned her attention to the venison as if he wasn’t there.
“You don’t have to be afraid I’ll get angry at you for speaking your mind.”
She didn’t look up. “I’m not afraid.”
That was hogwash, and they both knew it. Jake was growing more irritated by the second. “Well, if you’re not, then at least look at me.”
Though her eyes were bewildered when she turned her gaze on him, Jake couldn’t miss the resentment in their depths.
“That’s better.” If a look could scorch, he decided he would be reduced to cinders. He knew damned well she had a temper and the communication skills to vent it. “How long is this infernal silence going to continue, Indigo?”
She licked her lips. “Only until I’ve something to say. Right now, there’s nothing within me but”—her face drew taut and she threw him an apprehensive glance—“anger.”
That was a step in the right direction. “Then express your anger to me,” he insisted in a stern tone.
She threw him another startled glance. “Is that your wish?”
Accustomed to Mary Beth’s feminine maneuvers when she wanted her own way, Jake eyed Indigo with sudden wariness. This subservient act of hers was really beginning to get to him. If it was her aim to make him feel like an ogre, she was succeeding admirably. If she hoped to rile him, she was coming perilously close to doing that as well. She had no idea how close. “Yes, it’s my wish,” he ground out.
Straightening her shoulders, she positioned the griddle away from the heat, wiped her hands on a towel, then turned to face him. “You won’t get mad?”
“No. What’s going to make me mad is if you don’t talk.”
She lifted her chin. “I think you are an arrogant, selfish bastard.”
Her delivery was so well modulated and precise that for a moment the words didn’t register on Jake’s brain.
“I also detest you,” she finished.
His throat felt oddly tight—whether from outrage or the urge to laugh, he wasn’t sure. “Is that all?”
Obviously agitated, she stepped to the cupboard, took down a bowl, and then stared blankly at it. “No, that isn’t all.”
“Well?”
She flicked a glance at the stove, returned the bowl to the shelf, and pulled out a plate. “I’d like to burn your dinner, dump it on the floor, and bludgeon you with the hot griddle.”
“That bad, huh? My, you really are upset.”
“Yes.”
He folded his arms. “But instead you just moved the griddle off the heat so the venison won’t cook too fast?”
Her lips thinned with unmistakable distaste. “You are my husband. It’s my duty to see that you eat.”
“Even when you’re so upset?”
“My feelings are only important if you make them so.”
He narrowed an eye. Understanding was beginning to dawn. Guilt, the ultimate weapon. Mary Beth could take lessons from this little minx. “Don’t tell me. This is the way of the People, right? A wife must be obedient, and if her husband is an arrogant, selfish bastard, her only recourse is to accept it.”
Her eyes sparked more brightly. “Yes.”
Warming to the game, he responded to the mutinous expression on her face with a slow grin. “Am I interpreting this correctly? You’re so furious you’d like to—what was the word?—ah, yes, bludgeon me, yet you came in here, started my dinner, and didn’t say a word. Is that the way a proper Comanche wife behaves when she’d like to murder her husband?”
Two bright spots of color flagged her cheeks. “Yes.”
“She doesn’t scream when she’s angry?” His grin broadened. “She doesn’t sass? She just does as she’s told, no argument?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Repeat that. I didn’t quite catch it.”
“Yes!”
Jake studied her for a minute, still grinning. At last, he straightened. “That’s every man’s dream come true.” Inclining his head toward the stove, he said, “I’d like toast instead of biscuits. Lightly browned.” With that, he left the kitchen.
After he had changed from his work clothes and washed up outside, Jake returned to find that his beautiful, stonily silent, and sullen bride had prepared him a superb meal, everything cooked to a turn. He sat and spread his napkin across his lap.
With a smug grin, he said, “Aren’t you going to eat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
He chewed a piece of meat and swallowed, recalling Mary Beth’s many hunger sieges. When it came to battles of will, he was a master. “And if I insist?”
She eyed the food with resignation. “Then I’ll eat.”
“Even if it makes you gag?”
Her startled gaze flicked to his. Jake nearly confronted her then. They both knew damned well that he hadn’t commanded
her to gag down a flapjack. He had been concerned because she hadn’t eaten, and he had tried to cajole her into taking some sort of nourishment. For reasons beyond him, she had chosen to capitalize on that, following his words to the letter, no doubt to make him look bad.
Why? That was the question. Had she hoped her parents might decide to have her marriage to him annulled? Jake had no idea. The only thing he knew for sure was that he didn’t like being made to look like a heartless ogre, and by the time he was finished with her, she’d never try it again.
“I don’t suppose it’ll hurt you to miss a meal or two. You’re not what I’d term plump yet, but that fanny of yours could stand a little shaving.”
She brushed a hand against her thigh, her dismay evident.
“I was afraid you might say you had to wait until your husband finished eating. That’s another Indian custom, isn’t it? The men eat first while the women hover nearby?”
“My father dispensed with that tradition. In his household, there is a comfortable blend of both white and Comanche ways, and he enjoys my mother’s presence at his table.”
Her father also surrendered when her mother grew angry and wouldn’t speak to him. An authoritarian, Hunter wasn’t.
“I see.” He smiled up at her. “So, if I find a Comanche custom unbearable, we can alter it, correct?”
“Yes.”
He shoved a piece of Loretta’s homemade bread in his mouth. Chasing it down with a sip of coffee, he said, “Not that I’m complaining. I’ve never known a man yet who’d complain about having a completely subservient wife whose sole purpose was to please him and do his bidding.”
The spots of color reappeared on her cheeks.
Jake hid a grin behind his coffee cup. “Tell me, what’s expected of a husband in this kind of arrangement? Are there any rules he has to follow? I wouldn’t want to disappoint such a dutiful, malleable wife by falling short of her expectations.”
“There are no rules for a husband,” she replied shakily.
“None? Surely a wife must have some expectation or ideal.”
“It’s her hope that her husband will love her and”—her gaze flew to his—“try in all ways to please her.”
Bonanza. A subtle reminder of the promise he had made to her in the loft yesterday? How had he put it? I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy. “I knew there had to be a catch.”
“There’s no law that says he must,” she added in a tremulous voice. “A woman can only hope.”
He set his coffee mug down with a decisive click, mentally applauding her. Her methods, intended to prick his conscience, he felt sure, had Mary Beth’s tantrums beat hands down. Unfortunately for her, he had never been and didn’t intend to be manipulated. She could keep this up for a month, and he wouldn’t rescind his decision about her staying at home. Nor was she going to succeed in getting her parents to annul her marriage to him, if that was her plan. He’d make sure of that tonight.
Not that he had any intention of allowing her to continue on this course long enough for either goal to become an issue. She might not realize it, but there were methods available to him, underhanded though they were, to nip this little act in the bud.
“So, in a nutshell, my wishes prevail.” He mused on that for a moment. “It’s a damned fine arrangement for the man. Does it extend to everything? No matter how outrageous my request, you’ll always obey me, without question or argument?”
A picture of stung pride, she appeared to be struggling to answer. Finally, she managed a weak, “Yes.”
Jake rocked back in his chair and ran his gaze slowly and deliberately over her person. Lifting an eyebrow, he said, “That could prove interesting.”
The startled look that crossed her small face told him she got the gist. He was rather surprised when she showed no sign of backing down. When Mary Beth’s ploys boomeranged, she usually changed tactics immediately.
He pulled his watch from his pocket and checked the time. “Do you realize we’ve been married for nearly twenty-four hours?” He looked her directly in the eye, pleased to note that she had begun to fidget. Innocent, she might be, but stupid, she wasn’t. “Twenty-four hours . . . and I still haven’t seen my bride without flannel or leather covering her from head to toe. What if I were to ask for an unveiling? You can be—my dessert.”
She touched a hand to her throat, and her eyes grew as round as dollars. Her horrified reaction nearly cost him the game. It was all he could do to keep his face straight.
“Is th-that what you’re asking?” she squeaked.
“And if I were?” he countered. “Would you remove your clothing for me, Indigo?”
She gulped and hurled a dread-filled glance at the lantern. “The lamp is burning.”
“The better to see you by.” He rocked farther back in his chair and gave her the most lecherous look he could muster. “The blouse first, I think. Not from across the room, though. Come over and stand beside me. And take it off slowly. Anticipation is half the pleasure.”
She looked ready to bolt.
In a voice thick with suppressed laughter, he added, “Come, dutiful wife. I haven’t got all night.”
Bending her head, she moved toward him. When her hip touched the corner of the table, she stopped and crossed her arms to grasp the bottom of her doeskin blouse. He kept expecting her to give it up, felt absolutely certain she would, right up until the moment she actually drew the blouse off over her head and tossed it to the floor.
Jake felt like someone had just doused him with a five-gallon bucket of ice water. His lungs froze from the shock, his heart felt as if it stopped, and he couldn’t have moved if God Himself had commanded it. She stood before him like a sacrificial lamb waiting for the knife, her head hung in shame, her body atremble. The muslin of her chemise, worn nearly transparent by numerous washings, clung softly to her breasts, more a tease than cover.
The front legs of Jake’s chair hit the floor with a resounding whack, and she jerked. Jake sat there in stunned silence. It hit him suddenly, with blinding clarity, that she hadn’t been acting. She sincerely meant to accept any edict he handed down, even if it seemed like the end of the world to her.
A memory flashed from yesterday, of Indigo giving way to her father’s wishes and saying she would never defy him. He recalled her pallor during their wedding ceremony and after, then her fear last night. The last thing she had wanted was to marry him, yet she had. And why? Because her father had requested it of her.
What supper he had managed to eat suddenly felt like a pile of rocks in the pit of his stomach. He had been an ass a few times in his life, but this took the prize.
“Indigo . . .” he whispered.
At the sound of his voice, she sucked in a little sob of air and untucked her chemise from the drawstring waist of her pants. Jake grabbed her wrists to stop her. Her head came up. Blue eyes, shimmering with unshed tears and aching with humiliation, clung to his in silent question.
“I didn’t mean it. I was joking.” The words, raspy with emotion, hit the air and hung there, so discordant and awful that he wanted to call them back. A joke? She was right; he was a selfish, arrogant bastard. And a stupid dolt as well. “I never dreamed you’d actually—I thought that—”
There were no words. Looking up at her, he realized, too late, that it wasn’t in her to manipulate anyone, or to tell a lie. The closest he’d ever heard her come to speaking a falsehood was when she denied being afraid, and that stemmed from stubborn pride rather than an intent to deceive. Jesus, why hadn’t he read that in her eyes? They were as clear as tinted glass and revealed her every thought and feeling.
Is that your wish? Must I? Is that your final word? He recalled the distressed look on her face this morning when he had asked her to be careful feeding the animals. I really don’t approve of your feeding that cougar. He hadn’t forbidden her to do it. That hadn’t been necessary. His disapproval had been enough. Denver Tompkins’s voice came back to haunt him. A squaw will d
o whatever her man tells her.
Jake felt as if he might be sick. She had laid herself out like a rug to be walked on, and he had ground her pride into the dirt with the heel of his boot. He released her wrists and sank back in his chair.
“I’m sorry, Indigo. You can put the shirt back on.”
She angled one slender arm across her breasts and bent to retrieve the blouse with a palsied hand. Jake’s gaze snagged on the knife wound that slashed her right forearm. She was nothing like Mary Beth; he’d been a fool to make a comparison.
She clutched the leather to her chest. “If you’re finished, may I go to the bedroom?”
If he was finished? Jake cringed. He felt pretty sure he had done all the damage he could possibly do. He was finished, all right.
Chapter 14
THE MOMENT JAKE GAVE INDIGO PERMISSION, she turned and fled the kitchen. When she gained the dark bedroom, her feet dragged to a stop, and she whirled to stare at the shadowy walls, feeling like a trapped animal. Joking? She clamped a hand over her mouth and swallowed down the rising panic. He was toying with her; there was no other explanation. Being married to him was going to be worse than her most horrid imaginings.
On rubbery legs, she made it to the bed. She squeezed her eyes closed and forced her mind to go blank. It was either that or scream, and she wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. . . .
After he had called himself every dirty name he could think of, Jake pushed to his feet, picked up the lantern, and walked through the house. He found Indigo stretched across the bed, her face pressed into a pillow. After placing the lantern on the bedside table, he sat next to her and put a hand on her back.
“Indigo, please, don’t cry.”
She turned up a stricken but tear-free countenance. “I don’t cry.”