“I’m sure the meat will be wonderful,” she murmured. “It’s just—rather sad, for some reason!”
“Yes!” Jaffe said, cocking his head toward her. “It’s always sad to see something so damned strong brought down. Don’t know quite what it is myself, but I understand what you’re feeling.” He grinned. “Still, when it’s either him or me, then I’m mighty glad it’s him!”
She shivered suddenly, inching Tilly toward him. “Sergeant Jaffe, do stampedes happen often? We must be moving more deeply into buffalo territory and—”
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head none, Mrs. McCauley. We keep our eyes open. It’s strange though. You can ride up on a ridge and see a few buffalo grazing on the plain just as nice and peaceful as can be. Then you can see one or two of them running and you don’t know if you’ve come across a couple of strays, or if you’ll have a couple hundred thousand racing at you in a matter of minutes!”
“I’m sure my wife will rest well after that!”
Christa swung around. Jeremy had come up behind them. His hat was low over his head. She couldn’t see his eyes. She was certain that he was still angry with her.
After last night, she felt as if a wall had risen between them, higher than ever before. Upon occasion, it had seemed as if they just might broach the barriers between them. Now those barriers seemed more insurmountable than ever.
On top of that, she thought wryly, she had disobeyed his orders to ride behind the front of the line.
She tore her gaze from his, determined to ignore him. He’d have his chance to chastise her as soon as they were alone.
Jaffe was apologizing profusely. “Didn’t mean nothing by that, Mrs. McCauley, except that we keep our eyes open and our ears to the ground.”
Jeremy led Gemini close to the fallen buffalo. “How are we going to make out with this one, Sergeant?”
“Right fine. We’ll have buffalo stew and buffalo steak! Dried buffalo and smoked buffalo! We’ll make out right fine. Good shot, Colonel.”
“Thanks. See to it that my wife has some tender cuts. We’ve got a general riding in with an escort of officers, and I think we’ll do a little private entertaining in my tent. And if you don’t mind, Sergeant, she might need a little instruction. We’ll be laying over for a few days, making camp, so you’ll have some time tonight to deal with the kill. So will my wife.”
Christa felt a soft wave of color touch her cheeks. He was making it sound as if she were the most worthless of fluttering belles. How could he! He knew damned well she’d managed with all manner of meat and meals before. The war had taught her an amazing array of crafts. She’d done just fine with his quail.
But then again, “the general” was arriving? This was the first she had heard of it. What general? Captain Clark must have brought the message that someone was coming.
What in God’s name made Jeremy think she was about to entertain any Yankee general? She had done exceptionally well, she thought, living with Yankees up to this point! She’d been polite, she’d even been friendly with Celia and James, Robert Black Paw and Nathaniel—and Captain Clark.
Jeremy didn’t intend to give her any explanations now. He wagged a finger at her. “You’ll ride at the back, with Robert at your side. If you don’t, I’ll take Tilly and set you into an ambulance and that will be that. Do you understand?”
She saluted him sharply. “Yes, sir!”
Gemini pranced forward. Jeremy adjusted his sweeping cavalry hat. “You are quite all right, I take it?”
“Fine.”
“Then perhaps you’ll be so good as to see to some of the other wives. Celia is shaking like a leaf, they say, and her husband is at his post.”
“Yes, sir, Colonel, sir!” she responded. Jeremy didn’t give a damn about her sarcasm. He didn’t care how she obeyed his orders, just so long as she did. But the sarcasm in her reply was not lost on Sergeant Jaffe. He looked at her rather sorrowfully when Jeremy rode away, convinced that his order would be obeyed this time.
“I’ll make you a cloak out of this here hide!” Jaffe told her. “Why, you just wait and see! It’ll be the most wonderful warm thing you’ve ever owned, Mrs. McCauley.”
“That’s very kind of you, Sergeant,” she told him. She didn’t know if he meant the words or if he was just trying to make her feel better.
She smiled, waved a hand to him, and rode from the scene of the buffalo kill. Jeremy had asked her to see to the other wives. She cantered along the line until she came to Celia’s ambulance. The young girl was shaking away and her husband, at her side, was looking very helpless, loath to leave her.
Christa dismounted and came to the rear of the conveyance. She offered Lieutenant Preston a reassuring smile.
“Celia, look who’s here. Mrs. McCauley.”
Celia released her death grip on him at last. Lieutenant Preston leapt down from the ambulance, thanking Christa with his eyes.
“Celia, come on now!” she said. “It’s all over!”
“It was terrible!” Celia moaned. “Why, the ambulance almost turned. I saw your husband—oh, how could you bear it!”
“It’s all right now, Celia, I swear it!” her husband said.
Christa was startled by the tug of envy that touched her. Preston was so tender, so caring of his wife!
She gave herself a mental shake and reminded herself bitterly that it was all right for Celia Preston to be a fluttering little female. She was a Yankee.
“Celia, come now!” she said impatiently, as her husband strode for his horse. “It’s over!”
“Oh, Christa!” Celia said miserably, “I’m such a failure. He shall hate me!”
Christa sighed. She assured Celia she was no failure. Then she told her what a marvelous meal they would have that night. “And we’re making camp for a few days, Jeremy said so. We’ll be stationary for a few days. It will be fun!”
Celia was slowly mollified. Christa rode down the rest of the line seeing to the other ladies, but by then, though many had been shaken, they were all fine. Mrs. Brooks informed her that the Lord worked in mysterious ways against those who did not properly respect him. Christa smiled sweetly, her face feeling like wood, and told the woman that the Lord had chosen to protect them all from the buffalo—and to supply them with buffalo stew, so perhaps they were all respecting Him properly after all.
They made eight miles that day. Christa rode in the back of the line with Robert as she had been ordered. She wanted to hate the journey, she was so angry with—and admittedly hurt by—Jeremy, but it was difficult to do so. The landscape was still so different from anything she had ever known. With the buffalo gone, the sky was incredibly blue once again with just a shadowing of puffy white clouds against it. The land seemed so barren, but little flowers grew here and there. The day remained pleasantly cool, their path unobstructed, and the ride was not a hard one.
When the spot Jeremy had chosen for their camp was reached, a young private took Tilly from Christa, promising to rub her down well. The men, busy and competent, immediately started to raise the tents. Christa wandered over to where Sergeant Jaffe was making supper for the hundred and twenty-three men in the command. He talked to her about the value of good seasonings and gave her a sip of buffalo broth. It was sweet, she thought, but good. The taste was like beef, but different. It had more of a wild, gamy taste to it, but still the sweetness was inviting. Perhaps this buffalo was a little tougher than some of the steak she had had, but in the end she decided she liked the taste very much.
“It’ll be stew in a matter of minutes, Mrs. McCauley. We’ll have a big dish over for you and the colonel soon enough.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
He shook his head. “I never did understand much how the officers’ wives felt so obligated to cook for their husbands when there’s so much food being prepared for the enlisted men.”
“Well,” Christa pointed, “because sometimes the men do cook at their own fires.”
Someone
cleared his throat behind her. It was Nathaniel. “Mrs. McCauley, your tent is up. Since we’ll be here a spell, I’ve seen to the arrangement of your belongings to the best of my ability. I hope you’ll be satisfied. And I’ve taken the liberty of bringing in the hip tub for you. Some of the boys are boiling water and filling it now. We figured that a lady like you—what with the buffalo dust and all—might be wanting a bath.”
“How very, very kind of you!” Christa told him. She walked to him and took his hand, shaking it. She smiled at him as well. “How very thoughtful and gracious you all are to me! I should be learning about the tents and doing these things myself.”
“We’re always so proud of our cavalry wives, ma’am, braving buffalo and dirt and Injuns! We don’t mind a bit what we can do,” said Sergeant Jaffe.
“Well, I’m afraid I’m not much of a cavalry wife!” she admitted. “But I thank you both from the bottom of my heart. Nathaniel, a bath!
His grin split his dark face handsomely. “Come, Mrs. McCauley, I’ll show you to your tent.”
“Mrs. McCauley!” Jaffe called after her. She turned around.
“You’re wrong, you know. You make a right fine cavalry wife!”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
Nathaniel led her to her tent. It was pitched some distance from the field of smaller tents, yet not far from some of the larger tents that had been pitched for Jeremy’s officers. She was also quite near one of the large supply tents.
Maybe that had been done on purpose, she thought, if Jeremy was entertaining a general. Who? she wondered.
Then she ceased to care. Nathaniel had opened the flap to her tent. She cried out with a little sound of delight.
He’d fixed it beautifully. Jeremy’s camp desk and her own smaller one had been set up on opposite sides of one of the structural poles. Their bed had been set up and made with the sheets and blankets arranged in a very inviting way. Their trunks had been set conveniently by the bed. Brandy and whiskey had been set out, and even the boxes with her china and silver had been thoughtfully supplied, ready if she should need them to entertain.
Best of all, a tub sat in the tent and the water that rose from it was definitely steaming.
“Bless you, Nathaniel!” she cried, clapping her hands together.
Again, he smiled broadly. “Someone will be near, Mrs. McCauley. You needn’t worry about being disturbed.” She flashed him a smile of gratitude. He disappeared outside the tent.
Christa thought of nothing but the heaven the water in the hip tub would offer her. She quickly stripped off her blouse and chemise, and then her boots, riding skirt, and pantalets. She shivered until she sank into the water. The heat wove its way into her tired muscles, feeling wonderful.
After a moment, she sank all the way in, soaking her hair, allowing the water to close over her head. She came up, eyes closed, reaching awkwardly for the trunk near the tub where her soap and cloth and the vial of her lavender-scented shampoo had been left.
Her hand came in contact with something that she hadn’t expected.
Flesh.
She sat back, her eyes flying open. Jeremy was standing beside her. It was his hand she had touched. She stared at him balefully.
It had been such a beautiful moment for him to interrupt.
“My, my! You do have a knack for finding luxury, my love. Even in the wilderness.”
She ignored his tone. He was going to yell about the fact that she had disobeyed his orders. She didn’t give a damn. She wasn’t wasting her hot water.
“Would you hand me my shampoo, please?” she said icily. “And then if you don’t mind …”
He dropped down beside her, the vial in his hands. He poured out a portion into his palm. She pursed her lips, staring forward. A second later, his hands were moving in her hair. She closed her eyes. The movement was gentle, mesmerizing. She didn’t want to enjoy it, but she did. She closed her fingers over the rim of the tub, clenching them. Then they eased their grip.
And just as soon as she was at ease, he spoke. “You pull a stunt like that again, and I’ll take your horse away from you. You’ll spend the rest of the trip in your ambulance. Do you understand?”
Her eyes flew open. “I’m not one of your men, Jeremy McCauley. I’m here under duress. And you’re not acting like this because I was too close to the front of the line. You’re still furious with me over last night. I—”
“All right, Christa. Yes, I’m still angry over last night. But you’re truly a little fool if you think that has anything to do with my determination to keep you safe. You’ll do what I say!” he told her sharply. “I’m not writing home to tell your brothers that you were mauled by buffalo or picked off by a Comanche scout, his arrow having found your heart since it was right there in perfect shooting range!”
She ignored him, sinking into the water once again to rinse her hair. It took her some time. When she came up again, she realized that he had stripped off his boots and cavalry jacket and that he was undoing the button at his shirt’s cuff. Her eyes went wide with amazement. “You’re not coming in here.”
“I am.”
“Then—”
“Nathaniel used to see to my needs. But now he and the others are always running themselves ragged to tend to the needs of my fragile little bride. I want some of that water while it’s still hot.”
She gripped the edge of the tub. “You’re not doing this!” she whispered vehemently. “You always think that you can yell and scream and snap out your orders and then just—just do whatever you want with me! Well, it doesn’t work that way. It—”
She broke off for a moment because he hadn’t paid her the least heed. He had stripped naked and was striding the few feet toward the tub. For a moment she was taken aback by the sight of him, even though she had seen him hundreds of times.
He was startling to look at. His flesh was so bronzed. His movements were so supple. Quick, silent, powerful. His easy strides belied the knots of muscle that formed him, the breadth of his chest and shoulders, the tautness of his hips and belly, the bulge of his arms and rock hardness of his thighs and buttocks. She felt as if the water suffused with heat all over again just because he approached it.
“Jeremy, I’ll get out—”
“The hell you will,” he growled.
And he was behind her, his back against the tub. He pulled her back against him as some of the water sloshed over to the ground. She felt his chest and his hair-roughened legs. And between them, just teasing her back and buttocks, his sex.
“You’ll get nothing from me—” she began.
“I never get anything from you, Christa,” he said flatly. “Worrying about your mood doesn’t result in a hell of a lot. But rest your sweet head. At the moment, I want the warmth of the water. You, my love, are like hugging ice, and I think I may be too weary for such an encounter tonight.”
She stiffened. He ignored her, finding the soap and sudsing the washrag between his hands before her eyes. “Let’s get back to where we were. I won’t have you disobeying orders.”
“Me!” Miserably torn between comfort and agony by his hold, she bit her tongue. “Of all fool things to do, you go racing right at a buffalo! Riding into the things, for God’s sake! It was—”
She broke off.
Suddenly, he went tense behind her. “It was what?”
“It was foolish!” she charged. “You might have gotten yourself horribly trampled!”
He was quiet for a moment, then she felt the warm whisper of his breath as he spoke softly near her ear. “I’m the officer in command. It was my duty to see that the fool creatures turned away. And I do know what I’m doing. I’ve been out here before. But how nice. It sounds as if you might have been concerned.”
“Of course I was concerned!”
“Why? If I had been trampled, you would have been free. You could have returned to your beloved Dixie and your precious Cameron Hall.”
“What an awful thing to say!” she charged hi
m, trembling. “How could you?” she whispered. “After all the years of death and destruction I witnessed, how could you even mock me so!”
She whirled to face him the best she could within the confines of the tub, his chest, and legs. There was nothing to be seen in his gray eyes other than speculation. One dark russet brow was slightly raised, and there was a curious, small curl to his lip. For a moment she remembered him riding out, reckless, fearless, precision perfect in his uniform, rugged and striking in his appeal. They were so intimately close. Warmth spread through her. She’d always admitted he was a handsome and appealing man. He had courage, and his own sense of honor. She’d never really realized until this moment that she admired him very much. He was many things, daring, bold, determined, sometimes reckless, but always aware of his responsibility for others.
No, he was not Liam. In many ways, he was very, very different.
She was coming to care about him. Deeply. She didn’t mind him so much anymore. Not even his intimacies. Being with him grew more and more exciting. The men admired him very much. The women sighed when he passed by, and envied her.
Maybe, if he just hadn’t been such a diehard Yank?
“Do I take that to mean that yes, you would have been distraught had anything happened to me?”
“Oh, stop it!” she murmured, twisting around, suddenly very anxious to be free of him. She tried to rise but his arms wound around her bare midriff, pulling her back down against him. She felt his fingers beneath the fullness of her breasts and she was startled by the streak of sensation that swept through her.
Her heart was beating hard as he pulled her closer against him.
“It was a terrible thing for me to have said, Christa. I’m sorry,” he told her.
She didn’t reply right away. He was idly running his fingers over her midriff in the warmth of the water. To her amazement, the feel of those fingers shot through her. It seemed to sizzle and burn its way right to the apex of her thighs.
She tried very hard to ignore the growing heat within herself. “It was horrible,” she murmured softly. “And you might discover that I am capable of understanding things when you explain them instead of just bellowing out orders! If you could just be polite upon occasion—”