He allowed her to push him back just far enough that he could look down at her. Beyond that, she could not budge him. His eyes were smoldering darkly.
“Let you go, querida?” he breathed deeply. “No, I think it is too late for that.”
“No!” she gasped. She became frantic. “Please, Hank, you don’t understand. I can’t do this. I can’t!”
He smiled tenderly. “You are frightened, but that is only natural. I will not hurt you, Samina. I will be very gentle with you.”
“No, no—no!” she cried emphatically. “You have already done too much. We shouldn’t be here. You should never have kissed me. I…I…”
“You let me kiss you, mi querida. You let me do much more. If I should not have kissed you, then you should not have kissed me.”
“I know,” she said miserably. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t thinking. I’ve never been kissed like this before. I’ve never felt this way. Oh—you wouldn’t understand!”
“But I do.” He said it so softly. His voice was a tender caress. “I understand very well. You lost yourself to feeling, as did I.”
“But I can’t let you kiss me anymore or…or do the other things.” Her face burned with shame. Why, she hadn’t covered herself yet. She did so quickly, but his eyes were on her, and her embarrassment increased. “It’s wrong, Hank. You do see that, don’t you?”
“It is not wrong. Not for us.”
“It’s wrong for me,” she insisted. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
He sighed deeply then and stood up, turning around to allow her privacy in which to fasten her clothes.
“Very well, querida,” he said, his back to her. “I will wait.”
Something in his voice made Samantha’s head come up sharply. She had been so relieved, relieved that he understood and wasn’t angry. She sat rigidly still and stared at his wide back, frowning.
“Wait?”
He glanced over his shoulder. Seeing that she had managed to button up her blouse, he turned to face her. He grinned at her suddenly, shaking his head.
“You have to ask, Samina, when you’ve known very well what I feel for you?”
“I don’t know anything.” Her voice rose with alarm. “Why, I haven’t even seen you for days.”
“That was your own fault. You wished to toy with me.”
“What are you talking about? I assumed you had left town.”
He shook his head again. “No. You knew I would not leave without you.”
Samantha took a long, deep breath. What could he possibly be thinking of?
“Hank, I—”
He cut her off. “Ah, mi amor, you wish this to be done properly, I suppose? Very well, I will tell you that from the first I knew you would be my woman. I ask you now formally to come to Mexico with me and be—”
“Wait!” Samantha cried, scrambling to her feet. “Oh, God, Hank, this is terrible!”
His smile vanished. “You wish to explain?”
“I like you, Hank, I really do. And I enjoyed traveling with you. But our journey together is over.”
“What are you saying?”
She cringed at the sharpness in his voice. “You’re a nice man, a very attractive man, and things might have been different if I didn’t love someone else. But there is someone else, and I intend to marry him.”
Hank’s eyes narrowed. “You flirt well with other men, niña, when your man is not with you. Where is he?”
Samantha was stung. “He’s here, of course. I thought you understood when I told you Adrien and I were more than friends.”
“Adrien? Por Dios!” Hank stared hard into her face. “Now you tease me?”
“I’m not teasing. I love Adrien. I have for more than two years.”
“This is ridiculous, little one,” he said softly now. “You cannot possibly.”
Samantha’s eyes sparked furiously. “How dare you say so! I love him!”
Hank’s body went rigid. She meant what she was saying. She really did love that man—a man who would never return her love. But why, then, had she devoted so much attention to Hank?
“I think perhaps you have used me,” he said darkly. “You ignore Adrien on the stage and give your attention to me. Why?”
Samantha watched his face take on a look of sheer rage. It frightened her. “I didn’t mean to mislead you. I…hoped Adrien would be jealous. But as soon as I saw that your interest in me was growing, I told you about Adrien and me. I didn’t mean to mislead you. I told you we were more than friends.”
“I know what he is, niña,” Hank hissed furiously. “I did not believe you would be foolish enough to love him.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Why do you talk about him that way?”
“Do you think he will ever return your love? You are a fool, niña. But then, I am a fool, as well. Once more, I make a terrible mistake.”
He said it so solemnly that she was reluctant to ask what he meant. But she needed to distract him from the things he was saying about Adrien, so she pressed him.
“What mistake?”
His eyes bored into her coldly. “Being fool enough to give myself to a woman who loves another man. At least Angela was honest from the first. I knew she loved someone else, but I still wanted her. You were not so honest.”
Samantha smarted. “I never dreamed you would want to marry me. How was I to guess a thing like that?”
Hank’s pride was badly wounded. He wanted to throttle Samantha for the way she had used him. He would never admit that he had wanted to marry her.
“You flatter yourself, chica.” He struck out at her with brutal words. “Marry you? That is not what I had in mind.”
“But you asked me to go to Mexico with you!”
“I did, and that was a mistake. But marry you? Now you have made a mistake.”
Hank laughed scornfully, an ugly sound. His eyes narrowed, and there was a look there Samantha had never seen before, a look that chilled her. He had changed from the laughing, handsome man she had felt so safe with, to a dark, menacing stranger who terrified her.
He continued, his voice rich with malice. “I had no intention of marrying you. I would have made you my woman and treated you well. But a lady does not trifle with a man as you have trifled with me. So, if you are not a lady, I need not treat you as one.”
“Meaning?” she challenged, anger overcoming caution.
His grin was not pleasant. “I have lost the desire to take you with me, but my desire to have you is still strong. I need to purge you from my blood, mujer, the only way I know how.”
He unbuckled his gunbelt and dropped it to the ground. Then his hands moved to his belt buckle, and Samantha’s eyes grew enormous with comprehension. She dashed wildly for her purse, but he got there first and kicked it out of her reach. She tried to run after it, for it held the only help she would get. But Hank caught her wrist and threw her to the ground, dropping between her legs, pinning her to the earth.
He knelt between her legs, looking so serious, so deliberate, that she could only stare up at him. Then he unbuttoned his shirt and gazed down at her, fire glowing in his gray eyes. The shirt was open, but Hank didn’t remove it. She realized he wasn’t going to, and the fact made it all seem even more shameful, somehow. Muscles rippled above his nipples, and short, dark curls extended to his navel.
Samantha was fascinated despite herself, but only for a moment. As he moved down closer to her, she flailed her fists at him, but he shoved every blow aside. When she raked her nails down his chest, he lost patience and raised his hand to her.
She gasped, cringing away from him, covering her face. She hadn’t considered that he might beat her. There was nothing to stop him. She had never felt so helpless in all her life.
When the blow didn’t come, she dared to look at him. He was glaring at her, his mouth a hard line.
“I do not want to hurt you, chica. Do not fight me anymore.”
She moaned softly as his
fingers moved to the buttons on her blouse. She caught his hands, looking up at him forlornly.
“I can’t let you,” she whispered.
As he gazed down at her, his anger softened just a little, enough to remind him of his feelings of only minutes before. Yes, Hank wanted her. But not brutally. She had hurt him, and she had been silly, but he never wished to cause her harm.
She saw his feelings changing, saw the softening in his handsome face, and suddenly the desire of a little while before came back, all in a rush. She wanted him, as she had wanted him before. Her arms reached out for him as he bent to kiss her.
Soon a fire was spreading in her once again. Hank’s mouth moved along her neck, biting her gently. She began to moan, to twist. The heat was increasing, driving her onward.
Somehow her clothing was no longer there, nor was his, and somehow it seemed so right. His arms wrapped around her, and she raised herself to take him, taking him all at once and with only a moment’s pain before the fire began all over again, building and building. There was a feeling of exquisite torment, and then a wave washed over her, through her, and she cried out. Whatever had been building in her burst.
She had been told it would be magnificent, but no one had told her that it could be better than magnificent. She had never imagined the wondrous pleasure of it.
It was several long moments before the exquisite throbbing stopped and Samantha was aware of her surroundings once again. Hank was lying beside her, breathing heavily.
He got up without a word, quickly buckled his pants, then began tucking in his shirt without even buttoning it. Samantha moved only to draw on her skirt. She didn’t try to cover her breasts. She felt languorous, more relaxed than she had felt in a long time.
Hank strapped on his gunbelt, then picked up his hat. He was standing at her feet, brisk and businesslike again.
“What’s the matter, Hank?” Samantha asked sarcastically, suddenly angry all over again. “Do you expect me to cry? Would that make your triumph complete?”
He turned away from her stiffly and stalked to his horse. But before he mounted, he called back to her, “If you convince your Adrien to marry you, he will never know you are not a virgin. You needn’t worry about that.”
She grimaced. “Damn you, of course he will know!”
“No, chica, for he will never come to your bed,” Hank taunted, wanting to hurt her. “If you marry Adrien Allston, you will have a fine time trying to keep him away from your lovers.”
“What are you talking about?” she gasped.
Hank laughed shortly as he mounted his horse and walked the beast to her side. He bent over, whispering with deliberate calm. “The man you love prefers men in his bed, querida.”
The shock of his words made her scream before she really understood what he was saying. “You’re lying! Bastard! How I hate you! Get out of here! And when you go, you’d better keep right on riding!”
He chuckled. “Will you send a posse after me, Samina? I have run from posses before. One more will make no difference. They never catch me.”
“If I ever see you again, I’m going to kill you,” she said with furious calm.
He shrugged, unconcerned. “We will not meet again. Adiós, Samantha Blackstone.” He tipped his hat.
Hank walked his horse back into the stream, leaving Samantha shaking with fury. Her hair had tumbled down, and she pushed it out of the way impatiently. Just then a thought struck her, and she jumped up, looking for her purse.
Hank stopped once to look back. Anger and bitterness were still eating at him, making it impossible for him to regret the manner of his leaving, or the cruel way he had told her about Adrien.
When he looked back, he saw first the fiery hair tumbling about her shoulders and then the gun, which she was raising slowly and pointing directly at him.
A memory flashed through his mind, and Hank spurred his horse, hunching down over its neck. Madre de Dios! It was she! The girl from Denver! With her hair tumbling down like that, the sun shining on her, and a gun in her hand, it was the same girl! Dios!
Quickly, Samantha fired her only two shots, one right after the other. She didn’t know whether she had hit her target, for he was out of sight. Her hands were shaking with anger as she threw the gun down, cursing it for not being her six-shooter. Then she slumped onto the bank, beating her fists on the damp earth.
“Damn you, Hank, for the devil you are! Liar! Filthy liar!”
She began sobbing. It couldn’t be true. She couldn’t have been fooled by Adrien, not for so long. She would never believe Hank. Never!
How she hated that bastard, hated him more for his lies than for seducing her. She would go and see Adrien, prove Hank was wrong. Then she would be able to forget this day, and forget that she had ever known Hank Chavez.
Chapter 11
LEAVING the scene of her disgrace, Samantha had one consolation. She found blood on the ground. Whether the blood was from the eight deep, ragged cuts on his chest or from bullet wounds she didn’t know. But at least she was assured that he was in pain. It made her feel much better.
It had taken a long time to pull herself together as she sat by the stream, recalling every single thing. She washed Hank’s blood from her chest and tried to get it out of her white blouse. It had stained both sides because he had bled so much. She took satisfaction from that. She had scarred him.
With that thought firmly in mind, she rode hard, tracing the way back to Adrien’s camp. She had loaded her derringer again from the bullets she always kept in her purse and was in a mood to face trouble, any kind of trouble, but there was none on the way back to the camp.
She had pinned her hair up off her neck again and replaced her hat, and her clothes were only slightly wrinkled and damp, so she believed that she looked herself. She didn’t know that her eyes were flashing like emeralds in the bright sun. But Jeannette noticed immediately, noticed that and other things, as well.
“Mon Dieu! What has happened to your mouth—and your neck?” Jeannette gasped after Samantha slid off her horse and stomped over to her.
“What are you talking about?” Samantha stopped in her tracks.
“Blood is smeared from your mouth to your neck! And…” She walked around Samantha. “There is blood on the back of your neck and in your hair. What has happened?”
“It is not my blood, so it doesn’t matter!” Samantha snapped, and she went to find the canteen of water that was always by Adrien’s tent.
Jeannette followed, her face tight with concern as she watched Samantha wipe viciously at the blood on her face. “It is his blood, then?”
They both knew who she meant. “Yes!”
“What did you do to him?”
Samantha’s head snapped around, and she stared fiercely at the petite blonde. “What did I do?” Her tone was contemptuously cutting. “You haven’t asked what he did! All I want to know is how you could leave me alone with that bastard.”
“Samantha!”
“Samantha nothing!” she stormed. “You knew how improper it would be to let me ride back alone with him. Yet you insisted on staying here. You insisted Adrien was sick. He better damn well be sick, Jeannette,” she warned darkly. “Where is he?”
“Not far,” Jeannette replied, alarmed. “He went up the creek a little way.”
“Adrien!” Samantha shouted toward the creek. “Adrien! Get down here!”
“Samantha, please. Tell me what happened.”
Samantha turned on her friend, her eyes narrow. “I’m beginning to wonder if you didn’t contrive the whole thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were the one who invited Hank along today, and I know you don’t even like him. And then you managed to leave me alone with him. Did you do it on purpose? Were you hoping he could make me forget about your brother?”
Jeannette paled and was about to stammer out an answer when Adrien appeared. “What is all the shouting? Samantha, why have you come back here?”
/> “To see you, Adrien.” She managed a calm answer.
She found she was looking at him in a new light, Hank’s accusation taunting her.
“What did you want to see me about?” Adrien asked cautiously, her mood warning him to keep his distance.
“You seem wary of me, Adrien,” she said in a deceptively soft voice. “Why do I make you nervous?”
“You don’t,” he denied, even as he backed farther away. “What has got into you, Samantha?” he demanded.
“Nothing that a little honesty wouldn’t help,” she replied with calm purpose as she caught his hand, drawing him close to her. “Kiss me, Adrien.”
He jumped back, snatching his hand away. “What is the matter with you?” he gasped.
“Nothing,” she said evenly, “but if you don’t kiss me this minute, Adrien, I’m going to think there’s something wrong with you.”
He was looking at Jeannette helplessly, when suddenly Samantha grabbed his head and pulled his face down to hers. She had to do the kissing herself. It was a disaster. Adrien was repulsed. He kept his hands at his sides. His lips were stone cold. There was absolutely no feeling in him.
Samantha let go of him slowly, and he stood back, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. She was not shocked. She wasn’t thinking about him. All she could think of was the time she had wasted loving and wanting him.
“You bastard!” she raged.
“Samantha—” Jeannette began, and Samantha turned on her.
“You Judas! If you had just told me the truth! I told you last night that I loved him, and you had probably guessed before. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Chérie, this is not…something we can admit to,” Jeannette said helplessly.
“You could have told me! You knew how I felt.” Tears sprang to Samantha’s eyes, and she couldn’t stop them. “I would have been hurt, but at least I would still have my virtue. And now I don’t—because you had to lie to me and play matchmaker instead. You served me up on a platter to that devil, Jeannette.”
“Samantha, I am so sorry,” Jeannette said sincerely. “I could not know that Hank Chavez would take advantage of you. You must believe that.”