She might have made it perfectly well except that it began to rain. Cold, cold sheets of water came from the sky, then, as the water collected on the overhead rocks, it flooded down on top of her, making visibility impossible. She tried to keep her head down and her eyes on the nearly invisible trail in front of her at the same time.
Flashes of lightning began to make the horse shy and dance about on the skinny little path. After quite a while of fighting both the rain and the horse, she dismounted and led the animal as she gave most of her attention to searching through the deluge for the way.
At one point, the trail ran along a little ledge, sheer rock above and below her. Houston took one step and soothed the frightened horse, took another step and calmed the horse. “If you weren’t carrying the food, I’d let you go,” she said in disgust.
At the edge of the cliff ledge, the lightning flashed and she saw the cabin. For a moment, she stood perfectly still and looked through the rain dripping off her nose. She had begun to doubt the cabin’s existence. And now what did she do? March up to the door, knock and, when Kane answered it, tell him she thought she’d drop by and leave her calling card?
She had half a mind to turn around and leave, when all hell broke loose. The idiot horse she’d had to practically drag up the mountain called out, was answered by another horse, and so proceeded to run toward the cabin. Never mind that Houston was standing in the animal’s way. She screamed as she fell into the mud and began rolling down the side of the mountain, but the blast of a shotgun aimed in her direction covered her voice. “Get the hell out of here if you wanta keep your skin,” Kane bellowed over the rain.
Houston was hanging over the edge of the drop-off, clutching the roots of a little piñion tree and trying to find a place to stick her dangling feet. Surely he wasn’t so angry that he’d shoot her?
Now was not the time to ask questions. She was either going to slide to her death or take a chance on Kane’s temper.
“Kane!” she screamed and felt her arms giving way.
Almost immediately, his face appeared over the side. “My God,” he said in disbelief as he stretched out his hand to grab her wrist.
Quite easily, he hauled her to the top, stood her on the ground and stepped back from her. He didn’t seem to believe she was there.
“I came to see you,” Houston said with a wet, crooked smile, as she began to weave about on her feet.
“Nice to have you,” he said, grinning. “I don’t get much company up here.”
“Maybe it’s your welcome,” she answered, nodding toward the shotgun in his hand.
“You wanta come in? I gotta fire inside.” His voice was highly amused—and, Houston hoped, pleased.
“I’d like that very much,” she said, then squealed and jumped toward him as above her a tree limb gave a loud crack.
She was standing quite near him and, as he looked down at her, his eyes were questioning. It was now or never, Houston thought, and there was no sense in being shy or coy. “You said you’d be there for the wedding if I’d show up for the wedding night. You fulfilled your part of the bargain, so I’m here for mine.”
With breath held, she watched him.
Kane’s face went through several emotions before he threw back his head and laughed loud enough to be heard over the rain and the thunder. The next moment, he swept her into his arms and carried her toward the cabin. At the doorway, he stopped and kissed her. Houston clung to him and knew the arduous climb had been worth it.
Inside the little one-room cabin was a stone fireplace that filled one whole wall, and a warm, cheerful fire blazed within it.
Kane held up a blanket. “I ain’t got any dry clothes up here so this’ll have to do. You get out of them things while I find your horse and pen it up.”
“There’s food in the bags,” she called as he left.
Alone, Houston began to undress, peeling the soaking garments from her cold, clammy skin. She couldn’t help glancing at the door every few minutes. “Coward!” she said to herself. “You’ve propositioned the man and now you have to live up to your boasts.”
By the time Kane returned, Houston was wrapped in the scratchy wool blanket with only her face sticking out. After a quick, smiling look of understanding, Kane put the food on the floor.
The only furniture in the room was a big bed made of pine, covered with an odd assortment of blankets that didn’t look overly clean. Against one wall was a mountain of stacked canned goods, mostly peaches like she’d found in the kitchen of his house.
“I’m glad you brought food,” he said. “I guess I left in too much of a hurry to get any. I don’t guess Edan’d believe it, but even I get tired of peaches after a few cans.”
“Edan packed the food, and your cousin, Jean, had him put in some wedding cake.”
Kane straightened. “Ah, yes, the wedding. I guess I ruined the day for you, and women like weddings so much.” He began to unbutton his shirt.
“Many women have weddings like the one I planned, but few have a day such as this one turned out to be.”
As he pulled his wet shirt out of his pants, he smiled at her. “Your sister did all that at the weddin’, didn’t she? You didn’t have nothin’ to do with it, did you? I realized that after I got all the way up here.”
“No, I didn’t,” she answered. “But Blair didn’t mean any harm. She loves me and she thought I wanted Leander, so she tried to give him to me.” As Kane began to remove his pants, Houston looked back at the fire. This was her wedding night, she thought, and her body warmed considerably.
“Thought?” Kane asked, and when she didn’t answer, he persisted. “You said she thought you wanted Westfield. She doesn’t think so anymore?”
“Not after what I said to her,” Houston murmured, looking into the fire. Behind her, she could hear him rubbing himself with a towel, and she was greatly tempted to look around. Was he really as well built as the strongman she’d hired for The Sisterhood meeting?
With a swift movement, Kane knelt before her.
He was wearing only the towel about his hips, looking for all the world like a Greek god of old. The smooth, big muscles under deeply bronzed skin were indeed better than those of the man she’d hired.
Whatever Kane’d been about to say was forgotten as he looked at her. His breath caught in his throat. “You looked at me like this once before,” he whispered. “That time you hit me with a water pitcher when I touched you. You plannin’ somethin’ like that this time?”
Houston just looked at him and let the blanket slide from her head, then down her neck, off her shoulder to hang just above her breasts. “No,” was all she could think to say.
The heat of the fire was warm on her skin but nothing compared to the feel of Kane’s hand on the side of her face. His fingers tangled themselves in the wet hair that flowed down her back. His thumb ran across her lower lip as he watched her.
“I’ve seen you dressed up a lot, but you’ve never been prettier than you are right now. I’m glad you came up here. A place like this is where people should make love.”
Houston kept her eyes on his as his hand travelled down her neck and onto her shoulder. When he started to move the blanket away from her breasts, she held her breath, and realized that she was praying that she’d please him.
Very gently, as if she were a child, he put one arm around her shoulders and lowered her to the cabin floor. She tensed as she thought, this is it.
Kane parted the blanket so that her nude body was entirely exposed to him.
Houston waited for the verdict.
“Damn,” he said under his breath. “No wonder Westfield made a fool of himself over a body like that. I’ve found that them curvy dresses you ladies wear are usually stuffed with cotton.”
Houston had to laugh. “I please you?”
“Please me?” he said, as he held out his hand. “Just look at that. It’s shakin’ so bad I can’t hold it still.” He put his hand on the soft skin of her stomach. “It
ain’t gonna be easy for me to wait, but any lady’d climb all the way up here to spend the night with me deserves the best—not no quick tumble on the floor. You just sit there and I’ll make us somethin’ to drink. You like peaches? No!” he said as Houston began to pull the blanket about her. “You can just leave that on the floor. You get too cold you can crawl in my lap and I’ll warm you.”
Growing up in Duncan Gates’s house had not given Houston much opportunity to learn to like the taste of liquor. But Kane took a can of peaches, poured out the juice, mashed the peaches to a pulp and mixed it with a generous amount of rum.
He handed her the concoction in the can. “It ain’t a fancy glass, but it works.”
Houston took a sip. She felt quite awkward wearing absolutely nothing while sitting in front of a man. But by the time she’d finished the drink, which didn’t taste at all like the few sips of liquor she’d drunk before, she was feeling as if it were the most normal thing in the world to have no clothes on.
Kane took a seat across from her and watched her. “Better?” he asked as he handed her another drink.
“Much.”
She was only halfway through the second can of drink when Kane took it from her. “I don’t want you drunk, just relaxed.”
He put his arms around her and pulled her close to him. The drink inside Houston made her feel less inhibited than she ever had been in her life. Her arms twined about his neck and she put her lips on his.
“What did you tell your sister about you and Westfield?”
“That Lee might set her body on fire, but he did absolutely nothing for me.”
“Not a good asker?”
“The worst,” she said as his lips came down on hers.
His hands played along her body as he kissed her, touching her skin and sending fire through her. Some small part of her brain was aware that Kane was holding back part of himself, that he was more reserved than she was, but she didn’t listen.
As his hands roamed about her body, Houston moved so she was closer to him, stretching out her body to give him freer access.
He kissed her face, her neck, his mouth running down to her breasts. When he took the pink crest in his mouth, she arched against him, and he used his hands to caress her waist and hips.
“Slow down, love,” he murmured. “We have all night.”
All the sensations were so new to Houston. Always, when Lee’d touched her, she’d felt like withdrawing, pulling away from him rather than wanting to explore and discover everything at once. As Kane touched her, she felt more and more wonderful, and all the fears that Lee’d instilled in her, that she was frigid, were fast disappearing.
Her hands began to explore his skin, to feel the warmth of it. The firelight made his flesh glow, and Houston so much wanted to touch all of him.
Kane pulled her closer to him, lying down with her in his arms. He removed the towel from his hips and Houston moved her hips closer to his, a little afraid of the feel of his swollen manhood.
Kane’s control began to break. His breath in her ear was ragged and quick, and his gentle kisses turned hot and demanding. Houston met his force with her own.
“Houston, sweet, sweet Houston,” he said as he laid her down on the blanket-covered floor and lay on top of her.
Eagerly, she clutched his body to hers. When he entered her, she gasped and quick tears of pain came to her eyes. Kane lifted himself and looked at her, and held himself back until he saw by her face that the pain was receding. He kissed her neck with little nibbling kisses, running his tongue along her ear until she moved her face and sought his mouth.
Slowly, Kane began to move inside her, and after the first few painful movements, Houston began to arch toward him in clumsy little circles. Kane put his hands on her hips and began to guide her, slowly, carefully, gracefully.
Houston put her head back and gave all her thoughts and feelings over to the new and delicious sensations Kane was sending through her body.
She began to move in a rhythm as old as time itself, and inside her she felt all the emotions she’d kept pent up, at last finding a release.
Her breath came faster and harder as she began to feel herself building into an explosion.
Kane began to move faster and she moved with him. Higher and higher her passion climbed, until she thought she might burst.
And when she did explode, she was sure she might die from the experience. “Kane,” she whispered. “Oh my dear, dear Kane.”
He pulled away from her just enough to look at her, and his face wore an unusual expression, one she couldn’t understand.
“I didn’t please you?” she asked, as her body began to tense again. “Do you think I’m frigid, too?”
He put his hand to the side of her head and kissed her softly. “No, sweetheart, the last thing I think you are is frigid. I’m not sure I know anythin’ about you at all, except that you’re the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen and you do the damnest things, like come all the way up the side of a mountain just to spend the night with me, and then my prim little lady-wife turns out to be a hot little . . . Maybe we shouldn’t go into that.”
He kissed her forehead. “I’m goin’ outside into the rain and wash this blood off, and when I get back, let’s eat. I need my strength if I’m gonna make love to you all night.”
As he stood, Houston stretched, her fair skin tawny in the firelight.
As Kane watched her, an unusual thought entered his head: he didn’t want to be alone, not even for the length of time it took him to go outside.
He reached out his hand to her. “Go with me,” he said, and there was a plea in his voice.
“Anywhere,” Houston answered.
Chapter 16
Houston walked out into the rain with her husband and wasn’t even aware of the cold. Her mind was occupied with the fact that she wasn’t frigid. Maybe the problem had been Leander, maybe she had been too close to him, or felt too much like his sister, to want to climb into bed with him. But whatever the reason, she was now released from her fear that there was something missing inside her.
Kane pulled her into his arms. “You look dreamy,” he said. Rain was dripping down his face and onto hers. “Tell me what you’re thinkin’. What does a lady think after havin’ the local stableboy make love to her?”
Houston pulled away from him and stretched her arms up toward the sky. On impulse she began dancing slowly, as if she wore her satin wedding dress, holding the skirt out and moving gracefully with it. “This lady feels wonderful. This lady doesn’t feel at all like a lady.”
He caught her wrist. “You aren’t regrettin’ that your weddin’ night wasn’t in a silk-sheeted bed? You don’t wish some other man—.”
She put her fingers to his lips. “This is the happiest night of my life, and I don’t want to be anywhere else or with anyone else. A cabin in the woods with the man I love. No woman in the world could ask for more than that.”
He was watching her with an odd intensity, a slight frown on his face. “We better go in before we freeze to death.”
Calmly, he started back to the cabin, Houston beside him, but suddenly he turned and grabbed her to him, their cold, wet skin sticking together as he kissed her.
Houston melted against him, letting him feel her joy and happiness.
With a smile, he lifted her into his arms and carried her into the cabin. Once inside, he grabbed a blanket, wrapped her in it, and began rubbing her cold body.
“Houston,” he said, “you’re not like any lady I ever met. I thought I had a pretty clear idea of what marriage to one of the Chandler princesses would be like, but you ’bout busted all my ideas.”
She turned around in his arms, her nude body wrapped in the blanket, his bare skin glowing in the firelight. “Am I different in a good way or a bad one? I know you wanted a lady; am I not being one?”
He took a while to answer, looking at her speculatively, as if judging what he should tell her. “Let’s just say that I’m learnin’
a lot.” He grinned. “I’ll bet Gould’s wife never followed him up the side of a mountain.” He began kissing her neck, but stopped abruptly. “Would it be too much to hope that you know how to cook?”
“I know the rudiments, enough to direct a cook, but I don’t know how to prepare a meal from scratch. You don’t like Mrs. Murchison?”
“I’m happy to say that she ain’t here at the moment. What I want to know is whether you can make somethin’ to eat out of those bags of food.”
She wiggled her arms out of the blanket and put them around his neck. “I believe I could arrange that. I never want this night to end. I was so afraid that you’d be angry with me for coming up here when I hadn’t been invited. But I’m glad that we’re here now and not in Chandler. This is so much more romantic.”
“Romantic or not, if we don’t eat soon, I’m gonna shrivel away to nothin’.”
“We can’t let that catastrophe happen,” Houston said quickly and rolled out from under him.
Kane thought for a moment that his bride had just made a bawdy joke, but he dismissed that as an impossibility.
With the blanket loosely wrapped around her, falling off one shoulder, Houston took the bags Kane handed her and began unpacking them. He’d once again wrapped the towel about his hips as he piled more wood on the fire. She saw right away that whoever had packed the food had done an excellent job. She withdrew lidded tins, tied porcelain boxes, and muslin-wrapped packages. A note fell out of the second bag.
My dear daughter,
I wish you all the happiness in the world in your marriage, and I think you’re perfectly right in following your husband. When you return, don’t be surprised to hear that Kane carried you away with him.
Very much love,
Opal Chandler Gates
Kane looked up from the fire to see Houston with tears in her eyes as she clutched a piece of paper. “Is somethin’ wrong?”
She handed him the note.
“What’s this mean, that I carried you away?”