Susan Johnson Read online

  She didn’t just want him in the physical sense, she wanted him. She loved him. An Indian chief from a strangely named mountain tribe. Was it possible? She hardly knew him. And with his curious reticence, would she ever know him? But the emotion sang through her senses—I love him! She said it aloud. “I love him.” And then it occurred to her, the dark and ominous reverse side of that marvelous, wonderful declaration. Suppose—and with the events of the last few days vividly fresh in her mind, it was a distinct possibility—suppose he didn’t want her.

  As if by instinct, her back straightened, seated on the hard wooden chair in the isolated mountain cabin two thousand miles from Boston. Every nerve, every brain cell, every pulsing vein was put on alert. She hadn’t acquired her undaunted spirit by accepting failure. She was her father’s daughter, after all. “When it happens, Blaze honey, you’ll know,” her daddy’d said. And now that it had, miraculously, incredibly, with the same tenacity and determination with which she approached everything else, she intended to see her love returned.

  Suddenly all the female gossip over the years, the secrets shared and confidences whispered, the undercurrent of feminine mystique—divulged over tea, murmured behind fluttering fans, archly pronounced by married friends, happy even after the honeymoon—was conscientiously recalled. And while the muffin dough lapsed into an irremediable amalgam, Blaze sifted and examined all the lessons learned about feminine wiles, scrutinizing all—however bizarre—with an empiricism that would have gratified the most pedagogical scholar. Then, discarding those she considered unsuitable, she began to set an inventive plan in motion, neatly artistic, subtly imaginative, sure, she felt, with her unerring confidence and Hazard’s proven appetites, to produce results.

  She was smiling when she took up the spoon to finish stirring the muffin batter. “Oh, dear,” she breathed, her smile momentarily suspended. The dough was as solid as the wet earth outdoors. “Well, never mind,” she murmured into the morning stillness, her smile reappearing. Muffins weren’t his favorite anyway, she decided, placing the bowl in an out-of-the-way corner behind the wood box. He really liked those buttermilk biscuits. Now, was it one tablespoon vinegar to a cup of milk or one tablespoon milk to a cup of vinegar? From now on, true love dictated. She would certainly write the recipe down the next time Jimmy appeared, assuming Molly Pernell’s moral ethics and jealousy allowed.

  Anyway, she thought, settling on fried potatoes in lieu of recipeless buttermilk biscuits, one had to be magnanimous with one’s rivals. Understanding and compassion were Christian virtues, after all, and if Molly Pernell found them elusive, she, the scent of victory already rich and strong, could be forgiving. With or without Jimmy, she’d learn to cook. Ah … and after tonight … Her mind drifted pleasurably astray.

  HAZARD came back at noon, wet to the skin, greeted Blaze politely as he might a sister or an aunt, and sat down to his meal. Luckily, he thought, looking at his plate, he could eat raw meat—well, partially raw meat, the outside being meticulously charred. The fried potatoes were a venturesome attempt, and he complimented her on her effort. Unfortunately, they too were the same uniform black, without the saving grace raw meat possessed in flavor. He could not eat raw potatoes.

  “The stove cooks everything so rapidly,” Blaze explained, as if it had a life and spirit of its own.

  “An unfortunate circumstance,” Hazard agreed, unwilling to point out that the stove wasn’t the cook.

  “I’m truly sorry.” She looked winsomely sincere.

  “It’s fine,” he said, attacking his barely cooked meat. “Really.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, all humility and innocence.

  “I’m sure.”

  “You look so uncomfortably wet.”

  “The fire feels good.” What the stove’s roaring fire lacked in cooking qualities, it compensated for in heating potential. The heated cabin was a pleasant refuge from the steady, driving rain outside. Hazard’s thoroughly soaked clothes were beginning to dry slightly against his skin.

  “Do you think you should change?”

  “Won’t do any good. I’ll be wet again in five minutes.”

  “Do you have to work when it’s raining so hard?”

  He looked at her for a moment, debating. He was driven—not by elusive Lady Fortune, like most of the miners, but by circumstances that didn’t allow time off for adverse weather. How to explain all those ramifications to a society miss from the East. “Once you’re wet, it doesn’t matter,” he answered, avoiding the more byzantine reasons for working seven days a week.

  “If you wouldn’t mind then—I mean—as long as you’re wet already—could you bring in some water for the tub when you come in for supper?” It was a simple request, guileless as her innocent expression.

  “Of course,” he agreed, unaware of the ulterior motives behind the prosaic request.

  Chapter 18

  Hazard worked late that evening, striding in soaked and unusually reserved, carrying the first two pails of water. He filled the boiler, placed the extra pails by the tub, then quietly helped with supper, impelled by a gnawing hunger that required some edible food at least once every twenty-four hours. Although plain, the food was nourishing, and after supper he lay comfortably full and relaxed on his soft bed near the door.

  Blaze refused his help with the dishes, and after the extra hours of work that day, he didn’t raise any argument. She sang softly to herself while she worked, illuminated by the warm golden glow from the fireplace, and if Hazard hadn’t been so dissociated from the concept by disuse, he would have recognized contentment.

  After the dishes were washed, dried, and put away, Blaze pulled the copper tub in front of the fireplace and carefully began emptying the boiler on the stove, a pitcher at a time, into it. “You must have done some blasting today,” she remarked, her tone chastely conversational. “Your clothes were dirtier than usual.” Turning away from the stove, she smiled before carrying the large pitcher over to the tub.

  Hazard made no move to help her. But as she walked by him, her slender bare legs close enough to touch, he drew in a long, deep breath and exhaled before replying, “Opened up a third drift.” With his eyes following her long-legged stride, his tone was more casual than his thoughts.

  Lamplight contoured her exquisite face, flushed from her exertions. “Will Rising Wolf be back soon? Or is it too early?”

  “I’m not sure.” Hazard’s voice was suddenly gruff. She’d half turned to speak to him and firelight silhouetted the voluptuous roundness of her breasts through the coarse weave of his work shirt.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry,” Blaze apologized, misreading the reason for his gruffness.

  “It’s all right.” The words came out more curt than he intended, but he’d just seen her full breasts quiver gently when she twisted to face him.

  “Have I offended you? I know it’s none of my business about your gold and …” Her voice drifted away delicately, her apology offered with a fresh naiveté that reminded him suddenly that she’d been a virgin until four days ago. He could feel the rush of pleasure at the bewitching memory, could feel his arousal begin. Damn, he should get out of here, go outside while she bathed. Sleep outside. But the rain still drumming steadily on the roof was a deterrent. Damned if he was going to be wet all night as well as all day, he told himself.

  “No need to apologize. Rising Wolf’s schedule is unscheduled for the most part. I never know for certain when he’s coming.” Hazard was answering automatically, but the conversation wasn’t holding his attention. He was staring at the shirt hem drifting about her thighs, only inches from a sweetness he recalled so graphically he felt his pulse rate accelerate.

  “Oh,” Blaze quietly responded, still facing him across a dozen feet of softly illuminated cabin, “I see.” And she tossed her head to displace an errant wave of hair that had fallen across her forehead.

  It struck him then, the artful toss. And instantly, he was reminded of scores of willful femal
es in his past. An inherent suspicion was born on that slow, sensuous sweep of auburn hair moving like silk in a breeze. Was he being manipulated by this young woman only recently introduced to lovemaking? Was the fresh innocence, the green-grass naiveté, as ingenuous as it appeared? Could she, with either a boundless arrogance or guileless ignorance, be seducing him?

  Headstrong in his own way, as nervy as the impudent Miss Braddock, he waited, his mind quickening in anticipation, to see if she was brazen tonight or only innocuously determined to bathe.

  She took her time filling the embossed tub, walking luxuriously back and forth across the golden light, apparently immune to the dark, mercurial eyes watching her with interest.

  Her soft breasts moved under the light shirt when she walked, like ripe fruit in a summer breeze. The pale sheen of her legs, exposed to the shirttails falling to midthigh, were bronzed by the firelight, emphasizing the heated memory they evoked in Hazard’s mind. Smooth, he remembered, and strong.

  Blaze could feel his eyes on her, cool and assessing. But he hadn’t gotten up and left. It could be the rain outside keeping him in. Or could it be need and passion? The longer he stayed, the longer he watched her, however controlled those penetrating black eyes, the surer she became.

  And the surer he became, that no artlessness was displayed here. Rather the opposite. How far would she go? he wondered.

  How far would she have to go, she wondered in turn, to move the apparently immovable man on his solitary bed? What would it take to readjust the principles he lived by—the arbitrary restrictions he’d placed on their relationship? “Forgive me for keeping you up,” Blaze said, pouring in the last pitcher of cool water. Her azure eyes, when she lifted them slowly from her task, were not sorry at all.

  “You’re not keeping me up,” Hazard said, his dissemblance as ready as hers.

  She smiled then, invitation in the gentle curve of her mouth. “In that case, I shouldn’t feel obliged to rush?”

  “Don’t on my account,” he replied coolly, only the incandescent spark in his eyes belying the tranquil words.

  “So kind,” Blaze murmured, as if she were casually responding to a polite compliment at a garden party. As carefully as an artist adjusting his model to best catch the light, Blaze disposed herself to Hazard’s gaze. She knew how the warm fire cast its glow, she knew how it gleamed, illuminated her form, glistened off her skin. She knew how long Hazard had been without a woman, and she knew from gossip in Virginia City that he was not inclined to celibacy.

  Taking a hairpin from the table—one of three she’d worn in her hair the day she climbed the mountain to Hazard’s claim—she swept up her bright hair lying on her shoulders, stood arms upraised, pinning the mass of hair atop her head. Her cool white neck was exposed in profile, her breasts, drawn up with the motion, stood upthrust, their nipples outlined through Hazard’s shirt. And her pale legs were invitation with the elevation of her arms, up to the gentle curve of her bottom.

  Hazard felt the terrible kindling of lust, felt his growing erection stretching the soft elkskin pants he wore, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. “A regular little Jezebel,” he murmured drily. “Very lovely, but patently transparent.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Blaze replied to the man sprawled on the fur robes, his hands clasped behind his head. If she’d been able to see, she would have been gratified to observe his knuckles white with tension under the silky black hair.

  “You know damned well what I’m talking about,” he growled softly, and moved slightly to adjust the growing pressure against the pliant leather.

  Blaze’s clear blue eyes, innocent as spring skies, drifted over his supine form with angelic purity. “I simply hadn’t time for my bath earlier in the day,” she softly said, slowly unbuttoning the shirt, “with all the domestic details you insist on.” She smiled a virtuous smile, unfastened the last button and dropped the cotton shirt to the floor. She wore nothing now, firelight rimming her. Her flesh breathed sweetness and wanting, and her high, rounded breasts trembled as if they felt his touch already. There was a smile on her lips, mysterious, proud, submissive, timid—but above all waiting. Infinitely soft and waiting.

  Hazard unobtrusively sucked in his breath. “Very amusing,” he said as casually as possible given the sudden quickening of his body. “Amusing, but useless.”

  “What a suspicious man.” And so saying, Blaze partially turned and slowly bent over to test the temperature of the water in the large copper tub.

  The alluring position, the satiny swell of her bottom, the languid curve of hip, thigh, slender leg, the deliberate exposure and teasing sight of all he so desperately desired, forced a deeply drawn breath from Hazard like that of a drowning man. I must not, he thought. I must not. But the sight of her recalled the last time he’d held that warm body beneath his and felt her close around him. For the space of five tautly silent seconds, he lay rigid, taking in the enticing female flesh, the provocative invitation so willingly offered and then, on a sudden expulsion of the suffocatingly held breath, he tossed aside the pillow under his head and came to his feet like a hawk rising, his lean, hard body borne on wings of fire.

  He was across the small distance in two strides, pulled her upright, spun her round, and pinned her against the rough softness of the unplaned wooden wall with such force he felt her flinch. His body pressed with savage fierceness against the full length of her, forced itself against breast, hip, thigh, and Blaze, with a racing heart, felt the hardened arousal, strong and flagrant, burning to have her. “Damn you,” he huskily whispered, his hands gripping her convulsively, his body straining into hers, “the pretty Bostonian bitch is in heat and the scent was irresistible, as you well knew. I hope your hot little body knows what it’s taken on.”

  In mute answer, her small hands came up to cling to his firm muscled shoulders, her eyes reflecting the intensity in his. He silently cursed himself one last time before he capitulated and his hungry mouth took hers. It was a brutal kiss, impelled by his lust, frustration, betrayed sense of honor. He thrust at her with all the violence of detestable longing, of wanting things forbidden. She had won, and he despised himself for wanting her, for one brief second more before reason fled. He could not wait—only hot-blooded, ungovernable feeling mattered now.

  He tore at his leggings, his mouth feverishly eating hers, hers opening under his, a sense of being swept away by a flood coursing wildly through him. With a frantic brutality, he savagely bruised her mouth, devoured her, struggling to free himself from the impeding elkskins. He pulled away, for two seconds, no more, and his erection was free. He took her quickly, standing, unable to wait the few moments it would have required to carry her to the bed or lower her to the floor. And she welcomed him with wildness and warmth, her arms flung around him as if she would bind him to her with a matching fierceness.

  The top of his head felt as if it were lifting away. His surging need was released at once, flooding spasms deep inside her, and she met him with a violence that shocked them both. He covered her cheeks, her eyes with kisses. “De awa-gee-shick, de awa-gee-shick,” he whispered, his breath in fast, deep pants warm against her cheek, paradise flowing over him like corporeal enchantment. Her fingers slid into his hair and she lightly held the strong head as it moved over her face. And she felt on fire, glowing with a restless cataclysmic exaltation that only this dark-haired glorious man could quench.

  In a few moments he was still, his face buried in her neck, their hearts thudding like jungle drums. Mere seconds had passed since he’d left the buffalo robes. Lifting his head, still breathing hard, he apologized in an abbreviated murmur, then carried her to the bed of buffalo robes, where he spent the next hour pleasing her leisurely in all the ways he knew so well.

  He teased her after the second time, taking her to the brink and playfully stopping. Then one time she went on without him and after, she laughed, a warm, bubbling merriment. “I don’t need you,” she said, her grin wicked.


  “That’s the joy of it,” he murmured, his hair brushing her cheeks, “… the discovery. It can be new each time.” And with each woman, he reflected. And smiled in return at her beaming face.

  “I want more.”

  “You”—Hazard kissed her—“always do.”

  “And more and more.”

  “Greedy child.” He kissed her again. “Enjoying the banquet of life?”

  “Ummmmmm.” She sighed and reached up, pulling him closer.

  Her arms were strong. It always amazed him. “Is that,” Hazard asked, amusement rich in his voice, “a yes?”

  She began kissing him, lightly, softly, trailing kisses down his face. She kissed his smiling mouth, his amused eyes, the curving line of his hard jaw. And he kissed her back, tasting the sweetness of her mouth and cheek and downy brows. Then she pushed him on his back in a quick, solid shove and began moving downward with her warm mouth and tongue. At waist level he touched her head. “You don’t have to,” he quietly said, uncertain of her motives.

  Partially turning her face, her eyes came up and met his, eyes hot, steamy, and alive with passion. Her soft pink tongue trailed slowly over his taut stomach, then stopped. “But I want to,” she murmured. And her head moved down.

  He lifted his hand to pull her up but then her tongue delicately touched him there and his hand dropped away. With a swift intake of breath his belly contracted with the caressing upward stroke of her warm mouth and in seconds he was rigid with an intensity that almost hurt.

  “Do you like that?” she asked some moments later, her tongue giving an affectionate lick. She looked up at him, past his swollen maleness rising proudly fierce, up past the horizontal plane of his stomach and chest.