"Guess you've still got five hundred left, and you could always sell your horse. You could probably get to San Francisco." He took his hands away.

They walked through the town as before, wordlessly, one on each side of the horse.

After seeing to the stallion, safe in Ephraim's barn, Anne again put her hands on his shoulders. "Will you do me a favor, please?"

She could feel withdrawal in his every muscle. "Like what?"

"I bet on that race thinking the money probably would be lost, and that would be just as well because it bothered you, but I also knew how much work we did, and I thought if I did win, that was fine too because I was betting on us. Will you stop referring to 'my money,' and 'my horse?' Please? Could you manage 'our money' and 'our horse?'"

She felt him relax under her hands. "All right. Let's go tell them about our new horse."

CHAPTER 30.

CORD HAD NOT BEEN INSIDE the Mason town hall since he had followed Marie out one of its doors the night she was attacked years ago. Now he was doing the same thing he had been doing that night, sitting along one wall watching others dance. When Anne had asked him about attending the social, with her own desire to attend written all over her face, he had been unable to say no, a mistake for which he was now paying.

She had chosen a pale yellow gown trimmed with green from her Chicago dresses, and was having a grand time dancing with what seemed to Cord to be every man in the place. The whole thing was absolutely his own fault.

He had answered her inquiry with, "I don't dance." He had told her to go ahead and have a good time, he was fine where he was. And after every dance she came to sit beside him for a while, although her happy chatter had tailed off more quickly during each visit.

He knew his own black mood was affecting her, knew he was being unreasonable, and couldn't stop himself. Watching her now her as she spun round, laughing up at Noah Reynolds, he glared at the sheriff's hands on her and wanted to hit something. Anne looked like sunlight dancing on water - dancing with another man.

Miss Maggie Powers, whose piano provided the music, was a romantic at heart, and she had been ending the town's the dances with a long waltz even when Cord was a boy.

Noah returned Anne to his side, and Cord knew that last waltz was not far off and knew he was not watching her dance it with someone else.

"Suppose we leave now before the crowd?" he said.

Anne was more than happy to leave early. The evening had been pleasant enough, but dancing with family and friends while wondering why her husband was becoming stonier by the minute was not exactly what she had hoped for.

To her surprise, outside the hall she felt his hand on her elbow, guiding her not up the street towards Ephraim's but around behind the hall where a flat gra.s.sy area separated the hall from the cemetery and the church beyond. Through the open windows she could hear the first notes of Miss Maggie's last waltz.

"Dance with me, Annie?"

Did he want to learn here and now? Unsure, she placed a hand on his shoulder, and then Cord gathered her up and swooped her away. I should have known she thought.

"You said you couldn't dance."

"I said I don't dance. Hannah and Martha used me to teach Marie, but I haven't tried it since Marie's wedding. You know what would happen if we danced in there."

He guided her through the velvety summer darkness in silence. This was dancing as she had never before experienced it.

Anne floated effortlessly through the warm night, carried by raw male power and grace. This was not just a dance, but a prelude, and the heat of his hands on her flesh was but a hint, a promise of raging fire to come. Her pulse quickened, breathing felt exaggerated. She brushed against him with every step, leaving nerve endings tingling, awareness heightened.

The new moon was only a sliver of light, and close as they were she could hardly discern his features. He was a sensuous ghost, yet he was her husband, her lover, her friend. Anne wondered if he knew, felt any part of what she felt. As the last notes from the piano died, she was answered when he pulled her full against him and left her weak in his arms with a searing kiss.

They walked through the night hand in hand, but arrived at Ephraim's only minutes before the rest of the family. An hour later, Anne was in one of the narrow beds in Martha's spare room, alone, biting her lower lip, unsure whether she was stopping herself from crying or shrieking.

Martha had explained the rearranged sleeping arrangements with no sign that she realized she was ruining anyone's night.

"Now that the whole family's here, I've put a cot for Beth in your room, Anne. Judith will be in the other bed. Frank and the boys will share the other spare rooms."

"What about Cord?" Anne asked.

"Oh, he can't stand to be squeezed in with the rest. He always makes a bed for himself in the parlor. Didn't he tell you?" Martha said blithely.

No, he hadn't, and from the look of him, Anne knew he hadn't been thinking about the changed sleeping arrangements tonight and wasn't any happier about it than she was.

Cord lay wide awake in his makeshift bed on the parlor floor in such a rage he was only barely controlling an urge to smash things. If he had any sense of humor left at all, the comical dismay on his wife's face when she saw the sleeping arrangements might have amused him, but he was quite beyond humor.

How the h.e.l.l had he let himself forget about how much squeezing it took to fit the whole family in here overnight? He had slept on this floor many times over the years, and it had never before seemed so hard or so unyielding. He wondered seriously what would happen if he stormed upstairs, s.n.a.t.c.hed his wife from her narrow, pristine bed and carried her off into the summer night.

He ought to get up, make himself some coffee, read something off of Ephraim's shelves, pa.s.s the night somehow. Instead, he lay perfectly still, listening to his own blood pounding in his ears, s.e.xual tension and fury creating a more and more volatile mixture.

He could get up and walk through the town. Of course, he'd get into the first fight he came across - start one probably.

Slight rustling sounds from the staircase caught his attention. A white apparition moved slowly towards him. She was feeling her way cautiously from one piece of furniture to another. Anne's bare feet were at the edge of his blanket bed before he was sure who it was, and even then he still thought his heated imagination might have conjured her up.

He saw the white nightgown rise then flutter to the floor. Cord didn't move, was not sure he could until he heard the soft words, "Cord? Are you awake? Please be awake."

Anne began sliding under the blankets beside him then, and as her silken leg slid along the taut muscles of his, Cord came to life with all the bottled up fury of the last hours, seizing her, rolling her under his weight, his mouth hungry, demanding.

Anne was surprised, but only for an instant. As time had pa.s.sed, she had lain awake in the narrow bed upstairs, aching from head to toe for his touch, waiting for Judith and Beth to stop talking and go to sleep so that she could sneak out of the bedroom and down the stairs. She began to be afraid that he would be asleep, that she would have to endure the fever of the night alone.

By the time the house was quiet, her skin was on fire; her very bones ached. She crept to the stairs on ridiculously shaky legs, unsure if she could negotiate the steps. The soft cloth of the nightgown tortured her sensitized skin.

Now she kissed him back with an equal abandon, whimpering with relief at finding a need as great as her own. She loved the feel of his hands and mouth on her, often thought she could never get enough of the gentle caresses, but not tonight. Tonight her need was immediate and consuming. She could feel him hard and ready against her thigh. Her leg slipped up, letting him feel her own swollen, moist warmth.

Anne heard a deep throaty sound from her always silent husband, half groan, half growl, as he responded by shifting his body and entering her. In all their months together he had never been anything but gentle, but this coupling would have been too rough, too fierce, if she were not as frenzied as he. He drove into her, and she met each thrust with all her strength. With legs, arms, and mouth she tried to hold and envelop as much of him as possible, arched upwards frantically, trying to take him deeper with every stroke. She locked her legs around him, dug her hands into his surging back muscles and felt him pulling her breath away.

She tried to smother the sounds of pleasure she couldn't suppress against his face and neck as a climax as violent as their coupling swept through her. She heard another low growl as he shuddered, then her name. She held him in her as long as she could, sighed softly when he shifted his weight from her.

Neither of them moved again until the cooling summer night made Anne shiver slightly. Cord cradled her against his chest, pulled the blanket over her and tucked it under her chin. "You all right?"

"More than all right. Lovely." Anne brushed her fingers over his cheekbone, across his mouth. He kissed her palm.

"I thought they'd never go to sleep. I wanted you so much it hurt."

His arms tightened around her, holding her hard.

After the long, full day, Anne drifted off to sleep moments later.

Cord fought sleep, wanting to savor this moment and the memories of the day. Anne's breath fanned across his throat sweetly. I wanted you so much it hurt. She made him feel like the king he was sure she had been born for. He thought of her face as she ran into his arms after the race, the feel of her in his arms dancing in the summer night. Perhaps there would never again be such a day, but he had this one. And he had her - now.

As he finally stopped fighting sleep, he wondered if maybe just occasionally the G.o.ds designed a woman fit for a king or a prince and then gave her to an ordinary man. Maybe they did such a thing once in a while, knowing an ordinary man would treasure her more, love her better. Maybe they even let him keep her - for a while.

CHAPTER 31.

SHAPES AND OUTLINES WERE ONLY just appearing in different shades of gray with the first pre-dawn light when Cord awoke. The contentment of the night before still gripped him, but the sight of Anne's bare shoulders, half curtained with silky strands of brown hair, banished the ease immediately. There were other early risers in this house, and he didn't want them finding her here like this. If she woke, she would fuss or even refuse to go.

He untangled himself from her and pulled on his trousers. Forcing himself not to hurry, he eased her nightgown back on. Petting her and murmuring softly to keep her lulled in sleep, he scooped her up and headed for the stairs. She nestled against his shoulder, whispering his name in her sleep. The door to the bedroom she was supposed to be in was ajar. He pushed it slowly wide and carried her in.

A quick check showed Judith in the second bed and Beth in her cot, both still asleep.

Relaxing a little, he lowered Anne to the bed, stroking her face and murmuring so softly the words were mere vibrations in his throat. Tucking the sheet up around her, he could not resist one last caress, and slowly ran his fingers along the curve of her cheekbone and then back around the delicate, clean-cut jawline.

At last he straightened and turned to leave, only to see that Judith was now awake and staring at him wide-eyed. He stiffened and froze in place. Judith's fear was intense and totally irrational. He waited for a scream or flight. Neither of them moved or blinked for long tense seconds. He broke the tableau by forcing himself to take a careful sidestep toward the door. A faint smile appeared on Judith's pale features, totally disconcerting him. He gave her a jerky, respectful nod and got the h.e.l.l out of there.

Back downstairs, he took several deep, slow breaths before his heart began to slow to normal. Impossible that he had walked out of that room without a scene, but he had. Of course, she would probably regale the whole house with the incident over breakfast.

After seeing to feed and water for all the horses, Cord walked back into the house to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and the sight of Frank at the kitchen table reading one of Ephraim's papers. He helped himself to the coffee and sat down across from his brother.

Frank put the paper aside and looked up. "You feed everything?"

"Sure."

Frank studied him a while, a rare uncertainty on his face. Cord knew something was eating at Frank. It had been written all over him yesterday. He waited.

"Any chance if I ask you something I'd really like to know, you'd take the trouble to answer?"

Strange way to start. "Depends on what, I suppose."

"Boggs. I'd really like to know what happened."

After all these years. It might have mattered, might have made a difference - once.

"Long time ago, can't matter much now."

"It matters to me. I'd really like to know. Maybe a good part was my fault. I should have fired him the day I realized he was a hater, but I was still so d.a.m.n mad at you for just showing up like that after all those years, looking like that, acting as if it didn't matter, as if you'd only been gone days or something...." Frank took a big gulp of coffee and got up to refill his cup, the movement a patent excuse to regain control. His voice had been rising. It did still matter to him.

Cord sighed. "Frank, we weren't getting along before I left. Seemed at the time you'd all be better off without me around. I never thought it would bother you that much."

"Bother us? For five years there wasn't a time Eph and I talked, a letter from Marie or Hannah that we didn't wonder where you were, how you were, if you were dead and in an unmarked grave and we'd never know. Did you really think we didn't care?"

"I knew you cared, just seemed it would be easier over a distance. Maybe it even was.

You can't say I'm not a constant source of aggravation living close either, can you?"

Frank stared, considering the thought. "No, I suppose I can't, but at least we'll know where you're buried. There are even times I can hardly wait." This last was said with a wry half smile pulling at one corner of his mouth. "Why'd you turn Injun when you were gone?"

"I didn't. I like the moccasins is all. The hair - the only way to get a haircut most of the time was to stick a gun under some barber's chin, and I got tired of it. Turner here in town only cuts my hair because of the family, you know. He hates every minute of it."

Cord volunteered no more. The kitchen would soon be full of people, and he hoped Frank would let it go, but the need to know was burning in Frank. He asked again, "Will you tell me about Boggs?"

In truth Cord had a deep love and considerable respect for his brother, even if they couldn't get along well enough to exchange more than two consecutive civil sentences.

Without looking up, he answered in a low voice, "You remember what he was on about that day?"

"No, he was always riding you about something. I remember we were putting in the fence between your place and mine, and it was hot. Whatever he was going on about didn't seem to be any worse than usual."

"It wasn't, the talk part anyway." Resigned now, Cord began to tell his brother what he didn't know about the Boggs fight.

"He started in that day about how the Comanche slit the nostrils on their best horses because they think they can breathe better at a run that way."

"How the h.e.l.l would you know about that?" Frank asked.

"That wasn't the point, and you know it."

"No, it wasn't," Frank admitted. "Maybe now that you say that, I do remember some of it. I guess I felt like you deserved it."

"Maybe I did, but Keeper didn't. When I went to give him water at noon he was tied there half crazy, with both nostrils slit to the bone. The blood was drying so he could barely breathe, or maybe it was the inch-thick layer of flies he couldn't breathe through."

"Jesus."

"Yeah. I cleaned him up enough with canteen water so he could breathe again. He was so bad I couldn't ride him. Had to tie my shirt over his head and walk him home, and then had to throw him and sit on his head to do the st.i.tching. He was afraid of me for months after. Still doesn't like anybody touching his nose, even Anne."

"Even so. You can't think it's worth killing a man over."

"I wasn't going to kill him, but that day I was as crazy as the horse. Maybe listening to him for those weeks instead of shutting him up at the beginning was part of it. When I went back and you were both gone it just made me madder."

"So you came looking for him at my place, half killed him, and when I tried to stop you from finishing him off, you turned on me."

"I was just getting you out of the way. I wasn't going to kill him, but I wasn't finished with him either. Afterwards, I was glad Eph showed up and buffaloed me. You weren't in any real danger, but I might have gone too far with him, and he sure wasn't worth hanging over."

Frank had a blank look on his face, eyes turned inward, remembering. "You expect me to believe you'd have laid off me?"

"No, I guess I don't expect you to believe it, but that's the way it was. You wouldn't have felt too good for a while, but then I guess you didn't anyway."

Voice faint and still withdrawn, Frank said, "I wish I could believe that. I wish I did believe it, but I guess I don't."

On his feet, halfway to the door, Cord felt an unusual surge of anger and faced his brother again. "Did you ever think, if what you believe about me is true, you ought to do the world a favor and pull your d.a.m.n gun and blow my brains all over this kitchen? If half what you believe is true, you ought to keep me in a cage and sell tickets."

He was gone then, as quiet as always, but somehow Frank felt as if he'd slammed the door leaving.