Chapter Thirteen
The rain drummed steadily outside, more gently than how Elijah knew it could squall. Sheridan shifted in his arms. “Did you mean it when you said I would not have to leave?”
He heard the hidden question in her voice and hardened himself against the hope. He would give Sheridan her home, but nothing else. “Yes. But not marriage.”
She stiffened, then slowly relaxed. He waited for her response and when it came it surprised him. “Teach me how to defend myself. I never want to feel how I did today, ever. The fear was stifling, too overwhelming. Instead, men must fear me when they think to take me or what is mine by force.”
He looked down her diminutive frame wondering how she thought there could ever be a time when she would inspire fear. Even if she wielded two six shooters it would not make a difference. Lust was what she inspired. Her sensuality was not a calming one. It did not compel a man to want to treat her like a lady.
He sighed. “Sheridan.”
“Elijah, please.” She craned her neck and looked up into his face. She looked hopeful, too hopeful. His gut told him to reject her, but he couldn’t.
She continued frankly, “You continually tell me I am a woman alone in a dangerous territory. A wealthy woman. It’d be a challenge every day just to hold on to my fortune and virtue against those that would take it. I must be able to defend myself. Even if I eventually find a partner, I want the ability to stand beside him and protect the things we cherish.”
Denial surged inside of him at the thought of her with another man. As he looked at her, he realized she spoke of another man possessing her deliberately, testing his reaction. There was a taunt in her eyes, daring him to reach for her, to hold her. He clenched his gut against it and blanked his expression. She lowered her lashes quickly burying the flare of pain, but he saw.
He hauled up so that her body draped over him with her looking down in his face. “You were not made for fighting.”
Her chin came up and she scowled. “I am not weak, Elijah.”
He paused, thinking carefully. “No you are not.”
“You do not like the idea of other men having me,” she said firmly.
He laughed at her boldness. He sobered quickly when she shifted and sat up straddling his hips. Her features took on a serious appearance, more than any he’d ever seen on her.
“I have never really belonged anywhere. Though I spent years at boarding school, I did not belong there either. The friends I made there were reclaimed year after year because their families missed them. Mine never missed me, Elijah. Not my father, my brother, nor my step mother.”
He fingered the silky softness of her hair that pooled in damp wavy curls against his stomach. “They were fools,” he murmured.
“When I met Thomas, it was an easy feat for him to sweep me off my feet,” she admitted blushing. “I was stupid, but I do not think I can hate him. For if he never deceived me, I would not have found my home here. I love it here, the sense of growth and peace. Here I am excited about the future.”
Her face took on a look of passion he only saw when he was buried in her. All for this land. He understood more than she knew.
“Don’t you dream of more than being tucked away in the mountains?”
He didn’t allow himself to dream…not anymore. “No.” Her face softened. Before she could speak, he continued, “To survive here you will need to have a fighting spirit. The West has broken many men, and what it does to a woman is unspeakable,” he sighed, “out here it is savage, Sheridan.”
“You have told me I am a lamb amongst coyotes. I do not want to be a lamb forever. I do not want to leave here, Elijah. I said so because I fear…fear you will be hurt, that I will be hurt. But what if everywhere I go there is trouble? Do I run each time? I do not want to be that woman who runs from her fears and problems. I want to fight. Who the bloody hell are they to demand what is mine, and then use brute force to cow me into submission?”
“You’ll keep the Whispering Creek,” he promised.
She nodded, biting her lip nervously and he knew he would not like what she had to say. She hesitated, and then seemed to shore up her courage. “I am still courting you.”
“Sheridan—”
“Let me finish, Elijah.”
He nodded and she exhaled smiling that sultry smile of hers. She relaxed further on him and her wet heat pressed into his abdomen. He restrained the groan and the urge to tumble her and bury his cock deep in her.
“I am still courting you. I have given you flowers. Ordered the housekeeper to prepare your favorite dishes, mended the shirts you damage on the range and tried to tempt you to my bed…where I have some success.”
Her face got redder and he couldn’t help but smile at her discomfort.
“Now it occurred to me that I was going about it the wrong way. The cowhands I overheard talking about girls in town they are interested in, their lady loves, they gifted them with presents, what they felt the women wanted. I gave you flowers because I would love lots of flowers. I sang for you because I would love for you to sing for me.”
Elijah raised his brows sharply, Sing for her?
“I realized I would need to give you the things that would attract you. I would need to give you things that would make the nightmares flee.”
All humor fled from him and he went cold. “You know nothing about my nightmares.” He made his tone harsh and forbidding.
She pressed on determinedly, her nails biting into his chest. She looked at him with large serious eyes. “You want a woman to walk beside you, not behind you. You want a woman of strength where even if you are not there, she could hold her own against the savagery of this land. I can be that woman, Elijah, not only because it is what you need, but I too want that for myself. To be happy, to be secured. I can give you babies, and I would protect them in the face of anything. And I would endure anything while I waited for you. And even if you never came I would fight until the end. That was what made me hold on today without panicking. I knew I had to be strong until you found me. Even when I thought it would be days before you found me, and that I would have been…raped repeatedly. I resolved to not give up because you would have found me, or I would have found a way to escape them.”
Everything inside of Elijah shut down at her declaration.
“I know you would have come for me Elijah. I knew you would protect me.”
He lay quiet for a long minute staring after her. It was a strange feeling to be trusted so implicitly.
“I know how your wife died and—.”
Ah fuck! He spun with her swiftly, sliding her underneath him. “No,” he growled. “We do not discuss them.”
“Elijah, I—”
“Damn it, Sheridan. Learn to leave some things alone.”
Her eyes rounded with anger. “How can I when her actions are the reasons you push me away?”
He dipped his face so that they pressed nose to nose. The nightmares rose and he buried them. That was not what he wanted her to see. “I push you away, Sheridan, because I do not trust you. Not because of my wife.” He kept his voice low and firm.
“Now you are the one lying, Elijah. I know I lied to you. I was young and scared and so lonely, but I cannot regret it, for you would never have been with me otherwise. But that is not why you push me away, so do not pretend. You want me Elijah, and I am here.”
She was damn close to the truth. Nothing was worth going through that pain again. Losing Emma and Nathan had killed something inside of Elijah. And he knew what exactly had been killed, hope and dreams. He would not love her to lose her to the savagery of the west. He would not hope now with Sheridan. He closed his eyes, praying she wouldn’t be able to see the stark hunger in them. Before she could speak further, he swallowed whatever she had to say. With a small hungry sound she responded to his kiss with a voracious appetite, and he allowed himself to drown in her passion. There was a niggling inside him that she was right, but he pushed it away. He was not cut out for what she wanted. The only thing he could give her was the passion that burned between them. She made him feel too raw. He needed to deal with Sullivan so that he could retreat into the mountain away from the temptation she presented.
***
The light faded and the stars came out but Sheridan did not move. She felt peace unlike any she had ever known, and also fear. Fear that it would all disappear like the sinking sun, but never rise again. She did not like the battle of emotions. She shifted, seeking Elijah’s warmth and came up blank. She rolled from the bed and drew on his flannel shirt and poncho. The air was growing cooler. She walked over to the cabin window and parted the curtain, the fog had grown thicker. They were in for more rain. She ran lightly down the stairs and paused as she observed the silence of the cabin.
Fear surged through her. Had he returned to town alone to face them?
Without thinking she wrenched the door opened and stepped outside in the bracing cold. The clearing was empty, but over the panicky thunder of her heart she heard a chopping sound. She rushed around the side of the cabin all the way to the back and drew up sharply. It was hard for her to decide whether Elijah stripped to the waist chopping wood, or the beauty of the land was the most splendid sight. At the back of the cabin, dark green grass speared for yards before it stopped at the foot of the thick misty forest, sprinkled with shards of receding sun. The smell of aspen and evergreens permeated her nose, and the gurgle of water reached her ears. She walked toward it and pushed through some thickets of evergreens and froze. What she beheld was paradise. Water ran lazily from a rock and settled into a clear running stream.
The sweet melodies of birds as they sang rippled through her. The exotic beauty of the place did not detract from its wild savagery. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed awed.
He continued chopping the wood with an easy strength and masculine grace. She blatantly admired the power in his shoulders, the twisting ripple of his muscles with each downward stroke of the axe.
“There is a storm coming. You are not dressed for out here.”
She nodded but made no move to leave. The raw untamed power of his body intrigued her. “Elijah...”
“Go inside, Sheridan.” He all but growled as the wood he splintered broke apart more violently.
“I was wondering if I kissed you there, like how you kissed me, if it would feel as good for you.” She made no effort to disguise the curious hunger in her voice.
“God damn it!” he dropped the axe and slapped a palm against his forehead as if in pain.
Sheridan rushed forward. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
She gasped as he drew her to him and claimed her lips. He took her mouth in a swift, fierce kiss that ended before she could respond. “Are you wet?” he asked hungrily.
The sleek power of his body beneath her hands and the raw look of desire on his face had anticipation skittering along her nerves. “Yes,” she moaned, kneading his shoulder.
Wasting no time to test the truth of her words, he lifted her, wrapped her legs around his hips, shifted her, and stabbed deep. When had he unbuckled his pants? Shock hazed her mind when she splintered instantly. “Elijah.” His name came like a sob and she clamped down on his thick length, ripples of fire burning away the cold.
With measured steps he walked to the cabin, with her impaled upon him so deliciously. He kept kissing her, drowning her in waves of need and anticipation.
What had brought this on? Her words about taking him in her mouth?
They slammed into the cabin and she tensed on him, expecting him to take her by the door. She moaned when he continued climbing the stairs. Each roll of his hips as he lifted his foot had him rubbing against a place deep in her that caused the pleasure to sharpen.
She wrenched her mouth from his to breathe raggedly, but he only gave her a few seconds before claiming her lips again. He tumbled her onto the bed, his buttocks flexing beneath her heels, and pushing deeper.
Her mind hazed. Her hands ran over the muscles of his back, distantly noting he sweated despite the cold. He took her with a tender ferocity, bringing her to pinnacles of pleasure over and over. Her mind screamed that she loved him, but she showed him with her body instead, giving him all that he demanded and more, fervently praying that his need for her meant that he hungered for her in the way she craved him.
Afterwards, she had never felt more at peace as she drifted off to sleep, secure that for now she need not fear. She sighed letting the world fade, relaxing deeply into Elijah’s warmth.
***
“Ah God, Emma no. Please God no. Nathan?”
The tortured demand drew Sheridan from sleep. The arms she had fallen asleep in no longer held her. She twisted, trying to make out Elijah’s face in the faint moonlight that flittered in through the cracks in the curtains. He seemed serene. Had she imagined the words?
She sat up careful not to disturb him and inspected the room. Not that she really thought someone else was with them, but it paid to be careful. She shifted one of her feet, dropping it on the wooden floor and winced. They had been insatiable in how they loved each other. It was as if a dam of pent-up neediness and desires had been released. Elijah had taken her so many times, and she had been just as voracious in her demands. She’d been adamant in learning to love him with her mouth and giving him pleasure. The only time he hadn’t loved her was while they prepared food, when she had slipped in and out of sleep, or when he disappeared for minutes scouting around the cabin to ensure no one approached.
She shifted again and winced, realizing they may have been too adamant.
Heat rushed to her cheeks. She knew what it had been. She’d felt the overpowering need to bind Elijah to her, and if she could only do that through mutual loving it would be enough for now. She loved him and the hope that he might feel the same had been beating inside of her since he came for her in town. Every time she thought to ask him, the words froze on her tongue and uncertainty paralyzed her. The only certainty she knew was that Elijah had not been indifferent to her. The way he had been when she decided that giving him her body was not the way to winning his heart. But she found it hard to believe that the passion they burned with was not a unique thing between them. A passion whose embers could grow into the flames of love making it impossible for him not to want to marry her. He might not love her now, but he wanted her. And for now his want, would have to be enough.
His breathing hitched behind her and she paused in the act of slipping off the bed. She turned, searching his face. There was a pause in his breathing, and then the most horrible sound she had ever heard from a human being escaped his throat. The fine hairs on her arms stood up and her nape tingled.
He twisted, the quilt tangling in his legs. “She slashed his throat. God please let me be dreaming.” His voice broke on his last words.
Sheridan could not imagine the emotions he was reliving.
“No.” He did not yell his protest. It was low and filled with so much pain, tears sprang to her eyes.
“I will give you anything God. Please let Emma wait for me.”
Sheridan’s insides twisted at the sheer agony in his voice, her heart broke for him. He went deathly still and her eyes strained to see the falling of his chest. His sudden stillness in the face of how he had thrashed before petrified her. She reached for him and paused as his words knocked the breath from her body.
“I failed my wife and son.”
She couldn’t bear for him to even think so in dream. “Elijah!”
Despite several shakes of his shoulders, he did not wake. She made to slap him and froze when he breathed her name.
“Sheridan, please wait for me sweetheart. Wait for me. Ah God I can’t do it again. Not Sheridan.”
Her chest squeezed and her hand trembled. “Elijah, please wake up.”
His eyes snapped open startling her. They were bleary and glassy, but they sharpened within seconds. She saw the torture, the pain and something else dark before he shuttered his gaze.
“You were dreaming.” She climbed onto the bed and shimmied over to him. She lay on him, her face close to his. “Would you like to tell me?”
She held her breath hoping he would unbend. She remembered his cold reaction the first time she’d asked him. But now she had partial knowledge of what haunted his sleep, and she ached for his loss and the pain he must be suffering from. “You cried for your wife and son.”
His muscles bunched and his hand shifted to her hips.
“Please do not push me away.” When he paused, she offered the rest of her thoughts hesitantly. “I only thought that if you spoke about it, mayhap the nightmares would lessen.”
His chuckle filled her with foreboding.
“You know nothing of my nightmares, Sheridan.”
“I know some. I asked Miguel and he shared the bare details. I also heard the words you uttered a few moments ago. I understand the horror, Elijah.”
His face closed and she braced herself as a frosty look came into his eyes. “Do you? You believe because I relax when I am fucking you, you understand something about me?”
His words flayed her, destroying the tentative hope which had been forming inside her, that he might be feeling something deeper for her. She pushed past the savage feeling of devastation accounting his reaction to that of a wounded animal’s behavior. They lashed out when hurting. She met his eyes and knew his words and actions were all about pushing her away.
She might be a fool, for that realization had hope surging inside again. “Yes, you have been connected with me in the deepest way a man and woman can connect.” A blush heated her cheeks, but she continued. “You have touched me with care and gentleness when you’ve had cause to be angry with me. Cause to despise me. You always ensure that my needs come before yours that my pleasure comes before yours. So yes, you fucking me as how you call it, lets me believe I know something about you. I know that you are tender and kind. I do not know your nightmares. But I would like to know all of you and to offer comfort in any way I can. I want you to know I am here for you, as how you were there for me today.”
He held her gaze for an infinite number of seconds. She did not bother to shield her eyes, letting him see all the doubts and hopes that swirled there. Her throat burned as he pushed her off him, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His breathing seemed calm, but she spied the white knuckled grip he had on the quilt.
She pushed herself up on her knees and wrapped her arms around his taut frame. It took her a few moments to realize he trembled. He made to leave and her hands tightened. “Don’t go. Just stay here with me.”
She kissed his neck lightly.
“What do you know?”
She assessed his flat tones. She would not lie or regret prying even though he may flay her for it. “I know your family was taken by Indians. That you tracked them with your brothers, but you did not get them back. Your son and your wife. I am so very sorry for your pain and loss, Elijah.”
He shuddered. “The memories feel like gaping wounds that never heal. Emma had no faith in me. She should have known that I would have done everything in my power to find her. If she had waited another ten minutes she would have been in my arms. Instead, when she found the opportunity she slashed our son’s throat and plunged the knife into her own breast.” His voice cracked and fine tremors racked his frame.
Sheridan squeezed him, unable to voice words to offer comfort. “You called for Nathan.”
Elijah shifted, gripped her hip and drew her around so that she straddled his lap. Sheridan twined her hands around his neck and peered into his face. Pain washed over her at his appearance. Agony marred his feature and a single stream of tear ran from his left eye. She wished she could absorb his grief, and take it away from him.
“Nathan was our son. He was four…four when he died.”
His pain flooded her and she dropped her forehead to his.
“He looked just like Emma. Fair and sweet, but he had my energy.” His low chuckle was filled with joy and hurt. “I loved him more than anything else. I thought Emma felt the same…Hell…I knew she felt the same. When they were taken I did not rest, Sheridan. I swear I didn’t. When I reached them, my horse collapsed and never rose again…but I was too late.”
His hands tightened on her hips painfully but she did not protest.
“It has been three years and I still dream of them often. I have seen horrors in the war. More deaths than I can stomach. But nothing haunts me as much as how my son’s tiny lifeless body looked crumpled, with that gaping wound across his throat.”
Sheridan wrapped her arms around Elijah, and he glided his hands up her back and hugged her in return. She could only imagine the fear Emma must have felt…from what Miguel had told her, it had been over twenty Indians, and the horror stories of what they were capable of was rife in the West.
“I dream of Nathan calling me…crying for me stranded in a deserted wasteland. Emma is always there as well…and lately you have been right there beside them.”
Sheridan clenched her eyes tight and swallowed unable to say anything. They stayed like that for long minutes, with the gently tapping rain on the roof the only sound in the night. There were no words she could find to offer as comfort. And the depth of how much he feared having a woman like her in his life was made apparent. Never had she felt so close to him, outside this moment, as he unburdened himself to her, but never had they been so far apart either.
How was she to fight such nightmares?