Johanna Lindsey - Brave the Wild Wind

Chase shrugged. “It seemed hopeless. I didn’t know where to start. Spain’s a big country. Also, I don’t speak the language.”

“Spanish isn’t difficult to learn,” she scoffed.

“I suppose you speak it?”

“Well... yes,” she admitted.

Spanish happened to be the only language John Anderson knew besides English, and Jessie had been eager for him to teach her everything he was capable of teaching. But she wasn’t going to explain that to Chase.

“Why didn’t you learn it, if it would help you find your father?” she pressed.

“I was too disappointed and angry in not finding my father where I thought he’d be. It had taken me a hell of a long time just to get to California. Then to find I had made the trip for nothing ...”

“So you just gave up?”

“I was twenty and restless, Jessie. I didn’t have the money to get to Spain, anyway.”

“That’s when you got a job dealing cards in San Francisco?” she concluded.

“Yes. I drifted back East after that. Thought I’d see a bit more of this country,” he explained. “I tried life on the Mississippi for a couple of years, but one too many boiler explosions and collisions made the river steamers unappealing. A big game down in Texas drew me there, and then I drifted to Kansas. They have some fancy saloons in the cow towns there, if you don’t mind the wild goings-on at the end of every trail drive.”

“You’re a gambler!” Jessie realized finally. “My God! Of all the shiftless, lazy things!”

Chase chuckled at her contempt. “It’s a living. I can take it or leave it. It’s made traveling easy. I just happen to have uncommon luck at cards. Why shouldn’t I take advantage of it?”

She calmed down a little. “Can you really make a living at gambling?”

“Enough to live quite comfortably in the good hotels,” he admitted.

“But what kind of a life is that?”

That hit a sore spot. “Let’s just say, a life with no ties. Now it’s my turn to ask a few questions, don’t you think?”

Jessie shrugged, reaching for the last biscuit. “What do you want to know?”

“You said you’ve only been happy with your Indian friends. Why is that?”

“They let me be myself.”

“I saw you looking and acting like one of them. You call that being yourself?”

“I looked like a girl, didn’t I?” Jessie threw back at him.

“You looked like an Indian.”

“But a girl,” she persisted.

“Yes, of course, but what has that—”

“It’s the only place I can be a girl—what I am. My father never let me, you see. He burned all the clothes I came here with and never let me buy a dress. Dresses weren’t appropriate for the things I had to learn to do. Nothing could remind him I was a girl.”

Chase hissed. “I thought you dressed like that by choice.”

“Hardly.”

“But your father’s dead now.”

“Yes,” Jessie replied without thinking. “But my mother is here.”

“But she doesn’t approve of the way you dress and act. You must know that.” And then he whistled softly. “Yes, of course you know it. I see.”

“It’s none of your business,” Jessie snapped.

“Anytime I hit a touchy subject, it’s none of my business.” He sighed. “I’m not judging you, Jessie. I don’t care how you dress. You looked mighty pretty, though, in that Indian dress,” he said nicely, trying to cool her temper.

But Jessie wasn’t having any of it. She got up, her eyes flaring. “I cooked, now you can clean up. I’ll be back.”

He sat up straight. “Where are you going?”

“Out back to wash.”

But before she could leave, he was up and facing her. “What did you tell Little Hawk about marrying him? You did give him an answer, didn’t you?”

“If you must know, I refused him. I won’t share the man I settle for. Little Hawk already has a wife.”

Chase let that sink in. “And if he didn’t?”

“I probably would have agreed.”

She went outside, and Chase stared at the closed door for a long time.

Sometime later, Jessie came in shaking her wet hair. It was loose and as black and glossy as sable. Without a glance in his direction, she walked to her saddlebags on the foot of her cot, got a brush, and sat down cross-legged on the shaggy fur by the fire.

Chase watched her as she began running the brush through her hair, but then he turned away, feeling edgy. He moved to his own cot, only a few feet from hers. He stared at the narrow thing, looked at hers, and realized it would be easy to push the two together. The thought made him edgier.

“Thanks for cleaning up the mess,” she said suddenly.

“Thanks for making dinner,” he returned.

They fell silent. She turned back to face the fire, giving him her profile. Chase couldn’t take his eyes off her. Absently, he began to unbutton his shirt. She was raising her hair to the heat, shaking it, swaying it, then brushing it. He became mesmerized by that floating black hair. It was so shiny, reflecting the fire. And when she leaned back, tilting her head back to shake her hair, the smooth contour of her throat enraptured him.

Chase didn’t know what he intended when he got up and started toward Jessie. He knelt behind her and gathered her hair in his hands, pressing his lips to the side of her neck. She tried to pull away from him, and he came to his senses and let her go.

Jessie scrambled to her knees to face him. “What—?”

“I want to make love to you.”

His eyes were smoldering as they caressed her face, her neck, her hair. All she could think of was that other night when he’d looked at her the same way. Funny, but that was all she could think of. Jessie moved toward him and let him gather her into his arms. One hand entwined in her hair, the other held her lower back, pressing her close to him. His mouth captured hers in a kiss that inflamed her, and it went on and on until she lost all sensation but that. His lips moved to her neck, and she groaned with the tingling they caused. He lowered her to the rug, and she tried to pull him down on top of her, but he held back, shrugging out of his shirt first. She devoured him with her eyes, watching the hard muscles that played under his skin, such darkly tanned skin. She ran her fingers through the hair on his chest, over those muscles that fascinated her so, down those strong arms.

Chase was watching her watch him. It excited him until he was so hard inside his pants that it was painful, and he quickly removed them.

Jessie reached out and touched the thick, hard shaft that stood so proud. He groaned, and she wrapped her arms around his hips, pressing her cheek against his hard belly. He jerked her upward, fastening his mouth on hers again savagely. She dug her fingers into his hair, and he undid her buttons, quickly removing her shirt. There was no bashfulness as she shed the rest of her clothes. There was only the heat of his eyes, and then his hot hands as he touched each place she bared.

When she was as naked as he was, she leaned back, ready to receive him. He knelt between her legs, but he didn’t give her what she craved, not yet. He leaned forward, running his hands down her sides, over her hips. When he laid his cheek against her belly, snuggling there, hugging her to him, she knew what he had felt when she’d done the same thing. It was unbearable.

“You’re so beautiful, Jessie.”

She believed him. She felt worshiped. She felt completely woman.

Chase kissed the inside of her thigh. Her legs were exquisite, not at all as he’d expected. The muscles were there, but her legs were soft and supple when she relaxed.

He slid his hands up to her breasts. They were so soft, so full, the nipples hard and pointed. He tasted them, licking her until she cried, “No more!”

Her fingers dug into his hair, and she pulled him up. Her mouth fastened to his with such urgency that he was lost in her. She arched to meet him, molding her skin to his wherever she could and he entered her.

She wrapped her legs around him, and he sank deeply into her. “Oh, yes! Jessie... Jessie.”

She exploded in a burst of ecstatic throbbing.

He had not moved once after entering her, and did not need to. Her fulfillment coming so quickly was enough to drive him over the brink, and he spilled his seed into her, his throbbing making her own pleasure go on and on.

Jessie floated off to sleep. Chase got up to fetch a blanket to cover them, then snuggled down next to her and slept a deep sated sleep.

JESSIE woke first. She understood what had happened, got up quickly, and silently gathered her things.

She pushed Blackstar to his limit, riding not to the ranch but to the range, wanting to throw herself into hard work so she wouldn’t have to think. How had it happened? She could have stopped it. It wasn’t as if he’d forced her. She had wanted him. But why? Damn!

It was quite late when Chase woke, and it didn’t take long for him to see that there was no trace of Jessie in the cabin. Damn all independent women, he swore, feeling as though he’d been taken advantage of.

His irritation increased as he rode back to the ranch, thankful that he knew the way, at least. He was fed up with having this one particular woman turn him inside out. He didn’t act the same when he was with her, couldn’t even think straight when she was near him. He would tell Rachel what she needed to be aware of, give Jessie her father’s promissory note, and light out.

When Chase entered the house, Rachel was in the parlor. She was sitting in a rocker, crocheting, looking fetching and demure in a gown of moss green with black lace. He remembered the Ewing household, how soothing it had been to sit and watch her crocheting or knitting, or arranging flowers. Gazing on Rachel’s beauty eased his troubles, always had. Without Jessie on his mind, it might still have worked.