Johanna Lindsey - Savage Thunder

And I hate to disappoint you, but your little demon-stration didn't work. I still need you."

She walked away from him then, but what she did to him with those last words was ample revenge for that kiss. Her definition of need and the one his body interpreted were not the same, but it kept him awake the entire night anyway, half of which was spent hurt-ing.

“Ferme la!"

"Hein? Espece de salaud, je vais te casser la gueule!"

"Moncul!"

"Good Lord, must we wake up to such swearing?" Jocelyn demanded irritably as she turned over in the furs. "What are they fighting about this time?"

Vanessa, who stood at the tent opening watching the commotion outside, shrugged. "I think Babette insulted his cooking again. You know how touchy Philippe is about his skills."

"She's not really going to smash his face in as she just threatened, is she?"

"She does have hold of one of his frying pans, but then so does he. Right now they're just glaring at each other."

"Do call her off, Vana. I've warned her time and again about fighting with Philippe. Where does she think I can replace him if he quits because of her? She is the one I ought to replace. The trouble she causes—"

"She keeps things lively, you'll have to admit, and the men happy, I might add. And why are you so touchy this morning?"

Jocelyn ignored that question. "Just call her off before my breakfast is ruined. Why are the lamps still lit?

What the deuce time is it, anyway?"

Here Vanessa chuckled. "I would imagine it's about six o'clock of the a.m. Your sweet Mr. Thunder woke the camp about thirty minutes ago. He said something about our pulling out by sunrise so we

'wouldn't waste daylight.' "

"Sunrise! Is he mad?" Jocelyn cried.

"I would hazard a guess that he just wants to reach the end of his obligations with all possible speed. At this rate we ought to reach Wyoming in no time a'tall."

"I'll speak to him."

"Good luck."

"Just what do you find so amusing about this, Vana?"

"I warned you, my dear, did I not? That man is going to do his utmost to make sure you regret hiring him. Guide indeed. He's a born slave driver, is what he is."

Vanessa left then to make sure the French in their party did not come to civil war. But she was back in a moment with Jane, who carried in a bowl of warm water and a clean towel. Babette was conspicuously absent, no doubt warned she had incurred Jocelyn's displeasure, so Jane laid out Jocelyn's clothes for the day before departing again.

Jocelyn remained under the covers, fighting with an irritation that had nothing to do with the recent conversation. Her lips felt puffy and sore, and a mir-ror would no doubt show them to be swollen. How was she going to hide something like that? And if Colt saw it, he would know he had actually hurt her. He would never understand then why she hadn't fired him on the spot. And what could she tell him if he demanded an explanation? That she enjoyed being manhandled? Or the truth, that she wanted so much to have him be her first lover, she could overlook last night's rough treatment?

"Well? He'll be pounding on the — ah, tent flap, if you're not up and ready to leave at his appointed time.

Or is that what you had in mind? Should I leave so the coast is clear?"

Vanessa was most definitely not helping matters with her dry humor this morning. She loved to rub it in when she was proved right about something, and Jocelyn supposed she felt this ungodly early rising was proof that Colt was still getting even for the way she had trapped him into working for her.

"If he does come around knocking, that'll be just too bad," Jocelyn grumbled. "I'm not leaving until I'm good and ready."

"What's this? Are we preparing for our first argument with the chap already? Do I get to listen?"

"Vana!"

"All right," the countess conceded as she came to sit at the bottom of Jocelyn's furs. "I've made my point, I suppose. But why are you so touchy this morning?"

Jocelyn sighed. "I didn't sleep well."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Not particularly," Jocelyn said as she turned over, and then she flinched to hear Vanessa gasp when she got her first good look at her face.

"Good Lord, it's already happened! When? Why didn't you tell me? And you're still in one piece, thank God. Well, at least now we can dispense with that ruffian's services."

"Nothing happened."

"Rubbish," Vanessa snorted. "I know a well-kissed mouth when I see one."

"That's all he did, and he did that so I would fire him."

"Did you? No, of course you didn't, or he wouldn't still be here. But. well, did you at least make some progress?"

"Progress?" Jocelyn felt like laughing. "Vana, he didn't kiss me because he wanted to. He was trying—"

"Yes, I heard. To make you fire him. But was it… what you expected?

"Expected? Yes. Wanted? No. He made it as brutal as he could, and I hope his blasted lips are just as sore this morning!"

Vanessa blinked at that heated reply. "Well, I guess we can safely say no progress was made," she allowed. "Unless of course you think he might have lost control and that's why he was so savage about it."

Control? His voice hadn 't been particularly steady when he'd asked her if she was ready to fire him.

And now that she thought about it, his breathing had been kind of ragged too. And his fingers had tightened in her hair when he ended the kiss, not before. Was it possible some passion had come into that kiss without his planning on it? God, she would like to think so, but she was just too inexperienced to be sure.

"I don't know, Vana, but it doesn't really matter. I ended up thwarting him again, so he would have gone to bed damning me to hell and back, not pining away with desire. And now that I think about it," she added, throwing back the covers to get up, "I would be smart not to get anywhere near him for a few days. I shouldn't have approached him last night, knowing that he hadn't had a chance yet to cool off. I don't care to make that mistake again."

"Pete's ridin' in."

" 'Bout time," Dewane grumbled.

"Did he bring a doctor with him?" Clay asked from his pallet in the corner.

"Quit yar bellyachin'," Dewane snapped at the wounded man. "I got the damned bullet out, did'n I?"

"Pete's alone, Clay," Clydell offered from the open doorway where he'd spotted the rider coming in. "A doc could'n do much now anyways, an' then we'd jes' hafta kill 'im ta keep his mouth shut. Ya want some more whiskey?"

Elliot watched silently as a bottle of the raw fire-water that passed for whiskey in this area was handed over to the man called Clay. The chap was dying and just didn't know it. He had lost too much blood before he had found his way back to them. Instead of making his suffering even worse by removing the bul-let, Elliot would have simply put him out of his mis-ery, but he wasn't asked his opinion and didn't volunteer it. He had wanted to kill him anyway for failing in his assignment, but he had kept that desire to himself too. It wouldn't do for the others to know how really furious he was.

The ultimate blame for this latest failure was his and he knew it, for hiring incompetents, for not coming up with a better plan, for not sending more than just two men after the duchess. Luck had come into it again, her infernal luck, this time in finding assistance in the middle of nowhere, and skilled assistance at that. How did she do it every bloody time?

Clay had fallen back into semiconsciousness, which ought to keep his moaning down for a while. It had been driving Elliot crazy, that persistent moaning. But he had said nothing. He was allowing it to get on the others' nerves, too, so no one would object very much when he suggested the chap be left behind to die in peace.

Dewane set the coffeepot down on the table, but Elliot made no move to refill his tin cup with the horrid brew. Their accommodations were deplorable, but at least there was a roof overhead.

Clydell had found the empty hovel which he called a line shack, a place the cowhands of one of the ranches in the area would use when they were out on the range doing whatever it was they did for a living. It sported a table and two chairs, an old cookstove, a few rusted tin goods in a chest, and a moldy mattress on a rope frame. Likely the roof would leak if it rained, but it gave them a place to wait while Pete Saunders was finding out what he could of the duch-ess's destination.

After two nights of waiting, however, Elliot had begun to think the youngest member of his little group had deserted them. He wouldn't have been overly sur-prised. After so bloody long having nothing go right for him, he had come to expect the worst. But Pete was back, and now he could finally get down to plan-ning his next move.

Pete sauntered into the one-room shack, grinning and dusting his clothes off with a beat-up hat that was likely older than he was. Elliot had been leery of employing the boy when he first saw him, even though a full brown beard concealed his tender age somewhat. But after being given a list of his accomplishments, which included armed robbery, cattle rustling, and one gunfight where he had emerged the winner, Elliot had reconsidered. He still didn't care for the eighteen-year-old's enthusiasm and jolly manner, though, as if this were only a game he was playing at.

"Thought ya got lost, Pete," Clydell remarked by way of greeting.