This Calder Range (Calder Saga 1)

“What do you want from me, Lorna?” There was a steely quietness to his voice. “Do you want me to turn the wagon around tomorrow morning and take you back?”

“No.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head, confused and overwrought by the whole situation.

“I hadn’t realized how difficult this trip was going to be for you,” Benteen admitted. “I understand how embarrassing certain things can be. But you’re going to have to come to terms with them.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Lorna retorted, finally bringing down her hands to look at him with bitter reproval.

“It isn’t easy. And it wasn’t easy to sit out there with all my men watching while you go running off to hide in the wagon and cry,” he informed her roughly. “You were crying when you came this morning, and you’re crying tonight. Doesn’t it matter to you what they’re thinking right now?”

She cast an uneasy glance at the canvas side of the wagon, realizing that all the cowboys knew Benteen was in here with her now.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Lorna admitted.

“I imagine their opinion is the same as mine,” he stated. “I thought I married a woman, but instead I find I’ve got a spoiled child on my hands.”

She swung at him as hard as she could. The flat of her hand cracked against his cheek, the force of the blow turning his head. Lorna was shocked by her own physical violence and stared at Benteen with fear as he slowly turned his head back to look at her. No man had ever laid a hand on him in anger and got by with it, but she was a woman—his wife. Benteen controlled the urges within him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and eyed the white mark left by her hand as it slowly turned red.

“I swear to God I don’t understand you.” The angry words were forced through clenched teeth. “You have enough guts to hit me, yet you cry over the lack of privacy.”

“You made me angry when you said that,” Lorna defended her action.

“You’re going to have to grow up. I haven’t got time to hold your hand,” he declared tersely.

“I don’t want you to hold my hand, and I am not a child.” That was the cruelest implication. Lorna couldn’t help bristling at it. “I may not know as much as you do about things, but that doesn’t make me a child.”

“This trip is going to be hard. I’m not going to lie and tell you it will get better. Today is just a sampling of what’s to come,” Benteen warned. “You have a choice. You can either cry over every little thing that happens and wallow around in misery the whole time, or you can accept the way things are—like the rest of us. Mrs. Stanton isn’t in her wagon crying her eyes out. The same thing happened to her today.”

It wasn’t a totally fair comparison, and Benteen knew that. Mary Stanton had not led the sheltered city life that Lorna had. But he mentioned the woman as an example to challenge Lorna.

“What are you going to do? Stay here in the wagon and feel sorry for yourself? Or come outside by the fire with the rest of us?” he questioned.

“I’m coming out.” There was a flash of anger in her dark eyes.

“Good.” He held out his hand to take hers.

Grudgingly she laid hers into his grasp, resentment for his bluntness and lack of concession to her femininity still smoldering under the surface. Benteen wasn’t sure whether her attitude would change to please him or to show him out of spite. There was fire in her; his smarting jaw could attest to that. It would carry her through this journey in better condition than wrapping her in cotton wool.

When she shifted her weight to climb off the mattress, it brought her closer. An awareness sang out to him of all that was woman about her. His other hand curved itself to her neck to stop her movements, and felt her head stiffen in resistance to his touch. Benteen ignored her unwillingness for his kiss and brought his mouth down to the straight line of her lips. He was irritated when she wouldn’t yield to him, and increased the pressure until she did.

But submission wasn’t enough, not when he’d previously tasted the fullness of her response. He began an investigation of individual curves in her lips, chewing at the lower one and wandering over the top until he felt her leaning into him. He answered the desire she was signaling with a hard, brief kiss, and drew back.

Her mouth was softly swollen, tilted toward him in silent invitation. She was breathing quickly, at a disturbed rate. Her eyes were dark with need. She looked pliable and a little flushed with eagerness.

“That’s the way a bride should look,” Benteen murmured in satisfaction. “No tears, and no sulking.”

Something flickered in her expression as she suddenly regarded him with a thoughtful look. “When I was a little girl and I did something my daddy didn’t like, he’d sit me down and talk to me real stern,” she said. Benteen lifted a brow, not seeing the relevance of her childhood memory. “After I promised to behave and be a good girl, he always gave me a piece of rock candy. Do husbands give out kisses as rewards for good behavior?”

Benteen frowned, wondering if he had imagined the little sting in her question. He couldn’t be sure. Something told him it was best if he ignored her query.

“Let’s go outside,” he said, “before everyone starts wondering what we’re doing in here.”

The remark achieved its desired effect. She didn’t pursue an answer to her question and followed Benteen to the rear of the wagon. He swung down and turned to lift her to the ground.