The Savage

Reed was right. Lance was blackmailing her into marriage—a despicable, dishonorable act. But at least he wanted something from her, enough to lay out his terms for coming to her rescue.

Absently Summer raised a sleeve of her traveling suit to her damp cheek, trying to take comfort from the softness. What would marriage to Lance be like? She tried to picture him enveloping her in a loving embrace, but her mind utterly failed her. All she could remember was the way he had held her this afternoon when he’d carried her down to the creek, his arms like steel bands. She couldn’t imagine any love in those arms. No gentleness or warmth at all. Only hardness and anger.

Do you still hate me, Lance?

He still harbored a bitter anger toward her, certainly. His wounded pride wouldn’t let him forget what she’d done to him. She couldn’t blame him. A man didn’t forget that kind of hurt.

Their situations were entirely reversed from five years ago. Lance wasn’t dependent on her father’s goodwill for a job. He wasn’t dependent on anyone. He had the upper hand now. He had caught her when she was at her most vulnerable.

All she had left was pride—but she was willing to swallow it whole if it meant he would help her find her sister. She would stifle all the feelings of impotence and rage she felt at being forced into marriage with a man whom her father had refused even to allow on the ranch. She wouldn’t let herself think of the devastating consequences that a marriage to a half

-breed would have on her own future.

She wouldn’t tell Reed until after the deed was done, either. He would try to stop her, and she couldn’t afford the delay.

No, she would go now, tonight. As soon as she could pack and get some money together. Before she could change her mind. Before she lost her nerve entirely.

One arm behind his head, Lance lay on the cot in the livery stable office, staring at the rough wood ceiling and the flickering patterns made by the low-burning lantern. The tiny room, tucked in the front corner of the livery, doubled as his sleeping quarters. The place was cramped and crudely furnished, but better than bedding down in a stall or outdoors with the elements and wild critters to contend with.

Lance hardly noticed his surroundings, anyway. His mind was too wrapped up in thoughts of a green-eyed enchantress and the hell his conscience was giving him—and the resentment he felt toward both.

He should never have gone out to the Weston ranch today. And he damned sure shouldn’t have stuck around long enough for Summer Weston to fix those pleading green eyes on him. If he’d had the sense to ride away, maybe now he wouldn’t be torturing himself this way—one part of him hoping feverishly that she might actually consider thinking about his offer. Another part cursing his foolishness for opening himself up to rejection. Still another flogging himself for adding to her troubles.

“Damned, stupid ass,” Lance muttered fiercely.

He should have stayed away from her, from temptation. He should’ve known what would happen the minute he got close. His gut had twisted when he’d seen her standing on her back porch facing that unsympathetic crowd, looking so defenseless and alone. And then later, looking so defenseless against him. He’d gone and scared hell out of her by almost attacking her.

His conscience hadn’t stopped hounding him since. He should never have let his temper get so out of control.

A real bastard, that’s what he felt like. A bastard and a fool.

He’d gambled big this afternoon. Laid himself open for all kinds of hurt. A fine lady like her would no more marry a man like him than she would suddenly take up employment in a whorehouse. He’d been fantasizing even to think up such a harebrained proposal.

But then, he’d been fantasizing a lot lately. Ever since coming back to Round Rock, he’d thought of little else but Summer Weston.

You didn’t remember her right, though. The potency of his recollections, no matter how vivid, paled in comparison to the real thing.

How could his memory be so faulty? For years he’d dreamed about Summer. He’d lain awake nights, deliberately, self-destructively, forcing himself to recollect every haunting detail about her, recalling the cruel kisses she’d given him, reminding himself that he was just one in a long line of hapless males whose hearts she’d so carelessly trod on. She was so good at playing the coquette, at teasing and leading a man on.

Yet she hadn’t always been like that. Maybe that was why he’d felt so betrayed when she’d started her damned little games with him. As a young girl, she’d been kind and gentle…never looking down her pretty nose at a half-breed, bastard kid. God, how he’d waited anxiously each week for her to come to town with her pa, hoping she would notice him, longing for her to smile at him. That smile of hers…so sweet and fresh and innocent, unsullied by the harsh realities of life, untarnished by the knowledge of her own feminine power.

That smile, bestowed on him like a precious gift, had somehow eased his terrible loneliness. He’d discovered he could bear all the taunts and insults that whites hurled at him, knowing there was someone out there who didn’t hate him. Believing Summer could see past his birth and blood kin and look at him as a real person with feelings and dreams of his own.

His hopes had turned out to be pure fantasy. Still, he couldn’t crush the image of Summer he’d kept hidden in his heart, or the memories he’d cherished.

He couldn’t crush the want.

Dammit to hell, he wanted her. This afternoon he’d nearly lost control of himself. He’d wanted to touch her and run his hands over her and fit his mouth to hers and thrust himself between her spread legs and bury himself so deep in her softness, he wouldn’t know where he ended and she started.

Just remembering made him ache.

Lance shifted restlessly on the hard cot. Why, after all this time, was he still so smitten? Why did he still need her so bad? He should have gotten over his infatuation with her by now. He’d been just a boy when he’d fallen for her. He was a man now.

Trouble was, he also had a man’s lusts, a man’s hunger. The minute he’d laid eyes on her, all the old needs and desires had come stampeding back with twice the force. It didn’t help a damn knowing that his reaction was only natural. Summer Weston was the kind of woman who drove men beyond reason, the kind of woman a man could die for.

And his case was worse than most. What he felt for her was more than just simple lust. She’d always meant more to him. She’d always been a symbol to him, of all the things he wanted to have but couldn’t, wanted to be but wasn’t She was proud, queenly, so far above his touch, he might as well be wishing for the moon. She wasn’t for him.

He had no right to dream such dreams. He knew what he was. A man no decent woman would keep company with. Decent women, when they passed him on the street, crossed over if they could. If not, they brushed their skirts aside to avoid any contact with him.