Lacy

There had been rare times when he was less antagonistic. Once, he’d helped her save a kitten from a stray dog. He’d placed the tiny thing in her hands and his eyes had held hers for so long that she blushed furiously and was only able to stammer her thanks. When she’d gotten sick from being out in the sun without her bonnet, it was Cole who’d carried her inside to her bed, who’d hovered despite Marion and Katy’s ministrations until he was certain that she was all right. Occasionally he’d been home when Lacy went for the quiet walks she enjoyed so much, and he’d fallen into step beside her, pointing out crops and explaining the cattle business to her. Eventually she lost much of her fear of him, but he disturbed her so much when he came close that she couldn’t quite hide it.

Her reactions seemed to make him irritable, as if he didn’t understand that it was physical attraction and not fear that caused them. Cole didn’t go to parties, and Lacy had never known him to keep company with a woman. He worked from dawn until well after dark, overseeing every phase of ranch operation, even keeping the books and handling the mounting paperwork. He had a good business head, but he also had all the responsibility. It didn’t leave much time for recreation.

The blow came when war broke out in Europe. Everyone was sure that America would eventually become involved, and Lacy found herself worrying constantly that Cole would have to go. He was young and strong and patriotic. Even if he weren’t called up, it was inevitable that he would volunteer. His conversation about the news items in the papers told her that.

Aviation, the new science, was one of his consuming interests. He talked about airplanes as some boys talked about girls. He read everything he could find on the subject. Lacy was his only willing audience, soaking up the information he imparted enthusiastically—even while she prayed that the flying fever wouldn’t take him over to France, where American boys were flocking to join the Lafayette Escadrille.

But America’s entry into the war in April, 1917, smashed Lacy’s dreams. Cole enlisted and requested service with the fledgling Army Air Service. He’d wanted to volunteer for the famous Lafayette Escadrille a year earlier, along with other American pilots attached to the French Flying Corps. But the death of his father and the weight of responsibility for his mother and sister and brother—not to mention Lacy—put paid to that idea. However, when President Wilson announced American participation in the war, Cole immediately signed up. He found neighbors willing to handle ranch chores for him while his mother and Lacy assumed the duty of keeping the books, and Cole packed to leave for France.

He and Lacy had begun to enjoy a closer relationship, even if it was still tense and tentative. But the knowledge that he was going to war and might never come back had a devastating effect on Lacy’s pride. She burst into tears and was inconsolable. Even Cole, who’d misinterpreted her nervousness before, finally realized what her feelings for him were.

She passed by his room the morning he was dressing to leave—and was shocked when he dragged her inside and closed the door.

His shirt was completely unbuttoned down the front, hanging loose over his elegant dress slacks. He seemed taller, bigger, in disarray, and Lacy eyes went shyly over the expanse of tanned muscular chest with its thick, dark covering of body hair.

“You cried,” he said, without preamble, and his dark eyes held hers mercilessly.

There was little use in denying it. He saw too deeply. “I suppose you have to go?” she asked miserably.

“This is my country, Lacy,” he said simply. “It would be the essence of cowardice to refuse to fight for it.” His strong, brown hands held her upper arms firmly. “Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said about air power, about the edge it would give us on the Hun if we could assist the French Lafayette Escadrille in developing it?”

“Why the French?” she asked absently. The scent of him, the closeness of him, made her dizzy with pleasure. She only wanted to prolong it.

“Because the American air corps has no planes of its own,” he said simply. “We’ll be flying Nieuports and Sopwiths.”

“Flying is dangerous…” she began.

“Life is dangerous, Lacy,” he replied quietly. He looked at her soft mouth with its dark lip rouge. Absently he reached up and smudged it with his thumb, smiling as the bloodred color transferred itself from her lower lip to his skin. “Like being branded,” he teased. “I could use this war paint on my cattle.”

“It washes off,” Lacy pointed out.

“Does it?” He reached in his pocket for his handkerchief and, holding her firmly by the nape of her neck with his free hand, proceeded to wipe off every trace of it.

“Cole, don’t!” she protested, trying to turn her head.

“I’m not wearing that stain to the train station,” he replied, his mind on what he was doing, not what he was saying.

But Lacy went quite still, her wide eyes unblinking on his hard, dark face. “W—what?”

He smiled with faint indulgence as he finished his task and tossed the handkerchief into his dresser. “You heard me.” His gaze went over her soft oval face, from her short dark hair to her big blue eyes and down her straight little nose to the bow mouth he’d wiped clean. “This might have been unthinkable before. But I don’t know when I’ll come back again. Isn’t it permissible for a patriotic lad to be sent off with a kiss?”

Her fingers plucked nervously at the buttons of his shirt, tingling as they felt the warmth of his bare torso under them. “Of course,” she said, almost strangling.

His lean hands framed her face with an odd hesitancy and he moved closer, towering over her.

She could barely breathe. She’d dreamed of this moment for years, lived for it, hoped for it. Now it was happening, and she was self-conscious and shy and scared to death that she wouldn’t live up to his expectations.

“I…know nothing of kissing,” she confessed quickly.

She felt more than heard his breath catch, but the only sign he gave of having heard her was the jerky pressure of his hands increasing as he bent toward her.

“Practice makes perfect, don’t they say, Lacy?” he asked in an oddly husky tone, and his rough, coffee-scented mouth ground into hers without preamble or apology.

She gave in without a protest, yielding to his superior strength, to his growing hunger. She knew nothing, but he taught her, his mouth invading hers in the silence of the big, high-ceilinged room, his arms slowly enveloping her against the taut fitness of his tall body.

He lifted his head just briefly, to draw breath, and his dark, eyes met hers. She was dazed, weak, clinging to him while her parted, swollen lips invited again the madness he was teaching her.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered shamelessly.

“I’m not sure I could, in any case,” he whispered back. His head lowered again and this time his mouth was gentle, teasing, exploring hers with tenderness and lazy hunger that grew to anguished passion in no time at all.

She felt the wall at her back, cold and hard, and Cole’s heated body pressing her into it, in an intimacy that she’d never even dreamed. The contours of his flat stomach had changed quite suddenly; his mouth was hurting hers.

Frightened, her hands pressed frantically against the hair-roughened strength of his chest.

Cole drew back at once, his own eyes as shocked as hers at the barriers of decency he’d overstepped in his mindless desire. He stepped away from her, dark color overlaying his high cheekbones.

Lacy’s swollen lips were parted as she struggled for breath and composure, staring up at him with embarrassed comprehension. He shuddered just slightly, and, Lacy’s eyes encountered with sudden and startled starkness the visible evidence of his loss of control. She blushed red and averted her eyes even as Cole turned away from her.

She didn’t know what to say, what to do. Her body felt oddly swollen and hot, and there was a tightness in her lower stomach that she’d never experienced. Her bodice felt far too tight. She tugged at the lace of her white midi blouse and searched for the right words.

“I beg your pardon, Lacy,” Cole said in a taut, all-too-formal tone, although he didn’t look at her. “I never meant that to happen.”

“It’s all right,” she replied huskily. “I—I should have protested.”

“You did. Too late,” he added, with faint dryness, as he turned toward her, back in command of his senses once more. His dark hair was disheveled, lying over his broad forehead, and there was still that faint color on his high cheekbones. His deep brown eyes held a light that was puzzling as they swept with new boldness over Lacy’s slender body and back up to her own vivid blue eyes.

“I—I should go,” she faltered.

“Yes, you should,” he agreed. “You’ll be compromised if any of the family find us alone like this in my bedroom.”

But she didn’t move. Neither did he.

His chest rose and fell deeply. “Come here,” he said softly, and opened his arms.

She went into them gracefully, and laid her hot cheek against his cool, damp chest, the thick hair tickling her skin. His heartbeat was deep and quick, like his breathing, but he held her with utter decorum, his arms protective rather than passionate.

“Wait for me,” he whispered into her ear.

“All my life,” she replied brokenly.

His arms contracted then, and he shivered with feeling. But after a few seconds, he put her away from him, searching her eyes with banked-down hunger.

“I love you,” she said unsteadily, damning pride and self-respect.

“Yes,” he said, his voice deep and quiet, his face giving nothing away. “Try to help Mother with Katy and Ben while I’m away. Stay close to the house. Don’t go out alone, ever.”

“I won’t.”