"What?" She stepped back, her hands on her hips, and stared at him. The insolence of him!
She wanted to scream and she wanted to cry.
"I don't want a love affair, Miss McCahy. When I do want something, it's a woman, and it seldom matters who she is, just so long as she's experienced and good at what she does. Understand?"
"Oh yes, I understand. But I need help. I need you. Doesn't that mean anything?"
"I told you, I don't want a virgin —"
"Well then, excuse me for an hour, will you?" Kristin snapped, her eyes blazing. "I'll just run on out and screw the first cowhand — oh!"
She broke off in shock as he wrenched her hard against him. "Shut up! Where the hell did you come up with language like that?" he demanded heatedly.
"Let me go! It's none of your business! It's a rough world here, Slater!" She flailed desperately against him. He didn't feel her fists, and he didn't even realize that she was kicking him.
"Don't ever let me hear you say anything like that again!"
"Who do you think you are, my father?" Kristin demanded. She was very close to bursting into tears, and she was determined not to, not here, not now — not anywhere near this drifter. He had made her feel as young and naive and foolish and lost as Shannon. "Let me go!"
"No, I'm not your father. I'm a total stranger you're trying to drag into bed," he said.
"Forget it. Just release me and —"
"You just stop, Miss McCahy!" He gave her a firm, hard shake, then another. At last Kristin stopped fighting. Her head fell back, her hair trailing like soft gold over his fingers, her eyes twin pools of blue fire as she stared into the iron-gray hardness of his.
"Give me some time," he said to her very softly, in a tone that caused her to tremble all over again. "I'll think about your proposition."
"What?" she whispered warily.
He released her carefully. "I said, Miss McCahy, that I would think about your proposition. I'll stay tonight. I'll take my blanket out to the bunkhouse, and I'll give you an answer in the morning." He inclined his head toward her, turned on his heel and started off toward the house.
CHAPTER THREE
When she walked back into the house, Kristin was in a cold fury. She didn't see Cole Slater anywhere, and for the moment she was heartily glad.
He had humiliated her, plain and simple. She'd been willing to sell honor, her pride, her dignity — and he hadn't even been interested in what she'd had to sell. She wished fervently that she wasn't so desperate. She'd have given her eyeteeth to tell the man that he was a filthy gun-slinger, no better than all the others.
Yet even as she thought of what she'd like to be able to say to him, she realized it would be a lie. He'd saved her from Zeke, from the man who had murdered her father. She owed him.
And she'd paid, she thought dryly. With humiliation.
Shannon wasn't around when Kristin reached the dining room. Delilah was there, though, humming a spiritual as she carefully picked up the fine crystal and china on the table. She glanced Kristin's way curiously and kept humming.
"Where's Shannon?" Kristin asked.
"Out feeding the chickens," Delilah said.
Kristin decided to help clear away the remains of the meal, but when her fingers clenched too tightly around a plate, Delilah rescued it from her grip. "Sorry," Kristin muttered.
"Kristin, for the sake of your mama's fine things, you go do something else here this morning, hm?"
Kristin stepped away from the table, folding her hands behind her back.
"You didn't ask where Mr. Slater had gotten himself off to," Delilah said.
"I don't care where Mr. Slater has gotten himself off to," Kristin replied sweetly.
Delilah shot her a quick glance. "The man saved our lives," she said sharply.
Kristin strode furiously across the room to look out the window. "He saved our lives… and he really doesn't give a damn."
"He's riding out?"
Kristin exhaled slowly. She could see Shannon by the barn, tossing feed to the chickens. If she had any sense she would leave. Shannon was precious to her, just as Delilah and Samson were. She should do whatever was necessary to protect them.
But the dream was precious, too. The dream and the land. And where would she go if she did leave? She could never embrace the Southern cause — she had been treated too cruelly by the bushwhackers here for that — nor could she turn against Missouri and move into Yankee territory. She wanted desperately to fight, but she was helpless.
It didn't matter where she went, Richmond, Virginia or Washington, D.C. Nowhere was life as cruel and violent as it was here on the border of "bleeding Kansas." Nowhere else did men murder each other so callously.
"Kristin?" Delilah said.
"Slater…" Kristin murmured. Her pride was wounded, she realized. She had offered up her finest prize — herself— and he had informed her crudely that he wasn't interested.
"Kristin, if you're mad at that man for something, you remember the rest of us here. You understand me, missy?" Delilah came toward her, waving a fork. Kristin tried not to smile, because Delilah was deadly serious. "Quantrill's men get ahold of us and they'll think nothing of a hanging. You saw what they did to your pa. I got a baby boy, Kristin, and —"
"Oh, Delilah, stop! I'm doing my best!" Kristin protested. She tried to smile encouragingly. She couldn't quite admit to Delilah yet that she had offered her all and that it hadn't been enough. She hadn't even tempted the man.
She clenched her teeth together. She'd like to see him desperate, his tongue hanging out. She'd like to see him pining for her and be in the position to put her nose in the air, cast him a disdainful glance and sweep right on by. Better yet, she'd like to laugh in his face. If it hadn't been for this war, she could have done just that. She could have had any rich young rancher in the territory. She could have had —
Adam. She could have had Adam. A numbing chill took hold of her. Adam had loved her so much, and so gently. Tall and blond and beautiful, with green eyes that had followed her everywhere, and an easy, tender smile.
Adam was dead. The war had come, and Adam was dead, and she had few choices. Yes, Slater had humiliated her. But part of it was the fire. Part of it was the feeling that he had embedded in her, the hot, shameful longing for something she didn't know and didn't understand. She had loved Adam, but she had never felt this way when she had been near him. Never. Cole Slater did frighten her. She didn't like the feelings he evoked in her. They shattered her belief in her own strength.
"Cole Slater is staying tonight," she told Delilah.
"Well, glory be!"
"No, no," Kristin said. "He's bunking with the hands for the night. He'll, uh, he'll probably be gone by morning."
"By morning?" Delilah repeated blankly. "Kristin, I don't want to suggest anything that ain't proper, but chil', I'm just sure that if you tried being friendly to the man…"
"Delilah," Kristin murmured, her sense of humor returning at last, "I'm sure I don't remember what proper is anymore. I tried. Honest to God, I tried." She shrugged. "I'm not going to do you any good around here. I'll see you in a bit, huh?"
She hurried toward the stairs, giving Delilah a quick kiss on the cheek as she passed. She felt the older woman's worried gaze follow her, but by the time she reached the landing, she had forgotten about her.
The house felt so empty now.
Delilah and Samson and their baby had the rooms on the third floor. Kristin's and Shannon's were here on the second floor. But Matthew's room was empty now, as was the big master bedroom where her father and mother had slept. The two guest rooms were empty, too. They hadn't entertained guests in a long, long time.
Kristin walked down the hallway, not toward her own room but toward the room that had been her parents'. She opened the door, stood there and smiled slowly. Her mother had been dead for years, but her father had been unable to part with the big Bavarian sleigh bed that his wife had so cherished. After her death he'd slept in it alone. And it was beautiful still. Delilah kept the mahogany polished and the bedding clean, as if she expected Pa to come back anytime.