Part 44 (1/2)

”I'm going to finish what I started eight years ago.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

Belton licked his lips, then pulled them back from his teeth like a wolf about to savage its prey. ”After that I'm afraid you'll have to join your cousin.”

She could see the tightness around his eyes as he struggled to keep himself under control. He smiled, but it was the smile of a rabid coyote before it strikes. Fern felt cold fear in her belly, but she refused to allow it to overpower her wits. She had been a fighter all her life.

He left the window and approached the bed. Fern almost panicked when she saw the bulge in his pants. He had tied her spread-eagled to the bed. She couldn't even twist away from him.

”You could have bowled me over when I saw you the other night. I had no idea what you were hiding under that vest all these years.” He stood next to the bed staring straight at her chest.

Fern wondered if Madison and his brothers had gotten back from Topeka. Certainly they would head for the farm the minute William Henry told them where his mother had gone. They would find Rose. She would be safe, but Madison wouldn't know where to find her. She was on her own.

”Why did you hide yourself?”

”I hid from people like you,” Fern answered.

”Then you never should have worn that dress.”

Fern didn't trust the gleam in his eye. But even as she made up her mind that she wouldn't let him rape her, that he would not defile an act which Madison had made so beautiful, she realized it was more important that she come out of this alive.

The man might be crazy. If so, the wrong word or movement could cause him to kill her right now.

In a sudden move, Belton's open hand flew toward Fern's breast. Involuntarily her body became rigid. His hand stopped just short of touching her. He smiled cruelly, taunting her, enjoying his kind of torture.

Fern expected waves of suffocating fear to wrap her in its coils, but hatred of his touch no longer had the power to paralyze her. She felt nothing but fury that this man should think he had the right to use her body against her will.

She felt his fingers brush her as they moved from one b.u.t.ton to the other. She fought the rigidity that stiffened her muscles. His gaze bore into her as he chose a b.u.t.ton and undid it. She refused to blink, to back down, to allow even a trace of fear to flicker across her face.

With agonizing slowness, his hand moved among the b.u.t.tons once more, pausing, choosing, then moving on. He was deliberately trying to destroy her self-control. But she was no, helpless teenager now. She was a woman, and more than a match for him. Fern waited.

With a swiftness that caught her completely by surprise, Belton grabbed the yoke of her chemise and ripped it open to the waist. The sound of popping b.u.t.tons and rending cloth covered her gasp of shock, but she was certain he could see the fear in her eyes.

It took all her willpower not to cry out.

A s.a.d.i.s.tic smile played across Belton's mouth as his fingers snaked their way across the torn material, brushed her breast.

Belton sat down on the edge of the bed. He didn't move his hand.

The breath caught in Fern's throat.

”Ever since that night I've been thinking about touching you again,” Belton murmured, his eyes on her chest.

His expression frightened Fern. She had seen anger and rage many times, but she couldn't be certain she wasn't seeing madness as well.

Abruptly his hand closed on her breast. He squeezed until the pain brought tears to her eyes. ”Your skin is so white.”

Through the waves of pain, Fern heard a faint sound coming from outside the soddy. Hoofbeats. Someone was coming at a gallop. Please, G.o.d, let it be Madison. She knew she had to distract Belton. Maybe his head was so full of his crazy thoughts he couldn't hear the rapidly approaching horse, but Fern wasn't willing to take a chance. Swallowing several times, she was finally able to rasp out a few words.

”Why did you try to rape me?” she asked.

At first Fern thought Belton wasn't going to answer her. His grip on her breast loosened; he seemed to be slipping into a world of his own.

”Your skin was so white,” he murmured finally. ”Why were you at the Connor place that night?” she asked, afraid that if he stopped talking he would hear the hoofbeats coming closer and closer.

Belton's hand moved from her breast to caress her shoulder. ”I knew you had to come home that way. I waited for you. Just like I did today.”

”But you didn't know me. You'd never seen me before.”

His hand moved down her side and across her abdomen. It took all of Fern's self-control to keep from s.h.i.+vering in disgust.

”I saw you in town, parading about in your pants like no decent woman would do. And I saw all those men panting after you. They were afraid to do more than look, but I wasn't. All I had to do was say I was looking to buy some cattle, and they told me anything I wanted to know. Including where you pastured your herd.”

The hoofbeats rang like thunder in Fern's head. Just a minute longer. Even a few seconds.

”You didn't know me. You couldn't like me. How could you”

”Your skin was so white,” Belton crooned, slipping further into a world of his own.

Belton remained so caught up in caressing Fern's skin that he didn't hear Madison until he plunged through the doorway.

Madison struck Belton a vicious blow from behind, but he didn't go down. Screaming like a wild animal, he turned to attack Madison, his fingers curved like talons. Tangled together like two snarling beasts, they lurched around the soddy, cras.h.i.+ng into the few pieces of furniture, until they fell through the doorway. In the greater s.p.a.ce, Madison was able to use his boxing skills and quickly reduced Belton to staggering helplessness. One last blow sent him cras.h.i.+ng to the ground. ”Are you all right?” Madison asked when he reached Fern's side. He began untying the ropes that bound her to the bed. ”Did he hurt you?”

”No. I made him so angry he forgot he intended to rape me.”

Madison finished untying Fern, and she threw herself into his arms.

”He wanted me because he thought I was pure, untouched. When I told him we had made love, he went crazy.”

”He was already crazy,” Madison said, holding Fern close.

”One good thing came out of this,” Fern said once she was nestled securely in Madison's arms. ”I got so furious I wanted to kill him. I wasn't afraid of him at all.”

”I'm glad, but”

”Madison!” Fern screamed as she jumped to her feet and pushed Madison as hard as she could. Belton stood in the yard, his gun drawn, pointing at Madison.

Wrapping his arm around Fern, Madison threw them both into the safety of the shadows. But it wasn't completely dark, and Belton charged toward the doorway, gun drawn.

Madison cursed himself for a fool. In his anxiety to reach Fern, he had failed to tie Belton up and he had laid down his rifle. His years in Boston had caused him to lose most of the survival instincts he had developed in Texas.

”Stay against the wall,” Madison whispered to Fern. ”I'm going to get the rifle.”

”He's just outside the door. He'll see you.”