****
Even after the hoof beats faded and Ben’s weight disappeared, Maggie still trembled. Strong hands drew her up and against a solid, kneeling form that shook just as hard.
Ben turned her in his arms, examining every inch with a worried frown. “Are you hurt?”
Unable to find enough air for even a single short word, she shook her head.
A desperate embrace crushed her to his chest. “Don’t ever do anything like that again.” His voice, rumbling in his throat, caressed her temple.
She pressed closer, absorbing his scent, borrowing his strength, reveling in the warmth of his bare skin.
Dreading the moment he’d ask about Randal’s vile revelation.
Damn you to Hell. Damn all of you to Hell. If Ben hadn’t dragged her inside, she would have sent them there herself.
Better she confess than have him condemn her shame. She shrugged from Ben’s embrace, hauling in a breath for courage. “I ain’t proud—”
He stilled her lips with the tips of two fingers. “You want to compare sins?” A wry half-smile curled his lips. “You’ll lose.”
Barely touching her skin, the roughened fingers traced a line along her jaw and around the back of her neck until his hand cupped the base of her skull. Tingles skipped down her spine.
Blue eyes held her captive. “Out here by yourself, you survived. That’s all that matters.”
Tender kisses brushed her forehead, one eye, the tip of her nose. He flattened her palm over his heart and held it there while he tasted her lips. None of last night’s hunger charged the contact; instead, a different wanting, deeper, more intoxicating, flowed through every gentle touch. A delicious little flutter kicked up in the bottom of her chest.
“I can’t seem to stop wanting you.” He rose to his feet, drawing her with him. “But we need to go.”
“Go where?”
Ben snagged his shirt from the floor and slipped into the cotton. Then he moved to the window and surveyed the battlefield. “Two down.” A sick grimace twisted his features. “Nice shot.”
Curiosity pulled her to his side, but he wrapped her close before she could glimpse what lay outside. “You don’t need to see that. Shotguns make a mess.”
“We can’t just leave ’em there.”
“We can and we will. The other three will be back. They’re not the type to let something like this go.”
“Let ’em come. I won’t be run off.”
Taking possession of her shoulders, he returned her determined stare. “Nobody’s running you anywhere…but for right now we don’t have a choice.” He unlocked their gazes, flicking a glance to his revolver, then her shotgun. “I’m out of ammunition. How about you?”
****
Ben reined Saber to a halt at the end of the long lane leading to the house. The moon, just beginning its track across the sky, cast deep shadows beneath the canopies of the oaks lining both sides of the path.
Dumont stood. Rising from the surrounding grassland like an enormous spectral palace, the structure glowed in the moonlight, spawning the same sense of awe that had gripped Ben every other time he gazed on the legacy his father built.
His eyes slid closed on a breath of relief. Thank God.
Tipping back his hat, he counted the towering columns bracing the front. Eight on a side, all the way around. Still erect, still balancing a roof three stories up. Vines and brush had overgrown the manicured lawn, but the broad steps, stark white like the rest of the mansion, still swept to the wraparound veranda where Gulf breezes played. Lamplight warmed two windows on the second floor.
An ache throbbed in step with his heartbeat. Within sight of the manor he’d sworn never to set eyes on again, homesickness weighed heavier than it had on any battlefield clear across the country.
A snowy-haired phantom stood at the edge of the veranda, wisps of smoke curling from the end of the cigar clamped between his teeth. One hand wrapped the porch rail; the other raised a crystal jigger in a salute. No matter how hard Ben tried, he couldn’t will substance into his father’s ghost. The old man dissipated. Ben blinked the mist from his eyes.
Maggie shrank against his chest. An uneasy whisper slid from her lips. “You said it was a house. That’s a castle.”
Forcing a chuckle, he tightened his arm around her waist. “I thought all little girls dreamed of living in a castle.”
“I dreamed of havin’ a home. Didn’t make no never-mind what it looked like.” Her head swiveled to take in the rest of the estate: barn, outbuildings, pastures. “All this—”
“Was my father’s.” He stared at the near corner of the porch, hoping the old man would reappear, coalesce into something solid and real. “He grew up dirt poor. No family. Dumont was his gift to the family he made.”