Through the fog in her brain she realized that he was waiting for her consent. Her hands slid up his chest and around his neck and then she was in his arms.
His lips opened over hers in a kiss so wet and sensual she felt lost in it. She had heard about stars colliding in outer space, about great rivers plummeting over mountains in powerful rushes of water, but until Reese Catlin pressed her body to his and released her passion with the force of his own, she had not known such power truly existed.
It was as if the heavens had fallen on their shoulders and sprinkled them with glowing promises, promises as old as the stars, yet as new as an early spring morning. She knew without thinking that this was what she had longed for and craved and despaired of ever feeling again; at the same time, it was something totally new, never before imagined or experienced.
When they stopped for air, they were both breathing heavily.
“Dangit, Andie. What’d you do to me?”
“It wasn’t me.”
“You bet it was.” He looked dazed. “I feel like you clobbered me with a dang star.”
Weaving her fingers through his hair, she drew his face down for another heart-rending, soul-healing kiss.
This time when Reese drew back to study her face, she could see his yearning, still raw and unrequited. His voice was low and husky.
“I won’t ask what you remembered tonight, but I’m a lucky man for it.”
Too soon it was time to return to camp. Back in the carriage Reese held her close. Neither spoke until camp was in sight.
“We need to talk about what happened tonight,” he said.
She snuggled closer. “It was magic.”
“Like hell, it was. I don’t want you wakin’ up tomorrow and pretendin’ it never happened.”
She watched him long seconds, while the passion of the evening turned to something else. Something she couldn’t name—or wasn’t ready to confront.
“I know it happened,” she told him quietly.
Then they arrived. Reese drew rein in the darkness of a thicket beyond the camp circle. The strains of Goosey’s fiddle let them know the men were awake. Alarmed, she envisioned facing the cowboys. “They’ll know.”
Reese set the brake and turned to her with a chuckle. “They’d figure it out quick enough, anyhow.”
“How?” She worked to repin her hair.
“By the smitten look on my face.” He tugged her arms around his neck. “Since that son of yours has been right about everything else, let me put one more thing to the test.”
“Oh, dear. What now?”
“That you give the sweetest goodnight kisses this side of heaven.”
She was still trembling when he handed her down from the carriage and escorted her toward the tepee. They didn’t make it all the way, however, for the drovers suddenly burst into song.
Frog-y went a-courtin’, he did ride, Ah-ha, Ah-ha,
A sword and pistol by his side, Ah-ha, Ah-ha.
Reese squeezed her shoulders. “I think I liked ‘Green Grow the Lilacs’ better.” But the concert wasn’t over.
Where will the weddin’ supper be? Ah-ha, Ah-ha,
Where will the weddin’ supper be? Ah-ha, Ah-ha.
Andie laughed to cover her embarrassment. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think someone had gotten into my medicine box.”
“Us?” the cowboys quizzed in unison.
Racing to her side, Jordan wedged himself between her and Reese. “Did he dance with you in the moonlight, Ma? I told him it was your most favorite thing.”
Would she die of embarrassment? She knelt quickly and hugged Jordan to her chest. “What am I going to do with you?”
Reese hunkered down beside them. “I think what your ma means is what would we ever have done without you?”
“You did dance with her! Boy, oh boy! Did you hum ‘Skip to My Lou?’ It’s her favorite.”
Reese chuckled, while Andie flushed, and the drovers hung on every word.
“You’ll have to leave some things to me, son.” Reese found Andie’s eyes. “Your ma and I danced to our own kind of music.”
In that moment, Andie knew she had come full circle, from happiness, through grief, to indescribable joy. If the drovers hadn’t been hovering over them, she would have thrown her arms around this man. But the drovers were there, so she kissed Jordan on the forehead and discreetly bid Reese and the others goodnight.
When she crawled in bed, her body still glowed with the discoveries of this night—and with anticipation of all the discoveries yet to come. She drifted off to sleep with a smile on her lips and a grateful heart. Thank you, Samuel.
But in the days to come, she began to fear that night had been magical for her alone. Beginning the following morning, Reese made himself scarce around camp. Although he still watched over her with an eagle eye, except for a few stolen kisses, he acted like that night had never happened.
Andie had not forgotten it. Magical or not, it freed her of her guilt over abandoning Samuel. Whether she had truly seen his healthy face and heard his laughter didn’t matter; she now remembered them. Remembering set her free; and freed, her feelings for Reese Catlin ran rampant. Regardless that he didn’t appear to feel the same for her.
Worn down by Jordan’s persistence and Reese’s claim that it was as safe as riding on the wagon seat, Andie capitulated, and Jordan began riding drag the day after they crossed the Red River. She didn’t like it, but Reese was right. She couldn’t keep him a child forever.
The wind picked up daily, blowing so hard on occasion that she had trouble keeping the wagon on course. She didn’t fear getting lost, however, for Reese insisted she drive closer to the herd now that they were in Indian Territory.
One morning she had passed the point men headed for the nooning place, when Tom Lovejoy caught up with her.
“Hey, Cookie, pull up quick!”
When Tom came close enough for her to see his pained expression, her heart leapt to her throat. “What’s the matter?”
Reaching the wagon, he scrambled from his saddle onto the bench seat and stuck his free hand under her nose.
She moved back to bring it in focus. A trail of deep red spots ran down the center; a fiery glow radiated outward.
“Scorpion,” he explained. “Burns like a—”
“Scorpion?” Andie drew the team to a halt. “How’d you get stung by a scorpion riding point?”
Tom glanced over at his saddle. “I ran across a bunch of buffalo chips. Thought you might need some fuel.”
Andie set the brake. “Fuel? With twelve men bringing me every cow chip in Indian Territory?”
“Well, I just…”
“You just thought to get out of the blowing dust for a while.”
“Aw, Cookie, don’t give me a hard time. I’m painin’ something awful.”
“I don’t doubt it.” She jumped to the ground. “Come around to the chuck box and let’s see what kind of medicine I have.”
She let down the lid, secured the gate leg, and rummaged through the medicine box: Calomel would stop the sting, but she wanted something more. Her eyes fell on the sourdough jug.
After washing Tom’s palm, she dipped starter from the jug and spread it over the injury. “This should draw out the poison.” She ripped a strip off a clean flour sack, bound his hand, and tied the ends. “Keep it tied up till supper time.”
Hoofbeats drew their attention. Reese reigned to a halt in a swirl of dust and slid from the saddle. “What’s wrong? Why’d you stop—” His eyes focused on Andie’s hands…and Tom’s. “What the hell’re you up to, Lovejoy?”
“He got stung by a scorpion,” Andie explained.
“Ridin’ point?”
“He was gathering fuel, Reese. Scorpions nest—”
“Serves you right,” Reese barked. “Get back on the job.”
“Aw, Mister Catlin, don’t go gettin’ sore.” He winked at Andie. “Thanks, Cookie. Feels better already.” Clamping his hat on his head with
one hand, he started off, then paused. “If you want dibs on her, Mister Catlin, you’d better speak up. Maybe so she prefers a feller who don’t dillydally.”
“Tom!” Mortified to her toes, Andie stood still, gripping the lid. She heard Tom ride off. Her skin fairly prickled with Reese’s nearness. He cleared his throat.
“Don’t let Tom bother you.” His tone was gruff. Without further ado, he pecked her on the cheek, climbed in the saddle, and rode off.
Shading her eyes with her hands, she watched him disappear in a cloud of dust. Dillydally? Is that what he was doing? He had warned her not to forget what happened between them that night, but apparently he had done just that. He started this drive a confirmed bachelor, and she had to accept the possibility—probability—that he remained the same.
She was the one who had changed. Thanks to him.
She was the one who had fallen in love. No thanks to him.
Dillydally? Is that what he was doing? The question worried Reese for days. Nights he spent sitting in camp staring at her tepee, pondering the situation.
He slacked off on the men; at least, he didn’t feel like he drove them as hard. Daily reports put the closest herd two days back, but that wasn’t much leeway in case of trouble.
What worried him more, was that his inner drive to beat the competition was gone. Well, not gone, but the fire in his belly when he thought about the Matthews spread had cooled to a smoldering glow, banked by the kid’s threat of loneliness. And he hadn’t the foggiest notion what to do about it.
Other than talk to her. They still hadn’t had that talk he suggested after the evening she termed magical. He felt it, too, the magic. Sometimes the feeling fit like a solid gold wedding band. Other times it felt like a noose around his neck. Should he give into his emotions? Or trust the lessons learned from his pa and Mister Matthews?
They needed to talk. But dangit, every time he rode into camp early, something always interfered. The cowboys had taken his warning to keep an eye on her to heart. One or another of them was always in camp these days.
Like most things in his life, the opportunity to talk to Andie was provided by an act of nature, in the form of a rip-roarin’ dust storm. He had ridden back to check on the drag riders. Their kerchiefs were caked with thick dust; Jordan’s blond eyebrows looked like drifts of dirty snow piled against a yard fence. Andie would be fit to be tied if she knew Jordan was back here eatin’ all this blowing dust.
“Ride on back to camp, son.”
“Uncle Gimpy needs my help, sir.”
“Maybe your ma does, too.”
Jordan, as was becoming habit, got the last word. “Would you check on her for me, Mister Catlin? Tell her I’m with Uncle Gimp.”
Reese grinned at the dismissal. Then he realized he had been handed the perfect opportunity to catch Andie alone. With the wind blowing a gale, every drover in the crew would be on duty. No one would have time to feign an injury or gather fuel or haul water, the excuses used most frequently these days.
He heard the noise before he arrived at camp; it sounded like thunder, but wasn’t loud enough. Damnation! Was the wagon canvas being ripped to shreds? Sinking spurs, he arrived at camp only to be astounded by Andie’s latest attempt at domesticity.
He slid from his saddle and stood, mouth ajar. Every dang wagon sheet and blanket in the whole camp was flappin’ in the wind. She’d tied ’em to every limb and bush in sight.
“I thought this would be good day to air the bedding.” At his grim appraisal, she added, “I didn’t touch anybody’s clothes.”
Lifting the flap, he stuck his head inside the wagon, where Night Hawk slept on the men’s spare clothes.
“You should have smelled that bedding, Reese. Why, it’s a wonder Night Hawk could stand to sleep back there.”
He chuckled. “It’s a wonder those blankets haven’t blown to kingdom come in this gale.”
“They’re tied down, but maybe I should—”
Suddenly Reese knew it was time to talk. “Wait.” He caught her arm and drew her around. He studied her face with its delicate features and enchanting green eyes, the black ringlets that straggled from the bun she pinned at her nape. Words caught in his throat. He pulled her down to the creek, beyond a thicket of cottonwoods and scrub oak. Out of sight of camp, he leaned against a tree trunk and drew her to him.
Their lips met in an earth-jarring coming together that left his senses reeling and his body begging for more. Lolling his head back against the tree, he gazed into her eyes.
She wanted him, too. He could see it plain as day. “We haven’t had that talk.”
“I know.”
“Have you been thinkin’?”
She nodded. “You?”
He nodded. Then he kissed her again, this time an all-consuming kiss that she returned in kind. Her dress buttoned down the front, and suddenly it was undone. His hands found her skin; his lips followed.
“Reese,” she murmured, “this isn’t talking.”
“It’s better.”
“It’s confusing.”
He lifted his face, kissed her lips, then settled back. “You don’t like it?”
“Yes, I like it. Too much. It confuses me.”
“How?”
“That’s all I know about you. How you make me feel.”
“That’s bad?”
“It’s wonderful, but…”
“I like how you make me feel, too,” he whispered against her neck. “I want more, Andie. I want all of you.”
She trembled in his arms. “I know. I feel that way, too.”
At her admission he splayed a hand over her skirts and pressed her to him. His body reacted immediately and the ache became torturous. Suddenly she began to struggle.
“What is?”
“This isn’t talking,” she said again.
Reese pursed his lips. He knew what she wanted to talk about. Sliding his fingers into her hair, he pulled her face to his chest. Her warm breath seeped through his shirt and spread hot desire all the way to his loins. “You ready to talk marriage?”
Startled, she faced him. “Are you?”
“To be honest, I don’t know.” He watched her eyes dim. “How ’bout you?”
She focused on his face, while her fingers played absently, but seductively, through his hair. At length, she said, “If I were to marry again, it would have to be love. A great, desperate love on both sides.”
“A great desperate love?” What the hell was that? “Like this?”
Again, she took long seconds to respond. “If you have to ask, probably not.”
That surprised him. “You givin’ up on us?”
“Me? You’re the one who said we should talk, then never found time. You’re the one who told me not to forget what happened between us that night, then promptly forgot yourself.”
She was mad as a spitting adder and lovely as the first rose of summer. He felt like she had grabbed hold of his heart and squeezed real hard. “I’ll never forget that night, Andie. It lit a fire in my gut that will never go out. But…”
“But you’re scared.”
“Dang right. It’s an awesome task, making another man’s wife happy. Raising another man’s son.”
She kissed his lips softly, taking him by surprise again. Confounded woman!
“And what about the ranches?” he argued. “You have yours and with luck I’ll have mine, a hundred miles away. You can’t sell yours; it’s Jordan’s inheritance. Where would we live—”
“Reese, Reese. Don’t worry about it. Things will work out. One way or another.”
“Easy for you to say.”
A fleeting sadness, haunting as any melody, flickered, then died in her eyes. She ducked her head. “It isn’t easy for me to say.”
It hit him then, like a bucket full of lead. The truth. It raced down his spine with the speed of lightning and seared him with both warning and hope. He tipped her chin, forced her to look in his eyes, and saw it there. She was in love wit
h him! Andie Dushane was in love with him. Pleasure raced through his veins, chased by caution, chased by pure, undiluted terror.
His emotions raged. Did he love her? Yes. How much? Hell, how did a man ever know how much he loved a woman? Whether he wanted to live with her all his life?
“Tell you what…” He lowered his lips. “While we ponder the situation, how ’bout we keep on practicin’ the part that comes natural?”
His kiss muffled an answer he took to be affirmative from her eager response. His hands played inside the opening of her dress, and he had just settled back to enjoy a lengthy, if tormenting, spree of courting when their reverie was shattered by a gunshot.
Andie drew back as if she had been the target.
Reese listened for an answering shot.
“Dang fool cattle!” came a cry from the campsite.
“Night Hawk!” Andie started for the thicket.
Reese held her back. “Stay here. I’ll check things out.” He kissed her quickly. “Button up, love.”
By the time he reached the campsite, all was a confusion of thundering hooves and firing six-shooters.
“Reckon it was them blankets.” Night Hawk waved a sixshooter in the air. “All that racket spooked the herd.”
Reese watched a blur of patterned hides and clashing horns trample past, not fifty yards distant. “The herd shouldn’t have been anywhere near this camp.”
Andie came up the hill. When Reese saw her, he went limp. The camp could have been demolished and her with it. To Night Hawk, he asked, “You turned ’em with that sixshooter?”
“Yes, sir. Their rumblin’ done woke me up. They was headed straight for camp.”
“Jordan!” Andie shrieked.
“I’ll see to him.” Then to Night Hawk, “Find Hank. We’ll need all mounts gathered and ready.”
Before he reached his horse, Andie stopped him. “I’m coming.”
“Stay here. Put on the coffee. Hell, fill every pot we have with coffee. This may be a long night.”
“But Jordan is out there.”
“I’ll see to him, Andie. Put on the coffee.”
III
Supper was forgotten. Forgotten, too, every petty concern that had ever crossed Andie’s mind—forgotten, trampled beneath the thundering of reality, the way the red earth was trampled, that night, beneath the frightened hooves of twenty-five hundred cattle. It was a night of loneliness and fear, and Andie Dushane experienced both on the most intimate terms.
A Wish to Build a Dream On Page 7
