Lucas’s hands drifted lower until they stroked the softness of her inner thighs. Instinctively Carrie relaxed and opened to him. She could not contain a tiny gasp as Lucas’s fingers invaded her inner self, but the sense of shock was almost immediately obliterated by a rush of desire, a sudden and powerful need to draw him to her, to press his flesh against her flesh until they were one.
“It may hurt a little at first,” Lucas whispered as Carrie felt something hard and hot nudge against her. Spirals of aching need shot all through her body like fireworks in the night sky. When he stopped moving, she felt an insistent need to pull him deeper until she had engulfed him, but he remained where he was, teasing, tantalizing, toying with her until she thought she would go crazy.
“Please,” she moaned.
“It’s going to hurt,” he said, but Carrie didn’t care anymore. She pressed against him and still he did not enter her; she pressed harder and still he withdrew. Frantic with desire, she flung herself at him just as he plunged toward her. There was a momentary flash of sharp pain and then a burst of pleasure so brilliant and pervasive that it wiped out all memory of discomfort.
Now Lucas entered her fully and Carrie drew him into her, needing him as much as he needed her, wanting to consume him, demanding that he touch something at the very core of her being. Carrie could hear his breath coming quickly and in short, rough gasps and the sound created an equally insistent urgency in her. She had never felt more wondrously alive in her life.
Wave after wave of pulsating desire swept over her, picking her up, flinging her upon the shore and then washing her back out to sea to be borne ashore once again on a still higher “.rest. Carrie wondered how long she could stand it, certain she would be destroyed by the fury of the sensations exploding all through her. Suddenly she was aware of a difference in Lucas. His breath was ragged and his movement no longer smooth and controlled. Gradually his body became stiff, his movements uneven until, with a roar of release, he drove deep into her, scalding her with his heat. Carrie felt her body respond with equal tension and they clung to each other, their bodies racked by spasms of exquisite pleasure, their minds filled with nothing but each other.
Then with a sigh that came from the very depths of their beings, they fell apart, exhausted and temporarily emptied by their passion.
Chapter 14
A sixth sense warned Lucas of danger and he woke with a start. Without a moment’s hesitation he drew on his pants and reached for his rifle.
“Where are you going?” Carrie asked drowsily, the mists of sleep still clogging her brain.
“There’s somebody outside,” he whispered. “Stay here while I have a look.” Carrie sat up, clutching the bedclothes to her bosom. Was it Baca Riggins? Had he come back as he’d said?
Lucas tiptoed to the front window and looked out, being careful not to offer himself as a possible target. He saw nothing at first. The yard was empty and he heard no sound of anyone moving around the cabin. Then one of the horses whinnied and he looked toward the corral. The mustangs were moving about restlessly, but it was several moments more before Lucas saw the young Indian creeping along the edge of the corral toward the gate; he was going to open it and stampede the horses.
“It’s those fool Indian boys,” he called to Carrie in a loud whisper. “They’re after the horses again, and they may have brought their friends along this time.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Stop them, of course.”
“But they’re boys. You can’t kill them.”
“I won’t hurt them if I can help it, but if I let them take our horses, nothing will be safe, I’ve got to stop them.” As he slipped noiselessly out the cabin door, Carrie jumped out of bed and began to dress. She had no intention of lying quietly in bed while Lucas battled Indians, boys or not.
But before Lucas had gone more than fifteen steps, the morning stillness was rent by an Indian war cry, and the boy stood up from his crouching position and reached for the corral gate. Taking quick aim, Lucas squeezed off a shot, and the corral post beneath the Indian’s outstretched hand dissolved into a shower of splinters that pierced his skin like a barrage of sharp needles. The boy let out a startled yell and leaped for the cover of a nearby tree. But the gate was unlatched, and a second Indian boy inside the corral began herding the horses toward the gate. Lucas put two shots into the ground in front of the herd; the shower of dust and stones caused the lead horse to rear and those behind him to run up on one another’s heels. Catching sight of Lucas where he knelt in the open, the Indian boy drew a bow, but before he was able to loose the arrow, a bullet from Lucas’s rifle shattered the bow in his hands.
With two Indians down and busily occupied pulling the painful slivers of wood from their flesh, Lucas darted for the open gate. If the horses got out, they wouldn’t stop until they were back in their familiar grazing ground, and that was a hard three-day-ride away. He reached the gate and was in the act of sliding the bar back into place when a whisper of clothes against leaves came to his ears; he whirled just in time to see a third Indian attacking with tomahawk raised. There was no time to take aim or dodge the blow; Lucas threw himself to the ground, hoping to confuse the boy long enough for him to get in a position to defend himself. The crack of a pistol sounded at that moment, and the tomahawk disintegrated in the stunned Indian’s hand. Lucas whipped his eyes toward the cabin in time to see Carrie, wearing nothing but one of his shirts, turn her pistol around toward the Indian in the corral and take the feather out of his bonnet with another shot.
Their surprise attack having failed and their weapons and themselves in total disarray, the three boys scrambled to their horses and galloped off.
But before Lucas could congratulate himself on having broken the attack without a serious injury to anyone, he heard a shout from the corral behind the barn and the sound of thundering hooves told him the stage teams were being driven off at a gallop. “There’s more of them down at the barn,” he yelled to Carrie and disappeared down the path at a dead run. Only the sheer fear of being caught in such a state of provocative undress kept her from chasing after him. Instead, she ran to her cabin to put on her own clothes and prepare to help Lucas.
The Indian boys had meant to coordinate their attacks on the separate corrals, but Lucas’s unexpected shots had caught the two boys behind the barn still in the midst of their soundless approach. At the sound of shots, they had darted forward, one opening the gate and the other yelling and screaming to stampede the horses. They were through the gate and heading for the road before Jake could roll out of his bed and reach for his shotgun. The boys were too far away for the scattered shot to cause them any serious injury, but before the boom of the big sixteen-gauge gun had ceased to echo through the hills, several pellets were painfully buried in their skin and they had caught a glimpse of Lucas vaulting down the path. Unwilling to face lethally accurate gunfire from two sides, the Indians abandoned the horses, headed for their mounts, and took out for the hills at a dead run. The bullets Lucas sent whistling around their heads encouraged them to drive their ponies to even greater speed.
Them the same boys we took those horses from a few days ago?” Jake asked as Lucas reached the barn, still panting from the sprint down the mountain from the cabin.
“Looks like it, only they brought a few of their friends along with them this time.”
“Did you hit anybody?”
“No. I just gave two of them a handful of splinters.”
“I didn’t really hurt anybody either.”
“Did they turn out all the horses?”
“I still got the mare in the barn, but it don’t make no difference. Those horses won’t run far from their feed. I expect they’ll be back before the stage pulls in.”
As it turned out, they were back even sooner. When Lucas and Jake rounded the corner of the barn, their surprised gaze fell on Katie driving two of the horses back toward the corral.
“Seems to me like you can’t keep
up with your horses even when you’ve got a barn and a corral to do the work for you,” Katie said disgustedly, herding the horses past a suddenly lackadaisical Jake and into the corral. “‘Tis a mystery to me why Mrs. Simpson keeps you about the place.”
“Probably because she likes to see a pleasant smile and hear a kindly word once in a while,” Jake responded, choosing this particular moment to scratch vigorously at a part of his body normally considered unsuitable to receive attention in public.
“A hyena can smile,” Katie shot back, “but that doesn’t make it any less a carrion beast nor any easier on the eye.”
“Are you saying I’m hard to look at?” Jake demanded, acting as though there was nothing unusual about his wearing long underwear in the barnyard.
“I’m saying you’re not fit to be consorting with decent folks,” Katie responded sharply, “you with your dirt and your shoddy ways.”
“Supposing I was to take a bath in that there horse trough?”
“I’ve no doubt you’d get wet through and smell worse than a hound dog,” Katie stated with a toss of her head and turned toward the station.
“Damned sharp-tongued female,” Jake said loud enough for Katie to hear him. “I bet she wouldn’t need no knife to take the hide off a rabbit.” Katie continued on her way without any sign that she had heard him.
“You’re wasting your time with her,” Lucas said, a trace of a smile on his lips. “I don’t think she likes you at all.”
“I ain’t wanting no part of that uppity female neither,” Jake said, then grinned happily. “I just like to get a rise out of her now and again.”
“Watch it. You get too much of a rise, and you’re liable to find yourself squaring off before a preacher.”
The female ain’t been born who can get me inside a church,” Jake swore. “My pa weren’t never married, and I ain’t going to be either. First thing you know women start trying to change you. They pick at a man until his life ain’t worth a bent horseshoe. They want you to go to church, stop cussing and drinking and gambling, come home of evenings, and spend some time looking after the children. That ain’t no life fit for a man. Why, I’d rather be shot and tortured by one of them Indians. It hurts like hell for a while, but it don’t last forever.”
Whatever else of his philosophy on women and marriage Jake may have been willing to share with Lucas had to be saved for later. A stranger was coming up the road from Fort Malone driving the remaining horses before him. He was a nice-looking young man, and one neither of them had ever seen before. He rode his horse easily, as though he was used to being in the saddle, but he was dressed like a man who was accustomed to living and working in town, his only concession to riding being a pair of expensive boots, most of which were hidden under his pant legs.
“These horses yours?” he said, addressing both men as he rode up. “I found them down the road a piece and figured they must have gotten loose from here.”
“Just some Indian boys playing a prank on us,” Jake said nonchalantly. “I would have had to go after them myself, so I’m much obliged to you for saving me the trouble.”
The young man said no more while Jake put the horses in the corral, but once the gate was closed, he turned to Lucas. “Brian Kelly is my name. I’m fairly new to this part of the country.”
Lucas gave him a long, slow look before his gaze shifted to the horses in the corral. “Lucas Barrow,” he said at last, “and that’s Jake Bemis.”
“You work around here?”
“Yeah,” Lucas replied without amplifying his answer.
“I’m looking for Katie O’Malley,” Brian said after a pause. “I was supposed to meet her here about a week ago, but I got held up. “I’m engaged to marry her.” Jake’s head came up with a snap, but Lucas continued to look at Brian out of the corner of his eyes. “Is she still here?” Brian asked.
“Yeah.”
“Do you know where I can find her?”
“Up at the station I expect.”
Brian paused. “What does she look like?”
“Step inside and you can answer that question for yourself,” Lucas replied. Brian stood there a minute more, undecided, then with a nod of his head headed off toward the station.
“So Katie’s man did show up,” Jake said.
“Yeah. Fancy that.”
“I don’t,” Jake said, hostility rampant in his voice. “I don’t trust nobody dressed up as slick as a wet otter.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter what you fancy as long as Katie’s happy.”
“Who was that?” Carrie asked, coming up from the direction of her cabin. She had just had time to change her clothes and tidy herself up. She was careful to avoid looking at Lucas just yet. She knew it wouldn’t be long before everyone knew she’d spent the night with him, but she wasn’t ready for that quite yet.
“Katie’s young man,” Lucas informed her. “It seems he was held up.”
“Oh damn!” That exclamation brought startled looks from both men. “I can’t help it,” Carrie said, not in the least apologetic. “I’m as concerned for Katie’s happiness as either of you, but I don’t want to lose her. What am I going to do for a cook?”
“I think the question is what is Katie going to do?”
“Well, I can’t stand here all morning waiting to find out. I’m going up to the station, and I want both of you to come along with me. It won’t look so much like prying if we all come in naturally like it was time for breakfast. And don’t you laugh at me, Lucas Barrow. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it.”
But nothing had been decided when they entered the station. Nervous and ill at ease, Katie was going about her preparations for breakfast, her eyes held firmly on her work. Brian had taken a seat at the long table as though prepared to wait until Katie lost her shyness, but Carrie knew instinctively that it was not timidity that was causing Katie to hesitate.
“Good morning, Mr. Kelly. I’m Carrie Simpson, the station manager.” Brian stared at Carrie in open surprise and admiration. It was clear he had not expected to find a woman running the station, but it was even more obvious he hadn’t expected to find someone like Carrie at Green Run Gap.
“How do you do. Glad to make your acquaintance.” Brian’s gaze wandered over Carrie’s petite, shapely body in a manner that made Lucas’s whole body stiffen, but Carrie was more displeased that he would continue to lounge in his chair. Even in Colorado, it was the custom for a gentleman to stand when he was introduced to a lady.
“I was just explaining to Katie why I was late.”
“Why were you late?” Carrie asked, deciding that if he had no delicacy of manner, then she need have none either. “Leaving a young lady alone and unprovided for can have serious consequences in this country.”
“I marked the wrong week on my calendar,” Brian said with a ready smile. “I threw the letter away and didn’t even think about it until I was setting out today and remembered that the date was supposed to be the seventeenth and not the twenty-fourth.”
“I’ve been telling him why I can’t leave right now,” Katie announced as she served the plates with unusually hurried and awkward movements. “At least not until you can find someone to help with the cooking.” There was something in Katie’s voice that made Carrie look at her more intently, but Katie kept her eyes on her work.
“Are you sure?” Carrie asked. “It shouldn’t take more than a few days to find somebody.”
“You know you can’t do all this work by yourself,” Katie repeated, her head still bowed. “You tried before, and you nearly wore yourself out. He’s waited a whole week extra. It won’t hurt him to wait one more.”
“It’s okay, Mrs. Simpson,” Brian assured Carrie, his eyes still glued to her body. I’m going to be away a lot for the next couple of weeks. I will come back when I return to Fort Malone.”
“Then you must stay and have breakfast with us before you go. That’s the least I can do for you for bringing the horses back.”
“You needn’t thank me for that. They were all over the road. I was going to have to do something about them before I could get by.”
Breakfast was an uncomfortable meal. Katie didn’t raise her eyes from her plate, Lucas spoke only when spoken to and then in monosyllables, and Jake seemed to have something in his craw. It was left to Carrie to carry on the conversation with Brian. He seemed an amiable young man, certainly a nice-looking one, and Carrie became more convinced as the meal progressed that Katie should marry him. There couldn’t be many young men like him in the West.
“I’ve been with the Overland Stage Company a little more than three years,” Brian was saying in a voice almost entirely free of the Irish brogue that so strongly colored Katie’s speech, “but one day I hope to buy myself a ranch, maybe in Arizona.”
“A thing like that takes a heap of money,” Jake observed.
“That’s why I don’t have one yet,” Brian admitted with becoming modesty. “But I’m expecting to come into some money soon, enough for a ranch I hope.”
“You mean you’re coming into an inheritance?”
“Yes.” The pause before he answered was so slight Carrie wondered if maybe she had imagined it.
“If you change your mind about staying here, you can send a message into Fort Malone,” Brian said to Katie as he rose to his feet at the end of the meal. “I’ll be around for a few days yet.”
“I’ll start looking for someone to replace her immediately,” Carrie assured him when it was obvious Katie wasn’t going to answer him. “I wouldn’t want her obligations here to stand in the way of her future happiness.”
But after the men had gone, Katie didn’t seem too eager to discuss her engagement to Mr. Brian Kelly.
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