by Patty Devlin
“I will take the comparison as a compliment, then.”
“You should—that was how I meant it.”
She paused, working up the courage. “Will you make love to me, Sam? The proper way?”
“I thought you did not want to be a proper lady,” he teased.
She did not answer, the query had taken too much pride to ask. In the next moment, Sam had pulled her into his arms, snuggled up against the warmth of his side.
“My answer is the same as last night, Mabelle,” he said, speaking into her hair.
“But Sam, if you are hanged, or shot by a bounty hunter, this is the only time I will ever have with you. I do not want to regret for the rest of my life not tasting…” she trailed off, embarrassed.
He stroked her head. “I think it would go the other way. You would regret giving yourself to me. You will meet another man, and be thankful you saved yourself for him. You will get married and run your ranch together and have his babies…” His tone had started cheerful, but turned progressively more bitter until he stopped. “I don’t ever want you to be sorry you met me,” he said in a strangled voice.
She touched his face in the darkness, running her hand over the growing stubble on his jaw. The tactile connection soothed her and she continued to explore the planes of his face with her fingertips. “I won’t be,” she whispered.
#
He held Mabelle against his chest, her softness melting into him, her slender leg tossed over the top of his, her head resting on his shoulder. He resisted the temptation to let his hands wander below her shoulders and ravish the little body he knew lay beneath her dusty dress. Instead, he held still and listened as her breath deepened and she drifted into sleep. He took holding her to be a privilege, one he savored, the sweetness of the moment erasing all the strife of the past weeks, even the past years.
In the morning, he took a walk upstream, looking for game. He shot a rabbit and walked back toward camp, stopping short when he saw Mabelle. She stood in the middle of the stream, in nothing but her corset, chemise and drawers. She stooped to scoop water in her cupped hands, splashing it over her face and neck. He crept forward without alerting her to his presence and sat down on a rock to watch her bathe.
The Stetson lay on the bank next to her outer clothing and the sun shone on her dark glossy hair, the thick braids falling forward each time she bent down. She looked over and shrieked.
“Ack! Are you just sitting there watching me?”
“Yep. That’s exactly what I am doing.”
She stopped and picked up a handful of wet silt, tossing the clump at him. He dodged the attack, and ran to collect his own muddy weapon, but she caught him with a second lob square in the ear as he bent to scoop his own.
“Oh, now you are in big trouble,” he laughed, darting forward and scooping her off her feet.
She kicked her heels, squealing.
“Scream all you like, no one will rescue you out here, little miss. You’re in for a spanking now, and I know just how to deliver it.”
“How? No, wait! Stop! No spanking! No!” She giggled and squirmed as he carried her to end of the wagon where he plunked down and rotated her to lie over his lap.
“Ohhh, Sam!”
He started slapping, fast and hard, laughing at the way she fought him like a little tigress.
“I love it when you show me a little claw, sweetheart,” he said, popping first one springy cheek, then the other. When he had her pinned with his legs, he spared a hand to stretch the slit in her pantalets wide, liking nothing better than watching her bare bottom take on a pretty shade of blush.
She undulated on his lap as his cock grew hard and his hand acquired the same sting he knew it delivered. When she quieted her squirming, panting with apparent exhaustion, he delivered a dozen more hard slaps and stopped, rubbing her reddened backside.
She parted her legs and lifted her bottom at his ministrations in a clear invitation. He wasted no time responding, dipping his fingers between her legs to stroke her pretty sex.
She jerked, squeezing her cheeks then releasing them, spreading wider for his access. With this view he could almost see her back hole and the desire to take her there made him shift his position to ease the ache in his cock. He slid his thumb between her cheeks, pressing at her tight little hole.
She jackknifed up, squeezing her cheeks together until they firmed.
He laughed, slapping the tight muscles. “Let go, Mabelle. Remember, this bottom belongs to me, and I have some specific plans for it just now.”
“Sam, you cannot!” she protested.
He slapped the back of her thigh repeatedly. “Oh yes I can! Open up, Mabelle or I’ll take my belt to you and tan that pretty little bottom until you beg me to stop and pleasure you.”
Gradually, her buttocks relaxed, the promise of pleasure seeming to encourage her surrender. He stroked her glossy sex as a reward. “Good girl, Mabelle. I like it when you trust me.”
She let go of the remaining tension and opened her thighs again for his attentions.
“That’s my girl.”
Never stopping his continuous rubbing over her swollen slit, he pressed his thumb to her back entrance again, applying an insistent pressure.
She tensed, but did not squeeze her bottom again. He slid two fingers into her dripping pussy and as he slid them about, pressed his thumb into her ass, breaching her entryway.
She gasped but pushed back at him, as if eager for more. He moved his thumb deeper inside her, and as he withdrew it, slid his fingers into her sex. He alternated plowing one hole then the other until she began to keen with need. “Please, Sam, oh please, oh please, oh please…”
“Take it now, Mabelle,” he commanded, thrusting his fingers into the hilt and leaving them there, tickling her inner walls.
She convulsed, her muscles spasming around his fingers, one leg jiggling as if trying to kick off a shoe. When her climax ended, he gently slid his fingers from her and closed the slit in her drawers to remove any temptation to take his own pleasure. She scrambled up from her position, clawing her way onto his lap, her arms strangling his neck.
He rubbed her back and chuckled when another spasm ripped through her, causing her hips to buck. He kissed her bare shoulder, marveling at the beauty of her lines—the muscles of her slender arms, so strong but delicate at the same time. He kissed the graceful arc of her neck.
“You give the most terrible spankings,” she said, sounding dazed.
He threw back his head and laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He eased her from his lap and rinsed his hands in the stream, then brought Mabelle her dress, helping her into it, since she seemed too overcome to move.
“I shot a rabbit, but I don’t think we should stay and cook it now. I think we should move while daylight is burning.”
“Yes, sir,” Mabelle murmured. He helped her down from the back of the wagon and brought her boots and hat to her.
He hitched the wagon, but the sound of hoof beats made him pause, gazing in the direction they were headed.
A single rider came into view and before he could identify the familiar lanky man, the newcomer drew a pistol and fired at him.
“Mabelle!” he shouted, tackling her to the ground and pulling her behind the wagon. The horses whinnied and stamped, nervous by the gunfire, but not unaccustomed to its sound.
“Who is it?” Mabelle demanded.
“Pinky.”
“Who?”
“The Pinkerton detective.”
“Huff!” she correct. “Why is he shooting at us?”
“Not us, me. I think he wants that two hundred and fifty dollars.”
He ducked alongside the wagon and took the horse’s reins, leading the team forward, into the protection of a few boulders. “Stay behind the wagon,” he instructed Mabelle as she crept toward him. When she drew close enough, he pulled her to safety behind him.
Huff fired again, the bullet striking the rock he had ju
st led them behind. He cursed as Bean reared and skittered to the side.
“Why don’t you fire back?” Mabelle demanded.
“I can’t! If he’s a bounty hunter, I believe he’s protected by law. It’s not considered self-defense and they can do whatever necessary to bring you in.”
Another bullet ricocheted off the rock.
“I think you’d better shoot him, Sam.”
He aimed his pistol, peeking his head around the corner, sighting Huff, who rode directly toward them. He hesitated to pull the trigger, though. It crossed a moral line he had yet to pass. Huff worked for the law, which meant firing back would permanently set him on the wrong side of things.
Huff’s chest jerked and he fell backward off his mount.
“What the—?” He leaned out from the rock, then saw a group of Native warriors riding out to the fallen man, who must have been taken down by an arrow.
#
“What happened?” she asked, trying to poke her head out as well.
Sam pushed her back. “Stay down. Natives shot Huff with an arrow. Looks like they are picking him up to take with them.”
“Is he alive?”
“I can’t tell. Yes, he’s lifting his head. I think he just came around.”
She tried to peer around behind Sam this time, but he caught her, without moving his gaze from the action, and pulled her back down behind the boulder.
“Are they coming this way?” she asked, her old fear of Natives welling up.
“No. They’re riding west.”
“Will they come after us?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
She appreciated the way he could make such an assessment without showing the slightest trace of fear. She doubted the man ever experienced fear in his life. Somehow, his calm and rational response helped ease her panic.
“What will they do with him?”
“I don’t know. Scalp him, maybe. Mutilate his body to show what happens to white men who ride across their territory.”
This time his dispassionate tone irked her. “That is terrible!”
“They learned it from the white settlers. It was not a practice they started. The natives have been systematically killed off and bounties placed on their scalps since the Europeans first arrived on this soil.”
“What’s happening now?”
“They’re still riding west with him.”
“What should we do?”
Sam sighed. “Well, I reckon I better go try to get him back,” he said rummaging through the wagon and pulling out the burlap sack filled with the guns he had taken from Curly James and his cohorts.
“What? Are you crazy? You can’t go get him back!” She planted her hands on her hips. “First of all, you owe that man nothing—he tried to kill you, for heaven’s sake! Secondly, I don’t want you to lose your scalp, too! You may have talked your way out of any trouble on our last encounter with the natives, but that doesn't mean you always can.”
Sam turned and met her eye. “I know,” he said, grasping her arms and pulling her against him for a rough kiss. “If I don’t return, you just ride back to your ranch and don’t look back. Don’t come looking for me, understand?”
“Sam, no! Please—wait!” she cried, following at his heels as he untied the three tethered horses and mounted Bean, leading the other two.
“Sam, please!” she cried again as he started to ride off. He pulled his horse up and turned in the saddle, tipping his hat to her. “I love you, Mabelle Lawson. You remember that.”
“No,” she whimpered, her eyes burning, her throat closing. She had fallen in love with a crazy man.
Leaning back against the boulder, she sank into a squat, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. She did not know how much time had passed. The sun beat down on her as she sat in a daze, emptied of all thought or desire to move.
The sound of a single horse’s hoof beats roused her and she gripped the gun in her holster and staggered to her feet.
She emerged from behind the boulder and blinked at the approaching figure on horseback. It seemed to have two heads. She blinked again, rubbing her smarting eyes as the rider came into view.
“Sam!” she cried, running toward him. Huff rode behind, slumped a little, but upright and fully conscious. “How did you do it?”
Sam grinned and handed her the reins, helping the injured bounty hunter down before he dismounted. “I traded the horses and guns for him.”
She gaped in wonder. “You’re kidding!”
He grasped Huff’s elbow as the man stumbled forward and he helped him to sit with his back against the boulder.
“We had quite a long discussion, although I didn’t understand most of it. I think the gist was, ‘why do you want this stinky white man who shot at you?’”
Huff gave a chuckle, which ended as a cough.
“Get a wet cloth to clean his wound,” he ordered, moving to Huff’s side carrying a blanket from the wagon.
When she returned from the stream, he had Huff lying face down on the blanket, while he cut the man’s shirt off with a knife. As she drew closer she could see why—an arrow still protruded from Huff’s shoulder blade.
Sam handed Huff a stick. “For your teeth. I will count to three,” he said, grasping the arrow near the tip. “One...two…” He pulled the arrow out before he reached three, causing Huff to shout with pain. “It’s out. Have any whiskey on you?”
“Matter of fact…” came Huff’s muttered reply as he reached into the pocket of the jacket now cut into pieces and produced a flask. Sam poured whiskey on his wound, eliciting a second howl of pain.
“There,” Sam said, without a trace of pity. “You’ll live.”
Huff grunted and tried to sit up. Sam helped him and handed him the flask, from which the man drank three long swigs.
“Now what?” she asked, looking from Huff to Sam.
“Now we load the wagon with our dirty white man, for whom we just paid two horses too many, and head to Denver.”
Glassy-eyed with pain and now liquor, Huff staggered to his feet and trotted obediently to the back of the wagon, wincing with every movement as he settled himself against one wall. Sam tossed the blanket in for him, rolling it up to make a pad behind his back and wounded shoulder.
“The drive is going to kill him,” she said doubtfully.
“Nah,” he said, clapping the detective on the shoulder. “He has grit like you and I. Takes more than an arrowhead to stop him.”
“I meant figuratively.”
Sam grinned. “Little pain builds character.”
He lifted her up to the driver’s seat and climbed up beside her, taking the reins. She pulled the pistol from her holster and pointed it at his ribs. “Sam Pride, if you ever leave me like that again, I will scalp you, myself.”
He smothered a laugh and took the pistol from her, pulling her against him in an embrace. “Be careful,” he murmured in her ear. “I would hate to have to spank you in front of the detective.”
Chapter Six
They rode the rest of the day, not stopping until darkness had already fallen. Sam skinned and prepared the rabbit for roasting over the fire and instructed Mabelle to attend to Huff’s wound. She poured a few more drops of whiskey on it and helped him get settled on a blanket. They ate in silence—Huff seemed too weak to converse and she did not want to exclude him from conversation.
As they readied for bed, she pulled Sam aside and whispered, “Do you think it is safe to sleep with him? I mean, he did try to kill you, after all.”
“The natives took his guns, so he can’t try to shoot me again. But I suppose I could check him for a knife before we lay down.”
“Why did you rescue him, anyway?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seemed like the right thing to do.”
When they returned it seemed Huff had overheard, because he held out his knife, hilt first. “I’m not going kill you,” he said.
He took the knife and tucked
it into his holster, then folded his arms across his chest. “Just exactly what were you planning to do when you rode out here?”
“Oh, I did aim to kill you and collect the bounty. I got off in Greeley and bought a horse. I didn’t guess you would actually return mine and I figured I owed you for holding me at gunpoint.”
“Holding you at gunpoint isn’t the same as killing you.”
“True enough. I might have been a little hasty in my decision to take you dead rather than alive.”
“A little hasty?” Mabelle demanded, marching over with her hands on her hips.
Sam wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her up against his side. “Easy, little spitfire.” To Huff he said, “I told you she was feisty.”
Huff grinned, though his face had been in a grimace the whole day from pain, so it looked more like a wince.
“I did not ride to Wyoming to kill Sam Pride,” he said. “I came as a Pinkerton detective to deliver the letter I gave you back in Cheyenne. But when you gave me such a hassle back there, and took my horse and all, I figured I might as well come back and collect the bounty as well. A little extra money never hurts.”
“A little extra money to take someone’s life?” Mabelle’s voice had gone deadly quiet.
Huff removed his hat and held it over his heart. “I am truly sorry, ma’am. I made a mistake. I want you to know I don’t just consider us even now, I believe I am indebted to your man, here, and I intend to help see him out of his pickle with the law.”
“I would like to hear how you plan to do that,” he said dubiously, sitting down on a log nearby.
“Yes, so would I,” Mabelle said, sitting beside him.
He put his arm around her waist, savoring the small miracle of having a woman like Mabelle at his side, ready to go toe-to-toe with his enemies. Circumstance had thrown them together, but her loyalty showed true affection. And he sure as hell had it for her from the very start. Which made him the luckiest unlucky man around.
“The bounty on your head was placed by Mick Malone, not by a judge. And Mr. Malone does not necessarily need you dead. He knows his cowboys were in the wrong. It isn’t vengeance he seeks.”
