Then she saw another figure lurking in the darkness. It had to be him because he was coming from the same direction Jake had come from just a few minutes earlier. Patience closed her eyes and sighed, wondering what such an intelligent man could see in an uneducated foul-mouthed woman. It could only be a temporary flirtation. Ben belonged in Boston. With her.
She pinched her cheeks for color, then moved quickly to intercept him. “Ben!” she said brightly.
“Shhh!” He took her arm and pulled her to the edge of camp behind the carriage. “The men are sleeping. What are you doing up?”
“Waiting for you.” She reached up and clasped her hands around his neck. He didn't kiss her, even though she tilted her head so he could. She rubbed against him and felt his arousal even through all her petticoats. “Kiss me, Ben,” she whispered.
When he didn’t move a muscle, she said, “I have all the arrangements made and the house decorated. As soon as we return, we’ll be married. And, of course, you’ll get your senior partnership.”
“You’ll be returning tomorrow, Patience.”
“And you?”
“I’m finishing the roundup.”
Stubborn man. “Then I’ll stay.”
“I’m not marrying you, Patience. I want that senior partnership, but I’m not marrying you.”
Yes, he would! Daddy wanted this marriage and so did she. She just hoped she could get him to say his vows before she was positive she was with child. “I’ll wait.”
“You’ll wait a long time. I’m going to bed.” And he left her standing there, all alone, in the hostile wilderness. She sniffed, then picked up her skirts and went back to her tent.
Tomorrow, he’d never know what hit him.
* * * * *
The next morning, Jake readied herself for another day. But it wasn’t just another day—Miss Patience Morris would turn the whole place upside down if she had her way. Which she wouldn’t.
Luckily, the lazy woman hadn’t come out of her tent, yet. She could rot in there for all Jake cared. Because when she came out, Jake knew the men would fall all over themselves to do whatever Patience wanted.
Jake made her plan, then called the crew together. “Boys, we got a job to do. Make no mistake about it—that don’t include entertaining uninvited guests. The first man that comes within fifty feet of her, I’m docking him a day’s wages. Got that?”
The men grumbled like she knew they would. “Don’t worry, Wilson’s called in plenty of whores for the week we get back. Ain’t none of you gonna go without any.”
They whistled and cheered.
“All right, let’s get on with it. You all know your jobs.” She saddled the strawberry roan, filled her canteen, and grabbed her day’s grub from Whip.
On her way back from the chuckwagon, she saw Ben saddle Henry’s horse, then lift the little girl into the seat and adjust the stirrups. Henry leaned over and gave Ben a big squeeze around the neck.
Jake smiled, all mushy inside at Ben’s tenderness to the strays. He’d be a good father. She rode to them and asked Henry, “You ready to ride?”
“Yup! Ben even brought me some . . .” her gaze darted from side to side, and she whispered, “horehound candy.” She covered her mouth and giggled. “I ain’t sharing it with the boys. Ben said I don’t have to.”
Ben mounted his own horse and rode alongside Jake. He leaned close to her and whispered, “Don’t worry, I gave Teddy and Homer some, too.” In a louder voice he said, “I’ll see you later. I’m roping today.”
“Ben!”
Jake saw Patience standing in front of her tent, waving.
“Oh, Ben!”
Jake almost laughed when Henry rolled her eyes. The girl tugged on Ben’s sleeve. “You better get over there and see what she wants, Ben.”
“Hell, no. I’m not getting docked a day’s pay.” He spurred his horse to a gallop, heading for the herd.
“See that, Henry?”
“Yup, Ben got away from that woman before she could put her hook in him.”
“Naw, that ain’t it. Don’t never gallop your horse without warming him up first, lest it’s life and death.”
Henry watched Ben’s dust as he galloped away. “I think it was.”
* * * * *
Ezra snorted, smiling at his near victory. For once, that idiot Fred had been right—Ben had a woman after him. And this particular woman had that steely manner about her. Ezra knew she wouldn’t settle for less than what she wanted, and she must want that no-good Ben pretty bad. He chuckled. She didn’t look like the type of woman who enjoyed life in the country.
He spurred his horse, taking off for the meeting place, Rastin following. Ten minutes later, they pulled into a little box canyon in an area that had already been scoured for cattle.
Fred tipped his hat. “Howdy, boss.”
Ezra got right to the point. “I want you and Rastin to stampede the herd tonight.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I don’t want no foul-ups like you did with the horses. Hell, that didn’t even set ‘em back a day.”
Fred’s horse whinnied and kicked up a little dirt. Ezra thought Fred looked a little nervous himself. “What’s the matter, boy?”
“We got women in the camp. They might get hurt.”
“What women?”
“Your wife and daughter. And Miss Patience Morris, the one I told you about last time.”
“What the hell are they doing in a roundup camp? That’s no place for a woman.”
“I know it, boss, but Miss Morris, well, she’s damned determined to snare that son of yours. I hear tell that if he don’t marry her, he won’t get some high-falutin’ promotion where he does his lawyering in Boston.”
Ezra thought for a moment, then said, “Miss Morris just might help us out. Meet me here, same time, day after tomorrow.” To Rastin, he said, “Let’s go.”
He kicked his horse into a gallop, leaving in a different direction than he came from. Fred didn’t need to know where to find him.
Chapter 17
Sweat ran down Ben’s face as he tossed the loop around another calf. He’d worked himself and the men hard this cool mid-October morning. Dallying, he turned the calf while Jake roped its heels. After the men branded the calf and removed the ropes from its head and feet, it bounded back to the herd, greeted by its anxious mother.
The morning grew late, and he knew he needed to confront Patience before the men came back to camp for the noon break. He rode up to Jake. “I have to make sure Patience went back to town.”
Jake nodded, then motioned for one of the other cowhands to take over Ben’s job. “Make sure she gets good and gone.”
He tipped his hat and reined his horse around, then stopped, facing her. “Jake, I’m staying.” She gazed into his eyes, and into his soul. “With you.”
“We’ll see.” She spurred her horse and twirled the loop, aiming for another calf that Henry and Teddy had cut out of the herd. Ben couldn’t help but watch a minute. One thing he admired above all other qualities—being the best at what you do.
And Jake was the best at everything she did.
He galloped back to camp, slowing only a few hundred yards away in order not to kick up too much dust. Whip got downright testy when he had to serve dirt with the beans. But the cook wasn’t who he worried about at that moment. Patience seemed determined to bring him back to Boston.
Well, he wouldn’t go. Not now. He had a job to do, he said he would do it, and he would. Nothing would stop him.
He swung off his horse and unsaddled him. He’d worked hard enough for one day. He took his time leading the paint to the remuda, then ambled to Patience’s tent.
Clearing his throat, he called, “Patience!”
She opened the tent flap and smiled. She had spent a lot of time carefully arranging her blonde curls, he saw, and wore a tasteful yellow dress, probably the latest fashion from Paris. “Come in.”
To the lion’s den? “No, you come out
here.”
“It’s much more comfortable in here. You can sit on the trunk and we can have tea.”
“I have no time for that. Come out, Patience. Now.”
She emerged from the tent with a winning smile. “Are you ready to go back to Boston?”
Resisting the urge to grab her by the arms and shake that false smile off her face, he replied, “I told you when I’d be back. I also told you that I am not marrying you. Ever.”
“Oh, you will.” She opened her parasol and held it over her head. “You want that senior partnership too badly.”
“I want you out of here, Patience. Today.”
“Why, Benjamin, I can’t possibly do that.” She tilted her head and gazed at him in a way that would have been attractive two months before, but not now. “Reginald has ridden out with a group of your men. I do believe he wants to be a cowhand when he grows up.” She tittered, the sound grated on Ben. “Silly brother.”
“You two are leaving in the morning, if I have to get one of my own men to drive the carriage.” He stomped off, afraid of what else he might say or do.
Every single time he’d had contact with her since coming to Idaho Territory, he grew more puzzled that he’d ever even considered marrying her. Back in Boston, he’d never noticed how she manipulated and controlled others. He noticed now, and he would not dance to her tune.
He saddled a dun and headed back to the herd in none too much of a hurry. Frustrated beyond reason, he couldn’t seem to get the fact that he’d never be Patience’s husband through her thick skull.
He caught a glimpse of yellow in a stand of junipers by the creek, then heard a giggle. Dismounting, he groundtied the horse and crept to the edge of the water. Hearing another giggle downstream, he followed the sound.
What he saw, he could have gone his whole damned life without seeing. He cleared his throat. His sister, flushed and gasping, sprang away from Reginald.
Gritting his teeth, Ben rested his hand on his Colt and glowered at the womanizing profligate. “Leave. My. Sister. Alone.”
Suzanne ran up to him, frowning, “Oh, Ben! He’s not doing anything wrong. He’s courting me.”
Ben pushed her away and glared at Reginald again. “The hell he is.”
“Now, Ben, old fellow, my intentions are perfectly honorable. Your sister is a beautiful woman and I think it would be quite interesting for sister and brother to marry sister and brother. Why, our chil—”
“Shut up.” He had all he could do to keep from throttling the bastard. “Don’t touch her again.” He grabbed Suzanne by the arm. “You’re coming with me.”
She yanked back. “I am not! I’m twenty-two years old and quite capable of making my own decisions.” She raised her chin. “Reginald has proposed.”
“Oh, so he has proposed, has he?” He sneered and caught her arm again. “Do you have any idea how many women he has proposed to? They let him have his way with them, then the next morning, all they have to show for it is a nice little bauble—or large bauble, depending on who her daddy is. I refuse to allow you to be treated that way.”
Reginald stepped forward. “That’s not how it is, Ben. I think the world of Suzanne. What she says is true, I want her for my wi—”
“You want her for what’s under her petticoats.”
Reginald’s nostrils flared. “Benjamin Lawrence, I challenge you to a duel over the love of my fair lady. Epée.”
Ben thought Suzanne would swoon on the spot. Nearly nauseous with anger, Ben narrowed his eyes. “You’re on. Tomorrow morning. Dawn.”
Only after he’d hauled Suzanne back to camp did he remember that his sword-cane was at the Bar EL.
* * * * *
Jake took her plate of grub and hollered at the strays to join her down by the creek. She damned well wasn’t about to let that syrupy blonde spoil her supper.
While she waited for the kids, Whip walked up and said, “Lots of cows this year.”
Nodding, she said, “And the camp crew have kept up with them. Most all the herd’s been done to whatever needed done to them. Hell, I figger we only got a week left.”
“Damn, I don’t ever remember it lasting less than a month.”
“Me, neither.”
“Got any reason for that?”
She spotted the strays walking gingerly, careful not to spill the food off their plates. “Yeah, there’s a reason. We got the best damned cow man I ever saw on the crew.”
“Ben’s that good?”
“Never seen a man what had such good cow sense.”
“Does he know that?”
She shrugged, happy that the strays got there just in time to prevent Whip from asking any more questions that she didn’t want to answer. “C’mon, strays. Let’s go have us a picnic.”
Henry stuck her nose in the air. “We can’t have a picnic, silly. Picnics are only on Monday.”
Jake ruffled the girl’s hair, wondering where the hell she got that rule, and said, “I must’ve forgot to tell you—I changed today to Monday. Picnic day.”
“Yup,” Teddy said with a stiff nod. “And she ain’t never wrong.”
“That’s right,” Homer agreed. “Jake made it Monday, just for us.”
One side of Henry’s mouth tilted up. “Well,” she said slowly, “I do like picnics.”
Jake was glad of that, because eating supper at the camp was out of the question. Not that she wanted to avoid Patience—she’d love to see what that ninny could do in an honest fight. But Ben, well, she couldn’t bear to look at him and wonder what it would have been like to have partnered up with him. Maybe even have a few strays of their own.
She knew he cared for her—liked her—but she also knew that his eye was on that high paying lawyering job. He’d leave her as soon as roundup was over and go back to Boston. No, she had no worries or jealousy over Patience, but that job, well, Jake couldn’t compete with that. And wouldn’t.
When the kids had eaten, she sent them back to camp, but she stayed by the creek. “I’ll be up in a while. Ask Whip if you need anything before you hit the sack.”
Watching the moonbeams ripple on the surface of the bubbling water, she tried to straighten out her head about Ben Lawrence. While her heart jumped like a jackrabbit every time she caught a glance at Ben, at the same time she felt like last week’s whiskey bottle—hollow and tossed in the garbage.
Hell, she thought as she pitched a small rock in the water, she’d lived twenty-four years without him, and she could live without him again. Just fine.
Damn fine.
She bit her lower lip and fought the hot tears that threatened. If anyone caught her acting like such a bawl calf, she’d just die. No man—no man was worth this sort of grief.
After a few deep breaths, the danger of tears went away. She kneeled and splashed cold creek water on her face, swiping her sleeve across her cheeks to dry them. Might as well head back to camp and bed down, she mused. A man faces obstacles head-on.
But then, the one thing she’d learned from Ben was that there were some parts about being a woman that weren’t half-bad. Like when he kissed her. All those places.
She shivered at the thought and warmth crept in all the places he’d touched. No better pleasure could be had, that she knew. And never would she have that pleasure with anyone but Ben. She stood, still staring at the moonbeams on the water.
“Jake?” Her heart did a double-dally when she heard Ben’s voice.
He wrapped his arms around her and laid his lips over hers before she could say a damned thing. But then, she didn’t really want to, what with her innards buzzing so.
As he pressed his hardness into her, Jake nearly shucked his clothes off right then and there. Pulling away and gasping for air, she hissed, “What the hell’s gotten into you, Boston? We’re within shouting distance of the camp.”
Pulling her close again, he murmured, “You.” He nibbled on her earlobe, nearly making her knees buckle. “I want to be in you. Now.”
Her h
eart raced and her belly grew hot. But she couldn’t have him—they’d played with dynamite already and who knew when there’d be an explosion.
“It’s late, Boston. Go to bed.” Her words didn’t have nearly the force she intended them to have.
“That’s exactly what I want to do. With you.”
And what she’d die to do, too. Once he left for the east, she’d never have such glorious pleasure again.
“Ah, hell, one more time wouldn’t hurt.” She wondered who the hell said that. Surely not her, the foreman of the Bar EL. It was her, the silly woman who wanted Benjamin Stoddard Lawrence to be hers forever.
The silly woman won out. She plunged her hand down his britches and felt that wondrously hard, velvety part of him that had given her so much pleasure. His sharp intake of air told her she’d hit paydirt.
“Like that, Boston?”
“Yes,” he groaned.
“Want more?” She squeezed his rod and rubbed back and forth.
He pulled her shirttails up and swept his hands underneath, cupping her breasts. “Oh, God, yes.”
When he caught her nipple with his fingers and lightly squeezed, her knees nearly failed her. She grasped him around the waist with her other arm while she continued to rub him.
Suddenly, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away from him. “The party will be over before the shooting starts if you keep that up,” he said, sounding half strangled. “There’s a little stand of junipers down by the herd. Let’s go there.”
She knew she shouldn’t, but all her sense seemed to have left her. “All right.”
Just then she saw a shadow of a man picking his way across the rocks, heading toward them. She pushed Ben away, shut her eyes, and sighed.
“There you are, old fellow!” He clapped Ben on the shoulder and chuckled. “Don’t forget our little contest in the morning.”
Contest? “This ain’t no place for games, city boy.”
Ben’s eyes hardened as he glared at Reginald. “This is no game, Jake. This man intends to dishonor my sister, and I won’t have it.”
Much Ado About Mavericks Page 24
