Thunder on the Plains

by Rosanne Bittner

  Sunny screamed and laughed when Colt threw her into the cold water. He laughed with her, quickly grabbing her and dunking her under the water for a kiss before coming up for air. They splashed each other as they floated toward a rock, where he propped her up and began lathering her.

  Sunny threw her head back and closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of letting him bathe her, letting him wash every part of her. He pulled her from the rock and dunked her again, and she laughed and took the soap from him. “It’s my turn,” she told him.

  They moved closer to the edge of the river, where it was shallower, and Colt stood in water that came only to his knees. He watched her as she soaped him, her hair slicked back from her face. It reminded him of that night when he had supper with her and her father out in this very same country, when she had bathed and then come to the table. That was the night Bo Landers had warned him to stay away from his daughter. The memory brought back the fear that he did not want to face yet—that he should have done just that.

  Sunny washed him gently, exploring, watching how that most intriguing part of him swelled when she slid her hand over it with the slippery soap. “Don’t stop,” he told her, his voice gruff with ecstasy. Moments later his life spilled on her, and she was awed by this curious but wonderful thing between man and woman, this glorious way God had created for man and woman to consummate their love. Suddenly, she wanted babies—babies for Colt, a son to replace the one he had lost.

  They went back into the river to wash and rinse off yet again. Colt threw the soap up onshore, and they swam for a while, playing like carefree children. He carried her out of the water and laid her on the blanket, handing her a towel. It was nearly dark now, and he added a little more wood to the fire before picking up another towel and drying himself off. He looked down at her lying there watching him, a towel pulled over her. He grinned, leaning over her and pulling the towel away. “I’ll warm you up the way you asked me to,” he told her, meeting her mouth. He explored deeply with his tongue while he moved a big hand over her breasts, her belly, down to that part of her that belonged to him now.

  She whimpered and returned his kisses wildly when he moved a finger deep inside of her suggestively. Sunny knew she would still feel pain, but this was Colt, her precious Colt and he loved her. He had a way of easing the pain, a way of touching her that made her want him in spite of it. She wondered at her own boldness, the way he had of making her ignore all modesty, lose all inhibitions. His lips moved down to again claim and explore her intimately. She gripped the blanket in her fists as his warm lips and gentle tongue again pulled at that secret part of her. She had not known her own body until now, was not aware of the magical, wonderful feelings a woman could experience. Could a man claim his woman more fully than this?

  She felt the wonderful release pulse through her again, and quickly Colt moved back over her, pushed himself deep inside her. Her body needed him, and she had no control over that need, not when it was Colt who was touching her, Colt who was bringing to life all the buried passions.

  Colt grasped her under the hips, glorying in her depths, rising up on his knees and lifting her to himself. He thought how in spite of her boldness, she was truly offering herself to him in sweet innocence, allowing him to teach her the joy of being a woman, trusting in his love. She was discovering something new and wonderful, and he loved her so. At last now there was something he could give her, a kind of freedom she had never known.

  Their eyes met, and Sunny arched up to him in wild passion, thinking how he looked the conquering warrior. Yes, she truly was his captive now, and his touch was like a drug that made her lose all reserve. His hair hung over his bronze shoulders, and his muscles were hard from grasping her, his eyes on fire with his own ecstasy. She gloried in the fact that the pain was nearly gone now. He moved in ways that made her feel insane with the want of him, not just in deep thrusts, but in magical circles that brought such a thrill that she could hardly get her breath.

  It was strange to think that this powerful man could break her in half if he chose to, yet he could be so gentle. He bore scars from fierce fighting; she had seen him kill men without a flinch. Yet here he was, mating with her. To her he was simply sweet, loving, gentle Colt, who was not just her friend but her lover.

  His life spilled into her, and he slowly relaxed. He reached over and took hold of another blanket, lay down beside her then and covered them. They were still for several minutes, saying nothing. She settled against his shoulder, and Colt petted her hair. “You hungry?” he finally asked.

  “A little.”

  He kissed her hair. “We have to talk, Sunny.”

  She rubbed his chest, and he noticed the diamond again. She closed her eyes. “I know. Let’s wash and eat first. We have all night to talk.”

  He took her hand and kissed her palm, then turned the hand to look first at the ring, then into her eyes.

  “Take it off,” she told him.

  He frowned. “Sunny—”

  “Take it off. I’m not marrying Blaine.”

  He felt an odd heaviness of impending disaster as he removed the ring. She took it from him and rose, walking over to put it in her saddlebags. Colt watched her, thinking how firm and beautiful her bottom was. How could a man get enough of a woman like Sunny? How could he not love someone so sweet? He felt a fierce jealousy at the thought that Blaine might have married her and been first to take her, and he was glad it hadn’t happened that way. He knew what she was doing was not easy for her, nor would it be easy for her to tell Blaine she was not marrying him.

  Still, even with Blaine gone, could they really be together? He reminded himself who she was. That beautiful naked woman walking back to him was Sunny Landers, queen of the Union Pacific, the richest single woman in Chicago, maybe in the country. What the hell was he doing lying here with her along the Platte River, claiming her for his own?

  “Let’s go wash again,” she told him. He saw the tears in her eyes. “Then we’ll eat.”

  He got up and followed her to the river.

  ***

  Colt rolled himself a cigarette and took a stick from the fire to light it. He threw back the stick and took a deep drag, feeling pleasantly full from the fresh bread and turkey meat Sunny had brought with her. He picked up a tin cup filled with coffee and watched her repack some of the food and their plates. She had slipped on a simple cotton sleeping gown, and on her it looked elegant. Colt decided she was the type of woman who could look good in a potato sack.

  He sat wearing only his long johns. It was one of the warmest nights so far this spring, made more pleasant by the fact that this time of year there were still no mosquitoes. Sunny leaned over the fire and poured herself some coffee, and he thought how pretty she looked in the firelight, while Sunny in turn was thinking how wonderfully handsome and dangerous and seductive he looked, his bronze skin glowing by the soft light of the flames. She sat down beside him and sighed deeply. “I’ve wanted this moment to come ever since I said good-bye to you at Fort Laramie,” she told him. “So many times in my dreams, I—” She looked at him. “Did you dream about being with me sometimes?”

  He met her gaze, the cigarette still in his mouth. “What do you think?”

  She smiled softly. “I think you wanted me that night at Fort Laramie.”

  He gave her a teasing grin. “You were just a kid.”

  “I was old enough, especially in the eyes of someone like you who has lived among Indians and such. I’ve always heard Indian women marry quite young.”

  “Some do.” The air hung silent for a moment. “You saying we’re going to marry?”

  She sipped some of her coffee. “It’s not for me to say.”

  He smoked quietly for a moment. “Sunny, it isn’t a matter of whether or not I want to marry you. You know damn well I’d love you to be my wife, to be a mother to my children. But you also
know the problems we face, the reasons we both fought this for so long. I could never be a Blaine O’Brien or anything like your father or—”

  “I would never want that. What I love about you is that you are what you are, no pretense, no concern for outspending the next man, no fancy notions. Surely we can find some kind of compromise, Colt.”

  He leaned back on one elbow. “Well, we sure as hell know we can’t go through life trying to stay away from each other.” He took the cigarette from his mouth and blew out smoke in a deep sigh. “All right, let’s weigh the facts here. I could never go back to Omaha with you and start wearing fancy suits and going to board meetings and such—and if I left all that business part of it to you, what would I do there? I’d go crazy trying to make myself useful. And I sure as hell wouldn’t want to just sit around living the high life, making Vince and everybody else believe I married you so I could lie around and live off your money, which we both know is exactly what they’re going to think.

  “Now, you,” he continued, “in turn, can’t come out here and live like just any common settler woman. For one thing, you have a railroad to finish. I know how much that means to you, Sunny, no matter how much you might love me. You also have a fiancé who’ll be coming back here anytime now expecting to take you to Chicago to marry him. Maybe I should go back with you for the time being, just for moral support. I don’t like the prospect of you facing Blaine alone, or Vince, for that matter.”

  She stared at the fire. “I’m not worried about Vince. I’ve been handling him alone for years now. He’ll rant and rave, but there’s really nothing he can do. I am a little worried about Blaine. After all these years, he’ll be terribly angry.”

  Colt sat up a little straighter. “Would he hurt you?”

  She met his eyes. “No.” She smiled at the look in his eyes. “You’d kill for me, wouldn’t you?”

  He took another drag on the cigarette. “I already have in the past. Have you forgotten those buffalo hunters? You don’t think I did that just as part of my job in protecting you, do you? It was the thought of what they had in mind to do to you. I wasn’t about to let them touch something as beautiful and innocent as you, especially when I wanted you for myself.”

  She sighed and leaned closer. “I wish you would have told me then. I loved you so much, Colt.”

  He tossed the cigarette into the fire. “I figured such a relationship was impossible.” He turned to meet her eyes. “Maybe it still is.”

  She felt the pain in her throat at the remark. He lay back and she stretched out beside him. “We’ll find a way, Colt. I can’t stand the thought of leaving you, but I suppose for the time being I’ll have to. I’m going to go back to Omaha and tell Blaine when he comes that I can’t marry him, that I just don’t love him the way I should. I would take you with me, but I want to spare you as much as I can. Just breaking up with Blaine will bring terrible gossip. I don’t want you involved right away.”

  “Sunny, I’m a man. I can take it. I don’t want you going back alone.”

  “It has to be that way. I won’t have people insulting you. We have to take this one step at a time. After a while we’ll find ways to be together, slowly let people know what’s happening—that we’re in love and we’re going to marry. If I break up with Blaine and we tell everyone at the same time about us, the cruel gossip will be that much worse.”

  She touched his face, studying his eyes. “There must be a way to make it work, Colt. I want to have your children. I want you always in my life, and we can’t just carry on an affair forever. We have to make it legal so we can be free always to do this whenever we please.” She stroked his hair back from his face, studying the scar over his eye. “We have to take a step at a time. The headlines will scream with the story, I can assure you, and we have to be prepared—you have to be prepared. I’m used to the attention, but you aren’t.” Her eyes teared. “I don’t want all the gossip and remarks and cruelty of others to change you, make you hate me in the end. That’s what I fear most.”

  He took hold of her wrist and kissed her hand. “I could never hate you. But I understand why we have to do this slowly. You just remember that I’m here for you, and all I need is one telegram telling me to come to Omaha and I’ll be there, gossip or not. In the meantime, maybe we’ll find a solution to how in hell we’re going to manage to live together. The only damn thing we have in common is that we love each other.”

  She kissed him. “It’s going to have to be enough, Colt. That love will have to get us through some very bad times. I’m so sorry, because it’s mostly my fault. I could just give everything over to Vince and Stuart—”

  “No!” He sat up. “I don’t want a damn thing to do with any of your money, Sunny, but I’d never ask you to give all that up. It would be like me just giving up everything I love out here, denying my heritage, putting on a silk suit and going to operas and pretending to be something I’m not. What you have is a part of you. You shouldn’t have to lose part of yourself just so we can be together. I think we’re both smart enough to find a way to make this work without losing ourselves, losing the very things we love most about each other.”

  He looked down at her, lying back down to rest on one elbow again. “It isn’t the wealth and the power that I love, Sunny. It’s your strength, your determination, the way you took all that on and wouldn’t let Vince browbeat you out of it, wouldn’t break your promises to your father. Now here you are building that railroad you and your father always dreamed about. I’d never take that away from you, just like you’d never make me sit in boardrooms instead of riding free here, where I belong. We can love each other and still be ourselves. And we can instill in our children the best of both of us.”

  She could not stop the tears, and he pulled her into his arms. “You make it sound like we really can do it, Colt.”

  “Of course we can. I know how strong you are, and I know how determined you can be when it’s necessary. I’m just as stubborn.” He moved on top of her. “We’re going to make this work, Sunny. I’m not giving up, not now. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you right here in my arms, and neither one of us is going to give up everything that we are to make that happen.” He kissed her eyes. “One thing that’s different about me from any of those men in your life now—if you came to me tomorrow and said you weren’t worth a dime, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.”

  A tear slipped out of her eye. “I know,” she whispered. But that isn’t how it is, Colt, she thought. She touched his face, thinking how little he understood of how he would be treated back in her world. The night of the dinner party was only one tiny example. Some had gossiped cruelly then, even when she and Colt were only old friends. They had looked upon him as a curiosity, asked ridiculous questions about his heritage. What would it be like if she told the world she was marrying the scout Colt Travis? She was probably wrong to have come out here and done this to him. Now that she realized how much she truly did love him, she couldn’t bear the thought of him taking any kind of ridicule. He was such a proud man, and so untouched by greed and corruption and all the things she put up with almost daily.

  She leaned up and kissed his shoulder. “You’re right about the railroad. That’s one thing I feel responsible to stay with, Colt. Once it’s finished, I’ll have so much more time to devote to a marriage and children. But that doesn’t mean we have to wait until then to be husband and wife. I can hardly stand the thought of having to leave you for a few days.”

  He ran a hand along her slender leg, pushing up her gown and stroking her hip. “And only a few days. Don’t make me have to wait too long.”

  “Blaine will be in Omaha any day now. As soon as I’ve told him and gotten Stuart and Vi used to the idea—as soon as all the hullabaloo is over as far as the newspapers and all—I’ll come back and we can decide how we’re going to handle the rest of our lives together.”

 
He sighed, moving between her legs. “You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

  She traced her fingers over his lips, thinking how she would want to die if people were cruel to him. “Yes. Just be very, very careful while I’m gone, will you? I would hate to lose you now, after finally finding you. I’m your woman now, Colt, and you’re my man, no matter how different we are. It’s right. I know it in my heart.”

  He met her mouth in a sweet kiss, pressing himself against her belly. She wrapped her legs around him, and he reached down and unbuttoned his long johns. He rubbed himself lightly against her, teasing with both his penis and his tongue until she begged him to finish it. Again he moved inside her in a sweet, slow rhythm. He rubbed his cheek against the fullness of her breasts beneath the soft flannel gown, taking comfort in resting against them. He met her mouth, moving his hands under her hips and pushing deep, softly rubbing against that secret place that made her breathing deepen, made her arch toward him until he gloried in the feel of her pulsating climax that pulled sweetly at him and made him groan with the want of her. She was tight and wild and exotic, and he owned every part of her, had tasted and explored and loved her in ways he knew she never would consent to with any other man. Here was one area in which he had more power than any of the men she faced in any boardroom or in Congress.

  He shuddered with his release, then lay on top of her a moment before relaxing beside her.

  Sunny snuggled against him. “We’ll be happy, won’t we, Colt?” she asked, sounding sleepy.

  “Sure we will,” he answered, kissing her hair. She closed her eyes, and he watched her awhile, her face looking small and almost childlike in the light of the fire, with no makeup, her thick hair a tumble. In moments like this she was so vulnerable and almost dependent, nothing like the kind of woman he imagined she had to be when she faced business and political enemies.

  No more, he thought. She won’t face them alone anymore. He might not be a full part of that world, but he would be there for her to turn to, cling to, draw strength from. And he would be her escape. She needed to get away from all that sometimes. That’s why he was better for her if he didn’t change too much. She didn’t need a Blaine O’Brien. She needed a Colt Travis to keep her sane and strong and safe…and loved.