Loveland

by Andrea Downing

  “Yes. He explained ever’thin’ to me. I understand. It’s three years.”

  “You’ll be thirty-one.”

  “I know. Are you telling me you’re not worth waiting for?”

  “No, I…” She stopped. Her face was wet and Jesse wiped it with his bandana.

  “Well, I thought I was gonna make you happy.”

  “You do make me happy. You make me very happy, Jesse Makepeace.”

  “Well, you don’t look so. Say, are you still gonna be Lady Alex?”

  “Yes. I shall be Lady Alexandra Makepeace—with a few other names in-between.”

  “I ain’t worried ’bout t’other names, Alex,” he said gently. “Just those two.” He bent to kiss her lightly. “I haven’t a ring.”

  “Don’t need a ring. I think you’ve got your lariat around me but good.”

  “Well, anyway, I did get you this a while back. Thought you might like it now.” He unwrapped something from one of his bandanas and handed it to her. It was the silver cuff set with turquoise worn by the old Indian who used to sit outside the Benders’ shop.

  “Oh, my gosh! How did you get this?”

  “Well, bought it of course. It was like you said, if he sold it he could eat, and he saw the sense in that.”

  “You’ve kept it all this time?”

  “I had it to give you for your thirteenth birthday but you were gone by then.”

  “Oh, Jesse!” She threw her arms around him. “It’s beautiful! It’s wonderful! I shall never take it off. Really. I promise. Never.”

  ****

  Rose was just finishing Alex’s hair when there was a knock on the door and Oliver came in. He looked the girl over as she sat there at the dressing table. Rose twisted her hair at the back and set the pins in.

  “No pearls in it tonight?” he asked.

  “No. No time I’m afraid,” Alex answered. “Anyway, the gown has pearls.” She stood to show him the shimmering gown, a pale pink evening dress with seed pearls embroidered throughout in designs of flowers right down the bodice to the hem. Rose gave her a final primp, and Oliver sighed.

  “No doubt who’ll be the belle of the Ball tonight. Is that gown by Worth?” he asked.

  “Yes! Extravagant but it was a present from David. David always buys me Worth. He says I’m Monsieur Worth’s muse and there ought to be a discount but I don’t think there is!” She turned once more for him to admire.

  Oliver motioned for Rose to leave them, and he waited for the door to close. “I know you said no presents…” He tentatively held out a leather box. “Don’t consider this a present, then. I bought this for your mother…when I went back. Of course, she was gone by then and I didn’t know, hadn’t received the news on my travels. I’m not really sure why I kept this all these years. I suppose I thought for a while I would marry someone else and might give it to them. Then I realized I would never find anyone as lovely as your mother, Alex—until now, of course. She would be glad to know you had them. Really.”

  Alex took the box and slowly opened it, her eyes wide as she let out a breath in delight. It was a parure of a delicate diamond tiara, with a matching necklace and earrings. “It’s magnificent,” she sighed. “But Uncle Oliver, I can’t...”

  “Of course you can. I think you’ll have to take off that bracelet, however.”

  Alex looked up at him. “I can’t. Jesse gave it to me. I said I would never take it off and I won’t, not for this, not for anything.” She closed the lid and started to hand him the box, but he gently pushed it back to her.

  “Let me help you get it on,” he said.

  ****

  When Oliver brought Alex down the steps from the French doors and onto the back terrace, there was a united gasp. She stood there for a moment, laughing lightly before turning to search for Jesse, who said he would come over for a bit with the Yosts. She spotted him across the terrace at the far side but before she could even get off the steps people were coming over, engaging her in conversation, wishing her well, giving her birthday salutations. By the time she had reached the Yosts, Jesse had gone.

  “He said he’d come for you at nine on the dot,” Tom assured her.

  “How will he know when it’s nine?” Alex queried. “He hasn’t got a watch!”

  “Well, he’ll know. Don’t you worry.”

  “Can I have that dress when you’ve outgrown it?” Sue Ann asked.

  “Oh, Sue Ann really. First of all,” Annie told her, “Lady Alex won’t be growing anymore and, secondly, just where do you think you’ll be wearing something like that?”

  “To my eighteenth birthday party!”

  “I tell you what,” Alex said, “you can most definitely have it when I’ve finished with it. When you’re older. All right?”

  She went to politely mix with the rest of her guests and moved from table to table to chat as they dined, but always she was waiting for nine o’clock and the chance to slip away. After dinner, the Yosts excused themselves when the dancing started at 8:30, and Alex told Wilson to let her know when it was nine. At his nod, she slipped into the covered walkway to the front.

  Jesse met her halfway. “I thought you were a Lady, not a Princess,” he said.

  She laughed. “And I thought you were a cowpuncher, not a knight in shining armor!”

  “I think it’s you who’s shining, lady. You got yourself some hardware there. You better be packin’ your six-shooter if you’re totin’ that stuff about.”

  “It was to be my mother’s, apparently.” She looked at him, then showed him she was still wearing his bracelet.

  “Come here, you.” He pulled her to him. “I don’t think I wished you happy birthday yet.”

  His kiss was devouring, overwhelming. With Jesse enveloping her, Alex felt like the world had disappeared. There was nothing more than their existence together. The more consuming his kiss became, the more she yearned for him. Finally she pulled away to catch her breath. “I can’t wait three years, Jesse, I—”

  “Hey, y’all,” said Cal coming up behind them. “We’re all waitin’ for the birthday gal.”

  Alex took a deep breath, startled by the sudden intrusion, then collected her thoughts. “I’ll be right there. I’m going to find champagne and glasses—none of that moonshine you all drink!”

  “We drink good decent whiskey, gal,” Cal told her. “None of that fancy lady’s stuff.”

  “Ha! I’ll be there in a few minutes,” and off she went.

  She found Jesse sitting on the grassy bank opposite the corral, the Yosts close by. Two ice-cold bottles of champagne and two glasses in her hand, she knelt down quietly behind him and touched the bottles to his bare neck.

  “Darn!” He jumped and grabbed her hand behind him, pulling her forward and laughing. “What the heck?”

  “Do you know how to open champagne?” She held out the bottles.

  “Why, sure, we have it out there on the range every afternoon. Let me see that,” he said taking a bottle.

  Alex had to stop herself from giggling as Jesse tried to figure it out. She took the bottle back. The Yosts strolled over to join them.

  “Just to prove to you I’m not totally useless, you first remove the foil then unwind this little bit here and remove the wire cage and cap. Has anyone got a bandana on them, or a hankie?” she asked. Jesse pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “Then you ease out the cork, but hold one of the glasses up just in case.” With the hanky around the cork she eased it out and quickly poured the first bit into one of the glasses, then into the other Jesse was holding in his other hand, and back and forth until they both were filled. “That’s for Tom and Annie,” she said. “We can share the bottle!”

  “I’d never drank champagne before tonight,” Annie admitted.

  They all toasted Alex’s health.

  The other punchers gathered around, drinks in hand, wishing Alex well. Garrett pushed his way to the front along with Cal, boxes tucked under their arms. Alex didn�
��t see Garrison come up behind her holding her hat.

  “Lady Lex,” Garrett started.

  “I said no presents.”

  “Not to us, you didn’t,” Jesse corrected. “That was on them fancy invites. We didn’t get those, did we boys?”

  “Nope, sure didn’t get no invite,” Cal said. “Jus’ sorta decided...”

  “All right. All right, get on with it if you must.” Alex slugged back some champagne, the bubbles going up her nose and making her eyes tear. Jesse gently took the bottle and put his free arm about her.

  “So like I was sayin’, Lady Lex,” Garrett at last continued. “Aw, heck, boss.” He handed the package to Tom. “You do it.”

  Tom took the two presents from Garrett and Cal. “Happy Eighteenth, sweetheart. From all of us.” He handed Alex the two boxes.

  One was small but long and thin, the other much larger but also long. She opened the small one first, tears already making trails down her cheek, which Jesse kept dabbing with the champagne hankie and laughing as he did so.

  “You are about the cryingest dang woman,” he announced as he wiped her cheek.

  “Oh, shush. Oh, my gosh!” she exclaimed. Inside was the silver and feather hatband she had declined to pay for at Hope’s Hats. She turned to Jesse and kissed him, full on the mouth.

  “Hey, jus’ a second lady.” Garrison handed Alex her hat to put it on. “I think we all get one of those!”

  Alex laughed. “Well, mwa!” she said kissing her hand and waving it at them. She pushed the band onto the hat, felt for her tiara and put the hat on over it, smiling up at them. Then she started to untie the bow on the other box. As she did so, she instinctively knew what was going to be inside. More tears fell.

  Jesse dabbed some more. He looked up at the punchers. “Boys, we got more rain here than Colorado sees in a year!” They all laughed.

  Alex poked him with her elbow, then pulled the ribbon off and lifted the top. There inside were her western boots, pointed heeled boots, in brown and white calf and snakeskin, made to order by a Dallas bootmaker. “Oh my Lord,” she whispered. “You all are just the best friends any girl could ask for. Really. I mean it.”

  And the rain fell pretty steadily after that.

  The party went on with dancing and food and entertainment. Alex took one of Cal’s guitars and did an old duet with him of The Dyin’ Cowgirl but declined an encore in favor of more dancing with Jesse. Toward midnight she realized she was going to have to go back to the house to say goodnight to her other guests and thank them for coming, but she was reluctant to let the evening end—and let Jesse go.

  “Do me a favor,” she said at last.

  “For you, anything.”

  “Come with me up to Boyd to see the sunrise. You get to see sunrise all the time but I don’t. I’d really like to do that.”

  “Alex, that’s a two-hour ride.”

  “I know. So we’ll have plenty of time to get there before sunrise. And, anyway, there’ll be no one there now since they’re all either down here or on herd. And the punchers will be clearing up here tomorrow morning.”

  “Don’t you feel… Do you really want to go back there after the shootin’s and all?”

  “I can’t tarnish the place because of what happened. It’s so lovely. And you’ll be there. It’s not as if I were going on my own. Sunrise over the lake?”

  He agreed. Alex went off to say goodnight to her guests and take off her jewels. She let Oliver know where she was going but got no response except to say he hoped Jesse had his gun with him.

  Jesse changed his clothes and saddled up the two horses. He was surprised when Alex came back with only a duster over her gown, and her new boots on.

  “I thought you were going to change,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Nope. Too much of a hurry!”

  “You’ll ruin your—” but she was up on Ranger, her dress hiked up, some bare stockinged leg showing above the boots as she rode off.

  “You do know sunrise isn’t until nearly 6.30?” But Alex was gone. Jesse took off after her, watching as her hair fell loose and the tendrils blew in the wind like fingers beckoning him. After a while she pulled up to listen. A coyote barked in the distance and somewhere an owl hooted. The sound of the train whistle was carried in the wind.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been out here on the range this late at night. It’s wonderful.”

  Jesse could only just make out her eyes glistening as she turned to him, but he leaned across and pulled her over, finding her mouth. “You’re wonderful.”

  The camp consisted of a log cabin with a stone fireplace and a few bits of haphazard furniture for the men—a table and rough stools, two cots with bedrolls left. Cooking was done outside or in the fireplace, and an outhouse was nothing more than an enclosed pit.

  “What now?” asked Jesse as they rode up.

  Alex took a deep breath, dismounted and tied up Ranger while Jesse came and saw to the horses. She wandered about, pulling the duster around her in the cool night air. At last she went into the cabin. “Have you a match?” she asked sticking her head back out.

  He came in after her and lit the lantern but it was low on oil and didn’t give off much light. She took the duster off and stood there, silently facing him, then went over and took off his hat, placed it on the table, and turned back to him.

  “Alex...” he started, knowing.

  She didn’t say a word, but just stood there.

  “It’s not…it wouldn’t be right,” he said softly. “You know, you know there ain’t nothing more in this whole wide world I want at this minute but—”

  She sat on a stool and pulled off first one boot, then the other and kicked them aside, then she stood and put her leg on the stool to roll down her stockings one by one. He marveled at her wantonness, her lack of propriety. “Alex, stop,” he said gently putting his hand on hers. “Stop. You know…” But he was lost. She took his face in her hands and pulled him to her, kissing him so any resistance he had had was now shattered. His heart beat faster at the sweetness of her mouth, the softness of her tongue, the lack of air as they sought each other. His hands moved over her feeling the outline of her body, knowing its curves, its gentleness, its yielding. “Are you sure?” he asked at last.

  “I want you so much, Jesse, I want you so much, I’m not going to wait three years. And if…if anything happens, so what? We’ll get married, that’ll be it.”

  “Yes, but Alex, you can’t—I mean it’d be a ‘shotgun’ wedding, it’s not how—”

  “Ssh,” she whispered. She put her finger to his mouth and then turned for him to unhook her gown. He ran his hands gently down her exposed back, feeling each scar, then kissed her neck.

  “You have nothing on under...”

  “It’s how the gown is made. Monsieur Worth builds the undergarments into the gown.” Her voice was at barely a whisper, a tremor showing her nerves. She turned and still held the gown up to her, then, looking at Jesse, let it drop to the floor.

  His hand went to caress her breasts, gently touched their delicacy, their curve. He felt her nipples harden at expectation of what was to come. “You know how beautiful you are?” he said, quiet as the night surrounding them. “Do you?”

  She got up on tiptoes and sought the warmth and wetness of his mouth while her hands found the buttons of his shirt. In the soft glow of the lamplight, their shadows became one even as they did so on their makeshift bed.

  Alex awoke sometime in the early morning to find Jesse’s face so close to hers she could see the specks in his eyes, and feel his breath on her face. She remembered then the awkwardness of his undressing, the surprise she had felt that his naked body looked so much like the marble statues she had seen. For a moment she had been mesmerized by him, silently watching him, entranced—she thought he was magnificent. There was the revelation his hands were so gentle as he caressed her body, as his fingers ran over her skin, slipped between her thighs to arouse her, and his manhood was so hard
and yet softly skinned as she ran her own hand over it. He had entwined his fingers in her hair as he carefully pulled it loose and held her head as his kiss started soft and warm, going deeper as she yielded to him. She remembered, too, the comfort of the weight of his body, the feel of his skin next to hers, and the momentary shock of his entering her—and later the slight regret when he withdrew. But for now she was happy. She wanted Jesse and she felt a kind of belonging she had never known.

  Alex pushed some hair from his forehead and kissed him.

  “Do you know how beautiful you are?” she said.

  “That’s my line, woman. Men aren’t beautiful.”

  “You are. Inside and out.” She pushed him over and wound her legs through his, propping herself up to look at him. “I should do another painting of you. A nude!”

  “Ha! No you don’t. I wouldn’t be able to show my face in the state of Colorado—in three states—if you did that!” He reached up to take her head in his hands and pull her in for a kiss.

  “Don’t leave me.” Her voice was suddenly serious. “Promise you won’t leave me?”

  “Now where do you think I’m runnin’ off to?” He wondered then if she felt any guilt, was sorry for what they had done, but her eyes said otherwise. It was he who felt the guilt, he who would never let her go now.

  “I want to wake up every morning seeing you there beside me. I want— Have we got any paper and pencil here?” she asked abruptly. She slid off Jesse to the floor taking the duster they had thrown on top with her.

  “Alex!” Jesse jumped off the cot to pull his pants on but Alex was already out the door getting something from her saddlebags. He stood in the doorway watching her. “Your feet are bare. You’ll get bit, ya dang fool woman.”

  She pushed him back inside and sat on the tabletop by the lantern while he perched on a stool watching her. Her hand moved so quickly in the dim light it was a marvel to him. “How come I can’t do that?” he asked. “I shoot pretty well.”

  “I don’t know. Here try.” She handed him the pad and pencil as she pulled on her boots to go back outside for a moment. When she came back in, he pushed the pad over to her to show her his drawing.