by Merry Farmer
“That reflection from Bonneville’s man,” Travis said.
Luke swallowed. “Yeah.” His heart hardened and he clenched his hands into fists around his reins.
Eden must have seen him searching for something, because she had stiffened from her defeated posture and was looking over her shoulder. The last thing Luke wanted was for her to worry more than she already was. He gave up searching behind them and focused on the task in front of them.
“There’s a nice, sandy, shallow spot right over that way.” He pointed across the plain in front of them as the herd plodded closer. “Should be easy enough to cross, as long as none of the cattle strays too far downstream toward those rapids.”
He went on to explain the lay of the land on the other side and the depth of the stream. Travis nodded with confidence.
“Sounds like you’ve got this figured out,” he said with a smile. “Take the herd across.”
Of all the times for Travis to hand the reins over to him with a hearty vote of confidence, it had to come at exactly the moment when Luke would have rather abandoned his duties to chase after whatever was upsetting his wife. This was his moment to shine, and suddenly his thoughts were everywhere else. He clenched his jaw, tightened his grip on his reins, and nodded to Travis. A true leader finished the job in front of them, no matter what the distraction. If he could get the herd across quickly and efficiently, then he would have more time to devote to solving Eden’s problems.
“Right.” He sat taller and waved to the others. “Lead the herd this way. There’s a good spot to cross between those trees and that pile of rocks,” he shouted.
He shouldn’t have been so surprised that Mason and Cody and the other who had had no problem poking fun at him a few days before waved and hollered back and went exactly where he pointed them. The herd shifted its course, slowly marching on to the ideal river crossing. It was as hard to believe as it was thrilling that everything was falling into place. Luke breathed in the proud sensation of leadership, but only for a moment. He had a job to do.
When the first of the cattle splashed into the river, right after Mike drove the chuck wagon across, he was there to guide them across. The ruckus that the herd made walking across land was nothing to the splashing and lowing and thunder they made as they forded the river. As the front of the herd ran up onto the opposite bank, water splashed everywhere, making the far side of the river a muddy mess. Luke directed Mason and Travis to continue on at point as the thick of the herd gamboled across the current.
“Keep them away from anything farther downriver than those bushes,” he ordered Eden and Billy as the middle of the herd clogged the river. “There are rocks starting about that point, and the water gets deeper.”
“Yes, boss,” Billy replied without question.
That simple acknowledgement was almost as heady as Eden’s proud smile as she rode up to his side. “I knew you had it in you,” she said, eyes flashing.
Lord above, nothing on earth felt as good as the approval of a man’s wife. At that moment, he felt like he could drive all the world’s cattle across the Amazon River. He felt like he could carry a cow or two on his back up to the mountain peaks in the distance. He felt like he could—
Another flash of reflected light jerked him toward the horizon behind them. He walked Marshall to the side, squinted and studied the horizon. It took all his willpower not to charge after the light. The riverbed was too low to see anything, but that flash was unmistakable.
“What is it? What do you see?” Eden asked, too breathless for his liking.
The last thing he wanted to do was answer her fears. “A flash,” he admitted, dragging his gaze from the horizon to meet hers. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She met his declaration with a weak smile. “I know.”
“I’m serious, Eden. Whatever that is, I will protect you with my life.”
“Whoa! Whoa there! Stray!”
Luke jerked at the sound of Billy’s call just in time to see one of the cattle who had strayed too far downstream losing its footing. It lowed in fear and splashed before slipping under the water.
Luke didn’t wait. He wheeled Marshall around and ran through the unsteady water as fast as he could to reach the cow. Marshall faltered when they hit the rocks, and Luke was forced to slow down and take it easy. The struggling cow thrashed and screamed, but it didn’t lose its footing entirely.
“Easy there, girl, easy,” Luke called out to it. He fought against the current and guided Marshall over the rocky riverbed as carefully as he could. The rocks were intermittent in this part of the river, but a few more yards downstream and not only would the cow be lost, he and Marshall might find themselves in danger too. Time was of the essence.
“It’s okay, girl, it’s okay.” He pushed Marshall forward until they stood between the cow and the rockier riverbed. As soon as he was close enough, he reached out and touched the cow’s neck. It wasn’t much, but the simple gesture served to point the cow in the right direction and let it know it wasn’t alone.
From there, Luke walked Marshall diagonally through the current and upstream. The cow was reluctant at first, but as soon as it was able to take two steps through the chest-deep water without hitting stones, its confidence grew. Within minutes, it changed course and made straight for the rest of the herd as they crossed in the smoother section of river. Another minute later, and Luke and the cow were charging up the far side of the river onto the muddy plain on the other side, drenched by unharmed. Luke’s pulse pounded and his hands shook slightly, but they’d made it.
It would have been far easier for Eden to enjoy the celebration in Luke’s honor after the river crossing that evening if it weren’t for the creeping, pernicious fear that had her wanting to pick up everything and run. She couldn’t have been prouder of Luke, and was happy that he was getting his due at last. But every snap of a twig and every rustling critter in the bushes had her gasping and jumping. Brent had made good on his threat. Somehow, he’d found her.
“And did you see the way he just reached over and touched the cow’s back?” Billy laughed, telling the story yet again from his angle. “It was like he had some sort of power over the dumb thing to make it calm down and get back in line.”
Luke blushed and smirked as his buddies sang his praises. “It was nothing. The poor cow was frightened and just needed to be pointed in the right direction.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t see how close to the edge of those rapids you were?” Mason went on. “One wrong step and it would have been disaster.”
The others hummed and nodded in agreement as they finished off the fried chicken Eden had made to mark the occasion. She could barely eat. The men were right—Luke had come heart-stoppingly close to hitting the rapids, and who knows what would have happened then.
“And then he comes up on the riverbank with that stoic expression and says ‘Everyone all right?’” Billy went on with his story.
The others chuckled and guffawed. Oscar was close enough to thump Luke on the back.
Eden smiled at the praise Luke was getting for half a second before the shriek of a night bird somewhere across the plain sent her blood running cold. She hid her nerves by standing and collecting everyone’s empty dishes.
“You should have been close enough to see the expression on his face,” Billy went on.
Eden tuned him out. She carried an armful of tin plates to the chuck wagon and began cleaning them out with a greasy, old rag. Her eyes kept darting toward the horizon behind them. Night was falling fast, but she was still able to make out most shapes against the backdrop of the river—now a hundred yards behind them or more—and the plain and mountains beyond. There weren’t many hills or much vegetation in this part of Wyoming, but that didn’t mean Brent and the others couldn’t find a place to hide. In fact, they had always been able to hide, whether there was cover or not.
“Everything all right there, Mrs. Chance?” Cody asked, saying her name with respect in
stead of teasing this time.
“Huh?” Eden dragged her eyes away from the horizon. “Yeah. Fine.” She turned back to the chuck wagon and the task at hand.
“I’d love to see Bonneville’s men try and ambush us now,” Mike said. Eden’s ears pricked. The topic of the conversation had changed.
“Yeah,” Cody agreed. “They think they can be all sly and sneak up on us way out here? Well, we got the best team of ranch hands and cow pokes this side of Denver.”
“What did you say?” Eden snapped to attention, nearly dropping the plate in her hand in her haste to search the western horizon once more.
“That we’ve got the best team this side of Denver,” Cody repeated.
The shapes along the horizon took on a menacing feel as Eden narrowed her eyes at them. She had her rifle only a few yards away in her bedroll, and her Peacemakers were still holstered at her hips, but if Brent and the boys were close, that might not be enough. “Before that,” she whispered.
The pause that followed was uncomfortable. A few of the men exchanged uncertain glances, half of them directed at Luke.
“Only that whoever Bonneville sent after us to muck up the drive, they don’t stand a chance of sneaking up on us,” Billy said.
“There was only one,” Eden whispered, throat closing by the second.
“No, ma’am,” Mason said in the same tone a ranch hand would use to soothe a skittish cow. “There were three of them about an hour ago.”
“What?” Eden yelped. How could she have missed them? Her heart thundered against her ribs.
Luke stood and walked to her side. His expression was firm and commanding, and he rested a steady hand against her shoulder. “You were cooking supper. We didn’t want to upset you.”
Her mouth went dry as she glanced up at him. She swayed closer to him, wanting to hide in his arms as much as she wanted to turn and draw her revolvers to fight. She’d spent far too long standing and fighting. You couldn’t stand and fight against Brent anyhow. They’d all learned that the hard way.
“Hey.” Luke lowered his voice to a tender caress, cradling her face. “Whoever that is, I won’t let them touch a hair on your head. You’re mine, and I take that responsibility seriously.”
As beautiful as it was to see Luke’s newfound confidence, and as tenderly as his words wrapped around her heart, Eden still wanted to weep. She’d never been a weeper. In fact, she’d made fun of weepy girls since she was two steps out of the cradle. It made her sick to feel so vulnerable, but that’s what had driven her to Hurst Home in the first place.
“I know,” she whispered, doing her best to bolster her confidence. “And I won’t let anyone or anything hurt you either.”
She lifted to her toes to plant a light kiss on his lips. Behind them, a few of the boys whistled and catcalled. Any other day, Eden would have given the lot of them black eyes, but in that moment, their teasing warmed her heart. They were there too. Brent might have been on her tail—and she was certain it was him after seeing the flash from his spyglass—but she had a new gang now.
“Need help cleaning up?” Luke asked, brow raised.
She wanted to tell him to go away and let her do her job on her own, but having him close was too much of a comfort. “Sure,” she said. “You scrape off these plates while I store what food you ravenous beasts didn’t eat.”
It felt good to joke, good to rag on the men that had fast become her friends. The camp settled into companionable chatter as the sun went down. Mike pulled out a harmonica, and Billy a mouth harp, and the boys settled into soothing cattle drive songs. Eden and Luke finished cleaning up supper by the time the last light in the sky faded behind the mountains.
“Come on,” Luke whispered to her while the others were distracted. “Grab your bedroll and we’ll turn in for the night.”
There was a glimmer in his eyes that Eden would have seen on the darkest night. She planted her fists on her hips and hissed, “Luke Chance, there are half a dozen men only yards away wherever we lay our heads.”
Luke answered with a guilty chuckle. “Okay, so we can’t actually do anything.” He swaggered closer to her—peeking around to make sure the chuck wagon shadowed them from any roving attention—and swept her into his arms. “That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a little kissing and cuddling.”
He ended his statement with a kiss that lifted Eden off her toes. His body was large and encompassing around her. His hands held her with a firmness and command that she was more than willing to surrender to. His lips played with hers, and his tongue teased between them, exploring and tasting. It was such a relief that Eden risked sighing aloud and pressing closer to him.
“Uh, you two need some privacy?” Lawson called from the far side of the campfire. His question was followed by chuckles and sniggers.
Luke broke their kiss, but kept Eden in his arms. “Let’s set our bedrolls up at the other end of the camp from those yahoos.”
Eden couldn’t help but giggle and go along. She marched back to the camp to collect her things, sticking her tongue out at the men who winked and chuckled and made faces at her and Luke. Let them think whatever they would. Men were funny. If the boys thought she and Luke were getting up to mischief that night, it would probably raise their estimation of Luke even higher.
“I’ll set them straight if you want,” Luke told her once they found a sheltered spot on the far side of the chuck wagon, well away from the others, but close enough to be at the ready if there should be trouble.
“Nah.” Eden brushed his offer away as she pulled off her boots, shrugged out of her jacket, unbuckled her gun belt and set it at the head of her bedroll, then lay down to wrap herself in her blanket. “Let them think what they want. I don’t give a hoot.”
“Me neither.”
Luke kicked off his boots and pulled off his shirt, leaving him in nothing but his trousers. He had set his bedroll on the ground beside Eden’s, but as soon as he lay down and drew the blanket over him, he reached for Eden.
“What in heaven’s name are you doing?” she giggled as he scooped her around, upending her entire bedroll as he jumbled hers together with his.
“Making a better bedroll,” he answered.
It took a little shimmying, some sitting up and shifting around, and a lot of giggling, but within a few minutes, they’d folded the padding of their bedrolls together and thrown both thin blankets over top of both of them. Eden snuggled against Luke’s side, resting her head on his shoulder and wishing more than anything that there weren’t half a dozen other men within earshot. She was jumpier than a sack-full of frogs and wanted nothing more than to shed her clothes and play hide the snake with her husband. Judging by the way his body heated, he was feeling the same way.
“This was a terrible idea, you realize,” she whispered, careful to be quiet enough that the others—still chatting and singing by the campfire—wouldn’t hear them.
“Are you kidding? This is the best idea ever,” Luke hummed back. “I’ve got everything right where I want it.”
He proved his point by tugging her blouse out of the waist of her split skirt and sliding a hand up to squeeze her breast.
“And you expect to sleep like this?” she hissed.
“No, ma’am,” he answered with a low chuckle that sent vibrations through both of them.
“Then what are we here for?”
He rolled partially over her, enough to tug her close and plant a kiss on her lips. Eden would have given into it fully, if not for the continued singing behind them.
“We’re here to keep each other safe, remember?” Luke murmured breathlessly. His fingers rubbed her nipple to a hard point.
A deep, delicious ache formed in Eden’s core. Her dear, sweet husband was going to drive her crazy with wanting, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop them both from acute frustration. But two could play at that game.
“Sweetie,” she drawled, moving a hand down his bare torso to the top of his trousers. “You
asked for it.”
With deft fingers, she opened the front of his trousers, tugged loose the drawstring of his drawers, and slipped her hand inside. He gasped as she stroked against his swiftly-hardening length, then tried to swallow a hungry groan.
“Shh,” she scolded him, fighting not to laugh. “You want your buddies to hear you?”
“Cruel woman,” he choked out.
She answered by tightening her grip, reaching down to fondle his balls before sliding her hand deftly up his length. Luke bit back an exclamation of some sort that turned into a strangled, pleading hum. Good. It served him right. She intensified her stroking, fiddling with his flared head and grinning at the slickness that came to the tip.
She was certain of her impending victory in their bedroll games when he pinched her nipple—eliciting a gasp—then burrowed his hand down along her stomach and under the waist of her skirt. She hadn’t even realized he’d unhooked the back with the hand under her until his fingers sought out the curls between her legs. Her rebellious body arched toward his touch, and before she could stop herself, she’d cheated her legs apart enough for him to delve far enough to reach his goal.
“Stop,” she gasped, then giggled, as he flicked at the aching nub of her pleasure.
“You stop first,” he half-laughed, half-panted.
She replied by fisting him harder. He grunted, then retaliated by inching a finger closer to her entrance. He didn’t have enough room to slip inside of her, but that hardly mattered. His naughty fingers slid back to tease her clitoris. The last thing Eden thought before her body burst into waves of shimmering pleasure was that she had taught him how a woman’s body worked, and what she liked, a little too well on their wedding night.
She barely swallowed her cry of release as it came over her, but at least she was rewarded by Luke’s groin tightening, his own muffled cry, and a slick, hot wetness that spilled over her hand. The contest left the two of them hot and panting. As the intensity of her pleasure drifted away to warm, floating completeness, Eden giggled. She kept her hand curled loosely around his softening member as Luke laughed with her.
