Cherish

by Catherine Anderson

  The thought of her, bathed in sunlight, made his blood pound in his ears. Those slender legs, opened for him, her nightgown arranged precisely over her hipbones so his territory was clearly marked. Oh, yeah…Those cheek-turning brethren were smart men, making up rules like that. Just don’t pay me no nevermind, darlin’. Read your poetry. Howdy-do!

  Next trip to town, he was buying the girl a book. Hell, he’d buy her a dozen. Thick ones. This winter after the snow fell, he’d wake her up of a morning with a sip of coffee, then lay her on her back, open the book, and stick her cute little nose in it. She could read poems while he started his day out right.

  He stepped softly onto the stoop. As he pushed open the cabin door, he lifted up on the crossbar so the leather hinges wouldn’t creak. Still asleep. Silently, he slipped inside, closed the door behind him, and eased the bolt down into its niche. Leaning back against the log wall, he hiked up one foot to remove his boot, then set it carefully on the floor and took off the other boot. After tugging his holster ties loose and unbuckling his gun belt, he carried it with him as he tiptoed across the room.

  She was so precious, lying twisted slightly at the waist, a fine-boned hand palm up next to her face on the pillow, her dainty fingers loosely curled, her hair fanned out around her in a tangled mass of spun gold. Her pink nipple peeked out at him through the shimmering strands, just as he’d once imagined. He locked his gaze on it as he bent to set his guns on the floor. Carefully, quietly, he moved to the window and lifted the shutter bolt to open the panels wide. Soft sunlight poured over her like melted butter.

  Race moved back to the bed and sank onto one knee beside her. She moaned and stretched, arching toward him like a kitten that wanted petting. He bent his head and caught that vulnerable tip of pink between his teeth to tease it ever so lightly with his tongue, his gaze on her face to gauge her reaction. Her fair brows puckered in a frown. Her nipple, however, woke up straightaway and bade him good morning in the sweetest way possible, by swelling and turning instantly hard.

  He loved on it gently, granting what it begged for, content to let Rebecca frown bewilderedly in her sleep while he and her sweet little protuberance struck up a fast friendship. While he provided it with attention, he inched the quilts away from her body. Then taking care not to startle her awake, he ran a hand under her rump to shift her hips. Relaxed in sleep, she offered no resistance as he positioned her slender legs.

  Abandoning her breast, Race moved down on her and parted that nest of gold curls to reveal the pink folds of sweetness. Restlessly she shifted her legs, then moaned in her sleep. At any moment, she would awaken. He didn’t mind. He would have her halfway to heaven again before she ever opened her eyes.

  Over the next three days, Rebecca silently revealed to every man on the ranch who ventured within ten feet of her exactly what her husband had done to her in bed. No question about it. The girl might as well have gone out and painted pictures on the side of the barn, three feet tall and in full color. Every single time Race looked at her, she turned an alarming shade of brilliant red. No matter who was around, no matter how serious or unrelated the topic of conversation, one glance from him in her direction, and it was as if he’d touched a lighted match to her lamp wick.

  To their credit, the fellows were perfect gentlemen about it in Rebecca’s presence, none of them letting on that they noticed anything strange. Well…Pete did choke on his coffee the first time he witnessed it, but Race didn’t hold that against him. A man couldn’t really help it when something startled him and he sucked fluid down his windpipe. But beyond that, none of the men let on by word or look in front of Rebecca that they knew anything had taken place between the newlyweds.

  Unfortunately the same courtesy was not extended to Race outside his bride’s company. Catcalls, hooting laughter, off-color inquiries about how he liked married life. Race got a rash of teasing, the worst part being that it was dished out in such a way that he couldn’t, in good conscience, get angry. Nothing ever was said that could be construed as being disrespectful to Rebecca. Just the opposite. There wasn’t a man on the crew who didn’t hold “the little missus” in high regard. The only time they actually mentioned her name, in fact, was when they were giving Race a hard time about treating her right, the general message being that she was a fine lady, and if they discovered he wasn’t being good to her, they would stand in line to kick his ass.

  Race was hopeful that her blushing would subside as the days passed. For one thing, since that morning when he’d awakened her with kisses, he had done nothing more than cuddle her at night to give her body time to recover. It seemed to him that three days was a mighty long time for her to still be so painfully embarrassed. Hell, for him, it seemed like six months since he’d touched her.

  Not so for her. On the third evening when Race came in from working, all he did was glance her way as he hung up his hat, and she started to glow. He wondered then if he shouldn’t have a talk with her. By the time supper was over, he was convinced of it.

  She’d fixed him a meal fit for a king—fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, fresh biscuits, and snap beans. He ate like a horse. As near as he could count, she had four bites, chewing each a fair hundred times and chasing it down with milk. She’d dropped weight out on the trail, and if this kept up, she was going to drop even more. Since arriving at the ranch, the circles under her eyes were gone, which was a good sign. He couldn’t honestly tell if she’d gotten some color back in her cheeks, though, because lately, whenever he looked at her, all of her turned red.

  After helping her clean up the kitchen, Race battened down the shutters, built up the fire, and sat in the rocker, angling glances over his shoulder at his wife, who seemed unaccountably busy doing nothing at the work counter. As near as he could tell, it was her goal to scrub a hole through the wood with his one and only dishrag, which was fast wearing out.

  “Rebecca? Can you leave that go for a while?” he asked. “I’d like to talk at you for a minute.”

  As she made her way toward him, Race vowed that as soon as he deemed it safe to take her to Cutter Gulch, he was going to buy her a whole new wardrobe from the skin out and burn those damned black dresses. How she managed to look so beautiful in such an ugly, somber sack, he’d never know.

  Clasping her hands behind her, she came to stand before him on the hearth. Her posture and flushed face made her look very like a guilty twelve-year-old who had reason to believe she was about to get her fanny warmed with the razor strop. Resting his elbows on the chair arms, he leaned forward to search her big, blue eyes. No doubt about it, she had her tail tied in a knot about something.

  “Sweetheart…” Race wasn’t exactly sure how to start. After quick consideration, he decided there wasn’t a good way. He just needed to plunge in and see where the current took him. “Are you embarrassed about all we done the other night?”

  That was a fine start. He couldn’t believe he’d asked such a stupid question.

  Her face went from mere red to a throbbing scarlet, and her gaze skittered off to a point at the opposite side of the room. Race noticed her slender arms elbowing out, then straightening, which gave him reason to believe she was wringing her hands behind her back. She was obviously embarrassed. Painfully so. And damned if he knew how to ease her feelings about it. He had really hoped that he might make love to her again tonight, but if she turned this red just talking about it, he was afraid she might go up in flames if he touched her.

  “Rebecca, we gotta talk this out, you know. This ain’t gonna work.”

  She closed her eyes. Race saw her chin start to quiver and realized she was battling against tears. His heart caught, and a wave of guilt swamped him. Here she was, suffering untold agony about some damned thing, and all he wanted to do was strip that black rag off her and give her something more to stew about.

  “I understand,” she said shakily. “We don’t need to talk about it.”

  He was glad one of them understood something. “I think we do n
eed to talk about it. Until we iron this out, we kinda got us a wrinkle.”

  She still had her eyes closed. Instead of answering, she was busy chewing on her lower lip.

  “Honey, I don’t wanna make it hard on you, layin’ things out on the table. I can see it ain’t easy for you to talk about. But we gotta come to some kinda agreement about how we’re gonna go on from here. Don’t you think? Maybe reach an understandin’, so both of us can move past this and get on with our—”

  She whirled from the hearth and went back to the work counter, where she grabbed up the rag and started scrubbing as if she were possessed again. “I’ll go to Cutter Gulch tomorrow,” she informed him in a squeaky voice. “Maybe Pete will agree to take me.”

  Race pushed up from the rocker. “What’n hell are you gonna do in Cutter Gulch?”

  “I’ll—I don’t know. Get a job, I guess! At least I won’t be here.”

  “You mean you wanna leave? Ain’t that kinda like shootin’ the horse to smooth out the ride?”

  She turned to face him, and for the first time in three days, she wasn’t red. Instead her face had turned deathly white. He had a bad feeling he was getting his first glimpse of Rebecca in high dudgeon. Or maybe killing mad was a better description.

  “You know, Race, I don’t blame you. All right?” she said in a taut voice. “But by the same token, you must admit that you basically got what you asked for! If that wasn’t—” She broke off and held up her hands, as if words eluded her. Her eyes filled with tears. “If it was going to give you such a disgust of me, why did you do it?”

  A disgust of her? Race stepped toward her, not quite able to believe his ears. “You think I got a disgust of you?”

  She hauled back her arm and let fly with the dishrag. It went splat on the center of his face, clingy and wet, and clung for a moment. Then, as it slid off, it caught on his nose. He blinked and slowly reached up to pluck it away. For a young woman who hadn’t had a clue how to have a good fight when he first met her, she was proving to be a damned fast study.

  “Do you truly want to know what I think?” she asked. “I think you are a hypocritical jackass. That’s what I think!”

  She had the jackass part right. He wasn’t sure about the rest. So what else was new? “Rebecca Ann, if you wanna argue, talk plain English. What’n hell does ‘hypocritical’ mean?”

  “It means you have one set of rules for me and another for yourself.” She presented him with her back. “You wanted me to want you,” she cried in a shrill voice, “but then as soon as I did, you no longer wanted me!”

  “That ain’t true.” Race fell into step behind her, leaning around to try and see her face as she turned this way and that. It was like trying to herd a duck. “You ain’t thinkin’ what I think you’re thinkin’?”

  “I have concluded that you don’t think,” she replied waspishly. “I believe you have sawdust between your ears. I was perfectly content to be a lady beyond reproach! Only because you pressed me, did I engage in lewd behavior! If you were going to have a disgust of me afterward”—she whirled to face him, her big blue eyes filled with a world of hurt—“why didn’t you leave me as I was?”

  Race grabbed her shoulders before she could go wheeling off again. “I don’t have a disgust of you. I think you’re the sweetest thing that ever walked! And I do want you.”

  “You don’t! You haven’t touched me since.”

  Race could see that had been a big mistake, one which he could rectify in short order. Before she could guess his intent, he swept her up into his arms. “I didn’t touch you because you was new broke.” He strode toward the corner of the room. When his knees bumped the mattress, he dropped her and had joined her on the bed before her startled squeak trailed away. “I didn’t wanna hurt you by makin’ love to you again before you healed up. That’s how come I didn’t touch you.”

  She fixed incredulous blue eyes on his. “Truly?”

  Race set himself to the task of unbuttoning her dress as he laid out the facts. “I think you’re beautiful. I think you’re still a lady, no matter what we do in bed. It don’t matter! And I want you more now than I did before.”

  “Even though I was so abandoned?”

  He bent to trail kisses along her fragile jaw. “I didn’t mean to abandon you, darlin’. I was tryin’ to be thoughtful. I promise I’ll never be thoughtful again, startin’ now. When I get done, you’re gonna feel like you been rode hard and put away wet.” He kissed her, long and deep. When he came up for breath, he said, “And one more thing, just so we’re clear on it. If you ever—and I do mean ever—try to leave me, I’m goin’ with you.”

  Over the next few days, Race worried ceaselessly about when the ruffians would make their move. He had expected them to do it right away, and the waiting wore on his nerves. Staying close to the cabin, leaving work undone, constantly afraid for Rebecca’s safety. It made him a little crazy.

  He finally decided that enough was enough. Just because his usual work had been pretty much curtailed didn’t mean he couldn’t put this time to good use. He had a wife whose self-confidence had taken a beating and who was afraid of her own shadow. Teaching her how to take care of herself and fight back might go a long ways toward making her feel less vulnerable.

  Overriding Rebecca’s objections, Race forced her to learn how to handle guns, starting with his rifles, then working on her aim with a pistol after she became fairly proficient with the larger weapons. She didn’t like it. Given her upbringing, firearms represented evil, their only permissible use for hunting game, and that being a man’s pursuit. But Race insisted, making her target practice for several hours each afternoon out by the barn, relentless and exacting in his role of teacher. Taught to mindlessly obey her husband, Rebecca acquiesced, albeit unenthusiastically. Race didn’t care. She was becoming a fair marksman, and he was convinced that, sooner or later, the ability would not only bolster her confidence, but might even save her life.

  On the evening of the fifth day of weaponry instruction, Race sat her on the rocker, handed her a screwdriver, a rifle, and a Colt .45, and said, “Take ’em apart, clean ’em, and put ’em back together.”

  She gaped at him. “Surely you jest!”

  He crouched next to her to supervise. “Get after it. You ain’t goin’ to bed until they’re clean as a whistle, completely reassembled, and reloaded.”

  “I can’t!”

  “There ain’t no such word. Do it.”

  It took her three hours, but she did it, and he saw to it that she did it well. Race rewarded himself for a lesson well taught and her for a lesson well learned by steering her over to stand by the bed and removing every stitch of her clothing.

  When he started unlacing her chemise, her cheeks turned a pretty pink. “Race, the lanterns. You forgot to turn them out. It’s like broad daylight in here.”

  He smiled and grasped her wrist to turn her arm inner side up. Tracing the network of blue veins beneath her skin with a fingertip, he said, “The first time I ever noticed those little squiggly lines, they reminded me of the lines on a trail map, and I wondered if they was all over you.” Reaching the bend of her arm, he bent to kiss the tender skin there. “I’ve noticed since that they ain’t everywhere, but what ones you got, they lead to some real interestin’ places. And guess what?”

  “What?” she asked faintly, shivering at the way he kissed and tasted her sensitive skin.

  “I love to follow new trails and see where they take me.” Straightening, he resumed his attack on her chemise lacings. “I gotta leave the lamps lit to see where I’m goin’.”

  “Oh, no…”

  He touched a fingertip to her lips. “You just lay back and close your eyes, darlin’. You got a bad habit of interferin’ in my manly business. It ain’t wifely.”

  “Race, it’s embarrassing. I’m not going to—” She sucked breath as he opened the chemise. “I’m not going to display myself with the lamps all burning.”

  “Sure you are.”
>
  “It’s unseemly.”

  “Not to please your husband.”

  “It’s unladylike.”

  “You’re the finest of ladies the rest of the time. But I don’t want you to be one in my arms, darlin’. I just want you to be all mine.”

  He leaned slightly to see as he touched the outside swell of one breast. “See there?” he whispered. “Followin’ this trail”—he traced the faint blue line of a vein—“just look where it’s gonna take me.”

  She gasped and closed her eyes. “I can’t.”

  “Darlin’, there ain’t no such word. I thought we just went through that.”

  Grasping her by the shoulders, he pressed her down onto the bed and joined her there, then proceeded to follow every trail on her. At the end of each, they both found paradise.

  Peace. Race lay with his disgustingly unladylike and very nude wife wrapped around him like a baby opossum. Occasionally Blue snorted in his sleep or the fire embers popped. Otherwise, the cabin was silent, the sense of contentment that surrounded him as warm as a down-filled quilt. It was so easy to forget at moments like this that a threat to Rebecca’s safety lay beyond these sturdy walls, or to believe that anything unpleasant could touch them. Yet lingering at the back of his mind, Race never completely forgot. He didn’t dare, for this precious girl he held in his arms counted on him to protect her.

  A sudden pounding on the door made Race jerk. Usually when he was summoned unexpectedly from bed, the only person Race had to worry about dressing was himself. But this time, he had only just grabbed his pants when he flung them back on the floor and started tearing through the bedding to find Rebecca’s chemise. Blinking like a little barn owl, she was sitting up in all her bare-breasted glory. For reasons beyond him, he didn’t want anyone to come in, see her hiding under the quilts, and guess she was lying there, stripped stark-naked. That was silly, of course. It wasn’t as if every man out there didn’t know he had made love to her. Rebecca’s three-day blushing spell had pretty much erased any doubts about that they might have had.