by Zack Wyatt
“I also think Netty is tolerant because she realizes how much I need the company of someone right now.” Marion turned to Sands, her face softly lit in the misty moonlight. “I don’t know what I would have done without having you here to help.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself.” Sands shook his head. “You’ve got more steel in your spine than half the men I’ve met.”
“No, you’re wrong, Josh. I’m stubborn, but I’ve never been strong.” Her voice went soft again, distant. “That’s why I nearly broke down tonight when I saw your arm. Like it or not, Josh, I’ve grown to depend on seeing your face and hearing your voice. Sometimes, I think your strength is the only thing that kept me from going insane those first few weeks ...”
She paused and drew a long breath. “Tonight when I saw your arm and heard everything you told Jamie, I realized that you might have been killed. I couldn’t take that, Josh. I couldn’t endure having another person I care about being taken from me. I ... not now ... I couldn’t...” For the first time since the night the raiding party had killed her husband and daughter, Sands saw tears well from Marion’s eyes and trickle down the beauty of her cheeks. Something deep within his chest twisted and tore. His arms reached out and encircled the small woman, easing her to him.
“Shhhh,” he whispered. “It’s over now. I’m all right. In a week or two, you won’t even be able to tell which arm got hit. It’s all over.”
“You ... you could have been one of the four you buried this afternoon.” Marion’s head lifted, her eyes meeting his. “Don’t you understand ... I care for you, Josh. I ...”
His mouth covered hers muffling that single word that he knew was forming on her lips. A word he realized he had yearned to hear from this small, redheaded woman since that day he had driven her wagon into San Antonio. Yet one he could not bear the hearing.
Love. It echoed in his mind. He ached to hear it from Marion, but could not. Something dark slithered within his chest, something that avoided definition, that prevented his tongue from forming that single word. He had whispered that word in the ears of more young women and señoritas than he could remember in order to pave the way to their beds. But now, with this woman who made him feel as though his veins ran warm with wine, who evoked all the things a woman was supposed to fire within a man, he could not say—I love you. Nor could he understand his hesitance.
He did understand the lips pressed warmly to his. Their hunger held a rightness that seemed natural. He shared that hunger—that of a man for a woman, a woman for a man. A desire he had held tightly in rein since the evening they had returned from Mylius’ ranch.
Together, locked in their embrace, they eased back, atop a bed of spring grass. She questioned with neither voice nor expression when his fingers moved to the tangled myriad of buttons and clasps securely binding her dress. She did shift beneath the guiding pressure of his palms, allowing him to free each of the encumbering obstacles.
Her hands found the wooden buttons to his flannel shirt and easily worked them free. Her fingers and the softness of her warm lips explored the broad expanse of his chest, by the time he slipped the last of her feminine underclothing from her body.
Mist-like in the soft moonlight, she lay beside him. Her eyes rose to his. There was no hint of shame in the gentle radiance of her face. No trace of hesitance. Only the rightness that Sands had sensed before.
His eyes, followed by the feathery touch of his fingertips, traced over the graceful length of her neck downward to the twin mounds of her breasts. A sudden gasp of pleasure escaped her lips as his palms cupped those delightfully uplifted cones. His fingers molded warm, pliant flesh, while his thumbs busied the coral-hued buds atop each, bringing them to aroused attention.
Then his head lowered, and his lips and flicking tongue joined his taunting fingertips. She answered his attentiveness with a soft, throaty coo of satisfaction.
Sands lost himself in the luxurious feel of her, the satiny texture of her body that shifted and turned to accommodate the intimate exploring of his seeking fingertips. There were no whispered promises, no lies to justify their act. His hands spoke and hers answered.
Even the awkwardness that came when caresses were broken for Sands to remove his remaining clothing, seemed but one pounding heartbeat. Then he lay at her side, flesh touching flesh, no longer restrained by the coarse weave of fabric.
She opened her arms, and he came to her, entering the liquid heat of her body in one flowing motion. In a slow sleepy rhythm, they rocked together while their hands and fingers touched, caressed, soothed, and tautened.
Together—always together—they found and fed their needs. Their desire flamed to devouring passion that ended as her body suddenly went rigid and her hands dug into the rock-hard balls of his buttocks.
Sands’ mouth once again covered hers, muffling her uninhibited cries of pleasure released, as the fire within his own core erupted to flow forth.
Together, man and woman, they lay locked into each other’s arms, savoring the sensations of one another, neither wishing to break this most intimate of bonds they had forged beneath the starry sky.
Chapter Eleven
The most satisfied man on God’s green earth—a man who won and shared the love of a magnificent woman—that was the way it should have been for Sands.
Instead, something was amiss. A dark seed, one beyond his comprehension, sprouted amid the gentle warmth Marion awoke within him. Sands muttered a curse, unable to find the root of his dissatisfaction.
He was a fool. Marion offered everything that a man could ever want—all he envisioned for his own life. With her, he could rebuild the family the Comanches had stolen from him.
In that moment, he realized that a family was what he wanted from life. When he was twelve-years-old, Josh Sands witnessed his family butchered by a savage raiding party. Since that time he had searched to find someone—something—to replace what had been brutally torn from him.
Like his old mentor Billy Byrd, he thought that he had filled his emptiness with ranging. But Marion and Jamie threw light into the vacant rooms of his life, illuminating his true loneliness.
With them he could erase that loneliness. Yet he could not accept what they offered. Something, that elusive something, between Marion and him was wrong.
The rightness he felt while he lay with Marion beside the San Antonio River flooded back into his mind. Even Elena with her totally uninhibited lovemaking could not equal what he had found this night.
The dark seed of doubt bloomed. Its black petals spread wide to smother the tenderness of that moment.
“Damned fool!” he spat as he rode through San Antonio’s streets.
He didn’t want to think: he wanted to escape the darkness gnawing in his chest. There was only one certain way to do that—bourbon—and lots of it.
Ahead, he heard the revelry still coming from the Casa de Chavela. Ordinarily, he would have rejoined his companions to lose himself in the celebration.
Tonight, he reined the black gelding to the opposite side of the street and by-passed the cantina. He felt like some alley dog cowering away with its tail tucked between its legs, but he couldn’t face Elena again tonight. Not because he had slipped out and left her alone in the waiting bath tub. Elena would only remind him of Marion—that was the very thing he wanted to escape.
Nudging the gelding into an easy lope, he moved down the street and stopped before the Longhorn Saloon. With a hastily looped slip-knot, he hitched the horse to a cedar rail outside, then entered the saloon through the swinging doors. Here and there a few men looked up from where they sat huddled about the round tables, but the majority of the Longhorn’s patrons didn’t notice his entry. Which suited Sands; it wasn’t companionship he wanted. He walked to the bar and ordered a bottle of bourbon and a glass. When the bartender brought his order, he quickly poured two fingers and downed it.
The whiskey was cheap, raw, and tasted like it had been aged a month before bottling. He didn’t
care. Taste wasn’t what he was after. He poured another slug and downed it without blinking. Three drinks, maybe five, and he would be well on the way to forgetting Marion. Then he’d take the bottle, return to the garrison, and quietly drink himself into oblivion. Tomorrow, maybe the day after, he’d get things sorted. Right now everything was too close, pressing.
Sands once more lifted the bottle and poured a stout measure of the amber liquor into his glass. This he sipped rather than downing on one gulp. After all, he wanted to get drunk, not sick.
“Josh ... Josh Sands is the name, ain’t it?” A barrel-chested man moved from the opposite side of the bar to Sands’ side in a watery walk that spoke of many hours of hard drinking.
Sands gave him a casual glance. The man’s black stubble beard, that appeared to be a two-week unshaven growth rather than a cultivated beard, looked familiar, but Sands couldn’t put a name with the face hidden behind the untidy whiskers. So he merely nodded and took another sip from his glass.
“Ellis, Ellis Thompson out of Corpus Christi.” The man held out a bear-sized paw. “We met last time I rode courier ... about three months back.”
No smile touched Sands lips as he recalled the loudmouthed ranger out of Corpus Christi. Three months ago, the man had ridden down with a communiqué for Colonel Karnes. Before he rode back south the following morning, he had drunk enough tequila to float a small navy, then had gotten into a fight with three local ranch hands. The results were one broken jaw, a fractured arm, and three broken ribs—none of which Thompson suffered.
“Riding courier again?” Sands asked without caring.
Three more sips and he’d be through with the drink and on his way to the garrison, free of Thompson’s company.
“Town’s quiet. I was hoping for a little more activity.” The Corpus Christi ranger punctuated his remark with a wink.
Sands started to tell him about the shindig at the Casa, paused, then realized the men in Hays’ company were capable of handling someone like Thompson if need be, and told the ranger about the celebration down the street.
Thompson shook his head. “Ain’t got no use for greasy pepper-bellies. Never cared for dark meat. White is sweeter.”
Sands’ hand tightened around his glass, but he said nothing, just let another sip of the raw bourbon roll down his throat.
“But then, I forget this is San Antonio,” Thompson said, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Sands. “It’s well-known that the men in the Hays company ain’t particular whose bed they sleep in.”
“Seems that’s a man’s own business and no concern to anyone else.” Sands repressed the anger stirring within him. Thompson was apparently liquor-mean and itching to fight. And not that particular who he took on. Had he been a drifter or a ranch hand, Sands would have obliged him. But the man was another ranger—even though he hailed from Corpus Christi. Common courtesy required greater tolerance of his condition.
“I’d expect something like that from you,” Thompson replied, viciousness creeping into his voice as it grew louder with each word.
Sands lowered his glass and slowly turned to Thompson, one eyebrow arching high. He felt heads turning toward him as the saloon’s patrons sensed a fight in the air. For a moment, he almost forgot this bear-of-a-man was a ranger and pressed for an explanation of his comment. Instead, Sands raised the glass to drain the last of the bourbon.
“I hear you’ve found yourself a cozy little piece to warm the nights,” Thompson continued, his tone and face a mocking sneer.
Sands shoved the cork back into the mouth of the bottle. “It’s been a long day, Ellis. As much as I’ve enjoyed the company, I’m long overdue a good night’s sleep.”
“Ha! Ain’t no sleep you’re after, Sands.” The laugh that came from Thompson’s throat was obscene. “My bet’s you’re off to see that widow lady. The one I heard you got secreted off on the other side of town. Every man in your company’s talking about what you got going on the side.”
Sands stiffened and caught himself before he slammed the bourbon bottle into Thompson’s face. As much as the man deserved it, a shattered bottle would be a waste, even of cheap whiskey. Sands stepped toward the door of the saloon. “Thompson, you’ve had too much to drink, and I’m tired. If you want to continue this in the morning, I’ll be glad...”
“How many Comanches had her, Sands? Ten? Twenty?” Thompson grinned wickedly, his dark eyes afire. “She’s tainted now, Sands. Rather pay my two-bits and take my chances with a whore than have a woman like that. No respectable man would touch a white woman after she’s been used by red scum. No man would ...”
“I thought you were talking about yourself, Thompson. No respectable man would mention a lady while in a saloon. Then no one ever said anything about you being respectable. And you can be damned sure no one’s ever mistaken you for a man,” Sands said, with his back still to the barrel-chested ranger.
He felt the black blossom within his chest spread its petals wider as he carefully deposited the bourbon on the bar. Fury boiled at his core. He turned on the balls of his feet. That was the sole warning he gave to the right he threw in Thompson’s face.
“Ooumph!” Surprise and shock flew from the bear sized ranger’s mouth as Sands punch landed squarely atop a bulbous nose.
Sands felt and heard the cartilage and bone give way beneath his fist. He watched Thompson stagger back, eyes wide and mouth agape. A normal man would have gone down under such a solid blow. The excruciating pain of a broken nose usually left a man totally disoriented and vomiting out his guts. Thompson merely staggered.
Sands didn’t wait for the loud-mouthed ranger to recover from that stagger. Taking two quick steps forward, Sands sunk a hard left into the man’s gut and followed it with a right to the same spot.
The blows were wasted. While Thompson’s stomach equaled his chest in size, it was also rock hard with muscles firm and strong.
Roaring in alcohol-hazed anger and pain, Thompson’s arms stretched wide, seeking to ensnare his smaller-built opponent. His arms closed around empty air.
Sands simply ducked and lunged to the right to avoid the man’s bear hug. As he did, he sent the rounded toe of a boot flying upward to bury itself in Thompson’s crotch.
The over-grown ranger did more than stagger now. He howled in agony. Grasping that most vulnerable portion of his body, he doubled over.
Which was exactly what Sands wanted. His own knee jerked up and slammed into Thompson’s face. When the man’s head reeled back from the impact, Sands added a hard swung right to the chin.
For one indecisive moment, Thompson swayed, his eyes blinked with uncertainty. Then those eyes closed and he toppled backwards like some tall oak felled by a razor-honed ax. He hit the pine floor of the saloon solidly and lay there unconscious to the room full of men who stared down at his defeat.
Straightening the brim of his hat, Sands turned, snatched his bottle from the bar, and walked from the Longhorn. As much as Thompson had deserved what he had gotten, Sands discovered he held no anger for the ranger. The fury that still screamed like a gulf hurricane within him was not for Thompson, but for himself.
Thompson’s words had contained more than a seed of truth. Naked and ugly, the man had opened Sands’ eyes to himself. What he saw was something dark and dirty. And that something was Marion Hammer. In spite of all that he felt for her, all she had given him, he could not accept her as she was—as a woman who had been used by Comanche.
Sands swung astride the gelding and yanked the cork from the neck of the bottle. Without tasting the whiskey, he sucked three large swallows down his throat.
That was the hell of it! Deep inside him, deep at the core of his being, he and Thompson were no different. And neither of them were worth Marion’s spit!
He jerked the gelding’s head around with a viciousness intended for himself rather than the black and dug his heels into the horse’s side. With a snort the gelding bolted forward in a dead run.
Sands lifted the bottl
e to his lips. He hesitated, staring at the amber liquid that sloshed about inside. With all the self-directed hate that stormed within him, he slung the bottle aside. He heard a window shatter, but didn’t look back. Tomorrow, he would seek out a merchant and pay for the damages. Tonight he needed to ride, to get away from San Antonio and the spider’s web he had spun for himself.
The same sliver of moon that had bathed the perfection of Marion’s body now hung low on the western horizon as Sands rode silently back toward San Antonio. The hours alone had done nothing to resolve or erase the ugliness he had found within himself.
Love—the simple word he had been unable to utter—was real. He did love Marion. No other woman had ever touched him the way the young widow did. Yet he could not remove the vision of eight Comanches taking her body—the same body she so willingly gave to him. That she had been raped, forced to submit to their lusts, did not matter. Thompson’s words kept echoing in his head—tainted—tainted—tainted.
The easiest course to take was to turn his back on the woman—to walk away from her. That he could never do. He yearned to possess her and all that she offered. He knew he would see her again, although he was uncertain how he could face the love in her eyes, now that he understood the venom that existed within him.
In time, he told himself. I just need time.
He couldn’t be sure even of that. But he had to give time a chance—had to for Marion—for himself!
The clack of hoof on stone, jerked his head to the right. There, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, moved a column of riders. Raiding party filled his mind and evaporated just as quickly when he discerned the wide-brimmed hats worn by each of the riders.
Militia!
There was no doubt. The riders were regular Texas militia headed toward San Antonio. Why, he didn’t know.
Sands called out a greeting and reined to the right. A man’s voice hailed him in reply and ordered him to ride in with hands held wide and open. Sands did as he was told, identifying himself as he moved beside the column. A sergeant met him and directed him to a Lieutenant Norwood at the head of the column.
