Dance With A Gunfighter (28 page)

A flicker of surprise seemed to touch his eyes, and then
she thought he must have looked right inside her head and saw all her doubts
and worries because he suddenly whispered to her, "You’re a beautiful
woman, Gabe. A very beautiful woman."

She kissed him hard, as his hands caressed her breasts,
her stomach, her ribs. He found the bare skin along the waist of her skirt then
his hands skimmed over the many yards of material that covered her hips, her
belly, between her thighs.

Her fingers tugged at his shirt, pulling it from his
trousers so that she, too, could feel his flesh.

His kisses grew to a hungry flame as she ran her hands
from his collarbone along his chest, to his waist, his hipbone, and to rest on
the soft skin of his abdomen. Knowing the burning pleasure that she felt when
he touched her lower, she wondered if she should do the same for him, if she
should be so bold--and if she dared.

Before she had a chance to try it, he wrapped her tight in
his arms and held her still, his breathing ragged. "I vowed to see you
home safe and sound," he said firmly. "And damn it, we’re going to
make it. If I do nothing else right in my life, I’ll do that."

Then he kissed her gently before reaching for her
overblouse and helping her put it back on. She wanted to say
stop
. If
this was safe and pure, she wanted no part of it. But she was feeling too
addled and confused by his kisses to do anything but go along with him. She lay
back down again, not wanting this moment with him to end.

"Thoughts of you, Gabe," he whispered, as his
hand rested gently against her stomach, "thoughts of you...like this...are
what kept me going--kept me from fighting and lashing out. You made me want to
live."

He took her hands and pulled her up to a sitting position,
then he cupped her face with both hands and kissed her gently.

She gripped his wrists. "I love you, Jess," she
whispered. She didn’t know where the words came from, or how long ago she first
realized the depth of her feelings, but she had to tell him how she felt.

He stared at her, his expression troubled, and bleak, and
yet heartbreakingly soft. He kissed her again, and almost immediately, the fire
between them sprang to life again. Drawing back, gazing at her, he seemed at
war with himself, as if facing some sweet agony. "We’d better get
moving," he said finally, buttoning his shirt, "before it gets too
tempting to stay here all day with you."

o0o

The sun was directly overhead as they rode, but since they
were still on a plateau, it wasn’t as hot as in the desert grasslands. The sky
was clear, the wide land dotted with sage and tamarisk, and all around them was
emptiness and peace, as if they were the only two people on the earth. McLowry
wished it could always be this way. His chest filled as he looked at the
strong, courageous woman beside him. How long, he wondered, before the world
intruded on him and Gabe? As much as he wished it wouldn’t, experience had
taught him otherwise.

They traveled all day, taking only short rests at watering
holes. When the sky turned a fiery red, anticipation of nightfall brought color
to their cheeks as they stopped to make camp, a smile to their lips as they
gathered dried twigs for a fire, and a tingling down to their very toes as they
tore into dried jerky and squash.

As McLowry watched Gabe sitting at his side, the light of
the fire dancing over her features, he remembered the soft, youthful, rounded
face of the carefree girl he’d met a few years ago. Now, her face was lean, and
her body conditioned. The way she walked, the way she simply moved, showed a
graceful strength most women have never known. Just thinking about her body did
things to his. She was so special to him, it was almost more than he could
bear. He felt he should be old enough and wise enough not to feel this way
about a woman, but it seemed this was one area that even age and wisdom
couldn’t help.

The sun set and soon the stars hung near. "Do we head
for Dry Springs tomorrow, Jess?" she asked.

He took long time answering. "Only if I can get you
out of there quickly. We’re going back to Jackson."

"Jackson? There’s nothing there."

"Your home is there. It’s time you went back to see
what you can make of it."

"I don’t have a home." She leaned forward, her
elbows on her knees.

"Your father worked hard for that land. How would he
feel if you simply abandoned it?"

She didn’t answer, but stared at him, shocked and hurt
that he still failed to understand. How could she go back there and face the
destruction of all she’d ever known? How could she bear to remember the way it
used to be? She didn’t want to see it again, ever.

"I’d say you’re not one to criticize, Jess. You
abandoned your land."

His head jerked up in surprise. His gaze hardened, not
wanting to talk about his past. "The Confederacy lost the war, darlin’."
His voice was deceptively light. "Losers don’t have a choice in things
like that."

"But you didn’t ever return. You didn’t try to get it
back."

"It’s true. I left the South, and didn’t want to go
back." He rubbed his face as thoughts of those days returned. How could he
even begin to explain that War to someone like Gabe? Out here, life was hard
and could be ruthless, but it was easy to know who the enemy was, and
why--whether right or wrong. Here, the "wars" were against the
Apaches--fierce men who had a whole different way of life, different gods, a
different culture. The War he knew, however, pitted brother against brother,
cousin, neighbor; states’ rights against federal; ideas against ideas. And just
like a family feud gone out of control, the destruction and the retribution
inflicted on the losing side were worse than he could imagine this country ever
imposing on any outside enemies. Maybe that was why the bitterness ran so deep.

"If you wouldn’t mind talking about it, Jess, I wish
you’d tell me about that part of your life."

He lay back with his hands clasped beneath his head, and
looked up at the sky as he slowly began the story he needed to tell so that
Gabe could understand.

"There were a lot of ex-Confederates, like me, after
the War. A few of them had a home and a family to go back to, but many of us
had nothing left. After the carpetbaggers took my father’s land for unpaid
taxes, I met up with a group of men, some were even family. We traveled through
the South, then went down to Mexico for a while when there was talk of starting
a new Confederacy down there. Nothing came of it but more disenchantment.

"I rode with trail herds, and fought rustlers,
desperados and Comanches before I started to shave. The first man I killed in a
gunfight was only nineteen--and he was four years older than me. I’ll never
forget the shocked look on his face when the bullet hit him."

"You were only fifteen?" she said, horrified.

"And I was twelve when I joined the Confederacy. I
was too small when I was eleven, and a year later, they were desperate enough
to take anyone who could pull a trigger. I watched men and boys drop around me.
I learned to fire back, hoping to kill."

She bowed her head.

"The gang I rode with turned bad. We robbed some
stagecoaches, telling ourselves it didn’t matter any since no one got hurt.

"I was in a bar in Dodge when I got into an argument
with a mean cuss. He was young--only twenty-one. By then, I was nineteen. He
drew on me, but I was faster and killed him. I later learned that he had a reputation
as a gunfighter. His revenge was that the reputation attached to me.

"Around that time the gang I’d been with turned to
banks. I split from them. Men got killed, innocent men. I told them to stop,
but who was I to try to tell anyone how to live? I was a killer."

She didn’t reply.

 "I joined up with some cattle drives--trying to
lose the reputation that I’d suddenly been given. I made the trip back and
forth to Abilene a few times. Life was cheap on the trail and liquor, cards and
women even cheaper.

 "The gang wanted me to join up with them again.
They needed my gun. I wouldn’t join, but just having them around me was enough
that I wasn’t wanted on the cattle trails after that. They didn’t hire on
trouble, as they put it."

"What did you do?" she asked.

"I realized the only thing I had of value was the
ability to shoot fast. So I took jobs hiring out my gun. I was paid to protect
people or property, never to kill--but sometimes to protect meant that someone
was killed.

"Now, there’s no going back. No undoing what was
done. The reputation that kid gave me in Dodge City stuck, and grew. Now, I
have to constantly watch my back for the next kid interested in making a name
for himself."

Blue eyes, intent and fierce, captured hers. "My
life’s been a waste, Gabe. At first, I thought if I traveled far enough
westward, I might find something to replace the home and family I lost...but
all I found was more emptiness."

She kissed him, understanding, finally, the desperate
loneliness of this man’s life.

Her arms went around him and she pledged to do all she
could--once her revenge was settled--to make it up to him, to give him a home
once more.

He left her, then, to lay on his bedroll and sleep.

When he pulled away, her arms felt empty. As if without
him, she was incomplete. She turned to face him, imagining she could see him in
the darkness. Her mind was filled with how good it had felt to hold him, to
have him touch her. Despite herself, she kept thinking back to that afternoon,
to his touch, his kisses. She wished she could see him better against the
flickering campfire light. Her handsome Jess.

She didn’t know how it was possible to fall in love at the
same time as carrying a consuming hatred and spirit-crushing guilt, but that
was what she felt. She shut her eyes and tried to sleep. She loved him, and the
feeling was heavenly.

McLowry watched the dying embers of the campfire, and
listened to the sound of wind in the mesquite. He shut his eyes tight against
the memories of his hands against her skin, the taste of her lips. Not since
the first time he ever made love and was green and excited, had any woman come
as close to making him lose control as this girl had.

He rolled onto his side, his back to her, and tried to set
aside thoughts of the woman who lay much, much too close. The way he felt about
her was more than physical. It wasn’t love, though. He’d given up loving. There
was too much pain in loving.

She’d told him she loved him. In the past, women had said
those words easily to him, more times than he could count. But Gabe meant it in
a way he’d never known before. Thoughts of their afternoon lovemaking shook
him. He’d shown her the barest glimpse of what it could be like between them.
He wanted to show her much more.

He’d grown so hard with desire it had nearly killed him.
He hadn’t been a man to deny himself anything in a long, long time. Life was
too short to wait for tomorrow. He’d learned that lesson early. He could have
convinced her to let him do whatever he wanted. She’d wanted him, too, even if
she hadn’t known exactly what it was she wanted. He knew that as surely as he
knew the rhythm of the desert. She’d have allowed him to take her, fill her,
and explode until he felt drained.

She trusted him, loved him, openly and innocently.

If he had made love to her, would he then be free of the
hold she’d had over him since he first looked upon her as a woman? When had it
happened? When he saw other men dancing with her at Dry Springs? When he pulled
her out of that water trough in Tombstone? When he watched her take off her
boots and stockings in their hotel room in Bisbee? Or was it a lifetime ago at
a simple town dance?

He shut his eyes, reliving the feel of her, the scent, the
pulsating ache of wanting her. But she was innocent, and he was quite the
opposite. He had to take her home to Jackson and then get out of her life.

There was just one problem with all his grandiose plans,
with his big ideas about her future. He loved her.

He loved her...and the feeling was hell.

o0o

Three days later, they reached Dry Springs. They were
treated like ghosts reappearing from the dead. Mrs. Huckleby greeted them with
open arms, and they filled each other in on what had happened over these past
months.

When they didn’t return to the dance the night they were
taken, Mrs. Huckleby said, people had assumed they wanted to be alone. No one
had been fooled about their so-called familial relationship, not after seeing
the way the two looked at each other. The next day, though, when they couldn’t
be found, people began to search. They discovered the tracks of horses around
the back of the town hall, and saw that they were headed away from town, toward
the Dragoons.

The town folk had assumed Tanner had taken them, and had
made them pay for stopping him from stealing the money from the silver ore’s
sale. A posse had searched for them, but the tracks disappeared on the granite
and shale of the foothills, and after a couple of days, the riders gave up and
returned to town.

Dick Thompkins at the livery had kept McLowry’s sorrel--he
was using the horse himself until, or if, McLowry showed up to reclaim him, and
little Susan Flint had asked to keep Gabe’s gray until Gabe returned to claim
her. Susan never gave up hope that some day Gabe would return.

They told Mrs. Huckleby about Tack Cramer, and how Black
Cloud and his warriors had saved McLowry’s life. That shocked Mrs. Huckleby. It
seems troubles had broken out with the Apache once again, and the entire Larkin
family had been killed just before winter in an attack.

Gabe was saddened and horrified, remembering Patty’s
vivaciousness and her sweet, bashful brother--the first young man who had asked
her to dance at the rancher’s hall that fateful night in Dry Springs. Poor Mrs.
Grimes had lost her friend, her inseparable friend.