Lady X's Cowboy (21 page)

“Just to scare them?”

His face grew distant, his expression inward.  “Sometimes we got one.”

Softly, she asked, “What happened, Will?”

He stared into the fire, his arm forgotten.  “I was takin’ watch one night and caught some men tryin’ to rustle our cattle.  So I let off a few rounds, tryin’ to drive ’em away.  They started to take off, but one thought he’d be a real bandito and shoot back.  I fired at him, and he went down.”  He frowned, then looked up at her, and she saw the pain he bore.  “Takin’ a man’s life ain’t easy, Liv.  It ain’t like they say in the books you read.  It marks a man.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I ain’t,” he answered.  “I did my job.  Stealin’ cattle or horses is a killin’ offense.  But that doesn’t make it feel good.”

“Could you...could you kill again?”

“If I had to.”  As he stared at her, his gaze and voice were level.  “If there was somethin’ worth protectin’.”    

She was both chilled and reassured by the idea.  She did not like the idea of Will ending someone’s life, yet she could always rely on him.

The night grew colder, as October was wont to do, and she found that her smart little traveling dress and matching jacket didn’t quite fit the bill for camping.  Absently, she rubbed her arms.

In a swift motion, Will stood and came around the fire to drape his duster around her shoulders.  He ignored her objections and stalked silently back to the other side of the fire.  She felt engulfed by the lingering heat of his body and the rich scent of his skin permeating the fabric of the coat.  Unconsciously, she closed her eyes and pressed her cheek into the collar of the duster, inhaling deeply, as she pulled the coat closer around her.  It was wonderful, as though she was surrounded by Will, wrapped in him like a secret.  A little sigh of pleasure escaped from her lips.

“Jesus, Liv,” Will growled, breaking her reverie.  She opened her eyes to see him through the flames, his eyes sharp and piercing.  “Don’t do that to a man.”

“I...”  Her voice trailed off.  What could she say?  That she wanted him despite her best intentions?  That no man had ever risked as much for her as he had?  That she hadn’t realized how lonely her life had been before him, and she dreaded what it would be like once he’d gone? 

He had awakened feelings in her that had lain dormant for many years, since even before David had died.  She wasn’t oppressed with weariness when he was nearby—shouldering the burden of her business, her social obligations, the intimidation of George Pryce.  All this became bearable because of Will.  No, she couldn’t say any of these things, though they were all true. 

“I wish you’d sit and make yourself comfortable,” she said instead.  “You’re making me nervous.”

With obvious reluctance, he sat, cross-legged.  He unrolled his shirtsleeve to cover his bandaged arm.  Then he pulled out a knife, picked up a nearby stick, and began to whittle.  She looked at the knife.  It had a strange coffin-shaped handle.

“Is that—?”

He nodded tersely.  “Yeah.  The bowie knife Jake found with me.”  He turned it over in his hand, considering.  “I’ve had to replace the handle and the brass pins a few times, but I always kept it.  The only thing my parents left me, besides the letter.”

“A whole legacy right in your palm,” Olivia breathed.  “Amazing.”

He didn’t answer, but continued to work at the stick.  It was clear that he didn’t have any purpose to his whittling besides giving his hands something to do.  No sooner did he pare one stick down then he reached for another, and another, tossing his handiwork into the fire.  She watched him for a long while, fascinated by his large, capable hands with their long, deft fingers, the square, blunt nails and the broad span of his palms, the hands of a man who worked his whole life.  She pictured those hands on her, remembering the feel of them on her skin, rough and hot, and she barely stifled a moan.  The five years she had spent without a man in her bed seemed like the beat of a hummingbird’s wings compared to the week she had known Will and desired him.

She had to distract herself; otherwise she would leap over the fire and force herself on him.

“Tell me about Colorado,” she said, breaking the stillness. 

He looked up at her, the firelight turning his eyes aquamarine.  “I miss it,” he said softly.  “That was always the best part about finishing a drive—comin’ home to the mountains.”

“They must be so beautiful,” she said wistfully.

For the first time in what seemed like days, Will broke into a genuine smile, heartbreaking in its gorgeousness.  “They sure are.  Tall as giants, capped in snow.  Ridin’ through ’em, you feel like you’re at the top of the world, everythin’ beneath you, and if you just reached high enough, you could shake hands with God.”

Warming to his topic, he continued, “In the winter, they’re like castles carved of ice, white and glittering like diamonds when the sun is out.  And in the summer...”  His voice trailed off as he turned to inner landscapes.

“In the summer?” she prompted, wanting to go there with him.

“In the summer, the valleys look like green velvet cups full of gems—every kind and color of flower you can think of, spillin’ over, climbin’ over anythin’ that’ll stand still.  Blue penstemons, scarlet paintbrush, purple fringed gentians.  Up on the mountains, there’s phlox, wild iris, harebell.  You’d hardly believe that a few months earlier, everythin’ was covered in snow.”

“I’d love to see it,” she said quietly, and she meant it.

He stared at her for a long time, the only sounds coming from the pops of the fire and the rustling animals in the underbrush.  She couldn’t read him, the firelight turning his face into something too handsome, too hard, to interpret.  So strange, when moments earlier he’d been speaking of his home with such feeling, such transparency.

“Some folks think it’s too tough,” he said finally.  “Too rugged.  A body’s got to be made of strong stuff to make it in Colorado.”

“I may take to sleeping outdoors, you know,” she said, half in jest as she gestured to the dark woods that surrounded them.  “I’m beginning to think I’m strong enough.”

A ghost of a smile crept into the corner of his mouth.  “I think you are, too, Liv.  Stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

As compliments went, this one floored her.  To have him, who’d endured the toughest life had to offer, consider
her
strong was simply amazing.  For several moments, she couldn’t speak.  “Maybe,” she said, regaining her voice, “I’ll come visit you someday in Colorado, and see those wildflowers.”

The smile remained, but it was rueful.  “Yeah,” he said with a dip of his head, “maybe someday.”

But they both knew she would never make it.  There was a great deal of distance, physical and otherwise, that separated Colorado from England, distance that she couldn’t navigate.  A silence fell across them both as they contemplated this.  She stared at the ashes forming in the fire, and he looked up towards the sky.

“I didn’t think there were stars in England,” he said, his head tipped back.  “It’s good to see ’em again, like old friends waitin’ for you at the saloon.” 

“I’m certain they’re glad to see you, too.”  She took a stick and nudged some of the burnt kindling, sending a tiny cascade of sparks down to the ground. 

Still gazing heavenward, Will asked, “How’d your husband die?”

The question caught her by surprise.  He hadn’t asked much about David until now.  “He collapsed at work and never regained consciousness.”  She stared abstractedly at the stick in her hand, then snapped it in two and threw it into the fire.  “The doctor said that his heart wasn’t very strong.  It just...gave out.  David’s death came so quickly, I didn’t really believe it until almost a month later.”

Finally, Will looked back down.  “Do you miss him?”

“I did,” she answered, more honestly than she had ever spoken of David before.  “He was so funny, so droll, the way he saw things, just slightly askew.  He could make me laugh, sometimes, with only a look.”

Will, strangely subdued, nodded. 

“But,” she continued, “he hadn’t made me laugh in a long time.  I found myself missing him even while he was alive, missing our marriage and what it had once been.”

“Liv—”

She blinked hard.  “Could you tell me about Denver?  And Leadville?”

He frowned, confused.

“I want to hear more about where you come from,” she said.  “And...I don’t want to talk about the past any more.”

Thankfully, he nodded in understanding.  He was a natural orator, comfortable talking and spinning yarns.  He continued to speak, describing the wild, brash cities and towns he’d lived in, the outrageous people who also called them home and the tenacity they needed to keep rising above adversity.  His voice was deep and gravelly, smooth as whisky, and just as warming.

Olivia found herself rapt in him, watching his face, the small, concise gestures of his hands.  She lay down on her side, cushioning her head on her outstretched arm, with his duster pulled over her.  Soon, the clouds of sorrow, weariness and fear unwound themselves around her heart and were replaced with something she was unfamiliar with—happiness.  To be away from London with Will, hearing him talk of his home, covered in his coat, warmed by the fire and by his presence.  An unusual gift.  One she would not refuse.

Despite lying on the hard ground and her lack of dinner, she soon found herself drifting off to sleep.  She was exhausted.  The past few days had worn her out completely.  And she felt so safe with him nearby.  She gladly escaped into slumber.

When she awoke some time later, the fire had gone out and the night was very, very dark.  A nocturnal hunter flew overhead.  Somewhere out there, Pryce plotted her destruction, and his mercenary was ready to do whatever it took to eliminate her.  The world was huge and black, threatening to swallow her.  Her corset pinched.

“Will?” she asked, voice very small. 

“Yeah?”  He didn’t sound as though he had been asleep.

“I’m cold.”

“Want me to light the fire again?”

“Could you...lie next to me?”

The longest pause Olivia had ever heard followed.  She thought perhaps he’d gone to sleep.  But then, “Yeah.” 

She heard his weight shift and the rustle of leaves.  His shadow crossed the inky sky.  And then he was stretching his long body out behind hers, pulling up the duster to cover them both as he fitted himself along side her.  For a moment, he wrestled with his body, trying to get it positioned rightly, until, at last, he seemed to surrender and drape his arm across her waist.

If she had thought to sleep, she knew now it would be impossible.  But how much better, she thought—feeling the hard, muscled length of him settle into her softer curves, his breath on her neck that was answered by every inch of her skin, the welcome weight of his hand pressed into her ribs—how much better to suffer this all night long than to pass the time in oblivion.  As she had all her life, until that moment.

Chapter Twelve

The thought was plain in Will’s mind, as clear as if he had spoken out loud:
That’s it.  I’m in hell. 

Because what other way was there to describe what was happening right now?  Lost in the boondocks, lying on the ground, and pressed up tight against the one female he wanted more than any other but couldn’t have.  He remembered hearing of that one man in Greek mythology, Tantalus, from a traveling theatrical show called
The Agony of Hades
.  Old Tantalus was being tormented for eternity with a hunger he couldn’t satisfy and a thirst he couldn’t quench—food and drink just out of reach.  And here, beside Will now, was the grandest banquet he’d ever known, the feast of Lady Olivia Xavier.  But even with his napkin tied around his neck and his plate in hand, he was being turned away.

She shifted, sighing a little, trying to get comfortable.  As she did, he could feel the movement of her body, the breath coursing through her, the arrangement of her limbs, long legs, slender arms and all that skin he wanted to touch.  Over and over until he’d learned her body as well as he knew the mountains of his home.  His hand rested as lightly as it could on her waist, but he was prevented from feeling her by the stiff cage of her corset.  He hated corsets.  Who wanted a woman who couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, and all for the sake of a too-narrow waist?  Besides, Will had a feeling Olivia didn’t need much corseting.  She was as slender as a doe, and just as quick.

Sometime during the day, she’d lost her bonnet, and now the back of her neck was open to him, a few inches from his mouth.  Even in the dark, he could see the pale glimmer of that skin, the downy wisps of dark hair that curled and were swept up into an unraveling bun.  He took a deep breath to settle himself, but doing so, a tiny lock of her hair was drawn into his mouth.  Silky strands played across his tongue as he gently savored her, wanting to pull her all the way in, take her completely.

He was having the damnedest time remembering why they were staying away from each other.  He’d been up against some of the toughest hurdles nature could throw in a man’s path—floods, drought, avalanches, winds so sharp they cut tears out of his eyes.  Here was the most mouthwatering woman he had ever known lying right beside him, wanting him as much as he wanted her. All the shrill voices screaming that they couldn’t be together were miles away in the city, trapped behind brick walls and wrought-iron fences.  The fools that never said what they meant, whose women were sheltered and whose men lead two lives.  What the hell did they know about what was right and what was wrong?  Not a damned thing.

He bent his head closer and ran his tongue up the nape of her neck, tracing the arc and tasting her skin—warm and floral, succulent.

Olivia moaned.  She tilted her head forward, offering herself, exposing more to his searching mouth.

He brought his lips to the shell of her ear and the juncture of her jaw and neck, exploring, learning.  She was so soft, so ripe and fragrant.  He sucked her earlobe into his mouth and gently nipped at it with the very edges of his teeth.