Last Chance Cowboys: The Drifter (21 page)

“Easy there,” he managed. If she kept this up, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from having all of her, and even though she had asked him to love her, he wasn't sure a woman like Maria fully understood what that meant to a man like him. More to the point, this wasn't some dance-hall girl he'd met after a cattle drive. This was Maria. His Maria.

“Maria.” He cupped the back of her head, his breath coming in short bursts as if he had run miles. His desire for her threatened to make him lose all control. He saw in her eyes that she would not refuse him—that her need for him was just as great. “I… You…” He wanted her more than anything he'd ever wanted in his life.

“Please,” she whispered as she reached for him and buried her fingers in his hair, guiding him closer until his mouth was covering one breast.

With each kiss he felt the heat within her growing. His own passion threatened to make him forget anything he might have been thinking about the future and focus only on
now.
This moment. This woman beneath him.

“Touch me, Chet,” she pleaded.

“Yes, ma'am,” he murmured, and he cupped her breast, massaging it with his thumb until she squirmed beneath him. The way she looked at him, her eyes pleading for more, made him put aside his worries about whether or not they might have a future and feather kisses over her breast, shoulder, and neck until he reached her mouth.

“And stop calling me ‘ma'am,'” she said after a searing kiss.

“What would you like me to call you?” he asked as he levered himself above her. His breath caught at the sheer beauty of her lying among the flowers, her eyes roaming over his face and body.

“Yours,” she said huskily as she held out her arms to him.

The desire that radiated between them on the sound of that single word made the heat of the day seem more like a cool breeze. He reached between their melded bodies and tried to open the belt she wore. After a few futile attempts, she pushed him aside, sat up, undid the belt and the button front of her trousers and pushed them down, exposing a length of creamy skin that made Chet's blood rush to his brain.

“Well, help me,” she said as she tried to push the pant legs over her boots.

He chuckled as he pulled off each boot and the sock underneath and kissed her instep, then teased her ankle with his tongue. As he pulled the pants the rest of the way off, she pulled her shirt over her head and cast it aside. Her hair had come free of the clip she wore to hold it back when she was riding. Strands of it lay over her bare shoulders. He knelt at her feet, taking in the sheer beauty of her—seeing the deep rose of her nipple through the thin fabric of her undergarment, the way her hair caught the sunlight, the way her eyes had darkened to deep pools of desire. “You are so beautiful, Maria.”

She smiled. “And you, sir, are overdressed.”

He made short work of undressing himself, saw her eyes widen in surprise when he exposed his manhood to her, and knew the moment that shock passed when she smiled and wriggled out of her undergarment.

He was full to bursting with wanting her and not at all sure he could maintain any sense of control. “This could hurt,” he warned.

“But not for long,” she said, then giggled. “At least when Mama gave Amanda and me the talk, that's what she said.”

“Maria, be serious. If I hurt you, you have to let me know and I can…”

She frowned and put on what he had come to think of as her “don't cross me” face. “If you think—”

He shut her up with a kiss and two of his fingers probing her until she raked his back with her nails. Levering himself above her—wanting to see her face this first and maybe only time for them—he eased himself into her.

She startled and then sighed, and it was as if she had willed herself to relax and open to receive him. Her softness surrounded him, and he knew there was no way he could hold out. He felt the build to the explosion he knew was coming, and just before he reached the heights, Maria gave a soft cry. His eyes flew open, and he was ready to withdraw when he saw that instead of the pain or even the regret he might have expected to see, all he saw was ecstasy.

* * *

Maria had grown up on a ranch. She had seen animals mate. She had always thought she had a pretty good idea of what it might be like to lie with a man.
Until
now.

She felt as if she had become something other than the woman she thought she was. She had never known such intense need and want. Chet levered himself above her, watching her, his expression soft and—dare she think loving?

She pulled him closer, her hand flattening on his bare back as she felt him tease her with his fingers. She felt a heat and excitement building inside her. She was going to lose all control, and somehow she understood that this would be a relief—a release of all the feelings and longings she had been holding inside. Everything about this moment was absolutely right no matter what the future might bring for either of them.

When he entered her, she gasped and immediately he tried to pull back. But she grasped his hips and urged him to go on, for somehow she understood that the key to her release was him. Quickly she caught on to the movements of this dance of lovemaking—the rise and fall of the beat of it. She cried out as the pleasure peaked inside her. And then it was Chet who cried out and she who held him as shudders racked their bodies like the aftershocks of an earthquake.

After a moment of perfect stillness, he rolled to his back, bringing her with him so that her head rested in the curve of his shoulder. “Are you all right?” he asked, worry lines furrowing across his brow.

She pushed a lock of his hair away from his forehead, then smoothed out the lines with her fingers. “I'm not sure.”

He sat up and looked at her. “Not sure how? Did I hurt you?”

“Oh, no.” She smiled. “I'm fine—better than fine, in fact.”

“Then what?”

“Well, you see, I have nothing to compare what just happened here to, and I was thinking—purely for purposes of comparison—we might do it again?”

His laughter echoed across the land, so much so that Cracker came running from the creek, where she'd sneaked off to cool down.

Chet saw the dog coming and tried to shelter her. “Crack, no,” he yelled.

But it was too late. The dog had reached them and, reassured that everything was all right, took that moment to shake off and drench them both with water.

Now Maria was laughing as well, especially when she saw the dog roll over Chet's clothes to dry herself.

“Talk about throwing a wet blanket on an otherwise great fire,” Chet muttered as he stood up and rescued his clothes.

“Cracker is right. We need to head back,” Maria said, although leaving this place—this man—was the very last thing she wanted.

The silence that stretched between them as they dressed bordered on uncomfortable. “Chet? I want you to know that I have no regrets. You do understand that?”

He turned to her, hesitant at first, but then he bent and broke off half a single daisy and offered it to her. “I have never met a woman like you, Maria Porterfield. Whatever the future holds for us, I will never forget you.”

“You make it sound like you've decided to leave.”

“I haven't decided anything, but we both know there's a lot standing between us and anything we might want together. All right?” he asked.

“All right, but I don't have to like it,” she grumbled as she pushed away the flower he was now using to tickle her ear.

He wove the stem of the flower into hair and wrapped his arms around her. “We'll find a way, Maria. I promise.”

At Joker's funeral, Chet stood with the other hands across the open grave from the Porterfield family—and Turnbull, who had taken a position so close to Maria that their arms touched. It had rained all night, just as he'd heard the men mention it had the day they had buried Isaac Porterfield. The men wore their hats, letting the rain splash off the brims while the women stood under black umbrellas. Chet was glad to see that Loralei had apparently had the good sense not to attend the service.

Bunker led them in prayer after Trey read a passage from the Bible, and then Chet and five other men lowered the coffin into the grave and began filling the opening. Maria stepped to the edge just before they threw in the first shovelful of mud and dropped a small bouquet of wildflowers on top of the coffin.

“Thank you, Oscar,” she whispered, then stepped back, took Turnbull's arm, and followed her mother and the rest of the family back to the house.

Chet knew the game she was playing with Turnbull, but that did not mean he had to like it. She was deliberately putting herself in danger. So what if Turnbull let something slip? What could she do about it?

As he joined the others to fill the grave, Chet went over what had happened from the time they'd returned to the ranch the day before. As they rode together and watched the sun sink lower in the Western sky, he had tried again to persuade her to let him handle things for her. But she had insisted that she had to do it her way. On the ride back, he had pulled her onto his horse, so that she was in front of him, her arms around him. Every time he tried talking sense to her, she kissed him, and after awhile, he had given up trying to talk her out of whatever scheme she had worked up. All he could do was watch and wait and pray that when she needed him, he would be there.

When they got within sight of the ranch, she had mounted her horse, then taken off. He'd watched as she rode up to the house, where Turnbull was waiting for her. The two of them had walked inside arm in arm, and Chet had not seen either of them until he and the other men had gone to the house for the wake.

At the wake, she'd been wearing a dress for once—a gray cotton with white trim around the cuffs and neck, her hair pulled back and wound into a tight bun. She had stood between her mother and Turnbull as the men filed by Joker's casket to pay their respects. Afterward, there had been food set out in the courtyard, but then the rain had started up again, so Juanita had sent the men back to the bunkhouse and had Eduardo and Javier deliver the food. The last Chet had seen of Maria, she'd been resting her head on Turnbull's shoulder and he had been speaking softly to her as they walked into the house together.

Any other man would have been filled with jealousy or would have suspected betrayal, even with Maria's assurances. But he trusted her—and because he had come to respect her more than any woman he'd ever known, he decided to do as she asked. In the meantime, if he and Maria were to have any chance at all at a future, he had to get things settled with Loralei. So after he and the other men finished filling in the grave and marking it with a crude wooden cross, Chet headed for the anteroom.

He knocked and then entered without waiting for permission. Ezma was sitting on the floor, feeding the kid. Loralei was studying her reflection in a hand mirror. Without a word, Ezma gathered the child close, pulled her shawl to cover both of them, and left the room. Chet placed his hat on a peg near the door and sat in the only other chair available.

“You're looking mighty gussied, Loralei. Expecting company?”

She put down the mirror and scowled at him. “I suppose, to get your attention, I need to run around wearing men's trousers and such.”

He decided to ignore that. “You look nice. Turnbull should be impressed.”

“Roger is a gentleman, Chet. You could learn a thing or two from him.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

After a pause that went on just long enough to make Loralei start pacing the small room, she stopped in front of him. “Why are you here?”

He shrugged. “Seemed as good a time as any for me and you to write that letter to your pa.” He noticed how she kept glancing toward the door.

“This isn't—”

“You see, Turnbull seems to be taking care of the Porterfield women—especially Miss Maria. I'd say it'll be a while before he comes calling tonight.” He took out a piece of paper that he'd gotten from Trey and a pencil. “So let's see—what would be the best way to say this?” He pushed the writing materials across the table to where she stood.

“You said you'd buy me a ticket—”

“You and your baby, and I will as soon as we get the stock to market and I get paid. But surely you don't want to have to take time for writing this then. No, best go ahead and put it down now.”

She grabbed the paper and pencil and bent over the table, scrawling words with such abandon that Chet couldn't help but wonder what she was writing. She signed her name with a flourish and slammed down the pencil. “There,” she huffed. “Now please leave.”

Chet picked up the paper.

Dearest Daddy,

Chet is not the baby's father and that is all I will say until we see each other again. In the meantime, you must not blame him for any of this. I made a terrible mistake, but I am well and in a safe place, resting. Please don't be angry with me. You and Mummy are everything to me, and I beg your forgiveness.

All my love,

Loralei

Chet folded the paper, noticing that other than in the first line, she had not mentioned the child. “Do you care at all for the boy?” he asked.

Loralei looked up at him, her eyes filled with confusion. Chet picked up a small wooden toy from the table and offered it to her. “Your son?”

“Well, of course. He is, after all, an innocent in this whole horrid business. But, Chet, I am in no position to raise a child, so I've been thinking that maybe…” She bit her lower lip, then started pacing the confines of the room again.

“Thinking maybe what?”

“Well, I've seen how Mrs. Porterfield takes to the boy. I mean, it's practically the only time she shows any sign of life at all, and I was wondering… Do you think the Porterfields would…”

Chet was so horrified that he could not speak.

“Or maybe Ezma? She seems to truly like him. Of course, she's being paid, but still…”

“Loralei, just stop talking.” Chet closed his eyes and tried to come to grips with the realization that getting Loralei out of his life just might be dooming an innocent child to a life Chet wouldn't wish on his worst enemy. “You don't feel anything for the boy?” he asked, unable to let it go.

“That child has ruined my life, Chet. Oh, I know he didn't do it deliberately but—”

“Do you hear yourself, Loralei? We are talking about a baby that you brought into this world. He has no blame in any of this.”

She shrugged. “I know. You're right, of course, but sometimes when I think of months and years of being tied down and…” She picked up the mirror and gently touched her cheeks. “Look at me, Chet. Between this constant dry air and the dirt and the sleepless nights when Ezma can't get the child to stop wailing, I am looking so wan and old and—”

“We are talking about a child, Loralei. If you can't bring yourself to find a single motherly feeling, then give the boy to me.”

The minute he said it, he knew he was being completely irrational. What was he going to do with a kid? But Loralei was smiling at him.

“You mean it?” She ran to him and threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Chet, honey, you are such a good man. Thank you. Thank you.”

He could hardly go back on his offer, could he? Maybe he'd ride into town and speak to Addie Wilcox. As a doctor, she might know of a good home for the baby. But giving the boy up to be raised by strangers didn't seem much better than letting him take his chances with Loralei. In one simple statement, he had just made his chances of ever being with Maria more complicated.

“For now, he stays right here with you and Ezma,” he instructed, his mind racing as he searched for ideas for how he was going to manage this. “Understood?”

“Yes of course, sweetie. You go herd your cows and such, get your money, and I'll be right here waiting—me, Ezma, and the baby.” She clapped her hands together as if she were a child herself. “Oh, Chet, things are going to work out after all.”

He stood at the door hat in hand, his back to her. “What's his full name?”

“Chester Maxwell Hunter.”

Chet nodded, clapped his hat on his head, and stepped outside into the rain. On his way to the bunkhouse, he passed by the house and saw Ezma rocking the child as she sat talking to Juanita in the kitchen. He stopped at the kitchen door, and both women looked at him, clearly surprised. “How's he doing?”

“He's fine,” Juanita replied.

“That's good. Just wanted you to know he's to be called by his middle name from now on—Max.” He couldn't say for sure, but it looked like the kid raised one little fist in approval.

Chet nodded to Juanita and Ezma and headed for the barn.

Max,
he thought. It was a good name.

* * *

Maria had only the slimmest of evidence that Roger was somehow connected to her father's death. It wasn't anything that was likely to hold up in court—that much she had reasoned out as she and Chet had returned to the ranch. But it was a start. Now what she needed to do was find a way to connect Roger, her father, and the place her father died, and the only way she could figure out how to do that was to renew her relationship with Roger. So the minute she had spotted him pacing the courtyard as she and Chet rode back to the ranch, she kicked her horse to a gallop and took off.

By the time she reached the courtyard, she was breathless and flushed enough that Roger came to meet her, his expression one of alarm. “Maria? What's happened?”

“I'm all right, Roger,” she said but allowed him to hold her for a moment as he helped her down from her horse. “Come inside, will you?” She took his arm. “It's just that Oscar's death has stirred up so many painful memories of Papa, and right now I don't want to upset Mama. And Amanda and Trey are too young to understand all that I am feeling.” She had patted his arm. “I need a friend, Roger. Will you be my friend?”

She had expected some sarcastic remark about Chet, but instead Roger had puffed up his chest. He believed that at last he had won, and in victory, he could be benevolent. “You know I am here for you, Maria, I have always been here for you.”

“Thank you. I am so very tired.”

“Of course you are. Just leave everything to me.”

And all through Oscar's funeral and the days that followed, as the men completed the branding and returned that stock to the high ground for grazing, Roger was true to his word. It was Roger who sat at her father's desk, met with the cowhands, gave out assignments. It was Roger who sat at meals with the family, made a fuss over how beautiful Amanda was becoming, and showed an interest in Trey's ideas for the ranch. It was Roger who daily called on Constance Porterfield—flowers or a cup of tea in hand—and won her grudging acceptance by asking her what she thought her late husband might do about this or that problem with the ranch. And to Maria's relief, as Roger's power grew, his animosity toward Chet cooled to a low simmer that he expressed only in smirks and snide remarks.

There was only one potential problem—Loralei. The woman was not pleased that Roger had no time for her. She made excuses to come to the house when she knew he would be there, and twice Maria had seen her leaving the office in tears. According to Juanita, Ezma had reported that Loralei had taken to muttering to herself about how promises had been made and this time she would not allow a man to simply walk away.

The hardest part of this whole charade was that Maria had to keep her distance from Chet. She longed to sit with him and tell him what was going on. She missed everything about him—his voice, his laughter, his kisses—especially his kisses. But to her delight, it was Chet who found a solution to their separation. One evening Bunker came to the house, hat in hand, just after the family—and Roger—had finished their supper.

“Evenin', ma'am,” he said with a shy nod at Constance. “Boss, I wonder if I might have a word with Mrs. Porterfield.”

Roger glanced up from his slice of pie and nodded.

“It's about Snap—Trey, ma'am. The boys in the bunkhouse were remembering what a good job he did out there on the range, and we thought maybe if he started staying with us, we could teach him and take him along when we round up the herd to take to market down in Yuma in a week or so.”

Trey looked at his mother, his eyes begging her to agree.

“Trey?” Constance glanced at Bunker. “I'm not sure he's up to it, Seymour. You know how ill he was and—”

“Please, Mama. I have to learn some time.”

“Well, I suppose. What do you think, Roger?”

Roger had trouble controlling his smile of complete triumph. For the first time since her husband's death, Maria's mother had turned to him for advice—not to Maria, but to him.

“I think it's a fine idea, ma'am. The boy is certainly outnumbered by you ladies here in the house. Do him good to spend some time with the men.” He turned to Bunker. “You'll see that he's always with one of the more experienced hands and never alone, Bunker.” As always it was an order, not a request.

“Sure, boss.”

“I'll help you gather your things, Trey,” Amanda offered.

“Good idea, Snap,” Bunker said. “I'll just wait out here on the porch.” He glanced at Maria, who was slicing pie for their dessert. “I sure wouldn't refuse a piece of that pie, Miss Maria.”

She laughed. “Go on and sit down. I'll bring you your pie—and a cup of coffee?”