Love Under Two Gunslingers (13 page)

He grasped her hips, holding her still even as she tried to escalate their dance. He held her and teased, teased them both, until he saw Caleb throw back his head, his growl a keening cry of satiation.

Reaching down and around, he teased her clitoris until he felt the walls of her body convulse around him. Then he followed them both into the bliss.

Chapter 11

The land had leveled out, and as they traveled all day toward the southwest, it seemed to Sarah they left the hills behind. They’d been riding for several hours since the last break, their pace steady but not fast.

As the terrain became flatter, less rocky, Caleb no longer kept them to single file, and instead the men flanked her. That made it easier for conversation.

At the first rest stop of the day, Sarah had dispensed with the top part of her traveling dress and her blouse. The simple chemise she wore beneath would be too scandalous an item to wear out in Chicago. But on the trail heading through the untamed wilderness toward Texas, it seemed more than appropriate.

And since her lovers had seen, touched, and kissed every inch of her naked body the day before, Sarah had awakened that morning to discover her modesty truly beginning to ebb.

“See those trees up ahead? There’s a small river up there. We’ll stop and make camp for the night, see if we can catch some fish to eat. If you’re hungry.” Caleb said.

“I am hungry. You’ve been here before?” She realized they must indeed have been through the area to know there was a river in that spot. She could see no sign of it from her position on the horse.

“We’ve traveled through here a few times,” Caleb answered. Did he seem even more on guard than he had been? Sarah wondered at the way he seemed to look all around, as if expecting danger.

“It’s pretty land.”

“Yes, the Cherokee think so, too,” Joshua said. His gaze, like his brothers, seemed to look everywhere at once.

“Cherokee? Aren’t they Indians?”

“They are indeed.”

“And they’re near here? Near us, right
now
?” Sarah would admit that her real knowledge of the Indians and Indian matters was almost non-existent.

When she’d been younger, her father had taken to purchasing dime novels that he read late at night. Sarah used to sneak into her father’s study to peruse these dramatic accounts of the violent clashes between “God-fearing, patriotic American settlers” and the “wild Indians”. She recalled some of her earliest nightmares had centered around those stories, some of which had been quite gruesome in their depictions of Indians or soldiers or even the settlers themselves being massacred. Her mother had never known about Sarah’s clandestine reading, nor had she ever approved of those novels being in the house in the first place. As far as Sarah knew, her father still liked to pick up those simple books to while away an afternoon.

Sarah had no idea what her father’s current wife thought of the practice.

“Of course they’re near here. This is their land, sweetheart. We’re in Indian Territory.”

“Indian Territory?” She heard the squeak in her voice and wondered if the smiles both men gave her were because they thought her funny or because they wanted to reassure her she had nothing to fear.

She rather suspected the former.

“Relax, Sarah. The Cherokee are a peaceful people. At least the ones we’ve met have always been. We need to travel through their land, then through that of the Choctaw. In fact, once on Choctaw land, we’ll be passing within ten miles of Durant. It’s not a large city, but it has many of the same amenities you’d find almost anywhere in
Arkansas
or
Texas
.”

“Oh. I thought hostilities existed, still, between the Indians and some of the settlers.”

“Some settlers seem to be of the opinion they can just move into the area, claim it as their own. So in a sense there are some hostilities. But nothing any of us have to worry about. Necessarily.”

“Joshua.”

Caleb’s tone of censure made his brother chuckle. “I’m sorry, Sarah. You looked so spooked I couldn’t resist teasing you a little. Seriously, we have nothing to worry about. The Cherokee and the Choctaw, at the heart of it, are no different than us. The people here just want to live their lives in peace.”

Sarah found her gaze drawn to Caleb. There were moments when she found it impossible to remember the brothers were twins. Caleb always seemed older, more serious. He was, between the two of them, the undisputed leader.

“He’s right. We are relatively safe here because he and I
have
spent some time among both the Cherokee and the Choctaw. Besides, you have to know we’ll keep you safe.”

“Bet your ass.” Joshua said.

Sarah widened her eyes in shock at the crude expression, then burst out laughing. She was beginning to understand that before she’d left her sheltered existence at her father’s house in Chicago, she really hadn’t known anything about the world at all.

She pushed aside her nebulous fear of the unknown and seized onto the only reality that mattered at the moment. She was with two men she had come to love. They would keep her safe.

* * * *

Caleb couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched.

Well able to split his attention, he focused on Sarah and on the area around them. They’d come off the large plateau Springfield had been built upon, picking their way through the sometimes rocky slopes of the Ozarks. Now the ground gradually leveled, and they would continue to descend until they reached the border of Texas.

A series of lakes and rivers assured them of plenty of water for themselves and the horses. They’d packed supplies from the general store in Springfield, enough to last them several days more than they needed. He’d hoped to be able to avoid civilization during their journey. Safer to stick to the untamed land, to make their way depending only upon themselves.

He turned from hobbling his horse by the stream and caught the sight of Sarah stretching the kinks from her back.

They hadn’t been able to keep their cocks out of her last night, either. She had to be sore, riding astride all day.

She hadn’t complained even once.

Sarah noticed him staring at her. She blushed, lowering her arms slowly, then smiled. He smiled back and went over to her.

“We’ve stopped maybe a couple hours sooner than I originally planned but only because we made it this far. It’s a good place to camp, and the shorter day will give the horses a good rest. We haven’t been setting a blistering pace, but I want to keep them working for us as long as we can. There are a couple of places we can get fresh horses but not for several days. Will you be all right to put in another long day tomorrow?”

 
“Yes. I won’t lie to you. I’m sore. But I’ll ride as long as we need to ride.”

Sarah had a way of lifting her chin slightly when she asserted herself. He didn’t think it a trait she’d indulged in much in the past—hell, she’d married a man at her father’s behest. So he bent down and placed a quick kiss on her lips. He’d allow her the display of grit, and he’d keep an eye on her. If she flagged at any time, then he’d simply carry her.

Joshua had gathered enough wood for their fire. Since it might take a bit of time to catch their dinner, they opted to have some coffee first. The smell of it brewing always perked Caleb up, and it seemed to have the same effect of Sarah.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “When I look back on it, I realize Mr. Maddox couldn’t have been too pleased with the idea of marrying me in the first place. On top of that whole wedding night fiasco where he passed out, drunk, he barely spoke to me and hardly looked me in the eye. Father, on the other hand, held the man’s full attention. I’ve come to the conclusion he only married me as a favor to my father.”

Caleb looked from Sarah’s sincere expression to his brother’s doubtful one. A man might do a lot of things for another man. Caleb wasn’t altogether certain that getting married to the man’s daughter fell into that category. Of course, Sarah made his mouth water—she would any man’s. He could buy her theory if Maddox had ravished her. The fact he hadn’t touched her was not just damned odd, it bothered Caleb.

“He didn’t speak to you or look you in the eye?”

“Barely at all. In fact, he treated my step-mother the exact same way he treated me. I’ve served as hostess for my father before he married Miranda and if I saw Maddox and Miranda like that at one of my dinner parties, I’d make certain I didn’t have them seated anywhere close together at any future gathering.”

“Because you thought perhaps he didn’t like her?”

Sarah shrugged. “He didn’t seem to like either of us, was more interested in talking with Father. Well, some men, especially older men, don’t pay much mind to women.”

“And stupid ones,” Joshua said.

Sarah smiled. “Thank you. But my point is he likely really doesn’t care about me one way or the other. So I shouldn’t have much trouble getting him to agree to the annulment, especially once I tell him that I
don’t
want to be married to him.”

Caleb looked at his brother. Joshua’s expression told him they thought basically the same thing. He didn’t think Sarah’s disentanglement from Tyrone Maddox would be as simple as she believed it would.

He felt torn. He didn’t want to upset her by disagreeing with her, but neither did he want to treat her in a patronizing way by agreeing with her. He imagined she’d had a belly full of that kind of treatment all her life.

“There’s still the matter of the five thousand dollars,” Caleb said.

“Oh.” Sarah’s face turned a pretty shade of red. “Right. My bride price. I’d almost forgotten about that.” She stared into her coffee cup for a long moment.

“Are there any lawyers in Waco?” she asked.

“One or two,” Joshua said.

Caleb laughed. “One or two dozen, you mean.”

Sarah brightened at the news. “A lawyer could help me write a promissory note. When I turn twenty-five, I come into an inheritance—my maternal grandfather left me a little something. I’m not certain how much it is, but it must be enough to pay back Maddox. A lawyer could verify the terms of my grandfather’s bequest. Don’t you think?”

“He won’t want to wait for the money, sweetheart,” Joshua said.

“No, he won’t.” Caleb agreed. “But that’s all right. We’ve got that much. We’ll pay him.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t—”

“Stop right there, sweetheart,” Caleb heard the harshness in his tone and strove to soften it. “You’re ours, remember?”

“And we take care of what’s ours,” Joshua finished for him.

“Then I’ll pay
you
back,” Sarah said.

“Maybe you didn’t understand what Joshua and I just—”

“My father sold me!”

Caleb had known that knowledge wounded Sarah, but he hadn’t understood how deeply until just now when he heard the pain in her words.

“He sold me as if I had been no better than a horse or a slave. I know I’m yours. And you’re mine, both of you. But this is something I have to pay back.”

“All right, Sarah.” If he ever had the opportunity to meet Sarah’s father, he hoped he had his anger in hand enough that he didn’t beat the shit out of the man. For now, he worked at keeping his tone gentle.

“We’ll help you do that,” Joshua said, with much the same forced gentleness.

“Thank you.”

“Sarah, how is it you don’t know how much your inheritance is?” Caleb asked her after thinking about it. She had mentioned the same thing once before, and he’d wondered then, but that had been before she’d become his lover and thereby his business.

“Oh, well, the money had been left to me by my mother’s father. He’d cut mother out of his life when she ran off to marry my father. I don’t think she ever saw him again. And then she got sick and died. Father has never spoken of the man and only mentioned in passing that he’d left me something.”

“So you don’t know the terms of the bequest or the amount?”

“No, just that the money can’t be touched until I’m twenty-five years old.”

“Why are you looking so uncomfortable, sweetheart? You know we’ve seen you naked.”

Sarah laughed at Joshua’s words. “That means,” he continued, “that there should be no embarrassment between us about anything at all.”

“It’s just that I realized I only knew that last part because Miranda told me. She told me that Father wouldn’t have had to sell me if he could have gotten his hands on my money.”

“Miranda is your stepmother?”

“According to the laws of
Illinois
, yes.”

Caleb laughed. It was good to see that prickly side of her.

“The laws of the land are made by men, and men, by and large, don’t seem to be able to see women very clearly. Our Dad died when we were small—kind of the opposite of what you went through—and our Mom raised us, took care of the ranch. She was one hell of a woman. She could stand toe to toe with any man. And I see some of her in you.”