Annie And The Cowboy (Western Night Series 3) (73 page)

              It was terrifying, because she had, up until this point, only kissed Jake, and not Chance at all. It had been a sudden thing, something she had not remotely expected as they sat by the lake in the center of town. The sun was starting to go down, and Lucy had felt very happy and comfortable in this moment. Jake was a comfortable man, she knew that by now, and his company was always welcome.

              She remembered the moment so quickly, when he studied her face as though trying to find the answer before he even had asked the question, and as Lucy looked at him she had suddenly knew what he was going to ask, fear began to grip her stomach.

              “Lucy Granger, may I kiss you?”

              Lucy stared at him, at his kind blue eyes, at his nervous smile. Surveying him, she realized that this was precisely what she was supposed to be doing with these boys, so she nodded.

              As he leaned over to kiss her, it felt nice, but she pulled away quickly for fear that someone would see. If she had truly loved him, would she have pulled away so quickly?

              “Sometimes it comes when you least expect it,” her mother explained. “And I don’t want you to think that I won’t respect whatever it is that you choose…”

              “Even if it’s Chance?”

              The corner of Lucy’s mother’s mouth twitched at the mention of Chance, but she nodded anyway. “Yes, even if you choose Chance.”

              A small knock at the door sounded, causing Lucy’s mother to jump and then laugh, embarrassed. Lucy stayed in the kitchen as her mother went out and greeted Chance with guarded cheerfulness.

              Ever since her kiss with Jake, Lucy had been seriously considering kissing Chance, but she kept finding herself hung up on the logistics. She wanted to make sure that the playing field was even between the two of them, and wouldn’t that mean that she would have to wait until Chance asked to kiss her?

              What if he never did?

              She thought about this as she readied her horse, a chestnut gelding that had been the son of her own mother’s prized mare. She thought about this as Chance led her on a riding path down by the mountains. Over the houses they spent exploring the area, and kept thinking about it when they stopped in the mouth of a cave for dinner.

              “It’s later than I expected,” he said with a frown as he gathered some kindling for a fire. “We might have to camp here.”

              She stared at him. Camp? Together? Alone? She didn’t know what to say as she unpacked the small dinner that her mother helped her make for the ride. Cold chicken, apples, and freshly baked biscuits, she watched Chance as he devoured it hungrily, only picking at her own food. It kept weighing on her mind, the idea of a kiss. The idea of a kiss from
him
.

              “Good thing you packed a blanket,” Chance said. “I can use my coat so don’t you worry about me.”

              “Why don’t you want to kiss me?”

              The question took him by surprise.

              “What?”

              “Jake’s kissed me, but you haven’t kissed me yet,” the words were tumbling out of Lucy’s mouth and she felt like an utter fool. “I just thought that you would want to kiss me too, I mean I wouldn’t say no if you asked to kiss me.”

              Soon Chance’s bemused look melted into amusement. “Why Lucy Granger, are you asking me to kiss you?”

              She blushed deeply. “No, of course not. I wouldn’t...I wouldn’t do that. I just wanted...a comparison.”

              Lucy would have continued speaking were it not for the fact that in that moment, Chance leaned over and pressed his lips to hers. Immediately that fire in her stomach ignited, and soon her arms were around his neck, soon she was pulling him closer to her.

              “Lucy, are you okay?” he asked as he broke the kiss and heard her gasp. He had ended up pulling her into his lap, and the closeness of him drove her wild. She looked at his lips, raw from kissing, the darkness of his five o’clock shadow. The look of him in the firelight made Lucy want to experiment more.

              “I’m fine, kiss me again,” she said. He obliged. They kissed for what seemed like hours, kissed until true darkness fell and Lucy couldn’t take it anymore. “I want more,” she whispered to him.

              His dark eyes looked concerned in the firelight. “Are you sure?” he asked.

              “Yes,” she replied.

              So he obliged, unbuttoning the buttons of her blouse, slipping his hand inside to cup around the sensitive skin of her breasts. She gasped at his touch, and begged for him to continue. Soon her blouse was on the ground, quickly followed by her skirt, by his shirt, by his pants, until they stood in front of each other naked as the day they were born.

              “I’ve never done this before,” Lucy admitted.

              “Me neither,” Chance replied. “Come here.”

              He held her for a long time, their naked flesh touching each other in ways that excited Lucy even then. He held her until she couldn’t stop his curiosity, until she felt the need, until she climbed on top of him and gripped him in her hands, sliding him inside of her and rocking her hips as she did it. Chance looked up at her as though he had never seen a woman so beautiful, and they rocked in the firelight until their breathing grew ragged, until Lucy felt as though she was going to explode, until Chance cried out as he finished and then was still.

              She looked down at him, at the peacefulness of his face, and thought that she had never felt more powerful in her life.

              Climbing off of him, she snuggled up beside him, staring into the darkness and wondering just what she was going to do next.

******

              They were quiet on the ride home, mostly because Lucy was lost in her own thoughts. She had made love with Chance the night before, wasn’t it all over? Didn’t she make her choice? She thought of the look on her mother’s face when Lucy asked if she would still support choosing Chance, and the life that she would leave behind. How often would she be able to see her parents? How often would she be able to do any of the things that she liked to do? Was she willing to uproot her entire life?

              And yet when she looked at Chance her stomach swelled with happiness. Wasn’t this what she was looking for? This kind of mad, crazy love?

              “I still don’t know,” she finally said as they reached the edge of town. “I...I just don’t know.”

              Chance looked at her as though she had lost her mind, and for one terrible moment she wondered if he was finally going to give up on her, ride away, go home. On the one hand, it would make her decision so much easier, on the other hand she felt as though a large part of her would die if he left. What could she do?

              Upon arriving in the stables, she heard angry voices in her house, only to see her parents burst out of the front door with terribly angry looks on their faces.

              “Lucy!” her father cried. “There you are! Where have you been?”

              Lucy hated being talked to as though she was a child. As an eighteen-year-old woman, she was old enough to take care of herself, and yet under the scrutinizing gaze of her parents, she felt like a little girl again.

              “We lost track of time in the mountains, so we camped,” Lucy said as though it wasn’t that big of a deal. “It turned out just fine, look, we’re fine!”

              Lucy’s mother glanced from Lucy to Chance, and although she still looked murderous, Lucy could still detect that she was at least slightly depressed. Lucy was sure that her mother had never thought that Lucy lacked the constitution to really camp out, and Lucy wasn’t offended by that, knowing full well that up until that very morning Lucy would have agreed with her. Now things were different, and with Chance she was beginning to realize that there were plenty of things she could do. Why not explore that?

              But anything she could have said on that subject had quickly died when Jake crept out from behind her father, his large blue eyes looking at her with a sad and hopeful expression.

              “Jake was worried that you had gotten hurt,” Lucy’s father explained. “He came to call this morning.”

              “Oh.” She looked at Jake, who seemed almost apologetic. “I’m sorry, would it be possible for me to move our walk to the afternoon? I’m a mess right now.”

              “Sure,” Jake replied.

              “No,” Chance said. “I can’t keep doing this, and McGraw, I don’t know how you can stand it either!”

              For a terrible moment, Lucy thought that he was going to tell everyone about their interlude outside of the cave. The idea of it pre-emptively infuriated her, but instead he glanced at her and then looked back at Jake, prepared to appeal to him.

              “We both love her, I can see that plainly, and maybe she loves the both of us, because she can’t choose...but we can’t keep doing this, don’t you agree?”

              Jake was quiet for a long time, before slowly nodding. That agreement seemed to give Chance strength.

              “So I think we settle this like men.”

              Lucy didn’t know what that meant, but judging by the shocked looks on her parents’ faces, she realized that it must be a terrible thing. Jake stared down at Chance with an expression on his face that Lucy couldn’t read.

              “Do you mean…”

              “Yes,” Chance said, although his voice wavered a little bit. “I don’t hate you, McGraw. In fact, I respect you, which is why I think we should do it this way.”

              Lucy looked from face to face in the hopes that someone would clue her into what was going on, but Chance merely stood his ground, serious as a thunderstorm.

              After a long time, Jake nodded.

              “Don’t!” Lucy’s mother cried. “You’re both just boys!”

              Lucy’s father put his arm around her mother and pulled her away. “They’re grown men, Lilah, you’ve got to let them do what they’re going to do.”

              Chance tipped his hat. “Tomorrow, high noon.”

              “I’ll be there,” Jake replied. Lucy was terribly confused, even more so when Jake excused himself from the Granger’s company to set on out home.

              “What are they going to do?” Lucy asked stubbornly. Her mother looked hesitant to reply, but a look from her husband told her that she had to.

              “They’re going to duel,” her mother said.

              “What!?” Lucy cried. “Over
me
!?”

              Her horror was palpable and Lucy’s mother drew her in close to comfort her. “It’s the folly of boys,” she replied darkly. “You’re never going to convince them otherwise.”

              “I don’t want anyone to die over me,” she murmured into her mother’s shirt, staining it with tears. Her mother gently smoothed her hair back.

              “There’s a chance no one will die,” her father said. “One of them might just get shot.”

              “Kyle!” her mother hissed. “You aren’t much of a help!”

              “I don’t think I can be much of a help in this situation,” her father said seriously. “Those boys both got their heart set on our Lucy, and she seems to have her heart set on both of them, so what else can we do?”

              Lucy was quiet as she thought about this. There had to be something she could do, and as she thought about it, she knew that the only thing she could do was choose.

              It was going to be a very long day and night coming up with this decision, she realized. Agonizingly long. 

              The news of the duel had spread like wildfire, and most of the people of the town agreed that this had always been the most likely conclusion all along. Lucy had never been a particularly decisive girl. Most people had been surprised that it had taken this long for the idea of blood to be shed.

              Mary, fresh from her honeymoon, had arrived back in town shocked at the events she was learning. How could Lucy have allowed things to get this far? Would she really want the blood of one of these young men to be on her hands after all? The idea was completely shocking to her.

              As soon as she heard about it, she marched over to the Granger residence and knocked on the door. There was only half an hour until the duel, and Lucy needed to hear an earful. Mary at least believed that until she saw Lucy open the door, took note of the poor girl’s dark circles under her eyes, the tears that had stained her eyes red from crying.

              “Oh Lucy!” Mary cried, throwing her arms around her friend. The gesture of kindness made Lucy burst into tears again, and she was shaking her head as Mary turned her eyes to look at her friend’s face.

              “What happened?” Mary asked.

              “Chance asked Jake for a duel to settle this, and I know that I can stop it the moment I make a decision but I still can’t!”