Cowboy For Hire (12 page)

“Oh, you’re so right! I really can’t stand
him.”

“He’s awful.” She poked Amy’s shoulder. Amy,
having learned shortly after she’d arrived in the costume tent what
that meant, obediently turned, and Miss Crenshaw began doing
whatever it was she did to the right side of the garment. After a
moment, she muttered, “Oh, piffle. I forgot the tape. Can you stand
there, just like that, for another little minute? Don’t let your
arm drop or the fit will change. I’ll be right back.”

“Certainly.”

Amy was facing the back of the tent, and
peered over her shoulder to watch Miss Crenshaw as she headed to
the table littered with scissors, tapes, pincushions, needles, and
pins, and lorded over by one of those brand-new portable sewing
machines. They were portable, that is, if one were a gorilla. Amy,
curious about the modern phenomenon, had tried to life it and
nearly broke her back.

“I know it’s here somewhere,” Miss Crenshaw
muttered, lifting and discarding pieces of fabric, cardboard, and
sewing lint. “I just had it a minute ago.”

Suddenly, as Amy watched, Miss Crenshaw
squealed in fright and fell over backwards as an enormous body
shoved against the closed flap of the tent, knocking into her and
the table. The tent swayed as if in the clutches of a hurricane for
a moment, as whatever it was that was trying to get in battered
against the flap again.

Amy cried, “Miss Crenshaw!” and ran to help
her.

A roar from outside the tent frightened her
nearly to death. She reached Miss Crenshaw and grabbed the
trembling hand the dressmaker was holding out to her. Miss Crenshaw
stumbled up, and the two women threw their arms around each other,
terror propelling them.

“What is it?” Miss Crenshaw cried.

“Something’s trying to get in!” Amy cried
back.

“Is it an animal?”

“I don’t know.”

Another terrible bellow smote the air, the
women gasped in unison, and the center tent pole began to sway and
tilt precariously. After one more violent bow to its side, the tent
gave up the battle and folded up like a concertina, with Amy and
Miss Crenshaw inside it, clinging to each other in horror.

Six

“It wasn’t I who screamed,” Amy grumbled.
“And you can put me down now, if you please. I’m perfectly
fine.”

She was that. Charlie’s eyes had almost
started from his head when he’d seen her flounder out from
underneath all that jumbled canvas. The last time he’d seen a
female in so few clothes, she’d been a picture on a cigarette card.
And she hadn’t looked a tenth as good as Amy Wilkes.

“We need to get you away from the mess
there,” Charlie told her, lying through his teeth.

“There might still be some danger.”

In truth, the reason he still held her was
that he couldn’t get his arms to perform any of the commands he was
mentally giving them. They wanted to stay wrapped around the
lovely, supple, warm flesh of Amy Wilkes.

“But I need to know if Miss Crenshaw is all
right!” Amy tried to struggle, which only made Charlie grit his
teeth in erotic anguish as her delicious skin rubbed against him.
Lord, Lord, she was really something.

“Martin got her out safe and sound. She’s
okay.” He could barely squeeze the words out of his tight
throat.

“Are you sure?”

Charlie knew she was scared, and that was why
she was doing all those wiggly things, but when she managed to
twist her body around, press her bosom against his chest and her
bottom against his arms, and gaze over his shoulder, he blamed near
died anyway. He’d never dreamed, when he’d agreed to do this
picture, that he’d be holding a near-naked Amy Wilkes. Hell, if
he’d known, he’d have paid them. His britches were near to busting
their buttons already, and he’d only been carrying her for a few
seconds.

“I’m sure I saw him. And her.”

“But where are they?” She wriggled again,
sending jolts of lust through Charlie’s entire long body, and
stared over his other shoulder. “I can’t see them! Oh, please, Mr.
Fox! I must know that she’s not hurt.”

It took every ounce of self-will Charlie
possessed to make himself stop and turn around. Ding-bust-it, he
wanted to carry her off somewhere private and ravish her; to sling
her behind his saddle and gallop ff into the sunset with her and
ravish her some more.

Since his horse was currently being stabled
at an ostrich ranch in Arizona Territory, that was foolish and he
knew it. Besides, Miss Wilkes might be naïve, but she wasn’t any
shrinking violet. Charlie imagined she’d have something to say
about being made away with.

Which was a real shame, in his opinion.

Nevertheless, he turned. They were far enough
away from the melee that he didn’t suppose it mattered—except to
him. “There,” he said. “You can see from here.” He turned sideways
so she could have a better view.

“Oh, Yes, I see her. She doesn’t seem to be
limping, does she?” Her voice conveyed a good deal of worry, and
Charlie was pleased to k now she was capable of feeling concern for
a female who smoked cigarettes.

“No, ma’am. I’m sure she’s all right. Just
scared.”

“It was terrifying.” She shuddered,
delighting Charlie and causing him to experience further tortures
of an unfulfilled sexual nature.

“I really need to get back there and see
what’s going on, Mr. Fox.”

“I think you’d better wait a bit, ma’am.” He
knew he couldn’t hold out too much longer and would have to
relinquish his delightful burden sooner or later, but he was going
to do his best to prolong the event. Charlie Fox wasn’t a man to
back down on a good deal without a fight.

“But this is silly. You can’t stand here and
hold me all day.”

He could too. He didn’t say so, but said
instead, “You’ve had a shock, ma’am. You ought to take it
easy.”

“Please put me down, Mr. Fox.” She was
beginning to sound severe, as she did when she was deploring
something.

Charlie sighed and gave up. Very gently, he
began lowering her to the desert floor, when a brilliant thought
struck him and he stood upright again. Amy still clutched in his
arms. “Er, ma’am, you don’t have very many clothes on. Don’t you
think it would be better to get some duds on first?”

“What?” She glanced wildly around, as if
searching for her clothes. Then—and Charlie could feel it as it
happened, since he’d made sure his hands were still placed on spots
that weren’t covered by anything—she blushed from her toes to her
head. “Oh, my sweet Lord in heaven! I’ve got nothing
on!
Oh,
please!
Do
something.”

Charlie’d like to do something. However,
she’d probably slap him from here to Sunday if he so much as
suggested it. “Um, how about I give you my shirt, ma’am? It’ll be
long enough to cover you.”

“Your
shirt?
”

She had a powerfully shrill voice when she
got going. Charlie was surprised he didn’t hate it more than he
did, and chalked up his tolerance to his aroused state. Lust could
get a fellow in trouble if he didn’t watch out. In spite of knowing
it, he continued, “My tent’s nearby. I’ll get you a clean shirt to
wear. It’ll be big enough, I’m sure.”

“
Your
tent?” she squealed. “What about
my
tent?”

“Yours is mighty near the action, ma’am. I
thought you didn’t want folks to see you.”

She said something, but Charlie couldn’t make
it out because the words were a little high-pitched and jammed
together.

He shrugged. “It’s better than standing
around in … well, the way you are now.” He wondered if his nose
would grow if he told any more whoppers like that one. That’s what
his ma used to say happened to little boys who fibbed.

“Oh, my land,” she moaned, and buried her
face against Charlie’s shirtfront.

He had, therefore, a very large smile on his
face when he carried Amy to his tent.

* * *

This was the last straw. It was the grand
finale. Amy had taken just about enough of this nonsense. Never in
all her born days—as her great-grandmother Wilkes, who hailed from
Virginia, used to say—had she ever been so upset and humiliated.
Just wait until she wrote to Vernon this evening.

As she walked back to what used to be the
costumer’s tent, trying to keep up with Charlie and clad in one of
his huge shirts that dangled clear to her ankles—thank God—she
already had a pretty good idea what had happened to make the tent
collapse.

Horace Huxtable. That’s what had
happened.

She was so mad she could ignite sparks from
gnashing her teeth together. “He might have hurt somebody, the
cad.” He might have hurt
her
, in fact! Or Miss Crenshaw, she
added guiltily after a second or two.

“Yes, ma’am. It’s pure-D dumb luck that
neither you nor Miss Crenshaw got hit by that center pole when it
went down.”

Miss Crenshaw. Amy shot a glance up to
Charlie’s face. He knew her name. How had he learned it?

Bother! That was none of her concern. She
didn’t care if Charlie Fox and Karen Crenshaw got married and had a
hundred children. She, Amy Wilkes, was going to marry Vernon
Catesby and live in a comfortable home and be secure forever and
ever and never experience another moment of insecurity in her
life.

Forcing herself back to the here and now, she
said, “I hope she’s all right. She didn’t look as if she’d been
hurt, from a distance, but—”

“I think she’s fine, ma’am. There she is,
standing with Martin. Looks like they got Huxtable under
control.”

Amy was glad to hear the note of disapproval
in Charlie’s voice when he spoke of Horace Huxtable. At least he
didn’t seem to find Mr. Huxtable’s antics amusing, as some young
men of low character might have done.

She ran the last few yards up to Miss
Crenshaw. “Oh, Miss Crenshaw! Are you all right? I was so worried
about you!”

Miss Crenshaw and Martin turned and
immediately began gaping at her. Amy stopped, embarrassed.
“I—er—didn’t have anything on … well, I didn’t have
much
on,
I mean … so Mr. Fox was kind enough to lend me a shirt.” When she
peeked around, she noticed that several other people, who had
already begun to raise the costume tent from its state of collapse,
were also staring at her. Mortified, she lifted her chin. “I think
it was very nice of him.”

“Er … yes indeed,” said Martin.

Miss Crenshaw, who had been considering Amy
intently, turned suddenly to Martin, a strangely intense expression
on her face. “What a wonderful idea! Martin, what if we were to
have something happen to the heroine in the fourth reel after the
rescue scene at the sawmill, and have her be forced to don the
hero’s shirt? She looks charming dressed like that!”

Another abrupt swirl brought Miss Crenshaw
face to face again with Amy, who could feel the heat stain her
cheeks.
Charming? Good heavens.
“Um….”

“I mean,
look
at her!” cried Miss
Crenshaw. “Isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen?”

Good glory, now they were
all
gawking
at her. Amy wished her internal heater, which was pumping
furiously, would ignite her entirely and save her from this
humiliation.

“Hmmm,” said Martin judiciously. “You may be
right.” He smiled at Amy. “Would you mind turning so that I can see
you from the back, Miss Wilkes?”

She was going to die. That was all there was
to it. She was going to die from shame and the disgrace of it all
right this minute. She turned around and didn’t catch fire.
Fiddle.

“I do believe you’re right, Karen.”

Good heavens
, thought Amy,
he calls
Miss Crenshaw Karen. Picture people are such a loose lot.

Martin gestured for Charlie. “Come here,
Charlie. What do you think?”

Charlie came there, and Amy was subjected to
his scrutiny, too. If she
didn’t
die, she’d never be able to
show her face in public again. She decided she’d leave this part
out of her letter to Vernon; he’d never understand.
She
didn’t understand.

“Looks good to me,” said Charlie with
considerable warmth. Since fire had failed, Amy prayed for a bolt
from heaven to strike her dead on the spot.

Nothing happened, which made her wonder if
she’d wasted her time going to church all these years. If the good
Lord wouldn’t help a poor woman in these circumstances, what good
was He? She knew she’d just blasphemed, and was ashamed of herself.
Not that she wasn’t ashamed already. Bother.

Trapping her chin with a finger, Karen
Crenshaw gazed fixedly at Amy in Charlie’s shirt. “After we get the
tent upright again, we can determine how to work it out. We’ll need
to decide whether the shirt should be plain or plaid, and if a
darker color would look better on film.”

“Right,” agreed Martin, also staring at Amy,
who was beginning to feel like a painting in an art gallery. Or a
side of beef in a butcher’s shop. “I think Huxtable’s considerably
smaller than Charlie, so we’ll have to figure out how to make it
look as if she’s wearing Huxtable’s shirt.”

Both Miss Crenshaw and Amy huffed at once,
and Amy broke through the paralysis of her embarrassment. “Speaking
of Mr. Huxtable,” she said in a voice she hoped sounded as
infuriated as she felt, “I presume
he
was the author of this
particular travesty?”

She swept her arm out to indicate the
wreckage of the costume tent. Unfortunately, Charlie had moved up
behind her and was now standing very close to her. She whacked his
stomach with the back of her hand. She spun around. “Oh, my
goodness, Mr. Fox. I’m so sorry!”

His smile could warm the coldest winter day.
“It’s nothing, Miss Wilkes. You can hit me any old time.”

If it was nothing, how come her hand stung so
badly? She shook it, amazed. His stomach was as hard as a rock. Amy
tried not to be too impressed, since she couldn’t afford to get
distracted from her complaint about Horace Huxtable. She did,
however, wonder if Vernon was in such good condition. She didn’t
think so.