Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (22 page)

Hank’s fingers curled around her forearm to guide her to the door. His nearness in the dark was something she hadn’t anticipated as being so disturbing. Her silly heart was pounding like that of a scared rabbit. Every nerve in her body seemed to respond and reach out to the touch of his warm fingers.

Mary plunged into talk of the coming celebration as soon as they sat down on the edge of the porch.

“I realize we can’t do much on such a short notice. The contests will be all the more exciting because of the prizes to the winners. Elias is going to donate a shaving mug and brush as well as a couple of shirts. Lottie Chandler will give tickets to a free meal. I’m going to bake pies to use in a pie-eating contest.” She laughed and added, “We’re going to see who can eat the fastest, not the most pies. Laura wants to donate a wool blanket and two pairs of leather gloves her husband hadn’t worn.”

“Don’t be worryin’. It’ll be a fine day. Big John’s been itchin’ to have a game of baseball. He played it durin’ the war ’n’ fancies himself quite a player. The company can afford to give a silver dollar to each of the players on the winning team.”

“That’s wonderful! I’ve seen the game played. Does John have the ball and bat?”

“Aye. He made the bat himself out of good stout hickory.”

Hank pulled his pipe from his pocket and stuffed the bowl with tobacco. He lit it with a sulfur match, drew deeply, and the sweet smell of tobacco smoke that hung on the air reminded Mary of the warm summer nights back home when her mother and father, with hi
^s
pipe smoking, sat on the veranda.

“Are you going to play on one of the teams?”

“Will you come watch me if I play?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’ll be tempted to give it a try; but without a lawman here in town, it’ll be my job to keep the peace that day.”

Hank began to chuckle and Mary glanced up to see him smiling broadly around the stem of the pipe he held in his teeth.

“What’s funny?”

“I’m thinkin’ that you and Mrs. Hillard are forgettin’ to ask Lizzibeth down at the Bee Hive what she’d be willin’ to give for prizes.”

“We haven’t forgotten at all! We’ll not be asking
her
for a donation, but she and her
girls
are part of the town and have as much right to come to the celebration as any of us.”

Mary’s voice was icy with disapproval. When she saw the grin on Hank’s face, she clamped her mouth shut, tilted her chin and refused to look away from him. She was not sure if he was teasing her or not, but the thought of him in that
place
unnerved and angered her. Surely he didn’t go
there.
That place was for other men, not for
him.

Over the loud laughter drifting up from the saloon, Mary heard the questioning call of an owl in a far-off place and tried to concentrate her attention on the hundreds of fireflies flickering their brief lives away in the area between them and the timber. She turned her gaze toward Hank once again, miserably conscious of his eyes on her. She didn’t know when it began, but suddenly she realized his fingers were lightly stroking her arm. It seemed to her that the fine hairs on her skin rose to meet his rough touch, and she wanted to lean against his hand.

“Were you happy with him?”

Mary was shocked by the intensity of his words, as well as by his tone, but she knew to whom he was referring.

“I suppose so.”

“That’s no answer to what I want to know. Were you happy with him?”

“He didn’t beat me, if that’s what you mean.”

“Did you love the man?” His words were husky and hurried.

Mary pondered a way to evade his question. Finally she said, “We were not really suited to one another. He wanted one thing out of life and I wanted another.”

“What did you want, Mary?” His fingers curled around her arm. She felt the same connecting warmth she had felt before when he held her arm. The emotional bruising of the past years seemed to melt and flow away though his fingertips.

“What did I want?” She repeated Hank’s question, sighed deeply, and let several minutes go by before she answered. “I guess I wanted what most women want—to be . . . happy.”

“What would it be takin’ to do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A home and security for my child. And I want Katy to be happy. She’s spent some of the best years of her life helping me.” She couldn’t go on. His hand on her arm was making coherent thought impossible.

Mary’s brain pounded with a million vague thoughts she couldn’t voice. She had always had the craving for the kind of love and companionship shared by her parents. It was the reason, she thought now, that she had been so susceptible to Roy. She had allowed him to charm her with promises and bits of flattery, all meaningless. But at the time she had believed the affection she felt for him would grow into an enduring love. She had been wrong. Roy had been like a small boy, refusing to grow up and take the responsibility for a family.

“You’ve never talked about yourself, Hank. Have you a family somewhere?”

“That I do. Two sisters back east. Both tryin’ to fill the state with Kellys and O’Connells. Last count was thirteen. Could be more by now.” He chuckled again.

“No brothers?”

“Two killed in the war.”

‘We lost our brothers in the war too.”

“After my brothers were lost, I signed onboard a ship set to run the blockade. Rowe was the captain and he went where no other dared to go.”

“That’s where you met him?”

“Aye. You get to know a man when you face death together time and again.”

His hand moved to her back and made soothing circles between her shoulder blades. A small sigh of pleasure bubbled from her lips.

“Do you like that?”

“Oh, yes!” Mary felt the tightness of her muscles relax and the strain of the day fade into nothingness. This is dangerous, she told herself. Later she’d be embarrassed that she’d permitted such a thing to happen. She shoved the warning voice to the back of her mind and gave herself up to the intoxicating sensation of his strong fingers massaging her muscles. Suddenly his fingers stilled and spread until his palm lay flat on her back.

“I want to kiss you, Mary. You’re so sweet and all—” His husky voice came to her through the cloud of unreality. She turned her head to look into his face. “Don’t be scared. If you don’t want it, say so.”

Mary couldn’t have said no if her life had depended on that one short word. His face was so close to hers that they were almost breathing the same air, so close she couldn’t look into his eyes. Her hand moved up to his cheek, scraped across the day’s growth of whiskers and into thick unruly hair. She closed her eyes, closed her fingers and pulled, offering her lips in a way she had never offered them to another man. Her parted lips eased up to his. The feel of his lips was hotly exciting, unfamiliarly hard, yet gentle. The hand on her back pressed her closer to him until she could feel the strong vibrations of his powerful heart. The strong pull of the attraction between them goaded her to kiss him with a fiery hunger. Without conscious thought, her arm moved to encircle his neck. He gently urged her mouth open and the tip of his tongue moved slowly along the inside of her lip. A fierce sensual need swept through her and she rode the crest of wild, sweet abandonment.

“Gawdamighty! You’re a sweet woman,” he breathed in her ear when finally their lips parted.

“Hank—” Mary took a deep, trembling breath. Suddenly dumbfounded by what she had done and what she had permitted him to do, she tried to pull away.

“Don’t be sorry—” he said hearing the agony in her voice. “You’re a warm-blooded woman. I’m a warm-blooded man. We harmed no one by kissin’ each other.”

He smoothed the hair back from her cheeks and tilted her chin so she had to look at him. She tried to turn her face aside, but his hand cupped her chin and held it so she had to look at him. The loving, caring expression on his rough, craggy features reached deep inside her and shook her into an awareness that Hank Weston was the type of man she had dreamed about.

“But I’m not . . . I’m not a loose woman.”

“I know you’re not a bold woman, Mary Stanton,” he said gruffly. “I knew it the minute I laid eyes on you standin’ with your hands folded in your apron, your cheeks rosy from the stove, your eyes lookin’ at me like I was some strange creature that had just come out of a cave.”

“I didn’t! Hank, I didn’t look at you like that.”

“Aye, you did. And I was wantin’ to kiss you then, too. Of late, I’ve been wanting it so bad, I was willin’ to give a year of my life for one small kiss given to me without havin’ to ask for it. Let me hold you for just a minute.” He drew her head to his shoulder, his arms held her gently to him. “Don’t be ’fraid. You feel good in my arms . . . all soft and sweet smellin’ like a woman should.” He buried his face in her hair.

“We shouldn’t . . .” Mary said from somewhere beneath nis chin.

“Is it so wrong that we take this short minute of pleasure together? Humm? Look at me, Mary.” He raised her face with a finger beneath her chin. “I swear before God I’ll never force myself on you.”

“I know that, Hank. Heavens! You’re the last man in town I’d be afraid of. But I feel sort of . . . guilty. I’ve not been a . . . widow for every long.”

“The man’s been dead for more than two months. He gave you a sweet little girl. For that you should remember him kindly, despite the fact the bas—despite the fact he went off and left you here unprotected. You’re a woman, Mary, with a need to be loved and with a woman’s love to give a man.”

“I don’t know, Hank.” She moved her head back, trying to see his face in the dim light.

“I think you know, sweetheart.”

His mouth touched hers softly, gently, and moved against it. She could have backed away and he would have let her go. A sigh trembled through her.
Sweetheart
! Did that mean he cared for her? She had to know, so she pulled back and put her hand to his cheek.

“Don’t play with me, Hank. I can’t afford a . . . dalliance.”

“Dalliance? You think I want to dally with you when I’m carryin’ such a strong feelin’ for you and your child?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Then don’t. Just let me hold you for a while. Later, you’ll know if it’s right or not.” He whispered the words while looking earnestly into her eyes. His fingers moved into her hair. His lips were a mere breath away. “This is strange to me too. I’ve never wanted just to hold a woman before.” He held her snugly against him, his arms shielding her from the cool night breeze. “I’ll take care of you and Theresa forever if you’ll let me. I ask for nothin’ more,” he whispered urgently.

His breath was warm and smelled of tobacco. His cheeks were pleasantly rough against her face, his body hard and warm against hers. It was heaven to feel so safe, so protected. He cradled her to him with a tenderness that she had not known since she was a child. The tension eased out of her as his fingers stroked the hair back from her ear and his warm lips stroked her brow.

I ask for nothing more.

A sudden flood of tenderness for this rugged man came over her as she mused over his words. She lay relaxed against him. His arms were like a safe haven in a violent storm. Feeling wonderfully happy, she closed her eyes. For the first time in her life she knew the meaning of the word
cherished.
This moment was hers, and nothing could take it away from her.

Katy and Rowe arrived in Virginia City in the middle of the afternoon. For the most part, it had been a silent ride on a well-packed road. Riding a gentle mare borrowed from the Sparkses’ ranch, Katy rode beside Rowe, with Anton a short way behind.

When Katy had awakened that morning to discover that Rowe had removed her skirt and had unbuttoned her shirt, she had been so angry that for a while, a short while, she had thought of taking the mare and heading back over the mountains to Trinity, or riding on into Virginia City without him. But after careful consideration, she decided if she did the former, she would be defeating her purpose for coming; and if she did the latter, she would appear to be a fool in Emily Sparks’s eyes. Before she left the bedroom, Katy decided for the time being to ignore the dastardly act and seek vengeance later.

Rowe and the burial party had returned to the ranch shortly before the noon meal. After that they had taken their leave, promising to stop on their way back to Trinity.

Virginia City, the capital of Wyoming Territory, was much more of a town than Katy had expected. The town had been founded more than ten years before, when gold was discovered in Alder Gulch. It was here that the vigilantes had exterminated the notorious Plummer outlaw gang.

A continuous row of buildings lined each side of the main street, which was clogged with horsemen and conveyances of every description. High-wheeled freight wagons pulled by six-mule hitches passed surreys with shiny black canopy tops and brass lamps attached to the sides. There was even a
volante,
a two-passenger carriage with two wheels and an open, hooded body. The body was set in front of the wheels and attached to the long shafts. The carriage was pulled by one horse that was ridden by a coachman. Katy hadn’t seen a
volante
since she had left Alabama.

Women and children in calico dresses and bonnets waited on the seats of heavy wagons and watched ladies with painted faces walking by in silks and satins and wearing hats decorated with ostrich plumes perched atop high-piled, carefully arranged hair.

The Overland Stage came careening into town, the driver shouting obscenities to the tired team, urging them into a run suitable for a noticeable entrance. The distraction kept Katy from thinking about how shabby she looked in her wrinkled clothes, her hair hanging down her back in a long, unkempt braid, the sweat trickling down her dust-covered face.

The main street of town was decorated for the Fourth of July celebration. Banners and trailing streamers hung from upstairs windows and porch railings. Placards telling of the events of the day were nailed to the walls of the shops.

At a side street they paused to allow a funeral procession to pass. The enclosed, glass-windowed hearse was pulled by a black team whose harnesses were wrapped in black; black plumes attached to their bridles bobbed between their ears. The driver in a black serge suit and high-topped hat even wore black gloves. Following the hearse to the burial grounds were a half-dozen buggies filled with fashionably dressed ladies.