Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (35 page)

“Don’t go!” Mary whispered the words in his ear, and shivered with an excitement that was sheer heaven.

“You’re sure?” Hank asked after a long hesitation.

“We’ve pledged our love,” she said simply and slid off his lap. She moved the teakettle to the back of the stove, took his hand, and pulled him to his feet. When he was standing, she wrapped her arms about his waist, rested her chin on his chest, and looked up at him. “Are you shocked by my suggestion? It may be months before we can be wed.” She ran her hands over the smooth skin of his back and felt him tremble beneath her touch.

“Not shocked, lass. Surprised. I be wonderin’ why God let such a woman as ye be lovin’ a rough, ignorant man like Hank Weston.” Due to the emotions churning through him, Hank reverted back to the Irish brogue of his childhood.

“And why not, Hank Weston. You’re a good, gentle man. I’ll be
proud
to call you husband.”

“I’ll be lovin’ you till my dyin’ day,” he croaked and swung her up in his arms.

“Hank! I’ve not been carried since I was a child.”

“Then it’s time, sweet woman,” he whispered, his lips in her hair. He went to the end of the funerary and stood beside Katy’s bed, holding Mary tightly to him. His hungry mouth searched, found hers, and held it with fierce possession before he placed her gently on the bed and breathed, “If you’ve changed your mind, I’ll go. If not, I’ll blow out the lamp.”

“Blow out the lamp,” she whispered.

Mary’s heart beat like a wild thing as she slipped out of her clothes. Ingrained teachings of the proper behavior required of a Southern wife came forward to plague her. She had lain like a stone while Roy took his pleasure of her. It was what he expected. He would have been appalled had she attempted to touch him intimately. Only whores and wanton women were allowed that privilege. She would ask Hank his feelings on the matter, she decided as she lay down and pulled the blanket up over her trembling, naked body. If he was repelled by her boldness, it would be better to know before they were wed.

Hank’s tall, shadowy figure came out of the darkness. She heard him remove his britches. Sweet warmth washed over her and she felt as if her heart would gallop right out of her breast. The bed sagged when he sat down on the edge. An instant later the covers lifted and she felt long, cool, hair-roughened legs against her and arms that seemed a yard long scoop under and around her. She was gathered tenderly to a naked chest. Never had she been held with such gentle strength.

“Your legs are cold,” she whispered and threaded her legs between his to give him her warmth. Her hands moved caressingly up and down his side and over his hips to the small of his back. His sex was large and firm and throbbed against her belly. She gloried in the feel of him, knowing that soon he would fill that aching emptiness inside her.

His breath came in quick gasps. He turned her on her back so that he could hover over her. His kisses were hard and anxious on her mouth before he lowered his head to kiss her breast. His tongue flicked the bud, then grasped it gently with his teeth. His nuzzle of the soft mound was like a baby’s seeking mouth. His big hands moved over her body, prowling ever closer to the mysterious moistness. She opened her legs for him.

“Wait—I’ve got to ask you something.”

He lifted his head and attempted to pull his hand from between her legs. She grasped his wrist and held it there.

“I want . . . I don’t know how to say it,” she whispered urgently.

“Say what? What’s troubling you, lass? You’ve only to say the word and I’ll go.”

“No! I want to love you, hold you, caress you the way you’re caressing me. I was never allowed to . . . before—”

“You were never allowed—Jesus, my God! What kind of man was he?”

“It wasn’t his fault. The women he knew were raised to do their duty to their husbands and he . . . went to a mistress or to a place like the Bee Hive for more.”

“Sweet, little love!” he groaned against the side of her face. “As long as we live I’ll never seek another. I swear to you—” He lifted his head, frantically seeking her lips.

“You’ll not be angry or disgusted if I touch you?” she gasped when she could free her lips.

“No! God no! I want it, crave it—touch me,” he coaxed in that same hoarse whisper. He placed her hand palm down on the cushion from which his male hardness sprang.

For Mary, it was a time of blissful discovery. She spread her fingers through springy hair and felt the movement of his extended sex quivering against the back of her hand. Tremors shot through her in waves when his own exploring fingers moved into the pulsing flesh of her womanhood. She arched frantically, seeking more of the wondrous feeling. Instinctively, she reached for the thick shaft to fill her. Her hand encircled him and pulled. He trembled violently as he slid between her spread thighs and held himself poised above her while she led him to the warm cavern he sought.

Hank supported himself on his forearms, tangled his hands in her hair, and rained feverish kisses on her face. He remained motionless, his lips searching her face, while she became accustomed to the feel of him inside her. Then, slowly, he moved, thrusting carefully. She could feel his muscles strain and stir beneath her palms. Naked hunger, sweet and violent, caught them both, and he plunged faster and faster. Hank quivered with the effort to love her tenderly. His heart thundered against her breast. She could feel it over the hammering of her own. Every part of him that touched her brought her nearer to the fiery unknown heights she had never before reached; frantically she moved her hips with the surging rhythm of his.

When the pain-pleasure became so intense that she thought she would explode, she cried out his name. Then the explosion came, lifting and spinning her into a blissful eddy of sensation. Almost simultaneously, Hank thrust into her for the last time. The tip of him poised against the mouth of her womb. He held it there for exhilarating seconds before he gripped her fiercely, and the life-giving fluid exploded from his body. Then, he was quiet.

Mary lay spent and still beneath him even though her heart beat like a hammer in her breast. Hank slid to the side and gathered her gently to him.

“My love. My sweet lass—” he muttered thickly. He dropped soft kisses on her forehead, her eyes, and smoothed the hair back from her damp face. His hand moved down her back to her bottom, then on to her thigh, pulling it up to rest across his, settling her more snugly against him.

“It’s almost frightening to be so . . . lost.” She spoke against his neck. “There was only you, Hank. Only you. We could have fallen off the world and I wouldn’t have known it. I’ve never felt like that before.”

“Never?”

“Never. Roy would have thought me shameless if . . . I’d moved or . . . acted like I enjoyed it.”

“Sweet woman, there’s no shame to you wantin’ me to come inside you. The pleasure is one of God’s greatest gifts. He wouldn’t of given it to man alone.”

“Oh, Hank! And you call yourself an ignorant Irishman. You’re the sweetest, wisest man I’ve ever known. Theresa already loves you.”

“And you, Mary mine? Tell me again. It’s a hard thing for me to be believin’.”

“Then, believe it, you thick-headed Irishman,” she whispered laughingly. “I love you, love you, love you.”

“And . . . is the marriage bed something you’ll be likin’, sweetheart?” he asked anxiously.

“Like it?” Mary cupped his rough cheeks between her palms and turned his face so she could kiss his lips. “You’ve made me feel so wonderful, so complete. You’re a special man, my love.” Emotion weakened her voice until it was a mere breath.

“I liked it too,” he whispered unbelievingly, his voice almost as faint as hers.

Twenty-two

In the saloon down the street from the funerary, Art Ashland sat with his back to the wall, his feet on a chair in front of him, a half-filled whiskey bottle on the table. Less than a dozen men were in the saloon. They all ignored him or appeared to. It was common knowledge among the men that when Art was drinking, he was meaner than a cornered rattlesnake. Tonight his attitude was, “Don’t bother me, or you’ll get your tail twisted.”

Big John, on a high stool behind the bar, had the same scowl on his face that he’d worn since his team had lost the baseball game. Big John was a poor loser and was already looking forward to another game to avenge the loss. He kept an eye on Art, the four men who played cards at a scarred table, as well as the two, more than slightly drunk freighters, who lolled on a bench in the corner arguing about the charms of two of the girls at the Bee Hive.

“I say Pearl’s the best gal-durned whore in the territory! Dammit it to hell, ya know it’s so. Ruby don’t hold no candle to Pearl!”

“She ain’t no such thing. Holy shit! Her tits ain’t no bigger’n a walnut, if’n they’s that big,” his companion protested, holding his thumb and forefinger together to make a small circle. “I like big-titted women. Ruby’s tits is big as—let me see—” the drunk looked around the room for something to use for comparison.

“Shut up!” Ashland snarled quietly, but his voice carried to the two drunks. The men gave him a blurry stare, looked at each other knowingly, and snickered behind their hands, but they stopped talking and quickly emptied their glasses.

Lee Longstreet sat alone at a table and surveyed the scene with interest. He had learned to listen. He never knew when he would pick up news that would be to his advantage. He hated this place, hated the whole town, hated the necessity of kowtowing to men like Ashland and Weston. He considered himself more on a level with Garrick Rowe. Rowe had traveled in higher-class company than what was here in Trinity, and why he was associating with these ignorant louts was a mystery to Lee.

Lee looked with distaste at the muddy wet floor where the rain had blown in under the bat-winged doors and at the other set that led into the dimly lit hotel lobby. Good God! How had he arrived at such a low that he would even consider staying in this place and running a bug-infested hotel? Of course, he had not considered staying any longer than it would take to get enough money to leave. Since, fortunately for him, the miners he played cards with were unskilled and had little else to do with their time after working hours, Lee now had money in his pocket. When he shook the dust of Trinity off for the last time, he would be alone. He’d had a millstone about his neck long enough.

However, Lee had something important to do before he left Trinity. He might be slightly impoverished at the moment, he told himself, but he was a man of pride who settled his accounts. He bristled when he thought of the humiliation he had faced when forced to leave the wagon train. His ancestors had come from England to establish a class of distinction in America. All his life he had been contemptuous of the lower forms of humans who made up the world outside his own class. He had been set up to be ridiculed by a woman of dirt-farm mentality. The memory of that scene played in his mind and ate at him like an infected sore eating away at his flesh. He would have his revenge. It mattered little what people would think of him after he left town. What was important to him was that the Chandler woman would suffer.

The doors were flung back suddenly, and two wet, miserable-looking men stomped into the saloon. They paused and blinked against the light, then dropped their saddlebags beside the door and went to the bar.

“Howdy,” Big John said. “Just ride in?”

“What the hell does it look like?” one of the men retorted as he flung his dripping hat down on the bar. “Do ya think we’ve jist been standing out there ’cause we needed a bath?”

“I wasn’t thinkin’ anythin’,” John growled. “What’a ya want?”

“Wal, we ain’t wantin’ tea.”

The two drunks on the bench laughed uproariously and slapped their thighs with their hands. The stranger turned to look at them through close-set eyes, then turned back to John.

“Whiskey.”

John set a half-filled bottle on the counter. “Two dollars.”

“Two dollars? That’s robbery!”

The other man threw a dollar on the bar and snatched the bottle just as John reached for it.

“Pay your dollar, Sporty, and bring the glasses,” he said and headed for a table at the end of the room.

The man glared at John, sent a dollar spinning down the bar, pinched two glasses between his thumb and forefinger, and followed his friend.

“Goddammit, Cullen. That bottle ain’t worth no two dollars,” he said loudly enough for every man in the room to hear.

“We’ve paid five for less,” his friend murmured and sank wearily down in a chair.

Each of the men downed two drinks in rapid succession before the one named Cullen wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and took off his rain-soaked hat. He was short, with a hard face and alert blue eyes. His friend was taller, slimmer, with the face of a fox. He had a gun tucked into his belt and a knife in a holster. Both men looked as if they hadn’t seen soap or a razor for weeks.

“I ain’t liking this place.” Sporty Howard was a swaggering, two-bit gunman with more mouth than brains.

After riding with Sporty off and on for more than five years, the short hard-faced man knew that Sporty would rather gripe than eat. Cullen had often told Sporty that he’d complain if it was raining soup and biscuits were growing on trees.

“There ain’t nothin’ here,” Sporty continued between gulps of whiskey. “I didn’t even see no bank or stage station. And I’m hungry enough to eat the ass out of a skunk.”

“What the hell place is this?” Cullen raised his voice and addressed the question to the room in general. “It’s deader than a graveyard.”

No one said anything for a minute, then Art said, “Who wants to know?”

The short man’s eyes turned to the big man leaning against the wall. He had been in enough rough towns to know that this man was not to be fooled with even if you had him hogtied. He was the kind of man who could explode and rain all over you, so Cullen answered him in a civil tone.

“Cullen McCall, late of Californey and Oregon Territory. Is there work around these parts?”