Idaho Gold Fever (7 page)

“Aren’t you the brazen tart,” Fargo teased.

“You really think so?”

Even in the dark Fargo could tell she was blushing. “No. You’re a lady through and through.”

“Then what am I doing out here with you?”

“Even ladies get lonely.” Fargo pulled her to him. She resisted, her body taut, but only until he molded his mouth to hers. Then, bit by gradual bit, she relaxed. Her tension drained away and she timidly raised her hands to his shoulders.

“You’re awful good at this.”

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb. I don’t mind. Really, I don’t. There was someone else once, and he and I . . .” Rachel broke off. “Pa would have shot him for what we did, and Ma would have taken her hickory switch to me.”

“They won’t even notice we’re gone.”

“I hope not.”

Fargo kissed her a second time, harder, and ran a hand from her shoulder down her spine to her hip. She shivered slightly, her breath fluttering into his mouth. He slid his tongue between her parted lips while at the same time he kneaded her thighs, first one and then the other. When he broke the kiss, her bosom was rising and falling as if each breath would be her last.

“Oh, my. That made me dizzy.”

“Do you want to sit?”

“No, no. The farther we go, the safer it is.”

Fargo led her into the stand. She clung to his arm, but whether from fear or passion, he couldn’t say. A short way in he stopped and was about to kiss her when he gazed over her shoulder and thought he glimpsed movement between the cottonwoods and the covered wagons. His hand dropped to his Colt.

“What is it?” Rachel asked.

“I’m not sure.” Fargo moved to the edge of the trees and she went with him, gluing herself to his side. When he stopped and crouched she did the same.

“See anyone?” Rachel anxiously whispered.

“No.”

“I hope it’s not my ma. She’ll brand me a sinner and call down the wrath of the Lord on my head.”

“Hush.” Fargo looked and listened but the rustle of the cottonwoods was all he could hear over the fiddle and the voices. He let a couple of minutes go by, then said, “I reckon I was wrong.”

“Maybe it was my brother. I wouldn’t put it past him. He can be a brat at times.”

If it did turn out to be Billy, Fargo reflected, he would demand his dollar back. He grasped her hand and began to rise, saying, “We’re wasting time.”

“Be gentle with me.”

Fargo was about to say he would when something growled.

Instantly Fargo spun, his hand streaking to his Colt. It would be just his luck to run into another bear or some other predator. The night swarmed with them. But he didn’t draw. Instead, he smothered a laugh.

Rachel Winston giggled.

A mother raccoon, her fur puffed up to make her more formidable, bared her teeth and hissed. Behind her were four young, born that spring from the looks of them.

Fargo had no desire to harm them. But a raccoon’s teeth were sharp, and when a mother raccoon defended her young, she could be as fierce as a bear. “Shoo,” he said.

Rachel did more giggling.

The young raccoons turned and scampered off. Still hissing, the mother backed away until she judged she had gone a safe distance. Then she wheeled and raced after her offspring, her bushy tail bobbing.

“Weren’t they cute?” Rachel said. “We saw a lot of coons back home. They came to our pond to eat the frogs and fish.”

Fargo was thankful it hadn’t been something bigger.

“Do you think it was the coons you saw a minute ago?”

Fargo doubted it. How did they get behind him without him noticing? “Not likely,” he said. Turning, he watched the grass a while, and when nothing appeared, he clasped Rachel’s hand and led her deeper into the cottonwoods.

The wind rustled the leaves. Starlight made the pale boles gleam.

Fargo came to a clear spot and stopped. He went to kiss Rachel but she bowed her head.

“Have you changed your mind?”

“No, not at all. It’s just that . . .” Rachel looked up and timidly smiled. “Give me a minute. I’m not a saloon girl. I’m not used to this, even if I have done it before.”

“Take as long as you want,” Fargo said, hoping it wouldn’t be long at all.

“My ma would have a fit if she saw me.”

“Oh, hell.”

Rachel placed her hands on his chest. “I’m not backing out. Really I’m not. If I want to be with a man, I can. And you are just about the handsomest man I’ve ever met.”

Fargo waited. She was talking to build up her courage. Some women did that.

“I’ll remember this for the rest of my days. I want it to be just right. So please, don’t be rough. Some men are rough and some women like that, I hear, but I’m not one of them. I don’t like pain with my pleasure.”

Fargo impatiently tapped his boot. Fortifying her courage was one thing; talking him to death was another.

Rachel tilted her head back and regarded the celestial canopy. “Isn’t this romantic? You and me and the stars. It’s like in a story or a poem.”

If she started to recite poetry, Fargo was leaving.

With a shy grin, Rachel pecked him on the cheek. “I’m blathering, aren’t I? Thank you for putting up with it. You are a gentleman at heart.”

Fargo was no such thing but she could believe what she wanted. “Are you done or do you want to find flowers to pick?”

Rachel started to laugh, then caught herself. “Oh, my. When you’re in the mood, you don’t like being put off, do you?”

“I’m male,” Fargo said.

“Thank goodness for that,” Rachel responded, and rising on her toes, she pressed her mouth to his. Her lips parted and the tip of her tongue delicately rimmed his lips. Suddenly pulling back, she grinned and impishly asked, “How was that?”

“It was a start.”

“Your turn,” Rachel teased.

Wrapping an arm around her slender waist, Fargo pulled her close. He kissed her hard and covered her right breast with his hand. She stiffened and gasped but slowly relaxed as he squeezed and kneaded. When he pinched her nipple through her dress, she uttered a low moan.

This time when they parted Rachel was breathing heavily and her voice was husky with craving.

“That was awful nice.”

“It gets nicer.”

They embraced again. His tongue and hers danced a velvet waltz. When he cupped both breasts at once, her breath turned to molten fire and she began to grind her hips against his.

Fargo was growing hot, himself. Hot and hard; his manhood was as rigid as steel. Her rubbing and her cooing and her soft, sweet mouth stoked his inner fire for long, pleasurable minutes, until finally he couldn’t stand to stand there any longer. Suddenly dipping at the knees, he scooped her into his arms and carefully lowered her onto her back.

“Be gentle, remember?”

Fargo had half a mind to rip her dress off and ram into her like a bull elk in rut. But he slowly sank down and eased over her. They had an hour, he reckoned, before the settlers would start to turn in for the night and her parents would start looking for her. He might as well make the most of every minute.

The world receded. The night sounds dimmed. There was Fargo and the winsome woman under him and the trees around them and the grass they lay on, and that was all. Fargo explored her luscious body with his lips and his fingers, undoing buttons and stays where needed, and hiked the hem of her dress to get at her inner charms.

For Rachel’s part, she wasn’t content to lie there and have him do all the exploring. She pushed his shirt up and loosened his pants and lightly ran her fingers around his manhood.

Taking a gamble, Fargo grasped her hand and boldly placed it on his pole. She gasped again, and her whole body become as if carved from stone. For a few seconds Fargo thought he had gone too far. Then Rachel looked down and commenced to run her hand the entire length of his manhood.

“Goodness. It’s so long and so hard.”

Fargo had to cough to say, “It’s supposed to be.” It was all he could do to keep from exploding.

“Do you ever wonder why men and women are so different? I mean, why did God give women holes and men things to stick in them? And why is it women have big bosoms but men—”

Fargo shut her up with another kiss. He sucked on her lower lip. He ran his tongue from her chin to her ear and sucked and nipped her earlobe. Rachel was sensitive there. Squirming, she dug her fingernails into his shoulders. His hand found her knee and he ran his palm along her inner thigh, savoring the satiny feel. The higher his hand rose, the hotter her skin became. He pried at her undergarments and his fingers brushed crinkly hair. A quick flick, and his forefinger was in her moist sheath.

“Ohhhhh.” Rachel threw back her head.

Fargo kissed her to silence her and she moaned into his mouth. He pumped his finger, causing her bottom to rise off the ground. Her legs widened and her ankles hooked behind his back.

The world receded even more. There was only pulsing pleasure that coursed through him as he aroused her to the heights of need. She cupped him, low down, and it was his turn to moan.

At last, the coupling. Fargo paced himself, rocking on his knees, each stroke as precise as a piston. He pumped and pumped and she thrust and thrust and they were panting into each other’s ears when she cried out and spurted. Her release triggered his. He rammed into her hard until he was spent, then collapsed on her twin pillows.

Fargo was on the cusp of slumber when his sluggish senses flared to sharp life. For a few moments he lay still, trying to figure out what had snapped him out of the well of inner darkness. A rustling sound gave him warning. It didn’t come from the trees above but from the nearby undergrowth. Rolling off Rachel, he started to pull himself together. He got his pants up and his belt hitched just as the vegetation parted, disgorging phantom forms. From the noise they made, and the way they moved, he could tell they weren’t Nez Perce.

A few more steps and they were close enough for Fargo to identify. Anger welled, and he balled his fists as the foremost, the largest of the three, bent toward them.

Heaving upward, Fargo planted his fist on Slag’s jaw. The blow rocked Slag onto his heels. The next moment Rinson sprang, seeking to grab Fargo’s wrists. A boot to the gut dissuaded him. Then it was Perkins, flourishing his long-bladed knife.

“Not that!” Rinson barked. “Gore wouldn’t want us to draw blood.”

Perkins glanced at him and swore.

It was the opening Fargo needed. He unleashed a right cross that spun Perkins around and caused him to trip over his own feet.

Rachel chose that instant to sit up, blurting, “What in the world is going on?” She realized others were there, and covering her breasts, shrieked fit to burst their eardrums.

“Oh, hell,” Rinson said.

Slag came in again, apparently determined to repay Fargo for earlier. His big fist swept at Fargo’s face, but Fargo ducked and retaliated with a boot to the knee that sparked a roar of rage and sent Slag tottering.

Yells pierced the night from the direction of the covered wagons.

Perkins had firmed his grip on his knife and was hefting it as if of a mind to disobey Rinson and use it anyway.

Rinson was in a crouch.

Slag had steadied himself for another try.

Fargo discouraged all three by drawing his Colt. “I don’t know what you peckerwoods are up to, but I’ll damn well blow a hole in the next idiot who tries anything.”

“I told you he was fast,” Rinson said.

“I could have cut him if you’d let me,” Perkins complained. “I could have gut him where he stood.”

Rachel slid next to Fargo’s legs and began frantically rearranging her clothes. “How dare you! What was the meaning of this?”

“You hush, girl,” Rinson said.

“If you wanted it so bad, you should have told me,” Perkins said, cupping himself. “I’d be glad to give you a poke.”

Slag simply glared.

Judging by the racket, half the settlers were crashing through the undergrowth. A few more moments and the clearing was hemmed by farmers and their wives. Victor Gore was with them.

“What is the meaning of this? What was that scream we heard?” Lester Winston and his wife pushed through. At the sight of Rachel, both stopped in shock. Then Lester solicitously helped his daughter to stand, saying, “Are you all right? Was that you we heard?”

“I’m fine, Pa,” Rachel declared. Now that she was dressed, she had regained her composure. Waving her hand at Rinson, Slag and Perkins, she said bitterly, “These three ruffians attacked Mr. Fargo.”

“Attacked, hell,” Rinson said. “We were defending your girl’s honor.” He turned to Victor Gore. “I noticed Fargo, here, was missing, so I asked around. One of the kids saw him and Miss Winston walk off together so we came looking for them.”

“And found them here, doing I don’t need to tell you what,” Perkins related with lecherous glee.

Gore said harshly, “That will be enough.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” Perkins asked. “The scout and her came out here to fool around. I’m trying to be polite but if you want me to spell it out, I will.”

“Enough,” Victor Gore said again. “What the young lady does or doesn’t do is her affair.”

“Not if it makes trouble for us,” Rinson broke in. “How can we protect them if they don’t listen? You told them not to wander away from the wagons at night, and what did she do?”

“We can’t force them to listen,” Gore said.

Perkins swore. “I can’t believe my ears. You’re siding with them against us? When we were only doing what you told us to do?”

“To hell with this,” Rinson said, and spun on a boot heel. “From now on these dirt-pushers can do as they please. I won’t lift a finger to help them.” He stalked off and Slag followed.

Perkins was bubbling like an overheated pan about to boil over. He stabbed a finger at Fargo. “This son of a bitch has a reckoning coming, and nothing you can say or do will change that.” He stormed after his friends.