Nan Ryan (18 page)

Mollie stepped closer to the corral fence, went up on tiptoe, and folded her arms over the top rail as Lew opened the gate and went inside. Cowboys seemed to materialize from everywhere. Spurs clanking, their laughter and cigarette smoke filling the air, they hurried from the barns, the bunkhouse, and the cookshack. To a man, they all noticed Mollie immediately. They grinned foolishly and touched their hat brims and elbowed each other like flustered schoolboys.

Mollie paid them no attention. She had eyes only for Lew.

Unhurriedly, as he did all things, Lew stood just inside the piñon corral putting on his shotgun chaps. A newly lighted cigar clamped firmly between his teeth, he shook out the chaps, then spun them around his slim hips like a matador swirling a cap. With an economy of motion, he buckled the chaps behind his trim waist. Mollie felt her throat go dry when he smoothed the chamois fabric around one long leg, buckled it just under his lean buttock and behind his knee, then repeated the action with the other leg.

Chaps in place, he stood, hitching them up, pulling them tight, unconsciously directing Mollie’s attention to the only part of his tight Levi’s not covered by the chaps—the faded fabric that was stretched taut over his groin.

A horse neighed loudly, and Mollie looked up. A huge, magnificent bay thundered into the corral, his sharp hooves kicking up dust, his big eyes wild with fear and hate.

Lew walked over and plucked his looped lariat from a fence pole. He looked up when the man they called Puma, swinging up onto the fence, softly taunted him.

“Sure hope you don’t get thrown on your ass by that big stud ‘cause you’re tryin’ to be a big stud in front of that pretty blond gal.”

Lew just smiled, pulled his hat brim lower, took the gloves from his hip pocket, drew them on, and walked away.

All eyes were then riveted on the tall, lean cowboy as he calmly crossed the corral, moving steadily closer to the snorting, bucking bay. Mollie watched, impressed, as Lew deftly raised the lasso and began to twirl it over his head. Then, with perfect aim and lightning speed, he threw it. The rope’s big loop sailed out and came down over the sleek, perspiring neck of the stallion.

Terrified, the horse squealed and reared his forelegs high into the air. Lew, cigar still clamped between his teeth, dug his bootheels into the dirt and allowed the frightened bay to pull him around until he got close enough to the snubbing post at the corral’s center to get the rope wrapped around his hips.

The rearing, whinnying stallion was choking himself. His big eyes bulged and he fought hard, his slick body quivering from withers to flanks. Lew hung on and finally spit his cigar on the ground.

“It’s okay, fella.” Lew’s voice was low and deep. “Easy, easy now.” Slowly, surely, he worked his gloved hands up the taut rope while the horse neighed wildly and shook his great head and pounded the earth with flying hooves.

The crowd of cowpokes watched, shaking their heads appreciatively and shouting as Lew stepped in and touched the horse’s muzzle. His hand gently rubbing the sweating face, he crooned soothingly to the stallion.

Mollie watched entranced as Lew skillfully managed to get a bridle, then a blanket, and finally a saddle on the stallion. She held her breath as he reached under the rearing horse and grabbed the cinch ring, pulling it beneath the stallion’s heaving belly.

“I won’t hurt you, boy. You’ll see.” Lew’s tone of voice never changed; it remained low and soothing.

He continued to patiently gentle the frightened stallion with words as he lifted a booted foot into the stirrup and swung his leg over. Before the horse realized what was happening, both Lew’s feet were planted firmly in the stirrups.

The stallion felt the man’s weight and discharged a sound of outraged fury that made the hair rise on Mollie’s neck. Terrified, mesmerized, she clung to the rail as the huge stallion pitched and grunted and did everything in his power to unseat the rider.

Lew knew he was aboard one of the toughest stallions he’d ever mounted. It was impossible to get the bay’s rhythm. He bucked sideways and spun and twisted and leaped and kept his big head low. Lew spurred and quirted and pulled and jerked, trying vainly to get the snorting stallion’s head up. He knew if he could get the beast’s head up, the bronc couldn’t get nearly as much deadly power into his wild bucking.

“Get his head up, Lew! You must get his head up!”

Mollie didn’t realize she was shouting until the professor looked sharply at her and shook his head. Realizing what she had done, she glanced anxiously at L. J. Willard. He hadn’t heard her. He was shouting too loudly himself. She bit her lip and looked back at Lew and the stallion.

Stubborn and incredibly strong, the stallion bowed his great neck, kept his head down, and continued to spin and plow and grunt and rear. Lew was being pounded to death.

Each time the bay’s hooves struck the hard ground, Lew felt the shock waves in every bone and muscle of his body. The battle continued, man against horse, until finally Lew felt that he was winning. The beast was tiring, his breath was growing short, his coat shimmering with sweat, his head lifting. The stallion had obviously run out of fight, because he stopped bucking, began to hop frantically about, and finally to trot around the corral.

The spectators roared their admiration and Lew started to grin, the taste of victory sweet in his mouth. Sweet, but premature.

Abruptly the trotting erupted into a spinning, spiraling fit of bucking that caught Lew off guard. He could feel himself flying high into the air, but impending danger was not what flashed through his mind. He was thinking that the beautiful young woman who had shouted for him to keep the bronc’s head up knew a damned sight too much about breaking horses to be an Eastern miss.

Mollie screamed and clasped her hand over her mouth as Lew left the horse’s back and flew high into the air. In that moment when Lew was silhouetted against the clear blue Arizona sky with a look of shock on his dark, handsome face, Mollie knew she loved him.

When his body struck the hard ground with a loud thud, she felt the pain jolt through her own. He lay unmoving, a crumpled form in the dirt. The men were already running toward him.

Mollie started climbing the fence. She had to get to him. The professor’s firm hand on her arm stopped her.

The next few moments were an eternity
.

Saying silent prayers and promising God she would never do anything wrong again if he would only let Lew be all right, Mollie clung to the fence with a death grip, her heart pounding with fear.

When a collective shout went up from the cowhands, she drew a much-needed breath. And when she saw Lew’s dark head rise above the others, she uttered a soft cry. As if he knew how upset she was, Lew, assuring the boys he was “fine, just fine,” walked through them and straight to her. A self-effacing smile on his dirty face, he winked at Mollie and placed a gloved hand over hers.

“Looks like that bay decided to show off for you too, Fontaine,” he said. “And he did a better job of it than I did.”

“You were wonderful, Lew,” she said, and he was shocked to see a mist of tears in her beautiful violet eyes.

“You sure you’re unhurt, son?” asked the professor.

“Positive, sir. Thanks.”

It wasn’t quite true.

The fall that had knocked the wind out of Lew was causing terrific pain in his right side. He hurt so badly he could scarcely breathe, much less talk, but he managed to hide his discomfort until Mollie and the professor left. Waving good-bye, he stood, smiling easily, until the carriage was completely out of sight.

Then, heading straight for the bunkhouse, he ignored Puma’s derisive laughter and taunts. Inside he made sure he was alone, then stripped off his leather vest and soiled shirt. He winced when he laid a hand on his broken ribs. Broken or bruised; he wasn’t sure which. Embarrassed that he had let the stallion throw him, he told no one about his injury.

But he was relieved when later that morning, L. J. Willard said casually, “Lew, why don’t we let Slim work that bay with a rope for a week or so before you climb back on him.”

Lew grinned. “You’re the boss.”

Saturday, the twenty-first of June, 1872, was a near-perfect day in Maya, Arizona. A sudden thunderstorm had rolled down out of the Santa Ritas around dawn, awakening the town’s light sleepers with its brilliant lightning flashes and cannonading booms of thunder.

For almost an hour great drops of rain, driven by a hard west wind, pounded the high desert, soaking the dry, dusty earth and splashing great drinks of water over the thirsty cactus and scrub plants dotting the vast expanse of wasteland.

Mollie awakened with the first echo of distant thunder. She leaped from her bed and rushed through the open double doors onto the balcony. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she inhaled deeply, relishing the sweet scent of rain on desert; a smell like no other on earth. She smiled, feeling the mist kiss her face while the big, wet drops drummed a loud tattoo on the porch railing and steep roof above.

The unexpected rainstorm filled her with joy. She knew that it wouldn’t last long enough to spoil the day’s activities. But it would cool the hot, dry air, which would make the outing more pleasant and the strenuous labor easier on the men. Especially on Lew.

The prospect of being with Lew from morning until well past midnight made Mollie shiver with anticipation. She considered which dress and shoes she should wear. The decision quickly made, she impulsively lifted her nightgown up past her knees and ventured out to the porch railing. Knowing she would have a hot bath and a shampoo before getting dressed, she decided to first enjoy an impromptu rain bath right there on the porch.

Laughing merrily, Mollie stepped on the windward side of a Doric porch column, leaned back against it, and allowed the driving rains to hit her full in the face. In seconds her hair, face, and nightgown were wet.

It was wonderful.

She opened her mouth and took licking drinks of the limpid rainwater. She lifted her hands and spread the raindrops over her face and throat. Her shoulders pressed against the dripping porch column, she arched her back and angled her slender body forward. Sighing, she welcomed the forceful rain that plastered the thin nightgown to her sensitive flesh.

Mollie wasn’t certain when her simple joyous rain bath turned into a new experience in erotic pleasure. But it did change. As she stood there in the rain while lightning flashed and thunder clattered and needles of wind-driven rain assaulted her, she thought about Lew. And she began to feel like she felt when he kissed her. She had that same funny fluttering in her stomach, was seized with that familiar breathlessness, was plagued with that sweet, torturous yearning.

Mollie sighed softly while the pelting rain teased nerve endings throughout her gently undulating body. Her head back against the porch column, eyes closed, she was caught up in something she didn’t fully understand, but guiltily enjoyed. She was vitally aware that the powerful pounding had molded her soft, warm nipples into pebble-hard points of sheer sensation. The flesh of her belly quivered involuntarily, and she instinctively parted her long slender legs to the force of the rhythmic driving rain.

“Lew,” she murmured into the storm, picturing him asleep in his bunk at the ranch, his dark head on the pillow, brown chest and shoulders bare above the covering white sheet. And beneath the sheet …

Mollie shuddered, shook herself soundly, and hurried back inside.

Lew awakened with the first rolling rumble of thunder. But he didn’t rush out into the rain. He gingerly eased himself up onto his left elbow and examined his badly bruised ribs. From two inches below his armpit to just above his waist, the flesh was a dark bluish purple. Beneath the discolored skin, his ribs ached dully. The pain was minor but constant.

Reaching for a cigar, Lew lit up and lay back down, folding an arm to cradle his head. Around him slumbering cowhands snored loudly, oblivious to the gathering tempest. Lew smoked contemplatively in the storm-lit room and found his thoughts returning—as they too often did—to the lovely young woman who called herself Fontaine Gayerre.

An earsplitting crash of thunder followed a ground flash of near lightning. Lew hardly noticed.
“Get his head up, Lew. You must get his head up.”
He could still hear her sweet, frightened voice calling out those words to him. He smiled sardonically. A prim miss from back East wouldn’t know a thing about breaking broncos. But Mollie Rogers would.

Damn her! Damn her to eternal hell! Why in God’s name did she have to be so pretty? And why, when she was nothing more than a hardened criminal, did he constantly catch himself thinking of her as a warm, desirable woman?

Lew groaned in agony.

Mollie kissed him the same heart-stopping way that his beautiful Teresa had when she’d first kissed him. Like a sweet, trusting innocent whose lips had never been tasted. Like a naive yet passionate young girl who had belonged to no man before him. Soft honeyed mouth trembling and tentative and timid.

Recalling last night’s hurried, heated embrace, Lew ground his teeth down on his cigar, almost biting it in two. She had been in his arms for only a moment. But the vivid recollection of her soft, warm lips clinging to his sent a sharp surge of unwelcome longing through Lew’s body.