Eighteen
“Ace,” she whispered, “oh, Ace, please don’t die. I need you; we all need you.” She couldn’t hold back the tears dripping down on his still face.
One of his eyes fluttered and opened. “Is it—is it rainin’?”
“Oh, God, hang on, Ace, there’s help coming.” She yelled at Boneyard again, “Keep it up, girl. You can do it!”
Ace choked and began to cough up water. “Did—did I hear you say you needed me?”
“Why you son of a bitch! You were playing possum. I ought to leave you to die.”
“Now, you can’t do that.” He grinned up at her. “You need me, remember?”
“Damned if I do! When we get out of this mess, you rascal . . .”
“I liked you better when you were cryin’ because you thought I was dead.”
“Oh, shut up and hang on to the rope.”
The horse kept backing, and the pair pulled free of the quicksand with a great sucking sound. They struggled to make it back on the safe path as the horse dragged them toward shore. Then the cowboys were there, tossing more loops, pulling the half-drowned pair from the river.
“Miss Lynnie, you okay?” Comanch tried to pull her to her feet.
Ace tried to stand but couldn’t. “She—she came back to help me. Somebody catch my horse?”
Hank nodded and signaled to some of the others. “Let’s get them over to the chuck wagon. I reckon Cookie will stop up ahead and we’ll camp for the night.”
Later that night, wrapped in blankets, the pair sat by the campfire eating hot beef stew and drinking coffee. Their clothes hung near the fire to dry.
Ace looked at her. “I’m much obliged, Lynnie; I almost didn’t make it outta there.”
She shrugged. “It was that water moccasin; that’s all. It panicked your horse.”
“I think I’ve underestimated you,” he admitted.
“Of course. Haven’t I been telling you that all along? When we get back home, I’ll teach you to swim.”
The other cowboys had bedded down, leaving the two sitting on a log, sipping coffee. He reached over and put his arm around her shoulders. “You’re as good a cowboy as any on this drive, Lynnie.”
His arm around her shoulders felt good, but she would never admit that. “Then you’ve forgiven me for coming along?”
“I can’t imagine how dull it would have been without you.” Before she realized it, he reached over with his other arm, put one big hand under her chin, tilted her face up, and kissed her lips gently.
“You don’t have to feel that obligated,” she protested. “I know I’m not pretty.”
“You’re pretty,” he said, and he kissed her again.
She looked around. All the cowboys had sought their blankets and were asleep, most snoring gently. The crackling fire made a cozy, warm glow. The stars above seemed like diamonds on black velvet. Somehow, she felt differently toward Ace Durango now. They had survived much together: danger, misery, thirst. “You know what, Ace? You’re every inch the man your father is, maybe more.”
His rugged face softened. “Comin’ from you, Lynnie, that’s a real compliment.”
She leaned her head against his broad chest. “I suppose we’ll be in Dodge in a week or two.”
He nodded and pulled her closer. “Reckon we will. Never thought I had what it took to bring the herd through.”
She looked up at him. “I always knew you did. You’re a Durango and a real cowboy.”
They both watched the fire as it dwindled down to glowing coals.
“Lynnie . . .”
“What?” She looked up at him, willing him to kiss her.
“Never mind.” For the first time, he seemed hesitant and unsure of himself.
Damn it, he wasn’t going to kiss her. Lynnie remembered his hot kisses in the teepee and knew she would like him to do it again. She felt the blanket sliding slowly down her shoulder, but she didn’t attempt to grab for it. “Soon we’ll be in Dodge, and you won’t have to put up with me anymore.”
“I reckon I’ll miss havin’ you around,” he admitted.
Damn it, kiss me, she thought. Sometimes a woman just had to take the initiative, she decided. Before he could move, she reached up and put her arms around his neck and kissed him. He seemed taken aback, and then he put his arms around her and kissed her deeply, thoroughly.
She didn’t know what she wanted, but she wanted more than this. Lynnie leaned into him, and he went down on his back slowly, breathing hard. Both blankets were slipping, but neither of them seemed aware of it. She proceeded to kiss her way down his face and throat.
“Watch out, Lynnie,” he cautioned, gasping for air. “You’re about to start some real trouble here....”
“Show me,” she challenged, and kissed his bare chest very thoroughly.
He made a sound deep in his throat, half groan, half plea, and then he rolled her over, his hands under her blanket as he stroked her skin. She knew she ought to stop him, but somehow, she didn’t want to. Her own breath came in gasps as his hot, wet mouth fastened on her breast. In the firelight, she watched his tortured face as his mouth kissed across her nipples.
“Lynnie,” he murmured, “oh, Lynnie . . .”
She closed her eyes as his hand went down to touch her thighs. Her lower body seemed to be on fire with need, and her hands were shaking as she let her thighs fall apart.
His hand felt hot and trembling as he caressed her bare belly. “Lynnie, oh, Lynnie, you’d better stop me ... stop me now.”
Was he loco? She wasn’t about to stop him. Her own heart was pounding hard as this big man kissed her belly and moved down her thighs. He moved so that he was half on her, his manhood hot and throbbing against her. “Lynnie ...” His voice was urgent. “Lynnie, I—I can’t stop.”
“I don’t want you to,” she said honestly, and pulled him toward her. He seemed to need no more urging before he moved between her thighs. Then he was on her, driving into her, hard and deep. She locked her legs around him, urging him deeper still. She was giving up her virginity out in the dirt by a campfire—not at all the way she had envisioned her first lovemaking, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was embracing this big, rough cowboy and getting him inside her—riding her in the most primitive of all acts. The sensation and her emotions were building to a crescendo of feelings.
She had never felt anything as exciting and as wondrous as what she was feeling now, locked in this man’s embrace while he rode her hard and fast. He was a big man, and she could feel every inch of him in the hot rhythm they created. Neither could stop now if they were threatened with death; she realized that, and nothing mattered but finishing this wild action they had started. She wanted him deeper still, and she dug her small hands into his lean hips and urged him on as her own excitement mounted.
“Ace,” she whispered, “Ace ...” And then there were no words except to cling to him, holding him tight against her with her legs. She felt him hesitate; then he went rigid, holding his breath and gasping as he poured his seed into her. For a long moment, nothing else mattered except this man and this emotion as they meshed, straining together. Then he relaxed on her, breathing hard. She reached up and gently brushed his hair out of his eyes.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he admitted, and began to ride her again, their lovemaking more torrid than before. Then she kissed his cheek and held him close as he relaxed against her, his slow breathing telling her he slept. After a long moment, she slept, too.
When Ace woke up next to Lynnie just before dawn, he was horrified. His first thought was: Lordy, Uncle Maverick will kill me. No—he shook his head as he scrambled for his clothes—Maverick won’t have to kill me; Dad will do it for him.
Lynnie stirred languidly and smiled up at him.
“Lynnie, I know what you’re gonna say.” He hopped about on one foot, struggling to get his pants on. “It was a big mistake; I got carried away and I’m sorry I ruined you.”
“Ruined me?” Lynnie sat up and realized she was naked under the blanket. “I’d hardly call making love to me ruining me.”
“Shh!” He put his finger to his lips. “The crew might hear you.” He grabbed up his shirt.
“You don’t want them to know you made love to me?” She pulled the blanket around her, indignation mixed with hurt in her soul, knowing he regretted last night.
“We was both tired and it was the heat of the moment,” he said, buttoning his shirt. “Let’s just forget all about it, can we?”
“You sidewinder!” She threw her boot at him and hit him.
He hopped away, barefooted, then began to howl as he stepped on a cockleburr. “Damn it! Now, don’t get mad, Lynnie. You just took seriously what I was pokin’ at you in fun.”
“You—you pig, you!” She threw her other boot and hit him between the thighs, causing him to curse louder. “I thought it meant something special, and here you were just behaving like a typical man.”
“I said I was sorry.” He managed to pull on his boots, which was difficult, considering that Lynnie was throwing everything she could reach at him. “I don’t like the idea of bein’ fenced in, and I reckon now that I’m obliged—”
“You’re not obliged for anything!” she shrieked. “And I wouldn’t have you on a silver platter!”
“Shh! You’ll wake the others. Let’s just pretend this never happened, okay?”
Lynnie glared at him a long moment, fighting back tears. Here she was having feelings for the big brute, and he’d only been doing what men did naturally, trying to top every female they met.
“Fine!” she snapped, and began to rummage around for her own clothes. “You keep your distance for the rest of this trip and we’ll pretend it never happened. Besides, I’ve got too much to do for women’s rights to end up cooking and slaving for some Texas cowboy.”
He paused. “You’re sayin’ that if I asked you, you’d say no?” He sounded as if he couldn’t believe his ears.
“I am saying no,” she sniffed, and began to dress as the first light broke over the eastern horizon. “You may think you’re God’s gift to women, Ace Durango, but you weren’t so hot.”
He looked first amazed, then disbelieving, and finally crestfallen. “Now, Miss Priss, since you never done it before, how would you know whether I was any good or not?”
It had been good—better than she’d ever dreamed it could be, better than in the romantic novels she had read—but she wasn’t about to admit that. Ace Durango had a big enough ego without telling him what a great lover he was. “I just guessed; that’s all. I felt nothing.”
“Nothin’?” He looked as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Yes,” she lied, “and it won’t be a problem forgetting about last night, because it was quite forgettable. Now, get your boots on; we’ve got cattle to drive.”
“Women!” He put on his boots, grabbed up his hat, and headed toward the camp, where the others were just waking up.
Lynnie watched him go, torn between the soft feelings she’d had felt for him last night, and the cold, hard reality of today. She’d only been an hour’s pleasure for the cowboy, and in a few days, when he hit Dodge, he’d be making love to every woman who smiled at him. The thought upset her so, she ignored Ace when she returned to camp. The icy chill remained in the air the rest of that long day as they drove the cattle on toward the northern border of Indian Territory. The sky clouded ominously, but no rain fell.
As the days passed, Lynnie could no longer remember what day it was—not that it mattered. Each day was like the last: hot, frustrating, and dull. It must be nearly the end of June. Lynnie was no longer sure she’d make it to Dodge in time for the big women’s convention on July Fourth, but it didn’t seem as important as it once had. She and Ace kept a polite, cool distance. If the other cowboys noticed, they said nothing.
One morning, Cookie squinted against the sun. “By my calculations, we ought to be gettin’ close to the Western Trail. After that, it’s only a few more days to Dodge City.”
Thank God for that, Lynnie thought. The sooner she was rid of the big Texan, the better off she’d be. They could both get on with their lives. Somehow, the excitement of the big women’s meeting in Kansas had dimmed, and she was annoyed that Ace Durango had been the cause of that. She had never dreamed she could find such ecstasy in a man’s arms, especially an untamed brute like the rough cowboy.
Late that afternoon, they reached a big wooden sign pointing the way to the Western Trail. Everyone reined in and looked.
“That’s funny,” Lynnie said to no one in particular. “The sign points straight up, but somehow, I think we should be turning toward the left.”
“Women’s intuition,” Ace growled, then took off his hat and scratched his head. “What do you think, Cookie?”
The old man reined in his mules and looked up at the sun. With heavy clouds blanketing the sky, it was difficult to tell directions now. “That sign has always been there; I don’t know.”
Lynnie ignored Ace and leaned on her saddle horn. “You know what I think? I think that polecat Forrester might have moved the sign.”
“Think so?” Ace said. “That would be rotten.”
The other cowboys murmured agreement.
“Well,” Lynnie said, “he moved the warning signs off the quicksand, didn’t he?”
Ace scowled at her. “I sure hate to take the advice of a woman.”
Lynnie ground her teeth. “Listen, you low-brained bronc buster, I got a woman’s intuition about this.”
The whole crew suppressed a grin.
“Lordy, girl,” Ace sighed, “there’s no tracks leadin’ off in the direction you’re suggestin’.”
“If you’ll take a good look, there’s none straight up, either.”
A murmur of agreement from the cowboys, and Hank said, “You know, Ace, she might be right.”
Ace’s nostrils flared like a wild mustang’s. “Okay, I’ll admit she’s smart; but she ain’t that smart.”
“Isn’t,” Lynnie corrected without thinking. “Give me a few minutes to prove my point.” And without waiting for agreement, she took off at a canter in the direction she thought the trail should lead.
“Lynnie, damn it, come back here!” Ace yelled after her, but she ignored him. She was still angry and hurt over his horror at having made love to her. Besides, she wasn’t going to let a man boss her when he was so clearly wrong.
Behind her, she heard Ace lashing his horse, galloping after her. She ignored him and kept riding. He caught up with her. “Damn it, Missy, what is it you’re tryin’ to prove?”
“That I’m not stupid just because I’m a woman.” She kept her face turned stubbornly toward the trail and didn’t look at him.
“You’re still mad about our tumble in the dirt?”
“Only you could be so crude as to call it that.” She kept riding. “I’m mad that you regret it.”
He hesitated. “I didn’t perzactly regret it; I just figured I’d made a mess of things.”
“Oh, shut up.” She blinked back tears.
He cleared his throat as if to say something but seemed to think better of it.
She admitted to herself then that she was angry with herself because she was falling in love with this untamed brute and he wasn’t the kind of mate she had always dreamed of. He didn’t have good manners, his grammar was atrocious, he wasn’t sophisticated, and the only poetry he knew was the kind that cowboys wrote on an outhouse wall.
“Back to the problem at hand,” she said coldly. “Didn’t it occur to you that there were no tracks or cow pies either direction?”
“What?” Obviously it hadn’t.
“Look up ahead.” Lynnie pointed. “Plenty of both. I figure Forrester carefully wiped out his tracks and cleaned up behind his cattle for a few hundred yards.”
“Why, the low-down snake.” Ace reined in and whistled low. “You’re right, Lynnie.”
She looked at him. She ought to feel triumphant that she had made him yell “calf-roped,” but somehow, humiliating him didn’t feel all that good. “All right, let’s get back to the herd.”
“I ain’t never been bested by a woman before,” Ace said, and his voice was cold.
“The kind of women you choose aren’t smart enough to go toe to toe with you—big-breasted girls like Emmalou Purdy, who can’t seem to graduate from school no matter how hard I try to help her,” Lynnie snapped. She was still smarting from having been used as a plaything like all the other women Ace had bedded. She was nothing more than another notch on his pistol. Well, maybe not his pistol but his ...
“Emmalou,” Ace sighed as if remembering, and grinned.
At that point, she came close to hitting that insolent, grinning face with her quirt, but she decided that if she made that rash move, Ace might pull her off her horse and spank her. He was just the kind of uncivilized brute who’d do it, too. Oh, Percival, my gallant knight, where are you when I need you so? Ace would beat him up and shove his book of poetry down his throat if he showed up, she decided.
They rode back to the herd. As they approached the outfit, Ace cleared his throat. “I’d be much obliged if you didn’t make me look like a fool before my men.”
She smiled maliciously. Here was a perfect opportunity to show how much smarter a woman was, and what a hardheaded idiot he was. Still, she looked into his eyes and softened. As the pair approached the crew, Lynnie yelled, “Ace found the trail. Forrester’s herd did go this way after all.”
Ace glanced at her, surprise on his features that she was saving face for him. “I didn’t do much; Lynnie was right after all.”
“Thank you for that,” she whispered.
“I figure I owe you for what I did back at the Cimarron,” he muttered back.
Damn him for feeling guilty and making her feel like a slut because she’d enjoyed that night. She determined to make the rest of this trip even more miserable for him if possible.
They reined in, and Ace explained to the cowboys about Forrester’s trick. “If it hadn’t been for Lynnie helpin’ me find the trail, I reckon we would end up in Wichita, where they don’t want us.”
“Miss Lynnie’s smart,” Comanch said, “smarter than most men. I reckon women like her ought to be allowed to vote.”
There was a murmur of agreement among the cowboys, but Ace made a choking noise.
It gave her a momentary thrill of triumph to hear that from the men, but Ace’s expression told her he still couldn’t stomach the idea of women in government.
“All right, boys!” Ace shouted, “move ’em out!”
They turned their cattle to the left and soon picked up Forrester’s trail again. Lynnie tried to be gracious in accepting congratulations from the crew, but Ace spurred his big black horse and rode off to check on the herd.
Lynnie stared after him. Well, what had she expected? She wasn’t the kind of girl that Ace was attracted to; she had known that from the start. She’d caught him in a weak moment when there weren’t any other women around to make love to, and she’d become the object of his passion. Well, at least she had that memory of a few magical hours to remember.
That night when the sky cleared and the stars came out, Cookie reaffirmed that they were on the Western Trail, no matter what the wooden sign had said. Forrester had behaved like a ornery polecat in doing whatever it took to win. They bedded the herd down, Ace and Lynnie avoiding each other as much as possible because it felt so awkward for both of them. The cowboys were sitting around the fire just at dark, with Lynnie reading to them, when they heard a shout.
“Hallo the camp!”
Lynnie and the others looked up in surprise. Two riders were approaching from the northwest. What the . . . ? She was as shocked and speechless as the wranglers when Willis Forrester and Nelbert Purdy rode into camp.