Slocum 297: Holding Down the Ranch

Slocum held her, then listened, then held her some more while her tears soaked through his shirt. When Concho nuzzled him over the corral fence, he gently chucked the horse under his chin before he brushed the hair back from Becky’s temple, kissing it gently.

“C’mon, darlin’,” he said. “Let’s go in the house.” He slid his arm around her shoulders, gave a last rub to Concho’s forehead, and led Becky, sniffling, across the yard.

A few pecking, red- and white-speckled hens fled at their footsteps, and from inside the house, he could hear the scuffle of boots and the ringing of spurs. He grinned to himself. Tia Juanita had probably given Pete and Dave the go-ahead to walk out across the yard.

He was right. When he opened the front door and ushered Becky inside, he found Tia Juanita standing just inside the window, arms crossed over her considerable bosom, watching while Pete and Dave hurriedly strapped on their spurs again.

Pete looked up from his boot and immediately flushed. “Uh, howdy, folks,” he said. “Everything all right?”

And then he flushed even deeper and looked right down at his boots again, fumbling with the spur strap’s buckle.

“Just fine,” Slocum said, trying not to smile. “You boys leavin’ so soon?”

Dave stood all the way up. “We sure are, Slocum,” he said, looking even more ill-at-ease than Pete, if that were possible. “Yessirree Bob, we sure are.”

Pete finally got his buckle fastened and grumbled, “Just hold your goddamn horses, Dave,” as he got to his feet.

From beneath Slocum’s arm, a puzzled Becky piped up, “What on earth is the matter with you boys?”

“Shoo!” said Tia Juanita to Pete and Dave, and pointed toward the door. “Have you lazy muchachos nothing else to do with your time?”

Pete poked him in the ribs, cutting him off, then grabbed both of their hats. He handed Dave’s to him, then dragged him toward the door. “C’mon,” he muttered. “Don’t you have stock to check? There’s the back corral to whitewash, too, if’n you run out of chores.”

“Aw, cripes!” Dave replied, looking pained. “How come you get to be the foreman, anyhow?”

The two banged out the front door, leaving Slocum and Becky facing Tia Juanita, who simply said, “I have dishes waiting,” and left the room.

Slocum stood there a moment in the suddenly vacant room, then asked, “Is it me?”

Becky laughed. It was awfully good to hear that after so many tears, and he laughed with her. She turned toward him, and through her laughter, said, “Would you like to see my bedroom, Slocum?”

She took him down the long back hall and opened the door to a large room furnished for a man, not a woman. It had wood-paneled walls, plain and simple curtains, and next to no bric-a-brac. It was Jack Jamison’s room, not Becky’s.

She had brought one thing to it, though. Against the far wall in the corner sat an ornately carved, mahogany low-boy bureau. It was completely out of harmony with the rest of the spare, rough-hewn furnishings, but he remembered it from the last time he’d been to see Becky.

Of course, then it had been at the Bar S, which was now occupied by half-naked chicken-eaters.

The bureau had a huge mirror attached to the back that rose up the wall, reflecting light from the opposite windows. On its top surface, there was a silver-backed hand mirror and a matching comb, a hair-keeper, and a button-hook, along with containers for hairpins and hat pins and such, and a few framed photographs.

He wondered why she hadn’t changed the room after Jamison died, made it more frilly, more feminine. And then he wondered why, other than to bring the dresser over, she hadn’t changed it in the first place, right after she’d married him.

He didn’t have much time to mull it over, though, because just then Becky moved to stand in front of him. She put her hands on the flat of his chest.

She didn’t have to ask him twice. With his foot, he nudged the door closed behind them and heard it swing closed, then latch with a gentle click.

He touched her cheek. “You sure, honey? This quick?” She nodded. “I’m sure as I’ve ever been about anything. I’ve been waiting for you for a very long time.”

He kissed her, and as he did, he felt her hands rise up to his shoulders, then travel to hug his neck.

Like a wild mustang who’d just found water after too long in the desert, she threw herself into the kiss, drinking it deep, trying to drink him whole. Her tongue pushed gently against his, then roughly, and he returned the kiss for all he was worth.

He gave her all she wanted, and while he did, he pulled the pins from her upswept hair. Honey tresses toppled in soft waves, flowing down over her shoulders and back like a waterfall and smelling of soft lavender. Without breaking off the kiss, he scooped her up and in two strides he carried her to the bed.

He lay her down on the pale green bedspread, then broke away from her hungry mouth. Slit-eyed, swollen-lipped, she looked up at him.

“All right, baby,” he whispered. He quickly unbuttoned the bodice of her dress and pushed her camisole aside, freeing her breasts. They were still firm, high, and round, and were crowned with nipples of the palest, most delicate pink, which were now tightened and darkened with desire.

He brushed his lips over one erect nipple, and when Becky made a little growling sound deep in her throat, he took it into his mouth and twirled his tongue over the nub.

He felt her arching beneath him, as if she were trying to push more of her breast into his mouth, push her body more tightly against his, push her way into him. She was as heated and eager as if she’d been waiting all this time for him, just for him.

A little more roughly than he meant to, he pulled her dress down over her shoulders. He unfastened her belt with a quick turn of his wrist, and bared her to the waist. She let go of his neck just long enough to shrug her arms free of the dress.

But only one of her hands returned to the back of his neck. The other went straight to his belt buckle, then his gunbelt.

She freed him, reached inside, and curled her fingers around him, and the intense heat and swelling he’d been feeling in his loins took on a whole new meaning. He felt himself growing even bigger in her grip when she began to rhythmically stroke him, softly squeeze him.

Suddenly, he removed his mouth from her bosom and in one motion, rolled and took her with him, so that she was on top.

He tugged at her skirts, and they finally went down over her slim hips, along with her petticoats and underwear. She wiggled out of them quickly, while he kicked his way free of his trousers and she tore at the buttons of his shirt.

Naked now, they kissed anew: frantically, urgently, and Slocum once again rolled on top of her. She opened her legs to him, cocking one over his back. She was already slippery wet, and he slid into her smoothly, slowly, as if they’d been made for each other.

She was close—very close—he knew it, and rather than try to catch up with her, he decided to let her finish. Besides, he thought as he began to drive into her, he was an old stud. Took him more than five minutes to get heated all the way up to a fever pitch. She seemed to have reached it in three.

He thrust deep into her, feeling her slippery inner walls grip him, hug him, cling to him as her breathing quickened and her eyes fluttered closed. She rose to meet his every driving thrust, and he tried to think about baseball, about shoeing horses, and about dismantling his rifle.

Halfway through his mental picture of the rifle, she suddenly froze, her back arched, and she sucked air in through her teeth. He felt her insides squeeze him tight—which just about did him in—and then she let out a low, deep, long moan before collapsing down on the bedspread.

Slocum, still inside her, dipped his head and let out a long breath through his mouth. She had kindled a bonfire in his loins. Oh, he’d been throwing metaphysical water on it all right, but there wasn’t enough imaginary water in the world to put this fire out. He just had to give her a chance to catch her breath before she could stoke it up into a full-fledged conflagration.

“Slocum,” she whispered, her eyes still closed, the sooty lashes lying like moth wings on her pale cheeks. Her breasts pressed against his chest. He could feel her heart beating.

She really was astoundingly beautiful, he realized, and not for the first time. How could he have forgotten it?

“Not yet,” he murmured, kissing her forehead and her temple, now damp with sweat. “That first one was a present,” he whispered huskily with an ornery grin. “Gonna make you work for the next one, honey.”

A soft smile curled her lips, and she opened her eyes just a bit. She licked her lips. “Consider me on the payroll. Go to it, boy.”

Tia Juanita, standing at the kitchen sink, smiled to herself as she tended the dishes.

She paused for a moment, closed her eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks to Our Lady of Guadalupe, then crossed herself. Then she smiled. When Raul was alive, he had said it was a miracle in itself that all her dresses didn’t have wear marks in the shape of a cross.

She sighed. Dear, sweet Raul. He had given her no children—and she had given him none, as well—but he had given her all of himself until the day he died.

She glanced out the window, and her soft smile turned to a frown. There was Pete, walking across the yard from the big barn again. She leaned across the sink and out the window.

Pete stopped and propped one hand on his hip, his thumb through a belt loop. “Don’t wanna see her. Want to talk to Slocum.”

Pete didn’t give up, though. “Well, could you ask him where he got that horse? Me and Bill been havin’ a discussion about it.”

“Well, what are they doin’ that they can’t be—” Pete stopped midsentence, having had a revelation of sorts. Or at least, that’s the way it looked by the expression on his face.

“Oh, cripes,” she barely heard him mutter, and then he shouted, “Okay, Tia Juanita.”

He turned and went back toward the barn, but not before Tia Juanita saw the smirk on his face.

Pete had been around when Slocum had come through Indian Springs the first time, three years ago. He and Dave should remember it well, seeing as how Slocum had saved both of their worthless lives. And too, they would do well to remember the flames that had sparked between Becky and Slocum.

She washed the last dish and wiped it dry, then pulled the plug in the sink. Jack Jamison had been very clever with the sink, rigging it to drain around the corner of the house and into the big flower bed. Tia Juanita was proud of her flowers, which were always brightly colored, no matter the season, and green-foliaged. Of course, they were also a beckoning home for black widow spiders.

She did not mind the spiders so much, she thought as she began to dry the flatware. They had to live, too. But they also had to understand that when they spun their sticky, messy webs, lurking where people were going to dig or put their hands, they should expect to meet a fiery death.

She always burned them out with a small torch. It was the most efficient way. The spiders died with a satisfying pop, and it got the egg sacks, too.

She glanced at the clock. Slocum and Becky had only been back there for about half an hour. Plenty of time for most men, Tia Juanita thought, but not for a tough old hombre like Slocum. That one, he could probably leave the gate and cross the finish line several times.

Tia Juanita decided that she would not disturb them until it came time for supper. Becky and Slocum would have to eat, if for no other reason than to keep their strength up.

They were all going to be all right and safe, every last one of them. Except for Tate McMahon, of course.

For the first time since the murder of Jack Jamison, Tia Juanita began to hum happily.