“Mr. Burnham … Carter …” one of them said.
"Tell … tell her …" Burnham was fighting to get the words out as he coughed up blood, "… tell her … I love her … and it was going to be wonderful …"
“Tell who?”
He could hear one of the men asking him who he spoke of, but life was already draining from the lumberjack. Burnham tried to speak, but he couldn’t. His vision began to blur, darkness taking over his sight.
Eventually, life left his body with his last thought being of Cassandra’s beautiful face. Carter Burnham died with her name never passing his lips, and with Cassandra Wilde seemingly never to know how much impression she made on one man’s world.
CHAPTER 2
CEDAR LEDGE RANCH
ALAMIEDA, ARIZONA TERRITORY
THE PRESENT
The pair of Yavapai siblings were nearing the end of their journey now. Blue River and Bright Feather had spoken much during their journey sharing stories and thoughts. It was something so familiar to them. As children, the pair had often been away from their tribe traveling with their mother and their step-father, who had been given the role of soliciting trade amongst other tribes. Everyone knew they had been assigned such duties to keep their clan removed from the rest of tribe as much as possible as they had been lighting rods for all the upheaval in the tribe.
Traveling together the way they did, the pair had been very close and usually spent hours conversing between themselves as they traveled. It was a habit that had remained until this day. Seemingly, the only thing the pair did not talk about was Lijuan Wilde. For reasons known only to Lijuan, she did not care for Bright Feather who had fallen deeply in love with Blue River’s brother Dutch, and the tension between the two women placed him in an unenviable and unwinnable position.
Now for the last hour of their journey, they had fallen silent, each with their own thoughts. Blue River allowed his mind to roll back to the moment in his tent the previous night when he had at last let down his barriers with his old friend. The thoughts were warm and pleasurable, and he knew he best enjoy them because once they reached the ranch, his sole focus would be on the attack on their convoy, the death of Burnham, a man he deeply liked and respected, and the other men, and now the aftermath and what lay ahead with his successful pilgrimage to his tribe. He closed his eyes for a moment and felt the name Cotari pass silently on his lips, and he let his mind take him back to the time he had shared with her as if it was happening now.
***
Slowly Catori pulled her face back from where she had been kissing her way up his thighs. Rising she wriggled out of her buckskin dress, revealing her bronzed skin in the flickering lamplight. Blue River drank in the sight of her well-endowed breasts, sitting pretty atop her tapered waist. Her dark patch below her navel was thick and inviting. After allowing him to get a good look at what he had been resisting for so long she returned to her knees and trailed her warm wet tongue up the whole of his rising shaft making him hotter and harder with every movement.
Using his hand, he continued to play with her with her lush, ebony mane. The woman had always been such a good friend to him. She knew he was worried about what was said in the meeting and it was just like her to want to ease his mind and he found her methods most pleasing.
Without warning, Catori took his cock into her mouth and Blue River clenched his hands into two large fists. He found her mouth was hot and wet as his rod slipped between her lips with ease as she covered him in saliva. Catori closed her eyes as she sucked him deep into her mouth, but Blue River couldn’t take his eyes away. Her lips wrapped around him was an entrancing sight and the way she pulled him in deeper sent jolts of pleasure through him. Blue River grunted as she planted one hand on high up with her fingers splayed over his hard chest. With the other hand, Catori stroked him as she sucked, slowly at first. Her fingers, unable to completely wrap around his girth, worked in a clockwise motion covering every inch one way or another. She stared up at him with those eyes he knew held a love for him knowing she wouldn’t hold anything back. Blue River wouldn’t stop her wanting to see what Catori would be like with no limits. She didn’t disappoint.
Catori licked and sucked him without inhibition. Her tongue flickered stiffly against the head of his cock before she forced it back between her lips to graze the roof of her mouth. Blue River grunted again as he clenched his jaw tight as he watched her work. Her eyes were open and glazed as she sought to please him and he found himself glued in place. Catori wasn’t an amateur, she was trying to say to him by her actions, perhaps trying to tell him what he had been missing holding her at bay for so long. Her enjoyment was palpable which served to heighten his pleasure as well.
The young woman pulled away from his cock taking his balls into her mouth and started to suck as she continued to pump his cock up and down with her hand. Blue River gritted his teeth together, her warm tongue felt so good pleasuring him that he almost hated himself for holding back for so long.
Moaning she released them from her mouth and returned her attention to his shaft. There she flickered her tongue rapidly before covering his sensitive tip completely. Saliva dripped from his cock as her sloppy sucking drove him to growl loudly, he was ridiculously close to coming and didn’t want to just yet. Catori didn’t seem to notice his dilemma. She continued repeatedly sucking and then licking pushing him deeper into her mouth and he held her there by her pretty hair.
Blue River groaned as she opened her throat to receive all of his massive cock. The harder he pushed into her mouth, the deeper her throat seemed to get. She moaned and now closed her eyes and he could feel the vibrations against the tip of his dick. Her hands were on his hips, and his fingers were in her sweat-drenched hair as he started to stroke her tongue with his smooth, hard cock. In and out, he pushed his cock into her hot mouth. He brought the tip to her lips momentarily giving her free reign to suck it how she pleased before pushing his cock back to her throat yet again. Catori moaned as much as she could between gasping breaths. Her hands rose and her nails raked over his muscled abs and her eyes fluttered open to stare up at him. Blue River's body filled with tension and desire.
Catori's hands moved to her own breasts with their swollen, hard nipples, to her glistening honey well. He watched as she rubbed her pleasure button while she sucked him. The more she touched herself, the more the scent of her arousal filled the air leaving his mouth to water at the thought of the taste of what was there. He was about to move to bury himself between her thighs when it happened.
He watched her eyes widen as she felt the guttural rumbling start from somewhere in his body and quickly spread to every part of him as Blue River was pushed towards his climax. She braced herself as his explosion filled her mouth. It came hot and huge. Catori pulled his softening rod out of her mouth and she licked and swallowed every last bit until there was no more.
A smile formed on her face as she watched him lie back on the mat, the earlier worry on his face replaced by a sweet calm. They rested for a while before resuming once more making love into the late hours of the night.
They had parted ways with a new dynamic between them. He had been honest that his feelings had not changed regarding her as a friend despite the intimacy that they had shared. Cotari seemed to accept that, perhaps because she had her long-held fantasies finally fulfilled. Still, she had let it dangle that should they come together like this again, she would more than welcome it. The idea surely had its appeal to him. What person wouldn’t welcome a friendship that came with such benefits?
Catori's face and such pleasurable thoughts faded from his mind as the siblings passed through the gates of Cedar Ledge. The gate itself was brand new having been recently been replaced in the wake of the ranch having fallen under siege by a band of criminals known as the Syndicate. In the end, following a gun battle, Whip and Honor Elizabeth along with their valiant ranch hands had triumphed over the evil forces that had swarmed over Cedar Ledge from their own forbidden ranch.
> He looked back for a moment over his shoulder at the large metallic circle above the gate that held the letters HBH that the sisters had erected long ago to embrace the nickname and spite the people who had given it to the ranch to hurt them. Focusing straight ahead as they crossed the nearby bridge over the Rock River, he prepared to give his news to his beloved sisters he knew would be waiting for him.
***
Assembled in the office where Lijuan Wilde ran all the operations of Cedar Ledge were Lijuan and her sisters, Honor Elizabeth and Catalina. It was one of her favorite places in all the world. Plenty spacious, it was large enough to contain her sturdy desk made from cedar trees cut from their very land, a pair of cushioned chairs, and a large map on the north wall of the room with all the available lands on Cedar Ledge as well as the entirety of Almeida. Completing the room was a globe that held court in one corner of the room.
Lijuan’s youngest sister, Catalina, was half standing, half sitting quite close to the globe, her shapely body perched on the large windowsill of the office. She was staring absentmindedly at the scenery outside which featured a view of the cattle ranch’s north pasture where she usually worked many hours a day tending to her Herefords and other steers. With the window open, Catalina’s wavy black hair tousled slowly as the delicate grassland breeze blew across her face. She bit her soft brown lips once, the frown on her oblong face indicating how apprehensive she had become as silence briefly prevailed in the office.
Honor, of course, was sitting properly in one of the chairs in front of Lijuan’s desk. She pursed her creamy lips anxiously too, her hazel eyes often leaving the desk in front of her to stare at her petite older sister, Lijuan, or at Catalina, who seemed to be temporarily lost in her own thoughts. Unable to change the prevalent mood, she let her fingers graze the smooth linen of the choker around her neck once before moving on to fiddle with her curly black hair. Her palm smoothened the smooth and creamy mocha skin of her arm as well.
Nothing about the mood in the office had been any different in the three weeks since the attack. A dark pall had been cast over Cedar Ledge at the loss of Burnham and another ranch employee named Corday, as well as the four men from the local freight company the Wildes had contracted with to haul the cross ties to Devil’s Canyon.
Lijuan, always abreast of all the operations concerning the ranch, knew that Blue River had especially taken the losses hard. She sat like a rock in her chair, motionless, while various thoughts about the losses sieved through her mind. Though she did not know the men personally who had died, Blue River had spoken to her glowingly about them, especially Burnham whom he considered to be a good friend. She also found herself in the unenviable spot of having to deal with the fallout that went beyond the human costs.
All the ties they had fashioned from prime Cedar Ledge lumber had been lost along with two of the wagons that the Wildes owned and the two wagons from the freight company. A railroad man named Benson had been down to Cedar Ledge twice now to check on their progress of replacing the ties. Grand Western had been sympathetic to the losses but were equally firm about how much the railroad was losing from the unexpected delay.
It had taken a lot for Lijuan to hold her tongue, given how the railroad had been the true target of the attack, but she was a businesswoman and the Grand Western was their client. It also rankled her a bit that the railroad’s supposedly “eternal gratitude” for their recent help in preventing a Grand Western train from being responsible for wiping out a town full of people seemed to have faded.
Turning her thoughts back to the present, she thought of how Blue River had been working frantically at the mill to have his crews replace the lost shipment. She was proud of her brother’s efforts, and they had paid off. For her part, it had been up to her to find more wagons to ship the timbers.
She had succeeded, but she knew that she could not have done it without her beloved brother, David, which to all others save her went by the name of Dutch. Through one of his brothers-in-arms at the fort who was part of a freight hauling family out of Santa Fe, he had acted as her agent in securing the wagons and getting them and their drivers to Cedar Ledge. Dutch was such a strong, take-charge kind of man, and she had been most grateful for his help in making the deal. Thinking fondly about her half-brother, she smiled to herself and thought if it was any wonder that she ….
Before she could finish her thought though, she caught from the corner of her eyes Catalina suddenly coming alert at the window.
“Hold up now! I see Blue River ridin’ up to the house,” Catalina grinned, “Hmm, looks like he brought Bright Feather with him,” she announced.
Lijuan dropped her head with a long sigh at the news, never being one to be pleased by the arrival of Blue River’s half-sibling. She looked up a second later and cursed under her breath. “Well, that’s great,” she fussed.
“Really? Why cannot you ever be happy to see her?” Honor asked, eyeing Lijuan from where she sat across her. “After all, she truly is the love of our brother’s life.”
“Not now, Honor,” Lijuan muttered under her breath, trying hard not to do her usual eye roll.
“I just hope our brother comes bearing the news that we hope,” Lijuan deflected, preferring to speak of something more important than the shapely Indian woman who wouldn’t just leave her brother alone.
“As do I,” Honor whispered, apparently preferring the topic too.
“Me too!” Catalina agreed from the window as well, her thoughts fully back to the present. “Sure as sugar bad timin’ that the railroad ties had to be gettin’ done just at the same time most of our men are away on that cattle drive down to the Canebraro Valley.” She hissed, “A cattle drive I should have been on, by the way!”
“Cattie! I sincerely must tell you—once again—I might add, there is no point in blaming yourself for missing that,” Honor responded. “You took sick just as it was about to leave, and so there was no choice but to take Cassandra up on her offer to ramrod the drive down to Mexico,” Honor reiterated.
Catalina was silent for a few seconds, but then she shook her head, “Yeah, but then two days later I was right as rain. I shoulda been on that.” She blamed herself again, still shaking her head.
“I ask you, can you truly picture yourself on a horse for two days while your stomach was tying itself in the most artful knots imaginable?” Honor sighed.
“Yeah, supposin’ your right … usually are,” Catalina finally agreed, still feeling dejected.
Lijuan was silent throughout the entire conversation. Her eyes, however, flicked between her sisters before it went to the door just as it opened to reveal Blue River and Bright Feather. As usual, Blue River looked dashing in his native garb and the twenty-year-old’s long black hair was tied into two long braids. His renowned blue eyes scanned the entire room as both sauntered in. Lijuan didn’t bother to glance at Bright Feather. She only noted the way her eyes lit up as Honor and Catalina greeted her warmly.
Catalina, finally stepping away from the window, patted Blue River on the shoulder, hugging him briefly before doing same with Bright Feather. Blue River walked over to the desk, allowing Honor to reach for his hand warmly as a form of greeting. Honor smiled at Bright Feather, too, just as the woman stepped forward with a smile of her own. The smile, however, faded as her eyes met with Lijuan's. Both women only nodded coldly at each other just as Lijuan stood from her desk and reached up to place her hand on Blue River's shoulder.
“Brother, I hope you come with the news that we’ve been waiting to hear?” she asked, cutting to the chase.
“It is another bit of good news to add to Dutch securing the wagons for the family,” Blue River responded, smiling.
“David performed magnificently in getting them for us,” Lijuan smiled too, commending their brother’s effort, loudly this time around. “I was just thinking about that,” she added.
“That is my love for you. Dutch is a man of conviction who sets a goal and accomplishes it. Just one of his many stre
ngths that I love him for,” Bright Feather interjected with a smile of her own.
“Yes, that and, of course, his dashing good looks, broad shoulders, and his twinkling blue eyes,” Lijuan sneered at her. “Those might have a lot more to do with your love for my brother.”
"One would be hard-pressed to find a man as handsome as Dutch, but he is that and so much more," Bright Feather hissed, obviously displeased by Lijuan's remarks. Her eyebrows raised in defiance, she shifted her eyes towards Lijuan and added, "Words cannot express how fortunate I consider myself to have his love. It spares me of having an empty life that some women have who seek distractions such as work to bury themselves within, rather than face a deep loneliness."
Lijuan flushed at her words immediately, her brown eyes already glistening with anger. "I … I …" she stammered through gritted teeth, trying to find the proper rebuke for the thinly veiled slight that she knew had been directed at her while stepping forward.
Blue River, however, marched in between both women before anything too serious sprung out of their retorts.
"Back to the good news," he grinned, successfully distracting them. "Our uncle Chief Thunder Cloud has agreed to aid us in our time of need. With most of our ranch hands on the drive, we will have the braves we need to take their place as security, though we did have to make a concession."
His sudden announcement caught everyone off guard for a second.
“A concession?” Honor Elizabeth finally asked.
“In truth, Miss Honor, our uncle was leaning against our request, as the majority of the council did not favor it. Bright Feather, however, asked him to reconsider,” Blue River explained, his gaze wandering off to Bright Feather so she could give more details.
Disaster At Devil's Canyon: Blue River Wilde Western Adventure (Half Breed Haven Book 7) Page 3