by S. J. Lewis
Carl half-turned in his seat. “No problem, neighbor,” he replied. “I always wanted to try out this bird of yours. When do the medicos say you’ll be able to do your own piloting again?”
“A week,” Sam shrugged. “Maybe two. I feel like I could’a done it now, but why take the chance?” He looked at Claudia and smiled.
“Understood,” Carl nodded. He twisted around even further to offer Claudia his hand. “I wouldn’t take any risks with such a pretty passenger myself. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”
“Likewise,” Claudia smiled at him. “And call me Claudia.” Carl was a large, burly man. Her hand disappeared in his big, rough paw as he shook it with surprising gentleness.
“Here comes our ride.” Sam nodded at the window. Claudia turned to see a fire-engine red jeep barreling towards them.
“See you soon.” Carl shook Sam’s hand with a lot more vigor than he’d used on Claudia. “Got my truck parked over there.” He jerked his thumb towards the hangar. Then he looked Claudia in the eye. “You take good care of this invalid.” He nodded towards Sam. “Don’t let him overstrain himself.” He laughed. It was a big, booming laugh that shook the little plane. Claudia felt herself blushing.
***
The jeep pulled up in front of a ranchhouse, sliding for a moment on the sand and gravel, raising a thin cloud of gray-brown dust. The driver, a brown, skinny young man with a huge white-toothed grin, leaned on the horn. The “ah-OOOH-gah” noise echoed across the valley. Claudia was certain the horn wasn’t standard equipment.
“Good to have you home again, Boss.” The driver nodded at Claudia. “You too, Ma’am.”
“Thanks, Pablo. Could you have Gretchen put Ms. Cole’s luggage in the big guest room?” He helped Claudia out of the jeep. After the plane ride and this jeep ride she was grateful to have solid ground under her fake-snakeskin boots. She’d almost lost her Stetson hat three times in two hundred yards.
“Sure thing, boss,” Pablo nodded. He jammed the jeep into gear and floored the accelerator, disappearing around a far corner of the building. Up close, it seemed much larger to Claudia, a rambling, one-story building girded with a wide, covered wooden porch. It looked very western.
“Welcome to my ranch, Red.” Sam held Claudia’s hand as they climbed the wide steps. When they reached the porch, he turned her to face him. “Welcome to my home,” he added in a very different tone.
She was about to reply with a kiss, but before she could do that she saw someone come running around the corner of the building, feet pounding on the weathered planking.
“Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack!” The running figure picked up speed. It was a girl, fourteen or fifteen years old, Claudia guessed, all gangly arms and legs, long dark hair streaming out behind her. “Uncle Jack!” The last yell was almost a sob. Sam turned to face the newcomer just before she collided with him. Skinny as she was, the impact almost knocked him over. She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his chest.
“Uncle Jack…” She really was sobbing now. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Claudia stepped back a little. She didn’t want to intrude on the moment, and besides, it was interesting to see Sam looking awkward and uncomfortable for once.
“Hey, hey now, Cindy,” Sam patted the girl’s back lightly and clumsily as she clung to him, still sobbing and sniffling. “This here’s the woman you should be thankin’.” He looked at Claudia in silent appeal. Claudia stayed where she was.
Cindy slowly disengaged herself from Sam and turned to face Claudia. Tears were running down her face, but she tried to smile as she held out her hand. “P…pleased to meet you,” she managed to say. Claudia took her hand briefly. “I’m Claudia Cole,” she smiled. “I wouldn’t have been here but for Sam.” That was true in more than one way. “And you are…?” she went on. Sam seemed to have forgotten the introductions.
“Cindy…Cynthia Andersen,” the girl said. She was almost as tall as Claudia was.
“Thank you for proving my daddy wasn’t a thief.”
Claudia shot a look at Sam. Now she felt awkward. The file had said that Sam’s friend was married and had a child. She should have expected something like this.
A woman came around the same corner of the building as Cindy/Cynthia had a moment earlier. She was clad in black, and her face held a terrible sadness. Claudia could see where Cynthia got her dark hair and height. If she grew up anything like her mother, she was going to be a beautiful woman in a couple of years. The woman approached slowly. Cynthia went to her and took her arm. “This is…” she began, pointing at Claudia.
“Claudia Cole,” Claudia finished the sentence for her as she stepped forward to meet them. “You must be Mrs. Andersen. I am so sorry for your loss.”
“Please, call me Maria,” Mrs. Andersen managed a weak smile. “Our loss,” she nodded at her daughter, “would have been much greater without you. Thank you so very much.”
“You’re very welcome,” Claudia nodded. She couldn’t think of anything else to say. She wouldn’t have found out anything at all if Anna Turco hadn’t turned out to be a jealous psychopath, but this wasn’t the time or place to bring any of that up.
“Sam,” Maria turned towards him. “Thank you also. You never doubted him for a moment.” Claudia noticed a hint of an accent in Maria’s voice. She also noticed that Cynthia was looking at her, not at Uncle Jack.
“I’m sorry it didn’t turn out better,” Sam put a hand on Maria’s shoulder. Cynthia switched her gaze back to Uncle Jack.
“I am sorry you were injured,” Maria said. “Are you all right now?”
“I am,” Sam answered.
Maria looked back at Claudia. Her smile was a little stronger now, but her dark eyes were still sad. “Sam is a good man,” she said. “We will leave you two alone now.” She patted Cynthia’s hand. “Come,” she said. Cynthia kept hold of her mother’s arm as they walked away. Just before they passed out of sight, she looked back at Claudia one last time.
“You didn’t tell me,” Claudia turned on Sam.
“I couldn’t, Red,” he shrugged and spread his hands. “Remember you told me how Simonds was trying to find out something from you?”
“Yes.”
“They’ve been after poor Maria to sign some papers,” he said. “They’d gotten a judge to freeze all the family’s assets in the hopes they’d get their money back somehow. I took them both here so they’d be safe.” His grin was feral. “Nobody gets on my ranch unless I let ‘em.”
Claudia could picture him pitching a process server into a ditch. “But why couldn’t you tell me?”
“If you didn’t know, you couldn’t tell them, Red.”
“You’re a manipulative sonofabitch, John Samuel Pender.” She tried to sound angry, but failed. “Aren’t you afraid people will find out your secret?”
“What d’you mean, Red? What secret? Everybody already knows I’m a manipulative sonofabitch.” Sam looked puzzled.
“I mean your real secret.”
“What real secret? I ain’t followin’, Red.”
She stepped close and slid her arms around him. “That you’re a nice guy, Sam. Under it all, you’re a nice guy.”
“I don’t think so,” he shook his head. “I don’t feel like a nice guy at all. Anyways, my experience’s been that when a woman tells a man he’s a nice guy she’s blowin’ him off or dumpin’ him.” He eyed her warily.
“All right,” Claudia smiled. “Then you’re a good man. How’s that?”
“Better,” he shrugged and slipped his arms around her waist. He kissed her once, softly.
“I’m glad I was…we were…” she corrected herself, “able to help them.”
“She was the love of his life, Red.” Sam sounded a little choked up. “And, funny as it may seem for such a geeky-looking guy, he was the love of hers.”
Claudia nestled closer against him. “I love you, Sam,” she whispered. She felt his arms tighten around her. “I lov
e you, Red,” he said quietly. “And I’m sorry I put you at so much risk.”
She pulled a little away from him and laid a finger across his lips. Did his eyes look a little…moist? “Hush,” she told him. “I’m a big girl, Sam Pender. I don’t want to hear you talk about that any more. We both made our choices. It turned out all right.”
He kissed her again, until she began to feel drunk. She pulled away with an effort.
“Sam,” she looked up at him. “How long are Maria and Cynthia staying here?”
“They’re leavin’ tomorrow mornin’, Red. Why?”
“All right. I’m not trying to tease you, Sam, but I think tonight I’ll be sleeping in the guest room…alone.”
Sam looked perplexed for just a moment. Then he nodded. “I see your point, Red.”
“Good. I have a lot of thinking to do anyway. Will you tell me when they’re going? I want to say good-bye to them.”
“Sure thing. They’ll want to say good-bye to you, too.”
***
It wasn’t easy getting to sleep that night. Claudia tossed and turned on the big bed, feeling sad, lonely, and horny. She’d been ready to give Sam the ride of his life the night she was rescued, but psycho Anna had stopped that. Well, Anna was in a prison hospital now. The kick to her knee had worked better than she’d thought. That knee was going to need serious surgery. Timmy Pipes had no such worry. Sam’s pistol was an old single-action .45, and it hadn’t left anything of his knee to save. She had asked Sam while the paramedics were strapping him down on the gurney why he’d shot Pipes there.
“Hell, Red,” he’d answered sleepily. “The way he was standin’ behind the truck door it was the only part of him I had a clear shot at and I knew he always wore body armor.”
She laid on her back, looking up at the ceiling. It was so quiet out here. There was no noise of traffic, only the occasional lowing of a cow or the distant, mournful howl of a coyote. She thought of Sam sleeping in his own bed and resisted the urge to go to him now. She’d been worried that Anna had done some serious damage when she’d clubbed him. His complaint about one side of his body not working had made her frantic. She sighed. In the end, it had only been a concussion. It had laid him up for a couple of days. She’d been with him for every moment she could wangle out of the hospital staff. They hadn’t been alone. There’d been a constant parade of State and Federal agents coming in with questions for both of them. Sam had apparently been helping with a probe of the corruption in the city, providing information and contacts. The story about getting the rest of the payment he was owed, however determined he might have been about getting it, had been a good cover. Some of the agents had been furious with him for, as they put it, “jeopardizing the whole investigation” by bringing Claudia in on what had been thought to be a wild-goose chase. Sam had told them where to go and what to do when they’d arrived at their destinations. He’d also suggested they quit wasting time bitching at him and start making arrests.
She’d had some questions of her own for him. For example, how had he gotten enough influence to get Simonds Assurance to hire her?
“Ah, Red,” he’d grinned crookedly. “I’ve done a lot of work for some big engineering outfits. You keep findin’ ways to save people big piles of money, after a while they start thinkin’ kindly of you.”
At least she’d found out how Anna had found her so quickly. “Old Charley” had been renting one of the cabins. Anna had secretly been supplying him with liquor to keep him out of the way. She’d been giving him enough to drink himself to death, which had probably been her intention. Anna had been sneaking out of his cabin when the SUV with Claudia in it had pulled into the parking lot.
She rolled onto her side. She’d seen the look in Sam’s eyes when he’d talked about the Andersens. She’d heard the little catch in his voice when he’d spoken of Cynthia now being able to go to college and get a good education, but how it was even more important to her right now to know that her daddy had not been a thief. She wiped a tear from her eye. She did not know when she’d finally drifted off to sleep.
***
The plane soared upwards as it approached the end of the runway. It circled over the landing strip, gaining altitude, glinting silver in the morning sun. The sound of its engines faded as it went higher. The pilot dipped the wings once as if to say good-bye and then aimed westwards. Claudia watched it go, carrying Maria and Cynthia back home, and she fought back tears. Sam stood next to her, his arm around her waist, waving his hat long after anyone in the plane could have seen him. As the plane dwindled to invisibility, he put his hat back on.
“What now, Red?” he asked, still looking in the direction the plane had gone. “You said you had a lot of thinkin’ to do.”
“I did,” she nodded. She scuffed at the gravelly dirt with the heel of her fake-snakeskin boots. “And I’ve done it.”
“And?”
“Right now, I think you’re going to take me horseback riding. We can pack a picnic lunch.”
***
They rode their horses up a hill. Claudia twisted around in the saddle to look back. The ranchhouse was just visible in the distance. She tugged the brim of her Stetson down a little. She was carefully covered up in a long-sleeved white shirt, jeans, boots and hat. She even wore thin leather gloves on her hands.
She looked back up the hill. There were trees growing up there. She didn’t know what kind of trees they were, but at least they weren’t those strange, alien ones she’d seen when she first came to this part of the country. They had leaves and promised good shade.
The top of the hill was wide, with a shallow depression. It had not only shade, but a little grass as well. She tethered the horses while Sam spread a blanket on the ground and opened up the picnic basket.
“You mind tellin’ me what’s goin’ on with you, Red?” he asked, straightening up.
“What do you mean?” she countered, stripping off the gloves.
“You ain’t said a whole lot since the Andersens left. You told me you had somethin’ important to tell me, but you wanted to do it in private.” He waved a hand around. “It don’t get much more private than this.”
“Please, Sam, sit down.”
Sam sat. His expression made it clear that he expected bad news. She stood facing him across the picnic blanket. She tossed the gloves down on it. She doffed her hat and tossed it next to them.
“I did a lot of thinking last night, Sam,” she began. She could see he was very unhappy right now. “A lot of thinking…about you, me, and us.”
“And?”
“You’re a good man, Sam Pender,” she said as she began to unbutton her shirt. “You’re also a manipulative sonofabitch. I wouldn’t ever want to have you mad at me.”
“Ah…what’re you doin’, Red?”
“Be quiet. I rehearsed this last night and part of this morning. You’re going to hear me out.” Sam settled back. Now he looked more puzzled than unhappy. Good. She continued unbuttoning her shirt.
“We live very far apart,” she went on. “It isn’t easy for us to see each other. Both of us are too stubborn to give up what we’ve built to make that easier.” She peeled off her shirt and threw it aside. She’d worn a simple white bra today. It unfastened in front. For the moment, she just stood looking at him, hands on her hips, legs planted a foot or so apart.
“But it comes down to this, Sam,” she went on finally. She reached up to unfasten her bra, shrug it off and let it drop. “I’m your woman. I am your woman as surely as if you’d hogtied and branded me like one of your cattle.” To his credit, Sam kept his eyes fixed on hers instead of staring at her bared breasts. “So, you’d damned well better be my man.”
Sam leaned back. She wished she had a camera to capture this moment, because she could find no words to describe the expressions that flickered across his face.
“Do you understand me?” she asked. Sam could only nod. She pulled something from the pocket of her jeans and tossed it over to him. He cau
ght it, looked at it, and then looked back at her. “I don’t know how we’re going to work this out,” she said. “I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. But I love you, Sam Pender.”
She stepped across the blanket towards him, stopped, turned her back to him and knelt down. She bent over, crossing her wrists behind her, wondering what he would do.
“I love you, Claudia Cole,” he answered. She felt him start to tie her wrists with one of the strips of rawhide she’d been carrying. He tied her tightly. Then she felt him leaning over her, reaching around to cup her breasts. She shivered. She had a lot of pent-up sexual frustration to work off, but she was perfectly happy to leave herself and everything else in Sam’s hard hands.
“Use me, Sam,” she breathed. “Use me, any way and every way you want.” His fingers squeezed her nipples, and she moaned. His hands moved down. She could feel him unbuckling her belt. He pulled it free of the loops. A moment after, he slipped the belt around her neck and pulled it snug. He held the free end and walked around to stand in front of her. He began to unzip his jeans.
Claudia turned her head away. She wanted him to force her. He slapped her face once, not hard. She turned her head the other way. He’d have to do better than that. She was all but quivering with her own desire for him, but she wanted to feel forced. She wanted him to make her submit. He slapped her again, harder this time, and grabbed a fistful of her coppery hair. That hurt enough to make her whimper, but it still wasn’t enough to make her open her mouth. Sam gave her head a rough shake and then used his free hand to pinch her nose shut between thumb and forefinger. He hadn’t said a word so far. She whined and moaned and tried to pull away, but all he did was tighten his grip.
She opened her mouth to gasp for air. He let her take a couple of deep breaths and then let go of her nose so he could guide the head of his cock into her mouth. She made a couple of half-hearted strokes, not taking him in very deep. Then she tried to spit him out, but he’d been expecting something like that. He took her head in both hands and drove himself in. Claudia squealed in protest, in spite of the fact that she loved the sensation of his cock, so thick, hard, warm, and alive, filling her mouth. He held her like that for a long, long moment, until she started to choke for air. He let go of her then. She reared back, choking and gasping. When he gripped her hair again, she gave a little moan of protest, but opened her mouth for him. Once again, he held her head in both hands. He began fucking her mouth, holding her head still while he thrust in and out. She closed her eyes, letting herself wallow in the sensations. Still playing the part of the submissive but unwilling victim, she moaned and whined and grunted, all the while struggling weakly.