She leaned over and gave Shy Boy’s neck a hug.
“You did great,” she told him. “Good Boy.”
Cole cleared his throat ostentatiously.
She turned and saw mischief in his eyes.
“What?”
“I reckon I deserve a hug, too,” he drawled. “I was the one kicked ol’ Shy Boy loose so’s he could carry you out of there.”
“Cole McCord, you’re impossible,” she said lightly, entering into the fun, glad to get her mind off the future. “First trying to bet a kiss, now shamelessly asking for a hug …”
“There’s no try about that bet,” he said, holding her gaze fast with his hot brown one. “It’s a done deal.”
Her heart began suddenly beating faster. Why did the idea of kissing him do this to her? No, of him kissing her. She had no intention of kissing him back if such an unlikely thing should occur. She had been kissed before, several times, and it certainly was nothing to get all wrought up about.
“You are impossible,” she said.
“That’s what they all tell me.”
“Who all?” she said boldly, eager to know something about his past, something that might help her understand why he had taken the job with her.
But he changed the subject.
“You’ve got more sand than most, though, Aurora, you’ve got to know that. It took a lot of guts to turn your back on those shotguns the way you did.”
That pleased her inordinately, but she tried not to show it.
“No, it was pure frustration,” she said. “Worry about the herd. I couldn’t bear to just sit there until the cattle scattered or ran over each other to get out of the cut.”
“Spoken like a true trail boss,” he said, as they trotted off the slope and onto the flatter ground of the narrow valley. “Let’s go see about your cows and their nursemaids.”
“While keeping a lookout for ol’ Virge,” she said.
“You got it. But I doubt he’ll come after us now if he didn’t follow right then. Not without new orders.”
“Maybe he’ll run off and hide in the mountains as a failure. Lloyd Gates has a rep as a pretty hard boss.”
“Maybe. But if it’s not Virgil, be ready for somebody else to give it another try on down the trail.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” she said dryly.
“That’s what I’m here for.”
“No, what you’re here for is for you to be ready,” she said, and gave silent thanks again that he’d accepted her offer of a job for whatever reason.
They picked up the pace and didn’t talk any more. Aurora was glad, because her relief at their escape and her pleasure at Cole’s praise were sinking now, beneath some other feelings she couldn’t quite name.
Or perhaps she was only still scared. That surge of stark fear when those shabby men had materialized in the middle of the road, three shotguns at the ready, would stay with her for a long, long time.
They met the herd within a mile, pushing on a little bit faster than before they’d come through Rocky Springs, with the flank men riding back and forth between their own positions and the drag to help watch for attackers from the rear. The wagons had gone forward without knowing anything of what had happened.
“We won’t stop for nooning,” Aurora told Monte, whom she had chosen as her segundo. “Tell the men Cole and I will be back after awhile with cold food from the wagon to keep them going until dark. I want to bed them down as far away from Rocky Springs as we can.
“You got it,” Monte said. “Them plowboys is liable to follow and try to give us a stampede for a good-bye present.”
“I’ll pick a spot where they’ll be hard to scatter,” she promised, and, waving to the men farther back, turned her horse to head south.
What if there was no such spot? What if Gates did arrange a stampede the first night on the trail? What if she didn’t know what to do about it, what orders to give? What if she froze with fear and couldn’t come out of it?
Dear God, please help her learn to be trail boss. Cole and her crew could take care of everything else.
Cookie was in one of his famous snits when they reached the wagons. He had gone so far as to pick his own nooning spot and have Nate build a fire, and he was gunning for Aurora the minute he walked around the wagon and saw her and Cole riding up.
“Where in tarnation have you been, Missy?”
“I’m sorry you’ve already had Nate build a fire, Cookie, because we’re going to have to keep moving all day. I want to be as far from Rocky Springs as we can get before dark.”
He glared at her.
“Somethin’ wrong with the town?”
“Its citizens,” she said, reining to a stop. “They want to hang me and Cole.”
“I ain’t in no mood fer tall tales. I’ve got dinner to cook and a late start on it—”
“She’s telling you the truth,” Cole said, stepping down from his horse. “I had to shoot two men and kick another in the teeth, so their brothers and cousins may come after our hides.”
The expression that came over Cookie’s face as he absorbed the news made them both laugh.
Aurora ordered the cold food for the men, and she and Nate climbed into the chuck wagon to pack it into cloth flour sacks while Cole told Cookie the whole story. She heard the cook shout Gates’s name furiously before Cole had gotten halfway through. The story ended as she finished her chore.
“Thank ye for gettin’ her outta there safe!” Cookie cried as she climbed down over the wheel.
He grabbed Cole’s hand and began to shake it.
“I’d shore like to’ve been there to protect that girl but you done as good as I could’ve, McCord.”
“Thanks, Cookie,” Cole said. “She helped me—she set it up so I could get a swipe at them. I don’t think we have to worry too much about Miss Aurora.”
Oh yes, you do. Without you, Yd still be back there in Rocky Springs facing an uncertain future, to say the least.
The feeling of sharp relief came over her again. If Cole hadn’t been so fast with his gun—and his boot—there was no telling what might’ve happened.
He took half the food sacks and she took the other to go back to the herd. Nate and Cookie began breaking up camp even before she and Cole had left them.
“Let’s get everybody fed and then head out to find the bedgrounds for tonight,” she said. “I want a river or a mountain at our backs if we can find one.”
“We can. And we can welcome anybody Gates sends to visit us, so there’s no need to run your horse like a Nueces steer.”
She realized for the first time that she was holding them at a high lope, so she slowed Shy Boy and tried to relax a little. Her gaze kept sweeping the horizon ahead, though, looking for the dust of the herd.
When they saw it and drew closer, Monte rode ahead to meet them and took the food to distribute, then Aurora and Cole took off to the south at a long trot. Mostly they rode in silence, because he suddenly seemed as remotely distant as he had the day they’d met.
And she was too exhausted to talk. The reaction was setting in, and all she wanted was to fall off her horse into the thick grass beneath their feet and stare up at the sky. She didn’t want to ever think about Lloyd Gates again.
Yet her mind was whirling like a dust devil that would never stop, and her nerves were strumming, her emotions swirling in confusion. She resisted the urge to keep looking back over her shoulder. Cole was quietly keeping a sharp lookout, even though he seemed lost in thought. Cole was with her, so everything was all right.
But she hated depending on him!
Finally, when they’d covered what she judged to be the most miles the herd could travel before dark, she began scanning the horizon for the best bedgrounds. They were coming out into a more open valley, and ahead, running a little to the west of the trail, ran a curving line of trees.
“Let’s go see if that’s a river over there,” she said.
He nodded, and they headed in that di
rection. When they rode through the trees and out onto the bank of a wide, meandering creek, they could see the rocky bottom through the water.
“Well, at least our first river crossing won’t require us to swim,” she said, laughing a little. “Do you think it’s too shallow to hold them if somebody tries a stampede tonight?”
“It’ll do,” he said. “They’ll try to break out into the valley before they’ll take to the water.”
“The bank’s fairly high, on downstream, there,” she said.
They rode up and down the north bank for half a mile in each direction, but the bend Aurora had pointed out seemed to be the best spot, so she chose it for the night camp.
“Don’t you think we should bed them here?” she said.
It was the third time she’d brought them back to that spot.
“I truly do,” he said, “but you’re the trail boss and I’m the bodyguard, remember?”
She made a face at him.
“That’s it,” she said, as much to herself as to Cole, for she had to make a decision, and make it now. “Let’s go back and get Cookie.”
Shy Boy moved forward at her command, but then she stopped and turned. Her blue eyes questioned Cole sharply from beneath the brim of her hat.
A dozen different feelings grabbed at his gut. The strongest, by far, was the most recognizable: he wanted to pull her off that horse and into his arms, he wanted to kiss her until those pieces of sky eyes of hers glazed over with desire.
He wasn’t going to be able to stay angry with her all the way to Texas as he had hoped. This was only the first day on the trail, and her beauty, her bravery, even her confusion was drawing his interest. No wonder he had let those ignorant yahoos ambush him back there—all his instincts were pulling him toward Aurora instead of feeling for danger.
To keep her from saying whatever was making her look at him that way, he said the first thing that popped onto his tongue.
“It’s fine,” he said. “You’ve done fine picking your first bedground. You’re gonna make a trail boss that’ll lay old Charlie Goodnight himself in the shade.”
He intended to ride on, then, but she wouldn’t let him look away.
“I never took you for a flatterer,” she said, with a faint, suspicious smile curving her luscious mouth. “How come you’ve turned so encouraging, Cole?”
Her amusement and her distrust stung him a little.
“What do you mean? I’m …”
She interrupted.
“Two days ago your freely stated opinion was that I couldn’t trail a herd of turtles across a hardpan yard,” she said, “and now I’m better than Goodnight and Loving all rolled into one. How come?”
He folded his arms across his saddle horn and smiled. That was another thing he liked about her: everything up front and on the table.
“I’ve gotta make you feel confident now that my life is in your hands.”
“How do you figure that?” she demanded. “From my point of view it looks like that’d be the other way around.”
“You’re telling me where to sleep and where to wade the rivers,” he said.
“And you’re telling me that I can take care of myself and Cookie not to worry about me. Are you getting ready to go off on some big scouting expedition and leave me to fend for myself?”
A sharp sympathy tugged at him. Virgil and crew had shaken her up pretty bad.
He tried to shut off the compassion. He hadn’t taken this job to worry about her feelings or what she might be thinking. All he intended to do was keep her safe until he deposited her on some ranch in Texas.
“No, I’ll not leave you for very long at a time,” he said, irritated that he felt so much for her. “But when I do, you’d better be on guard and able to watch out for yourself.”
That seemed to satisfy her for the moment, and she said no more about it as they rode out to find Cookie and guide him and Nate in. But still his mind kept trying to think of other ways to reassure her, and that didn’t improve his mood any.
Finally, as they pulled the wagons onto the campsite and Nate began to gather more wood for the fire, he left her with the boy and Cookie and rode up onto the next ridge to the south. He wanted to look for riders and also, to get an idea of the lay of the land. But sitting there staring off into the distance didn’t help him much—he kept seeing Aurora’s pale face when Virgil had appeared and then the shocked satisfaction in her eyes when he’d knocked the man off his mule and got them out of there.
He could still hear her husky voice, too, saying, You saved us, Cole.
At that moment, too, he had ached to drag her into his arms and kiss her senseless.
He shook his head, finally, and turned Border back toward camp. The horse deserved to be unsaddled and grained, deserved to get some rest. The remuda was catching up to them, coming on at a steady pace, and the dust from the herd announced they would be bedded down before dark.
Even the word “bedded” made him think of Aurora.
Giving a great sigh, he lifted Border into a long trot. What he ought to do was seduce her, bed her, and get it over with. That would restore his instincts for danger and his balance, that hardly ever failed to dull the fascination any woman held for him.
What was it she had said that night in his room? Something about having experiences and living life to its fullest. Well, being seduced by him was an experience she definitely should not miss.
He reached the bedgrounds and unsaddled Border, grained him, and turned him over to the boy in charge of the remuda. Then he washed up, all without so much as a glimpse of Aurora, and as he came back toward the fire he was wondering edgily where she might have gone. He was headed for Cookie to ask if she’d gone out to meet the herd—which, knowing her, she might’ve done simply to try to conquer her new worry of riding without him—when the sudden music filled the night air.
The sound stopped him in his tracks.
Piano music, there was nothing else it could be. It was coming from the wagon he had told her to sell in Rocky Springs.
A piano, for the love of all that was holy! What was it she had said?
There’s nothing extra. The contents of that wagon are the absolute, bare necessities.
Surely it was Aurora playing, for the ravishing melody held as much turmoil as they had gone through all day and the whole confusion of feelings that he’d seen in her eyes that afternoon. He stood still for a long moment, listening.
Well, there was one thing he could set straight for her.
He turned on his heel and strode toward the sound. He was going to collect on that bet.
Chapter 6
Cole was in the wagon at her shoulder, before she knew it. She startled, then glanced up into his hawk brown eyes and immediately lost the thread of her music.
He dropped onto the bench beside her, facing her, refusing to let her look away. She kept on playing, but not very well now.
“Not one unnecessary item in this wagon, hm?”
The purposeful look in his eyes sent a thrill through her.
“Not one single thing,” she said, and played louder.
Those four words used up all her breath, took all the air out of the crowded wagon. Even so, she continued to play.
“I disagree,” he growled, “and we had a wager on that.”
His closeness, the incredible heat and bulk of his thigh touching hers weakened her wrists, caused her fingers to falter. She tried to speak but could only shake her head.
“It’s dangerous to welsh on a bet,” he whispered, and took her mouth with his. She played only one note more.
His lips tasted of hot, molten honey, and they knew her already. They devoured her, they made her mouth open to him, in pure instinct, the shock of their power erasing any resistance she might have offered.
It was too late for pushing him away, too late, even, for holding back her own response to him. She knew that in her bones and in her flesh. And in her soul, which felt a sudden, sweet peace. Yet he also s
tirred her like a storm, carried her off on the wind of desire and then she was lost, lost forever, offering her tongue, entwining it with his.
The amazing magic of his kiss took the strength from her body but not from her mouth. She stayed still as midnight in his arms, telling him, begging him with long, stroking caresses of her tongue and tiny pleading sounds deep in her throat, never to stop. She wanted him to kiss her forever.
He promised that he would, swore it with his lips and his tongue, pledged it with the way he sat so close to her. But he wasn’t holding her.
You can get up and go away from me any time you want.
That was what he was saying with his one hand resting securely at the small of her back. Only it and his mouth were touching her.
And that marvelous mouth wasn’t letting her go unless she could find the will to move it away.
The smallness of her waist beneath his hand, the sweetness of her hair brushing his face should have moved him, but the marvel of the kiss made him powerless to want more, much less to take it.
There had never been another woman like this, not in his experience. Her lips burned against his, her tongue stirred in him a new desire, a craving beyond hunger he had never felt before, a wanting that burst to life as a conflagration in his blood.
He took her in both his hands, his thumbs just beneath her breasts, almost spanning her body with his fingers, feeling the wild beating of her heart. Absorbing the heat of her through the thin fabric of her blouse, he moaned a little, and her tongue pushed deeper into his mouth, teasing his, stroking it, and then pulling away. Calling him to her.
He moved one hand higher to cradle the perfect roundness of her breast. Her mouth went still on his.
With his thumb, he brushed the hard, firm tip, standing waiting for his hand, caressed it through the fabric of her blouse. Once. Twice.
She broke the kiss to give a little, helpless gasp, as if she had no more breath and never would. Then, after a moment, she melted more completely into the palm of his hand and pushed the nipple against his thumb in a mute demand for more.
He gave it. And he kissed her again at the same instant, branding her lips and her tongue as belonging to him with a stormy passion he had never felt before.
The Renegades: Cole Page 8