Prairie Moon

by Maggie Osborne

  “No, you go ahead. Ladies first.”

  “Really. I’d rather you spoke first.”

  They smiled, then both spoke at the same instant.

  “I’m sorry, James, but you have to hang up your guns.”

  “I don’t want you going back to Two Creeks, Texas.”

  They took a swallow of whisky, watching each other over the glass rims. Della let the heat of the whisky burn down the back of her throat and then she smiled. There were things to work out, but it was going to be all right. James knew it, too. He was giving her that half smile of speculation that made her knees go weak and turned her stomach to mush.

  He stood up and started to slowly unbutton his waistcoat and shirt; his eyes narrowed down on her mouth. “I know if I’m going to have you, I have to put down my guns. I already figured that out. And if I don’t, I’m going to get myself killed.”

  “We have to talk about that. If I’m staying with you, James, I can’t be worrying that you’re going to be shot dead every time you walk out the door.” She tossed down the remainder of her whisky, then stood and put a foot on her chair. After unbuttoning her shoes, she kicked them off, then raised her skirt to her thigh and rolled down her garter. “I don’t want to bury another husband.”

  “You’re okay with . . . what happened in the past, and how we met?” He stared at her thigh, running his gaze up as high as he could then down to her ankle. He tossed his shirt and waistcoat aside and threw off his belt before he sat down to pull at his boots.

  He meant Clarence. “I wish that part of you and me was different. I’ll always be confused about that day. It was the worst day and the best day, because it brought you to me. But Cameron? It’s finished. There’s no need to ever talk about it again.” She stepped out of her skirt, letting it puddle around her bare feet, then she tossed her shirtwaist over her shoulder and pulled open the laces on her corset, loving the intent look on his face as he watched her breasts spill out.

  He stood again, then frowned with his fingers frozen on the waist of his trousers. “A minute ago . . . did you say husband?”

  “I did. I’m imploring you to do the right thing by a poor widow whom you’ve taken sore advantage of, sir.” He looked so horrified that she laughed. “That’s a tease, James.”

  Stepping up to her, he took her by the waist and roughly pulled her against his body. He spoke, an inch from her lips. “You don’t know the meaning of being taken advantage of.”

  She felt his heat flash through her, felt the hard thrust of his erection against her belly. Suddenly she was on fire and she couldn’t breathe. “Show me,” she whispered before his mouth crushed hers.

  This was not gentle lovemaking. Tonight, neither of them wanted tenderness. They wanted heat and sweat and hard-punishing passion. He took her on the carpet, his kisses deep and demanding. At times Della rode him, at other moments she arched up to meet each hard thrust.

  When they could take no more, could give no more, they sought release and then lay in each other’s arms, panting and gasping. Della’s mouth and breasts were swollen. Scratches covered Cameron’s back. If she lived to be a hundred, Della would never forget tonight.

  “You’re right,” she said drowsily when they’d donned dressing gowns and she was sitting on the sofa with her feet in his lap, drinking a fresh glass of whisky. “Now, that was being taken advantage of.” She smiled at the surface of her glass. “You may have to show me again sometime.”

  Cameron laughed. “Do you know how beautiful you are? With your hair wild and fallen and your face glowing.”

  “I love you, James. Tell me you love me, too. I need to hear the words.”

  “I love you. I’ve loved you for ten years. I loved the fantasy of you. I love the reality of you.” His voice sank to a gruff baritone. “I never once believed this could happen.”

  “You started thinking about hanging up your guns while we were on the train, didn’t you?”

  “Chasing across the West, searching for outlaws, is no life for a married man.” A sudden grin lit his expression. “My God. Me. Married.” He poured more whisky into their glasses. “I’m thinking we should make our home in San Francisco. I doubt I’d experience any difficulty getting hired as a prosecutor. How does that sound to you?”

  “From what I’ve heard about San Francisco, I think I’d like it there.” She’d already decided to wire her banker in Two Creeks and instruct him to sell the farm. “I love you, James. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone or any thing.” She even loved the possessive touch of his hand on her ankle. “I don’t want to lose you. So, tell me this . . . will your fame follow us to San Francisco? Because it doesn’t make sense for you to stop wearing your guns if all it means is that someone is going to shoot at you but you can’t protect yourself.”

  “I don’t want you to worry every time I leave our house.”

  Della nodded, examining his expression. “Do you think the legend and the fame will follow us?” she asked softly.

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “That’s not a comfortable way to live,” she said uneasily. “It would always be there at the back of our minds. The worry that some idiot outlaw would track us to San Francisco and kill you so he could be the man who out-drew James Cameron.”

  “I’ve thought about that, too. I’m thinking about changing my name to Cameron James. But it isn’t enough.”

  She smothered a yawn and decided the rest of her speech could wait another day or so. “Let’s go to bed.”

  When she awoke near dawn, Cameron was propped against the pillows next to her. “Didn’t you go to sleep?” Concerned, she sat up and peered at him in the pearly light.

  “I know the answer,” he said, taking her hand. “It will put an end to the damned legend, and no one will come looking for us.”

  “What’s the answer?”

  “I have to die.”

  Chapter 22

  The arrangements were easier than Cameron had initially supposed. Sheriff Jed Rollins handled everything. Then it became a matter of waiting for the pieces to come together.

  “We’re ready,” he said to Della after supper at what had become their favorite restaurant, The Brown Armadillo.

  Startled, she put down her dessert spoon and glanced over her shoulder toward the door. “It won’t happen in here, will it?”

  “No.”

  “When?” Her eyes widened with fear.

  “We decided it was better that you didn’t know exactly when. Remember?”

  Della wet her lips and lifted her chin. Candlelight glowed in her eyes, and he decided she had never looked lovelier.

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you since the first night we arrived in Santa Fe. I’ve been looking for the right moment. It sounds like I can’t wait any longer.”

  “I think I know what you’re going to say.”

  “You do?” Her eyebrows arched over sparkling eyes. “I doubt it.”

  “I’m guessing you wired your banker in Two Creeks and instructed him to sell your farm.”

  “That’s true, I did. But that’s not what I want to tell you.” She waited, half smiling like she expected him to make another guess.

  He hated this kind of thing. But he loved her. Reaching across the tablecloth, he took her hand and rubbed his thumb over the diamond ring he’d given her a couple of days ago. “You’ve made arrangements with a preacher? No, that couldn’t be it. Not if you originally planned to tell me the night we arrived.”

  “And we decided to have the wedding in San Francisco.” A charming pink tinted her cheeks at the mention of a wedding, and he wished they were alone so he could kiss her until they were both wild with wanting each other.

  “I’m out of guesses,” he said, signaling the waiter to bring their check.

  “This isn’t a good time to tell you this. But just in case things go terribly wrong and . . .” She wet her lips then reached across the table for his other hand. That surprised him. Ordinar
ily she would have pulled back as she didn’t approve of public displays of affection any more than he did. He glanced up, scanned the restaurant, then clasped her hands and smiled at the light dancing in her eyes. She wore the eager expression of someone about to confide a secret that she wanted to share.

  “James . . . I’m pregnant.”

  Shock narrowed his eyes. He felt paralyzed. He forgot to scan the restaurant for new arrivals, didn’t notice the waiter place their check on the table. He almost forgot to breathe.

  Laughing, she pulled her hands out of his grasp. “You’re breaking my bones,” she said, smiling and shaking her fingers.

  “I don’t know what to . . . are you sure?”

  “I didn’t want to tell you until I was absolutely certain.” He must have looked as if he’d been struck by lightning, and that was exactly how he felt, because she gave him a tender smile and whispered, “Oh, James. I love you so much.”

  “But when . . . ?”

  “The night I came to your room on our first trip through St. Louis.”

  “My God.” He fell backward in his chair and stared at her across the candles. “You and me . . . we’re going to have a baby.”

  Public displays be damned. Jumping to his feet, he moved around the table and pulled her to her feet and into his arms. Laughing and blushing, she smiled into his eyes, and he saw in her gaze everything he had ever dreamed of having. His hands slid up to gently frame her face. Her cheeks were as soft as rose petals against his palms.

  “We’re going to have a baby.”

  “Yes,” she whispered. Then she put a hand on his chest. “People are staring.”

  “Let them, I don’t give a damn. Della, good Lord. We’re going to have a baby.” It was miraculous. Unbelievable. The most astonishing and the most wonderful thing he had ever heard in his whole life. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The instant they were outside and a few steps from the lights flanking the door of The Brown Armadillo, she came into his arms, warm and full bodied and fitting into him as if she were the missing piece that he had needed to be whole.

  “I wanted you to know before—”

  He cut off her words with a kiss that left them both breathing hard and staring at each other. Then he gripped her arms. “I love you, Della. Now and always.”

  “Why do you look so . . .” A gasp caught in her throat and her face paled. “Oh my God. James!”

  “It’s going to be all right.” He tilted her face up to him. “I’m lucky, remember?”

  “I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

  A voice bellowed out of the darkness in the plaza. “James Cameron! Step away from that woman.”

  Another couple had emerged from The Brown Armadillo. Cameron hadn’t noticed, but Luke Apple had. Luke chose his moment and stepped into the light near the restaurant door.

  Della closed her eyes and he felt her shaking before he released her. She looked up at him, white-faced and eyes wide with love and fear. Then she moved backward toward the witnesses frozen near the restaurant door.

  “I’m gonna kill you, James Cameron, gonna put you in a grave.” Old Luke wore fresh-cleaned buckskins, and for once his hair didn’t look matted and wild. “But you have to draw first.”

  Cameron had never drawn first, not once. But if Luke were to claim self-defense, Cameron had to be the first to fire.

  “You think you can out-shoot me, old man?” He dropped his palm to the butt of his pistol.

  “Oh yeah. Tonight your luck runs out.”

  However this ended, Cameron had wanted it to be Luke Apple who garnered the footnote in Western history.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Della standing under the light, wringing her hands. Her eyes seemed as big as saucers in her white face.

  He had everything to live for. And that’s why he hesitated to pull his gun. Luke Apple wouldn’t hold back tonight any more than he had ever held back.

  “Draw, Cameron! Let’s get this over with once and for all.”

  He glanced at Della standing in the light, searing her image on his eyes, in his mind. Then he pulled his gun and fired.

  Two bullets tore into his side. They felt like arrows dipped in lava. His pistol dropped from his fingers and he looked down at the wet stain growing on his jacket. The blood was already through his shirt and waistcoat and into his jacket. He was shot bad, then.

  Yes. The light from the restaurant didn’t seem as bright. And his knees were giving out; he was going to fall.

  This is what it felt like to die, he thought, twisting as he fell so he could see her.

  It seemed that he drifted on a warm gray sea for a very long time. Sometimes he was hungry, other times he felt a raging thirst, but mostly he was impatient, waiting for his father.

  Eventually, without Cameron noticing how it happened, he was seated in a small boat, knee to knee with the judge.

  “You’re looking well, sir.” This was true. His father appeared youthful and robust. “But you’re late.”

  “Are you in a rush?” A smile curved his father’s lips.

  “Della’s worrying.” No one had ever been waiting for him before. He didn’t want to prolong her anxiety. “I need to get back.”

  His father nodded the way he did in court, then he smiled again and patted Cameron on the knee. “I thought you might feel that way. Don’t worry, son. This isn’t your time.”

  Then he was floating again, and the boat moved away carrying his father into the mist hovering above the sea.

  Every now and then he thought he heard her voice, believed he’d caught a glimpse of her. He tried to tell her not to worry, it wasn’t his time. But he didn’t know if he spoke aloud. And then one day he opened his eyes and she was real, standing beside his bed with a cool hand on his forehead.

  “Della . . .”

  “Oh, thank God!” Collapsing, she dropped to a chair and fell forward, pressing her forehead against the edge of the mattress. “Thank God.” He reached to touch her hair, surprised to discover how weak he was. Raising his hand required more strength than he could summon. She sat up and wiped her eyes. “Rest. Don’t try to talk, just rest. I think the worst is over now.”

  She fussed over him, wouldn’t leave his bedside. She bathed him and fed him even when he insisted he could do it himself. She read to him, whistled tunes he liked, changed the dressings on his chest, and made him drink nasty-tasting tonics.

  Finally she judged him fit enough to actually talk about something more important than the weather or his temperature.

  “Your plan almost backfired,” she said, turning back the sheet over his chest. “You damn near died. Doc West-wood gave you up for dead at least twice.”

  Moving gingerly, Cameron tested his body parts. He could raise his arms now. His chest ached still, but he was past the deep pain. “I would have sworn that Luke Apple wasn’t any good with a gun. In all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him use a gun. I did get him, didn’t I?”

  “You shot him in the fleshy part of the waist. The bullet went through. He was up and around before breakfast.”

  “Good.”

  Placing a hand on his forehead, she checked his temperature. “Luke came to your funeral. Caused a bit of a scandal, in fact. I had a word with him after the service. He said if you lived, I should thank you for giving him the credit for killing you. Said he hoped you lived and I should tell you that he’ll miss you. At the time, I didn’t know if you would live or not. He said he was proud that you trusted him with our secret.”

  “Quit fussing and sit next to me.” She was beautiful today, wearing a plain everyday dress, her wonderful glossy hair wrapped in a bun on top of her head. “Did I have a nice funeral?”

  “I thought so. The body the sheriff came up with looked enough like you that I almost fainted. Sheriff Rollins started to tell me who he was, but I didn’t want to know.” She drew a breath. “There were lots of people.”

  “Now tell me about you. How are yo
u feeling?”

  “Tired.” She slid down in bed beside him, rested her head on the pillow and gazed into his eyes. “As soon as you’re able, we’ll sneak out of town in a private stage. We’ll go to Denver and catch a train to the coast from there.”

  He caught a loose tendril of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers. “I’m sorry we’ve had to delay the wedding.”

  She touched his lips. “It doesn’t matter. Cameron? I love you. I thought I’d go insane when it looked like you might die. Don’t you ever do this again, hear?”

  He smiled, then kissed her palm and pressed her hand to his cheek. He’d never had anyone to love, had never had anyone who cared if he lived or died. Now this magnificent woman loved and wanted him, and there was a baby on the way. A baby who would be part of him and part of her. He had a family of his own, and a new life waiting in San Francisco.

  He buried his face in her hair and blinked hard. “I love you, Della.”

  There were tears in the gunslinger’s eyes.

  Don’t miss these marvelous novels by Maggie Osborne

  THE BRIDE OF WILLOW CREEK

  Ten years ago Angie Bertoli eloped with Sam Holland. But before their impetuous marriage even began, they were torn apart by chance. For Angie, the gold band on her finger is a constant reminder of the man she could never forget. Aiming to find her husband and resolve their relationship once and for all, Angie sets out on the adventure of a lifetime.

  In a small Colorado town, Angie discovers that her young groom has grown into a man—still handsome, irresistible, and infuriating as ever . . and now the father of two young children. Forced to become a temporary family, Sam and Angie are surprised to find a deeper love awakening between them—one that could require more than they are willing to give if they are to forge a lasting new life on the American frontier.

  Published by Ivy Books.

  Available wherever books are sold.

  Don’t miss these marvelous novels by Maggie Osborne