Dreams, Deceptions & Desires
By
Barbara Sheridan
1868, Freewill, Wyoming
One town—Two couples—Four stories of hope, secrets, and passion….
Cody Blackheart, Sheriff John Avery, Vivienne Medina and Kate LeMasters all imagine a better world, a home where cultural differences and hidden truths won’t haunt them. But secrets and forbidden desires, when coupled with the self-interests of others, could destroy their dreams.
Freewill Wyoming welcomes everyone who rolls into town. For four lonely people, it offers a chance to face their dreams, deceptions, and deepest desires, but can the good people in town look beyond what their eyes tell them and embrace a changing world, or will greed and prejudice win out over love?
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Dreams, Deceptions & Desires
Copyright © 2012 by Barbara Sheridan
ISBN: 978-1-61333-338-9
Cover art by LFD Designs
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC
Look for us online at:
www.decadentpublishing.com
Western Escapes from Decadent Publishing
Unspoken Promises by Becca Dale
Diamond Heart by Ann Mayburn
Misbegotten Gaines by Camryn Rhys
Dark Secrets by Desiree Holt
Kantu’s Heart by KevaD
Also by Barbara Sheridan
All or Nothing
Unfinished Business
Personal Business
Dreams, Deceptions & Desires
A Western Escape
By
Barbara Sheridan
~Dedication~
Decadent Publishing for starting the Western Escape series and letting me have a hand in its development. (The series lead authors and editors also get cyber thank you hugs)
My author friends David Kentner (writing as KevaD) for his helpful plotting suggestions and encouragement, and to Jane Lange and Maureen O. Betita for their long-distance friendship and much appreciated morale boosting.
Chapter One
Freewill
Wyoming Territory
Spring 1868
Adjusting her bonnet to shield her face from the sun, Vivienne Medina began the long drive back to Deville, all the while trying to convince herself that there was nothing wrong with having her mother live out here with her married friends, Myra and Hank.
They had a sturdy roof over their heads and they certainly didn’t lack the necessities of life. She even saw to it they had all the little extravagances they requested, like the dime novels they enjoyed, which she ordered from New York each month. She’d even had a shiny new piano shipped from New York though her mother had protested the cost and bother.
She wanted her mother to live with her in the house she was having built at the edge of town, but it couldn’t happen yet, not until her future was secure. She couldn’t jeopardize losing everything she’d always wanted even if this place was different than most back East.
Everything? an inner voice asked skeptically.
Almost everything, she amended, staring blankly at the bobbing head of her horse. She’d often imagined how it would be to love someone wholeheartedly and have him love her in return. But that was utterly impossible. She thought she’d found that a few years ago, but it had been a girl’s fantasy. She’d been nothing but a mistress who’d been bought and paid for. And though Peter Medina had been kind, gentle, and generous to a fault, he was the genuine product of a prominent white family, and she was…not.
Forcing the insecurities away, she cleared her mind and kept her eyes on the long road ahead.
***
Vivienne screamed when a bare-chested warrior leapt into her buggy. He yanked the reins from her hands, jerking the horse to a stop.
The man’s white teeth gleamed in the brilliant sun, a sharp contrast to his rich skin tone and the odd white strands of hair springing from a widow’s peak. Slowly, he reached out with one powerful hand and playfully tweaked her nose between his thumb and forefinger before bubbling with laughter.
“Cody Blackheart, you big galoot!” Vivienne slapped his muscular shoulder. “You scare me like that again and I’ll be the one sporting a streak of white hair!”
A gentle breeze blew the aforementioned strands into his face, and he brushed them back with a fluid movement. Taking up the buggy reins, he set the horse on its way toward town, his own mount trailing dutifully alongside.
“You won’t have any hair left if you keep wandering off by yourself and not paying attention to what’s happening, Viv. You were lucky it was only me and not another savage who happened by.”
“Some savage,” she remarked lightly. Despite his current appearance, Cody had received a fine education at Dartmouth prior to being prodded into joining the ranks of the Union Army with one of his half-brothers, Bennett Dauville. “You are more civilized than ninety percent of the men in town.” She reached over, stroked the length of his firm buckskin covered thigh. “Of course, you know I don’t mind you being a bit savage when we’re alone.”
He grinned, and Vivienne’s pussy throbbed with the memory of their last encounter that had been too many months ago. She trailed her hand up and brushed her fingertips over his crotch, licking her bottom lip when his cock responded.
She leaned in and whispered in his ear. “We can pull off the road a ways ahead, by those trees. I’m not in any hurry to get back to town, are you?”
“I don’t know, Viv,” he teased. “Anybody can happen by at any time. It might ruin your sterling reputation.”
She licked the shell of his ear then the side of his neck, loving the salty masculine taste of him. “I’m willing to take the chance just to feel your tongue on me and have a chance to drink you dry. We don’t even have to get naked for that. If anybody happens along, we’ll think of something.”
Cody’s chuckle made her squirm and tingle deep inside. “I’m sure you’re already thinking a lot of somethings.” He headed off the well-worn trail and into the stand of brush and scrub trees. He tethered the horses then lifted Vivienne down from the wagon seat.
Crushing her in a hot embrace, he claimed her with his tongue, parting her lips and exploring the warm, moist recesses of her mouth.
She kissed him back fiercely, shifting so she could part her legs beneath her voluminous skirts and press herself against his steely thigh. She rocked against him, her pussy growing wet, the sweet pressure of climax already beginning to build.
He broke the kiss, his dark eyes full of desire. “Damn, woman,” he said, his deep voice husky with his lust and yet as soft as a loving caress. “Why don’t you marry me, so we can do this all the time?”
Vivienne’s heart lurched. She forced herself to laugh lightly as she wove her fingers through his
glorious long hair. “But things would change, and I like them the way they are. Why ruin a great friendship with formalities?”
Cody slid his hand to cup and caress her breast. “You’re a wise woman, Viv. A wise, wonderful woman.”
He kissed her again, slower, hungrier, grabbing her hand and pressing it against his rock hard cock. He pulled back and undid the buttons of her bodice enough to get at the silk ribbon tie of her chemise. Leaning her back against the tree, he bent his head and kissed the full mounds held by her corset top.
“I love the way you want me,” he murmured while rubbing the work-roughened pads of his thumbs across her hard nipples. He gave her a swift kiss then turned his attention back to her breasts.
She whimpered and shivered at the expert way he suckled each nipple in turn, teasing the sensitive tip with his tongue while creating a slow gentle suction that shot through her.
She was breathing hard when he pulled back and that damn grin of his told her he knew exactly how close she already was to coming and that he was going to make her wait.
Cody swaggered away to his horse and removed the blanket rolled up behind his saddle and spread it beside the wagon. He grinned again after turning back and crooking his finger at her to come to him.
She knelt on the blanket before him. “You’re too cocky for your own good.”
“Such a sweet talker you are. Now show me what else that sassy mouth can do.”
He took his sweet old time removing his gun belt and undoing the laces of his breeches. But Vivienne teased back. She locked her gaze with his, toyed with her breasts, squeezing, rubbing and lifting each in turn to sweep her tongue over the hot flesh.
Pulling his cock free, Cody ran a lazy stroke along the rigid length.
She responded by shifting to free her skirts then pulling them up to her waist. She parted her thighs and let her hand fall between them to slip into the opening of her underdrawers. She stroked her pussy to collect the wetness and licked it from her fingertip.
“Damn, I want to fuck you silly.”
Vivienne froze. She couldn’t risk a pregnancy.
“Don’t be afraid,” Cody said softly. “I know you haven’t prepared.”
Exhaling a relieved sigh, she nodded. Cody gave her another grin and motioned her to come closer again.
The hazy fears faded once she touched that beautiful straight cock of his. She gripped it in her fist and tongued the tip, savoring the musky drop of precum. She took him in and inched in farther relaxing her throat muscles, as she’d learned long ago, until his cock slid to the hilt.
He sighed and placed his hands on her head, letting her set the pace and fuck him with her mouth. When he was close to coming, he surprised her by pulling back.
He lay down and licked his lips. She stood, pulled off her drawers and lifted her skirts then settled over him. Her mouth poised over his erection, she shivered when he blew across her swollen pussy lips.
She stayed on all fours above him, rocking back and forth when he slipped four fingers inside to stroke her slow and deep. She was so wet, she could hear the decadent sounds when he slid his slick fingers out and began to rub her outer lips. He came close to her clit but stayed far enough away to leave her tottering on the edge.
“Oh God, Cody, you do know how to treat a woman.”
“It’s easy when a woman’s like you.” He kissed her thigh, stroked her flesh with the tip of his tongue. “Scoot back.”
She did, sighing when his tongue touched her slit and he finally let his fingers start circling her clit. She came hard and fast, and he stilled his hand for a moment.
Catching her breath, Vivienne leaned down to take him orally once more, licking his length then reached back to coat her fingers with her own wetness. She stroked the lower half of his cock and sucked the upper, quickening the tempo when he bucked his hips.
She loved the way he felt against her tongue, the way the swollen veins brushed against her lips. When he touched her again, she sucked harder and faster. His fingers thrummed her most sensitive place so rapidly it was like the steady vibration of riding a train. She spiraled to another climax seconds before his own hit, and she lapped up the hot, salty seed his cock pumped into her mouth.
She’d had more men in her time than she wanted to admit, but damn if Cody Blackheart didn’t taste the best and make her swallow every thick drop like she was a parched woman stuck in the desert. If only her heart would accept him as more than a friend and sometimes lover.
Pushing the regrets away, Vivienne licked him clean then wiped him dry with her discarded drawers. Cody chuckled and pinched her ass cheek when she tucked him back inside his buckskins and gave him a little pat.
She fairly purred when he took the drawers from her hand and stroked her dry in that expert way of his that threatened to get her hot all over again. He drew her in for a kiss then pulled down her skirts and let her flop down beside him.
“Speaking of uncivilized folk running about out here, Matt Logan is just the type to set up some kind of ambush and blame it on me or one of the others. If white folks start turning up dead and Logan points a finger at Indians, who do you think the authorities will believe?”
“You’re right,” Vivienne said. “I’ll be more careful.”
Cody turned onto his side, propped himself up on one elbow. “Just where do you go running off to anyway?”
To hide her discomfort, she turned her attention to straightening her bodice. “Visiting friends. Do I ask what you do when you take off on your little jaunts, like the one you’re returning from?”
“Point taken.” He smiled.
Vivienne caressed his cheek. “I was out by the Gaines place paying my respects and seeing how they’re all getting on over that way.”
When they got back in the wagon and started toward town, she glanced over at her friend. It had been a pleasant surprise to see Cody’s rare smile and have him tease her. She thought he might tell her he’d finally succumbed to the charms of one of the many Shoshone maidens who were captivated by his rugged handsomeness and brooding sensuality. But seeing him now, as he so often was—withdrawn and slightly worried—put that notion to rest.
You’re a fine one to take stock of your friend’s loneliness when you’re every bit alone as he is, she chided herself. Still, he had the one advantage she lacked. Should he choose to pursue a romantic relationship, his past was an open book. He would never run the risk of shaming the one he loved with untold secrets.
After a time, Vivienne poked his arm. “So when are you going to find yourself some respectable, unsullied woman and let me throw you the biggest wedding celebration Wyoming has ever seen?”
“Right after I do the same for you?”
“I gave up the silly notion of settling down. I told you that the day you suggested I come out here.”
“That you did, Viv.” Cody gave her a saucy wink. “I imagine the women back East are lining up at the railroad depots to come fling themselves at my feet. So, once they start getting here, we’ll see.”
Vivienne laughed. “I’ll hold you to that.”
***
Albany, New York
Kate LeMaster knocked once on the opened back door of Judge Swanson’s house then entered, greeting the judge’s cook, Luella. She sat on the high stool Luella offered her, shifting her dozing infant son in her arms.
“You look tired,” Luella said. “Jamie keep you up all night?”
Nodding, Kate offered the older woman a weary smile. “I’ve been drinking coffee and splashing cold water on my face all morning just so I wouldn’t miss this appointment. Will he ever sleep through the night?”
“Some babies is just harder to please than others.” Luella brought out the large wicker basket she’d offered before as a makeshift bassinet. She set it on the long maple table and turned to the kitchen maid. “Go fetch Susie and have her tell Miss Swanson, Kate is here to work on the dress.”
Kate gazed at her peacefully sleeping son. As she often
did when tired and lonely, she wondered if she’d done the right thing by bringing him into the world.
Their life was comfortable enough now, with the basic necessities and a roof over their heads, but what of the future? What could James Stephen LeMaster look forward to with so much against him from the moment of his conception? Kate put aside the unanswerable questions as the chambermaid entered the spacious kitchen.
“Miss Swanson is waiting in her room. I’ll show you up.”
Kate stood, tucking her leather bag of sewing necessities under her arm and smiled. “I think I can find it on my own.”
The maid giggled. Her mistress had requested at least two-dozen alterations to her wedding gown in the past month.
The heels of Kate’s shoes clicked on the polished marble floor of the spacious foyer as she made her way to the curving staircase leading to the second floor. She took her time, remembering her girlhood dreams of living in such a sumptuous house surrounded by delicate porcelains, gilt-framed paintings, and brocade covered furnishings.
Sadness replaced wistful memory as she walked down the long, mahogany paneled corridor to Margaret Swanson’s bedroom. Those pleasant dreams had died a long time ago when, at the age of thirteen, she had to assume the housekeeping and seamstress duties of her late mother. It seemed forever since she’d been a carefree child, reading her schoolbooks in the sunny front window of her father’s haberdashery.
Banishing the past, Kate smoothed a hand over her hair and over the front of her simple yet fashionable plaid dress. She was about to knock when Margaret and her mother’s voices drifted through the partially opened door.
“I wouldn’t even have the little harlot come here if there were a better seamstress within fifty miles!” Margaret uttered a frustrated grunt. “She probably brought that Indian bastard of hers, too.”
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