One Bright Morning

by Duncan, Alice

  She got up off her hands and knees and wiped her hands on her apron. She would have hugged him, except she didn’t think such an overt display of affection would be a proper influence on the children. “Thank you. But Four Toes has been working on the fountain, and the kids wanted to help, and I’m just washing these tiles. They’re real pretty when you wash them off. See?”

  Jubal didn’t want to see. He wanted to grab Maggie to his hard body and kiss her until she squeaked. Instead, he was left to frown after her when she stepped over to the three children and knelt down to comfort them. Annie ran into her arms and sobbed. Henry, Jr., looked from her to Jubal with indecision writ large upon his freckled features.

  Astute little Connie Todd had it all figured out, apparently, because she just smiled at Jubal and said, “Hi, Uncle Jubal. Look, we’re going to plant a garden.”

  Jubal’s expression remained rebellious for another couple of seconds, but he finally admitted defeat and gave Connie a somewhat crooked grin. “A garden, huh?”

  A huge smile lit up Connie’s face. “Yes. Mrs. Bright said we can plant flowers here, ‘cause it’s the patio. We don’t have to plant carrots and cabbages and such here. And she said maybe we can even have a rosebush.”

  “You want a rosebush, Maggie?” Jubal asked. His forehead creased up and he looked worried. He hadn’t even thought about roses when he’d been buying seeds for her. If anybody had mentioned a rose to him, he’d have bought her one right off. Or two or three. He couldn’t think of everything, could he?

  It took all the control Maggie could command not to wrap her arms around him and kiss him. He looked so adorably concerned for her wants.

  “We can plant a rosebush later, Jubal,” she said gently.

  Annie had stopped crying now, but she was still frowning. She looked mad, in fact, and her little fist was crammed into her mouth, a sure sign that all was not well with her. When her mama stepped up closer to Jubal, she pulled her fist out of her mouth, leaving a small circle of grime around it, and pointed a dirty finger at him.

  “Juba holler,” she announced. She didn’t sound any too pleased with the fact, either.

  Jubal felt bad.

  Then Annie said, “Juba mad,” in a very censorious voice, and he felt even worse.

  He looked at Maggie and discovered that she was watching him with a mixture of amusement and tenderness that was completely irresistible. He finally let out a heavy sigh and chuckled. “Jubal’s not mad anymore, Annie, honey,” he said. Then he took her out of Maggie’s arms. “Boy, you don’t let a guy get away with anything, do you, you little chipmunk?”

  That comment got Henry, Jr.’s attention. “I’m your little chipmunk,” he reminded Jubal. The little boy seemed mighty offended that Jubal could have forgot that “chipmunk” was an endearment reserved for him alone.

  Jubal looked down at Henry and sighed again. “Good God,” he muttered. “I never realized being a—an uncle would be so much trouble.” He had been going to say “father,” but thought better of it.

  “I guess Annie will just have to be something else, Jubal,” Maggie said with a giggle.

  “How about a parsnip?” Jubal eyed Annie narrowly. She was listening to the conversation with interest. “You seem like a parsnip to me, Annie. How about it. Will you be my little parsnip?”

  “Powsup?” Annie asked, peering at Jubal with a rather dubious expression on her face.

  Jubal’s grin broadened. “Close, Annie. Will you be my little parsnip?”

  Annie eyed him doubtfully for another second or two, but when he continued to grin at her, she relented. First she nodded. Then she threw her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder and hugged him.

  Maggie and Jubal just looked at each other for a few moments.

  Then Maggie said, “Looks like you got yourself a parsnip, Jubal Green.”

  Jubal wished he could kiss Maggie. “Looks like I do,” was all he said.

  # # #

  Jubal pulled so many strings that he felt like a puppet master. But at last he maneuvered circumstances so that he could have Maggie all to himself when he went to El Paso the following week.

  It was not difficult getting Beula to agree to take care of Annie for the duration. Beula was on his side.

  “It’s about time you found yourself a good woman, Jubal Green,” she lectured him. “Haven’t I been telling you?”

  Jubal cast his eyes toward the heavens and prayed for patience. “Yes, Beula. You’ve been telling me. But near as I can figure you haven’t yet come up with a solution to the problem of Prometheus Mulrooney trying to murder anybody who even so much as smiles at me. How the hell am I supposed to keep a wife?”

  Beula scowled at him. “Well, you just better figure that one out yourself pretty darned soon, Jubal Green. I’ll be mad as fire if anything happens to Maggie Bright.” Beula was hanging out her washing as they spoke. To emphasize her point, she gave Cod Fish’s union suit a hard flap, splattering Jubal liberally with water.

  Jubal jumped back as the cold water hit him. “Jesus, Beula, you don’t have to drown me. I’m not about to let anything happen to Maggie.”

  Beula humphed. “Well, just see that you don’t.”

  She stabbed two clothespins onto the shoulders of Codfish’s underwear and turned around to finish her lecture. She wasn’t through with Jubal yet. Her fists sank into her ample hips and she glared at him hard. Beula’s eyes were brown, but when she was feeling intense about something, they took on an amber cast. They were really, really amber now.

  Jubal knew he was in for a good, hard, impassioned lecture. He sighed and stood his ground bravely, hoping she wouldn’t yell at him for too long.

  “And not only that, Jubal Green,” she began, “But you’d better do something pretty darned quick about making an honest woman of her, too.” Beula blushed a deep carmine color that clashed with her red hair.

  Jubal’s brows shot up until they nearly got lost in his hairline. “An honest woman of her?” he bellowed.

  “Yes,” said Beula, apparently not at all intimidated by his hollering. “I know good and well that you’ve taken her to your bed, Jubal. Now, Maggie Bright is a good woman. She wouldn’t do something like that with just anybody, and I’m not going to let you get away with trifling with her affections.” Beula looked like an ornery mule, and she leaned into her lecture as though a stiff wind were blowing at her back.

  “Trifling with her?” Jubal couldn’t believe his ears.

  “Trifling with her. Yes. I don’t care if you do own this ranch, Jubal Green. I won’t have it.”

  Jubal was so mad now, he tore his hat off of his head and slammed it into the dirt. A puff of dust swirled up around their feet, but Beula didn’t back off an inch.

  “I’m not trifling with her, God damn it!” Jubal roared.

  “Well, then, just what do you aim to do to save her honor, Jubal Green?” Beula’s eyes were tiny green slits now. Her normally rosy cheeks were nearly purple with passion, and her enormous bosom was heaving with every agitated breath.

  “Save her honor?”

  Jubal couldn’t believe his ears. He glared back at Beula with terrible ferocity. She didn’t budge.

  “Well?” she said.

  Jubal’s mouth was drawn up into a tight pucker when he stooped to pick up his dusty hat. He slapped it against his left thigh before he thought about it, and he nearly bellowed again when it stung his barely healed bullet wound.

  “I’m waiting for an answer, Jubal Green,” said Beula through stiff lips.

  “God damn it, Beula,” said Jubal in a near whine.

  “Blasphemies won’t get you anywhere, either,” Beula announced primly.

  “Well, for Lord’s sake, Beula. I asked her once.”

  “Well, what did she say?”

  “She sort of didn’t answer.”

  “Now, just what on earth does that mean, Jubal Green? Just exactly what is, ‘she sort of didn’t answer’ supposed to mean?”r />
  “Well, she’s worried about her damned farm, Beula.”

  Jubal felt really sulky. Until Beula’s words shattered his happy fantasy, he figured nobody else knew about his nighttime activities with Maggie. It was a truly hard blow to discover he had no secrets from his little ranch family.

  Beula’s face eased up a touch.

  “I’m sure a bright man like you can figure out some way to ease her mind about her farm, Jubal Green. Don’t you.” It wasn’t quite a question.

  Jubal glared at Beula in defeat. During the past two weeks, he’d pretty much come to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to get over this problem of loving Maggie Bright any time soon. But, since his first fumbling, tentative mention of marriage to her, he had been postponing an actual, honest-to-God proposal because it seemed like such a permanent thing to do. Marriage sounded so final. It was such an endless condition. Sort of like consumption. Once you got it, there was no getting over it unless one of you died. He just hated having his hand forced as Beula was forcing it now.

  He gave her another good, solid glare before he said, “Yeah. I guess I can do something about her damned farm.”

  Beula beamed at him. “Good.” And she went back to hanging her wash.

  Jubal thought about proposing to Maggie that night in bed, but he got distracted.

  “Your leg still hurts, Jubal. I know it does,” said sweet Maggie softly.

  “I don’t care how much it hurts. I’ve got to make love to you or die, Maggie.”

  Jubal had an awful thought then. “Don’t you want to?”

  He looked so forlorn that Maggie giggled. “Oh, yes, Jubal. I want to. I just don’t want you to hurt. You’ve been on that fool horse every day for almost two weeks now, and every time you come home, you can barely walk, and I know it hurts you.”

  “I don’t care, Maggie. I need to make love to you.”

  “You need to?” Maggie smiled at him with infinite love.

  Jubal was lying on his back, with his condition stiffly evident. He was caressing Maggie’s arms, and his hands were making occasionally forays over to her breasts, where he would lovingly massage her rigid, pouty nipples.

  Every time he touched her, Maggie felt as though lightning were throbbing from his fingers straight to her core, her reaction to his touch was so strong. Her nipples were so sensitive that every caress sent goose bumps shooting down her arms. She loved the way he touched her.

  Right now she was running her nimble fingers through his curly chest hairs. She absolutely loved to feel his chest. It was so hard and the way his hair sort of thinned out into a straight, dark line that pointed right smack to his sex drove her to distraction. She liked that a lot. In fact, her hand began stroking lower and lower on Jubal’s belly until he groaned deep in his throat and growled, “God, Maggie, take me in your hand.”

  So she did. “I just don’t want to hurt you, Jubal,” she whispered.

  “There’s no way you can hurt me by doing that, Maggie,” came out in a ragged croak. His hips bucked under her soft caress.

  Maggie had begun feeling bolder as the days progressed. Tonight, she had an almost killing urge to kiss him in places she wasn’t sure were supposed to be kissed. She sighed. She’d never dreamed, even in her wildest, wickedest imagination, that people could do the things she and Jubal had been doing these last few nights. She was sure Kenny hadn’t even known about most of these things.

  She leaned over and kissed his belly button, and Jubal sucked in a quick breath of pleasure.

  “Oh, yes, Maggie. Kiss me.”

  So she kissed him there. Then she dipped he tongue into the little hole. When Jubal shut his eyes and groaned in ecstasy, she took it as a good sign, and licked a little lower. In fact, she made a little wet trail of kisses down his belly and right to the curly brush of hair that grew around his manhood. Then she decided that since she was already there, she might just as well taste what it was that had been driving her to such incredible peaks of ecstasy these past few days.

  When she began to nibble his shaft, Jubal thought for sure he was going to die. When she began to lick it with long, delicious strokes, he groaned. When she took it into her mouth and began to love it very much the way he had loved her with his own tongue, he just about lost his mind.

  Maggie was delighted with his reaction. Knowing how much pleasure she was giving him increased her own longings, too, until she was sure she was going to erupt into flames of desire. Her hips began to rock in the rhythm of love even before she straddled his hips and impaled herself on his aching shaft.

  “Oh, my God, Maggie. Oh, my God,” Jubal whispered. He was just about to burst. But he didn’t want to finish before Maggie did, so he sneaked his hand between them and found the core of her desire. He lovingly stroked her until he heard her gasp and felt her tighten around him.

  Maggie had been spiraling higher and higher as she rode Jubal’s sex. She had never felt so powerfully in control. Then when his fingers began to work their magic, she soared. Her climax was shattering. She thought for sure she was going to get lost in the burst of ecstasy that overwhelmed her.

  She collapsed on Jubal’s chest and could feel him pouring burst upon burst of his seed in her. She knew by now that Jubal wasn’t quite sure what to do when she cried after they made love, but she couldn’t help it. It was so wonderful. Her tears of ecstasy soaked his chest.

  But Jubal didn’t mind. He was almost getting used to her reaction. He anticipated it. He was proud that he could do this to her. He held her tight as he tried to catch his breath.

  “It’s just getting better, Maggie,” he whispered when he could talk. “It’s just getting better and better and better.”

  Maggie was still sobbing, so she couldn’t do more than nod her head in agreement.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Prometheus Mulrooney had to spend a couple of days at a hotel in Santa Fe, recuperating from the rigors of his uncomfortable journey back from Lincoln.

  Ferrett and Pelch took every moment they were given away from his presence to hie themselves over to his train carriage and try to saw through the wrought iron railing on his private observation deck. It was slow going.

  “I don’t think we’ve even made a dent, Mr. Pelch,” said Ferrett, wiping his forehead with a red bandanna he’d bought at a local mercantile. Ferrett had never owned a red bandanna before. It made him feel very Western.

  Pelch sighed and stared at the railing. “I’m afraid we’re going to need more saw blades, Mr. Ferrett.”

  Ferrett eyed the now-dull blade mournfully. “I believe you’re right, Mr. Pelch.”

  “I shall fetch them, Mr. Ferrett, if you will continue to saw.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea, Mr. Pelch. We still have two hours left to work before the devil wants us back.”

  “I’ll hurry, Mr. Ferrett.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Pelch.”

  They worked for hours and hours every day while Mulrooney rested. By the end of the fourth day, Ferrett believed he could see a tiny indentation where the saw blade had nicked the metal, but Pelch seemed dubious. Both men were very unhappy that their plan didn’t seem to be working as well as they had hoped.

  “If this doesn’t work, Mr. Pelch, I don’t know what to do,” admitted Ferrett.

  “I don’t either, Mr. Ferrett,” said Pelch.

  They sat and stared into the starry sky for a few moments without speaking. They had been sawing for hours and it was late.

  Pelch sighed. “Still,” he said. “You did have this one idea. It was a good one, and it isn’t your fault that the iron is difficult. Perhaps you’ll have another idea, Mr. Ferrett.” Pelch’s voice was bracing, as though he were encouraging his friend to think hard.

  Ferrett sighed, too. “I thought it was a good idea at the time, Mr. Pelch. I guess it wasn’t, though.”

  “Well, we don’t know that yet, Mr. Ferrett. We can still work on it.”

  “I guess so.” Ferrett didn’t sound exactly pleased
at the thought.

  “And you might well think of another brilliant idea, too, Mr. Ferrett.”

  “Maybe,” said Ferrett glumly.

  Pelch sighed again, deeply.

  “Yes,” he said.

  # # #

  Even though Jubal had finagled Maggie to himself while in El Paso, he had to take guards with him on the road there. It was more than a four-hour drive in the wagon and, although most of the travel was across his own land and he hadn’t heard from Mulrooney for a long time, he didn’t believe for a moment that he and Maggie had faded from his enemy’s mind. And anybody who remained on Prometheus Mulrooney’s mind remained in danger. If Mulrooney’s hired thugs chose to attack Jubal on his own land today, it wouldn’t be the first time.

  Still, the journey was a pleasant one. Maggie’s attention was unfettered by concerns for Annie, and she was no longer shy around Jubal. Or, at any rate, she was not very shy around him. Maggie hadn’t yet figured out exactly what Jubal Green wanted from her, although he had proposed marriage to her. At least she thought he had. That wasn’t altogether clear to her. And she hadn’t yet decided what she wanted from him, either. She was happy, though. She was very, very happy.

  She sat close to Jubal and held his arm. Since it was his right arm she was clutching, she made sure her grip wasn’t tight, and she smoothed his flannel shirt every now and again as if to rub away any aches. Jubal smiled at her concern.

  “It’s all right, Maggie. I like it when you hold me.”

  “Well, I don’t want to squish you, Jubal. Your wound is still too tender for that.”

  “I don’t think you could squish me if you tried, Maggie,” Jubal chuckled.

  Maggie pinched one of his large biceps just to test it. It was remarkably hard. “I think you’re right,” she announced.

  Her eyes swept the landscape and she hugged Jubal’s arm again. “Oh, Lordy, Jubal, just think. When we go home again, I’ll be able to see all this. I mean, I’ll be able to really, really see it, ‘cause I’ll have on my new spectacles.”

  Her voice held barely subdued rapture and Jubal smiled. He felt good, too. It did not slip his notice, either, that Maggie had referred to his ranch as “home.”