Protecting What's Mine: A Western Romance

by BL Craven

  Once again I started with the kisses, my hands roaming over her body. I took my time, caressing and kissing and fondling every inch of her body. As I made my way up her inner thigh, I watched as she moved, her body getting ready for me. Her whole body tensed with satisfaction and desire, and a sound started escaping her mouth as if she was holding her breath and letting it out slowly.

  “Relax,” I whispered, my fingers and tongue working their magic.

  Her body was shaking, her hips trembling, and I reached up to squeeze a breast with my free hand. She pulled a pillow over her face and her whole body clenched. Her hips were rocking into me and quiet shrieks could be heard from under the pillow as every muscle in her body shivered with pleasure. I smiled and lay beside her on the bed, pulling the pillow off of her head, pulling it under my head. After a few long cleansing breaths, she looked over to me.

  “Promise me you won’t do that to me when I’m driving. I don’t think I can handle that.”

  “Fair enough. I won’t make you make the same promise,” I said, tucking a curl of hair behind her ear. She sat up a moment, unhooking her bra, and laid back down.

  “Now for the 50 shades stuff,” she said, pushing me on my back and playfully pulling the pillow over my face before starting to work on me, straddling me.

  “No, now it’s my turn to have fun,” I rolled her off me and climbed on top of her. She leaned up to lock lips with me and I pushed her down flat.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah,” I told her, sliding in, watching her eyes go wide as I buried myself deep inside of her.

  The sexual tension had been high since yesterday and the blow job in the Jeep had only worked to relieve some pressure for a short time. Hell, even my dreams when I was napping had been about Alison. About protecting her, about keeping her, fucking her and loving her.

  Most of that would have scared me shitless a week ago, hell I might have run away screaming, but I was right where I wanted, I found. With her legs wrapped around me, her arms reaching back to the head boards to hold on, small gasps that were almost words were trying to force their way out.

  I could feel the pressure coming to a head, I knew I wasn’t going to last much longer. I could feel the muscles in Ali’s stomach contracting and it pushed me over the edge as well. I rested my body on hers as we both tried to catch our breath and both waited for the contractions of our love making to stop. We fell asleep that way, still joined together.

  Chapter Twelve

  My alarm went off a few hours later. I pulled myself away from Alison reluctantly and got into the shower. I finished as quickly as I could, to wash the sweat and scent of lovemaking off of me as much as to wake up. I got the coffee pot set after I dressed hurriedly and went outside to get in the Jeep and drove up to the big house.

  We always called it the big house; it’s where the rancher and his family live. It’s also the same building where guests come when we have them, or if there’s a tour going on.

  That’s one side of the business that’s always free money: tourism. It doesn’t happen out here often, but often enough that a family could come out here for a couple of weeks and the ranch earns a few thousand dollars in money. We get to basically some city folk how to ride a horse, what we do to separate out the cows for tagging, and give them a small taste of the ranching life. There wasn’t anybody here at the moment, but I knew there would be gear in the three car garage, gear I’d seen used a ton when I was a kid.

  I pulled a small tent and sleeping bag from the supplies, along with some canteens. I wasn’t going to bring a ton of food with me and would probably find what I wanted on the trail, going true cowboy camping. I grabbed a couple flashlights and a mess kit. That was all I needed and had the rest in my duffel back at the cabin. I took the Jeep back, and when my headlights flashed across the living room window, I could make out a form sitting on the couch, hands wrapped around a coffee mug.

  I dropped the gear off at the door and headed in. Alison was sitting on the couch, a comforter wrapped around her small body. She handed me a mug and patted the spot next to her. I sat down and marveled at Alison. Her hair was a mess, all over the place. She had on no makeup, yet she was still the most attractive woman I’d ever seen. I took a sip of the coffee, noting that it hadn’t been out of the pot for long, still scorching hot.

  “You fixing to leave?”

  “Yeah, I’m going to leave the Jeep here,” I tossed the keys on the coffee table and kicked my feet up.

  Ali leaned into me, and I had to raise my arm. She snuggled into me and when I put my arm down around her, I thought she had drifted off again. I sipped my coffee in silence for a few minutes, mentally preparing myself to head out into the ranch land.

  In the army, no man ever works alone. There’s always a team mate to watch your back. What I was doing would have gotten me thumped if I’d been in a war zone. This should be less dangerous, hell it should be without danger unless I ran into rattlesnakes. I truly hoped that this was going to be a boring pain in the ass.

  “Your phone isn’t going to stay charged more than a day or two. You won’t be gone that long will you?”

  “No, I’m thinking two days, maybe come back on the third.”

  “Do you really have to do this?”

  “I don’t want to wait to see if it was Tim. I don’t know if I can hold still and just wait.”

  “I know what you mean. You have to be safe out there. I feel like the past three days have been a dream.”

  “I know what you mean,” I kissed the top of her head. “I know. It’s meant a lot to me, too.”

  “Are you sure you aren’t going out there to run from me? From us?”

  I was treading deep water here. I hadn’t considered that consciously, but when I looked deep inside of myself, there was a touch of truth to the statement. Commitment wasn’t something that I’d ever looked for in a relationship.

  Shit, in the Army, I would find partners in the war zone not out of love, but out of a mutual need to be close to someone, a need that would drive you crazy if you didn’t listen to it. The ladies never had a problem finding somebody willing, and the first time I’d been asked by one, I’d been surprised. The whole ordeal was over as quick as it started and we both went back to what we were doing before, not a word said about it again. But this… with Alison, maybe I was trying to stay busy, to put some distance between us to think about my feelings?

  “No, not really.” I only half lied. I think she knew, but she let it go for now.

  “Okay. I’ve programmed your phone, so keep it handy as long as it’s charged.”

  “Yes dear,” I said dead pan, and I would have been slugged, but she couldn’t pull her arm out from the comforter quick enough, her other hand still holding the cup.

  “Give me a kiss before you go?”

  I did, and although I wanted it to turn into more, much more, I let it stop after a couple seconds, pulling back before standing and stretching. I dumped the leftover coffee and rinsed my cup and got the duffel out of the bedroom. I pulled out my old duty combat knife and a small khaki satchel - the smallest pack of survival gear I had. It was probably overkill, but if I was taking a quad, it’d be easy to pack heavy and hike the rest of the way.

  I took it out to the porch and remade the pack, getting things together. I went inside to fill the canteens, hoping to steal one more kiss, but Ali was out cold on the couch. I brushed the hair off of her face with my fingertips before kissing my fingers and putting it on her cheek. She made a soft sound when I opened the door, but I only looked back once. She was still softly sleeping.

  I carried the gear toward the big barn, kicking myself for not dropping half of it off when I had the Jeep. I rubbed the stubble on my cheek a moment and kept moving. Sure enough, Jackson had readied a red Honda FourTrax with two gas cans on the back luggage rack. There was enough room there for most of my gear, leaving the front rack free for my AR. I lashed it down on top of the sleeping bag, not wanting to wear it slung o
ver my back. An all-day ride with it there would kill my kidneys. Besides, I had the Colt on my hip. I prayed neither would be needed.

  When everything seemed set, I checked the straps a third time before using the start and turning the light on. The sound of the running motor at 4am cut through the silence, and I started off slowly, not wanting the sound of an insane chainsaw waking up more people than I had to.

  The going was slow, and within a couple hours of daybreak, I made it to the creek bed I remembered as a kid. It wasn’t a seasonal stream. It always had flowing water through it, but it didn’t look like any water had been here in a while. Water was essential out here; if a ranch didn’t have a steady supply of it, they didn’t stay in business long.

  Water determined things here, such as how much land you could irrigate to grow grasses on, or how many head of cattle could be watered here. The Masterson ranch had always been prime land with a year-round river running through it, but now it’d gone dry and no one had been able to figure out why.

  I passed the construction equipment just as the sun rose, the new pipes stretching straight West. Jackson and Bill had probably had to pay a premium, because I knew the river snaked in that way, but it wasn’t a short distance by any means. A memory about the back of the property kept tickling in the back of my mind.

  I’d never been back there, but I suddenly seemed to remember that the land was Bureau of Land Management property or some mining company. I couldn’t remember for sure, and I kept poking at that thought when I got a text from Ali. I pulled over, needing a stretch anyway and looked at my phone.

  “Just checking in. Problem with the backhoe this morning, Charlie says they will be out that way all day if you want to drop in and say hi.”

  “Already passed there. Heading up the river bed to the southeast corner of the property. Stay in touch,” I replied as quickly as my thumbs could type.

  I looked around, the walls of the old river bed a few feet higher than the dried, cracked bottom I was standing on. I walked around a little bit, noticing how hard the surface was. I kicked at a rock, but when I looked behind me I realized that I wasn’t leaving any sort of tracks or trail. Interesting.

  I’d picked driving on the riverbed for ease as the random bumps as the quad went over rocks or depressions on the ground was starting to get to my back. Ali might have been right that this was quicker, but there was something to be said about the comfort of riding a horse compared to this torture… so when I found the flat smooth surface of the river bottom, I took advantage of the comparable comfort.

  And there were no trails, not since the time the fence had been cut, from what I was hearing. I opened the GPS application I’d had them put on and checked my location. I was almost two-thirds of the way to the back corner of the property, where the river came in. I had a few swallows from the canteen before firing up the quad again to continue riding.

  The walls of the old river bed probably muffled the sound of my motor to anybody outside, but it had deafened me as it rebounded into my ears. I was surprised when I saw a horse and rider startle as I went zooming through.

  They took off on a dead run in more or less the direction I was going, and I had no clue if it was one of our ranch hands or someone else. The fact that they ran at first was understandable. He might have been trying to stay on his horse if it had startled badly, but he kept going, letting the reins slap as he kicked his horse to higher speeds.

  Despite being on a four-wheel quad, a horse running full out was more than a match for me. He was pulling away when he lost his hat, and I had to jam on the brakes as his horse jumped the barbed wire of our back boundary. I pulled up short before I ran face first into the wire and just shook my head, my adrenaline still pumping from the chase.

  “Shit.”

  I got off the quad and climbed the riverbank, watching the rider make trails of dust, pushing the horse hard. I ducked under the wire and recovered the hat. Something about it looked familiar, but I didn’t see anything on it that would indicate who the owner was.

  I put it in my pack between the gas cans and inspected the area. The back corner of the property was a fence post that had been wrapped with galvanized pipe tape, anchored to an old half dead tree. The metal was rusted and it was obvious to me that folks had been coming on and off the property from this point.

  I knew starting a chase would be pointless, even though the horse would tire out, but I needed to think. I unhooked a gas can and topped the tank off, then pulled my AR out, using the scope to look.

  I should have brought binoculars. I cursed myself and kept looking. I saw the dust cloud continue southeast from the property line and picked out a landmark when I couldn’t see anything anymore. I’d go into town and look at the topography map, probably at the same place Jackson was right now.

  I pulled the phone out. Two bars. I thumbed in Jackson’s number and waited a couple of rings.

  “Jackson,” his voice floated out of the phone.

  “Hey, it’s Cam.”

  “Have you found anything out there?”

  “Jumped a rider. He and the horse went over the fence and headed Southwest.”

  “Well, that could be the Bart ranch or the reservation land I imagine,” Jackson’s voice was quiet and thoughtful.

  “There’s a jutting of rock, looks like a middle finger pointing at the sky.”

  “Ahhh, so it is on the reservation then.”

  “You know it?” I asked him, happy with my good luck.

  “Yeah, rode there as a kid all the time. Was that guy doing anything?”

  “No, not that I could find. You find anything there?”

  “Not much that makes sense. Let’s have some coffee in the morning when you get back in,” he told me.

  “Might not plan on being back by morning,” I mused aloud.

  “Well, try your best. I may have something but if I do, it doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “It’s about the permit?” I asked him.

  “Something like that. Just meet at my place in the morning. I’ll let Ms. Alison know.”

  “Sounds good, Boss.”

  I ended the call. I needed more answers, but I wanted to do this quiet now. Maybe I’d stash the quad and go in on foot, I thought to myself before driving it out of the river bottom and pulling some brush over it to conceal it near the corner boundary. I chipped off a flat patch of bark from the dead tree and backed up a hundred yards.

  I went through the motions of bore sighting the rifle and trying to get the scope zeroed in. I took a few shots, adjusted it, made a few more and backed up farther. The shots hadn’t been blowing through the thick gnarled trunk of the old tree and would stop anything but an all-out miss. I was going to see how good of a job I’d done when I let the lead fly from 300 yards. I made minor adjustments, but I was pretty confident I could hit what I aimed at in a pinch now.

  I figured I made a weird sight if any outsider saw me. I was wearing traditional cowboy garb, but I had what looked like a beefy M16 in my hands, and I slung a couple canteens over one shoulder and my emergency satchel over the other. I left everything else. I was more worried about kicking up dust and making noise more than I was worried about concealment. I knew how to move with the local growth, how to blend into shadows, and I wasn’t wearing neon orange or yellow. The blues and blacks in my outfit would help me blend in.

  I checked my phone one more time but had no updates. I pocketed it and slipped under the fence and started walking. The terrain changed slowly over time. The back of the property was brushy scrub, but I was moving into a grassy plain. I kept the older riverbed on my right as I walked.

  Within an hour of walking past the fence, I ran into the first signs of man’s work. Heavy machinery had flattened and scraped the land flat. I circled the area widely, keeping my eye on the riverbed, and kept going, trying to puzzle out what they were planning on doing there. In another ten minutes, I came to the blockage.

  It was concrete pilings, placed there
by crane, similar to the ones they use for dividers during road construction. They’d made a base along the bottom of the river, stacked in such a way that the water rose. It gave enough resistance to let the water first pool up and then flow in a different direction until a new channel was cut.

  A dusty two track dirt road led off toward the mountains. I pulled out my phone and made a waypoint on the GPS program. Then, I used it to take pictures of the blockage in the river. I attached the picture and the GPS coordinates and sent a text message to Alison. I couldn’t figure out how to do the multi-person thing that Ali had showed me, so then I did the same thing with Jackson and to the phone number she had programmed in for Bill.

  I waited a few moments before I realized I had no data out there. I could make a phone call, barely, judging by the one bar, but there wasn’t any way my pictures were going to go through. I cursed and put the phone in my front pocket, hoping it would buzz or chirp when it finally sent the message.

  That’s when a distant rumble caught my attention and left me scrambling for cover. Coming down the two track dirt road at breakneck speed was a jacked up red 4x4 pickup with everything a country boy would want… big tires, roll bars, KC lights, and chrome everywhere. The thing I wasn’t excited to see was the two guys standing in the bed of the truck, rifles aimed forward. A woman was driving, her dark hair flying about the cab.

  I got out of sight and started moving down the dry wash as fast as I could, looking for more than the tall grass to try to fade out of sight. I wondered if the guy on the horse had alerted them somehow, and I was now wishing I hadn’t opted for stealth over speed, but I had no way of knowing what was going to happen. The truck had barely swung to a stop some two hundred yards behind me when I heard doors open and close and hoarse shouts.

  “Find him.”

  “Fuck that guy up.”

  “...has no idea who...”

  I stayed low but made sure my AR was ready and the safety was in place. I knew as long as they moved slowly, I could slip through them, but if they started moving faster, I could be in real trouble.