by Lyn Horner
“Put your arms around my neck, mavourneen,” he commanded hoarsely, and she obeyed, dazed by the release he’d given her.
Wanting him to taste the same exquisite delight, she parted her thighs and wrapped her legs around him. He grasped her hips and positioned himself. A gasp escaped her at his bold entry. She panted as he climbed higher within her until his length was fully embedded.
“Give me your sweet mouth, love,” he said, and she did.
Cupping her bottom, he lifted her nearly off him, then lowered her as he thrust into her. Once more, and she took over, moving on her own, drawing muffled groans from him as their tempo increased. Thinking only to give pleasure, Lil quickly realized that was impossible, for with every ardent jolt of his hips, the whirlwind built within her again.
Tye uttered a low growl and pumped into her frantically while she whimpered and threw back her head, caught in the dazzling storm. It burst over them at almost the same second.
His limbs trembled, but somehow he stayed upright. She felt as limp as wet grass. Head upon his shoulder, she clung to him as he carried her from the pool, still a part of her. He carefully withdrew, and they dropped to the ground, exhausted. Tye drew Lil against him, and they rested. Several minutes later, she was half asleep when he nuzzled her ear.
“Ah, Lily, I wish we didn’t have to return, but I fear we must. Bobtail guard will be over soon.”
Abruptly wide awake, Lil stiffened. “Yeah, I reckon the boys would notice if we’re not in our bedrolls,” she said, needing him to say he didn’t care who knew about them.
He kissed her forehead. “Aye, and I don’t want ye to feel shamed. Not by our loving. Never that, colleen.”
Lil’s momentary doubt dissolved. He loved her, he must, or he wouldn’t worry about sparing her feelings. Just as he wouldn’t have said what he did earlier about never letting her go. In time, he’d speak the words she longed to hear. She was sure of it.
A question she’d long wanted to ask came back to her as he helped her up. She touched his arm. “Tye, what does mavourneen mean?”
He chuckled and drew her close. “It means me darlin’,” he breathed against her lips in his best Irish brogue. “And don’t be tellin’ me ye’re not mine, darlin’.”
Delighted with his answer, Lil found no reason to argue as his mouth reaffirmed his claim.
They dressed quickly, walked back to camp and reluctantly retreated to their separate bedrolls. Lying on her side facing Tye, Lil smiled at him across the low campfire. He smiled back so tenderly, she thought her heart would burst with happiness. Once, on that chilly winter day in Clifton, he’d vowed to prove she could trust him. She’d refused to believe him for so long, but now she had no choice. Her heart would have it no other way.
Tye’s eyelids drooped shut and his body relaxed into sleep, a faint smile remaining on his lips.
“I love you,” Lil said under her breath just before closing her own eyes.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The sycamore towered against the intense blue sky, its broad, jagged leaves rustling in the warm prairie wind. Tye stepped into a wide stance twenty paces from the tree and flexed his right hand over his gun. He stared at a chest-high spot on the brownish trunk, pictured Frank Howard and drew. His Colt slicked leather, the hammer struck, but the .44 issued no loud blast. He’d unloaded it.
Separated from the herd only by a wide slope and a small copse of trees, he wouldn’t risk spooking the cattle – or Lil. She thought he was after strays. She’d only worry if she knew what he was up to.
The sun still hung high, but Del had called a halt outside Caldwell, Kansas. Barely north of the border with Indian Territory, the town was a welcome sight after the empty land they’d just crossed. They were also badly in need of supplies. Del and Chic had ridden into town to pick up a few things, just enough to last them the short distance to their destination.
Tye set himself and drew again, faster this time. Speed, that’s what he needed. He knew he could hit what he aimed at. He’d hit that Cheyenne who tried to make off with Lil.
Since then, he’d gotten in more target practice against a gang of white horse-thieving outlaws. They’d tried to drive off the remuda in broad daylight but had paid for their boldness, two with their lives. Tye bet the survivors would think twice before taking on the next crew that came up the trail.
Choctaw Jack had caught a bullet through his arm during the fray. Otherwise, no TC riders had been hurt. Now, barring trouble with shorthorns – local farmers who had no love for Texas longhorns – they should reach Wichita in two, maybe three days.
Tye would be glad to see the end of the trail, but he hadn’t forgotten Frank Howard’s threat. Although Del had told him about Judd Howard’s pledge to keep his son under control, he doubted the blustering troublemaker could be corralled. Therefore, he meant to be ready. Slipping his gun back into his holster, he prepared to draw once more, but froze when he sensed Lil’s presence behind him.
“That tree can’t shoot back like Frank Howard,” she said.
He pivoted to see her walking toward him. She’d left her horse among the trees and had approached soundlessly. If the apprehension eating away at her hadn’t shot past his mental barriers, shattering his concentration, she would have surprised him.
“I know that,” he snapped, disgusted because she’d found him out.
She stepped close. “Tye, you don’t have to meet him. You don’t even need to go into Wichita. You can turn around outside of town and ride back south. I’ll go with you. Please,” she implored.
He smiled and feathered her cheek with his thumb. “I told ye once, love, I won’t run from the man.”
“Damn you!” she flared, batting his hand away. “Why do you have to be so prideful? Do you want to get killed?” Dark eyes snapping furiously, she started to spin away, but he caught her arm.
“Let me go!” she gritted, trying to pull free.
Tye dragged her into his arms, tipped her hat out of the way, and kissed her. She fought him for a brief moment, then gave a choked sob and surrendered, kissing him back.
Her fiery response resonated through his mind and body. He lifted his head a fraction and whispered, “I’ve never made love to ye in the light of day. I’d like to this once.” One of the men could come riding over the hill and find them in the act, but he didn’t care at that moment, and feeling the excitement surging through Lil, he knew she felt the same way.
“Yes!” she cried, face flushed with desire. She stepped back and began to tear open her shirt, a wild look in her eyes.
He couldn’t take it slow this time; Lil wouldn’t let him. Pulling him down into the grass, she took him into her without any preliminaries and answered his every move with a fearsome urgency that brought them both to a rapid, explosive climax.
Chest heaving, Tye collapsed next to her. She rolled toward him, molding herself against him, and sighed in contentment. Smiling, he kissed her temple and lay a forearm across his eyes to block out the sun.
As soon as they reached Wichita, they’d best find a priest, he thought hazily, because if Lil wasn’t pregnant now, she soon would be. Somehow he would manage to care for her and the family they created; he must because he couldn’t give her up. He’d finally admitted the fact to himself when that Indian had almost stolen her away from him. In truth, he’d known it long before then but hadn’t dared ask her to give up home and family for him. Even now, with Del’s evident approval, he hesitated to speak his heart.
Oddly, Del’s about-face toward him was part of the problem. The man would likely want Lil and him to live on the Double C, and Tye’s pride rebelled at the prospect. He didn’t want to feel like a charity case – or a carpetbagger, as Frank Howard had called him. He wanted to provide for his wife and children himself.
Then too, there was Rebecca Crawford’s hatred of all Yankees, Irish ones in particular. Tye doubted she would ever accept him as her son-in-law.
“Do you miss mining?” Lil asked out o
f the blue, pulling him from his ruminations. “Do you ever want to go back to Colorado?”
He lowered his arm and opened his eyes to find her watching him. “Nay, I’ve given it no thought. I’ll not be running to Colorado to avoid Howard, either, Lily.”
She was about to argue, he could tell. Seeking only to stop her, he said, “Besides, I can’t go back there. Not after what happened.” He should have known that was the wrong thing to say, that it would lead to her asking questions.
“After your partner being killed?”
“Aye.”
“His name was Tom, I recall.”
“Aye, Tom Pearce.”
“You told me he died in a cave-in. But you didn’t tell me how it happened.”
He drew away from her and sat up. “Nay, I didn’t.”
“I’d like to know. Please, Tye.”
He looked at her, admiring the lovely picture she made, her slim golden body glowing softly in the sun, framed by the tender green grass that formed her bed. He was tempted to lie back and distract the both of them with a sweeter kind of conversation, but he decided it was time she knew the truth about him. Part of it at least. She had that right if she was to become his wife.
Pulling a long stem of grass, he rolled it between his fingers, staring at it, wondering where to start. He shrugged and said what came to mind. “Tom was so sure we’d hit pay dirt. He wouldn’t admit we’d made a mistake by signing the lease.”
“Lease? What do you mean?”
“’Tis a custom Tom and his countrymen brought over from Cornwall, from the tin mines. Ye lease a low-grade section of the mine that the owners can’t be bothered with, and they give ye a portion of the profits. Forty percent in our case. And there’s the chance ye might strike a fresh vain. That’s what we gambled on, but we lost. After paying for supplies and our keep, we had precious little to show for almost six months’ labor.
“If Tom hadn’t been in a froth to strike something before our lease was up, and if I’d only stood my ground, maybe the accident wouldn’t have happened.”
By now Lil was sitting up next to him. When he paused for a long moment, she gently stroked his back. “Tell me,” she coaxed.
He took a breath and let it out slowly. “We’d done some blasting that morning and were digging broken rock from the ore face. Tom was putting his all into it. Too much so. I told him I didn’t like the looks of the ceiling and we should stop to timber it. Shore it up, that is. But he wouldn’t listen.”
As he spoke, Tye stared into the past, reliving the scene.
“Lord save us!” he muttered as a mighty swing of Tom’s pick sent chunks of ore flying. The rocks struck the stone floor and clattered down the inclined stope they were working.
“Timbering takes time,” the burly Cornishman argued, swinging again. “I want to see if we’ve struck anything first. Come on, put more muscle into it. Our lease runs out in two weeks. Do you want to uncover a rich vein just in time for the company to collect all the profits? The greedy devils rake in enough off our broken backs as it is.”
“I’ll grant ye that, but I’d rather walk away empty-handed than not a’tall.”
“Not I! I mean to walk away with my pockets lined with silver. And what’s happened to ye, bucko? Have ye forgotten the dreams that brought ye west? Where’s the daring lad I once saved from breaking his neck?” Tom chided as more rocks flew.
“He’s right here, ye big ox. And he’s seen too many men die in these infernal pits to be taking fool chances.”
Perched on a ladder, Tye gouged out a patch of loose rock, using a more cautious approach than his friend. Ten or twelve feet across, the ore face was nearly equal that in height. While he worked the upper right half, Tom worked the left, standing on a second ladder.
Tom laughed. “Quit fretting. I’ve crawled around mine tunnels since I was a boy of ten. I know what I’m doing. Besides, we have your famous luck o’ the Irish to protect us, don’t we?”
“Lucky, am I? After gophering the hills for two years without finding a thing, I hardly think –” A loud cracking sound cut him off.
“Tom!” he bellowed, seeing the ceiling start to give way above the other man’s head.
Screaming hoarsely, Tom jumped off his ladder. He stumbled, caught himself and took a step toward Tye. Then a huge slab of falling rock caught him square on the head and flattened him to the floor.
“No!” Tye roared as he hurtled off his own ladder, knowing Tom’s skull must have been crushed. He crouched low against the ore face and covered his head with his arms while the cracking noise grew to a thunderous rumble. Expecting to die, he muttered a hoarse prayer, then cried out when a large rock ricocheted off his right forearm, snapping a bone.
Eyes screwed shut, he sucked air between his teeth and clutched the arm to his chest. Slowly, the agony diminished to a sharp throb. By then, the noise had also subsided into a heavy, dark silence. All the candles had been snuffed out.
The dust-laden air made him cough, sending fresh shards of pain through his arm. When the coughing passed, he pulled a match from the fistful in his pocket. After several shaky, left-handed tries, he managed to strike it, but the tiny flame hardly dented the blackness.
Cradling his broken arm against him, Tye searched the rock-strewn floor around him. He used up three matches before he found what he was looking for, a partially used candle, and got it lit. Then he pushed painfully to his feet.
He took a few steps and halted as the candle revealed what he’d dreaded seeing. Debris had tumbled down the incline, and timbers had given way in the older section of the tunnel, totally blocking it a short distance from where he stood. The barrier might extend dozens of feet beyond that. He was trapped, doomed to a slow, miserable death unless the other miners got to him in time.
Lifting the candle high, he saw why he wasn’t already dead. Overhead, a patch of ceiling held fast. But for how long?
His gaze shifted to where Tom lay buried beneath a heap of massive stones. He couldn’t leave him like that. Wildly, he glanced around and spotted the handle of his pick. Stuck between two boulders, only the tip of it showed. Tye deposited his candle on a flat rock and set about freeing the tool. It was an excruciating process, but he finally succeeded.
One-handed, he clumsily swung his pick at the cairn of rocks covering Tom. The impact reverberated through his broken arm, but he clenched his jaw, pried loose a stone, and swung again. When he absolutely had to, he rested. Once, he permitted himself a swallow of water from the bucket he’d filled before work. The liquid tasted metallic with rock dust, but it was wet. Thank God he’d set the bucket in the corner near him, or it would have been smashed. Like Tom.
By the time the candle guttered out, Tye had grown light-headed. He sank to his knees, eyes shut against the darkness and pain. Now what? He’d found no more candles and he couldn’t hold a match and dig at the same time. If he tried working without light, he’d likely stab himself in the foot, if he didn’t collapse first. It was useless; he couldn’t get Tom out.
“Why didn’t ye listen to me?” he cried. “We should have stopped to timber. Oh God, I should have made ye listen!”
Grief swamped him. He hung his head and shuddered with the force of it, not caring how much his arm hurt. Tom was dead. Tom, who’d saved him from falling down that mine shaft in Utah, who’d befriended him despite the bitter rivalry between Irish and Cornish miners. Aye, Tom was dead, and the blame was his, Tye admitted. They wouldn’t even be here if not for him. He was the one who’d wanted to try his luck – that cursed thing – in Colorado, and he’d convinced Tom to come with him. Not only that, he’d pushed Tom into staying here, when the man had been ready to give up and go home.
“’Tisn’t bad enough I’ve wasted my own life. Now I’ve killed ye, Tom,” he choked out, wiping his damp eyes on his filthy shirtsleeve. “But you’ll have company soon, my friend.”
Soon . . . .
Tye returned to the present with a jolt. Only half aware
of what he had told Lil, he glanced at her. She sat quietly beside him, waiting for him to continue. The compassion she was feeling for him washed through him like a comforting elixir. He didn’t deserve it. Looking away, he quickly summed up the rest.
“I figured I was as good as dead. My lunch pail was buried, God knows where, so I had no food and only enough water for a few days. If I was frugal. That was assuming the air lasted and the ceiling didn’t collapse completely. I doubted anyone could reach me in time.”
He didn’t mention the sadness he’d experienced, thinking of Tom’s family and his own, waiting for word that would never come. Or the terrible guilt of knowing he could have prevented all of it from happening.
“There was nothing to do but wait for the inevitable. I slept when I could, when the damned arm would let me, to escape the blackness. Sometimes when I was awake, it seemed to close in, as if trying to smother me. I’d light a lucifer match to hold it at bay, but eventually they ran out. After that, well, I suppose I went a bit mad.”
He laughed dryly. “I was certain I’d lost my mind when I began to hear faint sounds coming from beyond the stone barrier sealing me in. With my water running out, the arm paining me and despair clouding my mind, those sounds were merely another form of torment. I was certain they weren’t real. ’Twas only the Tommyknockers, the evil elves Tom believed in, playing tricks on me.
“I was almost gone when they dug me out, along with Tom. If they’d been one more day, perhaps only a few hours, I’d have been laid to rest with him on that mountainside.” Tye examined his right forearm, turning it this way and that. “It still aches at times – a reminder of him. And that black hell.”
“How long were you trapped?” Lil asked.
“Six days, not so long as some who’ve lived to tell the tale.”
“Dear God! Six days sounds plenty long to me.”
“It was,” he said. “So, do I miss ferreting around in the bowels of the earth? No. But I do miss Tom. Very much.” He swallowed hard. “He’s dead because of me, Lily. If I hadn’t talked him into coming to Colorado, if I hadn’t given him cause to stay, he’d be alive and well. ’Tis a wonder you’re still alive, curse that I am.”