“I’ve had time to rest,” she answered huskily and rolled over so she could be closer to him. A foolish notion, since they were separated by barely an inch.
“Perhaps your fingers are cold as well?” His voice deepened.
Her eyes widened. Her hands were usually tucked around him when they slept. How could they become cold?
He curled her fingers around his and kissed them, his mouth moving over them so softly his lips felt like an angel’s wing. She shivered convulsively. “Morgan…”
“You’re definitely chilly. The altitude must be playing games with your delicate flesh.” He stroked her arm and his hand found her breast. His breath caught in his throat. “Or perhaps I’m a fool to be talking when I could be kissing you.”
She chuckled at that and leaned forward, wrapping her arm around him. “You’re a chatty one tonight.”
He kissed her sweetly, lingering over the little details of tongue and teeth. She stroked his back, relearning in the most primal way what she’d nearly lost to the afternoon’s storm. Her breasts tightened against him and she moved closer, eager for more.
He slipped one leg between hers and rubbed her gently. To her shock, its hairy, well-muscled length seemed made to excite every nerve on her thigh, with all of them ending directly in her pearl. She moaned involuntarily when her core clenched hungrily, sending a burst of liquid fire through her veins.
He groaned against her and kissed her neck. She arched for him, sighing, and raked her nails down his back. His cock jerked against her, sending lust rippling through her. Such a favorite activity that she might never have done again with Morgan.
In the dark, under the covers, the scent of Morgan intoxicated her—horses and leather, with the faint sharp tang of pine. Every part of his body seemed made to excite her—from the hard edges of his hip bones, to the arcs of his biceps and the great wall of his chest, down to the long sweep of his thighs and calves. Even the knobs of his toes.
His different textures lightly abraded her softer skin, driving her frantic with hunger for the sharp pleasure of his taut little nipples, or the neat mat of hair on his chest. Or the wilder, stronger hairs on his legs that sent shockwaves through her pearl and up her spine when he rubbed her calf. And then there were his intimate hairs when he rubbed himself over her, after sheathing himself in a condom—and she knew she’d feel those hairs exciting her folds as he rode her.
“Morgan,” she moaned, half-insane from the heat pounding through her. “Please…”
He chuckled a little brokenly and slipped into her easily. She slid her leg up over his hip and clung to him, digging her nails into him. Her precious, precious man.
His cock jerked and he began to thrust rhythmically. She moved with him, her muscles fighting to hold him. Part of her wanted to remain like this but rapture beckoned.
He groaned something and his tempo increased. Hunger for him clawed at her. His shoulders hunched until he was driving in and out of her. She trembled and fought for the orgasm hanging so tantalizingly close. “Morgan, Morgan, Morgan…”
His hand slipped between them and pressed her clit. She gasped, bit down on his shoulder, and tumbled into orgasm. Climax was a swirling wave of pleasure that raced through every fiber of her being, cleansing and refreshing. An instant later, she felt him shudder in the grip of the same wave.
She fell asleep in his arms, still tangled together like cats before the fireside.
Morgan smiled ruefully down at his slumbering lady. Poor darling, she had to be exhausted. They’d journeyed twice as far as usual, in order to make it across that precipice. Then there’d been the thunderstorm, plus the cleanup—and now his attentions. He smirked.
But damn, he’d been terrified when he saw her out on the ledge, looking for him. If he’d had any doubts before about being in love with her, they were gone now. He was completely, passionately in love with Jessamyn Sophia Tyler Evans.
The question was how to win her.
To start with, he would stay close and keep other men away. He bared his teeth into the darkness. Like hell he’d let anyone else near her, now that he finally had her!
He’d have to prove that he was nothing like that bastard who stole her mother, of course.
And he’d bind her to him with as much companionship, protectiveness, and sensuality as he could. He grinned.
Starting now.
Chapter Eighteen
Three days later, Jessamyn rode down another mountainside on Starshine. Eyeing Morgan’s back with the broad shoulders and the lean waist so easily adapting to Chaco’s movements, she almost wished she didn’t have to find the gold. It might be better to travel with Morgan and his brave companions through these timeless mountains and forests for the rest of her life.
On this sunny day, they were riding beside a babbling brook through an aspen forest, whose leaves sounded a gentle welcome after the jagged granite they’d labored to cross during prior days. Birds darted and sang in these woods, while the ground was carpeted with wildflowers. An hour earlier they’d seen an elk herd and Lowell had tickled enough trout to provide an excellent dinner.
She sighed. Her bay mare flicked an ear back inquiringly and Jessamyn rubbed Starshine’s neck. At least she’d have one last, long ride with her old friend.
Morgan held up his hand and Jessamyn brought Starshine to a halt beside Chaco. Behind them, the expedition stopped as quietly as such an assemblage of animals decorated with bells could. Morgan whispered without turning his head. “See the sunny clearing, just a little ahead and to the right?”
She reached instinctively for her field glasses.
“Don’t move,” Morgan hissed. “He’s downwind from us and we don’t want to spook him.”
“Who?”
“He just stepped onto the grass.”
She peered into the forest, through the trees, and gasped. A lynx stood like a king in the clearing’s shimmering light, his tufted ears cocked. A collective sigh went up from the men behind her.
At that, the lynx vaulted into the air, his great paws seeming to whirl him like a top. He disappeared, leaving only the aspen leaves rustling behind him.
Leather creaked and groaned while metal jingled, marking the men’s return to the everyday world. Jessamyn looked over at Morgan, her hand over her chest trying to still her rapid heartbeat. “Thank you, Morgan. I’ve never seen one before.”
Morgan’s gray eyes were as soft and reflective as the lynx’s cloudy fur when he spoke. “He’s the first one I’ve seen up close. Usually you only see their tracks, since they’re nocturnal. Apaches say they’re powerful magic.”
She smiled at him.
They were still enjoying their shared wonder at the magical surroundings an hour later when someone coughed. “Afternoon, Evans. Care to take a look at the next downhill junction?”
Morgan’s head swung around sharply. “What of it, Grainger?”
“You might want to see this river.”
Morgan promptly kneed Chaco into motion and Jessamyn quickly followed.
The downhill junction, where the babbling brook met another, slightly larger rippling stream, looked exactly like many other watery confluences she’d seen over the past weeks: two water courses, with grasses, shrubs, trees, and rocky cliffs rising in the background. Its banks had the merit of being relatively flat and broad, offering a good trail for travel.
Little waited for them under a cliff, watching the stream tumble down the mountain. Morgan immediately rode over to him, pulling out his field glasses. Jessamyn followed close behind him, with Grainger a few paces back.
Silently Little pointed at a rocky promontory by the brook they’d emerged beside. A recent flood had undercut the bank, toppling a ponderosa pine across the brook, and exposing the cliff above. A small chunk of white quartz shone like a beacon ten feet above the ground.
Jessamyn whooped for joy. “It’s the Lizard!”
Then Little pointed upriver at another rocky cliff, this one closer to the str
eam. Morgan inspected it through his field glasses. “There’s another marker there. Anything else?”
Starshine pranced and caracoled, reflecting Jessamyn’s exuberance.
Little turned in his saddle and pointed downstream. In the distance, Jessamyn could see a triangle mountain.
“Holy Moses,” Morgan whispered and lowered his glasses. He’d gone white under his tan.
“Is that the mountain, Morgan?” she demanded. “Is it? Has Charlie been through here? The grass looks undisturbed.” She wheeled Starshine, unable to contain her excitement.
Morgan shook himself and raised the glasses again. He answered her an instant later. “Yes, that does look like the triangle mountain—and no, Charlie hasn’t been through here.”
The rest of the expedition had piled into the little meadow now, bells ringing.
“Gentlemen, we’re back on Ortiz’s trail—and we’ve beaten Jones to this point!”
“Yahoo!” Hats were thrown into the sky, sending flocks of birds wheeling even higher. Horses neighed as their riders encouraged them to rear. “Hurrah!”
“Gentlemen, please restrain yourselves until we see the gold,” Morgan shouted.
There was some slight grumbling but they quieted down. Jessamyn brought Starshine up beside Morgan again, her pulse racing through her veins. Where was Charlie? He’d had a day’s lead on them, besides what they’d lost by the detour.
“We don’t know where Jones is. So from here on, we travel as if we could fight at any moment. Grainger will command our rear guard.”
Nods of acceptance went around. Jessamyn smiled privately. A Union officer to command Southern veterans? The War’s wounds were healing.
“Grainger, Taylor served under Cleburne so he’s the best infantryman we have. Taylor, you’re with Grainger.”
“Yes, sir.” The quiet Arkansan nodded to Grainger, his scarred cheek all too apparent in the afternoon sunlight.
Jessamyn smiled approvingly. Cleburne had taught his men to shoot extremely rapidly and accurately, unlike most Rebel troops, who hadn’t spent their minimal ammunition supplies on demanding, repetitive target practice. Taylor should therefore provide Grainger with excellent firepower.
“Lowell, you ride scout with Little.”
“Yes, sir!”
“As for the rest of you, you know the drill. We travel hard but we don’t risk the horses or mules. We should reach that mountain day after tomorrow, with luck.”
Jessamyn mentally crossed her fingers.
Morgan, Grainger, and Jessamyn now stood well downhill from the triangle mountain, which was undoubtedly the pyramid shown on Ortiz’s map. To be more precise, they stood on the edge of a box canyon, beyond rifle range from the pyramid.
Chills were running up and down Jessamyn’s spine at how well the scene matched Ortiz’s map.
Beside them, the Lizard became a waterfall and landed in the middle of a lake, which was fed by steaming hot springs on its eastern edge. Most of the canyon floor was a verdant paradise of ponderosa pines and grassy meadows. The Lizard emerged from the lake and wandered through the meadows, eventually exiting from the canyon’s narrow southern entrance. The map did not show the box canyon, although it accurately portrayed the Lizard’s journey as a small river down the mountain.
On their left lay a narrow ledge along the box canyon’s lip, in front of a steep hill. This led to a goat’s trail into the box canyon’s eastern side, which was absolutely impossible to traverse except on foot and with extreme caution. Beyond the hill lay a rocky gully, glimpsed through a notch cut by a tiny brook, filled with a giant’s playground of tumbled boulders, rocks, and gravel.
To their right—on the west—a somewhat broader trail led down the mountainside to the box canyon, the only route passable by horses.
The scene’s geography was similar to that of an egg timer. The top bulb, in the north, was the triangle mountain. The lower bulb, in the south, was the box canyon. The Lizard was like the sand running through the egg timer—and out the bottom through a narrow hole. The canyon lip was the egg timer’s waist. The rocky gully was the egg timer’s eastern hip, while the broad trail was the egg timer’s western hip.
“Which route should we take?” Grainger asked, keeping his voice low enough not to be overheard by the others. “The mules won’t have any trouble with the western trail and the men can lead the horses down.”
“Normally I’d agree with you. But this isn’t a normal time and place, not with one of those damn fist-sized chunks of white quartz leading through the notch to the gully.”
“Why couldn’t the marker lead to the right, with the hot springs, and the grassy meadow beside the hot springs…” Grainger snarled, swinging his field glasses around to their left.
Morgan grunted agreement and focused his telescope downstream of the hot springs, looking for the Lizard’s first major turn. A cliff sprang out at him and another damn piece of white rock laughed at him.
“Did you go into the canyon, Grainger?” Morgan asked, scanning the scene through his field glasses.
“No. We spent more time inspecting the gully, which has enough large boulders to conceal a full infantry corps.”
Morgan shot a hard look at the other man over his glasses. “Rounded boulders, water-washed?”
Grainger raised an eyebrow. “How did you know?”
Morgan drummed his fingers on his guns. “The gully looks like an old placer mine, such as California’s Forty-Niners worked, but…”
Jessamyn flinched at how well her lover knew his way around gold mines.
“But?” Grainger prompted eagerly.
“The cliff below us—where that cave is?—looks like it could be a hard rock mine. Ortiz gave us two maps and we have two possible sites for the treasure.”
Jessamyn’s stomach plummeted like the waterfall. “But Charlie’s just behind us!”
“If I know anything about that greedy bastard, he’ll be coming on fast, even if he kills his horses,” Morgan agreed grimly.
“We only have time to investigate one of those sites before he gets here,” Grainger warned.
“So we need to take our party to someplace defensible as quickly as possible, which means the box canyon. If we hold the eastern ridge, the pyramid’s southern slope overlooking the canyon, and the canyon’s southern entrance, we’ll have a fortress,” Jessamyn said decisively, internally smiling at how much she must sound like Cyrus.
The two men stared at her.
Morgan nodded. “Correct, Jessamyn. With luck, we’ll have just enough time to investigate that cave before Charlie arrives.”
“I can take some of the men onto the mountain and form a defensive position,” Grainger said, surveying the surrounding countryside. “Little and Lowell will move out into the forest, in case we need skirmishers. The other men will make camp, ready to do battle.”
“Agreed. Jessamyn, there’s only one cave in the canyon where the gold could be hidden. You and I will investigate it as soon as we have the animals safely corralled inside the canyon. If the gold is there, we’ll fight Jones if necessary.”
She gritted her teeth and nodded assent, despite a heaving stomach. Dear God in heaven, she couldn’t bear to lose him. The thought of laying him out for burial, as she’d done for Cyrus, was intolerable.
Morgan smiled, a very nasty gleam in his eye. “If not, we’ll let Jones see for himself, which should satisfy him that we’re telling the truth.”
The box canyon’s cave was in its western wall and almost completely blocked by stones. Morgan and Jessamyn immediately started to pull them away.
Suddenly she shrieked softly and dropped one of the stones. Morgan spun to face her, his Colt in his hand.
“I’m well, truly I am,” Jessamyn stammered, “but—look at this rock.”
He turned it over so the sun struck it, showing the initials “EJ.” Their eyes met.
“Edgar Jones. Uncle Edgar’s initials. He was here, Morgan, he was here. Oh, the gold has to be
in there!” She started scrabbling to pull the rocks away.
Morgan holstered his Colt, his expression shuttered, and started working faster.
As soon as the opening was big enough for her, Jessamyn started to climb inside but Morgan yanked her back. “No! You don’t know what’s in there.”
“But—”
“You’ll be lucky if it’s only rattlers.”
Did he want to lay his hands on the gold first? Perhaps she was being foolish but so many rich men seemed to be obsessed by becoming richer. “I can use a gun and I’m smaller than you are.”
“I’ll go first, Jessamyn.” His voice softened. “The cave’s ceiling could come down on you.”
She glared at him but grudgingly yielded. “Very well.”
They threw stones aside until the gap was big enough to admit Morgan. He climbed in with his lantern and disappeared, shadows flickering from side to side in the depths. Jessamyn waited, trying hard not to dance in place like an impatient three-year-old. The sound of his boots died away into the chamber.
Finally he came back to the entrance. “Come on. It’s a very deep cave and I haven’t seen all of it.”
She lit her lantern and followed, her heart so high in her throat that breathing was almost impossible.
The cave was quiet, with an entrance chamber large enough for six to dine comfortably in. It had obviously been used by animals although not often. The only sign of human life, beside Morgan’s footprints, were old footprints that had been half-obliterated by dust.
“There’s a passage through here,” Morgan said. “But be careful; it’s very narrow.”
Jessamyn’s throat tightened, almost choking her. She followed Morgan to the back wall, her heart threatening to thump out of her chest.
The ceiling here dropped to just above her height, making Morgan bend as he edged sideways through the passage. Jessamyn followed him and found herself in a room the size of his mother’s drawing room. A gentle breeze drifted through it, teasing her hair. She gasped and started to fall to her knees. Morgan’s iron-hard fingers gripped her elbow and dragged her upright.
The Southern Devil Page 29