Sahara Splendor

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “If you’re ever going to keep a promise to me, Dan Madigan, you damn well better start now,” she challenged. She needed this strong, virile man to teach her how it felt to be a woman treasured in the normal, tender ways Spade could never show her. If they were caught, she’d lose the stagecoach business and probably her life, but such things mattered little, considering what she’d suffer as the express baron’s wife.

  She reached up under her layers of lingerie, grinning wickedly. “Last one to drop their drawers is a rotten

  egg·”

  Who else but Sahara would issue such a dare? Dan’s hands shook as he reached for his belt buckle, watching her grope for the silken cord that would unveil her loveliness. It was a balmy summer night, and he was with a spritely young woman whose surprises had kept him on the edge since she’d pointed that pistol at him; and he was just fool enough and just drunk enough to believe their luck would hold this time. As her drawers slithered down her perfect, pale thighs he shoved his trousers and underwear past a throbbing part of him that could no longer be denied.

  “Looks like we both win,” he rasped while he struggled out of his pant legs. “Crawl on top or we’ll ruin that dress.”

  It was an invitation Sahara didn’t need. The risk of being caught by other couples with the same idea made her move more quickly than she wanted to, fast enough that Dan’s rigid manhood didn’t intimidate her. She’d seen him before, after all, and as her bare thighs met his, she reveled in the taut, warm strength moving beneath her. He felt every bit as heavenly as she’d imagined, and once she got her full, lacy skirts arranged, she looked down at his devilish grin and smiled.

  “Sahara, you’ll be the death of me, but right now I couldn’t care less. Kiss me, honey. I’ll get you ready for—”

  Her mouth was a little too wayward with the whiskey, and she was wriggling like an excited puppy on top of him; but this was no time to instruct her in the slower pleasures of lovemaking. She was a sweet, invigorating armful of femininity, sophisticated enough to be alluring, yet rough enough around the edges to challenge him. Dan wrapped his arms around her and led her in an urgent kiss, to distract her from the momentary pain their loving would cause her.

  But Sahara wanted none of his stall tactics. She’d looked through Zerelda’s armoire peephole long enough to know what happened next, and she wanted that—now! Dan was tall, so she’d have to escape his delicious kiss to capture the more enticing pleasure that was prodding at her bottom. She released his lips and slid down toward her destiny.

  Madigan arched upward, reeling with the ecstatic madness that was Sahara. He tried to evade her, to ease this first coming together, but the feisty little sprite in his arms slid down onto him like she’d been made for this moment—made for him alone! His low cry mingled with hers, and they were riding swiftly toward a release he’d wanted to let her savor; but she was too far gone to hold back. She’d found an angle that favored them both, and Sahara made a stirring sight with her breasts thrusting forward and her head lolling from side to side, delirious with rapture.

  He realized then that to control this creature was to crush her wild, wanton spirit—a mistake no sane man would make! Dan gripped her lush hips and drove them both to a shattering climax.

  Sahara collapsed on his heaving chest. Madigan had his faults, but hellbent-for-leather lovemaking certainly wasn’t one of them! His arms tightened around her, and he drew her up for a slow, tender kiss that cleared her whirling head.

  She had just married one man and made love to another. All hell was going to break loose any moment now—she could feel it. “Dan, we’d better run for those horses if we’re going to—”

  “I had a fine time loving you, too,” he said with a low laugh. “Wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am’s not my style, Sahara. You’re too fine a lover to let go of just yet, and a couple minutes of quiet will help us think more clearly.”

  He was nuzzling her temple, showing her an affection she’d never known, and she let out a long sigh. “Sorry, I—I got a little crazy, and the punch went straight to my head, and—”

  “Oh. I was hoping I had something to do with that wickedly good whirlwind we just kicked up.”

  Rising onto her elbows, Sahara looked down at him. Madigan wore a roguish grin, and his dark eyes sparkled with heart-stopping delight as he returned her gaze. “You’re a fine piece of work, Madigan. I guess for all this lace and refinement I’ve picked up, I still have a few things to learn about being a lady, huh?”

  Dan laughed, stroking the loose curls that tumbled over her shoulder. He was about to reassure her that she’d learn all those things in time, and that he could be the most patient of teachers, when a stealthy crackling of twigs made him stiffen. “Don’t move,” he whispered. “We’ve been spotted, but at least this way your dress is covering—”

  “Well, well, what have we here?” an oily, familiar voice came through the darkness. “This proves what you reported the first time, Caldwell. Fine job. Now get lost while I take care of this little problem.”

  The bottom dropped out of Sahara’s stomach. She heard a muffled chink, like a sack of coins being caught, and her humiliation was overtaken by rage. Spade had talked to Bobby—paid him to spy!—and now he was ambling toward them, laughing low in his throat.

  He stopped a few yards away, stuffing his hands into his pants pockets. “You and I will discuss this later, my wayward bride,” he said in a menacing voice. “Now get back to the house—to your room—without letting anyone see you! And by God be ready when I join you in a few minutes.”

  Sahara wanted to swear and cry out and run for her life, but the moment she got up Madigan would be exposed—

  “Don’t mind me. Do as he says,” Dan urged in a low whisper.

  His eyes told her he wanted to say more, but knew better. Before she rose, she grabbed her veil and her lacy drawers, and then handed him the trousers that were puddled beside them. “I—I’m sorry—”

  “I’m not. Take care, Sahara. My plans haven’t changed.”

  He watched her stumble barefoot through the trees, heard her quiet sobs, and felt lower than a snake’s belly. Dan pulled his pants over his feet, chiding himself for listening to the impassioned pleas of a wood nymph too inexperienced to realize the trap she’d set for them.

  “I should kill you, Madigan, but I’m too damned excited to shoot straight.”

  He didn’t reply. He merely stood and buttoned his fly, too sickened to talk.

  “I guess you know those romantic-sounding lies you told her will be just that—lies,” Spade continued, “because next time I will kill you. But you’ve done me a favor, breaking her in, giving me a glimpse of the wild young woman I’m about to tame, so we’ll say no more about this little episode. But watch your step, Madigan. This ranch has eyes.”

  Chapter 7

  Sahara fumbled with the laces of the black corset, thankful it closed from the front, because Spade would probably squeeze the life out of her if she had to have him tie it. Ordinarily the aroma of good leather appealed to her, but this contraption—and the accessories that went with it—disgusted her as much as sitting in a saddle naked, trussed up with harnesses, would. Unlike decent corsets, this decadent undergarment was stepped into and stretched up over her entire torso, until it gripped her between the legs, revealing a vee of skin where the lacers crisscrossed and tied between her breasts. A man every bit as deranged as Spade had surely designed it!

  But by God, she would beat Spade at his nasty games! He wasn’t the only one who could fight dirty, and cheat and lie to get what he wanted. He was pacing in the adjoining room, like a randy bull pawing in its pen, and his treachery only fueled her fury.

  So he thought he could tame her! Maybe Madigan tiptoed around the express baron’s moods, but he had a lifetime and a livelihood to preserve. Sahara cared little for such things if it meant kissing Horatio’s fat ass for years to come, so she had nothing to lose.

  Her reflection in the mirror shocked her. Ne
ver had she cut a more jaded figure, like one of Satan’s angels or

  a panther intent on the kill. The black corset, stockings, and boots were a startling contrast to her skin, and her amber hair wreathed her face in windswept disarray. She practiced a mean, bloodthirsty grimace or two, and then slipped Zerelda’s derringer into the top of her stocking.

  Finally she took the whip from her carpetbag—a blacksnake, Camille had called it. Its potential for pain made her cringe; it seemed to writhe with evil as she took the handle in her hand. She’d never wielded such a wicked instrument, and a little practice seemed appropriate. Violence sickened her; but her life might be on the line tonight, and a pistol full of blanks was no protection from a beast like Spade.

  Coiling the whip loosely in her hand, Sahara tossed it as she’d seen bull whackers do, and then snapped her wrist. A satisfying crack rang in the air. A vase teetered on the shelf before crashing to the floor.

  The pacing in the next room stopped.

  The silence was eerie, as though die remaining revelers in the yard were as startled as Spade was. A slow grin crept over Sahara’s face. It was time, while there were still strong men to intercede for her if things got out of hand. Sahara composed herself, and with her spurs jingling and the whip hanging in loose loops from her hand, she opened Spade’s bedroom door.

  Horatio P., naked, made her want to hoot with laughter. Surely the “p” stood for potbelly, because that, and masses of dark hair, and two spindly legs were all she saw. His rapt expression tempered her confidence, however: his gaze raked over her booted, stockinged thighs and corset while his breathing accelerated to the level of a locomotive’s chug as it descended a steep grade. He was deadly, ready to attack.

  Sahara hardened her face. “I’m about to take you for a ride you’ll never forget, Spade,” she jeered in a harsh voice. “I hope to hell you’re ready.”

  His eyes glowed fiendishly, and as he stepped toward her, his hand came from behind him to reveal his own coiled weapon. “It’s I who’ll do the riding!” he declared. “You, my naughty filly, are about to be whipped into submission, bridled and broke to do my bidding.”

  Spade’s jewel-studded fingers were twitching on the handle of his whip. Sahara crouched slightly to caress her gun. “You come at me with that thing, and so help me I’ll shoot your worthless heart out.”

  He was inching toward her, giving her no choice but to circle his spacious room, poised like a wildcat to dodge his lash. Spade looked rabid. His face was the color of raw beefsteak, and he was wheezing, stroking his massive thigh with his free hand as he came at her. Her finger found the trigger, just in case.

  “Did the whores teach you this?” he demanded with a hiss. “Maybe Madigan wasn’t the first. Maybe Zee put you in with her toughest customers to—”

  “Maybe you’re crazy!” she muttered, grasping the derringer’s smooth pearl handle.

  “Damn right I am! Crazy to—throw you to the floor and—plunge into you until you—scream for mercy, Sahara,” he said in ragged gasps. “No woman crosses me! Come here and—take your licks, you little—”

  The moment his hand drew back to release the whip, she heard gunfire—one shot, and then another— followed by shattering glass. Spade’s eyes bugged, and as the lash fell limply to the floor, he clutched his hairy chest and landed beside it with a heavy thud.

  ****

  Madigan covered his head as the bedroom window crashed around him. Crouched on Spade’s balcony, he’d witnessed the most horrifying yet fascinating scene of his life, his pistol aimed at Horatio’s blubbery backside. He heard the gasps of the crowd below and knew he had to act fast.

  Vaulting over the jagged sash, he stuffed his gun into the waist of his trousers. Sahara was gaping at Horatio’s prone figure, quaking, the smoking derringer still in her grip. The brazen vixen in black who’d amazed him with her hard poise now looked ready to faint.

  “Pull yourself together, honey. Here—” Dan shrugged out of his frock coat and wrapped it around her shaking shoulders. “I never dreamed you’d fire—”

  “Zerelda—told me—blanks!” Sahara wheezed. The gun fell from her hand, and the acrid sting of gunpowder pierced her nose. What had she done? She’d only meant to scare him, and he looked awfully dead!

  “We’ll get this out of sight before the others come barging in here,” Madigan said as he reached for the gun, but a swirl of blue skirts and a kid-slippered foot stopped his hand.

  “We’ll do no such thing!” Jennifer declared. “This little bitch shot my daddy, and she’ll hang for it! I’ll see that she pays in the worst way!”

  The room was suddenly filled with men who spoke in low, urgent tones as they stared at Spade’s sprawling form and then at Sahara. One of them had the sense to clap a hand over Jennifer’s hysterical rantings while another man, rather rumpled and drunk-looking, knelt beside Horatio.

  The crowd quieted as he rolled Spade onto his back.

  “What happened, Doc?” somebody asked in a hushed whisper. “Did he pass out from all that punch?”

  “I told him he was too old to bed a pretty little—”

  “Here! Splash this whiskey in his face to bring him around!”

  “Save it!” the physician declared as he raised an unsteady hand for silence. “There’s no pulse. Spade’s deader’n a doornail.”

  The group sucked in its breath, and above the horrified murmurs of the ladies peeking in from Sahara’s room, Jennifer began to wail. “She killed him! You’ve all witnessed it—I saw the gun still smoking in her—”

  Dan, who was holding a shaken Sahara against him, stepped forward to protest, but the doctor spoke up sooner.

  “There’s nary a bullet hole. We’d sure see it if there was,” he said with a slight hic. “And the only blood is where he landed on his nose when he fell.”

  “One of her bullets went through the window,” Madigan pointed out, “and there—above the wash-stand—is where the other shot passed. Sahara wasn’t even aiming at him—was trying to distract him and defend herself from him.”

  “Sorry to say it,” the doctor agreed as he tugged the comforter off the bed to cover Spade’s body, “but it appears your daddy’s habits finally got the best of him, and his heart just plumb gave out. Somebody get Walt Beemis up here. We’ll be needing an undertaker before tomorrow’s heat hits him.”

  Chapter 8

  Not a tear was shed at Horatio’s funeral two days later. The heat was intense for June—or was it the hell-fire Spade was roasting in, making them perspire in their suits and mourning dresses? It would be a long, hot summer if Jennifer kept smoldering at all of them, her blue eyes narrowed to vengeful slits, so Sahara was relieved when Spade’s daughter turned away from her and grabbed the attorney by the elbow as they were walking away from the small family burial plot.

  “We need to talk, Mr. Dulaney,” she said tersely. “It’s obvious that hoyden who calls herself Mrs. Spade duped my daddy into changing his will, and I want it rectified immediately!”

  The attorney’s eyes widened behind his wire-rim spectacles as he glanced at Sahara and then took Jennifer’s arm. “You’re upset about your father’s passing, my dear, and there’ll be plenty-of time to discuss—”

  “Time? It’s already too late!” she spouted, making her ringlets quiver with her indignation. “Everything was to be mine, and now she gets the express company and Daddy’s other holdings, while all I’m left with is a couple of houses and this poor old horse farm!”

  Ezra Dulaney, a gentleman with graying muttonchop whiskers and a decorous air, stopped to compose himself. “This is highly irregular, what with your father’s grave not even covered yet, and—how do you feel about this, Mrs. Spade?” he asked, his gray eyes bright with trepidation. “It’s your place to decide when the will shall be executed.”

  “Suits me fine to see to it right now,” Sahara replied. “It’ll save you another trip in from town—and it grieves me to think that Miss Jenny’s upset about her dad
dy’s decisions,” she added in a honeyed voice. “I think Mr. Madigan, as Mr. Spade’s accountant, should also be present. We can go right on into the study.”

  “I agree,” Dan said from a few steps behind them. “Everyone should know exactly how the chips are to fall so there’ll be no misinterpretations of Horatio’s wishes.”

  Mr. Dulaney glanced at each of them, shaking his head. “Seems to me you already know how the document reads…cold-blooded bunch of…highly irregular,” he mumbled as he approached the house.

  While he seated himself behind Horatio’s massive desk, Jennifer wasted no time locating the will in the safe concealed behind a large portrait of her mother. “Look at all this scratching-out! You can’t tell me such a paper’s legal, considering the—the unsavory circumstances of Daddy’s marriage and death.”

  “When I spoke to him at the reception, he mentioned a few changes he’d made, and—” Mr. Dulaney peered over the top of his spectacles to read Spade’s scrawlings—”it appears here exactly as he recounted it. His wife, normally the beneficiary of a man’s estate, is to receive the Spade Express Company, along with the other accounts and holdings detailed in his files, while you, Miss Jenny, hold title to the homes in New York, Washington, St. Louis, and this ranch—its house, the buildings, the extensive pastureland. I advise both of you to beware of the unscrupulous suitors who will soon descend upon you. And considering the somewhat strained circumstances, I recommend that Mr. Madigan remain on as bookkeeper and ranch manager.”

  “I plan to retain him, yes,” Sahara replied calmly.

  “You?” Jenny blurted. “Of course he’s staying on, to be sure you don’t make off with so much as a silver spoon that belongs to me! We’ll see how long you want to play Queen Sahara after Dan and I get married!”

  Dulaney cleared his throat. “And how do you feel about all this, Mr. Madigan?”

  “I think I deserve a raise,” he said with a quiet chuckle, though he knew the coming weeks would be anything but funny. “Working for two women looks to be a lot harder than answering to Spade.”