Sahara Splendor

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “Ma’am, it’s up to you,” he said gently to the woman in gingham, “but we found enough lumber for coffins, and, well—we got your men ready as best we could. McGee’s fetched his Bible, and he’ll say a few words, when you’re up to it.”

  No one had ever looked lonelier than Elizabeth Kent. Head hung low, she clutched her hands beneath her rounded belly and willed herself not to cry. Roxanne embraced her, saying, “If it’s too much right now—if you need your rest before—”

  “Let’s go. I won’t sleep, and it won’t get any easier, come tomorrow.”

  It was a brief service yet meaningful, thanks to Fergus McGee’s rhythmic intoning of the Scriptures and a prayer. Sahara and the Pruitts escorted a weak-kneed Mrs. Kent back to the house while the men tended the graves…only two, she noticed. Dusk was deepening into night, and after they finished packing the clodded soil around the coffins, Madigan and Charlie fetched bedrolls and blankets from the wagons. The drivers chose to sleep in the barn where they’d be close to the freight, and Roxanne, Mitchell, and Mr. Jenkins spoke for the remaining beds in the house after Sahara insisted she could sleep outside.

  “I’ll be fine,” she told her protesting hostess. “It’s cooler under the trees, and I can bathe, to prepare myself for my visit to Fort Riley tomorrow.”

  But the price of horses and supplies for the army was the farthest thing from her mind once she slipped out of her dusty clothes and into the deepest spot in the stream out back of the house. The gentle current eased her tired muscles while the cool, fresh water was balm for her aching soul. A small grove of cottonwoods formed a curtain between her and the house, and the rippling leaves provided a soothing kind of night music.

  Sahara ducked beneath the surface and came up slowly, savoring the breeze on her wet face and the chirping of the night insects, and the easing of her troubled spirit. Underwood was right: she’d done all she could, and tomorrow she’d invite Elizabeth to join them for a ride to the nearest kinfolk, or to wherever she cared to go. No woman, no matter how strong, should remain to grieve in a place so vulnerable to surprise attack.

  A twig snapped behind her, and she sucked in her breath. Bathed in moonlight, a tall, shadowy form emerged from behind the cottonwoods, clad only in dark pants. Sahara crossed her arms over her breasts, her heart pounding as she recognized the man who studied her from the shoreline.

  She didn’t dare holler for the others—he could run off with her clothes, and then what would she do? Summoning strength into her voice, Sahara returned his unflinching gaze to keep from watching the hand that unfastened his fly. “What’re you doing here, Tom?”

  Underwood chuckled, slipping his hands beneath the waistband of his pants. “Just helping out, Miss Sahara. Seems you forgot your soap, and I know how to work you into quite a lather.”

  Chapter 15

  The water around her grew suddenly cold, and Sahara shuddered with goose bumps. The powerful, dark figure on the bank inspired fear rather than desire, and too late she was wishing she’d put Tom Underwood in his place when he’d made all those suggestive remarks.

  His privates sprang out of his fly. She had to get away from him now, regardless of who she exposed herself to, because this mule skinner would make short work of satisfying his lusts once he got ahold of her.

  An ominous click echoed over the water. “Better put that back in your pants, Tom.”

  Underwood peered anxiously around in the darkness, searching for the owner of that deadly voice. Sahara closed her eyes in relief and stood stock-still, the water lapping around her shoulders.

  Madigan stepped out from behind the trees. “Remember what happened to Alonzo and the hands? How those Indians tortured them?” he demanded. “Now get the hell away from her, or we’ll be digging another grave.”

  “You’ve got no call to—”

  “Sure I do. As Mrs. Spade’s partner, it’s my place to protect all her assets,” Dan insisted. “So are you leaving, or do we raise your voice an octave?”

  Swearing, Underwood yanked his pants up and stomped toward the barn. Dan lowered his gun, and then eased himself down onto the grassy creek bank.

  “Thank you,” Sahara breathed.

  “Hate to say this, partner, but you had it coming,” he replied. “The men’re crazy for you, and I don’t think you realize how you encourage them with your smiles and talk. Coming out here alone to bathe and sleep wasn’t one of your brighter ideas, honey.”

  “So I noticed.” She studied his moonlit profile, wondering if she should bring up the subject of the station keepers again. “Want to tell me about Alonzo and his hands? From what I saw, they made for a pretty grisly cookout.”

  Madigan closed his eyes against the horrid memories of disfigurement, the stench of charred bodies. It was a shame to discuss such atrocities on a starry summer night, but perhaps Sahara would take warning from them.

  “Bean thought it was Cheyenne, maybe a few from other tribes,” he said tiredly. “Kent and his men were staked to the ground, and then their right arms were slashed to the bone—a Cheyenne marking—and their tongues had been cut out and replaced by…another body part, before they were set afire. The two hostlers were so mutilated we put them both in the same box. That’s why you shouldn’t go off alone—and why I threatened Underwood’s manhood the way I did. I doubt we’ll ever forget what we saw today.”

  Sahara’s body stiffened with horror. That explained why only two graves had been dug, and she was glad Elizabeth hadn’t witnessed the brutal onslaught. She glanced around, wondering if she’d see shadows that weren’t there until they left this station. All inclination toward bathing had left her, and she let out a nervous chuckle as she took a step toward the bank. “Not much point staying in here, getting all wrinkly, since I did forget my soap.”

  “Here—catch.”

  Sahara made a breathtaking sight when she reached up to grab the wildflower-scented bar he tossed her. Her eyes widened in her glistening face; her hair clung to her shoulders, but didn’t cover the rounded, enticing peaks that bobbed out of the water. Madigan suddenly knew how they could salvage what had been one god-awful day, but he wouldn’t force the moment.

  Inhaling the scent of the soap Miss Zeralda had given her, Sahara gazed at the lithe man who studied her so raptly. “Do you intend to sit there all night, keeping watch?”

  “If I don’t get a better offer, I suppose that’ll have to do.”

  His husky voice drove away all the gruesome, hard facts she’d faced today. Dan cut a lean, mysterious shadow in the moonlight, and even though she couldn’t discern his facial features, she could feel the tug of his virility, could hear the silent call of his desires as clearly as if he were speaking aloud.

  And her body was responding. The place between her legs warmed of its own accord, and Sahara knew it was more than the chilly water making her nipples point at him like pistols. “What if somebody else comes out here?”

  “They won’t. By now Underwood’s spread the word, and the men’ll keep their distance. For tonight, anyway.”

  She hadn’t wanted her drivers—or journalist Jenkins—to find out about the claim Madigan had staked on her empire, but she was too glad he’d shown up to berate him for breaking the news about their partnership. All day he’d proven himself as capable of handling the harsh aftermath of an Indian attack as he was of balancing her books, and maybe…just maybe this man could balance out her life, as well. Her new wealth didn’t make her immune to life’s heartaches: if anything, it had alienated her from Bobby and set her up as a target for randy fortune hunters. A good, solid friend would be a valuable asset, and the time seemed right for telling him so.

  “Come here, then,” she whispered. “Let me wash away your dirt and worries.”

  Her invitation was a potent aphrodisiac. Madigan stood to strip off his shirt, and then slowed his feverish actions to make the moment last. Sahara was following his every move with avid eyes that caught the moon’s silvery reflection from the wate
r. She was a lovely nymph with worries of her own, and she deserved the slow, intimate pleasures he’d not had a chance to lavish on her during their hurried coupling at the reception. “Lord, but you’re a sight,” he murmured.

  “Come tell me that to my face, Madigan. Come prove it, with your hands, and…whatever else you think’ll make your point.”

  Had Sahara spoken so brazenly to anyone else, he’d have slapped her—his emotions ran to extremes these days, it seemed. But she was saving the best for him, when she had every man she met sniffing after her, so he was happy to comply. That particular part of him was eager to please, too, and when she caught sight of it as he dropped his pants, her sharp intake of breath gratified him to the core. “See anything you want?” he teased.

  “I want it all, Dan. You, this night…the excitement of wide, open spaces,” she said in a silky voice.

  “Then, you’ll have it. Whatever your heart desires, Sahara.”

  He stepped into the water, tall and strong and graceful. She fell in love with him then—or had she been so preoccupied by recent events that she didn’t realize how deep her feelings for Madigan already ran?

  It didn’t matter. Dan opened his arms, and she rushed toward his even, white grin and the intoxicating musk of a well-muscled body that had worked hard in the sun. Shameless it was, to be so drawn to a man who’d come here as much to seduce her as to protect her! But what was the harm of being two bodies, two souls, yearning for the same release?

  Sahara’s lips were open, willing, and as he kissed them his hunger for her became an obsession. Her softness startled him, because her pants and shirts had disguised the femininity she was offering him now. Pale shoulders glowed in the moonlight; wet hair made a dark, erotic path down her back to an enticing set of hips he grasped with firm hands. She was an eager little mermaid, and she was his.

  “I’m going to lather you all over,” he murmured as he slid a knee between her legs, “and then I’m going to make slow, sweet love to you, Sahara. The way I’ve wanted to love you all along.”

  Who could argue with such a promise? He was balancing her on a taut, solid thigh, holding her close while he rubbed the soap in hypnotic circles all over her back. His touch was magic, and his motions had the curious effect of relaxing her shoulders while bringing a more private part of her to aching attention. The hair on his thigh caused a delicious, unexpected friction, and Sahara forced herself to sit still so that she wouldn’t be embarrassed by her wiggling.

  “That’s the wickedest grin I’ve ever seen, young lady,” Dan teased. “Are you sure you didn’t pick up a few pointers at Zerelda’s?”

  “Nary a pointer came my way,” she rasped, “but yours seems willing enough!”

  She didn’t know the half of it. And as she arched backward to allow him access to her slick breasts and stomach with the soap, Madigan came damn close to exploding. With a moan, he lowered her to rinse the silvery bubbles from her chest, and then he suckled her hungrily.

  Sahara fell back against the corded arm that held her, a victim of the most excruciating exhilaration. He’d driven her mad in Spade’s grove, but here, without the hindrance of clothing, his wet, silken skin was a new sensation. He was devouring her, prodding her with an insistent ridge as his mouth explored every inch of her.

  She swung her leg around him, and the meeting of their warm, vibrant flesh made them gasp in unison.

  “Not yet,” Dan insisted against her ear. “Who knows when we’ll love again? I refuse to hurry this time.”

  “Fine. But this rubbing up and down has its own merits, don’t you think?”

  “You’re impossible!” he growled, and he staggered toward the bank, clutching her against him. She couldn’t know the riot she was inciting, but she was about to find out.

  Sahara felt herself being lowered, and then gasped when cool grass met her back and Dan stretched out on top of her, long and lean.

  “You’re forcing me to go faster than I intended,” her lover whispered.

  “And you hate it. I can tell.”

  “You—” He found the warm, wet sheath he longed for and filled it with a thrust that made them both writhe in burning agony. Sahara was meeting his every motion, urging him on with her breathless whimpers as her head lolled back in the pillow of grass.

  He exploded with a rush that left him mindless. She squirmed against him, stifling a cry on his shoulder.

  When Dan could coax his muscles out of their daze, he raised up to look at her. She wore a sweet, sated smile that made a man’s usual questions about performance unnecessary. As he stroked the damp tendrils from her face, he overflowed with a peace that passed all understanding, and a love that could only increase with the telling. “I think this makes us partners in every sense of the word…for all time,” he murmured.

  Sahara’s eyes fluttered open, and she had to blink the mist away. “I love you, too, Dan,” she replied solemnly. “I once accused you of using that word too loosely, but you’ve been right all along. Right about a lot of things.”

  Her sentiments made him want to stand up and shout for joy, but instead he kissed her with an exuberance that mellowed into a deep satisfaction in its own right. Dreams had come true today, more dreams than his heart could hold.

  Without a word he brought their bedrolls over and arranged them side by side, beneath the canopy of cottonwoods that sheltered them from prying eyes. When he stretched out, Sahara snuggled against him, amazing him with the way they fit together: man and his woman, two pieces in destiny’s puzzle.

  “Sahara…what do you want more than anything else?”

  Dan’s tone was serious yet wistful, inviting the confidences that only lovers in the truest sense could entrust to each other. She sighed and stroked the down on his chest.

  “All my life I’ve wished I was a man. Not because of the body difference,” she added quickly, “but because men are listened to. They always get more respect than a woman, no matter how stupid or obnoxious they are. They make the rules, and they break them, and their women suffer the consequences. I’ve been either ignored or put in my place all my life, and I don’t like it much.”

  Her words stunned him. Sahara’s past was no picnic, he knew, yet he never realized how powerless she must’ve felt—how insignificant, and invisible. “You…you’ve done pretty well in spite of it. Lately, anyway.”

  “Have I?” She frowned up at him, knowing she had to make her point if Dan Madigan was ever to understand her enough to love her fully. “Look what I had to endure to get where I am! It was a stroke of pure luck that Spade keeled over, or I’d be more of a slave than

  I ever was when Bobby was dragging me from job to job.

  “It’s not all those companies and all that money I care about, Dan. Hell, I can’t count that far!” she said with a rueful laugh. “But for the first time in my life, people take what I say and do seriously. Maybe someday I’ll even have their respect. Imagine that!”

  Madigan studied her small, earnest face, grazing the edge of her lower lip with his finger. “I think you’re well on your way to earning the highest regard, Sahara—from those you work with, to those who’ll watch your success with great interest in the coming months. And I consider it my highest priority to see that you flourish, financially and personally, as well. You deserve no less, my love.”

  Sahara felt a lump rising in her throat. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then, tell me you love me, every day,” he said in a husky whisper “and say you’ll grant my fondest wishes, just as I’ll see to yours.”

  She swallowed hard, nodding. Such serious talk between people lying nude beneath the night sky—a preacher should be present! But perhaps God’s stars and the pale, yellow moon were witness enough to their heartfelt exchanges, and Dan certainly deserved the same attention and consideration he was so willing to give her. “All right. If it’s in my power to give, you’ve got it.”

  “Oh, you’ve got the power, all right,” Madigan breathed
. His heart was hammering against hers, and he felt more than naked as he prepared to share his innermost desires with the fetching young woman beneath him. “You had that long before you became Sahara Spade.”

  She raised an eyebrow, waiting.

  His line of thought suddenly seemed too intensely personal to speak out loud, but he couldn’t back down

  now—she’d be furious with him. Dan cleared his throat. “All my life, I’ve wanted a woman,” he began in a hushed voice. “A woman who loved only me, who wouldn’t forsake me or leave me, or make light of my affections.”

  Sahara nodded, thinking how his mother had done all those horrible things when she went to Spade’s bed. “Are…are you talking about a wife?”

  “I need more,” he insisted quietly. His eyes appeared ebony and fathomless, and his breath fell gently upon her face as he considered the rest of his statement. “I need the part of my soul that’s never been allowed to surface. It’s been tucked away for more than twenty years…ever since I sensed that my mother’s vows meant even less to her than her husband did. I’m an emotional cripple, begging to walk straight and tall, Sahara.”

  She took a deep breath. No man could ever have a more important request. “And you think I can help you do that?”

  “I know you can. I’ve seen how you care for every person you meet, how you give so freely of yourself,” he said solemnly. “All you have to say is yes.”

  Lord above, Dan Madigan was proposing. She understood exactly how stifled and abused he’d felt all these years, and her heart yearned to help this handsome, gentle man—a mission any woman would gladly undertake.

  But his request could very well negate all the desires she’d expressed to him moments ago. If she married him, he would have access to all her holdings—no paying him off, like she could if their business alliance went sour. She would be his wife, subject to his authority legally and in the most intimate ways…and once again, she would be regarded as part of a man’s household; dependent upon him especially after the railroad rendered Spade Express obsolete. She’d be beneath him, in the eyes of the world, rather than an independent force to be respected and reckoned with.