by Jodi Thomas
“You have to promise me that you’ll go on as soon as the children can travel. Miss Alyce says she knows the way. She believes the rest of Black Kettle’s people are deep into the Palo Duro Canyon, where caves offer shelter and the stream never freezes. She says all we have to do is reach the south rim of the canyon and follow it. The tribe will find us from there.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“It wasn’t necessary for you to know.” She lowered herself beside him, bracing her side against the saddle where his head had been only a moment ago.
“Right, General,” he answered, harsher than he’d intended. How many times had he not known where he was headed until all hell broke loose? You’d think he’d be used to it by now.
“I’m sorry,” she sounded tired. “I just…”
Without finishing, she leaned against the saddle he’d been using for a pillow and lowered her face.
“McCall?” Sloan brushed her shoulder. “McCall, are you all right?”
She didn’t answer.
He pushed her hair back and touched her face.
“McCall?” Pulling her into his arms, he brushed his cheek to hers.
With sudden panic, Sloan lifted her up and walked through the darkness toward the camp, yelling for Miss Alyce.
“What?” the old woman answered, running from the shelter. “Stop that yelling or you’ll wake the children and anyone within a hundred miles.”
Sloan moved into the light and lowered his voice only slightly. “She’s got the fever.”
To his utter surprise, Miss Alyce turned her back and began wetting strips of cloth with her potion. “I know that, young man. I’ve been watching her for hours. I also knew there was no use in trying to make her stop until she dropped. Not my McCallie. She could outrun the wind, that one, when she was a child. I can’t say she’s slowed down much over the years.”
Sloan lowered McCall onto a blanket. She looked almost peaceful in sleep and that frightened him more than the fever. “Do something,” he ordered Alyce, who still seemed far more interested in her work than in McCall.
The old woman looked at him with eyes as hard as a tombstone. “I’m not in the habit of helping folks with no wish to live. She’s been running and fighting every battle she can to get herself killed. I guess now is as good a time as any. I’m too old and tired to fight both her and Death’s Angel. If she dies, she gets her wish. Death comes to us all. You should know that by now, young fellow.”
Sloan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re her friend! She told me you were there when she was born. You’ve helped her all her life.”
“Well, I don’t have time to help her now. I’ve got the children to think of. I’m not doctoring someone who longs to lie beside her husband. It’s been three years since her man died and she’s still wearing black. I guess we can bury her in it.”
“You’ve got to help.”
“I’m too old,” Miss Alyce answered. “Maybe I love her too much to see her go on living, trying to walk in the shadow of her husband. He wasn’t that good, anyway. Not like all of them thought. He was just a man. A man who cared more about honor and glory than he did about his wife. If he had cared, he would have brought my McCallie home and got her busy having babies instead of having her follow him from one battleground to another.”
Sloan brushed the damp hair off McCall’s cheek. “We’ve got to do something.”
“No, young man.” Alyce Wren crossed her arms. “You got to do something. ’Cause I’m not lifting a hand.”
He had a feeling there was little time to argue. “What do I do, old woman?” He decided he’d strangle Alyce Wren after he helped McCall.
Alyce smiled a wicked smile that made Sloan more angry, but he held his tongue.
“First, you take her between the wagons. There’s a space there that will be warm enough and out of the way of the children. I don’t want them seeing her sick. They have enough to worry about.”
Sloan lifted McCall as he stood. “Then you start washing her down with cool water. Not so cold she gets the chills, but cool enough to bring the fever down. Once she’s resting comfortably, lay a few strips of these over her chest.” Alyce handed him a cotton strip she’d soaked in her pot of herbs. “When she heats up again, wipe her down with the water. When she wakes, try and get her to drink. I’ll make some of that tea she likes if I have time.”
“That’s all?” Sloan moved slowly toward the space where the two wagons formed a vee. “What else?”
“That’ll keep you busy, young man.” Alyce took several blankets and followed him. “Except if she dies, I’m holding you responsible.”
The old woman didn’t help him spread out the blankets, but tossed them on a pile of dried grass and walked away, leaving Sloan to fend for himself.
He lowered McCall against one of the wheels and spread the blankets. Then he rolled his jacket into a pillow.
When he lowered her onto the bed he’d made, she moaned softly and whispered, “Promise.”
“I don’t need to promise,” he mumbled as he worked. “You’re not dying on me, General, and that’s an order.”
Seven
MCCALL MADE NO protest as Sloan removed first her jacket, then her blouse. Calling her name, he tried to coax her into opening her eyes, but the fever had clouded her mind. He swore angrily at the softness of her skin and the beauty of her body laced beneath a thin camisole. He told himself he didn’t want to touch her, that he was only doing what was necessary. Sloan couldn’t stop himself from circling the wet cloth gently over her flesh even though he was sure he’d done it enough.
Again and again he dipped the cloth in the pan of cool water and moved it over her forehead, face, and arms. The night grew colder, but she still burned with fever beneath his touch. Alyce brought tea and helped him remove McCall’s heavy skirt and boots to make her more comfortable under the blanket. But the old woman wouldn’t stay. She seemed determined to leave McCall’s life in Sloan’s care.
He tried to explain that he was no nurse. His hands were awkward and calloused. Alyce turned a deaf ear and McCall seemed beyond hearing. So Sloan did his best with sometimes clumsy, sometimes frustrated, but always persistent attempts.
Finally, near dawn, McCall cooled slightly and he tossed the cloth in the pan of water for the last time. Lifting her up, he began wrapping the strips of smelly cloth around her rib cage. McCall’s head leaned against his chest as he worked. The light of the campfire danced off her creamy camisole, making it almost transparent.
Slowing his progress, Sloan told himself not to look at her. But how could a man deny the perfection in his arms? He’d seen a few overly made-up, underdressed saloon girls in his day. He’d seen paintings, mostly over bars, of nude women. But he’d never seen anything like McCall in his life.
Sloan closed his free hand into a fist, determined not to touch her. She’d made it plain she wanted no part of any advance he might make. A woman like her would never allow a man such as him to hold her. She hadn’t let his hand rest on hers earlier when they’d sat by the campfire. How would she react if she knew he was so near now?
But he was holding Heaven. His fingers still closed in a fist, Sloan brushed her throat with his knuckles. Slowly, as if fighting a battle he couldn’t win, his fist moved lower to the skin of her shoulders and along her bare arm. The warmth of her flesh was setting his blood afire.
Sloan felt as if he had twice the fever of McCall. He lowered his hand and held her against his side, listening to her breath, filling his senses with the smell and feel of her.
When she moved against him, settling into a deeper sleep, Sloan raised his hand once more, but this time not in so tight a fist. Gently, he touched her face, stroking to her throat with the back of his hand. With light brushings, he ventured lower until his fingers rested in the valley between her breasts. He could feel her heart beating against his touch. The softness that lay on either side of his fingers pressed lightly against
his hand with each breath she took.
“Touch her, young fellow,” Alyce Wren whispered from just behind Sloan. “You’re already caressing her with your stare. Go ahead and see what she feels like.”
He jerked his hand away and looked up. “What did you say?”
“I said touch her. She’s a young woman. She needs to feel a man’s caress, if only while she dreams.”
“I can’t,” he answered.
“No matter how much you want to?” Alyce asked.
“No matter how much I want to,” he answered. “She wouldn’t welcome the touch if she were awake.”
“How do you know? I think you sell yourself short. You’re one of the valued ones in this life, just as she is. I knew it the moment I saw you. You’re one of the few men I’ve ever seen who might just be worth enough to stand beside my McCallie.” The old woman looked at him closely. “Or bed her,” she mumbled.
“I know she doesn’t want me within three feet of her,” he answered bitterly, remembering that first night out when he’d tried to kiss her. “I know how she reacts, and you’re crazy to suggest such a thing.”
Alyce snorted a laugh. “I only wish I’d been more crazy in my life. McCall’s never been allowed to be wild a moment in all her days. First that father of hers wouldn’t let her. He made her march around the house like she was a little toy soldier and not a girl. Then her husband, who thought she’d enlisted when she married him. Now the worse jailer…herself. But there’s a passion in her bloodline. A passion that needs a lover’s touch.”
“That’s the way she wants it. It’s not my place to change it, old woman.” He couldn’t believe Alyce Wren, who called herself McCall’s friend, would suggest such a thing as him touching McCall while she slept. The beautiful general would probably shoot him if she knew he was even thinking of such a thing.
“Well, you’ll have to change your mind if you’re going to keep her alive, because I’m not doctoring her. Before this fever breaks she’ll have to be bathed and cooled a dozen more times. The more of her you touch with that cloth the faster she’ll cool. Then you’ll have to keep the herb across her chest so she can breathe it. Hold her up from time to time so she can drink the tea. When her fever starts to cool, you’ll have to keep her warm with your body.”
Alyce folded her arms in challenge. “You’re going to have to touch her, or she’ll die, so there’s no use you acting like I’ve asked you to commit a crime.”
Without another word, Alyce lowered the blanket Sloan had rigged as a curtain from the others. He wanted to go after the old buzzard and shake her until her last few teeth fell out, but he couldn’t leave McCall.
Dawn came and went in shaded light but Sloan didn’t sleep. He did as the old woman had told him until his arms ached. Slowly, an inch at a time, he became used to her body, reacting to the need to help more than his need to touch. As the day passed he worked, bathing when she was hot, wrapping when she cooled, and forcing as much liquid down her as he could whenever she moaned.
By nightfall, he was too exhausted to move. If an army of men rode into the camp, he wasn’t sure he had the energy to lift his Colt. Alyce checked on him now and again, telling him that two of the children’s fevers had broken. But when he mentioned her helping, she informed him she still had no time and that McCall was in danger. He’d better stay close and keep doing the best he could.
Around midnight McCall slipped into a peaceful sleep and Sloan lay down beside her, curling around her still-hot body. He pulled the blankets to her chin and placed his arm across her shoulders to keep them there.
“Good night, General,” he whispered, too tired to even care that she’d probably kill him for sleeping beside her if she lived.
They both slept until first light, McCall moved only a few times during the night, thrashing the covers off when her fever broke and pulling them near when her body cooled. Days of going without sleep caught up with Sloan. He moved instinctively to cover her without waking her, letting his hand slide over the blankets atop her breasts as though he’d touched her a thousand times.
The light filtered into their tiny space. Sloan could hear the children waking just beyond the blanket curtain. McCall moaned in her sleep and his arms pulled her into their warmth.
“Shhh,” he whispered, moving his arm beneath the layers of wool. “Sleep now, General.”
His hand moved along her bare shoulder and arm. McCall sighed again at the dream she was enjoying and turned slightly. Sloan’s next passing captured her breast with a gentle stroke. The light camisole did nothing to bar the warmth of his hand as his fingers molded around her flesh.
McCall bowed her back slightly so that she pressed harder against his open palm. His hand fit her breast to perfection.
Somewhere in the midnight of sleep, Sloan’s mind fought to awaken. At first he thought he was dreaming, but he’d never had such a dream. The feel of her full breast beneath his touch was too real. He moved his fingers slowly, caressing the peak beneath the silk, testing the fullness, enjoying the softness.
She rocked, pressing herself hard against his hand, and Sloan came full awake. In the shadowy light he could see McCall relaxed in sleep only inches from him. She looked like an angel, with her face so pale and her dark hair fanned out around her. Her hands rested just above her head as her body rocked in pleasure against him.
She sighed softly and moved again, begging him to continue touching her.
Sloan closed his fingers once more around the perfect mound. He pressed his palm against the center and circled, tugging at the tender flesh.
McCall made a sound almost like that of a cat content in the sunshine. Her lips parted slightly in sleep.
He stroked again and her mouth opened more…begging to be kissed.
The heat within Sloan felt like it might explode through his skin. He’d never touched anything so soft, so full, so addictive to feel. A hunger to place his mouth where his hand rested was greater than any hunger he’d ever known. He wanted to taste the peak with his tongue and tug against her softness with his open mouth.
He brushed the thin silk aside, loving the softness beneath…loving the way she responded. All his life he’d been afraid to touch people. A simple handshake was something he did with a moment’s hesitation. And women—women were definitely off limits. He could never bring himself even to think of forcing himself on a woman as he’d seen other soldiers do. He didn’t figure many respectable women would welcome his advances. So he was left thinking he’d live his life without such pleasure. But McCall was accepting his touch as a gift, responding to it with only joy.
Hesitantly, he kissed her forehead and smiled as he realized the fever had passed. She wasn’t delirious. With his lips still brushing her temple, he moved his hand again, enjoying the bolt of pleasure that shot through his arm and filled his body with lightning’s fire.
She leaned against him, pressing the length of him. He stroked her breast with slightly more pressure, and she moved once more. Slowly, like a man learning an instrument one string at a time, he played across her breast, responding to her moves of pleasure with more of what her entire body seemed to be begging him for.
Her arms stretched above her head to give him full range of the needy mounds. He kissed her on the cheek gently in thanks, tasting her skin with the tip of his tongue. This gift she was so willing to give him was more priceless than she’d ever know. His hand slid across her chest to her other breast and tugged at the material still covering what he longed to touch. He fanned his fingers over the silk and pressed, branding her lightly with his touch. When she didn’t respond, he cupped her breast and tightened his grip slightly, capturing the warm fullness in his hand.
She moaned with the pleasure he’d waited to hear. But he didn’t pull the material away. He wanted to make her move against him once more with only a light touch. He wanted her mouth to open again and silently beg for more. His palm circled above her camisole in feather-light brushes while his fingers stroke
d the side of her silk-covered breast until her head turned back and forth as though pleading for more. Tightening his grip, he smiled at the response she gave. He was stirring a fire deep within her with his touch, and he planned to enjoy every step as it built.
Slowly, he pulled the material from her breast and covered her peak with his lips. She moaned once more and began to move her entire body in a rhythm against him as he sucked gently at her tender flesh.
Sloan leaned above her and cupped the sides of her breasts as he tasted first one, then the other. He was so close he could feel her body moving beneath his, but he didn’t lower himself. His fingers fumbled with the ribbons of her camisole until he pulled them free and exposed her chest to the waistband of her petticoat. For a long moment he could only stare. She was so beautiful she took his breath away. No, he thought, she took far more than that. The sight of her shoved all thought, all reason from his mind. How could he ever tell her that the look of her was the first beauty he’d ever seen in this world?
Slowly his hands spread wide and moved from shoulder to waist. She arched her back with each passing, and with each passing he increased the pressure over her breasts, loving the way she welcomed him. Alyce had been right, he thought, a passion did run in her blood. A passion she allowed to surface only while sleeping.
As she cried out softly when his fingers covered her, Sloan lowered his weight over her body and captured her open mouth with his. Mindless to all else but the feel of her, the taste of her, he kissed her deeply and passionately. When she moved beneath him, he raised his hands to her hair and buried his fingers into the mass of softness about her face.
Sloan’s passion-drugged mind took a minute to register that she was no longer moving in pleasure, but shoving and pushing away from him.
He released her immediately and rolled to his side just as the full blow of her fist slammed into his face.