Speaking was new to him and he didn’t answer but reassured her with his gaze and his hands on her buttons. Heart beating wildly, she closed her eyes and caught a sharp breath as her bodice opened and she felt the brush of warm fingers against the swell of her breasts.
Her distress was severe enough that she would never remember removing her shirtwaist and skirt or her petticoats. But she would always remember the strange freedom of being naked in the open night air, and the dizzying, wrenching need to cover herself and shield her legs from his eyes. Shamed, wanting to hide, she dropped her head and did not look at him until he spoke.
“You are so beautiful,” he breathed. Standing over her, rampant in the moonlight, he gazed down at her body. “You are as lovely and as perfect as I imagined you would be.”
Afraid to believe, afraid to trust, she dared a look at him and felt her heart wrench when she read his expression and understood that she truly was whole and beautiful in his eyes. She was as magnificent to him as he was to her.
“Oh, John,” she whispered, choking. Unable to speak further, unable to see him through a blur of tears, she opened her arms and he came to her. Kneeling, he clasped her tightly against his chest and she sucked in a hard breath when her breasts touched his naked hot skin. She hadn’t beleived she would ever again know the touch of bared hearts meeting, would never again experience the thrill of a man’s quickening breath and mounting passion or her own.
Gently, he eased her back on the blanket and warmed her from the night breezes with his body and his kisses and his hands. Unhurried, they explored each other with growing passion and joy. When his fingers and kisses traveled to her right leg, she tensed and would have pushed him away, but he would not allow it, would not permit a single inch of her body to go unloved, unworshiped.
Ceasing to resist, she lay back on the blanket, tears of gratitude and love brimming in her eyes. Then her insistent fingers teased him back up beside her and she began her own exploration with lips and hands and caressing fingertips. When they were wild and trembling with need, drunk with deep intoxicating kisses, John came to her. Gazing into her eyes, he thrust within her and Alex knew a joy that she had never dared imagine. This, then, was what it could be when two people gave of themselves entirely. This was what she had always longed for and had never known in the fullest sense.
Because it had never happened to her before, she didn’t recognize the sweet, almost unbearable tension building between her thighs. Each fevered kiss, each powerful thrust increased her pleasure, and the strange frantic tension raised a patina of perspiration to her skin and turned her wild beneath him. And then it was as if a wave crested and swept her away on a flooding sea of sensation and pleasure more intense than anything she had ever experienced.
When the wave subsided and she could breathe again, she stared up at him in gasping amazement and wonder. “Good heavens!”
Laughing, he bent to kiss her, then he allowed his own burst of pleasure. But he didn’t release her. Rolling to one side, he held her while a breeze played over their cooling bodies, drying the dampness on their skin. If Alex could have been granted one wish, she would have wished that these moments in his arms would never end.
“I was a captain in the Confederacy,” he said against her hair. “A surgeon.”
Holding her, speaking softly, he told her about his practice before the world went mad, and then he spoke of the horrors he had witnessed during the war. He remembered young men with shattered limbs and broken chests, and the despair of knowing he could not save them all. How he had almost welcomed his capture by the Union as an escape from the death and destruction he dealt with every day, and his own bone-deep weariness. But there had been horrors in the Union prison, too. When the final release came, he’d weighed 105 pounds, and the atrocities he had witnessed had seared his mind.
“I returned to my home in Atlanta, but there was nothing left. The foundation still stood, everything else was gone.”
“Were you married?” Alex asked. It was the first she had spoken in an hour.
“Elizabeth died before the war,” he said, stroking her hair. “My son and parents died the night Atlanta burned.”
“I’m so sorry.” Now she understood why he had chosen solitude and open spaces far from the company of men.
Easing away from her, he sat up and reached for the basket beside the blanket. He offered her a plum and a canteen of water. “It’s not very romantic,” he said, smiling at the canteen, “but the best I could manage in the circumstances.”
Laughing, Alex sat up, astonished that her nakedness and his did not embarrass her. She couldn’t have dreamed this would be possible.
“But I did bring you a present.”
“A gift?” she asked in surprise, wiping plum juice from her lips.
He reached to the side of the blanket and lifted the long narrow package she recalled seeing earlier. “Every person in the outfit helped with this. Dal bought the hickory at the Red River Station. Freddy cut a piece of canvas from her tent. Les found the padding among items in Ward’s wagon. Grady cut and cured the rawhide for the straps. I did the carving. There wasn’t a man in the outfit who didn’t help with the smoothing and polishing, including Luther.”
Alex blinked at the package and horror dawned in her eyes. The plum fell from her fingers, and she clutched the blanket with both hands. “John, no! I’ll never wear it.”
He untied the string and opened the cloth wrapping. She stared in revulsion at moonlight gleaming softly on the wooden leg. In a horrible way, it was a work of art, she could see that. Knowing anatomy as he did, John had shaped the wood to approximate an actual leg. At the top was a padded canvas cup with a harness contraption that would hold the leg firmly in place. At the bottom was a large wooden knob.
She scurried backward on the blanket as if he held a snake in his lap.
He caught her icy hands in his. “Alex, please listen.” Ashen-faced and trembling, she jerked free and clapped her hands over her ears. “I can tell you a hundred times that Payton’s death was not your fault, but you’ll never believe me. So I’ll tell you this. However Payton Mills died and for whatever reason, you have punished yourself enough. Nothing you do will change what happened that night. You can confine yourself to a wheelchair and shrink the world around you. You can deny yourself convenience and happiness. You can seclude yourself and define your life by the stairs you cannot climb, by the pleasure you will not allow yourself. And Alex? None of your misery or self-punishment will bring Payton back or change one minute of that night.”
“Payton would be alive if it weren’t for me!”
“The time has come to forgive yourself and go on. Would Payton want you to punish yourself for the rest of your life? Was he that kind of man? I can’t believe it, Alex. You wouldn’t have chosen a cold, vengeful man for a husband.”
She had always assumed that Payton would be as unforgiving as she was of herself. Odd that she could forgive others, but not herself. Never.
“I can’t,” she whispered, staring with abhorrence at the wooden leg. “I’m sorry, I just… I can’t.”
John caught her hands and stroked them. “Alex, I beg you. Put the past behind you. Do you really think you were spared that night so you could live in misery and blame? Is that why you didn’t die, too? So you could make yourself unhappy for the rest of your life?”
White-faced and choking, she jerked her hands out of his and reached for her clothing. “I don’t want to hear this!”
“I love the woman who had the courage to face down a stampede. I love the woman with the determination to pick herself up every time she falls. I love the woman who drives those stubborn mules and shoots the snakes. That is the woman I want to build a life with. Not the woman who wants to retreat to her wheelchair when this cattle drive is over.”
“You don’t understand. No one does.” Hurrying, she dressed herself and fastened her buttons with shaking fingers. She had longed to hear him speak, imagined it a hun
dred times. But now all she wanted to do was escape the torrent of words. Her need was so intense that she would have crawled to her chair if John hadn’t stood, pulled on his pants, then pushed the chair to her.
“Please, my love. Stand upright and give us a future. Live again.” He met her eyes in the starry light as she rose to her knees and gripped the arms of the chair. “Walk into my arms and let me love you forever.”
“Please. Just take me back to camp.”
He stood behind her for a long moment, his hands on her shoulders. Then he silently pushed her back to the campfire. “John…” she said, when they reached the chuck wagon. But she couldn’t tell him that she loved him. He would interpret her love as a promise for a future together.
But they had no future. He could throw away her ring, but not her obligation to Payton. Not her guilt. Tonight, she had betrayed Payton in a way she had never dreamed she would. It was madness to consider even for an instant that she would reward her betrayal by walking upright again.
“Please,” she whispered, rolling away from him toward her bedroll. “Burn that thing.”
In the morning, she found the wooden leg on her worktable. Furious, she would have hurled it into the campfire except Caleb and Dal were already up and waiting for their coffee. They watched her with smiling expectation and she remembered John explaining that everyone in the outfit had helped craft the hideous appliance.
Tears glistened in her eyes as she threw the leg into the bed of the wagon, then concentrated on preparing breakfast.
“The worst thing that can happen is if the cattle panic and go into a mill in the water,” Dal warned, addressing them all. “We’ve got solid footing on either side, and we won’t have the sun in our eyes. The point steers will follow a horse, so I’ll lead us in and we’ll swim the herd as a unit. If we break into smaller bunches, we’ll never get the beeves to enter the water. Keep the herd compact and don’t allow any gaps. Keep them moving.”
His gaze found Freddy and Les. “Three cowboys died last week crossing this river. This one is dangerous even for experienced hands. I want both of you to ride the forward swing today. And the sooner you’re across, the easier I’m going to breathe. Any questions?”
Les had a thousand questions, but her mouth was too dry to speak.
“All right, then.” Dal settled his hat on his head and flexed his shoulders, his gaze lingering on Freddy. “We’ve done this before. Good luck everyone. Let’s move ’em out.”
Les wet her lips and mustered a ghostly smile for Freddy. Since Freddy’s arm was still weak, Freddy would ride on the upstream side of the herd. Les had agreed to take the more dangerous position on the down side. If she was swept off her horse, there was nothing to catch her, nothing to prevent her from being swallowed by the violent river. Suddenly, her boots felt as if they weighed a hundred pounds. She wasn’t a strong swimmer in the best of circumstances; weighed down with boots and clothing, if she fell into the water, she was dead.
Ward intercepted her on the way to the remuda. Clasping her arm, he leaned close to her ear. “You heard what Frisco said. Do something to start a mill in the water. Do it, Les! I’ll be watching.” He increased the pressure on her arm. “I’ll cross about a half hour behind you,” he warned. “If you don’t do as I’ve told you, you’re going to be very sorry.”
Without speaking, she jerked her arm free and found her saddle, taking extra care today with the girth cinch before she swung up on Cactus. Farther upstream she could see Alex’s chuck wagon already on the ferry. Luther and Jack Caldwell stood beside their wagon, waiting their turn to cross.
It was a beautiful morning, clear and dry, but a tense excitement quivered in the air. Some of the Red River Station people lined the bluffs to watch, knowing the potential for disaster was high. After murmuring a quick prayer that everyone in their outfit would cross safely, Les urged Cactus forward and swung into position alongside the herd. Freddy rode on the other side of the longhorns and forward, the drovers spaced out to provide as much coverage as possible.
When the drovers were in position, Dal rode past Les waving his hat, pointing it north. He cut in front of the lead steers and moved toward the riverbank. A good trail boss never let his stock trot, and Dal didn’t allow it today, but he set a brisk pace. He wasn’t going to give the leads time to think about entering the turbulent waters. If the lead steers went in without balking, the rest of the herd would follow.
Les lost sight of him when he rode down the bank, and she didn’t release her breath or her grip on the pommel until she saw him reappear in the river. Water churned around his waist and all Les could see of the buckskin was his head. Behind Dal came two sets of horns, then the rest of the herd. That’s all Les could see of the swimming animals, just their horns bobbing up and down above the surface of the rampaging waters.
But the lead steers had not balked. The herd was going in smoothly. She released a breath, then gasped as one set of horns began to drift away from the line of animals crossing the river. As she watched, the horns turned form north to west and swiftly flowed downstream. An instant later, the horns sank and were gone.
All too soon Les saw Freddy set her mouth in a grim line and urge Walker into the heaving waters. Off to her left, she noticed a longhorn mired in quicksand. He wasn’t bawling yet, but he would be soon and that would make it difficult for the drovers behind her to hold the herd squeezed down. There wasn’t time to worry about it.
Suddenly the floodwaters tossed in front of her. She felt Cactus tense beneath her and hesitate, then she swallowed hard, dug her heels into the horse’s flanks, and they plunged into the violent waters. To her right were floating horns and the eerily silent animals straining against the currents. To her left, a cottonwood gave way and crashed into the river. One of the steers turned his head, eyes wild, but Les’s body blocked his view. “Keep going,” she crooned, her voice shaking. “Nothing to fret about, old boy. Keep swimming.”
Cactus’s legs were off solid ground and cold water swirled up around her waist. Leaning forward, as frightened as she had ever been, Les wrapped her arms around the horse’s neck and clung for dear life, struggling against powerful currents that plucked and snatched at her. An eternity elapsed before she felt Cactus’s hooves strike solid ground, then they were coming up out of the water dripping on the muddy, trampled north bank, the steers struggling out of the river alongside her.
She waved her hat in the air and it was all she could do not to release a relieved and exuberant shout of triumph. Freddy twisted around in the saddle to give her a thumbs-up sign, then they drove forward, running the glistening cattle into the main herd.
Dal was waiting, grinning when he saw their wet clothing and wide smiles. He nodded to Les. “I know you’re worried. Go back and watch Ward cross, then get your butt back here.” He called to her before she was out of hearing. “Stay well downstream so you don’t spook the herd.”
She cut west and found a low spot with an unobstructed view. Slipping off Cactus, she walked to the edge of the boiling floodwaters to watch. In a way there was something beautiful about the steady stream of cattle coming down the bank and entering the water, the drovers beside them. Sunlight flashed on bobbing wet horns that appeared to float across the river. The water sparkled and hurled bubbles of foam into the air.
Then she saw Ward. He’d spotted her and was frowning angrily. By now he knew that none of the steers in her charge had drowned. She narrowed her gaze. By his hesitation at the edge of the raging waters, she could guess that he was having second thoughts about crossing on horseback. Dal had told him not to, but he’d stubbornly refused, insisting no one had the right to stop him. His mount backed away from the water, moved forward, backed away again. Pride would take him into the flood. He wouldn’t ride away and choose the ferry, not after watching her cross. But she could see that he was frightened and regretting a foolish decision.
A great weariness settled on Les’s shoulders as she thought ahead to the punishmen
t she would face tonight. They had lost one steer to the quicksand and one to drowning and more would be lost before the crossing was accomplished, but none of the losses could be attributed to her. Ward would make sure she paid for that omission.
She had started to turn away, deciding she didn’t want to watch him cross, when his horse reared and plunged into the tossing river. White-faced, Ward fell forward and grabbed the horse’s neck even before the churning waters whirled up around his waist.
And then something happened in the middle of the floating horns. The center seemed to collapse as the animals there broke the line and spun into the downstream current. Gasping, Les stepped forward, smothering a scream. The horns swept toward Ward, struck him, and his horse sank beneath the surface. Thrashing in the water, unseated, he tried to grab at the horns around him. Then, he was tumbling in the violent currents, and all she could see were flashes of his arms and legs. Voices screamed on the shore, but Les didn’t hear anything except the rush and roar of the river. The steers that had been swept out of the herd vanished beneath the waves, but Ward was struggling to swim, to break free from the deadly current and thrashing animals and angle toward the bank. He was whirling toward her.
His head bobbed above the surface about twenty feet from where she stood, and his eyes met hers. His mouth opened and he shouted something, but she couldn’t hear. He stretched a hand toward her. Their gazes held as he sped abreast of her, then the current hurled him downriver and dragged him underwater. Dashing forward, Les scanned the turbulent surface and her heart slammed against her chest. Frantically, she searched for some glimpse of him, but there was nothing.
The greatest horror came when she looked down and saw her rope in her hands. She might have thrown him a lifeline, might have saved him, but she hadn’t even tried.
The Best Man Page 32