To Reap and to Sow

by J. R. Roberts

  “You like that, don’t you?” she whispered.

  Clint nodded and ran his tongue from the exposed skin of her chest up to her neck. “It’s like you can read my mind.”

  Pumping her hips a bit quicker, she rode his cock and said, “I don’t need to read your mind. I can feel everything I need to know right here.”

  Sure enough, Clint was growing harder by the second. Every so often, both of them glanced toward the door, as if expecting to be interrupted at any moment. Although that wasn’t a pleasant notion, the possibility got Lynn wetter every time she turned to the door.

  “We don’t have much time,” she whispered.

  Clint wrapped his arms around her and thrust all the way inside her. That caused Lynn’s eyes to widen and a surprised smile to appear on her face. From there, Clint stood up and carried her right along with him.

  As he lifted her off the bed, Clint could feel her entire body trembling against him. Lynn dropped her head so she could moan directly into his shoulder. She made just enough noise for him to hear, but the way her body trembled and her muscles tensed was almost enough to make Clint let out some noise of his own.

  Clint walked her to the closest wall, but didn’t get there before he felt Lynn grind against him. Cupping her bottom in his hands, Clint helped her ride his cock back and forth while thrusting her hips every so often to get him completely inside.

  Lynn locked her hands behind Clint’s neck and leaned back as much as she could. Her eyes were clenched shut and her expression was a mix of intense pleasure and concentration. She shifted until she found the exact spot she wanted. Once there, it only took a few more wriggles of her hips to get her trembling again.

  For a little while, Clint enjoyed just watching her as Lynn was engulfed by a powerful orgasm. But he couldn’t hold himself off too long before pumping in and out of her again. Soon, his knees were turning weak and Lynn was holding onto him so tightly that he didn’t even need to support her.

  As Clint lowered himself back onto the edge of the bed, Lynn thrust her hips a few more times to push him close to the finish. It was a good thing he was sitting down by the time his climax hit him, because Clint would have been knocked off his feet.

  Slowly, Lynn loosened her legs from around Clint’s waist and lowered one to the floor. She moved away from him and took a staggering step back from the bed. “I wasn’t expecting that,” she gasped.

  Clint laughed as he stood up and pulled his clothes back on. “That’s funny, considering I was about to say the same thing.”

  She used her hands to straighten her hair and pulled her clothes back into line as best she could. “Actually, I wasn’t expecting how I would feel seeing you like that.”

  “Like what? Bloody and covered in dirt?”

  “No,” she replied while tracing her fingertips along Clint’s chest. “Standing up for me even as a gun’s being fired at you.”

  “In all honesty, your old flame and his friend aren’t very good shots.”

  “Mark wasn’t any sort of a flame. At least, not like you mean. And don’t make me explain myself too much. It’s embarrassing.”

  Clint moved toward her and placed his hands upon her hips. “You don’t have to explain anything,” he said. “I think we’ve been doing just fine as it is.”

  “Me too.”

  They kissed once more, but without the fire that had already taken them so far. It wasn’t as if the fire was gone, only that neither of them had enough steam left to rekindle it at the moment.

  Just then, someone started to turn the doorknob. Whoever it was stopped halfway through and pulled the door shut again. A second later, there was a quick knock.

  Lynn smirked as if she was getting away with something and said, “Come on in.”

  The door was pushed open just enough for Wes to take a look inside. Even so, the farmer kept his eyes aimed more toward the floor than anything else.

  “Didn’t know if you were decent in there, Lynn,” Wes said. “I was just wonderin’ if you knew where Clint was.”

  “I’m right here,” Clint replied.

  That brought Wes’s eyes up, and he glared at Clint as if he was about to skin him alive right then and there. After a few seconds, he shrugged and nodded. “You wanna step outside? We got some things that need to be discussed.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Wes didn’t say a word as he led Clint through the house.

  They passed Tina along the way, but she simply waved and gave Clint a concerned smile as he passed by the sitting room. She didn’t try to get up, and she looked away before Wes pulled open the side door leading out from the kitchen.

  As they stepped outside, the cold night air slapped Clint in the face. After all he’d been through, good and bad, the cool breeze felt awfully good. As Wes paced a bit and then turned to look at him, Clint simply stood and looked up at the clear, starry sky.

  Finally, Wes cleared his throat and said, “I knew that girl since she was small.”

  “You mentioned that.”

  Wes started to jab his finger at Clint and then let out the breath that had been drawn up inside him. His fist relaxed and he just gave Clint a tired wave. “Ah, don’t mind me. I’m just some old dog who’s used to baring his teeth at strangers.”

  “Especially when those strangers come sniffing around your pups, huh?”

  Wes smirked and tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help himself. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. No hard feelings, though. I suppose there’s no reason why you and Lynn can’t do what you please. I think she’s sweet on you, so she probably wants to spend more time with you than with me.”

  Judging by the innocence in Wes’s words, Clint figured the walls and door of that room were thicker than he’d thought. After what Wes had just said, however, Clint didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t just let that sleeping dog lie.

  “You wanted to talk about something?” Clint asked.

  Wes stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked over to an old stump. He propped one foot up on the stump and leaned forward so he could gaze out at his land. Clint walked over to stand beside him. The old stump was slanted on one side as if the old man’s boots had been there enough times to wear down the wood.

  “This here place used to be a mess,” Wes said. “Over yonder, there used to be a lake. Before that, the lake used to hook up to the river. It wasn’t anything big enough to float a boat, but it was enough to water a couple of fields or turn a mill wheel or two. Leastways, it was until the water was all used up.”

  “Must not have been much of a river,” Clint said.

  “No, it sure wasn’t. Fact is, it made this whole town stink to high heaven. I bought this farm for a steal, ’cause the old riverbed used to take up a good section of it. More’n half of my property was either mud, rocks or something close to a damned swamp. There was some green to work with, so I bought it up, rolled up my sleeves and got to work.”

  While he listened to Wes, Clint found himself putting his foot up on the old stump as well. Looking out at the field, he could almost picture the muddy remnants that a dried up pond would have left behind. Because the pond had been connected to a river, there was only that many more things that could have drifted to the bottom for Wes to find.

  “How long ago was that?” Clint asked.

  “Let’s just say I was freshly married and my girl wasn’t even a twitch in my trousers.” Judging by the guilty look Wes shot back toward the house, he would never have said that if Tina had been within earshot. “It was a hell of a lot of work, Clint. Every farmer worth his salt needs to break his back every day, but this was more work than most anyone else around here wanted to do. But I got this place for a song and I built it up to what you see here.”

  Clint took a look around, but didn’t need to see much to admire what Wes had done. “You did a hell of a good job,” he told the farmer.

  “Thanks, Clint. I appreciate it.”

  “Let me hazard a guess about something. You bought
this land from a prospector who’d panned the river for years and probably kept panning even when it dried up to a pond.”

  The smirk was still on Wes’s face as he looked over to Clint and nodded. “You’re real close. It was a couple prospectors who got into the game way before I decided to settle in these parts. They pulled a fair amount of gold out of the river, but they always thought there’d be more. Hell, I even tried my hand at tin panning, but I never saw the sense in it.”

  “That’s probably because you didn’t find anything,” Clint pointed out.

  “The hell I didn’t! I pulled a few nuggets and some dust out of there. How do you think I got started in saving up for this land?” Wes shifted his eyes back to the field and even let them drift up to the sky every so often. “It wasn’t much, to be certain, but enough to get me started. The rest of the money I put together with hard work and my own two hands.”

  “Sounds like prospecting to me.”

  “Maybe, but the land is sure less fickle than the river. Farming may be hard, but it’s steady. It took a long time for me to pull it together, but I got what I needed. All the while, them prospectors said I was foolish. When the river dried up and the time came for them to sell, they approached me first with their hats in hand. I probably could’ve talked them down on the price, but I didn’t have it in me to gouge them any more.”

  Clint gave Wes a pat on the back. “Good thing you’re a farmer. You’ve got too much of a conscience to be a good businessman.”

  According to the way Wes laughed, he took that exactly as Clint had intended. “Knowing them fellas, they probably made a fortune somewheres else.”

  Wes pulled in a deep breath and let it out. It seemed to be an effort, but eventually he said, “I found the first chunk in my pumpkin patch. It was a spot I never planned on doing anything with because the girls used to play there. I had plenty of land, so I left it alone. I was digging there not long ago, hit a rock, pulled it up and damn near threw it into a ditch. When I saw what it was, I about keeled over.”

  Reflexively, Wes looked over both shoulders. Even though there was nobody else in sight, the farmer still leaned closer to Clint and lowered his voice to a whisper. “I worked with them prospectors. It wasn’t for long, but I know how men get when they see that much gold. I didn’t want to sell it right away, so I thought I’d break it up and sell it in a few different spots.

  “I thought about hauling it into town right here and explaining what happened, but the man who’d do the transaction is new to town. He’s from Montana, I think, and I don’t trust them folks. Even if the man was honest, there’s still a chance of me bein’ robbed by someone else who saw what I brought in or how much money I got for it.”

  Clint would have liked to tell the farmer that he was being too suspicious, but he knew better than that. The sad truth was that it was always the safest bet to assume the worst from your fellow man. That only went double when there was money involved. Considering the amount of gold Clint had seen, maybe triple.

  “I thought about getting rid of it, but that’s just silly. I could use that money and it’s legally mine. I found the gold on my property!”

  Clint held his hands up as if he was surrendering. “No need to convince me. I agree.”

  The fire in the old man’s eyes tapered off. “I thought about giving it to Tina, but she’d probably be robbed quicker than I would. Robbed or…or worse. Then I found the second chunk a few yards from where I got the first…”

  “Wait a minute,” Clint said. “The second one? Oh, so there’s two piled up under those rags.”

  Wes shook his head. “That’s just one. The third one.”

  “Good Lord,” Clint said.

  “Yeah. Now you see my predicament. If I wanted to leave here, I could sell it and move on. I’d have to watch my back for a little while, but I could manage. But I’m too old to just pull up stakes. Besides, I’ve sunk everything I am into this place. This farm’s the blood in my veins and the sweat off my brow. I ain’t about to just sell it.”

  Wincing a bit, Clint said, “Still, you could afford to live in a pretty fancy place. You’d never have to work again.”

  Wes seemed to consider that for almost an entire second before scowling as if he’d bitten into a rotten apple. “I couldn’t live without workin’. It just don’t suit me.”

  “No,” Clint replied even though he’d only known Wes for a short time. “It sure doesn’t.”

  “So what the hell am I supposed to do with that gold? Give it away? Sell it off? Either way, I can see the wrong man gettin’ wind of it and coming after me for more. I don’t want to put my girls into that sort of danger. That is…unless they had someone else around to help protect them.”

  Clint smirked and said, “That’s all I needed to hear.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  The room Clint was given was smaller than the one Lynn had used to patch him up. It had all the comforts, but not enough for someone to get too comfortable. The bed was a cot. The chair was straight-backed and without any padding. The only thing hanging from the wall was a circular shaving mirror over an old, empty basin.

  If the other room was a reflection of Tina’s sensibilities, this one was Wes all the way down to the bare floor.

  Clint was able to size the room up in less time than it took for Wes to leave and let him settle in. For Clint, settling in was a simple enough matter. He was finished once he took the saddlebag off his shoulder and draped it over the back of the chair.

  Testing the bed with the palm of his hand, Clint pushed on the mattress and heard several squeaks. Only one of them came from the bed frame, while the others came from the floor and door hinges. Clint turned around to find Tina opening the door and looking inside.

  “You’re staying?” she asked.

  Clint didn’t answer right away. For a few seconds, he was distracted by how much different she looked in comparison to how she’d looked before. Tina never did look bad, but she looked even better now that she’d changed into a long nightgown and allowed her hair to flow freely over both shoulders.

  Tina’s hair was slightly shorter than Lynn’s and much darker. In fact, her hair was so dark that it made Tina’s skin look almost luminescent. The only things to stand out more than her eyes were her full, red lips.

  Before staring at her any longer, Clint shook himself out of his state and tried to pass it off with a half yawn. “Sorry about that,” he said. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Yeah,” she said, obviously not buying his poorly attempted explanation for staring at her. “It has been a long day. So, you’re staying on for a while?”

  “Just for a little while. Your father asked me to.”

  Tina had started to turn away from him and took hold of the door frame with one hand. Pausing to give Clint a lingering look at the way the light passed through her nightgown to show the generous curves beneath it, she said, “Good. Because I would have asked if he didn’t. It’s much too late to push you out into the cold.”

  “Well, I sure do appreciate it.”

  Tina was poised with one foot in Clint’s room and one foot out of it. She kept one hand resting upon the door frame, while slowly running the other hand up and down a stretch of polished wood.

  The longer she stood there, the easier it was for Clint to pick out another subtle detail in the way her nightgown clung to her. After her arm brushed down along her front, her nipples became just erect enough to poke through the single layer of material that was covering her.

  “How long will you be staying on?” she asked.

  “Well, your father has some work that needs to be done, so I’ll probably stay around until that’s done.”

  “You don’t look like a farmhand,” she said as her eyes worked their way slowly up and down his body. “And you sure don’t look like just another cowboy. By the way you handled yourself earlier, I’d say you’re some sort of gunman.”

  “Gunsmith, actually. It’s my trade.”

 
“And that’s why you’re staying?”

  “No,” he admitted. “Not exactly.”

  Tina nodded and slowly turned her back to him. Her hips moved beneath the clean cotton of her nightgown in a way that made Clint want nothing more than to grab hold of them and pull her close.

  When she looked over her shoulder once again, Tina’s expression made it seem that she could read his thoughts like a book.

  “Do you need some blankets?” she asked. “Or anything else to keep you warm tonight?”

  Tina may not have been much for understatement, but she was doing a hell of a job on Clint’s nerves. Mainly, it was getting more and more difficult for him to keep from grabbing hold of her right then and there. If he hadn’t just talked to Wes about what a cute little girl she’d been, Clint wouldn’t have had that much control.

  “Some blankets would be nice,” he said.

  She smiled even wider and walked away. A few seconds later, Tina delivered the blankets and gave him a quick “Good night, Clint” before leaving him in peace.

  Whether or not anyone else showed up to take a shot at him or steal the gold, Clint knew the next couple of nights would be very interesting.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  There was a gentle knock on Mark’s door around eight in the morning. He started to roll over, but found he couldn’t move. As much as he wanted to kick his feet over the side of the bed and open the door, he simply couldn’t do it.

  The bed was too damn comfortable.

  After sleeping on the ground or on a wooden rack covered in stinking rags for so long, Mark had forgotten what it was like to have proper comforts. Since the best he could do was lift his head an inch or so from his pillow, Mark screamed loud enough to make up for his lack of motion.