“What about Shadow?” she asked when she was settled in the saddle.
“He’s had a breather so he’ll be okay. Stick close until you get a feel for the new horse.”
“This is Norman’s horse,” Naomi said. “He’s beautiful, but I don’t know if he has any spirit.”
Colby led off toward the upland. The wind and rain in his face made it impossible to look straight ahead. He would have to be almost upon a stray before he could see it, but he was more worried about Naomi. They had been in the saddle for hours. She had to be nearing exhaustion. Had he made a mistake in not taking her back to the wagons?
As the land rose to what Colby expected would be a plateau some miles ahead, the ground grew more rocky and less fertile. With less grass to feed fires, any trees that took hold along the edges of streams or depressions that carried runoff would have a better chance of surviving. One such clump appeared ahead.
“Head for the trees,” he gestured to Naomi.
As he hoped, when they reached the small clump of stunted trees, he found several mules gathered on the lee side.
“I’ll go to the right and you go to the left,” he instructed Naomi. “Once they’re in the open, head them toward the wagons.”
It was the bellow that caught Colby’s attention. He whipped around just in time to see a bull buffalo break from the trees and charge Naomi’s horse. The frightened animal leapt into the air, twisting its body in the process, and coming down on the haunches of the equally alarmed buffalo.
Naomi was thrown into the air to land among the trees.
Colby was off his horse and running toward the spot where she disappeared almost before the branches came together over her. He dived among the trees, pushing the branches out of his way until he found her lying in a heap, rain dripping on her pale face, and her clothes splashed with mud.
“Naomi.”
It was a cry of fear as much as of relief. Dropping to his knees, he crawled under the low hanging branches. She lay so still he thought for a moment she might be dead, but a groan relieved his worst fears.
“Don’t move,” he said. “Let me see if anything’s broken.”
“Nothing but my pride, which is thoroughly shattered.”
Colby didn’t know whether to laugh or give Naomi the worst tongue lashing of her life. Relief flooded over him in great waves that left him feeling too weak to do either.
Naomi struggled into a sitting position, pushed her hair out of her face. “I don’t suppose that stupid horse was thoughtful enough to wait around to see if he killed me.”
She had to be crazy if she thought he was going to let her keep looking for strays. As soon as he found her horse—hopefully his own horse hadn’t been scared off by the buffalo—he was taking her back to camp. And he wouldn’t leave until her father had tied her up so she couldn’t leave the wagon until he said so. Which might not be until they reached La Junta.
“Can you crawl out, or do you need me to carry you?”
“I can get out if you’ll hold back the branches.”
Colby had seen many men thrown from a horse get up and climb back in the saddle. Still, Naomi was lucky to have come away without a serious injury. She crawled out between the two largest trees. Once on her feet, she would have started looking for her horse if Colby hadn’t taken her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. There she stood, rain cascading down, her hair plastered to her scalp, and her dress to her body despite the protection of her father’s rain slick. She looked up at him, a question in her eyes, and he was certain he’d never seen a more beautiful woman in this life.
“If you ever do that again, I’m going to break your neck.”
Rather than be intimidated or apologetic, Naomi laughed. “Talk to that buffalo. Being thrown into a bunch of trees wasn’t part of my plan.”
“What was your plan, to get yourself killed or drive me crazy worrying about you?”
“My plan was to help round up the strays. I haven’t been riding long, but I’m as good as anybody except you. Did you see Morley? He looked like he was riding a hobby horse.”
“That isn’t the point. I told you to get your father.” He had to shout to be heard over the wind and rain, but he would have shouted without that. She didn’t seem to understand she could have been killed.
“You told me? When did I become a child who needed to be told what to do?”
“When you came to a part of the country were people like you die in Indian attacks, where they get bitten by rattlesnakes, chased by wolves, or drowned trying to cross swollen rivers. Where people lose their way and die of thirst or go mad.”
“You act like no one from the East has ever come out here and survived.”
“Thousands have, but thousands have died.”
“Well I won’t be one of them.”
“Only because I’ll be here to save you when you pull some harebrained stunt.”
Naomi pushed the sodden hair out of her face. “Harebrained! Now I’m stupid as well as a danger to myself.”
“Not stupid. Just so all-fired sure of yourself you think you can do anything that comes into your head.”
“Let me remind you that I didn’t want to learn to ride, but you insisted. You said it was a requirement for every female west of the Mississippi. Well, I learned, so what better use could I make of that than round up stock we need in order to reach Santa Fe?”
“You’re a fine rider when it comes to flat ground during sunny weather. This is hilly ground during a raging thunderstorm.”
Rain streamed off the end of her nose. “I did notice that, but did you notice that I was doing just fine until that stupid buffalo didn’t have the sense to stay under the trees where it was out of the rain?”
“Anybody can ride when nothing goes wrong. It’s knowing what to do when it does, having the skill and experience to handle trouble.”
“I suppose you’d have grabbed that buffalo by the horns and told him it was rude to run into your horse, that he should be punished for his lack of courtesy.”
A strangled sound escaped Colby. “You are the most infuriating woman I’ve ever met. You just about get yourself killed, and you’re making jokes.”
“Let me go. You’re hurting me.” She shrugged out of his grip and folded her arms across her breasts. “My horse is probably half a mile from here by now. You’ll have to let me ride double until we find him. And don’t think you’re going to leave me here,” she said when he started to speak. “I can put up with the rain and the cold, but that buffalo looked as big as a horse and twice as mean.”
“He was frightened.”
“Am I supposed to care about that?”
“No. You’re supposed to know how wild animals react when they’re cornered.”
“I didn’t corner him. He had miles and miles of empty prairie to rampage in. He could have attacked your horse. What would you have done then?”
“Don’t try to change the subject,” Colby said.
“I’m tired of this one. Let’s pick on you for a while.”
“I’m not picking on you. I’m trying to—”
“Trying to show me I can’t do anything without your help and permission, but you’re wrong. I can do anything I want, and I don’t have to consult you. I don’t have to depend on you, and I don’t have to ask your advice or—”
It wasn’t planned. If he’d thought for even the smallest part of a second, he wouldn’t have done it. He didn’t know when the thought entered his mind. Maybe it hadn’t. Maybe it was just an age-old instinct responding to an opportunity. Whatever the reason, he kissed her.
It wasn’t an oh my god, what have I done, jump back in horror kind of kiss. It wasn’t even an I can’t believe I’m kissing her in the middle of a rainstorm, but I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time kiss. It was a no holds barred, torrid to the point of
steamy, tongue down your throat kiss that obliterated everything in the universe except the two of them. No wet, no cold, no thunder or lightning.
Then it was over.
Mouth open and eyes wide in shock, Naomi stared up at him. “Did you mean to do that?”
He didn’t dare tell her she couldn’t be more surprised than he, not if didn’t want her to shoot him the first time she got her hands on a gun. He couldn’t tell her he’d thought about it as an abstract event because it wasn’t true. He couldn’t be strongly attracted to a woman and not want to kiss her even though he knew his remaining time with her was less than two weeks. There was only one answer he could give.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He equivocated. “Does a man have to have a reason to kiss a beautiful woman?”
She wiped the water from her face only to have the rain drench it again. “We’re both soaking wet, shivering with cold, and I was thrown from my horse. I can think of a hundred other reasons why you shouldn’t have kissed me, why you shouldn’t have wanted to, but not one good reason why you did.”
A man didn’t really need a good reason to kiss an attractive woman, certainly not a good reason as a woman would see it, but that was the kind of reason Naomi expected. He hadn’t met many good women in his life, but he knew they didn’t scatter their kisses without thinking of the consequences. Since the consequences were marriage or ruin, he’d been careful to limit his attentions to women who expected nothing beyond the time that had been paid for.
His feelings for Naomi weren’t like that. Yet they weren’t the kind that would lead to marriage. They occupied a space somewhere between those two extremes, but he wasn’t sure where that space was or how to describe it in a way that would make sense.
“I wanted to kiss you. I’ve been thinking of it for a long time.”
“You haven’t known me a long time.”
“Ten days is a long time out here.”
“Do you have special clocks? Mr. Greene didn’t say anything about that. Where would I purchase one?”
He ignored her sarcasm. “Things change quickly. Life can be very short. If we wait a week or a month, the chance may never come again.”
“So now that you’ve taken your chance, what comes next?”
“I’m not going to ask you to marry me, if that’s what you’re asking. I think you’re beautiful and a remarkable young woman, but I don’t believe in love or marriage. I’ve too much proof that it doesn’t exist.”
“I’ve had quite a lot that it does, but don’t take that to mean I’m expecting you to propose. When you said you intended to find a corner of the world where no one would find you, I gathered that excluded a wife and children.”
He hoped the pain that twisted his heart into a knot didn’t show in his face. Naomi didn’t know he had a child he’d never seen. He’d done everything he could to forget it. It was the only way he could keep from storming into Santa Fe and doing something that would send him to jail or the gallows. It’s why he never let himself get within fifty miles of the place.
“I don’t do well with people,” he said.
“Everybody in the wagon train hangs on every word you say.”
“That’s not what I mean. I don’t do well with feelings.”
“So you had no feelings when you kissed me?”
That was too much. He grabbed Naomi and kissed her again, only this time he was agonizingly aware of every moment, every sensation. She would know he wasn’t without passion or feelings. It’s just that he didn’t let them become his master. He would control everything about the kiss.
Until the tension left her body, and she melted into his arms. When that happened, he was lost.
In a flash of understanding, he realized he’d never known the fiery embrace of real passion, never suspected anything as seemingly innocent as a kiss had the power to render everything he’d ever known as meaningless as dust, a puff of smoke, a tendril as weightless as a spider’s web. He felt as helpless as he must have been the day he was born. The fervor that encompassed him wrapped itself tightly around him until he felt shaken to the core.
Nothing compared to the feel of Naomi in his arms, her arms around his neck, her lips pressed against his in a kiss that drove the memory of every other embrace from his mind. None of them had packed a punch so powerful it could be life-changing. None had made him feel helpless, had wrapped him in the toils of emotion so intense he felt engulfed in flames. He barely had enough control of his mind to wonder how this was possible, to be amazed that he’d never suspected such powerful emotion could exist between a man and a woman. Even a woman as amazing as Naomi.
She had to be the reason for this mind-numbing experience. Up until now, his kisses had been shared with two kinds of women: youthfully shy Elizabeth, and women he paid for. There was nothing shy or businesslike about Naomi’s kiss. She was kissing him because she enjoyed it. She had her arms around his neck because she didn’t want to end quickly. She had pressed her body against his because that’s where she wanted to be.
It was probably the survival instinct that had saved his life on more than one occasion that warned him someone was coming though he couldn’t hear them and could barely see them through the sheets of rain.
Breaking off the kiss and pulling away from Naomi was like being denied oxygen. He felt paralyzed before his body relaxed and he gulped in a lung full of air. Naomi felt equally disoriented. She gaped at him, her expression a combination of shock, hurt, and curiosity.
“Someone’s coming.”
She regained her senses and looked around. “I don’t see anyone.”
“There,” he pointed through the curtain of rain in the direction from which they’d come. “It’s a rider leading a horse.”
The rider remained a shadowy figure until he seemed to materialize right in front of them. It was Cato Johnson and he was leading Naomi’s horse.
“I was on my way back when I saw your horse,” he said to Naomi. “I was afraid you were hurt.”
“I was unseated when a buffalo burst out of those trees and frightened my horse. Thanks for bringing him back.”
“I told you to send someone else,” Colby said to Cato.
“What kind of man would I be if I stayed behind in a wagon knowing only Naomi was out here with you?”
“A sensible one,” Naomi said. “And you’d be dry.”
“I was already wet. No sense in giving anybody else pneumonia.”
“Let me help you into the saddle,” Colby offered. The horse had calmed down enough for Naomi to mount safely.
The saddle was slick with water, but Naomi settled herself quickly, took the reins, and proceeded to give the horse a piece of her mind.
Colby and Cato exchanged smiles.
“I’m ready now,” she said. “I think he understands that if he does anything like that again, I’ll feed him to the wolves.”
“Let’s head back with this bunch,” Colby said of the mules that were still sheltering among the trees.
“That’s not all of them,” Naomi said.
“We won’t find the rest today. Before long it’ll be too dark to see.”
It took several minutes to convince the mules to leave the shelter of the trees and face into the storm, but with the three of them working, they finally got them moving. Colby was anxious to get back to camp. He wasn’t nearly so worried about getting warm and dry as he was about putting some distance between him and Naomi. Despite the rain and the mules, all he could think about was kissing her again.
***
Naomi hadn’t listened to most of her father’s stern lecture, but she heard enough to know it centered around three points: shock that she would do anything so unsuitable for a daughter of his beloved wife; disappointment that she had such a high opinion of herself that she’d ignored Colby’s directions and wha
t she knew her father would have said if he’d been given a chance; her complete disregard for her own safety and health. She didn’t offer a defense because she knew he wouldn’t have listened. Instead, she thanked him for borrowing an additional lantern from Sibyl in hopes it would provide some needed warmth.
By the time her father finished berating her, the rain had stopped so he and Ben left so she could change into dry clothes. She wondered what Colby would do. He didn’t have any extra clothes or a wagon with two lanterns to provide heat. The more she thought about it, the more it bothered her. Finally, she opened the canvas flat and called her father. “Where is Colby?”
“He’s checking to determine which animals are missing.”
“He doesn’t have any dry clothes. Ask Norman to give him some. He brought enough for everybody.”
“I’ll ask one of the Sumners. Colby is bigger than everybody else.”
“Tell him he can change in our wagon. It’s warm inside.”
Her father peered at her through the night, attempting to read her expression. “Why are you so concerned about Colby? He strikes me as a man who can take care of himself.”
“I’m sure he can, but he doesn’t have a change of clothes. If it’s not good for me to stay chilled, it’s even worse for him to sleep in wet clothes.”
“I’ll ask,” her father said, “but I wouldn’t be surprised if he turns me down. He’s the only person I know who’s more independent minded than you.”
“What about me?” Ben had been hanging around the wagon, hoping Naomi would let him back in.
“You’re twelve,” his father said. “At your age it’s more ignorance than independent thinking.”
“I’m not ignorant,” Ben protested.
“We’re all ignorant.” His father glared at Naomi. “Some of us are just ignorant about more things than others.”
Naomi pulled back inside the wagon and closed the flap to keep the heat in. She was worried about Colby but not the way she’d led her father to believe. The first kiss had shocked her. The second had bowled her over because she’d returned it. What did he mean by those kisses? What did she want him to mean?
To Have and to Hold (Cactus Creek Cowboys) Page 16