Colorado Moonfire

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “Why do I get the feeling you’d play the invalid till spring, if I let you?” Lyla challenged. She set the bread pans on the hearth and then approached the bunk with her arms crossed, stopping a few feet away.

  Barry took in her disheveled hair and rumpled shirt, sorry he’d caused the purple half-moons beneath her tired eyes, yet so far gone in love with her his heart hammered in his chest. “Lyla, please hold me.” he mumbled, aware that their short sparring match had sapped his strength. ‘Touch me like you did at first, as though you truly believe this randy old ram is worth saving.”

  Was it a trick, a play for her sympathies that would land her in his embrace? Lyla hesitated. They still had important matters to discuss before she could allow herself to fall for his kiss again.

  Thompson’s eyelids lowered and the outline of her masculine clothes blurred before him. “Thirsty,” he breathed.

  The timbre of his voice told her this was no ruse. Lyla rushed over for fresh water, chiding herself for becoming distracted by a moment’s suggestive chatter when Thompson had days of recovery ahead of him. She sat close, cradling his head in her arm as she held the cup to his lips. “You’re getting hot,” she noted in a whisper.

  “Women do that to me.”

  “Can’t you ever think of anything except—” She was ready to dash his face with the rest of the water, until she realized he was already wet. Sweat beaded on his brow and his body temperature was rising rapidly. “Fever. I hope to God this doesn’t mean infection,” she prayed aloud.

  Thompson looked at her briefly before his eyes crossed and then closed. A moan escaped him and Lyla quickly fetched more herbs to brew into potions. Should she cool him with a wash made from sweet basil and burnet, or induce more sweating with sweet Joe Pye or yarrow tea? “Hang on, Barry. Fight with me,” she pleaded as she mopped his brow.

  The hours passed unheeded as Lyla toiled over him. He would smolder with fever one moment and then shiver with chills. His body was so large she couldn’t keep him wiped down or covered enough as his temperature fluctuated When she asked if he could hear her, his moans grew steadily more delirious. Barry tossed and pitched, sometimes jostling his wounds until they bled again. Frantically she replaced the packing and bound him up, wondering if he would slip away never to return, the moment she took her hands off him.

  The dim daylight in the cabin darkened into the most harrowing evening of her life. Lyla was afraid to go to sleep, for fear he’d die; afraid not to sleep, for fear she’d kill him with carelessness. Barry was flushed all over, his fever raging constantly now, and nothing she did affected the fire that threatened to consume him. Her movements became lethargic and her eyes closed more than once in the middle of a task.

  One last time she sponged him off. Then she removed her boots and jeans, draped the bear rug from the fireplace over his quilts, and crawled beneath the covers with him. He would either sweat his infection out or die from it. There was nothing more she could do.

  Chapter 7

  Lyla dreamed Barry was making love to her on the bear rug in front of the crackling fire. His large hands roamed over her body, igniting every sensitive spot they touched, while his mouth plied hers with long, delicious kisses that left her weak with wanting him. His lips moved lower, ever so slowly, until his tongue was teasing her nipples into stiff, aching peaks.

  “Lyla…let me love you, honey,” he murmured as he nuzzled her ear. His gentle fingers slipped beneath the waistband of her lacy drawers, and when they slithered between her legs she squirmed uncontrollably, pressing against him in a silent plea to continue this torment until she could stand it no longer.

  She felt like a teakettle at the brink of boiling, each caress sending bubbles of desire higher and higher, the pressure building until she was ready to explode. Lyla awoke with a gasp, stifling a moan so she wouldn’t disturb Barry. How could her imagination produce visions of such wondrous, erotic pleasure when she’d never been to bed with a man? She shivered with the memory of his touch and then sucked in her breath.

  This was no dream.

  Barry’s hand rested between her legs while his long, agile fingers massaged and probed, producing a new wave of sensation within her. He was lying on his right side, curled around her like a cocoon as she faced the fireplace. Her drawers were tangled around one ankle. Had she squirmed out of them, or had he tugged them down himself?

  That seemed unlikely, since his wounded arm was uppermost, lying along her body in a heavy trail of warmth that led directly to her simmering core. Her knees were bent, and her left leg was hooked over the top of his, following the slow, hypnotic rhythm of his hips and allowing his hand access to this most intimate of caresses.

  His right arm pillowed her head and held her back against his broad chest, while his hand followed the curve of her waist until it was cupping her breast with a firm, subtle assurance that made her swell to fill his grasp. How had her shirt come undone? She’d fallen asleep with a man too consumed by fever to feel her presence, yet now he was driving her to a frenzy with purposeful, knowing strokes.

  Or were they?

  Lyla tried to ignore the dizzying delight he invoked so she could take stock of their situation, quietly, in case he, too, had been caught up in an erotic dream. He showed no signs of delirium: his fever had broken, and his breathing was deep and even, interrupted by impassioned sighs—just as hers was. He was rocking against her, lightly, slowly…taking his pleasure at an effortless pace that allowed him to avoid hurting himself. Only Barry Thompson could find a way to make love when he was too weak to leave her bed! Lyla struggled to free herself, but his arms tightened around her.

  “Barry! Barry, you’ve got to stop—”

  “Lyla,” he murmured against her ear. “Lyla…let me love you, honey.”

  Momentarily stunned by the echo from her dream, she went limp. Where did imagination end and reality begin? His lips were lighting tiny fires along her neck. His breathing tickled her ear until she giggled and squirmed, which only inspired her lover to increase his attentions.

  This had to stop! Too much remained unanswered between them. He could reopen his wounds if she allowed him to...

  Lyla swiveled her head and beheld a face alight with love. Barry’s eyes were closed and he was smiling sweetly, well aware of the sly trap he’d set while she was asleep. “Thompson, you—”

  His kiss knocked her roughly against his muscled upper arm. He was so large, so powerful, and his mouth opened hers while his plundering tongue struck like a snake. Lyla whimpered, caught in a headlock from which there was no escape.

  She struggled against the heavy arm that pinned her to the mattress, yet her panic seemed only to spur him on. He was rock-hard against her backside. When his manhood probed for an opening and found the slickness beneath her hips, Lyla braced herself for the battering she knew was inevitable. His fingers continued to knead her from the front while his shaft sought the slender opening that would bring his release. He was rocking faster, smothering her with a savage kiss that made her cry out with the pitiful sound of a mouse caught in a cat’s jaws.

  And suddenly he stopped.

  He released her lips to draw a deep, shuddery breath. “Lyla…Lyla.”

  She gasped for air, reeling from his assault. “Barry, let me go!”

  “Lyla, please love me, honey,” he whispered fervently. His eyes flickered open, tranquil and green, and he smiled as though she were the answer to his most urgent prayer. “Lyla, please. Love me…make me whole.”

  For a long moment he gazed at her. Her heartbeat slowed to a steady thrum as she studied his handsome face from this intimate distance. Always one to flee a trap, Lyla searched for signs that his words were a noose disguised by silken sentiments, but she found none. His forehead was free of lines and his eyes shone clear and true; his lips, lush yet distinctly formed, relaxed into a gentle, expectant smile. Barry Thompson had declared his interest in her from the first, and his motives remained sincere and unchanged. He certain
ly hadn’t lied to get her into bed with him.

  Lyla was about to remind him of the threats Frazier Foxe had made, but Barry’s kiss extinguished all rational thought. His lips brushed softly across hers, hesitant, parted in anticipation, and she relaxed against his arm to receive his affection. Again he kissed her, full and sweet, all signs of force forgotten, like a nightmare she might or might not have had. All she could be sure of as she answered his tongue’s invitation was that she was achingly, hopelessly involved with a man whose passions rendered all reason incomprehensible—a man who turned her world upside down with his declarations of love while setting her life right for the very first time.

  His languid movements rekindled the flames he’d lit in her dreams. While one hand caressed her breast as though it were an exquisite treasure, his knowing fingers resumed their exploration further below. Lyla gasped, awash in a sea of sensations as his warm, insistent tip slid close to where she was throbbing with an ecstatic pain.

  Instinctively she turned, flattening her back to his chest, allowing him to work his subtle magic at will. She was rising, rising…striving to stay above the soul-consuming rush she sensed was only moments away. Lyla arched against his broad hand, begging shamelessly, and he responded by rubbing up a slick friction that made her crest with a joyful cry.

  Barry angled her away slightly, opening her to the advances of his manhood. She reached between her legs to guide him, no longer afraid of what his awesome length might do to her. He inched inside, pausing until she thought she’d go mad with anticipation. Then she gripped the edge of the bed with both hands and bucked against him.

  “Barry!” she shrieked.

  He muffled his reply against her hair, moving inside her with increasing speed. Momentary pain made way for another wave of wildfire, sweeter and more prolonged than the first, and Lyla gave her body up to an uncontrollable rapture that reached its peak with Barry’s final, forceful thrust.

  Her head lolled on the edge of the mattress for several minutes before the room stopped spinning. Thompson’s hold relaxed; she suspected their love-making had drained him, and his shallow breathing confirmed it. As her own respiration returned to normal, she noticed the coolness of the cabin. The fire was a pile of gray ash with a few red embers. The air still smelled of fresh bread and broth, which made her aware of how many hours had passed since she’d eaten. And then she listened, holding her breath.

  The wind had stopped. The snow was over.

  When she eased out from between Barry’s arms and legs she got a soft snore in response. Lyla stood beside the bed, shivering from the lack of his body’s warmth. The lawman’s face was haggard, the sickly color of a cold fish, and she regretted giving in to the drive that had seemed to revive him for those wonderful moments of their lovemaking. Would she also come to regret giving herself to this man, body and soul?

  It was no time to ponder such a self-centered question. Thompson had lost a lot of blood, and the sooner he saw a doctor the sooner any infection could be cleared up. She seriously doubted that he could mount Buck, much less make the treacherous ride through the canyon, so it was her responsibility to get him to Cripple somehow.

  After rekindling the fire, Lyla dressed and ate two generous slices of bread dipped in the rich, beefy soup. The cabin door was still blocked by a drift, so she tried each dull gray window, making her way from the main room to the kitchen and into the curtained-off closet where she’d slept while Mick was alive. At last! The frame loosened beneath her pounding fist and the snow fell away to reveal a mounded, white world that glistened in the sun.

  While shrugging into her coat, she glanced at Barry. He was sleeping, smiling with a contentment that made her chuckle. Lyla hoped he would rest well during the next few days, until she figured out how to transport him to town. She pulled a chair to the closet window, stood on it, and yanked the sash high enough so she could wriggle outside. There were horses to tend, a door to shovel out, wood to be carried—chores that Barry’s strong arms could perform twice as quickly as hers, ordinarily.

  Lyla sighed. Now that she’d given herself to Thompson, she fervently hoped she was capable of taking care of him.

  Thompson jerked and groaned. When his eyes opened he saw a cheerful fire. He smelled bread and beef and a muskiness he couldn’t identify. The room was small yet cozy, furnished with functional pieces, embroidered samplers, and plants—everywhere, plants I Red geraniums hung in front of the windows and philodendron stretched in leafy profusion across the mantel. The kitchen window was surrounded by shelves full of pots—green shoots and pale flowers he couldn’t name—and bunches of dried herbs hung from the rafters. He sensed he was now free of the demons that had waged war inside him for God knows how long. But where the hell was he?

  His effort to raise up on one elbow nearly made him pass out. Then he remembered: he had taken two bullets, Christmas Eve, Phantom Canyon. Gingerly he touched his bandaged left shoulder and then let his hand trail down to the thigh that throbbed painfully in its binding. Someone had saved his life…but who?

  Barry dozed, shifting beneath the weight of his quilts like a dog settling into warm straw. As badly as he hurt, there was no comfortable way for him to situate himself, and apparently no one around to pour any painkiller down him. He heard a muffled scraping from the direction of the door, and then dozed again. The clatter of boots crossing the floor a little while later sounded too distant to be any threat, so he drifted, dreaming of hot bread and whiskey. Lots of whiskey.

  When he awoke, he saw a short figure in a plaid shirt and jeans, with honey hair no self-respecting man would wear so long…not to mention a behind that strained suggestively against those back pockets when—she leaned over. Barry blinked. Why would a woman have boards, a hammer, and nails arranged on the floor around her?

  His companion turned, and the pieces fell into place. “Lyla,” he whispered.

  “High time you woke up,” her brogue teased his groggy ears. “We slept through breakfast and I already ate your lunch.”

  He held back a laugh that threatened to tear his bad shoulder apart. “Doesn’t surprise me. What do I have to pay the cook to work an extra shift?”

  “There’s not a penny in your pants, marshal. I checked when I took them off you.”

  Thompson considered this statement with a long sigh. He’d been worse off than he thought if this little flirt had stripped him without his knowledge. “My credit’s good and you know it. And while you’re rustling that grub, you can tell me what all this stuff is.”

  Pleased at his playful tone, Lyla left her tools on the floor to dip up some soup for him. “I’m fixing a sort of fence, for when I take you into town. An ingenious plan, actually.”

  Barry frowned. His hostess looked smugly serious as she sat down beside the bed with a bowl of heavenly-smelling broth and a slice of bread that had his mouth watering. Hungry as he was, though, his curiosity came first. “A fence? Like for livestock?”

  “Good guess. You win a bite of bread.” She placed the slice where he could tear into it, and continued. “A wagon’ll never make it through this deep snow, but one of the previous tenants left an old toboggan out in the shed. I’m putting a rack all around it, to keep you on board while Buck pulls you.”

  The marshal nearly choked. “He’s not a draft horse, Lyla. He’ll—”

  “We’ve talked it over, Buck and I,” she assured him lightly. “We’ve agreed to cooperate, to get you to the hospital. Even if it means I’ll be riding him.”

  Barry tried to rear up in the bed, but he fell back with the effort. “Lyla, I’m warning you! Honey, he’ll throw you so fast—and then who’ll take care of you?”

  The concern in his eyes touched her deeply, yet she chuckled. “You’ve got to trust us on this, Mr. Thompson. I gave him an extra measure of hay and brushed him down this morning. He’s a fine animal, as good-hearted as he is handsome.”

  “We’ll hole up here until I can ride him myself. That’s final.”

&n
bsp; Lyla brought a spoonful of soup to his lips, giving him no choice but to swallow it. “Your pride could kill you, marshal. We’ll leave tomorrow or the day after—as soon as I can get us ready.”

  He grabbed her arm with amazing speed, sloshing soup onto her lap. “I’m telling you, he’s trained to throw—”

  “Buck’s much more polite than you are, actually,” Lyla protested. “You’ll either stop fighting me, or you’ll fetch your own damn food. Understand?”

  The little spitfire beside him looked quite capable of letting him starve. Her rosebud mouth was pressed into a determined line, and her periwinkle glare left no doubt that she intended to do things her way—the hard way. He released her wrist with a sigh, realizing he was too damn weak to set her straight right now.

  His reluctant surrender made Lyla smile and offer him another bite of bread. “I’ll brew you some tea that’ll help you heal.” she said coyly. “I like animals with a little spirit, and I usually have my way with them in the end. I…I’m looking forward to your full recovery, Barry.”

  What the hell did she mean by that? Thompson ate gratefully, finishing a second serving of her delicious bread and soup, but he couldn’t help wondering what secret was making Lyla O’Riley’s Irish eyes shine with such an impish glow. It was just his luck to be snowed in with the woman he loved, yet unable to prove it to her. His ring was missing, he was too sore and weak to do her justice in this puny bed…and the strange-tasting tea she gave him made him so drowsy he couldn’t talk about his feelings, either. All he could do was sleep.

  Lyla carried her boards to the shed to finish nailing them together, so her hammering wouldn’t disturb Barry’s nap. It was underhanded to lace his tea with laudanum, but he needed to mend so he’d be strong enough for the grueling ride to Cripple. She attached the rack to the old toboggan, grinning. Beneath his rugged facade, Thompson was a cream puff, the lovable, boyish man she’d hoped he was from the moment he walked in on her at the Rose.