Texas Blue

chapter 16



AS THEY RODE THROUGH THE TREES, LEWT CLOSED his eyes, then opened them, realizing he could see nothing either way. It had been so long since he’d been in the country he’d forgotten how black the night could be on a cloudy, moonless night.

He felt like since he didn’t have his sight, his other senses were playing tricks on him. He was very much aware that he held a woman in his arms. She might look more like a man in the light, but in the darkness she seemed all woman. Her hair smelled slightly of honeysuckle, and once in a while the horse shifted and his arm brushed just below her breasts. He’d feel her stiffen in his arms, but she didn’t say a word. She must have been as sure as he almost was that each brush was simply an accident.

This time he had no intention of lying to himself and believing that the woman liked him. She’d made it plain how she felt about him and if he did one thing wrong, she’d probably dump him off the horse and leave him out here to bump into trees until he died.

A branch brushed just above them. Em turned her head toward his shoulder for protection, and Lewt’s arm went up to block the assault of dry branches. Instinctively, his other arm tightened around her as the limbs bombarded them.

A few feet later the branches disappeared as the horse moved on, but Lewt didn’t loosen his hold. “You all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she whispered as she straightened.

The straightening did more to make him aware she was a woman than if she’d stayed still.

“Want to tell me why you’re afraid of the dark?”

“No,” she said. “And I’m not afraid of the dark. I just don’t like it.”

“Oh.” He fought down a laugh.

She elbowed him hard, then said, “All right, maybe I am a little afraid, but it’s none of your business.”

“Got it,” Lewt answered.

They talked of the day. Lewt filled her in on what had happened to Emily about the time they emerged from the trees.

Em kicked the horse and they broke into a full run.

Lewt leaned against her, pulling their bodies close so they galloped as one, but she didn’t seem to notice. He knew her thoughts were now on Emily.

They didn’t stop at the barn but rode to the front door. Sumner must have anticipated her action, for he was waiting to take the horse.

“She’s in the great room,” he said, before they could ask.

Lewt hit the ground and swung her down with one quick action. When her feet touched, she was already running into the house.

He hesitated, unsure of what to do. He knew he’d be no help to Emily; she was surrounded by people worried about her. He’d be just an intruder, watching someone else’s pain.

“How is the girl?” Lewt asked Sumner. He’d figured out two days ago that very little happened on the ranch that Sumner wasn’t aware of.

The old man shrugged. “When Miss Beth rode in first, she sent one of the men for the doctor in town, but Mrs. Watson came out for air about ten minutes ago and said she thought the girl was milking it a bit. Mrs. Watson seems to think the leg is bruised, but not broken, and since she can take a good breath in and out, there’s little chance the rib is more than cracked.”

“So she’s playing up being wounded?” Lewt filled in the blanks. “What kind of woman would do that?”

Sumner laughed. “All of them, I figure, when there’s two men in there already fighting over who gets to carry her around.”

“Maybe I should join them.”

Sumner shook his head. “You do and the poor girl is liable to be at death’s door. Besides, looked to me like you had your hands already full a minute ago.”

Lewt shook his head. “We were just riding double because she was worried that I might get lost in the trees. Believe me, if I wasn’t a guest here, Em would have left me to get back alone. I doubt she’d notice if I stopped breathing and fell dead in front of her. She’d just step over my body and go see about the horses.”

“It’s dark in those trees, is it?” Sumner whispered.

“Black as a closed trunk,” Lewt answered. “I would have never been able to follow her through the twists and turns.”

“Strange thing about horses, they can find their way at night like that. As long as you stay on your mount, it’ll follow the lead horse, and when horses are heading back to a warm barn it takes some effort to talk them into going the wrong direction.” Sumner’s gaze met Lewt. “You get my meaning, son?”

Lewt might not know horses, but he wasn’t dumb. No matter what Em had said to him, she’d wanted him close. Now all he had to figure out was whether she liked him or simply hated night.

“I think I’ll go in and check on everything.” Suddenly Lewt wanted to face Em in the light. He’d always been good at reading people once he could look them in the eye.

Sumner said softly, as Lewt took the first step, “Son, if you hurt Miss Em, every man on this place will take a turn at beating you to a pulp.”

Lewt turned. “None of you even talk to her. I thought you didn’t like her.”

“We like her just fine. She just don’t like to have much to do with nothing but horses. Every man here respects her and gives her the space she wants. If they didn’t, I’d see that they were riding over the bridge heading out by dawn.”

“Does Em know this?” Lewt couldn’t believe she had her own army of bodyguards here.

“She don’t need to know. We know and now you know.”

Lewt reached the porch and turned back. “I’m not going to hurt her, I promise. I’m here to court one of the McMurray girls. That’s all I’m interested in. Miss Em and I can never be more than friends, and until a minute ago, I didn’t even think we were that.”

He stepped inside, not wanting to disturb the bedlam going on in the main room. Shy, pale Emily had been propped up with pillows on the long couch. She looked like she was fighting hard not to cry.

Boyd stood at the end as if on guard, and Davis knelt in front of her telling her the doctor would be here soon. He kept whispering, “Hang on just a little longer,” like her eyes might roll back any second and she’d be heaven-bound.

Mrs. Allender and Mrs. Watson were both there, but Lewt thought it odd that both Beth and Rose were missing. Shouldn’t they be hovering over their wounded sister? Then he realized Em wasn’t there either.

He moved down the hallway leading to the kitchen and found all three women standing near the mudroom whispering. They all seemed to go mute when he stepped into the kitchen.

All he’d heard of the conversation was Rose’s comment that “This has gone on long enough.”

“I just came in to see if I could help in some way.” Lewt said the first thing that came to mind. Emily obviously didn’t need any help, and even if she did, what could he do?

He didn’t miss the way Em looked at Rose before saying, “Thank you, Lewt, for the offer, but we stay with the plan.”

He had a feeling the last words were meant for Rose, because he had no plan. If he could think of one right quick, it might be to try to look invisible. He wasn’t needed in the great room, and he didn’t seem to be wanted in the kitchen.

“Yes.” Rose nodded once at Em. “We stay with the plan. It’s only three more days.”

“Three more days until what?” Lewt wished he hadn’t asked the moment he said the words.

For a long moment the room was silent as a grave, and then Bethie smiled her sweet smile and said simply, “Until the party.”

“Yes,” Rose added. “We were worried that Emily might not get to be at the party if she’s broken something.”

Lewt stared at the three women. He knew they were all three smarter than him probably, but something had dumbed them down to about plant life level. It didn’t make sense that they were in the kitchen worrying about the party when their sister and Em’s friend had been hurt.

Mrs. Watson rushed in to tell them the doctor had arrived. All the girls bumped into Lewt on their way to the great room. Before he could decide what to do, Boyd, Davis, and the reverend had been banished to the kitchen with him.

They were all complaining about how they needed to know what was going on, but Lewt didn’t think that was possible in a house run by women. He kept his mouth shut, though, believing fools should always hope.

The reverend took a seat at the worktable and cut himself a slice of apple pie so hot it fell apart before he could get it to the nearest plate.

Boyd began to pace. “This is all my fault,” he muttered to himself. “I should have been able to control the horse.”

“It’s no one’s fault,” Davis said. “We were all there within five feet of her. It was simply an accident.”

Lewt considered telling Boyd that he was right—it was all his fault and maybe now would be a good time for him to leave. But the man looked too miserable to torment.

Boyd continued to storm. “If I hurt Emily, Rose is probably never going to speak to me again, much less marry me.”

“Probably not,” Lewt agreed. Both the reverend and Davis frowned at him. “I mean, if she thought it was your fault.”

Davis sat down by Reverend Watson and spooned himself a few dips of the pie, offered the reverend some more, and then silently they nodded, agreeing to split it. Davis spoke his thoughts as he spooned out his share. “I hope she’s fine, but I have to tell you, it sure did feel good the way Beth cried on my shoulder when we got back here. I don’t mind that at all.”

Lewt frowned. “Maybe we should clobber another one of the sisters so Bethie could run into your arms. We could bonk Rose on the head a few times if you think it would help your courting, Davis.”

For a moment all three men looked at him as if he’d gone mad. Then they laughed.

Lewt didn’t have the heart to tell them that he was only half kidding. He’d learned a great deal in the past few minutes. Apparently, Boyd had set his cap for Rose, and Davis was falling hard for the youngest, Bethie. That left him with Emily, the broken one.

Suddenly, Lewt moved to a whole new level of worry about her. As he ate half of the second pie, he worried about something else. What if Sumner was right and she was playing the injured card for attention? He didn’t like the idea of anyone manipulating him, and he wasn’t sure he could marry a woman, even a rich one, who acted like she was hurt when she wasn’t.

Mrs. Watson came into the kitchen, took one look at the empty pie pans, and glared at her husband.

“How’s the girl?” the reverend asked before she could start on him. “We’ve been in here praying for her speedy recovery.”

Lewt tilted his head for a better look at Watson. Apparently, lying was rampant on the ranch. He needed to get back to the saloon, where he expected everyone to be making up stuff.

“The doc says she didn’t break her leg, but he wants her to take it easy. No dancing at the upcoming party. As for her rib, he wrapped it and said she may have cracked a bone. There’s no way of telling. He says in a week or so, she should be fine.”

“Praise the Lord. Our prayers have been answered.”

Mrs. Watson scowled down at the empty pie pans. “The doctor invited himself to dinner, and now I don’t have enough pie to go around.”

Lewt figured that in Mrs. Watson’s world, broken bones and missing pie weighed about the same on the worry scale. All the men promised not to eat pie, but it didn’t seem to make her any happier.

Lewt slipped from the kitchen and went back into the great room hoping to get a look at Em, but she’d already gone and the girls were all talking at once about how happy they were that Emily had survived a near-death experience.

He told Emily that he was glad she was doing well and promised to carry her around for the rest of the week.

She smiled and told him she already had two offers for the job.

An hour later they all gathered around the big table for a late dinner. Emily’s adventure was told over and over, everyone adding more details that no one else observed. Rose swore she saw a snake just before the horse bolted, and everyone quickly agreed that no one, not even Boyd, could have held the horse if a snake was threateningly near.

Lewt was amazed at the way they let the rancher off the hook. He also didn’t miss the moment when Bethie described how terrified she had been. Davis covered her hand, patting it gently as if reassuring a child. Lewt doubted that a woman who’d been raised on a horse ranch would terrify so easily.

Halfway through the meal, he found himself missing Em. She’d rushed back to the house when she thought her friend was hurt, and then she’d met with the sisters, but she hadn’t stayed for dinner. From all he could see, Em pretty much ran the ranch by herself. The hands were her loyal army, and she and Rose were best friends, but she didn’t come to dinner.

He didn’t know the McMurray women well, but he knew Duncan, and none seemed like snobs. He and Duncan had been friends since the day Duncan sat for the bar to become a lawyer. He’d been twenty and wanted to celebrate that night, only the whole town was full of drovers just back from a drive. A fight had broken out in the saloon and McMurray was in the middle of it. Lewt pulled him out the back door, sobered him up in the horse trough, and sent him on his way.

The next morning, Duncan showed up to say thanks, and they’d been friends ever since. Duncan was the kind of poker player any gambler likes. He played with the money in his pocket, never left a marker, and even if he lost, he walked away without getting mad at himself or the dealer.

So, based on what he knew, Lewt had to think that if Em wasn’t at the table it was because she didn’t want to be. The McMurrays didn’t seem like the kind of people to leave someone out who might want to be invited.

After dinner, everyone was tired. Boyd carried Emily up to her room and everyone but Lewt followed, telling him to be careful with every other step he took.

Lewt stepped out on the porch to smoke his last thin cigar, wondering if he had enough nerve to ask Em if they could ride into town for more. He propped himself against the porch railing and thought about how different this kind of life was from his. In the saloons, he knew what most people were by the time he’d talked to them five minutes. He could tell the ones down on their luck and the ones at the end of their rope. He never cheated when he played cards, but he had folded a few times when the pot seemed like a last-chance stand to a man. He could tell who would be trouble by the time they ordered their third drink, and he could spot a con man when he walked in the door.

But Lewt wasn’t sure how to read the people in this world, and he didn’t like it. In three days the week could be over and he’d be headed back to where he belonged.

He glanced at the swing at the far end of the porch and smiled when he saw Em curled up in a blanket. Grounding out his cigar, he walked up to her and said simply, “Mind if I join you?”

“Suit yourself,” she said.

He sat down and rocked for a while. He wasn’t close enough to touch her but enjoyed knowing she was there. Finally, he whispered, “Em, do you think we could be friends? Real friends? I’ve come to discover lately that I don’t know all that much about the fairer sex or people in general.”

“I’ve never been friends with a man,” she answered.

“I’ve never been friends with a woman, but I’d like to try. Picking one who already knows she can beat me up anytime she likes seems like a good choice to start with.”

She didn’t say anything for a while, and he guessed she was planning on reminding him about the robber he’d called his friend just before he’d tossed the knife into his hand.

She stood suddenly and began shaking out the blanket.

Before he could think of what to say, she sat back down and settled the blanket over them both. “I guess we could try. What does this being real friends entail?”

He studied her in the pale lights coming from the house. “Well, first we try hard to be honest with each other. No pretending.” When she didn’t move, he added. “No subjects are out of bounds, but if you, or I, don’t want to answer, we don’t have to. As friends we’ll respect each other’s boundaries.”

“Fair enough.”

He decided that if this was going to work, he needed to risk losing the hand right now; otherwise, he wouldn’t be following his own rules. “Why’d you have us ride double back in the trees?”

She didn’t answer. He pushed so they would swing gently and waited. Strange, he thought, how the most interesting woman at the ranch wasn’t one of Duncan’s cousins. He admired Em, but he wasn’t sure he liked her. Right now, so the week wasn’t a total waste of his time, he hoped to go back to Austin with a little better understanding of women, and this one next to him seemed as good a subject to study as any.

“We didn’t need to,” she finally said, drawing her knees up to her chest. “Your horse would have followed mine.”

“I figured that out,” he offered.

“I guess I just wanted to be close to you. I don’t ever plan to marry, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be close to a man, to see what he smells like and feels like. Most of the men here on the ranch are related to me or old enough to be my father, and I stopped going to the few socials in town years ago. I’m twenty-six years old and I’ve never been kissed.”

“That’s impossible,” he said.

She shook her head. “When I was in my teens I’d cry if my mother tried to make me go to a church picnic or a dance. After I turned twenty, I think my family just assumed I’d never marry. Besides, I’m not likely to meet anyone out here, and I hate leaving Whispering Mountain.”

Lewt frowned. He had no desire to kiss Em. Not that she was ugly, she was just plain. The kind of plain that makes a woman invisible to a man. Some women, just watching them move stirred a man. Others had pretty faces or big eyes that a fellow never tired of looking at. Some were top heavy or nicely rounded on the bottom. Em was none of those, but somebody had to give the girl her first kiss and he seemed to be the only one around willing to risk death to do so.

“Would you promise not to shoot me if I kissed you, Em?”

“I wasn’t asking,” she snapped.

“I know, but I’m offering anyway. And before you yell at me and say no, I’d like to promise that I wouldn’t give or expect more than a kiss.”

“No strings?”

“No strings. I’ll just kiss you and then you’ll know what it’s like.”

She was silent so long he considered the possibility that she’d fallen asleep, and then she straightened and said simply, “All right, what do I do?”

He stretched his arm over the back of the swing. “Move closer and look up at me.”

She did, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if she had her hand on her Colt beneath the blanket.

“Now take your hat off.”

He thought he heard her swear, but she pulled the hat off and tossed it on the table where the blanket had been. He put his arm gently around her. “Relax, Em. This isn’t going to hurt, you know, and when it’s over you can say you’ve been kissed.”

He leaned over and brushed his lips lightly over hers. When she didn’t move, he asked, “You all right?”

She nodded. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“I’m not finished.” He smiled an inch away from her. “Now take a deep breath and let your mouth open slightly.”

This time when he touched her lips, they felt soft, ready to be kissed. He tugged her gently toward him as he let her get used to the feel of his lips on hers. When he circled his other hand at her waist, he felt her stiffen again and whispered against her mouth, “It’s all right. Relax, Em. It’s me, remember.”

He half expected her to bolt from the swing, but she didn’t. She let him taste her lips. “Feel the warmth of it moving through your body. There’s something magic in a kiss.”

She made a little sound of pleasure, and his hand at her waist moved to her back. “Now, put your arms around my neck and open your mouth, Em.”

He held her close as she jerked when the kiss deepened and his mouth fit over hers. There would be no more talking, he thought; from now on he’d have to show her.

He kissed her as tenderly as he guessed a woman would want her first kiss to be. Her cheeks were warm when he finally released her mouth and kissed his way across her face to whisper in her ear, “That was great, Em. Now breathe and we’ll finish this kiss.”

He could hear her rapid breathing, but he wanted to feel it. He tugged her closer until the rise of each breath made her breasts brush against his chest. He hadn’t been prepared for how good she would taste. He wanted more, but he waited until she calmed in his arms.

“Open your mouth again,” he whispered, “and this time kiss me back.”

His mouth lowered over hers as his tongue plunged inside. Then, she was kissing him back. Awkward at first, but hungry, and Lewt felt like his mind was exploding. A hunger built inside him. Roughly, he pulled her onto his lap and held her so tight he feared she couldn’t breathe. When she’d decided to kiss him back, he’d lost all control of this little favor he thought he was doing for her.

Finally, when they both had to come up for air, he broke the kiss but held her tightly to him. There was nothing plain about the way she kissed.

She slipped off his lap, pulled the blanket over them both, and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Thanks,” she whispered. “That was nice.” As her breathing returned to normal, he realized she was asleep with her hand laced in his.

Lewt rocked for a while, wondering what had just happened. He’d been kissed a thousand times. When he’d been about fifteen and had no money, the ladies in one of the bars would play a game with him. They’d all walk past him and kiss him and laugh as they teased him. Their kisses had been bold, hungry, sometimes savage.

But Em hadn’t been teasing him, and she didn’t pull away when the kiss got interesting. She didn’t want him any more than the ladies of the night did, but what they’d just done hadn’t been a game.

He lifted her up and carried her to the couch. The blankets Emily had used were still scattered around. Lewt covered Em, then knelt down and kissed her on the cheek. “See you in the morning,” he whispered as he brushed a stray strand of white-gold hair away from her soft cheek. He knew that the woman he’d meet at dawn would be nothing like the woman he’d just held in his arms, but maybe, if he was lucky, he’d see this Em one more time before he had to leave.