His hands opened and closed at his sides as he stared down into her face, then he grabbed her waist and pulled her roughly against him. She felt the heat and the hardness of him, the long muscular power of his taut body. And she drew a quick breath when, wide-eyed, she looked into the angry intensity blazing in his eyes.
His mouth came down on hers hard and hot and deliberate. His kiss was so unexpected that Freddy went limp in his arms with shock. She didn’t fight or protest, couldn’t move or breathe. No one had ever kissed her like this, selfishly, unemotionally, taking with no thought of giving. This kiss was hungry, domineering, something that seared and scorched physically and left her mind reeling.
When his mouth released her, his fingers dug into her waist, holding her hard against his hips, and he looked down at her with icy eyes. “That should prove that sometimes a kiss means absolutely nothing.” He almost shoved her away from him. “Good night, Frederick.”
Dal rode directly to the saloon and spent the remainder of the evening staring into a shot glass. If Ward Hamm had walked through the doors, he would have broken every bone in the bastard’s sanctimonious body. Hamm had planted a seed of doubt that would blossom into malignant suspicions if the drive failed to be successful. If the drive failed, people would believe he’d cut a deal with Lola.
Raising the shot glass, he remembered saying that he wouldn’t take the Roark sisters unless they were ready. Well, they weren’t close to ready. Already he had compromised himself.
Staring at himself in the mirror above the back bar, he looked at the whiskey glass hovering in front of his lips. One for the road, and maybe another, then all the worries went away. He was a few swallows from a good night’s sleep.
On the other hand—suppose he actually did drive two thousand head into the pens at Abilene. If he succeeded, he would become a legend. No one would remember the herds that Dal Frisco had lost; and no one would forget the herd that he ran into Abilene against all odds.
Slowly he lowered the shot glass and placed it on the bar. Not tonight.
After spinning two bits across the countertop, he walked outside and released a long breath, looking up at the stars. Tomorrow night he’d see those stars from his bedroll. With Freddy Roark sleeping an arm’s length away.
Chapter 9
The long road to Abilene began a mile from the ranch house.
Frisco waved his hat at the pilot, and Caleb Webster took off like a bullet, galloping north, with Alex racing her team after him. Freddy’s mouth dropped as the chuck wagon flew past her, utensils flapping and banging on the sides, Alex’s chair threatening to break from the ropes tying it on top. She flat could not believe that Alex was driving the careening wagon or that anyone could remain seated during such a maniacal ride. She’d had no idea that Alex would have to do something this dangerous and recklessly crazy. Next came Grady Cole with the remuda of twenty relief and night horses. Luther Moreland and Jack Caldwell followed close behind. Completing the advance parade was Ward Hamm, driving a wagon mounded high with heaven knew what.
Next, the drovers arrived, driving in small herds they had been holding together on the range. The small herds gathered into one huge seething bawling mass of horns and hooves. Freddy’s heart lurched. She considered herself an imaginative person, but not in her wildest fantasy had she visualized what 2,212 longhorns would actually look and sound like when bunched together.
The sea of horns and the bellowing din rendered her and Les speechless. Shocked into silence, they sat frozen on their horses, watching in stunned amazement as the drovers miraculously blended the beeves into a cohesive unit. When the animals began to move out, the herd formed a brown stream of hide and horns that stretched sixty feet across and over a mile long.
Freddy clapped a hand over her thumping heart. More than anything in the world, she yearned to turn tail and ride back to the ranch house, drop into a deep sleep, and awake to discover this had all been an improbable nightmare.
Frisco appeared, riding out of a dust cloud that swirled ten feet high and extended far out onto the range. “You two fall in at the rear,” he ordered, squinting through the dusty haze at the stream of steers. “We’ll keep them strung out so they don’t get overheated, but we’re going to move fast for the next three days to get them road-broke and too worn-out to make trouble. Keep pushing the stragglers and don’t let them lag. Also, we’ve got some cimarrones in this bunch—”
“Cimarrones?” Les inquired in a faint voice. Her face was the color of paste.