He found her breasts with his hands and dropped his lips to her arching throat, tasting dust and woman sweat and a trace of something that reminded him of apples. She tore his shirt at the throat, ripping it downward, and slipped her hands inside, her fingers like brands of fire across his skin. One minute she was straddling him, the next minute he’d rolled on top of her. It was like a dam had burst within them both, releasing a flood tide of desire and urgency. And God help him, he would have taken her right there on the ground with a stampede winding down a hundred yards behind them.
Desperate to suck her breasts into his mouth, he was about to rip open her shirt when a steer ran out of the darkness and galloped past them not six feet away. The longhorn was almost upon them before Dal registered the sound, smell, and the tremble in the earth beneath his knees.
Disoriented and struggling to catch his breath, he jumped to his feet, his first thought that the herd had turned and was thundering toward them, that they were about to be trampled into the range dirt. Another animal was headed in their direction, but it was a horse chasing the muley who had peeled out from the edges of the mill. Drinkwater reined up. “Need a hand, boss?”
“Freddy got tossed. We lost our horses,” he growled, noticing that his horse was gone too. “We’ll walk in.” He watched Drinkwater ride after the muley, then he combed his fingers through his hair and extended a hand to help Freddy to her feet. Hazy moonlight revealed bits of grass and twigs caught in the wild tangles of her hair. Her shirttail had pulled out of her trousers and her lips were swollen. A quick look down at himself revealed a torn shirt and unmistakable grass stains on his knees. He had no idea where his hat or his horse were.
As his mind cleared the full enormity of what he had done washed over him. He’d forgotten about a stampede, for Christ’s sake. He couldn’t believe it. All the time he’d been rolling on the ground with this woman, the earth had been shaking and men were shouting, and he hadn’t noticed.
Shocked, he said the first thing that came into his mind. “This can’t happen again.”
She looked up from tucking in her shirt and putting herself in order. “Are you claiming what we just did didn’t mean anything this time either?” Her chin came up in a warning.
He slid a slow look over her breasts and down her hips. “You know damned well it meant something.” And he didn’t like it. Sex had no place on a cattle drive. There were enough problems on the trail without stirring women into the mix. What he hadn’t anticipated was how seeing this woman every day would get under his skin and drive him crazy.
“Where’s our camp?”
“About two miles that way.” The drovers were still milling the herd, but the stampede was winding down. In the distance, he spotted the glow of two campfires.
Even though they stood on the open range with nothing near them, she elbowed him in the ribs to move him out of her way rather than step around him. Setting a line for the distant campfires, she shoved past, walking fast enough that he knew she was angry.
“What’s eating you?” he asked, catching up.
“It meant something, but it can’t happen again. I’m thinking about that.”
“It’s a long way to Abilene, Freddy. If you and I start something, others are sure to find out about it.”
“And you don’t want anyone to know that you’ve taken up with some low character like me?” She spit the words between her teeth. “Well you’re no prize either, Frisco. Maybe I don’t want anyone to know I almost made a mistake with you!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He had to lengthen his stride to keep up with her.
“You’re like all the rest. You think a woman who’s been onstage is easy pickings, so you took advantage of how scared I was.”
When he stopped to stare, she moved out ahead of him. “You’re not making sense. I did not take advantage of you!”
“Oh? You can’t take advantage of a whore or an actress because they’re already ruined? Is that what you’re saying?”
This was the thing about women that he most hated. They twisted a man’s words into a hangman’s knot.
He gripped her shoulders and leaned down to stare into her face. “We’re not taking another step until you tell me what the hell is going on here.”
“You tell me what’s going on here!”
“Freddy, I honest to God don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well don’t worry,” she snarled before she wrenched out of his hands. “This won’t happen again. You can count on it, you son of a bitch!”
It took him a mile of steady walking, watching her fanny in the moonlight, before he figured it out and moved up beside her.
“The reason I said we couldn’t do this again—”
“We won’t,” she snapped.
“Is because I need to keep my mind on business and so do you. This drive is crucially important to both of us. I can’t be distracted thinking about getting you alone somewhere when I should be thinking about tomorrow’s problems.” Already he suspected that sex could be more destructive than liquor ever had been. Even in his drinking days, he hadn’t forgotten a stampede that was occurring a few yards away. He wouldn’t have believed such a lapse was possible.