Sunset Embrace (12 page)

Her first sight of Memphis was through a veil of mist as she sat in the wagon, staring out over Mr. Coleman's shoulder while he maneuvered the team into the circle for the night. Lydia had never seen so large a city. Even from that distance, it was an awesome sight. She could have gazed idly at it for a long time, but there was work to be done in a hurry.

"We'd better get a fire going as soon as I can locate some dry wood," Ross said, glancing up at the moisture-laden clouds that scurried past on a cool wind.

He finally coaxed a small, sputtering fire out of the damp wood he had gathered. Lydia fried extra meat and made two batches of biscuits, saying, "This may be our last full-fledged fire for days." The rainfall had steadily increased.

Everyone in camp was dejected. They could see the Mississippi below them where they were camped on the bluffs. They had both dreaded and anticipated crossing the river, but now it looked intimidating and ominous. It was swollen from recent heavy rains. One could barely see the Arkansas shore for the gloomy rain that shrouded it. Those who had lived on or near the fierce Tennessee all their lives were impressed into silence by the breadth of the Mississippi.

Despite its awesome proportions, now that they were here and could see it, they were ready to cross. And it appeared they might have to wait, for days, even weeks.

"A group of us are going with Grayson to check on the ferry first thing in the morning," Ross told Lydia as they secured everything they could in the wagon and out of the weather.

"What do you think will happen?"

Ross cursed. "I think well have to wait out the rain. Folks who live on this river are superstitious about it. I don't think the ferries will chance crossing it until the next sunny day."

Lydia was sensitive to his mood and didn't provoke his temper. When he came in to get an extra blanket, she spoke to him softly from the other side of the warm, dry wagon. "Do you have to sleep outside, Mr. Coleman?"

He looked at her in open astonishment. She was feeding Lee, but since that morning he had seen her nursing him, she had started draping her shoulder, breast, and the baby's head with a flannel blanket. Ross was glad that she had felt some degree of modesty, but his mind wouldn't forget seeing her cushioning his sons head on that creamy mound of flesh.

"What would people think if the two of us stayed in here together?" he demanded short-temperedly.

"They'd probably think you had the good sense to come in out of the rain," she snapped back. The weather wasn't doing her temperament any good either. Nor was the man's stubbornness. Did he think she was trying to lure him into the wagon? Lying with a man was the last thing she wanted to do.

"Well, I can't sleep in here with . . , with . . . you." He turned toward the opening. "I'll see you in the morning."

He crawled beneath the wagon and rolled up in a blanket-lined tarpaulin. He was damp and chilled, but it was almost a relief from the hot, fevered feeling that had plagued him for days.

* * *

Ross was querulous and bedraggled when he returned to the wagon about noon. Rain was falling in sheets. He, Mr. Norwood, Mr. Sims, and Mr. Grayson had ridden down to the banks of the river and contacted the man who operated the ferry service. As Ross had predicted, he wouldn't consider crossing the flood-stage river in this kind of rain and wind. Hauling twenty wagons with teams, women, and children through the swift current was out of the question.

"He said we would have to wait until the rain subsided," Ross said, grimacing as he tossed down the cold coffee Lydia had saved him.

"Are you hungry?"

He shrugged. His face was dark with stubble. With good reason—he hadn't shaved that morning. "Reckon I could eat something."

She passed him a folded linen napkin in which he found a bacon and biscuit sandwich. "Ma is sending her two boys into town later in hopes of buying some canned food. Can you think of anything Lee needs?" Ross asked.

Lydia shook her head, thinking of a dozen things she needed. Like a chemise, for instance. If she wore one, she could line it with soft cloth so that when her breasts leaked, she wouldn't have to run from Mr. Coleman or anyone else who might see the two damp circles on the front of her dress. "The ladies on the train have loaned him things. He won't need much else until he grows some."

Ross would have loved to go into town himself, but didn't dare take a chance. He had been foolhardy even to go down and talk to the ferryman. He had kept his bearded face averted. It had been three years, but still . . .

The afternoon hours dragged by drearily and interminably. Lee slept, though Lydia sang to him, tickled his tummy, and anything else she could do to keep him awake. She was bored, sitting alone in the wagon without older children or a husband to talk to. Other women were using this day to rest, or mend, or speculate with their families about their new homesteads in Texas or farther west. Ross had left the wagon to see to his horses, leaving Lydia alone.

Luke and Bubba called to her from the back of the wagon just before darkness fell. She scrambled on hands and knees to lift the canvas and peer out, bursting into laughter at the sight of them. Their felt hat brims were drooping low as runnels of water rolled down onto the slickers they wore. But their rain-washed faces were as animated as ever. She imagined that they had enjoyed riding into a city like Memphis and would be full of stories to tell for days to come.

"We spent all the money Ross gave us. Peaches, pears, okra stewed with tomatoes and onions, and a smoked sausage," Bubba said, taking the items from the knapsack tied to his saddle horn and passing them to her.

"The smell of that sausage has been making our mouths water," Luke said.

"Did you buy one too?"

Bubba glanced at Luke with a look that said he would dearly love to murder him. "Naw."

Lydia was appalled at what she had forced the boy to admit. The Langstons couldn't afford a sausage. She and Mama had helped butcher hogs, working all day for a pound of bacon and a sausage. She had no concept of money or any idea how much a sausage or anything else would cost.

"Well, you deserve a reward for bringing it back to me ... to Mr. Coleman, I mean." Reaching in the cooking-utensil box, she lifted out a butcher knife and, securing the sausage between her body and her arm, cut off a slice for each boy. "Here. Enjoy it."

Luke reached for his slice immediately, unabashedly cramming it into his mouth. Bubba took his portion almost grudgingly. "Thank you kindly, Miss Lydia." He was relieved to see that she wasn't wearing the tight dress anymore, though she filled out the front of Luke's old shirt right nice.

The mysteries of the female body bewitched him and consumed his thoughts. He had been thinking about Priscilla Watkins all day. He had seen her standing out in the rain yesterday evening. Her dress had been clinging wetly to her body and detailing her figure. When she saw Bubba, she had turned to him, seemingly unaware that the cloth was plastered to her breasts and their impudent nipples. He had lain in misery all night wondering what it felt like to touch a woman's breast.

Now sight of Lydia's warmth and softness caused embarrassing and shameful reactions in his body. "We'd best be gittin' to our own wagon or Ma'll have a posse out after us."

Lydia smiled. "Yes, you'd better." They rode away into the gathering gloom.

She and Ross shared the food when he returned to the wagon. He looked almost as sodden as the young men had. They rationed the food to lust for several days. Even eaten cold with leftover biscuits, it tasted delicious to Lydia. Before the Langstons found her, she had never had such good-tasting food, food that everyone else seemed to take for granted.

Lydia dreaded the time when Ross would go back outside. But not as much as Ross did. The ground was good and soaked now and he didn't look forward to another night spent striving to stay dry. The wagon was cozy with the lantern's soft glow, with Lee's new baby smell, with . . . Lydia. Her feminine presence made the wagon alluringly homey.

He stretched out the time he could remain inside by repairing a bridle that could have gone another few days without his attention. It took him an inordinate amount of time to accomplish that simple task, but he made sure that the two shadows cast on the canvas by the interior light were well separated should anyone happen to be watching. When he had run out of excuses to stay, he gathered his damp bedroll and approached the back of the wagon.

"Don't forget to turn out the lantern." He didn't look at her where she sat in a front corner of the wagon with Lee lying on her breast. The baby had finished feeding minutes ago, but she hadn't wanted to put him in his bed yet. She loved his precious weight against her body, loved to feel his rapid heartbeats against her.

"Good night, Mr. Coleman." Guiltily she watched his retreating back. Rightfully he could have booted her out in the rain and taken the wagon for himself. But she had suggested once that for common senses sake he stay inside. He had nearly bitten her head off. She could be as stubborn as he. She wouldn't offer again.

* * *

She hadn't been asleep long when a crack of thunder brought her bolt upright on the pallet. It had been thundering the last time Claneey had crawled into her sleeping loft and clamped her throat with his grimy hand in order to hold her still and quiet. Her forehead and upper lip were beaded with perspiration. She had been dreaming of his grappling hands on her, of the pain, of the sickening culmination of her losing struggle.

Thunder reverberated through the air again, accompanied by a keening wind. Rain pelleted the canvas covering the wagon. It sounded like a thousand tiny beating drums. Lydia shivered, in terror of the elements and with the residual horror of her nightmare. She checked on Lee. He was sleeping soundly. She thought of Mr. Coleman out there in the rain and, before she weighed her reasons, began crawling her way toward the end of the wagon.

About the time Lydia was waking from her dream, Ross decided that he was a damned fool for turning over the warmth and comfort of his wagon to a strumpet who would likely run off any day now. He was soaked to the skin, shivering with each blast of wind and rain that found him where he lay underneath the wagon. The girl could go to hell and take Mrs. Watkins and everyone else on the train with her for all he cared. He was going inside. He inched from beneath the wagon, and was groping for the flapping canvas when Lydia threw it back.

Surprised to see the other, they each stared, frozen for a moment in time, heedless of the rain drenching Ross. It took another fearsome crack of lightning, which cut a jagged bluish scar out of the sky, to jerk them back into the present.

Lydia reached out and caught his hand, pulling him into the wagon. He all but fell inside on his knees, shivering convulsively while a great pool of rainwater formed around him.

Mindless that she was getting the hem of her nightgown wet, Lydia knelt before him and began unbuttoning his shirt buttons. "You're going to catch your death," she said fussily as she peeled the sodden shirt away from his shoulders and down his arms. "Get out of those pants."

Ross was too numb in mind and body to object, and obeyed blindly. Lydia tossed the shirt onto the steps outside. It couldn't get any wetter. She lit the lantern, but only turned the wick high enough to cast a feeble glow. She glanced over her shoulder to see him working with his belt buckle. "Hand me all your clothes. I'll put them outside."

She kept her back turned, but she could hear him taking off the clothes. His pants must have weighed ten pounds with the water they contained, but she managed to take them with her hand stretched out behind her, bring them forward, and heave them outside along with a pair of socks and underwear.

When she glanced around, Ross was wrapped in a blanket. "You're shivering. Are you still wet?" She reached into the hamper where towels were stored and approached him with two of them. "Dry your hair."

He draped the towel over his head and rubbed it vigorously. She placed the other towel on his chest and began to run her hands over it. Ross's actions stilled for a heartbeat, but he resumed as she briskly blotted his shoulders, his chest, and lower to his stomach.

She was struck by how hard his body was. The bronzed skin was stretched tautly over sinew and muscle and bone. There were nicks in it, small scars scattered over him, and the one just below his left shoulder that looked like ft handful of flesh had been torn out by a giant fist. She wondered what he had suffered to have put it there, and she ached to touch it, soothe it somehow.

Intriguing to her, too, was the forest of crisp hair that covered his chest. It looked like a dark cloud, damp and curly. But the farther down his torso her hands moved, the silkier and finer the hair became. The growth pattern narrowed toward his navel.

Ross sucked his breath in sharply when she touched, his navel and clenched his teeth when he felt her hands climbing back up his ribs. He draped the towel around his neck and caught her wrists in both his fists, yanking her upward and forward. He had been intent only on stopping her hands. He hadn't counted on her being caught totally off guard, on her weighing no more than a hummingbird, and on it taking no more than that swift tug to land her square in his lap with her breasts pressed flat against his chest and her knees . . . Good God! Could she feel him? Naked and hard.

For another startled moment they stared deep into each others eyes, their breaths rasping together, hearts pulsing as violently as the thunder outside.

Damn those eyes of hers. He searched the jeweled depths of them. The myriad facets made him too dizzy to count them. And did her mouth have to look so goddamned succulent, like a rare and precious fruit that the gods squeezed nectar from? The tip of his tongue ached to dip into it and taste . . . and taste again. Didn't she have bones? Did all of her feel this soft and malleable, with no sharp angles to poke or protude?

He wanted to kiss her, to distort the perfection of her mouth with his lips. He craved to mold that incredible welcoming warmth against his hard desire. He would die if he didn't surrender to the raging, maniacal demand of his body for surcease.