Sunset Embrace (20 page)

He stared at the ground for an interminable length of time while she looked down at his head, wishing she dared touch his hair, iron the creases of worry from his brow. When he looked at her again, his face was void of expression. "I guess we don't have much choice but to stay together until we reach Jefferson."

"I guess so." Then what? She was afraid to ask. Marriage to a stranger with volatile moods wasn't ideal, but he didn't beat her. She preferred having him around to being alone as she had been a month ago. In fact, she was coming to miss him when he wasn't in sight, whatever his mood. "I'm really sorry about my . . . my milk. I had no way of knowing when we married."

Unerringly his eyes went to her breasts. They were as lush, as full, as seductive as ever. "No, you couldn't have known," he said. "I wasn't angry with you, only at fate."

He had been angry because his wife had died prematurely and unjustly. He had lost his temper because he had married this girl, telling himself she was trash and vowing that he didn't want her. And he was furious because, in spite of all those claims, he wanted her very much.

"Why did you tell Mr. Hill you were taking me to the river? Why did you put your arm around me?" The last two words were spoken to her shoes because by that time she had shyly bowed her head.

Because 1 wasn't about to let him court you. Because I was jealous as hell that he even mentioned taking you for a walk. Because it provided me with an opportunity to touch you.
"He and Moses probably heard us fighting. I didn't want it to get back to anybody that I was treating you badly."

"Oh," she said around a mouthful of bitter disappointment.

"Let's get back to the wagon. Ma'll be along with Lee in a while." Surprising both of them, he closed his hand around her upper arm to guide her along.

* * *

"If that isn't the most pitiful sight I ever did see."

Bubba Langston's light head cleaved the surface of the water and he came up sputtering. Only a few feet from him Priscilla Watkins was lounging on the grassy bank of the stream. She sat with her arms braced behind her, her knees drawn up, heedless that a good bit of shin and petticoat were visible to the boy in the shallow rushing water.

"What are you doin' spyin' on me? And what's pitiful?" Bubba asked, treading slowly toward the bank. He had been tempted to shuck all his clothes before going into the water. He thanked his stars now he had left his breeches on.

"I wasn't spying on anybody," she retorted petulantly. "I just came down here to the river to cool off. It gets so hot and study riding on that ol' wagon all day." Priscilla drew her mouth into a pout she knew no man could resist looking at and sat up straight. She brought her arms up high over her head and stretched languorously, pulling the cloth of her dress tight over her well-developed breasts. Her lashes lowered over sultry gray eyes as she looked at Bubba commiseratingly.

"And what's pitiful is your chest, Bubba Langston. It doesn't have any hair on it. Nary a one. I saw Mr. Coleman once when he was bathing in the river. He's got hair all over him. Under his arms, on his chest. Some places a young woman shouldn't even see." She yawned broadly, feigning boredom while she slyly watched Bubba's Adam's apple bounce uncontrollably.

"You know what would feel real good?" she asked, becoming animated. "I think I'll take off my shoes and stockings and dangle my feet in that cool water. Girls aren't as lucky as you boys. We can't just strip off to the buff and go swimming whenever we want."

Bubba watched in silent fascination as she unlaced her shoes and pulled them off. Hiking her skirts up, she began to roll her stockings down slowly. Bubba's whole body thickened as her hands slithered down over her knee and calf, taking her stocking with them. She eased the stocking over her slender foot and when Bubba saw the white, naked length of her leg and foot he thought he would die.

Closing her eyes and taking on a rapturous expression, she eased that foot into the swirling water. Lasciviously, she licked her lips with an indolent tongue. Bubba moaned miserably and took another three steps toward her, his legs leadenly pulling through the water. "Priscilla."

She ignored him and went about peeling down the other stocking until her skirts were bunched around her waist and she had both feet swishing in the water. "That feels almost as good as some other things I know about, doesn't it, Bubba?"

He wasn't thinking clearly and what she said didn't register. "It does, too, have hair on it."

She smiled coyly. "Does not."

"Does too." Bubba stood within inches of her now. With the current of the water, her feet bumped against his thighs and the fly of his pants. God, he was going to die! "See?"

She leaned forward to peer closely at his chest. "Well, I do declare. I do see a few hairs sprinkled here and there." She looked up into his feverish face from under her lashes. Lowering her voice to a seductive purr she asked, "Can you feel them growing there? What do they feel like?"

Bubbas tongue felt too big for his mouth and it had forgotten how to move. He couldn't have worked up a spit if his life had depended on it. Still he managed to garble out, "Touch it and see."

Priscilla's eyes glowed triumphantly and she glanced over her shoulder cautiously. "If I do, you won't tell anybody, will you? Not even that snoopy little brother of yours?"

"I swear," he said, with all the wholeheartedness of a saint vowing obedience.

"All right, then." She extended her hand and, just when she was about to make contact, snatched it back. "I can't."

God, she was killing him! "'Course you can," he panted. "Just touch it."

"You're a beast for making me do this, Bubba Lang-ston," she said chastisingly. Bubba was too far gone to notice the role of seducer had just reverted to him. All he knew was the firebrand touch of her fingertips on his chest. It sent white heat coursing through his body. His manhood throbbed painfully inside his wet pants. If the water hadn't been waist high, she would have seen the tremendous power she was working over him. As it was, the toes of one foot had somehow become lodged in his crotch.

"Oh, Bubba," she cooed, closing her eyes and letting her fingers wander farther afield. "You feel so good. Manly."

"Do I?"

"Um-huh." Sighing with regret, she took her hands away. "But I shouldn't have let you talk me into such a thing. I'm getting hot all over."

"You are?"

She nodded, letting her wheat-blond hair cascade over her shoulders. "I think I'll dip some of this water over me to cool me off." Studiously ignoring his avid eyes, she nonchalantly opened the first two buttons of her dress and leaned toward the stream, making sure he could see her bosom swelling over her bodice. Then cupping water in her hands, she poured it over her chest and let it trickle down. "Ooooh," she squealed softly. "I didn't think it would be so cold." She continued to ladle water over herself until the front of her dress was wet and clinging.

When she straightened, she gasped in mock surprise at Bubba's dilated gaze. She followed it to her breasts. The cotton molded over them tantalizingly. The cold water had brought her nipples to hard distention, just as she had planned.

"Oh, mercy me," she cried and covered them with her hands. "Don't stare at me like that, Bubba. That gleam in your eyes makes me want to swoon."

"You stared at me," he said thickly.

Gradually she lowered her hands, making sure they dragged with deliberate leisure over the globes of her breasts and that her fingertips grazed the rigid nipples. "So I did, didn't I? You're a cad to take advantage of a girl this way, but fair's fair, I suppose."

He stood there gaping at her breasts and didn't see the frustration that thinned her lips. The boy was dense, of that she was certain. If Scout hadn't hightailed it out for the nearest town as soon as they had made camp, she wouldn't be here with this lout who apparently didn't know what that tool in his pants was for. But she knew what it was for and she could barely sit still for wanting it.

He needed prodding. "I touched you too," she said softly, letting her voice sound tremulously on the verge of tears. "But I know you'd never hold me to that, would you, Bubba?" Her toes pointed downward, bringing the high, arching vamp of her foot to lie along the buttons of his pants.

He brought his blue eyes piercingly up to hers. "You said fair was fair."

She wet her lips with her tongue, making sure he saw the gesture. She batted her eyelashes, coaxing a few tears to form, "You truly are beastly. But if you promise not to tell."

"I swear," he repeated, his eyes fastened again on the puckering nipples snowing so plainly through her dress. Awkwardly his hands came up out of the water. "I'll get your dress wetter."

"It won't matter!" she fairly screamed. If this had been Scout they would have already been at it for an hour or more. And here she was having to instruct this fool every step of the way.

Bubba's hands closed over her lightly, then, testing her reaction, more firmly. He rubbed, squeezed, kneaded, not quite believing something could feel so good. He gathered enough courage to let his thumbs drift back and forth over her nipples.

"Ummm, Bubba. I do believe you've done this before," Priscilla said. She had opened her legs and he had naturally stepped between them. Her heels found the backs of his knees and pressed him closer.

"No, never."

"Come on, Bubba, you can tell me."

"Never. I swear it, Priscilla. You're the first girl I've ever loved."

"Harder," she rasped. "Rub them harder, Bubba, and step closer so—"

"Bubba Langstonl" The name echoed off the heavens and came right back down on Bubba's head, sending him backward into the water. Had Priscilla not caught a handful of grass, she would have fallen in after him.

"Yes, Ma?" Bubba said, slipping on the rocks of the stream bed as he clambered toward the bank.

"I think your pa needs some help back at the wagon."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, pulling his shirt off the bush where he had hung it after rinsing it out. His wet breeches squished and sloshed as he scampered through the trees.

Ma, looking as indomitable as a fortress even with baby Lee Coleman in the crook of her arm, bore down on the girl, who was hastily pulling on her stockings.

When Bubba was out of earshot, Ma grabbed a handful of Priscilla's hair and hauled her to her feet. "I'm raisin' a decent boy and I aim to see that he stays decent, you hear me, girl?"

"Let go of me," Priscilla said, twisting her head to no avail except to prickle her scalp. Ma's grip didn't lessen.

"You're a hot little hussy and I seen that the first time I laid eyes on you, but I'm tellin' you now to stay away from Bubba."

"He's maturin' and feelin' his manhood and you're just the bait he needs to get hisself in a heap of trouble. I ain't a'gonna let it happen."

"I'll tell my ma about you talking to me like this."

"No you won't, 'cause then your fun with Scout would come to a screechin' halt."

Priscilla ceased her struggles abruptly and Ma, knowing she had the girl's undivided attention, released her. "The next time you feel that twitchin' in your tail, wag it in someone else's face and leave the Langston men alone."

When Ma had returned Lee to Lydia and gone to her own wagon, Bubba was there. She didn't vocalize her rebuke, but her eyes told her son just what she thought of his dalliance with Priscilla Watkins. Bubba, swallowing convulsively, his face flushing hotly and turning the roots of his hair white, said, "Need any help with supper, Ma?"

"Y
ep. I surely do recollect that," the ferryman said, passing a plug of tobacco to the man who was inquiring after the wagon train. "'Bout two, three weeks back, it was."

The man bit off a generous chew and crammed it into his mouth. Pinching off another, he put it in his shirt pocket for later. The ferryman yanked his tobacco back. Prices being what they were, generosity only went so far. "Two or three weeks, you say?" the man repeated.

" 'Bout that, yeah. I remember 'cause they had to camp up there on the bluffs before the rain stopped and the river was safe to cross."

"You remember seein' anybody lookin' like the girl I told you 'bout?"

The ferryman shot a wad of tobacco spittle into the current of the river. " 'Spect I do. Had a heap of hair, she did. And a young'un. A sucklin' babe."

"A babe?"

"Tiny little mite. Not more'n a month old, I'd say."

Hie other man grinned with evil satisfaction as he gazed toward the Arkansas shore. "Reckon she's the one, all right."

Hie ferryman chuckled. "She's not a sight a man could forget like yesterdays piss, but how come you're after a little ol' gal like that, who's already got a babe and all?"

The other man sent flying a nasty string of chewed tobacco into the muddy water. "She's the she-bitch what give me this here scar on my head."

The ferryman had already assessed the man as one of the orneriest, dirtiest, ugliest bastards he had ever seen, but the scar that sliced across his hairline and down into his brow was only part of it. He figured the man was ugly clean through to the marrow.

"I aim to make her pay for it," he was saying about the girl.

The ferryman took off his wide-brimmed hat and brushed his sleeve across a sweating brow. "Well, if I was you, I'd be careful of that man she's with. He—"

"Man!"

The ferryman backed away cautiously from the sudden menace in his companion. He didn't invite trouble with anyone, especially with this kind of renegade who looked like he would just as soon kill a man as look at him and for no better reason than the fan of it. "Yeah, her husband, I spect."

"She ain't married," the man growled.

"Well, she was carrin' a sucker and travelin' in a man's wagon, so I reckoned they was a family. I remember 'cause 'bout halfway across, she got scared-like and went scram-blin' back into the wagon. Everybody panicked for a minute, the horses too. The man went runnin' after her and they stayed in the wagon together for the rest of the crossin'."

Eyes, black and beady and threatening, were scanning the opposite shore. The ferryman spat again, glad this man wasnt after him. But he wouldn't have an easy time of getting that woman away from the big man with the moustache and flashing eyes.