Comanche Cowboy (The Durango Family) (11 page)

Maverick handed her a straw hat. “Found it in the barn; guess it belonged to the younger man. It’ll keep the sun off that fair skin. You’re so sunburned your nose is starting to peel.”

At least he hadn’t said, “I told you so.” She accepted the hat and put it on. “I feel funny about taking things that don’t belong to me.”

Maverick shrugged. “One thing’s for certain, those
hombres
don’t need anything anymore. The Cheyenne saw to that.”

She looked at him curiously. “Are you sure it was Cheyenne?”

He nodded. “Kinda far north mostly for Comanche and Kiowa and too far south for Sioux, although the Sioux’ll be the next to take the war path. Hear Custer’s taking an expedition looking for gold through the Black Hills this summer. And that’s Sioux hunting grounds.”

Only a savage himself could know so very much about the tribes. Without thinking, she asked, “How long did you live with them, Maverick?”

“ ’Til I was almost fourteen.” His tone betrayed nothing.

“Why did you leave? Come back to the whites?”

“Baby, you ask too many questions,” he snapped, and his hand seemed to go automatically to the jagged scar on his face as he dug his spurs in the gray. “Let’s get out of here. By the way, I found a little jar of butter cooling in the well that the braves overlooked.”

Butter
. It seemed almost comical to be thinking about butter with the country swarming with Indians and with two fresh graves in the yard behind them. She followed him and the packhorse away from the ranch.

She had more and more misgivings as they rode out to the southwest. Up ahead of them somewhere lay the Cherokee Outlet of the Territory and even more Indians.

“Maybe we should go back to Wichita and wait this out like you said.”

He turned in his saddle, frowning at her. “A little late to decide that now. That war party may be combing the area between us and Wichita for buffalo hunters, any poor traveler, or wagon train they can raid.”

“But what about the soldiers at Fort Dodge and the other forts? Why don’t they do something?”

“What would you suggest?” He raised one eyebrow sardonically. “There’s a thousand miles of wide-open country and the army can’t be everywhere.”

It must have been about noon when they crossed the dry stream and found the shade of the wild sand plum bushes. They ate their fill of the ripening fruit and rested. Maverick dug down in the dry sand until he’d formed a little well that gradually filled full of water. He filled their spare canteens before leading the eager, thirsty horses over to drink.

“You’re a wonder,” she said respectfully. “I feel more and more confident traveling with you.”

He laughed and sat down next to her in the shade. “You’ll think confident if we cross the trail of a war partly.

She watched the horses drink. “Maverick, what do war parties do for water in a dry place?”

He hesitated as if he didn’t want to relive that part of his life. “They say when a white man gives up on a horse, a Mexican can get on him and ride him a few more miles, and when the Mexican can’t get anything else out of him, a Comanche can get on it, make it go a few more miles. When the horse finally stumbles and dies, a Comanche’ll take the horse’s guts, fill them with muddy water, wrap them around his body for the extra supply, and keep riding.”

She shuddered. “What terrible memories you must have.”

He looked at her and the gray eyes softened. “They are, except for Annie Laurie. . . . ”

She waited curiously for him to go on, wondering if the emotion that took hold of her was jealousy. She suddenly remembered his talking of a white captive. Had she been his woman? No, he’d only been fourteen when he left them.

Maverick stared into her face, abruptly frowning as he reached out to touch the tip of her nose. “By damn, baby, you’re sunburned all down your neck, your arms. »

Was he going to say,
“I told you so”?
“It’s not bad,” she insisted.

He got up, went over to the grazing packhorse, took out a little tin, and came back.

“I was planning on using this to make that stale hardtack worth eatin’,” he said, “but I think you need it worse.”

Her face felt as if it were on fire, but she’d never give him the satisfaction of knowing that.
The first day of July,
she thought wearily, watching him dip his fingers in the melted butter, and oh,
the weather was so hot; she was so weary.

He rubbed the butter on her face with hands so gentle, a touch so sensitive, it surprised her. But she knew she must protest. “I can do that myself.”

“I know that. But I’m going to.” His tone told her he expected no argument. She closed her eyes, enjoying his stroking the butter all over her burned face.

Maverick made a little sound of disapproval. “Reb, you’re burned worse than I thought. I think we’ll stay here and rest ’til this evening, travel after dark.”

“You don’t have to baby me,” she bristled, not opening her eyes, enjoying the touch of his fingers on her face, “I’m perfectly capable of going on!”

“Then let’s just say I’m tired,” he chuckled as his fingers spread the butter down her throat. “I have to say your name suits you, Cayenne. You’ve got more fire and pepper to you than most women.”

She caught the hint of admiration in his voice and was pleased, although she reminded herself that he was faithless, that she meant nothing to him. “Well, okay, if you’re tired,” she said, leaning back against the grass with a sigh. “But, remember, I offered to go on.”

“Sure, baby, sure.” She felt his fingers rub the warm butter into her throat, work their way down into the neck of her shirt. “By damn,” he muttered, “you’re burned worse than I thought. Next time, do like I tell you.”

“Stop bossing me like I belonged to you.”

His voice was almost a caress as his fingers fumbled with the top button of her shirt. “Don’t you?”

She started to argue with him, to protest his unbuttoning that top button. But now his fingers moved still lower, lightly stroking her lower throat with the warm, rich butter. Cayenne sighed. She hadn’t realized it would feel so good on her sunburned skin.

“You’ll stain my shirt.”

“I need to doctor that sunburn.”

She let her eyes flicker open, look at him. She hesitated a long moment before she unbuttoned the second button, pulling the shirt off her shoulders so he could stroke there. It felt so good, his fingers caressing her skin as he smeared hot butter on them.

“I need to get your arms.” His gaze on hers was intense as he stroked her shoulders.

She shuddered all over at the gentle stroking of his hands on her skin. Then, without opening her eyes, she reached to unbutton the shirt all the way to the waist and jerked it open. She couldn’t keep from arching up for the touch of his hands as they came down on her breasts.

She closed her eyes, leaning back and relaxing as he rubbed the warm butter into her sunburned breasts.

“Roll over,” he ordered. “Let me do your back.”

Obediently she rolled over, shivering at the feel of his fingers massaging the hot, melted liquid into her shoulders, along her spine. Without thinking, she made a sound of animal pleasure.

“Your skin’s so dry it’s chapping from this hot I, wind,” he complained. “I’d better oil you down all over. Unbutton your pants.”

“I don’t know-”

“I’ve seen everything you’ve got,” he snorted. “Unbutton ’em.”

Lying on her belly, she reached under herself and unbuttoned them. She felt Maverick jerk her boots off, then her pants. Before she could protest, he pulled off her lace drawers.

If she’d felt embarrassment, she forgot it as his hands crept lower down her waist, massaging the warm butter into her hips.

“Kid, you’ve got the best-lookin’ bottom I’ve ever seen on a woman.

She stiffened, unsure whether to be insulted or complimented. “And I’ll bet you’ve seen a lot of them!”

He popped her smartly on the rear. “Relax! I’ve seen my share,” he admitted, “none so fine as yours.”

She tried to remember she was angry with him, but it was hard to do with his strong hands gently massaging the butter the length of her back, caressing her hips. “Better than that saloon girl’s?”

He laughed. “You still het up over her? I swear I haven’t touched another woman since the first time I saw you, wanted you.”

His hands were kneading the back of her thighs now, working their sure way down her calves.
He was flattering her,
she thought. “When was the first time you saw me?”

“From the upstairs window at the Red Garter.” His fingers caressed the back of her calves, sending little shivers of pleasure all over her. “I’d gone up there with Molly, but once I saw you standing down there in the street, I couldn’t take her. All I wanted was you.”

His hard, sure hands rubbed the butter into her feet, between her toes.

She rolled over and looked up at him. “Are you lying to me to get me over my mad?”

He shrugged and began rubbing her throat, working his way down toward her breasts. “Cee Cee, I don’t care whether you believe me or not. I’m just tellin’ you how it is.”

She looked into the gray eyes and they were soft, warm for once, like a gray kitten she’d once owned. Somehow she knew he spoke the truth.
She was taking him back to face three gunfighters who were probably going to kill him.
Cayenne felt such shame she couldn’t look at him. “Rub me all over,” she sighed, closing her eyes.

She heard him dip his hand in the butter again, and then his calloused hands cupped her breasts, massaging the hot butter into the skin, into her nipples. She took a deep breath and felt her nipples harden into erect pink buds as he caressed them, moved down to her belly.

“Umm, baby,” he murmured as he stroked her, “with that vanilla scent and all this butter, you’re good enough to eat!” She felt him lean over and his tongue licked the butter from the hollow of her navel. That sent sensations of pleasure tingling through her very being.

Her eyes flickered open, looked up at him, and saw the slight redness of his own nose. “You’re burnt, too,” she whispered and reached over, dipping her fingertips in the butter, rubbing it on his face, across the jagged scar.

He hesitated, as if unsure how to react while her fingers rubbed the oil across his high cheekbones and down into the open neck of his shirt.

“Take it off,” she whispered.

His eyes never left hers as he hesistated. “Baby, you’d better think twice—”

“I said take it off.”

With a shrug, he unbuttoned the shirt, pulling it off.

Cayenne looked at his big chest critically. “I thought you’d have Sun Dance scars.”

He laughed. “Comanches don’t sun dance. I’ve got scars, though.” He pointed to a long one on his ribs. “Here’s where a bear almost got me before I got him.” He touched one on his arm. “Here’s where a Ute missed my heart, caught my arm with that lance; cost him his life.”

She reached out, running her finger over the jagged scar on his cheek. “What about that one?”

He hesitated. “A Comanche named Pine da poi, Whip Owner, gave me that.”

Something about his hesitance, the forbidding look on his face, warned her off, but her curiosity got the better of her. “And did you kill him, too?”

He smiled in grim satisfaction. “Not that night. But a few months later I got him; got him in a way Comanches fear most. I strangled him.”

She winced at the satisfaction in his dark face. “You—you did what?

He nodded toward the loop of rawhide lying by his gunbelt. “Comanches fear to die that way. They think a man’s soul escapes up his throat, out his mouth as he dies. If he’s strangled or hanged, his soul can’t escape; it’s trapped in his dead body forever. I’m only sorry I didn’t have time to torture him. My uncle’s death was too easy.”

He looked toward the scalp hanging on the gray’s bridle and smiled slowly.

“Your own uncle?” Cayenne stared at him with helpless horror. Maverick was a strange, savage animal and yet she was attracted to him like a moth to a deadly fire. She knew she should be repulsed by his primitive cruelty, and yet when his hand reached out to touch her face, he was both gentle and hesitant.

Cayenne dipped her hand in the butter, rubbing it on his wide shoulders, down the powerful chest. His bronzed skin, like most Indians, was almost hairless. She hesitated only a moment, then worked her hand down the big chest, stroking his dark nipples.

He took a deep, shuddering breath and caught her hand. “You’d better stop while you can, Reb,” he warned. “You’re about to build a fire you can’t put out.”

She looked at him, her small hand completely enclosed by his big one, and she wanted him. “I know how to put it out,” she said.

He laughed uneasily, not letting go of her hand. “You’re mad at me, remember?”

He was a damned Yankee sympathizer, a Comanche, and a rough, arrogant cowboy who had tumbled her in the grass on a creek bank, taking her virginity. And yet, that was all outweighed by the ecstasy she had found in his arms, the way her body even now cried out for him. “Lie down,” she said. “I’ll cover you with butter.”

“My skin’s too dark to sunburn.”

“I’ll do it anyway.”

He chuckled. “Suit yourself, baby.” He unbuckled his gun belt and lay down on his belly.

Cayenne straddled his waist with her naked body as she rubbed the hot oil into his ropy back muscles. Never had she seen such a virile, powerful build.
A stallion, she thought, a stallion of a man.
“Roll over.”

He rolled over and she dipped her hand in the butter again, rubbing it on his wide chest and into his dark nipples, feeling them go taut beneath her fingers.

His eyes were as dark and deep as gray mountain pools. “Baby, you’re about to get into serious trouble.”

“Am I?” She leaned over then, kissed him.

With a groan, his hands came up, catching her face, and he kissed her deeply, thoroughly.

Straddling his body, she felt his manhood go rigid, throbbing against her hips. She pulled back, reaching down to unbuckle his belt. “Make love to me, Maverick.”

He breathed hard but didn’t move. “Uh uh, baby,” he shook his head. “You’ll never accuse me of rape again.”

She bent, running her tongue over his nipple. “Aren’t you planning to marry me when we get to

Texas?”
If he lived,
she thought with a pang of conscience.

“No fair!” he gasped, arching up against her tongue. “No man’s responsible for what he says when a woman does that to him!”

“I come with a dowry of a nice ranch,” she whispered, and rubbed the edge of the dark circle hard with her tongue.

He swore under his breath, caught her shoulders, and pulled her mouth down on his nipple. “Baby, at this moment I don’t give a damn about a ranch!”

She moved off him, running her hand down his skin under his pants. His manhood throbbed hotly against her hand. And her body needed him as she had never realized she could need a man. “Make love to me, Maverick,” she whispered again.

With a low groan, he reached down, took his pants off, and pulled her to him in a crushing embrace. “Baby, you really know how to make a man want you! ”

She dipped her hand in the butter, rubbing it into his lean, dark body, and they clung together, both covered with oil, both kissing each other’s skin.

He pulled her hard up against him, kissing her lips feverishly. “I’m going to put my baby in your belly!” he said.

“Then do it!” she challenged.

He grabbed her, turned her on her back; took her hard and fast and deep. Cayenne dug her nails into his dark, powerful shoulders, tilting herself up so he could go into her very core while she wrapped her long legs around his hard-driving hips.

She arched herself to nip his nipples with her sharp little teeth, sending spasms of pleasure through him. “Ride me! ” she whispered. “Ride me deep and good ! ”

And he obliged with a savage frenzy, like some wild mustang stallion taking a mare. She didn’t care anymore whether this was right or wrong. He was her man, had been since the first fumbling innocent kiss on the boardwalk in Wichita. He was her man and she wanted no other.

Afterwards they lay naked and spent in each other’s arms, sleeping the hot afternoon away while the horses grazed. Toward dusk he awakened her by kissing her skin gently, running his tongue across her breasts. “Maybe that wasn’t such a waste of the butter,” he grinned down at her. “We’ll have to do this again sometime.”

She smiled contentedly at him, ruffling his black hair with her hand. For once, the troubled, closed expression he usually wore seemed replaced by a gentle peace. “I love you, Maverick Durango,” she whispered, “and you’ll like it on our ranch. It’s the Lazy M; now that can stand for Maverick and McBride.”

His expression changed suddenly, as if a disturbing thought had crossed his mind. He sat up and looked down at her. “Sometimes things don’t work out happily, Cee Cee, even when we wish they could.”

What was he driving at?
Then she remembered his words about the man he sought vengeance against. “You’re still determined to go after that man?”

He nodded, turning away as if he didn’t want her to look into his troubled eyes, see his troubled soul.

“Why, Maverick? Why do you feel you must?”

“I—I made a vow I’d get him. I made it in blood.”

Whose blood?
she thought with shock and horror, trying to imagine that scene. “Can’t you forget it? It happened so very long ago. Do you hate the man so much?”

What she saw in his face was brutal and ugly. When he finally spoke, his voice shook with a terrible anger. “I hate him so much, if he were on fire, I wouldn’t spit on him to put it out!”

“This revenge, this hate is liable to consume you! ”

He ran his hand through his black hair. “I don’t care about that as long as I get him. I owe it to Annie Laurie.”

She imagined the white girl with a pang of jealousy.
Wasn’t
it
an unusual coincidence that it was her father’s favorite song?
Maybe not; it was a common old Scots folk tune. “Would Annie herself approve?”

Maverick looked at her and she saw real agony there. “No, she’d try to stop me. Annie loved the bastard right up ’til the end. But I intend to kill him for the hurt she suffered. And I won’t kill him fast; I’ll kill him Comanche style, very slowly and painfully!”

She felt a loss then, a deep hurting loss. “Then there can be no future for us if you’re going to spend your life looking for this man. You’re a tortured soul, Maverick.”

“My friends say I never forget a friend nor forgive an enemy.”

He was diametrically opposite in every way to the manner in which she’d been raised, what Joe McBride stood for. “I feel sorry for you,” she whispered, but she felt sorrier for herself, “What a horrible way to spend the rest of your life!”

He looked away. “I think I know where he is now. When I’ve done what I intend to do, would you still want me?”

“With blood on your hands?” She cringed away from him in dismay. “Maverick, do you think a preacher’s daughter could marry a man she knew had cold-bloodedly tracked a man down and killed him the way ranchers do coyotes?”

His face turned remote, the eyes cold and hard as gray steel. “To my way of thinking, he’s no better than a coyote.”

She reached out, put her hand on his shoulder. “Give it up, Maverick. For your own sake, stop this vengeance quest! ”

He shook her hand off, standing up, and she thought he was after all only a magnificent, uncivilized savage. Maybe it was just as well that things had come to this. She had been about to tell him about the three men who had ridden into the ranch a couple of weeks ago and holed up there. And now it was her job to do something about them because Papa couldn’t—or maybe wouldn’t. Well, if Maverick survived the confrontation with Slade, he could ride on to his vengeance. If he didn’t maybe she wouldn’t have to feel so guilty, knowing that she had saved some unsuspecting man’s life. Maverick Durango had no more heart, no more conscience than the Comanches who had tortured her father and had changed the McBride family’s lives forever.

The distance between them was too far, the chasms too deep for them to ever cross,
Cayenne thought sadly as she looked at his cold, remote features. She stood up and began to dress. “I guess this is where we leave it, then.”

He reached for his shirt. “I should have realized you’d do this,” he said coldly. “Try to use your body to stop me. I suppose I’d do the same thing in your place.”

She stared at him in puzzlement. “My stars! What on earth are you talking about?”

He grabbed up the rest of his clothes, smiling without mirth. “By damn, you know what I’m talking about! ”

She started to argue that she hadn’t the faintest idea what he was driving at but decided by his hostile expression that he wouldn’t believe her, whatever she said.