Dashing Druid (Texas Druids) (27 page)

‘You’re not hurt?” When she shook her head, he hauled her into his arms. “Saints above, I thought for a minute I’d lost ye.”

“I thought I’d lost
you,
” she choked out. Beginning to shake in reaction, she buried her face in his shoulder, powerless to stop the flood of tears that poured forth, wetting his shirt. Damn! This was becoming a habit, her crying all over him.

“It’s all right, love,” he whispered, massaging her shoulders with one hand while the other pressed her firmly against him.

Reassured by his warmth and solidity, Lil quieted. And in that moment it occurred to her that being a weepy female wasn’t so bad, not when a gal had a man like him to comfort her.

“Lily,
mavourneen
, I think I shall never let ye go again.”

Her breath caught. She tipped her head back to gaze at him. Did he mean that? And could the emotion glowing in his blue eyes be love? She wanted to believe it was. He kissed her tenderly, and a song of joy played in her heart.

Their banked desires burst forth. Tye deepened the kiss, and Lil fervently responded. Neither took notice of the approaching wagons or the horseman who barreled to a halt nearby.

“Well, I reckon she’s all right if she can hold a lip-lock that long,” a gruff voice drawled.

Lil tore her mouth from Tye’s and caught sight of her father. He sat leaning on his saddle horn, watching them with relief and amusement on his face.

“Pa!” she cried, trying to draw away from Tye. He wouldn’t let her go. She glanced up and found him staring back at her father.

“She’s just fine, Mister Crawford,” he said.

Her father snorted. “Boy, I think maybe it’s time you start calling me Del.”

Tye grinned at Lil and winked. “’Twould be my pleasure,
Del
, and I’m most grateful.”

“Seems like I’m the one oughta be grateful. This makes twice now you’ve saved my daughter,
Tye
. Reckon I’m mighty glad you came along on the drive.”

“So am I,” Tye said, lightly stroking Lil’s arm.

Her face burned and she didn’t know where to look.

* * *

Lil opened her eyes and met Tye’s gaze across the campfire.

The crew had managed to turn the small buffalo herd, averting another cattle stampede, and Chic had set up a new camp, declaring it bad luck to return to an old one. Now, Dewey and Luis were riding bobtail guard; everyone else was asleep – except Tye and her.

She read the desire in his eyes, and her breathing speeded up. Dear God, how she wanted him!

Abruptly, he sat up. Not bothering with boots, he stepped cat-footed over to her. By then she’d pushed herself up on her elbows. He extended a hand and she took it without hesitation. This time, she didn’t fool herself about why she left camp with him.

Tye led her to the pond they’d used to water the stock. It was far enough away from camp
and
the night herders that they shouldn’t need to worry about being spotted.

“’Tisn’t very deep, but I think we can manage a bit of a swim.” He looked at her, eyes glittering in the starlight. “I’ll not come to ye filthy as I am. So, if ye wish it . . . ?”

He was giving her a chance to say no, just as he had last time, but she wasn’t about to turn him away. “I’m not too clean either,” she said. Suddenly feeling giddy as a young girl, she pulled out her shirttails and started to pop open buttons. “Last one in is a lazy mutton puncher!”

He laughed. “Now how can I pass up a challenge like that?”

Swiftly disrobing, Lil stole a glance at Tye as he stepped out of his britches. The sight of his hard arousal brought a burst of damp need to her loins and made her tremble. He caught her gaze and took a step toward her, but she spun away.

“You’re too slow!” she taunted, running for the water. The sooner they cleaned up, the sooner he’d be inside her, she thought, stunned by her own eagerness.

“We’ll see about that, my fine maiden,” he growled.

She cleaved the glassy pool seconds ahead of him and came up laughing in victory. He grinned and splashed her in the face, then dove under. She gasped, spat water and waited. When he surfaced at last, she returned the favor, and he ducked away coughing.

Unable to smother a giggle, she waded close. “You all right? I didn’t mean to choke you to death.” She lay a hand on his arm, delighting in the feel of warm, slippery skin over flexed muscle, and reached to push wet hair out of his eyes. Blue-black, it set off the moon washed paleness of his face.

“I couldn’t he better,” he murmured, catching her by the waist and drawing her to him.

Crisp chest hair brushed her sensitive nipples and his erection pressed into her belly, feeling hot even in the cool water. Her insides quaked as his head dipped toward her. She closed her eyes, lips parted in anticipation.

His kiss was gentle, almost reverent. In her head she once more heard him say ‘I shall never let ye go again.’ Surely the sweetest words she’d ever heard.

Molding her body to his, she opened her mouth, and his tongue explored every moist nook and cranny. She did the same to him, and he groaned. Her hands mapped his chest and broad shoulders, finding scars from the panther’s claws. Were they still sensitive? she wondered, hands prowling around to his back and down over his lean buttocks. Was she being too bold? She couldn’t help it, couldn’t get enough of touching him. He was so wonderfully hard and male. And he was hers!

He kissed her forehead, cheeks and eyes, then returned to her mouth while one hand splayed across the small of her back and the other skated lightly down her throat. His fingers glided along her collarbone and caressed the top swell of her breasts. She arched her back, and he brushed his palm back and forth across one pointed crown, then the other, causing her to moan softly. Then he lifted his mouth from hers.

“Lily, since the day we met I’ve dreamed of what I longed to do that day, how I wanted to strip away the muddy clothes and wash ye clean. And then I pictured ye floating in the creek with your hair spread about ye and your lovely body aglow in the water. At times, that image has saved me from black despair.” He traced the bridge of her nose with his forefinger and chuckled wryly. “But it has also driven me mad.”

She captured his hand, kissed the palm, and pressed it to her cheek. “I was so furious at you that day, it’s a wonder I didn’t shoot you. But I couldn’t get you out of my head later. You’ve driven me mad too.”

Groaning, he claimed her mouth for another feverish moment. Then he broke off to whisper against her lips, “Let me see ye the way I imagined ye, love. Right now, aye?”

Lil caught her breath and leaned back to stare at him.

He grinned wickedly. “I promise I won’t let ye drown.”

Dark excitement coursed through her. Without saying a word, she lay back in the water, her gaze glued to his. She found it hard to relax with him watching her every move. But his arm dipped underwater to support her back, and then she was afloat with water lapping softly around her. It filled her ears, muffling his words, but she still heard the awe in his voice.

“Mother of God! I envisioned ye all golden from the sun, but now, in the night, ye shine like silver. You’re a creature of magic, a faery maid as I called ye that day.”

If so,
he
was the magician, Lil thought. Caught in his spell, she closed her eyes when he touched her.

From the column of her throat, his hand ran whisper-soft down her body, and pleasure hummed through her from head to toe. Water rippled around his hand, adding to the sensation. A sigh of delight rose from her lips.

His arm lifted her until her breasts jutted out of the water, and his warm mouth came down to play upon her water-cooled flesh. When he began to lick droplets away, she felt as if she were being consumed by his hot tongue. He took an eager nipple into his mouth and drew firmly upon it. The resultant contraction deep inside her made Lil jerk and bite down hard on her lip to keep from shrieking. If not for Tye’s support, she would have sunk under the water.

While he suckled her breasts, his free hand migrated over belly, hip and thigh, then back up her side. The third trip over this route, he detoured between her legs, gliding upward, teasing her with little delays. She moaned and dug the fingers of one hand into his back while the other curled and uncurled in the water. At last, he ended the torment, stroking her eager softness.

The cool water against her overheated flesh, his knowing touch, his hungry mouth at her breast – it was all too much. Lil couldn’t prevent the cry that burst from her lips.

Quickly, he muffled her sounds with his mouth, but his stroking fingers never paused. She clutched his head and writhed in the water, trying to curl around him, desperate for an end to the sweet torture. His arm held her tight, his lips and tongue plied her mouth, and his hand . . . oh, his hand!

Desire pounded through her blood until, at last, the stampede broke in a swirling vortex of pleasure. Before the spasms fully subsided, Tye lifted and turned her against him.

“Put your arms around my neck,
mavourneen
,” he commanded hoarsely, and she obeyed, dazed by the release he’d given her.

Wanting him to taste the same exquisite delight, she parted her thighs and wrapped her legs around him. He grasped her hips and positioned himself. A gasp escaped her at his bold entry. She panted as he climbed higher within her until his length was fully embedded.

“Give me your sweet mouth, love,” he said, and she did.

Cupping her bottom, he lifted her nearly off him, then lowered her as he thrust into her. Once more, and she took over, moving on her own, drawing muffled groans from him as their tempo increased. Thinking only to give pleasure, Lil quickly realized that was impossible, for with every ardent jolt of his hips, the whirlwind built within her again.

Tye uttered a low growl and pumped into her frantically while she whimpered and threw back her head, caught in the dazzling storm. It burst over them at almost the same second.

His limbs trembled, but somehow he stayed upright.
She
felt as limp as wet grass. Head upon his shoulder, she clung to him as he carried her from the pool, still a part of her. He carefully withdrew, and they dropped to the ground, exhausted. Tye drew Lil against him, and they rested. Several minutes later, she was half asleep when he nuzzled her ear.

“Ah, Lily, I wish we didn’t have to return, but I fear we must. Bobtail guard will be over soon.”

Abruptly wide awake, Lil stiffened. “Yeah, I reckon the boys would notice if we’re not in our bedrolls,” she said, needing him to say he didn’t care who knew about them.

He kissed her forehead. “Aye, and I don’t want ye to feel shamed. Not by our loving. Never that, colleen.”

Lil’s momentary doubt dissolved. He loved her, he must, or he wouldn’t worry about sparing her feelings. Just as he wouldn’t have said what he did earlier about never letting her go. In time, he’d speak the words she longed to hear. She was sure of it.

A question she’d long wanted to ask came back to her as he helped her up. She touched his arm. “Tye, what does
mavourneen
mean?”

He chuckled and drew her close. “It means
me darlin’
,” he breathed against her lips in his best Irish brogue. “And don’t be tellin’ me ye’re not mine, darlin’.”

Delighted with his answer, Lil found no reason to argue as his mouth reaffirmed his claim.

They dressed quickly, walked back to camp and reluctantly retreated to their separate bedrolls. Lying on her side facing Tye, Lil smiled at him across the low campfire. He smiled back so tenderly, she thought her heart would burst with happiness. Once, on that chilly winter day in Clifton, he’d vowed to prove she could trust him. She’d refused to believe him for so long, but now she had no choice. Her heart would have it no other way.

Tye’s eyelids drooped shut and his body relaxed into sleep, a faint smile remaining on his lips.

“I love you,” Lil said under her breath just before closing her own eyes.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The sycamore towered against the intense blue sky, its broad, jagged leaves rustling in the warm prairie wind. Tye stepped into a wide stance twenty paces from the tree and flexed his right hand over his gun. He stared at a chest-high spot on the brownish trunk, pictured Frank Howard and drew. His Colt slicked leather, the hammer struck, but the .44 issued no loud blast. He’d unloaded it.

Separated from the herd only by a wide slope and a small copse of trees, he wouldn’t risk spooking the cattle – or Lil. She thought he was after strays. She’d only worry if she knew what he was up to.

The sun still hung high, but Del had called a halt outside Caldwell, Kansas. Barely north of the border with Indian Territory, the town was a welcome sight after the empty land they’d just crossed. They were also badly in need of supplies. Del and Chic had ridden into town to pick up a few things, just enough to last them the short distance to their destination.

Tye set himself and drew again, faster this time. Speed, that’s what he needed. He knew he could hit what he aimed at. He’d hit that Cheyenne who tried to make off with Lil.

Since then, he’d gotten in more target practice against a gang of white horse-thieving outlaws. They’d tried to drive off the
remuda
in broad daylight but had paid for their boldness, two with their lives. Tye bet the survivors would think twice before taking on the next crew that came up the trail.

Choctaw Jack had caught a bullet through his arm during the fray. Otherwise, no TC riders had been hurt. Now, barring trouble with
shorthorns
– local farmers who had no love for Texas longhorns – they should reach Wichita in two, maybe three days.

Tye would be glad to see the end of the trail, but he hadn’t forgotten Frank Howard’s threat. Although Del had told him about Judd Howard’s pledge to keep his son under control, he doubted the blustering troublemaker could be corralled. Therefore, he meant to be ready. Slipping his gun back into his holster, he prepared to draw once more, but froze when he sensed Lil’s presence behind him.

“That tree can’t shoot back like Frank Howard,” she said.

He pivoted to see her walking toward him. She’d left her horse among the trees and had approached soundlessly. If the apprehension eating away at her hadn’t shot past his mental barriers, shattering his concentration, she would have surprised him.

“I know that,” he snapped, disgusted because she’d found him out.

She stepped close. “Tye, you don’t have to meet him. You don’t even need to go into Wichita. You can turn around outside of town and ride back south. I’ll go with you. Please,” she implored.

He smiled and feathered her cheek with his thumb. “I told ye once, love, I won’t run from the man.”

“Damn you!” she flared, batting his hand away. “Why do you have to be so prideful? Do you want to get killed?” Dark eyes snapping furiously, she started to spin away, but he caught her arm.

“Let me go!” she gritted, trying to pull free.

Tye dragged her into his arms, tipped her hat out of the way, and kissed her. She fought him for a brief moment, then gave a choked sob and surrendered, kissing him back.

Her fiery response resonated through his mind and body. He lifted his head a fraction and whispered, “I’ve never made love to ye in the light of day. I’d like to this once.” One of the men could come riding over the hill and find them in the act, but he didn’t care at that moment, and feeling the excitement surging through Lil, he knew she felt the same way.

“Yes!” she cried, face flushed with desire. She stepped back and began to tear open her shirt, a wild look in her eyes.

He couldn’t take it slow this time; Lil wouldn’t let him. Pulling him down into the grass, she took him into her without any preliminaries and answered his every move with a fearsome urgency that brought them both to a rapid, explosive climax.

Chest heaving, Tye collapsed next to her. She rolled toward him, molding herself against him, and sighed in contentment. Smiling, he kissed her temple and lay a forearm across his eyes to block out the sun.

As soon as they reached Wichita, they’d best find a priest, he thought hazily, because if Lil wasn’t pregnant now, she soon would be. Somehow he would manage to care for her and the family they created; he must because he couldn’t give her up. He’d finally admitted the fact to himself when that Indian had almost stolen her away from him. In truth, he’d known it long before then but hadn’t dared ask her to give up home and family for him. Even now, with Del’s evident approval, he hesitated to speak his heart.

Oddly, Del’s about-face toward him was part of the problem. The man would likely want Lil and him to live on the Double C, and Tye’s pride rebelled at the prospect. He didn’t want to feel like a charity case – or a carpetbagger, as Frank Howard had called him. He wanted to provide for his wife and children himself.

Then too, there was Rebecca Crawford’s hatred of all Yankees, Irish ones in particular. Tye doubted she would ever accept him as her son-in-law.

“Do you miss mining?” Lil asked out of the blue, pulling him from his ruminations. “Do you ever want to go back to Colorado?”

He lowered his arm and opened his eyes to find her watching him. “Nay, I’ve given it no thought. I’ll not be running to Colorado to avoid Howard, either, Lily.”

She was about to argue, he could tell. Seeking only to stop her, he said, “Besides, I can’t go back there. Not after what happened.” He should have known that was the wrong thing to say, that it would lead to her asking questions.

“After your partner being killed?”

“Aye.”

“His name was Tom, I recall.”

“Aye, Tom Pearce.”

“You told me he died in a cave-in. But you didn’t tell me how it happened.”

He drew away from her and sat up. “Nay, I didn’t.”

“I’d like to know. Please, Tye.”

He looked at her, admiring the lovely picture she made, her slim golden body glowing softly in the sun, framed by the tender green grass that formed her bed. He was tempted to lie back and distract the both of them with a sweeter kind of conversation, but he decided it was time she knew the truth about him. Part of it at least. She had that right if she was to become his wife.

Pulling a long stem of grass, he rolled it between his fingers, staring at it, wondering where to start. He shrugged and said what came to mind. “Tom was so sure we’d hit pay dirt. He wouldn’t admit we’d made a mistake by signing the lease.”

“Lease? What do you mean?”

“’Tis a custom Tom and his countrymen brought over from Cornwall, from the tin mines. Ye lease a low-grade section of the mine that the owners can’t be bothered with, and they give ye a portion of the profits. Forty percent in our case. And there’s the chance ye might strike a fresh vain. That’s what we gambled on, but we lost. After paying for supplies and our keep, we had precious little to show for almost six months’ labor.

“If Tom hadn’t been in a froth to strike something before our lease was up, and if I’d only stood my ground, maybe the accident wouldn’t have happened.”

By now Lil was sitting up next to him. When he paused for a long moment, she gently stroked his back. “Tell me,” she coaxed.

 He took a breath and let it out slowly. “We’d done some blasting that morning and were digging broken rock from the ore face. Tom was putting his all into it. Too much so. I told him I didn’t like the looks of the ceiling and we should stop to timber it. Shore it up, that is. But he wouldn’t listen.”

As he spoke, Tye stared into the past, reliving the scene.

“Lord save us!” he muttered as a mighty swing of Tom’s pick sent chunks of ore flying. The rocks struck the stone floor and clattered down the inclined stope they were working.

“Timbering takes time,” the burly Cornishman argued, swinging again. “I want to see if we’ve struck anything first. Come on, put more muscle into it. Our lease runs out in two weeks. Do you want to uncover a rich vein just in time for the company to collect all the profits? The greedy devils rake in enough off our broken backs as it is.”

“I’ll grant ye that, but I’d rather walk away empty-handed than not a’tall.”

“Not I! I mean to walk away with my pockets lined with silver. And what’s happened to ye, bucko? Have ye forgotten the dreams that brought ye west? Where’s the daring lad I once saved from breaking his neck?” Tom chided as more rocks flew.

“He’s right here, ye big ox. And he’s seen too many men die in these infernal pits to be taking fool chances.”

Perched on a ladder, Tye gouged out a patch of loose rock, using a more cautious approach than his friend. Ten or twelve feet across, the ore face was nearly equal that in height. While he worked the upper right half, Tom worked the left, standing on a second ladder.

Tom laughed. “Quit fretting. I’ve crawled around mine tunnels since I was a boy of ten. I know what I’m doing. Besides, we have your famous luck o’ the Irish to protect us, don’t we?”

“Lucky, am I? After gophering the hills for two years without finding a thing, I hardly think –” A loud cracking sound cut him off.

“Tom!” he bellowed, seeing the ceiling start to give way above the other man’s head.

Screaming hoarsely, Tom jumped off his ladder. He stumbled, caught himself and took a step toward Tye. Then a huge slab of falling rock caught him square on the head and flattened him to the floor.

“No!” Tye roared as he hurtled off his own ladder, knowing Tom’s skull must have been crushed. He crouched low against the ore face and covered his head with his arms while the cracking noise grew to a thunderous rumble. Expecting to die, he muttered a hoarse prayer, then cried out when a large rock ricocheted off his right forearm, snapping a bone.

Eyes screwed shut, he sucked air between his teeth and clutched the arm to his chest. Slowly, the agony diminished to a sharp throb. By then, the noise had also subsided into a heavy, dark silence. All the candles had been snuffed out.

The dust-laden air made him cough, sending fresh shards of pain through his arm. When the coughing passed, he pulled a match from the fistful in his pocket. After several shaky, left-handed tries, he managed to strike it, but the tiny flame hardly dented the blackness.

Cradling his broken arm against him, Tye searched the rock-strewn floor around him. He used up three matches before he found what he was looking for, a partially used candle, and got it lit. Then he pushed painfully to his feet.

He took a few steps and halted as the candle revealed what he’d dreaded seeing. Debris had tumbled down the incline, and timbers had given way in the older section of the tunnel, totally blocking it a short distance from where he stood. The barrier might extend dozens of feet beyond that. He was trapped, doomed to a slow, miserable death unless the other miners got to him in time.

Lifting the candle high, he saw why he wasn’t already dead. Overhead, a patch of ceiling held fast. But for how long?

His gaze shifted to where Tom lay buried beneath a heap of massive stones. He couldn’t leave him like that. Wildly, he glanced around and spotted the handle of his pick. Stuck between two boulders, only the tip of it showed. Tye deposited his candle on a flat rock and set about freeing the tool. It was an excruciating process, but he finally succeeded.

One-handed, he clumsily swung his pick at the cairn of rocks covering Tom. The impact reverberated through his broken arm, but he clenched his jaw, pried loose a stone, and swung again. When he absolutely had to, he rested. Once, he permitted himself a swallow of water from the bucket he’d filled before work. The liquid tasted metallic with rock dust, but it was wet. Thank God he’d set the bucket in the corner near him, or it would have been smashed. Like Tom.

By the time the candle guttered out, Tye had grown light-headed. He sank to his knees, eyes shut against the darkness and pain. Now what? He’d found no more candles and he couldn’t hold a match and dig at the same time. If he tried working without light, he’d likely stab himself in the foot, if he didn’t collapse first. It was useless; he couldn’t get Tom out.

“Why didn’t ye listen to me?” he cried. “We should have stopped to timber. Oh God, I should have made ye listen!”