Emma's Blaze (Fires of Cricket Bend Book 2) (8 page)

CHAPTER NINE

Emma

Emma’s clothes were still a little wet, but rather than return to riding in the wagon, she stayed on Maggie. The sun felt nice against her damp clothes and skin. The men rode without shirts for the most part, and Emma felt incredibly jealous of their freedom. The heat of the sun on their bare skin must have felt wonderful. To feel it as best she could, she rolled up the sleeves of her shirt. She’d wind up with arms tanned darker than the rest of her body if she wasn’t careful, like the rest of the men. Already she’d noticed the change of color in her skin from all the time spent out in the sun, but she figured it was worth it.

Men were allowed so much more freedom than women; it hardly seemed fair.

Of course, she was wearing pants and no corset, so she kept her complaining to a minimum.

After a lifetime in cumbersome skirts, pants were an absolute marvel.

In all honesty, she kept most of her thoughts on Bill. Riding up ahead of her with his shirt off so it could dry, his muscled torso was bare for her to see. The sight had her thinking of all kinds of things she wouldn’t mind doing with him the next time they were alone. The way he sat in the saddle, and the way his body moved with each of Orion’s broad steps, had her wondering lots of things. How many women had he known, and how had he been as a lover with them?

Losing her head over the handsome cowboy had not been in her plans. Flirting with him, and perhaps even kissing him, those were things she’d began to consider the minute she’d met him. Feeling actual feelings, though, that was different. But her plans, ill-conceived as they were, had all disappeared a long time prior. They’d all been blown away in the wind the night she’d slipped away and run from the men she’d first hired to get her to Cricket Bend.

The men she traveled with now were better. Sure, they swore and spit and drank, but their hearts were good enough to grant her passage, and thus far they had kept her safe. Not a one had tried to grope her or sneak a kiss she hadn’t wanted.

And the cowboy she did want had gone right ahead and kissed her. The kiss had been lovely. Though they’d been rudely interrupted, she wondered how much more lovely things would have become.

“Miss Sparrow!”

She turned in time to catch a piece of dried beef that Jess tossed to her as he slowed his horse beside hers. She thanked him, and he put the horse back into a gallop as he headed for the front of the drive. As she chewed on the salty jerky, she thought of how she would spend the rest of her life grateful for the McKenzie brothers and their crew. For Jess, the joker. For Pete, the gruff-voiced. And for Saul, who had a sweet way with both horses and a harmonica. Andrew, she would likely never feel kindness for, but that was no great loss. There were plenty of terrible men in the world. He was just another one of them.

Finally they had travelled far enough for Josiah to call it a day. Camp was set up, supper was prepared, and spirits were high after the successful river crossing. As they ate, Emma felt Bill’s gaze. No amount of propriety could keep her from returning his glance. She’d have given anything to be away from everyone, and alone with him. The memory of the way he’d come to her, partly dressed and open hearted, and the way he’d kissed haunted her, pulled at her, made her think of frightfully improper things.

“I think I’ll go off a little ways by myself,” Emma said sweetly to Appie, after her work had been attended to. The other men would have shrugged at her suggestion, but Appie would worry if she didn’t play her cards just right. “I’m still a little damp. Figure I can make a fire by those couple trees over there and dry out in private a bit before going to sleep.”

It worked.

Once she’d built a good fire and spread out her bedroll, she slipped out of her boots and pulled her leather book from the pocket of her jacket. It had survived the river crossing, and she held it happily. Emma’s journal, bound with leather and decorated with only a burned letter “E,” had been a gift from an admirer whose name she didn’t even recall. She’d filled it with pasted pictures, scribbled notes, addresses, names, memories, locations, sketches, even a little pocket that held a silver dollar in case she’d lost everything else. It was a book of memories—a book of her life. If she were to die, someone could piece her story together from the pages inside. Perhaps they could even take it back to her mother. Perhaps the woman still lived.

She sat on a blanket on the hard earth with the leather and paper in her hands.

This patchwork life, built of little pieces of ribbons, train tickets, newspaper stories, names, and dates, was all she had left. Gone were the satin gowns and the nights of music-filled revelry in fancy parlors. Gone were the delicious cakes and sweet wines and satin sheets she’d known for so long.

Perhaps losing it all was for the better.

In truth, she hadn’t been happy for a long while. Money and fancy things should have filled the great void in her heart, but they hadn’t. Emptiness had always filled her, leaving her with a longing for something more than what she had.

She closed the book and held it to her chest while she pulled her knees to her chin.

She’d left it all behind once again.

But she’d crossed a river on a horse with two thousand head of cattle, nearly a hundred horses, twelve men, and a wagon. And she’d enjoyed it.

Maybe she had found something new.

That it had only been five days since she’d met Bill among the trees seemed impossible. Somehow the days had stretched an eternity, as if they’d known each other forever. Emma shook the silly notion away. It was the sort of thought a schoolgirl would have after reading too much poetry. The real world, where people were flawed and made bad choices, didn’t work the way it did in fairy tales.

The howl of a coyote off in the distance made her jump.

Bill would come soon, she hoped. She’d seen the look in his eyes when she’d touched him earlier. That kind of desire ate away at a person, and it would drive them mad without resolution. He would come to her that night, away from the drive. The entire reason she had gone off from camp was to allow them privacy.

When she heard someone approaching, she got up and moved away from the light of the fire and into the shadows in case it was anyone other than Bill.

Her handsome cowboy stepped into the circle cast by the firelight and looked around. He gave Maggie a quick stroke and stepped closer. Emma slipped around Bill in the dark, and came up behind him. Taking his hand, she pulled him out of the firelight and into the darkness where they couldn’t be seen back at camp. She wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, laying her hands against his taut midsection. As he took hold of her arms, she whispered into his ear. “Were you looking for me?”

“Thought you might have run off at last.”

“Where would I go?”

“With you, who the hell knows?”

“Do you think me a devil?” Emma moved her fingers down until they brushed the buckle of his belt.

“That, I can’t seem to make up my mind about. I can’t tell if you’re an angel dropped from Heaven, or a devil sent to tempt me.”

“Why can’t I be both?”

Bill laughed out loud. Emma felt her skin grow warm as she rested her cheek against his back. Damn the cowboy. Damn him and his crinkled kind smile, and the sparkle of his eyes when he was happy. Happy. He seemed happy there in the dark with her, in a way he didn’t seem to be in his day to day. Sure, he loved driving cattle and the drive, but the endless wrangling of his brothers and crew ate at him. It surprised Emma greatly to realize she liked when he was happy, that she wanted him to continue feeling that way. She could make him happy.

“Bill…” she whispered his name in his ear, and let her hand brush over the front of his pants.

Impulsively, he turned his body in her arms and took her face in his hands, planting his mouth on hers. She didn’t back away one bit. His lips felt wonderful against hers, and his beard and mustache tickled. After only a moment, she kissed him back.

“I’m sorry,” he pulled away a little.

“Don’t be,” she answered. “There should be a law against kissing a woman the way you do. It’s enough to make my head spin.”

Bill chuckled. “I’m flattered.”

Tilting her pretty face toward his, she licked her lip slightly. “Kiss me again, Bill. I know you want to.”

His rough thumb brushed her cheek. “There’s a long list of things I want to do. Don’t mean they’re the right things.”

Emma raised herself up on her toes, finding an angle that fit them together perfectly. Hungrily, she tasted him and nibbled his lower lip, teasing a bit before she released him. “Let me be the one to decide if they’re the right things, would you?”

He wound his hands in her hair. With no thoughts in her head apart from the searing desire she felt for him, she grabbed his shirt with clasping fingers and kissed him.

Emma was not a virgin. She’d known a few men, and saw nothing wrong in it. The first had been an eager young grocer who she’d fumbled awkwardly with in a barn one evening, only to grow impatient with his ineptitude. The second man had been a good-looking bank clerk who’d been taken by her red hair and frequently brought her wildflowers. She’d gone to his bed a few times, flattered by his attention. But those men hadn’t given her a sense of what physical love could truly be like. Until she’d met the man who’d changed every bit of her life, she hadn’t known that a woman could enjoy lovemaking the same way a man could. He’d been a skilled lover, as well as a skilled cheater, and had introduced her to the ways a man and woman could make each other feel. Handsome and charming and elegant, the man had seemed a dream in many ways. In the darkness with Emma with his hands on her body, he’d been more real than she’d ever expected. How she’d thought she’d loved him.

And how he’d left her. And taken her money.

Her marriage, like everything else, had not worked out according to her plans. Bill’s strong arms crushed her tighter against him. Now was not the time to think about anyone other than him. His kisses exceeded all those Emma had known before. She felt breathless, excited, and nervous. A prickle of her skin raced from the tip of her toes to the secret places a good woman was supposed to keep guarded.

She’d never been a particularly good woman.

Emma pulled them so they both dropped to the ground on their knees. His lips never left hers, and his hands held her tighter, as if she’d take off running the moment he let go.

Bill was a man who spent his life around cows, but he kissed like someone out of a dream, and that floored her. Being with him made the cold earth feel as right beneath her as silk sheets on a featherbed; she couldn’t understand why. Bill lay her down beneath him. Over his shoulder, she saw the wide open sky. Stars emerged, and the moon was taking its rightful place in the night sky, just as Emma felt she was taking her own rightful place in the order of things.

It was just supposed to be a harmless flirtation with a man she found attractive.

So why did she feel as if she was floating?

Bill made quick work of the buttons on her shirt. When he had the final button undone, and spread open the shirt to reveal her breasts in the moonlight, he let a low moan and fell forward onto her. “Tell me now if you want me to go,” Bill whispered into her neck, his voice lower than usual. He was burning with desire, and the realization made her grow warmer.

“I don’t want you go anywhere.” She pushed her hips off the ground, and slipped out of her pants, causing him to exhale loudly.

As he sat up and took in the sight of her nakedness, he put his hands on her bare waist. She heard his voice turn ragged. “If I don’t go right now—”

She silenced him by reaching up and unbuttoning one of his bottom shirt buttons. “Lord. Bill, shut up.”

She undid a second button. He watched her hands. She did the other buttons until his shirt was undone, and he pulled himself free of it.

Emma looked down at her naked body, lying beneath him as he knelt straddling her legs. “Don’t you think that if I didn’t want you, you’d know it by now?”

Thankfully, he stopped arguing. Bending down slowly, he left a lingering, slow kiss in the space between her breasts. He rested his forehead in the same place, and took hold of her waist in his strong hands as if to claim her. When he rose again, he dragged his lips up to her neck. The softness of his mouth grazing over her exposed collarbone gave her full-body shivers. Emma closed her eyes, eager to discover where the two of them would go. His lips traveled down her chest. When he finally found her breasts, she couldn’t stop herself from exclaiming. She’d worried he’d be too careful with her, due to his damned good manners and protective nature. Yet, his touches grew more urgent with every moment that passed.

Emma brought her hands up to twist her fingers in his rumpled hair. He smelled of dust and the river and coffee and man.

“Bill, please,” she pleaded as her body responded to his every movement. She took hold of one of his hands and moved it down her body, to where the ache was most pressing.