Trail of Kisses (9 page)

She almost let her guard down and enjoyed the
feeling of getting clean, until she noticed that Cade was still
watching her.

“
Do you mind?” she
asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t have any
soap.”

Her eyes wandered over the expanse of his
chest, glistening with water in the sunlight now. His nipples stood
out in sharp relief against his chiseled muscles. Without warning,
she caught herself imagining that chest lathered with soap suds.
She swallowed, hot and cold all over.

“
Fine,” she said at last,
breathless. “Have the soap.”

She rubbed it under her arms as one last,
desperate measure to cool the situation down, then inched sideways,
closer to Cade. She extended her arm to its full length and handed
him the slippery cake of soap.

Cade reached for it, but as their fingers
touched, Lynne pulled back. The soap tumbled out of her grasp and
into the water before Cade had hold of it.

“
Oh!” Lynne gasped as the current
caught it and whisked it away. “Hurry! Get it!”

She lurched toward the spinning cake as it
rushed past her. Laughing, Cade lunged after it, diving into the
water. Lynne shrieked as he splashed her. She rubbed water out of
her eyes as quickly as she could, then scrambled after Cade. As far
as she knew, that was the only cake of soap they had for the entire
trip. She wasn’t about to lose it so early in the
journey.

“
Get it! Get it!” she shouted,
splashing and scrambling over Cade as he half swam, half floated on
the stream’s current. Lynne reached out as the soap bobbed just out
of reach, her arms tangling with one of Cade’s as he cut in front
of her.

“
Well I would if you weren’t in
the way,” he said.

Lynne tried to reach farther, but the bulk of
Cade’s body was in the way. His arm brushed against her waist. One
of his legs bumped against hers, sending her careening off-balance.
He was right there to scoop her up, though, and just about the time
she was able to orient herself in the rushing water, the current
running over her shoulders and around her chest, it dawned on her
that Cade might have impeded her efforts on purpose. How she got
there she wasn’t entirely sure, but she was firmly in Cade’s arms.
Her chest pressed against his, nothing but the wet fabric of her
chemise separating them. His hands spread across her back, holding
her tight. His muscled thigh nestled between her legs, and with a
gulp she realized she was sitting more or less straddling his hips.
Her feet weren’t touching the ground. Every part of her that
touched him, from her taut nipples to the aching juncture between
her thighs, was alive with wonder.

“
Now isn’t this an interesting
predicament,” he said, smile as broad as the prairie.

“
Is it?” She tilted her chin up,
pretending every part of her wasn’t quivering with anticipation
and… and a dozen other emotions too tempting to think
about.

“
It is,” Cade answered and brought
his mouth slanting down on top of hers.

Chapter Five

If the sky had opened up and gold nuggets had
rained down on them, Cade wouldn’t have noticed. Lynne was hot and
supple in his arms. Her body was as soft and curvy as he had
imagined it to be through every long, restless night, since he’d
first laid eyes on her. Since she’d one-upped him by riding Arrow.
Her lips were as sweet as nectar. What was more, she parted those
lips and let him tease his tongue against them, let him taste as
deeply as he had longed to, without a second of hesitation. Her
body melded against him.

His response was strong and immediate. He
pulled her closer, lowering a hand to cup her backside and press
her against the growing spear of his erection. A tiny voice at the
back of his head told him he was a damned fool for treating her
like a saloon girl, but she didn’t offer up a bit of resistance to
the pressure of his hips or to his invasion of her mouth. In fact,
she hummed with delight.

The sound that came from low in her throat
must have startled her, because a heartbeat later she gasped and
jerked back. Not enough to signal to him that she wanted out of his
arms, though. Her dark eyes were round with surprise and her mouth
hung open, but that reaction was short-lived. Her gaze grew
heavy-lidded and focused on his mouth. Cade was ready to kiss her
again the second she leaned toward him. This time, she gave as much
to the kiss as he did.

It was over far too soon.

“
What are we doing?” she hissed,
pulling away in earnest.

“
So you do like me after all.”
Cade smiled. Her kisses were better than Christmas and the Fourth
of July rolled up in gold and ice cream.

She didn’t have a reply for him, only more of
that delicious look of surprise—like she might dive in for another
go. He spared her the trouble of making the decision by scooping
her up in his arms for one more searing kiss.

The sound of blissful surrender rose from her
again before turning into an indignant squeak. This time when she
pulled away, Cade knew he wasn’t going to hold her again. At least
not today.

“
You can’t do that,” she said,
breathing heavily.

“
Why not?” He swam closer to her,
but kept his hands to himself. It was a monumental effort. His
staff was throbbing with disappointment between his legs as the
cold water of the stream helped him to settle.

“
Well,” Lynne began, fumbling for
an answer. “There are people nearby, for one.”

Cade glanced upstream to where Callie and John
were still floating and talking and not noticing anything around
them. He peeked downstream to the miners, who were busy with their
own concerns.

“
I don’t think anyone is
watching,” he told her, unable to resist adding, “You’re not that
interesting.”

To his utter delight, Lynne yelped in protest.
“You are an absolute terror, Cade Lawson.”

“
And you like me.” He smiled with
his whole heart, his body feeling light as a feather, with the
potential to be hard as granite in a flash.

“
I do not,” she tried to
protest.

“
Oh, I think that kiss said
otherwise.”

“
That kiss was a wretched
mistake,” she insisted.

“
I don’t think so.”

She backed slowly away from him against the
current. He followed her, like a wolf stalking his prey. The time
had passed to catch her for real, but he reached out his hands
toward her as if he intended to kiss her again and more.

“
I
do
think so.” Lynne
continued to back away, face as red as if she’d been burned by the
sun.

“
Then why don’t you kiss me again,
and we’ll find out for sure.”

She stopped where she was and crossed her arms
with a huff. He paused at a distance that was just barely
respectable. She must have sensed he wouldn’t cross the line again,
because her shoulders relaxed and one eyebrow rose.

“
You, Mr. Lawson, are no kind of
gentleman,” she said.

He planted his feet on the bottom of the
stream and stood, taking the water to a level just under his chest.
“Did I ever say I was?”

“
You—” She stopped and tipped her
head sideways as if trying to recall whether he had or not. She
shook her head. “Well, you aren’t. No true gentleman would treat a
lady the way you’ve been treating me.”

“
And what a shame that is.” He
grinned for all he was worth.

If possible, her cheeks flared an even deeper
red. Yes, Lynne Tremaine was independent and brave and not
completely averse to being swept away by the baser joys in life. Of
all things, that made him admire her more.

“
We’re on the trail,” he reasoned,
inching closer to her. “The rules of polite society don’t apply
here.”

“
Well, they should.”

She squeezed her crossed arms tighter. The
effect was to accentuate the delicious curves of her breasts,
barely hidden by a layer of wet chemise. She didn’t even know how
appealing she was to a man.

“
Should the rules of polite
society apply to your friend Callie up there? You planning to go up
there and tell her to cover herself in public and not go swimming
with men she hardly knows?” He nodded upstream to where Callie and
John were wading out of the water. They both wore only their
underthings, which were now wet and clinging.

Lynne followed his glance, chewing her bottom
lip. She must have noticed the effects of water on Callie’s
underthings, because she took a sudden look down at her own state
of undress and gasped. She dropped her arms and pulled the fabric
of her chemise so that it didn’t cling to her breasts. Cade
considered it a great loss.

“
You might not have a problem with
disregarding the proprieties of civilized people,” she said,
starting for the river bank, “but I do.”

“
I’m sure you do.” Cade nodded,
feigning seriousness and watching her back—and more importantly,
her backside—as she waded out of the water and onto the shore. Her
rump had the perfect amount of curve. He could still feel it in his
hand. It was a crying shame that he hadn’t had the chance to close
both of his hands around the ample shape of her rear.

“
What are you looking at?” she
demanded.

Cade blinked, only slightly ashamed at being
caught. “Your derriere,” he answered.

Lynne gasped and covered her backside with her
hands as she rushed the rest of the way out of the water. “You’re
impossible,” she said.

“
And you’re beautiful,” he
answered quietly, hoping she hadn’t heard.

His manhood had calmed down enough to not be a
total embarrassment to him as he waded out of the water. If this
was what an afternoon of bathing in a stream was like, he wondered
what they would get up to when they reached the junction of the
Platte Rivers. He wouldn’t mind reaching a certain other junction
at that point.

“
Oh!”

The sharp cry Lynne gave as she bent to
retrieve her towel from the bush where they’d left their clothes
dampened Cade’s errant ardor. She backpedaled from the bush,
clutching the towel to her chest.

“
What is it?” he asked, pushing
faster through the shallows.

Lynne didn’t answer. She clutched the towel
tighter around her chest and sidestepped to meet him as he stepped
onto the dried grass beside the stream. Her silence set his nerves
on edge.

“
It’s your boots,” she said at
last.

Cade’s tension fell into confusion. “My
boots?” he said, striding to the bush. What the devil could be so
upsetting about his—

Behind the bush, separate from the rest of his
clothes, his boots lay in tatters. The leather had been sliced
clean to ribbons and separated from the soles. Long, thin scars
marked the soles where he could see them. The laces were
shredded.

He was instantly on the alert and spitting
mad. He scooped one of the shredded boots off the ground and
studied it for a moment before glancing around. The area near the
stream was open, nothing but grass and a few scrubby bushes between
it and the cottonwood trees that marked the edge of Fr. Kearny.
Callie and John were still in discussion farther up the stream as
they dressed. The miners cavorted as though nothing was out of the
ordinary downstream. Closer to the fort, a handful of groups were
either coming or going. Ben walked toward them with a basket of
laundry.

“
Ben!” Cade called, marching
across the grass to meet him. “Did you see anyone lingering around
our things just now?”

Ben picked up his pace to meet Cade closer to
the stream. “No, sir, I didn’t see nothin’.”

Cade’s frown deepened. Somebody had to have
seen something. He twisted to study the miners again, counting
them. How many had there been when he and Lynne were in the water?
He checked the groups of people walking away from the stream. They
were all families, most with young children.

The hair stood up on the back of his
neck.

“
He’s here,” he said, low and
cautious.

“
W-who?” Lynne asked. She had
thrown her blouse and petticoat on and was halfway through
fastening her skirt.

Cade turned and marched back to her. He needed
to get her out of the open as quickly as possible.

“
Whoever is trying to hurt you,”
he said, leaning closer. “And I sure as hell am not going to let
them.”

For a flash like lightning, fear zipped across
Lynne’s face. Just when her eyes grew as wide as he thought eyes
could get, she tensed, then let out a breath. With obvious effort,
her expression went flat.

“
Really, Cade? No one is out to
hurt me. Honestly.”

Cade stood straighter, towering over her.
“Denying something like this,” he held his ruined boot out to her,
“is not going to keep you safe.”

“
No one is trying to hurt me,” she
insisted. She finished with her skirt and stiffened as she faced
him. “Are they, Ben?”