Fire on the Plains (Western Fire) (12 page)

Again, Ben
intimately rubbed his fully-erect manhood against her pelvic area.

In that instant, Lydia
felt a tight stab of pleasure that throbbed in her woman’s place.

Forgive me
, James . . . but I can’t help myself.
These feelings are too powerful, too—

“You’re thinking about
him
, aren’t you?” Ben hissed as he abruptly pulled away from her.

Lydia bleakly stared at
her husband. With perfect, heartbreaking clarity, she suddenly knew the reason why Ben did not deign to share her bed.

Shoving his hands into her hair, Ben
framed Lydia’s face between his palms, his gray eyes glinting with an enraged jealousy. “Answer me, damn it! You were thinking about your
first
husband, weren’t you?”

“Yes,”
Lydia replied truthfully. “But not in the way—”

“Oh, Christ!”

His chest heaving, Ben rolled away from her.

Devastated, Lydia
put a hand upon his flushed cheek. “Please, Ben. Let me explain.”

Grabbing
her by the wrist, Ben forcefully yanked her hand away from his face. “I’ve never taken a woman who wasn’t willing.
You
ought to know that.”

“But I am willing!”
she assured him.

Ben cannonballed to his feet
. Glaring at her from what seemed an interminably lofty height, he said, “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I want a woman in my bed and not a damned martyr?” When Lydia made no reply, his lips curled into a deprecating sneer. “God only knows what the dearly departed James McCabe ever saw in you.”

T
hat said, Ben stormed away from her and headed for the stream that bordered their campsite.

Scrambling to her feet,
Lydia watched as Ben yanked his shirt over his head, flinging it onto the ground. His boots, trousers and underclothes soon followed suit, her husband standing on the bank of the stream in all of his naked glory. Then, in one smooth, fluid motion, he dove into the deep-running water.

Lydia stood motionless, anguish washing over her in waves.

Will we forever be at odds with one another?
Like oil and vinegar, refusing to meld, each stubbornly clinging to those properties that set them apart?

“Mama, is everything all right?”

Lydia turned, startled to see Dixie’s tousled head poking through the canvas flaps of the wagon cover.

“Everything is fine,” she
assured her daughter with a forced smile.

Bending to pick up the bowl
that had fallen to the ground when her skirt caught fire, Lydia knew full well that she was living a blatant a lie. Far from being fine, everything was in a shambles.

“Hey, Captain Ben, do you think we’ll see any Indians today?”

Dixie, her calico skirt tucked around her dangling legs, was precariously perched on the wagon tongue. To Lydia’s exasperation, her daughter was barefoot and bareheaded.

“Hard to tell,” Ben replied with an amiable
smile, tugging the wagon reins to the left to avoid a treacherous-looking ditch. “Although I’m counting on you to keep a look-out for ‘em.”

While
they were now deep in the heart of the Indian Territory, thus far they’d only glimpsed a small hunting party. And they’d only seen those Indians with the aid of Ben’s spyglass.

“I question the wisdom of letting Dixie ride on the wagon tongue,” Lydia fretted, flinching when her daughter playfully tugged on one of the horse’s tails.

Ben shrugged. “Let her have her fun. She can learn to be a lady later down the road.”

It was the same argument
that he’d given when she’d expressed her displeasure over Dixie’s exploration of prairie dog holes.

A few seconds later
, she and Ben both lurched to the right, the wagon hitting a particularly deep rut.

Dixie, her face flushed with excitement, enthusiasti
cally swung an arm in the air. “Yee-hah!”

“Next she’ll be cursing like a Union foot soldier,” Lydia
fumed.

“She’s a mite young. I wasn’t going to teach her how to cuss until she got a little older.”

Lydia stiffly folded her gloved hands in her lap, fast loosing her patience. “I fail to see the humor in any of this.”

“I suspect that’s because you’re a humorless woman.”

Nearing day’s end, it was the first snide remark that Ben had made since their early morning interlude. By tacit agreement, they’d both behaved as though nothing had happened. Ben had taken his dunk in the ice-cold stream, she’d sliced more apples, and without uttering a word about what had transpired between them, they’d sat down to breakfast.

Now, a
lmost twelve hours after the fact, she was still unwilling to lift the lid on Pandora’s Box.

“How long do you think it will take us to get to Uvalde?” she asked in a more conciliatory tone, hoping a change in topic would alleviate the tension between them.

“Hard to say.” Ben cocked his head to one side, his lips pursed. “Two, maybe three weeks, if the good weather holds out.”

“Although I’m enjoying the trip, I must admit that prairie clipping is hard work.”

Ben stared at the horizon, an imposing frown stamped onto his face. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Lydia, but the really hard work won’t start until we get to Uvalde. And that’s assuming we can even make a go of the ranch.”

“What would prevent that from happening?” When he refused to answer,
Lydia pressed harder. “I am your wife. It is right and proper that you share your concerns with me.”

“It’s not anything
that you need to be troubled with,” Ben muttered.

“Whatever it is that’s bothering you, Ben, I wish to be apprised. It is a small thing for a wife to ask.”

“All right then, if you’re so keen to know: I’m worried about money. Or our lack thereof.” As he spoke, her husband kept his gaze on the dusty horizon, the topic clearly an unpleasant one for him.

Lydia
well understood Ben’s hesitation to discuss the matter, money woes being the ruin of many a marriage. Despite the fact that they’d been wed nearly a month, they had yet to discuss their personal finances. A conversation long overdue in her opinion.

“Surely, we’re
not paupers.”

Ben took a deep breath.
Watching his chest rise and fall, Lydia recalled how it had felt to have his torso pressed against her breasts. Although she’d tried to keep her emotions in check, during the course of the day she’d periodically found herself staring at certain of her husband’s manly attributes – his bronzed hands, his lean flanks, his mouth hidden beneath his drooping mustache. And, Lord forgive her shamelessness, she once caught herself staring at the intriguing lump between his hips.

“After buying the supplies, I’ve got
—
We’ve
got nearly four hundred dollars,” Ben informed her. “I figure it’ll take a lot more than that to start up a ranch.”

“But the land is already bought and paid for.”

“And God bless your kinfolks for that. No, it’s not the land, or even the cattle that I’m worried about. As I understand it, there’s millions of Texas longhorns free for the taking, just wandering about waiting to be rounded up.”

“If that’s
the case, then why the long face?” she inquired, admittedly bewildered.

“Because it’s gonna take
a team of men to round up a decently sized herd; a team of men who’ll need to be paid and fed. And it doesn’t end there. Once the herd is rounded up, corrals have to be built and bunk houses constructed so that the hired hands have a place to bed down at night.” Ben turned to her, a grim look in his eyes. “Not to mention that we’ll have to build a home for ourselves. We can’t live out of this wagon forever.”

“If need be, that’s
exactly
what we shall do,” Lydia stated matter-of-factly, fully prepared to do whatever was necessary to make the venture successful. “Perhaps now is a good time to mention that I have some jewelry I can sell. It’s not much, I admit. But it will certainly help with our expenses.”

“Surely, Mrs. Strong, you’re not offering to sell your cherished gold wedding band?”

The caustic retort hung between them, the conversation having unexpectedly veered onto dangerous ground.

“No, I’m not offering to sell my wedding band,” Lydia
said after a noticeably long pause. Unable to hold Ben’s gaze, she fixed her sights on the gently rolling hills that undulated as far as the eye could see. “I have a pair of ruby earrings that belonged to my mother, as well as a pearl—”

In the next instant, t
he wagon suddenly careened to a stop, Ben roughly yanking on the brake.

“Ben what’s the
— My God, are you ill?”

Aghast, Lydia
reached for her husband’s arm, horrified to see that his face was ashen, his brow beaded with perspiration. Groaning, Ben reeled off the side of the wagon seat, somehow managing to land upright. For several seconds he wobbled unsteadily before he staggered away from the Conestoga.

“Dixie
! Quick! Fetch my medicine box!” Lydia frantically cried as she scrambled off the wagon seat. Lifting her skirts, she ran after Ben, her alarm transmuting into dread fear.

“Put the bayonet to ‘em!
” Ben hollered. “Let those Rebs have a taste of Union steel!”

Heaven above!
That was the very same thing that he’d earlier cried while in the throes of a nightmare.

But h
ow can Ben possibly be dreaming when he’s still very much awake?

Determined to come to her husband’s aid
, Lydia followed Ben into a grassy field. When she reached for his arm, he recoiled in the opposite direction.

“Get away from me, damn you!”
As he glared at her, Ben’s gray eyes burned with a feverish gleam.

Undaunted, Lydia again took hold of his arm
. This time she managed to latch both her hands around his bicep, taken aback by the power contained in his tensed muscles.

“
Leave me be!” he bellowed, flinging her to the ground with a twist of the elbow.

Panic-stricken,
Lydia struggled to her feet. “Please, Ben! Let me help you!”

Ignoring her,
her husband lifted his arms and clutched his head, his facial features twisted in an agonized mask of pain. Thus posed, he fell to his knees. “
No one
. . .
can help
. . .
me
.”

“
Ben! You must listen carefully! I
can
help you!”

The
affirmation fell on deaf ears.

Rearing back his head
, Ben raised his face to the heavens, his bronzed cheeks streaked with tears.

“
I’m sorry, Ethan!”

In the next instant, as
if the life-force had suddenly departed from his body, Ben collapsed at her feet.

Lydia slapped a hand to her mouth, stifling a panic-stricken shriek. Kneeling at Ben’s side, she placed her ear against his chest, f
earing the worst. Able to detect a heartbeat, she quickly offered up a joyful prayer of relief.

“Ben! Please wake up!” she implored
, holding his face between her hands. “You need to—”

Just then,
a shadow fell over them.

Shielding her eyes against the blaring late
-day sun, Lydia turned toward the shadow, stunned to find a huge tree trunk of a man standing over top of them. From the long braids that framed his face, she could see that he was an Indian.

Terrified, her heart
slammed against her breastbone.

“Please, I’m begging you. Leave us be. Can’t you see that my husband is gravely ill?”

Without uttering a word, the Indian leaned over and cuffed a hand around each of Ben’s upper arms. He then hauled Ben upright, slinging her 6’3” husband over his shoulder as if he weighed little more than a sack of potatoes.