Riding West (14 page)

He kissed her lightly, and then nuzzled the side of her neck as he bunched the material of her shift around her waist. “You want it, sweetheart, let‘s face it. Hard and fast in that tight, wet pussy of yours, my cock pushing in as deep as possible, and you taking it like you always do, to the hilt. We both know you‘re going to come for me over and over, and I am more than happy to give you what you like so much.”

Finally, he‘d shocked her a little, for her eyes widened.

Parker smiled with dark purpose. “Spread your legs. Why make us both wait?”

“No,” she said faintly, but it was the merest protest and her lashes drifted downward as he easily pushed her thighs apart with his knees and positioned himself.

At the first plunge, she gasped and arched. His cock found heat and heaven, and he felt the wash of pleasure like a warm, enchanting tide. He began to move, at first slowly, but there was something about the frantic lift of her hips that spoke volumes about what she needed and he was just the man to oblige her.

The only man, he reminded himself as he drowned in sensation.

Heated, urgent and captivatingly passionate, Celia moaned with each thrust. For someone who had supposedly felt resistance to the idea of lovemaking, she certainly seemed to be enjoying it. Parker hadn‘t any doubt in the first place of her capitulation. It was a decided bonus in marrying someone with her fiery personality.

If every argument ended this way, he wouldn‘t mind a little spat now and then at all, he decided as he felt the riveting rise of his orgasm. Beneath him, his beautiful wife responded to his penetration with complete surrender and her usual uninhibited recklessness.

“Parker,” she breathed as the first tremor of her climax began.

The exquisite contractions of her inner muscles as she began to quiver and arch took him the last step, a searing burst of pleasure assaulting his senses as he emptied into her in a forceful, red-hot rush. Gasping and spent, he rested his forehead against the silken skin of her shoulder and felt the thrumming of his heart finally begin to slow.

Celia‘s fingers slid through his hair in light strokes. “That was a dirty, rotten thing to do, Parker.”

A faint smile tugged at his mouth and he lifted his head. “How so?”

Her blue eyes were full of reproach, but she continued to toy with his hair, sifting through the wavy strands. “You can‘t use sex to win an argument.”

“All right.” He kissed her, slow and sweet, his lips moving softly against hers. “We can pick up right where we left off, if you‘d like. Or, better yet, we could take off the rest of your clothes and make love again.”

“I thought you were tired.”

“I thought so, too.”

Celia squirmed a little against his hips, his half-rigid cock still inside her. “I suppose we could discuss your despotic ways in the morning.” Her smile was pure teasing coquetry.

He licked her upper lip with a seductive glide of his tongue. “You like it when I‘m despotic.”

“Sometimes.” Her lashes fluttered a little. “I know I like it when you fuck me like you just did.”

“Sweetheart, what will it take to rein in your language?”

She laughed, sliding her hands luxuriously up his back. “I don‘t think it‘s possible, Parker.”

“Is that a challenge?” As always, her striking beauty mesmerized him, and her sensuous nature made him feel humbled by his good luck. “You definitely need a firm hand. I might just plant mine on your tempting backside the next time you choose to cuss like a grub-line-riding cowboy.”

“That,” his lovely wife said with a mischievous grin, “sounds like it could be fun.”

The acrid smell was the first sign of disaster on an otherwise calm summer morning.

Running from the kitchen, Parker‘s mother gestured frantically toward the corrals. “Fire! Celia, quick, grab a bucket. The barn is on fire!”

It had been dry lately, and something like that didn‘t bode well. Celia dug out two buckets they used for carrying water for washing dishes and hurried outside. What she saw made her heart freeze, for not only did smoke billow from the big barn, but it looked like the bunkhouse was also engulfed in flames. The two little buckets she held seemed ridiculous compared to what was happening, but she dashed to the well, just the same.

The horses trapped in the burning building were screaming, she realized, the shrill sounds rising above the distant roar of the flames.

Oh God.

“I‘m going to free the horses,” she shouted, and shoved a bucket toward Parker‘s mother. The older woman said something back, but she didn‘t hear it as she ran toward the blazing building.

The haze of smoke made it impossible to see what exactly was happening, but she needed to reach the frightened animals. Running, eyes streaming as she got closer, she wondered where the men Parker had left on guard duty were.

In a moment she had her answer.

She tripped over one of them and went sprawling, the bucket in her hand going flying. For a moment she was stunned, and then Celia scrambled to her feet and stared at the prone body of the man lying in front of the barn doors. He was young, his face turned away, and she saw the glassy reflection of his open eyes.

Dead
. Her mind registered the word even as she emotionally rejected it.

A great gust of smoke whirled around her and the crackle of the flames brought her out of her stupor. Whatever was happening, she suddenly knew the two buildings were not on fire by accident. She stooped and gently eased free the knife still strapped to the young cowboy‘s lean waist, touching him with reluctance. His gun was nowhere in sight, so probably whoever killed him took it.

Maybe Parker had been right all along. This certainly seemed a bold frontal attack.

Armed with the knife, she eased toward the barn doors, only to find a second man there, half-propped against the building, his head hanging on his chest. She could see the crimson dribble of blood soaking his shirt and a small sob caught in her throat.

With effort, she stepped past and frantically tugged at the bar holding the doors closed. Inside, it was chaos, with the animals kicking at their stalls and whinnying. She could barely see, but moved to open the doors, trying to stay out of the way as they thundered out toward freedom. Luckily, Parker pastured most of his horseflesh, and there were less than a dozen animals to free, but Diablo was among them and she knew he would be heartbroken if anything happened to the stallion. The big black was in the one of the last stalls and he bolted the minute the door was opened, clattering outside in a wild flurry of flying hooves.

Her lungs felt as if they would burst, and Celia staggered back outside in the wake of the last escaping horse.

It was surreal to emerge into fresher air, and she coughed, stumbled and tried to blink away the burning in her eyes.

A shout drew her attention. There were riders, she realized, at first with a stab of relief, and then with a jolt of fear. She swiped at the smoke-induced tears on her cheeks and registered these were men she‘d never seen before. They rode dark horses, and as they spotted her, they spurred their mounts her way.

In a haze of panic, she turned to run. She made it past the corral before she heard the thunder of her pursuers right behind her. There was no place to go, she realized in despair, for the long lane was open and made her easy prey.

In minutes, she was surrounded.

Chest heaving, she stood in the crowding circle of the riders and counted at least six men. “What do you want?” She managed to ask it in a thin, breathless voice.

One of them, burly and bearded, with flat dark eyes and a red bandana around his thick neck, spoke up. “Jest for you to come on a little ride with us, ma‘am.”

“No, thank you.” Celia gave him a level stare, trying to catch her breath. “Go back to whatever hole you inhabit and tell Rance Colter to go to hell.”

“You can tell him yerself, if you‘d like, Mrs. West.” He slowly dismounted. “Come on, now, I‘d jest as soon make this easy on you.”

Well aware of the amused gazes of the other men, most of which gave the impression of seedy dishonesty, Celia felt the weight of the knife in her hand with a little comfort, though not much. At the moment, her hand hung at her side, the weapon concealed in the folds of her skirts.

“What are you,” she asked contemptuously, “procurers for a man without the guts to do anything himself? You stack the deck, don‘t you? Six men to capture one woman?”

The big man narrowed his eyes a little. “We git paid well, that‘s all we care about.”

“To murder innocent men, burn down buildings like cowards and condone rape?”

His face reddened a little and he reached out to take her arm roughly. “What happens to you after we take you to Colter ain‘t our concern.”

“Isn‘t it?” Stalling for time, Celia tried to shake off his grip. “Unless you sprang out of a pile of horse dung, which is possible, you had a mother once, maybe even a sister. Would you take one of them to him and leave her there?”

One of the men was younger than the rest, not so hard looking, and glanced away as she deliberately raked the group with her scathing gaze. His discomfort showed at least a modicum of decency, but he was in the minority.

The stocky outlaw pushed her toward his horse, none too gently. “Mebbe it would be best if you kept yer pretty mouth shut.”

The push, which sent her almost staggering into his horse, made her furious. She was past being frightened. Even now she could hear the roar of the fires as they consumed the two outbuildings. The abduction seemed a continuation of the nightmare.

She needed to do something to stop this.

Parker loved her. It wasn‘t simply desire, it wasn‘t merely their undeniably electric physical bond, it was emotional and deep and as essential as breathing.

If it was in her power, she would not allow him to suffer knowing she had been kidnapped. For he
would
suffer, horribly, and as sure as the sun came up in the morning, he‘d ride straight to Colter‘s ranch, probably getting himself killed in the process.

The bearded man grasped her waist and hefted her onto his horse.

At the same moment he grasped the saddle horn to mount up, Celia leaned over and sank the blade of her weapon deep into his brawny shoulder.

He screamed and cursed, the sound giving her a small thrill of primal satisfaction. In a flash, she grabbed the reins and dug in her heels, scrambling to get a better seat as the animal took off in startled reaction. She was nearly thrown out of the saddle, but managed somehow to hang on, the stirrups dangling wildly as the horse plunged away.

If there was one thing she could do, it was ride. In moments, she found the stirrups and leaned over the neck of the outlaw‘s horse in encouragement as she guided it at a full run away from her captors. At least some of them came after her, for she could hear the sounds of pursuit, but she had two advantages. She was light, and the burly outlaw had a big brute of a horse, rawboned but muscular. The second was she had ridden over to the Wests‘ so often before her marriage, she knew the land like the back of her hand.

In fact, it felt good to feel the lash of the wind, the wild flick of the horse‘s mane against her neck and cheeks, and see the ground flashing by beneath them. Without hesitation, she rode west toward the nearby river and its concealing line of cottonwoods and oaks. There was only one decent place to cross it, and if she could get out of sight long enough, they might get delayed looking for a way over.

Anything, she thought grimly, to escape Colter.

Daring a swift backward glance over her shoulder, she saw with a glimmer of hope that the closest of her pursuers was a fair way back. Still uncomfortably close, but not breathing down her neck either.

Yes, she could definitely lose them.

Exhilarated, Celia sent the horse recklessly down a small ravine and up the opposite side in a full gallop. Behind her someone shouted and she urged her mount to veer toward the left, avoiding uneven ground.

Disaster happened in the form of an unseen hole. The big horse hit it with his right front leg and went to his knees in full stride. Celia barely realized what happened before she was pitched from the saddle, the world turning crazily as she flew through the air. She hit the ground hard enough that the breath left her lungs in a gasp, and for a moment everything went black.

Hell, she thought hazily as she fought the horrible sensation of not being able to breathe.

———

Tightlipped and grim, Parker stared at the smoldering remains of the bunkhouse, but his mind was elsewhere. His heart felt like it was squeezed in a vise. “Jesus, I thought I was being careful. Four men are dead and my wife is missing.”

His mother looked at him, her face still streaked with soot, her red-rimmed eyes brimming with tears. “When I realized what was happening, I went inside for the shotgun. When I came out, I saw her riding away.” She added in a whisper, “They went after her.”

Not violent by nature, he fought the urge to plunge his fist through the one wall still standing, the wood charred and smoking. “I‘m going to kill him.”

His father slipped his arm around his mother‘s trembling shoulders in an unspoken gesture of comfort. “Maybe she got away, son.”

“If she did, where is she? This happened hours ago.” There was no way Parker could keep the bleakness from his voice—it just wasn‘t humanly possible.

“Boss, jest stay calm. We can track ‘em if we hurry.” Cap Leighton rubbed his grizzled jaw. His pale eyes reflected outrage. “Still plenty of light left.”

He had to do something, make good steady decisions, and in his whole life that had never been a problem. Now, when he needed a clear mind, all he could do was feel a terrible despairing panic. He dragged his hand across his face and took a deep breath as he looked at his father. “You and Cap take half the hands and try to track her and the men who went after her. I‘m going to where she‘s likely to be.”

“If you ride straight on over to Colter‘s place, he‘ll be more than happy to make your wife a widow.” His father had deep lines around his mouth, making him look a decade older. “You can‘t go there and face him head-on. You know you won‘t make it anywhere close to the house. He‘ll be expecting you, Parker, and he‘ll be ready with an ambush. That won‘t help Celia, just the opposite.”