Wayward Wind (13 page)

“You’re up early.”

“I love the morning.”

“Last night you said you loved the night.”

“I love everything—now that I’ve found
you
.”

“Lorna—”

“Oh, Cooper, Cooper.” She came close to him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek against his chest. The
top of her head fit snugly beneath his chin. His hand came up and stroked the full length of her hair. He’d never felt anything
so silky, so alive. His fingers refused to leave it. She tilted her face, smiled up at him, and asked mischievously, “Do you
think I’ll break if you hug me?”

“I’m afraid you’re not flesh and blood.”

“If you kiss me, you’ll know that I am.”

“Lorna! Oh, wild, sweet, Lorna—” The words came from his tight throat in a tormented whisper.

She lifted her lips to meet his. The pressure of his mouth threatened to whisk her to the edge of blackness. The bittersweet
taste of tobacco and the roughness of his cheek as her nose pressed against it did nothing but fan the flame that was growing
inside her. The pressure of his lips parted hers and she felt the tip of his tongue exploring the inner surfaces of her lips.
She was enveloped in a whirling velvet mist of sensations that made her knees weak and her body sag against his tall frame.
His mouth left hers momentarily, then hungrily returned to capture her in a soul-searching kiss as an insidious, primitive
desire grew in both of them.

These wanton, abandoned feelings were strange to Lorna, but she loved them and had no desire to stop them. Instead, she wanted
the physical gratification of Cooper’s possession and pressed herself against the hardened evidence of his aroused body.

It was Cooper who drew back and held her away from him. His hands moved over her shoulders and back in trembling caresses
as he peered down into her flushed face.

“You don’t know what this is leading to, Lorna.” His voice trembled.

Almost blindly she looked at him, compelling herself to concentrate on what he was saying, but the movement of his firm lips
was more enticing than the words coming from them. She was learning how primitive and powerful desire could be. Her soft,
feminine body had instinctively responded to the mating instincts of his.

“Yes, I do! It’s mating! I always wondered what it would be like to couple with my mate.”

“Lorna, Lorna,” he groaned, his words muffled in her hair. “We can’t… I can’t—”

“I’m your woman, Cooper.” Her voice was low and she was frowning. “Don’t you know that I’m your woman?”

Cooper felt a strange, bittersweet warmth. He stared down at her for a long, aching moment. Her lips were red and swollen
from his kisses and a few tendrils of soft black hair curled at her temples. She was a dream, a mirage, as pure as an angel’s
breath.

“You’re sweet, untouched—”

“I’m untouched,” she admitted with a three-cornered smile. “I’ve been waiting for you, Cooper. I’m your woman. I know it,
but it’s too soon for you to know, isn’t it?” Her hands cupped his cheeks and she looked deeply into his eyes.

“You don’t understand how it is with a man? I want you. God knows I do, but—” He could read the loving acceptance in her eyes.
Oh, God, she was so sweet, so tempting. “You can’t… give yourself to a man you’ve known for so short a time!” he said tersely.

“I’ve known you forever. But it’s all new to you, isn’t that it, Cooper?”

“Yes, it’s new to me,” he snapped almost angrily. “I can’t take a woman like you just as a passing pleasure. It would have
to mean more than that.” He felt as if he were strangling.

“We’ll mate, my love. I’m sure, so very sure.” She spoke reassuringly, as if she were comforting a child, and stroked his
cheeks with her fingertips. “When we do, we’ll take each other.”

He stood silently, his eyes searching her face. Then he began shaking his head in denial of his thoughts. She seemed to understand
what was going on in his mind and rose up on her toes to brush his lips with hers.

“Light didn’t understand either—at first,” she whispered.

Cooper shook himself out of what now seemed to be a trance. “What were you doing up here alone? Dunbar or some drifter could’ve
ridden in here and found you.” He spoke gruffly in an effort to bring them both back to reality.

She laughed. “After you’ve been with me a while, you’ll not worry about me getting caught out. Come. We’d better go see about
Bonnie and Griff. They’ll be hungry for their breakfast.”

She scrambled down the side of the bluff as agilely as a mountain goat and waited at the bottom for Cooper, who came slowly
and cautiously. When he reached her, she took his hand as naturally as if she had been doing it every day of her life.

“Now can you see how I found the mare and had to ride her the long way around?”

He nodded his head in answer to her question, then scolded, “You could have broken your neck coming down the cliff the way
you did just now.”

“Oh, Cooper, you care. You
do
care!” She hugged his arm and danced alongside him.

“You’re damn right I’d care if you broke a leg. How’d I get you out of here?” he said, deliberately misreading the meaning
of her words.

“We’d have to stay here then. Just you and I. I wouldn’t care a bit.”

“I’d pull you out on a travois,” he threatened, and unable to resist her infectious happy mood, grinned down at her. “That
would be a mighty bumpy ride.”

“I know. That’s how Volney and I brought Bonnie here.” She had to skip to keep up with his long strides. “I’m worried about
him, Cooper.”

“Volney can take care of himself. He’s caught the scent of a cat with a pelt that would bring him plenty of hard cash and
he’s after it. He’ll be back.”

“I don’t know what to do with Bonnie if he doesn’t come back. I can’t take her home with me. Brice would get her.”

“I’ll take her home with me. Ma would be glad for her company.”

“Would you do that, Cooper?” Sharing this sweet intimacy with him made Lorna almost heady with pleasure.

“How soon before she can travel? I’ve got to be getting on home.”

“I don’t know when she can ride astride. That babe split her something awful.”

Cooper felt the color come up from his neck and looked away from the serious, unabashed eyes looking into his. There didn’t
seem to be any subject too delicate for her to talk about openly and honestly.

“We’ll… ah… see how she gets on.”

*    *    *

In the afternoon Griffin moved out into the sun to expose the wound in his shoulder to the warm air. Lorna had fashioned a
sling for his right arm to prevent movement from disturbing the healing flesh. He seemed strangely withdrawn. Although he
spoke readily to Lorna, he didn’t direct any conversation to Cooper unless forced to answer a question.

Cooper waited until the young nester was alone, then moved over beside him and squatted down.

“I have a feeling something’s eating at you.”

Griffin looked steadily at him. His eyes were cold, the pupils shrunk to hard points. “What’s yore game,
mister
?”

“I figured you’d latched on to what Dunbar said. Well,
nester
,” he spat out the word and got to his feet, “I’ll say this one time: I feel the same about that old man as my brother does.
Any man that puts me in the same pocket as him, or puts his name to me had better be ready to back it up, because I’ll call
his hand.” The finality of the words lifted his voice to a warning note.

Griffin stood and spread his legs to steady himself. “I’m obliged to ya fer what ya done, but it goes down hard bein’ beholden
to one with your name.”

“Name’s Parnell. Cooper Parnell. My pa was Oscar Parnell, as fine a man as ever lived. It was him that raised me, taught me
to be a man. That old sonofabitch has got no claim on me, no matter what he says, Dunbar says, or anybody else says!”

Griffin stood stiff and defiant. “I aim to keep what’s mine if’n it means akillin’ him.”

“It’s what I’d do.”

Cooper stood there waiting for some response from the still-faced Griffin, but none was forthcoming. The man had retreated
for the moment while he considered his words. The silence went on and on while hard green eyes bored into hard blue ones.
After a long while Griffin nodded his head.

“If’n it turns out I’m wrong ’bout ya,” he said softly, “I’ll not waste time amakin’ it right.”

Cooper looked into eyes as cold and green as icy water. “How’ll you go about that?”

“By killin’ ya.” Griffin spoke each word clearly and distinctively. “ ’N I’d make sure ya take a long time adyin’.”

“Like Dunbar, huh?” Cooper looked at the slim, young cowboy as if seeing him for the first time. “You’d try it, wouldn’t you?”

“There’d be no
tryin
’,” Griffin said with a wintry smile. “I’d do it, ’n not like Dunbar. Ya’d not even know who done it, ’cause I don’t hold
with no rules a fair play. When somethin’ needs killin’, I kill it, ’n it makes no never mind to me how it’s done.” His young
face was as hard as stone. “I lived five years ’mong the meanest, filthiest scum this side of hell They tried ever’thin’ from
stealin’ my food to abuggerin’ me. It wasn’t easy to stay alive, but I’m here. A lot of ’em ain’t.”

“I’m obliged to you for telling me what to expect. Now, if you’ve got it all out of your craw, sit down and listen. I have
a proposition to put to ya.”

Lorna sat with her back against the wall and watched Bonnie twist her hair into a rope and fasten it to the top of her head
with two heavy wire hairpins. It amazed her that Bonnie could do so much with only one hand, and she told her so.

Bonnie laughed weakly. “It ain’t hard, Lorna. I never had two hands ’n had to do thin’s right off with one. Ya don’t miss
what ya never had.” The exertion of pinning up her hair had tired her. She rested her back against the wall and watched Lorna
with large brown eyes that seemed unusually dark in her pale face. “Ya told me the babe had ever’thin’, didn’t you, Lorna?
I didn’t dream that ya said it?”

“I told you that. It had the right number of feet and hands, even fingers and toes. It was perfect, Bonnie.” Lorna hoped to
God she was telling it right. The truth was, she had only briefly glanced at the pitiful mass of human flesh.

Bonnie seemed relieved and smiled wanly. “I was ’fraid it’d be like me.”

“When you’re able to leave here, Cooper’s going to take you to his ma. He said she’d be glad for your company.”

The old frightened look came back into Bonnie’s eyes. “I don’t want to go off with him, Lorna.”

“You’ll have to for awhile. I’m thinking that when Cooper comes to Light’s Mountain you can come, too. He’ll stand up to Brice.
Cooper’ll not let Brice be mean to you ever again.”

“Ya like him, don’t ya?”

“Yes, I do. He’s my life’s mate,” Lorna said in a proud, positive tone.

“Lorna! Are ya agoin’ to marry him?”

“He hasn’t asked me, but he will.”

“You’d leave Light’s Mountain?”

“Of course not! I’ll never leave Light’s Mountain,” Lorna said firmly. “My home’s there. I could never live anyplace else.”

“But… Lorna—”

“Cooper will come.”

“To stay?”

Lorna laughed. “Of course. It’s too soon to talk about that now. It’s enough to know that he’ll take you home with him and
take care of you till the time comes that both of you come home to Light’s Mountain.”

Lorna was facing the open door and her eyes sought the mountains beyond. She was getting homesick. Despite the wonder of being
here with Cooper, she longed for home. She wondered if Frank was worried about her, if her dogs, Naomi and Ruth, missed her
and if Moose and Woody had returned from their prospecting trip.

“But… Lorna, Cooper might not want to live there—”

“He will! As soon as he sees it, he’ll know that’s where he ought to be.” The words came out with a touch of hostility in
them.

Bonnie looked with surprise at Lorna’s tight features and knew that her friend wasn’t
sure
Cooper would go to Light’s Mountain. She didn’t understand Lorna’s attachment to a place that held so many fearful memories
for
her
. But then she’d never lived in one place long enough to become attached to it, she thought ruefully.

Lorna left the cabin and went to where Cooper was hunkered down in front of Griffin drawing a map in the dirt with a sharp
stick. She wanted to be with Cooper, to touch him. She stood close beside him and placed her hand on his shoulder. He looked
up with questioning eyes. She smiled at him and shook her head. He looked back down at the map he had drawn and for several
minutes appeared to be studying it before he spoke.

“This place is not so far from my ranch as the crow flies,” he said. “But in order to get through the pass I have to go north.”
He scratched out the place marking the pass, then the town of Junction City, then his ranch. His eyes made a sweeping tour
down the valley and to the surrounding mountains before meeting Griffin’s. “This here’s the best place for a horse ranch I’ve
come across this side of Thompson Valley where my ranch is.”

“Somebody started up here, ’n couldn’t make it or got run off,” Griffin said, looking far down the valley at the waving grass.
“If’n he didn’t make it, he didn’t give it a good try. There’s ever’thin’ here a body’d want—natural boundries, grass, water
aplenty. My guess is somebody didn’t want ’em here ’n run ’em off.”

“Mine, too. And I have a good idea who it was. If the land isn’t bought we have as much right to it as anyone. What say we
make a trip into town and find out?”

Griffin didn’t respond at once. Finally he said, “All I got is that horse herd. Maybe forty head.”

“From what you say about them, Logan will buy them. I have a little hard money put back. If we need more, we can put it to
Logan to stake us in return for his pick of the horses.”

“Do ya think he would?”

“We won’t know till we ask him. He’s running a mighty big herd of cattle and he’s got no time to break and train his work
stock.”

“Do ya figger to go partners?”

“That’s the size of it.” Cooper held out his hand and Griffin clasped it with his left one, his young face serious.