Compromised Cowgirl (8 page)

The boy made his horse rear. He turned it around on its back feet and raced back to the cabin. No doubt to eat the last of Miss Rosa’s treat.

“Bloody hell!”

Ace clutched the lariat in his right hand, fuming. Why did the brat want to get his goat so badly? He’d heard Jessie talking with Sin and Henry. While the boy’s speech needed help, it was nothing like the way he spoke to Ace. Did the boy do it out of fear, or because he knew it bugged his ass?

Stupid question. The kid wasn’t afraid of anything. And if he didn’t need the kid’s knowledge and ability, he’d fire him so fast his head would spin.

Ace tilted his head back and inhaled. He could do this. The kid had been roping since he could toddle. He, on the other hand, spent his first five years living with servants in a cottage, the next two in the big house with tutors and then was sent away to school. Latin, Greek, and the theories of Pythagoras were not needed in Montana Territory.

His ability with numbers and memory had won them the Double Diamond and the cattle he had hopes of one day roping. Excellent planning skills kept things running though they had not one ounce of gold to spare. The kid didn’t eat much and slept in the barn. They couldn’t do this without him, damn his eyes!

Ace picked up the rope and set his feet. He loosened the fingers of his left hand. This time when he let go the lariat floated high. It landed over the stump, thereby “roping” his first beast. Exultation expanded his chest. He flicked the rope so the end jumped off the stump. The next step was to rope something moving. Add trying to do it from the back of a moving horse…

No. Concentrate on today.
Rosa
brought some of her famous cinnamon buns, and he was bloody well going to enjoy them. The kid better not have eaten more than one, or he’d tan his hide!

* * * *

A week later, with Patrick and Ranger’s cattle now with them at the Bitterroot Ranch, Jessie’s thighs no longer screamed in pain with every step. It would be wonderful if she could sneak away and soak her aches in the hot spring. But it was too dangerous. If one of the men followed her, they’d discover she was no boy.

Thanks to Miss Rosa’s present, she could breathe. It wasn’t too difficult to unloosen the corset’s strings when she rode out in the morning and tighten them when the men were around. She did it at night as well. Wearing a corset was bad enough in a dress, but you did little but sit straight and step, slowly and gracefully, across a room. Wearing a corset while working cattle made a gal appreciate how wonderful it was to have fresh air deep in your lungs.

The Double Diamond men still hobbled around a bit every morning and evening, but none of them said a word of complaint. They also didn’t complain when she corrected them on things such as roping. Except Ace. To him, she was a sawed-off runt almost too young to tie his shoes, much less shave.

He ordered her to do one thing, then another. She could tell even Sin and Henry were getting fed up with him. She had her own way to get back at him. He spoke with such an upper-crust accent, all sneering and superior. She couldn’t help speaking like a po’boy who wouldn’t recognize grammar if he tripped over it.

When Ace looked at her, she felt…strange was the only word she could think of. Though she wanted to geld him with her knife half the time, he made her feel a bit shivery. Something about his total confidence in himself made him attractive. Of course, the fact that she did many things better goaded him to act even more superior. She pretended to completely misunderstand his biting wit, taking him at his word rather than his meaning.

Only when she was alone in the barn did she let loose a chuckle. The man was smart as well as educated. Too bad he took himself so seriously. Put him in a suit, and the girls in
Virginia
would swoon. She watched him once when he didn’t know she was in the barn. Trouble had caught a stone, and she’d brought him back
midday
. Ace came out of the cabin wearing only his hat. He carried a pair of dripping pants in front of him. She admired his broad chest, following the line of hair. His semi-rigid cock rose out of a dark nest, strong and thick. He hung his pants from a nail on one of the posts holding up the short roof overhang.

She’d seen naked men lots of times, but she was related to them. The muscles of Ace’s back flexed when he moved, and so did the ones in his ass. His smooth cheeks were concave on the sides, curving around the back.

She watched him, knowing it was rude but unable to turn away. She rubbed between her legs, thinking of him like a stallion about to mount a mare. He would be proud and erect, knowing what she needed and more than ready to provide it.

A couple of nights since then, when she could stay awake long enough, she put her fingers to good use as she remembered what he looked like. She imagined him kissing her neck and touching her aching breasts. He’d lay her on her back and she’d lift her legs wide so he could enter her. Or he’d kneel behind her and enter her like a horse, thrusting hard and deep.

That’s what the women she spied on from the loft of MacDougal barn did. No lanterns were allowed in the barn, so she couldn’t really see anything. The women would squeal, though, urging her brothers and cousins to do more. Usually they shared the women because it took so much effort to get one all the way from town to the MacDougal ranch. Every couple of months they’d manage to get one home, and Jessie would try to watch from the hayloft. She had no other way of finding out how a woman behaved around men.

No man in
Virginia
made her want to take off her clothes and let him touch her like that. But Ace did. And Sin, and Henry. Ace moved with determination, as if he was the boss of the world. When she bested him, he’d grit his teeth and glare. She knew it was only a matter of time before he proved he could be better than her. He’d find something, just to prove it.

What would it be like to lie down with a man so masterful? One who knew his way around a woman and could show her what she’d been missing?

She shifted in the saddle, rubbing her pussy against the hard leather. If she stood in her stirrups and leaned forward, could she rub herself against the saddle horn? Naw, she’d better concentrate on work.

She turned her horse to ride even higher above the ranch. She should check out the draws and gulches where longhorns might get stuck. It was best to get a good idea of potential problems and fix them before problems happened. She’d report them to the boss, recommending which areas they should block off.

“You think I should talk to Ace, Trouble?”

The horse flicked an ear.

“You’re right. I’ll draw them on paper and leave it on the table for him to find.”

She could recommend all she liked. If Ace didn’t like what she said, he ignored her. He did that a lot. For some reason, he’d been mad at her right from the start. Of course, she’d egged him on, but how else was she going to put up with his arrogance?

Sin told her Ace’s older brother was the Earl of Denby and lived in this huge palace in
England
. All of them were younger brothers of aristocrats. Though their families might have money and property, they’d inherit nothing since the eldest got everything. She admired their gumption at wanting to make their own way. So far, they’d done well, though almost all of it came from a game of cards.

At least they knew how to work hard. All of them stayed in the saddle as long as she did, every day. Henry and Sin slept in the cabin’s loft while Ace took the corner bed. She went in and put the coffee on every morning. The smell woke them, and they’d grunt their thanks. Ace, sleeping in the bed across the room from her, wouldn’t even lift his head.

The few times she did catch him looking, he had a strange look on his face. He’d bellow at her to get out and saddle the horses. She’d throw down whatever she was holding and slam the door behind her.

Once, she stuck out her tongue at his back while they were riding. He’d whipped his head around and caught her. She’d kicked Trouble and raced off before he could thrash her. She figured he was the type to take a switch to a boy’s bare backside. She remembered how much that hurt and wanted nothing to do with it.

Plus, if she dropped her pants and bent over he’d get a big surprise. The way he hated her, he probably would wallop her behind, tell her to pull up her pants and get back to work. Worse, he might fire her, and then Ranger wouldn’t let her be a partner in the Bitterroot.

Now, if she dropped her pants in front of Sin…

Sin would slide his magic fingers around her backside and stroke her pussy. She knew it would feel better than when she touched herself. She overheard her brothers talking about it feeling far better when a woman had her hand on their cock, so the opposite should be true.

She automatically kept her head lower than the ridge as she approached one of the streams that brought freezing water down from the mountains. She couldn’t figure out how the same mountains held
hot springs
. There was one on the Double Diamond above the cabin, but she hadn’t said a word about it. When she was finished with her three weeks she was going to strip off her corset and soak away all her aches in the hot water. She passed the halfway mark already, with about ten days left to go.

She dismounted to check tracks. Deer and elk, of course, as well as antelope. She’d mention the large paw tracks to Ace. The claws meant they were wolves. Texas longhorns knew how to protect themselves, but a hungry pack would gladly make a meal out of a few calves.

On a hunch, she splashed along the stream for a bit. She crouched at a mark that looked suspiciously like a horse. There were some wild ones around, but no wild horse wore a metal shoe. She cast around farther, discovering many more tracks as well as the remains of quirleys. A shod horse could have gotten loose, but cigarette remains proved someone human was around. She looked down the slope. A person standing here could look into the homestead yard. It was too far to see detail, but with a spyglass they’d know if anyone was home.

Who would gain from that knowledge?

Frederick Smthye lost the ranch to Ace. Had he sent men to cause problems? Or was this an example of her brothers and cousins keeping an eye on her? She didn’t think any of them smoked. Since she couldn’t tell if the sign was from friend, foe or family, she’d keep the information to herself. For now.

She followed the ridge, mentally marking narrow gulches, streams, and well-watered places where the grass was still green this late in the summer. She found a few sheltered places where she could lie naked under the sun, just as she did when she was young.

Having seen Ace naked, and felt Sin’s fingers on her back, she didn’t want to lie alone. She wanted them to do to her what she saw the boys doing in the barn.

One hot Saturday night Ben, Nevin, Patrick, Ranger, and Ross snuck a couple of women home. She often slept in the hayloft with the cats on a hot night. That night she was furious, as The MacDougal told her he would never, ever let her go to town because she was a girl. She was not to be seen by the rough men who came into the cantina for a drink.

She woke to an unusual sound—a woman’s happy laughter. She peeked over the edge of the hayloft. Luckily, the moon was bright enough for her to see. She saw the naked white shapes of her brothers and the smaller ones of two women. Instead of being worried with five men there, the women seemed eager to touch and be touched.

She tried to figure out what was going on, but they moved into a corner. She was sure her brothers took care of one woman while the two MacDougals made the other scream her release. Because it was so dark, she hadn’t figured out how. All she knew was that the women begged to have their breasts and pussies touched, demanding more.

A week later they sent her to
Virginia
to become a lady.

Chapter Nine

Jessie had only one section left to check. She headed Trouble toward a cleft only visible from above.

“Well, I’ll be darned.”

She’d ridden past the rock many times from below and never knew it broke into two. From above, she saw a space wide enough for a yearling to go in headfirst. Getting it out would be murderous.

Trouble baulked when she got within six feet of the rock. She urged the horse forward but it shook its head and danced sideways.

“What’s in there, Trouble?”

She sat still and listened but didn’t hear a rattlesnake. After all the poisonous critters in
Texas
, a rattler didn’t scare her much. At least it was big enough to see and let you know it was near. She climbed down and tied Trouble to a branch. She looked around for cat or wolf scat, but the hard, rocky ground showed nothing.

She sniffed as she approached the rock. She wrinkled her nose. Something had died in there a while back. She yanked on the brush covering the rock split, expecting it to be rooted in the ground. Branches came loose in her hands and she fell back. She slid for a couple of feet on her ass before her hip smacked against a rock.

The thick branches in her hands were sliced clean at the roots. The cuts were grey, the outer bark curling, so it hadn’t been cut recently. Someone had a reason to hide that cleft. She scrambled back up the slope and carefully approached. This time she gently tugged on the brush screen. It came free easily. She tossed it away and stepped closer. The path zigzagged before she stepped clear, finding an open area about fifteen feet by ten.