Marshal of Hel Dorado (20 page)

 
    
“Buck can dream to Quanto,” Ike joined the
protest. The brothers were circling their horses around Cody, their voices
lifting to be heard over the rain that hammered down on them, relentlessly
pressing them to pull back. “Even if you can go across, you’d be alone.”

 
    
“It doesn’t matter.” Fur scratched and
surged under his skin. The horses shied, snorting and stamping their feet. Cody
tossed the reins to Scarlett’s mare over to Buck. “What matters is getting to
her. If I’m there, I can protect her, help her get out. Then we can cross over
and meet you safely.”

 
    
“What if she can’t cross back out?” Noah
asked the question that Cody tried to ignore.

 
    
“Then she won’t be alone.” The wolf inside
of him scratched harder, eager to attempt the thought that had formed in Cody’s
mind. They’d spent hours riding up and down the line of the barrier, searching
for a weak point and the day wore on, the storm rolled in and they were no
closer to Scarlett than they’d been before. Four days was rapidly becoming five.

 
    
He needed to get to her. To make sure she
was all right.

 
    
“You said she’d been sick,” he glanced at
Buck for confirmation. But his brother avoided his eyes, concentrating on
calming the horses that were growing wilder by the moment. Cody’s scent was
changing, the wolf riding very close to the surface. He dropped off his own
horse and tossed the reins to Jimmy. “Then she needs us.”

 
    
He strode away from them, the rain turning
the grass and dirt to mud, which sucked greedily at his boots. He could roll
his clothes up, carry them in his teeth if he had to.

 
    
“Cody,” Jimmy followed, hard on his heels.
Cody whirled, glaring until Jimmy lifted his hands in a gesture of
supplication. “Think about this. We don’t even know why we can’t cross onto
their land. This entire venture has been fucked from the beginning.”

 
    
“Don’t you think I know that?” Cody
snarled. The wolf snapped its teeth. “It’s my fault she’s there. It’s my fault
she was caught. Now she’s sick. We don’t know if the fever has her again or if
it's her gift. We don’t know if she’s out of control. It will kill her if she
hurts someone.”

 
    
Jimmy’s teeth clenched, his expression a
grimace as the rain flattened the edges of his hat. “I know. We
all
know.
We
all let her come. Not just you. It was a mistake, but you were
right when you said that if we didn’t let her come she would have followed us
anyway…that’s why she was in town. Because she didn’t listen. She followed us
to the bank.”

 
    
“It doesn’t matter.” Cody made a slicing
gesture with his hand. “Quanto said he could hold Wyatt off for three days. If
he hasn’t heard from us that she is safe by then, Wyatt will ride.”

 
    
Cody didn’t need to explain what would
happen then.

 
    
“She’s alone.” The wolf scrabbled against
his skin. “Jimmy. She’s alone.”

 
    
His brother bowed his head and nodded. “You
have to try.”

 
    
Cody clapped him on his shoulders. “Take
the others, head back to Dorado. Find that younger brother of the Marshal’s,
the one that spoke to me. Find out what he knows, keep him in sight, if I can’t
get to her, maybe we can arrange a trade.”

 
    
Jimmy nodded. “All right. Be careful.
Scarlett won’t be the only one alone out there.”

 
    
“She won’t be alone when I get there,” Cody
grinned fiercely, stripping off his gun, hat and clothes, passing them to his
brother. “Tie up the clothes so I can take them.”

 
    
The rain beat slivers of ice against his
skin, but he ignored it. The wolf was stretched, popping his skin, his bones
and fur sprouted. He landed on all fours, shaking the water off his fur and
glared his yellow eyes upwards at Jimmy. His brother knelt, careful to
telegraph his movements.

 
    
“I’ll tie this around your sides. You can
tear it off when you’re ready to change.”

 
    
Cody let the words sink in, the explanation
sliding around the wolf’s consciousness. He bobbed his head, giving his
permission. Jimmy fastened the bundle to his back, cinching it to his sides
with the belt, but careful not to touch anymore than he had to.

 
    
The wolf disliked any of them touching him.
He darted away the moment Jimmy removed his hands, ignoring the calls of the
other brothers as he followed the stream back to where they lost the martial.
On four legs, he moved swiftly, the fur protecting him from the cold despite
the soaking.

 
    
Within the hour he found the space where
the barrier was on this side of the stream. He tested it with his nose, then
his head. No impediment.

 
    
He tested it twice more before plunging
into the racing stream, his head bobbed above the water and his legs kicked
fiercely as he swam across. The rain had doubled the size of the crossing and
the current pushed him downstream even as he cut his way across. By the time he
heaved himself out of the water and shook, the wolf was numb with tired.

 
    
The miles to Scarlett stretched out on
front of him. The rain had washed away most of the fresh scent trails, but the
wolf trusted its instincts. His instincts said north.

 
    
K
id
leaned against the roof post. The rain came down in great, gusting sheets,
spilling over the lip of the veranda’s roof in a cascading waterfall. The storm
rolled in like a trail driver and parked liked an angry bull, bellowing and
snorting. The air carried a bite to it, the summer heat thoroughly doused. A
slender pair of feminine hands glided over his bare belly and then up to his
chest.

 
    
Mrs. Carson pressed her weight into the
embrace and her lips feathered a kiss to his shoulder.

 
    
“You should come back to bed,” she murmured
in a low contralto that still carried the accent of warm Georgia peaches. She’d
come west with her husband four years before. Buried him a year later and taken
Kid into her bed a year beyond that.

 
    
“It’s nearly midday.” Kid chuckled,
stroking his palm over the backs of her hands.

 
    
“And you’ll be going nowhere till the storm
is passed.” Her bold hands dipped lower, stroking him through the pair of
britches he’d dragged on to come outside. He’d left Sam in a fit of pique the
night before, but after washing up, he’d reclaimed his horse from the livery
and ridden to the Flying K.

 
    
Straight for the Carson cabin, tucked away
at the southern end of the property. Mrs. Carson was a handsome woman, having
crossed the line to thirty with her slim figure still intact.

 
    
He knew she longed for children, but had
also resigned herself to the fact that she would have none. Her ten-year
marriage to Henry ended when a stampede, injury and infection conspired to take
him away.

 
    
Kid had helped to bury him. He’d also
gladly taken his father’s charge to tend her place, repairing the cabin and her
slender, lean to barn where his horse was currently stabled along with two
mules. He also enjoyed tending her other needs.

 
    
Her kisses drew a line across his
shoulders, even as her hand stroked him to life. Firm teeth bit down lightly on
his arm and he dropped his gaze from the rain to see the simple curiosity
gazing up at him from her brown eyes.

 
    
“You’re very quiet, William.” She was also
the only person to call him by his middle name, his actual name, not the
nickname his family dumped on him or the first name he shared with the father
who couldn’t be bothered with him.

 
    
“It’s been a long few days, Caroline.”

 
    
Her gentle teasing caresses slowed and her
arms firmed around him in a comforting embrace. Caroline Carson was a plain
woman, with a warm spirit and a kind smile. She doted on him, often as not
fixing him at least one meal every time he visited, mending his shirts and
letting him ply her body with every intimacy.

 
    
It was an altogether wonderful arrangement.
She never expected him. She never made demands. She was always happy to see
him. It was his respite from his father’s disappointment and the demands of his
older brothers to conform to what they thought he should be doing.

 
    
He stroked his hand lazily against the back
of hers.

 
    
“You found the gold?”

 
    
“Yes.”

 
    
“You’ve returned it to the bank?”

 
    
He sighed. “Yes.”

 
    
“Then you should be pleased.”

 
    
“That I should.” The rain transformed the
trail along the front of the cabin into mud speckled by large puddles. Twenty
feet away, the swollen creek verged up to the rocks. If the rain continued, the
creek would push over the edges.

 
    
He might have to sandbag around the porch.
The cabin was sturdy, built up so that it was still a few feet higher than the
creek, but flash floods didn’t pay as much attention to landscaping choices.

 
    
“But you’re not.” Her teeth scored against
his shoulder, the bite hard enough to jerk his mind back to the porch and the
woman leaning against him. He twisted, picking her up and kissing her until she
was warm, soft and pliable once more.

 
    
“No biting.” He admonished with a grin. Not
that he minded her teeth. His back was already littered with the lusty
reminders of her nails digging into him as his flesh pounded into hers. He
liked the absolute abandon with which she engaged him.

 
    
Caroline twined her arms around his neck,
forehead coming to rest against his. She was such a slip of a thing, it was
hard to remember that she was nearly twelve years his senior.

 
    
“Then stop sulking and be here with me.
It’s been weeks since your last visit and it could be weeks again if your
father insists on sending you with the herd to Kansas.”

 
    
Kid slid his hands over her round bottom,
lifting her until her legs wrapped around his hips. She rolled her hips
invitingly against him, every bit as generous and wanton, as she had been their
first time.

 
    
“I thought Mr. Lattimer was calling on you
these days.” He tugged up the shift, until his fingers could explore the bare
contours of her ass. He liked the way it filled his palm, soft and firm at the
same time.

 
    
“Mr. Lattimer is a proper gentleman. He
only calls when a chaperone can be present and leaves me with the barest touch
of lips to my cheek. He’s hardly worth noticing, I’m afraid.” Her lips nuzzled
his chin, teasing the whiskers he’d grown over the four days he’d followed the
gang.

 
    
“You need a shave.”

 
    
“My apologies.” He rubbed the bristle
against her cheek and she laughed. “And I am sure Mr. Lattimer would give you
more than a chaste peck on the cheek if you encouraged him.”

 
    
Caroline snorted, a most unladylike and
amusing sound. “Mr. Lattimer wants a mother for his two children and a keeper
for his house. His wife died in childbirth last year, God rest her soul.”

 
    
He slipped a hand down under the curve of
her bottom, teasing the moist entrance of her sex and chuckling as her back
arched. He adored the lusty side of Caroline, the side not afraid to demand
what she wanted.

 
    
“Maybe you just need to tell him what you
want. Educate him, if you will?” He dipped a finger inside, swelling at the
heat he encountered.

 
    
“Hmm,” Caroline found his mouth with hers
and kissed him. It was an open-mouthed battle of tongues, her teeth gently
scraping, her fingers fisting in his hair. He swirled his finger, adding a
second to the first for the gentlest of thrusts.