“I am not familiar with this part of the river. I…don’t know if it’s safe.”
Safe? “Hell, Doc, I’m out here in the middle of it. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“I am not you, Mr. Lawson. I like to know what is, well, what is beneath the surface before I plunge into something.”
“Can’t always know that.”
“I am r-realizing th-that.”
Jehoshaphat, she was so cold she was starting to stutter. “Take a chance, dammit!”
Once more she turned the horse away from the river.
Snakes and sawdust! Maybe she just plain didn’t know how to enjoy herself.
But when she turned back, her hand was at her throat, unbuttoning her black rain poncho. Then her red plaid shirt. She dismounted and fumbled at the waistband of her skirt, then stepped out of it and shucked off her boots. Standing there in nothing but her white drawers and a lacy camisole, she looked like a butterfly whose cocoon had just been peeled away.
Cord sucked in a breath. You see a woman naked and it changes things. He stopped sculling and let the water close over his head. When he surfaced, she was rolling up her clothes and boots in the poncho. She stashed the bundle behind the saddle, hooked the reins around the pommel and waded into the water. The mare followed at a respectful distance.
Cord wasn’t watching the mare. The thin, wet fabric of her underclothes plastered itself to her knees, her thighs. She moved slowly, very slowly, using her arms for balance and testing each step tentatively before she put down her weight. Her body broke the smooth surface with scarcely a ripple. Up to her waist now. Higher, higher…
Oh, hell yes! Under the wet camisole her breasts showed clearly, like mounds of some perfectly formed fruit with a dark aureola marking each center. Oh, God, she was beautiful. He couldn’t look away.
Then with a splash she was swimming, clean, sharp strokes that cut the water with no noise. A man had taught her, he could see that. Her father, or her uncle, the marshal. At least Cord hoped so. All at once he couldn’t stand the thought of another male’s hands touching her.
She swam to within a foot of where he lay and, without slowing, glided on past. Her eyes, he noted, were scrunched shut. He rolled onto his stomach and stroked after her.
She reached the sandy beach ahead of him and waded out of the water, her backside gleaming wetly under the clinging muslin. Cord’s arms stopped working and he stifled the groan that rose from his belly, a growl of pure male hunger.
And then his sex rose and grew hard.
She caught the mare’s bridle as it clambered up the bank, then turned and stood waiting for him, her face composed.
Cord swam into the shallows, but his member was so engorged he didn’t dare stand up. Instead, he folded his knees and huddled on the sandy river bottom. He’d have to play for time.
“Enjoy your swim?”
“Yes, I did.” She gave him a tentative smile. “I swam all the way across,” she said unnecessarily. She beamed like a kid watching a parade, as if she was proud of herself.
What was it she’d said? I like to know what’s beneath the surface before I plunge into something. She’d been scared of the river. Scared of the unknown. Well, I’ll be damned.
Now what?
He waited, up to his neck in the river.
She waited on the bank.
His knees were getting cold. “Want to turn your back while I get out?”
Her eyes flickered. “I’m a doctor, Mr. Lawson. There is nothing about the male body I haven’t seen before.”
Maybe. Had she ever seen an erection that tented a man’s trousers even when they were soaking wet? He didn’t think cadavers or ailing male patients could…
“Oh, very well,” she said at last. “Since you are shy.”
“Shy!” He swooshed to a standing position just in time to see her backside disappear into a gooseberry thicket.
Shy! He glanced down at the front of his jeans. “Sure, Doc. If you say so.” He had a hard time keeping a straight face.
To take his mind off the matter, he gathered a handful of pale green gooseberries and fed them to his horse. Slowly.
“Ready to ride?” he called when he thought he was under control.
“Quite ready.” She emerged from the thicket fully dressed, her red shirt buttoned up to her chin, her skirt flaring over her boots. Hell, she looked ready for church.
And here he stood, like a randy cowboy with a hard-on.
The downpour ceased abruptly, as if someone had suddenly turned off a spigot. She glanced skyward, stuck out her hand, palm up. “Oh, look, the rain has stopped. Now my undergarments will dry.”
Blazes, she didn’t even notice the bulge in his pants! He’d guess she wouldn’t understand it if she did see it. He rolled his eyes.
She mounted her horse and turned its rump toward him. Clipped to the saddle blanket with four wooden clothespins were her drawers and the lacy camisole.
Cord thought about that as he sloshed out of the river and caught his own mare. Underclothes flapping on the back of her horse. It would be hard not to look at them.
Okey-doke. Then he wouldn’t look.
He swung up into the saddle. Water squished out of his wet jeans, coursed down the animal’s hide and dripped off the stirrups. Every move he made reminded him he was sodden as a drowning rat.
And hard.
He’d keep his eyes on that funny-looking skirt she wore, and that plaid shirt she’d buttoned up tight like a prissy schoolmarm. He wouldn’t think for one second about the fact that she wore absolutely nothing underneath…
Lord-oh-Lord. It was going to be a long, long day.
She rode behind him, had done so ever since they left the Umpqua River three hours ago and headed east cross-country toward the Green Mountains, but it didn’t help. He kept thinking about her backside.
He tried reciting multiplication tables in his head. When he completed the twelves, he tried poetry. “This is the forest primeval…”
No good. His now-dry jeans rubbed his flesh the wrong way.
He’d try conversation, he decided. Anything to keep his thoughts from wandering where they had no business going. He twisted in the saddle and spoke over his shoulder. “How come you swim with your eyes closed?”
No answer. After a good dozen heartbeats, her voice floated to him. “Because it scares me.”
“But you did it. You looked pretty pleased with yourself after you got across.”
“I was pleased. Swimming across that river is a milestone for me.”
He chuckled. “Like Caesar crossing the Rubicon.”
She made a noise somewhere between a cough and a chortle. “How would you know about the Rubicon?”
“I read about it.”
“In Latin, I suppose.” Her tone indicated disbelief.
“Yeah. Zack Beeler taught me. His mama was a schoolteacher back in Rhode Island. Zack knew more about Latin than making biscuits.”
She didn’t respond.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Let’s just say I am…skeptical.”
“Try me.”
“All