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“The gentleman there smokes a cigar time to time, ma’am,” Cooper added. “I can’t hardly ask him to not smoke in the open air like this even if it bothers you, ma’am.”

Again she nodded. She’d heard what the man had to say anyway.

“Bumpier up here too, ma’am. The rig kinda sways an’ rocks so you feel it more than when you’re down inside.”

“Thank you. Drive on now.” She flicked a finger in the direction of the road that led north.

“Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say, ma’am.” Quint gave Longarm a slightly nervous look. Obviously he didn’t want either the deputy or the fancy lady registering complaints with the stage line once they reached Deadwood, and this match-up appeared about as compatible as fire and gunpowder. Then, with a barely visible shrug, he consigned the problem to the fates and cracked his whip over the ears of his leaders.

The woman was no chatterbox, and didn’t seem much interested in the scenery either. She sat—swayed, bumped, and bounced was more the truth of it—in unmoving silence until it became dark and for several hours after.

Until, that is, the next change of team. A quick stop to pour coffee in one end and pee out the other, and they were under way again.

And the woman again chose to ride on top of the big coach, although this time she took a seat facing the rear.

Liked to look at billowing dust, Longarm figured. At least that is what she would have been able to see had there been light enough to see anything. As it was, it had to be the horses that were keeping track of the roadbed, because it was entirely too dark for human eyes to make out anything.

Apart from the simple fact of it being black night, there were clouds to the north and west, and the moon was not yet showing to the east.

Longarm settled into his usual front-facing bench immediately behind Quentin Cooper so the two of them could chat if they took the notion—less likely than usual with a lady’s tender ears so close—and pulled out a cheroot.

He hadn’t any more than finished his smoke when he felt a sharp tap on his elbow. It was the woman, of course. She held a cautionary finger in front of her veil about where he expected her lips would be, then patted the seat beside her to indicate he should move back there with her.

Longarm took a look forward, but Quint was paying no attention to his passengers. And he shouldn’t be, either, on a night so dark. One misstep by him or his leaders and the stage could bust a wheel, which would be a damned nuisance if not exactly a disaster. There were at least two spares slung underneath the body of the coach, but it was a bitch to jack a heavy coach off the ground and wrestle a new wheel in place. The chore would be especially annoying if it started to rain, and Longarm guessed by the clouds ahead and the smell of the air that they were likely to be rained on before morning.

Anyway, the driver was concentrating on what was in front of him and not what might be going on behind his back. Longarm nodded and shifted to the bench at the lady’s side.

Again she motioned him to silence. Then she took his hand and slid it inside her duster, guiding it between two buttons. And onto bare flesh.

Damned if she didn’t seem to be naked again under that cover of heavy linen.

He goggled just a bit at the discovery. Then he felt around some to verify that, no, there wasn’t any cloth anywhere to be found inside that garment. There was nothing but warm, soft skin.

The woman’s head bobbed just a little, and despite the hat and veil Longarm was pretty sure she was laughing. She was enjoying this little joke, and probably had been the whole time, sitting there close by, naked as a boiled egg, and him never suspecting it.

Longarm chuckled too, and tweaked her nipple.

He heard what he thought to be a slightly muffled gasp. Then damned if she didn’t reach over to his crotch and commence undoing buttons there.

Now there wasn’t any way in hell the two of them could get away with fucking on top of a stagecoach full of folks traveling through wide-open country. Not even at night would anyone be crazy enough to try that. Not with Quint just a few feet away driving his team. Jeez!

They couldn’t fuck, and it would have been a dead giveaway too if she’d gone to her knees in front of him.

It turned out what she had in mind was, in fact, safe enough from discovery to be worth a try.

She took him out of his britches and calmly, methodically, very gently, began to whack him off.

It was almighty considerate of her, Longarm thought. He leaned back and let her have her fun, a big part of which no doubt involved the risk of discovery and the very public experience of it all.

This odd woman just plain liked getting it on, it seemed.

Longarm did not complain once he reached that conclusion, just kinda enjoyed it while he could.

At one point she leaned close to his ear and in a barely audible whisper told him, “When you’re about to come, signal me by squeezing my tit. Hard.”

He nodded. At the appropriate moment he squeezed. Hard.

The woman gasped again, turned her head to check on Quentin Cooper, and then bent low, sweeping her veil aside and taking Longarm’s cock into the wet heat of her mouth.

That was all he damn well needed to send him spilling over the edge. He came a quart. Hell, maybe more. Felt like that much anyway. And the woman drank it down without a murmur.

When she sat up again she was smiling. She winked at him and, silently laughing, licked her lips.

She carefully tucked him back where he belonged and buttoned his fly over the now-quite limp and satisfied appendage.

Then she took Longarm’s hand and guided it down into the soft, furry nest of hair at her crotch.

This time she whispered, “Now me, dearie. Use your fingers. Deep and hard, honey.”

This was, Longarm thought, a service every stagecoach line should lay on for its passengers. A man could make a fortune that way. Or a woman.

Chapter 8

Quentin Cooper had managed to make up almost three hours of their delay back at the Miller place, but the driver was grumbling and cussing himself for running behind schedule when they pulled into Deadwood late at night. They arrived in the middle of a rainstorm so heavy Longarm had been forced to abandon the coach roof and take shelter inside with the other passengers. The woman—she wasn’t any lady—had had Cooper stop and let her get inside at the first hint of rainfall.

Which Longarm had found to be something of a relief. The damned female was insatiable. Hell, even atop a bumping stagecoach in the middle of the night, she’d been after him and after him until he thought his fingers were going to purely wear down to nubs. Then what would he do if he needed to shoot somebody. Or something. Why, the woman was practically dangerous. All in all he was just as happy to see the trip come to an end so he could forget about her and get on with business.

He did, of course, help her out of the coach and onto the covered sidewalk where a boy—her son? Longarm didn’t know and wasn’t told—showed up to take her luggage away.

Longarm’s gear was the last to be unloaded. Naturally. He sometimes thought there was a Law of Nature to that regard. Or did it just seem that way?

“Thank you, Mr. Cooper. I enjoyed bein’ in your charge these past few days.”

“Don’t tell me, son. Tell the boss.”

“I’ll make a point of it,” Longarm told him, taking out a pair of cheroots and offering the spare to Quint.

“Thanks. Mind if I give you a word of advice?”

“Not at all, Mr. Cooper.”

The jehu grinned. Big. “If you want to keep on doing what you been doing the past couple nights, son, you oughta learn to control your breathing. Times there you was grunting and snorting louder than my old Aunt Matilda.” Cooper’s grin got even bigger. Which Longarm would not have thought possible. “God, that woman can snore. Uh, my aunt, I mean. Not … you know.”