Longarm just strode off down the slope, wishing woman wouldn't do that. He'd met that well-read and so-called sophisticated type of spinster gal before. You'd think independent single women who'd learned to talk like that suffragette leader Virginia Woodhull would know better than to talk bolder than they really meant to be around men. Miss Virginia Woodhull was always raving and ranting about the way men hurt women's feelings, as if men didn't have feelings themselves.
He found the trail boss jawing with some others around the small night fire near the chuck wagon. Carver seemed to think it was swell of a deputy marshal to bear his own share, like a dollar-a-day rider. When Longarm pointed out that he and Miss Weaver had been coffeed and beaned after their rescue from wild Indians, Carver allowed he could stand the first watch--along with three others, of course. So that was the way he spent the next four hours with his Yellowboy as the darkness fell and kept on falling. Neither the stars nor that moon the almanac had promised showed at all that night. For an overcast moved in from the west as the sun went down, and just kept coming, till the night air was downright clammy and Longarm was starting to worry about getting soaked to the skin before he could get to that vulcanized poncho atop his bedding.
But there was neither thunder nor enough back-wind to matter when, around a quarter to midnight, a gentle rain commenced to patter all around as he ghosted through the trees along his quarter of the far-flung picket. Carver had suggested, and they'd all agreed, it made the most sense for the dismounted picket guards to circle wider than the night riders holding the herd down in the draw. Any Indians out to lift stock, or hair, would be more inclined to creep in on the sounds of the mounted hand further down the slopes, whether they knew what he was making all that noise about or not.
Young Waco, the kid who played that mouth organ, had been replaced by a tenor of the Mexican persuasion who kept singing to the cows about a cielito lindo, or pretty little patch of sky, despite the way the real sky was acting.
The cows didn't care. You sang softly to a herd at night to keep them from spooking at more sinister night noises. It was only on a vaudeville stage, or maybe in town on a Saturday night, that anyone ever sang those whooping and hollering Wild West songs, lest they see the last of their herd stampeding over the far horizon.
The rain had soaked Longarm's shoulders downright uncomfortably by the time someone called his name and he was relieved by a cowhand smart enough to start out with a rain slicker. So he was peeling out of his wet shirt and vest as he moved downslope to his bedding with a rude remark about the weather. He tossed his wet hat atop the rainproof poncho, but hung on to his wet duds as he proceeded to slide into his roll.
Then he said, "What the blue blazes?" as Godiva Weaver gasped, "Oh, it's you. You startled me!"
Longarm said, "That makes two of us," as he slid on in beside her, noting how warm and damp it all felt at the same time. It was his bedding the two of them were under. So he felt no call to ask her permission.
She said, her breath warm on his wet face, "When it started to rain, I remembered you were smart enough to bring along a rainproof bedroll. I've stuffed both my own blankets and my silly self in here, and it still feels just a bit too firm under my poor tailbone, thank you very much."
Longarm could only mutter, "I noticed it was mighty warm in here. A mite crowded too. The only way the two of us are going to fit comfortably will call for you to let me stretch this one arm under you so's you can rest your head in the hollow of my shoulder."
She cooperated in the contortions it took to settle them, his peeled-off wet duds, and his shooting irons into a more or less comfortable position as the wind and rain picked up.
He said he was sure glad he'd made it back just in time to save himself from the cold shower he deserved.
Snuggled against him with the edge of the poncho pulled over both their heads, Godiva shyly confided, "Maybe we could both use a cold shower right now. I don't mean to pry, but where did you ever get all these muscles I can feel now that you've shed your clothes above the waist?"
Longarm shrugged the bare shoulder her head was resting on and replied, "Pure misfortune, I reckon. I'd have never worked half as hard growing up if I'd been born into wealth instead of a hard-scrabble patch of West-by-God-Virginia. Had I wound up alone in here, I'd have slid these damp jeans off my muscular hind end as well."
She laughed girlishly and demurely said, "Well, don't let me stop you, you big damp silly."
He considered her words before he soberly replied, "Unless you mean that sort of naughty, this is pushing past flirty into cruelty to animals, Miss Godiva."
She answered simply, "I'm never cruel to animals I'm fond of, Custis. What's the matter? I know I'm almost thirty, and I told you how that mean thing broke off our engagement. But he said it was because I wouldn't quit my job at the Sentinel, not because he found me disgusting in bed!"
So Longarm had to prove he didn't find her disgusting by kicking off his boots and jeans, moving her thin cotton frock up above her trim waist, and just rolling his own naked body between her welcoming thighs.
He didn't ask her how come she'd removed all her underthings to crawl into a male traveling companion's bedding. But she confessed she'd been gushing for him since before sundown as she finished the chore of shucking her frock over her head while he proceeded to put it to her.
It was a good thing she was as wet as she'd said inside. For she was tight as a girl in her teens despite her mature curves, and when Longarm tried to hold most of his weight off her, in consideration of the packed earth under her friendly tailbone, Godiva bounced her soft rump even friendlier and told him not to hold back, but to crush her, crush her, crush her. Gals who read a lot tended to talk like that when they were screwing.
After she'd been crushed enough to come more than once, Godiva wanted to get on top. So he let her, and didn't object when such a frisky little thing said it was awfully stuffy under all that vulcanized canvas and threw the poncho down to straddle him bare-ass in the gentle rain. For it felt swell to lie there, kissing both her cool nipples in turn as the rain ran off them while, below the waist, the two of them felt warm and wet as hasty pudding.
By the time Godiva bounced herself to climax and collapsed atop him, her bare back had gooseflesh and he had to roll her over on her back, haul up the covers, and warm her up some more. Then he rummaged around near the bottom of the bedroll till he found a dry feed-sack he'd packed away as a towel, hardly expecting to use it for such delightful drying.
He figured they'd just doze and cuddle with the rain gently tapping on their vulcanized cover. But Godiva seemed to be crying as she rested her damp head on his bare shoulder.
Longarm didn't ask why. No man who'd slept with more than one woman in his life would be dumb enough to do that. So just as he expected, Godiva finally volunteered that she just didn't understand what had just gotten into her.
He said, "Aw, come on, I ain't built that unusual, honey."
She giggled through her tears and replied, "Yes, you are. But I've no complaints about that. I'm just so ashamed of practically begging for it. Whatever must you think of me, Custis?"
He patted her bare shoulder and said, "That you wanted some almost as badly as I did? What just happened was natural as falling off a bronco. I'd be more concerned for the both of us if we'd just fallen asleep like babes in the wood, assuming said babes were way the hell younger than either of us."
She sighed and said, "It's true I'm a more experienced woman than I like to admit. I guess you could tell there's been more than one man in my unusual life."