“It’s like they’re having a party.”
She smiled at Farley as he stepped up beside her to watch. “I guess they are. They appreciate an audience. I feel stupid out here tonight,” she told him. “Nobody’s going to troop down here in all this mess to bother me.”
“Seems to me that’s just when you have to be most careful. When you figure you’re safe.”
“Oh, well. Want some coffee?” She offered her thermos.
“I had some already, but I can’t say no.” He poured himself a little. “I’m figuring Tansy told you about things.”
“She did.” She waited until he’d glanced over. “I think she’s pretty lucky.”
His smile spread slowly. “Feels good you’d say so.”
“Two of my favorite people become each other’s favorite people? There’s no downside for me.”
“She thinks I’m going through a phase. Well, she wants to think that. Maybe she’ll keep thinking it until we have a couple of kids.”
She choked on a gulp of coffee. “Jesus, Farley, when you finally move, you move like a damn cheetah.”
“When you find what you want, what’s right, you might as well get going. I love her, Lil. She’s all flustered up about it, and how she feels about me. I don’t mind that so much. It’s kind of flattering, really.”
He drank coffee while the rain dripped from the brim of his hat. “Anyways, I’m hoping you’ll do me a favor.”
“I talked to her, Farley. Told her I thought you were perfect for her.”
“That’s nice to hear, too. But that’s not the favor. I was hoping you’d go with me and help me pick out a ring. I don’t know anything about that kind of thing. I don’t want to get the wrong kind.”
For a moment Lil could only stare. “Farley, I… Just like that? Seriously? You’re going to buy a ring and ask her to marry you? Just like that?”
“I already told her I love her and I’m going to marry her. I got her into bed.” Even in the dark she could see he flushed a little. “I don’t mean to talk out of school on that, but you said she told you. I want to get her what she’d like, and you’d have a good idea. Wouldn’t you?”
“I guess I would. I’ve never shopped for an engagement ring, but I think I know what she’d like if I saw it. Holy shit, Farley.”
“You think we could find the right one in Deadwood? Otherwise, I could drive us on into Rapid City.”
“Let’s try Deadwood. We should… I can’t get over it.” She studied him through the curtain of rain. “Farley.” With a laugh, she boosted up to her toes and gave him a smacking kiss. “Have you told Mom and Dad?”
“Jenna cried. The good kind of crying. She’s the one who said I should ask you to go with me for the ring. I made them promise not to say anything until it’s all done. You won’t say anything, Lil?”
“Lips. Sealed.”
“I wanted to talk to them first. Sort of-I don’t know… it sounds dumbass.”
“What?”
He shifted on his long, grasshopper legs. “Get their blessing, I guess.”
“It doesn’t sound dumbass. You’re a prize, Farley, I swear to God. How come you didn’t fall for me?”
He grinned, ducked his head a little. “Lil. You’re all but practically my sister.”
“Can I ask you something, Farley?”
“Sure.”
She began to walk with him, at a pace that would’ve been a stroll in the rain but for the guns both carried. “You had it rough as a kid.”
“Plenty do.”
“I know. I think I’m more aware of that because I didn’t. I had it pretty damn perfect. When you took off on your own, you were still a kid.”
“I can’t say I felt like one.”
“Why did you? Decide to leave, I mean. It’s a big, scary step. Even when the familiar’s crap, it’s still the familiar.”
“She was a hard woman to live with, and I got tired of living with strangers, then being put back with her and whoever she’d taken up with. I can’t remember many nights there wasn’t yelling or fighting going on. Sometimes she’d start it up, sometimes the man she was with would. Either way, I’d end up bleeding sooner or later. I thought about taking a bat to this one guy once, after he slapped us both around. But he was a big man, and I was afraid he’d get it away from me and bash me with it.”
He pulled up short. “God, Lil, you’re not thinking I’d hurt Tansy, that I’d do her that way?”
“Not in a million years, Farley. It’s something else I’m trying to figure out, trying to get a handle on. You were broke when you got out here, and hungry and just a boy. But there was no meanness in you. My parents would’ve seen it. They may be soft touches, but they have good instincts. You didn’t steal or brawl or cheat your way here. You could have.”
“I’d’ve been no better than what I left, then, would I?”
“You chose to be better than what you left.”
“God’s truth is, Lil, Jenna and Joe saved me. I don’t know where I’d’ve ended up, or if I’d’ve made it there in one piece without them taking me in.”
“I guess we were all lucky that day you stuck out your thumb and my father drove by. This man, the one we think is out there, he had it rough as a kid.”
“So what? He’s not a kid now, is he?”
She shook her head. It was simple Farley logic-and while she appreciated it, Lil knew people were a lot more complicated as a rule.
Just after two, she went inside. She stowed her rifle and went upstairs. She still had some nice lingerie from her Jean-Paul days. But it seemed wrong to wear for Coop what she’d worn for another man.
Instead she changed into her usual sleeping garb of flannel pants and a T-shirt, then sat on the side of the bed to brush out her hair.
Tired? she thought. Yes, she was tired, but also aware. She wanted him to come to her, wanted to be with him after a long and difficult day. To make love with him while the rain drummed and night crept toward morning.
She wanted something bright in her life, and if it was a complicated shine, it was better than the dull and the dark.
She heard him come in, and rose to put her brush back on her dresser. Letting her mind drift, she walked back to turn down the bed. And turned to face him as he came in.
“We need to talk,” she said. “A lot has to be said. But it’s two in the morning. Talk’s for the daylight. I just want to go to bed with you. I just want to feel, to know there’s something good and strong after a day that’s been so bleak.”
“Then we’ll talk in the daylight.”
He came to her then, tunneled his fingers through her hair, tipped her head back. His lips met hers with a tenderness, a patience she’d forgotten he could give.
Here was the sweet they’d once shared.
She lay down with him on cool, smooth sheets, and opened body, mind, and heart. Slow and soft, as if he knew she needed… tending. Tension slipped away, swept back by pleasure. His hands glided over her, hard palms, a gentle touch. On a contented sigh, she turned her head as his lips explored her throat, her jaw.
No need to rush, to take and take, not this time. This was silk and velvet, warm and smooth. Not just sensation now, not just desires met, but feelings. She slid his shirt away, traced her fingers over the scar at his side.
“I don’t know if I could have stood it if-”
“Shh.” He brought her hand to his lips, kissed her fingers, then her mouth. “Don’t think. Don’t worry.”
Tonight he could give her peace, and take some for himself. Tonight he wanted to show her love as much as passion. More. Tonight they would savor each other. Skin, sighs, scents.
She smelled of the rain, somehow both dark and fresh. Tasted of it. He drew her clothes away, touching, tasting the newly exposed flesh, lingering when she shivered.
Scars crossed her, too. Scars that hadn’t been there when they’d first become lovers and all that lovely skin had been unmarred. Now she bore the marks of her work. Just as, he supposed, the scar left by a bullet had been a mark of his.
They were not what they had been, either of them. And yet she was still the only woman he’d ever wanted.