How many times had he dreamed of this, of loving Lil through the night? Of having her hands run over him, of having her body move with his.
She rolled, shifted to trail her lips over his chest, to bring them back to his and sink, sink, sink into the kiss while her hair fell around him in dark curtains. Beneath her hands, her lips, his heart tripped and stumbled. He rose up to wrap his arms around her, to rock and hold as his mouth found her breast.
Here pleasure was thick, movement slow, and every nerve alive.
She watched him as she took him into her, watched as her breath caught, then shuddered out again. Her lips came to his, trembling in the kiss. Then her body bowed, her eyes drifted shut.
She rode, gently, gently, drawing out every drop of pleasure. Slow and silky, so the beauty of it had tears rising in her throat. Even as her body released, her heart filled.
She let her head rest on his shoulder as she drifted down again. He turned his face into the side of her throat. “Lil,” he said. “God, Lil.”
“Don’t say anything. Please don’t.” If he did, she might say too much. She had no defenses now. She eased back to touch his cheek. “Talk’s for daylight,” she repeated.
“All right. There’ll be daylight soon enough.”
He lay down with her, drew her close. “I need to leave before dawn,” he told her. “But I’ll be back. We need to have some alone time, Lil. Uninterrupted time.”
“There’s so much going on. I can’t think straight.”
“Not true. You think straighter than anyone I know.”
Not about you, she admitted silently. Never about you. “The rain’s slowing down. Tomorrow’s supposed to be clear. We’ll work things out tomorrow. In the daylight.”
But the daylight brought death.
20
Gull found Jim Tyler. It was more luck than skill that brought him, his brother Jesse, and one of the greener deputies to the bend of the swollen waters of Spearfish Creek. They were walking their horses through the mud on a morning hazed with fog like a window steamed from a shower. The water, churning from the rain and snowmelt, beat like a drum, and above its rush thick tendrils of mist wound in long gray ribbons.
They were well off the logical route Tyler would have taken to the summit of Crow Peak and back to the trailhead. But the search had spread out through the tree-covered slopes of the canyon, with small groups combing the rocky high ground and the brown, deadwood shale of the low.
Gull hadn’t expected to find anything, and felt a little guilty about enjoying the meandering ride. Spring was beginning to show her skirts, and the rain teased out the green he loved in the hills. A jay shot-a blue bullet through the mists-while the chickadees chattered like children in a playground.
Rain had stirred up the waters, enlivened them, but there were still places the creek was as clear as gin in a short glass.
He hoped he got himself a tour group soon who wanted to fish so he could spend some time reeling in trout. Gull figured he had the best job in the whole damn world.
“That man got himself all the way over here from the marked trail, he’s got no more sense of direction than a blind woodpecker,” Jesse said. “Wasting our time.”
Gull glanced over at his brother. “Nice day to waste it. Besides, could be he got turned around in the storm, in the dark. Zig insteada zag, and he kept going the wrong way, he might’ve come this far off.”
“Maybe if the idiot’d find a rock and sit still somebody’d find his sorry ass.” Jesse shifted in the saddle. He spent a lot more time shoeing horses than riding them, and his sorry ass was sore. “I can’t take much more time riding around looking for somebody hasn’t got the sense to get found.”
The deputy, Cy Fletcher-the baby brother of the girl who owned the first pair of breasts Gull had ever got his hands on-scratched his belly. “I say we follow the creek another little while, then we’ll circle back around.”
“Fine by me.” Gull agreed.
“Can’t see shit on a stick in this fog,” Jesse complained.
“Sun’ll burn it off.” Gull shrugged. “It’s breaking through here and there already. What the hell better you got to do, Jesse?”
“Got a living to earn, don’t I? I don’t got some lazy-ass job where I ride around with numbnut tourists all damn day.”
It was a bone of contention between the brothers, and they poked each other about it as the sun strengthened and the fog thinned. As they approached one of the little falls, the drop and tumble of water made shouting insults at his brother over the noise too much trouble.
Gull settled down to enjoy the ride again, and thought about the whitewater outfits who’d start gearing up soon. Weather might turn again, he thought, more snow was every bit as likely as daffodils, but people sure did like to strap themselves into rubber rafts and shoot down the creek.
He didn’t get the appeal.
Riding now, or fishing, that made sense. If he could find a woman who appreciated both, and had a nice pair on her, he’d marry her in a New York minute.
He took a deep, satisfied breath of the fresh and warming air, and grinned happily as a trout leaped. It flashed, shiny as the good silver his ma used for Christmas dinner, then plopped back into the busy water.
His eye followed the ripples all the way to the foaming white of the falls. He squinted, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up.
“I think there’s something down there, down in the falls there.”
“I don’t see dick.”
“You don’t see dick doesn’t mean I don’t.” Ignoring his brother, Gull guided his mount closer to the bank.
“You end up in that water, I ain’t coming in after you.”
It was probably just a rock, Gull thought, and then he’d feel like a numbnut and have to suffer Jesse’s ragging for the rest of the ride. But it didn’t look like a rock. It looked like the front half of a boot.
“I think that’s a boot. You see that, Cy?”
“I can’t tell.” Cy peered with eyes shaded by his hat and not especially interested. “Probably a rock.”
“I think it’s a boot.”
“Alert the freaking media,” Jesse proclaimed, boosting up a little to rub at his worn-out ass. “Some asshole camper lost a boot in Spearfish Creek.”
“If some asshole camper lost a boot in the creek, why’s it just there? How come it’s not floating off, pushed along by the falls? Asshole,” Gull muttered as he dug out his binoculars.
“’Cause it’s a freaking rock. Or it’s some asshole’s boot that’s stuck on a freaking rock. Hell with this. I gotta piss.”
As he stared through the glasses, Gull’s face went pale as wax. “Oh, Jesus. Mother of God. I think there’s somebody in that boot. Holy shit, Jess. I can see something under the water.”
“Oh, bullshit, Gull.”
Gull lowered the glasses, stared at his brother. “Do I look like I’m bullshitting?”
Studying his brother’s face, Jesse set his teeth. “I guess we’d better get a closer look.”
They tethered the horses.
Gull looked at the deputy-the scrawny build of him-and wished he didn’t feel obliged. “I’m the best swimmer here. I’ll go.”
The breath Cy let out held both resignation and nerves. “It’s my job.”
“Might be your job,” Jesse said, as he got his rope, “but Gull swims like a damn otter. Water’s pretty rough, so we’re going to get you secure. You’re an asshole, Gull, but you’re my brother and I’m not going to watch you drown.”
Fighting off nerves, Gull stripped down to his jockeys, let his brother secure the rope around his waist. “I bet that water’s pretty fucking cold.”
“You’re the one who had to go see something.”
Since he couldn’t argue with that one, Gull eased over the bank, picked his way over the rocks and shale, and stared at the fast water. He glanced back, reassured himself that his brother had the rope secured.
He went in. “Pretty fucking cold!” he shouted. “Give me some slack.”