The only thing Longarm noticed that was unusual was the level of the creek. It seemed to have dropped, though there was still enough water in the stream to float the boom with no trouble. There wouldn't be if the creek went down much more. Longarm resolved to satisfy his curiosity and ask Aurora about that, but first he wanted to make certain she was all right and that there had been no trouble here in his absence. He brought the roan to a stop and dismounted, looping the reins around the hitching post in front of Aurora's cabin.
Jared Flint answered his knock on the door instead of Aurora. The foreman said, "Hello, Marshal. Finally get enough of Kinsman's hospitality?"
Longarm had sensed all along that Flint didn't particularly like him, so the man's attitude came as no surprise. Also, the hatred between the loggers and the cattlemen ran so deep and strong that the slightest appearance of favoring one side over the other was enough to make enemies. Longarm didn't let it worry him. He just asked, "Is Mrs. Mcentire here?"
Aurora must have already heard Flint's greeting to him, because she appeared at the foreman's shoulder and said, "Custis! Are you all right?
Have you recovered from that wound?"
"Pretty much," Longarm said. He stepped forward, and Flint had no choice but to move aside and let him into the cabin. He ignored the bushy-browed glower Flint gave him and went on to Aurora. "I figured I'd better see how things were going here."
"It's been quiet," she told him. "If it stayed this peaceful all the time, we wouldn't have any trouble meeting the terms of that contract. We've already made up some of the time and timber we lost. And thanks to some of Mr. Flint's ideas, we're gonna be able to make up the rest of it."
Longarm looked at Flint quizzically, and the man said, "You might not understand, Marshal."
"I've been around a few logging operations before," Longarm said mildly. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the way the creek's gone down some, would it?"
"As a matter of fact, it does," said Aurora. "We've dammed off one of the tributaries that feeds into the creek higher up the mountain. When it forms a big enough pond, we're going to build a log flume from it down here to the mill. We can still float booms down the creek from the lower slopes the way we've been doing, but when we're finished with the flume we can go ahead and start cutting on the higher slopes too, and shoot the logs down that way. We'll be working on two sections of the mountain at once, instead of just one."
"That'll take more men," Longarm pointed out.
"Already hired 'em," said Flint. "They built that dam, and they've started the upper end of the flume."
Longarm nodded. If everything went as Aurora and Flint planned, the camp's production would indeed increase. Pretty soon, the sawmill might be running twenty-four hours a day.
That would make the Mcentire timber operation a mighty tempting target for somebody who wanted to take it over. Somebody like Ben Callahan, say ...
Longarm kept those thoughts to himself. He knew from experience that Aurora didn't want to believe the worst of Callahan. Nor did he say anything about old Eli, the cook, being on Callahan's payroll. He preferred that Callahan's spy stay in place here in Aurora's camp--although now that Callahan knew Longarm suspected him, he might order Eli to hightail it out of there. Either way, Longarm was going to wait and see what happened. He believed that Aurora and her people were relatively safe for the moment. He himself represented the biggest threat to the mastermind, be it Callahan or somebody else. He was more likely to be the target of whatever happened next.
"And speakin' of that flume, I'd better go see how the boys are doing," Flint went on. "I'll let you know later, Miz Mcentire."
"All right, Mr. Flint," said Aurora. She waited until the foreman was gone, then turned to Longarm and said eagerly, "You're spending the night here, aren't you?"
Longarm hesitated before saying, "All my gear's at the Diamond K, and they're expecting me back. Under the circumstances, as long as you folks are getting along, I don't want to give anybody any excuses for starting a ruckus."
Aurora's lips thinned. "You think that if you don't go back to the little redhead hellcat she's liable to bring some of those cowboys up here looking for you?"
"I reckon it might sound a little immodest," said Longarm with a grin, "but that could happen, all right."
"Very well," Aurora said coolly. "Go on back to the Diamond K. But I want you to know what you're going to be missing."
She stepped closer to him, and her hand went to his groin, cupping and caressing. Startled, Longarm said, "Hold on a minute."
Her fingers tightened on him through the fabric of his trousers. "That's just what I intend to do," she said with a smile that was half-angel, half-devil. She stroked his stiffening manhood for a moment, until it bulged out against the front of his denims.
Longarm expected her to just tease him a mite to let him know how put out she was with him for not staying at the lumber camp, but instead she began unfastening the buttons of his trousers. Her hand delved inside, and her smooth, cool fingers found the fevered length of him. Deftly, she extricated his shaft, and Longarm growled deep in his throat as the pole of flesh sprang free.
Aurora used both hands to stroke him now. She looked down and licked her lips. "There's something I've always wanted to do," she said quietly. "Angus was too stiff-necked for it, bless his heart. He was a good man, but not the most adventurous lover."
At the moment, Longarm didn't particularly want to hear about Aurora's late husband. Not with the swelling length of his manhood filling both her hands. "You just go ahead and do whatever it is you want to do," he told her hoarsely. "I was raised to be a gentleman, and a gentleman always accommodates a lady."
Again she licked her lips. "You may not think I'm a lady when I get through with you," she said.
Then she dropped to her knees in front of him, opened her mouth wide, and closed her lips around the head of his shaft.
Longarm tried not to groan too loud as she started sucking. He could believe that she had never given any French lessons, because she went right for the final stretch instead of pacing herself. "No offense," he said in a husky voice, "but I reckon it'd be more fun for both of us if you'd slow down a mite."
She took her lips away, and his shaft throbbed with the loss of the wet heat that had been enfolding it. Aurora whispered, "You mean... like this?"
Her tongue darted out of her mouth, flicking tiny, butterfly-like blows against his burning flesh. She moved all around the head, maddeningly slowly, then used the tip of her tongue to toy with the slit at the end of his pole. Eagerly, she lapped up the clear juices that were seeping from the opening. When Longarm thought he couldn't stand any more of that without going completely insane, she stopped and began raining kisses on him, trailing them down the veined underside of his shaft and then back along the side. Her tongue came out again and licked him in long, slatheing swipes.
Longarm wouldn't call any woman a liar unless she proved it to him. So he was willing to give Aurora the benefit of the doubt and believe that right now was the first time in her life she had ever done this.
But if that was the case, she sure as hell had a natural-born talent for it.
Once again she took him into her mouth, and as she did so, he began stroking her dark hair. Her head bobbed up and down over his groin. His legs, spread wide on the floor for balance, shook as tremors of passionate sensation ran through them. He felt as if his strength might desert him at any moment, leaving him helpless to keep from falling flat on his face, but somehow it didn't happen. The insistent embrace of Aurora's lips strengthened him. As he felt his climax boiling up from deep within him, he put one hand on her shoulder and the other on the back of her head. To steady herself, she reached around behind him and clutched his backside, digging her fingers into it.