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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and characters are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cowboys’ Dreams

  Copyright© 2008 Carol McKenzie

  ISBN 978-1-60054-184-4

  Fairy Tales & Love Songs

  Cover Art & Design by Carol McKenzie

  All rights reserved. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  Published by loveyoudivine

  2008

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  www.loveyoudivine.com

  Chapter One

  It was hot as Hades a day in June of 1871. Bo Rodriguez and his partner Silk Bennett rode until the North Central Wyoming hills grew steep and rugged. Upon nearing a ledge, they pulled in the reins and peered down at the sweeping green valley below. It looked exactly as Joe had described. The breathtaking view seemed as though it was part of a make believe land-so refreshing, cool and inviting, even though the temperature hovered somewhere in the nineties. The cottonwood, which they paused under, gave them a little relief from the relentless noonday sun compared to the view below.

  Bo stepped down off the saddle and glanced up at Silk. Did he too smell wood smoke? Someone had just cooked breakfast.

  Two corrals stood off to one side. He pulled a bloodstained, tattered, hand drawn map from his shirt pocket and held a hand over his thick black brows to block out the bright sun.

  "Yep. This has to be it."

  His back ached from a fall he took while busting broncos ten years back. It looked like his days of riding where coming to an end, and he was only thirty.

  "Joe's spread," he said to his riding buddy in a dry and raspy voice that had a hint of a Mexican accent.

  His long, lean, silky-haired, high cheek-boned partner looked over at Bo and nodded. "It looks like we've made it, amigo."

  Bo didn't know what possessed him when they had ridden in to Sheridan. He had been hot, tired and dry and should have stopped for the night, rented a room, ate a hot meal and spent the night. Maybe they would have looked presentable to Joe's Mrs. when they rode up. They just hadn't been thinking clearly.

  But he wanted to see Joe's woman. Bo felt like he knew her already from all of Joe’s stories. He'd bet his bottom dollar Silk felt the same way. Instead of cleaning and resting up in town like they should have done, they had stopped at a saloon to quench their thirst by downing a few shots of red eye with beer before they headed back down the trail toward the ranch.

  Silk looked straight at Bo; their gazes locked and Silk said, "Damn, I hate doin' this."

  "We've gotta do it...we promised Joe."

  A sad image of their shipmate came to Bo's mind as he lit the half-smoked stogie he'd clamped between his taut lips. "Maybe she'll let us wash up and eat some supper later on." He blew out the match and flicked it down onto a large rock. Taking a thoughtful sip of fragrant smoke, he said, "I'd like to feel civilized again."

  "Don't get too comfortable in your thinkin'. She just may shoot our asses on sight, too."

  Bo nodded in agreement, raised his cowboy hat and wiped his wet brow line with the sleeve of his shirt. He moved over into the shade. "I've thought about that."

  "She'd get spooked seein' us bad guys," said Silk with a frown.

  "She just might." He tapped his hat back onto his dark brown mane and continued, "If she's been runnin' this ranch nigh over a year, I’d say she'd not mind doin' it. It'd take a mighty damned tough woman to run this big son of a bitch while..." Bo's voice trailed off. "Well, hell, never mind."

  "Accordin' to Joe she has plenty of spunk."

  Aila must have pleased him in bed. The red hot "bedtime" stories Joe had shared were so potent that weeks later, just thinking back upon them, caused Bo's dick to harden. Joe had been a friend, but damn it, he had been a bastard for traipsing off like he did, leaving her to fend for herself. Upon Joe's death, the thought of possibly having her as their own woman, sent Silk and Bo on horseback across the country, a hard ride through hostile Indian territory, in search of her.

  He didn't know if Silk experienced similar upheavals, but on occasion he'd daydream sexy stories as they poked along the dusty trails. It helped Bo to pass the time. Perhaps Silk had similar ideas, but he kept them to himself.

  Bo revisited one dream more than the others. Bo would pull Aila tightly to his chest and say, "I've come to take care of your needs--all of them." He murmured words of need and frustration as he looked down hard into her delicate face-a lithograph of poignant sweetness.

  Her cheeks stained to a shade of crimson rose as he skimmed her throat with his lips.

  The idea of her small, soft form leaning against his body, stopped his breathing and melted his tough exterior like ice in the summertime. Joe had described the blonde-haired, eye-catching woman, and Bo felt he knew her from the top of her head down to the soft female folds of her center and to the tips of her toes. Joe told Silk and Bo that she did not ever have any man's cock except his, but she was a hot-blooded woman. Bo figured that her solitary life was about to have a couple of men in it shortly. If Joe had told the truth.

  In his daydream, Aila would resist his attention and the temptations he presented at first. Any good woman would turn away from a stranger, especially a woman who felt she was still married to a living husband.

  Bo imagined her voice even though Joe had never mentioned it. "I've never done it with any man b'sides Joe," she would admit.

  Most likely, in real life, Aila would never fuck outside marriage, but it didn't hurt to dream. He set about winning her heart for a while. He wouldn't try to bed her down until he knew she positively ached for him and didn't want him to stop the obvious seduction.

  His penis stirred as he thought of her yielding, helplessly enthralled by his attentions. And he would handle her like she had never been handled, with the utmost care and thoughtfulness, causing her to wage war within herself until she succumbed. He'd make Aila want him as much as he wanted her-he'd tease and tantalize the daylights out of her, until she pleaded with him to ravish her with his bed chamber prowess and passionate sweet talk. Aila would stay in Bo’s arms when he brought her tightly to him. That would solidify his belief that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  In her disturbed green eyes, he would see her answering love and desire. A forgone conclusion that she accepted his invitation, he would reach down and unfasten the top button of his trousers, at last freeing his bound erection. Aila’s past with Joe was gone, as far as Bo was concerned, and her future with Bo was about to begin.

  "I'm here to please you and take care of you,” he would say tenderly. "I won’t leave, like some men would do." His tone was unmistakably intimate but the meaning implicit-Joe abandoned her, plain and simple.

  Her firm “no” stance would be wearing down. "Help me then. Make me feel whole again," she would breathe into his ear. "Let me feel you inside me."

  The acceptance was all he needed to feel, see and hear to up the level of their relationship. Not lingering a second more, almost feverishly, Bo would pick her up off her feet and whisk her off to the bedroom. The back of her skirt would drag along the floor as he entered the house and carried her effortlessly across a dining room that blurred in his mind to a bedroom. He guessed he fell in love with Aila after listening to Joe’s stories depicting how wonderful she was.

  In his dream, Bo kicked the door closed and began undre
ssing Aila, relieving her of her long skirt, top and undergarments. Once on the soft feather bed kissed the corner of her closed eyes, dragging his lips across her cheek while he fondled her breasts. He captured her nipples between his first and second fingers.

  His lips replaced his fingers and he fed on her nipples.

  “Mmm,” Aila moaned, lying back and letting him have his way.

  Her light skinned body of nubile curves lay before his feasting eyes. Bo took in the nest of dark blonde ringlets that adorned the V at the top of her thighs. To test her wetness, he’d slip his fingers into the slit, moving against her nub and got his answer when he felt her moist, contracting opening.

  As he scrutinized her growing need for relief, excitedly and eagerly, she raised her hips off the bed, riding his hand, whimpering and hungry for him.

  Blood surging through his veins like white water down a creek bed, he opened her mouth with a deepening kiss as his hands spread over her bare ass.

  She reached for his waistband and pushed at his pants.

  "Wait a second." Breathlessly he rose off the bed, determined to drive her insane with pleasure. Standing nearby, he pulled off his pants and underwear then stood before her aching for her inspection and approval. His strong burgundy cock stood like a statue; its plum smooth cap glistened with pearls of white, oozing sticky liquid from the slit.

  He climbed back onto the bed, positioning himself between her parted legs. He slipped his hands under her slim derriere and pulled her to his erection. His knees depressing the mattress, with a swift movement, he thrust it into her giving her the jolt of a lifetime and an exquisite sensation for him. Her warmth surrounded him, clasping him tightly as he lunged harder and deeper over and over again, withdrawing and thrusting into her until an orgasm threatened to erupt. Bo’s head whirling, he groaned softly as he heard the slap-slap-slap of his loins pounding Aila’s pussy. In the wake of tumultuous passion, with his hands to the bend in her legs, he stopped long enough to drape her limbs over his shoulders for deeper penetration, and sped up his effort.

  The bed rattled and their breathing rasped from their lungs.

  Aila shuddered and her pussy spasmed as it bathed his cock with her juices. Simultaneously, he thrust his sex one last time into her, exploding inside her with great force, causing a jolt of sensation that seemed to come over her like rippling waves crashing through her nerve endings.

  A series of groans and a grunt of release followed. As the returned to reality, he whispered, "You're a beautiful woman, Aila." And then Bo’s daydream ended.

  Feeling let down a bit, as they rode in closer to the ranch, Bo raised his field glasses and caught a better look at Joe's wife. It was hard to see her; she was merely a speck. Two horses stood in the corral. Beyond the fence several heads of cattle stood in a grassy pasture. After they rode a few dozen more feet, Bo saw her more clearly. "Buenos dias, Senorita," he said in perfect Spanish, and then whistled lightly under his breath. He watched her for a little longer. What was she doing out there? Culling cattle? He sat there surveying the property and her.

  "You lookin' at her?"

  "Yeah buddy I'm lookin' at her," he said, his stogie still on his lip and the field glasses to his eyes.

  Waiting, Silk asked in a complaining voice, “So what's she look like? Is she pretty like Joe said?"

  "Mm-hm. I see she can ride and I'll just bet she can shoot, too."

  "Well?" demanded Silk.

  "Well what?" Bo asked without taking his eyes off her.

  "’How's she look’, I asked?"

  Bo laughed and then hesitated as he continued spying on her. "She's...better lookin' than he said. A lot better. Nice."

  "Go on," said Silk frustrated, removing his hat to mop his brow.

  Bo touched a finger to his chin. "Oh...I'd say she comes to about here on me. Yes sir, she's hell of a woman it looks like." Teasing Silk, he said, "She has long light yellow hair that's brushed neatly back into a bun of some sort at her neckline. Wish I knew what color her eyes were, but I'd bet my bottom dollar they're green as summer trees. Nice big bubs; the kind you can get your hands on and enjoy. A nice ass on her--damned nice. The kind a man likes to get hold of when he brings her to him. You know what I mean?" She was definitely a woman Bo wanted to get to know better. "A man can ride a lot of country and not come across a woman like that one there."

  "I'd say she's been without for many months."

  “I wonder if Joe was joshin’ that time?”

  “Joshin’? About what?” asked Silk.

  “About her workin’ in a place called the Blue Moon south along the Mississippi?”

  “It don’t matter none. People’s gotta do what people’s gotta do. How else is a woman goin’ to make money to live?”

  “I don’t rightly know.” Bo added, "But just remember, she is Joe's widow. We need to respect that if you're gettin' ideas of tomcattin' around when we get down there."

  "I'm not lookin' to disrespect Joe," Silk fairly shouted. His exhaustion and hunger getting the best of him. "Not at all. Let's ride on down there and do what we come to do."

  Silk reached back and untied the small leather thong that had been holding his long hair. He held the piece of leather in his hand as they slowly went down the trail from the mountains. Awkwardly he reached down into his saddle bag and brought out a hairbrush. If he was going to see a handsome woman at least he wanted his hair tidied up. He probably looked a sight and needed a bath. He caught his hat on the saddle horn and drew the brush through his hair a few times as he felt Bo's aggravating eyes, watching. The air seemed unbelievably still; the sun beaming down over them. Bo and he should have stayed at the hotel in Sheridan. Silk should have said something. He put the brush away and tied his hair back, while his nag continued the trek downhill. Silk set his hat back on his head, vaguely aware that Bo again noticed him sprucing up.

  "You doin' that for the woman?"

  "Just never you mind," Silk rolled his eyes skyward.

  Back in Sheridan they had played a few hands of poker at the saloon and decided to hold off on renting a room until after they rode out to the Carver Ranch. If he slapped his shirt, dust would rise from it. Damn if it wasn't going to be a heart wrenching job to tell Joe Carver's widow her husband wasn't coming back. That he had been murdered. Just what the hell was he getting himself in to this time around, he wondered as he brought a hand to his unshaven chin.

  He'd love to settle down in one place. Riding aimlessly around the west with Bo wasn't his idea of living a good life. He liked his buddy Bo, but a good life would consist of living with a beautiful, loving and sexy woman. At one time he thought he had a lady friend, but she up and ran off with a blacksmith from Alabama. Then, after floundering between jobs in Calgary, Silk was suddenly struck with wanderlust. He met up with Bo in Texas. Now, for Silk, the world was a lonely place. Maybe someday he'd also get a ranch like the one he viewed: the Rocking C. He didn’t know when that day would come, but he wished it'd hurry.

  Reflecting further, Silk brought a harmonica from his shirt pocket to his lips and began blowing a song that he wrote himself.

  Bo asked, "What's that?"

  Silk brought the harmonica down an inch from this lips. "What's what?" he said in his tenor voice.

  Bo brought the cigar from his lip and said, "That song. What's it called? It's pretty."

  "I just thought it up. I'm wantin' to Settle Down 's its name, I guess," he said as they neared the blonde haired woman who sat straight and strong on her horse.

  Chapter Two

  The log home that she and Joe had built was located at the mouth of Crazy Woman Creek--beautiful country. She wished her mama could see it, but she and all her kin were killed by the fever and other bad diseases. Hired carpenters rode in from Cheyenne and helped them build most of it. The land boasted straight lodge pole pines that had grown up everywhere near the house, saving the ranch from heavy snows of the winter. Cottonwoods and chokecherry trees dotted the area. It wasn’t anythi
ng at all like south on the Mississippi River. I just wasn’t cut out for bein’ a whore. I’m plenty thankful Joe come and got me out of the Blue Moon. I love my life on this ranch but I wish Joe would come on home.

  Aila Carver rode south to cull some cattle out of a canyon on her property. While locating a couple of strays that took a notion to wander, she suddenly heard something rustling in the brush. Birds whooshed as they flew skyward.

  "What the..?"

  Turning her head sharply, Aila looked toward the trail on into the ranch. Her heart stopped beating as she reached for the loaded rifle. Call it women's intuition, but she knew someone was watching her. Then she heard music...harmonica music.

  "Damn it."

  When she saw the two men on horses, her breath caught in her tight chest. Someone had come onto the Rocking C. Are they friend or foe?

  Her heart beat double-time as she watched two drifting cowpokes coming in off the west trail onto her land in Central Wyoming. Wearing their cowboy hats high and proud, riding their nags slowly, their upper bodies looked as if they bounced above the tall, rolling grass.

  What in hell do they want?

  Behind the Rocking C stood the majestic high pastel mountains which were her home, the home she'd fight and die for.

  Sioux and Cheyenne rode in the area; they seemed peaceful enough, so Aila wasn't too worried. But these riders were definitely not Indians. She hoped they were peaceful sorts; she sure didn't need any trouble.

  "Git up," she said then made a clicking sound with her mouth, while making her horse trot faster, heading toward a clearing then toward the corrals that lie beyond a small ridge. Dust rose behind her and the horse.

  Aila waited and frowned, preparing for the worst as she glared at them. To be safe, keeping her eyes on them, she pulled out her Remington, made sure it was loaded and carefully touched the trigger like Joe had once taught her.

  She held it steady on them as they continued coming closer. Some drifters were good and some weren't in these parts. She'd heard gory rumors and believed that a woman could never be too careful. Though the more she saw of them, the less they looked like mean cusses. But, she could be wrong. She didn't want to make a mistake and shoot an innocent man.