The Daughter, C.B. Cooper [ink book reader TXT] 📗

laughing at!"
Grinning down at her, he smirked, "You."
"Why?"
Sam was already feeling the effects of the whiskey he'd been drinking, so he never gave his reply a second thought, he answered truthfully, "Because your cute."
He watched her eyes light up in anger again, "I'm cute?" then her gaze narrowed as she caught a whiff of alcohol, "And your drunk." she accused.
Sam winked, "Not yet, but I was working on it when I happened to see you from across the street."
She studied him a moment before asking, "And you thought you'd come over and ram into me?"
Sam couldn’t help it, her little scrunched up face was so cute, he threw his head back and barked out a laugh as she continued to glare at him. Then, leaning towards her, arching a eyebrow devilishly, he said, "Well, that wasn’t exactly the kind of ramming that I had in mind."
Her mouth popped open at his vulgar suggestion. Sam waited for the slap that he figured was coming, but it didn’t. Instead, she studied him curiously, before asking, "Your not from around here, are you?"
"No, Ma'am."
"Then what are you doing here?"
Sam jerked his head towards the saloon across the street, "Drinkin'."
"Uh huh… And what are you going to do after you drink?"
He grinned at her, "Probably pass out."
She rolled her dark beautiful eyes, "I meant, where are you going after you leave here?"
He shrugged at her odd question, "Don’t know, don’t care."
She arched her eyebrows, "A roamer," she said matter-of-factly, a hint of appreciation in her voice as her eyes traveled down his body, taking in his expensive hand tailored suit. Sharp might've been a drunk, but at least he still dressed well.
"What's your name?" he asked her.
The woman glanced around, making sure no one was near by, but she didn’t have to worry, the streets were practically empty in the mid-day sun. "Loretta. Loretta James."
"Loretta." he smiled, "That’s a damn-fine, sexy name."
Tipping her head, she smiled coyly, "You think my name's sexy?"
Sam leaned in even closer, lowering his voice to a growl. "I think your

sexy."
He watched as a warm glow spread across her cheeks as her eyelids lowered, "What's your name?" she asked.
He recognized the game instantly. Now, this was a game he could play. He was the master of this game. "Does it matter?" he whispered, his eyes smoldering, burning into hers.
Her chest heaved as she shivered in the deep shadows of the boardwalk, her nipples pressing against the thin cotton material.
She wanted him. Wanted him as bad as he wanted her.

Outside of town, they had made love all afternoon under a large oak tree. Its heavy limbs stretched far out above a slow, bubbling creek, the leaves filtering the sunlight shining through the branches, dappled their naked flesh.
She hadn't been shy there— not by a long shot. She had stripped off her clothes like it was the most natural thing in the world, to be buck-ass naked outside in the wilderness, completely unabashed.
The second time they'd made love, she had rode atop him, her back arched, her beautiful breasts bobbing up and down like the tip of a slender willow stick caught in the breaks of the Mississippi River. They started out slow, then quickly worked their way up to a frenzied pace .
She had done things to him that afternoon that would put any professional, paid whore, to shame.
Afterwards, he lay completely sated, on his back, his arms tucked behind head, watching the branches above sway in the late afternoon breeze. The shadows around them began to deepen and stretch as twilight approached.
Loretta lay curled contently at his side, her head on his chest.
When she finally spoke, it was so quiet that he thought he's imagined it at first, "Take me with you." she whispered.
"What?"
"Take me with you," she whispered again.
Sharp tilted his head, trying to see her face, but it was hidden behind her dark hair. Was she serious? He finally decided she was. "No," he answered quietly.
"No?" She asked, he voice tinged with hurt. "Why not?"
"Because."
"Because? That’s not an answer," she pouted quietly, then lifted her head suddenly, looking him in the eye, "Why wont you take me with you?"
Sharp rolled his head to side, then tried to sit up, but she leaned on him, trapping him beneath her naked body.
He took her gently by the shoulders and moved her off to the side, "Because, I ride alone."
Her eyes suddenly blazed as she spit, "You ride alone

? You didn’t ride alone

today, did you?" Then, just as suddenly, her eyes softened again as she snuggled back up to him. Lowering her voice to a soft purr, she begged, "Please," she murmured, nibbling at his ear as she ran her soft slender hand down the hard plain of his stomach. "Think of all of the fun we could have." she whispered huskily as her fingers touched his manhood.
Knocking her hand away, he sat up and started looking for his pants.
Behind him, she was quiet.
Sharp dressed quickly, he was just pulling on his second boot when her hand appeared out of nowhere, her fingernails raking down the side of his face, drawing blood. Then she was on him, her tiny fists doing their best to beat the hell out of him.
Once he was finally able to throw her off, she covered her face, weeping into her hands.
He stood there, breathing hard, as he watched her warily to make sure she was done attacking him.
From behind her hands, the words came in gasps, "You’re the devil!" she accused him.
Sharp sighed, feeling guilty, "I'm not the devil, Loretta. I just cant take you with me."
"You are the devil!" she'd screamed, looking up. "You ride into town and you seduce a perfect stranger, a married woman at that, and— and then you just up and leave!"
He stared at her incredibly. "What! Your married? You never said you were married!"
Her face was the perfect picture of rage and resentment as she held up her left hand, a thin golden band twinkling in the light, "Then what do you call this!"
Sam blinked, stunned. "I- I- I swear I never seen that before." And he really hadn't, until just then.
"Please," she begged, throwing herself at him again. "Please take me with you. If I stay here on that farm I'll die!" she sobbed, buying her face into his shoulder.
Sam watched her thin, bare shoulders, shaking as she sobbed uncontrollably.

"She felt so small and frail," he said, looking across the fire at Zeb. He sighed, "I felt bad

."
Zeb shook his head, "Tell me you didn’t, Son."
"I did." Sam said miserably. "I told her that she could go with me. I told her that I would go and fetch my stuff from back in town at the hotel, and then I would come back for her."
"And you didn’t."
"Nope. I rode out of that town as fast I could without looking back. And I've felt guilty about it ever since. You know, the funny thing is, if I had met her in another time and place, I would've taken her with me. Lord, she was quite the woman." Sam smiled at the memory, "She inevitably became my measuring stick."
"She was yer measuring stick?" Zeb asked, puzzled. "I don’t git it."
Sam grinned, "After that day, she was the woman that I used to measure all of the women that I met. Were they as pretty? Were they as sexy? Were they as passionate? I've never met anyone that could measure up to Loretta. They all fell short, in one way or another. Can you imagine that? A woman that I barely spent five hours with, ended up being the love of my life? Well, until Libby, that is."
Zeb whistled slowly, "She must'a been some kind of woman. Is that why you went back there after all those years? To be close to her again?"
"No." Sharp shook his head. "Back when I was drinkin', all those small towns looked the same to me. I hadn't even realized that I had been there before, until my first Sunday Service, when I watched her walk up the steps of the Church house."
Sam leaned back against his saddle, folding his hands behind his head, "Zeb, it was like she had jumped straight out of my memory. The woman hadn't aged a bit, she was just as beautiful as I remembered, only, as she got closer, I realized that there was something different about her— this girl, whoever she was, looked like Loretta, but she had my eyes. And they were mine, are

mine. It wasn’t Loretta, it was her daughter, Gracie.
"Holy shiiit." Zeb breathed, running a hand down his face. "You an her made a baby? Holy— Did Gracie's pa know?"
"Boy, I thought he did that first day. When he walked up the stairs behind her and went to shake my hand, he stopped and stared right at me, like he was trying to place me from somewhere. But then he went ahead and shook my hand, introducing himself. I found out a few weeks later, that he had recognized me. Apparently he had met me some years earlier down in Texas. Back when I was still fighting with the Indians and the Mexicans."
"But those first few services were hard. I tried my best to ignore them both, but every week they'd sit right up in the front pew, and there were times when I'd catch Gracie smiling up at me, and it'd knock the wind right out of me. I'd get lost and forget what I was saying. She just looked so much like her momma."
"Didn’t Loretta ever go to church with them?"
"Nope. Not once. She never even came to town, that I seen."
The men sat in comfortable silence for awhile, watching the flames as they did their fiery dance, making the shadows around the men flicker and jump in the orange glow of the firelight. They listened to the occasional snap and pop of the dry wood as it slowly burned down, and the sound of a lone owl as it called to its mate, somewhere out in the deep timber. It sounded lonely and sad.
"After Ben left for the war," he finally continued, "I watched Gracie change. She steadily went from being a, happy-go-lucky girl, to a quiet, withdrawn young woman. I began noticing that during our silent prayer time, that she had begun praying extra hard. She would squeeze her eyes shut tight and her lips would move along rapidly with the thought in her head. She was distraught about something. At first I thought it was because she missed her pa, but then she began showing up in church with dark circles under eyes and uncombed hair. I knew I had to talk to her. That’s when she told me that her momma was sick with the milk fever, and her brother and his friends had been starting trouble out at the farm, so I started staying out there. I made myself a room in the barn and started helping her out around the farm as much as I could. I was then, that I saw Loretta."

Sam dumped a bucket of slop in the hog pen, watching the pigs fight over their dinner meal. Setting the slop bucket down, he grabbed the water bucket and headed for the well.
As he neared the house he could hear screaming coming from within. It sounded like someone was being tortured. Dropping the bucket he ran for the house.
He checked