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When he left the room, it seemed so cold and alone. Riley walked the floor. She was fast falling for Sam and she knew it, but she didn’t know how to backtrack and change it. The kiss they had shared had stirred her beyond words and she knew she’d never been kissed so thoroughly before. She’d tried to get it out of her mind, especially when Mavis came along and kissed him every night. But secretly in her heart she had wished she could do that, kiss him every night. That thought sent strange peculiar feelings through her, but she liked the feelings.
Loving him was a new experience. The fact that he was a Negro didn’t bother her a bit. She was in love and nothing could change that. She wondered what it might be like to lay in his arms every night and be his. The thought made her swoon. To touch his dark beautiful skin, and have his warm lips running rampart all over her. She twirled around the room, letting the moment fill her.
Still, if anyone knew, that would change things. She stopped twirling, and shook her head. There had to be a way.
She wished he’d say something, do something, but Sam was too
smart for that. He knew how much trouble it would bring and he wouldn’t put himself or her in that position.
If they were ever to be together it would have to be her doing it. But how, when, and where?
Chapter Ten
Late that same night there was a storm. Lightning danced across the window frame in her room, followed closely by a thunderclap that sent unwelcome shivers down her spine. The roll of thunder seemed to reach out just to her. Riley snuggled down in her bed and put the pillow over her head to drown out the terrible sounds. She shut her eyes tight so she wouldn’t see the lightning coming through the windows, inventing new shadows against her wall. But the unexpected cracks of thunder pounded in her ears. “Count to ten,” she kept telling herself so she’d know when the next roll of thunder would clap the walls like a huge hand of God. She remembered the storm in the cellar and how Sam had drowned it all out with his kiss. She wished he was here to do that again. She thought about how effective it had been.
Even if Nodog were here, she’d feel better. She’d gotten attached to that dog.
That same strange womanly feeling swamped her as she thought about Sam. Not once on the trail had she had time to think about how that kiss affected her. She’d enjoyed the feel of his lips on hers, mastering hers with such ease, coaxing her mouth to open at just the right time, so he could slide his tongue inside and taste her, a new experience for her. She’d never kissed a man. It was a mystery to Riley as there had been no one to school her on how to act around a man, or how to come into her own womanhood. She had many times had questions but no one to answer them.
“Oh Mama, I so wish you were here…” Riley cried out aloud. “Especially now that I’ve met Sam.”
Her mother’s death had haunted her so. Riley had barely turned ten when her mother came down with a fever. That’s what had her so concerned when Dorothy came down with one. Her father sent for the doctor for her mother, but nothing could help her. Riley had sat by her side the entire week, holding her hand, crying, and promising that she would get better. But she didn’t get better. Then that next morning, her mother had died and Riley ran from the room when the doctor pronounced her dead. She heard her father say she was finally with God. She had run to the edge of the woods and kneeled down and cried. She thrashed about the woods like a crazy person, calling out to God. Why had he forsaken her mother?
No answer came!
For a month Riley wouldn’t come out of her room. She barely ate. Her father became worried that she too might fall ill.
When she finally came out of her room she saw the worry in her father’s face and went to hug him. “I’m sorry, daddy. Don’t worry, I’m fine, I’ll show you…”
After that, Riley donned pants and shirt and helped her father every day on the ranch, staying as close to him as she could, afraid that any time he might leave her too. She became his little wrangler. He seemed to understand why she so needed to be with him and never once sent her away. Looking back at it, she realized how tolerant he had been, and in some strange way they had shared the sorrow of losing her mother together.
Riley learned to ride better than most of her father’s hands, and shoot with accuracy. She also learned to rope calves and brand them. She even learned to castrate, which surprised all the hands. There were no jobs on the ranch too dirty, or too hard for her to try. Deep down Riley knew why she had to learn to do those things. She couldn’t bear not being with her father. She’d wanted his praise, his attention, his love and she got it in strange little ways. She had learned to read a man’s feelings that way.
“Looks like my little girl is more than capable of taking over this ranch, than even I had hoped,” he had declared one day as they were breaking broncs.
An unexpected thunderclap interrupted her thoughts again and she cringed. Why had she become so afraid of storms? Nothing scared her other than storms and storm cellars, that is until Harry took over her ranch. She shivered. Somehow she had to learn to control her fears, she knew that.
Why had she become such a coward? If she could handle a huge ranch, she could handle a little old storm, couldn’t she?
The room lit up all around her as lightning streaked through the air, seeming to slice it into pieces as the thunder would reverberate the walls.
It was so loud she couldn’t avoid it. She sat up in her bed, brought her knees up and clasped her hands around her legs and held herself tight. She would not be some screaming meme.
She shivered. She needed to be with Sam. He knew how to quiet her. But relying on Sam wasn’t a good idea, she knew. Sam would leave her someday and then what would she do? No, her fears were her own, and for her to get rid of somehow. But how did one go about getting rid of fear?
But she silently scolded herself for being such a coward. It was only a storm, and she was in a building. However, she could almost feel the building sway at the next clap of thunder, resurrecting her fears.
The thought of Sam not being around nearly paralyzed her. What would she do without him? She’d come to rely on him and his judgment.
Garbed in her flannel gown and a robe, she swung the door open. Peeking out in the hallway, she didn’t see anyone about. But the minute she stepped out, the clerk saw her and asked if there was a problem.
“No…it’s just the storm. It’s so loud, it scared me.”
“Sometimes it helps to keep a light on when it’s this bad,” the clerk suggested.
“A light, okay…yes, of course.” She turned back to her room and immediately lit a lamp by her bed. It illuminated her room. It did make the lightning less threatening, but it did little for the rackling and roaring of the thunder that came after.
She leaned against the doorframe. She wanted to see Sam, but with the clerk about she doubted she could get past him without him seeing.
