Author's note: This chapter is a little risqué. You're warned.
Sabrina opened the door and snuck inside. The little room was folded in shadows. She adjusted her turquoise, almond shaped eyes to the darkness and took a look around. The room was poorly furnished. A table, a chair where Heath had tidily folded his clothes and, finally, the shape of his body lying under the blankets. By the steady movement of his chest, his breathing in and out, she could see the young handsome man was sound asleep.
Sabrina cautiously pulled up the blankets and took a long look at the naked body that laid underneath, licking her lips in anticipation. Her usually cold, arid heart was beating wildly, the pounding sound growing louder in her ears. She was sexually excited, the sense of danger exciting her even more. She had never felt so alive.
Following a sudden impulse, Sabrina quickly undressed. She took off the boots, struggled to free her arms from the sleeves and let her gown fall in an unshaped heap on the floor. She climbed over it and walked barefoot on her tiptoes back to the chair, the wooden floor squeaking under her steps. She took Heath's blue shirt, unbuttoned it and slipped her right arm through one of the sleeves. She breathed greedily Heath's manly scent from the collar and slowly let the air come out of her nose while slipping her left arm through the other sleeve. The shirt was abundantly too large for her. She embraced herself, her arms crossed over her breasts and her hands on her shoulders, enjoying the feeling of the rough cloth on her tender skin.
It was then that she felt it. Something hard in his shirt pocket. She shoved two slender fingers inside and pulled it out, a folded paper clipping. She unfolded it and rushed to the window to look at it in the moonlight, Heath's unbuttoned shirt flapping on her long, sculpted thighs.
On the paper, the all too well-known bearded face of the old Barkley patriarch looked back at her. She had seen that face so many times, looming on her from the grand portrait the Barkleys worshipped. Nick venerated his late father so blindly it made her sick. But, it couldn't be different with Nick, once you had his heart in your hands, it was forever. She smirked at the thought, Nick's heart was in her hands, and she was going to break it, rip it apart, rip it to shreds, grind it to dust.
Her eyes ran on the title.
"TOM BARKLEY SHOT TO DEATH
Whole Valley Mourns."
On the back of the paper, on the empty space of the border, someone had written something in a tiny, neat handwriting: "My dearest Heath, I honored my promise. Now you know who your father was.. I love you, my son. Leah Thomson."
What did those words mean? They didn't make any sense. A moan came from the bunk, and Sabrina turned her head to look at the young man lost in his dreams, unaware of her presence. Heath changed his position in his sleep and turned his face toward the window. As the pale moonlight made his features clear to see, Sabrina suck some air in her lungs, suddenly knowing what those words meant. It was so clear to see! The resemblance with Tom Barkley and, even more, with her young sister-in-law was uncanny. This man, this Heath Thomson, was Nick's brother, and he knew it! Oh, what a treasure she had found!
Wait until I tell Victoria, Sabrina hatefully thought. Wait until she discovers her sainted husband was unfaithful.
Heath moaned again, his lips opening slightly. At that sight, she felt a pleasant fit of lust. She was going to make love to no less than her brother-in-law. She didn't want to wait anymore. She reached her boots and let the paper clipping slip in one of them, then quickly dismissed Heath's shirt, dropped it on the floor and slipped underneath the covers. As she laid her hand on Heath's broad shoulder, the young man woke up with a start, his eyelids fluttering in confusion.
"What…?" He asked the naked stranger beside him.
"Shh, it's alright, Heath," Sabrina whispered, pressing her palm on his mouth, silencing him. "I'm here for you, you can do all that you want, I'm yours," she enticed with a sultry voice, slowly tracing circles on the man's chest with her fingernail.
As soon as he realized who she was, a wave of nausea surged over Heath. He quickly rose and gathered his shirt from the floor, his pants from the chair, began to quickly dress. "Go away, Mrs. Barkley. You shouldn't be here," he said coldly.
"You're wrong, Heath. I can go where I please. I am Nick Barkley's wife and this ranch belongs to me with anything that's on it, and yourself included," she informed with a smirk.
Heath's eyes turned cold ice. "Nobody owns me, Mrs. Barkley," he retorted. "I have no desire for you, ma'am. Now, go away," he added curtly.
Sabrina seethed, any trace of amicability disappeared from her face. "Don't you dare reject me one more time, Heath Thomson, or I'll tell my husband…" she threatened, gulping down the rest. She didn't want to reveal what she had discovered. Not yet.
"What? What will you tell him? That you snuck into one of his hire hands' bed in the middle of the night and offered yourself to him?" Heath challenged.
What happened then was so sudden and unexpected that Heath hadn't the time to react. The woman who was lying naked beside him turned into a beast. An animalistic growl formed in her throat as she violently hurled herself onto him, making him lose his balance and crumple on the floor.
She sat astride him and, with surprising force, pinned him there and sunk her nails into the tender skin of his jaw, making it bleed. "You just wasted your last chance, Heath Thomson," she hissed.
When she shut the door behind her, Heath was still sitting on the floor, a hand on his bleeding jaw. It burned as hell.
The night wind blew howling through the trees. As a cloud passed across the silver moon, an impenetrable shadow descended. In the complete darkness, a cougar shrieked with rage. Heath shivered.
After having tossed and turned for the umpteenth time, the man known as McNally gave up on trying to fall asleep and stepped outside the bunkhouse for a smoke.
The Barkley home was plunged into darkness. Everything was quiet. He went to the corral and Sky Flyer came trotting and greeted him pawing the ground with his forefeet. "Hey, pardner," the man addressed him amicably, as Sky Flyer nuzzled his hands looking for a treat. "That girl is spoiling you, isn't she?" he said showing his empty palms to the horse, who expressed his scorn with an eloquent neigh. The horse was certainly ready to be ridden by Audra, Lloyd had done commendable work with him, but Nick hadn't given his permission yet.
Since he was awake, he would go check Misty Girl, hoping her leg had improved.
An unspoken message, like pure energy, passed between them. He gently pulled her toward him and they were kissing.
The image crossed his mind and sunk into his being, exploding in his heart. He had been intrigued from the beginning. She was intelligent, good looking and all-around a fine lady, but he knew there was more, much more. The day he had had a chance to look into the intensity of her grey eyes, he had seen the depth of her heart. Their souls had connected, that day, and known each other. After their kiss that same afternoon, he had finally realized he had helplessly, completely fallen in love with Victoria Barkley and that there was no coming back. It wasn't planned and it wasn't expected, but it had happened and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He just needed to keep things pretty well separated.
She doesn't even know who you really are.
But she knows the important part, she knows my soul.
You're cheating on her and on the whole family.
Isn't this what makes America a great country? That it doesn't matter who you are or where you come from?
Leaning on the corral fence, McNally was deep in thoughts when his alerted senses perceived a sound of hooves.. He turned his head and was surprised to see the woman he had been following for a whole year now ride toward the stables in the middle of the night. She was obviously coming back from somewhere, wearing just her nightgown and her riding boots. His mind reluctantly let go of Victoria to focus on Sabrina Barkley. According to his investigations, she and her partner and lover Jack Floyd were guilty of many crimes. To find them, he had followed the blood trail the couple had left behind. Their victims had been dozens before Nick Barkley had finally shot Floyd dead. Since then, Sabrina had been irreproachable, but he knew she was as guilty as sin. She had personally pulled the trigger and committed several killings in cold blood, that of his friend, Marshal Frank Sawyer, included.
He calmly filled the bowl of the briar wood pipe he had inherited from his father with some tobacco he retrieved from a leather bag.
I've not enough evidence to put a rope around your neck, Sabrina Lynn Barkley, but I'm more than determined to make sure you spend the rest of your life in San Quentin, he thought as he calmly pressed the tobacco lightly down with a brass tamper that quickly disappeared inside his vest pocket. He struck a wooden match and let it burn for a few seconds, then lit his pipe and gently inhaled while striking another match, repeating the whole operation until the aromatic smoke permeated the air around him.
The man gave several puffs. "All I need is a smoking gun," he murmured, as his keen eyes followed the woman as she ran to cover the distance from the stable to the front porch. She quickly disappeared inside the house as he finally dragged deeply on his pipe. God only knew what she had done, or what she had in mind to do.
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