Free Breed True by Gem Sivad

decision. It had been Alan Michaels watching the mob descend on Comfort's Boarding House. At that moment, the rancher's offer had seemed the only option.
    Now Jewel looked at Grady Hawks, who in making her his wife offered safety but also new peril. Had she been alone, she might have cried aloud, Dear God will this ever end? Instead, she pulled the blanket tight against the wind and held on.
    Her life had toughened her, but still her thighs ached where they grasped the saddle.
    Her body rocked with the horse's movement, each step lolling her closer to exhausted sleep.
    They left the main trail shortly out of Eclipse and cut across rough country that rose and gradually turned into hills dotted with scrub pines.
    As night turned into dawn, Jewel had a glimpse of the ranch long before they arrived.
    The trail that wound through the trees descended toward the house giving her both a front and back view where the fall foliage thinned in places. It appeared to be a meager dwelling built of mud, logs, and fieldstone and sat on a bare piece of ground, standing unadorned and ugly.
    As if sensing her mother's disquiet, Emma finally woke up, nuzzling against Jewel's bosom, searching for her next meal. Her fussing roused Amy and both babies loudly announced their hunger. The sounds of the lusty cries in the early morning brought sudden relief, and Jewel sagged in the saddle as tears of relief streamed down her face.
    She'd been so afraid…
    None of the males keeping her company reacted to the squalls emitting from her makeshift carrier. The nappies wrapping the girls had passed from damp into sodden.
    "My babies need changing."
    They stopped immediately, and Grady Hawks stood close, holding one daughter, while she fumbled dry, swaddling clothes out of her satchel, for the other. The wind whipped the cloth loose, and it would have flown from her hand if Grady Hawks hadn't caught it. He moved closer, protecting her as she crouched low to complete her task.
    When she stood, they exchanged babies, repeating the process. The thin covering she'd wrapped them in was damp, and without her asking, he slid his coat around her shoulders and then wrapped the girls in his own blanket, blocking the high wind that blew chill across them.
    "Loosen your dress and feed them." Her new husband's orders were terse and stern.
    When she looked over his shoulder at the other men, he stepped closer, blocking their view as she unbuttoned her bodice with shaking fingers.
    She was accustomed to handling the unwanted attentions of men. But it shamed her to have her daughters be part of the tableau.
    The binding towel was wet and sticky with milk that had leaked from her engorged breasts. A hot blush of embarrassment swept her as she struggled with the tight cloth.
    When his knife parted the material, she flinched back, causing her milk to shoot from her teats, dampening the front of his vest.
    "Stop looking at me." Jewel fumbled to close her dress and waited tensely for the slap and ribald remark.
    "Babies need to be fed. Too cold out here to stand around." He brushed aside her efforts to conceal her white flesh, and watched, fascinated, as her daughter's pink lips settled around her mother's turgid nipple.
    Jewel's throat closed on a sob, but she stifled that show of weakness. Her other daughter's anxious demands filled the air, until Grady Hawks spread her dress wider and set the second baby to feed.
    She stood, awkwardly balancing the girls, until Hawks circled her waist, growling,
    "Hang on to them." Then he stepped into his stirrup, lifting the three with ease. He seated Jewel across his thighs, and she settled the babies, who quickly rooted like little pigs at breasts that had inexplicably stopped giving milk.
    His arms hugged her close as he reached around, guiding the horse that they all now rode. The blanket cocooned her next to his warmth, and her neck ached with the effort to keep her cheek from resting against him.
    She shuddered, remembering that she