Free Trail of Kisses by Merry Farmer Page A

And you like me.” He smiled with
his whole heart, his body feeling light as a feather, with the
potential to be hard as granite in a flash.
    “ I do not,” she tried to
protest.
    “ Oh, I think that kiss said
otherwise.”
    “ That kiss was a wretched
mistake,” she insisted.
    “ I don’t think so.”
    She backed slowly away from him against the
current. He followed her, like a wolf stalking his prey. The time
had passed to catch her for real, but he reached out his hands
toward her as if he intended to kiss her again and more.
    “ I do think so.” Lynne
continued to back away, face as red as if she’d been burned by the
sun.
    “ Then why don’t you kiss me again,
and we’ll find out for sure.”
    She stopped where she was and crossed her arms
with a huff. He paused at a distance that was just barely
respectable. She must have sensed he wouldn’t cross the line again,
because her shoulders relaxed and one eyebrow rose.
    “ You, Mr. Lawson, are no kind of
gentleman,” she said.
    He planted his feet on the bottom of the
stream and stood, taking the water to a level just under his chest.
“Did I ever say I was?”
    “ You—” She stopped and tipped her
head sideways as if trying to recall whether he had or not. She
shook her head. “Well, you aren’t. No true gentleman would treat a
lady the way you’ve been treating me.”
    “ And what a shame that is.” He
grinned for all he was worth.
    If possible, her cheeks flared an even deeper
red. Yes, Lynne Tremaine was independent and brave and not
completely averse to being swept away by the baser joys in life. Of
all things, that made him admire her more.
    “ We’re on the trail,” he reasoned,
inching closer to her. “The rules of polite society don’t apply
here.”
    “ Well, they should.”
    She squeezed her crossed arms tighter. The
effect was to accentuate the delicious curves of her breasts,
barely hidden by a layer of wet chemise. She didn’t even know how
appealing she was to a man.
    “ Should the rules of polite
society apply to your friend Callie up there? You planning to go up
there and tell her to cover herself in public and not go swimming
with men she hardly knows?” He nodded upstream to where Callie and
John were wading out of the water. They both wore only their
underthings, which were now wet and clinging.
    Lynne followed his glance, chewing her bottom
lip. She must have noticed the effects of water on Callie’s
underthings, because she took a sudden look down at her own state
of undress and gasped. She dropped her arms and pulled the fabric
of her chemise so that it didn’t cling to her breasts. Cade
considered it a great loss.
    “ You might not have a problem with
disregarding the proprieties of civilized people,” she said,
starting for the river bank, “but I do.”
    “ I’m sure you do.” Cade nodded,
feigning seriousness and watching her back—and more importantly,
her backside—as she waded out of the water and onto the shore. Her
rump had the perfect amount of curve. He could still feel it in his
hand. It was a crying shame that he hadn’t had the chance to close
both of his hands around the ample shape of her rear.
    “ What are you looking at?” she
demanded.
    Cade blinked, only slightly ashamed at being
caught. “Your derriere,” he answered.
    Lynne gasped and covered her backside with her
hands as she rushed the rest of the way out of the water. “You’re
impossible,” she said.
    “ And you’re beautiful,” he
answered quietly, hoping she hadn’t heard.
    His manhood had calmed down enough to not be a
total embarrassment to him as he waded out of the water. If this
was what an afternoon of bathing in a stream was like, he wondered
what they would get up to when they reached the junction of the
Platte Rivers. He wouldn’t mind reaching a certain other junction
at that point.
    “ Oh!”
    The sharp cry Lynne gave as she bent to
retrieve her towel from the bush where they’d left their