Page 23 of My Darling Clementine

“In exchange…what the heck? I’m not that kind of woman.” She laughed. “Although I can see you might have reason to think so.” She shook her head. “No,” she pulled back to stare at Clem with honest eyes. “I am going to California, with or without you.” She smiled. “I’m offering myself as a traveling companion, willing student, future partner, and…” She licked a fingertip and rolled it over tight nipples, “a talented lover for the right woman.”

A million thoughts roiled through Clem’s mind, each fighting for consideration. Sitting still, eyes unfocused, it took several long moments for the chaotic ifs, whats, and how abouts to make peace with personal worries and prior experience. As her head stopped spinning, her racing thoughts slowed and eyes refocused, she gazed at the tense, hopeful, shivering, but still patient woman holding her hand.

Clem decided.

Pulling Kizzy close to reassure her, she murmured in her ear, running broad hands up and down her soft back. “If you really want to go with me to California, I’ll take you,” she said, kissing first one cheek, then her dimple.

Two firm arms hugged her tight. “I’m so pleased,” a voice like honey whispered in her ear. “You won’t regret it.”

“I already regret it,” Clem chuckled. “I’m a loner, always have been. It’s how I’ve passed all these years, keeping to myself. I’m an ornery cuss,” she kissed Kizzy, “who never thought something like this could happen to me, not with the choices I’ve made.” Her smile was so wide it hurt her face. “I just hope you don’t regret it.”

Beyond amazed at being desired, a surge of thrilled sexual heat filled her with a desperate need to express herself. Not knowing how, Clementine Dennison crushed the amazing young woman in an enveloping hug, kissing her with raw, rough desire.

Astonishing her even more, Kizzy met her heat and slid her hand down Clem’s belly, under three layers of underwear, and into the thick nest of hair between her legs. Palming her sex, she squeezed, petting the furry triangle, then slipped her fingers inside wet folds. Placing two fingers on Clem’s already swollen clitoris, she closed for another kiss, her tongue teasing her new lover’s mouth while dancing fingers tantalized her.

Having hidden her sex for over three years, it was an intoxicating relief to allow her body to be seen, touched, and pleasured. Being desired for her true self, the perfect aphrodisiac, struck Clem with a lightning bolt orgasm, hurling a shocking sexual relief ricocheting through her body that ended all too soon. She shivered and grabbed Kizzy’s hand, stopping and holding her in place.

“Enough, now.” She took a deep breath and shuddered, pulling herself together. She leaned over and kissed Kizzy, tugging her hand free. “Consider that part of the bona fides. Believe me, I will return the favor.”

A rooster crowed a pre-dawn warning. Clem rose and pulled her clothes back on.

“Wait, don’t you want to…?” Kizzy shrugged, bare breasts bouncing.

“More than ever, but I don’t have time.” Now dressed, she bent over the bed, gestured for Kizzy to lie down, and pulled the blankets up over her bare shoulders, tucking her in. “I must hurry so no one’s the wiser, my dear.” She paused, savoring the flavor of those words. “No one will confuse you for a working girl again.”

Shoes in hand, she bent to kiss her forehead. “Sleep well, Kizzy. Our lives are about to change. Tomorrow night we’ll get married so you can travel as my wife.” She brushed tousled hair from shocked blue eyes and kissed her stunned fiancée on the lips.

“There’s so much to do. Lock the door after me, sweetheart. I’ll be back at noon to collect you.” Clem opened the door, left the key in the lock, and slipped out into the hall, tiptoeing three doors down.

“What a stupid romantic fool you turned out to be,” she whispered aloud in her dark room. “Clem Dennison, you just made your life a lot more complicated.”

But she couldn’t stop grinning as she readied herself for a busy day, washing face, hands, and between her legs, remembering Kizzy’s heavenly fingers strumming her womanhood to life. She growled deep in her throat. “But what a complication.” Out her window, a streak of morning red tinted the sky.

Goddamn, this was her wedding day.

Chapter seven

Kabooblebopper?

Kizzy jumped out of bed, locked the door, and leaned against it, a cold sweat breaking out all over her.

Married? A wife? To Clem?

She buttoned her nightgown and scurried back between the covers. The papers wrote of married couples traveling to California together, working side by side to make their fortune. Some homesteaded, started farms, and had children; new towns sprouted wherever the miners prospered.

But married?

It wouldn’t be a legal marriage, of course. They’d pretend to be a married man and woman, which would be respectable, rather than traveling as a scandalous, unmarried couple.

When she realized Clem was a woman, her first thought was to be like her, dress, live, and look like a man. She closed her eyes, picturing herself with short hair and wearing men’s clothing. She wouldn’t fool anyone.

Never attracted to any boy or man, growing up she focused on girls, and after returning from finishing school, a succession of married church ladies. An astonishing number of good Christian wives were happy fooling around, whispering in pillow talk that Kizzy gave better than their husbands in bed. She grinned.

A woman alone was labeled a whore; an unmarried woman traveling with a man was scandalous. But what would be more respectable than being married? She shook her head, braid tossing on the pillow. She wouldn’t have to learn a new way to talk, walk, or remember that she was something she wasn’t. She could be herself.

She thought about living with Clem, traveling together in a wagon train, sharing very close quarters. Kizzy knew nothing about the woman except that she could pass for a man and also liked women.

But what kind of person proposes after one night?