Page 40 of Smart@ss Cyborg

Just a brush of lips, and then she is attempting to pull away.

Catching her by her mane, I feel the gnawed brim of my hat rise as it presses against her forehead as I deepen our kiss.

…Until we hit another bump, making her yelp into my mouth.

“That’s it!” I growl, bringing my nose beside her cheek so that I don’t harm her face cartilage. Then I haul her and her pillows onto my lap.

Gasping, Becky moves to catch herself as if she’s falling.

“I’ve got you,” I reassure her, petting my hand along her side. I situate her so that her back is to my front and my arm is braced carefully around her stomach. My other is anchored over her hip.

She quiets. And on the next bump, although my legs are hard metal, between the pillows and my frame taking the brunt of the impact, Becky isn’t jostled as badly.

“Thank you,” she whispers. And to my surprise, she taps me on the arm until I crane around her to look at her face. “You did good, William Frederick Cody.”

Stunned, I tell her, “I’m so gratified you’ve praised me.Thank you.”

Twisting to more fully meet my eyes, Becky tells me solemnly, “You really are a good man, you know.”

“I do now,” I tell her.

“HEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Becky and I both jump. But excitedly Becky pats my hand and asks, “Is that Paco?”

“If it isn’t, we’re being followed by a crazed donkey who has a brain bent on mischief just like him,” I inform her, head turned to take the measure of the animal braying at us. “He’s moving surprisingly fast. He’ll reach us in just a moment.”

And he does.

He comes up alongside the wagon and reaches his velvety muzzle toward us inquiringly.

Becky obligingly reaches down and brushes his nose affectionately. “You’re the cutest,” she tells him.

I’m not convinced. “Don’t you think we need to see more donkeys before you can decide which is the cutest?”

“You’re right!” Becky declares, straightening and beginning to settle herself in my lap again. “We should look at lots of them.”

As she wriggles to get comfortable, my thoughts go blank and I find myself agreeing as I struggle with a flood of inappropriately-timed arousal. “We will look at lots of them. If that is what you wish.”

“You are averygood man, Will,” Becky tells me softly.

And for reasons I cannot fathom, my eyes sting and my chest gets warm and tight. “Thank you, Becky. You are the very best mate.”

Becky goes quiet, and I’m immediately alarmed when it seems as if she attempts to pull away from me—but then our wagon strikes a large rock and she falls against my chest.

Tightening my arms around her, ever careful of the pressure I apply over her stomach, I kiss the top of her head.

She hugs my arm to herself and buries her face against it for the rest of the ride to town.

CHAPTER 13

BAUGHER AND GARISON’S HARDWARE, STOVES, TINWARE,the sign above the clapboard building reads.

The wood siding is weathered, sun bleached to the degree that the planks resemble driftwood. The building is a rudimentary thing, built longer than it is wide. The face of it has many windows, as do the buildings snugly built on either side of it.

We’re on the other side of town from the livery, near buildings I paid no mind to the first time I set foot in this town. I survey them now, curious.

WILL C. STAINSBY DRUGS & MEDICINES,the next door’s store sign reads. The other side’s store sign’s letters are painted taller and wider than any around and fairly shout,BLACK HAWK CRACKER BAKERY.

---