Western Lovers:Cowboys & Biologists (5/31)
Title: Western Lovers: Cowboys and Biologists <5/31>
Author:sassywitch
Beta the patient and talented charlieisagirl
Pairing: OB/DW
Rating: NC-17 for the series, PG-13 this chapter.
Summary: David is a hard, jaded warrior, Orlando is a biologist tracking Big Cats on the Double L.
Feedback: Feedback is my writers crack, which is not to be confused at all with plumbers crack.
Disclaimer: Not at all true in reality. These men whilst adorable and perfectly happy to slash themselves, their actual relationship is something that they only know. This story is adapted from a series of books that I adored when I was younger written by Elizabeth Lowell.
Word Count: 3581
Previous Story: Can be found here
Previous Ordaisy chapter: As suggested by mystery_ink can be found here
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1| Chapter 2 | Chapter 3| Chapter 4
Posted to: fellowshippers, monaboyd and ordaisy
Header Art: Courtesy of the incredibly talented loki_girl.
Author’s Notes: Thank you to everyone who has pushed and prodded me into working on this. Special thanks to Dylan_dufresne.
~*~*~*~*~*
When Orlando returned leading the Appaloosa and the packhorse, he found Baby sitting next to David. The animal’s black paw was on the man’s forearm. Yellow wolf eyes stared into equally untamed ice blue ones. Neither one looked up when he walked in.
Orlando had the distinct impression that both of them were enjoying measuring the other up.
A single word called Baby off guard duty. He removed his big paw, stretched and waved his tail at David in a silent offering of truce. Gravely, David took off his glove and held out his hand. Baby sniffed, ducked his head and offered it to be scratched.
“You’re all bluff, aren’t you, Baby?” David asked.
A huge gleaming wolf’s grin was Baby’s answer.
“Impressive. Who’s your dentist?”
Orlando smiled despite himself. He was still smiling when David’s head turned and his pale blue glance raked over him, taking in every detail of his appearance. Suddenly Orlando was very grateful the horses had continued to drift in the direction of his cabin. Otherwise he wouldn’t have taken the time to change into dry clothes before coming back to David. Then he would have had to explain to David why it had been more important to get back to him quickly than it had been to find dry clothes for himself. Orlando doubted that David would have found his arguments convincing.
David folded the survival blanket, stuffed it in his jacket pocket and levered himself into a standing position.
“How’s your foot?” Orlando asked finally.
“It’s there.”
“I can see that,” he muttered, leading the appaloosa closer. “Does it hurt? Do you have any feeling in it? Is it frostbitten?”
“Are you cold?” he asked, ignoring Orlando’s questions.
“Damn it, David. I’m not the one who’s hurt!”
“Neither am I. Guess that means we’re both fine. Take it easy, you knot-head.”
At first, Orlando thought David was referring to him. Then he realized David was talking to the spotted horse, which had shied when David came awkwardly to his feet. That was the end of David’s awkwardness, however. He grabbed the saddle horn and vaulted into the saddle with catlike ease, exhibiting a grace that Orlando watched in awe.
“Hand me my rifle.”
For a moment Orlando was too stunned to say anything. David was going to ride off into the storm without so much as a thank you. He could handle the lack of gratitude. What made Orlando furious was the knowledge that he wasn’t nearly as fine as he said he was. David’s face was too pale and Orlando was afraid the stain of red over his cheekbones owed more to fever than windburn. But apparently David was angry about being guarded by Baby, or too proud to admit he needed anything more from him, or both.
Orlando handed the rifle up to David, shrugged into his backpack and walked off up the trail toward the cabin without a word, too furious to trust himself to speak. His short temper shocked him. Normally he was the last one to lose control - but normally he wouldn’t have spent the last hour digging a man out of a hole before he froze to death. And not just any man. A man Orlando had taken one look at and gone to with the absolute certainty of water running downhill to the waiting sea.
A man who thought love was a fairy tale.
A spotted flank materialized from the snowstorm in front of Orlando. The appaloosa was standing across the trail, blocking his way. At an unseen signal from David, the horse turned toward him and then stood motionless once more. David kicked his stocking-clad foot out of the left stirrup and leaned toward Orlando, holding out his left arm.
“Climb on.”
“I’ve never ridden,” Orlando said tightly.
“I’ve never had a wolf sicced on me. Learn something new every day.”
“I didn’t sic-“
“The hell you didn’t. Grab hold of me.”
Orlando was never sure what happened next. All he knew was that the world swung suddenly, crazily. When things settled into place again he was behind the saddle, hanging onto David with both hands, for he had become the stable centre of an otherwise highly mobile world.
“Well, you’ve got the first part right,” David said dryly.
“What?”
“You’re hanging on.”
He started to speak, only to make a high startled sound when the horse moved. Brego snorted and sidestepped lightly.
“Go easy on the screaming,” David said. “Brego is skittish. That’s how we got into trouble in the first place.
“You screamed?” Orlando retorted.
David turned around enough to look at Orlando. His narrowed eyes gleamed like gems between his thick eyelashes, but Orlando would have sworn that his look was one of amusement rather than anger. Orlando decided that he liked that particular gleam in David’s eyes much better than the icy distance that was David’s normal response to the world.
Then David’s glance shifted to his mouth and Orlando remembered the instant when their lips had met. Orlando’s heart hesitated before it beat with increased speed.
“Does that quick little tongue of yours ever get you in trouble?” he asked finally.
The intriguing rasp was back in David’s voice, making Orlando shiver.
“Only with you,” Orlando admitted. “Normally I’m rather quiet. But I love the sound of your voice, especially when it gets all slow and deep. Like now.”
David’s eyes narrowed even more, all amusement gone, replaced by something as elemental as a wolf’s howl. The searching intensity of David’s glance made Orlando shiver. He turned away abruptly.
“Can baby lead us to the cabin?” David asked harshly.
“Yes.”
“Then tell him to do it.”
“Lead us home, Baby. Home.”
Baby turned and began trotting along the base of the scree slope. David turned Brego to follow the wolf’s tracks. The instant the horse began moving, Orlando made a stifled sound and clung very tightly to David. David looked down, saw Orlando’s arms wrapped around him, saw hands that were slender and elegant even inside gloves, knew that the hard rise of his flesh was only inches from those agile hands, and tried not to swear aloud at the ungovernable rushing of his blood.
For several minutes there was a silence that was at least as comfortable as David was.
“David?”
He grunted.
“I wasn’t making fun of your voice.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you angry?”
David hesitated, then shrugged. “Some kinds of honesty are dangerous, Orlando.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Drop your hand a few inches and you’ll understand just fine.”
David’s voice was remote, clipped. His hand dropped, brushing lightly across David’s jeans. When Orlando realized what he meant, he was glad David couldn’t see his blazing cheeks. But beneath his embarrassment was shock. When David told him he lived every instant as though it were his last, he had meant it, and the proof was just below Orlando’s outstretched fingertips.
“Makes a person wonder what it would take to cool you off.” Orlando muttered against David’s back, certain he wouldn’t be able to hear.
David did, of course.
“Hell of a question,” David retorted. “Sure you want to hear an answer?”
Orlando opened his mouth for an incautious reply, only to think better of it at the last instant. Before Orlando closed his mouth, he felt the unanticipated, fragile chill of snowflakes dissolving on his tongue. His eyes closed and he held his breath, waiting for the exquisite sensation to be repeated. As he waited, the world swayed gently beneath him and his arms clung to the living column of strength that was David.
Suddenly Orlando had a dizzying sense of the wonder of being alive and riding through a white storm holding on to a man who’s last name he didn’t even know, while snowflakes melted on his lips like secret kisses. Orlando laughed softly and tipped his face back to the sky, giving himself to the miracle of being alive.
The sound of Orlando laughing made David turn toward him involuntarily, drawn by the life burning so vividly in Orlando. David looked at Orlando with a hunger that would have shocked him if he had seen it, but Orlando’s eyes were closed beneath the tiny biting caress of snowflakes. When his eyes opened once more, David had already turned away.
“David?”
David made a rough, questioning sound.
“What’s your last name?”
“Wenham.”
“Wenham,” Orlando murmured, savouring the name as though it were a snowflake freshly fallen onto his tongue. “What do you do when you’re not rescuing people or falling down mountains, David Wenham?”
“I’m Segundo on the Double L when Billy is there; when he’s not I’m ramrod.”
“Segundo? Ramrod? Are we speaking the same language?”
The corner of David’s mouth lifted slightly. “A ramrod is a ranch foreman. A Segundo is the ramrod’s right-hand man. Billy is my brother.”
“Same Billy as in the bar?”
“Same.” David nodded.
“Is the Double L your family ranch?”
“After a fashion. Billy bought into the ranch when Viggo’s father was trying to drink himself to death. When he succeeded, Billy found Viggo. Viggo married his wife Liv not much later. I own a chunk of Fangorn Canyon; Billy gave it to me for a wedding gift.”
For a few moments, Orlando was too stunned to breathe. “You’re married?” he asked faintly.
“It was Billy and Dominic’s wedding…of sorts. Not mine.”
“They gave you a present on their wedding day?” Orlando asked carefully.
David nodded.
“Why?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m very patient.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“I doubt much fools you,” Orlando said matter-of-factly.
David thought of the instant he had seen Orlando coming toward him in a smoky bar and his whole body reached out to Orlando with a primitive need that had shocked David. But he would have been a fool to talk about that, and David was no fool.
“Dominic was a friend of Liv’s,” David said. “He was an archaeologist sent to study Arwen Canyon. He fell in love with my brother, and my brother with him. I helped them to find their daughter. They gave me a chunk of land as a wedding present.”
The hint of a drawl in David’s voice told Orlando that he was being given the short story. Orlando didn’t mind. He liked that thought that he could arouse any conversation in David.
“Why do I feel you left something out?” Orlando asked.
“Such as?”
“Such as how a Segundo knows the kind of people that can find a daughter for a childless couple.”
“I wasn’t always a Segundo.”
Orlando hesitated. The drawl was definitely gone from David’s voice. Even as Orlando told himself he had no right to pry, he heard himself asking a question.
“What were you before you were a Segundo?”
“What all the men in my family have been - a warrior.”
Vivid images from the fight in Helm’s Deep flashed before Orlando’s eyes, followed by other images. David lying half buried in a rock slide with a rifle in his hand. David checking the rifle’s firing mechanism with a few swift motions before he even tried to stand up. David’s bleak eyes and unsmiling mouth.
Warrior.
It explained a lot. Too much.
The vivid joy in life that Orlando had experienced moments before drained away, leaving an intense sadness in its place. Orlando’s arms tightened protectively around David’s powerful body as though he could somehow keep whatever might hurt David at bay. When Orlando realized what he was doing, he didn’t know whether to laugh or to weep at his own idiocy. David needed protecting about as much as a bolt of lightening did.
But unlike lightning, David could bleed and cry. And he had. Orlando knew it as surely as he knew that he was alive.
Breathing David’s name, Orlando moved his face against the cool suede of David’s Shearling jacket, wiping away the tears that fell when he thought of what David must have endured in the years before he went to work for the Double L. The knowledge of his pain reached Orlando as nothing had since the death of his little sister during Alaska’s long, frigid night.
David felt the surprising strength of Orlando’s arms holding him, heard his name breathed like a prayer into the swirling storm, and sensed the aching depth of Orlando’s emotions. Without stopping to ask why, David brought one of Orlando’s gloved hands to his cheek and rubbed slowly. With a ragged sigh Orlando relaxed against him, his hand brushing soothingly against David’s chest.
For several minutes there was no sound but the whispering of snowflakes over the land, the creak of cold leather, and the muffled hoof beats of the two horses as David held them to Baby’s clear trail. When David saw the outline of the cabin rising from the swirling veils of snow, he removed Orlando’s arms from around him.
“Time to let go, Orlando. You’re home.”
Reluctantly, Orlando released David. He swung his right leg over the front of the saddle, grabbed the saddled horn in his right hand and slid to the ground. Braced by his grip on the saddle horn, David tentatively put weight on his right foot. There was pain, but he had expected it. What mattered was that the foot and ankle took his weight without giving way.
David reached up, lifting Orlando off the horse and lowered him to the icy ground.
“Legs still working?” David asked, holding on to Orlando just in case.
Orlando felt the hard length of David pressed against his body and wondered if he would be able to breathe, much less stand. Orlando nodded his head.
“Good. Go and get a fire going while I take care of the horses.”
“Your foot--”
“Go in and get warm,” David interrupted. “You’d just be in my way.”
Orlando would have argued, but David had already turned around and begun loosening the cinch on Brego’s saddle. As Orlando watched, David removed the heavy saddle easily and set it aside. There was a hesitation when David walked that reminded Orlando of Baby- injured, but hardly disabled.
Besides, David was right. He didn’t have a clue what to do with the horses.
Without a word Orlando removed his backpack and jacket, shook snow from them and went into the cabin. Baby followed Orlando in and went immediately to the coldest, draftiest spot in the cabin’s single room. His thick fur had been grown for a Yukon winter. Until he shed some of his undercoat, a fire was redundant.
It took only a moment for Orlando to stir the banked coals to life. That was one of the first things Orlando’s parents had taught him about living in cold country: no matter how long or how short the absence was supposed to be, always leave the hearth in a state of instant readiness for the next fire. No more than a single match should be needed to bring light and warmth to a cabin.
Orlando exchanged his snow boots for fleece-lined moccasins before he went to the ice chest to look for a quick meal. After sorting through the snow he had used to chill the contents, he found a package of chicken. Fresh vegetables were in a cardboard carton. Orlando selected a handful, took the knife from his belt sheath and went to work.
By the time David came in the front door carrying a pair of hiking boots in his hands, the cabin was warm from the fire and fragrant with the smell of chicken and dried herbs simmering together on a tall trivet over it. Orlando looked up as David took off his ski knit cap and rubbed his fingers through his short, copper colored hair. David shrugged out of his thick Shearling jacket, hung it on a nail next to Orlando’s, and walked unevenly toward the fire. Moments later he had removed his single cowboy boot and his socks and was toasting his bare feet by the flames. Bruises shadowed his left foot, which was also reddened from cold.
Orlando set aside the vegetables he had been chopping and knelt next to David’s legs. He took David’s left foot between his hands and went over it with his fingertips, searching for swelling cold spots that could be frostbite, or any other injury.
Silently David’s breath came in and stayed that way. Orlando’s fingers felt like gentle flames caressing his cold skin. Not by so much as a sideways look did Orlando reveal that he knew what his touch was doing to David. The thought that Orlando might be as innocent as he was alluring disturbed David more deeply than his warm fingers.
“I told you I’m fine,” David said. His voice was rough, irritable, for his body was reacting to Orlando’s touch. Again.
“Your idea of fine and mine are different,” Orlando pressed his fingertips around a swelling. “Hurt?”
“No.”
Orlando examined David’s toes critically. Other than being cold, they showed no damage. Orlando let go of David’s foot. Before David could prevent it, he had pressed his hand against David’s forehead. His temperature brought a frown to Orlando’s face. Orlando put his other hand against his own forehead for comparison.
“You’re running a fever,” Orlando said.
David grunted. He had been running a fever for the past hour or more. Billy had been right. He should have stayed out of the mountains. But David hadn’t been able to. He had been too restless to stick around the Double L’s tame winter pastures.
“Are you planning on riding out into the storm as soon as your feet warm up?” Orlando asked evenly, removing his hand from David’s forehead. “Or are you going to be sensible and wait it out here?”
A pale blue glance fixed on Orlando with searching intensity. The warning David had spoken to him once before, hung in the air between them: Stay away from me Orlando. I want you more than all the men in that bar put together.
“Aren’t you nervous about being alone with me in a cabin at the end of the world?” David asked softly.
“No.”
“You damned well should be.”
“Why?”
David said something rude under his breath.
“I know you want me,” Orlando said simply. “I also know you won’t rape me. And not because of Baby. The way you fight, you could probably take care of a pack of wolves. But if I said no, you wouldn’t so much as touch me. Even if I said yes…” Orlando shrugged.
“You have more faith in me than I do.”
Orlando’s smile was as beautiful as it was sad. “Yes, I know.” He stood and went back to chopping vegetables.
Broodingly, David looked around the cabin. Once it had been a base camp for hunters who were less interested in decorator touches than in solid shelter from storms. In the far corner of the room, next to Baby, there was a small pot-bellied stove. A section of chimney pipe was missing. Obviously Orlando had decided it would be easier to stay warm near the big fieldstone hearth than to fix the stove’s broken chimney.
Narrowed blue eyes inventoried the contents of the room in a sweeping glance that missed nothing. Bedroll and mattress laid out, clothes either hung on nails or put neatly into the rough-hewn dresser, kitchen implements stacked in overturned cartons, camp chairs, a small can of oil set near the kitchen pump, bucket of water to prime the pump, a kerosene lantern as well as a battery model; it was apparent that Orlando was at home in the Spartan shelter.
Orlando walked across the room, pushed a thick, faded curtain aside, and looked out. Snow was coming down thick and hard. Saying nothing, he let himself out of the cabin’s only door and closed it behind him. Instantly Baby came to his feet and went to stand by the door. A minute later the door opened again. Orlando came in, dragging David’s packsacks behind him. He kicked the door shut.
Without the awkwardness of wearing only one cowboy boot to hamper him, David moved with startling speed and the slightest limp. He took Orlando’s hands from the canvas packsacks.
“Put your bed near the hearth,” Orlando said. “The cabin gets cold by dawn.”
“Next time let me get my own gear. These sacks are too heavy for you.”
Orlando gave him a look out of chocolate eyes that were almost black with the reflected flames. “You’ve been hurt and you’re running a fever,” Orlando said with careful patience. “That makes us about even in the strength department.”
“Crap,” David said succinctly.
With no visible effort he lifted both sacks, walked across the room and dumped the sacks to one side of the hearth. Orlando stared. He knew how heavy those sacks were. He’d had a hard time simply dragging them into the cabin.
“Okay, I was wrong,” Orlando said, throwing up his hands. “You can jump tall buildings in a single bound and catch bullets in your bare hands.”
“Bare teeth,” David said without looking up.
“What?”
“You catch bullets with your teeth.”
“You may,” Orlando retorted, “But I’m not that stupid.”
“The hell you aren’t.” David lifted his head and pinned Orlando with a cougar’s pale blue glance. “You’re alone in the middle of a snowstorm with a man who gets hard every time you lick your lips. And you trust me. That, boy, is damned stupid.”
Chapter 6