Devil's Dare. Laurie Grant

stop lookin’ like you was suckin’ a lemon, Cookie,” Culhane said when he could stop guffawing. “I think it’d serve th’ Devil right if he thinks he’s courtin’ a whore and finds out she’s some prissy little preacher’s daughter instead!”

      

      At the moment, however, Mercy was feeling far from prissy. She’d taken a cautious first sip of the wine that their stuffy-acting waiter had brought, not wanting to confess it was the first she had ever drunk. Even when celebrating Communion, Papa served grape juice instead of wine. She found the fermented version very good, too, and as a consequence had been sipping it slowly but steadily as Sam Devlin regaled her with tales of the trail drive.

      “No, it doesn’t take much to set off a stampede,” Sam was saying in response to a question she had asked. “At night we took turns singin’ to the herd, soft and low. Some men sang songs from the war, some sang hymns, some even sang nursery rhymes.” His blue eyes were distant and unfocused, as if he was remembering. “It didn’t matter much what we sang, as long as it sounded soothing to the beeves. But somethin’ as sudden as a flash of lightning, or as simple as the snapping of a stick—or sometimes nothin’ at all—could set those longhorns loco, and in a flash they’d be up and runnin’, with all of us gallopin’ hell-for-leather after them an’ tryin’ to turn them. God help any poor cowboy who wasn’t on his horse when they decided to turn in his direction. We lost a good hand that way, just after we crossed the Red River,” he said, his expression somber.

      Sam hadn’t been bragging, just telling her matter-offactly what a trail drive was like, but she marveled nonetheless. He painted such a clear picture of it. When Sam talked of his days on the Chisholm Trail, Mercy could almost see the choking cloud of dust—she could hear the constant lowing of the cattle and the thunder of their hooves over rocky ground. She could smell the savory odors of wood smoke and beef stew at the nightly campfires. She could feel the incredible heat that could be generated by a stampeding herd.

      What a brave man he was—what brave men all of them were, these Texans who brought the hundreds of stubborn horned beasts a thousand miles from where they ran free among the mesquite in south Texas, crossing swirling rivers, enduring all kinds of weather, danger from hostile Indians and murderous rustlers, disease and the ever-present threat of stampede. No ordinary man—no man she’d ever met until now, anyway—was capable of surviving all that.

      No wonder the cowboys were so ready to have a little fun, to…to raise a little hell, Mercy thought, surprising herself by even thinking about that word that Papa reserved for discussions of the hereafter. She noticed Sam had used it, too—”hell-for-leather”—quite unconsciously, not apologizing up and down because he had used that word in the presence of a lady. She found she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind anything, as long as he would keep on talking. That rich drawl was so easy on the ears, so warming…

      Or was it the unaccustomed wine? By the time the waiter brought her steak and Sam’s chicken, Mercy was feeling so warm that she wished she had a fan, perhaps one of those black ostrich-feather ones that she and Charity had seen in the Godey’s lady’s book. It would be nice to be fluttering her fan, and flirting over the top of it with the handsome male across the table from her.

      “I hear they call you Devil,” she said, feeling very worldly-wise and sophisticated as she said it.

      His irresistible smile turned into a chuckle. “Aw, that’s just some funnin’ the boys do with my name. They just like callin’ themselves the Devil’s Boys.”