Dancing with the Devil

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen 

Audrey was dead tired in the saddle when Ance finally called it a night the next evening. She was an experienced horse woman who wore split skirts and knew her way around a saddle but she wasn't accustomed to spending hours upon hours riding on a horse's back in the summer heat. 

She was biting her tongue hard as she slipped from the saddle and her legs protested the sudden brunt of her weight standing on them. 

"Mama! Look at the waterfall!" Penelope exclaimed happily. 

Audrey nodded. What her daughter called a waterfall was little more than the creek falling over a small hill and dancing over a few rocks but if Penelope wanted to call it a waterfall then Audrey wouldn't dash her spirits. 

"You can't call that a waterfall." Ance apparently had no problem with dashing her spirits. 

"She can if she wants to," Audrey quickly insisted as she rubbed at her aching thighs. 

Ance grunted, tossing his saddle and saddlebags aside to give his horse a break from the load. "Well there ain't no point letting the girl call something a thing that it isn't," he stated. Then he tipped his hat to Penelope and winked and the girl giggled. Giggled! The man had just shot down her happiness and she was happy about that? "Don't you worry none, Penny. I happen to know there's a very nice waterfall between here and where we're going and I'll be sure to take you to it. You'll know the damn difference then between a trickling creek and a real waterfall." 

"Do you promise?" Penelope asked with a tilt of her head. 

"Have I let you down yet?" Ance retorted and Penelope giggled. 

"Nope!" she exclaimed brightly. "You sure haven't... though I would have liked to have been able to keep that puppy," the girl lamented. 

"I'll get you a damn pup some day," Ance grumbled. 

"But it won't have a leg like mine," Penelope reminded him, pointing to her brace. 

"I'll break its leg, make a splint and you'll be a matching set," Ance assured her. This led to a fit of laughter from Penelope. Audrey watched the whole scene with mixed emotions. She was happy that her daughter was happy and yet couldn't help but feel a bit slighted and....jealous. For so long it had been only the two of them against the world and now Penelope had Ance.... 

Ance grabbed a pot from his saddlebags and handed it to Penelope. "Go to the creek and fill this up. I got some taters I can boil for supper." 

Penelope grabbed the pot and quickly went off to do as he bid. Ance began to walk toward an outcropping of bushes but Audrey stepped in front of him and blocked his path. "You can't be doing that," she warned. 

"Doing what?" he grunted as his eyes bored into her. 

Audrey fought to maintain his gaze despite the vulnerability it caused her to feel. "Speaking over me. I am her mother." 

"I don't take orders," Ance growled, his fists clenching at his sides. 

"From women you mean?" Audrey spat. 

Ance shook his head, pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket and stuck it between his lips. "From anybody," he assured her. "Now are you gonna get out of my way so I can piss or do I just need to do it right here?" 

Audrey stuttered several times before quickly stepping aside. Ance was chuckling as he walked off to the bushes. Audrey glared at his retreating back and wished she could punch him at times like these! The man was rock solid though and punching him would probably end in her having a sore fist and not much else accomplished.