She must try to dissuade him from approaching her father.
"Please don't go to Dad." She put a hand on Slone's arm as he stood close up to Wildfire.
"I reckon I will," he said.
"Lin!" In that word there was the subtle, nameless charm of an intimacy she had never granted him until that moment.

He seemed drawn as if by invisible wires.

He put a shaking hand on hers and crushed her gauntleted fingers.

And Lucy, in the current now of her woman's need to be placated if not obeyed, pressed her small hand to his.

How strange to what lengths a little submission to her feeling had carried her! Every spoken word, every movement, seemed to exact more from her.