A Time For Love: (A Time Travel Romance) (Dodge City Brides Book 3)

by Julianne MacLean

  Rosalie leaned out from behind Truman to peer at Jessica, who shrugged with casual indifference.

  After the door clicked shut behind Rosalie, Truman locked it and sat down to eat. Silence followed, interrupted only by the clinking of forks against plates, the occasional squeaking of the bed when Jessica shifted around, and the rain pelting on the slanted roof above them. About halfway through the meal, Jessica rose and popped the cork on the wine bottle. She splashed some into a glass and raised it to her lips.

  Truman looked up, but spoke too late. “Uh, careful.…”

  Good God! This wasn’t wine! It tasted more like petroleum gasoline! “What is this stuff?” she asked, half choking on the words.

  “I tried to warn you.”

  “No, you didn’t!” She waved her hand in front of her open mouth, trying to fan the flames on her tongue.

  He laughed quietly. “Yes I did. And it’s moonshine from Ol’ Bob Stafford. You gotta sip that stuff slowly.”

  Jessica made her way back to the bed with as much dignity as she could muster. Sitting down again, she lifted her fork and continued eating, using her meat to swab up the thick pool of gravy. That liquor must have seared her taste buds. She couldn’t taste a thing.

  Truman finished, licked his lips, and leaned back on the wrought iron bed frame. Self-consciously, and fully aware of his eyes on her, Jessica stuffed the last bite into her mouth and took another drink of the high-spirited alcohol. When the scorching sensation passed, she smiled crookedly. “I’m getting full.” She dabbed at her lips with the napkin.

  “I hope so. The town paid well for it.”

  “The town paid?” She felt her eyebrows lift involuntarily, and thought back to the night she’d seen him hand money to Rosalie. “At the dance?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought you were...”

  “You thought I was what?”

  She shook her head, feeling like a complete fool. “I thought maybe you were paying for other types of services.”

  The smile in his eyes contained a sensuous flame. “I don’t ever pay for that, Junebug.”

  “Ah—then I stand corrected.” She reclined leisurely on the bed.

  He stood and brought two slices of chocolate cake from the table, setting one down in front of Jessica. “Besides, women like Rosalie don’t do much for me.”

  Trying not to react too strongly to this intriguing piece of information, Jessica took another gulp of the moonshine. “What about your wife?” she asked curiously. “What happened to her, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  He hesitated. “Consumption.”

  Jessica set down her glass. It was a one-word answer, yet there were still so many things she wanted to know.

  “How long were you married?”

  “Less than a year, but we knew each other since we were kids. Grew up in the same town, went to school together. My pa was a farmer. Her pa owned the dry goods store.”

  “You must have been very close, then,” she said. “Very much in love.”

  How she envied that woman.

  “I’m sorry that you had so little time with her,” she added.

  He nodded. “Yeah, it all happened pretty fast, especially the getting married part.”

  “How so?”

  He kept his gaze lowered as he ate the cake. “I left home when I was sixteen. Wanted to work and earn my own way in the world. Then I came home ten years later when my pa died, and he left me the farm. I hadn’t seen Dorothy in all that time, though she wrote me on occasion. When I saw her at my pa’s funeral, she was already sick. She knew she was dying, and all she wanted was to be married before she left this world.”

  “So you stepped up to the plate….”

  He finished his cake and nodded, while the rain came down harder on the roof. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

  “You must have loved her very much.”

  “She was a good woman.”

  A gust of wind rattled the six panes of glass in the window frame, and a draft slipped between the creaky, unpainted wallboards.

  “Maybe this weather will keep Lou’s gang home tonight,” Jessica said, staring up at the wood ceiling and trying to mask the contentment she felt from being alone here with Truman, learning about his past, even though it was a painful one. “This seems strange,” she sighed.

  “What does?”

  “Us. Being here. Doing nothing, just waiting for them to find us. It’s like we’re sitting ducks.”

  “I don’t see it that way,” he said.

  “No? How do you see it?”

  He tilted his head to the side. “I’d call it an ambush.”

  Jessica laughed. “An ambush?” She poked her cake with her fork. “Sheriff, I admire your confidence.”

  Truman swung his legs down and stood, causing the bed to squeak and bounce. Jessica watched him cross to the window.

  Thunder boomed and the light flickered in the lamp. Then he looked at her. Deep in the blue of his eyes, a heated expression lingered—one she had not seen before.

  She blinked slowly, as all the hazy hours and minutes leading up to this moment smudged together in her mind like a shifting fog.

  Jessica swallowed and inched forward to touch her feet to the floor. Rising, she moved slowly toward him and stood before that shiny star on his lapel as it reflected the lamplight. Then she reached out and ran a finger lightly across the engraved letters.

  “Careful,” Truman said in a low voice. “I’m not made of steel.”

  She looked up at his face, disregarding everything else. “I don’t want you to be.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Their eyes locked for a full ten seconds before he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, the gesture inflaming her desires to a shocking level of intensity. She ached to touch him, to kiss those soft full lips.

  Turning her cheek into the warmth of his hand, she kissed his palm and sighed with pleasure.

  “I’ve got to stay sharp,” he whispered. “I can’t be distracted.”

  He stopped talking all of a sudden. Then his lips covered hers in a hot and devouring kiss that took her breath away.

  Chapter 17

  Truman’s hands on her body and his mouth playing upon hers smothered the last shred of self-restraint Jessica possessed. She burned with desire as he swept her into his arms, carried her to the bed, and laid her softly onto the mattress. Their mouths met briefly. Then he came down beside her, his hand roving the length of her body.

  “Jessica...” His breath was hot and moist against her cheek, and it sent a flurry of delicious sensation through her. “I can’t protect you this way.”

  “No… please, don’t stop. I’ll die if you do.”

  He shut his eyes. “I’ve tried to get you out of my head, but I can’t. Every time I close my eyes, there you are, and all I want to do is find you and touch you. Do this to you.”

  He rolled on top of her and settled his hips closer to the warmth of her jean-clad legs.

  Jessica moaned, unprepared for the immediate intimacy as he kissed her deeply.

  In a swift and smooth movement, he reached down and unbuckled his gun belt and tossed it onto the bedside table with a heavy clunk.

  Down he came again, lowering his full weight upon her, thrusting, stroking, groping. They kissed roughly and tugged at each other’s clothes, while the passion sparked and flared into something unmanageable. There was no turning back now. She simply had to have him.

  Truman reached to unfasten her jeans, but stopped in confusion. “What’s this?”

  Jessica lifted her head off the pillow. “Nothing. It’s a zipper.”

  “How does it work?”

  “Like this.”

  With crazy impatience, she unzipped them herself, and he slid his hand inside. She
gasped with pleasure at his touch, while the fevered pounding of her heart sent her body over the edge.

  “Take them off me…”

  Needing no further bidding, he sat back and helped her tug the tight jeans down over her hips, while she unbuttoned her shirt with fumbling, trembling fingers.

  He stared at her black bikini panties for a second or two, but thankfully disregarded whatever he was thinking and quickly removed his vest and shirt while he watched her remove hers.

  He gazed with heady desire at her black lacy bra.

  “It’s something new,” she explained. “It unhooks in the front. See?”

  In a flash it was gone, tossed to the floor.

  With equal haste, he unfastened his trousers and pushed them down over his hips, then settled himself between her parted thighs, looking down at her with sweltering, potent desire. “It’s been a long time since I’ve—”

  She laid a finger over his lips. “Shh…. It doesn’t matter.”

  For a quivering moment, their bodies clung hotly together.

  He lingered there, driving her mad with anticipation, kissing her neck and breasts, until she couldn’t take it any longer. She needed him inside her and thrust her hips forward.

  Truman let out a moan of pleasure as he entered and filled her in a single, perfect thrust. Time stood still. She could feel his heart beating against her chest. Then at last he began to move smoothly and steadily within her.

  Jessica gripped the hard muscles of his lower back. Suddenly, she no longer felt displaced. This was exactly where she was meant to be in this moment, in this time. Here in his arms, connected to him. It didn’t matter that they were born a century apart. They were together now, and that was all that mattered.

  “I’ll be careful,” he whispered. “I’ll stop before it’s too late.”

  She understood that he was concerned about getting her pregnant.

  “No, please don’t stop,” she replied. “There’s nothing to worry about. You can’t get me pregnant.”

  Because she was wearing an IUD.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just do. I promise, it’s fine.”

  Truman kissed her lightly on the lips, then gazed into her eyes as he began to move. For a long time, he made love to her with great care and deliberation. Soon, she couldn’t keep the passion at bay. Her body tingled and pulsed. Tossing her head back, she shuddered just as a mighty release found her and left her weak and sated with rapture.

  A moment later, Truman thrust deep into her as he climaxed. He let out a rugged moan and collapsed onto her in exhaustion.

  Soon, their breathing slowed to a matched pace, raindrops pelted against the window, and the wind rattled the panes. Jessica ran her fingers lightly up and down his smoothly muscled back, damp with perspiration.

  “Are you all right?” he whispered. “Did I hurt you?”

  “Not a bit.” She wrapped her legs around him. “I loved every minute of it.”

  Sometime after four in the morning, when Truman was certain the saloon had cleared out, he rose from bed and got dressed. After a long and appreciative moment admiring the smooth curves of Jessica’s exquisite naked form, he stroked her hair away from her face and disciplined himself into remembering what he was here to do. His job.

  He pulled the quilt up to cover her shoulders and left quietly, closing the door behind him and locking it.

  Bracing both hands on the railing outside Jessica’s room, he watched the barkeep sweep a broom across the floor below, and thought about what had just happened.

  Making love to Jessica had unraveled every tight coil inside him, coils he’d spent the last two years working hard to keep tightly maintained.

  Hell, the closest friend he had was Deputy Dempsey, but the kid didn’t know the first thing about Truman’s personal life, which left Truman on his own most of the time. Jessica was the only person in Dodge who knew anything, and for the first time in two years, he felt an emotion emerge from somewhere deep down, a place he thought he had conquered. It was a place that knew pain.

  A place that remembered.…

  Sweeping those thoughts from his mind, Truman walked down the hall. The scent of stale beer and cigar smoke stunk up the saloon. He’d be half glad when winter arrived. At least the cattle drives would be finished for the season, and things would quiet down to a milder type of living.

  When Truman reached the downstairs, Lenny crossed both hands over the broom handle. “Can I get you something, Sheriff?”

  “Any food out back?” he replied.

  “Try the kitchen.” Lenny whistled a tune and returned to his work.

  A moment later, Truman came out of the kitchen with a plate of sugar cookies. He took a seat at a table, as a woman’s sultry voice reached him from across the room.

  “I always knew you had a sweet tooth.”

  He turned to see Rosalie meandering through the saloon, her hips swinging back and forth. The closer she came, the more she swung that skirt.

  “Evening, Rosie. You done workin’?”

  “Looks that way.” She reached his table and lifted a foot up onto the chair next to his, to re-tie the laces on her heeled boot. “Slow night. For some of us, that is.”

  Truman picked up a cookie while Rosalie dropped her skirt and sat down with one hand on her thigh, an elbow perched on the tabletop. “This is the first I’ve seen of you tonight. Where have you been?”

  “Around.”

  Rosalie let out a throaty laugh. “You’ve been around all right. You’ve been all around little Miss Junebug.” Rosalie peered into Truman’s face. “You’re not in love, are ya’?”

  “You know better than to ask me that, Rosie.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You don’t like folks poking their noses into your personal affairs.” She rotated a half circle on the chair and stood. Sauntering around the bar, she scooped up a bottle and two glasses. “I feel like a drink. What’ll it be?”

  “Nothing for me.”

  “Why, because you’re on duty? You gotta learn to have some fun, sweetheart. That girl up there...she don’t deserve all that devotion.”

  Truman pushed the plate of cookies away. “And what makes you think I’m devoted?”

  “Oh, I just have a feeling, that’s all. I also have a feeling she’s bad news.”

  Rosalie poured whisky into one glass, but Truman placed his hand flat across the top of the other.

  Rosalie paused with the bottle suspended horizontally in the air. Then she set it down, picked up her own glass, tossed the whisky back, and swallowed it in one gulp.

  Turning away, she headed for the stairs. “You’re a damn fine thing to look at, Truman. Finest lookin’ man in Dodge. Anytime you want to come see me, it’ll be on the house.” She disappeared into the darkness, but called out in a throaty voice. “You remember that offer, now. I have a feeling after Junebug leaves town—which she will, no doubt about it—you’ll be needing to take the edge off.”

  Jessica woke to a ray of light piercing through the window. Outside, a pack of dogs barked ferociously.

  She sat up and stretched her arms over her head, then winced in agony.

  Oh, the headache. How much of that moonshine did she drink? She lifted the bottle to inspect it, sloshed the remains about inside, and collapsed in horror onto the pillow.

  A few minutes later, an aggressive knock sounded at her door. Jessica sat up. “Ouch…geez.” She cupped her forehead and massaged gently. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Truman. Open up.”

  Wrapping her reprehensible naked self in the quilt and vowing not to do anything like this again, she padded in her bare feet to the door, and opened it. Truman stood in the hall, washed and shaved, and dressed in black again, looking like a sexy hero out of a classic spaghetti western flick.

  Yet no fictional hero
on the big screen could ever do what this man had done to her last night. Her head was still spinning from the shocking and wicked impiety of it—and that particular commotion in her brain had nothing do with Ol’ Bob Stafford’s atrocious moonshine.

  “Get dressed,” he said without ceremony. “We’re leaving.”

  Recognizing the urgency in his tone, she froze. “Why? What happened?”

  “Just do as I say. I’ll be back in five minutes.” He started to go, but spoke over his shoulder. “Wear your trousers.”

  With that, he walked away, leaving Jessica naked under the quilt, still standing at the door.

  She quickly shut it and dropped the blanket onto the bed, wondering if she had imagined the grouchiness in his tone. Was he trying to put distance between them because of what happened last night? Or did something terrible happen? Something to do with Lou’s gang?

  As soon as she was dressed and everything was packed, Jessica sat on the edge of the bed waiting.

  Another knock sounded. She rushed to the door and flung it open.

  “You should’ve asked who it was before you opened it,” Truman said, walking in.

  “I think I know the sound of your boots by now,” she replied.

  He moved fully into the room, carrying a brown slicker and cowboy hat. “Put these on.” He tossed the hat onto the bed and held the coat up for her. “I don’t want anyone to recognize you.”

  Studying his expression in those spark-like seconds, listening to the impatient tone in his otherwise patient voice, Jessica turned her back on him and shoved her arms into the sleeves of the slicker. He eased the coat onto her shoulders and turned her around to face him. He tugged at her lapel to tighten the collar around her neck and rolled up the long sleeves.

  “I can dress myself, you know,” she said.

  “I’m sure you can.” He picked up the hat and rotated it in his hands, while looking at her long tousled hair. “Can you pin that up?”

  She dug into her leather bag to retrieve the pins from the bottom and swept her hair up in a messy twist on top of her head. Pulling the hat on, she tucked up all the loose strands.