“Two deaths in so short a time,” Merissa said softly. “My father and now this horrible man.” She shook her head.
“But you and Clara are alive,” he pointed out.
She smiled up at him. “So we are.”
He got out and helped her from the vehicle. They walked up onto the porch and around to the back of the house. The ground was wet from the fire hoses. There were pieces of sharp metal lying around, and shattered glass.
“Careful,” he told her. “Don’t step on anything sharp.”
“I won’t...!”
He swung her up in his arms, laughing. “I’ll make sure of it.” He stared into her eyes with soft hunger. “I still can’t believe you’re here with me, all in one piece. I’ve never been so afraid in my whole life.”
She linked her arms around his neck. “You asked me to marry you.” She flushed. “I thought it was just because you wanted to, well, you know. And then you looked embarrassed and I said I didn’t want to get married...”
She stopped because he was kissing her. He did it very carefully, very tenderly, because she was still fragile from her brushes with death. “I want to get married,” he whispered, “more than I can even tell you. I wanted it then, but I got flustered and messed it up.”
She smoothed her hand over his hard cheek. “I lied. I want to marry you very much,” she whispered.
He carefully put her on her feet.
“Here.” He put a box in her hand, a jeweler’s box.
She opened it. There was a matching wedding set, rubies and diamonds. She caught her breath.
“I had that in my pocket the day I blurted out that we needed to get married. Ruined the whole thing.”
“No, you didn’t.” She took out the engagement ring. “Will you put it on, please?”
He smiled as he slid it onto her ring finger. “Will you marry me?”
“Of course,” she breathed, beaming up at him with tears threatening.
His lips nibbled softly at hers. “How soon?” he murmured.
“Yesterday.”
He smiled against her mouth. “Day before yesterday.”
“Last week.”
“Last month.”
“Last...year.”
The kiss grew longer and deeper and harder, and she moaned. That was when he stopped, because he could feel how weak she still was.
He lifted his head and cleared his throat. “We can get married. But we’ll wait until you’re feeling better before we do intimate things.”
She laughed shyly. “Okay. I mean, I want to do intimate things. But I’m still a little rocky.”
“I know. It’s all right.” He searched her eyes. “I want you. That’s part of it, for a man. But the reason I want to marry you is because I’m in love with you.”
“You are?”
“Oh, yes.” He brushed his mouth over hers. “When I saw that explosion and thought you were in the house...” He drew her close and hugged her, hard. “The world went dark. I thought I was hearing voices when you called my name.”
“I cussed.”
He laughed. “Yes, you did. I was thinking of ways and means to get to you, even if it meant finding my way across that dark line into death.” He lifted his head and sobered as he looked into her eyes. “I have no life without you. I have no future. No world. No home. You are everything in the world to me. And I will love you until I die. Even longer.”
Tears stung her eyes. “I will love you that way, too. Forever.”
He kissed the tears from her eyes. “Forever.”
* * *
THEY WERE MARRIED at the ranch, by the minister of the local Methodist church. Merissa was still fragile, but she wore a beautiful couture gown with silk embroidery over white satin, with Brussels lace and a fingertip veil. She carried a bouquet of poinsettia, because even though Christmas was over, it was still sort of a Christmas wedding, and they stood in the same room with the enormous, beautiful Christmas tree blazing with light.
Rourke and Carson had been persuaded to stay for the ceremony, after which they were en route to Texas.
The assassin was dead, but there was a faint trail leading back to Hayes Carson and even Carlie. The death of the district attorney in San Antonio was the key. But if the dead assassin had already hired someone to take care of Carlie and her photographic memory, time was of the essence. It went without saying that he could hardly call off the hit now that he was dead.
Carson didn’t say much, but Tank noticed that he bristled when anyone mentioned the fact that Carlie could be on the hit list. For a man who hated her, he did seem conflicted.
* * *
“DID YOU CALL Hayes Carson?” a drowsy Merissa asked on the first night of their honeymoon in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Tank drew her closer, smiling. “I did indeed. He and the feds and Rick Marquez are working on leads.”
He drew the sheet away from her small, perfect breasts and bent to draw his lips over them.
“I hope they can save the woman in Texas,” she said in a shivery whisper, arching her back.
“Me, too,” he whispered back.
She pressed close against his warm, muscular bare chest. The thick hair on it tickled. It felt wonderful, just the same. She looped her arms around his neck. “And I was scared to do this,” she added, fascinated.
“I noticed.”
It had been a little difficult at first. Merissa, naturally shy even with her clothing on, had to be coaxed out of it with a nice glass of wine and a dark room. He smoothed his hands over her soft body with the same sensuous delicacy he used when playing the piano, teasing her into relaxing, accepting, participating in a feast of the senses that far surpassed anything he’d ever known in his life.
At last, when she was sobbing and digging her nails into his long back, he arched down against her hips and quickly overcame the small barrier that was barely noticeable except for a tiny flash of pain.
His movements, urgent and hard and deep, lifted her off the bed in a shivering ecstasy of satisfaction even the first time.
“You said that it usually took a little time for people to get used to each other like this and enjoy it, especially for women,” she reminded him as he laid her back on the pillows.
“Well, yes,” he said, grinning. “But I neglected to mention that I was speaking about men who are far less skillful and patient than I am.” He chuckled.
“Skillful. Patient.” She gasped. “Sometimes a little too patient...!”
“Oh, am I?” He pushed down, hard. “Better?”
“More!” she gasped.
“Like this?” He caught her thigh and pulled her up to him, riveted her body to his and took her in a blind, pulsing fever that drowned them both in hot, sweet relief from a tension that had almost been pain.
She cried out, shuddering and shuddering as the pleasure went beyond anything she’d even dreamed.
“Yes,” he groaned at her throat. “Oh, God, baby, never like this...never!”
“I...know!”
They paused just for a few seconds. But the fever was burning too high, too bright, and they no sooner stopped than they started all over again.
“I shouldn’t do this,” he groaned. “You’re still weak...”
“Weak? I’ll show you...weak!” She wrapped her legs around his hips and arched up at him, her eyes wide-open, watching him as the endless pleasure wrapped her up in fire and fury. He dimmed in her vision as the final explosion came, so raw and sensual that her teeth sank into his shoulder as he shivered above her in one last exquisite movement.
* * *
HE DREW HER against him. Moonlight streamed in through the sheer curtains on their balcony window overlooking Montego Bay.
“I should have married you the nigh
t you came to the back door and said someone was trying to kill me,” he said. “Think of all the wasted time!”
“That’s okay,” she murmured with a contented sigh. “We’ll make up for it.”
He smoothed back her damp hair. “Tell me about the future.”
She smiled. “Long and sweet.”
“Honest?”
“Honest.”
He sighed. “I was pretty sure of that. But it’s nice to have it confirmed.”
She brushed her hand over his hair-roughened chest. “It’s nice of you to have the cabin rebuilt for Mama. Now that it’s safe for her to live there, that is.”
“It was the least we could do. She loves the place.”
“I do, too.”
“You can’t go live with her,” he pointed out. “I’d be lonely.”
“I’d only go if you went with me,” she agreed.
His eyes were briefly troubled. “Merissa, there isn’t going to be anyone else coming after me, or you or Clara?”
“No,” she said. She was still. “But that young woman in Texas... There was already an attempt. She doesn’t even know...!”
“It’s all right,” he promised. “I’ll phone Hayes Carson first thing in the morning and tell him.”
“He’ll think I’m nuts.”
“Not at all. He’s a nice guy. I’ll take you to Texas to meet him and his wife one day.”
“That would be nice.”
“As long as we go together,” he told her, very seriously. “I’m never leaving you again.”
“You can bet money on that,” she agreed. “I won’t let you.”
He pulled the covers up with a sigh. “How about a tour of the historic places tomorrow?”
“Oh, yes, and I want to try ginger beer. I’ve been reading about it.”
“You can have a whole keg if you like.” He drew her closer and looked into her eyes in the moonlight. “In fact, you can have anything you like. Anything at all.”
She reached up and pulled his mouth down to hers. “I just want you.”
He kissed her back, tenderly. “You’d have to chase me away with a tank,” he mused. “And even then I’d come back.”
She nuzzled her cheek against his. “Life is sweet,” she whispered.
He sighed. “Yes, my darling. Life is sweet.”
* * *
BACK IN TEXAS, a furious politician was having a closed-door meeting with a shady character of his acquaintance.
“How the hell did he let himself get killed by some local yokel in Montana?” Matt Helm raged.
“Beats me, boss, but he was burned alive.”
“Did he leave a trail that leads to me?” the politician demanded angrily.
“Not that we can find. I got one of my brother’s friends who’s a detective to check it out for me. He says everything’s cool.”
“Well, at least he got rid of the loose ends. His colleague, that stupid woman who got herself arrested at the hospital, is dead. The computer images of him wearing the damned watch are erased, we have the computer...” He stopped and shook his head. “Damned shame that man he sent after Cash Grier’s secretary missed!”
“They think he was just some religious lunatic after her father,” the man soothed. “No worries there. Martin said he hired another man to do it, someone reliable.”
“Can we trust him, you think?” he asked sarcastically.
“Maybe. We don’t know who he hired. He was hooked on meth and it was frying his brain,” he said irritably. “He got nuts near the end, took crazy chances. He was delusional. He never used to make mistakes like that.”
“People who use drugs are crazy,” the politician agreed. “That’s why we just supply them.”
“Damned right.”
“You go up to Wyoming yourself and make sure the trail’s clean,” Helm told his henchman. “And see if you can find that damned watch. If you do, destroy it.”
“Gosh, boss, it’s worth a king’s ransom...!”
“It’s worth life in prison for both of us! Got that?” he demanded furiously.
“Okay, okay. If I can locate it, I’ll break it into small pieces and bury it somewhere.”
“He must have had pieces of clothing with him, at least,” Helm continued. “In a suitcase, in his car maybe. You find it!”
“I’ll do my best, boss. But my contacts say they never found even a wallet, and his cell phone was too damaged to get any information.”
“I just want this off my mind,” Helm told him. “The governor’s going to appoint a successor to the late lamented Senator Todd. I hope it’s going to be me, but even if it isn’t, I’ve got power and money behind me in the special election this spring. I don’t want any chance discoveries messing up my future. You tell Charro Mendez the same thing. He’d better be watching my back, if he wants any special favors for his cartel when I get in office.”
“I’ll tell him, boss.”
“I can’t be seen with him again.” He ran a hand through his hair nervously. “What a mess! What a damned mess! I can’t believe Rick Martin messed things up this badly. He was the best in the business—infiltrated the DEA, fed us information to keep our drug shipments safe, took out the opposition. And here he’s almost ruined everything because he couldn’t keep away from drugs!”
“At least nobody’s likely to connect the watch with us now,” the henchman said comfortingly. “The photo’s gone. Even if that girl can remember it, her testimony’s worth nothing. They can’t prove a thing.”
“Even if they could, we could swear that Martin acted on his own,” Helm said, nodding. “You’re right. Our hands are clean. It’s going to be fine.” He turned. “But you get up to Wyoming and tie up the loose ends.”
“What about the girl?”
Helm hesitated. She worked for Cash Grier. He knew Grier. It was dangerous to provoke the man. But they’d camouflaged their attempt on Carlie’s life once before by having their assassin seemingly target her minister father.
“Her father seems to draw lunatics, doesn’t he?” Helm said, staring at the other man. “I mean, it happened once...and we aren’t involved. Hell, we don’t even know who Martin hired, right?”
“That’s true, boss. No way to connect us to it. If he paid a guy to kill her, let him earn his money, I say.”
“So do I. Fewer complications. Find that watch and that shirt.”
“You can count on me, boss.”
Helm didn’t reply. That was what Rick Martin had told him just before he went to Wyoming to take out Dalton Kirk. That hadn’t ended well. In fact, his stupidity after the murder of the district attorney digging into Helm’s business had been the first sign of a breakdown. Imagine stealing a dead man’s watch and clothes and then actually wearing them to a drug bust where he was photographed? The utter stupidity of the act amazed him.
And then to alert Kirk about his presence and get himself killed... Where was that watch? He had to hope that his new enforcer could find it. He had a brilliant future ahead, replete with wealth and power. He wasn’t losing it because of a damned watch!
* * *
CASH GRIER CAME out of his office wearing a thoughtful expression. He glanced at Carlie. “Got that letter ready for me to mail?”
“Yes, sir. All it needs is a signature.” She handed him a neatly typed letter, on department letterhead, with an addressed, stamped envelope.
He read over it.
“If you’re looking for spelling mistakes, you won’t find a single one, and I do not use spell-checker,” she said with a smug grin.
He laughed. “I’ll take your word for it. Nice work.”
“Thanks, boss.”
He signed it, folded it and put it in the envelope.
“Oh, you had
a call from that rancher in Wyoming. Dalton Kirk?”
He frowned. “Did he say what he wanted?”
“Something about that man who was killed. He said his wife had a premonition. He wouldn’t tell me what it was. But he wanted you to call him.”
“I’ll do it when I get back from lunch.”
“Yes, sir.”
She watched him go out the door before she pulled out a sandwich and a soft drink from her lunch box. It was her habit to eat at her desk. The chief never complained. He probably knew she couldn’t afford to eat out, except once in a great while.
She wondered what the Kirk man’s wife had told him? She hoped it wasn’t anything bad. Just lately, there had been quite a few unpleasant happenings around Jacobsville, Texas, including that wild man’s attack on her father. She shivered, remembering how that had ended.
The phone rang. She picked it up, wiping away peanut butter on her lips before she answered, “Chief Grier’s office.”
There was a brief pause. “Tell your father he’s next.”
Before she could say a word, the caller hung up. Carlie stared at the receiver with her heart racing. It was not going to be a good day.
* * * * *
If you loved Dalton’s story, don’t miss another smart, sexy Western tale in WYOMING TOUGH, where sparks fly between the oldest Kirk brother, Mallory, and his new ranch hand. Turn the page—and check your local bookseller and e-tailer—for a hint of the explosive romance between Mallory Kirk and Morie Brannt....
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Wyoming Bold (9781460320891) Page 23