McCrory's Lady

by Henke, Shirl Henke

  “How inconvenient that I happen to be her husband.”

  “Do not hurt her, McCrory.” Fletcher's voice was very soft, each word precisely enunciated.

  Maggie watched the exchange between the two men with growing alarm. Both of them were dangerous, on the verge of exploding. Colin was wearing his Army Colt and Bart always carried a gun hidden inside his jacket. “This is absolutely insane! Bart, I'll be fine. Please leave before someone is hurt.” She implored him with her voice and her haunted blue eyes.

  “You take care, Megs—and remember what I said.”

  “Good-bye, Bart. I'll never forget you,” Maggie said with tears choking her voice. He nodded with a forced jauntiness that broke her heart.

  Placing his fancy planter's hat on his head, he turned to the door. “She's made her choice, McCrory. I only pray she doesn't live to regret it.” Bart could not face Maggie's tears. With one last warning look to the Scot, he left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

  Silence pooled between them as Maggie fought to regain control over her emotions. Dr. Torres had told her that rampant mood swings were to be expected in her condition, but the physician had no inkling about the situation between her and Colin—even before this latest fiasco.

  She walked to the window and looked down on the busy street below, then turned to face him. “Do you honestly believe I'd invite Bart Fletcher to have a quick toss in our bed while you were out on business?”

  He did not reply, just stared at her, gripped by such roiling, confused emotions that her words did not even register.

  “God, what a whore you must think I am,” she said in a strangled whisper. Unable to bear being in the same room with his brooding presence accusing her, Maggie turned toward her only means of escape, the bedroom.

  “You may be a whore—but by God, you're my whore,” he said, irrationally angry at her defiant, aggrieved air. Who was she to make him feel guilty? He stormed across the carpet and caught her just as she stepped inside the bedroom door.

  When he seized her arm and turned her to face him, she replied coldly, “I am no man's whore—not for a long, long time.”

  “Oh, you've become mine, all right. You couldn't seem to help yourself any more than I could,” he said with a look of tortured self-loathing on his face. “It's ironic, isn't it, Maggie? Did you hate what happened between us—or did you plan it that way all along, I wonder?”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, suddenly afraid of him. He had a wild look in his eyes—anger and lust, but something more, something she could not even begin to guess.

  Colin watched the fear blossom inside her, saw it on her face, and his heart felt cold and dry, broken. He could not bear the pain. So she had betrayed him—and he still wanted her! “Damn you, Maggie. Damn us both,” he said as he reached out and pulled her roughly against him.

  Maggie felt the breath being squeezed from her as he held her tightly and bent down to savage her mouth. Could this harsh stranger be the same passionately gentle lover of the night before? “No, Colin, not this way, please!” She tried to turn her head and push free of his hard embrace, but he would not release her. His chest pressed so tightly against her breasts she could feel his heart slamming furiously and hers beating in counter measure.

  “Yes, this way. The only way for us. You told Fletcher good-bye so tenderly. Too bad our farewell won't be so polite.” He tore the feathered hat from her head and dug his fingers into her elaborately coiffed hair, sending pins flying as the dark mass tumbled around her shoulders. His mouth devoured her throat, then moved over her delicate jaw and up to her temple, raining harsh, searing kisses across her face until he centered his lips over hers again. Imprisoning her head in his hands, he claimed her mouth, willing her to respond with the old familiar fire.

  Suddenly, Maggie felt the despair in his kiss, the hungry longing that spoke more of sadness than of anger. She answered his seeking mouth with her own, molding her lips to his, opening for the invasion of his tongue, pulling him to her as their tongues danced a duel.

  Colin felt her abrupt assent and gave a low, desperate growl of triumph. His hands began to work feverishly at the buttons of her suit and the frilly blouse beneath. When one hand slid inside the silk and cupped the ripe lushness of her breast, he heard her moan as the nipple hardened and puckered beneath his teasing fingers.

  He was rough and quick, pulling off her clothes and tossing them in a pile on the floor as he continued kissing and caressing her. She stood before him, wearing no more than her lacy undergarments, stockings and elegant kid slippers. He picked her up and tossed her onto the bed, still rumpled from last night.

  Maggie lay observing him rip away his fancy dress clothes as carelessly as he had stripped hers, flinging them across the room until he was naked. She watched the rapid rise and fall of that beautiful bronzed chest, letting her eyes follow the sinuous grace of his movements as he stepped closer to the bed and sank one knee onto the soft mattress.

  Colin looked down on the lush voluptuous curves of her flesh and knew she was ready for him with no preliminary love play. “I’m glad you never were the prim type who went in for corsets.” He reached out and ripped the thin camisole from her, then pulled open the tapes at her waist and yanked down her lace under drawers, throwing them to the foot of the bed. “There, that's better,” he replied hoarsely, running his hands up the sheer silk of her stockings until he touched the garter on one creamy thigh.

  My slippers and stockings,” she whispered as he lay down beside her, opening her legs with his knee.

  Leave them on,” he replied as he raised up over her, pinning her to the bed. When he thrust into her, her eyes closed and she turned her head aside, biting her lip to keep from crying out. He could feel the incredible wet, soft heat of her body as she moved with him. Her stockings slid against his hips when she wrapped her legs around him and the heels of her slippers dug into the small of his back. He thrust harder, deeper, wanting to punish her, to punish himself. And all he felt was the rising haze of ecstasy.

  Maggie opened her eyes and stared at his face, seeing his tortured expression even as she felt the unleashed strength of his passion swamping her senses, driving away all reason. She wanted to reach up and caress his cheek; but his hands held her fast to the bed, as if he wanted no closeness between them except for the primal savage joining of their lower bodies. Colin, what is it? This was more than the foolish misunderstanding about Bart; but all thought fled as the ripeness of culmination bubbled up from deep inside her, robbing her of breath, seizing her body in waves of wracking bliss. She sobbed and cried out his name.

  Colin watched her climax. She arched her hips to squeeze his phallus, pulling him over the abyss with her. Shuddering, he gave in, defeated, spilling himself deep inside her while he watched the rosy blush steal across her breasts and up her neck to bloom in her cheeks.

  They were both spent and breathless. Maggie opened her eyes and searched his haggard face. He did not collapse on her or move away, just held his arms rigidly at her shoulders, his flesh still imbedded in hers. Something was horribly, terribly wrong. Maggie felt afraid to speak as confused thoughts tumbled about in her dazed mind. Finally, she gathered her courage and said, “Colin, tell me—”

  “There's nothing to say, Maggie,” he replied harshly. Her words seemed to break the trance. He released her wrists and pulled away, stepping off the bed. She lay on the rumpled sheets with her hair tangled, her mouth bruised and her body flushed. “You should always wear stockings and slippers to bed,” he said as he began to dress. “An authentic touch.”

  Maggie looked down at her splayed legs. Her nakedness was only made more vulgar by the garters and hose. The fancy lavender kid shoes looked particularly obscene, caught in the bedclothes. She felt as soiled as the sheets. A whore, that was what he had named her—his whore. She pulled the covers up and curled in a ball, fighting the onslaught of tears, too emotionally and physically drained to force any further confrontat
ion.

  In a moment he finished dressing and walked from the room, closing the door to the parlor behind him. She heard the rap on the hall door and a few murmured words as Colin talked with a servant. Only when she heard him leave their suite did she get out of bed and begin to repair the damage to her person.

  After taking a sponge bath, she dressed in a simple skirt and blouse, not feeling up to fussing with another of the elegant suits she had brought. What had turned Colin into a cold, distant stranger again? It was as if the past months together had all been erased, and they were back in Sonora. She walked into the parlor and sat down on the sofa, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. In the midst of rubbing her temples, she chanced to look down to the carpet. In the corner by the wall lay a crumpled piece of paper.

  She knew it had not been there earlier. A message delivered by the porter to Colin? She hesitated. Perhaps it has something to do with what's happened between us, she rationalized as she walked over and picked it up.

  Smoothing the balled-up, torn scrap of paper, she tried to read the smeared ink. There was neither salutation nor signature. When she finally deciphered the message, she felt her heart stop beating and the room begin to spin. Maggie sank into an overstuffed chair and reread the note.

  Just a reminder about our conversation. You most certainly want the truth about the past to remain hidden in Mexico. If the sordid details were to come to light, the vaunted McCrory name would never survive the scandal. I will be in contact regarding your decision.

  The threat had to come from Win Barker. He was blackmailing Colin with her past! First, would come the loss of his bid for Caleb Lamp's job as Indian agent. Then, who knew what next? A ruthless, greedy man like Barker could destroy Colin financially as well as put an end to his political aspirations. And it was all because a bordello madam from Mexico had first blackmailed him into marrying her.

  Maggie put her hands over her face, but found she was beyond weeping now. No wonder he looked at me with such desperation, then contempt. Colin McCrory desired the very instrument of his own destruction! She would not let him be ruined because of her past. To save him, she would have to leave her love, the father of her child, forever. The irony of the injustice was not lost on Maggie. She had left her first child's father because she did not love him. Now, she must leave this child's father because she loved him all too well.

  If Colin divorced and publicly denounced her, in time the scandal would die down. There was a double standard for men and women, even out West where women had somewhat more freedom than back in Boston. The good citizens of the territory would forgive Colin for his foolish liaison, probably even tsk sadly over how a brazen hussy had taken advantage of him. Then, he could go after Win Barker and all his minions.

  Maggie took the note, carefully tore it into tiny pieces and threw them away. She returned to the bedroom and lay down. She needed time to think, to plan. Perhaps, she could locate Bart tomorrow to see if his offer still held. She had to consider providing for her child as well as herself now, and somehow she intuited that Bartley Wellington Fletcher would make a satisfactory, if highly unlikely foster father.

  Do I have the courage to walk away from Colin? Her throat ached and her eyes burned, but still she could not cry.

  * * * *

  Prescott

  Sheriff Walter Briggs tried to close his mouth, but as the breed gunman told his tale the lawman knew it kept gaping open. Caleb Lamp was using reservation Indians as slaves and had tried to kill two of Prescott's leading citizens when they found out! If not for the verification of Dr. Torres and Eden McCrory, Briggs would never have considered Blake's wild story. In fact, he might have arrested Blake and freed Lamp. But a second look at the hard, dangerous gunman made him reconsider that rash thought. Besides, he had heard of Wolf Blake.

  A short, thickset man with close-cropped red hair and bulldog jowls, the sheriff had won repeated elections by being genial and not overly zealous in his collection of license fees at the local saloons and bordellos on Whiskey Row. Live and let live was his motto. If the men in the legislature wanted Prescott wide open, it was just fine with him. But murder and stolen government property, now that was a different matter altogether.

  “Cmon, Caleb. I reckon you're gonna spend some time in Prescott's reservation,” he said with a mirthless chuckle. The iron-barred cells in the basement of the county courthouse were grim and forbidding.

  “This is a big mistake, Walt. I'm warning you, I got powerful friends in Tucson,” Lamp said as Blake shoved him toward the lawman.

  “Them fellers in Tucson don't vote in Prescott. Save yore breath,” Briggs replied in his easygoing manner.

  “They stole my books. Ask that breed if he ain't got my records from the reservation. That there's tampering with federal property,” Lamp protested as the cell door clanged shut in his face.

  Briggs's gaze skittered away from Blake to Torres. “What he says true, Doc?”

  “There are no records here, Sheriff. Lamp's just trying to divert attention from his own heinous crimes,” Aaron replied carefully. The records were hidden in Wolf's saddlebags, so strictly speaking, the physician was not lying.

  “I have to send a wire to Tucson,” Wolf said to Torres, attempting to keep the sheriff from pursuing Lamp's accusations any further.

  “To let my father know I'm safe,” Eden chimed in.

  “If you have no further need of me, Sheriff, I have to get back to the reservation. The epidemic seems to have run its course, but I have to be certain, especially now that our estimable agent is unable to oversee his charges,” Torres added with grim irony.

  “I reckon I'll be callin' on you when the judge decides to hold a hearing.”

  “Feel free, Sheriff. Both Miss McCrory and I will be at the court's disposal.”

  “Maybe some other charges will come to light by then,” Wolf added, giving Lamp a quelling look as he ushered Eden out the door and up the stairs.

  Once they were out on Cortez Street, Wolf turned to Torres. “Be careful riding back to the reservation. It'd probably be best if you took Rufus with you. It's too far for him to come with us to Tucson.”

  The physician reached down and patted the dog that had waited patiently for them outside the courthouse. “I'd be glad of his company. I assume you're going to send a wire to Colin informing him of the developments here before you set out?”

  “Right away. Then I'm riding out. I really wish this stubborn woman would return to Crown Verde,” Wolf replied, turning to Eden.

  Shaking her head, she took his arm firmly. “I'm going with you. Now let's send that wire.”

  “You may ride with me, but no way in hell is a lady like you walking into Kearney's Saloon on Whiskey Row.”

  Eden huffed. “It was a stupid place to put the telegraph office. I'll wait outside.”

  Torres hid a smile behind his hand as the small girl faced off against the tall, menacing gunman.

  “You'll wait for me at the Wells Fargo office down the street,” Wolf said with such a set expression on his face that Eden decided not to push her luck any further lest he pack her off to the ranch.

  As he watched them head toward the Wells Fargo office, the doctor remembered the tender scene between the fierce half-breed and a newly alive Eden at the reservation. Wolf Blake was a good man for her. Eden was beginning to recover her resilient spirit even after all she had endured. Colin and Maggie would not have to fear for her future any longer. But then, after his strange interview with Maggie McCrory, the physician wondered if Colin and his wife were not the ones he should be worrying about.

  “Come on, Rufus, old friend. Let's you and I head back to White Mountain.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kearney's Saloon was doing a brisk business when Wolf walked in, his terse message to Colin carefully composed. By the time he and McCrory put all the evidence together, those bloodsuckers in Tucson would be sweating bullets. Smiling grimly, he walked down the long plank floor past the scarred wal
nut bar, heading to the small door at the back of the room. A crudely hand-lettered sign above it proclaimed: “Telegraphs Sent. Cash Only.”

  The door was ajar so Wolf slipped inside the dingy room, which had previously been a storage area. The floor was hard-packed earth, and chinks had fallen from the log walls. Bright hot sunlight streamed in, casting the room and its sole occupant in yellow and gray stripes. “Morning. I need to send a wire to Colin McCrory, care of the Palace Hotel in Tucson.” Wolf handed the message to a small hunchbacked man with wire-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his broken nose.

  Hector Spoede perused the message through the heavy lenses of his spectacles, then raised his weasel-like face to Wolf's. “This'll cost ya one dollar and fifty cents.”

  Wolf raised his eyebrows at the price, which seemed steep, but Spoede quickly said, “It's a long message. Ya want it sent or not?”

  Blake extracted the money from his pocket and tossed it onto the grimy table beside the telegrapher's key. The feral little man tapped out the message with Blake watching. Then, Wolf left the office and headed back to pick up Eden. They had a long ride ahead and she had been pushing herself too hard. They would take it easy on the trip to Tucson.

  As soon as the gunman was gone, Hector Spoede jumped up from his chair. A crafty smile revealed small, crooked teeth. That big shot politician would pay plenty this time, yessir, plenty. Hector had fooled the dumb breed by sending out a meaningless signal to a local relay station at the Whipple Barracks. He was certain that neither his employer here in Prescott nor the merchants in Tucson would want this message delivered to Colin McCrory. He hung a closed sign on the telegrapher's key and headed out the back door of the saloon.

  Within half an hour he had returned, a hundred dollars richer for his trouble, with a new message to deliver, this time to Win Barker in Tucson: