by Jill Gregory
He wanted it to be a hard kiss, a frightening kiss, one that would make her fear that he’d betray their initial agreement, that if she didn’t keep her distance and watch her step, he wouldn’t think twice about breaking his pledge.
It started out that way, and he heard her whimper as his lips captured hers, and dominated them with a harsh power that was meant to terrify her. But as she tried fearfully to wrench away, something in the pitiful effort smote him. And something in those silken, vibrant lips affected him in a completely unexpected way, turning his anger to a different kind of heat, jolting and equally powerful, but tempered with a gentleness that stunned him as the kiss evolved into one of inexplicable tenderness.
Instantly, the fearful tension drained from her stiffened body. He felt the quiver slide all through her. And most startling of all, her warm, sweet mouth parted, gasped, and clung to his.
“Ethan, oh, Ethan,” she whispered in wonder, and he was rocked by the effect her soft voice had on him.
This wasn’t working out the way he’d planned.
“Unless you like playing with dynamite, sweetheart, don’t try to be anything to me but what you were hired to be—a phony wife.” He tried to sound sneering and cold, but his hands were circling her waist, tracing the provocative outline of her hips, even as he breathed in the sunshine-and-honey scent of her.
“We have a bargain,” Josie heard herself saying as she tried frantically to summon the shreds of reason. But her senses were swimming. The solid muscular feel of his torso and long, hard thighs pressed against her, heated her blood. He smelled of soap and sweat, and in the moonlight his bronzed skin and glinting eyes looked so fiercely male, it took her breath away. And when he’d kissed her—he’d been trying to be cruel, she knew, for she’d read his mood and sensed the anger in him, but he hadn’t hurt her, hadn’t inflicted pain the way Snake had. There was no meanness in him. His mouth had devoured, tormented, and commanded hers, but she’d never been afraid.
And she’d never felt so alive.
“Sure we do. A bargain. Right.” Mockery edged his tone. His hand twisted in her hair, forcing her head back. And his thumb traced the fragile line of her cheek in a taunting caress.
Once again, fear crept back. Josie stared at him, wide-eyed, as the last wisps of pleasure ebbed.
“You promised.”
“Sure, sweetheart. That I’d keep my distance so long as you did your part. But your part doesn’t include trying to draw me into your web.”
“I’m not—”
“Under your spell.”
“I’m not!” Trembling, Josie tried to wrench free, but he held her easily. The power in him frightened her. Her eyes blazed up into his as sanity and anger and trepidation flooded back. She despised him. What he aroused in her was so contradictory, so confusing, she felt as if she were being torn asunder. And she didn’t care for it one bit.
Part of her was being drawn into his web, under his spell. He had awakened wants and needs and glorious sensations she’d never imagined. And the other part of her, the cool, sensible part, was furious. She felt trapped, vulnerable, for she had begun to let herself care, begun to dream that he might care for her as well, if only a little—and it wasn’t true. He cared only for his plan, for their arrangement, for keeping her in line and under his control.
“Let me go.”
“Had enough? You’d think a con woman and thief would be made of sterner stuff.”
“I’ve had more than enough! Being manhandled by Tiny was plenty for one evening, I don’t need to be manhandled by you as well. You’re hurting my arm.”
Hell and damnation. He’d forgotten about her arm. In chagrin Ethan released her with an abruptness that left her stumbling. He took a step backward, breathing hard, deliberately putting space between them.
“Go,” he muttered between clenched teeth. His eyes were narrowed on her shaken face, his whole body tense with the rigid control it took not to touch her.
“For God’s sake, go!”
The shouted command sent her running, her skirts gathered in one hand. He watched her flee up the walk, push open the heavy door, and disappear inside.
And slowly, struggling for reason and control, for understanding of his own dark feelings and behavior, for sanity, Ethan followed.
* * *
Josie tossed her bag, fan, and gloves onto a chair and rushed to the bureau where she had hidden her precious pouch beneath layers of silk gloves, shawls, and handkerchiefs. She dumped the contents into her hands, and clutched the brooch and the ring tight, as if drawing strength and sustenance from their glowing forms.
To hell with Ethan Savage! She had a purpose in being here far more important than this sham she had agreed to for his sake. And the sooner she was able to leave Stonecliff Park and this horrible mockery of a marriage behind and commence her search, the better!
Trembling, she forced her thoughts along a sensible path. Her brooch and Miss Denby’s ring were part and parcel of the same set, she was certain of it. What if they were family jewels? Her family’s jewels? That was far more important than winning a smile, a kind word, a damned insulting kiss from Ethan Savage!
She had to find Alicia Denby.
And she would. She would think about how best to do that, and forget about Ethan Savage, his conflicts with his father, and the mysterious past with the woman Oliver Winthrop had referred to—the very mention of which had driven Ethan to violence.
She no longer cared!
Pacing like a lioness about her room, she drove his dark, intensely masculine image from her mind, banished the gentleness with which he’d carried her to the carriage, the passion with which he’d kissed her outside only a short while ago—drowning each memory and feeling in rising waves of cleansing anger.
Seizing the jewels and stuffing them back into the pouch, she replaced them in the bottom of the drawer and somehow managed to undress and fling herself into bed without allowing herself to reflect another moment upon the wild events of this night.
Each time a thought of Ethan Savage—of his words, his arousing touches or deep, wicked kisses—intruded into her mind, she flung it away.
She would make a fool of herself no more. And she’d steer clear of him all right. If that’s what he wanted, that’s exactly what he’d get.
She tensed when she heard him enter the adjoining bedchamber, but his footsteps came nowhere near her door.
And at last Josie drifted off to sleep, but it was a fitful, unhappy sleep, from which she awoke often. And when she did sleep she dreamed uneasy dreams—blurred, unnerving visions of Snake and Tiny and Pirate Pete creeping through her mind.
At one point she screamed, and bolted up, hugging herself in the darkened room, shivering in the cool rose-scented night air that floated through the open window. The silence hummed around her.
And as her heartbeat slowed and the blood stopped pounding through her head, she realized that she probably hadn’t screamed aloud at all. It was all a dream. Only a dream.
She’d been dreaming that Snake found her. He’d trapped her here in this very room, he’d demanded the stolen loot she’d run off with, and the jewels from the stagecoach robbery. And he’d jeered at her that she was going to pay for leaving him—and even more for stealing from him.
The merciless smile on his face had frozen her blood. And then, in her dream, he’d clenched his fists and his eyes had glittered with that vicious light she knew so well and he’d come at her...
Go back to sleep, she whispered to herself in the dark, as goose bumps prickled her flesh. Snake is far away in America. He has no idea where you are.
It was only a dream.
* * *
Sedalia, Missouri
Penny Callahan beamed across the table at Rose MacEwen as the two former dance hall girls chatted over lemonade in the gingham-curtained dining room of Grover’s Hotel.
“I’m so glad you left the Golden Pistol, too, Rose. It’s good you got away from Judd Stickley and th
at whole life. You’ll like it here in Sedalia, I just know you will.”
“I’ll like it better if I meet a handsome young farmer like you did,” Rose retorted, laughing. For the first time in years, her heart was filled with hope and happiness. It had only taken a letter from Penny telling her of her good fortune in having met and become engaged to Ben Winters to convince her to try her luck in a new place, starting a new life.
“It seems like Sedalia’s a real nice town,” Rose added, glancing out the window at the women bustling along the boardwalk with children in tow, at the sunny street crowded with wagons and horses and buggies.
“It is. Oh, it is, Rose. And you’ll meet Ben tonight. He’s bringing a neighbor along to have supper with us—this man’s a farmer like Ben. He has the nicest smile. And he wants to meet my pretty young friend from Kansas.”
“Thanks, Penny.” Rose shrugged, not wanting to appear too excited. But it would be wonderful to meet a man who only knew her as Rose’s friend, and not as a dance hall girl. Who knew what might happen?
“Don’t thank me. Thank Josie Cooper. If it hadn’t been for her, I’d still be trapped back at the Golden Pistol taking orders from Judd.”
The fair-haired man at the table behind that of the two women set his fork down on his plate of boiled mutton and went still as a stump.
“I know.” Her pixie face solemn, Rose leaned toward Penny. “I never met anyone like Jo before. She was always willing to go out on a limb for me, or for any one of us.”
“She gave me the last of her money so I could take the stage out of town and leave Judd before he knew what I was doing. If she hadn’t talked me into it and pushed the money on me, I never would have met my Ben, and Judd would still be... still be...”
Penny flushed at the memories of how she’d let Judd Stickley into her bed anytime he chose because she’d been too scared of losing her job to refuse him.
“And if you hadn’t gotten away, Penny, I never would have thought of leaving the Golden Pistol either,” Rose mused. She traced a finger around the rim of her glass. “But I sure hope Jo’s okay.”
The man at the table behind them waved away a waitress who tried to remove his nearly empty plate. His slate-blue eyes shone as he shifted forward in his chair, listening.
“When I heard she married that handsome gunman in Judge Collins’s study that night and hightailed it out of town with him, I nearly fainted,” Rose continued. She took another sip of lemonade. “The judge’s wife told Mrs. Lorrimer at Mason’s General Store that they were headed for New York City—and then London, England.” She shook her head in amazement. “Seems that gunfighter is some sort of English lord. The Earl of someplace.”
“Imagine our Jo married to an earl—that makes her almost a princess or something,” Penny exclaimed, her hazel eyes dancing.
“I just hope she’s happy. He was sure a handsome cuss, but Jo was trying to run away from him last I heard.” Slowly, Rose lifted worried eyes to Penny’s face.
“Want to know what I think? If Jo didn’t want to be with that hombre, she’d find some way to get away from him.” Penny nodded, aware that she wanted to believe that the friend who had helped her escape Judd Stickley was now as happy as she herself was. “She told me once about her husband—she was scared to death of him. Not that she would admit it—Jo’s not like that, you know. But I could tell by the look in her eyes when she talked about him.”
“I know. She told me she didn’t ever want another husband—and now, poor kid, she’s got herself one.”
“But maybe she’s loco in love with him. He could be rich. And you said he was handsome, didn’t you, Rose?”
“Terrible handsome.” Rose nodded emphatically.
“Then let’s drink to Josie,” Penny said, grinning. She lifted her glass of lemonade. “Let’s hope her new life is as wonderful as mine... and as yours is going to be, Rose.”
The women clinked glasses and giggled.
Behind them, the fair-haired man with the stubbly blond beard shoved back his chair and strode from the dining room.
He found Spooner, Deck, and Noah in the corner saloon and pulled himself up a chair. “Boys.” He grinned at the three of them. “I just had me a spell of powerful good luck. Seems I know where my bitch wife made off to.”
“Does that mean we’re going after her?” Deck tossed his cigar butt on the floor and ground it with his shabby booted heel. “We’re gonna get back all that loot and them jewels we took off that English lady?”
“Damn straight we are. We head out today.” Snake grinned at his cousin and reached for the bottle of whiskey in the center of the table.
“Well, all right!” Noah whooped. “Won’t little Josie be surprised?”
“Sure she will. And soon as I catch up with her, I’m gonna skin my little honey alive for thinking she could jest up and leave me like that. Yes, sir, I surely will.”
Snake’s ice-blue eyes lit with anticipation as he tilted the bottle back and drank. His rough-hewn handsome face glowed. Nobody crossed Snake Barker and got away with it. Especially not some uppity woman. And when he’d finished teaching his stupid slut of a wife a lesson for stealing from him and running off behind his back, why, that skinny little Josephine Cooper Barker would sure wish he’d just gone and killed her.
But Snake knew mere killing was too good for her.
“Uh, Snake?” Spooner broke into his reverie, his tone uneasy. “What about the big payroll coming through on the stage next week? We got the job all planned.”
“So?”
“So maybe we should just forget about Josie, leastways for a while, and stick to business. There’s gonna be a pile of money on that stage—”
“I don’t give a red-hot damn about that stage!” His face red with fury, Snake surged up from his chair, grabbing Spooner by the collar and yanking him forward across the table.
As several men in the saloon turned to stare at him, he froze, glaring at Spooner, then plopped back down and took a deep breath.
“I want my wife back, boys,” he rasped in a lowered tone, but one that left no doubt of his determination. “You hear? I want her—and everything she took from me. And I’m gonna get her. So boys, you and me are going on a little trip.”
“Where, Snake?” Deck asked eagerly, licking his thin lips with anticipation.
Snake gulped the last of the whiskey and wiped his mouth on his sleeve before he answered. The words danced from his tongue.
“England, boys. We’re goin’ to take us a boat to London, England.”
Fourteen
Josie tossed and turned all the rest of the night and awoke groggily to the song of birds in the garden. Her arm hurt the moment she sat up, and with the pain came a rush of memory.
“No, no, no,” she groaned, plopping back down among the pillows. It wasn’t only the nightmare of the robbery that made her close her eyes tight, but the memory of that scene with Ethan. She still smarted at the sting of his treatment of her. She wouldn’t ever let her guard down with him again, ever even consider reaching out to him as a friend—or anything else.
She ought to stay clear of him. She wanted to stay clear of him. Yet she found herself jumping out of bed immediately after entertaining this thought, and wondering if she would see him downstairs at breakfast.
With this in mind, she hurried through her toilette, selected a pretty floral muslin gown, and brushed her hair until it shone. It fell in gleaming waves, loose and luxurious, then she tamed it into a quick chignon before leaving her room to make her way through the long hall that led to the stairs. She wasn’t trying to impress Ethan Savage, she told herself, squaring her shoulders as her hand closed on the banister. Or even hoping to see him.
No, she just wanted to look her part, and that meant not going about this exquisite house like a ragamuffin. She had to look nice in order to play her role—the servants would certainly raise their brows if she came down in her old gingham, with her hair tangled like a mop. So she told herself as
she entered the dining room, her heart beating a bit faster as she anticipated seeing Ethan at the head of the long table.
But he wasn’t there. The dining room was empty, save for the dazzling bouquet of fresh-cut summer roses nestled in a crystal vase at the center of the table and the silver coffeepot and china cups set out on the sideboard.
“Oh, my lady—such a surprise.” Mrs. Fielding had been bustling toward the back hallway when she saw her new mistress from the corner of her eye. She hurried into the dining room after Josie, her arms full of fresh linen. “Never did I expect you would be awake and about so early—nor that you’d come down for your breakfast. His lordship gave specific orders that you were not to be disturbed for any reason, and that Devon should bring you a tray in bed. And indeed, my lady, after all that has happened—”
“You know about the robbery? Ethan told you?”
“Oh, yes, my lady.” The housekeeper clicked her tongue in dismay. “How horrid for you, and for everyone in that house. I won’t sleep a wink tonight thinking on it! His lordship went out a short time ago to see how Colonel Hamring fares this morning. Dear me, what a sweet boy he is—Lord Stonecliff, I mean.” She blushed and shifted the linen in her arms. “I beg your pardon, but I can’t help feeling pride at what a fine man our young master has turned out to be. Seems like only yesterday he was a wee child, and now he’s a grown man—and such a strong, handsome man at that.”
Yes, and a cynical, irritating one as well. Josie slanted a glance at the housekeeper as she poured herself coffee at the sideboard. “It’s difficult for me to imagine my husband as a sweet boy, Mrs. Fielding. But since you knew him in those days, I’ll take your word for it.”
“Oh, yes, indeed, my lady. He was ever one to be asking questions, mind you, and loved to tag about with the gamekeepers and the gardeners and the grooms, especially Ham, I recall—but never was there a kinder, more thoughtful child.... Well, now, listen to me running on.” She shook her head and smiled apologetically as her mistress took a thoughtful sip of coffee. “It’s good to have him back, that’s all I’m meaning to say. After that last to-do he had with the old earl, I never thought to see Master Ethan on our good English soil again. But one never knows how things are going to turn out now, does one?”