Taming Eliza Jane (Gardiner, Texas Book 1)

by Shannon Stacey

  “So, how’s that women’s libber of yours?” Adam asked. “Sounded like she was feeling poorly last night.”

  Will took a swig of coffee trying to wake himself up. “She’s feeling better.”

  “Cured her of what ails her, did you?” Adam had a gleam in his dark eyes that told Will not to bother trying to fool him for a second.

  “I don’t give information on my patients,” he said. “And I expect the sheriff to show the same discretion, as well.”

  Adam snorted. “Hell, the last thing I need is for Lucy Barnes to have another reason to whack me with that Bible of hers.”

  Will stabbed his fork into his eggs, but didn’t raise it to his mouth. “I don’t know what to do about Eliza Jane.”

  The sheriff had no such problems with his appetite, but at least he had the good grace to swallow before saying, “You should have just let me shoot her right off. Now it’s too late because I figure it’s wrong to shoot your friend’s woman.”

  “Probably.” Will swallowed down more coffee, pondering what the hell he was supposed to do about the woman.

  It turned out she wasn’t one of those itches a man could scratch once and be done with. Wanting her was a persistent itch he could feel growing under his skin again already, even as exhausted as he was.

  “Don’t moon over the girl while I’m eating,” Adam said. “You’ll give me a sour stomach.”

  “I’m not mooning. I’m considering.”

  “Considering what?” Adam waved his fork at him. “You know what you should do? You should marry her.”

  Well if that just wasn’t the most damn fool thing he’d ever heard. Mostly. “I never pegged you as a man who’d preach wedded bliss, Adam.”

  “Oh hell, not for me. And I doubt there’d be much bliss for the man married to that woman.”

  Oh, if he only knew. Bliss didn’t even begin to describe what Eliza Jane made him feel. Of course, there was a lot more to marriage than lovemaking, but it was one hell of a good start.

  “But,” Adam continued, “it would go a long way toward appeasing the Bible Brigade.”

  “I ain’t swearing til death do us part to a woman so Lucy Barnes will stop pestering you about her. And you know you aren’t getting a lick of peace from that woman until you marry her daughter, anyway.”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “You’re the one who brought up marriage.”

  “For you and that women’s libber.” Adam pushed his empty plate to the side and reached across the table for Will’s untouched plate. He let it go without a fight, but snagged the sheriff’s almost full coffee cup. “What’s she going to do now?”

  “Keep hunting for job, I reckon.”

  “Ain’t nobody gonna hire her, Doc. Best thing that woman can do is borow the traveling money she needs to go home.”

  Will only shrugged, but privately he didn’t think that was at all the best thing for Eliza Jane.

  Eliza Jane stood at the window of her hotel room, watching Will and the sheriff leave the restaurant. She couldn’t hold back the girlish smile that bloomed when Will looked up at her window. She didn’t think he could see her through the lacy curtain, but she got a little thrill from the fact he’d looked up. That meant he was thinking about her.

  The two men stood talking for a few minutes. Even though there had been a note from Miss Adele under her door when she woke telling her to report to the dressmaker’s shop at ten o’clock, she let herself linger.

  They were both incredibly handsome men, but Adam Caldwell didn’t cause her stomach to somersault the way looking at Will did. She felt like a silly young girl again as watched the man who’d treated her as anything but the night before talk to his friend.

  Then they went their separate, but not before Will looked up at her window again. This time, though, he grinned and tipped his hat, and she knew she’d been caught.

  She laughed and turned away from the window to prepare for the day. Maybe being stranded in Gardiner a little longer wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

  8

  Four days later…

  Will leaned against the outside of the Mercantile, sucking on a piece of penny candy and watching Eliza Jane drag a bale of hay across the livery corral. Adam also held up a section of wall, sucking another piece of candy he’d filched from Will’s bag.

  He had to admit Eliza Jane had gumption. It was hard, hot work for anybody, least of all a woman. But she was slowly getting the bale to the trough where the horses stood waiting. Adam’s ugly-as-sin gelding stood slightly apart, watching the woman with an impatient, grumpy expression that matched his owner’s.

  Will’s patience finally paid off when Eliza Jane paused once again to stretch. She placed her hands on the small of her back and arched her body, which caused her breasts to thrust forward in a most attractive manner.

  “You better not be looking at her bosom,” he muttered to Adam.

  “Doc, you and I been friends a long time, but you can bet your ass I’m looking at that bosom. You’re a lucky man.”

  He thought so, too. “She shouldn’t be working at the livery stable. It’s no job for a woman.”

  “What I want to know is how she got the job in the first place. Last I heard Johnny Barnes had threatened to steal my thunder and shoot her before I could. And even though old man Digger still owns the place, Johnny pretty much runs it.”

  Will reached into his bag for another piece of candy. If he and Adam stood around much longer there’d be none left for his young patients. “Eliza Jane had a private talk with Melinda and she went on home to her family. And don’t tell nobody, but Miss Adele’s called in a few favors on her behalf.”

  Eliza Jane went back to dragging the hay bale, much to their disappointment.

  “It doesn’t surprise me none that women would cotton to a women’s libber,” Adam said. “But what the hell kind of favor could the dressmaker owe a whore?”

  Will shrugged. Eliza Jane had lasted less than a day working for the dressmaker. After she’d miscut a yard of overpriced fabric, and then stuck herself and bled all over a length of tacked lace, the dressmaker’s wife herself had sent a note to Miss Adele and told her she already knew the secret the madam was holding over her husband’s head and the women’s libber was done making dresses.

  She’d gone through a few other businesses as well before winding up at the livery stable, doing a man’s job.

  Eliza Jane stretched again, and again conversation lagged while they watched her. She was going to be sore as hell come the end of the day. Will supposed as the town’s doctor, it was his sworn duty to massage those aching muscles for her.

  While in her bed.

  Naked.

  “You need to put a stop to this,” Adam said, jerking him out of his thoughts of impending medical treatment.

  “I tried my damndest to talk her out of it this morning, but she’s determined to set an example for the women in this town. Wants to prove she can fend for herself in a man’s world. If I interfere she’ll hate me for it.”

  “How much money you reckon that Whittemore fellow took off with? I could ride out of here for a while, then ride back in and tell her I got her money back.”

  Will shifted his weight back and forth on his feet, feeling like a yellow-bellied snake. “I considered that, but we don’t know know how much he took. Plus, then she’d have all the money she needed.”

  The sheriff slanted him a sideways look. “She’d have enough to hightail it out of here, you mean.”

  Hellfire. “I don’t want to watch her breaking her back for short pay, but I don’t want her to get on the next stage out of here, either.”

  Adam held out his hand for another piece of penny candy. “She’ll either stay here for you or she won’t, Doc.”

  “I just need a little more time.”

  Would there ever be enough time? A woman like Eliza Jane might never be happy in a place like Gardiner. And what the hell did he have to offer her but what
she’d devoted her life to fighting against?

  And he was trying his damndest to be sensible, too. The fact she managed to tie him into knots and made him feel about ten feet tall in bed didn’t mean he was feeling the kind of love that would make him want Eliza Jane forever. But he certainly did want her right now.

  “I tried to talk her into working for me,” Will said to fill the silence. “But she knows my money’s old family money, not pay for doctoring, and she figures I only told her I needed an assistant to hide my charitable intentions.”

  “Did she try Margeurite over at the restaurant?”

  “Seems she doesn’t cook any better than she sews.”

  Adam snorted. “How the hell did she ever get herself a husband?”

  “Financial arrangement between her father and him, I reckon. It sure as hell wasn’t her domestic skills.” The man hadn’t deserved her, though, no matter how he’d gotten her.

  “Why didn’t that madam of yours find her a place at the Coop?”

  Will almost choked on his penny candy. “Like hell.”

  “Not on her back, jackass. Like as a housekeeper or the person who keeps all that frilly stuff they wear washed.”

  “Working in a whorehouse—in any capacity—isn’t for a woman like Eliza Jane.”

  Adam waved a hand at her as she tried to hoist the bale into the trough. “And that is? Why don’t you just marry her and be done with it?”

  “She’s like a skittish, unbroken filly. You can’t start out by just throwing a saddle on her and expect her not to buck you off.”

  Adam grunted. “You’d be better off just getting yourself a nice, docile mare already broke to the bit.”

  Will was mighty glad Eliza Jane couldn’t hear them comparing women to horses or she’d have slapped both their faces. But the truth was, he didn’t know what he wanted. Who was to say he and a woman like Eliza Jane could make a life together? About the only thing he did know was that he didn’t want her skedaddling out of town before they even had a chance to find out.

  Finally, she cut the twine and the bale of hay collapsed into the trough. Her face was red with exertion and sweat glimmered on her skin, but she smiled when she finally noticed him watching. The sleeves of her white blouse were folded to her elbows and she wiped her forehead with the back of her arm before giving him a wave. The she clapped her leather-clad hands together and started back toward the stable.

  Well, hell. She looked pretty damn proud of herself. Sure, she’d be a hurting lady later, but right now even a blind man couldn’t miss the glow of satisfaction under all that sweat.

  “If I interfere with her doing her job,” he said to Adam, “it’s as good as saying I have no respect for her. Considering she already has a fairly low opinion of men in general, I reckon she wouldn’t take too kindly to that.”

  “Well, if she’s going to be doing this every day, we’re going to need more penny candy.”

  Eliza Jane had made a point of telling everybody she saw the sheriff’s horse had stepped on her foot and the pain had grown to be almost more than she could bear. She’d even practiced her fake limp, taking special care to always favor the same foot.

  Only when she was confident she’d given enough people a logical explanation for her visiting the doctor after dark did she step into Will’s office. They locked the door, left the office lit and crept up the back stairs to make love in his bed by the moonlight.

  Their lovemaking was an experience that took her breath away. He liked to explore her body, all the while watching her closely to judge what she liked best.

  She liked it all. Will had deft fingers which easily found just the right spots to make her sigh or squirm or even scream into his pillow. He liked to run his fingers though her hair and then tickle her breasts with the strands. She didn’t there was an inch of her body he hadn’t touched and stroked, even tasted.

  Not that she didn’t do her share of exploring, as well. She’d discovered his nipples were as sensitive as her own, and that he absolutely hated having his feet touched. Using her teeth to nip at his earlobes drove him wild to the point his hips would lift off the bed, and kisses to the small of his back always made him moan.

  Tonight he’d offered to knead her sore muscles, and he had—before moving on to muscles that were really sore at all. Now she was sprawled naked on her back, but she lifted her head to look down at Will.

  “I love this little freckle right here,” he said, pressing a kiss to the inside of her thigh. Then his lips moved a little higher. “And this one.”

  Eliza Jane laughed and tried to pull her leg away. “I only have one there.”

  He held tight, and his next kiss made her suck in a breath. “Hush. I’m using my imagination.”

  It was a while before she could think straight again, and by then she was panting and covered in a fine sheen of sweat.

  “Oh my,” she whispered.

  He kissed her stomach before moving his body up hers. “You are such a wanton woman,” he told her just the full length of him slid easily inside of her.

  Eliza Jane arched her back, her arms looping around his neck. “That’s your fault, you know. I didn’t use to be.”

  He raised himself onto his forearms so he could look down into her face. She knew he liked to watch her when the pleasure overtook her, even if she closed her eyes.

  “No, darlin’. You’ve always been a passionate woman. I was just the lucky man who discovered it.”

  But as his thrusts quicked and her eyes slid closed, she knew he was wrong. Will hadn’t discovered her passion. He’d awakened it, and she gave it all to him now, losing herself in him as he took them over the edge together.

  After a few minutes, with her work-sore muscles soothed by his touch and the languid aftermath of pleasure, she snuggled into his embrace. “Tell me how a doctor from the finest medical school in the country ended up in a town like this.”

  “Believe it or not, darlin’, I come from a long line of rich doctors. After Harvard, I had myself a private practice treating the cream of Virginia society. Then war was declared. Between volunteering to do my part and, in the eyes of most, volunteering for the wrong side, I gave that up.”

  “I’m sure your fellow Virginians weren’t very forgiving after the war ended.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. I came out of the Union hospital tents tired of blood and suffering. I wandered out west—broke horses, tended bar, whatever came along. Then one day I drifted into Gardiner and found scarlet fever. I dusted off my bag and never got around to leaving.”

  It wasn’t quite as simple as that. She could hear it in his voice. “You actually like it here, don’t you?”

  “This is home, darlin’, and these are good people. They ain’t all quite right in the head, and Adam and Lucy are downright scary, but they’re good people.” He yawned and pulled her even closer.

  This was where sneaking around became problematic. He wanted to hold her close and go to sleep. But, while she liked the holding close part, she couldn’t stay. So she kept talking.

  “You don’t sounds like a man with a degree from Harvard Medical School, you know. You sound like you were born and raised here in Gardiner.”

  He gave a little laugh. “”I’m a southern boy by birth anyway, so it didn’t take long for all that proper grammar to fade away. And folks are more comfortable talking to somebody who sounds like them.”

  “So you did it on purpose?”

  “For a while. Now it’s just who I am.”

  Eliza Jane propped herself up on her elbow so she could gaze down at him. “I like who you are.”

  “It suits me.” He reached up to play with a strand of her hair. “You suit me.”

  “I suit you in bed,” she said, planting a light kiss on his mouth. “I suit you far less when I’m fully clothed.”

  When he didn’t answer right away, Eliza Jane got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew he enjoyed her body far more than her mind but, despite her
teasing, she didn’t want him to admit it out loud.

  “You do cause a mite bit more trouble with your clothes on,” Will finally said, “but if it was only a matter of being naked, a quick trip to the Chicken Coop would be a sight easier than sneaking around with you, darlin’.”

  That was sweet in a roundabout sort of way, so she kissed him again. Then, despite knowing it wasn’t the best time or place for it, she asked the question that had been on her mind a lot lately. “Why aren’t you married, Will?”

  “That sure would make our current relationship a lot more complicated, now wouldn’t it?

  “I’m serious,” she said, resting her head on his chest again. “Have you ever had a wife?”

  “Nope. It takes a special kind of woman to be a doctor’s wife, and I guess I never found her.”

  She knew she shouldn’t ask, but then again, she shouldn’t be lying naked in the man’s bed, either. “How is a doctor’s wife special?”

  “Well, a doctor doesn’t work set hours. His wife has to be willing to make him a hot supper at two in the morning if that’s when he’s finished with a childbirthing or nursing an ill patient. Sometimes the laundry ain’t especially pretty, and the office and the exam room have to be kept very clean. And more than one doctor’s had to leave a Christmas celebration to tend to somebody. And his wife has to be willing to bear all that without complaint.”

  “I guess I’m the opposite of everything a doctor’s wife has to be.”

  He was silent for a few seconds, then he said quietly, “Yeah, you are, darlin’.”

  It shouldn’t have bothered her to hear it. She’d asked nothing of Will, after all, and he’d made her no promises. She didn’t even want those kinds of promises, having had them broken so painfully before. It still made her ache just a little, though, knowing deep down she didn’t suit him all that well after all.

  “But then again,” Will continued, “a doctor ain’t usually a lawman, either, so neither one of us is typical.”