Spirit of Love

by Duncan, Alice

  After a moment or two Ash said “Here comes your Sir Galahad.”

  Her Sir Galahad? Georgina squinted at Ash, wondering what he was talking about and why he was sounding as sour as month-old milk. Then she saw Payton Pierce, skirting the dancers, heading for her with two glasses of lemonade in his hands. One of them, she presumed, was for him. She hoped Pierce wouldn’t offer it to the sheriff because then he’d have to go back and get another one for himself, and she’d be alone with Ash again, waiting for him to strike. Conversing with him was like socializing with a cobra.

  Thank God Pierce didn’t do anything so foolish as offer the sheriff one of the glasses. He did give Ash an unfriendly look, then he smiled at Georgina. “Here you are, Miss Witherspoon. Sorry it took so long. They had to refill the bowl.”

  She smiled one of her best, most gracious smiles and decided to bat her eyelashes flirtatiously, hoping to aggravate the sheriff. “Thank you so much, Mr. Pierce.”

  “I already gave her some lemonade, Pierce.” Ash’s voice was hard and cold.

  Georgina snapped, “Yes, but I do appreciate Mr. Pierce’s thoughtfulness. Very much.”

  Ash said, “Humph.”

  Pierce said, “Would you care to go outside to cool off for a moment, Miss Witherspoon? It’s awfully crowded and warm in here.” He cast a murderous scowl at the sheriff. Ash humphed again.

  Relief! Thank heaven. Georgina arose abruptly. “Thank you so much, Mr. Pierce. I should love to go outside to cool off.”

  She snapped her fan open and fanned herself furiously to prove it, looked down at Ash, and gave him one of her most superior expressions. She hoped he’d choke on, it. “Thank you ever so much for the lemonade, Mr. Barrett.” Then she turned, took Payton Pierce’s arm, and walked away without a backward glance.

  They visited the cloak rack first so Georgina could fetch her lightweight wrap. Mr. Pierce said he didn’t want her to catch a chill, which she thought was sweet. When he helped her on with it, his hands seemed to linger on her shoulders a trifle longer than was necessary, but she chalked that up to his being a solicitous host.

  The night air was cool, but not cold, and there was no wind to speak of which was a mercy. Georgina had forgotten about her hair, and she didn’t fancy it getting blown to smithereens just because she wanted to escape from Ash Barrett.

  “My goodness, Mr. Pierce, ‘but the stars look so close out here. Back home in the city, one can hardly see the stars for all the other lights.”

  “Come over here, and you’ll be able to see the stars better.”

  Georgina allowed him to take her hand so that he could lead her around the building.

  “Watch your step. It’s very dark out here.”

  “It certainly is.” Was he leading her to the churchyard? Yes, he was. Well, this was interesting. Georgina had never had a man show her a churchyard before. Not that he could really show her this one, since the night was pitch black. She bumped her dancing slipper against a headstone and stifled an ungenteel epithet.

  “Here,” Pierce said. “Now you can have an unrestricted view of the heavens.”

  Georgina shot a suspicious glance at Pierce, wondering what he was up to. She supposed the view was unrestricted—but the view had never been obstructed to begin with. For goodness sake, there weren’t any tall buildings to speak of. Or many trees, unless you went out of town to a farm or something. However, the last thing she wanted was to fight with Pierce and hence, she decided not to point out the obvious. She had done quite enough of that lately with Ash.

  “Yes. The sky looks ever so much larger out here in the territory than it does back home, where there are huge buildings blocking it everywhere one looks.”

  “Are you enjoying your visit to Picacho Wells, Miss Witherspoon?”

  Without even stopping to consider his question, Georgina said, “Oh, my, yes.” She loved Picacho Wells, in fact.

  “I imagine it’s not as noisy here as it is in the big city, either.”

  “No, it certainly isn’t.” She laughed with genuine amusement. She’d never experienced silence as an entity before she visited her grandmother. But silence was as much a part of life out here as creosote bushes and coyotes. Georgina could easily imagine going mad with the silence if left alone for too long.

  She didn’t say so because she didn’t want her opinion to get back to Ash and be used against her somehow. But it was true. Some of the ranches in the area were as much as fifty or a hundred miles away from any sort of community. Why, anything could happen and nobody would ever know. This was a dangerous, beautiful, and wonderful place, and she adored it.

  Pierce sighed loudly, interrupting Georgina’s reverie. “Here, Miss Witherspoon. Let me show you something else.” Something else? In a graveyard? Oh well, who was she to refuse an adventure? Georgina allowed herself to be led to a largish monument that gleamed under the starshine. “It’s, uh, very, uh ... nice,” she said, at a complete loss for something to say. For the life of her, Georgina could not understand why Pierce was showing her the enormous gravestone.

  “That’s mine.”

  She stared at the monument, then turned and stared at Payton Pierce. Unfortunately she was unable to read his expression as his face was hidden by the darkness. “Yours?” Whatever was the man talking about?

  “Yes. I believed it would be prudent to arrange for my final resting place. I believe in thinking ahead.”

  “Ah. I see. – He could call it prudence if he wanted to. Georgina thought it was morbid.

  “Yes. I believe a man has to accept his responsibilities and act in a dependable and trustworthy manner.”

  “That’s a wise philosophy, Mr. Pierce.”

  “Do you think so?”

  Did she think so? Why in gracious did he think she’d said it? “I certainly do.”

  “The sky is beautiful tonight, isn’t it, Miss Witherspoon?”

  His voice had an taken on an odd texture, as if he had lowered it and was trying to sound seductive. Oh, fiddlesticks, he wasn’t going to try to kiss her, was he? Georgina refrained from saying something biting. “Yes, it certainly is.”

  “Almost as beautiful as you are, Georgina.”

  Georgina? How dare he? She hadn’t given him leave to call her Georgina! She held her temper and her tongue, but backed away from him all the same. While Georgina didn’t mistrust bankers the way some people did—after all, her father was a banker, and he was imminently trustworthy and respectable—still and all, she did not trust Pierce. She said, “Thank you,” in a tone she hoped was repressive.

  Pierce failed to take her hint and instead, reached out and grabbed her arm. “Georgina!” His voice was deep, and it throbbed. Georgina considered this a very bad sign.

  “Please let me go, Mr. Pierce. Your fingers are too tight on my arm.” She pulled. He pulled. She frowned into the darkness.

  “Georgina, you’re so lovely.” He clamped his free hand on her other arm.

  “If you please, Mr. Pierce. Release my arms. You’re crushing my lace.”

  “Call me Payton.”

  “No, thank you.”

  He hauled her against his chest and tried to kiss her but he turned her face away. He got her ear.

  “You’re so lovely.” His voice had deepened to the point that he was nearly growling at her.

  She yanked on her arms, trying to escape his pythonesque embrace. “Thank you. Unhand me, if you please. And don’t call me Georgina

  “But—”

  “No! Let me go!”

  “But I’m overcome with admiration for you.”

  Through gritted teeth, Georgina said, “If you admire me so much, do as I request!”

  “But my passion for you is so—Ow!”

  Her slippers weren’t designed for kicking, but Georgina put a lot of force behind the one she aimed at his shin and hoped it would hurt like the dickens. She stabbed him in the stomach with her folded fan next.

  He said “Grmph!” and dropped her arms to crumple fo
rward and clutch his stomach. Georgina felt triumphant. She aimed another whack on his head with her fan. Since her toes hurt from the first kick, she decided not to kick him again unless it proved necessary.

  He said, “Ow!”

  “What the hell are you doing to Miss Witherspoon, Pierce?”

  Ash appeared at that moment holding up a lantern, glaring at Pierce with such intensity that Georgina drew away from him. She shook her head, thinking that she didn’t need this.

  “He’s not doing anything to me,” she said irked. Not any longer, he wasn’t. He was too busy bending over and clutching his stomach with one hand and holding his head with the other. Georgina didn’t say so, but she was pleased to see her handiwork. She’d done all right, especially for a female. While Georgina had never considered herself revolutionary in any way, and had never even thought about fighting for women’s rights, living in the territory had evidently shoved her in that direction. Not for the first time, she resented Ash Barrett butting in and telling her what to do. She wanted to take care of Payton Pierce herself and didn’t care to receive any help.

  “What had he been doing?”

  “That’s none of your business, Mr. Barrett.” She was very angry with both of these men, Pierce for trying to take advantage of her, and the sheriff for thinking she couldn’t see to her own welfare

  Ash loomed from behind the glow of the lantern like an avenging angel. Or an avenging desperado. Something bent upon vengeance anyway. Georgina sighed, exasperated.

  “Nothing is the matter, Mr. Barrett. We went outside to take the air.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  By the light of the moon and the stars and the lantern, Georgina managed to glimpse Ash set the lantern down on a tombstone and grab Payton Pierce by the collar of his formal evening coat. Pierce let out with a squeal that didn’t sound even faintly masculine. Then Ash slammed Pierce’s jaw with his fist, and Pierce went sailing over backward and landed on the base of his own monument.

  Georgina thought his landing place rather appropriate, but she didn’t approve of men heating up on other men, particularly when the other man had no muscles and couldn’t defend himself. “Stop it this instant, Mr. Barrett!”

  “Confound it, he was mauling you!”

  “He was not!”

  “Noooooo!” said Pierce.

  Ash grabbed the front of Pierce’s coat this time and dragged him off of the monument. “You bastard. No one treats a lady like that in my town.”

  His town? For heaven’s sake. Georgina was not amused. “Stop yelling, Mr. Barrett. If you’ll let the poor fellow catch his breath...”

  She might as well have saved hers, because Ash wasn’t listening. Instead of doing as she’d asked, he punched Pierce again, hard, on the jaw. Georgina heard an awful crunching sound and a bellow of pain, although she wasn’t sure which man had bellowed.

  The sheriff began shaking his hand as if he’d hurt himself, and poor Mr. Pierce crumpled up on the ground. Ash reached down to grab his fallen foe again, and Georgina decided things had gotten completely out of control.

  “Stop it!” she shrieked at Ash.

  “Dammit, I won’t have him pawing you!”

  “I can take care of myself!”

  “The hell you can! You’re a woman, for God’s sake!”

  Ash had reached his arm back, fist bunched, preparing, Georgina presumed, to strike Pierce on the jaw again. She grabbed Ash’s arm in both of her hands and leaped forward with all of her weight behind the movement.

  His arm dropped under the weight of her body, and he hollered, “Hey! What the hell are you doing?”

  “Preventing you from committing murder!”

  He shook her off as if she weighed no more than a feather.

  “I’m not murdering him! I’m teaching him a lesson!”

  “Noooooooo,” cried Pierce once more.

  “Stop it this second, you brute!”

  “I’m not a brute!” Ash leaned over to grab a piece of Pierce’s clothing and yank him to his feet. Georgina kicked the back of Ash’s knee, and his leg folded up. He was barely able to stop himself from falling on top of Pierce. “Hey!”

  She belted him then with her own fist, on his back, and followed up with a crack from her fan.

  “Ow! What the hell are you doing?”

  “Stopping you from hurting that poor man!”

  “That poor man?” Ash stared at her, confounded.

  “Yes!” she screamed.

  “What are you yelling at me for? You ought to thank me for rescuing you!”

  “I didn’t need to be rescued! Not by you or anyone else! And I certainly don’t recall ever asking you for your help!”

  “The hell you didn’t!”

  As much as she’d always expected to be taken care of by men, Georgina was at present in no mood to appreciate the sheriff’s chivalry. She was furious. First Pierce had managed to get her alone outside—because she was trying to escape from the sheriff—and now Ash, was trying to kill him for getting her alone outside.

  In that moment, Georgina finally understood what the suffragists were talking about, what they were fighting for. In that moment, in fact, she became a positive revolutionary. She considered all men worse than fools and knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that women would do a much better job of uniting the world than idiot men.

  She folded her hands into fists and went at Ash again, this time aiming for his chest, since that’s what she could, reach. He blinked down at her as if she were a raving lunatic, which made her even madder than she already was.

  “You drive me crazy!”

  He grabbed her wrists. “I drive you crazy?”

  “Yes!”

  “What the hell do you think you do to me?”

  “Don’t you dare use profanity at me, you horrible, ghastly man!” She managed to wrench one of her wrists free from his grip, although it hurt to do so, and used it to punch him in the stomach.

  “Ooof! Confound it, that hurt!”

  “Good! I’m glad it hurt, you vicious fiend! You’re supposed to be the sheriff here! You’re supposed to, uphold the law! You’re not supposed to go around beating up on weaklings!”

  “Weaklings?” It was a gasp, and it came from Pierce, who had managed to struggle to his feet, although he still swayed some.

  “Yes!” Georgina, beyond diplomacy, turned her head to glare at him. “You stay out of this! This is all your fault!”

  “But—”

  Ash muttered, “Oh, shut up, Pierce.” He had managed to get Georgina’s loose wrist under control again, and he held her at arm’s length, trying to dodge the kicks she was aiming at his shins.

  “But...” Pierce tugged his suit coat down and bent to dust off his trousers. He looked troubled. His expression exasperated Georgina.

  “Oh, go away, you fool! If you weren’t such a sneaky, conniving thing, this never would have happened to begin with.”

  “Sneaky? Me? Conniving?”

  “Get the hell out of here, Pierce, before I turn this woman loose and she attacks you again.”

  “I’m not going to attack him, you monster! You’re the one who tried to kill him! I’m not trying to kill anybody!”

  “You could have fooled me,” Ash grumbled.

  Georgina registered the fact that Payton Pierce had begun backing away from the two of them. She was glad to see him go, because she was nowhere close to being done screaming at Ash, and she didn’t fancy having an audience.

  “Anybody could fool you!” she cried in response. “You’re the biggest numskull I’ve ever met in my life. You’re mean and awful and say terrible things to people! And about them!”

  “This is stupid.”

  “It is not!” She got him a good one on the shin, and he tried to turn her around so her feet were heading in the opposite direction from his own personal limbs, but had no luck.

  “You’re just mad because I caught you in the graveyard being mauled by the banker.”

/>   “I wasn’t being mauled!”

  “Looked like it to me.”

  “Rubbish! I was defending myself from untoward advances, until you came along!”

  “What’s the difference between untoward advances and being mauled?”

  “There’s a world of difference! A universe!”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  Georgina was just beginning to feel good about how she was faring in this war of words she was waging with Ash Barrett when he pulled the lowest stunt of their entire relationship thus far.

  He hauled her to his chest, pinned her arms at her back, and kissed her.

  Chapter Eight

  Lord, Lord, what had he done?

  Ash, whose base male instincts responded instantly to the closeness of Georgina’s body, maintained sufficient mental resources to ask the question of himself before his masculine needs overwhelmed his common sense, and caution flew out the window.

  She fit into his embrace as if she’d been made for it. She was soft as eiderdown. And she smelled so sweet. And the way she melted against him was about as delectable as anything he’d ever experienced.

  Her little fists battered against his back for about three seconds, then she sighed, her lips relaxed beneath his tender assault, and she started kissing him back. Her hands unclenched, and she began running them up and down his back, feeling his body, probing, as if she wanted to feel every inch of him. He knew exactly how she felt, because he felt the same way about her.

  Blast it, Ash wished respectable ladies didn’t have to wear so much whalebone. He wanted to feel her body against his—every precious inch of it. Not just a thigh here and a breast there. He wanted to feel the whole, gorgeous package. Naked.

  He outlined her lips with his tongue, and then trailed kisses down her chin to her throat, where he pressed his tongue against the base and felt her pulse pounding against the delicate skin. She wanted him, Ash thought to himself. Sweet Lord have mercy, she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  “Oh, my.” The words were tiny, and they came out in a breathy whisper that did something strange to Ash’s senses.