He’d managed to suppress his unruly tingle and was in an unmitigated foul mood when he rode Shiloh down the path through the pecan trees to the Murphy ranch. At least his head had stopped aching. If they served anything more exciting than boiled chicken for dinner, though, he might not survive.
Luck was with him, at least regarding the food. Vernice had fricasseed a couple of chickens, and the Murphy ladies served them up with dumplings, carrots, and potatoes. Ash managed to survive the meal, and even eat a piece of spice cake for dessert.
“Would you care for more coffee, Sheriff?” Vernice was smiling at him as if he were the most wonderful human being in the universe. Ash appreciated Vernice a lot that afternoon.
Every time he glanced at. Georgina, she looked as if she were hoping he’d turn around so she could stab him in the back with the carving knife.
“Thank you, Miss Vernice. This was a delicious meal.” Miss Vernice’s niece, needless to say, hadn’t spoken a word to him all during the meal, except for a few stiff “thank yous” and an “I beg your pardon.” She wasn’t being rude. She just wasn’t very friendly. Well, he wasn’t friendly with her, either. In spite of the state of his health, her proximity disturbed him in a way that had nothing to do with his hangover. Confound it, what was the matter with him, anyway? He should be able to resist an attractive member of the opposite sex with no trouble at all—especially a worthless city girl. That’s what Phoebe had been, and he’d learned the hard way what worthless city girls were like.
With Georgina so close and all, he refused to acknowledge her attempts to overcome her city roots and to fit in here in the territory. Since she was within touching distance, he didn’t want to like her at all, much less respect her. Hell, if he began respecting her, there was no telling where his lust would lead him, but he expected it would be somewhere perilously close to disaster. He’d been down that road once, by accident. He wasn’t about to head down it again on purpose.
From the way she glowered at him, he guessed he wouldn’t have too much trouble resisting her. Even if his own base, lustful nature overpowered him, she didn’t look like she wanted to be kissed let alone touched by him at all.
Ash sighed heavily. Shoot, he didn’t want to do this. He forced himself to smile at Georgina. Politely. He was going, to be polite if it killed him “Would you care to go out back by the barn and practice shooting, Miss Witherspoon?”
By the way she eyed him—cold and hard and hateful—he guessed she wouldn’t care to do any such thing. “Yes, thank you Mr. Barrett.” Chipped from stone, is what those words were. And she threw them at his head as if it were the enemy and they were weapons.
Ash sighed again. “Fine. Let’s take your grandmother’s derringer, then, and get started. The ability to shoot a gun is one a lady often needs out here.”
“Yes. Grandmother Murphy told me as much. She said a derringer is a fine weapon to use on a man who tries to get too forward in his attentions.” Now she was trying to bludgeon him with her words.
Ash wished he’d stop thinking such things. Hell’s bells, he wasn’t a fanciful man. These images must be another byproduct of his hangover. He’d never get drunk again as long as he lived, no matter how many Georgina Witherspoons he fondled and then couldn’t take to bed—perish the thought.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
She ripped off her apron, slapped it over the back of a chair, snatched a shawl from a hook by the backdoor, and stomped outside. Ash stomped after her then had to turn around, stomp back inside, and take the derringer from Maybelle’s hand. Her wicked cackle followed him back outside again.
Chapter Ten
“No, dammit, don’t close your eyes!”
“Stop swearing at me!”
If Ash Barrett touched her again, Georgina wasn’t sure she could bear up under the strain of it. Every time he stood behind her and put his arms around her to guide her aim, she wanted to drop the blasted gun, turn into his embrace, and kiss him silly.
This was awful. Her temper had frayed to such a degree that she was about to lose it entirely and begin screaming.
“I’ll stop swearing at you when you stop closing your eyes when you pull the trigger. How the hell can you aim if you close your eyes every time you shoot?”
“If someone’s close enough for this gun to work on him, I won’t have to aim!”
“Dammit, that’s not the point!”
“Stop swearing at me!”
“Dammit!”
Ash let his arms drop from her shoulders—thank God—and stormed away from her. When he got as far as the cottonwood tree beside the barn, he slammed his fist against it, dislodging a shower of fluffy white cotton, and turned around to glare at her. “What the hell kind of logic is that?”
She sniffed and lifted her chin. She’d been lifting her chin a good deal today. “It’s perfectly good logic.”
“It is not. It’s stupid. Just because the thing’s called a belly gun doesn’t mean it isn’t useful if you’re standing a few feet away from someone.”
“Oh?” Georgina had a feeling she was being ridiculous about this whole gun thing, but her nerves were in tatters, and she couldn’t seem to help herself. “Then why do they call it a belly gun?”
“Because it’s good close up, too.” If he gnashed his teeth any harder, they’d begin to shave down. He went on, “You can keep from getting into a desperate situation in the first place if you use the threat of a shot in the gut to hold a man off.”
Loath to admit that Ash was, in fact, right in this situation, Georgina tossed her head and muttered out “I suppose so.”
“You suppose so.” Ash lifted a hand and passed it over his face, as if he were trying to smooth out the lines of frustration.
Georgina felt a teeny-weeny pinch of repentance for being such a poor student. But if he had to teach her how to shoot a gun, why in the name of mercy did he have to put his arms around her to do it? It was too distracting to have his arms around her. She liked the sensation altogether more than she should. When he had his arms around her, she felt safe. Protected. Warm and comfortable. She wanted to curl up in his arms and cuddle there forever while he touched her body the way he had yesterday evening at the dance.
Good heavens, this would never do. She sucked in a lungful of air and let it out in a gust “I beg your pardon, Mr. Barrett. I shall try to keep my eyes open and aim properly.”
He stared at her, his eyebrows drawn down into a ferocious frown. “You mean it?”
She resented his asking and almost told him so. Knowing she’d only start another argument if she did, she took another deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, “Yes.”
He stood there, glowering at her, for another several seconds.
Then he nodded once curtly and walked back to her. “All right. Turn around and look at the target.”
Georgina turned and eyed the board with a big black bull’s-eye that her grandmother had nailed to a nearby pecan tree. So far, Georgina hadn’t hit it once. She was glad the chickens lived several yards away on the other side of the barn. Although she’d braced herself to feel Ash’s arms go around her again, the touch of them shocked her. She hoped he wouldn’t notice the gooseflesh rising on her arm. Or the shiver she wasn’t quite able to suppress.
“You cold?”
Drat! His voice, warm and rich and hinting of dark, sensual pleasures, thrilled her. She said, “Not at all,” in as indifferent a tone as she could manage.
“You shivered a little.”
“Oh, did I?”
“Yes. You sure you’re not cold?”
His hands had been lightly gripping her wrists, showing her the proper way to hold the gun. Now his right hand slid up her arm, and his left drew her arm to her waist, where he held it loosely.
“No. I’m—ah—not cold. Not at all.”
“Good. I thought you might be. There’s a little breeze today.”
Ash made his own little breeze against her neck with his warm breath, and Georg
ina nearly swooned. She kept herself upright only through a great effort of will. “Is there?” Her voice was all air. Good heavens, what did that mean?
“Yes. A very slight breeze. Very small. Nothing to worry about.”
“Ah. Good.”
Sweet Lord in heaven, the man was nuzzling her neck! She was going to faint. She was going to scream. She was going to die right here and now. They’d find her this evening when she didn’t come in for supper, and she’d be cold on the ground.
Ash’s lips touched her bare skin, and she revised her death scene. She wouldn’t be cold at all. She’d be a pile of ashes. Probably still smoldering.
His hand tightened at her waist, and he drew her back a pace, until her spine was smack against his chest. He was so big. Georgina had never felt awfully small before, but now she did. She felt like a delicate, fragile sweetmeat being served up for the delectation of this big, alarming, sheltering, overwhelming male. The sensation was new to her, and exquisite. She sighed with pleasure.
“I think you’re getting the hang of it now.” His voice was a low rumble that Georgina felt in every nerve of her body.
“Am I?”
“Sure. You just need to point and squeeze.” He demonstrated the squeezing part, very smoothly, with his left arm at her waist.
“Oh. I see.” She dropped the derringer. It fell with a soft plop to the grass at her feet.
“There you go again, Miss Witherspoon, not paying attention. You dropped the weapon.” His right hand traveled down to her wrist, and his fingers first covered and then slid between hers.
“Mercy, how clumsy of me.” She turned her hand over in his.
“Yes. Clumsy.”
Oh, dear. This wasn’t right. How could she learn to shoot a gun this way? “Perhaps I should try again.”
“Sure. Good idea.”
He lifted her right around, with his fingers still twined with hers, pointed at the target. He pulled her back against him again, and she felt the bulge in his trousers. Very delicately, she pressed her hips against it and rubbed. His soft growl in her ear sounded almost desperate.
So she did it again. “Is that what I’m supposed to do?” she whispered.
“Yes. That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.”
“Good.” Her eyes had slid shut several seconds before. Now she let her head fall back until it rested against his shoulder. He nuzzled her ear. He was so tall and broad, and it felt so luxurious to let him hold her like this. Georgina had never experienced anything quite like it. When his hand slid up her bodice to her breast, she moaned softly.
She knew she shouldn’t be moaning and allowing the man to hold her in this perfectly delicious—no, no. Indelicate. That’s what it was—in this perfectly indelicate manner.
Georgina said, “Oh, my.”
“Does that feel good?” His voice was so soft she barely heard it, but she felt it clear down to her toes, which curled in her shoes.
“Is—is that the way to hold a gun?”
“Yes. You have to be very gentle.” He demonstrated by very gently lifting his other hand to her bosom and then by very gently squeezing her breast.
Georgina knew she was going to die any second now. What a lovely way to go. “Gentle,” she murmured. “Gentle.”
“Very gentle.” He tenderly twitched a nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
“Oh,” whispered Georgina “How nice.”
“Very nice,” he agreed, his breath warm on her neck.
“Very, very nice.”
Her own hands had been idle during the last few seconds. Now she lifted them and clutched his shoulders. She couldn’t reach anything else, what with him holding her back to his front the way he was doing. His shoulders were very large. And very, hard. Almost as large and as hard as his arousal against her hips. She murmured, “Gentle,” and rotated her hips.
He growled—very gently—in her ear. Georgina was delighted, so she did it once more to see if it would happen again. It did. The insistent tickle of pressure and ecstasy became a throbbing pulse between her thighs. Georgina wished she could do something about it. It needed attention. Desperately. So, since there seemed nothing to impede her she turned in Ash’s arms until the juncture of her thighs pressed against the bulge between his legs.
There. That was it. Just what the doctor ordered.
Ash growled again.
Georgina rubbed her point of need against his bulge. Oh, yes. That felt wonderful. It was almost—but not quite—relief. His arms went around her and all of a sudden Georgina found herself being squeezed—not gently at all—against his body.
“Confound it,” he growled. “This isn’t fair.” He kissed her savagely.
No, she guessed it wasn’t fair. They couldn’t keep doing this out in the open this way. They really ought to go somewhere private to practice these things. Her supply of breath was occupied in kissing Ash, so she didn’t say so.
“This is driving me insane,” he ground out against her lips.
Since he followed the declaration up with a swoop of his tongue. Georgina was spared an answer. She did, however, respond to his tongue’s invasion appropriately. Merciful heavens, she’d had no idea people did things like this. How totally appalling. How totally wonderful. She moaned, hoping in that way to get her point across.
She was startled when Ash fumbled for her hand and drew it between them. When he pressed her palm against his erect sex, which she could feel outlined against his twill trousers, she gasped.
“That’s what you do to me, blast it,” he muttered. “Do you feel that?”
How could she not feel it? She nodded, suspecting her vocabulary was inadequate for the situation.
“It’s got to stop.”
She knew what to say about that “Yes.” There. She wished she meant it.
“Every time I see you, this happens to me.”
Did it really? How thrilling—er—dreadful. “Oh”
“Oh? Is that all you can say?”
Actually, yes. It was all she could say.
“You’re about to drive me crazy, Georgina. You’re from New. York City, for God’s sake, and I’m a sheriff in New Mexico Territory.”
That was self-evident, so Georgina didn’t consider that it called for a response.
“This is crazy.”
It was crazy, all right. Georgina was so fascinated with Ash’s present state of intense arousal that she squeezed his erection with her hand. He groaned. She squeezed again, then rubbed her hand over it, trying to discern its exact shape and size. She’d been so sheltered in her lifetime. It seemed a pity now. If she’d, say, grown up on a farm, she’d probably know all about these things. “I have so much to learn.”
He groaned louder.
“This is all so new to me.”
It seemed to take a monumental effort for Ash to grab her hand and draw it away from his crotch. “You’re going to learn more than you want to any second now if you keep doing that.” He stepped hack, holding Georgina away from him, and looked down into her eyes.
She didn’t understand why he wasn’t still holding her, though. She frowned. “But—”
“No. You do funny things to me. Miss Witherspoon. I react strongly to them.”
Her reaction to him was pretty strong, too. Thankfully, although her brain was befuddled, Georgina sensed this would not be the right time to announce that Instead, she said, “Oh?”
“Oh? Is that all you can say?”
Since it was, she nodded. She didn’t understand when Ash closed his eyes and seemed to be praying. What a strange man he was.
“How’s the lesson coming along?”
Her grandmother’s fiendish voice ripped through the still summer air like a gunshot. Ash jumped a foot. So did Georgina. Ash’s hands fell away from her shoulders in a heartbeat.
Georgina whirled around and saw Maybelle Murphy, cackling up a storm, limping toward them, stabbing at the ground with her cane as if it were a lance and the dirt an enemy.
Without stopping to think, Georgina swooped down and plucked the derringer off the grass. She turned, lifted her arm, squinted at the bull’s-eye, and fired. She heard Ash mutter a crisp “Blast” at her back, and she blinked.
“Merciful heavens,” she said, flabbergasted. “I hit the bull’ s-eye.”
Maybelle had joined them. “You’re a good teacher, Ash Barrett.” She slapped him on the back, and he took a startled step forward. “A damned good teacher.”
Ash’s gaze traveled from Maybelle to Georgina to the bull’s-eye and back again. Georgina’s gaze traveled from her grandmother’s wicked smile to Ash’s crotch. She lifted, her head again immediately. “Yes,” she said, hoping to distract them all. “He’s a very good teacher.”
Ash left shortly thereafter. Georgina, along with Vernice and Maybelle, waved at him from the front porch.
“I wonder why he doesn’t turn around and wave back,” Vernice said, clearly puzzled.
“Probably Georgina can tell you,” Maybelle said, obviously delighted .
Georgina kept her mouth shut.
Georgina didn’t see Ash Barrett for almost an entire week. She told herself she was glad of it. When she gathered eggs on Monday morning, she caught herself glancing out over the endless, barren plains, trying to catch sight of dust in the distance that might signify a visitor. Not Ash, of course, because she didn’t want to see him. But somebody.
No visitors came to call.
When, later that afternoon, she, Vernice, and Maybelle went to town to purchase a derringer for Georgina’s use, Georgina discovered herself eyeing all the buildings closely and wondering where the sheriff might be. She didn’t see him anywhere, which seemed strange. After all, wasn’t he supposed to be keeping the peace in Picacho Wells? That was his job, wasn’t it? Didn’t he have to keep an eye on things?
Whatever his job was supposed to be, he was nowhere in sight. Georgina told herself she wasn’t disappointed, although she couldn’t account for a certain heaviness in her chest that lasted for the rest of the day.
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