He led her down the stalls, peering over each stall door until he found what he was looking for. After he eased the latch on the door, he crept in and she followed. A dapple-gray gelding blinked at them. Jo finally let go of Declan’s belt, her fingers cramped from hanging on too tight.
He spoke in a hushed whisper to the horse while he put a blanket on its back. The horse sidestepped a few times but didn’t appear to be too upset about leaving his stall in the middle of the night. She didn’t blame him, since there were old piles of manure littered around the floor. The stench was even worse in here, and she wondered if the horse had been neglected along with the barn.
She didn’t know how much Declan had been paying for the upkeep of his gelding, but it was too much. Jo wasn’t much of a horse person, but she didn’t tell him that. Sitting astride on a saddle would be hard enough without confessing she didn’t know how to ride. She had been graceless in her attempts to learn. Now it was too late. She would ride or she would stay at the fort and die.
He cinched the saddle tight and stopped, cocking his head to listen. She froze in place, straining to hear anything beyond her own frantic breathing. After a few moments, he looked at her and gestured to the stall door. Jo fumbled with the latch, her hands trembling like an old woman’s. He touched her back, the heat from his palm soothing her nerves. She finally unhooked the latch and opened the door.
Declan led the horse out, his hand on the beast’s nose. She was curious as to why but didn’t believe it was the right time or place to send queries at him. After they left the stall, she closed the door and crept along behind them, steering clear of the horse’s hind end. The last thing she needed was to smell like manure, particularly considering she was already sweating. It crept down her face, chest, arms and back like tiny streams of fear. They made it outside the barn and again Jo closed the door as quietly as she could. It shocked her that no one had seen nor heard them take Declan’s horse. What if they had been true horse thieves?
The night creatures had been waiting for them, unleashing the full power of their music. The clip-clop of the horse’s hooves on the hard-packed dirt seemed loud as well and she winced with each thump. Shadows moved in the distance, but she was too far away to see what they were. The unknown movement was another thing for her to worry about. She didn’t have enough at the moment, of course.
Declan pulled her to her feet and pressed his mouth against her ear. “We’re going to walk quiet-like to the front gate. You lead the horse and I’ll lean on you like I’ve drunk too much whiskey.”
It seemed like a plausible plan, and she hoped the horse would cooperate. She wouldn’t know what to do with the beast if it didn’t. Jo nodded, and he pressed the reins into her hands. Here was the true test of her bravery and she nearly wet her drawers. This was what real fear was. It tasted bitter in her drier-than-dust mouth.
Declan poked her behind and she started walking, the reins slippery in her clammy palm. He put his arm around her shoulders. She wanted to ask him if he had to put half of his weight on her intentionally or if he had overestimated her capacity. They approached the gate, which was closed, at a sedate pace, as though the stumbling man beside her slowed them down.
She didn’t know if she should speak or remain quiet and chose the latter. It was uncommon for a wife to speak ill of her husband, although in this case, it would have been warranted. A stumbling drunk for a spouse was something no woman would ever want. She couldn’t see if anyone was near the gate or if they would slip through unnoticed.
“Hey now, who is that?” a voice called to them from the blackness.
If she thought her heart thumped fast before, it was racing now, so fast she could hardly distinguish between the beats.
“I’m headin’ home with me woman.” Declan’s brogue was as thick as molasses. “She yanked me from the nectar of the gods, she did.”
A moment of silence ensued. Jo predicted she might lose what little food she had in her stomach.
“Ah, women. If we didn’t need them to cook, clean and fuck, we’d be better off without them.” The man was obviously a misinformed fool. Jo swallowed back the angry retort that danced on the edge of her tongue.
“Ye are speakin’ to the choir, me friend.” Declan lurched forward, nearly taking her down with him. He righted himself, then burped loudly. “Pardon me.”
The stranger in the darkness laughed. “I wish I had a nip of that whiskey and a woman to warm my bed. On duty for another four hours, though.” He was both disappointed and stupid.
“I’m sure there’s a lass out there for ye, boyo.” They were near the gate and Declan had sped up. She kept up, trying to make sure the gelding didn’t step on her feet as they jerked to the left and right, following her husband’s erratic path.
“Not one I want to keep.” Now both men laughed. Jo’s anger helped push out the terror that gripped her tightly.
“This one has beautiful tits and an ass I could grab on to for days, but she’s a terrible cook.” Declan didn’t value his life very much if he made statements like that. Her ass and tits were no one’s concern, particularly a foolish, ignorant guard. “Burnt biscuits and undercooked vegetables. It’s a hard lot in life for me.”
Jo bit her cheek to keep from kicking him. The man seemed to do the opposite of what she expected, and in this case, he spoke of her like a piece of chattel. She had to let it pass since she knew he did it to throw off the guard’s sense of danger. Not that the two of them were dangerous criminals, but they were breaking the law, escaping a quarantine and sneaking out in the middle of the night. Still, Declan’s words riled her like nothing ever had in her life. Was that the passion he referred to?
“Then I wish you luck, my friend.” The squeal of the hinges preceded the left-hand gate opening. Jo could hardly believe Declan’s ploy had worked. Then again, she had already concluded the guard was stupid, and it had been quite easy to fool him. Her husband was an accomplished actor.
“Goodnight to ye. May the whiskey gods smile on ye soon.” Declan hiccupped, then farted and tugged them out the door. Jo might have made the mistake of shouting at him for his behavior but she was too shocked by the last five minutes to do anything but try to sort it all out in her mind. What had happened? Had they escaped from the fort with nary a whistle of alarm?
They walked onward, Declan keeping the pretense of stumbling, for another ten minutes. Jo counted the seconds, as though she could wish away the danger and bizarre quality of the situation. When she neared six hundred, he straightened and let go of her shoulders.
“Let’s mount up and get the hell out of here.” He plucked her from the ground and placed her in the saddle as though she weighed no more than a five-pound sack of coffee. Before she could catch her breath, he was behind her, urging the beast into motion.
Jo hung on for dear life as they raced blindly across the Wyoming prairie. She closed her eyes to keep the wind from making her eyes tear. It was only the wind. She wasn’t crying.
Chapter Six
The knot in Declan’s gut might not ever unravel. It was so goddamn tight he might not shit for weeks. He knew to head southeast as fast as they could go, which wasn’t as fast as he wanted. The horse couldn’t carry both of them for long, yet they could not risk stopping. Parker or Drummond could, and likely would, come after them. That threat was very real, and very prominent on his mind.
Jo had escaped beside him as though she were a natural thief. However, she’d trembled in his arms since they began riding. He didn’t know if she was cold or scared, neither one of which he could solve while keeping control of the horse. It angered him that she was afraid, that they had to sneak off like criminals and he couldn’t protect her. Declan hadn’t been able to protect his mother either.
He wanted to keep Jo safe from anything that could hurt her, including himself. Of course, he had no idea how to go about doing that. His life had been about keeping himself alive, waking up each day not knowing what to expect and not caring. No
w he’d been turned inside out by a woman. Taking care of Jo, falling in love with her, had been like locking the door of his former life behind him and stepping into a big, dark room. He was feeling his way along, hoping he wasn’t going to break his neck or, worse, hurt her. The helplessness was hard to accept.
So did having Jo’s ass pressed against his groin as they rode across the prairie.
She might have lost weight when she was sick, but she still had an amazing ass—he hadn’t been lying about that or her tits. Jo was round in all the right places, and currently one of those places was rubbing him up and down until he had an erection that she must have noticed. He tried to will it away—even thought of disgusting things, like raw liver—but it was no use. Declan wanted to bed Jo, and everyone, including his dick, knew it.
The horizon turned a light gray as dawn approached. They had to find shelter to hide for a few hours in case folks from the fort had decided to chase them down. Out on the prairie, there wasn’t much. With the coming light, it would be easier to spot something useable to hide in for a time.
Now that he could see, he noted what could only be the outline of trees. Relief swept through him. A forest could shield them from view. He didn’t want to attract any undue attention, but he also didn’t want to find out what kind of critters inhabited the forest. There were plenty of four-legged dangers in the West. Being as tired as he was, he wasn’t ready to encounter any of them. Declan was a city rat, not a goddamn cowboy. If he couldn’t punch it or stab it, he didn’t know what to do with it.
“We’re going to stop for a while.” He tried to ignore the smell of her as he spoke into her ear. Her scent was hitting him like he was a trained dog, salivating at the thought of just one taste. One little kiss. One little lick. One little suck.
Oh hell and damnation, his dick grew another inch in his drawers. Soon his circulation would be cut off and he’d fall off the damn horse. Jo had no idea what she did to him. Or what he wanted to do to her.
“Is there sufficient cover?” The way she spoke was always so proper. She sounded like a school marm. Until now, he never thought school marms were arousing. From what he’d seen, they were old, crotchety women with sharp rulers and bad dispositions. The delicious woman in his arms changed his mind about that right quick.
“The trees should hide us if we go deep enough.” He pulled the horse to a stop. “Why don’t you hop down first?”
“I find myself in a difficult situation, Declan. My hind end is asleep. I do not believe I will have sufficient strength to hop.” Her voice echoed with exhaustion. Guilt tore through him. Here he was imagining taking her amongst the leaves of the forest and she was fighting staying upright. Some fake husband he was.
Declan maneuvered himself off the horse and then reached up to pluck her off. He held her in his arms until she protested. Truth was, she felt good in his arms again. Like she belonged there.
“I believe I can stand. You may put me down.” She wobbled a bit at first, her hands pressed against her lower back, but she stayed upright. “I knew there was a reason I never rode horses.”
He frowned as he secured the horse’s reins to a nearby branch. “What do you mean you never rode?”
“I never learned to ride a horse, despite my best efforts. I walked everywhere in New York as all of my pupils were within a few miles of our home. On the way to Missouri, I rode in horse-drawn wagons, and from there in an oxen-drawn wagon, or walked on my two feet.” She shrugged. “I was never wealthy enough to have a horse.”
“You had a house and nice things.” He didn’t understand how she could never have ridden before. He’d come from very humble beginnings and didn’t have the niceties in life or the money to afford a horse. “I thought all rich girls rode horses.”
She laughed, a musical sound he had never heard before. It tickled up his skin to his ears. “I am far from a rich girl, Declan. I am a learned person because I chose to be, but my family emigrated from France. Everything we had was through hard work, my mother as a nurse and my father as a master carpenter. I might sound fancy, but I am an ordinary girl.”
“There isn’t an ordinary thing about you, lass.” He stared down into her brown eyes. The pink light of dawn lit them like tiny fires in the grayness, sparkling on the lenses of her spectacles. She was exquisite, a porcelain statue come to life. Wisps of brown hair blew gently in the breeze, caressing her cheek and lips. Declan couldn’t have stopped himself from kissing her if he tried. He cupped her cheeks and lowered his head slowly, giving her time to say no. She didn’t.
Her mouth was soft as rose petals but plump and perfect for kissing. He pressed small kisses across her lips, then found he couldn’t resist capturing them in full. She was untutored in the art but followed his lead. Her arms crept around his neck, and he took advantage, pulling her flush against his body. A tiny moan sounded in her throat, and an answering growl emerged from his.
He licked at the seam of her lips, begging for entry into the hot recesses of her mouth. She finally opened and he eased his way in, lapping at her tongue until she hesitantly responded. He shook with the need to dive in farther, to lose himself inside her.
Their tongues rasped together in a dance as old as time. His blood thumped in a steady rhythm through his veins. His heart beat for one and only one reason.
Josephine.
He lost himself in kissing her. The sweet slide of her mouth against his, her tentative tongue and the taste of all that was her. He could kiss her for hours, for days, for years.
The push of her hands on his chest broke the fog of arousal that had surrounded them. He broke the kiss, much to his body’s dismay. Her eyes were wide and cheeks flushed. Her chest rose and fell rapidly; the delicious friction on his heightened the sensation.
“That was not in any of my mother’s lessons.” Her voice was husky and he wanted to hear it when she was beneath him, joined in the most elemental way.
He chuffed a laugh. “Darlin’, there isn’t a book on how to kiss and nobody can teach you with words, especially not your ma.”
“I can see that now.” She licked her lips, and his dick twitched. Those plump lips would be heaven wrapped around his staff. “Not that I am complaining, but I thought you were opposed to consummating our faux marriage.”
Her words threw a bucket of cold water on him. He shivered at the reminder and stepped back. Declan needed to keep her safe, not let his urges take over. He shook his head and stepped away from her; much as he wanted to pull her closer, he didn’t. She’d been right to remind him. He’d been wrong to kiss her.
Hell, he wanted to do it again.
She touched her fingers to her lips. “I see the appeal of kissing. Can we possibly do it again?”
Declan chuffed a laugh. “I don’t think that’s a wise idea, Jo. I want to do much more than kiss ye.”
“Oh.” She blinked.
He had a hard time remembering they weren’t supposed to be intimate, given how perfectly they fit together physically. Their differences in every other way were a perfect thing to focus on. She was smart, book-learned and a virgin, daughter of a loving family. He was gutter trash from a father who would rob you for six bits and a mother who died at the hands of her husband. Jo and Declan were incompatible in all ways but one.
And he couldn’t pursue that one way.
“Let’s find shelter and get a few hours of sleep. I’m sure you’re ready to drop.”
His body screamed at him to snatch her back into his arms, but he shifted farther away, his movements jerky. She watched him with a confused expression, her lips glistening from the kisses. Declan used every ounce of strength to look away. He pretended not to hear her intake of breath.
It was better if she stayed a virgin, untouched, and they could pretend their fake marriage never happened. That was the right path to take, no matter how much he wanted to keep her, make her his own and wake up each morning to her soft brown eyes.
He stumbled over a root as he blindly search
ed for shelter. What did he know about living outside in the woods? Not too much. Only what he’d learned by force when he was chasing the wagon train. A thimble-full, not enough to feed a squirrel.
“Perhaps the overhanging of trees ahead would be a suitable location.” Jo’s voice right behind him almost scared a year off his life. He’d been so absorbed in forgetting about her, he didn’t hear her.
He looked ahead and saw an ideal spot—large trees blocked the wind while their branches spread out like a fan overhead. “That’ll work for now. I’ll get the horse.” He turned on his heel and forced himself to keep his gaze averted. The last thing he needed was to see her sweet face again.
The horse waited, placidly munching on nearby grass. The gelding had been a smart purchase—a strong horse that could carry Declan’s weight and then some. The dapple gray had proven to be an excellent companion, better than the fool riding him.
He led the horse back through the trees to the clearing. As he secured the reins, he realized he’d forgotten about water. They had a canteen, but it wasn’t enough for two people and a horse. The gelding needed to drink or he’d be no good when they were ready to leave the little haven.
“Damn, we need water.” He glanced around as though the liquid would pop up and wave at him.
“I hear a stream nearby, perhaps a hundred yards north at the edge of the forest.” She was always so calm, damn it.
He snuck a glance and watched as Jo picked up branches and sticks from beneath the trees. How could she know so much yet have done so little? She was a conundrum for certain. Declan cocked his head and listened, noting the sound he hadn’t heard as he was crashing through the trees. Water.
“I’ll go see about it.” It wasn’t an excuse to run. Water was a necessity for all three of them.
The Prospect: The Malloy Family, Book 10 Page 10