Cornelia averted her head, but there was no remorse in her, he knew that. She regretted being caught, that was all. If it served her, she’d do all the same things over again, right down to shutting two human beings, one of them her own sister, up in a burning cellar. Fearing the emotions that rose up in him, Shay turned blindly away and went outside, where he gasped for fresh air.
“What will happen to her, Shay?” Aislinn asked, when he’d had some time to collect himself. “What will happen to Dorrie?”
“I don’t know about Cornelia,” he answered presently, without meeting her gaze. “Dorrie will probably stay on in the house and run the store. At least, I hope she will. She’s really got nowhere else to go.”
He touched Aislinn’s face with the back of his hand. “You haven’t changed your mind, have you? About marrying me, I mean?”
Her smile was brilliant, dazzling, casting light into all the dark places inside him. “I haven’t changed my mind,” she said.
He kissed her, right there on the street, but only lightly. “When’s the wedding?” he asked.
“As soon as my brothers arrive. I’ll send for them tomorrow—things are pretty frenzied over at the telegraph office just now. And of course I’ll need a dress.”
The sound of someone clearing their throat interrupted the conversation, and Shay turned to see Tristan standing a few feet away, wearing that insouciant grin of his. “This is lovely, Marshal,” he said, “but while you two are making wedding plans, those polecats are getting away. We ought to at least try to get them, don’t you think? I’ve rounded up a dozen men to help.”
Shay sighed. It was an exercise in futility, going after O’Sullivan and the others, but it was also the right thing to do. He gave the borrowed star pinned to Tristan’s coat a pointed glance. “You’re taking that badge a little too seriously, brother,” he said. He turned to Aislinn, with an apology on his lips, but she met his gaze with a steady smile.
“Be careful,” she said.
He nodded his promise. There was so much to say, a whole lifetime of words to be exchanged, but it wasn’t the time and he knew it. So he simply walked away with Tristan, headed toward the livery stable, where he would collect his horse.
Aislinn found Dorrie much recovered when she returned to the hotel to look in on her. The other woman read her expression as she stepped over the threshold, her face flushed with relief. “It’s true then, what Eugenie said. Shamus wasn’t hurt in that dreadful explosion.”
“He’s fine,” she said. She didn’t add that he’d gone after the riders who’d blown up the jail, nor did she say that Cornelia was in custody and would probably be charged with conspiracy to commit murder, among other crimes. Dorrie had enough to worry about as it was. “We’re going to be married, Shay and I.”
Dorrie’s face, glistening here and there with burn salve, lit up. “That’s wonderful. You shall have Papa and Mama’s room, and we’ll run the store together, you and me.”
The idea of living in the spacious McQuillan house and working in the general store appealed to Aislinn very much, but she would be half of a partnership after her marriage to Shay, and that meant consulting with him before she made any promises or agreements. She smiled, glad that Dorrie had plans, that her sister’s deception and the terrible events of that day had not broken her after all. “I’ll need a wedding dress,” she said.
“I know just the one,” Dorrie replied eagerly, throwing back the covers and swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She was wearing one of Eugenie’s nightgowns. “The ivory silk. It came in last week, on the stagecoach. Where in blazes are my clothes? I can’t be lying around here all day. I want to see Cornelia, for one thing. And we’ll need workers to start repairing the house as soon as possible.”
Aislinn didn’t attempt to protest; she just got out of Dorrie’s way.
Cornelia had vanished by the time they reached the doctor’s office; at some point, she’d simply slipped away, and nobody knew where she’d gone, though Dorrie seemed to have her suspicions. She headed straight for the safe in the office of the general store and found it open and empty.
“Good heavens,” said Aislinn.
“Good riddance,” said Dorrie.
It was later proved that Cornelia had added horsethieving to her other offenses, helping herself to William Kyle’s own gelding, heretofore detained in the livery stable pending its master’s release or hanging, whichever came first. Aislinn waited nervously for Shay, well aware that any one of those men would shoot him dead without thinking twice about it.
To her relief, he returned before sunset, with Tristan and the posse and three prisoners, Mr. O’Sullivan among them. Aislinn stayed carefully back, but she heard a deputy telling his wife about the chase: the others had gotten away clean, but these were the ringleaders. They were bound, hand and foot, and would be under guard in the livery-stable storeroom with Kyle until a new judge arrived.
It was Dr. Yancy who met Shay in the street with the news that Cornelia had escaped—Aislinn heard his words clearly, though she still kept her distance. Face set in grim lines, Shay moved immediately to rein his horse around and set out in pursuit, but Tristan stopped him by taking a firm hold on the gelding’s bridle. He spoke in softer tones that eluded Aislinn, and Shay flushed as he listened, but he settled down a bit.
As he dismounted in front of what had once been his office, Tristan rode out of town without a backward glance. Shay stood watching him go for a few moments, then went off to attend to his prisoners.
Aislinn left him to his business, although she wanted nothing so much as to throw her arms around him, tell him that she loved him, that she was glad, so glad, he’d come back safe.
She had to wait until that night, when he joined her and Dorrie for supper in the dining room of the McQuillan house. Although the place smelled of smoke and the floorboards were buckled, it was a gracious gathering. Shay ate his fill of boiled turnips and roast venison and walked Aislinn back to the hotel, where she would stay until they were properly married.
He walked her as far as the lobby, where Eugenie was waiting with folded arms, her expression dour, and one eyebrow raised. “I guess I’d better not kiss you,” he said, in a whisper. “I don’t mind saying, though, that I’d like to do a great deal more than that.”
A pleasant rush of anticipation swept through Aislinn; she wondered if it was normal for a bride-to-be to look forward to her wedding night with delight instead of maidenly dread. For her own sake, she changed the subject. “We have a lot of decisions to make, Shay.”
He cupped her chin in his hand and cast a sidelong wink in Eugenie’s direction. Aislinn did not dare to look and see how it was received. “We’ll live where you want to live,” he said. “If you want to work with Dorrie at the store, that’s all right by me. I’ve only got one stipulation, and here it is: Don’t you be giving me grief about turning in my badge, because I won’t do that. Not even for you.”
She swallowed, then nodded. “Fair enough,” she said.
He traced the shape of her lips with the pad of his thumb, sending an achy heat all through her, and she trembled to think what it would be like, surrendering to him. “Good night,” he said, his voice hoarse.
Aislinn was stricken by the depth of her love for this man; the simplest of looks or caresses could move her so profoundly. She just stood there, watching mutely as he turned and walked away, stepping through the doors of the hotel and vanishing into the lively noise of Prominence.
Eugenie startled her with a touch on the arm. “He’ll be all right, your Shamus,” she said. “Come along, girl. We’ll have a cup of tea. Should have the kitchen to our own selves at this hour.”
One lantern was burning in the large room at the back of the hotel, and the water in the kettle must still have been hot, because Eugenie had the tea brewing in no time.
“I wish there were a way to love him less,” Aislinn confided, from her seat at the trestle table. She sat forlornly, with her chin p
ropped in her hands. “I’m scared, Eugenie.”
“Don’t be a damn fool,” Eugenie scolded, her motions impatient as she moved about. “You go ahead and love that man, girl—you love him like there wasn’t gonna be no tomorrow. You love him as hard and deep as you can, at full throttle, like one of them steam engines with the boiler red hot and clankin’ fit to blow. No, ma’am, don’t you go savin’ back love, or measurin’ it out, like it was white sugar or somethin’ that can be used up. You give Shamus all you got, and you take just as much back from him, every day of your life, and you count yourself lucky for havin’ the chance.”
“That was quite a speech,” Aislinn said, when she’d had a moment to recover. “Who was he, Eugenie? The man you loved that way? Did he love you back?”
Eugenie set a chipped china teapot down in the middle of the table with a telling thunk, added cups and a sugar bowl and a little jug of milk. “He was a lawman, like your Shamus. His name ain’t important; you wouldn’t know it anyhow. He died in a shoot-out, a long while ago, back in Missouri. Happened the day after we was supposed to be married.”
Aislinn bit her lower lip. Waited.
Eugenie sat down across from her and briskly poured herself a cup of tea, adding copious amounts of sugar and milk and stirring the mix with a loud clatter of spoon against china. Her expression was ruminative in the lamplight. “I stood him up at the altar,” the older woman said gruffly, and at great length. “I was afraid to hitch up with a gun-totin’ man, you see. Some folks might say I was proved right, him bein’ killed just the way I was afeared he would, but I was wrong, Aislinn. I loved that man more’n my own soul. I gave up somethin’ precious when I didn’t take his name and whatever time the good Lord saw fit to give us.”
Tears of sympathy burned in Aislinn’s eyes; she looked away for a moment, blinking rapidly in a vain effort to hide them from Eugenie. “I’m so sorry,” she said, finally.
Eugenie reached across the table to pat her hand. “Don’t be. I ain’t had such a bad life. But you take my advice, girl. When it comes to lovin’ a man like Shamus McQuillan, you don’t hold nothin’ back. There ain’t many like him.”
Aislinn smiled and sniffled. “Well,” she said, “there’s one. Tristan.”
To her surprise, Eugenie frowned, her bristly brows coming together. “That one,” she said ponderously. “Now, he ain’t exactly who or what he says he is.” A smile broke through. “But that’s no never-mind to you, so don’t you go frettin’ about it.”
Aislinn’s mind and heart were full of Shay, and wedding plans, full of her brothers, who would join her at last, just a few weeks hence, and of images from Eugenie’s heartbreaking tale of love found and lost again. There was simply no room left for Tristan. The two women finished their tea in companionable silence, and Aislinn mounted the stairs to the room Shay had taken for her, and the bed that seemed too big and too empty.
EPILOGUE
ONE MONTH LATER …
LACE CURTAINS FLUTTERED AT THE WINDOWS of the best room in the hotel, and there was only candlelight to push back the gathering darkness. A bottle of fancy wine jutted from a silver cooler, and petals from the last roses of summer were spread over the bed. Aislinn Lethaby McQuillan, new bride, surveyed the scene from her husband’s arms as he carried her over the threshold.
A tremor went through her. She’d been anticipating this night for weeks, and she wouldn’t have turned back for anything, but all of a sudden she was thoroughly, painfully aware of how very little she knew about the intimate rites of marriage.
Shay kicked the door shut with his heel, and the slam must have resounded throughout the hotel. The message was as clear as any DO NOT DISTURB sign would have been. He tasted Aislinn’s lips teasingly before setting her on her feet.
“Doubts, Mrs. McQuillan?” he asked. His eyes twinkled with a sort of tender mischief.
She shook her head. They had been married for two hours, and the celebration was still going on, over at the house, where Thomas and Mark were happily ensconced in Shay’s old room. Dorrie was probably still presiding over the festivities, as she presided over the general store, though she was teaching Aislinn the business. Cornelia was surely halfway around the world by then, with no intention of returning—Tristan had tracked her all the way to a shipping office in San Francisco, where she had bought passage under her own name—and Mr. Kyle and his consorts had been taken to Sacramento to stand trial. The new jailhouse was under construction, and it would have four cells, as well as space for a couple of deputies.
“No,” she said. “No doubts.”
He laid his hands on her shoulders, drew her to him. “Come here, then,” he said, and bent his head to kiss her.
Again that shock of sensation went through her, stealing her breath, making her sway back onto her heels, so that Shay had to steady her. He chuckled.
“I want you, Mrs. McQuillan,” he said, “but we’re going to take this slow—real slow. I’ll show you the way.”
She moistened her lips and nodded, trusting him with her soul as well as her body. He put his arms around her, but loosely, and began undoing the clasps at the back of the ivory silk wedding gown she’d bought at the general store, with her own money. The fabric fell away gently, seemed almost to melt, like a fog under warm sunshine, and then she was standing before him in her white eyelet camisole, woven through with pink ribbon, her petticoats and drawers, her stockings and soft slippers.
She wanted a garment in trade, and took off his coat, tossing it aside. Then, emboldened, she loosened his string tie, unbuttoned his vest. He reciprocated by undoing the ties of her camisole, baring her breasts, admiring them with his gaze and with the light passage of his hand.
“Lovely,” he breathed.
Her nipples jutted against his palms, eager and hard, as he weighed her. Bent his head to kiss her again, more hungrily this time, more fiercely.
She wanted fierceness from him, wanted to conquer and be conquered. Wanted more, much more, of what he made her feel holding her that way, as though she were precious and fragile.
He gave a low groan, caught her up in his arms, and carried her to the bed, where he laid her down gently and surveyed her, his eyes catching the wavering glint of the candlelight. He pulled off her slippers after a while, and rolled down her stockings one by one. Divested her of the petticoats and finally the drawers, and all the while she lay there like a willing captive on a sultan’s couch, deliciously helpless and wanting nothing of power.
“You are,” he said, shedding his vest, “too beautiful to be real.” He shoved down his suspenders then, pulled his shirttail out of his trousers.
Aislinn watched him in fascination, thinking quite the same thing. He was a fairy-tale prince, or some kind of primitive god, but surely not a mortal man. He was made too perfectly for that; he was a golden savage, shaped by the hand of some mythical sculptor. “Lie down with me,” she enjoined him softly.
He finished undressing and stretched himself out gracefully on the bed beside her; she reveled in the restrained power of him, the heat and weight and substance, the uncompromising masculinity. He kissed her tenderly, then with more fervor and still more, until she was tossing beneath him, full of need.
“Now?” she whispered.
He grinned and shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “Not for a long, long time.” And then he kissed and nibbled his way down over her jaw and along the length of her neck. He tasted her collarbones, traced them with the tip of his tongue, while his hand made slow, soft circles on her belly and the tops of her thighs, always avoiding the place that strained for him, wanted most to be touched.
When he took a nipple full into his mouth and took suckle, Aislinn cried out in startled pleasure, her back arching off the feather-filled mattress. His chuckle reverberated through her breast, and he was greedy, there and in other places.
He took his time, loving her, just as he had said he would do. She thrashed and whimpered and pleaded and still he made free with
her, teasing, touching, bringing her to the brink of release over and over again, leaving her to tremble there, and then letting her fall once more, back into the heated ministrations of his hands and his mouth and his whispered promises.
She was limp with wanting and slick with perspiration when he finally parted her legs and poised himself over her. He was big; she’d seen and touched his erection, but feeling him at the entrance of her body gave new meaning to the concept of size. She tensed and widened her eyes.
He brushed her lips with his own. “We’ll take this slow, Aislinn,” he said. “Just like I promised. Trust me?”
She nodded and raised her hips, seeking to admit him. It was going to hurt; he’d told her that, so had Eugenie, in her brusque, shy way, during one of their talks. But because Shay was Shay, and because they loved each other, pleasure awaited, beyond the pain.
He eased inside her, just a little way, and she started to panic.
He stopped, kissed her, reassured her. Took her by inches, with a patience she marveled at. Gradually, her body expanded to receive him, and an ancient drumbeat began, quickening her responses, causing her to move beneath him, to move with him. She seemed to exist, during those long, fiery minutes, only in the widespread pulses of her body; she felt a tearing sensation as he breached her virginity at last, but by then she was lost in the heart of her need. Fevered, she flung herself upward to meet every thrust of his powerful hips, her fingers buried in his hair, her thumbs learning the shape of his cheekbones. Their mouths were joined, their tongues sparring, when the final, highest pinnacle was reached; they rocked together, their cries echoing one inside the other, descended to lesser peaks, one after another, and finally fell in an exhausted tangle to the mattress, arms and legs entwined.
“I love you,” Shay said, when a long time had passed. He still sounded a little breathless.
“And I love you,” she answered, twining one finger in a lock of his hair. “Do you suppose we made a baby?”
He raised his head, looked into her eyes, and grinned. “Twins, probably,” he said. “But maybe we’d better try again, just to make sure.”
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