As mad as it was to sing Christmas carols while constructing a tree out of brooms, brushes, and saloon detritus, it was even more outrageous that he fervently wished the blizzard would never end.
Chapter 6
As heartwarming and cozy as their Christmas tree make-believe was, two more days of being trapped in the saloon as the blizzard continued to blow had Randall’s patience shrinking like a fuse about to ignite dynamite. He and Miranda finished cleaning the second floor, but his thoughts kept turning to all the ways the two of them could put those bedrooms and their contents to good use. He’d even pocketed some unused French letters, then discarded them, then gone back to retrieve them and hide them with his things. Part of him was certain he’d be able to control himself where Miranda was concerned…but not all of him. Better safe than sorry.
It was even worse when they moved on to clean out the attic in their fourth day of confinement.
“What do you suppose this is for?” Miranda straightened from where she had been sorting through trunks of discarded clothing and held up a contraption consisting of leather straps and studs with a ring-shaped pocket on one side. “It sort of looks like horse tackle, but not quite.”
Randall’s face burned hot with awkwardness…and, he hated to admit it, arousal. He knew a harness when he saw one. The carved phalluses he kept finding and hiding suddenly made sense. He leapt across a pile of broken furniture pieces to snatch the harness from her hands.
“I wonder how that got up here,” he mumbled, whisking it away to the other side of the room and the sack of things to burn he’d been filling. Four days trapped alone with a woman he was growing to admire, care for, and, yes, desire more and more, and his mind was betraying him. It was too easy to mentally picture her wearing that harness, the two of them in bed together, with Miranda—
“You know what that really is, don’t you?”
He regretted his thoughts so much that her insistent question made him jump and twist to face her, like a schoolboy caught stealing a pie off a windowsill. “Hmm? What?” It was impossible to play innocent when his face was hot enough to be a beacon in the storm.
Miranda planted her fists on her hips in that delightful, tempting way she had, and began to march across the attic toward him. “That thing is too small for a horse. You know what it is, don’t you?”
“Um…”
“Why are you all flushed and squirmy, Randy?” She wore a mock scolding look, humor in her eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching.
Heavens above, she must be crawling with impatience and cabin fever too if she was pressing him about items found in the saloon’s attic. When they’d first started cleaning the bedrooms, she practically fainted at the sight of a dirty sheet. Randall wasn’t sure which Miranda got under his skin more, the proper one with delicate sensibilities or the bold one brimming with energy and curiosity.
Her pretend scolding dissolved into giggles. “Really, what is it?”
Randall swallowed. “Ah…” Above them, the wind still howled against the roof. Last he’d checked, the snow continued to drift against the front and back doors to a degree that would keep them inside for a few days to come. “Well…” If he was right, they had plenty more time to spend wrapped up in each other’s company, no one there to see the mischief they got up to, no one to judge or be scandalized. No one in town really knew who they were anyhow. They could get away with things that folks in regular society could never dream of.
Miranda crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “Randy? I’m waiting.”
He cleared his throat. “You don’t want to know.”
“Yes I do,” she answered immediately.
“Really, you don’t.”
“Do you know my mind better than I do now?” Her burst of impatience and genuine irritation was just another sign of all the barriers that had been shattered between them in the last few days…and the effects of being trapped.
“I know you well enough to know that you would regret pressing for the answer,” he countered.
Her eyes flared with anger as fast as a grease fire flaring up. “Is that so? You know me that well?”
“Four days in tight quarters can bring people close in a hurry.” A rush of warmth filled him at that thought.
“Undeniably,” she huffed. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I have a right to know the contents of my own saloon.”
“It has to do with whores.” Maybe bluntness was the way to get her to turn a blind eye.
In fact, all it did was chase color into Miranda’s cheeks and put a coy look in her eyes. “I…I suppose I should know about those things, being the saloon owner and all.”
Randall’s brow shot up. She must be bristling with restlessness if she was thinking that way. Judging by the set of her shoulders and jaw, he was going to have to answer, one way or another. He let out a breath and spread his hands. “You really want to know.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I do.”
I do. Randall’s throat went try at those two words, at the way they made his heart beat faster, filled his head with images of her in white at the front of a church. No, four days alone might have created a sense of intimacy, but it was hardly long enough to be entertaining ideas of marriage…was it?
“I’m waiting.” Miranda went back to tapping her foot.
“It’s a harness.”
When she merely blinked at him, Randall burst into a wave of uncontrollable chuckles.
“It’s a device worn by a whore for a very particular kind of…practice.”
Still, she blinked. “You aren’t very good at explaining things, Randy.”
No, but if she continued to use his nickname and to stare at him with such frankness, he was going to have to demonstrate instead of just telling her.
He wiped a hand over his face, unsure whether he would laugh or groan at the rate she was going. He repeated the gesture, discovering it was much easier to blurt the whole truth with his hand covering his eyes.
“It’s used with an imitation phallus and worn by a woman so that she can take the man’s role in…” He couldn’t go on. It was bad enough that he knew about that sort of thing, but explaining it filled him with ridiculous levels of mortifying titillation.
“What?” This time, Miranda’s outburst wasn’t a question so much as an exclamation. Randall peeked through his fingers to find her staring into nothing, eyes wide, mouth open. “Oh!” Understanding dawned on her. “Oh!” The syllable took on a scandalized tone, and she paled. “Oh!” Her eyes went wide in horror as her gaze finally focused. On him.
She slapped a hand to her mouth. Moments later, she burst into a fit of giggles that shook her slender form. Her borderline hysterical amusement was contagious. Randall let his hand drop from his face and let go, laughing at the wild silliness of the whole thing.
“Maybe we should leave the rest of this for another time and go have lunch,” he managed to say through his laughter.
“I think that would be a wise idea,” she agreed, voice hoarse with a combination of mirth and horror.
She turned and bolted for the stairs leading to the second floor. Randall followed. His face still burned with shame while the rest of him burned with something far trickier. He tried to tell himself it was cabin fever, he was a gentleman, that the only reason he knew things respectable people didn’t was because of all that time on merchant ships. But as they ventured back to Miranda’s apartment and the late morning light that peeked through snow-banked windows, he was certain of one thing. Miranda deserved better than the awkward fate that was handed to her.
“I don’t think we’ll run out of food,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at him as she pored through the remaining contents of her cupboard. “I’m not sure what to make out of all this, though.”
“Please let me fix lunch for the two of us,” Randall begged. There was another sign of his waning patience. After eating Miranda’s cooking for four days, he didn’t think he could take it anymore. “I swea
r to you that I’m a good cook, that I enjoy it, and that I don’t think you’re not a good hostess if you let me cook something.”
She straightened and pursed her lips. “Well, I suppose since you are a font of knowledge today, I might as well let you teach me something that I might actually be able to share in civilized company.” She attempted to say her piece with the same mock scolding she had used in the attic, but she dissolved into giddy laughter before she could finish.
“You’re a naughty one, Randi,” he teased her with his own mock scolding and nudged her aside so that he could assess the contents of the cupboard. As he studied the shelves, he murmured, “And if I’m not careful, you’ll be the undoing of me.”
Miranda wasn’t sure what name to put to the pulsing restlessness that had consumed her for the past day or so. She couldn’t keep her legs from bouncing as she sat at the table, watching Randall cooking in his shirtsleeves. She hadn’t been able to sleep well for the past few nights as thoughts of him—his laughter, his ready wit, his curly hair, his strength as he attempted to clear snow from the saloon’s front doorway, only to give up when it proved too packed against them, the fleeting glimpse of him with his shirt off that she’d caught while he was bathing—kept her tossing and turning.
And what had just happened upstairs in the attic? With that—what had he called it—that harness? Her skin had prickled and strange heat had pooled in parts of her that she knew she shouldn’t be focusing on. Except now she couldn’t focus on anything but the sensations she felt there. Good grief, was cabin fever an actual illness? Were these the signs and symptoms?
“Here we go.” Randall pivoted from the stove, where he looked to be frying bread in a skillet, and presented her with the curious sight of a toasted sandwich. “Randall’s Marvelous Grilled Cheese.” He slipped the steaming sandwich, gooey bits of cheese seeping from the sides, onto Miranda’s plate. “Well, fried cheese sandwich, at least.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.” She breathed in the delicious aroma of toasted, buttery bread and cheese.
Randall turned back to the stove and began making a second one for himself. “Just one of the many things I learned to make during my travels.”
Miranda tested the sandwich with her fingers, and when she’d decided it wasn’t too hot to handle, she picked it up and took a bite. The delectable burst of warm, melty cheese, the richness of butter, and the surprise of whatever dried herbs he’d added had her issuing a low moan that was as scandalous as anything they’d uncovered in the attic.
Randall stiffened at the sound she made. He had his back to her, but that was all she needed to know he’d reacted to her enjoyment. She pressed her fingers to her lips as she chewed, feeling well and truly like a hussy. Her mother would swoon if she saw the way she’d been behaving toward Randall. And likely Starla would hoot in encouragement. Maybe it was the saloon itself, the fact that there was nothing she and Randall could do to escape its influence as days wore on without the storm letting up enough for them to venture out and away from each other. All Miranda knew was that Randall Sinclair had unleashed something in her that she wasn’t sure should have been unleashed.
“So you like it?” he asked over his shoulder at last. Miranda had the impression he’d needed to master himself before saying anything.
“It’s amazing,” she said after another bite. “If I had known you could make something this delightful, I would have invited you to cook long before this.”
He chuckled, his shoulders easing as the moment of scintillating tension between them passed. “I told you, I enjoy cooking. If you give me a chance, I’ll make all sorts of tempting treats with the food you have left. We’ll eat like monarchs until this storm abates and we can go out for more supplies.”
Miranda smiled over another bite of her sandwich. The cheese wasn’t the only thing warm and melty. He was still using that beautiful word, “we.” At this rate, she didn’t want the storm to ever end. She would be happy to spend the rest of her life trapped in the saloon with Randall, uncovering all sorts of scandalous items in the attic, and putting them to good use.
She nearly choked on her bite as that thought and its accompanying, somewhat vague, images hit her.
“Careful.” Randall jumped away from the stove to fetch her a glass of ice-cold water. “The bread can be a little dry. Drink this.”
She pretended that the bread was her only problem and nodded, sipping at the water to clear her throat. Maybe its iciness was exactly what she needed to tame her scandalous thoughts. But after a lifetime of being perfectly, meticulously good, she had never wanted to throw it all away and be bad more than she did right then.
“I noticed that you have a chicken that hasn’t been cooked yet down there in the cellar,” Randall said as he finished with his sandwich. “How would you feel about thyme-roasted chicken with butter and dill potatoes and haricot verts for supper tonight?” He slid his sandwich onto a plate and came to join her at the table.
“Hari-what?”
“Green beans,” he chuckled, taking a first, large bite of his sandwich. “That’s what they’re called in France.”
“And what strange employment took you to France?” she asked. Conversation. Yes. Conversation was normal. Her thoughts wouldn’t fly to places they shouldn’t go if she could keep up a simple conversation.
“That one wasn’t employment. My father took the whole family to Paris, Lyon, and Nice, when I was eighteen. That’s where my love of cooking really began.”
Miranda tried not to be transfixed by the sight of him wrapping his mouth around his sandwich. “I thought you said your love of cooking was because you had a crush on your family’s cook.”
Randall laughed. “Yes, but she only covered the basics. When we were in France, I snuck down into the kitchens of the hotels where we stayed and looked on as much as I could. Sometimes I even helped out. I learned a lot.”
“How fascinating.” She sighed. “Nothing half so fascinating has ever happened to me. I was born, I was raised, I attended finishing school, and I’ve been sleepwalking through the same set of social events, waiting for a husband to come along and make my life meaningful since then.”
Randall paused halfway through taking a bite. He pulled his sandwich back, closed his mouth, then blinked. “What a horrifically depressing life you’ve lived.”
Miranda jerked straight, her eyes blinking wide. “Excuse me!”
Moments later, the two of them burst into shared laughter. Randall returned to eating his sandwich. Miranda popped the last bite of hers into her mouth, then took a drink.
“It’s true, though,” she groaned. “Your life has been completely fascinating. Mine has been as dull as dust.”
“Nuh-uh.” Randall shook his head and swallowed. “I’ve been pushed this way and that from the day I was old enough to speak. You, on the other hand, inherited this marvelous saloon.”
“As to that,” Miranda said, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin, the way a proper, genteel lady would. “I have yet to be convinced that was a good thing.”
“Why?” Randall asked, that teasing light she was coming to love so well in his eyes.
She sent him a serious look across the table, but kept her answer to herself. There were too many ways anything she would say could go wrong. Restlessness and confinement had left her wicked side way too close to the surface.
“We should spend the afternoon making sure we have enough fuel for a few more days,” she said. “Who knows how much longer we’ll be stuck in here together?”
He didn’t reply at first. All he did was stare at her, a decidedly disconcerting heat in his eyes. Once again, her focus shifted back to all of the pulsing, itching, aching parts of herself that she shouldn’t be thinking about. Worse still, the look in Randall’s eyes hinted that he was debating something…something dangerous…something delightful.
At last, he sat back in his chair and stretched his legs out in front of him, under the table. His feet came cl
ose to brushing hers. “You know, I’ve been thinking about this. Maybe it’s time I start sleeping in the apartment here.”
“Oh?” Every wiggly, squiggly feeling inside of her intensified.
“That way we wouldn’t have to make the fire hot enough to heat the hallway and the other rooms too. We could keep the apartment door shut and conserve warmth. It’s practical, since we don’t know how much longer we’ll be in this situation.”
Randall. Sleeping close to her. Perhaps she should suggest that they make a pallet of blankets on the floor near the hearth, that they share it to conserve warmth even further. A shiver passed down her spine at the thought.
“I think that would be a good idea.” She agreed to his proposal without taking it further…the way she wanted to. Heavens above, how had her mind and her morals become so scrambled?
“Good.” He nodded, finishing his lunch. “So this afternoon we consolidate fuel and see if we can clear away some of the snow from the doors and windows, tonight I’ll cook us a delicious chicken supper, and then after that…”
“After that…” She leaned forward as her heart beat thunderously in her chest.
“And after that, we’ll snuggle in for a warm, cozy night by a cheerful fire as visions of sugarplums dance in our heads.” His smile was intoxicating and full of suggestion.
Miranda let out a breath, but the tension in her soul remained. Dear heavens, it seemed as though it was only a matter of time before the two of them got up to the sort of mischief they couldn’t undo.
Chapter 7
“Do you ever get the feeling that everyone else in the world has ceased to exist?” Miranda asked another whole day later as she and Randall stood at the top of the moving stairs in the attic, staring out over a desert of white. The snow had stopped, the wind had died down, but the sky was still a thick grey. It was hard to tell what was going on in town immediately below them, but in the distance, everything continued to look blanketed and buried. Miranda only hoped that the measles epidemic had eased up.
Wild Western Women Mistletoe, Montana: Sweet Western Historical Holiday Box Set Page 26