by Jo Goodman
"It's all right."
"No, it's not. I want to pleasure you." When she started to move to lie beside him, he stopped her, holding her firmly at the hips. "No, not that way. Like this," he said. "I want you like this."
Her emerald eyes darkened as she looked down at his face. She lifted her hips and when she lowered herself down on his belly she was filled with him and he was part of her. He gave himself up to her rhythm and control, finding it the sweetest surrender he'd ever known. His hands caressed her pink-tipped breasts. Her own hands fluttered to his abdomen. His muscles rippled beneath her touch. She rocked faster as her own pleasure began to rise and rode the crest as if it were wild white water. He arched beneath her, driving into her deeply one last time as she collapsed against him. She was laughing unevenly, out of breath with passion and pleasure, and spreading small kisses on his face and neck.
"Oh, Ethan," she sighed. "Should I enjoy this quite so much?"
"Yes," he said. "Always." But always with me, he wanted to say. Only with me. He let her slide off him and covered them both with the sheet that got wrapped around his legs. Dusk had deepened outside and darkness was encroaching on the room. Ethan lighted the bedside lamp. His stomach growled.
"I'll get you something to eat," she said, starting to rise.
"Only if you're going to get something for yourself."
Tapping her finger lightly against his lower lip, she flashed him a brilliant smile. "Are you saying you don't need me to wait on you?"
The impact of her smile seemed to drive into his belly and force air from his lungs. "Are you saying you want to?"
Her smile faded slowly, becoming a shade wistful before it disappeared. "We've both changed a little, haven't we? It's probably good there's no future for us. I might come to like doing for you and stop doing for myself. You'd most likely come to resent it, what with me home all the time with the children, singing and playing the piano, doing needlework and such. You think a little differently now. I suspect all those normal female things would come to grate on your nerves after awhile."
He winced at the memory of asking her if she ever did any normal female things. She was right, they'd both changed a little. "I suspect that's the way it would be," he said after a moment. He held her hand and kissed her fingertip. He thought he would have been relieved to know, all silly reasons aside, that Michael understood they had no future together. He found he was not.
"What would you like from the kitchen?" she asked, sitting up.
Ethan followed suit. "No, I better get it. Once you're downstairs they'll have you out on the floor. I'll have to pull ten fool men away from you, haul you upstairs as a show to the others, and I'll still never have anything for supper. It seems less trouble to get it myself."
"Well, when you put it like—" This time it was Michael who was interrupted by the knocking at the door.
"She's still occupied, Carmen," Ethan called. "Save your knuckles." The chuckle on the other side of the door did not belong to one of Dee's girls.
"It's Obie, not Carmen," he said, leaning against the door. "And I want you, not Michael."
"Damn," Ethan said softly. He slid out of bed and pulled on his jeans. Behind him Michael dove under the covers. He threw her her robe and made sure she had it on before he unhooked the latch. Obie almost fell in the room when he opened the door.
"You could've warned me," Obie grumbled, straightening his lanky frame and tipping his hat toward Michael on the bed. She smiled wanly, a bit embarrassed by his presence.
"You shouldn't stand around with your ear pressed to other people's business."
Obie hadn't intended to eavesdrop at all. Still, he flushed guiltily. "I wasn't... that is, I didn't..."
"Get on with it," Ethan said.
Obie looked uneasily at Michael then spoke to Ethan. "Houston says to tell you that there's a... a poker game in Dee's apartments this evening. He wants you to be there."
"A poker game?" Ethan realized he was a bit dazed or he would have understood the significant look Obie had given him earlier and was giving to him again. "Oh, a poker game. I understand. I'll be there." He started to shut the door, pushing Obie gently toward the hallway. "What time?"
"Seven-thirty."
Ethan frowned. "It must be close to that now."
Obie nodded. "You have a little less than an hour."
"All right. I'll see you then." He closed the door. "Well, that's that," he said, turning to Michael. "We'll both have to go down to the kitchen if we want any supper. There isn't time for me to get it and bring it up here."
"Why do you have to be at Houston's poker game? And why have it in Dee's apartments when you can play just as easily in the saloon?"
"But then we'd have folks wanting to join us, or watch at least. It's a special, private game. No outsiders."
"Oh," she said. "I see." It wasn't about poker at all. It was about robbery. "Then I suppose I can't play."
"Absolutely not." He stooped to pick up their discarded clothes, laying his over his arm and throwing hers at the bed. "Some other time perhaps." He grinned at her. "You're a helluva poker player, aren't you? Who taught you?"
"My father."
He knew it. To be taught poker by John MacKenzie Worth, it boggled the mind. "All your sisters learned?"
Michael's head came through the neckline of her chemise. She straightened the waist. "Of course. We all played together."
"Don't tell me. Mary Francis was the best."
Michael bent her head and concentrated on the laces of her corset.
"Well?" he asked.
"You told me not to tell you," she said with an impish grin. "The truth is that Mary Francis is best at most everything. She's the one who sings like a bird and plays the piano so sweetly it can bring tears to your eyes. She's not pretty, mind you, not Mary Francis. She's beautiful. And kind and smart as a whip."
"Then why..." He let his voice trail off and his question go unasked.
Michael finished for him. "Why did she become a nun? Because she is the best at everything. God wanted her more. It wasn't a choice. It was a calling." Her smile was gentle as she saw Ethan trying to puzzle it out. "You'd understand if you knew her."
Ethan accepted what Michael said because he knew he'd never meet her sister. He shrugged into a fresh shirt and sat down in the wing chair to put on his sock and boots. "Before I sit at the table with Houston, I'd like to hear a more complete version of what happened this afternoon."
Michael paused while smoothing her stockings over her legs. "I told you what I remember he said." She adjusted her garters and pulled down the hem of her dress as she scooted toward the edge of the bed. She ticked off several points of the conversation on her fingers. "He told me that the reason you were in New York during the spring we supposedly met was because you were robbing banks." There was neither denial nor confirmation from Ethan. "He said I would find the mine very unpleasant if I had to spend any length of time there." Except for a slight narrowing of Ethan's eyes, there was no response. "And he said that his father had killed himself and his mother, but that a reporter pulled the trigger. Those are almost his exact words, I think. Do you know what he meant?"
"Houston's father was accused of embezzling from the bank he owned. The case was aired and judged in the papers by a reporter who wasn't connected to all the facts. His apparent source turned out to be the real embezzler. Long before the trial was held though, the Houstons were disgraced publicly. What Houston didn't tell you was that his father shot him, too. He was ten, I think. Took it through the shoulder. He passed out. His father thought he was dead and that's precisely what saved his life. The drama and scandal was played out in the papers as well. It took Houston years to piece together what happened. That is why he has no love for the fourth estate."
"He told you all this?"
"Some. Some I found out on my own. I like to know who I'm working for." He stood, tucking his shirt into his pants. "But that isn't what I meant when I asked for a complete ac
count of what happened today. I think Houston did more than threaten you. Now, what happened?"
She went to the bureau and began to coil her hair, pinning it up carefully. "I don't know what you mean."
"Don't dissemble now, Michael. I know... wait, did Houston tell you not to say anything to me?" Her pause gave her away. "I see that he did. Look, you've already told me things he said, why not the things he did?"
"It was nothing."
He came up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, and caught her eyes in the mirror. "Then why are you shaking?"
She hadn't been aware she was until she looked carefully at her own reflection. She finished pinning her hair and lowered her hands to her sides, leaning back against Ethan. "He was solicitous during the ride," she said in a small emotionless voice. "It wasn't until we got to the mines that he changed. At first it was only his words that were threatening. Then it became his hands."
"He hit you?"
She shook her head. "He put them on me. Touched me. He... he kissed me."
"Did you want him to?"
Michael pushed away from him, stung by his question. She escaped to the wing chair and sat down. "How can you say that?"
"It wasn't a statement. It was a question. I had to know, Michael. You left with him of your own accord."
"That doesn't mean I wanted him touching me."
Ethan sat down on the footstool and leaned forward, his forearms on his knees. "What else happened?"
"Nothing. He just kissed me... touched me. I don't know if he intended to do more. Obie came with the message."
"Did he frighten you enough to make you stay away from him?"
She nodded.
Ethan was quiet. He knew a rage so intense that it burned him. He swallowed it all because it wasn't for Michael to see.
"What are you going to do?" she asked. His eyes were so cold, she thought. They could burn her with their coldness.
He stood and strapped on his gun belt. When he heard her soft gasp he realized what decision he appeared to have made. "I always wear this below stairs, Michael. As for Houston, I'm not going to do anything." Yet, he finished in his own mind. "I'm going to play a few hands of poker and drink a few beers. That's all. I'm sorry for what happened to you today at the mines, but I'm not sorry for what it taught you."
Michael said nothing. She stood and preceded him out the door when he opened it for her. They ate in silence in the kitchen, relatively undisturbed by any of the girls who wandered in and out to get something for the customers.
"I may as well help out in the saloon," she said, dropping their dishes in the sink. She pumped some water and let it splash over them. "I don't think I could stand being upstairs tonight by myself. They'll need the help anyway if Dee's going to be with you."
"She will be," he confirmed.
"All right, then. That settles it." She heard Ethan's chair scrape against the floor then felt him just behind her. His hands touched her waist lightly. He leaned forward and placed a kiss on her cheek. It was a gesture she had seen her father do at least a hundred times with her mother. Michael smiled faintly, closing her eyes.
"You'll be fine?" A slight inflection at the end made it a question.
"Yes. You go play poker." She felt his hands drift away slowly, reluctantly. Then he was gone.
* * *
Ethan was the last one to enter Detra's private dining room. Everyone else who was expected was already sitting around the large oak table. They all made some acknowledgment of Ethan's presence. He closed the door, sealing off the dining room from the rest of the apartment, and took the empty chair between Jake and Obie. Ben Simpson was absently shuffling a deck of cards with no intent to deal them. Happy had a chew under his lip and a spittoon by his chair. Without ever taking his eyes off his half-brother's hands, he spit and accurately hit the cuspidor. Detra gave him a sour look and muttered something about her carpets. Houston was leaning back in his chair, his legs stretched out beneath the table. His black eyes hadn't left Ethan's face since he'd walked in the room.
"I think we can start," he said. "Ben, deal one hand. Obie said it was a poker game. We may as well make it look like one. Ante up, fellas, and keep a little money in front of you."
Money was tossed in the center of the table as the cards were dealt. A few bills and coins were kept at each man's side, next to the cards that were never picked up.
"Michael's not coming back here," Ethan said. "She's working out front this evening."
"Better safe..." Houston didn't bother finishing the homily. "I got a wire today. Coded, of course. We're being asked to take No. 486 on her way to Cheyenne. Cooper'd like it done the week of the 20th. He has business in San Francisco later in the month. He'll be on the train going west then."
Jake whistled softly. "Did I hear right? He wants us to hold up the train he's on?"
Ben shrugged. "Sorta makes sense. Houston promised we could meet him sometime. Ain't no better way than to pluck him clean."
Houston nodded. "And there'll be a shipment of silver from the Salina mines. Not as much as we brought in last time, but enough to make it worth the risk."
"How much you figure?" Happy asked.
"Thirty, forty thousand." There was a general murmur around the table. "Same terms, of course. We split sixty percent between us. Forty percent goes back to him."
Obie's fingers stopped drumming against the table top. He frowned slightly.
"Something wrong, Obie?" Houston asked. "You have some objection?"
He thought about it a while before he spoke. "Well," he drawled, "it don't seem right somehow. The risk is always ours. Seems like forty percent is a lot to give back for information when we could pick the trains ourselves."
It wasn't Houston who answered, but Ethan. "We wouldn't be nearly as successful and the risk would be much greater. Because of Cooper we generally know how much is going to be on the train, how many men are guarding it, who we might expect to encounter. Pretty difficult for us to find that sort of thing out without raising suspicion. My life's worth my share of that forty percent."
Ben nodded. "It's true what you say, but he mucked things up last time out. We shoulda been warned about the cars from the Chronicle."
"Which is why we'll meet with him this time," Houston said. "Happy, you tell him what happened with the Chronicle. Coop only knows what he's read in the papers. Obie, you tell him what you think about his forty percent. Maybe we can renegotiate something more favorable."
Obie looked uncertain at first, glancing around the table to see if he could count on support. He finally nodded. "I'll do it."
Houston smiled. "Good."
"The 20th's only ten days from now," Happy said. "Not much time to plan. We took No. 349 when we thought the time was right. Coop didn't dictate then."
"I think this is different," Ethan said. "I know I've only been with you since you decided you wanted 349. You brought me on board because of the safe. But there were... how many?... five, six trains you stopped before I joined you?"
"Six," Happy said. "Unless you don't count Seneca Valley. Obie don't like to. That's where he shot hisself in the foot."
Ethan waited for the laughter to die down. "What I'm getting at is Coop's provided you with quite a bit of information. Depending on who he is, what his job might be, he could be coming under suspicion. If that's the case, I'd do the same thing in his place: invite you all to rob me."
"The same thing's occurred to me," Houston said approvingly. "It makes sense. If we mean to go on as we have been then this robbery is critical. We have to do it to take suspicion away from the source of our information."
Ben picked up the deck of undealt cards and flicked through them with his thumb. "Sounds all right by me."
Happy spit. "By me, too. Any one got any ideas? Detra? You're usually good for one or two."
Detra stopped twirling a strand of her hair as all eyes went to her. "I haven't had much more time than you to think about it. I don't see how we can us
e the same ruse as last time to get all of you out of town together."
"We can't," Houston said, putting a period to any more thinking along that line.
"You could all leave separately, though," she said. "Different times, different reasons. Perhaps within a few days of one another. You have a schedule for the train, don't you, Houston?"
"Jake got the latest one this afternoon, right after he got the wire."
"We still have to pick a place to take the train. That will decide the time. We'll need confirmation from Cooper that he's actually going to be on it."
Houston shook his head. "I can't reach him, you know that."
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. "He said the 486. We'll have to hope he's got it right and they don't change schedules on him." Cooper's identity had frustrated Ethan from the beginning. He was the reason it was impossible to quit after the robbery of No. 349, the reason it wasn't good enough to simply have Houston and the others dead to rights. He needed the man who gave them their information, the man who made it possible for them to take the trains in the first place. Ethan's private money was on Cooper being a dispatcher or someone from the Wells Fargo office who knew about gold, silver, and payroll shipments. So far nothing had turned up a Cooper working in either place. Ethan hadn't really expected it to. Cooper was undoubtedly not his real name.
"What's your idea, Dee, about us leaving at different times?"
"I haven't thought it through, you understand," she said, "but it makes sense that Ben and Happy should go out prospecting together. Happy's always talking about finding placer gold again. After his last 'incident' of getting lost, he'll take Ben along for safety. That will take care of the mules and supplies you'll need. Obie can go to Stillwater for me. I'm expecting some things I ordered from Chicago."
"What about me?" Jake asked.
"If a wire came in for the sheriffs office to look into some leads on the 349 robbery, you and Houston could leave for a few days." Dee's dark blue eyes rested on Ethan. "I'm not certain what to do about you."
"And I'm not certain what to do with Michael," he said.