Only My Love

by Jo Goodman

  "Are you going to kill me?"

  "I don't know. It was my intention when I came here, but seeing you... I don't know." His hands curled around his tumbler. "Did Ethan plan to make an arrest tonight?"

  Michael was silent.

  "How soon do you think he'll be here?"

  She remained quiet.

  Houston leaned forward, clutching the tumbler so hard the tips of his fingers were bloodless. "Don't be stupid, Michael."

  She flushed. "I am not going to help you."

  The color in her face made him smile. He relaxed slightly. "I could take you with me. I could overlook the fact that you're a reporter, that you're carrying Ethan's child, even that you despise me. Feelings change, don't they? I think there was a time you felt similarly toward Ethan."

  Michael maintained her dignity by maintaining her silence.

  "Well, Michael? Would you do that? Would you come away with me? We could go to Canada or even Europe. I have money. It wouldn't be as if you'd want for anything."

  "I'm quite certain there are trains to rob in Canada."

  Amused by her sarcasm and bravado, Houston laughed. "I can't help but like you. I really didn't want to believe you'd been the one to betray us at the robbery, but the fact that you were a reporter, well, that couldn't be overlooked. It was only a matter of time before you found a way to turn us in."

  A faint line creased Michael's brow. "You knew it was Detra, didn't you?" she said.

  "Let's say I suspected. But then, I also understood her reasoning. She knew how I felt about you. You were a threat to her, a threat to all of us as it turned out. When she gathered the proof that you worked for the Chronicle and I didn't act on it to her satisfaction, she felt she had to take a more direct action."

  "But Obie was killed that night. You could have all been killed!"

  "I know. And Detra would have eventually paid the price for her betrayal, but it would have been my price, not Ethan's, not the court's." Houston knocked back the last of his drink. He rolled the tumbler between his palms. "You'll have to make your decision quickly, Michael. Dee and I weren't staying far from here. Depending on what Ethan intended this evening, he could be back very soon. Your answer will determine whether he finds you dead or finds you at all."

  It was the perfect calm with which he spoke that incensed Michael. That he could talk as if he were giving her a choice when there was none at all, that he could threaten her and, in turn, her child, made her insensible of her own safety. Angered beyond reason, she pushed away from the sofa arm and reached for the first thing she could put her hands on.

  It happened to be Houston's ebony walking stick.

  She thrust it at him, not connecting, but using it as if it were an extension of her pointing finger. Her voice was tight, cold. "Get out. Get out while you still can. Don't threaten me or my baby or my husband again. Do you think I am flattered by your attention, by your offer? I want nothing so much as to see the last of you."

  When Houston remained precisely as he was, Michael gripped the silver knob head of the cane more tightly and jabbed it toward his chest. This had the effect of making him pay more attention to his walking stick than to her. "I mean it," she said. "Leave!"

  In a single, fluid motion, Houston dropped the tumbler and reached for his gun.

  Startled by his sudden move, Michael shoved him back with the stick. She was unaware of the stiletto until she saw blood blossoming on his chest.

  Houston looked down at himself and then at Michael. She was stepping back from the chair, the cane trembling in her hands, her features set with shock. Blood was spilling through his fingers and across his white cuffs. His face was ashen, the wound mortal, but there was a shadow of a smile at his mouth. "You always surprise me, Michael," he whispered. "I think you would have been very good for me."

  Epilogue

  She was the only sort of woman he noticed.

  In a room full of women Ethan Stone's shaded glance slipped over the brunettes and the blondes and settled on one head of magnificently burnished mahogany hair. She was sitting on the dais, facing the gathering. Her head was bent over her work as she took notes of the meeting, scribbling as fast as the evening's lecturer spoke on the issue of women's rights in the city, in the marketplace, and at the ballot box. Ethan only listened with half an ear, knowing he would disappoint Michael when she asked him later what he thought, but quite unable to keep his mind on anything but the look of her.

  Her mouth was flattened in that serious line he knew so well. There was a small vertical crease between her feathered brows. Her spectacles rested on the tip of her nose and when the nub of her pencil grew too dull for writing more, she unhesitatingly reached in her hair for the one behind her ear. He smiled. There was only one left.

  Standing at the rear of the lecture hall, leaning comfortably against the wall beneath a temperance banner, Ethan had to imagine the color of her eyes. It was not difficult. He was holding his daughter in his arms and Madison's eyes were the exact dark emerald of her mother's. He shifted Madison in his arms and looked away from her puckered, rosebud mouth back to the grave, solemn set of Michael's.

  She looked up suddenly, as if she could feel his eyes on her, and she smiled then, the brilliant, radiant smile that he could feel squeeze his heart. It knocked a beat out of rhythm. His smoke-colored eyes held hers a moment longer and he could have sworn she flushed. And he had only been thinking about what he'd like to do with her starched white blouse and her stiff black skirt.

  "She doesn't know the half of it," he whispered to Madison. His deep, whiskey-smooth voice carried to the row of women seated nearest him. Three heads turned simultaneously and shushed him sternly. He started to explain he wasn't referring to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the lecturer. Several other heads turned. In the end Ethan retreated behind a guilty, apologetic look, and raised Madison in his arms, offering his first born up to the cause. The women were not amused by his mocking sacrifice.

  "What was all that fussing around you?" Michael asked on the way back to the St. Mark. She held Madison now and tucked the baby's bonnet more closely around her head. The open carriage created a little stir in the humid air as they rode away from Washington Square. "I didn't know you were going to create a scene."

  His look of remorse did not convince Michael any more than it had her suffragette sisters. He sighed, sliding an arm around her. "I don't think I made many friends at your rally tonight." He told her what happened.

  "Oh, Ethan," she said, shaking her head. "Did you? Did you really hold her up like that?"

  "I didn't know what else to do," he said, a little more seriously than not. "I thought they were going to attack me."

  Michael burst out laughing. Madison blinked widely at her mother then quieted as Michael snuggled against Ethan. "What did you think of Mrs. Stanton? She's a powerful speaker, isn't she? And the way she talks about a woman's right to challenge men as a duty, well, it—"

  "It gave me chills," he said.

  She heard the double-edge meaning in his tone, just as he intended she should. "Have your fun, Mr. Stone, because I know I'm going to enjoy challenging you."

  He grinned and laid his cheek against her hair.

  Madison was sleeping soundly by the time they returned to their suite. Michael laid the infant in her crib. The study was still filled with books but in addition to the desk there was a crib and among the crumbled papers and sheafs of notes and pencils, there were also diapers, tins of cornstarch, and tiny booties and bonnets.

  Ethan came up behind Michael and watched Madison over her shoulder. "Do you think she'll sleep through the night?" He helped Michael with her coat and laid it over a chair. "Or don't you dare make a prediction?"

  "I don't dare," she said, turning as his arms came around her. "She'll do what she wants. She always does."

  For a moment, looking at her, feeling the strength of her spirit in his arms, Ethan found it difficult to swallow. "I wonder where she gets that?" His voice was husky.

>   Michael raised her face and searched his. "I love you so much."

  He simply held her, not taking the miracle of having her for granted.

  "Don't blame yourself," she said quietly. Her fingers curled around the lapels of his dark gray jacket. "You did nothing wrong."

  He wasn't surprised that she had read his thoughts. "I left you. I could have lost you. I'll never forgive myself for letting you face Houston alone."

  "You didn't know. You couldn't have known what would happen."

  It didn't make it easier to accept. When he had arrived at the suite Michael had been ten minutes into her first contractions and Houston dead just as long. Ten minutes. He could have been there to stop his wife from killing a man and nearly losing her own life by giving premature birth. He should have been there.

  The hours waiting in the sitting room while she delivered their daughter in the bedroom had seemed endless. Dr. Turner saw to Michael; Rennie sat with Ethan. Jarret Sullivan saw that Houston's body was removed and made Dee's arrest that same night. The most difficult thing for Ethan to believe was that it happened eight weeks ago. It could have been last night, the feelings were so raw, the fear still so palpable.

  Michael's eyes held his. "You keep forgetting that you did save my life. And Madison's. Ethan, neither of us would have survived Dee's poisoning attempt. If you hadn't been here, hadn't come for me in the first place, I would have died. Don't dwell on what you could have done, but what you did. I do. It means everything to me."

  His look was uncertain, skeptical.

  "Give me fifty years, Ethan, and I'll prove it to you."

  He laughed then, pulled her close and hugged her. "Tell me what Dr. Turner said today."

  "Aaah, you do remember. When you didn't ask me earlier I wondered."

  "Remember?" He led her away from the baby's crib, through the sitting room and into the bedroom. "Of course I remembered. It's what got me into trouble with those ladies at the rally. I was thinking about you." His fingers began to undo the buttons on her crisp white blouse. Her skin was warm and pale beneath. The curve of her breasts were higher than the cut of her corset. His fingers stilled. "Scott did say yes, didn't he?"

  She was too selfish to tease him by making him wait. She was as eager as he, perhaps more. He'd only asked about her visit to the doctor. She'd known the answer since early afternoon. "Yes," she said. "He told me I'm fine."

  He bent his head, rested his forehead against hers. "Then there's only one thing I need to know."

  "Hmm?"

  "How do I get you out of this skirt?"

  It wasn't all that difficult, but she enjoyed helping him, enjoyed the touch of his hands on her skin. His fingers were gentle on the slope of breasts, at the hollow of her throat, and threaded in her hair. His mouth was tender, reverent, and adoring. His self-denial was maddening. She attacked him, pushing him back on the bed, rolling with him, grappling and laughing, loving the feel of the length of him against her, the contrast of their bodies, the planes and curves, the way they fit, the way they moved together, the way the rhythm of their loving thrummed through their flesh.

  She could feel the need in him, the wanting, and it was the same in her. It made her open to him, accept his thrust, accept the heat of him inside and hold him close. She wrapped her legs around his flanks and clutched his hard, broad shoulders. His mouth slid across her face, touching her cheeks, her mouth, her closed eyes. He said her name, called her Michael in that deep, whiskey voice of his, gritty and smooth at the same time, and she knew she was loved.

  Michael's head rested in the crook of Ethan's shoulder. She stroked his flat belly. Their clothes were scattered on the floor, over the rocker and lay at the foot of the bed. "It's nice to be hasty sometimes, isn't it?"

  "Sometimes it's the only way to be."

  She nodded, pressing her satisfied smile against his skin, then kissed him lightly. "We're so blessed, Ethan."

  "I know."

  Michael settled against him again, a small frown pulling the corners of her mouth down as she considered her good fortune.

  "Second thoughts?" he asked when she was quiet for so long.

  "What? Oh, no, I was thinking of Rennie. She'll never know this happiness if she marries Hollis Banks. Do you think Jarret... no, that would be absurd."

  "Absurd," he said. "Jarret's God knows where by now. He's sure to have collected the bounty on Dee. That means he's free to follow someone else's trail."

  "He could have had the bounty on Houston. I didn't want it."

  "It was better donated to the suffragettes. Not the cause Jarret would have chosen, perhaps, but he wouldn't have minded."

  "Well, he does have ten thousand from Jay Mac for stopping Rennie's wedding."

  "Maybe he does," Ethan said enigmatically. Ethan wouldn't have put it past his friend to pay off Hollis Banks with the money from Jay Mac. Jarret's sense of business invariably lost to his sense of the absurd.

  Michael was suspicious of his tone. "What do you mean?"

  "Nothing."

  She pinched him lightly. "You're not telling me something."

  He grabbed her hand. "There are lots of things I haven't told you. But then what would we talk about on the train ride back to Denver?"

  "Talk?" She slid her body over his, her breasts flush to his chest. Michael kissed him full on the mouth. "I have a better way for us to pass the time."

  His laughter was cut short as Michael abandoned herself to the moment.

  She was the only woman he could have loved.

  The End

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  MY HEART'S DESIRE

  The Dennehy Sisters Series

  Book Two

  Excerpt from

  My Heart's Desire

  The Dennehy Sisters Series

  Book Two

  by

  Jo Goodman

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  MY HEART'S DESIRE

  Reviews & Accolades

  "Delightful and exciting... Goodman holds the suspense as well as the surprises and never lets up on the passion."

  ~RT Book Reviews

  .

  Rennie yawned. She stretched lazily, snuggling back into the thick comforter even as she tried to throw off the dregs of sleep. It was late; she knew that by the slant of sunlight filling her room, but she didn't want to get up. Her toes curled. She turned on her side. She saw Jarret Sullivan.

  He was still asleep, folded uncomfortably in the armchair. His head was tilted at an awkward angle against the back, and he was sitting on one of his legs. The afghan that was supposed to be covering him was lying uselessly on the floor while his arms crossed his chest protectively for warmth. There was a shadow of beard along his jaw and heavy weariness in the slumped, contorted lines of his body.

  Rennie was without sympathy. She rose silently from her bed and walloped him across the face and chest with her pillow.

  Jarret's reflexes were surprisingly quick for a man who had been waked from a hard and heavy sleep. Before Rennie could dance away her wrist was caught, and she was yanked off the floor and onto Jarret's lap. He tossed the pillow on the floor and growled huskily, "What burr's got under your saddle this morning?"

  Rennie merely gave him a tart, knowing look.

  He had to smile. She was sprawled awkwardly across his lap, her gown hitched around her knees and twisted at the waist. The bodice stretched tautly across her breasts so that a deep, satisfying breath was out of the question. Her thick, curly chestnut mane of hair was the worse for sleep, curved in an unnatural wave near her temple and spilling across one cheek in a ratty tangle.

  "By God, you could stop a man's heart first thing in the morning," he told her.

  The blush had already begun to color her cheeks before she realized he hadn't meant it as a compliment. Rennie pushed at his chest and he let her go. Tossing back h
er head and raising her chin, she said, "It would be a service to women everywhere if I were to stop your heart."

  Jarret rubbed his coarse beard and pretended to think about that. "You could be right. It'd keep me from breakin' theirs."

  Rennie was of a mind to slam him with the pillow again. The look he leveled at her, as if he knew her intention, stopped her. "How did you know I put powder in your coffee last night?"

  "So you do admit it?"

  She shrugged. "It seems silly not to. Did you suspect right away?"

  "When you brought in two cups and no pot, it made me wonder. When I tasted it I had a pretty good idea what you'd done. It was a little too bitter, even compared to the usual brew you make."

  "There's nothing wrong with the coffee I make," she said sharply, taking offense.

  One corner of Jarret's mouth curled in a baffled smile. He shook his head slowly, bemused. "A month of Sundays wouldn't serve for figurin' you out. You have no remorse about trying to poison me, yet you get all prickly when I tell you your coffee's too strong."

  "One has nothing to do with the other. If I'd known you felt that way about my coffee, I'd have given you the powder in something else. I hadn't meant for it to taste bad. And it was only a sleeping draught that Mama sometimes takes, not poison, as you know very well. Anyway, you had no compunction about turning the tables on me."

  She was actually taking him to task! "Lady, when it comes to pure, wrongheaded stubbornness, you could teach new tricks to a jack"—he caught himself—"to a mule. I switched the cups when you put the book away and let you drink what was intended for me. End of story. You fell asleep almost immediately."

  "I didn't think the coffee was too strong," she said, feigning hurt.

  Jarret leaned over the side of the chair, picked up the pillow and flung it at her head. Laughing, Rennie dodged the missile.

  She had a husky, hearty laugh, he thought, infectious in nature, not the trilling, musical, and sometimes forced laughter he often associated with the women he knew. He watched her straighten, hugging the pillow to her midriff, and was caught by the becoming wash of color in her face and the spirited challenge in her eyes. The corners of her mouth lifted in a wide, beautiful smile.