An Unlikely Lady

by Rachelle Morgan

  She shoved a bit of flaky trout into her mouth. Eating was never a function Jesse considered evocative, but by God, that was before he’d seen Honesty do it. She took delicate bites, pushing each morsel partway into her mouth, drawing the rest in with her tongue, then licking her fingers. One long, slender finger at a time. Then she’d repeat the process.

  Oh, damn.

  He shook his head and crossed his legs at the ankles to conceal the growing bulge between his thighs. “How did he die again?”

  “He was shot.”

  “I thought he caught a disease.”

  Her fingers stilled on the last bite of trout and her gaze snapped to his. “Who told you that?”

  “Rose. She said you went to work in the mining camps after you lost your family to diphtheria.”

  She glanced away and wiped her hands on her pant legs. “You probably misunderstood. Are you finished with that plate?”

  There she went again, trying to veer away from the subject. “What part did I misunderstand? You working in the mining camps, or the way your father died?”

  “Since when is my personal life any of your business?” she snapped. “Do you hear me flinging questions at you left and right? Do you hear me prying into your affairs? No, you don’t. So unless you’re willing to spill all your little secrets, don’t go drilling for mine.”

  She got to her feet and strode down to the stream. Jesse watched her, fighting an insane urge to go after her and apologize. Why, he couldn’t figure. She’d done nothing but turn his life upside down since the day he’d met her. If anyone needed to apologize, it was her. She was the one dragging him into her problems, keeping secrets, delaying his own mission.

  Even if he did owe her an apology, he wasn’t sure he could find the words. Apologies had never come very easily to him—maybe because he’d spent so many years turning off his conscience to get the job done, that he found it hard to believe he had a remorseful bone left in his body.

  She was right, though. He’d agreed to be her protector, not her interrogator, and he had no right digging up her secrets unless he was willing to make her privy to his. The day he’d been carried out of that old coal mine on a corpse’s cot and discovered Miranda had sold him out, he’d sworn never to make himself that vulnerable again.

  So why did he feel as if he was in the wrong?

  It must have been about three o’clock in the morning when his dozing senses came wide awake. He thought he’d heard a sound, but it was quiet as a lullaby, with only an occasional cricket’s chirp and the lonesome babble of the stream. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing he wasn’t used to.

  Just the same old quiet he’d dealt with every day of every year since he’d been seventeen. There wasn’t a part of the night he didn’t call friend. Often he’d felt as if he were the only one in the world.

  Except tonight he had company.

  His head angled toward Honesty’s still form across the fire. He couldn’t see her clearly, with the night wrapped around her as tightly as the woolen blanket around her shoulders. But he was aware of her. Her scent. Her shape. Even her heartbeat.

  He looked up through a tunnel of branches to the diamond-speckled sky. Was she the reason for his waking up at such an ungodly hour? It was possible. It felt strange, having someone share his blanket of stars. Strange in a disturbing, comforting kind of way.

  Hell.

  He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. Just go to sleep, Justiss. This regrettable little venture was complicated enough without him letting his thoughts drift down a road he hadn’t traveled in years.

  Again the sound came, the barest of whispers, a muffled whimper. Jesse’s eyes snapped open and he strained to listen. Was she crying? Dreaming?

  With an impatient sigh, he flipped off the blanket and rolled to his feet. Three steps around the fire pit brought him to her side. The embers cast a red glow against her creamy cheek and turned the golden brown strands of hair around her face an auburn hue.

  Again, she shivered. Jesse frowned. It was colder than a well-digger’s ass out here, and all she’d brought to cover up with was a woolen blanket that had more holes in it than a gold panner’s sieve.

  “Honesty . . . are you all right?”

  No answer.

  The gentlemanly thing to do would be to give up his own blanket. But he was no gentleman, and she’d proved herself no lady. It wasn’t as if she had a reputation to compromise, he told himself as he slid in next to her and settled his own blanket over both of them. Besides, a romp on the frozen ground wasn’t his idea of a good time.

  He’d just warm her up and stop her teeth from chattering. Otherwise he’d never get any sleep.

  His decision justified, Jesse laid his head on his left arm, his right arm resting in the dent of her waist.

  Damn, she smelled nice. And she felt like heaven. He’d forgotten how good it felt to hold a woman. Not just in the heat of passion, but to lie with her curves tucked snug against him. He tightened his hold around her, and she curled up against him with a sigh.

  Jesse closed his eyes and swallowed a groan.

  Determined not to do anything but hold her, no matter how good she felt, or how good she smelled, or how hard he got, he lay with his eyes shut and his hands idle.

  Then she rolled over against his chest. Moon kissed the delicate angles of her face, and her lashes lay in innocent repose on her cheekbones.

  His lungs quit working. His nerves stretched tight. He only meant to smell her hair, but somehow his lips had other ideas and pressed against her temple . . . then her cheek, where it met her ear lobe. Then another to the curve of her jaw. And somehow his hand wound up on her hip, his fingers curving into the soft flesh of her bottom. The heat he’d tried to keep banked burst into flame when he pulled her closer, and her mound touched the ridge of his erection.

  A little voice inside his head warned him that he was dancing with a lightning bolt, but his body didn’t care. He moved slightly away, then pulled closer in a primal rhythm. The heat built, as did the pressure in his loins. His clothes started to shrink on his skin. The blanket he’d thrown on top of them felt like lead. He wanted to see her wearing nothing but the moonlight, to touch her with nothing between them but passion.

  As the fire burned hotter, his mouth grew bolder, seeking the smooth column of her neck, and his hands broadened their exploration, moving around to cup her backside, pulling her flush against him.

  And Honesty pressed herself closer to the warmth against her front, snuggled deeper into the hardness beneath her cheek, aware only of an unbearable need to absorb into herself the glorious scents of fire smoke, old leather, and man.

  She tensed suddenly. Her eyes popped open.

  Man?

  She reared back. “Jesse?”

  “Expecting someone else?” he countered in a strangled voice.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What does it feel like I’m doing?” His hand skimmed down the outer slope of her thigh, then up again. “Your teeth were chattering loud enough to shake the leaves loose. I’m just warming you up.”

  She smacked at his hand and scooted out of his reach. “I don’t recall inviting you to touch me.

  Even in the darkness, she recognized the glaze of desire in his eyes. Good Lord, how long had he been pawing at her? How long had she been letting him?

  “I didn’t realize I needed an invitation.”

  Outrage at his gall and irritation at herself roiled in her middle. “I knew this would happen.”

  “What?”

  “That just because I’m here, you’d think I was yours for the taking. And sure enough, the minute I turn my back, you’re all over me.”

  His dumbfounded expression gave way to one of bruised male pride. “You weren’t so prudish the first time I touched you.”

  Why did he have to bring up that night? She’d only just gotten the memory of it out of her head.

  Almost.

  She clasped her collar
to her throat and tipped her chin. “That was different.”

  “What’s so different about it? I want you. You want me. Just name your price.”

  Her cheeks flamed with outrage. “The difference is, I don’t work for Rose anymore. I won’t be a body to use for your own pleasures, no matter how much you offer, because I’m not for sale. Not for you, not for anyone, and not for any price.”

  As she rolled onto her side and clutched her blanket close to her breast, she refused to consider that only yesterday, she’d been willing to trade her virginity for his help.

  Darn. She was cold. She was tired. She was scared.

  And she was much too aware of the man lying a short distance away. Part of her wanted to punish him for taking such liberties while she’d been asleep, for awakening sensations inside her no man had roused before. Yet another part wanted to demand he do so again. And still another part of her wanted to run as far away from him as she could get.

  She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears burning at the back. She’d gotten herself caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, Deuce would say, and left herself open to more trouble than she could handle.

  It was time she admitted that she’d made a big mistake.

  And find some way to get rid of him.

  “Get up, Honesty. It’s time to hit the trail.”

  Honesty’s eyes cracked open, blinked at the blackness, then shut again. “Go away. It’s not even light out yet.”

  “It will be by the time you’re dressed. I’d like to hit New Mexico sometime before the new year, so you’d best get up, or I’m leaving without you.”

  She rolled onto her stomach and crunched her carpetbag beneath her head. She felt as if she’d just gotten to sleep, and even if she wanted it to, she doubted her body would obey any order to rise. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  At the recess of her mind, Honesty heard footsteps, a rustling, a creak of leather . . .

  Then all went quiet.

  Too quiet.

  Her sense froze and Honesty snapped upright, frantically searching the area.

  “Lookin’ for me?”

  She whipped around and spotted Jesse leaning against his horse, his elbow propped on the saddle. But it was the smug grin on his face that set off sparks of outrage. “You . . . you . . . scoundrel! Don’t ever do that to me again. Your job is to protect me.”

  The grin slowly disappeared from his face and his eyes turned to the color of slate. “Then you’d best learn to drag your lazy fanny out of that bedroll before noon. I realize it’s quite a stretch from your normal routine, but make no mistake: if you can’t be up and ready to ride by dawn, I will leave you behind.”

  She tossed her tangled hair over her shoulder. “Then I’ll fire you.”

  He laughed a humorless grunt. “If only I could get so lucky.”

  She glared at his back as he strode toward his horse.

  He’d been in a foul mood for two days now, and she wasn’t so innocent that she couldn’t discern the cause. One of the things she’d learned of men was that sexual gratification—or frustration, in Jesse’s case—played a large part in their mood. “Can I expect this tantrum of yours to wear itself out, or do you plan on being an ass till the day we part?”

  “If you’re not happy with the rules I set, then find another patsy.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  His snort told her what he thought of her chances in that arena. Worse, he was right. If there had been anyone else, she certainly wouldn’t have chosen him.

  After dressing, Honesty made her way to the edge of the creek she and Jesse had decided to camp by. The rising sun sent a shimmering reflection across the surface of the water. Honesty knelt at the bank, and just as she went to dip her hands, blinding speckles across the creek captured her notice. Brows drawing together in curiosity, she shielded her eyes and peered closely at the natural fall of rocks a few feet upstream on the opposite bank. They looked as if they’d been welded together, and formed a dripping shelf over, then into, the water’s edge.

  Suddenly Honesty’s mouth went slack. Her breath caught in her throat. Her veins hummed with excitement.

  The truth is hidden in the flowing stones.

  Could this be it? Could she actually have found Deuce’s hiding spot? For nearly three months she’d explored every gold vein and waterfall she’d come across with no success, and the few streams and creeks she’d traveled had held no better results.

  But what if this one was different? What if her hunt ended right here, right now?

  She cast a glance over her shoulder and spotted Jesse kicking dirt over the fire pit. He’d be mad as a hornet that she was taking so long, but she couldn’t let this possibility go by without at least trying.

  Quickly unbuttoning her shoes and rolling down her stockings, Honesty scrambled to her feet. She gasped in shock as the current tumbled around her ankles. Cold cut through her skirts and into her skin, to the bone.

  Knowing that she didn’t have much time before Jesse came looking for her, she forged on. Only twenty-five feet of shallow but frigid water separated her from the opposite bank. If the truth that Deuce spoke of was found beneath the glitter, she could call off the search and send Mr. Do-Things-My-Way-or-Else on his merry way.

  The pebbled stream bottom gave way to sandy loam that sucked at Honesty’s feet as she closed in on the granite rim. Her legs were numb and burning from cold from knee to toe. The glitter she’d seen from the other side had dimmed; still, she couldn’t turn back until she’d explored the pitted banks. She ran shivering fingertips along the formation, searching for any clue to the puzzle Deuce had left her to figure out. If only she knew what she was looking for! A message carved into the rock? An object? A container?

  Soon the hum of excitement gave way to leaden disappointment. Honesty whimpered and gave the shelf a final inspection before finally accepting that there was nothing hidden here. It was just a bunch of stupid rocks.

  Shoulders slumped, Honesty fought back tears of anger and frustration. She should be used to disappointment by now, but for a moment, she wondered if she shouldn’t just give up the search.

  No, she thought, pushing the notion away as soon as it formed. Feeling sorry for herself would not accomplish anything. Even if it took the entire journey to Galveston, she’d find the flowing stones. Difficult or not, it was all she had left.

  But as she twisted around and started for the opposite bank, she discovered her feet wouldn’t obey the command her brain had given them. The harder she tried to pull herself free, the deeper she seemed to become entrenched. But it wasn’t until she started sinking that confusion gave way to climbing terror.

  “Oh, my God . . . Jesse! Je-sseeeee!”

  Chapter 11

  His name echoed in a cry of such terror that Jesse’s blood ran cold and his entire body went rigid. He threw down the bedroll he’d been about to strap to her mule and tore off across the camp site, scattering ashes and charred wood in his wake. “Honesty, where are you?”

  “Help me, please!”

  Racing in the direction of her voice, Jesse fought the tangle of knee high grasses separating himself from the creek where he’d last seen her. Had she run into one of the wildcats that sometimes came down out of the mountains? Had the Treat brothers found her? Possibilities spun through Jesse’s mind in bone-chilling succession. Damn it, he never should have pitched camp in such an exposed area!

  He reached the bank and frantically searched the place. A strip of a creek cut a winding swath through rocky banks sparsely lined with cottonwood and brush. Catching sight of Honesty standing still in water up to her breasts, Jesse’s whispered, “Oh, sweet Mary . . .” Even from twenty yards away, the terror was visible in her wide eyes.

  Wasting not a second more, Jesse jumped into water up to his waist, oblivious of the frigid temperature as he forded his way to Honesty. A strong current in the middle of the creek slowed his progress, muck suc
ked at his boots, and the pressure in his chest built so he could hardly breathe. Yet on he forged.

  “Please hurry,” she called feebly. “I’m sinking.

  “Just don’t move.” Trying to discern where the quicksand formed, Jesse avoided the calmest waters and the widening circle of murkiness that indicated danger, and waded upstream, before cutting to the opposite bank.

  He reached the other side and heaved himself up over the grassy edge, onto dry ground. His boots pumped water as he loped the rest of the distance to where Honesty waited.

  She stood five feet from the bank, just out of reach, eyes wide with terror.

  “Don’t let me die.”

  “I won’t.” Surrendering her to the quicksand would deprive him of the pleasure of killing her himself when he got her out of there. “Stay still,” he commanded, frantically searching the area for dead fall. “As long as you don’t struggle, you won’t sink.” Damn—there was nothing he could use.

  His gun belt!

  Cursing himself for taking so long to think of it, Jesse tossed the sodden Colt out of his holster and fumbled with the buckle. Once he had it free, he dropped onto the bank as close to the water’s edge as he could get without slipping in. “Now listen close, Honesty.” Her blue lips and glazed eyes worried him. He feared her system had either gone into shock or wasn’t far from it. “Are you listening?”

  She finally nodded.

  “I’m going to toss the belt out to you. Grab hold of it tight, then lift your arms over your head, lie flat on your back, and relax as much as possible.”

  “But I’ll drown!”

  “No, you’ll float. Quicksand will hold you up better than water. You’re going to have to trust me.”

  She finally nodded, and he threw her one end of the belt. She caught it, then let herself fall back into the water. Her legs bent at an awkward angle and the water rose up to lap against her cheeks, but as Jesse had told her, she didn’t sink.

  “Now hold on tight,” he said. “I’m going to pull you out. While I’m pulling, I want you to free your legs, one at a time. As soon as you get one foot loose, let it drag behind you. Whatever you do, don’t struggle, and don’t let go. Understand?”