SARASOTA STEAM
The Lost Collection
Tessa Monroe
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
SARASOTA STEAM
Copyright © 2010 by Tessa Monroe
E-book ISBN: 1-60601-866-3
First E-book Publication: May 2010
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2010 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
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Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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SARASOTA STEAM
TESSA MONROE
Copyright © 2010
Chapter One
White limestone dust rolled from behind the stagecoach as it trundled down the rutted road. According to the passenger manifest, it left Tampa for Sarasota on August 7th, 1889, and listed three women and three men as paying passengers, in addition to the driver and conductor.
The manifest was wrong, although the driver, conductor, and five of the passengers didn’t know it.
One of the men, young and fair, very quiet, kept to himself and stared out the window as Florida prairie and piney scrub woods rolled by outside. The journey south from Tampa had been rough but worth it if it meant an end to the running.
There wasn’t much further south to run, maybe Miami or even the islands of the Keys, but after that meant Cuba.
Or beyond.
When will he give up?
“Are you all right, child?” the older woman sitting across from “Charles Jones” asked.
“I’m fine, ma’am. Thank you.” To preserve the illusion, Jones spoke quietly and lowered his tone.
One of the men looked at him funny, the husband of one of the other women. “First coach ride?”
Pulling his cloth cap down lower over his head, he shook his head. “No. Not my first.”
He closed his eyes and prayed for sleep. Prayed they didn’t guess his secret.
* * * *
In Sarasota, he quickly parted ways from the other passengers after collecting his two carpetbags and found a room for the night in what he hoped was a quiet boarding house. Once alone in a room, with the door securely bolted behind him, he pulled off his cloth cap and shook out his recently cropped black hair.
Pretending to be a man proved harder than she thought it’d be.
Callista Johnson, also known as Callie, couldn’t afford for her secret to be discovered. There’d been a close call in Atlanta, when she’d spotted him coming out of the boarding house she’d vacated not two hours before, and again in Tallahassee, where she’d spotted his friend at the train depot. Fortunately, he didn’t recognize her. She’d already changed her appearance by then, purchasing men’s clothes and cutting her long hair short. To throw them off the trail, she took a risk and purchased a train ticket west in her own name, destination Kansas City, in hopes of losing her pursuers. Despite the waste of money, she felt she couldn’t afford not to do it. She then quietly headed south instead via stagecoach. She grew up on a farm, could do farm work, had a slim enough body it would be difficult for people to guess through her baggy shirt, overcoat, trousers and boots that she wasn’t a man.
She poured a little water in the washbasin, performed her ablution, and lay down to sleep for the first time in three days.
* * * *
When she awoke the next morning, she noticed immediately how breezy it was despite the sunny day. Gusts rattled the open window in her room. She stood in front of the small mirror and looked at her reflection. There had been a time she cursed her less than ample frame when every other woman in her family had been born with a large bosom and wide hips. Now, she felt grateful she had inherited her father’s slim, graceful stature. She felt even more grateful for all the time her father had spent teaching her basics like riding, hunting, and farming, things no “genteel lady” normally needed to know.
Skills that would likely keep her alive now.
If it’d been up to her lazy, good for nothing step-father, Bart Packer, she’d be married off to his best friend’s son. No thank you. She’d rather marry a mangy dog than that worthless piece of trash. Then again, if he’d had his way with her as he’d intended, she’d have been raped by him two weeks earlier when he stumbled into her bedroom drunk on whiskey the night after her momma’s funeral.
Despite the humid heat, she shivered at the memory. For the past five years, since her father died when she was fifteen, she’d successfully run their small farm while most girls her age were trying to land a husband. Then a year ago that louse of a step-father had swept her poor, sickly momma off her feet with promises to take care of everything so Callie wouldn’t have to work the farm any more.
All lies, of course.
Callie hated him on sight. Not because he wasn’t anything like her sweet and gentle father, but because he was a drunk and a liar and Callie hated the way he licked his lips when he looked at her.
With her cousin’s help, she’d kept their farm going, too busy to do what other young ladies her age did, things like quilting and church socials and meeting a nice young man to marry.
She’d promised her daddy she’d take care of her momma, who’d suffered from a delicate and sickly constitution all her life.
Well, now Momma was dead of
yellow fever.
She touched her waist, the cloth belt hidden under her clothes. It held her mother and grandmother’s jewelry, her father’s wedding ring and watch, and money she took from her step-father’s hiding place after she knocked him out. She wasn’t stupid. He’d taken great pleasure in announcing to her that he was selling the farm, and there wasn’t a blessed thing she could do about it, either. As the husband, he had the right to it. That’s when he tried to take liberties with her and told her he’d made a deal with his friend to marry her off.
After she hit him with her water pitcher and he fell unconscious on the floor, she rolled his sorry hide down the stairs and left him lying at the bottom with a spilled whiskey bottle next to him, after pouring some on his clothes. Not the most ladylike thing, but then again, she’d never been accused of being ladylike.
He hopefully wouldn’t remember what she did, but she wouldn’t give him another chance at her, either. She immediately packed and left, taking what she could with her and leaving a note that she was running off to get married.
Hopefully the good Lord would forgive her that lie. Maybe one day she would get married, but first she needed to save up more money and build a new life for herself.
After a quick breakfast downstairs, she got directions and headed for the feed store. If anyone needed an extra ranch hand, they would know. She needed to avoid larger towns for a while, disappear. She couldn’t believe he’d tracked her as far as he had and prayed he’d decided to follow her out west on the train.
Well, actually, she could believe he hadn’t given up. One thing she had learned about Bart Packer was he possessed a stubborn, vengeful nature. When she’d left their farm outside of Nashville, she’d hoped to never see him again. She should have known he’d hunt her down, wanting back what she’d taken, as well as wanting to take a strip out of her hide for besting him.
* * * *
Jasper Collins snapped the reins, pointing his team toward Sarasota. The day had started out breezy but sunny, even though high clouds scudded across a blue sky. Yet the barometer in the feed store had been steadily dropping since late yesterday, according to Mike Thomas, the proprietor. That worried both of them. It was August, a prime time for hurricanes.
“Lawrence Palmer came in here the other day,” Mike said with a smirk after they finished discussing the weather.
Jasper tensed. “Yeah? So?”
“His sister Leda’s sweet on you.” He winked. “I bet you could have her if you wanted her. And Lawrence likes you, too. So does their father.”
He should have known. “I’m not sweet on her or any other gal right now, Mike.”
Mike leaned back against the counter and started digging under his filthy fingernails with an old pocket knife. “You and that Cuban out there on your farm, you better be careful. People start to talk about you the wrong way, that ain’t good.”
Jasper glared at Mike. His voice dropped to a low growl. “You married?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Kids?”
Mike stared at him, his gaze narrowing. “Three. Why?”
“You ever watch a woman die, Mike? Your wife? Kids? It’s not something I want to think about. Maybe others can just get over it, but it’s five years later and I still hear their screams after that bastard set fire to my place. I couldn’t rescue them. So don’t be lecturing me about what should be right and proper in my life. I’ll live it however I damn well please.”
Mike’s jaw dropped open. “Jesus, I’m sorry. I didn’t know!”
Jasper slammed his fist against the counter. “Add a spool of barbed wire to my account.”
“S-sure.”
Jasper waited while Mike finished tallying his purchases. They’d lived outside of Sarasota for a year now after moving there from St. Augustine, where he’d moved from Virginia before that.
He didn’t like to talk about Virginia. It hurt too much.
Mike tried again for an apology. “Listen, I didn’t mean nothing by it. I didn’t know you was widowed.”
“Yeah? Well, before you start casting shadows on men’s reputations, take a moment to think about what you’re saying. Gregorio saved my life. He’s like an adopted brother to me. Now we’re partners in our ranch. If your mind makes more over it than it is, that says something right peculiar and unnatural about you and your thoughts, don’t it?”
Mike’s face reddened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know!”
“And don’t be spreading stories about my wife and kids dying. Last thing I need is every single woman feeling sorry for me and come chasing after me to make me their husband. I just want to be left alone and work my ranch. That’s all. If I ever feel like taking a wife again, I will. Right now, I don’t.”
“Yeah, sure. I understand.”
“If you want to spread any news, gossip that we’re looking for another hand. Caleb Hill’s father broke his leg last week, and he doesn’t have time to help us out anymore. They can even bunk in a room in our barn if they don’t have a place to stay. They gotta be able to ride and work cattle and mend fences. We’re buying Jack Porter’s hundred acres on the other side of us, and we’ll need someone full-time.” Jasper grabbed a spool of barbed wire from the stack on his way out the door and headed for his wagon. He angrily slung it in the back before climbing up onto the seat.
He knew damn well Mike wouldn’t keep his mouth shut. It would mean a renewed influx of women bringing him and Goyo baked goods and invitations to dinners and church socials.
All they wanted was to be left alone.
* * * *
Jasper returned home in a foul mood. He knew it’d only be a matter of time before he had to face down someone and their innuendoes, but he’d hoped it wouldn’t be this soon.
When it didn’t hurt so much to talk or think about his lost family.
He found Gregorio Valdes in the barn, mucking out stalls. Jasper stared at him for a long moment. Shirtless, Goyo forked soiled straw into a barrow. Naturally tanned skin, a smooth, mostly hairless chest of lean muscles, he’d pulled his long, glossy black hair back with a strip of latigo leather.
“You gonna stand there and gawk, or you gonna help me?” He looked over at Jasper, his full lips quirked in a smile, his blue eyes shining.
“I was enjoying the view, Goyo. Besides, I’ve got a wagon to unload.” Jasper walked over to him and felt his cock harden in his pants. “But don’t stop on my account.”
He grabbed Jasper’s shirt and pulled him close, landing a deep kiss on his lips. “I wish we didn’t need an extra hand. I’m enjoying not having to watch my back when I want to kiss you.”
“You’re gonna like it a lot less when Mike Thomas runs his blasted mouth about me being a widower and we get swarmed with spinsters looking for husbands.”
He rolled his eyes. “Coño! How in blazes did that come up?”
“He made a remark about me and you and hinted something not proper.”
“Since when are we proper?” he teased.
“You know what I mean. We can’t afford for him to decide not to do business with us. It’s an extra two hours to the next nearest feed store up in Bradenton.”
He leaned against a beam. “So what did you tell him?”
Jasper followed him and kissed him again. “The truth. Sort of. After I mentioned my past, I told him you saved my life. Just not how or why. And that we’re partners in the ranch. It’s not my fault if he doesn’t make the leap in logic. I prefer he doesn’t.”
Gregorio’s arms snaked around his waist. Jasper felt his lover’s hard cock pressing into his hip through his trousers. “Not exactly the kind of truth Father Marquez would have approved.”
“Since when do you let your Catholic upbringing stop you from doing anything?”
He grinned, exposing straight, white teeth. “Never. You know me better than that, Jaz. But sometime’s, a man’s gotta pretend to try.”
* * * *
The men had unloaded the wagon’s contents into the feed roo
m and house, unhitched the team, and had turned them out into the corral when an afternoon thunderstorm dumped on them. They ran to the house where they stood on the wraparound porch and watched water sluice off the barn roof and into the smaller cistern there.
Gregorio stepped behind Jasper and wrapped his arms around his waist again. “It’ll rain for at least an hour at this rate.”
Jasper leaned back against his lover. “You hope.”
Gregorio just hoped the storm wasn’t a pre-cursor of something more. He’d felt unsettled all day. Not to mention their two cattle dogs refused to leave the porch. Their horses acted restless, and he’d noticed that morning their beef cattle had all settled in the higher pasture, laying close together as if hunkering down for a storm. Even the pigs and chickens acted odd.
Jasper turned in his arms and kissed him, hard, lips crushing together as their hard cocks rubbed through the fabric of their trousers. “Let’s go inside.”
The second bedroom was only for show, for the few and far between times people stopped by to visit. Pulling at each other’s clothes, they stumbled into their bedroom and fell naked onto the bed, Jasper held down by the taller man’s frame. He loved Jasper’s curly, sandy brown hair and big brown eyes. He pinned his lover’s wrists over his head as he bent down and nibbled on his lower lip. Beneath him, he felt Jasper’s cock twitch. Even though Jaz was four years older than him, he usually let Gregorio take the lead behind closed doors.
“You teased me this morning, Jaz,” Goyo chided as he shifted his hips against him, the delicious friction of their cocks rubbing together making Goyo grit his teeth to maintain control. “You got me all worked up and then left for town.”
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