Jed (The Rock Creek Six Book 4)

by Linda Winstead Jones

  “I’d say Jed has finally met the perfect woman.” Cash leaned his chair back on two legs and grinned insanely.

  “Perfect woman?” Jed snapped. “Did you hear a word she just said?”

  “She was angry,” Rico said sensibly. “With good reason.”

  “And she was right about one thing, pretty boy,” Reese said, clapping Rico on the back before turning about. “I’m going home.”

  “Me, too,” Sullivan said.

  Jed was left alone with a smug Cash and an almost drunk Nate.

  Cash pointed a finger at Nate. “You gave me an idea. I think I’ll call this place The Sun and the Moon.”

  “Funny name for a saloon,” Nate muttered.

  “Unless something else comes to me,” Cash said, quickly losing his enthusiasm for the name.

  He pinned his black eyes on Jed. “Calm down. You hurt Hannah’s feelings and she lashed out. It’s not all that unusual for a woman.”

  “I didn’t hurt her feelings,” Jed said defensively. “She doesn’t have feelings. She has... She has... temper tantrums. Talk about a spoiled brat!”

  He did wish she hadn’t heard what he’d said. He’d meant every word. But then again... “Just a spoiled brat,” he reiterated, more for himself than for Cash or Nate. “A brat who’s too used to getting her damned way. She’ll be fine in the morning.”

  Cash shook his head. “If you didn’t see the hurt in her eyes,” he said, “then you don’t deserve her. Leave her alone and let her go.”

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do,” Jed muttered as he headed for the door.

  * * *

  Well, she’d been so sure Bertie and Oliver Jennings made an impossible couple, but they stood before her looking shy and sweet and very much in love. Oliver even seemed quite contrite about his earlier behavior.

  Hannah’s heart sank. She’d always known that one day Bertie would find herself a husband and settle down. But she had never expected that her maid and companion was so brave as to turn her back on the only life she knew, to tame a rough cowboy and make him... sweet and malleable. Mousy Bertie had been able to accomplish what Hannah herself had not.

  Jed’s words from earlier that day came back to haunt her. How close was he to the truth?

  “When are you going home?” Bertie asked.

  Standing in the general store, long after closing time, Hannah was glad of the darkness. A single lantern lit the room, so it was no chore to stay in the shadows.

  “Next week,” she said. “Probably the day after Christmas.” By then she would have proved Wyndham guilty and her usefulness here would be done. Time to go home. Why did her heart feel small and cold at the thought?

  Oliver shuffled his feet and tried to smile. There was a vague sort of handsomeness to him, when the light hit him just so. Hannah could see why Bertie was smitten with him.

  “I really am sorry you and I got off on the wrong foot,” he said.

  “There’s no need to apologize.” Again. “I suppose I was out of line with my personal questions.”

  Oliver’s smile faded. “Everything’s all right now. That’s all that matters.”

  Bertie wrapped her arm through his and grinned. “We’re getting married next month,” she said. “I wish you could stay for the wedding.”

  Hannah shook her head. Another month in this place? She would die. “I would love to, but I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  She gave the young lovers a nod of her head as she turned away and headed for the stairs. An evening with Franklin and Jackson was preferable to watching this tender scene. It reminded her of what she didn’t have. Love. Happiness. A man to lean on.

  She didn’t need any of that, she reminded herself as she climbed the stairs and braced herself. She never had and she never would.

  * * *

  Jed gratefully took a break from working in Cash’s saloon to give Teddy the lessons he’d promised more than once since arriving in Rock Creek.

  They stood by the river, a target of bottles and cans set up a good distance away.

  Teddy took careful aim and fired, finding his target. Damn, the kid had been good from the first time he’d held a rifle, and he got better every day.

  “Not bad,” Jed said. “But you could be faster.”

  “Why?” Teddy asked solemnly.

  Jed grinned. “Don’t tell your mother I said this, but the truth of the matter is, you don’t learn to handle a rifle to shoot at bottles the rest of your life. You learn so you can defend yourself and those you love from danger.”

  “And bandits won’t stand still and wait for me to take aim,” Teddy said.

  “That’s right.”

  He hoped with all his heart that Teddy would never have to fire a weapon at another person. He wanted the kid to be spared war and heartache and danger. That wasn’t likely, though, and it was always best to be prepared.

  “You take the three on the left,” he said. “I’ll take the three on the right.”

  Together they raised their rifles and fired. Explosions filled the air as Jed dispatched his three targets quickly and efficiently. Teddy lagged behind, but not by much.

  “Good,” Jed said as he lowered his weapon. The air still reverberated with the sounds of rifle-fire. Everything around them shimmered, alive with the fading vibrations.

  Yep, he’d always been brutally honest with himself and those around him. There was no use pretending that life was pretty all the time, that Eden and Sullivan could keep all these kids safe forever.

  Just as there was no use in pretending he and Hannah could make what they had work. Unless...

  “When are you leaving?” Teddy asked softly.

  Jed looked down into deep, brown eyes that saw too much. “Did my eyebrow twitch?”

  Teddy nodded.

  “Damn.”

  * * *

  Hannah threw herself into the repair of what would soon become Cash’s saloon. She cleaned, repaired the odds and ends of furniture they would start with, and saw that the men were fed. Eden did the cooking, and Hannah made the deliveries.

  Jed worked hard but steered clear of her. She did the same. She didn’t mourn what she had lost or thrown away, but accepted this debacle of a love affair the same way she accepted everything else she destroyed. Chin high and denial firmly planted in her mind.

  It would take three days to get the place up and running, not two, and as they entered their last day of work she felt a great sense of satisfaction. They had taken a ramshackle old building and made it into something.... She glanced around at the mismatched tables and the long polished bar, the shelves of whiskey and the large mirror behind the bar, the amateurish portrait of a very nude woman at the back of the room.... Something quite decadent.

  “This is no Golden Palace,” she muttered as she stood, hands on hips, and surveyed her surroundings. “It’s more like a tin shack, or a copper hovel. Cash, I fear your saloon will only be a palace to rogues and ruffians.”

  He grinned, that sardonic smile that did not touch his eyes. “Thank you, Hannah. Rogue’s Palace it is.”

  Jed joined them, and for the first time since Hannah had called him a spoiled brat, among other things, she looked him in the eye. If only she didn’t love him, still! He was an impossible man, insulting and demanding and... and too much like her in too many ways. When two people who refused to compromise came together, there could be no good end to the affair.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Jed asked.

  “I’m still working on it,” she admitted.

  “Wyndham will be here tonight to play poker. When are you going to let us in on this scheme of yours so we’ll know what to do?”

  “There’s no need for you to do anything,” Hannah said primly. “I’ll handle it. I just need you and your friends nearby to detain Wyndham once I have his confession.”

  Jed put his hands on his hips. “You plan to be here?” He shook his head in denial. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”


  “I got us this far. I intend to see this through to the end.” She nodded her head in dismissal.

  She expected an argument. What she got was a soft hand on her cheek. “I just don’t want to see you hurt,” he said lowly. “If you’re right and Wyndham is a murderer, I don’t want you anywhere near this place.”

  Cash quietly excused himself and headed out, for a breath of fresh air, he said. Nate, however, had claimed a seat in the corner and showed no intentions of leaving.

  Jed took her arm and pulled her toward the stairway. Together they climbed to the top and sat there, side by side and looking down over the Rogue’s Palace.

  “We’ve said some harsh things to each other,” Jed said softly. “But I care about you, and I don’t want to see you hurt because you got yourself into something you can’t get out of.”

  Oh, no wonder she had fallen in love with Jed. Maybe he was an ill-tempered ruffian, but he was her ill-tempered ruffian, and beneath that rough exterior there beat a heart of gold. She knew it, if no one else did. If only she could truly trust him. If only she could relax her guard, just a little.

  She leaned over and surprised him with a kiss on the cheek, directly on his endearing dimple. “You’re a very sweet man, Jed Rourke. With you and Cash and Nate standing by, I have no fears about tonight. I’ll be fine.”

  He cupped her face and pulled her to him, for a real kiss this time. With slightly parted lips, he tasted and teased her. He stirred her blood and made her feel as if there were nothing in the world but this: the two of them and the way they came together.

  “I’ve missed you,” he whispered against her mouth. “The last couple of nights, I just lie in bed and think about you. You’re making me crazy, Hannah.”

  “I can hardly sleep at all,” she confessed. “But Jed, I don’t think we can make this work.”

  He grinned at her, took her hand, and pulled her to the top of the stairs. There he pulled her into a dimly lit hallway. “Maybe we can,” he said. “I was down by the river with Teddy this afternoon, and I had a thought.” He hesitated, almost as if he were nervous about what was to come. “Don’t go back to that plantation in Alabama. Stay here with me.”

  “Until you get itchy feet and hit the road again?” she teased, not for a moment taking him seriously. “What kind of a woman do you think I am?”

  “My kind of woman,” he said. “Maybe when I hit the road, you could hit it with me.”

  My kind of woman. Oh, she liked the sound of that. “I have a better idea,” she whispered, grabbing his shirtfront and pulling his face down to hers. “Come home to Alabama with me. If your itchy feet can carry you all over the country, why can’t they carry you there?”

  “And stay?” he asked, incredulous. “What kind of a man do you think I am?”

  “My kind of man,” she whispered.

  He kissed her, cupped her bottom, and pulled her against him. The evidence of his arousal pressed insistently against her.

  Jed was in her blood; he reached inside and grabbed her heart and made her crave this. And more. With his mouth he devoured; with his hands he caressed and claimed her. She opened herself to him, completely. She loved him. She trusted him.

  She had always had power, a power that came from her money or her family name, but she had never felt this kind of force. A personal, intimate power over a single strong man, while she herself was helpless against the need that grew inside her.

  Jed backed her up against the wall, forcing her legs apart with his knee. Her heart skipped a beat.

  “I need you,” he whispered in her ear, lifting her leg high to bring himself closer, more intimately against her. His hand slipped beneath her skirt, pushed it high and tugged at the waistband of her drawers. She heard a small tearing sound, as a few stitches popped.

  A moment ago she had been filled with passion and need and even that elusive bliss, but suddenly something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. She smelled... horses. Panic rose in her throat, choking her. She froze.

  Jed was so much bigger than she was, so much stronger. She had never been as aware of that fact as she was at this moment. His muscular arms trapped her here; his broad body blocked her escape. She couldn’t breathe.

  He kissed her throat and worked one hand beneath her wide-legged drawers. With insistent, strong fingers, he touched her. He pinned her to the wall and stroked her in the most intimate way possible.

  “I love you,” he whispered huskily.

  Yes, Hannah realized with mounting terror, she definitely smelled horses, manure, hay, and the musky odor of the animals themselves. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard one whimper. With Jed pressing against her, she should be hot. But she wasn’t. She was cold. Heaven above, she’d never been so cold.

  Pulling herself together with great effort, she put her hands against Jed’s chest and pushed as hard as she could. “Get your hands off of me,” she said, the words choked and raspy. He did as she asked, dropping his hands and backing away from her one step. “Men, you’re all alike! You think you can push a woman up against a stable wall and rip at her clothes and lie and tell her you love her, and she’ll fall at your feet and do anything you ask.”

  He looked like she’d slapped him, like she’d plunged a knife into his heart. She didn’t care. “I thought you were the one person in the world who would never lie to me.” Tears stung her eyes. It was the smell of the horses, she reasoned, that made her eyes water this way. “I thought I could trust you.”

  She turned and ran, trying to escape the smell of the horses and the panic in her chest and the helpless feeling of being pressed against a wall with her skirt around her waist and a lying man whispering I love you into her ear.

  Chapter 20

  Jed walked calmly down the stairs, surrendering a little with each step.

  He’d tried, hadn’t he? He’d been understanding and forgiving and... and damn it, neither of those attributes came naturally to him! Truth of the matter was, he’d been right all along. Loving Hannah was just too damn hard. Just his luck. The first time in his life he breaks down and tells a woman he loves her, she bolts like the devil is on her tail.

  “Pour me one of those, will you?” he said, nodding to the bottle near Nate’s hand.

  Nate obliged, pouring a healthy shot into a freshly washed glass. Jed took the whiskey and threw it back, then set down the glass for a refill.

  He had the urge to bolt himself, just stuff a change of clothes into his saddlebag and hit the road. So what if he’d told the kids he’d be here for Christmas? So what if he left Hannah to finish this stupid scheme to catch a killer on her own?

  Cash came waltzing through the front door, his black gaze landing immediately on Jed. “What the hell did you do to that woman?”

  “Not a damn thing,” Jed growled as he lifted the second glass to his lips.

  “Bullshit,” Cash drawled.

  Jed slammed his glass down on the bar. He was not about to tell these two that he’d made a fool of himself over a woman and she’d fled. That he’d gotten sappy and told Hannah he loved her and she’d pushed him away in horror and run like hell.

  “She’s crazy,” he said calmly. At least, he tried for calm. He felt anything but. A muscle in his cheek twitched; his fingers drummed the bar nervously. Inside he was wound so tight he felt like he was about to rupture. As he glared at the other men leaning on the bar, he began to unwind. Cash understood women. More than Jed did, anyway. If he kept this inside he just might explode.

  “Crazy how?” Cash pressed.

  Jed wasn’t looking for sympathy, and he sure as hell wouldn’t get any from these two if he were, but he did need to get this off his chest.

  “Try to be nice to the woman, and she turns around and gets agitated for no good reason,” he said, taking one more sip. “One minute everything’s fine, and then she starts talking about lying men, when I never lied to her, and stables, when we weren’t anywhere near any stables....” He shook his head and stared i
nto the glass of whiskey, noting the color and swirl of the liquid there. “I just don’t get it,” he said softly. “I don’t understand women at all. Why do I even try?”

  Cash placed his hands on the bar and leaned forward. “You’re making this more difficult than it has to be,” he said, going for a reasonable tone of voice that didn’t quite work. “So what if you don’t understand women? To be honest, I don’t think we were meant to understand. I don’t think they want us to understand. If we understand them, they lose some of their appeal.”

  He didn’t think Hannah would play that kind of game. She’d always been so straightforward and honest. But then, he really didn’t know her. Not like he’d imagined he did. “But she just didn’t make any damned sense.”

  Nate mumbled something low and indistinct. Jed and Cash both turned their heads in his direction.

  “What?” Jed asked.

  Nate lifted his head and set bloodshot eyes on Jed. “I said,” he repeated, enunciating each word clearly and precisely, “maybe she wasn’t talking about you.”

  For a moment everything was still and quiet. Push a woman up against a stable wall and rip at her clothes... Lying men...

  Richard. “Oh, shit,” Jed muttered, shoving his unfinished whiskey back. “Hannah’s not the dimwit here. I am.” He mumbled a few choice words, the obscene insults directed at himself, this time. “Where did she go?” he asked, glancing at Cash. “You saw her leave, right?”

  Nate had already returned all his attention to the bottle he kept close.

  “She ran to the hotel.”

  Jed combed back his hair with the fingers of both hands, grabbed the walking stick Hannah had propped against the bar when she’d arrived that morning, and stepped outside. He didn’t know if he could fix this or not, but damn it, he had to try.

  A cold wind lashed at him as he crossed the street and headed for the hotel. The few people who were out hurried to their destinations quickly, heads down and coats buttoned tight.

  The hotel lobby was deserted, and he sprinted up the stairs two at a time. Tempted as he was to bust down Hannah’s door, he didn’t. He rapped lightly with the head of her cane.