by Tanya Hanson
Jessy Belle pivoted in the dirt and faced him down. “You were a child. Kids can’t always do the right thing.” She tried to meet his gaze but he turned away. “I lived it first-hand. Look at me and Ahab.”
“Well, I was no kid with Tawana.” Then Redd looked hard at her but not with those black pebble eyes. “She was Chiricahua. I was a scout. I should have taken her to civilization. A regiment attacked her village. Me miles away.”
“That’s not your fault either. You were doing your job.” She grabbed his hands else she fell. “Same as me and Ahab.”
Sobs she couldn’t stop ripped out hard and loud, making her throat ache. But she didn’t prevent them. She didn’t care. When Redd reached for her, she fell against his chest, hearts and souls merging. His arms closed around her, and she had no qualms he could keep her safe. And his pain melted into her as well.
“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?” he whispered finally into the top of her head.
“Yes, we are. And so we should be for real. I love you, Redd.”
Hands on her shoulders, he stepped back. “I like hearing that, Jessy Belle. I can’t deny my feelings are growing and I’m not saying no. I’m saying I need time. You need time yourself. Maybe you’ll find a better man.”
“A better man? I’m an outlaw, Redd! Hurting just like you. Maybe we could heal up together.” A horrid thought ransacked her. “Unless...unless you’re gonna turn me in. Get money for my bounty as well as Ahab.”
Redd snorted, and it sounded sincere. “I will not. You have my word I’ll keep you safe. And I do believe the sheriff will agree you paid your dues. I mean, you almost getting hung. And if you cooperate with apprehending Ahab.”
She opened her mouth, but he held up his hand. “No, don’t, Jessy Belle. He might be your brother, but blood means little. I had a pa once. He left my ma the day I was birthed. Ahab, he left you to die and only wants your pearls. He’s evil and needs to pay.”
Suddenly Whisper Ridge seemed too far away to get to, with a false husband at her side. She was weary of masquerade, of pretense. Of acting lost inside a store in her little boy clothes. Crying to find a ma so the proprietor would hand her a stick of peppermint. Not knowing she was a grown up outlaw girl who had already pilfered needle and thread to mend the gang’s ragged clothes. Sugar in her shoe...
And so much more.
“All righty, Redd. Whatever you say.” The sun on her shoulders weighed her down, couldn’t relieve the cold wind. “I best help Sister Avery with supper now.”
He smiled then kissed the top of her head. Oh, she wanted him. But he wanted only a fake marriage, and that she wouldn’t do. She’d have him for real, forever. Or not at all.
Tonight, the mission sound asleep, she’d saddle up Whippersnapper. She, a horse thief who could ride any beast, anywhere, to hell and back and had done so, would get herself vanished into thin air.
Dear Blossom and the sweet old mules would never catch up to her.
Not even with Cleeland Redd behind the reins.
Chapter Seven
How could she leave him? He hadn’t said no. Just not now.
Tears he would never shed outright oozed down his throat as he headed west. Wasn’t much past midnight, but Redd could see very well. The moon was big as a dinner plate, besides which he could smell Snapper on the wind. He would have laughed at the ease of finding her, his Jessy Belle, if doing do wouldn’t cramp his broken heart.
Ricardo Cardeñas had ridden in earlier than planned, and upon stabling the padre’s horse, Redd had seen Snapper’s empty stall.
Sister Adelaide soon confirmed Jessy Belle’s empty bed, and Teresa had found the letter left behind.
At least the letter got read out loud, sparing Redd. And he recited the entirety so often he knew it by memory.
Dear Teresa, you are my only chance at a friend. But I can’t bring Ahab and the others down on you all. It’s best he track me down alone. I never believed him a killer, but he did let me hang. Therefore I cannot promise his goodness. I reckon in my heart he’s still a lost boy who needs love and a home, whereas my head knows he’s evil and must be stopped.
I will send Sister Adelaide some money for my keep soon as I earn an honest wage. Don’t imagine we’ll meet again but I can hope. Thank you, Sister.
I can hope. The three words stuck in Redd’s craw as Ricardo’s fine Appaloosa clipped down the trail. He’d let her down. His Jessy Belle. Should have opened his heart to love before now. He, Cleeland Redd, should have been her chance at a friend. A lover. A husband.
Well, he liked to think Jessy Belle hadn’t gotten far, but he knew she’d gotten there fast, where ever it was. Snap loved nothing else but running at full gallop, specially in the moonlight. She had to be ripe for the finding.
Ripe for his loving.
He guessed right off, rightly, where she’d holed up for the night. Out in the open, Ahab had the flair to find her and a fine horse worth stealing, especially underneath a bright moon. However, likely Ahab wouldn’t be led first thing to the Smokin’ Jay with its rifle-happy hands. But Jessy Belle might sneak on in. Some of the burnt-up outbuildings had long been left empty.
Sure enough. Redd found her asleep against Snap’s saddle inside a tumbledy-down shed, the horse all but keeping guard over her. Traitor. He snickered. For a long moment in the moonlight, he watched her hair flickering silver rather than gold. Gave into the torment of longing, knelt beside her and ran his fingers through it. Hand over her mouth.
“Shhhh, love. It’s Redd. Finding you once again where you shouldn’t be.”
“Whaaaa? Redd? Why, how?” She might have been startled but she cleaved against him. “I just dreamed of you. What are you doing here?”
“You think I’d let you go, just like that?” He nestled his mouth against that hair.
“You didn’t want me.”
“Never said any such thing.” He tightened his arms. “Why no letter for me?”
She nestled into him, chuckled. “You can’t read. But...I took your Snap. The other critters, why. They’d take until Thursday to get you this far.”
“It is Thursday.” He grinned into her hair. “But padre returned early. Gave me his horse.
“How’d you find me?”
“Better me than Ahab.”
She pulled away, her face dark in the moonlight. “I’m off to find him, Redd.” Then she gave in and leaned against him again, looking around in the gloom. “Where’s ’Gade?”
“I miss him, but I needed to move fast. Sister Adelaide’ll mind him til I get back.”
“How did you find me?” she asked again.
He chuckled. “You might be an outlaw girl, but I was a United States Cavalry Scout. I have talents of my own. Now, why are you going back to Ahab? You promised you’ve gone respectable.”
“I have. But it’s best, Redd. It truly is.” Her eyes reflected the moonlight. “It’s best I get this thing with him over and done. Mama swore me to defend those pearls, I know. But they aren’t worth folks getting in the way. Or worse, getting killed.”
Redd saw himself in those eyes, once the moon hid behind a cloud. “I’m thinking it’s all right to sell the pearls, darlin’. That’s honest money to help out the mission. Get yourself an honest start.” His words were careful, but he meant every one.
“But I made a vow to my mama.”
“I know. And I’ve been thinking on that, Jessy Belle. Since I met you. You see.” His words were still careful. “I made a vow to Tawana. To meet her in Paradise. But if I do that, I can’t have you.”
He wanted her. And the wise Sister Adelaide had seen the light of love in both of them. Joy near split him when he saw the light shine in her eyes right now.
“Then I reckon it’s all right we rid ourselves of vows like that.” Jessy Belle’s voice shook. “Those ones we make when we can’t think straight.”
“I think so. We can face all of that in the morning. But...” Redd wanted to watch her face, but fear grabbed
him, so he murmured into her hair. “Thought you loved me. How could you leave me?”
She shivered in his arms. “I don’t want a fake marriage, Redd. I truly never thought about having one before, but when it happens, it better be for real.”
Redd caught her closer than ever before. The full bosoms he dreamed about after first sight that day, loosening her bodice for a cool rag, smashed against him and he felt every mound, no matter their clothes and his musculature. Smacked him in the head, the fact he didn’t want her gone from his side ever again.
“I didn’t think I wanted a real one. Not just yet anyway. Reckoned Tawana still lives in my heart. I guess that’s something between her and me I need to get done.”
“She’s gone, Redd.” Jessy Belle placed a hand on each side of his face. “I think she’d allow you to live again on your own. In your own time and place.”
“I believe you to be right. It ached me, you gone. Now...”
“Now is our time, Redd. Who knows, tomorrow I might be found. It was to be our wedding day. And our wedding night.” She brushed against his mouth, lips tight until his mouth caressed them open. Manly pride surged when he realized she hadn’t done much kissing, remembered the blaze of glory of their lips meeting and Sister protesting. He savored the sweetness of summer even though it was fall, and moved his lips to the taste of soap on her neck. Then he moved mouth to mouth. His tongue entered the hole of those lips. Moved in and out in the masquerade of a man claiming his woman’s body. Cock reaching and stretching beneath his denims for her tight hot, and seemingly virgin center.
She took his hands, bold, placed them over her breasts. “Unbutton me,” she breathed against his mouth. “Take it off me.”
The moonlight caught a glint of her eyes, turned them navy blue like the midnight around them. “Give me my wedding night.”
Never fine handed, Redd took so long to unfasten her clothes he reckoned his nether part would be done before the deed itself. He tossed the calico dress far and wide, wrestled with his shirt and vest. Jessy Belle, naked as birth in front of him, squatted at his saddlebag for a henskin blanket. His senses dimmed. The mysteries of the cleft of her backside beckoned him to explore her in every imaginable way.
He had sense enough to wet his finger before reaching into her. The tight wetness almost had him shout out, and instinctively she rose a bit against his finger and down again. His manhood raged. Ragged breath almost halted his words.
“I know it’s your first wedding night, darlin’, but...is this...your first time?” He had to know.
“Yes.” Her face pinked just enough in the moonlight. “Yes, but...I heard many tales how it’s done. I want us to have our own story, Redd. Now get out of those trousers.”
He did, and her eyes widened like cactus flowers at the sight. “I don’t...I haven’t.” She seemed speechless and not from her injury.
“Never saw a man in full bloom?” he asked, voice as tender as he could get it.
“Nope. Not even living with the gang.” Jessy Belle’s hair showered around her and covered her breasts. Brushing it away, he sucked each as long as he could bear.
“Come here, then.” He laid her down on the blanket where she trembled beneath his gaze. With two wet fingers now, he danced with her core again, hanging on to every self control so as not to explode on the ground. “This’ll help things along.” He added a third.
“I think I want you in me. Now. I wanted it, Redd. That first night even, when we shared the wagon bed. I wanted you.”
Redd reckoned he’d burst. “Aw, there’s so much more.” He knelt between her open legs then, taking the fingers and brushing her mouth with them.
“We got all night,” she muttered as he kissed her, tasting her on her own mouth. Then with no more control, he edged the tip into her.
“I’ll go easy.” He muttered against her lips. “It will hurt, I think.”
“Then it’ll be the sweetest pain of my life. Hurt me, Redd, if you must. I want you deep inside. For better or worse.”
And with that invitation, Redd plunged deep inside, hot and throbbing against the virgin flesh.
Her gasp a love song in his ears.
“God, I love you, Jessy Belle.”
It didn’t take much time before he was panting and spent on top of her.
“Love me again, Cleeland Redd. And never stop.”
****
He loved her. Jessy Belle could live on those words the rest of her life. Whatever tomorrow held.
Well, today, that is. Morning wasn’t quite broken yet. Cold enough for them to cuddle close under the blanket for a bit longer. Outside the miserable shed, Snap’s whicker reminded her they had things to do and places to get. Pearls to sell. Redd slept like the dead, and she reckoned a quick toilette so as to keep warm as well as not tempt him into more lovemaking. Both her heart and her body stirred at the memories.
Wherever Redd had thrown her dress last night was cause for alarm because now, naked and shivering, she found it outside the ramshackle door.
Hem ripped open. Pearls gone.
Ahab!
“Redd?” She shrieked as well as she could with her broken voice and the fact they were in hiding.
“What?” He was dressed in a finger snap.
She climbed into the dress and held up the hem. “He’s been here. Nobody else knew where I had ’em hid.”
Shudders attacked her, but before she caved in to the fear, she straightened her spine. True, Ahab had come upon her, them, but he had left them alone. “Here, and he didn’t thieve Snap. Quite unlike him.”
Redd stood scratching his head like a child just waked. “Damn, I didn’t hear a peep.”
“Ahab’s good.” Jessy Belle finished buttoning the dress.
“I’m a trained scout.” Redd’s cheekbones reddened, purely mortified. “I have heard a needle drop from a Jeffrey pine at thirty yards.”
Jessy Belle snorted although she reached for him in comfort. “Clearly Ahab is a bit better. How long you been a scout? Six years? Ahab’s been an outlaw twice that long.”
“I didn’t even hear Snap.”
“Pshaw. Ahab knows how to seduce a horse into silence.”
“Then why didn’t he steal him?”
“I admit that’s curious.” Jessy Belle tightened her lips, thinking hard. “Snap is a valuable animal. We must consider it was all about the pearls.”
Redd reached for her, suntanned and positive once again. “I know you promised your mama. About the pearls. But here you are. Safe in my arms. Alive and well. With me.”
And where I long to stay. She hugged him tight, longed to speak the words out loud but gave her brother one last thought. “Likely I should pray he finds his way. Like I did. And maybe finds the love of a good woman, too.”
Redd mumbled something into her hair that danced along her shoulders, but something caught her eye.
“What’s that flapping on my saddlebag?” she asked. “Well, I mean your saddlebag.”
“A rat?” Distracted, Redd nuzzled for her mouth. “Kick it off.”
Jessy Belle broke away, reluctant and curious both. “Why, it’s my same missive to Teresa. And she’s written me a reply on the backside.”
“What on earth? How did such a thing come to find our saddlebag? We’re miles and miles from the mission.”
“‘Cuz she’s with him.” Jessy Belle’s heart climbed right into her throat and pounded. “Teresa’s with him!”
“Your brother?”
“Of course my brother. Oh, Redd, Teresa’s caught his fever.” Jessy Belle howled like a wolf pup. “And she’s got it bad. She told me just yesterday she had no use for a man. Oh, no. What is she thinking?”
He held her close. “I once had those feelings, about no use for a woman. Then I met you.”
“But it didn’t happen in an instant!”
“No?” After a long warm while, he spoke into her hair. “What’d she write?”
“Ahab came upon the convent in s
earch of me. Found her room.” Jessy Belle sniffed loud. “Left her unmolested when she woke up. They spoke and she saw a lost boy who needs love and a home. In her heart, too, she knows his evil must be stopped. What better partner than a woman who already has already done so?”
She explained how Teresa had stabbed her iniquitous stepfather.
“So you mean she’s going to kill Ahab?” As if in preparation, Redd laid a hand at his waist where his Bowie hung sheathed.
“No. Oh, Redd. It means she’s going to revive him to faith and truth.”
“What about those damned pearls?”
“Language, Mister Redd.” She raised her eyebrows. “Likely they’ll pawn ’em somewhere down the road, for safekeeping. And if Teresa has her way, she’ll retrieve ’em for me later.”
“Why would she get her way?”
Jessy Belle stabbed at the rumpled paper. “She says she’s noticed the way...the way you’ve been looking at me. She saw that same light of love in Ahab’s eyes when they talked.”
“Aw, hell, Jessy Belle. Some of that’s lust.” He rolled his eyes and grabbed his coat. “Let’s get going. They can’t be that far ahead. Let’s go get her back.”
“Maybe Teresa won’t want to get saved,” Jessy Belle said. “Hers isn’t the first head Ahab has turned.”
“Well, either way, he’s got a price on his head, and she’s got the law after her. She’s going to need help.”
“I reckon.” Jessy Belle digested the wisdom of his words. Ahab couldn’t write and Teresa’s letter had sounded honest, but...
Her blood pounded. Maybe Teresa had been taken against her will. Maybe she’d been gagged and unable to scream.
Maybe she was in danger because...Ahab had forced the letter at gunpoint. Redd was right. They had to get her back.
“Come on,” he said with great calm. “Let’s gather our possibles and head out. We can water the horses and let ’em graze at the creek. Then we’ve got stop another to make.”