A Fire in the Blood

by Shirl Henke

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  They rode back to their hotel suite in silence. Lissa held tightly to Jess's arm, still seeing the crazed hatred in Yancy Brewster's eyes. What if she had been able to talk Jess out of carrying the hidden weapon? He would be the one now lying dead on the opera house floor. She shivered just thinking about it.

  Jess felt her mute misery and her trembling. Damn, he had known it was a mistake to return to her bed and give her hope for a future together. If the whole awful debacle of being cut at the dance and subjected to such vicious gossip was not bad enough, he had to kill a gun-crazy drunk. Brewster could have shot Lissa in the fracas. Just thinking about it made his blood run cold.

  Given how the town in general and Lemuel Mathis in particular felt about him, he still stood a good chance of being arrested on some technicality.

  Cy Evers was probably decent enough to see that it did not stick, but the scandal would further wound Lissa and leave her and Johnny completely isolated.

  When they arrived at the hotel, Jess escorted her upstairs. Once she was safely ensconced with their son, he would take care of his business with the sheriff and indulge his need for a drink at the saloon.

  A small wail carried through the door, and Lissa smiled tremulously, her eyes luminous with love as she entered the suite. "He's woken up hungry." She started toward Clare's room, then turned back to Jess. "I'll bring him to our room to feed him," she said softly, knowing how he liked to watch.

  Jess felt defiled and unworthy. He had just killed a man, one of so many, and not all of them as justly in need of a bullet as Yancy Brewster. "I have a lifetime of blood on my hands, Lissa. Scarcely the legacy I want to pass along to my son. Take care of Johnny and go to sleep. I need to be alone for a while."

  "You've been alone too long, Jess. That's the trouble—"

  "No, the trouble is my dragging you and Johnny down with me."

  "Stop it, Jess," she said in a choked voice, reaching out to him.

  He put her hands aside and stepped determinedly away. "If you won't think of yourself, at least think of your son. You heard those old harridans tonight—and their menfolk. They'll never let you forget Johnny was conceived outside wedlock. They won't let him forget it either when he gets old enough to understand—not bad enough that he's got Mexican and Indian blood, but as far as they're concerned, he's a bastard to boot."

  She blanched white and stood frozen. "Why are you saying such horrible things?"

  "Just think of Johnny, Lissa, not us. Take a good look at your son. He's only an eighth Indian. Back East, no one would have to know the circumstances of his birth or who his father was. You could be a widow lady. Hell, say your husband was some dead Spanish nobleman. Nobody would know. They'd think it was romantic. Just. . . just think about it, Lissa. I have to go out now. I'll be back late."

  He turned quickly and left. Her cry echoed in his ears, "Where are you going, Jess?"

  She might think he was headed straight to the Royale to see Cammie. That would suit his plans well. Better to hurt her quickly and have it over with than let her keep holding on until they destroyed not only each other but their child as well.

  After he was gone, Lissa changed out of her finery and slipped on a nightgown and robe, then took her fussing son from Clare.

  "He must've heard you come upstairs, for he didn't make a peep all night until you returned," the maid said, embarrassed to have overheard the argument between the missus and her husband.

  Smiling distractedly at Clare, Lissa took Johnny to her room and sat on the bed to nurse him. As she watched his small mouth tug eagerly at her tender nipple, she caressed his silky hair with adoration.

  "How beautiful you are. Your father's son for certain," she whispered, trying not to think about Jess's words.

  In spite of her resolve, she studied Johnny's face and features. Jess was right about the prejudices that would follow him if he grew up in Wyoming. Could Johnny pass for white in a new place? Her aunt and uncle in St. Louis knew little about the man she had married or the circumstances of Johnny's birth. She could go back and pick up the threads of her life as a respectable widow with a son who would be admitted to the highest ranks of society.

  The baby finished his meal and nuzzled against her breast, a milk bubble on his rosebud lips. A wave of love washed over her as she held him. "No, little one, I won't betray your birthright with lies. You should be proud of who you are and who your father is." Sneaking away to build a life on a lie would not guarantee her son a better future—only one without a father's love.

  Lissa had never been certain that Jess loved her with the same unconditional desperation with which she loved him, but she did know for a certainty that he loved his son. She would never see John Jesse Robbins cheated of that as long as she drew breath.

  Jess's destination was not the theater but the sheriff's office in the courthouse. He would have taken bets that Lemuel Mathis had beaten a trail to the law before Brewster's corpse got cold—and won the wager. Mathis had visited the sheriff and sworn out a complaint. There were ordinances against carrying guns within the city limits, laws observed far more in the breach than by their enforcement. The nicety that he would have been killed by Yancy if he had gone unarmed was beside the point to Mathis.

  Fortunately, the sheriff, a shrewd Irish politician named Sean Feeney, was inclined to take Jess's point of view. This more likely happened because Cy Evers and several other witnesses corroborated the facts, or perhaps because the fat old sheriff was nervous in the presence of a famous gunman. In any case, Jess left the thick brick walls of the impressive courthouse behind, relieved when the issue of Brewster's death was finally settled.

  After walking around for the better part of an hour, he realized that he was postponing the inevitable. He began to retrace his steps to the Metropolitan. Crossing Eddy Street, he decided to stop in a saloon for a fortifying drink, which quickly turned into several. The bartender was corpulent and sweated nervously as he served Jess. Cammie found him two drinks later. She had just finished her late show when word of the shooting fracas reached her at the Royale. She had quickly changed and went searching for Jess.

  "It took me long enough to find you. I expected you would be cooling your heels in one of Feeney's new cells," she said, sitting down at the battered table beside him. "Buy me a drink?"

  He looked at her morosely, then motioned to the fat barkeep for another glass. "What the hell do you want, Cammie?"

  "I am not certain this has anything to do with Brewster coming after you tonight. . . but I learned something very strange the other day. I planned to tell you about it before you left town."

  Jess rubbed his aching head. "What, Cammie?"

  She proceeded to explain about overhearing the conversation concerning Germaine Channault's bizzare purchase of arsenic.

  If Jess felt any effect from the whiskey he had consumed, it quickly evaporated. "What the hell would that old crone want with arsenic if it wasn't the stuff that poisoned our water?"

  Her eyes narrowed. "That is the conclusion I also reached, querido. I have been asking around town to see if anyone from the Association has been seen with the Frenchwoman."

  He looked at her with silent expectation.

  She shrugged. "So far, I have learned nothing."

  He pushed back his chair and rose. "I'd appreciate it if you'd pass on anything you hear. Maybe I'll just dust off my rusty French tomorrow and have a little talk with the old biddy."

  By the time he slid the key in the lock to suite 12, it was three a.m. He expected everything to be quiet and dark—at least, he hoped it would be. But a dim light sent a dull golden shaft from beneath their bedroom door. He opened it and found Lissa standing with her arms around herself, looking frail and delicate, silhouetted against the dark window.

  She turned as he entered. Her face was pale, and her amber eyes had big, dark smudges beneath them. She flew into his arms. "Jess, I've been so worried." Her head came up and she looked him in th
e eye. "You've been drinking."

  He smiled wearily. "Didn't pass the sniff test?" At her look of pain, he cursed himself silently. "I'm sorry, Lissa. That was uncalled for. I went to the sheriff's office." He outlined what had happened as he stripped off his dress clothes and turned down the lamp.

  "Do you still think Lemuel is involved with the rustlers trying to break us?" she asked, shedding her robe and slipping into bed.

  "Could be. God knows he has enough bile in his system to poison half of Cheyenne." He voiced aloud the idea Cammie had given him. "Germaine could be working for Mathis."

  "I've been thinking about the poisoned cattle, too," Lissa replied. "If we could find out if Lemuel has been seen talking to Germaine, we'd know he was guilty."

  "Forget about Mathis's spleen and get some sleep, Lissa. This has been a hellacious night for you."

  "Oh, I don't know. I got to dance with my husband in public. That part of the evening was grand."

  He scowled in the dark. "Not so grand when everyone was whispering about us and giving us looks that could wither a thistle bush," he replied grimly.

  Her heart tightened in her chest. She could feel him withdrawing from her even though they lay in the same bed. Before he could say anything about what was best for Johnny and provoke another argument, she rolled over against him and lay partially across his body. Only the sheer silk of her nightgown separated their flesh.

  "You're right. Let's forget Lemuel and all the good folks of Cheyenne. . . ." She lowered her head to his, covering his face with her long hair as her lips brushed and teased his.

  If this was going to be his last night with her, Jess wanted it to be a glorious one, filled with life and love, not death and bigotry. He pulled her atop him and enfolded her in his embrace, kicking the rustling sheets to the bottom of the big bed.

  Lissa's body wriggled against him as she pressed her breasts against his chest and tangled her legs with his. Her mouth opened for his kiss, and hot darts of pleasure tingled on their dueling tongues, radiating through her breasts and belly, all the way to her toes. She could taste the faint tang of whiskey and tobacco in his mouth as she pursued the kiss with as much zeal as he, biting his lower lip, then running the tip of her tongue inside, along his teeth, until he nipped softly at the velvety tip of it, then sucked it.

  His hands ran over her sleek little buttocks, then embraced the slender curves of her waist. He raised her, holding her above him so her breasts hung suspended like plump melons, tempting him to taste. When he took one pebbly nipple into his mouth, the sweet richness that nourished his son trickled onto his tongue and he trembled with love for her.

  Lissa threw back her head as the ripples of pleasure coursed through her. Jess turned his seeking hot mouth from one breast to the other, tasting and caressing until she was frenzied with desire. Her legs scissored over him, trapping his rigid phallus between her thighs. She squeezed until he groaned in pleasure. Then he lifted her higher and pulled her up into a kneeling position with her legs straddling his shoulders. "Hold onto the headboard, Lissa," he commanded hoarsely.

  Blindly she obeyed, her small hands clutching it with whitened knuckles as his hot mouth fastened on her sleek, velvety petals, parting them with his tongue as delicately as a bee seeking nectar from a wildflower. When he touched that small tight bud at the center of her being, coaxing it with deft circling motions, she almost screamed with the incredible ecstasy. What wild, forbidden magic was this? Surely men and women could not love this way.

  Surely they could! His hands cupped her buttocks, holding her as his tongue and lips worked so exquisitely that she thought the pleasure would drive her over the abyss into madness.

  Jess could feel her arching her back as her climax neared. He slowed and gentled the caresses, prolonging the delicious sensations for her, and for himself. He loved the taste of her, loved feeling her quiver in the throes of this new passion. Her head fell back, and her long fiery hair fell onto his belly, brushing lower, tickling and tantalizing his hard staff as it strained for more of the silky stimulation.

  Lissa did go over the abyss—not to madness but rather to a fierce, shattering release that sent tremors racing from her head to her toes.

  Jess held her until the spasms finally slowed and ebbed. Then he slid up between her legs. Her hands still clung to the headboard. He pried them loose, and she slid bonelessly into his arms.

  "Wha—what did you do to me?" she whispered, when she could breathe again. She still was not certain if her heart had resumed beating or was pumping so fast that it had gone numb in her chest.

  He kissed her throat and pressed her against him, holding her possessively. He must leave her and their son, but after this night, she would always be his. "Did you enjoy it?" Foolish question.

  "Yes," she said so softly he could barely hear. Then she settled back on his legs and felt his rigidly straining erection. "But you . . . you didn't. . ."

  "Yes, I enjoyed it—enjoyed giving it to you, but no, I didn't come with you," he whispered, tucking a wayward curl behind her ear. His breath was expelled in a gasp as she wriggled her bottom against his staff.

  A bemused look came over her face in the dim predawn light, and she chewed her lip as she pondered. "Jess . . ." she began very low, almost afraid to ask such a bold question. "If you could make love to me that way ..."

  "Mmm," he murmured against her ear, knowing what she would do.

  She knelt, then moved back and bent down, taking his phallus in her hands experimentally, almost as if awaiting instruction. She looked up at his face, which was taut with sexual tension.

  "You're a bright woman, Liss. You figure it out," he said in a raspy harsh voice.

  She chuckled boldly then and bent over to taste of him as he had of her. How hot and hard it was! A thrill of excitement rippled over her as she experimented with the velvety tip, flicking her tongue around it until he arched his hips and let out a guttural cry. "Like you said, I am a bright woman," she murmured, just before she drew him deeply into her mouth.

  He trembled and cried out, then gave in to the blinding pleasure. His hands tangled in her hair, guiding her movements as she caught the rhythm that swiftly brought him to the edge of the abyss.

  Lissa felt him trembling and swelling, then the hot, sweet seed came spilling out, and she tasted of him as fully as he had of her. She gloried in it. His hands clenched into fists and his long, hard body bucked. He was as completely in her power as she had been in his.

  Raising herself up, she watched him with a possessive smile curving her lips. When she lay over him and snuggled against his chest, he came to his senses enough to embrace her tightly.

  "Lissa, Lissa," he whispered, kissing the top of her head. She lifted it and looked into his eyes.

  Then she raised her mouth to his slowly and they kissed, a tender, deep caress that went on and on until the fire in their blood rose once more, scorching them with its all-consuming intensity. They rolled back and forth across the big bed, arms and legs entwined, hands rubbing and gliding, mouths tasting. Their desperation was fueled by the unspoken specter of final separation.

  She arched her pelvis against the hardness of his staff, then opened her thighs to his entering thrust with a small, mewling cry. He rolled her atop him and held her hips, arching his strongly muscled back to penetrate her most deeply. She leaned over him and his hands slid up to hold her breasts, cupping and teasing them with an exquisite tenderness at odds with the harsh, hungry rhythm with which they had mated.

  They were like two passengers on a runaway train, madly craving the fierce, swift ascent on their journey, yet never wanting the thrill to end, for when it did a terrible reckoning would follow. When the blinding glory of surcease washed over Lissa, Jess followed her to the conclusion of their breathtaking ride.

  The morning air was chill on their sweat-sheened bodies as they collapsed, still entwined. Cradling her in his arms, he pulled the sheet over them and they fell quickly into an exhausted, dreamless
slumber.

  A sharp rapping on the front door of the suite finally awakened them. Jess could hear Clare speaking to someone as Johnny's fretful cries drifted faintly from the other room. Lissa felt Jess untangling his arms and legs from hers. She sat up as he slipped from the side of the bed and reached for a pair of denims he had tossed across a chair yesterday.

  Her breasts were tight and painful, and Johnny's cries reminded her that it must be late in the morning. She looked down with a blush at the telltale abrasions and love bites covering her body. She was sore for more than one reason!

  "That's Tate," Jess said as he reached for the door. "There must be trouble to bring him to town." Carefully shielding her, he cracked open the door and stepped through it as Lissa rose with the sheet draped around her body.

  "Send Clare in with Johnny," she called after him. In a moment, the maid entered with the fussing baby. Unable to meet Clare's red-faced embarrassment, Lissa seized her son with a murmured thanks and dismissed the girl, then carried Johnny over to a big chair by the window and sat down to attend to both their needs.

  In the next room, Jess greeted Shannon with a troubled nod. "What's brought you to town, Tate?"

  "Damn rustlers run off near a thousand head at the upper Lodgepole last night."

  "A thousand head!" Jess echoed incredulously. "They can't drive that many beeves all the way to Nebraska—a herd that size would slow them down. And it's too damn big for quick illegal sales to smaller ranches or nesters along the way."

  "I figger they just plan to run their legs off and scatter em," Tate said grimly. "Mebbee kill 'em. Someone's out to ruin J Bar. No more doubt about it."

  Jess swore. "How many of the J Bar men you think would back us?"

  "Moss was real pissed about them sons-of-bitches killin' beeves this way. He might convince the longtime hands into ridin' for the brand."

  "There's something funny going on, Tate," Jess said, wishing he had had more sleep last night. If only he could think straight. "I found out that crazy old housekeeper bought some arsenic last month."