“One more word, Joellen…” her father warned, without turning around. “Just one more word.”
Lower lip jutting out, she scooped the contents of the drawer out onto the top of the desk and began to look through them. There were more posters, most of them old, and a few letters and telegrams from marshals in other towns.
Casually, Joellen dropped them all into the trash.
One small blue envelope intrigued her, perhaps be cause the handwriting looked feminine. With a saucy little smile, Joellen prepared for the discovery that toothless old Marshal Woodridge had been carrying on a romance with some widow lady in—she checked the return address—the Washington Territory.
Deftly, for Joellen had had a great deal of practice at snooping without her father finding out, she opened the envelope and unfolded the single page inside.
At first, because the missive obviously wasn’t a love letter, Joellen was disappointed. Then with an indrawn breath, she realized that the sender had been none other than Miss Lily Chalmers, one of the lost sisters that snooty Emma Fairfax had been searching for all these years.
Thinking of how she’d lost Steven to Emma, of how their passion was plain to see whenever anybody bothered to look, Joellen saw her chance for revenge, and she took it. She stuffed the letter into her handbag and spoke in a sunny voice to her father, who was just turning to look at her.
“Anything interesting there?” he asked.
Joellen shook her head. “Just a lot of wanted posters for outlaws who’ve been dead or in prison since before I was born.”
Big John sighed and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “I must have been crazy when I agreed to be mayor of this town.” He was frowning thoughtfully. “Maybe I could get Frank Deva to sign on as marshal. He’d do a good job, but I’d hate to lose him—”
Joellen couldn’t have cared less who became marshal of Whitneyville. She just wanted to go back to the party and dance and flirt, all the time knowing she had the letter from Emma’s sister tucked away in her handbag. “Don’t you think I’m old enough to wear my hair up now?” she asked, wanting to change the subject to a more interesting topic, like herself.
Big John scowled. “After running off through Indian country like you did, you’re lucky you have any hair.”
Her most recent exploit was a topic Joellen had no desire to pursue. “May we go back to the party now? Please?”
The rancher shoved a hand through his thinning white hair and nodded. “I want to talk with Deva anyway.”
Although she wouldn’t have dared say so, Joellen figured it was Chloe Reese her daddy wanted to see, and talking was probably the last thing on his mind.
Steven felt restless as he sat in the Stardust Saloon that evening, wanting to go back to Chloe’s house, lead Emma upstairs to her bedroom, and make sound love to her. But she and Chloe were engaged in some kind of heartfelt talk, and he wanted them to have their time together.
He was relieved when Big John Lenahan entered the saloon, scanned the faces at the bar and tables, then approached Steven with a smile.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Sit down,” Steven said, signalling for another glass. When it came, and Big John was seated across from him, he poured a drink from the bottle he’d ordered earlier.
“You get run out of the house, too?” the rancher asked good-naturedly, after he’d tossed back his first drink and poured another. “Damn if that isn’t an improvement over strawberry punch,” he said.
Steven grinned. “Right on both counts,” he answered.
“We’re going to miss you around here, Fairfax,” Big John remarked. “You were a good foreman, and you would have made a fine marshal, too.”
The idea made Steven smile again. After all, he was wanted for murder in Louisiana. He would have been an ironic choice to serve as a United States marshal. “I’ve got some things to tend to down home,” he said.
Big John nodded, sipping his second drink, and Steven looked around him at the dancing girls in their bright, flimsy dresses and at the lewd paintings on the walls.
“I’m still a little shy of saloons,” he admitted. “After what happened to me in the Yellow Belly that day.”
Big John guffawed at that, but his expression was serious when he said, “There’ll always be work for you on my ranch, if you ever decide to head back up this way.”
Steven acknowledged the offer with a nod. “I’m glad there aren’t any hard feelings about Joellen.”
Lenahan chuckled. “Sh’s a wildcat,” he said fondly, “but I reckon she’ll grow out of it. Thanks for looking after her when she ran off, and for not taking advantage of her. A lot of men would have, you know.”
“Joellen was going to tell you I’d compromised her. Frankly, I was a little surprised when you didn’t even ask me about it.”
John laughed again. “Oh, she told me that, all right. I just didn’t believe her, is all. Heard about the spanking, too. Fact is, I was grateful, since it saved me the trouble of tanning her hide myself.”
The two men drank in companionable silence after that, watching the dancing girls and listening to their bawdy songs, accompanied by the tinkling chimes of a tinny piano.
When Chloe came in, dressed in her usual finery, and approached the table, both Steven and Big John stood up.
Chloe smiled, pleased by the small courtesy. “You can go home to your wife now, Mr. Fairfax,” she said to Steven. “Emma and I have had our little talk. As for you, Big John Lenahan,” she went on, and her voice changed subtly, becoming lower and huskier, “I’d like a word with you. In private.”
Big John actually blushed, to Steven’s profound amusement, but he nodded, and when Chloe started toward the stairs, the towering rancher followed eagerly.
Steven was grinning as he laid a coin on the table to pay for his whiskey and walked out of the noisy, smoke-filled saloon.
The moment he stepped outside, Macon materialized out of the darkness, as quickly as if he’d been a part of it.
“Just making sure you don’t decide to take to your heels again,” Steven’s half-brother remarked as they walked along the wooden sidewalk.
“I’m not going to do that and you know it,” Steven responded, never looking at Macon. “You just want to make me as miserable as you possibly can.”
“You don’t know the meaning of the word misery,” Macon answered blithely. “But you will when you’re behind bars and I’m bedding that luscious little wife of yours. She’ll claim not to like it at first, probably, but I’ve dealt with her kind before. They tell you they’re not interested, but when you throw them down on a mattress, they’re breathing hard and spreading their thighs for you in a minute. And how they carry on when they come.”
Steven lost the battle to control his rage and gripped Macon by the lapels of his coat, flinging him hard against the outside wall of the newspaper office. He followed that with a solid punch to Macon’s solar plexus.
Macon made a sound that was half gasp and half laughter, clutching his middle and struggling to catch his breath. “Your mother was just like her,” he choked out. “She was a hot little whore who liked playing games with rich men.”
Steven’s hand knotted into a fist again, but this time he held himself in check, realizing that Macon wanted to be struck. He got some kind of perverse pleasure out of it.
Filled with contempt, Steven turned to walk away.
“You’ll be swat the end of a rope by this time next month,” Macon called after him. “And nine months after that Emma will be sweating in childbirth, bearing the first of my bastards!”
Steven’s hand flexed over the butt of his pistol, but he didn’t draw. He just kept walking, pretending he hadn’t heard.
But Macon had left lurid images in his mind. His stomach churned, and bile scalded the back of his throat.
As always, the thought of Emma was his salvation as well as his damnation. He saw her in his mind’s eye, laughing as she stuffed wedding cake into his mo
uth, and quickened his pace. By the time he caught sight of Chloe’s house, a glow in the darkness, he was almost running.
It struck him, as he rushed toward the woman he loved, that he’d been reckless with his life, not much caring whether he kept it or lost it. Now, because of Emma, every breath and heartbeat was precious to him.
Reaching the gate, he made up his mind to leave her behind, to spare her the dangers and horrors like yellow fever awaiting them in New Orleans. By the time he’d gained the porch, however, he knew there was no way she’d allow him to go without her.
He was going to have to trust his granddaddy and the good Lord to take care of her. He had every confidence in Cyrus, though in his experience the Lord was a little on the undependable side.
Emma stood before the full-length mirror in her room, wearing the frothy white nightgown Chloe had given her as a special gift, and thinking about the long talk she and her guardian had had.
Squeezing Emma’s hand, Chloe had sighed and told her, “I’ve always been sorry I didn’t follow after that damnable train and make them give me Lily. At least the two of you could have been raised together. But the truth is I was pretty overwhelmed at having just one daughter.”
She’d told Chloe she understood, and it was true.
There was a brief tap at the bedroom door, then it opened and Steven came in.
“I was beginning to think you might be one of those husbands who spend more time in the saloons than at home,” Emma remarked.
Steven’s eyes moved over her, leaving her feeling as though warm, sweet oil had just been massaged into her skin. “Believe me,” he said, his voice low, “in the next forty or fifty years, you’re going to find out I’m another kind of husband entirely.”
She felt deliciously vulnerable, standing close to him in a gossamer nightgown that revealed hints of her secrets, and when Steven tossed his coat and hat into a chair and took her in his arms, she was breathless with excitement.
She loosened the string tie at his throat and then let her hands rest on his shoulders. “I’m so glad you got blown up in the Yellow Belly Saloon that day,” she said. “If you hadn’t, I might never have met you.”
His grin was slow and his eyes danced. His hands, in the meantime, were smoothing the cloud-soft fabric away from her shoulders. “I would have preferred to make your acquaintance at a dance, Miss Emma. Or maybe in the library.”
Emma gazghthim steadily as the nightgown fell to her waist, revealing her full breasts to Steven’s lazy inspection. He circled each nipple with the tip of one finger, then bent his head to kiss her mouth.
At first the contact was tenuous and soft, but it changed subtly, until Emma’s arms were around Steven’s neck and his tongue was mating with hers. She gave a little whimper when she felt the gown fall in a pool around her bare feet.
She pulled Steven’s shirt from beneath his belt, and her fingers were resting lightly, urgently on top of his as he unbuckled his gunbelt. It disappeared from Emma’s awareness, along with his boots and shirt and trousers.
They were both still standing when Steven laid his hand at the junction of Emma’s thighs and parted her. She drew in a harsh breath when she felt his thumb begin caressing her, moaned softly when he put his fingers inside her.
“Steven,” she whispered.
He kissed her on the mouth again, nibbled at her lower lip as she pleaded with him in senseless words.
Presently Steven withdrew his hand and positioned Emma on the edge of the bed. He soothed and coaxed her into the position he wanted, then entered her womanhood slowly from behind.
His hands stroked her thighs and stomach and breasts as he began to move inside her.
She felt the familiar friction, and it was heightened by the novelty of being taken in such a primitive way.
Steven paused, just when Emma was shuddering on the brink of fulfillment, to kiss her shoulder blades and spine. He was breathing as hard as Emma was.
Angry, she gasped out, “Why did you stop?”
“I want it to last,” he answered and then, blessedly, his hips began their slow, steady thrusts again.
Emma clutched the bedspread in her fingers when pleasure finally overtook her. Her eyes widened as one wave after another rolled over her, causing her bottom and abdomen to contract repeatedly in violent response. A low, continuous moan rolled from her throat, and Steven held her breasts the whole time, rolling the pulsing nipples between his fingers.
Moments after Emma had fallen silent, so sated that she would have collapsed onto the bed if Steven hadn’t taken a firm grasp on her hips, she felt him moving, rapidly and fiercely, within her. To her surprise, her body buckled in a second, unexpected response while Steven groaned and filled her with warmth.
She fell onto her back when he freed her, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she struggled to catch her breath. Unexpected tears stung her eyes when Steven stretched out beside her.
He wiped them away with his thumb. “Don’t,” he said.
“We have too much,” Emma whispered brokenly. “They’ll never allow us to have so much—”
“Shh,” Steven said, kissing her eyelids and then her mouth. But secretly he feared she was right, and Emma knew it.
Emma twisted a lace-trimmed handkerchief in her lap as the steam whistle blew and the passenger train rattled into motion. Seated beside her, Steven reached out and covered her hand with his own. She shifted her gaze to his face.
“Is this the first time you’ve ridden a train since you came west from Chicago?” he asked gently.
Emma nodded. Heaven knew, she’d come to the depot nearly every single week for the past seven years, passing out posters and searching for the women Lily and Caroline might have grown up to be. Somehow, though, actual travel on board the “iron horse” brought back a welter of painful memories.
“Tell me about it,” Steven said, lifting her hand briefly to his mouth and brushing the knuckles with a soft kiss.
People usually didn’t want to listen to Emma’s account of that long ago train trip. They said things like, “But everything turned out all right, and you’ve had a good life, haven’t you?” and, “Don’t think about it. Put the past behind you.” Even Fulton, who might have become Emma’s husband if Steven hadn’t come along, had discouraged her from talking about her separation from her sisters. She stared at Steven in mute surprise.
I’m listening, his expression said.
Emma cleared her throat and began. “We lived in Chicago. Mama was a very pretty woman, and I’m sure she meant well, but she was weak. And she liked men.” She paused to bite her lower lip for a moment. “Lily and Caroline and I all went by the name Chalmers, but I don’t remember a father, and I’m pretty sure none of us had the same one…”
Steven heard her out patiently, and they were well away from Whitneyville by the time she’d told him the entire story, plus a little about the years she’d spent with Chloe.
“Tell me about you,” she finished, struck by how little she really knew about this man she’d married.
He sighed and settled back against the coarsely upholstered seat. “There isn’t much to tell. My mother was a rich man’s mistress, and she had me. I lived with her until I was six or seven, then I was sent to live at St. Matthew’s, a school for boys. Maman died when I was fourteen, and I was feeling pretty alone in the world. When her lover—my father—died, I went to the cemetery and stood outside the gate, watching the ceremony.
“My granddaddy saw me there and came over to talk. Cyrus told me I belonged at Fairhaven, with the rest of the family. I had my doubts about that, and I still do, but I liked the idea of belonging somewhere, so I went.
“Things were pretty damn difficult, but I developed a real affection for Cyrus, and I got along all right with Macon’s wife, Lucy.
“The war was on, and the Yankees sailed right in and took over New Orleans—and Fairhaven. I stole a uniform off the clothesline and wore it past t
he sentries posted on the roads, pretending to be a messenger. As soon as I was safe, I threw the clothes away and joined up on the Confederate side.
“After General Lee’s surrender, I came back to New Orleans, and for a while it loked like I’d finally made a place for myself. Then the incident with Dirk happened, and Mary’s murder. I ran that night, and I haven’t been back since.”
Emma let her temple rest against Steven’s shoulder and squeezed his hand in hers. They’d each been lonely, both as children and as adults, and it gave a bittersweet dimension to their love. “Maybe we should go to Chicago, Steven, and forget all about New Orleans.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” put in a third voice.
Steven closed his eyes for a moment, but Emma turned her head to see Macon standing behind their seats, an obnoxious smile on his face.
For the rest of the trip, which took a full five days, Macon was always nearby, making a point of sitting across the aisle, or just behind or in front of them. When they went to the dining car, he followed and chose a table within sight of theirs, and when they retired to their sleeping compartment, he invariably rapped at the door and called out a companionable, “Good night.”
Steven and Emma slept little over the course of their journey; because they knew they might soon be separated forever, they made love well into the early hours of the morning.
The air was hot and muggy when they reached New Orleans, even though it was still early in the day, and Emma had little interest in the strange and beautiful surroundings. She could think only of losing Steven.
With much fanfare, the train whistled and steamed and rattled to a stop at the depot. Steven pulled Emma close and gave her a long, searching kiss before standing up and offering his hand.
“Welcome home,” Macon said, appearing in the aisle behind them. “I’ve arranged for a little party in your honor.”
A muscle in Steven’s cheek bunched, but he didn’t respond to Macon’s remark. He just put his arm around Emma and held her close for a moment while he gathered his courage.
Emma and the Outlaw Page 26