“I could think of worse fates,” he said cheerfully, and then brushed off the statement with a negating wave. “I’m not after the paper, Maggie, you should know that. I want to help you, certainly, but that’s not the same as wanting to horn in and take over.”
“No it isn’t,” she agreed, trying to keep the sharp edge out of her voice. “But I really dislike being held responsible for the way she thinks you should be occupying your time.”
“I don’t blame you, but I hope you have noticed that since I came she’s become increasingly involved with the ladies’ church society. And I hope you feel some proper gratitude at my cleverness.”
“I don’t think she needed that much of a push; this town thinks of Frank as some kind of icon, and after the memorial service, when that was brought very convincingly home to her, I’m sure she relished the thought of being Frank’s mother publicly—wherever and whenever she could.”
“Very astute, Maggie. So I’m not such a clever son after all.”
“I wager you’re clever enough, Reese. And you’re damned likable.”
“And I think, on that warming thought, I’ll leave.” He got up with an easy grace and made his way to the backroom staircase. Maggie watched him for a moment before her eyes swung to Jean, who was staring after Reese with the most enigmatic expression on his face.
That was Saturday, with Sunday yet to come, and already a keening restlessness possessed her that was very hard to disguise from the knowledgeable eyes of A.J. and Jean, both of whom had worked the cleanup detail with her Saturday evening. When Jean suggested they might take dinner at the hotel, she felt distinctly uncomfortable and begged off with not much of an excuse.
He shrugged it off. “You are probably right. The gossips have enough to speculate about with Reese’s presence here. I would never want to embarrass you, Maggie.”
“Of course not. No, I wasn’t even thinking about that. The hotel is expensive.”
“But it is a rare treat for me, and just a suggestion only. Perhaps some other time.”
“Perhaps,” she said noncommittally, but she was rather astonished at the offer. There was no more than the usual emotion in the tone of his voice, and yet she had the impression that there was a great deal of emotion behind his reason for asking. She hadn’t the faintest idea how to cope with that.
It was really getting to be too much. There was a flaring awareness in Jean’s eyes, and she felt that moment of attenuated awareness between them that had no comparison with what she felt about Logan.
She wanted to tell him to just go away and never come back, but that wasn’t possible. He was irreplaceable, and she had the grim feeling that he knew it.
Eventually he had no choice but to leave. He did so with his usual good manners, manners that effectively masked whatever lay below the surface.
And then finally Sunday came, and a leisurely morning alone as Reese once again escorted Mother Colleran to church and left her to her own devices.
How had she ever survived a week without Reese as the buffer between herself and her mother-in-law?
She had time to luxuriate in the anticipation of what was to happen tonight. She had time to remember all the delicious things Logan had done to her, and the glorious culmination at his hands. Her body went all molten thinking about it and the possibilities of the evening ahead. She decided how she would dress for him and was both amazed and aroused by her own daring.
It did require some planning, but by the time she was ready to slip downstairs she was dressed and ready for him. Praying that he was there, already waiting for her.
Downstairs in the back room, she locked the door and called to him in the office, her voice husky with excitement. He was there, in the dark, waiting, just as she hoped, and she felt a frisson of nervousness before she stepped out of her boots and shucked the thin robe she had worn to cover her leather apron. Underneath this she was naked, and she felt her way carefully into the room until she came to him. He knew she was there by her fragrance and by her breathing and the scent of sensual excitement that permeated the air.
She climbed onto his lap, straddling his legs this time, so that the whole of her provocative femininity was centered over him. His hands reached for her, and she heard him groan as he realized what she was wearing and what she had done; his hands settled on her hips and pushed her nakedness down tightly against him. He was already hard for her and she felt a luscious throbbing spurt of elongation as she gyrated her hips to find the most form-fitting position. His hands guided her until, with a sigh, she finally settled down against his massive hot length.
They needed no words. Their lips met hungrily, openmouthed in a succulent kiss, and she moved with it, bearing down on his rock-hard manhood with groans of delight in the feel of him against her nakedness and the heat of his kisses as he plundered her mouth greedily.
She loved the sense of the rough material against her breasts and the feeling of nakedness behind. The angle of her body as she wantonly rotated against him thrust her bottom outward. Her smoldering movements invited his caresses. His hands moved to stroke her back down to the lush curve of her hips, and there he stayed, feeling the frenzied movement of her tantalizing his member, waiting for her further invitation to explore everywhere.
“Maggie.”
“Was it hard waiting?” she whispered against his lips.
“It’s hard now.”
“Don’t stop.”
“Tell me what to do then.”
She writhed against him as his words sent tantalizing pictures spiraling in her mind. “Touch me—touch me everywhere,” she breathed, and settled her mouth against his ecstatically as she felt his hands move downward, finally, to the sweet, firm lushness of her buttocks, to begin his sensual probing of all her secrets.
Their kisses grew longer, more languid, and his hands moved more slowly as they explored her intimately from behind. She lifted herself and settled against his questing fingers until finally they slipped with luscious expertise into the exact place she wanted them. There he rested as he made love to her mouth and tongue with sumptuous thoroughness.
She surrendered utterly to every sensation. White-hot tendrils curled through her and he sensed her readiness for his sultry thrusts into her moist satin heat. Slowly at first he plunged into her, savoring her rapturous response and her sensuous shifts to give him pure unfettered entry to her most intimate place.
And then her body went wild with all the separate feelings melting into one voluptuous urge. She wanted him, she wanted him, and her kisses became voracious with that ravenous need. And she wanted more than that, more, and she didn’t know what more was; her hands boldly roamed all over him not knowing what she wanted to feel until they came into contact with his pulsating hardness. That, that; she pulled at his clothes frantically as he thrust into her, and with one lovely tear, she freed the towering evidence of his male virility into her hungry hands.
He hadn’t expected that. He almost lost control feeling her fingers sliding up and down the forceful ramrod length of him. And then she sat back so she could revel in the feeling of his hands possessing her in the same way.
And then suddenly she moved and he moved and her hands moved brazenly all over his potent maleness. He thrust into her with ferocious little surging movements and heard her moans and felt her hands stroking him in long, torrid motions. It was as if he were deep within her and they were one. They came to the shattering crowning point simultaneously.
And then the thump of footsteps, unexpected and startling.
“Reese!” Maggie whispered frantically, totally jolted out of the magic of the moment. Her heart accelerated again. “Oh, Lord …” her hands cupped Logan’s face and she dropped a hard kiss on his lips. “Logan …”
But he was calm, even in the face of the stunning climax they had shared. “Shhh. Go into the backroom and get on a light. Close the door. Did you have a robe?”
“Yes,” she whispered, backing off of his lap, and wiping her
sticky fingers on his shirttails. “Oh damn. Logan …”
“I’m up to winter pasture this week, Maggie. We’re bringing the herd down. I won’t see you till Friday. Hurry. I hear him calling you.”
That was the worst, Reese seeking her for some unfathomable reason in the deep of the night. She made her way cautiously out of the office and closed the door carefully behind her. Logan had the key, he would be fine.
She groped for her robe, not at all pleased that she might have to face Reese in that skimpy garment. She shucked her apron, shoved her feet into her boots and tied the sash haphazardly around her waist.
A light … The light was easier; she knew her way around the back room like a blind person. It took another moment, accompanied by the clump of footsteps down the inner stairs, for her to light the lamp, unlock the door and thrust her apron back onto its hook.
A moment later Reese poked his head through the door.
“For God’s sake, Maggie, you scared me half to death.”
“Why is that, Reese?” she asked calmly from her seat at the type case, where her shaking fingers were arranging letters into a jumbled commentary on her feelings. The bastard hadn’t even allowed her a moment to savor what had happened.
She looked up at Reese.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“What are you?” she countered, evading the question. M-I-N-E, she had spelled. She wanted to brand the word on Logan’s flanks. She hated Reese at that moment.
“Well, hell,” he growled, and she knew he had had just a bit too much to drink; moreover, his eyes were raking the thin material of her robe and the outline of her nipples pushing hard against the fabric. “I thought… I thought …” he seemed distracted for a moment as his eyes rested on her taut-nippled breasts. She felt naked as his greedy gaze devoured the sight of her, naked and distinctly unclean.
“God, you’re beautiful in the dead of night, Maggie. What the devil are you doing down here alone at this hour dressed like that?”
“I, I thought I heard a noise,” she lied. “What are you doing down here in the dead of night?”
He tried to gauge her expression. He wasn’t so far gone he couldn’t tell a lie from the truth. In Maggie’s case, he wasn’t sure. The long sleek lines of her body got in the way of his thinking, and he wondered about her self-imposed celibacy. That was a body made to be loved, and he was damned tempted to force the issue then and there. There was even a little part of him that had the passing thought that this little hide-and-seek game was deliberate, and that she was goading him to take the step he would love to take.
In fact during these last two weeks he had been looking for some little sign that she didn’t really mean what she had told him. But this was the first time he had seen her in anything but her prim dark dresses and that godawful leather apron.
“I thought you’d like to know …” he said with a self-satisfied tone in his voice.
“Yes?” She slid off the stool and reached for the lamp, a signal that she wanted to hear the whole of it and quick.
He was transfixed again, this time by the whole of her practically naked in front of him and the incongruous touch of the heavy boots she usually wore around the office. Almost a scene for seduction, he thought, his rampant imagination easing up just a bit. Frank was a fool; he decided to wait for another concretely seductive gesture.
“I thought you should be the first to know. The word is over at the hotel that the lawyer from Denver North is going to be setting up shop in one of the suites come next Thursday, Maggie. He’s here to do business, and I don’t wonder that he might be after you.”
The worst news. She schooled her face into a calm expression as she picked up the lamp. “I’m not scared,” she said finally, handing him the light, and preceding him to the door. “I’ll meet with him, and I’ll tell him no to his face.” She mounted the stairs.
“Well, you might want to reconsider, after all,” he said, as he followed her, holding the lamp high so he could have a clear view of the movement of her buttocks as she climbed the stairs.
Was she wiggling that way purposely? Her boots made the most desire-damping sound he had ever heard, but he could feast on the tempting contour of her bottom for the whole minute it took to make it up the stairs, savoring it because her flimsy robe hid absolutely nothing. It was as if she were naked just for him.
She was terribly aware of the nature of his thoughts, since she was still breathless from the excitement of lovemaking and the thrilling scare of near-discovery. But he wouldn’t know that it was someone else who brought that particular light to her eyes. He would think it was her response—albeit an unwilling one—to his allure. He might even think she hadn’t meant a word of what she said.
Damn and damn. What a coil. It had looked as if she had been playing some coquettish game with him, especially the way she was dressed.
He was still looking at her in that knowing way, and she needed to get out of the parlor in thirty seconds unless she wanted him to be sure that what he was thinking might be true.
“Thanks, Reese,” she said finally. “I’ll look into it tomorrow.”
She knew his hot eyes followed her as she made her way down the hallway to her bedroom and closed the door emphatically behind her.
The lawyer, she thought, sinking onto her bed, was the least of her problems. The very worst thing was having to shunt Logan’s cataclysmic lovemaking to the back of her thoughts because something terrifying had just occurred to her.
Their dark haven was safe no longer.
And there was nowhere else they could go.
“I heard you were running around half naked last night, Maggie. I swear I don’t know what’s come over you. Supposing someone heard about it. Supposing someone thought you were trying to seduce Reese. Were you, Maggie? Were you? I won’t have it. I won’t have it in my house.”
“It’s my house, Mother Colleran, and the last thing in the world I want to do is lead Reese into temptation. I believe I have told him so as well.”
“Well, miss, what you tell and what you show are two different things. When you run around after intruders with nothing on under your robe, you can be sure a man will get a different message.”
“Oh really? How would you know, Mother Colleran? Did someone seduce you sometime when you were naked under your robe?”
The idea was ludicrous, Maggie thought, taking in her mother-in-law’s sputtering indignation. That squat old crow. It was hard to imagine that she had ever been young and beautiful and loved. Hers had probably been an arranged marriage of San Francisco dynasties, and her sons were probably to have been heirs to something or the other. She had probably seen herself as some kind of queen bee, instead, she had wound up a drone, and Maggie barely heard her words as she prepared to go down to Bodey’s store and hear the whole story of the coming of the lawyer.
“And how do you know this anyway?” she finally asked.
“Well, Reese just didn’t think it was highly likely anyone would break into the office, and he wondered whether anything like this had ever happened before. I told him no. I tell you, Maggie, your story sounds suspicious.”
“Well then, perhaps I was meeting my other lover,” she said facetiously from the door, pushed just that little step further into melding the truth and the lie.
And was that a mistake. The self-satisfied look on Mother Colleran’s face told her that it was just the kind of answer her mother-in-law hoped to goad out of her. Indeed, the old lady looked as if she could very well believe it.
So she had accomplished what she had come for, Maggie thought disgustedly as she made her way to Bodey’s store. She got the rise and she got a nice tidbit to repeat to Reese.
“Maggie!” Arwin Bodey hailed her.
She thought again how much she liked him. He was a plain man with a no-nonsense manner and he always said what was on his mind. And he had a prescience that was very unsettling.
“You hear about that lawyer now, Maggie
?”
“I heard,” she said bluntly.
“Yep, I heard Reese was in a tearing hurry to tell you the news. Wonder why?”
“Is there anything you don’t hear?” she asked good-humoredly. “Or are you the one hanging over the bar next to Reese every night?”
“Oh now, Reese can hold his liquor, same as Frank could. No, Lilah don’t cotton to men and their drinking over the counter. They just all come by in the morning for some headache remedies and I see no point to hushing them up when they’re telling me their sad histories.”
“Amazing. I could swear I thought you read minds.”
“Well, I wish I could read someone’s mind. This here lawyer, they’re settin’ him up in the luxury suite in the hotel with an office in one room and a parlor and a bedroom. It sounds like he’s here to do big business, Maggie, and I don’t feel that bodes well for Colville.”
She shook her head. “Sure, he’ll buy a few thousand more acres here and there and patch together the line and that will be the end of it.”
“No, Maggie, you don’t understand. I think he’s here for you and Logan and the Mapes, but primarily for you.”
“That’s absurd. The Colleran ranchland couldn’t be all that vital.”
“Maggie, you’ve looked at the map. You know if you draw a straight line from Danforth down to Gully Basin, the line to Cheyenne goes right through Logan and you. You don’t think they want it? Or that the cost to them would still be less than grading down the gully and retracking for however many miles they’ll have to down that long quarter of rangeland. Oh, Maggie, be careful. Too many people want the rail line, and you’re in the definite minority of those who don’t.”
“I just can’t see it being that critical.”
“You’re being naive.”
She was shocked. Arwin was a good friend, and never once had he ever hauled her down as harshly as he did just now.
Thea Devine Page 14