“He’s probably a Denver North employee, and he’d make them so grandiose I would have to sell up to afford to build.”
“Maggie, you are being intractable.”
“I am being pushed and pressured and I don’t like it.”
“Then let me love you.”
“But you do already, Reese.”
He drew in his breath at the precision of her perception. “But you won’t let me touch you or kiss you.”
“I don’t love you.”
The bitch. “Maggie, if you could just make up your mind about the ranch. If you sold it… Sean Mapes sold up, didn’t he? If you sold it, think of what you could do.”
“I don’t know what I want to do.”
“We could go to San Francisco. I would love to show you San Francisco. You could leave all of this behind, everything, including all the bad memories of Frank.”
“That,” she said, “does have some appeal. I can’t, Reese. I don’t know why. If I could find out why, maybe I could decide.”
“Let me help you do that at least.”
“I don’t know where to begin,” she said. “I just don’t.”
That last refusal almost sent him over the edge, and she knew it, and that, to him, was the worst.
He began watching her again. She had already discovered that the Clarion was being published out of Harold Danforth’s office in town, and she scrupulously avoided going near that part of town.
New construction crews arrived every day. They had begun framing what was to be the railroad station down at the southern end of town, near where Melinda Sable’s house was being built.
The thought of Melinda Sable tantalized Reese. He hadn’t gone near her, but he knew she was aware of him, because everyone knew Frank’s brother was in town. But every day, with Maggie’s aloofness, he began to think about Melinda Sable and all the delights he could demand for the purchase price.
He had made it a point, however, to cultivate everyone. Frank’s brother had a reputation to maintain. He had already heard all the gossip there was to know about Maggie, who had led a very chaste life. But Melinda was another story altogether. Everyone whispered about her, but never did he hear a word about her liaison with Frank.
It was most peculiar to him and inordinately discreet of Frank. But if Maggie had treated Frank with anywhere near the standoffishness that she did him, he could understand perfectly why he had preferred to pay for unbridled adoration. It was so much easier, so much less an emotional investment. But then Frank, he surmised, had never seen Maggie with the cowdog…. Everytime Reese thought about it he went crazy.
Somehow in the course of his conversations with the locals he heard exactly how and where to approach Melinda Sable.
And now, after Maggie’s latest refusal, the thought of having a willing body desire him, someone’s luscious breasts tempting him, a woman’s throaty voice begging him aroused him ferociously.
She was the kind of woman who noticed it immediately. Her eyes rested knowingly on his before she even greeted him. She looked up at him and smiled archly, murmuring in her sweet little-girl voice, “Hello, Frank’s brother. I’ve been waiting for you.”
It felt good to have someone wanting to see him. She settled him on a sofa with his feet up and a drink in his hand. Her coaxing little hands brushed with seeming innocence all over his lower torso as she leaned forward to grant him her lips, once, twice, and then again. Sweet doelike kisses, he thought, wanting to prolong them and spread her beneath him at the same time. He loved the way she played with him, advancing and retreating girlishly, scared and bold.
She was dressed for an evening at home. She hadn’t really expected visitors. And she hadn’t expected him so soon. So she had donned the kind of gown she would wear for an intimate evening at home. Over it she wore a robe of silk that covered her nakedness but still enticed the hand to stroke the material and feel the body pulsating beneath. It draped invitingly over the curves of her body, displaying the thrust of her taut breasts beneath the sleek material.
It invited his touch as he convinced her how excited her kisses made him. He took her hand and rested it on his lap and loved how she whispered in an awed voice how hard he was. He wanted her to do more, and she protested that she couldn’t, even though he knew she wanted to. He thrust his tongue in her mouth again and felt her respond to his hot kisses.
He told her he couldn’t keep his eyes off her voluptuous breasts. And then she said “you can touch if you want to,” in a husky little voice that was utterly beguiling, exactly the way he had hoped another woman would invite his caresses. He reached over and cupped one breast. He moved his thumb over her seductive nipple until she moaned breathlessly.
She shifted away from him with a sweetly knowing smile and slowly began removing the silken robe, a tantalizing little ritual that excited him still more. And when she lowered just one side of her transparent gown to reveal one delectable breast she knew she had incited him beyond provocation. He crushed her to him and devoured the lushness of her breast in one hungry groan, before she could even make a movement to invite his caresses.
He needed her, he needed that, and he lapped at her exposed breast voraciously, ignoring the uncomfortable squirming of her body as she tried, because she was so unprepared for it, to get away from his wet possession.
“It’s too much, it’s too much,” she moaned. He had already undressed the whole of her upper torso and was fastening his greedy mouth to her other breast.
In the heat of his ardor he heard her coy protestations as he uncovered his own lunging sex and then felt for the lush heat of hers.
“Oh not yet, not yet,” she whispered.
“Now,” he growled, and she crooned, “tell me what you want” and he told her, and her reaction was just what he expected, which heightened his urgency still more.
“I can’t do that,” she protested huskily, in a tone of voice that told him otherwise.
“We’ll do it together,” he muttered thickly in her ear.
“Show me how to do that,” she murmured with a hot sensuous note as she pretended to give in to him.
Her capitulation thrilled him. He would be allowed to explore the deepest of his fantasies with her, the things he was dreaming and imagining that another woman was experiencing with that cowdog, and it seemed to him that his manhood responded accordingly.
Her pliant body responded perfectly to the command of his shaking hands as he positioned her properly, raised her to her knees, pushed away her gown so he had a clear view of her delicious nakedness, and began his heated exploration of her secret center.
Her reaction was everything he could have wanted, everything he had imagined with another woman: the gasps of pleasure, the moans and sighs as he touched those secret places that produced the most sensation, and her begging words: more, more more; give me more, give me everything.
With one forceful push he took her, heard her groan of pure animal lust, and began the ascent to ecstasy. It didn’t matter who was beneath him tonight; the replication of his fantasy with a hot, willing woman was his whole desire. And this woman wanted him, and sought the most of his powerful thrust. She let him know with her squeals and moans that she had experienced something special with him tonight, and that at the end, she was deliciously sated.
She covered his mouth with sweet little kisses and whispered suggestive things to tell him the depth of her enjoyment. She had provided the ending to his sensual dream and he was the one who was grateful. He wished Maggie could have seen how a woman should act, how a woman should respond to a man’s overtures.
And he knew he would come back to her again and again just for that.
What he didn’t know was, she did too.
“Well, Maggie Colleran.”
And here was Mr. Brown again, jovial, she thought, because he had almost taken over the town. “Mr. Brown.”
“I’ve been expecting to hear from you,” he said.
“I thought there was not to be another offer on
my ranch land.”
“Oh no, Mrs. Colleran, I wouldn’t insult you by making you another offer. However, you never know; things can happen. You might regret that you didn’t sell at such a high price when you had the chance.”
“I beg your pardon? Was that a threat?” She couldn’t believe her ears. What could possibly happen to several thousand acres of rank grazing land?
“Mrs. Colleran, I am really offended. No, I am referring to your town property. You must admit the offer Mr. Coutts tendered is extremely generous.”
“I’m not in a mood to be extremely generous,” Maggie said. “I can’t possibly make a decision about it so quickly.”
“My dear, you must. You know, have you read this week’s Clarion? The sheriff has been making noises about how quickly the rubble was cleared away. It seems he never got a chance to shift through it…” He patted her shoulder patronizingly. “Well, Mrs. Colleran, it is your decision, after all, and, as Mr. Coutts probably pointed out, there are other properties. It’s just it would be so nice not to have to tear down a building in order to construct one to our specifications.”
“I do see your point,” she said quietly.
“I thought you would. Have Mr. Coutts get in touch with me soon, one way or the other, will you Mrs. Colleran?”
She watched him walk away with a stormy expression in her eyes. Pressure. A.J., Frank, the mysterious unsolved murders … A threat, ingratiatingly issued, but a threat just the same. And the prod of that damned rag that Arch Warfield and Harold Danforth were publishing. It had been two weeks since the fire, and it felt like two years.
She charged into Dennis’s office. “That man just threatened me.”
“What man?” Dennis asked mildly.
“That Brown. That monster. He actually suggested I might regret not selling him the Colleran ranch land, Dennis.”
“You call that a threat? Really, Maggie, you know what I think your problem is? Indecision. The absolutely right thing for you to do is sell the land and the town property and marry me and settle down. And if you were waiting for someone to tell you, there it is.”
“I did not come here to hear another proposal, Dennis.”
“Well, you have it anyway, Maggie. You are uncontrollable. I even wonder why I think I want to marry you so much. You wouldn’t be still for an instant. I wonder if you could ever be happy with anyone.”
That sent her out to the street, fuming with rage. That pompous lackey. And whoever said he had to be her lawyer anyway? Surely there was something in those damned provisions that gave her the power to remove him if necessary.
Hadn’t she had the passing thought she ought to reread the whole thing? Could Dennis bypass her wishes altogether? Could he make the final decision about whether to sell the land? Oh Lord, she had put that off way too long, especially in light of the way he had been insidiously pushing for it.
She cut across the street to the squat building that housed the Mercantile Bank, where she kept her strongbox and her copy of the will. She knew Dennis had a box here too, and she had a most officious urge to know what it contained.
The bankers knew her; they were always happy to oblige. They even provided a private little room where she could be alone, and she wondered silently, with grim humor, if it were available for other occasions. It had a high window and a lockable door and a large square table to spread things out.
She dumped the contents of the strongbox out on its commodious surface and began a quick inventory. Everything was here that she had saved pertaining to her father’s ownership and subsequent sale of the newspaper to Frank. There were bills of sale for the equipment Frank had brought in before their marriage. There were marriage certificates, both her parents’ and her own. She found her birth registration and the bill of sale for the Lynch ranch. She found the Consummation of Agreement that her father and Frank had signed just before her marriage, in which her father had turned over the running of the paper to Frank.
She put it aside.
She found a cancelled bankbook and letters from her father to her mother, whom she barely remembered. It was like sifting through selected moments of her life to find the turning points. And she was absolutely sure that Frank’s will was one of them.
She held the thick pages of the document in her shaking hands.
The words jumped out at her: “… bequeath to my wife, Maggie Lynch Colleran …”
Why had he never changed the terms of the will?
… bequeathed her all the interest in all of his investments, with the principal to be kept intact, and sole unquestioned use of the interest to go to her wholly and at her demand;
… bequeathed her the sole ownership of the building at lower Main Street known as the Morning Call Building, to dispose of at her discretion;
… bequeathed the parcel of land known as the Colleran Ranch to Maggie Lynch Colleran solely in her lifetime, for disposal at her discretion as she should see fit and with the counsel and advice of the executor of this deed.
And nowhere did it mention anything about Dennis’s ability to assign those rights only to himself without her consent.
It made no sense.
She thought that if only she could know why Frank had never changed the will she would know what to do.
She leafed through the remainder of the pages. Yes, here was the clause delineating Dennis’s authority. He was to act in the capacity of her advisor. He was to disperse monies she required at her demand. He was to handle all legalities pertaining to business, and Maggie was to have sole discretion as to whether to sell or lease the Morning Call to a capable editor. Nowhere did it say she had permission to run the paper herself, she thought; Dennis had read into that somehow to please her. Or for some other reason?
By every provision written into the will, he fully expected to live a good long time, because everything oriented to the business was left to her. He just never would have done that, she thought. Especially not after he began his clandestine assignations with Melinda Sable.
There was no mention of the possibility of an heir. Or a brother. Or his mother. Or his mistress.
It was the will of a man who was in love with his wife, and it was all the more crazy because Frank’s desire for her had run its course long before the end of the first year.
She folded away the documents and picked up the Consummation of Agreement between Frank and her father. It was a standard piece of work: for the sum of one thousand dollars her father had given over his rights in the newspaper to his future son-in-law on the condition that he marry his daughter, Maggie Lynch, on the prearranged date of June 25, 1865.
It was interesting to her to read it again, because she had not looked at it since the day her father and Frank signed it. And now, five years later, it read disconcertingly like Melinda Sable had said: her father had sold her for one thousand dollars, and Frank Colleran had bought a newspaper, and somewhere in there between the time they married and the time he died, he had decided the whole of it should go right back to her.
They sat mouth to mouth on the sofa and talked in thick whispers punctuated by the thrust of his tongue into her mouth. “I enjoyed what we did so much,” he told Melinda as he stroked her silk-clad body. “I couldn’t wait to come back.”
“I know,” she whispered girlishly. “I never knew we could do such delightful things. You were so masterful and gentle at the same time.” Her fingers brushed his thighs and his erection while her tongue sought his.
He loved her trace of modesty, her compliments. He felt the tremulous touch of her fingers, and he entered her mouth and released his aching manhood all in one motion. He reached for her hand and forced her to put it on his rigid member. He liked the fact that he had to show her just what to do.
“Was it delightful?” he whispered.
“It was a little shameful,” Melinda whispered back. “But no one but us has to know, do they? You wouldn’t tell anyone that I loved doing something so improper?” She would never tell him she was
clamoring for him to do it again. She had to maneuver him into it, even if he wanted it as desperately as she did. She stretched languidly as she thought of how completely he had filled her, but she couldn’t rush him into it, no matter how aroused she felt. He wanted to coax her and have her beg him to return. It was a silly little game, so easy to play.
She gave him her lips, her tongue, her breasts, her dripping little words of encouragement. Her reluctant hand caressed him until he was ready for her.
“Did it really feel good?” he whispered.
“I never could have imagined it would feel so good,” she told him. “That’s what made it so wicked. And so unladylike.”
“And exciting,” he whispered. “Didn’t it excite you?”
She gave him a teasing little smile. “What do you think?”
“I think you want it. Tell me you want it.”
“I don’t know if I want it,” she murmured; “It felt so immoral.”
“But you told me afterwards you wanted it just that way again next time,” he protested.
“Maybe I changed my mind,” she whispered. “But then again, maybe I didn’t. Do you think it excited me?”
“I know you want it,” he growled. “And I want it, just the same way.”
“You’re so big and strong,” she whispered. “Be big and strong for me. You know how to do it. Show me how you do it.”
The teasing bitch, he thought; he turned her over roughly and shoved himself in her with one thick thrust. And then she was Maggie, all smooth sinuous movements under his hands, begging for every inch of him, the way he just knew she begged the cowdog every night in his fantasies and in his dreams.
He was sated but still not satisfied. It was not Maggie, and only his driving need pushed him there, when nights got hot, and Maggie lay untouchable in the room next door.
On a night of such sultry heat several days later they were awakened by the clang of the fire bell.
Everyone dashed down to the lobby to watch the volunteers scramble to the truck, but one one knew where to go.
Then Annie Mapes appeared in a loaded wagon on her way into town, coming sooner still sooner because the whole of the rangeland from her house on north to the Colleran’s was burning.
Thea Devine Page 27