Clanton's Woman

by Patricia Knoll

  Hearing her, Jack glanced up, his green eyes catching the flickering firelight and reflecting a devilish gleam. “You’re sure you don’t want to sleep over here?”

  “I’m fine.” Her voice squeaked and she cleared her throat. “Just fine.”

  He reached to turn off the lamp beside the bed. “Good night, then.”

  In the remaining light from the glowing fireplace, she watched him stand to unzip his jeans. Although she reprimanded herself for being nothing less than a voyeur, she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away as he slid them down his thighs and sat to tug them off his feet.

  She saw the flash of skin, the startling whiteness of his undershorts, and heard the sliding whisper of the heavy denim being removed. Finally, she did what she should have done in the first place. She clapped her eyes shut and, turning away, did her best to ignore the uncomfortable chair edge beneath her rib cage.

  After a moment, she heard the bed creak and all was silent. She listened for his breathing to become slow and even before she stealthily scooted onto her back. She moved her feet to one side and started to sit up, bracing herself with her hand on the chair where her head had been resting. The chair slid on the polished plank floor, shooting away from her.

  She tumbled after it with a whoosh of breath and landed on her side with her feet tangled in the blanket.

  “What the…?” Jack’s bare feet hit the floor with a thud as he shot out of bed. “Mallory, are you hurt?”

  “Nuh…no,” she gasped. “I’m okay.”

  Within seconds, Jack was crouching beside her. “I think the game of musical chairs is over for tonight, Mallory.” Before she could protest, he reached down and picked her up, blanket, pillow and all, swinging her into his arms and striding back to the bed.

  With one hand, he whipped back the covers, dumped her on the bed, then tugged her blanket from beneath her.

  “You will sleep here, Ms. Earp. With me. You will not argue. You will not try to escape, hide, or otherwise keep me from sleeping. Are there any questions?”

  Mallory kept her eyes firmly fixed on his face, which even in the dim light, she could see was none too happy. “Yes. Do you snore?”

  With a harrumph of disgust, he climbed in beside her. “I don’t know, but since you’re so worried about your virtue, you can stay awake all night and listen. Tell me in the morning. Now can we please get some sleep?”

  Mallory was enjoying his outrage. She turned away from him, tucked her pillow under her cheek, and smiled into the darkness. “Sure, Jack, whatever you say.”

  Mallory came awake slowly and feeling disoriented. The sun was coming from the wrong direction and she heard birds rather than the early-morning traffic at home on Allen Street. She was warm, too warm, with the weight of an arm around her waist.

  An arm? She came to full alertness with a jolt, her eyes springing open. Jack had pulled her to him in the night, snuggling her close and making sure she stayed close. Besides his arm around her waist, his face was buried in her hair and one of his muscular legs was wrapped around both of hers. She felt as if the two of them had been sealed together.

  While her body went stiff in surprise at the intimate contact, her mind kicked into immediate fantasies involving the two of them. She knew she shouldn’t be enjoying this so much. She should wake him and insist that he let her go, and she would, too, in just a minute.

  It had been a very long time since she had been in the same bed with a man. For the last year of her marriage, she and Charles had slept in separate bedrooms, and when they had shared a bed, he’d never held her like this.

  Mallory closed her eyes again while her mind created pictures of her and Jack waking like this every morning, in the new bedroom he was already adding on to her house. Her fertile imagination couldn’t resist adding to the fantasy—picturing them making love or being awakened by a couple of bouncy toddlers who demanded access to Mommy and Daddy’s bed.

  Mallory bit her lip, almost groaning aloud. Oh, this wasn’t fair. She had worked so hard to keep from falling in love with him, but it seemed that all her barriers had been torn down in the one night when they’d done nothing more than share sleeping space. She couldn’t let this happen, she decided. Restlessly, she moved her legs, trying to ease away from him.

  “Be still,” he mumbled, tightening his hold on her. He nestled his face farther into her hair and kissed the back of her neck. “You’ll wake me up.”

  Oh heavens, she couldn’t control the ripples of delight that shimmered through her, but she tried to keep her tone light. “If you’re talking, you’re already awake.”

  “I talk in my sleep.”

  She fought against laughing, against letting this feel too right and too secure. She couldn’t fall in love with him.

  Jack spread his hand over her ribs and massaged gently.

  The shivers running through her were stronger than bolts of lightning. “Jack,” she begged breathlessly. “Let me go.”

  “Uh-uh. I’m not awake yet and I can’t make a decision until I’m fully awake.”

  “A decision?”

  “About letting you go.”

  “You don’t need to decide,” she hissed at him desperately. “Just do it.”

  “In a minute.” He moved his hand up to her shoulder and pushed gently until she was on her back.

  Her deep brown eyes, dark and troubled, stared up at him. He was sleepy-eyed. His midnightcolored hair was tousled. His jaw was shadowed with whiskers as it had been the first time she’d ever seen him—and he looked incredibly sexy.

  “Jack, please don’t make this hard for me…”

  “I’m trying to make it easy for you.” His voice was low with morning gruffness, but his words were soft enough to melt her heart. “When was the last time you woke up with a man, Mallory?”

  “That’s really none of your business.”

  He cocked at eyebrow at her. “Honey, I have to tell you that prissy attitude doesn’t work for you when your hair is tousled all over the pillow and your mouth is just begging to be kissed.”

  “The only thing my mouth is begging for is for you to let me up.” She arched her body, trying to throw him off, but he just smiled and held her in place.

  He ducked his head and feathered a kiss on the side of her neck. Mallory barely managed to bite back a moan of pleasure.

  “Answer me, Mallory. When was the last time you woke up with a man?” This time he kissed her chin.

  With a sigh, she surrendered, lowering her chin so that her lips were only millimeters from his. “A…long time. Almost two years. Since months before my divorce, in fact.”

  “Was there ever anyone else besides your husband?” He let his head drop so that she could feel him tantalizingly close.

  “No. Never anyone until…”

  Jack drew back, his green eyes dark and slumberous, but keenly fixed on her face. “Until what, Mallory?”

  “Until you,” she breathed, forgetting all the reasons she should insist that he get away from her.

  Jack rewarded her with a kiss. He was warm and male, dominating and yet tender. Something inside her brain told her that she had been counting the hours since the last time he had kissed her. She didn’t want to like it so much, like him so much.

  Her mind teetered on the edge of accepting that she loved him, but she forced it to veer away, back into the safe zone of fighting her attraction to him.

  She broke off the kiss and turned her head away. Longing warred with fear, but fear won. “Jack, please don’t. I’m not ready for this…”

  “Yes, you are.” He used the edge of his hand to urge her face back to him. “Or you would be if you’d stop being afraid. Wyatt and Virgil would be awfully disappointed in you, Mallory. They, at least, never lacked for courage.”

  “They never had to face you.”

  He smiled then, a smile that was tender and yet edged with sadness. “You win, Mallory. I’ll let you up if you’ll give me one kiss of your own free will.”

>   Relieved, she did so, a quick peck on the lips.

  He looked thoroughly disgusted. “You call that a kiss? Garnet kisses better than that.”

  “Then go kiss her.”

  “She slobbers.”

  Mallory burst out laughing. “Yuck! What a thing to say.”

  “Oh, you think that’s funny, do you? I’ll give you something to really laugh about.” Suddenly his fingers were on her rib cage, tickling and teasing. They found the particularly vulnerable spot just above her waist and she twisted and turned, trying to get away from him while she whooped with laughter.

  “Jack, don’t,” she panted. Her stomach muscles were in agony from laughing and fighting for breath.

  “Do you give up?” His wicked hands made a few more passes over her sides and she doubled up once again.

  “Oh…okay. Okay, I—I…give up.” Her breath came out in heaving sobs.

  Jack pinned her down with his hands on her shoulders. “Now, do as I asked so nicely in the first place. Give me a real kiss.”

  “This is extortion,” she complained, but her hands stole up over his shoulders. Her eager palms felt the warm smoothness of his skin, the firm expanse of his shoulders and the strong column of his neck. Her hands came to rest at the back of his head and locked themselves securely together.

  “Extortion?”

  “That’s right. I should report you.”

  “Honey, you’ve said yourself that we Clantons are more familiar with the wrong side of the law than the right side.”

  “I’m going to have to reform you,” she said, smiling up at him. Her face was glowing, flushed with happiness, in spite of the conflicting emotions she couldn’t allow herself to express.

  “Start now,” he urged.

  Mallory gave his head the gentlest of pulls and met his lips with her own. He didn’t try to dominate the kiss this time, but let her take the lead.

  Again and again, she touched her lips to his, tasting, exploring, wishing for more and more.

  The sweetness of it was shattering. The promise she tasted and felt was enough to make her weep. The gentleness of his lips made her feel as if she was coming home from a long, dark journey. He was everything she wanted and needed.

  Her old failures and insecurities stirred and lifted their tiresome voices. She’d made such a dreadful mistake before, for which she had paid and paid. Seeing Charles yesterday had made her recall how much she had paid.

  Deep in her heart she knew, she knew, that Jack would never hurt her, but she was afraid to take the chance.

  When the war between her desires and her fears became too much, Mallory drew back. Her smile was shaky, but she tried for a flippant tone. “There. Is that what you wanted?”

  Jack’s eyes lingered on her eyes, which were too bright, and her smile, which was as brittle as George Early’s map. “It’ll do for a start.”

  With breathtaking swiftness, he braced himself on his arms, rolled onto his elbow, then was on his feet. Quickly, he stepped into his jeans and pulled them up.

  “We’re burning daylight,” he said, suddenly all business. “I’ll start breakfast while you shower, okay?”

  Even though it was what she’d insisted she wanted, Mallory felt deprived of his nearness. “That sounds fine, Jack.” She hurried out of bed, gathered her clothes, and rushed into the shower. Since Jack had made her leave her makeup behind, her morning preparations took far less time than usual. She wasn’t accustomed to seeing herself without at least mascara, and thought her face looked naked, but there was no help for it, thanks to Jack. She braided her hair and stepped out of the bathroom to the smell of perking coffee and frying bacon.

  He glanced up with a swift grin that was full of casual friendliness. “Good girl,” he said. “Finish this while I shower.” He handed her a spatula, picked up his shaving kit, and headed for the bathroom.

  Mallory stood holding the spatula and staring after him. Never had she known a man who could go from the verge of lovemaking to teasing humor and plain old friendliness with the ease Jack could. Not of course, that she’d known any man intimately except Charles, and she was quickly coming to discover that the two of them weren’t even in the same universe of manliness.

  The smell of bacon on the brink of burning alerted her to pay attention to her task. She turned it with quick flips of her wrist, then began making toast. By the time Jack emerged from the bathroom, freshly shaven and smelling heavenly, she had everything ready.

  They ate quickly, washed the dishes, made some sandwiches for lunch, then headed out to saddle the horses. Mallory’s excitement grew with each passing second. It was a wonderful morning. She was setting out to look for the answer to a mystery she’d been curious about for years. Gleefully, she pictured Charles’s face when he learned of her triumph.

  As she picked up Turq’s reins and settled herself in the saddle, she looked over at Jack and grinned. “You were right.”

  “I usually am,” he said with fake modesty. “But about what this time?”

  “I’m having the time of my life, or at least I will be as soon as we find Lying Jude’s bank loot.”

  Jack turned his head sharply, his eyes piercing in their intensity. Mallory’s smile faded into a puzzled look, but he shook his head and led the way from the cabin.

  “I don’t think we’re in the right place, Jack.” Mallory frowned at the current topographic map Jack had obtained from the United States Geological Survey office and compared it to the map they’d found in the window seat.

  “I keep telling you that you’ve just got to be patient. This area doesn’t look much like it did a hundred years ago. It’ll take us a while to find the right spot.”

  “At this rate, we’ll be old and gray.”

  They had ridden for many miles into the mountains, over some ground that was rough and some that was so smooth it made riding a pleasure. As Jack had promised, Turq was a good horse, easy to ride and gentle-natured.

  The weather was warm enough to make her glad she’d worn a short-sleeved shirt and sunscreen to protect her from the sun’s rays.

  Because they had dismounted and hiked several times in areas too steep for the animals, Mallory was feeling less saddle sore than she’d expected. She was also feeling less patient than she’d expected.

  It wasn’t that she thought Lying Jude’s treasure would pop out of the ground and announce itself, but she’d hoped to at least have a clue by now that they were in the right area. They’d been out for hours, the sun had long since passed its zenith, and they seemed no closer to their goal than they’d been when they started out that morning.

  They had taken several promising trails, but these had all led to dead ends or narrow canyons. So far, there wasn’t a trace of the place their map indicated that they should begin pacing off their seventeen steps east.

  For every wrong turn they’d taken, Mallory had felt as if they were getting farther and farther from their goal, rather than moving toward it.

  With a frustrated sigh, she spread the maps out on a boulder and leaned over them. Jack, who’d taken the horses to a nearby stream for water, led them back, tied them loosely to the branches of a juniper bush, and came to join her.

  “This is where we are now,” he said, pointing to a small valley on the newer map. “But look at this.” He placed the old map on top of it. “When my great-grandfather was chasing Jude through these mountains, this valley was much wider. It’s just as Dan said. Rain, weathering, rock slides, all kinds of changes have happened here over time.”

  Mallory slapped her hands down on the two maps and spun away. “That means we may never find it.” She paced across the rough ground, her arms crossed over her stomach, her fingers massaging her elbows.

  Jack folded the maps, then sat on the boulder as he carefully tucked them into their pouches. He stood and stretched, then walked over and placed the two packages inside Garnet’s saddlebag. He removed two of the sandwiches they’d made that morning and walked over to hand her o
ne along with a bottle of water.

  She started to refuse the food, but he said, “You’d better eat or you’ll get light-headed in the sun. If you tumble off into a canyon, I’m not stopping to pick you up.”

  With a grimace, she accepted the sandwich. Moving back to the boulder, she sat down, unwrapped it, and took a bite. Jack crouched on one knee on the ground in a pose she’d seen in a hundred Western paintings and bit into his own sandwich, but his mind didn’t seem to be on eating. He chewed and swallowed slowly, but his intent gaze was on her.

  Finally, Mallory could stand it no more. “Do I have dirt on my nose, or have you decided you can’t stand the sight of me without makeup after all?”

  Jack took another bite before he answered. “You’ve been pretty anxious and pushy all morning. I know why I’m here, but exactly why are you here?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  MALLORY stared at him for a second. “I’ve already told you. This story has interested me for years…”

  “But why, exactly?”

  Her shoulders lifted swiftly, then fell. “I love history, you know that. That’s why I own an antique shop. I helped Charles write his two books. I’ve done tons of research. Besides, it’s a challenge to me, something I’d like to accomplish.”

  “Why?” Jack popped the last bite of sandwich into his mouth and washed it down with a gulp of water. “Why this particular one? Right now you seem a lot more anxious about it than I am.”

  She frowned at him, wondering why this sudden interrogation. Certainly, she had noticed that while she was becoming more and more distraught over their failure to find the right spot, he’d become quiet and watchful, obviously deep in thought.

  “I told you, Jack, it interests me.”

  He rose to his feet and walked over to stand facing her. She had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes, which she could now see held an expression she couldn’t quite read. It was as if he was waiting for her answer and didn’t want to be disappointed.