Two knocks sounded on the door. His secretary, Mrs. Burgess, popped her head in. “There’s someone to see you, Mack. Dierdre from the hotel sent her over.”
“Who is it?”
“Mrs.…” She tapped her chin. “Shoot, sir, I already forgot her name. Do you want me to send her in?”
“Nah.” He stood and stretched, then picked a couple of pieces of white fuzz off his navy-striped suit pants. “I’ll talk to her in reception. It’s getting to be that time I’m meeting Hultenschmidt at Dixie’s for lunch.” He rounded the desk and headed down the hallway to the reception area, his mind already on half a dozen other things he and the commissioner needed to discuss.
His visitor had her back to him. He pasted on a smile. “Good mornin’, ma’am. I hear Dierdre from the Grand Hotel sent you here to talk to me?”
“I hope it’s not an imposition.” Then she turned around.
Midnight black hair framed her exquisite face. Turquoise eyes blinked at him. Then her lush red lips curved into a smile.
“Ruby?” he whispered, half afraid his mind was playing tricks on him.
She emitted the husky, dirty-sexy laugh that he hadn’t heard in three long years. “We’re calling each other by our last names now, Mr. Jonas?”
“This is Mrs. Adeline Ruby,” Mrs. Burgess said.
“I know who she is,” Mack said, shifting closer to take Ruby’s—Adeline’s—gloved hand.
“Yes, my late husband and Mr. Jonas were associates. Thick as thieves if you’ll pardon the expression.” Her eyes kept searching his face. “I quite honestly couldn’t believe my luck when Dierdre at the front desk referred to a Mr. Jonas, who is a permanent resident at the hotel. At first, I thought to myself, ‘Addie, Jonas is a common last name, it’s unlikely that this is the same Mr. Jonas you’re acquainted with’…but here you are in the flesh. In Livingston, Montana.”
Mack couldn’t tear his gaze away from her extraordinary face. “You look amazing, Mrs. Ruby. A sight for sore eyes.” And a wounded heart.
“Mack,” she mock chided. “We’ve known each other too long for such formalities. Call me Addie.”
“Very well, Addie. What brings you to Livingston?”
She cocked her head coquettishly. “Wanderlust. I’ve been directionless since my man passed.”
“I was sorry to hear he’d gone so suddenly. That had to’ve been hard.”
“It was. I didn’t get to say goodbye or anything.”
Mack knew that if Ruby had been in Labelle the night he’d stolen away, he would’ve taken the chance to say goodbye.
“You must miss him very much,” he said softly.
“Yes. But I decided it’s time to move on. So here I am. This part of Montana is every bit as beautiful as I’d heard.”
They stared at one another, each just drinking the other in.
When he noticed she still wore the heart necklace he’d given her, he feared he might fall to his knees and begin to blubber.
“Anyway, I’m staying at the Grand Hotel, and I heard this odd noise last night. When I inquired about it at the front desk this morning, they had no knowledge of it. But Dierdre suggested that since you’re in residence most nights, in the room right next to mine, maybe you can tell me what it might be?”
“Not without hearin’ it first. Maybe I could come by right after lunch—”
“Sorry to interrupt, Agent Jonas,” Mrs. Burgess said, “but you do have a full afternoon scheduled following your lunch with commissioner Hultenschmidt.”
Addie glanced over at Mrs. Burgess, sitting at her desk, who’d been openly listening to their conversation. “I apologize for interrupting Agent Jonas’s day. My little issue can wait.” Then she smiled at Mack. “Thank you for taking time to meet with me.”
“Happy to help. Would you like to have dinner with me this evening, Addie?” That name didn’t even sound weird tumbling from his mouth. It fit her: classy, forthright, yet dragging out each syllable, Ad-e-line…as he dragged out her pleasure, held a certain dirty appeal too.
“I’d love that. What time would you like to meet in the hotel dining room?”
“Not sure when I’ll be done here, so I’ll come to your room sometime after five.” Mack’s coworkers couldn’t see when he brought her gloved hand to his mouth to place a lingering kiss on the bare skin on the inside of her wrist, gliding his lips across that soft, sweet-smelling flesh. He allowed a cocky grin when she attempted to suppress a shiver. “I do need to see if I can figure out that noise anyway.”
“Yes.” She granted him a mischievous smile. “I’ll see if I can’t narrow down where odd noises might be coming from.”
Sassy thing.
Addie retreated. “I will see you later.” She waved goodbye to Mrs. Burgess and sailed through the outer door.
Richie whistled. “I can’t believe you know a woman like her.”
Mack whirled on him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She’s beautiful and cultured. And…did I mention beautiful?”
He relaxed his fighting stance.
“And she’s fashionable,” Mrs. Burgess added. “Lord. That lavender dress was divine.”
She could’ve been wearing sackcloth and ashes and Mack wouldn’t have noticed—not solely because he was remembering the bounty beneath her attire.
“She seems like a lovely person. Pity about her being a widow.”
That’s when Mack grinned at Mrs. Burgess and then at Richie. “Mark my words, she won’t be known as a widow for long, because I’m gonna marry that woman.”
Richie’s jaw dropped. “But you just met her.”
“No sir. My history with her is complicated, but I’ll tell you that this time I won’t be too late in stating my intentions toward her. Call it fate or fortune or whatever you want, but she ended up in Montana for a reason. Because we are meant to be together.”
“Maybe you oughta be tellin’ her this, instead of us,” Richie offered with a snicker.
“Oh, the way they were looking at each other?” Mrs. Burgess said dreamily. “That woman knows exactly how this man feels.” She cleared her throat. “Now get a move-on to Dixie’s. You don’t want to keep the commissioner waiting.”
At one minute past five, Mack knocked on Addie’s door.
It’d been the longest goddamned afternoon of his life.
At four o’clock Mrs. Burgess had kicked him out of the office, suggesting he shouldn’t show up to “state his intentions” with empty hands. Which was how he ended up juggling a bouquet of flowers, a box of mint chocolates and a bottle of huckleberry cider.
Now he felt foolish. His heart raced and his throat tightened the longer he waited for her to open the door.
And then she did.
The pleasure that lit her face at seeing he’d arrived bearing gifts was definitely worth it.
“Jonas—shoot, I mean, Mack—all this for me?”
“Yep. I couldn’t decide on one thing, so I got all three. Hope that’s all right?”
She ushered him inside. “It’s wonderful. Thank you. I’ll put these in some water.” She plucked the flowers from his hand and gestured to the sitting area. “Put the rest down anywhere.”
When she turned around after plunking the posies in the water pitcher, Mack was right there. He cradled her head his shaking hands, his thumbs pressed into the edges of her jaw, his fingers curled around the back of her neck as his eyes took in every nuance of her face.
“I dreamed of what I’d say if I ever saw you again. Now that it’s here, and I have my hands on you and your scent is in my lungs and I know I ain’t dreamin’…pretty words—hell, any words at all are escaping me.” He inhaled. And exhaled.
She waited for him to get himself settled.
“I love you. I never stopped loving you. I hoped you understood when I left the way I did, that I’d no more saddle you to the life of bein’ on the run with an outlaw, than you would subject me to the ugliness of people’s opinions of a lawman
takin’ up with a whore.”
Those stunning eyes remained steady on his as she nodded.
“That is behind us. And sweet darlin’, I don’t give two hoots whether you call yourself Ruby or Addie because I am gonna finally get to call you what I’ve always wanted.”
“What’s that?”
“My wife.” That’s when he kissed her.
And dear god, it was like coming home.
He murmured sweet words and promises as he kept kissing her. Wiping away her tears. Letting his own fall freely and without shame.
Then he carried her to bed and reveled in the heat and passion of their connection. Of coming home to this too.
Afterward, when they were naked and entwined in the sheets and each other, they talked.
Mack told her of the months he’d spent capturing outlaws across the southwestern states after he’d left Wyoming. Then in the spring of that year, he joined up with other horsemen and cowboys to train as part of Lieutenant Colonel Roosevelt’s Rough Riders cavalry, with the goal to stop Spanish aggression in Cuba. Although they’d spent more time training than fighting, the war in Cuba had changed him.
He lit out for Montana upon fulfilling his military duty, opting not to become a rancher, but to work with the settlers and timber companies as a land enforcement agent. For the past year and a half, that’d been a good fit for him. But it probably wasn’t permanent either.
“I have to know how you ended up with the name Mack Jonas,” she asked.
“Outlaw rule number one: stick close to the truth. Someone asked my name and I replied Jonas, without thinkin’. The guy gave me an out when he asked first or last name. I said last and used a variation of McKay for my first name.”
She snickered. “At least if I screw up and call you Jonas, it won’t seem random.”
“Same goes if I slip up and call you Ruby girl.” Mack kissed the top of her head. “How did you become Adeline Ruby?”
Addie tilted her face up and smirked at him. “Actually, Adeline Ruby is my full given birth name. Madam Marie changed it to Ruby Redmond. None of the girls used their real names, which worked in my favor. After I obtained the inheritance from Madam Marie and sold my stake in the boardinghouse in Labelle to Dickie and Mrs. Mavis, it was easiest to call myself Mrs. Ruby. Besides, after you left, I did feel as if I’d been widowed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too. Anyway, whether I was traveling or in the shops, people believed my claim that my late husband had left me a sizeable inheritance.”
“You only had to deal with them small-minded suspicions because you’re a well-off woman who is both young and beautiful,” Mack pointed out.
“Not to mention becoming even more suspect when she has…” Her mouth snapped shut and she nestled back into him.
“When she has what, darlin’?”
“Strong opinions, among other things.”
He laughed. “That you do.”
Addie’s stomach rumbled. “Good lord. We forgot to eat.”
“I distinctly remember eatin’ something.” He rolled her to her back and began kissing his way down her body. “Maybe I need me another taste.”
“Mack.”
He raised his head from where he’d been licking her bellybutton. “I love hearin’ you speak my name like that, Adeline.”
“Same.” She petted his beard. “I know I said I didn’t like facial hair…but this suits you. It makes you look like a distinguished gentleman.”
Growing a beard was his one concession to changing his appearance after leaving Wyoming. With only half his face visible, chances were less likely that he’d be mistaken for his twin. Keeping his gaze on hers, he teased his bearded chin across the sensitive skin between her hipbones. “Does that tickle?”
“Yes. So stop it.”
“Not a chance. This distinguished gentleman is about to remind you how dirty and depraved he really is.”
She groaned. “I can’t keep quiet when you do that to me. That’ll get the entire hotel staff up here to investigate the noises.”
“Good. We can ask them to bring us some food, so we won’t have to leave this bed for the rest of the night.”
Much later, Mack was nearly asleep when Addie said, “Can you take tomorrow afternoon off?”
“Sure. What for?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“What kinda surprise?”
“The good kind.”
“Adeline, darlin’, the good kind ain’t a hint of what kinda surprise it is.”
“It’s called a surprise so you don’t know what it is, silly man.”
“Well, how am I supposed to sleep now?”
She smiled against his chest. “Need a little…something to help you relax?”
“The last thing I am, when you put your mouth on my cock, is relaxed.”
Addie poked him in the belly. “I was going to offer to rub your back.”
“Oh.”
Her wicked laugh tickled his ear. “My back rubs are nearly as good as my special French perversion, remember?”
“Like I could ever forget that.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Addie hadn’t given Mack the directions to their meeting place until right before he left her hotel room to go to work.
Then she’d packed up the few items in her room and checked out of the hotel. The livery brought her buggy around and she’d forced herself not to race to the house on the outskirts of Livingston where she’d been living the past week.
Her nerves jumped like bullfrogs in her belly, prompting her to drink two shots of rum to calm down.
She paced on the front porch, aware Mack would arrive as his schedule would allow.
Hoofbeats and a whirl of dust indicated Mack was more than casually curious about this surprise; he was an hour earlier than they’d agreed upon.
Here’s hoping your curiosity is stronger than your anger.
Mack reined to a stop, looking every bit the expert horseman she remembered him to be.
He dismounted and led his horse to the hitching post before he spoke.
“I’m early.”
“I suspected you would be.”
Tugging her against his chest, he kissed her soundly. “I’m so damn glad I can do that,” he murmured into her hair. “Half the reason I’m here early is because I worried last night had been some fever-filled dream and I’d ride out here to find nothing.”
Oh, he was about to get way more than he’d ever imagined.
Addie took his hand and led him into the entryway. “Let’s go through here.”
“Are we thinkin’ about buyin’ this house?” he asked, trying to take in the space as she hotfooted it through the parlor. “’Cause if we are, I’d like a chance to look around.”
“You’ll get a chance to see it all later because this isn’t your surprise.”
Mack planted his boots, jerking her to a stop. “Adeline. What the devil is goin’ on?”
She stood on her toes and wreathed her arms around his neck. “Please. Just trust me. Okay?”
“I do.”
“Then come on. Your surprise awaits.”
They exited the house onto the rear porch. A field of green spread down to the cottonwood trees lining the creek.
Before she lost her nerve, she yelled, “You can come out now.”
Two little faces peeked out from behind the big tree trunks.
Two little heads with dark hair.
Two little boys raced toward her, each trying to be the first to touch her.
Addie had moved forward and behind her…Mack had gone completely silent.
The first one to reach her nearly plowed her over. “Mama, mama, I won!”
“No fair,” boy two complained, trying to knock his brother away so he could climb his mother like a tree.
Addie caught the attention of the young woman who approached slower than the twins. “It’s all right, Molly. Go on inside. I’ll let you know when I need you.”
&
nbsp; Molly nodded and ducked around the side of the house.
Which gave Addie the impression the expression on Mack’s face was scary enough that Molly didn’t even want to walk past him.
Taking a deep breath, Addie turned around. The boys also turned. But upon seeing Mack, their shyness overcame them. They leaned against her legs, one on each side, and peered at him from behind the safety of their mother’s skirt.
Finally, her eyes connected with Mack’s. “These are my sons. Teddy”—she ruffled the black hair of the boy on her right—“and Seth.” She brushed a leaf from the shoulder of the dark-haired boy on her left.
“Your sons,” he repeated.
Holding his gaze, she said, “Yes. They’re your sons too.”
Mack fell to his knees.
The boys pressed closer against her.
“Twins,” he said, dazed.
“Not identical, but close enough.”
“Mine,” he said hoarsely. Then he swallowed. “I mean ours.”
“Yes. They turned two last March.”
“Mama, who’s that?” Teddy asked.
“Yeah,” Seth piped up. “Who’s that?”
Addie waited for Mack to respond.
The time between the question being asked and waiting for an answer seemed to last an eternity. But finally, Mack said, “I’m your father.”
Teddy leaned forward and looked at Seth.
Some secret twin communication happened between them and then they both looked at Mack. Teddy shrugged and said, “Okay.”
Seth said, “Okay,” before adding, “Can we have a cookie now?”
Addie laughed. “Yes.”
Mack continued to stare at them.
“I’ll take them inside for their snack and come back out so we can talk, okay?”
“Take your time, I, ah…need a moment.”
Addie herded the boys through the back door into the kitchen.
Molly already had milk and cookies set out on the dining room table. She smiled at Addie. “They look like him.”
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