Gaffney, Patricia (28 page)

"Marry me, honey. I'll make you so happy."

"How can I marry you if you're d-dead."

He
laughed.
She had an urge to smack him, and a stronger
one to hold him so tight, she took him right into herself.

He had the same urge—the latter one. He slid his knee between her
legs, making her shuffle her feet apart, and she lost all her will to resist
him. She had just enough strength to return his hot kiss and slip her hands
inside his shirt, desperate to touch his skin, feel his body. She loved it that
he was covered with straight, soft, dark hair. He tilted her back, back, till
her head rested on top of her bureau, and he kissed her through her shift,
right through the fabric, nibbling on her and making her moan. "I can't
stand up—" She had to brace her pelvis against his to stay upright. He
rocked her slowly, deeply, humming throaty encouragement against her breast,
and she sucked in a gulp of air through her teeth. "I'm falling," she
sighed, wrapping weak arms around his neck.

He picked her up and carried her across the room—so much for her
bed-avoiding strategy. A wisp of common sense returned while he undressed her.
She didn't resist, but at least she didn't help him, and she recovered enough
presence of mind to start the argument over once she was naked.

"Jesse, this is all because of what I said, isn't it?"
Beside her on the bed, he was taking his boots off. "I
don't
think
you're a coward. How could I?" He ignored her and started on his belt
buckle. "You don't have to prove anything to me. I mean it—I love you. Do
you think I'll love you more when you're a really brave corpse?"

He chuckled again, stripping off his pants and shrugging out of
his shirt. Infuriated, she was really going to slug him this time—but somehow
he got hold of her wrists and pressed her down to the mattress on her back.
"Cady, would you please stop worrying? Nothing's going to happen to
me." She dodged his lips, appalled when the tears started again.
"Honey, I'm a much better shot than you think I am."

"Oh, right, you're—"

"I
am.
I had a hangover—you saw me at my worst today.
I'm telling you, I'm fast. I'm greased lightning. Gault doesn't stand a
chance."

He looked so confident, so cocky, she felt herself wavering,
actually coming close to believing him. "But..." She shook her head,
trying to clear it. "You're not an outlaw, you're not a gunfighter. Lord,
Jess, you couldn't hit a window in a greenhouse."

"Wrong." He shook his head right back at her. "You
ought to have more faith in me. I'm disappointed in you, Cady."

She started to sputter; he started to bite her ear-lobe. She squirmed,
ready to wrestle in earnest, but he covered her with his naked body and, just
as before, the finer points of the argument started to blur. Oh, how could she
lose him? She held him tight, tight, lost in the long, strong feel of him, even
though she had to keep swallowing down the lump in her throat. They rolled; she
landed on top and wrapped him up in her arms and legs. "It was you, wasn't
it?" She couldn't stop kissing him, couldn't keep her mouth off his skin.

"What was me?" He had his hands in her hair, squeezing
it, combing it through his fingers. He loved her hair, he told her all the
time, and she loved it that he did.

"You gave the Digbys all that money. Sara saw you."

"That woman needs glasses."

"No, it was you. The Sullivans—you gave them money,
too."

"You're losing it, McGill. Been hitting the bottle?"

Now she did cry. "Oh,
God,
Jess, how I love you."

He rolled again, coming on top and parting her legs with his. She
guided him with her hand, arching up, urgent, eager to take him. And when she
had him she sighed, a deep, satisfied sound. But there was sadness, too.
"Don't leave me, Jess."

"Never."

"I'm not letting you go."

"You couldn't get rid of me."

So softly, he followed the tear trails on her face with his lips,
trying to kiss them away. But it was too much, too sweet—he only made her cry
harder. So he began to move inside her, to make her forget, make her lose her
mind. "Not letting you go," she whispered again, just before
sensation blotted out every thought in her mind. Him and her, sex and love,
everything came together and it was all mixed, all one. She took him deep and
he took her up, up— too high, too fast, how could she bear this? A long,
intense lifetime passed, and then she burst. She flew apart, pieces everywhere,
she'd never get herself back together. Anyway, there wasn't time—Jesse's hands,
Jesse's mouth, Jesse's body inside her body— it all started over again, and
this time she let go without a fight. Just let go, gave in and came so gently,
so completely. And held him close while he gave her all of himself. A perfect
exchange.

He rolled to his side, not letting her go, and lay like a dead
man, motionless except to press his lips to her forehead every few minutes. She
had a little more energy; she fluttered her fingers along his backbone, and
sometimes she stroked him in that ticklish spot right above his buttocks. His
whole body quivered when she did that, which just egged her on. "Quit
it," he ordered, and she snickered into his neck, where she had her face
pressed. He kissed her again, smiling. Trying to think back to a time when he'd
ever felt this happy. Age seven, when his father gave him his first horse; that
came the closest. But it was still second. This was it. This. Was it.

"Say it again, Cady."

"What."

"You know. That thing you never said before until
tonight."

"Oh, that." She pretended to yawn. "I already said
it two times. You only said it once."

He laughed, even though he wasn't quite ready to make jokes. That
could come later. "I'll say it so often, you'll get sick of hearing
me."

"Impossible." She sat up. The fierceness in her face
took him by surprise. "Impossible. I've never felt this way before, never
knew I could. Everything's changed. It's you—you're my life, you've become my
life."

"Cady." It felt like she'd punched him in the heart.
"I'm the same, exactly the same. I always thought this happened to other
people."

"Yeah."

"I'm crazy in love with you, and it's for good."

"Oh, Jess, but if you meet him tomorrow—"

"Hush." He pulled her close and held her. "It'll be
all right, you just have to believe me. You think I'd let anything happen to
us? Do anything to spoil this? Listen. Let me tell you how it's gonna be."
He tucked her up against his body and drew the sheet over her, so she wouldn't
get cold. "First thing we do is get married."

She squirmed closer. "In church?"

"Where do you think, in the saloon?" They laughed, but
then they both said, "Hmm," in thoughtful tones. Then they laughed
again. "Well, wherever we do it, it's going to be a big, happy wedding
with all our friends."

"And Ardelle Sheets can't come. Livvie Dunne, either."

"Right. No nasty women allowed. Then we go on a honeymoon.
Where do you want to go?"

She burrowed in deeper, muffling a real yawn against her hand.
"San Francisco?"

"Okay."

"Or Eugene, maybe?"

"Great. Or Portland."

"Lovely."

He smiled into her hair. She didn't care any more than he did
where they went. "Or Dubuque."

"Wonderful." She exhaled a drowsy laugh. "So then
what?"

"So then we buy that farm you like so much. Le Coeur au
Coquin. However you say it."

She went very still. All she did was open her eyes; he knew,
because he could feel the tickle of her lashes on his skin. "Oh,
Jesse," she breathed, and he knew he'd said exactly the right thing.
"Could you really live there?"

"Sure I could. I'd love to live there. We'll fix the old
house up and make it shine. And every night we'll sit out on our big front
porch and listen to the river. Tell each other how the day went."

"In two rocking chairs, side by side."

"Yeah."

She sighed with happiness. "Just one question. What do we use
for money to buy it?"

"What do you think? Some of that gold Wylie's been stealing
from the Seven Dollar."

"Oh, mercy, I forgot all about it! I didn't even tell Tommy
yet."

"That's okay, plenty of time to deal with Wylie. Where were
we? Oh, yeah, sitting in our rocking chairs. So what are we drinking?"

"I'm drinking lemonade."

"I'm sipping a mint julep."

"I forgot, you're from Kentucky. What are we doing for a
living? If I may ask."

"You raise pears. I raise horses."

She heaved another deep, contented sigh. "I want apples and
peaches, too."

"Good. I can't stand pears."

She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it. "I do love
you, Jess. So much."

"I love you, too."

"Say you won't leave me."

"I swear I won't."

"You really swear?"

"On my honor."

She fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, her hand lying,
open and trusting, on his stomach. Jesse watched the slight smile on her lips
soften and fade as she fell deeper and deeper asleep.

Outside, a warm, drizzly rain made the gutters gurgle. Apart from
that and the gentle sigh of Cady's breathing, the only sound was the low
whistle of an owl somewhere close by. Through the open window, the odor of damp
earth and soggy leaves floated in, heavy and warm, pleasantly dank. Jesse rubbed
his face and pinched his nose, trying to banish a seductive urge to close his
eyes and drift off with Cady. It was hard to concentrate on trouble, not now
when the world had never looked sweeter or the future more hopeful. Still, he
had to come up with a plan. Across the room, the clock struck twelve-thirty.
Time was running out.

What was Gault doing right now? Sleeping? Doubtful; he'd always
been a night owl. Ten a.m. for a shoot-out must seem ungodly to him. And how
the hell had he found Jesse in Paradise? Maybe those stories in the
Reverberator
hadn't been such a hot idea after all. Still, he could've sworn nothing
would budge Gault from the cushy life he'd taken to so naturally in Oakland.
The last time they'd seen each other, he was living high on the hog in a suite
at the Paramount Hotel, smoking cigars and drinking five-dollar whiskey,
playing poker and romancing women, getting the most out of his retirement from
the gunfighter life. He had his right arm in a sling, and he'd told the whole
world his hand was shot up so bad he'd never draw again. In secret, he'd paid
Jesse the agreed-upon two hundred dollars for "wounding" him, and
thrown in his pearl-handled six-shooters as an afterthought. "Reckon I
won't be needing these anymore." Liar. Indian giver.

Hard to tell if he was really mad or not. Most of the time Gault's
face just naturally had that
make a wrong move and I'll set you on fire
look.
Which was undoubtedly what had started him, all those years ago, on a life of
crime. An exaggerated life—in fifteen years, he'd only killed three men, he
swore, and Jesse believed him. But his inflated reputation always preceded him.
In the end he'd had to fake his own incapacitation, or sooner or later some
punk would surely have killed him.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm getting up," Jesse muttered to Boo,
Cady's worthless cat, who had jumped up on the bed and was staring sullenly,
kneading Jesse's leg through the sheet with his claws. Damn, but he didn't want
to get up. He wanted to make love again and then fall asleep in Cady's arms,
and not wake up till noon. He wanted them to start living the rest of their
lives together.

He kissed the top of her head. She stirred, turned over, squirmed
her bare butt against his hip. He suffered the predictable sexual reaction, and
glanced around the room for a distraction. The tasseled lamp shade had a
seaside vista handpainted in pastels: VISIT BEAUTIFUL COOS BAY, small print
suggested at the bottom. Cady's mail-order spectacles lay on top of an open
book. He couldn't read the title, only the last few lines on the near page:
"What
raft, Jim?" "Our ole raf'." "You mean to say our old raft
warn't smashed all to flinders?"
Some book about boats, he supposed.
She'd nailed a picture to the wall on his side of the bed, and he'd fallen
asleep many a night gazing at it. "Anybody you know?" he'd asked her
once. It was a watercolor painting, or rather a reproduction of one, of a man
and a woman sitting opposite each other at a table in a garden. She was writing
a letter; he was watching her over his newspaper, smiling slightly.
Affectionately. A red brick, ivy-covered cottage looked cozy in the background.
Everything was pretty and soft, idealized. Sentimental. "No, I just like
it," Cady had answered. Jesse liked it, too. "Home," he
whispered to Boo, who flicked an eyelid at him. "Play your cards right and
we might take you with us."

The clock chimed again. Twelve forty-five. Jesse put his lips on
Cady's shoulder and kissed her softly, listening to her sigh in her sleep.
Easing out of bed, he found his clothes on the floor and dressed in silence.
The light from the tassel lamp didn't reach across the room to her bureau. In
shadowy dimness, he silently pulled open the bottom drawer, and riffled through
silk stockings and lingerie until he found Cady's nest egg. In a little velvet
pouch, as soft and pretty as she was.