Harlequin Historical September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: The Lone Sheriff\The Gentleman Rogue\Never Trust a Rebel (16 page)

“Yeah. Prisoner's complaining about Sandy's coffee. Name's Roscoe Dipley and he's one son-of-a-miserable-no-count creature if I ever saw one. Keeps bragging how his friends are gonna bust him out of jail.”

Maddie caught her breath. “Could they really do that?”

“They could try, but nobody's gonna bust him free without taking a bellyful of lead. Sandy's a crack shot.”

“And you would be there, as well. Your wrist has healed nicely.”

“Yeah, it has. But I won't be there.”

Here it comes,
she thought.
And he knows I will not like it. That is why he won't look at me
. She gulped down a swallow of her brandy-laced coffee.

“Maddie, I've been thinking...”

“That's your problem, Jericho. You think too much.”

His eyes flashed a darker blue. “I don't call it ‘thinking too much.' I call it planning ahead.”

“And what is it we are planning, Sheriff?”

“
We
are not planning anything.
I'm
riding out in the morning with Colonel Halliday and Rooney Cloudman. We're gonna surprise the Tucker gang in their hideout.”

“But...but I thought you always worked alone?”

“Not this time. I want this over and done with. Now. The way to do that is...well, to use help. Professional help,” he added.

She clenched her fist in her lap. “You said we would try my plan next. My plan,” she said, narrowing her eyes, “is not yet finished.”

“It
is
finished,” he said flatly.

“It is
not
finished.” Her voice rose half an octave. “The next step is when we board the train again and capture—”

“It's no good, Maddie.” He raked his fingers through his dark hair.

“Why not? It was good before!” She knew her voice was getting louder, but she didn't care.

“Things are different now,” he growled.

“What things? Our plan was to fake the gold—”

“Dammit, keep your voice down. You want the whole town to know?”

Maddie bit her lip and stared out the front window to get herself under control. It was getting dark outside, she noted. And she was getting hungry.

“Jericho,” she said in as patient a voice as she could manage. “We need to capture the Tucker gang. We can do that if we take the train to Portland tomorrow morning and—”

“No, we can't.” A muscle twitched under his eye. “We're not gonna do that. And we're not gonna jaw about it. Rita?” He signaled the waitress. “Bring us a couple of steaks.”

Rita grinned. “How—”

“Rare,” he snapped.

“Miz O'Donnell?”

Maddie glowered at Jericho. “Rare. And more coffee, just like the last cup, please, only more brandy.”

They waited in icy silence until their dinners arrived, and for the next half hour the only sounds were the clink of silverware and the tink of cups on china saucers.

Maddie swallowed the last of her liquor-laced coffee and noticed a pleasant warmth spreading through her chest. She was still furious with him, but she knew enough to keep quiet until they were alone.

Jericho ordered a fourth refill on his coffee and she ground her teeth in impatience. Finally,
finally,
he ushered her out into the warm, softly scented air of what should have been a pleasant summer evening.

“Jericho—”

“Not now, Maddie.” He walked her all the way to her hotel room without speaking.

“You had better come in,” she said, clipping off each word, “so we can straighten out this misunderstanding.”

Jericho did not answer, just strode into her room and slammed the door behind him.

Maddie pinned him with hard green eyes. “I spoke with Mr. Warriner at the bank earlier this afternoon. Our original plan is in place, and tomorrow morning the train leaves at seven o'clock.”

“The hell it does!” Jericho exploded.

“It most certainly does,” Maddie shouted in his face. “Jericho Silver, what has gotten into you all of a sudden?” She turned away to light the lamp on the dresser but he caught her arm. He was so mad he couldn't say a damn thing for a full minute.

“Well?” she shouted. Instantly she clapped her hand over her mouth. “Good heavens, I never shout. In all my life I cannot remember ever raising my voice like this to anyone.”

Jericho had never before felt such pure, uncomplicated rage. “What's gotten into me?
You
are what's gotten into me, Maddie! I don't want to— I can't risk— Oh, the hell with it.”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, hard. She pummeled his chest with her fists, but he kept kissing her and gradually she quieted.

But she didn't pull away.

“Maddie,” he said when he could breathe again. “I can't put you in danger.”

Even in the dark he could see the way her eyes blazed. “Why, you great big liar!” But her voice was different, softer than he'd ever heard it. “Feeling responsible for me is only half the reason,” she continued. “The other half is... Oh, my, I do not think I can say this.”

“The other half is that I...” His voice turned hoarse. “I said it before. I can't stand knowing you might get hurt. I care about that, Maddie. A lot.”

That was only half true. The truth was he cared about
her
. “Maddie, please. I've got to go with Wash and Rooney tomorrow morning. I've got to.”

She said nothing, but a sparkling drop of moisture clung to her dark lashes, and that did him in.

“Maddie.” He scooped her up into his arms, laid her on the bed and followed her down. He wanted to hold her tight against him, wanted to touch her. He caught her mouth under his and moved over her lips until he couldn't think straight.

When he lifted his head, she stared up at him. “I have just one thing to say, Jericho Silver.”

“Yeah? Say it.”

“You think a kiss is going to change my mind, do you not?”

“Oh, hell, Maddie. It was more than just a kiss, and you know it.”

He kissed her forehead, her throat, the soft place behind her ear, and gradually her breathing steadied and then slowed. His own was getting hard to control.

“Maddie, we're gonna be in trouble if you don't tell me to stop.”

“I do not want you to stop,” she murmured. “I want this to go on forever.”

Chapter Seventeen

“M
addie,” Jericho breathed. “You sure you really want this?”

He knew what
he
wanted. He'd wanted it ever since she walked off that train and into his life. But he had a job to do. Now he was facing two jobs—bringing in the Tucker gang and keeping Maddie safe.

Just enough moonlight filtered through the muslin curtains to illuminate her face. She was smiling, and her answer rocked him down to his toes.

“Jericho, take off your gun belt.”

He rolled away from her to wrestle the metal tongue free, then slid the sheathed revolvers onto the floor beside the bed.

“And your boots,” she whispered.

When they thumped onto the carpet next to his sidearms she gave a half-swallowed sigh and rose up to kiss one side of his mouth. The brush of her lips felt like a butterfly landing near his chin.

“Now take off everything else.”

Jericho blinked. For a minute he wasn't sure he'd heard right. This was Mrs. Detective, Maddie O'Donnell? Hell, he'd wanted to see her naked a hundred times, but he'd never dreamed she would want...

He stood and stripped to his drawers.

“Everything,” she reminded.

“Now you, Maddie.” His voice was so thick it was hard to get the words out.

She sighed again. “I want you to do it.”

He laughed out loud. Maddie had to be the most unusual woman in the entire territory.

“Maddie,” he whispered against her ear. “Are you sure about this? Because if you're not—”

She gave him a lazy smile. “Oh, yes, I am sure. I have been sure ever since you first kissed me that night at the boardinghouse.”

Jericho could think of nothing to say. Ever since then, he'd thought more about that kiss than he'd thought about getting enough to eat.

“I was beginning to think you were never going to kiss me again after that first time,” she breathed. “I thought perhaps you did not remember it.”

“Didn't think I had the right to kiss you again.” He slipped the top button of her blouse free. “But that didn't stop the wanting.”

Her skin was like warm silk. He wanted to touch her all over. He freed three more of the tiny buttons and spread the soft fabric open to press his mouth against her bare flesh. He kissed her all the way down to the lacy neckline of her camisole.

Her breathing checked and then he felt her hands on his bare chest. The hard swelling between his thighs began to ache.

Think of something else before you lose control and make a complete fool of yourself.

“Funny what kissing someone does,” he murmured. “Afterward you can say things you might have thought about before but you never had the guts to say.” He undid another button and loosened the ribbon of her camisole.

“Take this off,” he said hoarsely. “Before I rip it.”

She sat up, fiddled with buttonholes and ribbons and hooks, then petticoats and a bustle contraption tied around her waist. Shoes. Stockings. When a man was as hungry as he was, undressing a woman was way too slow. He wanted to tear everything away and bury his face against her flesh.

She stretched out beside him and slowly raised her arms over her head. With a groan, Jericho took one peaked nipple into his mouth.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.”

He could tell she was smiling; her voice sounded so...happy. Well, hell, he was smiling, too. They were both crazy as loons to be doing this. But he didn't feel crazy; he felt very sure. And, dammit, very scared.

Her entire silk-soft body smelled of lavender. Her breasts, everywhere he put his mouth, or his tongue, or both, tasted sweet, like ripe peaches. He shook his head at the thought. From now on, peaches would be his favorite fruit.

He smoothed his palm up one bare thigh, wove his fingers through the silky hair at her apex and heard her breath hiss in. Hell, he couldn't hold on much longer. He dipped one finger into her center and she cried out.

“Jericho,” she moaned. “That feels wonderful.
You
are wonderful. Don't stop. Please don't stop.”

* * *

Maddie heard herself cry out and her breath caught in surprise. She had never felt like this before, so free and floaty, and happy—ridiculously, gloriously happy. He was touching her.
Touching her
. She moved convulsively under his hand. She wanted to sing and laugh and weep, all at the same time.

Jericho's lean, hard body lifted over her and then his weight pressed against her everywhere. She felt him slide into her and then withdraw, then enter her again. And again.

Her hands closed into fists and she lifted her face and found her mouth open wide against his shoulder. His motions were slow and controlled and he didn't stop moving, even when she began to moan. Something built inside her until her body suddenly clenched and the darkness behind her eyelids exploded into a shower of stars.

His raspy breathing grew more and more uneven until all at once he stilled. With a shout he pulled out of her and spilled himself onto the quilt.

“I didn't want to do that,” he confessed. “I wanted to bury myself inside you and just let it happen.”

She reached up and wrapped her arms around him. “I would have liked that, Jericho. Why didn't you?”

He raised himself up on his elbows and looked down into her face, still breathing hard. “Think a minute, Maddie. It's the only responsible thing I could do. I don't want to send you back to Chicago with a baby in your belly.”

She tightened her arms across his muscled back and remained quiet for a long time. She had not thought beyond this moment, not considered possible consequences. Madison O'Donnell, who prided herself on always assessing consequences, had lost her head and followed blindly where her heart had led her, had tumbled into bed with a man for the first time since she was widowed.

What is happening to me
?

Jericho rolled away and pulled her close. “Maddie...” He started to say something, but she laid a finger against his mouth. In a heartbeat he was asleep.

She tipped her head to study his face. His dark lashes were longer than they looked when he was awake and the beginning of a beard shadowed his chin. Squint lines radiated from the corners of his eyes, and his mouth...

A white-hot bolt of desire stabbed below her belly. His lips, his well-shaped mouth, made her want him all over again.

Jericho was not just any man; Jericho was extraordinary, unlike anyone she had ever known. He was so unusual she could scarcely believe he was real.

She smoothed back the black hair tangled over his forehead and noticed that her fingers were trembling. She would not allow herself to think about him riding away in the morning. She was glad for this night with him. She would remember it the rest of her life.

* * *

Someone was banging on the hotel-room door. “Miz O'Donnell?
Miz O'Donnell!
”

Maddie sat up. “Yes? Who is it?”

“It's me, Sandy. I've gotta find the sheriff right away. The Tucker gang is robbing the bank!”

“Now? In the middle of the night?”

“Yes, ma'am. You know where the sheriff is?”

Jericho was already out of bed and into his jeans and gun belt. He yanked open the door and confronted his deputy.

“What's happened, Sandy?”

Sandy's mouth gaped open. “Well, I...” The boy turned beet-red. “You know Rita, the waitress at the restaurant? She woke me up pounding on the jailhouse door, screamin' about somethin' she saw on her way home from the restaurant after her shift.”

“What,” Jericho said as patiently as he could, “was it she saw?”

“Well...” The kid looked down at the floor. “Sheriff, you don't have your boots—”

“Sandy!”

“Oh, yeah. Rita saw four men on foot, leadin' their horses down Main Street.”

“So?”

“Well, Old Man Warriner was stumblin' along out in front of 'em, lookin' like he's seein' a ghost or somethin'. He had a revolver stickin' in his back.”

Damn. They were going to force Warriner to open the safe. “Sandy, guard the jail. Might be they're also gonna try to break Dipley out.”

“Yessir, Sheriff.” He beat a fast retreat down the staircase and Jericho scrabbled under the bed for his boots.

“Maddie, I want you to stay here.”

“There are four of them, Jericho. Only one of you.”

“Do what I say,” he ordered.

“But—”

He threw on his shirt, ran his fingers through his hair, then turned to her and grasped her shoulders. “Don't argue.”

He kissed her. Then he kissed her again, harder. “And for God's sake, stay out of sight.”

Once outside the hotel, Jericho raced down the shadowy street toward the brick building on the corner across from Ness's mercantile.

The bank looked dark and deserted. No light showed through the window of Warriner's office, where the safe was located. Probably black as a coal mine inside. There was no sign of anyone outside.

As he approached, he worked out a plan.

He scouted the perimeter of the building. Sure enough, behind the mercantile he found four horses tied to an elm tree. He recognized two of the animals as part of the Tucker string.

Damn fools. They expected to escape on foot with the Wells Fargo sacks? That made no sense. One of the outlaws would have to bring the animals around at a signal from inside.

Jericho crouched, laid one hand on the closest animal and waited for someone to challenge him. Not a whisper. Quickly he untied the reins and ran them off one by one with a slap to the rump. Tucker wouldn't hear the noise from inside the bank.

Then he crept around the corner to the bank entrance and quietly inched the heavy oak door open. He was perfectly positioned to surprise them.

The interior was as dark as a mine shaft. With one hand on the wall and the other on his Colt, he moved to the iron-latticed teller's window and slid on through the turnstile. Now a faint light showed beneath the door to Warriner's office.

A voice drifted from behind the door, followed by an odd muffled
whump
. Then another. Making no sound, Jericho moved to the door and pressed his ear against the wood. More voices and a man's throaty laugh. Tucker.

Very carefully he laid his hand on the brass doorknob and began to twist it to the right. When it would turn no farther, he edged the door open a crack.

The first thing he saw was Old Man Warriner, a red-orange bandanna stuffed in his mouth. The graying banker was sitting on the floor by his big walnut desk, his wrists tied in front of him. He wore what looked like his nightshirt stuffed into brown gabardine trousers; looked as though the gang had rousted him out of bed. A tiny kerosene lantern threw weak light onto his puffy face. His eyes were wild with fright.

He'd have to be careful. Warriner didn't deserve to get hurt.

He pushed the door a scant inch wider. Four men, Tucker and three others, were wrestling open the heavy safe door. Scorched chair cushions were tossed into the corner. That explained the noise he'd heard; when Warriner refused to open the safe they must have shot off the combination lock, using the cushions to muffle the sound.

“That's far enough, Rafe.” Tucker bent, lifted the lamp and peered inside. “There it is. Four of them big Wells Fargo bags of gold. Lefty, you go get the horses. We'll lug the gold sacks out and load 'em.”

A skinny man Jericho recognized started for the door. Jericho drew his other revolver and kicked the door wide open.

“Hands in the air!”

Tucker made a move toward his sidearm, and Jericho sent a bullet through the holster hanging on his hip. He didn't want to kill him; he wanted the gang to stand trial.

“Drop your gun belts,” he ordered. The men unbuckled and let their weapons drop to the floor. All but Tucker.

“Hell if I will,” the outlaw growled.

“Hell if you won't.” Jericho sent a well-placed slug into the man's upper arm, then flicked a look at Warriner.

“You okay, Sol?”

The banker nodded and held up his bound wrists.

“Now, gentlemen, you're under ar—”

Tucker suddenly swept his boot against the lamp, and the room went black. Jericho couldn't see a damn thing. Scrabbling sounds came from the vault, and he figured the gang was hefting the canvas bags to their shoulders, using the darkness as cover.

He ducked back, using the door as a shield, and sent a shot over their heads. “Drop the bags,” he ordered.

Two loud clunks sounded. That left two men still loading up. He crouched in position and peered around the door, desperately trying to see movement, shadows, anything that would tell him who was where.

Too late. A shot zinged past his shoulder and two more thudded into the wood plank door at his left. But the flashes from the fired weapons revealed their positions.

“Sol,” Jericho yelled. “Lie flat.” He heard the banker slide his bulk onto the floor.

He aimed at the paunchy outlaw closest to the door, and fired a bullet at knee height. A high cry and a thump told him the man was down. But Tucker was still armed, and from the scratching sounds Jericho figured the others were scrambling for their gun belts.

A sickening realization swept over him. He had his two Colts. They probably had six, maybe eight revolvers between them. Any second they'd start spraying bullets all over him. If he stood up, he wouldn't stand a chance. All the same, he wished like hell he could get to their weapons first.

Then from somewhere behind him a rifle cracked. What the devil— He'd ordered Sandy to stay at the jail, but for once in his life he was glad his deputy hadn't obeyed. Jericho flattened himself on the floor.

The shot was high enough to miss his head but just the right height to smack into the shoulder of someone standing. A shouted curse told him he was right.

Another rifle shot skimmed past his prone body and into the blackness. This one zinged against something metal—the safe, he guessed.