Midnight Lover (24 page)

"You tell a pretty story, darlin', but I ain't some greenhorn you can outfox."

"I do not know exactly what you are, Mr. Reardon, and at this moment I do not care." She kicked at the pile of linens at her feet. "There's your bedding. Sleep well."

"Hell, no!" He grabbed her by the waist and spun her around to face him. "You ain't gettin' off that easy."

"Keep your hands to yourself, Reardon! I have had my fill of being mauled."

"And I've damn well had a gutfull of being shot at."

"Living the way you do, I should think you'd be well used to it."

"Not by some know-nothing city gal, I ain't."

His hands spanned her waist so tightly that it was difficult to draw a full breath. "Have no fear, Mr. Reardon. Your honor is safe tonight."

"Ain't my honor I'm worried about. It's my damn life."

"Unfortunately your life is safe, as well. A gun without bullets is as worthless as a paperweight."

"You probably got a Smith & Wesson tucked under your pillow."

"And that's something you'll never know, Mr. Reardon." The thought was delightful. How she wished it were true. "Sleep well." She started back up the stairs to her room on the second floor.

"Car-o-line."

She turned back, her triumphant smile fading as he pulled a wicked looking revolver from the holster slung low over his narrow hips. Mesmerized, she watched as he rotated the chambers, displaying six bullets ready and waiting to find their mark in someone else's body.

"Yes, Mr. Reardon?"

He twirled the gun on his forefinger then slid it slowly back into his holster. "Sweet dreams."

#

"Sweet dreams," Caroline mumbled into her pillow as the clock in the hallway struck midnight. How could she dream when she had yet to close her eyes and sleep? Knowing Jesse Reardon rested on the other side of the wall, gun by his side, made it impossible for Caroline to imagine sleeping peacefully ever again.

In the best of times Reardon inspired fear with his midnight blue eyes and quick temper; when angered, he was terrifying. The Reardon she saw tonight was a man capable of anything at all, not the least of which was murder. It took little imagination to picture him firing a barrage of bullets straight into the heart of some unwitting victim then swaggering into the King of Hearts to take his bows as if he'd delivered a commencement address at a girls' school.

From the room next door came the squeaking of bed springs, followed by the deep steady sound of his breathing.

How dare he sleep while she tossed and turned, wondering when he would come storming into her room and end her life the same way her father's had ended just a few short months ago.

"Five more days," she said aloud to her empty bedroom. Five more days until the circuit judge rode into town for the Fourth of July celebration and settled the matter of the mine and the Crazy Arrow once and for all. Judges were learned men; surely he would recognize the validity of her deeds and publicly declare her right to maintain her father's property. Maybe then the bankers of Silver Spur would be willing to lend her the money necessary to turn the Crazy Arrow into the hotel she envisioned.

A floor board creaked in the hallway near her door and Caroline pulled the covers up around her shoulders and waited until she heard the sound of Reardon's breathing from the next room. He wouldn't dare do anything in a house with fourteen witnesses, all of whom would swear he was the devil incarnate if Caroline asked them to.

But just to be certain, she got up and pushed a chair in front of the door. It wasn't much but it would have to do.

#

Jesse and Caroline maintained an uneasy truce for the next few days mostly, he guessed, because they didn't see much of each other. After their last furious encounter, he'd found himself looking over his shoulder more than he used to. Stray bullets used to be as common place as cigar butts in Silver Spur. Now whenever one whizzed past his ear, he couldn't help but wonder if they came from the gun of the gal from Boston who wanted what was hers and wouldn't hesitate to take it anyway she could.

Five more spinsters had showed up at the Crazy Arrow, sobbing their plain old hearts out, and she'd taken them in, opening up the bedrooms on the third floor to do it. Jesse had to admit the gal wasn't afraid of hard work; Caroline always seemed to be carrying laundry or cleaning cupboards or bent over a ledger sheet by the light of the gas lamp. If somebody'd told him a few months ago that he would find himself living with a score of unmarried gals, all of them on the sunny side of thirty, he would've thought paradise ran a poor second.

He also would've thought wrong.

Caroline Bennett ran herself a tight ship. Those gals didn't say boo unless she told them to—leastways, not when it came to him. Damnation, but he'd been going out of his way to be pleasant enough to that little Irish maid Sam seemed so all-fired sweet on and she'd rewarded him with "Yes,"

"No," and a look that could curdle sweet cream. The other gals couldn't even manage that much; when he passed them in the hallway they damn near cringed.

"What the hell's the matter with them?" he asked Jade on the evening of July 1st as they ate supper in the drawing room of her suite at the Golden Dragon. "That gal takes a shot at me and she's got them all actin' like I'm Old Tom swingin' his pick ax at ghosts."

Jade said nothing; she cut into a blood red slab of beef steak and raised a piece to her mouth. Jesse took a slug of whiskey and looked away. What in hell was going on? Jade looked like she wouldn't mind jabbing that knife right between his ribs.

"Darlin', you got somethin' on your mind?"

Jade placed her fork down across her plate and met his eyes. "I want you, Jesse."

He stared at her. "Gal, I'm real pleased you feel that way but I ain't even finished supper yet. Give me a spell first."

"You've had yourself a spell already. We ain't been together since before you moved into the Arrow with that stiff-necked bitch."

"You must've lost count, gal."

"No, Jesse." Her voice was low and serious. "I'm beginnin' to wonder if you're takin' pleasure somewheres else."

Jesus, he thought. No wonder he'd been feeling so damned tetchy lately.

"Ain't your business if I am, darlin'. We ain't hung a brand on each other."

"You haven't answered me, Jesse."

He pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. "And I ain't going to. I don't owe you no explanations, Jade, and you ain't going to drag one out of me."

Jade pushed back her own chair and rose to her feet. "I can get you to do anything, Jesse."

"The hell you can."

"I got one sure-fire weapon that even you can't fight."

He watched as her hands went to the sash of her silk robe and quickly untied it, letting the robe part to reveal her naked, glowing body. He watched as those same hands traveled over her belly and waist then cupped the fullness of her own breasts, thumbs trailing lightly across the tight tawny puckers of her nipples.

"I want you, Jesse," she said again, hands dropping lower, to the dark triangle at the top of her thighs. "I want you right here." Her fingers stroked her succulent flesh and he saw the dark curls dampen with her honey.

He was hot and hard and as ready for her as she was for him. All he had to do was throw her down onto the bed as he had a thousand times and pierce her with his shaft and the pain inside him would disappear.

But he didn't.

Instead he swore under his breath and stormed out of the Dragon for the King of Hearts where the only temptation came in the form of a handful of aces.

#

Sleep once again eluded Caroline and she found herself lying awake, listening to the tinkling sound of piano music from the Golden Dragon across the street.

Sighing, she sat up against the brass headboard, and gazed out the window. The Dragon blazed with lights and laughter and it seemed as if its owner's exotic perfume floated on the heated breeze. Of course he was over there. He was a man and he took what was offered and, dear God, she knew full well what manner of pleasure he found upstairs in that red satin room with the big inviting bed and the very willing Jade.

"Fool," she said aloud. It wasn't her business what he did or with whom he did it. He was an arrogant, hateful monster of a man and she was better off not giving him so much as the time of day. He could stay at the Golden Dragon all night for all she cared. He could sleep on the street with the horses. It didn't matter a whit to Caroline.

Why, counting the man's transgressions could keep her busy until daybreak. He had no respect for the law; he thought women had been created for his personal pleasure; he ran roughshod over Silver Spur as if God had declared him king.

But the gentle touch of his hands as he bandaged her injured shoulder remained with Caroline. The unguarded look in his midnight eyes the day they visited the abandoned mine and she saw him really smile for the very first time. The way her heart felt too large for her chest each time she remembered the sheer splendor of his body the night he'd taken her bed as his own.

He's your enemy,
her mind whispered. If she understood nothing else about Jesse Reardon, she knew she must understand that one important fact.

He wasn't her friend or her brother and, despite the strange and wonderful sensations she felt each time he touched her, he was not her lover and would never be. She wanted neither lover nor husband—she had only to look at the ladies in residence at the Crazy Arrow to know what a heartbreaking, fruitless pursuit that could be.

Jesse Reardon would never belong to a woman. He was as free and untamed as the land around them and the thought of him tethered to domesticity was laughable. Almost as laughable as the fact that she was allowing such foolish notions entry to her mind when there were so many other more pressing issues to contend with.

For all she knew he spent his evenings plotting her demise but that night as she heard his spurs jangling as he strode down the hallway to his room it somehow didn't matter.

"'Night, Car-o-line," he whispered at her door.

Smiling, she lay back down and pressed her crimson cheek against the cool fabric of her pillow slip and was asleep within moments.

#

The Fourth of July dawned hot and clear as Silver Spur awakened to greet the sun. The entire town was awhirl with excitement and had been for days. Red-white-and-blue banners waved gaily from every storefront and, just beyond town, Luke Foster kept watch over the huge stash of fireworks that would turn the night sky into a gold and silver wonderland. Silver Spur wasn't Philadelphia where the nation's centennial celebration was being held, but the local citizens were determined to honor the occasion in grand style. Even Caroline was eager to join in.

To her surprise, she had been infected with holiday spirit and when Doc Willoughby's wife had asked her help in mending gunshot holes in the town's one and only American flag, she'd found herself volunteering her services cheerfully. If Silver Spur was to be her home, there was no time like the present to begin to set down roots so deep and strong that not even Jesse Reardon could tear her away.

For as long as she could remember, Caroline had been looking for the one place where she could build a life of her own and she'd found it at last in Silver Spur. There was room to grow in this wild Western town, room to create a spot for herself where her dreams could come to fruition and nothing, nothing, could make her leave.

She'd enjoyed each stitch she took as she mended the tattered flag that now waved proudly in the center of town. Abby, who loved to grumble more than anything on earth, had volunteered to do the baking for the barbecue and the Crazy Arrow was redolent with the smells of cinnamon and apples and the irresistible sweetness of chocolate.

With each passing day, the Crazy Arrow felt more like the home Caroline had never had; and her boarders, more like family. An odd sort of family, connected neither by blood nor bone, but the affection she felt toward each and every one of them was sweet and true and she knew she would do anything to hold onto it.

The judge and his wife had arrived in town late last night and Sam Markham told Abby the Fitzgeralds had stayed with the Willoughbys. Today she and Jesse Reardon would sit down face-to-face with the circuit judge who would decide her fate.

Hidden beneath the mattress of her soft feather bed was the deed to the Crazy Arrow and a piece of water
-stained paper she'd found in a cigar box in her father's closet that stated Aaron Bennett to be the owner of the Rayburn mine and surrounding land. Proof in black and white that her claim was right and justified. This afternoon at five p.m. while everyone feasted at the barbecue, she would hand those papers over to the learned Judge Fitzgerald and pray he would rule in her favor.