Taken by the Cowboy (12 page)

Jessica wasn’t sure if
she should tell him that the stone was a cubic zirconia that Liam
had given her for Christmas. She explained that it was a fake to
the clerk, but she doubted he’d revealed that to Truman.

“I just needed some
cash,” she told him. “I didn’t want to keep borrowing from Mr.
Maxwell.”

"So you practically
gave away something worth a fortune? Makes me think you didn't care
much about that necklace. I'd hate to think you got it through some
unscrupulous means."

Jessica frowned. "You
think I stole it?"

"I didn't say
that."

"Good, because it's not
true. If you must know, my ex-fiancé gave it to me, and it really
wasn’t worth very much."

Truman paused. "You
didn't give it back to him?"

"No. He didn't want it.
The necklace was a fake, just like everything else in our
relationship."

Truman raked his
fingers through his hair. "A fake?”

“Yes.”

He sat down in the
grass beside her and said nothing for a long time.

“When was the last time
you saw him?" Truman asked.

"It’s been a number of
months."

He looked at her
intently. "Do you plan on seeing him again?"

She laughed bitterly.
"Trust me, with the way things are going, it’s not likely to
happen. Not in this lifetime."

She and Truman sat
quietly on the grass while Jessica considered the situation. With
all these personal questions about her fiancé, she was beginning to
wonder if he was as obsessed by last night’s kiss as she was.

Part of her was excited
by the possibility, but another part of her didn’t want anything to
distract her from finding a way home.

"There’s one question
you still haven't answered yet," Truman said.

"What’s that?"

"You haven’t told me
what you're doing out here."

She searched through
the chaos in her mind for a reasonable reply. "I just wanted to go
for a walk."

"A walk… Then what was
all the dancing and spinning?"

Jessica began to smile.
"I suppose I looked quite outrageous." She couldn’t help but
laugh.

Truman regarded her
with puzzled dismay, then shook his head in resignation and lay
back in the grass. “I give up. You are crazier than a waltzing
pig.”

She chuckled at that.
"So why were you following me?" she finally asked.

He tossed his arms up
under his head. "I wanted to know where you were going."

"Why? I’m not your
prisoner. I’m free to leave town if I want to."

“Is that what you were
doing?” he asked with suspicion. “Leaving town?”

“No. I wasn’t sure I
could even get out of here.”

His chest heaved with a
sigh. “You don’t always make a lot of sense, Junebug.”

“I’m quite aware of
that,” she replied, squinting toward the horizon.

“Are you also aware
that when you’re cryptic,” he said, “it only makes me more
suspicious? More intrigued?”

She didn’t answer. How
could she? She didn’t know if he was speaking professionally or
personally, or if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Well..." He rose to
his feet and offered his hand. "Time to head back."

She was eye level with
his belt buckle. She gazed at his hips and muscular thighs, and was
half tempted to ask him to stay a while longer and talk. She might
not always like his questions, but she did enjoy the anticipation
she felt whenever she was alone with him.

"Coming?" he
repeated.

Jessica shook herself
out of her infatuation and accepted his hand. He pulled her to her
feet, and she lifted her skirts and hiked ahead of him through the
tall grass toward the road.

"Jessica!"

Heart thumping a rapid
rhythm in her chest, she stopped and turned. "What is it?"

He glanced at her feet.
She looked down and realized she was holding her skirts clear above
her knees.

Knowing a thing or two
about the times, she guessed Truman had never seen a woman do that.
She quickly dropped the skirt and shrugged, as if to say, ‘what
does it matter anyway?’

“You’re different from
most women,” he said.

“I know.”

He stared at her for a
long moment, then kept this eyes trained on the ground as he walked
past her. “And you ain’t easy to be around.”

“I know that, too,” she
casually replied.

While they walked side
by side back to town, they talked about simpler matters – like
Dodge City’s cattle trade and the occasional scuffle that kept
Truman busy in his job.

When they reached the
bridge, Jessica cleared her throat. "Truman, I hope from now on you
won't waste any more time trying to investigate my past. I
guarantee there's nothing to find."

"Model citizen?"

"You could say
that."

Truman’s gaze roamed
leisurely down the length of her body, and she felt another
stirring of excitement as she remembered the kiss, and wanted very
much to do it again.

"I'll tell you what,”
he said in a low, husky voice. “I'll stop trying to dig up your
past, if you promise to keep a close watch over your shoulder."

A surge of apprehension
moved through her. "Why? Do you think the gang will come back?"

"Don't know. But if you
didn't kill Lou, somebody else did, and there's probably a damn
good reason why they haven't come forward for the reward." He
leaned even closer and whispered hotly in her ear. “And I don’t
want to see you get hurt.”

She thanked him
politely, but inside, she swooned.

In the days that
followed – while Jessica waited for a rain and lightning storm so
that she could go back out onto the prairie and try spinning
again—she saw Truman only once. Passing him on the boardwalk, she
smiled politely after he tipped his hat at her, and when he was
gone, she had to fight a hot and lusty compulsion to chase after
him, grab him by the hand, drag him home to her bed, and get naked
in a frenzied hurry.

If only she could
conquer those heady urges. She was lonely; there was no denying
that. There was also no denying that she was lonely for her home
and family. The thing that worried her, however, was the sense that
Truman could make it hurt less if he made wild, passionate love to
her for about ten days straight without stopping, except to eat and
take short naps. Together of course.

That evening she tried
to sweep thoughts of him and her family from her mind by focusing
on dinner preparations for Mr. Maxwell. She wanted to cook
something delicious for him in return for his many kindnesses, so
she prepared a hot supper of roast beef, turnips and gravy, and
cherry pie for dessert.

After dinner, they
retired to the parlor to sip apple brandy.

"Jessica," Angus asked,
“is Wendy as nice as she seems?"

"Yes. She's a lovely
person."

"I thought so." He
looked down at his crystal glass. "She always looks happy. Will she
be going to the circus next week?"

"I have no idea."

"Will you be
going?"

"I’m not sure." A wagon
rolled by outside, and Jessica could hear the driver talking to his
mules. What she wouldn’t give to hear the sound of a modern day
police siren or the ring of her computer to let her know that she
had email…

She waited until the
wagon passed. "Would you like me to invite Wendy to go with
me?”

Angus’s face lit up.
"Would you?"

"Of course. We can all
go together." She finished her brandy and stood to go to bed, but
stopped in the doorway when that sinking feeling returned. "Angus?
Do you even care if you ever go home? Do you miss it at all?”

He sighed heavily and
with obvious compassion. "Not much anymore. It’s been so long. I’ve
grown used to this place. It would be very strange to go back
now.”

“What about your
family? Don’t you miss them?”

He gazed wistfully at
the window. “Of course I do, but I suppose I’ve learned to accept
that I won’t ever see them again.”

“But how can you just
accept that? I don’t think I ever could. It would mean giving
up.”

His eyes glimmered with
sadness, or maybe it was simple wisdom. “It’s no different from
losing a loved one,” he said. “You grieve, but then you have no
choice but to go on living your life. You find a way to be happy
again. It’s not impossible. You just have to decide when you’re
ready to accept that they’re gone.”

She nodded and
understood that after ten years, Angus had grown comfortable in
this century and wasn’t as eager as she was to find a way home.

As she climbed the
stairs, she decided that she was going to have to stay on top of
this, before she grew too comfortable herself.

* * *

Two days later, Jessica
knocked against the jailhouse door until her knuckles burned. When
no one answered, she cupped her hands to the window and peered
inside. The cabinets were locked, there were no troublemakers in
either of the cells, and the coat rack was bare of hats, gun belts,
and coats.

Turning to face the
street, Jessica heard a hammer cracking, a man's deep voice
shouting orders, and a dim yet constant screech of monkey laughter.
It then occurred to her that the circus was setting up in town.
Perhaps that’s where Truman was this morning.

She picked up her
skirts and walked along the railroad tracks, past the windmill
spinning steadily in the breeze and the water tower beside it. She
walked up Railroad Avenue where she stopped to watch a gigantic
white tent blooming like a flower from the ground. Its sluggish
movement resisted the push to rise as the wind blew hard against
the tarpaulin. Men tugged and shouldered the poles to launch them
to an upright position as the canvas billowed and fought against
their thrust. It was a magnificent sight against the bare, flat
prairie beyond, where everything seemed still and lifeless.

She drew in a breath
when she spotted Truman lending a hand. This morning he wore a
white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a brown vest. His dark
hair was blowing in the wind.

He gripped a corner
post and tested it to ensure it stood firmly.

Slowly she approached,
watching him the entire way. Each time he checked a post, the
muscles in his forearms tensed and relaxed. Jessica stopped not far
away, staring at those bronze, sinewy forearms. He took a step
back, looked everything over, and wiped the sweat from his
brow.

All around him, others
milled about—men and women, dogs and chickens. Large cages rolled
by containing tigers and giraffes, but Jessica watched only Truman.
He stood alone at the far side of the tent, his eyes following the
broad side as if surveying it for weaknesses.

Jessica rested a hand
on her belly to quell the nervous knots. She hadn't spoken to
Truman since the day they parted on the prairie, and she woke this
morning knowing she had a good reason to see him again—for the
reward – and she’d been looking forward to this moment more than
she cared to admit.

Long, eager strides
carried her across the windy prairie toward him, and she was only
halfway there when he looked up from his work and met her gaze. He
watched her for a moment, then released his grip on the post, wiped
his hands on his trousers, and headed in her direction. They met in
the middle of the circus yard, not far from an elephant.

"Mornin’ Junebug," he
said.

"Mornin’ Sheriff. I see
you're busy."

"I reckon so." A drop
of perspiration rolled down the side of his neck, and she watched
it until it disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt.

"I guess this circus is
a pretty big deal, huh?" she said, laboring to make polite
conversation.

"You could say that.
It's one of the few things around here that gets the Front Street
rowdies and the finer folks of Dodge all under one roof. You
going?"

"Yes. I might ask Wendy
to go with me. And Angus of course.”

Truman pointed toward
the tent. "Normally Wendy would sit on that side with the rowdies,
but if she's with you and Angus, she’ll sit on this side."

He faced her again. His
eyes were so blue they outshined the sky, and Jessica had to
struggle to remember why she had come. "The reason I'm here,
Truman, is—"

"You want your reward
money."

"Yes. How’d you
guess?"

"It arrived this
morning. It's at the bank."

Jessica knew it was
time to leave, but her feet were glued to the dirt.

She stood a moment,
fiddling with the heavy cotton fabric of her skirt, then took a
deep breath and said, "Would you walk with me?"

"I’ll get my hat," he
replied, needing no further bidding.

* * *

Truman couldn't help
thinking that Jessica looked different today. She'd pulled her hair
up like the other ladies in town. At the same time, there was
nothing in her appearance that could compare. Even from a distance,
she was a strikingly handsome woman, her chestnut hair contrasting
sharply with her creamy white skin. Add to that a pair of full red
lips the color of ripe raspberries and those legs he had been
fortunate enough to observe through the binocular lenses, and he
had to work hard to keep from pulling her behind a monkey cage and
behaving quite unlawfully.

They walked together
into town, talking mostly about the weather and other mundane
things. It was nice for a change, Truman thought—to be discussing
normal everyday things instead of his work, because few folks
wanted to talk to him unless they had something to complain about.
A broken window. Too much noise on a Sunday morning…

When they reached the
bank, Truman held the door open for Jessica, then accompanied her
to the wicket. Mr. Webster, the banker, stood behind the bars. He
was a fat, balding man, and his suit bulged at the buttonholes.
Truman said a silent prayer that Jessica would keep her mouth
closed, not because of what she might say, but in case one of those
stressed buttons decided to spring off Webster’s vest.