Wanton Angel (44 page)

She felt the mattress shift, and Eli’s lips brushed hers. “1 don’t want you to dance at the Brass Eagle,” he breathed against her mouth, “and I don’t want you to be mayor of Northridge.”

Bonnie’s eyes flew open. “You’re coming back?” she asked, before she could stop herself.

Eli nodded. “And I’d better not find you up to mischief when I do,” he said.

Blood flowed into Bonnie’s face. “Here I sat, Eli McKutchen, with my heart breaking right in two, and all you were meaning to do was go on a business trip?”

“That’s all.”

“And you’re forbidding me to dance or serve as mayor, out of hand? Just like that?” “I am.”

“You have your nerve,” Bonnie flared. “After all you’ve done!”

“Ah, but you forgave me.” He arched one eyebrow. “Didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t help it,” Bonnie admitted, dropping her eyes for a moment. “I love you, Eli, and that’s a fact.”

He kissed her, lingeringly, sweetly. “And I love you. But I won’t have you working for Forbes, Bonnie, and I mean that.”

Her cheeks throbbed. Pride, she found, was a hard thing to swallow. “I’d already made up my mind not to dance again,” she said petulantly. “I didn’t need you to tell me. And what does my being mayor mean, anyway? I’ve called twelve meetings of the town council and nobody came to a one of them.”

Eli chuckled. “Then you won’t mind resigning.”

“I’m not about to resign! I’m the mayor of this town until November, and that’s that!”

Grinning now, Eli shook his head and moved to stand up. Bonnie caught his hand in hers and made him sit down again.

“Stay,” she said.

“Why?”

Bonnie bristled again. “Because there’s no train leaving Northridge before tomorrow afternoon, that’s why!”

Eli drew the blankets down slowly, baring Bonnie’s breasts to his full view. She shivered but made no attempt to cover herself, and when he raised one hand to caress her, she sighed and closed her eyes. The feeling was lovely.

He fondled her gently, but Bonnie started when his hand moved beneath the covers to move over her belly in an ever-widening, unbearably tantalizing circle.

With his free hand, Eli pressed her back onto the pillows. “You said it yourself,” he teased. “We have until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Oh, but—we’ve already—” Bonnie arched her back as his fingers trailed down her abdomen. She clenched her teeth together, but a whining sound got past them all the same as he teased her.

“I’ll expect you to stay close to this house while I’m gone,” he said distractedly. “I don’t trust those union people.”

Bonnie was gasping for breath. “Oh!” she cried. “Oh, Eli—we’ve missed dinner and I’m—I’m hungry—”

Eli looked concerned, but not overly so. “You’ll probably survive,” he said.

Bonnie’s knees had parted and she was looking up at the ceiling now. “At least—put out the lamp!” she pleaded.

Eli laughed and shook his head. “Why would I want to do that? It’s so much fun to look at you.”

“You’re—enjoying this!” Bonnie sputtered frantically.

“Aren’t you?” Eli purred solicitously.

“No!”

“You are a liar, Mayor McKutchen.” He stopped tormenting Bonnie just long enough to fling back the covers, so that she was entirely revealed to him. “A very beautiful liar.”

“Eli, please—the lamp—my supper—truly I’m so very h-hungry!”

“So am I,” he said, slipping to his knees beside the bed. “In fact, I’m ravenous.”

Bonnie felt his fingers part her for pleasuring and shivered in anticipation. A wave of heat passed through her as she watched him bend his head toward her. His touch wrung a cry of lust from her throat and the lamp blazed on the bedside table, quite forgotten.

T
HE DAYS FOLLOWING
Eli’s departure for San Francisco were blessedly busy ones for Bonnie, even though she no longer had her store to work in and worry about. Preparations for Genoa’s wedding had begun in earnest, and she spent entire mornings addressing invitations and helping to plan for the reception that would follow the marriage ceremony.

The cabins and the schoolhouse were nearly finished, and Genoa had decided that a celebration was in order. She and Seth planned to combine the formal announcement of their engagement with a grand picnic and a dance to follow. Everyone in Northridge, from the pot tenders at the smelter to the members of the town council, was to be invited, and the festivities would be held in the grassy clearing behind the cabins.

A dance floor was built, fiddlers were hired, food of every sort was ordered through Jack Fitzpatrick’s mercantile. An air of busy anticipation overtook the entire town, and while Bonnie shared in the excitement, she also felt a certain disquiet, reminiscent of those rainy days preceding the flood.

Of all the people she knew, only Lizbeth Simmons seemed to share her uneasiness. Bonnie was pragmatic enough to know that the pretty teacher’s wistful sighs and
general absentmindedness had more to do with Forbes Durrant than any sense of impending doom. And she was sympathetic, missing Eli the way she did.

Standing in the brand-new schoolhouse, with its shiny unscratched desks, its indoor bathroom, its fresh blackboards and wonderful books, Bonnie looked at Lizbeth’s forlorn face and decided to meddle.

“It’s a good thing the world doesn’t turn quite so fast as you’re spinning that globe, Lizbeth, or we’d all be flung past the Big Dipper.”

Lizbeth looked up from the beautifully detailed model of Earth that stood behind her desk and smiled thinly, her lovely face coloring with embarrassment. “I’m sorry—I should be outside helping with the decorating.”

Bonnie sat down in a chair at the back of the room near the potbellied stove. She wasn’t above giving a weary sigh. “We’ve finished all that,” she said. “The Chinese lanterns are hung and the refreshment tables are set out and, according to Mr. Callahan, the fireworks will do quite nicely.”

Lizbeth caught her lower lip in her teeth. “What an Independence Day this will be,” she reflected absently. “A picnic, a dance, fireworks.” Suddenly Miss Simmons burst into tears. “And an engagement!” she wailed.

Bonnie stood up quickly and went to enfold her friend in an embrace. “Oh, Lizbeth,” she said, patting the young woman’s trembling back. “Love really hurts sometimes, doesn’t it?”

Lizbeth backed away, sniffling. “Of all the men in this world, of all the decent and substantial men, I had to choose Forbes!”

It was a strange feeling, this wanting to defend Forbes Durrant. “Forbes is decent, Lizbeth,” Bonnie pointed out quietly. “And if the ability to provide well for a family is what you mean by ‘substantial,’ he’s that, too.”

Lizbeth dashed at her tears with the heel of one palm. She was trembling again, this time with the obvious effort to control her anger. “He’s a saloonkeeper, Bonnie! A whoremaster!”

“I’m not sure there is anything so terrible about keeping a
saloon,” Bonnie said. “Perhaps if you were willing to tolerate that much, Forbes would give ground on the other.”

“I don’t know that I could do that,” Lizbeth whispered. “Forbes is an admitted rounder, a rogue. What kind of husband would he be?”

Bonnie remembered the tenderness Forbes had shown her that day in the kitchen of the Brass Eagle Saloon and Ballroom. She remembered his kiss, too, though of course she didn’t mention it. “A very interesting one, I think. And certainly a passionate one.”

Lizbeth’s cheeks went crimson, a good indication that she knew Forbes to be passionate, perhaps even from experience. “I love him so much, Bonnie,” she said after a long time. “I don’t want to need him, but I do.”

Bonnie recalled what Forbes had told her about forgetting his name when he kissed Lizbeth and smiled. “Does Forbes feel the same way you do?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“He says he does.”

Thinking of the time she’d wasted because of her pride, time that might have been spent with Eli, Bonnie went to the front of the room and gave the globe a perfunctory spin. “Did Genoa ever tell you about her first engagement to Seth Callahan?” she asked.

There was a long pause. “Yes.”

Bonnie turned and met her friend’s gaze directly. “She’s lucky to have a second chance at happiness, Lizbeth. And 1 don’t say that lightly—I made a similar mistake myself. Take a lesson, teacher, and spare yourself a great deal of grief. Pride makes for very poor company in the lonely hours of the night.”

Lizbeth was looking at Bonnie very closely. “You sound almost as though you think you’ve lost Eli for good,” she probed softly. “It was my understanding that he was only away on business—Genoa expects him back any day.”

Bonnie bit her lower lip. Eli had been gone nearly two weeks, not a long time considering the distance between Northridge and San Francisco. He had sent neither a letter nor a wire, but that wasn’t unusual, either, for Eli had never been inclined toward such gentle amenities. In the end it all came back to that strange, nebulous feeling Bonnie had that
something was very, very wrong. Somewhere. She sighed and spread her hands.

“Where Eli is concerned,” she said, thinking of his time in Cuba with Consolata Torrez, “the old saw sometimes applies—out of sight, out of mind.”

Lizbeth paled slightly at the implication inherent in Bonnie’s words. She probably had similar doubts about Forbes’s ability to be faithful to any one woman, and that was understandable. “Not even a minute ago, Bonnie McKutchen,” she scolded gently, “you were telling me that you regretted the time you’ve lost.”

“I do,” Bonnie said. “More than ever, I do.”

“If you could turn the clock back, what would you do differently?”

Bonnie thought of those terrible days and nights following Kiley’s death, of Eli’s coldness and his betrayals, of his soldiering in Cuba. “I would fight,” she said, with certainty. “Somehow I would pass through my own pain and grief and into Eli’s and force him to face his sorrow directly. And if he still insisted on chasing off to Cuba, I would wait for him. I would be there when he came to his senses.”

“My stars,” Lizbeth breathed, “you do love that man, don’t you?”

“More than my life,” Bonnie replied, without hesitation, “and certainly more than my pride.” She started toward the door, for it was time and past to go home, to be with Rose Marie, to have a hot bath and tumble into bed and sleep. In the doorway she paused. “Unless you want to lose Forbes—and I assure you, Lizbeth, there are plenty of women in this world who would be more than happy to bind his wounds and soothe his brow—fight for him.”

Lizbeth lit a lamp, for the last of the light was nearly gone, and in the glow her face looked hopeful and determined. She started toward the rear door of the schoolhouse, which led into small but comfortable living quarters provided for her use and the use of those who would inevitably come after her. “Good night, Bonnie,” she said. “And thank you.”

Bonnie smiled and stepped out into the twilight. Genoa had already left, but Seth, thoughtful, quietly valiant Seth, was waiting patiently in the seat of Eli’s buggy.

Without waiting for help, Bonnie climbed up into the seat beside him and settled herself with a sigh. Seth was not a man to make small talk, and on this night Bonnie was grateful for that trait. They drove to Genoa’s brightly lit home in comfortable silence.

The enormous clock in the entryway was chiming eight as Bonnie and Seth came in, and Bonnie sighed again. It was always later than she thought, she reflected. Katie would have long since given Rose Marie her supper and her bath and tucked her into bed.

Disappointed, Bonnie said good night to Seth and climbed wearily up the stairs. Spending a happy hour or two with her daughter would have given her spirits a lift they sorely needed.

Bonnie entered the master bedroom quietly, meaning to get a nightgown, a wrapper and slippers and then go back to the bathroom and sink into a hot, relaxing tub of water. A lamp flickered on one of the nightstands and the covers on the bed had been turned back, probably by the efficient if sometimes tart-tongued housekeeper, Martha. Bonnie took a gown of lightweight flannel from a bureau drawer and opened the wardrobe to pull out her favorite wrapper, a worn robe of dark blue corduroy trimmed in white piping.

With both these garments over one arm, Bonnie crept toward the adjoining study-turned-nursery, hungry for at least a glimpse of her sleeping daughter. There would be no wild sessions of tickling this night, no hugs and no stories told, but at least she could look at Rose for a while. She could kiss her forehead or her cheek and make sure that the child hadn’t kicked away her covers …

Bonnie entered the nursery and stopped between one step and the next, her breath caught in her throat. Eli was sitting beside Rose’s bed, in a leather barrelback chair, his chin resting flush with his chest, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. Silvery moonlight flowed into the room, giving his wheat-gold hair an ethereal and completely misleading halo effect.

A smile curved Bonnie’s lips and she was able to breathe again, able to move. She went to Rose’s bedside and saw that her daughter was sleeping soundly, her covers in place, and she bent to kiss her forehead. Eli chose exactly that
moment to awaken, and being a man to take advantage of opportunity whenever it presented itself, he gave Bonnie’s bottom a mischievous pinch.

She gasped and straightened, at once insulted and very, very glad that Eli was home again. “Cad!” she accused in a saucy whisper.

Eli stood up and smoothly lifted Bonnie off her feet. The wrapper and nightgown she’d carried had long since fallen to the floor, forgotten. Chuckling to himself, Eli carried his wife into their bedroom and set her on her feet. Turning her so that she faced the bed—and the delicious fate that awaited her there—he began unfastening the buttons of her dress.

Strangely flustered, her heart fluttering against her rib cage, Bonnie searched her mind for something to say. Something reasonable and ordinary. “Did you buy the shipyard?” she blurted at last.

Eli had finished unbuttoning Bonnie’s dress, and his hands were warm on her bare shoulders as she shrugged free of the garment. He laughed and the sound was husky and warm and very, very masculine. “We’ll discuss the shipyard later. Right now, my love, I need you.”