Wild to the Bone (8 page)

“You!” Magnus hissed in shock, staring at the girl striding slowly, purposefully toward him on her long, slender legs, brown boots thudding on the floor. “You! You!”

And then it became a question as she stood over him and he ran his pain-racked gaze up her slender legs, past the pleasing curve of her hips and the pistol belt and the twin uptilted mounds of her breasts, to her regal, blue-eyed face framed by the silky tresses of her Black Irish hair. “You?”

The man's impaled hand was quivering, blood dribbling onto his knee and onto the floor.

Raven crouched over Magnus.

“Pardon me,” she said, and then ripped the knife out of the man's hand, causing him to tip his head back and hurl a blood-freezing scream at the roof.

She wiped the blade on his shoulder and added, “I seem to have dropped my knife.”

9

S
he disappeared after that,
and Haskell didn't see her again until late that night in Douglas, dining alone in a Chinese eatery sandwiched between a harness shop and a tonsorial parlor.

He was a little chagrined over her having to pull his fat out of the fire again, after having done so twice before. And besides, she seemed especially snooty and aloof. That was why he did not go into the eatery and invite himself to sit down beside her and strike up a conversation with a girl—his partner, no less—who'd told him in her own haughty way that she wanted nothing to do with him until they reached Spotted Horse and started the job at hand.

Bear Haskell was many things, but he was not a prideless cur. He wasn't going to go panting after her, for chrissakes.

He'd eaten at the only other restaurant in town, so, with a full belly and good dark coming soon—there was only a little cobalt light left over the silhouetted western ridges—he headed over to the hotel in which he'd secured a room. The place had a saloon in a little lean-to addition, and the beer wasn't half bad, so he enjoyed a bucket and a shot of bourbon.

A half-breed girl was there, sitting around like part of the furniture and obviously for rent, but, oddly for him, he wasn't in the mood for a tumble. So when he finished his beer, he patted the old dog that slept on a braided rug near the front door and headed up the rickety stairs to his room, one of only six in the wood-frame, mud-brick building.

In the narrow, dingy hall outside his room, he stopped and stared at his door. He wrinkled the skin above the bridge of his nose as he stared at the tin-plated number 9 attached to the door panel and felt the light wings of hope lift his heart.

Back up in the little mining town of Wendigo, during their last assignment together, Miss York had used her considerable sleuthing skills to steal into his locked room one night, and she'd been waiting there, naked and eager for him to come to her.

Haskell dropped to his knees and peered under the door and into his room. He always slid a .44 shell back under the door when he left his rented rooms, so he'd know if someone had entered while he was away and was waiting inside to do him harm. Anyone entering would have a hard time not kicking the shell across the room.

This evening, the bullet was still there. That didn't necessarily mean much concerning Agent York, however, because if Haskell remembered correctly, the bullet had been in place that night she'd been waiting for him.

That meant she might very well be waiting for him this evening, unable, finally, to resist his charms.

Haskell snickered, fumbled the key out of his pocket, and unlocked the door. In his eagerness, he forgot about the bullet and kicked it clanking across the wooden floor. He closed the door and stared at the bed, visible in the last rays of twilight issuing through the flour-sack-curtained window.

She wasn't sitting in the room's only chair, either.

She wasn't here.

Haskell sighed.

Then he chuckled as he tossed the key onto the dresser and said, “What'd you think, she was going to come pantin' after you? Nah, the girl's bound and determined to be professional. Shit.”

He brushed Raven York out of his mind—at least, as much as any man could brush a looker like that out of his head—and undressed down to his summer-weight longhandles. He washed his face and the back of his neck at the washstand and then toweled off, smoked a third of a Cleopatra Federal before peeling off the coal to save the rest of the stogie for later, and slipped into bed.

Even with the window open, it was too hot in the small room for covers, so he tossed them off. He lay there with half a hard-on, remembering their last night together, how she'd felt and smelled and what she'd sounded like when they'd climaxed, and he considered stroking himself off.

No.

He wouldn't let her do that to him.

Instead, he focused on the fight he'd had in the club car earlier. He considered how Magnus, Dawg, and Butters were faring in the spartan jail of the Douglas town marshal—man, Magnus's hand had to really be hurting—and he grinned.

Finally, he slept.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he was awakened from a dream in which she'd just closed her mouth over his cock, and he instantly grabbed the LeMat from the holster he'd hung from the right front bedpost and clicked the hammer back as he aimed at the door.

He stared through the darkness, relieved only by the ambient light filtering through the window curtain. He could see the vague shape of the door, but he wasn't certain that what he'd heard had come from there. He didn't even know what it was exactly that he'd heard, just that the sound was loud and near enough to push through the French lesson Agent York was giving him, to strum his razor-edged instincts, and to awaken him.

It might have come from the street outside the hotel.

He held still, aiming the gun at the door and pricking his ears, hearing nothing more than a breeze very faintly rustling the curtains and a dog barking somewhere on the other side of the little town. Nothing more.

Then there rose a faint squawk as though from a floorboard being stepped on out in the hall, just beyond his door.

Haskell's heartbeat quickened. He tightened his finger on the LeMat's trigger.

The door was straight across the room from the bed, so if anyone blasted through the panel, he'd be in the direct line of fire.

Suddenly, he was out of bed and crossing the small room on the balls of his feet. He pressed his left shoulder against the wall beside the door, his thumb caressing the small steel lever that would engage the shotgun shell beneath the LeMat's main barrel. The sixteen-gauge round came in handy when Bear found himself in need of returning fire at a nebulous target through walls or doors.

Standing there in his bare feet and summer-weight longhandles, he breathed through his nose so he could hear what was going on outside in the hall. Was someone aiming a shotgun at his door, preparing to assassinate him? It had been tried before. A man in his line of work made plenty of enemies. Maybe Magnus and his pards had busted out of the jail across the street and were wanting to finish him off.

The squawk came again from the other side of the door. Haskell's heart hiccuped in his chest. He clicked the lever to engage the shotgun shell and tensed his body as he pressed his back harder against the wall, chewing his lower lip, waiting.

There was another squawk, and Bear's keen ears picked up the sound of rustling clothes. The squawk had come from farther away, as though whoever was in the hall was retreating. There was the soft click of a door latch, the squeak of a door hinge, and then another door-latch click.

Whoever had been out in the hall had gone into another room.

Haskell thought about it, and then his lips quirked in a cunning half-smile.

Could the person in the hall have been Agent York?

Since this was the only hotel in town, it made sense that she'd have rented a room here. Had her memories of what had happened between her and Haskell in Wendigo last year been pestering her this night, as they'd pestered him, and kept her from falling asleep?

And perhaps compelled her to seek him out?

Raven was a sneaky little devil, and she had no doubt learned which room he was in. A simple glance at the desk clerk's register book would have given her that.

The click came again from down the hall a ways.

Haskell tensed. His loins warmed in anticipation.

The hinges chirped again. The door was opening. There was the squawk of a floorboard. Then silence.

Haskell kept the LeMat raised, barrel pointed at the ceiling, ready, but he knew it was her. Had to be her. Anyone gunning for him would have blasted through the door by now and run like hell.

Had to be her!

He was growing frustrated, however. The silence continued in the hall, like a held breath. What the hell was she doing, just standing there, staring at his door?

Having second thoughts?

He was tempted to open the door, but that might scare her off. Besides, the devious child in him wanted her to walk down the hall of her own accord, to enter his room on her own, and to give herself to him because she simply couldn't spend another night without him.

He wanted her to surrender to him, maybe even beg him a little . . .

He chuckled at that.

He waited, his heart thudding in anticipation of having that lovely creature walk into his room, probably wearing nothing more than—

What the hell was that?

The door had clicked again.

Dread dropped in him like a fifty-pound sack of cracked corn. Slowly, he lowered the LeMat, keeping his ears attuned to the hall beyond the door. When he'd waited nearly a full minute and had not heard another sound, he unlocked his door, opened it, and poked his head into the hall.

Starlight angling through the windows at each end of the hall showed him nothing more than an empty corridor furnished with a musty carpet runner, and that was all. She'd returned to her room.

Unless, of course, it had never been her standing out here, but Haskell knew it was. He sniffed the air. He'd remember that cool, light fragrance of sweet cherries on his deathbed.

She'd been out here, all right. She'd been wrestling with her compulsion to knock on his door and give herself to him.

But something had scared her off, like a fawn in the woods.

Frustration racked Haskell, who stood in his open doorway, holding the LeMat down low by his side, staring down the hall at the doors he could see in the dense shadows.

She was behind one of those, likely with her heart pounding as hard as his was. He bunched his lips, fought back the urge to yell out to her, to go running down the hall and pound on the door and raise a foolish ruckus.

Quickly, before he could do anything stupid out of desperation, he quietly closed his door and turned the key in the lock.

Just as he did, he heard another key grate in its own lock down the hall. A latch clicked. Hinges squawked.

Staring at his door, Haskell grinned. He waited, fingers tingling, his cock pushing against the buttoned fly of his balbriggans. His throat was dry. He waited, praying, but then the hinges squawked again, and the door latch clicked.

He waited for the sound of her light tread in the hall. He waited a full minute. The tread did not come.

He again turned the key in the lock, opened the door, and stared into the hall. As he looked off to his right, in the direction from which the other door had opened, there was the muffled ratcheting sound of another key being turned in another lock and the soft snap of the locking bolt being sent home.

Haskell drew a deep, burning breath scented with the fragrance of sweet cherries. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up.

God damn her!

He closed his door, turned the key in the lock, and stepped back away from the door. He ran a hand through his hair in dire frustration. He slid the LeMat into its holster and threw himself back into bed.

She wasn't coming. She'd almost come to him, and she'd tried a couple of times, but she hadn't been able to do it.

Well, there was no point in going to her. They weren't going to get together until she was good and ready. She'd made that clear.

He'd wait. It would be a long night, probably a long day tomorrow, but he'd wait. Eventually, remembering the kind of heart-stopping night they'd had in Wendigo, she'd weaken and come groaning to him like a mare in season.

He closed his eyes, but sleep was long in coming. And when it did, it was haunted by images, memories of her. Of them together. Finally, feeling as though he wrestled with a bobcat all night in the back of a Conestoga wagon, he got up with a loud, disgusted chuff.

He looked out the window. There was a very faint glow in the west. Checking his railroad watch, he saw that it was only four o'clock. That was all right. He'd rustle up breakfast, lay in some trail supplies, and then head for the town's only livery barn to rent a horse.

He washed and headed out with his gear on both shoulders. As he started walking down the hall, a door latch clicked. He grimaced. He was so tired of that sound of frustration that he felt like a dog beaten with a knotted rope.

But then he turned his head to see her standing there in an open doorway to his left.

He stopped, gazed at her. She looked as worn-out as he felt, her trail clothes rumpled, small pouches under her eyes.

“Good morning, Agent York.”

She hesitated. A soft pink rose in her cheeks. She blinked her long eyes, dipped her chin cordially. “Good morning to you, Agent Haskell. Sleep well?”

“Never better. You?”

“So well I thought I'd died.”

“Yeah,” Haskell said with a sigh. “Me, too.”