Boots Under Her Bed

by Jodi Thomas

  “You will let me be a full partner, won’t you?”

  He pretended to give it some thought as he stroked her breasts. “Only if you take shooting lessons.”

  She punched his chest, narrowly missing his stitches. “I’m not jesting!”

  “I’m not, either,” he said, once he caught his breath. “I have to know you can take care of yourself, Rachel, or I won’t be able to do my job. If we’re going into dangerous situations, we must be able to trust each other.”

  “So that’s a yes? You’ll be my partner?”

  “I would rather you be mine.” To distract her, he pulled down the edge of her chemise to admire her nipples. They were so pert. Rosy as new grapes. Inspired, he leaned in to taste one. “You can handle the office duties,” he murmured between nibbles, “while I go into the field.”

  She pulled back. The nipple popped free. “No.”

  “No?”

  “Better if we hire someone to run the office, and we both go into the field.”

  “Whatever you say, sweetheart.” He would never be able to leave her behind anyway. He needed her, not just for this, but in every way that mattered.

  “Truly?”

  “Truly.”

  “Oh, Richard.” Throwing herself against him, she covered his face with kisses.

  He had to end this before he lost reason. “Sweetheart.”

  She paused in her exploration of his earlobe to sit back, her blue eyes dark with desire, her mouth swollen from his kisses. “What?”

  Her impatience fed his hunger. If she was beautiful to him before, in passion she was irresistible. Lust incarnate. The one person in the world who had the ability to destroy him, or lift him to the heights.

  “If we married, we could simply call it the Whitmeyer Detective Agency.”

  Even though she didn’t move, he felt her resistance. “I tried marriage once and didn’t like it.”

  He’d expected that answer, but still had to ask. “You’re sure?”

  “I am. Unless I change my mind.”

  “Then we’ll wait until you do.” With regret, he pulled her chemise back over her breasts. “I’ll propose to you then, rather than have you refuse me now.” He started to lift her aside, wincing at the pull in his stitches.

  “Richard, stop before you hurt yourself!”

  He sat back. Looking up into her beautiful face, he realized this was no longer a game. This was his life. His future. His heart he was putting at her feet. It was important that she know how deeply he cared for her, and understand the power he was putting into her hands. “Only you can hurt me, Rachel. If you walk away from me again, it’ll break me. You need to know that.”

  Tears filled her beautiful eyes, dripped down onto his chest. “Oh, dearest.”

  More determined than ever to win her, he slid his hand between them and touched her where she straddled his lap.

  She gasped, her eyes going wide.

  “Change your mind yet about marrying me?”

  “I—I—” Another gasp had her arching. “I think . . .”

  He stopped stroking. “You ‘think’?”

  “Yes!” That breathless laugh swept his face. “Yes, you rogue. I’ll marry you. But I won’t be left behind while you go off chasing robbers and such.”

  “No, you won’t.” Rolling her onto her back atop the soft cushions, he framed her face with his trembling hands. “I love you, Rachel James. Do you love me?”

  “I’d be a fool not to. And I’m no fool.”

  “Say it.”

  “I love you, Richard. And I always will.”

  A rush of emotion filled his chest, so intense he laughed with the joy of it. He kissed her. Kissed her again, and as she pulled him closer and moved impatiently beneath him, he knew that finally the lonely years were over and the best part of his life had just begun.

  Kaki Warner is a RITA Award–winning author and longtime resident of the Pacific Northwest. Although she now lives on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains in Washington, Kaki grew up in the Southwest and is a proud graduate of the University of Texas. She spends her time gardening, reading, writing, and making lists of stuff for her husband to do while soaking in the view from the deck of her hilltop cabin. For book excerpts and more information, visit Kaki’s website at kakiwarner.com

  Don’t miss her next Heroes of Heartbreak Creek novel, Where the Horses Run, coming July 2014 from Berkley Sensation. Turn to the back of this book for a sneak preview.

  THE HIRED GUN’S HEIRESS

  Alison Kent

  Chapter 1

  San Antonio, Texas, 1895

  IT wasn’t any of Maeve Daugherty’s business how Miss Porter paid her girls, but these disbursement amounts hardly seemed fair. Annie received half as much for entertaining the odious Mr. Reed as Etta received for her time spent with Mr. Jackson, who was young and spry and smelled delightfully of lavender and bergamot.

  Not that Maeve sought out the particulars of what occurred upstairs; she rarely ventured beyond her room into the grand parlor, and only then on her way to the kitchen for breakfast or midmorning tea (when the girls still slept and few visitors lingered), but the set of ciphers Miss Porter used had been easy enough to discern.

  Never had Maeve been so thankful to her father’s accountant for indulging her fascination with numbers. Her father hadn’t known; he refused to have his daughter involved in the unseemly pursuit of sums. And only the charity work her mother approved, not that which called to Maeve’s sense of compassion, was permitted to be done under the auspices of the Daugherty name.

  Of course, should Mr. Feagan see exactly how she was putting her instruction in profits and losses to use, he would no doubt regret having defied his employer. Fannie Porter’s boardinghouse, while highly thought of, and generous with donations, and current on all licenses and fees, was still a brothel.

  Demure whispers and delicate laughter and skirts swishing like the wings of large hawks filtered through the door she’d left ajar while she worked. And there was always work. When she’d applied for the job, she’d had no idea there would be so much to keep her busy, but was very glad there was.

  There were the payments to the girls to tabulate, as well as the proceeds from the gentlemen callers. But there were also charitable contributions, revenue due to the community for taxes, and various amounts paid in dubious fines to police officers Maeve found equally dubious.

  Then there was the recording of the transactions with the vendors supplying alcohol and the gains made selling the drinks by the glass. Miss Porter stocked some of the best liquor Maeve had ever seen. Until arriving in San Antonio, she’d never imagined such comforts had found their way to Texas. After all, Uncle Mick had made the trip sound like a Grand Adventure into the Wild, Wild West where savages and buffalo roamed the plains.

  Plush carpets, fine crystal, silk sheets . . . though only on the beds upstairs, not the one Maeve herself slept on. Her room was a far cry from the luxury she’d known at home. It was no more than serviceable, in fact, she being the help. But having expected dirt floors, not rooms redolent with the smoke of choice cigars and the warm musk of bonded bourbon, she was quite comfortable in her newfound employment.

  Fannie Porter’s girls certainly had it better than the families living in Manhattan’s Mulberry Bend and Bone Alley. And though Maeve’s own conditions were plain and austere, she did, too.

  More of the girls’ hushed chatter reached her ears.

  “Who is he?”

  “I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Look at his eyes.”

  “Look at his hands. I would like very much to meet those hands.”

  Feeling a bit warm, Maeve slipped a finger behind the tie at her blouse collar, tugging slightly as she breathed in. What silliness. Meeting a man’s hands. Hands were hands were hands, and the fact that a certain pair came to mind, a pair with broad palms and long, well-shaped fingers and clean nails and a dusting of dark hair along the edges, meant nothing. Ev
en if said pair bore frighteningly harsh scars.

  The twittering continued, leaving Maeve curious. Miss Porter’s girls rarely engaged in gossip about men, and why would they? They saw so many in the course of a day, and there was nothing new under the sun. What about this latest arrival could possibly be of interest?

  Then again, Maeve did keep to herself, to the corner of the office where she worked, to the small adjoining storage area converted to a bedroom where she slept. Since the Day of the Disaster with Uncle Mick, she’d rarely done more than cross South San Saba Street to the druggist for Miss Porter’s medicinal supplies or visited the butcher and grocer for the steaks and cream and cheeses the boardinghouse chef required.

  She would be the last of the women living in the house to understand the appeal of one man over another. Though, to be honest, that wasn’t true. She did understand. She’d made a fool of herself because of that understanding. She preferred not to be reminded of that foolishness, or of the one man who had witnessed her lapse in propriety.

  “There’s company in the parlor, girls.”

  Miss Porter’s words tumbled through the room down the hall from Maeve’s open door, and the piano notes of Charles K. Harris’s “After the Ball” followed. It was fairly early in the afternoon, but she had learned that men’s needs were not confined to the hours after dark. Or perhaps such was only the case here in the Wild, Wild West, where she recognized very little of the respectability she’d grown up with.

  Whoever had arrived, the girls were certainly keen to gain his favor. The hushed chatter and twittering had been replaced by much boisterous laughter. She picked out Annie’s and Etta’s—if those were the girls’ names, any more than Mr. Reed and Mr. Jackson were who they claimed to be. Maeve had no right to presume. She’d been going by the name Mae Hill since the Day of the Disaster with Uncle Mick.

  “I’m looking for a young woman,” said the company in the parlor, the deep voice a resonant bass that was easily heard above the din.

  Maeve’s head came up; her hands stilled; her heart nearly stilled, too, before it began beating in her chest like the drums in the Sousa Band.

  “I have several young women whose companionship I’m sure you would enjoy.”

  “No, ma’am, I mean, I’m looking for a particular young woman. Her name is Maeve Daugherty. She stands close to your height and has bright green eyes. Her hair’s like that of a chestnut horse. Last I saw her, it was about to her waist. I was told someone of her description was in your employ.”

  “And when did you last see her?”

  “Several weeks ago. A month or more,” he was saying, and Maeve pictured him pulling off his hat, using his large hand to rake back his too-long hair. “I work for her father. She left New York with her uncle and hasn’t been heard from. Her family’s worried.”

  Maeve closed her eyes, shook her head. Why would her parents not leave her to her life? She was twenty-two years old. She knew her own mind. And why in the world, if they’d had to send somebody to fetch her home, did it have to be Zebulon Crow?

  “I don’t believe I know a Maeve Daugherty,” Miss Porter was saying, but her words were hesitant.

  Maeve imagined her frowning and casting a glance toward the hallway that led to the rear of the first floor and to the office. Zeb would follow the direction of her gaze, because nothing slipped his notice, and almost as the thought entered her mind, heavy footsteps thudded closer, leaving her no time to hide.

  She pushed back her chair and stood, smoothing her blouse and her skirt, doing the same to her coiffure. She’d had no idea Zeb had ever noticed the color of her hair, though of course she wasn’t seeing to her appearance for him. She only wanted him to realize she was in good health and good spirits and not homesick at all.

  Yes, that was it. That was all the time she had. The door opened, and there he stood. Tall and broad shouldered, his dark hair hanging to his collar, his dark beard emphasizing the strength of his jaw, his blue eyes like sapphires shining from the bottom of a flute of champagne. The dusting of dark hair along the edges of his hands making her knees inexplicably weak.

  “Hello, Miss Daugherty.” His voice was deep, almost rough, and nearly angry, as if he resented her actions causing him the inconvenience of this very long trip.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Crow.” The formalities. How absolutely ridiculous they were. How banal. “What are you doing here?”

  “The night I found you in your father’s library drunk on his brandy you asked me a question.” He pushed the door almost all the way closed, though Miss Porter would certainly be able to hear her should she cry out, then he moved toward her. “I came to give you my answer.”

  • • •

  ZEBULON Crow had seen enough darkness in his day that little was left to surprise him, but the picture of Sean Daugherty’s only child working in a whorehouse did.

  He took some consolation in the fact that she stood in front of a desk and wasn’t sprawled across a bed upstairs. That she was dressed much as when he’d last seen her, looking no worse for the toll of traveling west with Mick, and not . . . well, undressed . . . went a long way toward easing what could’ve been an awkward confrontation.

  Especially since the last time they’d been in the same room she’d asked him if he’d like to see her out of her clothes.

  “I don’t believe for a moment you came all this way to answer my question,” she said, glancing at the book work she’d been doing when he arrived, her cheeks pink stained, her knuckles, where she gripped the back of her chair, bone white. “And it wasn’t a real question, so it did not require an answer. You told me that at the time.”

  She was chattering on, and he understood a proper young woman like Maeve Daugherty wouldn’t want to be reminded of a lapse in judgment that had her falling prey to her father’s liquor. But she appeared to be living a lapse in judgment now, so he wasn’t going to worry about reminding her of the other.

  “It’s time to go home, Maeve,” he said, jamming his hat onto his head.

  “I don’t want to go home. I mean, I am home. This is my home. This is where I live now.” She raised her chin, shook off whatever affliction had her tongue rambling, then more calmly said, “Leave me alone, Zebulon.”

  He waited to see if she was going to put the word “home” into another sentence or ramble some more, but all she did was take her seat at her desk, pick up her pencil, and run a finger down a column in the ledger in front of her. He didn’t know if she was seeing what was written there or if she thought he would leave if she looked away.

  He wasn’t going to leave, and he didn’t care what she was seeing. He was here to do a job, not cajole. Once he had her belongings strapped to the packhorse with his, and had her comfortably saddled up on her mount, he could get on with the rest of the reason for his trip to the West.

  He took one step forward and reached for her ledger, closing it and taking the pencil from her hand. “You’re coming with me, Maeve. You may not want to go back to New York, but I ain’t leaving you in a whorehouse.”

  “Zebulon!”

  “You know that’s what this place is, don’t you? You can’t be thinking this is the same type of boardinghouse as the ones that got you riled up enough to drown yourself in your father’s drink.”

  “I know about the services Miss Porter provides,” she said, color rising even higher on her cheekbones as if painted there by one of the girls hovering outside the door. “And I was not attempting to drown myself. Though if you had seen what I saw that day in Bone Alley, you would understand my wish to obliterate such images from my mind.”

  He knew the things she’d seen. He knew, too, there were worse living conditions that she hadn’t. But none of those equaled the images of death he carried with him, which no amount of alcohol would ever erase. “You can’t change the world, Maeve. No matter how much reading Jacob Riis makes you want to.”

  This time when she turned toward him she paled. “You know about ‘How the Other Half Live
s’?”

  Nodding, he crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against the wall where her desk sat. “You told me that night in the library that you’d read it.”

  She looked down, defeated, her hands laced primly in her lap. “Then you should know I’m not trying to change the world. I only want to make a difference where I can. But to do that, I need my mother and my father to stay out of my way. And I need you to leave me alone.”

  “Fine, but I’m not leaving you here,” he said, hearing the whispers outside the door growing louder. The last thing he wanted was the sort of trouble that would bring the law into Fannie Porter’s house. “And I don’t want to know what Mick was thinking, doing just that.” Though Mick’s trouble was so much bigger than his disrespect for Maeve. “Your father will have his head—”

  Maeve’s eyes widened. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You can’t tell Father.”

  Huh. That sounded like a bargaining chip. “About you working in a whorehouse? Or about his brother thinking this was any sort of place to leave you?”

  “That’s not exactly how it happened,” she said and looked away.

  “Which part, Maeve?”

  “Mick doesn’t know I’m working here.”

  “That so? What does Mick think you’re doing?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen him to ask.”

  He pushed away from the wall, anger working its way through his veins. “How long, Maeve? Since you’ve seen him?” But he’d barely got the words out before the door behind him opened and the woman responsible for Maeve’s room and board walked through.

  “Is everything all right, Miss Hill?” Fannie Porter’s gaze traveled from Maeve to Zeb and back. “Or should I say, Miss Daugherty?”

  Maeve nodded meekly, a meekness that Zeb doubted the other woman believed any more than he did. One thing was certain. Maeve Daugherty, for all her proper gentility, had never been meek.