After he had made love to her that morning—made love? Christ, he was in deep, he’d never made love in his life—he had planned to ask her to come home with him so they had time to explore what was between them. It wasn’t as if he could have kept his identity from her at this stage. She knew his name and any person in Helena could point her in his direction, so there had been no reason not to take her home. In fact, he couldn’t allow her to go free because she was one of the few who knew both of his identities.
Once he’d obtained her agreement to come home with him, he would’ve explained about her sisters. He felt sure that if he could have broken that news to her gently, tactfully, the conversation would have gone differently, and she wouldn’t be making herself uncomfortable by so needlessly holding herself away from him. Every time he pulled her back so that she could rest her weight against him, she moved away. Perhaps he should have let her ride in the runabout they kept in town and given her distance, but he’d wanted to touch her while he still could. Once they reached his home, he had no doubt that she’d hide away from him, determined to keep her distance. He couldn’t say that he blamed her after the way he’d treated her.
Maybe he’d been selfish thinking they could have more time together than those few stolen hours. She had every reason to hate him. Even though he understood that, he had an overwhelming need to make her his, to make her scream with pleasure, to hold on to her and never let her go. He’d never felt that before and it scared the hell out of him.
No. No matter what he wanted, he couldn’t think of anything long-standing with her.
On impulse, he transferred the reins to one hand and reached up to run a gloved thumb over the gentle curve of her cheekbone, swiping away a lock of hair that had fallen loose from her braid. She jerked away and he clenched his hand in a fist when it dropped back to the reins. Damn Campbell, and all the lowlifes who’d made the Reyes Brothers necessary.
Thoughts of the man had him looking into the distance to check for trouble. He wasn’t expecting any. Campbell had no idea he was Hunter Jameson of Helena, but even if he did, Hunter had no fear of him. Criminals and fortune hunters alike had been making threats against the Jamesons for as long as Hunter could remember. The men at the ranch were all well trained to handle any threat. Though Cas and Zane had headed out this morning, two men from the ranch had been there to ride back with him and Emmy had they faced any trouble.
Walking the black up the circular driveway, he came to a stop before the wide brick steps that led up to the double front door. Dismounting, he reached up to grip her waist and help her down, noting how she kept her eyes carefully from him. He opened his mouth to welcome her to his home, but a black lacquered door opened and two squealing girls dressed in ruffles, came running out shouting her name. Pushing away from him, she ran up the steps and stooped down to throw her arms around them both, a smile like he’d never seen lighting her whole face and making him catch his breath.
Clenching the leather reins in his fist, a bitter hollow opening up in the pit of his stomach, he realized that he was jealous. He wanted to make her smile like that. He wanted her to look at him like that and be happy to see him. Shit, he was losing himself over her and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. Perhaps it was better if she stayed away from him over the next few weeks. Even as he thought it, he knew it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t allow it to happen. They had days, weeks maybe, before they heard from Campbell. Just the thought of it made panic clench tight in his belly.
Willy stepped out behind them and raised her hand in greeting. “Welcome home, Mr. Jameson.”
Willy and her husband, Ed, had come from Boston to work for them as soon as the house had been built. She’d taken over the role of his mother in addition to running the house and over the years Ed had come to oversee everything outside the house. Smiling at the older woman, he took the steps two at a time until he stood under the overhang of the porch, pulling her into his arms and breathing in the familiar scent of the peppermint candy she loved to eat. The scent always seemed to cling to her.
Her hair, which had been graying ever since he could remember, was pulled back in its customary bun and she wore one off her usual gray dresses with the white apron. As far he knew his father had never insisted she keep the uniform his mother had put in place, but the woman wore it anyway, whether it was from respect or habit he simply didn’t know. “It’s good to see you, Willy. I hope the girls weren’t any trouble. I know you weren’t expecting guests.” From the corner of his eye he noticed Emmy look up sharply at the word “guests”. Apparently, she disagreed with the term.
“Not at all. They were perfect angels.” She smiled at her charges and earned a soft look from Emmy as well for her kind words.
“This is their sister, Emmy Campbell.”
“Emmaline Drake,” she quickly corrected him.
He stood silent for a moment as the housekeeper greeted her, realizing just how little he knew about this woman who was quickly becoming an obsession and just how badly he wanted to know everything. Inclining his head, he continued, “She’ll be staying for a while, too, as our guest.” He emphasized the word just to watch Emmy’s back stiffen. Fighting a smile, he allowed his gaze to rove from her back to her bosom, which wasn’t flattered the least bit in the drab, conservative dress she had borrowed. “She’s a special guest. Please make sure she has everything she needs.”
“Of course, Mr. Jameson. I’ll have a room near her sisters’ room readied for her.”
He clenched his jaw at the formal salutation. They had discussed that nonsense before, but she refused to refer to him as Hunter in front of company. The woman had tended him through every childhood fever and illness. He saw the formality as fake civility while she saw it as a necessity to some nonexistent social balance he’d never understand. She had accused him once of being unable to see how life really was due to his privileged upbringing. Glory had accused him of the same. But life was too short for that nonsense, and if it was his privileged upbringing that made him realize that then he was all the more thankful for it.
“I hope you don’t mind I sent Ed into town to fetch more clothing for them. Mr. Pierce failed to bring any with him.”
Finally sparing a glance to the two young girls, he noted the blonde hair that Zane had mentioned, but he couldn’t see any similarities between them and their sister. They stared back at him with wide grey-blue eyes, not the clear blue of his Emmy.
His Emmy.
He couldn’t stop thinking of her as his no matter how hard he tried. If it kept up, when this was over he’d have to buy himself a week at Victoria House and pray that if the women didn’t make him forget her, the whiskey would dull the ache of her loss. Somehow he knew that it wouldn’t be easy to see her go.
The girls wore almost matching dresses of pink and white ruffles that must have come ready-made from one of the dress shops in town. He opened his mouth to ask if Ed had gone to Madame Dauphine’s. He had sent enough business her way that the proprietess would hesitate to mention the odd request, if asked. The last thing he needed was word getting out that he had the girls here; he was already risking a lot by keeping them all at his house. But then he glanced at Emmy and figured the question could wait until he was alone with the housekeeper. She didn’t need to know how many women he’d bought dresses for in the past. Even as he thought it, he couldn’t deny that he wanted to take her there as well. To watch as she picked out fabric and designs, as she was measured and fitted. To know that she wasn’t reduced to hand-me-downs and coarse material that abraded her skin. To tell her that money was no object and she could buy to her heart’s content.
Raking a hand over the back of his neck, he said, “It’s fine, Willy. I hope you had him get enough. They’ll be visiting for a few weeks at least.”
“We’ll be prisoners, you mean?” Emmy stared at him, not flinching when he stared back.
“Of course that’s what I meant.” He spoke the words firmly but softly and they settled into the suddenly stale air of the porch. He hated that she had pushed it to this, but she had to understand that he was in control. As kind as Willy was, she was on his side.
Willy proved his point when she completely ignored the statement and assured him that Ed had picked up enough clothing. His heart ached when Emmy’s bottom lip trembled just for an instant when she realized the housekeeper would be no ally. It was so subtle that he probably wouldn’t have noticed had he not been so attuned to the woman’s every damned nuance. He wanted to tell her that he would be her ally, that he only wanted to take care of her, but he knew she wouldn’t believe him and he couldn’t hold it against her because he had kidnapped her. Instead of replying, she stiffened her shoulders and her face hardened with them. She didn’t say anything else, just turned her attention back to the girls who had started chattering again.
Without a word, he leaped down the steps and grabbed the reins of his horse, following his men to the stable across the open yard.
Chapter Fifteen
Emmy watched him walk the dirt path toward the stables with a hollow pang of longing in her chest that she tried her best to ignore. It irritated her that as her gaze roved over his broad shoulders she still felt a tug deep in her belly and that she craved his tender words from the night before. How could he be so willing to send her back to Ship after their night together? She tried to tell herself that it hadn’t really meant anything, but she couldn’t stop seeing the intensity of his face as he’d held himself above her, or the way he had looked deep into her eyes as he’d moved inside her. Her heart along with her body still ached from him, but he seemed to have already forgotten.
She was a fool.
Instead of letting herself dwell on that, she turned her attention back to her sisters, who were each talking over the other in a bid to tell her about their adventure of the past week. The name Mr. Pierce was being shouted, who she was sure couldn’t be the giant she knew. They described him as kind, having kept them entertained on their trip with stories of the noble men who used to ride the plains. He hadn’t been stoic or threatening, the awful attributes she would have attributed to him. He’d been smiling and kind. Though she was very grateful that the girls had viewed their situation without fear and, indeed, with excitement, she couldn’t reconcile their experience with what she knew to be true.
The housekeeper ushered them inside where Emmy stopped to admire the two-story foyer that was all polished, honey-colored oak and wrought-iron. Tall doors, two sets on each side, flanked the wide entry hallway that ran the length of the house. The first set, leading off from either side of the huge burgundy and gold Persian carpet, were open to parlors with tasteful, comfortable-looking upholstered furniture. But she didn’t get the chance to explore, because the girls pulled her along to the staircase as she stared in openmouthed awe at the expense that must have gone into such luxury.
Curving and elegant, with a wrought-iron handrail with spindly, decorative supports, the stairs were wide and led them to the upper floor where a plush, burgundy rug covering the gleaming wood floor greeted them on the landing. A right turn would have taken them across the foyer to the south wing, but the girls pulled her to the left and stopped at the first door on the right.
One glance at the room and she knew that it had been a nursery at some point. A crib was pushed back into the far corner surrounded by baskets of baby toys: rattles, wooden carriages and horses, and even a brightly painted rocking horse carved from wood. Though Rose was nine and liked to consider herself as big as Ginny, who was three years older, the child still lurking within her came out as she ran to the horse clearly made for a younger child, making Emmy smile. “Look at this, Em! Do you think I could keep it when we go home?” Grinning, Rose mounted its brightly painted saddle and demonstrated how to ride it.
Ginny ran across the large room to the armoire and opened it to show her all the new clothes that a Mr. Ed had brought for them to wear. They were all dresses in various pastels with more ruffles and lace than she had ever seen in one place before. Ginny smiled and ran a reverent hand over the fabric. “Aren’t they lovely?”
“Yes, absolutely beautiful.”
“I gave Rose the ones with ruffles, but I’m keeping both of the pink ones. I’ve never had anything besides gray and dull gray. Do you think these will turn gray after we wash them?”
Every dress the girls owned was secondhand and had been washed so much their color had long since faded. Blinking back very sudden and unexpected tears at this show of how much the girls had been deprived of, Emmy turned her gaze to the rest of the room. It held two small, matching beds neatly made up in dark green bedclothes. A desk set against one wall was complete with a bookshelf filled with books on arithmetic, astronomy, biology and all the other subjects a child might need to learn. Another bookcase was filled to the brim with more toys: wooden drums with skins stretched tight across them, a brightly painted wooden flute, blocks, and even male and female dolls dressed in fine evening wear.
She stood horrified. This must mean that Hunter was married and his wife and children had been stowed away somewhere. Her heart dropped into her stomach as she made her way deeper into the well-appointed room. Every item a child might need could be found here. Walking to the desk, she picked up one of the books with a shaking hand. The Young Man’s Guide to Becoming a Gentleman was embossed in faded letters on the drab brown cover.
Sons. He definitely had sons.
But as she was placing the book back, Rose called her name and she misplaced it so that it fell to the side of the stack of books. The cover flipped open, revealing Hunter’s name written in the painstakingly correct yet immature handwriting of a child. Placing the book back in its spot, she noted the initials “HWJ” carved into the side of the desk with the uneven efforts of a child. She tried to imagine the boy he had been playing here in the room. She’d see a gangly boy with dark blond hair swept down over his eyes and that same mischievous smile and her heart would ache, but then the image would be replaced by the handsome, imposing man she knew him to be. This had been Hunter’s childhood room. Did his sons claim the room now?
A voice warned that she shouldn’t make assumptions, he’d have told her if he was married. But another voice reminded her that he would have no reason to tell a whore. The problem was that she didn’t know which voice was the rational one. That scared her very much. For as long as she could remember, she’d lived by the idea that as long as she made the reasonable, rational choice then everything would turn out fine. Now that everything was turned upside down, she just didn’t know which that choice was.
The next hour passed in a blur as the girls, who had already explored every inch of the nursery, showed her every toy and its purpose. She had never seen them so happy back home at the farm. Their toys there had been so limited it shamed her to think of it. They’d never held any sort of musical instrument or even had a book full of children’s stories. Emmy had read some of her books to them, always editing so the plots were appropriate and interesting to them. They’d never even had free rein to just play, with chores and meal preparation always taking up so much of their time, especially when Ship and his men were home.
She was smiling at her sisters as they argued over the rules of a board game played with colorful marbles, when the housekeeper walked into the room and gently cleared her throat. Emmy rose from her seat at the small table and greeted the woman who gestured toward the hallway. Assuring her sisters that she’d return very soon, she followed the housekeeper out the door.
“I wanted to thank you for taking such good care of my sisters, Mrs....um...” Hunter had called her Willy, but that seemed too informal.
“Please call me Willy, dear. Everyone does. My name was Wilhelmina, but that’s a name from back East. It never seemed to fit out here.” She smil
ed easily and, it seemed, genuinely. “And no thanks necessary. It was my pleasure to keep them happy, they’re wonderful girls.”
“Well, thank you.” Emmy nodded, but to call her Willy didn’t seem right, so she skipped the subject.
“I apologize for the delay, but we weren’t expecting another guest, so I needed to prepare your room. Follow me and I’ll show you to it.”
There was that word again. Guest.
Willy led her to the next room down the hallway and, following her inside, Emmy gently pulled the door closed behind her. She hadn’t yet determined how to explain their stay here to her sisters, nor had she had the time to ask them what they had been told, so she didn’t want them to overhear their conversation. It was time to figure out if the housekeeper was ally or foe, though she suspected she already knew the answer.
“I’m sure you’ll find everything you need here,” Willy was saying as she walked to the center of the small sitting room. A settee with matching chairs flanking each side was upholstered in a rose velvet and was the focal point of the room. The window behind the settee was framed in matching drapes that let in cheery late-morning light, making the regularly polished wood of the fragile-looking tables gleam. The air was fragrant with the pleasant smell of polish and sunshine. “And in here...” The housekeeper paused to open the door to the attached bedchamber, revealing a four-poster bed made up in golden bedclothes with touches of pink in the throw pillows to match the upholstery in the sitting room.
Emmy was pulled into that room by her own curiosity, her feet sinking into the thick cream and rose carpet as she stepped inside. A large armoire and dressing table took up one wall while two large windows on the opposite wall allowed light to flood the space. With its rich fabric and beautifully maintained furniture, the bedchamber could have belonged to a princess.
The Innocent and the Outlaw (Outlaws of the Wild West) Page 16
