by Tracy Sumner
She was delighted to see him. Was this what missing a man felt like?
He didn't say a word, or politely return her greeting, just took her upper arm in his calloused grip and hauled her around the side of the house and into a lean-to storage shed.
"Unhand me at once, Constable," she panted. Struggling to break his hold, her gaze located his in the semi-darkness of the enclosure. "This is reprehensible behav—"
Interrupting with an abrupt movement, he backed her into the shed's wall. She saw his eyes for a moment in a slash of sunlight: wild and so dark they looked black. Then his head lowered, blocking vision and thought. When his hands tangled in her hair, tilting her face to better fit her mouth to his, she didn't pull away. Rather, she stretched up on her toes to crowd him, to claim him, her arms circling his neck and holding on for dear life.
Finesse forgotten, he thrust his tongue into her mouth, his hands kneading her scalp, sending a delicious rush of awareness through her body. Her nipples hardened, her stomach jumped. And for the first time, the area between her thighs flared to life, demanding attention. Hmmm, she thought, remembering the pictures in her books and squirming against him, I'm beginning to see how this might work.
Hungrily, she followed him move for move, battling to deepen the kiss with her budding skill. She recalled what he liked and set about using it for her benefit.
She had paid attention.
Gentle bites to his lips, her tongue tracing the edges just after. Hands sliding into his hair and tugging. Nails gently digging into his skin. A murmured plea against his lips, his animal growl of a reply.
If God had asked just then, she couldn't have said where she stood or what day it was. Perhaps what year. Anything outside that world, outside him, ceased to matter. Dazed, she recorded it all: the intense wall of heat surrounding them; splinters from the lean-to pricking her through her cotton shirtwaist; the smell of turpentine and dirt; Zach's rough-tipped fingers on her face, her neck, her shoulders. His coffee-scented breath, his low, sultry murmur.
Him.
She could not quell the nagging voice telling her that this kind of recklessness, this complete acquiescence, spelled nothing but trouble.
Her hand slid over his, up his arm, fingers digging into his shoulder. "Sweet heaven," she gasped as his lips trailed down her neck, latching onto her earlobe. "Zachariah, stop. Stop, please."
Yet she swayed into him, rolled her head to the side to give him access. Who would have guessed ears were this sensitive? When his tongue dipped inside in a warm, wet surprisingly decadent swirl, her knees buckled. Clutching a fistful of his shirt, buttons cutting into her palm, she dropped her cheek to his chest, inhaling a breath of soap and sunshine.
"When?" he asked, a ragged appeal, almost pleading. "The coach house?" He shivered in the heat, releasing a harsh breath all but into her face. "I can't take much more of this, Irish. I'm stopping myself from exploring places I shouldn't. Taking this past the point of no return. But it's an itch I can't keep from scratching much longer." Almost angrily, he returned to her mouth, nibbling, teasing, his tongue memorizing each peak and valley.
Pressing her palm flat over his thumping heart, she leaned back in his arms. "How do I look?" She tilted her head back and forth in the narrow shaft of light. "Am I healed? Am I ghastly?"
He blinked and opened his mouth, shut it, shook his head. It would be a lie if she said his befuddled expression didn't send a burst of satisfaction straight to her toes.
He recovered, frowning, then yanked his hand through his hair. "You're driving me crazy woman."
Me?
When he didn't answer, she realized she hadn't voiced the question, simply stood lazily in his arms, letting his attention steal her breath as cunningly as a cat stole a baby's. "You might say I look fine or some such encouraging statement." She stumbled back in her haste to free herself, getting angry for no good reason. "A minimal courtesy."
He grasped her wrist before she could storm from the shed, and in one quick move lifted her chin with the same hand holding her captive. A dangerous adversary lay beneath Zachariah Garrett's winning smile and tranquil demeanor.
"Courtesy is what you want? I don't know how to be courteous, so I'll just be honest." His eyes glowed in the dim, dusted-filled light, a feral blaze. "You don't look fine, you've never looked fine to me. You're so goddamned beautiful it makes my heart hurt. Makes air get all blocked up in my throat. Is that encouraging enough? Even with that mess on your face and it shining brighter than a baby's irritated bottom, I couldn't see anything else even if I tried. Jesus, do you think I came roaring over here to kiss you in some blessed shed on the side of Festus Bellamy's house?" Making a quick sweep of the shed, Zach kicked a bucket at his feet, sending it into the wall. "With a gaggle of women out there waiting to see if we come out of here kicking and screaming?"
His blunt words, each one more startlingly than the last, stripped away fear, suspicion, and hesitation until she fairly glowed.
"Why did you kiss me then?" she asked in another one of those womanly whispers that didn't sound like her. A woman whose father found her lack of feminine grace and penchant for trouble such an enormous disadvantage that he suggested she begin using her mother's maiden surname. The push to change it legally had come a year later. The occasional Times' article about her enraged him much less from then on, even though everyone in New York knew Savannah M. Connor and Savannah Morgan were one and the same.
"Why?" she repeated when he failed to answer, standing there with a confused glower.
He growled low in his throat, waiting a long moment before he answered. "I don't know. To stop the flow of words?" His hand went up, an admission of uncertainty. "I came tearing around the corner, wanting only to paddle your bothersome bottom... but you were standing there in the sunlight looking so sweet, which I know damned well you're not. And you smiled when you saw me. You kinda lit up." He looped his finger in a crazy circle. "And your hair. I like it, hanging on your shoulders like that. It's"—he shrugged, looking terribly uncomfortable—"nice."
She lifted her hand, not able to keep from touching it. "My chignons, I'm afraid, have always been a rather weak invention."
Reaching, he twirled a strand around his finger. "When you meet me tonight, leave it."
She nodded. "Okay." She felt sure, deep inside. Trust made the impossible possible, the complex simple. At least that's what she assumed allowed this decision to be so effortless.
Zach stepped back clumsily, a man who made few graceless movements. Clearing his throat, he scuffed the toe of his boot through the dirt. "What did you say?"
She released a faint laugh, his sheepishness utterly charming. "I'm meeting you at the coach house. Tonight. With my hair down."
Rubbing his hand over the back of his neck, he gauged her sincerity with a hesitant appraisal. "Have you been drinking?"
Her laughter grew warm and full. "No, no." She shook her head, wrapping her hand around her stomach and holding tight. "Of course not."
"Is it some female trick to make me forget about putting a stop to this nonsense?" He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating her industrious signmaking.
She felt a flicker of anger. "We're not doing anything you can put a stop to, Constable."
"Ah, Irish, you know that's not the truth of it."
"What harm is there in painting posters? It's for a rally next week. Nothing in your precious town, I might add."
He clicked his tongue against his teeth. "So that's what the telegram was about."
The missive she had tucked into her penny pocket burned like a hot coal through the material of her skirt. "Saints' blood, as if the need for posters for the Raleigh delegation is grand gossip."
"Irish, you know how few telegrams we receive in the span of a week? They're all big news around here." He shrugged, unconcerned. "Whatever it's for, make them stop. Or I will."
"Why?" She resisted the urge to stomp her foot.
He muttered something she was
relieved she didn't hear. "Because, you're on a man's private property, and he's not agreeable to having women painting up a storm in his yard and charging furniture stain to his account."
"His daughter—"
"Shirley doesn't pay the bills. Her name isn't on the deed." He paused, letting it sink in. "Understand?"
It almost pained him to watch her stiffen up and swallow her hurt behind an overconfident smile. There wasn't anything she could do—not immediately, anyhow, maybe not in her lifetime—to change what was a man's world, a man's right.
Or change the powerlessness of being of a woman.
She knew it. He could tell by the slight droop in her posture as she walked from the shed without looking back to see if he followed. It pricked his conscience to be the person to tell her a nasty truth she had likely heard a thousand times before.
As he stood there feeling like an ogre, she went to each group, squeezing shoulders and giving encouraging pats on the back. Women rolled up the dried posters and gently folded the others, gathering spare fabric and cans of stain, all the while throwing looks his way. Ones he wasn't at all used to.
They were downright hostile.
"This is part of the deal, you know." He trailed after Savannah like a pup, feeling the insane need to explain as she shook out brushes and dropped them into a rusted bucket. She gave him nothing but a cold look and silence, the most frustrating combination known to man.
"I can't help who I am in this town, Irish, or that people come to me to clean up messes. Settle disputes. Law is law, after all." He defied the impulse to touch her on the arm or hand to show he wasn't really as angry as all that. "I can't give in even if I want to, don't you see? I don't have an official reason to, and I don't want to shed any more nosy parker light on me and, well, you."
She stilled, a paintbrush slipping from her fingers. Her hand lowered, sinking into the tall stalks of grass, grasping them. Her eyes were wide and very green when they met his. "Even if..." Her lips lifted in a soft, awfully agreeable smile. "You mean you don't want to run us out of here?"
"Well, no." He flapped his hand around, indicating the women and the mess. "How can a little paint on faded calico harm anybody? What are a few signs in the scheme of things? But I can't let you and this exhibition of liberty stay here. Festus has every right to order you from his land. And every right to ask me to see that it happens."
Really, she had a remarkable smile when it was sincere. "But you're not enjoying it." She placed the remaining brushes in the bucket and rose to her feet, shaking out her pretty blue skirt.
Enjoy it? Hell, this reminded him of fighting with Noah and Caleb when they were boys, guilt leading him to the general store for taffy and chewing gum an hour later. And Hannah? He hadn't ever fought with her that he could recall. "Why would I enjoy this?"
She turned but not quickly enough to hide the anxious look, the frightening memory spilling into her eyes. A chill raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Fury at a faceless person rendered him speechless for a moment. "Who enjoyed it, Irish?" he finally asked, blood thumping in his temples, his face heating like it did when someone threatened his family or he saw a puppy being kicked.
Ignoring him, she walked to a group of stragglers standing in the shade of a large pine tree. Obviously, they awaited further instruction. "Ladies, Constable Garrett has so kindly offered his yard for us to conclude our poster project." She smiled, a smug one versus the sincere kind he preferred, her earlier distress evident only in the faint paleness of her cheeks. She must have known he wouldn't call her on it. Besides, it did return the familiar expressions to everyone's face.
He found he favored those over the hostile glares.
Savannah extended her hand. "Deal, Constable?"
He cursed beneath his breath, not about to shake her hand in front of twenty gawking women. Stalking halfway to the street, he spun around to find her watching him from the edge of her regiment. Rory had saddled up next to her, drops of paint covering his face, shirt, and short trousers.
"Yes, yes, use the blamed yard. Take my son while you're at it and let him join the fight." She had him over the proverbial barrel this time.
He would return the favor tonight.
* * *
Zach arrived at the coach house early.
Impatience had him dropping off Rory with Caroline an hour before he told her he would. Under the guise of a night patrol, he'd promised to return when he could, telling Caroline it would take at least three hours or so. Maybe four. Rory had run into the house with a succinct goodbye, his friend Justin's new cast iron truck already filling his mind. Caroline had told Zach to let the boy stay the night if it came to that, saying two were about as easy as one. As a father of a trying six-year-old, he sure didn't believe that.
However, all night staring into those lovely green eyes, kissing those incredible lips, and sliding inside that extraordinary body?
Damn, it was a tempting notion.
As he lit a row of candles sitting on the window ledge, he realized he had no idea what the night might hold, no idea how far Savannah planned to go with this game. He blew the match out before it burned his fingers, and headed to the kitchen, in search of a corkscrew. Jesus, he hoped Noah had one or he was in trouble.
Bring wine, the paint-spattered note tacked to his bedroom door had said. No signature. No teasing banter to strengthen his resolve. He'd never purchased wine in the past, mostly ale, and if Christabel had found his abrupt request strange, knocking on her office door in the middle of the afternoon, she'd kept it to herself.
How had Savannah found his bedroom? Rory must have shown her. That, or she'd poked around while the others were outside painting. Either way, the image of her sitting on his bed and touching his clothing, sweeping her hand across his pillow and maybe sniffing the sheets, flustered and excited him.
He could have sworn her scent lingered.
Locating a scarred opener in a drawer crowded with utensils, he worked the rusted spiral end into the cork and gave it a good tug.
He had never even been with a woman in his bedroom. The one he shared with Hannah during their marriage was on the second floor. Noah and Elle used that room now, when they came into town. Or guests, the rare times he and Caleb had any. It was better that way. Part of the past put firmly into the past. It had helped with the nightmares, too. Besides, the third floor was basically an attic, quiet and dark. It fit his mood most of the time.
Or had until recently.
He liked the privacy the steep staircase provided, and the far-reaching view from the window over the roofs of nearby houses. In the distance, if he squinted, he could see blue-black waves with frothy edging rolling into shore. Rory wasn't allowed up there alone, a bone-breaking tumble down the stairs or out the window not what Zach had in mind.
Maybe he could take Savannah up there some day. Zach smiled, brushing a sliver of cork from the counter. Sneak her in the back door or have her skinny up the trellis.
It had shaken Zach to see her with Rory this afternoon. His son and—he hoped—his soon-to-be-lover. Pouring a measure of wine, he took a fast sip. Both of them had been covered in paint and sunshine, a gusty sea breeze ruffling their hair and clothes. They had looked like a picture, squatting there in the grass, pleased smiles on their faces. His chest tightened, knowing Rory would never have another mother when the boy clearly longed for one. If Zach was capable of making that significant a commitment again, he would.
Even without love, for his son's sake.
He would if he could.
God knew it; he had been told during many a prayer. Zach had pledged his life to his family and this town. He would do anything to help a person in need, do anything to improve his son's life. Noah, Caleb or Elle's life.
But he would not marry again. Could not bring himself to even imagine it. When he thought about marriage for more than a minute or two, as he did now, he started to feel physically sick. The burden of guilt and sorrow, weighing his shoulders down as
surely as a three-foot-thick plank from the hull of a ship, amounted to more than even capable Zachariah Garrett, leader, life-saver, brother, and father, could endure.
Draining the glass, he held off pouring another. He didn't want drink, regret about the past, or fear of the future to ruin this night or cloud his reasoning. Better to keep a clear head when dealing with a woman like Savannah. Flat out, in any confrontation, she would stand toe to toe with him, as bold as a man.
Grabbing the bottle and an extra glass, he carried them into the main room. Even with the leather chair and the small settee, you couldn't exactly call it a parlor. The massive desk sitting in one corner and Noah's maps and charts tacked to every bit of available space made sure of that. Not to mention the bottles and metal instruments lining the shelves, the stacks of books crowding the floor.
Stretching out on the settee, Zach kicked his boots off and let his feet dangle over the scrolled edge. Stacking his hands behind his head, he stretched, yawned. Would she show? He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, smelling spiced candle wax and something fishy from one of Noah's specimen bottles.
He hoped like hell she would.
* * *
Savannah approached with hushed steps until she stood over him.
He lay sprawled on the settee, one arm folded beneath his head, the other hanging to the floor, his long, slender fingers curled as if he held something in the palm of his hand. Candlelight cast flickering shadows across his face, highlighting the moist sheen on his cheeks and brow. A bottle of wine sat nearby. Two glasses, next to it.
The sound of chirping crickets drifted in the open window, mixing with his whispery breaths. His lids fluttered, and he murmured softly, his fingers drawing into a fist. Slipping her boots off, she went to her knees beside him, her gaze wandering down his body. The chance to study him while he slept provided too great a temptation.
Zachariah Garrett was a beautiful man. More beautiful, she thought, because he didn't seem to know it.
