by Sienna Mynx
“It’ll work, if you let me help you.” Honey walked over to the desk. She leaned across it with her hands pressed flat to the wood surface. “I know they think I’m crazy. And I swear to you if any woman had to live with what I carry they’d be crazy too. But I’m sane. I’m sane and I’m angry. I want to kill every Tyler Shepherd. Every man that—”
“Stop. Honey, stop. Please.”
“It’s never stops, Ms. Kitty. That’s the problem. That’s what hurts. No matter how many of them demons you get rid of, more come back. Don’t they?” Honey didn’t bother to turn when Annabelle entered the room after a single knock. “Send me in your place. If he sees you, whatever message you come to give, he won’t hear it. All he’ll see is what he wants from you. Use me. I’m already lost. I’m just as hunted as that outlaw. I can make this sacrifice for the town. To pay all of you back for taking me in. For helping me.”
Cora wanted to face Tyler Shepherd. She wanted to be the one to slip him her poison. But a better plan would be to send Honey to bait the hook. She hadn’t worked out how she could walk into Tyler’s world and walk out, and buy herself the time she needed. Annabelle stepped aside as Honey left. She made sure to close the door behind her.
“What has her all riled up so early?” Annabelle asked.
“Never mind it. What bring you?” Cora asked. “I swear I can’t think with the coming and going out of my office!”
Annabelle raised the bag of gold. She walked over and put it on the desk. “You promise me that you won’t tell the sheriff? That you’ll not let Tyler Shepherd keep it?”
“I only need three nuggets of that gold,” said Cora. “I’ll keep the rest in my safe upstairs.” Cora pushed up and stood with a weary sigh.
“He has a request. Only one. He wants to be included. In whatever it is you planning, he wants to be part of it. Wants his guns back too.”
Cora nodded. “Oh he will be. I plan to put him front and center in this entire mess!”
Annabelle lowered her gaze. Cora studied her for a moment before she spoke again. “He your man right?” she asked.
Annabelle dared to look up.
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you. A man doesn’t look at a woman that way unless he knows her. Intimately.”
“He wants us to leave together. After all of this is over. He says in Wyoming we can be husband and wife. He said we could get land, and live free of all of this.”
Cora’s brows arched. “Wyoming huh?”
“I love Nicademus. I do, Ms. Kitty. But what’s here for me? Henry? Being his wife? That’s not what I want. Jeremy can’t stay here.”
“What about being a nurse?” Cora asked. “It’s all you ever talk about.”
Annabelle shrugged. “Depends on where we go. Never seen a town that didn’t need a nurse or doctor.”
“And Red Sun?” Cora asked.
“I dunno. I can’t think of leaving him. Ever,” she said. “But Red Sun needs to be happy, and he is, with you.”
For a moment Cora digested everything. She then smiled. “Tell your man that we leave at dusk.”
Annabelle smiled. “Will do!”
**
Red Sun never argued. He wasn’t prone to long winded debates on a discussion that should never be had. He made his feelings clear to the two women he cared to share them with and expected them to accept them. Cora would never do what was expected of her. It’s why he loved her so deeply. He had to find another way to convince her the plan she had was the dream of death that visited him on the mountain.
He rolled his neck back and closed his eyes.
In his mind time had rewound and he was with his tribe again, full of pride and righteous conviction. He fought with everything in him as every person he loved was slaughtered. It nearly cost him his mind to the grief. And it was coming to Nicademus, which had saved him and Annabelle. Everything they worked for would be reduced to ash if the town was lost.
The door opened.
She walked in and looked at him with those round brown eyes of hers. A sense of inadequacy swept over him. The sheriff was right. She deserved things he could never give to her, not even a child. All he could offer was his life in return for how she had healed him.
“You’re here?” she said. “I’ve been waiting in my office. How long have you been up here?”
It was only him and her now. He could unleash. He could tell her the horrors of a war they would not win. He could predict the casualties. But she had lived through her own horrors. There was no balance on the scales of pain.
“I’m sorry for taking you by surprise down there,” she began. “I … I know you considered the matter settled. It isn’t. I’ve thought it through and I think I have an even better plan now. We need to talk. I’ll listen, if you’ll listen.” She clasped her hands in front of her and inhaled deep. He loved when she spoke to him in his native language. It only drew her closer to his heart. “Will you listen to me?” she asked.
Red Sun extended his hand to her. It was impossible to say the words lodged in his throat. I’m sorry. Forgive my temper. I want to listen. She walked toward him and her small palm rested in his. He lifted her against him, capturing her lips and drawing her tongue forth into his apologetic kiss. The initial hard press of his lips against hers should have sparked resistance. Instead, her hands spread weakly against his chest in submission. Oh how he loved his sweet Cora. He peppered her face with kisses. He pressed one to her neck and then to her breast, which heaved up against him in a lovely fashion. Cora ran her hands over his shoulder and dropped her head back with a soft sigh.
Thank heaven for her love.
Cora gave an involuntary gasp and was lost in his kiss as she often was. She struggled to remember the reasons why his objections were unfounded. Reasoning with him had now become the furthest thing from her heart. He turned her to face the bed. Both of her hands gripped the footboard for balance. She dragged down a deep breath in anticipation. Red Sun’s lips were soft as satin and pleasing as heat, but it was his hands that she found the most seductive. When they were on her, his touch was all male, domineering, and possessive. The hard and soft sides of her man’s personality made him a gifted lover, a caring lover, a demanding lover. Her special lover.
The gentle squeeze of her breast and his breath washing over her neck brought her close against him. He said something to her in his language she couldn’t translate. She didn’t know every word, especially the ones he hoarsely said against her ear while in the throes of passion. And she didn’t need to. He began to unlace her corset. He cast it aside and did away with the blouse she wore underneath. She aided him. She dropped her skirt and slip. Underneath she wore nothing.
“I love you,” she said in English and then again in Chickasaw.
She turned and faced him. Her hands went to the footboard and her eyes fastened on his. “I love you, Red Sun.” Cora nearly wept from relief. She hung her head and squeezed. In all her life only one other person, her mother, had loved her. And that love died when she was sold off to Tyler Shepherd. She was afraid of love. In some coherent part of her mind she knew that fear was unreasonable. But she remained chained to it. Afraid of how vulnerable and weak her heart could make her. And with Red Sun she couldn’t deny the feeling. That’s what the sheriff didn’t understand. That a woman’s heart wants what it wants.
“I’d die for you,” her man told her.
“No. I’d die if I lost you,” she wept.
Red Sun went to his knees. His kisses against her abdomen were smooth like wet heat. Then she was treated to the coolness of his tongue as it traced a path to her navel. Appeased, her own tongue circled her lips and she willed him to go lower.
He parted her sex with his marauding fingers and his tongue swirled over her sweet spot. He flattened it to glide it up and down, and return repeatedly to her sweet spot to suck. Repetition was the greatest sin. Over and over he went and it nearly drove her to madness.
“Mercy,” she breathed.
&nbs
p; He paused and whispered his love to her pussy before delving his tongue deep and covering her sex with his mouth. He had her by both buttocks. She lifted her left foot and braced it against his right shoulder, spreading her thighs to open herself fully. Cora nearly fell back over on the bed and would have if it weren’t for the tenacious way he held to her. A delicious shudder spread like lava through her body. Her pulse skittered and a vibrant bolt of pleasure struck at her core. She shattered through loud cries for release.
Red Sun did not pull his face away until every drop of her essence was spent. Cora shuddered so bad she slipped to the floor, bringing them both down. He swept her up again and brought her over to the bed. He shed his clothes within seconds and was on top of her. He fit his wide hips between her soft thighs and plunged his meaty dick into her quivering pussy. Cora held on to his broad shoulders. She chewed on her bottom lip and welcomed each powerful thrust as he pumped his hips and went deeper. Amazingly she adjusted to his powerful demands. Her slender legs curved sensually around his hips. When he started to withdraw, almost to the point of separation, she rolled her hips and pumped her pelvis upward in time with his downward strokes to entice him to stay. Their union was one of love, and in his arms she was adored. No man had ever made her feel so complete. No man ever would.
Later –
“I need to bathe, get dressed,” she said as she lay on his chest.
“I accept what must be done,” he finally spoke.
She lifted her head. “I know it’s not what you want. That is why I—”
He put his finger to her lips and silenced her. Red Sun spoke with such emotion his voice was hoarse and strained. “What’s coming for you, for us, we will not run from. You are my wife, even if you never accepted the proposal. Where I go you follow, and I will do the same,” he said. He captured her face with his hand and brought her lips down to his. “We will do this together.”
She smiled and blinked away her tears. “I’m not going. I’m sending Honey in my place. Not because I don’t want to join the fight, but because I understand your point. It’s not my fight alone.”
His eyes stretched in surprise.
“The outlaw wants his turn. Everyone wants to put a bullet in Tyler Shepherd. We have to do this the right way. I think it wise to include him. Let his face be the one the others see. The less we connect this to the town the better,” she said.
Red Sun nodded. “Then we do this together.”
She smiled sadly. “And for the record, how could I have not accepted your proposal when you never asked?”
He rolled her beneath him. He touched her face and stared into her eyes. “Be my wife,” he asked.
“Forever,” she grinned.
**
“You sure you ready for the ride?” Annabelle asked. She watched him check the barrels of his guns twice. “You ain’t all the way healed you know.”
He laughed. “I think I’ve proven that I am healed,” he said, giving her a coy smile.
She laughed. He continued his inspection as if he thought the bullets had fallen out or something. She chewed on her nail. The men saddled his horse, and Red Sun’s.
“Jeremiah!” she grabbed his arm. “You sure about this? What they asking of you. You do this and there is no turning back.”
He nodded. Annabelle opened her mouth to say something when a few men whistled. Her head swung left. Honey emerged. Damn if she didn’t look like some rich woman out of the magazines. Her dress was fine. A royal purple satin fabric with black lace overlay. She wore a fancy hat and long gloves. Every man outside looked at her with adoration. Ms. Kitty was behind her like a proud parent.
“Listen up. Everybody, listen here!” Ms. Kitty said.
A hush fell over the crowd of townspeople. Everyone was out in the streets to see them off.
“I ain’t saying what we got planned won’t work,” Ms. Kitty said. “And if they don’t come back by sunrise you assume it didn’t. You get ready to defend this town. Do you hear me?”
The crowd hollered their response. Ms. Kitty smiled and hugged Honey. Annabelle had never seen Honey look so happy. It was odd for Honey, who never found happiness in many things, to be tickled pink over her mission.
Red Sun was the man to lift Honey so she could climb into her horse drawn wagon. Her driver was a cutthroat wrangler named Dixon. Honey lifted the side of her dress for the crowd and revealed her tiny silver pistol with the pearl grip in her garter. The crowd roared with laughter. Honey winked. The doctor came over to her and gave her a small black pouch. She kissed it and raised it for the town to see and then slipped it in her ladies’ bag. For the ride out to the open plains, Red Sun and Jeremiah would be at their side. Annabelle heard that once they made it to Shep’s railroad line, they’d fall back and she and Dixon would go it alone.
Annabelle turned to Jeremiah. She grabbed his collar and pulled him down to her to give him a deep messy kiss. He chuckled. She smiled. “Come back to me! Do you hear?”
“I intend to.” He tipped his hat, and then mounted his horse. He clicked his heels and started off behind Honey and Red Sun. He turned once, took off his hat, and waved at her. Annabelle waved in return. She watched them go. She refused to leave until they were gone out of sight.
“They won’t come back. Not all of them. You knows that, don’t you?” Jessiemae asked.
“Shut up,” Annabelle said. “That there is my outlaw. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Whatever you say, Annie,” Jessiemae said and walked off. Annabelle began to bite her nail again. God she prayed she was right.
**
“Boss?”
Tyler Shepherd looked up from his meal. He glared at the man now standing between him and his meal. It was Abraham, one of the few cockroaches he trusted to stand guard. No one got past Abraham. His presence now was curious. Especially since he made it clear to the men he didn’t want to be disturbed until the posse he sent for out of Tulsa arrived. “What is it?” he asked as he continued cutting his steak.
“You have a visitor. And, ah, she says you are expecting her.” Abraham’s usually stoic expression was creased around the eyes and brows with concern.
“She?” Shepherd paused. He arched his brows. He had a girl or two that he kept locked up for his amusement on his train. But rarely did he have one come calling for his attention. Especially along the isolated rail line in Oklahoma.
“A Negress. A fancy one. All dressed up. Said her name is—”
“Honey,” the woman spoke for herself. Abraham stepped aside so she could be seen fully. Her dark skin and her large almond slanted eyes under long black lashes were a complement to her full cherry red lips. He stared at her. She looked as ravishing as the girls did in the Quadroon ball when he spent time in New Orleans years ago. Though this one was far too dark for his taste.
“May I have a word, Mr. Shepherd?” she asked.
“Leave.” Shepherd said. His servant girl bowed her head, looked at Honey as if to warn her against the visit, and made a hasty departure. Shepherd wiped his mouth with his dinner napkin. He stood. Honey removed the hat from her head and placed it on the chair next to her.
“I seem to have caught you at dinner,” she smiled. She didn’t seem afraid. In fact, she stood there as if she were some long lost acquaintance stopping in to say hello. Shepherd smiled to himself. “I suppose you are surprised to see me?”
“Out here in the middle of nowhere? A fancy nigger like you coming to pay me a visit is a surprise,” he said.
She seemed flattered. “Please, I prefer you call me Honey.”
Shepherd chuckled. “Honey? Let me guess. You come from Niggademus? You here as a peace offering?”
She cocked her head to the side. There was something odd about this one. She looked the part. She even sounded sweet when she spoke. But her eyes were hard, and her stare unwavering. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he sensed it.
“Why yes, I was sent as a gift. By someone you know,” she said.
“Cora. You do know Cora, don’t you? We call her Ms. Kitty. But she say you know her by her true name. I work for her at the Blue Moon. Heard of it, sir?”
For the first time since the woman arrived he found no humor in the visit. In fact, he found himself unable to speak, to move. Cora was dead. That’s what his son told him the night she disappeared. The night he sent the dogs and his men after her. They said she had run into the swamp, drowned. They said the gators got her. It couldn’t be his Cora. His boy wouldn’t lie. Would he? The girl stepped closer to him. She taunted him with her smile.
“She said you would recognize this.” The woman reached up to her hair that was coiled into a fashionable style and pinned to the back of her head. She revealed the barrette he used to make Cora wear. The diamonds and pearls sparkled on the silver bracket. Shepherd accepted the barrette and inspected it.
The truth rocked him. His son had lied to him. He had conspired and sent his prize pet away. How he mourned Cora. How he punished so many after her for not being his sweet Cora, and she was here. Nearby. He glanced up. Honey stood directly before him. Dangerously close.
“Now do you believe me?” Honey asked.
He grabbed her by the throat. He squeezed until he felt the delicate bones in her neck. The woman’s eyes lowered with desire instead of fear. Oh yes, Tyler Shepherd was intrigued. “Cora was right to send you to me,” he said.
“Why is that, sir?” she asked.
“Looks like you have the same tolerance she does,” he replied.
“For pain?” Honey asked.
“For pain,” he nodded. “What does Cora want?”
She opened her eyes and looked into his. “If you let go of my throat I can tell you.”
He stared at her beauty. He let her go. He pretended at being distracted and pocketed the barrette. The woman reached to the small pouch on her hip. She opened it and removed something shiny, several nuggets of gold.
