This Gun for Hire

by Jo Goodman

  “I like it, too.”

  The curve of her lips was bittersweet. “I have a cameo brooch that belonged to her. I’ve never needed any other jewelry.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  She stared at him. “What you said earlier, about me going to where you are and telling you that you’re a good man?”

  “Yes? You’re reconsidering?”

  “Not reconsidering. I didn’t consider it before. I told you that.”

  “So you are only considering now.”

  “Actually, I just finished. I’ve made my decision.” She did not tease him by sitting there another moment. She got up and went to him. He made a place for her between his splayed legs. She sat and took his hands in hers. “You are a good man.” She leaned in, found his mouth with hers, and kissed him lightly on the lips. “And while it pains me some to say it, I don’t exactly regret that you chased after me back at Mrs. Fry’s cathouse.”

  “Careful, Calico. Compliments like that will turn my head.”

  She leaned in again and whispered against his mouth, “We don’t want that.” She slipped her hands out of his and raised her arms. She draped her arms over his shoulders, fit herself to him when he pulled her close, and then kissed him until they were both breathless.

  Smiling, she took one of his hands and urged him to his feet when she got to hers. She would have led him to the bed, but he never gave her the chance. Calico emitted a soft, girlish squeal when he suddenly picked her up.

  “What was that?” he asked, straight-faced as he looked down at her. Her eyes were wide, the centers darkening. “Did you hear it?”

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Hmm.” He carried her the short distance to the bed and unceremoniously dropped her, satisfied when she squealed again. Quill stepped out of her reach when she sat up and tried to catch his sleeve. “Warm a place for me while I undress. And take off that robe.”

  It was a reasonable plan and Calico went along with it. By the time he had stripped down to his flannel drawers, she was ready for him. She held up the covers just enough to let him slip under them. He immediately tried warming his icy toes between her toasty feet. “Stop that!” she whispered. A residual chuckle made the command less forceful than she would have liked. She quickly drew up her knees and gave his chest a little push.

  Quill caught her by the wrist and gave her arm a gentle tug, setting it around his waist. He edged closer and her knees unfolded and made room for him beside her. His fingers walked down her collarbone from her shoulder to her neck and then made a half circle to her nape. He found her thick braid and brought it forward. When he pulled at the black grosgrain ribbon securing it, she clapped a hand over his.

  “You do not want to do that,” she said.

  “I don’t?”

  “My hair has a life separate from my own. It will be everywhere.”

  “I accept the challenge.” He could see that she remained doubtful, but her hand fell away from his, and he removed the ribbon. He tucked it under her pillow and then began to weave his fingers through her plait, loosening it as he went. “I wanted to do this last night.”

  Her voice was no more than a whisper, husky at the edges. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She nodded, accepting it. “There were things I wanted to do and didn’t.”

  His fingers stopped. Arrested by her confession, Quill’s eyes shifted from Calico’s flaming hair to her flaming face. “For instance?”

  She tapped the hollow between his collarbones. “I wanted to kiss you here.” Her fingertips drifted lower, following his breastbone. “And here.” Her hand spread wide across his chest. “Here and here.” She curled her fingers into a loose fist and dragged her knuckles down his flat belly. His skin retracted as he sucked in a breath. She stopped at his navel. “Here, too.”

  Emboldened by his silence and the steadiness of his stare, Calico’s fist opened as slowly as a blossoming flower and then her hand slipped below the waistband of his drawers. She followed the arrow of hair to his groin and stayed it there. She leaned into him just enough to set her lips against his, and said, “I wanted to put my mouth here.” And to make certain there was no mistaking her intent, her fingers closed in a fist again, this time around his cock. It twitched and swelled in her hand. Her eyebrows lifted and she gave him an arch look.

  Quill said, “It has a life separate from my own. It will be everywhere.”

  Calico’s fist applied pressure. “It better not be.”

  It turned out that laughter was a considerably powerful aphrodisiac. They traded kisses and quips in equal measure. Either was capable of raising a chuckle or a groan. All of it was wickedly amusing.

  She had her way with him. Quill did not even pretend to object when she straddled his hips. Her fiery hair, finally freed from the braid, hung in waves on either side of her face each time she bent to kiss him. She worked her way down his body, pressing her lips against his skin in all the places she promised and in some that she hadn’t. When he pointed that out, she told him frankly that his body was a canvas, her mouth was a brush, and she was overwhelmed by inspiration. His chest heaved with laughter, nearly dislodging her, and she was forced to clamp a hand over his mouth and ride it out. When he quieted and she removed her hand, he apologized for the distraction and said he hoped she would continue to be inspired.

  Apparently she was, because she found a particularly ticklish spot on his chest and tortured him with the damp edge of her tongue. She also found another spot not far below the first that was raised and smooth and shaped like a starburst. She kissed it gently, tenderly, without comment, and then she moved on.

  She lowered herself so she could she lay flush to his body and peppered his chest and belly with kisses until she disappeared under the covers. Her hands found him first and that was very good. Then she found him with her mouth and that was even better.

  Her mouth felt almost cool against his hot skin. Blood engorged his cock. His pulse beat thrummed in his ears, in his chest, and where she held him with her lips. Curiosity motivated her exploration, but his pleasure kept her there. She sucked, licked, laved him with her tongue. She heard the sounds he could not swallow and the ones that lodged in his throat. His hips jerked. She took him deeper. She cupped his balls and squeezed.

  That was when Quill dragged her out from under the blankets. In a move she was helpless to counter, he had her on her back and secured under his weight. Her shift was twisted around her thighs, and she scrabbled with the fabric to yank it higher. He pressed his advantage only long enough to bury himself inside her. He levered himself on his elbows, hips lifting just a fraction, and then thrust hard and deep. She grabbed his shoulders for purchase, her short nails scoring thin crescents in his flesh.

  Quill held himself still. He felt the effort of denial across his shoulder blades where the muscles in his back were pulled taut. He clenched his jaw. His nostrils flared when he sucked in a breath. He held that breath, heart hammering. The whole of his body was a single, jangling nerve.

  Calico understood then that he was waiting for her. She did not know how she knew that, just that she did. She cupped the side of his face, drew her thumb across his cheek, and she smiled at him.

  “Let go,” she said softly. “Let go.”

  It was her smile as much as her words that did him in. She tripped the nerve and pleasure swamped him. His hips pumped shallowly. He threw back his head, neck and spine arching, and then he gave a shout that had Calico groping for a pillow as his body shuddered. She never used it. The tension that had held him together slowly seeped away and he lowered himself onto her.

  “God,” he said softly. It was as much an expulsion of air as an expression of astonishment. “Was that all Mrs. Riggenbotham’s doing?”

  Calico sifted through his hair with her fingertips. “Her accounts were descri
ptive, but the whores at Mrs. Fry’s were also instructive.”

  “So it would seem.” He chuckled when she rapped him on the shoulder with her knuckles. He started to ease away from her, but she stopped him.

  “Not just now,” she said.

  “I’m too heavy for you.”

  “Not just now you’re not.”

  He nodded, but he was still careful not to crush her. “Do you ever think about Nick Whitfield?”

  “No more than any other man I helped put behind bars. Why?”

  “I wondered if he might not be a little more special than most.”

  “Special? Why would he be?”

  Quill sighed. “Because he’s the reason we met.”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Yes, that.”

  She tipped her head, trying to see his face better. “Are you disappointed?”

  “Just wondering how you thought about it.”

  Calico smoothed his hair with her palm and then wound her finger around a thick strand at his nape and tugged. When he lifted his head, she said, “I guess I don’t think about it. I’m sorry.” And she was. The thing that was on her mind, the thing she did think about but would not allow herself to say, was that she and Quill were meant to cross paths. It would have happened with or with Nick Whitfield. She believed that some things were destined; she did not believe that meant they were forever.

  Calico slipped out of bed first and went to the bathing room to wash. Quill was standing outside the door when she came out. By the warmth of the room, she could tell that he had stoked the fire. She moved aside to let him in and went to the fireplace. It was not long before he joined her there. He stood behind her and slid his arms around her waist. He rubbed his chin against her hair. His stubble created static. Single strands of her colorful hair separated themselves and were lifted into the air. They both felt a shock. He jerked his chin up. She ducked her head.

  “I’ll be more careful,” he said, smoothing her hair with his palm. He braided it loosely before his arms circled her waist again. He folded his hands. She leaned back against him. “I wish you weren’t riding out with Stonechurch tomorrow.”

  “It’s done. I need to be out. Really out. Confinement to this house is nearly intolerable. I don’t know how Beatrice could stay in her room all day.”

  “She had company. Ramsey. Me. Anne spent a little time there, mostly to tell her about the guns, I think. Did you go?”

  “I poked my head in. She was sleeping on the chaise. There was a book on the floor at her side, and a basket of knitting beside that. I imagine that’s how she wiled the hours away.”

  “She had a delivery from the druggist this evening. You were in the front parlor with Ann when it arrived. Powders, although Mrs. Stonechurch prefers her teas. Molly must have let it out that she wasn’t feeling well.”

  “Hmm. Will you take Ann out to practice shooting tomorrow?”

  “Not until you get back. I can’t imagine that Beatrice will want to go with us, and I am not going out by myself. You know you will have to pretend to be clumsy with your gun for a while.”

  “I know. I thought I did well today.”

  “You did.”

  “If you set up targets, I can miss all of them simply by shooting at another target of my choosing. Ann will never know.”

  He gave her a squeeze. “A very good plan.”

  In spite of the heat from the fire, she shivered slightly. His embrace could do that to her.

  “Back to bed,” he said.

  She didn’t protest, didn’t explain that it wasn’t the cold that had touched her. Everything she felt when she was with him was outside her experience. Destiny aside, she was not prepared to make herself more vulnerable than she already had. She did not know if she would ever be ready for that. There was no going back, but it did not necessarily follow that she was prepared to go forward. She was not even certain what forward would look like, only that her stomach clenched when her mind started to make that journey.

  Calico let him lead her to the bed. She got in and moved to the shallow depression that was hers. When she rolled onto her back and looked up at him, she saw that he had no intention of following. “You’re leaving?”

  He nodded. “Sleep. We both should get some.”

  She did not argue. She judged it was better if she did not accustom herself to sleeping beside him. And as she watched him leave, it occurred to her that his thinking was probably not so different. When he closed the door and went forward without her, this time it was her heart that clenched.

  * * *

  Calico rode a bay that Ramsey secured for her from the livery. The mare was gentle, almost lethargic, and Calico wished he had chosen a more spirited animal. Her name suited her, though. She was called Daisy. In Calico’s estimation, the only name more appropriate would have been Lazy Daisy.

  Ramsey had a well-groomed black gelding with a wide white stripe down his nose and around his eyes. It made the animal look as if he were wearing a mask. Fittingly, he was called Bandit.

  Ramsey held up his mount to wait for Calico. He used the moment to breathe deeply, taking in the fresh, crisp air until his chest expanded. He looked around him. Everything was brighter against the heavenly blue of a cloudless sky. The snowcaps gleamed white. The icy needles of the ponderosas glinted like emeralds. In the distance, outside of his view, he could hear the echo of men and machinery. His mines. His land. His life.

  He smiled a trifle apologetically when Calico came abreast of him. “She is not frisky, is she?”

  “Frisky? No. She is certainly not that.”

  “I told Mr. Calhoun, who owns the livery, that I wanted a horse suitable for my daughter’s teacher. You’re probably wishing I had told him it was for Calico Nash.”

  Calico patted her mare’s neck. Daisy actually preened. “She’s not used to being ridden hard. It’s all right. We aren’t in a hurry, are we?”

  “No. Not in any hurry at all.” He turned up the lamb’s wool collar on his coat and then pointed out a break in the trees up ahead. “We’re going that way. I want to show you the mountain spring. On a day like today you will think it’s spilling diamonds over the rocks.”

  The route he took her on was wide enough for them to go side by side. Ramsey held the gelding back so Daisy would stay with him. Calico’s eyes darted left and right, not so much observing the scenery as looking through it.

  “What do you think is going to happen out here?” he asked her.

  “I hope nothing.”

  “When someone took a shot at me, I was on the eastern side of my property, every bit of seven miles from town, twelve from where we are now.”

  “Doesn’t mean we won’t be followed.”

  Ramsey shrugged. “You’re doing what I’m paying you for, I suppose.”

  “That’s right.”

  He nodded. “How did you come to be a bounty hunter?”

  “I couldn’t find work as a teacher.”

  “All right,” he chuckled. “So you don’t want to talk about yourself. I suppose I understand that, but it makes it difficult for me to say something about me.”

  Calico figured he would blast right through that obstacle. When he cleared his throat, she knew she was right. That sound was the equivalent of lighting the fuse.

  “I don’t know if my daughter told you, but her mother died when she was two. Cholera.”

  Calico did not say so, but she wondered if it was the same outbreak that had nearly killed her. The timing was right, and she had been at a Colorado outpost then. “I’m sorry. No, Ann has never said anything about it.”

  “I thought I would lose her, but the illness passed her by. Beatrice became sick and survived. I did also. My brother was like Ann. He nursed all of us.” He cleared his throat again. “When Maud died, it crossed my mind to leave the mountain. Leo talked me o
ut of it. Beatrice helped raise my daughter. I had my work . . . have my work. I married late; I was thirty when I took Maud for my wife, and thirty-five when we had Ann. Maud had trouble keeping a baby; she lost three. Ann was a miracle to us.”

  Calico was not sure what to say, but she thought some sort of response was in order. “She is a lovely and accomplished young woman. I have to believe your wife would be pleased with how you’ve done.”

  “I believe so, too, although no small amount of the credit belongs to my sister-in-law.” Ramsey urged Bandit over a fallen log, while Calico let Daisy go around it. When they were abreast again, he said, “Lately I’ve been thinking that I might want to marry again. Ann is older and will be leaving home, no matter what she thinks to the contrary. My brother’s gone. I want to share—”

  “Beatrice!” said Calico.

  “Where?” Ramsey turned right and left in his saddle, looking hard through the trees and toward the clearing for his sister-in-law.

  Calico shook her head. “No. I didn’t mean that she was here. I meant that it must be Beatrice you want to marry. I think it’s wonderful. She is such a good woman. Devoted to you, to your daughter. And you already share ownership of Stonechurch Mining. Quill told me. That’s what you were going to say, weren’t you? That you want to share it with her as a husband?”

  Calico could see that Ramsey Stonechurch was struck silent by her assumption. She pressed on before he gathered his wits and corrected her mistake. “I asked Quill if he knew whether Beatrice had ever expressed an interest in remarrying. He said he did not think she had, but now I believe I understand why. She strikes me as too timid to be obvious about her affections, but it seems clear where they lie. I hope you will ask her soon. I can keep a secret about almost everything, but probably not about this.”

  Calico pressed her heels into Daisy’s sides and gave the mare a reason to pick up her pace. She moved ahead of Ramsey and crossed from the trees into the open. “I will try, though,” she told Ramsey. “I wonder if Ann suspects your intentions. You know, it might be the very reason she did not want to go away. She would not like to be at college when you make the announcement. She would hate it even more to miss the wedding.”