by Sarah Hegger
She was hungry anyway, so Ellie let him feed her and fill up her champagne glass. By the time they’d made their way through the duck, the steak, and the lobster, and Cole had opened a second bottle of champagne, Ellie had a full belly and a golden glow to the world.
“Now.” Cole took out a sheath of papers and put them on the table in front of her. “We get to the celebration.”
“What’s this?” Ellie peered at the top sheet.
“This”—Cole tapped the top page—“is the lease to your new store.”
She’d only looked at the store yesterday. “How did—Joy!”
“My mother did, indeed, tell me.” Cole grinned and flipped to the next page. “This is our business agreement drawn up legally. I will fund the store until such time as it can stand alone, and then I will take a share of the profits.”
Ellie traced her name on the document. Seeing it like that made it seem real for the first time. Finally, she had the chance to put Sugar Ellie behind her. She could walk away from that part of her life and reinvent herself.
The feeling overwhelmed her, a wave of so many emotions she couldn’t speak. Happiness for certain, and apprehension about her new beginning, but the sadness surprised her. She had always hated Sugar Ellie, and now putting her aside was tearing a part of her out and casting it aside.
“Ellie?” Cole took her hand and tugged her to her feet. “What’s going on?”
She shook her head, not able to put all that was going on inside her into words.
Cole wrapped his arms around her and tucked her into his front.
When Cole held her, Ellie could imagine a world in which nothing could harm her again, a happy place where she could be truly loved and adored. Except the practical side of her knew Cole would take his arms away and the harsher world would intrude again.
“Thank you.” She wasn’t ready to leave the warmth and security of Cole’s arms, and she wrapped hers around his waist and breathed in the leather and sandalwood of him. It was hard to imagine a time when those two scents wouldn’t make her ache for him. “You did so much more than I expected you to.”
“I wanted to, Sugar.” He kissed the top of her head. “I need to know you’re safe and taken care of.”
Ellie thought it better not to ask why. Pearl had always said never to ask questions you didn’t really want to hear the answer to. When she was settled, she’d like to be able to send for Pearl. She would find a way to do it without alerting her brothers.
“I took another liberty.” Cole’s voice rumbled though his chest. “I didn’t want you alone in your store, so I sent for Molly.”
“From Denver?”
Cole nodded. “She was more than happy to come. She has family in New York.”
Company would be nice, and Ellie pressed her face into his neck. “Thank you.”
“You’re so welcome, Sugar.”
Neither of them made any move to disentangle. Candlelight played over the silent room and caught them in its golden glow.
What Ellie wouldn’t give to stay there forever, but that was never possible, and she wouldn’t ask Cole for something he couldn’t give her. God knew he was a good enough man to try to give her the next best thing, but after you’d had Cole “Whisky” Mansfield make you glad you’d been born a woman, there wasn’t anything else to replace him.
They had tonight, now, and Ellie wanted one more night with him before she let Victoria have him forever.
“Ellie?” The husky rasp to his voice gave him away. Cole was having similar thoughts.
She looked up at him. “Yes, Cole. More, Cole.”
“Yes?” He looked triumphant as he scooped her into his arms. “You’re dug beneath my skin, Sugar.”
Ellie wrapped her arms around his neck. She didn’t need words from him. She craved his touch.
Laying her on the bed, Cole came down over her. “Ellie.” He bent and kissed her.
The taste of his mouth was so familiar it rushed through her, triggering a sensory wave that Ellie surrendered to.
His weight pressed her into the soft mattress. His kiss consumed her. His hands knew all the places on her body that made her senses spark.
Sitting up, he pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it.
Ellie spread her hands over the muscle of his torso. His skin was hot silk against her palms. His body was a delight to her touch, and she tried to draw the memory of his skin deep into her. When she left his bed this time, she really would stay away. Her hands would never again touch the flesh she was touching now.
It wasn’t enough, and Ellie sat up. She pressed her mouth to his chest and pushed him back.
Cole lay back for her, his eyes dark and secret in the shadows, but she could feel their heat on her skin.
She trailed her lips over his stomach. The muscle contracted against her tongue as he sucked in a breath. “Sugar.”
“Let me.” She opened his pants and slid them down his hips. Cole helped her get rid of them and lay down for her again.
She’d never done this before, but her girls had sure told her enough about it.
His erection jerked in her hand as Ellie lowered her mouth to him. She slid him into her mouth.
“Jesus!” Cole jerked beneath her, throwing his head back.
Ellie let his reaction guide her as she worked him with her mouth.
“Sugar.” His muscles tensed and her name sounded like a tortured groan in his mouth. “You need to stop.”
No, she didn’t, and Ellie took him to his finish.
In the aftermath, he lay with his eyes shut, relaxed and flushed. “Damn, Sugar.” Those whisky eyes opened and found her. “That was not how I saw this going.”
She had done this to him, and she took satisfaction in that. “Complaining?”
“Ah, hell no.” Chuckling, he sat up and drew her to his shoulder. “Gimme a minute or two and we’ll get back to my plan for the evening.”
Ellie liked the sound of that and snuggled into his chest.
It took Cole less than his requested minute or two before his big hands went exploring. He rolled her to her back and removed her clothes one piece at a time. Reverently, he exposed her to his view, caressing and kissing the skin as he revealed it. “You’re so soft,” he whispered to her belly. “So soft and beautiful.”
“Cole.” She arched into the heat of his mouth.
He drew her skirts down and off. “I need to say something to you, Sugar.”
“What?” Ellie was struggling to keep her wits about her as he spread her thighs and settled between them.
“I regret nothing.” Cole kissed her inner thighs. “This thing between us, Sugar, it’s the best thing that’s happened to me in years, maybe ever.”
Her heart twisted and tears threatened to spill. Ellie tried to swallow them away. Nothing in her life would ever compare to her time with Cole. She wasn’t a romantic dreamer. Eventually her heart would heal, and she might even move on, but her life would always be a little emptier without him.
He made love to her then, with his mouth and then as she was drifting down from an intense climax, he joined them.
Pushing her hands over her head, he twined their fingers as they moved together.
Their eyes met and held. Ellie let him see in her eyes what she would never say, what she had no right to ever say. This was the best Cole could give and she, starved for all she could get, would take what he offered.
Their skin grew slick with perspiration, their breathing labored. Ellie both craved and dreaded her completion. She wanted it desperately, but it would also mark an end.
Cole drove them both forward, eyes locked on hers, hands gripping her as if he too struggled to let go.
“Sugar,” he whispered.
Ellie went over the edge into bliss with his name on her lips.
He followed her over and lay against her, his weight welcome and heavy. She would have given anything to stay there forever.
Eventually Cole sighed and rolled to hi
s side. He tucked her against him and kissed her head. “Why is that I find it so fucking hard to let you go?”
Chapter Thirty-Four
He did let her go. Three short, busy days later, Ellie moved into her apartment above her store. The next day Molly arrived and stood in the center of the store with her eyes shining.
She gave Ellie a nod. “This will be grand.”
“I think so.” Ellie concentrated on the store and shoved thoughts of Cole as far back in her mind as she could. It helped that she had barely seen him since she’d woken in his bed.
Neither of them had spoken that morning, but they had both known it was done. Time to move forward with their separate lives.
Over the next three weeks Joy was at the store constantly dismissing any attempt Ellie made to economize on getting the store set up right. After nights of agonizing with Molly, Ellie surrendered and named her store the only name she could: Sugar’s.
She got her living space set up, and she and Molly agreed to share until one of them could afford to move elsewhere. At night when the busy city still bustled outside her door, Ellie was glad for the company.
A week before they opened, the fabrics she and Joy had ordered arrived.
Joy was on hand to chivy the deliverymen into putting them where Ellie wanted them and complain about their boots on the new floors.
“There!” She brushed her hands together and grinned at Ellie and Molly. “We’re ready.”
And they were.
The sign was hung above the door, pink on a white background at Molly’s insistence. The bright displays of fabrics were in the windows and ready. Everything in its place, and a little over two months since Ellie had arrived in New York, Sugar’s opened its doors.
Cole missed his Sugar Ellie, simple as that. Even when he was strolling along on a beautiful morning to meet Victoria, Sugar lurked in his thoughts, pushing her way to the forefront if he gave her the smallest gap.
Like the way the bright explosion of flowers in the hanging baskets outside a restaurant reminded him of her. Ellie was vivid, brash and bold and without a word insisted on attention. But she was also sweet and had a softness to her she kept well guarded.
New York seethed around him. He joined the bustling sidewalk and merged into the human flow. Still, he didn’t feel part of it as he used to. The younger version of himself had loved New York, felt like it was his place. Now he was distanced from it in some inexplicable way. Like a fond visitor, he liked the city, was enjoying it, but it didn’t resonate as home to him.
Of course, he’d been there less than three months and the home part would come. Three months since he’d been in New York and two of those since he’d seen Ellie.
He swerved to avoid colliding with a group of girls chattering and giggling in his path. Their mothers stood by, gimlet gazes on any man passing.
Mother seemed to be making up for Ellie’s lack of a mother of her own. Maybe he’d have more luck forgetting Ellie if he didn’t hear all about her and what she was up to at dinner. Yet, he let Mother talk, getting the strong sense that if he stopped getting his news of Ellie that way, he would fold and go and see for himself.
He’d moved back into his childhood home, and while it was great to have his mother close at hand, he and Brett were too old to share a house, so he was looking for somewhere of his own.
He leaped the portico stairs of Victoria’s mansion and rapped with the head of his cane.
The butler opened the door and bowed. “Mr. Mansfield. Won’t you come in?”
He supposed it was progress that the man no longer pretended not to know his name.
Following the man at a stately pace across the tiled foyer, he was hard put to tamp his impatience. This slow progression to a destination known to him struck him as ridiculous. Informal manners had become more familiar to him than those he’d been raised with.
He waited in Victoria’s blue and gold salon. She could take anything from five minutes to an hour, depending on her mood. This morning was a good day, and she appeared ten minutes after his arrival looking lovely in soft gray silk that highlighted her creamy skin and clung to her curves.
She and Bonnington hadn’t had children, and he wanted to ask her, but Victoria didn’t invite personal questions.
“Cole, darling.” She held her elegant white hands out to him.
Responding to her raised cheek, he bent and kissed it. All this hand and cheek kissing was wearing a hole through his patience as well. It wasn’t that he thought Victoria owed him anything more, but she gave every indication of being interested in more and disinclined to allow it. As much as it frustrated him, however, he didn’t push anything.
“You’re looking lovely,” he said. Victoria always looked lovely, but he said it because it was expected he would. Even courtship had a rule book to it. Living in Denver, he’d forgotten the thousands of steps in the complicated courtship dance.
“Thank you, Cole.” She glanced at him from beneath her lashes. “And you are looking rather…burly.”
Burly? Burly? Whatever the hell that meant. Yesterday, she’d made some crack about his tan and then compared him to a dockworker or a farmer. Good luck living out west and keeping your lily-white complexion. Also, he preferred the man he was now. All that sitting on his ass doing not much of anything was making him antsy. He needed to find a better way to spend his days than waiting until it was time to dance attendance on Victoria. The indolence and pleasure seeking had been him in New York as a young man. This version of Cole couldn’t respect a man who did nothing with his days but let other people wipe their butts for them.
“I had a particularly interesting evening yesterday.” Victoria settled on a chaise, moving her skirts for him to sit beside her.
Cole perched on the shiny fabric, anchoring himself with his feet firmly on the ground. Fucking thing was like trying to sit on a greased hog. “Tell me about your evening.”
“Do you remember Becca Yates?”
Not even a bit. “Becca?” He hummed. “Remind me.”
“Oh, Cole.” Victoria laughed, and she had a great laugh. It tinkled in the air and made her even more beautiful. “You were always horrible at names. We really must do something to get you better au fait with polite society again.”
Polite society could go and au fait itself. “I still am terrible with names.”
“Becca was a redhead, tall and thin, with an alarming propensity to freckle.”
Cole nodded, but an image popped into his head of another woman, a whore he’d met in his wandering gambling days. Also redheaded and skinny, her face covered in tawny freckles. He couldn’t recall what they’d called her, but he did remember her singing. That plain, homely woman had transformed into an incandescent beauty when she sang. More than her voice, she’d been able to weave a spell around her listeners as she sang from the soul.
Lark. They’d called her the Rusty Lark, and she’d gotten caught in the crossfire between two aspiring fast guns. The entire town, respectable folk and saloon rats, had walked behind Lark’s casket.
“…and you’ll never guess what he said next.” Victoria leaned forward and tapped his knee.
For sure he wouldn’t because he’d lost most of what she’d been saying. Cole made an encouraging noise and Victoria went off on her story again.
Funny, he hadn’t thought about Lark for years. Watching her casket being lowered into the ground and knowing that voice would never ring pure and passionately again had made him madder than hell. It was the sort of senseless loss you got hardened to out west.
Victoria’s stick up the ass butler slunk into the room. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Bonnington, but a message has arrived for Mr. Mansfield.”
“For Cole?” Victoria blinked at the butler.
“Indeed, madam, from Mrs. Mansfield, I believe.”
Cole got to his feet and took the note from the butler.
Darling. His mother’s easy, looping scrawl spread over the page. I know you’re busy, but I
think your intervention is needed at Sugar’s. Ellie is threatening to shoot some man’s pecker off. I’m hoping you can dissuade her (although probably not as fervently as the man.) J.M
He could no more stop his grin as he read the note than he could pause the tide. Mother often regaled the dinner table with Ellie’s antics as well as news of her progress. Cole had even caught Brett leaning forward for a new Ellie story the other night. The thought of never seeing Ellie again fit Cole like the wrong skin.
“What is it?” Victoria stood and approached him. “Bad news?”
For some poor bastard, if he didn’t get there. “Just a Colorado hellcat who needs dealing with.”
Striding down the street, he let the belly laugh building inside him go. That his mother had actually written the word pecker no small part of his amusement.
After hailing a cab, he arrived at Sugar’s about thirty minutes after receiving the note. He hadn’t been there in weeks, and he took a moment to appreciate what Ellie had achieved. The pink and white awning stood out in a street of dark green and maroon trim. A beautiful pink confection of a dress stood in the window.
The bell tinkled over his head as he entered.
Mother, Ellie and a tow-haired, grizzled man in overalls were sitting on the sturdy chairs Ellie had chosen for her store and eating sandwiches.
They all stopped and stared at him as he entered.
“Mother?”
Ellie looked a bit pale. She was probably working too hard. He’d have a word with Mother about that and see if she could get Ellie to slow down. She also looked so damn beautiful it took his breath away.
Mother stood and held her hands out to him. “Darling! Thank you for coming, but I owe you the hugest apology.”
“Nobody’s…parts in peril then?”
The man put down his sandwich and guffawed. “Tell you what, this little firecracker had me worried about the wedding tackle for a moment.”
Ellie rolled her eyes at him. “It wasn’t like I was going to really shoot.”
“Begging your pardon, Ellie.” The man toasted her with his teacup. “But that’s not a chance I was going to take.”
