by JR Roberts
He placed his hands behind his neck and stared at the ceiling. He only became aware of the fact that he had fallen asleep when there was a knock at the door, waking him.
Molly went downstairs and immediately went to the back door. She opened it and let Colonel Frederick Tate into the kitchen.
“Is he all right?” Tate asked, keeping his voice low.
“He wasn’t injured.”
“Did he believe Jim West sent you?”
“He seems to.”
“All right,” Tate said. “Just get him to the train station tomorrow.”
“What if someone tries to kill him there?” she asked.
“Keep him alive.”
“Why can’t you do it … sir?”
“I can’t have soldiers at the station,” Tate said. “I need you there, Molly.”
“All right, I’ll do it,” Molly said.
“Stay close to him,” Tate said. “Stay real close.”
“I understand,” she said. “Close.”
She let him out the kitchen door, then locked it and went into the living room. She had intended to go to her “aunt’s” bedroom and get some sleep, but thought it best to stay in the living room, on watch.
She sat on the sofa, started thinking about everything she had heard about Clint Adams. She drifted off to sleep, then awoke with a start. She needed to stay alert. She could either make coffee, or...
Chapter Nine
Clint walked to the door, gun in hand, even though it could have been only one person.
Molly.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
“Sure.”
He backed away, allowed her to enter, then holstered the gun.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
“To be frank,” she said, “you.”
“What about me?”
She looked down.
“You sleep with your boots on?”
“Only when somebody’s trying to kill me.”
“I told you, you’re safe here.”
“With you.”
She hesitated, then said, “Maybe.”
“What do you mean, maybe?”
“I was downstairs, thinking about everything I know about you.”
“And?”
“West told me about you.”
“Oh”
“So I was thinking, if I fall asleep downstairs, I can’t watch over you.”
“You were falling asleep?”
“Drifting off,” she said. “That’s when I started thinking.”
“About me.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I haven’t been with a man in … months,” she said. “And even then it wasn’t good.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“You don’t look it.”
“I’ve been with men, Adams,” she said. “A lot of men. And you’ve been with a lot of women … by all accounts.”
“I’ve been at it a little longer than you have,” he said. “Granted.”
He sat on the bed.
“So what’s on your mind?”
“I told you,” she said.
“Me,” Clint said. “Sex with me?”
“Yes.”
“Just like that?”
“According to Jim West,” she said, “you have sex with women, just like that.”
“Sometimes.”
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked.
“I don’t trust you.”
She touched the neck of her dress, brought her hand down over her breasts.
“You have to trust me to sleep with me?”
“Probably not.”
She came over and sat next to him on the bed, her shoulder touching his.
“I’ll bet you don’t even have to like a woman to sleep with her.”
“It helps, though.”
“Do you like me?”
“I don’t dislike you,” he said. “But I haven’t known you long enough to know if I actually like you.”
“Look,” she said, “it’ll keep us both awake.”
“I thought the point was for me to get some sleep,” he said.
“Okay,” she said, putting her hand on his thigh, “it’ll help us both sleep better.”
He looked at her, lowered his eyes. The dress was thin, and he could see that her nipples were hard. They were also large. He found himself wondering what color they were. And that did it.
“Okay,” he said, “that’s an argument I can accept.”
Chapter Ten
Clint knelt down in front of Molly and peeled off her dress. The top slopes of her breasts were covered with freckles. He went slow, bringing her nipples into sight eventually, and was pleased to see how brown they were.
“What are you … smiling at?” she asked, her breath catching when he touched one of her nipples with the tip of his right forefinger.
“I had a bet with myself they’d be brown,” he said.
“You won.”
“Yes,” he said, “I certainly did.”
He took her breasts in his hands and squeezed them, using his thumbs to flick her nipples. Her breath caught again.
“You know,” she said, “I thought I wanted to come in here and have you tear my clothes off and throw me down on the bed.”
“But?”
“But I think I like this better.”
“Sometimes,” he said, “slow is better.”
He leaned in and kissed her breasts, then went to work getting the dress the rest of the way off her. She lifted her butt off the bed to help, and then she was naked.
“Very nice,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said. “But I believe now it’s your turn.”
“I might need some help with my boots.”
She grinned, stood up, and knelt down in front of her. He sat on the bed and the naked girl helped him off with his boots, her breasts jiggling with the effort. Next, she undid his belt and trousers, slid them down to his ankles, where he kicked them away. He pulled his shirt off himself, then lifted his butt off the bed to help her slide his underwear off.
And then, too, he was naked.
“Oh my,” she said as his cock jutted up from his crotch.
She slid her left hand beneath his testicles and cradled them, slid the right hand up his cock, stroking it slowly.
“Come up here—” he said thickly, reaching for her.
“Uh-uh,” she said, using her left hand to swat him away. “Sometimes it’s better to go slow, remember?”
“Who said that?”
“You did.”
She swooped down on him with her mouth, took him inside. She was right. She was experienced, and good. She moaned as she sucked him avidly, sliding up and down on him wetly. She put her hand on his chest and pushed him down onto his back. She burrowed down into his crotch, lifted his testicles, and licked underneath them. Then she licked her way up his hard cock and took him into her mouth again. She sucked him until he was only moments away from exploding, then released him and used her hand to stop him.
“Jesus,” he said.
“Good?” she asked.
“Better than good,” he said.
She slid up on top of him, rubbed herself against him. Her pussy was wet as she slid it up and down the length of his penis. He enjoyed the feel on not only her slick pussy lips, but the wiry black hair that surrounded it. She continued to rub herself against him like a cat, until he asserted himself, grabbed her, and flipped her over on her back.
He slid his hand down between her legs while kissing and licking her breasts, sucking her nipples, biting her neck. She moaned and writhed beneath his touch as his fingers probed and poked her. Slowly, he kissed his way down her sturdy body until his face was pressed to her pubic patch. He rubbed her hair over his face, inhaling the heady scent of her, and then finally licking her, slowly running his tongue up and down her, and then in and out of her.
“Oh, Jesus ...” she said, lifting her hips to meet the pres
sure of his tongue, reaching down to hold his head so he couldn’t get away from her.
Getting away was the last thing on his mind. He burrowed his tongue into her, used his lips, his chin, did everything he could to drive her into a frenzy on the bed.
When he felt she could take no more, he mounted her and drove his rigid cock into her. She caught her breath and her body went taut. She spread her legs, opening herself as wide as she could to him, finally grabbing hold of her own ankles. He took her like that, slamming in and out of her as hard as he could, and it was a good thing the house was empty.
Or was it?
Chapter Eleven
They were laying side by side sometime later, both sweating from their exertions, when suddenly Clint stiffened.
“What?” she asked.
“Shh,” he said. “I thought I heard something.”
They both listened intently, heard floorboards creaking.
“Somebody’s downstairs,” he said.
“That can’t be,” she said. “Nobody knows about this place.”
“Somebody does. Where’s your gun?”
Angry with herself, she said, “I left it downstairs.”
He sat up, swinging his feet to the floor.
“Get dressed,” he said, pulling on his trousers and grabbing his gun.
He walked to the door of the room and cracked it open. Holding his gun, he listened while Molly slipped back into her dress.
“Does your aunt have any weapons up here?” he asked.
“There is no aunt,” she said. “I own this house, under a phony name. That’s why I said nobody knows about it. My gun is in the bedroom downstairs.”
“Is there a back way down?”
“No,” she said, “but I can lower myself from this window to the ground, and then get into my bedroom from the window below”
“All right,” he said, “but wait until I get out into the hall. How long will you need?”
“Five minutes, that’s all.”
“Okay,” he said, “in five minutes you come out of your bedroom with your gun ready. I’ll come down the stairs.”
“What if they come up first?”
“Then I’ll meet them in the hall.”
She looked at him, then smiled.
“My legs are a little weak.”
He grinned and said, “Mine, too.”
She went to the window and quietly opened it.
“Five minutes,” he said, and she nodded.
He slipped out of the room.
Chapter Twelve
Clint closed the door behind him and moved quietly down the hall. At least, he tried to move quietly, but even he could hear the floorboards creaking beneath his own feet.
He reached the top of the steps and stopped. He had to give Molly time to get herself into position.
Again, he could clearly hear the sound of movement on the first floor.
Molly had told a half-truth. There was an aunt, but she was long dead. She had often snuck out of her bedroom in her aunt’s house this way in her youth, hanging from the edge of the window and then dropping down to the garden below. Her aunt always knew, because Molly used to trample the flowers in the garden when she did this. But the garden was long dead—like her aunt—and as she dropped down, she landed on bare dirt. She paused, waiting to see if anyone had heard her.
Satisfied that she had gone undetected, she silently opened the window to what was now her own bedroom, slid over the sill into the room. Again, she paused and listened, then moved.
She had left her gun on the dresser top. It was still there, a .32 caliber Colt Paterson. She picked it up and checked it quickly to make sure it was loaded, then went to the door. She listened first, then opened it a crack. By her reckoning there was one minute left...
Clint figured Molly would be in place by now. He only hoped she was as good with a gun as she was in bed.
He started down the stairs, but he did it on the run. Trying to go down quietly would never have worked. He’d noticed how creaky they had been when they first went up, so sneaking down was out of the question.
He rushed down to the first floor, gun ready, and looked around.
No one.
Molly came rushing out of the back, her Colt in hand. She stopped short when she saw Clint standing there alone.
“Did you see anyone?” she asked.
“No.”
“Could we have been wrong?”
He held his finger to his lips and pointed to the kitchen. Together they walked to the doorway and peered in. The room was empty, and the back door was open.
“We weren’t wrong,” he said. “Somebody was here, but they’re gone.”
“Why?” she asked. “What did they come for?”
“That’s for you to discover,” he said. “Let’s light some lamps and see what we can see.”
“First,” she said, “I’ll close and lock that door.”
“It was closed and locked before, right?” he asked. “And somebody still got in.”
“I’ll close it anyway.”
He watched her back while she closed the door, then lit a lamp in the kitchen. She looked around.
“I don’t see anything amiss here,” she said.
“Stay away from the windows,” Clint said. “There may be somebody outside. Let’s check the other rooms.”
They went into the living room and lit another lamp. “Same here,” she said. “Nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
She looked around again, then frowned.
“That desk.”
There was a small writing desk against one wall.
“What about it?”
She walked to it. There was a drawer in the center that was ajar.
“This drawer was closed.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s my desk, and I make sure I close all the drawers.”
“What was in it?”
She opened it wide. There were papers there.
“Just some letters, and important papers.”
“Are they all there?”
“Yes,” she said, “but someone has riffled through them.”
“Looking for what?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Your assignment?”
“I don’t keep anything in writing that has to do with my job.”
“Maybe they didn’t know that.”
Clint still had his gun in his hand. Now he tucked it into his belt.
“I think we better stay awake the rest of the night,” he said.
“We could go back to your room,” she said. “Or mine.”
“By awake,” he said, “I meant awake and alert.”
“I could make some coffee, and something to eat,” she said.
“That’s a good start,” he said. “There’s still about seven hours before I have to make that train.”
“We,” she said.
“What?”
“We have to make that train. I’m going with you to San Francisco,” she said. “You’ll need somebody to watch your back.”
“We’ll need to stay alert, then, Molly,” he told her.
She grinned.
“I know. That means no hanky-panky. So it’s good we got it out of the way.”
“How about that coffee?” he asked.
“And I think I’ve got some cold chicken.”
“Sounds good.”
They adjourned to the kitchen.
Chapter Thirteen
At seven-thirty the next morning Clint and Molly left for the train station. They picked up Clint’s horse, Eclipse, but Molly was making the trip without a mount of her own.
“If I need a horse, I can find one when we get there,” she said.
In the daylight they were able to see a set of footprints outside the house, further indication that someone had been inside. Possibly, the person—a man, by the look of the tracks—had heard them having sex upstairs and used the noise to cover a sear
ch of the premises. He then made his escape by the back door.
As they approached the station, they saw that several people were waiting to board the train. Clint walked Eclipse up onto the platform and down to where he knew the stock car would stop.
“You know any of these other people?” he asked, looking around them.
“No, I don’t,” she said.
“But you’re local.”
“That’s true,” she said, “but I doubt any of them are. Besides, just because I’m local doesn’t mean I know everyone in Atlanta.”
“Who’s your immediate superior?” he asked. “Colonel Tate?”
“Tate is not with the Service,” she said. “I can’t tell you who my boss is, Clint.”
Clint wasn’t sure just who was sitting at the head of the Secret Service these days. The Pinkertons were no longer involved—he knew that. Allan had died, and his sons Robert and William were running the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
“But do you know Tate?”
“I’ve met him.”
“I haven’t seen him in years,” Clint said. “Not since Andersonville.”
Her eyes widened.
“You were in Andersonville?”
“Not for very long,” he said, “and it’s not something I tell people. In fact, I haven’t told anyone before today.”
“I’m flattered.”
Clint noticed that two of the men waiting for the train were armed. One had a saddle slung over his shoulder. The other was wearing a gambler’s black suit. Both had holsters on.
“We’re going to have to watch those two,” he said.
“Right,” she said. “Maybe we should ride in the stock car, with your horse?”
“I don’t think he’d like that,” Clint said, patting Eclipse’s neck. “He likes his space. No, we’ll ride with the other passengers.”
The sound of the train whistle interrupted them. Within minutes, the train was pulling into the station.
“Stand here,” Clint said, moving Molly behind him.
“Why—you think somebody will use the noise of the train to shoot at us?”
He put his mouth to her ear and said, “The thought had crossed my mind.”
But it didn’t happen. When the stock car let down the ramp, Clint walked Eclipse onto the car himself. He took Molly with him. After making sure the Darley Arabian was secure, they walked back down, then made their way to the passenger car.
