by Jo Goodman
“I thought it might also be for the money,” said Cobb.
“From the robberies, you mean?”
Cobb nodded.
“There’s no money, but that doesn’t mean they won’t want me to get them some. They had the impression that Zetta Lee gave most of her share to me and that I had it squirreled away where none of them could touch it. I have to believe she put that in their heads because there was some advantage in it for her. That’s how she thought. I saw no point in trying to convince them differently.”
Jane said, “Morgan had neither conscientious nor competent representation at trial, Marshal Bridger, and my husband said nothing in his own defense. It is a character flaw of unimaginable proportions.”
“I’m getting that impression.” Cobb leaned back in his chair and said to Morgan, “This is how Benton Sterling figures into what happened. He spoke up for you.”
“Yes. He wasn’t alone, but he carried on the loudest. Seems like the jury heard him because I spent six years in the territory prison, and the rest of them went to Leavenworth. It was the express mail train robbery that got them the ten-year sentence in a federal prison. You know about their early release.”
“I do,” said Cobb. “But we’re only talking about your brothers. The other two that went in with them died there.”
“Bobber Metcalf and Wayne Corley.”
“Right. Metcalf and Corley.”
Jane reached over and laid her hand on Morgan’s forearm. “What can you do, Marshal, to protect my husband?”
Morgan looked down at Jane’s hand and then at Cobb Bridger. He smiled a trifle crookedly.
“Yeah,” said Cobb. “I know that feeling, too.” His blue eyes swiveled to Jane. “I think Morgan is more interested in what I am prepared to do to protect you, assuming, that is, that anyone is in need of protection. The first thing we have to do is establish the identity of the person you met. I’m fair with a sketch. I used to have to do it a lot in my previous work. Should we go over your description again?”
“Yes,” Jane said firmly. “We should.”
Morgan sat quietly, drinking his coffee and listening to Jane describe the man again. This time, though, she had Cobb Bridger to ask her questions, and Morgan had to admit that the marshal understood how to gently tug on her memory to get a more complete picture. Bridger also had the skill to literally draw on her memory. His pencil flew over the paper as he sketched and shaded and erased and sketched again. Jane went to stand at his side to watch the portrait take place, offering a suggestion that broadened the man’s nose and another that shortened the distance between his eyes.
Morgan did not look at the picture as it was being composed. He watched Cobb’s steady hand and the way Jane nibbled on her lower lip as she carefully considered her words. Sometimes she closed her eyes. He admired the effort she made to be precise. She spoke as if their lives depended on what she said.
It was very likely that they did.
Morgan finished his coffee at the same time Cobb set down his pencil. Jane had pronounced herself satisfied with an emphatic, “That’s him.” Cobb had then lifted the sketch and blown away shavings left by the gum eraser. The paper lay balanced in the palm of his hand until Morgan finally nodded.
Cobb pinched the sketch between his thumb and forefinger and held it up for Morgan to see. He said nothing, letting the work speak for itself, and waited.
Jane also waited. She held her breath, searching Morgan’s face for some indication of the outcome.
“I haven’t seen my brothers in almost ten years,” Morgan said. “They were shackled together and being escorted out of the courtroom the last time I saw them. I remember thinking Jackson would have killed me right there if he could have reached me. The look in his eyes when he turned back and saw me standing beside Benton Sterling . . .” Morgan’s voice trailed off. He shook his head. “I’m realizing that fifty years could go by without seeing him and I would still know him at a glance. That’s not Jackson Welling.”
Morgan leaned forward and placed his empty coffee mug on the corner of Cobb’s desk. He extended his hand for the sketch and when Cobb gave it over, Morgan held it up for Cobb and Jane to get the perspective he had. With his free hand, he pointed to the narrow, sharp-edged face. “This is my oldest brother,” he said without inflection. “This is Gideon.”
• • •
Walt was standing in the Pennyroyal’s foyer when Jane and Morgan walked in. He greeted them warmly, took their coats and Morgan’s hat, and started to show them to the dining room. Morgan put up a hand, halting him, and inquired about a room.
Jane stopped as well and regarded her husband with considerable surprise. The request was unexpected. “I thought we were going to eat and then return to Morning Star.”
“Do you object to hot running water and a bathtub so big that—”
Jane raised her hand and placed it over his mouth. She would swear she could feel the imprint of his wicked smile against her palm. “Excuse my husband, Walt. He forgets himself.”
“Oh, it’s all right, ma’am. I’ve heard the like before and more besides.” He put a finger to his own lips. “It’s not in me to talk about things I shouldn’t, and I reckon Mr. Longstreet knows that.”
Jane dropped her hand when Morgan nodded. “I will depend upon your discretion, Walt. Please, tell us that you have a room.”
“Sure do. Just the one. Number six at the end of the hall. You want to sign in now? Mrs. Sterling will be real happy to hear you’re spending the night.”
“Show me the book,” Morgan said, “and then show us to a table.”
It was almost two hours later that Jane and Morgan followed Walt up the stairs and were escorted to their room. Jane unpinned her hat and held it against her midriff while she collapsed backward on the bed. She lay like that for a time, eyes closed, legs dangling over the side, and enjoyed the splendid comfort of doing nothing, thinking nothing.
Morgan tossed his hat on the seat of a chair and laid their coats over the back of it. He lit a lamp on the dresser and another on the bedside table before he knelt at Jane’s limp feet and began to unfasten the laces on her boots. She made funny little whimpering sounds of contentment as he worked the boots off.
“Are these too tight?” he asked her, dropping the first one to the floor. “Maybe you need a new pair. We can do that tomorrow morning before we leave.”
“There is nothing wrong with them. Barefoot is simply better.”
“Oh. Well, in that case . . .” He reached under her skirt all the way to the garter above her knee and began to unroll her stockings.
Jane’s sigh defined bliss. “I believe you would make a most excellent lady’s maid.”
“Did you have one?” He lifted one of her feet and pressed his thumbs into the ball and sole. She actually shivered with pleasure. That was encouraging.
“Of my own? No. But if there was an important event that required my being turned out like a new penny, Rebecca’s maid had to make time for me. She minded a great deal less than Rebecca.”
“I’ve noticed you never write to her. To anyone.” When he paused his massage of her foot while he waited for a response, she curled her toes and let him know he should go on. “I thought you would write to Alexander.”
“The express mail train crosses the country both ways. You have not seen any letters from him, have you?”
“No.”
“There is your answer. I rarely think of him, of any of them, actually.” Jane whimpered again when he found a sweet spot in the tender arch of her foot. “I know the circumstances of being separated from our families are very different, but did you think much about them during your incarceration?”
“I guess I did. In the beginning anyway. Trying to forget something—or someone—is the wrong way to go about making peace with it. At least that’s what I’m learning. Putting that memory front and center makes it a wall you can’t see over or get around. And if you put the damn thing so far behind you that i
t’s hardly a recollection anymore, the next thing you know it’s biting you in the ass.”
“Like Gideon and Jack.”
He nodded. “Exactly like Gideon and Jack. So I guess the only way to go on without slamming into walls or getting bit is to keep it all beside you and acknowledge it from time to time.” He gave her foot a little tug. “Of course, it helps if there’s someone around to keep you steady while you’re doing that.”
Jane dabbed at an errant tear that slid from the corner of her eye. “You say extraordinary things, Morgan Longstreet.”
“Huh.”
Levering herself up on her elbows, Jane regarded him with a watery smile and a slightly arched eyebrow. “Sometimes more than others.”
He grinned back at her. “How about I draw milady a bath?”
Jane groaned feelingly and fell on her back a second time. “Yes, please. Milady will be ever so grateful.”
“Oh, I’m counting on that.”
Jane was barely awake when he came to fetch her. He considered turning her more comfortably on the bed, covering her with a blanket, and letting her lie there, but then she extended an arm toward him in an elegant, graceful gesture and that made up his mind. Pulling her to her feet, he guided her into the bathing room, where he relieved her of everything right down to the tortoiseshell combs in her hair. He held her hand when she stepped into the tub and kept holding it until water lapped at her breasts. When he was certain she wouldn’t sink and drown, he laid towels on a stool and then carried her clothes into the bedroom. He stripped there, adding his clothes to those he had arranged on the chair. When he looked over at the bed and saw Jane’s hat was still on it, he moved it. She would not thank him for crushing it in a frenzy of lovemaking.
He was still grinning when he lowered himself into the tub.
Jane roused herself enough to look at him from under one partially raised eyelid. “I am not going to ask what you are doing. That seems obvious. It is the why that eludes me.”
“Back scrub?”
Jane was aware of the water rising as Morgan settled himself comfortably in front of her. “That is more easily accomplished if you are sitting on the stool outside the tub.”
“I was thinking of my back.”
She opened her other eye but not by much. “In that case, you’re facing the wrong way.” She made a circling motion with her forefinger. “Be careful. I should not like it if you slipped in a puddle on your way to bed. You might be carrying me.”
“And I thought your hat was all I had to worry about.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” He rose up, turned, and put himself in the space Jane made for him between her thighs. She was holding soap and a sponge in her hand, so Morgan drew up his knees and leaned forward. At the first pass she made, he bent his head forward and closed his eyes.
Jane pressed her knuckles against her mouth to cover an abrupt yawn. “I do not know why I am so tired.”
“I can think of a couple or three reasons. Strain. Lack of sleep. And polishing off everything Mrs. Sterling put in front of you at dinner. It was a heavy meal, plus you ate more of my apple pie than I did.”
“That is an exaggeration. I ate perhaps a third of your pie.”
“And all of your own.”
“Mmm. Mrs. Sterling was happy, though. Did you notice? She thinks I don’t eat nearly enough.”
“I’m not unhappy about it. I don’t think you eat enough either. Not lately anyway, tonight being a notable exception.”
“There is altogether too much interest in my appetite. I am so full now, I believe I have a belly.”
Morgan reached behind him. “You do.”
“That is not my belly.” She lowered his hand.
“Oh. You do.”
Laughing under her breath, she slapped his hand away and returned to applying the soapy sponge to his back. For a time she did nothing but make slow, lazy circles. “Are you satisfied with how things turned out today?”
“I will let you know in about an hour.”
Jane squeezed the sponge over his head. Spitting and sputtering, he grabbed it out of her hand and leaned back so she was pressed against the sloped end of the tub. Her arms went around him and her legs followed. It was difficult for either of them to know who was captured and who was cradled. What was important was that it did not make any difference.
They remained like that until the water began to cool. Morgan nudged the stopper with his toe and drained about half the tub before he added hot water. They immediately returned to positions of sloth.
Jane soaped Morgan’s damp, ginger hair and amused herself making furrows and peaks and curls while he washed. When he was done, she helped him rinse his hair. She would have washed herself, but he kept the sponge and soap and took what Jane told him was an unnatural interest in her hygiene.
Water did accumulate in puddles on the floor but that happened as they were getting out. Jane stole both towels that were on the stool, one for her wet hair and the other to wrap around her shivering torso. Morgan had to find another, and that delay meant Jane was already turning back the covers when he arrived at the bedside.
He whipped off the towel she had tucked around her head, but he let her keep the one she was clutching to her breast. “I don’t understand why, Jane, but I find your modesty very, very fetching.”
She tumbled into bed, taking the towel he had hitched around his hips with her. “We are different that way,” she said, regarding the state of his erection with unabashed interest. She lifted the covers and patted the place beside her. “Come here, Mr. Longstreet. I believe I can help you with that.”
“I’d be obliged if you would.” He extinguished one of the lamps and crawled into bed.
Under the cover of the blankets, Jane surrendered her towel.
They made love with no urgency, but taking their time was satisfying in its own right. Slow exploration made the places they had been before seem new. There was wonder in the rediscovery of how sensitive Jane was to his lips at the hollow of her throat, and how responsive Morgan was to her fingertips at the nape of his neck.
Their kisses lingered, wet and slow and deep. They tasted at their leisure. Sometimes they teased, but not often. It was more than either one of them wanted to do just then.
When Morgan took her breast into the hot suck of his mouth, Jane lightly held his head in the cup of her palms. The contractions were sweet. She closed her eyes and concentrated on them.
When Jane’s hand made a languorous sweep of his thigh, Morgan held himself very still in anticipation of her palm slipping over that curve and making a nest for him. When it happened, he held his breath. She squeezed.
It meant something that intimacy could also be play. Jane laughed in short, staccato bursts when he learned she was ticklish at the base of her ribs. He kept coming back to the spot because the sound of her laughter was transcendent. Morgan’s laughter was deeper, vibrating in his chest, lodging in his throat, and it overtook him every time she whispered something outrageous in his ear. Her breath was warm, damp, and he did not think she knew half of what she said, but it tickled him that she said it.
“What about here?” he asked, sliding his fingers between her dewy lips.
“Mmm.”
He removed his hand. “Good to know.”
She parted her legs a fraction, but his fingers did not return. She accused him of having no mercy. That merely made him grin.
Later, she asked, “Here?” Her fingers were making a trail from his neck to the base of his spine. The twin dimples just above his taut buttocks were her targets. She felt for the impressions, found them, and pressed.
“Mmm.”
They agreed that indolent lovemaking did not lend itself to eloquence. It seemed they were too lazy for words.
She straddled him. It seemed fitting since she had learned to ride. Jane liked seeing him from this angle, his eyes filled with her. She drew his hands to her breasts and guided their caress. She lifted her hips
and then slowly lowered herself onto his cock until she found her seat.
Neither of them moved. This was also part of the play, and they might have stayed in their still, carnal pose if the absurdity of it had not struck them at the same time. Their simultaneous shouts of laughter changed the tempo of everything.
Jane rocked her pelvis, rising, falling. Morgan stroked her. His fingers pressed the flesh of her bottom. He added his thrust to hers. The rhythm was shared. They heard the same pulse, the same percussive beating, and their bodies responded to the familiar cadence effortlessly.
Jane’s dark, damp hair fell over her shoulders as she arched backward at the moment of orgasm. Morgan’s eyes followed the extension of her slender neck, the thrust of her pink-tipped breasts, the lift of her abdomen, as her breathing grew shallower. He heard her gasp, catch her breath, and then her shudder rolled into him like water spilling over a dam. He clutched her hips as though he needed to hold on. His muscles had reached a state of tension that could not be sustained, and when they released that coiled energy in one long spasm, Morgan thought he might come out of his unbearably tight skin.
For the third time since entering room number six, Jane collapsed on her back on the bed. Naked, although hardly conscious of it, she did not try to cover herself.
“You are exhausting,” she whispered.
“I am too tired to return the compliment.”
Jane was able to raise a small smile. She laid a forearm across her eyes and nudged Morgan’s shoulder with her free hand.
“What?”
