The Kissing Stars

by Geralyn Dawson

  The trouble started when Tess began opening her presents. Gabe was full as a tick on fried chicken and chocolate cake and feeling guilty that he hadn’t brought a gift. So he had tossed out an offer to teach her some star lore, and Tess had taken him up on the idea. Billy had come along with them—it wouldn’t be proper for Tess to meet Gabe alone—but he was propped up against a pine tree some ten feet away, sound asleep and sawing logs.

  So here they were, he and the birthday girl, practically alone, her hair spilling against his shoulder and smelling like lavender. And him with a cock hard enough to drive a railroad spike.

  Billy would kill him.

  “I know the Big and Little Dippers,” Tess said, gesturing toward the sky. “Where’s Gemini the Twins? That’s my astrological sign, is it not?”

  Gabe cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

  “When is your birthday, Gabe? What’s your sign?”

  He closed his eyes. “I just turned seventeen, myself. On May second. I’m Taurus, Taurus the Bull.”

  And he knew he’d best find a distraction and get his pecker under control or he’d be one bull seeing red—red from his own bloody nose once Billy got through with him.

  Stargazing. That’s what he needed to think about. Hadn’t the sky distracted him dang near every day of his life?

  “You want me to show you Gemini. All right, Tess. Can you see my arm well enough to follow my finger?”

  “I think so.”

  He helped her locate the constellation she sought, then said, “The brighter of the twins is Pollux. The orange one, see it?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  “Pollux is also one end of the necklace of jewels the sky is sporting tonight. Look. It arcs from west-northwest and ends in the southeast. Five bright jewels.” He pointed to the stars as he named than. “Pollux, then Regulus, the blue-white star that’s the heart of Leo the lion. Then Mars, the middle jewel of the necklace. It’s the brightest.”

  “Do you mean that yellowish orange star?”

  Dang, but she had a sweet little voice. How come he’d never noticed it before? “Planet. That’s why it doesn’t twinkle.”

  He sensed her inquiring stare. “If that’s Mars, why isn’t it red? I thought Mars was the red planet.”

  “It appears more red when it’s closer to the earth.”

  “Oh.”

  “The fourth jewel is—”

  “Let me guess,” she interrupted, catching his hand in one of hers while her free arm drew an arc from northwest to southeast “Is that it? That blue-white one? It’s like the first like Pollux.”

  “Yep, Spica. It’s the brightest star in the constellation Virgo.” He inhaled a deep breath of lavender-scented air. Virgo the virgin. Tess the virgin.

  He sat up abruptly. “The last jewel is just above the southeastern horizon. Look. It’s Antares, in the constellation Scorpio. The Scorpion.”

  “Scorpions are red like that.”

  “In this case, the name means ‘not Mars.’ They say the ancients who named it thought its color made it a rival of Mars. Natural competitors, I guess.”

  Tess sat up, too, and when she lifted her face toward the sky, starlight cast a milky, luminous glow across her skin. Gabe swallowed hard.

  Delight lit her voice. “A necklace made of stars. What a wonderful idea.” Giving his hand an innocent squeeze, she added, “I’ll never look at the stars in the same way again. You’ve given me the most wonderful birthday gift, Gabe. Thank you so very much.”

  She leaned over to bestow the same sisterly peck on the cheek she always gave Billy, the same kiss she’d given Gabe a dozen times before. At the last minute, without stopping to think of how foolish an act it would be, he turned his head.

  Their lips touched. They both froze.

  Tess pulled back. Gabe pursued.

  She sighed and surrendered, and Gabe decided that kissing Tess Rawlins was a sweeter treat than Lila Mae’s cake.

  When she woke her brother a few minutes later and told Gabe a shy good-night, he realized he need not look above him to catch a last look at the distant suns.

  Tess Rawlins had stars shining in her eyes. He reckoned a mirror would show him that his own were twinkling, too.

  FOURTEEN YEARS and a thousand heartbreaks later, Tess’s husband said softly, “But the light died, didn’t it, sweetheart? I killed it.”

  He allowed her hair to slip through his fingers and spill down onto the pillow. “Now I need to know why you didn’t bury it.”

  Why the hell hadn’t she divorced him? That question and others had plagued him ever since the fair. Had concern for public scorn stopped her? Possibly, but he doubted it. This was Texas, after all. Considering the land had been settled by miscreants and thieves, something like divorce didn’t carry the social stigma here that it did in other parts of the world. Still, he wanted her to tell him why she had not acted.

  Another topic Gabe wanted to discuss was why her father turned her out after the fire. The very thought of it sent shivers running up Gabe’s spine and made him wish Stanford Rawlins was still alive so he could kill him. Tess had been all of seventeen years old at the time. Where had she gone? Who had helped her? Why hadn’t she come to him? She could have found him if she’d tried. The name change wouldn’t have stopped her for long because mutual friends had known where he was. They’d have told her if she’d asked.

  You know the answer to that, Montana. She never wanted to see your sorry hide again. She told you that to your face. She hated you. Almost as much as you hated yourself.

  TESS AWOKE slowly, deliciously. Stretching, she inhaled a deep breath, filling her lungs with air. Fragrance teased her, a spicy, musky scent she associated with happiness, pleasure, and…Gabe.

  With eyes closed she turned her face, seeking to hold onto the aroma, the dream. Humming with languid desire, she sank into her memories.

  “Someday I’m going to discover a new comet,” her beau said. “When I do, I’m going to name it after you.”

  Tess glanced away from the telescope’s lens and shot Gabe a scolding glare. “Now you made me lose Saturn’s rings.”

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her into his arms. “You make me lose my head. If Billy or your father knew you sneaked out here to meet me like this, they’d have my liver for lunch.”

  She rose up on her tip-toes to press a quick kiss against his lips. “Let’s not fight about this tonight, please? We’re not doing anything wrong.”

  “We’re coming awfully darned dose, though. And it is wrong to lie to your family. I can hardly look Billy in the eyes anymore.”

  “Gabe, not tonight. It’s my seventeenth birthday and I don’t want to spend our time together bickering.”

  Silence dragged out. She felt his resistance, and then his surrender as the source of his tension changed. “Really? And how do you want to spend it, Venus?”

  In answer, she tugged his head down to hers. Their lips met, clung together. That familiar, delicious fire began zinging through her blood.

  Together, they sank to the pillow of green grass. Gabe guided her gently down onto her back, his mouth leaving hers to nibble its way down her neck. His nimble fingers worked the buttons at her bodice, then slipped inside to caress her bare skin. “No chemise again, Tess? Naughty girl.

  She moaned, as his hands smoothed across her breasts, cupping and kneading. Tess arched her back, offering, craving to be suckled. His mouth closed around her nipple and she cried out with pleasure.

  Not the memory of pleasure.

  Here and now, God-it’s-been-so-long-and-it-feels-like-heaven bliss.

  This wasn’t a dream anymore.

  Tess froze. The familiar scent. The heated weight of a hard body atop hers. The rasp of bare skin against bare skin.

  Gabe Cameron was really in her bed.

  Keeping her eyes dosed, she took a minute to consider what to do. A long, lovely, minute during which he switched to the other breast. She seriously considered stretching her internal ref
lection to five or maybe even ten minutes. A half an hour would be splendid.

  Her dress lay tangled around her waist. By touch she determined he sported nothing more than cotton drawers. She tried hard to summon up a little shame. She failed. From the very beginning, she’d been bold where Gabe was concerned. She had loved him with every fiber of her being, and she’d never considered what they did together wrong.

  But then was then and now was now. A dozen years had passed. He wasn’t the same man, nor she the same woman. This couldn’t be love; it had to be lust.

  It had to be.

  And oh, how she wanted to give in to the weakness.

  But she shouldn’t. Nothing between them was settled. Indulging in lust today wouldn’t be honest. It might belittle the memory of their love, and those memories were too precious to taint.

  Regretfully, Tess realized she couldn’t take the risk.

  She opened her eyes and faced the moment, or more precisely, she faced the thick mahogany waves atop Gabe’s head. Her fingers itched to slide through his hair, but instead she pushed against his shoulders and affected outrage. “What do you think you are doing?”

  Gabe slowly lifted his head. His gray eyes watched her with that heavy-lidded, sleepily aroused look she remembered so well. So many times during the few months they lived together they had awakened in the process of making love, one of them having reached for the other in his or her dreams. Now he gave her a drowsy, sexy smile and pain twisted through her. Oh, but she had missed that particular grin. “Wake up, Gabe. What are you doing in my bed?”

  His eyes focused, and he blinked once, then twice. The second time an accompanying wince betrayed the knowledge of where he was—and when. Tess held her breath, waiting for his next reaction in order to formulate her own response. She expected him to act defensive or perhaps apologetic. What she didn’t anticipate was regret. Regret and maybe even dismay.

  Dismay. Well, isn’t that flattering.

  His reaction gouged at her vulnerabilities and pricked her pride, so she adopted the challenging, snippy tone that used to drive him crazy and demanded, “Get out of my bed. You don’t belong here.”

  He didn’t move an inch, although the flare of temper in his eyes told her he still didn’t care for snippy. Anticipation skittered up Tess’s spine, and in that moment, she felt more alive than she’d felt in years. Fighting with Gabe had always been stimulating; making up pure heaven.

  “Where the hell was I supposed to sleep? With the pig? Sorry, darlin’, but the floor is hard and cold, and this bed is big enough for two. And besides…” He lowered his voice to a low, silky drawl. “According to you I’m still your husband. That gives me every right to be here.” His gaze dropped, made a deliberate, assessing journey that ended on her still-naked breasts. “That gives me rights, period.”

  Yes, screamed her body.

  No, hollered her good sense.

  “I’m confused,” she admitted with a cry.

  “I’m shocked,” came Andrew’s voice from the doorway.

  With a yelp, Tess pushed Gabe off of her, yanked the sheet up to her chin, and stared in distress toward the crowd of people standing in the open doorway. “Andrew? Twinkle?”

  “Us, too,” Amy Baker said, clapping her hands over her husband Jack’s eyes, her wedding ring flashing right along with her bright blue eyes. “And Colonel Jasper. I must say, I’m surprised at you, Tess.”

  “Well, I’m impressed,” Twinkle said, fingering a dangling earring as her measured gaze swept over Gabe’s bare chest.

  “What’s this all about?” Colonel Wilhoit demanded. His medals lifted as he filled his lungs with air. “We don’t have time for any nonsense. Tell her, Twinkle.”

  “Let me catch my breath,” the older woman replied, fanning her face with her hand “The last time I saw a chest that intriguing I was—”

  “Hush, everyone,” Tess demanded, heat staining its way up her neck and burning her cheeks. She’d never been so embarrassed in her life. This was even worse than when her father discovered her and Gabe making love in the Rolling R’s barn. Positive she didn’t want to hear Twinkle finish that sentence, she took the conversation in a different direction. “What’s happened? What about the quarantine? Andrew, why are you out of bed?”

  “His fever broke about two this morning,” Gabe’s voice rumbled from beside her. “That’s when I decided to get some sleep.” He reached for the trousers tying at the end of the bed and said, “Ladies, consider this fair warning. I’m fixing to put on my pants.”

  At that Jack Baker mimicked his wife’s actions and covered her eyes with his hands as Gabe rolled out of bed. Twinkle folded her arms, obviously impressed.

  “Tess, who is this man?” Andrew scowled, his freckles glowing bright against a complexion paled by sickness.

  Tess turned a pleading gaze toward Twinkle. “Edna?”

  Twinkle grimaced Tess only used her real name when she lost all patience. “Rosie broke the quarantine, but Andrew didn’t figure it mattered because he was feeling so much better.” She tossed Andrew a chiding look and added, “Without knowing you had a guest—Andrew didn’t bother to tell us—we thought to let you sleep in. But then the trouble started.”

  “Trouble? What trouble?”

  “It’s bad business, Tess,” Colonel Wilhoit said. “You won’t be happy about this.”

  Sheet clutched tightly to her chest, Tess reared up and demanded. “Explain.”

  They all started talking at once, and Tess couldn’t make any sense out of their words. When Gabe put two fingers in his mouth and blew out a shrill, ear-piercing whistle, she tossed him a grateful glance. He said, “One at a time, please. Missus Twinkle, why don’t you start.”

  Twinkle nodded, got distracted for a moment while he buttoned his pants, then said, “Rosie got into your star shed, Tess. She ate up last month’s log and made a general mess of things. Worst of all, I think she might have damaged your new telescope.”

  Dismay blew through Tess like a dust storm. She’d ordered the telescope months ago, and it had been waiting for her in Eagle Gulch upon her return from Dallas. Busy nursing Andrew, she had yet to have the chance to cart it up to the observation post. “Oh, Rosie.”

  “Don’t blame her, Tess,” Colonel Wilhoit said, stepping forward and squaring his shoulders. “It’s my fault. I’m afraid I didn’t secure the door good enough last time I went in the shed.”

  “Oh, enough about Rosie,” Jack Baker exclaimed, tugging his wife’s hands away from his eyes. “The telescope isn’t the worst of it. Tess, your beau rode in a few minutes ago. Captain Robards brought word of trouble. It’s serious, Tess.”

  Her stomach sinking, Tess ignored her husband’s curious look. “How serious?”

  Colonel Wilhoit harrumphed. “There’s been another incidence of vandalism out at the railroad spur construction sight. A fire destroyed a tool shed. The Ranger says somebody claimed they saw an Aurora Springs wagon at the scene of the crime.”

  Tess hung her head and sighed. “Oh, Twink. What did you do this time?”

  “That’s just it,” the gray-haired woman said, her voice hazy with bewilderment. “It’s not me. I didn’t do anything. I’m innocent.”

  “Innocent? You?” Tess repeated.

  “Yes.” Twinkle nodded briskly, then added, “The problem is…Oh, Tess, I hate to tell you this…Captain Robards wants to talk to Doc. He said the railroad wants Doc arrested.”

  “Doc!” Tess froze, her heart twisting. “They want to arrest Doc?”

  “Captain Robards says an eyewitness claims he set the fire.”

  Oh, no. Tess’s breath left her body in a rush. “And Will? What about Will?”

  Twinkle shook her head. “I don’t know. Robards didn’t say a word about Will. Surely he would have mentioned if the Rangers were looking for Will, too. If Doc did this mischief on his way to the Big Bend, he kept the boy hidden.”

  “That’s right, Tess,” Colonel Wilhoit said. “I don’t be
lieve young Will is in trouble.”

  For a long moment, nobody spoke and the only sound to be heard was the tick tick tick of the mantle dock. Tess’s mind was a whirl. Doc would never destroy the railroad’s property, never. No matter how appealing the idea. Nor would he put Will into harm’s way. Would he?

  While she thought through the problem, Gabe glanced from Tess, to the Aurorians, then back to Tess again. “So,” he said, pointing a thumb toward the crowd. “Which one is Doc?”

  A groan slipped from Tess’s lips. For one short second she debated dumping the entire problem in her husband’s lap. But Gabriel “Whip” Montana’s reputation held her back. This man might go after Doc and do him in.

  And if Doc has led Will into trouble, I’ll want to kill the man myself.

  CHAPTER 4

  TESS ORDERED EVERYONE BUT Twinkle out of the house, her excuse the need to put herself to rights. Her distracted air told Gabe she really wanted time to think. He could almost see the wheels turning in her head, but she kept her lips sealed tight as a jar of pickled beets. Her reticence didn’t sit well with Gabe. Once upon a time, she would have shared her thoughts with him. Now, she hustled him out the door with nary a nod, leaving him to the not-so-tender mercies of the inhabitants of Aurora Springs.

  They surrounded him like a pack of dogs. He was the bone.

  “So you’re Cameron?”

  “‘Bout time you showed up.”

  “Nervy of you to jump right back into her bed.”

  Gabe ignored them as he shrugged into the shirt he’d grabbed on his way outside. The early morning air carried a crisp hint of autumn, and sunshine felt good on his face as he lifted it toward the sky. Even better was the unmistakable aroma of coffee that floated past him on the breeze. Gabe turned his head toward the scent and caught the swish of a sorrel’s tail from the corner of his eyes. His?