by Vanessa Vale
“You have Benson?”
He nodded. “And a man named Crumb.”
“You’re missing Morgan. Big, dark-haired, scruffy beard. My height, but stockier. He was riding an Appaloosa. Brown and white.”
The colonel frowned. “He could have had a haircut and shave by now. Based on how you look, I’m sure it made quite a difference. He could have changed his fucking horse, too.” He swore under his breath. “Begging your pardon, ma’am.”
Lily offered him a small smile, but for once remained quiet, even if she hated being called ma’am. If he only knew how she liked to swear, the man would probably be offended far readily than she.
“Colonel, my job with Finnemann and the others was to bring in Benson, and I did. I assume when we arrive in Butte I won’t be arrested and hung?”
The man smiled and he looked a few years younger. He’d seen a lifetime’s worth of strife, I imagined. “A revision to the story has been put in the newspaper.”
“I assume to make the owner appear as if his participation singlehandedly captured Benson,” I said dryly.
The colonel laughed heartily and slapped me on the shoulder. “Of course, but don’t forget Mr. Granby’s railroad.”
I grunted, knowing both men would spread the news that they’d assisted in the Benson’s capture. “Morgan is not my problem. Getting my wife safely back to Butte is.” I glanced at Lily and she pursed her lips. God, I loved riling her.
The officer’s jowls swayed as he shook his head. “You’ve done a fine job. Morgan is not a Pinkerton concern. Have a safe trip back to Washington.”
I saw Lily stiffen and her eyes widen.
“Ma’am.” The man tipped his hat and left us alone, just as the train pulled in.
“Washington?”
I helped her up into the train car, then led her toward the back where Granby’s personal car was connected, keeping one hand on her arm as the train began to move again. Once the door closed behind us, Lily stopped. I leaned and kissed her neck.
“This is… unexpected,” she replied, taking in the sumptuous private car. Silks and brocade, teak wood and other luxuries detailed the car as if it were a fancy Pennsylvania Avenue mansion.
“A perk of my job.”
She didn’t turn around, but tilted her head to offer me better access to that sensitive spot behind her ear. That wasn’t the only sensitive spot on her perfect body any longer. She was sensitive… everywhere. “Speaking of… Washington?”
“Do you want to talk about that or enjoy this fine mode of transportation for the next few hours?” I murmured, the train swaying back and forth. For a day that was remarkably warm, the interior was cool, the scent of lemon filling the air.
Lily spun about, took a deep breath and started talking. “I think we do need to talk about it because we’ve only been in each other’s company for two days and we’re having a baby and we’re in this fancy train car and I realize I know nothing about you—”
Her words came out in a long rush and I put my finger over my lips to stop her, her eyes widening, then narrowing as I did so.
“There you go thinking again. If you can’t stop talking, I’ve got something to put in that mouth of yours. I remember how much I enjoyed that the last time. Or would you like me to put my cock somewhere else?”
I saw her pupils dilate and my cock hardened when her tongue flicked out on the pad of my finger. She shook her head.
Taking her hand, I helped her down onto her knees. Leaning forward, I kissed my ring on her finger as I looked into her eyes, then undid my pants. “That’s right, on your knees is where you belong.”
As she grasped the base of my cock in her tiny grip, she looked up at me with her gorgeous green eyes. “Where do you belong, Jack?”
I tugged the pin from her hat, then tossed it onto the floor so I could dig my fingers into her silky tresses. “Wherever you are, sweetness.” I shut my eyes and tugged on her hair as she took me deep into her mouth, the hot, wet swirls of her tongue my undoing. “Wherever you are.”
CHAPTER TEN
LILY
“If your Dr. Bower finds out what I did to you on the train, he’s going to pull out those scalpels,” Jack whispered in my ear as we took the path to the front door of Dr. Bower’s house. “Your family isn’t in town, are they?”
After feeling Jack’s cock throb deep in my throat, he’d pulled back and settled me on his lap. I’d never fucked like that before, but I certainly enjoyed the ride. While Jack had used his handkerchief to clean me up, I still had his seed slipping from me and coating my thighs. No wonder I was pregnant; my husband was certainly virile and his seed copious.
“Dr. Bower is going to like you just fine,” I assured him. Dr. Bower was anything but conventional.
With a hand on my arm, he stopped me and I looked up at him. I saw concern on his face.
“My face has been in the newspapers as an outlaw and murderer.” He ran his hand over the beard on his jaw. “I certainly look like one.”
“Jack,” I chided.
“Sweetness, I have no house of my own, only simple bachelor apartments in Washington, but they’re almost two thousand miles away. How am I to look to a man who’s just discovered his female apprentice is secretly married?”
“And pregnant,” I added.
“Christ.” He rolled his eyes and ran his hand over the back of his neck.
“You married me, not him.” I offered him a soft smile. “Now, come on.” I tugged him up the rest of the walk to the front door. I paused and took a deep breath. Jack was right, I was a little concerned about what Dr. Bower would think, but there was no going back.
The house was quiet, the grandfather clock at the base of the stairs chiming the top of the hour.
“No one’s home,” Jack commented, as he took in his surroundings.
The house was modest, not a miner’s shack nor one of the brick copper king mansions. To the right of the entry was the living room, which Dr. Bower never used except when company called. To the left was the formal dining room, which again was only used for guests. Directly in front of us were the stairs to the second floor and a hallway that led to the kitchen and Dr. Bower’s office.
“I’m sure he’s in his office.”
Undoing the pin from my hat, I pulled it from my head. “Dr. Bower!” I called out. Pressing my hands to my hair, I made sure that I’d set the curls back in place after Jack has so easily tugged them loose with his fingers on the train.
I took the hallway, my feet loud on the wood floors. “Dr. Bower doesn’t believe in carpeting,” I replied generally. “Too much dust trapped in them, especially in the winter.”
Jack didn’t say anything to that and I peeked my head around the open doorway. “Dr. Bower,” I repeated.
He looked up from his writing. Just as I suspected, he was at his desk. When he saw me, he smiled. “Lily. I’m pleased you’ve returned.” I stilled, surprised that he wasn’t the least bit bothered by the fact that I’d chased after my husband all the way to Bozeman and done the unthinkable—waiting for a bank robbery. “Did you get my mutton chop I liked?”
In my periphery, I saw Jack stiffen slightly.
My stomach turned, realizing Dr. Bower was completely unaware of my goings-on. He had no idea I worked at the butcher on occasion. He hadn’t ever noticed a bloodstain on my dress, but more important, couldn’t see I’d improved my knife skills, or with patients, my skill with a scalpel.
“No,” I replied softly. While I knew he cared for me in a fatherly sort of way, he never really paid me much mind. Was that why I was so prickly and outspoken? No, that had begun well before my arrival in Butte. Perhaps it was because I had seven sisters and we were all trying to make our attentions known—albeit in different ways—growing up. I sighed, all of sudden recognizing all of my flaws. “How was Anaconda?”
He’d gone to the small town northwest of Butte the day before I went to Bozeman.
“Terrible accident, terrible burns, but all that copper n
eeds to be melted down somewhere. I returned this morning and stopped for lunch in town with Dr. Meager.”
I nodded, for there was nothing really to say. I’d been gone for four days and he wasn’t even aware. Was that his trust in my self-reliance or disinterest?
“Dr. Bower, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
His dark eyebrows went up and when Jack stepped beside me in the doorway, he stood.
“This is Jack Matthews.”
Jack reached out and shook Dr. Bower’s hand.
“I… um, I—” My words were clogged in my throat, perhaps the last shred of the ridiculous need to be acceptable in his eyes keeping me from talking.
“I married Lily,” Jack said plainly.
Dr. Bower looked between us. “Aren’t you the fellow who robbed the train and killed someone?”
Oh, God, he was going to pull out the scalpel just as Jack had said.
“No, I was the man who brought Bert Benson to justice by any means necessary,” Jack countered.
“Good, good.”
I frowned. Good? “Dr. Bower,” I began.
He held up his hand. “I don’t believe what’s printed in that rag anyway. Never have. I’ve known the owner, Finnemann for years, treated him for the clap back in ‘72.”
My mouth fell open and Jack grinned.
“You should be more concerned about what your two mothers will say.”
“Well,” I began. “Only Hyacinth was married with them present, so I doubt much surprises them when it comes to us girls marrying anymore.”
There was a knock at the front door, then someone called for Dr. Bower.
“In my office,” he replied, his voice loud to carry down the hall.
Footsteps preceded Dr. Meager’s arrival.
Dr. Bower made introductions.
“Married?” Dr. Meager asked. He glanced briefly at Jack, but then took his time with me. Jack pulled me into his side at his frank stare. “Surprising, Lily.”
“Oh?” I asked, knowing I wasn’t going to like the answer.
“You have not had very many suitors since I’ve known you, and, well, you rebuffed my advances.”
Jack shoved me behind his back. “She was waiting for me.”
Dr. Meager had not done any kind of advancing on me. He just made it out to sound more… tawdry that it had been. The man had said he wished to court me, that Dr. Bower would approve, and I’d said no and walked out of the room. The man was scorned and he was just like the little pond muskrat I’d initially taken him for.
“Should I ask Lily after these advances?” Peeking around Jack’s arm, I saw Dr. Meager’s Adam’s apple bobble as he tried to swallow, clearly a little fearful of Jack. Good, the odious man could stuff it. I took Jack’s hand and stepped back beside him.
“What is it that you need?” Dr. Bower asked, looking to Dr. Meager. He did not like confrontation and it was obvious one was going to ensue if he didn’t step in. Confrontation meaning Jack was going to break Dr. Meager’s nose.
“A collapse at the Flaming Jane.”
I’d heard of the mine before, one of the more outrageously named copper veins in the area.
Dr. Bower nodded decisively as he grabbed his satchel. “Lily, put the mutton chop in the icebox. I won’t be needing it tonight. I doubt I’ll be back before tomorrow.”
He doffed his hat and followed Dr. Meager out the door, the house quiet once again except for the ticking of the dratted clock in the hall.
“But—” I told you I didn’t buy your mutton chop. He hadn’t listened to me before. Had he really heard me when I told him I was married? I thought back to the past year of going with him on calls. Had he wanted me with him or an assistant? Had he just been humoring me? Had he owed Ethan a favor?
“Free labor,” I muttered.
He squeezed my hand. “What, sweetness?”
“He wanted free labor. He didn’t care who he had, that it was me. He told me last month that the miners were too rough for me.”
“Dr. Bower was protecting you,” Jack said, clearly pleased that Dr. Bower had taken me from possible dangers. “Those miners are rough. I don’t want you near any of them, is that clear?”
I waved away his stern warning and continued my thinking. “I’ve been replaced with Dr. Meager. It was only a matter of time before I would have had to return home.”
He stroked his finger down my cheek. “Even with all those sisters, you relied on yourself, didn’t you, sweetness?”
I looked down at Jack’s shirt and nodded. “I wasn’t… lonely. You can never be lonely in a house of ten women. I just realized that’s probably why I’m so… defiant.”
“Self-reliant,” Jack corrected.
I sighed, flicked my eyes up to meet his for just a moment. “You even said I was prickly.”
God, I was depressing.
He bent at the waist so we were eye level and waited until I looked at him. I saw the seriousness of his gaze. “You are prickly.”
I startled at his words.
“And headstrong and smart and skilled at healing and kind and beautiful and desirable and… do you want me to continue?”
I nodded, for the words were like a balm.
“How about this? I like you, no, I love you just the way you are. I like you prickly because then I can spank that pert ass of yours. I like you headstrong because there’s no one else I’d rather argue with. I like you naughty so I can fuck that sweet pussy. You are all those things, but most important, you’re mine.”
I’d never had such a declaration before.
“Perhaps I should have said all that before we married, before I left you to chase after Benson, but I thought you knew. I knew right away. That very first moment.”
“Jack,” I sighed.
He lifted my hand to his mouth, kissing my ring. I was recognizing it as his way of showing me his love and a constant reminder that I belonged to him. “Do you plan on arguing with me?”
I shook my head.
“My parents died when I was nine,” he declared, the change of topic startling.
I gasped at the thought of a young Jack, alone in the world and I lifted my hand up to stroke his cheek. His beard was soft, the color of it a shade darker than that on his head.
“I’ll tell you about it sometime, but not now.” His voice had an edge of darkness to it, but he offered me a small smile. “Dr. Bower, he cares for you, I’m sure, in his own way. He’s lost in his head, just like when you get all thinking and distracted.”
That was true; strangely, I was just like him in that.
“Good thing you have me to take care of that problem.” He grinned and I blushed as he patted my bottom through my dress. “Do I need to help with that right now?”
I bit my lip and looked around. “Perhaps,” I admitted.
“Mrs. Matthews, such a dirty girl wanting to be spanked in Dr. Bower’s office.”
I shook my head. “I was thinking…”
“Yes?”
“Not here. My bedroom,” I mumbled.
Jack tipped my chin up and I met his heated stare. “Your bedroom? You want me to spank your bare ass in your bedroom?”
I nodded.
“You know what spanking leads to?” he asked.
I licked my lips. “Fucking.”
“That’s right, sweetness.”
Taking my hand, he led me down the hall, then up the stairs to my bedroom. While he’d never been in the house before, he seemed to know exactly where to go.
“I’m going to fuck you in a way that makes you truly naughty.”
As he kicked the door shut with his foot, I wondered just what he had in mind.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JACK
Lily’s bed was so small, I woke up with her sprawled on top of me. I slept sideways so my feet could hang off the side. This was all fine and good for one night, especially since the things I did to my bride in Dr. Bower’s house only brought to light that she was a very dirty girl
.
“Morning, sweetness,” I murmured, when she stirred in my hold.
“Mmm, morning.”
She was warm and naked in my arms, my cock hard against her belly. Once she was awake enough to realize it, I’d take her again, although I had to remember she was carrying our child.
“How are you feeling? No sickness?”
She shook her head. “None. Just tired often, and I can’t stand the smell of cooked meat.”
“I thought it was all my attentions that wore you out last night.”
She groaned. “You did, and so did the baby.” She was quiet for a minute. “I like waking up with you,” she added, rubbing her cheek against my bare chest.
I stroked her back with my hand, pushing the sheet from her as I did so.
“We’ve been married six weeks and this is the first time we’ve been able to do this,” I commented.
She stiffened. “Did Dr. Bower come in last night?”
“We’re married, sweetness. What difference does it make that I’m sharing your bedroom?”
She turned her head, rested her chin on me so she could look me in the eyes. “It’s not that.” She bit her lip.
“What is it then, that you’re a screamer?”
She flushed prettily and I picked up one of her bright red curls, playing with the silky strands. I enjoyed seeing her all flustered.
“Jack,” she groaned.
I nudged her up so we were both sitting. “What are you embarrassed about? Trust me, there’s nothing you want, no matter how naughty it is, that I won’t like.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Really,” I repeated. I tugged her from the bed and scooped up one of her stockings. “Give me your wrists.”
She arched a brow and I loved the way she flushed even more, down over the pale curves of her breasts. Without hesitating, she did so. I walked her backwards toward the open window, then lifted her arms overhead and tied the tail end of the stocking to the center of the wood curtain rod. The window was open to the summer breeze, the town coming to life, even though it was still early. While the house was in town, it was on a quieter street.
Testing her bonds, she wriggled her wrists, but the stocking held. She was comfortably standing flat on the floor and could pull her arms down by her face, but no lower. “Jack, someone might see me!”
