by Amber Scott
Carla waved her hand through the air, at once dismissively and compellingly. “Before we get into your questions, I have a few of my own. You’re not the only person with trust issues. So sit down and have a friggin’ cup of tea.” She went up the stairs to her apartment. She didn’t have to look behind her to see if he followed. His stubborn footsteps told her as much. “Wherever Sammie is right now, I can almost guarantee you she’s in good hands.”
Once they reached her kitchen, Charles’ skeptical look didn’t slow her down. She pointed to a chair and began to pour water into a kettle. How in the world she was going to explain all this? She hadn’t a clue, but it was the only thing she could do.
If he didn’t believe her, well, that would be his problem.
“Did you ever meet Henry, Sammie’s father?”
“No, I can’t say I have. Samantha never introduced us, which she would have if he were ever around.”
Carla smiled at the way he emphasized the name. Samantha. He didn’t like her calling her Sammie, then?
“Well, Henry and I go—went—way back. I hadn’t seen Sammie since she was little. Too young for her to remember—back when her mom was alive. Her mom and dad called her Sammie. It stuck, I guess.”
Charles’ eyes lost a degree of their irritation. “Why did she come here?”
Carla sat down with her tea and gave Charles the mug she’d poured for him. She’d be lying if she said the idea didn’t cross her mind to send Charles directly after Sammie. What better way to prove Sammie was alive and well than in the flesh, right? She figured that was the easy and hard way out of it.
She’d agreed to this madness, so she’d better see it ended as well as she could.
“Henry knew he was dying. He knew he didn’t have much time. After not seeing him for more than a decade, he showed up on my doorstep, asking for a favor. Sammie’s mom and I were best friends, and he used that against me. I should have been too angry to talk to him, the way he up and left with Sammie the day of Lillian’s funeral.”
She took a sip from her mug and gauged Charles. He couldn’t care less about what she’d said so far, but he was willing to wait it out. Half his mind was thinking about the police tearing her place apart top to bottom. Carla almost laughed.
“He begged and told me about his health, and since Lillian was like a sister to me, the only thing I cared about was seeing Sammie again. Henry held that hope hostage.”
Charles blinked. “Sounds like a smart man.”
Carla smirked. Smart-ass. “He was. Very smart. Too smart. So keep that in mind when I tell you what I’m going to.”
Charles frowned. He was obviously running out of patience. Carla held up her hands. “Just saying,” she said, and took a deep breath. “Sammie isn’t here. She came by yesterday morning to sell her inheritance. You see, her father left her—”
“I know what he left her. She’s my best friend. Could you get on with it?”
Carla narrowed her eyes. “As I was saying, Sammie brought me the map and Wanted poster to sell. What she didn’t know was her father planned on that the whole time. Not just to get her the money to pay for school.” She wasn’t sure how to word the next part. “Henry was also playing matchmaker.”
Charles frowned. His eyes softened.
“Henry met a man he was convinced was perfect for Sammie. As part of his dying wish, I had to be sure they met.” She was trying hard not to chicken out.
“That’s it? Samantha’s been on a date this whole time? Jesus, lady, why didn’t you say so? I mean, a date? Wonderful. The girl hasn’t been on one in at least two years. I even bought her some equipment last Christmas, the poor thing.”
Carla winced inwardly. Now for the hard part.
“Yes, well, she’s got a good head on her shoulders, and boys can wait.”
Charles snorted. “I beg to differ. Nothing like a stiff one in the wind, if you know what I mean,” he said with a conspiratorial hand to this mouth, “to get a girl through finals.”
Or a guy, she surmised.
Well, to each his own and beside her point. Although, if he was placated by what she’d said, maybe explaining the exact nature of Sammie’s blind date wasn’t necessary after all.
“When will she be back?” Charles leaned back in the metal and vinyl chair Sammie had sat in the previous morning as she’d drunk the concoction that dragged a person through time.
“I expect her any time now.” Chicken.
“Really? Mind if I wait with you, then, you know, in case you’re lying your ass off?”
Carla smiled. He didn’t act like he thought she was lying and, really, technically, she wasn’t. Sammie was on a date. With an Old West outlaw and in a different year. Carla had no handy reason to tell him “no.” So she nodded and tried to chase away the worry in her belly with another sip of sweetened chamomile.
“So,” Charles said, setting down his mug. “Tell me about this mystery man who’s after my little Samantha’s heart.”
Her next cup would be vodka.
~~~
Chapter Sixteen
He didn’t believe her. However, Samantha got the feeling Jesse wanted to. He wasn’t the kind of man who trusted easily. He needed proof.
She didn’t have any. That, and she began to wonder how much longer she’d be here with him before time snatched her back to Carla’s kitchen. Each instance she’d leapt through time to get to him, she’d remained only a stretch of hours at a time. The first was possibly eight. The second, far less than twenty-four, and she’d estimated around six since they’d left his house.
The way he’d been acting since she woke up made her now think something had happened during that last leap blackout spell. What if she’d said something, or worse, what if she’d disappeared and reappeared right before his eyes?
What would he think? It was too early for aliens. Maybe he’d think she was magical, or that she’d drugged him. Or who knew? Little sense in trying to guess. She should simply ask.
She had no way she could show him proof. Unless she disappeared again, if she had, which she figured must be what had happened.
“Samantha?”
Jerking up her head, she realized he’d been talking to her. Well, whispering to her.
“Yes,” she said quickly. When she looked at him, prickles rushed over her skin. His gun pointed barely above her head, and he shushed her with his finger on his lips.
“Come over here, slowly, quietly,” he said, his voice barely audible, his stare never wavering from the point holding his attention.
When her belly flipped up, the food in it only worsened the tight feeling. Samantha did as she was told. The darkening day seemed to breathe shadows and eeriness.
A horse. Not coming from behind them, where their horses grazed. Samantha glanced at the pair. As though on cue with her thoughts, the black stallion pricked its head, ears twitching.
It nickered softly, a breath snorting out its nose in a thin puff of steam.
Steam. The night was growing cold. Her mind was hot. Jesse moved her behind him.
“Stay close, and try not to move.”
“It’s them. Isn’t it?” They’d come to kill him. The headline in Carla’s file folder flashed in her mind. They’d found them. She knew it.
“Shhh. I’ll keep you safe.”
Samantha’s throat thudded with her heart’s beating. What if this was the past, the ending she knew, and she would be forced to witness it? He’d die thinking she’d led his killers to him, that she’d brought death right to his door.
Rustling sounded in the distance. Behind them, the horses shuffled restlessly. As they waited, the fire died down, nearly embers, making the night all the blacker.
The dark outlined the silhouette of a man on a horse.
Jesse crouched lower, pulling her with him. Samantha hugged his back and held her breath, waiting for the events to play out tragically, searching her mind for a way to prevent his death.
She could think only to prote
ct his back, to block it, and as she buried her head in his shoulder and began to say a prayer, Jesse lowered his gun arm.
“Tommy, what in the hell are you doing, trying to get shot?” Jesse said and uncocked his gun.
Samantha’s belly and heart dropped so acutely, when Jesse stood, she plopped from her squat into the dirt. The fire’s embers crackled beside her, and she ran her hands through her hair.
“Sorry, Jesse,” Tommy said from atop his horse. “Didn’t think you’d be expecting anyone else.”
“I was. What are you doing here?”
“It’s Ginny. You have to come back with me.”
“What is it? What’s happened?” As he spoke, Jesse kicked dirt onto the fire. “Is Ginny all right?”
Terror edged his voice. His sister. He would do anything for his sister.
It warmed and worried her all at once. If he’d been sure the two men supposed to murder him couldn’t find them, how had Tommy?
Samantha stayed quiet and waited.
“She’s all right. She’s safe, I swear it.”
Jesse paused in kicking at the fire. “Then what is it?”
Tommy hedged and shifted his weight. “She wouldn’t tell me. She just sent me out and made me swear to God I find you and make you come back.”
“Well, that makes little sense, Tommy.”
The man threw up his hands. “She just does, Jesse. Send me back without you, and I’ll pay hell for it.”
“If anyone’ll be paying, it’ll be me. I’m not about to dicker over it. Now get yourself back to her. And I want both of you headed into town. Put yourself up on me.”
With a loud sigh and quite a bit of show, Tommy set off.
Samantha was no clairvoyant, and she really couldn’t say why, but something seemed off. Different. She didn’t know how to articulate it. Not that Jesse would have listened. She had yet to reassure him of who she really was and who she was not.
Jesse cleared the campsite in short order, and before she had time to think of a question to ask or a way to reassure him, he got her astride in his lap the same way he had the night they’d met. The mare followed them on a lead, and as Tommy’s horse had disappeared over the top of the hill, Jesse stopped.
He turned and lifted her in the saddle so she faced him. His mouth assaulted hers.
Assaulted was only word to describe the impact of his kiss, physically and sensually. It knocked her back in both ways. The kiss was hungry and demanding, dominating. Samantha submitted and fought back in turns, her blood rushing with a fever for more. Fire sparked to life inside her. Hungry, desperate, it fed off Jesse’s hands and mouth.
God, so strong, so virile and male. He smelled so male and so needful, not only to touch but also to be touched. She hungered for it. For him.
He broke the kiss. “He shouldn’t have been able to find us.” His eyes searched hers.
“Well, don’t look at me,” Samantha said. “It’s not like a texted him our location or something.”
He frowned at her. “It’s going to be a rough ride. We need to make time. So hold on.”
It wasn’t fair. She might leave at any moment. He thought she was a betrayer, a liar. Yet, he still wanted her. While he might hate it, he was giving in to the same voice she heard. The same longing plea that begged her, turned her into a primal form of herself, ruled by nature and need.
He wasn’t kidding. The gallop jarred her, jostled her, and made her feel strangely free. She held on tight and closed her eyes, smelling the forest and the outlaw and for the first time, felt really far away from home. But safe all the same.
They came to a small clearing. Jesse made camp of two rolls on the ground, no fire and tethering the horses to a tree branch.
He left her to scout and snuck back into camp, scaring her half to death. It was dark and cold, and when he lay down with her in silence, she let her body sink back against his. Mad, suspicious, right or wrong, she hadn’t left yet. The more she lingered, the more she wanted to stay.
For always.
Outhouses, snakes, bad dudes, and all.
His breath tickled at her neck as he lay tense and awake behind her. Samantha shivered. Remembering how he’d kissed her after Tommy left, she dared rolling over to face him. The darkness and shadows hid his gaze, but not the shape of him. She touched his jaw, rubbing her palm over his whiskers. She wished she had the right words.
He caught her hand and tugged her closer. “I’m not a man who coppers his bets easily, Samantha.”
She nodded, hoping he meant he was taking a risk. “I’m worth it, Jesse.”
His mouth slashed against hers. She met his hard kiss in kind.
Jesse tore her shirt loose and grasped both of Samantha’s breasts. She moaned throatily, not caring if the sound echoed, believing that they were free and alone, and this might be her last taste of his deliciousness. Ever.
He massaged her breasts roughly, demandingly. Samantha bit his lower lip and gripped her hands in his hair. His mouth slanted over hers. His hips dug up into hers, spiraling pleasure through her.
She tore at his shirt, matching his demands with her own. She needed to feel his skin, touch his hardness in her hands, and show him how much he needed her.
Jesse scooped her up so she dangled, cradled in his arms. “Your pants,” he said, his voice hoarse.
Samantha opened the button fly and shoved them from her body, getting one leg out completely. The air was cold on her skin, his arm warm, soft, strong. He returned her body to a sitting position, but facing away from him.
While her heart broke a small bit, feeling turned away, her body reveled in his confidence and domination. Her core swelled and ached. She wanted it rough and sure. She needed it.
She needed to be mastered, to feel vulnerable. She needed to feel like a woman. Independent, capable, strong, and swept away by something bigger than she. She couldn’t exactly define what she felt, what pulled between them, though it coursed, vibrated. It stole her sanity and placated her fears.
Jesse’s hands found her breasts again, and Samantha arched her back so her womanhood slid against his rigid flesh. Hot, steely, hard. His hips answered hers and pressed back, gyrating in delicious rotations, sending shivers of pleasure through her.
Her pleasure sang out and fell inward into an ache for more. She needed to feel him inside her, delving to the last inch, filling the void he’d created. As Jesse positioned his body, he raised her hips, then impaled her on himself.
Sharp sweetness shot through her. It hurt so good.
Jesse ran a hand up her back and into her hair. He laced a handful of tresses into a firm grip. Her scalp tingled. Her body groaned for more.
She pressed. He withdrew. His cock was so godforsaken hard. Samantha bit her teeth down, ready for his next swift thrust. His thighs tightened under hers, his hands roamed and gripped in turns. She shoved back, meeting him, daring him, taunting him.
He answered her movements with authority, putting her back behind the invisible line she’d stepped across. She dared again. He answered again, harder, slower, deeper.
Her body throbbed in appreciation. God, but she needed this, needed him. She needed to fight back, to give in, to trust and dare all at once.
Samantha grasped one of his hands and brought it to her mouth. She suckled his index finger, biting the flesh, groaning as he drove in and out, in and out of her.
His erection swelled, impossibly harder, bigger, and she knew he would come in her. She refused to let him. Not yet. Not until she’d had her fill.
She pulled off him and twisted around. He aided her body and shoved himself back into the heaven she’d denied him. It was like heaven. Hellishly so.
Digging her nails into his shoulders, she took what she needed from him. All the while, their gazes locked, and her body responded with an intense wash of pleasure. Wave after wave coursed through her, out of her, as she stared into his eyes. She recognized his frustration and smiled. She also saw his reaction, and drank it in un
til the oblivion of her climax took over, and she closed her eyes, riding it to the end.
She called out his name over and over again, Jesse being the only word fathomable to share all she had with him, to tell him the truth. Whether it could or not she didn’t know, but the act freed her, and when his cock shot into her, pulsing, reaching her capacity, and he whispered her name, she heard it down to her bones.
His answer. His truth.
“Samantha.”
Yes. God, yes. Jesse. Yes.
She floated to earth on a cloud of satisfaction.
One of the horses nickered. Color spread up her neck and flushed her cheeks with heat. What had come over her? The poor horses! She’d forgotten about them. After a moment, Jesse shifted. Samantha braved a glance up at his face.
She didn’t know what she expected. Not the stormy look of betrayal. A smile maybe, some uneasy or awkward nod, perhaps?
Her back went ramrod straight, and she matched his glare with one of her own. How dare he look so accusingly at her? It took two to tango, or ride or whatever one called what they’d done among the trees and stars.
“We need to get back,” he said against her neck.
Samantha stirred, nodded and got up. It must be close to dawn but the dark of night still cloaked them. He helped her dress. Even though he was a criminal, he was obviously a gentleman, even in anger. One of the things her father so admired about him. He might have robbed and stolen, but he never killed, and he’d always been mannerly.
Wasn’t that what all witness recollections said about the mass murderer who lived next door?
Now, of all the times and places, she had her father in her head. Memories of him, soberly (once or twice drunkenly) relating the details of what made a gentleman.
A man of character, who rode the line between right and wrong but never lost sight of his purpose or of simple human decency. Like the Brad Pitt kind of guy in Thelma and Louise, she always imagined. Polite, simple in his dealings. He may have waved a gun and taken all they had but never hurt or terrorized anyone.
