“Because I know how soon you are leaving Bentonville.”
“I love you in this time and in this place.” He ran a single fingertip along her lip. “What tomorrow brings I can’t know, so think only of this night’s pleasures.”
“Yes.” More than she had ever wanted anything, she wanted Luke’s love. She had it for tonight, for tomorrow, for the days until he left.
She sat on the bed and tugged on his hands to bring him next to her. With a laugh, he pushed aside her skirts to undo the buttons on her high-topped shoes. His gaze burned into her as he drew them off. As his fingers slipped along her leg to find the tops of her stockings, she closed her eyes and clutched his shoulders. A ripple of delight sought the deepest crevices of her body.
With a laugh, he threw her stockings into the shadows. He kicked off his boots and brought her to her feet. When she reached for the buttons of his shirt, he chuckled again and spun her so her back was to him. He undid the pearl buttons along her back. When her dress began to droop over her chemise, she held it in place.
He slipped his hand past the open back to wrap an arm around her waist. Pulling her to him, he pushed the sleeves down her arms. When the gown dropped to the floor, he undid the single button at the waist of her petticoat and let it fall atop her dress. Only then did he let her turn to face him.
Her breath became shallow as his gaze raked her. His lips held her prisoner as he drew her to the lush bed. She knelt on it and unbuttoned his shirt. Beneath her fingertips, his heartbeat surged to the speed of hers. She lowered the shirt down his arms, brushing against him.
“You’re so perfect,” he murmured.
“Me?”
He chuckled. “You never thought I’d say that, did you?”
“I never thought I would say that I love you.”
He moved to kiss her, but, sitting back on her heels, she smiled and lowered the strap of her chemise down her arm in a slow, sensuous motion. When it hung near her elbow, she stared at him as she reached for the other strap. The heat of his gaze seared her bare skin as he sat beside her. When he put his mouth against the skin which yearned for his touch, she moaned.
His tongue sought the downy shadows between her breasts as he stroked her hip. With his knee between her thighs, his denim-clad legs teased her with pleasure. Suddenly he hooked his fingers in her chemise and jerked it aside, tossing the bit of lace and lawn away. His smile revealed, far better than any words, his delight.
He stood and stripped off his own clothes as eagerly as he had hers. A hint of a smile tilted her lips as she admired his naked body. When she held out her arms, he laughed and dumped her backward onto the bed. All thoughts were swept aside as his tongue found the slippery secrets in her mouth.
He pressed her into the thick mattress. She gasped as he held her beneath him. Her legs entwined with his, keeping him tight against her. When he moved to kiss her breast, she arched, craving him against every inch of her. The longing became a void which tingled with her need.
Her fingers boldly explored him. As his breath fanned her passion, she drew his mouth back to hers. She gasped against it as his hand sought, along her legs, to find the fire he had rekindled.
Another gasp exploded from her lips as he brought them together and moved with her. Each breath, each movement, each heartbeat accelerated the ecstasy until she could tolerate no more. Everything became the fire. Never again could she be totally separate from him. No matter how far he was from her, no matter how close.
Mackenzie smiled as she stroked Luke’s chest. When he laughed, she forced her eyes open. “What’s wrong? Are you ticklish?”
Luke leaned over her and smiled. “I was remembering the conversation we had the first morning I was here.”
“You got angry because I told you to get some decent clothes.”
His smile became a leer. “Maybe that’s how I acted, but I was thinking how wonderful it would be to make love with you.”
“Were you?”
“I think I convinced myself.”
Drawing his lips toward hers, she whispered, “What did you convince yourself about?”
“That I want to make love with you again and again and again …” His words vanished against her lips as the enchantment swirled around them once more.
Safe in his love, she let him lure her away from the fear that waited beyond her bedroom. She did not want to think of those bitter, powerful forces which would be determined to destroy the perfection she had discovered with Luke.
Not tonight. Not as long as she could remain in his arms … until he left Bentonville. With her heart.
TWELVE
Zared Malone burst into the newspaper office just as Mackenzie was ready to quit for the day. Tripping over the uneven floorboards, the telegraph operator crashed through the half-door.
Luke caught him. “Whoa, friend.”
Mackenzie smiled at the tall man whose basset-hound face was wrinkled with a grin. “What is it, Zared?”
“Jes’ came ’cross the wire. Statehood’s been ratified! Wyoming is the forty-fourth state in these United States!”
“Statehood? Yippee!” shouted Douglas as he raced into the shop. “Saw you running along the street and figured it was news!”
“Good news!” returned the telegraph operator.
“The best.” Spinning, Douglas caught Mackenzie’s ink-blackened hands. “We did it, Ma! We’re a state!”
She glanced at Luke, and her heart twisted. Now that Wyoming was a state, when would he would be leaving?
“That we are, and they can’t keep women from having the right to vote here.” She forced a laugh. “You men had your chance to silence us, but we refused to be silenced.”
Luke shook Douglas’s hand. “If all the women in Wyoming are like you, Mackenzie, not even an army could silence you.”
She listened to Douglas’s excited talk. So many things had been planned for the statehood celebration, races and pageants and a potluck dinner. She could think only of Luke’s leaving. Sorrow clogged her throat. Feeling her smile waver, she compressed her lips. All her efforts were in vain.
Luke crossed the room. “I thought you were eager for Wyoming to gain its statehood.”
“I was.” She went over to the press. Tears blurred the page.
Tender hands turned her to Luke. “Mackenzie, you believe I love you, don’t you?”
“Of course! It’s just—” Taking a deep breath, she released it slowly. “You said that you’d be staying only until Wyoming became a state.”
“Once you couldn’t wait for the time I’d be taking the next train out of town.”
“Once.” She caught him to her, drowning in the desperate pain she had endured when Cameron died. She had been stupid to fall in love with a man who was in Bentonville for a short visit.
When she stepped back, his lips were tight. If she thought it would do any good, she’d throw pride aside and beg him to stay. It would be futile.
Hearing Zared’s voice raised in a joke, she tried to listen. “… good way to greet the news. How about one for me, Mackenzie?”
She smiled weakly and stood on tiptoe to kiss Zared’s cheek. Putting her arm around her son’s shoulders, she walked up the stairs. She was now the proprietor of The Bentonville Bugle of Bentonville, Wyoming. Not Wyoming Territory. If only the birth of the state did not mark the demise of her happiness.
“Don’t,” ordered a whisper near her left ear as she set the coffeepot on the stove. They had a long night ahead of them redoing the paper.
Mackenzie’s gaze rose to Luke’s. “I’m trying,” she answered as Douglas climbed up to bed.
“We have to talk, sweetheart.”
“Yes.” She prayed she would be strong enough to hear what she knew he would say.
“Before …” Taking her hand, he drew her to the settee. He stroked her hand. “Maybe it’s already too late.”
“Maybe it is,” she managed to choke out.
“I think I have a way to work t
his out. If—” A loud noise like two drays colliding echoed from the street. He rose and looked out the window. “Douse the light.”
“What is it?”
“It looks like something’s going on over by Stub’s.”
Mackenzie turned down the lantern. When she saw a flicker at the end of the street, she gasped, “Fire!”
He ran to the stairs. She followed, holding her skirts high so she did not trip. He threw open the door, and she halted as if she had run into an invisible wall.
Sound exploded around her. Raucous shouts and catcalls, the scream of horses, loud music from the saloon. Forms exploded from the shadows to whirl in a mad dance and disappear into the darkness.
Luke shook his head in disbelief. Although he had sampled Stub’s whiskey, he had not thought it would change the whole town into madmen. And madwomen. A skirted figure danced with the cowpokes.
When Mackenzie brushed by him, he grabbed her arm and twisted her back into the office. He slammed the door. “You can’t go out in that melee!”
“Why not?” she retorted. “I’m a newspaperwoman.”
He laughed coldly. “You’re a woman, sweetheart. That’s no place for you out there.” When she tried to tug away, he clamped his arm around her waist. “I don’t care what you say about being equal. I won’t let you go out there.”
“And I’m supposed to let you go?”
“Yes.”
“You arrogant, bigoted—”
Gripping her chin, he kissed her hard. He drew back before he forgot everything but the ecstasy they shared. “You’re the editor. Send your reporter out to get the story, and then you can edit it.”
“All right,” she said slowly. “You have half an hour.”
Confusion creased his forehead. “Why the short deadline?”
She chuckled as icily as he had. “If you question me, then I guess I don’t hold any authority here. Then I—”
He stamped over to her desk and grabbed some paper and a pencil. “Half an hour, Mackenzie. If you put so much as your little toe out that door before then, I’ll make you sorry!”
“How?”
A malicious smile stole all warmth from his face. “I’ll turn you over my knee.”
“You wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that.”
“Try it, and you’ll see, sweetheart.” He kissed her again. “I’ll be back in half an hour. Then we’ll find something better to do than shout at each other.”
Standing in the doorway, Mackenzie watched him race down the street. His shadowed form flitted in and out of the shallow pools of light.
Shrieks rang through the night as she closed the door. Half an hour. She would wait that long … if she could. Curiosity about what was happening taunted her, but she ignored it as she dropped the bar on the back door.
Time passed too slowly. Again and again she walked over to check on whether the half-hour was over. She heard church bells and guessed someone was ringing them to announce the ratification of statehood.
The half-hour was finally over. Then another. By the time Luke was an hour overdue, Mackenzie could tolerate the wait no longer. Reaching for her shawl, she flung it over her shoulders. It was a deep red, and, with her black skirt, she would be difficult to see in the darkness. She slipped out and locked the door behind her. All the excitement was on the opposite end of town, so Douglas would be safe. Luke might need help.
Mackenzie took a deep breath. She could not remain here while the man she loved might be hurt … or worse. She ran along the street. She had to find out why Luke had not returned as he had promised.
Noise pounded Mackenzie’s ears. The flames they had seen were from a huge bonfire. She gasped as the fire licked at the eaves of the mercantile.
She leaped aside as two horsemen rode at full speed along the street. They raised guns and fired skyward. Other shots answered. She rushed behind the print shop before some drunken cowpoke shot her. Her stomach lurched. Was Luke shot? Was that why he had not come back?
The buildings muted the shouts. Flames dyed the sky a thick crimson. She ran. The fields beyond the town were empty, but she kept looking behind her, not able to shake the sensation someone was watching her.
She pressed her back to the livery wall. Her breath screeched in her ears. Then she heard shouts of “Fire!”
Stub should have known better than to sell so much whiskey tonight, but he knew, as she did, that the saloon would survive the riotous celebration. The cowpunchers would want to keep drinking.
She inched toward the street, hearing the nervous whinnies of horses, then a soft moan. She stopped, looking in both directions. The whisper of a moan sounded again.
“Oh, no!” She dropped to her knees. A woman was face down on the ground.
Mackenzie found the pulse in the woman’s neck. She drew her fingers back in horror. Blood etched them.
The woman was alive, but only just. As she turned the wounded woman over, she prayed the blonde was not Honey. “Lacey!” She stared at the battered face of the doctor’s daughter.
Footsteps approached. She could not leave Lacey alone. If …
“Mackenzie! What are you doing out here?”
“Luke!” She swallowed a sob. He was alive! “Luke, I need your help.” As she stood, horror stripped the anger from his face.
“Sweetheart, are you all right?” Taking her hands, he turned them up. “All this blood—What happened to you?”
She glanced at the front of her dress and saw it was as bloody as her hands. She stepped away and pointed to the broken form on the ground.
Luke knelt. As she had, he pressed his fingers to Lacey’s neck. “She’s alive.”
“Can we get her back to the shop? Doc Langhorne’s house is in the path of the fire.”
“Fire?” He stared at the street and swore as flames climbed the mercantile’s roof. “Let’s go. I can carry her.”
As he reached to slip his arms under Lacey, Mackenzie halted him. “Let me have your shirt.”
“My shirt?”
“To cover her. Whoever did this was thorough.”
“Perhaps more thorough than you realize, sweetheart,” he mumbled as he unbuttoned the shirt. He peeled it from his sweaty back as if it were a second skin.
Too many times Lacey had flaunted herself before cowpokes who could not aspire to possess the doctor’s daughter. She had paid for that tonight. Mackenzie shuddered. No matter what Lacey had done, she had not deserved to be raped and beaten. Kneeling, Mackenzie placed his shirt over the beaten woman to cover the bruises under her ripped dress.
“She’ll be all right, Mackenzie. Not the same, but all right.” Luke lifted the unconscious Lacey. “Mackenzie, have your gun ready.”
“I don’t have a gun.”
Fury cracked in each bitten-off word. “You came out here without Douglas’s shotgun?”
“I didn’t—”
“Just remind me the next time you want to commit suicide to tell you I don’t want to be a part of it.”
Chastised, for he was right, Mackenzie followed. No one noticed them hurrying to the print shop. The cowpokes were too busy celebrating.
“Stub started this by serving two drinks for the price of one,” Luke said.
“I was afraid of that.” She opened the door.
“Keep that door locked,” he called back as he carried Lacey up the stairs. He placed her on the bed and then hurried off to get Doc Langhorne.
When a crash sounded from the street, Lacey did not react. That frightened Mackenzie even more as she paced. She paused when she saw Lacey’s lips moving.
“Lacey? Lacey? You’re safe now. Luke—”
“Jim—Jim—no!” Her scream pierced Mackenzie’s heart. “Not him. Don’t love him. I don’t! Always been you. Always. No!”
When Lacey’s words trailed off into mumbling, sickness ate at Mackenzie. This had not been a random attack. Someone named Jim had done this to repay Lacey for flirting with another man. With Luke, for his name had triggered
her shriek. But which Jim?
Hearing a door slam, she raced into the other room. “Douglas, you should be up in your room!”
“Ma! You’re all covered with blood!”
“Lower your voice. Lacey Langhorne is in the other room. She’s hurt.”
“Bad?”
“Very bad.” Straightening, she ran a hand across her sweat-beaded forehead. A thunderstorm whipping through the street would send the drunks fleeing and put out the fires, she thought. “Luke’s gone for the doctor.”
“Is she going—is she going to …”
She put her arms around him. “I don’t think she’ll die, but she’s hurt very, very bad.” Hearing noise from the ground floor, she pushed him behind her and grabbed a cast-iron skillet.
She lifted the heavy pan and stared as the doorknob turned with gut-wrenching slowness. The door opened. With a cry, she rushed forward. Her wrist was grabbed.
“Luke!” she breathed out.
“I didn’t think I’d have to fight my way in here, too.” Releasing her, he took the pan and set it by the coffeepot. “You’re smart to protect yourselves. I relocked the doors downstairs, but I don’t think anything will stop them if they decide they want to get in.”
She looked at Doc Langhorne. Cinders were laced through his gray hair. “We put Lacey in the bedroom, Doc. This way.”
He mumbled something as she hurried ahead of him. When she saw Lacey had not moved, she longed for words to ease what he must see, but she knew of none. He crumpled against the door with a choked gasp.
She put her hand on his arm. “Doc Langhorne, can I help?”
He stood straighten. “You run the newspaper, and I’ll tend to the medical needs in this town.”
She backed out of the room and closed the door. Staring at it, she wondered if she should have left him alone.
Arms surrounded her to bring her against a warm body which melted the chill deep in her soul. She leaned against Luke. When another crash resounded from outside, she shivered. In her hair, he whispered, “I should tip you over my knee for going out there like that.”
“I waited, but you didn’t come back.”
“It’s not easy to get around town tonight.” His face grew hard with rage.
Just Her Type Page 13
