Sweetwater Seduction

by Johnston, Joan

  But if the man from Texas wasn't dead, where was he? Levander looked across the rolling prairie. It was the chilling cold, not fear, he reasoned, that had caused the shudder rolling through his body.

  During the past week, the sheriff had been in and out of town, and therefore hard to catch, but Levander had checked with Doc Harper, and with all the nesters he thought might have offered aid to the gunslinger, to no avail. He had gone to the Dog's Hind Leg to see if any of the cowboys drinking there might know where the Texan was. All he had heard was that no one knew where Kerrigan was, or whether he was dead or alive.

  The weather had been threatening for a week now, and Levander had to move those cattle out of Sweetwater Canyon before the snow boxed them in. And before somebody else accidentally stumbled onto them.

  He was lucky Pete Eustes had come straight to him with the news of what he'd found in Sweetwater Canyon, as they'd agreed at the meeting. Levander was proud of how he'd taken care of Pete and left it looking like the ranchers were to blame. He might not be so lucky next time. He needed to move those cattle.

  He scratched an itch under his arm. What if Kerrigan was out there somewhere, waiting for him to make his move? He didn't like it.

  He stiffened at the sound of a man's voice carrying on the wind. He drew his Winchester from its sheath and sighted along the skyline, searching for a target. His finger was tense on the trigger, and he felt beads of sweat form on his forehead despite the cold. Kerrigan wasn't going to catch him flatfooted. That lucky son of a bitch wasn't going to catch him at all.

  When a phaeton-type buggy, with a fancy black leather top like the ones they rented at the livery in town, appeared on the horizon, he relaxed slightly. Kerrigan was a loner; there were two figures in the buggy. He kept his gun steadied on the one on the left. His brow furrowed when he realized who it was he had in his sights. Hadley Westbrook. That nester girl, Bliss Davis, was in the buggy with him. Levander let his Winchester rest across his thighs, his thoughts churning. What were the two of them doing together so far from town? He decided to follow them and find out.

  Miss Devlin was ready to spit nails. Now that Kerrigan's back was nearly healed, there was no keeping him in bed. She had given him back his Levi's, but he had to settle for draping one of her shawls over his shoulders, because she had destroyed his shirt. He sat at her kitchen table looking like someone's great-grandma. She was sure he was delaying his recovery by refusing to remain in bed, but there was nothing she could do to keep him there other than to sit on him.

  She practically threw the plate of ham and eggs down in front of him. “You're being bullheaded. Why won't you go back to bed?”

  “A bed is best used for three things: sleeping, dying, and loving. I'm not tired and I have no intention of dying. As for the other . . .” His roguish smile created the twin creases on either side of his mouth that she found so attractive. “I'm ready for bed whenever you say the word.”

  “That would kill you for sure,” Miss Devlin muttered under her breath.

  “Yeah, but what a way to go.”

  Miss Devlin threw up her hands. “A gentleman would have pretended he hadn't heard what I said.”

  When Kerrigan chuckled, her mouth snapped shut like a mousetrap. He had made it clear he was no gentleman. She would do well to remember it.

  Miss Devlin poured them each another cup of coffee and joined him at the kitchen table. “What happens now?”

  “I'm going to need some things from my hotel room—long johns, a couple of shirts, pants, a coat, and a gun. Can you get them without being seen?”

  “I have some clothes in the attic that might fit you.”

  “A spinster who keeps a man's clothes in her attic? That's intriguing.”

  Eden's mouth took on the prunish look he hadn't seen for a while. “They belonged to my father.”

  “I'll still need a gun—”

  “There's also a gun you might be able to use.”

  “I need a real gun, Miss Devlin.”

  “This is a specially made Navy Colt. Ivory handle. Tooled-leather holster. You should find it to your liking,” she said acidly. “It's killed a dozen men at least.”

  Her gray eyes had turned icy blue again, and her complexion was flushed nearly the same shade as her freckles. Felton would be getting a lot more woman than he realized. Kerrigan was starting to regret that deal he'd made with the Association to seduce Miss Devlin. Because if he followed through . . .

  On the other hand, the choice was, and always would be, hers—despite what she said about fate. He wasn't going to force her into bed. And he wouldn't leave her with any illusions that it would be forever. When he had her, it would be because she wanted it to happen. And he would make it good for her. If she had regrets later, it wouldn't be about that part of it, not if he could help it, anyway.

  He glanced over at Eden. From the frown of concentration on her face, he surmised there must be some bad memories connected to her father's gun. Maybe he had used it during the war. Maybe he had even died using it. Kerrigan wanted to know more, but he wasn't in fit form to match barbs with Miss Devlin, so he simply said, “If it's all right with you, I'll have a look at your father's gun after breakfast.”

  “Fine.”

  Miss Devlin refused Kerrigan's help getting her father's things down from the attic. “You'll only be in the way. And admit it, you can hardly keep your eyes open.”

  His lips twisted in chagrin. “As a matter of fact, I could use a little help getting back to the bedroom.”

  Miss Devlin eyed him suspiciously but had to admit he looked a little pale. Once she was aligned with the gunslinger from hip to breast, she was much too aware of him as a man. She could feel his breath in her hair, and the warmth and weight of his hand curled around her shoulder for support. Only a layer of cloth separated her from his naked torso, and under her hand she felt the surprising softness of the hair on his chest. Her blood quickened, and it became difficult to breathe. She kept her eyes down so he wouldn't see how much his closeness disturbed her.

  “After all these years of being unmarried,” Kerrigan said as they made their way to the bedroom, “why did you agree to let Felton Reeves start coming to call? What is it he's able to offer you that's so attractive?”

  “Security. Stability. And he'll make a good father for my children.”

  “I didn't hear the word love in there anywhere,” Kerrigan said.

  Eden stepped away and left Kerrigan standing on his own. “I like Felton very much. And he likes “Liking each other doesn't sound to me like a very strong basis for a marriage,” Kerrigan said with a snort.

  “That remains to be seen. Besides, it's not your marriage, so it doesn't matter what you think.”

  Eden had gotten progressively more angry. Kerrigan distracted her from further argument by saying, “I could use a shoulder to lean on.”

  She stepped back to him, but he could feel the difference when he put his arm around her shoulder. Before, she had been hugged up snug against him. Now, she was stiff as a fence post and there was no give in her. All because he'd pointed out that she only liked Felton, she didn't love him.

  Miss Devlin made sure Kerrigan was settled before she left the room. “Get some rest. If you're bent on killing yourself, I want you well and out of here before you succeed.”

  She turned and left him alone, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  Miss Devlin used a stepladder to reach the attic. The air was frigid up there, and her fingers were cold and stiff long before she had maneuvered down the unwieldy boxes containing what she wanted. She was perspiring by the time she set the two brown-paper-wrapped boxes on the kitchen table.

  Lillian had packed away all of Sundance's things with a reverence that, at the time, had baffled E
den. She had warned her mother that someday her father would be killed. She had warned her father that someday some man would come along who was faster with a gun. Neither of them had listened to her. After all, she was only a child.

  And so she had watched, and waited for the other shoe to fall. Sure enough, when she was eleven, the day had finally come when she could say, “I told you so.” But it had been a hollow victory.

  She had refused to grieve for Sundance. But she had wept bitter tears at her mother's graveside a mere four months later, blaming her father for one more death besides his own. She had spent the next eight years at St. John's Orphanage. When she left the orphanage at nineteen to make her way in the world, Lillian's boxes had come with her. They had been stored away in attics and cellars over the years as though they were a rich dowry for her future, when really they were only a painful reminder of a painful past.

  Miss Devlin cut the string on the first box with a great deal of trepidation, feeling a little like she was opening Pandora's box. Inside she found only her father's clothes, carefully folded, with tissue placed between each article. She lifted a black wool shirt and held it against her face. It was redolent with the bay rum cologne Sundance had used. In all, she found three plain wool shirts in dark colors, two pairs of denim pants, a calfskin vest with a Texas five-point star stitched on the pocket, and a fringed buckskin coat.

  With Sundance's clothes arrayed before her on the table, Eden clipped the string on the other box. It contained her father's more personal items, including a lithograph of her mother, a gold pocket watch, a brass telescope, a two-bladed jackknif a metal shaving mug, a hand-forged Swedish steel razor and a leather strop, his ivory-handled Navy Colt and leather holster, and several boxes of bullets. She lifted the gun out of the box and sat down with it in her lap. She unwrapped the soft flannel cloth in which the Colt had been stored and stared at the instrument of death and destruction.

  That was how Kerrigan found her several hours later. He had called out to her from the bedroom, but she hadn't answered. He had come hunting her, and been startled to find her sitting and staring vacantly out the kitchen window with the heavy gun in her lap. He could see the streaks where tears had traveled her cheeks.

  “I'll take that.”

  At first she held on, but he pried her fingers loose and set the gun down on the table. Her hands were ice cold, and he pulled her up into his embrace in an attempt to warm her. He was bare above the waist, and the feel of her softness against him was both a torture and a pleasure beyond telling. He reached out with one hand to sort through several of the items on the table.

  “From the looks of these clothes, your father was a big man. Is that where you got your size?”

  She didn't answer, so he smoothed his hands up and down her back in an attempt to comfort her, and kept talking.

  “I never took after my pa much. He was shorter than me, and thicker through the chest. But he was a looker. I could see why my ma married him, even though he was a vinegary old soul, and that's no lie. Sometimes I wondered if I was going to survive that woodshed out back of the ranch house.

  “The whole time I was growing up I never understood how a man so good-looking on the outside could be so mean on the inside. Later, after he had passed away, my Grandma Haley, who was like a mother to me, told me some things that helped me understand him. Like how my ma ran off with a harness salesman four days after I was born.

  “I understand how you could blame a parent for ruining a kid's life. But the truth is, parents sometimes make the wrong choices too. Take your pa, for instance. From the looks of that gun, I'd say he was a man who knew which end to point. But knowing how you deplore violence, I can't help but think he was a peaceful soul. Why—”

  “You'd be wrong.”

  He tightened his arms around her, wanting to take away the pain he heard in her voice. “How so?”

  “Did you ever hear stories down in Texas about a man called Sundance?”

  “Sundance was practically a legend—supposedly so fast he could draw in the blink of an eye. Heard stories how there was a wanted poster on him in every sheriff's office in the South. Mighty dangerous man. Finally met his match in . . . think it was Kansas somewhere.”

  “Wichita. Sundance was my father.”

  She was struggling to get free now, but he knew she needed holding. “Easy now. Settle down. Let me hold you.”

  Suddenly she stopped fighting him, and looked at him with bleak eyes. “You're just like him.”

  He started to protest, but she stopped him with, “Oh, maybe you do your killing on the right side of the law, but you'll die with a gun in your hand, just like he did.”

  He felt something tighten inside him, a knot of hurt he couldn't explain. “Everybody has to die sometime.”

  “How can you stand it?” she cried. “Knowing there's always someone out there anxious to prove himself by putting a bullet in you. Life is too short—”

  “So I live every day like it's my last. Which is more than you can say,” he accused.

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  He gripped her by the arms and held her away from him, meeting her angry gaze with fierce black eyes. “You're afraid to live life at all.”

  “That's not true! I'm going to marry Felton—”

  “A man you like. Because it's easier to pretend you don't have a choice in the matter than to face the truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “You want me,” he said in a harsh voice.

  “That's ridiculous!”

  “You have since the first time you laid your hungry spinster's eyes on me. I didn't understand it at first, why no man has gotten near you. It's because you've kept them away with all those words of yours. Even the one you've decided to marry, a man you like, you've kept at arm's length.”

  “I kissed Felton—”

  “There's no passion between you and Felton. No love.”

  “Love doesn't guarantee happiness.”

  “Ah, yes, here comes one of those life lessons you learned from your parents.”

  “Don't you dare talk condescendingly to me,” she raged.

  “You're so afraid of getting hurt that you're cheating yourself out of one of the really good things in life—the love between a man and a woman.”

  She lifted her chin and said, “I don't love you.”

  “Maybe n. But you sure as hell want me.”

  “That's a lie!”

  “Let's just see who's lying!”

  His mouth covered hers, but she had her teeth clenched against any invasion. He grabbed her cheeks with one hand and forced her mouth open, and then his tongue was inside, tasting her and she was sweet—so sweet. His fingers curled around her nape and he drew her close while his mouth ravaged hers, compelling a response from her.

  He could feel her fighting her need, feel her quivering with suppressed desire. He mimicked the thrust and parry of lovers well and truly coupled—only to get his tongue bitten. He jerked away and glared at her. They were both breathing hard, both angry, both aroused, and both determined not to give up or give in.

  “Witch!”

  “Bastard!”

  “Siren!”

  “Devil!”

  His hands tangled in her hair and he brought her face up close so she couldn't look away. “You want me. Admit it.”

  “What I want doesn't matter. I will never give you that kind of power—” She bit her lip to cut off the confession that she was vulnerable to him.

  He could see she was tempted. He slowly lowered his mouth to cover hers. She groaned as his teeth nibbled delicately on her lower lip. Between kisses he murmured, “It's good between us, Eden. Let yourself go. It's all right.”

  She jerked out of his grasp. “It's not all right.
It's all wrong. My mother fell in love with one of your kind. It killed her. My life isn't going to be a mirror of hers. I'm not going to make the same mistakes she did. So you can take your smooth words, and your fast gun—my father's gun—and get out!”

  She was magnificent. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never want another woman as much as he wanted her right now. He could also see she was stubborn enough to fight him. He didn't want to see her broken, only gentled. There would be another time.

  He let her go and grabbed a handful of Sundance's clothes, his shaving gear, and the holstered Navy Colt. “As soon as I'm dressed I'm going to make a little foray to check some things out. I'll be back before dark.”