His balance wobbled as he worked them loose, popping one off. It hit a crystal candelabra sitting beside the chaise with a ping. A crack of ridiculousness poked around the edges of her desire, but she closed her eyes and willed it away. He kissed each inch of flesh he exposed, her neck, her collar, the hollow at the base of her throat.
She was panting by the time he reached the swell of her breasts. Even then he had layers of fabric and closures to contend with. He paused for a moment to study the problem, frowning at the buttons and clasps and hooks that held her tight. He circled his hands around her breast, attempting to scoop it out of the confines of her corset, but things were too tight with her restless breathing. Here they were, desperate with a need as old as humanity, and still complications came between them.
With a growl he gave up the fastenings of her bodice and reached for the hem of her skirt. Her legs were sprawled beneath him, his knees still lodged between hers. He spread his hand across the soft silk of her stocking. She sighed and moaned, squirming beneath him. He kissed the sound from her lips, coaxing more from her mouth and lungs. The voice of reason at the back of her mind whispered that she sounded like a tart.
When he tugged at her skirt, his knees kept it from coming higher than the tops of her calves. He had to get up, reposition her legs, and bunch the copious fabric against her thighs before settling himself again. The gesture was so awkward that by the time his hand fumbled against the ruffled edge of her garter, sense was beginning to intrude into her passion.
It wasn’t just her. He kissed her in an attempt to reignite the fire, but even as his fingers closed around the skin of her thigh, he let out a breath of defeat. He let go of her leg and dropped his forehead to the velvet of the chaise.
“This is not the way to do this,” he murmured.
Her breath caught in a series of ragged gasps against his chest.
“No,” she gulped. “It’s not.”
At least they agreed on one thing.
He rolled half to his side so that she could breathe. His hand—which had been so intent on seeking out parts of her that he definitely shouldn’t be touching—moved to smooth back a loose strand of her hair. She was more than well aware of her bodice hanging open, her corset inched low enough to reveal the dark rose of her areolas, but he rested his hand on her fully-clothed stomach instead.
“Well, this is a situation, isn’t it?”
Her stomach rose and fell in shallow bursts beneath his hand. She twisted her head to face away from him.
“You must think I’m ridiculous,” she murmured.
“No, I don’t. Although laying on a purple velvet chaise in a storeroom partially undressed isn’t exactly ordinary,” he amended his statement.
“I should go.” She tried to squirm out of his arms.
He held her down, pulled her more firmly against his chest. “You’re not going anywhere until we work this out.”
She turned to face him, arching an eyebrow. “More orders?”
He kissed her, not ruthless and passionate like he had moments before. This kiss was simple, soft. It was more perfect than the fumbling mess they’d attempted moments ago. It was an apology.
When he leaned back to see what she thought, Lily’s heart beat faster. This would all be so much easier if she didn’t find herself liking him so much.
“How about you let me take you to supper on Saturday night?” he asked.
“I….”
She blinked. It would be so easy to say yes.
“No.”
He hissed in frustration. “You sure do make a man work for his bread.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I couldn’t. We shouldn’t be seen together at all.”
“Why not?”
“My position.”
He grinned and splayed a hand across her thigh, baring her leg to her hip.
“Sweetheart, I have no problem with your position.”
She frowned at his juvenile humor.
“I can’t risk losing my teaching position,” she said.
“You won’t,” he argued. “I promise.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
He kissed her again, and God help her, she let him. He took it slow and tender, his lips meeting hers without demand, without a challenge. They were just two people entwined with each other, kissing. Although her skirt was bunched around her waist and her silk-clad legs were on display for all the world. If he could just tease a hand up to stroke-
The storeroom door flew open.
“Mr. Avery! Miss—” Sarah LaCroix gasped when she saw them. “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t know! I…. Oh dear!”
Lily bristled and struggled to get away. This time Christian let her. Hot, itchy embarrassment had her wanting to writhe out of her skin.
“Sarah,” Christian said as he stood. Both he and Lily brushed their clothes straight, like two young fools caught in the barn.
“Mr. Avery, you have to come quick!” Sarah rushed on regardless of their state. “They’ve caught one of the two Indians who’ve been robbing folks!”
Chapter Ten
“What?” Alarm surged through Christian.
“Dear God!” Lily gasped, the sharp edge of desperation in her voice.
Christian swiped his jacket from the floor. He threw it on as he marched toward Sarah. “What happened?”
Sarah twisted her hands in front of her, cheeks deep red, unable to meet Christian or Lily’s eyes. “It was the pharmacy,” she explained. “The front window was smashed. As folks were leaving the games here, they caught an Indian coming out of the place with a full bag.”
“Two Feathers?” Lily asked. Her face was still hot with embarrassment and she buttoned her blouse as she strode to join them.
Christian winced at the thought. “He wouldn’t.”
Lily took a breath. “He wouldn’t, but he did leave the games early.”
He didn’t like the implication. “Come on.” He marched past Sarah and into the empty ballroom.
In the time that they had spent in the storeroom, the hotel had cleared out. Roy’s staff was hard at work cleaning up, but none of the competitors or their parents were anywhere to be seen. Christian and Lily fetched their winter coats from the cloakroom off of the lobby, then rushed out into the icy night.
Nothing about Cold Springs seemed out of place until they reached the corner of Main Street and Silver Avenue where the new pharmacy sat. The large front window had indeed been smashed. The pharmacist, Mr. Pesavento, was already nailing boards over the damage.
“What happened?” Christian asked him and his assistant.
“I’ve been robbed!” Mr. Pesavento shouted back, still angry. “Bloody Injuns! Curse the lot of them!”
Christian frowned and checked on Lily. She hugged herself in the cold.
“Where’s the suspect?” he asked.
“Sheriff Porter has him at the jail.”
Christian didn’t wait for more. He took Lily’s hand and marched on. If Two Feathers was responsible for this, he had some explaining to do.
Main Street was quiet in spite of the upset. The light was on at the jail and a few men stood outside, peering in. As Christian and Lily approached, their rough voices and muttered curses rang through the dark.
“We should string him up,” one man said. “Teach the others a lesson.”
“They’re all guilty as sin,” another added.
“Samuel Kuhn wants to bring the army in, and I say it’s about time!”
Christian pulled Lily to a stop. A sudden well of fear kept him from letting go of her hand.
“You were right.” She swallowed, eyes fixed on the men. “The people of Cold Springs aren’t ready to have the Flathead among them. They aren’t ready for an Indian teacher.”
Her words struck him like a knife in the heart. “No, sweetheart, you were right. It’s past time someone knocked some sense into their thick heads. But tonight that someone is me, not you. Go home.”
&nbs
p; True to form, she bristled.
“Now is not the time for you to order me around,” she said with less conviction than he was used to.
He shook his head. “Now is the time. I don’t want you anywhere near that lot.”
“I can handle them.”
He faced her, tempted to pull her into his arms. “No, you can’t. Not when they’re like this.”
“But if they have Two Feathers—”
“Then I’ll take care of it. I’ll drive you out to Sturdy Oak’s place tomorrow to make sure everyone’s all right.”
“But if they’re not?”
“Lily!” He let out a breath. “Leave this to me. Please. Go home where you’ll be safe.”
She stared at him through the dark, the light of streetlamps making shadows on her face.
“All right,” she said at length. “I’ll go. But you will take me to Sturdy Oak’s place tomorrow. If Two Feathers is in trouble, if any of them are in trouble, I want to help.”
“I know you do.” He let out a breath, relief shaking through him. “Now go.”
She stayed frozen to her spot, eyes locked with his. Then she nodded, squeezed his hand, and scurried off into the dark.
His heart felt as though she had it on a string and ripped it out as she left. If anything happened to her, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.
He took a breath and marched on to the jail. The cluster of angry men out front let him through with suspicious sneers. One spit as he passed. He ignored them.
“What happened?” he asked as he burst through the door.
His question died on his lips. Kent Porter paced in front of one of the jail’s small cells, wringing his hands. Samuel Kuhn and Eric Quinlan faced off in the middle of the room. The moment Kent saw him, he flew to him.
“Christian! Thank God! I’ve got that lot out there and this one in here and I don’t know what to do!” Kent said.
“What you should do is hang him!” Samuel barked.
“Calm down, Sam.” Eric shushed him, earning a furious glower. “All he was doing was walking by at the wrong time.”
“He’s a filthy thief!”
Christian turned to the cell. The man inside was not Two Feathers. It was an Indian that he had never seen before. The man wore a white man’s suit and seemed well-fed and clean, though his hair was long and a piece was braided. Christian’s flash of relief was short-lived.
“Who are you?” he asked the man in the cell.
“He’s a miserable thieving Indian!” Samuel answered.
“I didn’t ask you!” Christian shouted.
“Am I under arrest?” the man asked.
“Yeah,” Kent answered.
“On what charge?” the man asked.
“Robbing the pharmacy,” Kent answered, shuffling his feet.
“And the station house and my Emporium and my house!” Samuel added. “You’ll hang for this.”
“You are charging me with all those things? Without question and without trial?”
Christian narrowed his eyes. The Indian, whoever he was, was well-spoken. It was obvious he was no thief.
“Let him go, Kent,” he said.
“I…I can’t do that, Mr. Avery.”
“Are you insane?” Samuel barked. “We caught the bastard! We’ll catch his accomplice too.” Samuel marched to the cell. “It was that Flathead boy, wasn’t it? Two Feathers?”
“I refuse to say anything more until I speak with a lawyer,” the man in the cell said.
“You’ll speak if I tell you to speak, boy!”
The man walked away and sat against the wall. He crossed his arms and rested his hands on his knees, closing his eyes and shutting them all out.
“What evidence do you have that this man is guilty of anything?” Christian asked.
“He was there.” Kent shrugged. “They caught him at the pharmacy.”
“What did he steal?”
“All the cash from the till. And some chocolates.”
Christian scowled at the answer.
“You’ve got no evidence,” Eric said. “He was noticed near the pharmacy, but he only has about thirty bucks in cash and a suitcase full of clothes on him,” he explained to Christian. “No chocolate.”
Christian rubbed his chin. Without evidence they had no legal right to hold the man. On the other hand, if the hate in Samuel’s eyes and the venom of the men outside the jail were any indication, the second they let the man go he would be lynched.
“We’ll have to keep him here while we sort this out,” he said, hating every word. “Sorry, friend.”
The man didn’t acknowledge him.
“Indian lover,” Samuel muttered.
“Kent, keep the riff-raff out of the jail until the matter is settled,” he said looking right at Samuel.
“Good idea,” Eric agreed. He swept an arm around Samuel’s shoulders and pushed him toward the door.
“Get your hands off of me!” Samuel spat, swatting Eric away. He continued to the door. “I’ll go, but after this I am calling the army, make no mistake!”
“I doubt they’ll come all the way for this,” Eric told him with a smile, making sure Samuel kept walking right on out the door. He nodded to Christian as they left.
Christian shook his head when the door closed.
“Make sure this man is well taken care of,” he charged Kent. “See if he’ll answer a few questions, tell us who he is.”
“Uh, okay.” Kent scratched his head and eyed the Indian as though he were a tiger.
Christian sighed. He should question the man himself. It would save time. But frustrating as it was, Kent was the sheriff, not him.
“I mean it when I say I don’t want anyone in here who shouldn’t be,” he added. “Do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir.” Kent nodded.
With one final glance at the stoic prisoner, he turned to leave the jail, wondering how he had gone from feeling so good to so miserable so fast.
Lily paced the cramped front hall of the boarding house, heart thumping in her chest. It hadn’t stopped thumping since she’d awaken that morning well before dawn in a cold sweat. It had pounded like rain on a roof all through a painful breakfast with Miss Jones and the rest of her boarding housemates. If she was being honest with herself, it hadn’t stopped hammering since she had been flat on her back, Christian’s weight pressing down on her, his lips in complete command of hers.
She touched her fingers to her lips, the pressure of his kiss still there. What had she been thinking? How could she have let him land her in such a compromising position? She dropped her hand with a frown. How could she be so consumed with the memory of a kiss when people’s lives were in danger?
Her pacing took her to the curtained window beside the door. She bit her lip and drew the frilly fabric aside. The sun was as bright as it could be in a pale blue sky. Word had come to her through breakfast table gossip, of all things, that the Indian who had been caught the night before was a stranger and not Two Feathers or any of Sturdy Oak’s kin. She wasn’t fool enough to believe that meant the Flathead were out of danger though. She’d sent word to Christian reminding him of his promise to take her to Sturdy Oak’s homestead and demanding he show up at ten o’clock sharp.
The clock in the hall read ten-fifteen.
“Where is he?” she whispered to the snowy front yard.
“Miss Singer, are you feeling all right?”
Lily gasped and spun around to find Jessica watching her from halfway down the hall near the kitchen. She held a steaming cup of tea in one hand and a letter in the other.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” Lily rushed to paint a smile on her face. The young woman would laugh at her if she knew.
Jessica hesitated. “It’s just that you seem…agitated.”
“No, no, not at all,” Lily answered far too quickly. “I was just waiting for a friend.”
She winced, disgusted with the flippant smile she tagged on the end of her words.
&
nbsp; After living under the same roof with her for the past six months, Jessica knew her a little too well to accept the excuse. Her housemate chewed her lip for a moment then made a decision. She set her tea and letter on the small table at the base of the stairs and came over to join Lily.
“Is it Mr. Avery or are you upset about that Indian man they caught last night?” she asked.
Hot waves of shame bubbled up through Lily’s forced composure. She glanced down at her hands, clasped in front of her.
“Both,” she confessed. She hesitated. If she had such a thing as a friend, Jessica could be it. “Mr. Avery offered to drive me out to where the Flathead are so I can be sure they’re all right.”
“I’m sure they are.” Jessica smiled. She stole a quick glance up the stairs then craned her neck to see if anyone was sitting in the parlor. “He’s very handsome,” she whispered as though they were two girls in class exchanging secrets. “Very important too.”
Lily was ready to sink into the floor in embarrassment, like one of her students who had been caught daydreaming in front of the class. What must Jessica think of her, losing her head for a man at a time like this?
“He is many things,” she answered. Bullish, impossible, and reckless among them.
Jessica leaned closer, mischief in her eyes. “I know Miss Jones doesn’t approve of any of us having beaux, but—”
Whatever tidbit Jessica was tempted to share was lost as a wagon rattled to a stop in front of the house. Lily flew to the window, peeking out through the curtains.
“It’s him!” she gasped before she could stop herself.
“Oh!” Jessica leapt to fetch Lily’s coat from the rack by the door. “Here! Here!”
Lily pushed away from the window, tripping over her skirts. Jessica held her coat up and Lily twisted to thrust her arms into the sleeves. As she buttoned the coat’s large buttons, Jessica grabbed her mittens and tam o-shanter from the shelf above the coats. Lily frantically fit the mittens on her shaking hands as Jessica arranged the hat over her hair.
They were both panting and wide-eyed by the time Christian’s footsteps sounded on the porch. He knocked on the door.
In Your Arms (Montana Romance) Page 12
