In bed she was completely and totally a woman.
Curious and not shy, she met him with the same honesty and intensity that was so much a part of her.
She was the kind of woman who would make some man a great partner, he decided as he watched the light of the rising sun on her face and the tangle of dark red hair around it. And she would be a partner in everything. In bed, in life. This was not the kind of woman a man married and then left behind.
She stirred, wrinkling her nose and rolling her bare shoulder. He had slipped off the stockings and discarded the garter hours ago, so beneath the quilt they shared she was completely, totally bare. He grabbed the quilt and inched it downward, just an bit.
Hannah came suddenly awake, grabbing the quilt and drawing it to her chest, sitting up and staring at him wide-eyed. Great, he thought. Here it comes, the inevitable “what-have-I-done?” lament.
Hair a tempting red tangle falling over bare shoulders, eyes coming quickly awake, Hannah stared at him. Her lips were as lush as a man could ask for, her eyes smoky and direct.
“If Rose swiped out at Reverend Clancy with the knife, how did it pierce his heart?” she asked softly. “Wouldn’t that require a more direct plunging motion?”
“Good morning to you, too,” Jed said, rising up on his elbow.
“I just thought of it,” she said, “as I was coming awake. It’s as if my head is clear for the first time in days, and it all came together. Rose said she swiped the knife at Clancy. If that’s true, then maybe she didn’t really kill him.”
Jed reached out and brushed a strand of hair away from Hannah’s face. “Honey, that doesn’t make sense,” he said gently. “There were just a few minutes between the time Rose left and Baxter found Clancy dead. I doubt someone was standing nearby, just waiting for such an opportunity to arise.”
She leaned in to him, resting her cheek on his hand. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt to speak to the undertaker, just in case.”
“The undertaker,” he repeated.
“Simply to make sure that the wound that killed Reverend Clancy was a swipe, not a stab.”
“Honey, Rose probably cleaned up the story a little bit for you. She didn’t want you to know that she was responsible for Clancy’s death. She might very well have tidied up the details on your account.” He trailed his fingers down her smooth cheek and over her neck. “It’s over. Forget it.”
She scooted closer to him. “I have to be sure,” she whispered, laying her hands on his shoulders and pressing her bare body against his.
With his fingers, he combed the hair away from her face. Hellfire, he couldn’t touch her enough, couldn’t keep his hands off her. “Just let it go,” he said gently. “Rose confessed, Baxter is free, and everything’s fine.”
“But I need to know.” She draped her arm around his waist, the move familiar and intimate. “Something is just not right about this whole business.”
Hannah didn’t want her sister to be responsible for Clancy’s death, no matter what the circumstances might have been. He wondered if she’d ever let it go.
“I can think of better things to do with our time than hunting down that creepy old undertaker,” he said, scooting the quilt down and laying his hand on the pale curve of her hip.
“Oh, you can, can you?” she whispered, lifting her face to his and lightly brushing her lips across his mouth.
“Yes, ma’am,” he breathed, pulling her against him so she could feel his erection pressing into her soft flesh. He wanted her to know that he needed her, that she roused him in ways no woman ever had.
Mouth still against his, she smiled. “You are insatiable, Jed Rourke.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She didn’t shy away from him as he trailed his fingers down her collarbone to her exquisite, rounded breasts.
“You can take me to the undertaker’s, can’t you? Surely you know him, and he’ll most likely be more willing to talk to you than to me. Please?”
He couldn’t help but smile. “You know, most women cajole for flowers, or jewelry”—or a wedding dress. “But Hannah Winters? No, she wants a personal introduction to the undertaker.”
“Flowers belong in the garden, where they’ll last and last, and I have all the jewelry I’ll ever need.” She laid her hand on his hip, her fingers sure and bold.
“I know how to make you forget all about that undertaker,” he whispered, sliding his hand between her warm, soft thighs.
“Do you?” she breathed.
“May be.”
He kissed her deep and touched her. Had he really been afraid, for a moment, that she’d come awake regretting last night? He should have known better. Hannah parted her thighs and reached for him, touching him as intimately as he touched her, closing her eyes and shamelessly reveling in the sensations they shared.
A partner.
She wrapped one leg around his hip and pulled him closer.
“What are you thinking about now?” he whispered in her ear.
“I’m thinking about you, but I haven’t forgotten that undertaker.” There was passion and humor in her voice, a lighthearted teasing.
“Well, we can’t have that.”
He rolled Hannah onto her back and tossed the quilt to the floor, baring her beautiful body for him to peruse. Creamy and smooth and shapely, she was flawless.
He lowered his head to take one nipple into his mouth, deep and gentle. She quivered, tossed back her head, and closed her eyes. He teased her with his hands and his mouth while the sun came up, tasting and stroking, licking and nibbling until he could almost feel her coming apart in his hands.
She touched him boldly, arched against him, licked her lips, and moaned softly.
As he rolled atop her she spread her legs and pulled him against her. His erection touched her, where she was wet and hot and pulsating.
“What are you thinking about now, Hannah?” he whispered, waiting.
“Nothing,” she whispered.
“What about the undertaker?”
“What undertaker?” she breathed, resting her hand at the back of his head and spearing her fingers through his hair. Down the length of her body she held him as he held her, possessive and tender. And as he buried himself inside her the word came to him again.
Partner.
Chapter 17
“You didn’t think I would really forget about the undertaker, did you?” Hannah asked with a smile as she and Jed walked down the boardwalk, side by side.
“Yep,” he said sourly.
She wound her arm through his. “I did forget, for a while,” she said softly.
This time with Jed was temporary; she knew that, but she refused to spoil what they had by constantly dwelling on the fact that it was not a lasting relationship.
“When the undertaker explains what happened and you’re satisfied, then we’re going to let this murder business go, right?” he asked, pulling her against his side without slowing his step.
Hannah took a deep breath. Letting go of anything was not easy for her. Never had been. “Yes,” she said softly, meaning it.
“Then I can spend the rest of the week distracting you,” he said softly.
She smiled. He could distract her all he wanted.
For some reason, she had expected a tall, thin, cadaverous-looking man to be in the position of undertaker, but Mr. Timmons turned out to be a short, round man with a jolly, pale face. Jed had been right, though. There was something decidedly creepy about him. It was the eyes, she decided. They were much too... wide and intensely cheerful.
He was happy to greet them. Apparently he didn’t get many living visitors.
They sat around a small, rectangular table. Once they had declined Mr. Timmons’s offer of coffee, they got right to business. As agreed beforehand, she sat back and let Jed do the talking.
“Tell me about the stab wound that killed Reverend Clancy.”
Timmons’s eyes lit up. “Oh, the blow that killed him was classic. Knife wound di
rectly into the heart. Deep and clean, powerful and to the hilt and”—he looked heavenward as he searched for the right word—“decidedly lethal. Instantly fatal.”
Jed narrowed his eyes. “Instantly?”
Hannah took a deep breath. That didn’t match Rose’s latest version of the story at all!
Timmons nodded his head. “Oh, yes. Someone”—he glanced at Hannah with obvious suspicion and curiosity, perhaps wondering which of her relatives had delivered the blow—“put quite a lot of force into that attack.”
It made no sense. For Rose to deliver such a blow, she would’ve had to draw back and put all her strength into the strike. She would surely have known, before she went to fetch Baxter, that Clancy was dead.
Did she really know her sister and what the woman was capable of?
Hannah leaned forward, hopeful, searching for an answer, still. “Were there wounds other than the fatal stabbing?”
Timmons laid his peculiar, lively eyes on her. Yes, he was definitely a strange man. “Well, there was one other injury to the upper torso, but it was not much more than a deep scratch. It was the blow to the heart that killed him.”
Hannah looked at Jed in triumph. Now, he would admit she was right!
He didn’t appear to be at all relieved, or even curious. “This doesn’t mean...” he began.
“Yes, it does,” she interrupted. “Someone else came in after Rose left.”
He took her arm and assisted her from her chair as he nodded good-bye to Timmons, who again offered them coffee and volunteered to tell the fascinating tale of the last man who’d been shot in Rock Creek. Jed closed the door on the undertaker’s offers.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said as they headed back toward the hotel. “Just put it out of your mind. Either Rose lied about what happened, leaving out the second blow, or Baxter finished the job for her. Either way, it doesn’t matter. It’s over and done.”
“There is another possibility,” she offered.
He sighed, deeply and with obvious reluctance.
“What if Sylvia found her husband wounded and decided to finish him off herself?”
Jed shook his head. “She wouldn’t...”
“Just because she’s an old friend,” Hannah interrupted, “doesn’t mean she’s incapable of murder.”
“I was going to say...”
“I can’t dismiss my suspicions because Baxter is no longer in danger,” she snapped. “And I have no desire to listen to you defend that... that woman.” Oh, she was jealous! She knew Jed and Sylvia had once been much more than friends. Was that why he defended her now?
Jed stopped and hauled her around to face him, placing her back against the wall of the barbershop and leaning into and over her. “Give me one good reason why she would kill her husband. She’s a widow now, and she has nothing. Sylvia always wanted to be taken care of. She didn’t ever want to be on her own. The idea that she would do away with the man who kept a roof over her head and food on her table just doesn’t fit with the woman I know.”
She stared up into his handsome face, at his startling blue eyes and smooth cheeks. He’d shaved for her, she knew, because this morning as they’d dressed he’d commented on the lack of red beard-burn marks on her face, this time.
“Remember the morning I thought I heard you in her bedroom?” she asked softly.
“Yes.”
“What if Clancy, reprobate that he was, found out that Sylvia had a paramour of her own? Men like that don’t accept infidelity in their wives just because they practice it themselves.”
“Are you sure someone was there?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
“I heard something in her bedroom hit the floor and break,” she explained.
“She used to have this little dog. Maybe he’s still around and that’s what you heard.”
“Unless this little dog can mutter goddamn it in a rather deep voice, that solution doesn’t work.”
He narrowed his eyes, obviously not liking what he heard. “She wouldn’t kill him,” he said lowly.
“Not even if he threatened to kick her out? Would your Sylvia enjoy being booted into the street with nothing to her name?” It annoyed her that Jed insisted on defending the woman!
“You’re suggesting that she stood over her wounded husband and... and coldly plunged the knife into his heart.”
“Well, you’re suggesting that my sister did the same thing,” she snapped. “Why can’t you even consider the possibility that Sylvia did it?”
“Rose had cause.”
“So did Sylvia.”
Jed glared at her. “Clancy was a no-good lying womanizer who got exactly what he deserved. I don’t care who killed him.”
“I don’t believe that,” Hannah whispered. “You’re too honest to accept the possibility that someone is going to get away with murder.”
He glanced down the street, toward the general store. “Hannah, someone already did.”
She wanted to lash out at Jed, to blame him for everything that had gone wrong. But she couldn’t. Falling in love with him had ruined everything.
“Not Rose,” she said softly. “Not Baxter.”
He looked down, sighed deeply, and reached out to tuck a strand of loose hair behind her ear. “If I can prove to you that Sylvia didn’t kill her husband, will you let it go?”
“I’ll try,” she whispered. “But I can’t make any promises.”
He took her arm and resumed walking toward the hotel. “You’re a lot more agreeable when you’re naked,” he said softly.
“Is that a fact?” she asked, glancing around to make sure no one was close enough to hear. Fortunately they had this portion of the boardwalk to themselves.
“Yep.”
“Oddly enough, you’re a lot more persuasive when you’re naked,” she countered, her voice low.
“Care to prove it?”
“Now?”
“Why not?”
She glanced up at his handsome profile, at the dimple in his cheek. “For one thing, I’m starving. We rushed out without breakfast and I feel absolutely weak from lack of food.”
“I’m ravenous, myself,” he said with a small, reluctant smile.
“Persuasion is hungry work, I imagine,” she said almost sweetly.
“That it is, Hannah. That it is.”
* * *
Hannah could not understand why Jed insisted on speaking to Sylvia alone. She nervously paced the hotel lobby waiting for him to return. He said Sylvia wouldn’t open up if anyone else were present, not the way she would with him alone. Ha! Of that Hannah had no doubt.
She had cautioned him against openly confronting Sylvia with the suspicions, but Jed wasn’t one to play games. He had probably arrived at the rectory and was right now telling the widow how Hannah just couldn’t let go of the idea that someone else had killed Clancy. He would probably even tell Sylvia that she was Hannah’s prime suspect. They’d have a good laugh, and the widow would drape herself all over Jed and try to convince him that she was innocent.
Hannah had no illusions about herself. Stand her up against Sylvia Clancy and she didn’t have a chance. Not even with Jed.
She wondered how many red garters Sylvia Clancy owned.
Hannah stormed toward the hotel entrance. She couldn’t stand by and allow this to happen! Once she was gone, she’d have no claim to Jed Rourke, but after last night she did have a right to make sure he wasn’t being taken in by that brazen hussy.
She was almost to the doorway when a dark shadow filled it. Recognizing Daniel Cash, she stopped in her tracks, then backed up a single step. She held her breath as she waited for him to enter, leaving the entryway free. Once Cash had cleared the doorway she’d escape and rush over to the rectory. She’d come up with some excuse for her intrusion on the way.
But Cash didn’t enter. He stopped and leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb, blocking her avenue of escape.
“Well, well,” he drawled. “Good morning, Miss Winter
s.”
“Mr. Cash,” she said, nodding her head once.
He had removed the road dust and was dressed in yet another very nice black suit and a white shirt with a ruffle down the front. His black hair had been washed and combed and positively gleamed. And he still looked dangerous.
It was the eyes, she decided. Jed could yell and stomp and rage, but his eyes were always dancing. Sometimes with anger, sometimes with passion, but always vital and expressive. Daniel Cash’s eyes were dead. Black and cold and lifeless.
And he showed no sign of removing himself from her path. He raked his eyes over her, up and down, taking in her plain skirt and prim blouse. Those dead eyes landed and dwelled audaciously on her face. He was probably wondering why he’d ever been so foolish as to ask her across the street for a drink.
“Where’s Jed?”
“Running an errand,” she said primly. “I expect him back at any moment.” If he knew Jed was on his way, surely he’d remove himself immediately.
Instead, he grinned. “I just saw him heading into Sylvia’s house. Unless the circumstances have changed, I doubt he’ll be back at any moment. Did things not go well last night, Miss Winters?” he asked insolently.
Daniel Cash was armed, a gunslinger, a dangerous man. But she was not going to stand here and be insulted.
“What a vile excuse for a human being you are,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly. “I can’t believe a man as fine as Jed Rourke would tolerate someone as wretched as you, much less call you a friend.”
Her insults didn’t seem to vex him at all. “Sweetheart, everyone tolerates me. It’s risky not to.”
“Do you think that because you know how to use those six-shooters,” she said, pointing at the matching pair he wore, “that it gives you free rein to be a boor and a menace?”
“A boor?” he asked, obviously amused.
“And a menace.” She looked him up and down as audaciously as he had when he’d done the same to her. “I feel sorry for you,” she said softly, meaning it. “One day you’re going to end up dead on a street somewhere, and no one will mourn your passing.”
His smile faded.
Jed (The Rock Creek Six Book 4) Page 19
