“Huh, the noise usually stops in about twenty minutes.” Beth acknowledged, her eyes not meeting his.
“I bet,” he said, his voice clipped. The couple’s moans of pleasure were getting louder, and the sound of squeaky bedsprings grated on his tightly strung nerves. He wanted Beth so bad, and now the image of a faceless couple filled his mind as his imagination filled in the pictures to go with the sounds.
“I’ve heard it on and off all day,” she said, playing with the covers that were tucked beneath her breasts.
A moan, along with the rhythmic bump of a headboard thumping against the wall, all but drowned out the sudden pounding of his heart.
“All day, huh.” No wonder Beth seemed a little tense tonight. He’d have gone crazy having to listen to another couple doing what he kept dreaming of doing with Beth.
“Where have you been?”
“I felt the need for a day of drinking,” he said, staring at her, almost daring her to say something to him.
His head echoed with the crude sounds coming from next door, the hammering pulse of his heart, and the cadenced swish of his own blood as it rushed through his veins. Her skin looked so smooth, and he knew it would be velvety soft.
She glanced at him, her eyes raking him with a harsh glance. “You’re not drunk, are you?”
The comer of his lip turned up in a smile. “I tried, but I was unsuccessful.”
Beth looked at him warily as the moans from next door grew louder. The sound of someone else in the throes of passion made him want to lose whatever control he had and finish what he had started that morning. He wanted to push Beth back onto the bed and lose himself within her.
“So, if you didn’t drink all day, what did you do in the saloon?” she questioned.
“I didn’t say I didn’t drink,” he said, raising his voice even louder, trying to cover up the sounds of the lovers as their tempo seemed to increase, banging the bed against the wall. “I just said I wasn’t drunk.”
She glanced up at him, her eyes sparkling, and she licked her full lips, her breathing shallow and fast.
He threw his hat, and it sailed across the room, landing on the table and knocking the picture of her parents down.
Tanner walked across the room to straighten the pictures, but before he could pick them up, she had jumped up out of bed and fairly flown to the table. In a huff, she grabbed her precious pictures and pulled them in close to her chest.
“If you’re not drunk, would you please be careful around my things? I don’t disturb your guns.”
He glanced at her in surprise. Maybe Beth was more than edgy; perhaps the sounds of the couple next door had gotten to her also. Tanner crossed the room to the table beside the bed and began to unbuckle his gun belt. “Good! Keep it that way. I don’t like people bothering my weapons.”
Her nightgown flowed behind her as she marched across the room and touched the cold metal of his gun. The hazel orbs of her eyes flashed with challenge; her auburn hair glistened with defiance.
Tanner grabbed her by the arms, the rhythmic banging of the bed next door gonging like a warning. The currents flowed thick like smoke between them, and he knew that if he sank his lips down onto the fullness of her mouth, as he so desperately wanted to, he would never cease. He would never stop until they reached a fully sated state, and that wouldn’t be until the debutante was lying beneath him, wrung out from desire.
“A man’s guns are his personal property. They’re like his woman. You don’t touch her, you don’t look at her, unless you want trouble. He pulled her closer. “Do you want trouble, lady?”
“I think trouble found me the day I got on that stagecoach to Fort Worth,” she whispered, her hazel-green eyes exhibiting rebelliousness as her gaze never left his.
He pulled her still closer until her breasts were smashed against his chest, his arms around her. “For once you’re right.”
The moans crescendoed, the pounding of the headboard suddenly ceased, and then there was silence. Sweet, blessed silence that left his breathing harsh and loud to his own ears in the suddenly deafening quiet.
Sweet, merciful God, he wanted her.
She was gazing at him, a proud lift to her chin, her eyes bright with fierceness, and suddenly he knew that sweet, innocent Beth could become a tiger when pushed too far. And he was close, real close, to sending her over the edge.
“Release me this instant,” she said, her voice taut with anger.
“Why? What are you afraid of, Beth?”
“Nothing. You’re hurting my arm.”
He eased his grip. For a moment he considered holding on to her, but he knew if he didn’t release her soon, he wouldn’t free her all night.
Tanner let go of her, rocking her back on her heels.
He had to get out of there. The silence was even more deafening than the noise of a few moments ago. He took two steps, reached for his hat, and shoved it onto his head.
“Where are you going? You just got back after being gone all day.”
“None of your business, lady.”
In two large strides he grabbed his guns and was out of the cramped room and into the hall. Just as he pulled the door shut, he heard her yell.
“Damn you, Tanner.”
He smiled. Good. Her anger was better, safer, than her warm awareness and unconscious invitation. He had no business getting involved with a woman, any woman. And she damn sure didn’t need to get involved with a man like him.
Chapter Seven
Tanner spent the night in the White Elephant Saloon until closing time sent him to the livery stable and he bedded down in the hay. He couldn’t face her, not yet. He’d walked in last night with a chip on his shoulder, just daring her to knock it off. It hadn’t been Beth who had jarred that chip off his shoulder but the voracious noises coming from next door and his already heightened awareness of Beth as a woman. The copulating couple had almost undone him.
Instead of taking charge and convincing the innocent debutante they weren’t meant for each other, his hard erection had sent him fleeing from the room. Anything to escape the raucous noises that had been both titillating and disturbing. Anything to escape the visions of him and Beth entwined together, their bodies slick with passion, that the sounds seemed to conjure up in his mind.
In his attempt to ignore the noise from the room next door, his behavior had been detestable. He had acted like a complete ass, and now he owed her an apology.
Yet he couldn’t help but think that she was getting to him. Every inch of delectable skin that showed, each smile or touch, any little nuance he recognized as Beth, were mounting up. And, like a geyser, he was bound to erupt soon if he didn’t do something to relieve the pressure.
Though he’d tried to postpone the inevitable, it was past time that he found someplace to leave her so that he could continue on with his business. Not that he wanted to. In fact, he dreaded going back and facing Sam. He wouldn’t go at all, but he had no choice. And he’d put it off longer than he should, because the thought of parting from Beth was not a pleasant consideration.
At dawn, Tanner saddled his chestnut horse and rode to the doctor’s house at the edge of town. He had to see if the man would take Beth in until she was completely well. Somehow Tanner knew she would be safer with the sawbones than with him.
When he arrived, the sun was barely over the horizon, yet the doctor met him at the door at his first knock.
“Good morning, young man,” he said, opening the full door to Tanner in the bright morning sunshine. “What brings you to see me? Your wife feeling okay?”
Wife. That one word brought up so many images that Tanner thought better left alone. Beth would make the man she married an excellent helpmate. Tanner could see her several years from now, a couple of children tugging on her skirts. He felt jealous of the man who would be by her side, fulfilling the duties of her husband, envious of the life she would be living, while he would be forever wandering, forever alone.
“My wife,
” he said, stumbling over the words, “is fine. But I must go out of town, and I wondered if she could stay with you at the hospital until she was healed.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea, not with the threat of cholera still possible. After everything she’s been through, I don’t think it would be good for her to be here, where she might catch something so deadly.”
He shook his head and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Just to be cautious, I’d rather she wait another week before she travels. But there are several boardinghouses in town you might look into.”
“Thanks!” Tanner said as he turned and walked down the steps to his waiting horse.
“Say, young fellow, how long the two of you been married?” the doctor asked.
Tanner turned around and waved at the doctor. “Long enough,” he replied, and put a foot up into the stirrup, anxious to get away before the doctor began asking more questions.
Riding back into town, Tanner couldn’t help but wonder how it was going to feel to say good-bye to Beth. He should get back to his life, yet suddenly she had become an integral part of it, and he didn’t like the thought of being alone again. Still, there was no way she could stay with him permanently. In fact, it was past time he got rid of her, before he did something stupid—something a hell of a lot more than just kiss her. And every day it was harder to resist her.
Though Beth was a complication he could not afford, he was not willing to abandon her, and he couldn’t put her on the stage until she had healed. There was no way he was going to have another person’s death on his hands, especially Beth’s.
When he reached town, he found the rooming house the doctor had suggested. An older woman wearing a spotted apron and smelling of onions answered the door and let him inside. As soon as he walked into the room, the filth of the place almost made him gag. Smells he did not want to identify made him want to retch. Chamber pots that needed emptying, rotting food, and something that smelled like wet animal fur filled his nostrils, and he took a step back.
The woman sighed and brushed back a stray hair that stuck to her cheek.
“The price is twelve dollars a month; plus cleaning and meals are extra,” she informed him. “I’ve got two extra rooms right now.”
She was charging for cleaning? He nodded his head and quickly backed out the door.
“I’ll let you know,” he said stepping into the clean outside air, resisting the urge to gasp.
As she shut the door behind him, he breathed deeply, ridding himself of the putrid air that had occupied the house.
Mounting his horse, he rode to the next rooming house, two blocks away
The female proprietor who answered his knock seemed pleasant enough, but he sensed something wasn’t right. He knew immediately that the place was clean, but the atmosphere seemed too relaxed almost too friendly.
“I charge the ladies who stay here by the night or by the week; it doesn’t matter much to me,” the young woman said, smiling at him coyly.
“How much?” Tanner asked, thinking maybe this would work out and he would pay Beth’s first two weeks’ rent.
“Fourteen dollars a month,” she said.
The door to the room next to where Beth would be sleeping suddenly opened and a woman stepped out in a robe that clung to her curves, that was open low to expose her cleavage and split up the front to show off her calves. She stepped out into the hall, followed by a man.
“Same time next week?” the woman asked the man, her hand brushing a piece of lint from his shirt.
He smiled. “Yep. See you, Mary Lou.”
“You bet, honey,” she said, and patted him on the butt. The calico queen glanced at Tanner, winked, and went back into her room.
“The women are free to host gentlemen in their rooms,” the young proprietor told him.
“I don’t think this is what I’m looking for,” Tanner said and started walking toward the door.
“Well, if we can be of any other service, let us know,” the woman said smiling at him as he walked out the door.
After he left, he visited three more rooming houses and found fault with each of them.
Slowly riding back to the hotel, he wondered what he was going to do. So far every place he’d looked at had either been unclean, a whorehouse, in an unsafe neighborhood or just didn’t feel right. He’d found no place he was willing to trust, where he felt safe in leaving Beth behind, none where she would get the care that he had given her.
He didn’t want to be rid of Beth. No place would satisfy him because he didn’t want to leave her behind. The only solution was to keep her until he could put her on a stage to Fort Worth, which shouldn’t be much longer. A week at the most, the doctor had said. Meanwhile, he would need to stay away from their hotel room as much as possible, and keep his overactive thoughts and his eager hands to himself.
The sun was starting to slink toward the western horizon, and Tanner realized he hadn’t been back to the room in almost twenty-four hours. The urge to go back and see her, to make sure she was all right, was powerful enough that he couldn’t resist. He hurried back to the hotel room, anxious to see her. The decision he made that day to wait another week could possibly cost him everything he’d been working toward, but he really didn’t care. Somehow it didn’t seem all that important, and he couldn’t leave her behind. His future looked bleak, so why be in a hurry to rush to his destiny.
They had the next week, after which he would put her on a stage for Fort Worth. Then she would be out of his life forever. How much could one more week of waiting hurt?
***
Beth spent the morning pacing. When she awoke to an empty room and realized Tanner had not come in the night before, she’d begun to pace the floor, worried that something had happened, that he’d never come back.
Questions revolved over and over in her mind until she thought she would go crazy with worry. And why was she so upset that he had walked out on her last night after the way he had treated her? Certainly he’d acted less than a gentleman.
The memory of the sounds of the couple next door coming through the thin walls still made her blush. Yes, she knew everything that went on between a man and a woman. The general had seen to that. He’d delighted in training a young girl in the ways a woman pleasured a man. But to overhear the intimate sounds while trying not to think sexual thoughts about the man right before her eyes had been awkward to say the least.
The moans of pleasure had been disturbing, and when she’d gazed at Tanner, all she could think about was the way he looked without his shirt, her urge to touch him, to feel his strength beneath her fingers.
Beth pushed the unwelcome thoughts from her mind and continued her pacing. She had to build her strength in order to leave the hotel before the emotions Tanner evoked consumed her. She needed to get on a stage and continue to Fort Worth, to join the man who was waiting for her.
She picked up the picture of herself and her parents taken before her debut ball, before the war had changed their lives forever. The girl in the picture no longer existed. Elizabeth had died with the war, and now the woman who promised herself to an unknown man existed in her place.
The woman in the picture had lost everything. But Beth hoped to regain some of those aspects of her life, like her self-respect, dignity, and sense of self-worth.
Beth glanced over at the dress that lay strewn on the table where Tanner had flung it several days ago, after she had attempted to pull it over her head.
She would put that dress on, go down the street, sell her jewelry, and send that telegram. She would be on another stagecoach as soon as possible. Mr. Tanner was not going to bully her with his cold silences, hot stares, and sultry kisses.
Beth would be on the next stage out of town. She had a man waiting for her, a man who wanted to marry her, and she had no reason to stay in San Antonio. Her future was in Fort Worth with a good man, not someone with a questionable background like Mr. Tanner.
She picked up the dress and ra
ised the skirt high, the material bunched together to slip over her head. The folds gently fell to the floor as she managed to get her pained arm into the dress without as much fuss as several days earlier. The wound throbbed, reminding her of her injury, warning her of the consequences of her actions. Still, the arm was better, though it was in no way completely healed.
A quick glance in the mirror revealed that her hair, twisted up off her neck, looked presentable. She grabbed her reticule and stepped out into the hall.
It felt so odd to be out of the room without Tanner at her side. And she was amazed at how quickly they had become accustomed to one another. The thought of leaving him behind while she moved on to Fort Worth seemed strange, yet she knew they could not be together. He was too dangerous, too unsettled. However, unlike any man before, she was drawn to the gunslinger.
But he had to move on, and she had a stage to catch.
Walking carefully down the stairs, she was surprised to see the number of people bustling about the lobby of the hotel.
Beth walked to the front desk, where a young man was working. “Excuse me, can you tell me where to find the nearest store that buys and sells jewelry?”
The young man dragged out a hand-drawn map and proceeded to give her directions. “Go up the street two blocks and turn right. You should see it on your left.”
“Thank you.”
She stepped out the front door of the hotel and stopped startled by the brightness of the afternoon sky.
She hurried down the sidewalk, intent on getting to her destination. It didn’t take long to walk the two blocks, and when she arrived at her destination, she took a seat outside on a bench and rested for several minutes.
It took less than fifteen minutes to sell most of her jewelry. She’d already disposed of the very best pieces trying to hold on to the land but these were smaller ones: an emerald brooch, a diamond pendant, and a set of pearl earrings her father had presented her mother. She saved only two pieces, her mother’s wedding ring and a necklace her parents had given her.
The Outlaw Takes A Bride (The Burnett Brides) Page 9
