Finally, he slept.
He didn’t know how much time had passed when he was awakened from a dream in which she’d just closed her mouth over his cock, and he instantly grabbed the LeMat from the holster he’d hung from the right front bedpost and clicked the hammer back as he aimed at the door.
He stared through the darkness, relieved only by the ambient light filtering through the window curtain. He could see the vague shape of the door, but he wasn’t certain that what he’d heard had come from there. He didn’t even know what it was exactly that he’d heard, just that the sound was loud and near enough to push through the French lesson Agent York was giving him, to strum his razor-edged instincts, and to awaken him.
It might have come from the street outside the hotel.
He held still, aiming the gun at the door and pricking his ears, hearing nothing more than a breeze very faintly rustling the curtains and a dog barking somewhere on the other side of the little town. Nothing more.
Then there rose a faint squawk as though from a floorboard being stepped on out in the hall, just beyond his door.
Haskell’s heartbeat quickened. He tightened his finger on the LeMat’s trigger.
The door was straight across the room from the bed, so if anyone blasted through the panel, he’d be in the direct line of fire.
Suddenly, he was out of bed and crossing the small room on the balls of his feet. He pressed his left shoulder against the wall beside the door, his thumb caressing the small steel lever that would engage the shotgun shell beneath the LeMat’s main barrel. The sixteen-gauge round came in handy when Bear found himself in need of returning fire at a nebulous target through walls or doors.
Standing there in his bare feet and summer-weight longhandles, he breathed through his nose so he could hear what was going on outside in the hall. Was someone aiming a shotgun at his door, preparing to assassinate him? It had been tried before. A man in his line of work made plenty of enemies. Maybe Magnus and his pards had busted out of the jail across the street and were wanting to finish him off.
The squawk came again from the other side of the door. Haskell’s heart hiccuped in his chest. He clicked the lever to engage the shotgun shell and tensed his body as he pressed his back harder against the wall, chewing his lower lip, waiting.
There was another squawk, and Bear’s keen ears picked up the sound of rustling clothes. The squawk had come from farther away, as though whoever was in the hall was retreating. There was the soft click of a door latch, the squeak of a door hinge, and then another door-latch click.
Whoever had been out in the hall had gone into another room.
Haskell thought about it, and then his lips quirked in a cunning half-smile.
Could the person in the hall have been Agent York?
Since this was the only hotel in town, it made sense that she’d have rented a room here. Had her memories of what had happened between her and Haskell in Wendigo last year been pestering her this night, as they’d pestered him, and kept her from falling asleep?
And perhaps compelled her to seek him out?
Raven was a sneaky little devil, and she had no doubt learned which room he was in. A simple glance at the desk clerk’s register book would have given her that.
The click came again from down the hall a ways.
Haskell tensed. His loins warmed in anticipation.
The hinges chirped again. The door was opening. There was the squawk of a floorboard. Then silence.
Haskell kept the LeMat raised, barrel pointed at the ceiling, ready, but he knew it was her. Had to be her. Anyone gunning for him would have blasted through the door by now and run like hell.
Had to be her!
He was growing frustrated, however. The silence continued in the hall, like a held breath. What the hell was she doing, just standing there, staring at his door?
Having second thoughts?
He was tempted to open the door, but that might scare her off. Besides, the devious child in him wanted her to walk down the hall of her own accord, to enter his room on her own, and to give herself to him because she simply couldn’t spend another night without him.
He wanted her to surrender to him, maybe even beg him a little . . .
He chuckled at that.
He waited, his heart thudding in anticipation of having that lovely creature walk into his room, probably wearing nothing more than—
What the hell was that?
The door had clicked again.
Dread dropped in him like a fifty-pound sack of cracked corn. Slowly, he lowered the LeMat, keeping his ears attuned to the hall beyond the door. When he’d waited nearly a full minute and had not heard another sound, he unlocked his door, opened it, and poked his head into the hall.
Starlight angling through the windows at each end of the hall showed him nothing more than an empty corridor furnished with a musty carpet runner, and that was all. She’d returned to her room.
Unless, of course, it had never been her standing out here, but Haskell knew it was. He sniffed the air. He’d remember that cool, light fragrance of sweet cherries on his deathbed.
She’d been out here, all right. She’d been wrestling with her compulsion to knock on his door and give herself to him.
But something had scared her off, like a fawn in the woods.
Frustration racked Haskell, who stood in his open doorway, holding the LeMat down low by his side, staring down the hall at the doors he could see in the dense shadows.
She was behind one of those, likely with her heart pounding as hard as his was. He bunched his lips, fought back the urge to yell out to her, to go running down the hall and pound on the door and raise a foolish ruckus.
Quickly, before he could do anything stupid out of desperation, he quietly closed his door and turned the key in the lock.
Just as he did, he heard another key grate in its own lock down the hall. A latch clicked. Hinges squawked.
Staring at his door, Haskell grinned. He waited, fingers tingling, his cock pushing against the buttoned fly of his balbriggans. His throat was dry. He waited, praying, but then the hinges squawked again, and the door latch clicked.
He waited for the sound of her light tread in the hall. He waited a full minute. The tread did not come.
He again turned the key in the lock, opened the door, and stared into the hall. As he looked off to his right, in the direction from which the other door had opened, there was the muffled ratcheting sound of another key being turned in another lock and the soft snap of the locking bolt being sent home.
Haskell drew a deep, burning breath scented with the fragrance of sweet cherries. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up.
God damn her!
He closed his door, turned the key in the lock, and stepped back away from the door. He ran a hand through his hair in dire frustration. He slid the LeMat into its holster and threw himself back into bed.
She wasn’t coming. She’d almost come to him, and she’d tried a couple of times, but she hadn’t been able to do it.
Well, there was no point in going to her. They weren’t going to get together until she was good and ready. She’d made that clear.
He’d wait. It would be a long night, probably a long day tomorrow, but he’d wait. Eventually, remembering the kind of heart-stopping night they’d had in Wendigo, she’d weaken and come groaning to him like a mare in season.
He closed his eyes, but sleep was long in coming. And when it did, it was haunted by images, memories of her. Of them together. Finally, feeling as though he wrestled with a bobcat all night in the back of a Conestoga wagon, he got up with a loud, disgusted chuff.
He looked out the window. There was a very faint glow in the west. Checking his railroad watch, he saw that it was only four o’clock. That was all right. He’d rustle up breakfast, lay in some trail supplies, a
nd then head for the town’s only livery barn to rent a horse.
He washed and headed out with his gear on both shoulders. As he started walking down the hall, a door latch clicked. He grimaced. He was so tired of that sound of frustration that he felt like a dog beaten with a knotted rope.
But then he turned his head to see her standing there in an open doorway to his left.
He stopped, gazed at her. She looked as worn-out as he felt, her trail clothes rumpled, small pouches under her eyes.
“Good morning, Agent York.”
She hesitated. A soft pink rose in her cheeks. She blinked her long eyes, dipped her chin cordially. “Good morning to you, Agent Haskell. Sleep well?”
“Never better. You?”
“So well I thought I’d died.”
“Yeah,” Haskell said with a sigh. “Me, too.”
10
In the dim hallway, Raven shook her hair back, composing herself, and said, “My deep sleep must have been the result of the train ride and having to rescue you—again—from that gent with the pearl-gripped Colts.”
Haskell grumbled. “Yeah, well, if you think I’m gonna fall over backward thanking you, you got another think comin’. I was about to pop a pill through that fool’s head. So all you really did was save me a bullet and the bastard his life.”
“Oh, it’s his life I saved,” she said with a sneering air, and stepped out of her room. She was fully dressed, wearing her tan Stetson with its chin thong dangling down across her breasts, a pair of saddlebags slung over one shoulder, a fringed buckskin jacket over the other shoulder.
She wore tanned elk-hide chaps over her form-defining denims. Bear couldn’t help liking the way she wore the breeches and everything else, including the blouse, which was just tight enough to show off the proud mounds of her jutting breasts. She had the first three buttons undone, and a turquoise-crusted silver medallion dangled against her chest, just above her deep, alluring cleavage.
He hoped she hadn’t seen him raking his eyes over her, feasting on her, as he said in a faintly mocking tone, “Yeah, it’s his life you saved. But let’s not start trading barbs. We got a two-day ride to Spotted Horse, and your smart mouth will only make it longer.”
“My smart—?”
He groaned and continued walking down the hall. She caught up to him at the top of the stairs, but before she could resume her tirade, he said, “Up early, ain’t ya, Agent York?”
As they descended the rickety staircase together, she released a held breath as though trying to sooth her nerves. Moderating her tone, she said, “Yes, I am up early. As are you, I see, Agent Haskell.”
“Yeah, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to get a jump on the day. Figured I’d go out, get some breakfast, rent us a couple horses, and then come and bang a tin cup against your door. Figured that’d be the only way to wake you up so early.” He chuckled.
“Here I figured I’d have to do the same to you,” Raven said. “But please let it be noted that I’ll pick out my own horse.”
“Oh, fine judge of . . .”
Haskell let his voice trail off as they reached the lobby, in which the old lady who ran the place, her coarse gray hair pulled back and wrapped in a tight bun, stopped sweeping by the light of a single oil lamp and scrutinized the pair dubiously.
“Good morning, Mrs. Larson,” Raven said. “I’ll be pulling out. Had a wonderful night’s—”
“Young lady, do you know this man?” the old woman said, glowering up at Haskell.
He and Raven stopped near the front door, which the old woman had propped open with a cream can to catch the fresh dawn breeze. Raven looked up at him. “Indeed, I do,” she said in a droll tone.
“Young lady, should you be traveling alone with this unheeled character? If you ask me, he looks mossy as a Brasada bull, and you—well, you’re just so purty an’ sweet. I know it’s none of my dang business, but you oughtta have you a chaperone!”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Raven said, giving Haskell another ironic glance. “But rest assured, Mrs. Larson, I can take care of myself. Why, if this big rascal makes one bold move, I’ll twist his horns back but good!”
“You see you do!” the old woman crowed as Haskell and Raven walked out onto the hotel’s front stoop. “And mister, you mind your manners. If I hear otherwise, I’ll take my old greener after your cussed behind!”
“Will do, Mrs. Larson,” Haskell intoned good-naturedly, pinching his hat brim at the old gal as he moved down the steps and into the street. To Raven, he said, “Boy, you sure trained her in a hurry!”
“Isn’t she sweet?”
They ate in the same café that Haskell had supped in the night before. The place opened at four to serve the early-rising ranch crowd, although there was no crowd in the place this morning, only a gray-headed old gent in a worn black suit who Haskell figured was probably either the local attorney or the sawbones.
The café was run by a small, humpbacked Mexican and his full-hipped wife in a bright green dress, and when the man had served Haskell and Raven heaping helpings of huevos rancheros and strong black coffee and returned to his range, Raven draped her napkin on her lap and said, “Before we head out on the trail together, Agent Haskell, I think we’d better agree on some rules.”
“Rules?” Bear said, salting his food. “Agent York, you know how I feel about rules.”
“Well, don’t worry,” she said around a mouthful of eggs, green chili, and beans. “There’s only one.” She was the only woman he knew who could make chewing beans and eggs look erotic.
“Oh, well, in that case . . .”
“It is this: we are not sleeping together.” Raven arched her brows to study him, like a schoolmarm staring over her desk to make sure she’d been understood by the most dunderheaded boy in her class. She tossed her head, throwing her hair back, and continued to chew and stare at him over the table.
Haskell chuckled as he poked his fork into one of his four sunny-side-up eggs, the yolk bleeding into the refried beans and green chili liberal spiced with red chili peppers. “Oh, that’s all.” He chuckled again and forked eggs and beans into his mouth, wagging his head as though she’d just told him she’d seen a green dog pass in the street.
She swallowed, frowned. “What do you mean, ‘that’s all’?”
He said, “Agent York, you got nothin’ to worry about.”
She studied him for a beat or two. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means just what I said. I got no intention of goin’ to the same well twice.”
“The same well twice?”
Bear hiked a heavy shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”
Raven waited until she’d swallowed and sipped her coffee to say, “You mean that you see me as . . . some sort of well, Agent Haskell?”
“Look,” Haskell said, swallowing and casting her the same look she’d given him a minute before. “We got a sayin’ down Texas way. Milk always tastes better from a different cow. OK? You get it now, Agent York? I ain’t interested in pullin’ your bloomers down again. Oh, maybe in a pinch. I mean, if we was to be on the trail for more than, say, four, five days . . .” He let his voice trail off and looked at her. “What is it?”
“You bastard.”
“Huh?”
Raven’s perfect cheeks were mottled pink. “You are absolutely the most goatish human being I’ve ever met. Do you realize that?”
“Well, I reckon I do now.”
Bear chuckled again, trying to ignore the faint throbbing and tingling in his cock, and shoved another forkful of food into his mouth.
He said, “But at least you got nothin’ to worry about. And wasn’t that what had your pantaloons in a bunch? You were afraid I might tempt you, out there in that wide, open country between here and Spotted Horse, into doin’ something against the boss’s orders? Or into lettin’ yoursel
f succumb to ol’ Bear’s charms and maybe gettin’ your head all fuzzy with thoughts of ol’ Bear ruttin’ around between your purty—”
“Stop this instant!” she hissed, glancing at the old man dining behind them. The sawbones or lawyer was absorbed in the newspaper spread open to one side of his breakfast platter.
Raven glared at Haskell, her delicate jaws hard, the slight cleft in her chin shadowed by the eatery’s few smoking bracket lamps. “I know what you’re trying to do, and it is not working. Oh, you’re an absolute devil !”
Bear hung his jaw and carved deep lines across his sun-seasoned forehead. “Huh?”
Raven wagged her head and went back to work on her plate. She wasn’t one of those delicate female eaters, like most young ladies with Raven’s looks and uppity background. Agent York could dip her snoot in the trough as well as any dollar-a-day cowpuncher—she just looked a whole lot better doing it.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” she said, smiling knowingly, blinking her cobalt eyes as with one hand she shoved a chunk of tortilla, eggs, beans, and chili between the ripe, pink lips that Haskell was trying not to think about kissing.
Haskell looked shocked. “What am I tryin’ to do?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t know. Please tell me!”
“Hah!” She laughed. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
Haskell felt his heart thud in frustration. His cock was fairly dribbling in his longhandles, but he sure as hell was not going to let her know that. She might have been on to him—perhaps she was smarter, more cunning, than he’d given her credit for—but he was going to play his hand the best he could.
He placed a silent bet with himself that merely by ignoring her—which was the most powerful weapon a man could use against a vixen like Raven York—he’d have her moaning before the sun went down this evening.
And after it had set behind the Big Horns, his comely colleague would be sitting on his face and sucking his cock.
After breakfast, they rented horses from the Douglas Federated Livery and Feed Barn, scribbling out a single Pinkerton payment voucher in exchange for the mounts, and then stocked up on trail supplies from the Sullivan Mercantile. The sun was just breaking free of the eastern horizon when they rode out of town, meeting a ranch wagon clattering into the little settlement from the west.
Wild to the Bone Page 7
