She looked so relieved he thought she was going to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him a hundred times, all over his face to thank him. As much as he would have enjoyed her gratitude in a place more conducive to such expressions, he certainly didn’t want her—in those clothes—to do it here, when his reputation was already in shambles because of the unfortunate fainting thing. So, for the sake of his reputation, he grabbed her collar in his fist and dragged her along behind him.
They climbed the stairs and went into the office, which was dark and empty. Fletcher lit a lamp, carried it across the room and set it on top of the tall cabinet. He forced himself to focus on business, and it sure as hell wasn’t easy now that he had her alone in a dimly lit room with a door that could be locked behind them if he was so inclined. He stood facing her flushed cheeks and full lips and thoroughly grateful gaze, and managed to utter, “Do you know the exact date Hennigar was murdered?”
He wasn’t at all happy about the fact that he was flustered.
“It was just after the new year, the third or fourth of January.”
Fletcher flipped through the files, squinting through the dim, flickering light, pulling papers out one by one, but he found nothing for either of those days. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, but you can’t find the report, can you?”
“Just give me a minute. It might have been—”
“Misfiled. I don’t think so.” She sat down at one of the desks.
Fletcher soon gave up and closed the heavy drawer. “Okay, there’s definitely something going on here, but you don’t have me convinced that Zeb has anything to do with it.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Fletcher paced the room and considered the situation, then began to untie Jo’s hands. “I’ll agree with you on one point. If Mrs. Hennigar was killed because she witnessed her husband’s murder, you might be the killer’s next matter of business once this investigation gets going. It’s my job to see that you’re safe. Come with me.”
Fletcher held out his hand and she slipped hers into it. Judging by the intense shudder he felt as he closed his fingers around hers and held them tightly, he would have to dig deep tonight for the strength to stay true to his principles.
Chapter Fourteen
Fighting nervousness, Jo watched Fletcher walk confidently around his paper-strewn desk. “Keep your head down,” he said to her, “don’t make eye contact with anyone. I’ll walk behind you about ten paces, keeping watch, and I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.” He cupped her chin in his hand. “You look pale.”
“I feel pale.” But was it because she had to walk through town in this disguise, or was it a reaction to the sudden change in her alliance with Fletcher? She was suddenly knee-deep in the full emotional impact of her need for him as her protector.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
They stared wordlessly at each other as his thumb feathered across her cheek. “It’s time to get going. Walk straight to Jensen’s Boardinghouse and don’t look back.”
“Will I have to get a room? The Jensens know who I am.”
He placed a cold key into her palm. “Go straight to room number twenty-three on the second floor and let yourself in.”
“Is that where you live? At the boardinghouse?”
Fletcher lowered the wick in the lamp and the room went black. “You sound surprised.”
“It just seems so temporary.”
“I’m a temporary kind of man.”
She thought about what she knew of his past—the life he’d lived before his father was killed, the ranch, the home, the family, and now the desire to be near his sister—and she couldn’t hold back her reply. “No, you’re not. You just try to be.”
Fletcher stiffened noticeably and Jo closed her coat around her, pleased that her comment had unnerved him but wishing it didn’t matter to her.
“It’s time to go,” he said, his voice cool and authoritative.
“What about the horses?”
“I’ll lead yours to the stable behind the boardinghouse. It’s dark. Hopefully nobody will look too close to see he isn’t mine. Get going.”
“You’ll be right behind me?”
“Of course.”
She passed him in the doorway, her body brushing lightly against his, then she quickly descended the stairs on the outside of the building, stopping at the bottom when she heard Fletcher whisper, “Not so fast. You don’t want to look like you just robbed the livery.”
The keys jingled as he locked the door behind him. Jo couldn’t stop herself from looking up at his dark, imposing figure on the stairs. Above his head, in the night sky, clouds changed shape and dissolved like smoke from a chimney.
“You’re wasting time,” he said, dropping the keys with a clink into his vest pocket.
Jo realized with some irritation that she had to haul her deeply rapt gaze away from him. Quickly turning on her heel, she buried her hands in her pockets and, with the moon lighting her way, crossed over the railroad tracks and headed west on Front Street. Cowboys and businessmen lined the boardwalks in front of Hoover’s saloon and the Long Branch. Alert and listening for the sound of Zeb’s voice somewhere in one of the small crowds, Jo had to remind herself to move calmly and leisurely.
She walked past the post office and saddle shop, keeping to the middle of the street, but once she turned up Third Avenue, she couldn’t help but quicken her pace. By the time she arrived at the boardinghouse, her pulse was racing. Head down, she went inside.
When the door closed behind her, the sound of muffled conversation from an upstairs room seeped into her hazy consciousness. She took two steps at a time to the second floor, glancing quickly at the brass numbers on each of the dark-painted doors. Room number twenty-three was at the very end of the narrow, dimly lit hall.
Jo reached the door, her fingers trembling as she tried to insert the long key into the keyhole. Finally it slid in, and with a turn, the lock clicked and the door creaked open. Wasting not a second, she went inside, shut the door behind her and leaned against it, unable to see anything through the darkness.
Just then, a knock sounded, and Jo nearly leaped out of her skin. She cleared her throat to lower her voice. “Who is it?”
“It’s Fletcher. Open up.”
Relieved, Jo let him in, then closed the door again.
“You made it in one piece,” he said.
“Yes. Now what?”
He crossed the room and closed the curtains. “We get some light in here.”
Jo removed her coat and looked around the room while Fletcher replaced a blackened glass chimney onto the kerosene lamp next to the bed.
“Don’t you own anything?” she asked, seeing empty surfaces everywhere she looked.
“My clothes are in the drawers. Other than that, I travel light. Makes it easier to do what I have to do.”
“And what’s that?”
“Be a lawman. I can’t get bogged down with stuff. Makes it too hard to leave a place, and I like to go where I’m needed.”
She wandered around the room, still looking. “If it weren’t for Zeb Stone, we wouldn’t have so much need for new lawmen.”
Fletcher set the matches down on the bedside table then, without warning, moved swiftly and purposefully toward Jo. Startled by his fast approach, she backed up against the wall until she couldn’t back up any farther and he was standing mere inches from her, grabbing her wrists and pinning them against the wall on either side of her head.
“What are you doing?” she asked. He was so close she could feel his breath on her face.
He whirled Jo around and set her onto the bed so quickly she didn’t have a chance to object. Then he straddled her hips, at the same time pulling her arms over her head and pinning her legs down with his strapping knee. “Get off me!” she hollered, feeling thoroughly and miserably trapped. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing? You’re supposed to be protecting me…ouch! That hurts
!”
“Sorry,” he said, distracted by what he was doing, and when she tried to discern what, exactly, it was, she realized he was reaching down. His hand was maneuvering about, fooling around down low as if he was unbuttoning his trousers! Outraged, Jo tried to struggle, but under his hard, heavy weight, it was difficult to even breathe. “I said get off me!”
“You’re not helping things any. Just relax.” He pinned her tighter to the bed.
“I will not relax!”
The next thing she knew, a rope was twisting around her sore wrists and weaving through the steel bed frame. “I can’t trust you to stay put,” he said matter-of-factly.
Jo immediately went still, realizing only then what his intentions had been and feeling ridiculously foolish for having thought anything else.
“I can’t risk you making another attempt on Zeb’s life until I know what’s going on.”
“You’re going to leave me here?”
He pulled the knots tight at her wrists and leaned over her. “It’s the only place I know you’ll be safe. I’m sorry, Jo.” Then he gazed tenderly into her eyes and caressed her face with the back of his hand.
Jo wet her lips, knowing it was unwise to appreciate his kindness when it was accompanied by such a betrayal, but the feel of his warm, gentle fingers upon her cheek and the weight of his firm body covering hers made it impossible. How long had it been since she had been loved and touched affectionately? Edwyn, in the early years of their marriage, had come to her in the night, but not often after Leo was born. They had later moved to separate beds because of Edwyn’s snoring. At least that was their excuse.
Even so, had she ever wanted Edwyn’s husbandly advances the way she wanted Fletcher’s now? And would she ever not feel guilty about that…about wanting another man?
She tried to focus her thoughts on the matter at hand. “I’ll forgive you if you find something on Zeb.”
“I’ll try, but…now that I’ve got you here like this, it’s not so easy to leave.”
The words barely made it through her dizzied senses. Stunned, Jo stared up at his slightly parted lips, realizing all at once that he was feeling the same pull of attraction she was feeling, as his breath whispered across her face.
Nothing good could come of this, she thought miserably, then despite her mental warnings and her firm emotional objections, found herself responding to his overture. “Don’t leave, then.”
He considered it a moment, his gaze raking over her face, then his hand slipped slowly into her coat.
Jo’s skin began to tingle at the feel of his fingers moving over her clothing. He ran his hand along her hip, then lowered his mouth to hers.
A passionate fluttering passed through her and settled somewhere inside her belly as she realized she’d never in all her life been kissed like this. It was slow and seductive and deeply arousing, and threatened to brand her his forever. She felt the heady sensation of his hot, hungry mouth upon hers like a soul-reaching redemption.
“Fletcher, this is wrong,” she whispered, turning her cheek, barely able to get the words out. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“If you tell me to stop, I will.”
His lips covered hers again, the kiss velvety and probing. She wiggled sensually on the bed, her wrists still bound above her head, restricted, and all she wanted was to be free of the rough bindings to touch this man everywhere.
“Untie me,” she pleaded, wanting to hold him, to feel the whole length of his body upon hers.
He went still and she thought for a moment he had heard something outside, but when she looked at his face, she saw the conflict of his emotions, and it had nothing to do with anything outside this room. Pulling back, he rested on all fours above her and she knew wretchedly what he thought. “I can’t untie you.”
He backed away and stood, closing her coat over her, yet at the same time, leaving her feeling cold and alone on the bed.
“Why?”
“I can’t free you, Jo.”
She squirmed and her wrists burned painfully under the coarse rope. “You don’t have to free me. Just untie me. Temporarily.”
Fletcher shook his head. “No, you’re my prisoner. It wouldn’t be right.” He looked around the room, the lines on his forehead deep with frustration.
“What’s the matter?” Jo asked, finally lying still.
“The problem with not having any belongings is that you don’t have extra rope around when you need it.”
Jo ground out a grumble, her body still tingling from the feel of his hands and lips upon her. “Trust me, I’m not going anywhere. These knots are as good as steel.” Once again, she tugged at them, releasing some of her own frustration, but it only served to chafe her tender skin even more. She decided to relax and surrender to an uncomfortable night in Fletcher’s bed. Alone.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
He pulled on his long brown coat and settled his hat on his head. “I’m going to talk to Zeb.”
“Oh, that’s smart. You’re just going to walk up to him and ask him if he’s a murderer.”
“Whatever it takes. Try to get some sleep.”
Jo watched him leave the room and close the door behind him. She stared up at the unpainted plank ceiling with the beams exposed, and knew it was going to be a dreadfully long night.
Standing just inside the door of the smoky Long Branch saloon, surveying the crowd of cattlemen and gamblers listening to the five-piece orchestra, Fletcher wondered if he should have dunked himself in the water trough before coming in here. He had work to do, he had to stay focused, but he was irritatingly distracted by Jo’s scent still lingering in his memory.
Kissing her had been a big mistake.
He cleared his throat and walked to the white-paneled bar, leaned on the dark mahogany countertop and shouted over the music. “Zeb here tonight?” he asked the bartender, who was standing on a chair, straightening the ornamental rack of horns above the mirror.
“In the back room as usual.”
Fletcher thanked the man and walked toward the back, past the billiard table and coal stove, then pushed open the door to the private gambling room. Zeb and three other men sat around a table under a hanging lantern, their money floating in a pile in the center, their cards close to their chests and their chips stacked like small buildings in front of them. Smoke from the tips of their cigars snaked in serpentine streaks toward the ceiling.
“Well, well, well,” Zeb greeted, looking up from his hand. He set his cards facedown on the table and slid his chair back. The half-empty whisky bottle in front of him teetered. “Did you come to join us, or to dance to the magnificent orchestral arrangements only the Long Branch can provide?”
“Didn’t think they allowed dancing in here,” one of the men blurted out, as if he’d been missing out on something.
Zeb glared at him. “It was a joke, my dear man. Now lay down your cards, all of you, and go get yourselves some drinks. I want to talk to my brother-in-law.”
All three of the cowboys rose from the table without argument. When they closed the door behind them, Fletcher sat down. “They all friends of yours?”
Zeb tossed back a shot of whisky. “Just a few transient fools willing to part with their hard-earned money.” He dragged on his cigar so the tip flared red. “Do you know they only make thirty dollars a month on a drive? Imbeciles.”
“Maybe they can’t do any better. Don’t know the right people.”
Zeb eyed him speculatively, then nodded. “You’re absolutely right. It’s all about who you know, isn’t it? What happened to your nose?”
Fletcher touched it lightly, felt that it was still swollen and a little crooked. “Saloon brawl.”
“I hope the other gentleman looks worse than you do. Did you bruise his head?”
“I gave it a tap.”
“Good for you.” They stared intently at each other for a moment, then Zeb reached for the whisky bottle in front of him and poured Fletcher
a drink. When he slid it across the table, Fletcher accepted it and raised it before swallowing a bitter mouthful.
“I came to talk about something.”
Zeb leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. “The sheriff’s office. You want to settle in Dodge.”
“How did you guess?”
“Never let it be said that women are the only intuitive creatures God put on this beautiful earth.” Zeb flicked cigar ashes into a dish. “Before we get down to that bit of business, where were you tonight? I wanted to talk to you.”
Fletcher relaxed back in his chair, wondering how to answer that, then made something up. “I went to meet a fellow who said he knew something about the shooting the other night.”
“Indeed. Was he helpful?”
Fletcher thought carefully before he answered. “He didn’t show.”
“No? That’s suspicious. Must be hiding something. Perhaps he knows the identity of our enigmatic Six-Shooter Hank.” Zeb’s speech was slurred.
“Maybe.”
“Or better yet, perhaps he is Six-Shooter Hank.” He laughed at his drunken wittiness. “It could be anyone, you know. The night he came into the store, he was well covered up.”
“Any ideas? I’m all out of suspects.”
“I’d be willing to wager it’s someone right under our noses, yours being the bigger one this evening.”
Fletcher humored Zeb, who was drunker than a lord. “And what makes you say that?”
“My punctilious instinct. What I’d do without it, I cannot bear to imagine.” Zeb raised his glass and downed the whole of it, as if celebrating something. “Instinct aside, you really have to apprehend someone if we’re going to get you into the sheriff’s office.”
The Marshal and Mrs. O'Malley Page 12
