by Harvest Moon
“Of course.” David whistled low. “The best place to hide large amounts of stolen cash and large quantities of liquor is in plain sight. A saloon.”
“And not just any saloon,” Lee agreed, “but the largest, most profitable one in town.”
“The Satin Slipper.” David placed his gloved hands over his nose and mouth, blowing into them to warm his face.
“Why do you think I’ve been tending bar there?” Lee asked. “I worked at several others in town asking questions before I applied at the Satin Slipper. Myra’s clever.” Lee had to smile in admiration. “She’s the brains behind the operation. I’ve only caught a glimpse at the books, but she’s hiding the money there somewhere. Circulating small amounts at a time through the saloon.”
“What happened with Arnie Mason? Did he want a larger portion of the profits?” David asked. “Did she panic?”
“Arnie was mouthing off,” Lee explained. “Getting drunk, boasting about having the run of the saloon and Myra. But she isn’t the sort to panic. She thought she had Arnie under control.”
“Until he followed Eamon Roarke back to Chicago.” David picked up the trail of Lee’s thoughts. “And killed him.”
“Exactly,” Lee confirmed. “Eamon got too close to the truth. He knew Myra was beginning to get suspicious of him. That’s why he returned to Chicago.”
“When Arnie took it upon himself to run Eamon down, he became a liability to Myra.”
“He didn’t follow orders,” Lee said, “and Myra knew that if Eamon was really a detective, the agency would send another investigator and another and another until Eamon’s killer was caught. It was just a matter of time.”
“But Tessa showed up, with Coalie in tow, before you did,” David said, “and announced that she was Eamon Roarke’s sister, come to take his place.” He took a deep breath. “Christ!”
“She’s lucky to be alive.”
“Yes,” David agreed. “She escaped being murdered only to be framed for it.” He shuddered at the thought of Tessa lying on a table at the undertaker’s.
“At least now you should be able to prove she didn’t kill Arnie.”
“Yes,” David agreed, “but first I’ve got to get the jury to listen. It’s not enough just to present the facts and tell the truth. I’ve got to get their sympathy. Then I can prove Tessa didn’t kill anyone.”
“How are you going to get their sympathy?” Lee asked out of curiosity.
“I’ve got a plan,” David told him. “But Tessa’s not going to like it.” He studied the toes of his boots. She wasn’t going to like it one bit.
Lee took out his pocket watch and opened it. He turned his back, then struck a match so he could read the dial. Finished, he extinguished the flame and pocketed his timepiece.
David turned his attention to Lee. “What about you? How are you going to prove that Myra Brennan is behind all this?”
“Catch her accepting the cash.”
“As if it were so simple,” David commented.
“In this case, it is,” Lee said. “This is where I leave you.” Lee got to his knees, stood up, and stretched.
“Where are you going?” David wondered what Lee was up to.
“Down there.” Lee pointed to the shack. “I’m the go-between.” He chuckled. “I’m Myra’s pickup man.” An ironic smile turned up one corner of his mouth when he looked at David. “Convenient, eh?”
David followed Lee back to the horses. “Be careful, you rogue. You’re getting too old for this. We’re both getting too old for this.”
“Yeah.” Lee chuckled. “Ancient at thirty-three.”
“That’s old for your line of work,” David reminded him, “but not for mine.”
“Yeah, I know.” Lee was serious. “I’ve been thinking of settling down same as you.” He released the hobbles and mounted his horse.
“I’m not—”
“Oh, yes, you are,” Lee corrected. “I’ve got eyes, my friend, and ears, and I can see you’ve got it bad.” He clamped his hat down on his blond head. “But if you don’t watch out, somebody’s liable to snatch Tessa right out from under your nose.” He turned his horse around. “Give her a kiss for me when you get back,” he said to David. “She’s the reason Myra trusted me with this pickup.” Seeing David’s puzzled expression, Lee explained. “Myra decided that since Tessa hated me, I couldn’t be a Pinkerton man. I couldn’t have known or worked with her brother.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Big mistake. But then, who can figure women?”
Lee waved good-bye, then carefully picked his way down the dark trail leading to the shack.
David climbed atop his mount and turned his horse in the opposite direction, back to Peaceable.
* * *
David had to rouse the young man in the livery to stable his horse. He didn’t like the idea of the stableboy knowing he’d been riding in the early morning hours, but his only alternative was to leave his horse tied to the rail outside his office, exposed to the cold night air, and he couldn’t bring himself to do that.
The stableboy grinned at David as he took the horse’s reins. “Been out to your ranch, Mr. Alexander?”
“No.” David didn’t bother to lie or to elaborate.
“Oh, I get it,” the boy continued, “gone to see a lady friend?”
“Something like that.” Better to let the town think he had a woman friend outside of town than to have them speculate on his sleeping arrangements at the office. And David had no doubts the gossips in town would hear about his midnight excursion. He flipped a silver coin at the boy. “Give him a good rubdown and an extra measure of oats.” He patted the horse on the neck, left the stable, and walked to his office.
Pausing at the back step, David tugged off his boots and stood in stocking feet while he fumbled for the door key. He eased open the door and tiptoed inside, boots in hand.
Immediately he sensed a presence, then caught a movement from the corner of his eye. Dropping his boots, he quickly jumped aside, but he wasn’t fast enough. A numbing blow landed on his shoulder, jolting him, radiating pain down his arm. “Dammit! That hurt!”
“David?” Tessa’s whisper sounded loud in the quiet room.
“Yes, it’s me,” he answered. “What the hell’d you hit me with?” He leaned against the door, closing it. He recognized her soft tread a minute before she lit the lamp.
“This.”
He turned. Tessa stood beside him. She held the heavy skillet up for him to see.
“You nearly brained me with that thing.” David felt the cold sweat of reaction pop out on his brow. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I thought you were a thief breaking in.”
“I unlocked the door,” David pointed out. “I used a key.”
“Anybody could have unlocked that door with a skeleton key,” Tessa said.
“But it wasn’t just anybody.” David levered himself away from the door. “It was me.” He tried to shrug out of his coat. It was impossible without help. “Christ! I think you broke my shoulder.” The pain forced him to utter the words between clenched teeth. “Help me out of this,” he said. “Please.”
Tessa placed the cast-iron frying pan back in the cupboard and hurried over to help David with his coat. “Come sit down.” She led him to a chair near the stove and pushed him down into it. “I’ll put on water for tea.”
“Yes,” David sarcastically agreed, “we mustn’t forget the magic elixir. The cure-all.”
Tessa ignored him. She went to the cupboard, took down the kettle, filled it with water, and plunked it on the stove. “You brought this on yourself,” she scolded. “What were you doing sneaking around in the middle of the night?”
“I wasn’t sneaking around.” David took offense. “I had a business meeting.”
Tessa sniffed at his clothing, trying to detect the telltale odor of cigar smoke, liquor, and cheap perfume. But all she was able to smell was the manly scent of him mixed with the clean fragrance of the cold night air and the
sweat of horses. “At three o’clock in the morning?” She tugged his coat sleeve down his injured arm.
“It was a late meeting.” He shifted in his chair so she could pull the coat out from behind him. She didn’t miss a trick, David thought. His mother was going to love her.
“Obviously,” Tessa replied. “With your friend Liam Kincaid?”
“I can’t answer that,” David hedged. “Not yet.”
“You don’t have to.” Tessa tossed his coat aside and began unbuttoning his shirt. “You don’t have to tell me anything.” Her words said one thing, her tone of voice another.
“Tessa, I’ll be happy to tell you anything you want to know after tomorrow, but right now I can’t. I’m sworn to secrecy until this is all over.” David sucked in his breath as her cool hands unbuttoned the top of his union suit and slipped inside it to touch his chest. He tried to think of something to say, anything to change the subject. “What are you doing up at this hour?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Tessa admitted. “I guess I’m a little nervous about the hearing on Monday. I thought I heard something moving around outside.” She pushed his shirt and the top of his union suit off his shoulder and down his arm.
“It was probably Horace Greeley.”
“Out in this cold? Not likely,” Tessa contradicted him. “Your cat is curled up in my bed, asleep.”
Just where he wanted to be, David thought.
She walked to the cupboard and took out a box of matches, then went back to the office and lowered the oil lamp suspended overhead. She touched a match to the wicks and turned them up higher, bathing the office in the yellow glow of the lamp. “Move over beneath the light so I can see better.”
“If you could’ve seen better, you wouldn’t have hit me with the frying pan,” David grumbled. He scooted his chair directly under the lamp. “Ouch, dammit, that hurts!”
Tessa probed the flesh of his shoulder. “I don’t think it’s broken.” She felt for the shoulder joint. The area was swollen and tender. “You need some liniment for the bruise. It’s going to be sore for a few days,” she predicted.
“Thank you, Dr. Roarke,” David said wryly. “I could have told you that. It’s sore already.”
“You’re lucky it’s only a bruise,” Tessa reminded him. “I could have really hurt you.” She gently caressed the injured area.
“You did really hurt me.”
To his amazement, Tessa burst into tears. “You scared me half to death,” she shouted. “All I could think of was Arnie Mason creeping into my room.”
“Come here,” David ordered, feeling like a complete ogre. He extended his uninjured arm.
Tessa knelt beside him, allowing him to soothe her frayed nerves.
David patted her hair, smoothing the wayward strands off her forehead. “It’s all right. It’s all right, my love. Arnie Mason is dead. Very, very dead. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
Tessa turned her face against his knee so she could see him. “But whoever killed Arnie is still alive.” She swallowed hard. “And he could come after me. Sometimes at night I close my eyes and see Arnie Mason’s face. I see the way he looked lying there. I can’t get it out of my mind. Tonight I dreamed about him.”
“You should have come to me,” David told her, still rubbing her thick curls. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Tessa.”
“I did come to you,” she told him. “And a fine lot of good it did me.” Her eyes sparkled wetly as she ruthlessly blinked back the tears. “I went to your room, but you weren’t there. Then I heard a noise. Lucky I had a heavy skillet.”
“Yeah, lucky,” David commented. He knew she didn’t really need him for protection so much as for reassurance. She’d done all right with the frying pan. But still, Tessa had gone to him for protection for the first time since he’d known her, and he’d been out with Lee hunting criminals. “You’re the bravest woman I know. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you thought you needed me.” He awkwardly fumbled in his back pants pocket for his handkerchief and offered it to her. Feeling her warm breath against him, David shifted in the chair and concentrated on the throbbing in his shoulder rather than the pounding in his groin. “Would you like me to make the tea for you?” He felt helpless in the face of her unexpected show of weakness.
Tessa blew her nose on his handkerchief. She pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll make it.” She managed a half-smile for David’s benefit. “Would you like some?”
“Only if you’ll pour a little scotch into it,” David answered. One day he’d have to work up the courage to tell her how much he hated tea. “My shoulder hurts like the very devil.”
“It’s your own fault,” she told him. “But I’m sorry I hit you so hard.”
“I’m not. You did the right thing. What if I had been a prowler?”
“I’d have brained you.” A couple of tears slipped down her face.
The sight of them deeply disturbed David. “But you didn’t.” He got to his feet and walked to the stove. “Come on. I’ll help you make the tea,” he said, lifting the kettle of hot water off the stove.
“No, really,” Tessa protested. “You rest. I’ll do it. I’m fine now.” She struggled for composure.
“If you’re sure…” David walked over to his desk and sat down in the big leather chair.
“I’m sure,” Tessa told him. She went to the cupboard and took down the box of tea, two cups and saucers, two spoons and the sugar bowl. David liked his tea hot and sweet. “Where do you keep the whisky?”
“The key’s hanging on a hook above the door,” David answered. “The scotch is locked in my desk drawer.”
Seeing her surprised expression, David offered a partial explanation. “I didn’t want Coalie to see the bottle sitting around.”
“I understand,” Tessa said. She located the key and handed it to him.
David debated for a moment longer before telling her the whole truth. “And you were here.” He stared down at his desk. “I didn’t want to be tempted to drink myself into a stupor every night,” he admitted.
“But, David, I don’t mind if you drink as long as it makes you…you know…” She couldn’t put her thoughts, into words. She busied herself carrying the cups and saucers to the table, then going back to the cupboard for the sugar bowl and the box of tea.
“It makes me drunk,” David told her. “That’s all.”
“But what about wanting to make love to a woman all night long?”
“You make me want to do that,” he confessed. “You make me want to make love to you all night long. Not the whisky.” David unlocked the drawer, retrieved the bottle of scotch, and set it on his desk.
“Oh.” Blushing, Tessa spooned tea into the kettle.
David smiled. “Come here.” His voice was deep, husky with emotion.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Tessa recognized the look in his dark eyes. She wanted to. Very much. But not tonight. Not with her hearing a day away. She wasn’t going to add to David’s burdens. She’d thought about it a lot since the night they’d made love. David was right. What if there was a child? His child?
“Why not?” He whirled the chair halfway around.
“Your shoulder.”
David extended the bottle of whisky. “Fill half my tea cup with this and pretty soon I’ll forget all about my shoulder.”
She reached for the bottle.
David reached for her. He clasped her wrist and pulled her toward him.
“David…”
“All I want is a kiss,” he coaxed. “Just one kiss to ease the pain.” He couldn’t control the urge. He’d been thinking about kissing her ever since Lee had teased him. At the moment he couldn’t think of anything else. He wanted to feel her lips against his, feel their breath mingle. He wanted to take her in his arms and make love to her, but since he couldn’t do that, he wanted to kiss her.
She leaned forward and met him halfway.
He nibbled at her lower lip, then soothed the tiny bites with his
tongue. He licked the seam of her lips to gain entry. Tessa parted her lips. Her tongue met his. David foraged. He used his tongue to rake the inside of her mouth, her tongue, and the slick-hard surface of her teeth. David stroked her, his tongue recreating the intimate act, reminding her, making her remember all they’d shared. Passion took flame. Tessa whimpered with need as he deepened the kiss, crushing her to him. She kissed him back, meeting him thrust for thrust. Searching, seeking the source of her pleasure.
David spread his legs. Tessa stepped into the opening. He placed one arm on her hip, exerting just enough pressure to push her down onto his leg. She sat in his lap, bracing herself against his shoulders. He cradled her like a child while he kissed her like a lover.
Aching with the need to mold her breasts against his chest, Tessa wrapped her arms around his back, kneading him like a cat. He left her lips and moved to kiss her cheeks, her eyelids, her nose, the slender column of her neck. She tilted her head back, welcoming his sensual exploration.
His kisses grew wilder, deeper, more passionate. Tessa gripped his shoulders and held on.
David groaned in pain, then tore his mouth away from hers, gasping for breath.
Realizing she’d hurt him, Tessa let go.
David throbbed. All over. The pain of his arousal surpassed even the pain of his bruised shoulder. He gazed at Tessa. Her fiery red hair hung loose about her shoulders. Her blue eyes were dark with passion, her mouth swollen and red from his kisses, the firm line of her jaw showing signs of whisker burn. She’d never looked more desirable. He’d never wanted her more.
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Maybe you were right. Maybe a kiss wasn’t such a good idea. I don’t want to stop with a kiss, but my shoulder…” He used his injured shoulder as an excuse to let her go.
Tessa stood up, self-consciously running her hands down the front of her flannel nightgown to still their quaking and help soothe the aching need of her body. She wanted to be touched, needed to be touched, and she wanted David’s knowledgeable hands to do the touching. “Why don’t I pour the tea before it gets cold?”
