His eyes had a faraway look in them that worried Zachery. This wasn’t the time to get a soft spine, and Ralph was showing the symptoms.
“Whether we get our necks stretched with a rope or the job gets done with bullets,” Ralph said, “Marc Andollini is going to want blood.”
“All we’ve got to do is keep our mouths shut, and Marc and Frank won’t know a damned thing. Neither will Sheriff Dixon.” Deciding that what Ralph needed most at that time was to get his mind off the possible ramifications of the ill-fated ambush, he gave his friend a rakish smile and said, “Let’s go to Miss Julia’s. I hear she’s brought in some new whores. I’ll rent one of the new girls for you, and after she cleans your whistle, you’ll have a whole new outlook on life.”
A couple seconds passed before Ralph smiled. The offer seemed to take a while to set in. Eventually, he set his glass down and asked, “What about getting me two of the girls, Zachery?”
Secure that he had recovered his friend’s confidence, Zachery replied, “I’ll buy one gal for you. If you want to get your dick greased two at a time by Miss Julia’s latest talent, you’ll have to buy the second little filly yourself.”
* * * *
“Peaches! You brought canned peaches!” Colleen exclaimed, inspecting the provisions that Marc had returned with from Golden Valley.
Peaches were an extravagance she could afford only on rare occasions. She pulled another can from the carton that Marc had just carted in from the buckboard.
“And pears. I love pears. But I could never afford—”
“Stop! Don’t even start,” Marc said sharply, cutting her off. “Frank and I are alive, thanks to you, and he’s going to be holed up here until Doc Hamms says otherwise. The absolute least I can do is make sure you don’t have to foot the bill for feeding that big galoot.”
Colleen glanced over at Frank, who was looking at her through eyes barely open. For the past hour, he’d been drifting in and out of sleep. When she turned her attention back to Marc, she remembered how he had guided her like a ship’s captain in tumultuous seas from one orgasm to the next. Until Marc had taught her otherwise, she hadn’t thought it was possible to climax that many times.
“Hey, buddy,” Frank said from the bed, his voice muzzy with sleep, “what are the odds of you showing up with some chocolate?”
Marc smiled, and Colleen was once again reminded of just how deep the bond of friendship was between these men.
“Do you really think I’d forget my best friend’s got the world’s most demanding sweet tooth?” Marc reached into one of the boxes and extracted four oblong bars of chocolate wrapped in printed paper. “It’s not Swiss chocolate, but I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Mr. Gurney assured me Mrs. Mathison approves, and she’s been gaining ten pounds a year since they found gold on her husband’s land.”
As the men conversed, Colleen reflected on what had truly been a bizarre time in her life. As the day started, she had given orgasmic relief to Frank, sucking and stroking him to climax. To do such a thing to a man who had not spoken a single word of commitment to her was unthinkable. Yet she’d done it. She’d done it thoughtfully and more enthusiastically than ever before in her life. Once he’d climaxed, she went about washing him as any good nurse would, with a cloth, soap, and water. When he fell asleep shortly after she’d satisfied his desires, she felt not so much as a twinge of regret for her actions.
Then there was her time with Marc later in the day. Had she really begged him to fill her with his tireless cock? Yes. Yes, she had. The awareness of it now made a blush creep up her chest to her cheeks and ears.
“Hey, you all right?”
Marc’s question snapped her out of her brief reverie.
“Yes, yes, of course,” she said quickly, turning away from him, refusing to let her gaze meet his. “I was just thinking back, trying to remember the last time I had peaches in sauce.”
“Get used to it,” Marc replied, his tone returning to normal. “You’ll never be without peaces again, if I have anything to say about it.”
Marc went over and sat in the chair that had been pulled beside the bed. Colleen looked at the men, marveling at the scope of their friendship. She tried to suppress a yawn, failed, then yawned a second time. Fatigue suddenly weighed down upon her.
“You need to get some sleep,” Marc said from across the room.
“I can’t. I still have my chores to do.”
Marc rose, his body powerful and lithe, the smile on his lips self-satisfied. “Not for the next couple days, you don’t. I hired Amanda Holloway to take care of them.”
Three months earlier, when Colleen had stumbled and badly sprained her ankle, Amanda had taken care of milking duties and distributed the eggs in town properly. Everyone in Golden Valley knew that Amanda had been one of the few women to not shun Colleen after her public disgrace.
“You shouldn’t have,” she said with little conviction.
“You’ve had how much sleep in the last two days?”
“A couple hours.”
Frank pointed to the spare blankets spread out on the floor across from the bed he occupied. “How about I move over there, and you can have your bed back?”
“No. I won’t hear of it.” She moved over and sat on the blankets, already starting to take off her boots. “I just need couple hours of sleep,” she explained as a marrow-deep exhaustion seemed to envelope her senses. “That’s all. Just a couple hours and then I’ll be right as rain.”
She put her head on the pillow, looked one last time at the two men who seemed to have such a strange, unprecedented power over her thoughts, emotions, and actions, and closed her eyes.
She was asleep in seconds.
* * * *
Marc stood at the foot of the bed, watching carefully as Doc Hamms looked at the stitches Colleen had used to close the grazing bullet wound to Frank’s skull. The smell of disinfectant was strong in the small, one-room home.
“You’re lucky on several counts,” the doctor said, wire-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of his nose as he studied the wound. “If the bullet had been over another half an inch, you’d have had your brains splattered. At least you had the good sense to have that lady sleeping over there put in sutures. She must have done some doctoring on someone before. The only thing that tells me a trained doctor didn’t put them in is that the knots aren’t tied quite right. She put the stitches in nice and close, so you’re not even going to have much of a scar. If she’d have done any better, I’d be suffering some professional jealousy right now.”
He looked away from his patient for the first time since entering the house and turned toward Marc. “I don’t want this man to move from this bed for three days. Head wounds are tricky things. They can fool the patient as well as the doctor. The patient thinks he’s fine, and the next thing that happens is he’s so dizzy he can’t open his eyes without being paralyzed with pain.” He took out a small, brown bottle from his medical bag. “So unless he’s got to use the outhouse, he stays in bed. If he’s in pain, give him some of this, but only a spoonful. It’s laudanum, and it’s easy to use too much of it.”
“Three days?” Marc said, thinking he had three complete days to convince Colleen she shouldn’t have to be tied up to share her passion with him. In a softer voice, he asked, “That’s at a minimum, right?”
Doc Hamms got up from the bed and nodded his gray head. “That’s right. At a minimum.” He looked over at Colleen, who slept on a makeshift bed. “Lots of folks in Golden Valley have treated her pretty shabbily because she was foolish enough to give her heart to a scoundrel like Allen Carpenter. See to it that you treat her right for what she’s done for you and Frank.”
“Doctor, I give you my word as a gentleman that she will be treated properly for what’s she’s done.”
The doctor looked around at the Spartan furnishings, then at a man worth a prince’s fortune. “I know you will. But a man like me needs to say things like that, just like a man like you
needs to hear them every once in a while.”
Chapter Twelve
“I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am for you coming all the way out here and doing my chores,” Colleen said, looking at her best friend, Amanda Holloway. “You’re nothing less than a lifesaver, and I’ll owe you for the rest of my life.”
“The way that handsome Marc Andollini told it, you’re the real lifesaver. Besides, you can’t just be someone’s friend only when it’s convenient,” Amanda replied. Then she smiled sheepishly. “Besides, Mr. Andollini is paying me a small fortune just to milk your cow and distribute the milk and eggs.” She cupped a hand to her mouth and whispered, “Five dollars a day. Can you believe it? Five dollars a day!” She put a hand to her chest and sighed. “I didn’t know a girl could make so much money without taking her clothes off.”
Colleen’s mouth dropped open momentarily. Five dollars a day was a fortune. After expenses, Colleen hoped to make a dollar to a dollar fifteen cents in profit a day. Even Sheriff Clay Dixon, who risked his life on a daily basis, only earned a salary from the city government of Golden Valley of fifty dollars a month, and he was considered one of the more talented, but expensive, lawmen in the territory. Most lawmen earned between thirty and forty-five dollars a month.
Amanda’s expression transformed quickly, turning contrite. “Oh, you’re not angry with me that he’s being so generous, are you? I know that’s a lot more than you—”
“Stop! Don’t even say it,” Colleen cut in, stopping her friend before she could needlessly apologize any further. It suddenly occurred to her that she was sounding very much like the men who were currently occupying her house. “You haven’t done anything wrong. Quite the opposite, in fact. And if you turn a profit by helping me, then so much the better.”
Colleen put her hands on the curve of her hips and looked around at her property. All she had was the barn, the chicken coop, her home and outhouse, and the small fenced pasture. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to allow her to earn an honest living without having to bow to anyone. Of that, she was justifiably proud.
“So tell me,” Amanda said with a salacious grin, reaching out to nudge her friend’s elbow, “what’s it like living with those two absolutely gorgeous men?”
Colleen wheeled around sharply to face Amanda. “It’s not like what you’re implying, and you know it.” Her expression softened when she saw by Amanda’s countenance that she was only joking. “Oh, you! You’re always teasing me.” She pantomimed kicking an imaginary object at Amanda. “After what my reputation’s been through because of Allen Carpenter, do you really think I’d be foolish enough to let my heart get swayed by men the likes of Frank Bishop and Marc Andollini? There’s hardly a debutante in the territory that hasn’t sampled the charms of one or both of them.”
“Which makes me wonder why you haven’t.” Amanda raised a brow in mock query. ”Haven’t you been a good girl long enough?”
Colleen kicked another imaginary object at Amanda. “No, I haven’t.” She felt a blush creeping up her chest, neck, cheeks, and ears. “I haven’t even thought about it, if you really must know.”
“Yes, I must know.”
Colleen’s lips compressed into a thin line as she glared at her friend. “What kind of fool would I be to give my heart to men the likes of those two? I’m sure they’re real pleasers. All you’ve got to do is look at them and listen to the ladies in town talking about them to know that they’re adept at pleasing women. But only a very foolish woman would think that she could capture the heart of either Marc or Frank.” She stamped her foot. “If you’re interested in sampling their charms, go right ahead! You’re twenty-two years old, and that’s old enough to make your own decisions. For myself, I’ve learned that the only thing men can give you is a reputation you’d rather not have.” With a wave of her hand, she tossed slightly wavy, copper-hued hair over her shoulder. “And, since you and I both know I have a reputation no woman wants, we know that I speak from a painfully precise knowledge of the subject.”
Despite Colleen’s vitriol, Amanda appeared entirely unabashed. “Well, it’s sad to say, but I’m still a virgin. My father, damn him, is busy trying to figure out how much money he can make by selling me off as a bride. Virgin brides are popular, as we both know, but he just doesn’t have the connections with Golden Valley’s elites to sell me for much.”
Colleen heard the pain beneath the casual sarcasm in Amanda’s words. In a heartbeat, she forgot about her own emotional uncertainties and thought only of her friend’s current unpleasant situation.
“Who is he marketing you out to this time? Is he at least young, handsome, and rich as all get-out? One thing Golden Valley’s got a lot of these days is men with money.”
“Ug! His traits include only one of the above.” Amanda wrapped her arms around herself and shivered dramatically. “It’s Mr. Burton.”
Even Colleen, who didn’t have a favorable opinion of Amanda’s father, was shocked as the callousness of such an attempt. Softly, she asked, “Isn’t he nearly sixty years old?”
“Yes, he is. But what’s important to Papa is that Mr. Burton has nearly six thousand head of cattle in the Saddle Mountain Valley, and he’s desperate to marry a young virgin bride because, so far, he hasn’t managed to have any male children. He’s determined to have a male heir.” She shivered again and said in a low, miserable voice, “Damn, I feel like a prize filly on the auction block.”
“But Mr. Burton?” Colleen’s tone was very soft. “His first wife died of pneumonia. His second died in childbirth. His last wife hopped on a stagecoach and left town for places unknown.”
“Can you picture me living on that big ranch, trying to give that nasty old man a son?”
“No. Actually, I really can’t.”
Amanda walked to where her swaybacked buckskin gelding stood near the corral railing. She swung up into the saddle, and Colleen could tell that even though she was an emotionally strong young woman, she was fighting hard to keep tears at bay.
“Don’t worry about your business in town,” Amanda said, her gaze not quite meeting Colleen’s. “I’ll see to it that your customers get their milk and eggs and cheese.”
“You’re sure?”
“Mr. Andollini’s paying me a lot of money, but do you know what I like most of all?”
Colleen shook her head.
Amanda smiled with sadness. “It gives me an excuse to stay away from my own house.”
* * * *
Frank blinked a couple times before opening his eyes. He yawned, stretched his arms, then his legs, and sat upright in bed. His surroundings were no longer frighteningly unfamiliar, and he did not, as he had in the past, feel the sudden sense of foreboding upon shaking off sleep.
His head felt fine. The previous night a sudden move on his part prompted an instantaneous, fierce headache. Only a liberal dose of laudanum put an end to the pounding hammers in his skull, coercing him into a deep sleep. His right hand, wrist, and forearm were still stiff and swollen, but they didn’t hurt the way they had in the hours after the injury. The bruise now clearly showed the imprint of a horse’s hoof, the skin an unsightly purplish-black in color. He could move all his fingers, so Doc Hamms was reasonably convinced that no bones had been broken.
He looked around the small, tidy home of Colleen O’Malley, then down at the big bed he was in. A frown tugged at his lips. He’d have to buy her a new bed. There was nothing wrong with the one he was in except that Allen Carpenter had bought it for her so that he’d have a comfortable place to make love to her.
A sudden, entirely unexpected sense of jealousy and possessiveness swept over Frank. What the hell difference could it possibly make if he was in another man’s bed? He’d been in a hundred beds of a hundred different cuckolded husbands in his life. In many ways, Frank preferred married women. It kept matters highly sexual and without complications. And often, the significantly older husbands didn’t mind at all that Frank was showing their younger wives
some satisfaction.
But this time it was different. This time it was Colleen O’Malley’s bed, a bed she had shared with another man, and though that shouldn’t mean anything to Frank, it did. It meant a lot.
“Getting shot in the head has rattled my brain,” he muttered aloud, trying unsuccessfully to force the venomous, jealous emotions from taking root within him. “It’s just a damned bed.”
Just a bed, but he was going to buy her a new one as soon as Doc Hamms said he was healthy enough to be on his feet again.
A smile touched his lips as he thought about the upcoming purchase. He’d have to buy it in either Helena or Virginia City. If he bought it in Golden Valley, it wouldn’t take an hour for the gossiping tongues to besmirch Colleen’s reputation once again. The last thing in the world that Frank wanted was to hurt her or to be put in the same category as Allen Carpenter.
The door opened, and Colleen stepped into the house. She looked at Frank, and her smile was open and instantaneous.
“You’re feeling better.” For once, it was a statement, not a question. “I’ll bet you’re hungry.”
“Only for you.”
The words were out of Frank’s mouth before he could check them. Once they’d been spoken, they couldn’t be retracted. After a moment, Frank smiled. Colleen took a defensive step backward as though needing to put more distance between herself and him.
“Don’t talk like that.” Her words were softly spoken.
“Why not? They’re true.”
“It didn’t happen.” She walked toward the kitchen area, keeping her distance from the bed. “I know what you’re thinking, but it didn’t happen. You’ve got to remember that. It just didn’t happen.”
Maxwell, Brandi - Colleen's Desire [The Lost Collection] (Siren Publishing Menage Everlasting) Page 11
