The Bounty Hunter

by Cheryl St. John

  Lily’s lips curved into a self-satisfied smile. “I’d love to see a few particular faces when they hear.”

  “Howard…or Blythe Shaw?”

  She tilted her head with a smile.

  “Wade Reed…or Meriel?”

  “Most definitely, Wade and Meriel.”

  Nate couldn’t help a chuckle at the thought. “Might be worth tellin’ ’em myself.”

  She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  “Is it true, then, that Reed turned you away?”

  “It’s a fact. Said it wasn’t anything personal, that he had to live with his wife and she’d make his life hell.”

  “Seems he might be sorry.”

  “I intend to make certain.” She sipped her drink. “Until our rigs are here, I’m paying for deliveries from the train depot to my place. Spooner charges an arm and a leg to use his wagons.”

  “How long do you think it’ll be?”

  She lifted the hair from her neck with a tired sigh. The warm evening had created charming corkscrews of curls around her face and ears. “Another week or two.” From the bar, she picked up a black fan edged with lace and fanned her face. “I can’t even go for a ride until I have my own horses and a place for them.”

  “Can’t go for a swim, you mean?”

  “I’ll get by. It’s just a nice quiet way to end a hot crowded night in this place.” She dropped her hair back down and shrugged. “My private time in summer. Though I’ve dipped a time or two when the stream was frigid in the spring and fall.”

  Without thinking, Nate said, “I can take you. To the stream.”

  She stared at him. “You?”

  He nodded. “I’ll give you a ride.”

  He thought she was going to say no, because she tilted her head and lowered her chin as though she would shake her head, but she surprised him. “Okay.”

  “Now?” he asked.

  “Give me a few minutes to lock up.”

  Nate finished his drink. “I’ll saddle up. Meet me out front.”

  She picked up their glasses, and with a nod to Saul, Nate headed out.

  Wade Reed had given him a key to the stables, so he let himself in, saddled his horse and rode out without disturbing the man.

  With toweling over her shoulder, Lily waited on the boardwalk. He rode right up beside her and slid his left foot out of the stirrup, so she could use it to climb up. She settled behind him, her hands at his waist, and moved her foot so he could get his back in the stirrup. He turned the horse’s head and urged their mount away from town.

  The bright moonlight revealed Lily’s bare knee, where she’d drawn her dress up so she could sit behind him. If he reached down, he’d be able to touch her skin. He thought of the vast difference between this woman and the one he’d been with earlier that evening. Lily’s reputation was never in question. She wouldn’t in a million years think of asking for a chaperone while in his company.

  She’d once stood before him in her underclothing, and though it had been dark, he would bet a month’s wages she hadn’t blushed. There was a painting of her bare naked over the bar in her saloon, after all. Nate suspected any number of men had been alone with Lily, seen her naked, and had paid to enjoy her intimately. Once the erotic image of Lily with a man had formed in his head, he couldn’t dislodge it.

  Unwise thoughts to allow while in the saddle, he admonished himself as he slid into extreme discomfort. But he couldn’t resist looking at her knee again.

  His physical reaction was undoubtedly due to the fact that the only women he’d known over the past years were of Lily’s sort. He had to redirect his thinking if he was going to make a different life and think about a new wife and family.

  They reached the tree-lined stream, and Nate led the horse down the gently sloping bank. He raised his leg over the horse’s neck, so he could dismount first and help Lily down.

  “I’ll wait right here,” he told her.

  “Sure you don’t want to swim?” she asked over her shoulder as she made her way toward the stream. “There’s plenty of water, and it’s nice and cool.”

  “I had a bath today,” he said, but she was already gone. This wasn’t about bathing, this was about cooling off and relaxing. Why not? He hung his hat on the butt of his rifle in its sheath.

  Nate walked in the direction she’d gone and found Lily’s garments on the flat rock. He tugged off his boots and unbuckled his holster, then removed his shirt. Closer to the bank, he stripped out of his trousers and waded into the cool water a safe distance away from where Lily splashed. In the middle of the stream where the water was over his head, he spent several minutes diving down and then coming up to leisurely float on his back.

  Their activity had disturbed the small creatures that normally would have been croaking and chirping, and the night seemed eerily still except for the sound of the water splashing on stones farther up the stream and the hoot of an owl.

  He explored the smooth rocks along the stream bed with his feet, while deliberately not turning to see what Lily was doing. Eventually, though, he couldn’t resist and looked for her.

  She had stepped out of the water and was drying herself behind a clump of shrubbery that permitted glimpses of her skin through the skimpy branches. As she moved he saw a thigh, her back, her foot and ankle…and his mind filled in the rest.

  “I usually sit on the bank and dry a little before I put my clothes back on,” she called to him.

  “Don’t let me bother you.”

  With one length of toweling wrapped around her, she took a seat on the grass and dried her hair with another.

  “You gonna let me borrow that?” he asked, standing nearby in waist-high water.

  She tossed the towel toward him, and it landed on the bank. She turned to look the other way, and the fact amused him. He chuckled as he waded out and grabbed the towel.

  “What’s so funny?”

  He dried himself as well as he could with the already-damp towel, then wrapped it around his waist. “You. Acting shy.”

  “What makes you think it’s an act?”

  “Your body is in plain sight over the bar for all to see.”

  “Yours isn’t.”

  He laughed again.

  He sat down a few feet away from her and let the tantalizing warm night air flutter over his skin and hair.

  After a few minutes, the creatures resumed their normal night noises, frogs jumping into the water and croaking from the banks, crickets chirping and animals making tiny rustling sounds in the tall grass.

  Lily sat with her face turned up to the sky. “Peaceful, isn’t it?”

  He agreed. The sounds were familiar and comforting. “I’ve spent most nights of my life camped under the stars, good weather and bad.”

  “You’ve always been free to do as you wish,” she said.

  There was a measure of envy in her voice. “I reckon so. What about you?”

  “I’m free now.”

  “There’s somethin’ to be said about now. New starts and all.”

  “Is that what you’re truly doing? Starting over?”

  Nate nodded. It was strange how he always ended up talking to this woman. Saying things he never intended to say, things that he’d never said to anyone before. He guessed the quality made her good at her job. She made a man comfortable, set him at ease.

  Her shapely shoulders and slender arms were pale in the moonlight, and she sat with her knees drawn up. She wasn’t wearing a stitch but that towel. He wished it was daylight so he could see her eyes, the shape of her delicate feet, the way her hair shone.

  He needed a woman. Plain and simple. His powerful reaction to this one made the fact obvious.

  “You ever think about starting over, Lily?”

  She turned to face him, and he wasn’t sure if his use of her name delayed her response or if it had been the question. “I did start over, Sheriff. The Shady Lady is my second chance. My independence.”

  “Is there anything more you want?
Besides the Shady Lady?”

  “Such as?”

  He paused a moment before saying, “A family.”

  She straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. “I have a family. Mollie and Helena, Old Jess and Big Saul. Francesca now. We have each other. Are you gonna tell me my idea of a family is wrong?”

  “No. As long as you’re happy.” He plucked a long stem of a weed and twirled it between his fingers. “Most females want a husband is all. Children.”

  She was quiet again.

  He’d probably said the wrong thing. It wasn’t likely that a whore would find much of a husband. Maybe having everyone else’s husband was plenty more than enough.

  “I had a husband once,” she told him.

  That revelation stunned him into silence.

  “I wouldn’t wish that fate on my worst enemy,” she went on. “Well, my worst enemies do have husbands, I guess.” She opened both hands to gesture as she said that. “Serves them right.”

  She’d been married? He stared at her.

  Lily could have bitten off her tongue for telling him that. He was looking at her as though it was hard to believe someone like her could have had a husband, as if the title itself meant something honorable. Next thing she knew, he’d be poking and prying into her past, and it wouldn’t be in her best interests for a lawman to know she’d stabbed and killed the man she’d been married to.

  “What happened to him?”

  Here it came. “He got what he deserved.”

  The sheriff blessedly didn’t question her further. She glanced over and couldn’t help admiring his muscled shoulders and back. His body was a palette of shadows and his face a solemn mask of mystery. She normally saw him with his hat pulled low, but now, even though it was dark, his wet slicked-back hair revealed his chiseled and handsome features.

  Nathaniel Harding was a man to make a woman weak in the knees—even a woman who didn’t want or need a man.

  In seven years Lily hadn’t looked twice at one man. Not until this sheriff had arrested her attention and disturbed her peace. She had wondered, though. There were a couple of the girls who claimed sex had been pleasurable for them—exciting even. Lily didn’t buy it, but she had to wonder why some couples seemed happy. She would never trust a man, but she was curious.

  Apparently, she held a slim thread of trust for the sheriff—maybe it was his badge, or the fact that he actually behaved like a gentleman around her—because she wasn’t afraid to be here with him, not even in this intimate situation.

  “Don’t act so shocked, Sheriff. It’s insulting.”

  “No insult meant. I just—didn’t know, that’s all.”

  “Now you do. And you’re thinking I was a poor widow driven to prostitution.”

  He said nothing, confirming her perception. She had the inkling that he found her repulsive because of what he thought she did for a living.

  “You still think me’n my girls are in the sportin’ business, don’t you?”

  He tilted his head to the side in lieu of a reply.

  “You think my customers buy more than liquor and dances.”

  “I really can’t say, Lily.”

  “Come home with me.”

  “What?”

  “Come see for yourself. If I ran a whorehouse, there would be men there. In the upstairs rooms—with the women.”

  “Unless you warned them ahead of time.”

  “Warned them about what? It’s not illegal, so what would I be afraid of? You could pop in the Nugget right now and get an eyeful, but you couldn’t make any arrests.”

  “Why’s it so important to you to prove this to me?”

  She didn’t know. She wished she did. She’d never cared a whit what anyone thought before, and she sure didn’t know why she should start with Nathaniel Harding.

  “Ask anyone,” she said. “Ask any man in town if he’s ever bought favors at the Shady Lady.”

  “And any man would deny it.”

  Lily hit the ground in frustration. “Well, hell.”

  He laughed, and the sound irritated her.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You.”

  She stood and marched toward her pile of clothing with as much dignity as she could muster wrapped only in a towel. Her skin was cool and dry now, and she worked her way into her pantalettes and dress, but carried her corset and stockings in a fist as she moved to stand beside the roan. She couldn’t get into a corset alone and never wore one on her return trip.

  A few minutes later, she turned at the sound of the sheriff walking toward her. He’d dressed and buckled on his holster. He reached around her to pluck his hat from where it hung on the butt of his Remington. His nearness created an unexpected flutter in her chest.

  “I’ll get up first and then help you up,” he said. He was standing so close she could feel the heat of his body against her cooled flesh.

  She should have stepped away, but her feet weren’t cooperating with her head.

  She could smell him, the clean fresh scent of man and night air that clung to his hair and skin. The image of his sleekly muscled arms and shoulders in the moonlight rattled her composure and made her heart skip a series of beats. Her head felt curiously light.

  She studied the lines of his face, her gaze dropping to his mouth. She’d never been kissed. Not really kissed. Not with any feeling or tenderness, and she somehow instinctively knew that this man could satisfy her curiosity.

  She imagined leaning into him…closing her eyes…absorbing his heat…tasting his mouth…

  “Oh, hell,” he said in a rasp.

  Lily had closed her eyes in that moment of fantasy, and the dream became reality when the sheriff’s mouth came down over hers. Not tender by any means, but not rough or abrupt, either. The feel of his lips against hers engulfed her senses.

  He urged a response from her with the melding of their mouths and the velvet stroke of his tongue against her lips, until she opened her mouth and tentatively returned the stimulating caress.

  Lily pressed her palms flat against his shirtfront, absorbed his warm strength and discovered the hard plane of his chest. Her fingers grazed the tin star, and she brushed her hands upward to encircle his neck and cling to him.

  The sheriff’s hands circled her waist and drew her flush against his body. In that revealing instant, all she’d been robbed of came into distinct focus. This thrilling delight was what the girls had described. This yearning, this compulsion for physical and spiritual unity, was what a woman should feel for a man—a husband.

  The wholesome honesty of somehow feeling precious and desired was a pleasure she’d never known or felt.

  Never. Ever.

  Not even her own father had valued her or anything she had to give. Her husband had taken her with force, had never cared for her or treated her with respect.

  The dignity she felt in this man’s arms was the last thing she’d expected and probably the last thing he’d intended, but it was there all the same.

  He ended the kiss, burying his face in her neck and splaying his hands across her back to keep her so close she could feel the beat of his heart as though it were her own.

  Lily clung to him, opening her eyes to the stars in the night sky, expecting them to have changed or fallen after such an earth-shattering experience. But the stars were still in place. The frogs still croaked along the stream bank, and she was still Lily Divine. But a changed Lily Divine. One who knew exactly what she’d been missing. And precisely what she could never have.

  The sheriff’s breath against her ear sent shivers across her shoulders, and her breasts were supremely sensitive against the fabric of her dress. She realized she’d dropped her corset and stockings without a thought, because she was pulling him close with both hands at his back.

  He straightened then, to look into her face. His thumb stroked her cheek in a delicate caress, and she gazed into his eyes in the darkness, wishing for light so she could read his expression. Night was okay, thoug
h. If it was regret, she didn’t want to know.

  She feared suddenly that he would apologize or tell her that this had been a mistake, and she didn’t want to acknowledge that just yet. She made the first move and pulled away, bending to grab up her corset and stockings. She made a halfhearted attempt to tame her hair, which was drying into a wild mane of curls.

  “Go ahead, Sheriff.” She gestured to his horse. “I’m ready.”

  He looked at her curiously, but he stepped away to pick up his hat and settle it on his head. With a creak of leather, he set his foot and pulled himself into the saddle, then reached for her.

  Lily tucked her unmentionables under one arm and grasped his hand to swing up behind him.

  With the taste of him on her lips, his smell in her head and his solid, warm body before her, she wrapped her arms around his waist and enjoyed the last moments of closeness as they rode back.

  The sheriff took it slow, as though he wanted to make the most of the ride, as well. When he reined the horse in before her house, he started to dismount, but she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Stay.”

  She managed to swing her leg across the horse’s rump and dismount, landing on her wooden doorstep. She adjusted her skirts and bodice and looked up at him with her chin raised.

  “Just so you know, Sheriff…I’m not sorry.”

  “Neither am I, Lily.”

  His words made her want to cry. She took her key from her pocket and let herself inside, quickly closing the door behind her and leaning against it.

  But she was sorry. Sorry that she knew now. Sorry she’d never have what she’d merely glimpsed and felt this night. There was nothing she could do to change her circumstances. Sorry was a waste of energy.

  And Lily was an overcomer. She would get over this, too.

  She wouldn’t let a silly kiss change anything.

  She was Lily Divine.

  SUNDAY ARRIVED on the tail of Saturday night, just as he feared it would. Nate thought of all the things he’d planned to do with his free time, and then resigned himself. He’d promised.

  He was going to church.

  He dressed in his finest shirt and trousers, tying a new string tie at his throat and donning his polished boots and holster.