He dried himself quickly, then spread the damp toweling on the ground and took her hand to urge her down beside him. She looked up at him as though she couldn’t quite believe they were here and that this was happening. He felt the same.
“You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, Lily.” He lay alongside her and looked at her body in the moonlight. Unbidden came thoughts of other men who’d seen her body and enjoyed her kisses, but he banished those to the back of his mind and concentrated on this moment, on the feelings she inspired.
“I’ve got a fire inside for you like nothin’ I’ve ever felt before. You feel it, too, don’t you?”
She nodded.
He’d thought himself a strong man, hardened by life and living, but Lily exposed his weaknesses. All the willpower he’d thought he possessed was like dandelion seed scattered in the wind when he looked at her, thought of her, touched her.
He skimmed his thumb along her smooth cheek, the fine line of her jaw, and touched her lower lip. Her breath warmed his fingers.
He stroked the back of her thigh, up but not as far as her bottom, then back down. The back of her knee was silken and sensitive, because she caught her breath. Oh, to be touching Lily Divine was the most exquisite pleasure, to hear her responsive sighs the most rapturous torture on earth. Pure bliss to skim his palm along her flesh, to bring his fingers to the delicate skin on the inside of her thigh and feel her body tremble.
He wanted to move his hand higher, touch her intimately and make her shudder against him, but he waited, listened to her breathing even out, and kissed her.
She was the one who opened her mouth this time, tilting her head and taking his tongue in her mouth as though she was making love to his body. She had to feel him hard and aching against her, had to know how desperate he was for her. The pleasure he sought was so close his stomach knotted with anticipation. But he took his time kissing her, caressing her thigh, then brought his hand up to cup her breast.
Her breasts were even more luscious than the artist had portrayed them. And he had the privilege of them in his hands, against his cheek. He lowered his head and indulged himself in the sheer gratification of tasting her. She clutched his head to her breast, digging her fingers into his hair.
He flicked his tongue against her nipple, and she arched herself toward him with a soft groan. His desire for her wasn’t satisfied, and he crawled upward to take her mouth, deep and hungrily this time. Why he should feel honored to make love to a woman who sold herself to every miner who came down the pike, he couldn’t fathom. But here he was, deluded into feeling as though he was the man she’d been waiting for.
Nate grasped behind her knee and pulled her leg up around his hip, and she crushed into him. He splayed his hand across her lush bottom, stroking, kneading, as the need he’d stored up for years spiraled upward and spread like wildfire.
He rolled so that she was on top of him, her cold wet hair draping his cheek and shoulder, and she took control of the kiss while he caressed her backside with both hands.
She ran her hand over his face and down his shoulder to his chest, then along their sides to his hip.
He rolled them again, and they were on the bed of long soft grass now. Nate wedged his knee between her thighs, and she gasped and pressed into his thigh. Against his leg she was slick molten heat. Everything about Lily was more intense, more vibrant, more exciting than any woman he had ever known. Everything from her colorful speech to her sometimes flamboyant manner of dress. This was more splendid, as well.
He separated their mouths and stared into her lovely face in the moonlight. “You said you weren’t sorry for the kiss that night.”
“I wasn’t.”
“What about this? Will you be sorry for this?”
“Will you?” she returned.
“No.”
She lay with one hand on his back, the other at his hip, her hair drying in ringlets around her face.
Their bodies strained to join. Heat pounded where Nate nudged between her thighs.
“Answer,” he demanded. “Will you be sorry?”
“No.”
Focused on her face, he reached between them and touched her. She was so still, he feared his touch didn’t please her, but then she made a sound like a hiccup and he knew just where to focus his attention.
She turned her head aside and closed her eyes. Her hips arched convulsively into him.
“Look at me.” He said it more gruffly than he’d intended.
She did and he poised himself.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth and grasped both of his upper arms.
Nate slid into her tight heat with a groan of pleasure and a shiver that spread from where they were joined all the way to his scalp. “You are divine, Miss Lily, no doubt about it.”
He remained raised on his arms to watch her expression as he moved and took up a rhythm that was almost too much, too strong, too blissful to sustain. This woman carried him to the edge of reason and dangled him from the precipice, and he’d never loved anything more. He wanted to lose control, but he wanted to take her with him, so he kissed her, touched her, grasped her hips and angled himself to give her the most pleasure.
She encouraged him with breathless sounds and a tightening of her fingers on his shoulders. His senses were so full of her, his body so lost in her, he didn’t want to miss a moment or return to reason, ever.
But he had to, of course.
Her body tensed and pulsed around him, and she pulled him down to hold him close. He buried his face in the delicious scent of her neck, held her tightly and took his own release in a blinding rush of sensation.
Neither of them moved for long seconds as their breathing slowed and their bodies cooled. Nate slid to her side and cradled her in his arms.
Lily would never let him know how deeply she’d been touched by his gentleness and unselfish concern. She’d never known a man’s tender caress before, never taken pleasure in this act she’d only feared and dreaded. Just as she’d learned what she’d been missing in his kisses, she now knew the vast extent of what had been stolen from her.
Her pride. Her self-respect. Her dignity and worth. Her pleasure in being a woman. All the things her father had sold so cheaply and that her husband had crushed with his abuse.
Lily knew them now. She felt a newly awakened sense of power and a burgeoning confidence. This man found her worthy of respect and had honored her body with his. He had taken nothing against her will, but accepted what she willingly gave him with reverence. She’d felt admired. Revered. She felt it still in the way he held her in his arms and threaded his fingers into the tangle of hair at her neck.
She looked up at him, and he took it as an invitation to kiss her. Lily felt tears welling in her eyes and a tightening in her throat. Even now he kissed her. Even now he showed tenderness.
He was a strong man. A man who’d killed. A man she doubted feared much of anything. A man who wore a gun like another arm.
The first man she’d ever trusted.
She ended the kiss to say, “I’m not sorry, Sheriff.”
“I should hope not. But I do hope we know each other well enough that you can call me by my name.”
She smiled and he brought a finger up to run it over her lips. “I’ll have to try it out. Nathaniel.”
“It’s Nate.”
“You don’t seem like a Nate to me.”
“What do I seem like to you?”
“Sheriff comes natural.”
He sighed. “Just plain Nate will do.”
The breeze touched their skin, and she became aware that the evening had finally cooled down. She didn’t want this time to end, but it was growing late.
“I have some shampoo paste on the bank. Want to wash quickly before we head back?”
He rose to find the shampoo, and she admired the beauty of his body in the moonlight.
“You gonna help me?”
“No.”
Finally he found the tube
and they bathed quickly. The towel was still damp, so Nate gave her his shirt to dry with. She used it and so did he, and they dressed.
Lily stuffed her corset, stockings and garters in Charlotte’s saddlebag and wore only her satin drawers and dress.
He stepped close behind her as she prepared to mount the horse. Lily felt his breath on her shoulder and turned her cheek into his.
“I’ve never known a woman like you,” he said.
She brought her palm up and stroked his jaw, felt the prickle of his evening beard. “And I’ve never known a man like you.”
He was the kind of man women dreamed of having notice them, the kind of man a woman wanted to have court her, to love her.
He had loved a woman once. Sarah had been her name. A woman with family and land. A woman who’d no doubt been a virgin when he’d bedded her the first time. A woman who’d given him a child…
Lily turned away and stepped into the stirrup. Nate aided her with both hands on her rump and a healthy push.
“The pleasure was all mine,” he said.
She picked up the reins and nudged the horse forward. Behind her he mounted his roan and followed.
They rode slowly, as though neither of them was eager for the night to end. As they reached the outskirts of town, an orange glow on the horizon caught their attention. Dark smoke curled into the sky.
Dread clenched in Lily’s stomach. “Fire!”
They kicked their horses into a run, heading toward the site of the blaze. Lily noted in relief that the flames were coming from too far away to be her place, and as they thundered past the darkened Shady Lady, she shouted, “Fire! Grab buckets and hurry!”
Celeste stuck her head out an open front window, then ducked back in, presumably to alert the others.
At the end of Main Street flames shot from the back of the Big Nugget. “Bernie’s place!” she called to Nate.
But as they dismounted and tethered the horses to a post a safe distance away, Nate said, “I don’t think so.”
Lily looked again.
The flames could be seen over the top of the Nugget, but there was no activity at the saloon, and the sounds of shouting came from behind.
Her new livery was burning.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE MET NATE’S hard unreadable eyes for the briefest of moments before they both took off at a run around the side of the Nugget.
The entire back of the new livery structure was in flames. The waves of heat reached them where they stood, and the stench burned Lily’s nostrils. Bernie and Zeke were among half a dozen men who were flapping scorched blankets at the blaze and carrying dripping buckets of water. Among them were Howard and George, and even Amos Douglas had shown up to help.
There weren’t enough people or enough buckets, and the men were losing ground fast, even though the new wood burned slowly. Lily could see that if they lost this battle, the flames could easily jump to the Nugget.
She grabbed a stack of blankets from a pile on the ground and ran to the trough out front to soak them. As she was returning, a dozen more volunteers came to help, all of them her employees. They carried kettles and pails and all manner of containers.
The sheriff organized a line of people from the front of the building to the rear.
“The water’s going to run out,” Lily called to him. “We can get water from my trough system at the garden plot.”
He called to Big Saul and Howard, and they lugged barrels to the back of a wagon and began the process of filling and transporting them. Lily’s back ached by the third trip, and her eyes burned from the smoke, but she didn’t slow down.
A crowd gathered on the street to watch and speculate, and she noticed a few from the Women’s Temperance Prayer League, as well as Catherine Douglas and Evangeline Gibbs.
Violet dropped onto a step at the front of the saloon. She wore a dressing gown and a pair of boots. Water had soaked the front of her robe.
Celeste fell into place beside her.
Lily made another trip with the men before she did the same, catching her breath and resting her back. Violet and Celeste joined the bucket line this time.
After a moment Lily stood.
“Take a rest, Lily.” With a hand on her shoulder, Nate gently pushed her back down on the step. “Sit for a few minutes.”
She looked up at him and agreed with a nod.
He loped back to his task.
Her gaze moved across the bystanders to observe the women. Most had taken time to dress and hastily pin up their hair. She glanced down at the stained and torn satin dress she wore, one with a low-cut bodice and a hem that showed her ankles. She hadn’t put on her corset or stockings after she and the sheriff had…gone swimming. Her hair had dried to a nimbus of wild ringlets after that swim and consequent tumble. She must look like a wild woman.
“Nathaniel?” Evangeline Gibbs, ever the proper young lady, waved a white hankie at the sheriff as he passed on the wagon.
He motioned Saul to drive forward and jumped down to see what she wanted.
She handed him a bandanna and a jar of something Lily couldn’t see in the darkness. She imagined lemonade.
Nate drank the contents thirstily and wiped his face with the cloth. A moment later he tucked the bandanna in his pocket and chased after the wagon.
The incident left Lily with a disturbed feeling. Evangeline had certainly seemed familiar with the sheriff. Bold and confident enough to seek his attention and offer him a drink.
Thirty people were running and sweating to fight this fire and she’d singled out and catered to the sheriff?
Lily stood.
Evangeline looked her way.
She might have seen Nate instruct Lily to take a break. Perhaps that had reeked of familiarity, as well.
Lily joined the bucket line with her friends.
An hour later, the fire was out. An exhausted community gathered in the street in front of the Big Nugget.
“Somebody set that fire,” Bernie said, wiping sweat and soot from his forehead. “Somebody set on destroying our livery.”
The sheriff agreed. “There’s no other explanation. It was an empty structure. No cooking fire.”
Lily felt sick at the loss. She’d sunk a fair investment into that building. So had Bernie and Zeke—at her urging. She felt responsible now.
An uncomfortable shift of attention brought sets of eyes to Wade Reed. He stared from one person to the next with his mouth agape. “You don’t think it was me! Hellfire! Bernie’s a friend of mine. Zeke, too. And Lily.”
Lily spoke up. “I don’t think you did it.”
“What about your wife?” Clive Callahan asked. “Where was she after you took her home from jail?”
“She was in bed with me when we heard the commotion. She never left my side. She was pretty shook up and grateful to go home.” His gaze skittered to Lily’s and away.
She didn’t believe Wade would destroy property, but she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t lie to protect his wife.
A heated discussion broke out between several of the business owners.
“Let’s all get some rest,” Mayor Gibbs said. “It’s too late to solve anything tonight. Not that we’re going to with any certainty. But at least we can look at things fresh in the morning. Go home, people.”
Charlotte came to Lily’s side. “Sorry ’bout yer place. Guess I don’t have a job no more.”
“I’m not letting some underhanded firebug get the best of me,” Lily told her with conviction. A dozen people heard her reply, including the sheriff. “You’ll have a job come winter, don’t doubt it.”
“Hell, Lily,” Bernie said, scratching his neck. “I ain’t sinkin’ any more money into this thing. Most ever’body said they’d do business with us as usual, and the women been set on their ear. What’re we fightin’ for now?”
“For our right to run any business we damned well please,” she replied. “And not to be run off. Nobody’s taking away something I worked for!”
“Nobody said things come easy,” she called to his back.
The crowd broke up, walking toward their various homes.
Harold looked at the piles of buckets and blankets. “I guess we’ll sort through this mess in the morning, huh?”
“I’ll help you, Miss Lily,” Dutch Hulbert said.
“Me, too,” Wesley Clark added.
A couple of the miners who’d been staying in town and had come to help spoke up, as well.
“All right,” Lily said. “We’ll start cleaning up bright and early tomorrow. See how bad it looks and what needs to be replaced. Thanks, all of you.”
The men said their good-nights and the street was soon silent. The stench of burnt wood pervaded the air. Lily could smell it in her hair.
“Guess another bath is called for,” she said aloud.
The sheriff was standing a few feet away. They were on a public street. “Shame I’ll miss this one.”
She grinned. “The girls are probably heating water now.”
“Get some rest. I was gonna walk your horse to the livery, but it’s gone.”
“Charlotte took him. Sam’s hers.”
“Get up. Ride mine to your place.”
He didn’t help her up this time, but he walked alongside.
In front of her house, she slid to the boardwalk.
“Shame about your building,” he said.
“Do you think Wade would lie if Meriel had anything to do with it?”
“I wouldn’t’ve thought so, but people always surprise you.”
“Disappoint you, you mean.”
“That, too. I plan to look around inside the livery while I’m there.”
Lily stifled a yawn. “It’s almost morning.”
“See you tomorrow.” He turned to go.
“Nate?”
He stopped at the use of his name and came back. “Yeah?”
“Nothin’. Just trying it out.”
He grinned and led the horse away.
LILY’S MUSCLES ACHED as soon as she sat up in bed the following morning. Not only did she have an unfamiliar ache between her thighs, but her back and arms felt as though she’d carried a horse up a hill.
The Bounty Hunter Page 16
