A Lady of the West

by Linda Howard

  She was still exhausted from the bone-crushing journey, as they had only arrived in Santa Fe the day before. Moreover, they had been invited to a party at the governor’s house that night. She needed both to rest and to escape from Roper’s company. “It’s getting late, Major. We need to return to the hotel to get dressed for the party.”

  The Major checked his watch and scowled. “Damn. I need to see someone this afternoon. Roper, escort the ladies back to the hotel. Garnet, you come with me.”

  She inhaled to voice a protest, then let her breath out with rueful acceptance. For whatever reason, fate was conspiring against her in her efforts to avoid Roper. All she could do was be so gracious that no one would suspect how his presence disturbed her.

  His eyes gleamed dark green as he took her elbow in his right hand and Emma’s in his left, as if he knew of her discomfort and enjoyed it. Celia danced along behind, beside, and in front of them, her bright presence masking Victoria’s silence. Emma made the usual small talk, leading Victoria to wonder if no one but Roper saw her agitation. Did she hide it so well, even from Emma?

  The hotel was three stories tall, and the Major had booked their rooms on the top floor so they wouldn’t be bothered by the coming and going of the other guests. Emma and Celia shared a room next door to Victoria’s room, and beyond that was the Major’s. Victoria was devoutly thankful that there was no connecting door. She had slept better in the hotel room than she had since the day she’d been married.

  Emma and Celia entered their room first, and Victoria firmly disengaged her arm from Roper’s grip.

  “Thank you for your escort, Mr. Roper,” she said in polite dismissal as she retrieved her door key from her bag.

  “You’re very welcome, Mrs. McLain,” he replied in solemn tones. He took the key from her and opened the door, then put his hand on her back and forcefully ushered her inside.

  Victoria whirled to see him shutting the door and locking it again, from the inside. Her heart lurched as she faced him. “Please leave, now, and I won’t say anything about this.”

  He took off his hat and ran his hand through his dark hair. “About what, Mrs. McLain?” he asked softly.

  “About—this. Forcing your way into my room.”

  “Have I touched you? Insulted you? Kissed you?”

  Her heartbeat was even faster now. Her palms were damp, and she put her hands behind her back. “No,” she whispered. Something occurred to her, and she lifted her chin. “You’re doing this for revenge, aren’t you? Because I—I accidentally intruded the other night in the barn. I apologize, Mr. Roper. It was completely unintentional.”

  A corner of his mouth kicked up in a little smile. “You sure got an eyeful, didn’t you? But you must have liked what you saw, because you didn’t leave, you stood there until the end.”

  She blushed painfully, and he gave a low laugh. How could she explain that she’d been frozen, unable to move? She couldn’t tell him how pain had lanced through her or how fiercely jealous she had been.

  “I’ve got a deal to offer you,” he said, watching her intently. “I won’t say anything around the ranch about you watching me with Florina if you’ll give me that kiss you’re so terrified I’ll take.” He knew the risk he was running by being in her room, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have her to himself for just a few minutes. Let her start getting used to the idea that there was something between them, and accustom her to his lovemaking.

  Now she went pale, and for a minute she felt as if she might faint. “You—you want me to kiss you?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I do. I’ve never had a lady kiss me before. I want to know if you taste any different, if your lips are softer.” He looked as if he were wickedly enjoying her agitation. “I want a long, slow, mouth to mouth kiss.”

  “I’m married!”

  He shrugged. “So?”

  So, indeed? She looked at him wildly. Did all men feel that way about the marriage vows? Her husband had broken his easily enough. Kissing Roper wouldn’t be infidelity in act, but it would be in spirit. She thought of the distasteful way the Major had put his mouth on hers, but the thought of kissing Roper like that wasn’t distasteful at all. It was deeply, primitively exciting and it frightened her because she should never even think such a thing, let alone act on it.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  He smiled again, and she shivered. “Oh, I think you can,” he murmured, slowly advancing. “Just think of what the men would say if they knew you had watched. They’d get a real hoorah out of it, and they’d laugh every time they saw you.”

  She backed up a step. “Mr. Roper—”

  “Jake.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking of me. I—”

  “I think I do.” He moved again, his hand shooting out to catch her arm and prevent her from retreating further. “I’m asking you to kiss me the way a woman kisses a man. Nothing else. Just a kiss.”

  She couldn’t believe how hot his hands were. If he were that warm all over, what would it feel like if he—She jerked her thoughts to a standstill, appalled at herself. She stared up at him.

  “That’s all?” she whispered. “Just a kiss.”

  “That’s all.”

  “It’s blackmail.”

  “Yes.”

  It was sinful and she knew it, but sin has been sweet from the beginning of time. The temptation to taste him was so powerful she was shaking with it, and it was forbidden. She was a respectable married lady; she should cleave only unto her husband—

  —who cleaved unto any cheap slut who would have him.

  She felt paralyzed, mesmerized. His eyes were glittering down at her, so close that she could see the tiny golden striations around the black iris, blending into forest green tinged with blue. She could feel his breath on her face and knew that, sin or not, she was going to let him kiss her.

  His left hand slid around the small of her back and urged her closer. Immediately Victoria’s hands flew up to clutch his biceps in faint alarm and protest, but she said nothing. The swell of his muscles under her palms left her unwillingly beguiled and weaker than she wanted to be.

  He pulled her closer, inch by inch, until their bodies touched. Victoria inhaled a quick breath, shattering inside at the powerful intimacy of this simple contact. He was so warm and hard, his muscled body supporting hers; he held her so close that she could feel the buttons of his shirt digging into her breast, the buckle of his gunbelt cutting into her abdomen, and his strong thighs rubbing against hers through the fabric of her skirt and petticoats.

  Her heart was slamming painfully against her rib cage as she waited, then he bent his head. His mouth, warm and firm, touched hers for a moment, then lifted. Was that all? She felt faint with relief that it had been as uncomplicated as that, though still very improper.

  He frowned down at her. “Not like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “That wasn’t the kind of kiss I want.”

  She stared at him. “What other kind is there?”

  He looked momentarily startled, then his eyes narrowed. It was possible, he realized. Women like her thought they should endure rather than participate. McLain certainly wasn’t a man to make her realize she should enjoy it. Roper was going to enjoy making this aspect of her education about life in the West his responsibility.

  He cupped her jaw in his right hand. “Open your mouth this time,” he ordered.

  She looked aghast. “Open my—”

  He quickly took advantage of the opportunity and covered her parted lips with his own. She made a quick sound of panic in her throat and tried to jerk away from him, but he locked his arm around her waist.

  Victoria stared up at him with wide, frightened eyes. She sensed violence in him, as if he wanted more from her and was determined to get it. He had said just a kiss; had she been a fool to believe it would stop at that? She pushed against his arms in a futile effort at escape.

  His right hand tightened on her jaw and
his hard fingers exerted heavy pressure on her chin. Against her will, she felt her clenched teeth part and suddenly his tongue was inside her mouth. Shocked, astounded, she froze, and in that moment of immobility she became aware of his mouth moving over hers, of the warm stroke of his tongue inside her mouth. A strange heat began moving through her body, weakening her so that she had to cling to his arms to even stand upright. Both the heat and the weakness were insidious, creeping through her to undermine both her determination to keep this under control and her certainty that she could. In his embrace, with his mouth on hers, she was certain of nothing but the growing upheaval of her senses. This pleasure was wicked, and increasingly seductive. Her eyes drifted shut.

  She had expected to give him one kiss, but that wasn’t what happened. His mouth returned to hers over and over again, and both of his arms were around her now, crushing her to him. If she had ever had control of this situation, it was gone now.

  He could have done anything with her, and she would have been helpless to stop him. Only the abrupt intrusion of someone pounding on the door made him swiftly release her and step back.

  Victoria swayed, and panic shot through her as she realized someone had caught Roper in her room with her. She went white. If it was the Major—She couldn’t finish the thought, because it was too horrible to contemplate.

  Roper moved swiftly to the door, his right hand on his pistol butt.

  “Wait!” Victoria said in an agonized whisper.

  He gave her a brief glance. “It’s next door,” he said sharply. “Some drunk is trying to get into your sister’s room.” He opened the door and stepped into the hall.

  Victoria flew to the doorway just as Roper said, “You planning on beating that door down, Pledger?”

  Victoria recognized the man, though she’d never spoken with him. He’d been surly all the way to Santa Fe, and the other men hadn’t associated with him much. His eyes had the mean look of a vicious dog, and she had unconsciously avoided him. Too late she realized the mistake she was making in letting him see her with Roper.

  He turned on Roper with a snarl, but when his gaze lit on Victoria his lips twisted into a nasty smile. “I do declare,” he mocked. “Playing patty-cake with the boss’s wife? Bet he’d be real interested to know that, wouldn’t you say?”

  Jake considered the situation, and his eyes narrowed. It couldn’t be much better, just him and Pledger facing each other. He could kill the bastard now just as well as later. Now that he’d sent the telegram to Ben and his brother was on his way, there was really no reason to wait. In fact, there was no way he could let Pledger walk away, not after he’d seen Jake come out of Victoria’s room.

  Smiling a little, Jake moved closer to the man. “Why don’t you go to the saloon and hire a whore to scratch your itch,” he suggested softly. “Leave the ladies alone.”

  Pledger hooted. “Just like you did, Roper? I’ve always wanted me some of that refined stuff. You just go back to diddlin’ the boss’s wife, and I’ll try out that purty little sister, and neither of us will say nothin’ about the other. How about that, pard?” He sneered and spat on the floor at Roper’s feet.

  Roper was smiling. Victoria saw it only from the side, just a small curl of the lips, but it chilled her. She stood in the doorway, watching with a sort of horrified fascination.

  Jake’s walk was easy and relaxed, so relaxed that Pledger didn’t react until it was too late. “Stop right there,” he said, and moved his hand toward his gun butt. Just as the last word left his mouth Jake kicked him between the legs, holding back just enough on the kick that Pledger wasn’t felled. As it was, he sagged to the side, gagging as he grabbed his crotch.

  Pledger straightened painfully, his eyes wild in a white face. “You son of a bitch,” he said, and grabbed for his gun.

  He had just cleared leather when Jake’s first slug punched a hole in his chest and slammed him backward against the wall. Reflex jerked Pledger’s finger on the trigger and for the second time the narrow hall shuddered from the thunder of gunfire. Pledger’s bullet went through the floor and lodged in a wall on the second story.

  His eyes, already glazing, were full of hate as he slid sideways to the floor.

  Jake held him in his sights, hammer already cocked back again. If Pledger so much as twitched, the second slug would be between his eyes. No way was he going to live to say as much as a single word to anyone.

  But Pledger’s last breath sighed out of him as his pants stained with the release of his bladder. Jake eased the hammer down on his gun.

  Emma and Celia had been too frightened to open their door before, but the sound of gunfire followed by that immense silence stirred Emma to action. She jerked the door open and stared in confusion at Roper, then down at Pledger. “Oh, God,” she said.

  Celia’s frightened face poked out beside her, and the girl’s beautiful eyes rounded with shock when she saw Pledger’s body.

  Jake turned his head and looked at Victoria, who was still frozen in the doorway. Their eyes met, his hard and green, hers almost gray with shock. In that moment she was more frightened of him than she had been of Pledger.

  They had no time to say anything. Booted feet were running up the stairs, and a crowd of men erupted upward into the narrow hall. Jake punched out the empty shell and replaced it, then returned the pistol to its holster. He looked remarkably unconcerned as people crowded around, overlapping questions with comments.

  One man nudged Pledger’s boot with his own. “Ugly son of a bitch. Who was he?” Then he noticed the three women standing there and swallowed. “Beg yer pardon, ladies.”

  None of the women seemed to have noticed. Victoria was still staring at Jake, her face white. Jake reached out and took Emma by the arm, bending down to talk low in her ear. “Take Mrs. McLain back into her room. She saw the whole thing, and she looks a mite shocked.”

  Emma looked swiftly at Victoria, then back to Jake and nodded. “Help me with Victoria,” she said to Celia. Victoria found herself taken in hand and ushered back into her room, the door firmly closed on the ugly scene in the hallway.

  She sat down and folded her hands in her lap, holding herself inside. She felt numb. A man had just been killed in front of her, and despite all she had seen during the war, nothing had been as brutal as that. Jake had been so … casual about it, as if the taking of a life was nothing to him. And the smile on his face still made her shiver in reaction.

  Celia sank down onto the floor and put her head in Victoria’s lap. The girl was shocked and silent.

  Automatically Victoria smoothed the bright blond hair, as she had been doing since Celia’s childhood. Emma sat down on the bed, as quiet as Victoria.

  “Did you hear what he said?” Victoria asked.

  “Some.” Enough, Emma thought, to know that Jake Roper had been in this room with Victoria. Enough to know that Roper had had to kill Pledger to keep him silent. Not that she thought for one minute that Victoria had betrayed her marriage vows; for one thing, there hadn’t been time, and for another, Victoria was too inherently honorable.

  But Jake had in fact been in here alone with her, and Emma had accurately pegged the Major as a mean, violent, petty man who would, she was afraid, judge Victoria by his own standards—which was to say, none at all. For Victoria’s sake, Emma was prepared to back whatever story Jake offered.

  Fifteen minutes later the Major and Garnet arrived, having been fetched from a saloon by a breathless youngster with the news that there’d been a shooting at the hotel and the Major’s wife was involved. The boy hadn’t known anything other than that garbled message. They had both been on their way upstairs with a couple of the saloon’s soiled doves, and the Major was in a foul mood from the interruption.

  “That’s two of our men you’ve killed, Roper,” Garnet said, eyeing the tall, muscular man before him with suspicion.

  Jake shrugged. “He went for his gun first. A man braces me, I don’t ask if he’s serious or just funning.”

&n
bsp; “You say he drew first.” Garnet’s eyes were alive with hate.

  McLain looked from one hired gun to the other, his eyes wary. He had remained alive because he was shrewd if not intelligent, and Garnet’s suspicious attitude alerted him. Fights were common among a bunch of men, but Roper was killing men with whom he was supposed to be working. It did make a man stop and wonder.

  “Garnet’s got a point,” McLain said, eyeing Roper closely. “There any witnesses?”

  “Mrs. McLain saw the whole thing.” Jake sounded bored. “Ask her.”

  “I’ll do that.” McLain stomped to Victoria’s door and slammed his heavy fist on it. “Victoria!”

  Emma snatched it open, and the three men entered. Celia rose from the floor and Victoria got to her feet, too. She was still pale, and she didn’t look at Jake.

  “Roper says Pledger drew on him first. Is that so?” McLain growled.

  Victoria clenched her cold hands in her skirts. “Mr. Pledger went for his weapon first, yes.”

  “What I want to know is what you and Pledger were doing up here,” Garnet said.

  Suspicion darkened the Major’s face. Steeling herself, Victoria lifted her chin. “Mr. Roper walked us back to the hotel, at the Major’s request.”

  “I’d seen them to their rooms and gone back down to the lobby when I saw Pledger slip in, like he was trying to be sneaky.” Jake took a tobacco pouch out of his pocket and leisurely rolled a cigarette. “I followed him, found him up here trying to break into Miss Emma and Miss Celia’s room. Don’t guess I have to tell you why. I tried to get him to go back downstairs with me, but he refused and went for his gun.”

  “You saw this?” McLain asked, cutting his eyes to Victoria.

  “Yes.” She agreed to the lie with her own. She didn’t look at Jake.

  McLain looked at Emma. “Is that true? Was Pledger trying to get into your room?”

  At least Emma didn’t need to lie. “He was beating on the door and saying… ugly things. We were afraid to open it.”

  Jake lounged back against the doorjamb, his eyes narrowed to sleepy slits as he surveyed the others. “I did what I had to do to protect the women. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it, Major?”