Seventeen

The heady scent of shaving soap and bay rum swirled in the mild breeze. Added to the unexpected heat of Duel’s kiss, Jessie had to concentrate on her breathing to keep from swooning. The wild heaving of her breasts told her she came dangerously near to such a fate. In all her years she had never felt so weak and feverish.

Duel’s mouth, indeed every inch of the man, vibrated with life and sizzle.

A sense of decorum somewhere in the back of her head ranted that this behavior was inappropriate for broad daylight. Yet she didn’t want the kiss to end. When he released her and took a step back, the afternoon sky, the blades of tall saw grass swam around her. She clung to him for support while her skin continued to burn with a strange heat his touch had brought.

As she blinked and fought to catch her breath, she noticed two women, slack-jawed, staring at them. “Oh, Duel…” Mortification set in.

“Damnation! Can’t a man kiss his wife without everyone in the whole darn town gawking?” Duel berated the pair. Still, the smile never left his face. “Come, Jess.” He offered his arm. “I didn’t finish my business with Mr. Dexter.”

“Suppose we run into Hampton Pierson?” A silent prayer pitter-pattered across her mind.

“Kinda hope we do. Wouldn’t mind dusting the floor with the seat of his britches again.”

Her startled gasp brought his quick assurance. “Just funnin’ you, Jess. I promise to behave.”

She hoped he kept his word. She couldn’t imagine anything more unseemly than having two grown men fighting over her. And yet a flush made her bodice stick to her skin. She’d never had a champion such as her tall Texan before. The taste of him lingered on her lips like rich, succulent berries.

* * *

Mr. Dexter had just finished tacking a handbill to the front of the store when they returned. He greeted them with a sly grin.

“Just missed Hampton if you came back to finish the job, Duel. Most excitement we’ve had around here since Jane Sims spent the night with Charlie Maxfield and he had to make an honest woman of her.” The man chortled, slapping his thigh.

“Not lookin’ for Pierson. Reckon I got my point across.” A twinkle glistened in Duel’s eyes when he glanced down. “What’s that you’re hammering up, Dexter?”

“Marshal Cobb from over New Braunfels way brought this several weeks ago and asked me to post it. Bein’ as how we have no sheriff, he left it with me. Got lost under a shipment of bedding.”

Jessie felt Duel’s muscles clench beneath her hand, which she’d casually looped through the crook of his arm. Then she saw the source and went rigid.

A reward for the capture of Jessie Foltry!

The sizable sum promised for her capture stunned her. Five hundred dollars would guarantee plenty of attention. At least there was no picture.

“Sure is a shame your wife has to share her name with a woman like that.” Dexter shook his head. “Plumb strange.”

Panic crushed her chest, and she choked on her ragged breath. Her husband’s calm gaze did little to settle her terror. Nothing would. I have a price on my head.

“Shoot, Dexter. It’s a common name. I’m willing to bet there’s at least a couple of hundred in the state of Texas.”

His cool reply amazed her.

When the shop owner opened the door for them to enter, Duel gave her a gentle hug. She forced a calmness she didn’t feel and stepped with him over the threshold.

* * *

Luke McClain hooked his boot heel over the brass rail of the Firewater Saloon. Cactus Springs didn’t have that much to offer. About what he’d expect in a one-horse town. Firewater appeared the best of the drinking establishments that lined the dusty street. That was, if he’d been there for that. He wasn’t.

“Your pleasure, mister?” The barkeep’s thin, wispy mustache drooped well below his chin on each side and wiggled when he talked. Thick muttonchop sideburns jutting to his jaw gave the man a comical appearance.

“Your best rotgut.” He surveyed the room. Half-empty, the Firewater’s possibility for information seemed limited to the barkeep, two saloon girls, and a handful of rowdy cowboys.

His mentor, Maj. John B. Jones, had taught him the value of saloons. “No better place to get the lay of the land, son.”

Staring at the poor choices, Luke didn’t hold a whole lot of hope for success here. Yet one never knew.

The barkeep slid the small glass across the bar. “That’ll be two bits.”

“Business slow?” He flipped a coin onto the counter before downing the fiery liquid in one gulp.

“For this time of day. Things start jumpin’ about dark.” The barkeep polished a glass with a dishrag. “Haven’t seen you around these parts.”

“Nope.” The glass made a thump when he set it down, then pushed it across with two fingers. “Another.”

Silently, the man refilled it and pocketed a second coin. “What kind of business brings you to Cactus Springs?”

“Depends.” Luke cradled the drink between his thumb and forefinger. “Know a family from here by the name of Rumford?”

“Cain’t say’s I do.”

“Might’ve had a fire and burned ’em out? Woman went by the name of Jessie?”

“Nope.” The man’s mustache twitched like a cork on the end of a fishing pole. He picked up a box and toted it through a doorway.

A scantily clad woman sidled up beside Luke and propped her elbows on the bar. Her cherry-red lips curved enticingly.

“Howdy, ma’am.” Luke tipped his hat.

“Whew, better watch out, cowboy, or I’ll take you home with me. Went my whole life an’ nary heard ‘ma’am’ at all. Now you make the second time in five months.” Her blond locks brushed his arm as she leaned forward to give him an unrestrained view of her charms.

“Bet I know who the first was,” Luke muttered quietly. There wasn’t another man in Texas more polite than his older brother.

“Buy a woman a drink, mister?” The woman boldly stroked his arm. He returned her smile.

“Be obliged if you’d join me, ma’am.”

“Name’s Ellie.” She reached across the bar for a glass, then poured a generous portion from a tall, amber bottle.

“Luke.” He eyed the liquid in his still-full glass. He had gulped the first one to prove his manhood. Never hurt in a strange town. Sorta put folks in the right frame of mind. But now he had better slow down. A cool head couldn’t stand too much libation.

“Well, Luke, I do like that name.” Ellie swigged her drink. “Tell me, are you in a hurry?”

“Don’t reckon I am.” He understood her implication, and he might have taken her up on it had the circumstances been different. However, he had other things more pressing on his mind. “Lived in Cactus Springs long?”

“Just about all my life.” She eased the red strip of fabric off one shoulder, then let the tips of her painted fingernails slide across her bare skin.

“Ever hear the name Jessie Rumford?” He casually reached and refilled her glass. Please let her say yes. He didn’t like the burning in his gut. His brother’s wife couldn’t be a coldblooded husband-killer.

“No, ain’t familiar.” Her answer shot his hopes to hell.

Ellie squinted at him suddenly. “You couldn’t be kin to a man who came through here an’ won Will Gentry’s kid in a poker game, could you?”

“My brother.”

“Well, I’ll be a saint from the Pearly Gates!” Ellie certainly couldn’t lay claim to that distinction by any stretch of the imagination. “Goodness, that was one handsome man. Mannerly, too.”

“Duel McClain. Don’t suppose you saw a woman with him?”

“He was alone. That is, till he got saddled with the kid.” Ellie tipped the glass and let the liquid slide down her throat. A thin trail dribbled from the corner of her mouth. She wiped it with the back of her hand. “I helped him find necessities for the babe. Didn’t know beans about takin’ care o’ her.”

“Duel’s got the hang of it now, I reckon.” With Jessie’s help, he added silently. He shuddered to think what would happen to his brother if his new wife turned out to be a murderer. Losing one had almost destroyed him. What would losing a second do to his state of mind?

The woman sent him a suspicious stare. “Why do you keep askin’ about this woman? What do you want with her?”

Luke pulled a badge from his shirt pocket. The silver etchings caught the dim saloon light.

“Texas Ranger, ma’am. Just doing my job’s all.” Rotten job it’d turn out to be if he had to arrest his sister-in-law. Duel would never forgive him, not in a thousand years. Hell, he might not even forgive himself. Jessie McClain had cast a spell over them all.

* * *

Satin ribbons hung from the bonnet in Jessie’s hands, the same bonnet she’d admired in Dexter’s store. Stricken with a loss for words, she met Duel’s expectant stare.

“Well, aren’t you gonna put it on?” He shifted Marley Rose from one arm to the other. The girl kicked her feet excitedly and reached for the hat.

“I wish you hadn’t spent hard-earned money this way. Tell me it didn’t have anything to do with Hampton Pierson.”

If he bought the hat to prove something, the giving of it would lose meaning. Duel didn’t have to give her a new bonnet to prove he was the better man. She already knew that. But if he gave it because he wanted her to be the prettiest woman in Tranquility, she’d cherish it for the rest of her days.

“Jess.” The low timbre as he murmured her name made tingles two-step up her spine. “I’d never spend a cent in trying to outdo Pierson, ’cause the man knows more than I’ll ever know about courting a woman.”

“You’re courting me?” The wonder of it filled her heart. His free hand touched her cheek softly. Damn that hot moistness that formed behind her eyes.

“No law against it that I know of. I bought this bonnet because it was made for you. I fancied you wearing it to church on Sunday and being the envy of all the womenfolk there.”

The work-roughened skin on his finger chafed as he wiped the tear that slipped from the corner of her eye, but to her it felt like velvet.

A blush rose. He’d picked her posies and taken her breath away with a lacy blue bonnet.

Her husband was courting her.

“Now that you know all the whys an’ why-nots, put the darn thing on, Jess.”

She could barely contain the joy as she slipped it on her head and tied the ribbons. The beveled mirror reflected a rosy-cheeked, passable-looking woman. But that wasn’t her main focus. The man standing behind stole her attention.

Someday she’d tell him how much she loved him. Maybe. If she could find a tiny space in his heart to squeeze into. That was all she asked. It wasn’t much.

Marley clapped her hands. “Ma ma ma!”

Golden glints turned Duel’s hazel eyes to amber. Unflinchingly, he met her stare in the glass.

“Yes, darlin’, your mama is indeed pretty.”

Rattled by his declaration, Jessie quickly untied and removed the hat before she made a fool of herself. “Better see to supper. Time enough wasted.”

Dusk had transformed the sky into a pinkish-purple. Jessie admired the muted colors through the kitchen window, comparing them to how she felt inside—all soft and warm and peaceful.

“Two Bit, how about you and me going to feed the animals while your ma sets the table?” Duel, with Marley in tow, followed her into the kitchen.

The girl pointed through the window. “Pa pa pa.”

“Now, darlin’, you know I want you to call me Duel.” He kissed her forehead. “See the doggie out there? Can you say doggie?”

“Boo bie.”

A smile lifted the corners of Jessie’s mouth as she watched the two keepers of her heart.

Yes, pinkish-purple. That described her to a T.

* * *

Marley kept them entertained long after supper with her mixture of simple words and childish blather. The girl evidently was filling Jessie in on her exciting adventures with her papa. Only Jessie had no idea what the child babbled. Amid the strange harangue, Marley threw in “boobie” and “cheeba.”

“What is she saying, Duel?” she asked when her fits of laughter eased. “Sounds like ‘cheeba.’”

“Beats me. Could be what she named the goat, I reckon. Seems I recollect I first heard it right after that nanny butted me in the rear.”

“Why ‘Cheeba’?” Suspicion underscored her next question. “You didn’t use any foul language, did you?”

From everything she’d heard, children latched on to swear words faster than anything else.

“I did call the critter a she-demon.” He thought a moment before adding, “Yep, had to bite my tongue, but I’m positive that’s all I said.”

“She-demon. Cheeba. Kinda alike if you use a little imagination.” Jessie chuckled. Marley Rose sure came up with some colorful names for things.

“Two Bit took a shine to that nanny. The ornery thing stood there and let Marley climb on her back. Still have trouble believing it.”

Marley scooted out of Jessie’s lap and waddled to Duel, who lifted her up. She rubbed her eyes to stay awake.

“Yes, sweetheart. Appears you’ve found some friends.”

“That’s another thing.” Duel scratched his head in thought. “The way Yellow Dog has taken up with her. I can’t get within arm’s length of him before he runs like a scared rabbit, yet the animal comes right up to Two Bit and licks her hand. Did it again tonight. I was getting Preacher some feed, and next thing I knew there he was, letting her crawl all over him.”

“Animals sense a kinship with children for some reason. Guess it’s their innocence.” Or perhaps they sense little ones haven’t developed a reason to hate yet. Hate spawns cruelty. Jessie knew from experience about that.

Duel yawned, stretching his arms above his head. Marley poked her elbows in his stomach to look up at him.

“Papa?”

“Darlin’, I’m Duel,” he reminded her patiently. “Duel.”

Marley nodded her little head, setting her black curls jiggling. A serious expression darkened her eyes. “Papa. Papa?”

“Damn! Our child does have a stubborn streak, doesn’t she?”

Their child. The sound of that smacked of permanence. How permanent could a life in hiding be? When the next sound could be the scratch of a stiff rope around her neck.

Jessie wondered if he realized what he’d just said. Or the implication that he’d accepted his fate. Someday he’d break down on the Papa business. Merely a matter of time. One thing about it, Marley’s persistence didn’t show any sign of abating.

“Isn’t it your bedtime, little girl?” He tweaked her nose. “I see Sandman jumping in those eyes.” Duel stood her on the floor. “Go let your mama get you ready for bed.”

“Come, sweetheart, let’s find your nightgown.”

Marley slipped her hand inside Jessie’s, then she looked back at Duel and motioned for him to come.

“I’ll come kiss you good night in a minute.”

All too soon, they’d bedded Marley down for the night. Jessie’s favorite time of the day, between supper and bedtime, had come to an end.

He lifted his hat from the nail and twisted it around and around. “Suppose I’d better head for the barn.”

For the space of several heartbeats he stared at her. It was as if he wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. She wished for courage to speak her thoughts—to tell him how she felt—that she’d changed her mind.

“Duel, I didn’t thank you properly for the bonnet.” She drifted across the room. “I’ve never seen a more lovely hat.”

Those weren’t the words she wanted to say. That his kiss stole her breath and melted her insides—that his courting art touched her in places no one ever had—that she loved being his wife. Those were things she couldn’t tell him.

“I’m proud you like it, Jess.”

He held her spellbound in his gaze. Time stood still while the smell of all that was Duel circled her head. An honest smell of a good man who was willing to work his fingers to the bone for a woman in trouble.

Before she could back out, she stood on tiptoe to kiss his deeply lined cheek.

“I don’t know how I got so lucky.” Her voice came out husky and soft.

“Shoot, we can do better than that.” He swept her up and lowered his head.

A current surged through her when his full, sensual lips met hers. And when her mouth parted softly in surprise, his tongue dipped inside.

“Oh, my,” she managed after he let her go. At that moment, she was more than pinkish-purple. Red-hot and sizzling fitted her better. When she came to her senses, she realized she’d shamefully flung her arms around his neck. Hastily, she dropped them.

“I’m not apologizing for that, Jess.” An obstinate glint lodged in his stare.

“Not asking you to.” She felt equally determined.

“You’re a beautiful woman and…” He left the rest unsaid as he reached for the knob.

“Please.” She touched his arm. “Don’t go to the barn.”