Covington, Cara - Love Under Two Lawmen [The Lost Collection] (Siren Menage Everlasting) (31 page)

“Do you know how long I worked to set up that enterprise! And for what? Some tart comes along calling herself a private investigator and alerts the police. You ruined everything, ruined me! My wife and children won’t even see me, and I had to leave the only home I’ve ever known!”

“They call that the wages of sin, Marley.” Amanda kept her attention split between the gun she could just see out the corner of her eye and the growing crowd. She hoped to hell no one tried to be a hero, because she sure as hell didn’t want to get her head blown off.

Directly in front of her, the throng of spectators parted, and Adam came rushing up, Warren on his heels.

Her men came to a sudden halt, ranging themselves beside Caleb and Bat Masterson. Another man who’s arrived in their wake stood to the side, his eyes narrowed and focused on Marley’s gun.

With the arrival of the Texas Ranger, the crowd fell silent.

“Amanda.” Adam stood stock still, his gaze on her, not on the gun being held close to her head.

“Adam.”

“Friend of yours?” Adam asked.

“No, just a fugitive from Richmond. Jonathan Marley.”

“Ah, the embezzler you outted in your investigation of bank fraud. The one you reported to the authorities.”

“The same.”

“Damn it all to hell, Adam, aren’t you going to do something?” Caleb demanded.

“Don’t need to,” Adam said quietly.

The expression on his face held so much love and respect, Amanda very nearly cried.

“What do you mean, you don’t need to?” Masterson asked. He looked as if he was calculating the odds of drawing his weapon and shooting Marley.

“Her momma saw to it she had lessons.”

Warren stood next to Adam and had said that.

“I was only waiting for you to be here so you could arrest him.” Amanda said softly.

“Do you think this is some kind of joke?” Marley dug the barrel of the gun into the side of her head. “I didn’t come all this way…”

That was as far as he got. Amanda dropped her satchel from her left hand. When Marley jerked, his attention diverted by the sound, she formed a fist with her right and punched out, catching his right wrist on the inside, numbing his hand so that he dropped his gun. She followed through, throwing her fist up behind her hard and fast and connecting dead-on with the man’s nose. She followed this with an elbow to his solar plexus, and Marley went down.

Warren reached out and pulled her toward him while Adam reached down and hauled Marley to his feet.

“Now that’s what I call one spunky woman,” the man who’d arrived with Adam and Warren said. “Anyone know if she’s taken?”

“She is,” Adam said. He turned his attention back to Marley, who could do nothing more than blink at the end of Adam’s grip. “This is Texas. We don’t hold with men threatening women here.” And he smiled as he punched him square in the face.

Poor Marley, Amanda thought, was down and out.

Amanda looked up, startled, when a round of applause broke out.

“Why that’s the smoothest move I’ve seen in a long time,” one older man said. “A private investigator, are you?”

“Ah…yes. Yes, I am.”

“Will you be opening an office here in Waco? I’ll be one of your first clients,” a middle aged woman said. “If’n you find missing persons. Haven’t heard from my son for a decade.”

The first man who’d stepped forward nodded. “You can count me as a client, too. Name’s Bill Hamilton. I own the mercantile just off the square. Had a feller cheat me out of some money a while back. Reckon you can find him?”

The people seemed to move in on her, all chattering, excited at the prospect of having a real detective agency opening up right there in Waco. She couldn’t count how many more people offered to hire her right then and there.

“Why, I’ll bet you this fine young lady’s company will become just as famous as the one up north opened by that Pinkerton feller,” one man said.

“More so, on account it’ll be a
Texas
company,” countered another.

Amanda looked from one face to the next. No one was looking down their nose at her. No one was calling her names or telling her she had no place…

No one thinks I have no business being an investigator
.

“Well, Miss Dupree?” Adam asked. “You fixing’ to open up a detective agency right here in Waco?” He smiled at her, and she could see so many things in his eyes. Mostly, she saw love and hope. She let her gaze meet Warren’s, felt her heart fill with the emotion he silently sent her.

Isn’t this exactly why Momma got me all those lessons in the first place? So I could take care of myself and
find
my own place?

Amanda had found not only her place, but two men who loved her and whom she knew she would love for the rest of her life. Why hadn’t she seen that before now?

Her vision blurred, but that was all right. She figured the moment called for a tear or two. “As a matter of fact, Captain Kendall, I do believe I am.”

Adam reached out and pulled her into his arms. Warren stepped forward and gently touched her shoulder.

“Welcome home, darlin’,” Adam said. “Welcome home.”

Epilogue

“Thank you for making sure the house was ready before Momma got here,” Amanda said. She stood up on tippy toes to kiss first Adam and then Warren.

“You’re welcome.”

She giggled because they both had said that at the same time.

The last few months had seen a flurry of activity for Amanda and her men. She looked down at the simple gold band that adorned the third finger of her left hand.

She and Adam had been married in a private ceremony in the courthouse, attended by Warren and the Benedicts. While she was officially Mrs. Adam Kendall, she was Warren’s wife, too.

They’d purchased a large tract of land from the Benedicts, effectively splitting the massive ranch Sarah had inherited from Tyrone Maddox in two.

They’d stayed in Adam’s house while their new home—within sight of Sarah’s large house—was being built. In town, they’d rented a small office, and she and Warren had opened the Jessop-Kendall Agency. With Amanda in charge of investigations and Warren heading up legal matters, they’d already begun to do good business.

And just two days ago, they’d moved into their new very nice and very big home.

A not-so-discreet cough caught her attention. With her men, she turned to look at Joshua Benedict, who stood smiling just inside the parlor.

“I’m smiling because I just left a very nice romantic moment myself. Sarah says come and eat. The babies are asleep at last, and dinner is ready.”

The twins had been fractious, both of them teething, and Amanda had offered to take her husbands home and leave the Benedicts in peace.

Sarah, of course, would have none of that.

As usual when they all got together, dinner was a fun, laughing, delicious affair.

“Amanda, what time does your mother’s train get in tomorrow?” Sarah asked.

“Around five. Terence is traveling with her, and he’s such a caretaker. Momma’s in good hands. I’m looking forward to seeing them both.”

“Do you think she’ll stay?” Sarah asked.

“I hope so. I think Terence wants to stay. He told me in his last letter he would be checking out the area, and if he thought he could fit in, then he’d send for his friend.”

“I told you the place is getting lousy with lawyers,” Adam teased.

Everyone laughed, including Warren. “We could use another lawyer in our business,” he said.

It didn’t take long for a table of four men to plow their way through Rosa’s excellent roast beef and mashed potatoes. Soon, most of the dishes were cleared and a pot of coffee and a still-warm pie had been set on the table.

Warren opened the satchel he’d brought with him, taking out the raft of papers he’d prepared.

This evening was more than just a meal. They were in the final stages of planning something she and Adam and Warren had discussed months before on their way to finding the gold. They’d shared the idea with the Benedicts, who took no time at all to decide they thought it was a good idea. Now that idea was about to become reality.

“Here’s the latest draft.” Warren began to hand documents out to everyone. “As you can see, we’re establishing the town as a trust and attaching a covenant to it. The land we set aside—principally, the land directly surrounding our houses, in a one-mile wide and three-mile long parcel—will become the independent settlement. The key,” he said, looking at each of them, “is keeping ownership of the land within our two families,
leasing
out lots, and requiring each tenant to sign the covenant.”

“Hell of a good idea,” Caleb said. “This will guarantee our privacy, and our right to live our lives as we choose, as well as doing the same for our descendants.”

“All that’s left,” Warren said, “is to decide on a name for the town.”

Joshua looked from Caleb to Sarah, both of whom nodded. “We’ve been talking, the three of us,” he said, “and we’ve decided to leave that honor up to the Jessop-Kendall clan.”

 
“Your idea, you should name it,” Sarah confirmed.

Amanda looked from Warren to Adam.
 
“Thank you. We’ll sleep on it,” she said.

* * * *
  

Amanda let her arms drop to the bed, every ounce of energy drained from her body. On either side of her, Adam and Warren groaned as they, too, collapsed into their new, soft, and extra-large mattress.

“Mother of God,” Adam said. “Woman, you plum wore me out again.”

“Amen,” Warren said. “You, wife of ours, have an insatiable appetite.”

“Me? All right,” she conceded. “It was my fault the first time. But that second time was all you two. I’m going to have to start eating more at dinner time. Maybe then I could keep my strength up.”

“The woman is going to kill us,” Adam said to Warren.

“There are worse ways to die,” Warren said after a moment.

Amanda smiled, her eyes closed, her mind drifting. Sleep beckoned, the heat from her lusty husbands’ bodies cocooning her in comfort and security.

A thought occurred, and she giggled.

“What?” Adam asked.

“I just thought of the perfect name for our town.”

“Yeah?”

Adam turned to face her, and before she knew it, she found herself on her back looking up into two loving gazes. “So what are we going to call it?” he asked.

“The only name that fits us all, Benedicts and Jessop-Kendall’s alike. We’ll call our new town Lusty.”

“Lusty, Texas,” Warren repeated. “Kind of has a nice ring to it.”

“I like it,” Adam said.

Amanda liked it, too. And since she’d only really begun to live once she’d discovered love under two lawmen, she couldn’t think of a more appropriate name.

THE END