Dalton, Tymber - Hernando Heat (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (10 page)

BOOK: Dalton, Tymber - Hernando Heat (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)
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He stroked her cheek. “Do you trust me?”

She nodded.

“Then let me handle this. Please?”

“You can’t run him off.”

He sat up. “That’s the last thing I have planned, believe me.” He clasped her hand to his chest. “You love us both enough to be with us?”

She nodded, afraid to say it out loud. Dreams spoken aloud rarely came true.

He brushed his lips across her knuckles, sweetly, yet lighting fires inside her. “Then trust me to handle this,” he repeated. “Please.”

She worried it wouldn’t be that easy, but she nodded. After all, he knew his cousin a fair sight better than she did.

She wondered how Mason had spent his night, and if he was safe.

Worry filled her heart. What if something happened to him while he rode with the posse? What if she never got a chance to tell him how she felt?

What if something horrible happened and she had to live with this burden of guilt for the rest of her life?

Joe leaned in and kissed her. “Let’s get up and I’ll help you with breakfast,” he said. “Then I’ll take you into town.” His face hardened, and he squeezed her hand, just a little, firmly but not painfully. “And today, when I tell you to stay put until I come for you, you mind me. All right?”

That made her smile. “All right. I promise.”

A smile lit his face. “That’s my good girl.” He helped her out of bed.

She returned to her room to wash up and dress. The sight of Paul’s picture filled her with sadness. No, he was gone even though her love for him would never wane. It didn’t make it any easier to look at his visage and feel heat rise in her again at the memory of Joe’s hands and mouth on her.

She carefully wound the clock. “I’m so sorry, Paul,” she whispered. “I hope you’re not ashamed of me, but they’re good men, and I’m so damned lonely without you. And you did tell me you wanted me to be happy.”

As the sun peeked over the woods beyond the eastern pastures, she stepped outside and checked the clothes she’d hung the evening before. They’d mostly dried, still a tad damp in the seams from the evening air, but they wouldn’t sour if she brought them in.

They ate breakfast in a comfortable silence, frequently pausing to look at and smile at each other. When he finished, before he stood he took her hand in his and brushed his lips over her knuckles, clasping it between his warm, strong palms.

“Please, Katie, believe me when I tell you this will be okay.”

She nodded.

“You think you can handle two men chasing after you all the time? Because you realize once I talk with Mason, we’re both going to be after you.” His lips quirked in a delicious smile that made her pussy ache in a pleasant way and started another trickle of moisture between her thighs.

Heat rose in her face. “After more than a year alone, believe me, it would be nice not to spend my nights alone anymore.”

He drove her to town and left the buggy at the livery before riding his horse to the sawmill. She tried to keep herself busy, to not think about either man, but whenever her eyes fell upon the chair she and Mason had shared during the rainstorm, worry crept in.

What if Mason didn’t want to share her? What if she caused a rift between the men?

What if Mason hated her? Thought her a whore for so easily settling for this solution?

She couldn’t let herself think that, so she threw herself into busy work, dusting and rearranging and organizing her shop. That’s why she didn’t look up at first a little before lunch time when the bell jangled on the front door. She was standing on the top step of a ladder and struggling to reach and dust the far corner of an out-of-the-way shelf. “I’ll be right with you.”

“You should be careful there, Katherine. You wouldn’t want to fall and have an accident.”

She dropped the feather duster with a terrified squeak and grabbed hold of the ladder as it swayed under her. Her former brother-in-law, Edward Dorchester, Jr. stood just feet away from the ladder.

Anger and fear coursed through her, and she immediately scrambled down to safety, retreating toward the doorway leading to the back room. Just inside, the shotgun lay propped against the wall where she could reach it. “Get out of my store!”

“Aw, I haven’t seen you in a while and you treat me like that? Father sent me to try to talk some reason into you.” She hated the pleasant tone of voice he used, fake sweetness she knew hid a rotten, evil core. “I wish you’d let me court you. I can understand how—”

“Get out!”

His face hardened as he took another step toward her. “You want us out of your life? Then you know what you have to do. Sign that property over to us and we’ll never bother you again.”

She tried to turn and race for the doorway, but her feet tangled in her skirts and he was on top of her before she could regain her footing. He slammed her back, hard, against the wall, knocking the breath out of her lungs.

Screaming was impossible with his forearm pressed hard against her throat. “I could kill you right now,” he growled, “and no one would ever know what happened to you. Break your neck. Make it look like an unfortunate accident. The poor Widow Dorchester tragically killed, falling from her ladder while dusting in her shop. Then the property would revert to us as next of kin. You sure you want to risk—”

The bell jangled. “Katie, I thought—you son of a bitch!” Joe roared, and suddenly Katie could breathe again as the pressure of Dorchester’s arm disappeared.

She sank to the floor, coughing and clutching her throat as Joe punched the other man, sounds of inarticulate rage coming from him.

Shelby Ainsley chose that minute to walk through the door. While Shelby stared for a moment, shocked, Katie regained her voice and her wits. “Shelby! Go get the sheriff, quick!” The woman turned and bolted into the street, screaming for help.

Edward had managed to land a few blows of his own. Now the men were scuffling, evenly matched, and Katie feared for Joe’s safety. As her senses returned, Katie clambered to her feet and grabbed the shotgun. She cocked it and placed the end of the barrel against the back of Edward’s head.

“Give me a reason, you son of a whore!” she screamed. “Give me a damned good reason not to kill you right now!”

Edward froze as Joe broke free and got to his feet. He stepped around her and gently took the shotgun from her trembling hands. He’d have a darned good shiner by nightfall, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t look nearly as bad off as Dorchester.

“Go outside, Katie,” Joe softly said. “Go help Shelby get the sheriff.”

She started to comply, but when she read the blackness in his expression, she knew if she stepped through that door that Joe would kill the man.

She couldn’t let him do that no matter how much Dorchester deserved it. She grabbed a kerchief from her pocket, wet the corner with spit, and dabbed at the blood on his mouth. “I can’t do that. I can’t leave you.” Something about his gaze terrified her. This was more than about what he’d witnessed, she’d swear it. “I won’t leave you,” she insisted.

“Please,” Joe whispered. “I’m going to take care of this once and for all.”

“My father’s a powerful man!” Edward threatened. “You kill me, you’re dead!”

She landed a hard kick to his tailbone, making him howl in pain. She would never admit how good that made her feel. “Shut up! You’re lucky I didn’t blast your head off myself, you damned piece of no-count trash!”

The sheriff, followed by Ben Ainsley, burst through the door. “Joe! What in blue blazes is going on!”

Katie quickly told the story. By this time, several more men crowded in, all of them frowning as they heard what happened.

Joe wouldn’t let Dorchester up from the floor, but that didn’t stop Dorchester from trying to lie about what happened. “That’s not true! I just stopped by, wantin’ to pay my respects to my sister-in-law is—”

Joe knocked him hard in the back of the head with the gun stock. “Yeah, that’s why you had her on the floor, choking the life out of her! Were you planning on raping her, too, you bastard?”

The sheriff nodded to two of his deputies, who hauled Dorchester roughly off the floor but didn’t release him.

“What is she to you anyway?” Dorchester sneered at Joe. “This is family business!”

Joe stepped in, inches from the other man’s face. “Because she’s my fiancée, asshole.”

That elicited gasps from the gathered crowd, and an angry look from Dorchester. “You’re gonna regret stepping in the middle of this, Lansing. I would have thought you’d learned not to mess with my family and what’s ours.”

Before Katie could stop him, Joe hauled off and punched him again. The sheriff looked at his deputies. “You saw Dorchester fall and hit his head, right?”

All the men nodded.

The sheriff nodded, satisfied. “Joe, Katie, congratulations.” He smiled. “You want to press charges, I’m guessing?”

Joe nodded, his jaw set. “Damn straight we do.” He looked at Katie, his face finally softening. “Right?”

She nodded. “Right.”

The sheriff grinned. “Good. Haul him off to a cell.” He laughed. “I’m gonna enjoy this one. Dorchester Senior’s gonna find out real fast he don’t have enough money to buy out the sheriff in Brooksville.”

Once the crowd dispersed, Joe stepped forward and closed and locked the shop door, then flipped the sign to closed and led her to the privacy of the back room and drew the curtain shut so no one could see them.

He pulled her to him. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

She laughed then started crying as she trembled in his arms.

“What? What’s wrong?” He moved her to the bed where he sat, pulling her down to him. “What’s the matter?”

She laughed again, tears still coursing down her cheeks as she shook her head. “I’m now engaged, but what happens if Mason finds out before you talk to him?”

He swore. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. It…just slipped out.”

Fear pulled at her heart. “You didn’t mean it?”

“No! I mean yes, I meant it.” He caught her hands. “I just didn’t mean to do it like that.” He kissed her fingers, his blue gaze capturing her soul. His voice softened. “Would you please do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He kissed her, stealing all thoughts of their troubles right from her mind. When she could finally form a coherent thought again, she looked up. “Not that I’m complaining in the least, but why did you show up? I wasn’t expecting you until later.”

He smiled. “To see if you wanted to come to lunch with me.” His smile faded. “Thank God I did. That filthy bastard, I wanted to kill him.”

“I know.” She wrapped her arms around him. “Tell me why. That wasn’t just anger at him for hurting me, was it?”

Joe finally shook his head.

Katie stroked his cheek and gently kissed his bruised eye. “Tell me. What did he mean that he thought you’d learned?”

He told her the story about his fiancée, and not only did she feel angry, she felt even deeper fear. She remembered rumors about Edward getting jilted for another and the woman then dying soon after, but had never made the connection before. “Oh, Joe. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologize for something you had no hand in.” He kissed her. “I swear to you, we’ll get him locked away.”

“What do we do about Mason?”

He sighed. “I told you, I’ll talk to him. I’ll ask Sheriff Birch if he’s heard any word from the posse.”

BOOK: Dalton, Tymber - Hernando Heat (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)
8.24Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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