Authors: Lynna Banning
Chapter Sixteen
T
he instant Jericho puffed out the lantern on his nightstand, Maddie stripped down to her camisole and petticoats and crawled between the cool sheets. She heard Jericho thump off his boots and maybe his shirt and jeans; she could not be sure in the dark, and anyway, she knew she should not be paying attention to what clothes he had on. Or off.
Her body felt heavy and an ache was beginning behind her eyes. She rolled onto her side, then flopped onto her other side and closed her eyes. Or tried to. Her lids kept popping open every time Jericho stirred.
Why was she not sleeping? Oh, what did it matter? He lay quietly, as if he hadn't a care in the world, while she felt more restless and keyed up than she had since she was a girl performing at one of her piano recitals.
This was not like the excitement of starting a new assignment for Mr. Pinkerton, or even the bubbly pride she felt after successfully bringing in evidence for the capture of a wanted man. Her brain told her everything was going well; her nerves were signaling something else. Nothing was working out as she'd expected.
Her beautiful mare, Sundae, was gone and Jericho was being impossible. Clearly he did not want her along on this missionâor any mission. She felt useless and confused and not valued.
She didn't belong out here in the West. She didn't understand the blunt speech, the brusque manners, the rough-and-tumble ways of everyone she came in contact with. Even Mr. Warriner at the bank had treated her with polite disregard. She'd had to pound her gloved fist on his desk to get him to listen to her ideas.
Why,
why
had Mr. Pinkerton sent her out here to this godforsaken part of the country? He'd said he wanted to “broaden her experience,” but he must have known she wouldn't fit in, not in a million years. Except for that lovely palomino horse she'd befriended, not one living creature out here cared about her.
Even Jericho. That kiss he'd given her had meant nothing. He hadn't mentioned it. Maybe he didn't even remember it. True, he had been burning with fever at the time, but even so, sheriffs did not kiss their agents every day of the week. Or did they? Maybe this sheriff did and then just forgot about it. About her.
And that hurt!
She flipped over onto her other side and tried to think clearly. Could this uneasiness be because of that maddening man in the next bed?
The edgy fluttering inside her was unbearable. She slipped out from under the sheet, draped the quilt around her bare shoulders, and tiptoed to the window.
It was long past midnight; the entire city was asleep.
Nothing moved on the street below, and only shadows marked the building entrances. All at once she wanted to smell the clean, fresh air outside.
Releasing the catch lock, she quietly slid the sash up until the warm night air wafted against her face. Somewhere near the hotel a town clock tolled three times and then fell silent.
She wedged her hip onto the windowsill and leaned out, drinking in the scent of roses from the city park on the next corner. Above her, millions of stars shone in a sky so black it looked like crushed velvet. It was so vast and beautiful it made her want to cry. The whole world was asleep but for her.
“Maddie?” a raspy voice spoke from the bed behind her. “What are you doing sitting in the window?”
“Just...thinking about things.”
“What things?” He sounded wide-awake now.
Before she could answer he was standing behind her, so close she could feel the warmth of his body. “What things?” he repeated.
“Oh, odd things. Like why I am feeling empty inside when I ate a big steak for supper and a strawberry ice-cream cone before bed.”
“Maybe you're still hungry?”
She ignored the question. She was hungry, but not for food. The hollow sensation yawning in her belly was for something else entirely. Something she was afraid to admit to herself.
“Just look, Jericho. The stars are so far away, so beautiful. They make me think about...about things I don't want to think about.” About how lonely her life was, despite the excitement of life in Chicago, despite even her adventurous missions for Mr. Pinkerton.
He said nothing.
“Jericho, do you ever wonder what life is really all about?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I wonder, too. Right now I wonder what my own life is all about.”
He gave a soft laugh. “You're a good detective, Maddie. How come you haven't figured that out?”
“I do not know,” she said on a sigh. “I wonder sometimes if being a detective is enough to make my existence matter.”
She tipped her head up to gaze at the stars. “We are such tiny insignificant beings, really. What difference could one little life make?”
His voice was suddenly low and tense. “You think like this a lot?”
She flinched as if he had poked at her spine. “No. I have never thought about these things before.”
“Why tonight, Maddie? Maybe it has something to do with finding out that Sundae was gone?”
“Oh.” She said nothing for a full minute, and then she swiped her palm across her cheeks.
Jericho stepped in close and touched her shoulder.
Maddie gave a little hiccup and turned her face into his chest. “I know she's just a horse, but she was so strong and beautiful and she, well, she seemed to like me.”
Her cheek was wet against his skin, but he didn't give a damn.
“Oh, it isn't about Sundae, I guess.” She sniffled. “It'sâ I don't know what it is. The stars, maybe.”
Jericho drew in a soft breath. “Yeah, maybe. I know how they make
me
feel.”
“How?” Her voice sounded wobbly.
“Lonely,” he answered after a long moment. “I've never said that to anybody before.” He swallowed and looked away. Watching her trying not to cry made him hurt inside.
Without thinking, he wrapped his arms around her. Big mistake. The feel of her frame trembling against his drove the last sensible thought from his head. He bent and found her mouth.
For an instant she went absolutely still, and then she reached up to fold her arms about his neck. God help him, he'd never felt anything so wonderful in his entire life.
Her lips moved under his and he tasted salty tears and strawberries. He broke away, gulped a breath, and kissed her again. This time she kissed him back, tentative at first, almost shy, and then with an intensity that sent his brain reeling.
When she moaned, he lifted his head. “I've waited days and days for you to kiss me again,” she whispered.
Jericho closed his eyes. “Wish I'd known. Wouldn't have waited so long.”
“Yes, you would,” she said with a choked laugh. “One thing I have learned about you, Sheriff, is that you think things through before you make a move.”
A chuckle rumbled out of his throat. “Just cautious, I guess.”
“Oh, no, Jericho. I would bet anything it is not caution. It is fear.”
He gave an involuntary jerk, then tightened his arms around her. “You talk too much, Maddie.”
He could tell her corset was unlaced, and that top thing she wore over it was loose as well. Then there were all those petticoats...
Wait just a damn minute
. What was he thinking?
He wanted her. Hell, yes, he wanted her. But dammit, he wasn't going to send her back to Chicago with his heart in her pocket.
His arms dropped away.
“Jericho?”
“Time for bed.” He drew in an uneven breath. “Alone.”
“Jericho, stay with me. Please. Just stay beside me.”
“Jeez, Maddie, Iâ” He still had on his jeans, but so what? Probably safer that way.
He drew her over to her bed, pressed her down, and pulled the sheet and the quilt up over her body. Swallowing a groan, he stretched out beside her on top of the quilt and prayed his erection would ease off. He considered stripping down to his drawers but something stayed his hand. Too dangerous. Instead, he rolled toward her and nestled her head against his shoulder.
Her hair felt like a flutter of silk against his skin. He wanted to weave his fingers through it and kiss her some more. A lot more. Hell, he hadn't felt this alive, or this scared, since he was a kid at the orphanage.
He tried like anything to shut down his brain. What was he scared of?
You're scared she'll leave, you idiot.
Well, hell, she was planning to do just that as soon as she finished this assignment. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about it.
But he couldn't stop remembering thingsâthe steely look on her face when confronting that robber in the mail car, the stubborn stiffening of her spine after he'd ordered her back to town when he'd ridden out to find Tucker's camp, the sparkle in her eyes when she first rode Sundae. And, oh, hell, the bleakness last night when she'd found the mare gone.
He swallowed a groan. He'd made a big mistake with Maddie O'Donnell. He'd let her slip under his skin when he wasn't looking, let himself kiss her soft mouth and touch her skin. Now he wondered if he'd ever be free of her.
Yeah, well, he had to let it go. If he was going to live safe, protect himself like he'd always done, he had to stop thinking about her. Had to stop wanting her.
He let his eyelids close.
The next thing he knew it was morning and Maddie was gone.
* * *
He found her at breakfast. She was all business, as if last night had never happened. Hell, maybe he'd dreamed it.
She plunked her coffee cup down and met his gaze. “When we return to Smoke River we must make sure Mr. Warriner at the bank is still amenable to my plan. Then tomorrow we can...”
Jericho listened as she rattled on. Sitting across from her, drinking his morning coffee, he wondered how he'd gotten through the night. He hadn't slept much, and now his thoughts were making fuzzy disconnected circles in his brain.
Finally, he plunked down his coffee cup. “Your idea might work, Maddie. But that's not what we're going to do.”
When she opened her mouth to protest he cut her off with a sharp gesture. “I've made a decision, and that's that.”
“But why? We agreed to be partners, and now when thingsâ”
“Be quiet, Maddie. Unless you want me to climb over this table and kiss you silly in front of everybody, just keep your mouth shut and go on eating your breakfast.”
She looked so completely poleaxed he wanted to laugh. She blushed crimson although kept on forking in her eggs and fried potatoes, but she ate so slowly they almost missed the train back to Smoke River.
* * *
Maddie gazed out the train window as the locomotive chuffed slowly into Smoke River. It was actually a pretty little town. Leafy green trees shaded the narrow streets. Every front yard had a garden chock-f of scarlet zinnias or yellow daisies, and honeysuckle vines rambled up porch posts and across verandas. Two little girls in blue gingham pinafores playing hopscotch in front of the church turned to wave at the train.
She bit her lower lip. But it was such a
little
town. Only one mercantile, a one-room schoolhouse, only one hotel and a single dressmaker. No opera house. No libraries or fine restaurants or museums or art galleries. What did people
do
in an out-of-the-way place like this?
Life here would be twice as boring as being trapped in a city marriage.
The locomotive tooted one long blast and steamed into the station. They disembarked onto the empty platform, and Jericho grabbed up her small satchel.
“I'll walk you to the hotel. Then I have to check the jail and talk to Sandy.”
Maddie studied his face. A hot flare of something showed in his eyes, followed by a look of resignation.
“I'll meet you in the restaurant for supper,” he said.
“You must be tired of eating all your meals with me, Sheriff.”
“Nope. Meet me,” he ordered. “There's something I need to tell you.”
Her heart flipped up and over. “What is it?”
“You'll find out, Maddie. Just hold your horses. I'll see you in an hour.”
It wasn't a question, it was an order. Maddie's spine stiffened. Jericho had no right to order her around. Kissing her last night gave him no control over...anything. They were equals. Partners. A team.
“I will thank you not to give me orders as if I were a servant,” she said crisply.
He said not one word all the way to the hotel, and by the time they reached the door to her room, Maddie's annoyance had bloomed into anger.
“Did you hear what I said?”
He scowled and dropped her satchel just inside the door. “You're not a servant, Maddie, and you know it. But someone has to make sensible decisions, and today it's gonna be me.”
She tried to shut the door in his face but he blocked it with one booted foot, touched two fingers to his hat brim and gave her a lopsided grin. Then he tramped back down the staircase.
She waited five minutes then slipped down the stairs herself and went about her own set of errands. She made good use of the time, and within the hour, she marched into the restaurant armed with new information.
Jericho was waiting for her at the corner table. His lean tanned face looked tight, and his eyes would not meet hers. With Jericho, that was a bad sign.
He stood up as she approached. He might have hated the orphanage, but the nuns had surely taught him good manners.
She settled into the chair opposite him and smiled at Rita, who hovered nearby. “Coffee, please.” She glanced at Jericho's half-empty cup. “With brandy.”
The waitress's eyes were sharply perceptive. “Musta been a tough trip, Miz O'Donnell. Johnny's on his third cup.”
He was, was he? She guessed he needed some Dutch courage for what he wanted to tell her. Instinctively she knew it was something she would not want to hear.
“Is everything all right at the jail?” she ventured.