In a Cowboy’s Arms (25 page)

Certainly none of those in Harlan Nowell’s employ would have been so bold, even if invited to be.

The housekeeper continued down the hall, and Maggie struck out after her. She was so tired she feared she’d drop in her tracks, and then Dade would be obliged to carry her to her room.

Oh, how tempting.

The housekeeper opened the last door on the same side of the hall as Dade’s. “Here you go, Miss Sutten. Would you like me to turn down your bed?”

“No, I can manage.” Mercy, if she took to bed now she’d sleep clear through ‘til morning.

“There’s a bathing chamber across the hall,” the housekeeper said. “Miss Jennean stocks an array of salts and oils for your pleasure. Shall I draw you a bath now?”

How deliciously decadent. “Yes, please.”

Maggie wanted to rid herself of trail dust and soak her weary body. “I’ll need to have my satchel brought up.”

“I’m sure Miss Jennean has sent one of the men to do that.”

The housekeeper bustled around the room, pulling back the drapes so light flooded the elegant space. And oh, my, it was a grand room.

Why, Maggie had never seen such a massive bed. As for the way the room itself was dressed, well there was nothing subtle about it.

A gossamer fabric the color of the darkest forest served as an intimate veil for the bed. The rich chintz bedcover bloomed with flowers in mauve and pink on a background of varying green leaves. The same colors appeared in pillows mounded against the carved headboard.

She walked across the darker burgundy carpet that was plush underfoot to the dresser. Bottles of perfume graced one side while a mirrored tray held a gilded comb and brush.

“There are gowns and the like in the wardrobe and an array of unmentionables and sleepwear in the dresser. Feel free to avail yourself of anything until your baggage is delivered to your room.”

“Thank you,” she said as the housekeeper closed the door in her wake.

Maggie stood there a moment then crossed to the wardrobe. The housekeeper hadn’t exaggerated. There were several elegant dresses and a confection of dressing gowns–all had daring necklines.

She pressed a hand to her bosom and felt her cheeks burn at the idea of exposing so much flesh. The Nowells idea of a daring neckline was exposing the pale skin at her throat, and even then Mrs. Nowell had remarked that it was unseemly.

“Mother is a prude, and father is a prig,” Caroline had remarked more times than Maggie could recall. “One day I shall toss convention to the winds and embrace my free spirit and truly shame them.”

“And I will join you,” Maggie had vowed.

They’d both laughed like children and recounted memories of the day they’d met a true Bohemian woman on their last jaunt to Manitou Springs.

The woman had been bold in appearance and speech. She’d worn her hair long, tied back from her face with a bright scarf. Instead of a day dress, she had on striped satin trousers and a lacy chemise, leaving her pale arms bare whenever her shawl slipped, which was often.

It was her view on equality for women in and out of the bedroom that shocked Caroline and Maggie. Why, the Bohemian woman had even dared to take the waters with the men, and heavens only knew what went on in those pools.

Surely none of the men had complained.

She and Caroline declared the Bohemian woman their idol at that moment and vowed to be just that bold the next time Caroline was sent there to take the waters. They hadn’t realized there would be no more forays to the springs.

Maggie opened a dresser drawer and fingered the silky trousers and a chemise. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine how that fabric would feel gliding over her skin.

“You going to stare it to death or wear it?”

Dade? She whipped around to find him standing in the connecting doorway leading to his room. How dare Miss Jennean put them in adjoining rooms! How dare he barge in here uninvited. How dare her body tingle and come alive at his nearness.

He braced a shoulder against the doorjamb and smiled at her, one dark eyebrow winging up in a devilish arch. “Well, are you going to put them on?”

“No.” She stuffed them back in the drawer and slammed it shut. “I was looking for a wrapper.”

A lie, but she’d rather burn to a crisp in hell than admit she was imaging herself flaunting about in that risqué getup.

Since her satchel hadn’t been brought up yet, she strode back to the wardrobe and rifled through the gowns and wrappers again. She hadn’t been mistaken before. Every one of them would show a good deal of bosom. But that was preferable to the filmy trousers and chemise that would leave absolutely nothing of her form to the imagination.

She slipped a dressing gown off the hanger and moved toward the door. God, but she could feel his eyes on her back, as intimate as a caress.

“Going somewhere?” he asked.

“Yes, the bathing chamber.”

“Need help washing your back?”

“No!” Maggie cringed, hating that needy tone that escaped her when she intended a firm refusal.

If her knees weren’t on the verge of buckling, she’d have turned around and put Mr. Dade Logan in his place. But seeing him would surely sap the starch holding her upright.

She fumbled with the knob and all but stumbled into the hall. Thankfully nobody was around to see her lapse of control, but she expected Dade to follow if for no other reason than to taunt her again.

Damn him for planting that suggestion in her head, and damn herself for actually considering it for one wild moment. She hurried into the bathing chamber.

Maggie closed the door and secured the catch. The heady scent of lavender and exotic spices hung in the air, but she was too nervous to appreciate that Mrs. Wray had drawn her bath and added the calming scents.

She slumped against the door, her heart hammering and her throat suddenly dry. What had possessed him to pose such an outrageous suggestion?

Maybe being in the brothel had tempted him to cross the line of propriety. God knew she’d nearly succumbed to the lure of being risqué just because she had those clothes at her disposal.

Those clothes.

She glanced down at the dressing gown clutched to her bosom. Though daring, it would suffice until she could return to her room and her own clothes.

But what was she to do about that connecting door and Dade?

Leave it open tonight.

That notion pulsed in her veins as she stripped off her filthy clothes and sank into the warm water.

Whit would kill Dade for taking Maggie away with him, whether they slept together or not. In fact Whit would never believe that she and Dade hadn’t been intimate.

She had nothing to lose by holding to propriety. Nothing at all.

Dade mounted the stairs to his room, his saddlebags slung over one shoulder and Maggie’s satchel in his hand. The housekeeper had let him use the hip tub off the kitchen.

He’d scrubbed the trail dust and sweat off himself, and he’d put distance between himself and Maggie. But he hadn’t gotten her out of his mind.

She’d likely finished soaking in the tub and returned to her room. She’d be wearing that silky dressing gown she’d had in her hand. Or would she relent and put on those silky trousers she’d been holding when he’d walked in.

That’s the image he couldn’t get out of his head. The split skirt she’d been wearing showed a good deal of her shape, namely her firm bottom. But imagining how the trousers would drape her curves got his blood pumping below the belt.

A cool bath hadn’t helped his condition at all.

Yep, he shouldn’t have barged into her room earlier. Seeing her with that silky dressing gown in her hand only had him dreaming of what she’d look like fresh from her bath, smelling of lavender and desire.

This time he’d knock on her door first. If she wasn’t back yet, he’d set her satchel in the room and vamoose.

He’d just passed the door to his room when the one across the hall opened. Maggie stepped from the bathing chamber and started toward her door. The silky dressing gown she wore showed off the creamy upper swells of her bosom, nipped in at her waist, and hugged her hips and bottom like he longed to do.

The long hard talking he’d given himself had been a waste of breath. “My, but you do look fetching.”

Her gaze swung to his. She was innocent curiosity and bold invitation wrapped up in one enticing package.

He wanted to unwrap her slowly and savor each prize he revealed. He wanted to kiss her long and deep. Hell, he just wanted her.

This woman had had him tied in knots since the day he’d met her. They’d shared a similar past, both shuffled to orphanages. Like him, she kept that part of her life secreted away.

He understood that, because other than owning up to the fact he had a sister, he rarely spoke of the family he’d lost. Maggie was the first person he’d talked with about that dark time in his past.

She’d taken it all in and commiserated with him. He’d sensed her hurt when she’d admitted to being Caroline Nowell’s companion and not a member of that family. But she’d not revealed anything of her life before Harlan Nowell took her in.

Damn, had she spent all of her life up until then in an orphanage? He’d surely met plenty of children who’d never known their family–his foster brother Trey being one of them.

But he sensed that Maggie remembered her family, and not necessarily fondly. Maybe that explained why she’d never mentioned them.

“Your hair is wet,” she said.

“I treated myself to a hip bath.”

Her cheeks turned apple red. “I’m sorry I took so long.”

“Don’t be.”

He stopped in front of her and nudged her chin up with his finger, his head spinning from the mix of spice and sweet flowers. He saw her pulse warble in her neck. Noted the rapid rise and fall of her bosom. He warmed inside as open desire burned in her eyes.

“Unless you tell me no, I’m going to kiss you, Maggie.”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out but a breathy sigh.

It was answer enough for him. He damned sure wasn’t going to give her a second chance to refuse him.

He lowered his head to hers, and the first brush of his lips on hers sent a bolt of lightning zinging through him. He felt a shiver tear through her.

Knowing that he affected her as much as she did him stirred a tenderness in him that he’d never felt with another woman. He dropped her satchel, slid an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him.

She moaned into his mouth, but instead of pushing him away like he half feared she would, she slid her arms around his neck and held on. Her lips trembled beneath his, then firmed as they moved with his in the most hungry kiss he’d ever had the pleasure of sharing with a lady.

Hands down he couldn’t recall getting near as worked up with any woman as he did with Maggie. But then he’d never spent any time with a lady either–never with an innocent one.

He was going to be the first Logan of his generation to walk the straight and narrow. He wasn’t going to steal from others. He sure as hell wasn’t going to love and leave a good woman, stealing her heart and hopes for a better life.

Yet here he was, fumbling behind her back to open the door, too caught up in the kiss to see reason. She didn’t raise a fuss when he backed her into her room and kicked the door shut.

She didn’t stop him when his hands took to wandering down her curves, gliding over her full hips, measuring her waist with the span of his hands, skimming up her middle before settling over her full breasts.

Nope, she didn’t protest when his kisses went from teasing to ravenous. Hell, she kissed him back with equal hunger until his only thought was to have her now.

Her breathing had grown as labored as his. Her womanly curves pressed against his hard hot body as if she was trying to worm under his skin, the desperation he sensed in her telling him it was an invitation and not a taunt.

A part of his brain warned that he was fast on his way to getting in too deep with Maggie Sutten. She wasn’t a light-skirt he could dally with at whim.

He tore his mouth from hers and pressed his forehead against hers. What the hell was wrong with him?

Maggie Sutten was a lady. Thanks to Doc Franklin she had a future lined up in St. Louis. Though right now she sure wasn’t acting prim and proper. Nope, she was firing his blood more by dropping hot little kisses along his neck.

Those impatient sounds coming from the back of her throat damn sure weren’t for show either. But all that proved was that even a lady had needs.

It didn’t mean that her head was any clearer than his right now. Like him, she was following the path that desire led her on. Regrets would come later, and he was sure she’d have them.

Maggie Sutten was his sister’s childhood friend for a few months at an orphanage and during one long train trip

west. Even if he wanted her in his life on a permanent basis, she surely didn’t want to tie her wagon to a drifter who didn’t have a home to call his own.

Sure, he aimed to buy a small spread and farm one day. He wanted a wife and children. He hoped to include his sister in his life again.

But all that was in the future, and right now it didn’t look good for him. The going would be rough for him for a long time.

He was in no position to ask a lady to be a part of his life on a permanent basis–at least on the permanent basis a lady had to be imagining. Marriage.

Nope, he couldn’t give her that. So she was off limits.

He wasn’t a love ‘em and leave ‘em man.

“My apologies for letting things get out of hand,” he said, using every ounce of willpower he possessed to push her away from him.

Now if he could just tear his gaze from her heaving bosom, which was spilling out of that silky gown and daring his hands to catch it. But that left him staring at her too pale face, and he was hard-pressed to ignore the hurt that popped into her eyes and darkened to something he knew all too well. The feeling of rejection.

He scrubbed a hand over his face and swore. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.

“I’m not about to apologize for doing something we both wanted and enjoyed,” he said.