Taken by the Cowboy (10 page)

They rode up to the
back door of the jailhouse, and he dismounted and lifted her down.
Then Wade tethered Thunder to a post.

Dempsey met them at the
door. "I heard about Lou's gang. Wendy told me. She said they left
the saloon talking about scaring somebody."

"Yeah, well, they did a
pretty good job,” Wade replied. “They delivered this note to Miss
Delaney." He handed the wrinkled sheet of paper to Dempsey as he
escorted Jessica into the office.

"What do they want?"
Dempsey asked, following them inside.

Wade sat down at his
desk. "We don’t know yet."

At least he seemed to
believe her for once, Jessica thought, as she took a seat on the
stool near the far cabinet.

"Did Wendy hear
anything else?” Wade asked Dempsey. “Did they say where they
planned to spend the night?"

"No, but Bart has kin
at the Triple T Ranch. Maybe they’re riding out there."

Wade nodded, leaned
back in his chair, and stroked his chin thoughtfully. From clear
across the room, Jessica heard the sound of his rough fingers
brushing over his whiskers. "I think I’ll ride out there myself and
have a friendly word or two." He stood and stretched, as if his
shoulders were stiff.

Dempsey grinned gamely.
"You gonna arrest them, Sheriff?"

"Not tonight. They're
not wanted for anything."

"But what about
breaking Angus's window?" Jessica suggested.

He removed his hat and
set it on the desk. "If I see the man who did it, I'll fine him. I
got a good look at him."

"Is that all you can
do?" she asked.

"For now. In the
meantime, we'll just have to wait for them to try something
else."

Jessica sat forward.
"Wait for it? You mean I’ll have to sit here in your office—like
bait?"

He cocked his head to
one side. "Relax, darlin’. I'll do my best to get them to leave
town." He stood up, placed his hat back on his head, and moved to
the door with a swagger that made her want to jump his bones right
then and there. "Dempsey, get Miss Delaney out of here. This is the
first place they'll look."

"Where should we go?"
Dempsey asked.

"Wait till the sun goes
down, then take her to the boardinghouse, and ask for Wendy. Tell
her I sent you, and that I need a favor. She’ll know what that
means, and it’ll do till I get back."

Jessica stood up and
followed Wade out the back door. "Wait a minute,” she said, but he
was already mounting his horse. "Those men are dangerous. You’ll be
careful?"

He wheeled Thunder
around and spoke with hardnosed confidence. "Relax, Junebug. If
anything happens to me, Dempsey will take care of you."

That wasn't what she
wanted to hear.

“Stop calling me
Junebug,” she said.

His eyes glimmered with
amusement. “What would you like me to call you?”

“Jessica.”

Thunder stomped
impatiently and tried to turn away, but Wade wheeled him back
around.

“Jessica…” he said.
“That’s a right pretty name.”

“Thank you.”

He didn’t leave,
however, and she could feel her body start to burn with desire as
their eyes remained trained on each other.

“If we’re getting cozy,
maybe you should stop calling me Sheriff,” he suggested.

She gave him a playful
look. “What would you like me to call you?”

He trotted closer until
Thunder relaxed and snorted, then he leaned forward and crossed
both wrists over the saddle horn. “Truman.”

Jessica gazed up at
those mesmerizing blue eyes while she stroked Thunder’s nose.
“That’s a right pretty name.”

“Not as pretty as
yours.” He leaned back.

A moment later, he
galloped away, and Jessica stood in a besotted haze, listening to
Thunder’s hoof beats until she couldn’t hear them anymore.

No sense worrying, she
tried to tell herself as she headed back inside. Truman was an
expert gunman, and maybe he would come out of this unscathed, even
if it turned into something serious.

Better yet, maybe those
dumb-ass outlaws would cower in fear and ride out of Dodge
altogether.

Sitting down at
Truman's desk, she glanced up at the bullet holes in the wall and
hoped that tonight everyone's bullets would stay locked inside
their gun chambers – which was exactly where they belonged.

Jessica stood at a
window in Wendy’s boardinghouse, watching and waiting, while Wendy
slept peacefully on the bed.

"What do you think is
taking so long?" she whispered to Dempsey, who sat in a chair
reading a dime novel in front of the unlit fireplace.

"Don’t rightly know,
Miss Delaney."

"He said he'd be right
back. Do you think anything could have gone wrong?"

“Doubt it. The sheriff
is a legend. I reckon he’ll be just fine.”

Jessica recalled
Wendy’s tale of how Truman had put a stop to the ruckus in the
saloon that afternoon.

Wendy seemed a bit
smitten with him – just like everyone else in Dodge. They all
seemed to regard him as the undisputed hero of the West.

Jessica couldn’t deny
feeling more than a little smitten herself. In fact, that
particular word didn’t do justice to her passions—because she was
ready to drag that crazy-hot sheriff right out of his saddle, rip
off his shirt and gun belt, and take advantage of him in the worst
possible way – in ways that would surely shock and scandalize the
good old-fashioned folks of this city.

Jessica, you
incorrigible slut
.

She chuckled to
herself, then paced for a while on the narrow strip of carpet.

All was quiet outside
except for the distant sound of music from the saloon down the
street and occasional laughter from drunken cowboys. Jessica sat
down in the rocking chair and continued to wait.

Startled by the whinny
of a horse, she rose and moved to the open window, praying that
Truman had returned. She poked her head out.

"Thank God," she
whispered, watching him dismount and tie Thunder to a hitching
rail. “He’s back.”

Dempsey closed his
book.

A few minutes later,
Truman’s boots came tapping up the stairs. Jessica hurried out to
meet him in the corridor.

"What took you so long?
I was worried."

"You didn't have to
wait up." He passed her without so much as a hat tip or hello. He
entered Wendy's room, and Jessica followed him in.

"I couldn’t sleep,” she
replied. “There's a gang of outlaws trying to kill me,
remember?"

His eyes met hers. "You
were perfectly safe here. Dempsey knows how to use his
six-shooter.” He removed his hat and coat and hung them both on the
bedpost.

Wendy stirred and sat
up. "Sheriff, you're back. What happened?"

"They were just where
you figured they'd be,” he said to her. “At the Triple T Ranch. We
had a few polite words, and they promised to leave Dodge at
sunrise."

Jessica inhaled a deep
breath of relief, but didn’t feel completely off the hook yet.
"What will we do until then?"

He turned to Dempsey.
"Why don't you ride out there now and keep an eye on things? I want
to make sure they leave town like they said they would."

Dempsey stood. “Will
do, Sheriff.” He pulled out his gun, opened the chamber to check
the bullets, clicked it shut, and re-holstered it.

"Stay low,” Truman
said. “Don’t let them catch you spying."

"I’ll be quiet like a
mouse."

After Dempsey left,
Truman locked the door and sat down in the chair. Wendy settled
back into bed and closed her eyes again.

"You're going to stay?"
Jessica asked him.

"Yes, ma'am." He picked
up Dempsey’s dime-novel and examined the cover. “
Heroes of the
Wild West
.” He chuckled quietly, then opened it to the first
page.

"But how are Wendy and
I supposed to get any sleep?"

"I don't mind him being
here,” Wendy added helpfully. “I can sleep through fireworks on the
Fourth of July."

“I wish I had that
talent.” Jessica glanced at Truman's long muscled legs as he
lounged back in the chair and felt another fiery stirring of
attraction that she couldn’t possibly ignore. "I think maybe I'll
stay up for a while."

"Suit yourself." Wendy
pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. "You don't mind if
I..."

"Not at all," Jessica
answered.

For the next half hour,
Jessica sat in the rocking chair without uttering a word while
Truman read the dime-novel, then she finally tipped her head back
and closed her eyes.

She opened them,
however, when Truman rose and stretched his arms over his head.
While he stood with his back to her, she let her eyes roam
appreciatively down the length of his finely sculpted body, from
his broad shoulders down to the gun belt buckled around those
beautiful hips, then farther south to his muscular backside beneath
the worn black trousers.

The sight of him in all
his rugged, manly glory burned into her consciousness and robbed
her of any hope of sleep. She simply couldn’t take her eyes off
him.

All at once, a rush of
relief passed through her—relief that he had returned safely.

When he turned around,
she met his gaze.

"I thought you'd be
asleep," he whispered.

"I'm a little on
edge."

For more reasons than
one.

"No need to be,” he
replied. “You’re safe for tonight." He strode to the window and
looked out.

"How can you be sure?"
Jessica found herself trying to memorize every contour of his body
in the moonlight, so that when she returned to her own time—if she
ever returned—she would be able to recollect every detail.

"Because
I’m
here," he replied. "Besides, Dempsey would be back in a flash if
the gang left the ranch."

"I suppose." A cool
evening breeze blew in through the open window, and Jessica closed
her eyes, breathing in the distinct cow-scented aroma of the Kansas
prairie.

She tried to imagine
lying in her own bed back home with her dog George at her feet and
nothing to worry about but waking up the next morning to make
coffee and come up with a new column idea.…

"You married, Miss
Delaney?"

Her eyes flew open.
“You’re supposed to call me Jessica,” she reminded him, not
unconscious of the fact that it was the first time he had asked her
anything personal without sounding like a prosecutor. "And no, I'm
not. I was engaged once, though."

Leaning back against
the windowsill, he crossed one booted ankle over the other and
tucked a thumb into his belt. "What happened?"

It wasn’t something she
enjoyed talking about, because she was embarrassed to describe her
stupidity, but for some reason, she wanted Truman to know. "I broke
it off. I realized he wasn’t the kind of man I wanted to
marry.”

“What kind of man was
he?”

Coming up with the
right words took a little thought. “He lacked integrity,” she said.
“He was very self-absorbed and didn’t care if he stepped on people
and crushed them while he tried to get ahead."

Jessica glanced down at
her hands clasped together in her lap, remembering her decision to
break off the engagement. It had been difficult back then to admit
to herself, and everyone else, that she’d made a mistake by letting
things go so far with Liam—that she hadn’t been able to see what
kind of man he was beneath all the charm and success.

To make matters worse,
after they broke up, she learned that all her friends and family
had seen it, but no one wanted to say anything. They all just kept
waiting and hoping she would come around on her own. Which she did,
thank God.

Her self-confidence
hadn’t recovered from it, however. When it came to men, she wasn’t
sure she’d ever be able to trust her judgment again.

“Was he an outlaw?”
Truman asked, and the question seemed almost comical.

Jessica looked down and
smiled. "No, he worked for a collections agency. He threatened
businesses with lawsuits and usually pushed them into bankruptcy.
The problem was, he enjoyed it too much. It was like a competition
for him. Eventually I began to see that aspect of his personality
in other things, too. Bringing someone else down made him feel
good. Even if it was me." She glanced up at Truman. "It was a
mistake to fall in love with him. I still don’t know how I could
have been so blind."

“You weren’t blind,”
Truman said. “You had the sense to end it before you spoke your
vows.”

“I suppose. I just wish
I’d discovered that sense sooner, instead of spending two years of
my life believing he was the one.”

Truman narrowed his
eyes. “I’ll wager he was on his best behavior for at least the
first full year. There was no way you could have seen what he was
until he let down his guard, and that just took some time. You did
the right thing in the end. That’s what counts.”

Jessica nodded, because
he was right. Liam was perfectly charming in the beginning. He was
handsome and successful. Superficially speaking, he was any woman’s
dream come true. She thought she’d won the lottery to be dating
him, and her parents liked him—at first.

Truman turned to look
out the window. A dog barked somewhere far away.

Jessica stood up to
join him. “What about your wife?” she asked. “Where is she?”

He continued to look
out at the quiet street and spoke in a voice that betrayed almost
no emotion. “She died a few years back.”

"I’m very sorry to hear
that."

He met her gaze with an
intensity that nearly knocked her over. “I’ve been alone ever
since.”

A sudden rush of
empathy, mixed equally with attraction, ignited within her. She
wanted to touch him and pull him close, to tell him again how sorry
she was. Then she would touch her lips to his and offer a very
different sort of comfort.…