Wyoming Wildfire (Harlequin Historical) (7 page)

There were worse things by far than spending the night alone with a beautiful woman, even a woman he couldn’t allow himself to touch. But the situation was going to be awkward. Glancing at Jessie’s pensive face, Matt guessed that she must be thinking the same thing.

“If you wouldn’t mind lending me a spare blanket, I’d be happy to spend the night in the hay shed,” he offered, feigning a gallantry he did not feel.

“The hay shed leaks. And I chased a nest of skunks out of there two days ago. The storm’s likely driven them back inside.”

“So what would one more skunk matter? That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” Matt kept his face expressionless as he spoke but made no effort to hide the twinkle in his eye.

For an instant she looked startled. Then her mouth twitched into a tentative smile that was like the sun coming out. “Don’t be silly. You can sleep
in Frank’s—” The smile vanished as she corrected herself. “In the room that was Frank’s. By morning the storm will be gone and your clothes will be dry. And I can promise you coffee and leftover pie for breakfast.”

“Thank you,” Matt said, meaning it. “I’d like to repay the favor by checking in Sheridan for someplace where you could live and work—a respectable place, like a boardinghouse or one of the better hotels, or maybe a home with a family.”

She shook her head. “Don’t trouble yourself. I’d feel trapped in a big town like Sheridan. And I’m not much for taking orders either. Knowing me, I’d end up arguing back and getting myself fired.”

“That’s pride talking, Jessie. You’re going to need some help getting back on your feet. The sooner you learn to accept that, the better off you’ll be.”

Her jaw clenched stubbornly as she shook her head again. “I can take care of myself,” she said. “It’s not your job or anyone else’s to look after me.”

“But where will you go? How will you live?”

“That’s my own business.” Turning away from him, she wrung out the dishcloth and began wiping off the table.

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Matt took a deep breath, knowing what he had to say next would likely upset her. “There’ll be an inquest into your brother’s death, and another into Allister’s murder. You’re a
material witness in both cases. You’ll need to stay where the sheriff’s office can get in touch with you.”

Her head shot up, eyes blazing. “Are you telling me that I’m a prisoner?”

“Of course not. But if you leave the county it’s liable to get you in trouble.”

She carried the dishpan to the door, stepped onto the porch and threw the dirty water out into the rain. When she came back inside, she was shivering. “I’m not leaving. You heard me promise Frank I’d track down the real murderer. That’s what I plan to do.”

Matt sank onto a chair, feeling weary of the whole miserable day. “Not on your own, you’re not. Leave it to the law, Jessie.”

The dishpan clattered onto the counter as she spun around to face him. “The law doesn’t care!” she snapped. “Why should they care? Why should
you
care? You’ve got poor Frank to hang the blame on. He’s all you need!”

Matt rose slowly to his full height. He didn’t often lose his temper, but this irritating person had just crossed the line. As he glared down into her defiant gentian eyes, he could feel himself seething inside. When he spoke, however, his tone was glacial.

“What you’re accusing me of doesn’t even have a name, lady. I do my job. That means I don’t walk away until I’ve found the truth. If your brother murdered Allister Gates, he’s already paid for it. But I
promise you on my life, I won’t leave it there. I won’t give up until the real killer is found and punished.”

“Even if you think it could be me?” She spoke boldly, with none of the helpless, fluttery tactics he might have expected from a woman.

“Yes,” he answered. “Even if I think it could be you.”

For the space of a heartbeat they stared at each other like two enemies meeting on a narrow mountain trail with no room to pass. Then, realizing that more words would only add to the tension between them, Matt stepped away from her and walked toward the bedroom.

“It’s been a long day, and I’ll be turning in,” he said, pausing in the doorway. “I’m much obliged for the meal and the bed. Tomorrow morning after breakfast I plan to ride into Felton and report Frank’s…accident. Then I’ll see what I can find out at the Gates Ranch. When I’m finished I’ll be back to tell you what I learned. You’re to wait for me right here, Jessie. I know you need to leave, but don’t go without me. Understand?”

After a long hesitation, she nodded and turned away. Matt crossed the threshold and closed the door quietly behind him.

Jessie stood where he had left her, willing herself not to tremble. The lawman’s cold determination had
shaken her to the core. She’d told him the truth about what had happened on the night of Allister Gates’s death. But why should he believe her? The evidence against her was almost as strong as the evidence against Frank.

She’d shown Matt Langtry that she was a crack shot, capable of threatening, if not violent, behavior. He had ample reason to believe that she’d sent Frank ahead with the stallion, then ridden back and shot Allister herself. Maybe he even thought she had something against Frank and had left the rifle to frame him.

What had she done?

The clean bowls rattled in her hands as she stacked them on the shelf. Why bother? she thought. Tomorrow the place would no longer be hers. She might as well fling all the dishes against the wall and break them into a million pieces.

But she knew she would not. Her mother had handled those poor chipped bowls with loving care, knowing there’d be no money to replace them if they broke. Even in despair, Jessie could not bring herself to harm them.

This little ranch and the people who’d called it home had been her world. Now that world was gone. She seemed to be suspended in a void with nothing under her feet or within the reach of her hands. For that brief moment in Matt Langtry’s arms she’d felt safe. But that safety had been an illusion. The tall
deputy, with his ironclad rules and granite heart, could turn out to be the gravest danger of all.

Wiping her hands on the dish towel, she cast a lingering gaze around the cabin. As she blew out the lamp, she could feel her world crumbling in the darkness. Frank was gone, really and truly gone. He would not be there when she woke up tomorrow. She would never make him another cup of coffee, cut him another slice of pie or wash his dirty overalls. She would never laugh at his silly jokes or hear his tuneless whistle as he milked the cow. He’d been cut down senselessly, stupidly, still in his teens, with his life barely lived.

Frank had been innocent. Yet, he’d been treated like a dangerous criminal, his wrists cruelly manacled behind his back. If Matt Langtry had allowed him to guide his own horse, Frank wouldn’t have died. He would be free in the mountains, not lying cold and dead in that sad little graveyard on the knoll.

Tears of grief and rage welled up inside her as she stripped off her clothes and yanked her flannel nightgown over her head. A lot of things had gone wrong today. But fate had hinged on that one small issue. Frank had died because of the handcuffs—and Matt Langtry had locked them around his wrists.

What was done couldn’t be undone. But Jessie knew she would never forget—or forgive—what had happened today.

By the time she reached the bed, her legs were shaking. Her throat felt so tight and swollen that she could scarcely breathe. She crawled between the sheets and pulled the covers over her head, trying to shut out the memory of Frank’s young body sprawled in the bottom of the wash. But the nightmare was inside her and she knew it would never go away.

She had lost everything.

M
att opened his eyes to find her leaning over him. Her face was moon-pale in the darkness, her eyes like luminous violets with centers so large and black that he felt as if he might tumble into them and spend the rest of his life falling.

His throat stirred as he tried to speak, but she laid a cool finger across his lips. Her palm brushed his unshaven cheek. “Shh,” she whispered. “Lie still.”

As she moved closer, her damp curls skimmed his bare chest. The contact puckered his nipples and triggered a swelling ache in his loins. She smelled of rain and wildflowers and fresh-cut hay. He inhaled her hungrily, filling his nostrils, his lungs and his blood with her essence. He wanted to make her part of him. Heaven save him, he wanted even more to be a part of her, to thrust deep inside her sweet body and feel the ripping explosion of her response.

Cupping the back of her head, he pulled her down to him and tasted her mouth. Her kiss was soft and warm and damp, with lips that opened like the petals of a dark red rose. Her fiery little tongue darted into his mouth, probing delicately, almost timidly. For a long moment he forced himself to remain still while she explored. At last, unable to stand the wait, he answered with his own tongue, thrusting deep and hard, filling her mouth with the way he wanted to fill her body.

He felt her breath stop for an instant. Then she responded. Her tongue went deep. Searing currents jolted through him like chain lightning. The heat of his desire melted away all caution, all resistance. Nothing mattered except having her.

They ended the kiss, both of them breathing hard. Catching her hand, he pressed his lips to her palm, then moved it downward to his swollen erection. Her breath stopped as her fingers closed around him. He gasped, almost bursting at her touch. “I need you, Jessie,” he muttered, straining against her. “I need you now.”

“And I need you…” She rose above him, wearing a shiftlike gown, so sheer he could see the dark mauve buds of her nipples through the fabric. Her fingers trembled where they touched his swollen flesh.

As he reached up to unfasten the pearl button clasp, the gown parted and fell away from her. Her naked body was exquisitely curved, tapering from the ripe globes of her breasts to her tiny waist to full, fer
tile woman’s hips. His touch between her legs roused a moan of ecstasy. She was slippery wet, eager and ready. “Yes…” she whispered. “Oh, yes, my love…”

Lifting her in his arms he eased her down onto his aching shaft. She uttered a whispered cry as he penetrated her, then sighed with pleasure and began to move with him, matching his thrusts, her body cradling his in tight, silken warmth, her strokes growing more urgent, more frantic…

Damn!
Matt jerked himself awake. He lay alone in Frank Hammond’s bed, damp and spent and cursing. Outside, the storm drummed on the glass windowpanes. A tree branch scraped against the roof.

The dream had seemed so real that he could still taste her mouth and smell the clean, grassy aroma of her hair. Only now did he realize how much he’d wanted it to be real. But that was crazy thinking, he reminded himself. He was already going to answer for losing Frank Hammond. Bedding Hammond’s sister could land him in enough trouble to ruin his career.

But she’d gotten to him today; there was no denying that. And like it or not, he was becoming involved—more deeply involved than he’d ever planned.

Rolling onto his back, he lay staring upward, listening to the rain. He imagined Jessie lying on the narrow bed in the next room, her dark hair spilling across the muslin pillow. He could only hope she was
getting some sleep. She’d been on the point of collapse tonight, and he’d been rough on her. After some of the things he’d told her, she would likely hate him. But that was all to the good, considering how badly he wanted to get his hands on her.

Tomorrow morning, rain or no rain, he would remove himself from temptation. At first light he would mount up, ride down the mountain to wire a report of Frank’s death to the sheriff. Then, once he found out what had happened to the vigilantes, it would be time to pay a call on Virgil Gates—and on Allister’s widow, Lillian.

His musings were interrupted by a low sound that came through the thin plank wall, very near his head. He held his breath, ears straining in the darkness. At first he could hear only the breathy moan of the wind and the pelting of rain on the shingles overhead. Then he heard the sound again. This time he recognized it as muffled sobbing.

Matt sat up and flung back the quilt. He was swinging his feet to the floor when reason caught up with him.

Leave her alone, he cautioned himself. Jessie was grieving, as she had every reason to grieve. If she’d wanted his comfort and advice, she would have asked for it.

Wide-awake, he lay back onto the pillow with his arm beneath his head. He could hear her plainly now.
Her racking sobs went on and on, as if her heart and soul had dissolved into tears that would flow out of her, leaving nothing of Jessie Hammond but an empty shell.

With a sigh, Matt sat up again and reached for his trousers. Jessie was proud, he reminded himself. Judging from the sound of her, she needed a kindly touch and a listening ear. But she would never ask for comfort, especially from him. As for his offering it—Matt shook his head. Reaching out to comfort Jessie would be like trying to soothe a wounded wildcat. All the same, he felt obliged to try. He was all she had.

Standing up, he buttoned his trousers over the long cotton underwear he’d worn to bed. Then, still barefoot, he opened the door and stepped out into the cold kitchen.

Jessie’s door was closed, but there was no lock on it. When she failed to answer after several light raps, he spoke.

“Jessie, are you all right?”

Ear to the door, he waited for her reply, expecting her to order him crossly away. But he heard nothing. Even the sound of her furious weeping had stopped.

“Jessie?”

There was no answer.

Cautiously he cracked open the door. In the dark room he could make out her small form, curled like
a baby beneath the quilt. Her shoulders quivered. Her breathing was muffled and jerky.

Leave her alone, Matt cautioned himself. Sooner or later she would cry herself out and fall asleep. Tomorrow she’d be stronger, ready to face whatever came next. Jessie Hammond was a tough woman. She would be all right.

But what if she wasn’t? Doubt gnawed at him as he willed himself to close the door, as he considered all she’d lost.

Matt sighed. If anything happened to Jessie because he’d walked away when she needed help, he knew he would never forgive himself. But he was facing his own risks. Once he set foot inside that bedroom, he’d be walking a tightrope. One misstep and he’d be up to his ears in trouble. He couldn’t afford to let that happen.

Steeling his resolve, he opened the door again. The worn plank floor creaked under his bare feet as he walked to the bed. Jessie had not moved. She lay in a ball, her hair spilling from beneath the quilt. Matt cleared his throat and spoke softly.

“Are you all right, Jessie? I’m here if you need to talk.”

She did not respond, but he could hear her ragged breathing. If she was pretending to be asleep, it wasn’t much of a performance.

“Jessie?” He touched her shoulder through the
quilt. A shudder passed through her tautly quivering body, but she did not answer him.

Moving slowly and carefully, he took the edge of the quilt and eased it down to uncover her head and shoulders. “It’s all right to grieve, girl,” he murmured. “You don’t have to hide your—”

“Frank’s dead!” She flew at him in the darkness, her hair wild, her fists pummeling his chest, arms and shoulders. “My brother is dead, and it’s—your—fault!”

“Jessie—” He struggled to grip her flailing arms. “Frank’s death was a tragedy, but I didn’t—”

Her fist caught his jaw in a knuckle punch that made his vision blur. “You handcuffed him! A nineteen-year-old boy who’d never hurt a soul. And you wouldn’t give me the key. I keep imagining him, trying to stay on the horse with no hands, clinging with his legs, so scared, so helpless. And I see him pitching into the gulch, with no hands to stop him…no hands…”

Her breath came in wrenching gasps as she vented her fury. Her fists drummed his chest as if she were trying to pound the words into his heart.

Seizing her shoulders, Matt thrust her away from him. “Stop it, Jessie,” he growled, bracing her at arm’s length. “I know you’re grieving, but hurting me won’t take away the pain. Your brother’s death wasn’t my fault. I was only doing my job. And it wasn’t your fault. You were only trying to save him. If anyone’s to blame, it’s the person who shot Allister.”

She gazed up at him with tear-swollen eyes. “But it would have been such a little thing for you to leave his hands free. Frank would never have tried to get away. He was too scared for that.”

Matt recalled the shy, gangly boy who’d ridden out of Felton with him that morning. Jessie was right, he admitted grudgingly. There’d been no need for him to cuff Frank Hammond. He’d simply followed procedure without giving it a second thought. Then everything had gone wrong.

Hellfire, what a mess!

Jessie was sagging against his grip now, her rage spent. In her simple white nightgown, she looked like a little girl who’d awakened crying from a bad dream. He found himself aching to rock her in his arms and tangle his fingers in her soft, damp curls.

He released her. She swayed unsteadily, then sank against his chest with a weary sob. Matt hesitated, battling his own resolve. Then his arms went around her. Tomorrow she might hate him, but right now she needed to be held, and he was the only comfort at hand.

Crying softly, she trembled in his arms. Lord, but it felt good, holding her like this. Too good, Matt thought. But he could no more let her go than he could will himself to stop breathing. Her hair smelled like rain and sweet grass, the way it had in his dream. He brushed it with his lips, lightly, so that she wouldn’t feel it and pull away. Her curls were soft and damp against his skin.

He held her carefully with his hands discreetly placed on her shoulder blades. Even so, the feel of her naked skin through the thin flannel nightgown seemed to sear his palms. It was all he could do to keep his hands from moving lower. The imp stirred and jutted like a flagpole, straining at his trousers as he imagined cupping her firm little buttocks and pulling her in hard against him. Matt eased himself away from her, cursing his own weakness.

“You’ll be all right, Jessie,” he murmured, hoping talk would distract her from his condition. “You’ll hurt for a while, but you’re a strong woman. You’ll find the courage to go on.”

“Will I?” She jerked away, her eyes blazing up at him. “How do you know that? Can you see into the future?”

“No. But I’ve seen your courage. You can do anything you put your mind to.”

“Anything?” She mocked him furiously. “Can I pull money out of thin air and save my home? Can I track down Allister’s killer and march him to the gallows? Can I bring my poor, innocent brother back to…life?”

Her voice broke and her chin began to tremble. “You don’t know anything about me, Marshal, and you don’t care. As long as you can make yourself believe I’ll be all right, you can walk away and file your damned report with a clear conscience. Frank Ham
mond died escaping justice. His sister will get along fine. Case closed.” Her hand went up as the last words exploded out of her.
“Damn you and all lawmen to hell!”

Her palm smacked resoundingly across Matt’s face, stinging him to fury. His hands seized her arms, yanking her against him with her face inches from his own.

“Watch it, lady. You can only push me so far, and we’re just about there!”

She made an angry sound. Her bare foot came down on his toe. Pain shot up his leg.

All in all, it seemed like as good a time as any to kiss her.

His mouth came down hard and hungry on hers. His arms yanked her close, crushing her breasts against his chest. For an instant she fought him, pushing and squirming. Then the last thread of resistance seemed to break in her. She went molten against him, her arms catching his neck, her frantic fingers furrowing his hair.

Matt’s own caution evaporated in the heat of her response. He was on fire for her. His arms molded her to him, kneading her back, pressing her hips against his bursting shaft. “Damn it, Jessie,” he muttered against her lips, “you’re burning me alive. If you don’t stop me—”

She blocked his words with her mouth, her tongue
thrusting, jousting with his. His frantic hands fumbled for the hem of her nightgown and worked their way beneath it, finding her satiny thighs. With his last shred of willpower he bypassed the nest of curls that lay at their apex and let his hand move up to the sweet ripeness of her breasts. She gasped at his touch, arching against his palm as he cupped her sweet, warm flesh. The feel of her was pure, hot need.

But it was the wrong kind of need, Matt reminded himself. Jessie was a bundle of raw emotion—grief, anger and pain. What she was feeling now had nothing to do with desire, let alone love. She was frantic for relief, nothing more. If he took advantage of her now, she would hate him forever.

But how much would she hate him if he thrust her aside and walked away?

Taking a deep breath, he eased his hands from beneath her nightgown. His arms gathered her close, holding her gently. “I want you so much it hurts, Jessie,” he whispered against her hair. “But not like this, with you in so much pain that you can’t know your own mind.”

She clung to him, not answering. He could feel the tension in her, feel her desperate need for relief, and he knew that words wouldn’t be enough to ease her.

“Lie down, Jessie,” he whispered, guiding her back onto the bed. “I won’t hurt you.”

He pressed her back onto the pillow. Her eyes
were wide in the darkness, her mouth moist and swollen. Her breath came in tiny, audible gasps.

“Lie still,” he whispered. “You’ll be all right.”

Softly he kissed her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids, tasting the salt of her tears. Her hands clutched him desperately, working his shoulders like the paws of a needy little cat. A whimper quivered deep in her throat.