Deadly (21 page)

He sat on the bed beside her and began to pull off his boots. She ran her fingertips along his naked back. Her fingers gliding over the stitches he still bore from the shooting. His shoulder was now a mass of green and purple and yellow as it healed.

“Does it hurt?”

“No,” he whispered. “Your touch is healing me.”

She sat up and leaned against his back, kissing his shoulders.

“Woman, stop. Or we’re going to be finished before we even get started.” He stood and stepped away from the bed while he shucked his pants. Soon he was striding toward her, his manhood hard and rigid and sticking straight out in front of him.

And she lay back, eagerly anticipating him.

As he crawled up on the bed, she reached out and touched his face, bringing his mouth down to hers. Eagerly, his lips sought hers, and she tasted herself on his mouth. While her hand caressed his cock, gripping and rubbing the flesh up and down, his legs spread hers wide. His fingertips wrapped around her hand, and he helped her guide his penis to her opening.

Then he was stretching her wide, sliding between her folds, as he entered her body.

A sigh escaped her as she felt him within her, and a completeness filled her. She glanced up into his brown eyes and felt him push deep within her. With each thrust, she felt like he was imprinting his name on her heart. With each thrust, she sank deeper and deeper into his gaze. With each thrust, she felt her defenses melting away and her heart opening up like a flower to receive him.

“Zach,” she moaned. “Please…”

“What, Meg?” he asked, his breathing heavy.

She didn’t answer him, not really understanding what she needed, but knowing they were rushing toward that avalanche of feelings once again. Wanting him there with her as they reached the summit and plunged over the edge.

As he made her his once again, she could feel her boundaries slipping away. She’d never been in love before, but with a sureness she found disturbing, she suddenly wanted to give all of herself to him. To follow him across the prairie and back and let him be the man who fathered her children. The man she grew old with. The man she gave her heart and love to every day.

With each thrust, she found herself holding back tears. Zach was the one who made her heart sing with joy. Zach was the one she sought when she walked in a door. Zach was the man she loved with all her heart.

Tension and power and love filled her to near overflowing as her breathing sounded more and more harsh as she reached her peak. She felt Zach rise up and thrust into her deeply.

“Oh, God,” he cried as he came, his body shuddering with release.

He plunged into her one final time as she cried out in ecstasy. Her own release roared through her body, sending shudders rippling through her. She clasped him to her, holding him as tight as she could, wanting to somehow absorb him into her soul, where she would hold him tightly and cherish these moments together.

They lay there, their bodies clasped securely as if the world could not interfere. For several minutes, they held each other as their breathing returned to normal and their heartbeats slowed. But Meg would never be the same. This joining had changed her, fulfilled her in ways she’d never considered. She knew that after tonight, no matter what the future held, she would be forever changed.

Zach rolled her to the side, pulling her up tight against him. She listened to the beating of his heart next to hers. What happened next?

“Meg,” he said softly into her ear.

“Zach, hold me,” she cried as a lone tear rolled down her cheek. She loved Zach Gillespie, and that was a dangerous predicament.

“Always,” he said gruffly in her ear as he pulled the sheets up over them.

*

Zach lay beside Meg, his heart heavy, his soul burdened, his body satisfied. God, this woman had not only made him forget the awful mess he was dealing with, she’d made him feel like a man who was capable of taking care of her, of protecting her, of being there beside her each day. She’d loved him like no matter what happened tomorrow, tonight he was all that was important.

His chest felt tight with fear for what the morrow would bring, yet Meg had comforted him and left him more satisfied than a man had the right to feel. She was everything a man could want in a woman, and he’d once stupidly doubted she was woman enough for him. All his doubts had just been dynamited into the atmosphere. If anyone here were weak, it was him.

“You okay?” she asked, her voice soft and breathless.

How could he answer that question? His heart was in his throat, filled with satisfaction, emotional attachment, and something that could easily turn into love for this woman. He was also bereft at the knowledge of his brother. The little boy he’d helped take care of, the man he’d loved, had killed a stranger and now would pay the consequences of his actions.

Had Simon not thought about how his crime would affect his family? His mother? His brother the lawman? Or how it would end his life. For those five seconds of pulling the trigger and a demented feeling of satisfaction, he had destroyed his family.

A lump filled Zach’s throat. He swallowed, trying to wash away the pain that held a tight grip on him.

“I’m good,” he said, knowing he lied. A sigh escaped from his tightly closed throat. “God, Meg, being with you is the best damn thing that has ever happened to me on the worst day of my life. I’m so torn up inside, yet here you are, soothing me better than any doctor could ever help. I just wish things were different.”

Zach knew the morning would not be good, but Meg had made him feel like she would always be there. That she would wrap her arms around him and soothe away the day’s hurts. God, he was nine ways a fool to not have married her that same day she’d asked.

She took his arm and wrapped it around her middle section, snuggling up solidly against his chest. “Tell me some good things about Simon. Tell me about the happy times.”

Memories of Simon as a little boy flooded his mind, filling his throat with tears. How could Zach turn him into the law? How could he let his brother hang?

His chest ached from the tightness that held it hostage. “At first, me and my brothers hated that little brat baby who took our mother away from us. My youngest brother was four when Simon was born. I was eight years older and out comes another squallin’ baby. We went back to playing outside once we learned we had another brother.”

“So when did you start to like Simon?” she asked softly, her big green eyes staring up at him like emeralds shining in the darkness. That piercing gaze seemed to touch his soul like a warm gentle caress.

“The first time I remember protecting him was when he fell into the river while we were all out fishing. Mother had told us we were not to go near that river, but like typical kids, we disobeyed. He slipped into that raging water, his little head bobbing up and down like a cork on a fishing line. I had to go in after him.” He sighed the sound heavy in the room as he remembered the way terror had filled him as he’d jumped into the churning whitewater of the river.

“I didn’t think I’d ever find him. My brother Matt threw me a rope, and once I found Simon, he pulled both of us to shore. Scared me senseless. When mother found out, it was the worst whipping I’ve ever received, not to mention all the chores she gave me to teach me responsibility.” He’d never forget the memory of his mother’s face, going all white and then red with fury, or the way she’d swung the paddle, making it damn near impossible to sit down for a couple of days.

“Then there was the time he didn’t want to go to school, so he trapped a skunk and put it in the schoolhouse. I thought his time to meet his maker had surely come after my mother took the switch to his hide. One thing I can say about my mother, she never spared the rod. She may have broken the rod on our backside, but it was never spared.”

“What did the school do?” Meg asked, snuggling against him.

Zach laughed as all the memories of Simon’s childhood flooded him with emotions that left him happy, yet sad. “We went to the local church for the next week, while they aired the building out. Simon spent his free time scrubbing the smell out of the schoolhouse.”

Again, his mother the strong disciplinary force in their home had dealt out punishment. But though all four boys were raised the same, Simon had ignored his upbringing and chosen a life of crime.

Meg giggled, her fingertips trailed down his arm, her touch soothing, yet his heart still ached with the memories of his brother.

“Simon was always a boisterous child, getting into trouble at a young age. It was almost like he had no fear. One time when he was about ten, he decided he wanted to go into town. So he walked the ten miles without Mother knowing where he went. When she found him two days later, I thought she would kill him. She’d been so worried.”

Pain wrenched through Zach, and he hugged Meg closer, needing the feel of her sweet womanly body to comfort him. What would he do? He loved his job as Sheriff, but a lawman turned in a criminal, not helped him escape. But this was his brother. This was the brother he loved.

“When he was fifteen, he came down with pneumonia. We almost lost him again, and my mother was up with him around the clock, putting poultices on his chest. It was then that I realized I loved all my brothers and didn’t want to lose any of them. They mean the world to me, and if Simon died, there would be a hole left in our family.”

God, he didn’t want Simon to die. He didn’t want to watch his mother’s face as her youngest son hanged. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t hurt his mother anymore. She’d suffered the loss of an infant, the loss of two husbands, and now the loss of a second child. What more was she supposed to endure?

“When did Simon’s father pass away?”

Zach thought back to that awful day when his brother had gone into town to find his father. It had changed the brother he loved forever from a good kid to a cold man. He’d never been the same. “He was fourteen when he watched a man shoot his father.”

Zach had loved his own father immensely and couldn’t imagine seeing him gunned down in the street over a card game. James Simon Trudeau had been accused of cheating, and Zach knew for a fact the man was known for how he could work the cards. Only this time, the cards had gotten him killed.

“If he knew how it felt to watch someone you love die from a gunshot wound, why would he be the one who killed that farmer? Why would he inflict that pain on someone else?”

Zach thought about this for a moment. Maybe Meg was right. Why would Simon kill another human being? Maybe this was all just a big misunderstanding. Maybe he’d wake up in the morning and this would all have been a nightmare. “I don’t know, unless he was trying to get even. Unless he wanted those kids to feel the way he’d felt as a young man. But that seems so cold. And my brother has never been a cold-blooded killer.”

Meg grabbed his hand and brought it to her lips, giving him a kiss. “Are you going to be able to turn your brother in? Can you take him to the sheriff?”

The idea was gut wrenching and left Zach in a cold sweat. He loved being in law enforcement. He loved being a small town sheriff, and he thought he was a good one. But the idea of turning in his brother, letting a circuit judge decide Simon’s fate and carry out a hanging, left Zach terrified. Watching Simon be put behind bars… He didn’t know if he could do it.

“I don’t know. I keep going back and forth. The irrational part of me wants to let him loose to head for Mexico. But I’d lose my job as sheriff. I’d be giving up the job that brings me joy, and God knows what I’d become then. But he’s my brother. My youngest brother and my mother doesn’t deserve the heartache and the pain. She asked me to help him. Not to take him to his hanging. So what am I to do?” His insides felt like someone had torn him asunder.

“But as a lawman, you have to think about his victim’s family. Did they deserve to lose their loved one? They’ve gone through all the emotions you’re experiencing and more.”

She was right. Five minutes of violence would forever scar two families.

“I would be so angry if someone had shot and killed one of my loved ones. I’m sure they feel the same. You do what your heart and your head say. You make the decision you can live with the rest of your life.”

It was simple, heartfelt advice, but which one did he choose to give up? His integrity or his brother?

“But what is that, Meg? What is it?”

*

Early the next morning, Meg came wide awake at the sound of someone pounding on the door.

“Open up, Zach!”

Oh no! Oh, dear God, no!
She recognized that voice and pulled the sheet up over her head just as the door crashed open.

Zach sat straight up in bed and reached for his six-shooter.

Good golly, the grapevine telegraph, she was in so much trouble.

“What the hell?” Zach scrambled up in bed. “What are you doing crashing in here without waiting for me to answer the door?”

The sound of boots rushing into their room had Meg shaking with nerves.

“Where’s Meg? What have you done with our sister?” Annabelle asked.

Meg felt herself shrink even further down in the bed.

The bed shifted, and she realized Zach was sitting on the side with the sheet wrapped around him. If he pulled on that sheet any harder, she would be exposed.

“Uh, she’s not here,” Zach lied. “Last I saw her, she was riding out of town.”

There was silence for a moment and then Annabelle asked, “Where was she headed?”

Zach shrugged. “She didn’t tell me. She’s still searching for Simon.”

There was silence then the sound of boots walking across the floor. “If you’re lying, I’ll come back and find you and your whore. I’ll send you both to hell if something has happened to Meg.”

“There’s no whore in my bed,” Zach defended her.

Oh, this could not be good.

“Any woman lying in bed with you, Zach Gillespie, has got to be a harlot. You turned down courting our sister, so obviously your taste runs toward loose women.”

That seemed like such a long time ago, but Annabelle’s memory was longer and older than dirt for such a young woman. She could remember what happened ten years ago like it was yesterday. And she hadn’t forgotten how Zach had treated Meg.