Love Under Two Gunslingers (17 page)
“I’ll have you know, sir, I find your greedy pleasure pretty darn refreshing.”
Joshua couldn’t hold back his laughter. “That may be, sweetheart, but I bet you’ll find what we have in mind even more so.”
* * * *
“How does that feel?”
“Mmm.” Sarah drifted in a sea of warmth and relaxation, the effort required to speak somehow just not in her power at the moment.
Joshua had ridden into Durant shortly after they’d made camp and returned just a half hour before.
He and Caleb had friends in the town, and he’d gone to enlist their aid in monitoring the area. Durant lay close to Denison, Caleb had explained, and it could very well be that whoever had hired the bastards who’d tried to kill her might have been laying in wait for her in Durant.
Joshua had brought back more than information from town.
“One of our friend’s mothers makes a lot of medicines and poultices and liniments. One in particular we think you’ll like. And we know how to use it.”
She now could attest that indeed, they did.
They’d put the bedrolls together as they had been doing ever since they’d become lovers. Then, as a special treat, Joshua spread a piece of very fine linen over the wool blankets.
They’d heated water and bathed her as she stood naked before them. Even their most intimate touch failed to conjure her embarrassment as they interspersed their cleansing caresses with kisses. When she was clean and dry, she lay down on her stomach on the bed they’d made and, oh, the fine linen felt delicious against her naked flesh.
The brothers then knelt on the makeshift bed, one on either side of her. “You’re wearing too many clothes.” Neither of them was undressed yet, and she didn’t think that was fair.
“Tonight isn’t about us, remember? Now hush,” Caleb said. “Just enjoy what we’re going to do to you.”
They put their hands on her, hands that held some sort of fragrant liniment that seemed to warm as they worked it into her flesh. From her back to her arms, to her bottom and her legs, and even her toes, not one inch of her flesh escaped their ministrations.
She’d not wanted to say how sore she’d been getting the last couple of days. Her back and her limbs ached with all the unfamiliar activity, from all the horseback riding, and their more intimate nighttime forays.
Caleb and Joshua erased that soreness now as if it never existed.
When they cradled her hands, rubbed, caressed each finger, Sarah sighed. This bed beneath her may have been simple blankets on the hard ground, but with their attention to her body, she became so relaxed, so comfortable, she could have been on the most lavish feather bed ever made.
“Over, sweetheart. Close your eyes and just drift.” Hands turned her so she lay supine. It was easy to close her eyes, as her lids became too heavy to keep open.
Drift
. What an accurate word for the state she’d assumed.
Drift
. She recalled one summer when she and her cousins used a small boat to explore the lake bordering their property. The sensation of rocking gently on the water that lazy afternoon had lulled her into a half sleep. So it was now. The treatment her men gave her put her in mind of that long ago summer. Yes, she drifted, and it felt fabulous.
Drifting loosened the control she’d held on her thoughts, on the dark reality of having a killer on her trail. Drifting sent her mind to wandering where she’d kept it back. She’d not allowed herself to think of what the future might hold. She had convinced herself that facing Tyrone Maddox would be a simple affair, that he would be a reasonable man who would, once he received the promise of compensation, be happy to grant her an annulment.
She’d done a good job of willing herself to forget how uncomfortable she felt in his presence, how truly frightened she’d been on her wedding night. She’d been embarrassed afterward but at the time gave thanks he’d fallen asleep when he had. She’d been terrified to let him touch her. Now, she felt terrified to face him at all.
“Please don’t let me be alone with him.”
Silly to say that out loud, with no conversation leading up to it
. Neither Caleb nor Joshua could read her mind, after all.
“We won’t, Sarah. We won’t let you out of our sight. Maddox won’t get anywhere near you. We promise.”
She hadn’t had to explain herself. They knew her well. Almost, she mused, better than she knew herself. They had promised to take care of her and keep her safe.
Sleep crept toward her, gently wooing her to its presence. Her lovers would stay with her, guard her. She could safely drift, safely let her mind relax. Satisfied, feeling cherished and secure, she slept.
* * * *
One could always find someone with a price. Liam Larson stepped out of the livery stable into the late afternoon sunshine. The boy who worked for the blacksmith was more than eager to answer his questions. Liam knew he would do so again, and it would only cost him two bits.
He’d arrived in town before his target. Good.
Denison, Texas, had all the signs of a town racing toward either prosperity or hell, depending on one’s point of view. Built at the conflux of the Red River and the MKT rail depot only a few short years before, the location, guaranteeing service by major transportation routes, meant the region would prosper.
Liam experienced a flood of pride. Jamie had foreseen this development and purchased land here, land that would sell at a healthy profit at the right moment.
He made his way to the train depot, his eyes scanning
Once the bridge over the Red River opened and the first train crossed it, the population of Denison—named after one of the railroad big wigs—had exploded. Some said more than three thousand souls came to live here in the first one hundred days. He’d ridden through once just after the town was established, checking on the parcels Jamie purchased. In those early days, a man could drink his way through town, seeing as nearly every third building had been a saloon.
The town’s changed some, at least on the surface
. Liam knew that while the powers that be determined to “clean up” the place, they’d only succeeded in moving the questionable establishments a block south. Men will have their sins, Liam thought, come hell or high water. Greedy entrepreneurs, too impatient to wait for proper buildings, found an alternative and so one had only to walk a block south to see tents housing games of chance and bawdy houses.
Arriving at the train depot, he went in and presented himself at the counter.
“Good afternoon. I’m Mr. John Smith. I’m expecting a letter.”
While the post office was open and operational in Denison, one could also send a letter via the railroad from one station to another.
The rail employee behind the counter wore the expression of a man suffering from a constricted bowel. “Yes sir, Mr. Smith. Came in day before yesterday. Right over here.” He got up, went over to the cubby-hole shelf behind him.
Liam took the letter outside to open it. He’d sent a telegram to Jamie from Springfield, worded in such a way that his lover would understand what happened, but any prying eyes, whether idle or behind a badge, would see nothing alarming in the communication.
The next day, he’d received a return telegram telling him the package would arrive in Denison, and so to Denison he came.
Now he could read his lover’s words, unfettered by subterfuge. Liam’s brow creased as he realized that his beloved Jamie wasn’t enraged, as he’d thought might be the case, but
afraid
.
He would gladly kill the Maddox woman, just for this alone.
Folding the missive carefully, he tucked it into his coat pocket. His eyes scanned the street. The sun would soon set. He’d arrived before the others. His early arrival gave him the advantage of scouting locations. Only one hotel had been erected, although for a price, a man could stay the night at one of the whore houses.
He didn’t have to think long or hard over that one. That locale would bring with it the added bonus of seeming to disappear. No one paid any attention to anyone else on Skiddy Row. The new sheriff, a man reputed to be tough as nails, seemed happy to leave that section of town to itself as long as it didn’t spread onto
However, just the thought of stepping into such an establishment, even for a good reason, simply made his skin crawl.
He’d take a room at the hotel and check out tomorrow after the target and her gunslinger escorts arrived.
He didn’t need whores to help him disappear. He could manage that feat very well all on his own.
Chapter 15
“How about a bath, followed by loving, followed by a nap, followed by dinner?”
Caleb’s softly spoken question pulled Sarah out of her sadness. She’d just been thinking about how she would miss the quiet evenings alone on the trail with just the three of them. While she looked forward to a real bath and a proper bed, she’d gotten used to sleeping between two hard, warm male bodies and deeply regretted she would have to do without tonight.
They were about to check in to Denison’s one hotel. She would never regret the choices she’d made, and she looked forward to other times when perhaps it would be just the three of them alone again. However, she wouldn’t flout convention. That wouldn’t gain her anything and could, instead, bring nothing but heartache to them all.
Sadly, she couldn’t celebrate the love she felt for Caleb and Joshua openly.
Caleb’s words, whispered as they’d entered the Katy Hotel, filled her with excitement, even as she wondered how such a feat could be managed.
He left her standing with Joshua and approached the registration desk. “Good afternoon. My wife, my brother, and I need a room. We’ll only be staying one night.”
Sarah nearly dropped her jaw when she heard Caleb address the man behind the hotel desk. Whatever else Caleb and the man discussed was lost to her as Joshua moved closer.
“You didn’t think we’d let you sleep alone?”
His whispered words not only tickled her ear but stirred her insides. “I feared that I’d have to.”
Joshua leaned forward and added just two words, “Never again.”
Never again
. Joshua’s promise warmed her. In a matter of moments, Caleb was leading the way to a room.
“The bath will be up in about an hour. I’m going to go see the sheriff, but I’ll be back.” Caleb bent and placed a kiss on Sarah’s lips. “You rest. And when I get back, Joshua and I are going to very much enjoy getting our hands on your wet, naked body.”
Sarah stared at the closed door for a long minute after Caleb closed it behind him. Joshua’s soft chuckle made her blink and look at him.
“You’re asleep on your feet, Sarah. Come on, let’s both stretch out on this softer-than-the-ground bed. We’ll rearrange the order of things and nap first.”
Sarah hadn’t even noticed the bed. Looking at it now, she thought they
might
just all fit on it, if they lay on their sides.
She dropped her hat on one of the chairs, then sat down on the edge of the bed. She sank into the mattress and sighed. The mattress was made not of ticking but feathers, an unexpected luxury in a frontier town.
“I just realized how much I miss my own bed,” she said around a yawn.
Joshua knelt by her feet and helped her take off her boots. “You’ve been wonderful, sweetheart. Up you go.”
“I’m still dressed.”
“And so will I be. That’s right, stretch out but move over.”
Sarah yawned again, then watched as Joshua tossed his hat aside and kicked off his own boots.
“After that wonderful sleep last night, I shouldn’t be so tired.”
“It’s because you know the trail ride is over. It’ll be train from here to Waco. We both know you’re not looking forward to the last leg of this journey. That will make you tired, too.”
Sarah sighed as she set her head on Joshua’s shoulder. “You’re right. I’m really not looking forward to facing Tyrone J. Maddox.” She intoned it in such a way as to try and make him sound less threatening to herself. She wondered if he could feel the slight tremble just saying the man’s name aloud caused. Then he proved he did.
“You don’t have to be afraid, Sarah. You’re ours, and we protect what’s ours. We’ll keep you safe. We won’t leave you alone with him, not even for a heart-beat of time.”
Sarah snuggled into Joshua, the strength of his arms a wonderful reassurance. She wasn’t certain what the future would bring, but she’d come to trust the brothers Benedict.
* * * *
The town had changed since he’d been here just a year and a half before. Caleb noted the new buildings, the somewhat tidier streets, even as he assessed the people around him. It was late afternoon on a warm early summer day with not that many people about.
