My Darling Gunslinger (16 page)

Lust, dark and dangerous, consumed Ty and he withdrew until only the head of his cock remained within the wet, clasping confines of her sheath, only to thrust deep once more.

Over and over he drove into her body, blind to everything but the desire and fury and grief raging in him, converging to create a terrible hunger that drove him on, pushing him past the limits of control.

His orgasm slammed into him, pulling a snarling, triumphant, howling groan from deep in his chest and out past lips parted in an agony of pleasure. He tossed back his head, his hands clutching Charlotte’s hips, dragging her back against him, his cock burrowing deep within her body.

Ty fell over her, open mouth pressed to her back, fingers flexing and relaxing on her hips, as he dragged air into his lungs. His eyes drifted closed as a different pain, as razor-sharp and ragged as a rusty blade, tore through him.

He recognized the pain, welcomed it like an old friend. He’d been greeted by the very same emptiness and dissatisfaction and shame each and every time he’d rolled off a whore’s body.

But this was worse, dark and insidious, spreading out from his chest, through his limbs until he was shaking with it.

With a muttered curse, Ty pulled his still half-cocked shaft from her body. On legs that shook, he rose to his feet and yanked up his dungarees, buttoning them over the evidence of his seemingly never-ending lust for this one woman who, even now, he wanted to believe held some tenderness, some small speck of affection for him.

Charlotte lifted onto her hands and brought her legs together, her head hanging low, her crown of braids listing to one side. She was silent but for the soft panting of her breath, still but for the fine tremors shaking her small frame.

Retrieving his gun, he wound it around his waist, his fingers sure on the buckle, on the ties he looped around his thigh. He watched her and waited for whatever withering and incomprehensible words she would use to order him from the room, from the ranch, from the life he had never been destined to live.

Charlotte sighed, the sound eerily loud in the quiet room, and slowly rose to her feet, her skirts falling to cover her shredded drawers and long, pale legs. Placing her hands low on her back she twisted this way and that, working out the kinks brought on by his rough handling.

Shame shot through Ty, punching him square in the gut. Without thought he took a step toward her, his hands reaching for her narrow shoulders.

As if sensing the movement behind her, Charlotte spun around, her hands fisting at her sides as if she might make another attempt to pummel him into submission.

Christ, she was beautiful with that stubborn little chin lifted in the air and those lush pink lips pulled into a pretty pout. Her eyes blazed and her skin glowed with a soft wash of color.

She reminded him of a painting he’d once seen of Joan of Arc, an avenging angel.

“Do we have a bargain?” She fairly spat the words at him, her hands coming up to her hips.

Ty welcomed the reminder that Charlotte Green was no angel, avenging or otherwise. And the only halo she’d ever worn was the one he’d mistakenly placed over her golden braids as he’d watched her alight from the railway car.

“I’ve another piece of advice to give you, courtesy of my mother,” he answered, forcing his lips into a grimace that would have to suffice for the smile he couldn’t quite manage.

“I can assure you I have no need of your mother’s words of wisdom,” she drawled.

“You might find this little tidbit handy,” he countered.

“Fine,” she muttered with a wave of her hand as if granting him permission to speak in her presence.

Ty took the two steps that separated them, looming over her, crowding her, forcing her to arch her long, slender neck to meet his eyes.

“A smart whore bargains first and fucks second,” he said, intentionally pitching his voice low and raspy, knowing he sounded as rough as any uneducated drifter, as dangerous as any mercenary gun for hire. “Else all she’ll get is fucked.”

In the circle of life endings and beginnings are one and the same.

Ken Chang

Dawn on the Zeppelin Ranch came early.

A fact Charlotte appreciated as she sat in Uncle Jasper’s rocking chair, muted lavender light washing the hills to the east, slowly crawling along the long dirt drive.

Tyler Morgan had disappeared down that dusty lane only minutes after he’d turned on his heel and left her spluttering in indignant shock in the study.

As she’d watched him ride away, shock had given way to rage.

Rage had seen her through most of the night as she’d paced through the empty first floor of the house, her mind fruitlessly calling forth the words she should have hurled at his retreating back, five and six and seven syllable words he wouldn’t have understood, all strung together to put the arrogant lout in his place.

She’d welcomed the rage, taken refuge in the fury that heated her blood, and found an odd sort of satisfaction as anger shielded her from delving too deeply into her heart.

Perhaps if she hadn’t sought the fresh air and wide starlit sky in the waning hours of the night, her rage might have kept her company until the sun was high overhead.

Alas, she had sought the open sky, the solace to be found in the sight of the mountains, little more than a tall shadow soaring in the distance.

Her anger had slowly diminished until it was as vague as the blurry line between mountain and sky. In its place Charlotte had known shame, piercing and sharp.

She’d bartered her body and what little remained of her virtue against a gun.

All she’d gotten was fucked.

She would do it again if given the chance.

Had Ty agreed to the bargain, she would have taken him into her mouth and into her body whenever and however he wanted. She would have bought his gun and his loyalty flat on her back, on her hands and knees, up against walls from Montana to Moscow

For Sebastian. To guard and protect her son she would trade more than her body. She would happily give away her last dollar, damn her soul to hell, place her mind into the hands of the most demented of doctors in the worst asylum, offer up her last breath.

Her shame was born of the desire that had lanced through her as she’d taken his hard shaft into her hand, as she’d sucked the fat head into her mouth and pulled him deep into her throat. Her hunger had grown with each gasping breath he drew, each raspy groan that fell from his lips, each jerk of his hips, until she’d been unraveled by dark need.

And when he’d ordered her onto her hands and knees, when he’d held her hips in his hard hands and thrust into her, filling her with his hard length, she’d had to fight to hold back a cry of pure carnal bliss.

Tyler Morgan thought her a whore. He hadn’t wanted to look upon her, to give her pleasure, to give her so much as one kiss, one gentle touch. He’d sought only to humiliate and punish her, never intending to take up the offer implicit in her ready obedience of his demands. And still she’d yearned for him.

Sorrow was her last visitor, arriving uninvited as the first rays of the sun crested the horizon.

Ty, the soft-spoken, word-hungry son of a prostitute, the man who’d pulled her flush against his muscled chest and lean hips, who’d urged her arms around his strong back, seeking affection and tenderness, was gone.

Tyler Morgan—the gun fighter with eyes of steel, the dark angel who’d landed on the ranch, stabbed and bleeding but still standing tall and proud, the answer to her prayers, the savior of her son—was gone.

And Charlotte mourned the loss of both men.

The door was pushed open by an unseen hand, startling Charlotte out of her melancholy thoughts. Ken Chang emerged from the house, a worn denim bag tossed over his shoulder.

“You’re up early.” His words were soft and hesitant, and she wondered if all of her housemates were aware that Ty had taken her like a whore only to walk out on her.

“It’s Sebastian’s first day of school,” she reminded him with a wavering smile. “I thought I would make him flapjacks for breakfast.”

“You?”

“Well, I suppose I imagined assisting Daisy,” she admitted.

“A sound idea.” He dropped the bag and came to stand before her. “Are you unwell?”

“Never better,” she lied, pushing off with her foot, sending the chair swaying.

“You spoke with Mr. Morgan?” Ken leaned back against the wood balustrade, crossing his hands over his thin chest.

“He is not of a mind to join our merry band of warriors,” she replied with a shrug of one shoulder.

“Damn.”

“Yes.”

“It is incomprehensible,” Ken muttered.

“He could not be bought even with my share of the Zeppelin.”

“Ah.”

Just the one syllable but it grated along Charlotte’s shredded nerves.

“Still, he’ll protect Sebastian as long as you are on the ranch,” he said.

“No, I’m afraid he won’t,” she replied warily.

“He would not allow the boy to come to harm,” Ken argued, shooting her a chastising look. “It isn’t in his nature to stand idle while anyone is threatened.”

“I wouldn’t have thought so either,” she agreed. “But there you have it. Tyler Morgan doesn’t give a shit.”

Ken blinked in surprise.

“His words,” she assured him. “Along with ‘Fuck your explanations.’”

“Where is he?” he asked, already balanced on the balls of his feet in preparation for spinning toward the door.

“Gone.” One word, yet it encompassed so much.

Ken whispered words in his own language, his voice deadly soft.

“While you are in San Francisco,” Charlotte began.

“I will poke my nose in where it doesn’t belong, see if I can’t find you a gunman with a set of balls.”

“Thank you,” she offered around a huff of strangled laughter.

“I’d best be off if I want to catch the train.” Turning away, he scooped up his bag and tossed it over his shoulder. “Please watch over Ethel. Mornings find her unwell.”

“I will,” she promised, rising to her feet and following him as far as the first step off the porch, where she sank warily to sit on the smooth wood. “Ken?”

“Yes, my lady?” he replied, turning back to face her once more.

“I truly am happy for you.”

“I never doubted your joy.”

“I wish things were different,” she whispered. “I wish I was simply a widow seeking a better life on this land and Sebastian was only a carefree boy with no knowledge of evil.”

“It is a good wish,” he replied. “And one day it will become truth.”

“Will it?” she wondered.

Ken hesitated a beat, took one step toward her. “Perhaps I should wait to journey in search of Kim Windsong.”

Charlotte contemplated agreeing, wanting to keep the kind man close for just a little while longer. In the end she decided it was wiser to send him on his way. The sooner he left, the sooner he would return, with or without Mr. Windsong and with or without a hired gunfighter.

“Go on with you,” she chided, smiling. “We’ll be fine. We’ll see Sebastian and his guardians off to school with bellies full of my flapjacks. Then Daisy and I will pamper your lovely wife. We’ll insist she rest with her feet up. I’ll even read to her from one of those torrid romance novels you aren’t supposed to know about.”

“The ones you secretly read late at night when no one is about?”

“The very ones.”

“I expect you to mark the best passages for me,” he said with a laugh, spinning toward the barn.

“Safe journey,” she called, rising to her feet and spinning about as the door opened again.

“Morning, Mama,” Sebastian greeted around a yawn.

“Good morning, Sebastian,” she returned, watching as he rubbed his eyes, all but digging his knuckles into the sockets, before blinking sleepily.

“I’m hungry,” he informed her.

“You’re in luck. I’m going to make you flapjacks for breakfast.”

“You?” he asked with a snort.

“Do you think I can’t?” she demanded, advancing on him.

“You can make them, but that don’t mean I have to eat them!” He ducked the playful swat she aimed at his shoulder.

“You won’t sample your mother’s first culinary attempt?”

“Maybe I’ll sample your seventy-forth,” he teased as he turned back into the house, his mother following along, lapping up his soft laughter.

***

Two hours later, Charlotte stood next to Daisy on the front lawn, waving for all she was worth as her son rode toward town and the little schoolhouse that sat just beyond the church. Akeem and Magnus flanked him, the old mercenary armed with both a revolver and a rifle.

“I’d best go up and check in on Ethel,” Daisy murmured. “Will you be all right?”

“Don’t mind me,” Charlotte replied, swiping at the tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you cry.”

“It’s just…” Charlotte drew a deep breath, let it out on a soft sigh. “It is so hard to watch him go, to let him out of my sight.”

“He’ll be safe at the schoolhouse,” Daisy assured her. “Akeem and Magnus will make certain.”

“Yes,” she agreed, knowing the words to be true.

“Mr. Morgan didn’t come down to breakfast,” Daisy said as they turned toward the house. “I hope he isn’t feeling unwell. One body losing the contents of their belly is about all I can manage.”

“Tyler Morgan can take care of himself,” Charlotte replied, too physically and emotionally exhausted to explain the gunman’s disappearance. She’d sit them all down this evening and explain the facts of life. “Go on up and do whatever it is you do to nurse Ethel through her troubles.”

“What worked for you?” Daisy pulled open the screen to allow Charlotte to pass in front of her.

“Oh, I was never brought low by the morning malaise,” she replied. “But for the occasional queasiness when I stood up too fast, I was right as rain the entire time I carried Sebastian.”

“Nothing brings you low,” the housekeeper replied.

Charlotte might have argued the point. She felt low now, listless and weak. “I think I’ll go up to my room and take a nap.”

“A nap?” Daisy repeated, as if confused by the simple word. “In the middle of the day?”

“It’s barely gone eight.”

“Still, I’ve never known you to sleep during the daylight hours.”

“I didn’t sleep much last night.” An understatement.

“You really needn’t worry about Sebastian,” Daisy replied as they started up the stairs. “Why, if that horrible man comes looking for him, he won’t think to find him at the schoolhouse.”

“I’m sure you are right,” Charlotte agreed.

“Why would he?” Daisy continued. “Privileged children have governesses and tutors and what not.”

“I don’t know that I would name Sebastian a privileged child.”

“I only meant he comes from wealth and what have you,” the other woman replied cheerfully. “As does that horrible man. Like supposes like, my mother always said.”

“Lord save me from mothers’ words of wisdom,” Charlotte muttered.

“The devil was taught at home, so he would suppose the same for Sebastian,” Daisy continued blithely. “No, if he comes looking for Sebastian, he’ll knock at our door.”