My Darling Gunslinger (6 page)

“Shit,” he muttered as he balanced his wobbly legs by planting one hand flat on the wall before him.

“Is anything amiss?” Akeem asked. He didn’t turn around but continued staring straight ahead at the closed door.

“Which woman belongs to you?” Ty asked.

“Pardon me?”

“You said your woman would be angry if I fell.”

“My lady,” Akeem corrected.

“Lady, woman, what’s the difference?” But Ty knew. He bedded women, whores mostly. Ladies he steered clear of knowing full well they’d never allow him between their pristine sheets and lily-white thighs.

“Alas, they are all my ladies but none of them my woman,” Akeem replied softly.

Ty pulled the chain on the wall, watched in fascination as the water swirled around and the bowl emptied, only to fill up again.

He must have flushed the commode at the Alabaster a dozen times and he still felt like a boy with a new toy.

“Who is the pretty, little blonde lady?” Ty asked as casually as he could.

Akeem didn’t reply, so Ty turned to him. He was still facing the door, his hands held loosely beside his cotton-draped thighs.

The man wasn’t going to tell him the lady’s name. No matter.

The ranch was his now, and the elusive Charlie Green and his family of oddballs could either stay or go. If they stayed, he’d learn the lady’s name. If they moved on, he’d continue thinking of her as Lady Blue.

If ever you desire to learn the true measure of a man, catch him upon first waking before he’s donned the mask of civility.

Ethel Chang

Charlotte watched the man sleep.

Tyler Morgan
Magnus had said.

Ty
Akeem had corrected, clearly pleased the man had invited him to use the diminutive of his given name.

Every time she managed to sneak upstairs to speak privately with the man, he was sleeping.

He’d sat up in bed yesterday for hours while Sebastian read to him from
Robinson Crusoe
. Charlotte had hovered out in the hall, smiling to hear her son’s soft voice retelling the tale she’d read to him before he’d been able to bury himself in a story alone.

“Wait, wait,” Tyler Morgan’s gravelly voice had interrupted at one point. “Go back and read that last part again.”

Sebastian had complied and the man had laughed softly.

Charlotte had felt that warm laughter all the way to her bare toes.

He’d fallen silent when she’d stepped over the threshold, all emotion wiped from his lean, chiseled cheeks. For one confused moment, she’d thought she’d been mistaken, that the laughter had been in her head.

He’d hobbled down the hall this morning with Akeem’s help to enjoy a bath, promising in his dark voice that he’d keep his bandages out of the water.

Charlotte had come up the stairs to find Ethel standing outside the bathing room peering in through the cracked open door.

“What on earth are you doing?” she’d asked her friend.

“Shh.” Ethel had lifted her finger to her lips. “Listen.”

The man, Ty…Tyler Morgan…Mr. Morgan had been singing softly.

“He shouldn’t give up his job as a hired gun,” she’d snapped in irritation.

He wasn’t a hired gun. Not any longer. He was a rancher now.

He owned every acre of the Zeppelin Ranch, every tall tree, every lumbering cow, every wooly sheep, and every crossbred horse.

He owned the house she had lovingly and painstakingly redecorated. He owned the tub she’d seen him submerged in, one muscular leg curved over the tall rim to keep his bandages dry. She’d had that tub custom made in Ireland and shipped across the ocean.

The lion-footed tub was hers, gosh darn it. She would have it installed in the Pleasure Palace and he could bathe in the small copper tub Uncle Jasper had used before she’d arrived.

She would take the piano, as well.

And all the pretty furniture. What did a gunslinger need with brocade-covered chairs and velvet settees?

She’d certainly pack up all the knickknacks she’d collected during her years as a wandering gypsy, the globes and chess sets, the stuffed lion and the ivory cups, the silk bed covers and rich tapestries.

The house might belong to him but, by God, it would be the same empty shell it had been when Jasper had lived here alone.

She would whitewash the walls to the same dull gray and scuff the wood floors and find the old grease-coated wood stove she’d had Akeem haul out of the kitchen. Tyler Morgan could eat charred food and breathe billowing smoke.

She’d take the modern cooktop oven with her, and the icebox, and the dishes.

But where would she put everything?

And why wouldn’t the bloody man wake up so she could ask him how long she and her family had before they must vacate the ranch?

Last night he’d played checkers with Ethel. Charlotte’s lovely black marble and red teak board had been spread out between them on the bed. He’d seemed fascinated by the small jeweled pieces, holding first a garnet encrusted disk, then an onyx up to the light.

Of course as soon as he’d spied her peering into the room the round pieces had fallen to the bed and the look of boyish wonder had fallen from his face.

He’d stared at her as if she was an interloper. In her own house!

Now he slept, on his back with his hands resting on his chest. He didn’t snore, he didn’t shift about or roll onto his side. He was as still as a statue.

Charlotte tried not to notice how handsome the man was. Truly, she made every attempt to look away from his sleeping form. It was a useless endeavor. He was a beautiful, dark angel.

His hair was clean and shiny, the wavy strands glowing like rich sable threaded with the deepest mahogany in the soft light from the bedside lamp.

Ken Chang had shaved weeks’ worth of whiskers from his cheeks after his bath and Charlotte was mesmerized by the clean lines of his face. His forehead was high and rather noble. His cheekbones were finely sculpted, and she couldn’t help wondering if he had some Indian blood coursing through his veins.

His nose was…well, it was magnificent—a straight blade with the smallest bump on the bridge.

His chin was square and strong above his sinewy neck.

His eyebrows were thick but not bushy, arched in an entirely masculine way.

Long, thick lashes any woman would covet hid his eyes. But she didn’t need to see them now. They haunted her dreams. As bright as silver in the sunlight and as dark as pewter in the shadows, his eyes were…alive. Yes, that was it exactly. Even when he’d wiped all expression from his face, his gray eyes were alive and aware, seeing everything, missing nothing.

Charlotte resolutely looked away from his mouth, his sinfully wide mouth with its bottom lip as plump as a pillow.

Damn the man, would he never awaken?

She’d been sitting in the silent room for nearly three hours. Her bottom had gone numb in the hard wooden rocking chair. She was hungry and the spicy aroma of curry drifting upstairs had her stomach growling.

Apparently, not even the delicious smells and the muted laughter from the kitchen would wake the blighted man.

“Well, fudge,” Charlotte muttered as she jumped to her feet.

The rocking chair flew back and banged into the wall.

One, two, three…

“My lady?” Akeem’s worried voice on the stairs.

“I’m fine, Akeem,” she called out. “Only a minor mishap with a chair.”

Charlotte turned to find gray eyes watching her where she stood at the foot of the bed, halfway between the still rocking chair and the door.

“I apologize for waking you, Mr. Morgan,” she lied.

He mumbled something then shifted to sit against the pillows propped at the headboard.

She’d bought that headboard from an old Indian who’d told her it had taken him nearly a year to carve. His hands had been covered in crisscrossing scars, like a map of the world.

“The bed is mine.” The words just popped out of her mouth, prompted, no doubt, by the anger that had simmered and stewed inside her for days.

“You’re welcome to join me.”

“I beg your pardon?” Charlotte’s voice squeaked in a most unbecoming way. Had the man just invited her to join him in his…that is, her bed?

Surely she’d misunderstood him. The man didn’t even like her. He ignored her whenever she walked into the room. And when he wasn’t ignoring her, he practically skewered her with his hot eyes.

But, Lord, she couldn’t deny the thrill that chased down her spine to hear his sinfully dark voice whisper the words, never mind she’d certainly mistaken his meaning.

Tyler Morgan blinked, once, twice. A dark wave of scarlet swept up his neck and across his cheeks.

Surely he wasn’t embarrassed. No, he was likely angry to awaken and find her in his room, an uninvited guest, an intruder. In her own home!

She took a deep breath, striving for control. “I only meant the bed and the rest of the furniture in this house are not included in the kettle you won from Jasper.” There. She sounded perfectly reasonable, if a bit stiff.

“Kettle?” One dark brow winged up.

Charlotte waved her hand about. “You know…”

“The kitty?” he asked.

“Kitty?” she repeated in confusion. “Serendipity is most certainly not part of your winnings.”

“Serendipity?” A frown that resembled a pout hovered around his mouth. His luscious, pillowy mouth.

“The cows and sheep and horses are yours, of course,” she explained. “You can keep the slobbering hounds if you’d like. But the cat leaves with us.”

Tyler Morgan made no reply. In fact, he seemed suddenly frozen in the bed.

“If you fancy a feline, one of the mousers in the barn is expecting a litter,” Charlotte said into the silence. The man seemed unduly upset to learn he must give up Serendipity. She hadn’t realized the two had even met.

“You’re leaving?” His voice was barely above a whisper. His eyes were dark and stormy.

“Certainly.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Charlotte repeated in confusion.

“Why are you leaving?”

“Well, because the ranch is yours, Mr. Morgan,” she answered slowly. Had he forgotten the card game? The deed he’d pulled from his breast pocket?

“It’s only three-quarters mine,” he said as he leaned forward in the bed expectantly, as if he watched for some sort of sign, some sort of portent.

“Whatever do you mean?” Charlotte moved to the side of the bed near his long legs.

“Jasper Heimlich only wagered three-quarters of the ranch.”

“But then who owns the remaining quarter?”

“Charlie Green.”

That didn’t make sense. How on earth could Charlie Green own a quarter of the Zeppelin?

“Jasper told you Charlie Green owns a quarter of this ranch?” She barely breathed as hope shifted and trembled inside her.

Tyler Morgan nodded.

Charlotte dropped onto the bed, her hip brushing his knee. “Which part?”

Up went that winging brow.

“Which part of the ranch does Charlie Green own?” she said by way of clarification.

“A ranch isn’t like an apple,” he replied. “You can’t cut it into pieces.”

“That’s a wonderful simile. Extraordinarily imaginative and vivid.”

“Simile,” Tyler whispered with another pouty little frown.

“If Charlie Green owns one-quarter of the ranch…” She let her words trail off, hoping he would tell her precisely what it meant.

“He and his family can stay,” he supplied carefully. “If they want to stay.”

“Charlie and his family,” Charlotte whispered.

“That includes you, doesn’t it?” Tyler asked, his voice low and raspy.

“And Serendipity,” she answered, hoping to soften the blow.

“I only have one question.”

Charlotte leaned forward in anticipation.

“Is Charlie Green your husband?”

It wasn’t the question she’d been expecting. Although, now that she thought about it, it was a reasonable question.

She smiled at him.

He waited for her answer.

She laughed softly. Surely he would figure it out.

Tyler Morgan leaned farther forward, as if he might read the answer in her eyes if he were only close enough.

That was when Charlotte realized she was sitting on his bed, her hip resting along his leg. She was leaning forward and he was leaning forward, until less than a foot separated her lips from his.

She should lean back.

She didn’t.

If he were a gentleman, he would lean back.

He wasn’t.

He inched closer, his mouth drawn into a firm line, his eyes heavy lidded.

Hmm, perhaps he did like her after all.

He certainly seemed to be thinking of kissing her.

She was definitely thinking of kissing him.

“Every time I mention Charlie Green, I’m met with a wall of silence,” he murmured.

“I can imagine,” she whispered.

“And every time I try to pry your identity from someone—”

“Let me guess,” she interrupted. “You’re met with the same wall of silence.”

He nodded.

“What do you suppose it means?”

“Damned if I know.” His gaze dropped to her mouth.

“Do you want to kiss me?” Charlotte asked him breathlessly.

“Shit.” Tyler Morgan lurched back. In his haste to escape her hovering, puckering lips, he slammed his head against the beautiful carved headboard. “Jesus H. Christ, lady! What’s wrong with you?”

Charlotte scrambled from the bed, her heart slamming in her chest. “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? For heaven’s sake, there’s no need to carry on as if I’d surreptitiously fondled your genitalia while you were sleeping!”

Tyler’s mouth opened and closed but the only sound he seemed capable of making was a sort of gurgling wheeze.

“You looked as if you wanted to kiss me,” Charlotte finally said when it became apparent she’d rendered the man speechless.

He dropped his head into his hands, ran his long fingers through his hair and gave a sharp tug.