Sarah Sunshine: A Montana Romance Novella (7 page)

“What the hell is going on out here?” he demanded.

“Sarah?” Miss Jones snapped.

“Good morning, Mr. Sutcliffe,” she greeted him, her head lowered and her hands pulling at the edge of her frayed shawl so hard that long threads were coming out.  “We’re on a Tour of Sin.”

Paul gaped at her, concern warring with indignation in his eyes.  At last he clamped his mouth closed.  “I don’t even want to know.”  He shook his head.  “Sarah, get away from those dried up old spinsters.  Come home.”

The biddies yelped and shivered in indignation.  “Why I never!” Miss Archer cried.

“No, I don’t expect you have,” Gertie muttered.  She and the other saloon girls burst into snorts and giggles behind their hands.  Miss Archer’s face grew red enough to match her hair.

“How dare you suggest that we are dried up old spinsters when our fates are your fault?” Miss Jones demanded.

Paul blinked at her, then narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms.  “For the last time, Viola.  It was twenty years ago.  I asked Delilah to walk out with me and we had fun and that’s that.  That was no reason to spread lies all over the damn place.  Don’t you think it’s about time you get over it?”

Miss Jones sputtered, but a genuine fear and sadness came into her eyes.  She darted a glance to her friends before saying, “I was not referring to that whore’s usurpation of my rightful place.”

Paul sighed.  “Delilah’s no whore.”  He paused.  “All right, so she’s a whore.  But so was a lot of women in these parts back then.  Things were barely settled and there was five times the men that there were women.”

“That is not what I am referring to!  Your establishment-”

“Is a legitimate business.  A thriving business at that.”

“Your business takes honest men away from upright women and turns them into fornicators,” she pushed on over him.  “It deprives respectable women of decent husbands.”  Miss Archer and Miss Pickering nodded in agreement.

“Men need an outlet,” Paul shrugged.  “I needed an outlet.  And I saw you for the vindictive shrew you were long before you proved me right.  So get your head out of your ass and stop messing with my Sarah!”

The sound Miss Jones made was so shrill that Roy winced and rubbed his ear.

“Mark him well, Sarah.  This is a man who would choose sin over saintliness!”

“Any day,” Paul drawled.

“His eternal fate has already been decided!  His devilish choices have not brought him comfort or the security of a home.  That harlot left him!”  A gloating smile spread across her lips.  Paul’s face clouded over into fury.  “Yes she did!  And now he’s going to die alone!”

Sarah gasped.  “You’re not going to die, are you, Mr. Sutcliffe?  I’ll come take care of you.  I’ll nurse you back to health and-”

“Silence!” Miss Jones boomed.

“Don’t you speak to her like that!”  Mr. Sutcliffe matched her fury.  “Sarah is worth more than the lot of you put together!  And no, sweetheart, I ain’t dying.  At least not yet.  And I ain’t alone.  Don’t you listen to a word that bitter old woman has to say.”

“No, sir.”  Sarah bit her lip, twisting the ruined edge of her shawl.  She glanced to Roy for help, but all he could do was meet her eyes with impotent worry.

“You’ll regret your choices, Paul Sutcliffe!” Miss Jones railed on, her voice so tight it might shatter.  “Sins do not go unpunished!  Justice is always meted out on those who deserve it, one way or another.”

“Get off my porch, Viola,” Paul answered her.

“Come along, Sarah!”  Miss Jones grabbed Sarah’s arm and turned to drag her off.  Sarah dropped the edge of her shawl and stumbled to follow.

“Hold on there!”

Paul took two long steps off of the porch and caught up to Sarah, touching the edge of her shawl.

“Who did this?”  His voice shook with fury and his face went beet red as he held up the tattered cloth.  “Who did this!”

Roy looked closer.  The shawl that Sarah always wore, the one she loved dearly, had been butchered.  Someone had chopped all the fringe off.

“Tell him!” Miss Archer gave the order this time.

Sarah tuned to Paul, swallowing, eyes red-rimmed, and explained.  “Miss Archer says that vanity is the Devil’s work.  She cut the fringe off and threw it away so that I could wrap myself in the reminder of the wickedness of my past.”

“You uptight little bitch!” Paul roared.  Miss Archer backpedaled with a shriek.  “I gave Sarah that shawl for Christmas last year!”

“I told you that destroying it was a bad idea,” Miss Pickering mumbled.

“It was a sign of wickedness!” Miss Archer defended herself.  “Vanity is a sin.”

“Is it, now?” Roy asked, voice shaking as he looked Miss Archer up and down, surveying her shining, green checked taffeta dress and its layers of ruffles.

“I told you,” Miss Pickering repeated.

“Oh, so I suppose it would have been a greater lesson to have the girl scrub the floor in your room?” Miss Archer fired back.

“She would have learned the value of an honest day’s work at least,” Miss Pickering countered.

“And it wouldn’t have hurt your floors any either!”  Miss Archer snorted.

“I don’t care if you scrub her floors with your soiled drawers!” Paul boomed.  “You had no right destroying other people’s property!  Sarah, honey-”

“It’s all right, Mr. Sutcliffe,” Sarah said, though nothing about her countenance was all right.  “It’s … it’s just a shawl.  I’m still so very grateful that you gave it to me, even if it is….”  She held up the end of the shawl and gulped.

“This is insufferable!” Miss Jones huffed.  “Sarah, come along.  And as for you two,” she glared at her friends, “we’ll discuss your public deportment later.”

Miss Jones grabbed hold of Sarah again and marched her off.  Miss Archer and Miss Pickering followed, their noses in the air, but this time more for each other than anyone else.  Sarah followed meekly, head lowered, not bothering to look back.

“Sarah!” Roy called after her and took a step to follow, but Paul caught him and held him back.

“Just a minute there, boy.”

Roy bristled and tried to get around him.  “I’ve no wish to start a fight with you today.”

“I ain’t trying to start a fight,” Paul said.  “Cool your britches and listen to me.”

Paul’s voice was so rock-steady that Roy lost his bluster.  He stared at the man.

“I don’t like you,” Paul said.

“I can’t say I like you much either,” Roy answered.

“But Sarah does,” Paul went on.  He shifted and winced and rubbed the back of his neck.  “That girl’s got more heart than sense sometimes, and this time it looks like she’s got herself in a world of trouble.”

“Yes, sir, she has.”  He blinked, surprised that he and Paul agreed on something.

“Viola Jones is a menace, a dangerous menace.  Now, I seen that look of determination in her eyes before,” Paul said.  “It’s about the worst thing a man could hope to see.  Problem is, Sarah’s all puffed up with determination too.  She knows she’s barking up the wrong tree, but she wants to be a respectable woman so bad she’s willing to put up with anything if she thinks it’ll help, even a viper.”

“Yeah.”  Roy nodded, rubbing his chin and rolling his shoulders.  “But Delilah says-”  He stopped when he saw the thunder in Paul’s eyes.  “That is, I reckon it won’t do any good to go pointing out to her that she’s made a foolish mistake.”

“Don’t I know it!” Paul exclaimed.  “You can’t tell a strong woman nothing.”

“Anything,” Roy mumbled.

Paul scowled at him and went on.  “Trouble is, no one can talk Sarah out of something once she’s set her mind to it.  No one except maybe you, that is.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you, boy.”  Paul sighed in irritation.  “That girl loves you to a fault.”

“I love her too.”  Roy nodded.

“Then you’d better get her out of this foolhardy situation she’s got herself into, without letting her know you’re doing it,” Paul said.  “I don’t even want to think about what those women are planning next for her.  I know Viola all too well.  She’s got a bigger bee in her bonnet than reforming Sarah.  She’s up to something, something vicious.  And as much as it pains me to say it—and believe me, it pains hard—you’re the only one who can talk Sarah out of it.”

A moment of joy was split by frustration.  “How?”

“You gotta get her away from that lot, boy,” Paul said.  “You gotta divert her attention.  Catch her by herself.  Lay it all out and tell her she’s good just the way she is.  Coming from you, that might actually mean something.”

“Maybe,” Roy replied.  He shifted his weight and itched behind his ear.  A ghost of an idea was beginning to form in his mind.

“There ain’t no maybe about it!” Paul barked.  “Sarah needs someone to get her out of that crazy woman’s clutches.  I can’t do it, so you have to.”

Roy nodded.  That was one thing they could agree on.  “You’re right.”

Paul arched an eyebrow, as if startled Roy had agreed with him.  Roy didn’t have time to pay him any mind.  His course of action was forming clearer and clearer in his mind.  He had to prove to Sarah that she could still get what she wanted without going anywhere near the sour old biddies.

“Thanks, Paul,” he said, nodding and then stepping from the porch to the street.  The saloon girls who had eavesdropped on the entire conversation perked up and waved goodbye to him.

“You go and get her!” Gertie called from the end of the porch.

“I will!” Roy hollered back.  “And I think I know just the thing.”

Chapter Seven

Sarah sat cross-legged on the bed in one of Mr. Bell’s handsome second-floor guest rooms, her back against the wall.  She had the Bible Miss Jones had given her open on her lap and the school reader Rev. Andrews had loaned her spread on the coverlet to her side.  Between the kindness of Mr. Bell and the generosity of Rev. Andrews, she should’ve been happy.  It was Miss Jones that continued to be the pickle in her pudding.

Sarah stretched her neck, rolled her shoulders, and focused on her Bible.  Miss Jones had assigned her to read the story in the gospel of John about the woman caught in adultery, stressing how wicked the woman was.  All Sarah could see as she read was how Jesus had told the woman to go and sin no more.  Either she was missing the point or Miss Jones was.  Neither possibility eased the gloom that hung over her like a cloud.

She sighed, tugging her ruined shawl up her shoulders.  Nothing was working out the way she’d planned.  Mr. Sutcliffe wasn’t at all happy that she’d followed his wishes to seek Miss Jones’s help.  Folks weren’t saying good morning to her the way they used to.  Worst of all, Roy’d lost the smile he always wore when she was around.  She refused to give up and go back to the life she’d known, but she hadn’t expected things to be so hard.

She squirmed to sit straighter against the wall, turning pages in her Bible to find the Christmas story to cheer herself up.

A tap at the window shot her heart to her throat.  She froze.  The tap came again.  She gasped and set her Bible aside, scrambling off the bed and creeping towards the window.  The curtains were shut, but she could see a shape through the crack.  There was enough light to make out an eye, a nose, and the curve of a cheek in the night.

“Roy!”

She leapt the rest of the way across the room and threw open the curtains.  There he was, right outside her second-floor window, smiling.  She grabbed the window and pushed it open.

“Roy LaCroix, what in heaven’s name are you doing?”

He had a ladder propped against the side of the house, the top resting precariously against the ledge outside her window.  “I had to talk to you,” he said.

“But it’s the middle of the night!”

“That don’t matter to me.”

“It’s dangerous climbing a ladder to someone’s room.”  She stuck her head out into the cold night air and looked up and down the dark alley behind the house.  It was deserted.

“I’d walk through fire to reach you if I had to, Sunshine.”

Sweet affection pushed the shock clean out of Sarah’s chest.  She smiled, feeling warm all over in spite of the frigid night air blowing into the room.  “You’d best come out of that cold before you hurt yourself.”

Roy nodded and climbed the last few rungs of his ladder.  He gripped the sides of the window frame, stuck a leg into the room, and hauled himself in.  Sarah let out a breath of relief as he twisted to close the window behind him.  When he turned to her and held out his arms she rushed to hug him tight before she could think better of it.

“Sarah,” he said and closed his arms around her.

She shut her eyes and felt his broad chest and the rightness of the world.

A moment later she popped her eyes open and took a step back.  “Roy, you shouldn’t be here.  It ain’t right.”

“I had to speak to you,” he countered.  “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.  Things have been so….”  She paused, her throat closing around her words.  “I expect Mrs. Reynolds is keeping you busy with the hotel opening and all that,” she changed the subject.

“She’s been trying,” he said, “but truth be told, I can’t think of anything these days but you.”

She felt her cheeks go as pink as roses.  “Oh, Roy.”

“I brought you something.”

She sucked in a breath and pressed a hand to her chest.  “Brought me something?  You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, yes, I did.”  He reached behind him, under his jacket, and pulled a thick fold of soft orange and gold checked cloth out of the back of his pants.  He drew it around front and presented it to her.

Sarah’s heart caught in her throat and her mouth and eyes opened wide as she took it and unfolded it.  “Oh, Roy!”  The cloth was a new wool shawl.  It had leaves embroidered in red and green thread around the edge.

“I figured you needed a new one.  One without fancy fringe,” he said.  “Not even Miss Archer could deny that that’s a pretty, grown-up, respectable kind of shawl.”

“It’s wonderful!”  She held it to her face, breathing in the rich scent of sawdust and shaving soap and him.

“All those times I spent money on you, I never once gave you anything,” he said.

“But you gave me so much,” she countered him, hoarse with emotion.

He shook his head.  “I never gave you anything important,” he insisted.  “It’s time I change that.”

“I’ll treasure it.”  She threw the shawl around her shoulders and hugged it tight.  Roy smiled at her with such joy and spark in his eyes that she couldn’t help but step forward, circling her arms around him.

She lifted up on her tip-toes to kiss him.  His mouth was warm and ready and his kiss ardent.  It was no sweet touch of lips, but rather the full flower of two mouths hungry for each other after days apart.  He held her close, hands spreading across her back and waist.  She rested a hand against his jaw.

“Roy!”  She broke their kiss with a gasp, arching an eyebrow at him.  “You shaved.”

“Yes, I did,” he replied, grin mischievous.

“You shaved in the middle of the night?”

“I always shave when I come to see you.”  The deep resonance in his voice was unmistakable.  He pressed into her, his body hot and hard in all the right places.  His eyes flashed with desire.

Prickles of excitement spread from her toes to her fingers and swirled to a pitch in her gut.

“Roy,” she looked up at him through her lashes, “you know I don’t entertain no more.”

“I promise, Sunshine, I won’t be entertained at all,” he said.

The twitch in his lips that spread into a smile was more than she could resist.  She squeezed him tighter and kissed him again.  His mouth was quick to cover hers, seeking and melding with hers.  Their tongues met with familiar sweetness, playing together.  He slid his hands up her sides, one going so far as to cradle her breast.  He brushed a thumb across her nipple with nothing but the flannel of her nightgown between them.  Excitement filled her, burning through all her respectability.

“I love you, Sarah,” he said, pushing the shawl off of her shoulders and letting it drop to the floor.

It didn’t matter that men had said the same to her before and taken what they wanted.  From Roy it was more than a platitude.  She reached up to slide her hands across his chest, catching his jacket and pushing it down his arms.  He helped her, spacing quick, furious kisses between his movements as he twisted out of his suspenders.  She yanked his shirt up from his pants, splaying her hands across the firm contour of his stomach.

“I came to say,” he started but lost the words entirely as their mouths met with passionate breathlessness.

He hummed in the back of his throat, his hands bunching into fists in the fabric of her nightgown.  She’s missed this ardor from him, missed the hot, buzzing sensations flying through her body at the thought of him.  She missed the tenderness that welled from something far deeper than her heart when he held her.

“What did you come to say?” she asked as she lifted his shirt up the lean lines of his torso.

He followed her movements, tugging his shirt off over his head and throwing it aside.  The muscles of his chest and abdomen stood out in the low light, fine and strong from honest labor.  She spread her hands across those fit lines—through the light hair that covered hard flesh—dizzy with longing.  She rubbed her palms across his nipples until they were tight.  His heart pounded against her touch in time with the throbbing in her core.

“Come home,” he said.  “Come home to me.”  The fire in his eyes left no doubt of his intentions.

“Yes.”  She let out her answer on a sigh, leaning into him to feel the heat of his skin, the radiance of what she knew was love.  His mouth over hers, his hands caressing her and tugging her nightgown up her body so he could touch her fevered skin, was all the home she needed.

He pulled her nightgown over her head, leaving her standing naked in front of him.  “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he whispered.

She replied by reaching for the front of his pants, undoing the buttons with practiced speed.  He sucked in a breath as she freed his ready staff from its confinement, pushing his pants down over his strong thighs.  A mischievous grin touched her lips as she handled him, caressing the silky sweet length that more than filled her hands.  She wet her lips at the thought of how well he filled other parts of her.

“Roy,” she glanced up at him through her lashes, “you aren’t wearing any underpants.”

“Didn’t think I’d need them,” he replied, voice rich with desire.

She giggled, a deep, excited sound—far from the girlish twitter that she usually made.  She stroked him, fingertips playing over the rigid contour of his crown.  It would be unladylike to admit she’d always been fascinated with his size, long and thick and true.  Whenever she saw him and closed her hand around him to pleasure him like she was now, she didn’t feel ladylike at all.

He let out a muffled groan and lifted her off her feet and into his arms.  She gasped and wrapped her legs around his waist as he squeezed her close.  Their mouths met with desperate hunger, deep and sweet.  She tangled her fingers in his hair.  The ripple of his muscles as he walked with her to the bed left her heart beating double-time in expectation.

He bent with her still wrapped around him to carefully close her Bible and reader and to set them on the table beside the bed.  Then he lay her on the covers with infinite care.  Rather than resting over top of her as she longed for, he balanced himself between her wide-spread legs to look down at her.  There was such emotion in his eyes—so dark with desire as he studied that wet and longing part of her—that a wordless cry of invitation escaped from her before she could stop it.  And he hadn’t even touched her yet.

He heard her longing and moved to kiss her—hard and deep—but only for a moment.  His mouth traveled from hers, across the eager pulse in her neck, and down the line of her shoulder to her chest.  He wasted no time caressing her breast, holding it to meet his mouth.  He kissed it lightly, then closed his mouth around her nipple, sucking and licking it until it was pert with pleasure.  She writhed under his attentions, hips restless to find his, but he continued his sweet ministrations with no sign of hurry.

She threaded her fingers through his hair when he moved to tease and kiss her other breast.  He covered it with his warm, wet mouth, then lifted to blow on it.  The contrast of warm and cold left a pitched ache inside of her that needed to be filled.

“Now, Roy,” she murmured, reaching to stroke his length and urge him on.  “I don’t want to wait.”

“Don’t you?”  His voice sent shivers through her, focused in the mad need pulsing in her core.  He kissed the plane of her stomach, then shifted up along her torso.

The powerful movement, everything she wanted, brought their bodies into full contact.  She cried out with the joy of it.  His erection settled between them and he pivoted his hips to rub it over the part of her that wanted him so desperately.  She forgot her manners and tilted her hips into him, drawing her legs up and to the side in invitation.  Still, all he did was rub his hard, hot length against her in a maddening imitation of perfection.

“Roy,” she begged him, her fingertips digging into the broad, tense muscles of his back.

Whether he heard her or was too eager himself to hold out, he adjusted his stance and plunged into her.  It was heaven itself.  He filled her with one long push, the beautiful, familiar spear of him stretching her.  He was big, demanding, but she was made for him.  Her whole heart was made for him.  She sighed with longing as he worked with deep thrusts to please her.  He was too much for her and not enough at the same time.  Each of his thrusts raised a plaintive cry that echoed through her.

Her cries shifted to a short gasp as he drew out and pulled away from her to kneel between her legs.  For one brief moment, a chill of disappointment swirled around her.  It was banished in an instant when he scooped her into his arms and flipped her over. With all the strength that his fine clothes usually hid, he lifted her, keeping her legs parted, and eased her down onto his erection.  She hummed in appreciation, her back sliding against his chest as she relaxed and let him sink deep inside of her.

His hands circled around to hold her breasts as she moved, drawing him in and out with tiny, jerking movements.  Her strength was nothing next to his, but he let her take the lead.  She undulated, grinding against him to bring them both pleasure.  He let her choose how deep to accept him, and since she wanted all of him, she bore down as hard as she could.  He groaned his approval against her ear, helping her with careful thrusts.  One of his hands trailed down from her breast and he spread his fingers through the thatch of curls between her legs.

Her breath came in short gasps as he reached the aching point of pleasure so close to where he joined with her.  He rubbed it gently, stroking in small circles the way he knew she liked.  His length inside of her heightened her body’s response, the friction from both sides a glorious dream.  She couldn’t keep her sighs of longing quiet, and he encouraged her with his own primal sounds.  She closed her eyes and gave herself over to the pleasure of him, his measured thrusts more than enough with all that his fingers were doing.