Taken by the Cowboy (18 page)

He opened the door, and
she swept in carrying two plates of chocolate cake and a bottle of
wine. "I'll be next door if you need anything."

"Rosie?" Truman
said.

"Yeah?"

He spoke quietly in her
ear. "Try and keep it down tonight, if you can manage it."

Rosalie leaned out from
behind Truman to peer at Jessica, who shrugged with casual
indifference.

After the door clicked
shut behind Rosalie, Truman locked it and sat down to eat. Silence
followed, interrupted only by the clinking of forks against plates,
the occasional squeaking of the bed when Jessica shifted around,
and the rain pelting on the slanted roof above them. About halfway
through the meal, Jessica rose and popped the cork on the wine
bottle. She splashed some into a glass and raised it to her
lips.

Truman looked up, but
spoke too late. "Uh, careful.…"

Good God
! This
wasn’t wine! It tasted more like petroleum gasoline! "What is this
stuff?" she asked, half choking on the words.

"I tried to warn
you."

"No, you didn't!" She
waved her hand in front of her open mouth, trying to fan the flames
on her tongue.

He laughed quietly.
"Yes I did. And it's moonshine from Ol' Bob Stafford. You gotta sip
that stuff slowly."

Jessica made her way
back to the bed with as much dignity as she could muster. Sitting
down again, she lifted her fork and continued eating, using her
meat to swab up the thick pool of gravy. That liquor must have
seared her taste buds. She couldn't taste a thing.

Truman finished, licked
his lips, and leaned back on the wrought iron bed frame.
Self-consciously, and fully aware of his eyes on her, Jessica
stuffed the last bite into her mouth and took another drink of the
high-spirited alcohol. When the scorching sensation passed, she
smiled crookedly. "I'm getting full." She dabbed at her lips with
the napkin.

"I hope so. The town
paid well for it."

"The town paid?" She
felt her eyebrows lift involuntarily, and thought back to the night
she’d seen him hand money to Rosalie. "At the dance?"

"Yeah."

"I thought you
were..."

"You thought I was
what?"

She shook her head,
feeling like a complete fool. "I thought maybe you were paying for
other types of services."

The smile in his eyes
contained a sensuous flame. "I don't ever pay for
that
,
Junebug."

"Ah—then I stand
corrected." She reclined leisurely on the bed.

He stood and brought
two slices of chocolate cake from the table, setting one down in
front of Jessica. "Besides, women like Rosalie don't do much for
me."

Trying not to react too
strongly to this intriguing piece of information, Jessica took
another gulp of the moonshine. "What about your wife?” she asked
curiously. “What happened to her, if you don’t mind my asking?"

He hesitated.
"Consumption."

Jessica set down her
glass. It was a one-word answer, yet there were still so many
things she wanted to know.

"How long were you
married?"

"Less than a year, but
we knew each other since we were kids. Grew up in the same town,
went to school together. My pa was a farmer. Her pa owned the dry
goods store."

"You must have been
very close, then,” she said. “Very much in love."

How she envied that
woman.

"I’m sorry that you had
so little time with her,” she added.

He nodded. “Yeah, it
all happened pretty fast, especially the getting married part.”

“How so?”

He kept his gaze
lowered as he ate the cake. “I left home when I was sixteen. Wanted
to work and earn my own way in the world. Then I came home ten
years later when my pa died, and he left me the farm. I hadn’t seen
Dorothy in all that time, though she wrote me on occasion. When I
saw her at my pa’s funeral, she was already sick. She knew she was
dying, and all she wanted was to be married before she left this
world."

"So you stepped up to
the plate…."

He finished his cake
and nodded, while the rain came down harder on the roof. “Yeah, I
guess you could say that.”

“You must have loved
her very much."

"She was a good
woman."

A gust of wind rattled
the six panes of glass in the window frame, and a draft slipped
between the creaky, unpainted wallboards.

"Maybe this weather
will keep Lou's gang home tonight," Jessica said, staring up at the
wood ceiling and trying to mask the contentment she felt from being
alone here with Truman, learning about his past, even though it was
a painful one. "This seems strange," she sighed.

"What does?"

"Us. Being here. Doing
nothing, just waiting for them to find us. It’s like we’re sitting
ducks."

"I don't see it that
way," he said.

"No? How do you see
it?"

He tilted his head to
the side. "I’d call it an ambush."

Jessica laughed. "An
ambush?” She poked her cake with her fork. “Sheriff, I admire your
confidence.”

Truman swung his legs
down and stood, causing the bed to squeak and bounce. Jessica
watched him cross to the window.

Thunder boomed and the
light flickered in the lamp. Then he looked at her. Deep in the
blue of his eyes, a heated expression lingered—one she had not seen
before.

She blinked slowly, as
all the hazy hours and minutes leading up to this moment smudged
together in her mind like a shifting fog.

Jessica swallowed and
inched forward to touch her feet to the floor. Rising, she moved
slowly toward him and stood before that shiny star on his lapel as
it reflected the lamplight. Then she reached out and ran a finger
lightly across the engraved letters.

"Careful,” Truman said
in a low voice. “I'm not made of steel."

She looked up at his
face, disregarding everything else. "I don't want you to be."

“Are you sure about
that?”

Their eyes locked for a
full ten seconds before he stroked her cheek with the back of his
hand, the gesture inflaming her desires to a shocking level of
intensity. She ached to touch him, to kiss those soft full
lips.

Turning her cheek into
the warmth of his hand, she kissed his palm and sighed with
pleasure.

"I've got to stay
sharp," he whispered. "I can't be distracted."

He stopped talking all
of a sudden. Then his lips covered hers in a hot and devouring kiss
that took her breath away.

Truman's hands on her
body and his mouth playing upon hers smothered the last shred of
self-restraint Jessica possessed. She burned with desire as he
swept her into his arms, carried her to the bed, and laid her
softly onto the mattress. Their mouths met briefly. Then he came
down beside her, his hand roving the length of her body.

"Jessica..." His breath
was hot and moist against her cheek, and it sent a flurry of
delicious sensation through her. "I can't protect you this
way."

"No… please, don’t
stop. I’ll die if you do."

He shut his eyes. "I’ve
tried to get you out of my head, but I can't. Every time I close my
eyes, there you are, and all I want to do is find you and touch
you. Do
this
to you."

He rolled on top of her
and settled his hips closer to the warmth of her jean-clad
legs.

Jessica moaned,
unprepared for the immediate intimacy as he kissed her deeply.

In a swift and smooth
movement, he reached down and unbuckled his gun belt and tossed it
onto the bedside table with a heavy
clunk
.

Down he came again,
lowering his full weight upon her, thrusting, stroking, groping.
They kissed roughly and tugged at each other’s clothes, while the
passion sparked and flared into something unmanageable. There was
no turning back now. She simply had to have him.

Truman reached to
unfasten her jeans, but stopped in confusion. "What’s this?"

Jessica lifted her head
off the pillow. "Nothing. It's a zipper."

"How does it work?"

“Like this.”

With crazy impatience,
she unzipped them herself, and he slid his hand inside. She gasped
with pleasure at his touch, while the fevered pounding of her heart
sent her body over the edge.

"Take them off me…"

Needing no further
bidding, he sat back and helped her tug the tight jeans down over
her hips, while she unbuttoned her shirt with fumbling, trembling
fingers.

He stared at her black
bikini panties for a second or two, but thankfully disregarded
whatever he was thinking and quickly removed his vest and shirt
while he watched her remove hers.

He gazed with heady
desire at her black lacy bra.

“It’s something new,”
she explained. “It unhooks in the front. See?”

In a flash it was gone,
tossed to the floor.

With equal haste, he
unfastened his trousers and pushed them down over his hips, then
settled himself between her parted thighs, looking down at her with
sweltering, potent desire. "It's been a long time since I’ve—"

She laid a finger over
his lips. "
Shh
…. It doesn’t matter."

For a quivering moment,
their bodies clung hotly together.

He lingered there,
driving her mad with anticipation, kissing her neck and breasts,
until she couldn’t take it any longer. She needed him inside her
and thrust her hips forward.

Truman let out a moan
of pleasure as he entered and filled her in a single, perfect
thrust. Time stood still. She could feel his heart beating against
her chest. Then at last he began to move smoothly and steadily
within her.

Jessica gripped the
hard muscles of his lower back. Suddenly, she no longer felt
displaced. This was exactly where she was meant to be in this
moment, in this time. Here in his arms, connected to him. It didn’t
matter that they were born a century apart. They were together now,
and that was all that mattered.

“I’ll be careful,” he
whispered. “I’ll stop before it’s too late.”

She understood that he
was concerned about getting her pregnant.

“No, please don’t
stop,” she replied. “There’s nothing to worry about. You can’t get
me pregnant.”

Because she was wearing
an IUD.

“How do you know?”

“I just do. I promise,
it’s fine.”

Truman kissed her
lightly on the lips, then gazed into her eyes as he began to move.
For a long time, he made love to her with great care and
deliberation. Soon, she couldn’t keep the passion at bay. Her body
tingled and pulsed. Tossing her head back, she shuddered just as a
mighty release found her and left her weak and sated with
rapture.

A moment later, Truman
thrust deep into her as he climaxed. He let out a rugged moan and
collapsed onto her in exhaustion.

Soon, their breathing
slowed to a matched pace, raindrops pelted against the window, and
the wind rattled the panes. Jessica ran her fingers lightly up and
down his smoothly muscled back, damp with perspiration.

"Are you all right?" he
whispered. “Did I hurt you?”

“Not a bit.” She
wrapped her legs around him. “I loved every minute of it.”

* * *

Sometime after four in
the morning, when Truman was certain the saloon had cleared out, he
rose from bed and got dressed. After a long and appreciative moment
admiring the smooth curves of Jessica’s exquisite naked form, he
stroked her hair away from her face and disciplined himself into
remembering what he was here to do. His job.

He pulled the quilt up
to cover her shoulders and left quietly, closing the door behind
him and locking it.

Bracing both hands on
the railing outside Jessica’s room, he watched the barkeep sweep a
broom across the floor below, and thought about what had just
happened.

Making love to Jessica
had unraveled every tight coil inside him, coils he'd spent the
last two years working hard to keep tightly maintained.

Hell, the closest
friend he had was Deputy Dempsey, but the kid didn't know the first
thing about Truman’s personal life, which left Truman on his own
most of the time. Jessica was the only person in Dodge who knew
anything, and for the first time in two years, he felt an emotion
emerge from somewhere deep down, a place he thought he had
conquered. It was a place that knew pain.

A place that
remembered.…

Sweeping those thoughts
from his mind, Truman walked down the hall. The scent of stale beer
and cigar smoke stunk up the saloon. He'd be half glad when winter
arrived. At least the cattle drives would be finished for the
season, and things would quiet down to a milder type of living.

When Truman reached the
downstairs, Lenny crossed both hands over the broom handle. "Can I
get you something, Sheriff?"

"Any food out back?" he
replied.

"Try the kitchen."
Lenny whistled a tune and returned to his work.

A moment later, Truman
came out of the kitchen with a plate of sugar cookies. He took a
seat at a table, as a woman’s sultry voice reached him from across
the room.

"I always knew you had
a sweet tooth."

He turned to see
Rosalie meandering through the saloon, her hips swinging back and
forth. The closer she came, the more she swung that skirt.

"Evening, Rosie. You
done workin'?"

"Looks that way." She
reached his table and lifted a foot up onto the chair next to his,
to re-tie the laces on her heeled boot. "Slow night. For some of
us, that is."

Truman picked up a
cookie while Rosalie dropped her skirt and sat down with one hand
on her thigh, an elbow perched on the tabletop. "This is the first
I’ve seen of you tonight. Where have you been?"

"Around."

Rosalie let out a
throaty laugh. "You’ve been around all right. You’ve been all
around little Miss Junebug." Rosalie peered into Truman's face.
"You're not in love, are ya'?"