The Lawman Meets His Bride (22 page)

Feeling bolder than she’d expected, she simply stood before him, fighting the urge to cover herself with her hands.

“Yeah, I see now why you’re so drawn to painting,” he said in a throaty husk after looking at her for a long moment in silence. “You’re a work of art yourself.”

She scooped up the towel and wrapped it around herself again.

“Nice try,” she teased him, trying desperately not to get caught up and needful of his admiration, “but you can’t charm me into bed. To quote Hazel, you’re jabbering pure piffle. Hit the shower, sport.”

“It is pretty late, isn’t it?” he said reluctantly, heading for the bathroom.

“Speaking of which, did you request a wake-up call?”

“I forgot, but don’t worry,” she assured him. “I’ve got this infallible inner alarm clock. I wake up right after sunrise no matter how little I’ve slept.”

While Quinn took a shower she used the room phone to take care of another detail she’d forgotten. She dialled the number at her real-estate office and waited for the answering machine to click on.

“Ginny, hi, it’s me. It’s early Wednesday morning. I’m going to miss at least another day of work. I’m fine, okay? I promise to explain all of this as soon as I can. And I have to ask a big favor of you—find some way to downplay all this for my mother when she calls the office? You two get along well, just assure her that I’m okay. Later, kiddo.”

She was in bed, covers tucked under her chin, when Quinn emerged from the bathroom.

“Do I at least get a merit badge for this?” he grumped as he climbed alone into the bed on the other side of the room.

“Whatever doesn’t kill you can only make you
stronger,” she teased, surprised at how quickly she was becoming drowsy. It was all that danger and excitement when they were shot at, she realized—stress was taking its toll.

“Quinn?” Her tone was serious now.

“Yeah?”

“I know you don’t want me to know too much. But…who can you trust once you get that computer disk? I mean, who will you give it to? Your lawyer?”

“I’ve been wrestling with that one. Not my lawyer. Lance Pollard will almost surely be under observation. I think Mumford is our boy.”

“Todd Mumford? The FBI agent who was with Ulrick the first time he grilled me?”

“Yeah. I trust him, and obviously he’s close to the case. Also, by now Todd has probably made some observations on his own. He’s sharp.”

“Observations? Like what?”

“Sometimes little strokes fell great oaks. By now these guys have left a trail of little clues in their illegal attempts to snuff us out, and Todd must have noticed something. Don’t forget I’ve got two separate but related cases to prove—the kickback conspiracy and the subsequent attempt on our lives.”

“Will you…I mean, are you going to surrender to him, too?”

“I think I’ll have to, Connie. I might be able to prove an extenuating case for flight. But not if I keep it up indefinitely. Do you realize we’re starting the sixth day of this nightmare?”

“Nightmare,” she repeated, exhaustion slowing down her speech. “If that’s what’s happening, then I wish at least one of us could wake up from it.”

“Maybe we’d be okay,” he suggested, “if we
both
get under that dream-catcher dangling over your bed? You said it blocks nightmares, remember?”

Even falling asleep, she grinned in the darkness. “Go to sleep. I have a very short fuse around you, counselor. Stop playing with fire.”

It was not Quinn alone, however, who was eager to play with fire.

Although Constance quickly dozed off, she never really reached the depths of true sleep. She was cold and kept dreaming of warm strong arms. Increasingly erotic dreams kept her physically aroused, restless with pent-up desire.

Again and again she relived the sights and sensations of their lovemaking. Seeing his hard masculine nakedness as he slept at her house, winter moonlight making him gleam like smooth ivory; the surprise of his voice calling her into bed; the fire in her loins as his hands glided under her chemise; the overwhelming, explosive pleasure as he thrust deep into her….

With a whirring click, the room’s electric heater kicked on, and she woke up at the noise.

She realized immediately he was still there in the room with her. His breathing was deep and even. Almost peaceful.

She checked the green-glowing face of her watch on the nightstand: only 1:30 a.m. She’d dozed, if that’s what the interlude could be called, less than an hour.

She could hear Quinn turning in the bed. She wondered if he was dreaming the same erotic dreams she had.

“Quinn?” she called softly from her bed. “Are you awake?”

Silence.

Regretfully, she reminded herself that she was the one who imposed this stupid separate-beds arrangement. Nothing for it now but to tough it out, try to go back to sleep.

She tossed and turned, desperate to get comfortable, but unable to quell the rising storm of her thoughts.

“Can’t sleep either?” Quinn’s voice suddenly sliced into the silence.

She smiled into the darkness. “I would have thought I’d be exhausted, but it’s not working. I just can’t let go and relax.”

He rolled from his bed and slid into the covers beside her. She wanted to protest, but something stopped her.

Probably the irresistible warmth of his hard naked body.

“I was on the verge of waking you up,” he confessed.

“We shouldn’t get involved like this, Quinn. It’s only going to mean a mess later.”

A long silence passed between them as he stared at her in the dark.

Finally, in a harsh voice, he whispered, “I can’t promise the end’s going to be pretty. But it’s later and right now we don’t know how much later we have, so…”

As if both of them were of one mind, both wound to the extremes of sexual tension, his mouth found hers and took it in a demanding kiss. He pushed inside her with the next kiss. Her first climax was fast and explosive.

Her natural animal passion for him was magnified
through the lens of danger, and in the charged, heady atmosphere, it seemed neither of them could sate their need. Her legs wrapped around him, her nails pressed into the taut muscles of his back, she cried out over and over in an ecstasy of release.

Outside the room, blowing snow pelted the windows, and the Montana blizzard howled with a haunting shriek like souls in torment.

Inside, however, the two lovers experienced a few hours of blessed oblivion, safe and secure in the private little world of pleasure they made for themselves.

Not until the pale, leaden light of dawn showed in the window did they finally return to the cold reality of their plight.

They were both still awake, though physically exhausted. Constance, feeling lethargic and sated, watched Quinn as he pushed up on one elbow to look at her lying beside him. One finger traced the outline of her profile.

“All night long,” she told him softly as he bent to kiss the tissue-thin skin of her eyelids. “Again. And Billings is still calling us.”

“Uh-huh. Time to roll out and hit the highway.”

“I know.”

But a moment later, when neither one of them made any move to get up, they both laughed like silly school kids trying to talk each other into playing hooky.

“You first,” she insisted. “Age before beauty.”

“No way. You first. Then I get to see you naked again.”

She snuggled against him, kissing the matted curls of his chest hair. Right then, the last thing she wanted
to do was go outside into the cold winter morning. If only she could just stay here with him like this forever.

“You say that as if this is our last time together,” she pointed out.

“Well, how do you know it’s not?” he parried, the playfulness gone from his tone now.

Again she rose up to look at him. But he stubbornly avoided her gaze, as if annoyed, all of a sudden, by such close scrutiny.

“Are you that pessimistic about proving your innocence?” she demanded.

“It’s not just that,” he said evasively.

“Then what?” Her voice was low and hesitant. Fragile.

He just couldn’t bring himself to say it. He was convinced, down deep in his heart of hearts, that he wasn’t good enough for her.

How
could
he be, he wondered each time he frankly considered his plight. The enormous faith she had shown in him, the risks she had taken—all of it moved him more deeply than he could find words to express.

And yet, that very faith also served to emphasize starkly his own questionable character. Lost in her arms, nothing mattered because thought was banished by the oblivion of pleasure. But after their lust was sated, there was nothing left for them. For try as he might, he couldn’t come to grips with the ease of turning criminal to protect himself.

The leopard cannot change its spots….

She waited for him to go on, trying to read the turmoil of his feelings.

“So if it’s not just legal troubles on your mind,” she pressed him, “what else is it?”

He shook his head, swinging his legs out of bed, then standing up. He combed his hair with his fingers while he tried to come up with something worth saying. With a low groan, he seemed to give up.

“I guess some things just aren’t in the cards,” was all he said.

He didn’t intend it to sound as blunt and cruel as it did to Constance. She sat up, clutching the sheet over her breasts. Anger and hurt shaped her tone.

“You don’t waste any time giving a woman the kiss-off. Slam, bam, thank you, ma’am. Are you going to leave some money on the dresser, too? Maybe recommend me to some of your buddies?”

He pulled his clothes on while she talked.

Finally, in exasperation, he turned to her. “You couldn’t be more wrong if you were trying,” he assured her, his face a study in misery. “Nobody’s giving you the kiss-off. Nobody in
this
room, anyway.”

“No? Fine, I’m
trying
to understand all this, Quinn! What in the world is wrong?”

“I…it’s just that I…oh, Christ, just never mind. Look, you’d better get dressed. I noticed a coffee shop across the road. Let’s get a shot of caffeine for the road.”

He wanted to say something else; he truly did. But he didn’t know how to go about the job of admitting his own fear of inferiority. Feelings didn’t always match up well with the words needed to express them.

Yes, she made him happy—deliriously so. He knew by now that he had never loved a woman the way he loved Constance.

That part, if it were all, would be easy enough to
say. But it wasn’t all. Not by half. Just then a phrase from the law occurred to him:
acquired by escheat.

This happiness he felt—it was his by false representation. Even if he could beat the charges drummed up by his enemies, there was a guilty verdict in the jury of his mind.

Constance interpreted his silence as a sullen rejection of her. Feeling self-conscious now about her nakedness, she quickly dressed. The silence in the room first infuriated, then saddened her. They had spent such a rapturous period of love, and now this painful silence, this terrible impediment that she could not even understand.

“You forgot the vest,” he reminded her as she pulled her sweater on.

“To hell with the vest,” she snapped, tossing it at him. “You wear it. Take care of number one, right?”

“Connie, listen, I—”

“No point in dragging this out, is there?” she cut him off curtly. “Let’s get to Billings so you can do your thing. I’ve got a life on hold right now, and I need to get back to it.”

Chapter 14

O
n Tuesday evening, only minutes after Constance and Quinn escaped out the back of Hazel’s hay barn, Steve Kitchens knocked on the door, bearing bad news.

“Hazel,” the young horse wrangler informed her, “the truck fire is out. But I don’t think the trick worked. Me and Gary saw somebody go hightailing toward the road right after the Jeep left. Whoever it was must’ve been hiding behind the old pumphouse in the east pasture.”

“You can see the whole spread from there,” she confirmed, chastising herself for not remembering it before this.

“Anyhow, they lit out before we could get over there. Took off east toward the mountains.”

“Was it that same silver SUV?” the rancher pressed.

“None of us could swear to the color or make. But
it sure-God looked like an SUV to me. Gary said so, too.”

So the sneaking prairie rats had actually trespassed, Hazel fumed. They had hidden on her property like thieves in the night.

That tears it, she decided. They had pushed it too far, and now she was in this fight, too, whether Connie liked it or not. Time to call in some favors.

After Steve left, bearing orders for an all-night guard, Hazel called the personal number of Governor Collins at his mansion in Helena.

“Caller ID shows a Mystery phone number,” a deep, folksy voice greeted her. “That you, Hazel?”

“Just checking up on you, Mike. I know things the voters don’t. Things Marsha doesn’t know, either.”

They both laughed, knowing some of what she said was true, but not enough to worry about.

“How you doing, young lady? Haven’t heard from you since you folks invited me down to your sesquicentennial.”

“I’m ornery and bullheaded as ever,” she assured him. “But we seem to have us a bit of a situation here. You busy?”

“Busy as a moth in a mitten. But so what? Cold day in hell, I can’t find time for Montana’s favorite daughter.”

“Mike, does the name Quinn Loudon ring a bell?”

“Loudon? Are you joking with me? I don’t know him personally, but his name’s been all over the news lately. Blasted his way out of the courthouse in Kalispell. Assistant U.S. Attorney.”

“That’s our boy.”

“Matter of fact, Hazel, one of my aides has been
keeping me posted on that case. It seems that Loudon is bad medicine.”

“You’ve got it hindsight foremost,” she corrected him. “Some bent lawyers are trying to make him their pigeon.”

The governor’s voice lost some of its well-practiced folksiness as he was caught flat-footed by her claim. “You sure about that?”