This Gun for Hire (26 page)

“Hmm. Let me read this, and then I will be happy to report on the weather.”

She poked him in the arm with her elbow, which made her wince and him regard her with a raised eyebrow and no sympathy. After that, she rested her head on his shoulder and let him be.

“Damn,” he said under his breath. “Damn and damn. How does this happen? How does our friend Nick Whitfield break out of jail? I would have thought he’d find it difficult to break an egg.”

“Read on.”

Quill did. A moment later, he said, “Of course. Chick Tatters.” His eyes darted down the page. “I don’t see Amos Bennett’s name here. I thought the three of them worked together.”

“So did I, but I don’t think Amos and Whit were longtime associates. Do you remember Joe Pepper telling us that Amos might have been the one who gave Whit’s name to the law after he—Whitfield—robbed that bank in Bailey?”

“I’m recalling that now.”

“Whit was the only one I escorted to the Bailey jail. I never saw a notice for the other two. I figure Whit never turned on Chick Tatters because he was counting on him to get him out. Whether Amos helped or not probably doesn’t matter any longer. It’s hard to believe that Whit wouldn’t have killed him by now.” She pointed out the paper’s publication date. “This paper was days old when you gave it to me. Now it’s been almost a month. Amos Bennett is dead.”

Quill did not disagree. He read through the article again and then folded the paper. He used it to indicate all the other newspapers fanned out across the blankets and Calico’s lap. “I think we need to look through all of these. Whit might have already been caught.”

She sighed. “I am not hopeful, especially since there is no mention of a reward, but you are right, we have to look.” She quickly ordered the papers chronologically, putting the oldest on the top. She handed it to him and took the next one for herself. They both began to read.

They were four papers down when Quill came across the notice of Amos Bennett’s demise. The authorities suspected the hapless Amos had drowned trying to cross the rapidly rising waters of Bessemer Creek. There was no reason given as to why they suspected that, but since two of Joe Pepper’s deputies were involved with the retrieval and identification of the body, Quill and Calico reasoned they believed Amos had been trying to flee Whit and Tatters.

Calico discarded another issue with no new information.
“I confess I am more hopeful that Whit’s been captured knowing that Joe Pepper and his men were out looking for him.” She plucked the next paper in the stack and opened it to the arrest log and crime stories.

Quill also chose another and skimmed the front page. “Calico? Who knows you are here?”

“Joe Pepper knows because we talked about it when he passed your letter on. His wife knows because she helped me choose some clothes. I don’t know who they might have told. Truthfully, I don’t know why they would have told anyone, but I never asked them not to.”

“Hmm.”

“Is it important?” She turned her head and was confronted by Quill’s patently disbelieving expression. “Oh. You think because Whit chased down Amos Bennett, he will come after me? I doubt it. First, we are only suspecting that Whit was responsible, and second, as long as there are banks to rob and whores to beat, he will always have something better to do.”

“Are you saying that to ease my mind or your own?”

Calico did not reply.

Quill caught her by the chin when she would have looked away. He held her widening eyes. “Uh-huh. I thought so. Listen to me, Calico. I don’t want you pretending that the possibility doesn’t exist because you’re harboring some notion that you are protecting me. I know it’s been a long time since anyone’s looked out for you, so maybe that is why the idea of it makes you skittish, but that’s one aspect of love that you are going to have to accustom yourself to. Do you understand?”

She blinked. Her lips parted, but she breathed in, not out. She had no words, not even one.

“Here it is, Calico. That thunderstorm you were talking about earlier? Well, it passed over my head a long time ago. Lightning hit close enough to make me jump when you appeared on the balcony of Mrs. Fry’s cathouse. I had another jolt when you gave me hell for interfering in your business—and that was when I still thought you were a brunette.”

She frowned deeply.

He shrugged, said matter-of-factly, “Until you, I always thought I was partial to blondes.”

Now
she had words, but he kept going before she could speak.

“Obviously I didn’t know my own mind because there were other things I was wrong about.”

Calico’s eyes narrowed.

“That’s right. Your eyes. Green, not blue. And you’re tall, so the curves are kind of long and gentle, not deep. Then it turned out that you have hair like a flame and dart about as if it’s really on fire. You threatened me—several times as I recall—and you clobbered Chick Tatters without blinking an eye. You carried a derringer, you were pretending to be a whore, and you tied Nick Whitfield up like you had been roping and wrangling all of your life.”

Quill tilted his head and studied her face. “Do you truly believe there was a moment after I left you in Falls Hollow that I was not thinking about how I was going to find you again? I was here when lightning struck, and you were nowhere around.”

Calico cupped the hand that still held her chin and lowered it, squeezing gently. “Oh my.”

“So now you know.”

She nodded. She had known, of course, but she had not
known.
Not like this. “I suppose you will want to read the rest of the papers now.”

Quill slid down the headboard and brought Calico with him. The
Rocky Mountain News
crumpled and crinkled noisily all around them as they nested. “What papers?” he asked in the moment before he bore down on her.

They began without urgency. Their confessions made, neither had a reason to hurry. Pleasure was in the exploration of their promise to each other. It was in the touch of her fingertips across his brow and in the way his lips moved at the hollow below her ear. She unbuttoned his vest and peeled back his shirt. He removed the sling she had fashioned into a scarf and wrapped it loosely around her wrists. She stared
at him, but she did not resist then or when he lifted her hands and placed them above her head. One by one, he unfastened the small buttons that closed the neckline of her nightgown. He kissed her everywhere her skin was revealed. Her flesh was warm, and it warmed him.

She looked down, watched the crown of his head move lower. He parted her gown and took the tip of one breast in his mouth. His tongue darted across her nipple. When he sucked, her breath hitched, and she held it until he released her. At that moment she did not care if she ever breathed again. She would have gladly drowned in pleasure.

She raised her bound arms and circled his neck. She thought about swaddling cloths, thought about swaddling him. He took her other breast, teased it with his lips and tongue and then with his hot breath. She scrabbled his hair and twisted the curling ends around her forefingers. It was like swimming in sunshine.

He unfastened his trousers. She tugged on her gown. He moved between her legs and she prepared a cradle for him, raising her knees, hugging him with her thighs. He knew her body, the long and gentle curves. She thought about that as he came into her, about that and other things, and they all made her smile. She was a redhead everywhere, and she welcomed him into the fire.

The tempo changed. It had to. Where there had been no urgency, now there was need and it pressed them to want more, to search for it and claim it. He rocked her with each thrust, and she met him measure for full measure. The bed groaned. The headboard banged against the wall. Neither of them heard any of it. There was their breathing first, and then there were words.

She said, “Ah. Like that. Just like that.”

And he said, “Hold me.”

“Mm.” She contracted everywhere she could, but especially
there
.

He moaned softly, far back in his throat where he could feel the vibration. “That’s it. You know. You always know.”

A sound she was unfamiliar with bubbled to her lips. He
bent his head and it tickled his ear. She said, “I love you.” The whisper made his heart stutter and tripped his pulse. There was a rush like an avalanche in his head and he cried out as he came deeply into her.

He lay still, moved slowly, and slipped a hand between their bodies. The touch was precisely what he thought it would be. Electric. Her body jerked, froze, and then jerked again. He could almost feel her falling away from him. He let her go, waiting until the last possible moment to seize her in his arms and hold her close.

They were comforted by their silence, by the crackle of the fire and the rustling of papers. The covers were in disarray, tangled and bunched. One of the pillows was now at the foot of the bed. There were copies of the
Rocky Mountain News
on the floor and under their feet. The bedside table was several more inches from the bed than it had been. The oil lamp on top of the table was precariously close to the edge. Quill was wearing the green calico like a neckerchief, and one of Calico’s sutures had broken.

They noticed these things gradually. He pointed out one, she another. They laughed with very little sound. It was in his smile, in her eyes. He stretched large and wide; she stretched with feline grace that captivated him.

“What is that around your ankle?” he asked, squinting to get a better look at it before she tucked it under the quilt.

She shrugged. “It’s just . . . something.”

“Let me see it.”

“I am not moving. You’ll have to.”

He was too curious to let it go, so he sat up and swept back the quilt. She raised her leg and made a circle with her nicely turned ankle to show off what she was wearing around it. It was a narrow braid, and at first, because of the pale color, he thought it might be made from a lock of his hair. “That’s not mine, is—” He broke off, patting the back of his head in a search for cropped locks.

“No, it’s not yours. It’s not hair.” She regarded his halo of golden highlights with interest. “But now that you—”

“Not amusing,” he said. He caught her under the knee
and drew it back until he could grasp her ankle. He ran his thumb along the braid. “This is string. You made a braid of string. Why would you do that?”

She reached up and tugged on the calico neckerchief that she had been inspired to tie around his throat. It came away easily and she smoothed and folded the fabric. When she was done, she looked at him and waited patiently for him to understand.

When it came to him, he looked from her to the calico she was holding and simply shook his head. He lowered her leg and drew the quilt over it. “I even asked you why you were saving the package string.”

“And I told you I might need it.”

“Did you know what you were going to do with it then?”

She nodded faintly. “I saved the brown paper wrapper, too.”

“Calico.”

“What you did, Quill. It’s precious to me. Every bit of it.”

Quill lay back and offered his shoulder. She put her head down and then lifted it long enough to slip the folded fabric under her cheek. He said dryly, “It has so many uses.”

“Be quiet,” she said. “It’s perfect.”

*   *   *

When Calico awoke, it was not yet dawn. The oil lamp was still lit and resting on the bedside table, but the table was no longer at her bedside. Quill had moved it beside the armchair, where he was now sitting. She could see him clearly in three-quarter profile as he bent over his reading. His concentration was all for his task. Twin vertical creases had appeared between his eyebrows; his lips were rolled inward and pressed together in a flat line. He knuckled the stubble on his jaw as he read. Occasionally his mouth would pull to one side.

She lay as she was, not moving, content to watch him from beneath lowered lashes and sleep-swollen eyelids. Looking on him now, Calico realized that she had become accustomed to his smile, his laughter, and the tilt of his head,
which was somehow wry and curious at the same time. She tried to recall if she had ever seen him long in this particular pose, serious, intent, sober. His face was also transformed by this manner, but differently, and she saw the man who was deeply attentive, intelligent, not only clever, and naturally thoughtful in his outlook.

Lord, how she loved him. It occurred to her that she would be changed by it, that it could hardly be helped, but she did not dwell on it. If she allowed herself to wander down that path for very long, she would confront an entire thorn patch of problems that she would rather avoid for the present. She was happy to let her mind drift.

She realized she must have done something to give herself away, a contented sigh perhaps or a change in her breathing, because Quill looked up from his reading and caught her watching him. She stretched and smiled sleepily. It was no good pretending that she was not replete in the aftermath of their lovemaking when she most certainly was.

“How long have you been working?” she asked, raising herself on an elbow.

“I don’t know. Awhile.”

“You didn’t sleep?”

“I did.”

“What’s wrong?” She glimpsed one corner of the bright calico under her arm. If she were not already alert to Quill’s mood, it would have made her smile. She tucked it beneath her pillow, out of sight. “Quill?”

“I’ve read through all the papers,” he said. “I went downstairs to Ramsey’s study and found a couple of issues we didn’t have. He also had a few recent issues of the
Denver Post
so I read through those as well.”

“And?”

“Those deputies who accompanied you and Whitfield to the Bailey jail?”

Calico felt a stirring of alarm. It kept her still. “Yes. Christopher Byers and Buster Applegate. What about them?”

“The
Post
reported that Applegate was grievously wounded during a shootout in Royal Canyon. Byers—they
refer to him as Kit in the account—was killed. Joe Pepper was heading the posse. He was also wounded, but the reporter indicates he is expected to survive. No one else was hurt, and the posse turned back to Falls Hollow without making a capture.”