As Joseph slithered away from the log, Pritchard opened fire again. Geysers of dirt and pine needles shot up all around him. He picked up speed, pushing hard with his feet, grabbing earth with his hands, praying with every inch of ground he covered that his brother hadn’t been hit.
When they reached the trees and relative safety, the two men pushed up onto their knees. The instant they came erect, another shot rang out, and David’s Stetson went spinning away.
“Holy shit!” they yelled simultaneously and hit the dirt again.
A few seconds later, when they’d crawled beyond the reach of Jeb’s bullets, David looked back at his hat. His blue eyes blazed. “That miserable sack of shit came within an inch of blowing my brains out. Now I’ll have to buy a new Stetson. You got any idea how much those things cost?”
It had been a spell since Joseph had purchased a hat. “No, how much?”
“A small fortune, that’s what.” David brushed dirt and pine needles from his hair. “He’ll pay. Now I’ve got reason to arrest the son of a bitch. He tried to kill a lawman. That’s a serious offense!”
Joseph gazed through the trees at Pritchard’s shack. “You’re gonna need help to take that ornery polecat in.”
Silence. Joseph looked back at his brother. David was eyeing him expectantly.
Joseph held up his hands. “Do you think I’m crazy? No way, son. You need a posse.”
“And who will I deputize, a bunch of farmers who can’t shoot their way out of a flour sack?”
Joseph sighed. “I had plans for later this afternoon.”
“Your plans just changed.”
Chapter Fourteen
Jeb Pritchard stank up the whole jail and raised so much sand about being locked up that David threatened to shoot him to make him be quiet. Billy Joe Roberts, David’s lanky young deputy, was as excited as a kid at Christmas to have an actual criminal in one of the cells.
“You reckon the Pritchard boys will try to break him out?” Billy Joe asked David.
David considered the question. “I hope not. I’d have to lock them up, too. The place already stinks to high heaven.” He extended a hand to Joseph. “Thank you, big brother. That went fair to middling well, I think. Not a single shot fired.”
Joseph chuckled as he shook David’s hand. “I’m glad it went so well. With polecats like them, it could have gotten nasty.”
He and David had crept up on the Pritchard place, using bushes as cover until they reached the house. Then they’d each taken up positions outside a door and entered simultaneously on the count of twenty. All four of the Pritchards had been napping, and before they could reach for their weapons, Joseph had had the barrel of his Colt .45 pressed to Jeb’s temple.
“I kind of hope the Pritchard boys try something,” Billy Joe said. “We could use some excitement around here.”
“Not that kind of excitement, Billy Joe.” David met Joseph’s laughing gaze. “Just in case, though, I should probably stick around here tonight. No reading that book without me, you hear?”
Joseph gave his brother a mock salute as he turned to leave the office. “I’m gone to take a bath. Wrestling with that no-account left me smelling almost as bad as he does.”
It took Joseph thirty minutes to reach the Hollister place. When he entered the barn to get Obie settled into a stall for the night, he saw that Ace had already done the evening chores again. Making a mental note to thank him, Joseph headed for the house. When he entered by the front door, the sound of voices and laughter coming from the kitchen area reminded him that Caitlin had come to visit.
“Pugh!” Rachel waved a hand in front of her nose as she let Joseph into the kitchen. “What is that smell?”
Joseph plucked at his shirt. “I met up with the south end of a northbound skunk. I’ll be taking a bath, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” Rachel flapped her hand again. “Please do. We promise not to peek through the cracks when you lean the door over the hole.”
The very fact that she was thinking about peeking through those cracks heated Joseph’s blood. He shot her a questioning look. She gazed back at him, as innocent as could be. But her cheeks went pink. Hmm. At times when she’d been bathing, he’d been tempted to peek through those cracks a few times himself. So he knew how her mind was working. The realization gave him pause. The attraction he felt for her wasn’t as one-sided as he’d believed.
Caitlin and Ace sat at the table. As Joseph sauntered over to greet them, he saw that he had interrupted a poker game. This evening, beans were the token of choice, the largest pile at the seat Rachel had just vacated.
“Uh-oh. I can see the lady’s luck is still holding.”
“Luck?” Ace shook his head. “The woman’s a cardsharp.”
“I am not,” Rachel protested.
Caitlin was frowning over her cards. “I can’t believe the awful hands I’ve been getting.” She glanced up and smiled. “Come and join us, Joseph. Maybe you’ll change our luck.”
Joseph glanced around for his nephew. The toddler was fast asleep on the sofa in Rachel’s small parlor. “Looks to me like someone ran low on steam.”
“Ace let him play outside with the dogs,” Caitlin explained. “They ran his little legs off.”
Forcing himself not to study Rachel’s delightful form and instead look at the cards, Joseph moved closer. When he saw his brother’s hand, he winced and said, “Ouch.”
“Do you mind?” Ace gave him a burning look. “Occasionally I like to bluff.”
“You best say your prayers if you’re going to bluff with a hand like that.”
Ace threw his cards down. “Misdeal!”
“You can’t call misdeal just because Joseph gave your hand away,” Caitlin cried.
“Sure I can.” Ace shot another glare at his brother. “Rachel’s right. You stink. What is that smell?”
“You are a little odoriferous, Joseph,” Caitlin agreed.
“Odoriferous? Where on earth did you learn a word like that?” Joseph asked.
“She reads occasionally,” Rachel interjected.
Joseph cast her a sharp glance. She flashed a saucy smile and dimpled a cheek. In that moment, he sorely wished the guests weren’t present. That bathtub was large enough for two. A vision of Rachel with soap bubbles slipping over her breasts filled his mind. His body snapped taut.
God help me. He marched away, determined to banish all such thoughts from his mind. She was a lady. She was off-limits. She was marriage bait.
Ace and Caitlin stayed after supper. Playing cards was impossible with two romping dogs and a lively toddler running about the kitchen, so the adults settled for chatting over coffee about nothing in particular.
Watching Rachel interact with Ace and Caitlin did Joseph’s heart good, and seeing how gentle she was with Little Ace warmed him through and through. For a young lady who’d spent years in total seclusion, she was taking to company, and to children as well, like a duck to water. Joseph suddenly pictured her holding his child to her soft breast, a golden-haired angel gently stroking the gilded curls of a beautiful baby. And where had that come from? He didn’t want a kid. He didn’t want a wife.
In short, he didn’t want these feelings.
“You ever seen an obedient dime?” Ace suddenly asked.
“Uh-oh,” Caitlin said. “Here we go. Prepare yourself, Rachel. Once they get started on this, they just won’t quit.”
Rachel’s eyes fairly danced as she met Ace’s gaze. Then she glanced questioningly at Joseph. From his vantage point, it was a guileless look, but the question behind it—“Is this okay?”—only made Old Glory grow harder and throb more painfully. She looked to him for guidance. Knowing that made him ache to hold her in his arms. And how did that make sense? He wasn’t in the market for a woman who looked to him for guidance. In short, he wasn’t in the market for a wife, and she had “wife” written all over her.
Cheeks still rosy, she finally returned her gaze to Ace. “An obedient dim
e? No, I can’t say I’ve ever seen one. Mine always jumped right out of my pocket.”
Ace rifled through her cupboard for a wide-bottomed glass. Once back at the table, he placed a dime on the tablecloth and flanked it with two half-dollars, leaving about an inch between the coins. Then he perched the glass on the fifty-cent pieces.
“Without ever touching any of those coins,” he informed Rachel, “I can make that dime come to my call.”
“Ah, go on,” Rachel said. “I bet you can’t.”
She glanced at Joseph again, her big blue eyes shimmering with emotions he didn’t want to define. He was having enough trouble dealing with his own feelings, and he didn’t need hers to cloud the issue. So why was she flashing those questioning glances his way, making him feel as if she counted on him to make decisions about everything outside her little world?
Because she’d come to trust him, he decided. And the realization brought him no joy. He didn’t want her trust. He didn’t want that responsibility. She was coming to count on him too much. And he was coming to want her to count on him way too much. That didn’t fit into his life plan. He wanted to smoke at his table. He wanted to come home at the crack of dawn, drunk as a lord. He wanted to have no obligations to anyone, most especially a trusting woman with big blue eyes that made his heart ache. No matter how pretty she was. No matter how much he wanted her. Nothing about her fit—except the feel of her body against his. And that was Old Glory talking.
Joseph had learned years ago never to listen to Old Glory.
“How many beans is it worth to you to see me do it?” Ace asked.
Everyone burst out laughing. Rachel pursed her lips in thought. “Fifty,” she finally wagered.
Ace sat at the table, called, “Come here, dime,” and began lightly scratching the tablecloth with one fingernail. The dime walked out from under the glass, just as he had predicted. Rachel slumped in her chair, giggling helplessly as she shoved a mound of beans at him.
Not to be bested, Joseph fetched an egg from the icebox. And why did he care about being bested? As he set up his trick on the table, he scolded himself for being such an idiot, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to outshine his older brother in her eyes.
“You got any wine goblets?” he asked Rachel.
“What on earth do you need wine goblets for?”
“To show you an erratic egg.”
She wiped tears of mirth from her eyes. “Out in the dining room.” She handed Joseph the key to the archway ironwork. “You should find some goblets in Ma’s sideboard.”
When Joseph returned a moment later, he set the goblets on the table, rims touching, and put the egg in one of them. “Without ever touching that egg, I can make it hop from one glass to another.”
“Oh, no, sir!” She flapped her hand at him. “No way.” But her eyes told him that she believed he could do anything.
“What are you willing to wager on it?” Joseph asked. And, God forgive him, he wasn’t thinking about beans.
She looked at her dwindling pile. “I don’t have much left to wager with.”
Joseph could think of several other things he’d love to win from her. “I’ll take whatever you’ve got.” Those lovely breasts, for starters. He wanted to taste her mouth, with no rules of propriety to forestall him. And he wanted to run his hands slowly over her skin, tantalizing her with the dance of his fingertips until she shuddered with pleasure. He wanted to see those blue eyes go foggy and blind with passion.
She nodded in agreement. Joseph bent and blew sharply into the goblet holding the egg, and just as he’d promised, the egg popped out into the other glass. Rachel’s eyes went wide with amazement, then she burst out laughing again.
And so went the remainder of the evening. When the Keegan family finally departed, the hour had grown late and Joseph was exhausted. Not because he’d worked hard, but because he’d been wanting the forbidden for hours. Rachel. She was so beautiful. His fingers actually ached with his yearning to explore her body. When he glanced at her, his heart knocked.
What in hell was wrong with him? She was just a woman. Until now, any woman would do. Only suddenly he wanted her, and only her, with an intensity that made Old Glory burn. Even worse, she blushed every time he glanced her way, as if she were feeling the same. No, Joseph told himself. She was off-limits. It didn’t matter if she was attracted to him. Down that path lay obligation—and marriage—and responsibility he didn’t want.
Unfortunately, he also instinctively knew that other things also lay in wait if he followed his urges, namely pleasure such as he’d never experienced. He glimpsed the answering desire in her eyes whenever their gazes met and felt the heat between them whenever they moved close. He was drawn to her in a way that defied reason, and that scared the hell out of him. He would have willpower. He would ignore the urges of his body. And most important of all, he would pretend he didn’t see that invitation in her eyes.
It was an innocent invitation—the reaction of an untried virgin to biological needs that she didn’t understand. It was up to him to be strong and protect her from being compromised.
After locking the ironwork door, Rachel pocketed the key in her skirt and turned a radiant smile on him. Before he could guess what she meant to do, she launched herself at him.
“Oh, Joseph, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. This was the best day, ever.”
Fiercely hugging his neck, she rained kisses on his face. For an instant, Joseph couldn’t think what to do with his hands. Then, as if with a will of their own, they settled at her waist. She felt like heaven against him, all soft, feminine, rose-scented warmth, the fulfillment of an evening-long promise. The yearning for her that he’d been so determinedly holding at bay swamped him like an ocean wave, and he got all the same sensations that he’d experienced as a child playing on the California beach—a feeling of being knocked almost off his feet, then staggering to catch his balance on shifting sand. Oh, God, he wanted her.
All his fine principles about never trifling with a lady were forgotten as he settled his mouth over hers. It wasn’t a thought or a decision. He just reacted to a need that had been growing within him all evening and had suddenly become bigger than he was. Caught by surprise, she gave a muffled bleep. Then she sighed, relaxed in his arms, and surrendered herself to him.
Joseph was lost. She had the sweetest mouth he’d ever tasted—her soft lips parting shyly, the tip of her tongue darting away from his for a moment and then hesitantly returning. Fine silk, drenched in warm honey. He wanted to taste every delectable inch of her. His pulse slammed in his temples. He ran his hands along her spine, then lowered them to the soft fullness of her hips to pull her hard against him.
At the back of his mind, warning bells went off. He shouldn’t be doing this. She wasn’t some working girl at the Golden Slipper who’d played the game countless times and made up the rules as she went along. This was Rachel, sweet, wonderful, innocent Rachel, who’d never even been kissed by anyone but him. But when he tried to make himself pull away, he couldn’t. Instead, he deepened the kiss, thrusting deep, tasting and testing the most secret recesses of her mouth. She moaned and stepped up onto his boots to kiss him back with fierce, awkward hunger, taking her cues from him.
She was a quick learner, he thought dizzily, a dear, untried, lovely student who had no idea of the danger into which he was luring her. Rachel. She felt perfectly right in his arms, as if she’d been fashioned just for him, and that sense of quiet awareness filled him again, even as he grazed his hands up her sides, feeling the soft ladder of her delicate ribs beneath his fingertips. Right for him. All that he’d been searching for. Dizzily, he assured himself that he’d never hurt her for the world, that this was only a kiss, a harmless kiss. He would stop soon. He would. And that was the last rational thought that went through his head.
And then her breasts were cupped in his hands. Her breath caught when his thumbs grazed her nipples through her clothing. She moaned and let her head fall
back, offering herself to him with childlike trust. The change of position pressed her pelvis forward. He could feel her pliant warmth against his hardness. And the gift was too intoxicating to refuse.
He nipped lightly at her velvety skin, following the graceful column of her neck down to her collar, and then his fingers were at the buttons of her shirtwaist. As the blouse came undone, he trailed kisses in the wake of the parting fabric until he found the taut crest of one breast through the lawn of her simple chemise. She cried out and shuddered with pleasure as he drew on her nipple. Then she made fists in his hair to pull him closer. Oh, yes. This was better than anything he could buy. Better than anything he’d ever even dreamed of. Rachel. She was the taste that satisfied yearnings he’d never even realized that he had.
“Oh, Joseph!”
He spun in a slow half circle, with her feet riding on his boots. When he lowered her onto the bed and followed her down, he shifted to one side to avoid squashing her. He tugged at the ribbon laces at the front of her chemise to bare her breasts. They were as pale as ivory and as plump as little melons, the tips tinted a deep rose.
When he took one into his mouth, she arched her spine and cried out again. He caught the sensitive tip between his teeth, gave it a gentle roll, and then suckled her again. Her body quivered like a plucked bowstring. Running a hand down the front of her skirt, he made a fist over the cloth, pushed it high, and found the slit in her drawers. His fingertips were instantly drenched with hot, feminine wetness when he parted the soft folds at the apex of her thighs. His mouth found hers again. He kissed her deeply, passionately, as he homed in on the sensitive flange of flesh above her opening. She bucked her hips at the shock of sensation, but he rode her back down with the heel of his hand, lightly flicking and rubbing her, his only thought being to bring her to climax before he sought release for himself.