Elizabeth Lane (23 page)

Sarah was playacting, that was all, he reminded himself as the darkness sparked dizzyingly around him. But he had to admit she was good at it. So damned good that when he dipped into the moist honey of her mouth, her lightly flicking tongue tip lit fireworks in his head. He pressed deeper into the sweetness, demanding more and more.

Somewhere in his head a voice shrilled its reminder that time was running out. Fifteen minutes, Dooley had said, and by now, at least a third of that would be gone. Marshaling his wits, Donovan swung Sarah toward the bed. Whoever was spying on them was going to get one hell of a performance.

Sarah struggled to keep her senses as Donovan swept Marie’s gowns to the floor, his momentum carrying her with him onto the rumpled coverlet. Someone was watching them, she realized muzzily, and Donovan was putting on a theatrical performance to rival her own. But merciful heaven, didn’t he realize what he was doing to her? Didn’t he realize that whenever he touched her, her brain stopped working and her heart took over? They had to talk, had to make plans—but even now, with danger lurking all around them, her pulse was a whirlwind, her body a quivering pool of desire.

She struggled on the bed, pinned against the warm, hard length of him. “Let me go, you fool!” she muttered in his ear.

Donovan faked a lusty laugh. “Oh-ho, so that’s your game tonight, is it, Miss Lydia Taggart?” he boomed loudly enough to be heard by any eavesdropper. “Well, it’s a game two can play as well as one!” He heaved his body on top of her so vigorously that the bed shook. Sarah
grunted her outrage as his elbows and knees caught his weight just short of crushing her.

“You’re overdoing it!” she whispered. “Why couldn’t you have just left well enough alone? If you hadn’t interfered, Dooley and those unsavory friends of his could be on their way out of here by now!”

“Listen to me, Sarah.” His lips nuzzled a tingling path to her ear. “We’ve got to keep Dooley here in the saloon until we can get the children to safety. Otherwise, there’s too much danger of his taking one or more of them along.”

She stiffened against him, fighting the virile power of his nearness as she willed herself to think. Donovan was right. With the children as hostages, Dooley could hold off an army. Even if he ran, there was no way he would leave them all behind.

“All right,” she conceded with a sigh. “We can’t afford to be working at cross-purposes. What’s the plan?”

“You heard it downstairs. That’s all there is. Stall him any way we can until some weak spot opens up.”

He found her mouth again and kissed her lingeringly, sucking and nibbling at her lips, teasing with his tongue until Sarah whimpered with the exquisite torment. Stirred by her body’s own heat, she strained against him, only to gasp as her seething hips encountered the long, rock-hard ridge of his aroused manhood.

“Sarah—” He groaned as she moved along the sensitive swelling, driven by deep burnings that would not let her keep still. “Blast it, woman, don’t you know what you’re doing to me?” He thrust himself against her through the unyielding layers of their clothes, his pressure igniting fountains of shimmering sparks between her thighs. She ached to surrender, to abandon herself in Donovan’s arms. But eyes were watching them, Sarah reminded herself. Dangerous eyes. This could not go on.

Her hand pushed against his chest, the subtle gesture reawakening them both to the peril.

With a moan of reluctance, Donovan eased off her and rolled onto his side. “You’re right. This isn’t the time or the place,” he rasped in her ear. “But promise me something.” He curved his body, tugging her back against him so that they lay like two spoons. “Promise me that if we get out of this mess alive, you and I can pick this up where we left off.”

Sarah closed her eyes against the pain. Once his words would have made her heart sing. Now they only made it ache. In this time of peril, with so many lives at stake, neither of them had the right to think about the future.

“I could promise,” she whispered. “But we can’t let ourselves want each other too much, Donovan. We can’t cling to life for the sake of what might be. We have to think of the children first. If need be, we…have to be willing to die for them.”

“I understand.” He mouthed the sentiment as if he were only half-convinced of its truth. Sarah closed her eyes as he cradled her for a last lingering moment, his arms gentle now, his heart strong and steady against her back.

“Donovan—” She nestled closer against his chest. “What about those claim transfers? Do they really exist?”

“I don’t know.” The velvety strength of his mouth nuzzled her cheek. “It makes sense that they might. Smitty struck me as the sort who would have taken claims as payment. If we can locate them—”

“Yes! We could use them to bargain for the children!”

“That’s a long shot, love. But even if no papers turn up, at least the search might buy us some time.”

“Donovan, I’m scared.” Her thin fingers trembled through the worn fabric of his shirtsleeve. “And I can’t let myself be scared now. This is one time when I have to be strong.”

His arms tightened around her. “You are strong, Sarah. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever known. But it’s all right to be scared, too. For a little while…”

The words trailed off as he kissed her, turning her toward him again and lowering his head to the warm softness of her mouth. Sarah’s response was as natural as if they had loved each other all their lives. Her petal-silk lips parted at his touch, eager and sweet. Her arm slid around the back of his neck. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him down to her.

Aching with tenderness, Donovan explored the honeyed moistness of her lower lip, his tongue gliding over the satiny inner surface, stroking, tasting. She whimpered in his arms, her whole body straining upward as she opened herself to him.

The time. Curse the time…

Sensing the danger, Donovan pulled reluctantly away from the heaven of her clinging lips. “I love you, Sarah,” he whispered close to her ear. “I love
you,
Sarah Parker, and not some phantom from the past. Whatever happens, promise me you’ll remember that.”

Sarah did not speak, and Donovan realized he had said too much. Warm as her physical response had been, the old hurts still lurked below her sweetly passionate surface. She was not ready to give her full trust, let alone her love.

He eased her out of his arms and turned to pull the curtain over the shattered window. Below, in the street, he glimpsed the knot of townspeople keeping vigil outside the saloon. It would be an easy thing to pass Sarah out the window and lower her to safety. But she would have no part of it, he knew. Not as long as the children were in danger.

And in any case, how would she fare at the mercy of a vindictive town? Sarah could die out there in the street.

“I’ll be all right,” she whispered as he turned back toward the bed. “Leave me now. Be careful.”

He leaned down and brushed a kiss across her mouth. “No heroics, now. Try to get some sleep.”

“No promises.” She pushed him gently away from her. As Donovan strode from the room, the last thing he saw
was her face. He held the memory, burning it into his mind as he moved into the now-empty hallway.

Simeon Dooley was sitting up, fidgeting impatiently as Donovan came down into the saloon. “It’s about time, Cole,” he muttered. “You were pushin’ your luck up there.”

“You said fifteen minutes.” Donovan crouched at the edge of the mattress, where the two of them could talk without being overheard by Zoe. “Anyhow, the timing couldn’t have been better. I said I had a business proposition for you, but there’s a part of it I’d rather not have Lydia hear.”

“This damn well better be good!” Dooley growled, leaning closer. “I could shoot you dead right now and not lose a wink of sleep over it!”

“How good it is depends on how fast we can find those claim transfers,” Donovan said, feeling his way now. “Whatever happens, I’m prepared to ride out of here with you, either as your partner or as your prisoner.”

“You’re not makin’ sense.”

“Either way, you’re going to need me. Don’t just think about tonight. Think about tomorrow and the day after. Children won’t last on the run. Push them too hard, and they’ll get sick and die on you. As for those two buzzards you’re riding with—”

“Spade an’ Cherokee will do anything I tell ‘em to.”

“But for how long?” Donovan pressed Dooley. “They’re jailbait, those two. Spade’s a hotheaded fool, and Cherokee’s wanted in a half-dozen states. Sooner or later, they’ll only get you in trouble. If you’re smart, you’ll split up the loot and part company now.”

“And where does that leave me?” Dooley’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “All alone with a bunged-up leg!”

“Not alone. You’d have me. Like I say, you need me, Dooley.”

“Yeah, an’ you’re full o’ hogwash! Help me up, Cole. I gotta go.”

Dooley reeked of sweat, blood and liquor. Donovan writhed with inner frustration as he heaved the big man to his feet and helped him to a brass spittoon behind the bar. In his three years as a sheriff, he had come to rely on his gun and his fists to get him out of bad spots. He was a lightning draw, a crack marksman and could hold his own in any fight. Even now, he reflected darkly, it would be an easy matter to overpower the injured Dooley, grab the rifle and blaze his way upstairs to take on Spade and Cherokee. But he knew better than to try. Here, in this wretched backwater saloon, his hands were tied. He was playing a new game with brand-new rules and the highest stakes he had ever known.

His gaze drifted over the dimly lit saloon—the flickering lamps, the scattered tables and broken glass, the dark stain on the floor where the hapless young deputy had died. He thought of the children, huddled fearfully in the upstairs room. He thought of Sarah, ill, exhausted and infinitely precious. Whatever the cost, he would save them, Donovan vowed. Whatever the price, it was one he would willingly pay.

He would pay with his honor. With his life.

“Just think about it,” he said, starting again with Dooley. “You can spend the rest of your days running from the law, or you can go straight while you’re still ahead. Find some quiet little town in Mexico, or Canada, maybe, and settle down in style. Get yourself some rich land and a good-looking woman. Hell, you could even run for mayor!”

Dooley had sunk into silence, ruminating, perhaps, on the picture Donovan was painting in his mind. “I still don’t see where you fit in!” he grumbled.

“Look, you’ll be wanted for robbery and murder, and you’re going to have to lay low. You’ll need a front man with a decent reputation to register those claim transfers and collect the money.”

“You could do that much on your own. What the hell do you need me for?”

Donovan forced a bitter chuckle. “Dooley, old friend, what I need from you is my life—and the lives of those youngsters and womenfolk up there, who’ve never done you a lick of hurt.”

“And once they was safe, you’d double-cross me in a minute. Hell, Cole, you must think I’m stupid or somethin’! I wouldn’t trust you any further’n I could spit!”

“How far can you trust Spade…or Cherokee?”

As he spoke, Donovan felt a cold chill creeping up his spine. The hair on the back of his neck lifted and bristled like a wolf’s, a sure sign of danger. His gun hand jerked instinctively, then paused, quivering as he remembered he was unarmed.

Dooley’s alcohol-glazed eyes had shifted toward the stairs. Donovan turned slowly to see Cherokee gliding down into the saloon, his motion as silent as a reptile’s. How long had Cherokee been listening? How much had he heard, this shadowy killer who never spoke, whose dark ferret face never betrayed a flicker of emotion?

Donovan’s jaw muscles clenched as Cherokee drifted to the bar and poured himself a glass of Smitty’s cheap whiskey. His spirit seethed with silent rage as he thought of the children, of Faye’s kind heart and Zoe’s courage, and of Sarah who would gladly offer her life to save them all. He thought of the anguished parents who waited outside in the dark street, and of Varina, huddled with her young ones in that miserable little cabin.

There had to be a way out of this horror. A hidden answer, a key he had overlooked. Somehow, he had to find it.

Easing to his feet, he ambled slowly over to where Zoe sat like a mahogany statue, still supporting MacIntyre’s head in her lap. MacIntyre’s round, homely face was the color of cement, but his breathing had lost the awful bubbling sound Donovan had noticed earlier.

“How’s he doing?” he asked gently.

“Resting.” Zoe’s amber eyes were as fierce as a hawk’s. “Bleeding’s stopped, and he’s been moaning some, but he hasn’t come around yet.”

“When he does—”

“Don’t worry. When he does, I’ll make sure he knows ‘bout Miz—Miz Lydia.”

“Good girl.” Donovan gave her shoulder an awkward squeeze, hoping he didn’t appear patronizing. “You look like you could use some rest. Want me to spell you?”

“No.” Her tight black curls jerked as she shook her head. “But you could bring down a couple of pillows. He breathes easier with his head propped.”

“I could haul down another mattress. Or better yet, we could try to get him to bed.”

“No. Miz Sa—Miz Lydia says he’s got to lie right here on the floor and not move, else he’ll start that wound bleeding again. That’s why I need to be here—to hold him still in case he wakes up.”

“Stay, then. I’ll get some pillows. And Zoe—”

Her eyes flashed.

“If anybody tries to bother you, call me.”

At her silent nod, Donovan turned and strode deliberately up the stairs. No one tried to stop him as he disappeared onto the landing, swung down the hallway and caught up two cushions and a blanket from the bed in the nearest room. Tucking them under one arm, he paused, then slipped more cautiously past the door.

The rose-shaded lamp had nearly burned out, casting the corridor in a bloodred ghostly light that flickered eerily off the walls. Donovan’s shadow flared and shrank as he edged toward the room where the children had been taken with Faye and George.

Spade was slumped in a chair, his legs braced across the doorway. For an instant Donovan thought he might have fallen asleep, and his pulse leapt. But then the gunman stirred, shifting the pistol that lay across his lap as he resettled his boots against the frame.