Catch Me (8 page)

“I can’t give you anything you want,” he warned. If they started down this road, it wouldn’t change anything. She’d still go to prison and he’d still be sheriff of Fresh Springs if it killed him. He wouldn’t give up his only chance at redemption for her, and there was no way he’d trust himself with the protection of another delicate woman.

Her breathing came faster and her tongue slicked across her lips, leaving a shine. “I doubt that.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “I think you can give me exactly what I want.”

“You should be waiting for some good man you can marry.” He wasn’t anything close to a good man anymore, if he ever had been.

The left side of her mouth tipped up in that mischievous smile she wore so well. “I’ll be in prison, remember?” She slipped a hand over his shirt, his tense muscles.

“This is wrong.”

“Then what are you waiting for?”

His hands moved of their own will, it seemed. One arm banded about her ribcage and his other hand sank into her hair. The damp strands wound about his fingers, trapping him just as well as her hungry gaze. She gasped when he pulled her head back, but she never stopped smiling.

He kissed the smile away, taking her amusement into his mouth. He rose to his knees, the better to lean over her. They melded together and she pressed herself to him from thigh to shoulder. Her small breasts curved against him. Her hands kneaded into his shoulders and her nails dug into his shirt.

Their lips clung and released, then came back again. His tongue dipped into her mouth and she received it with a quiet sigh of welcome.

She was sweet like apples. Sweet to the taste, to the touch, to all his senses. More succulent than anything he’d dared touch for a long time. He’d been lost in the dark, but if he gripped her tightly enough maybe she would lead him out.

He pulled his mouth away. Her chin tipped up to chase him, but he cupped her head in his hands and dropped his forehead to hers. “No,” he breathed. “No, not right.”

“I know,” she agreed, but then swept her mouth over his.

He gave in, sipping at her again. He was so weak. Had always been. Pushing harder at her did nothing but make her writhe against him. His cock was so hard it ached, and he’d give anything to be inside her. But he couldn’t. Weakness or no, she was too frightened of her future to make good decisions. And though she tempted him as no woman had since Annie, he couldn’t give in, not if he wanted to start reassembling a respectable life.

He pulled back, this time standing. She stayed on her knees and looked up at him, pleading with her eyes.

Christ, what he wouldn’t give to go down to the forest floor and take her. Fuck her.

He gripped the back of his neck, hoping if he put something else in his hands they wouldn’t itch to be on her again. “It’s not happening, Maggie. Stand up before you embarrass us both.”

Her face clouded over and her eyes darkened to nearly black. She surged to her feet and snatched up her shirt.

“Embarrass?” she echoed. She punched her hands into the sleeves and set about twisting the buttons together. “Embarrass? If anyone’s to be embarrassed by this, it’s you. I want a taste of something good before I’m locked away and I chose you. Any man would be grateful for what I’m offering.” She fisted her hands on her hips, fury snapping in every sharp line of her body. “Offered. Past tense. I’m done now.”

He gritted his teeth. “Good.”

“Good.”

They stood there, staring at each other. More danger fraught the air than the first time he’d stood in the middle of a street for a shootout. His chest bellowed with breaths that raked his throat.

Before he even knew how it happened, they met in the middle and slammed into each other’s arms. Their kiss was furious and angry and violent. And he loved it.

He walked her into a tree, until her back pressed against the bark. She wrapped her hands in his hair and yanked him tight as she coiled a leg around his hip. He finally got a hand on that tight ass that had taunted him for a week.

Time slipped into nothingness as their mouths came together again and again and some more.

When the anger leached out of him, he bent his forehead to her shoulder. “Christ, I’m sorry, Maggie. But I can’t do this.”

She stroked down his back in hesitant jerky lines, and then she dropped her head against the tree trunk. Her sigh wafted over his neck and raised fine hairs. “I know. I know, Dean.”

Impossibly, his back went even more rigid for a moment. It had been so damn long since he’d been able to accept comfort from anyone, much less a woman. Much less a prisoner. But her small hands warmed him all the way down to the cold, hard knot he’d been carrying for so long.

Finger by finger, he loosened his grip on her but left her face tucked against his neck. He drew in a deep breath of her fresh soap smell. And let his burdens drop. Just for a moment.

Maggie ought to be exhausted, considering that they’d been living on horseback for two weeks, long enough to cross the border into New Mexico Territory. As they rode, the land angled up from the grasslands of Texas into always-upward-reaching slopes with dramatic red cliffs in the distance. But the terrain wasn’t her problem.

Her problem was Dean.

Kissing him by the pond had solved nothing. If anything, the unusual sensual cravings within her had gotten worse, until the very twitch of one of his shoulders was enough to awaken her body. All she could remember was the assured press of his hips between hers and the scandalous way she’d wrapped herself about him.

She’d thought only to snatch a fleeting opportunity. Something lovely to hang on to through the long years she faced in prison. When she’d realized that Dean might just be interested in her as a woman after all, it hadn’t seemed that much to ask.

Apparently it was.

The past days had been fraught with a tingling kind of tension she both reveled in and despised. The memory of their time in the woods lingered in every look and every accidental touch. Handing over a mug of coffee became more when her fingers brushed his. Nights were the worst, when they sat side by side before a fire. Maggie could hardly listen to the stories Andrew trotted out, for thoughts of Dean. And the stinging memory of his rejection.

Something dark rode him.

Something in Maggie must be broken, that it only increased his appeal.

Even now, as he stood beside the covered boardwalk, it took everything she had to drag her gaze away. Instead, she found Andrew watching her, a smile on his lips and eyebrows raised.

“What?” she snapped.

He shook his head and wrapped his horse’s reins about the hitching post. “Nothing. Nothing at all…little sister.”

She huffed with disgust. “Dean, can we stay here for the night?”

He didn’t bother to look up. “No.”

“No? Just like that?” She tied Sandie to the hitching post alongside the other two. They’d already been to the Wells Fargo office so that Dean could send an update to Masterson like a good little boy.

Since they were halfway home, Maggie had snatched the opportunity to send her father a telegraph, though she hadn’t hinted at her true situation, and merely assured him that she was well. “No consideration, no debate?”

“Pretty much.” He folded his hands behind his neck and stretched up and back.

“Well, if that’s not the rudest—”

“Would you look at that?” Andrew interrupted her, pointing up the street to a green central square. A buckboard had been pulled right onto the grass and a little knot of spectators stood about with their necks craned up to watch the man who stood on the wagon. Dressed from head to toe in all black, with a fancy caped greatcoat despite the balmy spring weather, the man had his arms spread and gesticulated wildly.

Maggie rolled her eyes. “I don’t rightly care. I was too busy telling your brother what a rude—”

Andrew waved a hand at her. “We already know what a stick in the mud he is.”

Dean shot him a nasty look and his hand rose to rest on his gun belt. “No one asked for you to travel with us.”

Andrew leaned against a thick support column before the mercantile they’d stopped at. “I needed to get out of town and you were handy. Besides, the lady needs a chaperone.”

Maggie and Dean both snorted at him.

She turned back to Dean. “There’s nothing lost if we stay here tonight. It’s already late in the day, so it’s not like we’ll lose much time.”

A pained expression pinched his face, then he looked away toward the store’s entrance. “I said no, Maggie. Can’t you let it go?”

“I’m just asking for an explanation. I don’t think it’s that unreasonable.”

The shadows in his eyes darkened, turning his eyes into a pale, icy blue. In a step, he was looming over her. She was filled with his scent. His hat brim brushed her temple as he spoke into her ear.

“For the record, I am your damned captor. I owe you no explanation.”

She pinched her mouth and crossed her arms. There was no retort she could make to that, so she refused to give him the satisfaction.

“But if you’re going to be such a brat, I’d have you think it through, Maggie,” he whispered, too quiet for Andrew to hear. “You really believe I’m going to let you have a room by yourself? That’ll leave us in the same room. All night. Trying to sleep, when all we’re really thinking about is being together. Me inside you.”

Her heart tumbled into triple time and her fingertips went numb. She slid her gaze left, but he was just a blur on her consciousness. “I’m not objecting.”

He sucked air in between his teeth, and their shoulders brushed. Even that little contact sent sparks over her skin. He drew back to look at her. For a moment, long enough for her insides to grow heavy, she thought he’d say yes. How much he wanted to was written on every harsh line of his face.

But without a word, he walked into the store.

Breathing in through her mouth as she tried to hide her harsh pants, she followed. She shouldn’t have done that. But it was nigh on impossible to understand why she had to resist temptation when she had only prison to look forward to.

Andrew’s boots clomped alongside her as they stepped into the dim mercantile. “He’s the middle brother, you know.”

Dean was nowhere to be seen between the narrow rows. “So?” she asked.

“I was the oldest and Phinn the pampered baby.” He hitched an arm over a shelf support, the picture of ease and casual relaxation. She wondered how much of that was an act. “Dean’s always been the serious one…But he wasn’t always quite this bad.”

“I’m sure I don’t care.”

His smile said he saw right through her. “I’m sure you don’t. But I thought I should tell you there’re things you don’t know.”

“And are you going to inform me of them?”

He had the grace to look chagrined. “Well, no.”

“Then what use are you?”

He laughed. “Oh, not much. I pretty much make it my goal to be useless.”

“I most certainly believe that.”

Maggie followed Dean around the store sullenly, feeling like a child who’d been denied a sweet. Rationality had fled long ago, on the banks of the pond. She pushed and niggled at him the best she could. Even when she insisted on a brand new Stetson hat, since he was keeping her out on the trail, he only added to their order, along with the flour they needed and tobacco for Andrew.

Dean paid for everything, though he grumbled the whole time, but made Andrew carry the sack. Maggie snatched her new hat and plopped it on her head. Her best friend in Fresh Springs, Melody, would roll her eyes at such a mannish hat but even she would have to admit the pale tan looked good against Maggie’s dark hair.

She mugged a face at Andrew. “What do you think?”

“You’re most certainly the prettiest woman I’ve ever ridden the trails with.”

She flapped a hand at him, but tipped her brim to a rakish angle. “I’ll bet I’m the only woman you’ve ever ridden with.”

His laugh was deep and rich. “There you’d be right.”

Dean only shook his head as he checked the girth strap on Sandie’s saddle. “Can you two ever be serious?”

Andrew shoved the sack in his saddlebag after a little rearranging. “What would be the point in that?”

“Makes life boring,” Maggie said absently. She peered up the street to the commons and the buckboard still parked in the center, though the man now stood beside it. “Look, he’s still there.”

Andrew shaded his eyes. “He sure is.”

“I wonder what’s going on.”

Dean moved on to his own saddle, testing buckles and straps. “We need to get going.”

“Dean, you owe me. You’re taking me to prison.”

“Funny, that’s the same argument you used to get me to buy you the hat.” His words were dry, but his mouth had loosened into that near-smile she anticipated so often. “You gonna say the same thing when you want a sarsaparilla?”

“Probably. Why shouldn’t I continue with a system that gets me what I want?”

He rolled his eyes, but he latched his saddlebag down tight and stepped back onto the covered sidewalk. “At the rate we’re going, we’re not getting to Fresh Springs before winter.”

She tsked and shook her head. “Now you’ve caught on to my dastardly plan. Whatever shall I do?”

Andrew ambled along behind them, walking in his usual deceptively relaxed pace. “She’s got you there, brother. Why’s this trip taking quite so long, anyhow? We could be at the Arizona border.”

Curious as to the answer, she slanted a glance at Dean from the corner of her eye. His jaw went as rigid as she’d ever seen it and he sent his brother a rather nasty look.

Andrew spread his hands in an open gesture and shrugged his shoulders nearly to his ears. “Was just wondering, little brother.”

“Wonder too often and you’ll find yourself left by the side of the road.”

Andrew snickered. “Good luck on that one. Don’t forget, I’ve always got Ma.”

With that, they arrived at the end of the sidewalk and had to step over a large mud puddle to reach the grassy open square at the center of town. A church with a tall white spire soared majestically over the far end, and the other two sides were lined with shops and businesses. Maggie thought she spotted a milliner’s, but figured she’d be pushing Dean past his limits if she insisted on visiting.

The man in black was talking just as fast as was possible, spinning a right fine line about his curative concoction. His buckboard was hung with bright red and blue bunting, and the sign on the side said Dr. Fallyworth’s Full Strength Tincture of Health. He was a tall, skinny man, but not exactly what Maggie would call the picture of health. His eyes burned with a feverish light and a hectic red colored his emaciated cheekbones.

“Come one, come all, see the amazing restorative power of my medicine,” he called, waving his hands. “Is there a hitch in your giddyup? A drag in your step? One bottle cures all.”

Dean curled a lip. “Flimflammer.”

“Ayup.” Andrew fished a toothpick out of his pocket and shoved it in his maw. “Hucksters. Worst sort of shim-sham man there is.”

She rolled her eyes. “The show is half the point. Andrew, I expected you of all people to understand.”

He tilted his head as if to hear better. “And what exactly does that mean?”

“If you don’t understand, I’m certainly not going to educate you.”

She edged closer to the group surrounding Dr. Fallyworth, trying to hear his patter better. The townspeople waited with bated breath on every drip of information and gasped as one when he flashed a pair of tintypes. The first was a haggard old man lying in a bed, white sheets tucked up to his chin. The second appeared to be the same man, standing proud with his shoulders back and a wide grin on his face.

“See these, good people? Proof, I tell you, proof of my tonic’s powers. Death had knocked on this man’s door, and he’d heard the sweet angels calling his name. But with one bottle of Dr. Fallyworth’s Full Strength Tincture of Health, he revived well enough to dance at his daughter’s wedding and he is still going strong ten years later!”

Dean scoffed. “If that tonic’s been for sale even ten months, I’ll buy his entire stock.”

A few townspeople turned to give them the evil eye and Maggie waved a hand at him to hush.

Dr. Fallyworth lowered his voice to what was probably supposed to be an intimate level and leaned forward. “I’ll even tell you a secret, if you promise not to tell anyone else. Do you promise?”

As one, people assured him of their secrecy.

He picked up a bottle from the rows marching across the buckboard seat. “When a healthy man drinks my restorative, he becomes as good as bulletproof.”

A nervous laugh echoed around the crowd. He pulled his spine up as if affronted. “What you don’t believe me? I’ll prove myself, I will.” He pulled a pistol out from under his cloak, holding it with the butt pointing out. “All I need is a willing volunteer. I need someone with excellent aim, as I need them to be sure to hit me, and not any nearby observer.”

Maggie looked around, watching everyone else draw back in trepidation. She certainly wasn’t going to volunteer.

Dr. Fallyworth’s gaze lit on her and the color in his cheeks went from faint pink to hectic red again. “What a lovely assistant I’ll have. Step right up here, little lady.”

Dean wrapped a hand about her arm. “Maggie, no. Don’t do it.”

She narrowed her eyes as she stared down at his hand. She didn’t even
want
to do it, but she also was not at all in the mood to be bullied even a moment more. “I do believe I’ve given you entirely too much leeway if you think you can order me around.”

He shook his head and his fingers dug into her flesh. “You’re my
prisoner
, damn it. Besides, it’s not an order, it’s a warning. These hucksters don’t hardly care what they’re doing so long as there’s a show. It’s as like to go bad as good.”

She yanked her arm away from his grasp. That angry buzzing energy that had ridden her for the past week was twisting her insides.

She kept a good façade, but it all ended there. The smiles weren’t real, the cheery attitude layered underneath with the fear that she could possibly die. Or be locked away for years. And she wasn’t about to spend her last days blindly obeying Dean of all people.

“I’m doing it.”

He didn’t try to stop her again, but he followed closely behind as she wove her way through the crowd. Dr. Fallyworth raised his hands above his head to clap. “Let’s have a round of applause for this brave lady who’s willing to advance the cause of science and assist me in my demonstration.”

As the crowd clapped and whistled, Dr. Fallyworth angled his back to the audience and flipped open the revolver’s chamber. “Thanks, my usual team dropped off around Abilene. There’s no ball,” he said, speaking in double-time and at a volume unlikely to be heard by anyone but her and Dean at her back. “No load in the round. But be sure to aim at me and make it look good.”

“No problem,” she said, as she took the pistol’s wooden butt. She was in the precisely right mood to shoot someone, blanks or not.

Dr. Fallyworth turned back to include the crowd. “Now, what’s your name, Miss?”