Katherine O’Neal (49 page)

As the coach lurched through the streets of
the Lower East Side, Saranda tried to understand what was
happening, and why. “You can thank your friend Blackwood,” Bat told
her.

“Mace is alive?”

Bat nodded, and Saranda leaned into him,
collapsing with relief. “I was so worried,” she said as Bat’s arms
wrapped around her protectively.

“You got no cause to worry about that one,”
Wyatt said, removing his hat and using his sleeve to wipe the sweat
from his brow. “He wired us you were in trouble. Told us just what
he needed. I pulled some strings with an old drinking compadre now
in Washington. Had myself appointed U.S. marshal and made Bat here
my deputy.” He eased aside his jacket to display the marshal’s
badge pinned to his vest. His droopy gold mustache turned up as he
snickered. “Mighty impressive for an old scoundrel.”

“What was that about a warrant?” Saranda
asked.

“Hell, we made that up. There was a holdup a
few years back of the federal mail. You were around Kansas at the
time, so we drew up a federal warrant for your arrest—charging you
with the crime. Since it happened before the murders, that gives
Kansas a prior claim on you. They may throw it out, but it has to
go before a federal judge in Washington. My
compadre
will
see it’s tied up for a spell. Meantime, we’ll do what we can to
keep you from hanging.”

“Was all this Mace’s idea?”

“Most of it,” said Wyatt. “Although I
supplied the holdup, having been acquainted with it.”

“
Acquainted
with it?”

Bat laughed. “Acquainted with it from the
standpoint that he
did
it.”

“Well, it was before I got the marshal job in
Wichita,” Wyatt defended himself.

Saranda smiled at them, shaking her head.
“You two never change. But it’s good of you to come. Particularly
you, Wyatt, since we were never close.”

“Hell, that don’t matter none. Doc’s come to
lend a hand too.”

“Doc Holliday?”

“Blackwood thought it might help if we had a
doc to say you were indisposed,” Bat explained. “Although, looks to
me, sugar, like you really could use a pill roller. You’re looking
a mite off your feed.”

“I’m all right. Not that Doc would do me any
good, he being a dentist.”

“They don’t know that,” Wyatt said. “By the
time they find out—if they do—we’ll be long out of this town.”

“Where’s Mace?”

“He’ll be along as soon as it’s safe. I
reckon we’ll be having visitors most of the afternoon. Don’t worry,
honey. We’re going to put you in a hotel room and seal you up so
tight, even the President of these United States can’t get in.”

“What if they force you?”

Bat and Wyatt exchanged level looks. “They
won’t,” Bat assured her.

* * *

Saranda had all but collapsed by the time
they reached the hotel. She was forced to stand handcuffed in the
lobby while Wyatt explained to the manager that she was in federal
custody and not to be disturbed. Then they took her up in the
elevator cage to the room where Doc Holliday was waiting. Bat
didn’t like him. He considered Doc to be the most vicious,
hair-triggered man he’d ever known. But for some reason, Wyatt was
devoted to the dentist-turned-gunfighter. Bat’s loyalty to Wyatt
had caused him to put aside personal feelings more than once and
come to Doc’s aid; now Doc was returning the favor.

Saranda was so weak by the time they arrived
that they put her straight to bed. They ordered food sent up, but
Saranda, who’d barely eaten for more than two weeks, couldn’t keep
her meal down. Doc responded by giving her a tonic made from
whiskey with sarsaparilla roots and wild-cherry bark. By evening
she wasn’t feeling any more like eating, but she was comfortably
drunk.

At one point, Bat sat on the bed next to
her.

“Feeling any better?”

She gazed up at him with curious eyes. “Bat,
the last time I saw you, you asked me to run away with you. You
wanted to spend your life with me. Why, then, would you help Mace
when he asked you?”

He lowered his eyes, as if embarrassed. “I
reckon when you love someone, you’ll do anything to help them. Even
if you have to sacrifice your own feelings to do it.”

“Yes,” she said, understanding for the first
time. “That really is what it’s about, isn’t it? Being willing to
sacrifice yourself for the one you love.”

“I reckon if you’d told them where Blackwood
was, they’d have been easier on you. But you didn’t, did you?”

As Wyatt had predicted, they had a steady
stream of irate visitors throughout the afternoon. Bat and Wyatt,
heavily armed, stationed themselves outside the door to the sitting
room and refused entry to all. Police, reporters, court
authorities, all came to make their claims or request an interview
with the notorious criminal who’d successfully deferred her hour of
judgment. But the gunfighters stood their ground, stating in no
uncertain terms that the prisoner was too ill because of her
treatment at the hands of New York authorities to see anyone. When
a doctor was sent to validate this claim, Doc Holliday pushed his
way out the door and asked in a sinister tone, “You doubting my
word, you weaslly sonofabitch?” He was detained from drawing on the
city doctor only by the combined efforts of Bat and Wyatt. No more
doctors volunteered.

It was late that night before everyone had
cleared out. Saranda had slept most of the afternoon. She was aware
of the door opening and of someone entering the room. Forcing her
eyes open, she wondered if the figure she saw was a mirage.

“Mace!” She struggled to sit up. Her hair had
come loose and hung damply about her face. He went to her as Bat,
Wyatt, and Doc entered behind him.

She rushed into his arms, savoring the feel
of him, his warmth and strength. It seemed in that moment that he
was everything she wasn’t, everything she needed. She raised her
face as he took it in his hands to kiss her. But he stopped
mid-motion and ran his hands over her moist face, shocked by the
heat radiating off her skin. Coarsely, he swore beneath his
breath.

“She’s burning up.”

“I take it they didn’t treat her too
hospitable,” Wyatt said. “We tried to get her to eat, but she
couldn’t. Doc gave her a tonic.”

Saranda was swaying dizzily. Mace laid her
down gently on the bed, then sniffed the jug of tonic, tasted the
rotgut whiskey, and almost choked. “Christ! Are you trying to kill
her?” They began to protest, but he waved them to silence. “What
did you feed her?”

“Steak, pota—”

“Jesus! Don’t you gents know anything?”

He tossed off his coat and rolled up his
shirtsleeves, pulling up the covers she’d kicked off and wrapping
them tight around her. “Has a doctor been here?”

“We sent him away. Didn’t figure we needed
him catching on to the plan.”

“Can’t you see she’s really ill? Doctor
Holliday,” he said in the same brisk, authoritative tone he’d used
as Archer at the paper, “if you’d be so kind, call the physician
back. Round up more blankets. I imagine he’ll want to try and sweat
out this fever. Sheriff, Marshal, return to your posts outside the
door. Admit no one but the doctor. In the long run, it will help
our plan to have an outside source attest that she’s really ill.
And call down for some broth. Any fool knows you don’t give steak
to someone who hasn’t eaten in weeks.”

“Out in the territories, we don’t eat much
excepting steak,” Wyatt said, disgruntled.

“Does she look like a cowpuncher to you?”

She looked, in fact, frail and appallingly
white, her changeable eyes feverishly blue-green and glittering in
her pale face.

The gunmen left reluctantly, muttering to
each other.

Mace sat on the bed and gathered Saranda into
his arms. “Not to worry, love. I’m here now. I shall care for you
till you’re well.”

“You will?”

“You need to get well quickly. Then we’re
going to get the paper back,” he told her, kissing her damp
forehead. “Don’t think about it now. Just concentrate on getting
better.”

“I want to help. I want to make McLeod pay
for what he’s done.”

“Don’t worry, love. You shall—”

“Oh, Mace, it was so awful. They told me you
were dead....”

Under Mace’s care, Saranda recovered quickly.
She was driven partly by the knowledge that there wasn’t much
time—if they were going to make a move, it had to be immediately,
and she was determined to be in shape to do her part. No one had
ever taken care of her the way Mace did. No one had ever made sure
she had the proper food or tucked her in at night and stroked her
forehead until she drifted off to sleep. No one had ever told her
funny stories to distract her from her worries, or rubbed the aches
and pains from her body with sure and loving hands. She had never
felt so safe, so cherished, so completely loved, in all her
life.

Even knowing how crucial the timing was, he
refused to rush her. Her health, he declared, was more important to
him than the paper or any con. His understanding, his patience, his
insistence that she take all the time she needed, spurred her to a
speedy recovery. He was willing to put everything aside that she
might heal as she needed. She wasn’t about to let him down.

So she rose from her bed days before he
thought it advisable, shaky on her feet but resolved to press
forward.

Naturally, he protested. “If you don’t care
for yourself, how can you expect to take care of anyone else?”

“
You’ve
taken care of me,” she assured
him with a warm smile. “You’ve seen to the needs of not just my
body, but my spirit. I don’t require rest as much as I need to help
you now. No, wait, I
do
need one thing first.”

“What’s that, love?”

“A bath.”

She still felt gritty from her days in prison
and clammy from her bout with fever. There was suddenly nothing she
desired more than to submerge herself in a steaming bath.

The hotel room was equipped with a bathroom
with running water, which seemed to her the height of extravagance.
The only other place she’d seen such splendor was the Van Slyke
mansion. After Mace had run her bath, she lowered herself into its
welcoming depths, feeling voluptuously soothed and pampered as the
scent of rich, exotic oils dazzled her senses. Normally, she wore
no perfumes. A particular scent was dangerous to a confidence
artist, could give her away even after she’d changed her
appearance. So the aroma of lilies and jasmine seemed a forbidden
luxury, making her feel sumptuously elegant, sophisticated,
undeniably sexy. Entombed in prison, harassed, starved, and
tortured, she hadn’t felt like a woman for longer than she could
remember. Now, she surrendered herself to her feminine element.

The warm water lapped at her shoulders, so
hot her face began to glow. She washed herself leisurely, her hands
lathered with scented soap, stroking her limbs with a languor that
was heavenly. As she soaked, she washed away the grime and memories
of prison, of helplessness, of her awareness of her own
vulnerability. She found in her femininity a source of strength, a
feeling of coming into her own and garnering her resources for the
task ahead.

After she’d washed her hair and rinsed it
well, she stood in the claw-foot tub and reached for a linen towel.
But in her eagerness to get going on the plan, she forgot her
unsteadiness and stood too fast. Blood rushed from her head. She
tottered dizzily, groping for something to hold on to. But she
could find nothing. In another moment, she knew she’d lose
consciousness.

She called out to Mace. It seemed only a
split second before he charged into the room and seized her in his
arms just as she was about to tumble. Her senses anchored, she
leaned her face into his chest, allowing him to carry her into the
other room. She felt herself lowered to the softness of the
bed.

“Now do you believe it’s too soon?” he
asked.

She opened her eyes and felt as if she were
seeing him for the first time. His face seemed staggeringly
handsome to her watchful eyes, with his black hair tumbling over
his forehead in riotous curls, his eyes darkly blue, his brow
puckered in concern. His lips had never seemed more sensual, pursed
as they were in his disapproval of her impatience. His jaw had
never seemed as strong. The white shirt was wet where she’d rested
her head, revealing the faintest trace of black hair underneath.
Like someone awakened from a dream, she became gradually aware that
there was nothing between them but a thin linen towel. She could
feel the wet material tickling her nipples as she was alerted to
the swell of her bare breasts underneath.

She ran her hand along the wet spot on his
shirt, suddenly wanting nothing more than to feel the thickly
curling hair beneath her fingers, and lick his nipples with her
tongue. Her eyes, darker with passion, sought his. The clash was
electric. She felt heat rise from deep within her body that made
her long for the touch of his skin on hers.

His dimples creased deep grooves in his
cheeks as he slowly, incredulously, smiled. “That’s hardly what I
meant by taking care of you."

“You want me to recover properly, do you
not?”

“Yesssss...”

“Well, it’s neither food nor rest nor
spiritual guidance that I need to effect a full restoration.”

His smile was widening to a grin. “What is
it, then, that will do the trick?”

“The taste of someone’s flesh upon my
tongue.”

“Will just anyone’s do?” he asked
lightly.

“Yours would be preferable. But there are
always other alternatives.”

His expression turned sour. “Such as the
three brutes standing guard outside your door?”

“No, darling. Such as this.”

She inched the towel down off her breasts,
tormenting him with the sight of her as she took one creamy globe
in her hand, lifted it, bent her head, and put her tongue to the
bright bloom of her own nipple. She heard the sharp intake of his
breath as she continued to circle the rapidly puckering bud with
the tip of her moist tongue.