Steel Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #2, Chloe and Matthew's story) (4 page)

             
"You dropped the ring."

             
"I owe you a thimble."

             
Kissing my throat, his teeth grazed my skin.  His hands traced my shoulders and ran down my arms.  I put my hands on his chest; felt the muscle there, the broad expanse, the caps of his shoulders.

             
"You'll have to ask."  I stopped talking.  I had no interest in mentioning the Mayor.

             
He didn't respond.  Not in words.  He reached up, both hands, loosening the pins in my hair until it tumbled around my shoulders.  He traced the fall of my gold curls along my throat, traced his fingers down to the collar of my dress.  I tried to still my trembling, afraid I'd scare him away. 

             
Matthew was a cad, a scoundrel.  He'd stepped out with so many girls over the years and not only girls in town but also girls who came to Nevada because of the silver mines, because of the easy money.

             
With me, he was a gentleman.  He took my arm.  He helped me in and out of wagons.  He called for me at my father's house. 

             
He knew more than I did.

             
I was ready to learn.

             
My dress fell open under his hands.  He touched the skin along my collarbone, traced it with fingers and then with tongue.  He kissed the edge of my jaw, his hands tracing again and again along my jaw, dropping lower each time, caressing my breasts through my dress, then slipping his fingers inside the unbuttoned front.

             
I kissed his hair, ran my fingers through his curls, outlined the muscles in his arms, his broad shoulders, the nape of his neck, where the curls covered skin untanned by the sun.  I licked at his throat, his ears, his mouth, let my head fall back when his kisses trailed down to the vee of buttons on my dress, shivered under his hands.

             
And shivered as his hands went away.  My head was still tilted back, my eyes half closed, my breath uneven.  My hands clasped his shoulders, keeping me from falling back against the davenport. 

             
It was his decision to make.  I had wanted him all these years, even when I sent him away, knowing the only way he'd ever come back to me was if I didn't chase him.  I wanted him now. 

             
I let him make the choice. 

             
His fingers were gentle on the neckline of my dress.  It took me a minute to realize he was refashioning the buttons, and doing it poorly.

             
I let my head roll forward gradually, my eyes opening so I could smile into his eyes.  When he met my gaze, he smiled.

             
"They're easier to unbutton," he said.

             
"Would you like me to do it?  I've had some experience."  My tone was lighter than I'd have thought I could manage.

             
"I'll get it," he said.  "If you're not in a hurry.  I like touching you."

             
You didn't have to stop
.

             
He did stop, though.  The soiled doves in the back streets, they'd known Matthew.  And someday, he'd tell me.  Today had been long and confusing.  He was probably right to stop.

             
When he pulled away from me, leaving my bodice crookedly buttoned and my breath still coming hard, I felt embarrassed, uncertain what to do with my hands or eyes now that neither were focused on him.

             
Until the question came back.  I found myself on my feet, having not planned to stand or pace halfway across the hotel room.

             
"Chloe?"

             
"What was Violet doing here, Matthew?"  I hated the shrill sound of my voice, hated that I had to ask him this, now.

             
Hated, actually, that he laughed.  "She came because she's Violet, you're not wrong there."

             
I made a sound something like a hiss.  My hands tightened into fists.

             
Matthew held up both hands, still sitting, still watching me.  "She came to me.  She didn't know, Chloe.  She came to see me because the Queen had caught on fire.  She followed the noise and smoke."

             
"That sounds like her."

             
His mouth twitched but only slightly and, despite myself, I liked him for honoring her, also.  As long as he stopped doing that soon.  As long as he answered my questions.

             
"She really was concerned about the Queen." 

             
When I glared at him in complete disbelief, he spread his hands reasonably.  "The Silver Dollar is only just south of us.  That's her father's property.  Call it self-interest."

             
I felt a flush stealing over me.  I'd known that, of course.  That Violet Hastings' family owned the nearby hotel.  But seeing Violet with Matthew had driven reason out of my head.

             
"But you were conversing," I said, the image of Matthew, his head lowered, his eyes rapt, blurring over the image of Matthew here, with me.

             
It was why I'd gone off into the alley, seeking the person who had hit me and left me for—

             
Matthew colored.  "I've never asked anyone to marry me before."

             
As if I'd been hit again, I almost went down.  My knees buckled, the world swarmed up at me, and Matthew darted across the room to catch my arm.  "Chloe?"

             
"You … asked …
her
?"

             
He stared at me, not understanding at all, and then, curse him, began to laugh.  "She came to me because—” He paused, looked at my face, and clearly decided not to continue with that tact.  "I told her we were together now and she got that look in her eyes."

             
I narrowed my own eyes at him.

             
"Kind of like that," Matthew nodded, as if I'd been doing it by way of example.  "Like she was daring me to prove we were together and I wasn't just putting her off."

             
If I glared any harder, my eyes would close completely.

             
"So, I told her.  She is the one person who knew before you that I intended to ask you to marry me."

             
I startled both of us by laughing.  "I can't think of anyone I'd rather you shared the information with first than her." 

             
He looked rueful.  "Happily, she took it well."

             
I looked about at the floor, trying to trace the whereabouts of the twisted piece of barbed wire.  "She told you to give me barbed wire?"  The thing had rolled somewhere.  I kept looking.  It was something I wanted to hang on to.

             
"She told me to give you a thimble or a ring," he said.  "Rings are apparently the new thing."  He came up to me and put his arms around my waist, interrupting my search.

             
"Makes more sense than a thimble for me, given my sewing skills."  I leaned back in his arms.

             
"We'll ask Annie to make you a dress."

             
"We should probably do that soon," I said, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him.

              He left when the grandfather clock had struck nine, promising not to head back to Gold Hill but to either sleep in the lobby or find a room. 

             
I paced.  My blood was up, from kissing Matthew, from the fire and the man who lit it and hit me, from Matthew, again…  From everything.

             
I wanted Isabel, Issy, my closest friend since childhood and a terrible gossip.  Even if I could go talk to Issy at this hour, everyone in town would know every single thing that had happened before I was ready for anyone to know anything.

             
But Issy was always so good for talking with and I was far too restless to sit still and silent.

             
I took a lamp and made my way down to the kitchen.  Maggie and Hutch had probably left hours ago and I'd have the kitchen to myself.  Too late to bother building up a fire but there should be cold meats and cheese, I reasoned, and apples if not.

             
What I found, instead, was Maggie, sitting at one of the broad, scarred, oak work tables in the kitchen, staring into space.  She jolted when I appeared in the doorway, one hand going to her throat.

             
"Chloe.  You startled me.  Can't you sleep?  I shouldn't be surprised if you have dreams tonight after everything you went through.  Are you—"

             
"I'm alright," I said, and managed not to snap.  Sitting there with only lamps flickering, she was still ethereally beautiful but now, drawn, worried, as if she hadn't slept well in a while.

             
I wanted to tell her.  Maybe telling her that something good was happening—would happen soon—maybe that would lighten her brow, but she was Matthew's family and married to Hutch and there was no way Maggie would keep it to herself.  Matthew would want to tell his brother, especially after what had gone before between them.

             
"You're glowing," Maggie said speculatively.  "You look happy."  She pondered briefly, then said, "You found Matthew?"

             
I nodded, added quickly, "He's gone to find a room for the night, or else is sleeping in the lobby."

             
Maggie quirked one corner of her mouth.  "I didn't ask."  Of all of us, she seemed most comfortable talking about Matthew with me.

             
And me.  Did I mind that she'd kissed Matthew?

             
Not really.  Who hadn't?  And that thought made me smile all over again.  "Is there any food?"

             
Which was how we came to be sitting in the hotel kitchen near midnight, sharing a cold meal, drinking coffee that seemed more than a day old and talking into the night.

              The kitchen floor was cold, even through my boots.  The fire in the stove was banked for the night.  I fetched a shawl from a coat rack and sat with my feet curled under me.  There was no one in the kitchen to see me but Maggie.

             
"How does your head feel?" Maggie asked.  Her voice was low, gentle and quiet, so soothing I thought I might eventually sleep this night. 

             
Then, the thought of Matthew surged up again and sleep was forgotten, Maggie's question nearly forgotten as well.

             
"It aches, though not as badly."

             
Maggie tilted her head, eyes shrewdly judging me.  Her midwifery had been taught her by her mother, a nurse during the War Between the States.  No doubt she knew something of head wounds as well as childbirth.

             
But she didn't say anything, didn't offer to look at it.  There'd been no blood on my hands or gloves, only the soreness in the spot he'd hit me and nothing that could be done for it now.  Maggie had warned me earlier, about dizziness and faintness, but I'd never been one for fainting and the dizziness now had quite a different cause.

             
"You said you recognized the person who hit you," Maggie said now into the quiet of the kitchen. 

             
"And didn't, and that confused Matthew."

             
She laughed.  "I imagine."  Then, laughed again.  "It confuses me."

             
I gestured, spilling a little of the coffee, noting the wire ring on my finger with a secret smile.  "Just that I know I've seen him, but can't place where."

             
"Hutch is out talking to the Sheriff again," Maggie said. 

             
"I don't see what good that will do," I said. 

             
"Truthfully, I don't either.  There's no trail now, not with all the snow.  And the Sheriff wasn't there."

             
"I keep thinking it might have been someone angry with Matthew," I said, and, catching her bemused expression, "He has that effect on people."

             
Maggie hesitated.  "Do you think it could have been Jason Seth?"  She placed both hands on the table, fingers tightly laced.  Jason Seth had shot Matthew minutes after Maggie arrived in Gold Hill and met Hutch for the first time.  He'd become her own nightmare, the man who stalked her dreams, despite the seemingly amicable end of the affair when Seth bought out the Silver Sky Mine from both Longren boys.  She didn't trust him.