Two Wanted Men [Badlands 2] (Siren Publishing Menage Amour) (11 page)

Luke nodded, but something in his expression must have prompted Reese to add, “It’s not over between her and us. If nothing else, we’ll come back for a visit in a few months to check up on her, okay?”

The notion of a plan to see her again lifted his spirits perfectly. “By then my stitches will have healed, so I’ll be able to throw her over my shoulder without risking injury.”

Reese laughed, closed the door, and Luke spent this rest time plotting the return trip and how long he’d be able to wait before the urge to fetch her became unbearable.

* * * *

Ben Colby had been sheriff of Perrysburg for almost ten years. He’d taken over from a former
US
Marshal who wanted to retire to
Arizona
because his lungs were bad. Zebulon Jones had taught him lots of things about being a lawman. Including invaluable tips on tracking and chasing felons on the run. Tonight, he’d used those skills to learn that Miranda Herrington had hidden two men in her home for most of the night and into the wee hours of the morning. Worse than that, she’d lied about it when he’d inquired. He didn’t like liars.

The two men in question, from the earlier scuffle at Rose’s Saloon, weren’t in trouble or wanted by anyone save him for curiosity sake. Beyond a few bruises and a black eye or two, the patrons there had been uninjured. No one else in the bar had been shot. Neither of the two men had brandished a weapon or threatened anyone at the bar. They’d just exited quietly during the brawl. Ben merely hunted for general information about the particulars over the shooting at the bar, but their actions made him wonder what the hell they were up to.

From the bartender and a few regulars at Rose’s Saloon, he got pretty good descriptions of them and learned that the two were former lawmen from the south headed out west to retire. Closer questioning muddled everything up and no one would admit that anyone had even been shot when Ben first asked questions about any shooting.

He had to press the witnesses a little harder before he got better answers. Likely, they’d gone to find the doctor as it was later admitted that one of them
might
have taken a bullet over a poker game gone bad. All of the witnesses had cleared the two of any wrong doing, but Ben didn’t like strangers causing trouble in his town. He wanted to ensure they’d be on their way very soon.

So he tracked them.

His first inclination had been correct regarding their heading to find a doctor, but he hadn’t counted on Miranda lending them aid. She was merely a woman regardless of what she told everyone within earshot about her skills as a doctor.

Shit fire
.

What could she do except wait for her father to come home? After Ben left her house the first time, he found Doc Herrington at the Dusty Swallow Saloon at the other end of town. He sent him home soon after in hopes that the men might show up if the old man was in residence.

Watching the house carefully, he hadn’t seen anyone leave or enter once the doc went in. Then he intercepted the mayor and his two aides carrying Justin and made sure to be the one first in the door.

His suspicions were on high alert when she answered her door the second time, however, Mayor Harris had been hot on his heels with his injured nephew. Her face had been flushed. Her hair had been out of the usual neat braid she wore. And most telling of all, she smelled differently than only a couple hours before.

Ben couldn’t believe the mayor had agreed to let Miranda take up doctoring after her old man proved to be such a fuck up sawbones. In his opinion, no doctor at all was better than a bad one, but Mayor Harris had at least agreed to let him plead his case. If he had anything to say about it, Miranda Herrington would get married off and forget about any notion of a career following in her drunk ass father’s footsteps.

Ben couldn’t quite put his finger on her sudden appeal. He’d never thought of her as attractive. Just another plain, unremarkable girl in a small town like any other girl. But her general outspokenness on subjects best left to men angered him. She should have been subdued and quiet like a lady. She quoted books when she should just shut up and served her man. But, of course, she didn’t have a man.

Ben told his deputy and best friend that he’d fuck Miranda as long as he could put a gag in her mouth to shut her up and a bag over her head so he wouldn’t have to look at her ordinary face.

Tonight, he’d been unusually drawn to her. She smelled like the sort of sweaty sex men experienced in the arms of a whorehouse woman. It was unlikely she’d been fucking the men she’d hidden, but the fact that she’d lied to him made him want to teach her a lesson. The woman needed to know her place. After he spoke to the mayor to keep her from taking over after her father, Ben intended to take further steps to ensure Miranda understood the way the world worked.

Ultimately, he was angry that she’d fooled him earlier in the evening. She must be under some sort of sexual spell by these strangers. Ben didn’t know what sort of hold the two men had on her but intended to find out.

In his long stretch as sheriff, he’d never thought much about settling down with a wife or having a family. Perhaps he’d change his mind in order to put right something he felt was adamantly wrong. A certain plain female needed to be taught her standing in town. And if he had anything to say about it, she’d never inherit her father’s practice.

Ben vowed that if Miranda became the doctor in this town, Mayor Harris would have to start looking for a new sheriff. He intended to make sure the mayor understood his loyalties and conditions for his continued residence in this town. Just before dawn, Ben was about to quit his stakeout of Miranda’s home when he saw movement from the back door.

One of the lawmen stealthily exited and headed to the east. He was about to go follow when the second man exited and ducked around the next door neighbor’s back door headed west.

Watching the two cowboys from the earlier brawl at Rose’s Saloon depart from Miranda’s home sent acid burning straight to his belly in fury. His resolve to set things right in this town was strengthened. She’d lied to him and managed to fool him twice tonight. Behavior like that was not tolerated in Ben Colby’s way of the world.

Miranda Herrington would learn her place or he’d break his hand teaching her until she did.

Chapter Eight

“You’re pussy is so tight.” Luke’s voice sent raging desire through her veins as his cock tunneled in and out of her body. On her knees in front of him on the center of her bed, Miranda grasped his shoulders to hang on as he fucked her.

The tender stroke of his fingertips on her breasts left her breathless and wanting more. The orgasm she sought lingered just out of reach.

Suddenly, Reese joined them on the bed and pressed his chest against her back. “Are you ready for me?” She felt his hard cock against her butt cheek. She wanted him inside of her, too. Without speaking, he still read her thoughts and knew what she wanted. He stroked a finger across her sensitive, puckered rear entry and soon the dark, burning pleasure of his cock, stretching her tight as he inserted his huge dick slowly inside, forced a seductive groan from her lips.

On the very edge of pain and pleasure, Miranda longed for the ecstasy of release to overwhelm her senses. She was so close. She wanted to come. Together, the three of them found a rhythm of movement that accentuated the pleasure of the intimate act.

Reese thrust his cock in her ass deeply, she pushed back to ensure he went all the way in. Luke pushed his dick forward into her pussy with a deep thrust so she tilted her hips to receive him. She glanced down and saw his fingers on her breasts cupping, stroking, pinching. Her eyes drifted shut as the cacophony of sensations rained within her body and sent her desire to new heights.

Moments later, Miranda woke with her own hands touching her body intimately. One hand cupped a breast as fingers squeezed the nipple. The other was sunk between her thighs with her fingers buried as far as they would go in her pussy. Her hips writhed against the sheets searching for release from her sexy, vivid dream. She focused on the hand between her legs and shifted her fingers to her clit as the vestiges of the dream clung in her mind. She concentrated on the fading memory of Luke and Reese pressing against her during the most intimate and arousing of acts and rubbed her clitoris until a huge orgasm gripped her body in vibrant release.

She screamed as pleasure rippled through her body like a lake having a stone thrown in the center. Shaken from the powerful orgasm, Miranda rolled onto her back. She panted trying to catch her breath.

Luke and Reese had left on the train for the Wild West and retirement six long weeks ago and this was not the first time she’d woken with her hands on her body searching for fulfillment.

She missed them dreadfully, but her new duties as town doctor kept her very busy during the day. Miranda rose from the bed, poured some water out of the pitcher into a bowl to wash and freshen up. Limbs still shaking slightly from her scandalous dream, she dressed in a serviceable gown, added an apron for protection of her garment and went downstairs to set up and ready the room for the day’s patients.

Her father was asleep and snoring loudly on the settee in the parlor as usual. Out the front window, she saw Mayor Harris walking along the street with Ben Colby. They had passed her home and headed toward town, so she knew they weren’t on the way over. It meant she could take a few moments to center herself this morning.

She busied her hands washing the already clean room. Once her supplies were in place, she waited for business. The timing of patients coming to her door was always irregular.

The mayor came over every day, but Ben had been particularly absent the past month and a half since Luke and Reese left. Obviously, he didn’t approve of her new duties, but the mayor was very accommodating.

As a matter of fact, Mayor Harris still had to escort most of the patients needing care right into the back room of her house. Then he’d have to stay as she worked on them as if his presence was the only reason the townsfolk would believe that she knew doctoring skills enough to help.

During her first several weeks as “Dr. Miranda”, she had set a broken arm, wrapped a sprained ankle and lanced several ugly boils on one unfortunate gentleman. Additionally, she handed out salve for a nasty rash, brought down the fever in a child suffering from the sniffles, delivered three babies and stitched up at least a half a dozen folks on various body parts without a single complaint or compliment. Even after all she’d done, the townsfolk didn’t trust her. The road to her house for any medical care started at the mayor’s doorstep.

Miranda wished that anyone needing care would just show up and let her help them without dragging the mayor along as a chaperone. She hoped that eventually, they would trust her enough to show up alone. Until then, Mayor Harris had visited her house more times in the last few weeks than he had since she’d lived in Perrysburg.

The highlight of the scorn she received came from her father. He stumbled in one night a couple of weeks ago and announced, “You won’t take over my medical practice, Miranda. The folks in town will never choose you over me.” His words might have held more weight if he hadn’t promptly collapsed on the settee and fallen into drunken unconsciousness in the next minute.

A sudden loud knock at the front door startled her. She raced to the entrance, past her father still sawing logs very loudly, hoping a patient sought care without the mayor as an escort.

Miranda straightened her apron and opened the door with a smile glued on her mouth, ready for business. On her porch was a stranger with wire-rimmed glasses dressed in an ill-fitting brown suit and sporting a bowler on his head.

“Are you Miranda Herrington?” As he asked his question, he removed his hat one handed, revealing his balding scalp and only a strip of closely trimmed hair from one sideburn to the other wrapping around his head in a ring shape. His hair, what was left of it, looked like a dull shade of cinnamon. It was as faded as if the intensity of color had drained out over time spent in the unguarded path of the blistering summer sun.

“Yes. I am Miranda. What can I do to help you?” Miranda didn’t wish illness on anyone, but wondered if any challenging cases would ever be presented beyond the ordinary cuts, sprains and breaks.

“My name is Clarence Sanders.” Clarence’s gray eyes searched the room behind her as if calculating the value.”