Wicked Temptations (24 page)

Maybe she'd misjudged Adam. Maybe he truly was worried about her safety if she published a scathing editorial against the stockmen who'd hanged two people. But in smashing her printer, Adam had effectively shut down her printing operation for good because the printing press could not be fixed, and she didn't have the money to buy another press, and without receiving the money from the subscriptions and advertisements she had running, she wouldn't be able to pay the mortgage on the building, and she'd have to let it go back to the bank...

Unless Jim could identify Adam's men as those who smashed her press under Adam's direct orders—which appears to be what happened. Then she could sue Adam in court and force him to replace her printing press and compensate her for her loss of income from the business and for the loss of her building, if it went back to the bank.

***

When Priscilla marched into the library, where Adam was going over paperwork in preparation for his new business venture, and slammed the door behind herself with uncommon force, Adam knew a very heated confrontation was coming. He was surprised that she hadn't come storming in
before
this, but was relieved that she hadn't because it gave him time to get his business deals in order before facing her wrath, which he intended to turn into passion before they were done. But this time it would take more than simply pulling her into his arms and kissing his way down her neck and unbuttoning her bodice and pleasuring her in the way he knew she liked. She was seething with rage, and he'd make sure she got it all out of her system before attempting to mollify her, or reason with her, because he wanted her to be receptive to what he planned to propose to her afterwards.
 
"I've been expecting you," he said, offering a bland smile. "I'm glad you came."

Glaring at him, arms folded across her ample bosom, fingers tapping against her small bicep, she said, with derision, "You're glad I came? That's interesting, considering that fact that you have now destroyed any hope I have of putting out
The Town Tattler
. Permanently!" She pressed her lips together in disgust while waiting for his reply.

"I know it seems that way," Adam said, innocuously, "but there's an explanation."

"I'm sure, from your point of view, there is." Uncrossing her arms, she flattened her palms on his desk, pressing her long slender fingers against the smooth wood surface, leaned toward him so she could look directly at him, and said in a clipped tone, "I know you gave Seth Watkins a mule, and I know you had two of your boys put up the fence to replace the one they tore down at Jack Lewis's place—presumably Tom Rafferty and the man named Tanner who was with him that night—but you also had your men smash my printer and there's no way I can afford another one, and without
The Town Tattler
going out I'll have to repay subscribers, and I won't be able to pay the mortgage on my building, and I might as well pack up and leave...
If I had enough money to go back east!"
She straightened, thrust her arms together across her chest and glared at him.

Adam stood and came around the desk. But when he reached for Priscilla's shoulders, she jerked her arms to shake him off, and backed away from him. "Don't touch me!" she hissed. "We are absolutely through now! I have just come from seeing a lawyer, and I'll be suing you in court for destroying my printing press. Jim identified one of your men as one of the two cowboys who came into my building and tied him up and took a sledge hammer to my press, and you can't deny it. Well, you can, but you'd be lying. But then maybe that isn't too difficult for you to do, since you have no problem
destroying other people's property!"
Her voice shot up, her face flushed, and her eyes grew misty with rage.

"But you just said that I gave Seth Watkins a mule and had my boys string up a new fence for Jack Lewis, so I can't be all bad," Adam said. He smiled at her then, to soften her up, but she glared at him in return, lips pressed tightly together in anger.

She sucked in a deep breath, making her crossed arms rise with her expanding chest, while drawing his attention to what was beneath her crossed arms, which seemed to infuriate her. "You needn't look at me there, Adam, because you won't find your hands or your lips there ever again." She paused to attempt to catch her breath as her face grew scarlet, and the pupils in her eyes dilated, and her tongue came out to moisten her lips, which parted to capture more air in an attempt to steady her erratic breathing.

And Adam knew she was thinking exactly what he was thinking. "You don't believe a word of what you just said," he commented, resisting the urge to smile because she was so completely transparent in her feelings and the fact that she wanted him to strip off her clothes and do the things he'd described. And he would before long, which he assured her by saying, "But we'll take that up later, when you're ready to reason with me."

"Reason with you about what?" she spat, flattening her palms against her breasts as if to protect herself from what she wanted most at the moment.

"I won't attempt to pleasure you right now," Adam said, taking her hands from her chest and holding them. To his surprise, she didn't try to free her hands, but allowed him to hold them.

"I have no idea what your motivation was for giving the mule to Mr. Watkins or fixing Jack Lewis's fence," she said, continuing to allow him to hold her hands, "other than you might have thought someone would learn that your cowboys were behind both incidents, and would know that they'd done it by your orders, and that might affect your mayoral race. But you had no right to shut down my newspaper, and you know it." Her eyes darkened, and she slipped her hands out of his then, seeming to have regained some of her earlier anger and resolve.

"I'm not an unjust man," Adam said, moving toward her. "Men I once believed were good men used underhanded means to promote their own self-interests, and I was just trying to make things right by replacing Seth
Watkin's
mule and fixing Jack Lewis's fence. I intended to, at a later date, take it up with the men who'd done it. Which I did."

"What do you mean?" Priscilla asked, while eyeing him with a blend of skepticism and curiosity. "Have the men agreed to pay you for the mule and the fence?"

"No," Adam said, "but from now on they're going to be closely watched and held accountable for their actions." He reached out and took her by the shoulders, and this time she didn't back away, but stood looking up at him, expectantly, as if waiting for him to kiss her, which he would when he finished explaining their future to her.

"How do you plan to do that," she asked, raising her lips slightly, a clear invitation.

Deciding instead to fan the embers of her passion so she'd deny him nothing when he was through outlining his plan for them, he said, "I'll be selling the ranch and moving into this house and starting a newspaper that will oppose, and expose, the cattlemen in the Stock Grower's Association and what goes on behind the closed doors at the Cheyenne Club. I'll be calling
our
newspaper the
Plainsmen Review
, and it will be in support of the homesteaders."

Priscilla's lips parted to accommodate her rapid breaths, and she said, "You said
our
newspaper. Is there someone joining you in this enterprise?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied, and pecked her once on the mouth.

"Oh," she replied, running her tongue over her lips. "Will you still be running for mayor then?" she said, moving closer, inviting him to kiss her again.

"Do you want me to?" he asked, obliging her wishes, this time a tad longer.

"Well... I don't know," she said, her eyes clearly focused on his lips, he noted.

"Then I'll decide for you," he said, smiling at her eagerness to get on with what he was subtly doing, though deciding to make her wait a little longer. "I plan to withdraw my candidacy so I can focus on the paper. I've made an offer on a large building that can be converted into an edifice for the newspaper. We could have the place renovated, and printing equipment brought in from the east, and the paper up and running in a month."

Priscilla looked up at him, curious. "You still haven't said who the we are."

"No, I suppose I haven't," Adam said, kissing her again, long enough for her to curve her hands around his neck and open her mouth to allow him to kiss her thoroughly. But he broke the kiss to add, "Do you have any objection to my selling the ranch?"

"All I have an objection to right now, Adam, is that you keep tempting me with your kisses, then stopping, and I'm getting very frustrated."

"Good," Adam said, and kissed her again, three little pecks that brought her eyes dilating and her lips pressing together in irritation when he pulled away.

"All right, then," she said, in annoyance. "It seems that I'm supposed to be doing something other than kissing you, but since kissing you is all I have on my mind right now, you'll have to tell me out right what it is."

Adam bent his head and kissed the side of her neck, and whispered into her ear, "Don't you want to know why I decided to sell the ranch?"

Priscilla batted her big hazel-green-brown eyes several times, and replied in a breathy voice, "All I want right now is for you to do what you did in the backroom, but since it seems that I have to earn your favors... All right. What made you decide to sell the ranch?"

Adam kissed her once on the lips, and said, "A stubborn, charming, thoroughly exasperating redhead who convinced me that I don't want to be party to what's going on around here, and in fact, want to be a strong voice towards stopping it—" he kissed her again, this time longer "—and a newspaper opposing the WGSA is the best way I can think how—" he moved down to kiss her neck "—but I also have this idea of incorporating a quarto-size paper that would come out once a week, something of interest to our female subscribers—" he tugged the neck of her jersey down and planted a kiss in the hollow of her throat "—with an ongoing romantic story, and editorials about women's issues, and columns where women could send in questions—" he tugged her jersey further down so he could place a kiss on the swell of her breast "—and I'd want my wife to be in charge of it."

"Your wife?" Priscilla said, dreamily, allowing her head to drop back and her chest to rise to meet his accommodating lips...

Adam stopped what he was doing and took her face between his hands so she'd have to look at him, and said, "I have no choice because the woman I happen to want by my side for the rest of my life is determined to put out such a paper, and having her in the same building as my paper is the only way I could think to keep her out of trouble."

Priscilla's face sobered, and the passion he'd seen moments before had vanished. "Then why did you smash my printer?" she asked. "You could have moved it over to your place."

"I could have," he admitted, starting with her lips again, finding them responding once more to his kisses, "but I had to stop you from what you were about to do, for your own good, and mine." He stopped what he was doing and looked at her, and in her eyes he saw his future... changeable as her frame of mind, exciting as the dark pupils expanding and contracting as she held his gaze, the distinct glint of passion shining only for him, and said, "You see how selfish I am, my love? I want your beautiful, unharmed body in my bed every night of our lives, and I can't allow anything to happen to it ... or you."

"That's fine, Adam," she said, "but what about my press?"

He kissed her soundly. "I'll be setting you up with more modern equipment."

"But I don't want more modern equipment," Priscilla said between kisses. "I want what I had. With another Stanhope press and Jim as my pressman, I can put out
The Town Tattler
with the help of four women without any fuss, and I can make banner headlines and insert engravings and wood cuts. And the building I have is just fine."

"I could argue that," Adam said. "Your building's sagging from rotting floor joists, termites have invaded the walls, and the only reason the roof doesn't leak is because there's so much moss on it the rain can't get through. Besides, your women have left you."

"I know that," Priscilla clipped, "but I'm sure I can find others willing to work for me. It only takes five of us and Jim to do the job."

"Sweetheart," Adam said, "I'll get you whatever you want... fix up the old building if that's what makes you happy, and get you another old Stanhope press like the one you had. But I'll be setting
The Plainsmen Review
using a Mergenthaler Linotype Composing Machine, like the
New York Tribune
is using. With it, one operator alone is machinist, type-setter, justifier, type-founder, and type-distributor. Setting and casting type in leaden lines are done by pressing keys on a board much like on a typewriting machine."

"You don't understand," Priscilla said, in a weary voice. "My dream was for
The Town Tattler
to be a newspaper written and printed by women, for women. With your machine there would be no need for any women at all."

"Of course there would be," Adam insisted. "You'd need women journalists to go out and find your stories, and to write and edit them. And you could hire a female engraver to prepare the plates for illustrations. But with a linotype machine you can put all your time and effort into finding stories and writing editorials.
The Town Tattler
will still be set up like you want, but there will be no limit to the number of subscribers you can handle. Your paper will have the capability of being distributed in every town in
Wyoming
and beyond. But you're the newspaper woman and I'm just the fellow who's in love with you and wants to make you happy. All I ask is that you leave the politics to me."