Wild Texas Rose (9 page)

“You’re perfection, miss, pure and simple,” he said, amazed at how her skin warmed and reddened to his slight caress. “When you return to me, I want your blouse open exactly this far. We’ll begin where we leave off tonight.”

She didn’t open her eyes as he moved his fingers along her jaw and over her cheeks. Lifting her hair up and over the arm of the chair, he watched it tumble to the floor. He studied her as she seemed to sleep in his arms. His hand returned again and again to the rise of her breasts above the lace. Then, his kisses turned loving, saying what he couldn’t say with words.

When she moved, he molded his hands over her body to settle her back where he wanted her. Her damp clothes did little to hide her curves. From time to time he grew bold, barely letting her get over the shock of one touch before another took her breath away. Each time he’d kiss her tenderly and rock her in his arms until she calmed, and then he’d take her to another high.

He moved his mouth to her throat, knowing their time was growing short. “It’s almost time for you to go.”

She nodded and straightened.

She didn’t look at him as she stood and pulled the blouse together. He knew without asking that this was far more than she’d ever shown a man.

He stood behind her. “I know it’s late, but lower your hands. I can’t end this yet.”

Slowly she moved her hands to her sides and he reached around her and opened the blouse once more. “Now lean your head back against my shoulder for just a moment more.”

He circled his arm and turned her toward him as she closed her eyes. Just as her left breast brushed against his chest and began to swell with her intake of air, he placed a kiss above the lace, then moved to her mouth and kissed her, learning how she liked to be kissed by the movements she made and the little sounds of pleasure.

Finally, she cuddled against his heart and he held her tightly, lost in the wonder of her so near. When she finally turned back to the bench, he lightly brushed his fingers down her throat to where the cotton of her undergarments blocked his path.

She didn’t move.

Fighting to keep his hands from shaking, he slowly moved over the material and cupped her breasts in his hands.

He waited for her to react, but she remained so still he wasn’t sure she was even breathing.

His fingers tightened over the cotton covering her and he lowered his head to kiss her cheek.

When he stepped back, she lifted the brush he’d left for her and began to straighten her hair. He didn’t miss the way her hand shook.

“Our time tonight is over,” he said as he forced his voice back to the cold, impersonal tone he always used. “I’ll leave you to dress and tie up your hair. You’ll find what you need on the washstand. From now on leave your cape on the peg by the door.”

She nodded as he stepped away. She seemed suddenly shy, turning her back to him.

He watched her at the washbasin. Her movements were slow as if she didn’t want the time to end. He came and stood behind her one last time.

“Turn around,” he said sharply, his hands already resting lightly on her waist.

When she did, he pulled her against him. For a few minutes, he just held her, growing used to her with every sense. When the clock tower chimed ten times, he let her slip from his arms.

He left the study and crossed to the button display. Returning, he shoved a few cards of his best buttons in her pocket, then stepped into the blackness beneath the stairs.

Closing his eyes, he listened to the door open and heard her footsteps leave. For a long while he remained in the darkness. If he’d gone any closer, he would have held her again. If he hadn’t let her go now, Abe wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to let her go.

How could such a woman need anything so personal from him?

He’d given the orders. He’d demanded she kiss him and let him touch her, but Abe was under no illusion he held the power. For the hour they’d been together he’d been in charge, but now all he could do was wait and hope she’d return.

When he crossed to the study, he noticed she hadn’t taken the brush and comb or even the hairpins. Walking closer he found the cards of buttons beside the brush. She hadn’t wanted his gifts.

For a moment he was angry, but then he realized something.

All she’d wanted tonight was him.

Chapter 11

Monday

Main Street

R
ose awoke before sunrise, guessing that she
would spend another day alone at the hotel. Victoria always seemed in a hurry or had her father by her side. She talked of dresses and wedding plans but never about why she’d asked Rose to come in early.

Hallie was making more headway with Betty Ann. Through Victoria’s maid they were able to keep up with when the Chamberlains were in the hotel. Not that it mattered. Hallie had gone through everything in both of the major’s rooms and found nothing of interest except that the major seemed to be leaving the country after the wedding. Also, Victoria’s trousseau was packed in new luggage and each bag was locked. According to the maid, Victoria wasn’t even allowed to look at anything until her wedding day.

Rose’s new maid also broke into the room that was supposed to be the bridegroom’s and nothing of his was even there. He was four days away from his own wedding and he didn’t seem in any hurry to show up.

Everything seemed in order, except for the yellow dress hanging in Rose’s closet and the telegram Tori had sent. The couple on the balcony was still a mystery, as was the reason Tori cried every night.

Rose sensed that her friend was in some kind of trouble, but Victoria stood a canyon away, unable or unwilling to cross and tell Rose the truth. The only strategy seemed to be for Rose to wait, ready to stand as a friend when needed.

Monday came wrapped in fog. Victoria had promised to get up at least in time to dress and have brunch with Rose, not in the huge restaurant downstairs or even the coffee shop that served simple meals but in the sitting room between their bedrooms.

Finally, they’d have their time alone. Time for Rose to ask questions. Time for her to get some answers.

As Hallie put on the pot for their morning tea, a pounding on the door leading to Tori’s rooms made them both jump. There was no need for Tori to announce her arrival into what was as much her sitting room as Rose’s.

Hallie straightened her uniform and answered the knock with all the proper manner of a fine maid.

Betty Ann exploded into the room. With her nightgown and robe flying, she ran to Rose and dropped at her feet. “Help me, miss. You have to help me. The unthinkable has happened and I’m going to get blamed.”

Rose knelt beside her. “What is it?” She could feel the maid shaking as she tried to lift Betty Ann to her feet.

“Miss Victoria is gone. I don’t know when or how, but she didn’t wake me this morning to help her dress, and when I checked on her, the bed hadn’t been slept in.”

Betty Ann began to cry. “She’s been kidnapped. That has to be it. In ten years she’s never gone anywhere without me dressing her first. I had my curse last night. She made me warm tea with a bit of whiskey and told me to rest.” The maid sobbed, mumbling something about how much money the major had and how they’d all feared a kidnapping.

Rose looked up at Hallie. “Get the major and any security the hotel has.”

Hallie nodded and disappeared. Within minutes Rose’s sitting room was packed with men asking questions that no one knew the answers to. For the first time, the major couldn’t think of anything to say, he just paced the little room like a caged lion.

Rose stood back near the balcony doors and tried to piece together the facts. The couple on the balcony kept flashing across her mind, but she didn’t say a word. If Victoria ran away with her August Myers a few days before the wedding, Rose owed her loyalty to her friend, not to the father who’d pushed her all her life. Over the past few days he’d said a dozen times that this marriage will take place as if there were some invisible army just beyond the doors waiting to invade and ruin his plans. The woman on the balcony didn’t look to be held against her will, so the couple couldn’t have been part of a kidnapping.

Within minutes the staff from last night were all ordered in and interrogated. Most must have slept somewhere in the hotel and looked like they’d been awakened into a nightmare. The hotel security made the poor workers feel like they were hiding something, even though one by one they all told the same story. No one was allowed on the balcony but guests of the hotel. The garden gates were locked at dusk. Miss Chamberlain could not have possibly passed down the stairs and across the hotel lobby without staff seeing her.

After his second cup of coffee, the major started issuing death threats to each of the staff if he found they were lying. Between interviews he screamed at the sheriff.

The sheriff tried to stay calm, but the major’s outbursts began to get on his nerves.

Everyone talked about how they understood he was a panicked father, but Rose didn’t miss how they all walked a wide circle around him. Rose couldn’t help but get the feeling the major was more upset that his plans had been changed than that his daughter was missing.

Rose, though still in her gown and robe, moved among the men doing what she always did—playing hostess and listening.

Betty Ann checked and reported nothing was missing except a pair of slippers. Apparently Victoria left without any clothing. Even the robe she’d had on the night before when her father woke her was folded across the bed. Rose found the fact that Victoria left behind her half dozen trunks of new clothes far more shocking than the kidnapping. She could almost imagine Tori being led away at gunpoint and demanding to have her luggage travel with her.

Rose ordered breakfast brought into her sitting room, which had somehow become headquarters for the investigation. Hallie went with Betty Ann to count everything, including socks to make sure nothing except one pair of slippers was missing.

The hotel detective questioned the poor maid so harshly that Betty Ann started crying and screaming she wasn’t positive about any numbers on the undergarments. Miss Victoria might have bought more. She was always buying things. Or she might have tossed one away.

If Hallie hadn’t taken her out for another count, the poor maid would probably have been arrested for being an idiot. As they left, Rose caught Hallie’s glance and guessed her maid was looking for clues the detectives might have missed.

Once the room was reasonably quiet, Rose excused herself, went in the bedroom, and loaded her gun. Then, as calmly as if it were an ordinary day, she dressed and slipped the gun into the hidden pocket of her skirt, not because she thought she might need it, but simply because she believed in being prepared.

As she opened the wardrobe to put away the box of bullets, she looked inside, aware that something was missing but for a moment not being able to think of what it might be.

Rose stared as she let out a long breath and realized Tori hadn’t left without taking anything but shoes. She’d left wearing the yellow dress. She’d left everything behind that she owned but had stolen Rose’s terrible yellow dress.

If this were a kidnapping, it had to be up there as the dumbest one in Texas.

The lawmen were one room away. All she’d have to do was shout and they’d come running. But Rose simply closed the wardrobe door, realizing that her friend hadn’t bought the dress for a bridesmaid after all.

Victoria Chamberlain bought it for her getaway, but from whom or to whom, Rose had no idea.

When she returned to the sitting room, the sheriff was telling Betty Ann that if Miss Victoria were lucky she’d be returned after the ransom was paid. He said there had been another woman murdered in the streets of Hell’s Half Acre last night.

The news only made Betty Ann scream louder.

Chapter 12

“S
titch, you out here?” A whisper loud enough to
wake the drunks a half block away echoed off the buildings bordering the alley behind the Grand Hotel.

“I’m here, Miss Hallie,” Stitch mumbled as he sat up from the bed of his wagon. He could hear the rustle of her starched apron even before he saw her. When she took form out of the fog, for a moment his memory saw her almost nude, like she’d been the morning they’d met. She might look all proper now in her maid’s uniform, but Stitch remembered every curve.

“I’m sorry I’m so early bringing you some breakfast, but you wouldn’t believe all the mess going on upstairs. I decided to come down here to the quiet of the alley.”

“I overheard some of the staff talking. They found Miss Chamberlain yet?” He took the basket she carried with a nod of thanks.

“No. The poor girl’s just plain disappeared. She didn’t leave out the front door. No one saw her even come downstairs, and the desk clerk said he never left his post. There’s a night guard near the back and he says no one can leave the closed-in garden at night. So all I can figure is she jumped over the wall and ran off wearing nothing but her slippers.”

“I seen that ranger do it.”

“Do which part?” Hallie wiggled her eyebrows. “The running, the jumping, or the wearing nothing?”

Stitch laughed. “I seen the ranger jump over the wall.”

“What ranger?”

“The one who hired me to drive Miss Rose. He swings up in a tree and walks over the wall on a branch like it was nothing more than jumping a puddle. Miss Rose says he’s her cousin. Told me yesterday when we were riding around that he used to hang from the rafters like some kind of wild animal when he was a kid.”

Hallie giggled. “I must be going blind. Miss Rose is having a man visit and I didn’t even notice. Men climbing eight-foot walls and brides disappearing—it’s a strange place, I’ll say that much.”

“If Miss Chamberlain came out the north door, I would have noticed her. Not much gets past me out here.”

“Eat your breakfast.” Hallie tapped the basket. “I got you hot rolls with ham as fine as you’ve ever tasted stuffed in them.”

“Bossy, aren’t you,” Stitch said as he sat down on the wagon gate.

She joined him. “I guess I am, but somebody needs to tell you a thing or two. Stitch, there’s a whole world out there and you’re hiding away in this back alley. Sure you got scars, but they ain’t so bad folks wouldn’t get used to them if you gave them a chance.”

“You don’t need to keep bringing me meals just so you can tell me how to live. I can manage on my own. The cook will even let me order from the back door after the restaurant closes.”

Hallie crossed her arms over her large breasts. “I know what you get when you do that . . . the leftovers. The bottom of the bowl or the scrapings off someone’s plate.”

“It’s not bad eatings.”

She frowned at him. “Miss Rose wouldn’t think it’s good enough for you. She says you’re an honorable man, and honorable men don’t eat the leavings off plates.”

“I don’t mind. I’m not much more than a ‘bottom of the bowl’ kind of person, a man who’s been cut up so badly he looks like he’s made of scraps.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ve been hearing it all my life. I remember my pa telling me how worthless I was when I was little and couldn’t do anything. He’d yell at me till he got so drunk he’d get crazy, and then he’d start cutting on me. He didn’t want to kill me, just cut deep enough to make me cry. When I did, he’d start laughing, saying I was nothing more than a baby.

“After he died I helped my ma out until I got old enough to work cattle. I sent money home every month till the war came, and then I joined up.”

“Did you see much fighting?”

Stitch shook his head. “Halfway through I got captured and was told I could spend the rest of the war in prison or wear blue and fight on the frontier. I picked soldiering at a frontier post, but the Yanks hated those of us who switched because we were Rebs, and when I came home the southerners hated me because I switched. I’ve seen the street and I think right here suits me fine.”

Hallie hopped off the wagon gate. “Does this sad story come with hankies? You make me want to cry.”

Stitch laughed. “You’re not going to cut me any slack, are you, woman?”

“Nope. I decided a few years back I’d listened to enough sad stories to fill one lifetime and I didn’t plan on taking the overflow into the hereafter. Way I see it, if you’re still breathing, you’re walking away from the table a winner.”

“Did you grow up in a bed of rattlers? I was just talking to you, trying to be friendly.”

She huffed. “Maybe I’ve had one too many men being friendly.”

He had no reason to doubt her. “Fair enough. Thanks for the breakfast. How about we just nod at each other when we pass and save arguing?”

“Sounds fair.” She headed off toward the back door, then stopped halfway there. “Oh, I almost forgot, Miss Rose says she’ll be needing you in an hour. She plans to go over to the sheriff’s office and get everyone organized. Whoever kidnapped Miss Chamberlain is going to be real sorry when Rose gets through with them.”

“What makes you think she was kidnapped? She might have just run off. If she waited until real late at night, the drunks in this town probably wouldn’t notice a naked lady rushing by in her slippers.”

Hallie shook her head. “I don’t blame her. That’s what I would have done with a father like the major, but the missus doesn’t have any backbone.”