A Hard Ride Home (12 page)

"I can fire a gun, Emmett. And maybe one or two of the girls can, but we can't defend ourselves if the mayor comes down here. I need Roscoe. And Jesse's a decent shot when he needs to be. They'll stay."

"I don't think it's safe."

"None of this is. But I've got half a dozen girls under my care, and I'm not leaving them defenseless while you ride off with your deputies to raise hell in some town that isn't even in your jurisdiction."

"Fairhaven's got no law, you know that."

"I don't see why you can't raid the mine and send half your deputies back to town to defend it when Warren comes to torch us all," Evelyn said irritably.

"Half? I'm riding with two other men, not an army."

She looked up at him, her lips pale. Without the rouge, she looked pinched, tired. "And if all three of you die, what of us then, Sheriff?"

"We're not going to die."

"You don't know that."

"You're right. I don't." Emmett reached out to push a curl behind her ear. Her wild red hair tumbled around her face and down her back, not pinned and primped.

She glared at him. "You're digging our graves."

"You don't know that," he said pointedly.

"You did this, Emmett."

"No, I didn't. But I'm finishing it."

Jesse woke up with a headache. That wasn't particularly unusual. But the thoroughly plain room he woke up in was very unusual. He squinted at the bare, candlelit walls. The last thing he remembered was walking down the hill from the big house and seeing a horse ride at him sideways.

"Shit," he gasped, sitting up sharply.

Emmett jerked out of a doze in the chair beside the bed, his hand jutting to his gun belt.

"Whoa—whoa. It's just me," Jesse said, holding out his palms to show Emmett he wasn't armed.

"You're awake," Emmett said loudly, leaning toward the bed. His hands hovered aimlessly, just shy of Jesse's skin.

"I… am." Jesse looked down. "Why am I naked?"

"You drugged yourself, idiot."

"Did I take my clothes off before that?"

Emmett made a face. "Doc was worried, he thought—"

"He was checking me over, I get it," Jesse said with a quick hand wave. He didn't want to talk about that. The last thing he wanted to think about was old Milton examining him to make sure Warren didn't leave any love bites.

"I didn't look." Emmett filled a tin cup with water from the pitcher by his bedside and handed it over. The water was warm but tasted clean, and it washed away the dingy taste of old whiskey and the sticky dry feeling in Jesse's throat.

He finished it quickly and hung onto the empty cup, cringing. "The map?"

"We have it." Emmett grinned at him, one faint dimple making his smile go lopsided. He looked like a boy playing dress-up with a wooden gun and spurs. "We're leaving in a few hours before they have time to get organized."

"A few hours from now?"

"Don't be scared. Roscoe will stay at the Weeping Willow, and we won't be but a day."

"I didn't say I was scared!" Jesse set the cup down on the stand. "Got a right to be concerned, I think."

A shy smile hung on Emmett's features. "For me?"

"And Charley, and farmer Durn. And Roscoe and the girls," Jesse said in a hurry, trying to sound cross. It was difficult when Emmett looked so pleased with himself.

"I was worried you'd sleep too long. I need you to go back to the Weeping Willow and stay with the others when we leave."

"Well, I'm not asleep now. Turn over my clothes and boots and I'll be off."

Emmett glanced at the pile of dusty clothes and boots in the corner, and then turned back and leaned over the bed and kissed Jesse with an awkward, dry peck to his mouth.

Jesse laughed. It felt sticky and dry in his throat.

"What's so funny?" Emmett drew back and scowled, freckles darkening in the dim candlelight.

They might die tomorrow. The knowledge of it knotted up somewhere beneath Jesse's ribs, but it set his heart beating fast too. It was like they were tumbling in a rockslide. It was too late to stop, so Jesse grinned, feeling crazy, and said, "You. If you're gonna kiss me, do it right."

"And I suppose you're—"

"A professional? You could say that."

The bed wasn't big enough for the two of them. Emmett climbed in at Jesse's feet and fitted himself over Jesse carefully, the blanket bunching up between them. He looked down, breathing hard like he was nervous.

"Easy," Jesse whispered, taking him by the shirt to pull him down into a strong kiss, the kind that made his skin burn, stubble rubbing together, lips pressing hard, mouths open wide. When Emmett pulled back to catch his breath, a smear of Jesse's blood dotted his bottom lip.

Jesse dabbed his tongue at the tear at the inside of his lip and ground his hips at Emmett's to show him how they could rub like that, finding satisfaction in the pressure and the friction.

"I want you," Emmett said hoarsely, body twitching down at Jesse like he couldn't figure out how to get what he needed. He kissed Jesse's jaw, and Jesse tilted his chin up to show Emmett where else to kiss, that he could kiss him all over if he wanted.

Cause that was all he wanted, he just wanted Emmett's hands and mouth on him.

"Am I hurting you?" Emmett asked, looking up Jesse's body from the wet mark he'd sucked at the skin near Jesse's navel.

"No. No. What?" Jesse had lost track of time, lost track of everything. "Why?"

"You cried out."

Jesse made an eager, frustrated sound and pushed Emmett's forehead, trying to urge him down between his legs. "Fuck, no. Good. Good, Emmett, please."

He was never this crazed for it. He prided himself on being aware of his body, on knowing exactly what was happening, but right now he felt lost, as if he might float away without Emmett pinning his hips down and kissing his belly.

When his cock brushed at the stinging-sharp stubble on Emmett's face, he arched, covering his mouth with his hand to keep from scaring Emmett off from what he was doing. "Will you do it? Will you do that again, like you did before?"

Emmett took a loose hold on Jesse's cock and gave it a dry stroke, watching Jesse's face. He looked so satisfied with himself that Jesse wanted to give him a good knee to the ribs.

"Don't." It was just a harsh puff of breath. He didn't want to play games, not now. He wanted so bad it was like a sickness. "Don't tease."

Emmett's expression sobered, turned to something like determination. He nodded once and set to licking up the length of Jesse's shaft. He barely fit on the bed, and Jesse could tell he was rutting gently at the mattress as he licked messily, wetting his own fingers as much as Jesse's flushed, tight skin.

Jesse gave up trying to watch. He closed his eyes and noised against his hand and let the dizziness carry him off like he was drunk. Emmett's mouth felt warm, and wet, and when he set to sucking, Jesse held his breath and tried to keep his hips still so he wouldn't thrust.

He didn't last for very long, and forgot to stop and catch his spill. He didn't even think about it until he was breathing like he was drowning and Emmett was there at his mouth again, kissing him and tasting like seed.

"Let me," Jesse gasped, reaching, trying.

"I um, I'm fine. I didn't need much help." Emmett pulled out of the kiss to look down at Jesse sheepishly, touching his face all over.

Jesse had seen a blind man do that once. He'd come into the Weeping Willow hobbling on a heavy cane, and he'd touched each girl gently, walking his fingertips over her face and her jaw and her ears.

That was how Jesse felt now, like nobody'd ever seen him before.

"Shit," he exhaled. There wasn't much more he could say. He was good and smitten.

*~*~*

Before the sun broke on the horizon, Emmett asked the young seamstress at the Weeping Willow to sew Jesse's blue ribbon into his pocket.

Sara smiled at him knowingly and stitched it neatly to the underside of the fabric. "In stories, knights wore ribbons on their arms as signs of their ladylove's affection."

"It isn't—he's not…" Emmett scrubbed his fingers at the back of his neck and watched her needle fly.

"Sure he is, Sheriff." Sara handed him his shirt.

It was quiet out back as they saddled up. Ira held Sara and kissed her hair and her temple, murmuring too softly to be heard. Emmett expected her to cry and carry on, but she simply touched his face and nodded.

Jesse stood beside Emmett's horse, stroking the mare's nose, his brow creased in a frown as he watched Ira and Sara. He looked down as he spoke, his eyes shadowed, tired-looking. "I don't much know what to say."

"You got until tomorrow to figure it out," Emmett said, giving his mare a little rein until she sidestepped in an antsy circle. "We'll be back before noon."

He glanced at the stairs, where the girls stood close together, faces bare and open. In their nightgowns, they looked like children. Only Evelyn was dressed—a somber brown frock making her look more like a schoolmarm than a madam.

"Don't dally," she called out, wrapping her arm around Delia and holding her close.

Roscoe carried a rifle in one hand, slinging it with an ease that soothed some of the tension Emmett felt leaving the Weeping Willow behind with only Roscoe and Jesse to defend the girls.

When Emmett gave Jesse a quick tip of his hat, Jesse rolled his eyes. But he didn't turn away quickly enough to hide the soft smile that lit up his eyes as sure as the sunrise.

They rode away in the gray morning light, setting a hard pace across the foothills to the old silver mine where Warren Grady had stockpiled enough ammunition to outfit a small army. The map was clear, leading them directly to the rocky outcropping that masked the boarded up entrance.

Despite Evelyn's assurances, Emmett still feared finding an empty mine—or worse, some kind of trap. He hadn't seen any fresh tracks around the entrance, but that didn't guarantee it was safe inside.

"Hold back," he said, gesturing to Charley and Ira.

As he suspected, the boards covering the old mine entrance were loose and swung open easily without snapping. He slipped through the narrow opening, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. After a few shuffling steps, relief caught him like a whirlwind. Pallet after pallet crowded the narrow passage, each piled high with ammunition boxes. Altogether it was more stock than he'd seen in even a big city store. It looked like Warren had been redirecting deliveries for some time.

Emmett called for Charley and Ira. "Take what you can. We'll have to come back for more later. Maybe bring a few wagons," he said, filling his saddlebags quickly. They wouldn't be able to carry too much, especially with the ride out to Fairhaven ahead of them, but it would be enough for now.

"Sheriff," Ira said sharply. He held up a sheet of canvas to show Emmett the substantial stack of dynamite beneath. It was enough to blow them halfway to the moon. "We ought to clear out in a hurry.

Charley looked up from opening a crate full of boxes of cartridges. "It's safe enough, long as we don't fuss with it."

"Be careful anyway," Emmett said, though he didn't have to. All three of them skirted around the pallet of dynamite cautiously, as if too hard a footfall might set it all off.

In no time at all, they were loaded up with ammunition and spare rifles.

"Why didn't they have this place guarded?" Ira asked, watching Charley and Emmett hammer the loose boards back in with a couple of rocks and bent nails. He took a moment to clean his spectacles with the inside of his shirt.

"It's a good sign." Emmett looked back at the horizon, toward Silver Creek. "It means my father doesn't know we have the map."

Charley dusted his hands off. "Then Willie won't be ready for us either."

"They say he has half a dozen men around him all the time," Ira said. "We have the element of surprise, but we're still outnumbered."

Emmett shook his head. "By Evelyn's accounts, every man in that gang is wanted for thievery or murder. But they're lowlifes, and likely to be carrying weapons in disrepair. I believe surprise will go a long way."

"Do you aim to arrest them?" Ira asked.

Considering the laws he'd sworn to uphold, Emmett hesitated. Then he thought about Delia, orphaned on the plains, and about those left to rot with no decent graves and no one left to mourn. He thought about Jesse's mother, held hostage with no knowledge of the bargain her son had struck. "We'll shoot to kill," he said. "Any man left alive would continue to be a hazard to the townsfolk in Fairhaven."

Their shadows pooled around their feet like tar, the sun so hot it felt like steady pressure. This kind of heat could addle a man in less a day. They'd have to water the horses soon.

"We can reach Fairhaven before nightfall," Emmett said, saddling up. "Either one of you are welcome to ride on home if this isn't what you had in mind. I know it ain't within the confines of the law."

"Sheriff, I've seen things on these plains I'll take to my grave with me. Things I'm mighty eager to put a stop to," Ira said.

Charley smiled, his teeth brilliantly white. "If I don't keep an eye on Durn here, I suspect my sister will have my hide."

Emmett had been something of a loner at school, keeping his head low amongst the city-born boys who poked fun at his hair and then kept quiet when he grew tall and broad and laid one or two out for mouthing off. He'd never made what he'd call a friend, and he hoped, standing beside Ira and Charley, that they might become men he could call just that. "All right then," he said, excitement and nerves mingling like buzzing flies in his gut. First, they had to survive. "Let's ride."

*~*~*

Fairhaven wasn't much of a town. It rested along the gentle slope of a river valley north of Silver Creek. Little more than a cluster of sod houses adjacent to pastures, it did boast one tall barn and a little town square with a well.

Emmett and his deputies rode in just after nightfall, picking their way along a well-trod path in the moonlight. Fires flickered and the wind carried the sounds of laughter. Just down the river from Fairhaven, the outlaw Willie had set up a permanent camp. The smell of roast meat made Emmett's stomach give an eager lurch.