Fool for Love (Montana Romance) (15 page)

“Well, Mabel Twitchel said that she saw a group of Irish workers out near Eric’s ranch.  She thinks Curtis got rid of good men so that he could pay the Irishmen less.  And now they’ve been causing trouble in town and out that way.”

“If the only proof you have is the say-so of Mabel Twitchel, then I’m not ready to believe it,” M
ichael said, shaking his head.

Charlie huffed.

Eric had remained perfectly still throughout the entire argument.  When Michael and Charlie stopped bickering he muttered, “Curtis wouldn’t do that.”

Amelia’s heart twisted in her chest.  Eric was trying to convince himself.  The lines of his handsome face were tense with worry.  His eyes stared, unfocused, at his half-finished dinner.  The cheerful confidence that she ad
mired so much in him was gone.

“Is it possible to replenish a herd of cattle when its numbers have been cut in half?” she asked.

Eric was slow to shake out of his stupor as Amelia and Michael and Charlie waited for his answer.

“Depends.”  He shrugged.  “If it was just cows that were killed then yeah, with just a little time we could rebuild the herd to what it was and still have enough to sell.  But if the bulls were killed….”  He stopped then blew out a breath.  “Things could get expensive.”

“But things could still be recovered,” Amelia prompted him.  As eager as she was to rid Eric of the burden she presented, she couldn’t do it unless she was sure that he would be all right.

“Yeah,” Eric answered, rubbing the back of his neck with a wince.  “I guess so.  Trouble is, cash is the one thing I don’t have much of right now.”

“I’m sorry, Eric.”  Charlie sent him a sympathetic look.

“If I had known Curtis didn’t telegraph you I would have sent you something myself,” Michael added.

“Maybe he didn’t think there was any point in telegraphing me,” Eric mumbled.

“Why would you say that?” Amelia asked with a frown.

Eric returned her look with poorly concealed shame.  The menus from the ship rushed back to her.  The suspicions she’d had then flared.  A telegram would be no use if its recipient couldn’t read it.

Eric puffed out a breath as understanding tingled through Amelia.  He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair.  “Hell.  What am I doing sitting here eating steak and sipping wine when I should be home.”

He scraped his chair back from the table and stood.  Amelia and Michael stood with him.

“Why don’t you just telegraph Curtis and tell him about this Mr. Ben
ton Chase?” Michael suggested.

“Yeah,” Eric mumbled.  “Yeah, I’ll do that.”  His eyes met Amelia’s.  There was no chance his pride would let him
expose his weakness like that.

Eric backed away from the table.  “I gotta get out of here,” he said.  “We can hop the first train back to Cold Springs, ride out to the ranch and see what’s really going on.”

Amelia took a step toward him.  “If it’s for the best,” she found herself saying against her better judgment.

Eric turned to her, but it was Michael that spoke.

“By all means, take the next train back to Montana.  Tomorrow.  For now, sit.”  He motioned for Eric and Amelia to resume their seat.  “You’re not going to solve anything standing in a damp train station in the middle of the night.”

Eric looked to his friend, jaw clenched.  H
e rubbed a hand over his face.

“Mr. West has a point,” she said, swaying back into her own seat.

Eric watched her, brow furrowed.  She even picked up her fork for show.  He let out a breath and reached for his chair, seating himself at the table again.

“I suppose a couple of hours couldn’t hurt nothing,” he mumbled.

Michael sat as well, inching his chair in.  “We’ll come with you,” he said, checking with Charlie.  She nodded.  “Our business here is finished and frankly, I would rather go home than see a show or visit a museum.”

Eric nodded.  “I’m mighty grateful.”  He took up his knife and fork to cut a piece of his steak but lost his enthusiasm before he finished.  He set the utensils down with a sigh.

“Maybe things aren’t as bad as all that,” Charlie said.  She sat straighter and attempted a bright smile.  “Everything we’ve heard is second-hand anyhow.”

Amelia wanted to believe Charlie West was right.  She wanted Eric to be safe, for his ranch to be in good hands.  She wanted to know that the work she’d done to connect Eric and Ben Chase was worth something, that she’d repaid him in full fo
r the kindness he’d shown her.

Instead her heart sank.  She knew too much of the world to get her hopes up.

Chapter Nine

Eric strode through the upstairs hall toward his and Amelia’s room like a thunder cloud was ready to boom over his head.  It didn’t matter how much reassurance Michael or Charlie, or even Amelia, had tried to give him.  Something was dead wrong at home, and this whole time he’d been too stupid to notice.

“The concierge said there was a train leaving for Chicago at 8:45 tomorrow morning,” Amelia said, as grumpy as he was, as he pushed open the door and stomped into their neat room.  “In just over twelve hours we’ll be on our way.”

He shut the door behind her with a little more force than was ne
cessary then spun to face her.

“Oh, so it’s we now?”

He shrugged out of his suit coat and tossed it toward a stuffed chair by the fireplace.  It missed and crumpled to the ground.

She planted her hands on her fists with a huff.  “Eric, I made a promise to you that I would not attempt to leave you again until we reach Montana.  Unlike mo
st people, I keep my promises.”

“Right.”  He plopped on the bed and reached to pull off his boots.  “But once we’re in Montana….”

She crossed the room to glower in front of him.  “You had no right to tell your friends we are married!”

“I didn’t tell them!”  He threw one boot to the floor and reached for the other.  “They assumed.”

“You didn’t correct them.”

“And what would have happened if I had, huh?”  He paused and stared up at her.  Her lips twitched with ire.  “You’d have had a hell of a lot of explaining to do on the spot,
Miss
Elphick!”

He threw the second boot on the floor.

Amelia swallowed several quick breaths before saying, “I would have told them I was a widow.  That was the original plan, was it not?”

“Yeah?  Well plans change.  You of all people should know that!”

He stood and shrugged off his suspenders, crossing the room to the bureau.  He was halfway through undoing his cufflinks before it hit him that Amelia hadn’t argued back.  He turned to face her.

She stood beside the bed, shoulders hunched and heaving.  Her hands were pressed to her face as silent tears spilled down her cheeks.

Hellfire.

“What’s wrong, darling?” he asked, ignoring his cufflinks and crossing back to her.  He swept her into his arms and laid a hand on her head when she buried her face against his shoulder.

He was halfway to rubbing her back when she yanked away.

“No.  No I can’t do this,” she said, forcing a deep breath into her lungs.  “I can’t take advantage of your generosity anymore.”

Eric stood there, at a complete loss.  “I have no idea in hell what you’re talking about.”

Amelia shook her head and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.  “I don’t know how to be any clearer.”

Eric rested his weight on one hip, crossing his arms.  “Is this something English?  Because we left that soggy mess behind us over a week ago.”

Judging by the fire and brimstone that flared in Amelia’s eyes, that wasn’t it at all.

“What are you going to say to your friends, to your lovely, respectable friends, when they find out that your pretend wife comes from a family of disgraced whores?  That she’s-”  she snapped her mouth shut and looked away.

“I’ll tell them what I’d tell anybody,” Eric said, going back to his cufflinks.  “I’ll tell them life just kinda got away from you for a while and that it isn’t your fault.”  He set his cufflinks on the bureau and started unbuttoning his shirt.

“Life doesn’t just get away, Eric.”  She rounded on him.  “My downfall was most certainly my own fault.”  Her voice shrank to a whisper.

“Bullshit!” he barked, and this time he wouldn’t apologize.  “Now come here!”

“No.”

He ignored her answer and strode up to sweep her into his arms.

“Eric, let go of me!”  She wriggled against him.

“You like Michael and Charlie, I could tell.”  He wasn’t about to let her get away.

“What I think is irrelevant.  When they find out-”

“They won’t give a shit,” he finished for her.  “This isn’t hoity-toity old London, it’s Cold Springs, Montana.”

“It’s New York City,” she corrected him, stiff and angry.

“And you liked the sound of Cold Springs too,” he ignored her.  “You shoulda seen your eyes light up when Charlie said that about you teaching in the school.”

“If I did, it was in shock that she would agree to someone like me educating her children.”

“And when Michael said that about my ranch being in trouble….”  He paused, clenching his jaw before saying, “You were worried about me.  I could see it.”

“No I wasn’t.”  She tried and failed to jerk out of his arms.

“Now you’re just being ornery for ornery’s sake.”

He put a stop to whatever argument she was planning by closing his mouth overtop of hers.  A growl of protest sounded from her throat but was swallowed as he slid his tongue along hers.  She tasted so good, like coffee and fire.  He continued to kiss her, spreading his hands across her back and nibbling on her lower lip, until she settled against him.

“That’s more like it,” he hummed.  “Now get undressed.  It’s time for bed.”

She stared at his mouth, her eyes hazy and hooded.  A heartbeat later his words registered.

“No, Eric,” she said, pulling away.  He wasn’t ready and she escaped before he could hold her.

“Yes, Amelia.”

She slipped around the bed to the bureau where her things were laid out.  “We can’t.”

“Yes, we can.”  He finished unbuttoning his shirt and tossed it on the floor beside his boots.

His bare chest had just the effect on her that he knew it would.  Her eyes lingered and the top of her tongue stole out to tease across her lips.  Hell, she could make him crazy with a look like that.  Everything about her screamed ‘Jump me, Eric!’

He took advantage of her hesitation to catch her in his arms again.  “Explain to me why for the last seven days you’ve been happy as a kitten with milk to do all manner of unladylike things with me, but the second we set foot on dry land you bolt?”

“I never should have succumbed in the first place,” she murmured, her body pressing into his like she was more than ready to succumb again.

“Too late for that.”  Much too late.  He stroked a hand along her cheek and bent to capture her mouth with his.

He kissed her, molding her fully clothed body to his bare chest as his lips teased hers apart.  The contour of her belly against his made his heart jump.  He dropped his hand to brush the side.  As usual, she tried to push
his hand away.

“Stop fighting,” he whispered against her lips.  “I love every part of you, even this part.”

“How can you?” she whimpered.

“Like this.”

His hand circled from the side of her stomach across her back as his mouth plundered hers.  He needed to get her clothes off, and fast.

“How ‘bout we get fully naked and study each other’s bumps,” he whispered, liking the idea more with each urgent second.

“Eric,” she hummed his name.  He couldn’t tell if it was a plea for mercy or an entreaty of surrender, but he knew a woman who wanted a tumble when he held her in his arms.

He helped Amelia undress as fast as he could.  His fingers flew over the rows of buttons at her back.  She rolled her head away from him as he kissed the long plain of her neck.  For a moment he thought he caught sight of a painful wince on her face, but it disappeared before he was sure it was real.  Together they stripped off her clothes and his pants and tumbled under the sheets of the fancy hotel bed.

She was heaven stretched out beside him.  Eric smoothed his hands across the long lines of Amelia’s sides, reveling in the curve of her hips, the rise of her belly, the mounds of her breasts.  She was perfection, everything that God had intended in a woman.  For all her protests minutes before, as he brushed his fingertips around the swell of her breast and nibbled on her lips, she cooed with pleasure.  She liked his touch, loved his kiss.  She couldn’t hide it.

He rolled her to her back, catching her hands and holding them on the pillow at the sides of her head.  He’d forgotten to take her hair down again and the sweet length of her neck was exposed in all its glory.  He left one more deep kiss on her lips then moved to nip and nuzzle her neck.  Her pulse thumped out against his mouth, fast and eager.  He loved that about her, the honesty of blood rushing through her.  She was alive and hungry for him.