Printer in Petticoats (11 page)

“Yes,” he said. Just that one word, and then he was kissing her everywhere, his mouth hungry, searching, and she was floating up and up to heaven.

He moved over her, nudged her legs apart with his knee. “It might hurt for a minute,” he whispered.

“I don't care. I want to be with you.”

“I'll make this part fast.” He thrust into her and she felt a quick, sharp pain, and then it was over and he was moving deep inside her. It felt wonderful. She felt so intimately connected to him she wondered if she was dreaming.

“Look at me, Jess,” he said quietly.

She opened her eyes and met his gaze. They were moving together, even breathing in and out together, and suddenly she felt indescribably happy.

In the next instant something swelled and flowered inside her and she soared away on waves of pleasure.

Oh, this is heaven
.

“Jess,” Cole said hoarsely. “Oh, God, Jess.” His body went still, and then he was holding her and whispering something and she felt like weeping.

After a long minute he rolled to one side, taking her with him. When he pulled her close his cheeks were wet.

* * *

Cole liked Jessamine Lassiter, liked her quiet courage, her curiosity, her quick sense of humor. But he didn't want to
need
her. Or for her to matter too much to him. He liked being with her, sharing scrambled eggs and critiquing each other's newspapers.

He liked being close to her, too. Close enough to touch her, smell her hair. Close enough to kiss her. And he liked kissing her, maybe too much. But he needed to be able to walk away from her.

It would be more than he could stand to lose another woman he loved. After Maryann died he felt shattered inside, as if his bones had splintered and his muscles had dried up and were crumbling into dust. Days passed when he couldn't remember what he'd done; had he eaten? Or spoken to anyone? Had he even left his quiet, empty house?

The weeks had blended into months when he drank too much and thought too much and ached too much, and when the memory of Maryann finally became tolerable, he felt as dead inside as the stuffed eagle mounted over his fireplace mantel.

But he would never forget what it was like to lose her, and that hell he vowed he would never experience again.

So what are you doing here in Jessamine's bed?

Being hungry for connection. Being full of wanting and grateful for solace.

Being a damn fool.

Chapter Fourteen

J
ess opened her eyes to find Cole propped up on one elbow, studying her. “Merry Christmas,” he said quietly.

“Merry Christmas.” She snuggled her face against his neck, suddenly shy.

“There's something for you in your top desk drawer downstairs.”

“Oh!” She hadn't received a present since her brother died. In her bare feet, she padded down the stairs and slid open the center drawer.

Lying on a folded square of yellow calico lay a shiny silver derringer pistol. She smoothed one finger over the polished barrel, then picked it up and weighed it in her hand. It would just fit in her skirt pocket!

Just for pretend, she aimed at the calendar on the wall above Eli's font case, sighted down the barrel and slid her finger onto the trigger. The gun discharged with a deafening roar.

She screamed.

“Jess? You okay?”

“Y-yes.”

Then she heard Cole's laughter from upstairs. “Should have told you it's loaded.”

Trembling, she stared at the ruined calendar where she had drilled a hole smack in the middle of December. Cole appeared on the staircase, dressed in nothing but a worried frown.

“Jess?”

“I—I'm fine,” she said. “But Eli's c-calendar is ruined.”

He walked down the stairs and lifted the pistol out of her trembling hand, set it on her desk and wrapped his arms around her. “It's for people like Arbuckle, not target practice,” he said with a laugh.

“Of c-course. Thank you, Cole.”

“Better come back to bed before the sheriff gets here.” He lifted her into his arms and carried her back up the stairs, then curled up under the quilt with her until she stopped shaking. It was wonderful being close to him. She felt more alive than she had ever felt.

Except...

“Cole?” She burrowed her head against his shoulder.

“Yeah?” Cole combed his fingers gently through the dark waves he'd carefully unpinned the night before.

“About last night... I've never done anything like this before.”

“I know.”

“Does it matter?”

“Sure, it matters. I want it to matter. Did you like it?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then it matters in the right way.”

She said nothing for a long time. Then, “You were married before, were you not?”

“Yes. Three years ago.”

“Do—do you ever think about her?”

“Yes, I do, Jess. I think about her every day.”

Her face changed, but she said nothing.

“I guess when you love someone you always love them,” he added. “Even when you—”

He broke off. He wasn't ready to admit what he'd been about to say.

“Even when you what?”

“Jess, it must be obvious how I feel about you. But I have to be honest, I don't ever want to get married again. It hurts too much if something happens.”

“You know, I didn't much like you when you first came to Smoke River,” she said slowly. “In fact, I hated you. I thought you were nothing but male swagger and know-it-all arrogance.”

“And what do you think now?” he asked carefully.

She sighed softly, and her breath tickled his chest hair.

“I think you have a very manly swagger and,” she said with a giggle, “that you think you know almost everything. But you are not arrogant. I think you are a good man, Cole. And I understand how you feel about marriage. I feel much the same way. I wouldn't want to give up my independence. Or my newspaper.”

He laughed out loud. He couldn't help it. He felt so damn good this morning she could walk all over him with words sharp as railroad spikes and he'd still be smiling into her hair.

And then she surprised him again.

“Cole, I don't feel very experienced. Or very grown-up. You know, very...well, you know what I mean.”

He moved his hand to her breast. “You're plenty grown-up, Jess. And experience comes with—” he kissed her erect nipple “—experience.”

Jess closed her eyes. Being with this man was glorious beyond imagining.

Much later she drowsily opened her eyes and realized with a jolt that it was no longer morning, it was afternoon. “This is scandalous,” she whispered.

“Yeah. Do you like it?”

“Oh, yes. But I'm getting a little hungry.”

He sighed. “Then I guess we'll have to get out of bed.”

They dressed and walked down to the restaurant. When they ordered, Rita's graying eyebrows rose. “You want eggs and bacon? Folks, it's three in the afternoon. Where have you—”

The waitress turned a rosy shade of pink and snapped her mouth shut. When her back was turned, Cole lifted Jessamine's hand to his lips.

“Scandalous,” he murmured. “In bed all night and half the day.”

Jess sucked in a breath and snatched her hand back before Rita saw them. “I—I have an idea for the next issue of the
Sentinel
,” she said quickly.

Cole groaned. “Back to rivalry as usual, is it? Okay, what's your idea?”

“Listen to this. The election for district judge is January first. Before then, we could run a series of articles comparing—”

“Nope. I'm not printing one more damn word about Conway Arbuckle.”

“As it happens,” Jessamine said, her eyes narrowing slightly the way they always did when she thought she was going to scoop him, “I have some interesting new information about Mr. Arbuckle.”

Cole stared at the woman he'd taken to bed the night before and then closed his eyes. It was entirely possible, he thought in mounting frustration, that he'd fallen in love with the last woman in the universe he should have.

“Cole?”

He snapped his lids open but couldn't think of one thing to say.

“Cole, I hope that...” She lowered her voice. “That what happened last night and, um, this morning, won't affect our, um, professional relationship.”

“It sure as hell will,” he murmured. While they stared at each other, Rita tiptoed over with two platters of scrambled eggs and bacon and fluffy sourdough biscuits.

“You two goin' to war again?” she said.

Under the table Cole caught Jessamine's hand in his and squeezed gently. “Type fonts at twenty paces?” he whispered.

Jessamine smiled. Purposely she began to worry her teeth over her bottom lip and watched his eyes darken.

Chapter Fifteen

C
ole slapped down the morning edition of Jessamine's
Sentinel
onto his desk, opened it to page two and bolted to his feet.

Conway Arbuckle Fakes

Law Degree

Harvard College reports no attendance record for Conway Arbuckle!

The candidate for district judge has lied about his credentials.

“What the—?” This was enough to get her shot or pistol-whipped or worse. “What does she think she's doing?” He crumpled the front page in his fist and headed for the boardwalk.

“Don't yell at her,” Noralee called. He slammed the door without answering.

“Jess,” he shouted, bursting into her office across the street. “You can't print this!” He tried not to shout, but his voice rose anyway.

She looked up from her desk, her face unperturbed, and removed the pencil she had clamped between her teeth. “Yes,” she said calmly, “I can print it. In fact, I already have. Billy made his rounds an hour ago.”

He leaned over her. “I mean you can't print this stuff without proof.”

“I have proof,” she said, her voice cool. “If you'd bothered to read the entire article, you would know that.”

“What proof?” he challenged. “Where'd you dream up this cockamamy story?” By God, Jessamine Lassiter would try the patience of a stone statue. He couldn't begin to imagine about what Arbuckle's response would be.

“The telegraph, of course,” she said. “Move over, Cole. You're blocking my light.”

“Jess, listen to me.”

“Oh, don't get so excited. You should be congratulating me.”

“Oh, yeah? What the heck for?”

“For taking a lesson from you. I had Charlie Kincaid at the station house send a telegram to Harvard College. They have no record of Conway Arbuckle's attendance. Ever.”

Cole just stared at her. True, this came under the heading of responsible journalism, but it was still dangerous. “Jess, your own brother was shot by an irate reader. Aren't you worried about repercussions?”

“Yes, I am, actually,” she admitted. “I—I don't want to get shot or burned out again. But a good newspaper reports the news—you said so yourself. And the telegram I received from Boston yesterday is just that, news.”

Ice water pumped into his veins. His belly was already a puddle of mush. “Jess, stop and think a minute.”

“Don't yell at me, Cole. I'm nervous enough as it is.”

He strode around the corner of her desk, removed the pencil she'd stuck between her teeth and hauled her up into his arms. “I'd die before I'd let anything happen to you, Jess. But how can I keep you safe when you're your own worst enemy?”

“On the contrary,” she retorted, her voice rising an octave. “I am not being my own worst enemy. I am being a good friend to my newspaper.”

He released a groan of frustration. “I'm going to have to stick to you closer than glue until this election is over. Closer than printer's ink.”

“Well, I hardly think—”

“Then don't think,” he snapped.

In the far corner, Eli ducked his head and pretended unusual interest in his type stick. “Not much chance of that,” he muttered.

Jessamine tightened her lips. “I am surrounded by a couple of overprotective bullies who—”

“No, ya ain't, Jess,” Eli sputtered. “Listen to the man and don't interrupt.”

Cole shot the old man a grateful look. “Now, either Eli sticks to you twenty-four hours a day for the next...”

He glanced at Eli, who held up the fingers of one gnarled hand. “...five days, or I will. Which is it?”

“Surely you don't mean twenty-four whole hours? Day and...well, night?”

“That's exactly what I mean.”

“But that would be—”

“Scandalous,” he said softly. “I know that.”

“Sensible, though,” Eli interjected. He gave Cole a surreptitious thumbs-up and immediately busied himself with his font case.

“I can set up my cot down here,” Cole announced.

“For five whole days?” Her voice rose an octave.

“And nights,” he growled.

“I—I can't let you—”

“You can't stop me,” he interrupted. “Unless you want to shoot me with that new pistol of yours.” He sent her a challenging look.

“Well!” she huffed. “You can be sure I am certainly thinking about doing just that.”

“Thinking about what? Shooting me or letting me set up a cot in your office?”

Jessamine gritted her teeth. Shooting him had crossed her mind, but the truth was that the thought of Cole sleeping all night just a staircase away from her made her feel hot and cold all over.

Mostly hot.

What was she thinking?
She could not possibly let him stay here at night. On the other hand, she quailed at the thought of being threatened or attacked.

“What will people think?”

“Nuthin',” Eli volunteered. “Cole kin come on over here after ever'body in town's gone to bed, and I ain't gonna say a word.”

“Case closed,” Cole announced. “Now, about that telegram you sent to Harvard.”

Jess bit her lip. “What about it?”

“Hell, I wish you'd never sent it.”

“It's too late. I did send it, and I received an answer. I wanted to expose Conway Arbuckle. And,” she added, “I wanted to pay him back for having my office torched. Sheriff Silver even said he suspected Arbuckle was behind it.”

“Jess, revenge has no place in good journalism. You have to have proof to accuse Arbuckle of setting that fire. Even if it's plain to you and me that he did it to get back at you for what you printed about him, the sheriff can't arrest him without proof. And Jericho didn't find anything concrete that ties him to the fire.”

“Oh, I know that. But it still galls me that Arbuckle did what he did and he's not behind bars.”

Cole propped his hands on his hips. “You haven't read the lead article in Friday's
Lark
, have you?”

“Well, no, I haven't. What does it say?”

“You'll read it on Friday. In the meantime...”

Eli chuckled. “In the meantime, Cole, whyn'tcha go get yer cot and set it up tonight?”

“Good thinking, Eli. Every newspaper needs a man like you.”

“Aw, shucks, Cole. Don't take no thought a'tall to care about Miss Jessamine, now, do it?”

Cole gritted his teeth and didn't answer.

Jessamine closed her mouth and began counting the hours until dark when Cole would be there.

* * *

He could hear Jessamine moving around upstairs, making little rustling noises and humming snatches of melodies he couldn't identify. Her footsteps made the floor creak, but he knew she was barefoot because there was no other sound.

Was she glad he was here, tossing on his narrow cot a floor below her? He wondered suddenly where she'd stashed her new derringer—in her desk drawer? Under her pillow? Now that he thought about it, under her pillow wouldn't be such a smart idea. If he climbed the stairs, she might shoot him.

He folded his arms under his head and wondered if Eli would mind if he drank some of the whiskey he kept stashed under the cabinet. He felt more than a little unhinged, partly because he was sleeping here, so close to Jess, but even more because he couldn't
not
sleep here. His gut tightened at the thought of Arbuckle sneaking into the premises at night. He kept listening for footsteps.

There was something else, too. He was more than a little puzzled about why she had allowed them only one night of making love together.

Because she's a real lady, and a man doesn't dally with a real lady.

That night with Jess had been the best Christmas present he'd ever received, and that included nights with his wife, back in Kansas. He didn't feel disloyal, exactly. He just felt hot and kind of squashed-up inside when he thought of Jess or heard her voice or touched her. Even accidentally grazing her arm under those buttoned-up long-sleeved shirtwaists proper ladies wore made him need to shift his jeans around some.

He flopped over onto his other side. He'd locked the front door and hadn't lit a lamp; no one out walking at night would know that he was camped out in her office.

Suddenly he spied something out the front window, a shadowy figure across the way, lounging under the overhang of the
Lark
office.

He sat up.

He hoped to hell Jess had not lit the lamp upstairs. After a few minutes the figure moved on down the street and Cole lay down again. Maybe someone had just stopped to roll a cigarette. Lord, he was jumpy as a green mustang.

He had just closed his eyes a second time when he heard the faint
scrick
of the doorknob turning. Very slowly he slid off the cot and reached underneath for his Winchester.

He waited. After a long moment he heard an odd noise, like someone scratching a hairpin into the lock. He bolted off the cot and crept to the front window for a closer look. Sure enough, a dark figure was bent over the doorknob.

Cole stood without moving, weighing the situation and his options. He could fire at the man out the front window, scare him off, maybe even wing him. But that would scare the heck out of Jess, and then he'd never know who the man was.

Or he could position himself behind the door and wait until the lock yielded, then confront whoever it was.

No, he couldn't. If the fellow was armed, there might be gunplay, and Jess could get hurt.

He decided to make a noise and startle the man into leaving. Quietly he backed away from the window, reached for the rollup top on Jess's desk and slid it up and down with a hard rattle and snap.

Footsteps pounded down the boardwalk. Cole strained his ears listening for a horse, but he heard nothing more. So the man was on foot, not horseback. And that suggested it was someone from town.

Quietly Cole unbolted the lock and cracked open the door.

He could hear men's laughter from the saloon down the street, the snip and twitter of night birds, even the lonely whistle of a train somewhere. Night sounds.

But no horses' hooves. No gunfire. Nothing but the ominous quiet of a dark street in the middle of the night.

He shut the door, locked and bolted it, slid his rifle back under the cot and lay down on top of the quilt. The rhythmic thump-thump he heard was his own heartbeat, and he smiled wryly into the dark and wondered how many hours until dawn.

First thing tomorrow he'd pay another visit to Sheriff Jericho Silver.

* * *

Jessamine bent over the proofs Eli had run off, working her teeth into her pencil. She had a bad feeling about this election. She believed Jericho Silver could win a majority of the votes, but she could not help wondering what Conway Arbuckle would do if he lost the race. She hadn't seen the man lately, at the hotel or anywhere else, and Rosie Greywolf reported that he had not visited his “other wife” all week.

Rosie kept her sharp eye on town happenings and she missed nothing. Usually. But the Indian woman did live in a cabin half a mile outside town, so she couldn't see everything that went on twenty-four hours a day.

Tomorrow the townspeople would vote, along with residents of Gillette Springs, which would fall under the new judge's jurisdiction. No doubt Arbuckle was out this very minute canvassing votes in that community.

She was so worked up that when she inadvertently smeared the ink on her proof copy she unexpectedly burst into tears, then went ahead and let herself have a good cry. She couldn't imagine what was wrong with her. Nerves, probably. She hadn't been sleeping much at night, knowing Cole lay just twelve steps away.

She liked having him near. Liked feeling protected. But still... Oh, she felt all mixed up inside. She couldn't just tiptoe down the stairs and crawl into his bed at night. He still had his memories of his wife, and she... Well, it wouldn't be fair to grow too close to him, since there was really no future in it for either of them. Yes, she had fallen in love with him, and maybe he even loved her, but...it was not enough.

Later, while Eli cranked off copies of the
Sentinel
's morning edition, she tried to talk sense to herself. The election would be over soon and things would get back to normal. She would report on Mrs. Hinksley's whist party and the latest engagement announcement and birthday celebration. And of course the news about the railroad strike in the East and where General Custer would next confront the Sioux.

But she felt uneasy, as if something terrible was about to happen. How she wished life could be the way it was before.

But that was before Cole had come to Smoke River, and she did not wish for that.

She put on a determined smile for Eli's benefit, retrieved her notebook, sharpened a fresh pencil and prepared to leave the office to check her news beats.