The Outlaw Takes A Bride (The Burnett Brides) (12 page)

“I bet,” he said, his voice clipped. The couple’s moans of pleasure were getting louder, and the sound of squeaky bedsprings grated on his tightly strung nerves. He wanted Beth so bad, and now the image of a faceless couple filled his mind as his imagination filled in the pictures to go with the sounds.

“I’ve heard it on and off all day,” she said, playing with the covers that were tucked beneath her breasts.

A moan, along with the rhythmic bump of a headboard thumping against the wall, all but drowned out the sudden pounding of his heart.

“All day, huh.” No wonder Beth seemed a little tense tonight. He’d have gone crazy having to listen to another couple doing what he kept dreaming of doing with Beth.

“Where have you been?”

“I felt the need for a day of drinking,” he said, staring at her, almost daring her to say something to him.

His head echoed with the crude sounds coming from next door, the hammering pulse of his heart, and the cadenced swish of his own blood as it rushed through his veins. Her skin looked so smooth, and he knew it would be velvety soft.

She glanced at him, her eyes raking him with a harsh glance. “You’re not drunk, are you?”

The comer of his lip turned up in a smile. “I tried, but I was unsuccessful.”

Beth looked at him warily as the moans from next door grew louder. The sound of someone else in the throes of passion made him want to lose whatever control he had and finish what he had started that morning. He wanted to push Beth back onto the bed and lose himself within her.

“So, if you didn’t drink all day, what did you do in the saloon?” she questioned.

“I didn’t say I didn’t drink,” he said, raising his voice even louder, trying to cover up the sounds of the lovers as their tempo seemed to increase, banging the bed against the wall. “I just said I wasn’t drunk.”

She glanced up at him, her eyes sparkling, and she licked her full lips, her breathing shallow and fast.

He threw his hat, and it sailed across the room, landing on the table and knocking the picture of her parents down.

Tanner walked across the room to straighten the pictures, but before he could pick them up, she had jumped up out of bed and fairly flown to the table. In a huff, she grabbed her precious pictures and pulled them in close to her chest.

“If you’re not drunk, would you please be careful around my things? I don’t disturb your guns.”

He glanced at her in surprise. Maybe Beth was more than edgy; perhaps the sounds of the couple next door had gotten to her also. Tanner crossed the room to the table beside the bed and began to unbuckle his gun belt. “Good! Keep it that way. I don’t like people bothering my weapons.”

Her nightgown flowed behind her as she marched across the room and touched the cold metal of his gun. The hazel orbs of her eyes flashed with challenge; her auburn hair glistened with defiance.

Tanner grabbed her by the arms, the rhythmic banging of the bed next door gonging like a warning. The currents flowed thick like smoke between them, and he knew that if he sank his lips down onto the fullness of her mouth, as he so desperately wanted to, he would never cease. He would never stop until they reached a fully sated state, and that wouldn’t be until the debutante was lying beneath him, wrung out from desire.

“A man’s guns are his personal property. They’re like his woman. You don’t touch her, you don’t look at her, unless you want trouble. He pulled her closer. “Do you want trouble, lady?”

“I think trouble found me the day I got on that stagecoach to Fort Worth,” she whispered, her hazel-green eyes exhibiting rebelliousness as her gaze never left his.

He pulled her still closer until her breasts were smashed against his chest, his arms around her. “For once you’re right.”

The moans crescendoed, the pounding of the headboard suddenly ceased, and then there was silence. Sweet, blessed silence that left his breathing harsh and loud to his own ears in the suddenly deafening quiet.

Sweet, merciful God, he wanted her.

She was gazing at him, a proud lift to her chin, her eyes bright with fierceness, and suddenly he knew that sweet, innocent Beth could become a tiger when pushed too far. And he was close, real close, to sending her over the edge.

“Release me this instant,” she said, her voice taut with anger.

“Why? What are you afraid of, Beth?”

“Nothing. You’re hurting my arm.”

He eased his grip. For a moment he considered holding on to her, but he knew if he didn’t release her soon, he wouldn’t free her all night.

Tanner let go of her, rocking her back on her heels.

He had to get out of there. The silence was even more deafening than the noise of a few moments ago. He took two steps, reached for his hat, and shoved it onto his head.

“Where are you going? You just got back after being gone all day.”

“None of your business, lady.”

In two large strides he grabbed his guns and was out of the cramped room and into the hall. Just as he pulled the door shut, he heard her yell.

“Damn you, Tanner.”

He smiled. Good. Her anger was better, safer, than her warm awareness and unconscious invitation. He had no business getting involved with a woman, any woman. And she damn sure didn’t need to get involved with a man like him.

Tanner spent the night in the White Elephant Saloon until closing time sent him to the livery stable and he bedded down in the hay. He couldn’t face her, not yet. He’d walked in last night with a chip on his shoulder, just daring her to knock it off. It hadn’t been Beth who had jarred that chip off his shoulder but the voracious noises coming from next door and his already heightened awareness of Beth as a woman. The copulating couple had almost undone him.

Instead of taking charge and convincing the innocent debutante they weren’t meant for each other, his hard erection had sent him fleeing from the room. Anything to escape the raucous noises that had been both titillating and disturbing. Anything to escape the visions of him and Beth entwined together, their bodies slick with passion, that the sounds seemed to conjure up in his mind.

In his attempt to ignore the noise from the room next door, his behavior had been detestable. He had acted like a complete ass, and now he owed her an apology.

Yet he couldn’t help but think that she was getting to him. Every inch of delectable skin that showed, each smile or touch, any little nuance he recognized as Beth, were mounting up. And, like a geyser, he was bound to erupt soon if he didn’t do something to relieve the pressure.

Though he’d tried to postpone the inevitable, it was past time that he found someplace to leave her so that he could continue on with his business. Not that he wanted to. In fact, he dreaded going back and facing Sam. He wouldn’t go at all, but he had no choice. And he’d put it off longer than he should, because the thought of parting from Beth was not a pleasant consideration.

At dawn, Tanner saddled his chestnut horse and rode to the doctor’s house at the edge of town. He had to see if the man would take Beth in until she was completely well. Somehow Tanner knew she would be safer with the sawbones than with him.

When he arrived, the sun was barely over the horizon, yet the doctor met him at the door at his first knock.

“Good morning, young man,” he said, opening the full door to Tanner in the bright morning sunshine. “What brings you to see me? Your wife feeling okay?”

Wife. That one word brought up so many images that Tanner thought better left alone. Beth would make the man she married an excellent helpmate. Tanner could see her several years from now, a couple of children tugging on her skirts. He felt jealous of the man who would be by her side, fulfilling the duties of her husband, envious of the life she would be living, while he would be forever wandering, forever alone.

“My wife,” he said, stumbling over the words, “is fine. But I must go out of town, and I wondered if she could stay with you at the hospital until she was healed.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea, not with the threat of cholera still possible. After everything she’s been through, I don’t think it would be good for her to be here, where she might catch something so deadly.”

He shook his head and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Just to be cautious, I’d rather she wait another week before she travels. But there are several boardinghouses in town you might look into.”

“Thanks!” Tanner said as he turned and walked down the steps to his waiting horse.

“Say, young fellow, how long the two of you been married?” the doctor asked.

Tanner turned around and waved at the doctor. “Long enough,” he replied, and put a foot up into the stirrup, anxious to get away before the doctor began asking more questions.

Riding back into town, Tanner couldn’t help but wonder how it was going to feel to say good-bye to Beth. He should get back to his life, yet suddenly she had become an integral part of it, and he didn’t like the thought of being alone again. Still, there was no way she could stay with him permanently. In fact, it was past time he got rid of her, before he did something stupid—something a hell of a lot more than just kiss her. And every day it was harder to resist her.

Though Beth was a complication he could not afford, he was not willing to abandon her, and he couldn’t put her on the stage until she had healed. There was no way he was going to have another person’s death on his hands, especially Beth’s.

When he reached town, he found the rooming house the doctor had suggested. An older woman wearing a spotted apron and smelling of onions answered the door and let him inside. As soon as he walked into the room, the filth of the place almost made him gag. Smells he did not want to identify made him want to retch. Chamber pots that needed emptying, rotting food, and something that smelled like wet animal fur filled his nostrils, and he took a step back.

The woman sighed and brushed back a stray hair that stuck to her cheek.

“The price is twelve dollars a month; plus cleaning and meals are extra,” she informed him. “I’ve got two extra rooms right now.”

She was charging for cleaning? He nodded his head and quickly backed out the door.

“I’ll let you know,” he said stepping into the clean outside air, resisting the urge to gasp.

As she shut the door behind him, he breathed deeply, ridding himself of the putrid air that had occupied the house.

Mounting his horse, he rode to the next rooming house, two blocks away

The female proprietor who answered his knock seemed pleasant enough, but he sensed something wasn’t right. He knew immediately that the place was clean, but the atmosphere seemed too relaxed almost too friendly.

“I charge the ladies who stay here by the night or by the week; it doesn’t matter much to me,” the young woman said, smiling at him coyly.

“How much?” Tanner asked, thinking maybe this would work out and he would pay Beth’s first two weeks’ rent.

“Fourteen dollars a month,” she said.

The door to the room next to where Beth would be sleeping suddenly opened and a woman stepped out in a robe that clung to her curves, that was open low to expose her cleavage and split up the front to show off her calves. She stepped out into the hall, followed by a man.

“Same time next week?” the woman asked the man, her hand brushing a piece of lint from his shirt.

He smiled. “Yep. See you, Mary Lou.”

“You bet, honey,” she said, and patted him on the butt. The calico queen glanced at Tanner, winked, and went back into her room.

“The women are free to host gentlemen in their rooms,” the young proprietor told him.

“I don’t think this is what I’m looking for,” Tanner said and started walking toward the door.

“Well, if we can be of any other service, let us know,” the woman said smiling at him as he walked out the door.

After he left, he visited three more rooming houses and found fault with each of them.

Slowly riding back to the hotel, he wondered what he was going to do. So far every place he’d looked at had either been unclean, a whorehouse, in an unsafe neighborhood or just didn’t feel right. He’d found no place he was willing to trust, where he felt safe in leaving Beth behind, none where she would get the care that he had given her.

He didn’t want to be rid of Beth. No place would satisfy him because he didn’t want to leave her behind. The only solution was to keep her until he could put her on a stage to Fort Worth, which shouldn’t be much longer. A week at the most, the doctor had said. Meanwhile, he would need to stay away from their hotel room as much as possible, and keep his overactive thoughts and his eager hands to himself.

The sun was starting to slink toward the western horizon, and Tanner realized he hadn’t been back to the room in almost twenty-four hours. The urge to go back and see her, to make sure she was all right, was powerful enough that he couldn’t resist. He hurried back to the hotel room, anxious to see her. The decision he made that day to wait another week could possibly cost him everything he’d been working toward, but he really didn’t care. Somehow it didn’t seem all that important, and he couldn’t leave her behind. His future looked bleak, so why be in a hurry to rush to his destiny.