True to the Law (28 page)

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her no.”

“Was that the truth?”

Tru hesitated. “Mostly,” she said finally. “She wanted to believe me, although it was soon after that she decided to move my room next to hers. She said it was for her convenience, and this time I wanted to believe her.”

“Did Franklin rape you?”

“No. I fought; eventually I was able to cry out. Andrew was in the house that night, in the hallway. He heard and interrupted.”

“So he saved you.”

She understood why Cobb would think that. “In a manner of speaking,” she said. “What he saw when he came in did not convince him I was the injured party. He believed what Franklin told him.”

“Ah,” Cobb said quietly. “And you didn’t try to defend yourself.”

“I judged that to be a waste of breath. He had his own reasons for wanting to believe Franklin. He still wanted to remove me from his grandmother’s side. He always thought I exerted influence over her.”

Cobb’s eyes narrowed. “There’s something else. What is it?”

“He thought the best way to accomplish that would be to make me his mistress.”

“Jesus.”

Tru was silent.

“Jesus,” he said again. He untangled his fingers from her hair and pushed himself up into a sitting position, tailor fashion. He set his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and closed his eyes. He felt Tru’s hand at his back and realized that she was comforting
him
.

“What the hell does he want from you, Tru?”

“Marriage, he says.”

He turned his head to look at her. “Do you believe him?”

“He seemed sincere.”

“Did you remind him about his previous offer?”

“No. He brought it up himself. He said he regretted it, and he apologized. He does that very well. Apologize, I mean.”

“Did you accept it?”

“I didn’t make any reply at all. I decided to allow him to interpret my silence for himself.” She added dryly, “He knows how to do that.”

Cobb’s own smile was wry. “You do very well on your own.”

“It sounds to me as if you had some doubts.”

“I had hopes,” he said. “But you don’t need me.”

“Do you want to hear that you’re wrong?”

“Only if it’s true.”

She sat up and inched closer. She slipped two fingers under his chin to keep his head tilted toward her. “
I’m
Tru,” she whispered. And then she kissed him.

He supposed that she did need him, if not in one manner, then another. He could accept that for now, even enjoy it. Cobb pressed her back to the mattress and pulled the covers across them. He took over the kiss, made it his, and liked her more for giving him that.

He cradled her head in his hands. His fingers threaded deeply in her hair. He bent and nudged her lips apart, tasting the upper one first and then sipping on the lower one. He found the sensitive cord in her neck, the hollow below her ear, and bedeviled both places with the rough edge of his tongue until she squirmed and laughed and finally moaned.

He used his teeth to tug on the ribbon that closed her nightgown. She called him a fool and tried to bat him away, but then his teeth found her nipple and gave it a tug. She remembered his name was Cobb, and she said it on a breathy exhalation that made him want to bury himself in her.

He moved over her, exploring the outward curve of her shoulder and the inward one at her waist. He laid his hand on her abdomen and made a pass across her navel with his thumb. Her skin twitched and her breathing quickened. His lips eventually replaced his hand and then went lower. He pushed her knees up, tenting the blankets, and set his mouth between her thighs.

She said his name again but not in a way that was meant to discourage him. She was wet and warm and willing, and all of the blood in his head rushed to his cock. He felt her hand fisting in his hair. Her hips lifted. His tongue curled, lapped. One of her heels pressed hard against his back and she arched her spine. She drew her breath in increments, each one pitched slightly higher than the last.

And when the orgasm overwhelmed her, it was not his name that crossed the minister’s daughter’s lips, but God’s.

He rose over her and eased himself inside her. It was better that it was dark. She couldn’t see his smug smile. He moved slowly, carefully, aware that she might be tender and certain that she would not admit it. He held back as long as he could, but she did not make it easy for him. She made it extraordinary, but not easy.

When he came, he rocked them both hard enough to bang the headboard against the wall. He and the bed shuddered.

Blanketed by darkness, it was Tru’s turn to smile smugly.

* * *

Tru was pouring fresh water into the basin on the washstand when Cobb woke. She had laid a small fire and lighted an oil lamp. For once, he did not have to strain his eyes to see her. He punched his pillow a few times to reshape it until his head was resting at a comfortable angle. That was when she glanced his way.

“You’re awake.”

“Mm. Sun up?”

In answer, Tru sidled over to the window and parted the curtains a few inches. She gave him enough time to observe the pale blue-gray light pressing against the glass before letting them fall into place.

Cobb groaned softly. He did not have much time if he was going to slip away unnoticed. Walt was certain to have observed that he never returned to the Pennyroyal. Cobb did not expect that Walt would remark on it, but that didn’t mean Cobb could arrive unprepared to explain.

Aware of Cobb’s regard, Tru scrubbed her face and then used the cover of her nightgown to modestly perform the rest of her ablutions. She was wrestling with her damp nightgown when she heard him chuckle. Shooting him a sidelong look, Tru pushed an arm back through its sleeve. She shook out her hand, stretched her fingers.

“Something amusing?”

“Your contortions. Go on.”

“I’m done.”

“Behind your ears?”

“Done.”

“The back of your neck?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What about between your . . .”

“Toes?”

“Yes, toes.”

“Done.” Tru swept her robe over her shoulders as she approached the bed. Bending, she kissed him. He made it tempting to linger. “I’m going to make coffee,” she said. “It will be in the kitchen if you want it.” She danced away from the bed when Cobb made a grab for her. Waggling her finger at him, she backed out of the room.

Tru thought Cobb looked remarkably well rested when he joined her at the kitchen table. It seemed unfair that he showed no signs that he had passed a night with very little sleep while she would require another compress for her swollen eyelids. Sighing, she pushed a mug of black coffee toward him.

“I have some cinnamon rolls that Jenny made. Would you like one?”

“No. But you go ahead.”

She shook her head. “I’ll take one with me.”

Cobb wrapped his hands around the mug and lifted it. “Are you going to see Mackey today?”

“If he comes around. It’s Friday. I don’t go to the hotel on Friday.”

“There was some speculation in the saloon last night about you and Mackey.”

“I would have been surprised if there wasn’t. You cleared it up, I hope.”

“I didn’t make it any muddier.” He took a swallow of coffee. It had the exact combination of bitterness and burn that he liked. He raised his eyebrows, saluting her. “Jessop Davis figured you knew Mackey in Chicago. I explained that he was Charlotte’s grandson. Ted wasn’t impressed. He thinks Mackey looks like someone on one of the wanted notices in my office.”

Tru smiled crookedly. “Murderer?”

“Bank robber.”

“Ah, well, you never know.”

Cobb grunted noncommittally and set his mug down. “Will you be all right seeing him alone? Maybe you should have supper at Jenny’s. Spend a few hours with her and Jim after.”

“I’ll be fine, Cobb. I’m not afraid of Andrew.”

“And if he hadn’t come alone?” he asked.

“Don’t be unpleasant.” She regarded him over the rim of her mug for a long moment. Finally she nodded. “Yes, I would be more cautious if Frank were with him. But he’s not. Andrew has some sense about him.”

“Does he?”

Tru lowered her mug. “He’s not a bad man. Don’t make him out to be.”

Cobb glanced up at the window above the sink. Shades of gray lightened the horizon and made silhouettes of the peaked rooftops across the way. It occurred to him again that he should go. Other than turning his mug in his hands, he did not move.

“He made you cry,” he said.

There was no accusation in Tru’s voice when she answered him. Her regard was merely candid. “So did you.”

Cobb understood she was talking about the first night they spent together. He hadn’t been aware that she had wept. “I
know
I’m a villain.”

Tru sobered, sipped her coffee. “No. You didn’t know about Franklin Mackey. You didn’t know that he used a pillow to make me more accessible to him.” She watched the color drain from Cobb’s face. “I couldn’t tell you then. I hardly understood what was happening myself. I’m not sure I do now. I only know that after you placed the pillow under me, it was as if I were no longer there. It felt as if what you were doing—what
I
was doing—was happening to someone else . . . or maybe to my former self.”

“And then I asked you if you meant for me to rape you.” Cobb’s fingertips whitened on his cup. “I will never be able to make that up to you.”

She took a deep breath and released it slowly. “You’re wrong. You already have.” When Cobb looked as if he meant to disagree, she cut him off. It was done, she thought. She was done. “What will you do today?”

He was slow to respond, but finally, “As little as possible.”

“I think you take perverse delight in that pretense.”

He shrugged. “Tell me about today’s moral lesson. Should I come by and read to your students?”

“Don’t you dare. Besides, I have nothing like that planned.” She gave him a sardonic look. “I think I’ve surrendered the right to occupy the moral high ground.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Tru turned back to the stove and retrieved the coffeepot. “I don’t know,” she said, not looking at him. “I’m still trying to make sense of what I’ve done.”

“
I
don’t believe it,” he said. “Whatever you think you surrendered, it wasn’t the moral high ground. I’ve never heard you claim to own it.”

“I’m not so sure,” she said quietly, adding coffee to her cup. “Perhaps I should have made a little more noise about it. It’s easy to believe you know what you will do when temptation is an academic exercise.” She raised her eyes and looked at him. “I’m learning that confronting it at my kitchen table is altogether different.”

She mocked herself with a narrow smile. “I came away from my experience with Franklin Mackey thinking that I learned two things about myself. The first was that I was not a woman who could be persuaded to stray from her upbringing. The second was that if someone tried to force me to do just that, I would be able to protect myself.”

Tru pointed over her shoulder in the general direction of the back door and the shotgun in the rack beside it. “One of the first things I did after I arrived in Bitter Springs was to learn how to shoot.”

Cobb’s eyes strayed to the shotgun and then came back to her. “Do you regret that you didn’t aim it at me?”

“What I’m trying to say is that I never seriously considered taking it down from the rack. Not once. Franklin Mackey was not a temptation. You were. Are. And you have been since the very beginning. So the two things I thought I learned about myself were merely faulty assumptions, not evidence of moral character or strength of purpose.”

Tru’s mouth twisted to one side. She shrugged awkwardly. “And there you have it.”

Cobb slid one hand across the table and turned his palm up. His invitation was clear, and after a brief hesitation, Tru put her hand in his. His fingers closed around hers. For a long time, neither of them moved. Their coffee grew cold and the sun rose in a cloudless sky.

When they stood, it wasn’t to stand apart. Keeping her hand in his, Tru led Cobb back to bed.

* * *

Cil Ross poked her head out of the kitchen for the third time in as many minutes. She cast a glance around the dining room, frowned when her quarry was still absent, and retreated quickly before one of the diners asked her to fetch coffee or more biscuits.

Mrs. Sterling flipped a pancake in the skillet. “Get away from that door, Cil. Do you think I have to look at you to know what you’re up to? Come over here and help me with these hotcakes.”

Cil dragged her feet, but she went. She picked up a warm platter and held it out for the cook to use. “Do you suppose Mr. Mackey thinks we’ll take breakfast to him?”

“I don’t know how he’d come by that notion unless you put it in his head. Did you?”

“I never. I told him the same as every guest. All meals in the dining room. No exceptions.”