Cactus Flower (5 page)

      
It
began to seem like she might not be able to help it, however. She wasn’t
going to give up yet, but she decided she’d better keep her options
open and her guns handy. If she had to fall back on her contingency
plan, it looked to her as though Nick Taggart might be her best bet
to hire as a bodyguard, but she couldn’t be sure until she’d studied
him a little longer. Which meant, of course, that she had to survive
tonight in one piece. The wrong choice might be fatal to her plans.

      
A
knock came at her door a moment after the noise in the saloon quieted
to its more normal low roar. Eulalie kept her gun drawn. “Who is it?”

      
“It’s
Nick Taggart, Miss Gibb. May I come in for a minute?”

      
At
least he was being polite. At this point in her career in Rio Peñasco,
Eulalie didn’t trust Nick Taggart a speck more than she trusted any
other man in the damnable place, but she did consider his politeness
in this instance encouraging.

      
She
unlocked the door and pushed it open, holding her gun at what would
be chest height on him. She also stepped back, in case he lunged at
her. She’d had practice with this sort of thing, unfortunately.

Nick frowned at Eulalie’s
revolver. “How the hell many guns do you own, anyway?”

      
“That’s
for me to know, Mr. Taggart.”

      
“Well,
you aren’t going to need to use that one on me, Miss Gibb. I only
came back here to tell you that I’ll be watching out for you tonight.”

      
Immediately
suspicious, Eulalie said, “What do you mean, you’ll be ‘watching
out for me’? What does that mean, Mr. Taggart? And where do you presume
to be doing this watching?”

      
Nick’s
frown deepened into a scowl, which he directed at her Colt Lightning.

      
“I
know how to aim and shoot it, Mr. Taggart, so don’t get any ideas.”

      
“Dammit,
I’m not the one with ideas here. You’re the one with ideas, if you
think I’m going to do anything to you. I’m the one who saved you
from those men out there, lady, or have you forgotten that?”

      
Eulalie
searched his face. He was obviously offended, but she couldn’t say
that she cared much about that. What she cared about was whether he
could do her the kind of service she might need of him. It did seem
that the other men in town respected him. That was an auspicious sign.
He was also good-looking, in a rugged sort of way. If she discovered
she had to use him the way she thought she might, his looks might be
a bonus, especially if she had to persuade him to help her by using
more than mere money. She didn’t want to mess up the sheets with any
man at all, but a repulsive one would be beyond endurance. Life was
hard enough without that.

      
She
decided to give him a try and lowered her gun. “Thank you for that,
Mr. Taggart. I beg your pardon if I seemed to misunderstand your intentions,
but you must know that a woman’s life as an actress isn’t one of
unalloyed peace and joy. A woman has to be able to protect herself.”

      
He
didn’t look convinced. Nor did his scowl abate. “Maybe, but a fellow
don’t much like having a gun pointed at his belly by a woman he’s
just saved from being assaulted, either, in case you give a hang about
that.”

      
She
gave him one more good, overall, penetrating look. “Actually, I’m
not sure that I do. However, if your aim is to protect me from the rest
of the men in Rio Peñasco, perhaps you can begin by guarding the door
while I change my clothes.”

      
His
eyes went as big around as mush melons, and she noticed their color
for the first time. They were a rather startling green, and quite lovely,
shaded as they were with long, thick, dark lashes. Eulalie wasn’t
surprised. In her experience men were more apt to have beautiful eyes
than women, which was about as unfair as everything else in life. Her
own eyes were nice, which was a benefit in her profession, but they
were a plain old everyday blue and not nearly as exotic as Nick Taggart’s
eyes.

      
“Don’t
worry, Mr. Taggart. There’s a modesty screen in the corner.” She
gestured with her gun toward the Chinese screen blocking off a corner
of the room. “You won’t even have to avert your eyes.”

      
Nick
seemed to deflate. “Oh, yeah. I see it.”

      
Eulalie
couldn’t tell if his tone reflected relief or disappointment, although
she had her suspicions. Men were, after all, men. “Will you please
lock the door, Mr. Taggart? Just in case.” She made her eyes go squinty.
“I presume you meant it when you said you were here to guard my person
from marauding males.”

      
“Of
course I meant it. I told Dooley I would.”

      
He
didn’t appreciate having his word questioned, either, Eulalie noted.
Well, that was too bad. Eulalie wasn’t about to take anything, least
of all a man, and especially not one as large and intimidating as Nick
Taggart, on faith.

      
“Thank
you.” She went behind the Chinese screen, where she’d already laid
out the clothes she intended to change into. She was ravishingly hungry.
After all, she hadn’t eaten anything since the stage stopped a little
before noon that day.

      
Since
she was in a testing mode with Nick Taggart, she called out a question
as she wriggled free of her costume. “Is there some place in town
where a lady might get a bite to eat this time of the evening, Mr. Taggart?”

      
“Eat?”
He still sounded annoyed.

      
“Yes.
Eat. You do know what the word means, don’t you?”

      
“Yes,
I know what the word means. I’m thinking.”

      
“Don’t
strain yourself.” She pulled the ostrich feather out of her hair,
gently disengaged the pearls, and began brushing. When she’d brushed
out all the tangles, she wound her hair into a soft knot and pinned
it up.

      
“You’re
a real peach, you know that, Miss Gibb? Do you have to practice being
rude, or does it come naturally?”

      
“It
comes naturally.” Eulalie picked up her corset, and an awful thought
struck her. Blast it, she was going to have to ask him to help her lace
up the wretched thing.

      
“At
least you admit it.”

      
Nick
Taggart sounded grumpy. Eulalie couldn’t really fault him much. She
had, after all, been especially impolite to him.

      
“There’s
no reason not to admit it. I’m not ashamed to treat men the way they
deserve to be treated.” She eyed the offending garment, wondering
where her brain had gone begging when she’d laid out her clothes.
She should have chosen the one that laced in the front. But she hadn’t,
and there was no getting away from it. She certainly couldn’t appear
in front of the men she’d just entertained
sans
corset, or
they’d never believe she was interested only in singing for them.

      
Of
course, she could put her costume back on and go fetch the other corset
from her trunk. She peered at the bright pink, and intolerably tight,
garment she’d just removed and decided she couldn’t bear it. She
sighed deeply.

      
“You
don’t even know me. How the hell do you know how I deserve to be treated?”

      
“Simple,”
she said, thrusting her arms through the corset straps. “You’re
a man.” She might have to get his help, but she wasn’t going to
give him more of a show than she had to. She paused to contemplate her
conclusion.

      
On
the other hand, this might be a good test. If he seemed intrigued by
the sight of her bare flesh, and if she decided she needed him further,
this would give her a chance to gauge his reaction to her charms. If
he was like most men, he’d react like a rutting pig. That was the
result she determined she wanted to achieve.

      
She
stepped into her petticoats and tied the tapes at her waist. Then she
walked out from behind the modesty screen, holding the corset to her
bosom.

      
Nick
Taggart looked as if he were enormously peeved. He stood at her dressing
table, frowning down at her makeup pots and fingering a powder puff.
“What does being a man have to do with—”

      
He
made the mistake of turning before he’d finished his question. Eulalie
was encouraged to see his mouth drop open and his eyes open wide. It
looked to her as though whatever words he’d planned to say had been
snatched from his head as if by a thieving magpie. She smiled at him,
making sure it was one of her honey-was-no-sweeter-than-she-
was smiles.

      
“I
beg your pardon, Mr. Taggart. I don’t believe you finished your thought.”
She waited, pressing the whale-boned instrument of torture to her bosom
in order to enhance her cleavage. This was the second—maybe the third—time
today she’d found cause to be grateful to her rather large bosom.
Men were so predictable.

      
“What—”
Nick had to stop and lick his lips. “What are you doing?”

      
“I
was trying to get dressed, but I find I need help. May I get it from
you? My corset laces in back.”

      
Nick
stood there for several more seconds, watching her as if he suspected
her of ulterior motives. Which, Eulalie knew, she possessed in abundance,
although he couldn’t possibly know what they were. He probably thought
she was trying to seduce him. Seduction, if it had to come at all, would
come later. Eulalie planned to try every way she could think of to avoid
it first.

      
“Well?”
she said, to encourage him.

      
He
straightened and took a step toward her. “Turn around.” It was a
command.

      
Eulalie
obliged, although she still eyed him over her shoulder. She was glad
to see he had to lick his lips again. “I’m sure you’ve had experience
lacing up ladies’ undergarments, Mr. Taggart.” She made her voice
go sultry. “And in unlacing them.”

      
“I’ve
had experience.” He didn’t elaborate.

      
And
then he touched her. Eulalie had prepared herself for at least a thousand
contingencies before she’d set out for New Mexico Territory. She and
Patsy had entered into this phase of their lives with their eyes wide
open and with full knowledge of what they might have to do in order
to escape from Chicago with their skins intact.

      
The
one thing they hadn’t prepared for was Eulalie’s reaction to the
physical sensation of Nick Taggart’s hands on her bare flesh. She
very nearly swooned on the spot.

      
Good
Lord, this was terrible. She’d never had this reaction to a man’s
touch before. Perhaps it was merely because she was exhausted after
enduring a long, tiring trip, awful worry, terrifying stress, a full
day fraught with lumbering polka dancers and drunken louts, and her
first performance in a strange and alien and half-civilized place. Not
to mention near starvation.

      
Whatever
the reason for it, she felt a tingling, goose-fleshy sensation spread
over her skin as soon as Nick Taggart’s large, rough hands brushed
her shoulders. She gasped slightly, and barely thought fast enough to
turn her gasp into a cough.

      
He
smoothed his hands down her arms. He shouldn’t be doing that. Even
in its present scrambled condition, her brain knew that much. Eulalie
opened her mouth to tell him so, but couldn’t get the words out.

      
Good
heavens, this was awful. She was the one who was supposed to be in control
of this situation, not Nick Taggart. Nick Taggart was a rough-hewn man
of the territories and, therefore, beneath Eulalie Gibb’s contempt.
She was a sophisticated actress; he was a lout. She, not he, was supposed
to maintain the upper hand in any potential sexual dalliance.

      
So
why, when his arms went around her, did she not resist? Why, when his
fingers closed over hers and he pulled the corset away from her breasts,
did she not utter a sharp protest, using the acid tongue for which she
was justifiably famous in some circles? Why, when his hands covered
her breasts and he gently squeezed them, brushing his thumbs over her
puckered nipples, did she go weak in the knees?

      
“You
want me to do what?” His voice was like roughened velvet. He drew
her to him until her bare back rested against his chest and her bottom
pressed against his thighs. He was fully aroused, hard as an oak log,
and almost as big.

      
Eulalie,
who had been fighting awful battles all by herself for a very long time,
experienced a fierce desire to turn in his arms and have him hold her.
She wanted to rub the juncture of her thighs against the bulge in his
trousers.

      
No,
no, no
. This was not the way things were supposed to proceed. She
had Patsy to think of.

      
“If
you will please unhand me, sir, I believe you’ve made my corset fall
to the floor.” Eulalie was more proud of the tone she achieved—ironic
and slightly humorous—than she was of anything else she’d done all
day.

      
She
felt his hot breath on her neck a second before his lips touched the
skin of her shoulder.
Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord
. Eulalie’s sexual
experience was not vast, but just then she felt an intense desire to
allow Nick Taggart to broaden her horizons.

      
No!
She couldn’t let a mere moment’s pleasure ruin her plans. Patsy.
She had to remember Patsy above all else.

      
“Mr.
Taggart?” Again, she strove for lightness and achieved it. Eulalie
was, first and foremost, an actress of the highest caliber. “I believe
you’ve lost track of our purpose here.”

      
“I
don’t think so.”

      
If
he didn’t remove his hands from her breasts, she was going to scream.
Not, unfortunately, in distress, but in pure, lust-crazed pleasure. When
she’d made love with Edward, she’d been deeply in love, but she
hadn’t felt this pure animal desire. She hadn’t really even believed
women could feel this kind of overwhelming passion.

      
No.
No, no, no. Patsy. She had to remember Patsy. And Gilbert Blankenship.
And poor Edward.

      
“Mr.
Taggart, I’m going to faint here and now if you don’t stop that
and feed me.”

      
“I’ll
feed you. I’ll stuff you full.”