Explaining Herself (11 page)

Evangeline looked both directions, seemingly frightened. When Victoria looked, she saw nothing but the everyday hustle-bustle of Sheridan's Main Street.

But she hadn't been friends with Evangeline Taylor for three years without learning to respect the girl's sensitive nature. So Victoria took her hand and drew her farther down the block. "Let's go where we can talk."

Evangeline followed
—until she saw where Vic was headed. Then she stopped, so suddenly her hand pulled loose.

Victoria looked from Evangeline to her brother's lawyer office back to Evangeline. "Don't be silly. We'll go upstairs; he won't bother us."

Then she noticed Evangeline look down at herself, and realized the problem. Her friend wore a plain, butter-yellow work dress. She was barefoot. Her hair had fallen.

She doesn 't want Thaddeas to see her not at her best,
she thought, and felt a sudden surge of sympathy. Hadn't Victoria chosen her own white sailor-dress this morning, specifically with the intention of looking nice when she met Ross Laramie tonight?

She also felt a surge of annoyance at her brother.

"We'll go up the outside steps," she promised, catching her friend's hand again, and chose her words carefully. "We won't be in the way of Thad doing business at all."

After a moment's resistance, Evangeline trailed her to the building where Thad kept his office, his name etched in green and gold on the front window, and past it to a flanking wooden staircase. He kept an apartment upstairs; although he had usually stayed at the family's in-town house, he didn't always want to wake them if he worked late.

It was, as ever, unlocked.

"So why shouldn't I talk to the sheriff?" Shutting the door behind them, Vic headed to the little pantry to see if Thaddeas had cakes or cookies set aside. He did. The number of ladies who brought him baked goods was amazing.

Evangeline said nothing, and when Victoria looked over her shoulder, she saw her friend staring at the bed.

Oh!

Victoria looked quickly away, blushing. Was Evangeline imagining Thaddeas in that bed? He was Vic's
brother!
Modern women or not, there was a certain propriety to maintain.

Wasn't there?

"Would you like a macaroon?" Victoria asked, loudly enough that Evangeline jumped
—and, blushing, quickly shook her head. "So why shouldn't I talk to the sheriff?"

And Evangeline, nervously smoothing her butter-colored skirt, told her.

By Friday evening, Laramie doubted he was thinking clearly. Slipping into the tree line by the creek, he tried not to dwell on thoughts of Victoria Garrison
— her shiny eyes and her swaying skirts and the way she said "Ross."

He failed, which explained why the dog startled him.

"Duchess!" commanded Victoria over fierce warning barks, and he rounded the rock to see her with both arms wrapped around the large animal's neck. "Duchess,
quiet!"

The dog stopped barking. It growled instead.

"Sit,"
she ordered, and it sat.

Laramie looked from it to her. Then he dragged
his attention back to the less dangerous of the two
— the dog.

"Duchess," said Victoria, slowly standing, "this is Ross. He's my friend. Ross, this is Duchess."

Ross
again. It sounded more like an alias than
Lar
amie.
But he liked hearing the name from her, a reminder of what could have been, all the same. It was a sweet hurt.

"Hello, Duchess," he said carefully, noting how the dog's ears perked;
she
knew
her
own name. So as not to leave out the lady, he rasped, "Hello, Victoria."

She smiled with undiluted sweetness, maybe the prettiest thing he'd ever seen. She wore a white dress with dark blue sewn to its edges and far more material in the sleeves than seemed practical. She had her hair up again, poofy-like the way ladies did, and little curls slipped out over her temples, across her neck. Her hair looked so soft. So did her neck. She wore the same white shoes as before, dry again and polished, and he was a fool to have come.

"Papa didn't like me wandering around in the evening without protection," she explained, as if she could read his thoughts. "So ..."

"Duchess," he finished. The dog's ears turned to him.

"Exactly," Victoria agreed. 'You can pet her, if you like. She's safe, unless Papa's trained her to attack beaux
—" Her eyes widened, and she covered her mouth. "I mean, not that
you're
here for. . . for any reason but to tell me . .."

Wasn't he? He'd gone by the barbershop for a shave, bath, and haircut from simple courtesy, not foolish aspirations. And yet why did he have to step closer, just to exchange information? "Why would your father train her to attack beaux? Do you ... Do many men ... ?"

Do you have many beaux? Do you let other men kiss you?

If I were part of your world, would I even have a hope?

But he was not from her world. This tryst was just pretend. He let the dog sniff and then lick his hand.

"You haven't been in town long, or you'd have heard about my sisters," she explained, eyes shining up with seeming gratitude at the distraction.

He closed his gun hand into a fist so as not to reach, to touch, nowhere near distracted enough.
Her sisters?

"Sheep farmer," he remembered. "Engaged in secret."

"That was Mariah," agreed Victoria, clearly pleased. He liked pleasing her. He was a fool. "Then Laurel married up with a remittance man."

"An Englisher?" Poor Garrison.

She nodded. "Papa calls Collier 'His Lord God Pembroke.' And of course with Stuart MacCallum . . ."

Laramie nodded. A cattl
e rancher would dislike a sheep farmer on principle. But he was watching her mouth far more closely than he was listening to it. Compared to him, the boss would likely welcome a whole army of foreign sheep farmers descending on his remaining daughters.

She took a deep breath that did wonderful things to her bodice. "But that's not why
—I mean ..." She bit her lip, then let it go. "Did you go to the Red Light Saloon? Did you see the stranger? Who did he meet? Is he up to no good?"

Then she waited, hopeful and excited, and all he had to do to make her happy was to tell her something. Just that one thing, of so many that he had to hide.

It was why he'd come tonight, wasn't it?

"I did not see him meet anybody," offered Laramie with marginal honesty
—then saw her disappointment. She'd given him some information about Nelson and the Wrights; he was paying her back. But surely he did not owe confessions!

'You saw him, though?" Victoria asked.

Did he feel
guilty f
He nodded, truthfully this time.

"Do you know who he is?"

If he said Roberts, she would immediately connect Lonny to the Wilcox robbery. "I think he goes by Logan."

That clearly pleased her, anyway. "First name or last?"

Ross bent to scoop a stone from the ground. The move pulled the bullet wound in his side, but somehow that didn't hurt as much as having to lie again did. "I don't know."

"Still, that's something," encouraged Victoria, as he tossed the rock. "You're sure he didn't meet with anybody?"

"Nobody I saw." But he couldn't help remembering that to her, in particular, secrets were an insult. "He left not long after the sheriff came in," he offered inadequately.

Victoria stood straighter at that, with a bounce that star
tl
ed both him and the dog. "The
sheriff?"

Laramie remembered Bram Ward's face, so like the man's pa, and that blasphemous lawman's star, and he nodded. He'd forgotten how much he'd hated die Wards, how much he would welcome a chance to kill the sheriff. But Julije had not betrayed them to Bram
—the Wards were no better off than the Laurences back then, and there would have been no family to threaten Julije away after the lynching. Unless Laramie meant to hunt down the entire posse, he had no justification for killing Ward outside pure meanness.

Far more likely that he would have to kill Thaddeas or Jacob Garrison.

"Ross?" asked Victoria as he stood not three feet from her, thinking about killing her loved ones.

But only the one who deserves it.

He said, "I'm sorry. I should go."

"Go?" She stepped closer, as if to head him off. 'You can't go yet. We haven't finished talking."

He wondered what it would feel like, to be that innocent, that trusting. He doubted there was any pain in feeling like that. Any gut-wrenching guilt. Any regrets.

She took his fisted hand in hers. "Don't go. I haven't told you what /found out about the sheriff."

Suddenly he didn't care about the sheriff anywhere near as much as his burning guilt and her cool, innocent touch. She ducked her head, showing him her curly hair and the bare nape of her neck, and drew her own hand over his. Now it wasn't just his hand clenched. It was his whole body.

He hadn't come here to talk at all. He should go.

"Why do you do this?" she asked wonderingly, stroking his closed fingers.

So I won't touch you,
he thought.
So I won't make any sudden moves. So I won't overreach myself.
He wasn't innocent
or
trusting, and he understood regrets.

Like before, she slid her hand over his, her gentle fingers easing his own out of their fist. He did not fight her. But this time, once his hand was open, he couldn't fight himself, either. He had to fill the empty hand.

So he reached out, slid his hand around her waist, and used it to draw her up against him, soft and sweet.

He wasn't barely thinking at all now, just feeling. He
felt
as if here was an untainted piece of the world and that maybe her purity was such that it could cleanse him. Just enough to make the hurts stop haunting him. Just for a while.

More amazing yet, Victoria Garrison wrapped her arms around him in unexpected, silent welcome
—and God help him, it worked. Even before he kissed her, for one long, blis
sful moment, him holding her in
nocence tight against his aching, weary body worked like magic.

Then his own want of innocence won out.

Ross surprised Victoria by pulling her firmly against him, closing his long, hard arms around her, but she did not fight it at all. She guessed she'd been expecting ...

Hoping . . . ?

And they
were
within shouting distance of the house.

He smelled good, like leather and hair tonic, and felt so warm, so solid. She felt safe with him, and excited.

"I can tell you later," she offered breathily. So much for Sheriff Ward.

Ross held her as if she were something precious, something he needed
—and Victoria leaned into that need. Maybe it
didn't
make sense. They didn't know each other well enough for her to be precious to him. He was a tall, strong man who shouldn't need anything, especially not her.

But despite all that reality, she felt his need like a tangible thing and she longed to soothe it.

She leaned her head against his chest and sighed her own pleasure as tension seemed to ease from him. Ross laid his cheek on her head and she heard him swallow, heard him breathe, as if even that little bit of humanity had to be forced past almost inhuman control. Only after a brief forever did Ross turn his head, nuzzle into her hair. Victoria stretched into the sensation, lifted her face to better see him. His eyes were closed, his lashes two black smudges against his cheeks. His hold on her tightened until one of his shirt buttons dug against her bosom, until her hipbone bumped against his holster, through her petticoats.

For once, she had nothing to say.

Ross's eyes opened then, dark and hot, and when he covered her mouth with his, it wasn't like their other kiss at all. His hard lips had no caution to them, no wariness, just need. She didn't try to draw back
— could she have?—so he kissed her mouth again, then her cheek, then her ear, then her jaw, then her throat, not stopping. ...

Victoria sank into the sensation of it, of a man's mouth,
this
man's mouth, touching her where even his hand shouldn't. If he hadn't been holding her so tightly, she might have fallen. Instead, she slid her cheek across his own, marveled at the rasp of it, smiled at the cool vulnerability of his ear and then the thick softness of his freshly barbered hair.

She could hear Ross's breath fight out of him in little gasps. Her hand slid down his back, his ribs. When she reached his waist, he gasped a little. Landing on something hard and smooth and cool, her fingers closed around it in inquiry. His hold on her eased, as he caught her hand by the wrist and drew it off of what she realized was his gun. But still he kissed her. His kisses seemed to be searching, desperate, needful. She wished she could sate such needs. And yet. . . this couldn't be right.