Longarm 397 : Longarm and the Doomed Beauty (9781101545973) (18 page)

Longarm laughed.

She rammed her breasts tight against his chest as she mashed her hungry lips against his and snaked her tongue into his mouth, groaning like a bobcat with the springtime craze.

He and the girl stayed down there a long time before retiring to the bed.

 

Two weeks later, the narrow gauge pulled into Denver's Union Station, which was bustling with itinerant cowhands and drummers even at midnight on a Tuesday.

His shoulders bowing beneath the weight of all his gear, Longarm stepped off the train with a tired groan, weary from the long trek out of the hills with Jo Pritchard. He'd seen the girl back to her town and waiting family.

She wouldn't be returning to the bank or her former boss, Mr. Cable, however. She thought she might teach school, as Pinecone had been looking for a teacher for quite some time.

Now, remembering the slow journey with the doomed young woman from Pinecone, the long nights of tender, passionate frolic around crackling campfires, he made his way through the big sandstone hulk of Union Station and rented a hansom cab on Wynkoop Street. A half hour later, he paid the driver, stepped down from the cab, and made his way up the brick walk of his rented digs on the poor side of Cherry Creek.

Oh, Lordy—his bed was going to feel good!

He tramped up the outside stairs of his second-story flat in the neat, white-frame rooming house and froze in his boots. He stared down past the knob and lock plate of the green-painted pine door, his tired heart picking up a reluctant warning rhythm in his chest.

The half length of stove match he'd wedged between the door and the frame had fallen to the sill. It lay there on the painted oak, its red sulfur tip and ragged opposite end staring up at him in mute testament to surefire danger.

Longarm studied the door before narrowing a hopeful eye. “Cynthia . . . ?”

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the 398
^th
novel in the exciting LONGARM series from Jove