Nan Ryan (30 page)

“Mollie, put your hands on my shoulders,” he commanded.

“Want to dance again?” she asked and, humming happily, locked her hands behind his head.

Ignoring the question, Lew eased the tight dress down over her hips, then released it and allowed it to fall to the floor. Her head thrown back, Mollie swayed to him, pressing her chemise-clad body to the hard length of his.

His hands at her waist, Lew set her back, and said, “Get in bed, outlaw.”

Nodding agreeably, Mollie sank down on the bed and again fell over backward. Lew turned her about so that she was lying with her head on the pillows. He straightened, looked at her stretched out on the bed, and smiled down at her.

“We forgot your shoes,” he said softly and sat down beside her.

Giggling, Mollie lifted her feet. Lew removed the borrowed red kid slippers.

“What about the stockings?” Mollie slurred the words.

Lew swallowed hard. He removed a coquettish red garter from above her left knee before peeling off the silky stocking. Perspiration dotted his forehead by the time the stockings were laid aside and Mollie’s long shapely legs were bare.

He felt his heart kick against his ribs when she said sleepily, “Kiss me good night, Lew.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said, starting to rise.

She caught his jacket sleeve. “We’ve been silly all night and it’s been such fun.” She looked up at him with teasing violet eyes. “It would be silly not to be silly now. Kiss me, Silly. Silly-kiss me.”

“Then will you go to sleep?”

Her fingers toying with a button at the center of his chest, she said, “If you’ll make the kiss silly.”

Removing her hand from his shirtfront, Lew leaned down and turned his face so that his lips were perpendicular to hers. He kissed her quickly and said, “That silly enough?”

“Now it’s my turn to give you a silly kiss,” was her reply. “Come here.” She grabbed his lapels, pulled his face down to hers. She kissed—not his lips—but the appealing cleft in his chin, putting out the tip of her tongue to lick the tiny indentation.

Lew made a face and wiped his chin while she laughed. “Now you again,” she said.

He grinned and kissed her small, well-shaped nose. She laughed and kissed his left eyebrow. He kissed her right earlobe. She kissed his damp temple. He kissed her spiky eyelashes. They kissed and kissed until they ran out of places to silly-kiss and, laughing, stopped and looked at each other.

Their gazes locked, their laughter died. Slowly, surely, Lew’s dark head descended as Mollie’s lifted from the pillow. Their mouths touched and met, but the silly kisses had ceased. Mollie’s soft warm lips parted beneath Lew’s, and she sighed when his tongue slid into her mouth. He kissed her deeply, probingly, his lips hot on hers.

As they kissed, Mollie wrapped her arms around him and drew him down to her, her fingertips gliding over the fine fabric of the evening jacket stretching across his back. When at last his burning lips left hers and he raised his dark head, Lew stared down at her with an intensity that was electrifying. Pure animal desire gleamed from his humid blue eyes and a vein throbbed on his tanned brow.

His sultry gaze holding hers, Lew’s fingers went to the black silk cravat at his throat. He impatiently jerked it loose and anxiously unbuttoned his shirt. Her eyes never leaving his passion-hardened face, Mollie eagerly slipped her hand inside the opened shirt. Her nails raked through the crisp hair on his hard muscled chest. He shuddered and slowly bent to her.

But as he leaned down the gold cross he wore fell forward and hung suspended. Swinging back and forth, it presented an insurmountable barrier between them. The cross reminded him painfully of who he was and who she was and why they were here together.

Lew’s lips hovered inches about Mollie’s. She waited breathlessly for the caress that never came. Slowly, he straightened, his eyes now gone cold. Buttoning his shirt he rose and crossed the room.

At the door he said over his shoulder, “Get some sleep, outlaw.”

“She doesn’t look or act like a dangerous desperado,”
Cherry said to Lew when he returned to the sitting room.

“And you don’t look or act like a respectable young widow, but you are.”

Cherry laughed. “That’s true, that’s true.” She patted the settee beside her. “Still, Mollie’s just a girl. Young, impressionable, an innocent.”

“Innocent? Christ, how can you make such a ridiculous statement?” He sank down on the sofa beside her.

“Is it? I don’t think so.” Cherry waved a red-nailed hand. “All right, so she rode with the Renegades on a few holdups. She loved her father very much, so she naturally supposed that whatever daddy did couldn’t be bad.”

“She didn’t just ride with daddy. She rode, ate, and slept with eight violent bandits.” Lew’s jaw hardened. “Likely as not, they passed her around like an Indian peace pipe.”

Cherry laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’d bet my finest pair of red garters against it.” Lew rolled his eyes, started to speak. She stopped him. “Whether you know it or not, my friend, you have become involved with our little blond bandit.”

“Jesus, what a foolish—”

“Hear me out, Lew. Because you are a man, you can’t see the situation logically the way I can. Women can tell a lot about another woman, see things men can’t see. Any woman can fool a man, but she can’t fool another woman.”

“If there’s a point to be made here, I wish you’d make it.”

“Mollie allows you to
think
she slept with the Kid. I don’t believe she’s ever slept with anyone but her dolly.”

Lew’s cold blue eyes flickered. “What woman in her right mind would want the world to think that she—”

“Not the world, Lewton. You. She wants you to think it.”

“Should I ask why?”

Cherry shrugged. “To hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” His eyes turned flinty hard. “There’s no one left who can hurt me. You know that.”

“Mmm. I believe you, so … why not let her go?”

Lew shook his head. “No. I am taking Mollie Rogers to Denver and then I am going after her father. When I bring him in, it will finally be over. Not before.”

“I see,” said Cherry. “Then what?”

It was Lew’s turn to shrug. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. Go on living, I suppose. Same as everybody else.” He smiled at her, his mood finally softening.

Cherry smiled back and lifted a hand to his face. Allowing her fingertips to travel down his smoothly shaven jaw, she said wistfully, “Reckon we made a mistake all those years ago when we promised old Clint we’d never get into the sack together?”

Lew grinned, took her hand, and kissed it. “Could be. Think we should just forget that promise?” He knew her answer.

Cherry patted his chest affectionately. “Don’t think I’m not tempted, Lew, but … no. We loved Clint too much to go back on our word.”

“In that case, I’m awfully tired, honey. Think I’ll get some sleep.” He squeezed her hand and rose.

“Lew.”

“Yes?”

“Remember, things are not
always
what they appear to be.”

“Mostly they are, darlin’.”

“Not really. Take the way Mollie perceives the relationship between you and me, for instance. We could never convince her that we’re not lovers. Why, right now she’s lying in there wide awake, thinking we’re in bed together.”

“What Mollie thinks is of little interest to me. Night, now.”

In Cherry’s red bedroom, Lew stripped to the skin and crawled into bed. But he didn’t sleep. An arm folded beneath his head, he stared at the scarlet canopy above him and absently twisted the gold chain on his neck.

His thoughts, for once, were not on the beautiful dark-haired Spanish girl to whom he had given the chain and cross. Nor were they on the voluptuous redhead in whose bed he now lay. He closed his eyes and saw only Mollie. Mollie wearing nothing but her lacy chemise. Mollie tipsy from too much champagne. Mollie laughing giddily. Mollie eagerly opening her soft, warm lips under his own.

A painful heaviness pressed down on Lew’s bare chest as he saw with vivid clarity a saucy red garter encircling a long, silken leg. The frilly feminine garter was out of place on Mollie’s knee, but powerfully provocative. The recollection brought instant arousal. Lew felt his groin swell and his heart begin to pound.

Anger mixing with desire, he impatiently threw back the covers and swung his bare feet to the lush red carpet.

“I just need a woman. Any woman,” he muttered to himself. “And right out there in the sitting room is more woman than Mollie Rogers will ever be.”

Lew reached for his trousers, paused, and left them where they lay. It was no good. He didn’t want Cherry Sellers. Wouldn’t take her to bed even if he could persuade her to forget their vow to Clint.

He wanted Mollie.

That realization disgusted him, but his body remained rigid with his need. He stalked to the window, his throbbing, thrusting tumescence mocking him, infuriating him, frightening him. Like it or not, the unlikely temptress held a measure of power over him. If not over his mind, at least over his body.

“Damn you, outlaw,” he said through thinned lips as he stood at the open window clutching the heavy red curtain.

Cursing his weakness and the woman responsible for it, he stayed there until the night air cooled his scalding blood and the physical evidence of his desire finally disappeared. Sighing heavily, Lew returned to the bed, took a cigar from the bedside table, and lighted it with shaking hands. He puffed and blew out the smoke, cautioning himself about the days ahead. He’d have to be on guard at all times. Couldn’t allow himself to think of Mollie as anything other than one of the gang of notorious bandits responsible for the deaths of those he most loved.

It would be easier once they were back on the trail. Then Mollie would be in her trousers and her hair would be a tangled mess and her face all sunburned.

And no more long, bare legs and flirtatious red garters.

Mollie lay awake in the moonlight long after Lew had left her. When it seemed an eternity had gone by and the effects of the champagne had worn off and the house was totally silent, Mollie rose. She pulled on her buckskins, shirt, and boots, and grabbed up her red saddlebags. Cautiously, she opened the bedroom door. All was quiet.

She drew a shallow breath and glanced toward Cherry’s room. The door was shut. Certain that Lew and Cherry were together on the other side of that closed door, Mollie refused to let herself consider what they were probably doing. Telling herself she didn’t care, she hurried to the living room.

And stopped short.

Cherry was curled up on the red velvet settee, reading. Her eyes lifted to meet Mollie’s.

Lowering her book, she wagged her head back and forth. “I can’t let you do that, Mollie.”

Shoulders slumping, Mollie said, “Please, Cherry. Pretend you didn’t know, didn’t see me leave. Tell Lew I must have slipped out the bedroom window and—”

“I wish I could, honest I do. But I promised Lew, and I keep my promises.”

Her face screwed up in a frown, Mollie pleaded her case. “I’ll die in prison, I will. Do you want that?”

“No, I don’t.” Cherry smiled then and it was an almost motherly smile. Softly she said, “But I’m not worried about that happening. You see, I know Lew better than you. You’ll never make it to Denver. Mark my words. Now go back to bed and get some rest, honey.”

Mollie’s thick lashes lowered in defeat, then lifted questioningly. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“Honey, there’s two things I never do. And one of them is go to bed before the sun rises.” She laughed.

“And the other?”

“Go to bed with Lew.”

Mollie’s mouth fell open. She quickly closed it, shrugged, and said, “I’m sure I don’t care whether you go to bed with him or not.”

A well-arched red eyebrow lifted. “And I’m just as sure that you do.”

With morning the first hint of an early autumn chilled the crisp dawn air. Mollie and Lew, preparing to depart, said little to each other, though their eyes met often. It was not lost on Cherry.

When she kissed Lew good-bye, her eyes filled with tears, and she whispered in his ear, “Honey, people ought to not live in the past.”

Embracing her, he said, “Look who’s talking.”

Cherry sighed, released him, hurried back toward the house, turned, and called out, “Lew, honey, wait one minute. Mollie, come here, please. I have something I meant to give you.”

Mollie, already mounted, looked to Lew for permission. He nodded. She slid out of the saddle and went back up the front walk as the sun’s first pink rays seeped over the rugged mountain peaks.

Cherry met her on the front porch. She took Mollie’s hand and pressed into it the red satin garter she had loaned Mollie last night. The garter that Lew had so expertly peeled down Mollie’s left leg.

“You never know when a red garter will come in handy,” Cherry said, winking at Mollie. “Put it in your pocket, honey. Then some night when Lew is in a congenial mood and the two of you are sitting around the campfire and it’s almost bedtime … You strip right down to your underwear and slip on the red garter.” Before Mollie could say anything, Cherry impulsively hugged her tightly. Into Mollie’s ear she whispered, “Hell, honey, he’s just a man. Make him want you.”