Sullivan (29 page)

Even with the heightened guard on Eden, since the shot had been fired that afternoon, Sullivan was able to slip past Nate and into her room. He tried to tell himself that she would be safer with him nearby. He even tried to convince himself that she'd been telling the truth when she'd said she would be satisfied with the sex, if that was all they had. The truth of the matter was, he wanted her so much he didn't care.

She waited for him, sitting on the bed in her simple white nightgown, her hair loose and falling over her shoulders. His heart constricted in his chest, and for a moment he couldn't breathe. God, she was beautiful, more beautiful than anything he'd ever seen. It wouldn't last, couldn't last, but for now she was his.

"I didn't know if you'd come tonight or not," she whispered when the door was closed.

He didn't answer but began to undress, yanking his shirt over his head, unbuttoning his denims.

Eden smiled. "It's too bad we were interrupted this afternoon. Why, we probably hadn't been in the tub ten minutes before Jedidiah started looking for me."

"Five," he said as he shucked off his pants.

"You're quite the genius." She didn't wait for him to come to her, but lifted the nightgown over her head and discarded it. Pale moonlight cast through the window illuminated her body, bare and perfect and much too fascinating. "I actually liked the idea of putting a spout in that outer wall, so we can pour water almost directly from the well into the tub. It'll save carrying it through the lobby, like we've been doing."

"I'd been thinking about that anyway," he said. "Hell, when your brother walked in I had to come up with some reason we were both in that small room."

She lifted her hand and touched his forearm as he reached the bed. "At least we got out of the tub before he found us."

Harsh reality, Sullivan reminded himself. No prettying up the picture for Eden, no pretending that there was more to this than physical need. "I've got to put a latch on that door."

Eden's hand moved to his hip, where it rested gently. "Yes, you do," she said absently. "You said there wasn't room in the tub to do, well, everything, but this afternoon I decided you were wrong. If we positioned ourselves just right..."

He placed a knee on the bed, tipped Eden over, and leaned slowly down until he hovered above her. "Maybe
after
I put a latch on the door."

"The lack of a latch didn't stop you last time," she whispered, grinning and reaching out to hold him, raking her fingers along his back and his hips.

No matter what she said about
this
being enough, he knew it was a lie. He could see the tenderness in her eyes, could almost feel the hope in her heart. Somehow, he had to make her realize that he would never be the man she wanted him to be.

He placed his hands on her thighs and spread her legs wide, and then he touched her intimately, stroking her wet flesh. With no more preparation, he thrust to fill her. He made love to her hard, without tenderness, without the pretty words she liked to hear. He sheathed himself inside her, stroked her again and again. She had to know this wasn't love; it was mating, pure and simple.

Eden surprised him. She didn't shy away from this fierce encounter but embraced it. She lifted her hips to take all of him. She wrapped her legs around him and threw her head back with a deep-throated sigh that was so full of pleasure it made him ache.

She climaxed with another low moan, closing her eyes, clasping on to him as her body shuddered. His own release rocked him hard, as she milked him completely, as she depleted his body and his soul.

He collapsed atop her, sweaty skin to sweaty skin, pounding heart to pounding heart. His breath came as hard as hers did, and as they lay in a warm, entwined heap of flesh they said nothing. Nothing at all.

When he felt Eden's fingers in his hair, the strokes there tender and loving, he knew it was time to go. He rose slowly, disengaging himself from her with a reluctance he couldn't afford to show. She didn't say a word until he bent down to pick up his denims.

"You're not going to stay with me tonight?"

"No."

She was quiet for a few minutes, as he dressed. His back was to her, but he could feel her eyes on him. Wanting, hoping, loving eyes. Hell, this was a mistake. He wasn't ever going to get tired of her, and she wasn't going to surrender and decide to go home.

"All right," she whispered. "If that's what you want."

He turned and watched Eden collect her nightgown from the floor and pull it on, her movements slow and easy. She crawled into the bed and slipped under the covers with a soft sigh of contentment. He expected tears, pleading, a request for just one kiss before he left.

But instead, she smiled and wished him good night, and then she closed her eyes. Perfectly agreeable. Unmistakably satisfied.

Damn it, Eden had him right where she wanted him, didn't she?

* * *

"Uncle Jed! Uncle Jed!"

Jed turned just as Millie threw herself at him. He caught the little girl and lifted her from her feet. As always, a more sober Teddy was right behind her.

"What are you doing up so early?" he asked. After all, it was not yet light outside.

"We have school," she said with a serious nod of her head, looking him directly in the eye as he held her. "And Mr. Reese said we're going to learn all about the Alamo today. I don't even know what an Alamo is!" She grinned widely.

"Well, then, this is an important day for you," he said solemnly.

Reese, a teacher! He still had a hard time dealing with that change. As excited as Millie always was about learning something new, Reese must be as good a teacher as he was a captain. God knows Jed had never gotten excited about going to school!

"What about you?" he asked, looking down at Teddy. "Do you know what the Alamo is?"

Teddy nodded and gave him a look that said
moron
as clearly as if he'd spoken the word aloud.

It was so like Eden to take these kids in as her own. To make their lives better, to give them a home. They'd be better off in Georgia, too.

He twirled Millie around and then set her on her feet. "I've got an errand to run," he said, "so I'd better get going."

She waved him back down, waggling her fingers at him. Knowing what was coming, he leaned down so she could give him a kiss on his stubbled cheek.

"What about you?" he asked, winking at Teddy. "Don't you want to give your Uncle Jed a kiss, too?"

Teddy still didn't talk much, but he did manage to emit a disgusted grunt as he walked past—without offering a kiss.

"I like Uncle Jed," Millie said as the children walked toward the dining room. "I never had an uncle before. Don't you like Uncle Jed?" she asked.

Teddy glanced over his shoulder and looked directly at Jed. The kid was small, skinny even, but the look he gave Jed was audacious.

"No," he said, quite clearly.

* * *

She'd put off giving Grady's room a good cleaning, not anxious to reenter the room where the sweet old man had died. Still, she couldn't leave it closed off forever. Eventually she might need the space, if the hotel became successful.

All morning she'd been cleaning the guest rooms, Rico right behind her. He was more vigilant than ever since someone had taken a shot at her down by the river. Every now and then he'd look up and down the hall as if he expected to see an armed assassin waiting there, and the way he caressed his knife gave Eden a chill. He was definitely comfortable with the weapon.

Very early this morning they'd received word of Lydia's whereabouts. A cowboy from a ranch outside town had come to town for a visit to the saloon, and he'd mentioned to Kate that his boss had recently married Lydia. Kate had told Cash the news sometime before sunup. Jedidiah had left for the ranch shortly after that. The news only confused Eden. If Lydia had run off to marry a rancher, then who was trying to run her out of Rock Creek?

She took a deep breath and opened the door to Grady's room, expecting stale odors and bad memories. But the window was open to allow a breeze to circulate, and a familiar calico-covered derriere was hoisted in the air, as the intruder looked under the bed.

"Ethel?"

Ethel bumped her head on the bed as she quickly withdrew. She rubbed the spot gingerly as she came to her feet. "Eden, my goodness, you gave me a fright."

"What are you doing here?" Part of the room had been cleaned, but for the most part everything was simply topsy-turvy. The mattress was askew, the quilt had been tossed onto the floor, and the box containing Grady's personal belongings, what little there was, had been opened and obviously searched.

"I wanted to surprise you," Ethel said with a wide smile. "Since you and Grady were such close friends, I decided it might distress you to go through his things and clean his room."

"It's true, the thought has not been pleasant."

"The room was rather a mess." Ethel looked around her. "It still is, but I've barely gotten started."

"I can help," Eden stepped toward the trunk and the scattered clothes on the floor. "Working together, it shouldn't take us long to finish up."

Was that a sigh she heard behind her? Surely not.

Eden glanced over her shoulder to Rico, who stood in the open doorway. "Why don't you take a break and go get a cup of coffee."

Rico shook his head and fingered his knife.

"You're making me nervous," Eden said with a smile. "If you stay, I'll put you to work cleaning out the dust bunnies."

The threat worked. Rico stepped back and then disappeared from view. She heard his footsteps on the stairs.

"You must be terrified," Ethel said as she picked the quilt up off the floor. "I know I would be if someone had been threatening me."

"It hasn't been pleasant."

"Why, I bet you can't wait to get back to Georgia." Ethel took the quilt to the open window and slipped it through the opening, then gave it a hearty shaking. She wrinkled her nose as dust particles danced back her way and filled the air, catching the sunlight.

Eden looked at Grady's clothes. He'd been buried in his best suit, and what remained wasn't much better than a pile of rags. "Oh, I'm not going back to Georgia." She held up a particularly disgusting shirt. With a good washing, it might make a decent dust cloth. "Jedidiah and Sin think I plan to go quietly, but when the time comes I'll tell them differently."

Ethel pulled in the quilt and folded it over the foot of the bed. "So you plan to stay?"

Eden smiled. "Yes. I like this old hotel. I think with a little work it can be..."

With a sigh much like the one Eden had heard earlier, Ethel crossed the room and closed the door. When she turned to face Eden, her smile was gone.

"Why couldn't you just leave?" she asked softly. "Most highfalutin ladies would've run out of town with their tails between their legs after finding that first note." She slipped a hand into her bodice and pulled out a pearl-handled derringer.

Ethel? Chattering, sometimes-sweet, always-smiling
Ethel
was her enemy? Eden saw something new in Ethel's usually empty eyes. Desperation.

"You can't shoot me," Eden whispered. "Rico knows you're here."

Ethel shrugged her shoulders, and using the weapon she gestured toward the window. "You're right. I guess you'd better just jump."

"I'm not going to jump," Eden said with a lift of her chin. It was difficult to be scared of Ethel. The woman was not much bigger than she was, and they'd done dishes together, for goodness' sake. And Ethel was a woman. Women simply didn't go around shooting one another.

"But I would like to know why you're doing this. Did I do something to offend you so much that you'd go to such lengths to run me out of town?"

Ethel shook her gun at Eden like it was a censuring finger. "You didn't do anything but show up at a bad time. A very bad time. My father and that old bastard Grady were partners, once. They made a big haul before the war. Gold. Grady made off with it. He's hidden it somewhere in this hotel. I know it. And it's mine! We ended up with nothing. My father died without a penny in his pockets, and I had two choices. I could marry a fat, greasy pig farmer or I could sell myself."

"What about your sisters?" Eden asked softly, hoping to appeal to Ethel's love of her family.

"There are no damn sisters!" she snapped. "I made them up. There was only me and Pop, for as long as I can remember. That gold is my legacy from him."

Eden felt a new rush of fear. Ethel was growing frantic. A frantic woman might do anything. Anything at all. "If there's gold here, you can have it," she said."I have no claim to whatever your father and Grady... confiscated. But Ethel"—she held Grady's shirt aloft—"would a man who has a fortune in gold stashed away wear this shirt? Would he allow his hotel to practically fall down around his ears?"

"Grady was a crazy old man." Ethel stepped forward, the derringer aimed steadily and unforgivingly toward Eden's heart. "I don't know why he lived this way when he had the gold, but I know he had it. He hid it somewhere."

"If you can find gold here, you can have it."

Ethel smiled. "You say that now, when I have a gun pointed at you, but what will you say when I'm unarmed and you're surrounded by your guardians?"

"I don't go back on my word," Eden said.

With the derringer touching Eden's chest, Ethel propelled her toward the window. "You'll be gone. There will be no one to run the hotel. The men will move out, and I'll have free run of the place to search it from top to bottom."

"I told you..."

"You should've left when you had the chance," Ethel whispered, just as Eden reached the open window.

She was going to die. Ethel was going to push her from the open window, and she was going to fall into the garden she had such hopes for. With the derringer now against her throat, Eden's head actually went through the window.

And there, to her right, she saw a familiar boot precariously perched on a narrow ledge.

A brief knock on the door startled them both.

"Say a word and you and whoever that is at the door are both dead, you got it?" Ethel whispered.