The Kissing Stars (15 page)

He fumbled the reins. “Come again?”

“I left something there I need to get.”

“At the whorehouse?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you were at the saloon when the trouble started. That was bad enough but now you’re saying you were at the whorehouse?”

“Actually I visited both establishments. And I left a package behind the bordello that I must have before I leave town, so I want you to drive down the alley so I can retrieve it.”

He lifted his face toward the sky and she heard him murmur, “She is not the woman I married.”

You have that right
, she silently fumed.

“What the hell.” Louder, he said, “All right, I’ll lead you down the garden path, madam. I reckon I’m anxious to see what’s in this package of yours.”

Over my dead body
. She flipped the tarp over her head with flourish.

As he pulled the wagon out onto the dusty main street, she peeked between the tarp and the sideboards and observed the crowd. She spotted Andrew’s hat at the center of things and she was certain she heard Twinkle’s voice, wailing about some nonsense or other. The diversion had worked. Nobody noticed the departure of the Aurora Springs supply wagon. Almost nobody, that is. The stranger called Mack stood at the edge of the crowd, and Tess grinned when he stared right at her and winked.

He seemed like such a nice man. She hoped a time would come when she could meet him properly.

At the far end of town, Gabe guided the wagon onto a side street and then into an alley. A few minutes later, the wagon wheels rolled to a stop. “Tell me where it is and I’ll get it.”

“Not necessary,” Tess said, throwing back the tarpaulin. “I’ll get it.”

She scrambled from the wagon and retrieved her brown-paper wrapped package from where she’d stashed it inside a broken flower pot on the bordello’s back steps. Upon returning to the wagon, she spied the curiosity in her husband’s gaze and clasped the package tightly to her chest. “Don’t even try.”

She crawled back into her hiding place with her package and Gabe signaled the mules forward. She bounced along in the back of the wagon for a good ten minutes until he told her they’d made it safely out of town, apparently without being followed. At that point, she joined him up front.

One glance at Gabe’s face made her reconsider. Maybe she should ride all the way with Rosie. Time had not soothed his temper. If anything, the set to his jaw looked harder than before.
Wonderful. He’s been brooding
.

Some men should never be left alone with their own thoughts.

Rosie chose that moment to snort, as though she agreed with her mistress.

“Oh, let’s get it over with,” Tess said, exasperated. “Go ahead, Gabe. Rant and rave and tell me how stupid you think I am. That’s the word you were going to use before, am I right? You think I’m stupid for saving Rosie.”

He spat an oath and yanked back on the reins until the mules lumbered to a stop. “Yes, I think you’re stupid. Stupid and stubborn and pigheaded.”

“Watch what you say, Gabe Cameron.”

For once he didn’t object to her use of his real name. He was too busy fuming and gripping her shoulders as if to shake her. “You risked your life, Tess.” His voice sounded wrenched from his soul. “You went and risked your life when…when…”

“When what?”

He blew out a harsh breath once, then twice. “When I’ve only just found you again.”

And then he kissed her. He pulled her against him, took her mouth, and plundered. She tasted his frustration, tasted his fear. Tasted his passion.

Oh, Gabe
.

Tess melted and surrendered, matching him kiss for kiss. Caress for caress. Groan for achy, need-filled groan.

This explosion had been building for days. For years. Her bodice draped open by the skillful work of his fingers. Her laces loosened, her corset fell away. His hands tore her shimmy and she was free. Free, to arch and offer. Free to sigh as he accepted and kneaded and took her nipple into the heaven of his mouth.

She didn’t care that she lay across the hard pine plank of a wagon. She didn’t care that they lost themselves out in the open exposed to the gaze of anyone who happened by. All she cared about was Gabe and the magic he conjured with his mouth and hands and body.

“God,” he prayed as he dragged his mouth from one breast to the other, suckling, feasting. Hungry.

She was hungry too. She’d missed this, missed him.
So long. It’s been so long
.

And she was so ready. They’d been headed for this since Dallas.

His hand delved beneath her skirts. His fingers found her, explored her, caressed her. Slipped inside to stroke that place untouched for what seemed like forever. She moaned aloud and he answered with a low, rough growl. Moments later the orgasm rolled over her like a gentle wind.

“Oh, my stars,” she breathed, gasping at the pleasure, wondering at the speed of it, wanting it to go on and on and on.

Her words seemed to call him back to earth. His hand stilled and he lifted his head. For a long, lovely moment he looked deep into her eyes. “Damn, Venus, what are we doing?”

Venus
. The old nickname was music to her ears.

Breathing heavy, he sat up. He swallowed hard and braced his hands on his knees, hanging his head, shaking it. “In the big middle of the desert. In front of the damned peeping pig.”

“Are you stopping?”

He hesitated just a moment, then nodded.

“But I…don’t you…you didn’t…”

“Not like this, darlin’. We both deserve more. Forgive me, I treated you poorly.”

Putting her clothing to rights, feeling the warmth stealing over her cheeks, she couldn’t stop the little laugh. “Poorly? That’s not exactly the term I’d use.”

He jerked his head up, studied her, and the familiar, wicked gleam took light in his eyes. A smile played at the comer of his mouth. “Not poorly, huh?”

She fanned her face. “Not poorly at all.”

The grin broke out and he made a show of shifting uncomfortably on his seat “Well, at least one of us is feeling…uh…”

“Not poorly.” Tess bit the inside of her mouth. Otherwise she’d giggle and the really didn’t want to take it that far.

He sighed heavily and grimaced. “I don’t suppose there’s any whiskey stashed in those supplies back there. I sure could use a drink.”

Tess considered just a moment before replying, “No whiskey, but I do have something.” Reaching into the back of the wagon, she retrieved her private package, pausing long enough to scratch Rosie behind the ears when she snorted for attention. Tearing open the paper, she reached inside and felt the smooth, cool surface of the bottle. She pulled it out and handed it to him.

Gabe took her offering and his eyebrows winged up, then down, and he sympathetically said, “Elderberry wine. Still have trouble with the monthlies, do you?”

An hour earlier, she’d have died before admitting it. Now she simply nodded.

Gabe pulled the cork from the bottle with a pop. He stared at the label, grimaced, then lifted it to his lips for a long pull. Then he shuddered. “Bleh. Nasty sweet stuff. I’d forgotten just how awful this is.”

Then he took another long sip, repeated his shudder, and eyed Tess with a considering stare. “You got wine from the saloon, and from the whorehouse…” He reached for her package.

“I prefer bordello,” she held it away.

“Give over, wife. I know what it is.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Then you know I don’t want to share.”

“Give it up, Tess.” Grinning, he lunged for the sack.

She squealed and held it away, to no avail. She couldn’t fight the man’s superior strength. She couldn’t withstand the wicked twinkle in his eyes or the way his fingers knew just where to tickle. “Oh, all right,” she said, laughing. “Here.” She shoved the package at him.

He reached into the paper and removed the box. “Tess, you hoarder you, you haven’t changed a bit.” He lifted the lid and grinned. “It’s been years since I’ve plundered a box of chocolates.”

GABE UNLOADED the last box from the supply wagon and toted it into the storeroom. Setting his burden down beside a sack of flour, he stretched his aching back muscles and sighed with the relief of a job completed. Next time he’d make sure not to get stuck doing this task by himself.

Not that he hadn’t enjoyed the time alone with Tess. He wouldn’t trade that wagon ride home for all the tumbleweeds in southwest Texas. It was more than just the sex play they’d shared, although that had been downright delightful. Something had changed for them out there among the cactus and the sagebrush. They’d talked to one another all the way back home. Small talk, friendly talk. Intimate talk. Hopeful talk. And underneath it all, desire hummed a constant, muted tune.

It had been nice. Damned nice. He hadn’t enjoyed an afternoon this much in longer than he could remember.

Gabe stole a peppermint from the candy jar sitting next to a stack of canned beets and popped it into his mouth. Stepping outside the storeroom, he was careful to pull the door shut behind him in order to protect the day’s purchases from patrolling pigs and other pests. The evening air had a welcome crispness to it, and Gabe lifted his face into the gentle breeze, appreciating the drop in temperature. Maybe fall had finally arrived. For a while there he’d thought it might stay summer forever.

Heaven knows he was accustomed to run-on seasons. Hadn’t it been winter in his heart for going on thirteen years?

But after today, he wondered if the ice wasn’t starting to melt, if winter wasn’t preparing to slide into spring. Spring, that time of rebirth when color burst across the barren landscape as life flowered and flourished.

Gabe took a gander into his future and thought he just might be seeing a few shoots of color pushing their way up through the dead, dry dirt that had been his life of late. If it were so, Tess was the reason for it. Tess was the reason for the change.

Losing her had drained the color from his life. Finding her was bringing it back.

“Damned if you aren’t waxing philosophical tonight,” he grumbled to himself. “Would be a better use of time to wax up your boots. You’re starting to sound like a woman.”

He sighed and started moving toward the communal kitchen where Tess labored to prepare supper for him and the rest of the Aurorians upon their return. His steps were slow but steady, carrying him ever closer to his wife. Despite his effort to shake it, his contemplative mood hung on like a squirrel climbing a window screen.

If this time with Tess was a season, how long would it last? How long did he want it to last? How did he feel about this woman, his wife?

The light shining in the kitchen beckoned his gaze, and he stopped his forward movement when his position allowed him to observe her through the window. How did he feel about Tess? She’d scared the peewaddling out of him today with that gun foolishness, and she’d stirred up his lust like a high wind stirs up dust.

He watched her look down and speak to someone—something—and scowled at the idea that she let that damned pig in the kitchen. The woman went her own way in life, that’s for certain. She was independent and strong. How many women—or men for that matter—would have had the sand to leave home and pursue studies like she had, or build a home out here in the middle of nowhere like she had, or create a family from a band of eccentric stargazers like she had? How many women would face down a six-shooter to rescue a pig, for goodness’ sake?

Tess Rawlins Cameron scared him. She stirred him. She made him yearn.

“I love her,” Gabe said softly, closing his eyes at the admission, a truth he’d denied for years. He loved her. He’d never stopped loving her. That’s why he’d thought of searching for her so many times over the years. That’s why he’d worked so hard to talk himself out of doing just that. He loved her. That’s why he’d made this trip to southwest Texas. That’s why he’d hung around Aurora Springs. That’s why he had not pressed her for answers to questions he wasn’t certain he wanted to ask.

He loved her.

So what did he want to do about it?

With the question, in that moment, all his senses crystalized. The faint chatter of a roadrunner holed up in a bush to his right sounded like the
crack crack crack
of train robber’s gunshots pursuing their prey. From the aroma of roasting beef riding the air, he separated the scent of burning cedar and the bite of peppercorn used to season the meat. The breeze stroked his skin and the remnants of the peppermint slid across his tongue, tickling his mouth with its tangy sweetness.

And the vision of his wife filled his eyes like the answer to a prayer. Bright and beautiful and alive.

In that magnified moment, Gabe realized what he wanted. He wanted his wife back. He wanted her bade in his life for good. He wanted the color and the laughter and the joy. He wanted the fussing and the fighting and the making up. He wanted hearth and home and family. Children. Tess would make a wonderful mother.

He blew out a breath, then inhaled a deeper one, filling his chest with air.
Whoa, nothing like having a dub of self-revelation whomp you upside the head
.

Exhaling loudly, he dragged his hand down along his whisker-nubbled jaw. He knew he wanted his wife, so what was he going to do about it? What was standing in his way?

She swore she didn’t hold him responsible for Billy’s death and from her recent actions, he was inclined to believe her. The physical attraction between them sure as hell hadn’t dimmed.

Location might be a problem, though. The governor’s offer required Gabe’s presence in Austin which was a good piece from the place where her spooklights shined. He knew better than to expect her to pick up and leave her studies just because of him. The woman who helped build Aurora Springs would never hold for that.

But, he did have the lure of children to dangle at her. The girl he’d married twelve years ago used to rattle on about children all the time. He didn’t figure she’d changed her thinking in that regard.

Yep, they’d have to dicker a bit about location, but he figured they could make it work. So, what else might interfere?