The Lawman's Agreement (Entangled Scandalous) (14 page)

Chapter Sixteen

“I don’t like the idea of you riding home alone,” Virginia said over coffee the next morning, her gaze firmly attuned to Matt’s.

Zack sat at the table, a mug of hot chicory coffee in his hand, the remnants of his breakfast on the plate in front of him. “Don’t worry, Aunt Ginnie,” he told her. “I’ll ride with Matt until he’s safely out of town and then double back to make sure nobody’s following.”

“We all agreed, our best course of action is to make sure all of our interests, and especially
all
of our family members, are protected,” Matt explained. “And as much as I appreciate Sheriff Pachem and his deputies, I don’t like leaving Miri and Molly in Vicksburg without me. Now that Carter Temple has recovered from his wounds, Pachem says he’s more inclined to give up additional information if it’ll keep him out of prison. I want to be there when he starts talking.”

“We’re grateful you were here when all this started,” Zack said, laying his hand on his aunt’s shoulder. “We’d have been stretched mighty thin if we’d needed to post someone in Natchez as well.”

Virginia rose from her seat at the table and began clearing dishes. “I can’t stay here forever. Natchez is my home. I’m counting on the three of you to settle this ‘problem’ once and for all, with nobody getting hurt.”

“We’ll do our best, Aunt Ginnie,” Zack assured her. He swallowed the last of his coffee, pushed his chair back and stood. “Now if you all will excuse me, I’m going to make sure Suzanne got to the clinic all right this morning. She wasn’t overly happy with having a guard posted outside her home last night.”

Felicity met Zack’s gaze and smiled. “Perhaps, Zackary, it wasn’t the idea of the guard she opposed but the fact that it wasn’t you.”

Zack leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Felicity’s cheek. “You know how stubbornly independent the woman can be. No doubt she’s certain that little pocket pistol of hers is all the protection she needs.”

Felicity smiled a second time, her gaze going from Zack, to Matt, settling finally on Jake. “I don’t know about Suzanne, but I prefer a big, strong man for protection any day.”

…

Suzanne unlocked the door of the clinic and waited while her escort made sure there was no one inside. According to her well-armed guard, Zack had come by the cottage twice during the night to assure himself all was well. Suzanne wondered if Zack had even slept. She would have gladly shared her bed, she realized, even knowing it would have quickly become public knowledge.

“I’ll be just outside the clinic doors if you need anything,” Huck Parsons explained once he’d swept through the rooms.

“I’ll be fine, Mr. Parsons, thank you. If the marshal comes by to check on things, would you please tell him I’d like a moment of his time?”

“Yes ma’am, I’ll be sure to do that.”

She busied herself with pulling out the patient records for her first three appointments and preparing two blank charts in case there were unexpected arrivals. A noise to the left of the office caused her to startle and, instinctively, she reached for her handbag and the small pistol inside.

“I hope you’re not reaching for your gun.”

Suzanne looked up from her handbag to see Zack standing in the doorway, a grin rearranging his otherwise tired features.

“I didn’t hear you come in. How did you get past the bell on the clinic door?”

“I came in through the door we put in to connect the clinic storeroom to the hospital,” he explained. “I had a second lock installed and wanted to test the key.” He held out his hand, two keys dangling from his fingertips. “I have a set, Doc Miller has a set, and here’s a set for you.” Zack took a couple of steps forward and laid the keys on the edge of the desk.

“Have you slept at all?” she asked.

“A couple of hours on one of the cots at the jail,” he admitted.

Suzanne stood and went around the side of the desk, stopping directly in front of Zack. Raising her hand, she laid her palm against his cheek, the stubble of his two-day beard tickling her skin, sending tingles up her arm.

“You need to rest,” she told him. “You won’t do anyone any good if you’re as spent as a crust of week old bread.”

“I’d much rather be here with you,” he told her. Zack reached for the hand she’d laid against his cheek and pulled her into his embrace.

“I’ve only a few minutes before patients begin arriving,” she felt compelled to point out, all thoughts of her expected patients melting away when Zack lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers.

She could smell the faint aroma of coffee on his breath and slipped her tongue between his teeth in search of the flavor. Her bold advance drew Zack’s groan, the sound reverberating through his body and into hers.

He returned her kiss with an assault of his own, the very penetration of his tongue inside her mouth filling her head with thoughts of another type of penetration. Deep within her body, Suzanne trembled.

When they finally came up for air, Zack whispered, “I’d like nothing more than to lay you down across that desk and have my way with you, Dr. Martindale.”

Suzanne’s heart skipped a beat at the idea of such a decadent encounter. What she wouldn’t give at that moment for an extra thirty minutes and a place slightly more comfortable than the top of an old wooden desk. The realization that she was actually considering Zack’s suggestion sent a second rush of warm arousal through her body.

“Unfortunately, we’re victims of bad timing, Zack.” The words had no sooner left her lips when the bell above the clinic door rang sharply, announcing the arrival of her first patient.

Zack lowered his hands to his sides and released a deep sigh. “Duty calls for both of us. However, there’s always tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes
, cher
, tonight.”

The thought of having Zack in her home made Suzanne wish for something she never had before—a rapid passing of her busy day. If only her self-imposed calendar weren’t there to interfere.

…

Zack had barely taken a seat behind his desk when the door opened and Jake came in. “There’s been a possible sighting of Collier and Ripley,” Jake said without preamble. “According to the men I posted along the waterway, someone’s set up a campsite upstream about a quarter mile from the mill.”

“I’ll get my horse from the livery.” Zack stood and reached for his gun and holster, strapping them into place as he moved toward the door. “You grab one of the two men I posted over by the clinic and meet me in front of the saloon. I don’t want to head in that direction without plenty of backup.”

The ride to the lumber mill took less than twenty minutes. Yet to Zack, it felt as if they’d been riding forever. He wanted this over with. It was hard enough sorting through the outlaws and con men as it was. When your own family was in danger, the pressure to prevail took a new kind of hold, a more personal commitment.

“Let’s leave the horses here,” Zack said. “We’ll head toward the campsite on foot.”

Zack, Jake, Deputy Stiles, and two of Jake’s hired men started through the tree line and into the woods, spreading out but keeping no more than twenty-five feet distance between them. As planned, Zack took the lead so every man could watch for his signal.

A quarter mile into their search, Zack raised his hand to halt their progress. Straight ahead, he could see what was left of the makeshift camp, the only remaining sign a recently doused campfire. He started forward cautiously, the others moving just as slowly behind him.

“Well, they were here,” Zack said when the others joined him beside the circle of rocks containing the smoldering embers. “Obviously, they’re smart enough to not stay in any one place longer than a night or so.”

“Now that we’re on to them, you’d think they’d just pull up stakes and leave,” Jake said.

“As smart a move as that might be, it’s been my experience that men with a vendetta, no matter how foolish, don’t usually know when to give up. Or they fully intend to play it out to the end, even if the end is their own.” Zack’s assessment brought a nod of understanding from both Jake and Deputy Stiles.

“Look at this, Marshal,” Stiles said, picking up a piece of paper from the ground near the edge of the clearing.

Zack took the scrap of paper from his deputy’s hand, the slightly singed edges telling him the intention had been to destroy the paper but somehow it had escaped the fire’s wrath and blown off to the side.

“It’s a flyer listing clinic times and hospital visiting hours,” Zack said. “Suzanne and Doc Miller had these printed up right after they joined their practices.” He turned the paper over and studied the drawing on the back, adding, “There’s a crudely drawn map of the town on the other side, with an ‘x’ marking Jake’s house, Suzanne’s cottage, the hotel site, and the road leading to the mill.”

Zack met Jake’s gaze and the two men set out in a run back through the trees, anxious to reach their horses and their loved ones before anyone else did.

The moment they reached town Zack went straight to the clinic, telling the man on duty, “I’ll take over from here. I want you to go out to the hotel site and help out there. Once the evening shift arrives, make sure everyone heads home for a good night’s sleep. These next couple of days should end this thing, and I want everyone alert.”

“Sure thing, Marshal,” the man said. “There’s only one patient left in the clinic so Dr. Martindale should be about ready to finish up for the day.”

“Thanks, Huck. If anything happens out there, send someone for me immediately.”

Zack took a seat in the waiting room of the clinic, the open area giving him a full view of both long hallways. He heard Suzanne and her patient talking and realized they’d left the exam room and were headed in his direction.

“Marshal,” the elderly Mae Wilkins said as she approached. “When you gonna marry this lovely woman?”

Zack chuckled. “As soon as she’s willing, I suppose. The doc’s too busy with her patients to be worried about marrying me.”

“Don’t you be waiting too long. I’m not getting any younger, and I’d love to see at least one more wedding before I go.”

Suzanne escorted Mrs. Wilkins to the door, telling her, “You’ll be at the top of the guest list, I promise.”

“We have a guest list?” Zack asked as Suzanne closed the door behind Mrs. Wilkins.

“Of course we do, theoretically speaking.”

“I’ll wait while you close up here and then escort you next door for your hospital rounds.”

“What happened to Mr. Parsons?”

“I came to take his place while he rides out to the hotel site.”

“So that means you’ll be my guard until the night shift takes over?” she asked.

Zack grinned and nodded, then added, “I
am
the night shift,
cher
, starting tonight and every night until this is over.”

“You can’t stay at my place every night, Zack. People will talk.”

“Right now, my main concern is your safety, not the snippy gossip of the good people of Greenville.”

“I can’t afford damaging my career with gossip and neither can you.”

Zack sighed deeply. “Can we talk about this later,
cher
?”

“Yes,” she said. “And we will.”

Of that, Zack had no doubt.

Suzanne finished up with the last of her charts while Zack busied himself with securing the windows and front door leading into the clinic. Comfortable that everything was locked up as tight as possible, he returned to Suzanne’s office as she was putting away the last of her paperwork.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yes, I am.”

Zack led the way through the storeroom to the newly built door connecting the clinic to the hospital. “I’m glad we decided to put this here. I feel safer having you go between the two without going outside.”

“It’s not that long a walk between the two front doors,” she pointed out.

“No, but if it’s raining or colder, there’s no sense having to go outside if it’s not necessary.”

Once on the other side of the adjoining door, they stepped into another storeroom, this one housing spare bed parts, extra feather mattresses, and a few extra rocking chairs, the latter compliments of an over-zealous woodworker who’d avidly been vying for Suzanne’s attention.

“I like the window up high like that,” she said, pointing to the oversized window near the top of the side wall. “It lets in a lot of sunlight during the day and moonlight in the evening. I don’t feel as if I have to carry a lamp with me to cross between the two buildings.”

“I like it because nobody can climb through the darned thing.”

Suzanne shook her head, obviously amused by his observation. “Come on, Marshal, let’s get through rounds and head back to my cottage. You’re starting to get grumpy. You obviously need a good night’s sleep.”

Zack took hold of Suzanne’s arm and ushered her toward the storeroom door, stopping just short of actually reaching for the knob. When he turned to face her, her smile was a welcome invitation for his kiss. Obligingly, Zack lowered his head and pressed his mouth to hers.

Suzanne wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, threading the fingers of one hand through his hair until she could cradle his head, her thumb running lazy circles against the base of his skull. An overwhelming sense of relaxation warred with the rising desire Zack got whenever he kissed Suzanne.