The Lawman's Agreement (Entangled Scandalous) (16 page)

“I picked up some food from Miss Maribell’s. Fried chicken for me and one of those casseroles you’re so fond of for you.”

“That was very thoughtful,” Suzanne said. “If you’d like, I’ll put on a pot of water for tea.”

“You finish your article. I can make the tea. I’ll call you when everything’s ready.”

Zack went into the kitchen and lit a fire in the stove. After he placed the kettle over the open flame, he took out plates and set the table. Was this what married life felt like, sharing chores, stories about your day? As opposed as he’d always been to marriage, days like this did have a relaxing affect on him. Or quite possibly, it was Suzanne that calmed his usually tight nerves.

After they’d finished their meal, Zack helped clear the table and filled the sink with water from the stovetop. Again, a feeling of compatibility and relaxation came over him. Suzanne, on the other hand, seemed anything but relaxed, moving from one side of the small kitchen to the other. When she finally came within his reach, Zack took hold of her hand and drew her into his embrace.

“You seem a bit skittish this evening,” he said. He pressed his lips to her temple and kissed her softly. “Is everything okay?”

“I have something to tell you. Something I’ve been putting off for the past couple of weeks.”

Zack felt as if he’d been sucker punched in the gut. Was she about to end their agreement? Had she tired of pretending to care for him so quickly?

Suzanne held up her left hand for their mutual inspection. In his mind’s eye, all he could picture was how gloriously arousing that same hand and those same fingers were going to feel stroking his body when they finally retired for the night. She turned her hand from side to side, as if expecting him to understand what she was trying to tell him. A single tear fell onto her cheek and Zack reached up and wiped it away with the pad of his thumb.

“What is it,
cher
? You can tell me anything.”

“Don’t you see? I’ve lost my engagement ring.”

Chapter Eighteen

Felicity had been right. Zack hadn’t given one iota about her losing the ring. She realized she should have been relieved at his easy-going acceptance. Yet her guilt was almost overpowering, something she hadn’t expected, given the nature of their agreement. It was almost as if, deep down, she had more of an attachment to the ring than she’d thought.

He’d even offered to buy her a replacement. Suzanne couldn’t fathom such generosity of spirit, such instantaneous forgiveness. She thought briefly of her upbringing, the way her strict parents had disowned her when she’d refused a proposed marriage in favor of a career.

It had been difficult at first, working a night position at a restaurant in order to pay for school. Yet she’d done it. Then, in her second year of university, she’d lost her beloved paternal grandmother, but gained an inheritance that had seen her through college and medical school.

Suzanne set aside her medical bag and took a seat behind the desk. There were no appointments today, only the chance of a walk-in or an emergency. With no patients in the hospital either, it seemed as if she had nothing to do. Not for the first time since she’d arrived in Greenville, Suzanne wished for a busier practice, a more frequent use of her skills as a surgeon.

“Good morning, Dr. Martindale,” Kristine said from where she stood in the office doorway.

“Good morning, Kristine. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Sara and I finished cleaning the hospital rooms and changing the beds. I was going to take the sheets home to wash if you don’t mind my leaving.”

“We’re not busy so it should be all right. Go ahead if you’d like but be sure to count the pieces so we can reimburse you. Deputy Stiles should be posted somewhere out front. You can ask him to help you load everything into the hospital’s carriage out back and then fetch the horse from the livery and hitch it up for you.”

“I’d appreciate the use of the carriage, and Deputy Stiles’ help, that’s for sure. Shall I have Sara close up the hospital and come over here?”

“No, that’s okay. I’m sure I can handle anything that comes up. Since there’s little else to keep her busy, Sara could do an inventory of the medications and chart them in the ledger. After that, she can restock the cupboards in each ward with supplies.”

Kristine nodded. “I’ll let her know.”

Suzanne returned to her review of patient charts, certain there had to be something more interesting to help pass her day. She’d barely completed the second chart when a loud banging sounded at the clinic door.

Why didn’t they just come in
? Suzanne stood from her desk and started toward the waiting area, only then remembering Deputy Stiles had left his post to assist Kristine. And the marshal’s rules were the marshal’s rules: step away from the door and it has to be locked until you return.

A man stood at the door clutching his shoulder, blood streaming between his fingers. Suzanne didn’t hesitate, unlocking the door and pulling it open to allow the man inside. “What happened?” she asked.

“Shot. Hotel,” the man gasped out his words, still clutching tightly to his shoulder.

“Come with me,” she said, guiding the man toward the exam room. “Was anyone else hurt?”

“I’m not sure, Dr. Martindale,” he said, his demeanor changing as his speech cleared.

In less than a heartbeat, Suzanne recognized the voice from the alleyway, the slight vocal rasp. Raising her head, she met the menacing gaze of Charles Ripley.

“What do you want, Mr. Ripley?”

“A number of things, Doc. First off, I want you to patch up my shoulder, and then I want to watch the marshal squirm a bit when I hold this gun to your pretty head and threaten to pull the trigger.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have long wait. The marshal’s not due here until five. By then, you should be in sufficient enough pain that holding a gun to my head is the last thing you’ll be able to do.”

“He’ll be here long before that,” Ripley said. “Assuming he’s as smart as he seems to think he is.”

…

Zack rode back to town at top speed, anxious to see if Collier was telling the truth with his dying breath. Was Ripley really on his way into town? Had one of Jake’s men winged the bastard? And, had he escaped with the intention of making one last stand? Or, was Collier using what little time he had left to send them on a wild goose chase in the wrong direction?

Zack’s gut tightened. He dug his heels into the side of the horse and increased his speed. Surely, Ripley wouldn’t get past his deputy.

He’d no sooner pulled his horse to a stop when he saw Tom Stiles rounding the corner from behind the hospital.

“Why aren’t you at your post?” Zack hollered, unable to hold his anger in check.

“I was helping Nurse Kristine, like the doc asked.” Tom motioned toward the clinic door. “I turned over the ‘closed’ sign and locked the door, per your orders.”

Zack dismounted and crossed the walkway in three long strides. He took hold of the doorknob and turned, the door springing open without resistance.

“Honest, boss, I locked it,” Stiles said.

“No doubt you did, Tom. However, it would seem someone’s coaxed Dr. Martindale into opening it up.” Nodding toward the alleyway, he lowered his voice before saying, “You go around back and keep an eye out for anyone trying to sneak out that way.”

Tom hastened to follow Zack’s orders.

Zack stepped through the open clinic door, his gun drawn, and his senses on heightened alert. If Ripley truly was here and holding Suzanne hostage, Zack would shoot the man right where he stood.

“Suzanne, are you in here?” he called out.

“Go away, Zack,” she called back.

“You know he can’t do that,” Ripley said, his voice raised in smug satisfaction. “Now can you, Marshal?”

Zack moved swiftly in the direction of the exam room. When he reached the door, he stopped dead in his tracks, the sight of Suzanne perched on the chair beside the table, and Ripley standing behind her with his gun cocked, sending a rush of anger through Zack’s body and an itch to his trigger finger.

“Lay your gun down Marshal, and I promise not to shoot your lady love.”

“I’m not putting my gun down, and you’re not going to shoot the doc either,” Zack said. He fought to control the rising emotion in his voice, needing more than anything to present a calm presence.

“It’s okay, Zack,” Suzanne said softly. “Mr. Ripley’s not going to shoot anyone.”

“Don’t be so sure of that, little lady,” Ripley said, his words sounding slurred.

The man seemed to be staggering a bit, waving his gun around behind Suzanne’s back. Zack feared Ripley might slip and accidentally discharge the weapon. He needed a diversion, something to make Ripley point his gun elsewhere just long enough for him to get a shot off.

Zack met Suzanne’s gaze, surprised to see how calm she seemed given she had a gun stuck against her side.

“Perhaps Mr. Ripley could explain exactly what it is that he wants,” Suzanne suggested.

Ripley nodded, but didn’t speak.

Zack watched as Ripley’s eyes began to close, as if he were drifting off to sleep. “Yeah,” Zack agreed. “What is it you expect to gain from holding Dr. Martindale hostage? You know if anything happens to her, I’m going to shoot you dead.”

Ripley swallowed. “I want…I want…” He raised his hand, waving the gun in the air. “I…” A moment later, he’d slumped forward onto the exam table, unconscious.

“What the hell?” Zack mumbled, as he moved forward to take the gun from Ripley’s limp hand.

“I drugged him,” Suzanne said simply.

“How’d you do that?”

“I offered to bandage his shoulder where he’d been shot. Under the pretense of putting ointment on the bandage, I soaked it in laudanum. It was only a matter of time before the drug worked its way into his system through the scrape on his shoulder.”

Zack shook his head and drew his hand across his face, pushing away his fatigue, and accepting the fact that the threat to his family and his town was well and truly over. “You’re one helluva woman,
cher
.”

“Thank you, Zack. I appreciate that you noticed.”

After handcuffing the unconscious Ripley, Zack stepped outside the clinic and let out a long whistle, signalling his men. Both deputies came on the run.

“Grab a canvas stretcher and take Ripley over to the jail,” Zack ordered.

“He’s not dead?” Stiles asked. “I’d have sworn you would have shot him on the spot.”

“It wasn’t necessary.” Nodding in Suzanne’s direction, he added, “The doc here gave him a dose of her own kind of medicine.”

“The others just got back from the hotel site,” Pete Bailey said. “What you want us to do with Collier?”

“Does he need medical attention?” Suzanne asked.

Bailey chuckled. “Not unless you can cure the dead, doc.”

Suzanne turned to Zack and asked, “You killed him?”

“It wasn’t like he gave me a choice,” Zack said in his own defense. “He was shooting at me. I can’t help it if my aim was better.”

…

They arrived at the cottage shortly after nine. “Are you hungry?” she asked.

Zack shook his head and then met her gaze. His dark eyes burned with desire, lust. “Not for food,
cher
.”

Suzanne took him by the hand and led the way to the bedroom, intent on sating his physical hunger until he wanted for nothing.

“Let me undress you, Zack.” She reached up and slid his jacket from his broad shoulders and tossed it aside. She fumbled with the buttons on his vest in her eagerness to uncover his firm body for her touch. Once she’d tossed both his vest and shirt aside, she skimmed her fingerstips across the expanse of his chest, toyed with the flat male nipples hidden beneath a sprinkling of hair.

Zack growled deeply and reached for the buttons at the front of her dress, as eager as she it seemed, to get on with their lovemaking.

“Undressing you is as rewarding as unwrapping a present on Christmas morning,
cher
. You’re the expensive toy I begged for as a boy, complete, perfect.”

Her breath caught on his poetic words. She reached for the waistband of his trousers and unbuttoned the fly in record time, pushing the rough material down his legs, followed by his underwear until they pooled around his booted feet.

She pushed him backward onto the bed and then divested herself of everything but her bloomers. Suzanne turned her back to him and straddled his legs, taking a booted foot into her hands and tugging. When she’d tossed the first boot aside, she reached for the other.

She was about to turn around, when Zack grasped her hips and drew her back onto his lap. His hard arousal pressed against her bottom, the only thing preventing their joining the thin cotton of her underclothes.

He pressed his lips to the side of her throat and then nipped gently at her skin. A flood of warmth shot through her, sending a flush across her chest and shoulders. He reached around her and cradled her breasts in his hands, using his thumbs to tease her nipples into tiny buds aching to be suckled.

“Zack … please…”

“I love touching you,” he whispered. He released his hold on her breast and slid his hand down her middle until he’d slipped beneath the thin barrier of her last piece of clothing. He breeched the entryway to her body, sliding over the very ridge of her arousal. “My fingers itch with the need to stroke you into a frenzy, to feel you quivering beneath my hand.”

Her hips moved in perfect time with the flow of his words, once, twice until she came, drenching his fingers with her climax.

“I need you inside me, not just your fingers, but the whole of your body.”

He pushed at her bloomers, allowing her to raise her hips only far enough to slide the soft cotton material down her legs before pulling her back onto his lap and sinking himself deeply within her body.

His hands at her waist, he raised and lowered her over his shaft, driving into her with a fierce need. He nuzzled her throat, nipping at her skin and then soothing her with the flat of his tongue.

She had never been taken like this, so roughly, yet so thoroughly. She climaxed once, twice, her soft gasps of pleasure driving him to pick up the pace even more. Suzanne raised her arms and reached behind her, grappling for a hold on his body, any part of him she could use as an anchor.

“Again,” he demanded, his voice raspy with desire. “Come for me again,
cher
. Melt around me one more time before I lose all control of my senses.”

“Yes, Zack, whatever ….” Her words caught, suspended between thought and reality. Her muscles clenched, her entire being shook.

He released his hold on her waist until she sank down his shaft and came to rest fully on his lap. The warmth of his release filled her. A fine sheen of perspiration coated her skin and Zack slid his hands from her hips to her breasts until he could fondle her gently.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked, his forehead resting against her shoulder.

“No, you didn’t.”

He rolled backward onto the bed, pulling her after him until they were side by side. She cuddled into his embrace and rested her head on his shoulder. He pressed a chaste kiss to her brow and then reached for the quilt and drew it over them.