The Sheriff (Historical Romance) (10 page)

I
t seemed the most normal thing in the world, so right and wonderful in every way.

The two of them were alone together in the mansion in the middle of that sultry summer night.

The darkly handsome sheriff sat comfortably on her sofa and she, in her damp nightgown, was seated on his left knee.

She sighed with bliss when his warm face settled gently into her gown’s open bodice and his heated lips pressed lingering kisses over the swell of her breasts.

Kate squirmed on Travis’s knee and arched her back. Her arm wound around his neck, her hand clutched at his shirt collar. As his lips brushed her tingling flesh, she moved her fingers up into his hair and clasped a handful of the thick raven locks.

“Travis,” she whispered. “We shouldn’t, Travis.”

“You’re a very desirable woman, Kate VanNam,” he said softly, as he lifted his head and gazed into her flashing eyes. “You want me to stay here with you, don’t you?”

“You know I do,” she told him frankly. “I want to spend the whole night here in your arms.”

“And wake up with me at sunrise.”

“Yes. We’ll watch the sun come up, then go back to sleep.”

“But before we sleep tonight,” he said in the drawl she loved so much, “we’ll make love here in the moonlight.”

“Yes, oh yes.” Kate laid her hand on his chest. She smiled dreamily and said, “Travis, your heart is beating awfully fast. Almost as fast as my own.”

“Show me,” he coaxed.

Kate turned more fully to him and leaned close to press her left breast against his chest.

“No, wait. Not good enough,” he said. “Unbutton my shirt, Kate.”

Nodding, she complied. When his shirt was open, she needed no persuading to push it apart and fully uncover his broad chest. Catching her bottom lip between her teeth, she ran her hand over the perfect symmetry of his steely sculpted torso, eagerly raking her fingertips through the dense dark hair that grew in an appealing fanlike pattern. She thrilled to the heavy rhythmic pounding she felt against her palm.

Travis reached up and opened the bodice of her
nightgown. “Now,” he said, “let me feel your heart beating against mine.”

At once her bare breasts were against his naked torso and both their hearts were wildly racing.

Breathless, she told him, “Travis, the way you make me feel, it frightens me.”

“Don’t be afraid, Kate,” he whispered. “I’ll never do anything you don’t want me to do.”

“I know, it’s just…Kiss me, Travis.” She brushed her tingling nipples back and forth against his chest. “Kiss me and keep on kissing me, forever and ever.”

The sheriff laid his head against the sofa’s tall back and drew Kate’s flushed face down to his. With his hand in her flowing hair, he cupped the back of her head and drew her toward him, molding her lips to his. Then he opened his mouth and kissed her the way she wanted to be kissed. The kiss was at once tender and passionate, sweet and aggressive, subdued and sexual.

It was thrilling beyond belief.

Kate clung to Travis and gloried in his kiss, a kiss she could feel throughout her body. While his tongue met and mastered hers, it was as though she could feel it circling her aching nipples and licking a path down her contracting belly.

Travis kept kissing her until she was as breathless, weak and limp as a rag doll. She finally tore her swollen lips from his.

“I love the way you kiss me,” she sighed, then added truthfully, “but it makes me quite dizzy.”

“Then perhaps we should lie down,” he said, as he gently laid her on the long sofa. Standing just above, Travis took off his shirt, dropped it and kicked off his boots. He stretched out beside her, drew her into his arms and kissed her again.

“Mmm,” she murmured, quickly realizing that kissing was even more enjoyable while lying down.

Kate was glad the sofa was narrow so that they had to lie on their sides facing each other, their hearts beating as one. The stirring kisses continued as Travis’s burning lips stayed pressed to hers. He gently eased her over onto her back.

When the prolonged caress finally ended, his handsome face hovered above hers, his dark eyes flashing with ardor as he gazed at her. When she felt the warmth of his hand on her breast, Kate trembled with pleasure. She continued to look into his smoldering eyes as his hand moved down her waist to her hip.

She felt the fabric of her nightgown sliding up her legs. She tensed with anticipation and excitement.

“Let me, Kate. Let me make sweet love to you,” he murmured as he gathered the gown and slowly drew it up her trembling thighs.

“I will, Travis, I will, “ she murmured, her body vibrating with expectation. “Yes, oh, darling, yes…I…Travis, no, no don’t…don’t…don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me. Come back! Come back to me!”

“Come back, come back to me,” Kate was still
murmuring as she awakened from the sweetly sensual dream. “Please don’t leave me.”

Her breath coming fast, her heart pounding, she lunged up and frantically looked around, half expecting to see a bare-chested Travis. A sense of crushing disappointment swept through her when she swung her bare feet to the floor. Her hand went to her throbbing heart. She shook her head to clear it.

The dream had been so incredibly real that she could almost taste Travis’s burning kisses on her lips and feel his warm caressing hand on her breasts. Shaken and wistful, she squeezed her knees together and her eyes tightly shut.

Then she exhaled heavily and leaned back against the sofa’s tall headrest. When finally she began to calm, she assured herself that it had just been a dream and dreams meant nothing. Nothing at all.

But she was reluctant to go back to sleep for fear she might continue to dream of Travis McCloud. An even worse fear plagued her. How would she feel when next she encountered the sheriff? Would she be so embarrassed and red faced that he might guess she had dreamed about him? Would he read her guilty thoughts?

Kate shivered, remembering what he had said when he’d deposited her on the front porch and plucked at her damp nightgown.

You’d be surprised what I can make you do.

Naked, she rose up out of the water and brazenly walked toward him, making no attempt to cover herself. God, she was beautiful, with her high, rounded breasts, her flat belly, flaring hips and long shapely legs.

He stared at her unclothed body and knew he had to have her, that he could wait no longer. He was going to make love to her this very night as no one ever had.

She paused when she was still a few feet away. She lifted her arms and swept her sopping golden hair back off her face. She smiled seductively and walked to him.

When he reached for her, she warned, “I’ll get you wet, Sheriff.”

“And I’ll return the favor. Now come here.” He caught her close and pressed the naked length of her against him. He could feel his clothes soaking up the moisture from her bare, silky body. He ran his hands over her wet back, her hips, her rounded buttocks. He kissed her and she looped her arms around his neck.

He filled his hands with the twin cheeks of her bottom and strongly considered taking her right where they stood. When he lifted her, she wrapped her long legs around his waist. He clasped his wrists beneath her and kissed her.

Then he turned and carried her up to the house. In the moonlit drawing room, he lowered her to the sofa, and while she lolled there, leaning back, looking breathtakingly beautiful, the water glistening on
her breasts and shoulders and long legs, he undressed. In seconds his gun belt and clothes lay on the floor. Naked, he knelt before her, pushed her legs apart, wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and drew her face down to his.

She pleased and surprised him when she said, “I want you to make love to me in every way possible.” Her eyes sparkled with deviltry. “You’re not leaving until you do.”

“Ah, baby, I’m going to love you till you’re begging me to stop.”

“That will never happen,” she said. “I’ll never get enough of you.”

“Promise,” Travis murmured. Then he wrapped his hands around the backs of Kate’s knees and drew her to the sofa’s edge.

She gripped his ribs with her knees and clutched the strong column of his neck when he grabbed a handful of her soaked hair, urged her face down to his and kissed her.

By the time the long, lusty kiss ended, Travis had managed to maneuver her about so that she was lying on her back with one leg raised and draped along the sofa’s high back, the other bent at the knee and cocked outward.

He was between.

He swept a hand over her flat belly and gazed at her. She smiled seductively, licked her lips, lifted her hands and beckoned him into her arms.

He shuddered.

She was wonderfully wanton, wild and wet and open to him. And he was driven half-insane by the raw hunger she evoked. Blinded by passion, he could wait no longer.

His heart hammering, he rose up onto his knees and moved into position. Gripping his painfully swollen cock, he was poised to plunge into her wet warmth when she rolled up onto her elbows to watch and urge him on.

“Give it to me, Travis,” she invited eagerly. “Put it in me where it belongs.”

“I will, baby,” he whispered. “I will.”

“I will, I will,” Travis was muttering when he awakened abruptly from the highly erotic dream. “I will,” he mumbled, lunging up and foolishly looking around, half expecting to see a naked Kate in his bed.

Perspiring, his heart beating wildly, Travis realized it had been a dream. Just a dream. A dream that meant nothing. Nothing at all.

He had no burning desire to make love to Kate VanNam. He had dreamed of her because he’d seen her shortly before going to sleep. Now he cursed the golden-haired beauty for foolishly taking a late night swim in the nude. She sure as hell should have known better. Her lack of judgment was responsible for the carnal dream and for the aching erection now lifting the sheet like a tent.

“Damn you, Kate VanNam.”

“C
al, come here. You heard me! Come here. What on earth do you have in your mouth?” Kate called out as the big calico padded down the mansion’s central corridor shortly after sunup. She frowned and snapped her fingers loudly. “Come here this minute!”

The cat made no effort to obey, but he headed directly for the open front door. Something—she couldn’t tell what—was dangling from a string clamped firmly between his teeth. The object was swinging back and forth.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Kate shouted, and dashed after him.

She caught up to the cat, sank down on her heels and grabbed him. She snatched the small leather pouch from his mouth and studied it carefully.

“Oh, my Lord,” she lamented, “this is Chang Li’s savings. He hid it here in a secret place, but of course you snooped around until you found it! You’re a bad,
bad boy, Cal,” she rebuked him. He just placed his front paws on her knees, lowered his head and rubbed it against Kate’s chin, softly purring.

“That won’t work, my friend,” she warned, and rose to her feet.

Her brows knitted, Kate held the pouch in her hand and considered what she should do. She had no idea where Chang Li had hidden it, so she couldn’t put it back in its place. She had no choice. She would have to tell him the truth and suggest he choose a new hiding place.

For now she’d put the little purse under a sofa cushion and ask Chang Li to stop by at day’s end to either take it with him or hide it again somewhere in the mansion. That was the best she could do.

Kate walked into the drawing room and went directly to the sofa. She lifted a cushion and started to slip the pouch underneath, but hesitated. She was curious. Almost as curious as Cal.

She knew that Chang Li had been saving for a long time in hopes of accumulating enough to bring his family to America. She wondered how much he had managed to put away.

Kate looked around guiltily.

Cal meowed and she jumped as if she’d been caught in some heinous crime. She glanced down, saw the cat seated regally at her feet, his tail curled around him, staring up at her with narrowed eyes as though he knew her intention.

“You’re a good one to talk,” she accused, frowning at him. “You’re who went snooping around, not me.”

Kate sat down and ignored Cal when he leaped up onto the sofa to watch her. She carefully loosened the drawstrings, reached inside, withdrew the money and laid it atop a cushion. Gently shoving Cal away when he pounced on the money and sniffed at it, she carefully counted the bills. Then she recounted them, to make sure she had tallied correctly. Holding the hardworking Chang Li’s entire fortune in her hand, Kate shook her head sadly.

Two hundred seventy-eight dollars.

That’s all the poor man had been able to save after three or four years of slaving away in the heat and the cold of the rugged Sierra Nevadas. He saved every cent he possibly could. He lived in a canvas tent. He never ate fancy meals. He never drank or gambled. All he had to show for his hard work and self-denial was two hundred seventy-eight dollars.

Yet he never complained about his lot in life. Never whined no matter how hungry or tired or lonely he was. He was always smiling and cheerful. Never gave up hope.

Kate put the bills back into the leather pouch, tightened the drawstrings and stuck it under a sofa cushion.

She turned to the portrait of her aunt Arielle and said, “I know you would never have left me a worthless claim. There has to be gold in the Cavalry Blue.”

Determined she’d be as optimistic as Chang Li, Kate left the house with the unrepentant Cal right on her heels. Dressed in a work shirt, britches and rubber boots, Kate hummed as she headed for the mine and another hard day’s labor.

As she trudged through the thick forest and up the rocky hill to the side of the steep mountain where the mine’s entrance was located, she looked to a bright future ahead. One of these days she and Chang Li would find the gold, and when they did, he could bring his family to California. And she could restore the mansion to its former splendor.

It was just a matter of time.

The courtship continued.

The handsome Winn DeLaney was vigilant in his single-minded pursuit of Kate. He made no effort to conceal his growing affection for her, and yet he was ever mindful of her reputation. He knew that she was a refined young lady, so he behaved unfailingly as a consummate gentleman.

DeLaney delighted in escorting Kate around Fortune. He told her he was the envy of every male in town, and that there was nothing he liked better than showing her off, knowing that everyone was jealous of him.

Kate believed it was true, because many evenings after they shared a leisurely dinner at one of the hotels, Winn would suggest that they take a stroll
through town. When she agreed, he’d hold her hand while they sauntered aimlessly up and down the sidewalks. Winn would nod to passers-by, clearly wanting everyone to know that she was with him, that she was his sweetheart.

Kate was flattered. And she was almost as eager as he for everyone to know that he was courting her.

Especially Travis McCloud.

Anytime they caught sight of the sheriff, Kate made it a point to either cling to Winn’s arm and gaze fondly up at him, or to laugh merrily as though she were having the time of her life.

And, she reminded herself, she was.

Winn DeLaney was handsome, sophisticated and charming, and he adored her. She was a lucky woman indeed to have such an entertaining beau. Furthermore, she was glad that Winn’s good-night kisses continued to be restrained. That was as it should be. He would
never
have kissed her against her will. And when she gave him permission, he didn’t dare kiss her passionately as the arrogant Travis McCloud had done!

Thank heavens.

“Thank you for a lovely evening,” Winn said now, at the end of an evening, as they stood outside the mansion in the July moonlight.

“I had a wonderful time, Winn.”

“I’m glad, my dear. By the way, have you heard? A traveling Shakespearian troop is coming to town
for a week-long engagement at the Bird Cage. Shall we attend?”

“Oh, yes, absolutely. I wouldn’t want to miss that.”

Winn smiled, took both her hands in his. “I wouldn’t want you to miss anything you’d like to do, Kate. If there’s anything at all that you…”

“There is, Winn,” she said, her eyes flashing. “In a couple of weeks, on August 11, there’s to be a big street dance to celebrate the sixth anniversary of gold being discovered here in Fortune.”

He frowned slightly, slipped his hands up her arms and let them settle on her shoulders. “My dear, surely you don’t mean it. Why, that will be no place for a lady.”

Kate cocked her head to one side and smiled. “It’s not a saloon or gambling hall, Winn. It’s the street. And it’ll be fun, I know it will. Doc Ledet says everyone will be there, including the handful of miners’ wives that live in Fortune. It will give me the opportunity to meet—”

Interrupting, he said, “Miners’ wives won’t be the only females present, Kate. Saloon girls and bordello women will turn out, as well.”

“So?” She lifted her hands, laid them lightly on his chest. “They won’t bother me and I won’t bother them. Please, Winn, say yes.”

He finally smiled. “I can refuse you nothing.” He drew her closer. “Now, it’s quite late, my sweet. Kiss me good-night.”

Kate nodded, tilted her face up and closed her
eyes. His lips brushed hers tenderly, but only for an instant. And once again she felt nothing.

“Sleep well, Kate,” Winn whispered against her cheek, carefully keeping his passion in check.

“And you as well,” she replied.

“It’s straight to bed for me,” he said, as he touched her hair. Then he was gone.