An Unlikely Lady Read online

  Until back in her room, the door shut with an ominous click.

  Jesse took a forbidding stance at the door, feet spread, arms folded tightly over his chest, bringing corded muscles into stark relief. Honesty’s euphoria took a sudden plunge and she found herself trapped between the hard oak wall and six feet of fierce iron will.

  “Why is it,” he said in an uninflected drawl, “that the instant I turn my back, you take that as an invitation to defy me?”

  “Jesse, I can explain.”

  “I’m sure you’ll try.”

  Honesty licked her lips and wrung her hands. “I was on my way to the surveyor’s office—”

  “What, more gold seeking?”

  “Of course not! I thought one of the clerks might have news of my brother. But as I passed by the saloon, I got stopped by a couple of men who said they’d heard me sing in Denver. I tried to tell them they were mistaken, but they wouldn’t listen. The next thing I knew, they were carrying me into the place and standing me on top of the table.”

  “Now tell me the truth.”

  “You think I’m lying?”

  “I think you’re trying to. You’re just not doing a very good job.”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “Good question. People don’t usually lie unless they’re hiding something.” In a conversational tone, he asked, “So what was it, Honesty? Did you have an itch that needed scratching? Did you think you’d find yourself a lover for the night?”

  Her mouth fell open in shock. “You are vulgar and despicable. Good Lord, Jesse, do you think I enjoyed singing for those men?”

  “You weren’t putting up much of a fight when I saw you.”

  “That shows how much you know. You have no idea what it’s like to stand on display and have men slobbering all over you.”

  “Seems it would beat the alternative. At least you aren’t lying beneath them.”

  Tears scalded the back of her eyes at the callous remark. Worse, she knew she deserved the low opinion he had of her, because she’d given him that impression to begin with. But really, did she have a choice?

  Honesty quickly regrouped and took a step toward him. “Oh, but I’m in control, then.” She walked her fingers up his chest, and dropped her lashes and her voice the way she’d often seen Rose do. “You see, a woman has the power to be quick and exciting . . . or slow and torturous.”

  The satisfaction that bloomed when he tensed, wilted in the next instant when he cocked his brow and said, “But a man has just as much power. Sometimes more.” His blue-green eyes swirled with wicked promise. “You see, a man can also satisfy as well as torment.”

  A chill broke out along her arms. She swallowed and defiantly lifted her chin. “I’ve yet to meet that man.”

  “That’s not what you told me back in Last Hope.”

  He just wouldn’t let it drop, would he? “Jesse, Jesse.” She shook her head and sighed. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?” Honesty screwed her face into an expression of feigned ecstasy. “Ohhh. Mmmm. Yes, touch me there. It feels sooo good.”

  He paled, and once again, guilt tried working its way into her conscience. Honesty resolutely pushed it aside. He’d deserved everything he’d gotten. More, in fact. Because unlike every other man who had fallen for the ruse, this one had the power to make her want to cast off her own rules of survival. “It’s a game, Jesse. I would think that a man of your experience would have recognized that.”

  His flat gaze remained fixed on her for so long that Honesty began to squirm.

  Then he unfolded his arms and took a step toward her. “So you’re saying that my touch does nothing for you?”

  Honesty stepped back, fearing she’d pushed him too far with her taunting.

  “That when I touch you here “—he placed his hand on her rib cage, just below her breast, and smoothed a deliberate path around her waist to her bottom—”you don’t feel a thing?”

  Against her will, her heartbeat escalated and her breathing quickened. “Not a thing,” she denied, as much to herself as to him.

  “What about here?” He brought her cold hand to his mouth and pressed moist lips to her palm. “Does that not affect you either?”

  The tip of his tongue against the sensitive hollow sent shivers coursing down Honesty’s spine. Her mind reeled; her knees went weak. It took all the strength she could summon not to melt at his feet.

  “Or when I kiss you like this?”

  He slipped his free hand beneath the heavy fall of her hair and curved his fingers around the back of her neck. Even as she watched his head descend, Honesty couldn’t find the will to avoid the mouth swooping down on hers in a kiss potent enough to curl her toes. She set both her palms against his chest, intending on pushing him away before she lost complete control of her senses.

  Instead, she gripped the edges of his vest and pulled him closer. Their bodies came together, breast to chest, rib to rib, thigh to thigh. Honesty found herself being sucked into a tide pool of sensation and wrapped her arms around Jesse’s neck to keep from sinking.

  The man was a skilled kisser, she’d give him that. Unlike other men who were either disgustingly sloppy or zealously rough, Jesse knew just where to slide his tongue within her mouth, just how much pressure to apply against her lips—and oh, heavens . . . the most glorious amount of suction on her tongue to draw a response from her.

  A moan from deep in his throat penetrated the mist closing over her brain. Honesty stiffened, then broke the kiss and stared at him in breathless, wide-eyed wonder.

  “Don’t feel a thing, do you?” he asked, his voice an octave lower than normal.

  She released her hold on him. “Damn you, Jesse.”

  “Curse me till the cows come home, sweet Honesty, but your body doesn’t lie: you want me; you just don’t want to admit it.”

  She raised her hand, consumed beyond reason to smack the smirk off his face. He caught her wrist in an unrelenting grip, and before she understood what he was doing, he’d wrapped the thong that he used to tie back his hair around her wrist. He tied the other end around his own wrist.

  Honesty tried yanking herself free. “What are you doing?”

  “Keeping you safe. Our train won’t be leaving till mid-morning, and until then, I’m not going to take a chance of you bolting again.”

  “So you truss me up like a hog to slaughter? Get this thing off me!”

  “Not on your life. A very dear and wise friend once told me the best way to keep a wild filly from running was to hobble her.”

  Frustration made her tear at the thong.

  “The more you tear at it, the tighter the knot.” With his hand around her elbow, he led her to the bed. “So you might as well get used to it.”

  “What’s the matter, Jesse, is this the only way you can get a woman to stay with you? By chaining her to yourself?”

  He gave the thong a pull to tighten the knot around his own wrist and smiled flatly. “No, sometimes I just pay her.”

  Jesse kept to himself the entire trip to Trinidad. Honesty had the window seat and spent part of it trying to engage him in conversation, and the other part staring out the window. If he wasn’t so damned furious with her, he might have admired her ingenuity. He wouldn’t have thought to inquire after a missing person at a surveyor’s office.

  Honesty had, though, and a quick visit while Honesty slept had given him a helluva lead. They’d never heard of George Mallory; they had, however, heard of Deuce McGuire.

  Three or four years ago, he’d passed through town in the company of a young woman. It was the first confirmation Jesse had heard of him traveling with someone and it piqued his interest. The clerk could shed no light on her identity, but said she’d appeared to be with him of her own will. They’d spent the night at the hotel, then boarded a northbound train the next morning.

  Jesse found himself dwelling on the story, unable to quell the concern that McGuire had repeated his crime. He worried that the girl might have met the same fate
as the Jervais heiress.

  And if McGuire struck twice, that meant he’d likely strike again.

  Jesse had to find him before another child lost her life, and another family came apart at the seams.

  Of course, he couldn’t do a damn thing until he got Honesty safely settled in her brother’s care. Why he felt so responsible for her, he couldn’t say, except for that niggling worry that the Treat brothers had somehow sensed his attraction to her and made her pay the price as their revenge on him.

  Then again, maybe their reason for taking her had nothing to do with him at all. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, he thought, looking at her profile, with those silky amber curls, mysterious eyes, and sensuous lips. A woman any man would want to possess. Even him. Especially him. He’d been lucky to get a wink of sleep last night, for thinking about it.

  “Quit staring at me.”

  He tore his gaze away from Honesty and snapped open the newspaper he’d found on the seat. Obviously she still hadn’t forgiven him for last night, but that was her own fault. She’d put herself in danger. “You look tired. We’ve got a long trip ahead of us. You might as well get some sleep.”

  “Gee, I don’t think I can. Girls like me aren’t used to keeping regular hours.”

  The remark drew the attention of several passengers sitting nearby. “Keep your voice down.”

  “Or what, you’ll gag me as well?”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Jesse, Jesse . . . I’d have thought a man as bright as you could come up with more creative ways to quiet a woman.”

  The little minx. He turned his attention to the open paper but couldn’t make heads nor tails of the articles, and it was her fault. She consumed his every thought. It was more than her beauty, more than her sensuality—it was the damned mystery of her. A puzzle he couldn’t solve by seduction or coercion.

  Was she in trouble? Running from someone? No, she’d not have stayed so long in Last Hope if that were the case. Running to someone? That made more sense. Her brother? There was something off-kilter there. She had a map, a name. But maybe Mallory didn’t exist. No, he’d heard the name before. Maybe Mallory wasn’t a brother, but a lover . . .

  Why couldn’t she just trust him? If she would just tell him, he could help her. He had friends. Sources.

  Damn, but he wished he could get his mind off the whole mess. It reminded him too much of the old days he wanted to leave behind: that zeal for answers, that unquenchable thirst for solving riddles. The game itself. The more he learned, the more he wanted to know.

  And it was driving him insane.

  With a frustrated sigh, Jesse folded the paper and let his head fall back against the seat. With luck he’d learn something when they got to New Mexico. He’d sent the report to McParland, along with an inquiry into George Mallory. Then he could get this cursed curiosity out of his system.

  The clack of the tracks had a lulling effect, and soon Jesse’s eyes drifted shut. The darkness behind his lids slowly became illuminated by the mellow glow of crystal chandeliers. A lovely woman with golden hair and changeling eyes materialized, pacing a room with marbled floors and statuettes. “Something’s wrong, Jesse,” his mother said. “He’s never been away this long.”

  “No letter yet?”

  “Not a one. No one has heard a whisper from him since he left. Jesse, where could he be?”

  At seventeen, Jesse thought he had all the answers, but he didn’t have an answer for this one. His father often disappeared for months on end on business, but this time even he had begun to worry. It just wasn’t like Elliot Randolph to disappear for almost a year without a word. “Let me ask around, Mother. Someone must know something.”

  It had started with an innocent inquiry at the bank where Elliot Randolph kept an account. Jesse didn’t want anyone knowing they hadn’t heard from his father, for it left his mother vulnerable to scandal. So he’d pretended to withdraw a portion of funds at his father’s request.

  And discovered that money had been transferred from one account to another on a regular basis for the last six months. Fearing his father had met with foul play, Jesse embarked on a search that took him from their elegant Chicago home to war-torn Tennessee.

  Four months later, he found himself standing at the gates of a magnificent plantation home outside Memphis. He could hardly believe the rumors that Elliot Randolph owned the slave-tilled fields and ten-columned antebellum house, for his father vigorously protested against slavery and all it stood for. Had, in fact, campaigned to free them.

  That day, Jesse learned the true meaning of deception.

  “I’m here to see Elliot Randolph,” he told the butler who answered the door.

  “Massah Randolph is away on business, suh.”

  “Who’s at the doh-ah, Samuel?” came a sweet inquiry from inside.

  “A gen’lman to see the massah, Missus Randolph,” the butler answered, stepping aside to make way for a woman in her late thirties, with flame-red hair and vivid green eyes.

  “May I help you, young man?”

  The instant he looked at her face, he knew what his father had done, and the knowledge made him sick to his stomach.

  Jesse swallowed the knot of dread in throat. “I need to speak to Elliot Randolph.”

  “As Samuel told you, he is away on business. Perhaps I can be of some assistance?”

  He is away on business. It was the same line he’d been selling to his mother for almost twenty years.

  It took only a moment for Jesse to recover enough from the shock to realize that he could not confront his father with his suspicions; he needed to arm himself with facts. “Yes, ma’am, I believe you can. I’m a reporter for the Chronicle and I’m doing an article on Mr. Randolph, and I’d like to ask you a few questions . . .”

  He’d returned to Chicago after that “interview” to find Elliot Randolph sitting at the breakfast table as if the world hadn’t just crumbled. Jesse remembered doubling up his fist and punching his father, then walking away, leaving the man he’d loved and respected more than anyone to explain to his Northern wife how he could have spent the last twenty years also married to her Southern sister.

  “Jesse? Jesse, wake up.”

  He came awake with a start and found Honesty staring at him with concern. For a moment he struggled with an insane urge to throw himself against her, to lose himself in those soft brown eyes and comforting arms, to forget the memory of his father’s betrayal and the launching of his sleuthing career.

  “Are you all right?”

  He straightened abruptly. “Of course I am.” He glanced past her shoulder, out the soot-blackened window and realized the train no longer clacked down the rails. “Why are we stopped?”

  “We’re at the station.”

  “It’s about damned time.” He got to his feet and grabbed their bags from the compartment above their heads. “Let’s see if we can find this brother of yours, shall we?”

  He performed at a mission church?

  Jesse studied the adobe buildings set on the dry plateau near the Apache Indian Reservation. Chickens pecked the ground near a stone well, a wagon with half its moorings shredded and a busted axle leaned precariously against an empty paddock, and two closed shutters on the steepled chapel were missing slats.

  “The place looks deserted. Are you sure your brother was heading here?”

  “I think so. I remember seeing it on the map.”

  “Let me see that thing again.”

  She reached into her pack and pulled the folded paper from the mason jar. Sure enough, there was a star pencilled in near the Texas border with the words “Sisters of Charity” Mission pencilled in below.

  Still, this whole scenario had Jesse’s nose itching something fierce.

  “Maybe everyone is at Mass,” Honesty suggested.

  At ten o’clock on a weekday morning? “Maybe. Stay close.” Jesse absently tucked the map into his vest pocket and gave Gemini a nudge with his heels. Honesty did as orde
red, following behind on the roan gelding they’d picked up in Trinidad.

  They reached the chapel and Jesse strained to hear voices that would tell him where everyone had gone to, but not a sound came from within. He drew his Colt and dismounted. “Wait here,” he told Honesty, then sidestepped to the double doors, scattering a few hens. Obviously someone had been feeding them, for grain was strewn on the ground.

  The chapel turned out empty, as did the commissary and the mess hall. But there was bread dough rising in the kitchen, so someone had been here recently. Figuring the occupants had probably gone to preach to the savages, Jesse returned to where he’d left Honesty, only to find her horse standing riderless near the dilapidated wagon and the door to the chapel ajar.

  Sighing, Jesse entered the building. Hadn’t anyone ever taught that girl caution? His temper started to climb when a search of the chapel didn’t turn her up. Not in or under any of the hard wooden pews, not behind the black curtain of the confessional, or on the platform where the pulpit reined. A flash of her racing away from Last Hope with the Treat brothers in hot pursuit, then another of her stuck in the middle of a frigid creek, had his pulse picking up and the coppery taste of fear growing on his tongue.

  Just as he turned to head out and begin a search of the grounds, he caught sight of a white granite statue near a side doorway, and the unmistakable curve of a calico clad bottom stuck high in the air. “Honesty?”

  She jumped a foot in the air and smacked her head against the under edge of the statue. “Good Lord, Jesse, don’t sneak up on me like that!”

  “Let that be a lesson to you. What if I’d been one of the Treat brothers?”

  “Point taken,” she said, rubbing her head. “Did you find anyone?”

  “No, but I expect they’ll be back soon. What are you doing down there?”

  “Down here?” She looked at the floor, then at the statue. “I was uhm . . . admiring the craftsmanship. The detail is amazing, don’t you think? The stones seem to flow all the way down the base!”

  Jesse’s brows dipped into a scowl. He didn’t see anything remarkable about the craftsmanship of a chipped-granite Jesus standing on a mountain with his hands raised to the heavens. In fact, the whole thing reeked of an amateur.