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  Breaking the concentration he shed on his work, he lifted his head as Nicholas Garvey peered past the doorway. With a wave of his hand, Cleary invited him in and nodded toward the open door. “Close it please,” he said quietly. “Find a chair, Nicholas. I have a favor to ask of you.” His words were succinct as he shared the problem he’d been stewing over, and Nicholas’s reaction was about what he’d expected.

  “You want me to what?” the banker roared, and then at Cleary’s pained expression and dour glance at the closed door, he lowered his voice. “You’re going to put your reputation on the line for an escapee from prison?”

  “He’s Augusta’s brother.” And as if that were reason enough, Cleary leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his flat stomach. “The man saved my neck in Wyoming last year,” he explained. “I owe him.”

  “The man is a rustler.” Nicholas held his tone to a gruff murmur, probably in deference to Augusta’s presence in the house.

  “He was a rustler. But I have the feeling…hell, I had the feeling a year ago that he was in over his head and was doin’ his best to get out of the mess he was in.”

  “And you’re ready to go to bat for him.” Nicholas sat down and propped his hat atop his knee.

  “If Augusta was your wife and that young scamp was your new brother-in-law, what would you do?” A grin tugged at the corner of Cleary’s mouth as Nicholas digested the query.

  “Hell, probably the same thing you’re wantin’ me to do.” He grinned suddenly. “Doesn’t pay to argue with you, Cleary. And if you’ve got the clout to pull this off, you might as well do it. If Augusta was mine, I’d no doubt move heaven and earth to make her happy.”

  “You bet you would,” Cleary agreed. “She’s one in a million, and I won’t have her worrying about the only family she has left.”

  “Are you going to put her mind at ease?”

  Cleary shook his head. “No, not yet. Not till we know for sure that we can swing this thing. I want him to have a full pardon, Nick.”

  “You may have to do some finagling to pull this off,” the banker warned him.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  An occasional rumble from the office reached Gussie’s ear. And once she distinctly heard the sound of Nicholas Garvey’s voice raised in a shout. Yet, try as she might, she was unable to make heads or tails of their conversation. It was troubling to her, but she set it aside, aware that she must trust Cleary in all things.

  Doggedly she concealed her aggravation from the women who pitched in a few hours each day to help her, scrubbing and cleaning in her wake throughout the large house. She was naturally an impatient woman, and Cleary’s silence regarding his involvement with the undercover work he’d taken on loomed over her head like a dark cloud. She’d come to recognize that he and Nicholas Garvey were two of a kind, both of them open and aboveboard in their conversations with others, but secretive beneath the bland surface they offered.

  Yet, she loved the man she’d married, without reservation, and Cleary made no bones about his need for her. Each night, she was ushered with haste to the big bedroom upstairs, his impatience with her attention to after-supper chores not allowing her to linger in the kitchen. He wiped dishes with a will, locked the doors and blew out the lamps, moving at a steady pace throughout the house, ever vigilant that his home be secure for the night, especially now that Augusta dwelled within its walls.

  And then he found her, whether she be in the pantry searching out items for their breakfast, or standing at the parlor windows taking a long, last look at the quiet street and the flickering lights of town. On occasion, he found she’d preceded him up the curving staircase to their room, and on those nights he hastened his steps, aware that she waited for him in their room.

  Now he stood with his back against the closed bedroom door, watching her as she brushed her hair in the glow of two candles. They reflected in her mirror, and as she looked up to find him behind her, she was framed by the tall, shimmering tapers. She was breathtaking, he decided, her beauty having increased with her self-assurance. That she was wanted, that his need for her grew daily, would have been apparent to a blind man, he thought ruefully.

  And she was thriving on the attention he gave her. Her skin glowed, her eyes sparkled as they met his in the mirror and her cheeks took on a soft flush that only magnified the fragile grace of the woman. Her brush dropped from her fingers as she caught his gaze upon her, clattering against the top of her dressing table. Around her face, her hair flew in wispy disarray, and with supple grace, she lifted her arms to contain its length in her hands.

  He shook his head. “Please,” he said quietly, and she dropped her fingers to rest in her lap, aware of the request he would make.

  “All right.” Tonight, it seemed she was especially acquiescent to his needs, and he gloried in her submission. And she did submit to him, each time he came to her, as if it were a joy to give over to him the access to her body he demanded. And yet she did not only receive his loving, but, little by little, her confidence grew apace with the pleasure he brought to her. Her hands were wont to seek his flesh without urging, her lips tasted his skin and found it pleasing, and she grew bolder as the nights turned into the weeks he’d demanded, and then became a month.

  A month he’d salvaged for himself, pleased that events allowed him to remain here with Gussie. Satisfied with the marriage they’d begun to forge, with bonds of flesh and nights of passion.

  But now, it seemed this would be a time of reckoning, if the look on his wife’s face had any bearing on the matter. “Tomorrow,” Augusta began, hesitating as if she would judge her words well before allowing them utterance. “Tomorrow, I’m going to the house to catch up with things. I’ve left Pearl and Bertha too long in charge.”

  Her chin tilted, a bit of defiance adding an edge to her words. “Besides, I miss my brother, and Pearl fears that he and Honey are becoming more than friends.”

  “Is that bad?” Cleary asked quietly. “I thought you approved of him living there.”

  “I do.” She inhaled deeply and turned from him, her fingers working at the buttons at her spine. Her eyes were wary as she awaited his response.

  “You’ll go over there in the morning?”

  She nodded, intent on reaching the middle of her back. “Is there a problem with that?” Releasing the dress from her grip, she mumbled words beneath her breath.

  “No, it’s fine. I should get my horse from the livery stable and ride him for a while. He’ll be stale from standing in a stall so long.”

  “Are you healed well enough?” she asked.

  “As good as new,” he said, aware that he’d been ma-lingering. His healing process had been complete well over a week ago. His grin was lazy, as if he had all the time in the world at his fingertips. “I had a most competent nurse.” And then he smiled widely as he viewed her flushed face, and the dishevelment of her gown.

  “I’ll do that for you,” he offered, and moved quickly to pull down the window shade before he stripped her from her clothing. It was a ritual he enjoyed, this deliberate removal of dress and petticoats. Of drawers and vest, and lastly, the peeling of her stockings from slender, well-formed legs.

  She stood before him, as naked as the day she was born, and he sensed a residual of that modesty she wore that proclaimed her a lady. Even here, in their privacy, she was unable to be bold or blatant with her body. Yet, within the layers of darkness, after he’d blown out the lamp and pinched the candles, she offered herself to him without restraint, unlike the faint shyness she still wore when he viewed her in the light of day.

  But he could not complain. His Augusta was exactly what he wanted, the very essence of feminine beauty and strength. If Nicholas Garvey sometimes eyed him with a bit of envy apparent, it only served to enhance Cleary’s enjoyment of her, secure in the knowledge that she looked no further than her husband for the satisfying of her needs.

  Her hair was long, covering her breasts as he drew
it over her shoulders, and his fingers were lost in the curls and waves. He sought her flesh beneath it, the soft curves of her breasts, the hardening crests that puckered at his touch, and bent his head to suckle with a desperate need.

  She murmured softly, her hands at his nape, holding his head against herself, and he lifted her, his movements hasty, his hands rough against her waist, as he carried her to the bed.

  She was on her back, beneath him, wiggling against his clothed body and muttering darkly about his abundance of apparel. Her hands worked swiftly, unfastening buttons, loosening his belt, and her urgency brought laughter to his lips.

  “You in a hurry, Gussie?” he asked, nuzzling her neck and biting carefully at her ear. She’d managed to tug the fabric down his arms and he was captured by the shirt-sleeves gathering at his wrists. With a jerk that came near to tearing the seams, he escaped their hold and tossed the garment aside. His arousal pressed for release against his drawers, and he cast them impatiently to the floor.

  Hampered by his weight, Gussie wiggled beneath him, then lifted her feet, nudging at his trousers, reaching to ease the heavy denim down his legs. He delighted in her haste, reveled in the muttered imprecations she flung in his direction, and finally shed the last of his clothing by the side of the bed.

  And then he came to her, finding the fork of her thighs, recognizing the damp, slick folds as an invitation to his entry.

  It was hasty and headlong and she trembled, crying out. Halting his forward movement, he hesitated, fearful of stretching her beyond her ability to contain him so quickly. But she would not allow it. Her arms circled him, her legs found purchase and surrounded his hips, and she lifted to meet his thrust. Shivering, she moaned anew and clung to him with a fierce strength that only served to bring him to a shattering climax.

  “Sweetheart.” He dropped his head to her shoulder and groaned the word with a sense of disgust at his own lack of control. “I’m sorry, Gussie. I took advantage of you. I didn’t take care with you, and then I left you far behind.” His words were uttered between breaths that rose from his depths. He was stunned by the force of his desire, the graceless, greedy fashion in which he’d used her body. Appalled by his harsh, hasty treatment of her, he lifted himself, peering down at her in the dark.

  She was a shadow beneath him, her hair pale against the pillows, her breath sweet as he bent to touch her lips. “Forgive me, love.” It was all he could say, knowing he’d failed to bring her the pleasure she deserved.

  “You were magnificent,” she whispered, her hands finding their way to his head, burying her fingers in his hair, tunneling through its length. “I’ve never felt so much like a woman in my life.”

  He turned them to their sides, and heard her words with a sense of puzzlement. “How so?” he asked.

  “You wanted me…maybe ‘needed me’ is a better description,” she said haltingly. “You couldn’t have been held off by a herd of wild horses.”

  “I looked at you too long in the mirror,” he said glumly. “I get so riled up watching you when you do your woman thing at night, I can hardly keep my hands to myself.”

  “I don’t want you to,” she said airily. “I like it when you act starved for me.”

  “You do?” He breathed deeply, satisfied that he’d not harmed her or placed a strain on the budding relationship. “I’m still hungry,” he whispered, leaning closer to touch her mouth with his, suckling at her lip and nipping it lightly.

  “So am I.”

  She’d never been so forward with him, and delight sang in his veins. “I can fix that,” he promised, his hands searching out the curves and hollows of her flesh.

  “I’ll just bet you can,” she sighed. “I’ll just bet you can.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I’d begun to think you were in jail,” Wilson said, his eyes scanning Augusta, as if he searched for injury of some sort. “Does he always keep you at his beck and call this way? Or am I the reason you’ve been out of touch?”

  “You know better than that,” she said. “I’ve just been busy.”

  Wilson’s gaze was skeptical. “Too busy to see your brother after all this time apart? I think your husband doesn’t want you hanging around me, sis.”

  Augusta bristled and glared in his direction. “I thought it was time to give my ladies a chance to operate without supervision.” She glanced around the parlor and then stalked toward the hallway. “It looks to me like they’ve done just fine without my guiding hand.”

  “Don’t be mad at me, sis,” Wilson said quickly, following in her wake. “We were all wondering where you were and what was keeping you from home.”

  “I was home,” she said quietly, halting in her tracks to straighten a picture on the wall. And then she slanted a look in his direction. “You don’t seem to understand. I’m married to Cleary. I owe him my loyalty, and my time is his to direct as he pleases.”

  “And that’s what this is all about? Letting Cleary boss you around?” Wilson lifted a brow, sliding his hands into his trouser pockets. “This is my sister? This paragon of housewifely virtue?” He walked toward her and she moved from his path. It was no use. He only circled her slowly, his gaze on her as if he peeked beneath the layers of clothing to find the sister he’d once known.

  “I’m married,” she repeated. “That may not mean anything to you, but it does to me. One of these days I’ll be giving over the leadership in this place to someone else, and I need to know that when that time comes, I have in place a woman capable of the job.” That she was repeating Cleary’s words to her didn’t occur to her until she’d finished giving chapter and verse to the young man standing there.

  “Which woman are you talking about? Not Honey, I hope.”

  She shook her head. “No, probably not Honey. She’s in need of a husband and a home of her own, not the job of tending to ladies who would probably run roughshod over her.”

  “She may already have someone in mind for that position. That of a husband, I mean,” Wilson said quietly.

  Augusta’s brow lifted in inquiry. “Really?” Her heart beat just a mite faster as she saw his jaw tense and his mouth tighten at her tone of voice.

  “Yeah, really,” he said, his words just a shade threatening.

  “You have enough on your plate already, my brother. You don’t need to be looking at Honey and worrying about her future. It’s more important that you find a safe place to land and begin making plans to get there.”

  “Why? Is the lawman ready to turn me in?” His cheeks colored as he asked the quiet question, his trace of arrogance gone, as if worry had sent it flying.

  “He hasn’t mentioned it, but surely you know he’s obligated to do that very thing.” As much as it hurt her to think about it, facts were facts, and she could not be disloyal to Cleary in this matter.

  “Maybe I’d better get my gear together then. I sure wouldn’t want to bring the law down on your head, sis.” She sensed a note of worry as he faced her head-on. “You’ve got your hands full running this place. Half the folks hereabouts are unhappy about having a houseful of shady ladies on the edge of town as it is.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” she asked, although she was aware that it was true. More and more, her original sponsors had withdrawn their physical support, even though occasional bits of help came by way of cash and baskets of clothing and garden produce left on the back porch. She was still in the black, but unless she found some financial help she would be in trouble.

  “I hear things in town. I was in the saloon the other night, and a gal was waiting tables, making up to me and in general trying to invite me upstairs with her. She had some bruises on her arms and a purple lump under her eye.” He shifted his stance and his cheeks reddened again.

  “I told her to come here if she needed help, and she said you probably didn’t have room for another woman in the house, that this place was likely gonna fold soon anyway, since the ladies in town were reneging on helping out here.” His discomfort inc
reased as Augusta eyed him sternly. “She told me she didn’t dare come here, that the saloon owner would kill her.”

  “They all get that song and dance when the people who earn money from their activities get worried about them running off,” she told him. “Most of the women who work in brothels and saloons are afraid for their lives. I’d just like to know what you were doing to contribute to their misery.”

  “Don’t look at me that way, sis. I was only having a drink. I didn’t plan on abusing any of the women there.” He looked past her at the kitchen doorway and his eyes widened.

  “Hey there, Honey,” he said, sidestepping Augusta to approach the young woman watching him, her eyes misty. “I only stopped by the saloon for a few minutes, Honey,” he said in a low, cajoling tone.

  “I’m sure what you do is your own business,” Honey told him, as her voice quavered, a dead giveaway to the tears she was about to shed.

  “Where is everyone?” Augusta asked quickly, calling attention to herself as she caught Honey’s eye. Unless she missed her guess, the girl was already besotted with Wilson. He probably looked like the proverbial knight in shining armor to her weary eyes. And at this point the girl was open to hurt, too fragile of spirit to be exposed to a man who might not stick around for the long haul. Given Wilson’s past record, she could expect little from him when it came to being a stick-to-it sort of fella.

  “Bertha’s fixing dinner and Pearl’s cleaning corn on the back porch.” Shoving her hands into the deep pockets of her printed percale wrapper, Honey smiled, a shy gesture aimed at Augusta. “Janine is at work and Glory’s hoeing out the chicken coop.”

  “I hope you haven’t been overdoing it,” Wilson said, his voice aggressive, as if he dared anyone to place more on Honey’s slender shoulders than she could bear. “I told you I’d do the gardening this afternoon.”