Explaining Herself (37 page)

"I love your smile," she said, and caught his cheek with one soft hand and guided his mouth back down to hers. "Thank you, Ross. Thank you."

"Thank you?" he asked in blissful confusion, just before their lips met. Thank you for his
smile}

Then he was kissing her again while she sighed, "Uh-huh" against him, and his thoughts began to stutter.

She wants to
—

We'll be
—

He couldn't finish the thoughts for fear of jinxing them. This sort of thing didn't happen in his world. But he'd pushed that world aside; he did not want it. He preferred to stake a claim in hers. Because she allowed someone as unworthy as him in, he would love her forever.

When she hugged him, she'd slid her hands inside his duster to do it. One of her hands drifted down his denim-covered spine, then the small of his back, then past his belt and onto a less proper venue, and her wanting to stay with him awoke erotic possibilities as well. He had not intended to think of her that way.
Carnally.
She was his sweet Victoria. And yet he no longer felt merely itchy under her blessedly curious hands. He felt downright hot.

Lifting her into his
arms, even as they kissed, Lar
amie took awkward steps until a tree scraped the back of the hand cupping her head. Then he slowly slid her down his aroused body, pressing himself into her buttoned-up, petticoated softness. He slid his tongue into her hot, willing mouth. She parted her lips wider
for him, let her head fall back
—a move that lifted her jacketed breasts generously up and into his ribs.

"Uh-huh," she either repeated or encouraged, muffled and happy. Her hands found his butt again, under his coattails, and all of his hard-won control couldn't keep his body from pushing greedily against hers where he'd braced her against the tree. To tell by her sigh, she didn't seem to mind.

She
loved
him? The truth of that was a blanket around them, wrapping them together, sheltering what they did here. He thrust deeper with his tongue, and she drank him in, her breath catching in little whimpers.

He combed his fingers through her thick, curly hair and drew his hands over her shoulders, down the round softness of her arms in their coat sleeves, his thumbs testing even less decent curves.
So hot.
Suddenly frustrated that his tongue could not bring closure to the matter, he slid his kisses from her mouth, across her jaw, down her cinnamon-scented neck. She released his rear end to reach up and pull off his hat, drop it somewhere, then dig her fingers in his hair as if to insist that he continue kissing her there. When he trailed kisses down her throat, then to the collar of her coat, she let him do that, too.

Drugged with pleasure, with satisfaction
—with sheer, blinding hope—he could barely think enough to wonder if it was possible to undo buttons with his teeth.

"Oh, Ross," Victoria sighed, squirming against his need of her. "Oh
—keep doing that."

He slid a hand off her arm and directly onto her breast, round and firm and tempting even through too much material, and she arched eagerly into him. "And that!"

His fingers began to dig into the serge of her riding coat, but somehow he forced them to close into a fist
instead. He would not tear her clothes. He would not, must not be violent to her in any way.

Ever.

Just in case, he turned his face into the welcome shelter of her shoulder, gasping for breath.

'You'll marry me?" he pleaded, desperate. This was more than he should ever do with a woman he would not marry, probably not with a woman he hadn't
already
married. He'd never known anything as blissful as this, just this, and oh, God, he had to be sure.

When Victoria blew out her breath, he felt it feather across the back of his hair. 'You don't think I would go away with you and not get married, do you? Now kiss me."

Demanding, wasn't she? He loved that about her. He loved everything about her. If she was willing to marry him, it was only because she'd given him reason to change.

He even straightened, resting the crown of his head against the tree trunk, over hers, and said it. "Victoria, I love you. Beyond life. Beyond . . . beyond anything."

She ran her hands up and down his chest, somehow admiring, but ducked her head into his chest.

"I love you, too," she said to his heart. "I wouldn't go away with you without that, either."

Either.
. . ? Confused, but happily so, he stared down at her dark, now-wild curls and felt his own smile stretch his mouth, uncertain on his face. He should practice. He might end up smiling around her a great deal.

Then she looked back up at him, somehow petulant, and reached up for his face. "Ross," she insisted, drawing his face invitingly back to her bosom. It had to be the roundest, most fetching, most glorious bosom he'd ever seen, much less touched, even under layers of her wine-colored coat.

Sh
e would be his. Even her bosom.

But she deserved better than to have him doing anything about it at this point in their engagement.

Their engagement!

So he tried to kiss her again instead
—and then had to turn his head back into her shoulder.

"What's wrong?" she demanded, her cross tone exacerbating the problem.

He tipped his face to hers. "I cannot kiss you," he confessed, his words uneven. "I cannot stop smiling."

"But I love your smile," she reminded him with teasing solemnity, touching the bend of his cheek with curious fingers, seeming to savor even his beard stubble. "You need to smile more."

"I love you, Victoria," he repeated, just to prove that he could say it more than once, just to see her delight upon hearing it. "But I am not taking you away with me."

Her eyes narrowed dangerously, so he hurried to add, "I am staying with you. I won't take you away from your family, or your town, or your newspaper. I am finished with running. Somehow I'll stay, unless
—"
Damn.
This part came harder, particularly with the fear that crept back. But didn't she say they had to trust each other? "Unless I get jail time for breaking my parole. But
it... if
you still wanted me after that. .."

Her lower lip began to tremble before she caught it between her teeth. Her eyes, searching his, glittered suspiciously, and his gut clenched up. She had not realized he might yet be in trouble with the law. Of course, she wouldn't wait for him to serve time. She deserved so much better.

Then her lower lip escaped into the brightest smile yet, and she threw her arms around him and pressed her face into his chest. "Thank you," she said again, even if it was muffled, then drew back, still in his arms. "For being willing to do that. That has to be the nicest
present anyone's ever given me! Of course, Thaddeas will keep you out of jail," she insisted. "But even if he didn't, I would visit you every day. We could do a jail-house interview! You could introduce me to the other prisoners, and I could write about their stories too, but I'm sure yours would be the best."

He stared down at her and knew he wasn't dead only because he would not deserve the heaven of having Victoria Garrison love him. "It would have the best ending," he whispered.

Suddenly her eyes widened. "Ross! There's a bounty!"

His gut clenched tighter. "On me?"

She laughed. "On the rustlers. The Sheridan Cattleman's Association gave themselves an official name just to raise the reward. Personally, I don't think Al-den should get an even split, since you did all the work, but
—" Her mouth opened in realization. "Al-den!"

He might end up confused around her a great deal, as well. He doubted he would mind. "Alden?"

"How long have we been here? He must think I lost my camera in Colorado! And him all alone with that awful sheriff, knowing he killed Julie, and worrying about you
—Ross, we need to tell him it's all right!"

He shook his head, lost. And in love. "All right?"

She kissed his jaw, rolling her eyes at his thickness. "That you forgive him for being Julie's lover."

Julie's lover?
He blinked down at her, trying to fit that thought into the wonder that had been his world for the last ten or fifteen minutes. The puzzle piece did not match, so he looked at the information without trying to fit it anywhere, and he remembered. "Alden was
Julie’s
lover."

Victoria, in the circle of his arms, said, "I
told
you. Sixteen years old. Undertaker. Flowers."

He ached not to lea
ve this world for that one. But
staring down at where he held her in the loose circle of his arms, he knew he had no choice. "Yes," he agreed. "Of course you told me. I just.. . forgot."

She widened her eyes. 'You
forgot?"

The man he'd hunted for so many years had a face at last
—Alden Wright's face—and Laramie had no idea what to do about it.
Wait,
he guessed.
Wait, and think, and see.
And love Victoria. "I was distracted."

Before he could lean down to kiss her again, she'd reclaimed her own lower lip between her teeth, and her brows had drawn together. "But it's all right," she prompted him. "Because now you know Sheriff Ward is the one who killed her."

"After Wright led him to us in the first place," he reminded her
—and felt the first stirrings of uncertainty when Victoria
stopped
talking. She'd been afraid to tell him, he remembered, almost too late. She would feel responsible if anything happened to the son of a bitch. It hurt, to think that she still thought that of him. It hurt that she didn't realize she'd become far more important than any vendetta. "I won't kill him, if that's what you're afraid of."

"I didn't say you would." She pressed her lips together, as if trying to understand
—but what? What was there to grasp?
He seduced my sister. He led a lynch mob to us. He abandoned her during the worst days of her life.

Did she want him to forgive the bastard? If so, then there existed one thing he might not be able to do after all, even for her. That frightened him. Couldn't she still love him, even if he hated Alden Wright to his dying breath?

Isn 't it enough that I don't kill him f

They both startled at a single gunshot from the direction where they'd left Alden Wright.

Suddenly Laramie's two worlds blurred yet again.

Victoria flinched at the familiar report.
Alien!

"Stay here," instructed Ross, striding toward Blackie. "I'll see what happened."

She dodged ahead of him and boosted herself up and across his saddle, on her stomach. "No!"

"Victoria!"

She had to struggle to get her leg up and over Blackie's rump, weighted down in a riding skirt like it was. "You said that you wouldn't leave me!" There! She had a leg on either side and sat up.

"That didn't mean I would carry you into gunfire!"

But she grabbed onto his saddle's cantle and hung on, warning him with her eyes that he would have to fight to make her get down. Ross groaned, deep and heartfelt
—and mounted in front of her. She wrapped her arms around his slim waist and held on while he urged his horse ahead, in the direction where they'd left Julie's lover. She felt glad to have something, someone to hold. If the sheriff had killed Alden, while she and Ross were misbehaving in the woods ...

Ross reined Blackie to a stop before they'd quite reached the clearing where they'd left the others. Dismounting, he reached for her. She slid off the horse and into his arms as if she belonged there
—even if he did then set her aside, behind a tree. With an ominous
whoosh,
he drew his rifle from its scabbard. "Wright!" he called loudly after taking several deliberate steps away from her.

Her heart clutched to realize that he was drawing off any possible gunfire. He didn't want her to be hurt. Oh, she did love him. He wasn't a murderer. Why should it matter whether he believed her about Alden?

She hated that it mattered
—and she sank against the tree, with relief, when Alden called, "Laurence? It's safe. We just had a little ... trouble."

"Good," called Ross
. But he was drawing his pistol
at the same time. One-handed, he popped the cylinder, spun it to check for bullets, snapped it back in
— all while walking back to her—then gave it to her. The weapon seemed to float in his hand. When it reached her hand, the reality of its weight and bulk almost made her drop it. "Watch from here."

But
— "He said it's safe."

He shrugged one shoulder, a gesture she finally placed as vaguely European. "They put a gun to his head, he might lie. I love you."

What? But before she could protest, even reassure him that she loved him back, he called, "I'm coming out," and strode into the clearing.