Beside him Joshua sucked in a breath. Caleb knew without asking his brother was having an identical reaction to the woman.
“Gentlemen, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”
His momma had raised him right, drilled manners into him until they became nearly second nature, so he almost had his hand going to his hat. At the last moment Caleb made a snap decision not to show any of his momma’s fancy drawing-room manners. He realized his only salvation would be to treat Mrs. Maddox as an assignment and
not
as a female.
It was going to be difficult enough, all of them traveling in close quarters over the next week. If he gave in now and started thinking of her as a female, he would be in serious trouble before their journey was even half done.
“I’m Caleb Benedict. My brother, Joshua. Your husband has hired us to escort you to his ranch. You’re familiar with the route?”
Caleb watched as she blinked, absorbing his brusque manner without so much as a frown. Her lips lifted in another half smile. Then she looked at him, her light blue eyes sparkling, and he had to resist the urge to smile back.
“Good day to you, Mr. Benedict. And to you,” her lips twitched just a little when she turned to his brother, “Mr. Benedict.” Then she put her full attention back to him.
“No, I have no experience of the route we’ll be taking. I’ve never been to Mr. Maddox’s ranch. As a matter of fact, I’ve never actually left Chicago except for a couple of summer visits to relatives, and then in the days immediately following the fire, of course. We evacuated to a farm belonging to my uncle until the flames had been extinguished and Father deemed it safe to return. However, Mr. Maddox did mention that I would be taking a train.”
“I see.”
“Only one suitcase?” Joshua asked, reaching forward and relieving the housekeeper of her burden. As he did so, he gave Caleb a look that told him he wasn’t alone in his attraction to the lady, just in how he chose to deal with it.
“My husband requested that I bring but one.”
“Well that makes things a lot easier,” Caleb said. “If you’re ready, then? We have a half hour to get to the train station.”
“Yes, all right.” She turned and threw her arms around the housekeeper, who returned her hug while shooting a steely glare at both him and Joshua.
“Don’t worry,” Joshua said to the older woman. “We’ll take good care of her.”
“See that you do.”
Caleb noticed the tears in both women’s eyes and hoped to hell neither one of them burst out crying.
Nothing made a man feel more helpless than a woman’s tears.
He pulled open the door, and stepped outside. The morning sun still beat down on the city. The houses stood too close together and too many people scurried about. Fortunately, the buckboard and horses they’d rented from the livery were used to the city and stood placidly at the hitching post.
She smelled like a flower-filled spring meadow
.
Caleb scowled, willing the unwanted thought away. Joshua pushed past him, taking the path to the street at a fast pace, setting the valise he carried on the back of the buckboard next to their two small bags.
“Oh. Is there even room for me?”
Mrs. Maddox had come up behind him, and stood so close he could feel the heat of her body against his back. Her scent surrounded him, making his blood heat and his cock begin to twitch.
“Sure there is,” Joshua answered. “You can sit on the seat beside Caleb. I’ll just hop on the back here.”
“Oh, well that’s fine then.” She went around Caleb and stood looking at the buckboard as if she’d never seen one before. Caleb approached her, and wondered just how fast the week could pass.
“Mr. Benedict, if you would be so kind?”
Caleb girded his loins even as his hands reached for her. It took only a moment to lift her and set her on the seat, but that moment burned the feel of her, the heat and the allure of her, into his soul forever.
She’s a married lady, you moron
.
Caleb considered himself a man of honor. But as he rounded the rear of the buggy and prepared to take the reins, he couldn’t help but wonder if his honor could stand the test of Sarah Maddox.
Chapter 2
Liam Larson would do anything for his lover.
All his life he’d been alone and lonely with no hope, really, of ever finding anyone who would love him the way he needed to be loved, until Jamie came along.
Growing up, he’d never doubted his fate. Unattractive, sickly throughout his childhood, he’d been rejected even by his own family. If those to whom he’d been born didn’t really want him, how could he expect anyone else to?
Liam had determined while still a boy that although he wouldn’t be wanted, he would be needed. He worked hard, applying himself first to his parents’ farm, and then to whatever job he could find. And then history stepped in and changed his life.
The war, so devastating to the country, proved to be his salvation. He’d been an excellent shot even before enlisting. Under the tutelage of the United States Army, his skill flourished, and with success came the first real acceptance and respect he had ever known. Army life suited him. He liked the rules and the regulations, the rigidness that made every man the same as every other. He liked the sense of camaraderie that facing danger and harsh conditions bred. He’d been mustered in with men he’d never met, stationed in places he’d never been. He fit in.
Under these most unlikely conditions and circumstances, while stationed in
God had given him this exquisite creature, and Liam knew he could never do enough to be worthy of that gift. He would never take his beloved for granted, and anything,
anything
at all Jamie wanted, Jamie would get.
Liam reread the note the telegraph office had just delivered to his room. The message, succinct and to the point, announced that events had begun. Nodding to himself, he stuffed the note into his pocket.
Liam left his room in the small hotel in St. Louis, Missouri, conscious of his surroundings yet focused on his mission. His mission for Jamie.
He knew where to find the men he sought. This particular saloon, Murphy’s, had its share of patrons morning, noon, and night. Some arrived early and stayed late, rarely getting up from their stools or chairs except to go piss out the back, making room for more drink. Or taking a quick trip up the stairs with one of the whores, working up a bit of a thirst, then coming back down, again for more drink. One could find places like Murphy’s in every state and territory, hell, in every city in the nation. Places where, for the right price, one could buy anything at all.
Liam’s first sight of Dick Morgan and his gang didn’t fill him with confidence. If he’d had his way, he’d take care of fulfilling his lover’s wishes personally. But in this, as in most things, his lover proved clever.
These ruffians could never be traced to Jamie. And no one would ever remember Liam Larson, as plain a man as ever walked the face of the earth. No one, save Jamie, had ever looked at him twice.
He pulled out the extra chair at the table. The smell of unwashed bodies assailed him, and it was all Liam could do not to curl his lip in disgust.
“Guess you’re the dude we’re waiting for.” Morgan turned his head slightly to the side to spit out his chaw, just missing Liam’s foot.
Liam didn’t shake his head but he knew no amount of willpower would keep the look of contempt from his face. Reaching into his jacket he pulled out an envelope and tossed it down on the table in front of Morgan.
“Half now, half when the job is done.”
“How’re you gonna know if we did it right or not?” The question was asked by another man at the table, a man who appeared to be little more than a boy, really.
No intelligence shining from those eyes
.
Liam knew Morgan’s stepson ran with him, as did his brother and a couple of men he’d met during the war, all of them, of course, fighting on the losing side.
“I’ll be close by,” Liam said. He turned his attention back to Morgan. “Here’s what’s expected of you and where you’re to make your move.”
He spoke quietly, quickly. He described the target, and there could be no way even a bunch of no-accounts like Morgan and his gang appeared to be could miss picking out the target.
Morgan grabbed up the envelope, his callused finger playing over the edge of the bills that filled it. “I don’t trust paper money overmuch. Learned my lesson a few years back. Mr. Davis’s paper money turned out to be worth less than shit. I want the rest of it in gold coin.”
Liam raised both eyebrows. This was one of the reasons he’d argued with Jamie against using a man like Morgan. The man’s basic lack of professionalism would be the death of him.
Or it would be if Liam had any say in the matter.
“Very well. The target doesn’t arrive here until tomorrow. You don’t move for a day after that. Plenty of time to make arrangements for the gold then.” What choice did he have? It wouldn’t be very difficult to get the coin, as Jamie had been very generous and provided Liam with substantial property and cash. But his instincts told him the wisest course of action would be to let Morgan keep his obvious impressions, that Liam was just able to meet the financial demands on top of being an unthreatening ‘dude.’
He could see no reason to let Morgan know he could put a hole in his forehead from four hundred yards away
.
Farther if he had his Sharps. In fact, there existed no need to let the man know one damn thing more than he absolutely needed to.
“Then you’ve got yourself a deal. Me and my boys will get the job done. Now, just one thing we was wondering about. Any reason we couldn’t have us some fun with the…what’d you call it…the
target
, before we finish the job?”
Liam got to his feet, revulsion coursing through his veins. He tramped down the twinge of pity that tried to surface by reminding himself that when all was said and done, Jamie would be stronger and safer. And Jamie was all that really mattered.
Still, he leaned forward and braced his hands on the table. His expression must have revealed a little of the dangerous man he knew he’d become, for Morgan and his men, as one, leaned away from him.
“You can do whatever you like to Sarah Maddox,” he hissed. “As long as you leave her dead when you are finished with her.”
* * * *
Sarah shivered, the chill unexpected and inexplicable. The day had turned unseasonably hot, making the interior of the train car stifling. Opening the window any wider wasn’t an option because of the steady bombardment of smoke and hot ashes from the train’s engine. The constant clatter of the wheels on the tracks and the nearly bone-jarring and never-ending motion as the train made its way toward St. Louis were beginning to take their toll on her.
The train began to slow. Again. Sarah turned her attention from looking out the window at the endless vista of farmlands and trees to watch the door at the end of the car. She’d had no idea there would be so many stops along the way. Sure enough, the door opened and the conductor began to walk through the car.
“Normal. Approaching Normal,
She thought she just might hear that nasal-accented monotone in her nightmares. And then as the town’s name registered, her mirth rose up and she chuckled. Across from her, Joshua joined her, his eyes crinkling at the corners, the blue of them sparkling with merriment. From beside him, Caleb shot his brother an annoyed look and then turned his grumpy-looking face back to the window again.
She honestly didn’t know what to make of these two. She’d considered herself a fairly accomplished hostess as she’d acted in that capacity for her father before he’d remarried the year before. So it wasn’t as if she had no experience conversing with men.
But these two seemed different than any she had ever encountered. One appeared stern and moody, the other cheery and unruffled. The fact that they were brothers was amazing enough. That they could actually be twins seemed impossible.
Yet Joshua, happy to fill the journey with chatter, told her exactly that.
Looking at them both caused an unfamiliar heat to curl in her belly. Her nipples tingled, and she felt an overwhelming need to clamp her limbs together tightly. These sensations shocked her, being totally foreign to her, but she knew what they meant.
She’d never in her life felt any kind of stirring toward any man, and now she felt it toward
both
of these two dissimilar brothers.
“Can’t say as I’d want to live in a place called ‘Normal,’” Joshua mused. “And if I did, I don’t expect I would go around telling anyone.”
“Leastways it’s a town and not a goddamned city,” Caleb said.
Sarah’s eyes widened as her gaze snapped to Caleb, who seemed to immediately realize his blunder. He shot her a fast glance, and she could have sworn he blushed.