Promises Keep (The Promise Series) (48 page)

Mara perked up. When she’d chosen Millicent as her accomplice, she had no idea the woman could be so ingenious. “What do you have in mind?”

“Who says I’ve got anything in mind?”

“You had that same expression on your face yesterday when you sent Lorie with that note about bringing Brad into the picture.”

“Someone has to do the long-term planning.” She twitched the curtains aside for another peek. “Those four no-accounts who hang around outside the saloon have gone in after your husband. No doubt hoping for a free beer in return for their sympathy.”

“I’m surprised the saloon hasn’t fallen down without their support,” Mara commented dryly.

Millicent laughed out loud at that. “It is a wonder. Now, in regard to your husband, don’t you think what worked once might work again?”

Mara stared at Millicent’s broad back until understanding dawned. As she gathered her hat and gloves off the dresser, she said, “You have a devious mind, Millicent.”

“Thank you. Now, I think it’s time you hunted up the Reverend and get knee-deep in a discussion about the weather,” Millicent directed, still looking out the window.

“I think I can do better than the weather.” Mara gave Millicent a hug from behind. “Thanks for being on my side.”

“There’s no side to it. Merely right or wrong.”

Millicent kept her eyes locked on the motionless scene of the town as it blurred. “Go stir a hornet’s nest under your husband before he takes root in that saloon. Lord knows, there’s no talking to a drunken man.”

Mara snapped off a salute. “I’ll do you proud, captain.”

“See that you do.”

* * * * *

Homer came bursting into the saloon like someone had just set his tail on fire. Two chairs tumbled to the floor in his wake. It was obvious, before he’d even crossed half the distance to the far corner, that Cougar was his destination. His eyes wide and wild behind an untidy shock of hair stayed unwaveringly on his quarry. Which was why he never saw the table loaded with poker chips and money until he fell over it. Through the curses and pandemonium that erupted, his shout could be heard. In a voice loud enough to wake the dead, he shouted, “McKinnely, your wife’s bedding the Reverend!”

The noise fell off in the saloon until there was nothing but the sound of fifteen men breathing in anticipation of his response. Only a quarter of the way through his whiskey bottle, Cougar rose from his chair with a slow growl. He kept his tone purely conversational as he asked, “Would you like to rethink your comments about my wife before I unscrew that worthless head from your shoulders?”

Homer had never been blessed with an overabundance of brains. He had however, firmly grasped the virtue of honesty. Folks said it was a blessing that he had managed to grasp something. “God’s honest truth, Cougar,” he whined, rising from the broken bits of wood that had once supported a heavy game. “I think she’s done gone and embraced that free love business them suffragists are always talking about.”

“You’ve never heard a suffragist speak in your life,” Brian scoffed.

“Maybe not.” Homer winced as he plucked a sliver from his thigh, “but you told me all about them women and as how Cougar’s wife was following in their footsteps.”

“Shut up, you ass,” Brian hissed as Cougar cocked an eyebrow at him. “I never said Mrs. McKinnely was spreading any free love around,” he swore in a voice loud enough to carry. Grabbing his dimwitted friend by the collar, he tried to drag him out the door to safety. They almost made it.

“Just what gave you the idea my wife was interested in the Reverend?” Cougar asked.

Brian stopped as if his feet were frozen to the floor.

Homer yanked free of his friend’s grip. He made a big to-do of straightening his clothing. “Well, everyone in town knows the Reverend is sweet on Mrs. McKinnely. He went and bought her all new clothes right down to the…” his reedy voice dropped to a mere whisper, “undergarments.”

Cougar dragged his hand down his face and struggled to hold onto his temper. Homer was a damned idiot, and he babbled like a fool. Mara was going to have to love him long and hard to make up to him for having to stand in a room full of men and listen to this drivel. He was somewhat cheered by the prospect.

Homer glanced around, satisfied that everyone was properly scandalized before continuing. “Well, it seems Mrs. McKinnely returns the sentiment.”

“Careful, Homer,” Brian muttered through the side of his mouth.

“Hush up, Brian,” Homer retorted. “Cougar is right grateful that I was witness to these goings on.”

“Well, stop blathering like an idiot, man, and get on with the telling.” A recently arrived gambler urged lasciviously. “What did the Reverend and the pleasingly anxious Mrs. McKinnely do?”

Glad for the opportunity, Cougar casually reached over, grabbed the man by the back of his well-oiled head, and slammed his face into the table. In the same conversational tone as before, he nudged, “Yes, Homer, what did my wife do?”

Homer might not be a genius, but he did boast some basic survival instincts. Cougar noted when it dawned on him by the widening of his eyes that he was defaming a man’s wife in a saloon full of attentive men. He also noted the moment the urge to be the center of attention took off with his good sense as he squared his shoulders and his stance assumed the importance befitting his role of town crier. Hell, Cougar thought, he hoped he wasn’t going to have to kill the son of a bitch.

“I started watching Mrs. McKinnely because she was acting strange,” Homer began. “She was strolling up and down the street, peeking into every store.”

Brian held up his hands in defeat. “I’m out of here.”

Homer gave his friend’s flying retreat one pitying glance before he continued, his reedy voice booming with importance. “Suddenly, she spies the Reverend. Her whole face lights up like a bonfire and she trips right into his arms! As God is my witness!” He swore, reaching for the heavens with an upraised palm as if calling down divine truth. “They embraced right there in front of the livery.”

The room was suddenly full of uneasy mutterings.

One of the men, a small-time rancher, eyed Cougar uneasily. “What do you think, Cougar? I know Homer’s an idiot, but he sounds pretty…sure.”

“I think,” Cougar stated conversationally, knowing from the way Homer twitched that he wasn’t through. “That Homer ought to finish up what he was saying about my wife.”

Homer’s thin chest puffed out about three times its normal size. He didn’t appear to give any notice to the men fleeing his vicinity. He pulled his pants up with a flourish and resumed his telling. “Next thing you know, the Reverend’s scooping that pretty Mrs. McKinnely up in his arms and heading right on down to Millicent’s. Bold as brass, Mrs. McKinnely’s laughing in the man’s arms. It’s a wonder God didn’t strike the two of them down as they went right on up the stairs to her room! Twenty minutes later,” he continued, his voice hushed, his manner intimate, “the Reverend comes out the door…adjusting his pants!”

“That did it,” one man noted.

And in the time Homer looked around to see who did what, Cougar had him by the shirtfront. “Next time you feel the need to discuss my wife, Homer, make sure it’s with the proper respect.”

With one blow from his fist, Cougar laid the man out flat. He hadn’t hit him as hard as he should have, but after all, Homer was a fool. “Anyone else have anything to say about my wife?” The rest of the men in the saloon weren’t operating a few straws short of a bale and he could unleash a bit of frustration on them without guilt.

“Hell no.” They chimed as one.

The barkeep tossed a bucket of cold water on Homer who lay so still in the aftermath, everyone knew he was faking. “I suspect that when Homer wakes up, he’ll be full of remorse for his lies.”

Cougar eyed every man in the saloon coldly. “See that he is.”

The trip from the saloon over to Millicent’s was two minutes long. Two minutes during which Cougar went from disbelief to belief and back again. Two minutes during which he reviewed every reason why he should wring his wife’s neck. At the very least, give her a beating, but somehow he couldn’t get past the knowledge that making love to her would be infinitely more pleasurable.

And, he decided, if he didn’t put his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams, by morning the whole damned town would be under no illusion as to whom Mara McKinnely belonged.

That smile lasted all the way up the stairs in Millicent’s conveniently deserted establishment. It lasted as he kicked open the one spare room Millicent kept especially for her women boarders. It grew broader as his little wife, clad only in a chemise, dropped her hairbrush and stared at him in panic.

“Are you aware that the whole town is talking about how you just screwed the pants off Reverend Swanson?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Mara paused, halfway bent over to retrieve her brush from the floor where she’d dropped it. She could only gape at Cougar as he casually shut the door behind him.

“I did what?”

Cougar leaned against the doorjamb as his fingers began to toy with the buttons of his shirt. “According to Homer, you lured the Reverend up here to your room and in a scant fifteen minutes, balled his eyes out.” As Mara’s mouth opened and closed with the grace of a landed trout, Cougar tacked on helpfully. “Apparently, he left here a satisfied man, because he was last seen adjusting his pants with a big grin plastered across his face.”

“I didn’t. He couldn’t. We didn’t,” Mara stumbled to a halt, shocked by the enormity of her plan’s backfire.

Cougar pushed himself away from the wall, buttons parting as he strolled over to where Mara sat, dead white, frozen like a statue. “Oh, I don’t believe a word of it.” He assured her arrogantly. His shirt fell open to his sides. Placing his hand under her arm, he straightened Mara gently. “This delightful body responds to my touch and mine alone, but,” he tacked on as the wariness left Mara’s face to be replaced with the light of battle, “you owe me for having to sit in the midst of a couple of dozen panting men while Homer spilled his tale.”

“A couple of dozen,” Mara echoed, noticing for the first time that her husband was undressing.

“Easily,” Cougar replied, his tone still casual. Reaching out his hand, he pulled Mara to her feet. Turning her around so she faced the mirror, he slid his big hands under the bodice of her chemise. With one smooth motion, he rent the garment into two useless pieces. Mara met his gaze in the mirror and realized he was furious.

“You said you didn’t believe it.”

Cougar slid his arms around her torso as he scooped her breasts into his hands. He rolled the nipples between his fingers as a reward for their prompt response to his touch. “I don’t.”

He held her gaze in the mirror. “But that doesn’t mean every lusting man in that damned saloon didn’t swallow every lurid detail.”

Mara swallowed hard. “Lurid?” she groaned, her body softening into Cougar’s despite her wariness. She could feel his arousal pressing into her back. Try as she might, she couldn’t keep her eyes off their joint reflection in the vanity mirror. He rose above her, a deeply tanned pagan. Her breasts appeared and disappeared from behind his caressing hands. Her knees gave out.

“Definitely lurid,” Cougar replied, bending forward until Mara was forced to brace her hands on the vanity. He traced the line of her spine with his finger. “Very nice,” he approved when a trail of goose bumps sprang up.

“No,” he ordered as Mara would have straightened. “Stay right there and watch.”

“You said you believed me,” Mara pointed out weakly as she saw through the mirror how Cougar made short work of freeing his manhood. It sprang hungrily into the twilight of the room. The unbuttoned fly of his denim pants bracketed its hard length as he cupped the shaft in his hand, pumping its length with firm strokes, making it grow harder. Thicker. Her pulse doubled its rate. Her pussy flooded with moisture.

Cougar tore her pantalets in two. “I do, but you also owe me for three sleepless, frustrating nights.”

His hands settled on her hips. His cock pressed against her pussy, settling into the little valley, feeling impossibly huge and hard. A shudder shook her from head to toe as she realized he wasn’t even going to undress. In the mirror, his expression was rigid.

“I’m glad you’re nice and wet, Mrs. McKinnely,” Cougar drawled, his voice slightly hoarse, but still conversational. “Because we’re going to do things a little differently tonight. All the way. All at once.”

Mara closed her eyes against the flood of heat that surged over her.

“Open your eyes,” Cougar snapped. Mara immediately complied. In the mirror, she watched as the muscles in Cougar’s shoulders bunched. She felt his hands clench on her hips, and then she saw him throw his weight forward. With one primal plunge, he embedded his huge shaft to the hilt.

Her breath caught in her throat as his cock drove into her tight passage, relentlessly forcing past her resistance until she couldn’t take anymore. She struggled to adjust to his presence. His hand came down hard on her ass, once, twice before he asked, “Who do you belong to?”