Authors: Sharon Ihle
"As soon as we get home."
Donovan's voice. Yes, sparkly-eyed Donovan with the handsome face and naughty mouth was taking her home. Feeling as if she existed in spirit only—her body was no longer spinning, but numb, as if it had flown to another planet—she comprehended in the muddied depths of her sluggish brain that he'd carried her out of the saloon and hoisted her into a carriage. And he was taking her home. Moments later, at least that's the way it seemed to her, Libby opened her eyes and found herself standing in her fluffy bedroom in his house. Donovan had his arms around her, holding her close—or up. Had she fallen asleep in the carriage?
"How are you feeling now?" he asked.
"I... I don't know." She no longer felt dreamy, but sluggish all over, and her vision was a little bit hazy. She reached up to adjust her spectacles only to discover them missing. "My glasses."
"I have them." Donovan reached into his jacket pocket, then leaned over and carefully set her eye wear on the bedside table. "I took them for safekeeping. Can you stand alone now?"
The moment he released her, Libby swayed.
"I guess not." Taking her back in his arms, Donovan walked her to the edge of the bed and gently sat her down.
"Thanks," she muttered, too ashamed of herself to look him in the eye.
"You're more than welcome." Donovan went on as if nothing were out of order, his voice reflecting neither amusement nor disgust. "Gerda was here this morning, and I'm sure she left some food behind. If you'd still like something to eat, I'll go downstairs and fix a sandwich for you before I leave."
She'd been starving earlier, but now, all she wanted to do was lie down. Libby shook her head. "I'm not feeling well enough to eat right now. And what do you mean, leave? You're not going away again, are you?"
"I have to."
At Donovan's grim tone, Libby looked up to see there wasn't so much as a spark of amusement in his eyes—in fact they seemed flat, steel-like. "What's the matter? You're carrying on like the world's come to an end."
"I have some chores to attend to, is all. Nothing for you to worry about. Will you be all right?"
Eventually, she supposed. Libby glanced in his direction and noticed that her new hat was sitting atop the dresser. The pert little straw crown had been mashed flat and the roses and ostrich plume appeared to be crushed.
"My stars," she cried. "What happened to my new hat?"
Donovan's mouth puckered as if he were trying mightily not to laugh. "You took exception to a carriage which was following ours up the street. I believe its horse was blowing and snorting too loudly to suit you, so you threw your hat at it."
Libby gasped and brought her hand to her mouth.
"No,
I didn't."
"Oh, yes, I'm afraid you did. By the time we got the carriages stopped, the horse and the cab had run over it."
Closing her eyes as much in shame as horror, Libby groaned.
"Why don't you lie down? After you take a nap, you'll be feeling a lot better. Maybe you can even fix the hat." He started for the door and paused as he opened it. "Is there anything else you need before I go?"
There was a hell of a lot more she needed, and had she not been full of cherry brandy, Libby was fairly certain she'd have known exactly how to express those needs. As it was, she could hardly make sense of the fact that, once again, Donovan was leaving her to fend for herself.
"I guess not," she whispered, defeated. It wasn't until after he'd closed the door behind him that Libby remembered she'd failed—once again—in her mission to save the
Laramie Tribune.
Then she thought of her mother and the even more significant promise she'd made to her, and at last, Libby fell back against her pillows. And cried until she fell asleep.
* * *
She slept like a great pile of rocks, waking once just long enough to take several desperate gulps of water from the pitcher on the bed stand before collapsing in slumber again. As the night moved steadily toward dawn, Libby woke again, this time refreshed and, at last, herself again. On the heels of this discovery, she realized that she was absolutely ravenous. Remembering that Gerda usually left a bundle of rolls and several nice fat sausages on her cleaning day, she threw back the covers, stumbled out of bed, then made her way out of the bedroom and down the staircase in the dark.
Once in the hallway that led to the kitchen, Libby was surprised to find a dim glow spilling out of the kitchen to light her way. As she stepped inside the room, she discovered the source—a small lamp sitting on the stove. Assuming that Donovan had lit it for her benefit, should she awaken in the dark, she smiled at the thought as she lifted the towel off the basket of rolls. Maybe he did care about her just a little. Humming to herself now, Libby was on her way to the icebox for the sausages, when a deep male voice came at her from the shadows near the back door.
"Where the hell's your clothes?"
"Oh, my Lord." With a shriek, Libby flung a roll into the air. "Donovan?" she asked, peering into the darkened corner near the door. "Is that you?"
"No, actually, it's not."
The man took a step toward her, the light catching enough of him to illuminate the lower half of his body. All Libby could tell for sure, was that the man looked as if he were in the middle of undressing. His shirttails were out of his trousers and hanging down below his waist. Surely this had to be Donovan home from the saloon. It sounded like him, and yet...
"Donovan? You're scaring me." The man took another step toward her then, illuminating the features she knew so well. "Oh, for heaven's sake. Why didn't you just say it was you, instead of trying to frighten me half to death?"
She expected him to burst out laughing over his little joke, but his features remained somber like his voice. "Donovan's gone," he muttered thickly. "I don't know where he went. I'm R. T. Savage's bastard son."
He didn't laugh over this reference to his earlier chicanery, and neither did Libby. She still didn't see much funny about his pretending to be Andrew Savage.
Donovan moved completely out of the shadows then, revealing himself to be in a rather unruly state. He'd stripped down to his trousers and shirt—his jacket, vest, and necktie were flung sloppily over one of two kitchen chairs—and looked as if he was in the midst of discarding even more of his apparel. His shirt was completely unbuttoned, exposing a wide expanse of his chest, down to his waist. Libby couldn't help but notice the slender triangle of dark hair at his breastbone, or keep her inquisitive eyes from following that narrow band of hair to where it disappeared, like the tail of a kite, beneath the waist of his trousers.
"What're you looking at?" he suddenly asked, causing Libby to jerk her gaze away from areas in which it had no business.
"I didn't realize you were getting undressed in here."
He started for her, staggering a bit, she thought, and came to a halt just a whisper away. "It's my house. I can run naked here if I want to. What's your excuse?"
The sharp tang of brandy, or something like it, curled under her nostrils, both gagging and amusing her. So the tables had turned, had they? Donovan was staring hard at her, trying his damnedest to look rigid, maybe even angry, as he waited for her answer—but not quite carrying it off. His eyes, though struggling to bore into her, were languid, the silvery accents usually so ice-like, now soft like flakes from an early snow. Libby had seen her father looking this way before, not in the eyes so much, but in his general appearance, especially during the months after the death of her mother. Something dreadful had happened to Donovan during the past twenty-four hours, a crisis of some kind which had left him badly in need of comfort.
Of course Libby couldn't think what to do for him because she didn't know what his troubles were. "I'm sorry to have come downstairs without dressing, but I had no idea you'd be home, and certainly not that you'd be standing here in the kitchen." She touched the lacy collar at her throat, making sure she was properly buttoned up. "If you'd like, I'll go back upstairs. Do you mind if I take along a little snack with me? I never did eat anything yesterday."
"Don' go." Hesitant and unsure at first, Donovan reached out and touched her arm, massaging the upper part of it through her worn cotton nightdress. Light glistened around his head at the movement, reflections from the lamp bouncing off the pearls of moisture in his rumpled, fog-dampened hair. Something stirred in her belly at the sight, then warmed her down low as she stared up at him in the murky darkness. A new kind of hunger gnawed at her insides, and she realized in an instant that the sensation had nothing to do with a need for sustenance. Donovan was what she craved. Only Donovan.
Still looking at her in that odd, stern-but-amused way, he went on talking as if he'd never paused. "I've had a really rotten night. Sorry if I took it out on you."
She instinctively reached up and cupped the edge of his jaw with her palm, as a mother might comfort her child. "What's happened to you, Donovan? Is there some way I can help?"
He laughed, just a dash of hysteria setting the tone. "Ah, that you could, you adorable little ink-slinger. That you could." Moving even closer, almost, but not quite, pressing the length of his body along hers, Donovan inched his fingers up her forearm until his hand covered hers, which was still at the side of his face. "What's done is done, and nobody can make it right. The me you knew is simply not here anymore." Again he laughed, a kind of plaintive sound now. "Isn't that a hoot?"
As a newspaperwoman, Libby had interviewed people from all walks of life, and helped her father in the business since the age of ten. In that time, she had learned to read and understand even the quirkiest of characters. Although Donovan wasn't making that much sense now, Libby realized she'd had a peek under his cool veneer and found that he wasn't nearly so impervious to pain and the world around him as he pretended to be. He'd been wounded tonight, perhaps badly, even though he'd tried to laugh off his troubles. She'd seen the anguish weaving in and out of his expression as he spoke, here one minute, gone the next. What could have happened to him over the last few hours? Did it have something to do with his partner?
"What're you looking at now?" he asked, head bowed low, his forehead practically touching hers.
She hadn't realized it until he said something, but Libby had been staring at Donovan's mouth, half out of her mind with thoughts of what he and Lil might have been up to in her office all that time. Reacting impulsively to his words and her own thoughts, she leaned up on tiptoe, then favored him with the gentlest kiss imaginable. When she released him and leaned back, he just stood there staring down at her in the semi-darkness, a new look drifting across his rapidly changing expression. This was one of utter confusion.
"Why did you do that?" Donovan asked, feeling as if his mind and even his body were spinning.
She shrugged. "Because you looked like you needed it. Did you mind so awfully much?"
Mind? Hell, yes, he minded. Nobody had ever kissed him like that before—as if he were worthy of anything more than a few moments of lust—nobody. And he sure hadn't been prepared to experience such a gesture from Miss Liberty Justice, of all people. Since their impulsive moment of passion the day she'd learned his true identity, he'd gone out of his way to make sure something like that wouldn't happen again.
In fact, he'd been struggling for the past ten days with that very chore, and had managed to do what he had to in order to live in the same house with Libby. He'd even learned to look at her without really seeing her, which wasn't easy, given the way her cute little freckles kissed every time she laughed and puckered her button of a nose. He'd done a damn fine job of it, too. Until this moment. Now that she'd gone and kissed him, and in such a somehow more intimate way, how was he to continue ignoring his own responses to her—especially tonight, of all nights?
Or, maybe he didn't have to ignore those responses. Now that he'd been stripped of his identity, left raw and exposed, he was a member of the esteemed Savage clan. Good enough for any woman, he supposed, even the virginal Liberty Ann Justice. And she was lush and real, standing before him with her unbound hair spilling down around the shoulders of her white cotton gown. Surely this seductive, but innocent angel would have no objections to losing her halo to someone with the revered Savage credentials.
Convincing himself more thoroughly, no longer caring about the former limits he'd set on himself, Donovan let himself wonder how Libby's lush auburn locks would feel between his fingers, should he plunge his hands into them. Like satin, he thought, or maybe softer, like the petals of a fragrant blood-red rose. For sure, he thought, giving himself freer rein, her hair would smell of rose petals, should he bury his face in it, like flowers and sunshine.
"Donovan?" she whispered softly, breaking into his delicious thoughts. "Are you all right?"
He opened his eyes, unaware until then that he'd even closed them, and gripped her shoulders for balance. "No, I'm not. Is anyone?"
Chuckling, the sound low and husky, she put her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest. "I was wondering if you'd fallen asleep standing up, is all—not if you were sane."
"I didn't fall asleep," he muttered, folding his arms around her, squeezing her tight. "And I'm for sure not sane. If I were, I wouldn't be doing anything so crazy as this."
She raised her head. "As crazy as what? Giving me a hug?"
"That, and this, too." He brushed his lips across hers. "And this."
His mouth went back to hers, where he nuzzled more than kissed her, then Donovan's fingers found the buttons at the collar of her nightgown. He struggled with them mightily and, when they were finally free, his lips trailed down along her neck to settle at the hollow of her throat. When the pulse there lurched in response, throbbing strongly against his mouth, he raised his head to try and gauge Libby's true reaction. Her brown eyes seemed black in the murky light, alive with passion. Nowhere in her expression could he detect so much as a spark of the censure he'd expected to find. The look which would tell him he'd gone far enough. Who did she think was kissing her? he wondered. William Donovan, or Donovan Savage?