The Railroad War (23 page)

Stretched out in the bathtub, Jessie soaked in the cold water until her head cleared and her muscles regained their tone. After draining the tub, she refilled it with warm water and soaped her body, then rinsed away the soap, rubbing herself with the washrag until her skin tingled. Once more herself, feeling the familiar surge of vitality that always followed a safe escape from danger, she stopped in the bedroom long enough to slip on a silk dressing gown and brush her mane of tawny gold hair until it glowed, then she went into the sitting room.

Jed sat on the divan, his Cooper Navy revolver beside him. He looked up and saw Jessie, the thin silk robe emphasizing rather than hiding the lush contours of her body. He stared at Jessie until he saw the beginning of a smile twitch her lips. In sudden embarrassment, he looked away and asked quickly, “How do you feel now, Jessie?”

“Wonderful, Jed!” she smiled. “With Frank Jeffers dead, we can all breathe a lot easier.”

“I wish I felt good about it,” Jed said. “I never killed a man before, Jessie. I've got a funny, sad kind of feeling.”

“Don't think about it, then,” she said. She indicated the pistol on the sofa. “You can put that away, Jed. Ki was right, we won't have any more trouble tonight.”

Jed started to holster the gun, then realized he'd taken off his gunbelt, and laid the pistol on the floor. Jessie sat down beside him.

“Jeffers was an important link in the cartel,” she said. “We broke it when you shot him. He can't be replaced soon.”

“You sound like you're glad I had to shoot him!”

“No, not glad. But not sorry, either. With Jeffers dead, we can straighten things out faster in Hidden Valley.”

“Are we going back there right away?”

Jessie shook her head. “Not today, perhaps not tomorrow. I wired my bank in San Francisco for information about Oscar Breyer and the Hidden Valley bank, and told them to send a man here with it. He ought to be here today, though.”

His voice both thoughtful and puzzled, Jed said, “You know, I want to go back to the valley, but I don't want to. It's been real exciting being with you and Ki, tonight especially.”

“I'm still tense and a little shaky, though.” Jessie put her hand on Jed's. “You can feel my hands tremble now and then.”

“They don't feel shaky to me,” Jed told her. He took both her hands in his. “I like the way they feel, Jessie.”

“I feel better with you holding them,” Jessie said.

She let her arms sag slowly, pulling her clasped hands down to rest on her thigh. Jed looked at her, his face puzzled, but with the hint of a question in his eyes.

Jessie leaned back, resting her head on the divan, and turned her face to him. Jed hesitated for only a moment, then he bent to kiss her. She parted her lips and caressed his closed lips with the tip of her tongue, and his tongue slid out to meet hers.

For a moment they stayed motionless. Jessie was the first to move. She slipped one of her hands free and brushed her palm along Jed's thigh until she found the firm bulge that was beginning to stretch the cloth of his trousers. With her other hand she guided Jed's hands to her breasts. He hesitated briefly, then closed them over the warm, inviting globes.

Jessie kept passing her hand back and forth along Jed's erection, feeling him grow yet firmer under her caress. Jed's callused fingers closed on her breasts with a firmness that was almost painful, yet set her whole body to tingling as though tiny, invisible sparks were bursting inside her. She broke their prolonged kiss and looked up into Jed's startled face.

“Ki won't disturb us for a long time,” she said softly. “And we'll be more comfortable in the bedroom.”

Jed needed no further encouragement. He picked Jessie up and carried her through the open bedroom door.

He started for the bed, but Jessie shook her head. Jed relaxed his arms and let her feet swing to the floor. Jessie pulled the knotted cord that belted her robe, and shrugged it off. Jed stared at her for a moment, her body glowing in the soft light that spilled in through the door from the sitting room.

She began unbuckling his belt, fumbling in the dimness, and Jed moved to help her. He levered off his boots and kicked them aside, then his hands tangled with Jessie's as he tried to get out of his trousers, shirt, and balbriggans all at the same time. Jessie's hands brushed Jed's as together they pulled the layers of clothing down over his hips.

Their eager fumbling ended quickly. When the encumbering balbriggans slid down Jed's thighs and Jessie saw his rigid shaft spring up invitingly, she let him kick his legs free, and with both hands she encircled the sturdy cylinder of pulsing flesh.

Jed gasped when he felt her warm hands grasping him. Too impatient now to wait, he lifted Jessie by the waist and, with one long stride, carried her to the bed. She sank back and parted her thighs, and when Jed bent over her, Jessie grasped his shaft again and guided him to the moist warmth that was awaiting him.

Now it was Jessie who gasped with a throaty whimper of joy when she felt Jed sliding in to fill her. She did not try to control herself.

Locking her feet behind Jed's hips, she pulled him deeper. Her hips rolled and her body writhed in quickly mounting ecstasy, and she let herself go almost as soon as he began thrusting into her with firm, hard strokes.

“Oh, wonderful, Jed!” Jessie gasped, her words blurred softly between the soft cries that bubbled from her throat as she rocked beneath him. “Go slower now. I want you in me for a long, long time!”

Jed did not answer, nor did he stop when the soft cries of joy poured from her throat, but he slowed his stroking to a more leisurely tempo. Looking up at his bronzed young face, Jessie saw that his eyes were closed, his lips parted in a smile. Jessie closed her own eyes and abandoned herself to enjoyment.

Far sooner than she'd expected, her sensations began to build again. Jed was panting now, thrusting faster, his arms beginning to tremble. Jessie raised her hips higher and bent her knees, spread her thighs even wider, opening herself to accept Jed's lunges.

“Faster, Jed!” she urged. “I want to go with you!”

“Yes. But I'm almost there, Jessie,” he panted.

Jessie still needed more time. Arching her back, she raised her hips to increase the friction of Jed's driving shaft against her swollen bud. Above her, Jed was gasping each time he plunged into her, and Jessie felt his hips beginning to tremble. She sprawled her thighs wide to let him go deeper, and felt her own urge mounting.

Jed was very close now, and Jessie let herself ride with him to the final shuddering moments when neither could endure the joyous pain of self-control for another instant. They flowed together and lay with slack muscles shaken by their spasmodic shuddering, which diminished bit by bit and finally ended.

Jed moved as though to leave her, but Jessie stopped him.

“No,” she said. “Not yet.”

“But I'm too heavy to lay here on you,” Jed protested.

“Then we'll roll over, and I'll lie on you.”

In their new position, still connected by their bond of flesh, Jessie soon began caressing Jed by first firming and then relaxing her inner muscles. This was but one of many things she'd been taught by the wise old geisha, Myobu, in whose charge her father had placed Jessie after her mother's death.

Jed's young virility led him to respond quickly. Jessie rose to her knees, straddled him, and continued the soft caresses until Jed was fully erect. Then she began rocking back and forth in a steady, insinuating rhythm, keeping herself taut, her muscles grasping and releasing, until Jed's eyes squeezed shut and his hips heaved up as he tried to thrust deeper into her. Jessie moved faster and faster and increased the soft friction of her caresses until they joined again in frantic spasms that left them even more satisfied than they had been before.

When strength flowed back to them, Jed said, “There's not a thing I'd like more than to stay just like we are, Jessie. But it's getting light outside and Ki's going to be coming back.”

“I don't want to move, either,” Jessie whispered. “But I know we've got to.” They rolled apart reluctantly. Jessie went on, “This isn't the last time we'll find to be together, Jed. Getting things straightened up in Hidden Valley will take time, and I'm not in a hurry now. We'll be together again soon, I promise you.”

“It can't be too soon,” he replied. “I don't think I'd ever get enough of you, Jessie, but I do know one thing. I'd sure like to try.”

Jessie, Ki, and Jed sat pleasantly relaxed at the table in the suite's sitting room, following a late breakfast. Jessie was holding the sheaf of papers that had arrived from Carson City by the morning mail.

“Governor Kinkead gave us a bit more than we asked for, Ki,” she said as she refolded the papers and laid them down. “He's commissoned Captain Bob a colonel in the territorial militia, and in his letter he says the Captain can raise a volunteer force any time an emergency threatens the peace in Hidden Valley.”

“We're going to be legal for a change, then.” Ki smiled. “It's good to have someone else on our side, isn't it?”

“If I know the Captain, he'd have done that without waiting for the governor to tell him he could,” Jed commented. “And I'd be the first one to—” He stopped short as a knock on the door brought them all to their feet in nervous reaction from the events of the night just ended. There was a second knock, more prolonged than the first.

Jessie said, “I don't think we need to worry, but—”

She went into the bedroom and came back carrying her Colt. Holding the pistol by her side, she stood against the wall beside the door and nodded to Ki. He opened the door. The man who stood waiting was young and clean-shaven. The tailoring of his suit, a strangely harmonious blend of French and British styles, was unique to San Francisco. He carried a leather briefcase.

“Is this Miss Jessica Starbuck's suite?” he asked. When Ki nodded, he handed over the card he held ready in his hand and asked, “Will you please announce me, then?”

Ki glanced at the card, which read
Arthur V. Barston III, Vice-president, First California Bank.
Ki handed the card to Jessie, and after glancing at it, she dropped the Colt on the chair by the door and stepped around to greet the somewhat bewildered visitor.

“Come in, Mr. Barston,” Jessie said, extending her hand. “We're just having after-breakfast coffee. Won't you join us?”

Barston came in. Making only a token effort to conceal his curiosity, he looked at Ki again, then at Jed, and finally turned back to Jessie.

“I would like coffee very much, Miss Starbuck,” he said. “I've just made my first trip on the Virginia & Truckee railroad, and it's not an experience for which I was prepared.”

“I've heard there are a few curves in the tracks,” Jessie commented with a smile. She indicated a chair, and Barston sat down. He held his briefcase on his lap, and put his hat on the floor beside him. Ki handed him a cup of coffee. Jessie went on, “It's kind of you to make such a long trip, Mr. Barston. It was the only way I could be sure that the information you brought would be kept confidential and delivered promptly.”

“Oh, of course, Miss Starbuck. And even if you weren't a very substantial stockholder in the First California, we would have been glad to comply with any reasonable request.” Barston opened his briefcase and took out a sheaf of papers. He went on, “In your situation, though, it seems a bit strange that you should ask for information of this kind.”

Jessie frowned. “I'm afraid I don't follow you.”

“You inquired as to the ownership of the stock in the bank in Hidden Valley, here in Nevada Territory, did you not?”

“Yes. Why is that strange? I wanted the information and asked for it. Who does own the bank, Mr. Barston?”

“You do, Miss Starbuck,” Barston replied.

Jessie opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it, closed her mouth, and swallowed hard. She recovered from the shock quickly and asked, “How could I own it and know nothing about it?”

“That is understandable,” Barston said pontifically. “Our bank has been acting as your agent and trustee in managing the Hidden Valley bank's affairs. In going through the old records, I learned that the arrangement was made by your father. During his lifetime, he found no reason to give us specific instructions, so all the documents and records have been accumulating in our files as he wished. Yes, I can see why you'd have no knowledge of it.”

“But if I give you instructions now—” Jessie began.