Brighter than Gold (Western Rebels Book 1) Page 13

  Chapter 12

  October 12, 1864

  Columbia

  Warm, soapy water swished against the sides of the tin bathtub as Katie MacKenzie stepped out onto the kitchen rug. Midnight had passed, and moonbeams streamed through the windows, silvering her wet, classically molded body.

  As Katie dried herself slowly in the haze of shadow and starlight, she felt both refreshed and weary. It had been a busy autumn thus far... almost busy enough to prevent her from dwelling on her father’s death. Yet she still felt that familiar ache in her heart and a yearning to weep when she thought of him, and any discussion of the Griffin sent waves of impotent anger rushing over her. For the first time in her life, she hungered for revenge. Katie’s friends, and the regular customers at the saloon, tactfully refrained from mentioning the highwayman.

  Beyond her grief and rage, however, were questions about the future. In their own way, those were the most troubling thoughts of all. Katie’s prospects for the years ahead were uncertain at best. She owned a business that generated barely enough income to feed her, Abby, and Lim, whose parents had left for San Francisco in August. Moreover, she felt isolated in Columbia. There was little to challenge her intellectually, especially now that the Gazette could no longer be printed, and an unfamiliar, aching loneliness swept over her at unpredictable moments.

  Upon leaving Columbia, Yong and Choy Sung had sold their house and laundry to Aaron Rush, who had now begun to mine the valuable lots. Lim’s parents had agreed to let their son stay in Columbia until Katie’s need for him was less acute; he had moved into the spare bedroom above the saloon, and Abby had taken Brian’s bedroom at Katie’s house.

  Abby’s companionship had eased Katie’s loneliness until Gideon’s injury a month ago. Ever since, he had been recuperating at the saloon, where the women could take turns caring for him. Then, saying it would be more convenient, Abby had returned to the saloon herself, setting up a cot in the kitchen so that she could be near him. Watching them grow closer, Katie felt happy, and during the day she enjoyed the sense of family she felt with her friends. Yet, the nights seemed endless....

  Garbed now in a diaphanous lawn nightgown, she padded barefoot into the bedroom and picked up her mother’s silver-backed brush. She didn’t bother to light a lamp but sat on the edge of her moonlit bed and ran the brush through the mass of damp ebony curls that cascaded down her back. An unseasonably warm breeze wafted through the open window, caressing her, and Katie was lulled into lying back. She spread her hair out over the snowy pillows, closed her eyes, and let the dreams come.

  Lately, it was a rare night that passed without a dream of Jack Adams. Often they were intense enough to awaken her and thus imprint themselves upon her memory. Sometimes he was at the bar, burnished by hazy sunlight, his sage-green eyes gleaming as he reached out to touch her. Every detail of him was letter perfect, from the golden flecks in his eyes to the sprinkling of hair across the backs of his hands. Katie could even smell him. She would yearn to touch his body and drink in his warmth. Sometimes they would kiss, but as she became aroused, her conscious mind would interfere and she would awaken, trembling and frightened.

  Tonight, though, Katie felt reckless. With the balmy night air whispering over her clean skin, she welcomed Jack Adams to her dreams.

  * * *

  Jack was aware of a distinct feeling of unreality as he walked down Columbia’s Main Street, deserted and still after midnight. The warm breeze reminded him of the summer night he’d left this town, intending never to return.

  For the hundredth time, he pieced together the series of events and choices that had led him back to Columbia. Yes, it was true that he’d missed Kathleen MacKenzie. He could admit it, if only to himself. And he’d grown more restless and felt more stifled with each passing day. The life Jonathan Wyatt led had become unsatisfying; he missed the spicy unexpectedness of being Jack Adams in the foothills... with Katie.

  Still, the idea of returning to Columbia had seemed out of the question. He’d fought against the urge for so long that he thought he’d beaten it into submission. His world in San Francisco—his mansion, his newspaper, his uneasy relationship with Genevieve—had been created by no one but himself, and he must accept it. Besides, Columbia was dangerous for him now that the Griffin was wanted for murder. And what about Katie? The burden of guilt he carried for her father’s death nearly overshadowed his tentative feelings for her. She would wish him dead if she knew the truth.

  But then one day in early October, he ate lunch with Samuel Clemens and Bret Harte at the Palace Hotel. Casually, Clemens mentioned a letter that Steve Gillis had received from his brother in Jackass Gulch. It detailed the destruction of the Columbia Gazette’s printing press and the attack on Gideon Henderson.

  Jack left the next morning with a new platen for the Adams press in the back of his wagon.

  After a difficult journey, he’d arrived earlier today in Angel’s Camp, a mining town northwest of Columbia. There, Jack had encountered a prospecting friend and spent the afternoon at the Angel’s Hotel, eating, drinking, and reminiscing.

  He’d felt a strange urge to postpone his confrontation with Columbia and Kathleen MacKenzie. It had all seemed simple enough to him when he left San Francisco. Gideon was in need of a working press, Aaron Rush needed to learn that he couldn’t play God, and Jack could to fill those needs. The fact that he’d be seeing Katie again seemed incidental.

  Yet once he was fed, bathed, and clad in clean buckskins and a white shirt, driving in the autumn twilight from Angel’s Camp up the hills toward the Stanislaus River, Jack found that his mind was crowded with memories of Katie. He could see her again, wearing the white percale dress with the violet dots and sash, glossy black curls spilling around her shoulders. He smiled, remembering her animated outrage when he’d proposed that she pretend to be his wife for the benefit of Cecelia Chelstrom. But then, in front of the Wells Fargo office, she had gazed up at him expectantly. Jack would never forget the sight of Katie’s mouth, exuding a heady mixture of innocence and hunger.

  When he had finally hauled his wagon up Parrot’s Ferry Road, just a few miles from Columbia, it was late. Behind and below, the Stanislaus River shimmered with the reflection of countless stars. Jack tried to think of Gideon, of the story he would tell to explain the platen.

  But, Kathleen simply would not be excluded from his thoughts. His memory of her was as fresh as if he had seen her that morning. He wasn’t sure what it meant, and he didn’t want to know. His other self had whispered that he’d been a fool to come back. As the wagon trundled over the brow of the hill that sloped gently into Columbia, he flicked the reins and surged forward in reckless surrender to whatever lay ahead.

  Now, strolling down the eerily quiet Main Street, Jack realized that he he had tarried too long in Angel’s Camp. At this hour, the MacKenzie Saloon would be locked up, along with the miners’ boardinghouses and the hotels. He still had his key for the MacKenzie house, and he felt it now in the pocket of his buckskins. Brian MacKenzie might be dead, but Jack had slept many nights in that parlor.

  Walking up Jackson Street, he convinced himself that Katie couldn’t be living in that house alone. Surely Abby was staying there, too, and she was a chaperone of sorts. He would tell them that he only wanted to sleep and would leave at first light before anyone even knew he had been there.

  Jack let himself in through the white picket gate, noting that the vines that had spilled flowers over the porch roof in June were now beginning to change color. Yet the night was so balmy, it still felt like summer. He knew a painful wish to turn back the clock—back to when Brian MacKenzie’s snores had rumbled out of his small bedroom.

  The house was dark. Jack’s heart thudded as he knocked on the door. He anticipated Kathleen’s appearance in the shadows, the first sight of her face. How would she react? Would she touch him? His palms moistened suddenly at the thought.

  But moments passed and nothing happened. The house was silent, and sudd
enly he was aware only of a powerful sense of fatigue. He was utterly exhausted, eyes burning, and without a place to sleep. Perhaps Katie was in her bedroom with the door closed and simply hadn’t heard him knock. Or had she moved to the saloon with Abby to avoid this houseful of memories?

  Jack was too tired to further consider the possibilities. Sleep first, think later, he told himself. Taking the long, slender key out of his pocket, he paused, then inserted it in the lock and turned it. The door swung open gently, and his first sight of the familiar, darkened parlor heightened the dreamlike atmosphere. It seemed that at any moment he might wake up and find himself in his bedroom in San Francisco.

  Of course, the cot Jack had slept on in the parlor was gone, and the tapestry sofa looked smaller than he’d remembered. Pulling off his boots, he padded into the little kitchen. The same bright, embroidered cloth covered the table, and a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums filled the pitcher at its center. Jack felt an unexpected tightening in his chest.

  The door to Brian’s room was closed. Tentatively, he tried the doorknob and discovered it was locked. Resigned now, he went on to Katie’s bedroom and found the door open. He would have to awaken her, apologize for letting himself in, and ask if he could stay the night in Brian’s room. His heart began to pound almost painfully as he stepped into the doorway and saw her lying on top of the sheets. The filmy, lace-edged nightgown she wore molded softly to the curves of her body and had edged up just enough to expose slim pale legs. With her dark curls fanned out over the pillows, Kathleen looked like a sleeping angel.

  Jack bent over the bed and gently touched her shoulder. “Kathleen,” he murmured.

  Immediately she opened her eyes as if she’d been expecting him. “Jack.” She smiled sleepily. “You’re here.” Standing above her in his moonlit white shirt, he seemed a perfect product of her dreams, more real than ever before. Sleep washed over her, ebbing and flowing like a gentle wave on a beach.

  “Do you mind if I sleep in your parlor tonight?”

  His voice seemed to come from far away. With an effort, she whispered, “No. Don’t leave me.”

  Utterly exhausted, Jack looked at her sleeping form and sighed. The snowy linens on the bed looked infinitely inviting. I’ll just sleep for a few hours, he promised himself, then leave before she wakes up. Easing down on the bed, pulled off his boots and tried to pretend Katie wasn’t there. The sensation of the cool pillow against his cheek was bliss and sleep enveloped him instantly.

  * * *

  From the dream-tinged depths of sleep, Jack became aware that he was hot and uncomfortable in his clothes. He never slept in clothes. Removing them was simple reflex; he didn’t even have to wake up to pull them off, cast them onto the floor, and lie back again. Then, savoring the warm breeze that caressed his bare skin, he let the strong current of sleep pull him under again.

  Later the air cooled, and Jack and Katie both sought warmth instinctively, gravitating toward each other as they lay on their sides. At first he was only dimly aware when a warm back touched his chest. But then, as Katie snuggled closer, her derriere molded itself against his hips. Dreaming, he felt his manhood growing warm, brushing his upper thigh as it hardened, twitching slightly with each beat of his heart. A hot, pulsing need began to build within him. Through the gossamer confection of her nightgown, Jack could feel the warmth of her flesh, and involuntarily he tensed the muscles in his loins.

  The veils of sleep were lifting one by one, but this had to be a dream. When she snuggled nearer, Jack pressed himself against the delicate niche that bisected her fanned bottom. His eyes opened as reality intruded, but he was powerless now to quell the feelings that held him in their grip.

  Katie was dreaming that she and Jack were lying in the meadow overlooking the Stanislaus River. It was growing cold and she liked being held and protected by his hard male body. The contrast between them felt good. The place between her legs was warm and tingling pleasantly, like her breasts. This time she didn’t want to wake up... didn’t want the feelings to go away.

  Jack ached with hunger. He touched his mouth to the baby curls at the back of her neck, nuzzling, breathing in the scent of her soft skin and fresh-washed hair. Driven by instinct, Katie pressed her hips back against him and moaned softly.

  At last, Jack lifted his right hand and placed it ever so gently on her thigh. He swallowed a moan when he discovered that Katie’s gown had slipped up on that side, so that he was caressing bare, satiny skin. Tentatively he moved his palm to her hip and let his fingers curve into the hollow of her belly. On fire, he held his breath, afraid that she would awaken and stop him, afraid that she would sleep on and condemn him to the madness of his desire. At that moment Katie’s thighs parted slightly, her right leg slipped backward between his, and Jack was utterly lost.

  He heard her breathing quicken and recklessly slid his hand over the tissue-thin stuff of her nightgown. His agile fingers played upward until they grazed the ripe curve of one breast. She was so warm, so eager, but he held himself back, lightly tracing circles around her breast with his fingertips. Finally he took the soft nipple between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it gently as it puckered.

  Katie was swimming in a sea of sensitized pleasure, half-awake but unwilling to release the dream. Tingling frissons of arousal traveled from her nipples to her loins, and she could feel her breasts swelling, becoming fuller and warmer, in Jack’s deft hands. In the mists between sleep and consciousness, her carefully tended inhibitions were stripped away, for the first time allowing her body to revel in the passions of womanhood. When Jack’s fingers slid slowly, slowly downward over the surface of her nightgown, then pressed with consummate skill against the hidden source of her arousal, Katie moaned and turned in his arms.

  “You’re really here,” she whispered.

  Her hunger, suppressed for so long, would no longer be denied. This time she wouldn’t flee from her desires. In the darkness her lips sought Jack’s, opening against his mouth, while her arms wound round his neck. After an eternity of ravenous kissing, nibbling, tasting, he reached down to gently slip the nightgown up, up, and finally over her head. Then, drawing back, he studied her in the moonlight. Her face, pale against the ebony spill of her hair, was turned to one side. Her eyes were nearly closed, but her lips were parted, and he recognized the telltale cadence of her breathing. Reality intruded suddenly, pricking his conscience.

  “Kathleen—”

  She moved her face against his cheek and simply nodded, not wanting him to speak and disrupt the dream. For once, she didn’t want to think, she just wanted him to take her.

  Jack trailed his fingertips over her throat, shoulders, the lush curves of her breasts, the hollow of her tummy, her hips, and her lithe legs... Carefully, he avoided the place he knew ached to be touched. Katie stretched and writhed beneath his hands, then moaned as Jack began to retrace her body with his lips. He found pleasure points that had gone undiscovered until tonight: the back of her neck, her spine, the small of her back, the tender insides of her elbows, her wrists, her palms. With lips like butterfly wings, he kissed along her sides, then gently sought the delicate rosebud nipples of her breasts. She sank her fingers into his hair as he sucked slowly on first one and then the other, excited beyond belief by her gasps of pleasure. He touched her intimately, expertly, and she shuddered and clung to him. When he knew that she was ready, Jack moved to cover her body with his, eyes agleam in the pale light of the waning moon. He could wait no longer.

  Katie opened her thighs to him, driven by primitive longings, and felt the firm heat of his erection pressing against her own aching need. She moved against him, hungry for something she didn’t understand. Jack’s face was above hers and their eyes met. He braced himself on either side of her and she reached out to touch his shoulders and the hard planes of his chest, loving the feeling of his lean-muscled male body against her soft form. She nuzzled his neck. He smelled of soap and, intoxicatingly, of Jack. When she murmured his name aloud, he
smiled down at her.

  They kissed then, commingling wonder and passion between their lips. His state of arousal was beyond any he could remember and Katie was invitingly moist against him. Carefully, he shifted slightly and entered her. Encountering a thin barrier, he withdrew a little and began again. He pushed forward gently, paused, then pushed again, savoring the pulsing rush that came with each movement. As hot as he was, Katie was even hotter inside. Jack took her virginity as tenderly as he could, feeling her constrict even more tightly around him at the first shock of penetration. After this initial reaction, however, she relaxed and arched her hips to meet his. He was careful at first, but gradually Katie’s own rhythm increased, and together they began to soar.

  Katie was astonished by her own passion. The sensation of Jack’s thrusts deep within her, the sight of his wild, masculine silhouette above her in the moonlight, sent fire coursing through her blood. Instincts she hadn’t known she possessed were freed by the merging of their bodies. Jack cupped her buttocks in his hands, and Katie wrapped her legs around his waist and clung to his wide back as they rode higher and higher together, their bodies agleam with perspiration.

  This is beautiful, she thought, tears stinging her eyes. At last Jack arched his neck, froze for an instant, then let out a long, low groan.

  They lay together, panting softly, their faces side by side. Katie felt him pulse slightly inside her and tightened her own muscles in response, embracing him. Warm currents of absolute contentment washed over her. Softly she ran her fingers down the tapered sides of his back.

  “Mmm,” he murmured.

  She smiled against the side of his face. After a while, he withdrew and turned to look at her, bracing himself on an elbow.

  “Ah, Kathleen... what a lover you are,” he whispered. He lifted her hand and gently kissed each delicate finger.

  Giddy with pleasure and a sudden wave of fatigue, Katie nearly giggled. “Thank you,” she replied, smiling radiantly, then closed her eyes.