Nobody's Darling

Yet suddenly two and two equaled eleven, her dash of salt had been replaced by a bucket of sugar, and her heart was playing all the wrong notes, arranging them in a melody too compelling to resist.

With a fitful sigh, Esmerelda rolled herself out of her quilt and sat up. She cast the loft a long-suffering look, surprised her heart’s song wasn’t being drowned out by the rumble of Zoe’s snoring. The sound was enough to make the walls quake and the rafters tremble. How odd, she thought, that she had never once heard it when Billy had been so desperately ill.

Flickering moonbeams sifted through the open door, beckoning her into the night. Perhaps if she escaped the stifling heat of the house for a little while, she might be able to clear her head of the cotton batting that had filled it since sharing breakfast with Billy. Leaving the quilt in a dejected puddle, she padded across the floor and slipped onto the porch.

A puff of wind too forceful to be called a breeze stroked her brow and plucked at her unbound hair. The rising wind was scented by a hint of rain, faint enough to be nothing more than another unfulfilled promise. Clouds came billowing in from the west, casting a mighty shadow across the vast sweep of land.

Esmerelda wrapped an arm around one of the porch posts, searching the night with restless eyes. She had hoped to find peace out here, but the reckless abandon of the wind stirred something deep within her—something wild and dangerous that had been fettered for too long.

It made her want to take her mother’s violin out of its case and saw madly at the strings. It made her want to laugh because she, Esmerelda Fine, a woman who had always prided herself on her stern practicality, had been foolish enough to fall in love with a man who was not only a gunslinger, but an avowed bachelor. It made her want to burst into tears.

She might have given in to that last urge if her sensitive nostrils hadn’t detected a whiff of smoke. She whirled around, clapping a hand over her galloping heart.

“You do delight in sneaking up on me, don’t you?” she accused.

Billy stepped out of the shadows of the yard, a lit cigar clamped in the corner of his mouth. “Since I was here first, it could be argued that you snuck up on me.”

Painfully aware that Billy, shirtless and barefoot in the faltering moonlight, just might be more than she could bear at the moment, Esmerelda dropped her scowl to his cigar. “You really shouldn’t be smoking right now. Where did you get that?”

“Ma’s private stash.” His mouth curved into a rueful grin. “I knew there’d be hell to pay if I made off with her pipe tobacco or her snuff.” He flicked the glowing stub into the darkness before arching one tawny eyebrow at her. “There. You satisfied?”

Having recently learned that she never would be, Esmerelda snapped, “Nor should you be out here without a shirt. What if you catch a chill?”

The downward flick of his gaze warned her that she’d succeeded in doing nothing but drawing attention to her own attire. Or lack of it. The wind licked hungrily at her nightgown, cupping the threadbare muslin to her breasts. Her first instinct was to fold her arms protectively over her chest, but the challenging glint in Billy’s eyes kept her standing straight and proud, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.

“Not much danger of that, now, is there?” he said softly. He took a step toward her, his grin softening into a quizzical half smile. “You keep nagging me, honey, I just might think you care.”

His words struck a raw nerve. “Then you’d be sorely mistaken. I just don’t want you lolling about in bed when you could be out looking for my brother. I hired a tracker, not some glory-seeking gunslinger.”

She expected him to snap right back at her and would have felt better if he had, but he simply nodded. “You’re absolutely right, Miss Fine. A man in my weakened condition shouldn’t be partaking of tobacco or the night air.”

He started for the porch. Esmerelda was still gaping with surprise at his amiable surrender when he hesitated and began to sway. She scrambled down the rotting steps to grab him. Stricken with guilt at her shrewish behavior, she searched his features for any hint of returning pallor.

As quick as that, in a move more graceful than any waltz, Billy reversed their positions, wrapping his arms around her.

Thrown off balance by the return of his wiry strength, she glared up at him. “You, sir, are a rascal.”

“And you, ma’am, are entirely too gullible.”

“Your mother—” she protested, squirming frantically.

“Works like an ox and sleeps like the dead.”

As if to underscore his words, a blissful snore came floating out of the darkened house.

Billy’s stern frown was softened by the hint of a dimple in his cheek. “I warned you back at the bank that I might have to arrest you. And as I recall, you promised to surrender yourself into my custody.”

His teasing words took all the fight out of her.

Horrified to realize she might yet burst into tears, Esmerelda turned her face away and whispered, “Don’t trifle with me. It’s too unkind.”

Billy’s grip gentled. He cupped her chin in his palm, coaxing her into meeting his gaze. His eyes were as sober as her own. “Ah, but trifling with you, Duchess, would be such a pleasure.” As if to prove his words, he lowered his head to graze her temple, inhaling deeply. “Did I ever tell you what my favorite kind of pie is?”

As he brought his lips to bear against the downy softness of her cheek, languor melted through Esmerelda’s bones in a sensation so delicious that she no longer struggled to escape, but simply to stay on her feet.

“Ummmm… apple?” she ventured, swallowing hard.

He shook his head. His mouth followed the curve of her cheekbone down and around to the tingling shell of her ear. “Not blueberry either. Oh, I like apple and blueberry just fine, but the one kind of pie I never could resist was…” Catching her earlobe between his teeth, he whispered, “peach.”

She gasped as his heated breath sent a ribbon of anticipation curling deep into her womb.

“Whenever Ma baked a peach pie, I’d swipe it off the windowsill as soon as she set it out to cool. I knew she’d have cut me a piece if I’d have asked real nice, but nothing whets a man’s appetite more than forbidden”—his lips just barely grazed the corner of her mouth, tantalizing a dreamy sigh from her parted lips—“fruit.”

By the time Billy’s mouth covered hers, Esmerelda was nearly dizzy with anticipation. So dizzy that she didn’t stop to think of the consequences when she parted her lips for him, offering up a delicacy moist and luscious enough to tempt the sweet tooth of any man.

As Billy sank his tongue into her, his growl didn’t come from his stomach, but his throat. The primal sound was tinged with raw hunger. When Esmerelda had first wandered onto the porch, stealing a few kisses from a pretty girl in the moonlight had seemed a harmless enough pursuit. But he’d forgotten just how dangerous Esmerelda could be. Beneath her prickly exterior lay the vulnerable innocence of a woman, tender and sweet and ripe for the plucking.

His fierce desire to do just that only served to remind him that he was still a Darling at heart. He’d never learned how to court a woman who couldn’t be bought.

For a brief moment, he almost regretted that she hadn’t been Fine’s woman instead of his sister. Everything would have been so much more simple between them. She would know what he wanted and he would know what she needed and he wouldn’t be standing there in the weeds, rigid with desire and giving her a kiss he had no business giving a virgin.

He was so distracted by the unspoken promises of her mouth that he barely felt the first raindrops strike his back. Rain was a rare and marvelous thing in New Mexico, but not nearly as rare or marvelous as the yielding softness of Esmerelda in his arms.