A giggle slipped out. "Wild beasts, Vana?"
"Well, there was this rabbit once, only I thought it was my head gardener. It scared me half to death."
Jocelyn burst out laughing. "Now you go too far."
"Now I happen to be serious. I was afraid the old man would die of shock."
"After all those wild weekend parties you told me about, where half the couples who got lost in your maze were married to the other half? Your head gar-dener must have witnessed enough illicit trysts over the years for nothing to shock him."
"But, my dear, my lover at the time happened to be his strapping young son."
"Oh."
"Exactly."
They stared at each other for half a second before they both laughed. When Jocelyn caught her breath, she was smiling fondly at her dear friend. "Thank you. I was taking this seduction too seriously, wasn't I?"
"A trifle. He's just a man, love, who's going to do you a needed service. that is, if you haven't changed your mind. There are other men you might want to consider now that we've returned to what can loosely be termed civilization."
"No. Colt is still-"
"Say no more." Vanessa sighed inwardly, but re-plied determinedly. "If he's the one you want, you shall have him. It won't be tonight, though, so to bed with you."
"They're no longer looking for him?"
"There's no point, as late as it is. No, I've sent the servants to bed too. Enjoy a good, long sleep. If your half-breed's as passionate as I suspect he is, you won't get much sleep tomorrow night."
"That's allowing he is seducible."
"With those weapons at your disposal?" Vanessa said, her eyes giving Jocelyn the once-over. She was smiling as she closed the door behind her.
Chapter Twenty-one
Through the open window came the sound of boot-heels clicking softly along the boardwalk across the street, then the startled hiss, barely heard, "Jesus H. Christ, you scared the dickens out o' me, boy!" But there was no reply, and the boot clicking moved on at an even brisker pace. There was a bullfrog making a croaking racket somewhere, a distant sound, heard only when the piano player in one of the saloons down the street took a rest. The music was distant too, the player quite good, the sound soothing rather than dis-turbing. Every so often laughter was heard, but noth-ing loud enough to keep the town's inhabitants awake.
Jocelyn certainly couldn't blame the muted sounds for her own wakefiilness. Considering the number of times she had been awakened in the middle of the night recently by the shrill yapping of coyotes, or by one of her guards tripping on a tent stake as he pa-trolled the perimeter of her tent, and swearing a blue streak, these late-night town sounds were peaceful. But they weren't lulling her to sleep.
She had tried, but she was still too keyed up, think-ing about what could have happened tonight, and wondering about her relief that it didn't. She had con-cluded that this deliberate seduction business just wasn't her cup of tea. She would have to tell Vanessa, who was going to be disappointed. She had probably fallen asleep plotting tomorrow's strategy.
Jocelyn gave up and threw off the sheets. The room was exceedingly dark with the moon rising behind the hotel and her only window facing the front, but her eyes were adjusted enough for her to find the lamp and light it. She lowered the wick, however, to give off only a dim glow, enough to find her robe and cross to the window without mishap.
Drawing back the curtains, she was disappointed there was nothing to see. The moonlight was so bright now, what shadows it created were black as pitch. The porch roof was in shadow, and the railing at the edge that supported the hotel sign blocked her view of the street below. Moonlight revealed the buildings across the way clearly, at least the top half of them, but no windows were lit to draw her attention.
What she needed was a long walk to tire herself out. She was sure the guard outside her door wouldn't mind escorting her, but the thought of Sir Parker's outrage in the morning that she should venture out with only a minimum of protection kept her from doing it.
She sighed, annoyed with herself, annoyed with Colt, annoyed with her predicament. If it weren't for Longnose, she could have that walk. If she knew where Colt was, she wouldn't need it. If she didn't care, it wouldn't matter and sleep would have come easily. Blast.
How dare he disappear like that? What if they had to leave in a hurry, a very real possibility, considering how many times they had had to do so in the past?
But she was being unreasonable. With the way Colt scouted every day, he would have known if Longnose was close and would have said something. The Englishman was probably still looking for their trail back in Arizona. And to be honest, it was the fact that Colt was likely in some other woman's bed tonight that was bothering her enough to keep sleep away.
This wasn't helping. She would take that walk anyway and worry about Sir Parker later. But just as she turned from the window she heard a loud thump out in the hall, as if… as if a body had hit the floor. She stared at the door, then at her reticule clear across the room, and knew without a doubt that by the time she got her hands on her derringer inside it, the door would likely be opened and she would be out of luck. And the derringer was only good at close range. She would have to have it in hand and get behind the door to wait, but another glance at the door showed the handle starting to move.
Without thinking about it, she slipped outside the window and dropped down to the porch roof.
Fortu-nately, the slope of it was not steep, but that was where fortune ended. Too late she realized that whoever was sneaking into her room in the middle of the night was going to look outside the window when they found it empty. She didn't doubt that she would be spotted, even in the shadows. But would they risk a shot to wake the whole town? Hadn't they expected to find her in bed, asleep, and easy to dispose of in any number of quiet ways? Would they follow her out onto the roof?
She ought to be screaming already. One good scream could very well scare them away. But her attire, the blasted revealing negligee she was still wearing, kept her mouth shut for the moment.
She didn't wait to see a head sticking out her window. The end of the roof was a mere few feet away, since only the water closet separated her room from the end of the building on this side. She would have a better chance of not being spotted at all by quickly going over the side of the roof, rather than trying to reach the next window from hers and taking the chance that it was open, since she couldn't tell from her current position if it was or not. The railing that topped the roof in front didn't continue along the sides, so she didn't have anything to climb over. She had only to slip over the side at its lowest point, grasp one of the roof supports with her legs, and simply slide to the ground. Then a mad dash to the back of the hotel where the stable was and she would be safe. Some of her people were there. If she had to be hu-miliated by being caught out in her nightclothes, at least it could be kept in the family, so to speak.
That was just what she did, even as she thought about it, though she hadn't counted on the impetus she gained in rushing toward the corner of the roof slamming her into the railing there before she could stop.
She didn't wait to regain her breath. Slipping over the roof was easier work, with the short railing post there at the end giving her something to hold onto until she could locate the longer support post below with her feet.
That was where her luck ran out, however. She swung her legs this way and that, encountering nothing but air. Belatedly, she realized she had been working on the assumption that every porch roof had support posts to hold it up. How else would the blasted thing keep from toppling over? Then where was the damned post? More importantly now, since it wasn 't there, how far was the drop to the ground?