The Beholding, page 30
“I haven’t had the pleasure… yet.” Tess wanted to grin at the audacious name the lady had given her establishment, but Lionel might think she laughed at his blush. She wouldn’t make him any more miserable than he’d made himself.
“I’ll go fetch him and you see yourself to home.” Lionel slipped the slouch hat off the peg near the register and plopped it down on his head. “Got some coffee brewing, or if you’d like tea, there’s rosemary leaves in the cupboard. You remember where the kitchen is, don’tcha?”
Tess nodded and thanked him, watching as the gangly man hurried out the door. She half hoped he didn’t find the lawman, but knew the hope would merely delay what she must do. Perhaps brewing a bit of tea would get her mind off the confession to come.
“A little bit further, Talon,” Luke crooned into the horse’s ear as the dun ran low and swift through the winding path toward Georgetown. The animal gave it his all, his body lathered with sweat, nostrils snorting in time with his ground-eating gait.
Precious fool, Luke whispered to Tess as if she were the wind blasting his face. Don’t do anything until I get there. Just a few more miles. A few more.
Olivia opened the door and stared into the face of the man she’d come to love over the past several years. “Phinneas, you came!”
He removed his tall hat and propped his cane against the wall, taking her in his arms and kissing her soundly. “Of course I did, my dear. Your message did say it was urgent.”
“Well, hello there, Mista Wideaka! How you been?” Tommie waved at him from the bed.
Phinneas stepped away from Olivia. “Apparently far better than you’ve fared, Mista Harper.” He searched Olivia’s face. “What is the meaning of this, my dear?”
Olivia quickly filled him in on the details, and within the hour, her lover had made arrangements for her, Tommie, Judge Wallace and himself to journey to Georgetown.
“What am I supposed to do with her?” Sheriff Mason asked a surprised-looking Lionel. “I haven’t ever put a woman in jail before … much less a decent one.”
Lionel shook his head. “I don’t know, Sheriff. The men’ll get pretty riled up if you’re asking me.”
“Well, I ain’t asking you!” Mason growled and paced the floor, running a hand through what remained of his balding hair.
“But you just asked—”
“Forget what I asked, Cramden, and think, dammit!”
Tess sighed, sitting in one of the parlor chairs and staring up at the two men as they worried themselves into a frazzle. “Put me under house arrest if you don’t want me to go to jail. You can trust me. I came here on my own; I’m not going to run away.”
“Not this house,” Lionel protested. A look of apology darted across his face. “Don’t mean to be unfriendly, Tess, but the boss would have my scalp. Not to mention, the menfolk around here would never use this place again. Wherever you get put, there’s going to be a big problem.”
“Well, I can’t say as you’re much to blame, given all you told me.” Why he ever wanted to be the hero who solved the salting scams escaped Mason now. “If I take you in, Mrs. Harper, I’m going to be branded a bully and a lot of other offensive names I’d rather not be saddled with.”
Tess threw her hands wide in exasperation. “I can’t even give myself up!”
A pounding of hooves skidded to a halt outside in the yard. Tess rose, a sixth sense warning that trouble rode in with her name on it. Whoever it was didn’t bother to knock. With a jarring of the door, Luke barreled into the room. Sweat poured from his brow as first relief, then anger clouded his face.
“What the hell do you mean leaving me?”
His voice bore a high and mighty attitude she would have normally taken on, but he didn’t look in any mood for an argument.
Tess stepped back until she backed against a chair. Her hands went up in front of her, protesting the body stomping toward her in earnest. “Now, Luke, I mean to see this through.”
“Oh, do you now? Well, madam, so do I. In fact, we’ll see it through together, like we decided before you took the notion to do things on your own again.” He pulled Tess against his chest, pushing her arms behind her. “Got any rope on you, Lionel?”
“Well, sure, but… hey, you ain’t meaning to tie Mrs. Harper up, are you?” Lionel looked horrified.
“Where’s my son?” Tess demanded.
“With my mother,” Luke reassured her, then answered Lionel’s question. “I’m going to tie the future Mrs. Lucas Reeves to me until Judge Wallace from Denver gets here. Do either of you men have any objections to that?”
Sheriff Mason and Lionel both shook their heads. Mason looked relieved. “What a man does with his intended is his own business, and ain’t a fella in the territory gonna bicker with you on it.”
Lionel shot a glance at Tess, who stared at Luke with loving eyes.
“It’s all right, Lionel. I happen to agree with my future husband on this particular matter.”
As the lanky man fetched the rope and tied her hands around her intended’s waist, Tess smiled, knowing she could easily maneuver out of the position if she chose to do so. What was Luke up to?
“I think maybe I’ll just mosey on back to Millie’s place,” Sheriff Mason announced. When Lionel stood there gawking at the couple who had eyes only for each other, Mason cleared his throat to get the lank man’s attention. “I said, it seems Reeves has everything well in hand.”
Lionel blushed a deep crimson at the implication. “Oh, yeah, sure, Sheriff.” In a louder voice, he added, “I think I’ll mosey on over with you.”
As the pair went out the door, Mason argued loudly, “Who the hell you shouting at, man? I was standing right there two feet away from ya.”
“I wanted to let them know I was getting out of there.”
“You think they heard a word you said?”
“Don’t reckon they did,” Lionel commented as the door swung shut.
Tess was unaware of anything but the man encircled in her arms. Light tremors spread through her as he stared down with loving eyes.
“Tessa, do you know how hard it was to go to your hotel room and not find you there? Thank God, Olivia agreed to watch Tommie.”
She shook her head, then buried her face against his chest. “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t run away from my problems anymore or have anyone else resolve them. I had to come tell the sheriff. I didn’t want to ever worry about you leaving me because of my past, and I didn’t want you to go against your own word.”
His gaze searched her face. “I’ll always want you, Tessa. You’re mine now, and what is mine will remain with me forever.”
“I know it was wrong to just up and leave, but you have to understand. I had no choice. If I expected to take on a new life, I need to put the old one completely to rest. Otherwise there were too many old ghosts to haunt me.” She willed him to see through her eyes. “If you fell in love with me, I wanted it to be the real me, not the image my father bartered with, nor the role I played as Clifton’s wife.”
Luke gently lowered his head and kissed her closed eyes. He traced feather-light kisses along her cheeks, the edges of her earlobes, the soft hollow of her neck.
When Tess’s lips parted in open invitation, he pressed his mouth to hers, engulfing her with a kiss that promised forever. As the kiss deepened, Tess swayed against him, and her heart did a wild dance in her breast.
“Tessa,” Luke murmured, his voice cracking as he buried his face in her hair. “God, how I love you.”
A swell of love filled her, bring with it a surge of warmth and safety and a sense of belonging. “Tell me again, Luke,” she whispered against his neck. “Tell me you love me as much as I love you.”
“I’ll love you until the day life leaves my body and for an eternity more,” he said almost savagely, kissing her lightly on the nose. “Touch me, love, the way you did on the very first day we met. Touch my soul the way you have every day that I’ve known you.”
As easily as the bonds had been tied, Luke slipped the rope off, freeing her hands. Moving over him with sure intimacy, her fingers rediscovered all that was Luke. With a fiery possessiveness their bodies merged. Tess luxuriated in the way his meshed so perfectly with her own. Warm tingling sensations seeped into her veins, becoming liquid fire as the velvet sinews hardened beneath her touch.
Each looked at the other, and as one they laughed … like two children sharing a delightful secret.
Less than twenty-four hours later, Judge Olan Wallace pronounced judgment on Tess Harper’s past crimes.
“In lieu of the evidence which proves you were coerced into forging the mine documents and the fact that you were only a youth who believed she was protecting her mother in the Hot Springs scams, I sentence you, Contessa Harper, for the rest of your life to the jurisprudence of your husband, Lucas Reeves, to be pardoned whenever he takes the notion.” The judge smiled and rapped the gavel three times. “Now let’s get on with this life sentence so I can kiss the bride.”
Tommie tugged on the judge’s robe as his new Daddy and Mommie kissed. “What’s a honeymoon, Mista Judge? Can I go too?”
Dia Hunter, The Beholding
