Nobody's Darling

He smoothed back his thinning hair and straightened his spectacles for a better look at the interloper and the rather dazed young woman stumbling along behind him.

Without breaking his stride, Billy planted a hand on his chest and pushed him back into the chair. “Don’t get up on my account, Horace.”

Dorothea pounced back into the man’s lap like a sleek cat, gleefully kicking her slippered feet. “Welcome home, Billy,” she crooned. “It’s been mighty dull around here without you.”

As if to agree, a glum Dauber leaned against the mantel, nursing a glass of whiskey. Billy plucked the glass from his hand, drained it dry, then handed it back before reaching into his pocket and nipping him a silver dollar. “Out in front of the livery stable, you’ll find a mare, a mule, and a hound wearing a real ugly little hat.”

“It was quite a lovely bonnet until you stomped all over it and gave it to your dog!” Esmerelda protested.

Billy ignored her. “See to it that they’re tended to.”

“But what about me?” she wailed.

“I‘ll tend to you,” Billy promised, giving her an evil wink.

Dauber gaped at them both in openmouthed astonishment. “Well, I will be darned. Does Drew know you’re—”

“Go on with you!” Billy barked. “If you already had a dollar, you’d be upstairs with one of the girls instead of down here crying in your whiskey.”

Conceding to his friend’s wisdom, Dauber tipped his hat to Esmerelda, then went barreling out the door. With Esmerelda still tripping along behind him, Billy started for the stairs. Caroline and Esther were just slinking down them, leading one of the Zimmerman boys by his calloused paws. The man’s glazed expression and rumpled blond curls proclaimed yet another satisfied customer.

The girls blocked Billy’s path, stealing a worried glance at the woman behind him. “Honey, there’s something you should know before you take her up there,” Caroline said.

Billy’s smile was so tender it made even their jaded hearts flutter. “I’m much obliged for your concern, ladies, but there’s really nothing you can tell me that I haven’t already figured out for myself.”

Nodding politely, he brushed past them, pausing only long enough to whisper something in Zimmerman’s ear. Betrayed by his fair complexion, the man blushed violently and fumbled for the gaping fly of his overalls.

Billy and Esmerelda had almost reached the second-story landing when Miss Mellie herself emerged from the kitchen, bearing a tray of fresh whiskeys. “William!” she shouted, the cry betraying more alarm than surprise.

Billy swung around, blowing out a long-suffering sigh. “Yes, ma’am?”

When Mellie saw whose hand he was clinging to with such possessive fervor, she bobbed as if she were on the verge of curtsying. Or fainting. Her voice quivered with false cheer. “I hadn’t realized that you’d returned. Won’t you and your lady friend join us for a drink?”

“Why, that would be lovely! I’m parched,” Esmerelda exclaimed, trotting back down three steps before Billy’s implacable grip on her hand brought her up short.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to decline that generous offer, Miss Mellie. My lady friend and I have reached the end of a long, difficult journey and were looking forward to a little privacy.” His amiable grin darkened. He swept a mean-eyed squint across the parlor. “As a matter of fact, I just might have to shoot anyone who disturbs us before dawn.”

They all stood in a frozen tableau until Billy and Esmerelda had vanished into the shadows of the second landing.

It wasn’t until a door somewhere in the upper reaches of the house banged shut that Dorothea dared to let out a long, low whistle. “I’ve never seen that boy quite so riled. Do you think he’ll beat her?”

Miss Mellie cast the rafters a glance, her broad, kindly face crinkled in a frown. “I don’t care how riled he is, our Billy would never raise his hand to a woman. His ma, God bless her gentle soul, taught him better manners than that.”

“From the glint in his eye,” Esther said, arching an immaculately plucked eyebrow, “it ain’t his hand he’s lookin‘ to raise.”

Caroline sighed wistfully. “He sure is cute when he’s mad.” Her lips pursed in a jealous pout. “How come those uppity gals have all the luck?”

While Dorothea raked her long fingernails through his hair, Horace plucked one of the shot glasses off Mellie’s tray, his hand betraying a faint tremble. “Don’t you think we should at least alert the sheriff?”

Mellie sank down on his other knee, tossing back a whiskey of her own. “You heard him, Horace. Anyone who disturbs that boy before dawn is just begging for trouble. And Lord knows, the sheriff’s already got enough trouble for one man.”

Esmerelda stood with her back pressed to the door of Billy’s cozy attic room while he lit an oil lamp, folded back the quilt on the bed, and drew off his boots.

He raked her with a bold gaze as his deft hands moved to unbuckle his gunbelt. “You can take off those gloves of yours any time, Miss Fine.”

Her instincts told her she ought to be as afraid of him as she’d been the first time they’d faced each other in this room. But for once, Esmerelda was listening to her heart.

“I think it would be best if I left them on,” she said gently. The gunbelt slipped unheeded from his hand. “Don’t look so dismayed, Mr. Darling. After all, it was your suggestion that we keep our association formal.”

His scowl deepened. “But, honey, I—”

She held up a silencing finger. “In keeping with the spirit of our bargain, I’m sure you’ll agree it would be best if we allowed no endearments, no kisses, no caresses.”

“No caresses?” The heightened color beneath his cheekbones might have been a blush in a less worldly man. “You mean you just want me to…?”

In reply, Esmerelda leaned against the door and delicately averted her face, slanting him a demure look from beneath her lashes. “You may commence.”

His heated gaze flicked up and down her before he patted the inviting softness of the bed. “Don’t you think we’d be more comfortable over here?”

“Most certainly,” she admitted with a regretful sigh. “But I fear reclining might put us on far too familiar terms for a mere business transaction.”

As Billy sauntered toward her, the speculative gleam in his eyes made her wonder if she’d overplayed her hand. She wasn’t sure she could stop herself from squealing in alarm if he gathered her skirt and petticoats and tossed them over her head.

But he simply leaned down, without touching her, and murmured, “Can I at least take your hair down… ma’am?”

Esmerelda closed her eyes and swallowed, the whiskey-scented warmth of his breath melting her resolve. “Well, I suppose removing a few hairpins wouldn’t hurt. Sir,” she hastened to add.

He stood with his lips a whisper away from hers while his ringers sifted through her hair—searching for, plucking out, and discarding pins until her silky mane came tumbling around their faces. Her nipples stiffened against the thin silk faille of her basque, straining toward the remembered delight of his touch. Glittering so near to her own, his heavy-lidded eyes looked very green indeed.

He splayed one hand against the door behind her, cocking his knee so that the slightest move in any direction would situate it firmly between her thighs. “I still think you ought to take off those fancy gloves. I’d hate to wrinkle them, sweetheart.”

“Miss Fine,” she breathlessly corrected, touching a finger to his parted lips.

He startled her by catching the fingertip of her glove between his teeth and tugging, peeling the supple kid from her smooth skin in one deft motion.

Before she could protest, he had captured her hand in his own. “No endearments, angel,” he murmured, the smoky timbre of his voice sending a restless shiver through her. He stroked the inside of her wrist with his thumb, making the pulse that beat just beneath her delicate skin flutter with anticipation. “No caresses.” He brought her naked palm to his mouth. “No kisses.” As he touched the tip of his tongue to the center of her palm, Esmerelda closed her eyes, biting back a moan.