laughed, too, then surged upward when she ran her long-nailed forefinger the length of his erection and around its thrusting head.
“Don’t torture me tonight, Valentina,” he said, ready for her to come into his arms.
“My impatient darling,” she murmured as she hastily shed her shimmering satin gown and climbed astride her lover. She wore nothing but her long silk stockings and a necklace of glittering jewels.
Hands folded beneath his head, Travis watched approvingly as Valentina reached out to the bedside table, stuck her fingers in his shot glass of bourbon, rubbed up and down the length of his straining masculinity, then guided him up inside her. She moved her hands away, loosened her swept-up hair from its restraints and allowed the dark locks to fall down around her bare ivory shoulders.
“I’m gonna give you some extra special loving tonight, my darling,” she promised, rolling her pelvis and setting her heavy breasts to swaying. “And I will not allow you to get out of this bed before morning,” she whispered, using her lush body to excite him in ways she had been taught in New Orleans. There she had learned how to please a man so completely he’d become a helpless slave to the unique sexual pleasures she could provide. Valentina practiced everything she knew to keep Travis satisfied and coming back for more. She wanted only to please this darkly handsome lawman, with whom she was madly in love.
She was extremely disappointed when Travis said, not an hour later, that he couldn’t stay the night.
“What is it?” Valentina asked, when he rose and hunched into his trousers. “What’s bothering you, Travis?” She sat up in the bed and wrapped her arms around her raised knees.
“Not a thing. But you know that I can’t lie around here all night making love. I’m the sheriff, hired by the Committee of Vigilance to keep the peace.”
Left unsaid was that he couldn’t forget about a young, foolish woman who was living alone and unprotected in a run-down mansion. Or that he felt compelled to walk half a mile and check on her.
With his white shirt back on but unbuttoned, Travis shoved his arms into his black leather vest and strapped on his gun belt.
“Thanks for a great evening, Val.”
“It wasn’t an evening,” she huffed, “it was one short hour.”
He grinned. “You sure made that hour count, baby.”
“Go! Get out of here,” she said, and threw a pillow at him.
After the sheriff had gone, it had taken Kate awhile to calm herself. She was upset and it was his fault. She didn’t like Travis McCloud. She didn’t like the conflicting emotions he aroused in her. She’d met him only tonight and yet he was keeping her awake. One minute she was seething with anger at him for his high-handed audacity, and the next she was squirming at the vivid recollection of being momentarily pressed against his lean, powerful body.
Finally, after a couple of hours had passed, Kate was just about to fall asleep when a noise came from the back of the house. It was the same sound she had heard every night for the five nights she had been here! Her heart racing, Kate reached for her loaded revolver. She lit her lamp and crossed the room to the wide corridor.
Cautioning herself to stay calm, but remembering the sheriff’s advice to “shoot first and ask questions later,” she crept down the long hall, not knowing if she would encounter a bear or a bandit. She was halfway to the back of the house when she saw something move in the shadows.
She lifted the revolver and took aim.
“I…I’ve got a gun,” she threatened. “I know how to use it!”
Her eyes widened when she heard a distinctive hiss. Kate lifted the lamp high and saw, crouched against a wall, its back arched, a big fat calico cat, its golden eyes gleaming in the darkness. Relief flooding through her, Kate sank to her knees.
“Here kitty, kitty,” she called, not really expecting the overweight feline to come to her. “So it was you,” she said in soft, low tones. “You’ve been making all the noise and I thought it was a bear. Come here, let’s be friends.”
The cat made a low rattling sound in the back of its throat and stared at Kate with slitted golden eyes. It didn’t budge.
She laughed softly. “You know, I wondered why there were no rats in this old house. From the looks of you, I’d say there’s not a rodent within a mile of the place. What do you say?”
The rattling stopped. The calico finally meowed.
“That’s better. Now come over here. Please. I’m all alone and I need a friend.”
To Kate’s surprise, the cat padded slowly closer, stopping just beyond her reach. “I’m Kate, Cal. If this is your home, that’s fine with me. We can live here together. Okay?” Kate reached out and tried to touch the cat. It backed away.
But when she’d sat there unmoving for a minute, the cat cautiously came closer. It reached her and, when she didn’t make a move to touch it, rubbed its furry side against her knees. Then it slowly walked around her, rubbing up against Kate as it went.
When the cat was again facing her, Kate said, “I’m going back to bed now. You’re welcome to come sleep at the foot of my bed. It’s up to you.”
She lifted the lamp and gun, rose to her feet, turned and walked away. She was disappointed to see that the cat hadn’t followed. Still, just knowing it was there made her feel less lonely and afraid.
She lay back down, but sleep still would not come.
Kate again got up.
She left the lamp and gun where they were and went out onto the porch. She yanked up the tail of her long gown, sat down on the first step and tucked the fabric between her knees. She gazed up at the deep cobalt sky overhead. The heavens were brilliant with stars. They glittered like diamonds in the still, thin mountain air.
She smiled when she felt something warm and furry press against her hip. She looked down at the big calico cat and knew she’d found a much needed companion. Very slowly, very carefully, she lifted a hand and laid two fingers lightly atop its head. When the cat looked up at her, she slipped her hand beneath its throat and began to gently stroke it. The cat purred contentedly and was soon catnapping.
Neither the girl nor the cat were aware that someone was watching.
When Travis had reached the clearing, he’d seen a lamp flickering inside the house. From afar, he’d watched as the light moved from the front room and down the hall to the back of the mansion. Minutes later it returned to the front and soon went out.
The girl had, he supposed, gone to sleep.
Travis had started to turn away. Then he hesitated, deciding to stay just a few more minutes.
He’d moved closer to the mansion and took up a post beneath a towering pine at the edge of the yard, where he had an unobstructed view of the house and its surrounding grounds. He sat down and leaned back against the solid trunk.
Less than ten minutes later the girl came out of the house dressed in her long nightgown. She stood on the porch for a couple of heartbeats while the night winds pressed the
