STORY EXCERPT

Stubborn woman. Lowry MacLaughlin took the wet plate from Anna’s hand and dutifully dried it. He usually took the opportunity to dry the dinner dishes in an effort to talk with her alone. That bastard, Bran Monroe, had stuck to her like glue all during dinner, taking the seat beside her, joining her in the kitchen to bring out the casserole and bowls of green beans. Everywhere Lowry looked to find Anna, Monroe held by her side. And the hell of it was she didn’t seem to mind.

“Anna, why are you letting that”—he’d almost said son of a bitch—“man take over your business?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Lowry.” She dunked a cup in the non-soapy water and handed it to him. “He most assuredly is not taking over my business.”

“You’re letting him use your bedroom, a room you always claimed was your sanctuary. You let him back here to help you carry food out tonight, when you always said the kitchen was your domain.”

“If you’ll look around, you’ll notice that you’re in the kitchen.” She smiled, but that didn’t gentle the rebuke.

“I hope I’m more to you than a stranger, fresh off the street.”

She dropped her hands into the soapy water and turned to stare at him. “Lowry MacLaughlin! I can’t believe you said that. You know I care for you.”

“Not as much as I’d like,” he mumbled.

“More than you think,” she whispered, causing him to bring up his head to stare back.

He put the dried cup and towel on the counter. Reaching for her, he only barely squelched an epithet when she backed away. He was single, and she’d been a widow for two years now. If she cared for him, why wouldn’t she let him hold her? Why didn’t she press her lips to his, allow him to touch her, to make love to her as she must know he longed to do? If she gave him the least encouragement, he would propose faster than a rifle bullet struck its target. But she always pulled away.

He dropped his arms. “Anna, why?”

“Lowry, I can’t. I just…” Biting her bottom lip, she dropped her head. “Please don’t press me.”

He almost bit his tongue in order not to ask what he wanted—why couldn’t she commit, what she was running from, when would she feel she could stop? It had been obvious from the first time he saw her, one of the passengers stranded in Brompton when a steam-driven paddleboat went down on a half-sunken log in the Missouri, that she fought ghosts of some sort. She had the haunted expression of someone looking over her shoulder, a look that had faded over the months until she finally seemed more relaxed and confident. Monroe’s arrival had worried her for some reason. Lowry wanted to know why, and then he wanted the man gone. He’d gladly help Monroe out of town if Anna said the word.

“I won’t push,” he said to her now, his voice harsh. He picked up the towel and waited for the next dish. “You might care for me, but I wish you trusted me, too.”

“I do,” she insisted. “You know I depend on you for so much.” She sighed and picked the next cup out of the suds. “As for Mr. Monroe, haven’t you heard the saying that one should keep one’s friends close but one’s enemies closer?”

“Surely you don’t think of me as an enemy, Anna?”

Lowry pivoted toward the door to see Monroe standing there, empty cup in hand. “What are you doing here? Can’t you see this is a private conversation?”

“Sorry. Just came to see if there was any coffee left.”

Anna dried her hands on her apron. “Yes, Mr. Monroe, there is.” She hurried to the pot, only to turn and find that he had invaded her kitchen for his refill instead of waiting in the doorway.

“Thanks,” he said as she placed the metal pot back on the stove. Then he pulled out a wooden chair from beneath a small table against the wall and settled himself.

“Didn’t you hear me say this is a private conversation?” Lowry fisted the wet towel and jammed his hand on his hip.

“The dish towel and star don’t quite go together. But if you ever give up being sheriff, it’s nice to know you have a backup profession.”

Lowry felt his cheeks flame as only a redhead’s could. “Why are you here? Why did you insist on staying at Anna’s place?”

Bran raised the cup nonchalantly and sipped. “I’m just a traveler, looking for a pleasant place to spend a few days.”

“Bullshit.”

“Lowry,” Anna admonished.

“Sorry, Anna, but we all know that’s what it is. He has the looks of a bounty hunter.”

“Haven’t you heard, Sheriff? Looks can be deceiving.”

“Then you need to change your appearance, Monroe, because you have hunter written all over you. If you’re here in town for someone, I want to know who. I run a law-and-order town, and I won’t have shootings or kidnappings or any other trouble from your kind.”

Bran huffed a laugh. “My kind?” He shifted an intense gaze to Anna. “It isn’t ‘my kind’ you need to be worried about, Sheriff. You should look a little closer to home.” He stood and exited the kitchen.

ADULT EXCERPT

He looked up in time to see her eyes slide closed. Her expression was dreamy, faraway and pleased as a cat with cream. And they hadn’t even started.

With cream in mind, Lowry nuzzled her pubic curls with his nose. Her bouquet tantalized him. He parted her lips and licked the full length of her furrow before dipping his tongue into her passage, already redolent with her scent after his finger work. He knew she was close. She trembled beneath his mouth, and when he pressed her clit with his thumb her knees threatened to buckle. He braced her hips, and Bran, also on his knees, supported her back. He dug deeper, moving his tongue in and out, preparing her for what his cock would be doing shortly. His thumb pushed hard, circling her button until she called out and her trembling became an orgasm.

She came hard, coating his tongue and mouth with sweet cream and filling his nostrils with her aroma of sex. He didn’t let up on her, either, with his tongue or thumb, and was rewarded with a continuing wave of contractions.

His cock ached with the need for relief. In a few more seconds he’d let her finish, then he’d make a soft covering near the fire and lay her down. Seconds after that, he’d be hilt-deep inside, filling her with his dick and then his seed. He wanted her body with a fierceness he’d never known. More, he wanted her heart and soul. In his mind’s eye, he saw her in his bed every night, in his home every day, whether sweet and small or happy and big with child. Her future was with him.

“Lowry, goddamn it, I can’t hold off much longer. She needs to lie down and catch her breath.”

Bran’s voice broke through the haze he’d sunk into with Anna’s scent in his nose and taste in his mouth. No velvet had ever felt softer than her skin. No perfume could match her smell as an aphrodisiac. Reluctantly, he lifted his head.

“Oh, God,” he moaned.

“I know,” Bran responded, standing behind her. “I have her. Use my coat and saddle blanket to make a place for her to lie down. And for God’s sake, hurry up.”

Lowry rose, kissing Anna and letting her taste her own essence on his lips. Hungrily, she kissed him back, then turned her head and kissed Bran in the same way. Lowry watched, wondering what Bran had been doing while he mined her cream. With startling clarity, he knew what Bran had been up to. He himself had never entered a woman from the back. The thought brought his cock to a new level of excitement and pain. He licked his lips, tasting her all over again and rushed to put together a makeshift bed.

An owl announced its presence, and something moved through the bushes to their left. The breeze that rustled the leaves of the cottonwood under which Bran had set the camp also brought the fresh scent of the river a few miles to their south. He tossed Bran’s lambskin coat onto the ground and topped it with their two saddle blankets. When he finished and tested it to be sure she wouldn’t be lying on a rock or anything hard, he looked back at the pair. Bran had his shirt off and pants undone. Anna’s hand, below the waistband of Bran’s trousers, moved up and down his cock. They still kissed. Bran reached behind her and alternated between squeezing and separating her ass cheeks. Her rosebud, red from Bran’s manipulations, looked tempting. Excited beyond reason, Lowry watched while Bran teased the hole. Anna flexed her hips back against Bran’s finger and forward against his dick, which she continued to stroke. How in hell was the man holding himself back?

He strode forward, palming her shoulders. “Come and lie down, sweetheart.”

She broke her kiss with Bran and faced Lowry. “Will you make love to me, Lowry?”

“Just try to stop me.”

Anna smiled with such innocence, such anticipation, that his heart squeezed. She walked to the bedding under her own steam then glanced at the men over her shoulder. Using the fire as a backdrop, she spread her legs, then reached up and looped her arms under her hair. When she let it fall, throwing back her head and shaking the strands loose, her breasts stood out, all but calling to him. She had to know she had their undivided attention.

“I believe the lady is ready for us.” Bran lightly punched his arm. “And God knows I’m ready for her.”