The Temptress (Montgomery/Taggert 8)

“What husband?” His lips were a breath away from hers.

“The man I marry. The man I plan to spend all my nights with.”

He was pulling her closer but she was resisting. “But just the other day you were offering yourself to me.”

“But then I thought you couldn’t and that I was safe. I think we’d better go back to the others.”

“In a minute,” he said, pulling her to him.

Chris’s lips parted for him and again she was amazed at the feeling that passed through her at Tynan’s touch. It was as if her bones were disintegrating and she fell down across him.

He was expert at maneuvering her body so that soon she was stretched full out beside him and it was what she wanted when he moved one of his heavy legs on top of hers. Her body arched upwards toward his.

Later, she wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t heard voices and moved away from her. Chris just lay there, eyes closed, too stunned to move.

“They’re coming back,” Ty whispered, lifting her off the ground into his arms. “Get dressed.” As if she were a doll, he leaned her against his shoulder and began to button the back of her dress.

“What happens if I wear a dress that buttons down the front?” she murmured huskily.

“Don’t. Save my sanity and your virginity and don’t tempt me more than you have already. There, stand up and get that dopey look off your face. They’re coming.”

“Yes, Tynan,” she said, allowing him to pull her upright.

Chapter Ten

Chris and Ty were swept away together with the crowd of returning young people. People were getting restless and wanting to eat again and play games. The women took Chris with them so they could ask her questions about some of the stories she’d written and they left Tynan with the men and the boys—who constantly begged Ty for stories of the gunfights he’d been in.

Chris and the women were on very friendly terms. They believed in her so much that they were willing to look differently at a man they’d been so sure was wrong. One of the women bravely asked Chris what a house of ill repute looked like inside and she had a good time entertaining them with stories of red wallpaper and highly polished brass lamps and women who looked very bored. They were all laughing when the shot rang out.

Chris hoped she was wrong, but somehow, she knew that Tynan was involved with that single gunshot.

Grabbing her skirts, she started running, the women behind her. On the ground, surrounded by men, lay Rory Sayers, a derringer in his hand, blood spreading over his shoulder—and standing over him was Tynan. Chris looked at Ty with disbelief on her face.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you in,” said a young man who Chris had seen wearing a deputy’s badge. “The sheriff will have to deal with this.”

Chris’s eyes were still locked with Tynan’s and it was only after a long moment that she turned away. The face of every woman around her had a look of “I told you so” on it.

Chris lifted her skirt and began walking back to the tables.

“Chris,” Tynan called softly from behind her but she didn’t look back.

At the tables she began packing food away, trying to stay calm while the others put the injured Rory on a wagon bed and started back toward town. Since Rory was yelling that they were going to kill him and also he was raging that he was going to kill Tynan, Chris assumed that he was going to live.

Minutes later, Tynan walked past her, stopping within a few feet of her, but she didn’t turn around, instead, busying herself in putting the food away.

The women came to help her, working in total silence as they gave her looks from under their lashes. After a few minutes, Chris could stand no more. She put down the food, turned toward the road and began walking back to town. She didn’t care about Red’s buggy that she left behind or about anything else for that matter.

It was miles back to town but Chris walked all the way, shaking her head no at the people who stopped their carriages and offered her a ride.

In the hotel, people were watching her in such a way that she ran up the stairs and into her room, slamming the door behind her. She was so ashamed of herself that she wanted to climb into bed, pull the covers over her head and never come out again. For the last two days, she’d strutted around this town and, in essence, told them they were all fools, that they didn’t know a man who’d lived among them most of his life. She’d used the love she’d earned as Nola Dallas to tell them that they knew much less than she did after spending only a few days with the man.

Slowly, Chris began to undress, taking off the dress that Red had loaned her.

How vain I was, she thought, to think that I knew more than they did. And how conceited I was to think that I could reform a man who has chosen a life of crime and violence. How right my father was when he introduced me to men from my own background, men I could understand, not men who went to picnics and shot people who disagreed with them.

She packed her small bundle, put her riding habit back on and took the two dresses downstairs to the clerk. His eyes were different now. No longer was

he looking at her with interest, wanting to know more about the young woman who worked for a big city newspaper. Now she was just one of many women who’d fallen for a cheap drifter.