Forever And A Day

His silence was nearly palpable, like the quiet before a storm, like fire working its way along a fuse. Honey expected an explosion, but instead she felt the muscles of his arm relax and heard him release his breath in a long sigh.

“They’re being washed,” he answered quietly.

“Oh.” She was sorry she had asked. She was mortified, and grateful for the dark to hide the color staining her cheeks. Her voice, so strident before, quavered now. “You...you must think—”

“I think,” he said, cutting her off, “that you’re as stubborn as a weed. Now go to sleep, will you? Or at least just keep that pretty little mouth of yours closed.”

But she couldn’t sleep. Honey lay there for a long time, wide-awake, listening to the sound of Gideon Summerfield’s deep and even breathing. She shifted slightly onto her side to watch the rise and fall of his muscular chest, to study the soft hair that thinned as it neared his belt line, to feel the warmth that radiated from his arm where it touched hers.

A week ago, under the watchful eye of Miss Haven and her staff, Honey wasn’t permitted to promenade with beaux or to have tea alone with a gentleman caller. Now here she was—naked as the day she was born—sharing a bed with a notorious outlaw. The preposterousness of the situation brought a wild little giggle to the back of her throat when she probably ought to have been screaming for help.

But she wasn’t afraid of Gideon Summerfield, even when reason told her she should be. The man had had ample opportunity to do whatever he pleased with her, and the fact of the matter was that he had conducted himself as a gentleman. She remembered the moment on the trail this afternoon when she had thought that he was going to kiss her. But he hadn’t, and there had been that surprising little quiver of disappointment inside her, like air being let out of a balloon.

Honey tilted her head now, the better to peruse his profile in the moonlight. He wasn’t bad looking. In fact, Gideon Summerfield was decidedly handsome. There was strength in his face—from the firm line of his jaw to the deep slashes that parenthesized his mouth to the slight hook of a nose that had undoubtedly been broken once or even twice. But, strong as they were, his features possessed a certain vulnerability now that he was sleeping, now that those gunmetal gray eyes were closed.

His hand twitched. His closed lids fluttered. Honey wondered what sort of dreams a desperado had. Was he planning more robberies? Figuring out how to spend his ill-gotten gains? Somewhere, deep in his sleep, was he lining up innocent bank tellers like tin ducks in an arcade, taking aim and shooting them one by one? Was he...?

His hand twitched again, jingling the chain that linked them, and then—slowly, warmly—his big hand slid over hers and closed. Honey’s heart shifted perilously and her breath snagged within her chest. From beneath her lashes, she watched as his lips parted in a soft, almost desolate moan. Perhaps, she thought, it wasn’t a dream at all inside his head, but a nightmare. Perhaps it was Gideon Summerfield who was the target....

He rolled to his left, casting a heavy arm across her, bringing his face just inches from her own. “Cora,” he murmured in a voice thick with sleep and need. “Hold me. I’m so cold. So goddamn cold.”

Without even thinking, only responding to the husky plea, Honey slipped her free arm around him. Slowly she spread open her hand, over smooth skin, over sleek muscle. She smiled softly. Some desperado, she thought, adjusting her vision to study the face so close to hers.

His breath mingled with hers. Soap. A hint of whiskey. The pure male fragrance she recalled from snuggling in her father’s arms and burying her face in his neck. Aside from him, she’d never really been this close to a man before, even though she’d had more than her share of beaux. It seemed they were always in someone’s shadow, though, or under someone’s watchful eye. When they kissed her—and few had ever dared—it was always brief, fleeting, tentative.

Her eyes focused on Gideon Summerfield’s lips, wondering what they would feel like against her own. Even in sleep, there was a hardness to his mouth. Could such a hard mouth kiss softly? Honey wondered. She moved closer. Then closer still, until her lips felt the warm flutter of his breath.

A deep groan issued from him, and before Honey could shift away his mouth had claimed hers with a warm urgency that sent tremors through her. His lips were softer than she’d have dreamed as they covered hers. His tongue was warm and gentle as it explored, then delved. She moaned helplessly as waves of pleasure surged through her, as new feelings were born in her along with strange and bewildering urges.

It was Gideon who broke the kiss, sighing, shouldering more deeply into the mattress. “Hush, darlin’. Hush, Cora,” he murmured against her wet mouth. “Sleep now.” His hand slid beneath the covers to settle firmly and protectively over Honey’s breast. “Sleep.”

Sleep! She couldn’t breathe. Her entire body was thrumming and her mind was snapping like a telegraph wire whose messages were positively scandalous. What was she doing in bed with a bank robber and enjoying it? Honey closed her eyes and clamped her lips together, shocked at her behavior, stunned and surprisingly warm beneath Gideon Summerfield’s big, gentle hand. But sleep? She might never do that again, she thought. And who in the world was this Cora?

* * *

When she woke, the room was golden and warm with sunshine. The light of day revealed a tawdriness in the room she hadn’t been aware of the night before. Above her head, the ceiling was cracked and peeling. The wallpaper was patterned with stains and poorly rendered roses, all of them stuck to the wall at a queasy tilt. There was a scuffed wooden dresser with a missing drawer, a cracked mirror and a chipped pitcher and bowl. It was the worst-looking room Honey had ever been in. And to think last night, lying in the outlaw’s arms in this bleak iron bed, it had all seemed quite elegant.

The outlaw, she realized dully, was gone. The handcuffs were gone, too. And so was the canvas money bag from Logan Savings and Loan. Honey groaned. Then, after casting a woeful look down at her exposed bosom, she groaned again. What was she supposed to do now?

And what was that red-and-black satin concoction draped over the foot of the bed. He didn’t expect her to wear that, did he? She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. Well, all in all, she supposed, it was better than wearing handcuffs and a sheet.

After she had gritted her teeth and pulled it on, the dress turned out to be nearly a perfect fit, even if it did leave little to the imagination in the vicinity of her chest. Honey glared in the mirror over the dresser, tugging at the rigid stays in the bodice, then watching the weight of her breasts drag the satin fabric down once more. Good Lord, she’d be glad when she got her own civilized clothes back. She’d be even gladder when she got her father’s money back, which was what she was aiming to do.

There was a hairbrush beside the pitcher. She scowled at it viciously enough to kill any critters that might be lurking in its bristles, then dragged it through her dark, tangled locks. After a sigh at her less-than-fetching reflection in the mirror, Honey stalked to the door.

She pulled it open and walked smack into an enormous plaid shirtfront.

“Well, now, ain’t we in an all-fired hurry to find another man.” The rough voice assailed her ears as the breath that carried it assaulted her senses.

Honey pushed both hands hard against the greasy flannel. “Get out of my way.”

“Hold on there, sis. You don’t have to go all the way downstairs looking for your next poke. I’m right here. And right ready, too.” Saying that, the huge man grabbed Honey’s wrist and plastered her hand, palm side down, against the front of his trousers.

A little squeak of shock broke from her throat, and then Honey Logan did the only thing she could manage to think of in the name of decency and in the way of self-defense. She squeezed—hard.

“Lemme go, you she-devil,” the giant howled. He raised his hand to strike her.

“You do that and you’re a dead man.”

Coming from the stairwell, Gideon’s voice was low and lethal, the devil’s own. At that moment, though, to Honey it sounded better than any choir of angels.

The big man twisted his head toward the warning. “What’s this little bitch to you?” he grunted, his arm still poised to loose a powerful blow.

“She’s my wife.”

The arm came down, and now the giant’s voice was closer to a sob than a howl. “Well, hell, fella, your wife’s got my...”

“Let him go, Edwina,” Gideon commanded.

It was only then that Honey realized her hand was still clamped like a vise on her assailant’s private parts. She wrenched it away immediately, allowing the man to retreat at an awkward lope down the hallway, nodding curtly to Gideon as he passed.

Honey crossed her arms and sagged back against the wall, closing her eyes briefly, trying to absorb the liquid shaking that had begun in her knees. Gideon covered the distance between them in two long strides.

“You’re going to get one of us killed if you’re not careful, bright eyes,” he admonished her in the same lethal tone he had used a moment ago.

Honey’s eyes flashed open. She was prepared to burn him alive with a look of hot and righteous indignation, but when she saw the glint of cool amusement in Gideon Summerfield’s eyes she felt a sudden and uncontrollable urge to giggle. She clapped her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle it.

Gideon grinned, briefly. Then his gray eyes clouded. “Lucky for you I just happened along.”

Suppressing the remnants of her laughter, she raised her chin into his somber face. Whatever she had intended to say escaped her momentarily as she caught a whiff of shaving soap and spied the tiny nick beneath his ear. He’d had a shave and a haircut, too. Yesterday’s shaggy cinnamon locks barely brushed his collar now.

The sight set off a swirl of butterflies in her stomach. But when she noted that that collar was attached to a clean and apparently brand-new shirt, Honey squelched the confounded fluttering inside her. New clothes cost money, and she had a pretty good idea where it had come from.

“Thank you for rescuing me, but it really wasn’t necessary, I assure you.”

“I could see that, Ed,” he drawled, shifting his hips lazily and leaning a shoulder into the wall. His mouth slanted into the smallest of grins. “You had the, um, situation pretty well in hand by the time I came along.”

The color that suffused her cheeks forced her to avert her eyes. Where she’d be right now if Gideon Summerfield hadn’t come along just when he had, Honey didn’t even want to consider. But then again, he didn’t have to treat her like a helpless, witless child either.

“What have you done with my money?” she snapped, going on the offense.

“Your money?”

She glared up into his face. “I suppose you think it’s yours now that you’ve stolen it from decent, law-abiding, hardworking people.”

He chuckled softly. “Possession is nine points of the law, bright eyes.”

“And what about me, Mr. Summerfield? Do you believe that you possess me as well?”