Noelle

what’s this I hear about you pulling a gun on Mr. Garmon right in the town square?”

The young police officer stepped forward. “Sir, Mr. Dunn had no choice in the matter,” he said firmly. “Mr. Garmon had already shot Mr. Sims—and he was crazy enough to shoot anybody else who moved. Mr. Dunn did the citizens of Fort Worth a service.”

“I’m not questioning that, young man,” the judge said. “I’m questioning the possession of a firearm in the city limits.”

“It was Mr. Sims’s firearm, your honor,” the young man persisted courageously. “He loaned it to Mr. Dunn.” He straightened and lifted his chin. “Mr. Dunn was acting in the stead of a city law enforcement officer. You may consider him deputized for the duration of the incident. I’ll swear to that, sir.”

Jared smiled indulgently at the unexpected gesture from the young man, who looked embarrassed.

“Very well,” the judge said. He smiled, too. “You aren’t old enough to remember wild times in Kansas, young man, but I am. I know Mr. Dunn quite well. I was only tormenting him, for old time’s sake, and he knows it.”

Jared chuckled. “Nevertheless, Officer…?”

“Ryan, sir.”

“Well, Officer Ryan. Thank you for your intervention, and your support. I won’t forget you.”

He offered his hand, and the young man shook it. “You’re very welcome, sir,” he replied, grinning. He nodded to Jared and the judge and strode quickly out the door, the smile still on his face as he walked toward the corner.

his heart beating him half to death.

She felt him over her, against her, inside her. Her hands tested the firm muscles of his back and she struggled to breathe normally again after the most exhausting, explosive pleasure of her life. Her body still trembled rhythmically with the memory of it, as if trying to recapture what it had lost. Her hips moved helplessly, and she felt a tiny hot pain, but even that didn’t deter her body from its search.

His hand caught her hip and stilled it. “No,” he whispered gently. “You are torn. This will make it worse.”

“Torn?” It sounded terrible.

His head lifted. He touched his lips to hers with such tenderness that she felt tears spring to her eyes. “Noelle, have you never been told what happens when a man and a woman come together like this?”

“Who was there to tell me?” she whispered.

He kissed her closed eyelids. “Nature protects a woman’s body with a thin membrane called a maidenhead. When a man’s body penetrates a virgin’s, the membrane tears.”

She was so embarrassed that she thanked God it was dark and he couldn’t see her face.

“That’s why it was painful,” he said. “And I apologize to you most humbly for the accusations I made. Your virginity was all too apparent.”

“It was supposed to hurt?” she asked.

“I’ve been told that it has to, sometimes.”

Told. Her hands smoothed over the hard, powerful muscles of his shoulders and back. “You do not know?”

He chuckled and his mouth moved slowly to cover her soft breast. “No.”

eye.

That did it. With a soft groan, he reached for her, pulling her roughly against his broad chest, wrapping her up tightly in his arms. “I can’t bear to see you cry,” he ground out at her ear. “Stop it.”

She hit his chest, trying to stem the hot tears. “I’m not…a fallen woman,” she bit off.

“For God’s sake!” He pressed her face closer. “Did I say that you were?” he demanded.

“You said I could go to a brothel,” she said tearfully.

He sighed heavily. “Noelle,” he bit off. His cheek nuzzled hers. “Noelle,” he whispered huskily. “I didn’t mean it.”

He rocked her in his arms until the sobs died away. Then he handed her a handkerchief and watched broodingly while she dried the tears. His hands were back in his pockets again and he watched her steadily.

She hated that intense stare. She didn’t know what he was thinking. He said that he hadn’t meant it, about calling her a loose woman, but he thought less of her. She knew it.

“I’ve reacted badly,” he said after a minute, having regained the control she nearly cost him with her unexpected vulnerability. “What you do with Andrew is, after all, your business. But the two of you have created a scandal. Mrs. Hardy will have it all over town that you and Andrew were in a state of dishabille in a room, alone. By the time she’s finished exaggerating it, you’ll have been found in bed together.”

She bit her lower lip hard and lifted her chin. “Will you lend me the price of a train ticket to Galveston?” she asked proudly.

He grimaced, glancing around. “Miss Beale asked me to drive her to a social appointment. Her father’s out of town and she detests a hired carriage.”

Jared searched the younger man’s eyes, his level gaze unnerving. “I thought you found our Noelle more interesting.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, I do. But, frankly, Jared, she’s becoming an embarrassment.” The look on his stepbrother’s face made him uneasy. “Excuse me, I must hurry.”

Jared hesitated. Then he stepped to one side and let the younger man pass, but not without a studious glare. Embarrassment, indeed! It was unjust, somehow, that such a lovely and tragic young woman should be so resistible to the one man she wanted.

He walked into the living room, where his grandmother looked equally broody.

“Andrew wishes me to speak to Noelle again,” she said grimly, “about the gardening. Jared, perhaps it would make more of an impression on her if you spoke to her. Really, he is correct. She should be more circumspect.”

He tossed his hat onto the hat rack and shrugged. “I can hardly see that it matters if she gets pleasure from digging in the dirt.”

“In overalls?” she muttered. “You’re far too unconventional yourself, my boy,” Mrs. Dunn said. “I know the penalties that can befall a woman. You don’t. One indiscretion can lead to another. I shouldn’t like there to be any question of Noelle’s reputation or character while she’s in our care.”

“Very well.”

Andrew had never noticed any familiarity between the two of them, but he had questioned Jared’s intervention weeks before, about the cat. Later, he decided that he was being fanciful and it was likely the mice had prompted it. Not that he’d actually seen any mice.

The cat, meanwhile, was thriving. Noelle had bathed and groomed him, and after he was properly fed, he’d turned into a neat and inoffensive house pet. Mrs. Pate kept him in the kitchen with her, where he had a comfortable wooden crate to sleep in at night and could be let out the back door when he needed to go outside.

Like the cat, Noelle had gained a little weight and was content in her surroundings. She read to Mrs. Dunn and performed small services for her. When she wasn’t doing that, she was helping wherever she was needed—mostly doing Andrew’s paperwork. It became obvious to the family that she was no stranger to hard work, nor did she mind it.

Even Andrew, who was growing more attracted by the day to young Jennifer Beale, had to admit that Noelle filled a gap in the household. If only he could keep her out of those overalls she wore when she worked in the vegetable garden and the flower beds! Her continued mode of dress there, despite Mrs. Dunn’s admonitions, was a source of worry to him. Neighbors occasionally caught glimpses of a dirt-stained Noelle in pants, rushing around with a hoe, and made sly mention of it to the lady of the house. Andrew found it embarrassing.

“Those overalls fit her much too tightly—and she rolls them up to her knees,” he muttered to his grandmother. “It is so unladylike! You must speak with her about it.”

stopped and then ran wild.

His mouth poised over hers as he began to move to the music. She hung there, waiting, breathless. Her feet followed where his led, while the soft tune enveloped them timelessly. His breath touched her lips. She could almost taste the mint tea that had recently graced it, warmly scented. He wore cologne, because its spicy scent was in her nostrils, too. She watched his hard mouth hover; her body felt swollen with sensation. She became boneless, dependent on his strength to keep her upright as he moved and moved her to the slow, soft beat of the music.

As it ended, he turned sharply and lowered her against his side, so that her body was angled across the whole warm, muscular length of his. And while she clung to him to avoid falling backward, his head bent, and she felt the threat of his hard mouth just above hers for one long, sweet, heady second. If only he would bend, she thought breathlessly, just a fraction of an inch… If only, if only! Her nails bit into his shoulders and her lips parted in anticipation.

But he barely hesitated before he drew her back to her feet and moved away from her, holding her by the waist only for a few seconds before his arm dropped. He didn’t smile. His eyes searched hers, looking for secrets. She could barely breathe normally. Her face was flushed, her eyes blank from the brief, exciting threat of his lips. She looked at him disorientedly, confused, the lace at her breasts fluttering with the desperation of her heartbeats.

He stared back, unmoving, as the needle dragged against the cartridge with a scratchy sound that repeated unheard.

with Andrew and have a good time.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Dunn. Thank you for everything.”

Mrs. Dunn waved her away with a smile. But she was concerned. Noelle was a very innocent woman and Andrew was experienced. He could hurt her badly. Her infatuation with him was noticeable, which was not a point in her favor. Andrew thrived on admiration from women. Mrs. Dunn hoped that there would be no complications because of this growing interest.

* * *

ANDREW WAS PLEASANT company, friendly and attentive, and Noelle blossomed under his regard. He held her hand in the carriage while he told her about his sales job with the brick company and how he’d topped their records already. He was hoping for a management position eventually.

“I was an officer in the army, you know,” he added, with a smile. “I do know how to get things done.”

“I’m sure you do, Andrew,” she said huskily.

He smoothed his fingers over her gloved hand and looked deep into her eyes. She adored him, and his attention was flattering. But she felt no thrill when he touched her, and that was puzzling. Jared had only traced his fingers around her ear and she had gone weak in the knees. Of course, Jared was older and experienced. She thought of him with a woman and her face colored. She could almost see him, those blue eyes flashing like summer lightning in his eyes as he held a woman close against his lean body and kissed her to within an inch of her life…

“Are you all right?” Andrew asked, frowning. “You’re very flushed.”

anything about the Dunns, since they weren’t from Texas. Funny, Andrew thought, how little he really knew about his stepmother and her mother—or about Jared.

If Andrew was impressed with his own background, Terrance Beale wasn’t. But Jennifer was entranced, especially by Andrew’s tales of his heroism in the Spanish-American War. That had been the key to unlock her heart, and Andrew had set about moving in on it. But she was a sheltered, very innocent girl, and it had bothered Andrew that he wasn’t even allowed to hold her hand. He was a man who enjoyed an occasional night in a woman’s arms; abstinence was painful. There was no way he could go to one of the local brothels without it getting back to Mr. Beale, who knew people everywhere. But Noelle was right under his own roof, and fascinated by him, and he wanted her. The fly in that ointment was Jared, who, instead of turning a blind, indifferent eye had suddenly developed a personal interest in the girl.

Well, he couldn’t be everywhere, Andrew thought irritably. Sooner or later, he’d have Noelle, with or without Jared’s approval. Meanwhile, having Miss Beale’s affection—and the promise of her father’s money (she was, after all, an only child) one day—brightened his outlook immeasurably.

* * *

THE FAMILY KEPT a carriage and a horse at the local livery for use on special occasions. Andrew was forced to ask Jared’s permission to use it, now that Jared was in residence. It rankled.

Jared agreed, because he had no engagement of his own that evening. “Are you taking Miss Brown?” Jared asked pointedly.