She was still in the bed, lying exactly as he had left her, her light brown head shiny against the white of the pillowcase. He crossed the room and eased down on the side of the bed. Her eyes had been closed, but now they fluttered open. She said, “We gonna do it now?”
The words were more painful than any bullets that had ever pierced his hide. He winced, trying to think of something to say. “Not just this minute, Hannah, darlin’,” he said. “I got to run a little errand. But I will be back here tonight.”
“Oh, you!” she said angrily. “You ain’t no better than the rest.” She suddenly flung the covers off her and sat up on the bed. Longarm was suddenly face-to-face with those swelling breasts again. His mouth hungered for the taste of her cherry nipples, and the crotch of his jeans suddenly became too tight. With a swift move he leaned down, turning his head sideways, and took each one of them in turn in his mouth, holding them each a long moment, feeling them going more rigid as he caressed them with his tongue.
Hannah began trembling slightly. She said, “Ooooooooh. Is that part of it?”
Longarm raised his head up. “Yeah,” he said huskily.
“I like that,” she said, her hazel eyes looking excited. “That feels goooood.”
“Try this,” he said. He put his mouth over hers, trying to force it open gently with his tongue. She pulled back until she could see him.
She said, “Are you aimin’ to put your tongue in my mouth?”
“Yes,” he said, having difficulty controlling his voice. “That’s the idea. Then you do with your tongue what you want to.”
He leaned in to kiss her again, taking her in his arms.
This time her lips were soft and open and her tongue was a darting, exploring probe. When he finally pulled back she was breathing hard.
She said, “I like this. What else can we do?”
He leaned down and kissed the soft mound of her little belly. His breathing was short and hard and there was a pounding in both temples.
He straightened up. “Hannah, we can do a whole lot of other things. But we can’t right now.”
“But you’ll come back and show me? I’m willin’ to learn.”
He swallowed and took a deep breath. “I’m sure you are.” He let his breath out in a long sigh. “Hannah, you are about as tasty as pie. I hate like hell to leave you, even for a short time.”
“You be back in time for supper? I got a side of beef Daddy brought over in the springhouse. It be of prime age. I’ll cut you off a big steak.”
Longarm stood up and shook his head regretfully. “I’ll be back, Hannah, darlin’. You keep on thinking about how it is gonna be.”
“You gonna learn me all about it then?”
“Oh, yes,” Longarm said, nodding, his breath getting short again. “I will learn you all about it.” He leaned down and kissed her. Her tongue came out like a pouncing cat. He started to tell her you saved those kind of kisses for when one of the persons wasn’t leaving, but decided not to load the girl up with too much information at one time. He said, glancing at the door, “Otis Bodenheimer had better have something up a tree or I’m going to hang him to it.”
Her smooth brow furrowed. “Huh?”
“Nothing, Hannah,” he said. He patted her on the shoulder and then put on his hat. “I’ll be back quick as I can.”
But at the door he stopped and turned back. A thought was troubling him, had been troubling him all week. He said, “Hannah, I been meaning to ask you something, but first one thing and then another has been getting in the way.” He knew what that one thing was and it didn’t have anything to do with law work.
“What?”
He frowned. “Did you know Gus Home before you married him?”
She shook her head slowly. “No, not really.”
“What do you mean by that? Did ya’ll court? Did he call on you at your daddy’s place? Take you out for carriage rides? Barn dances?”
She looked prim. “Well, Marshal Long, Gus Home be a outlaw. He couldn’t go ‘bout like he wanted to. Not here in this county. They laid low mostly, I guess.”
He frowned again. “What about after you were married? How was that supposed to work? Was he still going to have to lay low?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Never thought about it, an’ Daddy never said. I reckon you’d have to talk to Daddy about that.”
Longarm was still having trouble digesting the situation. Dalton Diver was a well-to-do and respected rancher. He could not understand how he would willingly marry off his daughter to an outlaw. But it seemed impossible to believe that he couldn’t have known what Gus Home was.
Longarm said, “Your daddy did know that Gus Home was a wanted man, didn’t he?”
She thought a second, pursing her full lips. “Well, yeah, I reckon. But Daddy said so long as he done his dirty business somewheres else, wasn’t none of our affair so long as he behaved at home. I ain’t the first one, you know, married into that bunch.”
“No, you have a sister that did also. Lives close to here somewhere.”
