and done as was asked of me to the best of my ability.”
“My father used to say you were a great help to him.”
“A great man, your father.” Pickleman raised his coffee cup in salute. “No one misses him more than I do.”
Fargo thought the lawyer was laying it on a little thick but since the lawyer had brought it up, he asked, “What do you stand to gain out of all this?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Are you in the will, too?”
“Would that I were,” Pickleman said, and sighed. “Tom Senior never mixed business with his personal life. I knew him a good many years and he sometimes invited me to meals and had me over on holidays but I knew there was a line I didn’t dare cross.”
“He paid you well,” Charlotte said.
“Yes, he did,” Pickleman replied. “I can’t complain in that respect.”
Amanda excused herself to go to her room, saying she needed to rest after their long ride. She was a quiet girl, rather plain, and had a nice smile.
Shortly after, Pickleman drifted out, too.
No sooner did the lawyer leave than Charlotte stood and came down the table to a chair next to Fargo’s.
“Were you serious, what you said?”
“About?” Fargo prompted.
“About wanting me.”
About to drain his cup, Fargo peered at her over the rim. The Clyborns were a constant source of surprise. “I’ve never met a fine-looking woman I didn’t want,” he confessed. “Why?”
Charlotte sat very straight and stiff in her chair and said, “Because if you still do, I’d like very much for you to take me upstairs and ravish me.”
9
The bedrooms were as lavish as everything else. Curtains on the windows, carpet on the floor, a four-poster bed with a canopy and a writing table and a chest of drawers.
Charlotte Clyborn had been wringing her hands on the climb up the stairs and now she walked to the window and parted the curtains and looked out. “It won’t be supper for a couple of hours yet.”
Fargo closed the door behind him and leaned against it, his arms across his chest. “Why did you really want to get me up here?”
Charlotte glanced over her slender shoulder and blinked those sweetly innocent eyes of hers. “Whatever do you mean?”
“It wasn’t to ravish you,” Fargo quoted her. Downstairs he had read fear in her face, and something else. She was as skittish as a colt in a lightning storm and he would like to learn why.
“What makes you so sure?”
“Quit playing games.”
Charlotte tittered. “You think you know how I am but you don’t. No one does except my cousin, Amanda. She and I have been close since the time I got to stay over at her house and we snuck her brother into our room.” Charlotte tittered again. “My own brothers and sisters certainly don’t know me. They think of me as this little darling who’s never done any wrong.”
Fargo didn’t say anything. An uneasy feeling had come over him. The Clyborns were about to surprise him once again.
“Emmett was the real innocent. Our family was everything to him. Despite all that’s happened he cared for each and every one of us. Even Tom. But now Emmett is dead and the innocence has died with him.”
“You don’t sound broken up about it.”
Charlotte turned. A change had come over her. The sweet smile was gone, replaced by a cold smirk. “Why should I be? All Emmett was to me was another obstacle. Just as my sister is an obstacle.”
“I don’t savvy.”
“Sure you do. You’re not dumb. You just don’t want to. You’re like the rest. You think of me as pure and nice when I’m anything but.”
Fargo had rarely misjudged anyone as badly as he had this snip of a well-endowed girl. “All this is leading up to something.”
Charlotte came across the room and stood in front of him. “I’m being honest with you because I want you on my side and no one else’s.”
“Your sister hired me,” Fargo reminded her.
“Why not work for her and for me, both?” Charlotte proposed. “I’d make it worth your while. Help me win the hunt and I’ll give you ten times what she’s offered you. Twenty thousand dollars. How does that sound?”
“Like a lot of money.”
“Think of all the things you could spend it on. The poker games. The wenches. The drinking you could do.”
Fargo had to smile. She had him pegged.
“That’s not all I’m offering.” Charlotte stepped so close that her bosom pressed his chest and her legs were against his. Her warm breath fanned his cheek. “I’m offering myself, as well. Ravish me. Do with me as you will. All I require is that you agree to side with me against Sam.”
A cold feeling grew in the pit of Fargo’s stomach, and spread. “It was all an act? In the clearing today?”
“My pretending to be shocked when you compared me to a ripe cherry?” Charlotte laughed. “Yes, I was having fun with you. I do that a lot. Have fun with people. Especially my family.”
“Hell,” Fargo said.
“What’s the matter? You sound disappointed. Or are your feelings hurt, me playing you for a fool? Don’t be offended. Be glad I’ve confided the truth. Be thrilled about the twenty thousand dollars. Most of all, be excited that I’m offering myself to you.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
For an answer Charlotte pressed flush and raised her soft lips to his. The tip of her tongue rimmed his lips. When she drew back she made a clucking sound. “You can do better than that. The stories I’ve heard make you out to be the best lover who ever lived. Prove it. Show me you’re worth baring myself to you.”
The cold in Fargo changed to hot anger. He stared at her, and without any hint of what he was going to do, thrust his hand between her legs.
Charlotte gasped and threw her head back, her red lips parted in a “O” of surprise. “You get right to it, don’t you?”
Fargo cupped a breast and squeezed hard through the fabric of her riding outfit. She moaned, and color crept up her face.
“Not so rough. That almost hurt.”
“Did it?” Fargo said, and cupped her other mound. He squeezed just as hard and pulled her close, mashing his mouth against hers, delving his tongue into her mouth.
Cooing softly in her throat, Charlotte melted against him. Her hands rose and linked behind his neck. Her knee rose up and down. “Do me,” she breathed into his ear.
Fargo had every intention. Bending, he swept her into his arms and carried her to the four-poster bed. He didn’t set her down; he threw her onto her back hard enough to cause the canopy to shake.
“I’m not a sack of flour, you know.”
Fargo got on the bed on his knees and pushed her legs apart and hitched at his belt.
“Hold on. I like to work up to it. Aren’t we going to kiss and fondle some first?”
Taking her hand, Fargo placed it on his hardening manhood. “You need something to fondle, fondle this.”
“Oh my.” Charlotte’s eyes widened and acquired a hungry cast. “You’re a big one, aren’t you?” She ran her
