Upon a Midnight Clear Read online

  John gripped her arm tighter. "I'm going to take my hand off your mouth. If you open your lips to do more than whisper, you're going to be sorry."

  Slowly, he pulled his hand away.

  Isabel's nostrils flared. In a low voice, she ground out, "I was never one of the girls in the true sense."

  Her words sluiced over him like warm rain after a drought, bringing solace and… relief. Why, he didn't Want to confront. It shouldn't have mattered to him.

  With brows furrowed, she asked, "What's this Newt look like?"

  "Lanky. Sandy hair. Small gap between his front teeth. Chews tobacco."

  To his surprise, she laughed. She rolled onto her back and softly laughed.

  He kept his hand on her arm, only now he stretched across her waist… just below the swells of her breasts.

  "Oh, him. I know who he is."

  That niggling feeling rose in John again, green and ugly. She knew who Newt was.

  She quieted her laughter and turned to him. "I locked Newt in the closet."

  "What for?"

  The mirth in her eyes faded. "Because I couldn't go through with it, that's why. I thought I could."

  John eased onto his side, but kept his arm draped over Isabel. She made no move to fling him off her. "Why'd you go there in the first place?"

  "I was down on my luck and the Blossom seemed a sure way to improve it. All I was thinking about was the money." Her lashes swept down. "And that I wasn't giving anything up, so I had nothing to lose."

  The implication came across clear. She wasn't a virgin.

  "I wasn't cut out to be a floozie. I had to wear this scrap of silk Fern told me to put on. The skirt was lemon yellow and the bodice had white lace all over the top and straps—like blossoms. And it had lemon-scented sachets sewn into the hem____"

  John listened, but didn't really hear her. He was picturing Isabel in a yellow dress and smelling like lemon blossoms. Maybe with her inky black hair all curled and piled high on her head. If he'd been in the Blossom that night, he would have paid Fern whatever she wanted for a chance to be with Isabel…

  "… Fern gave all the girls names the night I started. Said it was a costume party in honor of my… well—" A blush brought a stain of color to her cheeks. "My first time. She called me Miss Lemon Blossom. It was downright humiliating."

  Watching her lips as she spoke, John grew mesmerized.

  "I had to sit in the parlor and socialize. Then that friend of yours—Newt—he and Fern started talking, and the next thing I'm being told to go up to my room and he's following. Once inside, he starts getting all hands with me right away. I told him I kept a pretty wrapper in the closet and asked him to get it for me. Once he was in the door's opening, I shoved him inside and locked him in the closet."

  In spite of the serious set of Isabel's brow, John couldn't help smiling. Newt must have blown a gasket.

  "I can't imagine why he'd go around telling people that he and I were… well, you know. That no-good bluffer. I ought to shoot him with my derringer."

  "What did you expect him to say? Can't have a man go upstairs with a wh—" He cleared his throat. "A floozie, and then tell the local bartender he got locked in a closet. Wounds a man's pride. He had to say you were a real mer—" John cut his words short.

  Isabel looked into his face. "I suppose he said a lot of indecent things about me."

  John lied, "Not much," then slowly added, "No more than the deputy and foreman from Sun-Blessed."

  Fire lit her eyes to amethysts. "They couldn't have boasted about getting any different treatment than Newt did. I handcuffed the deputy to the bed and left the foreman on the balcony. I let them all go after their hour was up."

  Shrugging, she went on, "I thought they'd want their money back, but when Fern didn't stir up a fuss… I assumed they were too embarrassed to ask for a refund."

  Her line of rationalization sounded convincing—convincing from a woman's point of view. But from a man's, that was another story. A man would never let on he'd been gypped out of his frolicking by a woman smarter than him. And John had to admit, Isabel was a smart woman.

  "Then Duster came in," she said, brushing the talc off her white blouse now soiled with reddish dirt. "He didn't want a thing from me other than conversation. We stayed in the kitchen the rest of the night and drank coffee until sunup. After Fern closed the doors, I told her I quit and I walked out." Musing replaced the soft curve on her mouth. "It was the first time I wasn't fired from a job. No, wait… I take that back. I quit the Ramona Hotel. I guess it was the first time I wasn't fired from a job in Limonero."

  She stated the fact without any grudge in her tone. Compassion overcame John's usual live-and-let-live manner. He wanted to console her.

  John reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture felt natural, and he marveled in the glossy softness of the wisp. When she didn't swat at his hand, he let the sense of pleasure he'd been holding at bay work through him.

  For a wavering few heartbeats, they shared an intense physical interest in the other. They were focused only on each other's face, and John wanted to bring his mouth over hers but didn't want to move and lose the moment.

  Then Isabel half-smiled and sat up. "I don't know why I told you all this."

  As if a hot Santa Ana wind had come down on him, John's thoughts of kissing Isabel Burche evaporated. He pushed himself to sitting, knocking the twigs and sand from his pants legs.

  John couldn't rid the tightness in his voice when he said, "I expect you'd have told somebody sometime."

  "But I told you."

  "Yep."

  She heaved a great sigh. "I never have enough to do what I want. I thought working at the Blossom could give it to me."

  "Money, you mean."

  "Yes… money."

  "I never have any extra either."

  "That's why we have to win this contest."

  For a haphazard couple of seconds, John had allowed himself to think Isabel was glad they were partners. But he wasn't so sure. Hell, she would probably have been better off if they weren't—because his mind wasn't clear at the moment. He was thinking of her more as a desirable woman and less of a fifty-fifty partner.

  "Well, we aren't going to win it sitting on our duffs."

  John got to his feet and held a hand down for Isabel. She grasped it, and he berated himself for reveling in her touch. Gruffly, he knocked the stems of flannel bush from her shoulder and hair, forcing himself not to feel.

  "Best we make sure Newt's gone. Then well ride up farther and finish out the day."

  She nodded.

  A little later, they were on their horses. She rode in front of him. John got to watch the gentle motion of Isabel's shoulders; see the way the sun shone on her black braid; appreciate the outline of her backside in the split skirt she wore.

  The view was worth all the stalls he'd be mucking out for the next couple of months in order to work off the loan of her piebald mare.

  * * *

  Chapter Four

  John bellied up to the polished bar at the California Republic Saloon and spilled twenty-five berries on the counter.

  "Pour me a tequila, Saul."

  As Saul went for the liquor, John avoided his reflection in the back bar's long mirror. It wasn't as if he couldn't face himself. He had every right to these berries. He'd gone on a late-night scout and had only picked the twenty-five needed for a midnight drink. He shouldn't be feeling guilty. There was no reason to share with Isabel. He'd thrown in everything else he picked. His intentions were still on the up and up.

  But for right now, he needed the tequila to smooth over his rocky emotions.

  He'd never been so… heroic… around a woman—first, getting her a horse by promising to shovel its apples, then making a half-dozen trips for water at dawn when he could have been catching a few extra winks in bed.

  What had gotten into him?

  No liquor is what. His brain had dried up. As soon as he had a drink, h