Jared's Runaway Woman

At the back entrance to the White Dove, she went inside and found Mrs. Townsend, the woman who owned the place and let Kinsey work there two nights a week washing dishes, at the cookstove. The kitchen smelled wonderful, delicious aromas of ham, eggs, biscuits filling the room.

“How’s business this morning?” Kinsey asked, pushing open the swinging door to the dining room just wide enough to sneak a quick peek inside.

The restaurant was half full. No sign of Jared yet. But she knew he’d be back. The White Dove was by far the best restaurant in town. No Mason, Kinsey knew, would settle for less. Certainly not Jared, after he’d bragged yesterday about the powerful Mason family, with their political connections, social position and their important friends in high places.

“Slow, thankfully.” Mrs. Townsend shook her head. “I’m shorthanded—again.”

A quick glance around the kitchen told Kinsey that once more, Dixie hadn’t reported for work on time. The young woman had gained an unsavory reputation in Crystal Springs and was frequently the topic of gossip. She was family, though, and Mrs. Townsend didn’t have much choice about keeping her on.

“Do you need me to help out?” Kinsey asked, cracking the door again to glance inside the dining room.

“Roy’s helping,” the woman said, nodding toward the window where her husband was loading up more logs from the woodpile. “We’ll be fine. Dixie will be along shortly. I saw you leave church yesterday. Missed you at the service.”

“Neither Sam nor I were feeling well. I should have kept us both at home,” Kinsey said, surprised at how easily the lie rolled off her tongue. She glanced into the dining room again. “Anything new from Miss Patterson?”

“I heard Reverend Battenfield was planning to pay a call on her yesterday afternoon,” Mrs. Townsend said, flipping eggs onto a platter and shaking her head. “He was taking the mayor with him along with Herb Foster.”

“From the feed and grain store?” Kinsey asked, frowning.

“Herb is just sure he’s come up with a plan for the new church that Miss Patterson will love.”

Herb wore checkered trousers and striped shirts thinking himself an Eastern dandy, so Kinsey had her doubts about whether he could impress the persnickety Bess Patterson with his ideas for the new church.

“If we don’t get that new church built before the hard winter sets in, we’ll have to wait clear until spring,” Mrs. Townsend said.

Kinsey wasn’t hopeful. Already Miss Patterson had turned up her nose at three other plans for the church and had so infuriated several men in town that they wouldn’t even talk about the situation anymore.

“Looks like some folks need a refill,” Kinsey said, taking the coffee pot from the back of the cookstove. Mrs. Townsend smiled her thanks as Kinsey pushed into the dining room.

She made the rounds, topping off coffee cups, chatting with most all the diners and casually casting glances out the front window. Just as she’d answered the familiar how’s-that-boy-of-yours question yet another time, she caught sight of Jared coming out of the hotel down the street. Her hand quivered, sending hot coffee into the saucer. She apologized quickly wondering why her first thought of the man had been that he looked handsome this morning, rather than that he was trying to ruin her life.

Back in the kitchen, she said goodbye to Mrs. Townsend and rushed outside. From the back corner of the building she saw Jared walk by, waited another few seconds, then headed for the hotel.

Cecil Nelson was behind the desk, helping out his folks, who ran the place. The young man seemed to grow taller each time Kinsey saw him.

“Morning, Miss Kinsey,” he said, swiping his bangs out of his eyes.

She had no time for small talk. Glancing around quickly she leaned toward him. “Give me the key to Mr. Mason’s room.”

Cecil drew back a little. “Well, Miss Kinsey, you know I can’t do that.”

She pulled herself up a little. “Would you like me to tell Becky Cochran’s pa what I sawthe two of you doing out behind the White Dove last Wednesday night?”

His face flamed and his jaw dropped. “Well—well, shoot, we weren’t doing nothing but—”

“I saw what you were doing. And unless you’d like Becky’s papa to know also—”

“No, no you can’t do that.” He shook his head frantically. “He’d fly into me something awful—not to mention what Ma would do when she found out.”

“The key.” Kinsey held out her hand.

Cecil fidgeted for a moment then gave her the pass key for room number four. She headed up the stairs.

“I love Becky. I swear I do,” Cecil called. “You aren’t going to tell, are you, Miss Kinsey?”

She stopped and looked back. “If you really love her you ought to have more respect than to put her in that sort of position. And if I see the two of you together like that one more time, I’ll tell.”

Kinsey hurried up the stairs, Cecil’s thanks fading behind her, a little uneasy at passing moral judgement on the two young people she’d caught kissing, given what she was about to do.

The upstairs hallway was empty as she made her way to the front of the hotel and room number four. The best room in the place. Figured Jared would request it.

With a final quick glance around, Kinsey unlocked the door, slipped inside and closed it behind her. She dropped the key into her skirt pocket and fell back against the door, her heart suddenly thumping in her chest.

Good gracious, she was in a hotel room. A man’s hotel room. What had become of her?

She reconciled herself with a quick look around. Bed, bureau, writing desk, washstand, rocking chair, dressing screen in the corner. Just a hotel room.

Then her breathing quickened and a whispering sensation rippled through her.

Jared’s room.

He came full force into her mind as she stood surrounded by his personal belongings. The rumpled bed linens spilling into the floor, the pillows molded to the shape of his head, his clothing hanging on the pegs beside the door, his satchel and valise in the corner. The room smelled of him, rousing a memory she’d rather forget.

The alley. Her nose buried against his throat. His body pressed close. His hot breath. His lips covering hers, drawing her in until she rose up and—

“Good gracious…” Kinsey muttered in the silent room, once more admonishing herself for her behavior. Jared had the good grace to apologize for his actions that night. Maybe she should do the same.

Except she wasn’t sorry.

Kinsey gasped aloud. How could she have even thought such a thing?

She certainly didn’t have time to figure that out now. Jared was at the White Dove having breakfast, and she intended to be finished with her task here long before he scraped his plate clean.

Yet she couldn’t help but touch his shirt hanging from one of the pegs. Pale blue. Cotton. Big. Clark had been a big man, too. Kinsey smiled faintly at the memory.

At the end of the peg row, she saw Jared’s gun belt. Odd that he hadn’t taken it with him. Nearly every man in Crystal Springs—in Colorado—carried a gun.

Yet it didn’t really surprise her. She suspected that like Clark, Jared was more comfortable with a pencil or ink pen in his hand. All the Mason brothers, like their father, spent their days and nights designing and overseeing construction projects—factories, office buildings, warehouses. The bigger, the better, Clark had said with reasonable pride.

Kinsey touched the holster. The leather was stiff, new. She pulled the pistol out. It was a Colt.44 caliber revolver. The Peacemaker. Well-oiled and immaculate. She sniffed the barrel. Not fired recently, if ever.

She held the pistol in both hands, feeling its weight, its balance, then stretched out her arms and sighted through the window at the dotted i on the sign atop the building across the street. Kinsey knew about guns. Her mother, who’d lived through the ravage of the War Between the States, thought every woman should know how to shoot and had taught Kinsey well.

She remembered Jared’s awkward reaction in the kitchen of the boardinghouse yesterday when she’d mentioned that he hadn’t opened fire when the shooting began at the saloon. Something to keep in mind, she decided, as she slipped the Colt into the holster once more.

She turned to the satchel and valise on the floor and placed them on the writing desk. The valise held folded whites, and she had to force herself to dig past them to the bottom of the case, her cheeks warming as she fondled Jared’s long johns, socks and handkerchiefs. But she found what she expected to find. Stacks of money. Her stomach quivered at the sight, then hardened into a knot.

She knew why he’d brought so much cash with him, what he intended to do with it. Buying her off, obviously, had entered his mind before he left NewYork. It was a side of the man that didn’t really surprise her. Yet it still didn’t give her the information she’d come here to discover.

When she opened the satchel, her heart fell. Technical journals. Pencils. The odd drawing tools she’d seen Clark work with. There was a stack of papers filled to the very margins with pencil sketches. Excellent drawings of mountains, waterfalls, flowers, buildings, portraits of old women, young children. They chronicled Jared’s trip westward. She imagined him seated on the train, looking out the window capturing the passing scenery or sketching unsuspecting passengers. She’d seen in Clark the same compulsion to stay busy. None of the Masons, it seemed, could bear to sit still, their hands idle.

Kinsey put the drawings aside and pulled a large brown envelope from the satchel. A new wave of disappointment swept over her as she pulled out a stack of documents and skimmed them.

A letter from the midwife who’d delivered Sam, confirming his birth date and the names of his mother and father. A report from a Pinkerton detective tracing Kinsey’s flight from Lynchburg, Virginia to Crystal Springs, Colorado, and details on all stops in between. The last item in the packet dashed all hope for Kinsey. An unfinished letter, written in Clark’s own hand, advising the family of the impending arrival of his first child.

The man who’d come to her house yesterday claiming a right to Sam was, in fact, Jared Mason. Kinsey’s shoulders slumped at the realization.

Lying awake in bed last night it had occurred to her that she didn’t know whether the man who claimed to be Jared was, in fact, Clark’s brother, even though she’d seen the family resemblance with her own eyes. The man could have been a fraud, a distant family member, wanting to kidnap the boy and sell him back to the Mason family.

Or maybe she was just grasping at straws.

But there was no doubting Jared’s identity now. Kinsey shoved the documents back into the envelope and—

A key scraped in the lock. Kinsey whirled around, saw the doorknob shake.

There were only two keys to every room in the hotel. She had one of them in her skirt pocket. The other one belonged to—

Kinsey slapped her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming as the door opened.

Chapter Five

Kinsey dropped to her hands and knees behind the dressing screen just as the door swung open. She pressed her lips together to keep from betraying her hiding place with a squeal of terror.

Footsteps thudded into the room, then a mumbled curse.

Jared’s voice. No doubt about it.

Kinsey crouched lower, trying to make herself as small as possible. The door closed. She was trapped.

Trapped inside a hotel room. Good gracious, what had she been thinking? Kinsey silently berated herself for her decision to come here. But he’d been on his way to breakfast—she’d seen him with her own eyes. Why would he come back?

Did he suspect her of doing exactly what she was doing? Had he planned this, set a trap for her, somehow expecting to find her here?

Maybe he hadn’t slept well. The thought flew through Kinsey’s mind like a welcomed cool breeze. Maybe he simply wanted to go back to bed—

What if he went back to bed? What if he took off his clothes?

Heat coursed through Kinsey like ripples through a pond.

What if he took off his clothes?

She leaned forward—just a little—and peeked around the corner of the screen. Jared stood at the bureau, muttering under his breath, fumbling with his gun and holster.

All his clothes on.

Kinsey’s cheeks flushed and she ducked back, silently willing him to leave the room. The wood floor was coarse and bit into her palms. Her knees hurt and her back had started to ache.

To say nothing of how hot the room had become.

Then, to her immense relief, she heard Jared’s footsteps. The door opened, then closed. The room fell silent.

Still, Kinsey waited. She didn’t dare move for fear of making a noise that might drawhim back into the room. She gritted her teeth and silently counted to one hundred—twice. Unable to bear another second on the floor, she got to her feet and heaved a sigh. She pressed her hand to her lower back as she listened at the door for a moment, then, hearing nothing, slipped into the hall.

Arms circled her waist from behind and hauled her back into the room before she could let out a scream. The door slammed shut and she was dropped crossways on the bed. She bounced on the soft mattress and looked up to find Jared Mason towering over her.

Kinsey launched herself off the bed but he caught her again. Their feet tangled and he fell down on the mattress with her.

Her heart pounded as Jared lay on top of her, pinning her to the bed, one of his legs between her knees. She took a swing at him but he caught her wrists and pressed them down, inches from her head. His weight, the heat of his body, soaked into her.

Another few seconds passed before Kinsey realized that he looked as startled as she. His face, hovering just above hers, was taut. His breath quickened. His body tensed.

Then a little smile quirked his lips. “I figured you’d do anything to keep Clark’s son, but I never counted on this.”

Her cheeks flamed, bringing on a wave of anger. “Oh! You think I came here to—! How dare you!”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s not why you’re here?”

“Of course not! Get off of me!” Kinsey struggled, trying to free her arms and kick her feet, but he held her easily.

“I’ll scream,” she threatened.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Scream all you want. We’ll get the sheriff up here and you can explain to him—and the whole town, who’ll hear about it before noon—why you’re in my room.”

Kinsey pressed her lips together, the gravity of her circumstances weighing more heavily than Jared atop her. She tried another tack.

“Would you please let me up?” she asked.

He held her, still, just to show her that he could, she suspected.

“You’re hurting me,” she told him.

Jared released her so quickly it startled her. For a man so big he moved with incredible speed, even grace, pushing himself off her and to his feet in an instant.

Kinsey sat up on the bed, yanked her skirt down and straightened her blouse, attempting to do so with a modicum of dignity and self-respect. But when she tried to get to her feet, Jared stepped close again, keeping her in place.

“What are you doing in my room?” He nodded to the dressing screen. “I saw you hiding back there.”

Heat filled her cheeks again, but she pushed up her chin and glared at him. “I came to find out exactly who you are.”

That seemed to surprised him. Obviously, as a member of the powerful Mason family, Jared wasn’t used to having his word questioned.

“I wasn’t about to let you anywhere near Sam without knowing if you were who you claimed to be,” Kinsey told him.

His surprise turned into something else—respect, maybe?—and he nodded slowly.

“Did you find out what you wanted to know?” he asked.

“Yes.” Kinsey sighed. “Unfortunately.”

“So you’re ready to talk about you and Sam coming back home with me,” he concluded.

The notion of living in the Mason’s New York home, the confines of the hotel room, and Jared’s great height towering over Kinsey caused everything in her to rebel.

She glared up at him. “Move out of my way.”

The words came out in her sternest “mommy voice,” the one that stopped Sam—and any other children with him—in his tracks. It had that effect on Jared, too, because he stepped back, more a reflex than anything.

Kinsey got to her feet and rubbed her wrists where he’d held her on the bed.

“I have to go to work,” she told him, her tone suggesting that she didn’t have leisurely hours to while away, as he did. “We’ll talk later.”

“When?”

“After dark when Sam goes to bed.”

He studied her for a moment, as if he wanted to protest, but he didn’t. Kinsey moved around him toward the door, but he blocked her path.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said softly.

Jared lifted her hand and pulled back the cuff of her sleeve to reveal her wrist. He did the same with the other wrist, holding them both in front of him.

He gazed at her and the moment seemed to stretch into forever. Jared leaned forward and brushed a kiss on one wrist, then the other. A firestorm ignited in Kinsey, threatening to consume her, but holding her in front of him.

Jared seemed unable to move either. He eased closer. So did Kinsey. She rose on her toes, until their faces hovered just inches apart and she felt his hot breath against her lips.

Then he pulled away. Kinsey’s cheeks warmed, from embarrassment this time. She darted out of the room.

* * *

How embarrassing.

Jared yanked the window of his hotel room open farther, hoping for a breeze to cool the place—and him. He stood there gazing down at Main Street, and rested his thumbs on the buckle of his gun belt.

Damn pistol. He’d forgotten it again this morning when he’d headed out for breakfast, and this time made it all the way to the restaurant before he realized it. He’d had to turn around and come back for the thing.

Embarrassing, all right. And hardly a good way to fit in on the streets of Crystal Springs. The sheriff had seen him leaving the hotel and had stopped on the street and eyed him hard. Under ordinary circumstances Jared wouldn’t have cared what the lawman thought of him, but Jared didn’t want to arouse suspicion—any more than he already had, that is. After the incident with Kinsey in the alley, he knew the sheriff was watching him.

Another plume of warmth rose in Jared at the memory of kissing Kinsey in the alley. It was a thought he couldn’t get out of his mind. And it didn’t help any that he’d found her hiding in his hotel room this morning.

When he’d come back for the gun and caught a reflection in the washstand mirror, he’d known right away that the bottom he saw in the air was Kinsey’s. No question about it. He’d made a study of her backside each time he saw her.

Or maybe it was her scent hanging in the room that had alerted him to her presence. Sweet and pure, fresh.

The smell of her still wound through the room, and through him, driving his desire for her a little higher. It was a feeling that troubled him. She had been, after all, his brother’s wife.

To distract himself, Jared shoved his belongings back into his satchel. He didn’t bother to count the money; in his heart he knew Kinsey wouldn’t have taken any of it. Clark wouldn’t have married that sort of woman.

Of course, Jared wouldn’t have picked Kinsey as the type Clark would have been interested in—let alone married to. Jared remembered the sort of women Clark had courted, and they were nothing like Kinsey. Quiet and demure were more to Clark’s taste. Those sorts of young women were the norm in the social circle of the Mason family.

Clark could have changed his mind after meeting her, of course. Kinsey was the sort of woman who’d make any man think twice, Jared decided.

He muttered a curse. She would make a man think twice because she was so damn hardheaded. Determined and strong. Capable and independent. A wife like her could drive a man crazy, he decided.

Kinsey’s lingering scent caught his nose again and Jared grumbled as he headed for the door. He had to get out of this room. He had to get out of this town, too. He had a big job waiting for him up in Maine.

And above all, he had to redeem himself for what he’d done to Clark.

Jared fought off the bitter memory and focused on getting control of this situation.

Kinsey had decreed that he couldn’t talk to her until tonight after Sam went to bed. Well, he’d just see about that.

The morning had started out badly, but the afternoon had been better, Kinsey decided as she left the White Dove Café, her handbag a little heavier from the extra coins inside.

Mrs. Townsend had stopped her on the street and asked if she could help out during the midday meal service. Dixie, who hadn’t showed up for work this morning still wasn’t to be found it seemed. Kinsey had gratefully agreed, glad to have the extra money.

She’d been unable to meet Sam after school, though. He would walk home with the Gleason boys and was perfectly fine; Lily or Nell were always at the boardinghouse when Sam got home. Kinsey just liked being there when school ended, chatting with Miss Peyton and the other mothers, then hearing about Sam’s day as the two of them walked home together.

Of course, there was no way Kinsey could tellSam—or anyone—about her day. Caught red-handed inside Jared Mason’s hotel room. Accused of offering favors to get him to leave town. Then nearly kissing him—again.

Kinsey cringed inwardly as she recalled the moment he’d touched her wrists, how the sight of his big hands had caused her heart to beat a little faster, how the feel of his lips caressing her skin had sent another wave of heat through her.

As it did now. Kinsey glanced around the crowded street, making sure no one was watching, and picked up her pace.

Jared had intended to kiss her again in the hotel room. She just knew it. They’d looked into each other’s eyes and Kinsey had done the unthinkable. She felt herself rising on her toes, ready to receive his kiss.

Good gracious, what was wrong with her?

Perhaps that was part of his plan, Kinsey suddenly thought. Maybe he had done that on purpose to keep her off balance, keep her from thinking about the reality of her situation.

Jared Mason intended to take Sam away from her. He was smart. He’d do anything to get his way.

As would she.

Kinsey hardened her heart and pushed aside the memory of those moments in Jared’s hotel room. Worry and anxiety claimed her, swift and strong. She walked faster, anxious to get home to Sam.

But her worry proved baseless when she arrived at the boardinghouse and found Sam in the Gleasons’ yard, playing with the brothers. He saw her and hurried over.

“Hi, Mama.”

“Hi, honey.” She knelt down and gave him a hug. “How was school today?”

“We drew pictures,” he said.

“I’ll bet Miss Peyton liked yours the best,” Kinsey said. Even at this young age, Sam showed signs of having his father’s gift for drawing.

“Did you walk home with the Gleason boys?” Kinsey asked.

“Huh-uh,” Sam said. “Uncle Jared walked me.”

Kinsey’s blood ran cold. “Who—who walked with you?”

“Uncle Jared.” Sam gestured toward the boardinghouse.

Kinsey’s heart pounded into her throat and hung there. She got to her feet.

“You run on and play for a while, Sam,” she said, urging him toward the Gleason brothers.

Anger raged in Kinsey as she crossed the yard. Jared Mason, a man of power and privilege, so used to having everything he wanted, so accustomed to always getting his way. He’d deliberately ignored her wishes. He’d invaded her home. Turned her world upside down.

And now he’d moved threateningly close to Sam.

Kinsey yanked open the back door and stormed into the kitchen. There he stood, in the entrance to her bedroom. Kinsey’s anger doubled.