I was just about ready to sink into the floor when Teresa shut her bedroom door right in Johnny's face. Then Scott yelled NO at him and slammed his door so it shook the paintings on the wall, and Jelly scurried away down the back stairs, claiming it had nothing to do with him, no siree. And Murdoch, well, he read that poor Johnny Lancer a sermon on taking responsibility for his actions, then closed his door with a finality that was downright mortifying.

Johnny sighed and looked at me with those lovely blue eyes of his, put his hand on my shoulder and declared we'd just have to make the best of it and bunk down in his room. Just this one time, he warned, with a wink.  I didn't need a second invitation, let me tell you, and I was in his bed and under those covers before he could even remove his gunbelt and hang it over the bedpost. (Nice to know the man you're sleeping with is ready to protect you.) I watched him strip to his drawers and enjoyed the view until he doused the lamp. He bade me good night, Honey, and settled in, cuddling up behind me, his lean, well-muscled body spooning with mine, one arm casually slung around my waist.

When I awoke it was in the wee hours, close to dawn, and Johnny had shifted in his sleep, so we were lying rump to rump. I was cold because my bedmate (that good-looking, smooth-talking, well-meaning, rough-riding caballero) had stolen most of the blanket and had left my body exposed to the cool night air. I gave a small tug at the blanket, hoping to get at least half of it over myself so I wouldn't freeze to death, but Johnny just pulled it back over his shoulder and started snoring so loud I was surprised he didn't wake himself up, much less the whole household.

I gave Johnny a slight kick, and that didn't wake him (I thought gunfighters were light sleepers, but maybe this one had gone soft with all the fancy living he'd been indulging in the last couple of years), so I just said hell and pulled that-which-was-rightly-mine-anyways back over to my side. That woke him up, and he grumbled and cursed at me in Spanish, and when he tried to reclaim the blanket I just growled and bared my teeth. That stopped him dead in his tracks.

Works every time.

At least he didn't call me a bitch, or a crossbreed, or a wolf, or any of those racial slurs I get all the time. Boy, will I be glad when Val gets back and I can go home again, where we don't fight over possession of every blanket. At least when he calls me Honey, he means it.