The Lawman's Agreement (Entangled Scandalous) by Nancy Fraser, Patti Shenberger

something to talk about.” Without waiting for her agreement, Zack bent forward and pressed his lips to hers, stealing her breath with his kiss. When he reached up and laid his hand gently against her cheek and drew her to him for a second kiss, Suzanne could feel a wavering in her stance, a weakness in her knees.
    She laid her hand against Zack’s chest to steady herself. Beneath her flattened palm his heart beat a thundering rhythm.
    “I think…” she began. “I think they’ve seen enough.”
    Zack pressed his lips to her cheek and nuzzled beneath the curtain of her hair to whisper in her ear. “Perhaps one more is in order, just to be sure.”
    When she raised her head, intent on refusing, Zack lowered his and took her mouth in yet another firm, thoroughly delicious kiss. Suzanne could feel her heart hammering wildly within her chest and knew she had to put a stop to Zack’s kiss before she found herself begging for more. She placed her hands against his chest and pushed, breaking the contact of his lips to hers. “Zack, please .”
    He raised his head and grinned. “That’s what I am trying to do, c her .”
    …
    Zack left the clinic and turned away from his office rather than toward it. He needed to walk off some of the tension holding his body as tightly wound as a pocket watch. He should never have stolen that last kiss. The first two had been enough to appease their onlookers. The third had been strictly an indulgence for his own amusement, a silly flirtation intended to raise the doctor’s ire. Instead, his plan had backfired, and he’d found himself as aroused as a young schoolboy after his first deep kiss. It wouldn’t do, Zack realized, to walk into his office with a flagpole in his britches.
    After a second pass behind the main buildings in the central part of town, Zack felt in control enough to go back to work. He’d barely reached for the handle on the office door, when the sound of a gunshot rang out from somewhere in the vicinity of the saloon.
    He stepped off the sidewalk and into the main road, covering the distance between the jail and the saloon quickly, coming to a halt at the hitching post just as two men backed through the saloon doors, their faces covered in bandanas.
    Zack drew his gun and a deep breath and asked, “You two gentlemen planning on going somewhere?”
    The two men turned in Zack’s direction, their guns at the ready. “Let us go, Marshal, and nobody gets hurt,” the first one said.
    “It’s two against one,” the second pointed out.
    “Hmm, not such great odds, is it?” Zack agreed. “Perhaps, I can even things up a bit.” The words had no sooner left his mouth when he fired his gun, clipping the first man’s hand and knocking the gun he held to the side. “Now, it’s just us,” he said to the other.
    The second man tossed his gun to the side as well and raised his hands in defeat. To his left, Zack caught sight of his deputies’ approach.
    “Tom, Pete,” Zack ordered. “Get these two scoundrels over to the jail and bandage up this fellow’s fingers.”
    “Will do, boss,” Pete Bailey confirmed. “You want I should have the doc take a look at his hand.”
    “No, not unless it’s a deeper scrape than it appears to be. He’ll do fine with your handiwork.”
    Zack holstered his gun as his deputies started away with the prisoners. The second, larger man broke free of Tom’s hold and charged in Zack’s direction. Zack stuck out his fist, landing one solid blow against the man’s chest, sending him sprawling in the dirt, gasping for air and clutching his ribs.
    “Come on,” the deputy said, pulling the man to his feet by the collar. “Let’s get going.”
    Zack watched as the two men were led away without further incident. When he turned back toward the front of the saloon, he realized Suzanne was standing there, mostly likely alerted by the sound of the original gunshot.
    “Was there anyone hurt in the saloon?” he asked.
    “No, the