Always You (22 page)

“No one interferes with me and my business, boy. Nobody. I’m going to have to teach you that. It’s a lesson I guarantee you won’t soon forget.”

And with the full force of his hefty strength he lifted his boot and aimed a vicious kick straight at Jesse’s head.

Trapped in the Peacock Brothel with Rafe Campbell between her and the door, Melora made her way shakily to perch upon the red and black settee and tried to think.

She was frantic about Jinx. If it was true that Jinx was here in Cherryville, she’d be terrified when Coyote Jack showed up to demand she write a note. Gnawing at her lower lip, Melora tried to clear the throbbing from her head, tried to imagine how she might escape this monster she no longer knew.

“May I have a glass of water, and a cloth for my lip?” she asked at last in a subdued tone.

Campbell paused while sitting in the chair loading bullets into his gun. He glanced at her, his gaze piercing.

“Sure, honey. Help yourself.”

He nodded toward the pitcher of water on the bureau. “And take my handkerchief.” He stood and came toward her with it as she eased herself off the settee.

“Say, that cut looks pretty bad.” Amazingly his tone held regret. “I’m real sorry, Melora. I didn’t want to hurt you. But you made me do it. Next time don’t force me to get so rough with you.”

She snatched the handkerchief from him, then hurried out of reach before he could stop her. “I’ll make a deal with you,” she said quietly as she poured water into a glass and then onto the handkerchief.

“Go on.”

She drank quickly, then dabbed at her lip with the damp cloth. “If you don’t hurt Jinx, I’ll do anything you say. Go anywhere you say.”

“Not a bad offer,” Campbell commented, holstering his gun. He frowned as she continued to dab gingerly at her cut lip. “I like the sound of it, but there’s a part missing. An important part. Cal Holden.”

“We don’t need to bother with him.” Melora set the handkerchief down on the bureau and faced Campbell, trying to appear calm and forthright. “Cal isn’t important. He’s part of your past. And mine. We have to think about the future.”

She shivered under his stare. It tried to strip her naked, tried to study what lay beneath her words. Melora kept her eyes clear and focused directly upon him.

“I certainly have no desire ever to see him again after the way he treated me.” She continued softly. “I’d like to forget about this—this entire episode and go on.”

“He treated you bad?” His features sharpened. She saw his fists clench, the big knuckles whiten. “Melora, if he touched you, I swear I’ll butcher him like a steer.”

“No, he didn’t. Never,” she lied, “not once. As a matter of fact he scarcely spoke to me.” Melora hurried on. “But he did kidnap me on our wedding night and he ruined all our plans. I hardly thank him for disrupting my life.
Our
lives.” She corrected herself quickly. “And now I only want things to go back to the way they were.”

“They will, honey. They will. As soon as I kill that hombre and get him out of our hair for good, you and me will get married right here in Cherryville.”

Her blood froze. “We will?”

“That’s right. Then we’ll head back to Rawhide and sell both of our properties. Now, I know you’re fond of the Weeping Willow, darling, but all the rustling in those parts doesn’t appear to be coming to an end anytime soon. And the ranch—both ranches—will just drain us financially. We can do better, much better, in San Francisco. As I explained before, the profits from the Weeping Willow and the Diamond X will give us a fine start.”

She couldn’t speak for a moment, could only stare at him. Now, even now, knowing everything she did about him, having been struck and bullied by him, she saw that he expected her to sell the Weeping Willow and go off with him. To sell her home, hers and Jinx’s, their birthright, the land they’d grown up on and cherished, so that she could run some gaming establishment with him. He truly thought she’d be his dutiful little wife, his possession, his pretty toy to show off to the important members of San Francisco society.

I’ll see you eaten by buzzards first,
she vowed silently.

“What about Jinx?” she managed to ask in a subdued tone, needing to know the full extent of his plans, plans he was arrogant enough to think he could really force upon her, just as he would force a marriage.

“Why, Aggie will take Jinx back East. You’ll be pleased to know I’ve found an excellent doctor for her in Philadelphia. Dr. Kirk of the Miller and Peterson Institute. While Jinx is being cured—which might take months, you know, honey, possibly even a year—you and I can make our start in San Francisco.”

“With our gaming establishment.”

“That’s right.” He nodded. “There’s opportunities galore in San Francisco. You’ve never seen anything like it.”

I’ve never seen anything like your colossal gall,
Melora thought, but she struggled to keep her emotions from bubbling to the surface.

“Will you tell me something?” she asked, turning a gaze to him which she hoped appeared mild and docile. “Cal told me that you were involved in rustling back in Arizona. Is it true?”

“He’s a damned liar.”

“So it isn’t true?”

“Well”—he grinned—“maybe just a little bit of rustling.”

The sick bile of disgust rose in her throat. It took all her self-control to keep her voice low and even. “What about in Rawhide? Are you involved
a little bit
in the rustling there as well?”

Campbell didn’t answer at first. He strode to the mirror, smoothed his hair, and studied his own handsome reflection before suddenly turning on his heel and eyeing Melora almost belligerently.

“I’ll tell you something, Melora, because I’m sorry I hit you and I feel I owe you an explanation. Yes, I have been doing some rustling in Rawhide.” He held up a hand as her eyes darkened with a flash of horror. “My little operation there started several months before I officially arrived in town to claim the Diamond X.”

“Which you stole from Cal,” she croaked. And then, moistening her lips, she asked the question that was pounding through her like a sledgehammer, the question that had been at the back of her mind ever since she’d heard about his role in rustling back in Arizona.

“And did you have anything to do with my father’s murder?”

He shook his head. “No, of course not. I wasn’t even in the territory when it happened.”

She desperately wanted to sit down. She felt sick. Sick with rage, sick with grief and overwhelming revulsion. But she straightened her knees and forced herself to remain standing near the bureau. “Was it... some of your men who were... involved?”

She waited, holding her breath.

“Actually, yes.” He crossed to her and would have grasped her arms, but she flinched away, sucking in her breath so loudly and forcefully that Campbell stared at her and scowled.

“Don’t make more of this than necessary, Melora. My men working the valley had specific orders not to kill anyone. It wasn’t my fault that Strong got carried away—”

“Strong!”

“Otis Strong. He doesn’t work for me anymore; he’s nowhere near the Weeping Willow. Last I heard he’d joined some pards of his robbing banks and had a posse after him. He’s probably dead or in prison by now.”

Strong. Otis Strong shot Pop.

“He worked for
you
.” Her voice was so hushed it took him a moment to register what she’d said.

“Yes, he did, but I told you, I never ordered him to shoot anyone.”

A hot, shimmering redness glittered before Melora’s eyes. Her fingers closed over the pitcher, gripping tight as she spun about, lifting it and crashing it down upon his head.

“You bastard!” she screamed, deadly rage pouring out of her. “I’ll kill you!”

Campbell knocked her aside onto the bed with a sharp blow. There was blood running down his temple from one of the broken china shards. “You little bitch,” he rasped. His blue eyes flashed like deadly lightning. “I’ve given you every chance, I bent over backwards to be understanding, but now you’re going to find out exactly what happens when you cross me.”

He lunged toward her as she lay sprawled on the bed, moving with terrifying swiftness, but Melora rolled off it even more quickly and launched herself toward the window. She raised it in one fluid motion and leaned out.

“Help!” she screamed into the street below, a deserted side street overlooking the flour mill. “Help me! Someone help me!”

Then Campbell grabbed her from behind, one arm snaking tight around her throat. He dragged her backward to the bed, flung her down, and flipped her over.

“I’ll kill you!” Melora shouted, fighting him with all her strength. Her teeth clamped down on his forearm, but he immediately hit her with his free hand, a ringing blow that sent a whirling torrent of stars before her eyes.

“I’ll tame you, you spoiled, ungrateful bitch,” Campbell grunted, and pinned her beneath him. He grasped her breast and squeezed it hard between his fingers, pinching and twisting until Melora screamed in agony.

“There, now. I think you’re getting the idea.” Blood dripped down his face and stained his clean white shirt, and there was sweat falling into his eyes, but he was surveying her with infinite gloating satisfaction.

“Melora, I’ve wanted you from the first moment I met you. So you’d better get used to the idea that I’m going to have you, because I always get what I want. Cal Holden learned the hard way that I’ll do whatever I have to do to get ahead in this life. I’ve got plans, big plans. And you’re part of them.”

She shrieked again as he pinched her nipple between his fingers. Stinging tears sprang to her eyes.

But suddenly he froze. Lifting his head, he went taut, listening. Then, swiftly, he clamped a hand over her mouth.

Melora stopped bucking long enough to try to hear whatever had caught his attention.

She heard deep, throaty feminine laughter bubble up from the room next door, then a man’s voice, the words indistinguishable.

“Champagne first!” a woman trilled. “Take off your clothes, lambkins, while I pour!”

“Looks like Miss Lucille has customers next door,” Campbell growled, his fingers pressing cruelly against her mouth. “We wouldn’t want to disturb them, would we?”

Melora twisted her head and snapped her teeth down as hard as she could on his hand.

He yanked it away, swearing, and in that split second she let out a deafening scream. Cursing, Campbell pressed his fingers into her windpipe, cutting off her air.

“No one’s going to pay attention to a woman screaming in a cathouse,” he told her. “But I’ll be damned if I put up with it. Now listen to me, Melora, and listen good. Are you listening?”

She couldn’t breathe. No air could get through to her lungs, and her vision was turning blue, as were her cheeks. With the last of her strength she nodded.

Campbell released her throat. Her hands flew to the tender spot as her mouth opened, and she gasped for air, wanting to kill him, but no longer certain she would live much longer herself.

“I’m sorry about your father,” he said, still straddling her. “But that was Strong’s doing, not mine. He disobeyed my orders, so you can’t hold me accountable.”

“I hate you.”

“But you’ll marry me first thing tomorrow morning. Because if you don’t, I can’t guarantee the safety of your sister. Where the hell is Coyote Jack anyway?” he muttered with a grimace.

“Maybe you should go and find him. Maybe he got lost,” she managed to rasp out past her bruised throat.

“And leave you alone, my sweet little honey pie? Never. Besides, it’s only a stone’s throw to the Gold Bar Hotel. He’ll be back soon enough—maybe too soon.”

Melora couldn’t speak well at that moment, but she could see. She saw the gleam of lust enter his eyes as he stared down at her, and recognized it for the sick, greedy emotion that it was, and she also recognized the driving force behind this man she’d once thought she knew and understood.

Rafe Campbell wasn’t capable of love, not true love. His soul, if he had one, was scarred and dirty. Diseased. He loved power, money. He wanted to control everyone and everything about him.

No wonder our souls never touched,
Melora thought, and then her gaze widened in dismay because Campbell leaned over her once again and cupped her other breast in his hand.

He watched her face as he squeezed painfully, pinching her until she whimpered.

“I’ve been denied my honeymoon because of Cal Holden. Give me one good reason I should wait any longer.”

I’ve got fight left in me yet,
Melora thought on a ragged sob as she struggled anew to escape him. But he held her down, and his lips began to suck greedily at hers.

She bucked frantically. Kicked. Tried to bite his mouth, to claw his flesh with her nails.

“Damn you, don’t fight me, Melora.” His voice boomed off the walls, hoarse, throbbing with an odd mixture of anger and arousal. “You can’t win!”

Suddenly the door to the room crashed open.

Campbell swung his head around, and his mouth fell open, gaping. Cal Holden filled the doorway, fury cold as mountain snow glinting in his eyes.

“Maybe she can’t, Campbell,” he said with awful, deadly calm. “But I sure as hell can.”

Campbell flung himself off Melora in a rolling leap and went for his gun. But Cal tackled him even as he drew it, and they hurtled to the floor with a crash that shook the windows and sent the gun flying.

Melora scrambled up, watching them roll and punch and kick across the carpet, her throat dry with fear. She made a dash toward the gun, but the flailing bodies swerved into her path, and a flying fist caught her shin.

“Get the hell out of the way!” Cal yelled.

She dodged them and tried again to work her way around, watching in silent dread the desperate battle that was under way.

There was a savagery to the fight that sickened her and made her skin crawl with terror. The air was thick with the stench of hatred, of sweat and blood. Each blow echoed through the room, and she gasped as she saw Campbell land a brutal right hook to Cal’s chin, a punch that sent Cal reeling backward onto the carpet.

But he rolled aside as Campbell aimed a kick at his head, and then Cal was somehow on his feet, his expression grim as he swung a powerful fist that crashed with a thud into the other man’s midsection.

At that moment Melora scooped up the gun.

“Stop!” she shouted. “Campbell, back off right now or I’ll shoot.”

To her dismay neither man paid her the least heed. They continued to fight, their bodies locked together in vicious combat. They tumbled into the bureau, crashed over the settee.

Melora, blinking hard in concentration, tried to maneuver one single clear shot, but there was too much movement; she couldn’t fire without the risk of hitting Cal.

And then it was too late because what she saw next froze every bone in her body. Campbell pinned Cal up against the wall, and from inside his boot he yanked out a knife.

“Don’t move, Holden, or I’ll slit your throat.”

He pressed the blade tip against Cal’s neck.

“Drop it or I’ll shoot!” Melora commanded, but he only laughed at her, his gaze fixed on Cal’s cold green eyes. With deliberate precision, he edged the tip of the knife across Cal’s bronzed skin, drawing a thread of blood.

“You drop that gun, Melora, or your would-be rescuer here gets his throat slit in less time than it takes to say a prayer. Drop it—now.”

Shaking, she did as he said. The gun thudded to the floor. “Let him go,” she pleaded, no longer caring how pitifully her voice broke.

“No way, honey. I’m going to kill him and enjoy every second I watch him die.”

“Melora, get out.” Cal spoke with iron calm, his eyes meeting Campbell’s steadily. “Go, Princess, right now.”

“I’m not leaving you!”

Campbell’s mouth twisted as he heard the passion in her voice. He made a whistling sound under his breath. “You should’ve hanged back in Arizona, Holden. You’ve got no damn business still being alive.”

“Why do you hate him so much?” Melora cried.

“I hate anyone who gets in my way.” Campbell was breathing hard, the exertion from the fight affecting him, taking its toll. Yet he held the knife with deadly steadiness.

“When he and his damned brother found out about my little rustling operation, they went straight to Grimstock. And ruined everything. That was a real successful little operation I had going there. But did they hesitate to turn me in? Not for a second.” His voice rose, thick with fury.

“You were supposed to be my friend, Holden, you and Joe both. We were pards, all three of us, but the moment you learned I was making myself a nice bit of money on the side you couldn’t wait to send for the marshal.”

There was no fear in Cal’s eyes as they bored into Campbell’s blazing blue ones. There was only anger, but Melora felt enough fear for both of them. She didn’t understand how Cal could look so dangerous, so confident and calm when he had a knife at his throat.

“You were rustling the man we all worked for,” Cal said quietly, meeting Campbell’s glare. “A man who trusted you, just as Joe and I trusted you.” There was fury beneath the quiet intensity of his voice, but it was a leashed, controlled fury, no less palpable for its deceptive calm. “So Joe and I went to the law; we did what we had to do.”

Campbell scratched the blade at the skin just beneath Cal’s ear. Blood ran down, dripping onto Cal’s shoulder, staining his shirt. But he never flinched.

“And I did what I had to do.” Campbell gave a hoarse laugh.

Melora couldn’t keep silent a moment longer. She despised him, longed to throw herself at him, clawing and hitting, but she didn’t dare move lest he jab that knife into Cal’s throat. Her nails were digging into her hands as she watched in helpless fear. “You’re saying you had to murder that rancher? And frame Joe and Cal for it? Couldn’t you have merely hightailed it out of there and left them alone?”

“Not when I could get rid of them and Grimstock in one easy swoop.” Campbell laughed again, a smug, ugly sound that stirred a loathing inside Melora that was so intense her stomach roiled. “Sheriff Harper and I had a profitable partnership going. I had no desire to give it up until something better came along, and you provided me with that too, Holden.” He mocked Cal with a harsh chuckle. “The deed to the Diamond X Ranch. And that led me to the beauteous Melora.”

“And the Weeping Willow,” Cal said grimly.

“And the Weeping Willow.” Campbell acknowledged it with a broad, triumphant smile.

Then everything seemed to happen at once. The door was kicked in, Melora screamed, and a portly white-haired man jumped nimbly inside with his gun drawn. At the exact same moment Cal slammed a fist into Campbell’s stomach and seized his knife hand.

“Stop in the name of the law!” the white-haired man ordered, but just as the two men had done with Melora, they ignored him, resuming their fight with a heightened ferocity.

Cal’s fist connected again and again with brutal force. Campbell staggered backward, dazed and winded. Cal hit him again, even harder, his eyes cold and intent. And again. This time Campbell fell over the little gold chair, and crashed to the floor. He landed near the gun he’d forced Melora to drop.

“You’re a dead man, Holden!” In a flash he grabbed it, rolled, and pulled the trigger.

But Cal fired first, and Campbell’s shot went wide by inches.

Cal’s didn’t go wide at all. The bullet went straight through Campbell’s heart.

Melora watched in mute horror as Rafe Campbell jackknifed backward and collapsed against the carpet, blood streaming from the gaping wound in his chest. The rich crimson stream of it spread across the ruby threads of the rug.

She stared at that river of blood, too stunned to move. How had Cal fired so quickly? His draw was like lightning, as fast as any gunfighter she’d ever heard of or imagined.

Then her knees buckled, and she sank to the floor, covering her face with her hands. The next thing she knew Cal was there, holding her, his arms around her soothing and gentle, so remarkably gentle.

“It’s over, Melora. Over. Sweet, he’s dead.”

She stared into his bruised face, at his cut skin, and gripped him by the shoulders, clinging to his solidness, his strength. Tears ran down her cheeks, tears of joy, of immeasurable relief. She’d almost lost him, she’d almost had to watch him die, and she suddenly knew that if it had happened, she couldn’t have borne it.

“Cal, thank God.” she whispered. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. “I thought he was going to kill you. He hurt you, didn’t he? There’s so much blood.”

He was bleeding, battered, and weary, but he was alive. There was an intense light in his eyes as he gazed at her, a light that drove some of the chill from her, but as her mind flashed over what had just occurred, she felt her heart rent suddenly in two.

“Oh, no. Cal, you didn’t want to kill him; you wanted his confession,” she gasped, her eyes wide.

He smoothed back her hair. “Can’t have everything we want, can we, Princess?” Gently he laid a finger to the bruises on her face. “You’re hurt,” he said grimly. “Is it bad?”

“No, no, it doesn’t matter. Your plan, that’s what mattered, and I ruined it! It’s all my fault.”

“That’s enough of that, Melora. It’s done.”

Sternly he frowned at her, then slid his arms around her and helped her up. There was a low catch in his voice that made her stare at him as he wound his arm around her waist and held her close. “Melora, the only thing that matters is that you’re safe. I don’t give a damn about Marshal Brock—”

“Someone mention my name?” came a voice from the doorway, and startled, they both jerked around to see the white-haired man still there. They’d both completely forgotten about him. He holstered his gun and leaned a rounded shoulder against the door, his bushy snow white brows knit together as he studied them. Just behind him a young woman with very black, very long, wavy hair and very large breasts gaped into the room from the hall, her heavily rouged face stretched into an expression of horror. She appeared to be wearing nothing more than a feather boa and black garters.

“Who the hell are you?” Cal asked, wiping his bloody face with his sleeve.

The man pushed away from the door, ambled farther into the room, and nudged Campbell’s prone form with the tip of his boot. “I told you. The law. Marshal Everett T. Brock, retired, at your service, young man.”

“Brock! I’ve been going by your house every single damned day. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Doing what I like best these days since I retired.” Chuckling, he threw a fond glance over his shoulder at the woman in the boa and spoke to her in a jovial tone. “You go on back and pour us some more of that French champagne, Dolly. I’ll be there quicker’n you can bat your eye.”

Melora listened dazedly as the marshal moved closer and addressed Cal. “We were in the next room and couldn’t help overhearing, son. Quite an interesting story that fellow had to tell.”

“You heard all he said? What he did?”

“Every word of it.”

Cal gaped at him, then broke into a grin. “Melora, do you know what this means? I can’t believe it.”

But Melora was suddenly remembering something that made her heart stop and the blood drain from her face.

“Cal!” An anguished cry broke from her throat. The two men stared at her as she launched herself toward the door like a madwoman.

“Jinx! How could I forget? Cal, we have to hurry. Give me a gun! Jinx is at the Gold Bar Hotel with Coyote Jack!”

* * *

Jesse managed to twist aside from the kick aimed at his head, but Coyote Jack’s next kick caught him in the stomach. He doubled over in pain, trying to breathe as the wind flew out of his lungs and his ribs exploded with agony. Desperately he tried to get up, but Coyote Jack slammed a fist into his jaw.

Jesse went down with a grunt and a crash.

“Stop it!” Jinx screamed, her small face shining white with terror. “Stop it, you’ll kill him!”

“That’s the idea, little girl.” Coyote Jack chuckled and turned his attention again to the moaning youth on the floor.

Jinx closed her eyes for an instant, unable to bear the horror of the beating the boy was enduring. Then she opened them.
You have to do something.
But what could she do?

When Pop was killed, she couldn’t do anything. She was riding through the grass, and there he was, lying there in the brush. Covered with blood. Dead, already dead. Then Sir Galahad had reared up, and she’d felt herself flying, flying...

There was nothing she could do for Pop.

But there is something you can do now. Right now. Stop him,
a voice inside her head commanded. It sounded like Pop’s voice.
Stop him now.

Her gaze fixed itself upon the crystal flower vase on the mantel. She pushed herself up in her chair without thinking. The crystal winked and beckoned. With each grunt and groan and sickening thud that assaulted her ears, its light grew more brilliant.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as she came out of her chair. She didn’t feel the sagging ache of her leg muscles, she didn’t feel the floor beneath her feet. She only knew that she reached the mantel, reached up, felt the cool shimmer of the crystal in her hands. She only saw Coyote Jack’s dirty, shaggy hair sticking out beneath his hat as he leaned over the fallen boy. She hurled the vase.

It struck him square in the back of the head.

He grunted in pain and staggered, his eyes lighting on her with an expression of astonishment, quickly followed by one of murderous rage.

From the corner of her eye she saw Jesse lunge upward, then everything became a blur of color and motion as the boy grabbed frantically for the gun in Coyote Jack’s gun belt. He managed to yank it out of the holster, but the bounty hunter swung back to take it away.

She never saw how the gun went off, she only heard the report, inhaled the acrid smell of gunsmoke, and heard as if from a far distance her own thin, hollow screams echoing through the room, echoing around and around and around.

Suddenly the room was full of people, and they all were watching Coyote Jack sink to the floor, while Jesse Holden stared dazedly down at the smoking gun in his hand, and Jinx clung to the mantel.

Voices jabbered, the room spun. Then Jinx felt herself embraced in soft, clutching arms.

“Jinx, sweetie, it’s me. It’s Mel. Everything’s over now, you’re going to be fine. Do you hear me? You’re going to be just fine! But how did you get here? You’re standing, Jinx.
Standing
.”

The little girl gazed up with shining, wondering eyes into her sister’s anxious face. Suddenly her legs weakened, the strain of walking after so many months in a chair catching up with her. She gave a slight moan as she slid toward the floor.

Melora’s arms tightened, gently lowering her. Then Jinx threw her arms around Melora’s neck as they crouched together on the floor.

“I walked, Mel,” she whispered, the joyful words slipping out with breathless awe.
“I walked.”

Melora shook her head. “I know, but how? How?”

“She did it to save me,” Jesse piped up, his voice thin and strained as Cal wound a neckerchief tightly around his wounded arm. “She walked right to the mantel and picked up that vase and threw it at this varmint here.”

“Did she hit him?” Cal wanted to know.