Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (30 page)

“Darlin’, darlin’, darlin’,” she screeched. “I missed ya!”

Pack chuckled. He put his hands beneath her arms and peeled her off him and lowered her until her feet were on the floor.

“One of these days you’re going to get me shot.” His voice scolded, but he was grinning down at the pixie face snuggled against his arm. “One of your lovesick customers is going to do me in if you don’t stop that.”

“Oh, poot on them! Are ya all right, love? Did them dirty, low-down bastards hurt ya? Do ya need a shave today? Or a bath?”

Pack laughed. “Yes to the first, honey. No to everything else. I’ve got business to tend to.”

“Business with Miss Candy?” She hugged his arm and her bottom lip came out in a pout.

Nan had come to Laramie two years before riding on one of Pack’s freight wagons. He had found her in a mining camp, beaten almost to death by the gambler who claimed to be her husband. When Pack walked into the tent that served as the whorehouse, he had taken one look at her, and all his pent-up desire had faded in an instant. She was sick with a fever, and her face, arms and upper body were covered with big red and purple bruises. Lying there listlessly, she looked up at him with dull, disinterested eyes, waiting for him to use her slight body in any way his lust demanded.

When he left the camp, Nan had been with him. The gambler lay on the cot, his face swollen beyond recognition. He had been no match for Pack’s fists. As soon as he was able, the gambler headed farther west toward San Francisco hoping never again to run into the Irish freighter with the terrible temper and rock-hard fists.

Pack was the moon and the stars as far as Nan was concerned. He was up there somewhere near to God in her eyes. He had set her up in the barbershop and left her to build the life she wanted. Pack sat in her barber chair and in her bathtub, but he had never been in her bed. She had become something like a younger sister to him; and although he knew what she was, he offered no advice or criticism.

“Are Ballard and Wilson still in town?”

“They’re the ones that done it.” Bright red spots appeared in her cheeks, the sign of anger rising. “They set them toughs on you.”

“Are they still here?” He put his hands on her shoulders and held her away from him when she would have wrapped her arms about his waist.

“Ballard is. Wilson hightailed it.” Her pert nose, sprinkled with dark freckles, wrinkled when she giggled. “He come waltzin’ in here for a bath just like he was the only rooster in the hen house. I waited till he was naked as a jaybird, then I tippytoed in aswingin’ my razor. I says, ‘There’s a dozen men in this here town that want to stay on my good side. All I got to do is crook my little finger and they’ll hold you down while I cut off that little bitty old peanut you call a pecker.’ ” Nan grinned and lifted her chin as if she had accomplished a great feat. “He didn’t know that everybody in town knew what him and Ballard had been up to. Lordy! He was out of that tub like a shot. He threw on his clothes and took off like a turpentined cat!”

“Is Ballard down at the Kitty?”

“As far as I know. That’s where he hangs out. He’s not been in here yet. Must be gettin’ his bath over at Jake’s.”

“You’re a rapscallion, that’s what you are.” Pack put his forefinger on her nose and smiled down into her beaming face.

“I figured you’d want me to leave one a them for you.”

“You figured right. I’d have been mad as hell if you hadn’t.”

“Well, are ya goin’ to stand there lollygaggin’ all day?” Willy snorted impatiently.

“You still here?” Pack asked over his shoulder.

“I’m waitin’.”

“Waiting for what?”

“Fireworks.”

Pack turned and gave Willy a cold stare. “You’ve got things to do, Willy.”

“Don’t ya want me to go with ya to the Kitty?”

“What the hell for? The last time you horned in on one of my fights you lost two teeth, busted a rib, and were crippled up for a month.” Pack went to the door, paused and looked back. Nan had climbed up into the barber chair. “Take care of yourself, honey.”

“You too. Will you stop by afterward?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Why didn’t ya tell her ya’d up ’n got yoreself married to a McCall?” Willy asked as they walked on down the street.

“Because it’s none of her business. It’s none of yours either.”

“She’ll think it is.”

“No, she won’t. I set her straight about that a long time ago. See ya at the corrals later.”

*  *  *

Pack went through the double doors at the Diamond Saloon. The room was cool and the light was dim. The long bar down one side gleamed with polished wood and shining glasses. The tables against the opposite wall were spaced to permit a private conversation. There were no nude pictures behind the bar and no loud, bawdy music. The brass spittoons that sat on the floor behind the bar rail, where up to twenty men could stand and rest a booted foot, were cleaned and polished. Tall crocks of sand stood between the tables for cigarette butts. The Diamond Saloon was not a place where a man spit on the floor or threw his cigarette butt to the floor and ground it with his boot heel. The atmosphere prohibited loud talk, obscene language, and banging on the table to get service from the bar.

A few of the tables were occupied by men in dark suits, mostly merchants and traveling men. The Diamond was too quiet for the rowdy element in town. Pack walked up to the bar. The man behind it was polishing glasses. His beard was almost as white as the apron tied about his waist.

“Howdy, Boston. Is Miss Camp upstairs?”

“She hasn’t been down this morning. Want a beer before you go up?”

“A small one.”

“You don’t look bad for what they say happened, Pack.”

“I made out all right.” Pack put a coin on the counter and took a long drink from the glass.

“Miss Candy was fit to be tied when she heard the news. There’s nothing secret in this town.”

“Did the men come back here?”

“One did. He was crowing about what they’d done when he got hit in the mouth. He went out like a light. When he woke up, he found himself in old Mrs. Swain’s hog pen. It’s a wonder the hogs didn’t eat him. You got friends here, Pack.”

“Where did he go?”

Boston lifted his shoulders. “Who knows? His coattail wasn’t touching his backside when he left town.”

Pack set the empty glass on the bar. “Thanks, Boston.”

He went up the stairway at the end of the saloon. At the top he turned the corner and rapped softly on the door. It opened almost at once.

“Hello, Pack. I saw you leaving the bank.”

The blond woman swung the door open wider. Pack took off his hat and came into the large, airy room. The windows were open and the lace curtains fluttered in the breeze.

“I sold out to a Nebraskan and put my money in Flagg’s bank. I guess it’s as safe there as anywhere.”

“I suppose so. Sit down. I’ll get you something to drink.”

“I just had a beer downstairs.”

“Well, sit down.” She moved to the chairs that flanked a small table. “I was worried about you. It’s been more than a month since I heard about you being hurt.”

Pack sat down carefully. He was always uneasy in Candy’s rooms. He didn’t trust the chair to hold him, and he was afraid he’d knock over some knickknack she had sitting around.

“It wasn’t too bad.”

“But you were shot.” Her large blue eyes took on a worried look.

“Flesh wounds. Almost all healed now.”

“Were you at the Rivers’ place?”

“No. I was out at the old McCall place. My mother and Mara Shannon McCall, her niece by marriage, bandaged me up. My mother passed on a couple of weeks later. I guess you could say those thugs did me a favor. If not for them, I wouldn’t have been with her during her last days.”

“I’m sorry about your mother.”

Candace Camp was one of the few people in whom Pack had ever confided. She knew about his mother being married to Aubrey McCall, his dislike for Cullen McCall, and how he had tried to get his mother to leave Aubrey and come to town where he could find someone to take care of her.

Little lines at the corners of Candy’s eyes and at the sides of her mouth were evidence that she was somewhere between five and ten years older than Pack. Yet she was still a beautiful woman with soft white skin, silky blond hair and curves in the right places. She was neat and perfectly dressed at all times. Pack had known her for several years and he had never knocked on her door and found her with a single strand of hair out of place or wearing a wrinkled or soiled dress.

A stranger seeing Candace Camp sitting in church on Sunday morning would never think that she ran a saloon, or that a few select men, of which Pack was one, were welcome in her bed. Pack had enjoyed the physical part of their relationship. Candy was a giving woman and at times a lusty one who enjoyed the physical union. More than that, she was the only woman with whom he had ever been able to converse on a variety of subjects. She didn’t preach to him about his boxing or condemn him because men bet on his fights and lost money they couldn’t afford to lose. She simply took him for what he was.

“Has Cullen been to town?”

“I’ve not heard that he’s been here.”

“He must have gone to Cheyenne. I don’t care where the hell he goes as long as he stays away from . . . the twins.”

Pack’s dark eyes held her light blue ones. His eyes were so dark blue, so mirror dark, that she could see her own reflection in them. Candy felt a spurt of intense pleasure as she did each time she was with him. A tingling thrill traveled down the length of her spine, making her almost giddy.

“Do you want to go to bed, Pack?” she asked softly and reached for his hand. “It’s been a long time.”

Pack took her small, soft hand and held it between his calloused palms.

“No, Candy, not that the offer isn’t tempting. I came up to tell you that I was married a few weeks ago. When the preacher came out to read my mother’s funeral service, he married me and Mara Shannon McCall.”

Candy’s face paled. She pulled her hand from beneath his before he could feel the trembling that started with her heart and traveled the full length of her body.

“You’re married?” The smile she gave him was the practiced one she gave the customers at the saloon. “Congratulations.”

“It was sudden. I hadn’t intended to wed.”

“Do you love her?”

“I’ve known her since she was a little girl. She’s been in a school in Denver. Her father was Shannon McCall, the best friend I ever had.”

“I know. You told me about Shannon McCall, but you never mentioned that he had a daughter.”

Candy put a happy smile on her face. Pack would never know that she was dying inside, that all she had wanted in the world was to have his love, to spend the rest of her life with him. She might as well have wished for the moon.

“Will you be going to Denver?”

“No. We’re going to ranch on the old McCall place. There are two thousand acres of land out there and more lease land if we need it. I’m going to raise some money to buy longhorn cattle. A fellow I know is bringing a herd up from Texas next spring.”

She could see the excitement in his eyes and hear it in his voice.

“And to raise the money you’ll fight Moose Kilkenny.”

“You’ve heard about that?”

“Kilkenny’s promoter is in town. He’s a very nice man. We’ve become . . . acquainted.”

“Does that mean you’ll bet against me?” he teased.

“I’ll never, ever bet against you,” she said emphatically and stood. “Now that you’re married, you’ll have no need of me, but I want a kiss for old times’ sake.”

Pack got to his feet and put his arms around her. Her hands moved up his chest and locked behind his neck.

“We can still be friends, Candy. I’d like you to know Mara Shannon. She’s headstrong, like most of us Irish, but I think you’ll like her after you get to know her.”

“It would be best for both of us if we never met. It’s foolish for you to think she’d like me.”

Candy closed her eyes so he’d not see the sudden moistness there. He kissed her gently on the lips.

“You’d make a man a hell of a wife.”

Candy laughed. “Believe it or not, several have asked me lately: a railroad woodchopper who wanted to take me back to camp, three track layers who have their own tent at the end of the line, and two gamblers who wanted to set up their tables downstairs.”

“Do Judge Moore and Doc Billings still come to see you?” Pack asked on the way to the door.

Candy smiled with her lips, but not with her eyes. “Occasionally. And I’ve come to know the promoter from Kansas City quite well. He’s handsome, gentle and refined. I won’t be lonesome.”

“Good-bye, Candy. You’re a sweet woman.” He kissed her on the lips again and went out the door.

When she was alone, Candy leaned her forehead against the thick slab. She could hear his footsteps going down the stairs. “But being sweet didn’t do me any good, did it, Pack?”

*  *  *

On the way down the stairs Pack screwed his hat down tight on his head. He had one more chore to do before he could head for home. Suddenly he wanted it to be over. He wanted to get out of town and out into the open. A pair of emerald eyes had haunted him all day. Sooner or later he had to bring Mara Shannon to town. Lord! What would she think of Nan? She had already heard about Candy from the twins. Her opinion of him would take another nosedive when she found out he was going to fight Moose Kilkenny. One more fight would give him enough money to buy in with Sam and Charlie, and Sam could bring up that herd of longhorns.

He saw Sam coming toward him from the corrals as he neared the Kosy Kitty. He was walking beside a tall, well-dressed older man with a neat gray beard. Pack raised his hand in greeting, then turned into the saloon. Ballard was his trouble, and there was no need for Sam mixing into it.

The Kosy Kitty was noisy. A dozen card games were going on and the bar was crowded. Booted feet scraped on the plank floor. Pack stood inside the door, letting his eyes become accustomed to the light before he began scanning faces for Ballard, for any one of the four men who had waylaid him, and for Cullen. He had almost completed his search of the room when a sudden hush fell. Chair legs scraped on the floor as necks were craned to get a look at him. Pack finished his methodical search, then spoke to the man leaning against the back bar, beneath the picture of the naked woman reclining on purple robes.