Hell's Belle (5 page)

Goodness, but Twila
never would have been, if a man had looked at her that way! Well, maybe some
other
man, but not this one. If this particular man ever looked at her and talked so
friendly like that, Twila would probably sputter like a fool and not remember
her own name, or…

Twila realized she
was
sputtering like a fool, in her own thoughts. And he wasn't even looking at
her
.

In that instant,
Twila decided the amazing hallmark of Opening Day for her would always be the
moment this stranger appeared inside the store. Not the horse—which was somehow
connected to him—but the man himself. A
horse
could crash through the
storefront and destroy the whole front half of the place, but Twila was ruffled
by the cowboy who'd come to see about the mess.

What on earth had
come over her?

She snatched the
offending corset away from Lucius, who'd finally risen to his feet. "Are
you all right?"

He winced but
straightened. "The horse sort of broke my fall. I mean, he knocked me off
the ladder, but then I hit his rump and just kept coming."

The lanky fellow,
Leon, began chuckling. "See, Boss? Now there's the mark of a fine quarter
horse! Always under his rider, no matter what the terrain. Gordon will be
pleased as punch."

"The devil
with this Gordon, whoever he is!" Fletcher looked about to choke on his
own saliva. "I want that animal out of my store immediately, and you
hooligans are going to pay for every blessed thing you broke. My son could have
been killed!"

The second man, the
handsome, uppity one the other man called "boss," gave Lucius a
withering look before quirking an eyebrow at Fletcher. "Killed from
falling off an eight-foot ladder? A man would have to be cursed with the worst
luck—"

"Don't talk to
me about bad luck! I'm an expert on the subject. If that insufferable female
hadn't been here, the whole incident likely wouldn't have happened. I should
have known better than to tempt fate by asking you to sweep the floor."

Twila's cheeks
burned and she dropped her eyes. She'd withstood Fletcher's tirades in front of
strangers before, but not
this
stranger. Not in front of him…and those
women of questionable virtue. Suddenly Twila just wanted to die, she was so
mortified.

"The simplest
act. Just sweep the floor. But if there's a way to decimate everything—"

"Now hold on
there a sec," the stranger interjected. "The gal had nothing to do
with it. I wasn't twenty feet away when the horse bucked and keeled up onto
your porch. The female didn't come into it until the pony broke through the
window and put on that gingham veil. You oughtn't be so hard on your
daughter."

"She's not my
daughter," Fletcher snapped. "She's my niece, the family curse! The
one and only Hell's Bell." He tapped Twila's upper arm. "Go on
upstairs. Your apron's torn and you look like a tornado hit you. You need to
look presentable to the customers."

Twila eased her
apron out from between the horse's teeth, yanked the curtain off its head, and
glanced back at the stranger. She would never forget the look in his eyes. The
merriment was gone. They'd gone a deep slate, a color she could drown in, and
spoke to her. Bits and pieces of things she didn't understand. But she flushed,
because somewhere in the mix was the ugly assurance that he was embarrassed for
her.

He turned to face
her uncle. "Listen, Bell…" Twila realized something else about the
stranger then. He'd seen the banner before it crashed down. He'd known her
family's name all along. Not because of what Uncle Fletcher just said, which
most would have taken to be the word "belle," as in young woman. No,
he'd known Bell was their surname, and could have been polite, apologetic,
circumspect in addressing her uncle. Considering his horse had done all the
damage, he should have been.

But he treated
Fletcher Bell with the same disdain Fletcher showed to others. Twila's
estimation of the horseman rose another notch.

"I got to meet
a man and do some serious horse trading. I take full liability for the damage
to your place. The window, this china, all of it. Figure up a total and let me
know what I owe. I'll be back in a couple days, and settle the tab."

Fletcher snorted.
"How do I know—"

"Because I
said so. Name's Del Mitchell. I own a horse ranch just outside of town proper,
along the riverbank. Everybody in this town knows who I am, and every man here
will tell you I'm as good as my word. Might spit into the wind or climb a pine
tree while gargling salt water, but I've never cheated anybody."

This had the two
women giggling and rolling their eyes.

"Pine tree…?
Hey, you can't just leave us in a mess like this!" Fletcher stammered.
"At least have your man stay and help us clean up. My son's injured, and
I've got customers."

"Oh, right.
Betsy, buy something from Mr. Bell here and put it on my tab over at Minerva's.
Sorry, Bell, but your son's going to have to manage. I need my wrangler to help
me deliver some horses."

Then he pivoted,
glancing back over at her, and Twila's heart thumped again.

"Miss
Bell," he intoned with that caressing tone of voice again. He touched a
finger to his hat brim, and Twila could almost swear she felt the rough tip of
that finger. She actually shivered inside from the sensation. "It's been a
genuine pleasure."

Then he walked out.

The horse meekly
followed, reins trailing in its wake.

Twila knew just how
the animal felt. Her feet were glued to the floor and she couldn't seem to form
a single word, but without so much as a word, if he'd wanted her to, Twila
sensed she would have followed him just as blandly as the horse had done.

Then Betsy appeared
in Twila's line of vision and smiled. A feminine, knowing smile. "Careful,
sweetie. Bad enough the horse chewed your apron. You don't want to let Delancy
Mitchell do the same to your skirts."

"Welcome back,
Mitchell. Do any good with the horse sales this time around?"

Del ignored the
question. Postmaster Stanislaus was possibly the worst busybody Del had ever
encountered. Everybody held that gossiping was a female's pastime, but anybody
in this small town who still believed that obviously never went by the post
office. Del didn't offer up any information, just pointedly glanced down at the
envelopes in Amos' hand.

"Those letters
wouldn't happen to be for me or my men, would they?"

Amos looked down
himself, seeming to realize for the first time that he held a batch of mail in
his fist. "Uh, yessir, right enough." He made a production of
thumbing through the envelopes. "Something for Leon, another two for Henry
Dobbs. None for you this time around. But that Dobbs sure has been getting more
than his share of letters lately. Why, he must have had four letters just this
past month."

For a split second,
Del wondered why the postmaster would bother to count how many letters anyone
in town received. But he tamped down the mild curiosity. He wasn't going to
discuss Henry Dobbs' personal business. Maybe that was how Stanislaus got so
much gossip from folks. He tricked them into volunteering details about their
lives that were nobody's concern.

"I'll see he
gets these," Del replied, reaching to take the mail out of the older man's
hand.

"That sure was
a shame about the Fourth of July celebration, wasn't it? Oh, I forgot. You and
Leon and the others were gone…so you didn't even hear about it yet."

There was a
distinct gleam in the man's eyes. "Widow Pratt try baking her awful pies
again?" Del couldn't help but chuckle at the thought. A couple of years
before, at least a dozen men spent all day July 5th in their outhouses after
the widow's pies got donated to the pie-eating contest. Luckily for him, Del
wasn't much for pie. "Thank the Lord I never enter those eating
competitions. Pie, watermelon, whatever. I avoid 'em."

"Unless it's
whipped cream and chocolate syrup. They say you pretty much took the honors in
that one," Amos quipped.

Del had heard more
than enough about that debacle and made his feeling clear to any man who dared
broach the subject of his aborted wedding. Apparently Amos' memory was
slipping. "Don't want to hear about that again, Amos. There's times when a
man has to learn to put a muzzle on before his flapping jaw gets him into
trouble."

Amos flushed and
glanced around. "Well, there is and there isn't. I figure since you missed
all the commotion and it sort of affects you…in a roundabout sense, you should
be told. And it's exactly the sentiment you just expressed that will keep
others from informing you about it."

Del bit down on his
tongue so hard, he could swear he tasted blood. He really didn't want to know
what other folks said about him, even if it was only "in a roundabout
sense." He damned well knew better than to ask. You didn't poke a sleeping
grizzly to ask if he thought you'd make a nice dinner. But frigging Amos had
hooked him. Nothing to be done but regret it later.

"What
happened, and why's it any concern of mine?"

Del hunkered over
the counter and rested his elbows on it. Stanislaus really ought to put in
chairs, like the barber had. Picking up mail was an hour-long endurance test.
The postal customers should at least be allowed to sit while their postmaster
bent their ears.

Amos went over and
locked the front door, flipped his sign to "Closed."

A premonition
skittered down Del's spine and pooled in the heels of his boots. Amos had never
locked up to confide a malicious rumor before. Which meant one of two
possibilities:  either it
wasn't
just a rumor, but could actually have
some basis in truth…or it was going to be way beyond malicious. Something truly
heinous. Downright vile.

Dear God, no.

"Jesus, don't
tell me Jordy finally went too far?" Del seized the older man's collar in
his fist. "Did they hang that bastard while I was out of town? They get up
a lynch mob or something, Amos?"

Amos slapped at
Del's fingers. "Christ, of course not!" His shirt collar freed, Amos
smoothed it and glowered at Del. "Everybody knows that horse's ass
is
a horse's ass. He ain't worth the rope it would take to hang him. Zoyer isn't
even at the core of the trouble this time. No, this time it's a woman."

Del was swamped
with relief. "Oh, well, that's a whole other kettle of fish. You know
those painted cats. If it's not a disease or dispute over money, then it's some
woman's husband run off with the best piece of pussy he's ever had. Who's the
fella? Anybody I know?"

Amos cleared his
throat. "That's the oddest part. It ain't one of …them." When Amos
paused significantly, Del knew he was steering back in the other direction. A
direction that could lead to a gal like Betty Lee…and he really wasn't going to
listen to any tale concerning that particular woman. But before he could say
so, Amos stunned him into silence.

"It's that new
Miss Bell, from the emporium. I heard about your horse tearing up the place.
Folks say you were there yourself. Same morning you left town for the sale, in
fact. You met her?"

Del didn't
understand why simply affirming that basic fact made him squirm mentally, but
it did. Mighty peculiar, the vague unease creeping into the back of his mind.
Sure, he'd met her. If you could call exchanging two sentences with somebody
while your horse chewed their clothing a formal introduction. And that's all it
had been. Five minutes of—

No, it wasn't
, his mind argued.
You thought
about her afterward. About the color of her hair, the look in her eyes. Not
just their rare golden color, but the silent look in them that spoke volumes to
you. She looked…confused, and yet interested.

Hell of a thing,
when a man wanted to muzzle his own thought processes almost worse than he
wanted to muzzle Amos Stanislaus.

"I met her
briefly," Del said. "Seemed a shy little thing. So what's all the big
commotion about?"

Amos glanced around
before speaking, which only made Del more uncomfortable. The man had locked the
damned front door. He knew full well nobody else was around to hear them, yet
he kept checking. How bad could anything concerning that mouse of a Bell girl
possibly be? Unless her uncle had hurt her or had unnatural leanings…or there
was some other dark family secret Del had no business butting into.

"Her uncle
didn't…
do
anything, did he?"

Amos didn't seem to
hear the whispered question. "I've got to tell you, Mitchell, I'm being as
honest with you as I know how. You're one of the solid citizens of this town,
and it just isn't right. Sure, I make mention of improprieties and maybe think
folks could be a little more proper, for all that this is the frontier…but
they've taken things too far. It's not Salem, Massachusetts, for God's
sake!"

What in the name of
green peas and horseradish sauce was this idiot blathering about?