Sweetwater Seduction (27 page)

She made up her mind then and there to confront Miss Devlin at the Sweetwater Ladies Social Club meeting on the morrow. There had to be some other way to settle the problems between the ranchers and the nesters. Regina happened to be standing beside the coatrack at the front door when Hadley passed her on his way out.

“Where are you headed, young man? I thought we agreed you would rest today.”

“I'm feeling fine, Mother. I can't stand being cooped up any longer.”

Hadley had given up the sling, but it was apparent from the way he favored his shoulder that his wound still bothered him. This incident had made him all the more precious to Regina, and she had begun acting like a hen with one chick. He had chafed at her mothering all week. It was time she untied the apron strings. There was always danger here on the frontier. A woman learned to live with the thought that her man might not come home at night. Somehow it was harder with her son, perhaps because she still saw him as a toddler, needing her help simply to stand on two feet.

Regina tried to look at Hadley with a stranger's eyes. He was easily a half-foot taller than she was, and lean, a little thinner since he had been shot, but still hardy. He had his father's sandy blond hair, except Oak's had turned gray ten years ago, and clear, wide-spaced blue eyes topped by bushy brows. His nose had the same narrow shape as Oak's, and his cheekbones were equally high and wide. Like his father, he had a generous mouth, with full lips that smiled easily. It was an honest face. And a determined one. “At least promise me you'll keep an eye on the weather,” Regina said with a resigned smile. “It lo like a snowstorm might be on its way.”

“I will, Mother.”

Regina held her cheek ready for Hadley's buss, then caught him in a quick hug before he escaped. There was a sense of suppressed excitement about him for which she had no explanation. She discounted the premonition of danger she felt, knowing it was exacerbated by the fact that the sheriff still had no idea who had shot Hadley. Would the man who had gunned down her son dare try again? She yanked open the door and yelled out to him, “Be careful!”

Hadley shook his head ruefully at his mother's concern, and waved good-bye as he kicked his horse into a lope toward town. Sometimes she treated him like he was still a kid. He was full-grown, well able to take care of himself. In fact, he thought with a grin of pleasure, when next he saw her, he was going to be a married man, with a child of his own on the way.

The gunslinger's corpse had disappeared.

Levander Early sat on his horse staring at the dried bloodstains on the ground, his back to the wind, his face wrinkled in a tense frown. A week ago he had returned to the site of the dry gulch, to gloat, actually, and hadn't been able to find Kerrigan's remains. At first he had thought he must be in the wrong place. But he had found the ashes from their fire right enough. There had to be an explanation for the lack of bones, or at least rags from Kerrigan's clothes, that the wolves' and vultures' ravaging would have left. The only explanation Levander had come up with made him shiver in his boots: Kerrigan wasn't dead.

But if the man from Texas wasn't dead, where was he? Levander looked across the rolling prairie. It was the chilling cold, not fear, he reasoned, that had caused the shudder rolling through his body.

During the past week, the sheriff had been in and out of town, and therefore hard to catch, but Levander had checked with Doc Harper, and with all the nesters he thought might have offered aid to the gunslinger, to no avail. He had gone to the Dog's Hind Leg to see if any of the cowboys drinking there might know where the Texan was. All he had heard was that no one knew where Kerrigan was, or whether he was dead or alive.

The weather had been threatening for a week now, and Levander had to move those cattle out of Sweetwater Canyon before the snow boxed them in. And before somebody else accidentally stumbled onto them.

He was lucky Pete Eustes had come straight to him with the news of what he'd found in Sweetwater Canyon, as they'd agreed at the meeting. Levander was proud of how he'd taken care of Pete and left it looking like the ranchers were to blame. He might not be so lucky next time. He needed to move those cattle.

He scratched an itch under his arm. What if Kerrigan was out there somewhere, waiting for him to make his move? He didn't like it.

He stiffened at the sound of a man's voice carrying on the wind. He drew his Winchester from its sheath and sighted along the skyline, searching for a target. His finger was tense on the trigger, and he felt beads of sweat form on his forehead despite the cold. Kerrigan wasn't going to catch him flatfooted. That lucky son of a bitch wasn't going to catch him at all.

When a phaeton-type buggy, with a fancy black leather top like the ones they rented at the livery in town, appeared on the horizon, he relaxed slightly. Kerrigan was a loner; there were two figures in the buggy. He kept his gun steadied on the one on the left. His brow furrowed when he realized who it was he had in his sights. Hadley Westbrook. That nester girl, Bliss Davis, was in the buggy with him. Levander let his Winchester rest across his thighs, his thoughts churning. What were the two of them doing together so far from town? He decided to follow them and find out.

Miss Devlin was ready to spit nails. Now that Kerrigan's back was nearly healed, there was no keeping him in bed. She had given him back his Levi's, but he had to settle for draping one of her shawls over his shoulders, because she had destroyed his shirt. He sat at her kitchen table looking like someone's great-grandma. She was sure he was delaying his recovery by refusing to remain in bed, but there was nothing she could do to keep him there other than to sit on him.

She practically threw the plate of ham and eggs down in front of him. “You're being bullheaded. Why won't you go back to bed?”

“A bed is best used for three things: sleeping, dying, and loving. I'm not tired and I have no intention of dying. As for the other . . .” His roguish smile created the twin creases on either side of his mouth that she found so attractive. “I'm ready for bed whenever you say the word.”

“That would kill you for sure,” Miss Devlin muttered under her breath.

“Yeah, but what a way to go.”

Miss Devlin threw up her hands. “A gentleman would have pretended he hadn't heard what I said.”

When Kerrigan chuckled, her mouth snapped shut like a mousetrap. He had made it clear he was no gentleman. She would do well to remember it.

Miss Devlin poured them each another cup of coffee and joined him at the kitchen table. “What happens now?”

“I'm going to need some things from my hotel room—long johns, a couple of shirts, pants, a coat, and a gun. Can you get them without being seen?”

“I have some clothes in the attic that might fit you.”

“A spinster who keeps a man's clothes in her attic? That's intriguing.”

Eden's mouth took on the prunish look he hadn't seen for a while. “They belonged to my father.”

“I'll still need a gun—”

“There's also a gun you might be able to use.”

“I need a
real
gun, Miss Devlin.”

“This is a specially made Navy Colt. Ivory handle. Tooled-leather holster. You should find it to your liking,” she said acidly. “It's killed a dozen men at least.”

Her gray eyes had turned icy blue again, and her complexion was flushed nearly the same shade as her freckles. Felton would be getting a lot more woman than he realized. Kerrigan was starting to regret that deal he'd made with the Association to seduce Miss Devlin. Because if he followed through . . .

On the other hand, the choice was, and always would be, hers—despite what she said about fate. He wasn't going to force her into bed. And he wouldn't leave her with any illusions that it would be forever. When he had her, it would be because she wanted it to happen. And he would make it good for her. If she had regrets later, it wouldn't be about that part of it, not if he could help it, anyway.

He glanced over at Eden. From the frown of concentration on her face, he surmised there must be some bad memories connected to her father's gun. Maybe he had used it during the war. Maybe he had even died using it. Kerrigan wanted to know more, but he wasn't in fit form to match barbs with Miss Devlin, so he simply said, “If it's all right with you, I'll have a look at your father's gun after breakfast.”

“Fine.”

Miss Devlin refused Kerrigan's help getting her father's things down from the attic. “You'll only be in the way. And admit it, you can hardly keep your eyes open.”

His lips twisted in chagrin. “As a matter of fact, I could use a little help getting back to the bedroom.”

Miss Devlin eyed him suspiciously but had to admit he looked a little pale. Once she was aligned with the gunslinger from hip to breast, she was much too aware of him as a man. She could feel his breath in her hair, and the warmth and weight of his hand curled around her shoulder for support. Only a layer of cloth separated her from his naked torso, and under her hand she felt the surprising softness of the hair on his chest. Her blood quickened, and it became difficult to breathe. She kept her eyes down so he wouldn't see how much his closeness disturbed her.

“After all these years of being unmarried,” Kerrigan said as they made their way to the bedroom, “why did you agree to let Felton Reeves start coming to call? What is it he's able to offer you that's so attractive?”

“Security. Stability. And he'll make a good father for my children.”

“I didn't hear the word
love
in there anywhere,” Kerrigan said.

Eden stepped away and left Kerrigan standing on his own. “I like Felton very much. And he likes “
Liking each other
doesn't sound to me like a very strong basis for a marriage,” Kerrigan said with a snort.

“That remains to be seen. Besides, it's not your marriage, so it doesn't matter what you think.”

Eden had gotten progressively more angry. Kerrigan distracted her from further argument by saying, “I could use a shoulder to lean on.”

She stepped back to him, but he could feel the difference when he put his arm around her shoulder. Before, she had been hugged up snug against him. Now, she was stiff as a fence post and there was no give in her. All because he'd pointed out that she only
liked
Felton, she didn't
love
him.

Miss Devlin made sure Kerrigan was settled before she left the room. “Get some rest. If you're bent on killing yourself, I want you well and out of here before you succeed.”

She turned and left him alone, shutting the door firmly behind her.

Miss Devlin used a stepladder to reach the attic. The air was frigid up there, and her fingers were cold and stiff long before she had maneuvered down the unwieldy boxes containing what she wanted. She was perspiring by the time she set the two brown-paper-wrapped boxes on the kitchen table.

Lillian had packed away all of Sundance's things with a reverence that, at the time, had baffled Eden. She had warned her mother that someday her father would be killed. She had warned her father that someday some man would come along who was faster with a gun. Neither of them had listened to her. After all, she was only a child.

And so she had watched, and waited for the other shoe to fall. Sure enough, when she was eleven, the day had finally come when she could say, “I told you so.” But it had been a hollow victory.

She had refused to grieve for Sundance. But she had wept bitter tears at her mother's graveside a mere four months later, blaming her father for one more death besides his own. She had spent the next eight years at St. John's Orphanage. When she left the orphanage at nineteen to make her way in the world, Lillian's boxes had come with her. They had been stored away in attics and cellars over the years as though they were a rich dowry for her future, when really they were only a painful reminder of a painful past.

Miss Devlin cut the string on the first box with a great deal of trepidation, feeling a little like she was opening Pandora's box. Inside she found only her father's clothes, carefully folded, with tissue placed between each article. She lifted a black wool shirt and held it against her face. It was redolent with the bay rum cologne Sundance had used. In all, she found three plain wool shirts in dark colors, two pairs of denim pants, a calfskin vest with a Texas five-point star stitched on the pocket, and a fringed buckskin coat.

With Sundance's clothes arrayed before her on the table, Eden clipped the string on the other box. It contained her father's more personal items, including a lithograph of her mother, a gold pocket watch, a brass telescope, a two-bladed jackknif a metal shaving mug, a hand-forged Swedish steel razor and a leather strop, his ivory-handled Navy Colt and leather holster, and several boxes of bullets. She lifted the gun out of the box and sat down with it in her lap. She unwrapped the soft flannel cloth in which the Colt had been stored and stared at the instrument of death and destruction.