Sweetwater Seduction (34 page)

“Oh, I am a Texas cowboy
So far away from hooooome
If I ever get back to Texas
I never more will roooooam.
Wyoming is too cold for me
The winters are too looooong;
Before the roundups—”

“Howdy there, Levander.”

“Son of a bitch!”
Startled, Levander jumped up, dropping the jug. It hit the ground, spilling fine corn whiskey into the dirt. Levander grabbed at it and stuck the cork in before it emptied completely.

From the back of his paint horse, tipped his hat as he greeted Levander's slack-jawed gang, who were strewn in various attitudes of slouching, squatting, and standing, from one end of the cabin's slant-roofed front porch to the other. “Bud, Hogg, Doanie, Stick, howdy-do?”

The four members of Levander's gang were an ugly bunch. Not that they were ugly, actually, but they were dirty and unkempt, and their yellowed, blackened, and toothless smiles showed the signs of years of neglect.

Bud had been a prize-fighter in his younger days, and looked it. He was huge, with a thick barrel chest and an oversized head set on a thick neck. He had small, piggy eyes, a crooked nose, and one cauliflower ear. To put it plainly, Bud looked mean. And, indeed, he could be. Kerrigan had seen him beat a man to death with his fists.

Kerrigan had also seen Bud down on one knee playing marbles with a group of seven- and eight-year-olds. The surprise was, Bud was equally happy doing either, because he wasn't really sure of the difference. Someone had hit him in the head once too often, and now Bud only did what he was told to do. Which made him dangerous if somebody whispered the wrong words in his good ear.

Hogg and Doanie were about the same medium size, had medium brown shaggy hair, mustaches with a week-old beard stubble, and were dressed alike in baggy bib overalls and patched plaid shirts. They looked like typical farmers.

They also wore dirty bandannas, a useful, and obviously well used, cowboy accessory, and had their bib overalls stuffed down into cowboy boots, which told Kerrigan they weren't doing as much farming as they claimed. The two men might have been attached with a rope, they stayed so close, and in Kerrigan's experience, one never said a word without checking first with the other. Which was a smart move when you thought about it, because they probably had a collective intelligence equal to one simpleminded cowboy. Their sheer stupidity made them dangerous.

Stick hadn't gotten his nickname by accident. He was tall and skinny and had the mental powers of a stick. But he could throw a sweeter loop from a roping horse than anybody Kerrigan had ever seen. His hands, legs, and neck stuck out of his clothes because he wasn't a regular size, and his legs going into his boots looked like a leafless tree stuck in a pot. Stick was like a puppy, willing to do anything for a pat on the head, including killing, maiming, and, of course, rustling.

Levander was the only one of the bunch with any brains at all, and he was dangerous because the other four listened to him. It was amazing to think this was the rustling gang that for months had been successfully evading Sheriff Reeves and the combined efforts of the Sweetwater Stock Growers Association to catch them. There was obviously more here than met the eye. Kerrigan had to be careful not to underestimate them.

“Uh, howdy,” Stick said. “What brings you all the way out here, Kerrigan?”

“I'm looking for rustlers,” Kerrigan said.

Doanie and Hogg exchanged guilty glances.

“We don't even eat ste more since you run us out of Montana,” Doanie said, running his hands up and down along the denim straps of his bib overalls. “We're farmers now. We eat chicken.”

Kerrigan fought hard not to laugh. “
Cookin'
steak was never the problem, Doanie, it was
burnin' the rawhide
that had me bothered.”

“Oh,” Doanie said.

“Oh,” Hogg said.

Levander shoved Doanie and Hogg out of the way. “What're you doin' here, Kerrigan? We're law-abidin' citizens. You got no right to be on our land.”

“I need to ask some questions.”

“Well, we don't wanta answer no questions.”

“Whatever happened to those fancy Mexican spurs you used to wear in Montana?” Kerrigan asked.

“I 'member them,” Stick said with a smile as he squatted down to play with one of the kittens in Bud's lap. “They shore used to shine up real purty like—”

“Shut up, Stick!” Levander said. “Why you wanta know 'bout them spurs?” he asked suspiciously.

“Because I saw a pair just like them recently.”

It took Levander a moment to realize what Kerrigan was getting at, but when he did, he scowled. “I ain't the only person on this here earth wears Mexican spurs,” Levander said.

“But how many have got that longhorn etched in the center of the rowel?” Kerrigan queried.

“Them little horn things was shore purty, all right,” Stick said.

Levander closed his eyes and shook his head in disgust. “I tole you to shut up, Stick. Now shut your mouth!”

Stick rose and shuffled around behind Doanie and Hogg and stood with his head hanging down. “Didn't mean no harm.”

“You got no proof of nothin',” Levander said.

“I haven't accused you of anything,” Kerrigan said with a menacing smile. “All I'm saying is your rustling days in Sweetwater are numbered, because I'll be watching you from now on. And if I catch you being a little too handy with a rope—well, we all know what happens to cattle thieves.”

“They hang,” Stick volunteered with wide eyes.

“Shut up, Stick,” Levander warned, his shoulders hunched up to his neck in frustration“Of course, you boys can always clear out now and cut your losses,” Kerrigan said. He touched the brim of his hat and said, “Be seeing you, boys.”

As he rode away Kerrigan had a picture in his mind of the five members of Levander's gang hunkered around the front of the house, some standing, some squatting, some sitting. He pictured them around that branding fire the night he was ambushed and tried to figure who had been standing, who had been squatting. He felt a sudden chill as he realized he had seen
all five of them
around the fire.

So who had snuck up behind him with the shotgun?

As Kerrigan disappeared over a rise, Stick turned to Levander and said, “The Boss ain't gonna like it that we can't rustle cattle no more.”

“Shut up, Stick,” Levander said. “Once the Boss hears what's goin' on, he'll take care of Kerrigan once and for all. But I ain't gonna stick around here waitin' on him. We're clearin' outta here now.”

“C-c-c-can I bring my kitties?” Bud asked.

“There's no room for 'em where we're goin'.”

“Where we goin'?” Stick asked.

“Somewhere Kerrigan can't find us if he comes lookin' again,” Levander said.

Felton Reeves rode into Canyon Creek along the back alleys, the same as he always did, until he got to the Black Horse Saloon. He used the fire escape to get to the second floor and walked down the hall to the second door on the right. The room was empty, but it smelled just like Darcie, of too-strong perfume. Everything in the room reeked of too much: too many flounces on the bedspread, too many bows on the curtains, too many too-bright colors, and too many pieces of furniture crowded into the tiny room. Everything in the room said its owner was trying too hard to make up for a past that had contained too little.

Maybe that was why he felt both drawn and repelled by the place, as he was both drawn and repelled by its owner, Darcie Morton. Felton knew too well what Darcie was feeling, because he'd had the same feelings himself. That was why the money was so important. He was going to have everything he had never had. But he didn't want to be like Darcie and spend his money so people would know he hadn't always had it. That was why he had chosen to court Miss Devlin. She had taste and style. She would make a home for him that wouldn't shout to the heavens, “This here place belongs to a poor man what struck it rich.”

He took off his hat and sat down on the edge of the too-soft bed and pulled off his boots. Then he lay back with his hands behind his head and waited. Darcie would be finished downstairs by midnight. Then she would come to him. He needed to feel her arms around him, needed the chance to talk to her. She understood what he was trying to do. In fact, she was the one who had encouraged him to try to better himself. That was why he felt so bad about leaving her behind so he could marry Miss Devlin. He had tried to tell Darcie about his decision, but he knew it would hurt her, so he had kept quiet.

His conscience had been bothering him lately, though not just about this. While he couldn't relieve himself of the other burdens, he could certainly do something about this one. He had made up his mind as he rode to Canyon Creek that he was going to tell Darcie tonight he wouldn't be coming to see her anymore. He would soon have all the money he needed to buy his ranch, and once he did that, he would be marrying the schoolteacher in Sweetwater, Miss Eden Devlin. And once he was a married man, he couldn't be coming to visit a whore in Canyon Creek.

He was nearly asleep when the door opened and a stream of light from the hall silhouetted Darcie. She was dressed in a shiny satin dress, cut both too low and too short for decency, and had a too-large red feather stuck in her hair. She must have seen him lying there, because she tiptoed in and lit the lantern beside the bed. That illuminated a too-large smile that he knew was because she loved him too much for her own damn good.

Lately, Felton had been fighting the good feelings that rose inside him when he saw her, hoping that if he concentrated on all the things that were wrong with Darcie Morton, he wouldn't feel so bad about leaving her. But there was a thick feeling in his throat, and a heavy feeling in his chest when he looked at her smiling down at him with her green eyes too full of caring.

Nope, she sure wasn't anything like Miss Devlin. In the first place, she didn't come no more than about shoulder-high on him. She had a tiny bosom (which she had cried over because a big one would have meant better tips), which in his opinion she more than made up for with nice wide hips and well-shaped legs. She had tiny feet, which he knew because he had rubbed them for her sometimes when she had been standing too long.

“H'lo sweetheart,” she murmured, sitting down beside him on the bed.

“You look tired. You shouldn't work so hard,” he said.

She turned around and he automatically began to help her out of the shiny dress. It was a ritual he had been through dozens of times with her, but it never failed to thrill him when he touched the sleek skin of her shoulders, and ran his hands down her back to her narrow waist. She always made a big production of removing her garters and stockings, and it always left him wanting her with his heart pounding so hard he couldn't hear himself think.

But not tonight. He wasn't going to let that happen tonight. He had bad news to give, and he didn't want it to hurt her any more than he could help. But he figured it probably wouldn't matter if he waited until she changed into her silk Chinese robe and got comfortable first.

When she was lying beside him enfolded in his arms, somehow the words wouldn't come. He kissed her once, feeling sorry that she wasn't ever going to have more than this too-small room, and too little attention from men who cared too little about whether she was happy or not.

“What's wrong?” she said, playing with the frayed collar of his shirt. “You're awful quiet tonight. Didst trip pay off like you thought it would?”

“Yeah.”

“And you got the money put in the bank right and tight?”

“Yeah.”

She snuggled closer and he could feel her belly against his groin beneath his Levi's, and her small, pointy breasts poking through his shirt against his chest. It felt too damn good! He pushed her away abruptly and sat up, brushing his fingers through his hair.

“What's wrong?”

This time he heard the worry in her voice, and he felt awful knowing what he was about to say. “Nothing's wrong,” he lied.

He hadn't fooled her, because she left the bed and came around to kneel on the floor in front of him. She took his hands in hers and looked up at him. “You can tell me, Felton. Whatever it is, I want to help.”

She wasn't making this any easier. He took her hands and used them to get her to stand up. Then he lifted her into his lap and held her there. Her hands sneaked up around his neck and she started playing with the hair that hung over his collar, and his ears, and pretty soon he had to kiss her to get her to stop.