Sweetwater Seduction (46 page)

It was hard to believe she had been kidnapped. Hard to believe that Kerrigan might be killed today trying to rescue her. Equally hard to believe that her whole life had turned so horribly, terribly upside down in a mere twenty-four hours. She closed her eyes. This was one day when she would just as soon turn over in bed and go back to sleep. Only she didn't have a bed. And she was wide awake.

She forced herself to think. The only thoughts that came to mind were painful ones. How could Kerrigan have done such a despicable thing? Maybe she had misheard the drunken men. Maybe it hadn't been like they said. She hadn't exactly given Kerrigan a chance to explain. She realized now it was because she had been afraid that Kerrigan didn't love her after all. She had not been able to face that possibility without running from it. As she had run from her fears in the past.

Without Kerrigan, her life in Sweetwater wouldn't have much meaning. Oh, she would enjoy teaching the children. They would be the closest thing to having her own. She could go to the church socials and let the town bachelor buy her picnic basket at the Fourth of July celebration. But it wouldn't be the same as having children of her own, and a man to love who loved her back. Miss Devlin wanted it all. And there was only one way she was going to get it.

After a long night on a hard chair Miss Devlin had come to the conclusion that if she wanted a life with Burke Kerrigan, she was going to have to stop running away every time she felt afraid. If she got a second chance, and with the situation being what it was, that was a little doubtful at the moment, she was going to sit Kerrigan down and ask some questions. With any luck, he would have a perfectly simple explanation for what the drunken revelers had said. And she would be able to run toward her future, instead of away from her past.

He wondered what Felton thought about the fact they had gotten this far down the canyon without running into an ambush. Or maybe Felton wasn't behind him. Maybe Deputy Joe had realized there were two men on the trail and had let Kerrigan pass him by and then quietly taken care of Felton.

It was dangerous to start worrying. He needed to keep his mind on the here and now. Felton was fine, probably just worried, like he was. Kerrigan kneed his horse back into a walk, his eyes searching the terrain for something out of place, something to give him a clue where the ambush would come.

When he was close enough that he could be seen from the shack, he stopped his horse in a spot where an outcropping of rock broke the force of the wind and dismounted, waiting for Felton to catch up to him.

The line shack was totally exposed on all sides, so there was no way they were going to sneak up in broad daylight. About twenty steps away from the shack, a spring wagon was pulled up next to a lean-to where they probably kept their horses. A single cottonwood shaded the lean-to, but it was bare of leaves and wouldn't provide cover. About twenty steps the other direction was a privy. It was equally exposed to view from the cabin. Paths had been stomped in the ankle-high snow to both the privy and the lean-to. Deputy Joe had chosen a good place for a standoff, if that was what he had in mind.

Kerrigan heard Felton before he saw him.

“I guess we were mistaken,” Felton said, dismounting next to the gunslinger. “I thought sure the deputy planned to ambush you on the way down here. Since he didn't, what the hell do you think's going on?”

“Who knows,” Kerrigan answered irritably.

“You seen anybody moving around outside?” Felton asked.

“Yeah. I've seen three of Levander's gang.” He had been watching the shack long enough to see one man step outside to scrape a bunch of dishes, and for another to throw out a pan of dirty water on the snow. The third man had shaken out a blanket and hung it, along with a mattress, over a hitching rail out front.

“Were the men you saw carrying guns?”

Kerrigan frowned. “Nope.”

“What were they doing outside?”

“It's hard to say,” Kerrigan hedged. “I mean, I know what it looked like. But I might be mistaken.”

“Well? Spit it out.”

Kerrigan took off his hat and drove his fingers through his hair. “It looked like they were cleaning house.”

“It's a little early for spring cleaning, don't you think?”

“I'm telling you what it looked like,” Kerrigan maintained stubbornly.

At that moment the door opened. Both men tensed. The doorway was deeply shadowed, and they waited for a sign of any movement inside.

Kerrigan drew his gun and checked the cylinders. Maybe something would happen now. He drew a breath and held it, waiting. Finally, someone came through the door.

It was the huge man, the former boxer, Bud. He had a broom, and he was carefully sweeping a pile of trash across the threshold and out the door.

Felton's eyes grew wide and he looked incredulously at Kerrigan. Kerrigan shrugged as though to say,
See what I mean?

“What do we do now?” Felton asked.

“We wait.”

“How long?”

“Until dark. Or until Deputy Joe shows up.”

Miss Devlin had spent a rather hectic day cleaning the line shack, with the grudging cooperation of Bud, Hogg, Doanie, and Stick. Levander had spent the day in bed playing a continuous game of solitaire. The past hour she had labored over the stove, in an attempt to make some stew. Cooking had never been her strong point, and she was anticipating a great deal of unhappy clamor when she finally presented her concoction at the table.

She surveyed the interior of the room. Bud had done most of the lifting and carrying as she rearranged the meager furniture and then helped with the sweeping. Hogg and Doanie had done the washing and dusting, while Stick had done the shaking out. The line shack was as clean and straightened as it could get, given what he had to work with. From the conversation the simpleminded men were having, even this poor place was a step up in the world from what they were used to having.

“My ma liked things clean like this,” Stick said as he watched Miss Devlin stirring the pot on the stove. “Used to sweep the dirt off her floor every day. Only it was a dirt floor, so it never really got clean.”

Doanie had cornered a spot at the table and waited with a plate in front of him and a fork in his hand. “Never had no ma,” he said, “but my pa used to make me wash dishes every day when my schoolwork was done.”

“Never went to school,” Hogg said, “and never had no house to keep clean. But if I had, I woulda, 'cause it shore looks purtier this way.”

Bud worked to straighten all the wrinkles from the blanket he had brought back inside from its airing, and laid it across the bunk he had claimed. “B-b-b-bud never had no bed to make up nice,” he said. “Or no dishes to wash, neither. Mostly slept on the floor and ate from the can.”

Miss Devlin heard in their stories the kind of start in life that might send a man down the wrong path. And none of these men had possessed much horse sense to keep them on the straight and narrow. It was a shame, really.

She had stopped being afraid of the simpleminded men when she realized how readily they followed whatever instructions she gave them. Whether she represented mother or father, preacher or teacher, in their small, hebetudinous minds, they each listened and obeyed her when she spoke. She continued to give Levander Early a wide berth and shuddered at the thought of her fate when the Boss returned.

“If you'll all please come to the table, supper is ready,” Miss Devlin said.

There were only three chairs, but Levander had already said he wasn't going to sit down with them, and Doanie and Hogg had rigged a bench out of a broken slat and two half-empty five-gallon buckets of Seroco's Weatherproof Mineral Barn, Roof, and Fence Paint.

She dished out a serving of stew to everyone, including Levander, who had dinner in bed.

“A gentleman waits to begin eating until a lady is seated,” she advised, when she saw Doanie about to fork in a mouthful of stew.

He held the fork in front of his mouth, waiting for her bottom to hit the chair. The instant it did, the stew hit his mouth. After that, the entire dinner became a lesson in table etiquette, with Miss Devlin no sooner catching one faux pas than another occurred. Meanwhile, she waited for a complaint about the quality of her stew.

Instead, she heard “Them's mighty fine vittles, Miss Devlin” from Stick, followed by Bud's “T-t-t-tastes good, ma'am.”

Between mouthfuls Doanie managed, “Never et such good stew,” and Hogg added, “Pure deee-liciou

Every single man—including Levander—licked his plate clean. Well, not literally, because she had advised them that picking up a plate to lick it with one's tongue simply was not done.

“Then how'm I supposed to get the gravy?” Stick demanded.

“You may sop it with a piece of bread,” Miss Devlin instructed.

“I ain't got no bread.”

That was true. Miss Devlin thought for a moment and said, “You have a spoon, don't you?”

“Shore do.”

“Then you may use your spoon.”

It was full dark by the time they had finished eating and washed the dishes. There was no sign of the Boss, and Miss Devlin would as soon have forgotten about him, except she wondered how long she was going to have to sleep sitting up.

“What do you suppose happened to Deputy Joe?” she asked. “Shouldn't he have been back by now?”

“No tellin',” Levander said. “It'd depend on how soon Kerrigan came lookin' for you when he got the note.”

“What if he ignored the note?” she asked. “What if he isn't interested in finding me?”

“Then it's gonna be too bad for you,” Levander said with a lascivious grin.

Miss Devlin took that to mean she wouldn't be leaving this place alive. When she looked to the other men for confirmation of Levander's threat, they refused to meet her eyes, which was really all the confirmation she needed.

With only the light from a single lantern, there wasn't much they could do after dark. After the hard day they had spent cleaning, the four housekeepers were happy to go to bed early.

Apparently Levander wasn't tired, because he rose at last from the bed where he had spent the day and came to sit at a chair at the table, where he laid out the cards once more for a game of solitaire.