The Lady Takes A Gunslinger (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 1) (9 page)

"Well, it's done. There's no undoing it now. I gave him my word."

"Well, it ain't fittin'. That's all. It just ain't fittin' for a young lady like you to get all tangled up in a scheme like this. If'n yer daddy could see you now, he'd likely—"

"—give me his blessing," she finished, tossing him a confident smile, "and thank me for watching out for Luke."

Brewster snorted. "Or put a gun to my head for allowin' it. "I don't know how I let you talk me into this."

"You agreed because you knew I was right. You need me. Alone it would be much too dangerous and you know it. Besides, the actual plan was my idea." Grace took a breath and waited for the explosion.

She didn't have to wait long.

Brew snatched his hat off again and stopped dead in his tracks in disbelief. "Yer idear?
Yer
idear?"

"Well, of course I can't take complete credit," she replied, stopping and patting his hand.

"I should hope n—"

"After all, Jack Leland did it first in
Dueling Pistols of Saguaro Flats."

"Jack Leland! That clabber-headed pencil-pusher didn't no more come up with this plan than the man in the moon. Why, 'twere my idear to bust that feller loose."

Grace shot a look around them and pressed a silencing finger to his lips. "Brew, shhh! Do you want to get us—"

He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. "—an' my idear to waltz in there as pretty as a green snake an' take him."

She smiled at him beatifically.

Caught in an all-too-familiar trap, Brew's expression descended into a scowl. He rubbed his nose."You mind what I say, girl. Keep yer distance from Donovan and leave the persuadin' to me. Y' hear?"

Grace threaded her arm through his as they neared the store. "I hear. And believe me, you have nothing to worry about. A man like that holds no attraction for me whatsoever. He's rude and arrogant and stubborn as a mule. And while I'll grant you those qualities are exactly what we need to get Luke out of his predicament, I can't think of anyone in the world I'd rather travel to Mexico with less than Reese Donovan."

* * *

The dampness of Reese's palms made the iron bars of his cell feel almost cool. He leaned his forehead against them in an effort to relieve the hot, thudding pulse echoing in his brain.

What he wouldn't give right now for a drink. Just one. Just enough to take the edge off.

It came as something of a jolt to realize how long it had been since he'd been completely sober—not softening the harsh end of one drunk with the beginnings of another. It wasn't as if he drank incessantly. He didn't. He merely drank when the need arose. And for the past few years, the need seemed to arise more frequently than not. He worked when he wanted, had a woman when he wanted, and drank when he wanted.

He'd told himself he could quit if he wanted, as well. That he wasn't a drunk. And perversely, perhaps because no one before that little sawdust-headed Grace Turner had ever been fool enough to call him one, he'd almost convinced himself it was true.

Now, he realized that perhaps the only person he'd been fooling was himself.

Reese stared past the open door that separated him from the outer office. A crescent of lantern light spilled across the cluttered oaken desk where Connell Smith had propped his feet. One by one, playing cards flicked past the battered toes of his boots and landed haphazardly around a spanking new gray felt hat tipped upside down on the desk. He'd yet to land one into the cream satin interior.

Smith swore as yet another card fell short of its goal. The steady progression of cards halted and the oak swivel chair creaked as Smith shifted his weight. "Hey, Donovan? You awake in there?"

"No."

Smith hesitated. "You hungry?"

Reese pretended not to hear. He let loose of the iron bars, swung one knee onto the blanket-covered cot, and stared out into the night. The sage-scented air felt almost cool as it brushed across his sweaty brow. He guessed the hour at ten-thirty. Maybe eleven. The night sounds invaded his senses, and the thought seeped into his consciousness that this might be the last time he listened to the rusty echo of crickets or the lonely howl of a coyote baying at the moon.

Death.
He tried to get his mind around that concept, failing inevitably. He stared at his hand, turning it over, examining the lines and calluses with renewed interest. He had his mother's hands. Or so she'd told him. Long-fingered, strong. A surgeon's hands, she'd said, like her father's. Not the hands of a farmer, like his da. The old man had seen that, too, or perhaps it had been merely the rebellion he'd seen in Reese's eyes that had driven the wedge between them so many years ago.

Dead, now, both of them. As soon, he would be. He made a fist, squeezing until his nails bit into the flesh of his palm. A grim smile spread across his lips for the wasted gift of a surgeon's hands on a man who'd become little more than a hired gun. He was quite certain it wasn't a bit of what his mother'd had in mind. What would she think if she could see him now?

She'd pray to some saint or other for his soul, he supposed.

He had little fear for his immortal soul, for if ever a man were doomed from the start, he was. He simply hadn't counted on the end coming so soon.

The three-quarter moon had strayed behind a cloud and except for the small thorny lizard poised at the edge of the sill, watching him, Reese could see nothing beyond the perimeter of the building. Yet, he stared into the blackness all the same, willing Grace Turner to appear there as she'd promised. As if he actually believed she would.

How had he come to this? Counting on some hothouse flower of a girl to save his bloody neck from a hangman's noose? No, Sanders had sealed his fate this afternoon in that mockery of a trial, executed without benefit of a circuit judge. But those details didn't seem to bother Sanders, who was widely known to be as well connected with the current military government of Texas as he'd once been to Ben McCullock's Rangers ten years earlier.

Somewhere along the line, Sanders had crossed over, believing that his own destiny included the power to decide men's fates. Pair-a-Dice suited his purposes. It had become his own little kingdom and his rule, absolute. Like the bloody landlords back in Ireland.

Reese was certain his trial had been illegal, but in a nowhere town like this, illegalities were a way of life. No one would care what happened to a washed-out gunslinger who'd screwed up once too often.

Reese turned at the noise behind him. Connell Smith appeared in the office doorway holding a piece of jerky in his hand. "I got me some dried beef if you're—" A frown furrowed his brow as his gaze traveled up and down the length of Reese. "You don't look so good, Donovan. You sick?"

Reese swiped at the dampness above his lip. "Nothing a stiff drink wouldn't cure," he said mildly.

Smith's expression flattened with understanding, but he shook his head. "Sanders told me I wasn't to—"

"I'm not askin'," Reese snapped. "Besides"—he sighed, slumping down onto the cot, draping one careless forearm across his bent knee—"it's a dizzyingly brief sort of illness, I'm told. Six hours or so, and I'll be out of my misery. So go on back to your cards, kid. Sooner or later you're bound to pitch one in."

Smith stared out past Reese at the inky darkness outside the barred cell window and made no move to leave. The steady chirp of crickets outside punctuated the silence.

When it appeared that Smith wasn't inclined to disappear, Reese asked, "Where's Sanders?"

The leather of Smith's holster creaked as he adjusted it against his hip. "Went home to get some sleep."

"I'm sure he'll sleep like a babe. But not yourself tonight, eh? With that lovely young wife of yours at home—what's her name?"

"Lilah."

"Lilah. Sweet Lilah's home waitin' for you. You get stuck with the gravedigger's shift. Guarding the murderer." He sighed. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head back against the cool adobe. "Sanders pay you well to do his dirty work, does he?"

"I done what I could to stop it," came the deputy's quiet reply.

Reese lifted his silent, icy gaze to Smith.

Color crept into the man's cheeks as the accusing silence stretched between them. "I tell you, it's not my fault, Donovan. I tried to get him right thinkin' about it. He wasn't havin' none of it. He was bound to convict you before the sun went down on another day. No matter who spoke against it. Not that many did."

A muscle flexed in Reese's jaw, but he remained silent.

Smith cleared his throat. "Well, anyway, I wanted you to know, I plan to send a formal letter of protest to th—"

"A letter?" Reese echoed with wide-eyed disbelief.

"Yeah, to the Territorial—"

"By God, now there's a comfort! A letter. For me? Truly, I'm touched, Connell. I mean, it'll be a bit tardy when all's said an' done, but it's an inspired thought all the same."

Reese swept his hand dramatically across an imaginary heading. "Let's see, it would have to go something like, 'Dear Governor—Sir—I'm writing to inform you that an innocent man has been wrongfully convicted of murder in the little nowhere town of Pair-a-Dice, Texas, by the good and noble-minded Marshal Ephram Sanders. I believe you've made his acquaintance.'"

With a lift of his eyebrows, he slid a look at Smith and asked, "Am I close here?"

Tight-lipped, the man glared back at him. '"According to several accounts,'" Reese went on, '"said man shot and killed two men in self-defense, before a roomful of witnesses—who were, by the way, barred from testifying on his behalf at the brief and questionable trial—"'

"For God's sake, Donovan!" Smith sputtered.

"—in one of the town's seedier drinking establishments. Unfortunately, the man, a former Texas Ranger fallen from grace, a drunkard known as Reese Donovan, is now dead, hung by the neck for trying to protect his own ass. However, I felt it my duty to inform you—"'

"What would you have me do?" demanded Smith. "Shoot Sanders to save your neck?"

Reese paused, giving that suggestion real consideration. "Give me the gun and I'll do it."

"No."

"Better yet, just open this bloody door and let me out of here."

"Wh-what?" he sputtered.

"You heard me."

In the awkward silence that followed, Smith stood a mere arm's length from Reese, breathing hard. "Let you go," he repeated incredulously. "No chance."

Reese smiled, easing the grim set to his jaw. "Too bad you're such a bloody coward, Connell. You had promise."

"I need this job, Donovan. I got a family. A baby on the way. I may not agree with Sanders's tactics, but I took an oath to uphold the law. And I mean to do it."

"When the law's been served," Reese gritted out.

"And how do I know it wasn't?"

"You believe I'm guilty?"

"You couldn't prove otherwise."

"Do
you?"

"My hands are tied!"

Reese pinned him with a look of pure disdain. "No, Smith. Your hands are dirty. Dirty as Sanders's. But that's somethin' you'll have to live with." Reese eased himself down on his cot, stretching his legs as far as the cramped space would allow. Cradling his hands beneath his head he closed his eyes, dismissing the other man.

Without another word, Smith withdrew into the outer room, leaving Reese alone. He heard the squeak of the oak chair and the flick of pitched cards missing the hat once more and at last, the quiet, gritting curses spilling from Deputy Connell Smith's lips.

* * *

Reese woke with a start as the outer jail door burst open and Smith stumbled to his feet, scraping the chair legs against the floor. Braced on the edge of his cot, Reese waved away the dizziness in his head and blinked at the old man who stumbled into the outer office. Thin and sallow-looking, with a bristle of graying beard on his jaw, he stopped just short of colliding with the surprised deputy. Close on his heels was a ragamuffin of a boy wearing an old slouch hat pulled down over his ears, a baggy coat, and too-big canvas britches.

"Git in there, you polecat!" the boy snapped, slamming the door shut with a kick of his oversized boots. "You skunk! You thievin' ol' rascal!" He poked the business end of an ancient six-shooter into the old man's back, shoving him toward Smith.

"What the devil—?" the deputy shouted, drawing the hammer back on his own gun and straight-arming the old man before he could crash into him.

Reese got to his feet, moving toward the bars of his cage with a grin. If he couldn't get out of this bloody place, at least he'd have some entertainment.

"Take him!" the boy demanded, gesturing wildly with that cannon of his. "This here is a citizen's arrest!"

Smith ducked. "A what?"

"A citizen's arrest," the boy repeated indignantly. "I'm a citizen and this here is the feller I'm arrestin'. Now you lock the old buzzard up 'fore I'm forced to shoot him myself."

Reese's gaze went from the wild-eyed look in the prisoner's eyes to the smear of dirt visible on the boy's smooth chin. The rest of his face was obscured by that droopy hat.

"Wait just a minute here," Smith demanded.