She left Maggie’s side to greet a rotund man in a nice suit who had the bearing of someone important and a light in his blue eyes that shone brightly at the sight of her coming his way. She hooked her arm in his and they walked to one of the tables in the shadows on the far side of the room.
Maggie turned back to the marshal and found him still watching her with the same veiled intensity. She doubted the hunger referenced by Cleo had anything to do with her personally. More than likely the only hunger he had was for the food on the buffet.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
The question was from a man who was tall, brown-skinned, and nice-looking. His plain shirt and trousers pegged him as an ordinary citizen of the plains. She guessed him to be a few years older than she.
“Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be alone.” His smile was engaging.
She sent a quick glance the marshal’s way and saw him approaching. “Thank you, but no thank you.”
“You’re new here.”
“Um, yes, but I’m just visiting.”
“Oh, I see. Married?”
She shook her head.
“Looking to be?”
She grinned. “Not at the moment, no.”
“Well, if you change your mind, I’m available. Name’s Tate Greer. Own a ranch not far from here.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He winked and departed just as the marshal walked up. “What did he want?”
“To buy me a drink and to marry me.”
She liked the surprise that grabbed him. “Think I’ll get something to eat.” Walking away, she felt his eyes but didn’t look back.
Ian studied the man she’d been talking with. He’d retreated to the bar but his attention was focused solely on Maggie, now filling her plate with samplings from the buffet. He doubted the man had been serious about marriage, but due to the paltry number of good women on this side of the Mississippi, Ian couldn’t be sure. That same dearth was one of the reasons Wyoming allowed women of all races to vote when no other state did. The unconventional legislation had less to do with suffrage than with trying to entice Eastern women to move to the rugged, mountainous territory and bolster a female population that was nearly nonexistent. Intelligent, literate women were hard to find, and were as valuable to the ranchers and farmers of the West as water rights.
While Ian watched and sipped his watered-down whiskey, more than a few of the men enjoying Lola’s hospitality came over to the table where Maggie was sitting and began chatting. To her credit she rebuffed them all with a pleasant smile, but he knew she might have responded differently had she been free to do so. As it stood, she wasn’t, and when the man who’d wanted to marry her came over and slid into one of the empty chairs at her table, Ian thought it time to let everyone know he had prior claim, even if it wasn’t formal or binding.
“Evening,” Ian said to the man as he sat down at the table, too. “Name’s Preacher.”
“Tate Greer,” came the reply, along with a look of annoyance. “The lady and I are having a private conversation, if you don’t mind.”
“I do, seeing as how she’s with me.”
Greer stilled and turned to Maggie in confusion.
Ian received a look from her that should have set his hat on fire before she made the introductions. “Mr. Greer, this is U.S. Deputy Marshal Bigelow. I’m in his custody at the moment.”
“Custody? You’re under arrest?”
“Afraid so.” She gave him a weak smile and Greer looked her up and down as if it might help determine what she’d been arrested for. She must have sensed the same, and so explained, “I inadvertently caused a man’s death.”
“I see.” He slowly rose to his feet. “I’ll be moving on then. Nice meeting you.”
“Same here,” she said softly.
As he walked away, Ian saw her shoulders sag, and when she looked up she was full of quiet anger. “I was just having a conversation. It wasn’t as if I was going to elope with him.”
“You’re under arrest. You can’t be keeping company.”
“Thank you for the reminder. Shall I stand on the table and make an announcement to that fact? Lord help us if I try and enjoy myself while I’m with you.”
“We’re not here to have fun.”
“Thanks for that reminder, as well.”
Ian wanted to smile but was afraid she’d turn her cutlery on him. “You’re probably way too spirited for him anyway.”
“So now you’re a prognosticator.”
He did smile then.
“He’s the first nice man I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in quite some time, and it isn’t funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
She snarled quietly and went back to her food.
Ian tried to make amends. “Man like him just wants to put you behind a plow, give you a bunch of babies, and work you to death.”
“And what will you give me besides a date with the judge?”
“If things were different, books.”
Her mouth dropped. He rose to his feet and walked over to the exit and out into the coolness of the night.
Outside, he lit a cheroot and blew the smoke at the moon. A puff later, Lola was beside him.
“Saw you running off Maggie’s men.”
“She’s a prisoner, not a dance hall girl.”
“Saw the way you been watching her, too. Like a stallion eyeing a mare.”
He didn’t respond.
“What are you going to do about her?”
He told her of the wire he’d sent. “I’ll pick up the reply in Abilene since the telegraph office here is closed.”
“Why not just let her go?”
“I’d like to. Thus the wire.”
“She should be somewhere in a man’s arms making him smile. I believe she and Tate would do good together. He’s got some schooling, owns his own land—a lot like you.”
Ian blew out another stream of smoke.
“Of course, his past doesn’t include train robbing, gunslinging or bounty hunting, but I’m sure Maggie would be willing to overlook that.”
“You’re having fun, aren’t you?”
“Sure am. How about you?”
“No.”
“A good woman can cure that.” She patted his shoulder consolingly. “See you back inside.”
Ian stared out at the night and mulled over Lola’s words. Apparently he’d been wrong about Greer, but if the rancher was as good a catch as she’d claimed, he shouldn’t have any trouble finding a suitable wife, even if it meant advertising back East for one. Had he really been interested in marrying Maggie or just pulling her leg? He remembered the talk they’d had about her dreams: wearing a nice dress, being able to sit and read a book, having her own place where she could watch her garden grow. With a husband she might be able to attain those things. He turned his mind away from thoughts of her with another man. Since Tilda’s death he’d been insistent upon not taking another wife, but because of Maggie and her feisty spirit he was sensing cracks in the foundation of that stance. Could the light of a woman dissolve the darkness inside him? Could it soften the years of being in the saddle day and night in all kinds of weather? Would it reinvigorate a heart that had to grow callous in order to arrest a man at his mother’s funeral or on his wedding day, and then turn to stone from having to face the keening grief of the mother of a seventeen-year-old boy who’d drawn on Ian in effort to get his picture in the paper—and he had, lying in a coffin. The boy’s death was regrettable, but he felt nothing for the others. Every man he’d brought in dead or alive had been a murderer, rapist, or coward who’d used his fists on women and children. The world was a better place with them either behind bars or dead and in hell, but in doing his job, Ian had paid the price in terms of who he’d become.
Ideally if he was to pursue a wife, he’d want her to be made in Maggie’s image. Back home in Wyoming there were women who’d gladly volunteer for the role, but compared to their sweet milk way
s, Maggie was like a kick of raw tequila At one time in his life, he’d craved the innocence of a Tilda to counteract the wild and wooly man he’d evolved into since meeting Neil July on the train those many years ago, but Ian was older now. He’d tasted life in all its many forms and flavors, and all he wanted now was to heal, and to let the accumulated darkness and death bleed out of him so he could enjoy the years that remained in peace.
So where did that leave him and Maggie. Right where they were, he supposed. After they went their separate ways, he’d keep an eye out for a woman whose beauty, wit, and inner strength mirrored hers. It occurred to him that it might be easier to find a nugget of gold on the streets of Topeka, but life had always been hard.
Chapter 10
Maggie was lying on a bed in one of Lola’s bedrooms with a warm, moist tea towel over her black eye. She had no idea where the marshal had gotten himself to and in truth, she didn’t care. Being the center of all that male attention down in the main room had been nice, mainly because they’d been so nice and polite—for the most part. There had been one indecent proposal but that was because he thought she was one of Lola’s girls.
She’d especially enjoyed Tate Greer and got the impression that had they been allowed to speak longer than thirty seconds she might have learned more about him, but Bigelow had put the brakes on that. No one had ever proposed marriage to her before, and it wasn’t as if she’d been in a position to say yes, but that she hadn’t even been allowed to enjoy imagining such a scenario was what irked her.
But even as she grumbled about the marshal’s interference, in the back of her mind his parting words continued to resonate. If things were different, books. What type of man promised a woman books? He’d left her speechless and her heart pounding. She remembered telling him her dreams, but didn’t think he’d paid her words much mind. Apparently he had, and she wondered what his dreams were. Did they revolve around how he made his living, or were they more intangible? She knew he’d loved his wife, so did he dream of having another, or was he one of those men who lived only for her memory? More questions. She imagined that if he did take someone else into his heart, the woman he chose would need to be strong and patient and have the ability to make him laugh. He seemed to take life far too seriously, but then again, she’d never walked in his boots, just as he’d never walked in hers.
Hearing the door open and someone walk into the room, Maggie assumed it was Lola. “This is making my eye feel better.”
“Good” came a familiar low-toned voice. It wasn’t Lola.
She eased the folded towel aside, surveyed him with her good eye, and closed off her vision again. Next she knew he was beside the bed.
“Let me see.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are such a pigheaded woman.”
She removed the cloth and glared up to find a smile playing across his full lips. “You’ve been finding an awful lot to smile at these past couple of days.”
“I’m blaming it on you. Didn’t used to.”
He touched the bruised skin lightly, and her blood shimmered in response.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not as much as yesterday.” She was held captive by all that he was. There was a heat burning within him that was palpable enough to reach out and hold in her hand. She didn’t know how she knew, but the woman inside her was certain that when he loved, he loved passionately and well, and Lord help her, she wanted to be that woman, because she’d never experienced that, either.
Hearing herself, she shook herself loose and replaced the towel. It had cooled though and needed reheating, so she sat up. Ignoring him, she walked over to the small brazier burning below a small pot of water in the fireplace. After soaking the end of the towel in the hot water and wringing it out, she refolded it, placed the warmth against her eye, and resumed her position on the bed.
“I could’ve done that for you.”
“My eye hurts, Marshal. Not my feet.”
Ian’s eyes traveled innocently down to the aforementioned appendages, and the erotic sight of her bare, ruby-tipped toes hardened him so swiftly and completely he fell into a coughing fit.
She moved the towel aside and looked down at her feet, turning them back and forth as if admiring them. “Pretty, aren’t they?”
Ian was fighting to breathe.
“Lola fixed them up. It’s oil mixed with crushed rose petals. You put it on and then buff the toes with a chamois until they shine. Smells heavenly, too.”
She held out her foot. He stepped back.
“Something the matter, Marshal?”
Ian headed towards the door. “I told Lola I’d help her with something. I’ll be back later.”
In the silence after his departure, Maggie looked up at the ceiling and chuckled softly. She couldn’t predict her future but she was sure he’d remember her for a long time to come.
Ian took a seat at a table in a shadowy corner at the back of Lola’s main room and tried to slow his breathing. As he sipped on a shot of the house’s watered-down whiskey, noise, music and the high-pitched squeals of the girls echoed around him but he barely heard it. He’d never been one to drink to excess, even in his outlaw days; drink dulled the mind and reflexes. In his line of work he’d needed both to stay sharp, so he usually appreciated her doctored spirits. Not tonight. Tonight he needed something stronger, say a bottle of raw tequila, to rid himself of an overpowering hankering for a bruised-faced, one-eyed woman with rose petal toes. Thinking back on the arousing display made his manhood surge again. He tossed back the drink and set the glass down on the tabletop. From the moment they met she’d done nothing but surprise him, and now the toes . . . It had taken all his discipline not to fall on her and slowly kiss, touch, and suck his way from the toes to her sassy mouth. He ran an amazed hand down his unshaven face. This was supposed to be a simple transfer of a prisoner to the proper authorities, nothing more, yet here he sat throbbing and pulsing like a stallion in heat.
His attention settled on Lola pouring drinks behind the bar. This was all her fault and whether she was aware of it or not, the turmoil plaguing him from Maggie’s toes was more than an apt revenge for all the damage he’d caused during the fight with Stapleton. He got up to fetch another drink.
Lola splashed more whiskey in his glass. “Doing pretty good business tonight. How’s Maggie? She show you her toes?”
His hard-eyed glare made her howl.
“Got you going, didn’t they. Figured they would. The queens of Egypt favored ruby red. Cleopatra preferred crimson.”
Ian didn’t know if any of that was true, or how she’d come to possess such knowledge. It made him wonder if madams were given some kind of secret schooling in man pleasing. He tossed back the whiskey and set the glass down. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you need prodding. You’ve been stuck in your grief like a calf in mud since your Tilda was killed. I’m just trying to make you climb back onto solid ground. Remember, I knew the man you used to be.”
Ian gazed unseeingly out into the crowded boisterous room while considering her words, and admitted that they were in line with his earlier thoughts of wanting to shake free of Vance Bigelow and reclaim Ian. “She’s not for me.”
“Sure she is. Have you met a better candidate?”
In truth he hadn’t. He was just about to admit that when he heard a loud male voice shout, “Bigelow! You got five seconds to get your gun ’fore I send you to the devil.”
He spun and met the angry drunken eyes of a man he didn’t know. The grizzled gray hair on his face showed his age but Ian couldn’t attach a memory to it. Two younger men flanking him couldn’t have been older than sixteen. Both were armed. Both looked scared. Ian immediately flashed back to another kid holding a gun on him and slapped the image away. “Who is this?” he asked Lola almost impatiently.
She sighed. “Matt Stapleton’s daddy, Dale. The two boys are his sons, Dale Jr. and Billy. They must’ve heard you were in town.”
While the patrons scrambled to get out of the line of fire, Ian cursed silently and drew both guns so quickly the gaping crowd swore later it was like magic. “Boys, take your daddy home.”
Lola added to the warning. “Go home, Dale. You don’t want those boys to have to bury you, too.”
Keeping his eyes on his adversaries, Ian asked her, “Who else they bury?”
“Matt. Killed in a prison escape last winter.”
Ian didn’t understand why Stapleton was holding him accountable. “I’m not responsible for your son’s death, Mr. Stapleton.”
“Yeah you are! You brought him in! Hadn’t been for you, Matt be still here.”
“Your son killed a man in front of his wife and children. If I hadn’t brought him in, some other bounty hunter would’ve.” Ian watched one of the sons touch his daddy’s arm with what appeared to be concern.
Stapleton snarled, “Get your hands off me! You ready, Bigelow?”
Ian cocked both pistols. In the thick silence it sounded like cannon shot.
Stapleton fired. Ian unleashed his own guns, dropped to the floor, and rolled. Dale Jr. screamed as hot lead tore through his shoulder. Brother Billy followed with a piercing cry as his bullet-shattered knee gave way and the leg folded beneath his weight. The elder Stapleton kept firing. Ian managed to pull a table down in front of him while counting how many shots he’d heard Stapleton use. The sons hadn’t gotten off any before being taken out of the fight, and didn’t seem inclined to reenlist. In fact, the one who’d been shot in the leg reached over and tried to grab the Colt from his father’s hand. “Stop it, Pa! I ain’t dying for Matt’s memory!”
But the wiry old man fought to keep possession. The second son joined the fray on the side of his brother and for the first few seconds it was impossible to determine who might gain the upper hand. A shot rang out. The father’s eyes widened in disbelief and he clutched his chest as he fell against his son before slowly crumpling to the floor. The front of his blue cotton shirt showed an ever-widening stain of his life’s blood as it soaked through the fabric. The sons dropped to his side. Ian’s calculation had been correct. Stapleton’s gun had had one bullet left.
Night Hawk Page 10
