Jacey's Reckless Heart

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  Jacey’s eyes widened in direct proportion to her not being able to breathe, even as the innocent source of her fright—a scroungy yellow dog—sauntered by and turned into the alley. A hand to her chest, and dropping the cigarette where she stood, Jacey jerked around and wrenched her hat off as she tore for the alley beside the darkened store. Holding her hat over her face to muffle her gasping coughs, she bent over and coughed and teared up and danged near lost her supper before the fit eased up some.

  As the storm subsided, and bracing her hands on her knees, she edged backward with mincing steps until her bottom braced against the rough wall behind her. Bent over, her hat dangling from her fingers, she stared unseeingly at the dark ground, concentrating as she was only on breathing. In and out. In and out. Realizing it was getting easier, she pulled herself upright and rested her head against the store’s side, at once grateful for the wall’s unyielding strength. Still weak, still shaken, she didn’t bother to investigate the source of a scraping sound farther down the alley, dismissing it with a frown, thinking, That danged dog again.

  Instead, she resolutely fumbled in her shirt pocket for the tobacco pouch, drew it out, and flung it to the ground. Damned weed nearly killed me. And could’ve gotten me killed if that’d been anything but a dog.

  Telling herself she was over her fright, disavowing her pounding heart and aching lungs, Jacey drew her hat back on, making sure to settle it low on her brow. Then she poked and tugged at her clothes and holster, making sure everything was still intact. Deeming herself fit for presentation, she turned back toward the head of the alley.

  After only two steps in that direction, though, the darkness behind her came alive. And appeared to want her dead. Grabbed around the neck, her hat knocked off, her feet barely touching the ground, she grunted when she was hauled up against a big, hard body. Only gurgling sounds came from her throat as she clawed at the muscled arm that choked off her air. But to no avail. The hard-as-steel, imprisoning arm pressed relentlessly against her throat. With her mouth open, but unable to suck in enough air to scream, Jacey realized she was being dragged farther back into the alley.

  A terrifyingly calm thought voiced itself in her head. So this is how it will end. Faces from her past, faces from home, Mama, Papa, her sisters, Biddy, the ranch … all flashed through her mind. No!

  Jacey renewed her struggling, kicking efforts to free herself. But she stiffened when a cold steel blade with a very sharp point pricked at her jugular vein. Then a voice, no less cold and steely, no less sharp and deadly, growled, “I’ve waited a long time to get my hands on you, J. C. Lawless. And now, it looks like that time is here. Out in the street, you murdering bastard, and get ready to slap leather.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It appeared her plan had worked. A little too well, perhaps. Because she’d certainly flushed someone out. And it was Zant Chapelo.

  As she was dragged toward the street and the light of the moon, Jacey’s heart sank with the sure knowledge that the second he realized it was her and not her father, he’d slit her throat for sure. In a blinding flash of memory she saw Rosie drawing her finger across her throat on that first day when she’d met her. In this very alley. And Rosie’d been talking about this very man.

  At that moment, Jacey was let go and shoved forward into the hard and gravelly moonlit street. Her arms windmilling, her feet stumbling, she finally slid to a halt and jerked around. Barely aware of the squat, close-set adobes that pressed around them, she sighted on Chapelo. Hands behind his back, he sheathed his knife at his waist. He then adopted a spread-legged stance, his hands held loosely at his sides.

  Jacey heard the running feet and the slamming doors as folks made for cover. But she didn’t dare look away from the outlaw’s itchy gun hand. He rubbed his thumb back and forth across his fingertips and then splayed his long fingers as if they ached. Finally, he fisted his hand and slowly opened it, allowing it once again to hang loose and ready.

  Jacey swallowed. Here was the gunfight she’d been itching for. Or so she’d thought until now. Quaking with fright, she prepared her thudding heart to meet her Maker. Drawing herself up to her full height, she adopted the outlaw’s stance, and stilled into a waiting attitude.

  But gasped when her hair came undone from its twisting bun, fell loose, and spilled all around her shoulders and over her chest.

  Zant poked his head forward, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “What the hell? Jacey Lawless, is that you?”

  Run. If only she could. But the man’s steadily advancing strides rooted her to the spot. The closer he came, the wider Jacey’s eyes got. Suddenly she was aware of the weight of her clothes, the rocklike heaviness of Papa’s Colt, and the too-big bagginess of Alberto’s pants. And the foolishness of her plan.

  Then, he was right in front of her and peering down into her face with a fierce scowl. Jacey, reluctant and bold in the same breath, met his gaze. She managed to croak out, “Howdy, Chapelo.”

  He shook his head and notched his Stetson up with his knuckle. “Well, I’ll be a no-good … rotten … son of a mule-headed jackass.” His voice was a slow drawl that didn’t fool Jacey. He was mad. Then his expression changed and his voice tightened, taking on a higher-pitched urgency. “Why didn’t you say something? Do you know I came this close”—he held his thumb and index finger about a hairbreadth apart and right in her face—“from shooting you right through the heart?”

  Jacey did the only thing she could. She balled her fist up and punched him in the stomach. And knew instantly she’d made another mistake. Hitting him was like punching a blacksmith’s anvil.

  No more fazed than if she’d made a face at him, he put his hands to his waist. “What the hell did you do that for?”

  Jacey waved her sore hand in the air. “Because you were going to shoot my father.”

  “Your father—Like hell. I was going to shoot you.” Then his eyes narrowed. “And here I thought he’d come to fetch you home. But he’s not here at all, is he? You—in this man’s getup—you’re the J. C. Lawless everyone’s been talking about since I got back from Sonora, aren’t you?”

  Licking her lips, and repeating over and over that she was not afraid, Jacey bolstered her courage. “That’s right, gunslinger. It’s me.”

  “You ornery brat. Now, this is just about all I’m going to take from you.” He gripped her arm and walked her resisting body out of the middle of the street, over to the storefront. Once there, he turned her to face him. “Does your father even know you’re here and pretending to be him? Because I can’t picture him—”

  Jacey wrenched her arm from his grasp. In her rising anger and grief, her eyes and voice filled with tears. “My father can’t know. He was murdered. So was my mother. Last month. Cut down in their own—”

  “You’re telling me the real J. C. Lawless is dead?”

  “I am.”

  “Then you’re here to … what? Hunt down his killers? By yourself?”

  Jacey shook her head. “No. The murderers are back East. I—”

  “Back East? How do you know that?”

  “Because my sister’s there now, flushin’ them out.”

  Zant shook his head. “None of this makes any sense. And it still doesn’t explain you bein’ here.”

  Jacey huffed out a breath. “I came here because of the salt rubbed into my wound. I don’t have all the details yet, but some lowlife scum stole something of value to me. Just stole it from me.”

  Zant’s scowl pinched a vertical line between his eyebrows. “Stole what?”

  “Stole a family portrait of my great-grandmother.”

  “A portrait?”

  “Yeah. About the same time as the murders.”

  “Dammit, Jacey, you’re telling me you’re here—risking gettin’ yourself killed—because of a picture?”

  Jacey stiffened dangerously. “It’s not just a picture. It’s my only keepsake from my mother. Something she wanted me to have, you understand? But now it’s gone.
And, yeah, I came here to get it back. And to kill the flea-bitten rat responsible.”

  Still frowning, still absorbing, he rubbed a hand over his jaw. “What makes you think this keepsake was stolen, or that the … rat’s here?”

  Without preamble, Jacey reached inside her man’s shirt and pulled out the broken spur on her silver chain. She held it up to him in the moon’s light. “This little memento he left behind, along with a broken piece of the portrait’s frame. Recognize it?”

  Zant fingered it, turning it this way and that. Then, in a whispering rush, he let go of the spur-pendant and breathed, “Jesus Christ.”

  As Jacey tucked her necklace back inside her outfit, she fussed, “It’s a little late for praying, outlaw.”

  He eyed her through a squint, and acting like he hated to say the words, he offered, “I’m sorry for your loss. But I can’t say I’m sorry that J. C. Lawless is dead. Damn. It appears it’s a little late for other things besides praying.”

  Stiff with anger at his callous words about her father, Jacey pushed back, as if afraid she’d fall through a gap widening between them. The outlaw’s bald statement left her breathless for moments on end. Moments that gave Chapelo a chance to continue.

  “I had a chance in Santa Fe, but I was a raw kid then. And I’ve sat in a stinking prison for five years thinking about nothing else but killing J. C. Lawless for shooting my father when I was two years old. I intended to head there first thing after celebrating my freedom here. But then you happened along. And now it seems I’m to be denied my eye-for-an-eye.”

  A surge of hatred for this man’s calculating heart set Jacey’s features into a snarl. “So sorry to have to bring you the news, Chapelo. I know how disappointed you must be.”

  Now the outlaw looked her up and down. In a dark and deadly way. “I am. But for reasons other than you think. Reasons that have to do with you.”

  “Me? Well, I suppose to you one dead Lawless is as good as another.” She stepped back, no longer afraid of facing him with Papa’s Colt. “Make your move, Chapelo.”

  “Cut it out, Jacey. I’m not going to shoot you. If I did, I’d just be denying myself another chance at setting things even between our families.”

  Not ready to back down yet, but not willing either to shoot a man in cold blood, Jacey spat out, “You’d best explain yourself.”

  Chapelo hitched his Stetson up another notch. “All right. I rode back here from Sonora with a plan in mind. You just ruined it. But it might still work. Yeah, I think it will.” He looked her up and down. “Yeah, I’m going to feel a whole lot better when your belly’s swollen with my bastard.”

  “Your what? You got it all wrong, outlaw.” Jacey’s hand strayed to her Colt.

  Apparently not the least bit threatened by her, Chapelo advanced on her. “The boy will be yours to raise for three years—the age I was when my mother died brokenhearted over the loss of my father. When he’s three, I’ll find you … and I’ll take him from you. Only then will a Lawless know the pain and humiliation that my mother endured, alone and unmarried, bearing a bastard son. Only then will her suffering be avenged. And only then … will yours begin.”

  Her mouth dry, her heart pounding, Jacey stood her ground. That was the coldest, most calculating speech she’d ever heard. She sensed the pain underlying his words. But she just didn’t care. Swallowing the thick saliva clogging her throat, she put a hand up to stop him. “You may as well go for your gun right now. Because none of what you just said is going to happen.”

  “Like hell it isn’t.” He stood about one pace away and stared at her as if she were something nasty on a cantina floor. As if he’d never kissed her, had never laughed because of her, had never killed two men to protect her.

  Afraid for herself, knowing him to be fully capable of doing exactly what he said, Jacey watched him settling his Stetson low on his brow—and seized the moment to catch him off guard. Slapping leather in two blinks of an eye, she had her Colt out … cocked … and jammed right between his eyes. “Like hell it is, Chapelo. Now, give me a reason to pull the trigger. Please.”

  Zant sighted down the line of the gun to look into her eyes. In the pale darkness, all Jacey could see of his eyes was the silvery gleam of reflected moonglow. “Pull it.”

  She nearly jumped when he spoke. Her fear and anger fled, along with her tough stance. She shifted her weight and blinked. “What?”

  “Pull the trigger, you spineless little Lawless shit. There. Is that enough of a reason?”

  Insulted now and close to giving him his due, Jacey nevertheless began to sweat. “You want me to kill you? You’re … you’re bluffin’, right?”

  Despite the gun to his head, he shook it. “I don’t bluff. Do you?”

  Jacey swallowed. He was calling her hand, seeing if she was indeed bluffing. She was. She didn’t really want to shoot him, only make him take back his threats. She’d never expected him to dare her to kill him. But now, if she didn’t, he’d never keep his distance. What could she do?

  Then … her way out flashed into her mind. Relief cascaded over her like a waterfall. She uncocked and lowered the Colt. “Don’t think I wouldn’t shoot you, Chapelo. But this time, I’m going to spare your life. Because you did the same for me a few minutes ago. The way I figure it, we’re even now.”

  Chapelo showed his legendary nerves of steel when he chuckled as she reholstered her weapon. “Yeah, we’re even.”

  Something in his voice made Jacey look up at him.

  “But only on that score.”

  * * *

  Zant had all the tossing-turning night to think about … her. And what to do about her. And how he was going to do it. If he had any hope of getting her out of Tucson alive and on her way back home before the winter snows came to the mountains, then he had to act now. Because if she stayed here through winter, her time would be too near for her to travel, come spring. And if she stayed here until the baby was born, then—

  “Dammit!” Cussing at his tangling sheets and thoughts, he got up from his mussed and jumbled bed at La Casa Grande Hotel. Naked, he walked to the washstand and cleaned himself up. Toweling off, he padded over to the window and pulled the curtain back just enough to stare down at the street, streaked as it was with dawn’s pinkening shades. Just as busy as it was during the afternoon. Except with a different sort of folk. The men on the streets now were as likely to use a gun or a knife on you, as they were to put an arm around your shoulder and offer you a drink. His kind of men. Hell … him.

  He allowed the curtain to swing closed. Tossing the towel aside, he turned and began hitching on his combination suit. So why should I care if Jacey Lawless is safe? Why should I continue to involve myself in her affairs? He jerked on his tan denims and then sat down to pull on his wool stockings and then his boots. But his own question stilled his hands. He looked at the room’s closed door, as if it were arguing with him. Why do I involve myself? Because I can’t abide Don Rafael getting his hands on her. Pure and simple. That’s the reason. The only reason. He yanked his boots on, stood, stomped his feet to square the fit, and reached for his chambray shirt.

  Well, that was his only reason. Except for his own plans for her. And, hell, she had to be alive to carry a child. Thinking of the process involved to get her that way, Zant went as hard as a gun barrel. Damned thing had a mind of its own. He took several deep and calming breaths before jerking his shirt over his head and tucking it into his waistband. Working the buttons that began at mid-chest, Zant walked over to his gunbelt, folded his shirt’s sleeves twice to leave the combination suit’s ribbed cuffs exposed, and then strapped on the tooled-leather holster, securing it low on his right hip and tying the leather thongs around his thigh.

  Going to the bed, he pulled his Colt from under the pillows. Holstering it, he grabbed up his Stetson and canvas duster. Time to pay Miss Lawless a visit.

  * * *

  Protected from the dawn’s cool air by her covers, and lying on her side, her back to
the room, Jacey snapped awake to a gray and pink light spilling into her room. And to a big hand being clamped over her mouth. Her body jerked in fearful response as her scream echoed in her head, trapped as it was in her throat. Stiff with fear, her heart pounding and the hair standing up on her arms, she clawed at the viselike hand that all but prevented her from breathing.

  Into her ear, someone whispered, “Shh, Jacey. It’s me. Zant.”

  For a stunned moment, not sure she’d just heard that, she stared at the long shadows on the adobe wall she faced. Then her fear-startled senses cleared. Chapelo? In my room? His hand still in place, she turned onto her back. Yep. Did he think she’d feel better … safer because it was him?

  Instantly angered, Jacey gripped his hand and bit down hard on the padded flesh of his palm. His yelp of surprise and pain as he jerked his injured hand away from her mouth … now, that made her feel better.

  “You bit my gun hand. What’d you do that for? I told you it was me.” As his yelled words echoed and died, he massaged his wound and glared at her, his eyebrows meeting over his nose. “You damn near broke the skin.”

  Jacey fought off her covers as if she wrestled a living thing and then shot to her feet, standing in the middle of her bed. Mindful of her night attire and her tangle of black hair falling all around her, but never one to hide behind a coy, maidenly demeanor, she pointed an accusing finger at her attacker. “You deserve that and more, Chapelo. How’d you get in here? Better yet, what are you doing in here? Who let you in? And … and how dare you?”

  Glaring for all he was worth, still rubbing his hand, and looking her up and down, he answered smoothly enough. “I let myself in.”

  She cut her gaze to the window. Woven curtain now open, but window still locked from the inside. She twisted to the door. Closed and also locked from the inside. She faced Zant. “How?”