Seduced by an Angel (Velvet Lies, Book 3)

by Adrienne deWolfe

  "I haven't been having the best birthday," she confided, stroking Tempest's neck with a childlike yearning. "Rafe and Michael—they're my brothers—are arguing again. I wish they would stop. I told them both that all I really wanted for my birthday is for them to get along, but Rafe insisted on buying me a pony, which hurt Michael's pride, I think. Michael is watching every penny so he and Eden can have their baby..."

  When he was silent, she glanced up shyly from beneath wet, spikey lashes. "Do you have brothers?"

  "None that are bloodkin."

  She nodded, sighing wistfully. "I guess brothers aren't the worst thing that can happen to a girl. Gabriel was a decent sort."

  She chewed her bottom lip for a moment, as if trying to think of something else to keep their conversation going.

  "I've never been to Texas," she confessed, "but Rafe wrote to me about it. He tried to be a cowboy there, but he wasn't much good with scorpions or tarantulas."

  Jesse cleared his throat. He didn't dare laugh, not with the wealthy Aspenite arguing with his brother only 20 yards away.

  Sera's forehead puckered again. Her expression turned deeply melancholy as she gripped Tempest's harness and kissed the filly's nose.

  "I love her already, you know," she whispered, mostly to the filly. "We were destined to meet. Like the kid sister I never had. She needs me. And if she doesn't want to race, she shouldn't have to race. She's not fast enough, anyway. But the other bidders don't know that yet. They'll buy her, hoping she'll win them a fortune. When she doesn't, the beatings will begin. They'll whip her, and whip her, and whip..."

  Sera shuddered. A tear spilled down her cheek.

  Raising those unnaturally bright, blue eyes, she locked her stare with his. "I can't let that happen," she said in a husky, hurting voice. "Don't you see? I have to save her, Jesse."

  Every hair on his head stood on end.

  She guessed my name?

  Chills scuttled up and down his spine.

  How did she guess my name?

  "Sera?" Rafe called, stepping into the stable. "Are you coming? The second half of the auction's about to begin."

  She staggered a bit, as if Rafe's voice had broken her concentration. She blinked down at her gloveless hands. She looked confused.

  Jesse recognized the signs of an interrupted trance state. His grandmother, Hiawassee, had been training as a Medicine Woman long before she'd left the Cherokee nation to marry a White man.

  Instinctively, he offered Sera his arm to keep her from teetering and falling off her spiky heels.

  But Michael, being a White man's doctor, saw signs of faintness in Sera's condition, not a rude awakening. "Dammit, Rafe. You got her over-agitated. She's having one of her Episodes."

  Outpacing his brother, Michael tugged a small bottle from his coat pocket. As he screwed off the lid, the stench of Spirits of Hartshorn invaded Jesse's senses. He grimaced, imagining how those smelling salts would burn Sera's sensitive nose and eyes. He squeezed past her in the stall, protecting her with his body.

  "Step aside," Michael barked. "I'm a doctor."

  "She's all right, doc," Jesse said, striving for a jovial tone.

  Michael ignored him. "Sera, where your gloves? Put them on."

  Michael's command confirmed Jesse's suspicion that Sera's Episodes were triggered by touch and that she hadn't learned to control her clairvoyance—which Cherokee Shamans had dubbed the gift of half-sight.

  Sera's brow furrowed. She appeared to be searching for her gloves. She glanced at the oats bag and then at the horse blanket that had been thrown across the wall of the stall. She didn't look entirely lucid, so Jesse stooped, shaking straw from the daintily-sewn, white kid before handing her gloves back to her.

  Michael looked far from pleased by the solicitous attention that his sister was receiving from a stable hand. Although there wasn't enough space for a single other human in the stall, Michael stepped forward, hell-bent on pushing inside, anyway.

  Rafe caught his brother's arm. "Give her room to breathe, for pity's sake."

  "I think I'm better qualified to judge Sera's medical condition—"

  "What the hell are you folks doing in that stall?" a booming voice challenged from the stable's doorway.

  Jesse started, realizing that a small crowd of groomsmen and handlers were descending upon the building to lead the horses to the auction block.

  Sera emitted a tiny gasp, snapping out of her daze. She ran to Michael's arms for protection, but her panicked gaze flew to Rafe. A sweaty, cigar-puffing man was stumping along the corridor of stalls, ignoring the curious horses that nickered or turned their heads to follow him.

  Cigar Man shoved his way past Jesse. Squatting in Tempest's straw, he inspected her legs for sabotage. He must not have found any problems, though, because when he straightened, his grunt held a grudging note of satisfaction.

  "You folks shouldn't be here," Cigar Man snapped as he untied the filly's lead rope. "The auction has started. The stable is off limits to bidders. Get along with you, now."

  "Rafe," Sera whispered desperately, tugging on her gloves as they followed the procession of horse flesh into the stableyard.

  "We'll rendezvous at the lemonade pavilion," he soothed, flashing a confident smile.

  Michael frowned. "Now hold on a—"

  "What I purchase for my sister on her birthday is none of your concern," Rafe told his brother curtly. He gave Jesse a nod before turning on his heel and cutting across the stable yard.

  Michael scowled after him.

  Jesse watched Rafe's golden head dissolve in the river of bonnets and bowlers that were bobbing toward the auction block.

  "Yes, yes, Michael, I shouldn't have taken off my gloves," Sera was meanwhile apologizing. She rolled her eyes as he bent his dark head over her wrist and took her pulse. "I'm perfectly healthy," she insisted when he felt her forehead with the back of his hand.

  "You're flushed."

  "So are you," she retorted. "The day is hot. Don't you dare open that hideous bottle again, or I swear I shall cook you nothing but turnips for a month!"

  Michael's lips quirked, belying the worry in his midnight-blue eyes. "Fortunately, I now have a wife to take pity on me in the kitchen."

  Sera sniffed. "Not after I tell Eden how you tried to keep me from Rafe's birthday present."

  Jesse cleared his throat, readjusting his hat brim to hide his amusement. "I reckon a filly as spirited as Tempest would be a handful for any new owner," he said diplomatically. "But thoroughbreds are smart. They can be retrained. Otherwise, they'd just get fat and lazy when their racing days are through.

  "So if the lady has set her heart on taking Tempest home," he drawled, encouraged by Sera's enthusiastic bounce, "I'd be happy to turn that filly into a proper saddle horse, Doc."

  Sera rewarded him with a smile that was pure sunshine.

  Michael wasn't as easily influenced. He raked cool, appraising eyes along Jesse's rough-rider attire, his gaze focusing narrowly on the bulges beneath the linen duster. Fortunately, Jesse had won his coat in a poker game from a cattleman who'd been a good 20 pounds heavier than he. The fabric draped Jesse's cartridge belt and holster like a tent.

  "And might I know whom I have the pleasure of addressing?" Michael countered coolly.

  Jesse stuck out his hand. "The name's Jesse, Doc. Jesse Quaid."

  Michael hesitated to take Jesse's hand, but the reason why wasn't immediately clear. Michael could have been averse to Jesse's interference in a family matter. Or he could have been reluctant to do business with a man whom he considered beneath his financial station.

  Michael did finally overcome his hesitation, though. He shook Jesse's hand, which cued Jesse that today, at least, he looked White enough to pass inspection.

  "Michael Jones," Michael introduced himself tersely. "I believe you've already met my sister, Miss Seraphina Jones."

  Jesse tipped his hat. "A pleasure, ma'am."

  Sera beamed at him as if he was some ki
nd of hero, and he felt his insides warm. He wasn't accustomed to being favored so openly by respectable females—especially in front of their White menfolk.

  "Mr. Quaid is Tempest's trainer," Sera told her brother enthusiastically. "He would be the perfect person to make Tempest safe for pleasure riding. Then you wouldn't have to worry about me riding her on Blue Thunder Mountain or anywhere else! Please, oh please, Michael. Hire Mr. Quaid for my birthday!"

  "Sera, it could take weeks, maybe months, to retrain a thoroughbred—"

  "Rafe will buy Tempest for me, Michael. And I do intend to ride her, with or without your permission. So the sooner you hire Mr. Quaid, the better."

  Michael's expression suggested that he was torn between spanking her and pleasing her.

  "The truth is," he told Jesse, "we don't live in Stanford. We live in Whitley County, about five miles east of Ywahoo Falls—although you may be better acquainted with the Sundowner Logging Company, which runs a sawmill about 12 miles north of our town, Blue Thunder."

  Sera lives close to sacred Cherokee burial grounds?

  A fresh set of chills gusted down Jesse's spine.

  "Don't you fret, Doc," he drawled. "I'm used to traveling wherever the work leads. I'd be right pleased to spend as much time as it takes to train Tempest in Blue Thunder. The fact is, I've grown rather fond of that filly."

  "You see, Michael?" Sera gushed. "Mr. Quaid is a Godsend. You must hire him quickly before some other bidder snatches him away."

  Michael's jaw twitched. His business sense was clearly vying with his affection for his sister, who didn't know the first thing about negotiation and had all but dashed any advantage that Michael would normally have had, haggling over wages.

  But Jesse didn't give a damn about the wages. And he didn't need room or board. He could camp in the hills and live off the land—which was his preference, anyway, since he sometimes encountered his own Wanted Poster whenever he rode into an unknown town.

  No, the only thing that Jesse needed was to rid himself of the price on his head. And if that meant following Great Spirit's Eagle Messenger to Blue Thunder to clear his name of murder, then so be it.

  "My sister drives a hard bargain, Mr. Quaid," Michael said dryly. He fished in his vest pocket and pulled out a white, embossed calling card. "If my brother secures the filly at the auction—"

  "You mean when," Sera interjected with glee.

  Michael's reluctant amusement threatened his Poker face.

  "—Then we shall be leaving Stanford on the six o'clock train. You may meet me in the lobby of the Gables Hotel, about four o'clock this afternoon, to discuss your employment."

  The six o'clock train? Jesse steeled himself against a show of alarm. Did that mean Michael would expect him to leave for Blue Thunder tonight with the Jones family?

  How the hell am I supposed to break Cass out of jail between now and six p.m., in broad daylight?

  "Much obliged," Jesse rallied, accepting the card.

  Michael inclined his head. Sera turned to wave a jubilant goodbye as her brother escorted her toward the auction block.

  Jesse drew a long, steadying breath. He brushed his thumb over the bold, black lettering of the calling card. A lot was riding on his business arrangement with Michael, not the least of which would be his ability to pass himself off as a law-abiding waddie, who drifted from town to town, seeking employment from ranchers.

  Fortunately, Stanford was the furthest east that Jesse had ever ridden. When he'd conceived the idea of training Tempest, he'd been assuming that his reputation as a livestock rustler hadn't preceded him to Stanford. Now he had to hope that his Wanted Poster wasn't hanging in Blue Thunder.

  And speaking of lawless behavior...

  Jesse frowned.

  Cass's fondness for getting drunk and shooting up the town was going to be a problem in Blue Thunder, just as it had been in Fort Worth, Wichita, Dodge City, and now Stanford. But what was Jesse supposed to do? Leave Cass in Stanford's jail? Let some bounty hunter catch up with him?

  Even if Cass hadn't saved Jesse's life eight times over the last 11 years, Jesse couldn't turn his back on the hothead. Cass was more like a kid brother than a friend.

  Distracted by the commotion at the top of the bidding platform, Jesse watched the auctioneer's gavel come crashing down. He heard the booming, "Sold!" and Sera's delighted squeal as Rafe stepped forward to claim the ticket that would let his sister take Tempest home.

  Jesse squinted at the sun. He reckoned the time to be shortly after 3 p.m.

  Muttering an oath, he turned on his heel and hurried across the yard to the public livery, where he'd stabled Kavi.

  At 4 p.m., he would have to provide Michael with a legitimate excuse for not leaving Stanford until the morning. Failing that, he would have to break Cass out of jail before 6 p.m.

  Hoisting himself into Kavi's saddle, Jesse turned the mare toward town and spurred her into a canter.

  With any luck, he would find the solution to both predicaments at Stanford's apothecary shop.

  Chapter 2

  After Jesse successfully convinced Michael that he'd "overdosed on the sun," he was able to earn himself a 12-day respite before he was required to report for work.

  Jesse's hastily concocted cayenne pepper ointment had burned something fierce on his face, neck, chest, and the backs of his hands. However, the preparation had made his skin hot to the touch—so much so, that it had fooled Michael into thinking that his 26-year-old patient was suffering from a mild case of heat exhaustion.

  After a cold bath had washed away the worst of the pepper residue, Jesse had been "cured" by 4:45 p.m.

  Now the time was 30 minutes past midnight. Jesse was standing on top of his horse, peering through the metal bars of a cell window and deciding whether he wanted to throttle his best friend or just punch out his lights.

  Billy "Cass" Cassidy was the only prisoner in a town that was too civilized to boast a night watchman, much less a patrol of deputies. Considering the minor nature of Cass's public intoxication charge, the 24-year-old hooligan should have been tossing restlessly on an uncomfortable cot in a blackened jail cell, and Stanford's marshal, Harold Ellerbe, should have been snoozing at home in his bed.

  Instead, the light of a kerosene lantern flooded the cellblock. About 10 feet below Jesse, Cass and the middle-aged Ellerbe were embroiled in a card game, which appeared to be Coon Can. A pine plank had been balanced across a barrel and partially inserted through the food hole of Cass's cell to create a rustic table.

  On the side of freedom, mustachioed Ellerbe perched on a second barrel with a bottle of sipping whiskey, a half-filled glass, and his winnings: a black Stetson, black duster, and silver buckle, all of which used to belong to Cass.

  On the incarcerated side, Cass sat on his cot, his canny blue eyes narrowed at the pasteboards in his hand. As he discarded the two of hearts, a telltale drop of sweat rolled from the prisoner's sun-bleached blond hair, down his angelically beautiful cheek, to drip into the collar of his black linen shirt.

  According to the banter that cleaved the clouds of tobacco smoke drifting toward the ceiling, Cass was playing for three hot meals. The cigar-puffing Ellerbe was playing for Cass's elaborately tooled, black Justin boots.

  At the rate Cass was losing, the Texican would be naked before the church bell rang the one o'clock hour.

  Stealthily, Jesse withdrew a child's peashooter from the inner lining of his coat. The traditional Cherokee blowgun was made from river cane and was approximately nine feet long. But even if Jesse had a convenient way of carrying such a suspicious weapon—which he didn't—a nine-foot blowgun would have forced him to stand too far from the cell's small, square window to see his target. A peashooter was the perfect alternative.

  Jesse narrowed his eyes at his mark. Accuracy would be crucial. He had to put Ellerbe out of commission before the marshal grew suspicious and sounded an alarm. Fortunately, Ellerbe's holster was hanging from a peg near the door. Another boon from
Great Spirit, Jesse mused. In Texas, no self-respecting lawman would have strayed more than an arm's length from his six-shooter, even when he slept.

  Careful not to prick his fingers through his riding gauntlets, Jesse loaded his weapon. The missiles he had chosen were the spiny, round seeds of the bursage plant, rather than a wooden dart, which would have immediately raised suspicion when it was discovered clinging to Ellerbe's neck.

  Jesse had dipped the seeds in an extremely potent sedative that could be absorbed through the skin or mouth. He'd concocted the drug from his own herbal recipe, one which he'd mixed from purchases at the apothecary's shop. If Hiawassee had known that her grandson was using sacred Cherokee remedies to render lawmen unconscious, she would have taken a switch to Jesse's backside.

  But Jesse didn't see that he had a choice. He couldn't afford to pay the fine that would have set Cass free, and he couldn't leave Cass in jail for the 30 days of his resulting sentence. Not with Newton "Thorn" Taggart on his trail.

  Taggart was little better than an assassin. The schoolmaster-turned-bounty-hunter had a personal vendetta against Jesse and Cass, as well as the other surviving gang members who'd worked for the Confederate deserter, Black Bart. During a stage coach robbery ten years ago, Taggart's father had been a passenger, and Old Taggart had suffered a heart attack when Bart had demanded his pocket watch at gun point.

  Fourteen-year-old Cass and 16-year-old Jesse had done nothing more than hold the outlaws' horses as the other men had looted the passengers. But Taggart had vowed to avenge his father, and he'd been methodically hunting down each member of Bart's gang ever since.

  Most recently, Jesse had tangled with Taggart in Wichita—ironically, not for that old stage coach robbery, but for daring to pass himself off as a White man in a bordello. The next morning, he'd waked on the floor of "Bedroom #2," unable to remember anything that had transpired after he'd walked through the door. To his horror, he'd found himself passed out in the same room as a murdered whore, who'd slumped across the bed.

  Taggart, of course, had turned the entire town against Jesse, causing him to flee. In the shoot-out that had ensued, Cass's bullet had struck Taggart's leg, causing the bounty hunter's perpetual limp.