Seduced by an Angel (Velvet Lies, Book 3)

by Adrienne deWolfe

  "Your secret's safe with me, Miss Sera."

  Her breath released in a rush of relief. "Cross your heart?"

  The warmth of his gaze was like sunshine on her face. "Cross my heart," he murmured.

  And he did.

  She found herself blushing.

  "Michael doesn't mean to be such a bear—well, maybe he does," she amended dryly. "But he really does care about his patients. You won't find a finer doctor anywhere in Kentucky. And Eden—that's his wife—she knows something about healing, too. She doesn't talk about it much, but her father ran a traveling medicine show with the help of a Cherokee Medicine Woman. They traveled all across the West until Eden's Pa died about a year ago. That's when she came to Blue Thunder to live with her Aunt Claudia."

  Jesse's eyes had locked with hers.

  "Um..." It was Sera's turn to fidget; his stare had grown intensely green. "Jesse, did I say something to offend—?"

  A gunshot rang out, rolling through the hills. Judging by the echo, Sera guessed that the shooter must be many miles north, where the lumberjacks and the railroad men had chased the bigger varmints.

  But Jesse had tensed like a fiddlestring. She was surprised to see the grim set of his jaw. She was even more surprised to see the revolver gripped so expertly in his fist. That Colt had materialized out of thin air!

  Don't be a ninny, she scolded herself. Jesse must have been holding the .45 in his right hand, behind Kavi's neck. All this time, while they'd been chatting so pleasantly, she'd never suspected that Jesse had been holding a gun!

  She shivered a little. This Texican was jumpier than a grasshopper.

  "Jesse," she ventured in her most soothing voice. "You heard a hunter's rifle. There are lots of hunters in the woods this time of year. They stock up on turkeys, wild hog, and sometimes even squirrel meat."

  But he wouldn't relax. His head was cocked as if listening. Watching. She imagined he was sniffing—just like a real cougar.

  "Jesse, I promise you, we're safe. Nothing bad ever happens in Blue Thunder." Except Berthold Gunther's unsolved murder last autumn.

  But Sera decided not to worry Jesse further by bringing up Gunther. Nobody else had been murdered in Blue Thunder for more than 20 years. So Sera felt justified in calling Gunther's murder a fluke.

  "It's so safe in our town," she continued, "that the county sheriff only visits us four times a year—mostly to dole out candy apples to the kiddies at the festivals. We haven't needed a town marshal for so long, that the mayor hasn't rushed to appoint a new one, even though Eddie Holcomb died from pneumonia last autumn.

  "Any fights that break out are mostly mouth-offs," she blabbed on, wincing when that narrowed green gaze drilled into her own. "I can't remember the last time someone actually sported a black eye in Blue Thunder, except for that one time when Johnny Dufflemeir let a shutter smack him in the face. Johnny had plenty of witnesses to corroborate his story on that windy day, too.

  "Jesse, I swear. Blue Thunder is about as dangerous as chamomile tea. The truth is, we could use a little excitement around here."

  His face looked as hard as granite. "Don't go wishing for trouble where there is none. It's bad luck. Sgina," he added, then finally looked away, as if regretting that he'd brought the matter up.

  Sera swallowed as he holstered his gun. She hadn't liked the wintry greenness in Jesse's eyes.

  "Jesse, I'm sorry if something I said offended—- "

  "It wasn't you," he snapped. Chagrin flooded his sun-coppered face. "I mean... where I come from, you can't be too careful. Blue Thunder sounds like a real nice place."

  He dragged a rolled, plaid workshirt from his saddlebag, snapped it open with a precise movement, then shrugged it on, turning his shoulder toward her as his fingers worked the buttons in short bursts of economical efficiency. Judging by the tension in his profile, he was still upset.

  Just what I need. Another moody cuss like Michael.

  "Jesse, do you like blackberry cobbler?"

  He shrugged, fastening the top two buttons of his cotton shirt. "I reckon."

  She bit her lip. She had no idea what Texas girls baked their menfolk to put them in a better mood.

  "How about blueberry muffins?" she ventured.

  He tossed her a canny look over that brawny shoulder. "Miss Sera, are you trying to bribe me to go berry-picking with you?"

  She wrinkled her nose in a kittenish way. The ploy always worked on Henry. "Well, I was planning to ask Collie. But he didn't have the good sense to be here."

  "And I did?"

  "Precisely!"

  "Hmm."

  She couldn't tell if Jesse was teasing her or not.

  "You know what they say," she prompted brightly. "'The early bird gets the worm.' Or in your case, dessert."

  "Dessert, eh?"

  "Any kind you like."

  "Any kind?" he challenged, arching a coal-black eyebrow as he faced her once more.

  "Any kind," she repeated staunchly.

  He answered with a low chuckle and a pair of heart-tripping dimples—neither of which could distract her entirely from the naughty gleam that had kindled in his eyes.

  "Well then," he drawled, settling a chocolate-brown Stetson over his head, "lead me to a berry patch."

  Chapter 4

  The sun had just passed its zenith when Sarah and Jesse cantered past the enormous, granite block that served as Blue Thunder's town marker. As pleased as Jesse was to have spent an entire morning alone with Sera, he wasn't at all happy about trotting down Main Street in broad daylight, where his Wanted Poster could have stared down at him from any storefront window.

  In fact, Jesse had deliberately arrived two days early so that he could spend time scouting the area. He'd intended to enter Blue Thunder on foot later that night to determine the level of lawlessness in the commercial district. He'd wanted to locate the jail and the marshal's office, and most importantly, he'd wanted to learn whether he was a wanted man in Whitley County.

  But Tempest had thwarted his plan when she'd tried to buck Sera's bushels of berries into the river. This bit of mischief had convinced Sera that Tempest was wholly unsuited to be a pack animal—much to Tempest's delight—and Sera had insisted that she needed Jesse's help to transport packages of sugar and flour from the general store to her home.

  Now Jesse was reluctant to trot Kavi toward the squat, red-brick buildings that clustered at the top of Main Street's hill. He had a hard time believing Sera's protestations that the elm-lined, cobbled commercial district was so sleepy, that the mayor was reluctant to pay a new marshal.

  "After the nice, long workout that you gave Tempest today," Jesse drawled, hoping to change Sera's plans, "I reckon she's all tuckered out. She'll be hankering for a rub down and a bag of tasty oats. But I'd be right pleased to fetch your packages for you in the morning, Miss Sera."

  "You mean tomorrow?" She feigned a comical look of horror. "And let some jelly-making alleycat sink her claws into my sugar today? I'll have you know, Jesse Quaid, there's a blue ribbon riding on that sugar!"

  He chuckled. "I didn't realize sugar was an emergency ration in these parts."

  "It is when the Founder's Day bakeoff is only four weeks away. The last dry goods delivery of the month will arrive at noon. I'll need your help to fend off the sugar-snatching hordes."

  "Hordes, huh?"

  Sera's expression was a mixture of mischief and martyrdom.

  "I realize you're just a man," she countered in long-suffering tones, "and that culinary skullduggery is completely out of your element, but you might at least try to understand the dire consequences of losing an Honorable Mention to a gopher-cheeked ninny like Puddin' Puddocks."

  "Puddin' Puddocks?" he scoffed. "Come now, Miss Sera. You went and made that name up."

  "I most certainly did not."

  "Shoot. Didn't her mama like her or something?"

  Sera narrowed her dancing eyes at him. "I'll have you know, that Mrs. Praline Puddocks is a pillar of our chu
rch—not to mention Blue Thunder's reigning bakeoff champion."

  "You don't say?" Jesse secretly dubbed the theatrical Miss Jones the next Sarah Bernhardt. "Well, I reckon Mrs. Puddocks must spend a lot of time in the kitchen."

  "She named her youngest daughter Parfait."

  Jesse snickered.

  Sera's lips quirked.

  "I hope you're still laughing when I use you as my pie-tasting guinea pig," she told him.

  "You could always twist my arm."

  "And I very well may! Pies are serious business in this town, Jesse Quaid. Serious business. Why, Praline Puddocks has won every baking, canning, and cooking contest for the last five years. It's high time she got her just desserts. Metaphorically speaking."

  "Bourbon."

  Sera blinked at him, momentarily distracted from her theatrics. "I beg your pardon?"

  "Add more bourbon to your recipes."

  She looked aghast. "I don't pour liquor in my entries!"

  "That's your problem."

  "How would you know? You haven't even tasted my pies."

  "I've eaten a blue-ribbon pie a time or two, courtesy of my grandmother."

  "Your grandmother baked with bourbon?" Sera's eyes had grown as round as blue moons.

  Jesse chuckled. "Let's just say it was the 'secret' in her secret family recipe."

  Sera seemed to consider his advice.

  "Well, Michael doesn't keep spirits in the house. I don't think he'd approve if I laced my pies with bourbon."

  "How about whiskey?"

  "I think you're missing the point," she said dryly.

  "If you want to win that contest, Miss Sera, liquor is the key. Unless of course, you're making chili. Then you'll need to keep the spirits handy for your guinea pig."

  "I do?" She raised her eyebrows. "How come?"

  "'Cause Texicans are too proud to wash down their chili with a firehose."

  He enjoyed the sound of her mirth. If there was one thing that he'd learned over the last four hours, it was that Sera wasn't the conventional, strait-laced belle. She hadn't dissolved in a parody of feminine horror to find her hired hand half-naked at the river. More to the point, she liked the company of a red-blooded man.

  Maybe being raised by men had saved her from being a prude. The mesmerized way she'd watched the water drops roll past his hardened nipples had reminded Jesse forcefully that he'd been sleeping like a monk since February. And when the kindling blue flames of her eyes had roamed so appreciatively from his pectorals to the straining buttons of his fly, his mouth had watered for a taste of her.

  Not for the first time was Jesse glad that he'd ditched Cass on this journey. Because the other thing that Jesse had learned about Sera that morning was that she wasn't as accomplished as she liked to think she was at distracting male escorts from their baser inclinations. Sera was, without a doubt, a maid.

  "I declare, Jesse Quaid, you're going to be a bad influence on me!"

  "Naw. I'm just being a good friend." He winked. "So if we arrive late at Aunt Claudia's store, I'm guessing you'll want me to do the sugar-rustling."

  "Good heavens, sir." Her dimples peeked. "I can't imagine where you get your ideas. But if I was ever to need an accomplice for such a dastardly crime, I'd choose you over any other outlaw I know."

  Jesse's humor ebbed.

  He averted his gaze.

  He knew that Sera had meant her quip as high praise. But he wasn't proud of his past—even if thieving had been his only means of survival while growing up in the swampy "Big Thicket" that sprawled outside the little corner of hell known as Pilot Grove, Texas. He'd suffered through the War of Secession, four years of the bloody Lee-Peacock Feud, the harrowing vigilantism of the Ku Klux Klan, and the economic depredations of Reconstruction.

  That he still drew breath today was largely Cass's doing. Hiawassee had been an Indian Medicine Woman, not a sharpshooter. Cass, on the other hand, had been a deadeye practically since the day he could toddle. It was Cass who'd taught 15-year-old Jesse how to shoot straight after they'd both been forced to flee northeast Texas.

  Jesse's uneasy alliance with the 13-year-old White Trash who'd inadvertently rescued him from the Klan had eventually blossomed into friendship. Cass had come to appreciate Jesse's talent for surviving off the land. Jesse had come to appreciate Cass's ability to sweet-talk his way around saloons, hotels, and brothels—all without a nickel to his name. It was Cass who'd taught Jesse how to stare down the barrel of a six-shooter without flinching during a showdown.

  But try as he might, Jesse had never been able to equal Cass's speed on the draw.

  His thoughts thus occupied, Jesse wasn't feeling particularly sociable when Kavi trotted beside Tempest into the northern quadrant of Blue Thunder's business district. The brick buildings ranged in height from two to three stories, with fanciful wrought-iron balconies, ivy-draped walls, and charming window planters filled with colorful arrays of pansies or marigolds.

  But Jesse knew a man could be plugged in a provincial, Appalachian hamlet just as easily as he could be blasted to his Maker in a lawless, Kansas cattle town. Keeping his chin tucked and his hat brim lowered, he darted wary eyes along the rooftops, over the galleries, down the alleys, into the shadows—the types of places that snipers liked to frequent.

  In the meantime, he kept his gun hand resting on a flap of his saddle blanket, beneath which he'd hidden his .45. Despite his every screaming impulse to buckle on his holster while he'd dressed beside the river, he'd resisted the urge. He'd figured that he'd frightened Sera enough for one day with his green-as-grass reaction to the rifle shot in the woods.

  Besides, a horse trainer wouldn't strap on a .45 in the company of a lady.

  Sera grinned at him over the shoulder of her form-fitting riding jacket. "You're the most interesting thing that has happened in this town since the bear tore down Widow Hammond's clothesline," she teased. "I wouldn't be surprised if the editor of the Trumpeter rushes out of his office to interview you for next week's headline."

  Jesse groaned inwardly to see how grizzled miners, beardless boys, plump matrons, and bespectacled clerks all stopped in their tracks to gawk at his flapping duster. In a town like Dodge City, which was full of migrant cowhands, pedestrians rarely bothered to glance at a rider, unless, of course, that rider was whooping, hollering, and stampeding a flock of gawkers with a gun. Recalling Sera's claim that Blue Thunder rarely saw visitors, he suspected that she was enjoying the notoriety of his companionship.

  In fact, the more folks waved and "you-hooed" her, the more he wondered if neighborly attention had been her real motivation for roping him into a visit to Aunt Claudia's Trading Post and Notions. As Sera reined in before the general store's hitching post, she was grinning like a child on Christmas Day.

  "Hello, Luke," she called, waving gaily to a 30ish, dark-haired man, who was climbing a ladder to hang a sign over a shop across the street.

  Luke waved back.

  The boy standing with the hammer beneath Luke's ladder grew excited to see Sera. Abandoning his post, the boy scattered nails from the pockets of his britches as he raced a rollicking young coonhound for the hitching post.

  "Miss Sera! Miss Sera!"

  "Hello, Jamie."

  Tempest flattened her ears, skittering as Jamie and his yapping hound charged under her nose. But Sera shortened the reins, managing her mount with a skill that secretly impressed Jesse.

  "Is this your new pony?" Jamie panted.

  "It sure is."

  "She's a beaut!"

  "Why thank you, young sir."

  "Jamie!" Luke bellowed. "Miss Sera's filly is going to step on those nails!"

  "Oops." Jamie finally noticed his path of chaos.

  Not more than 12 years old, the dark-haired, freckle-faced boy turned his head sheepishly to watch Jesse dismount. Jamie's blue eyes grew wider as they took in Jesse's Stetson, rodeo buckle, chaps, and spurs.

  "Are you a cowpoke?" Jamie breathed. "Like in the penny-dreadfuls?
"

  Jesse felt his neck heat. He wasn't used to hero worship. If anyone inspired that sort of admiration in youngsters, it was Cass, with his fancy black rigging and low-riding holster.

  "I've poked cattle a time or two, sure," Jesse drawled, offering his hand to Sera to help her dismount.

  "Jeepers! All the way down in Texas?"

  "That's right."

  "Jamie, this is my friend, Mr. Jesse," Sera said. "He's going to train my filly to be a proper lady's horse."

  Jamie cocked his head. "What about Mr. Kit?"

  Sera's face grew bright red.

  Jesse was quick to notice her discomfort.

  "Mr. Kit doesn't train horses," Sera countered breezily. "Besides, Mr. Kit left Blue Thunder, remember?"

  "Good riddance, if you ask me."

  Sera didn't look terribly offended by Jamie's vehemence.

  Then again, her attention had been diverted. Jamie's hound was whining and begging to be petted. She laughed, squatting to hug the floppy-earred dog.

  "I declare, Jamie Harragan, this puppy's almost as big as you are now."

  "It's Jamie Frothingale now, Miss Sera. Mr. Luke got the adoption papers back from Frankfurt this morning."

  "That's bully, Jamie!" Sera exclaimed, her eyes glowing with genuine affection for the boy. She hugged him.

  The boy beamed.

  Jesse hid his smile. He suspected that Sera had stolen a young heart.

  "Mr. Luke—er, I mean, Papa," Jamie corrected himself sheepishly, "says I should rename my hound something ferocious, like Fang, to make up for the stupid name that Mandy gave him."

  "Mr. Puppy's your dog now?" Sera asked, straightening to loop her reins over the hitching post.

  Jamie nodded. "Mandy didn't want him any more, 'cause he kept jumping and getting dirty paw marks on her skirts." Jamie rolled his eyes. His own broadcloth trousers were liberally dusted with canine prints. "Girls."

  Sera commiserated with a solemn face.

  Jesse didn't dare chuckle.

  "But I don't want to call my dog a killing name, like Fang!" Jamie rattled on as Mr. Puppy wandered off, snuffling after some interesting scent. "I was thinking about a friendly name, like Buddy. What do you think, Miss Sera?"