Her forehead puckered. All she'd heard was, "When I thought the house was asleep."
"You mean... you were trying to avoid me? Because we kissed in the kitchen?"
"Get dressed, Sera."
"Are you angry with me?"
"No, I want you to get dressed."
He retrieved her blouse and skirt, dropping them in a heap beside her hip. She had to crane back her head to see his face, but it didn't help. Towering some six feet above her, it was cloaked in shadow—except for his eyes. They gleamed in the lightning.
"I think you are angry."
"You haven't seen angry, pet."
"Stop calling me that!"
The tension between them climbed another notch.
Considering how fast he could move with a gun, Sera believed his claim that he could get angrier. Much angrier.
Hurt, confused, she reached a shaking hand for her chemise. Then her corset. All the while, her stupefied brain kept trying to make sense of a bewildering situation. Why is Jesse treating me so coldly? Why is he acting so aloof?
The conclusion she kept drawing was devastating:
He has no intention of marrying me.
If Michael finds out that Jesse is refusing to marry me, Michael will force a confrontation.
If Michael forces a confrontation, then Jesse will draw his gun...
A sick sort of calm washed over her. It gave her the strength to climb to her feet. To tug on her skirt and boots. To tame her riotous curls with her comb.
I have to protect Michael.
Thunder rumbled over the mountain as Sera at last gathered the shreds of her dignity to stand before the man she loved.
The man whom she'd given herself to so freely.
The man who had shattered her heart.
Is it possible to hurt so much, that your whole body goes numb?
That's how Sera felt as she stood in the rumpled straw where he'd teased her, kissed her, tormented her, pleasured her three mind-blowing, earth-quaking times. Her throat was so tight, she feared she would squeak if she spoke.
She forced the words out anyway.
"Was any of it real?" She stared forlornly at his boots. "Our friendship, I mean."
Jesse sucked down a restraining breath. He clenched his fists at his sides. He feared if he touched her, she would shatter like glass.
He'd been preparing for the blow-up, of course, for the acrimony and recriminations, the pleas and the tears. He shouldn't have seduced her, but he had. He'd asked her to stop him, but she hadn't.
He liked to tell himself he had nothing to apologize for. She'd come to the stable alone, at night, knowing full well what that would imply, and what that implication would mean to her reputation.
Seraphina Jones was no man's fool. She'd wanted pleasure, and she'd wanted it from him. She'd given him clear, verbal permission to touch her, and she'd given it to him after he'd been just as clear that, come hell or high water, he was riding away from Blue Thunder.
Besides, he'd upheld his end of the bargain, hadn't he? She was still a maid.
Barely, his Conscience jeered.
She also happens to think she's in love with you, that you're a White man, and that you're an honest, law-abiding citizen.
Struggling with the familiar pain, with the feeling that he could never have what he truly wanted—and especially not from his employer's White ward—he steeled himself against blurting out his secrets. He couldn't risk confessing anything that would get him arrested, not to a woman who now resented him. Not to a woman who would hate him for the rest of her life.
"I wouldn't have left you a maid for your wedding night, Sera, if I didn't care about you."
The words came out gravelly, not the way he'd wanted them to sound. The lump in his throat was to blame for that.
She flinched.
He cursed the lump for that too.
"A man doesn't treat a woman the way you're treating me, if he cares about her," she whispered hoarsely.
A tear spilled past her lashes. He died a little with each inch that it rolled: past her nose. Then her lips. To her chin. Finally, it dripped to her boots, falling more than five feet to its doom.
"I tried to tell you how it is about me—"
"I got the message, Jesse."
He bit his tongue to stave off the rest of his guilty outburst. I'm wanted for murder! And even if I didn't kill Polly, there are still warrants for my rustling, my boot legging, my stage coach robberies... And then there's Thorn Taggart, who's hellbent on plugging me!
What kind of life would that be for Sera, always watching over her shoulder, afraid that every stranger she met might be some bounty hunter or lawman who could take away her husband? What kind of life would that be for her children?
Because he did want children, by God. Little dark-haired, blue-eyed angels, who looked just like the one in her vision. Keeping his pants on all night had been the only way that he could live with himself—and maybe even redeem himself—once Sera learned the truth about him.
Did she think that abstinence had been easy? After her kisses had heated him hotter than hell's door handle? After she'd ground her hips into his pecker, moaning and pleading with him to get naked? He would have given his life to make babies with a woman he loved as much as Sera!
You might die anyway, his ornery side whispered. Just to spite you, Sera might tell her brothers that you tried to plant your Colored seed in her.
Feeling better now?
As if guessing his thoughts, she raised her chin a notch. "Just for the record." Her smile was brittle. She looked pale—too pale—in the wash of the setting moon. "I didn't come here to entrap you. I came to fetch Stazzie. Then I saw... well, it doesn't really matter, what I saw, does it?
"The good news is, you're free. You can stop worrying about this horrible deed you think you did. You didn't do it. I had a vision of... of Cass. He knows the person who did."
Ice crystallized in Jesse's veins. His brain flat out stalled in its tracks.
Dammit, think!
Had he ever mentioned Cass by name? Had he ever implied that Cass might be involved in Polly's murder?
My God. Did Cass set me up?
He was so horrified by the implication, that when she turned on her heel, her chin held high, her shoulders squared, he simply stared at the retreat of her rigid spine for a moment, before his lungs finally wheezed back to life.
"Sera, wait!"
He lunged forward to grab her arm.
Big mistake.
She rounded on him, spitting like a tigress.
"No! You don't get to touch me! Not ever again! You don't want me, just my sex? Fine! Good! You're leaving town anyway. I'll keep my mouth shut about tonight, you callous bastard. But you'd better not hurt Michael, you hear me? Or Rafe either. Because I would never forgive you, Jesse Quaid. Never!"
He stiffened at her vehemence.
Girding himself against his own sense of betrayal, he spoke as mildly as he could.
"Sera, please. We have to talk—"
"You've already had your say! Now it's my turn!"
She was breathing hard, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I thought you were different than Kit McCoy," she whispered brokenly.
A light began to burn in Michael's bedroom window. Sera saw it too. She sucked in her breath.
Picking up her skirts, she ducked her head and ran, sobbing, all the way back to the house.
Chapter 10
Thunder rumbled a mile or two away as Billy "Cass" Cassidy crouched upwind from the bay mare and the roan gelding. The two horses were tethered to a rotting, cedar fence that circled a hillbilly shack on Blue Thunder Mountain.
The pinewood shanty leaned downhill into a kennel run, which in turn stretched toward a 25-yard wide, circular dirt hole. Along the perimeter of that pit, chicken wire had been strung across coon-sized dugouts. This animal-baiting trap was surrounded by stumps and logs, reminiscent of a crude amphitheater with seats.
&nb
sp; Cass narrowed his sniper's eyes at a cracked, half-hinged sign that was spinning like a weather vane from its lone chain. The broken plank proclaimed in a white-washed scrawl, "Gunther's Taxidermy—Is there Life after Death? Trespass and Find Out."
At least, that was his interpretation of the abysmally spelled message. Cass's mama had seen to his book-learning, God rest her soul. He'd never put much stock in reading, writing and arithmetic back in Pilot Grove, where bullets had been the only real form of currency.
But Lynx had taught him how to play Poker, and Poker, Cass had quickly discovered, required counting and reading skills, especially when some shady casino owner was shoving an inflated I.O.U. under your nose for a signature.
Tucking his long, sun-bleached hair behind his ears, Cass strained to hear the argument of the two roughriders who stood beneath the rustic, pinewood arch that held that spinning sign. He could tell the men were arguing, because the younger one—some no-account hillbilly with stringy blond hair and a patch of peach fuzz on his chin—had gotten all red and blotchy in the face.
The hillbilly's hands were gesturing in a high state of agitation, but he held them too high above his holster for Cass to think that the second man, Neville "Thorn" Taggart, was in danger of getting plugged.
Which was too damned bad, as far as Cass was concerned.
Taggart was a vicious, black-hearted, soul-rotted weasel—and that was putting it kindly. On the outside, he looked like a middle-aged scarecrow with thinning gray hair, beady black eyes, and drooping mustachios. On his shoulder, he carried a chip against Cass that was bigger than the Grand Canyon. And all because of a little limp.
Hell, if Cass had had his druthers, Taggart would be pushing up daisies right now, just like Abel Ainsworth was. Cass had felt no qualms about gunning down Ainsworth 11 years ago, after the bastard had bashed in Bobby's head.
In truth, if Cass had had that day to live over, he would have shot Ainsworth four or five times in the knees, and in a couple of other joints, too, to make him suffer. He'd let that bastard get off way too easy with one clean shot through the brain.
Ainsworth and Taggart. Cass shook his head. Those old boys are weasel kin.
But maybe, he mused, just maybe, Taggart is worse.
Ol' Thorn-in-the-Britches (as Lynx had dubbed Taggart) liked to call himself a bounty hunter, but in reality, Taggart was a murdering fiend. For some reason, hanging judges figured that a money-grubbing opportunist like Taggart, who raked in bounties by shooting petty thieves and drifters who "looked like" the highest-paying Wanted Posters, deserved a fighting chance to face the gunslinger who was handing him an express ticket to hell.
The night that Cass had wanted to give Thorn a whole lot worse than a limp, any impartial court would have considered Taggart unarmed—which had also been too damned bad.
Yeah, Cass had caught that bastard dead in his sights, and he hadn't pulled the trigger. Ol' Thorn had been stalking out of a Wichita privy at the time. Cass had curbed his killing instinct because Thorn had been strapping on his gunbelt, and witnesses had been present. Despite what Lynx like to think, Cass wasn't all that eager to get hanged.
Even so, Cass considered it a crying shame that he'd kept his .45 holstered that night, because three hours later, Lynx's trouble with Polly Coltrane had begun.
Polly Coltrane Taggart.
Yeah, Cass had figured it out. He knew about the bad blood between Polly and Thorn, thanks to a chance run-in with one of the Golden Galleon's gals. Jolene had moved up in the world—in a manner of speaking. She'd become the madam of the Jade Rose Saloon down south, in Whiskey Bend. The Rose couldn't compare to the Galleon, even if a man was doped on opium.
But Jolene's sultry looks and steely nerve had let her rise in the tenderloin world. When Cass had arrived in Whiskey Bend, she'd been amused to entertain Dodge City's notorious "Rebel Rutter" in her new, low-class establishment. Liking Cass's performance between the sheets well enough to humor him, she'd agreed to spill her guts about her former "colleague" back in Wichita. According to Jolene, Polly had been Thorn's wife at some point. Jolene wasn't privy to why the couple had split up, but she did know that Thorn used to beat and choke the woman.
In Cass's mind, that was a good enough reason to flee any man's bed.
'Course, ol' vengeful Thorn had disagreed. Apparently, he'd postponed his vendetta against Black Bart and the gang for nearly two years so he could hunt down his run-away bride.
Too bad for Lynx—and Polly, too—that Thorn had caught up with them both in the Galleon on the same night. Cass was willing to bet that Thorn had strangled Polly and found a way to finger Lynx. Cass had nothing but his instincts to go on, of course, but he did know first-hand that when Lynx got roostered, he treated whores like pampered pets.
Taggart, on the other hand, beat the stuffing out of them.
Cass frowned, straining to hear his arch enemy's response to the hillbilly who was doing all the hand-waving.
Tarnation! How did Lynx do it? Lynx could hear a freaking owl swoop from 50 yards away. Cass, on the other hand, couldn't hear a single, snooty word coming out of Taggart's book-learned mouth.
Of course, crouching upwind, so the horses wouldn't sense him, wasn't improving Cass's eavesdropping ability. Taggart's voice was getting blown in the wrong direction.
Cass would have to move closer.
Despite the time—which Cass judged to be eight o'clock—the oncoming storm made the morning shadows thick and deep beneath the soughing oaks and hickories. If he stepped carefully and kept low to the ground, he shouldn't have too much trouble sneaking through the half-light to eavesdrop on Taggart.
Cass had been tracking the bastard for close to 10 days, ever since Jolene had confided that Taggart had come to the Jade Rose, asking questions about Black Bart and his "mythical" payroll loot.
Cass had figured he'd let Taggart do the tough part—tracking Bart and his lost booty—while Cass trailed discreetly behind. When push came to shove, Cass's tracking skills weren't as good as Lynx's. Nor was Cass as good at that "Spook Walk" that practically made Lynx a ghost in the woods.
But Cass had other skills—like drawing faster and shooting straighter. He supposed he'd have to rely on bullets if he snapped some twig.
"...How was I supposed to know?" the hillbilly was grousing. "Nobody in these parts knew that Berthold Gunther was really Black Bart. Hell, when I plugged Gunther, I thought I was knocking off some no-account Poker cheat who owed me $20."
Smothering his laugh, Cass hunkered down with his Winchester behind a wood pile. Taggart looked utterly disgusted by the hillbilly's confession.
Trusty varmints are hard to fine, eh, Thorn?
"What about the loot?" Taggart demanded.
Good question, Kemosabe.
Kneeling, Cass peered cautiously around the stack of decaying firewood so he could continue to observe the argument.
"It's gotta be buried here somewhere," the hillbilly insisted. "Gunther never left the place unless he went to town to buy traps."
"Let's assume for a moment," Taggart said acidly, "that your brilliant deduction is correct. This compound's close to two square acres. Are you planning on spending the next five years of your life, digging it up with a shovel?"
Cass smirked. The plot thickens.
"Do I look dumb or something?"
Is a pig's butt pork?
"The moonshiner's boy knows more than he's letting on," the hillbilly insisted. "If I have to, I'll beat it out of him."
"Because that inspired approach was so successful last summer?"
"I didn't beat MacAffee last summer," the hillbilly retorted. "I got cozy with him. Pretended to be his cousin. That's when I learned about Sera. MacAffee's sweet on her. He'll do anything for her. And who can blame him? The girl's loaded. Her brother's a millionaire."
Taggart arched an eyebrow.
"Raphael Jones," the hillbilly insisted. "Owns a silver mine out Aspen way. If you're so high and mighty, send a couple of t
elegrams. Check it out yourself. I figure he'll cough up a partial interest in his mining empire for a new brother-in-law, namely me."
Taggart looked thoughtful.
"And this Sera. She trusts you?"
"Sure. We're close friends." The hillbilly gave Taggart a ribald wink. "She's probably forgotten all about the way I got creeped out by her hands."
"What's wrong with her hands?"
"Oh... she's got this weird thing about wearing gloves. Never takes 'em off. Claims if she touches something, she'll see the future. Maybe even the past. I reckon there's some truth to her story, 'cause when I handed her my matchsafe, she told me straight away it used to belong to my Pa. And then she described how Pa got his neck broke. Damned near made me pee my pants."
That is creepy, Cass thought.
"All right," Taggart said. "Fetch the girl. We'll use her as leverage to make MacAffee talk."
"Yeah?" The hillbilly sounded indignant. "What're you gonna do while I'm running your errands? Whittle yourself a new dick?"
"No, scrotum." Taggart's tone was perfectly pleasant. "I'm going to clean up the mess you made in town."
"Yeah?" The hillbilly sounded suspicious. "How ya gonna do that?"
Taggart's voice dropped in volume.
Cass frowned. He shimmied closer to the woodpile. He was so intent upon hearing Taggart's answer, that he didn't notice the copperhead, camouflaged among last autumn's leaves, until he nearly squashed it with his knee. By that time, the viper's fangs were bared, and it was too late to do anything except bite back a scream.
Fire ripped through his calf. Blood squirted in his mouth as he clamped down on his tongue. Tears of pain scalded his cheeks, but he forced himself to stay silent while the snake fled.
Otherwise, he would have been snakebit and dead.
His fists clenched in agony around his rifle stock as the outlaws strolled toward their horses. He struggled to think past the searing and the throbbing. Copperhead bites weren't supposed to be fatal to a grown man, but the venom kept the blood from clotting. He ripped the bandanna from his neck and bound his leg below the knee as tightly as he could.
Seduced by an Angel (Velvet Lies, Book 3) Page 16
