Seduced by an Angel (Velvet Lies, Book 3)

by Adrienne deWolfe

  All of these thoughts and images flashed through Sera's mind in the space of a few heartbeats.

  As her vision of youthful Billy dissolved, she hugged grown-up Billy's arm. She stroked his tense and quivering bicep. She tried to offer him comfort.

  But in that isolated moment in time, she didn't exist in Billy's world. There was only Allison, frantically charging through the crowd to reach her daughter's side.

  "Becky!" Allison sounded close to panic now. "You will obey me when I call!"

  "But mama—"

  Allison grabbed Becky's waist from behind, dragging her confused daughter back against her abdomen. "Hush now! We're going to sit with Mrs. Frothingale."

  "Aw, so soon?" If Billy's face had been porcelain, it would have cracked beneath that much-too-wide smile. "Surely, Miss Ainsworth, you wouldn't want to deprive me of the company of my only living relation—Cousin Becky, is it?"

  "Cousin?" Becky repeated hopefully, her worried eyes darting between her mother's pale face and Billy's unpleasant, arctic smile.

  "Cass!" Jesse's warning cry cracked like thunder, causing the crowd to scurry before his relentless gait—and the dark promise of war in his eyes.

  He thrust his body like a fortress between Billy and Allison. "You got what you came here for. Leave Becky and Allie in peace."

  Cass chuckled. The sound made every hair on Sera's head stand on end. "Well, if it isn't Marshal Quaid to the rescue—again. Always so solicitous of the White women."

  Jesse's eyes glittered. Sera suspected that if she hadn't been clinging to Billy's arm—and if all of Blue Thunder hadn't been in full view some 50 yards away—Jesse would have swung his fist at Billy's face.

  The idea made her queasy.

  "Billy," she interceded, "Mr. Cadawaller's about to announce the bakeoff winners. Let's move closer to the table, so we can hear. Please? Please come with me?"

  "Sure thing, angel." He sneered at Jesse. "You heard the lady, boy. Get your Colored ass out of my woman's way."

  Well, that did it.

  Jesse's fraying self-control dissolved. His fist let loose like a black-gloved thunderbolt.

  Billy broke free of her grasp so he could dodge.

  Sera screamed for help; Collie pushed her out of harm's way; Allie dragged Becky to safety.

  Jesse and Billy toppled to the ground, rolling over and over, panting and cursing, and generally trying to break every bone in each other's body.

  Chapter 17

  Johnny and Luke were running across the churchyard now. Ben Truitt vaulted the rope that staked the judges' tent to the ground and gave chase, ten strides behind.

  Meanwhile, the combatants were fairly evenly matched. Jesse might have weighed 10 or 15 pounds more than Billy, but Billy was a scrapper. Plus, he was angrier. He managed to roll on top, his fists striking Jesse's ribs and shoulders with sickening thuds.

  "Think I'm some no-account nobody?" Billy was shouting at the top of his lungs. He started beating on the forearms that Jesse was using to shield his face. "Think I'm some piece of White Trash you can toss aside like rotted meat?"

  "That's enough, Cassidy!" Luke shouted, grabbing Billy under his arms and hauling him backwards from Jesse's hips.

  Billy twisted snakelike, plowing a fist into Luke's midsection. Luke's curse trailed into a wheeze. He doubled over.

  Next, Johnny was grabbing Billy's chest from behind. Johnny weighed a good 30 pounds more than Billy, and he was at least 10 inches wider through the shoulders.

  But Billy was swinging his fists like a demon-possessed windmill. Johnny's spectacles went flying. In the next heartbeat, he was staggering backwards, blood gushing from his nose.

  "Cass!" Jesse lunged for the backs of Billy's knees.

  Billy yiked as his injured leg buckled beneath him.

  Billy's shouts were nonsensical now—bellows of sheer outrage. Jesse straddled his shoulder blades. Grimly, relentlessly, he was driving Billy's face toward the ground.

  "Stop it," Jesse hissed. "Stop it, before you hurt yourself or somebody else!"

  Finally, big-bellied Ben arrived on the scene. Panting, the grizzled, bewhiskered sheriff drew his six-shooter and fired into the air above Billy's head.

  Billy and Jesse both jerked, tensing like stones.

  "Make up your mind, boy," the elder lawman growled in a low, menacing tone. His gun chamber clicked again; this time, he positioned himself where Billy could see the muzzle trained on his head. "Spend a night in jail, or spend a year, with my slug up your ass."

  Billy stopped flailing. He was panting hard. His face screwed up with pain as Jesse twisted his arm behind his back.

  Luke slapped handcuffs over Billy's wrists. He shoved Jesse aside so he could haul Billy to his feet.

  Sera was horrified. She could see the glimmer of tears on Billy's cheek.

  "You were my brother," he spat at Jesse.

  Sera covered her mouth with both hands to smother a sob. Jesse's eyes looked like shattered glass. He stood there, quivering, heartbreak etched into every line of his face, as Luke dragged a limping, stumbling Cass from the churchyard to the jail.

  "Sera." It was Michael's voice. Low. Concerned. He touched her shoulder. "Are you all right?"

  She nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks. She couldn't speak.

  "I'll see to her, Michael." Henry stood stoically at her other side, dressed in his black frockcoat and white collar. "Mr. Cassidy's leg appears to need attention."

  Guilt ravaged Jesse's features.

  But when he would have hurried after Billy, Ben grabbed his arm. "You," the sheriff snapped, spinning him in the opposite direction. "Walk with me."

  A half hour later, Sera sat dejected, teary-eyed, and alone in the candlelit silence of the church's sanctuary. She was trying to pull herself together before she had to face Michael and Eden, who were waiting for her outside with her red ribbon. Apparently, Lydia, Claudia, and Ben had voted her pie runner-up in the bakeoff.

  At least, that's what Collie had confided sheepishly, in an effort to cheer her up while Billy was being dragged off in cuffs.

  Distantly, she could hear laughter and music. The hoedown was underway. The last thing she felt like was dancing. Billy sat in jail, and only God knew where Jesse was.

  She blinked up at the stark, oak cross that dominated the apse behind the purple-draped altar full of ivory roses, topaz jonquils, and yellow snapdragons. Her papa's church, which had been hastily erected after the original building had burned to the ground, was a simple construction of whitewashed pine. The roof was flat. The nave was narrow. The pews were hard. Ten unadorned windows marched like identical soldiers down each side of the nave.

  But in spite of the no-nonsense rigidity of her father's design, Sera had always felt the presence of God here. Sometimes, when she half-closed her eyes and rallied her courage, her Sixth Sense would let her glimpse the misty, sparkly swirl of what must surely be angels, dancing above Papa and Henry when they lectured from the pulpit.

  Sera believed in heaven. She'd been blessed to see spirits and angels, which she considered the proof of an afterlife. She just didn't understand why God allowed hatred to fester in the living world. Growing up in her father's house, she'd had more than her fill of rival brothers, who'd fought like Cain and Abel. Brothers who now lived a continent apart so they wouldn't maim each other. When she thought of Billy and Jesse letting their brotherly love slip away—a love that had flourished outside of any blood bond—her soul wept.

  She hugged her arms around her waist to recall that vision of Jesse, with eyes like shards of green glass. She'd felt his pain over Billy as if she'd been inside his skin. She didn't know how that was still possible, considering that he didn't want her.

  Maybe Jesse was connected to her by some soul bond. Maybe she would always feel his spirit, even when Kavi took his earthly body across valleys and canyons and mountains whose majesty put Blue Thunder's to shame. Even now, she could feel him in every fiber of her being: Her mate. Her lov
er. He was as close as the walls of her sanctuary.

  She shivered a little at the thought.

  What can I do, Lord? How can I help him? I can't let him feud with his brother, and especially not over me...

  Goosebumps tiptoed from her scalp to her toes. His step was light in the chancel—so light, that she thought her prayer had made her imagine him. But then his solid length lowered onto the pew beside her. She inhaled the familiar scent of cloves, sandalwood, and leather.

  For a long moment she trembled on that hard, uncompromising bench, uncertain what to say. Uncertain what to do.

  The warmth of his hand closed over her glove.

  A tear rolled down her cheek.

  They sat like that for many minutes, watching the flicker of candle flames on the altar. Listening to the crickets chirp in the starlight beyond their haven.

  "I love you, Jesse."

  "And I love you, Sera."

  She bit back a sob. It hurt to hear him say the words now, knowing that she would have to let him go. Knowing that her heart would yearn for his laughter and his kisses and his teasing every day for the rest of her life.

  "I haven't been honest with you," he confessed quietly. "About a lot of things. But I want you to believe me when I say, there's nothing I want more, no one I want more, than you."

  She squeezed her eyes closed. Why couldn't he have told her these things in the stable? Why couldn't he have confessed his love for her before she'd kissed Billy... and ruined his friendship with Jesse?

  "Sera." His voice broke over her name. He drew a ragged breath. "I want you to understand why I must ride away. I can't stay, because I would be putting you in danger. I would be putting Eden, Michael, and the baby in danger. There's a warrant on my head. A bounty hunter's after me..."

  "He's close," Jesse whispered hoarsely.

  She trembled, tightening her grip on his hand. "But Luke's a lawyer. He can help."

  "Not this time," Jesse said darkly. "Taggart's vendetta is personal. He doesn't want to arrest me and Cass. He wants us dead."

  Sera was certain she'd blanched. "B-But why?"

  Jesse sighed. His face grew haunted and haggard. In that moment, with shafts of moonlight slanting like bars across his sun-bronzed features, she guessed that he'd been in prison—a prison of guilt and fear—for years.

  "Where I grew up, the only law was the law of the gun. When I turned 15, I met Cass. We didn't necessarily like each other. But we needed each other to survive. He saved me from the blacksmith. I saved him from a bumble bee.

  "Cass is deathly allergic to bee stings," Jesse explained with a wry touch of humor.

  "Anyway," he continued, loosing a long, winding ribbon of breath, "we started riding together. Two kids with no one to answer to. With no one to advise us. We rustled some cattle. We smuggled some moonshine. Eventually, we fell in with an outlaw gang. Mostly, they were a bunch of Confederate deserters, who answered to a fella named Black Bart.

  "Bart treated us real fine, at first. Rewarded our loyalty. Showed us respect. Neither Cass nor I had a family any more, and the gang became a surrogate. Bart was like a favorite uncle. Until he betrayed us."

  Sera swallowed. Hard.

  "The night the stage robbery went bad," Jesse continued in a weary, long-suffering voice, "Cass and I were minding the outlaws' horses. Bart and three others dismounted to loot the passengers and the whip. No one fired any shots but... one old man on the stage started to give Bart lip. He didn't want to surrender his granddaddy's pocket watch. Bart backhanded the old man across the cheek. The fella wheezed, clutched his heart... and toppled over like felled timber.

  "Before he hit the ground, he was dead."

  Sera bit her lip.

  "That old fella," Jesse murmured, regret etched into every line of his face, "turned out to be the father of Thorn Taggart, a school master. Taggart became a bounty hunter to avenge his Pa. For the last ten years, Taggart has been methodically hunting down each and every one of Bart's gang. And killing them."

  Sera was aghast. "But that's wrong. That makes this... this Taggart a murderer!"

  "Not if he gets the fella to draw first," Jesse assured her grimly. "And Taggart has a way of doing that. He'll ransom the deed to a fella's farm. He'll hold a wife hostage. He'll threaten a child.

  "Sera, you're in danger if word gets back to Taggart that you mean something to me. And you're doubly in danger," Jesse said darkly, "if he learns that Cass cares about you."

  "C-Cass?" She squirmed inside to hear Jesse broach the subject that neither of them had dared to express until now: Billy's infatuation with her. "Why would I be in greater danger?"

  "Because Cass gave Taggart his limp."

  Sera was stunned into silence. Her brain struggled to make sense of all the terrible things that Jesse had told her about robberies. About murder. About Cass crippling Taggart. She didn't want to believe she was in danger. She wanted even less to believe that she was in danger because she was in love with an outlaw, who'd had to shoot other men to survive!

  And yet, one furtive glance at Jesse's anguished face convinced her that he believed he was putting her life at risk. He believed it with every iota of his soul.

  "What are you going to do?" she whispered anxiously.

  His jaw hardened. "Leave town. After the hoedown. Once the crowd disperses, Luke won't need my help to keep Blue Thunder safe."

  "And Billy?"

  Jesse shook his head. "I don't know."

  "You're not leaving Blue Thunder with him?"

  "I reckon that's up to Cass."

  "But he's your best friend! He told me so himself. He called you Lynx. He said that he'd come to Blue Thunder Valley to rendezvous with you. That the two of you were going big-game hunting in Tennessee. He was looking forward to it!"

  Those keenly insightful eyes delved into hers. "When was that?"

  "Back at the orphanage. The day after he was bitten by the copperhead."

  Jesse's gaze narrowed the tiniest bit.

  "Jesse, you need him. And he needs you. You have to keep each other safe!"

  Her face heated beneath that possessive, unwavering stare.

  "Please don't let pride get you killed," she begged. "Or Billy, either."

  "You have feelings for him."

  She died a little to see the accusation burning in his gaze. "I told him I was in love with you!" she protested.

  "And what did Cass say to that?"

  "He... he pointed out that I wasn't wearing a ring."

  "Is that when Cass kissed you?"

  Sera choked to hear Jesse guess the truth. His hand tightened over hers.

  "Did he force you?" he demanded quietly.

  "No! Of course not. Billy has only behaved like a gentleman toward me."

  "Well, that would be a first."

  "Wh-what's that supposed to mean?"

  Jesse's smile was mirthless. "Seduction is a game to Cass. In every town, he does the same thing. Maid or widow, redhead or brunette, he convinces the woman that he's in love with her. That she's in love with him. After he cajoles his way into her bed, he rides off the next morning, breaking every promise. Showing no regret."

  Sera's chest heaved. "Well, Billy did not break any promises, and he did not cajole his way into my bed!"

  "You're sure?"

  Sera didn't know whether to be insulted by his question or worried for Billy. "Of course, I'm sure!"

  "Then you won't mind if I ask him myself?"

  She glared at him. "I mind if it gets one of you killed!"

  Something dark and dangerous flickered in Jesse's eyes. Something unnerving. Sera didn't like it.

  "Jesse, promise me you won't force a showdown with Billy. Now more than ever, you need someone to watch your back. Taggart's close. You said so yourself!"

  "Some things can't be forgiven," he said in gravelly tones.

  "That's crazy! In a couple of weeks, I'll have a new life in Aspen. You'll forget all about me. Billy will forget all about me. Jesse Q
uaid, I will not let you make me the bone of contention between you and a friend who's practically like your kid brother!"

  A furtive creaking echoed through the sanctuary. Sera started guiltily. Jesse's hand dropped to his holster.

  Henry stood at the rear of the church. He was blinking owllike at them through his spectacles. When he pushed the door wider, the hinges squealed in protest. Sera winced, tugging her hand from Jesse's.

  "Johnny's looking for you, marshal," Henry said in that low, reverent tone that people use in church. Only Henry's voice held a distinctive note of authority as it rolled through his sanctuary. "Something about your prisoner."

  Jesse scowled. "All right. Tell Johnny I'm coming."

  "As you wish."

  Jesse stood. Sera hastened to join him. She grabbed his sleeve before he could turn to leave the pew.

  "Promise me," she whispered fiercely. "Promise me you'll call a truce with Billy."

  Those jungle-cat eyes locked with hers. Gently, firmly, he removed her hand from his sleeve.

  "I can't do that, Miss Sera."

  Chapter 18

  Cass lay scowling on a lumpy straw mattress in Blue Thunder's clapboard jail, with a chip as big as the world on his shoulder.

  Doc Jones had come in for a few minutes to administer to Cass's leg, but Cass had been too furious—and too humiliated—to let the sawbones near him. He'd insisted that his leg was fine. When Michael had insisted on looking at it, Cass had hurled a stool at the cell door. Michael had shaken his head and exited the building.

  About a half hour later, Johnny "The Lunkhead" Dufflemeir had brought Cass dinner. Cass had been too ornery to eat it. Heaving the tray to the floor, he'd snatched up the coffee cup and started dragging the tin back and forth along the cell's bars. This unholy racket had eventually gotten on the Lunkhead's nerves. With his ears ringing and his pea-sized brain pounding, Jesse's deputy had finally lumbered out of the building and locked the jail door behind him.

  Now Cass lay alone, sulking, under a full moon. He could hear sounds of merriment coming from the town square, on the other side of the building. He guessed the hoedown was underway. He wondered if Sera was boot-scooting to that lively fiddle beat. He wondered if Jesse was twirling her in his arms. Every time Cass pictured Lynx, The Traitor, holding her close and getting himself laid, Cass wanted to kill something. Mostly, Lynx.