Ace's Wild (Hqn)

by Sarah McCarty

  She forced a smile when Luke got close. As always he was dressed impeccably. Today he had on a red-and-gold-paisley vest under a perfectly cut black suit. She wondered if the tailor had to make allowances for his guns. “Good morning, Luke.”

  He tipped his hat and smiled, revealing perfectly even teeth. Why couldn’t she have fallen for him? “Morning, Miss Wayfield.”

  She sighed. “Surely we know each other well enough for you to use my first name.”

  “Probably, but such familiarity invariably leads to speculation when dealing with a man with my reputation.”

  “Oh.”

  It was his turn to sigh. “That was a joke, Petunia. It was supposed to make you smile.”

  It was hard to smile when she felt awkward and silly, the way she always did when she was fighting tears. “I’m sorry. Did you come to see me off?”

  “Yes. I figured someone should handle the formalities.” He glanced at the bags at her feet. There were a lot of them. When she’d left Massachusetts it wasn’t with the intent of returning. “All packed up?”

  She nodded.

  Sunlight glinted off his cuff links as he tested the weight of the biggest. He really did have a sense of style. She felt dowdy by comparison in her brown plaid traveling suit.

  “We might need a bigger coach.”

  She forced a smile she didn’t think would fool anyone. “I packed on the theory that smaller bags were easier to manage than a large trunk.”

  The driver got down from the stage. This was the first stop of the morning. The horses were chomping at their bits, kicking up clouds of dust as they stomped their feet. She waved the drift away from her face. They so needed rain.

  The driver grabbed a bucket off the railing, scooped water out of the trough and brought it to the lead horse. He was a lean, bent, grizzled man with a countenance as battered as the stage and clothes as ragged as her emotions. Not at all what she’d expected. Somehow, she’d imagined her departure populated with grander moments as fitting the launch of a dream. With a nod he acknowledged her waiting. “Be with you in a minute, miss.”

  “Thank you.”

  Instead it was...deflating.

  “Howdy, Luke.” He tipped his hat to Luke.

  “Howdy, Gil.”

  “It will be a little bit before Gillian’s ready to go,” Luke said. “If you wanted to grab something to eat, I’d love the company.”

  The last thing she wanted was food. The swaying of the coach often made her nauseous. Petunia shook her head. “Thank you, but Maddie handled that for me.”

  “Made you up some cinnamon rolls, did she?”

  Her smile faltered. Tears threatened. “I’m going to miss her.”

  Luke shook his head and reached into his pocket, shaking out a handkerchief before offering it to her. She had no doubt it was clean.

  “You don’t have to go, you know,” Luke said. “You could always stay and make your place here. You’ve got the school started up and folk riled enough something might actually get done.”

  She glanced up the street. She’d been reminding herself for two days this wasn’t the school she wanted to start—it was too small, its scope too limited—but just looking at the big house with its faded whitewash and neglected yard tugged at her heartstrings. There was so much still to do... “With Luisa and Antonio volunteering to help, Hester can handle the school.”

  “Hester’s a competent woman, but that’s not the same as a teacher.”

  “Then they’ll pressure the town to provide one.”

  “They’ll have to.” Luke named the woman whose position Petunia had taken. “Rumor is Mrs. Arbuckle is with child.”

  She couldn’t avoid another pang.

  “That frown tells me you care.”

  “Of course I care.”

  “Then stay.”

  She couldn’t hold a smile anymore. “I think when a man buys a woman a ticket out of town, it’s a pretty good indicator that she needs to move on.”

  The handkerchief fluttered as Luke offered it again. “One man does not the universe make.”

  This time she took it. “He’s your friend.”

  Luke shrugged. “Doesn’t mean he can’t be wrong.”

  It didn’t mean she was right, either. She’d been so naive. In her inexperience she’d thought he’d been as caught up in their passion as she was, but she’d been wrong. Grossly, humiliatingly, abjectly wrong. The reality had been driven home when Jenkins had knocked on the door with the ticket in hand. Ace hadn’t even bothered to include a note in the envelope with the ticket. He apparently felt he’d said it all. She crumpled the handkerchief in her hand. “It was never my plan to stay.”

  She couldn’t resist taking another look down the street toward the saloon where Ace no doubt was lounging. Hope just wouldn’t die.

  “He’s not coming,” Luke said softly.

  She flushed. “Am I that obvious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s not coming?” Gillian interrupted. “I was only expecting one. We got a passenger not on the manifest?”

  Petunia let Luke handle the responding. “Miss Wayfield was referring to Ace. He’d been called away.”

  She just bet he had.

  “Ace Parker?” Gil asked, patting the near horse on the shoulder.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good man, that one. Right handy in a fight.” The driver shook his head and scooped more water and brought it over to the second horse. “Shame he’s not riding along. Heard tell of Indian trouble between here and San Antonio.”

  Luke frowned. “Sure it’s Indian? The Comanche haven’t been bothering folk for a long while. Heard there was trouble down Wild Gulch way but I thought it was wranglers who fessed up.”

  The driver shrugged. “Don’t know about that.” With an exaggerated flex of his right leg, he added, “But I do know my knee’s been acting up and that’s a surefire sign of trouble.”

  The thought of an Indian attack terrified Petunia. She’d grown up reading about the Indian raids of old in both the paper and the lurid dime novels sold in the stores and street corners. The news might be highly sensationalized, but common sense said being abducted by a band of men wearing not much more than a loincloth bent on revenge couldn’t go well for a woman.

  The coach that had looked so solid pulling up now looked ridiculously flimsy. She licked her lips. “They wouldn’t attack the stage, would they?”

  Gil was no comfort. “Been known to happen. I got a couple riders I’m picking up here.” Using the dirty handkerchief around his neck he wiped the sweat from his face, adding a smear of cleanliness amidst the coating of dust. “We should be fine.”

  The one thing Petunia’d learned about the West was that one was never completely safe. “Pick good riders, please. I want to get to California safe and sound.”

  “California? That’s a long trip for a pretty thing like you to be taking alone, ma’am.”

  She didn’t feel pretty right now; she felt ragged and worn and, she admitted, discarded. “Thank you for your concern, but I’ll be fine.”

  “That’s what a lot of folk tell me.” He watered the last horse. “We’re going to be leaving in a bit, ma’am.”

  “A bit? But the schedule says ten o’clock.” It was quarter past now.

  “Yup, it does, but I got a late start, and I’m hungry so it’s going to be a bit.”

  And that was that. The headache that had been threatening bloomed. Rubbing her forehead, she sighed, and resigned herself to the delay. “What will I do with my bags?”

  Luke grabbed them and tossed two up on the back of the stage before reaching for the third. The driver grunted, watching as he wedged them in.

  “Not traveling too light are you?”

  “The ti
cket said I could carry two bags and a trunk.”

  “Yeah, well, that’d be more like normal-size bags, and that second one is pushing trunk size.”

  “I am within the rules, am I not?”

  Another grunt and a glare was the response. She didn’t care. She might not be leaving with the experience she wanted, but she was leaving with her darn luggage.

  Luke shook his head and lashed the bags down. “Funny how you fight for your luggage.”

  “Somethings are just better left alone,” she shot back, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Uh-huh.” He hopped down. Dust poofed around his feet. Sweat dribbled uncomfortably between Petunia’s breasts. Even the weather was against her. Who needed a heat wave in December?

  The horses stomped their feet and snorted with impatience. She knew just how they felt. A bit Gil had said... She’d steeled herself to make it through the last ten minutes, and now she had to wait an undefined bit. She wanted to grind her teeth. She wanted to swat someone.

  “I’ll be in the mercantile,” she told the driver, who merely grunted in reply. She did not want to go through another round of tearful goodbyes. She didn’t think she could stand it. It’d been harder than she expected to leave the school and the budding orphanage, her budding friendships. She took her anger out on Gil in a hard stare. “Do not leave without me.”

  Gil waved his hand at her as she stepped up onto the walk. Didn’t even look back as he snapped, “Don’t be late.”

  How could she be late to a bit or so? She rolled her eyes. Contrary man.

  Luke came up beside her. “He’s just doing his job.”

  The driver wasn’t heading to the restaurant; he was heading to the saloon.

  “Is he going to drive this stage drunk?”

  “Doubtful, but I think he aims to drive it guarded, and the saloon’s the most likely place where he’ll find his hired guns.”

  “Guns?”

  “The Comanche aren’t to be taken lightly.”

  “But you said they have been peaceable for years.”

  “I said they haven’t stirred up anything for years, but you can only push anyone so far and they’re going to kick up their heels.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You’ll be safe, Petunia.”

  She hoped so. “Why’d you come by, Luke?”

  “To wish you a safe journey.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Well, that and to see if you were going to be sensible.”

  “I’m always sensible.”

  “So I was let to believe.” He tipped his hat and headed back across the street, to the saloon, she realized.

  Did all men ever do was get drunk? She shook her head and turned back and headed toward the mercantile. A sarsaparilla would go down good right now.

  The spook the driver had given her about Indians just wouldn’t shake. She opened the mercantile door. The little bell chimed. She went to the counter and sat down on the stool by the window. When Glenda, the shopkeeper’s wife, came out of the back, straightening her apron, Petunia forced a smile.

  “Could I have a sarsaparilla please?”

  The woman put the bottle on the counter.

  “Thank you.” Petunia sighed and worked the cork loose. Why couldn’t everything be so straightforward? Ask and receive. No fuss. No muss. No hurt. No regrets. Not like this mess. Taking a sip of the beverage, she concentrated on enjoying the fizzy sweetness, pushing aside the nagging regret. She had a feeling between surviving Ace and the Indians, the Comanche would be easier.

  * * *

  “ARE YOU REALLY going to be this stupid?”

  Over the years, Luke had asked Ace that question with varying degrees of impatience. Today was the first time he’d said it with genuine anger. Ace looked up from the cards he was shuffling. “Do you really want to come at me with that question when I’m just settling in for a good drunk?”

  Luke pulled out the chair opposite. It slid across the floor with a grate. “Apparently, since you’re sitting here playing solitaire after letting your woman board the stage this morning.”

  “Then, yes. I intend to be this stupid.”

  Ace placed a red king on the black ace.

  “Just tell me why.”

  The queen he needed was covered by the ace of spades.

  “Because she’s destined for better things.”

  “And you’re destined for what?” Luke waved expressively with his hand, indicating the saloon and the few seedy inhabitants that clung to the escape they found here: a man in the corner draped over a table snoring, two whores drinking coffee, the bartender wiping lazily at the counter. “This?”

  “It suits me.”

  “The hell it does. You’re Hell’s Eight.”

  “Hell’s Eight is changing.”

  “What Hell’s Eight does might have changed, mellowed a bit, I’ll grant you, but we’re still the same men who scraped and clawed to survive. We’re still the same men that protect what’s ours.”

  Ace flipped the cards over. The king was free; the queen stayed buried. “I know who I am.” And what he was.

  Ace laid out a new layer of cards.

  “That two will go up on top,” Luke pointed out.

  Ace shook his head. “You never could keep your nose out of another man’s game.”

  Luke tilted the chair back, balancing it on two legs. “Some people need the help.”

  The urge to send him the rest of the way over was high. “Try.”

  “It’s not entirely impossible there’s Indian trouble. You know the army’s been pulling it’s cavalry out, moving them back East with that conflict brewing.”

  Ace shook his head. “It’s not going to be pretty if this country comes to war.”

  “It’s not going to be pretty if Petunia’s stage gets attacked.”

  Ace flipped the cards. This time he had a move and then another. It freed the queen, but now the king was covered.

  “If anything happens to her you’ll never forgive yourself,” Luke added unnecessarily.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to her.” He looked at the cards. No matter what he did there was no move that put the king and queen together.

  Bringing his chair back down on four legs, Luke pushed his hat back “You’re a fool, Ace Parker. If I had a woman like that fancying me, I’d do whatever it took to bring her into my life.”

  “I’m not afraid of being alone.”

  “Well, I sure as shit am. What’s more, I’m tired of it. Tired of waking up in the morning and having nothing to look at but an empty pillow on the other side of the bed. I’m tired of cooking meals and sitting down and having only myself to talk to. I’m tired of looking into the future and seeing nothing but more of the same. I want a legacy.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Yeah, you do.” Luke swept his hand across the table scattering the cards. “And all your fancy tricks can’t hide that from me. I grew up with you. Fought with you. Survived with you. I know you. Petunia is what you need, so stop being such a goddamn chicken shit and go after her.”

  That was the second time this week someone he’d loved had called him a chicken shit. He might be going soft in his old age. “I’m not afraid of loving.”

  “Then what are you afraid of?”

  “Destroying it.”

  There was a long pause. It was too much to hope Luke was going to let it go. “She’s not as fragile as you think she is.”

  “She’s not as strong, either.”

  “You don’t have to succumb to those urges.”

  Which just went to show that even though Luke knew about his preferences, he didn’t understand them. “It would be impossible not to with her.”

  “T
hen have someone on the side.”

  “No.” He wouldn’t do that to Pet. It would destroy her.

  “So you’re just going to let her go?”

  “You don’t see her staying, do you?”

  “What I see is for the first time in her life, that woman’s got her world rattled, and she doesn’t know what to do about it, so she’s running, and you’re letting her.”

  “For a reason.”

  “Even with the threat of Indians?”

  Ace sighed. “Every time Gillian comes through here, he talks about seeing Indian signs. He remembers the old days when the Comanche terrorized this area. Those days are gone.” Like his opportunity with Petunia. “It’s only forty miles to the next stage stop. He’s got two men as outriders, and Gillian’s no slouch with that repeater.”

  “But you’re not worried,” Luke challenged.

  Ace worried whenever Petunia was out of his sight, but he couldn’t succumb this time. He’d stolen her idealism. He wouldn’t get in the way of her dream. “The stage has made that run a hundred times.”

  But it still bothered him that she was on it. Alone. Out of the reach of his protection. Something Luke knew damn well and good.

  Luke sighed. “You’re a fool.”

  Rose came sidling over. Her hand was on Luke’s shoulder, but her eyes were on Ace and full of hunger. He knew why. The marks from their last session were probably fading.

  “You want a little company?” she asked.

  Yeah, he did. He scooted back his chair and she sauntered over and dropped in his lap, but for once he didn’t appreciate the softness of her curves, the weight of her body. She was too heavy, too soft, too perfumed, too wrong.

  Luke must’ve read his expression. “She feels that way, too.”

  There was no doubt who she was. The wall around Ace’s longing cracked just as Luke intended.

  Gathering up the cards he’d scattered, Luke sorted them and then set them very neatly, very precised in a stack in front of Ace. “Gillian said his knee’s hurting him.”

  Everything in Ace went cold. He pushed Rose off his lap.