Give Me A Texas Outlaw Bundle with Give Me A Cowboy

by Jodi Thomas, Linda Broday, Phyliss Miranda

  “I thought I’d heard of just about everything till now,” Rafe told him, his eyes studying Shadow’s long lank. “Ain’t nobody ever asked me to put him in jail before.”

  “Makes good sense to me.” Shadow reached up and rubbed the dark whiskers along his jaw. He had gotten pretty scruffy during the long ride from Fort Worth and was itching for a bath and a shave. Maybe everybody would leave him the hell alone long enough to get a haircut, too. “This is the last place anybody would come looking for me.”

  The ancient wooden jail was little more than flatboards slung together with a few nails and some wishful thinking by the city council and their tax budget. A lit match or a high Texas wind would take it down faster than a bucket line could be formed to save the hoosegow. Still, a night spent out of the unpredictable Texas summer weather and not having to keep one eye open for trouble made this place feel like a grand palace to Shadow.

  “If you were anyone else, Shad, I’d think you were running scared, but I know better.”

  Anyone who had ever rode with or tangled with Shadow Rivers knew he wasn’t a coward. He was afraid of no man, just himself and this strange force within him that compelled him not to care about anything or anyone. If anyone knew him at all, it was Rafe Pickens.

  Pickens grabbed his hat and a handful of wanted posters. “Hard bed you chose to lie down in, but I guess you had your reasons.”

  Shadow knew it wasn’t the cot his old friend was speaking of. Though Rafe probably knew more about him than any man alive, Shadow had never shared the real reason he had chosen to live the life of a gun for hire. Maybe he never would. “Every shootist has reason,” he told Pickens.

  “Just as sure as he’s got those who come gunning for him,” the sheriff reminded, “even when he’s ready to put up his guns.” Pickens paused a moment at his desk before pulling open a drawer. “How long has it been since you quit hiring your gun out to the highest bidder?”

  “Not long enough, apparently,” Shadow admitted, being as honest as he could. He remembered those loco days of playing both sides of the law.

  Not long enough gone to fade a reputation nor to expect redemption. Even after he’d paid three damned hard years of debt to society and a justice-minded lawman had decided to set the record straight to help him get paroled.

  It damned sure hadn’t been long enough to put away the hurt and anger that burned in him when he learned that his pardon had come too late. A hundred years of working the right side of the law would never ease the stupidity of his youth.

  “Once a fast gun, always a fast gun,” Shadow said, uncustomarily staring into his future. Yet it was the past he saw all too clearly. “Everybody wants to play the game I’ve played. No one believes a man like me can ever put away the boy he once was. Maybe there is no right time to put it away. Like I said, Rafe, I appreciate the good night’s sleep.”

  Pickens took out a whiskey bottle and opened the door to the jail cell. “Guess I owe you the night and this. You did the same for me once. Now we’re even, but I expect you’ll be gone by morning so my town can stay peaceable.”

  “Expect I will.” Shadow took a long drink and remembered how he’d saved Rafe’s life during the holdup that later sent Shadow to prison. He wished the fiery liquid could quench the dark restlessness burning inside him now just as he’d wished he could have found a cure for the dark excitement he’d felt at fifteen wanting to be part of a gang. Best way he could pay back Rafe for his kindness then and now would be to move on and take his trouble with him. Do what he always did—just pass through.

  “Appears somebody knew you were headed this way or else spotted you already.” The sheriff’s brow creased. “Word is spreading fast. Come morning every fast draw in the territory will know Shadow Rivers is in the vicinity and every whore will want to notch her bedpost with your favors. You cast a long—”

  “Don’t say it,” Shadow said. It wasn’t the first time his name and reputation intermixed and preceded him. Someday the joke that his life counted could be put to rest even if it meant burying it all away in a six-foot grave.

  “I’m gonna make my rounds and hang up these posters out on the community board,” Rafe informed, taking a moment to lift the cell keys and hook them around a loop in his belt. “See if I can’t quiet down this Saturday night a might so you and the law-abiding folks around here can catch some shut-eye. You sure you don’t want me to bring you something to eat . . . order you a tub of bathwater . . . maybe a cigar?”

  Everything within Shadow said yes, but he shook his head. “No, just leave the cell unlocked in case I change my mind and hightail it out of here before morning.”

  “Headed somewhere specific?”

  “West.”

  “Got plans, do you?” Surprise lifted the damaged eyebrow.

  Shadow sighed, releasing the frustration of the long road ahead of him with little money, a near-lame horse, and no way to improve either. “Nothing’s changed. I don’t make plans. Just looking for work.”

  “Do us both a favor, son.”

  “What’s that?” Shadow asked.

  “Make sure it’s legal.”

  If he had any luck remaining at all, Shadow hoped he hadn’t said what he was thinking out loud before the door shut. Gonna try my damndest, partner.

  “Psst. Mister? Catch this.”

  Shadow’s eyes jarred open, the sense of possible threat bolting him upright on the cot. His hand automatically went for the gun that usually rested strapped against his right thigh, but it wasn’t there. He scrambled to his feet, his thoughts racing to remember why he wasn’t wearing his holster and where he had put it. Under the cot. Within arm’s reach. Thought you were safe for the night. His hand snaked out and found the peacemaker, readied it for action, its deadly force now aimed toward the cell window that rose slightly over his head.

  Whoever you are, don’t make me use it. He listened intently, waiting for the sound of a hammer being pulled back or a burst of gunfire. Instead, all that came was a voice. A feminine one at that.

  “Can you see it?” the woman asked from beyond the brace of iron bars that held off freedom from the prisoner. “Grab the end of the rope and wrap it around the other bars, then throw the end back out to me, please.”

  Soft, sweet voice. Polite. His instinct for taking in details of those he met sharpened his skills so he could hear anything else going on outside. Nothing discernible. Just the sound of Saturday night hell-raising somewhere down the street. Well, if the lady was aiming to gun him, she’d have fired already. If she meant to hang him, she was making a mistake letting Shadow get his hands on any part of the rope. He could easily outmaneuver her.

  A quick look toward Rafe’s office revealed that something had kept the sheriff out on his rounds. Probably the rowdy cowboys over at the saloon having such a good time. She had to know Pickens was away. Did she have any idea whose cell she was roping?

  I must have fallen dead asleep, Shadow decided, not seeing well enough into the night beyond the window to know just how long he had snoozed. “Before I take it, ma’am, you mind telling me what you’re aiming to do?”

  The sound of exasperation echoed from the other side of the bars. “Well, gosh almighty! What does it look like? I’m trying to pull these off the wall so I can break you out of jail. That is, if you’ve a mind to help me a little, sir. I’m having to stand on a crate so I can reach it.”

  Short, southern, and full of sass. Intrigued, Shadow decided to play his hand and call her on her game. After all, she was going to a lot of trouble for a stranger. He sure didn’t know any woman who cared enough about him to follow him to Longhorn City and take such a risk . . . not even the widow he had visited once in this part of Texas when he was looking for an evening of quick courting.

  “Well, pardon the heck out of me, ma’am. I wasn’t sure it was me you were attempting to rescue.” He tossed his gun on the cot and looped the rope as she’d asked, then handed the other end back to her. A small gloved hand reached
up and grabbed it, making a quick knot on the other side. “You sure you got the right prisoner?”

  How did she mean to pull those bars down by herself? It sure sounded like she was alone.

  “Is there anybody else but you in there?”

  And if there were? He almost felt insulted. He was accustomed to being the preferred choice. She was full of brass, this one. All the more reason to see what she was up to. “Pretty slim pickings around here, little lady.”

  “You’re handy with a gun, aren’t you?” Uncertainty filled her tone for the first time. “A gunman?”

  “Don’t much use one these days.” Maybe he could discourage her to give up her efforts. “What would you be wanting with such a man?”

  Shadow took a step up on the cot to look out into the night and see more about her and how she planned to pull this off. The thin mattress sunk to its bed, the wooden housing squeaking beneath his weight.

  No sign of any horse or a wagon, but then he didn’t have all that much of a view. Maybe they were tied off farther in the alley so no one would see them. All he could determine was that she wore a floppy hat and a light-colored duster. If the crate was any height at all, she was no bigger than a small man or a boy big enough to have his first shave. Only the sweet lilt to her speech hinted at her true gender.

  The alley between the sheriff’s office and the mercantile was so dark he couldn’t even tell the color of her hair. Guess the moon hadn’t risen high enough to shine overhead, so it couldn’t be midnight yet.

  “Heard you needed work,” she announced.

  Obviously, she’d been listening to his and Rafe’s conversation. How long had she been out there and what had she heard? “And I suppose you’ve got some sort of job to offer me?”

  “Yes, if I can get you out of there without too much ruckus. We’re wasting time and we need to take advantage of all that noise over at the saloon to get done before the sheriff gets back.”

  “No need for any ruckus whatsoever or for that rope.” Shadow realized she’d thought this through and wouldn’t be easily persuaded to give it up. She was about to make a major mistake counting on somebody she didn’t know hell or high water about.

  Maybe he needed to show her just how dangerous that could be.

  Maybe she should find out just how hard it is to correct a mistake.

  Maybe if someone had done the same to him a long time ago, he wouldn’t have gotten himself into trouble.

  “My cell’s unlocked,” he informed. “Just come on in and speak your piece. That way I can see who I might be taking the road with.”

  “Unlocked?” She hesitated before adding, “Strange way to keep killers off the street.”

  “You in need of a killer, Miss . . . ?”

  “Kilmore,” she sighed heavily. “And don’t say anything about my name. I know it’s a twist of bad luck for an outlaw to carry such a handle, but it was supposed to have been my father’s.”

  She was revealing a lot about herself just by that admission. She didn’t know who her pa was. All kinds of hardluck circumstances came to Shadow’s mind, making him do his own bit of hesitating about scaring her off from her planned rescue. But just as rapidly as the hesitation sprang up, it quickly fell away when one of his longtime codes flashed through his mind. Sorry don’t stop a bullet. That would trip a man up quicker than a dance hall girl with loose garters. “Then you’re an outlaw, I take it? Is that why you waited until the sheriff went on his rounds before you made your play?”

  “Yeah,” she said, unknotting the rope and loosening it. “I would have just walked on in and used his keys, but I noticed he had them with him. I heard him jangling all the way uptown. That’s why I thought of trying the rope. I figured with you pushing and me pulling, those old boards would probably loosen up enough to break free. I’m sure glad it wasn’t necessary. I was afraid the sound of it coming down would give me away.”

  “Not afraid of a little effort, are you?”

  “I knew I’d get it done one way or another.”

  He was beginning to like this lady. She was feisty and Shadow admired feisty in anyone.

  “Now, would you mind coming on out and meet me back here?” she insisted. “I’d rather not show my face out front, which I’m sure you can understand. And while you’re at it, Mr. . . . uh . . .”

  “Rivers. Shadow Rivers.”

  Silence ensued long enough that he thought she might have changed her mind. She obviously knew his name.

  “The Shadow Rivers?”

  “Does it matter?” He heard the astonishment in her voice. Maybe what else she knew of him would end all of this now. She hadn’t heard as much of the earlier conversation between him and Rafe if she hadn’t already been aware of his name. That meant she truly had been willing to take on any man who’d been locked away. The thought that she’d been that desperate made him wonder what kind of trouble the lady could be in.

  Something long forgotten stirred within Shadow and it felt more than a little rusty. Here was a chance to help someone instead of hurting her. It wasn’t exactly feeling sorry for her. It would be giving her a chance not to get herself into more trouble. And hadn’t that been what Rafe had done for him ten years ago? Paroled a boy of eighteen from a life of crime?

  Was he up to the challenge? It had been a long time since he’d promised Rafe he would pay him back someday by helping somebody else who needed it. A long time since he’d concerned himself with anyone else. “Your offer of work still stand?”

  “You bet it does!” she said excitedly, sounding relieved. “I just might have done something right for once if I’ve got you willing to come along.”

  Shadow stepped down off the cot and grabbed his holster, strapped it back around him. Settling the peacemaker into place, he snatched his hat from the peg where he’d hung it and headed for Pickens’s desk. There he set the barely tasted bottle of whiskey and tossed his last coin next to it. Rafe would know it was his way of saying thanks for the few hours of pure sleep he’d gotten in months. That was the least he owed the man.

  “Hey, Mr. Rivers, on your way out do something for me, will you? I hate to ask, but it’s important.”

  She was the politest boss who’d ever sought him out, that was for certain. There seemed to be an edge of worry in her tone, and he couldn’t help but wonder what was so important. He didn’t have to wait long to get his answer.

  “Check the office wall and then the pegboard outside. If you see a wanted poster with the name Odessa Kilmore on it, would you tear it off, please?”

  So she’d been telling the truth. She really was an outlaw. Maybe he had better proceed a little more cautiously and not take her so lightly. She just might bring a lot more trouble than earning a little redemption was worth.

  Shadow decided not to light the lamp on the desk just in case someone might see the office lit and wonder why the sheriff was in one place and someone else was roaming his office. Though it was hard to read with little more light than that shining past the tied-back curtains at the window and door, Shadow was accustomed to reading trail at night and peering through the darkness for signs of threat. How hard could it be spotting a woman’s likeness amid a roster full of men’s? It wasn’t all that common for a woman to be posted.

  As he studied the documents lining the wall, his gaze finally focused on one in particular. He took it down and stepped toward the door, needing more light to read the writing.

  Odessa Kilmore. Fugitive from justice. Reward of one thousand dollars for her capture. If you have any information on her whereabouts, please contact Sheriff Cassius James at Jerkwater, Texas.

  One thousand dollars was a lot of money. What had she done? Didn’t say robbery or murder. Just fugitive from justice. Maybe because she was a woman and the offense wasn’t one a man usually made, they’d spared the details. He didn’t know her well enough yet to care one way or the other what she’d done short of murder, but something inside said the lady didn’t have any true meanness in her.
If she was willing to pay him for work, he might as well try to earn a little grub money to see him through to the next real employment. If his instinct was wrong about her, then he’d just cut to the chase and earn a thousand dollars the easy way.

  He took one last look at the wall just to make sure part of his own former deeds hadn’t found their way among the posters. Nothing there. Maybe he was wrong earlier and it had finally been long enough to quit roaming, to find a place to breathe clear again. Maybe if his instincts were right after all and he helped this Kilmore woman from destroying her future, the road to redemption might just be stretching straight ahead of him.

  Chapter 2

  Odessa Kilmore watched from amid the shadows as the stranger strode around the corner and entered the alley. He was tall, better than six feet, she’d bet, and he moved with a sense of purpose. He was a man unafraid of the dark and what it might bring—that was clear. Just the kind of man she needed.

  He wore a battered hat and his dark hair long enough to touch his shoulders. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes, but a deeper shadow under his nose and along his jaw hinted that he needed a shave. His trail coat moved with him like wings of a dark angel and his boots were once of quality. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected a man of his reputation to wear, probably something more like what she’d read in the dime novels about him. Not that it mattered as long as he didn’t prove himself to be some saddle bum with a lot of hokey made up about him and no sand.

  Her attention immediately went to the sidearm strapped to his right thigh, and that made her aware of the hand that swung in and out of the shadows as he strode. His right hand was bare. She glanced at the left. Gloved and gripping papers. Probably the wanted posters.

  A tiny shiver of trepidation sent gooseflesh beading down her spine, and she knew it was from more than the posters that must hold her likeness. His ungloved hand was a shootist’s choice, she realized, to make him faster with his gun hand. Something she might need to count on. But what was it he’d said earlier before she knew his identity and she’d asked him if he was handy with a gun? Don’t much use one these days. Did that mean he could still pull leather if he had to?