“Looks to me like he did you both a favor by leaving you to yourselves,” Shadow said.
“Who the devil are you, handsome?” Maddy caught a good look at him.
“He’s mine, Mama. Keep your garters on.” Odessa moved back and linked her arm through his.
“Well, I always said you had good taste, honey.” Maddy’s hand spread over her ample breast, an act Odessa knew she deliberately did when she wanted a man’s attention.
“You in town for long, Rivers?” Sheriff James’s eyes scanned the wall of posters. “Don’t have reason to hold you, I guess.”
“Just long enough to settle some private business.”
“An old score or something more pleasant?”
“Maybe both.” He glanced at Odessa. “Depends on how close the second convinces me to stay and finish what got started.”
“I don’t want any killing. I run a clean town.”
Shadow nodded. “If there was any killing to do, I’d have done it when those two took a bead on Odessa. As you can see, I brought them in a little worse for wear, but they’re alive.”
Odessa tugged on his arm. “Please don’t go looking for Sal Lambert. He’s not worth the trouble. Finish what we started.”
“Sal Lambert? Got a brother named Cole?” Sheriff James’s body went on full alert.
“Yeah.” Shadow met the lawman’s gaze. “Why, do you know him?”
The sheriff pulled one of the Colts, checked its chambers, then did the same to the other one. “Let’s just say he’s the one who got away. Is he nearby?”
Shadow relayed the story about the train ride and how he felt that Lambert and his men had probably reached town yesterday. “I can’t say exactly where he is, but I know what will draw him out. Just pass it around that I’ve reached town. The snake will crawl out of whatever hole he’s curled up in. Meanwhile I’d like to get over to the land office if Tim there isn’t too tired to take care of it tonight.”
“I’m not too tired and I have a storage room where we could put Mrs. Cullen, if you like, Sheriff.” The surveyor waved toward the door.
“No.” Sheriff James unlocked one cell. “I think I’ll let Maddy go home in her daughter’s custody.”
“About dang time.” Maddy gathered her parasol and patted her hair to wait while he swung open the cell door.
“Keep your hands to yourself.” Cathleen glowered at the madam, but Maddy behaved long enough for Cassius to settle the matron in the cell.
Maddy laughed. “I got worse plans for the likes of you, husband stealer. Wait till the good folks of Jerkwater find out you’ve been cavorting with my husband. Ought to make prime pew gossip come Sunday. Hope you’ve made bail by then so you can hear it firsthand.”
She linked her arm with Odessa’s. “Now tell me all about your new beau, sugar pudding. I want to hear all about him. Has he kissed you yet? Has he . . . well, of course he hasn’t. Not my Dessie.” She eyed Shadow up and down. “But he will, dumpling. And from the looks of him, he’ll do you proud.”
“Mother!”
Chapter 11
“Hold it right there, Rivers!”
Shadow pushed Odessa back behind him as he stepped out into the street. Sal Lambert stood about thirty paces away, looking like he was gunning for blood. “Get back, Des. He means to have his reckoning.”
“No!” she shouted, trying to move in front of him, but he held her at bay. “Stay close to me, Shad. Stay close.”
“Timothy?” Shadow spoke a volume of words in that one single question.
“I’ve got her.”
Her hands suddenly disappeared from view. The surveyor now held her back from doing what Shadow knew would only irritate Lambert more. “He’s pushing to see if he’s faster than me,” Shadow explained. “He won’t leave me any room till he finds out one way or the other. He’ll shoot anything that stands in his way, including a woman.”
“Damn right, jailbird. They’ll finally see which one they should have been writing about all this time.”
“I love you, Shad. I didn’t tell you that I love you.”
Shadow heard Odessa’s whimper and the sound just about killed him. She had sucked up all kinds of trouble like a twister swallowing countryside and never showed one hint of fear for herself. But now for him she sounded truly frightened. The thought of Sal Lambert causing her to cry set Shadow’s stance in stone. “You’ve made your last mistake, Sal,” he warned.
Envy took its toll on a man. Lambert looked older than his years. He was dressed in black, silver decorating his hat brim, his belt, and the spurs at his boots. Like some fools under the sad impression that dressing like a fictional legend made them one, Lambert had chosen funeral black. Apparently, from the absence of his brother, he’d come calling alone, a decision of pure ego and no sense.
Despite his need for retribution concerning Odessa’s tears, Shadow offered the man one more chance. “Look, there’s still time to make something of yourself. Just walk into the sheriff’s office and turn yourself in. You may have to do time and pay back the Fargo money, but that’s better than lying dead in the street.”
“You so sure you’re faster than me?”
“I wish I weren’t, Sal. We were friends once.”
Sal laughed. “You sat in prison for that weakness, Rivers. Thought that people could have second chances. There ain’t any for men like you and me.”
“I thought so . . . until I found out different.”
Sal’s arms fanned out near his pistols and held, his eyes locking with Shadow’s. “Go for it, anytime.”
“I’ll not draw on you first.”
“Your mistake, partner.” His eyes blinked. His hands went for the gun. Two shots echoed over the street.
Smoke cleared from Sheriff James’s Colt as Sal fell backward. Lambert’s bullet had hit the sign that swung under the eave jutting out from the mercantile. Shadow’s peacemaker settled back into place, unused.
The sheriff ran forward just as Sal revived and groaned, groping for the gun still housed in the other side of his holster. The lawman grabbed it and hollered for a couple of the townsmen to take Lambert into custody.
As Sheriff James passed Shadow with his prisoner in tow, Shadow thanked him. “Looks like I put up my gun just in time. Seems there is someone faster than me.”
“No matter how fast you are, friend, there’s always somebody faster.”
Epilogue
Not only did Shadow receive his hundred-dollar payment from Odessa, but Sheriff James had wanted to give him the price on Sal Lambert’s head too. He’d fussed about not really earning that money since it was the sheriff who had stopped him in the street, but the lawman said he wouldn’t have been able to if it hadn’t been for Shadow’s help in locating the man. Shadow had ultimately quit arguing about it and split the money with him, feeling that his best friend’s mother might as well reap the rest of the reward for Lambert being put away for his crimes.
“Got any plans for your hundred dollars?” Odessa asked.
“As a matter of fact I do,” he admitted as they left the telegraph office, where he’d wired the widow about the coming money. He could tell Des wanted to ask something more important: would he be moving on? “I’m going to buy me a new hat.”
Odessa reached up and rustled his dark locks. “You could use one.”
“You too, freckle face.” He tapped the tip of her nose. She was wearing her hair down, just like he liked it. “Then I’m thinking about using the rest to buy some acres of prime Texas land a few miles east of here. Got a good-sized waterhole on it. Maybe build Dollar a big corral to spend his old age in. One for me too, if I can find enough trees around this prairie to build them.”
“Sounds like you’re going to need a lot more money.” She smiled up at him. “Are you going to try raising anything in particular?”
“Maybe some cattle, wild boar. A couple of kids—the human kind.” He took her into his embrace, not caring that they were standing in the middle of
the street in front of the Gilded Garter within view of the townsfolk and anyone else who thought it might be improper.
“You asked me once, Des, which one of us was the most wanted.” Shadow had no doubt about the answer to that particular question anymore. “It’s you. I want you more than anything or anyone else I’ve ever wanted in my life. Will you love me and help me learn how to be a better man? Will you marry me?”
“Only if you make one promise.”
He chuckled, knowing her well enough now that he had no doubt they both would enjoy whatever she demanded. “And what would that be?”
“Come close anytime I ask you,” she whispered, her eyes full of the love he couldn’t believe was shining there for him. “Never stay away so far from me that I can’t spend every night in your arms. That I can’t press my ear to your heart and hear it beating with love just for me.”
“Sounds good. Sounds real good.” At last, Shadow exhaled the catch that had been deep in his throat for ten long years. He could finally breathe right again.
He had found true love and the only woman who could ever make him the kind of man he wanted to be.
UNTIL TONIGHT
He smiled. “You’re sure I’ll win. You’ve planned everything.”
“I’m betting on it, Rowdy Darnell.”
“And if I don’t?” He had to know what would remain between them if tonight didn’t go as planned.
“Then I’ll go home as if nothing has changed and pick up the bag when I’m in town alone.” Laurel’s blue eyes met his. “It may take me a few hours, but I’ll meet you under the cottonwood before midnight.”
He knew what she meant. What was going to happen between them would happen. At the hotel, or beneath the stars. It would happen.
He stood. “Until tonight,” he said as he kissed her.
from “Silent Partner” by Jodi Thomas
JODI THOMAS
DEWANNA PACE
LINDA BRODAY
PHYLISS MIRANDA
GIVE ME A COWBOY
ZEBRA BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
Contents
SILENT PARTNER
JODI THOMAS
LUCK OF THE DRAW
DEWANNA PACE
TEXAS TEMPEST
LINDA BRODAY
ROPING THE WIND
PHYLISS MIRANDA
SILENT PARTNER
JODI THOMAS
Chapter 1
Dust circled around Rowdy Darnell’s worn boots as he stepped from the noon train. The reddish brown dirt whirled, trying to wipe his footprints away before they were even planted in this nothing of a town called Kasota Springs, which suited him fine. If he could, he’d erase every trace of him ever having lived here.
Beneath the shadow of his hat, Rowdy looked around, fearing he’d see someone he knew. Someone who remembered him.
But only strangers hurried past and most didn’t bother to look in his direction. Not that they’d recognize him now. Prison had hardened the boy they’d sent away into a man, tall, lean and unforgiving.
Rowdy pulled his saddle from among the luggage, balanced it over one shoulder and walked off the platform toward Main Street. In the five years since he’d been gone, the place had changed, more than doubling in size, thanks mostly, he guessed, to the railhead. New storefronts and businesses framed a town square in huddled progress. To the north a line of two story roofs stood behind the bank and hardware store. One end of Main was braced by the railroad, but on the other end houses and barns scattered out for half a mile, uneven veins leading into the heart of town.
Rowdy was glad for Kasota Springs’ growth. Maybe he’d be able to sell the nothing of a ranch his father had left him and be on his way. He had a hundred places he wanted to see and five years of catching up to do. The sooner he got out of this part of Texas and away from memories, the better.
He walked straight to the livery and picked out a horse to rent. All the corral stock looked better than any horse he’d worked with in years. Prison horses were either broken down or wild and crazy-eyed. A guard once told him horses too tough to eat were sold to the prisons. Rowdy almost laughed. The stock reminded him of the prisoners, he decided, wondering which category he fit into.
“You here for the rodeo?” the blacksmith asked a few minutes later when he pulled the bay Rowdy had pointed out from the herd.
“No,” Rowdy answered without looking at the man.
“I’m surprised. You look like you could rodeo. Got the build for it.”
Rowdy didn’t answer. He’d spent too many years avoiding conversation to jump in.
The man didn’t seem to notice. “If I were younger, I’d give it a try. All the ranchers have gone together and donated cattle. They say the all-around winner will walk away with a couple hundred head. Imagine that. Biggest prize I ever heard of. We’re expecting cowboys from three states to be riding and the cattle are in the far pen, ready.”
Rowdy moved to the horse’s head, introducing himself with a touch before he looked back at the blacksmith. “You mind if I brush him down and check his hooves before I saddle up?”
The barrel-chested man shook his head, accepted the dollar for the rental, and turned his attention to the next customers riding in.
Rowdy picked up a brush and began working some of the mud out of the horse’s hide. The familiar action relaxed him. One thing he’d learned in prison was that animals were a great deal more predictable than humans. Treat them right and they tend to return the favor.
As he worked, he watched a fancy red surrey pull up to the livery with three girls inside and one cowboy, dressed in his best, handling the rig. Another cowhand rode beside the buggy as if on guard.
“Sam!” the driver yelled. “Can you check this rigging? I’d hate to tell the Captain I risked an accident with this precious cargo of sisters.” He turned back and winked at the two girls sitting on the second seat.
They giggled in harmony.
Rowdy noticed that the third girl sat alone on the backseat looking out of place. She didn’t laugh, or even look like she was paying attention. Her dress was far plainer than her sisters’, and her bonnet held no ribbon but the one that tied just below her chin. A stubborn chin, he thought. Sticking out as if daring anyone to take a swing at it.
“Give me an hour,” Sam yelled as he crossed into the barn. “I’ll oil the wheels and have it checked.”
The driver tied off the reins and jumped down. The silver on his spurs chimed as he moved. “Ladies, how about lunch at the hotel?” He offered his hand to the first giggly girl, a petite blonde with apple cheeks, while the other cowhand climbed from his saddle and did the same to the second one, a slightly plumper version of her sister.
When the first girl started to step down, the driver moved closer. “We can’t have you getting that pretty dress dirty. How about I carry you to the walk?”
Rowdy watched as the cowboys each lifted a laughing bundle of lace and ribbons. It took him a minute to realize the silent one in the back had been forgotten. She sat, stiff and straight as if saying to the world she didn’t care. When she raised her chin slightly with pride, Rowdy saw her face beneath the simple bonnet.
Plain, he thought. As plain as the flat land and endless sky of this country. She didn’t look all that old, but she had “old maid” written all over her. She’d be the one to stay with the parents long after the other two had married. She’d age alone, or worse, be forced to live from midlife to old age with one of the sisters and her family.
He glanced at the others, their voices drifting lower as they strolled toward the hotel. Rowdy wondered how often this third sister had been left behind, forgotten.
He moved around his horse and tossed the brush he’d been using in a bucket. For once in his life he wished he had clean Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. He’d been an outsider enough to recognize another. The least he could do was offer her a way out of her awkward situation.
“Miss,” he said, shoving his hat back so she could see his face. “May I help you down?”
She looked at him with a flash of surprise, as if she thought herself alone in the world.
For a moment he figured she’d tell him to mind his own business, but then he saw it…a smile that lifted the corner of her mouth. A pretty mouth, he thought, in a plain face.
“Thank you,” she whispered and took his hand as he helped her down.
The surrey shifted slightly and he placed his free hand on her waist to steady her. Though she stood taller than his shoulder, she felt soft, almost fragile. He didn’t offer to carry her. He had a feeling that would have embarrassed them both, but when she reached the ground, he tucked her gloved hand into his elbow and walked across the road to a boardwalk made from mostly green planks.
Once she stepped on the boards, he touched his hat and turned to leave.
“Thank you, Rowdy Darnell,” she whispered.
He froze. Without facing her, he asked, “You know who I am?”
“Of course. We were in sixth grade together the year you and your father moved here.” Her soft voice changed slightly. “The year before I was sent away to school.”
Shifting, he wished she’d look up so he could see her face again. After his mother died, his father only sent him to school when he wanted an undisturbed day of drinking. Rowdy was there barely long enough to learn the other kids’ names. Not that it mattered much. They weren’t interested in being friends with the town drunk’s boy.
“Laurel,” Rowdy said slowly as the memory of a thin, shy girl drifted across his mind. “Laurel Hayes.” He remembered liking the way her name sounded.
She looked up. The tiny smile was back. “I’m glad you’re home,” she said in a voice as gentle as wind chimes whispering on a midnight breeze. “I ride by your father’s place once in a while. Part of the roof on the cabin fell in last winter, but the barn still stands.”
Give Me A Texas Outlaw Bundle with Give Me A Cowboy Page 34
