Diablo

by Potter, Patricia;

  Taking it to the house was a foolish thing to do. He’d realized it the moment he saw the woman.

  He tried to shrug away the confusion she stirred in him. With Davy’s life at stake, he shouldn’t be concerned with the likes of Miss Thompson. Still, he wasn’t able to keep himself from wondering about her first name. He went over possibilities in his mind, but none fit. Some were too soft, some too hard. She was neither, but a fascinating combination of grit and vulnerability.

  He would never know her name, because he was going to stay away from her. Everything in him rebelled against using her, betraying her. But what if that was the only way to save Davy?

  He entered the busy saloon, and everyone turned to look. Some automatically reached for guns that weren’t there. He sauntered up to the crowded bar, saw Hildebrand motion for Kane to join him at the other end where he stood with several men.

  “Meet the others,” Hildebrand said, and ran off a series of names, some of which Kane recognized.

  “How do you like our little town?” one asked him.

  “Interesting,” Kane replied noncommittally.

  “You here for long?”

  “Long enough for a posse to lose my trail.”

  One man sidled up to him. Like Kane, he wore a scar across his cheek. The man put a hand to his. “How did you get yours?”

  “The war,” Kane said curtly.

  The other man looked disappointed and walked away. Kane wondered what kind of answer he had wanted. He turned back to his drink, discouraging conversation. He felt like a wolf among coyotes. They might have some ancestry in common, even some interests, but he didn’t like the association.

  The men he’d ridden with the last few years had all been ex-rebs. They hadn’t been thieves by choice but by injustice. Their land had been taken, and in some cases their families killed. They’d come back from war to nothing, to carpetbaggers stealing land settled and worked by their fathers. Their families had fought the Mexicans and Indians and drought and flood for their small dreams, for the right to live and farm and ranch on their land. They’d been fighting for that these past two years, as they had fought four long years of official war. The stakes had been the same, but the odds had been stacked even more heavily against them.

  That was his justification for outlawry, anyway. He wondered whether Nat Thompson had any.

  “Come on, Diablo,” Hildebrand said. “Join us in a poker game.”

  Kane nodded. He followed Hildebrand and three others to a table. Parker. Kayo. Curry. Curry, he remembered, was wanted for a bloody bank robbery where two kids were killed. Kane shuffled the cards and started dealing.

  The game broke up three hours later. Kane was the big winner, which did not endear him to the others. Curry, in particular, was a poor loser as well as a piss-poor poker player. He swore several times and kicked over a chair when he rose.

  Hildebrand shrugged. He and Kane were the only two left at the table. “He’ll get over it.”

  Kane poured his companion a glass of whiskey from the bottle he’d just purchased. “Does he always play that badly?”

  “Only when he drinks too much.”

  Which was often, Kane thought, if one paid attention to the unhealthy color of his face.

  “What about tomorrow night?” Hildebrand said. “I want a chance to get my money back.”

  “Don’t know why not. Nothing else to do here,” Kane said. “You been here long?”

  Hildebrand sighed. “A month. I’m just about broke. I’m trying to recruit a couple of men for a bank job. You interested?”

  “Might be,” Kane said slowly. “Right now it’s pretty hot out there. Whole state of Texas is looking for me.”

  “I’m not thinking about Texas.”

  Kane allowed his interest to show, though he said nothing, just waited for more information.

  “Kansas,” Hildebrand said. “Cattlemen are taking their herds up there, and buyers have lots of money in those banks. I could use a man like you.”

  “Who else is going along?”

  Hildebrand’s eyes grew cautious. “I’m not sure yet.”

  “I want to know the men I ride with,” Kane said. “I don’t take chances. I’ll let you know when you recruit the others.” He poured Hildebrand another drink. “You have any idea how far that bank is from here?”

  “Depends on where you tell Thompson you want to go. I figure about ten, twelve days hard riding from the Texas border.

  That was little help. Hell, he might as well ask. “You have any idea where we are?”

  Hildebrand shook his head. “Don’t really want to know. That’s dangerous knowledge. Real dangerous.”

  “Thompson’s got a good thing going here.”

  “Wish to hell I had some of it,” Hildebrand said. “No risk. Just money pouring in.”

  “I think I would get bored real quick,” Kane said. “Risks are what makes the game interesting.”

  “Speaking of interesting, I saw you talking to Nicky Thompson.”

  “Nicky?”

  “Thompson’s niece. She’s real class, but she doesn’t have anything to do with us. That’s Thompson’s first rule. First time I came here two years ago, a man tried to kiss her. Thompson had him whipped near to death. Never saw or heard of him again.”

  “I’ll remember that.” Kane took another glass of whiskey. He shouldn’t. He needed his wits about him. But the mention of the woman had rattled him. Nicky. The name suited her.

  He abruptly rose, shoving the bottle over to Hildebrand. “Take it. I’m going to Rosita’s.”

  Hildebrand leered. “If you’re going to Rosita’s, ask for Cara.”

  Maybe he would, Kane thought. Maybe that’s all he needed: physical release. He started for the brothel next to the saloon, but stopped when he saw a light on in the stone house at the end of the street.

  Nicky.

  Damn it all to hell. He had as much business thinking about her as he did about a future. Muttering a curse, he continued on to Rosita’s.

  So he was like the others, after all.

  Jealousy whipped angrily inside Nicky as she watched through the window, though there was no reason for it. She had no claim on Diablo, wanted none. Still, it hurt so much to think of him with one of the women at Rosita’s.

  Men had needs, Nicky knew that. Andy’s wife, Juanita, had whispered the intimate secrets to her, and she’d heard men talk about it when they thought she wasn’t listening.

  Would she ever find out those secrets for herself? Certainly not unless she left Sanctuary.

  Feeling empty and lonely, she left her room to check on Robin. He was asleep. On the floor beside him lay the hawk in a makeshift bed. Robin had already named it Diablo.

  She crawled into her own bed, suddenly feeling seven years old—and deserted again. It was the way she’d felt when her mother died, and then her father. It didn’t make sense. Still, the ball of misery rolled around inside her. She wanted something. She wanted it so badly it hurt. But she didn’t know what it was. It couldn’t be Kane O’Brien. She would never fall in love with a man like her uncle or father. She’d loved them both dearly, but losing her father had hurt too much, and she didn’t doubt that losing Uncle Nat would be as bad. She felt a dampness on her cheeks and touched them. Tears. She hadn’t shed tears since her father died.

  Nicky wiped them away angrily. No, she would never allow herself to care for a man like Diablo.

  Kane slammed around his room, taking out his frustration on everything he touched. He cursed Masters repeatedly. He even wished a return to his prison cell. There had been fewer moral dilemmas there. Just waiting. Just emptiness.

  He’d found Cara at Rosita’s, had taken her to one of the rooms in back. He’d watched appreciatively as she’d stripped slowly and seductively. But as he had leaned down to kiss her, another face came between them, a pixielike face with big brown eyes, a wide mouth, and a too-serious expression.

  He’d suddenly backed away, leaving Cara to
look at him in puzzlement. “I do something wrong, senor?” she’d asked.

  She was a pretty little thing, and her smile said she enjoyed her work. So did her hands that started to work on him, unbuttoning his shirt and caressing his chest. He felt his body react, but for some reason he couldn’t make his mind do the same. Somehow, an act he’d always enjoyed seemed wrong. Hell, there was nothing wrong with paying for a bit of sex.

  He’d tried. He’d really tried. He’d admired the roundness of Cara’s body, even while part of his mind compared it with the slender grace of Nicky Thompson’s. In the end, the act had been a clumsy, hurried affair that left him more frustrated than ever. He’d just wanted it over. He’d given Cara an extra large tip and left quickly. He knew he wouldn’t be back.

  He felt as if someone had drilled a hole into him, allowing the best part of him to drain away and leaving the worms. How in the hell had he ever gotten into such a mess?

  He had to get one single thing right in this life. The problem was, he no longer knew what that one single thing should be. He’d been given a choice: Davy’s life or death. But he should have known it wouldn’t be that simple. It had whirled into something else completely, like a kaleidoscope he’d once seen: colors and shapes always changing. One choice was leading to another: betrayal of his best friend, or betrayal of a vulnerable woman who moved him more than he was willing to admit.

  Chapter Five

  Morning was Nicky’s favorite time. She usually rose at dawn and took a ride. The inhabitants of Sanctuary were almost all asleep then; they thrived on darkness.

  Nicky had a particular spot she loved, a rise on the west side of the valley where she could watch the sun ascend and the soft colors brighten the earth. She knew, when she rose after a sleepless night, feeling slow and drugged, that she needed to visit her special place, needed to be alone to think.

  Not another soul was yet in sight when she arrived at the stable. Molly whinnied her usual welcome. Nicky didn’t bother with a saddle and bridle this morning; using only a halter, she headed the mare out of town.

  She gave Molly her head, and the mare danced a few steps with pleasure. Dark night had surrendered to the first rays of a sun still lurking behind the mountains, and a soft morning gray was promising a fine day. A breeze was pushing a few wispy clouds over an otherwise clear sky like bits of lace over fine cloth.

  Nicky avoided the area where she’d shot Yancy and went farther upstream where the land started to slope upward into the hills. Cottonwoods and scraggly oaks struggled to exist among the rocks, and she’d always felt them very gallant indeed to keep trying. She guessed it had been nearby that O’Brien had found the baby hawk, for she’d seen several hawks soaring around the top of the canyon wall. She wondered which one had just lost its offspring and if it mourned the loss. The thought saddened her, strengthening the bittersweet longing that still lingered inside her.

  Nothing seemed right this morning, right or natural, even on a morning as sweet as any she could remember.

  Molly went straight to the top of the rise. Nicky slid off the horse, taking a seat on a rotting log as Molly found a patch of grass to nibble. Light was exploding now like a halo around the mountains. In moments, the top of the sun would tip the mountain in a glorious awakening.

  She swallowed hard. There must be so much life beyond these majestic walls. She had never realized how lonely she was until now. Or maybe she simply hadn’t admitted it.

  The sun edged up, its rays hitting the jutting boulders of the crags like flecks of silver and copper. She glanced around and noticed a rider following the wall of the canyon. He was a long distance away, but she knew him instantly. She recognized the horse, for one thing; it was a gray, and there were few grays in Sanctuary. And then there was the way the rider held himself. She watched from a distance. He appeared to be looking for something. A way out? But why? He had paid a fortune to get inside.

  The guards, stationed at strategic places, probably couldn’t see the man now moving along the wall, stopping occasionally as if to study an outcropping. The brilliance of the morning dulled. She watched for another few moments, and then he turned, the metal trim on his saddle glinting in the sun. Then he stilled, and she wondered whether he had seen her. He apparently had, for he turned the horse in her direction and rode at a leisurely pace toward her.

  Nicky wondered whether she should mount and ride like a demon for her uncle’s. She was only too aware she hadn’t brought a gun this morning—bringing even her derringer stole something from the peace of a sunrise—but her legs didn’t move. She only watched as the figure grew larger.

  Nicky ran her fingers through her hair, trying to comb it, recognizing the action for the vanity it was, despising herself for caring. He was an outlaw, an outlaw who’d visited a fancy lady last night. She wished, though, that her heart wouldn’t thump so loudly.

  She didn’t move as he approached. He sat for a moment on his big gray, then slid easily down from the saddle. He took off the hat he wore and bowed slightly, just as he had that first day. The thump in her heart moved up to her throat.

  “Miss Thompson,” he said. “A pleasure. I thought I would only see birds this morning.”

  Nicky sought to find her voice. It came out unintentionally accusing. “I’m surprised you’re up so early … after a late night.”

  He looked surprised. “Late?”

  Nicky bit her lip. She didn’t want him to think she was spying on him. And she hadn’t been. She’d just been looking out the window. “Everyone goes to the saloon and Rosita’s.”

  “Do they now?” he said, an edge of amusement in his voice.

  She wanted to slap him. She went on the attack instead. “What are you doing, prowling around?”

  “I always get up early. I’m just exploring. Thought I would try to find that hawk’s nest.”

  “Why?”

  He looked her straight in the eyes. “Something to do, Miss Thompson. I get bored easily.”

  “Why?”

  He raised an eyebrow in question.

  “There’s always Rosita’s.”

  “That’s the second time you mentioned Rosita’s.”

  “I saw you go inside last night,” she said acidly. She knew she was being unreasonable. She hated allowing him to know she cared enough to mention it. But the words kept popping out, sputtering like steam from a teapot.

  “I suppose you see a lot of men go in Rosita’s,” he said reasonably.

  “Of course,” she said airily. “I just wondered why you were up this morning. My uncle doesn’t like his guests sneaking around.”

  He chuckled. “I don’t think I’m sneaking around. If I am, I’m doing a damned poor job of it.”

  “Are you laughing at me, Mr. O’Brien?”

  “No, Miss Thompson, I’m not. I’m simply trying to explain something, and I rarely do that.” His voice hardened. “Very rarely.”

  She bit her lip. He confused her. One minute, he was exuding charm, the next, menace. Yet she sensed that menace wasn’t directed toward her. Nicky quickly changed the subject. “I come up here every morning.”

  He looked toward the east, at the sun now fully clearing the mountains. “I understand why. But isn’t it dangerous?”

  He was thinking about Yancy. She was thinking about Kane O’Brien. He was far more dangerous. She didn’t know the rules of this game. She didn’t know how to flirt and was muttering all kinds of silly things. Nicky cringed at what he must think.

  “I can take care of myself,” she said defensively.

  “So I noticed. But it doesn’t look like you have a gun today.”

  “I do,” she bluffed.

  His eyes roamed over her. She felt as if she were sizzling inside. When she could stand it no longer, she stepped back, stumbling, heat rising in her face.

  He reached out to steady her, his slight perpetual smile turning into a frown. “I didn’t mean …”

  Nicky would have fled if she weren’t afraid that she
would stumble again. His hand touched her shoulder, his gloved fingers moving to her cheek, touching it lightly.

  “I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said.

  His fingers left her skin and she felt bereft. She looked down at his hands and watched him pull off a glove. Then his fingers were back and this time she felt his skin against hers in an agonizingly intimate way.

  Intimate because she’d never felt a man’s hands on her before. She didn’t know they could feel this way, that a mere touch could warm her blood and make her toes curl, that a kind of fever could rip through her like a tornado, leaving ruins in its wake. She tilted her face upward to look at him. That perpetual half smile, drawn by the scar, appeared gentler.

  She reached up and tentatively touched the jagged scar. “What happened?” she whispered.

  “A bayonet wound during the war,” he said, turning that cheek away.

  She shuddered, thinking of his pain, hurting for him.

  His hand suddenly fell away. “It took me a long time to get used to it,” he said, and she suddenly realized he thought she was repelled by it.

  “I think it’s very … handsome.”

  He suddenly grinned. “No one’s ever called it that before.”

  “You got it honorably. You should be proud of it,” Nicky blurted out. Amusement flickered in his eyes and she felt like twelve instead of twenty-two. One of his eyebrows raised again, and he truly did look like the devil. Still, she felt no fear.

  “And I haven’t done an honorable thing since, Miss Thompson.”

  “Why?” It was a foolish question, particularly posed to an outlaw as notorious as Diablo. But she wanted to know.

  “Being honorable is not what it’s touted to be,” he said with that crooked smile. “Believe me on that.”

  “Why did you go to war?”

  A curtain suddenly dropped over his eyes. “I’ll probably never understand that myself, Miss Thompson.”

  “Nicky,” she said. “Everyone calls me Nicky.” She knew she shouldn’t invite that new intimacy, but suddenly it seemed as if they were friends.

  “Nicky?”

  “It’s short for Nicole.” Nicky held her breath as she watched his reaction. Nicole was a name for a lady, not a woman who wore her hair as short as a man’s and dressed in trousers.