by Carol Finch
Alexa picked up the handgun in the top drawer, emptied out the bullets and tucked them in her pocket.
Coop smiled approvingly. “Good thinking. You do have a knack for detective work, after all.”
Alexa wanted to hug the stuffing out of him for the compliment. At last, someone realized she had potential beyond making party arrangements and seating assignments.
Her thoughts trailed off when she found a note in the bottom right drawer. “Sure enough, Elliot is expecting a conference meeting at the line shack. Eleven o’clock.”
“Which means he is probably enjoying Lily’s company until his rendezvous,” Coop predicted. “We should have enough time—”
His voice dried up when footsteps echoed through the foyer. Alexa and Coop dived to the floor behind the desk. A moment later, Oscar Denton’s husky form filled the doorway. He scanned the dark room then lurched around to lumber down the hall.
“Let’s go,” Coop whispered in her ear.
“I’m not finished.”
“You are for now.” He surged to his feet, dragging her along with him. “I’ll go out the window first, then I’ll help you down.”
Coop crawled silently through the opening. He hung by his fingers on the windowsill until he secured his feet on the stones protruding from the outer wall. Alexa glanced longingly toward the desk. She knew there was more to learn about Elliot’s activities. If she could have gotten her hands on his ledgers, she might have discovered all sorts of interesting facts for the investigation.
“Come on,” Coop demanded impatiently.
Alexa slung her leg over the window casing. Then she lowered the window to the same position she’d found it. She let go when she felt Coop’s hand on her rump and the other one round her ankle. He carefully lowered her to the ground.
“Thank you for the help.” She looped her arms around his broad shoulders and kissed him soundly.
“You’re welcome.” He grinned and kissed her back. Then he grabbed her hand and weaved around the shrubs and flowers to reach the garden gate.
This partnership was working splendidly, she mused. She had found her true calling and she had engaged in the kind of action and adventure she had craved. She wished this could be the beginning of her career in Cooper Investigations. But Coop insisted that he didn’t want or need a partner. She would have to strike out on her own after she gained experience and guidance from her mentor. She glanced discreetly at Coop and smiled to herself. Unless she found a way to convince him that he needed her a lot more than he thought he did.
A half hour later, Coop tethered the two horses in a grove of trees near the line shack. He smiled reluctantly at Alexa who scurried ahead of him to find the perfect lookout position. He had never met a woman so anxious to involve herself in the danger and intrigue of investigation. Alexa didn’t shy away from difficulty. What she lacked in experience she more than compensated for with intelligence, ingenuity and enthusiasm.
“When all is said and done, I hope your father appreciates your efforts,” Coop remarked as he scanned the empty shack.
“I hope to make a good impression,” she replied. “I want him to realize that I have useful skills and talents so I can begin a career in which I can make a positive difference in people’s lives.”
“Are you competing with a brother or sister for your father’s approval?” he asked curiously.
Alexa shrugged nonchalantly. “Yes and no. When I was ten my mother took my younger sister, Bethany, and returned to Boston to live with my grandmother.”
Coop frowned, bemused. “Why didn’t your mother take you, too?”
He saw her stiffen, as if battling down long-held resentment. She didn’t change facial expression, but he heard the emotion filtering into her voice. “Because she said I was my father’s daughter and she’d had more than enough of both of us. She was tired of the lack of social opportunities in the West and of my father, who was making his way up the ranks of the railroad echelon at the time. We had to move from one new railhead to the next while he organized work crews, inspected construction sites and dealt with the legalities of land permits and right of ways.”
She smiled fondly. “Bethany was only six the last time I saw her. She has my mother’s dark eyes and dark hair. By now, at eighteen, I’m sure she is so attractive that she’s the toast of the town, as my mother was before she married an upstart and went with him to connect one side of the nation to the other by rail.” Her smile faded as she stared into the distance, as if gazing through a window to the past. “I haven’t been allowed to see my sister in twelve years. Neither has my father.”
Coop wondered if Alexa had battled feelings of rejection since her mother chose one daughter over the other. Most likely so. No doubt, Alexa had devoted herself to her father and attempted to prove her worth to the one parent who hadn’t cast her aside because of her blond features and her strong-willed personality.
“Since we are trading dark secrets, while keeping surveillance, tell me what made you the man you are,” she suggested. “What of your family? Brothers or sisters somewhere? Where are your parents?”
Coop rarely spoke of his past. He had put it behind him long ago. “There’s not much to tell.”
“Come on,” she insisted, giving him a nudge with her elbow. “We’re partners now and—”
“We are not…” His voice fizzled out when he noted the look of rejection on her bewitching features. Considering her mother’s abandonment, he didn’t have the heart to protest too long or too loudly. “Okay. Partners…temporarily. For this one case,” he stipulated. “But don’t start making plans to have your name printed on my office door in Albuquerque.”
She threw her arms around his neck and nearly squeezed him in two. “Thank you, Coop. I know I have a lot to learn but I’m eager for you to teach me what I need to know so I can become a good detective.” She stepped back a pace, still grinning from ear to ear. “Now tell me about your family. Please? I’d really like to know.”
Coop found himself staring off into the darkness, too, fighting emotions that he swore were buried and forgotten a lifetime ago. “My mother died of complications two weeks after giving birth to my younger brother, Phillip. My father owned a small farm in Kansas. He stayed busy working the land and planting crops. It was my job to do the domestic chores, tend to our livestock and watch over my brother.”
He felt the tension rising inside him, as if it had been months rather than years since disaster struck and tore his world apart. “I was fourteen when confederate raiders descended on our farm to take what little food and livestock we had. They shot my father, even when he made no attempt to resist them.”
“Oh, Coop, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Alexa murmured as her fingertips glided comfortingly around his clenched fist.
“Phillip panicked. Before I could grab hold of him, he dashed from the cabin, yelling and screaming my father’s name. They killed him, too.”
She sidled closer, as if to bear the burden of pain and anger he’d carried with him for almost two decades. There had been no one to turn to. Now he found solace in Alexa’s strength and presence. He wrapped his arms around her and confided things that he had never told another living soul.
“I made a solemn pact that day while I buried my father, brother and staked a grave for myself beside them. I promised a reckoning for those cutthroats who murdered and raided,” he gritted out. He looked down at her grimly, knowing he was about to invite her disgust and disapproval, because she would know what kind of man he’d become that fateful day.
“I learned to handle a knife, pistol and rifle and I practiced faithfully every spare moment. I went after the four men who were responsible for taking my family away from me. For three years I followed in their wake of death and destruction through Missouri, Arkansas and finally to their hideout in Indian Territory. By then I had learned to survive efficiently in the wilderness. I had become exceptionally skilled with weapons and I learned to track and hunt like an Indian
warrior.”
He stared bleakly at Alexa and said, “My father and brother weren’t the raiders’ only victims. There were eight others. Two of them were young women who were held captive for the men’s pleasures before being disregarded heartlessly.
“It was deep in the Ouachita Mountains that I picked off the raiders one by one. I made certain none of those ruthless bastards survived to rape, murder and steal again. Then I took another name and began a new life as a peace officer, a deputy U.S. Marshal, a bounty hunter, a gunfighter and a detective.”
Coop expected Alexa to withdraw from him after he confided that he had blood on his hands and had resorted to vigilante justice to avenge his family and the other innocent victims.
Instead she lifted her hand to limn the taut features of his face, as if to soothe away the guilt and resentment that still tormented him, despite his best efforts to leave it behind in his previous life.
“I wish I could have been there so you didn’t have to suffer through that awful tragedy alone. My heart goes out to that young boy who had to become a man long before his time—”
Her voice evaporated when the sound of an approaching rider caught their attention. “There’s definitely something familiar about this man, but he isn’t dressed right,” she murmured.
He frowned, bemused. “What the devil does that mean?”
“Just that his bulky jacket, tattered breeches and shiny boots don’t strike me as his usual attire. But this must be Norville Thomas. Curse it! I wish I could recall where I’ve seen him.”
“He looks vaguely familiar to me, too,” Coop whispered. “But how and when did we both see him, other than while you were disguised as the midnight rider, keeping watch at this shack?”
Coop scowled when Alexa tried to sneak up to the window after Norville Thomas scurried inside. He grabbed her arm and directed her attention to the second rider who raced toward the shack. “Rule Number One,” he stated. “Have patience. No sense getting yourself shot or captured if you can avoid it.”
She nodded and smiled. “Good advice. It’s just that I’m so anxious to find out who betrayed my father that I’m champing at the bit.”
Coop didn’t bother to mention to her that, if she hadn’t been with him tonight, he’d have been lying in wait for Norville Thomas—or whoever he was—inside the shack so he could take Webster by surprise, too. Coop wasn’t afraid of trouble and danger because they were commonplace in his life. But he didn’t want his overanxious, inexperienced protégé injured.
“That is definitely Elliot,” Alexa murmured as she monitored his staggering stroll to the cabin. “I’ll sneak up to the window so I can overhear—”
“I’ll go,” he cut in.
She stared him down. “Not without me, you won’t.”
“Are you always this stubborn?” he ground out.
“No, I’m usually worse. You caught me on a good night.”
Coop swallowed several pithy curses when Alexa darted ahead of him, hiding inconspicuously behind one tree and then another to reach the window. With both pistols drawn—just in case trouble erupted—Coop followed her silently.
“Winning Harold Quinn’s loyalty is going to cost you,” Norville said to Elliot.
“Hell, it has cost me plenty already,” Elliot mumbled begrudgingly. “But now that his daughter has agreed to marry me I’ll be in a solid position to get the government contract.”
Alexa felt Coop’s intense gaze boring into her when he overheard Elliot’s comment. Since this wasn’t the time or place to explain why she’d had to say yes to the betrothal, she simply leaned over to place a kiss on his cheek.
She wanted to surge to her feet so she could peek directly into the window and identify Elliot’s cohort. However, as Coop said, a good detective had to be patient and cautious. Those two traits didn’t come naturally for Alexa. Giving her presence away right now would prompt Elliot to change his habit of making contact with his cohort at the line shack and complicate the investigation. Her only recourse was to eavesdrop.
“Harold Quinn has called another meeting for the end of this week,” Norville reported. “By then he will know of your betrothal and that should be the end of your problems. Your neighbors will be turned down for the military contracts again and you’ll be secure for another year.”
“I still plan to discredit my neighbors and rebuild my mercantile business. If I can coerce my new bride into giving financial backing I might even run for public office so I can make my own arrangements.”
When Coop glanced at her again, she shrugged indifferently. She had already told him that she understood why men like Elliot Webster pursued her. If Coop thought the comment hurt her feelings, he was mistaken. She was accustomed to being used and she was very aware of the tactic.
“I’ll need my expense fee right now,” Norville prompted Elliot. “Riding the rails back and forth to Santa Fe so often is costly. Not to mention that the trips are taking considerable time away from my usual duties.”
What usual duties? Alexa wondered. Who the devil was this man? Again, the urge to bolt to her feet for a closer look nearly overwhelmed her. Coop must have sensed her eagerness for he clamped his hand around her elbow, in case she gave way to temptation.
“Fine, here’s your money. By the end of the week, when my plans fall neatly into place, you can go back to your usual duties.”
“I’m looking forward to that,” Norville remarked. “My lucrative side business is suffering because of this extra traveling.”
What lucrative side business? Alexa wondered. She was more confused and frustrated than ever by her inability to place Norville Thomas—if that was his real name. Or maybe it was an alias he gave to Elliot.
When Coop tapped her on the shoulder, silently ordering her to skulk away from the window before the men exited, she went reluctantly. Barely a minute later, Norville Thomas strode outside, looked this way and that, and then walked swiftly toward his horse. Alexa paid particular attention to the mount, wondering if Norville had rented the horse in town or from one of the nearby stage stops between Questa Springs and Socorro. If Norville stayed the night at one of the local hotels, she intended to find out which one then follow him.
After Elliot exited and rode toward his ranch, Alexa mounted her horse then reined toward town.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Coop demanded as he hitched his thumb over his shoulder. “Hampton Ranch is the opposite direction.”
“I’m following a hunch,” she said as she trotted off.
“You aren’t experienced enough as a detective to have hunches yet,” Coop said caustically.
“Then call it women’s intuition.”
She heard him sigh—loudly—indicating that he wasn’t pleased with her plans. “Look, Alexa, I appreciate your enthusiasm and dedication in this case, but it’s nearly midnight.”
“A detective’s work is never done,” she declared.
“Who the hell told you that?”
She grinned at his exasperated scowl. “No one. It’s my new motto.”
Although Coop muttered and grumbled, he kept pace beside her. Together they remained a safe distance behind Norville Thomas so he wouldn’t know he was being followed. A quarter of an hour later, Alexa was surprised to see that Norville veered around to the back of Lily’s Pleasure Resort.
Lily’s…The name whispered through her mind as it had several times the past two weeks. She kept trying to attach some significance to the concubine but she kept drawing a blank.
“That must be where I saw him,” Coop said. “I saw a man enter the back door shortly after Lily returned from Webster’s ranch last week.”
The elusive thought that niggled Alexa’s brain tormented her again but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what disturbed her. “There must be a connection here,” she mused aloud.
“Either that or our friend Norville Thomas has a penchant for one of the ladies, as does your fiancé. Congratulations, by the way,” he added moc
kingly.
“You sound like Miguel. He already teased me unmercifully because I had to agree to a betrothal so Elliot wouldn’t resort to another method to gain my father’s favor.” She twisted in the saddle to stare at Coop in the scant moonlight. “If you don’t know me well enough to realize that I’d rather suffer the ten plagues of Egypt than wed a man like Elliot then you don’t know me at all.”
“Now that you mention it, princess, I know you exceptionally well.”
When a rakish grin spread across his sensuous lips, a warm tingle skittered down her spine. Mercy, why did this one man have the power to affect her so intensely?
“There you go then,” she murmured.
“You must have good reason for accepting Webster’s proposal, I suppose.”
“Excellent reason,” she declared. “I’m stringing along that devious scoundrel until you can arrest him for fraud and whatever else you can pin on him that will keep him in the penitentiary for years to come.”
“It will be my pleasure,” he assured her.
“Then trot into Lily’s Pleasure Resort and get a closer look at the man we think is Norville Thomas,” she requested. “I’d do it myself, but that would look highly suspicious.”
Pleasure Resort…Alexa frowned pensively. Something about that name struck a hazy cord of memory, just as Norville Thomas’s silhouette did. She knew she was overlooking something important, but confound it, she didn’t know what it was and it was driving her crazy!
“If I walk into Lily’s place I’ll have to select a harlot to escort upstairs or I’ll look suspicious,” Coop reminded her. “Would that bother you?”
She inwardly winced. If she said yes, she would imply that she wanted exclusive rights to Coop. If she said no, it would imply that her liaison with him was purely physical. And that was a bald-face lie, unfortunately.
“Well?” he prodded.
Alexa blew out her breath. “I don’t want you to be with anyone else while we’re working this case together.”
