Deep Trouble

by Mary Connealy

  A dangerous man, Lobo Cutter. Of them all, Lobo was the one who worried Lurene the most. She could handle the rest of them, right down to putting a knife between their ribs. But Lobo was a savvy, trail-hardened outlaw, and he’d be a hard man to best. If she let any of them live, it might be Lobo, just because taking him on might cost her too much. Anyway, Cutter had gotten her into this and taken her off the streets. So she owed him. And she’d pay, until it didn’t suit her anymore.

  A quick look at Randy Lloyd reminded her not to underestimate him. He was proving to be smart, and she could use that in a kidnapping. It was a little different than anything she’d tried before.

  Shivering in the cold night air of the desert, she crawled into her bedroll and almost asked Cutter to share hers. It wouldn’t be the first time. Cutter had been one of her regulars back in St. Louis. They’d played it quiet about their past for Shannon’s sake. And now Lurene wasn’t sure she wanted Ginger and the Lloyd brothers to know of her connection to Cutter. It might arouse suspicion, especially in Randy, if he figured them for a team. After all, it aroused her suspicion thinking of the Lloyd brothers backing each other.

  For now, she’d sleep alone in her cold bed. It reminded her too much of her cold nights on the streets back east. She wanted a whiskey to help her forget the ugliness of the life she’d been reduced to. Enough gold and she could put that life far in her past.

  Shannon Dysart was the key to cash money and a city of gold.

  Lurene thought that if she had a whole city full, it might be enough to make her feel safe and clean.

  “If you want her, you’re going to have to go get her,” Giselle Dysart said as she fanned her gently tilted-up nose.

  Buckstone “Bucky” Chatillon Shaw did want Shannon Dysart. But did he want her bad enough to go get her?

  It was a long, hard trip, and honestly Bucky was used to comfortable living. But the idea had some allure. He’d been raised on the trapping and scouting stories handed down from his great uncle, Henri Chatillon. Living a rugged life in the unsettled West was a childhood dream of his. But honestly, those dreams were best enjoyed in a soft bed in a warm room with plenty of food ready to be prepared by a skilled cook and delivered by an efficient maid.

  But more than he didn’t want to go get Shannon, he didn’t want her mother, Giselle, nagging him anymore, nor his own mother, nor his father, nor any one of six living grandparents. The only one who wouldn’t have nagged was Shannon’s father, and since the man was both a lunatic and dead, it hardly mattered how Delusional Dysart would have acted.

  So, he’d better go get her. With a sigh he accepted the inevitable. He was taking a trip west. He tried to look on the bright side. Maybe it would be fun. Maybe his childhood dream would become the adventure of a lifetime.

  And maybe he’d end up with an Apache tomahawk embedded in his skull. He didn’t know much about Apaches, but what he did know… was all bad.

  However it ended up, it had to start somewhere, and Shannon was his and had been since birth. Their marriage would join four of the most powerful families in St. Louis—the Chatillons, the Astors, the Shaws, and the Campbells. His marriage to Shannon Dysart would be the stuff dynasties were built on. He played around with the image of himself as governor and liked it well enough. And to be governor, he needed a wife. Shannon.

  It was past time for action. He’d waited long enough for Shannon to give up her dreams and marry him. It pulled Bucky up short to think the woman he planned to marry needed to be hunted down to do her duty. Add to that, she had to give up the great goal of her life, her own dream, to do it. That didn’t make this the love match of the century.

  “You’re right, Mrs. Dysart.” Bucky felt almost certain that Giselle Dysart was wrong, wrong, wrong. “I let Shannon go on this journey because I believed she needed to retrace her father’s steps before she could settle down. But we haven’t heard from her in too long. She may be in trouble.”

  “She hired competent help.” Giselle waved a hand as if Shannon being out of contact for nearly a month now didn’t concern her in the least.

  Bucky suspected that was exactly the case. What concerned Giselle was her own comfort, her own wants being catered to quickly and without the burden of hearing about any problems.

  Giselle wanted this dynasty. Though she’d done her best to wash her hands of her unfortunate marriage to a peasant, she always acted as if her husband carried a bad smell. She wanted better for Shannon, and Giselle wanted to secure her own place slightly higher in St. Louis society. Having the Astors as relatives of course made her unassailable, however tenuous the connection, but Giselle always wanted more.

  She was the perfect vision of beauty. Her blond hair was pulled high on her head so the elegant curve of her neck showed and the defiant tilt of her chin was emphasized. Her carefully pampered skin glowed in the gaslight. Giselle sat on a fragile-looking chair, cooling herself with a delicate fan.

  Bucky’s mother sat beside Giselle. The two were a vision of wealth and culture. Which didn’t really hide the fact that they were as stubborn as Missouri mules. Unlike Giselle, Bucky’s mother was dark—Bucky took after her with his brown hair, but his eyes were blue like his father’s. Both women were slender as reeds, dressed in silk and coifed to perfection. And both of them rarely lifted a finger.

  With his hands clasped behind his back, Bucky stood before them as they dictated his life. He understood perfectly why Shannon had run off to the West. He chose to see her as escaping from her overbearing mother rather than from him. And yes, he might as well admit he could be lying to himself.

  But her escape meant nothing, because it was only temporary, and therefore, it was no escape at all. Shannon was stuck with him, and it was time she accepted it.

  Stuck with him? Give up her dreams? It was the love story of every woman’s dreams.

  He pictured himself on one knee, holding her hand.

  Shannon, I’m sorely afraid we’re stuck with each other. Would you please give up your dreams and marry me? And can we do it before our parents drive us crazy?

  Bucky almost buried his face in his hands. He made a fervent promise to himself to spend all his spare time thinking of a better way to propose. The truth was obviously out of the question.

  “I should have married her and gone along on her trip.” He hadn’t asked her, and as obsessed as she’d been about her father’s ridiculously garbled last words and arcane map, he didn’t think she’d have paid him much mind if he had.

  “You should have married her and insisted she give up on this rubbish,” Mother said as she straightened the ruffles along the rounded collar of her dress.

  “But I didn’t.” It occurred to Bucky that if he left right now for the Wild West, he wouldn’t have to talk to any of Shannon’s or his family for a long, long time. That alone recommended the idea. “Now it’s time to rectify the situation.”

  He envied Shannon her absence. Yet another thing he could leave out of his marriage proposal.

  “If I’m to strike out in the wilderness, I’ll need to hire a few people to go along with me.” A shiver of pleasure surprised him. Why, he was looking forward to the trip.

  “I took care of it,” Mother said.

  Bucky kept the scowl off his face through years of practice, but his heart was definitely scowling. “Thank you, Mother.”

  “I’ve bought you a train ticket as far west as Shannon’s last known location.” Giselle fluttered her fan and gave Bucky a smile that almost chilled his blood into ice. A big part of why he’d always wanted to marry Shannon was to save her from this scary woman. “I’ve had someone checking on her routinely throughout this venture.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “But she had a terrible time hiring someone to accompany her. If you hired someone to follow her, why didn’t you just hire someone to go with her?”

  “She’d have seen that as my giving her my blessing. I couldn’t do that.”

&
nbsp; “Certainly not.” Bucky’s mother sniffed. “Such nonsense, Giselle. Why didn’t you put a stop to it?”

  “It was her father’s fault. Dreadful man. Such a mistake to marry him.” Giselle shrugged her dead husband off with a mere lift of her shoulders and her snooty nose. “And she has complete control over her inheritance from my father. What was my Grandpapa Shaw thinking?”

  “He was too much influenced by Chatillon and his fur trading stories. Henri always was a law unto himself. So often men are. No reasoning with them.”

  It was not the least bit fair that Bucky stood here taking orders from these two old hens while they lamented unreasonable men. He had a flicker of rebellion and for once enjoyed it rather than feared it.

  “So this person you’ve got following her…” Bucky needed them to get back on the topic of Shannon. “Why don’t we just telegraph him and find out where she is?”

  “Well, he isn’t actually with her of course. She set off into the wilderness, and my inquiry agent stayed behind in the nearest suitable town.”

  “What town? I think Durango, Colorado, is the last I’ve heard from her.” Bucky had tried to find it on a map, but with no luck. A train did pass through there, though, so Bucky could go to Durango, in Colorado, home of mountains and perhaps a buffalo or a mountain lion or a grizzly bear. Or an Apache.

  He decided to pack his rifle. There would be reasonable comfort since his family owned their own train car. They owned a fair share of several trains, too.

  “My agent said Durango isn’t a town fit to live in. He hired someone to inform him when she returned, and then he traveled on to Denver.”

  Nodding his head silently, Bucky found himself rehearsing testimony.

  But your honor, the man was supposed to protect, or at least follow, my fiancée. Instead, because Durango was too rustic, he went to Denver to await word. Simple human decency forced me to kill the worthless worm with my bare hands.

  He suspected the judge would acquit him instantly.

  “When am I to meet these people you’ve hired to accompany me, Mother?”

  His mother said, “Ring for the butler, please. Ebersol has the details.”

  Mother hired the butler; the butler hired the men who would accompany him. Giselle hired an inquiry agent; that agent hired someone to do his job. Bucky yanked on the bell pull with far more force than was necessary. He gripped his hands behind his back.

  “Would you mind terribly telling Ebersol to send in a tray of tea, dear?” Mother asked. “Then discuss this business outside. Giselle and I have to consult with my secretary about sending invitations to this fall’s rout. I don’t believe you’ll be back from fetching Shannon home in time to attend. Pity.

  With a stiff smile he left the room, having another stiff talk with the judge. This one about matricide. And—and matri-in-law-icide. Was that a word? Because it certainly should be.

  With a grim smile, Bucky knew he’d be acquitted again, with the judge’s thanks for making the world a less pretentious place.

  It wasn’t the first time that Bucky had felt a passion to marry Shannon just to get both of them away from these two shrews. His father had already purchased the lovely home here in St. Louis where they’d live. His mother’s father was already dropping a quiet word here and there about Bucky’s political ambitions.

  Hopefully, Grandfather would drop a word in Bucky’s ears soon, so he’d know what those ambitions were exactly. Giselle and Mother were planning the wedding, the social event of at least the decade.

  He was quite sure they’d already ordered Shannon’s dress. He really did have to get on with rounding up his bride.

  Bucky wondered if Shannon would be interested in moving permanently to Durango… or maybe Denver.

  Seven

  Gabe watched Shannon climb down the wall with such agility she might well have been part mountain goat.

  Except with dark hair. And petticoats. And she smelled real good.

  Shannon wasn’t really much like a mountain goat at all.

  Her hair was in a tight braid, not smooth and nice. He doubted she had a comb handy. But she’d done her best and looked tidy. Her eyes, a warm brown, much lighter than his, snapped with energy as she approached the fire in the chill morning air and gave him a bright smile. It was only when she got close that Gabe realized all of it was fake. The energy, the smile, the mountain goat imitation—all of it phony as all get out. Once she was close, he saw the dark circles under her eyes. “Good morning, Gabe.”

  “Did you get much sleep?” He’d hated that she’d been in that cold, spooky cave alone overnight. And he’d nearly frozen down here by the fire. How much could she have slept?

  “Enough.”

  Which meant not nearly enough.

  “My headache is nearly gone.”

  Which meant it wasn’t gone.

  “I feel altogether better able to cope with things.”

  She looked ready to keel over.

  He didn’t bother to mention any of his impressions because they had to move out whether she felt good or not. “Okay, let’s eat quick, and I’ll take you into the nearest town. I can give you enough money to take the stage to the nearest train, and I’ll make sure you have enough to buy a ticket home to St. Louis.”

  Gabe had thought it through carefully. He could afford this, and she was helpless. Giving her money to solve her problems was the exact right thing to do. It felt generous and wise and heroic. He waited for her to thank him. Maybe hug him again. He was especially waiting for that.

  “Nonsense. I’m not going home.”

  His smile faded. “Why not?” Then he was sorry he asked, because why ask a question if you don’t want to know the answer?

  “You said last night you’re free for the rest of the summer, right?” She squared her shoulders and turned that pretty, phony smile even brighter. It didn’t look even close to natural.

  “Not free exactly. My family is expecting me sooner or later. I didn’t tell ‘em exactly when I’d show up, but—”

  “I don’t have any money with me, but I have funds available to me back home. I think you should help me find the next city. The one that’s really made of gold.”

  Gabe wished so hard he could believe her. He’d like to find a city of gold. Who wouldn’t? But Gabe had lived with reality just a little too long. He’d lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains growing up, and they got by just barely if Pa and Ma and his six brothers and he worked hard every day. They lived on food from their garden, milk from their cow, eggs from their chickens, and all the meat they could hunt. Then he’d joined the cavalry, and army life almost ground a man up and left him for dust. There was no time for dreaming of cities of gold.

  He’d even been to a mining town. It was a blight on the face of the earth. Greed and filth. Brutal work, and if a gold strike did turn up, it had to be dug out of the ground with hours and days and weeks of backbreaking labor. Then a man had to fight to hold on to it with knives and guns and ruthless strength.

  It came down to Gabe being a realist. “Shannon, I know you want to prove that your father’s work was worthwhile, but—”

  “You’re not doing anything anyway, Gabe.” Her smile vanished, and she grabbed the front of his shirt in both hands. Her desperation was actually a nice change from the phony smile. “Why not come with me? We can find someone to travel along. An older woman maybe who’s interested in heading west. Maybe a husband and wife. Then the trip would be… proper for us. Together. You can hunt for food. We don’t have to spend a lot of money to travel. We’ll live off the land while we follow my map to the next stopping point. Those folks took my money, but I have more. I could pay you enough to buy a nice herd, get your ranch off to a solid start.”

  It was quite a speech. “You been practicing that for long?” With a sheepish shrug, Shannon nodded. “Most of the night.” Which might explain why she looked as if she’d gotten next to no sleep. “No. I’m not going on your treasure hunt, Shannon. The closest town
east is—”

  “You might as well take me to the closest town west.” Shannon crossed her arms and turned into the very picture of beautiful stubborn womanhood. “Because I’m heading west.” “Now, there’s no sense getting riled.”

  Her eyes could just as well have been flaming arrows shot from an Apache’s bow. “I’m not riled.”

  She didn’t sound riled. She sounded calm. Insanely calm. “There’s nothing to the west for a hundred miles. You—”

  “I’m going west, Gabe.” She cut him off. “I’m afraid, and I wish very much you’d come along because I have no way to care for myself, but if you won’t come, then please point me in the direction of the nearest town. We can part company now. I appreciate all you’ve done—”

  “You know good and well”—Gabe ripped his Stetson off his head—”that I can’t just ride off and leave you in the wilderness.”

  “Certainly you can. I’d prefer the nearest town a bit southwest if you please, because that’s the direction I’m going. I’ll be walking of course—”

  “I’ll take you!” Like he had any choice, short of tossing her over his saddle and dragging her onto a train heading east. He wondered if the other passengers would support him if he shackled her to her seat. Abusing women was a mighty serious business, so he might have his hands full keeping her on the train until it chugged out of the station. But probably, if they listened to his reasons, they’d side with him and keep the little idiot on board.

  Her stubbornness just melted clean away. “Thank you.”

  “You’re not welcome.”

  “Did you have somewhere you intended to go?”

  “I told you I was drifting. I’m on my way to my brothers’, and there’s no hurry, but that’s beside the point. My plans are none of your concern.”

  “Because you don’t have any?” Shannon gave him a smile that seemed to soothe the grizzly in him.

  “That’s right. But I’m not going on the whole treasure hunt. I’m dropping you off at the first place I can and leaving you.”