“Choking me to death isn't going to solve your problem, Kerrigan,” Felton rasped. “Your feelings about the lady—about losing her to me—are blinding you to the truth. I'm telling you right now, you're looking in the wrong direction. I'm not bossing Levander's gang.”
“We'll see.” Kerrigan stepped away. A good knock-down-drag-out fight would have made him feel better, but Felton was right. It wouldn't solve anything. Miss Eden Devlin had burrowed under his skin where no woman had been since he had lost Elizabeth. He owed it to himself, and to Eden, to find out the truth about Felton Reeves.
Kerrigan stalked out the door, mounted his paint horse, and headed east toward the first town large enough to have a railhead.
Kerrigan ended up in Canyon Creek. It was easy, once he started asking questions, to find out that Felton usually spent his days in Canyon Creek at the Black Horse Saloon, and his nights in the arms of a whore named Darcie Morton.
Kerrigan was sitting in the shadows waiting for Darcie when she returned to her room.
At first Darcie thought it was Felton sitting there, and the biggest, widest smile ever split her face. Her hands flung out to envelop him. “Felton! I knew you—”
Then the figure rose, and she realized this man was too broad-shouldered to be Felton. She had lived long enough in the West to be scared. She let her hands drop so she could feel the derringer tucked in her garter. “Who are you? What are you doin' in my room?”
“My name is Burke Kerrigan.”
“Felton told me about you. You two rode together down in Texas.” She was searching for reasons he might have come, and feared the most likely. “It's Felton, ain't it? Somethin's happened to him.”
“Yes. He's been—”
“He's been shot. Is he dead?”
“I came because—”
“I knew somethin' like this would happen. I warned him that sheriff job was a bad
“If you'll listen a minute—”
“Not that Felton ain't a good man with a gun, but there's too many will back-shoot and . . .” Darcie's eyes blurred and the shadowy room begin to fade. Before she fainted, strong arms captured her and she was laid on the bed.
Kerrigan felt like a heartless bastard for letting the woman think Felton was dead. She was white as a sheet, and the spirit had gone out of her like a punctured balloon. Quiet tears streamed from her made-up eyes, leaving black streaks as they slid down the sides of her powdered face.
He had opened his mouth to explain that Felton wasn't dead—or at least hadn't been the last time he had seen him—when Darcie began talking again. When Kerrigan realized the information she was giving him was what he had come to hear, he sat down on the bed beside her and listened.
“I knew that job would kill him,” Darcie said in a choked voice. “I told him to quit. He had plenty of money in the bank. He didn't need to be sheriff of some podunk town anymore.” She wiped her runny nose with the sheet. “He was gettin' married, did you know that?”
“I heard.”
“It near killed me when he told me. He picked out this respectable woman, a schoolteacher, who was gonna help him start a new life.” She sobbed and covered her face with her hands, rocking back and forth. “He shoulda stayed with me. I wouldn't have asked for much. He wouldn't have needed all that money he had to have for her.”
“Felton never had a dollar to bite on when I knew him,” Kerrigan said, feeling bad that Darcie had to suffer like this, but needing desperately to know the truth. He would tell her the truth in a minute, and she would feel better then.
“He's been savin'. He's got near six thousand dollars in the Canyon Creek National Bank.”
Kerrigan hissed in a breath of air. Felton hadn't put that much away on a sheriff's fifty-five dollars a month.
Darcie wiped her eyes with the sheet, getting most of the blacking off. She had pretty green eyes that looked even larger because of her long black lashes. She wouldn't really have needed the makeup, Kerrigan thought, to be attractive.
He could see now that behind the hard whore's costume was a vulnerable young woman. Lots of people hid behind masks. Darcie's just happened to be made of satin and feathers and powder and kohl.
Right now the young woman—and Kerrigan was startled by how young and pretty she appeared without all that makeup—looked totally bereft. He wondered where she had come from, and what had caused her to take up such a hard life. It was clear that she loved Felton, and that Felton had abandoned her—long before she had heard he was supposedly dead—for another woman. Felton had left her not for a prettier woman, but for one with reectability. Kerrigan thought how painful that must have been for Darcie Morton. Even knowing she was a whore, he felt sorry for her.
It dawned on him that to be so sensitive about her height and plainness, Eden must have experienced the same sort of rejection in the past. Seeing how devastated Darcie looked, how choked up she was and how heart-torn her reaction to losing Felton, Kerrigan felt a wrenching in his gut for what Eden must have endured.
He was certain Eden's painful relationship with her father was what had kept her from committing herself to a man all these years. But Kerrigan was beginning to think it hadn't helped matters for a woman as intelligent as Eden to know that had she been desirous of pursuing a relationship, she ran the danger of being rejected merely because of her physical attributes.
Darcie sighed and hiccuped. Kerrigan figured she was about as composed as she was going to get until he admitted Felton wasn't dead. He wanted this finished so he could get out of here, so he asked, “How'd Felton get all that money?”
“Gambling.”
“What?”
“He sat downstairs sometimes three days in a row and never left the table. He had the luck of the devil, that man.” A clear crystal tear streamed down her face. “It looks like his luck finally ran out.”
“I don't believe it,” Kerrigan said. It was too easy—and too obvious—an explanation for why Felton had spent so much time in Canyon Creek, and how he had accumulated so much money. Kerrigan grimaced. As much as he hated to admit it, the story smacked of the truth.
Felton wouldn't have been able to gamble for the same high stakes, and very likely empty the pockets of every cowboy around, in the small town where he was sheriff. Here in Canyon Creek there would be ranchers and businessmen who came to the tables. Felton was a smooth hand with a card. He had always been a winner whenever Kerrigan had seen him play.
But if Felton wasn't the leader of Levander's gang of cutthroats, who was?
Darcie pushed herself up on one hand. It had suddenly dawned on her that she had told this man an awful lot about Felton. “Why are you so interested in Felton's money? You got some claim on it? He leave it to you in his will, or somethin'?”
Kerrigan rose and crossed to the window. “Felton isn't dead.”
Furrows of confusion lined Darcie's youthful brow. “I don't understand.”
He turned to face her. “I never said Felton was dead, you assumed it. I needed some information so I let you keep on thinking what you wanted.”
“How could you be so cruel?” She was on her feet now and advancing toward him like an avenging angel.“I had to know whether Felton was doing something dishonest here in Canyon Creek.”
“Gamblin' ain't dishonest.”
“You don't have to defend Felton. But I had to know the truth. There's an innocent woman involved and—”
“That's what this is all about—that woman, isn't it?”
It was an intuitive guess on Darcie's part, but so sure a shot that Kerrigan blurted, “What?”
“Felton told me about how you and him used to pick out a woman and see which of you could win her favor. How you'd both go to almost any lengths to be the winner. I told him I
didn't think much of a man who'd play a game with someone's feelin's like that. Is that what this is all about, Mister Kerrigan? 'Cause if it is, I'm not going to let you get away with it. Felton deserves a chance to start over. And if you're playing games with the woman he chose, well, that's your hard luck.”
“Felton isn't going to marry Eden Devlin,” Kerrigan said with a hard edge to his voice.
“He ain't?” Darcie couldn't help the sound of hope in her voice.
“Nope. Because I'm going to marry her.” Kerrigan hadn't realized what he was going to say until the words were out. Now that he'd said them, he felt good. He felt wonderful. And he felt sick. Because there was a long trail to travel between deciding that he wanted with all his mind and heart and soul to marry Miss Devlin—and turning that decision into reality. Especially in light of the way he had bungled things when he had proposed to her the first time.
Kerrigan had to convince Eden that she wasn't too plain or too tall or too intelligent for him. He had to find the words to make her take a chance on a man who had lived his life with a gun in his hand. He had to make her see that it wasn't a matter of having a choice.
They were fated for one another.
He needed her the way he needed water to drink and air to breathe, the way he needed to see the sun rise in the morning, and the sight of the mountains after a long, hard ride across the plains.
“I'm damn well going to marry her myself,” he repeated.
“Felton will have a word or two to say about that,” Darcie murmured.
“Felton doesn't love her,” he retorted.
“But you do,” Darcie said in a voice so soft, it barely carried to Kerrigan.
“I do,” Kerrigan admitted aloud for the first time.
“And I love Felton,” Darcie said.
“They're announcing their engagement on Saturday.”
“So soon?”
“It sounds like we have a serious problem, Miss Morton.”
“All problems have solutions, Mister Kerrigan.”
“If you have a suggestion, I'm willing to listen.”
“As it happens, Mister Kerrigan, I do.”
Levander Early arrived at the appointed rendezvous a little early because he wanted to make sure it wasn't a trap. Ever since Kerrigan had come asking all those questions he had been looking over his shoulder, afraid of what he would see. It was a feeling he didn't like. And one he didn't intend to put up with for much longer.
“Were you followed?”
Levander froze, realizing that somehow the Boss had come up behind him without him hearing a thing. He must be losing his touch. “I come the long way,” he said. “And I doubled back a couple times to make sure no one was trailin' me.”
“We have a problem.”
“I know, Boss. But outside of killing Kerrigan, I don't see no solution.”
“Then we'll have to kill Kerrigan.”
“He don't kill easy.” Levander's gelding fidgeted, reflecting his rider's fear.
“As it happens, Mister Early, I have a plan.”
Chapter 17
Calico fever can be fatal to a man's bachelorhood.
THERE MUST HAVE BEEN SEVENTY PEOPLE GATHERED in the town meetinghouse. It amazed everyone how simple it was for the ranchers and nesters to work out their problems when it came right down to it. Kerrigan was there to keep the conversation going. Felton was there to keep the peace. The wives were there, waiting to open their arms to their willing husbands. Persia Davis and Regina Westbrook were there, anxious to acknowledge the marriage of their firstborn children and to smooth the waters between the fathers-in-law when they learned that their children had become man and wife. And Miss Devlin was there to keep an eye on everything, her engagement ring secreted in her pocket until she and Felton made the announcement that they also had decided to tie the knot, at which point Felton would publicly place the ring on her finger.
All in all, there was a great deal of incentive to resolve matters, which led to at deal of compromise.
The nesters agreed to pull down the fences around certain water holes that would be used by the ranchers, and the ranchers agreed to keep their cattle out of nester fields and away from certain other water holes, which would remain fenced. There was to be no more violence of any kind. All problems in the future were to be resolved by a committee composed of three ranchers, Oak Westbrook, Rusty Falkner, and Cyrus Wyatt, and three nesters, Big Ben Davis, Bevis Ives, and Ollie Carson, and arbitrated by an impartial party.
Someone volunteered Miss Devlin to be the arbiter, and although there was some reluctance to put a woman in such a powerful position, there was no one else who both sides could agree would be as impartial as the schoolteacher. Despite her better judgment, Miss Devlin accepted the post.
Then the benches were moved to the sides of the room and the musicians began to practice a few chords. There was a feeling of such excitement, such merriment, that the room seemed brightened by more than lamplight. The chattering flowed in alternating waves of raucous laughter and clandestine whispers.
Men and women lined up on opposite sides of the room, as they had at the Halloween party. Only tonight there was an air of expectation, of excitation, of temptation, hovering over male and female. Because tonight it had been agreed the teasing and taunting would end. Tonight the long-postponed desire of wives for husbands, and husbands for wives, would come to fruition.
It was the sudden silence that caught Miss Devlin's attention and sent her eyes, along with every other pair in the room, searching for its source. She found it when she spied Hadley and Bliss standing in position for a waltz in the center of the dance floor. Oak Westbrook stood at his son's shoulder. Big Ben Davis stood at his daughter's side. Everyone in the room held their collective breath, wondering if the armistice was to end so soon.
Already feeling the weightiness of her role as arbiter, Miss Devlin stepped forward toward the quartet on the floor. “Is there some problem here?” she asked.
“This is between my son and me, Miss Devlin. No need for you to get involved.”
“I want his son to get his hands off my daughter,” Big Ben said.
Hadley kept his arm around a trembling Bliss, whose big blue eyes never left Hadley's face.
“I'm going to dance with Bliss, Dad,” Hadley said.
“Like hell you—”
“Mr. Westbrook,” Miss Devlin admonished. “Please watch your language. Now, I think Hadley and Bliss have something they want to tell you.”
Miss Devlin had thrown out a challenge, hoping Hadley was man enough to accept it. He didn't disappoint her. Hadley turned so that he and Bliss were squarely between both fathers. He held out Bliss's left hand, which lay across his palm, so both men could see the simple gold ring on her finger.
Miss Devlin saw the surprise in Oak's eyes when he recognized the ring on Bliss's finger, and the stunned moment when it dawned on Big Ben what the ring on his daughter's finger had to mean.
“You're married to him?” Big Ben asked his daughter. “Why you—”
Bliss put a hand on her father's chest. “We love each other, Pa,” she said in a voice so sweet and pure that it couldn't help but move both of the older men. Bliss dropped her chin to her chest and with lowered eyes said, “And I'm going to have his baby.”
There was a tender side to Ben Davis that Miss Devlin had never imagined. The big man gently lifted his daughter's chin and made her look him in the eye. “You were willing?”
Bliss's face flushed as she nodded once. But there was a sexual ardor in her once innocent eyes that, as uncomfortable as it made him feel as a father, convinced Big Ben his daughter had gladly become a woman.
“You treat her right,” Big Ben warned Hadley in a gruff voice. “Or I'll come after you.”
> “Thank you, Pa.” Bliss hugged her father once, tight, then turned into Hadley's open arms.
Hadley folded Bliss into his embrace and met Big Ben's probing gaze. “She'll never want for anything as long as I can draw breath, sir.”
Oak cleared his throat and said, “I guess congratulations are in order, son.” He thrust out his hand to his son. “It looks like you've got yourself a lovely wife.”
Hadley took his father's hand and shook it, blinking furiously to stem the tears of happiness and relief that were burning his eyes. “Thank you, Dad. We'll be needing a place to live. Do you suppose—”
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