Gideon, Robin - Desire of the Phantom [Ecstasy in the Old West] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Robin Gideon

  Again he determined that, when he caught the Phantom, he’d carry out the only punishment equal to what the Phantom was doing to him—castration.

  * * * *

  Angie wiped her hands on the skirt of her dress. She just couldn’t seem to keep her palms from feeling slick and sweaty.

  Squinting against the sunlight, she scanned the horizon again and still couldn’t see a rider. Then she looked to the south, where the scrub trees were thick. No one.

  Richard would come to her, wouldn’t he? What if he’d finally grown so tired of her excuses and lies that he simply no longer believed she would ever make him “happier than a cat licking cream” as she’d promised?

  Stop thinking that way, Angie thought irritably. He’ll come. He’s a sick bastard, so he’ll come.

  But her fears persisted. She knew she had been pushing Richard for a long time, taunting him, hinting at improprieties. But she couldn’t help telling him how repellent she found him, calling him an overweight pig of a man, dim-witted and gluttonous.

  Even Richard couldn’t be pushed forever, Angie reasoned.

  Pulling a white hanky from the small purse hanging from the cord encircling her left wrist, she dabbed her forehead and temples once more. God, but it’s hellishly hot, she thought. She imagined herself at home on the veranda, being fanned by one of the servants, drinking cool lemonade, or maybe even a mint julep.

  Angie closed her eyes and, for a few moments, thought only of all the terrible, nasty things Richard had said to her over the years. She thought about all the times he’d “accidentally” opened her bedroom door while she was undressing, “accidentally” walked in on her when she was in the bathing chamber.

  When she opened her eyes, she was smiling once again, and feeling confident. She hated Richard all over again, and this hate could not allow her to fail. He was a fat, evil man, stupid and vain, and he could not outwit her in a thousand years.

  Suddenly, Richard approached on horseback. She considered waving to her brother, indicating she was happy he’d come out to be with her, but then she stopped herself. It would be too great a departure from her normal behavior to be thrilled to see Richard, and if ever she needed to appear as normal as possible, now was the time.

  He tapped his heels to the horse’s ribs, hurrying the last three hundred yards to her. When he reached Angie, she saw that his shirt was sticking to him, and perspiration was running in little rivers down his neck and temples.

  “You just had to pick a place way the hell out here, didn’t you?” he said irritably as he got down from his horse.

  Richard’s annoyed tone hid his surprise that Angie was actually waiting for him. He hadn’t really thought she’d follow through with the plan to meet privately, even though the plan was hers. A dozen times he had told himself that she was just toying with him one more time. He guessed if he saddled up and rode all the way out to the deserted Barlington Mine #4, he’d only end up wasting his time. And when he finally rode back home, he’d find her waiting, cool and poised, laughing softly to herself because she’d have put one more thing over on him.

  But now Angie smiled softly, maintaining a ten-foot separation between them. “Well, we could hardly conclude our deal at home, and I certainly wasn’t going to take a hotel room in Whitetail Creek, where every majordomo and doorman knows us.”

  Richard reached for her, but she skipped out of the way. “Now wait a minute, I want to get something straight first.”

  He grinned obscenely. “So do I. That’s why I’m here.” He pulled loose his necktie and began unbuttoning his shirt.

  “Wait, don’t you want to talk first?”

  “I’ve talked to you my whole life.”

  For an instant, Angie’s mind went blank. She had planned this afternoon’s events, but once again, she was discovering that in real life unexpected things had a way of happening.

  “Don’t do that,” she said with a tight voice.

  Richard, his eyes dark and menacing, stopped unbuttoning his shirt. Way out here, too far for anyone to hear his sister’s screams, he intended to collect on her debt to him—one way or another.

  “Why not?” He shifted a little to his right, blocking any attempt Angie might make to rush for her horse.

  She smiled with more confidence. Her plan might come together after all. She’d always prided herself on her ability to devise appropriate plans spontaneously. “How would you like me to do that?” Angie asked, feigning embarrassed shock at her own boldness.

  Richard chuckled. “I would,” he said, grinning, his eyes roaming over Angie. “I’d take that like I’d take a royal flush.”

  Angie made a motion with her hands. “Button your shirt again then wait your turn.”

  “Wait my turn?” Richard snapped, preparing himself for another deception.

  Angie crossed her arms under her bosom and looked at her brother sternly. “I’ve been planning this for a long time. If you follow my plan, you’re in for the time of your life, I promise.”

  For a few seconds, Richard regarded her, analyzing her intentions, remembering how many times she’d lied to him. Finally, with a wary expression, he rebuttoned his shirt.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Angie began unfastening the buttons of her blouse. For a moment she thought Richard’s eyes would bulge right out of their sockets, and she managed a modest blush.

  When he took a step closer, she stepped back quickly. “I’m not ready yet!” she said sharply. “And I don’t like you looking at me that way. It’s so…so…”

  “Vulgar?” Richard volunteered.

  “Exactly!”

  “What do you expect? I’m a vulgar man.”

  He reached for Angie, and once again, she danced away. Her blouse was open enough to show her chemise beneath, and though she’d regularly shown more than that at home, it now wasn’t enough to pacify Richard.

  “Turn your back,” Angie said, adopting her most spoiled, petulant tone. “I don’t want you watching.”

  “What difference does it make?” Richard said, nearly bellowing. “I’m going to see it all soon enough anyway.”

  “It makes a difference to me,” Angie explained. “Now do as I say or we can call this whole thing off right here and now.”

  Richard grinned then. If Angie thought she could stop him now, she had another thing coming. Just the same, it would be better if she went along willingly so that he wouldn’t have to resort to violence.

  Grinning crookedly, he turned his back on his sister. “Hurry up,” he said. “I don’t want to wait forever.”

  She moved closer to him, reaching into the purse hanging from her left wrist. “Trust me, this will be over before you know it.”

  The derringer was in her hand a moment later, pointed straight at Richard’s back. He must have heard the metallic sound of the hammer being thumbed back, but Angie did not hesitate to pull the trigger.

  Richard was dead before his body landed facedown in the dirt, a single bullet through his heart. The fine wool of his jacket was singed with gunpowder.

  For a moment, Angie stood over the corpse. What did she feel now that she had murdered her brother? She thought it odd that she felt almost nothing at all. Though she’d always loathed Richard, his presence in the mansion had meant she had a fat pig to insult and belittle. She’d always felt superior to him. Now she wouldn’t have Richard to berate anymore, but other than this minor loss, this sense of inconvenience, she felt nothing at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The ride back to the ranch had been slow in order to cater to Garrett’s broken ribs, but it had buoyed his spirits to be in the saddle. Once home, he heard the ranch hands declare themselves eager to take on whoever it was that had attacked him—and they didn’t care if the fight required fists, guns, or knives. To a man, they reported vigilance for strangers and attention to any rumors as to who the cowards were who had attacked their boss.

  Later, dressed in freshly laundered clothes and sipping a cup of Gretchen
’s herbal tea, famous for soothing aches and pains—an old German recipe, she said, handed down from her sainted grandmother—Garrett reclined on the sofa. He was feeling a strange sense of unease, though he couldn’t say why.

  “How are the ribs?” Paul asked from a rocking chair, eyeing his brother with the wary concern of a protective older brother.

  He’d always been proud of and fiercely loyal to Garrett. This cowardly assault—three against one, from ambush, at night—had to be avenged, and Paul would not rest until the attackers were brought to justice. As a believer in God, he wanted nothing less than Christian justice, an eye for an eye. Forgiveness was God’s business, not his.

  “Itching, mostly. What really bothers me is the cut over my eye.” Garrett touched the thin scar over his left eyebrow. “Hard on the vanity, you know,” he added with a self-deprecating grin.

  Paul chuckled, though he really saw no humor in the situation. As far as he was concerned, this had been an attack on the Randolph family, not just one member of it. Garrett spoke of putting his assailants behind bars, but Paul preferred a more private justice, where one thug at a time would experience punishment both swift and sure.

  “You’re getting too old to be the darling pretty boy anyway,” Paul said. “Now how about explaining what you’ve got going with Pamela. She doesn’t exactly strike me as your type.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Paul smiled at his brother’s readiness to defend Pamela.

  “In the past, you always apologized for the women you romanced. Now you’re defending one. That’s a nice change. What does she mean to you?”

  Garrett stretched out a little more on the sofa, staring now at the library ceiling. “The damned truth of it is I really don’t know. Sometimes I can’t think of living without her. Other times I know the only way we’ll ever get along is if I live according to her rules, her standards. I don’t think she can change enough to fit in here.”

  Any notion that Garrett might marry and move away from Randolph Ranch was not even a possibility. Both Paul and Garrett had known from earliest childhood that they were destined to live at Randolph Ranch until becoming territorial governor forced Garrett to change residences.

  Paul recalled the few conversations he’d had with Pamela. She’d spoken like a man, he thought then, declaring what she would do rather than deferring to a man’s judgment. He liked that about her, but he imagined she might be difficult to live with.

  Then there was Garrett’s political career to consider. Pamela’s brusque forcefulness, her Levi’s, and the Colt at her hip put her so far outside Whitetail Creek’s high society that the wealthiest of the city would surely mount a campaign against Garrett if she were at his side.

  “Does she make you happy?” Paul asked.

  “Enormously. Why do you think I wanted to stay at her home rather than come here to recuperate?”

  “Lots of women have made you happy, Garrett. She’s not the first.”

  “She’s the first one who makes me happy outside of bed. With the others, I did all the things I was supposed to do. I danced with them, lavished them with flowers and gifts, but I did that because it was expected of me. You’ve had your share of lovers and know how it goes.”

  “Yes, I know what you’re talking about. But continue. There’s something more you want to say.”

  “Oh? Hmmm. Yes, I think there is.” Garrett closed his eyes. “What I mean is, yes, what we have when the candles are blown out is indescribable, but what we have the rest of the time—between two people, a man and a woman—that’s wonderful, too. I really like the time I spend with her.”

  “Like it or love it?” Paul asked. The difference was enormous. “If you like it, then she’s your friend and a woman you are having a very enjoyable affair with. But if you love the time with her when you’re not making love, then you’re in love with her, little brother. And you’d better ask yourself whether you can afford to be in love with a woman like Pamela Bragg.” Paul paused for a moment to choose his words carefully, knowing the dangerous ground he was treading. “You’ve made a lot of plans, set some very high goals for yourself and for the family name. Whether you like it or not, a time may come when you’ll have to choose between Pamela and all the projects you put into motion prior to meeting her.”

  Garrett rose gingerly from the sofa. “Damn,” he whispered.

  * * * *

  “Now mind you, I’m not one to speak ill of anyone,” Angie said to Deputy Dylan McKenzie as she dabbed her neck with a hanky, “but she was riding as though the devil himself was chasing her.” Sniffing in disgust, Angie looked around the sheriff’s office, wondering how on earth anyone could willingly spend even a minute there. Not only was the deputy a model of the hygienically neglected lawman, but to make matters even worse, there was a drunk in one of the jail cells. The sound of his snoring was seriously getting on Angie’s nerves.

  “But you didn’t say what she’d done,” the deputy said. He was glad the sheriff wasn’t around because that gave him a chance to speak with Angie Darwell, a woman who normally wouldn’t have looked twice at him.

  “Well, I don’t exactly know what she’s done, Deputy Dylan. That’s why I’m here talking with you now. I saw Pamela Bragg riding away from our old mine like she had the hangman chasing her, and it seems to me, if you were the good deputy I think you are, you’d do a little investigating on your own to see what she was riding so fast from.”

  Angie looked away, wishing to God it wouldn’t continue to be necessary for her to have to deal with mental inferiors. It galled her to explain to Dylan every move he was supposed to make.

  “But you didn’t see or hear nothin’ else? Can’t say I relish the thought of riding out in this heat on something as flimsy as a hunch.”

  “You know the kind of blood she’s got running through her veins.” Angie heard the anger rising in her tone. “Her brother is Jedediah Bragg, the murdering bounty hunter. Nobody really knows how many men he’s killed. What makes you think his sister is any different than he is?”

  Dylan nodded slowly, wondering if the stories of Angie Darwell’s promiscuity were true, and if they were, whether they might extend to the deputy sheriff of Whitetail Creek.

  “I see what you mean,” he said, though there wasn’t much surety in his tone.

  Angie rose and finally offered the unwashed lawman a genuine smile. “I thought you would,” she said, then left the smelly sheriff’s office, promising herself she wouldn’t ever step foot in there again, even if her life depended upon it.

  Angie made three more stops before heading back home. She went to see Paula Nearing, who charged a small fortune for her services but simply did wonders for a woman’s hair. At Paula’s salon, Angie reported to all the women there that she’d been out for her morning ride—she claimed, to the surprise of customers who’d never seen her out before noon, that she had been taking morning rides for months now—when she’d spotted Pamela Bragg “riding like she had the good Lord’s wrath upon her.”

  “She’s such a strange woman,” Angie said, keeping her voice down just enough so that the salon clientele leaned close to hear her. “You never know what she’s capable of. Her brother’s that bounty hunter that kills everybody.”

  Angie’s next stop was at the seamstress’s shop, where more rumors concerning Pamela Bragg’s “erratic, disturbing behavior” were spread, blossomed, then took on a life of their own.

  Finally, Angie stopped at the Sundowner Hotel, where fashionable young women could sit on the north veranda out of the sun and enjoy cool drinks while their husbands or beaus drank beer and whiskey in the hotel’s saloon. Once again, her tale of seeing Pamela Bragg in the vicinity of the old Darwell mine was served up for consumption. She simply couldn’t understand why the good people of Whitetail Creek didn’t do something about women like Pamela Bragg. It was disgraceful, Angie insisted, verifying the reactions of her listeners.

  As Angie left the veranda, confident that tongues wo
uld continue wagging about Pamela Bragg, she felt comfort, marrow-deep, knowing that she, in one afternoon, had disposed of two of the most troubling people in her life.

  * * * *

  Deputy Dylan McKenzie hurried to ride into Whitetail Creek before sundown. He wanted the townspeople to see him, the corpse of Richard Darwell thrown over the saddle of the trail horse he was leading.

  He hoped his discovery of this corpse out in the prairie would make him a hero. It couldn’t hurt his reputation any. Generally he was considered lazy by the citizens of Whitetail Creek.

  As he rode down Main Street, he worried that Jonathon Darwell would somehow find him responsible for his son’s death. After all, a deputy was supposed to prevent crimes from occurring, particularly murder, especially the murder of a prominent citizen.

  Despite the heat, Dylan shivered at the prospect of explaining to Jonathon Darwell that his son had been shot in the back. But at least Dylan knew who the murderer was. Pamela Bragg had been spotted riding hard and fast away from the scene of the crime. Everyone in Whitetail Creek had long thought her dynamite just waiting to explode. Should Jonathon Darwell want to take his anger out on Dylan, at least the deputy would be able to defend himself by saying that the killer would soon be in custody.

  As Dylan continued walking his trophy through town, word traveled quickly.

  Residents began lining the street to watch him leading the trail horse. The deputy authoritatively pulled his hat down over his eyes, hoping to give himself an appearance of mystery and of quiet competence.

  “You know who killed him, Deputy?” someone from the gathering crowd shouted.

  Dylan tried in vain to see who had asked the question. But it really didn’t matter so long as he had the answer he knew the crowd wanted.

  “I’ll have the guilty party in custody by morning!” he replied, raising his voice enough to make it carry.

  Receiving a cheer from the crowd, Deputy Dylan McKenzie never felt better about himself.