by Jill Gregory
Just enough to keep an eye on him.
Rain still pattered on the window as Cal threw his bedroll on the floor. She watched surreptitiously as he hung his gun belt over the back of a chair, then stripped out of his shirt and boots, leaving on only his snug-fitting blue trousers.
He had a magnificent body. Lean, strong, toned. It was bronzed from the sun and gleamed like dark wood in the pale lamplight. He moved with sure agility, with a kind of graceful strength that she’d come to realize was as much a part of him as the thick waves in his hair or the way his eyes seemed to pierce right through her.
As she watched him hunker down and smooth out the bedroll, she remembered the feel of him when he’d held her, the hard, solid strength of him, the way his hands had glided over her, stroking, comforting.
A bewildering wooziness came over her. It’s all that whiskey, she told herself. You’re not used to drinking liquor.
Melora drew in a deep breath and tried to block out all these disconcerting thoughts about Cal. They were improper, as Aggie would have said. Unsuitable, as her teachers in Boston would have said. And absurd. Cal was not her hero, her protector. He was the man who had snatched her away from everything she held dear.
Yet the burning heat of his kiss branded her still. She’d kissed many boys, and a few men, but those kisses had been blandly pleasant, nothing like this. Even Wyatt’s kisses hadn’t affected her like this.
This was unforgettable. As the wind rattled the windowpanes and the noise of the storm settled down to a drone rather than a roar, she tossed and turned in the narrow, lumpy bed, trying to get comfortable, trying to sleep, but sleep was elusive.
She was all too aware of Cal’s long frame, of his steady breathing, only a few feet away.
“Can’t you sleep?” he inquired suddenly, roughly, out of the darkness.
“Of course I can sleep. I was sleeping. You just woke me up.”
“Right. Whatever you say, Princess.”
She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep. She tried to sleep.
But it was a long time before either of them slept.
Chapter 10
Cal left first thing the next morning to purchase supplies. The moment the door closed behind him Melora sat up in bed and shoved her hair from her eyes. She’d made up her mind. She would find out if Devil’s Creek had a telegraph office, and if it did, she would send a wire to Wyatt.
Excitement licked through her as she raced through her toilette. Today, instead of the riding habit, she wore another one of Cal’s green and blue flannel shirts and the pair of baggy denim trousers which he’d lent her during their journey. She had to bunch the trousers at the waist and tie them with rope just to keep them from falling down—not exactly a smart Boston outfit—but as she hurried out of the hotel room early in the morning, her hair scooped into a ponytail, she didn’t care how she looked.
She just wanted to wire a message for help.
They’ll be so relieved to hear from me, she thought, her eyes glowing as the hotel clerk informed her that the telegraph office was next door to the Dead Man’s Saloon. She composed the letter in her mind as she rushed out the hotel door and onto the boardwalk.
My darling Wyatt, I’m being taken to South Dakota—to a cabin in the Black Hills, not far from Devil’s Creek. I haven’t been harmed, but be careful when you come to find me. My kidnapper is a man named Cal, who has a grudge against you. Give all my love to Jinx. Please come soon!
* * *
Melora glanced hastily up and down the puddle-filled street as she dashed along, keeping an eye out for Cal. She only hoped that when Wyatt showed up, she could keep the situation from turning violent. But she had to do this, she reasoned, striding toward the sign next door to the Dead Man’s Saloon. She had to get home, to Jinx, to the ranch. And she had to protect Wyatt from whatever Cal had in store for him.
When she entered the telegraph office, her heart pounded as though it would burst.
“I need to send a wire immediately.”
The fat, bespectacled clerk whose hair and eyebrows were the color of dried carrots shot her a darkling glance.
“You’ll have to wait your turn, lady.”
Melora clenched her teeth. She threw a desperate glance at the gangly brown-haired boy of about fourteen who stood ahead of her at the desk.
He seemed at a loss regarding what to write, and she stamped her foot impatiently.
“Excuse me, young man.” Melora could contain herself no longer after several moments of agonized waiting. She used her most commanding tone, trying to sound the way her father had when he addressed his fellow ranchers after a rustling raid. “Why don’t you let me send my wire first since I know exactly what I plan to say? And my message is extremely urgent!”
“So’s mine.” He flicked her a tense, distracted frown. He was twisting the pencil between his fingers, and Melora saw sweat on his brow. At another time she might have sympathized with the anxiety in his large brown eyes, but not now. When he put the pencil to the paper, only to sigh and shake his head, she couldn’t restrain her impatience.
“Look, I’m sorry for whatever trouble you’re having, but I don’t have much time.” She darted a nervous glance out the window. “I’ll tell you what. You compose your message, while I give the clerk mine, and then—”
The boy spun toward her angrily. “If you’d shut up for a minute, lady, maybe a body could think!”
Then, as he wheeled back toward the desk, Melora saw a familiar figure approaching the other side of the window. It was Cal.
He spotted her through the glass, and there was hell in his eyes.
Melora gulped but stayed where she was and glared right back.
What could he do to her? Shoot her right here in the telegraph office? Beat her, drag her away?
“Listen to me, mister,” she said to the clerk, hoping desperately that he could be convinced to help her. “My name is Melora Deane. There will be a substantial reward for you if you will only send a wire to Rawhide, to a man named Wyatt Hol—aaah, what are you doing?” she cried as the brown-haired youth suddenly grabbed her arm and yanked her toward the door.
“Hey, what about your wire, kid?” the clerk barked.
“Never mind!” the boy shouted back.
Melora gasped, stumbling as he dragged her out the door. “Wait a minute, young man, just because I asked him to send a wire for me you don’t have to get all—”
“Looks like you lost something, Cal,” the boy announced disgustedly as he pushed Melora forward on the boardwalk.
Cal was staring at him. To Melora’s astonishment, warmth and affection flashed across his face. “Well, Jesse, she tends to be a mite slippery.” He actually grinned at the boy, then sprang forward and embraced the youth in a giant, emotional bear hug.
Melora looked on, too stunned to do anything else. Suddenly Cal broke away and held the boy at arm’s length. “What is it, Jesse? You wouldn’t have come here if something wasn’t wrong.”
“Something is wrong.” The boy wiped a shirt sleeve across his sweaty face. “It’s Lou. She’s sick, Cal.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“We don’t know exactly, but she’s got a terrible fever. I rode over to Devil’s Creek to find a doctor and hoping there’d be a wire from you, but there wasn’t either one. I thought of trying to find you, Cal, by wiring Zeke or Ray, but hell, I didn’t know what I was going to do about Lou’s fever!”
“How bad is it?”
“Bad. She’s been sick three days already. She won’t eat anything.” He swallowed hard. “I’m scared, Cal!”
“It’ll be all right. We’ll be there by this afternoon.” Cal seized Melora’s arm and started toward the hotel at a near run, with Jesse hurrying to keep up with them. “If she’s not any better by then, I’ll ride to Deadwood or Cherryville and fetch a doctor myself.”
“You can’t. That’s too dangerous, Cal. You can’t risk showing your face in those towns!”
“Don’t argue with me, Jesse. I’m going.”
Melora digested all this as they hurried along. Obviously Cal had been too distracted by Jesse’s news even to think about what she’d tried to do at the telegraph office. She could understand why. She’d already deduced that Lou must be his sister, Louisa. And she’d have bet her boots that Jesse was his brother. There was a decided resemblance in the strong features and the pugnacious slant of the nose.
But she had no time to ponder what Jesse’d said about Deadwood and Cherryville because as they reached the lobby of the hotel, Cal finally halted long enough to speak to her.
“Change in plans, Melora. Forget the cabin. I’ll have to take you with me.”
“To your family’s ranch?”
“To the farm where we live now.” His face was grim, mirroring the tension Jesse had displayed at the telegraph office.
Suddenly the urge to comfort him overtook her. The tautness in Cal’s broad shoulders and the worry furrowing his brow filled her with emotion she didn’t fully understand. “Maybe I can help Louisa,” she said impulsively. Without realizing it, she put a hand on his arm. “I’ve nursed Jinx through fevers lots of times. And through the measles and whooping cough.”
He nodded, but his eyes held a faraway look.
“Cal, she’ll be all right. You’ll see.”
“Grab your things, and we’ll ride for the farm,” he directed. “Jesse, you give her a hand with the gear while I get the horses. And keep your eye on her—she’s tricky as they come!”
Melora watched him stalk away, feeling more rebuffed and alone than she’d ever felt in her life.
And so before the sun had fully begun its westward march across a sky as blue as larkspur, the three of them were galloping east, away from Devil’s Creek, straight toward the towering cliffs of the Black Hills.
Chapter 11
Wyatt Holden yanked open the door of the Diamond X Ranch and studied the long-faced man confronting him on the porch.
“You’re Coyote Jack?”
“That’s me, mister.” Coyote Jack spit a glob of tobacco juice at his feet, then lifted insolent coal black eyes. “So now that you sent for me and I’m here, what can I do for you?”
“Come inside to talk.”
He led the Wyoming Territory’s most notorious bounty hunter into the spacious oak-paneled study that had belonged to Jed Holden and shoved closed the heavy carved door.
“Brandy? Cigar?”
With his head tilted to one side, Coyote Jack paused beside the mantel and stroked his gray mustache. A grin split his face as he nodded. “Sounds damned good, Mr. Holden. Don’t mind none if I do.”
As Wyatt poured dear Uncle Jed’s brandy into a fine old crystal goblet, he appraised his visitor. By the time he handed Coyote Jack the brandy and a fragrant cigar from Uncle Jed’s humidor, he’d concluded that he was not displeased by what he saw.
The famed bounty hunter looked every inch as dangerous as his reputation. He appeared to be about forty, tall and big-bellied, and true to his name, he did bear strong resemblance to a coyote. His face was long, his nose had the length and general shape of a snout, his eyes were dark and canny, darting this way and that. Leathery skin and thin gray lips gave him a carnivorous appearance. His stringy black hair was peppered with gray and hung nearly to his thick waist. He wore all buckskin, and black boots, and a black broad-brimmed hat. Two big Colts slapped against his thighs as he sank into the deep old leather armchair opposite the desk. When he put his booted feet up on the low oak table, he was smiling at Wyatt, but there was a meanness in his swarthy face, a viciousness that showed itself in the arrogant curl of his lips, in the hellish glint of his eyes.
He looked to be the perfect man for the job.
“Now that all the pleasantries have been observed,” Coyote Jack drawled, “why don’t you tell me what the hell you need?”
Wyatt’s glance flitted briefly over several items on the desk. He gazed at the wanted poster, then at the silver-framed photograph of Melora, then turned his attention to the mysterious wire he’d received, the one instructing him to get himself to Deadwood pronto if he ever wanted to see Melora Deane alive again. He picked up the wire and absently ran his thumb back and forth along its edges.
“I need you to find someone for me. A woman.”
“And do what with her?”
“Bring her back to me. Safely.” Wyatt’s blue eyes narrowed, fixing the bounty hunter with a tersely unmistakable warning. “I don’t want one hair on her head to be harmed.”
“Uh-huh. Any idea where she is?”
“My guess is she’s being held in the Dakota Territory—somewhere not far from Deadwood. I’m heading that way myself.”
He paced across the room, stared out the window toward the Weeping Willow property, then continued smoothly. “I’ll be staying some fifteen miles from Deadwood, though, in a little town called Cherryville.”
“Cherryville’s a mighty rowdy place, Mr. Holden.” The bounty hunter finished his drink in one swig, swung from the chair, and lumbered toward the brandy decanter. He helped himself to another generous splash of the burgundy liquid. “I’d say it’s every bit as lawless as Deadwood and Devil’s Creek, and some say worse even than Deadwood in its wildest days.”
“That’s what I like about it.”
The flashing white-toothed smile that Mr. Wyatt Holden gave Coyote Jack at that moment made the bounty hunter pause and stare. Well, he’d be damned. He’d underestimated his prospective employer. Something insidious underlying that smile and his words spoke volumes. This was no simple elegant dandy, no gentleman of upright morals and pure tastes. This was a man like himself, one who dressed differently, who talked differently, but underneath they were the same.
“Yep, I know what you mean.” Coyote Jack chuckled with approval. “Matter of fact, I like the Peacock Brothel in Cherryville better’n any whorehouse this side of Frisco.”
“Indeed. Miss Lucille does know how to run a cathouse, doesn’t she?” The answer was cool, yet there was an appreciative glint in Mr. Wyatt Holden’s eyes that said far more than his words. “Matter of fact, Miss Lucille is a particular friend of mine, but I don’t want you setting foot in her establishment while you’re working for me. I want you searching for this woman, my woman. Day and night. No wasted time, do you hear me? Start at Deadwood and fan out; cover the whole of the Black Hills if you have to.”
“Reckon I know that area as well as anyone.” Coyote Jack downed his brandy once more and licked his lips. “If she’s thereabouts, I’ll find her. What’s the little lady’s name? And what does she look like?”
“Her name is Melora Deane. And she’s beautiful,” Wyatt said slowly. He turned the silver-framed photograph of Melora around so that the bounty hunter could see it. A pulse hammered in his throat when he saw the glint of purely bestial appreciation in the other man’s eyes.
“I’m going to marry this woman,” Wyatt said in a cold, clear voice. He held the photograph up and shook it in the air for emphasis. “She’s going to be my wife, the mother of my children. Do you understand what that means?”
“Sure do, Mr. Holden. It means you’re one lucky hombre.”
“I make my own luck.” Wyatt slammed the photograph down on the desk. “Don’t cross me, Coyote, or you’ll be damned sorry. Now listen up.” He pushed the wanted poster across the desk.
“Study this man’s face and study it good: Then hunt him down. Because this is the son of a bitch who has her; he’s holding her against her will. And when you find him, you’ll find Melora.”
“You want me to kill him?”
“Damned straight I do. But not until you’ve made him tell you where the woman is. I want her back, no matter what it takes. Keep him alive until you’ve found her—but not a moment longer. Is that clear enough?”
“Clear as a Montana stream.” Coyote Jack stood and thumped his glass down on the desk. His black eyes fastened once more on Melora’s photograph. “I’ll need f
ive hundred dollars now. Another five hundred when I find her.”
“And you’ll get five hundred more when you kill the man in that poster.”
Coyote Jack’s mouth stretched into a wolfish grin. They shook hands. Wyatt peeled out the proper sum of greenbacks and then escorted his visitor to the door. “I’ll be traveling to Cherryville by stagecoach, using the name Campbell. Rafe Campbell.”
The bounty hunter nodded. The fact that he asked no questions pleased Wyatt Holden. He continued briskly, eager to conclude this portion of the business and move on to the other matters that concerned him.
“You’ll be able to reach me at the Gold Bar Hotel. Or at the Peacock Brothel,” he added with a faint, cool smile. “I’ll want a report within the week.”
Coyote Jack touched two gnarled fingers to his hat. “Don’t you worry, Mr. Holden. That son of a bitch who took your woman is as good as dead.”
Wyatt liked the man’s confidence, his swagger. He sensed that Coyote Jack was a man with absolutely no scruples, the kind you could always count on to get things done. My old pard Cal won’t know what hit him, he reflected with satisfaction. But just in case, it wouldn’t hurt to have an ace up his sleeve.
A very special little ace.
An ace named Jinx.
When Coyote Jack was gone, Wyatt went directly to the stables and saddled up. His mind click-clacked various strategies as he spurred his horse toward the Weeping Willow Ranch.
Persuading Aggie to go along with what he had in mind would be no problem; the fool would do whatever he told her was best. But Jinx Deane might prove trickier. The snotty little kid didn’t take much to him.
He’d have to play his cards just right or she might refuse to go along.
That couldn’t happen.
He needed the kid, and he’d get her. The easy way or the hard way.
Whatever it took.
Chapter 12
The farm was tucked away in a tiny, isolated valley beneath huge mountains fringed by spruce and pine. With the sun burning overhead, Cal, Jesse, and Melora charged toward the small frame house, which looked as poor and plain as an old pack saddle. Yet for all the modesty of the simple wood structure, the landscape surrounding it was spectacular.
