Luke opened the door and pushed through, hand steady and resting over the butt of his gun, heart pounding as he wondered what he’d find here. He didn’t feel bad about what he was going to do. From everything he’d heard, Daniel Cash was every bit as mean as Jim Hargett.
There were a couple of beds in the dim room, and what had once been a bar was lined with medicine and surgical equipment. In the center of the room, studiously bent over a young, dark-haired girl, sat a man in black. He had a small beard and mustache, the way Luke had heard Cash did, but this couldn’t be the man he’d come looking for. There wasn’t a gun to be seen.
Luke took his stance and rotated his neck, again working out some of the stiffness. “I’m looking for a gunfighter named Cash.”
The man lifted his head, met Luke’s stare, then sighed and said, “Give me a minute, I’m almost done.”
Ah, the doctor knew where Cash was. The gunslinger had been silent for so long, a lot of people were beginning to think Cash was dead. Luke didn’t think so.
The doctor took his time with his patient. Removing a splinter, it looked like.
“Tell me again how you did this?” the doctor asked as he worked.
“I was climbing the post in front of the hotel.”
“Why?”
“To get to the roof.”
The doctor lifted his head and raised his eyebrows in obvious disapproval. “The roof? Why?”
The little girl shrugged. “Why not? I’ve never been up there before.”
“No more climbing posts, or anything else, for a month,” the doc said.
“A whole month!”
“Yes, a month, Fiona.”
Fiona pouted but grudgingly agreed.
Finally, the doctor finished with his patient. The little girl looked at her finger and said, “Thanks, Uncle Cash.”
“You’re quite welcome, sweetheart,” he answered with a smile.
Fiona left, barely slowing her step to look up at Luke as she passed. “You are in so much trouble,” she whispered.
The doctor turned his full attention Luke’s way. A knot in his stomach, Luke looked into black eyes. “Did she call you... Uncle Cash?”
“Yep.”
His mind worked. “So, the man I’m looking for is your brother or something?”
“Nope.” Cash stood slowly. He spread his arms wide. “The man you’re looking for is right here.”
Luke didn’t like the indecision that plagued him. Not only had he caught the man doctoring a little girl, Cash wasn’t even wearing a gun. What kind of gunslinger was this?
“Strap on your guns and let’s go,” Luke ordered, setting his indecision aside.
Cash, Uncle Cash, the doctor... shook his head. “No. I don’t do that anymore.”
“What do you mean you don’t do that anymore? You can’t just... just quit.”
“Of course I can,” Cash said calmly. “I don’t shoot people anymore unless I really don’t have any choice. In fact, I’m learning how to fix them instead.”
“You mean to tell me you’re really a doctor?” Luke holstered his gun in disgust.
“Learning to be.” Cash smiled. “I’m learning to be a lot of things besides a gunfighter.”
A woman with a baby in her arms, a tiny baby wrapped in a thin pink blanket, came walking down the stairs. “A new patient?”
“Not yet,” Cash said with a small smile. “But if he doesn’t change his ways, he’s going to be somebody’s patient one of these days.”
He kissed the woman and took the baby from her. “How’s my Caroline? Did she have a good nap?”
“She’s a little cranky,” the woman answered with a smile. She glanced toward Luke and her smile faded. “I take it I shouldn’t be worried about this one?”
Cash shook his head. “No. He’s not the kind of kid looking to shoot an unarmed man. I can still tell.”
Luke was tempted to prove the man wrong. Daniel Cash had shot a lot of people in his day, and no matter what he said about quitting... Luke knew the man who killed Cash would still make a name for himself.
Cash returned the baby to the woman Luke assumed was his wife and crossed his arms over his chest. For a second, no more, his eyes went dark and deep. Gunfighter eyes.
“I won’t shoot you,” Cash said.
“What if I decide to shoot you anyway,” Luke challenged. He looked the retired gunman up and down. “You can’t defend yourself. You don’t even have a weapon,” he said in disgust.
“True,” Cash said calmly, “but they do,” he added, nodding toward the door behind Luke.
Luke spun around, only to find two men standing in the doorway. One was the sheriff, a breed with dark hair that hung past his shoulders. A thin, eerie streak of white hair at his temple looked a little like lightning. The other man was large—six and a half feet, to be sure. He had shoulder-length blond hair, a short beard, and a rifle.
Luke faced Cash again in disgust. “In one little town I heard Daniel Cash was dead. I guess that’s the truth.”
“I wouldn’t mind at all if you did your part to spread that tale,” Cash said with a wry smile. “Things have gotten mighty peaceful around here since that rumor got started. I kinda like it peaceful.”
A young man came bounding down the stairs. He had to be Cash’s son. The kid looked like him in too many ways not to be related. “Hey, Dad, are we going fishing this afternoon? You said we could.”
“As soon as I’m finished here,” Cash said.
The kid looked at his father, Luke, and then at the men in the doorway. “How long is this going to take?”
“Not very long,” Cash said in a confident way that made Luke’s stomach quiver.
“Not long at all,” Luke said, trying to sound confident. He felt as well as heard the men in the doorway coming closer, walking into the room until they stood on either side of him. Suddenly he felt very, very... small. “I’ll be leaving now. This is not what I came here looking for.”
He lowered his hand to touch the butt of his gun again, not because he was foolish enough to think about shooting his way out of here, but because sometimes the feel of his gun soothed him. His holster was empty. He jerked his head around and found that the sheriff was twirling the confiscated pistol easily in his hand. He hadn’t even felt it leave the holster!
Luke felt lost without his gun. Naked. Powerless. But here he was, unarmed and flanked by the sheriff and the big man with the rifle.
Cash smiled. “Son, before you go, let’s have a talk. You killed anybody yet?”
Luke hesitated, then shook his head. “Nope. You were going to be my first.”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen,” Luke said with a proud lift of his chin.
Cash stared him down.
“In thirteen months,” Luke added in a lower voice.
“Is everything here okay?” a new voice called.
Luke glanced toward the doorway. Three more men stood there. A preacher. A Mexican fiddling with a sharp knife. A fair-haired man of unquestionable authority. Luke swallowed hard. Oh, shit, he was about to disappear.
“Everything’s fine,” Cash said, nodding to the three in the doorway. “This young fella and I are going to have a little talk, and then he’s going to leave town.” The dark-eyed man looked squarely at Luke. “Right?”
Luke nodded quickly, and the three in the doorway left. The other two did not, though they did move toward the door and take up their posts there.
The big, hairy man sighed. “This one looks like trouble,” he grumbled.
“Yeah,” the sheriff answered. “He might not be so easy to get rid of.”
Luke’s heart started pounding hard again.
“If Eden gets one look at this skinny kid, you know she’s going to want to feed him,” the man cradling a rifle said.
This time the long-haired sheriff just nodded his head.
Cash pulled out a chair and offered it to Luke, who had no choice but to sit.
&
nbsp; The former gunman sat himself, and placed those gunfighter’s eyes on Luke. “Son, let me tell you what you’re in for....”
The End
Discover how The Rock Creek Six series began.
Page forward for an excerpt from
REESE
Book 1
The Rock Creek Six
REESE
The Rock Creek Six
Book 1
by Lori Handeland
Chapter 1
Mary McKendrick had reached the end of her tether, which did not happen often. She prided herself on managing everything, even the unmanageable. But after days spent on a lurching stage to Dallas, then hours slogging through the mud of what was supposed to be a dusty town and still not finding the den of iniquity she searched for, her much-admired patience had gone the way of the whistling Texas wind.
In Rock Creek, Texas, Mary was the schoolteacher. Before she’d come to Rock Creek, she’d first been a schoolteacher outside of Richmond, Virginia, until the damn Yankees burned the place down. Then she’d gone on to teach in Bittersweet, Missouri. Bloody Jayhawkers burned that place too. She was in Dallas today because she did not plan to be run off another job in this lifetime.
“Any Time. Any Time,” she muttered as she stomped down another boardwalk. “You’d think I could find one saloon named Any Time.”
Suddenly, as if in answer to an unspoken prayer, there it was—a saloon named Any Time. Did that mean the place was open day and night?
Surely there were rules about such things, even in Dallas. What did it matter? As long as the saloon was open now—and from the sounds of the music, the laughter, and the clinking of glass, it was—she needed to get in there and do what she’d come here to do.
Buy herself a man.
And not just any man, but Reese—gun for hire. They said he was the best. They said he always got the job done. They said... Well, they said a lot of things, but who were they, anyway, and was any of what they said true? Mary hoped so, because she needed a man like Reese, even though men like him were the one thing that frightened her. But Mary Margaret McKendrick was not a woman to let fear keep her from doing what must be done.
So she pushed through the swinging doors and stepped into her very first saloon.
The smell hit her first—smoke and whiskey and too many bodies. The next thing she noticed was a sudden silence—no talking, no clinking glasses, no music—because everyone stared at her.
Well, she suspected they didn’t get too many schoolteachers in here. Her gaze flicked over the assembled crowd, mostly men with guns, women with too few clothes, and a great, big bartender, who scowled at her as if she meant to start trouble.
Trouble? Her? Not hardly.
“I’m looking for Reese.”
“Upstairs. Third door on the right.”
Mary blinked. Could it be this easy? Nothing else ever was. “Just like that, you tell me where he is?”
The man shrugged. “You don’t seem the type to shoot him in his bed.” He frowned and peered at her from beneath his too long, unkempt hair. “Is that what you’re planning?”
She gave him her best Miss McKendrick glare. Instead of backing down, he grinned. “Didn’t think so. Third door on the right. And tell him he pays me what he owes me tonight or he’s out.”
Mary pondered that piece of information. Sounded as if Reese needed money. All the better for her.
Turning her attention to the staircase at the back of the room, Mary’s unease returned. To get to Reese, she would have to walk through all those people. No one spoke. No one moved. They continued to stare at her as if she were some exotic creature escaped from a traveling show.
Sweat trickled between her breasts. Though she spent most days in front of a room filled with staring eyes, those eyes belonged to children, not rough, armed men.
She straightened her spine. Rough, armed men were her problem. They were the reason she was here. To meet the lion in his den. Hire a monster to frighten away all the monsters.
The heels of her boots clipped in staccato rhythm as Mary crossed the plank floor. The hem of her dove gray traveling costume slapped wetly against her ankles. Without the crinoline she’d left at home to accommodate the horse she’d ridden to the nearest working-stage stop, her skirt had dragged through the mud all over Dallas.
Tired, wet, and dirty was not the way she wanted to meet Reese, but then again, she didn’t care what he thought of her. She only cared that he came to Rock Creek. Would what she had to offer be enough for the mysterious and dangerous Reese?
At the top of the stairs, third door on the right, Mary knocked—three firm taps of her knuckles on the scarred wood. The sounds echoed throughout the saloon.
“Come.”
One word, softly uttered, yet she heard it clearly. She reached for the doorknob, and her fingers shook. Yanking back her hand, Mary made a fist. This would not do.
“Come, come, come,” the voice ordered, impatient now.
Before she could think any further, Mary opened the door and stepped inside. As soon as she shut it, the noise started up downstairs, making her jump, but the buzz of sound from below soothed her more than the waiting, listening silence had.
Just enough sun seeped around the curtains to throw the room into shadow. Despite the ghostly gray light, she could still see the man lounging on the bed, wearing black pants and nothing else.
Well, there was the gun in his hand, but Mary hardly counted a gun as clothing. He studied her for a moment, then uncocked the weapon and laid it next to his leg. They stared at each other.
He was the most interesting man she’d ever seen. That might have had something to do with his naked chest—something else she’d never seen—but she didn’t think so. This man was striking. Once you saw him, you would not forget him. Mary doubted she ever would.
His hair was gold, several shades lighter than his skin, and tousled, probably from sleep. He could use a shave. The beard on his jaw looked at least two days gone. The hair on his chest was darker than the hair on his head, more the shade of his beard. The chest captured her attention, lean and firm; a flat belly was framed by black pants. The top button hung open, revealing that the curling hair, which appeared so soft, trailed below his stomach, down, down, down to—
“Seen enough?”
Mary yanked her gaze to his face, embarrassed to have been caught ogling. This was business. Even if he chose to meet a strange woman in his room without a shirt or shoes, that did not mean she had to stare. Though it was hard not to.
She cleared her throat. “You’re Reese?” Best not to even mention his state of undress or ask if he could open the window, since the room had gone hot and stuffy.
“Who wants to know?”
His voice flowed over her, reminding Mary of things best forgotten. Magnolia trees in springtime, Virginia in the rain, a place that was long gone and never coming back.
“Mary McKendrick,” she blurted to stop her eyes from burning. She should offer her hand, but there was no way she was going to approach that bed or let him touch her while he lay half-naked.
“What do you want?”
He wasn’t one for small talk. Well, that suited her just fine. “You.”
His eyebrows shot up, and then his gaze wandered down her body, making her hotter than before. She found she didn’t like being stared at by a man. She wasn’t beautiful, wasn’t even passably pretty. She was too tall and too thin to be fashionable, although she did have a few curves in appropriate places.
Oh, her skin was fair enough, except for the freckles on her nose, and her eyes were blue, sometimes. Most times they were just dull gray. And her hair, which was some undefined color between brown and blond, curled with wild abandon whenever she did not bind it closely to her head. Her hair was bound now, tightly enough to give her a headache, which meant her long, thin nose and high cheekbones seemed more pronounced.
She looked exactly like what she was—a twenty-four-year-old spinster schoolteacher.
She was smart, dependable, and sturdy. What she was not was flighty, flirty, or petite. Thank God.
Still, the way he stared at her... For one tiny moment she wanted to be everything she was not.
Then his gaze flicked to hers. Mary’s eyes had adjusted to the dim light well enough to determine that his eyes were green. Captivating, if they hadn’t been so cold.
“You want me for what?” That voice again, this time a low growl—Southern, sinful, suggestive. Those words, combined with his tousled hair, naked chest, and long, slim, bare feet had Mary stuttering. Mary never stuttered.
“F-for a-a job.”
He sat up in one fluid motion, all smooth skin and honed muscle. “Where?”
“Rock Creek.”
“What?”
“Th-there’s a group of bandits. They ride out of the hills, take whatever they can carry, shoot the place up a bit, and disappear. They robbed the stage so many times we’ve been left off the route. Now people are leaving. My town—I mean the town—will die.”
“No law?” She shook her head. “No soldiers?”
“I sent word to the fort, but they refused to come. Said all the trouble with the Comanche means they can’t spare any men for us. Stealing and breaking windows isn’t much of a crime in Texas.”
“I suspect not. Tell me, Miss McKendrick, why are you here? What makes Rock Creek so special that you’d come all the way to Dallas for me?”
Mary wasn’t going to explain about her past and her dreams to a man she barely knew. “I’m the schoolteacher.” His eyes narrowed, and his lips tightened. For some reason, he didn’t care for her profession, but what Reese cared for was not her problem. “I have no family. I could be spared to come.” She didn’t add that this whole thing had been her idea.
“What about your men?”
“The war.” She shrugged and spread her hands. “We’ve got a preacher, old men, young boys, cripples.”
And Baxter Sutton, the shopkeeper, but since he could hide faster than any woman in town, Mary didn’t think he was up to leading them against the enemy.
“That’s all?” Reese asked.
She nodded, not trusting her voice anymore. The way Reese spat out questions made her more nervous than being alone in a room with a strange, half-naked man. When he stood up and walked toward her, she lost her power of speech altogether.
Cash (The Rock Creek Six Book 6) Page 25
