Wild Texas Flame

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “You poor little things.” Mrs. Holden wrapped her beefy arms around Sunny and nearly suffocated her against her ample, jiggling bosom before releasing her and hugging the rest of the girls. “We don’t have a whole lot of extra room at the parsonage, but there’s room for you girls.”

  Katy shot Sunny a startled, desperate look.

  “We thank you for your kind offer,” Sunny told Mrs. Holden, “but we’ll be staying here.”

  “Here?” Mrs. Holden released Amy and stared at Sunny as if she’d said she’d rather go to hell. “Here?”

  Sunny forced a smile. “It’s our home, ma’am.”

  The woman’s brows shot up. “But you can’t stay out here all by yourselves.”

  “She’s right, of course,” added Mrs. Booth. “Why, it just wouldn’t be right, you girls living out here so far from town, with no one to look after you.”

  Six-year-old Rachel tugged on Sunny’s hand. “Sunny? We don’t have to go, do we?”

  Sunny smoothed a golden curl from Rachel’s forehead. A tightness settled in her throat. “No, sweetheart, we don’t have to go anywhere.”

  To the two women she said, “It’s so kind of you both to be concerned, but we won’t be alone. The men will be here with us. We’ll be fine, really. If you’ll excuse me, I’m needed in the kitchen.”

  Katy, Rachel, and Amy followed her until they spotted friends their own age. It was just as well, because when Sunny reached the crowded kitchen, she realized there was barely room for her, much less her sisters. She slipped on an apron and started slicing a loaf of bread someone had brought.

  But if she’d been seeking peace in the kitchen, it was denied her by the conversation going on in front of the stove.

  “I say it’s just a crying shame a good man like Ross Thornton had to die and leave four little orphans, when that despicable Ash McCord is allowed to live.”

  “Well, not that I think Ross Thornton should have died trying to save the sheriff like he did—he was a real hero, you know—but if you ask me, Ash McCord got exactly what he deserved.”

  Sunny paused, her bread knife halfway through a slice. What he deserved? As far as she was concerned, Ash McCord deserved a medal of honor for saving her life. Somehow, she didn’t think that’s what Widow Conners had in mind. “What do you mean?” Sunny asked cautiously.

  “Haven’t you heard?” Widow Conners’ eyebrows arched up until they nearly reached her hairline.

  A dark sense of foreboding enfolded Sunny. The knife shook in her hand. “Heard what?”

  A peculiar gleam came into the widow’s eyes. “Why, that bullet McCord took hit him in almost the exact same spot as his bullet hit Ian Baxter five years ago. I heard it straight from someone who knows.”

  “You mean—”

  “Exactly. I like to think of it as poetic justice.”

  Sunny frantically searched the room for Ella Standridge. Ella stared at Widow Conners with a fierce frown.

  Ella had said Ash McCord would be fine. Or had she? Sunny turned back to the widow, a sick feeling in her stomach. “You mean…he’s—”

  “Deader than a doornail from the waist down,” she pronounced with a satisfied smirk. “Just like his victim. With any luck at all, Ash McCord will never walk again.”

  Chapter Four

  Ian Baxter basked in the attention as everyone in the lobby of San Antonio’s finest hotel, The Menger, paused to watch the two giants, one his own loyal Gus, the other a local man, carry Baxter, wheelchair and all, up the flight of stairs. All eyes focused on him. He knew it. He loved it. There was nothing quite like being the center of attention, feeling important.

  Unless it was gambling. He liked gambling.

  When his chair rested on the second floor landing, Baxter dismissed the local man with a flick of his wrist. Gus pushed the chair down the hall and into the private, exclusive gaming room.

  This was where Ian Baxter belonged. The quiet elegance spoke of old money, and lots of it. Plush, velvet armchairs circled the round, green felt gaming table. At each place sat a crystal decanter of fine Kentucky bourbon, a crystal glass, a crystal ashtray, and beside every other glass, so two men could share, sat a box of the best, most flavorful and fragrant Cuban cigars.

  In one corner of the room stood a small bar that boasted more crystal, liquors other than bourbon, and an elegantly liveried negro to make sure the gentlemen gamblers never ran out of ice.

  Heavy, velvet drapes, a deep wine in color, hung over the windows and shut out any hint of light. This room was available twenty-four hours a day, and those who came did not want to be distracted by such trivials as the rising and setting of the sun.

  The rich, elegant atmosphere of the room relaxed Ian as Gus wheeled him toward the table.

  Davis was there, as well as the other regulars. These weren’t just any run-of-the-mill gamblers found in any saloon across Texas. No, these men were the movers and shakers of big business, of the local and state economy and politics, of the state itself. A senator, a congressman, a railroad tycoon, a U.S. District judge, and William Davis, a philanthropist and full-fledged baron in the cattle industry of Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana.

  And Ian Baxter, financier (it sounded better than “banker”), was part of the fold.

  Brief visions of his childhood, spent in a tumbling down shack behind the whorehouse where his mother had worked, skittered through his mind. He tossed the memories aside. They were of no importance now, because now he was an important man. A rich, powerful man. Not, perhaps, as rich as these men thought he was, but that would come. Soon. Just as soon as he got rid of the rest of the Thorntons.

  “Baxter,” Judge Beauford greeted. “Back for more, I see. Thought maybe you’d give up on our little group here, after the bundle you dropped to Davis last fall.”

  Ian forced a smile. “That wasn’t a bundle, it was a drop in the bucket.” If they only knew, he thought. If these men only knew what he’d had to do to repay Davis. He felt his hands turn to ice.

  Gus wheeled him up to the gaming table, then left him there. Ian greeted the others. From across the table, Davis nodded at him.

  Something about Davis teased Ian’s mind. He’d always felt that he’d known the man sometime in the past. The two had discussed the possibility of their paths having crossed before they met in San Antonio a few years ago, but it seemed they had truly never met before. Still, the red hair, the thin lips, the way the man walked, all seemed familiar. The black eye patch and the puckered scar below it were things he wouldn’t have forgotten, yet they rang no bells in Ian’s mind. That meant Ian must have seen him sometime before the war, if at all.

  Ian shook his head. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he not lose any more money to the man. Except for the small stake he carried in his pocket, he’d already paid Davis every cent he had, just to clear his previous losses.

  And it wasn’t as though Davis needed the money. The man had so much money that he gave it away. He’d singlehandedly organized, founded, and funded the Confederate Widows and Orphans Society at the end of the war, dumping, rumor had it, more than a million dollars of his own money into getting it started. No, a man like that didn’t need Ian Baxter’s money.

  But tonight Ian wouldn’t lose. He was still riding high on the success of that last venture, the one that had gained him the money to pay off Davis. It had been the boldest thing—well, perhaps the second boldest—he’d ever done in his life.

  He probably shouldn’t have actually taken part in the escapade. It would have been enough that he’d conceived the idea, planned all the details. But to personally participate had been foolish. He felt a grin tug at his lips. Foolish, maybe. But it had been the most exciting, most exhilarating thing he’d ever done.

  Ian brought himself up sharply. This was no time to daydream. He’d need all his wits about him to play poker with these men. He couldn’t afford to lose.

  Yet, an hour later, incredible as it seemed, he was losing. If he didn’t
win this hand, he was out.

  He looked at his cards. And smiled. He wouldn’t lose this hand.

  Congressman Smythe folded, leaving the pot to Ian and Davis. Sweat trickled down Ian’s back and gathered in his palms. He’d been losing steadily. But not this time. The pair of aces in his hand wouldn’t let him lose. He took a deep breath to hide his trembling and reached for a new card.

  A third ace.

  He couldn’t lose now. He couldn’t. It was all he could do to keep from grinning.

  Ian looked across the table. Davis studied his cards and pulled out his pocket watch with his free hand. Ian held his breath. The back of Davis’s watch was smooth and shiny. A brief, distorted flash reflected only a blur of cards, but enough to make Ian fight harder to control his grin. Davis was bluffing. He didn’t have a damn thing.

  Except a big pile of money in front of him, and that was a problem.

  Davis tucked his watch back into his vest pocket and slowly raised his gaze to Ian. “Raise you five thousand.”

  Ian’s stomach lurched. He didn’t have five thousand. But he had the winning hand, and he knew it. “Take my promissory note?”

  Davis narrowed his eyes. “You sure you want to do that?” he asked. “It seemed to take you awhile to pay up last time.”

  Ian stiffened at the insult, then forced himself to relax. “It’s no problem. I’ve got the money, I just didn’t bring it with me.”

  Davis stared at him a moment longer, making Ian long to squirm in his seat. Instead, he took a sip of bourbon. Then Davis grinned. “Tell us the truth, Baxter. What do you do, rob your own bank when you need money?”

  Ian choked on a mouthful of bourbon. He barely got the glass to the table without spilling it.

  The sound of shattering glass drew the men’s gazes across the room. Crystal shards littered the bar where Gus stood, his stiff back to the others.

  “Everything all right over there?” Smythe called.

  Sounding like he was strangling, Gus, without turning, said, “Fine.”

  Ian coughed again.

  “Did I say something wrong?” Davis asked. “I was only joking, you know.” Then he added with another grin, “Unless, of course, it’s true?”

  Ian fought to hold back the hysterical laughter threatening to choke him again. “No,” he finally managed, feeling the heat leave his face. “Matter of fact, it’s not a bad idea, robbing my own bank.”

  Across the room, Gus coughed.

  “Only problem is,” Ian went on, “somebody beat me to it.”

  “You don’t say,” Beauford stated. “Your bank was robbed?”

  Ian pursed his lips and nodded. “Wire was waiting for me when I checked into the hotel. A gang hit the bank while I was on my way here.”

  Murmurs and exclamations of distress and sympathy swept around the table. “Did they wipe you out?” someone asked.

  “Me? Of course not. But they damn near cleaned out the whole bank.”

  “They didn’t get your personal assets, then?”

  “Nope. Didn’t touch them.”

  Davis laughed. “You mean you don’t keep your own money in your own bank?”

  Ian grinned. “Now why would I want to do that? Banks get robbed, you know.”

  When the laughter faded, Smythe said, “Have you got a secret stash of gold buried somewhere?”

  Ian grinned again. “All I have to do is dig it up.”

  Something flickered in Davis’s eyes, then disappeared. “Is that so?” He grinned.

  For some inexplicable reason, a cold sense of dread crept over Ian.

  But that was ridiculous. William Davis couldn’t know anything. Nobody knew. Nobody. Ian calmed himself. He still had the winning hand. His grin return. “Yep, my own stash of buried gold, just sitting there waiting for me to dig it up.”

  Davis laughed easily. “Your word is good enough for me, Baxter.”

  Ian breathed a sigh of relief. “Fine. Fine. I’ll call. Read ‘em and weep, Davis.” With a flourish, he spread his three aces on the table and chuckled. “Looks like I won’t need to be digging up my gold after all.”

  Smythe let out a shout. “Hot damn, would you look at that!”

  Ian smiled victoriously and glanced across at Davis’s hand.

  No! It couldn’t be! Bourbon churned in his stomach. He stared, disbelieving.

  Four deuces stared back.

  For more than a week after burying her father, Sunny tried desperately to keep busy so she wouldn’t think. Or worry. She didn’t want to worry about how to run the ranch without her father there to make all the decisions. She didn’t want to think about Ash McCord, who would probably never walk again—all because he had helped her.

  To keep her mind busy, and to help erase the tears from her sisters’ eyes, she and the girls had spent the last week giving the sturdy log house its annual spring cleaning. It was only February, but that was close enough.

  Yet the work didn’t keep Sunny from missing her father. It didn’t keep away the picture of her sisters, her father and herself gathered around the dinner table, laughing and talking and simply enjoying each other’s company, each other’s love. Being a family.

  When she closed her eyes and saw them like that, so happy, so…right, it hurt desperately to know it would never be that way again. It pained her even more when part of the picture of her family gathered around the table became fuzzy in her mind’s eye—the part filled by her father. Each day she had to struggle harder to bring him into focus, to complete the picture.

  Yet even that struggle wasn’t always enough to remind her her father was gone. This morning wasn’t the first time she’d automatically put a pot of coffee on before starting breakfast.

  Neither she nor her sisters drank coffee. Her father had.

  This morning, when she’d done it again, she actually drank a cup, hoping to feel his presence, his strength and wisdom. His love.

  Angry with herself for she wasn’t sure what, she took another whack with the paddle. Despite the choking dirt and dust involved, there was something therapeutic about beating a rug.

  Most of the housework was done now. Rachel and Amy played out back beneath the big old cottonwood while Sunny and Katy tackled this last, dirtiest, job.

  Whack.

  Dust shot up her nose. She sneezed. Katy echoed her. They looked at each other, dirty cheeks, red, watery eyes, and broke out laughing. It felt good to laugh, but Sunny knew it wouldn’t last long. When they finished this chore and put the house back in order, she’d have no more excuses to put off going to town and facing the man who was crippled because of her.

  She dreaded it. What could she possibly say to him? I’m sorry? How paltry. Ash McCord had saved her life, and because of that supreme act of kindness and courage, he would probably never walk again.

  Every night her dreams had been tormented with visions of her dying father, then a pair of bright blue eyes. Ash McCord’s eyes, changing from wary to laughing to pain glazed. Accusing eyes. Because-of-you-I’ll-probably-never-walk-again eyes.

  Probably.

  That was the word the widow had used.

  Probably.

  What did that mean? Did it mean there was a chance he would walk again?

  Sunny’s reluctance to see Ash McCord suddenly vanished. She wanted to rush to town that very minute and see for herself. Talk to the doctor. Find out for sure.

  She paused to catch her breath, intending to tell Katy about her plans, when she saw Larry, one of the ranch hands, ride in at a dead run. He slid his horse to a halt, jumped to the ground and disappeared into the barn.

  Sunny chewed her lower lip. Something was wrong. What had sent him riding in that fast?

  A moment later Tom jogged from the barn to where she and Katy worked. “Riders comin’ in. ‘Bout a dozen of ‘em. You and the girls…would you mind goin’ in the house ‘til we see who it is?”

  Sunny hesitated, then nodded. She understood his concern. Until they were certain the bunch that
robbed the bank and killed her father were caught or long gone, there was no sense taking chances. She and Katy called Amy and Rachel and herded them into the house.

  “He is not!” Rachel cried, taking a swing at Amy.

  “Rachel, stop that,” Sunny said.

  Rachel ignored her and took another swing.

  Amy dodged and yelled back, “He is too!”

  “Not!”

  “Too!”

  “That’s enough, girls,” Sunny warned.

  The six-year-old tried to take another swipe at her younger sister. Katy caught Rachel’s small arm just in time. “She’s doing it again, Sunny.”

  “‘Cause I’m right, you’ll see,” Rachel insisted.

  Frustrated, Sunny sighed. Were they never going to convince Rachel their father was dead?

  The child had heard the phrase “rest in peace” during the burial service and had latched onto it like a calf on a teat. Katy understood their father was dead. Amy perhaps didn’t really understand “dead,” but she knew Daddy had gone to heaven to live with Mamma.

  But Rachel insisted, no matter what anyone said, that Daddy was resting, “in peace.” When he was rested, he would come home.

  Sunny had tried everything from gentle persuasion to logic to out and out yelling. She’d even threatened a whipping once. Nothing worked. Rachel’s mind was made up. Daddy was “gone.” He was “resting.” Someday he’d come home.

  It nearly broke Sunny’s heart to see Rachel’s little face light up, watch her run to the window every time hoofbeats pounded into the yard.

  The child did it again a few minutes later when Tom’s precaution turned out to be unnecessary and the posse that had left town the day of the holdup rode into the yard. Rachel’s tiny shoulders slumped for a moment, then straightened. “It’s not him,” she said softly. “He’s not rested enough yet.”

  Katy’s voice was just as soft. “He’s not coming home again, Rachel.”