“Damn! I gotta get this woman’s story. If I do, I can write my own ticket home.”
“Any luck on your ad?” Mort asked.
Jim shook his head and turned to the advertisement pages. There it was, double-lined box around it, two columns wide:
Would the lady known as Lightning Lil please contact J. C. Coyne regarding the possibility of a correspondence- based interview, for which the lady will be compensated in a most generous manner? Address replies to Mr. Coyne in the care of Mudruk’s Mercantile, Far Enough, Texas.
A similar ad ran in every weekly newspaper within three hundred miles.
“Just a waste of good money,” Jim muttered. “She probably can’t even read.”
He handed the paper back to Mort as a billow of dust heralded the arrival of the stagecoach. Standing here wasn’t getting his story written, and if he didn’t submit a story, he couldn’t submit his weekly demand that his publisher send him a return ticket to New York.
Of course, Jim thought, gazing longingly at the stagecoach, he could just jump on that coach and start traveling. He wouldn’t have a job, but hell, it didn’t feel like he had a job now. The carriage door opened and passengers began descending using an orange crate as a step.
The first was a traveling salesman from the look of the leather sample case clutched beneath his arm, followed by a somberly dressed white-haired man. Then, the tip of a crutch appeared, delicately testing the stability of the crate, followed by a small, cream-colored leather boot and then another foot, this one hidden by a thick white plaster cast.
The older man held his hand out, and a slender pink-gloved hand took it. A confection of creamy feathers, damask-color silk roses, and golden-chipped straw appeared, hiding its owner’s face.
It had been a month since Jim had seen anything so exquisitely female. He’d always been susceptible to feminine beauty, if wary of it. But that didn’t keep him from staring like every other man within fifty yards.
She emerged fully, allowing the old man to lift her from the carriage and deposit her carefully on the ground. Not as small as the delicate ankle and slender hands would lead one to assume, she was, in fact, a shade above average height, slender, long-legged, and curved in an intoxicating fashion. She thanked the man, wobbling a little before balancing on her crutch, and looked around.
Young. Very young. Her face was narrow and smooth, with refinement in the set of straight dark brows and coffee-color eyes, an aristocratic nose, and an unsettling determination about the small, clipped jaw. Not strictly beautiful, but arresting.
Something about her dress jarred with that genteel face. It was cheap material, not what a lady would have worn. It was a bit tight in the bodice and loose in the waist, exposing a few too many inches of silky skin above the décolletage. He couldn’t imagine what she was, or what she was doing here. Too elegant for a whore, too sporty for anything else.
Jim dismissed the notion. The Carmichael twins had pricked desires best left unserved, and just the look of this little crippled piece of baggage was doing more to rouse them than Merry and Terry’s white plumpness could ever hope to achieve. He shook his head. He had a story to write.
He started down the raised walk, passing within a few inches of her—God, she even smelled clean— anticipating a date with a cold sponge bath when he heard his name. “Coyne! Jim Coyne!” He turned. Vance was standing at the entrance to the Cattleman’s Saloon, looking petulant. “What about our drink?”
“Not today, Vance.” From the corner of his eye he saw the leggy vision’s eyes widen in surprise, and then she was pushing past her fellow passengers, coming fast, swinging along on her crutch, her skirts belling out with each purposeful stride. Her gaze fixed on his face in what appeared to be joyful recognition. Impossible. He would have remembered her, someone so—
“Jim! Darling!” He heard the crutch hit the dirt with a soft thud, felt her arms wrap around his neck and the fresh scent of expensive soap invade his nostrils. Her lithe, lusciously curved body pressed against his, warm and soft and . . . and . . . and with that, all conscious thoughts stuttered to a dead halt. Without another second’s hesitation his over-tried body took control of his actions and he lifted her up into his arms. His mouth came down on hers with the hunger of a man who’d just realized he was starving.
It was pure chemical reaction. It had to be. There was no other way to account for a physical response so intense it ripped through him like lightning.
His body tightened. Hers softened. His mouth roved. Hers opened. It felt like welcome and passion, and God help him, he found her tongue and stroked it with his own.
She jerked away from the intimacy, and like a cad he followed her retreat, bending over her, demanding more, a part of him as shocked as she must look. . . .
He pulled back, realization arriving too late. God, she’d mistaken him for someone else, and he’d taken advantage of her!
No wonder she was staring at him in horrified fascination. He’d all but assaulted her.
“Dear Mother of Mercy,” he gulped. “Lady, listen.” He stopped, backing away at the alarm in her eyes. “Really, I would never—”
“Please,” she said, and he realized that having dropped her crutch, she had nothing to rely on for support but him. Her eyes were a dark and luminous as water-washed topaz. Her hands tightened on his biceps, steadying herself. Heat flooded his cheeks. Mortified, he tried to think of some way to frame an apology. Amazingly, stunningly, the corners of her lush lips curved into a smile.
“So, Jim Coyne, you do remember you have a wife!”
Chapter Two
He didn’t look like a New York City reporter. He was bigger than she’d imagined he’d be, and even though he dressed like an Easterner—white shirt, crisp collar, and black stockinet tie—there was an awful lot of cloth covering his shoulders. Broad and flat-bellied, he wasn’t lean. He was dense. He looked like a prizefighter five years past retirement.
His dark, rumpled hair was peppered with silver, and fine laugh lines radiated from the corners of his pale pasque flower-blue eyes. His nose would have been handsome, but an old break broadened the bridge. Further augmenting the Irish street brawler’s look of him, a thin white scar started on the hard, uncompromising edge of his jaw and traveled across his lower lip, marring the lovely symmetry of his mouth.
A good-looking man. A formidable-looking man, too, even though it was hard to look formidable when you were staring at someone in slack-jawed astonishment.
She hadn’t known she was going to claim matrimony until she’d seen him, but once she’d clapped eyes on Jim Coyne there didn’t seem to be any other relationship she could claim. He was too young to be her father, too old to be her brother. That left husband, and what would a wife do on seeing her husband? Embrace him.
She’d never expected him to kiss her. My God, how could anyone have expected something as stunning as that!
She had to pull herself together. He was all but toeing the ground, like a student found in the faculty’s apartments. Any minute now he was going to blurt out a lengthy apology, followed by questions, and ruin her plans.
“Jim, darlin’,” she purred, snaking her arm through his and leaning heavily against him, “I can’t wait to get you alone. I could just about . . .” She inhaled with a suggestive little hiss.
His blank confusion became black-visaged suspicion. He opened his mouth. She held her breath. And then those award-winning reporter’s instincts of his took over, just as she’d hoped they would.
“Oh, and I can’t wait to get you alone either, darlin’,” he murmured meaningfully. He bent down to retrieve her crutch. “And I mean now.”
He handed her the crutch and reached behind her for the trunk the porter had deposited on the walkway. One-handed, he hefted it onto his shoulder.
“Which way, darlin’?”
“Next street over.” He motioned her forward, his fine blue eyes narrowing speculatively.
She swung lightly along, smiling
at the curious onlookers who stood in the shop windows or wandered out of their businesses to catch a glimpse of her. A new woman was always a source of intense interest in a small western town. Especially one married to an exiled easterner. She knew it, and she played the role of the biblical Ruth to the hilt, casting lovesick sheep’s eyes at the man beside her, batting her lashes. In response, a ruddy bronze blush had washed up his strong throat and tinted his ears, charming her.
He was adorable. Big and handsome and utterly nonplussed by her. And with manners that would have made any mother proud, because in spite of his size and the impediment of her cast and his obvious impatience to get her alone, he accommodated her limping progress.
He led the way to a dingy two-story clapboard house with a few scrawny hollyhocks leaning wearily on either side of the front door. He opened the door and she hobbled in. Directly inside, a steep flight of stairs marched upward at a sharp angle. A hall on the right gave entry to a hot, stuffy room, the heavy curtains closed to keep the purple horsehair-covered furniture from fading. It was empty. She started in.
“Oh, no, darlin’. Someone might disturb us. Upstairs,” Jim said. He had a deep, lovely voice, like the lichen-covered stones on the bottom of a creek, silky and gravelly at the same time. But the look he turned on her reminded her that just because a man blushes doesn’t mean he’s easily manipulated. She’d best remind herself of that often, because she didn’t think she’d like having a man such as Jim Coyne mad at her.
She nodded and gamely started up the steep stairs.
She was halfway up when her crutch slipped out from under her. Her cast, too heavy and too big to fit on the narrow riser, slid off the step.
“Oh!” She heard the crutch clatter down, felt herself falling backward, waited for her head to crash into something hard and—He caught her. He just plucked her from midair, scooped her up.
“You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Her heartbeat thudded into double time. It had been years since she’d felt a man’s arms around her, been touched so intimately and yet so innocently.
Long ago she’d forfeited romantic daydreams. She couldn’t trust anyone with her secrets, and she was too honest to encourage a relationship based on lies. But until this moment, she’d never fully appreciated just what she’d given up.
Jim’s body’s heat had warmed the starched cotton of his shirt. Beneath the thin, crisp material his body was solid and muscular, his chest rising evenly with each breath as he strode up the stairs. She liked the feeling of his arms around her. Suddenly she was just a woman in the arms of a man. She was . . .
She was very stupid, that’s what she was. A stupid spinster, yearning for a human touch. How her students would have snickered at her. She stiffened.
He nudged open the first door he came to and carried her into a tiny sitting room. A mismatched armchair and fainting couch, a scarred table, and a fringe-shaded floor lamp struggled for dominance. Papers, books, and lots of empty bottles covered every available surface. He searched around for a place to deposit her.
“Right here will do,” she said.
He flushed again, but set her down and left, returning a moment later with her crutch and trunk. He stared at her. Apparently something about her standing there didn’t sit well with him, for he suddenly scooped her up and perched her on the edge of the chair.
He gave a sharp nod, as though manners had been satisfied. “Okay, lady. Who the hell are you? And don’t give me any crap about being my wife. There’s not that much liquor in the world.”
“Of course I’m not your wife.”
He released a gusty sigh of relief.
Her cheeks burned. She wasn’t bad-looking, she had a nice figure, and she even had some money. The jackass! He could have done worse.
“Then who are you?”
She untied the bow beneath her chin and pulled the bonnet from her head. Her hair spilled out from under it. He stared at her. Oh, yes. She had very lovely blond hair too. She gave him her three- cornered smile. The cream smile, her mother called it.
“I’ve come in answer to your ad. I’m Lightning Lil.”
Chapter Three
Silky, glossy, the color of palest flax. Or honey swirled with cream. He wanted to touch her hair. He wanted to touch her. But he’d been wanting to touch her ever since he had touched her, and the minute he’d set her down he’d wanted to touch her again. Crazy. And damn it, what was her game anyway? Lightning Lil had dark hair.
“Lightning Lil has dark hair.”
She crooked a brow at him. Exotic, the way her thick, darkish lashes and brows contrasted with the long flow of pale hair. “Lightning Lil has a wig.”
She could be telling the truth. From what he’d found in researching Lil, no one had ever seen her with her hat off. He moved closer to her. The sunlight gleamed on her hair, burnished her skin, ruddied her lips . . . He halted the litany. He was a reporter, damn it, not a poet. “Why did you claim to be my wife? Why not just contact me through the mail?”
“I need your help. I was shot.” Her gaze fell to her ankle. “I found a doctor to patch me up, but I have to wear this cast for a while. I have nowhere to go. And an unattached woman, in these parts is bound to attract attention. Particularly one with an injury to her leg. I want you to let me stay with you and heal up for a couple weeks. In return I’ll give you the story of your career.”
He thought. Since he was dealing with a woman he took his time thinking. She waited patiently while he ran through alternative explanations for her presence, but besides a rather elaborate hoax perpetrated by his sisters, he couldn’t think of one.
“Please, Mr. Coyne,” she said quietly, gazing up at him with eyes the color of bittersweet chocolate.
“What happened to darlin’?”
She turned pink, but her gaze didn’t fall beneath his sardonic regard. “Just think of what a story you could write. ‘I lived with Lightning Lil.’ ”
Damn, she was right. It would make one helluva feature piece. It would all but guarantee that his publisher would bring him back to New York. And if he didn’t? He could peddle a story like that to any newspaper in the city. “Darlin', you have yourself a deal.”
*
Long ago Jim had learned the value of studying what a man wore and how he wore it. He figured it wouldn’t be any different with a woman. So he made Lightning Lil wait, looking awfully unhappy and guilty for a criminal, while he hung up her clothes.
Now the armoire was crowded with dresses and skirts and blouses and bright-colored . . . things. Jim, who’d had nearly two dozen years’ observation of his sisters’ “things,” noted shiny elbows, double-stitched seams, and turned hems. Apparently, the outlaw business didn’t pay that well.
In fact, the thought of the fresh-faced young woman blushing profusely as he produced an “unmentionable” was so incongruous that he would have thrown her out as a charlatan if at the bottom of the trunk he hadn’t found a neatly folded set of boy’s clothes, a Smith & Wesson Pocket .32 tucked into a well-oiled leather holster, a battered Stetson with a black wig sewn into the sweatband, and a money clip with the name George E. Reynolds engraved on it.
He held up the pistol. “No guns allowed in town. Sheriff’s orders.”
“Smart man,” she said. “But what he doesn’t know isn’t going to hurt him.”
He dropped the gun back into the trunk, closed the lid, and shoved it against the back wall. “You know, you sure have a lot of clothes for an outlaw.”
“I’m only an outlaw part of the time.”
“Oh, yeah?” He turned around. The bedroom was tiny, and she sat near the foot of the bed, occupying the one straight-back chair the room accommodated. He had a sudden image of her in that bed, hair spilled across the Irish-linen pillowcase, limbs loose and relaxed, all creamy smooth indolence. . . .
“What are you the rest of the time?”
“Schoolteacher?” she suggested brightly.
He snorted. “Play fair. The d
eal’s only good if you fulfill your end of the bargain.”
“Okay. I’m just a person the rest of the time.” She dropped the scarf she’d been folding and it floated down between them, landing out of her reach. He knelt on one knee to retrieve it just as she bent forward to do the same. He lifted his head and found her a handbreadth away, so close that he smelled her. Lilac water. What sort of desperado used lilac water? He snapped upright, dropping the scarf into her lap.
“What does ‘just a person’ do?” he asked, ignoring her knowing smile.
“Oh . . . live in a house . . . and you better believe it’s a real nice house,” she added with a hint of humor, “One doesn’t go into outlawing for the sheer fun of it. I grow roses—”
“Roses?” he repeated in disbelief.
“Yes, roses. A few gallicas, the damasks, albas, bourbons. Don’t look so surprised. Inest sua gratia parvis. Even little things have their own grace.”
Lightning Lil grew roses and spoke Latin. “What else?”
“I keep busy. Regular-person stuff: crochet doilies, put up jam, practice my fast draw . . .’’She chuckled at his confounded expression.
She was teasing him. Didn’t she realize the gravity of her situation? He could turn her in at any moment. One would think a hardened criminal would have learned a little mistrust along the way.
“Married?”
Her laughter trailed off. She glanced up. Little invisible currents seemed to arc from his skin to hers, galvanizing and stimulating him. He got up without waiting for her answer. He wished he hadn’t asked that question. Particularly as he hadn’t planned on it. Mostly, he didn’t like her so close to that damn bed.
“I need paper and pencil if we’re going to do this properly. We should go into the other room. Better light.”
A slow, lingering smile. “Sure.”
She rose, unaccountably graceful in spite of the awkward cast, and teetered her way crutchless into the sitting room, where she flopped into an armchair. “Okay. Ask what you will,” she said. “I’m all yours.”
Heaven with a Gun Page 2
