by Gem Sivad
Trouble in Disguise
Gem Sivad
A book in the Eclipse Heat series.
Since both his partners have married and retired from the hunt, Deacon McCallister is alone when he visits the Pleasure Dome, an infamous brothel in Fort Worth’s Hell’s Half Acre. He’s tracking a counterfeiter but what he finds is Trouble—dressed in a man’s ruffled shirt and nothing more.
Bounty hunter Miracle Beauregard pretends to be male, calls herself Beau and for years has fooled everyone. But underneath Miri’s disguise beats a feminine heart lusting for Deacon McCallister. Though she spends a lot of time dreaming about her rival, she never expects to act upon her longings.
When Miri follows an outlaw to the fanciest whorehouse in Texas and crosses paths with her heart’s desire, she trades her buckskins for bare skin to play the part of Deacon’s paid companion.
A Romantica® historical western erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave
Trouble in Disguise
Gem Sivad
Prologue
August 1884
Deacon McCallister lay facedown and spread-eagled on the packed dirt, his arms and legs anchored by stakes driven into the ground. He squinted blearily through sweat and the tears of pain he couldn’t control.
Captured earlier because of his own stupidity, Deacon had already suffered under Alistair Pettigrew’s flaying knife. The outlaw had cut thin strips of skin from Deacon’s back. Though it was still morning, the heat of the sun burned his damaged flesh and he shuddered as insects discovered the feast.
One of the camp whores had decided to have fun too. He wanted to scream, but he strangled the sound and lay untwitching in the dirt while the woman crouched next to him, layering honey over the raw wounds on his back. The sweet balm melted, soothing the flayed flesh, but she made it clear easing Deacon’s pain wasn’t her intent.
“Come see how the ants love his taste,” she coaxed Pettigrew and was rewarded when the outlaw leader joined her.
Deacon’s stomach knotted, anticipating more pain. Pettigrew kicked dirt, sending a cascade of fine stone and dust over the raw wounds. Deacon’s breath caught in his chest as he locked his jaw to stifle a moan. When he’d faded to a near unconscious state, the shock of water dribbling down his face revived him.
“Stop that. I want the sonofabitch thirsty,” Pettigrew ordered her.
“If he passes out, sugar, you’ll miss the fun of seeing him hurt.” Regardless of her purpose for delivering it, the water trickled close enough to catch with his lips and cleared Deacon’s head. The woman was squatting in such a way that her dress had bunched high enough above her knee to show the top of the boot and the knife sheathed there.
“Let me just get that spot on the far side and paint him up good. Then you and me’ll have us some fun.” Instead of standing and walking around his body, the woman leaned over Deacon, her skirts falling over his arm, covering the stake that held his right hand, her knee so close the knife handle brushed his knuckles.
Deacon fumbled for the blade, pulling against the leather strip that bound his wrist, his fingers stiff and unresponsive. Any moment he expected her to call out and expose his actions, but she leaned farther across his body, slathering more honey on his back, indifferent to his desperate grope.
“That ought to bring the critters on real fast.” She sat back on her heels, admiring her work, her skirts still covering the upper right stake and hiding the knife he’d secured.
“You like watchin’ ’em die slow, don’t you?” Pettigrew praised her, and even Deacon could hear the surge of lust in the other man’s voice. Evidently more interested at the moment in rutting than torturing, the outlaw suddenly jerked the woman to her feet. “Gets ya kinda juiced up, don’t it, girl?”
The woman laughed, seeming agreeable to Pettigrew’s idea of romance. Deacon groaned, sawing desperately at the rawhide binding him because there was no way to hide the knife clutched in his hand when she stood.
He’d sliced through one leather strip and had started on the other when the outlaw groaned and fell to the ground. Panicked, Deacon tried to make the blade cut faster so he could defend himself when the outlaw looked over and caught him with the weapon.
But the woman was draped across the fallen man, sealing his mouth with hers as he arched, grunted and then slumped under her. The whore rolled off Pettigrew, revealing the knife sticking from his chest heart-high. Wasting no time, she pulled the blade free and crouched by Deacon’s feet, severing the ankle ties binding him.
“Beau sent me. I’ve got a horse waiting and we’re leaving but I need your help.”
As soon as his legs were freed, Deacon struggled to his knees and gazed at the young woman. White-blonde hair cascaded down her back, oddly contrasting with the dark brows and lashes accenting fiercely demanding gray eyes.
“Put this on. You’re about the same size.” The soft edges of her drawl mixed with a harsher twang as she gave him orders. She handed Deacon the outlaw’s black hat. “The others have their backs turned so as not to see you get carved up and me fucked. Don’t count on that lasting if they get curious.”
Even in his desperate state, her crude words and rough accent jarred in his mind. They didn’t match her face. Nevertheless, too blurred by pain to do much thinking, he waited for her to tell him what to do next.
She removed Pettigrew’s shirt, rolling him over so he lay facedown on the spot just vacated by Deacon, then kicked the body’s legs apart, mimicking the shape that had lain there before.
She worked so fast, Deacon barely realized what she’d done before she focused on him again. Sliding his arm around her shoulders, she lifted him to his feet, half carrying and half dragging him toward the bushes and rocks beyond.
“It’ll take a damn miracle to get out of this fix.”
His growled opinion made her snort.
“Lucky ya got one then, McCallister. Now get a move on.”
“How many wanteds?” he muttered, trying to get his feet moving faster than a slow shuffle.
“Enough to make Christmas right promising this year,” she answered.
Deacon had counted more than a half-dozen outlaws when he’d ridden into camp. He didn’t think the woman had a chance in hell of getting out with or without him. But if rival bounty hunter Beau Beauregard was helping her, that might not be the case. Since Deacon was on his feet and it looked as if he might have a chance at surviving, he didn’t question the possibility further.
“Hey!” The shout warned them they’d been discovered.
“Ketchum, get him.” She shouted the order and kept moving, ignoring the outlaw behind them.
“Where’s Beauregard?” Deacon muttered, grasping the one thing that made sense. Knowing the kid had orchestrated the rescue gave Deacon hope he might make it through the day alive. He could hear the sound of a snarling beast behind him and that was additional incentive to believe.
“Up you go,” she murmured, seemingly unafraid as she faced Possum, Beauregard’s black-and-white pinto. The animal stood quietly as the woman boosted Deacon to the back of the saddle seat. She mounted in front of him. “Wrap your arms around my middle and hang on.”
“I won’t let go. Ride hard, hellcat,” he growled in her ear. He didn’t know how she pulled it off other than sheer guts. He wasn’t any use other than clinging like a limpet to her back.
The pinto took off at a dead run and the woman knee-guided her mount while she held a gun in each hand, clearing a path with bullets as they raced through the main camp heading for the corridor leading out of the canyon. Behind them, Deacon heard a wolf snarling. The outlaws’ horses streamed past them in the granite corridor, and then they were out.
“Hang on to something substantial, ya dang fool.” She holstered one gun and grabbed his hand, moving it to her waist. Then she reached back, pressing his shoulder and attempting to shift him closer to her body. “Dadblamed honey’s slippery,” she complained.
“You painted me with the mess, what do you expect?” Deacon focused on their sporadic conversation, trying to keep himself from passing out. “You owe me for the honey.” He didn’t know what else to say so he hung his head over her shoulder and complained.
“Mister, honey’s a mite dear where I come from. You owe me. It’ll take me six ways to Sunday to replace my stash.”
Even confused by the agony of his back, the woman’s drawled answer perplexed Deacon. He held on to a woman’s body but heard Beauregard speak. Deacon figured the pain had just been too much and sent him to crazy land.
Chapter One
Three months later, Hell’s Half Acre
Deacon McCallister mounted wide, curving steps leading to the grand entrance of the Southern-styled plantation house. Among its mediocre copycats, the building at the end of Rusk Street made an impressive statement. Windows decorating the first and second levels viewed the world with amber eyes as afternoon lamps glowed behind filmy curtains.
Smoke drifting above each of the chimneys indicated fires had been lit inside to stave off the chill of the dreary day. The weather was unusually cold for October and Deacon appreciated the warmth of his leather duster although its weight irritated the new scars on his back.
He was here because Hiram Potter, the Eclipse sheriff, had asked him to check on Beau Beauregard.
“I got a wire this week. The kid’s in Hell’s Half Acre hunting a counterfeiter. I kicked up a fuss about him working alone after what happened to you so he’s keeping me posted as to his whereabouts.”
Deacon didn’t need the oblique reminder that without Beauregard’s recent rescue he’d be dead. Ungrateful though he might be, he was more interested in meeting the woman who’d risked her life for him. Galling as it was, Beauregard was the only one who knew her.
Hiram evidently thought Beauregard in danger, stumbling around somewhere in Fort Worth. Deacon sorely doubted it. But he had additional incentive to find the young bounty hunter since Beau’s trail intersected with that of the fake money. The McCallisters had been stung by the counterfeiters along with half the Territory.
This is a waste of time. There’s no way they’d let that brat inside. Picturing the lanky, half-grown youth in his floppy hat and buckskins, Deacon let his gaze sweep over the elegant edifice before him.
When the kid was on the hunt, he had a nose like a bloodhound, but it didn’t seem probable that the owner of this establishment was his quarry. Nevertheless, Deacon continued climbing the steps, intent on reaching the door before the guards watching him from their patrol posts decided he wasn’t fit for entrance either.
Deacon reached the top of the steps and faced the ornate entry. At his first knock, the door swung open and he was greeted by a doorman ushering him into the Pleasure Dome, one of the premier whorehouses in Fort Worth, Texas.
“Lydia in?” he asked gruffly, avoiding the gaze of the butler as he stared at the lavish décor. Silently the doorkeeper escorted him to the sitting room, waved him to a seat and left him alone to wait for the owner of the brothel. After only a few moments, Lydia joined him.
“Robert,” Lydia said, flashing him a dimpled smile and holding her hands out as she entered the room. ”When Calvin announced your presence, I couldn’t believe it. It’s been too long.” If one didn’t know better, Lydia would be described as a sweetly refined gentlewoman. Deacon knew better. Her discreetly flirtatious manner covered the mind of a shop owner assessing a customer.
The infamous madam had been childhood friends with Deacon’s wife, Annie. The two women hadn’t visited often and Deacon had met Lydia no more than a half-dozen times before Annie’s death. After he’d hunted down his wife’s murderers, severed ties with the church and become a bounty hunter instead of a preacher, Lydia had invited him to become her lover and partner in a brothel.
He’d declined both offers, but when Annie’s old friend opened her establishment in Hell’s Half Acre, Deacon sometimes visited. He steadfastly declined intimacy with Lydia and made it a point to keep his couplings emotionless, never bedding the same paid companion twice. His use of prostitutes shamed him and he didn’t visit often. When he did, he paid well and marked his weakness as another smudge on his character.
He took in the lush elegance of mahogany furniture and silk curtains surrounding the madam. “Business seems to be flourishing.”
Lydia nodded proudly. She’d elevated decadence to a new level. Every suite was fitted with a fireplace, imported carpets and a grand-sized bed with sumptuous decorations. The crème de la crème in each was the porcelain bathing tub fit for a king.
As a madam in a dissolute town where sin was a common commodity, she’d set her place apart from the other bawdy houses by providing refined women with poise and beauty and showcasing them against a backdrop of genteel luxury. Her competitors had scoffed at her excesses, claiming she’d never make enough money to cover her costs. Apparently they’d been wrong.
She’d imported a chef famous for his culinary skills and more than one politician had been known to dine at the Pleasure Dome, eating delicious cuisine in the hall lit by crystal chandeliers. Lydia’s services were circumspect, exotic and expensive.
Deacon wasn’t here for the food but socializing with the infamous madam was part of the ritual of receiving information, another commodity that Lydia provided for her customers. When he visited, he always brought a little gossip and a few facts she might sell or give to another—nothing that might damage his own interests but might someday further her own.
He figured most of her customers did the same thing, feeding her tidbits that didn’t affect them. Like an elegant spider, Lydia sat spinning straw into gilded treasure in the midst of her beautiful Hell’s Half Acre web.
Deacon gazed at the subtle but expensive décor and wondered if Lydia had spun fool’s gold to pay for it. He pulled out two fake bank notes, laying the ten beside the hundred on the table next to her.
“Really, Robert, don’t be crude. I’m not a store clerk collecting money.” Lydia flushed and frowned.
“Counterfeit,” he said and leaned forward, pointing at the bills. “I thought you might want to know more like those two are being circulated here in Fort Worth.”
“Dear God, show me how to tell the real from the fake.” Shock replaced anger in her expression as she stared at the bills, waiting for his help in determining the phony money.
Lydia’s response of genuine horror left little doubt that if the Pleasure Dome was being used as a conduit, the owner knew nothing about it.
“The banks are checking bills.” He pointed out the serial number on each and explained how to differentiate between the real and the false.
“This makes everything that much more difficult,” she complained and wasted no time devising a means to counteract the threat to her profits. “I’ll have to have each escort checking money now.”
“You need to pass on the information.” He nodded at the bills. It was understood that she’d alert businessmen and politicians alike. Her reach extended to the inner chambers of the rich and powerful.
He hesitated. He should be on his way. By warning Lydia, he’d done his duty to Fort Worth commerce and fulfilled part of his goal. He wasn’t going to find his young competitor among the Pleasure Dome’s elite clientele.
Deacon gazed around the room, weighing the pros and cons of staying. Inhaling the scent of decadence, he decided his good deed of finding Beauregard could wait.
“I’m going to need a room for the night.” He pocketed the two counterfeit bills and decided to further his stay.
“Only the best for you, Robert.” Lydia stood
, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her skirt before heading for the door. “I’ll have Calvin escort you upstairs when your bath is prepared and your suite ready.”
“I’ll dine before I go up,” he answered. It would be interesting to see who was in Lydia’s fancy dining hall.
“No, you won’t. Don’t forget in your zeal to catch criminals that my establishment is neutral territory.” She showed him the ruthless face of the Pleasure Dome’s madam and said shrewdly, “I’ll have your dinner delivered. Enjoy your stay, Robert.”
Deacon’s interest sharpened at her determination to keep him away from her other guests.
She started to leave then paused. “You’ve certainly saved me from possible problems. I’ll send someone special to you tonight.” Her message was clear. Eat, drink, debauch at will. But stay away from my customers.
“Not necessary,” he answered as she closed the door. He wasn’t sure that she’d heard or if he wanted her to. He thought about the ribbon of scars on his back, still pink and tender. It wasn’t a sight he particularly wanted to share.
Lydia promised someone special every time he visited. He suspected that was a pat phrase she used on her patrons. When the door clicked shut, Deacon knew he had two choices.
He could prowl through the gaming hells and saloons in Fort Worth and spend the night looking for Beauregard or he could sit tight and let himself be escorted upstairs. Since exploring the brothel was unlikely given the many security guards Lydia had patrolling her house, staying overnight was an indulgence.
The skin on his back itched, his muscles ached and the spicy scent of something cooking in the kitchen made his belly rumble. He focused on the main reason why he should stay. A long soak in one of Lydia’s tubs would feel good. As if conjured by his thoughts, she popped back into the room.
“I’m afraid Calvin has left his post to smoke for the last time.” Lydia wore a frown as she fussed about her butler. The expression made her appear years older.
