by Jeanne Rose
"Rueben Jones was the best Pa a kid could want," Chaco said in a low, skin-prickling tone. "I wouldn't sully his memory by throwing away the name he honored me with."
Realizing his mistake, Armando lied. "No, no! I did not mean this. I can have papers drawn up to recognize you as my son, so that when I die..."
"Are you ill?"
He saw a break in Chaco's composure. Perhaps his natural son cared, even a little. Chaco had come to his rescue when he thought the Apache would attack his estancia. He chose to play up on this side of his son's nature. Loyalty had kept Chaco close to his mother until her death. If he were clever, Armando schemed, perhaps he could instill some of this sentiment in Chaco for himself.
"I have been weakening, having terrible stomach pains." Though not for a while, thank God. Whatever had been troubling him had for the most part passed. "I am afraid our time to become better acquainted with one another is limited." And truthfully, he was not at all certain this was an exaggeration. "Life can be so fragile," he reminded Chaco, feeling only a little guilty saying this after praising him for bringing down the Mexican gunfighter.
With an exaggerated sigh, Armando grew silent and watched his son digest all he had said. Emotions flickered over the hard features that held Oneida's stamp.
Finally, Chaco said, "Get to know each other, huh? And what do you suggest?"
Knowing that he had won despite the hostility in the younger man's voice, Armando stifled the smile that threatened his lips.
"IT'S SATAN'S WORK!" shrilled Minna Tucker, as Martinez's body was lifted by two men and put into a wagon. "And this is his house. How long will the good people of Santa Fe stand for it, I ask you?"
Other voices echoed her sentiments if with less enthusiasm.
Still in shock, Frances turned from the cries and confusion to seek the shelter of the hotel, but the Tucker woman stepped in her path and grabbed her arm roughly.
"Pardon me," Frances gritted out at the rude gesture.
"Ask the Lord's pardon," Minna intoned, reminding Frances of her unbending father.
"For what?"
"For luring young men into this house of vice, this den of iniquity." The Bible-thumper's voice rose. "For sheltering Satan himself – "
"Drivel!" Frances interrupted.
As she ripped her arm free, the material of her sleeve gave and she heard a tearing sound, but she was too agitated to check the damage. She stalked inside, feeling as if her heart had broken. More fool she to have believed Chaco when he'd shared his regrets, but it seemed he wasn't through living by the gun, after all.
She passed through the casino and saloon and was about to head upstairs to have a good cry in her own room, when she noticed Ynez de Arguello pacing the length of the hotel lobby. The woman's expression was one of anguish.
Upon spotting her, Ynez stopped and asked, "Don Armando – have you seen him?"
"I'm afraid not. All the confusion..."
"Yes, the gunfight. The killing. Oh!" Ynez's dark eyes flickered and her body started to go slack.
Realizing Chaco's stepmother was about to faint, Frances rushed to her side and grabbed onto her. "I think you'd better sit down."
"I am but a foolish woman worried for my husband."
Ynez sounding convincing...and yet Frances wasn't convinced. Supporting the Spanish woman's weight, she led her to the seating area.
"I'm certain Don Armando will return soon."
Perhaps it was the way Ynez glanced at her from the corner of her eyes as she slid down onto the sofa. Sneaky-like. Even while wondering why Ynez should playact for her, Frances remembered their meeting the day before. She'd thought the woman had two faces then.
"Tell me, has Chaco told you about Don Armando?" Ynez asked, hanging onto Frances's arms.
"That your husband is his father?"
Something flickered deep in the dark eyes. "And what he intends to do about the fact?"
So that was it. Ynez was trying to elicit her sympathies to get information on Chaco.
"As far as I know, nothing," Frances said truthfully, not wanting to get into a discussion about the man who had disappointed her every bit as much as Nate had. Freeing herself, she took a step back from the sofa. "Would you care for some tea?"
"That would be very kind of you. It is so seldom I have the opportunity to speak with a woman of refinement."
"Sorry I can't join you. I have a business to run."
With that, Frances took her leave, asking Rosa to get the tea. Finally, she climbed the staircase to her room.
Where another surprise awaited her.
Belle was staring down at the rumpled bed, her expression odd. Did she know about her and Chaco, or was she thinking of Avandera's betrayal at running off with the shepherd?
"Belle, what are you doing in here?"
Wide brown eyes focused warily on Frances. "Frankie, honey, I gotta talk to you. Damn that Louisa! She's becoming impossible."
"She's young and impulsive."
How could the woman be so focused on a fairly normal domestic problem when one of their customers had just been killed by one of their employees. Unless she didn't know...Why hadn't Belle been drawn outside to investigate the gunfire? And what was she doing in Frances's room?
"Louisa's running wild, taking secret carriage rides and now she's doing even worse."
Belle appeared wild herself. Her face was white, her red hair puffed out carelessly. She looked a bit...unstable. Thinking Ynez had put her in an odd and even suspicious mood, Frances reminded herself that the madam was not only her business partner, but her friend.
"Maybe she needs some time." Hoping Belle wouldn't take this the wrong way, she added, "And understanding."
But Belle didn't seem to digest the suggestion. "Louisa wouldn't give me her promise not to sneak out and ride alone, so I had to take away her horses. Now my own daughter won't speak to me."
With that admission, she burst into tears.
Wanting to join her, Frances put her arms around the other woman and patted her back instead. Belle wept so hard, Frances thought she might make herself sick.
"What should I do?" she sobbed into Frances's shoulder. "I only want to be a good mother, make sure she don't go through the terrible things I did. What the hell kinda life would that be for her? But I couldn't make the kid understand. I just made her hate me is all."
"Louisa's a good girl, and she loves you. I remember how excited she was to be coming home."
"Because she loves New Mexico and those galoomping horses of hers."
"And you. She told me how much she missed you."
It took some doing, but Frances finally convinced Belle to give Louisa some time and a lot more patience. The woman also promised to sit down and have a lengthy heart-to-heart talk with her daughter the next day, to see if she couldn't smooth things over. Maybe compromise.
But when Frances changed the subject and told her about Martinez, the news of his death hardly seemed to touch Belle. She shrugged her shoulders, said gunfights were the way of the west and left to see to her girls. Frances figured she'd let one of them share the news about Avandera with their madam.
She was all washed out.
Giving the bed a longing look, Frances was tempted to crawl under the covers, have a good cry and a better sleep. But as she'd told Ynez earlier, she had a business to run. Not knowing whether Chaco would now show after he'd gone stalking off, she had to get herself in a better mood so she could act as floorman for the night if necessary.
A glance in the mirror startled her. She hardly recognized herself. Over the space of a few weeks, she had changed. Not only hairstyle and clothes...but the inner person she had become seemed to be reflected on a face that was at once softer and more mature. Though both inside and outside were pretty much a mess at the moment, she thought, picking up a brush to smooth her hair, she liked herself better than she ever had. For the first time in her life, she wasn't living by someone else's rigid standards or rules. She was making he
r own decisions without worrying about someone else's opinion.
And she was starting to feel like she belonged.
In the midst of straightening her hair before the mirror, she noticed the ruffle on her right sleeve hung crookedly. "Oh, fine. Ripped."
Another job for Ruby. Thinking she would have the girl give the material a few stitches before she went down on the floor, Frances realized the solution wasn't so simple. She'd lost the bow. Either she'd have to find it or remove the bow from the left sleeve, as well.
Though she examined every inch of her bedroom floor, she didn't catch sight of any blue satin. Where could it be? She remembered the material giving when she'd pulled her arm free from the Tucker woman's grasp, so she hurried back outside. Because the crowd had dispersed, she had no trouble checking the ground thoroughly. Still, she didn't find it. Returning through the now-empty lobby, she investigated the area around the couch where she'd left Ynez. Not there, either.
With a sigh of resignation, she gave up. What did silly bows on her sleeves matter anyway, she thought, going in search of Ruby.
And ignoring the odd feeling – not a premonition, she told herself sternly -- that threatened her composure at the silly bow's loss.
BILE ROSE IN HER THROAT at the thought of her latest failure. How did disaster keep shadowing her? Was someone more powerful on her scent? This time she had not even tried to use her special gifts, which were admittedly drained after her delicious encounter with the Velarde brothers.
Instead, she had used money, which, to her horror, had not worked either.
The gunman was dead.
Flames danced like fiery tongues against the brooding darkness of the desert. Feeling the chill, she huddled closer, looked deep into the burning embers of the crackling, fragrant juniper, as if the fire might reveal where she had suddenly gone wrong.
As if it might tell her why she could not seem to take the revenge she craved against Chaco Jones.
She had been successful for so many years, since she first sought her powers. She had been little more than a child when her safe world had been ripped from her. When she had been introduced to the truths of life that still haunted her. When she had been savaged like an animal with no feelings.
She had killed to protect herself then.
Over the years, she had killed as often as necessary.
And somewhere along the crooked path she had chosen, she had grown to enjoy killing, especially in ways that frightened most poor fools. Lately, her bloodlust had grown stronger than the one that occasionally burned between her thighs.
She would kill the woman, if she could.
"Frances Gannon."
She uttered the name aloud with such contempt that a nearby night creature scurried off into the brush.
Too bad her recent activities had drained her so. For the time being, her powers were diminished and she would need a few days to recoup. Until then, she was limited as to what destruction she could render.
If she could not kill the woman, then she could frighten her, hopefully into running back East where she belonged. Frances Gannon was a threat in more ways than one.
Good thing the stupid woman had been so trusting...and that she herself had been quick of hand. She turned the token over and over before the fire, taking pleasure in the bow's thick satin feel.
Drinking the potion she had specially mixed, she squeezed the scrap of material in her fist and waited. When she felt the power slide along her limbs, when her lashes fluttered, slitting her eyes, she pressed the satin to her forehead and uttered the invocation.
"Free me, oh powerful one, from this earthly body. Let my spirit cut through the night like a knife. Let the wind cast no shadow..."
SHADOWS EVERYWHERE. And somewhere deep within them, Frances sensed danger.
Another premonition.
Only a full moon lit the deserted, windswept streets of Santa Fe. The earthen buildings glowed a deep blue around her. A middle-of-the-night quiet pressed down so heavy she could barely breathe.
So as not to twist an ankle, she skipped over a rut made long ago by a wagon wheel. Despite her caution, she was hurrying, spurred on by this sense of urgency that she couldn't explain. The wind rose, its howl mournful, and her gaze flitted in every direction as she raced toward home. But no matter how fast she moved, how far she went, the Blue Sky Palace remained elusive, frustratingly out of sight.
She turned an unfamiliar corner. Then another. Panic set in when she realized she'd gone in the absolute wrong direction. Empty-eyed warehouses near the railroad's spur line loomed over her like dark ghosts.
Frances remembered Nate's body being loaded onto a funeral wagon here.
She had stopped and was trying to conjure his image when she heard a low grunt and a steady padding too light to be a person's footsteps. And yet something was heading her way. Following her? She strained to hear. A low animal noise. A growl. The padding drawing close enough to raise the hair on the back of her neck.
Keeping her gaze trained on a narrow street between two of the buildings – she was certain the sounds came from that direction – Frances backed up and almost fell when her calf rammed into the boardwalk beneath a portal. She was distracted long enough for whatever it was to draw closer. For her to hear the rapid panting indicating an animal's excitement.
And then she saw the eyes.
They glowed unnaturally. She was caught. Mesmerized. Trapped by their very intensity.
The panting grew louder, echoed from building to building. Reverberated inside her mind. Her mouth went dry and she forgot to breathe. Light-headed as the creature drew inexorably closer, its path straight for her, she began edging away.
When it crossed the street drenched in moonlight, she gasped in horror. A wolf. Jaws slathering. Eyes burning, coveting. Frances sensed it wanted her.
The skinwalker.
Flying along the boardwalk, Frances knew she didn't stand a chance in the open. The wolf's lazy lope narrowed the distance fast.
An open doorway. She sped over the walk and through the maw, slamming the heavy panel in the wolf's very face. Heart hammering, she sucked in the dusty air before moving away from the clawing, tearing noise on the other side. Away from the throaty growls of frustration.
Careful to make no noise herself, Frances crept through the near-dark – a single window gave some sense of where things lay. She found a staircase and had just reached the landing, had barely stepped through a doorway into some kind of hallway when the sound of splintering glass sent a rise of flesh straight down her back.
She felt her way through the dark, her silence magnified by the furious growls from below telling her the creature would soon be inside. Her stomach roiled and she thought she would be sick. No, not sick. And she wouldn't be the creature's prey if she could help it.
She kept moving.
At the end of a long room swept by moonlight shafting through the lone window, Frances found a hidey-hole, a small storage area beneath a back stairway. She crouched to enter. Pulled the door shut even as she heard the click of nails against the wooden risers. Waited in the dark, heart pounding.
Found herself praying for help, or lacking that, forgiveness for any wrongs she might have committed against others.
She grasped onto a spark of faith that hadn't died, after all, and realized that forgiveness was a gift to be given as well as received. If she survived the skinwalker, she would remember that when dealing with mere mortals.
Scratching at her door, the wolf waited directly outside her hiding place. The wooden panel shuddered with the unnatural creature's strength.
And Frances prepared to die.
She closed her eyes, allowed a few tears to slip through her lashes. Her only thought: she would never see Chaco again. She'd never told him that she loved him and now it was too late. She'd judged him and he'd turned away from her.
"Chaco, think of me," she whispered into the dark as the door shuddered and, with a horrible tearing sound, gave.
/> Smelling the acrid scent of evil descend upon her, Frances screamed and lunged forward, grasping the wolf by the neck. Bodies snugged together, they went flying into the empty room. Blindly, Frances shoved her fingers into the wolf's mouth so fast and hard that it didn't have time to bite her. Now, with her fist keeping its jaw open, it couldn't.
Rolling over and over across the floor, Frances felt the body against her change. Wolf to woman. Woman to wolf. It made human gagging sounds. Tried to claw her. Claws became nails. But whose?
They rolled into the shaft of light.
A shot rang out.
With a terrified-sounding screech, the creature ripped itself from her grip and went flying into the dark where it disappeared.
Panting, Frances gasped, "Who..."
A silhouette separated from the shadows. "You called me, Frankie."
"Chaco?"
He was holding a gun whose smoke curled through the moonlight. A gun that had killed a man earlier. And that now had saved her life.
She plunged to her feet and threw herself into his arms, but even as he kissed her, her head began to spin and her knees refused to hold her. Unable to hold on any longer, knowing she was safe, she let go...
...coming to with a start sometime later.
She was in her own bed. Alone. Sweat-soaked and shaking.
A dream. All a terrible dream. No one had been chasing her, after all. Her breath came in choked spurts. The last days had affected her more deeply than she'd realized.
The talk of a skinwalker.
Her fear for Chaco.
Her disappointment in his taking up his gun against Martinez.
He'd shown up in the casino to work as scheduled, though he hadn't exchanged so much as a greeting with her. He'd reverted to his old self – closed and dangerous – and had seemed to be looking for another fight. None of the customers had been stupid enough to give him that opportunity. And when the casino had shut down, Chaco had disappeared into the night like the skinwalker in her dream.
Frances wondered where he was now. Sleeping? Or was he in truth walking the empty streets of Santa Fe? Surely he would be safe.
