Darlin' Druid

by Lyn Horner

  Meanwhile, the tall, lean one of the bunch replied, “We believed yuh, mister, sure did. And we ain’t aimin’ to give yuh no more trouble. Gerard just had him a little set-to with Conway here.” He gestured at the two men in turn. “But it’s done with now.”

  “It had better be or you will all be put off this train,” the conductor warned. “I won’t allow you four to endanger the other passengers.”

  Gerard shoved his cooler-headed companion aside and stepped up close to Higgins, dwarfing the smaller man. “Listen you, we paid good money same as the rest. Nobody’s puttin’ us off. Try it, and you’ll get a taste of this same as Conway did.” He waved his knife back and forth before the conductor’s face and grinned, exposing broken, rotting teeth.

  Higgins jerked his head back away from the blade. David moved forward, ready to step in, but the conductor stood his ground.

  “Either put that thing away or you will leave this train right now,” he barked, resting his hand on the butt of his Colt.

  “Yeah? You gonna make me with your great big gun? I’ll gut yuh ’fore you ever get it out.” Gerard gave a nasty laugh and glanced mockingly at David. “Or maybe your soldier friend wants to try me.

  “How ’bout it, bluebelly?” he prodded, running a thumb across the sharp edge of his blade, drawing blood. “Think you ’n your baby-faced troopers can handle me and my compadres?”

  David crooked his lips. Hearing the three young soldiers grumble at the far end of the car, he raised his hand to silence them. “We’ll be glad to give it a try,” he said mildly, “but your friends don’t look any too eager to tangle with us.”

  The buffalo skinner’s smirk vanished. He shot a look over his shoulder at his pals. The wounded man, Conway, eyed him resentfully. The other two quickly looked away, confirming David’s assessment.

  “Of course, I’ll be happy to oblige if you still want a fight,” he offered. “Just you and me. Or aren’t those good enough odds for you?” It was reckless of him, he knew, but he couldn’t resist taunting the bastard.

  Flushing red, Gerard growled furiously, but when David didn’t blink, his expression grew uncertain. The loud-mouth clearly enjoyed bullying weaker men, but he had no stomach for a fair fight.

  Gerard abruptly dipped his head, rubbed his neck and gave a sheepish grin. “Shoot, I reckon I was feelin’ techy cuz of Conwaycheatin’ on me. But I got no call to go on the warpath with you fellers. I’m plumb sorry. Won’t happen again.”

  Never had David witnessed a faster about face or a less believable one. Exchanging skeptical glances with Higgins, he shrugged. It wasn’t his place to tell the conductor what to do.

  Higgins faced Gerard. “Very well, you can stay,” he said curtly. “Just so long as you and your friends mind your manners.”

  “We will. Ain’t that right, boys?” Not bothering to look at the others, Gerard received mutters of agreement.

  David moved off a short way with Higgins while the buffalo skinners gathered up playing cards and money. With a gloating sneer at Conway, Gerard pocketed the coins that were handed over to him.

  “I’ll keep an eye on them for a while if you like,” David offered, watching Gerard flop down in his seat and tip his hat low over his forehead.

  Higgins nodded. “Good idea. I’m beholden to you, Captain.”

  “Glad to lend a hand.”

  The conductor turned to leave and David signaled the troopers to return to their own car. When he glanced at the buffalo skinners again, he caught Gerard staring at him from under his hat. The man quickly shut his eyes but not before David glimpsed the black hatred in his gaze. He realized he’d have to watch his back until he parted roads with the varmint.

  Gerard’s friends had settled into their seats, and the small, dark-bearded man was clumsily bandaging Conway’s arm. Satisfied that they wouldn’t start another rumpus any time soon, David scanned the other passengers. He met several curious glances but ignored them as his gaze sought out a certain Irish firebrand seated with her back to him. She had removed her bonnet, and her auburn hair glowed red in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows.

  David had spotted the girl and her male companion from the corner of his eye as he was following Higgins into the car, but his attention had been focused on Gerard. Only a fool took his eyes off a man with a knife in his hand. Now that the crisis was over, though, he found himself wanting to speak to the hot-tempered beauty, despite his earlier decision to walk a wide loop around her.

  Was that her husband with her? David didn’t recall her wearing a wedding band, but she could still be married. Deciding to find out one way or the other, he walked up the aisle and halted, turning to face her. She looked up, blue eyes widening at the sight of him. Her lilac scent drifted up to him, a pleasant change from the mix of body odor and cigar smoke that tainted the hot, humid air.

  Noting her paleness and the death grip she had on her reticule, David guessed the scene with Gerard had frightened her. He touched his hat brim respectfully and smiled. “It’s all over. No need to be afraid, Miss . . . ?”

  “Devlin,” she replied softly, surprising him with her ready answer. She stared at him fixedly, just like before at the depot. “I . . . I’m not afraid, Captain.”

  She wouldn’t admit it, not her. “Glad to hear that, Miss Devlin. And thank you,” he said, struggling to keep a straight face.

  She blinked. “For what, sir?”

  “Why, for telling me your name, of course. Guess you decided to forgive and forget, hmm?”

  Her sleek auburn brows lowered and her sinfully tempting lips thinned in irritation. She hadn’t forgiven him in the least, and if she’d briefly forgotten, that moment was past. However, before she could light into him, her companion rose and cleared his throat.

  “’Twould appear you’re acquainted with my sister, sir,” he said, cutting an uneasy glance back and forth between David and the girl. “Might I be knowing how?”

  Her brother. He should have guessed, David realized. The two of them had the same deep blue eyes, and the man’s features were a bolder version of his sister’s. But their hair color was drastically different.

  “We met back at the depot in Omaha,” David replied, extending his hand. “Captain David Taylor. Glad to meet you.”

  The young Irishman hesitated before clasping his hand briefly. He wore gloves, odd considering the heat. “Tye Devlin, Captain.” He gestured at the open seat facing him and his sister. “Would ye care to join us?”

  Miss Devlin made a strangled sound and glared at her brother, who gave her a questioning stare in return. She looked like she wanted to slug him. David scrubbed a hand across his mouth to hide his amusement. When she turned narrowed blue eyes on him, clearly warning him he’d better not accept the offer, he cocked an eyebrow and smiled.

  “Thanks. Don’t mind if I do,” he drawled, eyes locked with hers.

  Hot color rushed to her cheeks; he could almost see steam rise off of her. She shot her brother another furious glance. “I’ll be sitting by the window if ye please,” she snapped.

  Devlin gave her a perplexed frown but stepped aside, allowing her to scoot across the seat with an irate flourish of her skirts. Wondering what he’d let himself in for, David sat down across from her brother.

  “I admire how ye put yon great ox to shame,” Devlin said, crooking his thumb toward the rear of the car.

  David glanced at Wolf Gerard, who remained slumped in his seat, and shrugged. “I had a hunch he’d pull in his horns without his pals to back him up.” Removing his hat, he laid it on the seat beside him and undid another button on his coat. Damn, it was hot! “At any rate, I only did my duty,” he added.

  “Oh, and I suppose ’twas also your duty to protect the poor corporal back at the depot,” Miss Devlin said tartly, shooting him a scathing look.

  Mouth twitching, he crossed his arms. “Actually, I was more interested in protecting the young lady. Too bad she didn’t see it that way.”

  She
gave him a barbed smile. “Perhaps ’twas how ye went about it, sir, that made her see it otherwise.”

  “There was some sort of trouble back at the depot?” Tye Devlin asked, eyeing her with concern.

  “Aye, ye could say so,” she snapped, staring straight ahead.

  “Your sister had a run-in with one of the troopers who were just in here,” David explained, meeting Devlin’s alarmed gaze. “He got a little forward and –”

  “A little forward?” the lovely redhead challenged.

  “All right, very forward,” he amended, sending her an impatient glance before continuing. “Anyhow, I stepped in to break up their . . . disagreement, and your sister took offense.”

  “There would have been no offense taken if you’d kept your hands to yourself, sir.”

  David scowled at her. “Miss Devlin, I tried speaking to you, but you went right on thrashing Corporal Thompson with this.” He leaned over to poke a finger at her reticule, making her jump. “And like I pointed out before, if he’d gotten mad, I doubt he would have been gentle with you.”

  “Neither were you! Nor did ye show me the proper respect. In fact, ye took more liberties than the corporal, and I wonder if ’twasn’t your true purpose all along.”

  Gritting his teeth, David hankered to either swear a blue streak or silence her sassy mouth with a kiss, her brother and the carload of passengers be hanged! Smothering both impulses, he leaned back and crossed his arms again.

  “Miss Devlin, if I was aiming to take liberties, you’d know it,” he drawled. “And if a woman wants to be treated with respect, she oughtn’t to behave like an ornery she-cat.”

  She gasped. “Why, you . . . you vile . . . !”

  Her brother let loose a howl of laughter. “Saints preserve us! Jessie darlin’, I do believe you’ve met your match in himself here.”

  Jessie. Jessie darlin’. David liked the sound of that. He watched her blush as heads turned their way. She looked young and vulnerable, and regardless of how irritating she was, he regretted causing her more embarrassment.

  “Tye Devlin, be quiet! This instant!” she hissed. Then she drilled David with a fiery blue glare. “As for you, I’ve nothing more to say to ye, sir!” With an imperious lift of her chin, she primly clasped her hands and turned her head to stare out the window.

  Even with her mouth set in anger she was lovely to look at, but she wasn’t for him, David told himself. What he needed in a woman he wouldn’t get from a spitfire with an angel’s face. She was too much like his mother, beautiful, hot-tempered, and probably just as selfish.

  “Don’t mind Jess, Captain,” Tye Devlin said in a mock whisper. “She has a black temper, but ’twill pass.”

  Watching Jessie toss her head defiantly, David doubted that. “I’d better move. Sorry for intruding.” He glanced around for another place to sit and started to rise, but Devlin waved him down.

  “Nonsense. I’d welcome your company for a bit. Might I ask where you’re bound, by the way?”

  Eyeing Jessie’s stiff neck and set lips, David reluctantly settled back in his seat. “I’m headed back to my post, FortSanders,” he replied. “It’s near Laramie, in WyomingTerritory. How about yourself?”

  The Irishman’s eyes lit up and his tone grew excited as he said how he hoped to strike a rich vein of silver in Utah’s WasatchMountains. When he added that Jessie would be staying in Salt Lake City, David glanced at her in alarm.

  Good Lord! She wasn’t a Mormon convert bound for Zion, was she? No, he’d bet not. Being Irish, she was most likely Catholic. And he sure couldn’t picture her wed to some elder with four or five wives and a passel of children. Not with her hair-trigger temper. But then, why was she headed west with her brother?

  “I worked on the Comstock Lode for a while myself,” he said absently, rubbing his jaw and wondering how Jessie intended to support herself in the Mormon capital? Was she a teacher, or would she hire on as some wealthy family’s housemaid?

  “Sure now, I’d like to be hearing about your days on the Comstock,” Devlin replied. Bracing his hands on the seat, he leaned forward eagerly.

  Sitting rigidly beside him, Jessie silently fumed. She longed to kick Tye for inviting the insufferable captain to sit with them. Now she would have to listen to his mining exploits. Just what she needed when she was already worried about her brother, fearing he would get hurt or even killed in his quest for silver.

  Strangely, David Taylor’s answers to Tye’s questions were short, almost terse, as if he disliked the subject of mining. Did it bring back bad memories perhaps? The idea of being shut in some dark hole in the ground terrified Jessie, but he seemed too daring to be afraid of anything.

  Sweet Mary! She couldn’t believe how he’d taunted that villain, Gerard. She’d thought sure the brute would attack him with his vicious knife. When the scene ended peacefully, with the captain alive and unhurt, she’d gone weak with relief and had yet to recover when he stopped to speak to her. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have stared into his eyes like an idiot again, much less told him her name. On top of that, she’d let him goad her into losing her temper once more, and he’d enjoyed every moment of it, the green-eyed devil!

  Curse his eyes! Why must they look so much like those of the man in her dreams? God only knew where and when she would meet that gentle, loving man, but David Taylor certainly was not him. He might be foolishly brave, but gentle, loving? No.

  Jessie strove to ignore him, finding it difficult with his low drawl humming in her ears and his masculine scent wafting to her on the unruly breeze. Miserably hot, she drew her soggy handkerchief from her reticule and patted her damp brow yet again. She couldn’t do anything about the sweat trickling down between her breasts, or the way her undergarments stuck to her so uncomfortably. Oh, for a bit of privacy and a cooling bath! But she had no right to complain, she reminded herself. She had, after all, chosen to come west with Tye.

  At first he had flatly refused to take her with him, but once she’d told him about her water vision of the man with green eyes, and the message telling her to look west, he’d given in. Of course, she had not said a word about her other vision of the madman with hellish orange eyes. If she had, Tye never would have agreed to take her along, for he knew how often her visions came true. Just as she knew what he went through with his own unique gift.

  Their mother had called Tye a sensitive. He could feel other people’s emotions as if they were his own, especially when he happened to touch someone. If the person felt giddy with happiness, so did Tye; if he or she was in the depths of despair, he experienced the same pain. He had suffered mightily as a result, especially as a child. Over the years he had learned to block out part of the racket, as he called it, in order to save his sanity, and he usually wore gloves as an added protection. Even so, Jessie knew he still endured painful episodes from time to time.

  She thought of their little sister Rose. How was she? Had she found peace in the convent, or did she still carry with her the guilt their father had heaped upon her after their mother’s death?

  Da had never been comfortable with his family’s peculiar talents, but he had loved Mam enough to accept her as she was and later come to terms with their children’s oddities. It was losing Mam that made him hate their “damnable curse.” He had blamed her death on Rose’s gift. Was he right or had it all been a cruel coincidence? There was no way to know.

  Thinking of her father, Jessie couldn’t help but remember his furious reaction when she and Tye had told him of their plans to leave home. Seamus Devlin was known for his fierce temper, a fault Jessie had regretfully inherited, and he’d loosed it with a vengeance that night. Barrel chest puffed out, he’d scoffed at Tye’s hopes of striking it rich and had lambasted him for filling Jessie’s head full of nonsense. She’d hastened to tell him it was her own idea to go with Tye, though of course she hadn’t said a word about her water vision. She’d simply said she intended to live her own life out from under his thumb. And perhaps she would be lu
cky enough to find a husband.

  Predictably, Da had flown into a rage.

  “Ye’ll marry a lad I approve of, Jessie Allyn Devlin!” he’d roared, face as red as a tomato and gray hair standing on end. “And ye’ll not set foot out o’ this city with your fool brother.”

  “Aye, I will! Ye can’t stop me!” she remembered shouting, earning a slap from him that sent her stumbling backward in shock. Tye had very nearly come to blows with Da after that, while she herself had grown coldly furious.

  “I gave notice at the hotel this morning,” she’d bluntly announced, “and Tye gave his at McCormick’s. We’ve already purchased our train tickets. We’ll be leaving next week.”

  Merciful heaven, she wished she could forget Da’s stunned expression and how the color had drained from his face. His hoarse words were burned into her brain.

  “Ye quit your jobs behind my back? And threw money away that ye were supposed to be savin’ to rebuild our house? Traitors! How could ye? By all that’s holy, I’ll ne’er call ye son or daughter again!”

  He’d kept his vow. He hadn’t spoken to either of them after that night. Even when they’d tried to bid him farewell, he had turned his back on them.

  Swallowing hard, Jessie blinked to ease the ache of regret behind her eyes. She mustn’t cry here, now, in front of David Taylor. Risking a glance at him, she was dismayed to find him watching her closely. Was that pity in his eyes? She stiffened and glared at him, not wanting pity from any man, least of all him.

  The crease between his brows cleared and he gave her a mocking grin, once more the insufferable rogue. She clenched her hands to keep from doing something she would regret and swung her gaze back to the passing countryside.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A sickle moon hung low in the blue-purple sky over Grand Island, Nebraska, as Jessie ambled along the tracks. This was their first meal stop, and they were late due to the delay back in Omaha. Soon it would be pitch dark. And thank goodness for that! With the onset of evening, the heat had finally begun to let up.