Claudia Dain

by A Kiss To Die For

  "You're scaring the life right out of me, one day at a time," he growled. "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?" He took a step closer, his boots brushing the hem of her skirt. She stayed right where she was. Seven o'clock was such a long way off; why, it wasn't even lunchtime yet. "You can't just go off with any man, letting him touch you and get close to you. There's dangerous men in this world, Miss Ross...."

  She didn't pay much attention to his words after that. He was leaning down to her and she rose up on her toes, lifting her mouth to his, ignoring everything she knew of men, just for this minute. Just for a minute, she wanted to get close to him, to taste him, to feel the pulse of him on her lips. Just once, she wanted to surrender.

  He hesitated just for a second, just before their mouths met; she closed her eyes and tilted her head back, showing him that she was surrendering, that she wanted this kiss at this moment more than she remembered wanting anything. He seemed to growl a bit and then he kissed her.

  It was the kind of kiss that could drive a girl into some real deep trouble.

  It was hunger wrapped in gentleness, roughness cloaked in restraint. It was deep and thorough and wet and it was over much too fast.

  He lifted his head, pulling away from her. She leaned against him, her mouth seeking his still, until he held her by the arms and pushed her away from him.

  "Do you kiss Bill that way?" he said in a hushed growl.

  She opened her eyes slowly and blinked away the haze. "No."

  The Topeka train whistle sounded sharply just a few feet from where they were standing. Anne jerked as if whipped and turned away from Jack, shamed beyond words, only to face John Campbell. He looked as though he'd like to whip her, right then and there. But he'd most likely let Miss Daphne do the job.

  Anne rushed off the platform, her skirts swinging against her legs, not giving him a backward glance, which Jack thought was smart. The first smart thing she'd done since he showed up on her porch like a stray dog. Jack watched the stationmaster until the man stopped looking at Anne and turned to face him. It didn't take long for the man to duck his head and turn back to the station depot. Jack was left alone on the platform as the train pulled out of Abilene. What stuck with him was how naive that gal was with men, and the memory of that kiss. And the memory of her telling him that she kissed Bill.

  What got into him when he was with her? This was the second time he'd made a fool of himself with her on this platform, acting like a bull with a cow when she had her tail up. Anne Ross wasn't a cow twitching her tail; she was a proper lady and he was acting more bullish each time he saw her. Trouble was, she didn't know the first thing about heading off a man who was charging after her. She shoulda stopped that kiss. He'd thought she was going to and couldn't stop himself when she didn't. She shouldn't have looked at him as though she wanted to melt into his bones, as though she would have gone on kissing him until the sun set if he hadn't held her off. He didn't have much practice at holding women off of him and he sure didn't want to learn with her. Damn, but she was a fool woman to lean into a man that way.

  There was a killer out there who'd just love to find a woman like Anne Ross under his hands.

  Jack slapped his hat against his leg and jumped off the platform to the dust below.

  "Why didn't she tell me to mind my own damn business?"

  Chapter 11

  "John, don't often see you in here this time of day. Beer?"

  Shaughn stopped sweeping to step behind the bar and pour out a beer before John Campbell had a chance to answer.

  "Rye," John gritted out. "And you'd better save that beer for yourself when I tell you what I just witnessed over at the depot."

  "Not another killing," Shaughn said slowly, setting down the half-full glass of beer and pouring out a jigger of rye.

  "Of a sort. The killing of a fine girl's reputation," John said, taking a swallow from his glass. He in no way came close to finishing it off in one swallow; he wasn't much of a serious drinker.

  "A girl's reputation was killed at the depot? At ten-thirty in the morning? How?"

  "You wouldn't need to ask how if you knew the man who did the killing. Specializes in killing." He took another swallow.

  There was only one man in town who specialized in killing. And there was one girl, one fine girl who was at the depot several times a day, who had caught that man's eye, caught his eye right here at this bar. Shaughn reached for the beer.

  "What happened?" he asked after he had downed the beer and set the glass carefully on the polished bar. He had to know. He felt somehow responsible since Jack Scullard had spotted Anne standing right here in his saloon. But maybe it wasn't all that much; people liked to talk, especially about someone universally hated, and Jack Skull was that. Might not have been much at all. After all, what could happen on a railway platform before supper?

  "First of all, he escorts her to the depot like she was his personal property, and that when she comes fine enough on her own seven days a week without any help from him."

  Shaughn relaxed. "Now that doesn't sound so bad—"

  "That ain't all." John took another swallow, a bigger one than the first, and it went down easier. That was the nice thing about drinking; it got easier. "He's standing there, talking to her like he's got the right. Just about nose-to-nose he was."

  "Talking ain't no crime, John."

  "And then he kissed her." John Campbell took his final swallow and finished off his rye. His glass hit the bar like a club coming down. Shaughn flinched and, on reflex, poured another. He poured two, one for each of them.

  "You mean like a kiss on the cheek?"

  "Hell, no, I don't mean a kiss on the cheek! It wasn't no grandma kiss he gave her, Shaughn. It was a kiss!"

  "Oh." Shaughn swallowed his rye. It went down hard, but he needed something hard to straighten out his thinking. "What'd she do?"

  "Stood there and took it." John looked sideways at Shaughn and took another swallow. His glass was almost empty again.

  "She didn't hit him or raise a fuss?"

  "Anne?" John snorted. "Would Anne raise a fuss if a hornet crawled into her corset?" John grumbled, slamming his glass down again. It was empty. "Course she didn't raise a fuss. She didn't even raise a hand to slap his face."

  "Oh." Shaughn finished his drink, thinking. Thinking was getting harder; he didn't usually drink hard liquor and never before supper. "What'd you do?"

  John blanched and made a face as if the rye were going to come back on him. "What could I do?" he blustered. "He has two guns strapped down and I've got nothin'. I'm no fool to tangle with a man like that. A killer."

  "Oh. Yeah." Shaughn nodded, clearing away the glasses. It made sense. He wouldn't want to tangle with Jack Skull either, even with guns of his own. It would have been different for Anne, being a woman. She could have slapped his face and come away unbloodied.

  "Good morning, John," Martha said, coming into the room from the back. "Not often we get to see you this time of day. I was just bringing Shaughn something to eat. Would you like some pork stew? Lot of fat on that pig, cooked up nice and rich."

  John looked the worse for that description and walked to the door, carefully. "No, thank you, Martha, I need to get back."

  Martha watched him out and then turned to her son. "What were the two of you doing, sitting in here drinking when you should be about your business? I've never known John to drink before dinner and I've rarely seen you drink with the customers. He did pay?"

  Actually, he hadn't, but Shaughn was certain he would. When he felt more himself.

  "He had some hard news to pass along and wanted a drink or two to get it out."

  "Not Miss Daphne?" Daphne Todd was the oldest female in the community and, though she was fit, no one could last forever. "My, but I thought she looked flushed at the last meeting of our sewing circle."

  "It's not Miss Daphne."

  Martha handed him the bowl of stew she'd brought from their kitchen, right outback of the saloo
n. Shaughn looked at it, noting the swirls of cooling grease that marbleized the brown surface of the stew, and toyed with his spoon. Maybe if he stirred it up...

  "Then what? Are they moving the lines? Will we lose the railroad?" Abilene was failing, but it would be death to lose the railroad. The trains were the life of the town, especially since the cow trails had moved west.

  "No. He saw something at the depot this morning that ruffled him up."

  That said it all, really. Only one person in town made a life out of hanging around the train station and it wasn't John Campbell, he only worked there.

  "Did Anne finally board one of those trains and get out of here?" Shaughn only shook his head and continued to stir his stew. "Shaughn O'Shaughnessy, it was Anne! If you don't tell me what happened this minute, I'll dump that stew on the floor!"

  Not such a bad idea, the way his stomach felt with that rye rolling around. Shaughn looked up at his ma and said, "She got good and kissed." When she smiled and started to shake her head, he knew why. Everyone knew that Bill Tucker was back in town. "By Jack Skull." She stopped smiling.

  "And John Campbell watched?"

  "I won't say he watched, but he saw it."

  "Don't pick at words with me, Shaughn. If John saw it, he could have done something about it."

  "Against Jack Skull?" Shaughn gave up on the stew. "Ma, what was he supposed to do? Die to save her from a kiss? Besides, the way he tells it, Anne didn't exactly fight him off."

  "You don't expect a grown man like John Campbell to fight Jack Skull but you expect little Anne Ross to?"

  "Well, now, she's a woman."

  "And?"

  "And women can take care of themselves in situations like that."

  "Against a killer?" she huffed, hands on her hips in frustrated fury. "When there's a dead girl lying in the doc's office right now?"

  Shaughn's face blanched like John's had done just moments before. He hadn't thought of that. The rye bubbled and burned in his gut and he fought to keep it down. It just didn't pay to have hard liquor before dinner.

  "Eat your supper, Shaughn," Martha said, beyond all patience with her son and with men in general. "I'm going to see to the dishes and then I'm going to pay a visit to Nell and see if she knows what's run afoul of her daughter."

  "Now don't go stirring things up worse than they are."

  "I don't much see how things could get worse, but I'll be discreet. I don't want to cause poor Anne any more trouble than she's already in. As to Jack Skull, I don't hold anything against the man for his chosen line; we need bounty men, after all, but he should know that it's not his place to dog after a nice girl like Anne."

  "I agree," Shaughn said. And he did. Bounty men kept their distance and kept their place with no one needing to explain why.

  Martha had just closed the door behind her when Powell ambled in, pipe between his teeth. "Good day, O'Shaughnessy."

  "Good afternoon, Powell. Slow day at the livery?"

  "Slower than Campbell's seeing at the depot," he said through a blue haze of pipe smoke.

  Shaughn nodded and got out a clean glass. He should have known; Powell came by every day but not until dusk. It was hours till nightfall, about seven o'clock this time of year.

  "You thirsty for rye or beer?"

  "Beer," Powell said easily. "I've lived long enough to see worse than this."

  "I guess there's some good in that."

  "Don't know how," Powell muttered. "Anne's not lived so long; this is bad enough for her. If she was here, I'd spot her the rye myself and tell her she owed me nothing. Can't get much worse than a girl of her standing being mauled by a renegade like Jack Skull. Why, I wouldn't put my worst nag in the way of him and his kind."

  "I heard," Shaughn said, passing the beer across the well-worn bar.

  "And was I right?" Powell poked his pipe stem into the air surrounding Shaughn. "Man doesn't get a reputation like Jack Skull has hanging on his spurs by spitting upwind. That gal was playing it smart by not setting her spurs into him; you never know what a man like that will do when he's riled, except that you won't like it. Let him steal his kiss and then move along, out of the territory, and keep your distance from then on. Smart girl, that Anne. She knew when to fight and she knew when to hold her cards."

  "You ever seen Anne fight?" Shaughn asked, drying the glass John Campbell had used on a snowy white bar towel. His ma was particular about such things.

  "Can't say I have, but that don't mean she ain't got it in her. Never met a woman who couldn't give as good as she got, and maybe some better. Anne's likely the sort of gal who picks her fights careful and she did a good job in not picking a fight with Skull. I've never seen a man who would put up with less fuss than that man. Meanest eyes I've ever seen. 'Bout froze my tongue to my teeth first time I saw him."

  "I heard you did plenty of talking," Shaughn said, putting the glass away and wiping down the surface of the bar.

  "Just holding my own, that's all. Man was a splinter away from walking off with my stock, cool as you please, and with no regrets, let me tell you. He's a hard man, that Skull is, with a pile of bodies to mark his passing."

  "He's been in here a time or two. I never had no trouble," Shaughn said, feeling contrary.

  "That's 'cuz you were willing to give him what he wanted. Plain as that. Try telling him no and see how you fare. You don't think Anne stood a chance against him? That little thing? Why if she'd even of turned her face to keep him from laying ahold of her, he'd have shot her dead then and there. He's that mean."

  "That's the talk," Shaughn admitted. He hadn't paid much attention to it; Jack Skull had been tolerable enough in his saloon and he didn't ask for more than that. But this thing with Anne, that changed the game some. It wouldn't do to have Jack Skull sniffing after Anne. No, that was no good.

  Powell upended his glass and drank his beer in long, full swallows. He set the glass down gently, which Shaughn appreciated, and wiped his full, upswept mustache carefully.

  "That's the talk because that's the man. I just hope he's not around long enough to prove it. We haven't had a killing here since the trail moved west and I don't care to see any more killing soon. That Anne, she's a sweet one."

  "You think he'd kill Anne?" Shaughn asked, studying Powell.

  Powell put his pipe back in his mouth and shuffled to the door. "I can tell you firsthand that the man don't take no for an answer. Gets real ornery when what he wants can't be had."

  "You think he wants Anne."

  "He kissed her, didn't he?"

  Powell turned his face to the cold spring air and walked outside. He didn't hear if O'Shaughnessy had anything to say to that. Probably not. What was there to say? Jack Skull was a killer and he had his eye on Anne. Poor little gal.

  There wasn't much action on the boardwalk as he made his way back to the livery. Wind was kicking up, blowing dust as high as a rail fence, but it wasn't cold and it wasn't wet so he paid it no mind. The cold days were gone and the blistering heat of summer still weeks off; these were the golden days, days of moderate temperature, moderate wind, moderate thunderstorms, and the occasional tornado. One of Abilene's finest seasons.

  Mrs. Walton was charging her way down the boardwalk, dragging one of her kids with her. A boy, it was, with red cheeks and glassy eyes and the normal share of bruises. She wasn't going to stop, he could see that, but he was feeling talkative today.

  "Good day to you, Mrs. Walton. Where you headed?"

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Powell," she said, hardly slowing.

  "Trouble following you today, Mrs. Walton?" He gestured to her son, who was at that moment wiping his nose with the palm of his hand. She slapped his hand away from his face.

  "Joel's feeling poorly, Mr. Powell, and I'm taking him to see the doc. I'd like to catch it now before it snares any of the others. Nothing wears me out quicker than a houseful of sick children."

  "Likely one of them spring fevers; had a few myself in my day."

  Joel Wa
lton looked up at Powell, gray and grizzled, brown teeth clamped on his pipe stem, with wonder. No one alive remembered Powell as anything but old.

  "Most likely. Thank you for asking," Emma Walton said. "Do you happen to know if the doc is in his office?"

  "Haven't seen him," Powell answered, pulling out his pipe. "Just left O'Shaughnessy's."

  There was something in the way he said it that made her pause and look at him again. She handed Joel her handkerchief. "Oh?"

  "Talking about what happened just a bit ago over at the depot."

  Emma moved closer, patting Joel absently on the back and taking her own few swipes against his nose with her handkerchief. Emma calculated quickly; the train from Topeka had come in about an hour ago. Anne would have met that train as she met them all, with the exception of those that stopped in the dead of night. Miss Daphne drew the line at allowing her granddaughter to traipse through Abilene in her night rail and slippers. Bill Tucker was back in town. Jack Skull was still loitering about, looking for trouble, no doubt. It seemed safe to guess that the news was about Anne and concerned either Bill or Jack or both, though why Jack Skull would have any reason to go anywhere near Anne Ross was a puzzle.

  "Is Anne all right?" she said, fairly confident that she was close to the mark. Aiming true with limited information was her God-given profession; she was a mother.

  Powell grumbled against his pipe stem, having just lost a fair-sized portion of his thunder.

  "Right enough," he said and waited. When Emma was relaxing into a smile, he added, "If you call being manhandled by Jack Skull 'all right.' "

  She'd had the players picked correctly, but she would never have imagined that scenario. That fact showed on her face. Powell smiled and bit down on his stem, taking a puff of self-satisfaction.

  "Was she hurt?" Emma gripped Joel's hand as if she expected him to be shot out from under her protection. If Jack Skull could attack a woman like Anne, he was capable of anything.

  "Not bloodied, if that's what you mean. That gal has too much thinking to rile a killer like Skull; nah, she just let him steal his kiss and then skittered off home to her mama."