Devil in Texas (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 1)

by Adrienne deWolfe

  Devil in Texas

  Lady Law & The Gunslinger

  Book One

  by

  Adrienne deWolfe

  Bestselling, Award-winning Author

  Published by ePublishing Works!

  www.epublishingworks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-61417-840-8

  By payment of required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this eBook. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented without the express written permission of copyright owner.

  Please Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The reverse engineering, uploading, and/or distributing of this eBook via the internet or via any other means without the permission of the copyright owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

  Copyright © 2016 by Adrienne M. Sobolak. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  Cover by The Killion Group www.thekilliongroupinc.com

  eBook design by eBook Prep www.ebookprep.com

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Author's Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Meet the Author

  Author's Note

  Dear Reader,

  October will live in infamy. I was happily writing page 400 of a new Fantasy novel when WHAMMO, my computer died. To make matters worse, my computer got stolen from the repair shop! I lost all my unpublished manuscripts.

  I was catatonic.

  Two days later, my publisher contacted me out of the blue, inviting me to write a fresh new novella for a Western Romance anthology. I couldn't bear the thought of re-writing that Fantasy, so I threw myself into Shady Lady (the prequel to Devil in Texas.)

  Shady Lady was the first story I conceived with the star-crossed lovers, Cass and Sadie. Published in the #1 bestselling anthology, Pistols and Petticoats, that novella poured out of me like dictation. I felt like I had lived in 1879, that I knew Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, and that I'd performed on the Dodge City stage where Sadie sang her bawdy songs.

  While Sadie was born in Shady Lady, her lover was born in Seduced by an Angel (Book 3, Velvet Lies series.) Ironically, "Coyote Cass" was supposed to be the villain of that novel, but he kept whispering in my ear: "Aw, c'mon, I'm not so bad. I need a book—and a woman—of my own!" The next thing I knew, I was doing something crazy: rewriting the plot of Seduced by an Angel so I could redeem Cass.

  Those revisions let me reunite Cass and Sadie in Devil in Texas. The story opens four years after Shady Lady, and 16 months after Seduced by an Angel. Cass is seeking redemption for his outlaw past, and Sadie (unbeknownst to Cass) is working undercover as a Lady Pinkerton.

  Devil in Texas is Book One of Lady Law & the Gunslinger, my first Romantic Suspense series—although I like to think these books are a bit broader than that. I envision Cass and Sadie stories as Action-Adventure mixed with Romance. Throughout this series, you can expect lots of sparks and plenty of humor as Cass and Sadie work together—and sometimes against each other!—to rid the world of outlaws.

  Welcome back to the Wild West, my friend. With Cass and Sadie, anything can happen.

  Let the sparks begin!

  Adrienne deWolfe

  Austin, Texas

  Chapter 1

  Galveston, Texas

  August 1883

  Death: the end of the line.

  There was a certain poetic justice to the idea here, at the corner of Post Office and 26th streets, where The Wicked plied their trade in sin. Galveston's tenderloin district—better known as The Line—was doing a booming business. Drunkards whizzed on walls. Hooligans rolled dice in alleys. Prostitutes primped, flashing more than smiles in the ruddy light of brothel windows.

  As far as the eye could see, no tin-star intruded on the scene, probably because payoff day occurred on the first of the month. Until then, the law never crossed The Line. That meant tonight, no one would interfere.

  'No one will even notice,' mused the figure in the itchy, fake beard, who lurked across the street from the Satin Siren Casino and Saloon.

  Asrael. The Regulator of God. That was how the figure thought of itself while disguised in the rumpled, linen sack suit that sodbusters favored in town. Like the Angel of Death, the mortal Asrael felt no remorse to orchestrate deeds ordained by the King of Heaven. The Satin Siren was a pestilential den of drunken savages and thieving whores. Behind its deceptively quaint, nautical doors, depravity raged unabated. More to the point, the casino was the lair of the She-devil and her spawn, who'd interfered in Asrael's plans.

  For the last time.

  Fueled by divine righteousness and a potent dose of contempt, Asrael felt no fear of The Line's shifty-eyed rabble, even as twilight faded over Post Office Street, and night stretched its tentacles toward the slutty redhead on the casino's sign. Asrael imagined the She-devil must look much like that garish, birdlimed mermaid.

  Soon that mystery would be solved. At eight o'clock, the stage curtains were scheduled to rise. The "Mermaid Queen" would show her tits to morally bankrupt men for the last time.

  As if on cue, the hired gun across the street checked his timepiece. When his eyes locked with Asrael's, the man grinned, tossed aside his smoke, and disappeared into the alley of the brothel.

  Asrael's lips carved out a ghoulish smile.

  Eight o'clock. Divine justice.

  Death at the end of The Line.

  Asrael couldn't wait for the show to begin.

  * * *

  Life was about to get good.

  That's what William "Cass" Cassidy thought as he craned back his blond head to gawk at the mostly naked mermaid, who protruded in all the right places from the brothel's sign. When he spied the seagull roosting so happily between the nymph's pumpkin-sized breasts, Cass's grin turned lopsided.

  "You see that, Collie?" Cass reined in beside his 17-year-old sidekick and jerked his thumb in the direction of the mermaid. "I'm gonna get me one of those."

  Collie shoved back his hat, spilling sun-bleached hair to his shoulders. He frowned up at the mermaid's trident. "Looks like another way to get ventilated, if you ask me."

  Cass chuckled. Dismounting, he let his buckskin forge a place at the crowded hitching post. About 11 months ago, Collie had saved Cass's leg—and maybe his life—from the bite of a copperhead. Cass had rescued the Kentucky-born orphan from a life of small-time thiev
ery in an even smaller Appalachian town. Somewhere between Louisville and Longview, they'd learned to tolerate each other. Sort of.

  "I told you," Cass said, using his black Stetson to slap the trail dust from his all-black duds. "The Line is the safest place in Sin City for a fella on the run."

  "You yak about a lot of things, Snake Bait," Collie grumbled, referring to the copperhead incident. He shooed his pet from his lap so he could swing from the saddle. "But what I really want to know is: why does a state senator want to meet you in a place like this?"

  "'Cause Austin's crawling with Rangers."

  "Well, that should have been your first clue."

  "About what, Mary Sunshine?"

  "That your old ranch boss is as crooked as a corkscrew."

  "Says the kid who steals pies off windowsills."

  "Hey! A fella's gotta eat!" Collie's lean, wolfish cheeks turned as red as his bandanna. "'Sides. I thought you wanted to be a Ranger, not piss one off."

  "Depends on the Ranger."

  The truth was, Cass was hoping to strike a deal with his old ranch boss. Now that James "Cattle Baron" Westerfield chaired the Senate's Criminal Justice Committee, he had the political clout to fix Cass's troubles with the law—troubles that had started back home, in Pilot Grove, when Cass learned the hard way that tin-stars took a dim view of Good Samaritans, who tried to clean up Texas with their guns.

  Thanks to letters of commendation written on Cass's behalf by Kentucky lawmen, Baron learned that Cass wanted to return to Texas. Unfortunately, those same letters had fallen into the hands of Rexford Sterne, Cass's mortal enemy, who somehow got himself appointed Adjutant-General of Texas's elite law-fighting force.

  Thanks to Sterne's Rangers, Cass and Collie had been forced to ride for three weeks through bayou country, where they'd seen more water moccasins, alligators, and mosquitoes than two men should have to see in their lives. Collie had wondered where the drought was. And the cattle. And why any sane person would settle in Texas.

  Collie hadn't exactly fallen in love with the dive-bombing seagulls of Galveston, either.

  Tethering his roan to the hitching post, the boy squinted across the street. "Don't look now," he warned in his gruff, backwoods manner, "but that fella on the porch has been watching you ever since we turned down Post Office."

  Cass glanced over his shoulder.

  "I told you not to look! It could be a Ranger, for crying out loud!"

  "Wearing a bowler and sack suit?" Cass snorted. "You got sawdust for brains to think something so stupid."

  "Stupid ain't my affliction," Collie retorted loftily. "I didn't travel a thousand miles to put my neck in a noose."

  The kid had a point. Cass hated when that happened.

  But Cass hadn't been able to stay in Kentucky any longer. Not the way tensions had been building up inside him over the fiancée of his best friend. After riding with Lynx for 11 years, leaving the Cherokee behind had been the hardest thing Cass had ever done. Even harder than watching Lynx put a ring on Sera's hand.

  Cass squared his jaw. Yeah. Leaving Kentucky was the right thing to do.

  "All right," he told Collie. "I'm going in."

  "It's your funeral."

  "And you're going in with me."

  "No, thanks. I hear brain rot's contagious—Hey!"

  Ignoring the growls of Collie's furry bodyguard, Cass dragged his sidekick through the fancy, nautical doors of the Satin Siren Casino and Saloon. His gunslinger's eyes only blinked once to adjust to the foyer's ambient lighting, which was relatively bright, even for a high-class house of sin.

  Releasing Collie's arm, Cass halted on turquoise, shell-shaped tiles. As usual, his hands twitched above his .45s while his gaze hunted for threats. The gaming hall was crowded, despite the early hour. He had the fleeting impression of gilded frescos, crystal chandeliers, and liveried faro dealers.

  Then he noticed the stage—or rather, its aqua curtain. Craning back his head, he couldn't help but grin as he drank in every detail of that panorama of lust. The central focus was a galleon, marooned in the middle of a tropical lagoon. Beneath the prow, the captain was wrestling a fantastical, whiskered tiger shark with a woman's breasts. An octopus with unmistakably female eyes was using her tentacles to make naked sailors succumb to lust.

  But Cass's favorite part of the tapestry was the army of warrior mermaids, who were herding shackled swabbies into a coral cave. The captives didn't look all that alarmed by the dastardly things the Mermaid Queen was doing to their compadres. Who would have guessed fishtails could be used in such imaginative ways?

  Suddenly, a whale-sized bully with anchor tattoos appeared to block Cass's educational view.

  "What the hell is that?" the bouncer growled, fixing his good eyeball—the one without the patch—on the whiskered tub of lard at Collie's feet.

  The boy bristled. He'd never been fond of authority. "Did ya go blind in both eyes? That's a coon, Blackbeard."

  Cass coughed into his fist, mostly to hide his amusement. "Howdy, pard," he greeted the pirate. "Don't mind Coon Collie, here. Kentucky dumbass asylums don't get much sun. Our Texas drought must've fried his brain."

  Blackbeard sneered at this assessment. He had only half his teeth, and most of them were chipped. "Coons ain't allowed. No dumbasses, neither."

  "So who let you in?"

  Blackbeard purpled at Collie's taunt. Cass had a vision of crunching bones and gushing blood—mostly Blackbeard's, if the bouncer dared to lay a hand on the raccoon's precious boy.

  Fortunately for Blackbeard, a blonde in a flurry of gauzy turquoise strolled into the fray. With her coral circlet and gilded trident, the bawd bore more than a passing resemblance to the nymphs on the stage's curtain.

  "Welcome to the Satin Siren," she greeted, her silvery voice reminiscent of chimes. "I'm Randie."

  Cass winked. "I'll bet you are."

  Collie rolled his eyes.

  "And who have we here?" Randie gushed, bending at the waist to let the coon sniff her manicured hand. The pose let Cass see clear to her navel.

  "Why, that there's Vanderbilt," Cass drawled. "Vandy Vanderbilt Varmint. At least, that's how he's known on all the kitchen Wanted Posters. Vandy never met a sweetmeat he didn't like."

  "Is that a fact?" Randie's rose-petal lips fairly dripped nectar. "Then we'll have to find your coon something yummy, won't we?"

  "And my name's Collie," the boy interceded acidly. "Collier McAffee. Just in case you get around to wondering."

  Randie's cool green eyes swept over the boy's buckskin shirt, which hid a deceptively lean, muscle-packed torso. Next, her eyes dropped to his package—or more likely, to the Levi pockets flanking his plain brass buckle and sturdy thighs. Spying no indication of wealth, the bawd dismissed Collie and lavished her honeyed smile on Cass.

  "Baron's expecting you. In the private poker room. Tito, darling," she cooed to the bouncer, "let the nice raccoon pass."

  Grudgingly, Tito stepped aside, and Vandy scurried past his boots. But even Randie's influence couldn't keep the bouncer from confiscating gun belts. Cass kept his peace, because like any self-respecting outlaw, he'd concealed all manner of weapons beneath his duster. Collie didn't fuss, because he only needed to bellow a two-syllable command to turn Vandy into a holy, freaking terror.

  Thus, the male threesome trotted like lemmings after Randie's sweetly swaying hips. She led them to a side room, dominated by a mahogany poker table with five empty chairs and a well-stocked bar. Chewing the fat with the drink wrangler was a middle-aged man with a big-boned frame, much like a grizzly bear's. Despite the top hat that capped the gent's salt-and-pepper hair, and the elegantly waxed mustachios that hid the scar from an old sucker punch, Cass had no trouble recognizing the Burnett County ranch boss, who'd given him his first shot at earning an honest wage.

  "Well, I'll be damned!" Baron boomed the moment Cass stepped across the threshold. "It's the Rebel Rutter! What's the matter, Cass? Run out of brothels in Dodge?"


  "Aw, shucks. You'd think I was a voter, the way you sweet-talk me." Cass shook the old skirt-chaser's hand. "How ya doin,' Baron?"

  "Still prodding, boy! That's what counts. You wearing a Ranger badge yet?"

  "Not yet."

  "Damned fools in Austin."

  Puffing his stogie like a fiend, Baron squinted next at Collie and his ring-tailed charmer. "Looks like someone snookered his way out of becoming a hat," the senator observed drolly.

  While Cass made the introductions, he couldn't help but notice that age, or maybe illness, had shaved at least twenty pounds off Baron's frame. His fancy swallowtails hung loosely around his middle section, and the whites of his coffee-colored eyes were faintly yellow.

  But whatever was ailing the old bull hadn't dampened his libido. He patted Randie's shapely rump. "Give the boys what they want, Sweet Cakes. Put it on my tab."

  Collie roused himself from his scowl. "You got Kentucky bourbon in this dive?"

  "Collie's not used to Texas-friendly," Cass confided.

  Baron chuckled. "The boy needs a teat, that's all. Randie, find Collie a heifer who knows how to treat a bull."

  "Sure thing, Baron. You like blondes, don't you, Collie?"

  "Now she notices me."

  "Not her, kid." Baron's eyes danced. "A woman like Randie is champagne. After a steady diet of sarsaparilla, her kind of fizz is an acquired taste."

  Randie lavished her nectar-dripping smile on Baron. He raised her knuckles to his lips.

  Collie went back to scowling.

  After the bawd made her graceful exit, Cass turned his attention to Baron. "So where's this high-stakes poker game you promised us?"

  "Hell if I know. Me and the wife were attending a birthday social this afternoon, when my secretary brought me word that the poker game got cancelled. But the barkeep says the opening ante got moved to half-past-eight."