"Take me Tiger," he murmured, "make me yours."
So you can leave me again?
For an embarrassing moment, her eyes filled with tears. She was aghast at her traitorous rise of sentiment. A woman like her couldn't afford to feel. If caring for Cass had been unwise as a whore, it was sheer lunacy as a Pinkerton. Cass excelled at many things, but fidelity wasn't one of them. He was the minstrel of charm, the sensei of seduction...
And the wizard of pleasure. An exquisite, aching kind of pleasure that could leave her shattered in a jumbled heap of emotions she didn't dare explore. His expert caress fanned her inner fires in a way that no other man's could. Friend and foe, lover and rival, student and master—that was Cass. When the stars faded and daylight bloomed, she could count on him to ride away. Because that's what the Rebel Rutter always did.
She squeezed her eyes closed.
She blocked out the hurtful memories.
Hugging his shoulders tighter, she locked her ankles over his buttocks. He shuddered as her hips sank, driving his sleek, slick length into her smoking core. She delighted in the erotic sensation of rubbing bellies and the sinful indulgence of sensitized nipples, dragging through silky man fur. His heart beat a wild, ecstatic cadence against her breasts; her blood thrilled to the surge of his pleasure.
With each rhythmic pump of her hips, she reveled in the corded strength of his thighs and the primal power of his thrusts. He was like her mountain, her Gibraltar. On the outside, icy green tidal waves buffeted her body; on the inside, a firestorm crashed and flashed, raining stars and comets on her senses.
And then came the explosion. Crackling, sizzling, her awareness rocketed through a heavenly storm.
Cass staggered, gasping her name. He clutched her heart fiercely to his, burying his face in her hair. Only a desperate act of will could silence the rapture that wanted to rip from her throat in wild, fearless song:
Always yours, I shall be,
Born for you...
He must never know, she warned herself sternly. He must never, ever know...
"Sadie." He was panting. "How could you not tell me you were a Pinkerton?"
Emotionally drained, physically spent, she slid from his hips. She hadn't expected her knees to buckle. He caught her waist from behind, and for one precious moment longer, she leaned against him, serenaded by the thrumming of his heart.
"Here," he murmured.
The button swung before her tear-glazed eyes. She swept aside her sopping hair, and he fastened the chain around her neck.
Then he turned her shoulders to face him. His fingers, warm and tender, steadied the bauble where it nestled among her freckles, just above her cleavage. She gazed down at his big, sun-bronzed hand, and another forbidden frisson of feeling threatened her composure.
He'd bought her a gold chain.
"Sadie," he murmured, cupping her cheek with his palm. His eyes were like velvet midnight, soft, luminous and full of stars. "I know how lawmen can throw their weight around. I know how they can bully folks, making it seem like you don't have a choice, except to do their bidding."
"Cass—"
"Listen to me." He was holding her face between both hands now and staring into her eyes with an intensity that sent shockwaves to her soul. "Sterne got you into this mess with assassins and arsonists. But you don't have to be afraid any more. I can help you. Baron can help you. All you have to do is tell me—"
A rifle blast shattered the night, echoing like an explosion in the room.
Chapter 14
Cass cursed, bowling her off her feet. They went down with a frenzied splash. Sadie tried to break free of his arms, but he was shoving her into deeper waters. Safer waters.
For a long moment, she was too busy retrieving her footing and trying to swipe hair out of her eyes to surface. Through the bubble fizz above her head, she glimpsed Cass looming over her, like the marble bust of some Grecian warrior-god. His head was cocked to the west. He appeared to be listening.
By the time she'd breached the surface and gulped down air, he'd become Lucifire, minus his guns.
"Head down," he snapped.
She obeyed reluctantly, straining to peer past his hips and over the edge of the pool. As far as she could tell, no assassin was threatening from the deck or the sun porch beyond. Since the skylight wasn't shattered, Sadie concluded that neither she nor Cass had been targets.
That's when the second shot rang out.
"Damnation," Cass muttered, splashing for the deck. "Who's shooting out here after midnight?"
She gave chase. "Maybe Collie's just bored and treeing varmints—"
"Collie's in town. Guarding Baron."
Cass was throwing on his clothes, buckling on his guns. She quailed to think how much this scene resembled their last night together in Dodge: gunfire blazing outside her bedroom window, Cass punching his legs into trousers and pumping bullets into his Colts. That night, she'd feared she would never see him alive again.
The same worry plagued her now.
"I'm coming with you!" she insisted, hauling herself out of the pool.
"You're staying here. Out of sight."
"Dammit, Cass, I know how to fire a—"
"Stay put, woman!" He blasted her with the heat of his glare. "I won't let you die on me again!" Snatching up his pigsticker, he sped down the hall like a black knife, cleaving even darker shadows.
Sadie hurled an oath after his domineering head and grabbed for her trousers. A heartbeat later, she was cursing her denim. It kept sticking to her wet skin. By the time she'd shimmied her dungarees up over her buttocks, the glint of Cass's pale hair had vanished. She couldn't hear the echo of his boots. Only the usual night sounds reigned: katydids, tree frogs, cicadas, owls.
She blew out her breath. Between her shivers and her adrenaline, she despaired that her shaking fingers would ever get her shirt buttoned. Since no one in their right mind would think she was a man without her breast bindings, she didn't bother attaching her suspenders or tucking in her shirttails. She simply stomped on her boots and plunked on her hat.
After the relative brilliance of the pool room, the hall was blacker than Satan's heart. Sadie found herself stumbling blindly into picture frames, potted plants, and towel tables. No wonder Cass had charged down the center of the corridor, instead of edging along the walls.
She braved the yawning void of the hall's center, but she was loath to trot, much less charge into that gloom, since she couldn't see her hand in front of her face. When she came to a four-way intersection, capped by another bubble dome, she didn't have a clue which way he'd turned.
She was just thinking Cass's wisdom to stay put might have been a good idea, when suddenly, her ears caught the rumble of voices, rolling out of the southern corridor where the men's dressing rooms were located.
"...When I heard you got paroled." Baron's resonant baritone carried through a deep, thick silence as unnerving as any tomb's.
"No thanks to you," the outlaw growled in a surly, mid-western accent.
"My attorney kept you from getting hanged in an open-and-shut case. Use the smarts God gave you, Hank. You're finished here. Get the hell out of Lampasas."
"And buy a train ticket with what? My good looks?"
"I'll make the arrangements. Just stay away from Poppy, you hear?"
"Aw, you've gone and hurt my feelings," Hank taunted. "'Course, you being up for reelection and all, I can see how you'd be a bit antsy, not wanting certain things to leak to the press. Say! Maybe we could rendezvous at the ranch. I could take care of your rustlers, like old times."
"I already got a regulator," Baron said curtly.
"You mean that pretty blond with the flashy rig?" Hank snorted. "Hell, Cassidy's as green as split pea soup. I'm not even sure he shaves."
"Do yourself a favor, Hank. Stay off my land."
"Ooh. Now I'm shaking in my boots. You don't think I can take Pretty Boy."
"I don't think you can keep your ass out of jail long eno
ugh for me to worry about it. But just so we're clear: if you take on Cass, you're on your own."
"And if your Golden Boy takes me on, what then? A man's gotta right to self-defense."
"Nothing you ever do is self-defense."
Hank chuckled. "That reminds me, boss. You owe me my hard-earned wage, with interest, since I couldn't collect my usual fee in jail."
Sadie's heart was fluttering like a hummingbird's wings. Recalling that Baron kept a private locker in the building, she wasn't surprised when she heard the unmistakable clicks of a combination lock, followed by the squeal of rusted hinges.
Next, she heard a thump. The noise could have come from anything being tossed onto the floor: a heap of dirty towels. Greenbacks in a sack. Baron's rolling head. Sadie's imagination was going wild. She had to get close enough to see this Hank.
"Much obliged," Hank grunted.
Hank didn't sound "obliged" at all. In fact, he sounded like a greedy, barn-sized pig, except Sadie had too much respect for swine to include Hank among them.
"Wait a minute," Hank growled in ominous tones. "This ain't my usual fee."
"You'll get your usual fee when you get your ass out of Texas. Like we agreed."
"I don't like being stiffed."
"I don't like being blackmailed."
Chills scuttled down Sadie's spine. So Baron had hired Hank at some point to "take care of rustlers." Sadie didn't need much imagination to think that murder was involved, or that Hank had killed for Baron many times in the past. Now Hank was threatening to talk. But who would believe the vermin? Hank must be able to produce some really damaging evidence—evidence that would convince the courts to take an outlaw's word over a senator's!
Excited by her discovery, Sadie had visions of closing her case. She couldn't let the men walk out of hearing now, not when one of them might say something concrete that would let her send Baron to a hanging judge!
As their voices moved down the hall, she eased her pistol from its holster and began the nerve-wracking process of feeling her way along the walls. Her eyes were slightly more useful now, thanks to moonbeams from the skylight behind her. She passed closed doors, which she suspected were massage chambers, dressing rooms, and assembly parlors. She also tiptoed past a set of stairs, where she could hear the gurgle of water—most likely the spring's tufa chamber. When she came to the next intersection, she eased her head around the corner.
The first thing she realized was she'd been walking in a circle. Baron and Hank had halted several feet from the entry to the pool. With the glimmers of moon-dappled water dancing over their forms, Sadie could discern vague details, like Baron's walking stick and Hank's pointed boot toes. The assassin proved to be a man of average height, average build, and average hair color. He was the perfect, nondescript nobody most folks wouldn't notice in a crowd—until he started firing his gun.
She squinted to get a clear view of his face, but his Stetson shadowed the parts that weren't covered by scruffy whiskers and lank, shoulder-length hair. His most recognizable feature proved to be his voice: cold. Guttural. Sneering.
"So how's the missus? Still crazier than a loon?"
"Runs in the family—so I'm told," Baron added snidely.
Hank barked with laughter. "You know, a love like that can be a poison."
"Prison taught you about love, eh?"
"I learned a lot of things in prison," Hank drawled. "I also met a couple acquaintances of yours—and some cronies of your railroad pals, too. Maybe I'll swing by the hotel. Introduce myself proper to your rich friends."
"Be my guest. The Grand Park is crawling with tin-stars. And speaking of tin-stars, remember the Ranger who got you locked up in state prison? You can pay your respects to him at the Globe Hotel."
Sadie's hackles rose. I have to warn Rex!
They'd turned their backs on her and started walking again. Suddenly, Hank's boots slid out from under him. He sputtered a blood-curdling oath but recovered his balance with the agility of a rattler. Squatting with a vengeance, he swiped his fingers across the terra cotta tiles leading to the pool's vaulted entry.
"Some bastard was bathing here tonight! These drip-drops lead down yonder—"
Sadie was so busy backing around the corner, she never saw the attendant's station. Her hip slammed into it, causing a loud thump and a metallic crash.
Holy freaking crap!
Hank charged after her. She could hear his boots pounding like sledge hammers above the crashing of her heart. She fled past the first room and ducked inside the second, only to learn, to her horror, that she'd entered a billiards parlor with no window and no bolt for the door. She was trapped!
Suddenly, a familiar, Kentucky drawl groused in the hall: "Dang crazy varmint. You want to wake the dead? C'mere! Gimme that! I told you to stop washing my gloves in that green stinkin' pool."
Collie!
God bless his quick thinking.
Muffled growls reverberated through the corridor, as if the boy was wrestling Vandy for his supposedly sopping glove. Under the cover of this cacophony, Sadie heard Hank's furtive retreat and what sounded like the squealing of the sun porch door.
Collie raised his laconic baritone above Vandy's ferocious snarls. "Baron! You down this way?"
Sadie held her breath, counting five heartbeats before Baron's irritated voice boomed:
"I told you to wait outside, boy!"
"Well, dang. Blame a body for doing his job. You've been holed up in here for a coon's age. How was I supposed to know you weren't drowned?"
The scrabble of claws on terra cotta was accompanied by the steady thumping of a long, rangy stride. Tense and quivering, Sadie tightened her grip on her pistol as the boy strolled past her door. She had no doubt Collie knew she was hiding. The question was: Did Baron?
A deep grunt and the faint clinking of what might have been a belt buckle reached Sadie's straining ears.
"Hell, kid. Can't a man crap in peace?"
"Sure, Baron. But Cass told me to watch over you."
"While I'm taking a dump?"
"Aw, don't be that way. Cass thinks of you like his own Pa. He'd plug me himself if something happened to you on my watch."
"Where is Cass?" Baron demanded in grudging tones. "He's been missing ever since the recital."
"Last I saw, he was paying a call on Dr. Cuervo. And asking ol' José to cure him of redhead fever."
Their voices were fading now, along with the echo of boots in the corridor.
Silently, shakily, Sadie slumped against the door.
Kid, I owe you a lot more than a new pair of gloves.
* * *
Worried Hank might be lingering in the woods outside Aquacia, Sadie didn't dare exit the bathhouse through a door. Instead, she sneaked out the window of an assembly room, trusting a hardy live oak and a bristling row of forsythia bushes to cover her escape.
Fortunately, Cass was the one to find her, not Hank. When she threw herself into his arms, he dragged her back into the brush, a night predator intent on devouring his prey. His demanding kisses rained fire on her senses. Heat coiled in the furnace below her belly, threatening to incinerate her wiser half. She had to tear her mouth free.
"Baron will see us!"
"Baron's long gone," Cass growled, gripping her buttocks with a possessive hand and tilting her hips against his. "You could have broken your fool neck crawling through that window. Didn't I tell you to wait for me?"
"But Hank's getting away!" she gasped.
"Who?" he mumbled against her throat.
"Baron's regulator!"
Cass stiffened, raising his head to lock stares. "Come again?"
She bit her lip. Despite the thunderheads racing past the moon, and the patterns of shadow they cast across his face, Cass's upset was unmistakable.
"Didn't Collie tell you what happened?"
"No," Cass said slowly, taking a step back. "Collie and I didn't get a chance to talk. At least, not since I found him rubbing out Pancake's h
oof prints. He told me Baron came here to fetch something out of his locker. When Collie saw my horse, he hid Pancake and fired shots as warning. He figured Baron would be pissed to know I wasn't watching Poppy."
"But didn't you see a man fleeing through the sun porch?"
"I was on the other side of the building," Cass said in gravelly tones. "Tell me about Hank."
Grimly, Sadie explained that Hank was a killer, whom Baron had hired in the past, and that he was itching to prove he was faster on the draw than Cass. She recounted how Hank was blackmailing Baron for some sordid deed. Then she extrapolated a bit. She added her opinion that Baron was going to expect Cass to kill people too—and maybe even face off with Hank, to end the blackmail.
Collie hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said that Cass loved Baron like a father. The only thing that Cass heard in this whole, damning tale was Baron was in danger from a hired gun.
Sadie shot her lover an exasperated look. "Baron wouldn't be in this mess if he didn't murder inconvenient sodbusters."
"That's ridiculous. Baron isn't the type you want to cross in a business deal, but that doesn't mean he murders folks."
"Baron might not pull the trigger with his own finger, but in the eyes of the law, he's just as guilty as the man who does! What if you fall out of favor with him, Cass? What if he tries to pin Hank's crimes on you? Who do you think the courts will believe? A gunslinger, who ran from a murder charge for 12 years? Or a Texas Senator?"
Cass squared his jaw and shook his head. "And if I walk through a lightning storm, I might get zapped. That doesn't mean it's going to happen."
"My God, do you need to see blood to accept the truth?"
"I'm telling you, woman, Baron didn't hire Hank! Someone else did—to kill Baron!"
Devil in Texas (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 1) Page 19
