Zant smacked her bottom, just hard enough for her to feel a sting. “Keep quiet. You’ll interrupt the church service.”
Stunned, humiliated, feeling her Lawless blood rush to her face, Jacey bucked in earnest. “But you’re the one—If you don’t put me down—”
“You’ll what?” He shifted her on his shoulder with as much care and passion as he would a sack of grain. And held on tightly.
“I’ll—” What? What will I do? Think, Jacey. Think. Then, she saw her answer. Chapelo’s Colt revolver. She grinned. Clutching her hair out of her line of vision, she caught sight of the back ends of various horses as Chapelo stalked past them. So he was heading for his horse. She had to hurry. Jacey edged her hand toward his holster.
But just then, she was dumped, empty-handed and teeth rattling, on her sandaled feet. Blinking back the dizzying stars and the blackness that rimmed her vision, she grabbed helplessly at Chapelo’s sleeves and stared at the man’s shirt button. In the next instant, she was bumped from behind with enough force to knock her into her tormentor. A yelp tore from her as she reflexively looked up at Zant.
He smirked down at her. “Well, that’s one horse’s opinion.”
Jacey frowned at his smiling mouth and then wrenched around—as best she could with Zant gripping her elbows—to see his prissy stallion eyeing her with his ears laid back. Turning back to the horse’s equally ill-mannered owner, Jacey jerked an arm free and poked at Chapelo’s unyielding chest as she nailed him in place with her words. “I don’t know what you’ve got up your sleeve, Chapelo, but I’ll tell you one thing, I don’t want any part of it. Or you.”
He ducked his head at a daring angle and shifted his weight to his other booted foot. “Is that so? Well, what if I tell you your choices are that you either come with me now—willingly—or we turn right back around and go inside San Xavier and tie the knot. What do you have to say to that?”
Disbelief screwed Jacey’s face up. “Tie the knot?”
“Fine. If that’s your decision.” He grabbed her wrist and began hauling her out from between the horses.
Shock drew her along for several docile paces before Jacey realized what he was about. The mission-church door loomed large. “No!” She dug in, dragging her feet and clawing at his fingers wrapped around her wrist. “No! That’s not my decision. It was a question—not an answer. Stop! All right, Chapelo, I’ll go with you. I’ll go. Do you hear me? I said I’ll—”
He stopped and turned to her, never loosening his hold on her. One eyebrow rose as he slanted a questioning look down at her.
“—go,” she finished. “I said I’ll go. You win.”
Now he grinned. “I knew you wouldn’t go back inside that church with me.”
“I wouldn’t go to a dogfight with you, you snake-bellied mud toad.”
The snake-bellied mud toad’s grin broadened until white, even teeth gleamed. “Don’t get your drawers in a wad, Miss Lawless. I don’t want to get hitched to you any more than you do to me. I was bluffing, trying to get you to say you’d come along peaceably.”
Stung by his rejection—what was wrong with marrying her?—and even more stung that she’d even think that, Jacey gritted out, “Good thing. Because our getting hitched is not going to happen.”
He nodded in agreement. “Furthest thing from my mind.”
Jacey eyed him. “Well … good thing for you.” Even to her own ears, her grumbling answer sounded lame. When he just stood there, looking big and superior … and good-lookin’ as hell, Jacey fought her female reaction to him by poking her bottom lip out the least bit and waggling her imprisoned arm. “Are you ever going to take your hand off me, Chapelo?”
“For now.” With that, he let go of her. Jacey rubbed her sore and reddened wrist as she watched him cross his arms over his chest and take a spread-legged pose. “I swear you’ve got the biggest chip on your shoulder I ever saw.”
Jacey pursed her lips and squinted up at him. “You aiming to knock it off, Chapelo? If so, you’d better bring some help. Because if you ever jerk me over your shoulder again, you’ll think a mad dog got ahold of your ass when I turn you every way but loose.”
Jacey’s threatening glare turned to a look of dismay when Chapelo burst out in a braying-jackass guffaw that unsettled the horses some paces away from them. Finally, tears cresting in his eyes, he bent over to rest his hands on his knees. His shoulders shook with each rumble of laughter that escaped him.
Eyes narrowed, and embarrassed as much as mad, Jacey crossed her arms and frowned all the way down to her sandaled feet. Damned lunatic outlaw doesn’t know a threat when he hears one.
She watched him straighten up. Still chuckling, he shook his head and then settled his black hat low over his brow. “Who taught you to talk like that? I’ve never met anybody who was as full of piss and vinegar as you.”
Jacey squinted at him. “Maybe you just bring out the best in me.”
His black eyes alight, he chuckled yet again. “Then God knows I don’t want to see the worst.”
“Well, you’re gettin’ ready to if you don’t tell me what this is all about and why it couldn’t wait until after church. You scared ten years’ growth out of that entire congregation, coming in like you did. I durned near had to tie Rosie and Alberto to the pew to get them to stay put when I came out.”
Finally, he sobered … some. Like it was new business between them, he stated, “It’s about you clearing out of Tucson.”
Jacey huffed out a breath as she raised a hand to shade her eyes from the strong sunlight. “Not that again. I already told you I’ve got business here, and I aim to see it through.”
“Is that so?”
“It is so. But what it isn’t, is any of your business.”
Zant put his long-fingered, square hands to his waist, and leaned toward her. “Well, I say it is. I’ve already killed two men because of you.”
Lowering her hand from her brow, Jacey gave him a sidelong look. “Nobody asked you to, Chapelo.” Then, she frowned. “Two?”
“Yeah. Two. Rafferty you know. And the other’s Ramon Quintana—a whip-toting son of a bitch who also draws his pay from Don Rafael. Or did.” His expression changed to one of … could it be? … concern when he added, “The hired guns aren’t going to stop coming, Jacey. Don Rafael will keep sending them after you.”
Even though his words sent a jolt of fear lancing through her, Jacey eyed the outlaw in front of her. “I can take care of myself.”
Zant shook his head, managing to convey impatient disgust with her. “Like hell you can. You don’t know these men like I do. And that’s why you’re coming with me.” With that, his long legs carried him right past her.
Jacey turned to watch him, noting the proud width of his shoulders and the way his black hair curled over his collar. A frown of yearning settled on her face, which she quickly blanked when he stopped and turned back to her. “What?”
“You said you’d go with me. And I’m guessing a Lawless’s word is good.” His seriously squared jaw dared her to go back on her word.
Jacey stared at him, took a deep, slow breath, and watched him shift his weight from one booted foot to the other. She glanced at his spurs, but couldn’t get a clear look at them from this angle. When she focused on his face, his black eyes were shaded by his Stetson’s brim. But his stare was no less threatening.
“Dammit,” she muttered, clutching the ends of Rosie’s lace shawl in her fists. Making a disgusted noise, she hitched the fringed fabric around her shoulders and stormed over to him with stiff-legged, stiff-armed strides. Her momentum carried her past him and saw her marching to.…?
She stopped with her back to the outlaw, remembering that she’d come in Alberto’s wagon, so Knight was still back at the cantina’s corral. And she sure as shooting wasn’t walking all the way back to Tucson. If that was where they were going. She realized she had no idea where Zant was taking her. Stopping just shy of stomping her sandaled foot on the rough-gravel ground, she pivoted arou
nd to face him. And pulled up short. He was right behind her.
“Where were you going, Jacey?” He reached out a hand … Jacey flinched … but all he did was brush back a curl from her too-warm face. His brows lowered into a frown. “Are you afraid of me?”
His voice, all soft and husky, raised goose bumps over Jacey’s skin. Fighting the sudden weakness in her limbs, she blurted out, “No.”
“Good. Because I’d never hurt you.” He rubbed his knuckles gently down her cheek and then under her chin.
Jacey hated every bit of it. Hated how she wanted to move into his caress, hated how she was dangerously close to purring and rubbing around his legs like some danged tabby cat. But especially she hated how much she wanted to touch him back. How much she wanted to smooth her hands over his face, how much she—Realizing her eyes were closed and her mouth was open, instead of the other way around, Jacey jerked back from Zant’s touch and batted his hand away from her. “Stop that, Chapelo.”
“For now,” was all he said as he grinned and took her arm, hauling her all the way to his roan stallion.
Watching him unhitch and back the tall, rangy stud, Jacey eyed it and its master. “What am I supposed to ride? And where are you taking me—and why?”
Zant glanced at her. “Full of questions, aren’t you?” He then brought the prancing horse around to her, holding the reins in one hand and offering the other to her. “Mount up. I’ll tell you the whys and wherefores on the way into Tucson.”
“You expect me to ride with you?” Jacey started backing up.
Chapelo frowned and scrubbed his hand over his face, finally giving her a long-suffering look. “Just get up here, Jacey, without causing an all-out battle for once, will you? Why does everything have to be so hard with you?”
Raising her Lawless chin one prideful notch, Jacey stepped up to the stallion, ignored Zant’s offered hand, and bent her leg so she could put her foot in the stirrup. She had to balance one-legged on tiptoe to barely inch her left foot through. Frustrated by the horse’s height, she shoved her tangling skirt up her leg, not caring if she exposed a length of bare thigh to the outlaw. It couldn’t be helped, if she had any notion of sitting this animal without help. One hand clutching for the pommel but not quite reaching it, her other gripping the saddle, she hefted her weight up.
Immediately, she felt a hand on her bottom as Zant shoved upward—and dang near catapulted her over the roan’s back and onto the ground on the horse’s other side. Jacey fell forward over the pommel as her left foot came out of the stirrup. She grabbed two handfuls of reddish mane. The stallion raised his head and danced in a tight circle until Chapelo quieted him with soothing words and stroking hands.
Jacey straightened up and settled herself in the sun-warmed saddle, with her skirt bunched up around her. From her great height atop the restive steed, she stared down at the gunslinger. “The day I need any help mounting a horse, Chapelo, is the day I’ll take to my rocking chair. Until then, you back off. You got that?”
Zant grinned up at her, easily slid his booted foot into the stirrup and gracefully hauled his long-legged self up behind her, handling the reins over her head and around her as he scooted up against her back. Perched behind the saddle, he put his arms around her—Jacey stiffened as her feet dangled free—and put his mouth right next to her ear. In a whispering breath that she felt brush her hair, her ear, and her neck, Zant said, “Yeah. I got that.”
The ride into Tucson was agony. The outlaw behind her touched her everywhere. Through the scant protection of her loose blusa, her skin burned from the heat of his body. His muscled chest pressed against her back, his legs bent into hers, and his arms rested under hers, against her ribs. In easy control of her and the stallion, with the reins entwined through his long fingers, he settled his hands against her belly.
Sucking in a shocked breath at his presumptuous familiarity with her person, Jacey gripped Zant’s forearms and stiffened her spine, trying her best to break any contact of her body with his. But that proved impossible. Because the horse’s smooth, loping gait threw her against Zant and him against her. Together they rode the horse as if she sat on the outlaw’s lap in a rocking chair. It was that easy. And that all-fired difficult.
Just when Jacey was sure she’d slide right off the saddle with wanting the man behind her, just when she was sure she’d never forgive herself for wanting him, he reined in at Alberto’s closed and locked-up cantina. With no ceremony or taunting words, he dismounted and, grinning like a pig in slop—to Jacey’s way of thinking—held his hands up to her.
Jacey glared and snarled, “Step back, Chapelo. I don’t want or need your help.”
Zant quirked his mouth into an is-that-so expression and then held his hands up, as if giving up. He stepped back. “Suit yourself.”
Satisfied that she’d won that round, Jacey expertly swung her right leg forward over the roan’s neck and made a show of sliding down the big roan’s left side. Only to remember that this nag was about two hands taller than Knight. Squawking out a warning that she was falling, Jacey instinctively grabbed for Zant. He jumped forward and caught her under her arms, like he would a baby, and swung her up in an arc. He abruptly set her on her feet. “That was a real smooth dismount, Miss Lawless. Real smooth.”
“Shut up, Chapelo.” Jacey shoved him back and settled her clothes all around. She then looked up and down the streets. Glancing back at Zant, seeing him making the same sweep of the near-deserted adobe town, Jacey put her hands to her waist. “What do you make of all this quiet?”
Zant met her gaze and shrugged. “I don’t. The cantinas are usually open all day and all night. Even Sundays. But it’s even stranger that the mission church is as packed as a cattle yard. Most Sundays, so Rosie tells me, the mass is so sparse of folks that you can hear a cricket chirp.”
Then his black-eyed stare seemed to sharpen and gleam as he considered Jacey with an up-and-down look. “But I’d be willing to bet a shiny dollar that you have something to do with it. Since trouble seems to be your middle name, girl.”
Ignoring the heat that stained her cheeks, Jacey notched her chin up. Realizing he was right, figuring her rumors of J. C. Lawless being in town had everything to do with the crowded church, she elected to brazen it out. “Well, my dollar says the folks around here got religion about the time you got sprung from prison and put in an appearance.”
Zant chuckled. “That could be.” Then, he became all business. “All right. We’re alone and not about to be interrupted. Let’s go to your room and—”
Jacey shoved him back a step. “My room? Since we’re alone? Not on your life.”
“Oh, hell, Jacey, I wasn’t even thinking that.” Still, he cocked his head and grinned at her. “Although that does sound mighty tempting, now that you mention it.”
Jacey shoved him again. “That’s not going to happen.”
“So you say. Gather up your belongings and saddle that black horse of yours. I’m escorting your skinny little butt as far as Apache Pass, just to make sure you keep on riding. You’re going home. Today.”
Jacey squared off with him in the sunny, dry, deserted street and put her hands to her waist. “Like hell I am.”
Zant mimicked her stance. “Like hell you’re not.”
* * *
Like hell she hadn’t. Jacey grinned to herself that night as she donned the clothes that would transform her into J. C. Lawless. She peered up at one of the three crucifixes in her room behind Alberto’s cantina and smiled. Just one trip to church, however brief, seemed to be helping already. Maybe she’d make it a regular habit. Because here she was still in Tucson, despite that danged Chapelo’s determined wish to see her nose pointed toward No Man’s Land.
Drawing the red bandanna around her neck and knotting it at her nape, she chuckled, recalling his near-to-purple face when she’d led him back here, only to reach under her pillow, pull out her Colt, and level it at him. She’d told him to get out or get ready to wear lead-filled b
ritches. Being a smart man, he’d left … but with a bellowing heap of threats and warnings in his wake. Yes, she’d won that round, but just for safety’s sake, she’d locked herself in the small room until Alberto and Rosie returned from church.
And here she’d stayed, with them being lookouts for her and posting regular reports of Chapelo’s being in a nasty temper and camped out in the cantina all afternoon. Waiting. And listening to every drunk’s report of J. C. Lawless himself being in town. But now it was dark. And Chapelo’d left about thirty minutes ago.
Jacey picked up her black slouch hat and settled it over her thick bun. She looked down at herself. Shirt, vest, pants, boots, Colt. J. C. Lawless. Time to move out, Papa. As she unlocked the door to her room, she wondered what tonight’s haunting of Tucson’s streets would flush out. So far, she’d had no luck with her ruse. Well, except for scaring some folks sober, others back to drinking, and all of them to church. Which was well and good. But what she needed was guilty parties. Maybe tonight, Papa.
Jacey brazenly chose a main-street adobe storefront at the other end of Tucson for J. C.’s appearance. Leaning back against it, absorbing its sun-warmed heat, she pulled out cigarette fixin’s and began rolling one like Alberto and Emilio had laughingly taught her. With only the moon’s brightness for light, Jacey fumbled with the papers and the tobacco pouch and almost chuckled, recalling Rosie’s scandalized face during the smoking lessons.
Shaking her head, Jacey decided that girl was probably the most innocent and saintly barmaid in any saloon or cantina anywhere. Probably the only innocent and saintly barmaid in any saloon or cantina anywhere.
Finally, after much fumbling and grumbling, Jacey had a serviceable smoke rolled. Pocketing her fixin’s, she mouthed the cigarette and bent a knee to rest her booted foot against the wall. Mindful of the few passers-by and their gasps of “It’s him,” Jacey strove for studied calm as she struck a sulfur match against the store’s wall—praying all the while that she didn’t set her britches on fire—and lit her tobacco.
Shaking out the fire and flinging the match out in the street, she took a puff and remembered not to inhale, like Alberto’d warned her, lest she choke. Still, under her hat’s low brim, Jacey made a face. Danged nasty things taste awful. She started to blow her smoke out. But catching a movement to her left, she stiffened—and sucked the acrid cloud into her lungs.
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