Seduced by an Angel (Velvet Lies, Book 3)

by Adrienne deWolfe

  Instead, he stepped forward, blocking Cass's path.

  "Jellico?" Jesse challenged, folding his arms under his marshal's badge. If Cass had a new horse, then he'd rustled it. "What happened to Abilene?"

  "Don't pretend like you give a rat's ass," Cass countered in a virulent undertone.

  Collie took two brisk steps to stand at Cass's side. Their show of solidarity reminded Jesse all too poignantly of the times when Cass had stood beside him—times when Jesse had needed an extra fist or a gun to defend himself against a bigot.

  "Don't you pretend our quarrel's about Sera," Jesse retorted just as low and fierce. "So help me God, if you hurt her—"

  "Hurt her? Have you looked in a mirror lately, Romeo?"

  Guilt mingled with Jesse's outrage, making the blood surge to his face. Cass knows about me and Sera? Cass knows, and he's bird-dogging her anyway?

  "I'm warning you, Cass. Leave her out of this."

  "Well now. I'd like to oblige you, pal. But it's a little too late for that."

  Cass flashed his most pleasant smile.

  A heartbeat later, Jesse understood why. A long, lean shadow rippled across the mumblety-peg circle.

  "Is there a problem, fellas?" Luke demanded. He halted at Jesse's side, the silver star on his black vest glinting conspicuously in the early morning sunshine.

  "Nothing a little bedrest won't cure, sheriff," Cass said with a ribald wink.

  Jesse clenched his fist.

  Luke's restraining hand fell like a tiny thunderclap on Jesse's shoulder.

  "Tether your beast, Lynx." He could hear his grandmother's advice as surely as if she stood beside him, whispering in his ear. "When you get angry, you lose."

  Jesse shuddered with the effort to keep his fist from flying.

  "You'd best keep your nose clean," Luke told Cass in gravelly tones. "'Cause if I hear you're making any more trouble—at the Jones's place, at the saloon, or anywhere else in my town—I'll lock up your scrawny ass and throw away the key. Understood?"

  Cass's canny, coyote gaze sized up the attorney. Luke looked every inch a sheriff, with the brim of his slouch hat slanting low across his brow and the tip of his holster nearly touching his knee.

  But Jesse knew that Cass could have pumped two slugs from his Colt before Luke's own gun ever cleared leather.

  Cass's chuckle was mocking. "You two boys are like peas in a pod. Now how'd your Great Spirit manage that?"

  Luke's eyes narrowed.

  Jesse jerked his head toward the driveway. "Get out of here, Cass. Folks are waiting on you."

  "Don't mind if I do." Cass smirked, waving Collie forward.

  As he passed by Jesse's ear, Cass's words were low, so low, that Jesse had to strain to hear them. But Cass's meaning was clear enough.

  "Keep your hands off my woman."

  Chapter 16

  It was an hour before sunset. Just 60 minutes before the fiddlers would rosin up their bows for the Founder's Day Dance.

  Jesse didn't know if he would make it through the night without smashing in Cass's face.

  All afternoon, in Jesse's official capacity as marshal, he'd been forced to patrol the grounds. And that meant that all afternoon, he'd been forced to watch Cass strolling with Sera on his arm; laughing with her over the roller-skating goat; winning prizes for her at the ring-toss booth; sharing her cherry-flavored ices; hugging her close as they'd watched the re-enactors perform; whispering in her ear; kissing the back of her hand...

  Seducing her.

  Each time Cass flashed his fallen-angel's smile, Jesse's simmering jealousy threatened to boil over. Each time Cass furtively touched Sera's cheek or hair, the pressure-cooker of Jesse's outrage threatened to explode.

  The worst part was, he had no one but himself to blame. He'd been the one who'd told Sera that no future was possible between them. Of course, he'd never expected his bastard of a best friend to sweep her off her feet right under his nose!

  His gut roiling to imagine the coming night and what it might mean to his friendship with Cass, he forced himself to continue his patrol. At the moment, he was pacing past the livery. The building boasted one of the few hitching posts on the block that wasn't wrapped with garlands of daisies, buttercups, primroses, or marsh mallows.

  The Town Square was the hub for the Founder's Day enactments, athletic contests, and vendors' booths. Jesse trained his eye about 150 yards down the street, where the comparatively quiet churchyard had been transformed into a picnic ground. There, a pavilion had been erected for the non-athletic contests, like the bakeoffs and the quilting competitions.

  An eight-piece band (complete with jugs, washboards, spoons, fiddles, and dulcimers) was providing entertainment. Decked out in their coonskin caps and fringed, deerskin tunics a la Daniel Boone, the hillbilly musicians had drawn a hand-clapping, foot-stomping crowd—which included Sera and Cass.

  Focused on glaring at his rival's broad back and easily identifiable wealth of snow-white hair, Jesse didn't immediately register a welcoming bark until a wet nose and a freckled face intercepted him in front of the toffee apple booth.

  "Marshal Quaid, Marshal Quaid, look! I won second place!" Jamie Frothingale said proudly, sticking his thumb under his suspenders to show off his red ribbon.

  Jesse tried not to scowl at Luke's adopted son. Since the Founder's Day festivities had kicked off at noon, Jesse's scowl had already—inadvertently—sent a dozen gasping school children fleeing for their mamas. He suspected that his murderous mood was etched into every line of his face, every muscle of his body. It was a wonder that Jamie wasn't steering clear of him, too.

  "Is that a fact?" Jesse mustered the ghost of a grin for the boy. "So what contest did you win?"

  "Peashootin'. Aunt Claudia has been training me."

  "That's mighty fine," Jesse said absently, his glare burning into the craggy faces and bearded chins that dared to hurry past with a female companion.

  "But next year, I'll beat her."

  Even the image of the cackling, 76-year-old curmudgeon, competing against the Townie boys and beating their socks off, couldn't lighten Jesse's mood.

  "'Course, now that Collie's back," Jamie continued brightly, "I reckon I can train for a man's sport. Like mumblety-peg."

  "Get a clue, boy," called a sparsely toothed biddy with a crab apple face. "I'm the one who made MacAffee eat crow at mumblety-peg last summer!"

  Jamie's eyes bugged out to see Claudia Ann Collier approaching from the trading post porch on the other side of the street. Dressed in her usual bib overalls—to which her peashooting blue ribbon had been pinned—Claudia stomped toward her young rival. She was dragging a red, toy wagon full of apple cider.

  "How can she be eavesdroppin' on us with all this racket?" Jamie whispered to Jesse. "She's like, 40 yards away!"

  "She must read lips," Jesse murmured.

  "I heard that too, Texican!"

  Jesse's lips twitched.

  "It's about time you stopped mopin' over a certain blue-eyed filly and her dancing prospects," Claudia bellowed at Jesse through the crowd. "You promised me a waltz at tonight's hoedown."

  "I did?"

  "You calling me a liar?"

  Only a body full of brass nerves would dare to challenge a gunslinger in a killing mood—which said a lot about Claudia Ann Collier. Jesse blew out his breath. His good breeding—which included the deeply ingrained, Cherokee belief that elder females deserved the utmost respect—saved Claudia from getting knocked on her bony rear end.

  "No, ma'am."

  Claudia's brown eyes crinkled with mischief as she halted, craning back her wispy, iron-gray braids to gaze past his steely jaw. "As I recall, you promised me a waltz and a reel."

  Quite the little opportunist, isn't she?

  "Yes, ma'am. It'd be an honor."

  "Dang right." She turned her attention to Jamie. "And when you're old enough, I expect a waltz outta you, too, Jamie Harragan."

  Jamie grew bright red. "It's Frothingale
now, ma'am," he reminded her politely.

  "So you don't want to be my kinfolk no more?"

  "No, ma'am! Er, I mean, yes, ma'am—" Jamie looked confused. "I mean... Papa says we're still related, even though my name has changed."

  "'Course he does. I got more money than some him. Say! How'd you like to earn a dollar?"

  Jamie's face lit up. "A whole dollar?"

  "That's right. Take this wagon down to the churchyard, so Lydia Witherspoon can dole out apple cider to the bakeoff judges. Got that?"

  Jamie nodded eagerly. "Mrs. Witherspoon. Got it."

  Smiling fondly after Jamie as he ran off with his hound, Claudia confided to Jesse, "Poor lambs. They're gonna need something stronger. That's why I stopped judging the junior competition. The last time I ate one of Parfait Puddocks's abominations, I had the runs for a week."

  Jesse's lips curved a little higher.

  "'Course, her sister, Puddin', ain't much better. Corn mash is about the only thing that gets me through the ladies' competition."

  Jesse actually smiled at that. No wonder Sera never won a ribbon. The judges got roostered before each contest!

  As if guessing his thoughts, she wagged a gnarled finger under his nose. "Don't think yer badge makes you too high and mighty fer me to wallop you. I told Luke the same thing when he had the nerve to suggest that I dry out my moonshine still."

  "Yes, ma'am." Jesse chuckled to picture the sparrow-sized Claudia going toe-to-toe with the wolf-sized sheriff.

  "Glad that's settled. Now I need a strapping young man with a pretty mug to march me to my doom. You just volunteered. Start walking," she commanded, sliding her hand through the crook of his arm.

  They strolled along the street, dodging through the crowd. Claudia kept up a steady stream of grousing about "the good old days" when "talented moonshiners," like Bart MacAffee, were left in peace to "brew their art."

  She continued this lively reminiscence as they passed carnival-style booths selling every imaginable homemade sweetmeat and goo-gaw: roasted ears of corn, soft taffy pulls, sugar-coated hickory nuts, turtle-shell combs, lace doilies, river-cane peashooters, elaborately tooled leather belts, gaily painted rocking horses, maplewood baby cradles, sprucewood dulcimers, tin whistles...

  All the while, Jesse was scowling at Cass, aching for Sera, and worrying about how far he'd have to go to protect her innocence from the Rebel Rutter.

  Claudia, whose coonskin cap didn't stretch quite as high as his shoulder, tilted back her head to study the profile that his Stetson was shading.

  "So." Waiting until they'd passed into the quieter, more sparsely populated region of Main Street, Claudia dropped her bomb. "You're Panther Clan, eh?"

  Jesse nearly swallowed his tongue. Her assessment of his Cherokee heritage had come completely out of the blue—as if she'd wanted to make sure he was listening.

  Slowly, furtively, he released the air from his lungs.

  "Is it that obvious?"

  "To me it is. To the Frothingales, too."

  "Why's that?"

  "You got presence, boy. A connection to the land. A reverence for life. A respect for elders. Green-eyed or not, you weren't raised by White folk. Too bad you keep trying to be one."

  Jesse blushed at her assessment.

  "That Coyote trickster on Sera's arm can't hold a candle to you. Not where it counts. That's why he rags himself out in fancy rigging. That's why he struts and brags. If Cassidy was such an enviable catch, Sera wouldn't be casting calf eyes your way every time she thinks you're not looking."

  His throat constricted at this news.

  "Feel better?" Claudia demanded.

  He nodded sheepishly.

  "Your rustling and smuggling don't matter to me, boy. And you got other friends in this town whom you don't even know about yet."

  He cast her a sidelong glance. How'd she find out about his outlaw ways?

  She snorted, as if reading his mind. "You don't think I know how a mixed-blood has to survive?"

  He drew a shuddering breath.

  "What about the doc?" he asked hopefully.

  Claudia harrumphed. "We Cherokees live along side 'em. We don't spill our guts to 'em."

  Stunned, Jesse choked on his tongue. Claudia grinned impishly. He suspected she'd been hoping for the exact reaction that he'd given her.

  "But Miss Eden—"

  "—Ain't my full-blooded kin," Claudia finished for him. "And nobody, I mean nobody, knows about my great-great- grandmother's brave, except you and me."

  Jesse's heart swelled. Somehow, he wasn't surprised to hear the pride in her voice when she spoke of her kinswoman's lover. Cherokee women had a sense of purpose and value. They were strong-willed. They were confident leaders. The tribe followed a matriarchal line, after all.

  Wondering at Claudia's own origins, he cocked his head to study her sun-weathered profile. "Stranger Clan?" he guessed, since that was the clan most likely to adopt orphans and outsiders.

  She chuckled, revealing winsome dimples. "Not even close."

  By this time, somebody was hailing her from the tobacco and snuff booth. A childlike grin stole across her features, making all her wrinkles collide.

  "I ain't got many vices," she confided to Jesse, "but if I don't have a good cherry smoke in my pipe, I get crabby. And you don't want me getting crabby, boy."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  To the tobacco vendor, she bellowed at the top of her lungs, "Hold yer cotton-pickin' shirt on, Abner. Can't you see I'm mashing with my young man?"

  Jesse's neck heated.

  She cackled to see him blush. "You're a good sport, boy. Tell Lydia to start the judging without me. 'Course, she won't. More's the pity. Then you can consider your duty by me done—'til the first waltz starts playin', that is."

  He tipped his hat. "Much obliged, ma'am."

  She caught his fingers, demonstrating a strength that he wouldn't have thought possible in a 100-pound sack of bones. "Walk with pride, boy," she murmured, giving his hand a squeeze. "Remember who you are."

  With a wink and a nod, she turned her shoulder on him, pasted on a cantankerous expression, and fixed her glare on the tobacco vendor. "Abner Buckbee," she groused, stomping forward with her shotgun, "you got some nerve interrupting my romance. I got half a mind to wallop you. I ain't gettin' any younger, you know..."

  Jesse's affection turned to amusement as he watched his wisp of an ally browbeat the brawny backwoodsman.

  Then he spied Cass comforting Sera as the first bakeoff judge stuck a fork into her chocolate-bourbon-peanut-butter pie—the recipe that Jesse, himself, had helped her perfect!

  Jesse's mood blackened all over again.

  Cass was enjoying himself—mostly because his presence at Sera's side was pissing off Jesse.

  But punishing Jesse wasn't Cass's ultimate goal. He wanted to protect Sera. He, better than anyone, knew how great her danger was from Thorn Taggart and Kit McCoy. If Cass had had his druthers, Sera would be locked in her bedroom (yeah, with him) rather than risking abduction from a public festival.

  But considering that it was daylight, and at least a hundred witnesses were in the vicinity, Cass wasn't too worried. If McCoy or Taggart proved stupid enough to try to seize Sera, Cass would send them both to hell. He didn't need help to protect his woman—not from outlaws and certainly not from Jesse.

  In truth, Cass was more worried about Collie. The boy had let some townie kid named Jamie talk him into hauling a red wagon with an empty half-cask all the way up the hill to the church. For the moment, Cass couldn't catch a glimpse of Collie. He liked to think that the boy was canny. A scrapper.

  Cass also liked to think that some of the festival's four, patrolling lawmen—including a partially convalesced Ben Truitt—were actually paying attention to the whole crowd, not just to him and Sera.

  He allowed himself a smug little smile at the thought.

  Eat your heart out, Lynx.

  Then he spied Luke Frothingale, sporting a tin star and
a Winchester. Frothingale was standing by the untapped cider barrels, some thirty yards away. He wasn't even trying to be subtle: he was watching Cass.

  Uppity bastard.

  Cass had taken an instant dislike to Jesse's new book-learned, fancy-dressed Injun friend. Not since Sadie had kicked Cass out of her bed for an older, more sophisticated, wealthier protector, had he felt so betrayed. He didn't understand why Jesse had replaced him. He didn't understand why Jesse didn't want to ride with him anymore.

  But somehow, all the answers kept pointing back to Sera.

  Sera had told him how her rich, Aspenite brother, Rafe, had bought Tempest for her at an auction in Stanford—on the day after Cass had been incarcerated on a public intoxication charge, no less. She'd also confessed that she'd met Jesse in Tempest's stall, that he'd passed himself off as a waddie, and that Michael had hired Jesse, on the spot, to be Tempest's trainer. When the Jones family had all piled into a train to steam back to Whitley County, Jesse had pleaded a case of heat exhaustion and had promised to follow after he recovered.

  Curiously enough, that next morning, Jesse had announced to Cass that he needed his privacy for three months to go on a vision quest.

  Vision quest my ass. That dog was planning to chase tail!

  Furtively, Cass studied Sera as she chatted with one of her church-going lady friends. Sera was pretty—but so were a lot of women. She was pleasant company—but so was a hound dog. Cass simply didn't understand Jesse's infatuation. He suspected that Jesse wouldn't be half as fond of Sera if she was Colored.

  Part of Cass resented the hell out of Sera for stealing away his best friend. Another part insisted that Jesse was the traitor, and that he should be punished. Jesse had always feared that Cass would let a woman come between them. Jesse had even made Cass swear an oath on Bobby's grave that no woman ever would!

  Well, now Jesse was doing the oath-breaking, and it really chapped Cass's hide. He figured Sera must not have any idea that Jesse was part Injun. Otherwise, she wouldn't have fallen in love him. Certainly, she wouldn't love him more than she loved Cass!