Tin-Stars and Troublemakers Box Set (Four Complete Historical Western Romance Novels in One)

by Rice, Patricia

  "Those boys," Aunt Lally said, her tone apologetic. "They go bucking in eight different directions at once. Lawd, child, I don't wonder how you kept your patience all those days, what with nothing but menfolk for company. I wonder how I do it myself, sometimes."

  She smiled, reaching in a motherly fashion to pat Fancy's arm.

  Fancy flinched in reflex.

  An awkward silence settled between, them. Fancy realized her reaction had taken Aunt Lally by surprise—which, in itself, was probably a phenomenon. Those keen, inquisitive eyes weren't likely to miss much. Fancy suspected that Aunt Lally was the kind of person who saw through lies, no matter how skillfully they were told. Lally also struck Fancy as that rare breed of woman who couldn't be manipulated.

  She remembered Lally's calm businesslike response when she'd seen her nephew's ashen face and crimson bandages. Heedless of the blood that smeared her calico dress, she'd propped her shoulder under Wes's arm and helped Cord walk the boy into the house. She'd paused for only a moment to order the ranch hands to water her nephews' horses. The vaqueros had obeyed without question.

  Never had Fancy met a plain-faced woman who could command a man's respect. She sensed that Lally would be a formidable adversary, despite her fifty odd years.

  "You did right by Wes."

  The sincerity in Lally's voice unsettled Fancy. She wasn't used to straight-talking members of her own sex.

  "You might not have liked it," Lally continued. "You might have been more scared than a rabbit in a coyote's back pocket, but you stood by my nephew. And I'm not going to forget that, Fancy, no matter what you might've done last month or last year, or even what you might go ahead and do tomorrow."

  Fancy felt her throat tighten. Try as she might, she could find nothing vindictive or deceitful in Lally's eyes. There must be something in that green Rawlins stare, she thought uneasily, that could see past a person's defenses to the true self that lurked beneath.

  Hadn't Cord seen through her best charade in the dining car?

  Lally would do the same. Soon she would see just how worthless Fancy Holleday was. Eulalie Rawlins Barclay wouldn't be as impressed with her then.

  For some reason, that realization troubled Fancy.

  "I'm... fond of Wes," she admitted. She was surprised less by the truth of her words than by the relief an honest confession brought her. "He's a good boy."

  Lally nodded, tilting her head as if to study Fancy further. "My nephews are all good boys. It hasn't been easy on them since their ma and pa got murdered."

  "Murdered?"

  The word tumbled out before Fancy could stop it. She knew that caring was dangerous, but her curiosity proved stronger than her common sense. "How did it happen? I mean... it must have come as a terrible shock to you all."

  "Yep." Lally pressed her lips together in a thin, grim line. "Bill and Meg were fine folks. The finest I ever knew."

  Crossing to the mantel, she picked up a picture frame and blew away the dust. Fancy edged nearer. She saw that the photograph was of a fair, broad-shouldered man and his diminutive, dark-skinned wife. The couple resembled the boys.

  "That's Bill and Meg?" she asked, suspecting that Cord got his vibrant eyes from his father and his glossy hair from his mother.

  Aunt Lally nodded again. She rubbed her sleeve vigorously across the glass. "They were riding on an east-bound stage. Just outside of Houston, some road agents got the drop on the driver. Bill—that's my brother—he tried to keep the robbers from taking Meg's wedding ring. So they shot him down. Shot down Meg too. I reckon that's when Cord made up his mind to be a lawman."

  Fancy swallowed hard as Lally returned the photograph to its place. She felt unaccountably guilty for the couple's fate.

  "Wes and Zack weren't but three and four when the killing happened," Lally continued softly. "Cord kind of took it on himself to be their pa. Then the war came. Me and Seth didn't have but our daughter, Ginny, then, and we had a devil of a time convincing Cord to let us raise those boys.

  "His boys," she corrected herself with a fond chuckle. "Cord always has thought of Zack and Wes as his. The only problem was that he married Beth, and she never much cottoned to rearing boys who weren't her own.

  "Oh, Beth was plenty good to them after she moved to the ranch," Lally added quickly, chagrin flickering across her features. "But she just couldn't love Zack and Wes, not like Cord does. And not like I do, either."

  Fancy frowned. She wondered again what Cord had seen in Beth. Wes and Zack had probably been headstrong children, much as they were now, but they'd just been orphaned, for heaven's sake! Why couldn't Beth love them as her own?

  Embarrassment bloomed like a rash across Lally's cheeks. She loosed a sudden belly laugh and winked. Her expression reminded Fancy of Wes.

  "How I do go on. And here, you're probably hungry. I reckon trail grub isn't much to a city girl's liking. Why don't I rustle you up some lemonade and a fresh slab of my sweet-potato pie? They ought to tide you over till supper. The boys'll be having beefsteak with biscuits and gravy, and some turnip greens thrown in on the side.

  "'Course, unless you're good at pushing and shoving," Lally added, demonstrating a deft elbow jab, "you aren't likely to get a bite after the menfolk stampede the table. Reckon you're up to a good wrastle?"

  A smile tugged at Fancy's lips. She had tried her damnedest to dislike this woman, and she had failed.

  "I've managed a few... er, menfolk in my time."

  "I don't doubt it, child, what with the yarns Wes has to tell." Lally nodded sagely. "Looks like Cord's gone and met his match in you. Glad to hear it too. That boy needs someone to jingle his spurs. And if you're the one to do it, God bless you."

  Dumbfounded, Fancy watched as Lally headed for the kitchen. She couldn't remember any woman going so far as to bless her—-particularly where male relatives were concerned. Just what kind of yarns had Wes been telling?

  Left to her own devices, Fancy gazed curiously around her. So this was the house where the Rawlins boys had been raised. She shook her head at the spur gouges on the floor and the tobacco burns on the chairs. Someone had shot a cougar and spread its pelt in front of the hearth; three pairs of mounted steer horns arched above the mantel. The room had a decidedly masculine atmosphere, yet Lally had made some progress with a vase of wildflowers and a collection of photographs.

  Strolling beside the mantel, Fancy pieced together stories from the images on display. There was a slightly younger, less plump Lally with a lumberjack of a man—undoubtedly Seth Barclay. Fancy remembered the gleaming white cross and the flower-adorned grave under a cottonwood near the Barclay homestead. Saddening a little, she wished she could have met the man who'd won a woman like Lally for his own.

  Next, she gazed at the cameo-faced young woman sitting between Seth and Lally. The girl was probably Ginny. An older Ginny appeared in the next picture, posing with a bookish-looking beau and a toddler-age boy. Ginny had apparently gotten herself married, Fancy thought a little jealously. And she'd moved away. That would account for Lally's eagerness for female company.

  The third frame held a photograph of Cord, perhaps at the age of nineteen, with his battle standard draped behind him. He looked dashing but solemn in his Confederate uniform, and Fancy marveled that he'd worn captain's bars at such a youthful age. She'd heard that the Eighth Texas Cavalry—Colonel Terry's Texas Rangers—had been lauded by Jefferson Davis for its tenacity and fearlessness.

  No wonder she had been unable to shake Cord from her trail!

  The frame at the mantel's end displayed a bride and groom. As Fancy approached the photograph, she felt her heart quicken. She guessed the identity of the couple even before she drew close enough to examine their faces. Despite what had probably been the happiest day of their lives, neither Cord nor Beth had smiled. Although solemnity was the photographic custom, Fancy thought it prophetic that the couple should look so rigid and cheerless on their wedding day.

  Picking up the frame, she blew off the
dust and polished the glass much as Lally had done. She supposed that most men would have considered Bethany Rawlins pretty—in a porcelain kind of way. Bethany looked ethereal. If Fancy hadn't already known Bethany's fate, she would have suspected that the bride could never thrive in this hot, dry climate.

  Fancy based her conclusion on more than the girl's obvious frailty. There was an air of self-indulgence about Beth. It could be glimpsed in the haughty tilt of her head and the vaguely discernible pout on her lips. Beth had lived a pampered life. Unfortunately, she'd married a man who wasn't inclined to coddle.

  The clinking of spurs pricked Fancy's ears. Turning, she found Cord watching her from the doorway. She felt as if she was the intruder when his narrowed gaze darted from the empty corner of the mantel to the frame in her hands.

  "What are you doing with that picture?"

  She tensed, hearing a threat in his question. Cord hadn't spoken two words to her since yesterday, when she'd doctored Wes's shoulder. She had hoped that his private visit with the boy would improve his mood.

  "I didn't mean any harm. Cord. I was just—"

  "Put it back."

  "But—"

  "I said put it back."

  She hiked her chin. "Very well. I've finished looking at it anyway."

  His eyes glittered as she obeyed. If he'd been a mustang stallion defending his herd, he couldn't have looked more dangerous.

  "You have a heap of nerve, woman, wandering around, poking your nose into what isn't your business, and after all the trouble you've caused."

  "All the trouble I've caused?"

  She gaped. Stupid girl. Did you think he would actually thank you for risking your life to save Wes?

  "As I recall, Marshal, it wasn't I who dangled that wanted poster in front of Wilton Slade."

  Cord stiffened.

  "No doubt you'll find this difficult to believe," she went on acidly, "but the last place I want to be is in this dusty rattrap you call home, making nice with your salt-of-the-earth relatives."

  "That's fine by me. I'll lock you in the woodshed then."

  "Over my dead body!"

  Lally steamed back into the parlor with the pie and lemonade. If she had overheard Fancy's slur, she made no reference to it as she set down her tray.

  Cord looked belligerent. "Fancy Holleday is my prisoner—"

  "Fancy Holleday is my guest." Lally wagged a finger under his nose. "You'd best be civil."

  "You're forgetting that this woman is wanted for a federal crime, not to mention the rustling and cardsharping she's done since."

  "And you're forgetting Miss Fancy saved Wes's life."

  Cord's lip curled. "I've got my doubts about that, since Wes's tale grows taller with each telling."

  "Oh, so now your brother's a fibber?"

  "Hell, Aunt Lally, she hoodwinked the boy into thinking he loves her!"

  "Fiddle." Lally folded her arms across her chest. "Wes has a mind of his own. Stop blaming Fancy for what comes natural to a boy his age. I seem to recall you getting all calf-eyed over a Miss Bethany Fontaine."

  "That's not the same."

  "Oh? And why's that?"

  "'Cause I was three years older then. And because Beth wasn't... well, she just wasn't like Fancy."

  "You mean that Beth wasn't likely to throw herself in front of a Henry rifle to keep your brother from getting killed?"

  Cord's chest heaved. His eyes locked with Fancy's, but she looked away, unable to bear his cutting stare.

  Of course that wasn't what Cord meant, she told herself ruthlessly. He meant that Bethany Fontaine wasn't a lying, cheating thief... or a whore.

  "Beth isn't the point," he said, his voice gruff. "And neither is Wes. The point is that Fancy broke the law. I'm obliged to bring her in whether you're against it or not. Growing feelings for her won't make things any easier. Not for you, not for Wes, and not for Fancy."

  This argument seemed to move Lally. Her gaze darted uncertainly between them.

  "But if we have Fancy's word that she won't try to escape—"

  "You can't ask a coyote to stop eating," Cord said flatly. "It'll do what it has to do to survive. If she has her freedom, she'll run. She can't sit still knowing a prison sentence waits for her. You wouldn't expect her to, would you?"

  Lally sighed. She shook her head.

  "Good. Looks like we're agreed, then."

  He turned abruptly, his shoulders set, his jaw uncompromising. "Zack!" he bellowed at the top of the stairs.

  The boy appeared on the landing. He looked anything but comfortable when Cord gestured him to descend.

  "Lock Miss Holleday in my bedroom. Take supper to her when it's ready."

  Zack seemed troubled, but he obediently took her arm. She noticed that he refused to meet her gaze.

  Cord didn't suffer a similar problem. His features were stony as Lally hurriedly passed her the pie and lemonade. Taking the tray, Fancy was hard-pressed not to tell Cord exactly what kind of a cur she thought he was.

  Her spine rigid, she followed Zack to her makeshift prison. He blushed when she stepped inside, and he made great haste to close the door. She smiled mirthlessly to hear him turn the key.

  At least Cord Rawlins had made hating him easy again, she thought bitterly.

  * * *

  Cord's smile was filled with self-loathing as he raised the whiskey bottle to his lips. He'd given up any pretense of civility an hour earlier, when he'd hurled his shotglass against the mantel. It had shattered with a satisfying crash, and he'd briefly amused himself with the notion that he wouldn't spill any more liquor out of that glass. Or any other, for that matter. Glasses wasted too much time when a man was in a hurry to get drunk. Yep, the gulp and shudder method was the quickest path to forgetfulness.

  The only problem was, it didn't seem to be working well that night.

  Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, Cord turned his head to blink up past the gallery-style stairs to the bedroom at the end of the landing. The light beneath his door spun like watery pinwheels, but the knob eventually came into focus. Disappointed, he figured he must not be drunk yet.

  He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the wall. He was going to run out of rotgut before he ran out of thoughts of Fancy Holleday. He didn't much like the idea of her locked in his bedroom, snooping through his personal things. Midnight had chimed a half hour ago, and she still hadn't blown out his lamp. Just what had she found so interesting up there?

  Or maybe she was curled up under his quilt after all. Maybe she'd just forgotten to douse the light. Cord imagined all those sable curls fanning across his pillows, and he hastily gulped another swallow.

  That was one image he'd best forget right away.

  He smiled ruefully. Yep, she was dangerous, that girl. She'd gotten under his skin somehow. What was worse, she'd made him feel responsible for his boys getting ambushed.

  A grudging part of Cord admitted that he couldn't keep blaming Fancy for his own mistakes. After all, he'd been the careless one, letting a bounty hunter see her posted reward. And he certainly hadn't redeemed himself any when he'd gotten decoyed to that ridge.

  Even so, there was no telling what had really happened before he'd galloped into camp. He remembered being too concerned about Wes to see much beyond Slade's rifle, although he did recall a glimpse of Fancy clutching her belly. She'd been pale and shaking, a far cry from the steely nerved gunslinger Wes had described. Knowing the boy's fondness for tall tales, Cord preferred not to believe that Fancy had thrown herself into Slade's line of fire, or that she'd heroically faced him down with a gun.

  Oh, he believed she'd hidden a derringer all right, and that she'd misfired in her haste to save her own skin. That would account for the second report he'd heard and the bullet hole he'd seen in Slade's arm.

  Still, Cord couldn't explain away Fancy's neckerchief blotting Wes's wound.

  His lip curled, and he took another swig.

  All right. So once in her life,
Fancy Holleday had been selfless. There was yet the matter of her derringer. Just to imagine what she could have done with that pistol while he lay sleeping made his blood curdle. He doubted whether a glimmer of conscience had kept her from shooting his boys. She'd feared his retaliation, pure and simple. And she'd been right to do so. If he wasn't so worried he might forget his purpose in a fit of drunken lust, he would storm his bedroom that very moment to wring her neck.

  Cord smiled grimly.

  Drunken lust. That was really the issue, wasn't it? He'd guzzled half a bottle of rotgut to convince himself that Fancy was still the conniving, heartless floozie he remembered from the train. Half a bottle should have been plenty to assure himself that she would have ridden off with Slade, left the boys for dead, and plotted to trick the bounty hunter later.

  Some small part of him must not have bought the story, though, because here he sat on this hard parlor floor, hating his duty, wishing he could set Fancy free... and wanting nothing more than to love her.

  Disgraceful, that's what he was. He didn't feel guilty about wanting Fancy, even though he owed it to Beth to feel remorse. In the two years since he'd killed Beth, he'd swilled gallons of whiskey to forget how he needed a woman. Now he couldn't remember the last time he'd bedded one. Oh, there'd been some harlot back in El Paso four months or so ago, but he'd been so full of spirits then, he'd fallen asleep before finishing the act.

  Even when he was drunk, Beth's memory was a powerful deterrent. It rarely let him seek comfort with a whore, much less a decent woman.

  Cord's laugh was short and hollow.

  Fancy Holleday? A decent woman? Now when had he started thinking that?

  "Cord?"

  Zack's tentative whisper nearly made Cord jump out of his skin.

  "Blazes, boy." Cord flung a guilty—if protective—leg over his bottle. "What are you sneaking around here for?"

  "I'm not sneaking."

  "When you prowl around softer than an Injun, I call that sneaking."

  "Well, if you'd gone and lit a lamp, you'd have seen me coming," Zack retorted. "Why are you sitting on the floor in the dark?"