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

by Rice, Patricia

And what if he'd been wearing his badge?

  * * *

  May twentieth ticked off the third frustrating day of negotiating for the plates.

  It also marked Fancy's birthday.

  Conditioned by her former profession to think of twenty-six as ancient, she had deliberately kept the occasion a secret from Cord.

  Still, she felt disappointed when she woke to find he was missing from the bedroll beside her. She had thought that they might... well, sneak off for a private celebration.

  She glanced hopefully around the campsite. Dawn hadn't quite crept over the cliff face, so most of the men were still snoring. By the glow of the campfire's embers, she could discern a few empty bedrolls among the darker shadows, the most notable one being Blisse's.

  But then, Blisse rarely slept. She shared that trait with Cord.

  Fancy fidgeted, disliking where her thoughts were straying. Cord had stopped reaching for her at night, but that was perfectly understandable, wasn't it? After all, they had no privacy, and he wasn't one to do his lovemaking in front of drooling spectators.

  As for his gruff tone, his rare glances, and his aloofness, all were part of his desperado guise—a guise she had instructed him to create. It was foolish, not to mention dangerous, to crave reassurance from the old, tender Cord.

  The problem was, she'd had so few genuine demonstrations of affection in her life that Cord's sudden coolness felt like a hard freeze. His behavior left her wondering. Did he still think she was special? As special as she had been to him that night by the stream, when she was a year younger?

  She sighed. Stretching stiffly, she rose and grimaced. When had it become so hard to sleep on the ground?

  "Sleep well, Caliente?" Colt was leering at her across the campfire with his incessant, toothy grin.

  She nodded, trying not to scowl. Colt and his confidant, Goose, had been quick to christen her "hot whore" in Spanish, then had shortened Caliente to Callie. All the outlaws had a nickname, it seemed. Cord's was Randy, since he refused to share her bedroll with the others.

  "Too bad," Colt drawled. "I thought Randy had more juice in him than that." He thrust his hips forward for emphasis. "Now, if you was my woman, you wouldn't be sleeping much a'tall—if you catch my meaning."

  Oh, she caught his meaning, all right. It was as obvious as his lack of personal hygiene. One couldn't walk within five feet of Colt, Goose, or the others without smelling some part of their bodies. She suspected Cord would never have crawled into his bedroll, much less a woman's, caked in dust and sweat. Watching him bathe had become the highlight of her days.

  She smiled wryly. "Next time I want a sleepless night, Colt, I'll keep you in mind."

  "Quit your gabbing, woman," barked a squarish lump in another bedroll. "We don't got wood for the fire. And I sure as hell don't see my breakfast."

  Mad Dog. Her smile turned wan. Yes, womankind would certainly be better off if Ned Wilkerson died heirless.

  She crossed to the soup kettle.

  "And you'd best tell that other whore to get her lazy ass up," Ned said, "if she knows what's good for her."

  Fancy frowned in mock confusion. "Oh, dear. So much to do. Which would you prefer first, Mr. Mad Dog? The wood, your breakfast, or Blisse?"

  Ned's lip drew back in a snarl.

  Colt chuckled. "He's had Blisse. You'd best go fetch his breakfast, Callie."

  Fancy hid her revulsion.

  The red-orange disk of the sun was finally edging above the cliff face when she started toward the stream with the unwashed kettle in her hand.

  Furtively glancing at each shadow, she hoped for a glimpse of Cord. He seemed to have disappeared. Blisse had too. But then, Blisse usually went where Cord went.

  Fancy swallowed, carefully turning her mind away from the obvious conclusion. She wouldn't believe that of Cord. She couldn't. It was her birthday, and she was feeling old. Snubbed. That was all.

  Suddenly, she was distracted by the sound of a high-pitched male voice. It seemed to come from the sheltering boulders that had tumbled down beside the path.

  "I didn't haul your scrawny ass out of Miss Lottie's to do you any favors," the man snapped. "Now go do like I told you."

  Fancy stumbled to a halt. She couldn't immediately place the speaker, although she thought it might be Goose. The menace in his tone was unusual and distorted his oily tenor.

  "I don't got to listen to you." The second voice was unmistakably Blisse's, angry, defiant, and just a bit scared. "I'm not your whore no more."

  "You'll do like I said, bitch, or your whoring days are through."

  "Ha! I ain't scared of you. Not when I got Randy—"

  The ominous crack of flesh on flesh bounced off the limestone wall.

  "Blisse!" Fancy's pulse skyrocketed. "Is that you? Ned's been looking for you."

  A tense silence filled the seconds that dragged by. Fancy felt her skin grow clammy.

  "Blisse!"

  More silence. Dear God, had Goose killed her?

  And what had Blisse meant by, "I got Randy?"

  Hastily, Fancy set down the kettle and slipped off her holster's trigger guard. She tried to keep the panic from her voice.

  "Dammit, Blisse, I'm not cooking breakfast by myself again!"

  She waited uneasily. A faint whimper sounded, then the scrabbling of rock. Goose strolled out from behind the tumbled monolith. He wiped his hand on his pants leg, and Fancy's stomach flipped when she spied the tell-tale stain of red that his knuckles left behind.

  "Well, well, well. Looks like Callie's lost her man." Goose's face split into an obscene grin, but his eyes stayed narrowed and dangerous. "You been standing there long, Callie?"

  Blisse stumbled out from the other side of the rock. A trickle of blood spilled from the corner of her mouth. She braced herself on the limestone, pressing the back of her hand to her split lip, and shot Fancy a warning glare.

  "She ain't looking for you, Goose. Or didn't you hear?"

  "I hear just fine, Blisse. How 'bout you, Callie? You didn't answer my question."

  Fancy willed herself to return his stare. Although his lean boyish body made him less physically threatening than Ned, Goose had proven himself the canniest member of the gang.

  By watching Diego, Fancy had learned that clever men with slight builds were the most dangerous of all.

  "Sure I heard you, Goose. We all hear you when your pants are down." She wanted to retch at the very idea, but she had to protect herself. Blisse too.

  Fortunately, she had more to flaunt than Blisse, so she used it—hips, breasts, smile, and all. "You make the others sound like schoolboys. Not one of them can ride as long as you."

  "Yeah?" He smirked, but his conceit wasn't quite as great as his suspicion. It smoldered like twin embers in his eyes. "Even longer than Randy?"

  "Oh, yes, much longer," she purred. "I've counted."

  Blisse stalked forward, her hands balled into fists. "I told you these men are mine, damn you. Mine!"

  Fancy shuttered her features, trying not to telegraph her frustration. When she was sixteen, had she acted that way?

  She repressed a shudder. Up until that moment, she had considered Blisse wise beyond her years. Now she saw the glimmer of childishness in the girl's ravaged face.

  For God's sake, Blisse, I'm trying to help you.

  "Yes, well..." Fancy lifted a provocative shoulder and beamed her most enticing smile at Goose. "I suppose you did. A pity they don't have a choice."

  "They got a choice, bitch. And it's me!"

  Shrieking like a banshee, Blisse charged.

  Startled, Fancy could do little more than throw up an arm against the clawlike fingers that reached for her eyes. Blisse's bony frame slammed into her chest, and the next thing Fancy knew, she was toppling to the ground with Blisse trying to rip her hair out.

  "Catfight!" Goose whooped.

  Sitting on the lookout rock with Lash, Cord didn't immediately hear the commotion. He'd approached the taciturn sentry on
the pretext of sharing a cigarette. Goose was Colt's compadre, and Ned kept company with Jake, but Lash was the odd man out. Like the scorpion he resembled, he watched and waited, keeping largely to himself. Cord had hoped to maneuver Lash into a conversation that would eventually lead to the plates.

  Goose's gleeful cries brought that plan to a screeching halt.

  "C'mon, boys!" Goose trumpeted like his namesake. "Blisse and Callie are going at it good! They're tearing out hair and ripping up shirts. There's gonna be tits everywhere, boys. Come see!"

  Merciful God, Cord thought. Was it true?

  He rose hastily, but Lash stepped to block his way.

  "What's your hurry, Harris?" the outlaw drawled, darting Cord a sly look through the haze of cigarette smoke. "Don't you think your woman can lick little ol' Dusty?"

  "I got twenty dollars riding on Blisse," Colt called up to them as he ran down the path beneath the lookout rock. "Your whore won't last five minutes, Harris, once Blisse pulls out her knife."

  Cord's heart stalled. He shoved Lash out of the way. The outlaw's mocking laughter floated after him as he jumped down to the trail, but he didn't care. The time for pretense had ended. Fancy's life was at stake.

  He pushed his way through the circle of hooting, cheering outlaws, slamming a fist into Colt, who tried to hold him back, and another into Goose, who tried to trip him up.

  By the time he finally won access to the arena, Fancy and Blisse were rolling in a cloud of dust, their legs flailing. Fancy was muttering oaths, Blisse was shrieking curses, and they both were gouging and scratching.

  Never had he seen such a spectacle.

  "Fancy!" he shouted, wading in. "That's enough now, dammit!"

  By virtue of her weight, she had rolled on top. He grabbed her by the collar and yanked her to her feet.

  Blisse scrambled up in a heartbeat. With tears trickling down her cheeks, she charged again. This time, steel glinted in her hand. Lunging to intercept her, he grabbed her wrist and spun her hard against him. The outlaws hooted as she kicked and clawed.

  "Blisse!" he yelled.

  She hesitated when she realized whose private parts she was trying to gouge with her knee.

  "Drop the knife."

  She sobbed, struggling in earnest again.

  Her boot struck his shin, and he bit back an oath. Half-carrying, half-dragging her, he wrestled her a few yards away and pinned her against the face of the cliff. The pressure of his fingers finally forced the knife from her hand.

  "It's over, Blisse," he said in her ear. "Settle down now, or you'll get yourself hurt."

  "You don't care about me," she sobbed. "No one cares about me. You only care about her."

  "That's not true," he murmured, trying to soothe her with his hands.

  She blinked up into his face, looking pathetically hopeful, and he felt his heart twist.

  The girl was a wild card, and he didn't trust her. But she'd been so brutalized by the other men that he didn't have the heart to shove her away while she still gulped down tears.

  He let her cling to the front of his shirt as he glanced at Fancy. For now, it was more important to assess her injuries than to demand what the hell she'd been thinking to let herself get goaded into a knife fight.

  Other than a torn sleeve and a scratch on the bridge of her nose, she didn't seem any the worse for the brawl. He breathed a sigh of relief—until he saw the resentment smoldering in her eyes.

  "What'd ya go and stop the fight for, Harris?" Colt growled, his face wiped clean for once of its habitual smile. "You didn't have no right. And now you owe me twenty dollars."

  "That's right," Goose said, his cheeks mottled with anger as he clutched his gut where Cord had punched him. "You owe every one of us twenty dollars. In gold. And a turn on the woman too."

  "I told you she's mine," Cord snapped.

  "You can't have both of them, Harris," Lash taunted from his perch on the rock.

  "That's right," Colt said. "And it seems like he made his choice, don't it, boys?"

  There was a general rumble of agreement. Only Fancy said nothing. Her chest heaving, she continued to regard him with that scathing stare.

  Goose stepped forward and reached for her arm.

  "Back off," Cord warned.

  The outlaw sneered.

  "Back off, I said."

  The gun was in Cord's hand so quickly, Goose didn't have time to blink. Colt, Lash, and Jake all drew belatedly. Blisse caught her breath. She edged nervously from the circle of Cord's arm.

  Fancy's brittle laughter broke the tension.

  "You aren't fool enough to shoot the only man who can bring you four million dollars in Mexican silver, are you, boys?" she said. "Because if you are, you'll be sitting on other godforsaken rocks just like this one, swatting flies and baiting scorpions for the rest of your lives."

  "Put your guns away," Ned growled, glaring at each of his men in turn. "Christ, your brains are the size of your peckers. And that ain't saying much."

  He leveled his baleful eye at Cord. "As for you, Harris, keep that whore of yours on a leash, or I'll put a bullet through her snatch. Then no one's gonna have her. Got that?"

  It was the longest speech Cord had ever heard Wilkerson make.

  He nodded curtly.

  "Now get your horses ready." Ned was quick to divert his followers from their itchy trigger fingers. "That stage route is a good three-hour ride from here. And I want biscuits and coffee for every man in ten minutes."

  He'd snapped that last order at the women.

  Blisse nodded hurriedly, slinking away to do his bidding. Without so much as a glance at Cord, Fancy turned on her heel and stalked after the grumbling outlaws toward the campfire.

  "Fancy!" he called sharply.

  He saw her halt, her spine as rigid as an oak board. God, he hated this pretense, but he knew the others would watch and listen. He didn't dare soften his tone just now, yet he couldn't let her walk away without trying to communicate his concern. He could see how badly the brawl had shaken her.

  "We aren't finished, woman," he said in his brusque Frank Harris voice.

  Fancy swallowed hard, digging her nails into her palms to fight back tears. She wouldn't humiliate herself. Not this time. She'd been a fool much too often where Cord Rawlins was concerned.

  How could she have been so naive? She should have known better than to think he cared about her, really cared.

  "I got Randy," Blisse had said. For once, the girl seemed to have spoken the truth. If Fancy hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she would never have believed that Cord could turn against her that way.

  Clearly he blamed her for the fist fight. He'd seen Blisse's tears, and he'd taken her side. Never mind that the little savage had tried to stick a knife inside her chest! He'd gone to comfort Blisse. He'd let her hug and fondle him in front of Goose, her whoremonger, and the entire Wilkerson gang.

  And to think I almost told him I love him that night by the stream!

  Unable to bear the pain of her newfound feelings, Fancy rounded on him.

  "Christ, you were stupid," she hissed, leaping to the attack. "If you want to get yourself killed, that's fine by me. But leave me out of it."

  She saw him stiffen. His eyes flickered to Lash, who was pretending not to eavesdrop on the rock overhead.

  "You want to explain yourself?"

  "Well, let's see. Pulling a six-shooter against five armed men—"

  "I seem to recall you needed help."

  "I don't need anything from you... Frank, " she added acidly.

  He stepped closer. His eyes were practically slits under the brim of his hat. She couldn't read them.

  "This isn't a poker game, sweetheart," he said, his voice low and throbbing with some restrained emotion. "You heard what Wilkerson said. Keep your nose clean."

  "What about you?" she wanted to shout. "What about keeping your hands clean?"

  "You forget, Frank." She used the name like a flogging. "I know my way around me
n. And if I were you, I'd watch my back."

  She started to turn, but he caught her arm, pulling her hard against him. She could feel his heart hammering against her back, his quickened breaths gusting against her cheek.

  "Dammit, Fancy, what does that mean?"

  Her throat thickened. She almost regretted her words, for she'd meant them as a warning, not a threat.

  Then she recalled the image of Blisse, her tear-streaked face pressed against his shoulder. She remembered how he'd clasped the girl's waist and crooned words of comfort to her. Blisse had been pitiful, like the hurt and frightened child she really was.

  And Fancy had never felt as old as she had in that moment.

  "It means," she said harshly, fighting her traitorous tears, "that you're vulnerable, Frank. Very vulnerable. Hold on to that knife to protect yourself, because your little redheaded friend probably has another one waiting for you under her skirts."

  "Where the hell is Caliente?" This bellow came from Ned, whom she could see towering before the campfire with his fists on his hips.

  Cord muttered what sounded like an expletive.

  "Fancy," he whispered quickly, his fingers tightening over her arm, "this thing between me and Blisse, it's not what you—"

  "You deaf or something, woman? Get your ass up here!" Ned was toying with the trigger guard of his holster. "I ain't saying it again!"

  Fancy tugged free of Cord's grasp. Twenty-six years of deceit—of hiding who she really was and what she really felt—saved her now from a gross display of feminine weakness.

  She masked her features, falling back on the old habits as easily as she used to fall onto Diego's feather mattress.

  "Save your breath, Frank," she said. Smiling seductively at Wilkerson, she headed for the campfire. "Ned needs me now."

  * * *

  That day was perhaps the longest one of Cord's life.

  The stage robbery had troubled him deeply, so deeply that he almost wasn't able to go through with it. Seeing the passengers' terror when the gang had swooped down, when Ned had ordered the baggage burned and the stage rolled, when Goose had talked about killing the men and raping the pregnant woman—all had brought home to Cord the realization of how his parents must have suffered before they were gunned down in another stage robbery thirteen years earlier.