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

by Rice, Patricia

  Today, she had realized that Blisse wasn't a rival. Blisse was the tragic reflection of every hurt, fear, and mistake that Fancy had ever experienced. In the eyes of a man like Cord, Blisse was someone to be pitied.

  And so it went without saying that Cord must pity her too.

  "You underestimate me," she said dryly. "And so does Blisse."

  "Fancy."

  He caught her arm once more, halting her. She felt his warmth, his worry, flowing through her, and she wanted to run again. Why couldn't he just let her be? She didn't want his pity. Anything—even his contempt—would be more bearable than that.

  "I know you're angry," he said, "but you have to listen to me."

  She hardened her jaw, training her gaze over his shoulder. She couldn't face his eyes.

  "Very well."

  "You were set up, Fancy. Ned set you up," he added more gently.

  She felt her gut knot. Goosebumps scuttled down her spine. "What are you talking about?"

  "He doesn't have the plates. He never did. He's been playing you, me, his brother—hell, his entire gang—for fools."

  "That's preposterous."

  But was it? Hadn't she herself wondered why Ned hadn't fled to Mexico by now?

  "Why would he do such a thing?" she amended uneasily.

  "For four million dollars in Mexican silver."

  Fancy's heart began to slam against her ribs. She had wondered why Ned had accepted her and Cord so readily into the gang. And she had thought that Ned was taking an uncommonly long time to agree to ride with them to Mexico. If he had no plates to retrieve from some secret cache, then his procrastination would be explained.

  Her mind whirred with speculation. Ned must have thought his men would refuse to believe Bart had died without handing over the plates. So he had pretended to bury them somewhere, trusting no one with his secret, not even Jake, for fear his brother's tongue might slip. If the outlaws had ever lost faith in Ned's leadership, they would have turned on him like wolves.

  "But if Ned doesn't have the plates, where are they?"

  "My guess is, you're the only person who can answer that, Fancy."

  "No!" She shook her head, not wanting to believe she'd come so close to earning her freedom, only to have it snatched away. "I told you everything. I swear! I don't know where they are."

  "You must," he said urgently. "Think. Think hard, Fancy. There has to be some clue you've overlooked, some conversation you had with someone."

  She frowned, fear and frustration whirling in her brain. Surely she had followed every lead to its logical conclusion—

  She caught her breath. A sudden spark of insight flashed as she recalled the conversation she'd had with Bart Wilkerson's physician.

  "Dropped like a rock, Bart did, when he hit his head on the stone wall outside of Cattleman's Bank," Doc Tate had confided as she'd plied him with whiskey. "Yep, that's what finally did him in."

  At the time, the site where Bart had lapsed into a coma hadn't seemed significant.

  "Maybe you're right," she whispered. "Maybe there is something. I was talking to Bart's doctor back in Fort Worth, and he said Bart visited the Cattleman's Bank right before he died. Maybe Bart left the minting plates there."

  Cord frowned. "But that doesn't make sense."

  "Of course it does," she said eagerly. "It makes perfect sense. Bart was too weak to bury the plates. He needed somewhere to stash them, and the vault is like a fortress—the safest place in town. Of course, being an outlaw, he never would have deposited valuables under his real name. That's why no one ever wired his relatives to come get the sack or the strongbox, or whatever else he might have used to conceal the plates."

  Cord shook his head in amazement. "The man was an idiot."

  "Or a genius," she murmured. "Take your pick."

  Cord gazed deeply into her eyes. For a heart-stirring moment, he seemed poised on the brink of some confession. Some sweet affirmation of feeling. She held her breath.

  Suddenly, a night creature darted through the brush. Cord tensed, his gunhand flexing. Pebbles scrabbled, and she swallowed, standing like stone. For a long moment, they both strained their eyes, searching the vegetation for some sign of human intrusion.

  Nothing moved, though. Nothing breathed.

  Cord frowned. She was disappointed to see his tender mood had been destroyed. He caught her elbow and guided her several steps farther down the trail.

  "There's something else you need to know," he said, halting her once more.

  She felt her pulse quicken. His voice sounded so grim. "What? What is it?"

  "It's Blisse." He looked monumentally uncomfortable. "She... er, remembers me fairly accurately from El Paso."

  Fancy felt her stomach churn. She knew this would happen. She knew Blisse would be trouble.

  "So you did whore with her."

  "No," he said quickly, meeting her gaze again. "No. Not that. Apparently I saved her from a beating. I'd finished off at least half a bottle of whiskey at the time, so I don't even remember. But she does."

  Fancy swallowed hard. So Blisse knew he was a federal marshal. God help them both.

  "Fancy, I'm sorry," he said hoarsely, apparently guessing at her thoughts. "I don't normally make it a habit to, er, visit places like Miss Lottie's. But it was the anniversary of Beth's death, and I was drunk out of my mind. So drunk, in fact, that I couldn't do anything. With anybody. Much less a child."

  His eyes pleaded with her to understand. She wanted to shake him.

  "Blisse is no child," she said in a tightly controlled voice. "She is a very real threat. And it's high time you started thinking of her that way."

  Someone chuckled, and a match flared behind Cord. He whirled, drawing his gun and shielding her, but it was too late. Rifles gleamed in the moonlight.

  "Imagine that, Colt," Goose drawled. "Little Blisse being a threat."

  He shoved the girl forward. She was shaking visibly, despite her best efforts to look fierce and unconcerned. Colt grinned, snapping the lever on his Winchester.

  But it was Ned, unarmed and unemotional, who frightened Fancy most of all. He puffed for a long, blood-chilling moment on his smoke.

  Then slowly, deliberately, he raised his head. Her knees turned to rubber when his Satanic eye drilled into her.

  "Looks like we're gonna rob us a bank, boys."

  * * *

  The ride to Fort Worth took two days. Two days of nerve-rending stress. Cord didn't understand why Wilkerson didn't just kill him. Clearly, his position in the gang had deteriorated to prisoner. They'd taken his gun. They'd bound his wrists. They'd even roughed him up. But they'd allowed him enough food and water to stay alive.

  And so far, they hadn't raped Fancy.

  Blisse helped to shed some light on the situation shortly before dawn on the third day. Sneaking to his side, she slipped him a derringer.

  "They still think you might have rich friends down in Mexico," she whispered. "And they don't want trouble from those bastard Rangers. I told them Fancy's daddy owns the Texas Central Railroad. I told them they could get a lot of ransom out of him if they played their cards just right.

  "But if Fancy went home bruised or bloody, I told them her daddy would go and hire the whole damned Ranger force. And then there wouldn't be nowhere on this earth that Ned could hide."

  Cord's heart warmed to the girl. "Thank you."

  She nodded, darting a nervous glance toward his snoring guard before slipping back into the shadows.

  So Blisse hadn't told them he was a federal marshal, he mused—or rather, no one had beaten it out of her yet. He worried what would happen to her when they learned how she had lied for him.

  But if he worried about Blisse, he agonized over Fancy. During the last three days, when the outlaws stopped to make camp, they had always tied her opposite him at the site.

  Wilkerson, perhaps out of boredom, perhaps out of spite, played cruel games to trigger her darkest female fears. No one else was allowed to touch h
er. Wilkerson always stopped short of the final depravity—thank God for Blisse's quick thinking—but Cord suspected Wilkerson enjoyed terrorizing Fancy far more than he would have enjoyed the actual rape. Cord's only consolation during his helplessness was small: Fancy had resisted every one of Wilkerson's attempts to reduce her to hysterics.

  If it's the last thing I do, he vowed in deadly earnest, I'm going to kill that sonuvabitch.

  As for Fancy, she was far more worried about Cord being shot or lynched than she was about the few bruises Wilkerson gave her. She'd been pinched and prodded, slapped and bitten, and even ejaculated upon before, and certainly she'd suffered far worse at Diego's hands.

  Of course, she wondered why Wilkerson didn't rape her outright—or let any of the others take a turn, for that matter—but she didn't force the issue by indulging in morbid curiosity. The humiliation of having Cord witness the outlaw's perversities was far worse than the physical discomfort.

  After two days and nights of this abuse, the morning of the robbery dawned. Fancy anxiously watched Cord's wrists being bound to his saddlehorn while Wilkerson finally revealed his plan.

  "Goose, Colt, and Lash are gonna go into the bank posing as customers. Fancy here, being such a fine-looking distraction, is gonna change a twenty-dollar bill. When the cashier's back is turned, you boys'll jump him and any tellers, and get them to open that safe. The rest of us'll keep the townsfolk busy."

  "What about me?" Blisse asked quickly. "I could guard Harris while you're hurrahing the town."

  "Good thinking." Goose sneered at her. "Now that he's all trussed up and can't fight you off, you can finally get your hands in his pants."

  Blisse reddened.

  Wilkerson drilled her with his baleful eye. "You hold the horses," he told her.

  "A hitching post can do that," she retorted sullenly.

  "She's got a point, Ned," Jake said. "We can't be watching Harris and shooting up windows at the same time."

  A cold, cruel smile curved Ned's lips. "We don't need to be watching Harris. He's gonna watch himself. When we do the swoop and hurrah, he's gonna ride between us with an empty gun."

  Fancy's stomach curdled at the harrowing image his words conjured.

  But Cord didn't flinch a muscle even though he had to know he would be caught in the crossfire when the shootout began.

  At four o'clock that afternoon, the gang separated at the city limits sign. Lash and Colt rode for the north side of town; Wilkerson's group headed south. By the time they crossed the Trinity River, Fancy's heart was pounding so hard she could scarcely breathe. Goose stopped her mare to slash her bonds. For a moment, one fleet and agonizing moment, her horse stood beside Cord's, and she was able to clasp his hand.

  "Come back to me, Fancy," he whispered, his heart shining in his eyes.

  She choked and nodded, unable to force her answer past the sob that welled in her throat.

  I love you, Cord. I love you!

  Riding away, she battled tears as she watched him over her shoulder. She stubbornly fixed her eyes on his form until he was no more than a speck in the cloud of dust kicked up by the horses.

  Dear God, please. Please don't let this be the last time I ever see him alive.

  To avert suspicion, Goose turned his and Fancy's horses down First Street; minutes later, Blisse spurred hers down Weatherford. By the time Goose and Fancy reached the center thoroughfare, they found Lash had already arrived. Puffing a smoke, he leaned indolently against the wall of the hardware store and watched as they rode by. Colt was tethering his horse farther down the street.

  The wind had picked up. Ominous purple clouds were rolling in from the north. In anticipation of the storm, the townsfolk were shooing children off the street, shuttering windows, and slamming doors. Goose checked his watch as the sun was swallowed whole.

  "We got ten minutes till the hurrah." He fixed Fancy with a keen, hard stare. "Get down."

  She obeyed, trying not to let her knees quake visibly. He swung down beside her. Catching her elbow in a viselike hold, he propelled her past the alley where Blisse crouched, waiting to round up the horses. Fancy felt the girl's resentful gaze stab through her. Or perhaps it was stabbing through Goose. It was hard to say.

  "You do what I tell you," the outlaw said in a low growl, driving her up the bank steps and reaching for the doorknob. "Understand?"

  She nodded weakly, feeling Ned's twenty-dollar bill smolder like a brand inside her pocket. She had the briefest of moments to wonder why this robbery should seem so different from the train's. Just as before, she was playing decoy. She knew what to do, how to behave. If she had to, she could outfox any hayseed cashier alive.

  But maybe that was the key. She didn't want to. Cord had really fixed her this time. He'd made her too upstanding for her own good.

  Searching for escape routes, she took stock of the bank. The lobby was big and rustically appointed, with steer-horn chairs, cowhide hangings, and a mounted wolf head above the teller windows. Behind the counter, she glimpsed the vault, easily as tall as she, and wide enough for three men to step inside.

  Beyond the safe, there appeared to be some kind of clerk's office. Or maybe it was a door to the back alley. She remembered vaguely from her last visit to Fort Worth that stairs led from the building's rear story to the dusty street below.

  Two other customers were in line. They were staring at her, and Fancy tried not to balk when Goose put his arm around her waist, drawing her close like a sweetheart. Lash wandered in a couple of minutes later. Then Colt. The three men were the most attractive in the gang and, Fancy supposed, the least likely to be regarded with suspicion. Colt even tipped his hat when the first customer, a matron, turned to head for the street.

  A lean, boyish figure pushed past the woman as she tried to exit. The matron hurrumphed, excusing herself in disapproving tones, even though the youth had clearly been the one at fault. Fancy supposed it was the boy's rudeness that made him remarkable to her.

  Goose muttered an oath. "Dammit, Dusty..."

  Blisse had stuffed her hair under her hat and turned up her collar. Even so, her bruises could be glimpsed despite the shadows of her Stetson. They easily made her the most suspicious character there.

  Blisse glared back at Goose, then at Colt, both of whom were gesturing in a furtive, angry way for her to return to her post.

  For God's sake, Blisse, Fancy thought. Would the girl get herself killed trying to prove she was more valuable to the outlaws than Fancy was?

  The last customer was walking out the door. Fancy quailed as Goose tightened his arm around her waist and pushed her forward.

  "Good afternoon, folks," the cashier greeted them jovially. "And how can I help you today?"

  Fancy swallowed. She couldn't remember ever feeling so nervous, even in the early days, when Diego used to make her rehearse before him to make sure she wouldn't botch the con.

  "I'd like to change this twenty, please," she said hoarsely, her tongue only slightly more pliant than sun-dried leather.

  "Of course, ma'am." The cashier gave her a reassuring smile, no doubt thinking she was shy. "Won't be but a moment."

  He stooped, reaching for the money box under the counter. Fancy caught her breath. Only then did she spy the wanted poster that had been hidden behind his shoulder. The face belonged to Diego. "Escaped Killer" was clearly discernible beneath "$1,000 Reward."

  Cord! she thought with heart-stopping force. What will Diego do to Cord?

  The cashier abruptly straightened. Adjusting his spectacles, he frowned down at the greenback she'd handed him. "Ma'am, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but your bill is counterfeit."

  "Yeah? Well, what d'ya know?" Goose stuck his revolver under the man's plump chin. "This .45 ain't."

  Gun hammers clicked as Colt and Lash both drew. One teller, growing whiter than chalk, sank to his knees; the other must have lost his senses. Turning tail, he bolted for the rear of the bank.

  Lash cursed, vaulting over the coun
ter. The teller threw open the back door, and the footrace ended in gunshots. Fancy heard the ominous thudding when the teller's body bounced down the stairs.

  Lash sneered as he turned back around. "Hell. He coulda put up a better fight than that."

  Fancy fought down nausea. The insidious creep of panic threatened to bring her to her knees. Caring is weakness, and weakness is death, the old chant pounded in her ears. She couldn't let them know she mourned the teller's death. She had to think about Cord.

  Her gaze strayed back to Diego's wanted poster. Somehow, she had to get through this robbery alive. She had to warn Cord he was in terrible, terrible danger.

  * * *

  Sitting on his horse nearly two blocks away, Cord heard the gunshots. With the gut-level instincts of a lawman, he knew the reports had come from the bank.

  Fancy! He tasted bile. Dear God, keep her safe.

  Sputtering the foulest curses known to man, Ned slashed at Cord's bonds with a knife.

  "Idiots! They're shooting too soon!" Ned pulled his neckerchief over his nose and spurred his horse down Main Street.

  Jake cocked his Peacemaker and tossed Cord his gun. "Ride or die, Harris."

  Cord ground his teeth. Donning his own mask, he kicked Poco after Ned's fleeing horse. His .45 felt uncommonly light without its bullets. He switched it to his left hand.

  Frightened townsfolk shrieked and fled before the galloping horses. On either side of him, the Wilkersons loosed blood-curdling whoops. Cord had a fleeting moment to notice that Jake, who rode at his left, protected Ned's blind side. Then someone fired from a hotel window. Ned took aim, and the sniper jerked, tumbling streetward through a shower of glass. He hit the street like a rag doll, and Cord bit back an oath of outrage.

  That's another one I owe you, Wilkerson, you bastard.

  "Applegate! Brand!"

  People were shouting for their lawmen as the Wilkersons swooped out of the Acre, arriving at the center of town in a tumult of dust, smoke, and noise. The sheriff's own window splintered into a thousand pieces. But Applegate, canny old codger that he was, had already hotfooted it to safety. Cord glimpsed the sheriff beneath a stairwell, tossing a rifle to a red-haired youth, before the two men ran their separate ways, firing and shouting for deputies.