Way Out West

by Blanche Marriott

  He ran his hand over his face. “No. I just need to get to the hotel.” Then, as though coming to a decision, he shook his head back and forth and let out a pathetic little chuckle. “I got myself into a bit of a sticky situation. Or maybe I should say it got me.” He turned to her, eyes pleading for understanding. “When the horse threw me, I landed on the side of the road on a cactus. I have spines stuck in me from the back of my thigh on up to my rump and they ain’t comfortable. That’s why I couldn’t ride.”

  Callie gasped. She grimaced at the thought of what it must have felt like, what it must feel like even now.

  Becky placed firm hands on her shapely hips. “Well, shoot, what do you think you’re going to do at the hotel?”

  “I was planning on a good soak in a hot tub for one thing.”

  Becky snickered. “Rand, honey, you’re not as smart as you look. Those cactus spines need to be pulled. No amount of soaking will get them out.”

  He hung his head, “I suppose I could see if the Doc is available.”

  Without a pause, Becky grabbed his arm and tugged him into the saloon. “Get yourself in here. No need to be bothering the Doc for such a piddly thing. If I can pluck eyebrows, I sure as tootin’ can pluck cactus spines.”

  Rand pulled his arm away and stopped just before the stairs. “Becky, didn’t you hear what I said, where I said they were?”

  Once again, Becky took her hip stance. “Do you think I’ve never seen a man’s bare backside? I was a nurse in a former life and believe me I’ve seen enough to last me a lifetime. One more isn’t gonna matter.”

  Callie sent Rand a shocked look. Hard to imagine, Becky had been a nurse! Rand gave Callie a slightly pained smile, then a resigned sigh to Becky, knowing he wouldn’t win.

  As the threesome started up the stairs, Becky barked out orders. “Smitty, have some hot water sent up immediately, enough to fill a tub, then see that Rand’s horse is taken to the stable and have his legs looked at. Callie, run over to the hotel, have the clerk get some fresh clothes from Rand’s room. And grab a bottle of whiskey on your way back. And you,” she nudged Rand as they reached the door to her room, “get in there and get undressed.”

  * * *

  Grateful for the changing screen in Becky’s room, he removed his pants, but not without a great deal of pain. The friction and movement of the material only aggravated the spines stuck in his skin. He didn’t like the idea of having Becky remove them, but he wanted those spines out of him more than anything. The burning was almost more than he could take.

  He heard Becky busying around the room and eyed her movements over the top of the screen as he finished undressing. She set out clean sheets over the bedspread and prepared a tray near the bed with tweezers, cotton and a washcloth.

  As soon as she turned to her bureau drawer and began rummaging, Rand dove for the bed and quickly pulled a sheet over the lower part of his body.

  Becky returned with a magnifying glass.

  “What do you plan on looking for with that?” he asked.

  “The tiny cactus hairs that surround each spine. Sometimes they’re more painful than the big ones!”

  He groaned and turned his head into the pillow as Becky pulled a chair over to the bed and took a seat. He felt the cool rush of air as she lifted the sheet and began plucking. Moments later a knock at the door announced the arrival of hot water.

  Before she answered the door, Rand tugged the sheet over himself again, grumbling, “Could I at least have what little is left of my dignity?”

  Becky only laughed and let in two young men with the hot water. While they filled the tub in the corner of the room, she dragged her changing screen closer to the bed. “Is that better?”

  She lifted the sheet and resumed her task. No sooner had the men left than a light knock was followed by the door opening again. “I’ve got the clothes and whiskey.”

  Rand sent Becky a pleading look. He didn’t want Callie in there. Bad enough he was under Becky’s scrutiny, this was not the side of him he wished to impress Callie with.

  “Set the clothes on top of the bureau and bring the whiskey over here to the night stand.” Rand scrambled to scoot under the sheet but Becky held a heavy hand on him. “Just stay behind the screen, Callie. My patient here is a mite embarrassed by his predicament.”

  Callie tried to muffle a laugh, but didn’t quite succeed. Before Rand knew it, Becky had joined in and the two women had a good chuckle at his expense.

  “I’m glad you find this humorous,” he said, his humiliation tainting his tone.

  “Sorry,” said Becky. Then laughter bubbled forth uncontrollably. “Oh, come on, Rand. Surely you can see the humor in it.”

  “Not when I’m the butt of the joke.” Callie laughed aloud and, realizing what he’d said, he finally joined the women with a pained snicker. “Okay, it’s sort of funny. But I’m sure I’ll find it a lot funnier when it doesn’t hurt so much.”

  With his head turned toward the screen, he watched Callie’s silhouette pace back and forth. He’d enjoyed going to church with her as though they were a couple. He liked people stopping to wish them a good day. He’d seen the sparkle in the eyes of most of the men who looked appreciatively on Callie’s beauty. But most important, he’d felt the bond grow stronger between them. He almost couldn’t remember what it was like without her.

  Suddenly, Callie stopped her pacing. She turned to the screen and blurted, “Well I for one want to know what the heck was going on out there!” Becky stopped plucking a minute. Rand sent her a warning look with a slight shake of his head. “I don’t like being kept in the dark, Rand,” Callie added.

  “It’s complicated,” Rand mumbled. Becky rolled her eyes and jabbed at his bottom with the sharp tweezers. “Ow!” Rand bit down on his lip as Becky continued to pluck away. Each little tug brought pain, then relief. Time passed ever so slowly as, inch by inch, she completed the removal process.

  “Then uncomplicate it for me. One minute you’re telling me how much I mean to you, the next you’re heading out on a secret mission and come back all torn up. I want some answers.”

  Becky cleared her throat loudly before he could respond. “Okay, I think I got them all. Does that feel any better?”

  “A little,” Rand answered for her benefit.

  She placed everything back on the tray. “Callie, pour me some whiskey.”

  He groaned. “Just what I need, a whiskey drinking nurse.”

  Becky took the glass with the caramel-colored liquid from Callie, who snaked her arm around the screen. Becky then dipped the cotton in the glass. “For the wounds,” she announced triumphantly and began to dab at his many sore spots.

  “Ouch! Ow. Hey, careful. Ooh, damn, that stings!” The sensations went from cold, to burning, to pain.

  “Well, I’d say my work is done here. All you need is a good soak in the tub to soothe those sores. Callie, can you get the epsom salts out of the closet in the hall?”

  As soon as Callie left, Becky whispered, “I suggest you get in that tub now while she’s gone.”

  Like a flash, Rand got up, dragging the sheet with him, and waddled over to the tub. He slid in just as Callie returned. Becky took the black and white box from her and went over to dump half the contents into the tub.

  “Swish that around,” she ordered Rand. “Once that’s all settled, you better settle something else.” He gave her an inquisitive look. Becky nodded toward Callie. “You owe her an explanation.”

  Chapter Nine

  “What is she talking about?” Callie demanded. “An explanation of what? What is going on?”

  Rand leaned his head back. She saw tired lines deepening around his mouth. “Pull up a chair,” he said and motioned.

  Dragging the chair Becky had used, she pulled it close enough to the tub to talk, but far enough to give him some privacy.

  “I went looking for Tyler today because I noticed he had a shovel in his saddlebag and I wanted to see what he was up to.”

/>   “So...he wanted to dig, so what? What does that have to do with you?”

  “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.” He dipped his arms to wash the dirt off and, more likely, to stall. “I firmly believe in the Way Out West privacy policy, but as Becky said, I do owe you some kind of explanation. We’ve grown so close and I don’t know how this will ultimately affect you.”

  He lifted some water from the tub and let it run down his face. He wiped the residual drops and slicked back his hair.

  “I told you I was married once and endured a messy divorce. The reason it was so messy was that my ex-wife is greedy. I own an electronics company.”

  “A store?”

  “No, a big company, a manufacturer. I own BRJ Cal-Tronics.” The name struck a familiar chord. “I’m Benton Randall, Jr.”

  Callie sat forward. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, ‘fraid not. Sometimes I wish I was.”

  “You’re the whiz kid who took a group of high school buddies and stunned the industry with innovative logic boards?”

  He nodded. “You flatter me with your familiarity.”

  “I majored in marketing. I studied your documentary for a research paper.”

  “That documentary was done before my divorce, before I nearly gave up the company, before Tyler’s brother decided to become a one-man destruction team.”

  Callie watched his face harden. More lines surfaced all over. His eyes appeared shadowed, distant.

  “What does Tyler and his brother have to do with all this?”

  “I can’t tell you everything right now, but his brother, Kyle Thornton, worked for me. He had a real knack for hacking, almost an obsession. He cracked into computers all over the world from his little desk in California. When he infiltrated a competitor’s system, he bragged about it throughout the plant. I couldn’t take the chance of putting my company’s neck on the line. I fired him before he did anything else.”

  “What’s that got to do with what Tyler is doing here?”

  “That’s the part I can’t fully explain right now, but I believe Kyle Thornton wants revenge and he sent Tyler to do the dirty work.”

  “He’s going to kill you?”

  “No. Kyle is a computer nerd. He wouldn’t think in physical terms. He’s out to get me electronically.”

  “I don’t understand,” Callie sighed. “You’re here, in a western town in the middle of nowhere. What can he do to you?”

  With his eyes, Rand pleaded with her. “It’s better that you don’t know just yet. Let me do what I have to tomorrow, and hopefully get this whole thing straightened out.”

  Callie waited for more, but Rand wasn’t giving any more details. He was rich and powerful, yet he seemed so vulnerable.

  “You said you sometimes wished you weren’t Benton Randall. Why?”

  He sighed and rubbed a tired hand over his eyes. “Money often has what I call the negative attraction effect. The richer I got, the more people wanted a piece of me. When I got divorced, the effect doubled. Women were knocking on my door every day of the week. I had more marriage proposals in the month following my divorce than dates all through high school.”

  Callie laughed. “Having women chase you isn’t such a bad thing, is it?”

  He nodded. “It is when they’re only after one thing—money. That’s not the life I want. After a brief mourning period for my dead marriage, I dated only out of necessity. Banquets, balls, and benefits. The rest of my time I dedicated to my work, until I discovered the Wild West.”

  Absorbing all that he’d said, a strange sensation passed over her. She rose from the chair and went to kneel beside the tub. “I don’t want you to go tomorrow. I’m afraid for you.”

  He reached out to touch her hair and she leaned into the hand. “I’m the one who will be worrying about you. You’ve come to mean so much to me, Callie. If any of what is happening ended up hurting you, I don’t know what I’d do. But I have to go. No one else can take care of this. You have to trust me on that.”

  She saw the anguish on his face and wanted to be the one to take it away. Whatever wounds he’d suffered in his other life had healed on the surface, but the scars ran deep.

  Then she looked at Rand with renewed wonder. “Wow.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “I’m with the whiz kid who’s at the top of Fortune 500’s list.”

  “This thirty-something kid has missed out on a lot of life. I need to do some serious catching up.” He pulled her to him and kissed her lips with a demanding mouth.

  * * *

  Early that evening, Callie came down the stairs of the saloon in her black sequined dress. She glanced in the mirror at the bottom landing, making sure her hair was all up in place. She wanted to look her best for Rand tonight, a firm reminder of what he had to come back to.

  She pulled at the tightly cinched waistband, which refused to stay straight, and adjusted the bodice one more time. The tables were already filling up. Callie recognized a few faces from the last two nights. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits and ready for a fun night. She went over to a table where three men had just taken seats.

  “What can I get you gentlemen this evening?” she drawled, more comfortable with her newly acquired western twang.

  One man tipped his hat. “With a pretty lady like you, who needs anything else?” The other two smiled in agreement.

  “Why, thank you. Your kind words are greatly appreciated, but compliments don’t put money in my pocket.” She leaned her tray against her hip. “Now what would you like?”

  The empty chair beside her scraped back and she jumped when she saw Tyler grinning an evil-toothed smile. He snaked a hand around her waist, pulling her close to his foul-smelling mouth. The stubble of his unshaven beard was a mixture of reds and blacks and grays. His hair looked dusty and his clothes could have used a brushing.

  “What I would like is ten minutes alone with you, darlin’.”

  His evil eyes squinted while he raised his eyebrows. Not only did he look and smell bad, but the mere thought of being alone with him started to ferment in her belly. Callie feared she was going to be sick.

  Before she could react, the three men at the table gasped as Tyler’s beady eyes bugged out and his hand fell from her waist. She turned to see Rand behind Tyler pulling tightly at his collar and grabbing the hand that had reached for his gun. Without hesitation, Rand twisted Tyler’s arm behind his back and squeezed the hand. Pain screwed up Tyler’s face something fierce. He looked awful before, but now he was downright ugly.

  “How do you like having someone’s hands on you without an invitation?” Rand muttered between clenched teeth. “Now, if you want a lady’s company, I think you should ask politely first. But if I were a betting man, which I am, I’d say you don’t have a prayer with Miss Callie.”

  A strangled gurgle erupted from Tyler’s throat as Rand pulled the collar tighter. “If you promise to sit and be quiet and not bother the pretty lady anymore, I might let you breathe in a couple of minutes. How does that sound?”

  Tyler nodded, hesitantly at first, then more vigorously as he realized Rand wasn’t letting go anytime soon. Callie watched Rand’s face. She saw him struggle with his conscience to let the man go or beat him to a pulp. That little vein pumped furiously against his temple.

  Suddenly, Rand released Tyler, dropping him in the empty chair. “He’s all yours, boys. But watch his dealing.”

  About to walk away, Rand quickly turned back and grabbed Tyler’s gun. “You can pick this up at the bar when you leave.”

  He pressed a hand to Callie’s back and ushered her to the bar where he handed the gun over to Smitty. Callie thought it odd that Smitty merely nodded, never questioning Rand’s act.

  “Why did you take his gun?”

  “In case it was real. He strikes me as someone who doesn’t follow rules. I’m not taking any chances on anyone getting hurt here tonight. Especially you.” He brushed the backs of his fingers against Callie’s che
ek and smiled. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine. He didn’t do anything, really.”

  “Any regrets about this afternoon? Are you sorry you know who I really am?”

  “Of course not.” But she thought to herself, what did she really know about him? She knew his identity, but did she know who Benton Randall was? Would she ever know? “How about you? Regret that you told me?”

  He shook his head. “What I regret is that I won’t be here for you tomorrow. That skunk seems to have a sixth sense about knowing when I’m not around. I hate the thought of leaving you alone.”

  “I won’t be alone, silly. There’s plenty of people around here. You said yourself Becky would keep an eye out for me, and with Smitty and all the girls, I’ll be fine.”

  “If I hadn’t stopped to send a telegram, I would have been here in time to prevent that,” he said, tilting his head in Tyler’s direction again.

  “A telegram? For what?”

  “To start the ball rolling when I leave in the morning.”

  He tugged her hand, making her inch closer to the smell she’d come to recognize and love. His musk scent, mixed with a hint of leather, would forever be imprinted in her sensory memory. She looked up into his soulful eyes, eyes that devoured her even as she stood there. His gaze dropped down to her mouth and she found herself worrying her lip again.

  “You don’t know how badly I want to kiss you right now,” he whispered.

  She blinked up at him. “I bet not as badly as I want you to kiss me.”

  They stared at each other, eyes locked in a passionate embrace. His lips parted slightly until the shimmer of white could be seen beneath his black mustache. She squirmed as a warm wave fluttered through her. She knew it was love.

  Chapter Ten

  Rand stuck to the card tables most of the night and kept a watchful eye on Tyler when he wasn’t looking at Callie. She stirred a powerful storm within him, the likes of which he’d never felt.

  Almost from the moment they’d met, he knew Callie would not pass quietly through his life. She was lively, happy, trusting. She filled a room when she entered it. Her laughter was as light as the wind. And she cared for him the man, not who he was. Somewhere inside him, a great big knot had loosened.