His gut clenched. She was a vision in the blue silk dress cinching her waist, with silky, up-swept honey-blond hair and large nutmeg brown eyes. Did she still wear that gleaming derringer handgun strapped to her shapely thigh? He should high-tail it to Nebraska or Texas or California. There couldn’t be too much distance between him and Lady Lily. “You are taking this mighty serious.”
“I am.”
None of this would be happening if he hadn’t been an idiot and answered her telegram and asked her to come west as his mail-order bride. He couldn’t run. His Pa and Ma had brought him up to do right by others. “Blast it! You’re not giving me much of a choice.”
She exhaled softly. “No, I’m not.”
Jack pushed against her. She smiled weakly and she scratched his head. “Good dog.”
Eyes aglow with affection, Jack’s tail thumped the floor.
Boone couldn’t fault her where Jack was concerned. Putting off his escape, he set the gun box on a threadbare sofa, crouched, and stroked Jack’s soft, clean fur. “I owe you for saving my dog. Frank Reed didn’t give two hoots about Jack. All he could yap about was arresting the Cowboy Assassin.”
Her brow furrowed. “Frank? He told me you were in a shootout with a trio of bounty hunters.”
“Frank came along at the same time a pair of lowlife brothers tried to kill me.”
“Frank was there?” Alarmed filled her eyes. She knelt on the opposite side of Jack, and hugged his neck. “Tell me he didn’t shoot Jack.”
Tempted to condemn her and Frank for luring him into a trap and getting his dog half-killed, he knew his gunslinger life shared an equal part of the blame. “No. The lowlife brothers were seeking revenge.”
“Revenge?”
“I caught their father raping an Indian girl. Jackass Joe multiplied his sins by pulling his gun on me.” He’d recalled the incident countless times, but failed to see how he could have acted differently. Boone’s family had paid a horrible price. Jackass Joe’s worthless sons had gone to Sweet Creek Ranch and killed his Pa and Ma.
She paused from stroking Jack. “Was that the reason your face was on a wanted poster?”
“No. That would be on account of the sheriff I killed.”
“Why didn’t they hang you?” she asked. “How did you get out of jail?”
Her wary look was just what he’d aimed for. “Witnesses finally came forward and testified that the sheriff fired on me first.”
“Why did he want to kill you?”
He shot to his feet. “Enough questions. My past is none of your blasted business. Meet me in Buffalo a week from today. I’ll wrangle up a judge to grant you the divorce. Then you can go back to wherever you came from.”
Lady Lily stood. “Just tell me one thing and I’ll go. Are you an outlaw?”
His temper flared. “What does it matter?”
“Just answer me.”
He retrieved the gun box and turned for the door.
Her hand gripped his arm. “Answer me! Are you an outlaw?”
The intensity in her eyes disarmed him. “I’m a hired gun, which ain’t exactly respectable, but that don’t make me an outlaw.”
“How many men have you killed?”
“Anyone I shot deserved killing.” He couldn’t abide seeing children abused. If the mean cusses were stupid enough to pull a gun when Boone stepped in to help, he was happy to send them to their graves.
She released his arm, and studied his face for a long moment. Her neck was red and splotchy. For the life of him, he couldn’t guess what she hoped to see. “Jack and the guns aren’t the only reason I came looking for you.”
His muscles tightened.
Jack whined and brushed against Lady Lily.
She rubbed Jack’s head, but her eyes remained locked on him. “You have a son.”
A sledgehammer would have packed less of a wallop. “What trick are you trying to pull?”
Her eyes flashed. “Trick?”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t want a single thing from you.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I thought you deserved to know you have a son.”
They had spent three days and nights together—all of it in bed—so he shouldn’t be altogether surprised. His blood heating, he shoved the vivid images aside. “You’re positive the kid’s mine?”
Her shoulders went back. “I’m not a loose woman.”
Her indignity wasn’t an act. Holy heaven, he had a son. He didn’t know a hill of beans about being a father. “Do you need money? I’ll give you what I have and send more when I can.”
“I told you, I don’t want anything from you, except…” She squeezed her eyes closed for a brief second. “I want Colt to know his father. If you promise not to frighten him or speak mean-mouthed I will introduce you.”
He glanced at the door she’d come though. Did the boy have fair hair or dark? Would he cry or cringe upon meeting Boone? “Where is he? Can I see him?”
“I think it best if you take tonight to get used to the idea.”
His world had been turned upside down. Forever. One night wasn’t likely to dull the shock. He dropped onto the couch. “Tell me about him.”
Her expression softened. “Colt loves to play catch and take walks in the park.”
Boone gripped the gun box like a life preserver. Colt. He had a son and his name was Colt.
CHAPTER SIX
Exiting Johnson’s boardinghouse, Boone’s legs couldn’t carry him fast enough away from Lady Lily and her shocking revelation.
Jack loped by his side, tongue lolling and tail swishing happily, glancing repeatedly at Boone, not paying any attention to the cowpokes overrunning the main road. You couldn’t take a step in this normally sleepy town without tripping over cowboys hoping to work the spring roundup at one of the large ranches.
Dust carried on the ever-present breeze chafed his skin. Boone retreated to the shadowy confines of the alley between the Last Chance Trading Post and the Rawhide Saloon. He dropped to one knee, deposited the wooden gun box on the ground, and held out his arms.
Jack bounded into his arms and licked his mouth and face.
Boone laughed and his vision blurred. He scrubbed his eyes. “Blast it, dog. You turned me into a blubbering idiot.”
He’d raised Jack from a puppy, and the loyal dog had accompanied Boone everywhere. They seldom laid their heads in one place for more than a month before moving on to the next town, county, or state. The past four years had been mighty lonely without him.
He patted Jack and hugged him again. “You look fit, dog. Especially for coming back from the dead. She took good care of you.”
Lady Lily’s citrus-scented perfume mingled with Jack’s clean-dog smell. Boone reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the flowered hankie he’d carried with him since the wild honeymoon in Laramie. His blood heated, imagining threading his fingers through her honey-blond hair and kissing her strawberry lips. Blast it, he needed a strong drink. He snagged up the gun box and climbed to his feet. “Let’s go, dog. The boys are waiting on us.”
A northerly gale hounding them, he rounded the corner, slowed his stride and pushed open the Rawhide’s frosted glass door. The hubbub of conversation died and all eyes turned to him. Painted-faced saloon girls cast him encouraging smiles. A posse of cowboys from the Double B Ranch pushed back from their table and rested their palms on their six-shooters. The bartender plunked a mug of beer on the bar in front of a dusty cowboy and raised his brows at Jack. “Boone, you know critters ain’t welcome,” Slim said, nervously.
Boone pointed at Slim. “Don’t be discourteous to my dog.”
Slim cleared his throat and wiped a wet rag over the shiny walnut bar. “He’s the spitting image of Jack.”
Buck Goodman, seated at a table with Seth and Garrett, raised a half-empty mug. “Young Garrett swore it was Jack.”
Garrett stared into his mug, brown bangs hanging over his eyes, as uncomforta
ble with public attention as Boone. “I didn’t need Miss Margaret Lily to tell me it was so. I knew it with my own eyes.”
Slim leaned on the bar. “I saw a couple of pretty ladies and a young boy get off the train with a yellow mutt. I told Dolly and Ginger, I bet my last clean pair of undershorts that dog is a twin to Boone Haven’s dog.”
Snickers arose from all corners, accompanied by crude remarks about the pretty ladies in question.
Boone gnashed his teeth. What was Lady Lily thinking, traveling to a Western cow town without a man riding shotgun?
“Those women friends of yours, Boone?” Slim asked.
“Stop running your lips, Slim, and pour me a shot of whiskey.” Boone turned his grimace on the rest of the room. “Stay clear of them ladies and the boy, or me and my guns will be paying you a visit. Now, stop your staring and get back to your own business.”
Eyes slid away. Whiskey glasses clinked. A poker game resumed.
Jack trotted to Garrett and shoved his snout under his elbow. Garrett smiled and ruffled his fur. “How you been, boy?”
Boone dropped the gun box onto the center of the table and sunk down in a seat across from Seth, Garrett and Buck. Slim set a squat glass of amber-colored whiskey in front of Boone and slunk away.
Buck tapped the wooden box. Short and plucky as a bantam rooster, he crowed, “This must be your Peacemakers?”
Boone tipped his glass at the box. “I suppose I ought to have a look.” Superbly balanced, deadly accurate, and easy to draw from a holster, the Colt .45 Peacemakers were the mainstay of gunslingers.
Seth’s eyes lit up. “I can’t wait to get me a Peacemaker.”
Jack laid his head on Boone’s lap. “Go ahead and open the box.”
“You sure?” Seth asked.
Boone rubbed Jack’s velvet ears, recalling the weight and feel of the revolvers. “The Schofields I replaced them with ain’t half bad.”
Seth lifted the hinged wooden lid. The matched pair of black barrels gleamed in all their deadly glory. “Can I hold one?”
Garrett leaned forward, eyes glued on the revolvers. “I always wanted to fire a Peacemaker.”
Boone set aside the glass of whiskey and lifted out the nearest revolver. The handle fit his hand like a custom-made glove. “You don’t want to go waving around a Peacemaker. Has a way of making folks nervous.”
Buck whistled in appreciation. “I’ll buy them, if you’re no longer enamored with them. Or the Schofields, if you prefer?”
“Ugly Sally would feed you to the pigs,” Boone said, not taking his eyes off the silver ribbed barrel.
Buck didn’t back down to anyone, except Ugly Sally. He chuckled with affection. “My Sally likes the pigs too much to do that. But you’re right, she would rather spend the money on a Hereford bull.”
Boone checked the chamber of the revolver, and found it empty. Ugly Sally could out-shoot most men. Including her husband. Memories of Margaret Lily, Female Bounty Hunter, intruded.
Boone snapped the barrel of the Peacemaker closed. “Buck, you’re a man of the law, university educated. You start carrying guns like this and trouble will come looking for you.”
“I know your high opinion of education,” Buck said, his feathers ruffled. “But it was only one year of university. And my grades were abysmal.”
Buck would swallow his teeth if he knew Boone envied him. His wife might have a big nose and a plain face, but he had a settled life with a woman he loved.
Boone thought he’d found that four years ago with Margaret Lily. He’d been ready to give up his dangerous profession to start a life with her. His heart had been blasted full of holes when he learned she was a bounty hunter out to trap him. He resented her reappearance in his life, gashing open wounds that had never really healed.
“I’d rather be a gunslinger than a teacher, any old day,” Seth said, staring at the Peacemaker like it was a bank vault stuffed with hundred-dollar bills.
Boone handed the Peacemaker to Seth with a pointed look. “Gunslingers don’t die of old age. Now teachers, they live forever.”
Seth shrugged. “Got to die some time. Might as well go with a Colt in your hand.”
Buck, Seth, and Boone launched into a discussion of famous gun battles.
Jack leaned up against Boone’s chair. Boone rested a hand on Jack’s back, and picked up the glass of whiskey, set it down again, and stared at the amber liquid.
Lady Lily had named the boy Colt. Why would she go and do that? Nothing would make him happier than to believe she was lying. That he wasn’t the boy’s father. But her love for her son shone brighter than the sun, moon, and stars. And if she was looking for a sucker, hoping to cash in by passing the boy off as someone’s son, she could do better than a gunslinger with no worldly goods and a piddling sum of money deposited in the Cheyenne Bank and Trust.
His gut instinct said the boy was his. It was also shouting at him to pick up and go. Like he always did. But he couldn’t tolerate the idea of the boy growing up believing his father didn’t care two cents about him. A pain he understood.
He would make one demand. He wanted to take Colt home and introduce him to the family. If there was any good in Boone it came from Sweet Creek Ranch. Most likely, Lady Lily would put up a fight, but he wouldn’t back down. He wanted his son to experience the joys and wonders of the ranch.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Exhausted, Maggie extinguished the bedside lamp and crawled into bed beside Colt. The revelry of drunken cowboys enjoying a night on the town penetrated the thin walls of Johnson’s Boardinghouse, making her extra aware of the loss of Jack’s comforting presence. Colt’s sorrow when she told him Jack wouldn’t be returning had doubled her grief.
“I never seen a bigger bunch of fools than cowboys,” Brigetta grumbled, punching her pillow and rolling on her side to face Maggie.
Tucked in the middle between them, Colt stirred.
Long blond hair crinkled from braiding, Bri kissed his brow. “Poor dumpling,” she whispered. “Wearing yourself out crying over Jack. I don’t blame you. I feel the same every time I think of poor Jack stuck with that outlaw cowboy.”
“He’s not an outlaw. He’s a hired gun.”
Moonlight falling across her face, highlighting the crescent birthmark, Bri wrinkled her nose. “Killing is killing.”
Anyone I shot deserved killing. The earnestness in Boone’s face when he’d given his answer had been surprisingly comforting. Maggie pulled the bed cover higher. “Lawmen and soldiers kill, that doesn’t make them murderers.”
“Are you forgetting he was a wanted man?”
“Witnesses came forward to say he was innocent.”
Bri made a face. “I hope he hasn’t convinced you he is a saint.”
“He didn’t claim to be a good man.”
“I wouldn’t allow a pet goat within a mile of him.”
Maggie blew out an exasperated breath. “He would have learned I was traveling with a boy. You and I both know Aurora is abuzz with gossip about Lady Lily.”
Bri’s lips pursed. “Lady Lily is a saloon girl’s name.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Maggie said, giving into a smile.
“Ja. And you probably want to stuff a codfish into my mouth about now.”
Maggie absolutely adored Bri. “You are concerned for us, and love Colt like he is your own. Your honesty is one of the things I cherish.”
Bri blushed with embarrassment. “You really think your gunslinger would have guessed Colt was his son?”
“Yes, I do. Colt is the spitting image of his father, and the date on his birth certificate falls exactly nine months after I first laid eyes on Boone.”
Bri sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”
“You don’t have to come with us tomorrow, if you are that dead set against Colt meeting his father.”
Bri stared at her like she’d lost her mind. “Mr. Johnson was asking me all kinds of nosy questions about Boone Haven’s visit when I went to t
he kitchen for our evening tea, wondering if Colt was one of the Haven’s second-chance boys.”
“Second-chance boys?”
“The Haven family rescues homeless boys. Mr. Johnson said Boone Haven rides far and wide searching for orphaned boys and takes them to Sweet Creek Ranch.”
When Maggie had made the reckless marriage, she’d desperately wanted to believe it wasn’t a monumental mistake. She had suffered similar moments of panic since telling Boone about Colt. It was a comfort to know Boone was linked to something good and noble. “See, Boone isn’t all bad.”
“Mr. Johnson agrees. He had nothing but good things to say about Boone.”
“Brigetta Lyndtz, not two minutes ago you said you wouldn’t allow a pet goat within a mile of him.”
Bri picked at the threadbare quilt. “I’m afraid he will wreck our happy little family.”
“How?” Maggie asked, both touched and puzzled by the concern.
“You’re a beautiful, bright woman. And my dumpling is the best boy in the world. Unless the man is a fool, he will see that too. What if he doesn’t want to divorce you? What if he asks you to give the marriage a chance?”
Unsettled, Maggie stroked Colt’s baby-fine hair. “If you could have seen Boone’s face you wouldn’t say that. And I’m not the young, foolish girl I was. Within a week we will be on our way back to St. Louis.”
Bri didn’t look convinced. “Good! The West is not the place for us.”
Maggie squeezed her eyes closed. The trip to Wyoming was supposed to put the past to rest, leaving her free to fully embrace the future. Raise Colt. Teach kindergarten. Find a respectable man to marry.
She was eager to return home, but not for the same reasons as Bri. Far from it. Maggie found the West heady and unpredictable like the devastatingly handsome gunslinger Boone Haven. Exciting dangers she could no longer afford.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Mid-morning of the following day, Maggie’s feet slowed upon spotting Boone standing in the shadows inside the barn of Hopkin’s Stables. Colt tugged on her hand. “I want to ride a horse.”
Gunslingers Don't Die: A Sweet Historical Western Romance (Brides of Sweet Creek Ranch Book 2) Page 3