by Jo Grafford
He stared after her, wishing he could call her back but knowing his apology wouldn’t make her feel any better. A woman scorned was a deadly thing indeed. He could only hope she didn’t poison his supper.
He hunched his shoulders over his corner table and went back to reminiscing about his dead partner. Known as Hot-Tempered Hannah throughout Arizona, she’d stolen his heart with a single kiss then threatened to shoot him if he ever tried to steal another.
He had yet to get over her. Hadn’t looked at another woman since. She was three months in the grave, and he was nowhere near moving on with his life.
Layla stomped back in his direction twice. Once to refill his mug and several minutes later to dump his tray on the table with such a clatter that a few droplets of stew spilled over the edge of the bowl.
“A man at one of the faro tables paid me to deliver you a message,” she snapped. “He wants you to stick around ’til he’s finished dealing. Says he needs to speak with you ‘bout somethin’ important.”
The drowsy contentedness settling in Gabe’s bones from the hot meal sharpened back to full awareness. He paused in the act of lifting a spoonful of stew to his mouth. “Which man?”
She pointed to the nearest gaming table. “Over there. The one dealing.”
Technically, the man was shuffling, but he pushed back his Stetson an inch and deliberately nodded a greeting in response to their curious stares. Gabe didn’t recognize him. They were dressed much the same, albeit Gabe hadn’t bothered to remove his trench coat like the other man had.
His keen bounty hunter eyes zeroed in on the ridge of concealed weapons beneath the man’s vest. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but Gabe wasn’t most people. He was well paid to notice everything around him. The things people wanted him to notice and the things they preferred he didn’t.
Those same sensory nodes told him Layla was still present, though she was standing behind him not making a peep. His gaze remained fixed on his summoner. “Does this faro dealer have a name?”
She sniffed. “He didn’t say, and I ain’t takin’ extra to find out. He’s working a little too hard for my tastes to fit in, if you know what I mean.”
Gabe knew exactly what she meant and was surprised enough at her perception to spare her a glance. He reached in his pocket, and she tensed. He slid an extra bill in her direction across the scratched up tabletop. Something told him she could use the money. “Thanks for passing on the gentleman’s message.”
The frown on her lacquered lips eased. “Maybe some time you and I can visit a little longer, gunslinger?” She batted her lashes at him.
He highly doubted it — ever. “Dinner tastes wonderful. I thank you for that as well.” He returned his hand to his soup spoon and his attention to the faro dealer. Something told him he was about to receive a new bounty assignment.
Layla lingered a few moments longer but finally left him on a drawn-out sigh of resignation.
He ate quickly while observing the card game. In seconds, he determined the game was rigged. Unlike most tables where the odds generally leaned in the banker’s favor, this table broke even every few rounds. The intervals were entirely too regular to be coincidental. If Gabe’s suspicions were correct, the faro dealer wasn’t making a penny. Very odd. He chewed his mutton pie more slowly, watching the man.
When the man looked up between rounds, he allowed their gazes to clash once more. A nod from him had a new faro dealer rushing forward to claim the oval table with its green baize covering. The man closed down his rigged game, tucked his crooked gaming box beneath his arm, and sauntered in Gabe’s direction amidst the cries for higher stakes from the newest dealer on the floor.
Gabe took in the man’s tousled brown hair, even stride, and confident air. His senses told him the man was on a mission but not out for blood. Nevertheless, he kept a hand on his holster as the man stopped beside his table.
“May I join you?” The thick northeastern accent tickled his curiosity further.
A Bostonian, if Gabe was a betting man. Which he wasn’t where money was concerned. He dipped his head in agreement without breaking eye contact.
The man took a seat, cradling the card box between his hands on the table in front of him. He was far more at ease than most men tended to be in the presence of Gunslinger Gabe. His long fingers were scarred on one hand, puckered and mottled a permanent shade of salmon as if he’d held his hand in a fire a few moments too long.
“I need your help.” His words were simple and quietly spoken, not the usual hard-nosed beginning to a proper bounty negotiation. His tone was missing the sharp bite of revenge or the frantic pace of a man in a hurry.
Gabe leaned forward. “Most reputable men introduce themselves.”
A half-grin softened the man’s features another degree as he signaled Layla. “Most reputable men are fools. I’d much rather start a conversation by wetting my whistle.”
Gabe’s hand tightened on his holster. “And I’d rather start with a name.”
The man shrugged. “Have it your way, gunslinger, but I’ll have more to say if I wet my tongue first.”
“I prefer to know who I’m drinking with.”
“Fair enough.” The man’s grin widened as if he was pleased with what he was hearing. “I run my faro table under the name of Sharp Masterson.”
“And your real name is?”
“Must you ask so many questions, gunslinger?”
“Most men prefer to keep me talking.”
The man laughed aloud this time and reached for the drink Layla offered. Taking a sip, he eyed Gabe over the rim. “Colt Branson, since you insist on knowing.”
Gabe shook his head. “Not ringing a bell. Don’t suppose you go by any other handles?”
“Nope. I keep a low profile, but the second name I gave you is real enough.”
The man’s direct manner impressed Gabe as honest. It wasn’t accompanied by the usual twitching and glancing away of a person with something to hide.
“I’m listening.” Anxious to finish filling the clawing hole in his belly, he resumed eating his mutton pie with gusto. The sooner he finished eating, the sooner he could get moving again. He’d made many enemies in his line of business. As a rule, he never stayed too long in any one town.
Colt held his gaze with unwavering intensity. “As I said before, I need your help. More precisely, The Boomtown Mail Order Brides Company needs your help.”
Boomtown what? Gabe waited a few heartbeats before attempting to swallow the bite of pie in his mouth. As it was, he had to choke it down and cough to clear his throat. If he had any laughter left in his soul, he would have laughed. “Clearly you’re confused about what line of business I’m in, Mr. Branson.”
The man waved his hand carelessly. “You can drop the mister. Just call me Colt. And you’re exactly the kind of man I need for this job.”
Gabe was only half listening as he finished up his last bite of pie and nursed the remaining swig or two of his ale. He swirled it around the bottom of his glass before taking a sip.
“We’ve lost contact with one of our brides-to-be.”
Your problem. Not mine. Gabe raised his brows, incredulous that Colt had singled him out to share his sorry tale. Rescuing damsels in distress was a skill he simply didn’t possess. Hot-Tempered Hannah was proof enough of that. A fresh splinter of pain ricocheted through his chest. He emptied his mug, hardly realizing he’d pressed a palm to his heart where his ache was the worse.
Colt’s gaze followed his hand. “You and I both know the West isn’t a safe place for young, marriageable women. Why so many of them flock to fill the ever-growing pile of mail order bride applications is thoroughly beyond me. Even the toughest among them don’t always survive. Better to stay in more civilized cities back East.”
Gabe wished the man would hurry up and get to his point. Even the toughest…don’t always survive. The conversation was treading dangerously close to Hannah’s tragic demise, making his trigger finger itch so
mething powerful.
Colt abruptly shoved aside his dealer box to lean closer. He lowered his voice, but it accentuated rather than lessened the fierceness of his words. “My own sister, may she rest in peace, was one of those eager mail order brides. I’ll never know why she decided to become one. Probably speculate myself into an early grave. Maybe it was because she wasn’t much use with a needle and thread. Or maybe it was because anytime I caught her in the kitchen, I tended to skip dinner that night. But she could ride a horse like a demon, and she could hold her own with a gun.” He shook his head admiringly, then sobered. “In the end, gunslinger, neither of those things could save MaryAnne from the cruelty of the man she married.”
“What happened?” Gabe both wanted to know and didn’t want to know.
“Her late husband claimed it was a stagecoach robbery that went south.” He balled his hands into fists on the tabletop. “Said they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that doesn’t explain the fire or the—” He fiercely bit off whatever else he was about to say and took a deep breath. “The stage company was kind enough to send her remains home, so we could lay her to rest.”
It was a tragic tale, yet Gabe found himself envying the man his closure. As for himself, he’d never received a body to bury, only the news that Hot-Tempered Hannah was dead. He bit down on the inside of his cheek. Hard. Enough to draw the coppery tang of blood across his tongue. “I’m sorry for your loss but with all due respect, I don’t see how any of this applies to me.” Harsh but true.
Colt’s upper lip curled. “I don’t believe that for a second. Don’t tell me you’ve never asked your Maker for a do-over.”
“A do-over?”
“A second chance.”
Leave it alone, mister. Gabe’s hand literally tingled with the itch to draw and fire. Colt Branson clearly had no idea what dangerous ground he was treading. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course, you do, and that’s why you’re going to help me find Heloise.”
“Who?” Gabe choked back a snarl. Maybe the man was a bit touched in the head. It was the only explanation for his foolish persistence in toying with a gunslinger.
“She’s one of our mail order brides. We should have received her letter by now, notifying us of her safe arrival to Headstone; but there’ve been no letters. No mention of her among the other brides we placed in neighboring towns. Nothing. She just—” He snapped his fingers. “Up and vanished!” His skin beneath his tan had paled, and he sounded truly distraught.
Gabe scrubbed a hand down his jaw, wishing he could offer a ray of comfort to the troubled faro dealer, touched in the noggin’ or not. “Mail runs slow in some parts of the country. Maybe you should give it more time.”
“We require our brides to write their letters before they leave Boston. All each of them has to do when she reaches her destination is date it and mail it.”
“So have a chat with the post master.”
For the first time in their short conversation, Colt’s mouth gave an ugly downward twist of irritation. “Come on, gunslinger. I arrived here a week ago. Tracking down that fellow was the first thing on my list, and I was prepared to rip out his toenails one by one if need be to jog his memory of her. Except the poor chap seems to have vanished as well. I asked around town about him, but they said he was involved in some sort of stage coach accident. They found remnants of the carriage and wheels strewn down the side of a cliff but no bodies.”
So the hopeful bride was missing. Tough times. She could be anywhere. Holed up in the mountains or chained inside a brothel, her virtue a distant memory. Anger churned in Gabe’s gut. Unfortunately, things like that happened on occasion in the wild West. Some women just weren’t meant to travel to these dusty towns of lonely, lust-crazed, and sometimes desperate men. Not everyone could hold their own or go out guns a-blazing like Hot-Tempered Hannah had.
Colt’s missing Heloise was dead or as good as dead. Gabe wasn’t a doomsday kind of guy; he was just facing the facts. Why then did questions start to bubble up his throat about the unfortunate woman?
“How long has she been missing, and what did she look like?” he blurted. Was she pretty enough to attract the attention of a madame? Had Colt bothered to scope out the brothels in the nearest towns?
He didn’t know why he was asking. He certainly had no intention of helping Colt and his mail order bride company. Not for any price. He was too afraid of what he might find on the other end. The carnage. And death.
Too afraid of failing to save another woman.
Colt’s shoulders relaxed a fraction at the barrage of questions, though his forearms remained resting on the edge of the table. The music in the background transitioned from a swinging ballad to something rowdier. The room grew louder. And hotter. And more suffocating.
Gabe could only pray he and Colt were about finished with their miserable discussion. Lord help him, he needed some fresh air.
“The last time any of us saw Heloise was two months ago when she boarded her train. She was wearing a simple brown taffeta gown.” Colt’s face settled into another half-grin. “When she first came to us, she had the kind of red hair no comb can tame, though the Boomtown matrons on our staff tried their best. They couldn’t tame her mouth either. Or erase the bruises way down deep in her eyes. Impressed me as one of those wild little fillies who’s seen things she didn’t care to talk about. Our other brides-to-be tried to befriend her, but she mostly kept to herself. Kind of haunted like. Not that she would have fit in with them anyway.” He gave a long, drown-out sigh of regret. “Reminded me of my sister, MaryAnne. She wasn’t soft or gently spoken. Not skilled in any womanly arts that I could tell. She didn’t look all that comfortable in a dress either, come to think of it. But she was full of fire no scoundrel has the right to put out before her time.”
Colt’s description of the young woman made Gabe swallow hard. Heloise sounded like Hot-Tempered Hannah all over again. A free spirit. An untamed heart with a thirst for adventure. And deader than dead if she’d already been missing for two full months.
There was no way Colt Branson could possibly know every one of his words sank into his listener like a gunshot. By the time the faro dealer was through describing his missing bride-to-be, it was all Gabe could do to remain sitting upright in his chair. His chest and torso were so riddled with emotional holes, he wouldn’t have been the least shocked to feel the drip of blood on the hands he had fisted on his thighs.
Another woman was dead. It was an old, tired tale. Hell simply wasn’t big enough for all the scum-eating renegades crawling the landscape these days. The gold-hungry, devil-may-care, barely human creatures who lived for little more than the next thrill. They were affection-starved and utterly depraved. Men who couldn’t remember what it was like to be in the presence of a real lady. Men who wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of one, given half a chance.
“I’m sorry. I can’t help you.” Colt could shower his ears with all the piteous pleas in the world, but it wouldn’t bring the missing bride one step closer to being found. It would be easier to locate a five-leaf clover in a field of December snow. Heloise was gone. The sooner Colt accepted the fact, the better.
“Can’t or won’t?” Colt snarled, gripping the edges of the table with both hands.
“Can’t. Won’t. Does it matter? She’s gone.” Gabe pushed away from the table and stood, desperate for a mouthful of fresh air before his lungs exploded.
“Is that what you want to believe?” Colt stood as well. “Because you buried your partner’s body like I buried my sister’s?”
How in tarnation did Colt know so much about his past when they’d never met before tonight? “Watch yourself, Sharp.” Gabe’s hand slid to his gun holster again. Hannah had been burnt alive; there had been nothing left to bury. Something told him Colt knew this, too.
“Did you?” Colt pressed. “Because if you did, then I’m wasting my breath by telling you the Boomtown Mail Order Brides Co
mpany received a ransom note for Heloise.”
Meaning the poor woman might still be alive after all. And probably wishing she was dead…
“How much?” Gabe gritted through his teeth, making an inhuman effort to keep his voice down.
“Two grand.”
It was a fortune. More than most lawmen made in a year and bigger than any other single bounty Gabe had earned. “Why so much?”
“Her abductor didn’t say, but he seemed awfully concerned about listing every known name in the ransom note that Heloise might have ever used. Hester. Holly.” He paused, dipping his head to peer beneath Gabe’s Stetson. “Hannah.”
For a moment, Gabe couldn’t hear past the buzzing in his head. Hester and Holly were among the many aliases Hot-Tempered Hannah had used on their string of joint assignments as bounty hunters.
“Oh, and here’s the sketch another one of our mail order brides made of Heloise the night before she traveled West to meet her intended groom.” Colt reached inside his vest and withdrew a charcoal portrait. He held it out.
Gabe reached for the small square of canvas and his insides went numb. He took a stumbling step towards the table and sank back into his seat. A coldness like he’d never known before spread through his chest. The sketch wasn’t a perfect likeness, but it was close enough. There was no mistaking the challenging tilt of the woman’s face or the determined set to her chin.
It was Hannah or someone who resembled her enough to pass as her twin, which made no sense. Hannah had never mentioned a sister. She’d never mentioned having family at all, for that matter.
The sketch slid from his nerveless fingers to the table. He slowly leaned forward on his elbows to grip his head in both hands. He closed his eyes, uncaring that his movements sent his Stetson tumbling to the floor. He fisted his hair roots until the tearing pressure on his skull rivaled the screaming questions in his brain.