by Jake Logan
“Sheriff?” Lydia asked, all innocence.
Slocum, who was nobody’s fool, immediately began to tense.
“Ma’am?” O’Keefe asked around a mouthful of half-chewed cobbler.
“You said that Mr. Clarke—Francis—died over a can of beans,” she said. “I couldn’t help but notice, when I was in the store, that you eat nothing but beans. You didn’t shoot Mr. Clarke, did you?”
Slocum thumbed the leather strap off his gun, thinking, Goddamn it, Lydia! Couldn’t you wait until after dessert?
He’d been thinking about the same thing, but at least he’d the sense to try to fill his belly before he stirred things up.
It seemed Lydia suffered no such inhibitions, though.
She sat there, smiling. “Did you, Sheriff?”
O’Keefe put down his fork and sat back in his chair. “Now, I’m right hurt that you’d ask me that, Mrs. West. Right hurt. As a matter of fact, I did not. I seen it happen, but I didn’t do it. Josh Abrams shot him, as sure as I’m sitting here and you folks with me.”
Slocum was waiting for somebody to draw. He wasn’t entirely certain whether it would be the sheriff or Lydia.
But Lydia’s smile never broke. “Thank you, Sheriff. That was all I wanted to know.” And when he still sat there, staring at her in disbelief, she added, “Sheriff? Your cobbler’s getting cold.”
He jerked forward. “Oh! So it is!” he said, and dived back in.
Slocum lifted his hand from below the tabletop and let out a sigh. There were three highly unstable types in the world, and he was sitting here with two of them—old men who had invented their own purpose in life, and women in general.
The first type were wily and tricky and sometimes wise. The second were, well, just women. That was catty-wampus enough and went without further explanation, if you asked him.
Of course, the third type was like Billy Cree or the Frame boys—those cocky, callow boys of all kinds who yearned for a big reputation to see them through life, and figured to make it on Slocum’s back.
Slocum comforted himself that Cree was in jail and that the Frame brothers were walking wounded and far back on the trail. And that—for the moment anyway—Lydia’s abrupt question had gone surprisingly right and had evaporated every last bit of tension from the room.
He picked up his fork and began working on his cobbler. Lydia sure had a way with baked goods, all right. It was toothsome.
Matter of fact, so was she. He couldn’t wait to get supper over with and bed down for the night in some degree of comfort.
And by comfort, he meant Lydia’s arms.
20
Night fell.
Charlie Frame roused himself from a light but ragged doze and stood up, stretching as he rose. The rocks had put a few kinks in his back and legs where there hadn’t been any before, but an awkward little dance high above the town took care of those.
There were no lights below, but then, he hadn’t expected any. Now he was surer than ever that the place was deserted.
“Now, what did you do with Billy Cree?” he whispered. Slocum would have locked him up in the jail, if Charlie was any judge of character.
Yes, that was it. He’d find the jail first and see about Billy. Slocum would be next.
He took a long drink of water, then relieved himself on a jut of rock, sighing deeply as his bladder emptied. Tonight was the night, he reminded himself. Come morning, he’d be a rich man. And he’d have himself a reputation, to boot! Mr. Big-Shot Slocum and Mr. Billy Fancy-Riding Cree, that would be a catch and a half.
Yessir, tonight was the night.
Despite having inspected them before several times, he thoroughly checked his side arm, then checked his rifle. They were in good shape and loaded for bear. So to speak.
Grinning broadly, Charlie started back, to get the bay.
Slocum undressed Lydia slowly, relishing the look of her in the pale, golden lantern light.
There wasn’t much undressing to do. She had just come from an impromptu bath down on the first floor, and she was only clad in a bathrobe several sizes too big. Her blond hair, still damp, hung in fairy curls, framing her face and shoulders, making those long-lashed blue-green eyes of hers look even bigger, even more vulnerable.
Even more hungry.
He’d had a hard-on more or less since they sat down to dinner, and now he was about to do something about it.
Still, he eased the robe from her shoulders slowly, letting it drop and puddle gently on the floor. She didn’t seen ashamed of her nakedness. She merely stood there, letting him take her all in.
Her breasts were high and firm, her ribs trimming to a smooth waist and flat little belly, then flaring out gently into a soft swell of hips. Her legs were long and lean and almost muscular for a woman. When he brushed his hand across it, he found the little thatch of hair at the juncture of her thighs was moist.
She shuddered, and he knew then that the dampness wasn’t left over from any bath. She was as eager as he was.
Her hands went to the buttons of his shirt and began to undo them, one by one. He, too, was still a little damp, having grabbed a quick bath down at the bathhouse while she was taking hers, here at the hotel.
She opened his shirt and put her face to him, inhaling deeply. “You smell good,” she said.
“Likewise,” he whispered, and tried to get her to move toward the bed.
But she shrugged off his hand and whispered, “Just hold your horses, Slocum. I want to get a look at you, too.”
She was going to get a real big surprise when she got below his belt line.
He stood still.
She pulled the shirttail from his britches and let the sleeves drop down his arm to the floor before she splayed her hands across his chest.
“So wide,” she murmured. “So strong.” She ran her fingers down one of his scars, an old Apache lance wound that he’d picked up about ten years before.
“So many war wounds, so many battle scars,” she went on softly.
“So little time?” he urged. “Lydia? Honey?”
Lightly, she chuckled, and dropped her hands to begin work at his belt buckle.
She had it free in no time, and only excited him further when her hands met his erection. He couldn’t help it. The damned thing seemed to have a mind of its own, and fairly leapt out at her.
She fairly purred. “I see what you mean about so little time, Slocum,” she said, smiling in the dim lamplight. “Why don’t you shuck free of those britches and boots?”
“Ain’t gotta ask me twice,” he said, kicking them free even as he grabbed her and fell toward the bed. She let out a whoop, laughing, and landed next to him.
He gave a last, freeing kick to his pants and heard a thump as one of his boots hit the opposite wall, then a crash as some of the dusty bric-a-brack hit the floor along with it.
He didn’t take the time to look at the damage. He was already too busy with Lydia.
Her arms went around his rib cage as he moved between her legs, his erect cock thumping hungrily against her leg, then at her portal.
He eased his way in with no trouble, and when he did, she let out a long, breathy sigh and lidded her eyes. He stayed still for a moment, kissing her lips, her eyes, her cheeks, her throat and breasts. Her nipples were tight and dark with desire, standing up like two tiny, deep pink thimbles.
When he took one in his mouth and tugged on it playfully with his teeth, Lydia made a sweet little sound in her throat and drew her arms up, around his neck. Her back arched slightly, pushing her breasts toward him.
He began to move.
She rose up to meet him, matching him thrust for thrust. Slowly at first, then with increasing fervor. He escalated the pace at her urging, pacing himself, riding her like a jockey rides a racehorse. He became mindless, losing himself in her erotic timing, her sultry caress, her pumping hips, her heady sighs.
And then that insistent itch in his loins began to quick-burn toward its culmination
, like the fuse on blasting powder nearing its goal. He felt it mounting through his veins, pumping toward his groin, sizzling, sizzling.
And then he exploded like fireworks, bigger and better than on the Fourth of July. That best of all-encompassing sensations rocketed out from his groin, enveloped his whole body so that he was certain that the sweet fire would burn him into a cinder.
But then, like always, he came into himself again. He felt himself on the bed, in Lydia’s arms, felt the sweat drip from his brow, and heard Lydia’s contented sighs beneath him.
He let out a long breath of air and rolled to one side of her, feeling the sudden rush of cooler air wash over his groin. He slung an arm around her shoulders, then bent to kiss her lips.
Just before he did, she whispered, “Beds are better, Slocum.”
“Got to agree with you on that one, darlin’,” he whispered back, then kissed her.
Down at the sorry excuse for a town jail, Sheriff O’Keefe was considering whether or not to sweep up the place.
His feet up on the desk, a cup of hot coffee at his side, he surveyed the littered floor and the desk, piled high not with circulars, but with bits of wrapping paper, back issues of the long-departed Cross Point Express (the latest issue dated six months back), a couple of rusting horseshoes, his spare shirt, cans long ago emptied of beans or potted pork, spoons crusted with dried food, and an empty whiskey bottle.
He’d drunk that a while back, too.
But now he had something to celebrate. A real prisoner, right here in his jail!
Well, it wasn’t exactly his jail. It had been Sheriff Turnbull’s jail, way back when. Then they had those bandits ride in, looking for a good time, and boom, there went Sheriff Turnbull, dead from a slug in his chest.
After that, there wasn’t much of anybody left, and then the last few hangers-on filtered out of town. O’Keefe figured that somebody ought to be sheriff. Why not him?
There wasn’t much choice about who to elect, was there?
But having a real live prisoner here sort of made it official!
He opened a lower desk drawer and pulled out a brand-new bottle of bourbon, saved from the Swinging Door Saloon, and blew the dust off it. Damned dust got everywhere: inside drawers, on clothes, in cupboards, you name it.
He paused and scowled. Didn’t make much sense to clean up when it’d just get all dirty again.
Deciding against cleaning—and feeling like he’d done something, having made the decision not to do anything—he opened the bottle and poured a shot into his coffee.
He had lifted it halfway to his lips when Billy spoke up and half-scared him to death.
“Hey, you! You got any’a that for me?”
O’Keefe curled himself around and took a look at his prisoner. Billy was slouched on his cot, elbows in his knees, his pillaged dinner plate before him on the floor.
O’Keefe didn’t answer him. A killer like Billy Cree didn’t deserve a reply, to his mind. And a rapist, too! Slocum had told him, and he had to agree that a rapist was the lowest of the low. In O’Keefe’s opinion, a man could kill by accident, but he sure as hell didn’t accidently rape somebody.
There was such a thing as the sanctity of womanhood, by God!
He raised his coffee mug to his lips and took a sip. Damn fine stuff, that.
He was smacking his lips when Billy said, “Hey! Didn’t you hear me, you damned codger? I said to gimme a drink of that!”
“I heard you just fine, you loathsome piece of trash,” O’Keefe said without turning toward him. “Forget it. You ain’t gettin’ none.” He took another sip.
“Listen, you can’t just leave a man sittin’ in here and drink in front of him when he can’t fetch himself a drop,” Billy said. “It ain’t fair. It ain’t even Christian.”
But O’Keefe was only half-listening. Was that boot-steps he heard coming up the walk? Mayhap Slocum had decided he wasn’t all that tired, and was coming down to keep him company for a spell. He’d like that.
“Shut up,” he snapped at Billy. “I told you, no. ’Sides, Slocum’s comin’. You want he should be the one to tell you that you can’t have any? I guarantee he won’t be as polite as me.”
That shut Billy up, all right, and O’Keefe smiled. He rummaged around in his deepest drawer for another coffee mug. He thought it was there, anyhow. Been a month of Sundays since anybody was there to use the dang thing.
Just as he put his hand on the mug, the door creaked open, and he looked up expectantly.
Except that the man standing there was a stranger, a beat-up stranger with dried blood on his sleeve and a lot of trail on his britches, who looked back and forth between him and Billy.
“You ain’t Slocum,” O’Keefe said, and let the mug drop back in the drawer.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Billy smile, which prompted him to reach for his gun.
But it was too late. By the time O’Keefe had gotten his fingers curled around the grip, Charlie Frame had crossed the tiny front room and launched himself over the desk, knocking the coffee to the floor and scattering the mess on the desk and taking a surprised O’Keefe by his narrow throat.
“Hey!” O’Keefe tried to shout, just before everything went dark.
21
Charlie ushered a cackling and eager Billy Cree out the jailhouse door. Charlie was pretty gleeful, too, although he didn’t let it show. He was going to let ol’ Billy take out Slocum and that lady, and then he was going to take out Billy.
What could be better?
When they gained the street, Billy paused.
“Now, where’d they get to?” Charlie asked him, smooth as glass. Charlie was convinced that he was a very smooth character.
“Hotel,” Billy said, checking his gun. “Up the street.” He gestured with a tilt of his head.
Charlie stared at the only two-story building on the street. “Don’t see no lights.”
“So maybe they put up in a room on the other side of the place,” Billy said, and rammed his gun back into his holster. “Maybe they ain’t got any lights lit.” He picked up his rifle and checked it, too.
Charlie waited until he was satisfied with his firearms, then said anxiously, “Well? Let’s go!”
Billy nodded, and they started up the street. When they came to the hotel, Billy stopped outside the door.
“What?” demanded Charlie.
“Thinkin’,” said Billy.
Charlie wanted this over with, and right now. He didn’t want to spend his time standing around and thinking. He wanted some action! Preferably by Billy Cree. And then Charlie would get his taste.
Charlie snorted sharply. He said, “What’s there to think about? You just go find ’em and shoot ’em. Done and done.”
Billy drew his gun, and for just a second Charlie got pretty nervous. But the gun wasn’t for Charlie. Billy pointed it toward the hotel door, then put his hand on the latch.
“Quiet!” he whispered. “Or you can just stay out here.”
Charlie didn’t want Billy going up there alone. If that was the case, Billy could shoot Slocum and the lady and then do something sneaky, like go out the rear door or a window and sneak back around and plug him. No, he wasn’t going to take any chances.
His gun arm was still bad, after all. He figured he could put a slug in Billy easy enough, what with Billy trusting him and all. But he needed Billy to kill Slocum and whatshername so that he could get his hands on the kid—and the mine—and he needed Billy to believe that he was on the right side.
Meaning Billy’s.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be quiet as a church mouse,” Charlie whispered, nodding. “Now, go on. I got your back.”
Not that he had any such intention . . .
Upstairs, Slocum was sitting up in bed, rolling himself a quirlie. Beside him, Lydia lounged against the pillows, happy as a cat with her belly full of cream. The night had been pretty eventful so far, and she figured it was only going to get more interesting.
&nb
sp; She had found food for the baby, rocked him to sleep, had a bath, and gotten herself laid by probably the best gunslinger she’d ever had the pleasure to meet. She let out a long, contented sigh. He looked like he could go all night, too.
That sordid business with Billy Cree and his boys was shoved into the dark recesses of her mind, along with all the bad things that had happened to her during her checkered life. It hadn’t been the worst. Of course, it sure hadn’t been the best either. Winston West she had already mourned. Dear old Winston, who had taken her out of that whorehouse and brought her into decent society as his wife.
She had been angry with Winston for a while, there. Angry because he hadn’t told her about his former life, and angry because, well, he’d died. He’d saved her life, then left her to dangle in the wind, so to speak.
But he couldn’t help it, could he? He couldn’t help Billy Cree and his thugs riding down and bushwhacking him right there in the front yard.
Of course, he could have told her about it in the first place. And he could have told her that he was already married, the rat . . .
She let it go. Winston was dead and gone and wouldn’t be coming back. She’d always be grateful to him, but her life wasn’t over.
She had a baby to raise. Or try to raise. Try to talk somebody into letting her raise him, more like.
Well, she’d do it. She had lived through the last week, hadn’t she? To her mind, if she could do that, she could do just about anything.
And Slocum? He wasn’t the staying kind. She’d known that the moment she first laid eyes on him. By my goodness, he had certainly come in handy. Saved her life, for one thing. She’d never have made it to town. If she hadn’t died of exposure first, Billy Cree—couldn’t that sonofabitch stay dead, for heaven’s sake?—would have tracked her down and killed her.
And little Tyler never would have come to her.
She had grown incredibly fond of that baby. She’d never thought she had the stuff in her to be a mother, but the first moment that Slocum had placed him in her arms . . . She supposed she’d known from the start. He was meant to be hers.