“Look at her. She’s following you. She thinks you’re her mama, and she’s so happy you’re here. I’ve seen you with horses and now with dogs. All that dog has to do is turn those big brown eyes on you. You’ll melt like hot butter in a frying pan, and the dog will have a great home by your side.”
Deke took a deep breath. It was true, and though he was resisting, the pup had already won a place in his heart. “We’ll see,” he said, thinking she could very well be right. He hadn’t had a dog since he was a boy. This felt good—the dog and him.
“Something happened today I need to talk to you about,” Ruby said, pulling him down to a bench right outside the door of the hotel.
The urge to put his arm around the back of the bench and pull her into his chest was strong, but they were outside in a hostile town, where the sheriff believed nothing existed between the two of them. It wouldn’t do for the law to think he had an attachment with Ruby.
“What?” he asked, detecting the note of concern in her voice.
A few minutes later when she’d told him about Hannah, he couldn’t believe she’d risked everything to help a girl in trouble, especially since this bounty was her father’s killer.
“You took a huge risk.”
She shrugged her shoulders like it was nothing. “I had to help her. They would have killed Hannah.”
“They may try to kill you and her if they find out you’re working together.”
“Let them try. I have a pistol on me at all times.”
“I hope so.” Another risk. The woman took more chances than a short-tail bull in fly time.
The puppy crawled up in his lap and settled in for a nap. Absent-mindedly, he rubbed the dog’s soft downy fur. “I haven’t been completely honest with you, either.”
She’d been gazing up at the stars, and suddenly, she whirled her head around to face him. “What do you mean?”
He licked his lips and sighed. “I was married, but I’m not anymore.”
She frowned at him like she didn’t quite understand. He really didn’t want to tell her the entire story, but he had a feeling she wasn’t going to let him off the hook.
“Oh. Did you just take off your wedding ring and your wife disappeared?”
“No,” he said quietly in the dark. He rubbed the puppy’s ears. “She died.”
Ruby gasped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Sympathy radiated from her gaze, and he hated it. He didn’t want anyone feeling sorry that he was a widower. He didn’t deserve their commiseration or condolences or compassion.
“I know.”
“How long has it been since…”
“Eighteen months.” His son would have been walking by now. He bit his lip and tried his best to block the memories of holding that tiny infant in his arms. Pain seized his chest at the memory of him so perfect, so precious, so lifeless. Until that moment when he’d held his newborn son, he hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted children.
“How long were you married?” Ruby asked.
“Not even a year,” he said softly, remembering Laura’s beautiful face as she gazed at him during the wedding. Even though theirs had been a marriage of convenience, she’d been a loving person, a friend he’d cared deeply for.
Ruby stared at him, her blue eyes actually appearing sympathetic. “Tell me about her?”
Even talking about Laura was difficult. He really didn’t want to, but he felt that since he’d lied to Ruby, he owed her at least a token explanation. “We grew up as friends. Her brother was my best friend, and we would get together and play. We were together in school, right up until I rode off to hunt for the man who shot and killed her brother, my best friend.”
“Is he the reason you became a bounty hunter?”
“Yes. I probably would have died if your father hadn’t taken me in and taught me everything I know,” he said, rubbing the dog’s soft fur, hoping that was all the information she needed about his past.
“You were going to become a cattle rancher?”
“I was, but then… I don’t know. I like horses so much more,” he said. “Laura convinced me cattle were not really what I was good at.” He watched as Ruby swallowed and quickly looked away, before returning her gaze to him.
“Did you love her?”
A deep sigh escaped his lips. “I cared deeply for Laura, but I wasn’t in love with her. And she knew it.”
“So, why did you marry Laura if you didn’t love her?”
How could he explain without making Laura sound even weaker than she’d been? After all, she was dead. Why not just let her past die with her and not reflect on how frail she’d been emotionally and physically? “Not all women are like you, Ruby.”
“Thank God,” she said.
“You’re tough and independent, and you’ll always be able to take care of yourself. But not all women are capable of being strong like you.”
The two women were so different, and yet they were the same. If Laura had the strength of will like Ruby, they could have almost been sisters.
Ruby frowned at him. “I don’t know if you’re giving me a compliment or being disrespectful.”
“No, you’re who you are. Laura was who she was. But unlike you, she wasn’t strong. She lost everything and would have been forced into either prostitution or living on the streets. She had nothing. I couldn’t let that happen to my best friend’s sister. I saved her by marrying her.”
Ruby slowly rose. She gazed down at the puppy in his lap and ran her fingers through the animal’s fur. “You’re like that, Deke. You have a natural instinct about you that saves animals and people. Just like this puppy.” She gazed directly into his eyes. “So what happened to her? How did she die?”
He swallowed the lump that formed in his throat, blinking back the tears he felt rising in his chest.
“I killed her.”
Chapter Eight
For a moment, Ruby froze as Deke’s words poured over her like ice water, freezing her blood and making her doubt the words she’d just heard. “What?”
He sighed. “I think it’s time we went in.”
“Like hell. You just told me you killed your wife and you want to go to bed? Do you think I could sleep tonight after hearing that remark?”
He smiled, but it was more a tired grimace than a happy smile. “Laura was a tiny woman. Small in the hips. She wasn’t built to carry children.”
Deke petted the dog, and Ruby could tell he wanted nothing more than to pick her up and walk away. In fact, he probably would have if Ruby hadn’t been standing in front of him, blocking his escape.
“She died during childbirth.”
Ruby sighed with relief that she wasn’t going to have to drag Deke down to the sheriff’s office and turn him in for murder. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand why you feel responsible. What did you say to me about my sisters? Was Laura happy? Did she want the baby?”
How could a woman he married be unhappy about expecting Deke’s baby? Sure, Ruby wasn’t wild about having babies and children, but someday, she planned on having the children of the man she eventually fell in love with. Just not right away.
She watched as Deke closed his eyes.
“She was so excited. I hadn’t seen her that happy since before her brother was killed.”
“Then it wasn’t your fault. Women die in childbirth. You made her happy in her last days.”
For the longest time he sat, petting the puppy and staring off into space. She wondered if he was going to respond to her or if he would just sit there in the darkness.
A rumble of thunder sounded, and a flash of lightening heralded an approaching storm.
“We need to go in,” he finally said, not answering her comment. He stood and set the puppy on the ground. The dog stretched then gazed up at him and whined. “You go ahead,” he said to Ruby. “I need to go up the back door, so the owners don’t see her.”
Ruby reached out and laid her hand on Deke’s arm. “You didn’t kill her.�
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He gazed at her, his emerald eyes brimming with pain. “Good night, Ruby.”
Turning, he walked around to the back of the hotel, leaving her on the porch alone.
*
Rain fell softly, and Deke stepped into the shadows at the back of the hotel. He knew it would do no good to go to his room. His mind was racing full of images of Laura, from the time they were children up to the day he’d found her in labor. He refused to think past that point. It was true; she’d been happier those eleven months they were married than she’d been in years. She’d anticipated the birth of the baby, never dreaming of anything going wrong.
Their family was past the tragedies of their youth, the death of her brother, and now they would live the rest of their lives watching their children grow. She’d told him this over and over and over…until the day he’d ridden away.
He reached into his pocket for the flask he carried with him for when the pain became excruciating, when he could no longer live with the agony of what had happened, of what he’d done.
Tipping the flask to his lips, he drank deeply and stared down at the dog that once again rested beside his feet. So young. So innocent. Only needing food and companionship and giving unconditional love in return, whether or not her human was a good person or evil, only loving the person who took care of her.
Above him, a door opened, and he watched in fascination as Ruby came running down the back stairs wearing a flowing white gown. For a moment, he thought something was wrong, but then she laughed a delightful sound as she ran out into the cold rain in her nightgown.
Was she meeting someone in the dark? He didn’t think so, but still what would send her flying out of the hotel in her nightclothes?
Frowning, he looked around to make sure no one else could see this fair-haired beauty that had suddenly appeared. She giggled and laughed and sounded like the young girl he’d first met so many years ago, before life had dealt them both terrible blows.
She twirled around in the rain in her nightdress, her hair free and flowing down her back, a fairy princess dancing in the rain. Rain pelted her, plastering the wet material to her figure, showing the outline of her curves. God, she was beautiful.
Thoughts of Laura disappeared. Here was a woman who was strong, who took life by the horns and rode that steer until she tamed it. Here was a woman who had a strong vibrant sexual nature, but who wanted a man who deserved her.
He should have taken her that day so many years ago and married her. Maybe then, Laura would be alive, and Ruby wouldn’t be risking it all, searching for bounties.
With a sigh, he watched her run her hands down her body as she raised her face to the sky. He should go in before she found him watching her, before she realized he could see the curve of her breasts, the smoky aura of her nipples, and the juncture between her thighs where her womanhood nestled. He should go in, before he did something really foolish like join her.
Standing, he motioned for the dog to go with him. The puppy whined and Ruby turned toward the sound.
Their eyes met across the field where she stood, while the rain spilled from the sky. In the darkness, she walked toward him, her steps sure and confident. His heart froze in his throat the closer she came, his shaft hardening at the sight of her beauty.
When she reached his side, her hand touched his cheek and pulled his head to hers, planting her lips over his. For a moment, he was shocked, but then he pulled her into him and melded her wet body to his. His lips slanted over hers, and he kissed her like a man who had lost everything and she’d rescued him. He kissed her like he’d never kissed Laura.
He released her lips, and she stared at him questioning. “You better go up.”
“What if I don’t want to?”
“Dawn is going to arrive soon. That cold front is coming in, and you’re soaking wet. You don’t want to catch your death of cold,” he said, his voice raspy. The urge to throw her on the ground and take her right there was uppermost in his mind, but that wasn’t possible.
She glanced at the sky, sighed and looked him in the eye. “I know you think you killed your wife, but sooner or later, we’re going to satisfy this thing, whatever it is between us.”
Her words had him groaning as he kissed her again. This time he took control, and he wasn’t gentle, but rather rough, as his mouth closed over hers. His lips possessed hers as his tongue swept through her mouth, needing to be as close to her as possible. There was this attraction, this need to join with Ruby, since the time he’d first met her. He’d wanted her all those years ago, but now he was a different man, and she was a different woman. Yet, still there was this need, this ache that demanded satisfaction.
She pushed back from him, separating them. They stared at each other. Her bosom rising and falling, and he could feel his heart pounding inside his own chest, his blood pumping life, making him feel more alive than he’d felt in the last eighteen months of hell.
“You’re right. I should go in.”
He smiled. “Did you get scared? Decide that maybe this thing between us shouldn’t be resolved?”
She licked her lips and grinned at him. “I didn’t say that. But outside the hotel in an outlaw town, right before dawn, is not exactly where I’d pictured our first time.”
“Just so you know. I swore never to marry again.” As soon as he said the words, he hated them. They sounded cowardly, yet they were true. He’d killed one woman; he wasn’t about to chance a second one.
“Who said anything about marriage?” she said, staring at him. “I’ve got bounties to hunt, and you, you’re ready to quit the business. Nothing was said about forever, just about the right moment at the right time.”
With that, she turned and walked up the stairs. He watched her go, wondering what he’d gotten himself into. Maybe admitting to wanting each other had not been a good thing. If she weren’t in such a precarious position, he would ride away. But he couldn’t leave her while she was working at the local saloon as a card dealer in a town where the only law that existed was vigilante law.
*
Late the next night, while Ruby was dealing cards, she glanced over and saw Deke sitting at the bar, his back to the wall, turned to where he could watch her and drink. Last night had answered so many of her questions about Deke.
Not only was the man a tough cowboy, who had ridden with her father, he also had a soft streak. He liked to heal horses, rescue puppies and women. Yes, he’d married, but it wasn’t a love match, but rather a woman needing a husband. And because they’d been friends, he’d volunteered.
She dealt another hand of cards and glanced at the scurvy lot of men sitting at her table. There was no doubt in her mind that most of them were probably just one step ahead of the law or a bounty hunter. Maybe after she caught Rivera she’d return to Hide Town and clean the village up without the sheriff’s help.
“Okay, gentlemen, who wants to open the bidding?”
“I’m in for a quarter,” the man to her left said.
“I’ll raise you a dime,” another man said.
A surly man who had stared at her all night growled. “I just remembered who you are. It took me a while, but you’re one of those bounty hunting women.”
Ruby sent the man a skeptical glance as the others at the table stared at her, their faces scowling. She threw her head back laughing. “What have you been drinking tonight? You need to share that loco juice with the rest of us. It’s given you fanciful ideas.” Her heart was pounding like a train with a full load of coal and an empty car. Somehow she had to convince everyone this man had no idea what he was talking about.
“No, I remember you. You and that redhead sister of yours brought a man into the Dyersville jail. I couldn’t believe my eyes that you girls had brought in a hold-up man wanted for murder.”
Ruby gave him her sternest look. “Place your bid, sir. I don’t know what you’re trying to get at, but I don’t have a redheaded sister. And do I look like the kind of woman who could bring a man
to justice? Really?”
The men at the table chuckled and laughed at the idea. She leaned over and rested her chin in the palm of her hand, giving him a great view of her cleavage. She smiled and turned on her charm. “If I could be doing a man’s job, do you think I’d be working in a saloon?”
He frowned. “Well, then you’ve got a twin sister out there because I never forget a face.”
“And this woman who brought in this criminal, what was she wearing?”
“She was wearing pants, and you were wearing a skirt.”
“Honey, did it look like this?” Ruby let her hand flow down her dress.
“No.”
“Then it wasn’t me. This dress is my working outfit. When I’m at home, I lounge around in my robe,” she said, trying to get their minds on the idea of what she was wearing rather than on her being a bounty hunter. “Keep drinking, cowboy, and maybe even share some of that loco juice of yours.”
The men at the table all guffawed.
“Are you in or out?” she asked.
He frowned at her. “I’m out. Somehow I’m going to prove you’re a bounty hunter.”
“You’d be better served to improve your card skills. You didn’t do so well tonight.”
The men laughed again, and the man threw down his cards and slunk away. Icy fear rushed through Ruby like a stampede in a snowstorm. She smiled at the men sitting at her table. So far, they were buying her tale, but for how long? And how long before the man returned with proof of her existence?
“Gentlemen, where were we? This bounty hunter wants to play cards.”
As she dealt the next cards, she looked up and saw Deke watching her. He glanced over to where the man went out the door and gave her a nod.
She turned back to the men at her table, just as Madam Hutchins cleared her throat.
“Ruby, George will relieve you after this hand. Meet me in the office.”
Like a river, unease pumped through Ruby’s veins at the idea of going to Mrs. Hutchins’s office. The woman missed nothing that was going on in her saloon, and obviously, she’d overheard the conversation at Ruby’s table.
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