He couldn't help the stupid grin on his face. He lay back, spread his arms, and arched his back in a huge stretch, then scratched his belly contentedly. He was more than satisfied with the way their argument had ended. His smile faded. But maybe Eden was having second thoughts about losing her virtue. After all, he had no way of knowing if she viewed their lovemaking the same way he did.
But he was sure she had enjoyed it. Pretty sure. All right, maybe he had been so involved himself that he wasn't the best one to judge what she had been feeling. But she had let him hold her afterward. That must mean something.
Unfortunately, she wasn't here now to tell him what she felt. Which might mean she was having second thoughts about the “loving and caring” part of their bargain. Granted, that was a pretty big step for her to take after twenty-nine years. He could appreciate her feelings if that was the case, because she wasn't the only one who had been fced to face the truth this morning. Eden had made a good point. Maybe he had been running from love himself all these years without realizing it. He had to admit the thought of settling down, of loving a woman so much that his breath quit in his chest just from looking at her, was pretty damn scary.
Kerrigan realized suddenly that Eden might be sitting in the kitchen right now, refusing to answer when he called out to her. He wrapped the sheet around himself and plodded barefoot on the cold floor into the kitchen. The instant he pushed through the swinging door he remembered that Eden had mentioned something about attending the Sweetwater Ladies Social Club meeting this afternoon. He hurried back into the bedroom, and when he didn't find either her high-button black shoes or her coat, he figured that must be where she was.
He started dressing, figuring that as long as she wasn't here, he might as well get some work done himself, so he could be back when she was. As he pulled on his Levi's, tucked in his shirt, and buckled on his gun belt, he reviewed his feelings about the momentous decisions of the morning.
It was past time he settled down. That would be easy to do if he had a woman like Eden Devlin by his side. He could spend a lifetime probing all the facets of that woman and never discover them all. But despite the fact she had let him make love to her, he wasn't at all sure she would choose to marry him over Felton Reeves. Not only was Felton an attractive man, he offered her the security and stability she had said she wanted from a husband. Kerrigan didn't have a good record where those qualities were concerned.
And Felton would be a damn good father. Kerrigan knew for a fact that Felton loved kids. Kerrigan felt his gut wrench at the thought of Eden growing round with any child except his. He didn't know if he could be a good father, but he didn't think he could help loving a child he and Eden had made together.
Finally, Felton had made plans for the future that Eden approved of. Not that Kerrigan couldn't make plans. He'd put the money from the sale of his ranch in Texas into the bank. And had added to his cache from his earnings over the years. He ought to have enough money by now to at least buy a small spread around here close to the school so Eden could keep on teaching if she wanted.
She didn't love Felton. But she didn't love him either. At least not yet. And she liked Felton. He wasn't at all sure she liked him. More like she tolerated him. She had said she trusted him. And she felt some strong emotion for him, though he thought maybe it was probably more sexual desire than anything else. Desire was a good start. But he wanted more than that.
No, he wasn't going to take it for granted that Eden Devlin would marry him if he asked. He was going to do everything he could to prove to her he was the kind of man she wanted before he took the chance of popping the question.
Meanwhile, he would have to do whatever he could to keep Eden and Felton apart. Because there was no telling what might happen now that Miss Devlin had decided to let herself start caring for a man. He wasn't about to take the chance that she might start caring for the wrong man.
Kerrigan saddled his horse and headed out toward Sweetwater Canyon to see whether he could find any more sign of where the stolen cattle had been moved. He approached the canyon from the south across the grassy plains, so he had a good view of the terrain around him. He was still quite a distance away when he spied a horseman poised on the rim of the canyon.
The sun was headed down, and the shadows kept Kerrigan from seeing the man's face under his hat. He approached the man from behind, keeping him in sight the whole way, and keeping his hand free to reach for his gun if he needed it.
“Howdy there, Felton.”
Felton jerked his head around, completely surprised to find Kerrigan beside him. “Where the hell did you come from?”
“You're lucky I wasn't stalking you. Otherwise, you'd be dead.”
“I was thinking,” Felton replied sullenly, knowing Kerrigan was right. A man who wasn't aware of what was happening around him was asking for trouble.
“Must have been some pretty deep thoughts, my friend.”
“I was just wondering,” Felton said, “how long it would take a man with the right piece of land, a couple of good bulls, and a decent-size herd of cows, to get rich.”
“Deep thoughts indeed,” Kerrigan said with a smile. “I admit I've pondered the idea a few times myself.”
“I've been doing more than thinking,” Felton admitted. “I've been saving up to make it happen.”
“You must have been living lean to save up that kind of poke since we parted ways in Texas.”
“I've been doing what's necessary,” Felton said guardedly.
Kerrigan heard the caution come into Felton's voice and wondered what the sheriff was hiding. Whatever it was, Kerrigan didn't have time to worry about it right now. He wanted to get this rustling business settled for the Association so he could concentrate on wooing Eden. Felton Reeves made a formidable rival. In all the years they had vied for a woman's attention it had never really mattered to Kerrigan who won. This time it did.
“I got the message you sent through Miss Devlin,” Felton said. “And I took a look around Sweetwater Canyon like you asked. I saw signs of cattle all right,” Felton replied, taking out the makings for a smoke. “But it was two, maybe three days old. They were long gone by the time I got there.”
“That's too bad. Any ideas where to go from here?”
“I thought you were the expert,” Felton said with a wry twist of his mouth. “Leastaways, that's what you always told me.”
“So I did” Kerrigan agreed with a grin. “To be honest, this one's almost too easy, Felton. And that worries me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I ran into Levander Early the day I rode into town. He was a big part of the biggest ring of rustlers in Montana when I ran him out of the Territory last year. I believed him when he told me he'd gone straight here in Wyoming.” His lips twisted ruefully. “After all, even a dumb son of a bitch like Levander deserves a chance to start over. I would have kept on believing him, except he made the mistake of bushwhacking me and leaving me for wolf bait.”
Felton raised a surprised brow. “You look pretty healthy for a dead man.”
“He didn't finish the job,” Kerrigan said.
“Then where have you been?” Felton asked.
“With a friend.” To Kerrigan's relief, although Felton's eyes narrowed, he didn't ask “which friend.”
“There's something that puzzles me,” Felton said. “If you were ambushed, how do you know it was Levander Early did it?”
“In Montana, Levander wore a Mexican roweled spur with a longhorn design in the center. Lying flat on my face with a load of buckshot in my back, I got a real good look at that same spur.”
“That's not proof that'll hold up in court,” Felton said.
“Maybe not,” Kerrigan conceded. “But I know who I'm trying to catch now. What worries me is that Levan
der never was real smart, and I'm a little surprised he's managed to fool everybody here in Sweetwater for so long.”
“Maybe he's working with somebody else,” Felton suggested. “Somebody smarter.”
Kerrigan met the sheriff's blue-eyed gaze and said, “That's exactly what I was thinking. You got any ideas who that might be?”
“Don't look at me,” Felton said. “I don't know nothing.”
A sudden thought struck Kerrigan, one he didn't like but felt he had to pursue. “You've been talking big about having the money to buy a ranch and settle down. I have to ask myself where you're getting the money to do that, Felton. And I put that together with the fact a gang of idiots like Levander Early and his bunch have been rustling cattle for months in and around Sweetwater—where you're the sheriff—and haven't been caught. That leaves me looking to you for answers.”
Dots of perspiration formed on Felton's brow, and his horse started shifting nervously, as though sensing its rider's distress. The truth was, he'd been out of town so much—on personal business—that he'd been a piss-poor sheriff. But he wasn't accountable to Burke Kerrigan, and nobody else was complaining.
Felton blew a cloud of smoke and said, “Look, Kerrigan, if it was me involved with the rustlers, do you think I'd have come out here to help you find the varmints?”
“You might if you thought you could keep an eye on me that way, and make sure I don't find out what I need to know to tie you to Levander's gang.”
“That's crazy!” Felton blustered.
“Is it?”
“Goddammit, Kerrigan. I don't have to prove nothing to you. I'm the sheriff in this town. You're the one who better watch out. Because the first wrong step you make, you're going to find yourself looking out at the world from the inside of a jail cell.”
Felton kicked his horse into a gallop and left Kerrigan choking in his dust.
Kerrigan frowned. Something was wrong here, but he wasn't sure what. Felton Reeves was a lot of things, but he had never thought him a thief. Kerrigan had been taking a shot in the dark when he described the scenario that made Felton a villain. But Felton's overreaction had certainly looked guilty enough for it to be somewhere near the truth.
If the sheriff was in cahoots with the rustlers, it was going to make Kerrigan's job for the Association a hell of a lot harder. And it was going to rip the daylights out of Felton Reeves's courtship of Miss Eden Devlin. As far as Kerrigan was concerned, that sounded like a damn good trade.
If there had been tracks in the canyon, Kerrigan was pretty sure Felton had gotten rid of them by now. Maybe he could find out something if he squeezed Levander and his crowd a little. He headed his paint horse across the grassy plains in the direction of the homes the rustlers-farmers had thrown together along the river.
When Kerrigan rode around the corner of Levander's log cabin, he found the man sitting on the first of two wooden porch steps, his elbows on his knees. He was swinging a whiskey jug by the finger he had looped in the handle while he drew circles in the dirt with a booted foot. He apparently didn't hear Kerrigan's approach because he was singing a cowboy song with a pretty good set of lungs.
“Oh, I am a Texas cowboy
So far away from hooooome
If I ever get back to Texas
I never more will roooooam.
Wyoming is too cold for me
The winters are too looooong;
Before the roundups—”
“Howdy there, Levander.”
“Son of a bitch!” Startled, Levander jumped up, dropping the jug. It hit the ground, spilling fine corn whiskey into the dirt. Levander grabbed at it and stuck the cork in before it emptied completely.
From the back of his paint horse, tipped his hat as he greeted Levander's slack-jawed gang, who were strewn in various attitudes of slouching, squatting, and standing, from one end of the cabin's slant-roofed front porch to the other. “Bud, Hogg, Doanie, Stick, howdy-do?”
The four members of Levander's gang were an ugly bunch. Not that they were ugly, actually, but they were dirty and unkempt, and their yellowed, blackened, and toothless smiles showed the signs of years of neglect.
Bud had been a prize-fighter in his younger days, and looked it. He was huge, with a thick barrel chest and an oversized head set on a thick neck. He had small, piggy eyes, a crooked nose, and one cauliflower ear. To put it plainly, Bud looked mean. And, indeed, he could be. Kerrigan had seen him beat a man to death with his fists.
Kerrigan had also seen Bud down on one knee playing marbles with a group of seven- and eight-year-olds. The surprise was, Bud was equally happy doing either, because he wasn't really sure of the difference. Someone had hit him in the head once too often, and now Bud only did what he was told to do. Which made him dangerous if somebody whispered the wrong words in his good ear.
Hogg and Doanie were about the same medium size, had medium brown shaggy hair, mustaches with a week-old beard stubble, and were dressed alike in baggy bib overalls and patched plaid shirts. They looked like typical farmers.
They also wore dirty bandannas, a useful, and obviously well used, cowboy accessory, and had their bib overalls stuffed down into cowboy boots, which told Kerrigan they weren't doing as much farming as they claimed. The two men might have been attached with a rope, they stayed so close, and in Kerrigan's experience, one never said a word without checking first with the other. Which was a smart move when you thought about it, because they probably had a collective intelligence equal to one simpleminded cowboy. Their sheer stupidity made them dangerous.
Stick hadn't gotten his nickname by accident. He was tall and skinny and had the mental powers of a stick. But he could throw a sweeter loop from a roping horse than anybody Kerrigan had ever seen. His hands, legs, and neck stuck out of his clothes because he wasn't a regular size, and his legs going into his boots looked like a leafless tree stuck in a pot. Stick was like a puppy, willing to do anything for a pat on the head, including killing, maiming, and, of course, rustling.
Levander was the only one of the bunch with any brains at all, and he was dangerous because the other four listened to him. It was amazing to think this was the rustling gang that for months had been successfully evading Sheriff Reeves and the combined efforts of the Sweetwater Stock Growers Association to catch them. There was obviously more here than met the eye. Kerrigan had to be careful not to underestimate them.
“Uh, howdy,” Stick said. “What brings you all the way out here, Kerrigan?”
“I'm looking for rustlers,” Kerrigan said.
Doanie and Hogg exchanged guilty glances.
“We don't even eat ste more since you run us out of Montana,” Doanie said, running his hands up and down along the denim straps of his bib overalls. “We're farmers now. We eat chicken.”
Kerrigan fought hard not to laugh. “Cookin' steak was never the problem, Doanie, it was burnin' the rawhide that had me bothered.”
“Oh,” Doanie said.
“Oh,” Hogg said.
Levander shoved Doanie and Hogg out of the way. “What're you doin' here, Kerrigan? We're law-abidin' citizens. You got no right to be on our land.”
“I need to ask some questions.”
“Well, we don't wanta answer no questions.”
“Whatever happened to those fancy Mexican spurs you used to wear in Montana?” Kerrigan asked.
“I 'member them,” Stick said with a smile as he squatted down to play with one of the kittens in Bud's lap. “They shore used to shine up real purty like—”
“Shut up, Stick!” Levander said. “Why you wanta know 'bout them spurs?” he asked suspiciously.
“Because I saw a pair just like them recently.”
It took Levander a moment to realize what Kerrigan was gettin
g at, but when he did, he scowled. “I ain't the only person on this here earth wears Mexican spurs,” Levander said.
“But how many have got that longhorn etched in the center of the rowel?” Kerrigan queried.
“Them little horn things was shore purty, all right,” Stick said.
Levander closed his eyes and shook his head in disgust. “I tole you to shut up, Stick. Now shut your mouth!”
Stick rose and shuffled around behind Doanie and Hogg and stood with his head hanging down. “Didn't mean no harm.”
“You got no proof of nothin',” Levander said.
“I haven't accused you of anything,” Kerrigan said with a menacing smile. “All I'm saying is your rustling days in Sweetwater are numbered, because I'll be watching you from now on. And if I catch you being a little too handy with a rope—well, we all know what happens to cattle thieves.”
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