Jean Baptiste raised an eyebrow and withdrew a large roll of cash from his pocket. A slash of blood across the belly of his shirt and a few splotches on his pants disturbed Betty. The poor boy had hurt himself trying to help her.
She covered the money with her hand and glanced about. But at dawn on Fat Tuesday the stage office was deserted, all revelers sleeping in preparation for the gala street celebration that evening. Even if R.W. noticed her gone this morning, he would be unable to mount any kind of search on the busiest day of the year.
“I am not going to ask where you got this.”
Jean Baptiste lowered his brows and scowled. He wasn’t going to tell her, either, which was just as well.
R.W., being R.W., gave Jean Baptiste room and board but little else. He had to have stolen this money, and Betty didn’t want to know if he’d stolen it from Randolph Ward.
“I will need a piano player, and God knows, you can keep a secret. I guess we’re in this together.”
He grinned.
“But we’re going to have to change our names so R.W. doesn’t find us.”
Jean Baptiste’s smile fell.
“He’ll look, but maybe not too long if we make it hard enough.”
Slowly, he nodded.
“I thought I’d be Lily. Do I look like a Lily to you?”
In answer, Jean Baptiste cupped her cheek with his good hand.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Now I need a last name. A common name, but pretty. I’ll still have to sing wherever we go. It’s all I know.”
Jean Baptiste pointed at the wall behind her. Betty turned.
Edmund Fortier asks all visitors to the city of New Orleans to stop at his restaurant for their evening meal.
“Fortier? Lily Fortier.” Jean Baptiste winked. “And you’ll be my brother, Johnny.” He frowned. “Jean Baptiste is a beautiful name, and I adore it, but in Texas I think you’ll stand out. If you’re Johnny, you’ll be like any other cowboy.”
He hooked his thumb in his belt and hitched up his pants with a shrug.
Betty laughed. “You’ll fit right in. From now on, I’m Lily, and you’re Johnny. We’ll say that the war took your voice. Then there’ll be no need for you to speak to strangers until you’re ready.”
Gratitude washed over his face. As difficult as it was for him to talk to her, it was even harder for him to talk to those he did not know. Ridicule often followed any attempts at speech, which only made the problem worse.
“Let’s see if we can get all the way from New Orleans to... Where are we going?” She reached into her bag and pulled out the deed then crossed to the ticket booth. “My brother and I need tickets to Rock Creek, Texas.”
Chapter 2
“Times certainly are changing.” Daniel Cash sat with his back to the wall so that his empty black eyes could watch the door of the Rock Creek saloon.
Rico Salvatore lounged opposite, his own back to the door. If Cash was watching, and he always was, no one would sneak into this place.
The abandoned saloon belonged to Cash now, and everyone in Rock Creek knew it. Since Rico, Cash, and their four friends had saved the town from the outlaw El Diablo, they’d been accepted as residents, if not upstanding citizens. Times might be changing, but not the spots on an Indian pony.
“What changes?” A drink appeared next to his hand, and Rico nodded his thanks to Yvonne, the war widow Cash had hired to run the bar. Besides Laurel and Kate, who were still sleeping off last night above stairs, Yvonne was the only woman allowed in the place. “Nate’s still drunk; Jed always wanders; I still have mucho knives.” Rico slipped one out of his boot and began to clean the mud off the sole, letting the dirt drop to the floor. No one here would notice. “And you still shoot everything that annoys you.”
“You’re alive,” Cash muttered.
Rico ignored him. With Cash, sometimes that was best. “What is so different, amigo?”
“Reese is a married daddy-schoolteacher, and Sullivan is a leg-shackled, tin-star-wearing papa of four. What good are they?”
“Would you like to tell them that?”
Cash took his time lighting a cigar, then blew smoke rings at the ceiling. “Not today.”
“That is what I thought.” Cash might be the roughest, toughest, meanest gunman in these parts, but he appreciated Reese. The only person Rico had ever seen Cash back down from was their former captain. And Sullivan was just spooky the way he sneaked up on people—kind of like Rico himself. Cash might be quick with a gun, but not quick enough if Sinclair Sullivan decided to slit his throat in the middle of the night.
“Life is dull, Kid. I’m not made to sit around and drink, smoke, gamble, and...” He paused, casting a glance at Yvonne, who scowled at him from behind the bar.
Perhaps because Cash made her leave the rest of the saloon alone, Yvonne polished that bar during her every spare moment. She served drinks and nothing else. When Cash had tried to hit on her tail once, Yvonne had threatened to fix his face with a broken bottle and castrate him with a rusty nail. Cash respected that, too.
“I’m just bored,” Cash finished, leaving out his other occupation—namely, switching off bed partners between Laurel and Kate, the only two saloon girls left after Eden, Sullivan’s wife, had come to town.
Cash sat up, and his hand went to his pistol. Rico dropped his boot and spun toward the door, knife pulled back to his ear.
“Dammit, Rico, that child is peeking beneath the doors again. Does she want to die young?”
Rico put his knife back into his boot. “Sometimes I wonder.”
He went through the swinging doors and into the early spring sunshine. The wind had a sharp bite, and Rico rubbed his arms, wishing he wore a coat atop his coarse black shirt. Over ten years gone from San Antonio and he still missed the heated springs of his childhood home.
Carrie Brown lurked at the corner of the saloon. Every day after school she came for him. Rico didn’t mind. She reminded him so much of the sister he had lost, he already felt as if they were joined by flesh and blood instead of mere friendship. Though he, of all people, should know that friendship forged by blood was stronger than any family tie.
“You can’t keep lurking around the door, Carrie. Cash is a jumpy sort of fellow.”
Her sweet face, framed by loose brown braids, appeared around the side of the building. “You won’t let him hurt me. No one will ever hurt me when you’re here.”
Rico flinched. That was what his sister had thought, too. Such belief in him had gotten her a very early grave.
“What if I am not here? Or Cash is faster than me?”
“He isn’t.” She threw her arms about his waist. Used to be she had to hug his leg. She’d grown. “No one is.”
There was no talking to her. Rico had learned that in the past three years. She was nine now; he was twenty-five. Old enough to be her father. Poor child didn’t have a father or a mother, only a grumpy old grandpapa who let her run wild.
“Look!” she shouted, pointing toward the center of town. “Stage is in, and someone’s getting off.”
The stage came through once a week, and usually people got on. Once in a while, folks arrived to visit relatives who lived in Rock Creek or on the surrounding ranches, but very few people came to stay, even though the six had cleaned the place up mighty fine.
A tall, skinny boy leaped out. His gaze lit on Rico and Carrie, and he studied them for a moment. Rico, who’d had a lot of experience with folks of a jumpy sort, thought the kid appeared a bit tense.
But Rico forgot all about the boy when the woman stepped down. Even from here he could see she had a figure that would make grown men beg. Rico never had to. He adored women, and women adored him. All women—even the little ones.
Rico pulled Carrie close for a quick hug before releasing her. The child soaked up attention like a dry streambed. Sometimes Rico considered talking to her grandpapa in a way William Brown would understand, but Reese wouldn’t let him. Besides, if Rico did what he wan
ted to Sullivan would have to put him in jail, and Rico liked Sullivan too much to make him do that. So he kept his fists, and his precious knives, away from William Brown.
Rico didn’t realize he’d begun to walk toward the stage until Carrie tugged on his hand. “Where ya goin’? I thought we were gonna play poker.”
“We will, muchacha. I just want to see—”
“That woman!” Carrie dropped his hand. “Why do you always want to see the women?”
Rico shrugged. “I like women.”
“I thought you liked me.”
Rico went down on one knee so she could see his face. Immediately, she put her arms around his neck, and his throat went thick. “I—” He cleared his throat and tried again. “I do like you. But there’s like and there’s... like. Someday you’ll meet a boy your own age, and then you’ll understand.”
“You’re talkin’ about sex.” Rico winced. He certainly hadn’t meant to. Carrie pulled back to look into his eyes as she imparted her incredibly wise opinion on the subject. “Disgusting. Yuck.”
His face heated. He had known women from Georgia to Texas, Louisiana to Kansas, and not one of them had thought his touch yuck, but he certainly wasn’t telling his darling muchacha that.
“Oh, son of a bitch, they’re coming this way.”
When Carrie cursed, Rico forgot all about the new woman in town. “Watch your mouth. Your grandpapa thinks you get those words from me.”
“But I get them from him.”
“I know that, and you know that...”
“Mr. Reese knows, too.”
“I think everyone knows.”
“Then what’s the friggin’ problem?”
Rico put his hand to his head. “Carrie, you must stop cursing. Ladies do not curse.”
“I don’t want to be a lady. I want to be like you. I want to ride with the six and save folks.” She pulled an imaginary pistol from her imaginary belt, aimed, and shouted, “Pow-pow, you’re deader than the bad cougar cat.”
“Hello to you, too, cherie.”
Rico glanced up to find the woman staring at Carrie and the boy staring at him. Each wore similar expressions of wary interest. He straightened to his full height. He’d been over six feet tall since he turned fifteen.
Up close the woman was stunning, though the wrinkled, dusty black dress did not enhance the shapely figure beneath it, and the severe style of her hair did not complement the angles of her face. But Rico knew incredible when he saw it. Even without the musical voice that tumbled French endearments. Since he wanted to get that body in his bed and hear her call him cheri, Rico went to work.
“Senorita.” He swept his hat from his head and bowed. “Welcome to Rock Creek.”
Carrie snorted. Rico ignored her.
Straightening, he flashed a grin. The senorita merely raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. Rico faltered. His smile usually made women swoon—or at least smile back.
“I’m looking for the saloon.”
It was Rico’s turn to lift an eyebrow. “Uh... ah... well, I... ah... don’t think you want to go there. It is not...”
“What?”
“Fit for a lady.”
“What if she ain’t no lady?” Carrie interjected.
“Carrie,” he warned.
“I guess there ain’t gonna be any poker now that she’s here.” She huffed, put her nose in the air, and flounced off.
The woman watched her go with a slight smile, as if she thought Carrie incredibly cute. Rico liked her better with every passing moment.
“I am Rico Salvatore, at your service.”
The woman looked him up, then down. “I can imagine.”
“Excellent, senorita. Let me make your every imagination come true.”
She rolled her eyes. “Get out of my way, enfant.”
She attempted to walk around him, but Rico stepped into her path. The boy shoved himself between Rico and the woman, his lip curving into a silent snarl.
Rico laughed. “You are her watchdog. I understand. I will look, but I will not touch.” He winked. “Until she asks.”
The boy’s dark blue eyes narrowed, and he took a step closer to Rico. “Johnny, never mind him.” She tugged the boy back to her side. “He may hold his breath and die before I ask. Now, monsieur, can you point me to the saloon or no?”
“If you insist. The saloon, such as it is, stands right in front of you.” He held out his arm for hers. “This way.”
She made an annoyed sound. Planning to tuck her hand into the crook of his arm, Rico circled her wrist with his fingers. What he felt beneath the sleeve of her dress made him go still. His gaze flicked to her face. She tilted her head as if to say, Try me.
Rico dipped his chin, lifted his hands in surrender, and backed off. She strode toward the saloon with Johnny in tow.
“Ah, querida,” he murmured, knowing well the feel of a knife sheathed beneath dusty black silk. “God has made us for each other.”
* * *
Lily—she’d been thinking of herself as Lily since stepping onto the stage in New Orleans—felt Rico Salvatore staring at her as she walked away. She refused to look over her shoulder and give him the satisfaction.
She’d met a hundred men like him—though none quite so handsome and virile, but plenty who thought they were a gift to any woman who walked. She’d had enough gifts like that, thank you, and now that she’d reached Rock Creek, any further gifts of such nature would be because she said so.
Lily shoved through the swinging doors of the saloon and stopped dead. One of the doors smacked her in the back, forcing her to stumble in a few steps more. Her boots slid in dust.
A frighteningly still man sat at a table directly across from the door. In contrast to the filth of the place, he was immaculately dressed in a dark suit with a pristine white shirt and lace cuffs spilling from his sleeves. He held a pistol on her, though he looked too lazy to use it. Still, the sight of the barrel pointed at her chest made Lily catch her breath just enough so that her stays poked her in the ribs.
“Who are you?” she snapped.
Lily could have sworn the man’s perfectly trimmed mustache twitched. But since no humor tilted those compressed lips or reached his dead eyes, she must have been mistaken.
“I might ask the same of you. Women aren’t welcome here unless they’re women of a certain kind, or Yvonne, of course.” The tilt of his head indicated the woman in front of the cracked mirror behind the bar.
Lily glanced at Yvonne, who busily polished the scarred wood. She appeared to be Lily’s age, though tired and sad and worn down. Since the war, Lily had seen far too many like her.
“Are you a woman of a certain kind?”
Johnny stepped forward, and Lily put her hand on his arm. She’d been asked that question, in many variations, since she was old enough to wear a corset. She knew how to handle men like this as well as she knew how to handle men like Rico.
“I am not, monsieur. I am Lily Fortier, and this is my brother, Johnny.”
“Enchanted,” the fellow drawled, not sounding so at all. “Get the hell out.”
She laughed, surprising herself. She surprised him, too, because the gun drooped just a bit and his mouth did the same.
“Ah, I see.” He pocketed his pistol. “You and your brother have just escaped from the nearest lunatic asylum. I’ll have Yvonne make arrangements for your keeper to round you up and drag you back.”
“Why would you think I’m insane just because I refuse to get out?”
“Do you know who I am, madam?”
“Should I?”
“Well, I suppose my name hasn’t quite made the sewing circles and prayer meetings. I’m Daniel Cash.”
“The gunfighter?”
“The same.”
“What a surprise to find a man of your skills in little old Rock Creek.”
He frowned at her tone. “Don’t you want to run away now?”
“Why ever would I do that? I don’t think you realize who I a
m, Mr. Cash.”
“Calamity Jane?”
She smiled, and he obviously didn’t like what he saw in that smile, because he stood, his chair screeching across the wood floor.
Lily reached into her reticule and pulled out the deed. “I’m the new owner of this fine establishment.”
On the other side of the swinging doors, Rico cursed beneath his breath, and a trill of fear ran down Lily’s spine. She stared into the dark, haunted gaze of Daniel Cash and wondered how far he’d go to keep women like her out of this place.
She never found out, because Rico, moving quicker than any man she’d ever seen, came inside, yanked the paper from her hand, and stepped into the line of fire.
“Excusez-moi?” Lily said indignantly.
He waved his hand at her as if she were a pesky fly. “It is the deed for this place, Cash.”
“Just because some prudish female walks in here with a piece of paper don’t make my place hers.”
“Actually, it does,” she said.
Cash was the picture of frustration. His mouth worked, but no sound came out. Lily had seen Johnny afflicted the same way, and she almost felt sorry for the man. Almost.
Cash ran his fingers through his perfectly combed hair, making it stand on end, then kicked the table with his shiny black boot. “I’m getting the sheriff.”
“Please do. That should settle this once and for all.”
Cash glared at her, and she understood why he was an infamous gunman. That stare alone could make a faint heart stop. Luckily for Lily, a faint heart had never been a luxury she could afford.
Cash stomped out. Yvonne polished faster. Upstairs, doors closed, and footsteps milled about, but no one came down.
Lily held out her hand for her deed. “Is your sheriff a reasonable man?”
“I’ve been riding with him for about ten years, and I’ve never considered Sullivan unreasonable.”
“The sheriff is your friend?”
“Guess you could call him that.”
“And what about Cash?”
“They’re as friendly as Cash gets.”
“Merde!” she muttered. “Fils de chienne!”
Rico’s blank stare revealed he did not understand the French curse words. Lily took a deep breath. It didn’t work. “Johnny, where’s my derringer?”
Rico (The Rock Creek Six Book 3) Page 2