Rico (The Rock Creek Six Book 3)

by Lori Handeland

  Love was a myth perpetrated by men to get what they wanted from women. Life was as simple as that. If you understood the rules, you didn’t get hurt. Lily might fall down, but she always got up, and she would never allow herself to care about a man so deeply that he could destroy her from the inside out. She didn’t have that luxury.

  The taste of Rico was gone. The face in the mirror appeared familiar again. Lily dressed in her last clean skirt and shirtwaist, tightened the hair that had been undone by Rico’s busy fingers, picked up her bag, and opened the door.

  The shadow of a man loomed in the hall, and she dropped the bag. Her heart stuttered and lurched. When the shadow materialized into Johnny, Lily began to breathe again. “You scared me.”

  He picked up the bag she’d dropped and gave her a look that questioned.

  “This is Rico’s room.”

  His curious expression became a scowl.

  “Hey, I didn’t put my bag in here; you did.”

  When he hung his head, she felt bad. Unlike her, Johnny was very easily hurt.

  “S-s-s-sorry,” he blurted.

  “I was teasing.” Lily put her hand on his arm. “You musn’t talk, Johnny. We’re alone now, but there are so many people in this place, you never know who might be listening. Until you feel at home here, there’s no reason to speak, sugar. You’re with me, and I understand you completely.”

  Johnny nodded, but sadness still haunted his eyes.

  “Never mind about the room,” she continued. “Understandable mistake. The man keeps nothing personal in there. You’d think he barely stayed here at all.”

  Did he have another house? A wife? Lily recalled the little girl who had not seemed to like her overly much. She’d known men who kept a room at the saloon for their mistresses and a house for their wives and children. Rico didn’t seem the type, but then, what did she know of him? He’d disappeared quickly enough once she’d shown him how she felt about his offer.

  Johnny opened the door next to his. With a shrug, he stepped back so she could look. Though the place wasn’t as clean as Rico’s had been, that only proved it was emptier. She shouldn’t find Cash, or someone she hadn’t even met yet, between her sheets accidentally.

  “This’ll do.”

  Johnny tossed her bag on the bed. Lily chose to ignore the puff of dust that rose on contact—for the time being.

  Descending the stairs, Lily stopped at the sight of Rico, sleeves rolled up, gray dust sprinkling his black hair like snow, moving empty crates from the main room to the porch outside. Cash and Nate sat in the corner, drinking and tossing cards back and forth in some game only they seemed to understand.

  Johnny glanced from Lily to Rico and scowled.

  “I’m not that foolish,” she murmured.

  He didn’t look convinced, but then, neither was she. The boy moved off to pull broken boards from the wall, and that was when Lily saw the bullet holes.

  “Have you been shooting in here?”

  “Me?” Cash appeared insulted.

  “If the gun fits...”

  “The only gunfire that went on inside this place was when Brown came shooting at Rico. Remember that?”

  Nate nodded and loosened his collar. He looked half-drunk already and even bigger wearing his clothes. He was a handsome man. His skin unmarked, his eyes exquisite, the lack of hair only made him all the more striking. Lily hoped he wasn’t a mean drunk. She’d hate to have to smack him over the head with a wood plank and drag him upstairs.

  “Why would someone shoot at Rico?” she asked.

  “Granddaughter.” Cash tossed another card on the pile.

  Lily glanced at the man in question, but he was busy with dusty cases of whiskey. She found herself captivated by the play of muscles in his forearms, and when he leaned over to put the case on the bar, his black pants pulled tight along his legs. Suddenly, her shirtwaist seemed too heavy and too hot.

  “Most of those bullet holes were here before we showed up,” Cash continued.

  “Liar,” Nate murmured.

  “What are you muttering about, Rev?”

  “Rev?” Lily repeated.

  “As in reverend. Nate’s the closest thing we got to a preacher, if you don’t count that hypocrite Clancy over at the church. And most don’t.”

  “You’re a man of God?” She took in the bottle of liquor at his left hand and the gunbelt around his waist.

  “Was.” Nate took a long pull on the bottle. “I cannot tell a lie. Some of those bullet holes came from our battle with the Devil.”

  Just how crazy was he? “Don’t tell me you shot at the Devil in my saloon.”

  “He shot first. It wasn’t my idea.”

  Lily didn’t want to throw out a paying customer, but if Nate kept seeing imaginary devils and shooting up the place, she couldn’t let him stay.

  “He’s talkin’ about El Diablo.” Cash gathered the scattered cards and shuffled them with well-maintained hands. “A very real bad guy. Or at least he was until he died. We wouldn’t let Nate shoot up the place no matter how much fun that might be.”

  “The Devil is the prince of lies.” Nate dropped his forehead to the table. “But God has told some whoppers of his own.”

  Lily caught a flicker of sadness in Cash’s eyes before he saw her looking and the emotion disappeared.

  “Go away.” He flicked a hand at her. “Leave him to me.”

  “Maybe his problem is you.”

  “I’m all he’s got left besides Rico and Jed. Nothing will ever hurt him again if I have anything to say about it. Go watch Rico’s ass some more, Miss Fortier, and leave Nate to someone who knows what he’s up against.”

  Lily chose to ignore the jibe about Rico. She’d learned that with men like Cash it was best to ignore a lot. “Just make sure he doesn’t shoot up my saloon, smash up my glass, or throw up on my clean floor.”

  “I never throw up,” Nate muttered.

  “Then we’ll get along just fine.”

  A board clattered, and Johnny hissed in pain, then grabbed one hand with the other. Lily hurried across the room. A sliver stuck in his palm. She plucked it out then peered at the tiny hole. No blood welled. It was no more than a scratch, but still—

  “No more hard labor for you, young man.”

  He tugged, but she wouldn’t let him go. Instead, she picked up the other and held both. “I mean it, Johnny. We can’t risk your hands.”

  “What is so special about him?” Rico asked. “Why are my hands dirty enough to lift and drag and bleed? What makes his better?”

  She led Johnny to the piano. “Go ahead, sugar. Show ‘em all.”

  He touched those keys as if they were satin, played them as though they were golden toys. Johnny’s fingers on the instrument, even one that had not been played in a long, long while, were magic such as this little town had never known.

  He closed his eyes and music filled the room, became the air, swirled around, through and into every heart.

  Lily began to sing. When Johnny played, she could not keep quiet. Together they finished “Do They Miss Me at Home,” a sad, weepy tune that had been around since before the war, then segued into “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

  The women stood frozen in wonder, mouths agape, eyes dazed. Cash contemplated Johnny with a considering expression; even Nate had raised his head. Rico stared, but not at Johnny.

  His dark gaze rested on Lily, and he wasn’t thinking of music. A shiver went over her when she remembered his touch, his kiss. He’d released several shirt buttons, and a thin line of damp trailed from his bronzed neck to his smooth chest, disappearing beneath the black material. Was his entire chest bare and smooth, not a wisp of hair, only supple muscles expanding and contracting beneath perfect skin?

  How would he taste now? Hot and wet? How would he taste in the morning? Warm and new? What about at sunset on the river as cool wind brushed damp flesh?

  Lily licked her lips, and Rico stepped in her direction, then cursed, grabbed a b
ottle of whiskey from behind the bar, and fled.

  He’d taste like trouble, she thought, and trouble she had tasted enough.

  Chapter 5

  Rico paused in the middle of the street and took a long pull on his bottle. Now what?

  He could no longer barge into the hotel and raise a ruckus with Sullivan. The man had a wife and four kids, one of them not much more than a baby. Oh, Rico could probably tip a few with his former instructor in the sneaking arts, but after a while, Eden would come in, stare at him with her sweet face, her knowing eyes, and want to fix whatever was wrong with him.

  Rico took another long drink as he considered the cabin behind the schoolhouse. He’d fare no better there. His former captain would pour him a shot then bounce his own daughter on his knee while thinking of the next day’s lessons for the children of Rock Creek. Little Georgie would giggle and babble in Rico’s direction—she loved him as much as the next female—and for a while he could forget the gnawing restlessness in his gut. Then Mary would come in, kiss Rico on the cheek, and want to fix whatever was wrong with him.

  “And what is wrong with me they cannot fix,” he murmured, then drifted down the empty boardwalk.

  There was nothing Lily Fortier could do, either, except soothe the ache and assuage the loneliness for a single night. What was wrong with him went deeper than sex could fix and hurt a whole lot worse than loneliness.

  He paused outside the broken-down home, which was little better than a shack, where William Brown and his granddaughter lived. For a minute he considered knocking. But the place was quiet and dark. Carrie was asleep, as she should be. As Rico probably wouldn’t be all night.

  A few more pulls of the whiskey and the boiling discontent in his belly cooled, replaced by warmth and a maudlin state of mind.

  Only Carrie made him feel worthwhile, because she was too young and in love with him to see that she was mistaken in her devotion. Bastard that he was, he wouldn’t enlighten her, for Carrie’s love gave him a reason to get up every day.

  He put on a cheery, cocky, flirtatious front. Everyone expected it. But Rico had never felt sadder or less like flirting. He was twenty-five years old, and sometimes he wanted to lie down and die.

  The only time he’d accomplished anything important with his life had been after he and the five men who were his only true friends had begun to ride together. They had done a lot of good, saved a lot of lives. But those days were gone.

  Their leader turned teacher, their scout turned sheriff, God only knew where Jed was, and Cash and Nate were trying their best to kill themselves or get someone to do it for them.

  And Rico was drifting again, trying to find a reason why he was alive when so many others had died. Hoping to find something worth living for but pretty certain he would not.

  He would have to get a paying job soon. He had little money left, and he could not hire out his gun like Cash or Nate. Just the thought made him laugh. He could sneak up on anyone but Sullivan, and he could do amazing things with a knife, but he’d never been able to hit much beyond nothing with a gun.

  “There aren’t too many jobs for knife-wielding sneaky people these days,” he muttered.

  Since the only person who might be willing to drink with him was Baxter Sutton, the shopkeeper, and Rico had had enough of him the first week he came to Rock Creek, he took his bottle and sneaked into his room the back way.

  He could still smell her on the air, hear her voice drifting from below. Madre de Dios, what a voice! What was she doing in Rock Creek if she could sing like that?

  The tinkle of the piano only made Rico remember how Lily’s face softened when she watched that boy play. As if Johnny were the most precious and remarkable thing on this earth. No one but Carrie had ever looked at Rico that way.

  “Not no one, bastardo. Anna looked at you like that up to the day that she died.”

  He pushed the thought away, drowned it, as he always did, with whiskey burn from throat to belly, then turned his mind again to Lily and the piano player.

  Although the child was probably half her age and her brother to boot, Rico had been jealous—or at least he thought that was what the churning in his chest had been.

  So many women, so little time. He cared about each one with equal passion for a single night, sometimes a few more. And they all adored him. Until Lily.

  Well, there was that one occasion when he’d kissed Mary and she’d laughed in his face; then Reese had almost killed him. But that didn’t count. He’d only been trying to annoy Reese, and it had worked quite well. They were married, after all.

  Why did Lily glare at Rico as if he were horseshit on the bottom of her shoe? Was it just him, or every man but Johnny who disgusted her? How could a woman who looked like Lily, who’d obviously spent most of her life in a saloon, kiss like a puckered-up virgin?

  Most importantly, why did he care? Why did he want to be the one to change the way she kissed? Was it the challenge of the first woman who’d ever been unaffected by him? Was he that shallow? Most likely. How was he going to make himself stop wondering about Lily, stop giving a damn if she hated or loved him, stop wanting to teach her how to use her tongue?

  Rico held the bottle up to the light. This should help for tonight. Tomorrow he wasn’t sure about.

  He sat on his bed and listened to the music from below, never knowing if the lilt of the piano lulled him to sleep or the whiskey in the bottle knocked him out. Either way, he awoke to the thunder of native drums. His mouth tasted like... Ugh, he didn’t want to think what his mouth tasted like. He smelled of stale whiskey, which didn’t help the state of his stomach or the pounding of the drums.

  Groaning, Rico lifted his face from the pillow and opened his eyes. The room spun. The light was too bright. The thunder continued. Were the Comanche attacking Rock Creek?

  He didn’t think there were enough Comanches left in these parts to mount much of an attack, but one never knew. His head fell back to the bed with a thud. Let Sullivan take care of it.

  “Rico, open this door or I’m gonna shoot off the lock.”

  There was Sullivan now. Why wasn’t he chasing the Comanche?

  Wham, wham, wham.

  “Rico! I’m gonna count to three.”

  Suddenly he understood that there were no Comanche except for the half-breed pounding on the door.

  “Hold on.” Rico dragged himself from the bed.

  The pounding stopped—at least on the door. Inside his brain was another matter. With his hand on his head to keep it from falling to the floor and bouncing about, Rico stumbled to the door and unlocked it.

  Sullivan shoved inside as if Rico would try to keep him out. His gaze flicked over the room before his mouth thinned, and he slammed the door.

  Rico winced.“Madre de Dios, be silent. Have some pity for a dying man.”

  “I already have one dead man and no time for pity. Where’s Carrie?”

  Rico dropped his hand, lifted his head too fast, and gritted his teeth against the pain. “What in hell are you talking about?”

  “I take it she’s not hiding here.”

  Rico’s mind was not working as fast as it should, and his ears seemed to be lagging behind the rest. He stared at Sullivan, who looked more frazzled than Rico had ever seen him. Even when his friend had been sneaking around behind Jed’s back with Jed’s little sister, courting death every day, he hadn’t looked quite this haggard.

  Rico grabbed Sullivan by the shirt. “Where is Carrie?”

  Sullivan stilled as only Sullivan could. “Let me go, Kid. Make it quick.”

  Rico shook him, even though the movement hurt Rico more than it did Sullivan. “Answer me.”

  “Get your whiskey breath out of my face and I will.”

  Rico collapsed on the bed. His legs weren’t going to hold him up much longer, anyway.

  “Carrie’s missing. I was hoping she’d be here with you.”

  “I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

  Sullivan curs
ed, and he wasn’t much for swearing. “I wonder if she even knows.”

  “Knows what?”

  “Haven’t you been listening? Brown’s dead.”

  Well, this just got better and better.

  “Dead how?” Rico hoped all his knives were where they belonged and there wasn’t one sticking out of Brown. He hadn’t done anything, but with his history, Rico doubted anyone would believe him. His friends wouldn’t let him hang, but they’d still think he’d done it.

  “Looks like his heart.”

  Rico peered at Sullivan though the tangled shade of his hair. “Bullet through the heart?”

  “Don’t sound so hopeful. Heart gave out. He was an old man with a terrible temper. It was only a matter of time until he dropped. Why would you think someone killed him?”

  “Everyone wanted to. He was an awful man and no good for Carrie. He was crushing her soul from the inside out.”

  “He was her only living relative. What we’re going to do with her if we find her, I have no idea.”

  “I’ll find her.” Rico stood, and the room spun.

  Sullivan grabbed his elbow. “You couldn’t find a horse’s ass if you looked in the mirror.” Rico yanked his elbow away and tumbled onto the bed. “I’ll find the little girl. You sleep it off.”

  “I know where she is.”

  “Then tell me and I’ll get her. You’ll be worthless until noon.”

  Rico covered his face with his arm. Worthless. Even his friends saw it.

  “What’s gotten into you? I never knew you to drink more than a few, but today you look as drunk as Nate.”

  “Am not,” Rico mumbled.

  “And you’ve never been lazy. Yet here you sit with Cash, playing cards for dares, day in and day out. Find a job, Rico. Find something.” Sullivan slammed out of the room. The clatter of his boots descended the stairs.

  Find something. Easy for Sullivan to say. He’d found everything in Eden.

  Gritting his teeth, Rico forced himself to his feet. He might not know how to find a life, but he would find Carrie. He wasn’t going to let another little girl die because of him.