“We can discuss this here,” Hannah said politely, “or we can discuss it in the privacy of your home. But I’m not going to simply walk away. Not until I get some answers.”
With a scowl, Sylvia threw open the door. “Your sister murdered my husband and got away with it,” Sylvia said as she closed the door. “What do we have to talk about?”
“Rose did not kill your husband,” Hannah said sensibly. “She did injure him, after he made an improper advance and she felt she had no choice but to defend herself, but someone else delivered the second, killing stab.”
Sylvia flinched. “Do you think I don’t know what my husband was like?” she asked softly. “That I didn’t see how he took any and every opportunity to lay his hands on other women? He was a wolf, Miss Winters, who preyed on everything in skirts and used his vocation to lure them into his confidence and then... and then...”
“Is that what he did to you?” Hannah asked softly.
“Yes,” she snapped. “I thought Maurice loved me. After I married him, I found out differently. He needed a wife, and apparently thought I would be... easy to manipulate. I had no family to run to, no options, once I was his wife and discovered what he was really like.”
Perfectly solid reasoning for murder, Hannah thought. “Is that why you took up with another man? To get back at your husband for being unfaithful?”
If looks could kill, she would surely fall dead on the spot. Sylvia glared at Hannah with hate flashing in her eyes.
“Jed told me what you said, about it being a one-time mistake, but it just makes sense to me that if your husband was such a despicable man you would need the comfort of someone loving in your life.” Hannah tried her best to sound sympathetic, as if she understood the infidelity.
Sylvia’s face fell, and she looked, at that moment, a good ten years older and not so beautiful at all. “Virgil made me feel good again. I’ve been seeing him for the past two years. Since Jed”—her eyes hardened again—“since Jed refused to come back into my life because his morals wouldn’t allow him to sleep with a married woman.”
Hannah felt a rush of relief that weakened her knees. She should have known.... “This Virgil”—the name was familiar, but at the moment she couldn’t place it—“could he have killed your husband in order to have you all to himself?”
Sylvia shook her head. “He wasn’t in town when Maurice was killed.” She cast Hannah a wry, sad smile. “Besides, he hasn’t exactly asked me to run away with him since Maurice is gone. In fact, I’ve only seen him twice since my husband died, even though he’s been in town for a good while, this time. I think he liked it better when I didn’t need him so much, when what we had was quick and illicit and... undemanding.”
Hannah could almost feel sorry for the widow. Jed was right. Sylvia Clancy was not a strong woman. She needed someone to take care of her.
Since she’d pushed Jed away, and Sylvia was no longer a married woman, would the two of them end up back together? She couldn’t see Jed and Sylvia as a couple. He was too strong; she was too needy.
Maybe she didn’t want to see them as a couple. The very idea hurt.
“Please think back,” Hannah said calmly. “Did you see or hear anything suspicious that morning?”
Sylvia shook her head. “It happened just as I said it did. I had been working in the winter garden, and when I came inside, through the kitchen and into the parlor, I found Baxter standing over Maurice with a knife in his hand.”
Hannah nodded her head, disappointed but not terribly surprised. “Well, thank you. If you think of anything else...” She stopped, almost startled as she remembered where she’d heard the name Virgil before. “Virgil Wyndham?” she asked belatedly. “The gambler?”
Sylvia nodded her head.
“Was he here the morning your husband was killed?”
Sylvia’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “No,” she said, opening the door to all but shove Hannah out. “I already told you, he wasn’t here.”
* * *
Hannah practically ran down the street, her step brisk as she approached. At first Jed thought she had discovered that he and Cash had been following her and was out for blood, but when she came near and he saw the sparkle in her eyes, he knew it wasn’t anger that put color in her cheeks and a spring in her step.
He almost grinned and stepped forward to greet her, until her eyes swept unthinkingly past him and landed on Cash. And she smiled.
“Just the man I wanted to see,” she said.
Cash raised his eyebrows and lifted an innocent hand to his chest. “Me?”
Hannah stopped a mere two feet from the gunslinger. “When will your saloon be open?”
Saloon?
Cash shrugged his shoulders. “A couple of weeks. The place I’m looking at is in pretty bad shape.”
“Saloon?” Jed asked softly. They both ignored him.
With color in her cheeks and that light in her eyes, Hannah looked radiantly gorgeous. Cash saw it, too; Jed could tell by the way the man’s eyes raked insolently over her. The prim blouse and jacket and plain skirt couldn’t disguise her figure, the way her breasts heaved as she breathed heavily.
“I know who killed Reverend Clancy,” Hannah revealed in a lowered voice.
“You do?” Cash asked, as if he were truly interested in her fantastic theories.
“Sylvia did not...” Jed began.
Hannah cut him a quick glance, her smile fading quickly. “No, she didn’t. You were right about that.”
“Then who?”
Hannah hesitated. “I don’t know why or how just yet, but I think it was Sylvia’s lover”—she hesitated, and her eyes danced—“Virgil Wyndham.”
“The gambler who was on the stage?” Jed almost recoiled in horror. That was who Sylvia had taken up with?
“When I spoke to Rose earlier, she said there was a man skulking about when she left the rectory that morning.”
“Skulking,” Jed snapped. “And she just now remembered? How convenient.”
Hannah laid long-suffering eyes on him. “Well, she didn’t say skulking, and she couldn’t identify the man, but she did say she passed a well-dressed man with a potbelly on her way to fetch Baxter. She didn’t pay enough attention at the time because she was distraught.”
“That doesn’t mean...”
“Sylvia says Virgil was not in town that morning,” Hannah interrupted, “but she might be protecting him. She has a very strong fear of being alone, I suspect,” she added thoughtfully.
“What do you propose?” Cash asked, pretending to be interested again.
Hannah turned to face the gunslinger, and the smile came back. “A trap,” she whispered. “And what better place to trap a gambler than in a saloon?”
“I had planned to take my time, but if we worked at it, the place could be ready in two days,” Cash said, humoring Hannah.
“Marvelous,” Hannah breathed.
“The only problem is,” Jed snapped, “Cash doesn’t believe in physical labor.”
“I’ve got nothing against hard work,” Cash said defensively, “as long as someone else is doing it.”
“Jed will help,” Hannah insisted.
“I will?”
“And Rico, and maybe even the sheriff.”
“Reese might not mind lending a hand,” Cash added.
Hannah smiled. Not at him, but at Cash. “I don’t mind rolling up my sleeves and getting dirty in the name of a good cause.”
Cash ignored a scowling Jed and offered Hannah his arm. She took it.
“You and I got off to a rather poor start,” Cash said in his most charming voice.
“We did, didn’t we?” Hannah agreed. “Well, I’m sure that can be remedied. First impressions are not always correct. I do apologize for... well, for saying some most inappropriate things to you in the heat of the moment.”
“As do I,” Cash said formally, a sparkle in his black eyes.
“And of course, you are quite tall,” Hannah sa
id sweetly, “compared to men of normal height.”
Jed groaned out loud and cursed beneath his breath.
“So,” Cash mused as he started down the boardwalk, Hannah comfortable and quite at ease on his arm, “what kind of plan is this?”
Jed stayed close behind.
“The details are sketchy,” Hannah confided, “but I should have everything worked out in two days.”
“I do love a good scheme,” Cash said conversationally.
“So do I,” Hannah said brightly.
Jed leaned forward, practically placing his head between theirs. “It’s so nice that you two have found something in common. Something besides the fact that people flee in terror when they see you coming.”
He didn’t think that was funny, but Cash and Hannah both laughed.
Chapter 19
The place looked as much like a saloon as the inside of the cave he and Hannah had been lost in. Vast, dirty, and literally falling down, the building was sure as hell nothing special.
But Cash seemed proud of it. The place was his.
Afternoon light shot through dirty windows, lighting the bare floor. “I was thinking of calling it the Golden Palace.” Cash said, perfectly serious.
Nate, still sober enough at this time of day to have a sense of humor, laughed out loud. “Fancy name for a hole in the wall.”
“I like it,” Hannah said primly, casting a disapproving glance at Nate. “It has class.”
Cash bowed in her direction, a small, sardonic grin on his face. “Thank you, Miss Winters.”
She rolled up her sleeves and shoved them to her elbows. “If I’m going to spend the better part of the next couple of days scrubbing your establishment, you might as well call me Hannah.”
“Hannah it is,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
Jed scowled. He’d rarely seen Cash so damned agreeable.
Hannah swept and vigorously washed the windows, putting everything she had into her menial chores. Nate and Jed moved broken boards and replaced them, hauled out collapsed furniture and an old moldy rug, and repaired two bullet holes in the wall.
Cash watched from a chair in the corner, supervising each task.
Rico arrived when they’d been at it an hour, telling them that Lily hadn’t been happy about him assisting in the preparations for competition, but when she’d learned they planned to lure Virgil Wyndham into the new place she’d almost forced him out the door. She didn’t care for the gambler all but living in her place.
By the time Sullivan and Reese arrived, they’d made apparent progress. The place didn’t look like a saloon, and it sure as hell didn’t look like any palace, but it was clean and almost habitable.
Hannah, obviously exhausted, excused herself. Cash rose to thank her for her assistance and see her out. That scoundrel.
Once Hannah was gone, the atmosphere changed subtly. Cash reclaimed his seat, and the rest resumed their chores. But the truth of the matter was, the six of them hadn’t been together like this in a long while. Here they were at long last... and Cash had them all doing his dirty work.
“You had best be cautious,” Rico said quietly, but loud enough for everyone to hear, as he leaned over a seated Cash. He shook a hammer at the gunslinger. “I do not think Jed cares for you being so courteous to his woman.”
“His woman?” Cash, leaning back and balancing his chair on two legs, asked as if he didn’t have a clue.
“She’s not mine,” Jed said as he pulled up a rotten board, a board that had once been the bottom of a long stairway of rotten steps. “Cash can be courteous to whoever he damn well pleases.”
Sullivan, his damnable brother-in-law, laughed. “You can cut the sour act, Jed. She’s gone.” He turned his head to Reese and lowered his voice—again not enough to make a difference. “First time I saw the woman, she called Jed a ruffian. I swear, his eyes lit up like a kid who’s just been handed his first puppy.”
“Look at him,” Cash said, lazily waving a hand in Jed’s direction. “He shaved and cut his hair, and I think he’s already had two baths this week.”
“Cut it out.”
“The mighty has fallen,” Nate said, lifting a glass of whiskey, silently saluting Jed, then tossing it back, the first to be consumed in the Golden Palace.
“I have not fallen.”
“Jed,” Reese said. “It’s not so bad. Admit it.”
The last thing he wanted to do was snivel over a woman in front of these men. They were his friends, his family, his comrades. And Hannah had made it clear she didn’t want anything to do with him, right? Not unless it was on her terms. Her way or not at all.
He gave the new bottom step he was hammering into place all his attention as he said calmly, “Y’all should know me better than that. Hannah Winters is a stubborn, difficult, cranky old maid. Maybe I did pass some time in her company, but she’s not my type. She’s too damn troublesome. A man shouldn’t have to work so hard just to get along with a woman.”
“Jed,” Reese said, his voice lowered.
No arguments, Jed thought as he hammered at the nails in the step. He was too damn close to caving in as it was. “Hell, it’s no wonder she never got married,” he began. “She’s...”
“Jed,” Sullivan said, his voice more urgent than Reese’s had been.
“No,” a soft voice whispered. “Do let him finish. I really would like to know why I’ve never married.”
He turned and laid his eyes on Hannah, who stood in the doorway holding a tray laden with a pot of coffee and a pile of Eden’s tea cakes.
Her eyes hardened. “No one’s ever been so kind as to explain it to me before. Please continue.”
* * *
Her heart beat too hard, her gut twisted and ached. She wanted to run, but she didn’t. Hannah Winters didn’t run, not anymore. She sure as hell wasn’t going to run from Jed Rourke.
She placed the tray she and Eden had prepared together on the single table in the room, where Cash and Nate sat, but she never took her eyes off of Jed. “Let’s see. I believe I’ve heard everything pertinent thus far. I arrived just in time to hear that I am a cranky old maid. Did I miss any significant criticisms?”
Jed dropped his hammer and stood, tall and broad and much too large. She refused to back down, though, no matter how intimidating he might be.
He actually had the gall to reach out and take her arm. “Let’s go for a walk and discuss this in private.”
She shook off his hand and glared into his eyes. “Oh, no. Let’s not deprive your pals of their entertainment. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Entertainment. For you, for your friends. I’m so happy I could be of service. Please continue. I’m anxious to hear why I haven’t yet been able to land a husband.”
Jed took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and balled his fists. “You make everything so damn difficult,” he said softly. “More difficult than it has to be.”
“Perhaps I do, on occasion. But you should consider the possibility that the reason I’m not married is because I choose not to be.” She gave him a tight smile. “Really, look around you.” She turned her back on him and surveyed the room and its inhabitants.
“Here we have Rock Creek’s finest,” she said with a wave of her hand. She walked forward to stand before Nate. “A pathetic drunk who quotes scripture and wallows in self-pity.” In response, he raised his glass to her in silent salute and took another long drink.
“And Daniel Cash,” she continued, looking down at Cash’s unsmiling face, “who shows poorer judgment than any grown man I’ve ever met. Are you trying to get yourself killed or are you simply incredibly stupid?” She didn’t wait for a response, but moved on to the sheriff. “And you. Good heavens, the simplest, feeblest brain could’ve deduced that Baxter was innocent, and yet the fact somehow bypassed you. How is that?”
Rico and Reese stood together, near the door.
She trained her eyes squarely on Lily Salvatore’s husband, who lifted his eyebrows in ques
tion. “Here we have a pretty boy, who has no doubt charmed his way through life and will continue to do so for as long as his face will allow,” she said without flinching.
Hannah turned her critical perusal to Reese, who watched her stoically. She shook her head in dismay. “You have a lovely wife and child at home, a woman and a daughter who, for some unknown reason, adore you. And where do you spend your time? Hanging around with these large children. Which, I must point out, makes you no better than a large child yourself.”
Hannah came full circle and stood before Jed. “And you.” Her heart caught in her throat, but she fought hard not to show it. She had to walk away from Jed, but she would not do it with her head hanging. “You disappoint me most of all, because I thought you were different. All along you were no better than the rest. An overgrown boy with a sadly inadequate character and the temper of a spoiled brat.”
Jed glared down at her. He looked hurt, angry, and for a heartbeat she wanted to take back everything she’d said.
“There’s not a man in Texas stupid enough to do what you’ve just done,” he said gruffly. “You insulted all six of us in less than two minutes.”
“All I did was tell the truth,” she whispered. “If you can’t take it, you don’t have to listen.”
Jed waited for the explosion that was sure to come from the men around him. They didn’t take insults lightly. But no one spoke up. They all waited.
“If you don’t have anything interesting to add,” Hannah said softly, “I’m leaving. I think I’ve heard more than enough.”
She glanced down at Cash as she walked past. “I’ll be by in the morning ready to work. I really am in no mood to do more today.”
Cash tipped his hat and said he understood completely. At the door, Rico and Reese stepped apart and allowed her to pass between them.
Jed was just about to apologize for her when Nate spoke up, lifting his glass high once again. “ ‘Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners.’ ”
“You just proved her right,” Sullivan said. Nate shrugged nonchalantly and finished off his glass of whiskey.
Jed (The Rock Creek Six Book 4) Page 21