by Tanya Hanson
It was to be a good-bye kiss, nothing more. ’Less of course he wanted things different. She’d never kissed a man for real before and didn’t count for a single second Rolly Gitts’ attempts to plunder her reluctant mouth. At this moment, it was hard to remember his unclean breath, for Cleeland Redd’s lips were firm and fragrant. Just as fine as a respectable woman could imagine.
For a flash, his arms drew her close, front-ways this time, but otherwise like they had last night in the wagon, and his lips closed gently over hers.
“Good-bye,” he muttered, breaking the kiss for a second, then going down for more.
Truth to tell, her mouth liked it just fine and opened up a bit. But other parts of her started longing for his lips upon them, too. Her bosoms swelled and her body clenched tight inside her drawers, feeling empty.
****
“Nag, nag, nag.”
The word hopped around Redd’s brain, making him madder with each of Snapper’s hoof beats. He’d like to speak worse, but cussing about a nun, even a pretend one, seemed something that might send him to hell sooner than he expected.
But he’d had to put up with Sister Adelaide’s pestering else he’d be on his way with a powerfully empty stomach.
“I cannot believe I witnessed you mauling my new ‘postulant,’” Sister had chided over noonday dinner, just the two of them. Sounded just like those real nuns of schooldays long past. “And now you claim I need guns? We are in disguise as the Society of Peace. And I will keep the peace.”
“Didn’t maul nobody.” Redd grumbled over a decent meal of spiced beef and tortillas. “She was saying thanks for her rescue. Besides…” He gave her a bit of a smirk. “You said yourself nobody around here’s a real nun anyway.”
“Nonetheless, Mister Redd. We strive for authenticity. And nun or not, I’m a devout, God-fearing woman.”
He interrupted as nice as he could, planning to think back on the kiss in private. “As for guns, Sister, you need ’em. You know Ahab Perkins and his gang are prowling the territory?”
The black sleeves crossed over her chest. His eyes popped big and wide when tears spilled down her face.
“Yes. Yes,” she said finally, using the edge of her sleeve to wipe them away. “I’ve heard it said.”
He touched her shoulder, its shudder touching his heart. “You all right, ma’am?”
“I believe the Perkins gang took my daughter’s life upon coming upon her alone at home.”
“Heh?” The pain in her voice wracked him. Still... “Tragic, ma’am. Truth is, Perkins all deserve the noose but never heard ’em killers.”
Sister Adelaide gave him a sure enough schoolmarm glare. “I took enough notice of the rumor to have hired Pinkertons.”
Redd shrugged. “Well then, you know how dangerous they are. How many secrets they keep. Who’s to say young Guillermo isn’t part of that gang?”
“If he were, he’d be on the trail with them.” She sniffed.
‘Well, you don’t know about some other mischief he could be up to. You question that little passenger of mine like she’s a threat to those gals you’re protecting. But at the same time, you let some vagabond right inside your front door.”
What he didn’t ask was why Sister wasn’t all that indignant about Will slobbering over “Sister Mary’s” hand. The thought of it still made him mad.
“Nonsense. Will is a lost young boy. All he needs is love and an education. I am using what’s left of my late husband’s money to start up a legitimate school here, Redd. I know children. Trust me.”
Redd’s brain chewed on her words. “All right, Sister. You said those almost-nuns are fugitives of some kind. Likely they already know how to handle firearms. All they need is to have ’em close by. Just in case.”
Then he rose with a polite nod and took his leave. It pleased him somewhat that his little passenger had saddled up Whippersnapper and done a right fine job currying him first. Redd gave Jessy Belle a snappy salute before bending down to hug Renegade, not one whit shy about displaying his love.
For the dog. He ached to hold her again but it wasn’t possible, her being a nun now, fake or not.
After a while, the air fresh on his face calmed him. He caught freedom from the sun-washed pinnacles and the swirls of energy he felt passing by twisted juniper trees.
For a flash, he found himself missing his yellow-haired passenger, almost missing the plod of the mules and the creaks of the wagon. Truth was, Redd gave mules the high respect they deserved for their intelligence and steady feet, but a man and his horse was a sacred combination.
Right now Snap ran along the wind like he’d wings attached to his fetlocks. And the scarlet creeper blooming along the stream made Redd right at home. He wasn’t much for roses.
Once in a while, he stopped along the tree-studded creek so the horse could drink. Damn, he missed having Renegade to talk to, but no way in hell was he ever going to talk out loud to himself.
So he simmered inside, reliving her kiss. And his cock itself twitched just as the memory, something he didn’t like it doing around those nuns, fake or not. Her lips had been eager, but tight and sweet, like she’d never been kissed before. That might mean she didn’t have a husband at all.
But still he had no way to know for sure. He should have pushed her away at once.
He figured he’d find answers about her at the Smokin’ Jay, where he planned to stop for the night and purchase a genteel firearm or two from his friend Jacob Lane. Ranches might be few and far between, but gossip seemed to spread like wildfire no matter what.
He grinned. Truth was, wildfire had taken old Jake’s first ranch house some time ago along with seven beeves. Hence the name.
“Old Jake and the misses ain’t to home just now,” announced the toothless foreman upon Redd’s arrival. But his shifty eyes stopped Redd from confiding the truth of his errand. “Visitin’ kin at Oatman Grove. So I been stuck here, minding things and missing all the hubbub out Pioneer Meadows’ way. ’Hands brought me the news. They got their rifles ready.”
“Hubbub? What trouble’s going on there?” Redd might as well find out beforehand. No choice but to head to the town now. The Jay’s flea-bitten bunkhouse didn’t attract him as much as Old Jake’s comfortable guest room, had his pal been to home. Pioneer Meadows had a fair gunsmith, and a boarding house with clean mattresses and a tasty dining room. Most important of all, a saloon. His flask was too damn empty.
“Some horse thief just got strung up.” The toothless lout found great amusement in the event.
“Served him right.” Redd shrugged. He wasn’t a heartless man, but horse thieves deserved their fate.
“Not him. Her.” The foreman’s eyes brightened.
Now Redd’s skin crawled. Horse thief or not, hanging a female didn’t sit well on his shoulders. “Damn.”
“Ahab Perkins’ baby sister. Purty little gal, they said.”
He sighed. That was a touch different. Might be justification ridding the world of a Perkins, pretty or not. Sure as hell she wore her brother’s guilt on her sleeve same as her own. And if they’d had a hand in murdering Sister Adelaide’s girl, now, the situation had merit.
Nonetheless, hellfire couldn’t be a good place for a pretty gal to spend eternity. Tossing a nod, he mounted Snapper and said a halfways prayer for the departed soul.
Damn, and need a good bed he did, after last night. He’d seen streaks of dawn before he fell asleep while holding Mary against his heart. Sharing her shudders and hearing her nightmares. His cock had stretched long and hard. Keen for him to forget his vow to protect the lovely yellow-headed mute. Oh, he had been sore tempted.
Regret and guilt attacked him once again. She was a nun now, pretend or not. Besides which, he was promised to Tawana forever and ever, amen.
Dusk fell, darker than his mood. Pulling up along the trail, he stopped to give Snap a rest and himself a smoke, Tawana had hated the smelly habit. He didn’t do it much anyway, but he’d wasted his fl
ask on Mary. This was the only masculine habit at hand to calm him down.
From a juniper tree etched against the sky, he saw rope hanging from a branch. Must be where Baby Sister Perkins had met justice. Then right beneath it, his scouting eyes saw the outline of rocks and a crooked cross made of pale branches practically glowing in the last of the daylight. Leastways some good folks had ventured back to bury her in an honorable way.
Same as he’d done with Tawana.
While the Perkins gal had deserved her fate and Tawana hadn’t, in Redd’s opinion no female good or evil needed to get hacked up by buzzards.
He wasn’t at all a superstitious man, but he rode quick into town, feeling his flesh goose once or twice. After a good enough steak dinner, he went to his cozy bed with a bottle of gin to calm his memories. And strangely, no need of a whore. Not with the kiss of a yellow-headed fake nun fresh in his mind.
Come morning, he tried to eat a peaceable breakfast after a hot bath, but the townsfolk outside were awash in commotion.
“So what’s with this hanging?” he asked the innkeeper, remembering the Smokin’ Jay foreman, the noose and the grave. Mrs. Martinez, the proprietor, stopped by his table with a heavy tea pot but seemed eager to make conversation.
“Nobody knew Ahab Perkins’s kid sister rode alongside him dressed like a boy. The gang raided the Circle T-L last week. Old Tinker Lewis said somebody warned him. Started firing every which way. Shot that baby girl’s horse right out from under her. The rest rode off, left her in the dust.” Mrs. Martinez snorted and shrugged. “True to their legend, they don’t help any of ’em left behind. Not even kin.”
“Damn.” Redd felt a twirl down deep in his stomach. It was a foul way to die, female or not.
“Well, seems she deserved it.” Mrs. Martinez nodded her head, sending a hairpin sliding into her bodice. She paid his cuss no mind at all. “Circuit Judge Burkhart passed through very next day. Horse thieving’s a hanging offense around here. Miz Jessy Belle Perkins got herself strung up on an alligator juniper outside of town. More bacon, Cleeland?”
“Sure. Thanks.” He didn’t, not with his gut full of pity for a pretty little gal born to such a heartless brother. But he needed the landlady’s chitchat to find out about any nearby woman running from a brutish mate. No such information came forth.
Unless, of course, such rough treatment hadn’t sparked any indignation around here. He sighed at the sad likelihood, crunched one last strip of bacon just so Mrs. Martinez could smile.
“Thanks kindly, ma’am.” He tipped his hat, and she smiled again. Comely she was, widowed, too, and he read her invitation. But all he could see was blue eyes.
After breakfast, he set forth to buy a gun or two. Respecting Sister Adelaide Eugene’s sensitivities, he planned his own money for the purchase, promised to leave an equal amount in her mite box. On the way to the gunsmith, he passed the sheriff’s office. Staring out at him was a wanted poster full of sketches of Ahab Perkins and his band of thieves and the assortment of prices on their heads.
Redd’s heart began to pound like Snap’s had along the trail. That pretty kid on Ahab’s right, coming about to his elbow, wore the face Redd had dreamed about just last night at that comfortable boardinghouse. He’d kissed it before he left a mission full of nuns, pretend or not.
He’d slept with its owner in his arms and named her for his own mother. Jessy Belle Perkins wasn’t at all rotting underneath the tree where she’d hung. Somehow she’d escaped. And likely she’d had help.
Sweat from a dread he hadn’t felt since finding Tawana drenched his just-bathed skin. He’d left a defenseless pretend nun, three fugitives and silly Guillermo alone with an outlaw. Unless Will was one of them. His skin trickled with something like terror. A scout sent on ahead, maybe? A henchman? For certain, nobody up to no good. The possibilities got Redd’s dander rising high. His teeth ground hard together.
Little Miz Jessy Belle hadn’t sparked with familiarity at upon seeing Will, though. Maybe she had in truth addled her wits. And Will had been at the mission when the ruckus happened. But Redd recalled the messy kiss upon her hand. Maybe Will loved her. Was glad to see her alive after all the commotion she’d caused.
Furious, and not certain what about, Redd spent more than he should have for an uncommon .32 specimen called a Baby Le Mat. It was small enough for women and deadly to boot. Then he hightailed it back to the trail, hoping he didn’t have to use it on the outlaw herself.
Damn lying female. Something niggled deep down that she hadn’t lost her wits at all. He’d had flashes of doubt ever since she woke up. And finding out he, her rescuer, was friends with nuns, well, what better way to hide than play addled with them? Truth was, he scowled, it had been his idea, too. And they’d taken her in.
He wished he was walking so he could kick a rock.
Passing the alligator juniper again, he reined in Snap. Disbelief rattled him now. Looked like someone had tried to dig her up since last night. Someone who now knew she wasn’t dead at all. And the rugged cross was down to one piece. Getting down, he picked up the remaining stick and stuck it in his saddle bags. The hatch marks all over it likely spelled out her name. Came from her own knife.
The lying little fraud.
But worse, nobody but a heathen-hearted outlaw would disturb a grave, faked or not. Cleeland Redd trusted his guts and his wits. And Sister Adelaide’s words of her daughter’s sad fate swirled in his mind. Something like panic grabbed at his bones.
Ahab Perkins was coming after his sister, either to harm her or get her back.
Then Redd cooled down a bit. At least he’d kissed an unmarried woman. An unmarried outlaw woman who wasn’t dead at all and had a hundred dollar bounty on her head.
Cleeland Redd would get back to her first. He knew exactly where she hid out.
Chapter Four
Jessy Belle didn’t much like being a nun although she found herself thanking God for sparing her life seven, eight times a day. Those were the times the nuns gathered for prayer in the rickety little chapel during “hours” that had peculiar names like Lauds and Vespers.
She couldn’t sing chants and hymns yet, but if she held herself to a loud whisper, her voice was almost back to usual. Today during Sect, she’d done the Pater Noster and those beads almost as good as the rest.
The hour called Nones would be upon them soon but for now, she sat inside a little gathering room, longing for the afternoon sun outside. She wasn’t one to stay cooped up and sniffed a tear for the dear-departed horse who’d carried her across so many miles. She’d done good, warned that old rancher. Her bad luck, getting caught in his crossfire, but sweet Amigo hadn’t done anything wrong at all.
Renegade napped at her feet, and Sister Teresa Avila sewed at her side, expecting Jessy Belle to do just the same. True, she had once pilfered a pamphlet on stitchery from a millinery shop in Nebraska, but building a dress like the others had on was a sight different from adding buttons and mending rips.
Right now she still wore her own clothes except for a scarf around her hair like the nuns wore. No one noticed her wounds with that high collar hiding them. But getting her dressed up like the others seemed to be Sister Adelaide’s main ambition. So Jessy Belle, even with her sore thumb, wrangled with a mysterious assortment of pieces Sister Teresa Avila had cut from gray twill.
But the project was not without hope. Even with the cloth getting pocked from all the needlepricks and her cut-up thumb, she might attempt to pry from Teresa some details about Cleeland Redd.
“I think the school’s coming alone fine,” she said, soft, though she didn’t much think that at all. The wrecked place and hard iron bedstead didn’t offer much, wasn’t much different from her first life with Mama and Pa. What kid would like being stuck inside with books and chores while endless miles of freedom went on outside?
“Why, thank you, Mary.” Teresa smiled across the splintery table where meals were set. “It’s such a miracle, you getting your voice bac
k.” She stopped her needle and crossed herself, something Jessy Belle had practiced doing all night long. “Maybe your wits will follow.”
Breath came fast and Jessy Belle hoped not. She had to keep up this ruse as long as possible. Deep down, she reckoned life with Ahab was not over. He’d always wanted Ma’s pearls. Reaching down secretly, she caught the edge of her hem just to make sure they were still there.
And then there was Cleeland Redd, a man who had kissed her like he meant it and talked to a dog like he was lonesome.
“Will Mister Redd come back to help?” She had to know. She had to see him, more than just the one time handing over Renegade.
Teresa’s needle didn’t pause. “I suppose he might. He’s close friends with Father Cardeñas. This is an empty Jesuit mission started long before there were any white settlers.”
Jessy Belle wondered if Jesuits were one of the local tribes, but she didn’t want to waste her voice or show her ignorance. She hadn’t seen many homesteads or settlers on the drive with Cleeland Redd, and she might as well say so. “Haven’t seen a whole lot of school kids around here, Teresa.”
Peaceful, full of faith, Teresa went on. “The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad is laying tracks all over this region, Mary. By next year, the area will have grown. We need to be ready. We’ll have a dormitory. Children can board.”
“Likely Mister Redd will send along his young’uns,” Jessy Bell whispered, not minding being a snoop one single bit.
“Oh, he’s got no wife or children. He’s all alone on that ranch of his.”
Jessy Belle’s stomach wiggled deep down. Cleeland Redd was an all-alone bachelor. The news rang like the church bells she’d expected and hadn’t found. And while she might need to playact a postulant for a while, it wouldn’t be forever.
Only til Ahab got caught.
Hope burbled inside almost like it had when she’d escaped the hanging tree. Redd sure hadn’t acted like he minded her kiss. Then a thought wracked her and she stiffened like a corpse, hoping Teresa didn’t notice.