Broken Spurs

by BJ James

  He never forgot how lovely she was, but each time he saw her was like a renewal. Even now, remembering how quickly she’d doubted, how easily she’d walked away, he wanted to touch her, to draw her into the flames of passion that consumed him.

  Silence seethed, linking them across an invisible chasm neither could breach. In the play of light and shadows, his gaze was dark, unreadable. Yet she felt the power of it, sensed the barely controlled passion. But contempt could be as compelling as attraction, and hate as passionate as desire.

  Hopeless regret crept through her in its relentless path to heart and soul, leaving her brittle and cold in the heat of the night. Fighting to hold back the pain, she turned her face away. Somewhere in the nether regions of the stockyard the displaced mouser scratched and huffed. From an even greater distance, too far to threaten, thunder growled and lightning flashed, dancing through the open portals of stalls like a half-hidden candle.

  Savannah didn’t see, she didn’t hear, as she braved his stare again. “Coming here was a mistake. I seem to make the most and the worst when you’re concerned.” Unaware her battle to hide her agony had been lost, she bowed her head, speaking in a whisper as she turned away, “Forgive me, for everything.”

  “Wait.” He touched her then, a hand at her shoulder, detaining her, not with its power, but with its need. “Which was the worst?”

  She could have shrugged out of his grasp with only a move of her shoulders, and yet she didn’t. “Does it matter anymore?”

  “It matters.” Thunder was a whisper now, the lightning too dim to discern, but he lifted his head, staring beyond her as if he would see. “There was another night, another storm.” His gaze swung back to her, stark and piercing, as if he would see beyond civilized trappings. “Do you remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “A night of mistakes.”

  “No.” She moved from him, from his touch. “A night that made the rest of my life a mistake.”

  Intent on walking away for the last time and her heart caught in throes of grief, she didn’t see his control snap, nor the hand that flashed out once more to spin her back to him, to hold her and keep her. “Stay.”

  It was shocking to see the fury in him. “I can’t.”

  His fingers were brutal on her arm. “Tell me why.” When she didn’t answer, he shook her gently. “tell me why you watched me from the rim of the canyon. Why you came to me the night of the storm, and tonight. Tell me all the whys.”

  Looking into his grim face, she knew there was but one answer. One answer for every question. One answer for a thousand questions, but her heart wouldn’t dare the words. “It doesn’t matter why. Not anymore.”

  “Stop sounding like a broken record! It matters to me.”

  “Why?” She shot back at him, and would have laughed at the insanity of the repetition, if she wasn’t suddenly and completely convinced that her life as she knew it would change with his answer. “You tell me!”

  “Dammit, Savannah!”

  “Why?” She was implacable, and, all the while, trembling inside.

  “Because I love you.” The admission burst from him like an accusation. “For what it’s worth, I never wanted it any more than you wanted to love me.” Brooding anger fled from him, his brutal hold eased. Bringing her nearer, he cupped the back of her head in his palm. “You do love me, you know. You have for a long time.”

  Putting her from him, but only enough to frame her face in a shaft of light, desperation edged into mockery. “What?” He laughed softly. “No argument?”

  She could only shake her head, her heart too full for speech of any kind.

  “Then, stubborn woman,” he shook her again, gently, “will you tell me what I need to hear?”

  “No!”

  “Yes.” If she was stubborn, he took it to a higher plane. “I will have the words, if it takes all night.”

  “I can’t. I won’t.”

  “You can. You will.” His fingers drifted from her cheek to her throat, lingered at the tie of her blouse. “Oh, yes, you will.”

  There was tenderness in his touch, and it was her undoing.

  “All right, then! Yes! Yes, I love you. Damn you, Steve Cody! I love you!” She would have stepped away from him, run away, if he’d let her. “There, I’ve said it.” She glared up at him. “Are you satisfied?”

  “For starters.” He ignored the stiffening of her body as he hauled her bard against his. “But I promise it will get easier with practice. Just as making love will get better.”

  Denial stumbled on her tongue as he nibbled at her lips. “It can’t be. We can’t be.”

  The tie of her blouse slid like silk through his fingers, its tiny bow unravelled. Gathered fabric slipped from her shoulders. When she would have struggled away to cover herself, he caught her wrists, shackling them in one hand. “It can. We can.” He muttered, feasting on the sight of her heaving breasts, the budding nipples. “Let me show you.”

  His free hand covered her, caressed her, lifted a perfect bud to his kiss, and she was lost. “Show me.” Surrender, whispered on a lost breath. “Please.”

  His hands skimmed over her until she writhed against him. His tongue laved and tormented, kindling hungry, raging infernos. There was demand, not surrender, when she tore from his curbing grasp, her fingers diving into his hair to drag his face to hers. “Show me!” She was wild and reckless, her voice rising, hoarse and urgent. “Damn you, Steve Cody! Show me now.”

  He laughed and swung her into his arms, stepping with her into the darkness. “Within an inch of your life, sweetheart.” On a threat and a promise he strode to the deserted exit of the yard. “Within an inch of both our lives.”

  Drawn from his stupor, Cactus Poteat flailed about for the cat, before he realized it was the sound of voices that woke him. Angry voices, of a man and a woman.

  Fumbling for a half empty bottle, he tilted it to his mouth, draining it. Coughing and sputtering as the rotgut seared his throat, he slumped back against a saddle, his strangling silenced as he heard a shout and caught a bleary glimpse of Angie Cody.

  “Man oughta have better things to do with a beautiful woman.”

  As angry voices grew louder, he pulled his battered hat over his eyes and settled back into a makeshift bed of hay. A pity, he thought as he drifted and dreamed and sank deeper into an alcoholic fog. “A real pity.”

  Chapter 16

  Cactus woke with a shaft of morning sun burning its way through his eyelids. Moaning, he threw an arm over his face, shutting out the penetrating spear that scattered in his skull and bounced like neon Ping-Pong balls against the back of his eyeballs.

  “I need a drink.” As he spoke his stomach lurched, his head swam with the promise of a monumental hangover. “I need one now.”

  Rolling from his back to his stomach, he rested a second then crept carefully to his hands and knees. Sunlight glancing off yellow hay was monstrous, but there was no help for it. He needed a drink, had to have a drink, before he could even get to his feet. The bottle. Turning his head cautiously, eyes slitted against the glare, he searched for the precious treasure, praying it might have an inch, or even a drop of the liquid his body craved. “Where is the damn bottle?”

  Scrabbling over the hay, he found it safer for his stomach if his eyes were closed. Like a blind crab he slipped and slid, patting the slick surface, digging into prickly mounds, tossing handfuls aside. Edges like tiny knives sawed at his flesh, clung to his hair, wedged in his shirt collar to scrape his neck. Cactus didn’t care. Cactus cared for nothing but the drink he needed.

  He was so frantic, he almost missed her, and very nearly didn’t recognize the feel of stiff, cold flesh.

  “What the devil?” Forgetting the precarious balance of his head, recoiling, he sat back on his haunches, his eyes popping in surprise. Clouded vision cleared. “Hey, lady.” Scurrying back to her side, he stared down at her. “Wake up. A barn ain’t no place for a lady to sleep.”

  She was
a sprawl of colors, slack limbed and shrunken. A tangle of blond hair streamed over her face, obscuring her features. With a tentative hand, he shook her gently, and swallowed a scream as her head lolled at an impossible angle. The mask of hair fell away, empty eyes stared from a distorted face.

  “Lady?” The alcoholic clouds were dissipating, the sickness of fear replaced the sickness of his hangover. He prodded her again, gingerly, to test his suspicion. “Lady? Ohmigosh! Lady!”

  She was cold, and very dead.

  “Oh, gosh! Oh, gosh! Ohmigosh!” Lurching to a crouch and then his feet, he stood with his head hanging as the ghost of a memory clawed at him, ripping open a seam in the fog of drunken stupor. Then he was running, screaming. “She’s dead! He killed her!”

  “Whoa there, friend.” Jubal Redmond snagged the scarecrow figure as it erupted from the stockyard and, in a split second of recognition, put a supporting arm around the wizened cowboy as his short bowed legs gave way. “Cactus! Is this some sort of joke?” Jubal sniffed and turned up his nose. “Or are you too drunk to know?”

  “No joke.” Cactus peered past a congregating crowd to the stockyards. “Not drunk.” He took a heaving breath to steady himself, and a babble of disjointed words and phrases tumbled out. “She’s dead, Mr. Redmond. He killed her. I heard the fighting, and now she’s dead.”

  “When? Who fought, Cactus, and are you sure she’s dead?” Jubal asked with forced calm. “Who is she? Where is she?”

  “Last night, after closing. There.” A bony, straw covered arm pointed to the stockyard, his shelter for a drunken night. “Cody’s wife lies there, cold in the hay.” He turned indignant. “Course I’m sure she’s dead, I know dead when I see it. And Steve Cody done it.”

  The rustle of the crowd dwindled and died to shocked whispers. A phalanx of men peeled away, intent on investigating. Jubal’s dour, barking command stopped them. Even Cactus didn’t get too drunk to recognize death. “Nobody goes into the yard. If there’s evidence it shouldn’t be disturbed.” In a quiet, rapid fire decision, singling out the most reliable, he took charge. “Shugarman, call emergency and the sheriff. Hollister, see to Cactus. Jeffie, you guard the entrance. Angus, see to the back. No one is to go in until the sheriff arrives.

  “The rest of you get on about your business, unless it was in the stockyard.” As the gaping crowd reluctantly dispersed, Jubal hatted Sandy Gannon in a quiet undertone.

  A frown etched Sandy’s face, with an impatient band he stroked his clean shaven chin. “What can I do for you, Jubal?”

  “I was hoping that together we could find Steve Cody before some hothead from the crowd does.”

  “Finding Cody isn’t the problem.” Sandy’s blue eyes were grave. “Saw him just a bit ago, having breakfast at the Silverton Hotel.”

  Jubal slanted a probing look at his old friend. Something was amiss. “If finding him isn’t the problem, then obviously something else is.”

  “He’s not alone.”

  “Oh?” Brows like silver arches asked the question.

  “Sis is with him.”

  “Savannah?” Jubal groaned at the complication. “How long?”

  The grim glare of Sandy’s gaze turned icy, his expression closed. But only for an instant, as reason counselled it did no good to hide the truth, especially from Jubal. “From the looks of it, a long time.”

  “Mended fences?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Does Jake know?”

  Sandy laughed shortly. “Have you felt the earth shake this morning?”

  “Think she’ll give Steve an alibi, with circumstances as they are?” It was a question Jubal had to ask, if only to confirm that Sandy’s opinion concurred with his.

  “If she is his alibi, nothing will stop her.”

  “Steve will,” Jubal predicted. “Until it turns ugly. After that, our Savannah will do what her conscience says she must.”

  “Then the earth will shake.” Sandy made his own prediction of disaster, as he walked with Jubal to the Silverton Hotel.

  “Angie’s dead?” Savannah’s hand shook as she set her glass of water on the cloth laden table. “How? Why? Are you sure?”

  Steve’s hand covered hers, silencing her with its comforting grasp. There was regret, but no grief in his face. “Where was she?”

  “Cactus Poteat found her in the stockyard.” Jubal waved a waitress away, wanting no one overhearing their conversation.

  “How did she die?” Steve eyed both men coolly from an ashen face, but there was fear hidden beneath his calm veneer. Not for Angie, who was beyond need for fear. Nor for himself. For Savannah, whose life could be destroyed by this, if he didn’t stop it.

  “You don’t know?” Sandy tossed the question at him almost casually.

  “Should I?” Steve turned from Sandy to Jubal, gauging their reaction to his evasion.

  “Cactus says he heard the two of you quarreling in the yard. Twice. The second time was last night, after closing on the concourse.” Jubal’s response was mild, facts without accusation.

  “We quarreled,” Steve admitted. “It was a common occurrence with Angie. But only once in the yard, certainly not last night. I didn’t see Angie again after the scene in the arena.”

  “He couldn’t have seen her after closing...”

  “No, Savannah.” Steve stopped her with a look. “I don’t think either Sandy or Jubal came to interrogate me. That’s for the sheriff to do.” He faced the two men who had believed in him, men he counted his first friends in Arizona. “I assume that’s what this is about, warning me that the sheriff has been called, and what he will be led to believe.”

  “Billy Blackhawk is a good man.” Sandy shifted in his seat, keeping his gaze firmly from Savannah. “He’ll believe proven facts, not the crazy gibberish of a drunken old coot.”

  “I can give him facts.” Savannah tugged her hand from Steve’s, drawing it into a fist before her. “I can tell the sheriff exactly where Steve was most of last evening.”

  “But you won’t.” Leaving no room for argument Steve slid back his chair, addressing both Jubal and Sandy. “When Blackhawk comes, tell him he can find me in my room.” Smiling crookedly at Savannah, denying his need to brush the tumble of her hair from her shoulders, he bowed slightly, with a touch of old-fashioned gallantry. “Thank you, Benedict, for allowing me to share your table.”

  Then he was walking away, as if they were little more than strangers. As if a night of love such as she’d never thought to know again hadn’t happened. Her chair skidded back with such force it toppled over. “Wait.”

  The pleasant rattle of crockery and conversation stopped. Curious diners stared at her, but she didn’t care. “You can’t just walk away as if...” The cold stare he fixed on her had her stumbling, searching for words.

  “As if nothing happened?” Before she could respond, he went on in a tone no one beyond their table could hear. “Nothing did, Savannah, but a most enjoyable breakfast between acquaintances.”

  “Nothing? Acquaintances?” Her fingers closed over the napkin lying beneath her hand, frail fabric threatened to tear. “That isn’t true. You know it isn’t.”

  “It’s your word against mine, sweetheart. When it comes to resolving a murder, I wonder who will be believed. Sandy. Jubal,” he didn’t take his gaze from her, “make her see. Make her understand what she could be doing to herself and to Jake.” To Savannah he said, “I won’t pretend I have any love lost for your father, but can you live with yourself if you destroy him?”

  “The truth won’t destroy him,” she insisted desperately.

  “Won’t it?” His grave smile became a small, defeated quirk. “You’re all he has, could he survive losing you?”

  “If he loses me, it will be his choice.” She flung the napkin away, as if she would fling away the burden of her father’s pride.

  “It isn’t an issue of choice.” A shake of his head lent emphasis to Steve’s point. “As Sandy and Jubal will vouch, he’s bee
n who he is and what he is too long to change.”

  Then he was walking away again. This time she didn’t call after him, and this time he didn’t turn back.

  “Why?” she whispered as Jubal rose to lift her chair from the floor, then pressed it to the back of her knees, forcing her to sit. “Why is he doing this?”

  “You know why, sis.” Sandy brushed roughened fingertips over her white knuckles. “We all know.”

  Savannah knew. She had doubted Steve, not as a cowhand, but as a man. He repaid the hurt with love, and now sacrifice. “I can’t allow it.” With challenging bravado, she faced Sandy and Jubal, who had known her all her life. “I spent the night in his room, not in mine.”

  She met their gazes levelly, refusing shame where there was none. “I made love to him and with him. Neither of us slept, and he never left me.”

  “Sis, you don’t have to do this.”

  “Yes, I do! Can’t you see?” Her voice rose a frantic notch. “I can’t let him be accused of something he didn’t do.”

  “But can you live with what this will do to Jake?” Jubal made Steve’s point again.

  “I don’t know!” She raked her hands through the loose flow of her hair, agitation turned to bewildered dejection. “I don’t know.” Looking to older, wiser heads, she pleaded for advice. “What do I do?”

  Sandy said nothing. And for once the Kentuckian was at a loss, his expression bleak.

  “Nothing, Jubal?” Her eyes were bright, glittering with unborn tears. “Have you nothing to suggest?”

  His sigh was harsh, frustrated. “Only a caution that you weigh your options, choose the path that does the least harm to the fewest people.” Massive shoulders shrugged as helplessly as Savannah’s had. “And if you can find some magical crystal ball, maybe you can deduce the answer to that particular riddle.”