by Shirl Henke
"We're just stealin' cattle, that's all," Conyers ground out when he could get his breath. He looked up into the cold, hawkish face of his captor. The breed gunman Jacobson had hired. He swore again as Jess's boot bore down on his arm.
"You didn't just single out Jacobson because you don't like the way he parts his hair. Who hired you? Who's buying the stolen cattle?"
"All right, all right. We was hired . . . got a broken rib. Can't talk," he gasped.
Jess released his arm and watched as Conyers painfully rolled onto his back. "Who is this—" He saw the glint of the small gun in the semidarkness just as Conyers raised it and fired.
The two shots came so close together that they sounded as one. Conyers's shot went wild. Jess hit the outlaw straight in the heart. He knelt and checked for signs of life, then swore as he began to examine the dead man's pockets for any personal effects that might offer clues.
Unlike Billy Argee, Tom Conyers was a seasoned professional who had not so much as a scrap of identification on him, much less a photograph of a woman. But he had admitted he was hired to attack J Bar by someone. Who?
Shrugging, Jess figured he would never know. Although he would inform Jacobson about it, with the demise of this large and well-organized bunch of rustlers, old Marcus's spread would probably be safe enough. If it was some other rancher in the Association or even Yancy Brewster, it was unlikely trouble would start up any time soon. If it did, it was another job of work. He smiled grimly as he retrieved the roan and threw the dead body across its saddle. Let Jacobson hire someone else.
* * * *
Dellia Evers was sweating. She rubbed her hand across her forehead and grimaced, then removed the broad-brimmed felt hat that protected her sallow complexion from the sun and daubed at her whole face with a scented handkerchief. This hot and she was well sheltered beneath the thick, draping branches of a willow by the creek. Imagine if she had been watching the J Bar ranch house all this time out on the open plain!
Her tan riding skirt and plain white blouse were chosen for service, not style, cool and suitable for riding on a hot August day. But nothing would have been comfortable for this task. She had been waiting for well over an hour. What if that disgusting little tart Lissa had sneaked off for her lovers' tryst before Dellia had been able to get away from her pa this morning?
Just as she was about to despair, Lissa's gleaming red head appeared on the front porch. She was dressed for riding as she casually sauntered toward the corral with that hateful brute of a dog beside her.
Yancy would be proud of her when she exposed Lissa Jacobson for the whore she truly was! And to think Yancy had once favored the brassy redhead over her. "No more, Melissa Jacobson. After today you'll be finished with Yancy and with every decent man in Wyoming Territory."
As Lissa mounted up on Little Bit, she was deeply preoccupied by what she had to tell Jess. Her father was closeted in his office with paperwork and had left Germaine with strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed. Nothing would interrupt her meeting with her lover. She was taking Cormac out for a run, her excuse for this afternoon's excursion.
The pulse-pounding anticipation that had first made her trysts with Jess so exhilarating was gone now. She was left with only a hollow sense of dread. He had to love her enough to claim her as his wife, to give a name to his own child—but she was trapping him this way. He would resent it.
Jess had ridden in early this morning and reported to her father that the rustling ring had been broken. She had eavesdropped on part of their lengthy conversation, fearing all the while that he would simply collect his pay and ride away. But he had agreed to wait a day or two. The federal marshal was on the way from Cheyenne to claim the dead men and determine if any were wanted.
When he left the ranch house, she had been sitting on the front porch, waiting for him to indicate that he would be at the pool that afternoon. He had been dusty and bloodstained, so exhausted looking that she had wanted to fling herself into his arms and hold him, just grateful he was alive and that the blood was not his this time. That should have bothered her, but it did not. She was no longer titillated by the forbidden thrill of his dangerous occupation. Now that she loved him, all Lissa wanted was for him to put away his gun and live in peace.
Now I'll find out if he's willing to do it. In her heart of hearts, she feared he would refuse. A man like Jesse Robbins was not easily domesticated. That had been his allure—and her downfall.
So deep was she in thought, Lissa paid no heed to Cormac's antics as he chased after a butterfly, leaping high in the air and gamboling across the open grassland, carefree as a pup. Neither was she aware of the distant figure who followed them as she approached the barren stretch of escarpment and vanished over the horizon.
When she reached the pool, Jess was there, having already bathed his weary, bruised body in the invigorating cold water and stretched out in the shade beneath a spreading cottonwood tree. He was dozing as she approached quietly. She could see the sheen from droplets of water that still clung to his wet hair and upper torso as he lay clad only in denims, bare-chested and bootless. Her eyes drank in the perfect symmetry of his long, bronzed body with its delicious patterns of night-black hair. She felt her heart thrum furiously in her chest and her mouth go dry as she gazed on him like a voyeur, reluctant to awaken him and spoil the perfect enchantment with her news.
"I assumed I'd already passed your inspection, ma'am," he said in a low, amused voice, his eyes still seemingly closed.
Lissa's mouth formed a small "O" of surprise and her face heated as she knelt beside him and placed her hand on his chest. "I was just remembering the first time I saw you wet in that bathtub at the hotel." She moistened her lips provocatively. "And you're right. You passed my inspection early on," she whispered breathlessly as he pulled her down on top of him and kissed her possessively.
From her hiding place, Cridellia Evers adjusted the powerful binoculars she had taken from her father's desk. She had already seen that big evil brute of a blaze-faced stallion the Indian rode, grazing on the opposite side of the pool. The lovers were hidden in the trees, but she could make out the shadowy outlines of two figures, lying prone on the ground. She had already seen Lissa's dog chasing up one end of the narrow little valley and was careful to avoid him lest he alert her quarry to her presence. Turning her horse away, she slipped the binoculars into the saddlebag and rode as fast as she could for the J Bar.
* * * *
Marcus Jacobson was pleased. The marshal had wasted no time, and now he and Tate Shannon were out examining the remains of the rustlers. Robbins and his men had gotten every damn one of them. The breed was worth every last cent he would pay him. Of course, there was the matter of their leader telling Robbins about working for someone else, but a desperate man, shot and held at gunpoint, would say anything. He dismissed any threat from that quarter as improbable and returned to the tally sheets he had in front of him. This fall, only he would be selling J Bar cattle.
Germaine Channault heard the rapid knocking on the front door and wiped her hands on a towel with irritation. She had croissants rising and Marcus's favorite bearnaise sauce simmering on the stove. Who would come calling in midafternoon? Probably another of that obnoxious vixen's bumbling suitors. If only she would marry one of them and have done with it!
When she reached the front door, the last person she expected to see was a disheveled, dust-coated Cridellia Evers dressed in shabby riding clothes.
"Good afternoon, Mademoiselle Evers. Won't you please come in. I'm afraid Mademoiselle Jacobson is not at home right now."
Dellia hesitated, then answered, red-faced, "I know. That is ...." She twisted her riding crop nervously in her hands as she edged past the housekeeper and into the hallway. Following Lissa as Yancy had suggested had been the easy part, but explaining exactly what she had seen was going to prove most humiliating. How could she face Marcus Jacobson's imperious, icy stare?
Germaine studied the nervous girl w
ith shrewd dark eyes. She and Lissa had never been friends, only rivals. And plain little Cridellia always came in second. The chit knew something!
"Come with me into the parlor and have a seat, child. I’ll bring you some nice cool lemonade and then you can tell me what's wrong."
Dellia followed her into the large, elegant room and sat on the edge of the elaborately carved Neo-Grecian settee like a bird poised to take flight at the slightest sound. Germaine quickly brought the lemonade. Dellia took a gulp as if tossing back a swig from a jug of forty-rod whiskey for courage.
"Whatever is the matter?" the older woman asked in her most motherly voice.
"I—I don't know if I can go through with this—telling Mr. Jacobson, I mean. It's so awful." Her pop eyes bulged from their sockets as she affixed Germaine with an intent stare.
"Perhaps I could help. Could you tell me first, woman to woman?"
Taking a deep breath for courage, Dellia blurted out her story, ending with the scene she had just left at the hidden pool. "They've been—well, she's given herself to that breed."
Germaine sat very still, taking in the enormity of Dellia's tale. If they were still together at their trysting place, Marcus could catch them! She took Dellia's thin, bony hand and patted it solemnly.
Marcus was just totaling the last of Moss's tallies when Germaine knocked and asked permission to enter. What now? He muttered for her to come in, still holding the pen in his hand. Her expression was grave and unctuous as she stood to one side of the big walnut door frame and ushered in a very pale Cridellia Evers.
"Monsieur Jacobson, the young lady here has something of great importance to tell you."
Chapter Fifteen
Lissa lay with her head resting in the curve of Jess's arm, gazing up at shifting patterns of shiny green leaves against the brilliant azure sky. She was damp from bathing in the pool, satiated from making love, and frightened to death of what she must tell Jess. When she first arrived at their place, she had held her peace, needing desperately to have him love her, even if it was for the last time. Especially if it was for the last time.
Jess, too, was preoccupied, driven by his own demons, for he knew their idyll had to come to an end. He felt her snuggling against him, soft and warm, fitting so perfectly. Her arm lay draped possessively across his chest, pale against his dark skin. He took her hand in his and held it as he rolled up into a sitting position and looked into her eyes.
"You are so beautiful, Lissa," he began slowly, letting his fingertips trace the delicate contours of her face. She turned her head into his touch and kissed the palm of his hand silently, as if willing him not to speak. Steeling himself, he continued, "I know you overheard me talking with your pa this morning. My job here is over."
"Don't, Jess," she protested. "You don't have to keep on risking your life this way. You could've been killed."
"That's just the point, I could have," he replied flatly. "But I wasn't. And now I have to go."
She had known he would not stay from the first moment she had laid eyes on him. He was a drifter, a loner, a man without allegiances, who could not be tied down. "So it's good-bye, Lissa," she said, "and you ride away without looking back."
Oh, I'll look back, I'll look back plenty. Aloud he said, "You knew it had to end when it began."
"You don't have to ride off to another gunfight. You could quit." Her voice was sharp with desperation.
His face grew shuttered as he nerved himself to destroy her impossible dreams. "Quit and settle down to raising cattle? You still think your pa'd turn J Bar over to me? Wake up, Lissa. He'd see me in hell first."
"I'll go with you—we don't have to stay in Wyoming."
"Where could we go where it wouldn't matter that you're white and I'm not?"
"That doesn't matter to me—I love you, Jesse Robbins! I'll never love another man," she cried out passionately.
"It's no good, Lissa. You've been raised on silk skirts and spun sugar. Your love would turn to hate," he replied in a flat, final tone. He rolled to his feet and extended his hand to her, pulling her up, then walked away from her.
"If you leave me, what am I to do? Marry Yancy Brewster?" She shuddered in revulsion, waiting for him to turn and face her.
Without doing so, he replied, "No. Marry Lemuel Mathis. He seems a decent enough sort."
If he had slapped her, she could not have been more staggered. "After what we've shared, you want me to go to another man. To ... to let him touch me . . ." Words failed her as she stood hugging herself in desolation, fighting the tears.
"What I want doesn't figure in this, Lissa," he said wearily as he reached for his boots and pulled them on, still refusing to look at her.
"The least you could do is look at me, the woman you're throwing away." She forced back the tears and replaced them with fierce, bright anger.
He turned to her then, calling up a look of contempt. Damn her, she was not making this any easier for either of them! "It was your decision to give me your virginity, Lissa. I sure as hell wasn't the one doing the chasing."
Lissa had been on the verge of blurting out that he had given her a child, but she bit her lip at his cruel words. She would keep silent forever rather than abase herself for this arrogant savage again.
Jess watched the color drain from her face. Her lips compressed into a tight, pinched line. She stood before him, proudly silent with her back straight and her golden eyes glazed with tears. He would curse himself a thousand times for the abominable words he had spoken, yet knew he would say them again if he had to—to end it for her. Better that she should hate him and get on with her life.
Lissa turned and seized her dress, wanting suddenly to be decently covered in front of him, but before she could pull it over her head, Cormac barked, and the sharp metallic scrape of a rifle being levered echoed across the ravine.
Marcus Jacobson, mounted on a big roan, stood silhouetted at the edge of the escarpment. He raised the weapon as he looked in disbelieving horror at his daughter, caught alone with the breed gunman. She had nothing on but her sheer undergarments, and he was bare-chested. Both were damp, no doubt from bathing in the pool. What else they had done he refused even to think about as he drew a bead dead center on Robbins's chest.
Cormac, who had come bounding up to welcome Marcus, stood between him and Lissa, looking from one to the other in confusion.
Lissa dashed in front of Jess, throwing her arms about him. "Papa, no!"
"Get away from him, Melissa, or I swear to God I’ll kill you both," he yelled as he rode down the dusty trail to the floor of the ravine.
Jess pulled her arms from his neck and tried to set her aside. "He's got the right, Lissa. Move away before you get hurt," he said gently.
"No! I won't let him kill you," she sobbed, clinging to him.
"Get dressed and get out of here," Marcus snapped with cold fury in his voice.
"Do as he says," Jess reiterated, this time shoving her forcefully away. Cormac, who had remained a silent onlooker, let out a low growl at Jess, then subsided. Jess stood before Jacobson's leveled rifle, understanding the killing rage banked behind those ice-blue eyes. He met the old man's glare calmly, knowing he was going to die. Perhaps it had been inevitable ever since he rode into Cheyenne and first laid eyes on Melissa Jacobson. "Get it done, Jacobson," he said quietly.
"You can't kill him, Papa! I'm carrying his child—your grandchild. You have to let us marry," Lissa said in a breathless rush as she walked toward the father who had adored and cosseted her all her life. Now the hard coldness of his face seemed carved from granite. As her words sank in, she could see him struggle with his rage. He almost fired—at Jess or at her?
Marcus lowered the gun like a beaten man. His tall, elegant body seemed to crumple in on itself. He looked past her as if she did not even exist. "No white man will take your leavings, Robbins. She's got an Injun brat in her belly. You'd better give it a name. I sure as hell don't want it called Jacobson."
Jess st
ood rooted to the ground, shock radiating through his body as forcefully as if the old man had pulled the trigger. He turned his eyes to Lissa. "You never told me," he accused.
Her chin went up, and he could see her swallow before she spoke. "I was going to before you said what you did. Then . . ." Her words faded away.
He let his breath escape in a hiss, then turned to Jacobson. "I'll take her to Cheyenne tonight and marry her."
Jacobson nodded curtly, then turned away from his only child without so much as a glance, giving a curt command for Cormac to follow as he rode away.
Still confused, the dog looked from Lissa and Jess to Marcus. When neither of them moved to intercede, he trotted obediently after the old man.
Jess spoke to Lissa, his expression unreadable. "Can you ride to Cheyenne if we take it slow?"
"I'm pregnant, Jess, not crippled," she replied bitterly.
"Get dressed then." He turned away and shrugged on his shirt, then reached for his gun, strapping it on methodically while she quickly slipped on her outer garments.
"You would have just stood there and let him shoot you." There was almost accusation in her voice.
"Like I said, he had the right. I'm not proud of what I've done, but at least I'm willing to pay the price." His voice was as emotionless as his face.
"Even if it means marrying me?" Her hands trembled as she gripped a boot and pulled it on. The task complete, she turned and looked at him. He was gathering the horses and did not answer her. "Would you have preferred to have my father kill you?"
"What I'd prefer has never much figured in my life, Lissa," he said wearily, handing her the reins to Little Bit. His hands circled her waist, and he hoisted her effortlessly into the saddle, then mounted Blaze.
They rode in silence for several hours. The late summer air was redolent with the tang of pine, and the bawls of calves echoed in the distance. Thick, powdery dust rose from the horses' hooves, churned up like a flour cloud when Vinegar mixed biscuits. Lissa fought back her tears and focused on the future. Once they were married, things would work out all right.