“Guess I’m getting cagey with all this dallying,” Thomas growled.
“Hey, I’ll gladly swap with ya. I hear she’s a real looker,” teased the taller of the men. “That knuckle-jabber trains from dawn to dusk and frankly”—he patted his belly—“I’ve already lost more hide than I had to shed. You’d think he had some kind of steam engine driving him.”
“She does make a man look twice,” Thomas admitted, as if he wasn’t really listening.
Laney had steam of her own building inside her. So, coal-haired, gray-eyed, steel-jawed Mr. Thomas Longbow was also a Texas Ranger, was he? Made her think he was a journalist out to get a story, had he? Well, she’d give him a story or two to tell when he showed up at her shop tomorrow, you just wait and see.
Bolting to her feet, it took everything she had in her not to march into that dining room and tell the man just what she thought of him. He had been nosy on purpose, following that poor Mr. Maher when he was clearly in a state of physical discomfort. And he’d dared to try to worm out of her the poor man’s reason for visiting her shop. She’d seen the way he had tried to get a look at her ledger. He thought she was in some kind of conspiracy with the man over the fight location. And he had the gall to besmirch her good name—with the Texas Rangers, of all people. Right when she was about to go up against her brother-in-law to battle for Gideon!
Lost in her anger, Laney didn’t hear Dannell O’Grady enter the hotel until he was nearly at the door to the dining room. With his top hat and silver-handled cane, he reminded her of a fancy-dressed pied piper leading a pack of society rats. When he removed his hat, his thinning red hair stayed plastered on his head, with a split down the middle that would have made Moses proud. His face might once have been considered handsome, but his complexion was now ruddy with the apparent effects of the liquor that made him weave more than walk toward her. He must be deep into his cups today.
“There you are,” he bellowed in a voice that could have been heard on Utah Street. “I saw that two-wheeled freak-seat out there leaning up against the wall. I knew you must be here. What is it you need, woman? You know Gideon is back east.”
Laney directed her anger where it should really belong. “Sent away despite both his and my wishes, if I remember distinctly.” Let his companions think what they would. She didn’t care one feather if they thought her inappropriate for her anger at her brother-in-law’s spitefulness. “If you’ll excuse us, gentlemen, I won’t keep him long, I assure you. My talk will be brief and to the point.”
To her surprise, Dannell bid his friends farewell and said he would join them at their table in a few minutes. He offered her his arm, but Laney refused to take it, knowing that it was merely for show. Instead, she walked slightly ahead of him to a table close to the Rangers. If Dannell became too belligerent with the news she meant to give him, he would think twice before making a scene.
Once they’d taken their seats, Laney called the waiter and ordered two cups of coffee.
“I’ll have brandy,” Dannell insisted, but Laney shook her head.
“The gentleman will have coffee here. If he wants his brandy, he’ll have to drink it at the table where he plans to eat.” She checked to make sure the Rangers were watching and listening. True to their reputation, they missed nothing.
She expected Dannell to storm off, but he remained seated. An uncomfortable silence ensued while they waited for the waiter to return with the coffee. Finally, when they’d been served, Laney took the papers out of her gown pocket and carefully slid them across the table to him.
“What’s this?” he asked, unfolding the document.
“My petition for adoption of Gideon. It will be filed in Judge Townsend’s office one week from today.”
He chuckled and didn’t even bother to read the first page, tossing it back to her. “So, you finally raised the money. Good for you.”
She’d expected a lot of things from him, but certainly not a backhanded compliment. “I’ll expect Gideon home at the end of the semester.”
He took a sip of his coffee and deliberately locked his gaze with hers. “The money was only part of your problem, Killaney. You still have to prove yourself more fit than I to take care of the boy.”
The threat in his voice warned that she should proceed with caution, but with victory in sight she dared to throw her final punch. She slid the papers back to him. “Maybe you should take a closer look at those. You’ll find the last page particularly interesting.”
Dannell turned immediately to the last page. His ruddy face turned white, his alcohol-laced breath exiting in great fuming puffs. His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. “You paid them to sign this, you witch!”
“You wish I did,” Laney countered, struggling to break free of his hold. “Every one of them signed the petition willingly. You can’t swindle your friends and expect them to stay character witnesses for you. Even you aren’t that important. Now let go of me.”
“I told you I’d marry you and then the boy would be yours again.” His fingers dug into her wrists. “But you think yourself too high and mighty.”
“For the likes of you, I do, Dannell O’Grady. You don’t deserve your brother’s name or his son.” She tried to jerk her arm away from him, but he held on too tightly. “I said let go. Now,” she insisted more loudly.
“You hard of hearing, mister?” warned a deep baritone voice she recognized from this morning. “Is this man hurting you, Mrs. O’Grady?”
Though Thomas Longbow’s concern was aimed at her, his fierce expression never left its true target. The Ranger looked like he was carved from the face of Mount Franklin itself. “The lady said let go.”
Dannell did as he was told and rose. “I don’t know who your friend is, Killaney, but we’ll discuss this another time.”
He left without another word, turning briefly to look at her before joining his table of friends. She hadn’t realized just how much her brother-in-law’s threat affected her. Laney took a sip of coffee to settle the nervous trembling of her hands. Oh, she had been prepared to show him she wasn’t afraid of him, that he wouldn’t sway her from her purpose. But something in the look Dannell gave her before he joined his friends sent a shiver of fear down her spine.
“Th—thank you, Mr. Longbow. Thomas,” Laney said, trying to block out Dannell’s threat and instead focus on her helpful customer. “Do you reporters often rescue damsels in distress?” she teased, playing the game that he had initiated between them. Teasing somehow made the fear fade faster.
Thomas’s forefinger rose to his brow as if he were tipping his hat to her. “Yeah, even when she picks a fight in public that she thinks she can handle on her own.” A grin flashed startlingly white against the sun-soaked hue of his skin. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, ma’am, I’ve got a horse to fetch before morning. I’d advise you to be more careful around drunks.”
Chapter 4
The Main Attraction
The day was already heating up to be a scorcher and it was barely midmorning. February in El Paso could give Satan a sunburn. Not having to worry about the train ride from Las Cruces to follow Maher back to El Paso, Thomas had gladly retrieved the black stallion from the livery stable and took a long morning ride. He missed the old days of galloping rides and of justice meted out swiftly. Today, it was all about riding the rails to get from one place to the other and catching cattle rustlers. Hell, the legislature would probably have them start using those new-fangled bicycles for transportation in order to cut the budget for horse feed.
As a cadet fresh from West Point, Thomas had headed back home to join the Texas Rangers, after fulfilling his military obligation, believing in the code they lived by and their role in the protection of his state. Seven years he’d lived and breathed the spartan existence, not resting his boots under any particular bed, riding where the wind and a criminal led him, living by the code to see wrong things made right. The adventure of it had always called to him and he loved the sound of its voice.
/> Maybe that’s why this assignment pestered him so much. He felt no sense of anticipation that he was going to learn something new, help someone who needed him, right some terrible wrong. True, stopping a fight of some sort was what he did best. It seemed there was always somebody taking on somebody else. But trying to stop a fight from taking place when everyone in Texas other than the politicians wanted it, didn’t appeal to Thomas’s sense of wrong made right.
Last night when he’d come to Laney’s defense, he’d almost wished her coffee guest would have dared to defy him. Thomas was aching for something more rough-and-tumble than his current assignment. He didn’t go out looking for trouble, yet neither did he shy away from it. Putting the man in his place might have been just the thing to ease some of this cagey tension that had filled Thomas the past three weeks in El Paso.
“Well, Justice”—Thomas reined the stallion toward town—“are you about ready to get yourself measured by the feistiest gal this side of the border?” The Ranger chuckled at how she’d dared to insinuate that she was going to measure him, for pistol’s sake. He had thought she joked at the time, but after hearing some of her conversation with that wrist bender last night, Thomas didn’t doubt for one moment now that she had meant to do just what she said. Laney O’Grady wasn’t a woman who shied easily, and he wasn’t the sort who would have been measured without showing just exactly how attracted he was to her.
The prospect of having her hands on him added heat to his speculations and, unconsciously, he nudged Justice to speed up his gait. When he reached the saddle shop, Thomas tied his mount to the hitching post and asked a passing stranger for the time.
The gentleman opened his pocket watch. “Five minutes until ten, sir.”
Thomas thanked the man. Just on time, he thought. He knew Maher to be a particularly punctual man when it came to appointments, so Thomas had enough time to establish himself in the shop without looking like he had deliberately scheduled to be there in conjunction with Maher’s visit.
The bell jangled as he entered the shop. To his surprise, the smell of cinnamon permeated the air and Laney was there waiting for him across the counter. His stomach grumbled and he didn’t know if it was from the delicious aroma wafting from the cloth-lined basket sitting on the counter, or whether his hunger had been stirred by the morning freshness of Laney’s beauty.
“Good morning, Thomas. I thought that would be you. Right on time, I see.”
“Oh?” Thomas raked his memory. “I don’t recall saying I’d be here at any particular time.”
“True, but Mr. Maher did, and he’s due any moment.” Laney smiled sweetly. “I had a feeling you’d come in about the same time.”
Clever girl. She knew she had him. Well, round one goes to you, he thought. “Never miss an opportunity for a story, I always say.”
“I’m glad you’re here a little early. I wanted to say a personal thank-you.” She lifted the basket and held it out to him. “Cinnamon rolls. I hope you’re hungry.”
For more than you think. Thomas opened the cloth and reached for one of the rolls, so fresh that the icing was still melting down the swirls of cinnamon. “I haven’t had one of these since…” He couldn’t finish. As the taste of the roll hit his lips, Thomas’s eyes closed and he thought he had died and gone to heaven. Sweetness blended with buttery heat, sliding down his tongue and stirring a long-denied sweet tooth. Campsite food rarely allowed time for baking pastries. “My God, woman,” he said in appreciation, “you’re one hell of a cook.”
Opening his eyes proved Thomas’s undoing. In that instant, he noticed her tongue licking a drip of icing on her own lips and it sent blood racing through his veins like Justice gone wild on locoweed. He quickly stuffed another roll in his mouth to avoid just reaching over and licking it off of her himself.
“I’m glad you like them,” she said, putting him through further misery as she licked a couple of her fingers. “I’m too messy with them myself. I get them all over me, as you can see.” She held up her forefinger and then stuck it in her mouth and sucked slowly. When she finished, she sighed. “I have to keep my fingers clean so that I don’t stain my leatherwork.”
Thomas was a betting man. Every instinct told him that she’d licked that last finger on purpose. Thank him? Yeah, right. The woman was toying with him. So, round two goes to you too.
He pushed the basket back toward her. “Two’s plenty for me.”
She placed the basket under the counter. “You can have the rest when you leave, if you like. I’ll go wash my hands and be right back. I think I hear Mr. Maher coming now.”
Thomas had been so caught up in his heated thoughts that he’d assumed the thundering beat he heard was lust speeding up his heartbeat. Now that he really listened, he could tell it was the tramp of hundreds keeping pace along the wooden sidewalk. Maher wasn’t alone today.
Laney soon returned with the writing ledger Thomas had seen yesterday. She laid it on the counter and opened it, noticed he was watching her, then quickly closed it.
“I know you arrived first this morning,” she began, “but since you knew his appointment was exactly at ten and I wouldn’t really have time to discuss your saddle at the moment, I hope you won’t mind waiting until I’m finished with Mr. Maher.”
He couldn’t argue. It was only fair. Besides, Maher might distract her long enough for Thomas to get a chance at the ledger. “Go right ahead. I’ll wait. I’ll just look around at your goods.”
The boxer entered, followed by a short, portly man and an older man Thomas recognized as Dan Stuart himself, the fight promoter. The portly man waved away the remainder of the crowd, insisting that no one else follow them in. He didn’t appear to be much of a bodyguard, Thomas decided, but then as the owner of two of the world’s deadliest fists, Maher could defend himself.
“A good morning to you, lass,” the boxer greeted her, tightening the belt around his training robe. “Do forgive me for showing up in my running clothes. I’d have doffed my hat to you, if I’d had it with me.”
“No need to apologize, Mr. Maher. A man works in the clothes of his trade.” Laney stepped around the counter and offered her hand.
One brow arched over his barely opened eye. “See there, Stuart, what did I tell you? She’s the one. Not one of those faint and fawners. She looks a man right in the eye, she does, and full of spit and vinegar I’d be guessing.”
You’d be guessing right, Thomas conceded to the man’s insight. Now why was that so all-fired important to the boxer? Thomas stepped closer to the showy saddle on the sawhorse, drawing him nearer to the ledger.
“This big galoot is Dan Stuart, lass, the brassiest promoter what ever latched his moniker to the fight arena.”
Thomas smelled more than cinnamon in the air. These three were up to something. He just hoped she wasn’t in on it. The thought of arresting her appealed to him even less than before he ate the rolls.
The elderly man tipped his hat. “Ma’am.”
“And this squat body is my trainer—”
“Don’t take too long, Pete,” the trainer interrupted before Maher could complete his introduction. “Cool down too much and you’ll lose that last mile of workout. You’ll have to add another before lunch.”
Maher’s mustache lifted above a broad grin. “Can’t have that, can we, Stuart? A man’s gotta eat.”
The boxer’s eating habits were near-legendary. He was known to consume two whole chickens, a round of four or five vegetables, a loaf of bread, and two apple pies in one sitting.
Thomas noticed a heaping pile of unshaped leather on her work table. She must have been in the middle of something when he’d interrupted her this morning.
The older man nodded. “And we need to be checking with Fitz about that other matter we discussed.”
Thomas had inched forward just enough to reach the ledger when Stuart’s words stopped him in his tracks. He glanced up and saw a look of knowing pass between the promoter and the boxer. Fitzsimmons? Othe
r matter? Something was going down about the location. He felt it. Sensed that Laney somehow held the key.
“How’s my order coming along, lass?” Maher asked. “Any trouble with what we discussed?”
Laney looked up and realized where Thomas stood. “Thomas, if you’ll excuse us a moment and please step back around the counter, I’ll show Mr. Maher what I’ve done.”
She grabbed the ledger and put it in her apron, just as she’d put Thomas in his place. “No problem,” he said, reluctantly taking a seat out front that had been provided for waiting customers.
Even Stuart and the trainer remained on this side of the counter.
Maher’s and Laney’s backs were now turned away from Thomas and he could only guess at what they were looking at. Suddenly one of the unshaped pieces of leather was flung over Laney’s shoulder.
“Does that suit you?” she asked. “Meet with your specifications?”
Now, why didn’t I look under that pile? Thomas berated himself. Leave no stone unturned. This delay was making him lazy. The woman was distracting him.
A moment passed before Maher’s head bobbed. “It’s exactly what we’ll be needing, lass. Couldn’t be better. You’ve a fine eye.”
“I looked everywhere yesterday and spotted exactly what I thought you were wanting. It won’t take nearly as much arranging as I assumed it might. I have a lot of sources I can use.”
She’s almost confessing her part in it!
“Can you complete the task by the end of the week, is what I need to know,” Dan Stuart interjected. “A lot rides on it.”
“Maybe sooner,” Laney said, the piece of leather disappearing from her shoulder before both she and Maher turned around. She motioned for the boxer to lead the way around the counter. “It’s not going to take anywhere near as long as I thought it might.”
“Good.” Stuart exhaled a long breath. “Pete’s eyes are getting better by the day. Sooner is better on all accounts.”
Give Me A Texas Ranger Page 29