Midnight Lover

by Barbara Bretton

  "Let's say I'm warnin' you."

  She lifted her chin defiantly. "Let's say I am ignoring the warning."

  His grip on her wrist tightened. Her eyes narrowed but her beautiful face betrayed none of the fear he knew she must be feeling. "I want you out of the Crazy Arrow now."

  "How odd, Mr. Reardon, for I was about to say the same thing to you."

  He dropped her hand and stared at her. The woman was more stubborn than a mule with a burr on its tail. "What the hell gives you the notion you got a claim on the Arrow?"

  "The law," she shot back. "Something you obviously know little about."

  "I don't much care what the law says. The Arrow belongs to me."

  Her dark blonde brows arched. "Perhaps you should call the marshal over to arbitrate this discussion."

  What the hell did she mean, "arbitrate"? The woman spoke funnier than the actor they'd had in last summer who spouted on about to be and not to be and all manner of odd talk.

  "We don't have a marshal," he said, wondering why Easterners found it hard to speak plain so a body could understand.

  She heaved a sigh that made her bosoms rise in a way he found damned distracting. "The wrong terminology: perhaps you should call in the sheriff then."

  Now he was on higher ground. "Don't have a sheriff either."

  "I find that difficult to believe, Mr. Reardon. Most towns have one or the other."

  "This ain't most towns."

  "Then we shall have the mayor determine ownership." She paused. "I don't suppose you have a mayor in Silver Spur either?"

  "Had one once, but he died in bed with the doctor's wife."

  "I do not see anything funny about death, Mr. Reardon," she retorted. "Perhaps if your heart gave out at an inopportune moment, you wouldn't—"

  He threw back his head and roared. "Only thing wrong with Billy's heart was the piece of lead doc's wife put there."

  Even in the dim light he could see the crimson blush staining her cheeks and throat. "She shot him?"

  "Twice."

  "I do not understand," she said, her voice losing that cool Eastern tone at last. "It would seem to me that...I mean, would it not be more understandable if her husband..." Her words trailed off delicately.

  "He wore his spurs," Jesse drawled. "Cut up her sheets somethin' fierce."

  Her mouth dropped open in horror. "She killed him because he wore his spurs?" What was the matter with the gal—she have some kind of trouble understanding English? "Some women around here think that's just cause for murder."

  "I hope she went to jail for that."

  "Nope," said Jesse, "but the circuit judge fined her one hundred dollars in gold." She swayed and he reached out to steady her. "You feeling poorly?"

  "The heat." She leaned against the long expanse of bar, looking as beautiful and fragile as a desert flower, and he ignored the way her eyelashes cast shadows against her cheeks. "It suddenly came over me."

  "I think you got scared."

  "I think you are mistaken."

  He shook his head. "I know fear when I smell it, lady, and you're scared."

  "It would take more than a story like that to scare me, Mr. Reardon."

  "I got a thousand stories worse'n that, Car-o-line," he said, drawing her name out lazily to get under her pretty skin. "One's sure to make you turn around and go back where you came from."

  "There is nothing you can say that will scare me back to Boston."

  He stepped closer to her but she held her ground. "This is my place, lady, and I don't recall sendin' you no invitation." She drew herself up to her full height, which was considerable for a woman, and met his eyes bold as any man in town. "I don't need an invitation, Mr. Reardon, for I own this establishment."

  "We don't seem to be gettin' too far with this," Jesse said. Short of tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her outside to the stagecoach, he was beginning to wonder how he'd get her out of the saloon. Pulling over a chair, he straddled the seat. "Why don't you set a spell and tell me how it is you come to own the Crazy Arrow?"

  "Don't you be tellin' him anything, Miss Caroline," said the redhaired maid as she hurried down the staircase. "This is your place, right and proper, and I wouldn't be lettin' the likes of him take what belongs to you."

  Caroline turned toward her maid, affording Jesse with a view of her cameo-perfect profile. "Nobody is taking anything away from me, Abby. Why don't you step outside and see to having our luggage brought in."

  "Don't waste your time, Miss Abby," Jesse advised the girl. "May as well just have it loaded back on the stagecoach."

  "Pay no attention to him, Abby," Caroline instructed, her voice firm. "Have the bags brought in here now."

  "Have it your own way," said Jesse with a shrug, "but don't expect me to help you drag them back out to the stage."

  Miss-Caroline-from-Boston heaved an enormous sigh and a vivid memory of the way her body had felt beneath him a few minutes ago made him glad he was sitting down.

  "This grows more tiresome by the minute, Mr. Reardon," she said, facing him once again. "First you leer at me in a public place, then you fling me to the ground under the guise of protecting me, now you order me to return to a city I devoutly pray never to see again. I'm afraid I must ask you to leave."

  His hand darted out quicker than a rattlesnake and he pulled her to him, ignoring the sweet scent of her perfume. "I'm gonna say this once more, little lady, and I advise you to listen real careful: this is my saloon and you ain't welcome here."

  She glanced around the empty room then back at him. "Apparently no one is welcome here, Mr. Reardon."

  No uppity Eastern woman was going to get the best of him. "We're closed for repairs."

  Again that arching of her brows. "How lovely," she said, smoothing back a stray curl from her forehead. "I appreciate the care you've taken with my property."

  "Game's over." Jesse grabbed her by the shoulders and propelled her toward the door. "Been nice but it's all over."

  She dug her heels in like a skittish mule a few feet before the door and damned if he didn't find it impossible to move her.

  "I can prove it to you, Mr. Reardon."

  "The hell you can."

  "Let me go and I'll show you my deed."

  "You're talkin' crazy. Except for the mines, we don't put much store in deeds."

  "Maybe so," she conceded, "but what do you have to lose? Take a chance, Mr. Reardon. If I cannot provide a deed to this property right on the spot, you can put me on that stagecoach and I'll leave town forever."

  "Gonna hate to see you go," he drawled, leaning back against the mahogany bar, "but I got the feeling you'd be more trouble to have around than you're worth."

  "You shall have ample opportunity to find out," she said, opening her reticule and withdrawing a folded piece of parchment paper, "because I am in Silver Spur to stay."

  His eyes flickered over the deed then he tossed it back to her as if it were no more than yesterday's newspaper.

  "Don't impress me none," he said, pulling a cigar from his breast pocket and filching matches from a brass cup on the bar. "Anybody can hire himself a lawyer and draw up some fancy piece of paper."

  She re-folded the document and put it back in her leather bag for safekeeping as he touched the flame to his cigar.

  "I'll have you know this is a legal document, Mr. Reardon. One that will stand up in any court of law."

  "Didn't see your name nowhere on it, Car-o-line."

  "Then perhaps you have yet to master the skill of reading, Mr. Reardon." She yanked the deed from her bag a second time and shoved it under his nose. "Right there, sir: Bennett."

  "I see Aaron Bennett." Damn. Why did that name sound so familiar?

  "Aaron Bennett was my father."

  "Blonde haired fella. Eastern ways?" A sorry excuse for a man who didn't know an inside straight from a pair of deuces.

  "He died in April."

  "I know," said Jesse Reardon. "He took the bullet meant for m
e.

  Chapter 5

  Jesse Reardon was so cool and collected that he could have been talking about squashing a spider under the heel of his boot instead of the death of a human being.

  The death of her father.

  Anger, hot and shockingly violent, rose up from the depths of Caroline's soul. "You killed my father and you have the nerve to stand there before me as if you're proud of your actions?"

  "Whoa, little lady," he said, his right hand lingering near his holster, "I didn't say I killed your pa; I said he took a bullet meant for me."

  "My father died instead of you?" The thought was horrifying. Reardon was vile, reprehensible, the spawn of the devil himself, and if she had a gun of her own she would see to it he never drew another breath.

  "Happens sometimes. You got somebody's a bad shot or your luck's just runnin' hotter than the other guy's. It's—"

  The sound of the slap echoed throughout the deserted saloon and Caroline rejoiced n the scarlet imprint of her hand across his lean cheek. Aaron Bennett had died as he'd lived, a victim of both circumstances and his own stupidity, and the waste of his forty two years was suddenly more than she could bear. She hated this tall and arrogant cowboy who stood before her, bragging that he lived only because Aaron Bennett had had the misfortune to get in the way of a bullet speeding straight for the cowboy's own black heart.

  Blood rushed into her head, pounding wildly in her ears and at the base of her throat. Wasn't it enough she'd lost her father? Did Reardon have to take away the one thing of value Aaron had left behind to help her better her position in life?

  She wanted to slap him again until his blue eyes clouded with pain. She wanted to drag her nails down his face and see his blood run free. She wanted to make him feel one fraction of the pain that clutched at her heart and made her future stretch before her, an endless void of broken promises and shattered dreams.

  "I wouldn't do that," Reardon said as she raised her hand once again. "I got a policy when it comes to that kind of thing."

  She hesitated, hand hovering in the heated air between them. "You deserve this and more," she said, her voice a hiss of fury.

  "Might be, but I only let a woman get in one free shot. After that I fight back."

  "You would strike a woman?"

  "If she hit me first, I would."

  "You're despicable."

  "Because I don't take kindly to being hit, Car-o-line?"

  "You're no gentleman, Mr. Reardon."

  "Never made claim to being one."

  Her palm itched to feel his cheekbone burn beneath it. She longed to experience the sheer joy of erasing that smug expression from his face but caution held her captive. His expression was impassive, unreadable; his blue eyes watched her intently and she knew how a deer felt before a hunter's arrow met its mark.

  "I mean what I say, Car-o-line." Reardon moved closer. "I don't think you'd look real pretty with a few of those pearly teeth missing."

  "You truly would hit me," she said in amazement. "You'd hit a defenseless woman."

  "Hit me again and you'll find out for your own self." He grinned. "Besides, it don't seem to me you're all that defenseless."

  "Unlike you I don't carry a six-shooter, Mr. Reardon," she pointed out.

  "Women got other weapons." His eyes raked her body from her boots to her bodice. "Of course it don't mean much if the lady in question don't know what to do with them."

  "You may save your insults for a more willing victim."

  "You seemed mighty willin' under that stagecoach."

  She considered his words thoughtfully, praying a blush didn't flood her cheeks. "Perhaps I should add assault to your list of mis-deeds."

  Reardon laughed out loud. "Tell it to the judge."

  "I fully intend to. Certainly even Silver Spur has one."

  "Circuit judge. Don't expect him around until the middle of next month. You ain't likely to be around that long."

  "That's where you're wrong, Mr. Reardon. I most definitely intend to be around that long—and longer. Silver Spur is my new home." He pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket and bit off the end. Caroline tried not to notice the disgusting noise the tip made when he spat it into a cuspidor a few feet away

  "The hell it is," he said easily.

  "The hell it isn't," she retorted, slipping into language as salty as his own, another legacy from her father. "This is my saloon and my property and now this town is my home and it doesn't matter what you think of that situation, Jesse Reardon, because I am here to stay."

  Reardon clamped his cigar between his teeth and took another step closer. "Last chance, Car-o-line."

  "You don't frighten me, Mr. Reardon," she lied.

  "Then I'll do what I should've done right at the start."

  With that he swept her over his shoulder with a move so smooth that she didn't realize what had happened until they were halfway out the front door of the Crazy Arrow.

  "Put me down!" she commanded as he stormed down the stairs and into the street. "I order you to put me down, Reardon!" How on earth was she to set up a business in a town where she'd been disgraced twice within her first hour?

  "I ain't puttin' you down until I put you down inside the stagecoach heading east."

  Whirls of dust rose from his bootheels and tickled her nostrils while tortoiseshell hairpins fell from her chignon, marking her trail like Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs.

  "My hair!" she cried as long ropes of golden blonde waves tumbled down and threatened to become entangled in his jangling spurs. "If you have any decency at all in your black heart, you'll—"

  He skidded to an abrupt stop and her chin bumped into his hard, muscular back. "Son of a bitch!"

  Caroline furiously gathered her long hair into a loose knot. "Put me down," she commanded once again, "before I do something I'll regret."

  She could feel his body tense menacingly. "Put you down?" he asked.

  "Yes," she said, suddenly uneasy, "before I—"

  She never finished her words for he released his grip on her and she slid over his shoulder and down his chest, only to land in an embarrassing heap at his booted feet.

  "Good place for a woman," said one of his cowboy cohorts to a rumble of male laughter. "If they'd see things that way all the time, maybe we wouldn't mind havin' 'em around town."

  To Caroline's dismay, hot and embarrassing tears filled her eyes and threatened to disgrace her. Her chin stung where she'd scraped it on his holster as she slid from his shoulder. Her left ankle throbbed from bearing the brunt of this graceless fall. And her pride—dear God, her pride! It seemed she'd left her pride somewhere between Boston and Silver Spur and she wasn't entirely certain she had the will to recover it.

  And there Reardon stood, hands on his lean hips, towering over her, his body blocking the fierce sunshine and throwing her into shadow.

  You win, Mr. Reardon, she thought looking up at him. You brought both Bennetts to their knees. She had battled both circumstance and fate and emerged victorious but in this battle of wills she knew she had been vanquished.

  "Do as you will, Mr. Reardon," she said, her gaze intent upon him. "Put my baggage in the stagecoach and run me out of town. I lack the weapons to fight you after all."

  His gaze held hers and she had the sensation of time suddenly curving around her until it held her in its seductive embrace.

  "I didn't think you'd throw in your hand so easy, Miss Car-o-line," he said, his words for her ears alone. "I thought you'd kick up more of a fuss than this."

  "You want me out of town, Mr. Reardon, and I am willing to go. You should be quite pleased with yourself."

  He reached down and, grasping her wrists, pulled her to her feet as if she weighed no more than a down pillow. She winced as her twisted ankle throbbed but he didn't loosen his grip upon her; indeed, he drew her close until her breasts, chastely covered by her woolen traveling suit, grazed the front of his fringed vest.

  "You're stayin'."

  "Why?" She
knew her voice betrayed the wild feelings blazing through her but there was no hope for it. A delicious, intoxicating lassitude that was as powerful as it was illogical spread through her limbs like heated honey when Jesse Reardon smiled at her.

  "Because the stagecoach left without you."

  His smile turned into a mocking grin as she struggled against him. "I would sell my soul to slap that expression from your blasted face!"

  "Careful what you wish for, darlin'," he drawled lazily. "In Silver Spur the devil just might hear you and come to claim his due."

  "I doubt that," she snapped, not caring that they were once again the center of attention. "I am of the mind the devil stands before me."

  "A compliment is it, Caroline?"

  "Only a fool would consider a comparison with Beelzebub to be a compliment." With that she brought the heel of her right shoe down upon his instep and nearly cried out in triumph as he swore and released his hold upon her.

  Gathering up her skirts, she inclined her head toward the two cowboys sitting atop her trunks.

  "If you would follow me, gentlemen," she said sweetly, "it appears I shall be staying in town after all."

  "Seven days," said Jesse Reardon. "When the next stage rolls into town, you're gonna be on board."

  "You're a gambling man, Mr. Reardon," she tossed over her shoulder as she headed back to the Crazy Arrow. "Perhaps you'd care to wager on it."

  "Fifty dollars gold says you're out of town before sundown next Friday night."

  She swallowed hard. "Fifty dollars gold is a great deal of money, Mr. Reardon." Fifty dollars gold was almost all she had remaining of her father's legacy to her.

  "Maybe you ain't too sure you'll be around next Friday night after all."

  Had she any sense at all, she would continue walking toward the saloon; but good sense, however, had been left behind in Boston in the Addison house on the hill. "Fifty dollars gold says I have the Crazy Arrow open for business before sundown next Friday night."

  He extended his right hand toward her. "Bet?"

  She extended her right hand and watched it disappear within his. "It's a bet, Mr. Reardon."