Felicity gave her a maternal pat. “Hard as all this is, Teddy, I’m sure it’s going to turn out the way it ought to.”
Teddy nodded, wanting to believe what her grandmother said was true, but doubting. In her opinion Wells Fargo had been slow to step in. True, no Wells Fargo shipments had been lost in the first few attacks, but in the last two the strongbox had been taken and, as was their policy, Wells Fargo would have to make up the loss. She didn’t like costing them money, but, dammit, they were quick enough settling up with other companies who suffered losses. Because she was a woman she got treated differently. Cabe might not say so but the results were obvious enough.
Teddy left the ranch before the sun was up, her mood blacker than the early morning sky. The first thing Cabe was going to want to know was when Zack Gamble would be arriving to get the company running right. She would have to ’fess up about Zack’s death and tell Cabe there would be no man coming in to straighten things out. And, in spite of all her talk, she was finished the minute he pulled the contracts.
Dune whinnied in protest as Teddy suddenly pulled her saddle horse to a halt. By damn, maybe there was a way. Maybe, if she could stomach it, she could acknowledge Rhys Delmar’s part in the company. If she could get him to indicate that he’d come to Arizona with the intention of being an active partner in the line, possibly even hint that he’d had experience with a company in France, maybe that would satisfy Cabe and Wells Fargo and keep the Gamble Line alive. Of course all that was just a shade away from a lie, but she was desperate.
Scowling at what she had sunk to, she clucked to the horse and rode on, a jittery bundle of nerves in the saddle. Dammit! It was the only way. She would just as soon ask favors from a scorpion—but it was the only way. Unless she presented a new partner, a man, she was done. Shoulders hunched, mood worsening, she rode on. No use in trying to tell Cabe that Rope was running things. He knew both of them too well and knew Teddy would override any decisions Rope made—and that Rope would let her do so. So, Rhys Delmar, it was. She would find a way to run the low-down Frenchman off later. Right now, hard as it was to take, she needed him.
Telling him was the hardest thing she ever did. She kept seeing him with Norine Adams wrapped around him, their lips fused in passion. Seeing those two together should have gotten the memories of her intimate night with Rhys out of her mind but it hadn’t. It had only made them stronger. She hadn’t stopped wanting him, even though she suspected he spent his off-time in one of the rooms above the Diamond doing sensuous things to Norine Adams or one of those other chippies.
“Rhys.”
“Yes?” He turned. Hearing her speak his name without snapping out an order sounded good. It also made him suspicious. Since the night they had made love Teddy had been in the same ill humor as when he’d arrived in town and announced that he was there to collect on Zack Gamble’s debt. The last few days had been even worse. She’d had about as much use for him as for a mad dog.
He’d let all that go. Life, at present, was hard for her. He understood that she needed time to sort out her feelings about what had happened between them. He needed great patience. A hundred times he’d wanted to drag her off somewhere alone and demand that she admit something was there, between them. He wanted to tell her it was foolish to pretend nothing had happened or to believe that it wouldn’t happen again.
“I need to talk to you,” she said. “It’s important. I’ve got a man to replace you as guard today.”
Rhys knew a moment of apprehension. He feared that Teddy’s cordiality bode ill for him. The mail had come through every day for a week. Possibly yesterday’s bag had brought the letter from London that would decide his fate. Very possibly Teddy’s contact there had learned of the charges against him and relayed the news to Teddy. He wondered what she was going to do about it.
The stage rumbled out of Wishbone a few minutes later. The driver cracked his long black whip inches above the team’s backs. Both guards rode on top. The lone passenger was the local schoolteacher who had gotten a better offer. He was California bound and could be heard above the roar of the wheels shouting a cheerful farewell to everyone the stage passed.
Teddy motioned Rhys into the cramped Gamble Line office as the stage disappeared. She moved around the stacks of boxes and bundles tagged for the eastbound stage and dragged one of the cane-bottomed chairs out in the clear. In one of the most unladylike moves Rhys had ever seen, she sat with her long legs straddling the chair’s back.
“I reckon you’ve been around long enough to know the line’s in serious trouble,” she began. “And I reckon you’re smart enough to know that your shares could wind up being half of nothing soon enough.”
“I know there have been setbacks,” Rhys said cautiously. Teddy had tried every argument to weasel out of paying off Zack Gamble’s debt. He braced for a new one.
“Setbacks?” Teddy returned. “By damn I could be hours away from being out of business. And when I’m out of business, you’re out of luck.”
“Every shipment has gone through since we added the extra messenger to the runs,” Rhys reminded.
“That’s right,” Teddy said drawing herself up to look as tall as possible. “But because of the ones that didn’t, the Wells Fargo agent over this district is coming in this afternoon.” Someone walked by the open door and Teddy quietly fumed until the footsteps faded. “It’s good as gone,” she said. “He aims to cancel our contract. When he does we’re busted. Me. And you.”
“Busted?” Rhys hadn’t heard the term. While he might normally have picked up the meaning from the gist of the conversation, he was too distracted by Teddy’s widely spread buckskin-clad legs. Didn’t the woman know she shouldn’t sit like that?
“Broke.” She got up but it was too late to redirect the line of his thoughts back to money and Wells Fargo agents. He’d been caught by a fever. His belly tightened. The veins in his temples throbbed. He’d have taken her in his arms but she went stalking across the room, kicking bundles out of her way as she went. “Dammit! I’ve got one chance.” She spun around. “I want you to tell Cabe Northrop you’re running things.” She paused a moment, having to choke out the next words. “I’m not waiting on that letter from London,” she said. “I’m acknowledging your ownership of Zack’s shares. I’m ready to sign a document to that effect. But if you want it to be worth more than paper, you tell Cabe Northrop you’re my partner and that you’ll be around as long as it takes to get this line up to snuff.” Again she stopped to gather her courage. “He’s got to think you know how to run a stage line, got to think you’ve had some experience somewhere. Understand?”
Rhys slowly nodded.
“Once this line’s out of jeopardy,” she added, “I can borrow enough to buy you out. Pronto.” She stood in the shadows but he saw tears welling in her eyes. He’d never seen her cry, not even in the worst of times. When a tear slid down her cheek it was his undoing. Teddy swabbed her face with the back of her hand. “Dammit! Got a speck in my eye,” she said.
He’d have granted her anything—had she but known to ask. As it was, Teddy was giving him exactly what he had come for. She was clearing the way for him to leave Wishbone and get back to the life he preferred—a life which, with all its complications, was beginning to look simpler than the one here. By now Alain Perrault had his letter and should have responded. He trusted that Alain had already begun efforts to clear him of the charges against him. As soon as he had the money Teddy owed him he could afford a defense. He could leave, forget the past, forget Teddy, be a devil-may-care man again.
His lips curved into a half smile, infuriating Teddy, who suspected he was laughing at her evident desperation and spineless show of weakness. She wasn’t mollified when he said, “I will do it. Whatever you want.”
Chapter 32
Late in the afternoon of that same day Teddy didn’t feel much better, even though the meeting with Cabe Northrop was going well.
“This is a surprise, but a good one,” he s
aid, heartily shaking Rhys’s hand after a look at the backdated papers of partnership the two had signed. “Ought to make the superintendent good and happy.” He smiled at Teddy. He’d gone out on a limb sticking up for her and now he could say she’d taken his advice and gotten a man in to run the company. Since he’d never expected Teddy to take his advice, or anybody else’s, he was overwhelmed with relief when he met the Frenchman.
“Ought to make everybody good and happy, except maybe Parrish Adams,” Teddy said curtly. “I noticed you made time to drop by the Diamond for a drink right after you got here.”
“Needed one, Teddy.” Cabe shifted his bulk in the small chair in the Gamble office. “Had dust in my throat.”
Or crow in the craw, Teddy thought. “Well, if your throat needs washing out again tell him the Gamble Line’s solid and he can stop trying to run me out of business.”
Cabe shook his head. “Teddy, Adams is a businessman with big plans. Nothing unnatural about him wantin’ to buy out a small line and expand his own.” He got up. “Take my advice and make friends with Adams. He’s gettin’ to be important in this area. Heck! He owns most of it. One of these days you’ll be needin’ his business.”
“He’ll haul freight out on his back before the Gamble Line carries so much as a letter for him.” Teddy swung off the box top she’d been sitting on and paced across the crowded office floor. The fringe on her buckskins went swinging in tempo with her hurried steps. “Looks like somebody besides me should be asking where Adams gets the money to buy up everything between here and Prescott.”
Rhys could see Teddy was about to talk her way out of the understanding she had with Cabe and Wells Fargo. He put himself between Teddy and Cabe and gave the big man his warmest smile. “The Gamble Line will accept all customers who can pay for service,” he said. “We wish Monsieur Adams the best of luck. His prosperity is our prosperity.”
Cabe Northrop laughed and slapped Rhys on the back. “Well, sir,” he said, “I can see you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You’ll be good for the line, good for Teddy. No doubt about that.”
Teddy had to bite her tongue until all the handshaking and backslapping was over. But as soon as Cabe was gone—and right to the Diamond like she figured—she lit into Rhys. “I ought to kick you in the caboose,” she said, gritting her teeth. “I run this line and let me tell you I wouldn’t carry freight for Adams if—”
Rhys cut her off. Smiling that maddening smile he said “Until you convert my shares to cash, I run things. You told Cabe Northrop that was so.” One dark brow lifted sharply, wickedly. “You would not like me to tell him otherwise, would you?”
“You conniving French fool! The only thing you’re going to run is out of here!”
Teddy raised a balled fist and swung at him, but Rhys had gotten to know her ways much better and was prepared. He swiftly caught both her arms and twisted them behind her back, pressing her squarely against a wooden crate, molding his thighs hard against hers.
The fever flared in him again. “Partners ought to get along better than that,” he said huskily. “Understand?”
She saw his face moving toward hers and struggled to wrest free of his steely grip. “Don’t you kiss me, you bastard!” she shouted.
But he did and in a moment her clenched teeth parted and her clenched muscles relaxed. He released her arms and, like one hypnotized, she slid them around him. When his tongue invaded her mouth, the yearning, the excitement she had denied invaded her body like spring invades the earth. She moaned and fell against him, wildly wanting him. She was breathless when he drew his mouth away, breathless and helpless.
“Understand?”
“Yes,” she said, managing only a whisper. “I do.”
“Teddy!” Rope, already inside the office, knocked three times on the open door to get her attention.
Teddy’s face flamed red as she broke away from Rhys. “We were...discussing what Cabe had to say.”
“I could see you had your heads together.” A knowing twinkle shone in his eye. “Anyhow, that’s what I came to ask about.”
“He was satisfied.” Teddy cut her eyes at Rhys, giving him a searing look. “He thinks this son of a—Rhys can run the line better than you and I can.”
“Maybe so,” Rope said, annoyingly unperturbed by what had riled Teddy. “An’ you’re gonna need all the help you can get right now ’cause I ain’t been worth a wooden nickel since I got that nick on the head.” His fingers grazed over the angry red whelp on his temple. “Still can’t sit the saddle without gettin’ lightheaded,” he added. “Which is another reason I came by. I got a wagon full of supplies for Porter and the Tiltons an’—Dang it! I ain’t up to drivin’ them out.”
Teddy walked over to the coat rack in the back corner and strapped on her gun belt. “You sit in here till closing,” she said. “I’ll drive the supplies out and be back tomorrow late.”
“You ain’t goin’ out alone,” Rope insisted.
“Get another messenger to cover my run tomorrow,” Rhys said. “I will accompany Teddy.” He countered her look of protest by quickly adding, “We have more company business to discuss.”
Rope’s irksome, understanding smile made Teddy mad enough to spit. When Rhys left to drive the wagon around from the stable, Rope unwittingly added fuel to the fire.
“Kinda nice seein’ you pay attention to a man, Teddy,” he commented. “It’s time too. Time you thought about gettin’ hitched and having a passel of children. ’Cause unless you do you’re the last of the Gambles. An’ I know that ain’t what you want.”
His words brought a shiver to her, a feeling a goose had walked over her grave. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Last or not I’ve got no intention of becoming a brood mare,” she said tersely. “And let me tell you that Frenchman is too damn high-strung to stand good at stud.”
Rope chuckled. “You know that for sure?”
“Aw hell!” she said and strode out. “Tell Felicity where I’m going.”
***
Rhys had to drive past the Diamond. Parrish Adams flagged him down. The saloon owner had had a drink and an informative talk with Cabe Northrop. He’d been disappointed in the latter. One more time Teddy Gamble had talked Wells Fargo into continuing her contract. One more time the irksome bitch had foiled his plans. Time was running out for him. He had financed his land purchases by mortgaging one property to buy another, but the numbers were catching up with him. He needed access to the mining shipment schedules in order to safely execute a few key robberies that would put everything straight and make him, in fact, the wealthy businessman he pretended to be.
“Delmar,” he said smoothly—neither of them was noticing that, directly above them, Derby Seward, a customer of one of the saloon girls, stood at the open window shielded by the red curtains, while his companion slumbered in the rumpled bed. “I hear from Cabe Northrop that you’re running the Gamble Line now,” Adams said. “That so?”
Rhys pulled back the brake on the wagon and rested a booted foot on the high wooden brace in front of the seat. “I am,” he answered.
Adams offered Rhys a cigar then lit one for himself, too. “Well, now,” he said, taking a few slow puffs. “That surprises me. Especially when I’ve just seen my way clear to offer you twice as much as before for your shares.”
“Forty thousand—dollars,” Rhys said.
Adams, a gray plume of smoke rising from the cigar clenched in his teeth, glanced down the street and saw Teddy Gamble staring back at him. “Fifty,” he said. “Fifty thousand. I’ll have it for you by night.”
Seward parted the curtains slightly and strained to hear Rhys Delmar’s reply.
Rhys swallowed hard. Fifty thousand dollars would hire the best barrister in London and tempt the truth out of a lying witness. Fifty thousand. All he needed, or so he thought until he, too, glanced down the street and saw Teddy standing in front of the stage office looking like she could bite spikes in two. She was one troublesome woman, bad t
empered, bad mouthed, insulting, one difficult handful. He thought maybe he was in love with her. He knew he couldn’t let her down.
“I made a deal with Teddy. Sorry.” Rhys pushed the brake lever, gave the reins a shake, and drove off leaving Adams mad as hell.
Seward closed the curtains and walked across the room stroking his red whiskers. He was puzzled. He had expected Delmar to jump at the money and the man hadn’t. That could mean Delmar was a man of principle. If so, Seward would be wasting his time trying to make a better bargain than he had with Avery Knox.
Down below, Boyd Smith rode up in front of the Diamond about the time Adams’s cigar arched across the street. Dust-caked and bone-tired, Boyd pulled his horse up at the rail. “I’m back,” he said ravenous for a tall glass of beer.
“Don’t get off that horse,” Adams snapped.
“Why not?” Boyd lightened his foot in the stirrup and settled his sore rump back on the hard leather.
“Because you’re going back to Taviz. You’re going to tell him to forget what I said before. Tell him I want the Gamble Line hit so hard and so often they won’t dare drive a stage out of Wishbone. Tell him to do it any way he wants, to do anything he wants.”
Boyd shrugged. His worn saddle felt like it was full of splinters. “You sure?” He didn’t need to ask. The malicious look in Adams’s eyes reinforced every word. “All right,” Boyd said and heaved out a wearied sigh. Thankfully Taviz had brought his cutthroat band closer to town. The ride would take a few hours but if he rode hard he could get there and back before midnight. “I’m goin’,” he said. “But I gotta get a good meal before I ride out again and I need a fresh horse.”
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