Desperado: Deep in the Heart, Book 2

by Tina Leonard

  “Get up, damn it,” he told Sloan, briskly slapping him on each cheek. “You need a shower something bad.” Sloan didn’t move, so Cody tucked the frame between his stomach and jeans, and leaned to haul Sloan off the bed. “You’re like a bag of lead, my friend.”

  “Hey, amigo. Whash happenin’?” Sloan asked with a stupid, sleepy-eyed grin.

  “Not much, except I may die from fumes. Don’t talk until I get you into the shower.” He helped Sloan down the hall into a cement shower area and shoved him inside, turning cold water on him full blast.

  “Yi-yi-yi!” Sloan cried, trying to leap out.

  Cody pushed him back under the water mercilessly.

  “Let me out ’fore I hurt you! I’ll ’rrest you for this.” Drippy hair fell into his eyes, making his threats sound absurd.

  Cody grunted at him. “Sober up, my friend. Then I’ll let you out.”

  “I’m sober! I’m sober, you son of a bitch!”

  “Wash your mouth out while you’re in there. It has bad words in it.”

  “Aguillar, if you don’t turn off that water, I’m beating the skin off of you.”

  He shook his head. At least now Sloan seemed fighting mad instead of falling down drunk. Switching off the water, he tossed a torn towel his way.

  “You sorry-ass—”

  Cody reached for the water. Sloan held up his hands in surrender.

  “I suppose you want my thanks,” he grumbled.

  “No. I want you to pull yourself together so we can discuss business.” Cody turned his back and walked from the room. “Hope you have dry clothes.”

  “In my truck.” Sloan came out, muttering under his breath.

  “You know that if Widow Baker had seen you like that, you would have never lived it down.”

  “I know,” Sloan said under his breath. “I should thank you. But I was enjoying a private party when you crashed it.”

  “Have anything to do with her?” Cody pulled the frame from his jeans and handed it to Sloan.

  “Nope. It doesn’t,” Sloan snapped, tossing it into a drawer and locking it.

  “Sure it does.” Cody took the chair he’d sat in before. “Women are usually the reason a man tries to pickle his organs, though it’s a bad reason to do it. A woman isn’t worth that kind of damage to your body. But if it’s not her, maybe you went on a bender because you’re an alcoholic. I don’t know.”

  “I’m not.” Sloan shot him a nasty look. “It’s my anniversary, okay? I’d like to celebrate my anniversary in peace, if you don’t mind.”

  “That was celebrating? Remind me not to get married.” Cody stared at the ceiling, telling himself not to think about Stormy and her engagement ring and elderly husband-to-be.

  “Nobody has to remind you because you’re dead set against it. Some of us made it down the aisle, okay, and lived to regret it. I’m over it.”

  “Ah, yeah?” He moved his gaze to his fingers so he wouldn’t look at Sloan. “You never told me.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “True.” Cody nodded. “Care to celebrate the day you got married with some breakfast now? We’ve got work to discuss.”

  “I would.” Sloan jammed his hat on his head. “But for your information, I wasn’t celebrating my wedding day. I was celebrating the day I got divorced, eight years ago today. Not that it’s any of your business.” He stomped past Cody. “I’m going to get my clothes out of my truck.”

  “Fine. Fine and dandy.” Cody remained where he was. Dang, but if he was celebrating his divorce by drinking himself into a stupor, he must not have been the one who’d wanted out of the marriage. Cody bit at a hangnail, considering how a tough guy like Sloan could allow himself to get so riled over a female. Of course, the woman in the picture had been attractive, but that wasn’t a good excuse.

  He must have really loved her. Cody worked that over for a moment. Some raw part of his emotions warned him that he’d better examine his own glass house before he threw rocks, although his first reaction was that he would never let himself get to the point where Sloan had been. A woman wasn’t worth it.

  Stormy is, his mind insisted. Though his heart didn’t want to listen, didn’t want to fall into the prison of loving someone, he knew it was true.

  “Damn it!” he heard Sloan shout. “Cut that out!”

  Cody shot to his feet, striding outside. A throng had gathered, cheering and clapping over something. He elbowed his way through the crowd and groaned. Wrong-Way and Hera were having an all-out, fighting-mad bout over something. Sloan stood in the middle of the two combatants, trying to keep them separated.

  “You lying piece of horse dung!” Hera screamed, reaching around the sheriff for a good grip on Tate’s shirt.

  Beyond reason, she shoved Sloan out of the way with her free hand and grabbed Tate for a round of jerking and pulling. Tate’s head snapped around as if it were on a rubber band, and buttons popped off his shirt like popcorn to lay in the dirt.

  “You’re under arrest,” Sloan said, trying to come to his feet. Still off-center from the effects of the alcohol, he couldn’t move quite like he wanted, and ended up taking the brunt of Tate’s body as big Hera whirled the hapless cowboy in a circle.

  Cody leapt forward and pulled the sheriff out of the dogfight before he could get stomped on. “You’re gonna get yourself killed doing that,” he warned him. “Maybe we ought to stay out of this one.”

  “But she’s manhandling him. As an officer of the law, I’m obliged to make certain that she doesn’t beat him to death. There’s assault and battery to consider here, Cody!”

  He nodded, picking up Sloan’s hat which had fallen into the dirt. “Yeah. But don’t let your bad feelings about women get you heated up too quickly.”

  “I’m not! This has nothing to do with my…celebration.”

  “Well, then, just stay out of it for a second. You know very well Tate’s a sidewinder. Give Hera a chance to sort him out.” Cody leaned back against the courthouse wall and watched as the skinny cowboy took a roll in the dirt. On the sidelines, Curvy and Pick watched with great enthusiasm. Tate let out a yelp as Hera sat on him, bouncing up and down for good measure.

  “Have any idea what this is all about?” Sloan glanced at Cody.

  “She might have realized he has no intention of marrying her.” Personally, Cody felt sorry for Hera. Tate had been leading her up the garden path for a long time, with absolutely no inclination to make an honest woman of her. Men who didn’t make an honest woman out of a woman they bedded, especially more than once, deserved—

  Whoa, Cody told himself. Hang on here. You knew you weren’t going to marry Stormy. You had no business taking her to bed, and you sure didn’t have a right to her virginity.

  “All right, Hera,” he called, moving forward swiftly. “Let Wrong-Way up.”

  “He’s led me in the wrong direction for the last time!” She threw pieces of paper she’d torn in half into the dirt. “Either he heads to the courthouse right now to get the marriage license, or I stomp him.” She bounced on him again for emphasis.

  “You’re crushing my spine, Hera!” Wrong-Way glanced toward Cody and Sloan for assistance. “Get this woman off of me!”

  Wrong-Way wasn’t a friend of his. He wasn’t doing him any favors. Cody shook his head, and reached down to swipe the two pieces of white paper from the ground. “Stormy Nixon,” he read. Her company name and several phone numbers were on the card. Blind anger and sudden jealousy roared through him. “How did you get your paws on this, Tate?”

  “Stormy gave it to me.” The cowboy tried to wriggle out from underneath Hera without success.

  Cody glared down at the slightly built, flailing man. “Why would she give you this?”

  “She said I could call her.”

  “You call her and you ain’t ever calling on me again,” Hera stated. She kept her ample bottom on Wrong-Way like a boulder-sized paperweight.

  Cody himself wanted a turn at Tate. How
in the hell had that weasel charmed Stormy’s personal phone numbers out of her, when she hadn’t so much as given him her work number, for crying out loud? He’d had to pry that out of the movie set people, and even then, he hadn’t been able to get in contact with her. Frowning, he remembered that Stormy had tried, the very first time she’d come to his house, to give him a white card like this one. He’d shoved it back in the ridiculous carpetbag she carried, not wanting anything to do with her.

  He damn sure didn’t want Tate having anything to do with her.

  “Careful,” Sloan murmured next to him. “Remember. You’re the one who said that a woman wasn’t worth it. But I see blood in your eye, amigo.”

  Very casually, very deliberately, Cody slid the halves of the business card into his jeans pocket. “Wrong-Way, it looks like you have two choices. It’s either the courthouse for a wedding license, or hell for eternal damnation. Look at it this way. With Hera, you spend one day a week in church wishing you didn’t have to be there. In hell, you spend every day wishing you weren’t there.”

  The gathered crowd grew silent, waiting expectantly for the pinned cowboy’s answer. Cody couldn’t help feeling sorry for a man who was being forced to do something he didn’t want to do. Lord only knew he hadn’t enjoyed jumping out of Stormy’s window. The guy deserved this humiliation, though, for cheating on Hera. Tate liked availing himself of a good woman’s charms, then not following through on his promises.

  I never made Stormy any promises, Cody comforted himself. Still, he enjoyed watching the cowboy suffer for even thinking he had a chance with Stormy. Stormy’s a free woman. And he was a free man. They were both satisfied with their situation.

  “I’ll go!” Wrong-Way suddenly shouted. “I’ll get a marriage license!”

  The crowd burst into applause. Mayor Curvy did a little jig with his thin, crooked body. “Our two towns will be united at last!” he cried jubilantly.

  Pick clapped his hands together gleefully, reaching out to Curvy to take his arm. Without hesitation Curvy set his arm around Pick’s, and they continued the jig together.

  Hera got up off her groom, lifting him to his feet and dusting him off quite proprietorially. Then she gave him a great, smacking kiss which took up half his cheek, much to the delight of the onlookers.

  Sloan slapped Cody on the back as they walked over to shake Tate’s hand. “You did two good deeds today. You rescued me and Tate. And Pick and Curvy forgot all their turmoil in the excitement.”

  He refused to reply to that. There had been no rescuing of anyone, as far as Cody was concerned. Just some things that had needed to be straightened out. They shook hands with the cowboy and kissed his intended bride, then headed toward Cody’s truck.

  “My clothes have dried out,” Sloan said. “Don’t need to change after all.”

  “Good. You’ve slowed me down enough for one day.” Cody started the truck and pulled away, his thoughts busy.

  After a few minutes, Sloan said, “Hey, Cody, what are you going to do with that business card Hera found on Tate?”

  Cody shrugged as if he could hardly remember taking it. In truth, it was burning a hole in his jeans pocket. “I have a bone to pick with her.”

  “You’re going to call her?”

  He nodded curtly. Most definitely he was going to call her and explain to her that Mary wasn’t setting foot in California for auditions of any kind. He’d warned Stormy before about putting weird ideas in the teenager’s head. Annie and Zach would set Mary on the right track about this matter.

  He would straighten Stormy out once and for all, just as he’d straightened out these other matters this morning.

  His cell phone rang in the truck. Cody switched it on. “Hello?”

  “Cody? It’s Annie.”

  “What’s happening?” He smiled at the sound of her voice.

  “I have a favor to ask of you.”

  “Another one?” A slight smile curved his lips.

  “I know it’s a lot to ask of you. We’ve been calling on you a lot lately. But this is a big one.”

  “Shoot.” He glanced at Sloan, his eyebrows raised in benevolent patience.

  “I wonder if, now that you’ve gotten past the auction, you have time to take Mary out to California.”

  His jaw dropped.

  “It’s so much to ask, I know, but, Cody, Mary has simply blossomed since this movie came to town. I know you’ve seen it. Maybe she’s found her calling. I don’t know. Certainly it isn’t what I would have chosen for her. But you remember how painfully shy and unhappy she was. All that’s gone now. She’s happy, excited, enthusiastic. The way a teenager should be.” Annie’s voice turned pleading. “I hate to ask, I really do. I wouldn’t, if it didn’t mean so much. And I would do it myself, but I’m in no condition to take her right now. Oh, Cody, do you think there’s any way you could?”

  Cody finally gained his voice. “Have you lost your mind? I can’t think of anything worse than allowing Mary to run around with Stormy Nixon.”

  “Why, Cody? She’s been so good for her.”

  “She’s pregnant! And not married! What kind of example is that for a young, impressionable girl?” He stopped the truck before he had a wreck. His hands were shaking. How in the hell would he fly out to California? Airplanes. Earthquakes. Stormy. Hell, no. It would be flying into the face of everything he secretly feared. Of course, a man such as he didn’t have fears. Wasn’t supposed to.

  I can’t go to California.

  “Is it yours?” Annie cut into his thoughts.

  His insides felt queasy. “Hell, no. She’s engaged to some fellow she’s dragging around like a toy dog.”

  “Oh.” Annie hesitated for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” His tone was brisk, signaling that he wasn’t.

  “Okay,” she said reluctantly. “Stormy’s business is not mine, Cody. All I know is what she’s done for my daughter. Maybe if you think about it for a while, you can see your way clear to go. If not, I’ll understand.”

  Her voice said she’d be very disappointed. Cody blew out a breath, a deep release of emotion that didn’t come near to venting the agony in his soul. “I’m sorry, Annie. I don’t need time to think about it. I can’t go to California. Nothing about the idea feels right to me. It’s just another one of Stormy’s impulsive gestures. I’m sorry, but I have to say no.”

  “All right.” She, too, sighed. “Maybe you’re right.”

  The line clicked off. He turned the phone off, feeling terrible. “Damn,” he muttered.

  “Family trouble?”

  “Yeah.” He jerked his head in a curt nod. “As usual, it can be laid at Stormy’s door. She wants Mary to go to California. Annie wants me to take her.”

  Sloan began whistling, which irritated the hell out of Cody. “You’re going to ride in the truck bed if you keep that up,” he muttered.

  “Yep. California, here he comes,” he sang.

  “I’m not going. I’m out of good deeds.” Cody eased the truck back out into the traffic. “Rest assured, there is nothing that could make me go.”

  Mary sat outside the movie set, waiting for her mother and Zach to pick her up. They’d only been gone an hour—long enough for her to finish filming the last bit of her part. She was sad about that. So much about the movie had brought new excitement into her life. Uncle Cody had been so wrong to worry about her being in the movie. She hadn’t been afraid of anything.

  Unfortunately, yesterday her mother had told her that Uncle Cody wouldn’t take her to California to audition for upcoming parts that Stormy thought had promise for her, and which could be worked around her school schedule. Uncle didn’t think she was old enough. Tears sprang into her eyes. No matter how much she’d grown up in the last few months, Uncle just couldn’t see that she wasn’t a baby anymore.

  The stand-in from somewhere in Texas—she couldn’t remember where—ambled over to take a seat next to her. “How are you, Mary?”

 
She knew his name was Sam, and that was about all. It didn’t matter, though. Sam listened to her. He didn’t think she was a baby. Since the moment work had begun on the project, he’d been kind to her. Mary knew she could confide in him, and he would make her feel better.

  Not like Uncle, whom she loved, but who just didn’t understand her. “I’m fine,” she sighed dramatically.

  “You don’t sound fine.” He gave her an attentive look, which made her feel important.

  “It’s just that I have this chance to go to California, but I can’t.” She raised her eyebrows at him and shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but he would know it did.

  “Why can’t you?”

  “My uncle doesn’t want me to. He doesn’t think I’m ready yet.”

  “Well, now.” Sam reached out and gently stroked her back. “I think you’re ready, Mary. I sure do.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Cody never dialed the number on Stormy’s business card. It didn’t seem right. She was marrying someone else. He couldn’t see himself calling up a woman who had proclaimed her love to someone else.

  When he caught himself picking up a whisky bottle for a generous pour, he remembered Sloan’s tortured face and the picture he kept hidden in his desk. Cody put the whisky bottle back in the cabinet, untouched. In no way was he in as bad a shape as Sloan.

  The phone rang, and he leaped to jerk it off the cradle, glad for something to do. “Yeah?”

  “Hera’s over at my house breathing fire,” Sloan told him. “Wants to know where her groom has disappeared to.”

  Cody’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m not hiding him over here.”

  “I don’t think she’s worried about that. She thinks he may have gone to California to visit Stormy.”

  Nausea curled in Cody’s gut. If Wrong-Way had done that, he’d kill him. He’d kill him for being that much of a sniveling coward to say he’d marry Hera and then run off to another woman. Of course, he’d get a few licks in on principle. How in the hell could Tate do something Cody wouldn’t do? “If you’re wanting my humble opinion, I don’t think he’s there.”