Her heart twisted. The pain took her completely by surprise.
"Listen, smartass," she lashed out. "I didn't come here to play parlor games. If you have something to say about Daddy, say it. Otherwise, piss off."
He locked stares with her for a long, hair-raising moment. She saw an iron will in those steely-gray eyes. But she also saw the faintest glimmer of something else. Something that humanized him. Something that might have been... regret.
"Have you heard of a man named Alan Pinkerton?"
She frowned. That question had come like a bolt out of the blue.
"The detective? What does he have to do with my daddy?"
"Pinkerton recruited Michelson to work for him during the war. As an operative."
Sadie blinked.
Then she laughed.
"All right. The time for yarn-spinning is over. You have a nice life, lawman."
She turned and walked exactly half a step before his even voice froze her in her tracks.
"Michelson was lynched by remnants of Terry's Texas Rangers. Men who suspected him of spying for the Yankees during the war."
She rounded on Sterne as fiercely as a tigress defending its cubs. "That's a lie! My father wasn't a traitor!"
"You're half right."
Her chest heaved.
"Any more of my cherished memories you'd like to crap all over, Sterne?"
Inky lashes fanned downward, veiling those penetrating eyes.
"The U.S. government owes you restitution," he said in a carefully modulated tone, "for the house that the Union League confiscated from Meg. I'm in a position to see that you get it. Along with Michelson's war pension, since you're his only surviving heir."
"Oh?" She wanted to laugh—hysterically. "And what's that going to cost me? Besides Daddy's soul, I mean."
"You'll have to travel with me to Chicago."
"What's in Chicago?"
"Pinkerton headquarters."
Her jaw dropped. Then she snorted. "Seems like a helluva tall-tale to concoct just for a rut."
"I was hoping you'd see things that way."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means I'm telling you the truth, Sadie."
Unable to bear his lies a moment longer, she let her hand fly. When her palm cracked across his clean-shaven mug, she didn't know what was more satisfying: the bright red stain that it left, or the explosive sound—like a gunshot—that rocked the daisies in their vase.
"I hope that hurt," she sputtered. "I hope it leaves an imprint for days!"
Then she was fleeing, terrified that he would retaliate. The door slammed hard enough to shake the building as she bolted across the porch's pinewood planks.
She never saw the black-sheathed shadow toss aside his smoke and detach from a pillar. She barely heard the chinking of Cass's spurs as he chased after her into the garden. She was too angry. Too confused. Too desperate to outrun her pain.
But no feet could have carried her that fast.
"Sadie!"
"Quit following me!"
"You went behind my back again!"
"I can fight my own battles!"
"What the hell does that mean?"
By the time the mingled scents of sandalwood and tobacco caught up with her, she could see nothing but red. She was ready to strike out. She didn't care who she hurt.
"So help me God," Cass ground out, "if Sterne laid a hand on you—"
He grabbed her arm from behind. She spun. Snarling like a jungle cat, she rammed the heel of her hand upward. She would have broken his perfect, aquiline nose if he hadn't twisted, blocking her blow with one arm and catching the claw of her other hand in his fist.
"Let me go!"
Her knee collided with his groin, barely missing its intended target. He hissed an oath.
"You sneaked off to the Harvey House," he bit out. "I want to know why."
"Ask Chalkey!"
"So you did sleep with Sterne!"
"What if I did?" she bellowed, not caring that they were making a scene in full view of anyone who happened to look out the Harvey House's windows. "You don't own me!"
Apparently, Cass did care about spectators. With a grim, white-faced determination that might have daunted her if her temper hadn't already incinerated her reason, he half dragged, half carried her behind the ivy trellis next to the cobblestone path. No matter how she clawed, kicked, howled, or writhed, she couldn't break free of the iron arms that pinned her spine to his waist.
She managed to land a ringing blow to his ear. His hat toppled beneath a rose bush. When he spun her out of his arms, she got a clear look at his eyes—eyes hot enough to melt steel.
"You're mine," he snarled, his chest slamming her spine into the building's wooden wall. "Mine!"
She gasped when his mouth swooped, crushing her lips. She squirmed, and his hips ground into hers, leaving no doubt that anger was only one of the primal emotions boiling in his blood. His heart hammered against her ribs, and she clutched great fistfuls of his shirt, wanting to shred the linen and bare his mouth-watering chest to her claws.
But another part of her wanted to drag him closer, so much closer than even the lenient, Dodge City public ordinances would allow. He growled low in his throat, his tongue thrusting deep, his fingers tangling in her hair. There was nothing gentle about his kiss, but she gave as good as she got, hooking a heel over his hip, arching her spine until her breasts were all but smashed against his chest. The heat of his buckle branded her belly. She reveled in her power to make the Rebel Rutter swell.
But somewhere in the midst of all the panting and grinding, the rubbing and writhing, their battle of wills became a siege of seduction. She sucked his tongue deeper. He tipped her hips higher. The heat of his arousal was an aching sweetness against her slit, where brass buttons and lace taffeta had become a maddening interference.
His teeth nipped the column of her throat, chasing shivers down her spine; his licks and growls against her ear shot fire to her core. No matter how much she told herself he was a cur, a coyote, a mongrel pup, the Tigress in her wanted to push him down, to straddle his cocksure mug, and let him feast like a whore-dog to his heart's content. His kneading fingers and phallic thrusts were promising all kinds of carnal wickedness, and she whimpered with impatience, knowing how much Cass excelled at sin.
"I'll make you want me, Sadie," he growled.
"Never," she rasped, nearly crawling out of her skin when he wrenched up her skirt and pushed a finger deep into the milky pressures of her heat.
"Never?" he taunted silkily.
She clawed at his wrist; it did no good. His hip was wedged between her thighs. He was rubbing with catlike finesse, milking her secret pleasure spots. She feared she'd lose her mind. His petting reduced her to guttural growls and moans. Her breaths were ripping; her thighs were shaking. Take me, she wanted to shriek, because he was too damned good at his game—and she was too damned needy to stand on her pride.
One last desperate time, she tried to slap him.
In that moment—a moment that would be forever etched in fire on her brain—Rexford Sterne rounded the corner. The lawman heard her protests; he saw her try to beat Cass off.
His face mottled to a terrifying shade.
"Cassidy!"
Drugged by lust, Cass reeled. Sadie felt his left hand reach for his Colt even as his right withdrew from her skirts.
"No!" she shrieked, weighting his arm, spinning with him, throwing herself into the line of fire.
The only reason she survived that moment was because Rexford Sterne wasn't the trigger-happy hothead that Cass was.
The lawman's thumb cocked the hammer half way.
"Back away from her," Sterne snarled.
"No!" she panted. "He's a Ranger, Cass. A Texas Ranger!"
Cass was so angry, he was shaking. His rage rolled from his flesh in hot, searing waves. She suspected he rarely looked down the barrel of another deadeye's gun, and she clung to his arm all the harder. She prayed that he still
admired Rangers. That he'd show Sterne a modicum of respect. That he wouldn't mouth-off in a way that got him extradited to Texas for murder.
"Rangers have no jurisdiction in Kansas," Cass bit out.
"Is that so?" Sterne's taunt dripped acid. Fishing in his vest pocket, he pulled out something metallic and stuck it to his coat lapel. "Good thing I got me one of these."
Sadie quailed. It was a Deputy U.S. Marshal's badge.
"You can't arrest him," she insisted anxiously. "I'm not pressing charges."
"Sure I can. Disturbing the peace. Public indecency. Drawing a gun on a lawman."
He didn't mention Ainsworth, Sadie reasoned wildly. He mustn't know about the murder charge.
"Rex, I'm begging you—"
Cass's head snapped in her direction. "Rex, is it?"
"Shut up." Sterne's tone was iced steel.
The men locked stares. If looks could kill, both of them would have expired on the spot.
"You want to prove to me that you're not like all the other law tyrants?" Sadie improvised desperately. "That you're honorable? Honest? Upstanding? That my mother was right to trust you?"
Sterne stiffened.
Cass's eyes narrowed, darting her way.
"Let Cass go," Sadie pleaded. "Walk away. Forget this ever happened."
A muscle twitched in Sterne's jaw.
Another few, tense seconds passed before he slowly, reluctantly, eased down his gun hammer.
"I don't like the way you treat your women, Cassidy."
"So you agree she's mine?"
"Do you need me to, boy?"
A tremor of fury coursed through Cass's spine. Used in the pejorative, "boy" was considered as insulting to Texicans as "scalawag" was to other Southerners. Maybe worse.
Sadie bit her lip. She feared that Cass would flap his jaw again. She feared that this time, nothing, not even whatever Meg Michelson had once meant to Sterne, would keep the lawman from slapping cuffs on the renegade and hauling his hide to the calaboose. She dug her nails into Cass's sleeve in warning, especially when pebbles skittered on the other side of the trellis.
Three masculine shadows with rifles poured over the moonlit cobblestones.
Charlie Bassett arched a bristling black eyebrow at the flash of tin on Sterne's lapel. Dodge's city marshal was flanked by two of his grim-faced deputies, Wyatt and James Earp.
"Trouble, marshal?" Bassett demanded.
With a jerky movement—one that testified to the cyclone of anger that still seethed behind his wintry façade—Sterne re-holstered his gun.
"Reckon it was a misunderstanding."
Sadie's breath whooshed from her lungs in a shaky rush. Bassett narrowed his eyes at her.
"You all right, Sadie?"
"Yes. Yes, of course."
Next, Bassett's measuring gaze swept over Cass. Seeing that the trigger guards were still latched on the younger man's Colts, the city marshal grunted.
"Too many damned, fool hotheads riding into Dodge this time of year." Bassett jerked his thumb over his shoulder, toward the Long Branch. "One of you boys needs to buy me a drink for interrupting my rut. We'll start with you, Sterne. Coming, Cassidy?"
Cass shook off her arm. He was calmer now. But he was still too pale for a man who'd spent as much time as he had in the sun.
"I'll catch up with you later, marshal."
Bassett nodded. The four tin-stars strolled away.
Cass stooped to retrieve his Stetson.
"Cass," Sadie began weakly.
But he wouldn't look at her. Turning on his heel, he presented her with the black wall of his back as he stalked down the opposite side of Front Street.
It didn't take him long to reach Wicked Wilma's Watering Hole.
Or to slam the door hard enough to make the window panes rattle.
Chapter 10
HEARTS ON FIRE
Three days. Cass didn't emerge from Wilma's place for three days!
To add insult to injury, Liliana reported gaily to Sadie that Doc and Luke had started placing bets on Cass's stamina. Wilma had gamely picked five of her best, seasoned bawds to pile into Cass's bed, all at one time. After plaster had flaked from the ceiling and the mattress springs had all sprung, Cass had started bellowing down the stairs for more women and whiskey.
"He wore out every single one," Liliana confided, snickering to recount the tale. "But Jesse says that's nothing. Jesse says Cass set a record out Cheyenne-way for servicing eight bawds in one bed. Shoot. I didn't even know there were eight women in all of Wyoming!" Liliana tittered some more. "Too bad it's still droving season here in Dodge, huh? Jesse says Wilma can't spare that many girls at one time."
Sadie had half a mind to march over to Wilma's place and rattle a few window panes herself. But that would mean Cass had won.
Besides, she had to keep up the appearance of not giving a damn. Jesse Quaid was spying on her every night. She swore privately that if she heard Liliana start one more sentence with, "Jesse says," she would flatten the girl.
Sadie figured that Cass had sent the ever-watchful Cherokee to make sure she didn't hook up with any of the "volunteers," who kept gamely offering to help her "prove" she could out-rut Cass. Men gossiped worse than women. Cowpokes fresh off the Western Trail had learned from Texas-bound trail hands that Cass had an exclusive contract with "Chalkey's Redhead." Dodge's long-timers couldn't wait to tell newly arrived drovers about the betting that was going down at Wilma's place.
But cowboy gossip and Jesse's Evil Eye weren't getting on Sadie's nerves half as much as Rexford Sterne. Rangers, apparently, could secure a commission from the U.S. Marshal's office whenever they needed to apprehend renegades beyond the Texas borders. Now that she was aware of this legal loophole, she'd become doubly worried for Cass—and not just because of Abel Ainsworth. She feared that Sterne was biding his time, waiting for his opportunity to finish his showdown with the "Rebel Rutter."
Sterne had said nothing more to her about Chicago, Daddy, or Cass, but while she kept herself busy each night, helping Chalkey pour drinks, Sterne would sit in the taproom. He'd glance out the swinging doors toward Wilma's place. In fact, he frequently scowled in that direction.
Sadie had a sixth sense about men—she had to, in her line of work—and she began to worry that Sterne had developed a personal grudge against Cass. It boggled her mind to think she was the cause. All law-enforcing aside, why should Sterne care that Cass had practically ravished her behind the ivy trellis? She sold sex. She'd been doing so since the age of 13. She'd received much rougher treatment—at the hands of lawmen, yet—than Cass had ever doled out.
Besides, it wasn't as if she was Sterne's daughter!
These questions made for sleepless nights. She half expected Sterne to pound on her bedroom door in the wee hours. Cass or no Cass, Chalkey would require her to cooperate if a Deputy U.S. Marshal demanded a "free ride" in exchange for protection money. Each night that Sterne didn't appear, her nerves stretched tauter. To the best of her knowledge, he wasn't rutting with any of Chalkey's girls.
Or even Wilma's.
Maybe that was why she was so relieved when Cass finally reappeared, sneaking inside her bedroom.
She was only dozing when she heard the quiet thump of boots and the stealthy jingle of spurs at her window. She tensed, her heart lurching, to spy an intruder peering past her shutter slats.
Then a black Stetson sailed over the sill to spin around her bedpost. A smile of relief tugged her lips.
Always the showboater.
Like a slipping halo, the pale-gold gleam of Cass's hair was unmistakable in the wash of the waning moon. Other than that initial jingle, he managed to crawl into her bedroom in relative silence, his rowels muffled by something—although what, she couldn't say. She lay on her side, pretending to sleep. She didn't dare turn her head to follow his movements as he tugged off his boots and tiptoed to the door.
The key's unmistakable click sounded in the lock.
She loosed a slo
w, shaky breath. Chalkey forbade that doors be locked, unless a bawd was entertaining.
She strained her ears and heard other tell-tale sounds: the rustle of linen. The clink of a belt buckle.
He was undressing.
For a long moment, she sensed him standing behind her, next to the mattress. Her heart did a dizzying little dance to imagine him etched in moonlight and shadow, a lean-muscled man-god with belted ribs, narrow hips, and sinfully soft, sun-colored fur that marched from his well-formed pectorals all the way down to the proud thrust of his phallus.
She shivered a little when he raised the quilt and slipped into the bed behind her. He did so with catlike delicacy; if she'd really been asleep, she might not have wakened to the stealthy sagging of the mattress or the gentle weight of his head on her pillow. She would have missed the pleasing fragrance of fresh-washed skin and sandalwood soap.
But surely she would have noticed his heat. To imagine such a perfect specimen of virility stretched out behind her—without touching any part of her—was nerve-jangling. More than that, it was arousing. As the warmth of his loins gently brazed her naked buttocks, she wondered what part of her he'd stroke first.
And with what.
Cass was fond of feathers, honey, and whipped cream; he delighted in unguents, satin, and fur. She was the one who'd exposed him to ropes and cuffs. He'd liked the rougher game, but he rarely opted for it. He'd told her, once, that he just enjoyed holding her. That he preferred to feel her heart beating against his.
The thought made her eyelids prickle. No other man had ever told her such a thing.
"Cass?" she whispered uncertainly.
"Shh." His breath rustled the curls that had tumbled against the column of her neck. "I don't want to talk."
Magpie Cass didn't want to talk? That was worrisome.
"Are you all right?" she ventured.
"Uh-huh."
She bit her lip. He still hadn't touched her. Not even to kiss her shoulder—a sweet little gesture of affection that he often performed moments before he drifted off to sleep.
He'd grown quiet. So quiet. She counted her heartbeats. She reached 312 when she couldn't bear the silence any more.
"Why don't you want to talk?" she whispered.
Pistols and Petticoats (A Historical Western Romance Anthology) Page 16