She yanked the yellow ribbon from her hair and threw it on the ground, then ran her fingers through her short, curly strands, letting them loose to cap her head the way they usually did. She didn’t care if her hair was ugly--or if she was ugly. She didn’t care at all.
She blinked hard. She would not let herself cry any more. Still, she couldn’t help but remember how time and again Louisa Zilpher’s mother, among other busy-bodies, had told her pa to make her grow her hair long, to force her to wear dresses like a "proper" young lady, to stop swearing like her brothers and to stop running wild like some tomboy. Just because her mother was dead, the town biddies thought her pa needed their advice in raising her. They didn’t consider it ladylike for her to doctor horses either, although they surely hotfooted it to her door for help when all else failed.
She had nearly burst with pride, love and gratitude the day she overheard her pa telling Mrs. Zilpher he would find Gabe proper even if she were bald and dressed in sackcloth. Battle-ax Zilpher left in a snit.
Her older brother Henry’s interest in Louisa Zilpher was nothing less than the worst sort of familial betrayal.
With a loud sigh, Gabe leaned against the outside wall of the stable. The scrap of yellow ribbon she had thrown away lay at her feet and beside it was a cigarette. It looked like someone had rolled it, taken a puff or two, and then tamped it out before going into the stable.
Proper ladies never smoked. Mrs. Zilpher turned green at the mere smell of tobacco. Gabe picked up the cigarette and tore off the charred tip. Just holding it made her think of Preacher Carson’s warnings about the road to damnation.
She should toss it away. Her pa and Henry smoked every evening after supper. She would clear the table and make coffee, then they’d all go out and sit on the porch. Her pa would lean back in his rocking chair and look at the stars while talking to her and her brothers about all kinds of things, but particularly about the ranch and his plans for building the few head of cattle they owned into a thriving business. To sit on the porch on warm evenings, watching brilliant desert sunsets, listening to the security and promise of her pa’s voice, were the happiest minutes of her day.
She had always wondered, though, watching her pa and older brother’s obvious pleasure, how a cigarette would taste. Louisa Zilpher didn’t know and never would. The same for Molly Pritchard. Maybe not even Johnny Anderson....
Just the thought of him made her heart ache once more.
Inside the door of the stable a tin match holder hung on the wall. She plucked out one of the matches and hurried clear of the building. Shoving her skirt to one side, she balanced on one foot and struck the match against the bottom of her shoe, nearly toppling over as she did.
The match burst into flame. Holding the cigarette to her lips, she slowly brought the match closer. As it touched the tip, she sucked on the cigarette as if it were a straw. A hot, ragged, burning sensation filled her mouth and lungs.
Shaking out the match was all she could do before she dropped the cigarette and doubled over in a spasm of coughing. Her eyes, nose and throat burned so badly she was sure she was dying.
A man’s laughter broke through her coughing and gasping, and at the same time someone took hold of her arm and whacked her hard on the back.
"Damn it!" she yelled. She tried to pull free, groping blindly, her eyes tearing too heavily to open them.
"Smoke’s got to get out so you can breathe." The man had a pleasant Southern accent and voice she couldn’t place. He slapped her back a few more times. Finally, her eyes began to clear.
"Enough!" she cried.
"Are you all right?" he asked, still holding her arm.
His words were kind, but Gabe heard the laughter in his inflection. Now, even strangers mocked her! She was sick of being laughed at. "Get your filthy hands off me or you’ll be sorry!"
Raising his hands in mock horror, the man backed away from her. He shimmered in a teary-eyed haze. She coughed, blinking hard, until she could make him out in the moonlight. He was tall, with a rangy slimness and broad shoulders. A black, flat-crowned Stetson worn low on his brow shadowed eyes that were no more than a hard gleam. His hair was long in back, fair in color, and wavy as a whittler’s chips. A gold-colored mustache spanned the width of his upper lip and curved down along-side deeply tanned cheeks. Noticing it, she noticed, too, that he was still grinning at her discomfort.
She frowned at the cigarette, then stepped on it to put it out. "I must have smoked it wrong."
"I would say so." He stood loose and easy watching her, shoulders sloped, one thumb hooked on his pocket.
Her gaze followed his long, slender hand to his gun-belt and tied-down holster. Holsters were tied down for one reason--so the guns in them could be drawn fast.
Quickly, she raised her eyes, meeting his. "Who are you?"
"Just someone passing though." His mouth curved into a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. A shiver touched her spine. Instinctively, she knew he wouldn’t tell more. He was secretive, this stranger, and had a comfort with the night that gave her pause. She studied him with frank interest.
"Haven’t you been taught that young ladies don’t smoke?" His accent, with the softness of the South, was mellow and educated sounding, not the quick, nasal slur she was used to hearing around Jackson City.
"Hell," she muttered. "I don’t give a cayoot’s damn what young ladies do."
His grin widened. "Young ladies don’t swear either."
She casually shrugged. "I’ve never been mistaken for one yet."
He cocked his head. "Your mother’ll take a switch to you if she hears you say things like that, miss, especially to a man. In a few years, he just might mistake your meaning."
He jus’ maht mistake yoah meanin’. She didn’t think sassafras molasses could be any smoother. She folded her arms. "My ma’s dead, so I don’t have to worry. And as for men, I don’t give a fig what they think."
He laughed, but cut it short and caught her eye instead. He seemed to study her, as she did him, but she couldn’t imagine why he bothered. He placed a foot on the water trough and leaned forward, resting his elbow on his thigh. With his thumb, he tilted back his hat.
For the first time she could see that his eyes were light blue and that his face was rather pleasing...which surprised her since he didn’t at all resemble Johnny Anderson.
"I guess," he said softly, his drawl coating his words, "that’s why you’re out here swiping cigarettes instead of at the dance."
A pang hit her stomach and twisted. She spun away from him, her arms crossed, and her back stiff. "I do as I please. Not that it’s any business of yours, stranger."
"Are you waiting for someone?" he asked. "Maybe expecting a beau to come along and give you a kiss?"
Her cheeks flamed. Peering at him over her shoulder, she frowned at him for all she was worth, hoping he would have the decency to go away and leave her alone here at the stables with her father’s buckboard and the ranch horses. "Like hell!" she said. "I don’t have anything to do with the boys around here."
He lowered his foot to the ground and straightened. She thought she saw his mouth twitch, as if he were thinking about laughing at her again. She turned to face him square on and frowned harder. Just let him try it.
"You fancy yourself a tough little miss, don’t you?"
She raised her chin. "I have no fancies about anything."
"Do you dance?"
"Of course I do." She smoothed the skirt of her yellow dress. "But there’s no one I wish to dance with." Her chin went up even higher to show him how little the dance mattered to her. She walked a few steps away, hoping that would make it clear to this pesky stranger that any conversation with him was ended.
McLowry watched her go, and only when her back was turned did he allow the grin he had been fighting for the past few minutes, ever since she had first raised that small, defiant chin in a gesture of complete bravado. From the time she had struck the match and it lit up a gamin-like face
with huge dark eyes, a bow-shaped mouth and a straight nose dusted with freckles, he had seen she was far too young and innocent for him. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing out here and what had her so obviously upset.
He had figured it out now. He recognized the symptoms, and remembered enough of his own awkwardness as a youth to grasp the real story here. He had bet anything the right boy hadn’t asked her to dance, or maybe nobody had danced with her. He could see where boys her age might ignore this girl.
She was pretty in an offbeat way. Her wide, brown eyes were warm and friendly, eyes that carried her feelings right up front where the world could see them. He guessed she was only fourteen, fifteen or so. Her body was slender, but he could discern a budding woman’s figure. She carried herself with a bold, sassy assurance that probably scared the boys she knew half to death. Young men usually thought delicate, doll-like creatures were the only girls worth pursuing. They had a lot to learn.
He had learned plenty about women and other equally dangerous things in his twenty-three, or so, years. He had stopped counting a long time ago. With all he had seen and done in life, he felt he should be about a hundred.
He took out his tobacco and began to build a cigarette. "What’s your name?" he asked.
"Gabe."
"Gabe?" He couldn’t stop the grin this time. "I can’t see calling a girl by a boy’s name."
"Nobody’s asked you to."
Well, that put him in his place all right. "That’s true."
"My full name’s Gabriella," she announced.
"That’s pretty." He lit his cigarette.
Her mouth tightened. "I gave a fat lip to the last person who called me by it."
"I’ll keep that in mind, Gabe," he replied with great seriousness.
Slowly, her mouth spread into a grin.
Fiddlers began playing a fast-paced quadrille. She clutched one elbow and turned toward the music, a wistful expression flickering across her face before she faced him once more. "Do you have a name?" she asked.
"This week it’s Jess McLowry."
One eyebrow rose. "And next?"
"Depends on how much trouble Jess McLowry gets into."
He watched her initial incredulity turn into amusement as she gave him a sidelong glance, one that would have been flirtatious if it were given by a woman a little older, a little more experienced. "I see." Her voice was almost a whisper and sounded suddenly knowing in a way that jarred him.
She was at that age where girls are an odd mixture of child and woman, and changed from one to the other quicker than the colors change in a desert sunset.
McLowry tore his gaze from her and looked up at the clear night sky. He had been at a mining camp on his last job. Clearly, he had spent too long there if a slip of a girl like this could give him pause.
The moon was full tonight and the stars bright. Night fell suddenly in the desert. One minute the mountains and rocks were orange, gold and red, and the next, the sun was gone and starlight turned the land a glistening silver. People said desert nights could drive a man a little crazy. McLowry figured maybe they were right.
He gazed in the direction of the music, then dropped the cigarette and crushed it with his heel. It was time to head for the dance and find himself a full-fledged, no-doubt-about-it woman, instead of wasting time with this saucy-mouthed kid.
"Go ahead," Gabe said. "I don’t need a chaperone."
His eyes snapped back at her. Had he heard right? Chaperone? Up until now, he had always prided himself as being a reason for a young lady’s chaperone--not as being one. The thought gave him a chill, as if he had been poked in the gut by the finger of Old Age.
He cleared his throat and turned to leave, but as he did, he noticed the yellow hair ribbon lying in the dust. She had tried to make herself look pretty for these pudding heads, and ended up standing alone by the stables. He stared at it a little too long before he glanced back at her--at her firm chin and the defiant flare of her nostrils, at the hint of hurt and loneliness in her eyes. Hell, she wasn’t his problem. He straightened his Stetson. What did he know or care about young girls anyway?
The expression on her face as she gazed toward the dance captured him. She wore the look of the outsider--the one who longed to be included, but was too awkward, or too poor, or had spent too much time on the wrong side of the law, to ever be accepted. He knew all about that feeling.
For some foolish reason he didn’t want this girl to see herself that way. He didn’t want her to face that kind of isolation.
"Gabe," he said, sure he had lost his mind, "would you walk back to the dance with me?"
Her eyes widened with astonishment. "What?"
He held out his hand. "May I escort you to the dance?"
She stared at his slender, fine-boned hand--not the hand of a working man or a cowboy. Temptation flickered across her face, but also hesitation. "You’re just playing with me," she said finally.
He smiled, thinking about her tender age. "Not likely."
Cautiously, she reached her hand toward his. He took hold of it and could almost feel her let go of the breath she had held. The smile she gave him dazzled, and he felt himself rocked by its force.
He stood absolutely still as he held her soft, slim hand in his. He couldn’t remember the last time a young, innocent girl held his hand. Her open, good-natured trust in him as she stepped closer touched something deep within him. Something he had thought had died many, many years before.
Using the manners he had been taught in another time, another world, he shifted her hand to the crook of his arm and escorted her down Main Street to the dance as if she were an elegant lady, and he, a most proper gentleman.
Chapter 2
Gabe arrived at the entrance of the dance area holding the stranger’s arm. Mrs. Zilpher gawked, her mouth open and her eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. Gabe looked away, only to notice a number of other women staring in her direction. All their attention, though, was riveted on the man at her side.
She glanced up at him then, seeing him better now in the lantern light. There was something angular and wary about him...yet with an arresting quality that intrigued. His face was thin, his nose finely chiseled and his cheekbones narrow and refined, not coarse and heavy like most of the men around here. But it was his clothes that separated him the most from the cowpunchers and ranchers Gabe knew.
A cream-colored shirt that looked like it was made out of silk, a shiny black vest that hung open, and close-fitting black trousers gave him the crisp, polished look of a gambler or--she remembered his tied-down holster--a gunfighter.
Her breath came a little faster, and she pulled her hand from his arm as if he were made of fire. Her pa had warned her about men like him. They were drifters and no good, leaving broken hearts and destroyed lives in their wake. Were she to listen to her pa’s advice, she would get away from him fast. But then, he had given her no cause to do that. Quite the opposite, in fact.
He faced her. His eyes were the pale blue of the hot desert sky, a color she loved. Although his hair and brows were fair, his lashes were dark and long. She dropped her gaze, suddenly feeling peculiar about noticing a man’s eyelashes.
As he stepped up to the table to check his hat and gun belt, she found herself peeking at him again. He was handsome, she had to admit, even though he had laughed at her and he was kind of old. He even looked older than her brother Henry, who was already nineteen.
Such nerve, though, to have teased her about beaus and about kissing them! At the thought, her gaze leaped to his lips, his mustache. Quickly, she averted her eyes again, her face burning. None of the boys she knew had a mustache yet.
Only a couple of whiskers sprouted from Johnny Anderson’s chin.
When the stranger faced her once more, her heart began to beat so hard she was sure he could hear it. She expected him to say good-bye now. After all, he had only said he would escort her here. She had been a thousand times a fool to return, to let everyon
e notice that she was with him, only to have him walk away from her without a single dance.
It would be less mortifying if she were to walk away from him. She should leave now, right now.
Instead, she just stood there, feeling conspicuous and awkward. She tried to find the words to tell him she was leaving, but they didn’t want to form.
The fiddlers started up a rollicking schottische. With hoots and shouts, couples hurried onto the dance floor. She stood stock-still and watched them go.
He leaned close, his shoulder pressing against hers. She nearly jumped out of her skin at his nearness. "Might I have the pleasure of this dance?"
She felt the blood rush to her face. Maht ah have the playshah of this dance? She didn’t think she had ever heard words so sweet. She searched his eyes for signs of embarrassment, for any indication he was asking solely because he felt some god-awful obligation to her. His gaze was friendly, encouraging. She took a deep breath and from heaven-only knew where, she found the power to nod.
He took her hand and led her toward the dancers. Facing her, he placed one hand on her waist, and held out the other. Her arm was leaden and her legs felt like custard as she lifted one hand to his shoulder and settled the other in his grasp. His fingers gently closed on hers.
Now, close to him, she found she couldn’t tear her gaze from his face. He looked nothing like other men she had been around. At home, there was a book she treasured above all others. It had been her mother’s, and it told glorious tales of handsome, elegant Greek and Roman gods leaving Mt. Olympus to toy with the hearts of humans on earth. She wondered if one of them might have landed right here in Jackson City.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
She knew she could dance well, having been the unwilling partner to her brothers who had practiced with her until they got up nerve enough to ask a "real" girl to dance. Her problem was simply that she had never danced with anyone other than family. She took an unsteady breath, feeling more as if she were facing a gallows than a two-step. "Ready."
"Let’s go," he said, then winked and spun her around and around into the whirl of other dances. Concentrating intently, she matched him, step for step.
Dance With A Gunfighter Page 2