Colorado Moonfire

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “The marshal’s been missing for three days, and you suddenly turn up from out of nowhere with his horse,” Foxe said in a stealthy voice. “Let’s see what’s in these saddlebags.”

  “I just dropped Barry off at Doc Geary’s. Not that it’s any of your business,” she hissed as she grabbed for his arm. “And if you so much as—”

  “Get your hands off me. Or Wally’ll have an unfortunate accident with that pistol.” Foxe shook himself free of her grip and yanked out her emergency provisions, tossing them onto the straw-strewn floor. “Food, water, whiskey. This lady’s ready to travel, or my name’s not Connor Foxe.”

  “I’m telling you, I have traveled! I brought Barry Thompson in from my cabin above Phantom Canyon—”

  “With all this stuff?” Foxe’s obsidian eyes mocked her. “Okay, so maybe you got a fit of the guilties and took him to the doc, but with this many supplies you’re ready to ride awhile, lady. What do you think, Eberhardt? Does that leather pouch look like a great place to carry stolen jewelry? Like maybe the stuff from the Christmas Eve robbery?”

  The stable manager cleared his throat. “I thought—they told me it was in a flour sack,” he replied.

  Wally’s voice was deep and nasal, making him sound even denser than Lyla suspected he was, but she turned his answer to her advantage. “That’s right—I saw that sack myself! So why do you think—”

  Connor grabbed for the pouch and she cried out when he wrenched it from her grasp. He looked inside with a triumphant laugh. “Just as I thought. No self-respecting whore would carry loot in a flour sack—not when everybody in town knows that’s what the thugs hauled it off in. I’m betting you found Thompson in a bad way and cut yourself in on this real sweet deal, after he caught the guys who—”

  “He didn’t catch them!” Lyla was ready to strangle her compactly-built tormentor, but Eberhardt was just fool enough to pull the trigger. “I cut the bullet out—”

  “Tell it to the judge, sweetheart.” Foxe spread the contents of the pouch on a nearby hay bale and was pawing through it. “All the talk was about that sparkly ring in Thompson’s pocket, which everybody knows was for you, and about how you swore to retrieve the silver shamrock you lost.” He looked up from the glittering array of finery and narrowed his eyes at her. “Neither piece is here. Which tells me you stuck them away and figured on hocking the rest after you got out of town. Or out of the country. Ireland, isn’t it?”

  “That’s insane! Why would I hide—” She looked frantically at Eberhardt, hoping to play on his friendship. “Wally, you know I always wore my shamrock because Mick made it. So why, if I got it back, would I not have it on?’

  The stable manager shifted his weight, looking to Foxe for assistance. “Well, I guess—”

  “She’s got a snake’s tongue in that pretty head,” Connor cut in, “but she can talk herself blue. I doubt Deputy Adams’ll fall for her story, either. Like everybody else, he’s been real concerned about Thompson’s whereabouts. Let’s get her over there, see what he says.”

  “You’ve got this all wrong! If you’ll ask Barry—or Doc Geary—”

  “Sounds to me like they’re busy right now—unless you also lied about taking Thompson to his office.”

  When he yanked her closer, by the lapel of her jacket, Lyla knew she was outmanned—just as she suddenly realized where else she’d seen the glittering, dark eyes that were boring into hers. These men were setting her up to take the fall for the robbery because…the pieces didn’t all fit, tired as she was, but she had to fight with every weapon she had. “The horses! They’ve been out all night, and if they aren’t fed and—”

  “Wally’ll see to them after we escort you to the jailhouse,” Foxe replied. “Let’s get on over there— no tricks or screams for help, if you know what’s good for you. And after you’re settled into your cell, Eberhardt can bring the rest of your gear over. It might prove interesting.”

  Settled into my cell? Lyla gasped as Foxe shoved her toward the door, and with Eberhardt on her other side, the pistol in his coat pocket prodding her back, she knew better than to try to escape. As they marched her down the sidewalk, she could only hope Rex Adams would see the real reasons behind her provisions and arrival.

  The moment she stepped through the doorway of Thompson’s office, though, she knew she’d been framed. The deputy was skinny and carroty-haired, mostly a paper pusher, since Barry was so adept at handling the crimes and crises around town. And when his pale hazel eyes registered surprise followed by secretive comprehension, Lyla lost all hope of persuading him to see her side.

  “Well, well. Miss O’Riley, isn’t it?” he asked as he rose from his creaky chair. “You’ve certainly made a name for yourself these past few days.”

  “Get a load of this, Adams.” Connor said as he tossed the pouch of jewelry onto the deputy’s desk. “She says she brought Thompson in to see Doc Geary, and she says she took the shot out of him. But she won’t say how she came across this booty. Wally and I caught her just before she rode out, with enough food and water to last her quite a ways. Get the rest of her stuff, Eberhardt. And be quick about it.”

  The stableman clomped out the door, leaving Lyla caught between the intense gazes of Connor Foxe and Rex Adams. They were obviously in cahoots—and Barry knew nothing about whatever scheme they’d cooked up, or he would’ve fired Adams when he turned traitor. It was best to let these men do the talking. The less she said from here on out, the less information she could inadvertently pass on to be used against herself and the marshal.

  “Cat got your tongue, miss?” Adams asked.

  He had a soft voice, yet his knowing tone put a knife’s edge on his seemingly innocent curiosity. Lyla stuffed her hands in her coat pockets, considering her reply carefully.

  “I don’t like the looks of this,” Foxe muttered, and suddenly he was rifling both her coat pockets at once. “A pistol!” he crowed, wrenching it from her hand. “Awfully big piece for a midget like you.”

  “Well, well. Looks like Thompson’s,” the deputy chimed in. He studied the gun when Foxe handed it over, shaking his head in mock surprise. “Miss O’Riley, we’re finding all the wrong things on you, honey. You’d better speak up or I’ll have no choice but to lock you away until we can get to the bottom of this.”

  “It’s like I told Foxe,” she said tightly. “I found Thompson shot, I patched him up, and when I was bringing him into town, I found that bag of jewelry. I was on my way here, to turn the pouch in—”

  “With certain pieces missing.” the man beside her said.

  “My pieces, which were gone when I found the sack!” Lyla blurted. “Why would I steal my own pendant? Or the ring everyone claims Thompson was going to give me? It makes no sense—”

  “After the way you ran out of Delmonico’s earlier this week, everyone in town thinks you’re playing Barry for a fool.” the deputy answered with a wry smile. “Why should I believe you care enough to act as his nurse? You could’ve poisoned him, for all we know, and then—”

  Lyla threw her hands in the air. “Ask Barry what I did! Ask Doc Geary!”

  “I fully intend to, young lady. It’s my job, now that Thompson can’t investigate for himself.” The lanky deputy took her arm and steered her toward the hallway where the jail cells were. “Meanwhile, you’re going to cool your heels and get your story straight. You’re an immigrant, you live in a whorehouse, and your actions have shed a dubious light on your relationship with the marshal. He’s not keen on having his reputation compromised.”

  “In other words, cupcake,” Foxe called to her from the office, “you’re in it up to your little pink ears.”

  When the door clanged shut behind her, Lyla felt as though Adams had locked her into a dungeon and thrown away the key. She collapsed on the smelly cot, staring blankly around the peeling plaster walls, which had obscenities scrawled on them in various languages. Her cell was the last one, a windowless corner cubicle, and all she could see of the office w
as the door Adams had shoved her through. A chill went down her spine when the scraggly man in the next cell grasped the bars between them, leering at her with a deranged grin.

  Hushed murmurings drifted down the hall, as though Connor and the deputy were conferring about their next moves. Lyla strained to hear…someone came in from outside…Eberhardt’s chuckling gave way to a roaring trio of laughter and then Foxe poked his head into the hallway. “Chrissakes, O’Riley,” he taunted. “Stealing Thompson’s horse and gun I can understand. But what the hell’d you figure on doing with his boots and longjohns?”

  She stood and paced toward the wall, her face aflame. Of all the nerve, to insinuate—

  “Oh shut up, or I’ll steal your underwear, too!” she snapped at the lunatic next to her. He was giggling uncontrollably, a new interest kindled on his mangy face, and when he began gyrating against the cell bars, she was disgusted beyond words.

  Her only hope was that Thompson and Doc Geary would straighten things out and spring her from this horrid hole. She’d made an unfortunate impression by deserting Barry at Delmonico’s, but her friends—Miss Victoria, and the ladies—and Matt McClanahan!—knew her true feelings toward the marshal. If all these people protested her incarceration, Adams would have to release her. As soon as they all heard…

  Lyla sank onto the rickety cot with a groan. If the deputy and Foxe and Eberhardt were indeed in alliance, they might not tell anyone she was here. Few people were on the street when she entered the livery stable. Doc Geary might’ve been called out on a case, and wouldn’t realize she hadn’t come to visit Barry. Neither would Matt, if he’d gone back to the hotel to be with Emily. And Thompson was in no shape to fetch her…

  As the shadows deepened into late afternoon, Lyla sank, deeper into despair. The only person to come down the hallway was a woman who brought meals from a nearby café; Lyla had never seen her before. The biscuits and beans sent up a tempting aroma when she lifted the cloth napkin. Her stomach rumbled; she had not eaten since yesterday about this time.

  But when the wooden tray clunked against the ring in her pocket—bless the saints, she hadn’t been searched!—she lost her appetite completely. What if Foxe and Adams did tell Barry they’d caught her with his horse and his gun and the stolen jewelry? He’d been weak and exhausted enough during the ride into Cripple that he might easily misconstrue her motives now—especially since she hadn’t told him about finding the loot in his saddlebag.

  Any lawman would have doubts about her, given the fact that his own ring was missing from the pouch…given the fact that she’d run out on him and accused him of being a lecherous beast, and then drugged him and frightened him with a fire. And then she’d watched him sail into Phantom Canyon on a wobbly toboggan, and admitted she hadn’t expected him to survive.

  Evidence was piling up on the wrong side of the ledger, depending upon how Marshal Thompson chose to read it—and whether he believed a longstanding deputy or the feisty flirt he’d met only a few days ago. Lyla set the tray aside, sighing dejectedly. It could be a long, lonely wait, for a fate that seemed less and less promising as the evening ticked by, marked by the tinny chiming of the office clock.

  Chapter 10

  “Whoa—slow down! You’re supposed to be resting, remember?” Matt McClanahan flashed Barry a grin and reached for the crockery teapot on the bedside table. “I’ll pour you some of this nice brew, and then you can lay back on those pillows and tell me—”

  “Tea!” Thompson snorted. “Had enough of those strange concoctions while Lyla was taking care of me. Whiskey and a good cigar’s what I need. Think you could sneak me some?”

  “And have Doc Geary on my butt?” McClanahan asked with a laugh. “Now take it easy and tell me what you remember about the ambush. Was it the same three thugs from the reception? Do you know who they were?”

  With a thoughtful sigh, Barry accepted the steaming teacup his best friend handed him. It was the damndest thing: some parts of the past few days were as clear as a Colorado sky and others he couldn’t recall at all, like having those bullets cut out of him. Lyla would have to fill him in, but for now he pushed aside the cozy images he experienced whenever he thought of her. “Two of the men went up the trail along the rim of the canyon. Hid behind some trees and came out shooting. I assume the other fellow rode into the gulch to attack the posse. Did everybody else make it back in one piece?”

  “Far as I know.” Matt answered. “Said they heard shots above them and circled back, but you were gone. So they returned to town, figuring you’d ridden on ahead. Your search party barely made it out of Cripple before they were forced back by the blizzard.”

  “Bad night all around,” he replied with a sorry shake of his head. “Adams went up the side with me and followed a set of tracks into the trees, while the rest of the men—only about three, it being Christmas Eve—took the more likely trail into the canyon. After I stopped those two bullets, it was all a blur.”

  His handsome friend smiled knowingly. “Good thing Lyla doesn’t listen to orders. You could’ve dropped into a drift and we wouldn’t have known it until Buck came back to town. And then we might not’ve found you until spring.”

  “You trained him better than that, McClanahan. He would’ve stood beside me till he froze to death.” His voice sounded thick with emotions he wasn’t accustomed to expressing. He’d never owed anyone his life, and it was a heavy debt. “And Lyla—now there’s a woman. Who’d have thought that little squirt had the guts to remove my bullets? Had to be her, though. Nobody else could’ve gotten there.”

  McClanahan’s grin flickered across his face and he looked away to keep from laughing. “So what other kind of medicine did she practice? Three days, snowbound with her in a cabin? Folks’ll get a lot of mileage out of that!”

  “And they’ll have it all wrong,” Barry insisted quickly. He ignored the pain in his leg to lean closer and make his point, knowing McClanahan would tease him forever if he didn’t set the record straight. “Lyla might work at the Rose, but that doesn’t make her a whore. The whole time we—”

  “I never meant to imply she was,” Matt interrupted quietly. “But it’s no secret you’ve been seeing her, and I know you, pal. You can talk a woman naked faster than any man I’ve ever met. And I don’t mean that as a derogatory remark.”

  The man seated beside his bed was totally sincere, but Thompson shook his head. “Nope. She got my clothes off me somehow, and I vaguely recall her sponging me off, and feeding me after the fever broke. But otherwise, it was all tea and talk. And the tea wasn’t worth beans, I can assure you.”

  Matt cleared his throat as though he wasn’t buying it. “You said she sedated you—”

  “You think I wouldn’t remember dipping into that little honeypot?” He smiled sheepishly at the nurse who’d poked her head into the room. And when she left, he couldn’t keep a grin from his face, wondering which of his plans to reveal to McClanahan first. “And just between you and me, ole buddy, I don’t intend to take Lyla to bed until she’s my lawfully-wedded wife. She’s earned my highest respect, and from here on out Barry Thompson’s going to behave like the perfect gentleman Miss O’Riley deserves. Somebody else can be the town playboy.”

  McClanahan choked on his tea. “Thompson, this is me you’re telling—”

  “I kept your woman alive for you when she was ready to cash in, thinking you were dead after that shack exploded,” he said in a solemn voice, “and I expect the benefit of the doubt from you in return. I love that woman, Matt. She accused me of being a randy old ram at your party, and she was right. I aim to prove I’m capable of higher moral conduct.”

  Matt’s ruddy face lost all signs of jest. He sat back against his chair, eyeing Thompson long and hard. “Are you sure she wants to be placed on such a pedestal? Lyla impresses me as a fun-loving, affectionate—”

  “She is,” Barry assured him with a grin. “But she told me herself she despises men who take what they want without asking. And Victor
ia warned me not to steer her into any scandalous situations. I’m finally catching on, finally listening to women instead of assuming they’ll fall for all my lines.”

  “I’ve got to hand it to you for trying,” came his friend’s reply. “But if Lyla’s anything like Emily, she’ll be hurt if you turn her away when she wants to make love.”

  Barry shrugged. “Emily’s used to getting everything she wants. My woman’s been to hell and back, for her brother and now for me, and I can’t ignore her challenge to change. Not that I’ll have to curb my animal passions for long,” he added mischievously. “That’s where you come in.”

  McClanahan’s dark eyebrows raised in a question.

  “You know that piece of property up north, the one that overlooks the whole town? I want you to put a deposit on it for me. Then find out who built Silas Hughes’ place and have him come see me, soon as he can.”

  Thunderstruck, Matt stared at him. “You’re sure about this? You fall for every woman you meet, Thompson, and you met Lyla less than a week ago.”

  “I know what you’re thinking, and I appreciate your concern,” he replied with his good hand upraised. “But Love-’em-and-leave-’em Thompson has finally met his match. I sure as hell can’t ask her to live upstairs from Mrs. Delacroix’s shop, so it’s time to build a place befitting my bank account. You’d have done the same for Emily—”

  “But I—”

  “—and it wasn’t too damn long after you met her that you refused to live without her,” he continued smugly. “Things hit a snag when she accused you of killing her daddy, but look how happy you are now. I want the same satisfied glow I see on your face, McClanahan. It’s time for life to stop passing me by.”

  With a resigned sigh, Matt stood up and placed his teacup on the table. “All right, I’ll put some money down on that land and find your architect. Anything else you want?”

  Thompson chuckled, feeling as giddy as a kid after his first kiss. “If you see Miss O’Riley—I imagine she’ll be here any time now—don’t breathe a word about me or the house. You might ask the posse if they got a good look at our thieves. I—I’m sorry I didn’t recover Emily’s ring, pal,” he added more quietly.