Desperate Hearts

Desperate Hearts

by

Alexis Harrington

Copyright © Alexis Harrington, 1996 All
rights reserved

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Smashwords
Edition

For being my tireless cheering section
thanks to Lisa Jackson and Margaret Vajdos.

For the inspiration,

thanks to Don Henley and Glenn Frey

PROLOGUE

Blakely, Oregon

September, 1895

“
Apparently Mrs. Bailey
wasn’t interested in your offer to, shall we say, comfort her in
her bereavement? How ungrateful of her.” Luke Jory leaned back in
his swivel chair, his long-fingered hands steepled in front of his
chest as he considered the man standing before him. “She must be
more discerning than I gave her credit for.”

Tom Hardesty stood on the other side of the
desk in the rancher’s office. He shifted from one foot to the
other, working hard to formulate an answer. He resisted the impulse
to cover his face where a three-inch-long knife cut was finally
beginning to heal. Several stitches had been required to close the
wound that ran from his temple nearly to his jaw. An ugly scar was
bound to be the result.

“
Well, Hardesty, what’s
your explanation?”

He felt as though he were a boy being called
to task by the schoolmaster. Beneath his feet lay a thick blue
carpet. Expensive furniture filled the room. Jory liked his
comforts, and he had a cultured tone and a high-falutin’ way of
talking. Even when he didn’t shout, that attitude, combined with
his dark, piercing eyes, could make a man feel like a skewered pig
turning on a spit. When he did raise his voice, and that was often
enough, the sound made Hardesty think of the gates of hell opening.
But it didn’t do to show him fear. No sir. Jory could home in on
fear like a hungry wolf smelled blood.

“
The woman left at least a
month ago.” It galled Hardesty to admit it. “Word is that she’s run
off to find Jace Rankin.”

Jory sat up straight again, tight lines
forming on either side of his mouth. He brought his fist down on
the desktop. “Yes, I know that! Damn it, Hardesty, we have a nice
operation going here in the region, and it’s finally running
smoothly. If you’ve jeopardized it because you think more often
with your lust than your brain, I will personally see that you pay.
The last thing I need or want is someone like Rankin poking around
here. You told me the woman wouldn’t be a problem. Do you know
which way she went?”

Hardesty felt his neck grow hot. “Rankin’s
in Silver City. I got a wire from a couple of our men who spotted
him there. If we’ve got him, she shouldn’t be far behind. I’ll
teach her not to run off again.”

“
I want Rankin stopped—I
don’t give a tinker’s damn what you do with the woman.” Jory stared
pointedly at the scar on Hardesty’s face. “Or what she does to you.
That’s your business, and I don’t want it interfering with mine.
Report back to me when you know something worthwhile. I expect that
to be soon.” He turned the swivel chair away from Hardesty and
looked out the window, effectively dismissing him.

Tom Hardesty left Luke Jory’s office,
burning with anger and humiliation. That Bailey bitch had been
making a fool out of him for years, but nothing—not even her knife
blade ripping down his face—could douse the fire she lit in his
blood. That long hair and creamy skin . . . the very thought of her
stirred him up until he couldn’t think straight.

Furious that the Bailey woman had slipped
away from him, he mounted his horse and wheeled it around. But, he
recalled, the two men in Silver City had instructions to bring her
back. And when she returned . . .

He had mastered her once, and he would do it
again. This time, she wouldn’t forget who was in charge.

CHAPTER ONE

Silver City, Idaho

September, 1895

“
Better get the sheriff,
Noah,” Chester Sparks called to a youngster on the other side of
the street. “A mean-looking cuss has someone cornered in my saloon
and he don’t seem to be interested in a card game.”

The boy took off running, and Chester and
his customers lingered on the sidewalk, curious and popeyed,
peeking gingerly over the swinging doors that opened into the
barroom of the Magnolia Saloon. Just moments earlier they’d
stampeded out through those doors, beers and cards abandoned, when
a man Chester originally mistook for a youth walked in and leveled
his rifle on a drifter holding a poker hand.

All they could see was the back of the man’s
head and most of that was hidden by his wide-brimmed hat and the
turned-up collar of his duster. Chester had a bad feeling about
this. As rowdy and wild as this town had been over the years, and
with all the fights and shootings that had occurred, nobody had
ever been killed in his place.

That might be about to change.

* * *

In the Magnolia Saloon, Jace Rankin stared
down at the saddle tramp sitting at a table by the stove. The man’s
silver hatband gleamed like tiny mirrors in the shaft of afternoon
sun that cut through the side window. A pile of money was heaped in
front of him and he held a fan of cards in one hand. The other
hand, Rankin figured, rested on the grip of his gun, hidden by the
terrified saloon girl who sat immobilized on his knee. She wore
only a camisole and drawers, and a flimsy shawl. Her upturned face
was ghastly pale under her powder and rouge. Rankin pressed his
mouth into a tight line as he struggled with cold fury.

“
Get moving, honey,” Rankin
instructed the girl. She leapt to her feet and hurried toward the
doors, her backless shoes flapping.

Rankin held his attention on the gambler,
appraising his winnings. “Let’s see if your luck will hold, Clark.
You put both hands on the table where I can see them and maybe I
won’t have to shoot you.”

Offering him an arrogant smirk, Sawyer Clark
dropped the cards while keeping his eyes fixed on the barrel of the
Henry rifle aimed at his forehead. Slowly, he rested his hands on
the scratched tabletop.

“
I see you know my name,"
Clark said, “but who are you,
boy
?”

Rankin felt his blood rise at the insult,
although he’d heard variations of it often enough. Because of his
size and youthful face, people often supposed him to be a lot
younger than his thirty years. But he had a certain reputation,
justly earned, that made some people nervous and balanced the
scales. He paused a beat before answering the man’s question.

“
Jace Rankin."

For the first time, Clark let his attention
stray from the rifle to the face of the man holding it.

Rankin saw the man’s throat work as he
swallowed, and he felt an instant of satisfaction as Clark’s
bravado slipped away from him like a wet bar of soap.

“
So? What do you want? I
don’t have a price on my head.” Clark grinned suddenly. “Before the
law figures out I was involved, I’m gone.”

“
Not this time. I’ll kill
you first.”

The grin faded. “What’s your complaint,
Rankin? You got nothing on me.”

“
I see you like the
ladies,” he replied, referring to the saloon girl who had scampered
away.

“
What of it?”

“
Think back a few years.
Remember a pretty young blonde in Salem, a blacksmith’s wife? Celia
McGuire?”

Clark shrugged negligently. “Can’t say as I
do. I’ve known a lot of women in a lot of towns. I never bothered
with piddling details like whether they were married.” A chuckle
rolled out of him. “Did her husband hire you to find me?”

Rankin drew a slow breath, working to keep
his finger easy on the trigger. “This isn’t about some barroom
scrape, Clark, or a jilted husband. She’s the woman you bragged
about killing while you sat in that poker game a couple of months
ago in Burns. You strangled her for laughing at you, you said.
Remember now?”

Rankin gently touched the rifle’s cool
muzzle to a spot just above the bridge of Clark’s nose. “Celia
McGuire was my sister.”

Comprehension flooded Clark’s expression and
sweat popped out on his forehead. “You can’t prove nothing.”

Rankin smiled. “Oh, but I can. It doesn’t
matter anyway. I could shoot you right now and save everyone a lot
of time and trouble. This old Henry wouldn’t leave much of your
head,” he said, leaning into the weapon. “And I could walk away
from your bleeding carcass without a twinge. But we’re going to do
this right. The sheriff will be along any minute and I’ve got
witnesses willing to testify, Clark. Riled witnesses. You shouldn’t
cheat at cards—it can come back on you.”

The remnants of Clark’s smug expression
contorted into a malevolent glower. “I ain’t going to jail over
some lousy hay roll, not for a minute. She had it coming—she sure
as hell don’t laugh at anyone now." In the blink of an eye the
drifter overturned the table and reached for the revolver strapped
to his right hip.

Rankin jumped back, avoiding the shower of
cards and beer. Time and events slowed to a crawl and became
slightly distorted. Even Clark’s actions seemed sluggish, as though
he were moving through winter-cold molasses, giving Rankin plenty
of time to take aim and pull the Henry’s trigger—

* * *

“
Leave the
bottle.”

“
Yessir, Mr. Rankin.” The
skinny, nervous bartender who had introduced himself as Chester
Sparks polished a tumbler on his apron. He set it next to the
whiskey bottle he had delivered to the back table, than hovered
solicitously. Is there anything else you want?”

Rankin eyed the nosy group that loitered in
a semi-circle behind Sparks. They maintained a safe distance, but
they were gawking just the same.

“
Yeah—to be left alone.”
With slow, deliberate movements, he laid the Henry across the
table. The rifle seemed especially heavy.

The action had the desired effect. Chester
looked at the long, polished barrel and flinched. He took two good
paces backward. After all, the bartender had seen him kill a man
with that weapon just an hour earlier, and right here in his own
saloon. Even the old man playing the piano froze, choking off the
peppy melody of “Camptown Races” in mid “do-dah.”

Chester turned and herded off the
spectators. “You boys heard Mr. Rankin. Let him be now. We’ve had
enough excitement around here today.”

The men shuffled to the bar with backward
glances, murmuring among themselves. Rankin stared them down in
order to hurry their progress. A couple of drunks at a corner table
stared at him as if he were the most interesting thing on the face
of the earth. Their curiosity felt different from that of the
others, but no less annoying. He watched them until they looked
away, then he lowered his gaze to the bottle in front of him and
breathed a deep sigh.

Nearly seven years after his sister’s
murder, Jace Rankin had finally found the man who had killed her.
The sheriff, after talking to him and the other witnesses of
today’s events, was satisfied, and the matter was considered
closed. Now Sawyer Clark lay stretched out in the undertaker’s back
room with a bullet in his chest.

For a long time Rankin had believed that
Celia’s husband, Travis McGuire, had strangled her. McGuire had
even served five years of a life sentence for the crime. That was
what being in love got a man. But when his accuser, in a deathbed
confession, admitted to false testimony McGuire was freed.

It had been hard for Rankin to grasp
McGuire’s guilt—they’d been good friends. But once he had, it was
even harder for him to let go of it.

He shrugged out of his duster and hunched
over the table, hooking his boot-heel on the chair rung. He made no
move to pour a drink from the bottle Sparks had left him.

He ought to be celebrating. He had expected
to celebrate. His vendetta had sent him looking for Travis first,
then Clark. The search had taken him all over the Northwest. It had
ended today, when he faced Clark in this dark, smoky saloon. After
having eaten up so much of his life, it was now finally behind
him.