The Lady Takes A Gunslinger (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 1) (8 page)

Grace cleared her throat. "You must promise to remain sober until you've finished your obligation to me. I won't abide drinking of any sort. It would serve only to muddle your thinking and jeopardize my brother's life. Is that clear?"

Reese curled his fists around the moth-eaten blanket covering his bunk. The woman had brass! Who did she think she was? Did she think he
couldn't
stay sober if he wanted to? He could, but he didn't have to prove it to her or anyone else. Not that it would matter. He wouldn't be with her long enough to see the sun come up tomorrow. That is, if he lived that long.

"Mr. Donovan? Have I your word?"

He sent her a slow, disarming smile and bowed slightly at the waist. "In the spirit of all the brave and honorable Texas Rangers that have gone before me, you have my solemn oath."

A flicker of uncertainty appeared in those lovely eyes of hers before she smiled. "Then we have a deal. Tonight, then," she said as she dropped that whisper of silk back over her face.

An unexpected prickle of disappointment at the loss filtered through him. "Tonight," he repeated. "If Sanders doesn't hang me first."

She looked around at him. "He'll bury his brother first," she told him. "Deputy Smith said he plans to try you late this afternoon."

She paused, as if she could sense the effect her words had on him. Reese wished he could still see her face, but reasoned it was better that she didn't have a clear view of his. "At least I'll get a speedy trial. Go on," he urged. "What else did he say?"

"He told me..." She hesitated.

"What?"

"He said if you're found guilty, which Sanders, um, seems quite certain you are, your hanging is set for tomorrow. At dawn."

Reese jaw tightened involuntarily. "Then I guess there's not much room for error tonight, is there, Miss Turner?"

"Don't worry," she said softly. Then, without another word, she pulled the door open and glided out.

Slumping back onto the hard wood slab, Reese cocked one knee and braced his foot against the bunk.
Don't worry.
"Why should I worry?" he muttered, "with some wet-behind-the-ears dime-novel reader plotting my escape?"

His hand shook slightly. Clenching his fist to stop the tremor, his gaze landed on the intricately spun web of his cellmate, the spider. The sticky fibers jerked and swayed in the shadowy sunlight, having at last captured an unsuspecting fly. The buzzing insect struggled in vain as the spider closed in on it, seizing it easily in its deadly grasp.

Reese watched the bloodless little murder as a spectator, feeling an uncommon affinity for the fly. He wondered absently if such small creatures were governed by the laws of destiny as well, the ones Grace Turner had told him about, and if it was fate or mere blunder that had steered it toward the web.

He wondered absently just what sort of a sticky mess he himself had just blundered into.

But most of all, he wondered if he'd make it another twelve bloody hours without a drink.

Chapter 4

Pressing a hand against her thigh, Grace willed her traitorous knees to stop knocking together as she made her way down the dust-choked street, leaving the ramshackle jail behind her. Perhaps Miss Beauregard had been right about her after all. Maybe there was a wee bit of the thespian in her. For somehow she'd managed to conceal her attack of nerves from Donovan and from the marshal who'd seen her out the door.

Projecting confidence was critical to her plan—particularly confidence she hardly felt. Donovan must believe her capable of pulling this off if they were to count on him helping them. Moreover, she thought, there was something about the man, about his bleak Irish eyes, that said he'd learned the hard way to expect nothing from this life. And strangely, that made her all the more intent on giving him what he believed didn't exist. Hope.

Weaving her way past snoring mounds of fragrant hogs and dozing burros in the street, she glanced at the handful of sombrero-clad men reclining beneath the wood porticos of the local storefronts. Her heels clacked against the uneven planked sidewalk as she detoured around a fragrant sow. Pressing her hanky to the moisture gathering beneath the black netting that covered her face, she mused that even hogs knew better than to brave the Texas heat at midday, not to mention dressed head to toe in suffocating black. She lifted the netting and pushed it back over the small derby hat that secured it. Only another fifty yards to the cool adobe shelter of the dry-goods store. If she was lucky, she'd find a pickle barrel to wilt against.

It was only then, with her view unobscured by the veil, that she noticed the woman on the far side of the street who seemed to be following her. The woman's pace mirrored Grace's. The gold-lace mantilla she held together beneath her chin billowed out behind her as she hurried along. Grace's step faltered.

Maria.

The showy shawl did nothing to soften the enmity of the woman's expression as she glared at Grace. The hateful look crossed the crowded street like a flash of heat, searing her conscience. She gulped and looked away. Maybe, she prayed, if she ignored her she'd just go away.

Oh, why was she such a coward? Her erstwhile heroine would never run from a confrontation like this. Lorna Lee, the adventuress; Lorna Lee, the woman men sighed over; Lorna Lee, the one who never made mistakes...

With steps as regal as a queen's, Lorna Lee Goodnight swept down the dusty
calle
as if she owned it. The trollop in the vulgar gold shawl shrank back against the adobe wall as Lorna approached, cowed by her confident stride.

"Maria—no, don't run away," she called. "Dead-Eye needs your help. I need your help."

"My help?"

"It's a mission of the utmost secrecy. One slip of the tongue and the plan will be in tatters. Can I trust you?"

"I would do anything for him," Maria admitted. "Anything. But why should I trust you? He is in jail because of you. "

"Ah, that. That was all a simple misunderstanding. I assure you, that matter will be remedied within th—"

A hand closed around Grace's arm and spun her around. Grace gasped as a very real, very angry Maria yanked her to a stop.

"So," the woman spat, "you are happy, Señorita Turner?"

Grace opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

"By tomorrow, Reese will be
muerto.
Dead—you understand this, yes?" Her eyes slid down Grace's outfit. "And still you go there to mock him in your mourning weeds."

Shock strangled the words in her throat. "No, I—it... it wasn't like that at all."

"Women like you are
veneno
—poison to men like him. So proper, so pure, you think you are above all of us."

Grace shook her head in denial. "Please, Maria—"

Maria raised her chin. "Reese has more honor in his fingernail than you could ever have,
gringa."
She gave the word the same inflection one might give to "rattlesnake."

"Stay away from him," Maria warned her before turning away. "Let him at least have his dignity."

"Maria, wait." Grace stopped her with her hand. The woman turned, her eyes narrowed like a cat's.

In that one moment of panic, she thought of telling Maria everything, the plan, the promise he'd made her—

But she didn't dare. Not only couldn't she trust the woman, but knowledge of the plan would only put Maria's life in danger as well. There was, however, one thing, she could say. Had to say.

"Maria, I'm sorry about Mr. Donovan. I never meant for any of this to happen. I know you care about him. I want you to know I'm doing everything I can to undo the damage I've done. Please, please believe me."

A flicker of hope in Maria's eyes told her she wanted to believe her, but a moment later it was gone. She smiled derisively.
"Yo recuerdo
... I remember
she
said that, too, once. Look where it's got him."

Grace frowned, not understanding. "She?"

"Adriana." She spat on the ground.
"Su esposa.
His wife."

Grace's eyes went wide. Wife? Reese Donovan had a wife?

Maria jerked her arm away. "You are all alike." She turned on her heel and left Grace staring after her as she disappeared down an alleyway.

"Who was that?"

Grace turned with her hand at her throat to find Brewster standing beside her.

"Gads! You nearly scared the life out of me. You shouldn't sneak up on me that way."

"I wasn't sneaking. Who was she?"

"No one," she answered distractedly, staring at the alleyway. "Just someone who cares about Donovan."

"Speakin' of the devil, are you gonna tell me or just stand there?"

"He said yes. Just as I predicted he would."

Relief warred with worry on his expression. Rasping a hand over his stubbled chin, he asked, "To all of it?"

"On his honor as an ex-Texas Ranger."

Brewster mumbled something that sounded like
that sort of promise takes you about as far as a hornet can swim
.

She stopped in her tracks and lifted the veil back away from her face. "You don't believe him?"

"I don't trust him. Man like him, desperate as all get-out? The man's about to have his neck stretched for murder—"

"Which wasn't murder at all," Grace interjected.

"—why wouldn't he say ever'thing you wanna hear? That there's the bug in this ointment, Gracie," he said, poking a callused finger into his palm.

From every pale gray surface where the sun's rays struck, heat rose in shimmering waves. "Well, I trust him," she replied. "I do. He seemed sincere."

"Sincere?" Brew let out a bark of laughter. "A gun sharp like him wouldn't know sincere from yesterday's porridge."

"He promised me. We have no choice but to trust him, as he must trust us."

"An' yer too dang gullible."

She sighed. "Oh, Brew, you've been saying that for years, but it always works out, doesn't it?"

The old man lifted his hat off his head and swiped at the sweat glistening on his forehead with the back of his sleeve. "Oh, yeah? What about that time you and Luke and that Keller boy built that little wagon with wings an' they tol' you it would fly?"

Grace blanched. "Oh, well, that was—"

"You nearly got yourself kilt roarin' down that hill. Lucky the onliest thing you broke was your arm."

She rubbed her left arm, remembering. "Luke did apologize for that one. But you must admit, that flying machine had real potential."

He snorted again. "An' what about the time at Miss Beauregard's, when you an' them two girls—"

"Now that explosion hardly did any damage at all, Brew," she said, taking exaggerated interest in the frayed seam of her sleeve. "Besides, it's truly unfair of you to bring that up."

"Or the time," he went on, ignoring her, "that sweet-talkin' Frenchman took six months of your teachin' salary at Miss Beauregard's, sayin' he'd get that little book of yer scribblin's published by some fancy New York—"

Brew stumbled to a stop at the wounded expression on Grace's face. He cursed silently, wishing he could cram those words back in his dad-blamed throat. He shuffled his feet against the dusty street. "I'm sorry. That one I shouldn'ta brung up."

"No." She shrugged and swallowed down the lump of humiliation in her throat at the memory. "No, you're right. I was a fool. It was just that I wanted that so much."

Brew lifted her chin up with one finger. "Like you want this feller Donovan to be somethin' he ain't?"

A smile flickered on her lips. "Perhaps. But only for Luke's sake."

"A hard man like him, he'll disappoint you, darlin'. One way or t' other. Don't put no faith in him. I don't believe he'll come willin'." Brew laid his hand over the grip of the pistol strapped across his belly. "I reckon a little encouragement won't hurt none, but don't you go countin' on him. He's as like to turn on us as a cornered wildcat."

He took her arm and ushered her forward again. "If'n we had any other choices, I reckon we'da took 'em. This here, what we're about to do is the craziest thing I ever done. Crazier still 'cause you talked me into lettin' you be part of it. But I don't like it, Gracie. I don't like it at all."