Three Men and a Bounty (14 page)

“Ain’t too many men in this country reach our age without having a bit of a past with a gun—whether on the side of the law or against it.

And it ain’t uncommon for today’s outlaw to be tomorrow’s lawman.”

That was true enough.

When Troy didn’t respond, James said, “Seems this Cain Baird has a powerful score to settle with you.”

“Could be.”

James just stood and looked at him for a long time.

Troy didn’t flinch. His past wasn’t something he was ashamed of.

He was, however, wary of what it meant to his future, especially with someone like James. Bad enough they were two men who wanted to show their affection with a kid like Chris and each other. He didn’t want to compound their issues with dishonesty or putting either man’s life in jeopardy, at least not without their knowledge. They deserved to know what sort of danger they might be in because of Troy’s past.

“What’s taking you two so long?”

Both Troy and James turned toward the forest entrance where Chris had led their three horses and now stood before them looking as fresh and innocent as an angel with the afternoon sun reflecting off of that honey-blond hair.

“What did I tell you?” James asked Troy, and Chris glared and marched across the moist forest floor to confront James.

Now he looked more like an avenging angel, all indignant and impatient with his fist on his hip, nothing like the fresh, innocent kid Troy had become accustomed to.

He supposed he shouldn’t think of Chris as such a kid. He’d been on his own for more than a decade, after all. And who knew what he
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had seen and done in all that time. Truth be told, there was no such thing as innocent once a man reached a certain age out here. And Troy had never really gotten the whole story from Chris on what had happened to him that night he had dragged himself into Barrow’s.

It made a body wonder.

Had he confided in James? Troy wondered.

“Well? What have you two been up to since I’ve been minding the horses?” Chris asked, and Troy detected more concern in the kid’s voice than anger.

Troy put an arm around Chris’ shoulder and pulled him close.

“We’ll talk about it once we get back to the bar. How about that?” He kissed the top of Chris’ head just because he could, glad when the kid sank into his one-armed hug rather than pulling away.

“O–okay.”

Troy hated hearing hesitation in the kid’s voice. He wanted to wipe away any doubt Chris had about him or James, or just the human race in general—a tall order to be sure, especially since Troy still had doubts himself.

“Okay, then, let’s mount up, boys.”

Troy chuckled at James’ words and pulled away from Chris so that the kid could mount his horse. Once Chris sat on his mount, Troy and James mounted their horses, and James fell in front. He turned back to ask, “Mind following me for a spell?”

Troy looked at Chris then back at James before nodding.

The three of them remained silent for the duration, not because they didn’t have anything to say, Troy suspected, but because they probably had too much to say.

It wasn’t every day that he experienced what he had at the cove with James and Chris. Those moments had been special. And they had been ruined by some faceless, nameless voyeur.

Could it have been Cain?

Cain didn’t strike Troy as the
warning
type. Aside from his bad-mouthing Troy all over the countryside, besmirching his reputation,
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Troy suspected he wouldn’t see the man’s final attack coming.

Spreading the word and letting Troy know he was out there just proved half the fun to someone like Cain. If he proved anything like his older brother, Jack, the real fun for Cain would be when he had Troy at his feet, bleeding and begging for mercy.

They had been riding for close to an hour before Troy began to pay attention to the countryside they were passing by. He didn’t notice where they actually were until he felt the suspicious glances of the town’s people in the all-black community they were riding through.

Troy realized then that he trusted James a lot to blindly follow him into what could be hostile
territory, especially after what had happened to them less than a couple of hours ago.

He recognized Nellie’s coming up on his right, watched as James tipped his hat to the handsome brown woman sitting out on the porch.

She returned his silent greeting with a warm smile and a nod.

Troy and Chris followed suit but didn’t meet nearly the reception that James had, receiving a piercing glare from the woman instead.

Might that look be a warning? Hurt our marshal and we’ll hurt you?

Troy could understand the woman’s protectiveness and mistrust.

He and Chris were strangers, after all. White strangers.

When they didn’t stop at Nellie’s, Troy wondered where they were heading but refused to ask. He didn’t want to seem on edge.

They rode several or so miles past the outskirts of town before James turned off the main road and slowed down.

It wasn’t until he brought the horse to a complete stop to dismount the animal that Troy noticed the house they had all stopped in front of a sturdy A-frame house with an adjacent corral and barn. Several horses and cows grazed in the nearby field and drank water from a water trough under a tall, shady oak.

Troy and Chris looked at each other then at James, who at that moment dismounted his horse and took the animal by the reins.

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“Come on in and set for spell. I won’t bite…” James turned then to wiggle his eyebrows at the two of them. “Not unless you want me to.”

Chris laughed and threw one leg over his horse before

dismounting and walking his horse over to where James stood.

Troy watched them for a moment, thinking how right they looked together before he followed suit and dismounted.

They didn’t just look right, but their looks perfectly complemented each other—James tall, dark, and powerful, Chris smaller, fair, and fresh-faced. The kid wasn’t powerful at a glance, but Troy sensed in him a well of inner strength that had only been hinted at before now. That strength attracted Troy as well as Chris’ pretty looks and obvious need.

Troy caught James’ glance, and James reached out a hand to welcome him over. He didn’t even know when his feet started moving, but in seconds, he found himself by James’s side with Chris, and the three of them glanced up at the house.

“Yours?” Troy asked.

“Lock, stock, and barrel.”

Troy heard the pride in the other man’s tone, and he remembered how he had felt when he’d first opened Barrow’s for business. It wasn’t the fanciest place in town, though it surely proved the most profitable. And it belonged to him, something he had built from the ground up.

His one regret about the saloon remained that his mother and father had not lived to see him make a decent living for himself.

However, knowing the God-fearing people they had been, they might not have approved of the set-up.

Troy dragged himself from his past to look at James.

The idea that the marshal had invited him and Chris into his corner of the world, obviously a very special place to him, filled Troy with a fair amount of wonder.

Did he even deserve the lawman’s consideration?

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“I built it a few years ago, figured I’d need a place to settle down once I stopped gallivanting all over the territory catching outlaws.”

Troy figured it only right that a man of James’ years would think about settling down eventually. Most men his and James’ age were already settled down with a woman and maybe a few head of kids.

Most men weren’t him and James, though, not that Troy knew of.

Most men didn’t love other men and, beyond being cowboys, didn’t want to spend their lives with other men.

Troy realized right then he wouldn’t be reluctant to spending his life with James and Chris if given the chance. More than likely, he’d have to
take
the chance.

He vowed to himself that he
would
take it.

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Chris hadn’t felt at home with anyone in a long time. Even with Cooper, he’d never allowed himself to think further than one day at a time. He knew they were just passing through in each other’s lives.

Admittedly, he’d latched on to Cooper for the protection he could provide, and Cooper used him for sex. Sure, there had been some affection mixed in with the manipulation and necessity, but Chris hadn’t fooled himself to think they had anything lasting.

With Troy and James, he dared himself to believe that there could be more than just the older men using him for physical pleasure. He wanted to believe that they cared about him for him in the same way he had grown to care for them.

He knew it was kind of soon to be mapping out a future like that.

None of them had known each other all that long. Out here in the territories, though, a few days could seem like months, especially when he was never sure where his next meal was coming from or whether he would even live to see another day.

That James had a house of his own, one he had invited Chris and Troy to, made Chris feel right secure and protected, like he finally belonged somewhere. Maybe he jumped the gun feeling this way, but he could help it nonetheless.

“So what do
you
think, Chris?”

He turned to James and grinned. “Did you build all this?”

“Sure did.”

“I think it’s the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen.”

James chuckled. “If you feel that way about the outside, you’ll plumb love the inside, then.” He put an arm around Chris’ shoulder to
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lead him up to the front door right before it flung open and an attractive colored woman came out to stand on the threshold.

“Well, it’s about time you showed yourself since you been back in town a spell.” She wiped her hands on the front of the apron she wore as she took a few steps forward then stopped to take in Chris at James’ side and Troy standing just behind him. Unlike the people in the colored town that they had passed on their way to James’ place, this woman didn’t look angry with him and Troy for being with James. In fact, she looked right amused, a small grin curving her plump lips. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

Chris didn’t know what she referred to, so he turned to James and found his mahogany complexion flushed red. In the brief time that he had known the marshal, Chris didn’t think he had seen him blush.

“Well, don’t just stand there. Come on in. I’ve got supper simmering on the stove. And I guess it’s a good thing I always make extra, just in case.”

“You make enough for an army as a matter of course.”

She put her hands on her ample hips. “I ain’t heard no complaints from you.”

“And you ain’t hearing none now.”

The woman folded her hands across her stomach and rocked back on her heels, eyebrows arched. “So who is it you have here? I haven’t had the pleasure.”

James motioned Troy to his side and put an arm around his shoulder like he did Chris’. “This here is Christopher Mi—”

“Come here and let me look at you, chil’.” The woman put her arms out like she fully expected Chris to obey so he did. He felt like he didn’t have a choice since the woman sounded like the one in charge, despite James’ profession to owning the house.

As soon as Chris got within arms’ reach of the woman, she grasped him around the shoulders, shook her head, and clucked her tongue as she looked him up and down.

“Boy ain’t nothing but skin and bones.”

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“I’m sure you can remedy that right and proper,” James said.

“I’m thinking that ain’t the only reason you brought him here.”

“Not likely.”

“And what about this ’un?” The woman waved a hand at Troy, who stepped forward as if summoned and gave a slight bow.

“Troy Barrow, at your service, ma’am.”

“Don’t ma’am me, though I suspect I do have some years on you.

The name’s Lucy, and I run this here house when the marshal’s not here and sometimes while he is.” She winked.

“Nice to make your acquaintance, ma’am—Lucy.”

She smiled as she took the hand Troy offered and shook it. “I’m expecting you two
are
staying with us for a spell. It’s too dangerous to be traveling around these parts this late in the day. Although some of us think danger is his middle name.”

“We’d be honored,” Troy said.

Chris nodded his agreement, getting the hint that James was the

“some of us”
in question. He couldn’t help remembering how calm James had been when the shooting had started, how he’d worried only about protecting Chris and Troy before he’d worried about himself.

Not to mention how James had saved Chris from being shot by that Bart character.

Lucy put an arm around Chris’ shoulder and led him into the house.

He smiled as he willingly followed. He liked her fiery, take-charge attitude and sense of humor. He liked
her
and could see why James had hired her. The marshal needed someone as tough as himself to run his household. No one else would be able to put up with his long absences and still welcome him home with a smile at a moment’s notice.

Would he be able to? Would he have to with Troy involved, too?

“My husband, Caesar, is out back in the barn seeing to the animals. He’ll be in directly, and you can meet him, too.”

“Looking forward to it,” Troy said, but Chris wasn’t so sure.

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Women tended to be more accepting of men like him, Troy, and James, and Lucy in particular didn’t seem fazed a bit by the fact that James had brought home two men.

Despite the fact that Caesar obviously worked for James, Chris didn’t know how tolerant the man would be of him and Troy. He hoped he proved to be just anxious, that his wariness was unfounded.