Three Men and a Bounty (5 page)

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she shrugged, all of a sudden seeming shy before continuing with a murmur, “being with a woman.”

She wasn’t the first who thought she could change his mind. He sorely wished she could get a rise out of him, but he felt the way he felt and wanted what he wanted. A woman wouldn’t do, not if he remained honest with himself, and he was sorely tired of living a lie.

“You’ll find someone, Sarah. You’re young and you’re pretty…”

“You don’t have to go. You’ve still got the room for the rest of the day. Might as well stay and relax for a spell.”

He caught her by the hand as she rose to leave, a sudden horrible thought dawning on him. “You won’t…say anything to anyone, will you?”

“Who would I tell? Who would believe me? The big bad Marshal Hayden, a legend in his own time, prefers to bugger men instead of women.” She grinned sadly. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

He just looked at her, thoughts of the reporter camped out in the hotel across town even now writing up an account of James’ latest exploits for his newspaper filling his mind.

Someone knocked on the door, and James and Sarah stared at each other before he asked, “Who is it?”

“It’s Nellie, and you have a…visitor. He wouldn’t leave a message. He said he needs to speak to you in person. I couldn’t get him to leave.”

Could it be the reporter? He had been fairly insistent about getting quotes
from the horse’s mouth
for his paper, and James had been just as insistent that he didn’t want to be quoted. He didn’t have time for such foolishness. Bringing in criminals was just his job, and he didn’t want or need accolades or recognition for doing what was in his blood and the right thing to do, like last evening with the kid in the saloon.

He’d been born to help out those in need. His way just happened to be with his gun and trailing and finding the bad guys.

“Marshal?”

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“Come in.” At least he wasn’t in that much of a compromising position.

Nellie turned the knob, pushed open the door and stepped aside so that James’ visitor could step into the room.

His waif from the evening before stepped over the threshold and paused, glancing around the room as if to steady himself before he looked at James and Sarah sitting on the bed.

My waif. Mine.

“I didn’t know you were in the middle of…things.”

“I told you he was entertaining.” Nellie huffed and put a hand on her hip.

“I thought you were just saying that because you didn’t want me to see him.”

Nellie chuckled. “Chil’, I ain’t got no reason to lie to you or anyone else. If I tells you something, then that’s the way it is. Folks

’round here know Nellie’s word is her bond.”

The waif had the courtesy to duck his head and avert his eyes, but James didn’t miss the fierce blush that colored his high cheeks.

Lord, his fingers itched to trace those contours, feel the peach fuzz covering the boy’s otherwise smooth face. Kid couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen, which made James a dirty old man, no matter how he cut it. He didn’t care. He plain wanted the kid. He hadn’t wanted anything as much in his life, except his freedom. And what did freedom mean when he couldn’t do with it what he wanted?

Sarah stood, headed over to the door, and passed the kid. “He’s all yours. I was on my way out anyway.” She glanced back at James and gave him another of her sad smiles, then left.

He hated that he’d hurt her, but there was no help for it. He’d be lying to her and himself if he fostered anything between them more than the limited carnal acts they’d shared so far.

“Well, I guess I’ll be on my way, too, then and leave you to your…business.” Nellie glanced at James with an expression that
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proved at once questioning and then knowing. She looked at the boy before she turned and left.

“Close the door and come in,” James said.

The kid did as ordered and took several steps into the room, still much too far away for James’ liking.

“I’m suspecting you had a good reason for coming all this way and to Nellie’s.” The implication was clear—what was the boy doing on this side of town?—and the kid didn’t hesitate to pick up the gauntlet.

“I don’t have a problem with black folk, never did.”

“That’s good to know.” James hid a grin, cock throbbing hard in his pants at the boy’s gumption. He remembered that kind of bravery in his own youth. He had acted on it, in fact, when he ran away from his master and fled to Indian Territory to take up refuge with various tribes where he’d honed his firearm skills. He patted the mattress beside him. “Come here.” He used the deep, commanding voice that brooked no argument and garnered him a reputation as a hard man, fully expecting the boy to obey. When he didn’t make a move forward, however, only held his hat in front of him, nervously fiddling with the brim, it surprised James.

He gave the boy the once-over, letting his gaze linger on his flushed face before sliding down to his clothes. The shirt and pants looked almost new compared to what he’d had on last night, though both items of clothing had a couple of cuffs rolled in them to keep them from brushing his knuckles and the floor.

“Troy loaned ’em to me,” the kid said as if anticipating James’

question.

“It’s a decent improvement over last night.”

“He’s a decent man.”

“I’m sure he is.” James wondered how decent and whether that decentness could ever extend to him. He’d had a glimpse last evening but couldn’t dare hope that the hankerings he’d felt were mutual despite the offer of a drink. Could he?

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He had never had such impossible dreams before. Why now? Was he getting that long in the tooth that he invited his own downfall?

“I just wanted to come to thank you right and proper for what you done for me yesterday.”

“And what did I do for you exactly?”

The boy looked at him as if he had grown a set of horns, and James almost burst out laughing, except he didn’t want the boy to think he mocked him.

“You saved my life.”

James took in his wide-eyed, awe-struck expression, heart filling with some unnamable emotion. “Don’t go getting all worked up over it now. I’m no Bass Reeves.”

“Near enough, I reckon.”

He’d had his moments and some memorable captures in his short career, but he didn’t like bragging about any of what he did. It was all in the line of duty.

“So, what do I call you, besides kid?”

“Name’s Christopher Michaels. You can call me Chris.”

“Nice to make your acquaintance, Chris. Now come here.” James watched as Chris swallowed hard before he took several steps forward, still not close enough for James’ tastes. “You afraid of me?”

“No, sir.”

“What’s my name?”

“James.”

“Then that’s what you call me.”

Chris raised his eyes and looked at him with such hunger, James almost groaned out loud.

“If you’re not afraid then come here and sit on the bed.”

Again, Chris did as ordered, except he only sat on the edge of the mattress as if to say, “There, I’m sitting!”

“So you came to thank me.”

“That man would have killed me had you not stepped in.”

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“I don’t think that Troy would have allowed any such thing to happen on his property.”

“I reckon not.” Chris shook his head, and James watched as honey-blond ringlets danced around his angelic face.

He reached to tuck a stray strand of hair behind the boy’s ear, entranced by the silky-soft feel of the wisps flowing around his hand and tempted to rake both hands through the shaggy mop right and proper.

“I like to pay my debts,” Chris murmured.

James arched a brow. “That’s why you came?”

“I reckon.”

“Tell me, Chris. What do you reckon would erase this
debt
?”

Chris frowned, looking adorable and tempting all at once.

“What did Troy want for
his
kindness?”

“He said nothing.”

James almost laughed at the imagined exchange. He could see the kid insisting to Troy that he owed him the way he did to James now, wondered if Troy had been as amused. Or maybe he had been insulted. “You don’t believe him?”

“Troy’s already given me room and board, a hot meal and clothes.

And he’s teaching me the finer points of tending the bar so I can help him out and earn my keep.”

Scratch the insulted part. It sounded more like the man was as smitten with the boy as James proved to be.

What was he getting himself into? He barely knew Chris and what he did know spelled trouble. “Sounds like a good deal to me. Why do you think you owe him? Or me, for that matter?”

Chris swallowed again and gave him a piercing look that about had him leaking into his long johns. James could feel the liquid heat of his hankering in his slit and shifted on the bed to get more comfortable.

“Folks ain’t nice to you for no reason.”

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James used to believe that, too, but he had come across enough people like Troy in the world to know this wasn’t gospel. If Chris’

assumption proved true, then James wouldn’t be able to read and produce the correct warrants when he went out on a hunt, at least not as easily as he did. A rancher had taught him how to read and write when James had joined his buckaroo crew right after Emancipation and the rancher discovered he didn’t know how. He’d wanted nothing in return for his good deed other than a hard day’s work for an honest day’s pay and assurance that James wouldn’t waste the gift he’d been given. James had been glad to give both and had been devouring the written word in as many forms of literature as he could ever since.

Some folks, black and white, didn’t like that he spoke and carried himself so
proper
. Some folks didn’t like the idea of an
educated
Negro. They thought him uppity, but he didn’t put too much stock into what people thought. He tried not to, anyway.

He cleared his throat, unsure how to respond to Chris’ cynicism.

He knew he had to set the kid straight somehow so he’d know folks did do things for others without expecting a damn thing in return…unless Chris
wanted
to give something in return.

“You know, you’ve got it all wrong, Chris.”

“Got what all wrong?”

“According to an old Chinese proverb, since I saved your life, I’m responsible for you now. That makes
me
pretty much in debt to
you.
”

“Well, I’ll be. I never heard that one before.”

“I’ve got a mite more years of living done than you have, and I’ve heard a few more things, I suspect.” James smiled. He’d learned a few other things from the Chinese and Greeks in his travels and through his reading, intimate bawdy things that no decent folk should know about, things that he’d love to try with Chris. “So if you’re responsible for me now, what does that mean?”

More than anything, James wanted it to mean that the boy would stay with him, by his side and under his protection. However, he didn’t have the luxury. Not when he would be going back out on the
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trail eventually. What would he do with Chris then? How would he protect him from out on the trail? And who could say Troy hadn’t already staked a claim? Would he let the boy travel all the way across town by himself if he had?

“Where’s Troy now?”

“Back in Wolf Creek. He loaned me his horse to ride over here.”

Definitely smitten, James thought. In some cases, a cowboy’s horse proved more important to him than a woman. If Troy lent Chris his horse then things were serious between the two men, or at least Troy wanted them to be—the same as James did.

“I reckon he’ll be expecting you back soon to help out at the bar?”

“I reckon.” Chris lowered his gaze for a moment, then fixed James with a penetrating stare that was liked to blow his boots off. “That woman that was here earlier…Is she your
woman
?”

“Sarah? No. Not by far.”

“Oh.”

“How old are you?”

Chris huffed and rolled his eyes. “Troy asked me the same thing.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“That I’m old enough.”

James closed the space between them, bending his head until his lips were a hairsbreadth away from Chris’, close enough to hear the hitch in the boy’s breath. “You’re sure about that?”

“I–I’m sure.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“I’m twenty-one, and I know what I want.”

Twenty-one! He might as well have been between hay and grass, neither man nor boy, for the fourteen-year gap linking their years.

He
sounded
sure, but many a stronger, older, and wiser man had been brought to his knees with hankerings that he dare not satisfy.

“I’m a sight older.” And he had seen a sight more, more than he wanted to remember—as a slave, in the war, on the trail…

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Chris licked his lips, and the critter in James’ pants liked to leap for joy, pulling him away from his violent past. Here and now with Chris mattered to him more than anything.

James cupped the boy’s face with both hands and drew him near as he covered Chris’ mouth with his own. The taste of him set James’

senses on fire. He slid one hand down between them, cupping the solid evidence of Chris’ desire burgeoning between his legs. James rubbed the hard bulge and captured the sound of Chris’ hunger when the boy groaned into his mouth. He thrust his tongue past Chris’

parted lips and toppled the boy down against the bed.

Their erections met flush, hot and hard. James rocked and circled his hips until Chris writhed beneath him, meeting his thrusts as a whimper climbed from his throat.

James pulled away slightly, pausing when Chris drew his arms around his neck. He remembered how the boy had arrived in Barrow’s last night. He remembered the pain that had been etched on his fine features.