Three Men and a Bounty (6 page)

“No. Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”

He lowered his face to Chris’. “You want this?”

“I want
you
. Have since I saw you in the saloon.”

James chuckled, feeling reckless and younger than he had in years. “Feeling’s mutual.” He dipped his tongue into Chris’ mouth and swirled it around to the kid’s decided pleasure if Chris’ groans were any indication. Ready to take his fill even more, he reached for the button on Chris’ britches right before someone pounded on the door.

James popped up his head and pushed up, his weight on his palms, as Chris scrambled from under him and sprang to his feet. He stood a good several feet away from James—much too far away.

“Who is it?”

“Marshal, there’s trouble downstairs! You need to come now!”

Sarah’s anxious voice broke through the sexual spell that Chris had woven around him since he’d arrived. James bounded from the bed
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and to the door in a few quick strides, flinging it open to reveal Sarah’s tear-stained face.

He caught her by the shoulders. “What’s happened?”

“He’s got a gun, James.”

He didn’t ask who. It didn’t matter. He needed to get downstairs before anyone got hurt.

James turned back to Chris standing in the center of the room now, hat in hand again. “Don’t move from this room.”

“But—”

“Stay here!”

He nabbed his holster and gun from the foot post of the bed and closed the door behind him as he headed for the stairs, trailing Sarah.

He strapped his holster on while he walked, slowing down as he neared the bottom of the staircase to take in the scene in the entry hall.

A white man stood just inside the threshold. The front door was open behind him. He had an arm crooked around Nellie’s throat, holding her close to his side as he threateningly waved a gun in front of her face.

A white man in Nellie’s proved an incongruity on a normal evening, but this evening had proven to be anything but normal and looked to be getting stranger by the minute.

James caught Nellie’s gaze and signaled her not to let on that he approached. Her nod would have been imperceptible to almost anyone else but him.

“Where is he, girl? I know your precious black marshal is in here somewhere!”

James thanked the Lord for the well-cushioned carpeting that camouflaged his maneuver. However, two doors on the first floor opened at the commotion, and James frantically signaled to the girls and their customers to go back into their rooms.

The man holding Nellie hostage caught the movement on the stairs and swung around to see James near the bottom, Sarah close behind him.

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“I knew you’d come down to save your precious whore girlfriend.

Well, come on then and let’s get a look at you.” The man waved his gun toward James and smiled. “You can leave the gun behind ya, though.”

“No can do, pardner.”

The man pressed the muzzle of his gun against Nellie’s temple, and James watched as her eyes filled with tears. They weren’t tears of fear, though. Rather, they were tears of anger and frustration. James could tell from the way her jaw worked as if she chomped at a bit.

He peered at the gunslinger. Something about his face was familiar. Maybe he was a younger version of someone else he knew.

Then it clicked. He’d recently brought in a fugitive who looked uncannily like this young man—his older brother, maybe?

“Let the lady go. She hasn’t done anything to you. It’s me you want, right?”

“You know damn well it is. You should have never arrested my brother. Not you.”

James suspected the man had more of a problem with a black lawman arresting his brother than his brother being arrested at all.

“I’m going to need you to drop your gun and give yourself up.”

Connor McClary’s younger brother laughed and waved his gun in defiance. “And why should I do that? I already got the bulge on you, marshal.”

Heart drumming, James drew his gun, prepared to do something he’d done countless times in the past, something ultimately necessary, the outcome of which he almost always regretted.

McClary’s younger brother, however, easily pointed his gun in James’ direction and pulled the trigger. Not before James dove to the right and fired his own gun.

His bullet found its target, striking the younger McClary in the shoulder of his gun hand and disabling him enough to make him drop his weapon.

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Nellie pulled away from him as soon as the gun clattered to the floor, kicking it farther out of the gunman’s reach as she flung herself into James’ arms.

James held Nellie with one arm and continued to point his gun at the younger McClary with his gun hand. “Guess you’ll be joining your brother in the hoosegow then.”

“Guess you’ll be joining the devil in hell, marshal.” The younger McClary leaned against the doorframe, eyeing James’ gun and Sarah as she retrieved his. He gritted his teeth. “Your time’s coming,
boy.

Soon.”

James didn’t flinch. He’d been called worse. “No doubt, pardner.”

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Chris had hung back as long as he could, biting his bottom lip with indecision, until he heard the shots ring out downstairs.

He rushed to the door, flung it open and ran down the hall to the stairs just in time to see James take down the gunslinger threatening Nellie.

He stood at the top of the staircase, still amazed and awestruck by the time James put handcuffs on the gunman.

James turned as he finished, eyes widening when he caught sight of Chris. “Are you all right? Were you hit?”

Chris didn’t know what his expression looked like to James, but something in it must have said that he’d been hurt, so he quickly shook his head to reassure the other man.

“I told you to stay in the room.”

“But I heard—”

“I don’t care a continental what you heard! When I tell you to do something, I need you to do it.”

Chris’ face fell. He’d been all set to feel James’ lips against his once more as soon as they could be alone together again but could see the folly of his desires now.

Sarah put a hand on James’ arm and squeezed. “You’re being too hard on him.”

He wanted to tell her that he didn’t need her to defend him, that he could take care of himself, but realized that would be mean, and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Something told him that she’d had her feelings hurt enough for one day. And so had he.

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“It looks like I’ve overstayed my welcome. I’ll be taking my leave.” Chris moved to go down the stairs but stopped at James’

growl.

“Don’t go.”

He stared at James, praying God gave him the strength to hold his own against the lawman, though the hard look in James’ eyes told him he didn’t stand a chance. It served him right for idolizing the man. All the way out west, he’d read about men like James in his collection of dime novels. All the way out, he’d fantasized about meeting and making one his own. Now he knew the meaning of “be careful what you wish for.” He knew that he could never
make
James anything, much less his own.

Chris gathered his courage now and jutted his chin a tad just for good measure. “Is that an order, marshal?”

James gritted his teeth. “You can consider it one.”

Chris held in a gasp.

Would James really arrest him for disobeying him? The look on his face said he’d do what he deemed necessary to keep Chris put.

And he didn’t know what scared him more—the possibility of being imprisoned or that he
wanted
James to imprison him more than anything.

“I’ll be back after I take this man over to the jail in town. Stay put until I get back.” James turned and left, prisoner in tow, the door closing with a loud thud behind him.

Nellie and Sarah looked at him as if they sympathized, but he couldn’t see how they would. Had they ever been dressed down by a man they wanted more than anything in the world, a man they wanted only to impress with their courage and brains?

Maybe he should have stayed put, but he couldn’t see staying behind, sitting on his hands as if he were helpless when someone he cared about could be in trouble.

Why should James take all the risks?

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He’d really botched up with his half-assed notion of rescuing James the same way James had rescued him. Not that it would have ever made them even, not by a long shot.

“Supper won’t be for a little while, but would you like something to eat while you wait?” Sarah asked.

Chris looked at her, not surprised that she took it for granted that he would be staying. He had been given an order by the legendary James Hayden, after all.

Would Sarah and Nellie stop him if he tried to leave?

Tired and unwilling to try his luck, Chris just nodded and headed back to the room where he and James had kissed and, he was sure, been about to do so much more.

* * * *

The wolf dogged James and Court McClary’s trail all the way back to Wolf Creek.

James thought he had picked up the animal’s presence soon after leaving Nellie’s and mounting his horse, but he didn’t let on. No need in riling his detainee anymore than necessary, especially over an improbability.

When James mounted his horse to make it back to Nellie’s before twilight and the wolf continued his tracking, however, James became a mite concerned.

Wolves spurned human contact as a rule, and this one acted more like a loyal, domesticated dog than a feral predator.

James had second thoughts, however, when the animal boldly circled in front of his horse, growling and baring his teeth, nothing like a domesticated anything. Not to mention he was bigger than the average wolf by about sixty or seventy pounds. The animal could probably take down a stallion with not too much difficulty, or easily rip out James’ throat once he did. He leaned forward to speak to Midnight in reassuring tones before his horse got good and spooked
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enough to throw him. Already, the large stallion backed up, blowing rollers to signal his distress. James stroked his neck soothingly before he slowly dismounted so’s not to antagonize the wolf. Once standing on the ground, he held his hands up in the most unthreatening manner he could manage.

“Easy, boy, real easy now.”

The animal, a timber wolf as far as James could tell, tilted his head back, snout pointing at the darkening, rose-hued sky, and let out a loud howl as if calling for reinforcements.

James glanced around him to make sure they were still alone and that the wolf’s pack wasn’t nearby. Even if he was a lone wolf, which looked to be the case, he still posed a danger—probably more than if he had a pack. Lone wolves could be unpredictable—both the human and the animal variety. He knew from experience.

This wolf, however, seemed like he had a personal beef to settle.

He acted like he wanted to sit down for a pow-wow with James.

He didn’t want to shoot the animal and vowed to himself that he would do everything in his power to keep from doing so—unless the wolf made any threatening moves.

For now, the animal seemed satisfied that James had stopped and gotten off his horse.

“Okay, boy, you got my attention. Now, what is it you want from me?” He knew he was barking at a knot, trying to accomplish the impossible in trying to have a conversation with the animal. And, as if to punctuate that point, the wolf walked in a tight circle several times before settling himself down on the dirt road. He silently curled his legs beneath himself and watched James with a piercing gaze, unmoving.

Getting back on his horse and galloping off would have probably been a good idea, but the wolf had roused his curiosity, even if he couldn’t exactly play chin music with the animal.

Midnight had calmed down considerably, so James got down on his haunches to better look at the wolf, breaking another law of the
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wild—never look an animal in the eye. He couldn’t help it, though.

There was something familiar, almost friendly, about the silver-gray gaze the animal fixed on him, at once intense and serene—beautiful.

“You’re not exactly what you seem, are you?”

No response from the wolf.

Not really expecting one, James grinned and said, “Bark once for yes and twice for no. Are you what you seem?”

The wolf barked twice before falling silent again, looking at James.

James’ heart sped, kind of like it did when he was on a pursuit. He felt that thrill of closing in on a man among the willows. His blood pumped through his veins and warmed his body with a sense of insight and accomplishment when he brought in a man dodging the law.

He had the wildest idea about camping out for the night and hanging with the wolf before heading back to Nellie’s. Then he remembered Chris.

He was anxious to get back to the young’un, especially after the way he’d left things. He wouldn’t blame the kid if he hated him right now. He knew he deserved it. Seeing Chris there at the top of the stairs looking as surprised as a hound dog with his first porcupine, however, had just about put the fear of God into James. He hadn’t seen any blood to speak of, but he had been afraid that McClary’s stray shot had somehow struck Chris. And the thought of the boy injured or dead just made him feel plain empty inside.

Wasn’t it too damn soon to be feeling so attached to someone, especially someone he had no hopes of really being with? Well, there was no help for it, no accounting for feelings, either, and he surely felt something for that boy, something he couldn’t even put a name to yet.

James told himself that Chris would be safe enough at Nellie’s until he got back, knew that Nellie and Sarah and the rest of the girls would take care of him if he’d bothered to hang around after James’

departure. If not, James would just put his skills to use and track him
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