Beauty and the Bounty Hunter (24 page)

They couldn’t just ride into town as they were. Who knew what had gone on in Freedom after they left, what people had seen before they’d escaped, what Ethan had said or not said. Besides, entering a new place looking exactly as they had in the last one was just not done when traveling with Alexi Romanov. And for good reason.

Alexi tossed Cat a hank of rope, which she caught with her good hand. Her other rested in the sling Mikhail had fashioned from a kerchief the day before. The constant jostling from the movements of the horse had proved far too painful.

Cat lifted the rope. “Shall I hang myself?”

“Don’t be a fool,” Alexi snapped, then strode over and began to open the buttons of Ethan’s shirt.

“Alexi!” She stepped back, throwing a quick glance
in Mikhail’s direction, but the big man frowned into the makeup case as if all the annoyances of the world were jumbled inside.

“I’m not going to ravage you.” Her quick intake of breath caused his gaze to lift. For an instant she thought:
He knows.
Then he smirked. “Unless you ask me nicely.”

As this was the first he’d behaved like himself in several days, and she was pathetically grateful for that smirk, which plainly said he did
not
know, Cat muttered, “In your dreams, Romanov.”

“Ah, yes, my dreams.” His gaze darkened, and she had no doubt he dreamed of her. Why that made her cheeks suddenly heat, she had no idea. She’d dreamed of him too. It didn’t mean anything.

“We must appear to be as far from the people we were in Freedom as we can be. So…” He reached for her slowly, as if she were a wild animal, cornered, captured—perhaps she might bite. He gave her time to flee, but this time she remained.

Alexi untied the kerchief’s knot, unbuttoned the shirt, gently laid her injured arm against her stomach. His knuckles brushed her belly, and she had to bite her tongue not to gasp—or snarl. He’d done that on purpose.

Alexi set his palm over her hand. “You can keep it here? Without movement. I could tie it down, but then if you have need of it—”

“If I have need of it, I’m dead,” she said. “Still doesn’t work like it should.”

Cat had begun to worry it never would, but as that was a concern to make her toss and turn in the night, she tried to focus on the fact that her good arm was her shooting arm and it still moved just fine.

“Tie it,” she said.

Alexi snapped his fingers; Mikhail put another length of rope into it. As Mikhail had so recently been
transfixed with the makeup box, Cat jumped when he appeared next to them. But he moved off with equal speed, and Alexi tied her arm to her side, then fastened the first length of rope around the empty sleeve of the shirt.

“You are Joe Enderly. Lost the arm in the war.” He rebuttoned the shirt, then shoved her hair beneath his old slouch hat. “The rest…” He waved his hand. “You figure it out. But—” He scowled at her face. “Be less pretty.” He stalked away to deal with his own transformation.

“I could say the same to you!” she shouted, but he ignored her.

Cat knelt, filled her palm with dirt, spit into it, then smoothed the mess across her cheeks and neck, dotted a bit on her hands too.

“Lost the arm at…Manassas,” she murmured as she joined Mikhail, who again peered into the makeup case.

“Bull Run,” Alexi corrected.

“It doesn’t matter if I call it Manassas in a Georgia drawl”—which she did—“or Bull Run in a rude Yankee tone.” She switched to just that. “As long as I don’t mix the two.”

When Alexi didn’t answer, she glanced in his direction and gaped. Alexi Romanov stood before her in the guise of a monk, right down to the tonsure upon his head and a rosary hanging from the belt at his waist.

She took a very large step back; he frowned. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t want to be too close when the lightning strikes.”

His lips tightened. “I’ve worn this before. No lightning. Not once.”

“It’s coming,” she said. “Count on it.”

He rolled his eyes; she squinted hers. “How did you
do that?” Cat pointed to his half-bald pate. He could not have shaved his head from crown to ears so quickly. He just couldn’t have.

“A scalp.” He reached up, patted, and the skin waggled a bit.

Cat’s lip curled. “Where did you get that?”

“Traded with an Apache.”

“What did you give him?”

“Gold.”

“What would an Apache want with gold?”

Alexi shrugged. “It was shiny.”

“Wasn’t gold.” Mikhail lifted a jar of brownish goo, unscrewed the top, gave it a sniff.

“But it was shiny,” Alexi returned.

“You’re lucky he didn’t scalp
you
,” Cat said.

“He wanted the gold.” Alexi glanced at Mikhail and lifted his hand before the other man could speak. “Stone. Brass. I don’t know what it was. But
he
wanted it.
He
asked me to trade. I didn’t ask him.”

Such was the way with Alexi. He could make people believe they wanted what he had to give with a desperation usually reserved for the starving, thirsting, and dying.

Just look at her.

“Where’d you get the robe?” Cat doubted a monk would have traded it for anything. Then again, she’d never met one.

“You don’t want to know.”

Considering where he’d gotten the rest of the costume, he was most likely right.

“Why that?” she asked.

“As far away from the people we were in Freedom as it is possible for us to be,” he recited.

A monk
was
as far away from Alexi Romanov, or Fedya whatever, as it was possible to be, except—

“You’re gonna stand out like a—” She stared at him for a moment. “Like a monk in a saloon.”

“I won’t go in the saloon.”

“Alexi, no man with a face like yours would become a monk.”

“What?” His long, supple, very unmonklike fingers fumbled with the rosary. “Why?”

“That annoying vow of celibacy.”

“I don’t understand what my appearance has to do with a true calling.” He peered at the heavens, and the rising moon cast silver across his beautiful face, making him appear ethereal. His fingers stopped fumbling; his lips began to move as they counted the beads one by one.

“You aren’t a monk,” she snapped, unreasonably annoyed at his pretending to be. And at the universe for encouraging him.

“Believe me, no one will ever know.”

Cat rubbed her forehead. He was right. If he could make folks believe he was a toothless old woman or a hunchbacked war veteran, a celibate, tonsured monk wouldn’t require much effort at all. Nevertheless, Cat had a bad feeling.

“You’re going to draw too much attention to yourself.”

“The more attention on me, the less on…” He turned his head. “Mikhail.”

Cat glanced at the man in question. He’d darkened his face and hands with the brown goo. Changed his shirt from once white to black. Slicked his hair with grease. It didn’t help. The only way to disguise Mikhail was to hide him, and they no longer had the wagons.

“Maybe we should leave him here.”

“We need to stay together.” Alexi’s gaze shifted to the prairie behind them.

Cat’s good arm went to her gun. “Something out there?”

“There is always something out there,
croí daor.
” He took a breath, let it out. “Always.”

“Is it after us?”

“That is the question. I don’t wish to discover the answer with Mikhail’s dead body.”

Mikhail snorted his opinion of that. Cat had to agree. They were stronger together than apart, and she didn’t like the idea of leaving Mikhail behind either.

“I will come in from the east,” Alexi said. “You from the south. Mikhail will arrive from the north.”

“I thought we were supposed to stay together.”

“We will be in the same town. We will stay at the same hotel. We will watch out for one another even as we pretend not to know one another. Which would be difficult if we arrive all at once.”

Cat glanced back the way they had come. She saw nothing out there, but she’d discovered that quite often the less you saw…

The more there was.

They approached Jepsum from their assigned directions, an hour apart. By the time Cat arrived, Mikhail was in his room and Alexi had gathered a crowd. Apparently Jepsum had lost its preacher, and there was a lot of marrying, burying, and baptizing that needed to be done.

Alexi was agreeing to do it tomorrow afternoon. But he was accepting donations tonight. The man just couldn’t help himself. He wouldn’t even have to buy supplies. Those folks who didn’t possess coins to press upon him brought food and placed it at his feet like an offering.

As Cat rode past, her gaze met Alexi’s over the heads
of those surrounding him.
Lightning
, she mouthed, and he quirked a brow before turning away.

No one gave Cat a second—or even a first—glance as she left her horse in the livery, then made her way to the hotel. In truth, she had to tug the liveryman’s arm to get him to look her way at all; he was inordinately fascinated by the new monk in town.

Cat proceeded to the hotel as the crowd around Alexi grew. She didn’t like it one bit. A group such as that could easily turn into a mob with one wrong step.

Once in her room, she couldn’t sleep, especially when she glanced outside and discovered both Alexi and the crowd were gone. Mikhail had already tapped on her door and informed her that he was across the hall and three doors to the right. She waited for Alexi to do the same. When midnight rolled around and he still hadn’t, she went in search of him.

First she looked in on Mikhail. The big man was asleep, although he opened one eye, then set the gun he’d pointed at the door back on his chest when he saw who it was.

“Alexi?” she whispered.

He pointed with his left hand. “Two doors down.” Then he closed his eye and went back to sleep.

Two doors down was empty—except for the monk’s robe and that disgusting scalp. She stared at them as the moonlight filtered through the window; then she crept down the stairs and onto the street.

As Joe Enderly, she had no problem strolling into the saloon. There she half expected to find Alexi in another disguise, collecting what funds were left in town that hadn’t already been “donated” through a friendly—though not completely aboveboard—poker game.

A poker game
was
in progress; she even joined it for a while to make certain none of the men around the table
was Alexi. The only way she knew for sure that they weren’t was that none of them were cheating.

She took one of the saloon gals upstairs, pretended to lose consciousness from excessive drink, searched the other rooms once the girl fell asleep herself, then moved on to the whorehouse and repeated the act.

No Alexi. Only then did she begin to get nervous.

After hurrying to the livery, which was empty of people but full of horses, including theirs, Cat released her breath. She stepped onto the street, hand on her hip, the other tied down, the “lost” arm of Ethan’s shirt flapping in the dry Kansas breeze.

Where was he?

Maybe he’d returned to the hotel while she’d been searching. Cat began to walk in that direction. She had just passed a window advertising barber/surgeon/dentistry when she caught a movement in the glass.

Furtive. Hell, downright sneaky. She was suspicious even before she turned her head and saw nothing but empty boardwalk. But there’d been something there across the street. Right where a slight space between two abandoned buildings gaped black.

Cat continued on, waiting for a sound, a movement. A shot. She reached the end of the boardwalk, leaned against the building, tilted her head down and shifted her eyes to scan Jepsum. When she saw no one, she slid around the corner and doubled back.

On this side, nothing but the rear of buildings and a great expanse of looming prairie. The perfect place for an ambush.

As she walked past a narrow fissure between structures, Cat tensed. Anyone could be there waiting.

Nothing happened. Maybe she was—

Cat’s good arm shot into the darkness. The heel of her hand slammed into a chest. Her fingers curled,
attempting to snatch shirt or hair, anything to yank upon, but before she could, her wrist was encircled, and she was jerked into the abyss. A palm was pressed to her mouth.

“Shhh.”

Alexi.
She kicked him. They were too close for it to hurt, but she felt better at making the attempt. Her heart still thundered so loudly she could hear little else.

Leaning in, he set his cheek to hers. This opening between the buildings was very small and, without light or movement, anyone looking in would have to possess the eyes of a mountain lion to see a thing. If they did catch a glimpse, they would merely think they’d stumbled upon two men doing something no one in a small Kansas town wanted to see two men doing.

“Someone is following you,” he breathed, and dropped his hand.

“Yeah, you,” she whispered.

“I was following…” He shifted his eyes as a man with a gun drifted by the opening.

The fellow didn’t see them, didn’t hear them either.
An amateur
, Cat thought, though she was impressed with how soundlessly he moved.

“I saw him when I looked out my hotel window,” Alexi murmured.

He always took stock of his surroundings upon arrival. Making note of the quickest and least visible exit had saved their lives on several occasions.

“He was obviously waiting for someone to come out. So I changed my clothes and did.” Alexi’s lips were so close to her ear, his breath tickled. “But he didn’t follow me. Oh, no. He waited for you.”

Cat turned her head, frowned. If this fellow was looking for her specifically, they needed to have a chat. Just the two of them.

She started after the man; Alexi pulled her back. “What the—?”

Cat kneed him in the groin, and while he was gasping for the last breath he’d ever take on this earth, slipped away.

The man, moving slowly as he searched, was still close. Cat had to take only a half dozen steps before she could shove her gun into his spine.

“Drop it.” He did. “Kick it away.” He did that too. “What do you want?”

“Whaddya think?”

His voice was familiar. She tightened her hand on the gun. “Mister, I’m gonna need you to say—”