Boots and Leather: Ugly Stick Saloon, Book 2 (14 page)

Libby’s chin tipped up. “No, Daddy, I’m not.”

“You damn well better.”

“Or what?” She shook her head. “You’ll cut me off?”

He frowned.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I haven’t asked for a cent from you in the past two years. Not one.” She stepped forward, her chest pushing out. “I’ve been free of you, your money and bodyguards all that time and nothing bad has happened to me.”

His eyes narrowed. “Now that the media knows you’re here, you’ll be in danger.”

“I don’t care. I wish you would disinherit me so that none of them will care if I’m alive or dead.”

“Damn it, Elizabeth, be reasonable.”

“No, you be reasonable.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not going back to New York. I like it here.” As she said the words, her heart flooded with a familiar warmth that she’d found only here in Temptation, Texas. A warmth that had more to do with the people than the weather.

“You’ve played long enough. You need to come home and be a part of this family.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the door.

“What family? Ever since Mamma died, it’s been you ruling the world. I never had a say in my life. Well, now I do.” She dug her bare heels into the cool tile and leaned away from the arm holding her. “I’m not going.”

A sheriff’s deputy stepped up behind her father, his hand resting on the nine-millimeter pistol in his holster. “Sir, release the woman and step out into the hallway.” The lawman reached for John Stratton’s arm.

“She’s not a woman, she’s just a girl, dammit.” Libby’s father jerked his arm away from the deputy. “I resent being treated like a criminal.”

“Then let go of the woman, and leave the building immediately.” The deputy stared down his nose at John Stratton, his hand resting on his pistol grip. “Or I’ll be forced to arrest you for disturbing the peace and assault.”

“Daddy, let go,” Libby said in a calm, clear tone.

“Tell them that you’re my daughter and that you’re coming with me,” her father demanded.

“I am your daughter.” She gave a half smile, her chest squeezing at what she had to do. “But I’m not going with you.”

Her father’s face darkened. “It’s that saloon you were working at, isn’t it?”

She snorted softly. “No, it’s not the Ugly Stick.”

“Then it’s some man.”

Her heart fluttered as an image of Mark and Luke rising naked out of the pool filled her mind. Some of her feelings must have shown on her face.

Her father’s eyes narrowed. “I knew it. I’ll have him arrested for—”

“For what, Daddy?” Libby planted her fists on her hips. Standing in her hospital gown, she knew she was no match for her father, but she refused to back down ever again. “For caring about me? For taking the time to get to know me and what I like? For allowing me the freedom to choose?”

“Well, no. For brainwashing you into thinking that living in a backwater town with a bunch of hicks is better than taking your position in society as the daughter of—”

“The multi-billionaire John Stratton?” She shook her head. “I want nothing to do with that life. I left it behind and won’t go back.”

“You have to,” her father argued.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m twenty-five years old and can legally make my own decisions. I don’t have to go with you.”

“Sir, for the last time, I’m asking you to leave peacefully.” The deputy’s hands hovered over his utility belt.

“Go, Daddy,” Libby urged her father. “Before you get in trouble.”

He planted his fists on his hips and braced his feet wide on the tiles. “I’m not leaving without you.”

In a flash of movement, the deputy snapped a handcuff onto John Stratton’s wrist and jerked his arm up between his shoulder blades, pushing him against the wall. “Sir, I warned you, now you’ll have to take a ride with me down to the jailhouse.”

“This is an outrage!” Libby’s father shouted, his voice ringing out against the sterile walls of the small hospital.

The few patients that could stand leaned in the doorways of their rooms, peering out at the ruckus going on in the corridor.

Libby shook her head, righteous indignation fading into sadness as the deputy hauled her father away.

“I’ll have your job for this,” her father shouted at the officer as he was manhandled through the hallway and out of the hospital.

Libby couldn’t wait for the doctor to release her, she had to leave now, before her father was freed on bond and before he had the chance to bail out his bodyguards and assign one of them to tail her.

She grabbed the only clothing she had, the floozy skirt and corset and the stilettos, slipped into them quickly and marched herself past the nurse’s desk.

“Where are you going, Miss Jones?” The nurse at the station leaned over the counter. “You need to wait for the doctor to release you.”

“I can’t. I have to get out of here.” Libby left the hospital behind and made her way to a twenty-four-hour convenience store where she asked to borrow the telephone.

Audrey answered on the first ring. “Ugly Stick Saloon. We’re closed.”

“Audrey, I need you to pick me up from the Gas 'N Sip down the street from the hospital.”

“Libby? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, I just need a ride back to my bike.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Libby hung up, chest aching, and found a quiet corner of the store to hide in and plan her escape from her father, her former life and the new life and place she’d come to love so much.

Sheriff Thomas guided Luke to the big jail cell where Mark and several other men sat on benches attached to the wall.

As he unlocked the jail cell, the sheriff waved Luke inside. “I wouldn’t have arrested you if I hadn’t witnessed you hitting Reggie Finkle. Finkle has you up on charges of assault.”

“Did you ask him who threw the first punch? At least get the story straight before you lock me up.” Luke balked at stepping through. “I really need to get to the hospital and check on a friend. Please don’t do this.”

“I’m sorry, Luke. The county judge came in special for this mess and set bail on you boys. Until someone comes to post your bail, you’re in for the night.”

Luke entered the cell and the bars swung closed behind him with a final metal clank. He turned and clung to the rails. “Please, Sheriff, I have to get to the hospital. If I don’t, she might be gone when I get out of here.”

The sheriff shook his head. “Should have thought of that before you took that swing.”

A deputy leading a man down the corridor toward the cell where Mark and Luke leaned against the bars pulled his charge to the side to allow the sheriff to pass.

The man was dressed in a wrinkled business suit, shirt untucked, tie askew, his gray hair standing on end, like he’d been in a tussle. “Let me go, or you will regret it.”

“I’ve never had more pleasure than I’m having right now.” The deputy unlocked the cell and shoved the man inside, twisting the key in the lock with a decided flourish. “You need time to cool off, mister.”

“I’ll have your job for this, damn it! You can’t treat John Stratton this way.” The man shook a fist through the bar.

Mark laid a hand on Luke’s shoulder. “Come on, Luke. The sheriff and his deputies aren’t putting up with much tonight. I hear Nelson Bailey is at the emergency room now with a broken nose and two other deputies have fractured ribs.”

“But she’ll leave and we won’t know where to find her.” Luke gripped the bars in his fists, testing their strength, wishing he could bend them and escape.

“If she leaves, it’s her choice,” Mark said. “We can’t hold her. Haven’t you been saying that all along?”

Luke hung his head. “Yeah. But we needed more time with her.”

“Goddamit, if my daughter leaves town before I get out of here, I’ll sue this city for everything it’s worth, do you hear me?” The businessman grabbed the bars and tried to shake them.

None of the sheriff’s deputies listened.

“Two years,” the man shouted to the air. “It’s taken me two years to find her, and I finally catch up to her in this godforsaken town.”

“They’re not listening.” Mark glanced at the man who’d arrived last.

“Two years?” Luke recalled something Libby had said their first night together about two years.

“Hey, aren’t you the man who was shouting at the Ugly Stick Saloon for someone to get off the bar?” Mark asked.

The man kicked the bars and winced, reaching for his foot and the patent leather shoe he’d scuffed in the process. “What’s it to you?”

“We were there. Who were you yelling at?” Luke shoved his hand through his hair, trying to get his mind off Libby and failing miserably.

“My daughter, Elizabeth. She was dancing on the bar dressed as a goddamn whore.”

Mark sighed and dropped onto a bench, burying his face in his hands. “It was Cowboy Masquerade night at the Ugly Stick Saloon. Audrey has her staff dress the part of saloon girls.”

“Elizabeth?” Luke shook his head, a chill slithering across his skin. “None of the girls who work at the saloon go by that name. Perhaps you were mistaken.”

The businessman frowned and paced the length of the cell, stepping over the legs of a man passed out on the floor. “I know my daughter. She was up there, acting like a tramp. You’d think she would have a little more pride than to do what she was doing.”

“What was wrong with what they were doing?” Luke asked. “The girls hire on because they can dance or sing. It’s part of the requirement. Not everyone makes the cut. And the pay’s good.”

“I didn’t pay good money on classical ballet lessons for my daughter to dance burlesque in a saloon.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to dance ballet.” Mark stared up at the man. “Maybe she likes burlesque. Did you ever consider what she likes?”

“A Stratton does not exhibit disgusting behavior in public. It’s okay behind closed bedroom doors, but not where the paparazzi can get hold of it and plaster it all over the newspapers. It’ll ruin her reputation.”

Luke stared at the man. Something about his green eyes and the stubborn way he lifted his chin looked strangely familiar.

No. Luke shook his head. He was seeing things that weren’t there. Wasn’t he? “Sounds like you’re more worried about what others think than whether or not your daughter is happy.”

“What do you know?” The man’s sneer told Luke exactly what this man’s opinion was of him. “You’re nothing but a beer-drinking, skirt-chasing cowboy. Look where you are—in a jail cell with a bunch of drunken misfits.”

Mark laughed out loud. “Careful pointing fingers, mister. You’re in the same jail cell.”

The man opened his mouth, his face reddening. He must have thought better of saying anything because he closed his mouth and sat on the other end of the bench Mark was seated on. “I don’t know what to do to get through to her.”

“We know the feeling,” Mark commiserated.

“I haven’t seen my daughter in two years, and she has me thrown in jail for trying to talk sense into her. I just want her to come home.” He leaned his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hands across his face, looking older than he had when he entered the cell.

Luke leaned his back against the bars. “Did you ever think your daughter might not want the kind of life you lead?”

The man snorted. “It’s for the best.”

“The best for who?”

“How can I keep her safe, if I don’t know where she is? She needs protection.” Stratton looked up at Luke, his face gaunt, his eyes almost sunken.

“From what?” Luke held his hands out. “Even a gilded cage is still a cage.”

The older man who’d come in blustering and demanding justice now sat with his head in his hands. “I can’t lose her again. She’s all I have left.”

“You’ve been looking for two years?” Mark straightened, his eyes narrowing. “Sir, which one of the girls on the bar tonight is your daughter?”

“Elizabeth, the pretty one.”

Damn, had his instincts had been right? Luke held his breath knowing what was coming next.

“The one with the red hair and green eyes.” He smiled, a single tear trailing down his wrinkled cheek. “Looks just like her mother, God rest her soul. But she has my eyes.”

“Holy hell.” Mark stared across at Luke. “Libby.”

The old man sighed. “The confounded woman at the hospital said her name was Libby Jones. Well, it’s not. It’s Elizabeth Stratton, of the Manhattan Strattons.”

All the air left Luke’s lungs as if someone had punched him again in the breadbasket. “Libby is Elizabeth Stratton? The heiress who disappeared from New York City two years ago?”

The man nodded, glancing across at him. “Do you know her? My private investigators got a tip from a cop at my local Manhattan precinct that the deputy sheriff from this town was searching through New York City missing persons looking for a woman meeting my daughter’s description. It’s the first lead I’ve had worth following in a long time. I couldn’t believe it. She must be really down on her luck to have ended up here.”

“Why do you say that?” Luke stood tall. “Temptation is a much nicer place to live than in a high-rise in a huge city.”