Deborah Camp (36 page)

“This don’t look good,” Sheriff Nelson said to Monroe. “If I was you, I’d round up every cowhand and do some talking to them. Could be some of your men are bad seeds.”

“My men are not thieves,” Roe said, puffing up like a mound of yeast bread. “I tell you, someone is—”

“And I’m telling you that you ought to be concerned about your horses being ridden by thieves,” Sheriff Nelson said, cutting him off before he could say what would have been fighting words. “Talk to your men, then come into town, and me and you will have a visit about this. I want to know when your horses came up missing and if anybody saw anything suspicious that night. I expect your cooperation on this, Hendrix.”

Monroe gave a stiff nod. “Everyone knows I’m doing everything I can to have the man responsible put behind bars.” He gave Drew a long, hard glare before he led the Thoroughbred back to the stables.

Drew mounted up and pointed Dynamite toward home. Sheriff Nelson rode beside him in silence until they reached the place where the sheriff would veer off to Abilene.

“Listen to me, Dalton,” he said, his tone kindly, like that of an uncle. “This is the time when you’ve got to be smart. Watch your back and keep your eyes peeled. If Hendrix doesn’t show up at my office right soon, I’ll send one of my deputies out here to get him. After I speak privately with him, I’ll tell you what I think.”

Drew studied the sheriff, taken by surprise at the
man’s show of support. “Seems to me you’re thinking the same thing I’m thinking.” He looked over his shoulder at Star H land. “For a man who is worried enough to hire a sharpshooter to protect him from thieves, Roe sure was unconcerned when some of his stock came up missing.”

The sheriff rolled himself a cigarette, then placed it between his lips and struck a match off his pants leg. “Yep,” he conceded, blue smoke wreathing his head. “Some things are adding up and others just ain’t. My pappy was a smart man, and he told me once not to trust a man who admires other folks’ hossflesh too much.” He squinted through the smoke at Dynamite. “I like that hoss, but that don’t make me want to raise some like him. Monroe Hendrix has always got to have the best and be the best, even if he don’t or ain’t. He’s like your pa that way, or so I’m told.”

Relief trickled through Drew, but he cautioned himself not to put too much stock in the sheriff’s faint show of faith. But it did lighten his load. He pushed back his shoulders, grateful for the small favor.

“A big part of me is hoping that Roe just isn’t paying close enough attention to who he hires and what might be going on right under his nose,” Drew admitted. “I’m beholden to him, you know. He spoke up for me at my first trial when my old man wouldn’t bother.”

“Yeah, well, all talk costs you is a little wind. See you in a few days, Dalton.” Blowing smoke, the sheriff turned his mount toward town.

Drew watched him until he was out of sight, the man’s words sinking slowly into him like a knife. What
had
it cost Roe to speak up for him in court? That gesture had put considerable more shine on Roe’s character.

Maybe he’d been looking at this the wrong way all these years, Drew thought. Maybe Roe had gone to court for his own reasons that had nothing to do with Drew.

Like looking innocent and upstanding when he was exactly the opposite.

Drew set his spurs to Dynamite and raced the wind back home.

A
s Drew walked the length of the front room of the house, his boot heels rang against the floorboards, punctuating his words as he described to Cassie the scene that had transpired earlier that day at the Star H.

“Why couldn’t I see this all before? I rode up to that ranch house today, and the whole thing hit me like a lightning bolt. The place is all for show. New things everywhere you look and so many ranch hands, you’d think Roe owned every cow in Kansas. Sure didn’t take any genius to see where his money was being spent, but I’d never paid any attention to that before.”

Cassie looked up from the sock she was darning. “That’s because Roe slapped blinders on you the day he stood up for you in court. He’s clever. No doubt about that.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Him standing up for me made me beholden to him. All the time I was in prison, I built him up in my mind as one of my few friends. I remember how surprised I was when he offered to appear in court.”

“Why were you surprised?”

“Because I never thought we were that friendly. I never expected Roe to be that interested in what happened to me. I figured I’d misjudged him real bad.”

“And as it turns out, we’ve both misjudged him real bad.”

“Maybe.”

Cassie laid the sock in her lap and looked at him squarely. “Maybe? You mean you still think he might not know anything about the cattle rustling?”

“It could be that Wilhite fella.”

“The rustling started before he showed up,” she reminded him.

“Or it could be those two skunks, Smalley and Harper.”

“They don’t have enough brains between them to carry out this scheme. Whoever is doing this is trying to get the Square D cattle and the Square D land and get you out of the way for good this time. If Roe is hurting for good cattle, he’d be desperate enough to try something like this.”

“I guess.”

“You hate to think that any of your neighbors would knife you in the back, but none of them was too concerned before, when you were packed off to prison, and none of them, except for Viola, was overjoyed when you came home.”

His mouth quirked and he massaged the back of his neck. “You have a way of putting things, Cassie Dalton.”

“I like to state things plain.”

He sat on the sofa across from her. The night was a little cool, so they’d lit a fire, and the glow of it painted
his face with gold. His eyes glimmered as if lit from within.

It would be the last fire this spring, Cassie thought. Summer was almost upon them. Drew would take the herd next week to market, if all went well. It was hard for her to realize that she’d only known Drew for two months. Seemed like a lot longer. So much had happened this—

“How old were you the first time, Cassie? If you don’t mind my asking.”

She glanced at him. “The first time?” she repeated before grasping his meaning. Her heart lurched. Oh, Lord. He was asking her about
that
. “Oh, you mean, when was I with my first man?”

“Yes.”

“I was a few days shy of sixteen.”

He linked his fingers and stared at them. “For pay?”

“No, for what I thought at the time was true love.” She put her mending in the basket by her feet. “You want to hear about it, do you? All the details?”

“No, just what you think I should know.”

She wanted to tell him that she didn’t want him to know anything, not even that she’d been a whore before she’d married his father. But the cat was among the pigeons now and there was nothing left to do but to pick up the feathers.

“The man I told you about—Taylor—he courted me. I was doing laundry and working in a boardinghouse, barely making ends meet. The woman I worked for was a witch. She treated me worse than dirt. Taylor came and boarded there. He was new in town, just drifting, he said. He wore nice clothes and he had manners. He brought me flowers and a little box of candies. Chocolates
all the way from Chicago!” She smiled, remembering how special she’d felt. Like a lady.

“Where was this?”

“In California. Santa Clara.”

“How old was he at that time?”

“Twenty-five, I think, but I’m not sure. He was older and worldly.”

“And he had no business messing with a fifteen-year-old girl with no family to look out for her,” Drew said, almost growling with outrage.

Cassie shrugged. “Yes, but from where I was sitting at that time, I thought he was my hero, saving me from my terrible life. When he was ready to leave, he asked me to come with him.” She laughed ruefully. “He didn’t have to ask twice.”

Pausing, she thought back to those early days when she had been so dreamily in love with Taylor and knew that what she felt for Drew was nothing like it. The emotions she experienced when she was with Drew were not dreamy; they were earth-bound, real, and solid. With Taylor, she’d been an impressionable girl, more scared than secure. With Drew she was a strong-minded woman, secure, scared only of disappointing him and making him regret his association with her.

“Where did you go with him?”

“To Texas first and then to Indian Territory. In Texas he worked as a bartender and got me a job serving drinks at the gaming tables. He was sweet to me then. A gentleman. He didn’t even try to sleep with me until a few weeks after we got to Texas and then … Well, he was paying for two rooms for us and told me he was running short of money. He said I could keep my room and he’d
pay for it, but that he’d have to give up his. He said he’d stay in the stables out back.”

“And you told him you would share a room with him,” Drew said.

“Yes.” Cassie sighed. “Looking back, I suppose it was a dirty trick of his, but I didn’t see it that way then. I didn’t like it, though. Being with a man like that.” Blood rose to heat her face and make her squirm in her chair. “I never liked it… until… well, until lately.” She swallowed with difficulty and found she could not look at him, so she hurried on. “Then one night he told me that we were hurting for money real bad because he’d lost some at the tables. He said we’d be put out on the street if we didn’t pay our rent the next morning, but he knew one way we could make some quick silver. He knew this man who would pay to … uh… pay … to…”

“I know, I know,” Drew said. “So you did? That’s how it started? Didn’t you figure out that this Taylor fella couldn’t think much of you to ask you to do such a thing?”

“It felt wrong, but I convinced myself it was right. Taylor had bought me pretty dresses and he had taken me away from that awful boardinghouse work. He told me I was beautiful and special. He had done so much for me, and I couldn’t refuse this one thing he asked me to do. Besides, he swore I’d only have to do it once, that he would stop gambling.”

“But he didn’t.”

“Yes, yes.” She stood up, sending the rocker into motion without her. “I was stupid as a goose, and you could tell this story for me, it’s all so humdrum. Before I knew it, I was seeing a man or two every week. Then
Taylor moved to Indian Territory and opened up his own place. He said I wouldn’t have to be with any man but him because he couldn’t stand thinking of another man laying hands on me.” She moved closer to the fire, feeling a chill that seemed to settle in her heart. “But what he did was set me up as his high princess. Only the customers who paid top dollar were allowed into my bed. Most of them couldn’t afford me, but once in a while some joker would come up with enough money to make Taylor forget how awful it was for him when another man touched me.”

“Wilhite never could meet the price?”

“Taylor would never let Wilhite have me even if he offered him a thousand dollars. Buck Wilhite worked for Taylor, and Taylor didn’t want any of the people on his payroll sleeping with me. He said it was bad business.”

“Why did Taylor whip you?”

“I was getting uppity. I told him I was quitting him and going to work for his competition across the street. It was a brand-new saloon that had opened up, and the man who owned it had a good heart. He wanted me to quit whoring. He’s the one who married Miss Adele.”

“Oh, yeah. The mail-order groom.”

“That’s him.” Cassie smiled. “He saved my life and my best friend’s life.”

“Did he kill Taylor?”

“Yes.”

“I wish he were here so I could shake his hand.”

Cassie turned to face him, putting her back to the fire. “I’m not going to apologize about what I did back then. Love, or what can pass as love, can make people do crazy things. Every heart hungers for another, even a young whore’s. But I got out and I’m staying out.”

“I didn’t ask for an apology, did I?”

“No.” She wrung her hands. “You haven’t asked anything of me—yet—but it’s coming. I know it’s coming. I just want you to understand that I told you about me because I decided you should know, what with Wilhite making threats and all. But I don’t want your pity or anything like that. And I don’t want your charity. You have a right to look at me different now. I probably should have told you before … well, before you and me … got close.”

He stood up. “I’m glad you told me.”

“You are?”

“We should always be honest with each other.” He lifted a hand and placed it alongside her face. “We’ve both been through hell and back, Cassie.”

His touch, so gentle and warm, weakened her. She leaned into his palm and closed her eyes, her senses simmering. “Oh, Drew,” she breathed his name. “Drew, Drew, I wish things were different.” She inched upward and pressed her lips to his. At first he gave no response, but then he released a tortured groan, and his arms came around her and tightened as he deepened the kiss.

Cassie parted her lips, clutching madly at him and catching fire. His tongue dueled with hers, and his hands roamed her body, kneading her hips and breasts in wild abandon. She drove her fingers through his hair and wound her arms around his neck, clinging to him as their kisses lengthened and their passion soared out of control.

“God, Cassie … God!” His voice was ragged, rough. His eyes were darkly blue and haunted by ghosts she didn’t recognize. “I want you,” he bit out. “I could take you right here, over and over again, all night long.”

She thought she might faint. She thought she might die if he didn’t follow through on his words.

“But I won’t.” He pulled her arms from around his neck. “You’ve been used enough by men.”

A whimper escaped her before she could stop it. Her pride was all that kept her from crumpling to her knees. She stepped away from him, anger and humiliation and confusion spilling through her like poison.

Someone landed on the porch and hammered at the front door. Gooseflesh broke out over her arms, and she reached for the rifle hanging above the mantel in an automatic reaction.

“Who’s there?” Drew called.