Diablo (15 page)

She flushed for the first time in years, yet his words were said with humor, not contempt. “I suppose it was,” she said, suddenly smiling back. “But my pride's at stake.”

One brow questioned her.

“There's a bet,” she said to the unuttered question.

His brow raised higher. “About me?”

She nodded. “Who will break you down.”

“Not much to do in this town?” His question was wry, and she immediately liked him.

“Well, you don't gamble, you don't drink much, and you don't want company. That sorta makes you … strange.”

“Strange?” he said with a small chuckle that rumbled across the table.

“Different,” she said, afraid she'd insulted him.

“Then I have to remedy that,” he said formally, and she knew suddenly he'd been well-raised though he was dressed like any drifter. “May I buy you a drink?”

She grinned then. “I thought you would never ask.” She handed him the glass and sat down. “I'm Mary May.”

“I know,” he said, and she realized he hadn't been as indifferent as he seemed. “I'm Ben.”

“Ben what?”

“Ben Smith.”

“You have a lot of kin out here.”

He smiled. Slow and lazy again. “Yep, guess I do.”

“Waiting for one of them?”

“Could be.”

“Ex-military?”

He looked startled for the first time. For a moment, he looked as if he would deny the assumption, then his body relaxed. “That obvious?”

“To me, it is.”

“Why?”

“Your hair's shorter than most, for one thing. Most military men wear it that way. Also, the way you hold yourself. And the discipline. Always two drinks, never more.”

He shrugged. “The military and I took leave of each other long ago by mutual agreement. But some habits die hard.” For the first time his expression darkened. She'd intruded some place she shouldn't have. But relief flooded her. She didn't think he was a lawman. He didn't have that … arrogance about him.

He gestured to the bartender for a drink for her. Tom grinned and gave her a sign of victory. For the next thirty minutes, she sipped the watered drink, and found herself saying things she hadn't mentioned in years.

It wasn't until later, when she was in her room, unhappily alone, that she realized he hadn't said anything at all about himself, except that one bitter comment about the military.

Ben Masters glared at himself in the mirror. He ought to be concentrating on Diablo. He'd been crazy to start going to the saloon, but he'd hoped to learn something; it was at the Blazing Star that Diablo had made his first contact. And Ben was damned tired of waiting.

Ben had noticed the woman right off. Hell, he'd have to be blind not to notice. She brimmed with life. She was as unlike his former fiancée as night from day, or the sun from the moon. Clara had been a pale beauty, blond and fragile. Too fragile for a man torn apart by pain and guilt, and who was trying to bury both in whiskey.

He didn't want to think of that now. He needed to keep his mind on Diablo, not on some saloon woman, no matter how she smiled or laughed. For a few moments, Mary May had helped him to forget the worry. He knew her reputation, but he liked her honesty, her smile. He liked being with a woman again.

He went to the window and looked out again, as he had every night for the past several weeks, and wondered how Kane O'Brien was faring.

Chapter Ten

This time the dinner invitation came from Nicky. And to Kane, it was even more alarming than the one from her uncle. It also came via a more deceptively benign messenger—Robin.

“Sis wants you to come for supper,” he said from the doorway. “So do I.”

Kane didn't even ask whether their uncle did. Nat Thompson's offer had haunted him during the past few days. No matter what Thompson was, he had made an offer in good faith, and Kane detested his role of spy and betrayer. Deception had never come easily to him. Even when he was on the run, he had been openly defying the law.

And, damn it, temptation deviled him. Thompson was offering him something of his own for the first time in his life, even if it was not what he would have chosen. But any brief mental flirtation with the offer reminded him of the lawmen who had disappeared, and he knew he could never be a part of that. He also knew he could never profit at Davy's expense.

As he looked at Robin, though, he realized he had no obvious reason for refusing the invitation for dinner, even though everything within him rebelled against getting more involved with the Thompson family.

Yet, he still had to discover the location of Sanctuary. And Nicky and Robin were still his best hope.

Robin, his face eager, stood at the door, waiting for an answer.

“Tell your sister I look forward to it,” Kane lied. He hesitated, reluctant to prolong the boy's stay. “How's your hawk?”

Robin grinned. “He's making little whistling noises, and he ate that rabbit real good. I'm going out hunting again. You wanta go?” he asked hopefully.

“I don't have a gun.”

“That's all right. Andy has one, and he can loan you one while we're hunting.”

Kane hated the anticipation in Robin's eyes. It had been a mistake bringing the boy the hawk. The more Robin came to admire him, the more disillusioned and hurt he'd be when he discovered he had been used to destroy his uncle, his home, possibly his sister.

“I don't think so,” Kane said in a voice harsher than he'd intended.

Robin's grin faded.

“I don't like hunting,” Kane said, his voice gentling slightly. “I've been hunted too long myself.”

“Oh,” Robin said, clearly not understanding at all. The thought of being hunted apparently seemed adventuresome, not bleak, hellishly uncomfortable, and often terrifying. Kane thought of the two years he'd spent as a fugitive—always on the move, poor food, little shelter. He thought of the hopelessness that last time when his horse simply couldn't run any longer, and he'd stood helpless as a posse surrounded him.

There had been nothing glamorous about the handcuffs that rubbed his skin raw, or the leg irons that forced him to hobble to the courthouse and back. There had been nothing adventuresome about his cell or the prospect of hanging.

If only Robin understood. But he didn't, and he was headed straight in the same direction.

He wanted to shake some sense into the boy, to warn him what to expect if he continued to admire the “guests” at Sanctuary. But he couldn't. He could only try to convince him slowly, all the time trying to extract information from him. Some example of law and order he was.

“What time is supper?” he asked.

Robin's grin was a little tentative, some of his enthusiasm obviously ebbing at Kane's curt answer about being hunted. “Six,” the boy said, still hesitating, obviously reluctant to leave.

Kane internally counted the days he had left before Davy died, damned Masters yet another time, and stopped the boy as he started to turn around. “Instead of hunting,” he said, “what about fishing? I'm pretty fair at that.”

Robin nodded eagerly. “Tomorrow?”

Feeling all sorts of a knave and damned beyond redemption, Kane forced a smile. “Sounds good.”

“I'll see you tonight. You can see Diablo,” Robin offered hopefully.

The name made Kane flinch. “How is he doing?”

“He's sitting on that perch you brought.” The words kept rushing out.

“You get that glove I told you about?”

“Yep,” Robin said happily. “Had one over at the store. Real heavy riding glove.”

“That should work well,” Kane said.

“How long before I can start teaching him to hunt?”

“He's probably ready now,” Kane said. “You'll have to make him a tether.”

“You'll show me, won't you?”

“I won't be here that long.”

“Uncle Nat said you might be staying. I heard him talk to Mitch.”

Kane was trapped again. “He said
might
, Robin. I have … other matters to see to.”

“You'll stay. I just know you will,” Robin said, then turned and fled before Kane could say anything.

Nicky looked in the mirror at herself and didn't quite believe the reflection that stared back. She
was
pretty.

Juanita had given her a dress and helped her stitch here and there to make it fit. Juanita's breasts and hips were larger than her own, but their waists were the same. Nicky thought the rich deep blue color very pretty and, once altered, the dress flattered her slender figure.

Juanita brushed Nicky's hair until it fairly shimmered with gold, and then pinned a blue flower behind her ear. She used a little of her paints to deepen Nicky's eyes and put a faint blush in her sun-darkened cheeks. Nicky, who'd never paid much attention to her appearance and often merely ran her fingers through her hair to comb it, was amazed, pleased, and terribly uncertain.
She
thought she looked nice, but would Kane? He was probably used to more … experienced women. Prettier women.

But her uncle's eyes had widened when she entered the main room from her bedroom, and he stood for her. He'd never done that before.

“You look lovely, Nicky,” he said.

A warm feeling enveloped her. “Thank you,” she said shyly.

“Is that you?” Robin said, his eyes squinched up mischievously. “Is that really you, Sis?”

“No,” she said. “It's your wicked stepmother who will make you sweep out the fireplace if you don't behave.”

He grinned happily. “I bet Diablo will think you're real pretty, too.”

“The man or the hawk?” her uncle teased in rare good humor. Nicky knew he was pleased by her invitation.

“Both,” Robin said, red suddenly darkening his cheeks. He wasn't used to giving compliments, not any more than Nicky was to receiving them.

Nicky bit her lips, hoping that what he said was true. She went into the kitchen to check on the chicken that was cooking in its own juices. She'd already roasted potatoes and made biscuits and an apple pie.

She looked down at her dress. It wasn't nearly as comfortable as her trousers. Besides which it made her feel different in ways that were not all pleasant. She was scared. Just plain scared. Scared he would … be amused, afraid she would trip over her skirts or do something silly. She was afraid of seeing him—and of not seeing him.

But most of all, she was expectant. She couldn't tamp that part of her that hoped, dreamed, ached to be touched and loved and wanted.

Even by a man who was an outlaw. For the first time, she understood her mother, and why she had followed her husband to the ends of nowhere, dragging a child behind her and expecting another.

Nicky was still in the kitchen when she heard the knock on the door, then male voices. Kane O'Brien's and her uncle's. There would only be the four of them tonight. Mitch, who often ate with them, had left Sanctuary on some business.

Her uncle's voice was hearty, strong. She wondered whether she had imagined the spells, those moments when he appeared to be in pain. Maybe, as he claimed, they had been caused by something he'd eaten that disagreed with him. She smoothed the front of the dress, wishing she didn't feel so awkward in it, then checked the flower in her hair. She felt odd, even a little ridiculous, pretending to be a lady. What if Kane laughed? She couldn't bear to see derision in his eyes. Or even worse, pity.

Suddenly, she had an urge to hide in the kitchen or sneak through the back and climb in the window of her room.

“Nicky?”

She turned away from the stove toward Robin, who was standing in the door. “Diablo's here.”

Diablo.
She hated that name. It didn't fit him. Not now.

“Here,” she said. “You can help carry some food in.”

“That's woman's work.”

“It's Robin's work, too, if he wants to eat,” she retorted.

“I have a bad arm,” he protested. It was the first time he'd complained about it, and she suddenly realized he didn't want Diablo to see him doing what Robin considered “women's work.” In his mind, gunslingers evidently didn't do that.

“You were able to shoot that rabbit,” she said. “You can carry in a dish.”

“Aw, Sis.”

“And I have a bad arm, too,” she said.

“But …”

“But you're going to let your Diablo starve if you keep arguing with me.”

“Just wait till he sees you,” Robin said, changing the subject and inching out the door.

“Robin!”

Balefully, he returned and took a platter.

Nicky waited a moment until he disappeared, bit her lip and transferred the chicken onto a platter, then headed for the main room. A glass in his hand, Kane was standing, leaning against a wall, his gaze on the food Robin had fetched, until he obviously sensed her presence and looked up. Nicky saw the surprise dart across his face as he straightened, then something akin to pleasure, slow and lazy and appreciative, took its place. The crooked mouth smiled, the dent in his cheek deepening.

He put down his glass and moved quickly over to her, taking the platter from her hands and placing it on the table. Nicky wanted to shoot a triumphant gaze over to her brother, but she couldn't take her gaze away from Kane's. His eyes had deepened, and there was no ridicule or pity in them. They were, rather, smoldering in a way she'd never seen before.

“Miss Thompson,” he said. “You look very … pretty.”

Her heart felt squeezed, trapped by her ribcage. It wasn't so much his words as the admiration in his eyes. “Thank you,” she said and turned, seeking the kitchen again, a shelter to hide the blush in her cheeks. She wished she didn't always do that with him, feel so vulnerable. Why couldn't she just accept a compliment? Her throat felt like it was weighed with stone.