Lone Calder Star (11 page)

"I think I remember hearing somewhere that the Triple C is a big ranch. Is it?" she wondered.

"Bigger than most."

"Is it bigger than the Slash R?"

"Yes."

Dallas had only to consider the immense power and wealth Max Rutledge could wield to know that Triple C's size was irrelevant when it was well over a thousand miles away.

"Have you worked at the Triple C long?" she asked instead. "No, not long. Why?"

"Just curious," Dallas admitted, aware that her motive was nothing more than a simple desire to know more about him.

Although he hadn't been exactly forthcoming in his answer. It made her wonder why he was so guarded. She laughed out loud when a possible reason popped into her mind. "If you're worried that Rutledge is using me to get all the information I can about you, you can forget it. I promise you, I'm not his pawn."

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"I'm glad to hear that." There was a smoky intensity to his steady gaze that sent her pulse skittering all over the place. "You're smart to be cautious, though." His smile widened. "That sounds like a compliment." "It Is."

"Now that your opinion of me has improved a little, maybe you might accept if I asked you to dance."

The suggestion, coming as it did from out of nowhere, caught Dallas by surprise. Up until that moment she had blocked out the honky-tonk music coming from the jukebox. Now she heard the ballad being played. And the woman in her wanted to know it would be like to feel his arms around her.

"Are you asking?" she said, unconsciously holding her breath

"Are you accepting?" he countered.

She had expected him to smile an answer, but his expression, while warm, was on the serious side.

Letting her actions speak for itself, Dallas slid off the bar stool and turned toward the dance floor. An instant later she felt the light pressure of his guiding hand on the curve of her waist.

The contact produced a delicious little tingle.

When they reached the cleared space in front of the jukeho, two other couples were already making use of the slow music . Dallas turned into his arms, surprised at how very natural it seemed to slide her hand onto his shoulder.

Hands linked, Quint made no attempt to draw her close as he guided her into the opening steps.

But with each turn around the dance floor, the space between them lessened until their legs were brushing and he felt the occasional rub of her breasts against his chest.

The top of her head came just to his nose. Every now and then he felt the evocative stir of her warm breath against his jaw and caught the faint fragrance of the strawberry-scented shampoo she used on her hair.

A silence swirled between them, charged with the stimulating effect of physical contact. With each step, each rocking sway of motion, they came a little bit closer together, their bodies automatically adjusting to the contours of each other.

Quint was conscious of a thousand things about her-the long sweep of her brown eyelashes, the supple grace of her body, and the heat that emanated from her.

In spite of the rightness he felt holding Dallas in his arms, he was gripped by a growing frustration that came from knowing he didn't dare see her again-not for a while, not until this business with Rutledge was concluded not just for her sake, but for his own.

If Max Itutledge suspected that Quint cared even a little about Dallas, it wouldn't trouble his conscience to use her as a means to get to him. Quint couldn't afford to let Rutledge have any kind of hold over him.

After tonight, he needed to stay well away from Dallas. He had no other choice.

John Earl Tandy stood to one side of the pool table, his hands wrapped in a stranglehold around the cue stick while he stared holes in the back of the stranger circling the dance floor with Dallas.

It sickened him the way the stranger was coming on to her, sickened and infuriated him.

"Hey, John Earl." Somebody poked him in the shoulder. "Have you gone deaf or something?

It's your turn."

John Earl turned a scowl on his fellow ranch hand, Deke Saunders. hefore he had a chance to reply, one of his other buddies spoke up. "Hell, haven't you noticed? John Earl always turns deaf, dumb and blind whenever he's in the same room with Dallas."

"That's her dancing with that new guy from the Cee Bar, isn't it?" Deke Saunders observed.

"Sure looks like she's getting mighty friendly with him."

John Earl leaned onto the pool table and took aim at the white cue ball. "If you'd been watching, you'd know, he's the one getting friendly with her. I have half a notion to go over there and cut in on him."

"Why don't you?" his other buddy, Chuck Reno, taunted.

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"Maybe I will." John Earl was quick to take up the challenge, straightening from the table when the cue ball took a nosedive into the corner pocket.

"Too late," Deke informed him. "The song's over."

John Earl turned to look, his eyes narrowing at the sight of that tanned hand riding so familiarly on Dallas's hip when the stranger guided her back to the bar.

"Somebody needs to let that guy know he isn't welcome here," he declared stiffly. "And maybe do a little rearranging of his face at the same time."

"Now you're talking, John Earl. Go get him," Deke urged.

"Don't think I wouldn't like to, but I talked to him before. He's liable to remember me." He eyed the trio around him with sudden speculation. "He's never seen any of you, though."

L.B. Brody, always the quiet one, drew back in uncertainty. "Wait a minute, John Earl. Rutledge might not like the idea of us roughing him up."

"Hell, he's liable to pay you a bonus for it," he retorted. "And if he does, you damned well better share it with me."

"Why should you get anything when we're the ones taking the risk?" Deke wanted to know.

"There won't be any risk, not the way I got it figured," John Earl stated and motioned them closer to explain his plan.

At the bar, Quint waited until Dallas had climbed onto her bar stool before he slid onto his tall seat. There was distance between them again, but it didn't eliminate the new awareness that sizzled between them. Quint knew he had to do something about that.

He signaled to the woman behind the bar. "Two more beers, Tillie."

Dallas spoke up quickly. "Don't order any for me. I still have half of mine."

"But that's warm by now," he countered smoothly.

"It's not that warm," she insisted, sliding him a glance that was slightly confused and uncertain.

She forced a smile. "Besides, I told you my limit was one drink. Then I have to go hit the books."

Quint shrugged. "You can't blame a guy for trying," he said and flashed her a smile.

"I suppose not," she agreed and studied him with a new carefulness as Tillie walked up and shoved two more beers onto the counter in front of them. "You should have listened, though.

Now you have two beers to drink."

Quint made no reply to that and fished more money out of his pocket, then slid it over to the bartender. "Bring me some change for the jukebox, will you?" He eyed Dallas with a knowing look. "'There's bound to be a few more slow songs on it. You can help me pick them out."

"Maybe another time," Dallas replied, oddly saddened that he would resort to such a ruse to get her to stay longer. She reminded herself that men were like that, and wondered why she had thought Quint was different from any other male on the prowl. She took a long drink of her nearly warm beer, determined to bring this meeting to a quick end.

"I thought you liked dancing," he remarked with subtle persistence.

"I like it well enough," she said, refusing to lie about it. "But I have some heavy-duty studying to do, and that has to come first."

"The night's young. You have plenty of time to study later," Quint reasoned.

"Hey, Dallas," Tillie shouted from halfway down the bar. "You got a phone call. You can take it in the back room." She jerked a thumb toward the rear of the building and immediately resumed filling the next drink order.

"Excuse me." Dallas darted a short glance in Quint's direction and slipped off the stool, striking out toward the dimly lit hall just beyond the twin pool tables.

Quint was quick to notice the shine was gone from her eyes when she looked at him. It was proof, if he needed any, that he had succeeded in his role of a cowboy on the make. But he felt no satisfaction in it, just a resenting anger that it had to be this way.

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He wrapped a hand around the icy cool sides of the fresh beer mug and carried it to his mouth, drinking down several long swallows. But the cold beer failed to rid him of the sour taste.

Engrossed in his own dark thoughts, Quint paid little attention to the stocky cowboy sauntering toward him until he stopped by his stool. He skimmed the man's face in a glance, identifying him as the cowboy who had warned him about working at the Cee Bar his first night in Loury, the one Dallas had called John Earl.

"You're from the Cee Bar, aren't you?" After making his opening gambit, the cowboy waited for Quint's reply.

"I am." Quint tensed ever so slightly, not sure what was coming, but ready for it.

"Some guy outside wants to talk to you. Said it was important."

Aware that it was one of the oldest ambush tricks ever used Quint shrugged. "If he wants to talk, tell him to come in here."

John Earl scoffed at the suggestion. "Tell him yourself. It's a saturday night and I'm too far behind on my drinking to be cartying messages," he declared and walked down to the middle of the bar where he slapped a hand on the counter. "Give me a beer, Tillie. Tall and cold as they come."

Quint sat on the stool a minute longer. The message reeked of a trap. Yet there was a slim possibility that Empty Garner was out there. At the same time, Quint knew that if Max Rutledge was dealing this hand, he had to play it. He threw a glance at the dimly lit hall, but there was no sign of Dallas.

Leaving his change on the counter, Quint stepped down from the bar stool. When he reached the door, he pulled it open and paused within its frame, scanning the area immediately outside.

Seeing nothing suspicious, he exited the bar with a sideways step that put his back against the building, letting the door swing shut on its own.

He stood there for a long moment, tuning in to the night sounds and sifting out the man-made ones, every sense alert. Logic said the parking lot was the obvious location for a trap. He concentrated most of his attention on it.

His caution paid off when he caught the faint scuff of a boot on gravel, the kind of sound that might be made when a person shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"If someone wants to talk to me," Quint said in a low voice, "he'd better show himself or I'm going back inside."

A sudden stillness gripped the night. It was soon broken by the faint rustle of clothing and the soft tread of footsteps, both coming from the parking lot area, just as Quint expected. A second later, he spotted a movement in the shadows at the building's corner. A hatted figure in a bulky, insulated jacket exposed a shoulder, briefly lifting a hand.

"Over here," he said in a voice as low as Quint's had been.

Although he could see nothing of the man's face, Quint knew at once the man wasn't Empty Garner. His caution tripled.

"Step out where I can see you," Quint ordered.

"Like hell I will," the man retorted in a voice that was lower still. "I can't risk being seen talking to you. You either come over here or forget you ever saw me."

The response had just enough ring of truth in it to draw Quint forward, but he took a course that kept him wide of the corner. When he was level with the tailgate of the pickup parked closest to the sidewalk, he turned into the lot, crossing behind the truck, and stopping in the dark space between it and the next vehicle.

The man still stood by the corner, cloaked in deep shadow now. After a moment's hesitation, he shifted past the pickup to stand directly opposite Quint. Just enough light from the street reached him to enable Quint to see the turned-up collar of his jacket and the downward angle of his hat brim, both intended to conceal.

"What did you have to tell me?" Quint prompted, alert for any movement to the side of him.

"You're a cautious one," the man muttered. "Guess you can't blame me for being cautious, too."

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Hesitating again, the man threw a glance at the street, giving Quint a glimpse of a thick dark mustache. Then he was in shadow. He seemed to come to a decision and moved briskly forward.

"This is gonna be short and quick," he said and started feeling ground in the pocket of his jacket.

"It ain't what I got to say. It's what I got to give you."

The man's swift approach forced Quint to center his attention on him while maintaining a healthy amount of disbelief that his intention was as innocent as his wards.

Almost too late, he detected the roll of gravel to the side of him, the sound masked by the heavy crunch of the man's footsteps. Someone lunged at him out of the darkness. bucking side ways, Quint eluded the brunt of it and instinctively grabbed the arm that tried to wrap itself around his neck, lowered a shoulder, and flipped him over his back into the path of the first man.

Before Quint could straighten, a third man slammed into him, knocking him against the parked truck. He came away from it swinging and had the satisfaction of hearing a startled grunt when he buried a fist in the man's coat-padded midsection.

He never had a chance to deliver a follow-up blow as the second man scrambled to his feet and grabbed Quint's arm. He twisted free of his grip in time to block a swing from the third. By then the second man had recovered and managed to land a glancing blow along Quint's jaw.

A fist clipped the side of his head and sent his hat flying. The action was coming too swiftly.

Quint no longer bothered to discern which one was pressing the attack. He had his back up against the pickup's side bed, using the protection it offered to prevent any assault from the rear.