The Devil's Own Desperado (17 page)

“The girl in Waco?” Devilment danced in his eyes. “Oh,
her.
Her name was Consuela. A waist so tiny a man could span it with his hands, long black hair, dark eyes, and when she danced…”

Amelia choked and turned from him. It shouldn’t hurt. It had happened long before she ever met him.

Colt grabbed her arm, and spun her around. The teasing expression was gone. “She took me in for a little while after my stepfather threw me out. She was a dance-hall girl, yes, but I never touched her.”

Amelia studied his face, and then forced the words out. “How many women have you known?”

“As in the biblical sense, ‘known’?”

She nodded.

“That’s a little personal, isn’t it?” He sighed and shook his head. “Not as many as those dime novels have written. I haven’t been a saint, but I’m not putting notches on my gun belt either. Don’t ever believe what’s written about me in those things. If there is anything you want to know, ask me, Amy.”

She glanced at the thin, paper-bound book Mrs. Porter had left on the table. Drawing a deep breath, Amelia asked. “How many men have you killed, Colt?”

He cupped the side of her face and tilted her head up. “Four, and I regret killing three of them.”

Amelia’s heart constricted with the icy fury in his eyes. “Why not the other one? Taking a life is wrong.”

“Not that one.” He dropped his hand. He walked across the room and knelt beside Baby. The puppy thumped her tail on the floor when Colt fondled her ears. “He deserved to die.”

A shiver whispered over her at the tone of his voice. “No one deserves to die, Colt.”

“That one deserved to die.” He rose slowly. “My stepfather, Jackson Hayward, killed my mother. I came home one day and my mother was dead. Maybe it was an accident, I don’t know, but they argued and fought all the time. He never laid a hand on her that I know of, but the screaming and shouting was brutal enough. She had fallen from the second floor landing onto a marble floor. It was my twelfth birthday. He said no one would notice if one more ‘whoring Mexican bitch’ was dead.”

“Colt.” Amelia was certain her heart was shattering into a thousand small pieces. His pain sliced through her, became her own.

“I don’t ever regret killing him. He figured when he threw me out he’d never see me again, and he could lay claim to everything that was my mother’s. He was more than surprised when he saw me in Waco, seven years later.” Colt’s mouth curled in a bitter parody of a smile. “He married her for the money and for a six-thousand-acre
ranchero
in the Rio Grande bottoms. He was the one who first taught me to fast draw and the one who started telling people how fast I was. Don’t get me wrong, he never once touched me, but that was only because I was beneath his notice.”

Amelia remembered her father telling her that anytime she meant to teach someone else a lesson in meanness, not to be surprised if the pupil learned the lesson too well. “Your mother was Mexican?”

It would explain his complexion and why he appeared to have spent a lot of time in the sun without a stitch of clothing. He wasn’t tanned, it was his natural coloring.

Colt stiffened and his eyes narrowed. “Her great-grandfather was granted a large
ranchero
by the Mexican government for his services in the Mexican Army. When Texas declared its independence from Mexico, her grandfather sided with the Texans. She was a Texan and an American, who just happened to have Mexican blood.”

“You loved her very much, didn’t you?”

The tension left his shoulders and his expression softened. “Yeah, I loved her very much. And she was a lady, down to her very core.”

Amelia nodded, and then picked up the small, flimsy book. Grabbing a towel, she wrapped it around the hot handle of the bottom door on the stove and opened the door.

Colt held his hand out. “Don’t do that yet. Let me see that thing.”

Puzzled, she closed the stove’s door and handed the book to him.

He opened it and flipped through the pages. His brow rose and he snorted with laughter. “I didn’t kill Lester Biggs. The damn fool got drunk and shot himself in the leg. He died a few days later of blood poisoning. Hell, I wasn’t even in Cheyenne that day.”

Amelia peered at the page, trying to read the print upside down. “How can you be so certain where you were that day?”

“I know. I was in Abilene. I won Angel in a poker game.”

Amelia allowed herself a small smile. Colt had taken to using the name she’d given his horse. It was a small step, to be sure, and a long way to admitting that he could leave his past behind, but it was a step, just the same.

“I sure as hell wasn’t in Cheyenne, and Biggs wasn’t there either when he shot himself and died. He was in Deadwood.” Colt shook his head.

Amelia took the book from his hand. She skimmed the pages, and then asked, “What about Omaha? It says you killed two men in a saloon brawl there.”

“Omaha? I don’t think so. Never been to Omaha, I know that for certain.” Colt crossed the room, kicking the latch on the bottom door of the stove. “Toss that in here, now.”

“Oh my, this is interesting reading.” She pointed to the book. “I didn’t know that about you. I’m willing to bet you didn’t know it either. Did you know, according to this, your uncle taught you to be a gunfighter?” Amelia giggled. “And that being an outlaw runs in your family? Your uncle was a notorious Mexican
bandito
.”

“Do they just make this up out of whole cloth? Please tell me there is nothing in there about my mother.”

It was always better to tell the truth, or so Amelia had been told. “I saw a mention in it that she was an actress.”

“My mother was a what?” Colt closed his eyes, a pained expression crossing his face. “I’m glad she’s dead and can’t read that about herself. She didn’t think highly of anyone who took to the stage or performed in the traveling troupes. She’d have my hide if she were alive and knew that was being said about her.”

“So, which notorious Mexican
bandito
was your uncle?” Amelia teased, hoping to ease the sting.

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” Colt leaned against the wall, a slow grin tugging the corners of his mouth. “Well, they’ve got that all wrong. My uncle wasn’t a Mexican
bandito
. He was an Apache war chief.”

“Oh really? Which one?” Her heart began to thunder at the new glint in Colt’s eyes and a delicious heat stole through her.

“Cochise. I’m sure you’ve heard how much the Apaches liked to take beautiful white women as captives.” His brow rose and that grin widened. “If you haven’t heard, I can tell you…you would have been quite a prize for any Apache male. You would have become the favorite, and it would have taken a lot of horses to ransom you.”

“How many?”

Colt’s smile faded and his voice softened and deepened. “If my uncle really were an Apache, and if I were living with them and had taken you captive, I know there aren’t that many horses on the face of God’s green earth to convince me to give you up.”

Amelia dropped her gaze to the flimsy book in her hand. She tossed it into the banked coals of the stove. “That Colt Evans never existed. The only Colt Evans I know, contrary to what that horrid little book said, is the son of a Texas patriot and pioneer.”

“Did you see anything in there about Brimstone Phillips?”

For a second, Amelia’s breath caught in her throat. “Who?” she finally asked, hoping that Colt hadn’t noticed her hesitation.

“Oh, no one…just a shootist that I heard tell of all the way down in Texas.”

****

Saul and Jenny both stood, arms folded, mouths set in grim lines. Amelia glanced at Colt, hoping for some support from that quarter. Once more, he was taking the coward’s way out. He lifted his brows and smiled with a boy’s roguishness.

“It’s already an hour past Jenny’s bedtime,” Amelia protested.

“Dr. Archer said it’s going to be a total eclipse tonight. I want to see it.” Saul nudged Jenny with an elbow. “Don’t you want to see it too, Jenny?”

Jenny nodded.

“We can all go outside and sit on the glider and watch it. Please, Amy?” Saul added, “Dr. Archer is going to let Nathan and Molly stay up to see it.”

Amelia scanned the room. Even Baby had sided with Saul and Jenny. She sat between them, her soulful eyes fixed on Amelia’s face, tail thumping the floor. Amelia was outnumbered. Sighing in defeat, she threw her hands up. “Okay, you both can stay up to watch it, but I don’t want to hear one word of grumbling tomorrow about how tired you are.”

“No, ma’am, not one word,” Saul promised. He grabbed Jenny’s hand. “Come on, let’s go out now and watch the moon rise.” They raced out the door, Baby bounding behind them.

Colt’s deep laughter filled the cabin. “Amy McCollister, you made that too easy for them.”

“And you were no help at all.” Amelia wagged her finger under his nose. “The least you could have done was point out that Dr. Archer said the eclipse won’t start until ten and won’t be total until almost midnight. Do you know how difficult it will be to make Saul get out of bed in the morning if he stays up that late?”

Colt caught her hand. “Let them have this little victory,” he said. “They’ll be sound asleep before the thing even starts. They’re both dog-tired. I’ll bet they stayed up most of the night, giggling and whispering with the Archer kids.”

“Not Jenny,” Amelia said. “I don’t know what I would do to help her get past what she saw, to hear her talk again.”

“Jenny makes herself understood very well. If the sawbones thinks she’ll talk again, she will.” He brushed his hand over Amelia’s cheek, a soft smile warming his eyes. “I wish I was the cad that book said I was. I’d have no qualms on taking you up on that offer you made me yesterday.”

Fire blazed in her veins with his slightest touch. “The offer still stands, Colt.”

“I know,” he whispered. He released her hand and took a step back. “And for the same reasons I stated the other night, I’m not taking you up on that offer. God knows, I want to. But you deserve better than what you’re offering. You sell yourself way too short, lady. You deserve so much more than a few stolen hours.”

****

Jenny was snuggled into Amelia’s side, a quilt draped over her, sound asleep. On a blanket spread out on the ground, Saul lay on his back, mouth open, arms flung out to his sides, sleeping deeply. Amelia traced out familiar constellations in the dark sky, and counted several shooting stars blazing across the velvety blackness.

The rich aroma of brewed coffee announced Colt’s return. He eased onto the glider. “I told you they’d be asleep before it even started.”

Amelia smiled. A full moon rode in glistening glory across the inky firmament, the earth’s shadow just beginning to nibble at its rounded face. The prairie was bathed in the soft silver light of the moon’s glow. She tilted her head again to the night sky.

Stars glimmered and danced in the dark expanse. In the distance, a wolf howled and was answered by another. From her position safe between Amelia’s feet, Baby rumbled a low growl.

Colt blew across his coffee. “Never bothered to see an eclipse until now.”

“It’s almost a pity Jenny and Saul fell asleep.” Amelia ran a hand lightly over Jenny’s head. “They’re going to be disappointed in the morning when they realize they slept through it, after what they went through to talk me into letting them stay up this late.”

Colt chuckled softly, his smile brilliant in the silver moonlight. “Hell, Amy, they didn’t work too hard.”

It should be against the law for any man to do to her senses what Colt Evans did with a simple smile. She shifted uncomfortably on the glider, a now familiar ache settling deep in her. She clasped her hands on her lap to hide their tremble.

Colt set his coffee cup down. He leaned closer, and caught a tendril of her hair. Letting it slide through his fingers, he murmured, “We shouldn’t be sitting out here in the moonlight on a warm summer night, Amy.”

Her heart leaped. Moonlight lent a silver cast to his gray eyes, and shaded the hollows of his face with midnight. The pale light glistened on the silver strands of his hair and deepened the black to pitch.

She leaned closer and traced the slant of his cheek, and then slipped her trembling fingers through his hair. His breath caught. Emboldened, she trailed her fingertips down the side of his neck and pressed her palm against his chest. She explored the planes of his shoulder, the heat of his body branding her palm through the chambray of his shirt.

He pulled her to him. His mouth slanted over hers as he wound his fingers through her loose hair, cradling her head. She parted her lips to the demanding pressure of his mouth. Amelia stiffened for a moment when his tongue plunged into her mouth, but then his heat consumed her and the ache in her became a ravenous need.

Timidly, she met the bold, possessive thrusts of his tongue with her own. Colt groaned, and crushed her to his chest.

Jenny stirred in her sleep, and Amelia and Colt pulled apart. Amelia was gasping as if she had been running for miles. Colt whispered, his voice ragged, “I think we should get Jenny and Saul into the house and into bed.”

Amelia nodded, unable to meet his eyes. Colt brushed the back of his hand along her cheek, setting her heart racing faster.

“Don’t make the same offer you did, Amy, because I don’t have the strength anymore to turn it down, and then I would have to live with that, and so would you.”

Amelia stared out into the dark night, not seeing anything. Her hands had still trembled when she pulled on her night rail. He said not to make the same offer, because he wouldn’t be able to turn it down anymore. She pressed her fingertips to her lips. Did she dare go to him? Could she not dare? What if he turned her down again, despite his words earlier? She didn’t know if she was interpreting this right, and what if she was? Would she truly regret spending the night with him?

If she let this opportunity pass, if he left, she would never know. The thought of spending the rest of her life married to someone like Donnie Morris, someone who didn’t reach deep inside of her and stir her to life was terrifying. She knew, deep in her heart, she would wonder all her life.