Authors: Johanna Lindsey
O
n the way to the train station the next morning, Casey had an unpleasant shock. Riding down the middle of the street, dust-covered, with a scraggly beard, was her father. He looked like he had just ridden in off the plains. Casey wasn’t about to ask to make sure.
Without a word of explanation to Damian, who was walking his horse beside hers, she headed quickly into the nearest alley and plastered herself against the wall there, praying Chandos hadn’t seen her or, worse, Old Sam, whom he would easily recognize. Damian followed her, of course.
But he merely asked, albeit with raised brow, “What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like?” she grumbled.
“Hiding, though I can’t imagine why.”
She peered around him, but Chandos was taking his sweet time riding down the street. He hadn’t passed the alley yet. She pulled Old Sam’s head down to hide him as best she could. Damian, still waiting for her to answer, sighed.
“Don’t we have a train to catch?”
“We’ll get there in time.”
Damian glanced out into the street himself now, but found nothing out of the ordinary—no familiar faces from Wanted posters—and gave Casey an impatient look. “Explain yourself.”
“My father just rode into town—and don’t look again, you’ll draw his attention.”
Nothing could have stopped Damian from glancing out again. There were several men riding down the street. One appeared to be a businessman. One looked like a desperado who’d rather not run into any lawmen. Another was wearing chaps and leading two steers along. Only two appeared old enough to be Casey’s father, so Damian looked at the businessman a bit closer.
“He doesn’t look very intimidating to me, certainly not enough to send you running,” Damian remarked and got a snort in reply, which prompted a question. “Why don’t you want him to find you, Casey?”
“Because he’ll drag me home before I’m ready, that’s why. And believe me, Damian, my father is about as formidable as they come. You don’t want to cross paths with him.”
Damian looked at the businessman again and frowned; then his eyes went back to the desperado, noting now the black hair, the high cheekbones, and other things that could be said to resemble Casey. Damian’s eyes widened.
“Hell,
that’s
your father? The one who looks like an outlaw?”
“He looks like no such thing,” she grumbled.
“But yes, that’s him. And stop staring! He can sense someone staring at him.”
“How?”
“Hell if I know, but he can.”
“Do you think he knows you’re here in town?”
“There’s no way he could, unless he guessed I was on the train and followed it here. But that’s not likely, since you’ve been buying the tickets. You’ve also been taking care of the hotels we’ve stayed in, so he had no trail to follow.”
“Perhaps I shouldn’t mention this, but your rooms have been in your name, Casey.”
“What?!”
He flinched. “Well, not exactly your name, but your initials.”
“You couldn’t make up a name?”
“Why? You told me you’ve been using those initials yourself.”
“Only when I have to, and only when I turn over wanted men to the authorities. My father isn’t likely to go sifting through every sheriff’s office he comes across, but he
is
likely to be checking with every hotel and boardinghouse.”
“So those are your real initials?”
“No, but they’re initials he’d notice right off,” Casey explained.
“They’re his?”
“No.”
“Then whose?”
“You ask too many questions, Damian. And my father has passed us by. I’m getting on that train pronto. Think you can get the horses
boarded without drawing too much attention to Old Sam?”
“He’d recognize your horse, too?”
“Of course he would. He gave him to me.”
Casey headed to the train station, at a much quicker pace than before. She didn’t hold much hope that she’d get out of Fort Worth without having to face her father, but she did. The train left on time, and without Chandos barging into the parlor car for a major confrontation.
That had been a close call, but only a coincidence after all. Nothing more than that—at least she kept trying to convince herself of it all the way to San Antonio.
But just to see if she could prevent it from happening again, she sent off a telegraph to her mother that read: “If you can, call off the hunt. I’ll be home soon now.”
As for her job and getting it finished, there were no easy clues to find in San Antonio. In fact, the trail, such as it was, ended. If Curruthers had taken the train from there, the depot clerks sure had no memory of it. But Casey was betting he
had
headed west on the Southern Pacific—if he really was looking for a new town to settle in. They wouldn’t find that out, though, without following the same route.
Damian, of course, arranged to have his fancy parlor car transferred to the new train. Actually, Casey was getting used to the comfort of it and just complained now on general principles. And with half the stops being made at depots that did no more than feed you, they started doing a lot of sleeping in that car—at least Casey did, until the night she woke up and found Damian leaning over her.
C
asey had been sleeping on one of the thickly upholstered benches in the parlor car. It was narrow, but much softer than some beds she’d been in lately. She had also been dreaming about Damian, which was probably why she was in no hurry to wake up.
It was a pleasant dream. There was a party at the K.C., and they were dancing together. She hadn’t wondered what Damian was doing in her home—it had seemed perfectly natural for him to be there. Even her parents had treated him like they were used to seeing him around. And then suddenly he was kissing her right there in the middle of a dozen dancing couples, but no one seemed to notice. And it was like that other time, only this kiss didn’t end.
All those feelings he had stirred in her before rose up again, but in her relaxed state they were even more intense. And this kiss wasn’t only longer but deeper. He was using his tongue quite extensively to explore the recesses of her mouth. He would suck on her lower lip as well,
as if he meant to keep it. And she could feel his hands caressing her, but not on her back where they should be. Strange.
She wasn’t sure why she finally woke up to the fact that the kissing part, at least, wasn’t a dream. Perhaps it was the shock of Damian’s hand gently kneading her breast. There was something too intensely pleasurable about that for Casey to remain relaxed or asleep.
Then her whole body stiffened with the full realization that Damian was actually kneeling there beside her bench with his hands and lips on her. She tried to think of an explanation for it, but her mind wouldn’t work properly.
All she could think to say was, “Damian, what are you doing?”
She had to repeat the question three times before he finally leaned back to look at her. From the dim light of the single wall lamp that had been left on, she could see that he appeared somewhat confused.
But that was nothing compared to her confusion when he replied, “What are you doing in my bed?”
“What bed? There’re no beds around here, just these benches big enough to fit only
one
person,” she said emphatically. “And you’re on
my
side of the car, Damian.”
He glanced around him then, couldn’t help but see that she had stated the case correctly, and said, “Well, damn, that was quite a dream.”
Casey blinked. She’d just been having a dream about
him
that had been too nice by half, so she had to allow that he might have been experiencing something similar. Not necessarily
about her. In fact, more likely his dream had been about Luella.
Yet her eyes still narrowed. “Do you always get physically involved in your dreams?”
“Not that I was ever aware of—until now. Did I—that is, do I owe you an apology?”
Apologize for giving her some serious pleasure? But then, he didn’t know what he’d made her feel, did he? How could he? She hadn’t made any sounds or movements to indicate how much she’d liked what he was doing—had she?
Actually, she had no idea how much she had participated in what he’d been doing, for she’d been too involved with…feeling to take notice. He hadn’t been awake, though, so even if she had given herself away as to how much she’d liked his kissing, he wouldn’t have realized it.
“It don’t make me no nevermind if you walk about and do things in your dreams, Damian. Just try to keep any active involvement to your side of the room.”
“Certainly,” he replied. A long pause followed. “Although I sense that this was nice.”
She blushed clear to her booted toes. But with the dim lighting, he probably didn’t notice her embarrassment. And he still must have had “nice” on his mind, considering what he remarked next.
“Would you perhaps like to see what I mean?”
She already knew what he meant. What he was suggesting was that they continue kissing, and he was leaving the decision of whether to do so up to her. Damn, the temptation was incredible. And this time it wouldn’t be Luella he
was dreaming of kissing. He knew exactly whose lips would be surrendering to his.
She didn’t dare say yes. If he had just kissed her again, without asking, she probably wouldn’t have objected. But by asking, he was making her admit she wanted him to kiss her, and she couldn’t do that and still maintain that she wasn’t interested in him. She still wanted to maintain that impression. She had to.
Damn him, what’d he have to ask for? But it was just as well. They were getting closer to the time of parting, heading their separate ways. It was going to be hard enough saying good-bye to him this second time. A shared intimacy would make it even worse.
So before she changed her mind, she said, “What I’d like is to get back to sleep, Damian. I’d suggest you do the same—and keep your dreams to yourself.”
Was that a sigh she heard? Probably not.
He nodded and stood up. However, he seemed to hesitate before he turned his back on her, a long enough pause to make her tense in anticipation. But then he went back to the chair he usually slept in—the benches were a mite short for his long frame—and made a big production of getting comfortable. There was some definite sighing now.
Casey turned over to face the wall, wondering how she’d ever get back to sleep.
C
asey was in the habit of asking around, in each stop the train made, to see if folks remembered someone of Curruthers’s description passing through. But it was starting to seem pretty pointless, and in fact, just when Damian was beginning to think they were wasting their time following the Southern Pacific west across the lower half of Texas, she came up with a positive response.
Since Damian had two hours to kill while waiting for the train to move on, he had followed Casey around that day while she did her questioning. When she approached the town barber, though, he figured she was really pulling at straws. Yet the barber remembered Henry.
After Damian had given it some thought, he recalled how meticulously neat Henry had always been about his appearance. Just because the man was on the run didn’t mean he’d suddenly get sloppy, so a barber
was
a likely candidate to have dealt with him.
This particular barber was the sort that kept
up a running conversation while he worked on his customers, and he’d managed to get Henry to talking. One of the things he remembered Henry asking about was when this town was due for its next elections, and whether the people were happy with their current mayor or not.
Taken at face value, it could have been just idle curiosity on Henry’s part, or a simple attempt to keep up the conversation. But when they added this piece to the previous knowledge that Henry was looking for a town to “own,” it gave the information a different slant.
After all, someone with the authority of a mayor could be said to control a town, which in many cases could carry more power than “owning” a town. Had Henry changed his mind about how he meant to obtain the power he was looking for, or was politics the way he meant to go all along?
But a town that had a mayor was usually well-established. So now they seemed to have more places to search.
Casey was disgruntled over their conclusions. “We know he came this far, but it means we’ll have to start checking out the offshoots of the rail line as well from here on,” she pointed out.
That was true, and likely meant even more time before they finally found Curruthers. But more time also meant that Damian would be in Casey’s company even longer, and he wasn’t as disappointed about that as he should have been.
On the one hand, he would like to find his father’s killer and return home, to return to the life he was accustomed to. But on the other hand, he had to admit, the thought of running
Rutledge Imports without his father was rather depressing. He’d always known that someday he would have to—he’d been groomed for it—but he’d never thought he would step into his father’s shoes this soon.
And then there was Casey.
He’d known it was going to be difficult keeping his hands off her, but he hadn’t counted on wanting her every minute of the day. Luella Miller had helped to distract him for a while, but not long enough. The Chicago debutante might be exceptionally beautiful, but her incessant, vain chatter had very quickly become extremely annoying, to the point where all he wanted to say to her was, “Please shut up.”
As to his quiet Casey with her closely kept secrets, he found it hard getting her to talk at all, especially about herself. Yet he constantly wondered about her, about her motives for doing what she did, about her background, about why she was hiding from her family, if she had even more family than just that ominous-looking father of hers.
But most of all was his desire to make love to her. And the other night on the train he’d succumbed, he couldn’t keep his distance any longer.
He’d been unable to sleep, and unable to stop watching her sleep. And seeing her face all soft and yielding again as she slept was just too tempting to resist this time. And then she’d woken. He wasn’t used to pretending, but he’d done so to keep the peace when she came awake and had sounded so accusing.
Acting out his dreams. He all but snorted
every time he thought of that lame excuse. But in the throes of passion, he hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly, and at least Casey had believed him. He couldn’t stop wishing she had remained asleep, though, because her response to him had been all that he could have hoped for—at least until she woke up.
The next evening brought them to the small town of Langtry, where the train was laying over for the night so the passengers could get a decent night’s sleep in the local hotel. Damian found rooms and retired early. Casey said she’d do her investigating that night, since they were leaving early in the morning.
Damian fell right to sleep.
But the next morning when he went to look for her, Casey wasn’t in her room. She wasn’t at the depot or with the horses. In fact, Damian had no luck finding her anywhere—until someone suggested that he check the jail. And there she sat behind some sturdy-looking iron bars, her face composed—as usual. Yet on closer inspection, her golden eyes banked a furious fire.
“Is this serious?” he asked when he was allowed to approach her cell.
“Ridiculous, is what it is,” Casey growled.
“You didn’t shoot someone you shouldn’t have, did you?” was his first conclusion.
“My gun didn’t clear leather.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Hell if I know” was her unsatisfying reply. “I was having a whiskey in the Jersey Lilly saloon last night, standing at the bar minding my own business, when a fight broke out. I was still standing there minding my own business when
it was over, and half the folks in the room were down on the floor, dabbing at their bloody noses.”
“So if you didn’t do anything—”
“I was getting to that,” she cut in. “Old Judge Bean, drunk as a loon, was there and started ranting that his court had been destroyed.”
“Are you trying to tell me the saloon here doubles as a courthouse?”
“That’s not so unusual, Damian. Lots of small towns that don’t have their own courthouse, let alone their own resident judge, make use of a saloon when the circuit judge comes to town, because it’s usually one of the bigger open rooms in a town. But most judges don’t spend all day and night in their courts whether court is in session or not.”
“Why do I get the impression you know this Judge Bean personally?”
“I don’t, but I sure got an earful about Roy Bean from the other jail guest I had to share this cell with for a few hours last night, until his wife came to drag him home. Seems the judge uses his Revised Statutes of Texas to suit his own purpose, which is passing out fines whenever he gets short of drinking funds. He does his fair share of hanging horse thieves and murderers without batting an eye, though—as long as they aren’t one of his drinking pals.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Means he twists the law to suit himself, and gets away with it. If one of his pals shoots someone, he figures out a way to acquit them. In one of his more infamous decisions, he ruled that the
victim shouldn’t have gotten in front of the gun his friend had been firing.”
Damian shook his head. “I’d say your cellmate was pulling your leg, Casey.”
“I’d like to think so, but I doubt it.”
“Why?”
“Because I vaguely recall hearing about Judge Bean before, from a young cowboy who’d passed through Langtry several years ago. He was here when a man just dropped dead in the street in front of the saloon where the judge was lounging on the porch. The judge immediately waddled down—”
“Waddled?”
“He’s got such a large drinking gut that he can’t quite walk a straight line,” she explained. “But as I was saying, he waddled down to act as coroner first. Then, after searching the dead man’s pockets and finding some money and a revolver, he assumed his judicial authority again to hand down a posthumous fine for carrying a concealed weapon. The fine, of course, equaled the amount of money he’d found.”
“And he gets away with this?”
“Why wouldn’t he, when he’s the only law around here? But as I was saying, he was having himself a fit last night because his court got all smashed up, and he arrested everyone on the spot. Then someone pointed out to him that his jail wasn’t big enough to hold the whole room, so he amended his ‘official’ arrest to just me.”
Damian frowned. “Why?”
“Believe me, I asked that myself, and was told that seeing as how he knew everyone else involved, he knew where to find them to collect
his fines. Hell, half of them were his damn drinking cronies, so he probably won’t fine them at all. But me he didn’t know, so I’d be spending the night in jail to make sure I didn’t take off before he convened his court in the morning.”
Damian sighed. “So this is just a matter of you paying a portion of the damages before you get released—even though you had no part in creating those damages?”
“That’s about it.”
“Knowing how you like to keep things to yourself, did you even point out that you hadn’t been involved in that barroom brawl?”
Casey glared at him for that. “Do you think I like spending the night in jail? ’Course I mentioned it. But he made an ‘official’ ruling that everyone there was going to chip in for the repairs, with no exception.”
“Himself included?”
Casey snorted. “With all the fines going to him, and him then paying for the repairs, he probably figures that’s doing his part.”
“I suppose we’re going to miss the train because of this?” he remarked.
“Maybe not. Someone has already gone to rouse the judge. I was told it won’t be much longer.”
“Well, whatever you do, Casey, don’t rile the man, or you’re liable to end up back in here.”
“I’ve already figured that out,” she mumbled sourly. “It still goes against the grain, being fined for something I didn’t do.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll pay the fine.”
“That’s not the point.”
He smiled. “No, but it will get us out of here and on our way.”
As it happened, Damian should have stayed away from that courthouse-saloon altogether. But then, they couldn’t have known that Judge Roy Bean would be in one of his more ornery moods that morning.