Claudia Dain (25 page)

"You here to meet Bill's train?" he said, pulling his hat down tight and low.

"I meet all the trains; Bill happened to be on the eight-fifteen."

"And I happen to be on the eleven O-five," he said, walking past her.

She fell into step beside him. He must have known that she would. It was probably pathetic, the way she dogged him. She couldn't seem to help it. He didn't look like he was going to kiss her.

He was mad that she'd met Bill's train. But it wasn't the same, it wasn't anything the same, what she felt for him and what she felt for Bill. And she had no idea how to tell him that. He probably didn't want to hear it. It was better for her not to say anything anyway. She didn't need the kind of trouble that followed him like a dog. She didn't need Jack Skull, no matter how he made her feel. She just needed to keep things peaceful.

Having Jack around sure didn't make things peaceful. How come she wanted him around anyway?

Jack didn't want to hear one word out of her mouth. He'd seen her standing there, looking like the sweetest homecoming a man could reach for, and she'd given the same gift to Tucker. Lord, she gave the same to any danged stranger who fell off the train in Abilene. Any killer who happened to find his way to her door would get the same open-armed welcome and hopeful smile and she'd end up as dead as Mary and Elsa and all the rest of them. Dead with a throat black and purple, choked by misplaced trust and dreams of romance.

But she wasn't looking for any dream of love in his arms, no, it was his kisses she liked, pure and simple. And he wouldn't have any cause to complain as to that, except that someone was out there, trading kisses for death. A girl who was prey to kisses was walking a rope over a windy canyon; sure to fall. Sure to die.

And here she was, trailing after him, waiting for the kiss she knew he'd brought her. Knowing he wanted to kiss her and hold her safe from all the darkness in the world, knowing he'd give in to her eventually. Knowing that he couldn't turn away from the kiss of welcome and warmth that was already written in her eyes.

"Welcome back," she said, reading his wants too clear for his comfort.

"Thanks. Abilene pay you to meet the trains and welcome folks? Good business on their part but I got business of my own with the sheriff. You go along, now."

"You know I don't get paid to meet the trains. You know I... I was hoping you'd come back."

"Like you was hoping Bill'd come back?" He didn't look at her. She was rushing to keep step. He didn't let himself slow down.

"I knew he'd come back," she said, flustered. "I don't want to talk about Bill. I'm just so glad you're back."

"Yeah."

"Yeah," she repeated, meaning it. He could hear that she meant it and it kicked at something inside him, something tied up and tied down. Nobody'd ever cared if he came or went. He didn't have time for this; he had to find a killer. He had to make sure Anne didn't find him first.

Good way to make sure she stayed alive was to keep her with him, keep her safe.

Yeah. That was a lie he could live with.

"But if I'm bothering you, which it seems I am, I'll just take myself off."

For her, it was a mouthful. They were as close to fighting words as he'd heard yet out of her. And then she said words that hit him like a fist to the belly.

"I'll find Bill and invite him to supper."

Like hell she would.

Jack reached out and took her by the arm. "It's too early for supper. You come on with me to the sheriff's."

"Bill likes to eat early," she said stiffly. Oh yeah, she was digging the spurs in. But he knew what she wanted, what she wanted more than she wanted Bill sitting at her table.

Jack pulled her around to face him and then backed her slowly against the wall of the stable. Her face paled and her eyes went wide, but she went. She didn't fight him. That's what would get her killed, she didn't fight, didn't see danger when it had its hands around her waist and was pressing against the long fall of her skirts.

He was danger. He shouldn't be anywhere near her, couldn't she see that? Hell, the whole town saw it, but not her. She just kept looking up at him, her eyes blue and soft and trusting. She'd get herself killed without any trouble at all, just the way she'd get herself kissed, just by looking at him. Just by relaxing into his hands when she should have been tensing in outrage. Just by raising her face, her lips parted, her breath sweet when she should have been cussing him out. She probably didn't know how to cuss. Trouble was, she knew how to kiss.

Trouble was, he couldn't stop himself from kissing her, out on a public street, again.

He wrapped his left arm around her and kissed her, gently. It was a welcome-home kiss, full of happiness and satisfaction and joy. When she wrapped her arms around his waist, it turned into a bedroom kiss, and the open street was no place for that; he was having trouble keeping his right arm free and near his gun and his eyes open and scanning the street. Her kisses made him forget to stay watchful and wary, made him forget that there was a world full of people who wouldn't mind seeing him dead. And with him dead, who would protect her?

Jack cased himself out of the kiss as slowly as a man leaving home for the last time.

"Come on, Anne," he said softly, his thumb brushing against her jaw. "I need to talk to Lane and I want you with me."

Her eyes glowed bright at his words and she linked her arm in his and walked peaceably by his side down the street to the sheriff's. Hell, she'd follow a bear into his cave on his promise to share the honey.

Lane was glad to see him.

"Gates sent me a wire."

"Then you know what happened," Jack said.

"Jack, the whole town knows. Bill Tucker got in before you, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember," he muttered, offering Anne the seat he usually took. There wasn't another. Lane remained standing as well.

"Anne, you might not want to hear the rest of this," Lane said.

"She's staying with me," Jack said softly, resolutely. There was no arguing it. Charles studied Jack and then shrugged.

"Tucker's pretty fired up about this murder and getting anyone he can to listen to what he has to say. He doesn't have any trouble getting people to listen, not the way things run around here."

"No law against talk," Jack said.

"No, but when it builds folks up to a lynching, then it gets troublesome."

"I can take care of myself," Jack said quietly.

"What is it that Bill is saying?" Anne asked.

"Now, Anne, I told you, you might not want or need to hear this," Lane said, looking at Jack as he spoke.

"She's already heard the worst of it," Jack said. "Somebody's already told her about Elsa."

They all knew who had told her and told her not one bit reluctantly.

"I can't believe that Bill would do something like that," she said, believing it anyway. "And why would anyone believe Jack killed that girl?" She'd set Jack against Bill and Bill was taking his revenge. The load of guilt she toted for playing one man off against another just got heavier.

"Elsa," Jack said. "Her name was Elsa."

"Elsa," Anne repeated absently. Why was Jack always adamant that these girls be referred to by name? Maybe because he had known them? The thought stirred and twisted, like a flea in the straw, scratching and hopping in her mind. Unwelcome.

"You're going to have to start believing a lot of things you'd be more comfortable not knowing," Jack said.

Anne had nothing to say to that.

"What'd you find in Junction City?" Lane asked.

Jack leaned against the wall and hooked his thumbs in his waistband. "The same as before. Nothing different."

"Gates told me as much."

"Seems like a good man."

"He is. How was he taking it?"

Jack shrugged. "The best he could. Keeping a good, tight lid on things there, from what I could see. Elsa's ma, she's taking it hard. That girl was all she had left in this world. It's going to be hard for her to get along now."

"Gates let slip in his wire that you'd given the ma a roll of bills and were trying to get her on the next train east."

Jack shrugged again. "Just trying to help. There's nothing for her here now and she'd be more comfortable with people who can at least speak her language."

"Bill didn't tell me that," Anne said.

"Bill didn't stick around long enough," Jack said tersely.

"Any sign of who did it?" Lane asked.

"Just the same as before. No one knew she was seeing anyone; can't get much out of the mother, so we don't know what she might have been told."

"Well, I guess we'll hear more from Gates as soon as he knows anything. He's sending wires all over, trying to hitch up with the marshal."

"Good," Jack said, leaning away from the wall and coming to stand behind Anne. "I'll take Anne home now. I'll be back."

He wasn't going to tell Lane all the reasons he thought that Tucker had done it, not with Anne sitting there. And there might be some questions Lane would have for him, like how come he happened to be in Junction City just when there was another murder? Lane wouldn't want to have that talk in front of Anne, not the way he protected her. Hell, they all protected her. She inspired that sort of thing. Not that it would do her any good. She needed to learn how to protect herself.

He and Anne hadn't gone far down the boardwalk when Isaiah Hill clumped up to him.

"You ain't finished your business in Abilene yet?"

"No, I ain't," Jack said and kept walking, keeping Anne at his side.

"Anne Ross," Hill rasped, "you were brought up better than to keep company with a man like this. Is this how Miss Daphne taught you?"

"No, sir," she said, keeping her eyes on the ground and her feet moving.

"I'm a guest in this lady's home," Jack said coldly, "and I'm escorting her home."

Isaiah Hill spat and walked on.

"You get your hands off that girl," Powell said, coming out of the dark interior of his stable to face them. "And you do your manhandling somewhere besides the back of my building!"

"Kissin's not a crime," Jack said.

"It is when you do it on my property and with a girl who should have better sense than to be seen with the likes of you!" Powell was so angry that his pipe fell from his mouth; he caught it with one hand and stuffed it in his pocket.

"Anne's a woman grown, Powell, and she can walk out with anyone she fancies. I ain't forcin' her," Jack said.

"I ain't convinced o' that, an' even if it was true, then someone should warn her about them other gals who was walking out with the wrong sort."

"Then warn her," Jack said, pushing past him. "I ain't stoppin' you. I'm trying to warn her myself."

That left Powell speechless long enough for them to leave him behind.

Anne was more flustered and embarrassed than she had ever been in her sheltered life. And Jack knew why.

He waited until they were about fifty yards from her fence before he asked her, "Do you think I did it?"

"No" was her first response and then she frowned down into the dirt. "I mean, I don't think so." She looked sideways at him to see if he was offended. He didn't look it.

"Go ahead, say what you're thinking."

She hardly ever heard that. In fact, she never did. No one ever encouraged her to say what was on her mind, because if they did, there just might be a tussle. No one went looking for a fight, except maybe a bounty hunter.

"It's just that, well, people seem to think you might be the one... though there's no proof of it. Is there?"

He shook his head. "No, there's no proof it was me."

"But then, there doesn't seem to be any proof that it isn't you."

"That's right," he said easily, looking down at her, the wide brim of his hat leaving his face in full shadow. "It could be me. I could've killed them gals. They got mixed up with the wrong sort of a man and got killed for it. You think about that now," he said.

"If you'd done it, you wouldn't be talking like this."

"How do you know? You know how a killer talks? How he puts you off his trail? How he builds your trust, strand by strand, until he's got a rope thick enough to strangle you with?"

She backed up, suddenly edgy. His face was shadowed and his voice had gone dark.

"You think you can save your life by backing off a step? Why, I can lay hold of you any time I want, Anne. All I need do is reach out."

He pulled her to him by the back of her neck, his palm rough and warm against the soft skin of her nape. She tripped toward him, reluctant, yet coming on. Unable to stop. Maybe even unwilling.

"How you gonna save yourself now, Anne?" he said softly.

She could see his eyes now. They were cold blue, but the pulse in his throat beat hot. He was cold and hot and she didn't know whether to run or stay.

Was this how those girls had felt just before the air had been shut off, the need to breathe rising up so strong that only the hand of their killer had been stronger? She felt the rise and fall of her breathing, forced and heavy with Jack standing so close. And still she didn't move away.

"You come toward me and you're coming toward death," he said. "Can't you see that?"

She couldn't see anything, anything but him. Her breathing came fast and hard, as if she were trying to save up for when she couldn't breathe anymore. For when he kissed her.

She stared up at him and she didn't see death in him. Not a bit. She watched his mouth, studying the slant and shading of his lips, the clean white of his teeth, the dark shadow on his upper lip where his beard would be the thickest. But she didn't see death.

"Lord, you're a bigger fool than I am," he breathed. "Back off, Anne. You got a pinch of sense, you'll back off."

She did have sense. She'd made up her mind long ago to have sense. She wasn't going to be the kind of woman who needed a man. She wasn't ever going to be that big a fool.

But she didn't back off.

Jack let loose of her neck and took hold of her hand.

"That's it," he said. "I'm going to teach you how to drive a man off. And you're going to do it, too. No back talk."