Authors: Blazing Embers
He ran his hand up and down his chest absentmindedly and began to tingle all over as he recalled the heavy silk curtain of her hair sweeping across his face and the creamy texture of her skin. He tried to remember: had he ever thought her any less than stunning? If he had, he felt he should have been pistol whipped for it. Cassandra Mae was a good-looking woman, but more than that, she was a woman of infinite resources. A man could depend on such a woman. In fact, a man could even lean on a woman like Cassie and not fear losing face or falling down. If Cassie were a tree she’d be a willow, bending but never breaking.
Hell’s bells and peanut shells! Why wasn’t she here to hear all this idolatry he was ladling out?
Rook bounded from the bed and went to the window.
Gas lights cast a soft glow along the street below, and Basin Spring Park was the center of activity. A band was playing waltzes and jigs, and the crowd was dancing and clapping and singing along, their voices rising up on the breeze.
Was Cassie down there somewhere with Romeo? he wondered. Did Rutledge have his arm around Cassie’s nipped-in waist? Was Boone the Buffoon conjuring up all kinds of pretty talk to whisper in Cassie’s shell-shaped ear?
Rook shuddered and turned his back to the window. Revulsion shook him again and he felt nauseous. The thought of Boone Rutledge laying one of his freckled paws on Cassie’s silky skin was enough to gag a horse!
Why couldn’t Cassie have sent Rutledge a telegram instead of meeting him face to face?
Rook’s breathing stopped for a few seconds as his mind began to work. His legal training superseded his lover’s lamenting, and he began deducing and analyzing but couldn’t fit all the pieces into his mental puzzle.
Why indeed?
He gave his hair a rude combing with his fingers and stared blankly at the mussed bed. Cassie’s parting words came back to him with a jolt. She’d said she had to tie up some loose ends before she could get on with her new life. Boone was a loose end, but there had been something else lurking behind the statement. Something dangerous.
She was keeping something from him, he told himself. What, he didn’t know, but suddenly he didn’t like the idea of Cassie being alone in the country that night. The night was no longer innocuous. He dressed quickly and hurried from the hotel, walking briskly along the lantern-lit street toward his mother’s establishment.
Jewel’s place of ill repute was quiet save for the tinny sound of the player piano in the front parlor and an occasional rascally laugh or velvety-throated chuckle. Rook tried the door but found it locked. Only serious paying customers were allowed inside after dusk. He rang the brass bell outside and waited for Delphia to unlatch the door and wedge one chocolate-colored eyeball in the crack she’d thus created.
“Oh, it’s you!” She swung open the door and smiled from ear to ear. “Come on in, honey chile! Miss Jewel be in the parlor.”
“Is she entertaining?” Rook asked, giving his hat to Delphia.
“Naw! The sheriff and the judge is in there with her, but they be going upstairs with some of the girls in a minute or two.”
“Do me a favor, Delphia. Go tell Miss Jewel that I’m here and that I’d like to talk with her alone.”
“I’m on my way!” She scooted across the polished floor, tapped twice on the double doors of the parlor, then swung them open and strode inside.
While Rook waited he observed the hushed activity upstairs. Most of the doors were closed, but two were open and Rook caught glimpses of Lucy and Flossie as they primped and readied themselves for customers. Flossie, who’d never met a man she wasn’t crazy about, spotted Rook and rushed to the staircase. She crossed her dimpled arms on the polished banister and leaned over it to smile down at him.
“Hi, handsome! You lonely tonight?”
“No, I’ve come to talk with Jewel for a few minutes.” He produced a smile that was pleasant but not encouraging.
“You could talk to me,” Flossie said in a lilting voice. “I’d love to listen to anything you’ve got to say.”
At that moment the parlor door swung open and Jewel made her entrance. Her gaze swung up to Flossie, stinging as a whip.
“The judge is almost through socializing and I’m sending him up to you, so quit hanging over the banister looking like a possum!”
“But I was just—”
“I don’t give a hoot what you was just doing!” Jewel propped her fists at her thick waist and stamped her kid-leather shoe. “Get in that room and try to act like you got something in your head besides cotton stuffing!”
Rook turned aside to hide his grin, facing his mother again only after he’d heard Flossie’s door close sharply. He bent down and kissed his Jewel’s rouged cheek.
“Busy tonight?”
“I thought you’d be. Where’s Cassie? Did she wise up and ditch you?”
Rook draped an arm around her shoulders and drew her further away from the parlor doors.
“I’m worried about Cassie. She insisted on meeting Boone Rutledge for dinner. She said she wanted to go home after that and then see me tomorrow.”
“So? Are you jealous of Boone?”
“Not really.” He stepped around to face Jewel. “I’ve got a bad feeling in my gut. Cassie said she was going to tie up some loose ends tonight and then she could start a new life. I thought she meant she was going to give Boone the boot, but something tells me there’s more to it. I’ve got a good mind to ride out to her place tonight and make sure she’s safe and sound.”
A fretful expression pinched Jewel’s face and she looked away from him.
“Jewel! What’s wrong?” Rook stepped into Jewel’s line of vision. “Tell me.”
“I don’t think she’d do anything crazy,” Jewel murmured, her eyes slightly unfocused as if she wasn’t seeing Rook at all. “She’s a sensible girl.”
“She’s a headstrong girl.”
Jewel’s eyes focused and her skin paled under her makeup. “She is that.” She placed a hand on Rook’s coat sleeve. “Honey, she thinks Boone shot Shorty.”
He jerked his head as if he’d been hit. “Oh, my—”
“She thinks Shorty spilled the beans about the mine having gold or something in it and that Boone shot Shorty so’s he could snatch the lease from his dead body.”
“God almighty …”
“Maybe you should go out and have a talk with her. I wouldn’t want her doing something stupid like taking the law into her own hands. Revenge can be a terrible thing if placed in the wrong heart.”
Rook nodded, his thoughts racing ahead of him and filling him with fear and dread.
“Do you think Rutledge is capable of murder?” he asked after a few moments.
Jewel refused to meet his eyes. She went across the foyer to the hat tree and removed his beaver derby from it. “I wouldn’t put it past him,” she said, handing the hat to him. “I never much trusted Boone. He’s the kind of man who wants to be rich without working for the money.”
“That’s disheartening news.” Rook fit the derby onto his head and kissed Jewel’s proffered cheek. “You think Shorty found something valuable in his mine?”
“Do you? You worked it.”
Rook opened the front door and stared up at the slice of white moon. “It’s a puzzle. The mine looks worthless, but my gut kept telling me that it wasn’t so.”
“Well, off with you. Try to talk some sense into her, and if that doesn’t work, take her to bed and get such foolishness out of her head.”
He grinned rakishly and reached out to flick Jewel’s pug nose with his forefinger. “I like the way you think, Mama. See you tomorrow.”
“Be careful!” Jewel called, and hoped to heaven he’d heed her plea.
A sickle moon jockeyed for space in a sky so full of stars that the fiery bodies seemed to bump into each other. It was a lavender blue night, soft and fragrant, and not the kind of night for a killing.
Cassie crouched behind a prickly shrub outside the mine and waited for Boone’s arrival. She’d left a lantern burning in the cabin and the door wide open so that Boone would see that she wasn’t home but that she was around somewhere. She knew the first “somewhere” he’d look was the mine, so she’d lit two more lanterns and placed them inside it so that their light was visible from outside and would act as a lure to Boone.
Was she doing the right thing? she asked herself for the umpteenth time. Maybe she should have turned her suspicions over to Sheriff Barnes.
Mocking laughter rang through her mind at this last suggestion. Cassie could envision Sheriff Barnes’ reaction to such accusations. First, he’d deliver a stern look and then a stern lecture on accusing good, upstanding folks like
bankers and bankers’ sons of such dire deeds. When all was said and done, Cassie would be the criminal and Boone would be the victim. The whole town would say that Cassie was “crazy as a loon, just like her old man.”
Nope, she certainly couldn’t turn this over to Numb Nuts Barnes.
What would she say to Boone? She had to be firm and make him realize that she was serious and would plug him if he tried anything funny. She’d bluffed Rook that first time she’d laid eyes on him and she’d sent him packing. Boone should be easy game compared to Rook. Shouldn’t take an awful lot to call Boone’s bluff.
She glanced up at the sky again, finding it calming, and wondered if her pa was looking down on her.
“Help me,” she addressed the brightest star, silently mouthing the words. “Please help me. I don’t want nobody to get hurt. ’Specially me.”
Insects sang so loudly around her that Cassie didn’t hear the tread of boots until Boone was no more than a couple of yards from the mine. He moved with the stealth of a cat, almost tiptoeing along the ground as he picked his way toward the mine opening.
Cassie held her breath and peered through the brush at him. Lordy, he looked guilty and up to no good. Creeping toward the mine like some mangy coyote on the hunt. Is that how he snuck up on Shorty?
He’d come up the path that led to the cabin. Cassie smirked to herself. She’d played him right down the line. Not finding her at home, he’d followed the invisible signposts she’d erected for him. Even now he was peeking around into the opening where the lights shone brightly.
His gun hand moved unerringly to his side as he took a quiet step forward.
Cassie exhaled her breath and stood up, moving like a shot around the bushes that had concealed her and into the open area. She raised the shotgun to waist level with one hand and snapped the whip in the other. It cracked and Boone nearly jumped out of his dark, concealing trousers and shirt. Cassie noted he’d dressed for the occasion, as she had herself.
“Boone, keep your hand away from that gun,” Cassie warned and was pleased when her voice came out strong and firm. “I mean it. Killing you won’t bother me a bit.”
“Cassie?” He shaded his eyes with his hand as if by doing so he could see better in the dark. “Is that you, sweetheart?”
“It’s me, honeybunch. Now let’s cut through the horseshit and talk honest to each other. I know you killed my pa and I’m asking you to ’fess up and go with me to the sheriff.”
“Do what?” He started to lower his hands to his waist, but Cassie’s hissing whip froze him. “Cassie! What is all this about? Put those weapons away!”
“Don’t put your hands anywhere near your gun belt or I’ll plug you right between the eyes, and I’m just the woman to do it.” Her finger caressed the shotgun’s trigger and, although Boone couldn’t have seen the slight motion, he made no further movement.
“Very well. I won’t move an inch. Now will you please tell me what this is all about?”
Cassie stepped closer so that she could see his face more easily. She had to hand it to him—he was cool. The only thing showing in his expression was irritation and maybe a dash of confusion—no guilt.
“What are you doing poking around here in the middle of the night?” she asked, giving him a chance to make up some fancy lies just so she could shoot holes through them.
“I was looking for you.”
“Why? I told you I’d see you tomorrow in town.”
“I didn’t want to wait that long. I wanted to talk to you again about marrying me.” He pressed his wrists together in front of him and showed his palms in exasperation. “But I’m having my doubts after this!”
“Keep still,” Cassie warned him. “How come you were tiptoeing? Were you going to get the drop on me?”
“Of course not!” He rolled his eyes heavenward. “Who put these notions in your head? Have you been talking with that whore? Did she tell you not to trust me?”
“Let’s leave Jewel out of this. This is between you and
me. Why were you sneaking up to the mine, and why were you reaching for your gun?”
“I thought I heard a man’s voice. I was afraid you might be in some sort of trouble. For pity’s sake, Cassie! You’re out here all alone and I worry about some desperado riding up and taking advantage of you! Is that so terrible?”
“I’m touched.” The sarcasm was obvious.
“Cassie, love, what’s happened?” His voice was full of woe. “I can’t believe that you’re standing there holding a gun on me. It’s—it’s crazy!”
“That’s your problem, Boone. You think women are loco, numbskulls, or twits. Well, we’re not. I was fooled by your pretty words for a while—a short while—but it didn’t take long for me to know you were after something more than me. You slipped up when you told me that Shorty had found something in the mine. Nobody knew about that but me and Shorty—and you, I suppose.”
“Cassie,
you
told me about the diamonds.”
Cassie shook her head. “You told me before I told you.”
“Is that what this is all about?” He laughed in utter relief, bending over at the waist and then straightening up quickly when Cassie’s whip coiled and writhed impatiently at her feet. “Cassie, let me explain!” He held out imploring hands. “Shorty told me he’d found something in the mine, but I never took him seriously. I figured that he’d had one of his wandering spells when his mind took trips.” Boone was putting on quite a performance. He demanded breathlessly, “Are you saying that I’m somehow responsible for Shorty’s death?”
“See? You’re not so dumb,” Cassie said with a grating sneer. “I knew you’d catch on after a spell.”
He dropped his act just for a second, but it was long enough for Cassie to see the hatred behind his mask of shock.