Desperate Hearts (31 page)

“
When this is over, Kyle
will disappear forever. Maybe I’ll wear pants to rope and ride,
because I don’t want to give that up. But I’ll do it as a
female.”

Up in the hills a coyote howled at the moon,
lonesome and far away.

He considered her with an amused, assessing
gaze and the corners of his eyes crinkled with his light smile.
“That day I found out that you weren’t a boy—Jesus, I was mad.”

“
I remember. You acted as
though I’d stolen your horse,” she retorted, glad for the easing of
the tension between them. They had been through a lot together; she
would rather that some goodwill remain between them if there could
be nothing more. Nothing more. Her heart contracted in her
chest.

“
But then I wondered how I
could have been so blind,” he added, and the tone of his voice
huskier, more intimate.

Kyle’s breath caught and her pulse raced on.
His blue gaze drifted across her flattened breasts and hips, and
brushed over her lap before it rose again to her face. Reaching
over, he took her hand in his warm grip and examined it in the low
light, opening her fingers to reveal her palm. The stars seemed to
stop twinkling as if waiting to see what he would do next.

“
I remember thinking that
even though you fooled me into believing you as Kyle, there were so
many things about you that could only belong to a girl.” He
flattened out her fingers with his own. “The smooth hands, your
mouth, tender and soft, the way you smelled, like sage on an August
morning."

His words were like simple, beautiful
poetry, not empty flattery. But if possible, they were even more
dangerous for their frankness. Kyla closed her eyes, wishing he
would hold her hand forever, and yet afraid to let him touch her
for another second.

Then as if he felt the danger, too, he
released her. “You’re one hell of a woman, Kyla. When you told me
you’d been married to Hank, I couldn’t picture a tough-hided loner
like him settling down with you. I know what he saw that drew him.
And I’m betting that the kindness of his heart had nothing to do
it.” He sounded like a man who had seen the fate of his own future
and was powerless to change it. “If I were a different man—” He
sighed and let the sentence hang unfinished.

“
You wouldn’t need to be a
different man, Jace,” she over the ache in her throat. “You just
need to take a different path.”

He shook his head and his
smile was shadowed with regret. "Nope. It
is
too late for me to do that, Kyla.
This is the path I chose and there’s no changing it now. Anyway I
still have a job to do for you so that you can get on with your
life.” He rolled himself into his blankets then and turned his back
to her.

Kyla glanced at the stars again and wondered
why that life he referred to didn’t seem as clear as it once
had.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Hardesty sat at a corner table in the Pine
Cone Saloon, nursing his fourth shot of whiskey. The morning sun
threw a bright slash of light across the flooring and up the wall
next to him. Saloons looked a lot different in the morning than
they did at night—almost as somber as funeral parlors. Shit, what a
comparison, he thought.

Business wasn’t as good in this place as it
had been, he noticed. Ever since he started coming in on a daily
basis, for some reason customer traffic had fallen off. More often
than not, Pete, the bartender, stood behind the counter looking
glum and polishing glasses, for lack of anything better to do. That
was fine with Tom. He wasn’t in any mood for company.

He sat here every day now, fidgety and
short-tempered, waiting for word from Hobie McIntyre. The few men
who came in eyed him with furtive glances and sidled to the bar, or
to far tables. No one had the nerve to actually look him in the
face. That was fine Tom, too.

Even Mayella Cathcart had lost her allure
for him. Before she had been a little on the docile side, but now
she looked as dull-eyed as a cow and had no fight all. Damn, who
wanted to poke a limp dishrag who stared at the ceiling the whole
time and whispered to Jesus to save her? At least he knew he could
count on the redhead to fight back and make it interesting.

He took another drink of whiskey, and the
flame on his anger climbed higher. Where the hell was Kyla anyway?
Maybe McIntyre hadn’t bothered to send a wire and was simply on his
way back to Blakely. If that was the case, he’d throttle the saddle
bum for not reporting in. Throttle him. He poured another shot and
knocked it back in one gulp, and another after that. Presently, the
frames around the windows grew blurry, and the grooves between the
floor planks began to blend.

Goddamned Rankin.

Lousy red-haired bitch.

“
Mr. Hardesty,
sir?”

Tom’s head snapped up and he found the
general store’s young delivery boy standing a few feet from his
table. He was blurry, too.

“
Whatcha want, kid? Cantcha
see I’m m-b-busy?”

The boy extended a package the full length
of arm and leaned forward, as if his boots were nailed the floor
just beyond Tom’s easy reach. “The stage brought this in the mail
pouch for you. My pa said to bring it to you right away.”

Tom made a couple of lunging passes at the
brown paper package before catching it. “I s’pose you think I
should pay you for your trouble and—”

“
Nossir,” the boy said,
turning tail. He ducked under the swinging doors and ran out to the
street before Tom realized he was gone.

“
Hmm, damned kid," he
groused and looked down at the package. It sure as hell wasn’t the
telegram he’d been waiting for, goddamn it. He tried to focus on
the writing in the address but it was too dark in this corner to
see much. He recognized his name, anyway. Cutting through the twine
with his pocket knife, he tore at the paper impatiently.

“
Jesus Christ!” he yelped,
jumping back with his chair. Nestled in its folds he found
something that him drop the package on the table as if it contained
a scorpion. Both unnerved and infuriated, gingerly he pulled out a
leather thong strung with bear’s teeth.

The same one that Hobie McIntyre had worn
around his neck until someone had cut it off.

So the rumors were true, Tom thought, shaken
from his boozy contemplations by everything this message
implied.

Jace Rankin was coming.

* * *

After waiting for the shelter of darkness,
Jace and Kyla circled Blakely and stole onto Jim Porter’s property
outside of town.

From the road, Kyle saw that the ranch house
windows were dark, but a single lantern glowed on the railing.
“That means the Midnighters are in Jim’s barn,” she whispered. “He
took over after Hank was killed. He’s the only one who knows I went
looking for someone to help me.”

She heard Jace breathe a long-suffering
sigh. “He probably isn’t anymore. It’s my experience that people
can’t keep secrets. It sure as hell would explain why Hobie
McIntyre knew to find you in Silver City.”

She frowned at him, but they climbed out of
saddles and edged closer to the barn, leading the horses. Along the
corral fence other horses were tied up. Although she couldn’t see
it in the darkness, she heard Jace pull the Henry from its
scabbard.

“
Just in case they have
someone jittery on watch,” he murmured.

This meeting was a lucky break, she thought.
If Jace met these people and heard what the Vigilance Union had
done to them, maybe he’d change his mind about helping them.

Motioning him to drop back, she crept to the
door and listened. Inside, she heard the low hum of tones. They
spoke quietly—she could distinguish no words, identify no
individual voices. Using the code Hank had taught her, she tapped
four times, two short knocks, and two long. All conversation from
within ceased and a tense pause followed. She glanced back at Jace
and he waved her to the side, away from direct line of fire in the
event that someone decided shoot through the door.

After what seemed like an eternity, her taps
were answered with two short knocks, the response expected, and the
door opened. Jim Porter held a lantern high and searched her face,
plainly not recognizing her. Through the narrow opening, she saw a
few men behind him sitting on hay bales and crates.

“
Jim, it’s me, Kyla
Springer," she whispered. "I’m back.”

“
Kyla?” Finally a big grin
flashed across the weathered old rancher’s face, and he gripped her
hand and it until she thought her arm might loosen in its socket.
Then he clapped her hard on the back. “By God, honey, we didn’t
know if we’d ever see you again!” he said in a loud whisper. He
turned to the gathering. “Kyla’s here. She made it
back.”

A surge of emotion coursed through her.
These were her neighbors, her friends, people she’d known all of
her life. It was good to be among them again and in a common
cause.

“
I’m sorry to barge in
during the meeting, but we need to talk to you for a minute,” she
said.

He pulled the door closed behind him and
stepped into the darkness. Putting the lantern on top of a barrel,
he asked, “What can I do for you?”

She glanced over her shoulder at Jace, who
lingered shadows. "I’ve brought someone with me, a friend.” That
was an understatement, she thought, still yearning for the
protection of Jace’s arms around her, feel of his fingertips
tracing her mouth, the soft scratch of his beard under her hands.
She motioned him closer. He came, but with obvious reluctance.
“This is Jace Rankin.”

The older man stiffened noticeably. It was
true, she thought, what Jace had said about people fearing him,
people who should feel no threat from him. But Jim recovered almost
immediately, and put out his hand. “Mr. Rankin. You’re welcome
here.”

Jace shook the hand offered to him and
nodded in acknowledgement. “I’m not ‘Mr. Rankin’ to anyone, so Jace
is just fine.”

“
We have some business to
take care of, Jim, and if Tom is still at the ranch, you know we
can’t go there,” Kyla whispered. No one alive but Jace knew what
Hardesty had done to her, but it was no secret that he had killed
Hank.

“
He’s still there,” Jim
said grimly, hate hardening his creased face.

“
I was wondering if we
could stay in your barn without anyone else knowing.”
Automatically, glanced around the yard. “We need to keep it
quiet.”

Jim shrugged. “Sure, you can stay. I’m going
out to the range for a few days with the hands, but you’re welcome
to use the place. You should know, though, there are rumors
floating around town about Mr.—Jace. People have been talking about
him, expecting him, but I don’t know why.”

Briefly, Jace explained what had happened
McIntyre and his men, from the afternoon in Cord to the miner’s
cabin. “McIntyre might have been keeping Hardesty informed of our
whereabouts. Word could have leaked out, and the story took its own
turn.”

Jim Porter shook his gray head. “I’ll tell
you, between Luke Jory, Tom Hardesty, and the rest of Vigilance
Union, life in Blakely has been more like hell on earth.” He jerked
a thumb over his shoulder. "We’ve been inside tonight, trying to
come up with plan to get rid of those sons of bitches. So far we’ve
gotten nowhere. When Hank died, he took a lot of our spirit with
him. I think we might have had a chance with him.” He eyed Jace
speculatively. “You two may as well come in—we were about to break
up for tonight anyway.”

Jace groaned inside, trying to figure out a
way to avoid it but he felt stuck. Despite the name he’d made for
himself, he hated being the center of attention. But when they
followed Jim into the barn, the situation became even worse than
he’d anticipated.

A moment of gaping, awkward
silence opened following his introduction to the men. Then a man in
the back wearing farmer’s overalls filled the void. “By God, maybe
that’s what we need to do—
hire
someone from the outside to wipe ’em all out.
Every last stinkin’ one of ’em."

“
That’s right! Fight fire
with fire!”

“
They should have a taste
of their own.”

“
Someone needs to teach
them a lesson they’ll never forget. Someone like Rankin here, who
isn’t afraid of them.”

To Jace’s horror, this idea was picked up
and carried from man to man like a torch, and it burned hotter with
each passing minute. Pretty soon, the men were on their feet, their
eyes lit with the fire of revenge hope. Kyla did nothing to
intervene, and he sent her a sour look, which she chose to
ignore.

“
Now wait a minute,” he
said, trying to interrupt the wave of bitter zeal that rolled over
them. “I don’t do this kind of—” He turned to Kyla and bent a stern
look on her. “You’d better tell them to forget it.”

“
Jace, you’re the only one
who can help with this,” she said, talking as crazy as the rest of
them. Her eyes gleamed with the same fire.

“
What?”
He was astounded. “I didn’t come to Blakely to take on those
vigilantes! I told you I wouldn’t do that. I told you from the
beginning.”

“
They’ve stolen my cattle
in broad daylight, put their brand on them, and told me it was
their pay for keeping the peace,” one rancher
complained.

“
Luke Jory is charging me
now so that ‘rustlers’ won’t steal my stock in the middle of the
night. Rustlers, my Aunt Sophie!”

The farmer in the overalls, the one who had
begun this, held out his hands, appealing to the group to hear his
story. “Tom Hardesty forced himself on Mayella after he made me let
her go cook for him. That was after he moved into your house, Kyla.
Now . . . now she don’t even talk anymore. If it wasn’t for the
Vigilance Union, he never would have been able to do that to my
little girl.” His voice quivered when added, “She’s only fifteen
years old.”