Just This Once (3 page)

“Oooooh!” There was no false faintness in
her tone this time. Josie closed her eyes, swallowing back a
hideous rush of nausea. “Oooooh. Aaaagh....”

Her skin had turned a sickly green. The
gunslinger scowled. “Women,” he muttered. He spun her around to
face the opposite direction. “Give it up,” he said roughly. “You
just tried, not very skillfully, to pick my pocket.”

Eyes still closed, Josie automatically shook
her head. “You’re loco, mister. It fell out of your pocket, that’s
all. Please, I feel sick.”

“Yeah? Well, you look like hell. But that
doesn’t change the fact that you’re a thief.”

She opened her eyes, swallowed hard, and as
the nausea faded, realized she was being held hard and fast and
indecently close by a man who could be a dead ringer for the devil.
A man far stronger than she, with an icy hard gleam in his eyes,
and a face so handsome, she ached looking at him, a man who would
turn her over to the sheriff in a heartbeat.

“I’m not.”

“Let’s ask the sheriff.”

“No!” She began to struggle frantically in
his arms. “Hey, don’t blame me if you can’t hang on to what’s
yours. It’s not my fault if—”

“Lady, I can hang on all right.” With a
lightning movement he scooped the wallet up, then, before Josie
could break away, he dragged her swiftly into the alley, out of
sight of those in the street.

“I’m hanging on to you until you’re locked
in jail.”

T
he gunslinger
shoved Josie up against the crumbling rear wall of the apothecary,
pinning her wrists above her head and holding her there. “Admit it.
You’re a damned no-good little thief.”

She fought back panic, trying to think. The
alley was deserted except for a stray cat who’d been exploring the
garbage piled in back of the apothecary. It sprinted off at the
rough sound of the gunslinger’s voice.

“They hang thieves in some of these here
parts, you know,” he snarled, watching the fear, worry, and dismay
flit across her face, and edging closer. “And in others, they just
send ’em to prison. There’s some question among convicts as to
which is worse.”

“I’m not a thief! You can’t prove
anything!”

“I caught you red-handed.”

“You’re wrong. You’re loco. I’m going to
scream for help if you don’t let me go right now.”

“Lady, you just scream away.”

Josie opened her mouth, then clamped it shut
again. She couldn’t risk attracting a crowd, or the notice of the
sheriff. She couldn’t risk questions, delays, complications.

And the man staring down at her with dark,
glittering triumph in his eyes knew it.

He actually laughed as she set her lips
together and gulped. It was a mirthless, unpleasant sound, Josie
decided, squirming again in another useless attempt to get free.
She hated him.
Hated him.
There was no pity in his ice-gray
eyes. No hint of softness or compassion. And even though she knew
he’d been up the entire night playing poker, he didn’t look the
least bit weary. He looked keenly alert, furious, and as if he was
enjoying the fact that struggle as she might, she couldn’t break
his grip.

Damn him.
Handsome as sin, and every
bit as ruthless. She cursed her own foolishness for not having
chosen an easier and less dangerous target.

“Look,” she said, a blush staining up her
neck and into her cheeks as she heard the genuine quaver in her own
voice.

“I’m... sorry. I did... take your wallet. It
was a stupid thing to do and it was wro

ng. But my father is ill, and needs to go
east to a hospital right away for treatment, and we’re about to
lose our farm, and all I need is enough for train fare for the two
of us.”

The stranger’s lip curled. She had a glimpse
of flashing white teeth in that violently handsome face. “Lady,
I’ve a mind to turn you over to the sheriff right now, faster’n you
can blink those pretty long eyelashes of yours. I don’t believe a
word you just said.”

“It’s all true.”

“And I’m half coyote.”

“Please. Let me go.” She might as well beg.
Things couldn’t get much worse, Josie thought, biting back a sob as
the ache in her imprisoned wrists grew more intense. And then,
suddenly, things did get worse.

Much worse.

From the corner of her eye Josie caught
sight of someone riding up the street. Someone familiar.
Dreadfully, terrifyingly familiar. She jerked forward to see
better, then lunged backward so sharply, she banged her head
against the wall. Red stars splattered before her vision.

Snake!

Instinctively she tried to squeeze herself
as far back against the wall as she could, trying to melt into it,
to disappear. She prayed Snake wouldn’t turn his head, wouldn’t see
her here in this alley.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” The
stranger’s eyes were narrowed on her as he held her captive against
the wall.

“Nothing,” she croaked, her voice barely
audible.

“Something sure spooked you just now. What
was it?” The gunslinger glanced curiously toward the street, but
Snake was gone.

“Nothing. I—”

“You got a lawman after you? Or a bounty
hunter?”

No. A husband who’s an outlaw, who’ll
kill me because I stole his loot when I ran away from him,
she
thought, fighting through her terror of Snake, a terror that
threatened to surge up and engulf her in hysteria. Aloud, to the
invincible dark-haired stranger with his muscles of iron, who
probably had never known a moment’s fear in his life, she spoke
with all the calm she could muster under the circumstances—and that
wasn’t much.

“Please, I’m begging you. Let me go. I won’t
bother you again. Or anyone else. But I can’t be found here. I’ve
got to get out of town... I...”

“All right. You can quit your bellyachin’.”
He released her and stepped back. She saw no softening in his eyes
as she began to rub her bruised wrists. His jaw was taut, and the
only expression he wore was one of contempt. Josie guessed it was
the same derisive way he looked at an enemy the moment before he
shot him dead. It was a wonder that look alone didn’t kill his prey
for him.

“I don’t give a damn about you or any of
your stories, lady,” he went on, shoving his hat back on his head,
glaring at her from beneath a dark thatch of hair. “And luckily for
you, I don’t shoot women. But hear this. Woman or no, you’re a
thief, and the next time you try to steal from me, you’re landing
in a jail cell. Got that?”

She nodded. She started to sidle sideways,
but the stranger seized her again, making her gasp. He hauled her
up close against his powerful frame and the color drained from
Josie’s face. For a long moment he stared down at her, his eyes
glinting in the sunlit alley.

“You caught me on a day when I’m in a good
mood. So just this once I’m giving you a break. But don’t press
your luck.”

“I won’t.” Josie moistened her lips with her
tongue. “I won’t,” she repeated as he continued to stare menacingly
into her eyes. She wondered what he was like on a day when he
wasn’t
in a good mood. And knew she didn’t want to find out.
She was stunned by the strength of him as he held her, the solid,
overwhelming power emanating from every bone and muscle of his
being. But there was something else too. A seething heat beneath
the icy surface. A black, restless energy infused with danger.
After being married to Snake, Josie’d had her fill of danger.

Then why, she wondered, did this man’s
keenly dangerous eyes fascinate her as much as frighten her? Why
this sudden heat burning her skin from within?

Strangely, the dark-haired man seemed to
draw her in, to drag at something in her soul. She gulped, fighting
the pull, fighting the flaring heat that scorched her. Something
about those eyes enthralled as much as frightened her.

What had she been thinking when she’d
started this? Why had she tangled with a man like him?

“I won’t bother you again,” she promised in
a whisper that caught in her throat.

He let her go. Her skin still burned where
his hands had touched.

“Get the hell out of my sight.”

Josie gulped at the hardness of his eyes.
She turned nimbly and fled through the tumbleweed-strewn alley.

Not once did she look back.

She kept close to the buildings, praying she
wouldn’t run into Snake. Her heart was hammering double time as her
feet skimmed along the dirt. She slipped and stumbled in her haste,
nearly falling once as she staggered into a trash can, but she
never slowed for an instant. Her mind raced even faster than her
feet, flashing with questions about Snake, trying to put the
encounter with the gunslinger out of her mind for good.

Was Snake alone? Was the whole gang with
him—Spooner and Deck and Noah? Did they already know she was
here?

It was nerve-racking just getting back to
the Golden Pistol, then sneaking in the back door and scurrying up
the stairs.

But she made it.

And only when she had slammed and locked the
door to her room, and leaned against it for a minute, did she start
to tremble.

The shudders shook her delicate shoulders,
and made her knees quiver beneath the gingham skirt, but gradually,
with effort, she gained control of her emotions. Conquered the
fear.

Slowly, unsteadily, she made her way to the
bed and sank down upon it. Her fingers dipped into her skirt
pocket. And drew out the gunslinger’s wallet.

This was followed by his pocket watch, an
ornate gold beauty dangling on a thick gold chain.

A shaky smile crossed her lips. And the last
of the fear receded.

Josie tossed her loot on the bed and hugged
her arms around herself. Nice work, she thought, resting her chin
on her drawn up knees. Even though she’d left him the bills he’d
tucked into his shirt pocket after the poker game, it was still a
very good haul. Pop Watson would be proud.

Now all she had to do was stay alive. And
find a way to ditch this town before she got shot, locked in jail,
or strung up.

Jumping up from the bed, Josie grabbed her
straw valise. She had little time to lose.

E
than Savage slept
for no more than three hours that afternoon, despite having played
poker throughout the preceding night. Then he had himself a bath,
and a sandwich at the grease-and-smoke-filled cafe at the edge of
town, and returned to the Golden Pistol in time to see the dancing
girls perform and to find himself a bottle of whiskey and a new
poker game.

He scarcely watched the girls. Once or twice
he glanced at them, saw several of them meet his eyes and smile
widely as they lifted their skirts and kicked their legs, flashing
ankles and knees with abandon. Tempting, but he wasn’t sure that
even a loose woman would calm him tonight.

Maybe later he’d find out.

The whiskey at his elbow was good. He
usually didn’t drink much, though lately he’d turned to it more and
more. It helped to soothe the restlessness that gripped him of
late, a restlessness even the open splendor of the plains no longer
seemed to ease. Even tonight, his mind couldn’t concentrate on the
game. He’d developed a sixth sense, an instinct, for when something
momentous was about to happen to him—be it an ambush by enemies on
a mountain pass, his horse going lame, a card opponent coming up
with a straight flush.

Instinct. Ethan Savage was known to have it
in spades.

And instinct told him tonight that something
was going to shake up his dull little world.

Maybe tonight he’d get shot.

In all these years of riding, hunting,
shooting, gambling, living the solitary life in a lawless land,
he’d never been shot. But there was a first time for
everything.

It would be a diversion, he told himself,
almost smiling as he fanned out his cards.