Lone Star Loving (14 page)

“Angel, I loved listening to your dreams and schemes.”

She wasn't appeased. “You betrayed me. You led me to believe you were someone you are not. And you
promised
I wouldn't have to face my father, yet all the while you were leading me into a family trap.”

He took a step toward her; his eyes locked on her huddled form. His fingers reached for a strand of her hair. He whispered, “You don't know how much I wish things could have been different between us. But that is the past, and nothing can change it. We have the future, though.”

She whirled around, her eyes ablaze. “We have no future. I'll never forgive you.”

“Because I kept my identity secret? Or because I brought you to Maisie? Charity, if I'd told you my name or anything about myself, you would've guessed at the truth–I couldn't risk it. It's best that you reconcile with your family. I've thought so all along. But we could–”

She interrupted him. “As I told you the other day, how I live my life isn't your concern.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Don't make yourself into something you're not.”

Is that what he was doing? Had she lied in the park when she'd told him that she loved him?

“I am curious about something,” she said. Rigid and unforgiving were the eyes that had gazed at him in love and passion only the previous night. “Should I address you as Mr. Hawk or Mr. Fierce Hawk? Or will just plain ‘Fierce' do?”

“Hawk. I'll always be your Hawk.”

“No. You will never be anything but a bad memory.” Again, she put distance between them and presented her back. “I would appreciate it if you would take your leave.”

They were getting nowhere. Hawk felt as if his chest had taken a bullet.

He heard a fist pound the outer door. “You in there,” called a voice from the corridor. “We're not having any hanky-panky in the Wayfarer!”

“Leave ‘em be, ye jackanapes! If it takes buying this hotel lock, stock, and barrel, I'll be making ye listen t' me.”

“Perhaps, madam, we
could
talk.”

The disturbance in the corridor was quickly quelled. Hawk heard no other sound but his and Charity's breathing. He closed the distance between himself and his beloved, his fingers curling around her shoulders. “Forgive me. I need to hold you in my arms and make you understand how much you mean to me.”

Her eyes were like chips of frozen turquoise when she rounded on him once more. “How much did my great-grandmother pay you to kidnap me?”

“Not a dime.”

“What a shame. You had to put up with me for nothing. How sad.”

“Stop it, Charity. Money has never meant anything to me. I have all I'll ever need. I did it because the Old One asked. And because I wanted to see you for myself. I, too, have had fantasies over the years. Of you.”

Charity stared at him for a moment, a maelstrom of emotions crossing her face before she turned to plant her palm on the rail of the bed. “Well, the deed is done and your curiosity is satisfied. Go on back to Washington, or wherever it was you were summoned from, and leave me be.”

“Can't. I mean to put us to rights.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Your very alive body is what I'm after. I am your lover. Your first lover. And I shall be your last.”

“You
were
my lover. Past tense. Furthermore, you will never, ever touch me again.”

“You mean, like this?” His fingers moved to her breast. And her quivering response–pure woman–belied the malice of her expression. “You can't forget me,” he said. “I won't allow it.”

She swatted his fingers. “I won't allow myself to remember.”

He grabbed her into his arms. “You'll allow it. For the same reason we made love last night. Because you love me.”

Her teeth clenched, she beat her fist against his chest. “Lust was all I felt for you. Believe me, it has passed.” She snapped his totem from her neck. “Take this back.”

He closed his fist around the neckchain. A nerve ticked beneath one eye. “You will take it back someday. Someday you'll wear my totem with pride.”

“Never! And just why would I want any reminders of your pawing me?”

His body stiffened, his anger rising. “I beg to differ on who was pawing whom. I seem to recall that you were the one with your hands all over me. I believe I was the one pleading with you to stop.”

She made a fist and socked him in the eye.

After she had struck him, Hawk had made a silent retreat out the window, and deftly negotiating his way along the catwalk, had set off for parts unknown. Charity sat and stewed. How was she going to get out of the locked room? Maisie answered her thoughts by putting a key in the lock and making a cautious entrance.

“Are ye gonna be angry with yer poor old granny forever?”

“Yes.” Charity refused to meet the old woman's eyes. “You've really done it this time, and I hope you're satisfied. Oh, Maiz, why did you interfere? Why didn't you leave me alone?”

Maisie stood firm, her silver head leveled. “If I have t' be answering that, then I havena done a good job of raising ye.”

Always, Olga and Margaret and young Angus had gotten their parents' attention, so the job of dealing with Charity had fallen to the family matriarch. And she was old, so old. Maisie seemed to have aged ten years since the previous May. Charity regretted her part in the change she saw in her great-grandmother.

How she had suffered under the impression that the old woman was through with her! And now she had been proven wrong. This realization worked against the raw fury that had festered in her since the previous night, but she was not ready to give any thought to forgiveness.

Maisie took a step toward her. “Canna ye ken? I love ye, and I want yer happiness.”

“You picked a fine way to show it, sending
him
after me.”

“He's a good lad, that one. A fine, upstanding man. Educated, ye know. And he's got money from a grandmaither–”

“All you think about is money.”

“If ye'd ever been without it, ye'd know the importance.”

“I've been without it. The most important thing, as I see it, is love. And I don't have that.”

“Ye're wrong. And if ye coulda seen the lad agonizing over ye last night, ye'd know his feelings are true.”

Charity pulled a face. “You're such a romantic, Maiz, that you can't tell love from a guilty conscience.”

Her patience wearing thin, Maisie wagged a finger. “Listen here, I've got seventy years on ye, ye whelp. Don't be advising me on life and love. I've lost a country and a man and all the bairns of me body. I've seen war and more war. And I've been seeing a lotta love exchanged in this nasty ole world of ours. Like with your maither and faither. If ye ever knew the hell Lisette and Gilliegorm had known, ye wouldna be turning a nose up at a fine lad like Fierce Hawk.”

“Oh, please.”

“Give the lad a chance, and ye won't be sorry. Splash some water on yer face and fix yer hair 'fore I take a broom to yer britches. We're going home. The three of us.”

“I have no home.”

“I'll not be listening t' that sorta blather. I am going home, and ye're going with me, and that's that.”

“Think again.”

For the stretch of a minute, they glared at each other. Maisie gave in first.

“Mind if I sit down?” Not above using her advanced age as a tool of persuasion, she rubbed her hip, then teetered toward a chair. “These old bones are aching. Ye know the trouble I've had since that horse threw me last Hogmanay.”

Not being able to help herself in the face of the old woman's discomfort, Charity rushed to her great-grandmother and lent a hand in helping her to the chair.

“Thank ye, darlin'. Granny does need help from time t' time.” Maisie patted her hand. “Had a god-awful time getting here. Thought that carriage was gonna break ever' bone in me body. Havena got enough meat on me arse anymore. Don't get old, lass. 'Tis a terrible thing.”

“You do look thin.”

Her chin trembling, Maisie sighed and the motion accentuated her slight frame. “Havena been able to eat, with ye being gone from home and not knowing ye were okay. Figured ye were in Laredo, but for all I knew, ye coulda been lying dead in a ditch.”

Charity stared at the floor. “I didn't wish to trouble you. And I thought you were finished with me, after what you said that afternoon I left ho–I left the Four Aces.”

“I was trying to pound sense int' yer head.”

“Well, I didn't see it that way.”

Bright old eyes found their mark. “Guess I had better be getting back home. Going with me, lass?”

Charity shook her head.

Maisie rubbed her hip again. “Fetch me a glass of that brandy. I could use it, what with the jarring trip ahead of me. Sure hope I doona get laid up somewhere . . . sickly and without a loved one t' care for me. Or t' see t' a proper burial, should it be coming t' that.”

Charity wouldn't be able to live with herself if something happened to Maisie while she was away from home chasing after her great-granddaughter.
You're being gullible again
. Charity straightened her spine. “You won't be alone. You said yourself that Indian is going with you.”

“He willna. Unless you go too.”

What a noble savage! “You will do fine. You may be ninety, but you'll be fine at a hundred and ninety.”

“Least that sweet Maria Sara has some respect for old age. She–”

“What do you mean, Maria Sara?”

“Dinna tell ye? She and her lad are waiting at home.”

Maria Sara and Jaime. At the Four Aces. All in one moment Charity was thrilled, aghast, and dismayed. “No telling what sort of poison Papa has filled her with about me.”

“Yer faither isna home. Neither is yer maither.”

“When are they expected?”

“They are not. I doona need to be telling ye that Senate is in session and your faither never neglects his seat.”

It had always been difficult for Charity to tell when her great-grandmother was fibbing. Maisie was a master of half-truths and false impressions, yet . . . She was old, she was kin, and it was a long carriage ride between here and the Four Aces. “I'll see you to the gate of the ranch. And that's the extent of it.”

A smile as wide as Texas burst across Maisie's face. “Thank ye, darlin'.”

“Before you go thanking me, let's get something straight. We travel alone. That–that Indian won't be going with us.”

Where she would go from the entrance to the Four Aces, she wasn't certain, but it wouldn't be in any direction other than that dictated by Charity McLoughlin.

 

 

What a day. In his office, Sheriff Tom Ellis tugged his ten-gallon hat low on his creased forehead and leaned back in his squeaking chair to lace fingers over his growling stomach. Tired and hungry, he parked booted feet on a scraped-up old desk the good citizens of Uvalde County had provided him.

He was looking forward to a nice pot of beef stew his wife, Barbara, was fixing up. It felt right fine being a family man. Come sundown, he would go home, sit down at the table, and have his girls crowd around him. Amanda would tell him about the boys at school; Abigail would jabber about going off to college. Afterward, he'd challenge the ladies to a game of dominoes.

Tom sure did like those ivory dominoes he'd beat ole Hawk out of.

The front door burst open, interrupting his musings of domestic bliss. “Sheriff, I must have a word with you.”

Well, hell.
“So, Blyer, you done woke up from your nap.”

“It was not a
nap.
I was unconscious after a brutal pummeling.”

“Ain't got time to nitpick over word choices.”
Dinner's getting cold
. “Whatcha want, Blyer?”

“Look at me when I am addressing you. I am the son of Senator Campbell Blyer, I'll have you know.”

“Yep, I know.” Just like his father, this one liked to throw his weight around. Tom lowered his feet and looked past swirls of dust motes to eye the dandy. “Looks like ole doc Ruman took care of ya real good, Blyer. In my born days I ain't never seen so many bandages wrapped round one feller's noggin.”

Blyer put a hand to his face. “Yes, I was seriously assaulted. As was my employee, Mr. Rufino Saldino of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. I am here on behalf of both of us to press charges against one David Fierce Hawk. Address unknown.”

Tom clicked his tongue, then reached for one of the peppermints he always kept handy. Rolling the candy from one side of his mouth to the other, he thought about the day's events. After that ruckus over at the Wayfarer, ole Gabe Weatherwax, the night clerk, had come rushing in, jabbering about two fellows being beat to a bloody pulp. Near as Tom could figure, one punch each had been enough.

After seeing Blyer and his big Mexican
amigo
toted off to Doc Ruman's, Tom had had to listen to this tongue-wagger and that tongue-wagger bending, his ear about Senator McLoughlin's girl and her man-troubles with Senator Blyer's son and some good-looking Indian that turned out to be a Washington lawyer.

Tom could have told those ladies a thing or two about ole Hawk. Fine fellow, that one. Doggone good dominoes player, too.

But poor ole Hawk, looks like he'd gone and got his hands full of trouble. The McLoughlin girl and her old granny had skedaddled sometime before noon, that rich couple that had been staying over at the Wayfarer saw the ladies off.

Every busybody in Uvalde had come out for their farewell. Couple hours after that, Hawk, decked out in Indian duds and riding a fine dun stallion bought from the livery stable, had left. Probably to ride after his lady.

Giggling and simpering, the unmarried ladies of the town had hotfooted it over to Helmut's Café to jabber over the good-looking buck. The older ladies had showed up, too. Even that dried-up old schoolmarm Miss Carmack had participated. A few of them had clucked over the Blyer dandy, too. The café hadn't seen that much business since it opened its doors last year.

All of this while outlaws had been going about the monkey business of breaking the law–like stealing a pig from poor old lady Moore. And right before lunch, Rufus Haysmith got caught exposing himself in front of the little Metzger girl. Then a couple of young fellows got into it over a poker game at Estelle Hamilton's saloon; even as they spoke, one of the boys was lying dead over at the funeral home. His pregnant widow was crying over him right now.

But did the tongue-waggers give a darn about any of that?
Naw.
Common folks liked knowing rich folks was just as common as they was. Tom Ellis had enough to worry about, what with folks like poor Mabel Moore and the little Metzger girl and that widow woman crying her eyes out.

He crunched down on his peppermint while giving Ian Blyer a hard look. “Round here, the law don't mess between men when they fight over a lady.”

“Charity McLoughlin is no lady.”

“Now, son, watch what ya say. I know ya was engaged to the lady, and calling her anything less ain't dignified. Your pa wouldn't like it, your being less than mannerly. Ole Campbell Blyer cottons to keeping up a good front.”

The peacock sniffed. “Sheriff, I left Laredo with every intention of being a gentleman to the young woman. I'd learned that she had fled from justice on the arms of a ruffian, yet, to save her reputation, and to bring her to the authorities, I and, my man Rufino Saldino, overtook their party.”

“Rufino Saldino? Ain't he that scalawag what's been in and outta trouble for years with the Customs House in Laredo?”

“Charges have never been filed against Mr. Saldino.”

Tom shrugged. “Get on with your story.”

“As I was saying, Mr. Saldino and I overtook Miss McLoughlin and her party south of here. I tried my best to convince her to throw herself on the court's mercy, but she refused.”

This story held about as much water as Barbara's cooking sieve, to Tom's way of thinking.

The peacock continued. “She and her Lothario stole my horse, and–”

“Hold on there, Blyer. The man Hawk done come by here yesterday, ‘splaining hisself over the chestnut, and he was on the up and up.” No use pointing out his relationship to ole Hawk. “ 'Sides, ya told me last night the lady rescued your mare.”

“I was less than honest–a gentlemanly gesture on my part. I thought to save face for the woman.” Blyer dusted the arm of his coat. “May I sit down?”

Again Tom shrugged. “Makes me no never mind.”

Blyer lowered himself into a straight chair, then crossed his legs. Tom Ellis had never had any use for a man that crossed his legs like that. Seemed kinda sissy to him.

“I have much to say, sheriff.”

Doggone it, Tom was hungry and tired, and how long was this plucked peacock going to keep him from Barbara and the girls? A man sure had to put up with a lot of bull hockey to put food on the table. “If ya got more to say, Blyer, get on with it.”

“Are you familiar with the Shafter silver-smuggling ring?”

“Yep. That lawyer feller Ellersby, outta San Antonya, come in here a couple days back and was jawing about it.”

“I can assist in solving the case.”

“Seems to me ole Al Ellersby said 'twas settled. Gonzáles and his boys got theirs from the Rangers.”

“Not all of the miscreants were killed.”

The Sheriff watched as ole Prissy Britches, a smooth smile moving across his pasty face, settled a forearm on his desk. Tom chuckled. This ole desk had long been needing a good dusting.

“Miss Charity McLoughlin was involved in the crime. Deeply involved. She was the money carrier. She, sir, is a fugitive from justice.”

“Them's serious allegations, son. 'Specially against the daughter of Senator McLoughlin. He's a mighty powerful man in Washington. I shore would hate to be in your shoes if–where'd ya get those silly lace-up things, by the way?”