He smiled at the irony of it all. All those years he’d been packing iron, dodging his past and dreaming of hanging up those guns, he never would have imagined something like this would be offered to him. And his dreams of a house in a small mountain valley, a couple of kids, a few head of cattle…he had never really thought about a wife until the other night in the barn when he talked with Jenny. He knew having kids most of the time involved a woman’s contribution, but a woman like Amelia?
Ladies like her had never looked at him as a prospective husband. Oh sure, a few of those respectable ladies had shot him sidelong, encouraging glances, especially once he had finished growing and filling out. The one time he’d made the mistake of thinking those encouraging glances meant anything more, the “lady” had made it abundantly clear he had merely been a way to satisfy an itch, and that was all. He had steered clear of respectable ladies ever since.
He never would have dreamed that a woman like Amelia would look at him in any manner other than disdain or pity. That she regarded him with open, undisguised love rocked the foundations of what he thought he knew of humanity.
“Sitting out in the open without a gun is a good way to get yourself killed when you’re a shootist.”
Taylor’s voice forced Colt’s eyes open. He shook his head. “If you were trying to sneak up on me, you didn’t succeed, Marshal. I could smell your cigarette from a ways off.” He fixed his gaze on the small cabin on the valley floor. Taylor could so swiftly re-establish Colt’s long-held beliefs of the smallness and pettiness of humankind, and this morning, he didn’t want to believe that of anyone.
“If I was trying to get the drop on you, I wouldn’t have been smoking,” Taylor said. “If I wanted the drop on you, I’ve got it because you’re not wearing a gun. I never thought I would see the day that the notorious Colt Evans would be caught without iron.”
“I promised Amy as long as I was here, I wouldn’t wear my revolver.” He sent a sidelong glance in Taylor’s direction, forced to squint at his silhouette in the early morning sun. “So, I have to ask, Marshal, have you made it your personal responsibility to ride shotgun over me?”
Taylor walked closer, leading his black horse. “It is my responsibility to look out for Amy and Saul and Jenny.”
“I’m not going to do anything to hurt her or those kids.”
Taylor nudged his hat back and then leaned a shoulder against his massive black mount. “Did it ever occur to you, that just being here could hurt them? How long, Evans, before your past shows up and they get caught in the cross fire? Or does that even matter to you?”
“What if my past never shows up?” Colt bent over and plucked a long stalk of grass. He twirled it between his fingers, and rose to his feet, glancing around for the marmot angrily scolding the intruders on his mountaintop.
The plump rodent was perched on another boulder, chattering in a shrill voice. The animal’s coat gleamed with a yellow-gold cast in the early sunlight. The moment the creature realized Colt had spied him, it dove into the safety of its burrow.
“Evans, she’s an impressionable young girl. She thinks she’s in love with you. Leave now, while she can still let you go. Before she gets more than she bargained for. Give her a chance to marry the right man.”
“The right man…” Colt snorted. He dropped the stalk of grass and pulled his hand through his hair. “Isn’t that Amy’s choice, not yours?”
“You’re a shootist, with a seemingly deserved reputation.” Taylor straightened, dropped one of the black’s reins and walked closer to Colt. “What kind of a future can you promise her? It isn’t going to matter when you hang those guns up. You are always going to be a shootist.”
Colt rounded on a heel, crunching granite gravel and grit under his boot. “What kind of a future can anyone promise her?” He forced away his anger. Taylor was only repeating the same conclusion he’d reached himself. “Marshal, what the hell did you say to her yesterday?”
“What I’m telling you.” Taylor jerked his head in the direction of Amelia’s home. “You’re trouble for her and the best thing she could do is send you packing, as soon as she can.”
“Well, I need to thank you.” He dipped his head in the direction of the small cabin, mimicking Taylor’s gesture. “It ain’t often I get an offer like the one she made me yesterday afternoon. No commitments, no promises…”
“You son of a bitch.” Taylor’s hand dropped to his revolver, faster than Colt would have imagined the lawman could move. For one moment, he wondered just how close Taylor skirted the edge between lawman and lawbreaker.
“Don’t slur my mother.” Colt lifted his own hand from his side. “I’m unarmed. Most places, that’d be considered murder.”
“Not shooting something like you it wouldn’t be.” Taylor’s hand remained on the grip of his revolver. “It would come along the lines of doing my civic duty.”
Colt refused to snap up the marshal’s bait. “I also turned down her offer, tempting as it was.”
Something shifted in Taylor’s expression. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe it or not, it’s the truth. I didn’t take her up on that offer.” Colt stared down at the cabin again. The breeze switched, carrying the scent of pine smoke from the chimney of the cabin. “She does deserve more than what she offered me.”
“My God, you have feelings for her.” Taylor swept his hat off his head. “I’ll be damned. I would have thought the only person you could ever care about was yourself.”
“Why does it come as such a surprise to you that I could care for someone like Amy? Regardless of what I am, I still—” He broke off, shaking his head. “Never mind, Marshal. I don’t think someone like you would understand it. Everything is black and white to you, isn’t it? It’s cut and dried, and there’s no room for negotiation.”
“What is there to negotiate? You’re a shootist, a killer. She’s an impressionable, vulnerable young woman who thinks she’s in love with you. What kind of a future could you ever give to her? What kind of a life would she ever have with you?” Taylor tossed the lead rein over the saddle horn and mounted. “Evans, I’ll say it again. Leave. Let her have a long, happy life with someone who has a future. If you care at all for her, care for her enough to walk away. She deserves better. You said it yourself.”
****
Amelia knew what a mouse pinned down by five hawks must feel like. The panic, the fear, even the inability to move. As the members of the Federal City Ladies of the Society for the Preservation of Christian Morals encircled her, Helen Morris placed a hand on Amelia’s shoulder. “We are just very worried about you, dear.”
Amelia’s stomach ached with twisting knots. She gestured in the direction of the stove. “Ladies, I can make a pot of coffee, and I have some chocolate cake.”
Before any of the women could respond, the back door flew open.
“Amy, it looks like a damned convention out in the yard. Where did all those buggies—”
Colt halted, and nodded at the five women standing around the table. “Ladies,” he said. Dressed all in black again, with the contrast of the sling against the dark fabric and a day’s worth of beard stubble covering his cheeks and chin, he appeared every inch the dangerous gunfighter the whole town had decided he was—even without his revolver strapped to his thigh.
Mrs. Porter drew herself up, looked Colt up and down, and then stepped forward. “Mr. Evans, I am Mrs. Porter. This is Mrs. Hamilton.”
Thin, eagle-beaked Mrs. Hamilton peered at Amelia first and then Colt over the edge of her wire-rimmed glasses.
“This is Mrs. Ames.”
Portly, short and wheezing, Mrs. Ames snuffed and turned her nose up with Colt’s cool smile.
“And this is Mrs. Black and Mrs. Morris.”
Colt slipped his hand into the back pocket of his denims. “Donnie Morris’s mother?”
“Yes, I’m Donnie’s mother. I was just telling Amelia how disappointed Donnie is with her.”
Amelia had never seen so much devilment fill a grown man’s expression. Colt’s smile wouldn’t have melted butter. “I’ll bet he’s disappointed with her, especially after he left here wearing her handprint on his face. It did clash with that dandified striped suit of his. If I were you, I’d go home and wash his mouth out with soap for whatever he said to Amy.”
“Colt!” Amelia sank into a chair at the table and wondered if she could crawl under it and squeeze through one of the razor-thin cracks of the floor.
Mrs. Morris huffed. “Well, I never—”
“That’s Donnie’s whole problem. You obviously never did teach him how to talk properly to a lady. Hopefully, that highfalutin school for teachers back in Indiana will. Somebody’s got to do it.”
“Mr. Evans!” Mrs. Porter slapped a small book onto the table. “We are very concerned for Amelia and her well-being and safety. We have come out here to warn Amy of the consequences of living in sin with a man, and especially with a man of your ill repute.”
Colt lifted his brow and chuckled. “Last I heard living in sin required certain acts to be performed.” He sent a sidelong glance at Amy, dark amusement glittering in his eyes. “But then, aside from Mrs. Morris, I don’t know if any of you ladies would know what those acts might be. Do I need to tell you what some of them are?”
Every one of the elderly women in the cabin flushed a different shade of red. Mrs. Hamilton’s mouth formed a shocked circle and her eyes widened behind her glasses. Amelia sank deeper into the chair, her face on fire. Breathing was impossible. She risked a glance at the cover of the small, paper-bound book. The title leaped up at her:
The Devil’s Own Desperado: or The Life and Times of the Notorious Shootist and Killer known as Colt Evans. A True Tale of Lawlessness and Degenerate Behavior
.
Mrs. Porter pointed a finger at the dime novel on the table. “Are the allegations made in this…this…this book true?”
Colt inclined his head to the book in question. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never read the thing.” He crossed the room to the coffee pot, lifted it, but set it down without pouring out a cup. He leaned against the counter, and crossed one ankle over the other.
“This says you carry a gun with pearl grips,” said Mrs. Porter, sounding more curious than outraged. “And that the barrel is notched for every man you’ve killed.”
Colt laughed. “Pearl grips? No, ma’am, just plain old walnut for the grip. I can go get my weapon if you’d care to verify that fact. And why would I notch the barrel of a perfectly good revolver? Those notches would be a place for rust to start and I don’t want to have to get a new gun. I rather like the one I have. Besides which, any shootist worth his salt knows you notch the grip, not the barrel.”
“The book intimates that you have had carnal knowledge of every dance-hall girl from Denver to Austin.” Mrs. Morris sounded as if she were choking. “And that you gamble.”
“Yes, I do gamble. My game’s poker. I think most of the others are stacked pretty well to the house, but I win more than I lose when I play poker. Unless someone is dealing off the bottom of the deck, but that’s another story. Now as for the other”—Colt lifted his uninjured shoulder—“a man ain’t got that much time to have carnal knowledge of every dance-hall girl from Denver to Austin. Hell, there’s got to be a thousand of them.” His voice grew ragged with laughter. “But there was one dance-hall girl down in Waco…when she danced…”
Amelia lifted her head as Colt trailed off, his gaze fixed on something far away. She glared at him as jealousy twisted her stomach.
“Mr. Evans, this is no laughing matter.” Mrs. Black’s voice grated in Amelia’s ears. “This is a very serious matter. Amy is…was…a proper, well-mannered, Christian young woman. For you to be here, living under her roof, and the two of you living in a state of sin…”
Colt pushed away from the counter. “Ma’am, my mother tried to raise me to respect my elders, but if any of you say anything more about Amy’s morals or virtue, I will say something that I wouldn’t want my mother to hear.” Colt advanced a step on the tiny woman. “Amy is not living in sin. As I said before, living in sin requires that certain acts be performed. She still is a Christian young woman. The fact she let you old biddies in here is proof of that. She should have bolted the door and told you to go away.”
All five members of the Federal City Ladies of the Society for the Preservation of Christian Morals gaped as Colt stalked to the door and opened it. “I suggest you all leave now. And try to remember that not everything in print is the gospel truth.”
The ladies filed past Colt, each of them pulling their skirts to themselves, as if afraid of contamination. Mrs. Morris marched out last, and then pivoted, her mouth opening.
“Not one more word, ma’am,” Colt said. “Please leave now.” He closed the door before she could speak.
Amelia dropped her head into her hands again. “Oh dear,” she whispered, remembering Mrs. Porter’s many quivering chins, Mrs. Hamilton’s eyes widening behind her glasses, and Mrs. Morris left speechless. “Oh dear.”
“I guess I didn’t handle that right, did I? It’s just that when I walked in here and saw all those old bats clutching their Bibles to their chests, and you looking as if you’d just been thrown to the wolves, well, hell…it’s probably about time someone told them off.”
Amelia slid her elbows along the table and leaned forward, her head on her hands. Her shoulders shook with silent laughter.
Colt stroked her back. “Amy, I’m sorry. Don’t cry. I’ll go catch them and apologize to them.”
“No.” She sat up and let the laughter have full voice. “Helen Morris was so angry and she couldn’t get a word in edgewise…Oh, Colt, I’ve never seen her at a loss for words.”
A sheepish smile crossed his face. Amelia’s heart twisted. How could she have grown to care for someone as much as she cared for him in so short a time? How had he managed to so fill her heart and her life in a little over a week?
“So, you’re not mad at me?” He seemed for all the world like a chastised boy hoping for a reprieve.
“A little.” Amelia stood, and crossed her arms over her breast. Her heart beat rapidly. “What was her name?”
He wrinkled his forehead. “Whose name?”
“The one you said you knew. The girl in Waco.” Jealousy was a terrible thing, Amelia decided. It made her heart ache.