Deacon had gazed at the hulking brute purposefully blocking the entrance. Balefully, the enormous beast had glared back.
“Figured the kid for smarter than that. It won’t do him much good to lodge a complaint, ’cause those jackasses work for Henley,” Sam had drawled. Because Henley ran the area according to his set of rules—the first being that he and his were always right—it didn’t pay to get in an argument with the rancher.
“The kid’ll be lucky if the sheriff doesn’t arrest him.” At that thought, Deacon had swung down from his horse, again ready to save the youngster’s neck. The wolf had flashed fangs along with a low growl, letting Deacon know he wasn’t getting into the office.
“Two bits says Deak can take the lobo. You in, Charlie?” Smooth as silk, Sam had transferred his former bet to the new event.
Deacon had ignored his partners and stepped onto the planking, meeting the wolf’s stare. He’d curled his lip and growled back, his hand hovering over his gun. He hadn’t wanted to shoot the damn beast, but if push came to shove, he would have.
The animal had stood, stretched as though indifferent to Deacon’s presence and lifted his hind leg, urinating on the wall. Then he’d turned, facing the bounty hunters again.
“I’m going in, so get the hell out of the way.” Deacon’s temper, which had been simmering below the surface, spilled out, challenging the wolf to a fight if need be. He’d prepared himself to argue with the sheriff over the kid, Henley and anything else Johnson brought up. The old lobo had cocked his head sideways as if considering Deacon’s words. Then he’d turned aside and flopped down on his belly, resting his head on his paws. He’d closed his eyes as if to say “You’re not worth my effort”.
Prepared to save the kid, Deacon had walked into the sheriff’s office and stalled in the doorway, dumbstruck. The kid had been sitting on the edge of the desk, rolling a cigarette, watching the lawman stack wanted posters.
”Beau here’s just gettin’ started in this area and I thought I’d show him some hospitality. I gave him his choice of handbills this time.” Ed Johnson had glowered at Deacon and spoken defensively.
“Thankee, Sheriff. Aw ’preciate it.” The kid’s accent marked him as being from somewhere southeast of Texas. He’d made quick work of claiming the posters he wanted, tucking them inside his loose shirt before he’d uncoiled his considerable length, towering half a head above the older man.
The young bounty hunter had shambled across the room to the door and stopped when Deacon blocked his path. The foray outside had whet his interest in what the kid looked like up close.
Though the younger bounty hunter topped most men in height, Deacon was bigger. For some reason he’d wanted the youth to understand that. When Beauregard pulled his hat low, clearly intending to sidle past without words, Deacon remained in his way.
“You’ll pay hell if you hang around here. That was one of Henley’s riders you peppered with buckshot,” he advised.
“Salt,” Beauregard had corrected him. “Rock salt that burns like all get-out. I ’spect he won’t set a horse easy for a time. But he’ll be punchin’ cows for Henley come dawn tomorrow.”
Deacon had had to clench his jaw to keep his mouth from falling open. Silently he’d stepped aside for Beauregard to leave.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Swamped with memories of the kid, Deacon stood alone in Hiram’s office. He’d bungled his negotiations for the woman’s name. His leverage, the counterfeiter, was in Sam’s hands. The only restriction Deacon had put on his brother was a request to keep Ned alive until Beauregard could question him.
Deacon scribbled a note telling the sheriff to watch out for Lydia Lynch, set the coffeepot off the stove, emptied his cup and placed it on the sheriff’s desk before he started for the door. He stopped, his gaze turning to the fancy suit Beauregard had left behind.
Maybe the kid left a note or name.
Deacon searched the pockets and found nothing. He inspected the ruffled shirt, comparing it to the one worn by his bed companion. He fingered it thoughtfully, picturing the way it had fit over her lush breasts. His cock stirred and his breath caught in his lungs.
None of the pearl buttons on this shirt were missing, unlike the button he’d severed using his razor. He set the shirt aside, ready to assume that it was standard wear by Pleasure Dome employees. And then he took it back up. He’d been at the house long enough to see several of Lydia’s security patrol during business hours and they’d worn suits, but not ruffled shirts.
Why was Deacon’s bed companion wearing a ruffled shirt, the costume a butler like Calvin—Beauregard in disguise—might wear?
Did Beauregard, playing Calvin and wearing this suit, take off his shirt and loan it to her?
Deacon scratched his head. It didn’t make any sense.
He stared at the buttons on the shirt then at the needle and white thread sitting on Hiram’s desk next to his coffee mug.
The butler had on that shirt. The woman I bedded wore that shirt. Now Beauregard is wearing my shirt and my shirt was last seen on the woman I…
“It’s not possible.”
It surprised Deacon that his hand was steady as he locked the outer door to the jail. His thoughts could only be described as pure chaos. What he’d begun to suspect couldn’t be true, but nothing else made sense. After he left the keys with the hotel desk clerk, Deacon headed for the stable at the end of the street.
The kid’s horse and wolf were missing but they couldn’t be too long gone. He questioned the stable owner who obliged Deacon by telling him in which direction Beauregard had ridden.
“I figured if a round with you didn’t change her mind, nothing would.”
Deacon was reminded all over again he’d bedded a virgin. He was filled with guilt thinking about a young innocent woman losing her maidenhead to his lust—until he considered the possibility that Beauregard was the young woman pretending to be a young man.
After reconsidering the body he’d enjoyed so thoroughly, he could assure himself that Miri, if that was her real name, was indeed a woman.
Stepping judiciously to the next point, Deacon decided that if Miri was in fact Beauregard, the hellion had engineered her own deflowering—a consideration that tempered his feelings of guilt but in no way lowered his determination to…
That was the problem. For a man who’d been navigating life with tepid disinterest, his emotions were in an unmanageable tangle. He was mumbling considerations and arguments of what he should do and riding at a fast clip out of town when Sheriff Potter haled him from the doorway of the jail.
“Hold up there, McCallister.”
Deacon changed course to where the sheriff leaned on the doorframe drinking a cup of coffee and frowning.
“Tie up there at the hitching post and come inside. We need to talk.” As soon as Deacon obliged the sheriff and they were in his office, Hiram didn’t mince words. “What happened in Fort Worth?”
Deacon sketched the basic story, expunging the part where he’d indulged in a night of carnality. He wrapped up his explanation and Hiram began a calm but determined inquisition.
“Is he your prisoner or Beau’s?” Hiram asked.
“We’re working together on this one,” Deacon answered. Then he opened his mouth and his own question spilled out. “What’s any of this to you? You have a personal interest in the kid?” Deacon bristled as he considered Hiram Potter.
“That I do,” Hiram said agreeably, filling a pipe as he squinted over the bowl at Deacon. It occurred to Deacon that it was a gesture Beauregard had adopted, using cigarettes to stall.
“I like Beauregard. No, let me make it stronger.” The sheriff paused as Deacon’s frown grew into a scowl. “If Beauregard was my child, I couldn’t be any prouder than I am.”
Hiram lit his pipe and made a show of extinguishing the lucifer. “Now I’ll ask again. What happened in Fort Worth? And don’t give me that hooey about partnering unless it’s true. I’ve been worried and my mind would rest a lot easier knowing it was the two of you riding together and not just that young—”
“Woman,” Deacon finished for him. “I guess we’re skating around what we both know. Beauregard’s a woman.”
“And you would know this how?” Hiram couldn’t have looked more forbidding if he’d held a shotgun on Deacon.
* * * * *
Miri fled Eclipse, unwilling to face Deacon McCallister or entertain any more of his blasted questions. He’d never been one to mince words and from the start of their acquaintance had taken it upon himself to give her instructions.
Upon their second meeting, he’d lit into her with a rough scold. The gist of his complaint had been that the kid—Beauregard—was all set to get himself killed.
“That salt rock ammunition you’re using will swell up and explode on you if you’re not careful. Keep your gun barrel dry. Better yet, get out of this game. You’re not old enough.”
“Rock salt’s cheap, buckshot’s a mite more dear. Reckon I can make do with what I have.” She’d shrugged away Deacon’s safety tip, tucking her head low while she’d made a beeline for Possum. It didn’t matter. The older bounty hunter had walked beside her, seemingly intent on having his say.
“Mind what I said about the ammunition. Buy some buckshot for that sawed-off shotgun you carry and stop using rock salt.”
“Yer stickin’ yer nose in my business, McCallister. Best mind yer own or I might take a notion to poke around in your’n,” she’d answered in her best Tennessee twang, making it clear the young bounty hunter didn’t appreciate Deacon’s warning.
Playing Beau had become as easy as wearing a second skin—her disguise enabling a lucrative business. As Beau, she’d become a young, shambling country bumpkin who brought in outlaws for a living.
But McCallister had from the first made her feel uneasy. Instead of accepting the character she’d put before him and moving on as most folks did, he’d asked questions and inserted himself into her business—a thing she just couldn’t allow.
Irritating her even more had been the astonishing fact that he made her want to tear off her hat and wig and climb on him instead of Possum. There weren’t many men who got her attention unless they had a price on their head, but McCallister had been different. As soon as she’d met him, she’d known he was special. It was in Sundown, during their second meeting, that her heart had pounded like a Kiowa tom-tom when he’d started giving her orders.
“Buy some buckshot,” he’d snarled before he turned and stalked away.
Miri had studied him as he’d headed across the street to the sheriff’s office. Muscled shoulders topped the strong arms that gave her such a visceral reaction. Her womb had clenched when her glance roved lower, pausing on his rump. She couldn’t say why, but she’d liked the way it looked too. As far as Miri was concerned, that marked the beginning of her unnatural interest in the big red-haired bounty hunter.
She’d probably risked too much in having her way with him, but she didn’t care at the moment. She’d finally gotten to touch that fine backside and didn’t really think anything could ever make her regret the night before. Not even Deacon’s robbing her of her catch.
Knowing better didn’t always mean doing better. Miri had been deliberately crossing paths with Deacon since they’d met. She’d even looked forward to his complaints and scolds, though his forceful assault on her whip had caused consternation.
“That whip’s nothing but an invitation to trouble. You need to set it aside.” He’d accosted her in one of the many towns and insisted the kid listen to him.
“Usually that kind of advice comes from someone who can’t use a whip,” she drawled. She’d fingered the stock of the weapon she wore coiled over her shoulder. Adding the whip to her bounty hunter costume made sense to her. It was more than a prop since she really did know how to use it. She’d demonstrated her ability in Abilene the first day she’d met Deacon when she’d been putting on her
don’t tread on me
show.
“Don’t assume you’re the only whipster around. You’re just the only one stupid enough to get strangled with it.”
Before she’d known what to expect, he’d grasped the coiled whip, pulling it taut until the handle pressed against her windpipe.
“I could crush your throat. I had you before you even knew what was happening.”
It had been hard keeping her head down while he’d used her own whip to choke her. Since Miri hadn’t been able to throw her head back and yell at him she’d leaned in, grabbed his shoulders and kneed him in the groin so hard most men would have been on the ground. He’d shuddered, cursed and released his hold on her. She’d stepped back, breathing hard and rubbing her throat.
“Maybe you can teach me that move sometime, preacher man.” She’d retreated fast, sneering the taunt over her shoulder.
“You take too many chances, you young fool. Chances that are going to get you killed.”
“No more than you,” she’d assured him. Deacon’s anger surprised her.
He’s a firecracker for sure.
Knowing that fact made it even sillier to taunt him. She’d sauntered away, feeling the heat of his glare all the way through her duster, congratulating herself for having foresight in wearing it. The loose oilskin coat had added another layer to her disguise, which she definitely needed around McCallister.
Deacon’s gaze made her nipples turn into hard nubs beneath the tight binding around her breasts even though she willed against her body’s response. He’d always made her feel—cocky. At least that’s what she called it when the heat coiled in her belly and her hips started to sway like a woman’s.