Way with a Gun (2 page)

They'd had a discussion the first night they had met, which had started out as simple, honest flirtation, and had developed into something of a challenge.

A sexual challenge . . .

Angela was a confident woman in her late twenties who had come to Virginia City to run the newspaper,
The Madisonian
. Clint was just passing through, and had gotten into a poker game at the Nugget Saloon. Word got around town that the Gunsmith was playing poker at the Nugget. That was all Angela had to hear. She made her way to the saloon to watch and wait, and Clint noticed her.

When the game broke up, Clint had taken all the money at the table, plus a bag full of small gold nuggets from a miner. To show there were no hard feelings, he asked the other four players to drink with him. He was buying. Three of the players took him up on the offer, but the miner stormed out. Apparently, he'd had to work many hours for that small sack of nuggets, and had no desire to drink with the man who had taken them away from him.

“Don't mind him,” Angela said to Clint as the miner— a man named Pearce—stormed out. “He's obviously just a sore loser.”

Clint turned away from the other three men to face her. She had long brown hair and pale skin, a nose that tilted up just slightly, and a wide, generous mouth that made him think of the word “luscious.” He'd noticed her across the room, but was momentarily stunned at how truly lovely she was up close.

She took immediate advantage of the situation.

“My name is Angela Desmond, editor, writer, and sweeper at
The Madisonian.
”

“The local newspaper.”

“Oh.” Clint knew instantly what she was going to ask. “Listen, Miss Desmond—”

“Angela, please.”

“Angela. I can't really—”

“You think I'm going to ask you for an interview, don't you, Mr. Adams?” she asked.

“Well, yes . . .” He felt momentarily embarrassed. Was that not her intention? Was he starting to believe in his own reputation? “And the name's Clint.”

“Well, Clint, you're right,” she said. “I am going to ask for an interview. Now, I know you've probably been asked many times before. . . .”

“Yes,” he said, “many times.”

“This would be different,” she said. “I promise you.”

“How?” he asked. “How would it be different?”

She opened her mouth to say something, then stopped short, made a fist, and said to him, “Gimme a minute.”

“Miss Desmond—”

“Angela.”

“Angela,” he said. “I really don't give interviews. I've had bad experiences with the ones I
have
given—”

“That's because people ask you the wrong questions,” she said. “They ask about your reputation. About how and why you came to be called the Gunsmith.”

He knew she was thinking fast on her feet, but he liked her for it.

“And you wouldn't?”

“No,” she said. “I want to learn about the real you. Clint Adams, not the Gunsmith.”

“And what would you ask?”

“Well . . . has anyone ever asked you your favorite food?”

“Well, no . . .”

“What you like to drink?”

“No . . .”

“If you read? And if you do read, what you read?”

“Well ...”

“And what about women?” she asked.

“What about them?”

“What kinds do you like?”

“Well, right about now,” he said, “pretty, brown-haired newspaper reporters are high on my list.”

That stopped her. She flushed and looked down, momentarily embarrassed.

“That was sweet,” she said, “but see, that's the kind of thing I'd ask. How you talk to and interact with women . . .”

“What about you?” he asked.

“I—what about me?”

“What kind of men do you like?”

“Well, at the moment,” she said, “tall, handsome men who apparently don't deserve the reputation they have are high in my list.”

“Would you have supper with me?”

The question stopped her.

“Uh, well, it's kind of late, I don't think anyone is serving food right now. . . .”

“I meant tomorrow,” he said. “Have supper with me tomorrow.”

“I don't know. . . .” she said hesitantly.

“I need somebody to show me where to get a good steak in town.”

“Um, well,” she said, pushing back a lock of her hair from her forehead, “will I be able to interview you while we eat?”

“We can talk about it.”

“Talk about the interview?”

“We can talk about whether or not there should be an interview,” he said, then added, “and we can continue flirting.”

“Flirting?” she asked, frowning. “Is that what we're doing?”

“Well,” he answered, “if we're not, then I'm reading all of the signs wrong.”

“And do you usually do that?”

“Do what?”

“Read the signs right?”

“Almost always.”

“Well . . .” she said, “then I guess we can talk about that too.”

“At supper tomorrow?”

She nodded and said, “At supper tomorrow.”

At supper the next evening the flirtation continued. In fact, it progressed and became bolder and bolder.

Angela took him to a restaurant called Goldy's. She said the name came from the fact that the owner opened it with gold he took out of a mine.

“He decided he had enough gold to open this place, and he sold the mine to someone else.”

“Wasn't that foolhardy?”

“In what way?”

“What if the mine was a bonanza?”

“He didn't care,” she said. “He only wanted to make enough to open this place.”

Clint looked around. The place was simple, clean, had about ten tables. It did not look like a man's dream come true.

“Wait until you taste the steak,” she told him, touching his hand. “You'll see.”

And she was right. When the steaks came they were great. As good as any he'd had in restaurants in Denver or San Francisco.

The owner was a man in his fifties named Danny Flynn, who told Clint that of all the jobs he'd ever had he hated mining the most.

“Even though you were taking gold out of the mine?” Clint asked.

“It didn't matter,” Flynn said with an Irish accent. “I hated what I was doing, so I only did it long enough to get me to where I could do what I love to do.”

“Cook.”

“I'm a natural, laddie,” Flynn said. “You've tasted my food. It would be a sin to waste the talent God's seen fit to give me.”

“Oh, I agree,” Clint said. “I admire the decision you made. I don't know that I could have walked away from the gold.”

“Well,” Flynn said a bit sheepishly, “I didn't really walk away from all that much gold.”

“The mine played out?”

Flynn nodded. “Just a few months after I sold it.”

“And the new owners?”

“They took some gold out—probably more than I did—but it was no bonanza, let me tell you. It would not have been worth my time.” He spread his arms. “I'm very happy with what I have here.”

By the time he finished telling his story, the place— which had been empty when Clint and Angela first arrived—had filled to the point where almost every table was occupied. Clint was starting to think that maybe Danny Flynn had not given up a gold mine after all.

During dessert the subject got down to sex. The flirting was apparently done with. It was time for plain talk, with no games.

“Of course I've had sex,” she told him. “But we're not talking about me. We're talking about your reputation with the ladies.”

“I didn't know I had a reputation with the ladies,” he said.

“You think all people talk about is how fast the Gunsmith is with a gun?” she asked. “Then you haven't heard your own stories, have you?”

“To tell you the truth, I try not to listen to them,” he told her.

“Well, believe me,” she said, “that reputation is considerable.” She leaned forward, placed her elbows on the table, and lowered her voice. “In fact, that's the one I'm interested in right now.”

“Are you telling me that's what you want to interview me about?” he asked.

“Actually,” she said, touching the back of his hand, “I was thinking about . . . research.”

Clint sat back and stared at her.

“Uh-oh,” she said, also sitting back. “Too bold?”

“No,” he said, “no, not at all. Unexpectedly bold, I guess, but certainly not too bold.”

“Shall we get out of here then?” she asked. “I'm guessing you don't plan to be in town for very long, so I might as well take advantage of this bold streak I'm suddenly showing.”

“Actually, you're right,” he said. “I was planning on leaving tomorrow.”

Clint paid the check, insisting on it since he'd invited her, and they walked out together. They headed for his hotel arm in arm.

“I have a proposition for you,” she said.

“What's that?”

“If I can convince you not to leave tomorrow,” she said, “you'll give me that interview.”

“Angela,” he said, “I really am going to leave in the morning.”

“Then where's the harm?” she asked. “Let's make it a wager . . . or a challenge.”

Clint thought a moment, then said, “Why not?”

And so here it was, two days later, and she had won her sexual challenge. He'd stayed because of her prowess in bed. He didn't know where or how she had learned the things she knew, and didn't care. He was having a hell of a two days, and it was worth an interview.

He grunted as he slammed into her, and she gasped, either from pleasure or from pain, he wasn't sure, but he was too far gone to care. Her face was pressed into his neck, her hard breasts pressing into his chest every time he brought his hips forward. He could feel the heels of her feet in the small of his back, just above his buttocks.

“Oh, God,” she moaned into the hollow of his neck. “Yes, harder . . .”

Not pain then . . .

Back in the bed, Clint said, “I was afraid I was going to break your back.”

“Haven't you figured out by now I'm not fragile?” she said. “I thought you'd realize that after we broke the dresser.”

He looked over at the drawers that were on the floor because the dresser had collapsed beneath their weight.

“So are you still planning to leave tomorrow morning now?” she asked.

“Tomorrow I definitely have to go, Angela.”

“I understand,” she said.

“Don't even think about giving me another challenge,” he warned her.

“I wasn't thinking that,” she said. “I think we should go out to supper later, and do my interview, and then finish up here with a night to remember.” She slid her hand down over his belly to grasp his semierect penis. “I want to make sure you remember me when you leave here.”

As his cock began to swell in her hand, he said, “I don't think there'll be any problem with that.”

“Well,” she said, rolling toward him and sliding a leg over his thigh, “I just want to make sure.”

The three men across the street from the hotel were getting impatient.

“What the hell is he doin' in there?” Bob Lasker asked.

“Didn't ya see him in the window?” the second man, Larry Cameron, said. “He's got him a woman in there who can go for days.”

The third man, their boss, said, “We'll just have to wait as long as it takes. You two know your roles, right?”

“We got it,” Cameron said. “You only told us four times already.”

“I just wanna make sure you got this right,” the boss said. “I got a lot ridin' on this.”

“So do we,” Lasker said. “Yer payin' us a lot of money.”

“If we get this done,” the boss added.

“Oh,” Lasker said, “we'll get 'er done, don't you worry.”

“Yeah,” Cameron said, “all we need is for him ta come out.”

Clint strapped on his gun and said to Angela, “My legs are weak.”

“Is that all?” she asked, standing in front of the mirror. “After being in this room with you for two days, I think my reputation is gone.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, “I'm the one who lured you here. Do you care?”

She turned and smiled at him. “Not at all. And after I print my interview, maybe people will realize that I'm somebody to be reckoned with.”

“Well,” he said, “if I can help that happen, I'm very happy.”

She turned, her shirt tucked into her skirt, both of which were the same color as her boots. Her hair was perfect, every strand in place.

“How do I look?” she asked.

“Good enough to eat.”

“We better get out of this room while we can,” she said. “You can talk to me like that later, when we get back.”

He held the door open and said, “After you, ma'am.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Clint closed the door behind them and followed her down the hall, hoping his legs would get him to the restaurant. He wasn't as young as he used to be.

The moment they stepped out the front door of the hotel, Clint knew something was wrong. He could feel it, and he'd been depending on his instincts for too many years to disregard it.