Reese Page 14

  “Was it his wife? His sister? His daughter? Which one this time, Salvatore?”

  Rico peered at him with his remaining good eye. “No comprendo.”

  “Let me help you to understand. Which one of this man’s women have you been playing with all week?”

  “No women. I swear.”

  Reese glanced at the other man. “You want to tell me why you’re trying to kill him, Brown?”

  “Carrie,” he spat.

  Rico paled, a show of guilt if ever there was one.

  “Dammit, Rico, I told you to keep it in your pants. I’m sick and tired of irate fathers, husbands, and brothers turning up on every job. Why can’t you be like Cash?”

  “Why can’t everyone?” Cash drawled.

  Reese ignored the gambler; sometimes that helped. Rico looked as if he’d just lost his best friend. Pale, bruised, shoulders hanging, hair in his face. When he raised his one good eye, the anguish in it made Reese shiver.

  “Carrie is six years old, mi capitan. I am not a monster. I have been playing with her, yes. She reminds me of my little sister whom I lost long ago.”

  “Bullshit!” Brown exploded. “You’ve been teaching her to sneak up on people and scare them half to death. The little brat prowls around like a coyote. She’s driving me crazy. And she talks about him like he’s the king of Spain. She swears a blue streak too. I don’t want that Mex bastard anywhere near her.”

  “Perhaps, Mr. Brown, Carrie has learned some of her curse words at home,” Mary pointed out. “We’ve discussed this before.”

  “She was never this bad until he showed up. She says she loves him.”

  “She’s six. He’s handsome and young, and he pays attention to her. It’s a crush, and kind of sweet, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t ask you. You’re the one who brought them here, and I’m telling you people are talking. About you and him.” He yanked away from Reese, and Reese let him go. “Don’t you wonder why no one comes to the morning lessons?”

  Reese remained poised on the balls of his feet, ready to grab the fellow if he swung at Rico again, or punch him in the mouth, old fool or not, if he spoke badly about Mary.

  “Why would that be, Mr. Brown?”

  Mary had the “watch your mouth” tone down as well as anyone Reese had ever heard.

  “No one trusts them. It’s not just me that doesn’t want any of them near my family.”

  “I’ve been learning from Reese for a week now, and nothing untoward has happened.”

  “Is that so? Then where were you coming from just now?”

  Even in the semidarkness, everyone saw her blush. Although they had done nothing wrong, she would be blamed, and Reese wasn’t going to allow that.

  He stepped in close to Brown. “I accompanied Miss McKendrick to the river so she could wash clothes. No woman should wander out of town without an escort.”

  “Escort? Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

  Reese’s fists clenched. Mary’s fingers slipped around his—soft over hard, peace over anger. “Never mind,” she said. “He’ll believe what he wants to, anyway.”

  “Damn right. Why don’t you just kill El Diablo and get out of town.” Brown glanced at the saloon. “All of you.” He turned to Rico. “Especially you. Stay away from Carrie.”

  Rico didn’t answer; he just kept staring at the ground, which made Reese nervous. Rico had an answer to everything, and he never let anyone get the jump on him. So how had Brown managed to give the Kid a black eye?

  The old man stalked away, and Rico went into the saloon with the others. No one spoke, though Sullivan hung back and stared at Reese for a moment before following.

  Reese let his fingers relax, and Mary slipped hers between them. “Mr. Brown has been angry at the world since he lost his son in the war and he got stuck raising Carrie. Though stuck isn’t a word I’d use for the gift of that child.”

  “He’s right. You hired us to kill El Diablo.”

  “I did not!”

  “Mary, that’s what we do. Just because you’re too good-hearted to believe that doesn’t make it any less true. We need to kill him and get out of here before something bad happens.”

  “Like what?”

  He pulled his hand from hers. “You know what.”

  “I don’t think that I do.”

  Reese stared into her innocent face, and something shifted deep inside him. “I want to do a lot more than kiss you.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  He allowed himself one small brush of his lips against the soft skin where her hair met her forehead. “Didn’t the sisters ever tell you how bad a man cam be?”

  She sighed and leaned into him; the sound and the movement made Reese’s heart hurt She trusted him, and he did not deserve it. “How can something so bad feel so good?”

  Reese turned Mary about and led her toward her cabin, keeping a respectable distance between them. “Most bad things do,” he said, then left her at the door without touching her again.

  When he returned to the hotel, the place was deserted. Were the men still at the saloon? Most likely, but Reese didn’t care to join them. Instead, he climbed the stairs to his room, stepping inside, not bothering to turn on the lamp.

  He believed he was alone until a voice spoke from the darkened corner. “You must not have a sister, Capitan.”

  Reese’s hand went to his gun before his mind registered the words and the cadence of the voice. “Kid, do you want to get killed?”

  Reese lit the lamp. The wavering golden glow only served to emphasize the blackened skin around Rico’s eye and the pale cast to his face.

  “You look like hell,” Reese said.

  “Gracias.”

  Reese rubbed his forehead. “What do you want?”

  “When last I saw my sister she was six years old. Like Carrie.”

  Reese dropped his hand. He did not want to know this. However, from Rico’s expression, he needed to tell it.

  “The child is so sweet, and she stares at me as if I am her big brother who can do no wrong.” Rico turned his head and peered out the window. “It has been forever since anyone looked at me like that.”

  The Kid was always cheerful and flirtatious; he had women falling into his lap from one end of the country to the other, yet he missed the adoration of a little sister. Just as Reese had suspected, this little tidbit of information made Rico almost human.

  Hell.

  Silence filled the room. The angle of the Kid’s face as he peered into the night showed the sharp blade of his nose, the height of his cheekbones, the shape of the mark around his eye. Reese had never seen the Kid with a bruise. He always moved too fast for anyone to hit.

  So what had happened tonight?

  Reese sat on his bed. “How did Brown manage to lay a hand on you?”

  Rico turned away from the window, and the sadness in his eye tugged at Reese. He had to force himself not to get up and run away. “I could not hit him. He is a fool, but he is right. She should not be with me. I am no good.”

  Rico needed Reese to disagree, and he did. The Kid was many things, but no good wasn’t one of them.

  “Teaching her how to sneak is probably not a skill she’ll need as a future young lady, but you never know, it might come in handy. Besides, there are worse things she could learn. Her granddad seems to have taught her a few choice items.”

  Rico’s face lit with hope. “You think I can teach her more?”

  “I think you’d best stay away from her until Brown cools off. Next time, he might not miss when he tries to shoot you.”

  Rico’s dark gaze flicked to Reese’s then away. “Would you care if I was dead?”

  “Hell, yes,” Reese growled. “I don’t have time to go searching for another sneaky Tejano who can throw knives.”

  Rico grinned, then winced as the movement caused his sore cheek to shift. “You say the sweetest things.”

  Gunfire erupted below. Glass shattered. Reese and Rico
leaped toward the window. The street was filled with El Diablo’s men, and they were shooting into the saloon.

  “Didn’t I say that the minute we weren’t paying attention he’d attack? I hate it when I’m right.” Reese checked the load on his rifle. “Where’s Nate? I thought he was in the tower.”

  As if in answer, a man cried out and fell from his horse; then another did the same.

  “Must have been asleep up there,” Reese said to a suddenly empty room.

  Rico returned with his shotgun. “He’ll make up for it now.”

  “If he’d been awake, we wouldn’t have been surprised.”

  “You don’t seem surprised. Perhaps because you are always right.”

  “Shut up and shoot.”

  It didn’t take long for the combination of Reese, Rico, and Nate, in elevated positions, to drive the attackers out of range. The other men might have been trapped in the saloon, but they had their guns. Within a half-hour, El Diablo’s crew fled town, leaving behind two more dead. Mary was going to pitch a fit.

  “All gone?” Rourke called.

  “Yep, come on over,” Reese answered.

  “Me too?” Nate’s voice drifted from the tower.

  “Stay up there until it’s your time to leave. And stay awake!”

  “I was awake. Mostly.”

  “Drunk sniper.” Reese stood. “Knife-throwing kid.” He unloaded his gun. “Sneaky half-breed.” He put the gun away. “Cursing Irishman.” He stomped out into the hall. “Slick-mouthed, gun-slinging gambler.” The door opened downstairs.

  “I think we’re all here with the exception of the drunk sniper,” Rico murmured.

  Reese glanced over his shoulder. “Make that smart-aleck, knife-throwing kid.”

  “Thank you.”

  The other three were already seated around the kitchen table when Reese and Rico joined them.

  “Coffee?” Rico headed for the stove.

  “Sit.” Reese ordered. Then: “Sit, sit, sit!”

  Rico sat with a smirk. At least he was feeling better.

  “That, gentlemen, was an example of what happens when we get distracted.”

  “Big deal,” Cash sneered. “I can shoot at those guys all day and all night. If we keep picking off two or three every time, pretty soon they’ll be empty. If we don’t die of boredom first, we win.”

  “I say we go after them at dawn,” Jed said. “Wipe ‘em out and keep on goin’. I’ve had enough of Rock Creek.”

  “We’re not going anywhere.” Reese leaned against the wall. “I’m starting to think El Diablo wants us to follow him. These little shooting matches are a tease. ‘Come and get me if you can.’ And if he wants us to chase him, we’re better off here. Like Cash said, if we kill two or three every time, eventually we’ll get them all. And Miss McKendrick won’t think we’ve committed mass murder.”

  “Aha,” Cash cried. “That’s the reason you’ve gone soft.”

  “Soft?” Reese repeated in his most quiet deadly voice.

  Cash wasn’t impressed, probably because he was the most deadly of them all. “That skirt’s got you thinking you can talk your way out of this, and since you were halfway convinced of that already, you’re listening. You’re gonna get yourself killed, Reese, but you aren’t taking me with you.”

  “I admit Miss McKendrick would prefer us not to litter the street with bodies—”

  “What in hell did she think was going to happen when we came here?” Jed snapped.

  “She thought we’d scare them away.”

  Cash snorted. “We are pretty scary, but that old Indian is worse. Spooky bastard.”

  “She had a good idea when she wanted to teach the people to defend themselves,” Rico said.

  Reese glared at him. The Kid shrugged.

  “She had a good idea?” Cash glanced from Rico back to Reese.

  Well, the cat was out of the bag now. No choice but to brave it out. “A good idea is a good idea. Unfortunately, it isn’t working.”

  “Because we seem to have scared the wrong folks—the populace rather than the invaders. Shame on us.”

  “If y’all want to leave, I’m not stopping you.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I’ll stay. I said I would.”

  For a minute, Reese thought Cash might leave. If anyone was going to break a vow, it would be Cash. The two men stared into each other’s eyes, and what passed between them was thicker than blood, darker than their pasts put together.

  “We said we’d come whenever one of us called and stick together when there was a job to be done. I might be a lot of things, but I don’t take a vow I don’t mean. What I said then, goes double now.”

  “Me too,” Jed said.

  “Yo tambien.”

  “Yep,” Sullivan agreed.

  Reese looked at his men, and he felt kind of funny. Mary had called them friends. He didn’t want any. He’d killed enough of them. But no matter what, these men kept following him. They would die for him, as he would for them. If that wasn’t a friend, what was? He was starting to believe something he’d suspected for a long time.

  Just because he refused to call them friends didn’t mean that they weren’t.

  Chapter 12

  When dawn tinted the eastern sky, Mary stepped onto her porch and tripped over her laundry basket. She glanced about, but nothing moved anywhere in Rock Creek. Lying on the top was the chemise that had escaped. How had Reese captured that?

  Mary’s body heated at the idea of Reese touching her undergarments, even when they were in the river and not on her. What was it about the man that made her think all the time of things she had no business contemplating?

  Mary picked up the basket and brought it inside. The clothes were still damp. They’d be wrinkled beyond redemption. But at least she didn’t have to go and retrieve them. It was almost like a present.

  Last night, at the first sound of shots, she had wanted to grab her gun and scurry to the hotel. But since she couldn’t hit a hay bale that was standing still, she figured she’d do more harm than good if she attempted to hit a moving target.

  When the shots died away and the bandits fled, she’d barely been able to keep herself from running over there. Luckily, hearing him shout to one of the men after the battle had soothed her immediate terror. Because if she’d gone to the hotel she’d have given in to her need to run her hands all over him and make sure he was whole and safe. Even she knew that was a bad idea.

  Mr. Brown had said people were talking about her and Reese. Let them talk. They’d done nothing wrong. Kissing wasn’t a crime. Even in Texas. They couldn’t fire her for kissing, could they?

  She left her cabin and walked around the schoolhouse to Main Street. The bodies were gone. She wasn’t sure how many there had been, but she’d heard the men outside after dark, then the sounds of a shovel against dirt.

  Reese waited on the porch of the hotel, and the breath she’d been holding released on a sigh. She was coming to depend too much on starting every day with him. What was she going to do when he left?

  The devastation that washed over her went far beyond what she should feel after some shared conversation and a few stolen kisses. Mary was a schoolteacher, Reese, a gunman. They had no future, and she’d never believed that they had. But the thought of his leaving made her eyes water, and the thought of his dying—

  Her mind refused to accept that image. Reese dead just might break her, and in twenty-four years of difficult living, nothing had come close to that.

  He stood at her approach but said nothing. She liked that about him too. He could be quiet yet say so many things. Unlike her who just had to fill every silence.

  “Thank you for bringing my clothes and basket.”

  “I didn’t want you wandering around alone.”

  “It was thoughtful.”

  “That’s me, Mr. Thoughtful.”

  She raised an eyebrow at his playful tone, not like Reese at all. “Everyone is all right?”
<
br />   “All of us. They lost two more men.” He lifted a hand. “Don’t yell. If they’re going to come into town shooting, they’ll get what they deserve.”

  “I wasn’t going to yell. You’re right. I was foolish to believe a show of force would send a man like El Diablo running, and since my brilliant idea of arming the women has not gotten the response I’d hoped, we either pack up and let El Diablo have the place, or I shut up and let you do what you do best.”

  “Kill.” Any humor in his voice had fled, and Mary wanted to kick herself.

  “I didn’t mean that. I’m sure killing isn’t your best skill.”

  “I suppose I should take that as a compliment.” His gaze drifted to her mouth. “All things considered.”

  Mary blushed.

  A primal scream split the dawn. Mary leaped the few feet separating her from Reese, and his arms closed around her. Her heart thundered, but in his embrace she felt safer than ever before.

  “Cougar,” he murmured against her hair. “That’s the second time I’ve heard it call from the river.”

  “Do cougars attack?”

  “If provoked.”

  The big cat shrieked again, an angry call that sounded very provoked to Mary. Despite the warmth of Reese’s arms, she shivered.

  Then Reese stiffened and pushed her gently but firmly away from him. The chill returned, and she stared into his face with a frown. His gaze was fixed on the street. “Someone’s coming.”

  Mary turned. Baxter and Rose Sutton ran toward them. Annoyance took the place of the comforting warmth. It was too early in the morning to face Baxter Sutton.

  As the couple neared, it became clear something was wrong. Fear that haunted their eyes; terror streaked their faces.

  “The twins,” Rose gasped.

  “Are gone,” Baxter finished. “Searched everywhere. Can’t find them.”

  “How long?” Reese asked.

  Baxter shrugged and leaned his hands on his knees, breathing deeply, his head hung between his shoulders. “When I went… to wake them… to help me stock the store, their beds were empty… and the window was open.”

  “Fishing,” Reese muttered. “I told them not to—”