It appeared her plan had worked. A little too well, perhaps. Because she’d certainly flushed someone out. And it was Zant Chapelo.
As she was dragged toward the street and the light of the moon, Jacey’s heart sank with the sure knowledge that the second he realized it was her and not her father, he’d slit her throat for sure. In a blinding flash of memory she saw Rosie drawing her finger across her throat on that first day when she’d met her. In this very alley. And Rosie’d been talking about this very man.
At that moment, Jacey was let go and shoved forward into the hard and gravelly moonlit street. Her arms windmilling, her feet stumbling, she finally slid to a halt and jerked around. Barely aware of the squat, close-set adobes that pressed around them, she sighted on Chapelo. Hands behind his back, he sheathed his knife at his waist. He then adopted a spread-legged stance, his hands held loosely at his sides.
Jacey heard the running feet and the slamming doors as folks made for cover. But she didn’t dare look away from the outlaw’s itchy gun hand. He rubbed his thumb back and forth across his fingertips and then splayed his long fingers as if they ached. Finally, he fisted his hand and slowly opened it, allowing it once again to hang loose and ready.
Jacey swallowed. Here was the gunfight she’d been itching for. Or so she’d thought until now. Quaking with fright, she prepared her thudding heart to meet her Maker. Drawing herself up to her full height, she adopted the outlaw’s stance, and stilled into a waiting attitude.
But gasped when her hair came undone from its twisting bun, fell loose, and spilled all around her shoulders and over her chest.
Zant poked his head forward, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “What the hell? Jacey Lawless, is that you?”
Run. If only she could. But the man’s steadily advancing strides rooted her to the spot. The closer he came, the wider Jacey’s eyes got. Suddenly she was aware of the weight of her clothes, the rocklike heaviness of Papa’s Colt, and the too-big bagginess of Alberto’s pants. And the foolishness of her plan.
Then, he was right in front of her and peering down into her face with a fierce scowl. Jacey, reluctant and bold in the same breath, met his gaze. She managed to croak out, “Howdy, Chapelo.”
He shook his head and notched his Stetson up with his knuckle. “Well, I’ll be a no-good … rotten … son of a mule-headed jackass.” His voice was a slow drawl that didn’t fool Jacey. He was mad. Then his expression changed and his voice tightened, taking on a higher-pitched urgency. “Why didn’t you say something? Do you know I came this close”—he held his thumb and index finger about a hairbreadth apart and right in her face—“from shooting you right through the heart?”
Jacey did the only thing she could. She balled her fist up and punched him in the stomach. And knew instantly she’d made another mistake. Hitting him was like punching a blacksmith’s anvil.
No more fazed than if she’d made a face at him, he put his hands to his waist. “What the hell did you do that for?”
Jacey waved her sore hand in the air. “Because you were going to shoot my father.”
“Your father—Like hell. I was going to shoot you.” Then his eyes narrowed. “And here I thought he’d come to fetch you home. But he’s not here at all, is he? You—in this man’s getup—you’re the J. C. Lawless everyone’s been talking about since I got back from Sonora, aren’t you?”
Licking her lips, and repeating over and over that she was not afraid, Jacey bolstered her courage. “That’s right, gunslinger. It’s me.”
“You ornery brat. Now, this is just about all I’m going to take from you.” He gripped her arm and walked her resisting body out of the middle of the street, over to the storefront. Once there, he turned her to face him. “Does your father even know you’re here and pretending to be him? Because I can’t picture him—”
Jacey wrenched her arm from his grasp. In her rising anger and grief, her eyes and voice filled with tears. “My father can’t know. He was murdered. So was my mother. Last month. Cut down in their own—”
“You’re telling me the real J. C. Lawless is dead?”
“I am.”
“Then you’re here to … what? Hunt down his killers? By yourself?”
Jacey shook her head. “No. The murderers are back East. I—”
“Back East? How do you know that?”
“Because my sister’s there now, flushin’ them out.”
Zant shook his head. “None of this makes any sense. And it still doesn’t explain you bein’ here.”
Jacey huffed out a breath. “I came here because of the salt rubbed into my wound. I don’t have all the details yet, but some lowlife scum stole something of value to me. Just stole it from me.”
Zant’s scowl pinched a vertical line between his eyebrows. “Stole what?”
“Stole a family portrait of my great-grandmother.”
“A portrait?”
“Yeah. About the same time as the murders.”
“Dammit, Jacey, you’re telling me you’re here—risking gettin’ yourself killed—because of a picture?”
Jacey stiffened dangerously. “It’s not just a picture. It’s my only keepsake from my mother. Something she wanted me to have, you understand? But now it’s gone. And, yeah, I came here to get it back. And to kill the flea-bitten rat responsible.”
Still frowning, still absorbing, he rubbed a hand over his jaw. “What makes you think this keepsake was stolen, or that the … rat’s here?”
Without preamble, Jacey reached inside her man’s shirt and pulled out the broken spur on her silver chain. She held it up to him in the moon’s light. “This little memento he left behind, along with a broken piece of the portrait’s frame. Recognize it?”
Zant fingered it, turning it this way and that. Then, in a whispering rush, he let go of the spur-pendant and breathed, “Jesus Christ.”
As Jacey tucked her necklace back inside her outfit, she fussed, “It’s a little late for praying, outlaw.”
He eyed her through a squint, and acting like he hated to say the words, he offered, “I’m sorry for your loss. But I can’t say I’m sorry that J. C. Lawless is dead. Damn. It appears it’s a little late for other things besides praying.”
Stiff with anger at his callous words about her father, Jacey pushed back, as if afraid she’d fall through a gap widening between them. The outlaw’s bald statement left her breathless for moments on end. Moments that gave Chapelo a chance to continue.
“I had a chance in Santa Fe, but I was a raw kid then. And I’ve sat in a stinking prison for five years thinking about nothing else but killing J. C. Lawless for shooting my father when I was two years old. I intended to head there first thing after celebrating my freedom here. But then you happened along. And now it seems I’m to be denied my eye-for-an-eye.”
A surge of hatred for this man’s calculating heart set Jacey’s features into a snarl. “So sorry to have to bring you the news, Chapelo. I know how disappointed you must be.”
Now the outlaw looked her up and down. In a dark and deadly way. “I am. But for reasons other than you think. Reasons that have to do with you.”
“Me? Well, I suppose to you one dead Lawless is as good as another.” She stepped back, no longer afraid of facing him with Papa’s Colt. “Make your move, Chapelo.”
“Cut it out, Jacey. I’m not going to shoot you. If I did, I’d just be denying myself another chance at setting things even between our families.”
Not ready to back down yet, but not willing either to shoot a man in cold blood, Jacey spat out, “You’d best explain yourself.”
Chapelo hitched his Stetson up another notch. “All right. I rode back here from Sonora with a plan in mind. You just ruined it. But it might still work. Yeah, I think it will.” He looked her up and down. “Yeah, I’m going to feel a whole lot better when your belly’s swollen with my bastard.”
“Your what? You got it all wrong, outlaw.” Jacey’s hand strayed to her Colt.
Apparently not the least bit threatened by her, Chapelo advanced on her. “The boy will be yours to raise for three years—the age I was when my mother died brokenhearted over the loss of my father. When he’s three, I’ll find you … and I’ll take him from you. Only then will a Lawless know the pain and humiliation that my mother endured, alone and unmarried, bearing a bastard son. Only then will her suffering be avenged. And only then … will yours begin.”
Her mouth dry, her heart pounding, Jacey stood her ground. That was the coldest, most calculating speech she’d ever heard. She sensed the pain underlying his words. But she just didn’t care. Swallowing the thick saliva clogging her throat, she put a hand up to stop him. “You may as well go for your gun right now. Because none of what you just said is going to happen.”
“Like hell it isn’t.” He stood about one pace away and stared at her as if she were something nasty on a cantina floor. As if he’d never kissed her, had never laughed because of her, had never killed two men to protect her.
Afraid for herself, knowing him to be fully capable of doing exactly what he said, Jacey watched him settling his Stetson low on his brow—and seized the moment to catch him off guard. Slapping leather in two blinks of an eye, she had her Colt out … cocked … and jammed right between his eyes. “Like hell it is, Chapelo. Now, give me a reason to pull the trigger. Please.”
Zant sighted down the line of the gun to look into her eyes. In the pale darkness, all Jacey could see of his eyes was the silvery gleam of reflected moonglow. “Pull it.”
She nearly jumped when he spoke. Her fear and anger fled, along with her tough stance. She shifted her weight and blinked. “What?”
“Pull the trigger, you spineless little Lawless shit. There. Is that enough of a reason?”
Insulted now and close to giving him his due, Jacey nevertheless began to sweat. “You want me to kill you? You’re … you’re bluffin’, right?”
Despite the gun to his head, he shook it. “I don’t bluff. Do you?”
Jacey swallowed. He was calling her hand, seeing if she was indeed bluffing. She was. She didn’t really want to shoot him, only make him take back his threats. She’d never expected him to dare her to kill him. But now, if she didn’t, he’d never keep his distance. What could she do?
Then … her way out flashed into her mind. Relief cascaded over her like a waterfall. She uncocked and lowered the Colt. “Don’t think I wouldn’t shoot you, Chapelo. But this time, I’m going to spare your life. Because you did the same for me a few minutes ago. The way I figure it, we’re even now.”
Chapelo showed his legendary nerves of steel when he chuckled as she reholstered her weapon. “Yeah, we’re even.”
Something in his voice made Jacey look up at him.
“But only on that score.”
* * *
Zant had all the tossing-turning night to think about … her. And what to do about her. And how he was going to do it. If he had any hope of getting her out of Tucson alive and on her way back home before the winter snows came to the mountains, then he had to act now. Because if she stayed here through winter, her time would be too near for her to travel, come spring. And if she stayed here until the baby was born, then—
“Dammit!” Cussing at his tangling sheets and thoughts, he got up from his mussed and jumbled bed at La Casa Grande Hotel. Naked, he walked to the washstand and cleaned himself up. Toweling off, he padded over to the window and pulled the curtain back just enough to stare down at the street, streaked as it was with dawn’s pinkening shades. Just as busy as it was during the afternoon. Except with a different sort of folk. The men on the streets now were as likely to use a gun or a knife on you, as they were to put an arm around your shoulder and offer you a drink. His kind of men. Hell … him.
He allowed the curtain to swing closed. Tossing the towel aside, he turned and began hitching on his combination suit. So why should I care if Jacey Lawless is safe? Why should I continue to involve myself in her affairs? He jerked on his tan denims and then sat down to pull on his wool stockings and then his boots. But his own question stilled his hands. He looked at the room’s closed door, as if it were arguing with him. Why do I involve myself? Because I can’t abide Don Rafael getting his hands on her. Pure and simple. That’s the reason. The only reason. He yanked his boots on, stood, stomped his feet to square the fit, and reached for his chambray shirt.
Well, that was his only reason. Except for his own plans for her. And, hell, she had to be alive to carry a child. Thinking of the process involved to get her that way, Zant went as hard as a gun barrel. Damned thing had a mind of its own. He took several deep and calming breaths before jerking his shirt over his head and tucking it into his waistband. Working the buttons that began at mid-chest, Zant walked over to his gunbelt, folded his shirt’s sleeves twice to leave the combination suit’s ribbed cuffs exposed, and then strapped on the tooled-leather holster, securing it low on his right hip and tying the leather thongs around his thigh.
Going to the bed, he pulled his Colt from under the pillows. Holstering it, he grabbed up his Stetson and canvas duster. Time to pay Miss Lawless a visit.
* * *
Protected from the dawn’s cool air by her covers, and lying on her side, her back to the room, Jacey snapped awake to a gray and pink light spilling into her room. And to a big hand being clamped over her mouth. Her body jerked in fearful response as her scream echoed in her head, trapped as it was in her throat. Stiff with fear, her heart pounding and the hair standing up on her arms, she clawed at the viselike hand that all but prevented her from breathing.
Into her ear, someone whispered, “Shh, Jacey. It’s me. Zant.”
For a stunned moment, not sure she’d just heard that, she stared at the long shadows on the adobe wall she faced. Then her fear-startled senses cleared. Chapelo? In my room? His hand still in place, she turned onto her back. Yep. Did he think she’d feel better … safer because it was him?
Instantly angered, Jacey gripped his hand and bit down hard on the padded flesh of his palm. His yelp of surprise and pain as he jerked his injured hand away from her mouth … now, that made her feel better.
“You bit my gun hand. What’d you do that for? I told you it was me.” As his yelled words echoed and died, he massaged his wound and glared at her, his eyebrows meeting over his nose. “You damn near broke the skin.”
Jacey fought off her covers as if she wrestled a living thing and then shot to her feet, standing in the middle of her bed. Mindful of her night attire and her tangle of black hair falling all around her, but never one to hide behind a coy, maidenly demeanor, she pointed an accusing finger at her attacker. “You deserve that and more, Chapelo. How’d you get in here? Better yet, what are you doing in here? Who let you in? And … and how dare you?”
Glaring for all he was worth, still rubbing his hand, and looking her up and down, he answered smoothly enough. “I let myself in.”
She cut her gaze to the window. Woven curtain now open, but window still locked from the inside. She twisted to the door. Closed and also locked from the inside. She faced Zant. “How?”
A timid knock on the door from the hallway cut off whatever the outlaw’d been about to say. “Catarina, are you safe? I thought I heard voices. I—”
Chapelo found his voice. “Go on back to bed, Alberto. Everything’s fine.”
In the ensuing and heavy silence, on both sides of the door, Jacey looked at the man in her room. His forbidding expression dared her to say that she was anything but fine.
“Forgive me, Señor Chapelo, but I must hear this from Catarina.”
Jacey smirked and raised an eyebrow. At Zant. And at Alberto’s courage. Here was help. Still, she eyed the gunman and called out, “It’s okay, Alberto. Go on back to bed.”
After another moment of silence, Alberto said, “Forgive me, Catarina, but I do not think your father would—”
Jacey spoke in unison with Zant. “Go back to bed, Alberto.”
Silence. Then, in long-suffering tones, “Bien, bien. Pero el desperado—Señor Chapelo—esta in mi casa … en la noche … con la hija de Señor Lawless. Ay-yi-yi. Dios mio. Mi corazón no está…” His grumbling voice trailed away with his footsteps.
Jacey had no idea what Alberto was saying, but she’d bet she’d hear all about it come breakfasttime. Right now, she had to deal with Señor Chapelo. Who’d taken a seat in the room’s only chair. He crossed an ankle over his opposite knee, removed his Stetson, and ran a hand through his black hair. Jacey stayed planted on the bed. “What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Jacey made a disbelieving noise at the back of her throat. “Well, I sure as hell could. And was.” She huffed out her breath and then quirked her lips in disgust. “Since when do you seek me out when you can’t sleep?”
“Since you became the cause of my restless nights.” His black eyes warmed. His lids drooped seductively. His voice was a low, husky drawl that climbed over her skin, shivering her.
Oh, Lordy. Jacey barely stopped herself from backing up and clutching at the wall. Or from calling Alberto back. To disguise her virginal qualms and to steady her knocking knees, she put her hands to her waist and cocked her head. “What do you want?”
“It’s not a matter of what I want. It’s what you need.”
That got her Lawless up. “If I come down off this bed, it’s going to be so I can slap your face.”
Chapelo had the nerve to chuckle and shake his head. He even scratched it and then stretched mightily. Like a cat readying for a nap. A wildcat. Who hadn’t eaten in days. And now had his next meal in sight. And knew it wasn’t going anywhere.
“You’re not sleeping here, I can tell you that much.”
“Sleep here? Hell, I don’t intend to. And you won’t be, either. For a while.”
Suspicious but also intrigued, Jacey flopped down to sit cross-legged, Indian style, on her bed. She tamed her ballooning gown around her legs. “Why won’t I? And don’t start again about me leaving Tucson.”
“You are leaving Tucson. With me. Today. But you’re not going home. Just yet.”
Jacey cocked her head to one side. “Has this got something to do with that crazy plan of yours? Because if it does, I’m not—”
“No. Not that. Not directly. You and I are going to catch a thief. One with a lot more explaining to do than just accounting for one keepsake.”
“Such as?”
“Such as why your father killed mine. Such as what he’d need this picture of yours for. Such as why he was there on the day your folks were murdered, and yet you say someone back East did it. Things like that.”
Jacey considered his words and what could be behind them. “Besides that part about your father and mine, what’s your stake in all this? Why do you care? You hate my father. So why would you help me?”
“Damned if you don’t ask a whole week’s worth of questions at once. I care because I think I know who’s behind it all. And why. I’ve been thinking about this all night. And now, come dawn, I’m saddled up and ready to go find out where the trail leads.”
Even though she burned with curiosity to know his conclusions about who and why, Jacey stuck to her convictions. “I’m not riding with you. I don’t want to be around a man who could say the things you said to me earlier.”
Chapelo got that gunfighter look on his face. “You are going with me. Have you forgotten about your shadows, courtesy of Don Rafael? Now, like I said before, we can do this the easy way. Or the hard way. Your choice.”
Jacey clamped down on her bottom lip. She hadn’t forgotten about the trackers. But, dang it, she really didn’t want to be around Chapelo day and night. She was scared more by what she’d allow him than what he’d take. “No way. I’m not going anywhere with you. I can handle this myself. I already know Rooster McGinty lived here, but he’s dead from a fever. And I know all five of the remaining men’s names.”
“Do you know where to look? Do you have the time—what with winter coming on—to wander the desert looking for them, and all the while looking over your shoulder for the next surprise from my grandfather?”
Defeated, she sighed. “Let me guess. You know where every one of them is, and you’re not about to draw me a map, are you?”
“Right.”
“Damn you.”
* * *
“Ahh, Señor Chapelo, I see you won la guerra.”
Zant chuckled, keeping his voice as low as the cantina owner’s. “It wasn’t much of a war, Alberto. I just reasoned with her.”
“Ah, sí. Reasoned. More like threatened, eh?”
Zant nodded. “More like threatened.”
Alberto chuckled, but then turned serious. “Señor Chapelo, you do not intend to hurt our Catarina, do you?”
Slouched against the thick adobe doorjamb to Jacey’s room, and completely occupying the narrow space, Zant folded his arms over his chest. He didn’t answer right away, choosing instead to watch Jacey. With Rosie’s help, she was gathering up her few belongings. Since Alberto was standing behind him, Zant finally looked back at the anxious face of the bartender. “You ever known me to hurt a woman, Alberto?”
“Oh, no, no. But this one”—Alberto nudged his chin toward Jacey, who was down on her knees and pulling her saddlebags from under the bed—“she is different to you, no?”
Zant stared at Jacey’s split-skirted bottom and grinned. “Sí. She’s different. But if I was going to hurt her—even kill her—I’d’ve done it last night when I thought she was J. C. Lawless.”
From the corner of his eye, Zant saw Alberto cross himself. A fatalistic grin claimed his features. But it faded with Alberto’s next words. “You mistake my words. I mean in her heart. You are not going to hurt her heart, are you?”
Zant grunted, ignoring the heavy thump of his own heart. “You really think she has a heart to get hurt, Alberto?”
“Sí. She has a very big heart … with a heavy burden. I would not like to see her in more pain.”
Zant swiveled enough to exchange a serious stare with the fatherly bartender. Something tangible, like a subtle warning, stood in Alberto’s eyes. Zant honored it and said, “I’ll take care of her.”
“Bien. But tell me,” Alberto began, again drawing Zant’s assessing gaze from Jacey’s backside. “Where are you … taking her?”
“Well, she’s bound and determined to find the Lawless Gang, and the man, or men, who stole a picture from her. And I know where the old gang has scattered to, so I’m going along for the ride.”
“Ahh, la pictura. She told me of this last night.” Alberto twisted his mustache and added, “You are going for much more than a simple ride, are you not, Señor Chapelo?”
Zant felt a muscle jump in his jaw. How much had Jacey told him? “Yeah. A hell of a lot more.”
“Bien.”
Zant didn’t know what was so good about it, but at least Alberto wasn’t asking any more questions. He straightened up when Jacey closed her saddlebags and turned to stare at him, her black eyes rounded and wary. He squinted at her, just to keep that bit of fear in her. “You ready now?”
“Yeah, but I’ve got one more thing to do.” She turned to Alberto. “You got anything around these parts that resembles mail delivery?”
Alberto shrugged. “Mas o menos. More or less.”
Jacey firmed her lips together and appeared to think about something. “Could you hire someone you trust—I’ll pay you back—and have him take that journal and those letters to my sister in No Man’s Land? Here. I wrote down the directions.”
Alberto took the scrap of paper from her, but shook his head. “No money from you. But I will do this thing for you and for your papa. I would be honored.”
Zant watched Jacey nod her agreement and put a hand on Alberto’s sleeve. “I owe you so much, Alberto.”
Alberto put his hand over Jacey’s. “You owe me nothing. Just stay alive.”
Moved more than he cared to admit, Zant repeated, “That’s a real touching scene, but are you ready now?”
Jacey glared up at him. “As I’ll ever be, Chapelo.”
Squinting right back at her, Zant strode into the room, took her bags, slung them over his shoulder, clutched her elbow, and said, “Then, let’s ride.”