A broken wheel, a shattered axle, a few scraps of leather, the battered carcass of a coach animal, were all that remained of the stolen Gamble stage, once floodwaters had ravaged through the deep canyon into which Taviz had sent team and coach.
Teddy and Rhys stood solemnly on the wind-whipped canyon rim looking down at the wreckage. Teddy’s insides tightened painfully. Such destruction was insane. She found it hard to believe even Adams would stoop so low as this. But who else could have been responsible? Common road agents wouldn’t have taken the trouble to drive a stage twenty miles into nowhere and run it off a cliff.
“No mail. No coach. Nothing,” Teddy said. She had a white-knuckled grip on the reins of the one saddle horse they had chased down after the disastrous night. She had found her saddle pack, too. The sturdy leather pouches had lodged under a rock. Most of the contents had been washed away but she had recovered a sopping wet shirt which she quickly dried in the sun. Though they had lost both canteens and food she had insisted on continuing the search for the stage. Now she felt the effort had been a waste.
“Senseless,” Rhys said, his sympathy for her high as he saw the pain in her grim face. Another loss for her. Not a life this time but to her it must feel like one more straw upon the camel’s overburdened back. “Will you be able to keep to the schedules without this coach?”
“Don’t you worry,” she returned sharply. “I’m not beaten. I’ll keep the Gamble Line running if I have to drive every run myself.” With a quick tug on the reins, she pulled the barebacked animal around, gripped the shaggy black mane at the crest of his withers and swung astride. Eyes stormy she stared hard at Rhys. “You’ll get your money’s worth if it’s due you,” she said. “Don’t worry about that.”
As effortlessly as she had mounted he swung up behind her. “That was not my concern,” he said. His warm breath was stirring the tangled hair at her nape.
Teddy shivered and scooted forward on the horse’s back. “I’ll bet,” she said.
She didn’t talk to him for the first half of the long journey back to Tilton’s station. She was afraid that if she opened her mouth she would say things she would regret later. He didn’t need to know the extent of the turmoil her emotions were in. Or to be aware that, with his hard, lean body pressed tightly to hers, her heart was hammering so fast she could hardly breathe. Thoughts of him, the feel of his arms, the way he had kissed her as if he needed her as much as air, the loving invasion of her body. No invasion. She had welcomed him, relished the feel of him, longed for him, even now.
Dammit! She couldn’t feel that way about him. Not him. Not anybody. She had no time and no room in her life for a man who would want to change her into one of those flossy, frilly skirt-wearing women who peek though the curtains at night waiting and watching for their man to ride in. She wasn’t that kind of woman. Never could be.
It had been a mistake, a lapse that never would have happened if she hadn’t been caught in that flood and come so close to dying. It had been a mistake, a dreadful one, she told herself again, never quite succeeding in clearing away the formidable doubt that her brush with death had simply been the excuse she needed to do what she had wanted all along.
Rhys felt the anger in her and wondered if that was the only emotion he could raise in her. Then he remembered how she had clung to him, moved with him, responded to his kisses, the soft, desperate sounds she had made when he held her. Not anger.
She had wanted him, even needed him then. Now she was either ashamed or afraid of what she had felt. He had regrets, too. Now he felt bound to her, committed. It wasn’t what he had wanted or expected. And it wasn’t right. He didn’t belong in this savage country hungering for a woman who was half savage herself. He preferred caviar and fine champagne to campfire meals and brackish water—an elegantly appointed bedroom to a sand-filled bedroll—unless Teddy was in it.
He sighed heavily. That did it. The woman was getting in his blood. They were a combination that would never work. He had more than enough obstacles in his life. He didn’t need Teddy, with her gunpowder temper, needling her way into his heart. Didn’t want her there.
The horse started down a low rise. Rhys slid forward on the animal’s sweat-slickened back and bumped harder against Teddy. He resisted the impulse to lock his arms around her waist to steady the two of them. Even so, his loins tightened as the horse’s swaying walk rocked him against her. Desire, unleashed, surged through him, the power of it jolting his body, telling him he had been lying to himself. He needed Teddy. He wanted her enough to consider giving up returning to his world.
The horse stumbled. Rhys instinctively threw an arm around Teddy’s rib cage, holding tightly until the animal had its footing again. He felt her breasts rise and fall against his arm. Fever, hot as a wildfire, swept through him and once again all reason burned out of him. He exhaled roughly and thought of telling her she could have his shares, all of them. But he didn’t. The shares were his only link with her. He wasn’t ready to break that link—illogical, impossible as it was to think there was anywhere to go with it.
The feel of his gentle hold on her, seemed to permeate her flesh and fill her with fire. And terror. She pushed his arm away. He was driving her loco, changing her, making her forget the things that mattered, making her think of things that didn’t. Couldn’t. His breath, warm against her neck, sent a shiver down her spine. Desire curled and twisted deep inside her.
Teddy scowled. That was it. She couldn’t live with this yearning for him, with the way he leaped into her thoughts a dozen times a minute, with the way his slightest touch turned her to mush. She wished there were a way she could pay him off, send him packing, forget him. And she wondered, if the way was there, if she would do any of the three.
“Jeez!” she said irritably. “You’re wearing this poor horse out rollicking around back there. We better get off and walk him before he drops in his tracks.” Quick as a wink she slid her leg over the gelding’s neck and jumped to the ground, reins in hand.
“As you wish, Teddy.” Rhys slid down behind her, as glad as she was to break the maddening physical contact.
Leading the horse, they walked the remaining miles to the Tilton station, reaching it after sundown, both exhausted and hungry and thirsty. Teddy was glad to learn that the last two days’ runs had come through on schedule. Bo gladly reported that Rope had sent news that both had made it safely to Wishbone.
The following morning, rested, Teddy and Rhys mounted the horses they had left in the Tiltons’ care. “I’ll see you get paid for that horse we lost in the flood,” Teddy promised Jolly Tilton. “Meanwhile you boys be careful and keep an eye out for trouble.”
“Count on it,” the Tiltons said in unison.
***
Porter Landau, his jaw bulging with a chaw of tobacco, was expecting them when they rode into his station that afternoon. He shaded his eyes as he arched his other arm and waved from the corral. “Rope said you’d be comin’ through soon.” One of the coach horses, finished with his feed, came ambling by. Porter gave it a sound pat on the rump. “What did you find out there?”
“A busted-up coach at the bottom of a canyon,” Teddy told him flatly.
Porter spat tobacco juice in the dust. “Them bandits drove it up there and wrecked it? That’s plumb mean.”
“It’s malicious all right,” Teddy said.
“That, too,” Porter said. “Any sign of them that done it?”
Teddy shook her head. “We lost a horse in a flash flood and couldn’t keep hunting for the bandits.” She had dismounted by then and was brushing dust off her shirtsleeves.
“What are we gonna do, Teddy?” Porter lifted the loop of braided leather rope that held the corral gate closed. Waiting for Teddy’s answer, he pushed the gate open, walked through, and latched it behind him. “We’re a man short without strong Bill and sure as sin them bandits will be back.”
“What we’re going to do, Port,” she said, “is put on more men and double up the guards. Another gun will give those no-good bastards something to think about if they try robbing another of my stages.” Hoping her plan wasn’t wishful thinking she went on. “All we have to worry about is finding men to take the job.” And paying them, she added silently.
“I am an excellent shot,” Rhys said. “Until these bandits are stopped I can be second guard on one of the runs.”
“You?” Teddy’s sloping brows lifted. “Why would you risk your hide?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Rhys responded, though in truth he wondered the same. “I too have an interest in keeping this stage line running. At least until I am paid.”
“You’re on then,” Teddy said against her better judgment. “Provided you can back up that bit about being an excellent shot.”
“I got some old bottles,” Porter said. “An’ a Winchester.”
Rhys proved his point by shattering the ten bottles Porter set up back of the station even though Teddy kept varying the distance he fired from.
“All right,” Teddy said pleasantly surprised. “If you can do that from a moving stage and you don’t mind shooting at men you’ll make a fair guard.”
“Fair?” Rhys retorted.
“Fair,” she repeated. “And remember you volunteered for this job. Don’t go quitting on me the first time somebody shoots at you.”
***
The next trouble didn’t come on Rhys’s run. Taviz, a marksman himself, winged both guards and the driver as the stage rattled through a narrow pass on the run to Yuma. With the team racing out of control his men had swooped down out of the rocks and lassoed the lead horses, bringing the coach to a teetering, skidding halt. This time they had left the coach and team intact but when they were done, another mail shipment was missing and five bags of gold dust were in the wrong pockets. Just as bad for the Gamble Line, three more men were out of commission.
Adding to Teddy’s streak of bad luck was a telegram from Cabe Northrop advising that he would be in Wishbone the following week to discuss what was happening. If that wasn’t enough to rattle anybody, she had continued to be plagued by thoughts of Rhys. At night when she wasn’t worrying about holdups and going broke she was thinking of him. She lay awake, tossing in her bed, reliving her night of lovemaking with him.
And damned if he hadn’t fitted right in with the men. He’d taken to wearing a long canvas duster on the runs. With his long-barreled rifle slung over his shoulder, his hat pulled low, he looked as rugged and dashing as a cavalry officer. Justine Blalock thought so, too, and made a point of seeing that Rhys had something appetizing from Mae’s kitchen whenever he rode out.
Teddy got tired of seeing the calf-eyed girl walk up to the office with a carefully packed cloth-covered basket in her hands. Teddy once tried to discourage her by explaining that the station masters kept grub on hand for the drivers and guards.
“Nothing like this,” Justine had replied confidently. “I’ve got fresh sandwiches and cake.” Blushing, she had added, “Mae always says the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”
Something had gotten into Teddy and she had snatched the basket from Justine and said, “I’ll give it to him. Now scat!”
But Justine hadn’t been discouraged and had come back the next day with another basket. Nor was she the only one smitten. Most of the time when Rhys’s run pulled in or out of town she could count a dozen women hanging out of windows begging for a look from those pale blue eyes of his. Most times she wanted one herself.
***
Parrish Adams, clad in black, stood silhouetted against the red enamel doors of the Diamond Saloon. He had a newly lit cigar in his hand. When he saw the stage pull out with Rhys Delmar riding as guard, he muttered a curse, threw the stogie to the sidewalk and ground it out with his heel.
Looking over the swinging doors, he barked an order to Boyd Smith who stood at the bar, about to enjoy his first beer of the day. At Adams’s urgent call Boyd reluctantly put his glass down and headed for the door.
“You want me for something?” he asked.
Adams looked up and down the street making sure they had relative privacy for what he was about to say. “Yes. I want you to ride out and find Taviz. Delmar’s taking the Yuma run again. Describe him to Taviz and tell him to make sure nothing happens to that Frenchman,” he said irritably. “I want Delmar healthy enough to beg me to buy those shares off him once I’ve got Teddy Gamble on her knees.”
Boyd’s mouth watered for the beer he’d left on the bar when he thought of the long, hot, dusty ride he’d have trying to find Taviz. If the crazy half-breed had moved his camp any further west he’d have to spend the night out there with them. And if that thought didn’t make a man need a beer nothing would. “I can ride out after him if you like,” Boyd said, fishing for a plausible excuse not to go. “But it’ll probably be a waste of time. Taviz is not likely to hold up today’s stage,” he suggested to Adams. “You already told him to space out the raids so them guards have time to get a little slack in between.”
Adams’s voice was deadly as he turned his black eyes on Boyd Smith. “I don’t pay you to second-guess my orders,” he said. “Get on your horse and find Taviz.”
“Yes sir.” Boyd wasn’t about to push past Adams to go in and finish the beer. And Pete, who was upstairs trading his pay for a little fun, would just have to figure out where he’d gone. Turning on his heel, Boyd strode quickly down the street to the stable where he kept his horse. He dreaded seeing Taviz again but Adams, when he was riled wasn’t much better. Boyd sent a boy over to Penrod’s for a supply of grub and was soon ready to ride out. Damned if he wasn’t starting to question the company he kept. But Adams, at least, paid good.
***
Norine Adams, in a form-defining scarlet and gold dress stepped out on the sidewalk just in time to shock a passing matron and to hear her husband grumbling that nobody was worth a nickel anymore.
“Except me,” she said sweetly. “Last night you said I was good as a gold mine.”
Adams bit the end off a cigar and spat it into the street. “You are a useful commodity, Norine.” Solemn-faced he struck a match on his boot heel. With the flaring match cupped in his hands and the cigar gripped between his teeth he said, “And it’s high time I put you to your best use.”
“What’s that?”
“Insurance.” His smile was predatory. He’d devised a secondary plan for obtaining Delmar’s shares. Norine was it. She could turn a man inside out when she took a notion to. He didn’t think the Frenchman would be immune to a siren like Norine—or balk because she was much higher priced than the saloon girls.
She hated it when he talked over her head. Her sullen face told him this was one of those times. “Parrish, sometimes you don’t make a dab of sense,” she said tartly.
“Don’t get yourself in a stitch,” he replied. “This is a job to your liking.” He had her curiosity up and she hung on his arm. Her long nails were raking him. She was listening intently as he went on. “I want you to butter up that Frenchman who drops by for a drink most nights.”
“The handsome one?”
“The one Honor’s always rubbing on. See if you can do more with him than she can. I want those shares he’s holding. If he won’t take money for them maybe he’d be willing to trade. For something.”
“How much do I do with him?” Norine licked her red lips and eyed her husband suspiciously. The job was to her liking but she knew better than to take anything her husband said at face value.
“Just make him hungry,” Adams said. “Don’t feed him. Not until I say so.”
“Madame. Sir.” A red-haired, bushy-bearded Englishman interrupted the discussion. “I’m a stranger here and I’m looking for the best place to get a shot of good whiskey.”
“Look no further.” Adams beamed a friendly smile at the well-heeled gentleman with the blustery, out-of-his-element look. He appeared the sort of man who might easily be parted from his money. Stepping aside, Adams pushed the wide doors open for the Diamond’s newest customer. “Step up to the bar. Tell the man the first one is on me.”
“And to whom do I owe my gratitude?” the Englishman asked.
Adams nodded. “Parrish Adams is the name. I own the Diamond and I try to see that a man can find most any kind of refreshment he wants inside.”
“Derby Seward.” The red-haired man tipped his hat. “And may I say your hospitality overwhelms me, sir.”