CHAPTER 26
Annabelle felt ridiculous.
She looked down at the gown—from Miss Delphine’s own large closet—and at the pearls looped around her neck, the long, white gloves on her hands that matched the white silk of the gown that hugged every curve of her body as though it had been tailored for her. The two girls still doting over her, nipping and tucking and adjusting her garish face paint, looked from her to her image in the standing mirror.
Miss Delphine sat in a brocade armchair fronting one of the suite’s two large windows, drawing on her cigarette holder and regarding Annabelle critically, nodding her approval.
“Fine, fine,” she said in her heavy Southern accent. “You look just fine. Better than fine. When Machado gets a look at you, he’s gonna swallow his tongue.”
“Does the neckline need to be this low?” Anna asked, brushing a gloved thumb across her deep, freckled cleavage.
The girls were messing with her hair now, making sure it was adequately coifed after being washed and dried then brushed out until it shone, then piled neatly and pinned with delicate silver clips atop her head. A few red sausage curls hung strategically down against her rouged cheeks.
“It does.”
Annabelle drew her mouth corners down as she looked at the young woman in the mirror. She couldn’t help wondering what Hunter would think if he saw her now, being outfitted for another man. Being decked out in something as revealing as the dress she was wearing, the matching elastic, side-button shoes pinching her feet. She hadn’t worn anything so feminine since she’d worked in a saloon a couple of years earlier, when Hunter had refused to marry her until he’d gotten his gold stake—the stake for their marriage—back from who had stolen it.
That person had turned out to be Annabelle’s own brother, Cass.
Guilt had compelled Cass to return the gold dust to Hunter, so he and Annabelle could be married at last and could start rebuilding the Box Bar B after Annabelle’s father, Graham Ludlow, and his marauding men had burned most of it to the ground, killing Hunter’s oldest and youngest brothers, Shep and Tyrell, respectively.
Life had not been easy for her and Hunter.
Now, looking at the stranger peering back at her through her own eyes in the mirror, she was reminded that it wasn’t getting any easier.
“Drink.” Miss Delphine had poured them each a brandy. She thrust the snifter at Annabelle now and sat back down in the chair, crossing her legs. “That will loosen you up. My God, something must!”
“How am I supposed to feel loose?” Annabelle snapped at the woman. “I feel like I’m being thrown to the wolves. Or at least to the leader of the pack. The man’s a savage and you want me to step out with him . . . like he’s sparking me or something?”
“Oh, he is sparking you, dear heart.” Again, Miss Del-phone sipped her brandy. “Make no mistake.”
“Does he really think I could feel any tenderness toward him . . . any desire to go out dining with him. What about after that—dancing?”
Miss Delphine pursed her lips, shook her head, and looked up at Annabelle from beneath her thin, perfectly sculpted brows. “Dear heart, you’re going to have to change your attitude. Keep in mind.” She placed a finger to her temple. “That man’s crazy. Crazier’n a treeful of owls. For whatever reason, he’s tumbled for you. I’ve never seen him like this. Never. Somewhere along the trail, he got to fantasizing about you . . . about how it might feel to be your man.”
“My God . . .” Annabelle said, slowly wagging her head in exasperation. “He’s an animal.”
“Yes, but that animal has feelings for you. Those feelings might very well guarantee your safety for at least as long as the rest of the trip. If you play your cards right, he might even decide to keep you for himself.”
“Oh, do you really think... ?”
“Shhh!” Miss Delphine pressed two fingers to her lips. “Keep your voice down. And, no, I don’t think you’ll go along with it but you’d better do a good job of pretending to or.” She swept her index finger across her throat, giving Annabelle a grave expression. “One minute . . . one hour . . . one day at a time . . . until you can find a way to free yourself from the man’s insane clutches.”
Again, she tapped her finger against her temple. “Remember. Attitude. The crazy devil is sweet on you. Go with it. Use it to your advantage. Take advantage of him . . . and you might find yourself in a position to get away from him.”
Soft footsteps in the hall.
Three light taps on the door.
Both Patricia and Mattie gasped with starts and stopped messing with Annabelle’s hair.
Miss Delphine rose from the chair and, trailing cigarette smoke from her holder, opened the door. Annabelle didn’t turn but stared toward the chair Miss Delphine had just left.
“He’s here,” came a quiet, grave, female voice behind her.
The door clicked shut.
In the mirror, Annabelle saw Miss Delphine turn to her. “Ready?”
“God, no.” Annabelle tried to suppress a shudder without success.
Ten minutes later, after a little last-minute primping by the Lone Wolf’s madam and Patricia and Mattie, Annabelle was lead downstairs, a light silk wrap draped across her shoulders against the possible chill of the coming evening. A lamb to the slaughter albeit a well-groomed, coifed, and dressed one.
Miss Delphine stepped outside ahead of Annabelle, with both Mattie and Patricia following, like bridesmaids at a wedding Annabelle couldn’t help thinking while trying in vain to suppress another shudder. He was standing at the base of the Lone Wolf’s porch steps, near the high, red wheel of a leather carriage. A small, slovenly, elderly man in a black immigrant’s hat and soiled coat over a soiled wool shirt sat in the carriage’s front seat, holding the ribbons of a charcoal gray gelding, staring straight ahead.
Miss Delphine glanced at Annabelle. Annabelle knew the madam was thinking the same thing she was: My God—he even hired a carriage and a driver! The driver was likely a swamper from the livery barn from which Machado had hired the carriage. He had that air about him; Annabelle thought she could smell the stench of manure emanating from his clothes.
Just how ill was Saguaro Machado, anyway? Annabelle inquired of the madam silently with a look.
The outlaw leader was dressed in his usual crude and mismatched trail clothes, but he must have had a bath because he looked cleaner, and his long hair appeared still damp and freshly braided. He’d brushed the dust from his black top hat as well as from the hawk feather jutting from the band. The jagged scar cutting through the eye patch looked just as grisly as ever. He flushed—bashful??—as he pinched his hat brim to Annabelle, then turned to open the carriage’s rear door.
Annabelle gave one last, frightened look at Miss Delphine, who merely drew deeply on her ubiquitous cigarette holder, lifted her fine chin, and blew the smoke into the cooling, early evening air. Behind her, Mattie and Patricia, remaining on the porch, wore wide-eyed, apprehensive expressions.
Stiffly, with a reluctance bordering on panic, Annabelle climbed into the carriage.
Machado climbed in beside her. He closed the door, gave a grunt, and the driver whipped the reins against the gray’s back and turned the gelding out into the street then down a meandering side street.
Annabelle clenched her hands together in her lap, wondering what else besides dinner the scoundrel sitting beside her, arm stretched across the top of the seat behind her, might expect of her this night.
Lamb to the slaughter . . .
* * *
Ten minutes later, Annabelle found herself sitting across from Machado in a tony dining room—at least, tony by Lone Pine’s and probably all of eastern Dakota’s standards—in a hotel named THE DAKOTA BADLANDS INN.
It had a façade of wood and stone and had likely been much more impressive in its and Lone Pine’s heyday, for the wood portion was in badly need of paint and several windows were cracked. Annabelle knew nothing about the town, but she’d seen enough similar settlements to figure Lone Pine had once been large, prouder, possibly a little more civilized back when cattle had been herded through the area on the way to the gold camps in the Black Hills farther north and west.
Nowadays, more cattle were shipped by rail from Sioux City and Council Bluffs, and the obvious outlaws outnumbered the honest businessmen a good five to one, she had observed on her ride through town to the Lone Wolf Hotel, which, she’d learned, was no longer a hotel at all but a hurdy-gurdy house.
Still, the clientele in the Badlands Inn seemed a cut above the crowd of men Anna had seen in the street. To be sure, there were a few cow punchers in the place, as well as gamblers and obvious mule skinners, but the bulk of the crowd appeared ranchers or cattle buyers—ruddy-skinned, mustached westerners conversing in businesslike tones and clad in clean, stylish western attire including bolo ties and crisp Stetsons. Such men, likely knowing Machado’s reputation, cast frequent, incredulous glances toward the cloth-covered table at which Annabelle sat across from the big, savage-looking, one-eyed outlaw, who so far had not spoken a single word to her but had communicated with hand gestures and grunts.
Annabelle kept glancing around, as though she could expect to find help here among these more civilized men than those stumbling from saloon to saloon out on Lone Pine’s dusty street. No help, however, appeared imminent. Just as she realized she could expect no help from the Lone Pine lawman, she was realizing now that she could expect no help from any of its citizens or wealthy, law-abiding visitors, either.
Machado ordered red wine, which a liveried and obviously nervous waiter who wore a towel over one arm served with cultured aplomb, which was lost on Machado who kept his dark, flat, one-eyed gaze on his dinner companion. The waiter filled their glasses, told them he would return later for their order cards, and strode quickly away, chuckling nervously.
Finally, Machado said something. He looked at her Anna’s untouched wine and said, “Drink. Bought for you.”
She gave a start at the unexpected outpouring of words from the savage man. At least, an outpouring for Machado. He waved a big, brown, scarred hand at her glass.
Annabelle slid her hand to the glass. It was shaking. She couldn’t hide it. She took a quick sip of the wine, then one more, hoping it would settle her down a little. It did not. She didn’t think she’d be able to eat anything, either, and silently hoped her lack of appetite would rile the man paying for her meal and wanting—what?
Herself?
Did he really think that after all he’d done to her that he could win her with some wine and a meal?
If so, he really was insane and even more dangerous than she’d thought.
He threw back half his glass in three swallows then refilled it with the bottle the waiter had left on the table. Then he slid one of the menu cards and a pencil stub toward Anna.
“What’s it say?” he asked.
She looked at the cards. She drew a breath, steeling herself against her fear, and read the options on the menu card.
“Oyster stew with brook trout, fried chicken and mashed potatoes, pork roast with potatoes. All options come with pie and coffee for dessert.
“Make down the chicken for me.”
Annabelle scratched a check mark in the box next to the chicken on the card.
She wasn’t sure what she would choose. None of it sounded good to her. In fact, all three choices made her feel sick to her stomach. While she was reviewing the choices, she spied movement in the big window to the right of the restaurant’s big, oak door. Two horseback riders had just ridden up to the Badlands Inn.
Anna’s heart quickened.
Both men wore moon-and-star badges of deputy U.S. marshals pinned to their coat lapels.
Her heart banged.
Lawmen. Federal lawmen.
Surely, she could at last find help from this promising new quarter!
To cover her interest in the newcomers just then climbing the porch steps and heading for the front door, she quickly scratched a mark next to the oyster stew with trout, dropped the pencil, and slid the card to the edge of the table.
When she looked up at Machado again, he was giving a crooked smile, staring at her as though he knew her every little secret.