A Hard Ride Home
A HARD RIDE HOME
EMORY VARGAS
It's hard enough returning to his birthplace to replace a dead man as sheriff. The last thing Emmett needs is to find himself smitten with Jesse, the whore he arrests almost immediately upon arrival. Especially since Jesse works for his half-sister and at her thoroughly disreputable saloon.
But being smitten with a whore is only the beginning of Emmett's troubles. Silver Creek is a town full of secrets and people too terrified to talk. Why does Emmett's father, the mayor of Silver Creek, have such a strong hold on the town—and on Jesse?
A Hard Ride Home
By Emory Vargas
Published by Less Than Three Press LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.
Edited by Leta Hutchins
Cover designed by Aisha Akeju
This book is a work of fiction and all names, characters, places, and incidents are fictional or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.
First Edition June 2015
Copyright © 2015 by Emory Vargas
Printed in the United States of America
Digital ISBN 9781620045534
Print ISBN 9781620045732
This book would not have been possible without the beautiful imagination of Larry McMurtry, who peppered my young adulthood with stories of cowboys who loved each other very much. To S and J, I am beyond fortunate to have friends like you.
AIN'T NATURAL
Emmett Grady had been back in Silver Creek for all of six hours when he ran into a wayward whore behind the Weeping Willow Inn and Saloon, better known as the only proper whoring establishment for a hundred miles in any direction. She was rouged up and giggling, with her blonde hair in a couple of ribboned braids like a girl's. Except she wasn't a child, not with those tits stacked high above a tight red corset.
"Curfew," he barked out, startling her and the boy tugging her toward the barn across the dirt lot.
When she stared at him, wide-eyed, red lips in a pout, he tipped his hat and added, "Ma'am," even though, most likely, he didn't need to address a young whore like that.
(The thing was, Emmett had only been Sheriff for one afternoon, and he hadn't had many dealings with ladies of the line. It was hard to know the etiquette of these situations.)
But he knew damn well that he didn't owe her lanky friend a whit of courtesy. "Same goes for you, boy. These girls can't be street-walking. Town's not safe at night."
"I'm no paying customer, and no one minds the curfew," the boy laughed, pressing an impish kiss to her hair. The moonlight cast garish shadows all over his face. He was tall and skinny and sharp-edged and a little otherworldly, like a ghost or a scarecrow.
They were drunk.
"Did you hear that, Miss Rose?" the boy laughed, grabbing her around the waist and rutting against her rump. "Newcomer thinks I'm paying you for a tumble. But you'd comp me, wouldn't you, little sister?"
"Jesse, behave. We was just walking, Sheriff."
"Sheriff?" Jesse peered at Emmett over the top of her head, his grin faltering. "But he's a boy. A pretty boy."
"Watch your tongue," Emmett said crossly, twenty-two years old and still sore over the coach driver saying he looked awful young to be taking up as sheriff. "Now head home and let her go back to the Weeping Willow or sober up behind bars."
"I bet you don't even have the keys to the jail," Jesse said, giving the girl a gentle push toward the stairs at the back of the whorehouse.
"I do too, right here." Emmett opened his coat and showed off the freshly minted set, and his pistol, for good measure.
"Mm." Jesse peered at them, swaying without the girl to steady him. "Big gun."
"I'll tell you one more time, boy. Run on home."
Jesse gave him a wobbly cross between a curtsy and a bow and trotted off after the girl.
Emmett caught his elbow as he passed, and twisted his arm behind his back. "I said home," he growled, "Not the saloon. You're drunk. Leave those girls alone."
"You're gonna be in so much trouble, Sheriff," the boy said, voice gone husky and soft. He moved his body, shifting like a cat—to push his ass back against Emmett's crotch obscenely.
"What the—" Emmett pushed him away, and Jesse darted for the staircase. By then, a handful of girls stood out on the upper balcony, petticoats fluttering in the night breeze like laundry on a line.
They whooped and hollered all manner of nonsense as Emmett caught up to Jesse, wrapped a short length of rope around his skinny wrists, and hauled him off to jail to sleep off his whiskey.
*~*~*
And that's how Emmett ended up spending his first morning as Sheriff of Silver Creek getting screeched at by his own half-sister before he'd even managed to down a cup of black coffee.
"I'm certain there are enough genuine outlaws in this shit-hole town that you don't need to be snatching my employees up in the night and causing a general disturbance in the street, Emmett!"
"You'll address me with respect!" he said, glancing at the open window where a small crowd milled about on the front porch as if they had some legitimate reason to be lurking in front of the jailhouse.
Which they didn't. Unless one counted ogling the new sheriff. Which he didn't.
"I'll address you as I damn well please, Emmett Grady!" Evelyn yelled. She was tall for a woman, with fiery red hair ironed in ringlets that bounced with every syllable. It was just a shade darker than Emmett's, gleaming with an unnatural sheen that probably came from some expensive hair elixir. While Emmett had inherited an endless expanse of freckles, Evelyn had been born with bone-pale skin that she clearly kept well out of the sun.
"Just because Father—"
"Mayor Grady is an investor in my establishment, and, I might add, an acquaintance of my employee," Evelyn said. "And if you don't mind, I'd like to take Jesse home now. God knows what sort of flea-ridden state he's in after sleeping in that straw all night."
As a matter of fact, Jesse was fine. He sat on the floor, cross-legged, looking far too pleased for someone who was radiating liquor-sickness and had spent a good part of the morning retching in the straw.
"I'm terribly sore, Ma'am," Jesse said, while looking at Emmett and smiling.
Evelyn didn't bother to glance at him. She just glared at Emmett, color high in her cheeks, the great big feather in her hat quivering above her like a distressed bird. Emmett had never seen a dress with so many ruffles and flourishes and nooks and crannies. The bright green dress alone was such a noisome bother that he stomped directly over to the jail cell and unlocked it, the key clanging in the lock loud enough to make her stupid, scrawny, drunken stable boy wince.
"Go on home and get a bath, Jesse Taggart," Evelyn said, swatting at his ass as he scurried off.
When they were alone, Evelyn helped herself to Emmett's coffee, using his only mug. "You ought to get to know this town before you bring the righteous fist of justice down upon it, Emmett."
"I know the law."
"That didn't do the last sheriff any good, did it?"
Emmett sighed and crossed his arms, sitting on the edge of his desk. He looked at the cracked plaster walls and the pane-less window and the suspiciously stained floor and felt a brief pang of longing for the fancy city job he passed up to return to his birthplace after so many years away.
"Stay out of my business and you'll do just fine," she said.
"Is that a threat?"
"Of course not." Evelyn smiled, her lips painted blood red and edged with wickedness—the same wickedness that had lit up her eyes every Christmas when she'd visited the big house like a little doll and let their father spoil her with gifts delivered from the city. Ruffles or not, she was still the brat who'd put a snake in his bed when they were seven.
Emmett snorted and re-arranged a pile of faded telegrams on the desk. "You don't run this town, you know," he said.
"Oh, Emmett. Don't I?"
*~*~*
Less than a week passed before Emmett decided to step inside the Weeping Willow and see what all the fuss was about. He'd been bored silly more often than not, occasionally hauling drunks to the jail and mostly helping an arthritic widow round up her unruly goat herd. His appetite was more pressing than his boredom. The Weeping Willow was the only place in town that served a hot meal, and there was only so much dried beef and stewed beans he could handle.
When he walked in, he was assailed with the smell of stale cigar smoke and sweet, floral perfume. It was quiet inside, nothing like the crowded, raucous saloons in the city.
"Evenin', Sheriff," the bartender said, giving him a subtle nod. The man looked like trouble, all unkempt hair and smiling eyes.
"Oh! Sheriff Grady. Come and sit down!"
Emmett turned to the sound of the greeting and tried to smile as a round, grey-haired woman grabbed his hand and pulled him to an empty table. She resembled one of those fancy poodle dogs the elderly ladies in the city kept—only far more rotund.
"Ah—"
"Miss Devaux said you'd be coming round. Lookit your face." She pinched his cheek, wagging it like he was a boy.
"I—"
"Oh, you dear. I'll bring you the beef stew. And a slice of pie!"
"Thank you, um, Miss…?"
"Ah, just Elsie, love. Oh, the girls are going to love you. Rose! Darling, come here and warm the sheriff, he's—"
"I'm fine, really I'm—"
"—lonely over here!"
Before Emmett could protest, he had a girl in his lap. She was the one who'd been scampering around with Jesse. Now, close up, she seemed nice enough—round-assed, with a big, pleasant mouth, and a mess of hair the color of straw.
"Hi there," she said, giving her backside a wriggle on his lap.
It was the second time someone from this town had communicated with him bottom-first, and he found the trend distressing.
"Ma'am, I'm fine, really. You don't have to."
She pouted and twisted, arching her breasts at him. "You not into girls, Mr. Sheriff?"
Emmett studied her cleavage. "Of course I am."
"Cause if you're not, there's Jesse, but he's awful busy right now," she said, giving a jerky nod toward the far corner of the room.
Emmett knew not to look. He knew that looking, right now, was going to be the stupidest thing he'd ever done in his entire life.
But he looked.
And there was Jesse, the stable boy, on a finely-dressed gambler's lap, with one knee drawn up and his eyes closed and his head tilted back on the man's shoulder. And Jesse wasn't a stable boy at all, he couldn't be. He was some kind of… boy whore. The man stroked him off right there in front of God and half a dozen others like it weren't unnatural to be touching a beautiful boy with a tinge of lip rouge on and a mess of blue petticoats bunched up around his waist.
Emmett felt dizzy all over.
"If I were to spend some time with you, how much would that cost me?" he asked Rose, as he watched Jesse's narrow chest rise and fall rapidly.
"Lawman special, Mr. Sheriff. First time's free." Rose kissed his cheek, her tongue leaving a wet spot. "But it won't be my first time," she added, giggling.
After he ate the best stew he'd had in his life, and finished most of a piece of pecan pie the size of two fists, Emmett let Rose take his hand.
On the way to the staircase that led to the maze of rooms upstairs, they walked right past Jesse and his… the man who was kissing him lazily, making pink marks all over his throat. Jesse wasn't as young as Emmett had first thought. Stubble the same color as his richly brown hair shadowed his angular jaw and framed his full mouth.
Emmett sprawled back on a frilly coverlet and let Rose suck him off while he tried not to think about folds of soft blue fabric and Jesse's flushed lips.
*~*~*
Emmett ran out of coffee before he ran out of beans. It warranted a trip to the General Store. Which he dreaded since the General Store was often as busy as the saloon and it was full of keen-eyed womenfolk who might somehow ascertain that he'd had a turn with a whore. Not that he harbored guilt over his decision. Rose was a fine girl, sweet and patient, and she'd filed her delicate fingernails in bed and told him stories when his prick wouldn't comply. It was just nerves, she'd assured him. Plenty of folk had that problem the first time 'round the saloon.