A Promise in Defiance: Romance in the Rockies Book 3 (6 page)

The big man—filthy, scruffy,
stinking to high heaven—snatched his bowler from his head and stepped
hesitantly into Delilah’s office, such as it was. She wasn’t happy about
conducting business in a tent, she wasn’t happy construction had not yet
started on her saloon, and
she was not happy about a
preacher coming to town. Most of all, she was not happy about a nasty, unkempt
vagrant with a wandering eye daring to waste her time.

She stared
at him across her desk. “Otis said you have something important to tell me. I
hope for your sake, you do.” She picked up a letter opener and waved it
menacingly. “I am in a foul mood, Mr.
 . . .
?”

“Smith.
Randall Smith.” The man rubbed his chin, licked his lips. “I think you’ll want
to know what I know. I heard you was buyin’ up the saloons in town. But one of
’em is owned now by a preacher.”

Delilah did
not react to the news and let an awkward silence express her boredom. The man
licked his lips again. “He ain’t just any preacher. I don’t reckon you’ll be
able to buffalo him, if he don’t want to sell.”

“And why
not, pray tell?” She tilted her chin slightly, not interested in telling the
man she had no need of buying out a
church
.

“He’s Logan
Tillane.”

Ice coursed
through Delilah’s veins. She felt her face go slack and quickly masked her
surprise. How could she have not recognized him? Had it been that long? “I
thought he was dead.”

“Nope. He
just got religion.”

Delilah
leaned back in her chair and tapped the palm of her hand with the letter
opener. “So Logan Tillane is the preacher in Defiance.” In a way, it seemed
fitting. He’d rolled right through some of the meanest, orneriest towns in the
West, untouched, unscathed. Men were terrified of him and his gun. They called
his uncanny skill The Devil’s Hand
.
The gals he’d beaten attached a
different meaning to the moniker.

When had
she seen him last?

The
question hadn’t fully formed when the memory slapped her in the face.

Thirteen
years ago. That saloon in Dallas. She touched her cheek, reliving the sting.

Staggering
drunk, Logan had literally stumbled into the Brass Lantern, trailed by two
other cowboys. He had commenced banging on the bar, hollering about either getting
a poke or starting a fight, whichever came first. Delilah knew his voice
instantly and her heart beat wildly with joy for the first time in over two
years. She abandoned the cowboy’s lap she was warming and raced over to her old
flame.

“Logan, it’s
me, Victoria.” She looked eagerly into his blue eyes, the innocent, dreamy girl
bubbling to the surface once more. “Victoria from Dodge City.”

He shoved
his hat back on his head and returned her gaze with a rubbery, lecherous grin. “Well,
Fictoria from Dodge Thity,” he slurred thickly, dropping a clumsy hand to her
shoulder, “lez you and me find a room upstairs. I’ll bring the bottle.”

He’d made
her such beautiful promises. He’d sworn his eternal love, vowed he’d never have
another. Yet, after only two short years apart, he didn’t even remember her? Dumbstruck,
she backed away from him. “Go away.” A foolish thing to say, but it was all
that came to her.

Logan’s
face clouded over. It seemed he had found his fight. He exploded on her like a
rabid animal. Growling, shoving, punching, he got in several good swipes before
anybody had the courage to pull him off.

The memory disturbed
Delilah and she pushed past it, back to the sleazy man in front of her. “So, he’s
Logan Tillane. Why are you telling me this? What do you want?”

“An Injun
boy started to steal my friend’s horse today. I was about to
correct
the
savage when Logan saved his hide.” The man’s lip curled. “If there’s anything I
hate more than an Injun-lover
 . . .
I don’t know it.”

Men and
their prejudices. Delilah despised their pettiness, but never failed to exploit
it. She laid the letter opener on the desk, signaling the talk had become more
cordial. “I take it, then, you want to run Tillane out and help me get that
saloon?”

“For a
price.”

His
arrogance annoyed her and she picked up the letter opener again. “You think I
need you? You think men like you aren’t a dime a dozen?”

“Miss
Delilah,” he took a step forward, “I can tear a man apart with my bare hands. I
can convince Tillane to leave Defiance. And anybody else you want gone.”

She huffed
a petulant breath and studied the man’s hands. Scarred, a bit gnarled. A
brawler’s hands. “I have Otis. He handles my trouble.”

“Nobody in
Defiance knows Otis. They all know me. They know I’ll fight before I talk.”

“Then why
didn’t you take care of Tillane when you had the chance?”

Keeping his
gaze on Delilah, Smith slowly hiked up the sleeve of his dirty jacket to reveal
a bloody bandage. “I was in need of a doctor. The little Injun got in a lucky
strike, but I’ll settle that score too.” He pulled his sleeve down. “Besides, I’m
white.”

Yes, there
was that. On occasion, Otis’s black skin had been an unnecessary impediment.
For example, none of the carpenters she’d hired would even consider discussing
their work on the saloon with him.

“And I’ll
tell you something else, Miss Delilah. I don’t drink. Not a drop. I’m a good
man to put to work in a saloon. Won’t drink up your profits and I’m always
sharp.”

She had to
consider that. A tough, sober man might be worth his weight in gold. The
decision should have been an easy one, but her thoughts were troubled by Logan
and why they hadn’t recognized each other.

Annoyed her
vanity had gotten in the way of business, even for a moment, she forced herself
back to the matter at hand. She owed her partner his due. Matthew wanted
McIntyre dethroned, and Smith could possibly be helpful there. “Do you have any
other skills worth mentioning? How versatile are you?”

“Well, I
don’t know about versatile, but I’m mighty
willing
 . . .
” He winked. “And I don’t ask a lot of questions. You
tell me to do somethin’, it’ll git done.”

Point taken.
“You ever worked as a bouncer in a saloon?” Not that it mattered.
She was merely curious.

An oily
grin answered her question. “Ever heard of a little place called the Long Branch?”

McIntyre sat on one leg
folded beneath him, his arms wrapped around his knee as he rested in the grass
on the banks of the Animas. Chewing a blade of grass, he watched Logan and Two
Spears skip rocks over the water.

The setting sun brushed
the distant, craggy mountains in peaceful hues of red and purple. The warm air,
a haze of insects glowing in the twilight, and the innocent recreation reminded
him for a moment of summers back in Georgia . . . especially the
summer he’d felt like the man of the house for the first time.

McIntyre recalled with
perfect clarity the feel of his father’s wrist as he’d grabbed hold of it,
preventing the man from striking his mother a second time—or ever again. The
frail bones of a hand that never labored other than to lift a glass or slap a
woman.

McIntyre feared nothing
more than becoming a man like his father. Distant, selfish, violent. For a
while he had been—until Naomi. And Christ.

Though he knew he’d
never strike
her
, he’d already made more mistakes with Two Spears than
he cared to calculate. Would he ever hurt the boy?

Haven’t I already?

McIntyre tossed away
the blade of grass and rose to join the pair at the water. He would not become
his father. “I used to be pretty good at this.” Confident he hadn’t lost his
touch, he jerked his string tie loose and tugged on his collar.

Logan tossed him a
rock. “Put your money where your mouth is then, McIntyre.”

He grinned at the wry
challenge, but the expression melted off his face when he saw the look of
suspicion, even dread, in Two Spears’s eyes. He had a lot of ground to make up.
Clueless where to start, he stepped up to the water’s edge. Maybe something as
simple as skipping stones could be a move in the right direction. He leaned a
little to the right and chucked the stone, trying to spin it flat and direct.

It hit the water and
skipped once, twice, three times, and kept going. At the fifth skip Logan
started clapping and counting out loud. On its seventh hop, Two Spears had
stepped up beside McIntyre, mouth agape.

“Ten!” Logan whistled
in amazement as the stone finished its trek on water. “McIntyre, remind me
never to play cards
or
skip stones against you for money.”

“The trick is,”
McIntyre squatted so he could look up Two Spears, “get as flat a rock as you
can and then flick it quick.” Two Spears inched back, but his face showed no
emotion. McIntyre understood and dropped his gaze to the ground. “Say, there’s
a good one.” He picked up a flat, smooth stone that had been worn down to the
size of a half dollar, and turned it over and over. “Yes, nice and smooth. Try
this one.” He offered it Two Spears.

Hesitantly, the boy
took it from him, pausing only an instant as their fingers met. Not wanting to crowd
him, McIntyre rose and backed away a foot. Two Spears turned, then stood as he’d
seen McIntyre, feet spread, arm reared back.

“All right, take your
hand,” McIntyre pulled the boy’s arm back another few inches. “Here. Good. Now,
keep the rock level with the ground and flick it. But the motion is more in
your wrist than your whole arm. Understand?”

McIntyre demonstrated a
few times, moving the boy’s arm back and forth. Two Spears attentively followed
the throws, adjusted his stance, cast a few shadow throws himself then finally
chucked his stone.

It skipped once. Twice,
then skittered again and again as McIntyre and Logan called out together, “One,
two, three, four . . .” All the way to seven before the stone
disappeared beneath the surface.

Two Spears almost
looked happy, and McIntyre gave the boy an approving nod.

“Well,” Logan clapped
his hands together, “That was impressive, but if you two will excuse me, I
think I’m going to slip inside and wash up for supper. Two Spears, you’ll rival
your pa there in no time. You have a natural talent for skipping stones.”

Pa?
McIntyre was caught off guard by the word. Even Two Spears’s chin came up a
hair. Logan seemed not to notice and strode back inside the town hall.

Left alone with the
boy, McIntyre scratched his beard and said a quick prayer for wisdom. “Two
Spears, let us sit for a moment and speak some truth.”

The boy dropped right
there and stared stoically at the flowing, sparkling water. “One-Who-Cries said
a white man cannot speak the truth. Only lies.”

McIntyre inhaled a
long, deep breath, and released it slowly as he sat beside the boy. Knowing so
much rested on his words, he plucked another piece of grass and prayed for
wisdom. “Not all white men are liars, just as not all Utes are murdering
savages. There are some we can trust on each side.” He tied the green blade
into a knot and shrugged. “Most, I believe, in fact. And I don’t recall that I
have lied to you.”

“One-Who-Cries told me
you took my mother against her will. You used her, and did not come for her
when she was moved to the White Mountain Reservation.”

McIntyre flinched at
the accusations. Would his past never stop wreaking havoc on those he cared
about? But he knew better than to call the renegade One-Who-Cries a liar. Two
Spears had spent more time with the savage than he had with McIntyre. He had to
tread lightly on the boy’s hero. “Two Spears . . . your
grandfather. You love him and trust him, yes?”

The boy nodded. “Yes.”

“He brought you to me.
He entrusted me—”He bit that off and sought a word the boy would understand. “He
honored me by bringing you here, for you to join my family. Would he have left
you with a white man who told only lies?”