A Wanted Man (20 page)

“He told me about Rose,” Rowdy said, taking up a grooming brush for something to occupy his hands and stroking the paint’s back with it. “I’m sorry, Pap—Pa. That must have been a hard thing to get through.”

Payton’s expression changed. He looked away, but not before Rowdy glimpsed the old pain that had long since hardened in his eyes. “She was such a sweet little thing, our Rose. Full of mischief and bright as could be. It like to have killed Ruby, losing her, and I wasn’t good for much of anything for a year afterward. Gideon was the strong one, but he’s gone to that grave practically every day since. I wish he’d leave off from that.”

“He blames himself for what happened,” Rowdy said. “Did you know that?”

Payton looked glum. Nodded. “Ruby was wild with grief. She said some things to the boy that she shouldn’t have—you know how people do when they’re hurting.”

Rowdy had to clear his throat before answering. “I know how they do,” he confirmed. When his young wife, Chessie, had perished, and their two-year-old son, Wesley, had gone with her, both of them falling sick of a fever, Rowdy’s mother-in-law had told him at the funeral that it was God’s wrath. He’d been an outlaw, and Chessie had sinned by marrying him. And they’d both been smitten by the mighty hand of the Lord.

Rowdy didn’t figure the Lord was anywhere near that mean-spirited, but some of His followers surely were.

“I’ve got to get out of here, boy,” Payton said, jolting Rowdy out of a recollection he usually avoided. “I didn’t rob that train. But I’m going to be blamed for it—you know I am. You have to get me a fresh horse or let me take this paint of yours.”

“I won’t stop you from going,” Rowdy said grimly, “but you’ll have to take your own mount. Even if you got out of Stone Creek without being seen, folks would notice I was riding a different horse, and they’d wonder why. When folks wonder, they start gathering into clusters to try and work it through.”

“You’d think of something.”

“No, Pa,” Rowdy said. “Anyhow, I like this horse. It wouldn’t be the same without him.”

“No,” Payton growled, back to his usual obstreperous self. “It
wouldn’t
be the same, because I’d be miles from here, a free man, instead of being hauled up in chains by a bunch of Rangers.” He stood, dusted off his pants, which were actually Rowdy’s. “Samson can’t make it to Mexico, Rowdy,” he went on, patting the dark gelding. “He’ll be fit in a week or ten days, but I can’t wait that long. You know I can’t.”

Rowdy sighed. It would solve so many problems, for both of them, if Pa just vanished. But it wasn’t going to help Gideon much, or Ruby, either. “All right,” he heard himself say. “Take the paint. But I want you to leave him at the livery stable in Haven, Pa. You can buy another horse there and cross the river into Refugio—it’s a little town just the other side of the border. Once you’re across, you’re on your own.”

Payton considered the idea. “You’d come down there, when you could, and fetch back your horse?”

Rowdy sighed. “That’s what I intend to do,” he replied, still brushing Paint. “And if you try to steal him, I’ll track you to the far ends of hell. You’ve got my word on that.”

“Sounds like you care more for this horse than your old pa,” Payton lamented.

“I’d trust him a sight farther than I would you,” Rowdy said. Damn, he hated to lose that horse, even for a few months. And it was a long trail down to Haven and back, one Pardner couldn’t be asked to undertake again.

Explaining the black gelding wouldn’t be easy, either. Once Paint and Pappy were gone, he’d say he’d swapped with some cowpoke passing through, but folks were bound to ask themselves, and each other, why he’d done it. Samson was aging, like Pappy, but Paint was in his prime, and Rowdy loved him almost as much as he did Pardner.

For a moment, he rested his forehead against the gelding’s neck, saying a silent goodbye.

Pappy, meanwhile, slapped Rowdy on the back and made a stab at fatherly concern. “I’ll leave the horse in Haven,” he said. “You’ve got my word on it.”

Rowdy glared at him. “He’d better be waiting when I get there, Pa,” he said. “Because I’ll stake you out on an anthill, naked and slathered in honey, if he isn’t.”

“I believe you,” Pappy said, and he looked like he did.

“When do you plan on leaving?” Rowdy asked.

“Tonight, if this thaw holds,” Pappy replied. He looked earnest now, even sincere, and his voice was low and quiet. “You look after Gideon. See he goes to college when the time comes. Ruby and me, we’ve already paid for it, and he can earn his keep doing odd jobs around the school. Don’t let him play deputy past time, or fall in with bad companions.”

“Bad companions,” Rowdy repeated, raw because his horse was going away and he wasn’t. Because Chessie and Wes were dead before their time, and little Rose, too, and because innocent children like Lydia had stepmothers like Mabel Fairmont. “Now, that’s almost funny, Pa, coming from you.”

“You’re just bitter,” Pappy accused, disgruntled again. “And it ain’t very becoming, either.”

“You’re damn right I’m bitter,” Rowdy replied, but he was already weary of sparring with his pa. His mother had been right, years ago, when she’d said there was “no salvation” in arguing with Payton Yarbro. The poor woman, she’d seen salvation everywhere she looked, it seemed, but as far as Rowdy could discern, she’d never quite reached it. Just the same, he wished he’d had the same gift.

He’d glimpsed his mother’s true salvation once, though—in John T. Rhodes. Trouble was, both of them had been too upright to take what was offered them.

“Anything you want me to say to your brothers, should I cross paths with them?” Payton asked, eager to ingratiate himself in any way he could.

“Yeah,” Rowdy answered. “Tell them not to rob trains.”

O
N
F
RIDAY MORNING
, just after dawn, Lark awakened to a world so glittery and fresh-skyed that she wanted to sing with sudden joy.

The snow had softened to slush.

Exuberant at the weather change, and because she knew now that Autry had not crushed the music out of her soul after all, she crept out of the bedroom behind the kitchen, careful not to awaken Lydia, and found Mrs. Porter and Mai Lee already up and around. Mai Lee was unwrapping a parcel at the table, while Mrs. Porter poured copious amounts of what looked and smelled like rum into a huge bowl of batter.

“Mr. Porter liked lots of rum in his cake,” she explained.

Lark was drawn to the package. “What’s this?” she asked, drawing up alongside Mai Lee to look. Inside the sturdy brown-paper wrapping were two little flannel nightgowns and two equally tiny woolen dresses, one brown, one dark blue. Mai Lee must have purchased them the day before, when she was out of the house for several hours.

For a moment, seeing the dark, practical colors, Lark was reminded of boarding school, and some of the delight she’d felt on waking seeped out of her.

“For little girl,” Mai Lee said, pleased. “Mrs. Porter, she pay. Put on account at mercantile.”

Lark’s gaze shot to Mrs. Porter, who lowered her eyes modestly.

“It was my Christian duty,” the landlady said, blushing. “Nothing more.”

“It was a very kind thing to do,” Lark said, very softly.

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Porter said, sounding brisk now as she went back to preparing her rum cake. “Mr. Porter always maintained that charity begins at home. ‘Ellie Lou,’ he would say, ‘we must see to those less fortunate than ourselves.’”

Lark wanted to hug Mrs. Porter in gratitude, but she sensed that the other woman would not welcome such a demonstration, so she simply said, “Thank you.”

“You’d better hurry,” Mrs. Porter responded, with a little sniff. “You don’t want to be late for school.” At Lark’s hesitation, she added, “Mai Lee and I will tend to Lydia. And you’ve got your supper at the O’Ballivans’ tonight, don’t forget. The road out to their ranch will be muddy, to be sure, but probably no strain on Sam’s team and wagon.”

Lark’s swooping heart rose skyward again at the reminder of her upcoming visit to Sam and Maddie’s place. Until Mrs. Porter offered to care for Lydia in her absence, she’d been resigned to sending her regrets. “You’re sure you won’t mind—after all, Lydia still needs a great deal of care.”

“You will go to that supper,” Mrs. Porter said, cordially firm, “because I want to hear
all
about it when you get back. What was served. Whether there’s real china, or tin plates, like Sam would have used if he was there by himself. What Maddie’s done to that ranch house since she and Sam moved in. Are there curtains on the windows? And
especially
whether or not she plays Abigail Blackstone’s spinet.”

“Abigail Blackstone?” Lark frowned, searching her memory, but she didn’t recall ever hearing the name before.

“The major’s daughter,” Mrs. Porter clarified. Another little sniff followed. “She died very tragically. Abigail was the
dearest
girl, though she never came to church.”

Lark’s heart took another dive, steep enough to leave her breathless, but she recovered quickly. She had to, for she had a long day ahead of her, classes to teach, followed by the journey to Sam and Maddie’s ranch and an evening of gaiety.

She hurried upstairs to her old room to wash and dress and pin up her hair. She would wear her blue silk frock, she decided, even though it was unsuited for teaching. There might not be time to come home and change before Sam came to fetch her after school.

Forty-five minutes later, she unlocked the schoolhouse door, went inside, humming a song she’d once sung full-voiced, built a fire and proceeded to ring the bell, putting all her weight into pulling the heavy length of rope dangling from the little belfry.

To her disappointment, only four students came to school.

Gideon.

Susan and Mary Sommerville, whose father was the local undertaker.

And Roland Franks.

Roland glowered defiantly at Lark as he entered the schoolhouse, stomped over to her desk and set down her lard-tin lunch pail and lesson books with a condemnatory thump.

She smiled at him, determined to smooth his ruffled feathers and get him to wade through his
McGuffy’s Reader
again. “Roland,” she said cheerfully, “I’m so glad you changed your mind about coming back to school.”

“I still think you ought to go to the dance with me,” Roland said, unappeased.

Gideon sat up a little straighter in the chair behind a desk that was much too small for him. Before, his attention had wandered; now he was obviously listening.

“I had already accepted an invitation from Marshal Rhodes when you asked me,” Lark lied patiently. “And, besides, it really wouldn’t be right for you and me to socialize. After all, I’m your teacher. Such things simply aren’t done.”

Roland’s neck flushed crimson. “A teacher down by Phoenix married my cousin Albert,” he informed her. “Albert was in fifth grade at the time.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lark saw Gideon frown.

“Be that as it may,” Lark said warmly, “I’m not interested in marriage, Roland—to you or anyone else.”

“Not even that marshal?” Roland asked suspiciously.

Gideon sat up even straighter, and a little smile, reminiscent of Rowdy’s, quirked at the corner of his mouth.

“Not even the marshal,” Lark said. Then some imp of the perverse made her say, “I did hear that Mabel Fairmont was looking for a husband, though.”

“Maybe I’ll see if
she
wants to go to the dance with me,” Roland said, ruminating. The change in his countenance was even more unsettling than his previous aspect had been.

“Roland, I was merely being—well, I shouldn’t have spoken so lightly of such a serious matter. Mrs. Fairmont just lost her husband, and it would be highly improper to ask her to a dance when she’s barely begun to mourn—”

As if Mabel Fairmont intended to waste any time mourning.

“I’ve got to go,” Roland said decisively.

The Sommerville girls twittered.

Gideon watched the exchange between Lark and Roland with pensive amusement.

Roland strode out of the schoolhouse, bent on his mission.

Lark set her elbows on the top of her desk, buried her face in her hands and groaned aloud.

Within five minutes, Roland Franks would be pounding on Mrs. Fairmont’s front door, with marriage on his mind.

What had she
done?

F
OR
A
UTRY
W
HITMAN
that third train robbery was the final outrageous, insufferable insult.

When word of it reached him in Denver, he’d ordered his private car coupled behind a locomotive and stormed onboard. Now, on a bright Friday morning, he was steaming southwest, toward Flagstaff, with a trail of passenger and freight cars rattling along the track behind him.

The passenger cars were emptier than they should have been—word of the holdup had already spread, and folks were afraid to travel. Fewer passengers meant less revenue, a condition soon to be reflected in Autry’s bank balances.

And that would not do.

He meant to meet with the Rangers and as many other law enforcement officials as he could corral, which was plenty, given the extent of his influence, political and otherwise, and demand immediate
action
. By God, this was America, and a man had a right to run a railroad without being molested by a pack of no-account hoodlums and ne’er-do-wells.

No one
treated Autry Whitman like this.

No one save Lark McCullough.

Bile seared the back of Autry’s throat, sour and scalding. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and glowered out the window at a snowy landscape. He’d have an accounting from her, some fine day in the near future, and it would be a memorable one, too.

Especially for her.

Why, he’d found her in a San Francisco show house, cavorting for a lot of seamy strangers in a scanty getup, and he’d been
stricken
at the sight of her—not with love, Autry didn’t believe in such fatuous sentiments as that—but with the desperate need to possess her. He’d given Cyrus Teede, the owner of the gentleman’s club, twenty-five thousand dollars, and even at that price, Teede had been reluctant to sell.

He’d known what he had.

Lark. The golden songbird. The smiling Jezebel. On top of what he’d given Teede, Autry had spent a fortune to outfit her as a decent woman, befitting his station in life. He’d taken her home to Denver, knowing full well what she was, all her clever trickeries aside, and she’d played her part well.

For a while.

Then she’d begun the little rebellions. Talking back to him. Wearing blue when he’d specifically told her he liked her best in red. Giving his hard-earned money to street urchins. Finally she’d tried locking him out of her bedroom.

And he’d thrashed her for it, same as he would a disobedient hound or a balking horse. It was his right as a husband, as head of his household.

Three days after that, the songbird had flown.

Autry’s right hand tightened into a fist. He’d find her, that was for certain. Divorce or no divorce, she was still his property. The little chit couldn’t elude him forever—he had too many competent men out searching for her, spanning the whole West like a great, long-fingered hand.

Autry looked down at his fist.

He’d told the Pinkertons, and a few private agents, too, that he wanted to find Lark so he could tell her all was forgiven. Set up living arrangements for her, if she wouldn’t come back to him.

But the truth was a little different.

Lark had humiliated him, far and wide.

And she would pay for it.

Once he’d taken care of business in that upstart cow town, he might even pay a call on an old friend, a local named Ruby Hollister. Ruby was a woman of singular talents, as he recalled, though he hadn’t seen her in many years, and she knew how to lift a man’s spirits.

Among other things.

Autry might have smiled in anticipation, if the trail of his thoughts, having turned a bend into the area of female favors, hadn’t led right back to Lark.

Beautiful, golden-haired Lark, with a singing voice suited to her name.

She
owed
him. He’d rescued her from a seamy environment, willing to overlook all prior sins, and he’d been generous, too. Given her everything a woman could rightly want—starting with the title of Mrs. Autry Whitman—and plenty besides.

She’d lived in one of the finest mansions in Denver. He’d hired a maid for her, and she’d never so much as washed a dish or made up a bed.

Her clothes were the best to be had, some sent from as far away as Paris, France. He’d decked her out in jewels, too, and asked only one thing in return—that she stand at his side, in public and private, as his wife.

Why, he hadn’t even minded when she spurned his advances in the bedroom. There
was
a considerable difference between their ages—Autry would be seventy in May, while Lark had been just shy of twenty-five when he first laid eyes on her.

She’d done a lot of living by that time, though.

He’d known she didn’t love him and, well, his intended assignation with Ruby aside, there were times when he couldn’t do much besides set Lark on his lap and paw at her. She’d endured that for a long while, but Autry was no fool—he’d seen the revulsion in her eyes, even though, in the beginning, she’d tried to hide it.

When he
had
been able to attend to his husbandly duties, hoping to God to sire an heir, she’d lain stiff beneath him, like it was an ordeal. Considering where he’d met her, that was harder to take than the rest of it.

He could have accepted even that, so long as she played the part of an adoring wife in front of Denver society, and he had to admit, she’d done a good job of that—until the day she ran out on him during his best friend’s funeral.

He closed his eyes, remembering.

He’d come home after the ceremony expecting consolation, and found her gone.
Gone
. At first Autry was too stunned to credit it. After some investigation, he discovered that Lark had told Phillips, his manservant, some cock-and-bull story about her sister taking ill, and the damn fool had driven her to the railroad station without a single quibble.

Trouble was, Lark didn’t
have
a sister. She didn’t have any family at all.

Except him.

Ten days after her departure, Autry had received divorce papers by courier, from some lawyer in San Francisco. Enraged, needing to take the shock out on somebody, Autry had sent Phillips packing, and he’d made sure nobody in Denver would hire him, too.

Then he’d wired the Pinkertons in California, and had agents dispatched to pick up Lark’s trail there. But the lawyer hadn’t parted with any information at all, save to say Lark had left the city days before and had not shared her intended destination.

When Autry protested, also by telegram, that
he
had not agreed to divorce, the lawyer had responded with such immediacy that he might have been standing right in the telegraph office when Autry’s wire arrived.

“Divorce granted,” the answer said. “Special circumstances. Mrs. Whitman asks nothing in the way of financial restitution and requests that you do not attempt to contact her again.”

Autry still read that telegram sometimes, in the privacy of his study back in Denver, but only when he’d fortified himself with brandy and ire first.

“Mrs. Whitman asks nothing in the way of financial restitution.”

As if he’d have given her one red cent, after what she’d done to him.

And he most certainly meant to “contact” her. It was only a matter of time until he’d have the satisfaction of doing just that.

But first he’d deal with those robbers.

Autry leaned forward slightly in his plush seat, willing the train to go faster.

L
ARK SENT
G
IDEON
and the Sommerville girls home an hour before school should have let out, but she stayed at her desk instead of going back to Mrs. Porter’s, reading and waiting for Sam O’Ballivan to come and fetch her in a wagon, the way Maddie had said he would.

At four o’clock she heard the distinctive sounds of a rig and team, clattering up outside.

Eagerly, smiling a little at the things Mrs. Porter had instructed her to find out, she banked the fire, donned her spare cloak and rushed to the door.

A buckboard waited outside the gate, pulled by a pair of bay horses, but Mr. O’Ballivan wasn’t holding the reins. Rowdy was.

The shadow of his hat brim, at which he promptly tugged with a practiced motion of one hand, covered most of his face. His impudent grin was clearly visible, however.

Lark froze on the schoolhouse steps.

Rowdy gave a visible sigh, climbed down from the wagon box and paused to open the gate.

Lark hesitated a few moments longer, then marched toward him, chin high, skirts swirling.

They met in the path, midway between the gate and the schoolhouse door.

“That’s some dress,” Rowdy observed, taking in the blue silk.

Lark had dined with the governor of Colorado and several congressmen in that dress, but she wasn’t about to say so. “Thank you,” she said stiffly. “And what are you doing here? I’m expecting Mr. O’Ballivan at any moment—”

“Plans have changed,” Rowdy said easily, although now that she was standing up close to him, she saw signs of strain around his eyes and in the set of his mouth. “I’m invited to this shindig, too, and Sam asked me to bring you along. No sense in his driving all the way into town and then back again—twice—when I’m headed out there anyway.”

Lark discovered, to her private chagrin, that she didn’t entirely object to the prospect of going to the O’Ballivan ranch and then returning alone with Rowdy Rhodes. And that realization troubled her more than anything, made her want to dig in her heels and refuse to go at all.

She couldn’t do that, of course, because Maddie had probably gone to some trouble to prepare for guests. And Lark wanted Maddie O’Ballivan’s friendship.

Still, Rowdy could not be trusted. The bold look in his eyes implied that, as if the way he’d kissed her behind the jailhouse that day wasn’t proof enough.

Lark blushed slightly at the memory, and her nipples pressed traitorously against the fabric of her best camisole and the bodice of her dress. Belatedly, she pulled her black velvet opera cape closed with both hands.

Rowdy chuckled, shook his head almost imperceptibly. Then he crooked an elbow at her. “Come along, Miss Morgan,” he said, with the old note of mockery. “Sam tells me it’s an hour to the ranch by wagon in high summer, and it’ll be slow going, with all the mud and slush.”

Lark sighed. Then, with the greatest reluctance, she took his arm.

He had the audacity to touch her posterior while helping her up into the wagon, and when she turned to glare him to a cinder, he only smiled and tugged at his hat brim again.

His eyes made some very forward promises, and Lark’s face went hot again with temper and—though she would have died before admitting it—a certain scandalous anticipation.

If he stopped that wagon somewhere along the lonely road to the O’Ballivans’ and kissed her, she’d be a goner. Why, she might even let him do a lot
more
than kiss her.

Don’t be a goose,
she told herself, making a great fuss of settling onto the wagon seat, arranging the folds of her cloak, and generally situating herself for the long trip ahead.
It’s the dead of winter, and even Rowdy Rhodes wouldn’t have the gall to seduce you in a wagon.

While Rowdy was climbing up to sit beside her and take up the reins again, she glanced back over one shoulder.

There were blankets in the bed of the wagon.

Lark’s heartbeat fluttered in her throat, as though she’d swallowed a live butterfly and the poor thing was trying to escape.

Rowdy must have caught her looking and discerned her thoughts in that disturbing way he had, because he grinned as he released the brake lever and urged the team forward.

“Don’t worry, Lark,” he told her quietly, his voice moving like a caress under her skin. “When I make love to you, it will be in a warm bed. At least, the first time.”

Delicious rebellion rose within Lark Morgan. He’d made her think about the things he planned to do to her in that “warm bed,” which was exactly his intent. “I ought to slap you,” she said, sitting up straighter on that hard wagon seat.

“You’ve tried that before,” Rowdy observed lightly, “and you weren’t quick enough.”

“Now you’re just being obnoxious,” Lark accused, as he turned the team and wagon in the road. “Why do you insist on talking to me like this?”

“Because it riles you,” he replied.

“If you actually believe I’m going to allow you to seduce me—”

“You’ll allow it, all right,” Rowdy said confidently, when she didn’t finish the sentence. Then he leaned toward her a little and whispered loudly, “It’s already begun, Lark. It’s been going on since you and I first met, in Mrs. Porter’s kitchen. One by one, I mean to strip away every objection, and when you ask me to—and you will—I’ll have you.”

Lark squirmed. Of course the seduction
had
begun—a word, a look, a touch. That soul-shattering kiss behind the jailhouse. “I will
never
ask you to make love to me,” she vowed, in a furious undertone, as they drove straight through the center of town.