Desperado: Deep in the Heart, Book 2

Chapter One

“Crazy Cody ain’t gonna do it. You fellows are wasting your time.” In Desperado, Texas, Sheriff Sloan McCallister crossed his boots on the desk and grinned at the two men hunched in chairs in front of him.

“He’s gotta! He’s got the best and biggest piece of land in Desperado, damn fool snake fighter. Those movie folks are gonna go elsewhere if they can’t make their picture here.” Curvy Watkins glared at Sloan for stating the fact that had them wrestled to the ground. Nobody could get Cody Aguillar to do a damn thing he didn’t want to do. To a man, nobody wanted to be the one to approach him about using his land for filming a movie. Cody was a loner. He was also crazier than a coot, with his rattlesnake skinning and his damn guitar. Some nights, when it was late enough to see a good harvest moon, a body could hear him playing that Spanish music. The sound was haunting, and the specter of the lonely man strumming that soulful music, with nobody but his old ma and some barn owls for company, could rattle the bones of a corpse.

“He ain’t gonna do it for any of us, that’s a fact.” Pick Jenkins picked his teeth in the fashion which had earned him his nickname, and spat. “That damn brother-in-law of his has made him too wealthy with his fancy schemes. Between him and Zach Rayez, they got enough money to interest the President. I say it’s ’bout time they contributed something to Desperado.”

“You say it, Pick, but I don’t see you suggesting how.” Sloan grinned at the two older men. Cody and Sloan had built up a healthy heap of respect for each other. If these two old fools thought they were going to elect him to go railroad Cody, they could take themselves back to the post office and sit back down on their self-appointed benches.

“Well,” Pick said, shooting a glance at the closed door of Sloan’s office, “I says we send
her
.”

All three men stared at the door. On the other side sat Stormy Nixon, a movie scout from Los Angeles. She had approached Curvy about the project, since he was the mayor of the town. Immediately, he had commandeered Pick, and together they’d brought Stormy to Sloan’s office in order to draw him into the scheme. She’d said her fantastic piece, which brought to mind a vision of tourist dollars floating through Desperado. Pick and Curvy were drooling, but Sloan held back his enthusiasm. It was all well and good for them to think he had some sway with Cody, but it wasn’t true. Respect wasn’t the same thing as leverage, and, while he had one with Cody, he didn’t have the other.

Stormy Nixon, he hated to tell them, wasn’t going to have any leverage, either.

“I think you boys are off your horses if you send her out to Cody’s house,” Sloan said. “It’s a bad thing, sending a woman to do your dirty work.”

“Ah, hell! It’s her job, Sloan. She’s the one hunting for a place to film.
Let her go ask him.” Pick tried to look innocent, as if the suggestion were perfectly reasonable. Sloan knew better. Neither of the two cowards wanted to be the one to have Cody’s boot planted firmly in his butt as he kicked them off his property.

“I’m throwing in my lot with Curvy. You ain’t got a better idea, and we can’t lose the opportunity of at least letting Cody mull over her proposition. It could mean the difference between putting Desperado on the map, and us always sitting in nowhere.” Pick puffed up his chest to impress Sloan with the importance of his decision.

“Nowhere feels great to me.” Sloan leveled both men with a stare. “If you want city life, go live in Dallas. Or New York.”

“I ain’t saying that’s what I want. I’m saying it ain’t gonna hurt nothing for Desperado to have a little bit of outside revenue. We could use it.”

Curvy’s tone was defensive, but unfortunately, he spoke the truth. The wide highway that had been built through Desperado, basically dividing farmland that had been in families for generations, hadn’t brought the business to the town that they had hoped. The Stagecoach Inn didn’t see many customers. The local shops the townspeople had opened along the creek hadn’t seen as much business as they needed—though they’d managed to turn the creek into a small attraction for road-weary travelers. But that was mostly in the summer. A movie set would give Desperado some luster and bragging rights for certain, all year round.

“Unless you just want our town to be a place where strangers stop to take a piss, we need to at least give this a shot,” Pick added belligerently.

Sloan sighed. “All right. She wouldn’t be in the movie industry if she couldn’t handle a character like Cody. We’ll send her.”

Pick and Curvy grinned at Sloan’s begrudging consent.

“But,” he added, before either man could celebrate too much, “you pay her lodging at the Stagecoach for as long as she cares to stay in Desperado.” He held up his hand at the sputtering expressions in front of him. “I’m serious about this. I wash my hands of the whole mess, but I don’t want this Nixon gal completely thrown, Mayor. You send her out to beard Cody, and by golly, you can at least reach into the city funds to pay for her room and board while she’s here. The city can afford the food one little bitty lady can eat.” His tone left no room for argument.

“One of us ought to at least go with her.” Pick didn’t look enthused by the prospect.

“Yeah.” Sloan got to his feet. “You tell Miss Nixon you’ve thought of the perfect place for her film, and then one of
you
will escort her to the Aguillar Ranch.”

It was half-past five on a humid July evening. Cody had been riding fence checking on his steers, a prospect which was depressing in this heat. Everything that required water to live was suffering. Surely the drought of five years ago had been a stunt Mother Nature wouldn’t repeat this soon? No matter how hardy his steers were, he hated to think of the beef market bottoming out again. He knew several members of the farming community just might not be able to hang on to their livelihood for one more round of life-parching summer.

He sat down in the kitchen, reaching for a glass of tea, when someone knocked at the front door. Waiting a moment to see if his mother or his niece, Mary, would answer, Cody got up heavily and went to do it himself.

The woman on his front porch took his breath away in a startling way. “Yes?” he demanded brusquely.

She shifted, her gray eyes large in her face as she met his stare. “I’m looking for Cody Aguillar.”

“I’m Cody.” He had never seen hair so wild, so purple. It was stuffed up under something made of a flowery velvet that might once have been a hat of sorts, but which now resembled a rag. He wondered why she wore such a creation in this heat.

“My name’s Stormy Nixon. I have something I’d like to talk to you about.” She seemed uncertain as to whether that was still the case. “Did Sloan…I mean, Sheriff McCallister call you to say that I was coming?”

Cody shrugged. “Not that I know of. I’ve been out all day.”

“Oh. Well, I just left his office about thirty minutes ago. I got a little lost, or I would have been here sooner.”

Cody didn’t know what to say to that. He looked over her head, which wasn’t hard since she had to be all of about five foot two, and saw a compact rental car.

“Your friends, Pick and Curvy, offered to bring me out here, but I wanted to come alone. Maybe I should have let them show me the way.”

“They’re not my friends.” At her perplexed expression, he said, “What can I do for you?”

“I want to talk to you about a movie we’re interested in doing here in Desperado.”

“I don’t go to movies.” Though her unusual appearance had caught his attention at first—particularly those wide-legged, flowing pants with the wild-flower pattern—there was no reason for her to linger on his porch. He had more work to be done, and no time for movies. “I’m sorry. If you’ll excuse me—”

“Mr. Aguillar,” she said quickly, “perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. Sheriff McCallister, and, um, Pick and Curvy—I do have that right, don’t I?”

He shrugged, promising himself to lecture Pick and Curvy sternly for sending a strange woman to his house. Those old men had nothing better to do than mind other folks’ business.

“Well,” she said, exasperated now, “the sheriff, the mayor and one other man seemed to think that you might be interested in letting Global Studios make a movie on your land. You
have
heard of Global Studios, haven’t—?”

“Lady—”

“Stormy Nixon,” she inserted swiftly. “How do you do?”

“I was doing just fine until you came along. Your time has been wasted, in a no-doubt well-meaning way. I would not be interested in discussing any movie, even if it was being filmed on the moon, but I sure as hell am not remotely dumb enough to let my land be used for such a thing. You’ve been sent on a wild-goose chase, and if I were you, I would head back down to see Curvy and Pick and tell them to think of someone else for you to play this little joke on.”

She drew herself up in astonished indignation. “I assure you, Mr. Aguillar, this is no joke.” Reaching into an enormous flowered handbag which looked more like a gypsy travel sack, she pulled out a business card and handed it to him. “We would offer you a substantial amount of money for the use of your land. It would be for a short time, only a few months—”

“I’m sorry.” He handed the business card back. When she wouldn’t take it, he slid it into the open mouth of the gypsy carpetbag. “I don’t have a few months to spare. I have a ranch to run. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“Mr. Aguillar. Please. Won’t you just hear me out?” Big, gray-iris eyes gazed at him earnestly.

The phone rang, cutting off any chance she might have to plead her case. “I’m sorry. Good night, ma’am.” Silently, he closed the door and went to answer the phone.

“Hello?”

“Cody?”

“Sloan. Tell me you did not send that woman to my house.”

“Oh, damn. Has she already been there?”

“Hell, yes, and I just sent her on her way.”

“I got tied up with a—never mind. I meant to warn you she was coming.”

“Warn is right. Where the
hell
did she come from?” He’d never seen anyone quite like her. Sure, he was mighty used to blue jeans and boots on a woman, but he could go for a pair of decent pants or a church dress. What that tiny woman had been wearing, as she tottered on ridiculously high, purple-sandaled feet, was so incongruous on his farm he’d had to work hard not to stare.

It didn’t bear remembering that her waist had been so small he could have wrapped one palm around her and carried her off. She’d had delicate face bones, and beautiful full lips.

“Hollywood.” Sloan’s voice was dry as it sounded like he was trying not to laugh. “I hope you didn’t scare her, Cody.”

“Scare her? She scared
me
.”

“A little bitty ol’ lady like that scared you?” Sloan didn’t bother to hide his laughter now. “What is it your brother-in-law calls you? A cigar-store Indian?”

“Very damn funny.” Cody didn’t appreciate Sloan’s insinuation that Stormy might have had reason to be startled by his own appearance. “Don’t send any more strange females out my way, Sloan. Especially strange ones with stupid ideas.”

“Well, now, wait a minute, Cody. What’s so stupid about her proposition?”

“It’s stupid because it’s my land they’re thinking they’re going to use, and if I find out you sicced them on me—”

“No, it was Pick and Curvy. But then I started thinking maybe you just might be interested.”

Cody’s jaw dropped. “Why would I be interested in a bunch of city yahoos squatting on my land, throwing trash and scaring my steers?”

“I meant,
interested in the woman
.”

For a second, Cody was so stunned he couldn’t reply. “Have you lost your damn mind, Sloan?”

“Don’t think so, last I checked. It was just a thought, and I guess it was a bad one, so never mind.”

“What was just a thought?”

“That you might find her interesting. She’s kinda cute, if you like nutty.”

“When have I ever been attracted to nutty?” Cody demanded.

“When was the last time you were attracted to anyone?” Sloan countered.

“I—well, I— That’s none of your damn business! You stick to gunslinging, and I’ll stick to ranching, and we just might stay friends.” It was outrageous that Sloan, one of maybe a handful of people he trusted, would pull this on him. “While we’re on the subject, why not you, my friend? Since you obviously thought she was worth eyeballing.”