Three Men and a Bounty (2 page)

And, as Cooper’s partner, he knew he would have been next had he stayed in town a minute longer, so he’d hightailed it out of there.

Christ, he was so tired of running. He felt like he had been running all his life.

At Whitfield Ranch, he thought he had found a home. The owner liked him without wanting him and respected a man who knew his job and could do it well. It hadn’t stopped him from letting Chris go the minute trouble had broken out between Chris and some other hands who’d wanted to
teach him a lesson.

Chris straightened now as much as he could before pushing in the swinging doors of Barrow’s. He paused just inside and took in his surroundings as the doors flapped behind him.

The atmosphere proved a drastic change of pace from the outside.

Most of the change was pleasant, especially the lack of water. Chris still shivered, the chill afflicting him bone deep.

He took a yawning breath, and his bruised lungs instantly reacted to the smoke-filled room, which had him fitfully coughing. He haltingly made his way toward the bar, but one of the young painted ladies of the establishment hooked an arm through one of his and waylaid him.

She steered him toward a corner table where she pushed him down into one of the bar’s few empty chairs. When Chris tried to rise, she straddled his thighs, showing a healthy bit of leg as she lifted her ruffled skirts.

Chris felt his cheeks heat at the sight of her colorfully hued petticoats beneath.

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He had been away so long he’d forgotten how plumb brazen some of the saloon girls could be. He understood the necessity, though the girl’s womanly wiles didn’t affect him the way they might another man in his situation. Chris was more embarrassed for her than stimulated. He was much more taken with his view of the saloon’s owner wiping down the mahogany bar with a dingy white cloth several feet away than he was by what was under the saloon girl’s petticoats.

Chris licked his cracked lips as Troy pierced him with a look. His shaft hardened in his pants, and his balls grew heavy and tight.

The saloon girl took his chin in one hand and turned his head to face her. “I’m Hannah, and you look like you could use some tender loving care, cowboy.” With her other hand, she slyly fondled his bulge and made him gasp.

Hannah smiled, obviously believing his condition a response to her attentions and not the man tending bar behind her. And this was good, because no one needed to know about his hopeless infatuation, his dangerous infatuation.

“Tell me where it hurts, and I’ll kiss it and make it all better.”

Chris winced as he caught the girl beneath the arms and lifted her up off his lap to stand on her feet in front of him. He stood then, trying to soften the blow of rejection when he tenderly cupped her face. She wasn’t peddling something he wanted, but he saw no reason to hurt the little filly’s feelings.

“Just a drink will do me fine, ma’am.” He left her gaping like a fish on land and once more headed for the bar.

A large hand landed on Chris’ shoulder and spun him around before another hand fisted the front of his already crumpled and weather-beaten shirt.

“I think you owe the little lady an apology.”

Chris stiffened at the sight of the big, ruddy-faced owner of the hands as the unfamiliar cowpuncher teetered in front of him. He didn’t think he could handle the puncher on a normal day when he
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wasn’t all beaten up and sore, so he certainly didn’t think he could do it now. The man outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds.

“Bart, don’t you be starting no trouble. You know what kind of establishment I run here,” Troy said from behind the bar, fists on his hips.

“That’s why I’m conversing with the varmint. He mistreated my Hannah.”

“I’m not yours, Bart. And the kid ain’t done nothing of the sort.”

“So it’s settled,” Troy said. “Pull in your horns, go back to your little card game, and call it a day.”

“Well, I’m begging to differ,” Bart said.

“Are we having some difficulty here?”

Chris turned at the sound of the deep, commanding voice coming from the table adjacent the bar. He saw the tall, dark man standing there with a black Stetson worn low over his brow and a matching trail duster covering most of the rest of him. He cut a powerful, imposing figure.

Slowly, the man lifted his head and separated the folds of his coat to reveal a shiny U.S. Deputy Marshal’s badge pinned to his vest as well as a holstered Colt pistol, butt forward.

The sound of several men scrambling to their feet and backing away from the numerous tables on the barroom floor echoed throughout the room. The saloon’s piano player abandoned his instrument to join Barrow’s other denizens running for cover.

Chris had lead feet, though. He didn’t know whether he was more entranced by the fact that the lawman was a Negro or that he was the most beautiful man Chris had ever seen in his life—colored
or
white.

Chris caught himself staring and closed his mouth before anyone else noticed.

Of course everyone else stared themselves so they probably wouldn’t notice him staring.

Towering over most of the men in the saloon except the owner, the marshal had to be at least a few inches over six feet. And, with the
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wide breadth of his shoulders, he would stand out anywhere, even among his own people, but he especially stood out at Barrow’s.

“Ain’t no difficulty. I’m just settling a disagreement with the shorthorn here,” Bart said.

“From what I can see, the young’un’s not heeled and doesn’t look like he wants any trouble, so why don’t you back off and leave him be?”

“And why don’t you mind your business,
lawman?
”

The marshal didn’t flinch as Bart turned on him with a sneer, one hand on the butt of his holstered Dewey. The marshal had already drawn and cocked his own weapon, though.

Thanks to Cooper, Chris demonstrated pretty good skills with a firearm, but nowhere near as fast as the marshal. He’d wager not many gunslingers in this town were much faster, either, then he glanced back at the bar and saw that Troy had soundlessly drawn his rifle, too.

Bart looked from each man, glowering as he turned to Chris and motioned to draw his weapon.

Chris didn’t move. He didn’t have a chance to move before a shot rang out, the bullet striking Bart’s hand and forcing him to drop his gun.

“Next one’s in your head, and I won’t miss.”

“No, marshal, please. He’s just roostered. He didn’t mean no harm.” Hannah came to the cowpuncher’s rescue, catching the marshal around the arm to make her plea.

The marshal tipped his hat at the saloon girl, never taking his eyes off of Bart as he addressed her. “If you’re sure, ma’am.”

“Bart can be a real donkey’s tail sometimes, but he ain’t a hard case.”

“Since the lady’s vouching for you, I won’t take you down to the hoosegow to cool your heels. You’re going to have to leave your gun behind and leave the saloon for the night, though.”

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Bart shuffled his feet, murmuring an oath before he raised his head to eyeball the lawman. “I’ll be going then.”

“I don’t want to see you in here again starting any trouble.”

“Oh, you won’t see me.”

“You can get this back from the sheriff’s office.”

Bart looked at his gun the marshal had retrieved from the floor and gritted his teeth. It wasn’t until he had grudgingly spun on his heels and headed for the swinging doors that Chris realized he had come so close to being shot down in a barroom brawl.

All his life he had tried to avoid trouble like this, but his time on God’s green earth had taught him that trouble found him when he wasn’t looking for it.

“You’re shivering.”

Chris almost jumped out of his skin when Troy wrapped an arm around his shoulders and led him to the same chair Hannah had dragged him to earlier. He hadn’t even heard the man come from behind the bar. “Hannah, can you get me a towel and ask Josie if she’ll draw him a nice hot bath in one of the upstairs rooms.”

“Sure will, Troy.”

Chris watched as Hannah hopped to follow Troy’s orders, his heart expanding at the care and attention everyone showed him.

“You got everything under control?” the marshal asked, coming a couple of steps closer.

“I suspect so,” Troy said.

“I’ll be taking my leave then.”

Chris watched as the marshal tipped his hat and turned to head for the doors. Feeling desperate and as if he were about to lose his best friend, he blurted, “What’s your name?”

The marshal turned back and looked at him, full lips lifting at one corner in a rakish way that made the butterflies in Chris’ stomach flutter and his shaft harden the way it did when he looked at Troy.

What was going
on
?

“James Hayden.”

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“Thanks, Marshal Hayden.”

“James is fine.”

“I’d like to show my appreciation, too, James. How about a drink on the house?” Troy offered.

The marshal hesitated for just a moment before saying, “I’d best be on my way.”

Chris didn’t realize he held his breath until the lawman turned to leave.

“The offer’s always open,” Troy called as the lawman waved at them over his shoulder and headed for the swinging doors.

Chris’ disappointment left his lungs in a long and louder-than-he’d-meant sigh.

“I know what you mean, kid,” Troy murmured, and when Chris turned to him, he saw the surprise on the older man’s face, as if he hadn’t expected anyone to hear him.

Did
Troy know what he meant? Could he possibly know that he, and now James Hayden, turned Chris inside-out with hankering?

Troy cleared his throat, then put a hand on Chris’ shoulder and squeezed. “Let’s get you out of these wet clothes and into a hot bath before you catch your death.”

“You’ll get no arguments from me.”

“Good to hear.” Troy smiled, and the sight was liked to set Chris on fire. The man had dimples that went from here to the next county, kind of a match for the marshal’s cleft chin, come to think of it.

James Hayden.

Chris tried the name on for size in his mind. He liked the way it sounded. He would have liked nothing better than to call it in the throes of passion as James pounded away inside him.

He closed his eyes to better visualize the fantasy and wasn’t surprised when he saw Troy in the fantasy, too, with Chris sandwiched between the two larger men. The contrast between James’s mahogany skin and Chris and Troy’s fairer complexions
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made his stomach lurch and his cock jerk with longing in his ragged jeans.

Thinking like
that
had gotten him in trouble at Whitfield’s. Best
not
to think like that.

“You might want to have a doctor look at those ribs, son.”

Chris jerked up his head at Troy’s husky voice, lifting his eyebrows in question.

“I saw you favoring your side when you first walked in.”

And here Chris thought he had hidden his pain so well. “I’ll be all right.”

“Eventually, yep. It looks to me like you took a pretty good licking, though.”

He wondered what Troy would say to the other things that had happened to him. What would Troy say if he knew what had led to his being out on the road all alone with his war bag and horse, easy prey for petty thieves?

Would he be sympathetic or believe that Chris had deserved what he got? That someone like him, who yearned the way he did, should be punished?

Hannah came back down the circular staircase, panting and holding the front of her ruffled skirt up to keep from tripping over it.

“Josie said you can send him up whenever he’s ready.”

Troy nodded and bent to circle Chris’ waist with an arm, helping him to his feet. Hannah mimicked the act on his opposite side, and between them, Chris headed for the staircase until Troy released him after climbing the first couple of steps.

“I’m going to leave you in Hannah and Josie’s capable hands for now. When you finish up, come on down and we’ll get you something to eat and then talk about a job.”

He must look pretty darn pitiful and needy that Troy knew he would ask.

Chris nodded, unable to get any words past the lump in his throat.

He’d admittedly wanted Troy’s kindness, but after all the violence
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and cruelty that had been dished out to him in the last forty-eight hours, he hadn’t expected it. Between Troy’s generosity and Marshal Hayden saving his life, Chris counted himself one lucky waif.

He figured he’d look pretty darn ungrateful if he asked for anything else, but he wanted nothing more than to ask Troy if he would be coming up to check on him at all rather than him coming back downstairs.

“What do I call you, pardner?”

Chris turned at the sound of Troy’s voice, and his heart did a little dance in his chest at the sight of the man standing behind the bar.

Troy looked so capable and every bit as dangerous as he had when he’d pulled his rifle on Bart. A man would certainly think twice before dry-gulching
him
on the road. He didn’t think Troy would ever do anything to call for him being alone on a deserted road with nothing but his horse for company, though. He was too smart for that and probably had a lot more common sense than Chris.

Common sense would have told him to keep his distance, take the bath and meal offered but hightail it out of there as soon as possible.

Maybe he should try to get a job somewhere else far, far away from a man he wanted as fiercely as he wanted Troy Barrow.

No one had ever accused him of having common sense, though.

“Name’s Christopher Michaels,” Chris murmured. “You can call me Chris.”

“I’m Troy Barrow, but you probably already knew that.” He grinned and the sight hit Chris in the chest like a hammer. Before he could confirm or deny his knowledge, Troy continued. “See you when you’re done.”