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A Cowboy's Heart
Liz Ireland
Will Brockett Certainly Had His Hands FullHis ex-fiancee had up and married while he'd been out on a cattle drive. Then she'd run away from her new husband, and as the town's part-time sheriff, it was up to Will to rescue her, and keep the residents of Possum Trot happy knowing that he was watching out for them.Now, to top it all off, his best friend, Paulie Johnson, had discarded her riding togs for a fancy dress and suddenly started looking like prime wife material. Poor Will was beginning to wonder just what was going to happen next!


“I guess it’s a little silly to be discussing all this with you,” Will said. “I doubt you’ve ever fallen in or out of love.” (#ucc11fed3-d1b8-50ac-9856-ac1880f146af)Letter to Reader (#u00984ac9-47f1-569f-86a0-ddf492c967c9)Title Page (#u7fe17222-2c8b-55a3-b92a-c1393cbe1e46)About the Author (#ue2fb9e77-f524-5b20-959e-67080b215422)Dedication (#u9fa39100-8b29-5c4b-b55a-4533f608514d)Chapter One (#u96bbd384-0abc-5867-ba26-06f6bc896592)Chapter Two (#u93ba48fb-4644-507d-9f1e-113a1ca1f85b)Chapter Three (#u00733452-8b6e-5b36-befb-2b6826d67f23)Chapter Four (#u94c3dca9-b5a6-5c8f-afb3-f1215d938a69)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“I guess it’s a little silly to be discussing all this with you,” Will said. “I doubt you’ve ever fallen in or out of love.”
The words rubbed Paulie’s fur the wrong way. Why was Will blind to the fact that she’d been crazy about him for years?
Never been in love? How could he just assume such a thing?
“That just shows how smart you are!” she said tartly.
“You don’t know the first thing about me; Will!”
He turned to her, his eyes wide with surprise. “Well, have you?”
Now that she’d started, she wasn’t going to back down. “If you must know, I have,” she said, tossing her head back defiantly. “Deeply in love.”
“Who is the object of all this love you claim to have stored up? Is it somebody I know?”
“I’d say you know him pretty well, Will Brockett,” she said. “In fact, sometimes I think it’s the person you care most about in the world!”
Dear Reader,
Heroes come in many forms, as this month’s books prove—from the roguish knight and the wealthy marquess to the potent gunslinger and the handsome cowboy.
Handsome wrangler Will Brockett will lasso your affection in A Cowboy’s Heart, a darling new Western by award-winning author Liz Ireland, who writes both historical and contemporary romances for Harlequin. Be prepared to laugh out loud as you watch the guilt-ridden Will try to rescue the fiancée he jilted, with the help of a plucky tomboy who is determined to have him notice her. Don’t miss the sparks flying!
Fans of roguish knights will adore Ross Lion Sutherland and the lovely female clan leader he sets his sights on in Taming the Lion, the riveting new SUTHERLAND SERIES medieval novel by the talented Suzanne Barclay. You must meet Nicholas Stanhope, the magnificent Marquess of Englemere in The Wedding Gamble by newcomer Julia Justiss. Keep some hankies near as the tension builds between two friends who “marry for convenience” and must deny their love.
Rounding out the month is the irresistible Sheriff Delaney, a mysterious ex-gunslinger who inherits a house—and a lovely young widow—in The Marriage Knot by Mary McBride.
Whatever your tastes in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historicals
novel.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farrell
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Harlequin Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
A Cowboy’s Heart
Liz Ireland




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
LIZ IRELAND
lives in her native state of Texas, a place she feels gives her a never-ending supply of colorful characters. Aside from writing romance novels and tending to two very demanding cats and a guard dachshund, she enjoys spending time reading history or cozying up with an old movie.
For James and Dana and Will
Chapter One
South Texas, 1883
Trip Peabody would have trouble staying on a horse if somebody glued him onto the saddle. At least, that was Paulie Johnson’s assessment of the man’s abilities as she watched Trip limp back into Possum Trot leading Feather by the reins. The man just didn’t have the gift of balance. Staying permanently upright, whether on horseback or afoot, was a skill he had never been able to perfect.
Paulie, who had been tilting back in her chair on the porch of the Dry Wallow saloon, enjoying the brisk winter morning, brought the front legs of her chair down with a crash and hopped to her feet. “Land’s sake, Trip,” she called out. “Don’t tell me you walked Feather all the way to Fort Stockton and back.”
Trip let out one of his thin wheezes that passed for a laugh. “Couldn’t have made it back this fast if I had, now could I?”
She had sent Trip off four days ago to deposit the Dry Wallow’s money in a bank in Fort Stockton, and to see when they might be getting some whiskey. If not soon, she would have to take a wagon and go fetch some herself. Supplies were low—down to tequila, mostly—and she’d already raised the prices high enough that men were starting to grumble. She didn’t want a riot on her hands.
But she wasn’t much fond of travelling, either. Maybe Trip had good news. “I hope that horse threw you because you had other things on your mind—like where we’re gonna put all the whiskey that’s comin’ our way.”
Trip shook his head. “Nope.”
Paulie sighed. “Darn that old fool, Oat Murphy!”
Oat, their whiskey trader since Paulie’s father had started the saloon at the end of the war, had gone and gotten himself married. And not just married to anybody, but to Mary Ann Redfern, the prettiest, most sought-after girl for sixty miles. This was an especially amazing feat considering that Oat, who was on the sad side of sixty, had no teeth and a curmudgeonly personality; and the last time Paulie had seen him, the man looked like he hadn’t said hello to a cake of soap since Christmas.
“It’s still the talk all along the road, Paulie,” Trip informed her, as if she needed to be told. Oat’s marital windfall would be big news around these parts for years. “Heck, people talk about Oat marryin’ almost as much as they talk about that durn renegade Night Bird killin’ the three men with the railroad payroll. Seems Oat’s even given up drinkin‘ whiskey, much less train’ it. Says he has to be a respectable man now that he has a respectable gal.”
“Land’s sake!” she exclaimed. “What’s he gonna do for money? Mary Ann doesn’t eat respectability, I’ll bet.”
Trip shrugged. “He’ll probably try to get himself a herd and start a cattle outfit of some kind.”
Paulie shook her head. Men definitely lacked imagination! “We’ve already got more cows than sense around here. Why doesn’t he try growin’ turnips or something useful?”
At her peculiar question, Trip staggered slightly and nearly fell off the lowest step of the Dry Wallow’s porch. The effort it took to right himself seemed to put him in mind of another puzzling question that had thrown him off balance. “Say, I wonder what Will’s gonna think about Mary Ann’s gettin’ married.”
Will! Paulie had been wondering the same thing herself. Will Brockett had been sweet on Mary Ann Redfern for years, which was no mystery—every man within three counties was sweet on pretty Mary Ann. But Will had the edge over all the others because not only was he good-looking, he was also a friend of the family. Shoot, while old Gerald Redfern had been alive, Will had been like a member of the family. He lived at the Redfern place, worked there, and was a favorite of Gerald’s. Gerald had been a lawyer back in Louisiana who through some misplaced romanticism had decided late in life to try his hand at ranching out West. Everyone knew that there was no man the Redferns would rather see Mary Ann hitched to than Will.
But Gerald had been gone for three years, dead of pneumonia. A year later his wife had married a man, Mr. Breen, who raised a lot of chickens, and Will had started driving cattle up to Kansas every season. Every winter, he had the dubious distinction of being Possum Trot’s sheriff.
But he was, to Paulie’s mind, the best-looking thing that ever wore boots, on top of being her favorite person in the whole world. Seven months he had been gone, and every hour of every day of every month had held a twinge of lonesomeness without him there. Paulie was beginning to think the hollow feeling in her chest was bound to be permanent. “Will’s been gone so long, he might never be coming back,” she said mournfully.
“Oh, I guess we’ll see him soon enough,” Trip said. “In Fort Stockton I heard that he’d been seen over in San Antonio.”
Paulie sucked in a sharp breath. The news almost made her light-headed. “Will, back in Texas?” she asked, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.
“High time. He’s been gone since spring.”
And now it was November. That meant Will would probably stick on his badge and winter in Possum Trot again. It wasn’t much of a town, so they didn’t really need a sheriff, but it was nice to have one occasionally. Especially with that outlaw Night Bird prowling around. Especially when the sheriff was Will Brockett!
Of course, in Paulie’s opinion, the man could just sit on the Dry Wallow’s porch all day whittling a stick and she’d still call him brilliant. She had been sweet on Will Brockett since she’d first clapped eyes on him. But she’d been a little kid then, and he hadn’t paid attention to her. Then, as she grew older, and even after her father died and left her the Dry Wallow saloon, he seemed to view her more as a figure of fun than of romance. He liked to banter with her, but she knew he didn’t take her seriously.
“Good old Will.” She sighed as her heart fluttered in her chest.
But Trip was once again preoccupied with the topic of the century. “I still can’t believe Mary Ann couldn’t do no better than Oat Murphy,” he said, tugging at one corner of his bushy mustache. He took one of the porch steps and nearly landed flat on his face. “It’s got me thinkin’ though.”
“About what?” Paulie asked, barely able to get her mind off Will for one minute. He’d been seen already...in San Antonio! She felt like dancing a whoop-de-jig,
“Well...” Trip conjectured slowly, “if Oat can win a girl like Mary Ann, seems like I should at least be able to rate Tessie Hale.”
Paulie rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Trip, I bet Tessie Hale’s been waiting for you to propose to her since I was in diapers. I swear, you men are so thick it’s a wonder anything can stir you up. I’m surprised that poor widow didn’t despair and propose to Oat herself years ago.”
Trip’s eyes widened in panic at the notion. “That would be terrible!”
“Well relax, it can’t happen now.”
He let out a breath. “That’s right. Oat’s married to Mary Ann.”
It was such a hard idea to swallow! Beautiful, spoiled Mary Ann and Oat Murphy!
“I wonder what made her do it,” Paulie said, joining Trip in rumination. Will would surely be disappointed to find his sweetheart married to a toothless old whiskey man.
“People are sayin’ that Mary Ann started gettin’ restless. She never did like that chicken rancher stepfather of hers none. Called him Mr. Chicken. They’re. also sayin’ that maybe she got scared with Night Bird in the area and all, on account of her blond hair. She thought he’d prize her scalp.”
“She would!” Paulie scoffed. “Mary Ann thinks everybody loves that yellow hair of hers. Trouble is, nobody seems to hold it in as much esteem as Mary Ann does herself.”
Trip laughed. “Still and all, somebody said she was afraid Night Bird was going to come after her.”
At the thought of the mysterious Comanche renegade who had been plaguing the area, Paulie let out a sigh of thanks that he had caused her no harm—yet. Twice she had awakened in the night, only to discover the next morning that there were bottles missing from the bar downstairs. Given the Indian’s reputation, she would gladly sacrifice a few bottles in exchange for her scalp.
Except now Oat wasn’t ever going to bring a shipment. That was troubling. Her stock was running low. Business had declined with Night Bird roaming the area, but it would slam to an absolute standstill if she had nothing to sell.
Yet it was hard to keep her mind on those problems for two minutes. Will was coming home!
And now, without Mary Ann to distract him, maybe he would notice her more, Paulie thought. She looked down at her rough clothes—men’s clothes—and began to worry. Will had always made fun of her for dressing like a man, and now she didn’t have anything else to wear. Coincidentally, Trip was giving himself a good onceover, too—no doubt wondering what the widow Hale would think of the worn-out rags he called clothes. Not much, Paulie was sure. She and Trip had fallen a few notches below stylishness sometime in the past decade.
“I wonder if Dwight has any duds my size,” Trip said. He was tall and lanky and always looked awkward in the clothes he got from Dwight’s Mercantile, the only other business in Possum Trot.
“I know he doesn’t have a dress,” Paulie said with a little despair.
“What call would I have for one of those things?” Trip asked.
“I meant for me, chowderhead.”
Trip’s eyes widened. “A dress? Why, you haven’t worn one of those since...” He scratched his head. “Since I don’t know when!”
“My last one split a seam back in seventy-eight.” She shrugged. She’d never been handy with a needle, and so never replaced the dress. Instead, she wore boots, breeches, and plain cotton shirts, just like all the men who came into the Dry Wallow saloon. Of course, her father wouldn’t have approved, but he’d been gone six years now. And the change in her apparel had proved good for business. After a while, people got used to seeing her dressed that way, and became more comfortable doing business with an eccentric woman than a feminine one. She owned the only saloon for thirty miles, and business thrived.
As had her feelings for Will Brockett. She wished she could do something that would make him sit up and take notice of her. “I wish my hair was blond instead of dirtcolored.” Mary Ann’s hair was the color of corn silk.
Trip assessed her appearance, from her worn-out boots and loose britches up to the crown of her hair, which she wore in a simple long braid down her back. “It ain’t so much dirt, maybe, as wood-colored,” he said encouragingly.
“Thanks, Trip.”
“At least you ain’t gone gray,” he moped, pushing his hat forward self-consciously. “I guess I look pretty old.”
“I hate to break the news to you, Trip, but Tessie’s practically white-headed herself now. I doubt she’d hold your age against you.”
“Still...” Trip shook his head.
Paulie leaned against the porch rail and let out her breath. “Oh, I guess we’re pretty silly to be sitting out here worrying about how we look at this late date. Nothing’s gonna turn my stump-colored hair blond any more than you’ll ever get your old brown locks back.”
Trip eyed her suspiciously. “Who’re you tryin’ to impress?”
“Nobody,” Paulie answered quickly. If Trip ever found out the extent of her feelings for Will, she’d never hear the end of it. “Can’t a person just wish she was blond once in a while?”
A picture entered her mind, of herself, dressed like a real lady in some shiny kind of material—maybe real silk, even. She was at a ball, the kind she’d only read about in some of her father’s books, and Will was there, too, handsome as ever. He took her hand, which was mercifully free of unsightly freckles, and lifted it gently to his lips. Then he sent her one of those naughty grins of his. Laughing flirtatiously, with her free hand Paulie tapped him on the shoulder with her fan...
“Paulie?”
At the insistent sound of Trip’s voice, Paulie shook her head. “Huh?”
“I said, I think I’ll go home. Maybe even clean up a bit.”
She felt one of her eyebrows dart up. “You goin’ courtin’ tonight?”
He stiffened, his expression immediately turning defensive. “Did I say anything about courtin’? Can’t a body just get clean after a long trip just to...to get clean?”
Paulie shrugged. “You were just talking about Tessie, so naturally...”
“Yeah, well, that road from Fort Stockton was dusty. You might want a bath, too. We’re both a sight, Paulie. Rough people for a rough country.”
That was the truth. Here she was daydreaming of dazzling Will, when really she was on her way to becoming a female version of poor Trip Peabody. And like Trip, she would probably never work up the courage to admit her feelings to the object of her affection.
Then again, her father had always said that nothing was hopeless until you gave up hope. Paulie liked to think of herself as an optimist. Now that Mary Ann was out of the picture, she just had to think of a way to make Will notice her. And, though it might not have been the most practical dream in the world, she couldn’t help hoping that once he did notice her, he would never want to look at another woman again.
“There has to be a way...”
“Way to what?” Trip asked curiously.
“To gussy ourselves up,” she said. To his continued quizzical stare she added, “Well, do you want to impress Tessie Hale or don’t you?”
“Why sure,” he agreed eagerly, nearly slipping off the bar stool. “But what I’m curious to know is, why do you want to impress her?”
Paulie rolled her eyes. “Have another drink, Trip.”
Will couldn’t take his eyes off her. He knew he was staring at Paulie Johnson, but she looked so different, so...strange. All at once, it seemed as if this tiny corner of the world had gone mad.
Possum Trot had always had its eccentricities.
But even given Will’s tolerance for strangeness bred of years of living in Possum Trot, he wasn’t prepared for the odd sight of Paulie Johnson prancing around in a frilly white dress.
He stood in the door several minutes, perfectly aware that he was gaping at her as she dried glasses behind the bar. Then at last, she looked up and saw him. She sucked in a breath and her green eyes sparked with joy, but all Will could focus on was her hair, which he had somehow managed to miss right up to this moment. Lord, it looked like somebody had taken an eggbeater to it!
In a frenzy of frills and frizzy hair, Paulie practically leapt over the bar in her hurry to get to him. “Will Brockett!” she cried, launching herself at him in her old exuberant way. “Will—it’s really you!”
“Of course it’s me,” he said. Will allowed himself to be squeezed nearly to death, then held her out at arm’s distance. “The question is, is that really you?”
She smiled, and did a lively, if not exactly graceful, pirouette for him. “Like it?”
He couldn’t help staring slack-jawed at her, his amazement utterly unchecked. “What is it?” he asked, gaping at the layers and layers of frills covering her.
Offense sparked in her eyes. “A dress!”
Paulie? In a dress? He wasn’t quite comfortable with the idea. And she didn’t look particularly comfortable herself.
“What happened to your britches?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she answered testily. “I’ve still got ’em. Can’t a girl wear a dress around here every once in a while?”
“Well sure, but...where in tarnation did you get such an outfit?” It looked like the sort of dress women had worn years and years ago, before the war, when he was a boy. “I know Dwight doesn’t keep his stock up-to-date over at the mercantile, but...”
Paulie frowned and planted her fists on her slim hips—although they didn’t seem so slim given her ridiculously flared skirts. “It’s not from Dwight’s. It was my mother’s.”
“Are you actually wearing a hoop skirt?” he asked in amazement, using his toe to investigate exactly what was beneath those voluminous skirts.
With a scowl, Paulie slapped his leg away. “Of course! I’d look pretty silly without it,” she said.
She looked pretty silly with it, but Will didn’t dare voice the rejoinder on the tip of his tongue. Paulie, engulfed in flounces, ribbons, bows and lace, already appeared defensive, her pert chin tilting belligerently. From past experience, he knew that once in a fighting mood, Paulie could be a tough one to wrangle with. And in her current state, he didn’t think that would be pleasant at all. Like wrestling a cream puff with claws.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t help asking, “What did you do to your hair?”
Immediately, he knew he’d made a mistake. She scowled. “I curled it, you cowpunching clod!”
“I see.” But while other women sported neat sausagelike ringlets, Paulie’s curls were completely untamed, crimping and sticking out at the oddest places. “Sort of looks like you wound your head around a cactus.”
She drew a hand over her unruly hair and looked at him defiantly. “Well, it’s better than it was!” she said. “I’ve been practicing. I think I’m finally getting the hang of it, actually.”
She stared at him for a few more moments, and the irate expression in her eyes slowly faded, replaced by one of her old huge smiles. She reached out and poked his arm. “Will, it’s good to see you! Come have a drink.”
He crossed the room, feeling strangely disoriented as he walked behind Paulie. Her skirt swayed like a dainty dress, but the square set of her shoulders and the clomping sound he heard every time she took a step made him shake his head. “What are you using for shoes, Paulie?”
She turned, her face a mask of long-suffering frustration. “Wouldn’t you know it—my mother’s feet must have been five sizes littler than my old dogs. So I’m havin’ to wear my work boots!” She lifted her layers of skirt and the hoops and revealed her old scuffed boots.
Will tried to control his mirth. “That’s your mother’s dress?”
She stuck out her chin. “Yes.”
Paulie’s mother had died shortly after the family had moved to Texas. “Why would you have saved that all these years?”
“Well...” She hesitated a moment, a faint blush tinting her cheeks. “Oh, well...it was her wedding dress, so I felt obliged to.”
Will scratched his head in wonder. Paulie, wearing dresses, and blushing? Things in Possum Trot sure had changed!
He eased himself up on a seat at the bar, and for the first time noticed they had company. Trip Peabody was face down at the bar. He was also wearing the most ill-fitting suit Will had ever laid eyes on, with cuffs practically skimming his elbows.
“Trip?” he asked, shaking him. “Trip?” When Trip failed to respond, Will turned back to Paulie. “What happened to him?”
“He’s thinking about courting Tessie Hale,” she said matter-of-factly.
Here was another puzzler. Old Trip had always been half gone for Tessie, but he’d never found it necessary to dress up just to think about it.
“What would you like, Will,” Paulie asked, “tequila, or tequila?”
Will frowned. “Don’t you have any whiskey?”
Paulie looked uncomfortable. “Nope, just tequila.”
Will frowned. “Say...what’s happened around here?”
The expression on Paulie’s face turned from uncomfortable to downright miserable. She opened her mouth to say something, but still she didn’t speak.
“What is it?” Will asked with growing impatience.
“Our whiskey trader sort of...” Her eyes said she would rather talk about anything else. “Well, you remember Oat Murphy, don’t you?”
Of course! Will felt his shoulders fall a few inches. Somehow, seeing Paulie in that strange getup had made him forget his troubles for a few moments. But Oat Murphy was right at the center of them. Now Will felt about as low as Trip.
How could Mary Ann have married that old man? It seemed impossible. He wished it wasn’t true. But it was, apparently, and now there was nothing he could do about it.
Gerald Redfern would probably haunt him for the rest of his days for this, Will feared. The older man’s last breath had been spent asking Will to take care of his wife and daughter. For Will, making the deathbed promise had been easy. He owed Gerald so much—for taking him in when he was a raw youth with no home, giving him a job, treating him like family. There wasn’t a time from the moment he met the Redferns when he hadn’t thought of taking care of Mary Ann. Even after Gerald died, and Mary Ann’s mother had married Mr. Breen, everyone had always assumed he and Mary Ann would marry. Including himself.
Until he’d gone off to Kansas this year. As much as he liked Mary Ann, and was positive that she was the woman he would marry, he’d always known she was a little...well, immature. She tended to be flighty, pouty, and overly whimsical in her ideas. None of these were good characteristics for a ranch wife, and Will wanted to start his own ranch. He had been saving for it for years. He was just waiting till he was good and ready to settle down; actually, he was waiting for that day when he fell in love with Mary Ann and couldn’t stop himself from proposing to her. And yet love, which every man seemed to find at least once in his life—and some cowboys he knew found on a weekly basis—eluded him.
At first Will had thought that Mary Ann would grow out of her childish side. Then they would fall in love. But finally, two months ago, while lying on the hard ground, his bones aching from the discomfort of the trail, he realized he wasn’t getting any younger. And, unfortunately, Mary Ann didn’t appear to be getting any older. And neither of them seemed any closer to being in love with the other. She was still as much a flirt as ever, still putting off the idea of settling down in Possum Trot. A decision had to be made; and the very next day he wrote Mary Ann a letter, telling her they would both be better off if they stopped letting her mother entertain the notion that they would be married one day. He remembered now writing that he would always feel as a brother to her....
Now he could have kicked himself. Some brother! Poor Mary Ann had been alone all autumn, and apparently out of desperation she had turned to the first man who came along. Oat Murphy—a whiskey-stained old geezer. What business did that broken-down wreck have asking a girl half his age to marry him?
A sharp, sickening pang of regret shot through him.
Paulie shoved a jigger of tequila across the bar at him. “Have some Mexican milk. You don’t look so good.” He drank it, and she stared at him evenly. “So...I guess you heard.”
“About Mary Ann?” he asked, stiffly, still not comfortable discussing the topic even after endless practice. “I heard.”
Paulie leaned her elbows on the bar. “I sure am sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said. “If it’s Oat she wanted, then I’m glad she got what she was pining for.”
Paulie tossed her head back. “I don’t think she knew what she wanted. Couple of months ago everybody said she was sweet on some gambler who came through here, a man named Tyler. Your Mary Ann never has been exactly discriminating, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you.”
Paulie ducked her head and refilled his glass. “Well, anyways, I’m sure sorry. I know you set a store by her.”
He looked into Paulie’s eyes, wondering what she would think if he told her the truth. That he was being torn in two directions—relief that he had escaped marrying someone so flighty as Mary Ann, and regret that she had run off with someone so inappropriate. If only she had married Dwight the storekeeper, or...well, just anybody besides Oat. Then he could have rested easy at night, knowing Gerald Redfern wasn’t looking down from Heaven, scowling at him for breaking his promise to look after his daughter.
That’s why he’d come directly here, to the Dry Wallow. Paulie and Trip were always good listeners, and both were adept at putting a man’s head straight, too, most of the time. But now this place was topsy-turvy. Paulie was flouncing around in her late Ma’s wedding dress, and dependable old Trip Peabody was passed out at the bar.
He gave Trip a slap on the shoulder. “Hey, Trip, aren’t you even going to say hello?”
Trip raised one bleary eyelid. “That you, Tessie?”
Will laughed. “Not even close.”
Woozily, the man lifted his head of gray hair off the bar. “Why, it’s Will! Son of a gun!”
The two men shook hands, and Will couldn’t help noticing again the freshly store-bought state of Trip’s clothes. “Those are some stiff new duds you’ve got on, Trip. I don’t see how you were even able to pass out in them.”
“I was just restin’,” Trip said.
Paulie laughed. “He’s been ‘resting’ for two solid days now, trying to screw up the courage to propose to Tessie.”
The awkward silence in the bar stretched almost past bearing. Trip cleared his throat. “So I guess you heard about Mary Ann Redfern.”
“You mean Mary Ann Murphy,” Will said shortly.
Trip nodded. “I guess everybody’s heard.”
Paulie shifted impatiently. “Everybody’s heard too much about those newlyweds, if you want my opinion. The way people talk, you’d think Mary Ann was the only unmarried girl in this county.”
Trip’s eyebrows knitted together, and even Will was intrigued away from brooding by this statement. There weren’t many unattached females in the area, and that was a fact. Now that Mary Ann was out of his life for good, he supposed he would have to give more consideration to these matters.
“There’s the Brakemen twins out north, I suppose,” Trip said.
Will smiled. “What about Tessie Hale?”
Trip shivered nervously.
“But most people consider her accounted for,” Will assured him.
Paulie cleared her throat, patted down her voluminous skirts, and smiled. “Aren’t you two forgetting someone?”
“Tunia Sweeney!” Trip exclaimed. “Nobody’s married her yet.”
Will wrinkled his nose, dismissing the idea. A woman people called Tunia the Tuna wasn’t exactly his dream gal.
“You can’t think of anybody else?” Paulie asked, glaring at them as if they were dumb clucks.
Will shook his head. “Still, even counting Tunia, that leaves pretty slim pickings around here.”
A bottle shattered on the floor, sending glass shards shooting off in all directions.
“Oh, darn!” Paulie yelled. “Look what you made me go and do!”
The two men looked at each other and blinked. “Us?”
“What did we do?” Trip asked.
“Never mind!” Paulie said, bending down to wipe the clear liquid off the floor before sweeping up.
“Well, what are you so lathered up about?” Will asked her.
“I’m just tired of hearing about weddings and courting and such. I swear that’s all you men talk about these days. Don’t you have anything else to keep yourselves occupied?”
“I guess I should start thinking about what I’m going to do now,” Will said.
Trip glanced at him anxiously. “We could sure use a sheriff again with Night Bird roamin’ around.”
Will frowned. He’d had his heart set on starting a ranch. “Night Bird,” he said, repeating the name that he’d heard spoken with fear so often since returning to South Texas. “Is he harassing folks around here?”
“He’s been here several times,” Paulie informed him. Mention of the renegade seemed to have shaken her pettish mood a little. “I haven’t seen him, but he’s taken several bottles of my whiskey.”
“How do you know?” Will asked.
“’Cause they say when he comes you can’t even hear him,” Paulie answered. “Those three railroad men who got their throats slit probably never knew what hit them.”
Trip shivered. “The first one maybe. But I bet the second and third knew right enough what was happening.”
Will frowned. “When it comes to renegades, people are likely to swallow any tall tale.” Granted, some gruesome stories were true, but usually people believed what they wanted to believe. “Folks will blame Night Bird if cattle prices fall,” he said.
Paulie lifted her chin. “He was here. I know it.”
“Maybe,” Will allowed.
“Anyways, we sure could use a lawman hereabouts,” Trip put in again. “I know I’d sleep better.”
“I’ll think about it,” Will said. If he was going to start up that horse ranch, with or without a wife, it would take him a while to get his hands on a place and accumulate stock. He might as well winter in Possum Trot as anywhere else.
“You sound like you aren’t even sure you’re going to stay,” Paulie said, looking at him anxiously. “You know you’re welcome to bed down here, Will. There’s a room in the back, next to Trip’s.”
He looked into Paulie’s shiny green eyes and felt gratitude welling in him. “I’m obliged, Sprout,” he said, using his old nickname for her.
She blushed again and pushed back a lock of frizzy hair that had fallen across one eye. “There’s no obligation, Will. You know that.”
For a moment, he stared at her, rapt by those eyes of hers. He could almost swear there was something different-looking about Paulie—besides the obvious change in her getup. Yet in spite of the shambles her hair was in, it was the same light brown color. Her eyes were the same lively pools. She was still skinny, and still had freckles galore, too. Yet, when taken all together, she seemed...different More frail, more vulnerable almost. He couldn’t explain it.
And then it struck him.
“Say, have you been feeling poorly?”
Paulie blinked at him, seeming to snap out of the same daze he’d been in for the past few minutes. “What?”
He shrugged. “You look different somehow,” he remarked. “I thought maybe you had been sick.”
“Sick!” she cried, sounding offended.
He stared at her quizzically. “What the beck’s gotten into you, Paulie? You didn’t used to be this prickly unless I commented on that freckle crop of yours.”
“I don’t have that many freckles,” she shot back heatedly. “Never did.”
“Ha!” He laughed. “Knit them together and you’d have skin as brown as an overripe berry.”
Her face turned a fiery red. “Why you—”
Before she could explode, and before he had a chance to elaborate on his remark, bootsteps were heard coming up the Dry Wallow’s porch. Paulie was the first to look up to see who their visitor was.
From the look of horror on her face, Will was half expecting Night Bird himself. But when he turned, he found himself staring at someone even more surprising. Oat Murphy.
Oat’s expression was even more hangdog than usual. Will felt a pang of anger rise sharply in his breast. What did that old man have to be sad about?
Paulie was a bit more generous. “Land’s sake, Oat. What’s the matter with you? You look like you just lost your best friend!”
Slowly, the grizzled ex-whiskey trader looked from one to the other of them. His droopy eyes were bloodshot and edgy, and his shoulders slumped even more than usual. Even his gray beard seemed to droop.
“Ain’t my best friend I lost,” he said in his gruff rasp of a voice. “It’s my wife.”
Chapter Two
“You lost Mary Ann?”
Paulie finally found her voice and spoke to Oat, who was clearly embarrassed to have to make such a confession. He shuffled to the bar, where she handed him a glass of tequila. He slugged it down, apparently without a thought to his recent vow to abstain from drinking.
“Sure as shootin’,” Oat grumbled in his terse brand of speech. “Can’t find her. I tell you, I looked everywhere.”
Trip appeared so astounded Paulie was afraid he was going to slip clear off his bar stool. And Will was simply incredulous.
“What do you mean, you lost her?” he asked Oat, looking as if he wanted to throttle the man. Paulie could understand his frustration. Will probably looked on Oat as having won what he had failed to obtain himself. To misplace Mary Ann was careless in the extreme.
But Oat was evidently tired of having to justify his loss. “I mean, she ain’t at home,” he said, frustrated. “Ain’t anywheres that I can tell.” He glanced up at Paulie, and almost as an afterthought, asked, “Ain’t here, is she?”
“I haven’t seen her. Have you, Trip?”
Trip blinked. “Sure haven’t. Not since long before she married you, Oat.”
“That’s it, then.” Oat shrugged. “Just plum lost her.”
Will looked as if he might explode any second. “Wait a cotton pickin’ minute, Oat. You can’t simply lose a woman. Are you sure she didn’t go somewhere?”
Oat shook his head. “Not that she told me.”
“Maybe she went back to Breen’s place to be with her ma for a spell,” Trip suggested.
“First place I looked,” Oat said.
“Could she maybe have had an accident?” Paulie asked.
The old fellow rubbed his tobacco-stained beard and considered this possibility. Finally, he admitted slowly, “Ain’t likely. See, I just woke up one morning and found her missin’. What kind of accident can a woman have in the middle of the night in her own house that would cause her to disappear? The only trip she was liable to take in the night was a short one to the outhouse, but I checked that first thing. Wasn’t there, or anywhere abouts the house.”
Paulie crossed her arms, dismayed. “We didn’t think it likely that she’s been locked up in the outhouse all this time, Oat. When did you lose her?”
“Two days ago.”
“Two days!” Will cried. “Poor Mary Ann’s been gone two days?”
Oat looked defensive. “Well, the first day I waited for her to come back. That night, I started to look around. Next day I started askin‘ around. And today I decided I should come to town and ask here. But as of now, I’m concludin’ she’s lost.”
The three men sitting at the bar bore three different expressions of dumbfoundedness.
“She must have run away,” Paulie explained. “She always did want to go to the city.”
Will shot her a sharp glance. “Then why would she have married Oat and settled down in the country just weeks ago?”
Trip nodded. “He’s got a point there, Paulie.”
Paulie sighed. “This is pure foolishness!” Men were so dense sometimes—especially this crew. She was still steaming from being left out of the tally of marriageable females in the county even as she was parading around in front of them all decked out in a frilly white dress. Now having to explain the obvious to these men irked her in the extreme. “Mary Ann didn’t just disappear. That can’t happen. A body either has to be lost, or snatched, or to run away. I doubt Mary Ann would get lost. She’s lived in these parts for years.”
Oat nodded. “That’s a fact. She was a smart one, too.”
Paulie could have debated him on that point, but felt it would be bad form. The man was grieving, in his own way; he was apt to think of Mary Ann as better than she actually was.
“Did you two ever fight?” Paulie asked him.
“Fight!” Oat let out a bitter laugh. “All we did was fight.”
This news perked up everyone’s ears.
“What about?”
“Didn’t want me to give up my whiskey route.” Oat lifted his shoulders. “But I said, what’s the point of gettin’ hitched, if’n you’re gonna be gone all the time? I was figurin’ on raisin’ some stock and settin’ around the house some. Peaceful like. Gettin’ old, you know.”
That was an undeniable fact, but the strange truth was that the man actually looked older after his few weeks with Mary Ann than he had when he was travelling incessantly around South Texas with a wagonful of liquor.
“Was Mary Ann worried about money?”
Oat nodded. “Yep. So worried about money that she wanted to go with me on my route to make sure I handled things right.”
Paulie and Trip, remembering Mary Ann’s weakness for one passerby, the gambler, exchanged glances. “She mention anyplace in particular on your route?”
Oat downed another glass of tequila and shook his head. “Nope.”
But everybody knew Oat’s route took him as far as San Antonio. And San Antonio was the place that the gambler had been heading. “Say, Trip...” Paulie said, trying to sound casual, “what was the name of that snappy gambler man who came through here last August?”
Despite her attempt to strike a nonchalant chord, Will’s sharp gaze honed in on her immediately.
“Tyler,” Trip said. “Name was Oren Tyler.”
Will scowled. “I don’t like what you two are thinking.”
“Everybody knew she was crazy about him,” Paulie explained. “A real good-lookin’ dude. I heard tell he stopped one night over at Mary Ann’s stepfather’s farm.”
Even Oat remembered him. He nodded enthusiastically. “I remember Mr. Tyler all right.” He looked almost relieved to be solving the mystery of his missing wife, even if the solution pointed to another man. Paulie’s guess was that Oat had been just as ready as Mary Ann to wiggle out of the hasty marriage.
“Sure,” Trip said, “and after he left, Mary Ann came around here once, askin’ if Tyler was still here.”
“But he’d gone by then,” Paulie remembered.
Will raised a skeptical brow. “And that was August?”
They all nodded.
Will considered for a moment. “Did Mary Ann ever mention this Tyler fellow to you, Oat?”
“Nope.”
Will spent another minute ruminating, and for some reason, the other three watched him as if awaiting his verdict on the issue of Oat’s missing wife. Of course, Paulie actually looked at him because she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off of him since he walked through the door. Lord, he was even handsomer than she remembered! His dark hair was grown almost to his shoulders and his face was bronzed from his months on the trail, making his dark . brown eyes appear as if they had some kind of fire in them.
Staring at him almost made her forget how mad she was with him.
Then, finally, he shook his head. “Can’t be,” he announced.
“Why not?” Paulie asked. “Makes perfect sense to me. Mary Ann started sweet-talkin’ Oat so she could go to San Antonio and hitch up with Tyler.”
Will’s sharp glance melted her insides like butter, even if his gaze was brimming over with condescension. “Think about it. We’re not sure that Mary Ann was in love with this man. In fact, we have good reason to doubt it.”
“Why?” Oat asked.
Will shot the old codger an even stare. “She married you, didn’t she?”
Oat looked abashed at having to be reminded. “Oh, right. Well sure, but...”
“But even putting that fact aside,” Will continued, “why would she have married Oat if she simply wanted to get to San Antonio? Why didn’t she just cadge a ride?”
Paulie had to admit, that would have been an easier alternative.
“And how did she leave?” Will went on, his voice gaining intensity. “Oat didn’t mention his wagon was missing, or any horses.”
“Nope,” Oat admitted. “Didn’t take anything that I could tell.”
“There. Now what kind of woman sets out to meet a man on foot with just the clothes on her back?” Will asked.
“It’s like I said,” Oat concluded. “I just plum lost her.” And there was more than a hint of relief in his voice when he said it.
Against Will’s explanation, and Trip’s defection, and Oat’s resignation, Paulie lost much of her gusto for the whole argument. “Well, maybe she’ll come back,” she offered.
“Yeah,” Trip agreed. “That could happen.”
“Maybe,” Oat said, not sounding particularly brightened by that prospect, either. “Anyways, guess I’ll be takin’ up my whiskey route again.”
Paulie nearly collapsed with relief at this news. Thank goodness! Maybe things would be returning to normal soon. Will was back, and perhaps with a sheriff, Possum Trot folks would feel a little safer. At least she would rest easier knowing an officially designated gun stood between her and Night Bird. Everyone else in the area probably would, too. And with Oat making deliveries again, business might pick up.
“Of course, now I got to start worryin’ about that old Injun again,” Oat grumbled.
“Night Bird?” Will asked.
“Yessir,” Oat said, practically shivering at the mention of the name.
Will frowned, causing three deep creases of worry to appear in his forehead. “That’s it!” he said, then muttered, “Damn.”
The three of them stared at him, but Will just looked straight ahead, brooding.
“What’s it?” Paulie asked.
“Night Bird,” he said, his lips forming a grim line.
Paulie sucked in her breath. Was he thinking that Night Bird had taken Mary Ann? “Night Bird!” she repeated, the terrible thought attempting to catch hold of her mind like the fleeting memory of a nightmare. Trip stood and then nearly collapsed on wobbly legs, and Oat straightened in his chair, looking truly disturbed for the first time during the whole discussion.
“Of course!” Trip said.
But Paulie, after the first shock, wasn’t so certain. She tilted her head, mulling the idea over. “I’ve never heard of Night Bird kidnapping women.”
Will sent her a dead serious look. He didn’t even have to say it. When it came to a renegade Comanche, a consistent code of behavior couldn’t be expected. “You said yourself that when Night Bird stole your liquor those times, you didn’t even hear him.”
“Sure, but that was whiskey,” Paulie explained. “Wouldn’t Mary Ann put up more of a fuss?”
Trip shook his head slowly, in an awed trance of dread at the very idea of Night Bird. “They say those three men he killed didn’t even know what hit them.”
Paulie frowned. It wasn’t that she didn’t think Night Bird was capable of abduction—it just seemed so unlikely. Texas Rangers had taken care of most of the Indian trouble in these parts. For an Indian to just walk into a man’s house and steal his wife, or ambush her on her way to the outhouse, didn’t seem worth the trouble that he would bring upon himself by such a heinous act. “Wouldn’t there be at least a sign of a struggle? Mightn’t we have heard that someone had seen them somewhere?”
“Maybe not,” Will said.
“And what would Night Bird want with Mary Ann anyway?”
Trip and Will exchanged stony glances, and Oat just looked depressed.
Paulie shook her head. “I meant, why would he want her specifically? Killing three men is one thing, but he’s bound to know that kidnapping a woman is going to cause big trouble for him.”
“You bet it is.” Will’s voice was thick with determination.
A creeping dread began to snake through Paulie’s body.
The two other men turned to him with questioning glances.
“I’m going after her,” Will announced.
“After Night Bird?” Trip asked.
“After Mary Ann,” Will clarified.
Oat was startled. “You’re going?”
“I’ve known Mary Ann a long time, Oat,” Will explained. “I promised her father I’d look after her.”
“Well, sure,” the old fellow rasped, “but after all, I’m her husband.”
“Of course, you can come along if you want to,” Will allowed.
At that suggestion, Oat looked even more startled than before. “What I meant was, I should be the one to go get help.” Even given his marital tie, the old man didn’t look at all eager to chase after a renegade Comanche to find Mary Ann. And who could blame him?
“There’s no need for you to go anywhere, if you don’t want to,” Will said sharply. “I’ll find her.”
The room was thick with tension. Paulie felt she was going to pop if she didn’t say something. “Why should either of you go after Night Bird? Oat’s got the right idea. Go fetch the army—or the Rangers. It’s their job!”
“That’s true,” Trip said.
“Should I ride all the way to Fort Stockton?” Will asked them. “Why waste precious days while Night Bird might be dragging Mary Ann into Mexico or God only knows where?”
Because you’ll be killed! Paulie couldn’t voice the fear in her heart. It wasn’t necessary anyway; Will obviously knew the risks involved. So did Oat, who, wisely, was still hesitating. He took his third swig of tequila, bracing himself.
A kind of hysteria began to build in Paulie. Here she’d been thinking that her problems were almost over—thank ing her lucky stars that Will was back. She’d thought Will would be around for a while, had even fancied the idea that he might develop a yen for her, even if he did think she looked like a crazy lady in her dress. But instead, no sooner had he arrived than he was going to ride off and get himself scalped or worse.
“You sat there a while ago telling us that people attribute all manner of things to renegades, just to suit their own purposes,” she argued.
“You think I want to believe that Mary Ann’s been kidnapped?” Will asked.
His look of accusation was more than Paulie could bear. Of course he. didn’t. No one would, but for Will it was even worse. He might convince Oat that he was running after Mary Ann just because of some promise he’d made to Gerald Redfern, but Paulie knew better. He was in love with Mary Ann. More than Paulie had even suspected, apparently—enough to risk his life for her. But she couldn’t bear the thought of his going. “Bad enough that we have to worry about Night Bird coming after us,” she said, “without us going after him.”
“Maybe if I go after him, we won’t have to worry anymore.”
“You won’t have to worry if you get your throat slit like those three other men,” Paulie said, too upset to mince words, “but where does that leave the rest of us?”
The thought of something happening to Will nearly drove her to distraction, but she faced him, holding back tears.
Will stared evenly at her, his expression softening. “I’m not going to get killed.”
He appeared so determined, so sure of himself and of what he had to do, in that instant even Paulie couldn’t imagine Night Bird getting the best of Will Brockett. But Will was a cowboy, not an Indian fighter! Sure he was good with a gun, but so were plenty of army men who had lost their lives to the Indians.
“Can’t let Will ride off alone,” Oat said out of the blue. Clearly, he’d been off in his own daze struggling with this moral dilemma. “Me being her husband and all.”
Will stood. “Come or don’t,” he told Oat. “I’m leaving in an hour.” And with that, he turned and strode out of the saloon, headed for Dwight’s mercantile.
“Guess he’s going to get provisions,” Trip said.
Paulie felt like running after him, but what purpose would that serve? She wasn’t going to change his mind. Once Will Brockett got it into his head to do something, that something always got done. She caught sight of herself in the mirror behind the bar. Her face was worried and pinched. And suddenly, she looked unbearably silly with her wild hair and her mother’s white dress. She didn’t want Will to ride off remembering her like this.
She didn’t want him riding off, period. “Watch the bar for me, Trip.” She went back to the narrow stairwell that led to her room above the saloon. Her mind was racing, trying to think of some way to get Will to stay. As she was halfway up the stairs, she heard the sound of Oat gulping down his fourth glass of tequila.
“Gol-darn it!” he hollered decisively, bolstered by spirits. “I’m a goin’ with him!”
Poor old man, Paulie thought. Poor Will, too. Oat wasn’t going to be much of a help. She’d feel a lot better knowing Will had somebody along who would really watch out for him.
Paulie froze for a split second as an idea began to hatch. Why not? Why shouldn’t she follow along with Will? She would be as much use to Will as Oat would!
As decided as Oat was himself—only more so, because she was sober—Paulie ran the rest of the way up to her room, a blur of white frills and lace, smashing her hoop skirt close to her body as she took the stairs two at a time. Maybe it was a good thing that she looked silly in dresses, she thought, her mood picking up. They sure were a nuisance!
When Will finally emerged from Dwight’s mercantile, he was nearly flattened by Paulie on her way in. He almost didn’t recognize her, though she had changed back into the shirt and breeches that should have been most familiar to him. For some reason, he couldn’t get the thought of her in that white dress out of his mind.
“I’m going with you,” she told him in passing.
By the time the words registered, Paulie had slapped the door shut behind her and disappeared inside. Will stood on the porch of Dwight’s building for a moment, sure he’d heard wrong. Or seen wrong. That was Paulie he’d just bumped into, wasn’t it? He pivoted and went back inside to check.
Sure enough, there was Paulie, her crazy hair braided and smashed under one of her pa’s old hats, moving along the shelves of Dwight’s, scooping up matches, pointing to dried beef and fruit and quickly calculating the amounts of corn meal and coffee she could take along with her.
Will strode toward her. “Never mind, Dwight,” he told the store’s short, balding proprietor. “You can just put all that stuff away, Paulie. Unless you’re buying it for Oat.”
His words barely fazed her. “I’ll be more of a help to you than Oat will,” she said matter-of-factly. Then she turned back to the store owner. “I guess a pound of coffee will do, Dwight.”
Will rolled his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Paulie. For heaven’s sake. I can’t be hauling a girl along with me.”
“Why not? You can haul an old boozy whiskey trader.”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“He’s a man, that’s why.” He’d be damned if he was going to spend precious minutes explaining the facts of life to Paulie. “Now be reasonable, Sprout.”
She put her hands full on her hips and glared up at him. “You can’t go out alone, and if you go with just Oat, you’ll be as good as alone. Now I’ve told you my opinion on the matter. You should call out the proper authorities. But since you won’t take my very sound advice, you’ll just have to put up with my company.”
Will looked away from her, annoyed. Dwight still had his hand in a large sack of coffee, not certain whether he should start scooping it out or not.
“You’ll slow us down.”
Paulie hooted at that idea. “I can ride better than Oat, and I can shoot better, too. And see better.”
“Leave Oat out of this. As far as I’m concerned, adding you to the crew will be travelling with two handicaps instead of one, only you’re a different kind.”
“What kind?”
“The female kind,” he said.
She screwed her lips up wryly. “That’s a fact I suppose you’re just apt to notice when it suits you!”
“You’re not going,” he repeated, more forcefully.
“You can’t stop me,” she said. “If you don’t allow me in your party, then I’ll follow you. And that would be even more dangerous, wouldn’t it?”
He took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh. “Darn it, you know chasing an Indian is no job for a girl.”
“It’s no job for a cowboy, either, but that isn’t stopping you.”
He sighed, then appealed to Dwight for assistance. “Will you please tell this stubborn girl that she can’t just pick up and chase after Night Bird?”
Dwight had been standing in blank confusion, but now that he understood exactly what they were up to, the wrinkles disappeared from his endless forehead and his mouth dropped open in awe. “Night Bird!” Dwight exclaimed, in the same fearful tone that everybody used when referring to the infamous criminal. “Well, I’m glad somebody’s chasin’ him—as long as they chase him away from these parts. I haven’t slept a wink for weeks.”
Thanks, Dwight, Will thought with disgust.
Paulie beamed at him triumphantly. “See?” she asked, taking her purchases up to Dwight to tally up. “Even Dwight wants me to go.”
“What I don’t see is why you feel so all-fired determined to tag along with me and Oat. Don’t you think we can find Night Bird ourselves?”
“It’s the part after you find him that’s worrying me—and it would be worrying you, too, if you had the sense God gave a garden slug.”
“She’s right, Will,” Dwight put in. “Night Bird is one mean hombre to mess with.”
Paulie paid for her purchases, and they left the store. She was headed straight back across the way to the saloon, but Will stopped her with a hand to her shoulder.
She flinched under his grasp, and two splotches of color appeared on her cheeks. Funny, he couldn’t remember the old Paulie blushing before—except occasionally when he’d teased her. Now she was turning pink all the time.
He chalked it up to nerves.
“Look at you,” he said. “You’re already skittish. Have you considered how you’ll feel when we’re that much closer to finding Night Bird?”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself.” She ducked her head, and lowered her voice as she assured him, “I’ll take care of you, too, if you’ll let me.”
Something in her tone, in her gaze, made him assure her, “Nothing’s going to happen to me.” He squeezed his hand more firmly on her shoulder. “Honestly, Paulie. There’s got to be some reason why you’re willing to risk life and limb by going on this expedition.”
She looked up at him for a long moment, studying his face. He could see his own concerned reflection in her green eyes. And then she glanced away. “You might find this hard to believe, but while you were away, Mary Ann and I got to be friends.”
He did find that hard to swallow. Not that Paulie wouldn’t befriend Mary Ann—Paulie would talk to anything that talked back. But what would delicate, feminine Mary Ann have in common with a rough ragamuffin like Paulie Johnson?
She licked her lips, then looked up at him again. “Pretty good friends,” she continued. “So you see, I’ve got my own reasons for wanting to go. I’m just going to look after somebody I care about, too.”
He nodded curtly, touched by her words. Somehow, her claim of friendship changed things. He had a respect for friendship, for people looking after one another. Maybe it went back to the way Mary Ann’s dad had always looked after him. “I admire you, Paulie,” he said. “Not many people feel the bond of friendship so strong, especially for someone as different from themselves as Mary Ann is to you.”
She shrugged modestly. “It’s nothing I wouldn’t do for any number of people.”
A thought suddenly occurred to Will. “What you were saying before, about Mary Ann going to San Antonio...she didn’t confide any such scheme to you, did she?”
“No,” she replied, “it was just a hunch.”
They crossed to the old lean-to Paulie used as a stable and she began readying her saddlebags with the things she’d bought at the store. Will did likewise. As they stood side by side, Paulie finally piped up, “Are you sure you aren’t going after Night Bird just to prove something, Will?”
“Prove something? Like what?”
“Well, maybe that you were the man who truly deserved Mary Ann.”
He felt a muscle in his tense jaw twitch. For a moment, he considered confiding in her, telling her how guilty he felt for sending that letter, for not just waiting till he got home to explain to Mary Ann why he just couldn’t see them getting married. Maybe then she wouldn’t have gone off and married Oat, and then been kidnapped by that madman.
But he couldn’t think about that now. He just had to concentrate on his responsibility toward her. “I’m not trying to prove anything. I just want to find her. It’s not right for people to sit around and do nothing when a renegade is snapping innocent young women out of their beds.”
They saddled up Paulie’s horse in silence and then led their mounts out to the front of the saloon. “I’d better go in and get Oat,” Will said.
But Trip was already pushing the older man out the door. “Don’t forget this,” he joked as he presented Oat to them. He looked over at the sight of Paulie’s own saddled horse. “Oh, no,” he breathed. “Are you goin’ too, Paulie?”
She nodded.
Trip looked from Paulie to Oat. “Then it looks like I’m settin’ out again.”
“No, you can’t,” Paulie insisted “Who’ll mind the bar?”
“Heck, Paulie, I’m your best customer,” Trip argued. “Besides, you don’t have anything to sell.”
Will let out an impatient sigh. “This is beginning to look like a posse.”
Well, he thought, trying to keep his spirits up by turning to more practical matters, if he was going to search for Mary Ann and Night Bird, posses weren’t actually such a bad idea. After all, there was safety in numbers—even when that number included a cranky geezer, a switch of a girl, and a man who couldn’t stay upright.
Chapter Three
Paulie whistled four notes of “Oh! Susanna,” keeping her eye on Will’s ramrod-straight back. For the past four hours he’d been riding ahead of them, and was wound tighter than a pocket watch. Though so far their journey had been completely uneventful, Will was ever-alert, tense. She was just waiting for some part of him to snap.
“‘I Gave My Gal a Penny Candy!’” Trip guessed.
Paulie sent him a sidelong glance. “Honestly, Trip, you’ve got a tin ear.”
He looked offended. “It’s you that’s got a tin whistle.”
She whistled again, this time five notes. Their old game cut down on the endless monotony of the day-long ride, but every once in a while she thought she caught Will glancing back at them, annoyed.
He looked close to madness already, in Paulie’s opinion. “Land’s sake, Will, don’t get your dander up. It’s just a song.”
“Well, it’s a damned irritating one.”
They stopped long enough for Oat to catch up with them. For the past few miles he had been trailing farther and farther behind. Paulie had begun to wonder whether the old man might be hoping that they would leave him so far in their dust that they would forget about him entirely and he could then go back to his safe house and warm his old toes by a fire.
Right now, he just looked startled to find the three of them huddled together. “Night Bird?” he asked anxiously, trying to guess the reason for the holdup.
“No,” Trip answered. “Just ‘Oh! Susanna.”’
Will’s exasperation was bumped up another notch. “We need to be concentrating on the landscape—not some damned song. Now let’s get going.” He whirled and spurred his horse into a canter.
Paulie exchanged glances with Trip and blew out a breath impatiently as Will rode ahead of them once again.
“I wonder what’s eatin’ him,” Trip said.
As if anyone had to guess! Paulie felt angry just thinking about how torn up inside Will must be over Mary Ann’s disappearance. Frankly in her opinion, Mary Ann just wasn’t worth all this fuss. She still had her doubts about Mary Ann’s being spirited off by Night Bird. It didn’t make sense. For one thing, they said Mary Ann had always been scared of being abducted by Night Bird, and in Paulie’s experience, the thing you’re afraid of happening hardly ever does. It’s the things you didn’t expect that sneaked up and changed your life for good.
She kicked her horse into a gallop. In no time at all, she raced up alongside Will and skidded her little bay gelding, Partner, to a quick stop.
Will didn’t appear glad for the company. “Don’t you ever stay quiet?” he asked.
Paulie tried not to take the remark to heart. In better days, Will had always seemed to enjoy jawing with her. “Don’t you ever plan on acting civil again?” she shot back. “I swear, you roam around for months at a time, clear off to Kansas, then you ride back in and start barking orders at us like you’re paying us money to take them.”
Her tart response brought a sheepish shrug.
“Maybe I do stay away too long,” he said. “I know I did this time. But I’m back now, and I’ve decided to settle down.”
Paulie didn’t know if she felt like dancing or weeping. It all depended on where Will planned on setting himself up. “You thinking of staying in Possum Trot?”
“Probably not.”
“Well then, where?”
“That depends on Mary Ann.”
For a moment, all she could do was stare at him. What was he talking about? He didn’t look at her as if he’d said anything odd; he wasn’t looking at her at all, in fact. Just staring straight ahead, his expression faraway yet strangely determined.
“Mary Ann!” Paulie cried. “Have you gone crazy, Will?”
His face remained stony. “Nope.”
“She’s married, Will!”
“Oat doesn’t love Mary Ann.”
“Oat, Mary Ann’s husband, is riding just in back of us, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“He didn’t want to come,” Will insisted.
“But he did.”
“He had to talk himself into it.”
Paulie rolled her eyes. “So would anybody with any sense, Will! It’s because we’re going after a killer.”
“A killer who has Mary Ann. His wife.” He turned his dark eyes on Paulie, his expression softening. “You were more resolute than that old toothless husband of hers, Paulie.”
“That’s because—” She was about to say, because I was so worried about you. But she couldn’t. She’d already lied and told him that she was only coming along because she and Mary Ann were friends. And he’d believed her! Which just proved that something in the man’s mind had shook loose.
“Because you care about Mary Ann,” he finished for her. “You see? That proves my point. Oat doesn’t care about his wife even as much as her friends do.”
“Oh, Will, you can’t be sure of that.” Although she felt fairly certain that Oat wasn’t a head-over-heels newlywed, she hated to see Will eating his heart out over a woman who didn’t deserve him. And even more to the point, who wasn’t even available.
And, she admitted to herself shamefully, who wasn’t herself.
“You heard him talking, Paulie. He said he just lost her—the way a man would talk of misplacing his fountain pen. And it was almost as if he was hoping that she was lost.”
Paulie had sensed the same thing. But she hated to think it. Because if Oat gave up on Mary Ann... Oh, it was selfish of her to want Will for herself—not to mention hopeless—but she couldn’t help it. As long as Oat was married to Mary Ann, Paulie at least stood a tiny chance of making Will appreciate her. “He’s married to her, Will.”
“Marriages don’t always last,” he said tersely.
Paulie couldn’t believe her ears. “Will, you’re talking crazy!” She’d thought all along that he looked half-crazy, but even so she’d had no idea that thoughts like these had been running through his head. And as he spoke, it didn’t even seem as if he wanted to wed Mary Ann; instead, it was almost as if it were something he had to do.
He shot her a look that had a hint of desperation in it. “You can’t imagine what I feel, Paulie.”
If only he knew! Maybe she would never work up the nerve to tell him about her own experience with unrequited love, but she could keep him from hatching these unrealistic plans.
“You know what your trouble is?” she asked him.
“No, but I’m sure you’d love to tell me.”
She ignored the barb. “You’ve got an overworked sense of responsibility. When you’re sheriff, you feel responsible for the whole town. I bet when you’re out on the trail, you feel like you personally have to account for the fate of every one of those beeves. But I’m telling you, Will, Mary Ann is not your problem.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. When Gerald was dying I told him I’d look after his daughter.”
“Things are different now. Gerald couldn’t know that Mary Ann would one day up and marry Oat and you don’t know that the two of you would be any better off together than Oat and her are,” Paulie pointed out.
“What do you think I should do—leave her with a toothless old man who obviously makes her unhappy?”
“How do you know they’re unhappy?”
“Oat himself said they fought all the time,” he insisted, his jaw set stubbornly.
“So do all married people. I think if you respected Mary Ann at all, you’d trust her to make her own decisions.”
Will shot her a keen glance. “You’re Mary Ann’s friend. Has she ever spoken to you about me?”
Paulie hesitated. “No, she hasn’t.”
“Not even before she ran off with Oat?”
Paulie couldn’t help feeling a sharp stab of guilt. “She doesn’t tell me everything, Will,” she admitted, though even that was a pale reflection of the truth. Mary Ann could be thinking about Will twenty-four hours a day, and she wouldn’t know about it.
He let out a ragged sigh, then looked at her, his brown eyes full of kindness. “I guess it’s good you came along after all. You always did know how to put me in my place, Sprout.”
She revelled in the pet name almost as much as she resented it. Why couldn’t Will think of her like he did Mary Ann, not just as a kid?
He shook his head. “I suppose I’m still a little confused over why Mary Ann would marry Oat to begin with.”
Paulie remained silent. The whole world was confused on that paint.
He shot her a patient glance. “I guess it’s a little silly to be discussing all this with you,” he said. “I doubt you’ve ever fallen in or out of love.”
The words rubbed Paulie’s fur the wrong way. Why was Will blind to the fact that she’d been crazy about him for years?
Probably because he was so stuck on Mary Ann he couldn’t see anything else!
Or maybe because he just didn’t have the slightest interest in her. That was an annoying—though highly likely—possibility. Paulie knew she could never even be a substitute for Mary Ann. She didn’t know the first thing about batting her eyelashes at a man, or flirting. Heck, the only time she’d ever worn a real grown-up long dress in front of Will, he’d said she looked like she’d been sick.
Sick! At the mere thought, she felt her dander rising all over again. Never been in love? How could he just assume such a thing?
“That just shows how smart you are!” she said tartly. “You don’t know the first thing about me, Will!”
He turned to her, his eyes wide with surprise. “Well, have you?”
Now that she’d started, she wasn’t going to back down. “If you must know, I have,” she said, tossing her head back defiantly. “Deeply in love.”
“Who?” he asked.
She blinked. “Who what?”
“Who is the object of all this love you claim to have stored up?”
This wasn’t something she was prepared to confess. Especially not to Will. Especially not when he asked her using that sarcastic tone. “None of your business.”
He looked at her skeptically. “Is it somebody I know?”
Clearly he didn’t believe her—a fact that made Paulie spitting mad. Men had so little imagination! Just because she owned a bar and wore men’s clothes, was it impossible to comprehend that she had feelings just like every other woman in the world?
“I’d say you know him pretty well, Will Brockett,” she said. “In fact, sometimes I think it’s the person you care most about in the world!”
She tapped her horse’s flanks and wheeled around. Will attempted to stop her. “Paulie, wait—”
She kept going, though, hesitating only long enough to holler one parting shot over her shoulder. “And for your information, I’ll whistle whenever I want to!”
Will sat apart, with one eye on the others and the other watching for signs of trouble. Trip and Paulie were splayed out near the glowing warmth of the fire, rattling on as usual. Oat was close to them, sitting up but half-asleep. Occasionally the old fellow would jolt awake again, especially when Trip or Paulie happened to mention something about Night Bird.
“I wonder if we’ll ever find him,” Paulie said.
Trip shook his head. He was always more sure of himself when he was on the ground, where there was nowhere to fall to. “I imagine if’n we do, it’ll be down in Mexico. They say that’s where he lives, ’cause the law won’t follow him there.”
“What about the Mexican law?” Paulie asked. “Mexicans can’t like having a renegade Comanche running loose any more than we do.”
Trip scratched his head. “They say Night Bird is part Mexican himself—the son of a captive woman from a border town.”
Oat’s eyes snapped opened and he bolted upright, his hand reaching down for his gun. “Night Bird?”
Trip chuckled. “We were just talkin’, Oat.”
“We’ve haven’t seen or heard anything,” Paulie assured him.
Oat shook his head with such force that the bulbous end of his nose quivered. “When Night Bird comes, you won’t hear him.”
The three exchanged anxious glances.
Will decided to put his two cents in. “If that were the case, then we might all just as well go to sleep.” They looked back at him quizzically. “No man is invisible. If Night Bird comes, one of us will see him.”
“Those three railroad men didn’t see him—they were all three armed and none of them looked like they had even had time to reach for their guns,” Trip said.
The story of the three men who had been ambushed by Night Bird had been through so many versions that it was hard to know exactly what had happened. Most people seemed to want to believe that Night Bird silently appeared and disposed of his victims as easily as an owl swoops down on a mouse.
“I wonder what would turn a man so mad that he’d take up thievin’ and murderin’ that way,” Trip said.
“Having your land stolen out from under you would make you a little bitter, too,” Will told him. He bore little sympathy for Night Bird, but he thought he could understand what could turn a man so wrong.
“What land did that Indian ever own here?” Trip asked.
Will nodded toward the horizon. “We fought a war to win this land from the Mexicans, but we just took it from the Indians and expected them to be happy about being nudged up to less desirable parts.”
“We wouldn’t have nudged anybody if they’d just left us be,” Trip argued.
“But we were the trespassers, and then we expected them to abide by our laws—not their own.”
Trip looked disgruntled, but said nothing more.
“I guess Will’s right,” Paulie said, turning back to the fire. “Maybe we’re lucky there’s only one Night Bird, not thousands.”
“Thousands!” Oat cried, startled by the very idea.
Will kept his eyes on Paulie. He was surprised that she would take his side after their scene earlier in the day. She had seemed so annoyed. In fact, since he’d come back, she’d been more moody than he could remember her ever being. Especially with him.
Of course, he’d been moody, too, but he knew the reason for his own odd behavior. He was perplexed and torn up over all that had happened with Mary Ann. But could what Paulie said be true? Was she really in love? And with whom?
He’d been pondering those questions all afternoon. He had to hand it to her; her little revelation had completely distracted his mind from brooding about Mary Ann.
Paulie’s being in love seemed so unlikely! Yet why not? She had to be over twenty now. But who? Who could she have fallen for?
For a while he thought perhaps Paulie might have developed a yen for Dwight Jones. That would have made sense. Though he’d been a widower for half a decade, Dwight was still fairly young, and his mercantile probably made a decent profit He and Paulie were practically the only people in Possum Trot proper, too. Dwight was the shy, anxious type, though Lord knows, in that empty town and with his booming voice, the man could sit and sing love songs all day to Paulie across the street in the saloon without even having to leave his store.
But the more he thought about it, the less likely a love relationship developing between Paulie and Dwight seemed. Dwight was completely devoted to his wife’s memory. The woman had run his store and his life; Dwight still only stocked what his dear Pearl had approved during her tragically short lifetime. And he never stepped foot in Paulie’s place, because Pearl had been a devout temperance lady. That was the clincher. Given Dwight’s devotion to Pearl’s memory, he would never take up with a woman who not only sold liquor, but was not above taking a gulp or two of the stuff herself on occasion.
So that took care of Dwight.
For a brief moment, Will had even considered the possibility that Oat was the object of Paulie’s affection. She saw him often—or had when he’d been her whiskey man. From that angle, he could see a certain logic to her becoming dependent on Oat. And perhaps that’s why she had developed a closeness to Mary Ann, because she wanted to see more of Oat...
But just one look at the old fellow, slumped against a tree, with his mouth hanging open and snoring loudly, made Will dismiss this notion. One woman falling for Oat’s questionable charms was amazing in itself; two would be entirely incomprehensible.
Trouble was, there were so few people Paulie saw on a regular basis, every possibility he winnowed out left the field exponentially smaller. He’d never heard her mention any of the other men who lived around the area. Furthermore, when he’d arrived at her saloon that morning, it seemed she had been expecting someone.
For a brief, crazy instant, he wondered if it could even be himself. But what were the chances that she’d known he would be coming home in time to gussy herself up for him? After all, she said she had been practicing doing her hair. And she hadn’t exactly welcomed him with open arms; not after the first moment, at least. She’d seemed almost angry with him at times. Not at all flirtatious, like all the other women who had even the slightest interest in him had behaved. Besides, he and Paulie were just old friends. Very good, old friends. That was how he was most comfortable thinking of her.
So who was it?
He glanced again at her, cracking wise with Trip by the fire, and the obvious hit him with the force of an avalanche. Trip Peabody!
Of course. It made perfect sense! Trip had been one of her father’s cronies, and since her father’s illness had lived in the room behind the saloon. Paulie was financially independent, but she had probably turned to Trip for advice innumerable times. Trip wasn’t even too bad-looking...
But he was about twenty years older, and practically everybody south of the Red River knew Trip was in love with Tessie Hale.
Wasn’t he?
Will frowned, thinking about that very morning, finding both Paulie and Trip dressed up in stiff, unfamiliar clothes. A stiff dark suit...a wedding dress. Trip had been drunk. That was odd in itself. Then there was the eternal question of why Trip hadn’t ever actually asked Tessie to marry him.
Maybe Trip’s affections were more divided than he let on.
Will felt a twinge of sadness for them all if this was the case. But especially for Paulie. She deserved better than to be stuck in some unhappy love triangle, running around in her mother’s old dresses trying desperately to be something she wasn’t. He wondered whether Trip might even have taken advantage of her youth and innocence...
A flash of anger so sharp welled in him that he sucked in his breath. He pushed himself to standing and walked away from the group.
Paulie was in love with Trip. For some unfathomable reason, he didn’t want it to be true, but the idea made too much sense to ignore. The two of them enjoyed talking, laughing, and playing games—like they’d been doing this afternoon. They were always together, and they shared some of the same rough ways in dress and manner. Will had to concede that there was no better man on earth than Trip Peabody, and yet...
Paulie deserved better.
Damn. Maybe he was just unhappy with all the men women picked to pin their affections on these days. He had no call to care one way or the other who Paulie chose to fall in love with. He’d never even given the possibility a thought before now that she might even be of an age to fall in love. She’d always seemed like a tomboy to him. A figure of fun, good for a laugh or someone to talk to.
But the fact was, he did care who she fell in love with. Couldn’t imagine himself not caring.
“What are you doing out here?”
At the sound of a voice, Will nearly jumped out of his skin. He pivoted, tense, only to come face-to-face with Paulie herself, who stood blinking up at him.
“Did you hear something, Will?”
He swallowed, noticing for the first time how fetching her green eyes really were. He could well understand how Trip might fall for. Paulie. “No, why?”
She lifted her narrow shoulders in a shrug. “I saw you over here, pacing, then I came over, only to find you nervous as a cat. Is something wrong?”
Nothing except that he felt a fierce new protectiveness for the young woman standing in front of him. “Actually, I was thinking about you.”
Her eyes grew as round as saucers. “Me?”
He nodded, trying to look at her closely in the darkness. Would she try to hide the truth about Trip from him? Or, more important, would she let him know if Trip was pressing his attentions on her unwanted? A young woman in her situation might feel indebted to the older man, might even allow herself to be coerced into something she wasn’t ready for. He hated even suspecting such a thing of Trip, but he felt he owed it to Paulie to find out the truth.
“At least you weren’t wasting your time,” she joked approvingly. “What, exactly, were you thinking about me?”
“Well...” He wasn’t sure how to start. “I guess I owe you an apology for what I said this afternoon, for assuming that you’ve never been in love.”
She looked down at her feet and dug her toe into the dirt. “Oh, that.”
“I guess I forget sometimes that you’re all grown up.”
Her head snapped up, and though it was dark he could have sworn that two bright red stains appeared in her cheeks. “Oh, shoot!” she cried, shaking her head. “About what I said this afternoon, Will—about being in love. I didn’t mean it, really.” She stopped, flustered. “Well, no, I did mean it, but, I mean...”
He kept his gaze locked with hers as her words sputtered out like a dying fire. His heart went out to her, trying so hard to cover up now that the cat was out of the bag. “I know you have a secret, Sprout.”
Her cheeks grew redder. “You do?”
He nodded. “You don’t have to keep it from me anymore. In fact, you can tell me all about it, if it would help.”
She hesitated, looking extremely doubtful. “Will, I’m not sure you’re ready to hear what I have to say.”
“Why not?” he asked. “It’s only fair. I told you all my woes with Mary Ann and you helped me, you really did. I’d like to do you the same favor, if you’d care to tell me.”
She shook her head. “I’m not certain where I could even begin...”
He tried to help her out by giving her a starting point. “Are you sure it’s love and not something else?” he asked, trying to keep his tone big-brotherly.
She blinked. “What else could it be?”
He bit his lip. Despite her rough exterior, she was so innocent, so sheltered in her own way. He hated to think of some man taking advantage of that innocence. “This man you said you cared about... Maybe you feel an obligation, because this person is an old friend.”
Her lips parted and she gasped in a breath, indicating his words had hit close to the truth. “I don’t think it’s an obligation, Will.”
That, at least, was a good sign. “Then, you feel as if you would go to him of your own free will, without any thought of what you might owe him, or how long you’ve known him?”
“Of course...I mean, I don’t know.” Paulie looked confused. “What do you mean by ‘go to him?”’
Will wasn’t quite sure how to explain. “Well, have you kissed this man?”
“Oh, sure!” she said, then her brows knit together. “Well, you know, he gives me a peck on the cheek every once in a while. That what you mean?”
“No.”
She blinked. “Well...how many kinds of kisses are there?”
He smiled. “A couple.”
“Oh.” She thought about this for a moment. “Well, what kind in particular are you trying to find out about?”
Will hesitated. She looked so anxious, so sweet. The poor thing had grown up without a mother, and since she was fifteen, had been deprived of a father as well. The least he could do was show her what kind of kisses to watch out for.
Of course, it didn’t escape his notice that Paulie had very kissable lips, now that he put his mind to studying them. Or that she looked willowy and almost fragile beneath her bulky clothes. Why, he could probably encircle her waist just with his two hands.
He stepped forward slowly and tilted her chin upwards with his knuckle. Her eyes were two liquid green pools as they looked up at him. “Do you really want to know?”
She nodded her head eagerly.
He smiled, then bent to press his lips against hers. At first contact, she let out a gasp of surprise, but soon she relaxed and slowly began to experiment, pushing against him with more pressure. Then, when he moved his hands around her waist and pulled her a fraction closer, she threw her arms exuberantly around his neck and attached herself to him like a snail on a cistern.
But she sure didn’t feel like a snail. Paulie might look like a stick figure, but her body felt rounded and warm, womanly. He ran a hand down her back, feeling each gentle swell of her vertebrae beneath the soft flesh underneath her cotton shirt. In response she nestled herself even more tightly against him.
Will groaned at the desire she was so unknowingly stirring up in him. He hadn’t expected that, but there was no mistaking the tingling sensation below his belt she had so guilelessly created.
He pulled away and looked down, smiling stiffly. Her own eyes, once they fluttered open, were wide and luminous as she stared dreamily at him. There was no mistaking that this must have been her first kiss.
“Well,” he said, relieved. “I guess Trip isn’t the wolf I worried he was.”
Paulie’s dreamy gaze turned to a gawk. “What?”
He grinned. Poor thing. She was still too embarrassed to admit the truth. “You don’t have to be timid about it. I know your secret, Sprout.”
“What in tarnation are you talking about, Will?”
“About you...and Trip.”
Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes grew buggy. “Trip!” she said in a voice that would have been a shout if her throat hadn’t been so strangled. She looked anxiously over at the sleeping man to make sure she hadn’t awakened him by yelling his name. “How on earth... What made you guess...?” She didn’t deny it, though.
So it was true.
He shrugged. “I suppose it would be obvious to anyone who has eyes.”
She looked horrified, and he guessed he could understand. She was probably afraid people would say mean things about her falling for such an older man. Like all the talk he’d heard about Mary Ann and Oat. And in Paulie’s case, people probably would say she had snatched Trip away from Tessie Hale.
Her hand flew to her lips, and she continued to stare at him, stunned for a few moments.
“I won’t tell,” he promised her.
“No!” she cried insistently. “You can’t! I mean, please don’t!”
“But I want you to know, if you need to talk, you can come right to me.”
“Oh...thank you,” she murmured. Her cheeks looked so dark, they were probably ablaze. “I’d better...better get back to the fire.”
He sent her a sideways grin. “You sure it’s the fire you want to get back to...and not Trip?”
Her face crunched into a mortified expression, and she twirled on her heel and scampered off toward their makeshift camp.
Will chuckled softly as she retreated. He was sorry she was so embarrassed; still, he was glad they’d had the conversation. He wouldn’t want to think that he had abandoned Paulie in a time of need. The only trouble was, his little kissing demonstration was lingering in his mind—and in his senses—longer than would seem proper for such an innocent little lesson.
He went back to his own bedroll apart from the others and sighed, leaning back and looking up at the stars for a while. He supposed it was just all this business with Mary Ann that was making him feel so restless. And yet, when he closed his eyes, it wasn’t Mary Ann’s face that he saw. It was Paulie’s, her green eyes round and moist. Such pretty eyes—it didn’t seem he’d ever really noticed them before. He remembered holding her body against his. He’d expected her to be all pointy bones and awkwardness, but instead all the awkwardness had been his as he’d found himself holding a woman with soft feminine curves in his arms.
Suddenly, Will shot up to sitting, his heart beating like thunder. He took a deep breath, and shook his head as if to clear it. What a crazy day this had been! And now, he was beginning to think that he was crazy. It was almost as if he...as if he found Paulie desira—
He swallowed, not even completing the outlandish thought.
That couldn’t be so. It just couldn’t.
Could it?
Chapter Four
“Got any more coffee, Paulie?”
Paulie yanked the little pot off the fire and handed it to Trip. “I’d like to know who elected me cook,” she sniped good-naturedly.
Trip laughed. “You’re the only one ’sides Will who’s got provisions.”
She threw up her hands in mock exasperation. “And where is Will?”
Trip looked at her keenly. “That’s the fifth time you asked that this mornin’. I told you, he woke me up early and said he was gonna do a little scoutin’ before we head out.”
Paulie ducked her head. “I only meant that I wondered why he’d been gone so long.” She sighed regretfully. “I should have woken up earlier. Then I could have gone with him.”
But darn it, whose fault was it that she’d slept till practically sunup? All night long, the memory of Will’s lips pressed up against hers kept playing through her mind, making her feel hot and shivery all over again. There was no way to get any shut-eye when a body was so keyed up. She’d tossed and turned on the hard ground half the night, unable to sleep, unable to think about anything besides that kiss. Unable to find relief from the letdown after he let her go and so arrogantly pronounced her to be in love with somebody else!
How could Will possibly think she was in love with Trip Peabody! Not that Trip wasn’t perfectly nice—but have a romance with him? That idea sidled right up to the outrageous. Besides, the whole world south of the Red River knew Trip was in love with Tessie Hale. Will hadn’t been gone to Kansas so long that he should have forgotten that longstanding state of affairs.
And did Will think she went around kissing just anybody? To her, it seemed that all the feelings she’d had stored up for Will all these long years had come rushing out during that kiss, almost as bold a declaration of her love as if she’d just told him so flat out. She could have held on to him forever. But Will hadn’t sensed her feelings for him. He hadn’t sensed anything at all, apparently.
Trip sat back on his heels and took a long drink from his tin cup. “He didn’t look like he wanted company, Paulie.”
She threw a glance to the tree under which Oat sat, snoozing. “Probably Will wanted some time to daydream about Mary Ann,” she said, trying not to let her sore feelings seep into her tone.
“Probably,” Trip agreed. “Love requires a heap of brooding, I’ve found.”
She had firsthand knowledge of that fact, too. “Only when it goes wrong, Trip. I dare say there are some romances out there that go off without a hitch.” Oh, how she wished she and Will could have one of those! Unfortunately, things had already turned so odd between them, she doubted they would ever have a normal relationship.
Or any relationship. Not when he could kiss her without feeling anything more than he would if he were kissing a rock. And not while he was so obsessed by Mary Ann that he had to go tearing out at the strike of dawn by himself.
“Well,” Trip said philosophically, “I guess it’s like my old daddy said. Anything worth havin’ is worth fightin’ for.”
Paulie dropped the pot back on the fire and crossed her arms. “Your daddy said that when he was marching off to war in sixty-one, Trip. Brooding about Tessie Hale all day isn’t exactly the equivalent of a pitched battle.”
“Maybe not, but it sure wears me out sometimes.”
After her sleepless night, she could vouch personally for the exhaustion brought on by unrequited love. She poured herself another cup of coffee and drank down half a cup in one swig.
“Ain’t you goin’ to eat anything, Paulie?”
“I can’t eat,” she said, staring at the biscuit she’d been holding in her hand since she’d made the batch and feeling almost queasy at the thought of actually swallowing it. Lovesickness seemed to have caused her heart to swell overnight, forming a physical barrier between her mouth and her stomach.
Trip shook his head, misinterpreting her digestive woe. “Whether you eat or not won’t make much difference whether we run into Night Bird.”
At the sound of the dreaded name, Oat jolted into wakefulness. “Night Bird?” he said, his hand reaching for his gun. His rheumy eyes were wide with fear.
“We were just talking, Oat,” Paulie assured the older man. Lord only knew what he would do if Night Bird ever did come riding over the hill.
Lord only knew what any of them would do!
“Then what’s that I hear comin’?”
It wasn’t until Oat mentioned them that Paulie heard the hoofbeats thundering toward them. She scrambled for her rifle, as did Trip, who stood on wobbly legs, but with a cool head, watching. How could he be so calm? She wasn’t sure what was coming at them, but it didn’t sound good.
Just as she was readying her gun for a battle, the rider crested the gentle hill in front of them. It was Will, riding as if Beelzebub himself were nipping at his heels. Paulie waited, looking to see what was following him, but nothing appeared to explain the crazed way he had galloped into their calm little camp.
He brought his horse to a quick stop just a few feet away from them and quipped, “Thought I might need to wake you all up.”
Paulie put her hands on her hips, half in anger, half to steady herself as she stared into his whiskey-colored eyes. Heavens, Will was a handsome man! Of course she’d known that already, but now she had the additional bonus of knowing how it felt to be in those strong arms of his. And with his dark hair wild from his ride, and his eyes shining as if lit from some internal fire, he was even better-looking than he’d seemed the night before, when he’d kissed her. She felt dizzy from the mere memory of it—light-headed and weightless.
It was hard to keep her thoughts straight, being so close to him. She just couldn’t allow herself to think about that kiss, not right at the moment.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, riding in like that and scaring us half to death!”
Will swung off his horse. “Good morning to you, too, Sprout.” He seemed to look right through her, as though he didn’t want to deal with her at all. Like last night had meant nothing to him!
Well, he would soon find out she wasn’t so easy to ignore. “Do you realize we were poised to shoot whoever was coming? You could have got yourself killed just now!”
He turned on her, eyes flashing. “If you can’t keep a cool head, you shouldn’t be here.”
Her blood shot from hot to the boiling point in nothing flat. “You’re the one who’s been flying off the handle all the time, Mr. Hothead,” she said. She almost added that it was his jumping to fool conclusions about his lady love’s abduction that was leading them off on this crazy mission to begin with, but decided to refrain, for Oat’s sake.
Will turned to her with a retort on his lips, but was cut off by Trip.
“Any sign of Night Bird?”
Will pivoted toward Trip—dismissing Paulie as easily as he would swat a bothersome gnat away. “No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Where are we goin’ today?”
“I thought we could head into Vinegaroon.”
Paulie’s ire evaporated at the mention of that town. “Vinegaroon!” she cried. “There isn’t anything there but a saloon.”
“You’ll be thirsty by the time we get there,” Will told her with a wry smile.
The reply poised on the tip of Paulie’s tongue was interrupted by Oat, who was nodding in agreement with Will. “Roy Bean’ll know if Night Bird is crawling around.”
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Will said.
“Judge Bean, you mean!” Paulie had heard about Roy Bean, but had never met the man. He had a reputation for running a hell of a saloon, and, since being appointed judge, or appointing himself—no one was ever quite sure which—he’d also become known for doling out swift justice. She wasn’t sure she would like him. “I’ve heard of innocent men wandering into that place in the morning and ending the day swinging by a rope.”
Will looked at her, really looked at her for the first time that morning, and she could have sworn there was laughter in those brown eyes. “Well maybe if you mind your manners and keep your mouth shut, we won’t have to waste time cutting you down at sunset.”
Then he turned, missing by inches the hard biscuit that Paulie sent whizzing past his ear.
If Trip wanted Paulie Johnson, he was welcome to her. And good luck to him!
Will snorted to himself and spurred Ferdinand just a little faster, knowing that the others would keep up, no matter what. Paulie would die before she let out a whimper of complaint about their pace, or her hunger, which she was probably feeling keenly by now. The fool girl should be eating more food and throwing less of it. Trip said she hadn’t eaten a bite at breakfast. Probably just more evidence of her lovesickness, he thought, feeling a now familiar prick of unease at the thought of the pair of them.
The whole affair was none of his business, and he’d already spent far too much time thinking about it. Brooding about it, almost. Bad enough he hadn’t been able to sleep almost all the night, but the minute his bleary eyes had opened this morning, he’d started thinking about that kiss again, and how surprisingly soft and warm Paulie had felt in his arms. And then he’d remembered that Paulie belonged to Trip. He’d ridden out and had been unable to think about anything else. Night Bird could have jumped on the back of the horse with him and he wouldn’t have known it.
He was determined not to give Trip and Paulie—or that kiss—another thought.
He rode on for a few minutes, trying to concentrate on the landscape around him. Scrubby hills surrounded them, providing perfect hiding places for bandits.
Will sighed, unconsciously giving up his internal struggle. He just couldn’t even begin to guess why a sensible man like Trip Peabody would choose an ill-tempered waif like Paulie Johnson to sacrifice his long-held bachelorhood to! It didn’t make sense. Especially when everyone had always thought he would marry Tessie Hale.
Tessie Hale... Now there was a woman! Tessie was tall, pretty and even-tempered. Sure, she was a little long in the tooth—seasoned, you might say—but so was Trip. And she was a widow, which was about the perfect thing for a woman to be, when it came to a man’s choosing a mate. It meant that she’d already had some measure of matrimonial success. Will frowned. Or maybe it just meant that she’d nagged her husband into an early grave.
Paulie’s laughter startled him out of his thoughts. “Trip, you chucklehead!”
Her voice travelled forward, a husky whisper on the light dry breeze. There was something soothing and friendly about the teasing sound. He remembered now that sometimes when he was going up to Kansas, he’d think back on his silly conversations with Paulie. Paulie could chatter on for hours about nothing and still manage to be entertaining. Now that he considered it, he couldn’t remember thinking back on a single conversation he’d had with Mary Ann while he was on his way to Kansas. Maybe that was why he’d written Mary Ann that damn letter—the epistle that had seemed to cause the whole world to turn topsy-turvy.
If so, that was a fool reason. It was ridiculous to compare Paulie and Mary Ann anyway—like comparing a fig to a daisy.
He couldn’t help glancing back at her. At just that moment, she tossed her head back, laughing at something Trip had said. Or maybe she was laughing at one of her own jokes. Even from this distance, he could almost see her eyes sparkling with humor. Her head was tilted as it always did when she found something particularly funny.
He quickly turned back, sighed again, and shook his head, clearing it. Trip Peabody? It just didn’t make sense. But neither sometimes did his wanting to honor the pledge he’d made Mary Ann’s father. Especially now that she was married to Oat. But he felt it just the same, and maybe it was that feeling of being bound to someone against all reason that had brought Paulie and Trip together. If so, be knew he couldn’t talk her out of it.
Not that he wanted to, he assured himself for the millionth time. It was none of his business who Paulie Johnson set her heart on.
Galloping hoofbeats closed in on him, and he didn’t have to turn around to guess whose horse they belonged to.
“Look, Will!” Paulie cried with more enthusiasm than he would have thought any one of them would have the energy to muster. “There’s the saloon!”
“You’d think you’d never seen one before,” he said, making fun of her excitement over a mere wooden building—one he apparently would have missed, his mind was so preoccupied.
Sure enough, there it stood on the horizon, looking sturdy, almost fortresslike on the bare arid land surrounding it. A horse was tethered out front, and a pair of men sat on the porch. They were dwarfed by a brand-new sign running the length of the saloon’s roof that read The Law West of the Pecos.
“Roy Bean sure seems to take his job seriously,” Paulie said.
“His job, his liquor and his woman,” Will agreed.
“Woman?” Paulie looked at him in some confusion. “I didn’t know he was married.”
Will smiled. “Married to an idea, you might say.”
She didn’t look like he had clarified the situation for her any, so he simply rode on, deciding it was best to let her discover for herself Roy Bean’s odd fascination with Lily Langtry, a woman he’d never met—and probably never would, considering that famous English actresses didn’t make it around to South Texas very often. Oat and Trip caught up with Will and Paulie in the final stretch, both men looking very excited to be within spitting distance of the inside of a building again. A building with liquor in it, too.
“Think I might have me a sarsaparilla,” Oat said, looking about as animated as Will had seen him.
“Me, I’m gonna have a whiskey.” Trip almost licked his lips. “Seems like forever since we’ve had that, hey, Paulie?”
The two looked at each other and smiled—an exchange Will tried to glean for any kernel of meaning. But of course the intent, if not the meaning itself, was clear. From this peculiar couple, a shared grin was the equivalent of a lovey-dovey simper from a more traditional pair of lovers.
“It seems forever since I’ve sold any, I know that,” Paulie agreed. “But you never did care about sellin’ so much as drinkin’, Trip.”
Will winced. Hearing them talk about the mundane goings-on at that saloon of theirs, he felt as if he were listening in on the most intimate of conversations. Oat didn’t look the slightest bit uncomfortable...but perhaps he just didn’t know the truth. Yet. The way Paulie and Trip were carrying on, everyone was bound to start suspecting sooner or later.
“What about you, Will?” Paulie asked. She reached over and nudged him in the arm—at her merest touch, he nearly shot right out of his saddle.
“Good grief!” Trip exclaimed. “From the way you reacted, Will, anyone would have thought she’d poked you with a bolt of lightning!”
Will shook his head to clear it. “What were you asking, Paulie?”
“I asked, what’s your poison going to be?”
“I’m not here to socialize,” he said tightly. “I’m here for answers.”
He spurred his horse and rode on, loping into Vinegaroon just ahead of the others. He needed to put some distance between himself and Paulie and Trip. Their relationship was just none of his business. He needed to get a hold of himself.
Roy Bean, a tough wiry old cuss if ever there was one, pushed out of his chair and leaned against the porch railing, looking bemused by the approaching party. “Well, if it ain’t Will Brockett!” he said in his signature terse, wry voice. He tugged at his handlebar mustache. “I heard you’d gotten back from Kansas, Will, but I wasn’t expecting you to come callin’ so soon.”
Will dismounted and tethered Ferdinand at the post in front of saloon. “I just came by to—”
“Well, well!” Roy cried, too focused on the company Will was keeping to care about why he had come around. “This is a ragtag band you got riding drag! Oat, Trip Peabody and some whippersnapper I ain’t never seen before.”
Before Will could make introductions, Paulie was off her horse.
“I’m Paulie Johnson, from Possum Trot,” she said excitedly, pumping Roy’s hand a mile a minute. A while back she had seemed reluctant to meet Roy, but now she was greeting him as though he were her long-lost uncle.
“Johnson?” he asked, his beady eyes sparking with interest. “That girl that runs the Dry Wallow?”
Will folded his arms and felt the corners of his lips tug into a frown. Paulie, apparently, could charm men more ably than he had ever given her credit for. At least rough types who hung around saloons.
“I imagine you folks want to come on in and wet your whistle,” Roy said. “I was just about to set myself down to lunch.”
Paulie practically licked her lips. “Lunch?”
Roy eyed Will. “Man, are you leading these folks on some sort of starvation trail?”
It seemed as good an opening as any for telling Roy why they were really there. “Actually, I’m—”
Roy didn’t wait for his explanation. He was too enraptured by his other newcomers. “Well, come on inside and help yourself,” he told Paulie. “I don’t know if the vittles is what you’re used to, but I’ve got plenty of ’em.”
The judge led Paulie, Oat and Trip into the saloon, leaving his companion on the porch unintroduced. Will turned to the man, a mean-looking character who didn’t even bother to glance up at him. He just kept staring at the dusty planks that made up the saloon’s porch, pivoting once to spit off to the side. Frankly, the stranger gave Will the shivers, but he couldn’t say exactly why that was. He was a regular-looking fellow with sandy blond hair peeking out from under the brim of his hat. Only he had a hardness in his eyes that made Will uneasy.
After a few more moments of the silent treatment, Will followed the talking and laughter into the saloon and found the group of men nursing drinks around Paulie, who was seated at the head of a long table, stuffing herself with a plate of some sort of concoction of rice and beans, with a few hunks of nondescript meat mixed in for good measure.
They all glanced up at him when he took a seat nearby, then looked quickly away again, focusing all their rapt attention on Paulie.
She swallowed down a gulp of food and said, savoring every syllable of what apparently was a punch line, “...And so I told the man, ‘I don’t know about your wife, Mister, but you sure could use a new horse.”’
The men roared with laughter. Even Oat. Roy was all but slapping his knee, and of course Trip was laughing so hard there were tears in his eyes. He had probably heard the silly joke about a thousand times already. People in love certainly did make fools of themselves, Will thought, crossing his arms sourly.
Roy took note of his demeanor and turned to him for a moment. “Well, Will, I keep expecting you to come out and tell me what it is you’re doing here any minute now.”
As if he hadn’t already tried to tell the man twice already!
“Why so closemouthed, Will?” Roy went on.
Glad for the opening to finally get down to business, Will took a breath.
Paulie downed another heaping spoonful of that unappetizing mash of Roy’s and blurted out, “We’re looking for Night Bird. That’s why we’ve come. Everybody thought maybe you’d heard of his whereabouts.”
At this explanation, Roy looked almost startled. His narrow eyes widened and he rubbed his stubbly jaw in wonder. “Night Bird, huh?” he asked, looking at Will as if he’d just gone plumb crazy. “You got a death wish, Brockett?”
Will opened his mouth to defend his mission, but Paulie once again beat him to the punch.
“That’s what I said!” Paulie exclaimed. “But the trouble is, we suspect Night Bird ran off with Oat’s wife.”
They suspected? Will thought. The last time he’d checked, Paulie considered the Night Bird theory to be nothing but pure flapdoodle. Now she was almost making it sound as if chasing the renegade had been her idea!
“That pretty Redfern girl I heard so much about?” Roy asked, uninhibited in his shock. He didn’t have to mention that he’d heard so much about her precisely because she had married Oat, either. Despite her beauty, Mary Ann hadn’t gained any real notoriety until she’d made a surprising choice of husband.
“That’s the one,” Paulie said.
“I lost her,” Oat added, still as puzzled as ever.
“Good Lord!” Roy exclaimed. Then he called out to the porch. “Cal, you hear that?”
When they looked up, the man with the cold gaze had it fixed on Will, as if sizing him up for the task of chasing Night Bird. “I heard,” he said curtly.
“What do you think, Cal?”
The man shrugged.
Roy looked at his assembled guests. “You all have something in common with Cal here. He’s been hired by the family of one of those men Night Bird killed to catch him dead or alive.”
A killer. That would explain his demeanor, Will thought. One glance at the man was enough to know that he didn’t give a fig about whether his quarry was alive or not when he laid him at the feet of the family who hired him.
“Do you know where Night Bird is?” Will asked.
The man spat on Roy’s floor, then shrugged. “Mexico.”
“Are you going after him?”
The bounty hunter shook his head. “Nope.”
“It’s foolhardy to chase a bandit into Mexico, Will,” Roy said. “He’ll get more trigger-happy the closer he is to the border—and the farther away from American law.”
Will shook his head, feeling the weight of his responsibility more sharply the worse the news became. “I can’t just let him go,” he explained. “Not while he’s got Mary—I mean, Mrs. Murphy.”
“I promise you one thing, Oat,” Roy said. “If that damned renegade comes within smelling distance of this place, he’s a dead man.”

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