Angel Gone Bad (22 page)

“B
eautiful.” Angel stood at her window in the Riverside Hotel looking across the Arkansas River at Cherokee Nation. She frowned as she pressed fingertips to the glass that separated her from the scene before her.

Rune put his hands around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. “What's been bothering you? Everything came out the way we wanted it. Verity and Tate are together. The Verdigris Gang is back behind bars. The Badger Gang is no more. Did you see my shiny new badge?”

She smiled. “You look mighty fine in it, too.”

“Thank you, mademoiselle. Could I interest you in a little detective work on the bed?”

“French! Don't you dare say another word in that language. Seems like every problem we had started with a French word.”

Rune laughed, pressing a kiss to her hair. “I admit there were quite a few of them.”

“I'm bothered by the fact that the deputies found only one body in the warehouse ruins.”

“It's probably hard to find everything in the ruins.”

“Still, I have a nagging feeling that I didn't put a bullet in Crawdaddy's heart.”

“If you didn't get him, the fire did.”

“I suppose you're right.”

“Forget him. It's all over.” He pressed kisses down her neck. “Think about me. Us. Little Vikings.”

She chuckled, moving her head so he could better reach behind her ear. “Then there's what Luc . . . Lucien said. Wouldn't you know he'd have a French name?”

“Don't count on that being his real name either.”

“Lucky then.”

“Wish you'd forget about him, too.

“He said I was Cherokee.”

“I'm not surprised.”

“What!” She whirled around to look at him. “Why do you say that?”

“You have the look. You have the gift. I wondered from the first.”

“Did everybody know except me?”

“No. But I've lived around the Cherokee.”

“I want to go to Cherokee Nation. See if I can find out more about my roots.”

“I'll take you. I have friends there.”

She reached up and gently stroked his face. “You are my greatest gift.”

“I've got plenty more to give you.” He pressed a warm kiss to her lips. “Want to create those sensual scenes you left out of
Sweet Rescue?
”

“Now that you mention it, I do believe I need some hands-on research for
Saved by a Deputy
.”

As she led him over to the bed, the first sentence of her new dime novel blazed into her mind. She looked up at him, mischief in her sparkling green eyes, and said,

And he did.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Most of the locations in
Angel Gone Bad
are real places. I enjoyed visiting and researching these wonderful historic sites.

Once known as one of the three toughest towns in the West,
Delaware Bend, Texas,
is now at the bottom of Lake Texoma. The Bend was named for a Delaware Nation village on a bend of the Red River. Today, you can visit Dexter, a nearby town.

After devastating fires,
Paris, Texas,
was rebuilt with a fascinating variety of architecture. You can view the 1868 Victorian Italianate Sam Bell Maxey House, the 1889 Wise House decorated with ornate Queen Anne scrollwork, the redbrick Santa Fe Station, or the replica of the Eiffel Tower topped with a red cowboy hat.

The
Choctaw Nation Capitol and Museum
at Tushka Homma (Red Warrior), Oklahoma, rises in majestic splendor above the Kiamichi River Valley. Visitors enjoy exhibits indoors and outdoors such as the World War I Code-Talkers monument, the buffalo herds, and the historic village. Since 1884, Choctaws have gathered for the Labor Day Festival on the Capitol Grounds to participate in games, music, and dances.

The Runestone Park
is a beautiful, historic site located near Heavener, Oklahoma. You can see the Runestone and take part in the Viking Festival along with other fun and educational events.

Visitors can enjoy
Horsethief Spring
in the
Winding Stair Mountain National Recreation Area
located near the
Talimena Scenic Drive
from Talihina, Oklahoma, to Mena, Arkansas, in the
Ouachita National Forest.
Hiking and horse-riding trails abound. Fall Foliage Tours are simply spectacular.

Step back in time at the
Fort Smith National Historic Site
in Arkansas to view Judge Isaac Parker's federal courtroom, the basement jail, the re-created gallows, and the museum exhibits about outlaws and Deputy U.S. Marshals. In the
Belle Grove Historic District,
you can visit the Clayton House, the former home of W. H. H. Clayton, federal prosecutor of the court of Judge Parker, as well as other famous residences.

In addition, the Anti–Horse Thief Association with over 30,000 members was a real and vital organization. The AHTA flourished from 1854 until its decline in the 1930s due to World War I, economic downturns, less use of horses, and a changing rural population. You can still see the AHTA Horseshoe symbol proudly displayed on many older tombstones. The Bentonville Anti–Horse Thief Society, organized in 1853 in Ohio, welcomes memberships today.

I hope you'll fall in love with the Red River Borderland of Texas, the majestic splendor of Southeast Oklahoma, and the Indian Nations like I have while writing
Angel Gone Bad
.

 

L
ucky leaned against the far end of the bar in the Red River Saloon. He eyed the double swinging doors as he sipped red eye. And he clicked a silver dollar back and forth, lady liberty to winged eagle.

He was bored, a natural product of watching and waiting. He was also fidgety, as if something was about to break. For distraction, he set aside the dollar and stroked the top of the legendary bar. A down-on-his-luck Eastern tenderfoot had traded art for whiskey and carved cavorting naked women into the mahogany. The shapeliest parts were worn smooth and shiny by appreciative patrons. Glasses and bottles sat at angles, but it was a small price to pay for beauty.

As Lucky watched the entrance, tracing face to breasts to thighs while imagining warm flesh respond under his fingertips, the swinging doors slammed open. A woman dressed in black from hat to boots stomped into the saloon. She held a small hatchet as she glared around the interior.

No longer bored, Lucky straightened and set down his glass. Instinctively, he dropped his left hand to the Peacemaker riding low in a leather gun belt strapped around his narrow hips.

“Sinners!” She strode right up to the bar, back straight as an arrow.

Patrons set down cards, drinks, smokes, and fell silent. They watched her with astonished expressions since ladies rarely graced the saloon with their presence.

“Repent your evil ways!”

Lucky doubted if a man in the place had felt he was on the path to perdition up to this point.

“Whiskey. Tobacco. Poker.” She raised her hatchet. “Think of your loved ones at home. Wives toiling alone from dawn to dusk. Little ones crying with hunger. Farms lost on the turn of a card. Have you no shame?”

Lucky looked over the swinging doors, but she appeared to be alone. He expected her to be with like-minded ladies, a flock of determined blackbirds. He couldn't imagine that she represented anything less wanted in Delaware Bend, one of the three wildest towns in the West. The Bend thrived on the Three W's.
Whiskey, women, and wagers.
If Temperance wasn't this lady's name, it ought to be.

“Please close this saloon at once.”

Lucky glanced behind the bar at Big Jim McMahon to see how the bartender was taking to the idea of shutting down the Red River Saloon on this woman's say-so.

“Lady, you got a beef with some man, go find him and give him the rough side of your tongue.” Big Jim crossed muscular arms across his broad chest. “This here is the finest saloon in the Bend and we don't want trouble.”

“I'm asking you politely in the name of the TSPT.”

“The what?” A puzzled frown crossed Big Jim's ruddy face. “You got something against saloons?”

“They're dens of iniquity, destroyers of manhood, and robbers of family finances.” She gripped her hatchet with two hands.

“Look, I wouldn't be caught dead in a lady's tea room, but that don't mean I want to shut them all down.”

“You refuse to close this saloon?”

“That's the truth. And set down that axe afore you hurt yourself.”

She raised the hatchet up over her head, brought it down with all her might, and sank it deep into the top of the bar.

“Hornswoggle!” Big Jim cried out. “You chopped Lulu in half!”

“And I'll do it again!” She pulled at the hatchet, but the head was solidly embedded in the wood.

“Don't let her chop Aurora.” A poker player leaped to his feet and ran toward the bar.

“Or Prudence.” Another man ran after the first.

Lucky watched as the patrons clustered around Temperance, who was desperately trying to pull her hatchet free. She had no idea what she'd unleashed. Men rode from miles around to drink at this bar. They'd named the carved beauties and chosen their favorites. Some probably never got as close to a living, breathing woman. He wondered if the artist had modeled his art on the images of real women. Maybe the man would pass back through the Bend someday and answer that question.

“Ma'am, you're about to cause a riot in my saloon. You got no respect for private property or the sensibilities of others.” Big Jim put his hands flat on top of the bar and glared at her. “Best you get out of here right now.”

“You won't serve another drink after I chop this bar to bits.” She jerked harder on the axe and her hat slipped down over her eyes. She shook her head, causing her hat to fall off and hit the bar. A long strand of wheat-colored hair came loose from her tight chignon and dangled across one shoulder, a slight vulnerability at odds with her demeanor.

“We got a lot of respect for women,” Big Jim said, glancing around at the patrons, who were looking wilder by the moment, “but nobody's—”

“Killing our ladies!” they hollered as one.

At the sound, the woman glanced up and around, as if being roused from a dream. She met Lucky's gaze for a sliver of a second, but long enough to send a hot spark to his gut. She had eyes the color of delicate wood violets, but darkened with shadows of pain and fear. She was in trouble and knew it, but she was either irate or dumb or stubborn enough to hold her ground.

Once more, he wished he didn't live life on the outside looking in, seeing what others didn't see, knowing what others didn't know, rescuing what others didn't even know was in danger. He couldn't let this foolish woman get hurt.

He walked around the crush of men to the other end of the bar, where she still pulled on her hatchet. He caught the feminine scent of violet water. Made his pulse ratchet up a notch.

“You look in need of service.” He tipped his Stetson. “Allow me to assist you.” He picked up her hat and set it on her head.

Large violet eyes set in a heart-shaped face focused on him.
Heartbreaker.
He didn't think he'd ever had the fortune to see a more beautiful or innately sensual woman. Yet she was a hell of a lot more than that. He just didn't know what. Not many people could keep a secret from him. But she was doing it, as if she'd had long practice.

She was a mystery he wanted to solve. First, why was she so determined to conceal her beauty? Right clothes, right smile, right simper and she could have any man she wanted any which way she wanted him. So what was she doing playing with fire instead of making fire with a doting husband? Second, she didn't belong in the Bend, so what was she doing with a hatchet in the Red River Saloon? Third, why did he feel as if she was going to change his life?

He didn't like any of his questions. And he didn't like her pushing her way into his world as if she had a right to be there. But he knew just as well that his likes or dislikes weren't going to make a damn bit of difference.

She set her rosy lips in a tight line and tilted up her pointed chin so she looked down her small nose at him. If that action was an attempt to discourage or intimidate him, it had the opposite effect. A challenge brought out the beast in him. He let his gaze wander over her in a blatant lack of courtesy.

She was only a couple of inches shorter than he. Tall and long-legged like a colt. He'd developed an eye for seeing through the subterfuge of women's clothes. She was corseted within an inch of her life, padded with layers of petticoats, and covered with bombazine. Yet he could tell she was curvy in the right places with plenty to fill a man's hands. Would her breasts feel like melons or peaches? Would her nipples be large or small, rosy or tawny? Questions like that could keep a man awake at night.

“Are you finished looking?” She spoke in a husky voice with a touch of sexy drawl. Not a Deep South accent, but something closer to East Texas.

He smiled, letting his dimple show. “You can't blame a man's admiration.”

“I suppose you mean that scandalous bar.” She looked back down at her axe and jerked hard again.

“I'd never dispute a lady's word.” He covered her hands with his own and felt her heat through the leather of her black gloves. She felt soft and strong at the same time, as if she were made for bed sport. “Allow me to help.”

“Please let go.”

He pressed, feeling her hands grow hotter. “Do you wish me to remove your hatchet or not?”

She gave him a narrow-eyed look, and then pulled her hands away.

He got a good grip on the handle, put his shoulders into it, and jerked the axe free.

“Thank you.” She reached for the hatchet.

“Outside.” He held her axe high, headed for the swinging doors, and figured she'd follow.

“Wait!” She hurried after him. “I have work to do.”

“Not here you don't.”

He pushed through the doors and held them open for her. When she joined him on the boardwalk, he glanced back. Big Jim stood behind the doors so she couldn't get back into the Red River Saloon.

“I appreciate your help. Now I'd like my hatchet.”

Lucky was distracted by a racket up the street—tambourines rattling and women singing. He looked twice before he could believe his eyes. A band of black-clad women marched with a wide banner that proclaimed T
EXAS
S
OCIETY FOR THE
P
ROMOTION OF
T
EMPERANCE
. The ladies without tambourines carried hatchets.

He turned to the violet-eyed beauty. “Friends of yours?”