Dance With A Gunfighter (11 page)

He looked relaxed, and took a few slow drags of tobacco,
lost in contemplation. After a while, he said, "I think it’s time we move
on to Jackson City."

His abrupt statement caught her off guard. She had
imagined him restless earlier, but thought he had grown somewhat content with
his job and way of life here. "I can’t leave, yet. I’m close to finding
them. I can feel it. The only one who’s discouraging is the marshal. He said to
give up this pursuit; that no snippet of a girl is going to bring those men down.
He’s wrong. I’ll find Tanner and I’ll beat him."

"No, Gabe."

"I will!"

"Not Tanner."

She said nothing more, but leaned back on her elbows, her
head tilted so that the sun shone down on her face, her eyes shut. She hoped
the sun would take away the sudden chill she felt.

His voice was soft. "You’ve let too many people know
who you’re looking for. It’s not safe here for you."

She opened her eyes then, and half-turned in his
direction. "I didn’t let too many know. Just people who go to the livery
stable."

"
All
the people go to the livery stable.
Talking so freely is dangerous. Word will get back to Tanner, and to the
others. If they find you before you find them, they’ll kill you."

She sat upright once again, bending her knees and wrapping
her arms around them as she contemplated his words. She pulled at some dry
weeds that reached the edge of the blanket. "I try to hold my
tongue," she said softly, "but it flaps on. Hell, no one will tell me
anything, anyway. It makes me so angry!"

He crossed his legs Indian style and finished his
cigarette. "Could be they’re trying to protect you. You’re young--"

"
Young?
You, too, Jess?" Her hand paused
on a shoot of sage.

He ignored her question. "Somebody’s got to protect
you. You don’t seem to worry about yourself."

"I don’t need protection. I can get along just fine
without you, McLowry, if that’s what you’re wondering." She began to
stand, but he grabbed her wrist, stopping her, his eyes steady.

"You’ve just proven everything I said. You go running
off without a clue where you’re going, you tell the world what you’re planning,
and you’re
too damned innocent
to take proper care of yourself."

She yanked her hand free. "I’m not that innocent,
Jess, whether you want to believe it or not. I know enough about the world and
the people in it."

"I don’t think so," he said with a half-grin.

"I know plenty--including about men and women, so
don’t you go high-hatting me, Jess McLowry."

He seemed to regard her for a long time before he turned
away. She waited, but he wouldn’t meet her eye again. Some kind of discomfort
seemed to have built in him. A vein pulsated on his neck. With a sigh, she
folded her arms over her knees and stared off at the horizon.

"Hell, McLowry," she said finally. "Who am
I kidding? I know why no one takes me seriously, why you think I’m too young,
or too innocent, or whatever, despite my years."

He gave her a sidelong glance. "You do?"

"I do." She swallowed hard. "It’s that
I’m...different."

His brows rose. "You’re
what
?"

"Different." She took a tremulous breath.
"I was four when my ma died and I grew up following my pa and brothers
around as if I were a boy, too. They treated me the same, and I learned I could
do everything they could except make proper use of the fly on my
trousers."

McLowry laughed out loud. It was a gruff sound, that of a
man not used to laughter, a sound that didn’t come easy and seemed to surprise
even him that it happened. She smiled, despite herself.

"See what I mean?" she asked with a wry lilt to
her voice. "I guess a lady would never say anything like that."

The fine lines at the outer edges of his eyes crinkled,
softening his features, and making her stomach flutter with how handsome he
was. "I’ve got to admit, I’ve never heard one."

She dropped her eyes. "There are times I wish I knew
how to act like a lady, Jess." She felt him draw back as if wary, and
hurried to explain. "I mean, even if I didn’t ever
use
that
knowledge, because after all, there’s no need to be lady-like when you’re going
to kill four men, but still, it’s something I wonder about." She averted
her head, embarrassed by her admission. She couldn’t help but remember seeing
him kissing the dancehall girl at the Crystal Palace--Clara, she had learned
her name was. She had never gotten any indication from Jess that he even liked
Clara, yet he kissed her.

"You’re fine, Gabe." His voice was harsh.
"Just the way you are."

"I don’t think so," she murmured. She couldn’t
look up at him, yet her gaze couldn’t pull away completely. His hands rested on
the blanket, his fine-boned hands, not the square, burly hands of most of the
ranchers she knew. But instead of the smooth, soft hands he once had, they now
were dark from the sun, with newly formed calluses and cuts and nicks from
construction work. "McLowry..."

"Yes?"

Being coy wasn’t her style, but sometimes it was hard to
forge ahead. Still, she wanted to know. "What is it that women
do
to make men take notice of them?"

The shocked look on his face told her how peculiar he
regarded her question. "What do they
do?
"

Her heart two-stepped. "To make men
like
them."

He sucked in a deep breath. "I never thought about it
much."

"I shouldn’t have asked," she said quickly.
"I didn’t mean to embarrass you."

"Me?" His voice sounded a little too high.
"Not at all." He took on a pedagogical tone. "If I were to give
it some thought, I could give you an answer. Well, right off the top of my
head, one thing you find when a woman’s around a man she likes is that she
just...well, she sort of sashays."

"Sashays?"

"You know."

Her hopes sank. "No, I don’t."

"Well..." He stood up and took a quick look
around as if to be sure no one was near. "Kind of like this." He put
one hand on his back hip, elbow bent and pointed outward, then walked around in
a circle, swinging his hips like the pendulum on a grandfather’s clock.

The sight of the tough gunfighter, who had men cowering
when he walked down the street, awkwardly trying to swing his hips, caused Gabe
to burst out laughing. He kept it up until she doubled over, holding her stomach
and laughing hard. It felt good to laugh like that. She hadn’t laughed since
her family was killed.

McLowry tumbled onto the blanket and laughed right along
with her.

He was close, close enough that if she reached out, she
could touch him. "If I ever did anything like that," she said,
composing herself again, "I’d scare them all away for sure!"

"Them?" he asked.

"All my future beaus."

"Ah," he said lightly, his smile vanishing.
"Them."

He put his hat on the ground and stretched out, flat on
his back, his arms folded and tucked under his head like a pillow. His
expression was hooded, his eyes staring off at clouds that coiled like wisps of
clotted cream. She wished she knew what he was thinking.

She stretched out beside him and rolled over onto her
stomach, propping herself up on both elbows. Blue eyes met hers.

Her gaze explored his face, taking in each feature until
she memorized every inch of his golden-tanned skin, sweet butter mustache, and
winged eyebrows. She found the shape of his nose perfect, as were the planes of
his cheeks, and the line of his lips. She had never seen a man so handsome.

"What else can a woman do, Jess?" The words
tumbled from her lips and now hung in the air, expectant. She prayed he
wouldn’t say she was wasting her time even asking such a question, that there
was nothing she could ever do to interest a man in her. To interest him.

She held her breath and waited. The pale blue of his eyes
seemed to deepen. They searched her face, her mouth. Then his breath drew in
sharply. He stood up and took a couple of steps before turning to face her.
"The one thing you can do, Gabe, is to forget about such questions. Forget
about men and what it takes to make yourself desirable to them. When you’re
back in Jackson City and ready to settle down, there’ll be time enough for all
that. Then it’ll just come to you, natural. And right."

He turned his back to her.

Horrified, she realized how inappropriately she had acted,
how she must have embarrassed him with her questions. She rose to her feet.
"I’m sorry," she whispered, quickly packing up the picnic basket,
wanting to run from him.

He grabbed her arms, jerking her hard against him. His
gaze zeroed in sharply to her lips. She could feel his breath mingling with her
own, feel the tension building between them. "Don’t trust the men around
here, Gabe." His hands tightened, hurting her now. "They’ll use you
and leave you. And you’re too good to be treated that way. Remember, don’t
trust anyone." Her chest ached from his nearness, his words, his anger. Then
he let her go.

"Don’t even trust me," he said. "Especially
not me."

She stared at him without speaking.

He picked up his hat, bunched their picnic blanket under
his arm, and walked away.

o0o

"I’m out." McLowry threw down his poker hand, and
picked up what little was left of his money. He strode over to the bar and
asked for a whiskey while the others continued playing. It had been a long time
since his luck had turned so bad.

Luck, hell. He had learned years ago that luck played only
a small part in poker. Concentration and remembering which cards you’d seen,
figuring out which cards the other players were most likely trying for, and
then computing your odds against theirs, was the way to win. If the odds were
with you, over time, lady luck would be right there, too.

He never played long odds, and he never staked everything
on one play. Slow and steady, he was in for the long haul. That’s how he
usually won. Except tonight.

Tonight, he couldn’t concentrate. Instead of seeing the
cards, he kept seeing big, brown eyes that looked at him as if he were George
Washington, Daniel Boone and the whole Lewis and Clark expedition all rolled up
in one. The trouble was, heroism was the last thing on his mind when he looked
at her.

Who was he trying to kid with his construction job and his
hands off ways? He had made a living as a gunfighter and a gambler. They had
kept him in liquor and card games, and what else was there in his life, anyway?
He knew what he had become. His spit wasn’t good enough to shine the shoes of a
girl like Gabe.

She was the one thing in his life these days that had any
goodness to it, and it was up to him to make sure she got back home safe--and
pure. He would be damned before he would allow her to become corrupted the way
everything else he touched had. Everything else had either turned bad or died.

"What’s the matter, handsome?" Clara strolled
over to him at the bar then leaned against his shoulder and dragged her
fingernail along the ridge of his ear. Ever since he had arrived in town, she
had given him the eye, but he had ignored her.

He took another swallow of his whiskey. She spun around,
turning so that her back pressed against the bar. She placed her elbows on it
in a way that made her breasts thrust out at him like the horns on a bull. He
kept his attention on his whiskey.

"Buy me a drink?" she purred.

"Sure." He nodded at Sanders, the barkeep, who
refilled his glass then grabbed another bottle and poured a shot glass for
Clara. Her drink looked like whiskey, he would be charged as if it were, but he
knew it was tea. Tea didn’t cut into the profits.

She sidled closer to him. "Not having much luck at
cards tonight, McLowry."

He didn’t answer.

"Maybe you’ll make up for it in other ways." She
angled so that the side of her breast pressed against his arm. Perfume and the
smell of face powder filled his nostrils; the soft swell of her breasts
reminded him how it would feel to put his hands there, or to press his face
against her, to surround himself with all the softness that a woman like this
could give.

"You got any suggestions?" he asked.

"For you, I got a head filled with them." Her
frizzed hair had been tinted a brassy orange, and each cheekbone had a round
dot of pink rouge, but her eyes were a fun-filled sparkling green and her
red-painted mouth was wide and pouting and full of promise. Maybe she offered
what he needed. Offered a way to get a skinny, too innocent female out of his
mind and heart. Or, what little heart he had left.

He thought about suggesting they go to her room, but
somehow, the words just wouldn’t come. Frustrated, he finished the second drink
and asked for another. He knew if he were going to bed this whore, he would
have to be drunk to do it.

"What’s the matter, McLowry?" She played with a
button on his shirt.

He brushed her hand away. "Nothing."

"I can take care of you." She curled herself
around him, her face close to his. "I can do things for you a flat-chested
tomboy wouldn’t even think of. You need a woman." Her voice went soft, her
eyes wide and longing. "I’ve hankered for you since the first day I saw
you. That one playful kiss you gave me was hardly a taste--and it’s made me
want lots more."

"McLowry!" His name was shouted in a voice that
was gruff and challenging.

He didn’t turn. "Yeah?"

"Your time’s up, McLowry."

Clara eased away from him. He heard the sound of chairs
crashing as others fled.

"I’m not interested in fighting you," he said,
still not turning. "Whoever you are."

"The name’s King Dunahay. It’ll be a famous name
soon."

"I’ve got no quarrel with you. Let’s just forget
this. Turn around and leave." His voice was cold and deadly.