Dancing With the Devil (10 page)

“Pay the extra and get a shave, too,” she said, patting his cheek. “Women don’t like whiskers.”

Before her toe crossed the threshold, she’d vanished.

Deacon waved her off and made his way to the bathhouse behind the hotel. In a matter of minutes, he was up to his armpits in a tub of scalding hot water, a brandy-dipped cigar clenched between his teeth and a new bar of sandalwood soap on the shelf beside him.

For an extra four bits, the attendant, Kwan, shaved the offending whiskers from his face, all the while chattering on in Chinese as though Deacon should understand every word.

Deacon leaned back against the curve of the tub and puffed out large rings of cigar smoke. As much as he hated to admit Kit was right, she was. Dragging this out wasn’t going to make it any easier. He’d stay until they sorted out the marriage mess, but the moment that was cleared up, Deacon would need to be ready to leave Rhea once and for all.

It was only fair.

Kwan indicated for Deacon to sit up, then pointed at the bandage and rattled off another few comments Deacon couldn’t understand.

“Do you speak English?”

The other man’s only response was to blink.

“Probably just as well,” Deacon muttered.

With swift and skillful hands, Kwan unwrapped Deacon’s shoulder, then leaned closer to study it. He pointed a long crooked finger at it, grinned an almost toothless grin and nodded.

“Guess you heard, huh?”

Kwan’s grin widened over his reply. “Miss Way-ah.”

Deacon’s own grin surprised him. “That’s right. Miss Rhea.”

More mysterious sounds fired from Kwan’s throat, none of which made any sense to Deacon.

“Bet your wife doesn’t shoot at you, does she?” Deacon clamped his teeth tighter on his cigar and inhaled a long drag. “But I bet you’ve never given her reason to, either.”

Kwan bent over Deacon’s shoulder, pressing a scalding cloth around the edges of the wound.

“Gah!” Deacon gripped the sides of the tub until his knuckles ached. “If I were a paranoid man, Kwan, I might think you’d been trained by my father.”

Kwan sniffed the wound, muttered, pointed and shook his head.

“I don’t know.” Deacon shrugged his good shoulder. “I came back to help her and she shot me.”

“Howp?” Kwan worked the word around his tongue before letting it slide off.

“Yes.” Deacon nodded. “Help.” He yanked the cigar from his mouth and squeezed it between his fingers until the end almost completely flattened. “Of course,
I’ve never actually helped anyone before—but surely it’s not always this complicated.”

Kwan grunted, pulled the cloth from Deacon’s shoulder and hurried from the room. A moment later, he returned with a tiny lidded pot and set it on the floor next to the tub. “Howp?”

“Yes,” Deacon repeated. “It’s a long story, but I thought I needed to make her hate me. That didn’t quite work the way I expected, so now I need to make her not hate me. Understand?”

Kwan’s round face wrinkled in a deep frown. Of course he didn’t understand. The man only knew three words of English.

“Howp.” With an impatient jerk, he pulled the cigar from Deacon’s fingers, tossed it in a nearby spittoon, then pushed the tiny pot into his hand and nodded. “Howp.”

“What is—?” He lifted the lid and would have dropped the entire pot of ointment in the bathwater if Kwan hadn’t reacted so quickly. The rank stench of rot combined with some kind of exotic spice assaulted Deacon’s senses long after the other man slapped the lid back on and forced Deacon to take it again. “What the hell is that?”

Kwan’s laughter filled the room, but he didn’t answer—not even in Chinese. Instead, he pointed at Deacon, pinched his own nose, then pointed back at the pot.

“Nice of you to warn me,” Deacon muttered as he pinched his nose shut. He might not be able to smell it, but breathing through his mouth wasn’t any better. It was almost as if he could taste the smell, and it was all he could do not to gag.

Using a tiny flat stick he’d pulled from his tunic pocket, Kwan dipped it into the pot, then gently dabbed
the offensive ointment on Deacon’s wound. It burned and soothed all at the same time.

Oddest damned thing.

“You howp Miss Way-ah.” Kwan kept his attention on Deacon’s shoulder, carefully dabbing tiny bits of ointment all the way around the wound, then rubbing it in with his pinky finger.

“Y-yes.” Deacon sucked in a breath as the next dab of ointment singed his skin. “I’m trying.”

He closed his eyes and forced long even breaths in and out of his lungs. “It’d be infinitely easier if she weren’t as stubborn as an old mule.”

Kwan muttered in Chinese, but never lifted his head.

“If she’d just let me explain about Salma—”

Kwan’s fingers stilled. He frowned up at Deacon, tsked, then went back to work.

Deacon sighed. “Nothing happened! I thought it was best for Rhea if I ended it that way. Obviously I was wrong, and now she won’t even listen to the truth.”

Head bowed over his work, Kwan continued to mutter under his breath, and it didn’t matter that Deacon couldn’t understand him—the tone made it pretty clear what he meant.

“I want to make it right,” he said, then frowned. Why was he explaining himself to a bath attendant who didn’t even speak the same language? “Her heart is pained because of me. If I can ease that pain, then her heart won’t hurt anymore, and I can leave her in peace once and for all.”

A sharp knot tightened around his heart, making Kwan’s ointment seem like nothing. It actually took Deacon several moments before he realized Kwan had stopped his ministrations. The man’s frown was as fierce as Deacon had ever seen, and his thin little body
had snapped upright so he looked more like a long narrow rod.

“What?” Deacon frowned back at him. Who was Kwan to judge him? “It’s the right thing to do! Since I’m the one who hardened her heart, I’m the one who must soften it so she is free to love again. Why can’t anyone else understand that?”

Before Deacon finished speaking, Kwan flew into a tirade of Chinese, his tongue racing so fast that it all came out sounding like one long angry word.

As he ranted, he wrapped a clean bandage around Deacon’s shoulder and upper arm, being none-too-gentle about it either, and tucked the end beneath the folds.

“You no howp.” Grabbing up the tiny pot, Kwan marched out of the room and slammed the door behind him, leaving Deacon alone in his rapidly cooling bathwater.

What did Kwan know anyway?

Deacon washed his hair and scrubbed the rest of his body twice, careful to keep the new bandages dry.

Feeling like a new man, he climbed out of the cooling water and stepped into his new suit. Ah, there really was nothing better than the feel of new silk. Well, perhaps there was one thing, but since he couldn’t walk around with Rhea draped over his chest, the silk would have to do.

He set his new hat on his head, left his old clothes bundled in the corner and stepped out into the street.

Now that he no longer looked like a vagabond, he could hold his head up in public. First stop—the sheriff’s office.

The building was little more than a brick box, complete with a cell made of rusty bars and a scratched and scarred old desk in the corner. Handbills hung in haphazard
design over the walls, and a long, heavy looking rifle stood propped in the corner.

Colin slouched in his chair, his booted feet crossed over the corner of the desk, a cup of coffee in one hand, and a piece of paper in the other.

“Colin.” Deacon stepped inside the building, but didn’t dare touch anything; the resulting dust storm would no doubt settle on his new suit and ruin the effects of his bath.

“Well, look at you,” Colin snorted. “Helping yourself to the goods at the store already, are ya?”

Deacon curled his fingers around the lapels of his jacket and grinned. “It was a gift, actually.”

“A gift?” He ran his hand over his mouth and scratched his whiskers. “Guess you’ve got Rhea feeling pretty guilty about shootin’ you if she’s willing to splurge on a suit like that.”

If Colin wanted to think it had been a gift from Rhea, so be it. It saved Deacon from having to explain about Kit.

“I was wondering,” Deacon said, “if you’ve had any ideas on how to rectify our…situation?”

Colin’s boots hit the floor with a loud thud. “Nothin’ yet.”

A wave of relief washed over Deacon, but he kept his expression neutral. “Very well.” He turned to leave, but Colin stopped him.

“How’s Rhea?”

“She’s fine.” Irritation gnawed at Deacon. Colin might be in his rights to ask, and he might even be in his rights to ask in that tone of voice, but it didn’t mean Deacon had to like it.

“Listen.” Colin rose from his chair and made his way across the small room. “What Rhea did with this whole marriage thing was wrong, and she’s gonna have to deal
with what ever happens. But that don’t mean you got any right to mistreat her.”

It took the better part of a minute for Deacon to see past the fire burning in his sockets. “I am
not
mistreating her.”

“Maybe not physically.”

“Not in any way,” he ground out. “Your sister and I have an understanding.”

“The only understanding I’m interested in is the one between you and me,” Colin said, jabbing his finger against Deacon’s shoulder. “You’ve battered her reputation enough. When you ‘die’ this time, you’d do well to stay dead.”

Deacon gritted his teeth to stop from grimacing every time Colin’s finger jabbed his wound.

“Calm down, Colin,” he said. “This will be my last visit to your town—and your sister.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

Deacon turned sharply and made his exit. From there, he headed directly for the store. He had a sudden overwhelming need to see Rhea; not to talk to her or even touch her, though that would be good, too. He just needed to see her.

Weak, that’s what he was. And every minute with her was making him weaker.

People crowded down each aisle of the store, yet few seemed interested in any of the merchandise. Ernest and Rhea were both busy with customers; he, at the counter facing Deacon, and she in the far aisle, paging through a catalog with a woman in a fancy green dress.

The rest of the crowd seemed to be hovering, chattering aimlessly and waiting for something—or, more likely, someone.

Him
. Their modern-day Lazarus.

At the sound of the door opening, every head turned in his direction. The ensuing silence lasted less than two seconds before the entire room burst into a flurry of buzzing, whispers and pointing fingers.

Humans
.

Fighting back a curse, he pulled his hat off and started up the aisle nearest the button table. Halfway past it, he paused. All the buttons Rhea had spent so long sorting were now back in the bowl, a jumbled mess of colors and shapes. What the—

Ernest came around the counter and marched straight toward him, brushing by customers as if they weren’t even there. His complexion was a disturbing reddish purple color, and it seemed his eyes were about to bulge right out of their sockets.

“Something wrong?” Deacon asked.

“You’ve got nerve.” Ernest came to an abrupt halt right in front of Deacon. He kept his voice low, but there was no mistaking the blatant animosity. “Do you think I’m gonna let you—”

“Pfft.” Deacon brushed him off without a second glance. What ever was bothering the boy would have to wait until the crowd dispersed.

“Mr. Deacon!” The voice came from a slightly hunched older woman with snow-white hair and a curious twinkle in her eye. People throughout the store turned in their direction, including Rhea, who glanced over, started to smile, then stopped, her mouth frozen in a twisted half curve. As Deacon watched, Rhea’s eyes flickered to Ernest, then to Deacon, before she blinked rapidly and returned her attention to her customer.

The old woman smiled brightly and held up hand for Deacon to take. “I’m Mrs. Foster, an old friend of Rhea’s parents. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

Hiding his grimace, he shook her hand quickly, all the while trying to catch Rhea’s eye again.

“Of course, your face and name are familiar to me,” the woman was saying, “since you’ve visited our town before, but we’ve never been formally introduced.”

“No,” he answered, forcing civility into his voice. “We haven’t.”

“We’re all so happy you’ve come back,” she said, “though I imagine it was quite a shock for her to have you suddenly appear after all this time.”

“I’m sorry?” He looked around for Ernest, who had taken his angry glare to the far corner of the store to help another customer.

“Rhea,” the woman said with an exasperated sigh and a brief nod in Rhea’s direction. “I’m sure that’s why she…I mean, the shooting and all. Must have been the shock that made her do it.”

Deacon blinked through the fog in his head.

“Yes,” he finally answered with a grin. “Shocked. That’s exactly it. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on her face.”

“I guess we’re just lucky she didn’t have better aim.”

“Yes,” he laughed. “Very lucky indeed.”

“Forgive me for asking,” she went on, “but I’m most curious to know where you’ve been all this time, and why Rhea would believe you were dead.”

“Did you ask her?”

Mrs. Foster shook her white head slowly. “I didn’t want to pry, you know.”

Of course she did, the nosy old bat.

Several other customers moved closer. Some had the decency to feign interest in nearby merchandise, but most simply stared and leaned in, straining to hear.

The urge to tell them the truth was almost too much. But the last thing Rhea needed was for the old
biddy to have a stroke in the middle of her store, so he did what came naturally.

He lied.

“I was in Houston, recovering from a nasty injury that did, in fact, almost kill me.”

He offered her a short, condescending smile. “Sadly, my attacker thought to inflict more harm by prematurely declaring me dead to the world. Thus, word was passed to my poor unsuspecting wife.”

“Oh dear.” Mrs. Foster’s watery eyes widened. “How perfectly awful.”

“You have no idea.”