Gideon, Robin - Desire of the Phantom [Ecstasy in the Old West] (Siren Publishing Classic) (43 page)

“I knew you couldn’t leave me,” Pamela said, victory ring
ing in her tone.

When Garrett
stepped into the cabin, clutching onto the door for support, she saw that his face and shirt were soaked red with blood.
Blood streamed from a cut over his eye, and his lips were
cut and swelling.

When he collapsed in her arms, she was too frightened
even to scream.

Chapter Twenty

Regarding the three men, Richard kept the smile from
his face, though he was overjoyed with their work. These
hands—illiterate hired thugs who two days earlier had b
een paid to watch cattle—were making no effort to hide
their pleasure, however.

“We did just like you said,” Jack, the leader of the three, said
. “We beat him bad, but we didn’t kill him. He won’t
be going nowhere soon.”

“You’re sure you didn’t leave him to die?” Richard in
quired. Personally, it wouldn’t have bothered him if Garrett
Randolph had been killed, but for now that wasn’t the plan. Besides, it wasn’t what he’d hired these three men to do.

“No, sir. We got him back up on his horse and headed
back to his whore’s house,” Jack answered.

Richard reached into his inside jacket pocket and brought out his wallet. He extracted a stack of ten-dollar
bills and peeled them off slowly, handing each man three,
one at a time. Then he paused, smiled at the men, indi
cating he was a leader and realized that capable talent was
sometimes hard to find, and gave each man an additional
twenty dollars.

“The extra twenty is to see you get out of town,” Richard explained.

“Out of town? You didn’t say nothin’ ’bout us having to hightail it,” Jack said.

“That’s right, I didn’t. But you should know that a man
as powerful as Garrett Randolph might well hire someone
like Jedediah Bragg to track down the men who beat him. Now do you really want to be around when Jedediah rides
up and tries to arrest you?”

One of the younger men unacquainted with Jedediah Bragg’s lethal reputation grumbled, “Let him come. I’ll have him runnin’ with his tail between his legs in two seconds.”

Jack looked at him and said quietly, “You’d be dead in one second.” He then turned to Richard. “How long you
want us gone?”

“Three months should do fine,” Richard answered. “You’ll still have a job here when you return. Do yourselves a favor and don’t spend all that money in the first week.”

When the men left him, Richard’s spirits were so exu
berant he could hardly contain himself. Garrett Randolph
had been beaten bloody! It had cost Richard just a hundred
and fifty dollars to have it done. Looking back, Richard
wondered why he’d never had it done before. Garrett had
certainly been a thorn in his side for a number of years, yet Richard had never openly struck back. Until now.

He checked his pocket watch. A little past eight o’clock
in the morning. He wanted to rush to Angie’s bedroom to tell her the news, but she’d crucify him if he did that. There was a standing order at the ranch that Angie Darwell
simply wasn’t to be disturbed for any reason whatsoever
before noon.

Too restless to stay in one place, Richard decided a quick
trip to Lulu’s was in order. One of her girls could smooth
the rough edges off his desire. Then later, around noon, he’d go to Angie and tell her what had been done. She would be overjoyed; he was certain of it.

Richard wondered which revealing nightgown Angie had
worn when she’d gone to bed, and he quickened his pace on the way to the stables. Yes, Lulu’s was definitely the
place for him to be.

* * * *

“You idiot! You worthless jackass! You stupid, fat slob!” Angie screamed, flying about her bedroom, completely unmind
ful of how her breasts were bouncing beneath the sheer nightgown.

Richard stood with his back to the door, not quite know
ing what to say or do. Of all the reactions he’d thought his sister might have to the news that he’d had Garrett beaten, this wasn’t it. He had anticipated her sashaying
around her bedroom in just her nightgown. Hell, that was
half the reason he’d waited until the downstairs grandfather clock chimed noon before rushing to her room—but he hadn’t figured she’d be so angry.

“How could you have done such a thing?” Angie demanded, stabbing his chest with a forefinger. “Don’t you ever think?”

Richard swallowed his anger. “You were the one who
came to me and said you wanted him beaten up. I only
did what you asked. I thought you’d be grateful. You
said
you’d be grateful.”

Angie shot Richard a scathing look. “Don’t remind me of what I said.” She inhaled deeply, obviously forcing herself to be more composed. “There is no undoing what has been done,” she said aloud but to herself. “Tell me the whole story once again.”

Richard explained that he’d hired Jack and two other cowboys, giving them explicit orders to beat Garrett soundly but not kill or maim him. Since Garrett and Pamela had become lovers, the men had waited for him at the Bragg cabin, lying in ambush amid the trees. At sunrise, when Garrett had headed for his home, Jack and the other
two had jumped him, punching him in the face and kicking
him in the ribs repeatedly. Finally, they had tossed him
back onto his saddle and headed his horse back toward
the cabin.

Angie,
shook her head slowly,
astonished at her brother’s stupidity.

“Now Garrett’s face is all cut and bruised, and he’s in some god
damn woman’s bed,” Angie snapped through clenched teeth. “I didn’t want his face damaged, damn it. And, more than
that, I didn’t want him in some whore’s bed. What good’s
that going to do me?”

“But I thought you wanted him beaten up so that he
had to stay in bed,” Richard said softly, still not quite un
derstanding why what he had done was so wrong.

“Yes, but I didn’t want his face hurt!” she screamed.
“And the only whore’s bed that man should be in is mine.
Mine, damn it, mine.” The red glint in Angie’s eyes was
homicidal. “Get out of here. Get out of my sight, goddamn
you.”

Softly, Richard said, “You promised you’d be nice to me
if I did this for you.”

“Nice? To you? I’d rather fuck every unwashed
cowboy in the bunkhouse than be nice to you.”

* * * *

Two full days had passed since Garrett had collapsed into
her arms. Actually, it had been fifty-four hours since she’d thought her entire world had suddenly come crashing to
an end.

He was sleeping now in her bed, his face cleaned of
blood, a bandage over the left eye. His cut upper and lower
lips were still swollen where a fist or a boot had connected
savagely.

Pamela leaned against the doorjamb of her bedroom.
Garrett’s arms rested at his sides, the light blanket pulled
up under them.

For hours she had watched his chest rise and fall as he breathed shallowly, and many times her heart had leaped
in her chest when she’d thought he’d stopped breathing.

Who did this to him? she wondered, consumed
with anger. Nothing had been taken from Garrett—not even
his heavy gold pocket watch, which would certainly be worth the better part of two hundred dollars, its Swiss craftsmanship, diamonds on the hour stops,
and intricate engraving testimony to its excellence even
to the most untrained eye.

It was a good thing the men hadn’t robbed him. Had
they bothered to go through his saddlebags, they would
have found the cape and mask of the Midnight Phantom.

Pamela’s first inclination was to blame Jonathon Darwell. She
tended to blame him for everything that went bad. But she realized she was biased. Besides, Darwell, from what
Pamela had learned, was more inclined to make his problems
disappear entirely. If he’d suspected Garrett was the Midnight Phantom, Garrett would be dead now.

And why would he have done this to Garrett anyway?
Though the two were enemies, they had been able to main
tain an appearance of civility, as witnessed by the work they’d done jointly on behalf of the charity hospital. Besides, Garrett’s identity as the Midnight Phantom was still a secret…or was it?

Pamela thought long on this. Finally she decided that
Jonathon Darwell couldn’t possibly know Garrett was the Mid
night Phantom. If he did, he wouldn’t have hired men to
give Garrett a beating, he would have hired assassins
.

So what was she to do now?

Take care of Garrett and protect him from the human vultures ready to pick his bones.

Vivid memories came back to Pamela of her recent
confrontation with Angie Darwell. A day earlier, Angie had arrived
in a carriage with several men to take Garrett to her mansion in Whitetail Creek. She assured Pamela that the finest physicians would tend to his wounds.

“He’s staying with me.” Standing in the doorway of her
home, Pamela had refused to budge, even in the face of Angie and the gunmen she’d brought, and she was unimpressed by the ornately appointed carriage intended to take Garrett
into town.

“Why should he stay in this drafty shack?” Angie de
manded derisively. “I
can give him everything he could
want. What can you provide for him?”

Clearly, Angie would offer more than medical services
to Garrett. The look in her eyes told Pamela that.

“Just get away from here,” Pamela whispered. “Get off
my land. I can take care of Garrett.”

Angie tossed back her head, her eyes flashing with anger and condescension. “Sure you can. At least, you think so.
But I know Garrett. I know the kind of man he is. You’d
better learn some fancy tricks pretty quick if you want to
keep his attention for very long.”

Those words and Angie’s look of scorn had been burned
into Pamela’s mind, and no amount of time would erase them.

Damn Angie Darwell! Damn her to hell!

Pamela turned away from the bedroom. She didn’t want
to be so close to Garrett when such anger was in her heart, afraid that somehow her emotions might affect him ad
versely even as he slept.

She went to the kitchen area. Garrett would be waking
soon, and he’d be hungry. When Paul Randolph had ridden over to check on his brother, he’d brought with him enough
food to sustain ten people for several weeks.

“If there’s anything you need, just ask,” Paul had said.
“Don’t hesitate for a second. If you need the doctor out here again, let me know. I want him to have every
thing he could possibly desire.”

Pamela had smiled her thanks. She liked Garrett’s brother.
Though Paul’s inclination had been to take his brother
home, he’d acquiesced to Pamela’s wish to take care of Garrett.
However, so that Garrett’s presence wouldn’t be “any great
financial burden,” Paul had sent a wagon loaded with sup
plies over.