Heaven with a Gun (2 page)

Though he didn’t contradict her—his beloved stepmother had made it clear that you never contradict a woman—-Jim actually had six females in his family. That was the problem.

His mother had died when he was three. A dozen years later his father had remarried a widow with five girls of her own. From the first moment they’d surrounded him with soft smiles, giggles, and shining clean looks, Jim had adored each and every one of them. From the littlest girl child, who’d used him to launch a lifelong career of lash-batting success, to the oldest, whom he seemed to exasperate with no more than a word, his stepsisters had taught him one thing: Women were enigmas.

“You wanna visit me a little later, sugar?” Merry suggested coyly.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said. He didn’t pay for sex, and Merry and Terry couldn’t afford to give it away. They’d all made their positions clear within a day of his arrival. It didn’t stop the twins from trying to change his mind.

“You got a wife back east, Jim?” Terry pouted. “She ain’t gonna mind you giving me a little something on the side.”

He didn’t answer the question. He had a reporter’s deep reticence about divulging anything about himself.

“Well.” Merry spread one plump little hand against his chest. “My, oh, my! If’n you change your mind, sugar, it’s Wednesday. I never work on Wednesdays . . . much.” Her hands trailed away with unfeigned regret as she minced back into the saloon.

“I work”—Terry stopped in the doorway—“real hard.” She winked and disappeared.

Jim stared after her.

“Well . . . uh.” Mort’s voice broke. He cleared his throat. “Well, uh . . . Say, Mr. Coyne, I wouldn’t rile Tommy Baker if I were you. He’s not much, but his uncle Ox is the biggest, orneriest—”

“God, Mort,” Jim said. “You gotta help me.”

Mort followed the direction of Jim’s gaze. He nodded in sudden fervent understanding, digging his hand deep into his trouser pocket. “How much money you wanna borrow?”

“Huh? Oh. No, Mort.”

The younger man flushed a brilliant red. “Well, I thought—Seeing how she—I just assumed—”

“And I appreciate your willingness to lend me cash,” Jim assured him. “But I’m talking about helping me with a story. You heard Terry—or Merry. It’s Wednesday. My editor is going to be expecting another ‘Wild West’ piece by tomorrow. I haven’t got one. And I can’t think of one. I did the ‘Diamond in the Rough, Knights of the Prairie’ thing. I did ‘Lonesome Frontier.’ I’d do the noble savage, except I haven’t even seen an Indian and I have a few principles left. Not many, mind you, but a few. Help me, Mort.”

In answer, Mort unfolded his newspaper and spread it on the railing. Emblazoned in bold typeface, its front-page headline read: LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE!

“You’re kidding.” Jim snatched up the paper and scanned the article.

“Nope.

“You need new typeface, Mort,” Jim murmured. “I can barely read the S’s and e’s.”

“I need new everything,” Mort agreed. “But I can’t afford nothing.”

“So where’d our girl show up this time?”

“She hit the Reynolds spread again,” Mort said. “Bold as brass, she walks into the old man’s office, holds a gun to his head, makes him open the ranch safe, and steals every dollar his foreman just brought back from Denver. Exact same thing she did last year. Once more and old George Reynolds is gonna be broke.”

“Now that takes guts,” Jim said admiringly. “And it’s smart too. I mean, who’d expect she’d rob the same house twice?” He folded the Far Enough Guardian back and studied the artist’s—Mort’s mother—rendition of Lightning Lil.

There wasn’t much to study: a picture of a masked face, flat-brimmed hat pulled low over the brow, a phalanx of witchy hair hanging down either cheek.

Jim read beneath the illustration, “Lightning Lil, as deadly accurate a gunfighter as the West has known, continued her sporadic five-year criminal career on Saturday night by once more robbing rancher George Reynolds in his home. This time, however, the price of Lil’s audacity was her own blood. In fleeing the scene, shots fired by one of Reynold’s employees wounded the female outlaw. The shootist claims to have seen her grab her leg. Blood stained an abandoned saddle found eight miles from the ranch.” He frowned.

“Why would she leave her saddle?” he murmured, then went back to reading. “However, in spite of the quick formation of a posse dedicated to her arrest, the notorious woman has yet to be apprehended. Authorities are now offering a $1,000 reward for her capture.”

“Damn! I gotta get this woman’s story. If I do, I can write my own ticket home.”

“Any luck on your ad?” Mort asked.

Jim shook his head and turned to the advertisement pages. There it was, double-lined box around it, two columns wide:

Would the lady known as Lightning Lil please contact J. C. Coyne regarding the possibility of a correspondence- based interview, for which the lady will be compensated in a most generous manner? Address replies to Mr. Coyne in the care of Mudruk’s Mercantile, Far Enough, Texas.

A similar ad ran in every weekly newspaper within three hundred miles.

“Just a waste of good money,” Jim muttered. “She probably can’t even read.”

He handed the paper back to Mort as a billow of dust heralded the arrival of the stagecoach. Standing here wasn’t getting his story written, and if he didn’t submit a story, he couldn’t submit his weekly demand that his publisher send him a return ticket to New York.

Of course, Jim thought, gazing longingly at the stagecoach, he could just jump on that coach and start traveling. He wouldn’t have a job, but hell, it didn’t feel like he had a job now. The carriage door opened and passengers began descending using an orange crate as a step.

The first was a traveling salesman from the look of the leather sample case clutched beneath his arm, followed by a somberly dressed white-haired man. Then, the tip of a crutch appeared, delicately testing the stability of the crate, followed by a small, cream-colored leather boot and then another foot, this one hidden by a thick white plaster cast.

The older man held his hand out, and a slender pink-gloved hand took it. A confection of creamy feathers, damask-color silk roses, and golden-chipped straw appeared, hiding its owner’s face.

It had been a month since Jim had seen anything so exquisitely female. He’d always been susceptible to feminine beauty, if wary of it. But that didn’t keep him from staring like every other man within fifty yards.

She emerged fully, allowing the old man to lift her from the carriage and deposit her carefully on the ground. Not as small as the delicate ankle and slender hands would lead one to assume, she was, in fact, a shade above average height, slender, long-legged, and curved in an intoxicating fashion. She thanked the man, wobbling a little before balancing on her crutch, and looked around.

Young. Very young. Her face was narrow and smooth, with refinement in the set of straight dark brows and coffee-color eyes, an aristocratic nose, and an unsettling determination about the small, clipped jaw. Not strictly beautiful, but arresting.

Something about her dress jarred with that genteel face. It was cheap material, not what a lady would have worn. It was a bit tight in the bodice and loose in the waist, exposing a few too many inches of silky skin above the décolletage. He couldn’t imagine what she was, or what she was doing here. Too elegant for a whore, too sporty for anything else.

Jim dismissed the notion. The Carmichael twins had pricked desires best left unserved, and just the look of this little crippled piece of baggage was doing more to rouse them than Merry and Terry’s white plumpness could ever hope to achieve. He shook his head. He had a story to write.

He started down the raised walk, passing within a few inches of her—God, she even smelled clean— anticipating a date with a cold sponge bath when he heard his name. “Coyne! Jim Coyne!” He turned. Vance was standing at the entrance to the Cattleman’s Saloon, looking petulant. “What about our drink?”

“Not today, Vance.” From the corner of his eye he saw the leggy vision’s eyes widen in surprise, and then she was pushing past her fellow passengers, coming fast, swinging along on her crutch, her skirts belling out with each purposeful stride. Her gaze fixed on his face in what appeared to be joyful recognition. Impossible. He would have remembered her, someone so—

“Jim! Darling!” He heard the crutch hit the dirt with a soft thud, felt her arms wrap around his neck and the fresh scent of expensive soap invade his nostrils. Her lithe, lusciously curved body pressed against his, warm and soft and . . . and . . . and with that, all conscious thoughts stuttered to a dead halt. Without another second’s hesitation his over-tried body took control of his actions and he lifted her up into his arms. His mouth came down on hers with the hunger of a man who’d just realized he was starving.

It was pure chemical reaction. It had to be. There was no other way to account for a physical response so intense it ripped through him like lightning.

His body tightened. Hers softened. His mouth roved. Hers opened. It felt like welcome and passion, and God help him, he found her tongue and stroked it with his own.

She jerked away from the intimacy, and like a cad he followed her retreat, bending over her, demanding more, a part of him as shocked as she must look. . . .

He pulled back, realization arriving too late. God, she’d mistaken him for someone else, and he’d taken advantage of her!

No wonder she was staring at him in horrified fascination. He’d all but assaulted her.

“Dear Mother of Mercy,” he gulped. “Lady, listen.” He stopped, backing away at the alarm in her eyes. “Really, I would never—”

“Please,” she said, and he realized that having dropped her crutch, she had nothing to rely on for support but him. Her eyes were a dark and luminous as water-washed topaz. Her hands tightened on his biceps, steadying herself. Heat flooded his cheeks. Mortified, he tried to think of some way to frame an apology. Amazingly, stunningly, the corners of her lush lips curved into a smile.

“So, Jim Coyne, you
do
remember you have a wife!”

Chapter Two

He didn’t look like a New York City reporter. He was bigger than she’d imagined he’d be, and even though he dressed like an Easterner—white shirt, crisp collar, and black stockinet tie—there was an awful lot of cloth covering his shoulders. Broad and flat-bellied, he wasn’t lean. He was dense. He looked like a prizefighter five years past retirement.

His dark, rumpled hair was peppered with silver, and fine laugh lines radiated from the corners of his pale pasque flower-blue eyes. His nose would have been handsome, but an old break broadened the bridge. Further augmenting the Irish street brawler’s look of him, a thin white scar started on the hard, uncompromising edge of his jaw and traveled across his lower lip, marring the lovely symmetry of his mouth.

A good-looking man. A formidable-looking man, too, even though it was hard to look formidable when you were staring at someone in slack-jawed astonishment.

She hadn’t known she was going to claim matrimony until she’d seen him, but once she’d clapped eyes on Jim Coyne there didn’t seem to be any other relationship she could claim. He was too young to be her father, too old to be her brother. That left husband, and what would a wife do on seeing her husband? Embrace him.

She’d never expected him to kiss her. My God, how could anyone have expected something as stunning as that!

She had to pull herself together. He was all but toeing the ground, like a student found in the faculty’s apartments. Any minute now he was going to blurt out a lengthy apology, followed by questions, and ruin her plans.

“Jim, darlin’,” she purred, snaking her arm through his and leaning heavily against him, “I can’t wait to get you alone. I could just about . . .” She inhaled with a suggestive little hiss.

His blank confusion became black-visaged suspicion. He opened his mouth. She held her breath. And then those award-winning reporter’s instincts of his took over, just as she’d hoped they would.

“Oh, and I can’t wait to get you alone either, darlin’,” he murmured meaningfully. He bent down to retrieve her crutch. “And I mean now.”

He handed her the crutch and reached behind her for the trunk the porter had deposited on the walkway. One-handed, he hefted it onto his shoulder.

“Which way, darlin’?”

“Next street over.” He motioned her forward, his fine blue eyes narrowing speculatively.

She swung lightly along, smiling at the curious onlookers who stood in the shop windows or wandered out of their businesses to catch a glimpse of her. A new woman was always a source of intense interest in a small western town. Especially one married to an exiled easterner. She knew it, and she played the role of the biblical Ruth to the hilt, casting lovesick sheep’s eyes at the man beside her, batting her lashes. In response, a ruddy bronze blush had washed up his strong throat and tinted his ears, charming her.

He was adorable. Big and handsome and utterly nonplussed by her. And with manners that would have made any mother proud, because in spite of his size and the impediment of her cast and his obvious impatience to get her alone, he accommodated her limping progress.

He led the way to a dingy two-story clapboard house with a few scrawny hollyhocks leaning wearily on either side of the front door. He opened the door and she hobbled in. Directly inside, a steep flight of stairs marched upward at a sharp angle. A hall on the right gave entry to a hot, stuffy room, the heavy curtains closed to keep the purple horsehair-covered furniture from fading. It was empty. She started in.

“Oh, no, darlin’. Someone might disturb us. Upstairs,” Jim said. He had a deep, lovely voice, like the lichen-covered stones on the bottom of a creek, silky and gravelly at the same time. But the look he turned on her reminded her that just because a man blushes doesn’t mean he’s easily manipulated. She’d best remind herself of that often, because she didn’t think she’d like having a man such as Jim Coyne mad at her.

She nodded and gamely started up the steep stairs.

She was halfway up when her crutch slipped out from under her. Her cast, too heavy and too big to fit on the narrow riser, slid off the step.