My Darling Gunslinger (17 page)

Never trust your instincts when it comes to women ‘cause like as not they’ll be wrong.

Cyrus Culpepper

Ty made it as far as Moss Creek before turning around.

He wasn’t going to let an uppity foreign bitch force him from his land.

So he’d won the ranch in a rigged game. Three quarters of it still belonged to him.

So the princess, or baroness or whatever the hell she was, had only welcomed him, only made a place for him within her odd little family in hopes he would go running off to kill a man at the snap of her fingers.

Or the spreading of her legs.

But damn, he’d wanted to believe he’d found a home and a family and a woman after years spent traversing the country with nowhere to lay his head but the cold hard ground, his horse his single friend, and only whores to welcome him into their arms.

He might have gone on believing, had he not seen the way the color had leeched from her face when the Chinaman had made his announcement, had he not heard the Nordic Amazon whisper of finding a half-breed possessing skills with a knife.

Even then, he could have pushed away the doubts crowding him if he hadn’t gone in search of Charlotte only to hear Magnus McDonough’s voice raised behind the parlor door.

His first instinct had been to go barreling into the room in defense of the lady.

Then he’d heard the Scotsman’s words and believing had ceased to be an option for him.

What in blazes were you doing in that railcar all day if’n you weren’t bargaining for his bloody gun?

As loud as the nick of a revolver hammer in an otherwise silent room, Magnus’s words had reverberated inside his head and Tyler Morgan had recognized the truth he’d been too foolish, too fucking love-struck, to see.

Charlotte Green had bargained her body for his gun.

“So fucking what?” he asked his faithful horse, the only female who’d ever been true and honest and free in her affections.

Pocahontas picked up her pace as if to assure him she was still devoted to him, and Ty smiled despite the jagged stone that seemed wedged into the chasm where his heart ought to reside.

Skirting around Mystic, Ty crossed onto Zeppelin land just north of the house, waded his mount through the small stream, emerging behind the railway car where just the day before he’d discovered passion and affection and tenderness for the first time in his misbegotten life.

Lies. All of it, from the moment he’d entered to find Charlotte standing in her frilly corset and ruffled drawers. Every word, every look, every touch she’d given him had been a lie.

Resolutely looking away from the scene of his foolish fall, Ty lead Pocahontas through a copse of trees, coming out a distance behind the barn only to find three horses tethered to the fence surrounding the sheep pasture.

They were too scrawny to belong to the Zeppelin, their coats spattered with mud and sweat, their manes dirty and lank.

Ty looked toward the house, cursed when he realized his sightline was blocked by the barn. Reaching for his rifle and dismounting in one fluid motion, he crouched low and ran for the shelter of the sturdy whitewashed structured.

He didn’t need his keen instincts, the little shiver of warning that foretold impending danger. There wasn’t a single reason those horses should be tied out of sight of the house that didn’t speak of some form of menace, of a threat to the livestock or the family living on the ranch.

With his back pressed to the barn, Ty inched his way to the corner, turning to peer around into the yard between the building and the house.

Holy fucking shit.

Charlotte stood on the lawn, yellow skirts whipping around her legs, hands pressed to her belly, and her gaze fixed on two men prowling toward her.

The man nearest to her was tall and lanky, a brown hat jammed on his head. Dressed in worn and patched buckskins and a leather vest over a mud-brown shirt, he held a long-nosed revolver in his hands, the barrel pointed right at the lady.

The second man was shorter and stockier with bright red hair shooting this way and that in the wind. Dungarees likely as new and stiff as Ty’s own trousers sagged around his hips and the white shirt he wore was stretched tight across his round shoulders. He carried his revolver loosely, the barrel bumping against his thigh with each step he took.

Ty brought up his rifle, sighted down the long barrel.

Charlotte moved into the crosshairs, dancing across the grass on her toes, her fingers plucking at the fat bow at her waist.

Laughter, warm and sultry carried on the wind.

“Move, honey,” Ty breathed as Charlotte danced around the men, blocking his view of one, then the next.

Again she laughed, tossing back her head and spinning around, distracting the men with the sway of her hips and sultry timber of her voice.

In the next instant her skirts lifted on a gust of wind, taking her petticoats with them, baring her long legs. Bright yellow silk whipped around her like the cape of a matador he’d once seen in a Mexico City bullring.

Then all that silk, all the ruffled white cotton was airborne, soaring overhead where the wind caught it and blew it straight for the tall fellow. With her back to Ty, Charlotte reached for her hip. Sunlight glinted off metal, a bright spark there and gone in an instant when her hand moved, a pale blur whizzing through the air, punctuated by a sharp retort.

Ty pulled the trigger, his shot going wide as the tall man dodged to evade her discarded skirts. And still the man’s body jerked as if he’d been hit before he crumbled to the ground facedown, yellow cotton drifting to land beside him.

Ty swung his rifle to the second man, found him in his sights, his finger pulling back the trigger. But the stocky man was already stumbling back, his hands clutching at his belly, his mouth open around a scream of pain that sent birds flying from the trees before he collapsed.

Charlotte spun around to face Ty where he crouched at the corner of the barn. In one hand she held a small revolver pointed right at him, the other hand swept along her thigh. Metal flashed, flew through the air, whizzing past his head. The knife vibrated as it was imbedded deep in the wood only inches from his ear, the intricately carved handle trembling, the sound almost musical.

A flash of movement, an angry shout had Ty’s gun swinging around once more.

A third man, an older fellow with a paunch and a bearded face, came flying around the house, a rifle held out before him, and aimed at Charlotte’s back.

As she spun around to face this new threat, her small revolver rising in her hand, Ty took his shot and the man flew off his feet, landing on his back with his arms and legs spread out.

Charlotte fell to her knees beside the short, stocky man she’d felled with a knife to the belly.

“Charlotte!” His gaze whipping around the yard, seeking a fourth or a fifth miscreant, Ty dashed toward her, the calm that had taken hold of him during the battle falling away to leave a heaving horror, a blinding rage.

If she heard him, she gave no indication.

Ty dropped down beside her, already reaching for her, his eyes searching for the bullet wound from the shot he hadn’t heard fired.

“No,” she hissed, turning her head to glare at him. “Do not touch me.”

“You injured, Countess?” Ethel rushed out onto the porch, a long rifle sweeping over the yard.

“Go back into the house and take Daisy with you,” Charlotte ordered and Ty saw the housekeeper cowering behind the tall blonde woman.

“Are there more?” Ethel asked, ignoring her orders.

“Three horses, three men” Ty barked, his throat raw and the blood still roaring in his head.

“Please take Daisy inside. The men will have heard the shots. They’ll be here soon.” Charlotte’s words were kind, almost pleading, but there was something in her voice, some new emotion that lifted the hairs on his arms.

Ethel lowered her gun and retreated, taking Daisy with her and quietly closing the door.

Charlotte leaned over the injured man, bringing her face just above his.

Shit, he was just a boy. A freckle-faced kid not old enough to shave.

“What’s your name?” Charlotte asked, her voice soft and gentle.

“Jimmy,” he whispered on a groan, a small pool of blood gathering at the corner of his mouth.

“Hullo Jimmy, my name is Charlotte and you came to kill my son.”

Her words hit Ty with the force of an anvil and he sucked in a shocked breath, let it out on a raspy groan, his eyes fixed on her profile, on her pale cheeks and trembling lips.

“No,” Jimmy moaned.

“I’m sorry, Jimmy,” Charlotte crooned. “You are going to die today.”

“I…I don’t…” he stammered.

“I know you don’t want to die,” she agreed. “But my knife is buried six inches in your belly, your innards are sliced to ribbons, and it is only a matter of time before you bleed to death.”

“Please,” he begged, tears leaking from his eyes.

Charlotte brought her small revolver up, showed it to the boy. “The only question remaining is whether you’ll die quick and easy or slow and hard.”

It was then Ty realized her fingers were wrapped around the handle of the knife protruding from his belly. Blood coated her hand while still more pumped steadily from the wound. As he watched, she tapped one long, elegant finger against the blade.

Jimmy let loose a howl of pain, blood trickling past his lips to slide down his cheek.

“Charlotte,” Ty whispered, not sure what he wanted to say to this woman who was a stranger to him. A fierce warrior who’d felled two men in the blink of an eye, only to kneel before one of them and calmly introduce herself as the mother of the boy he’d come to kill. A soft-spoken woman who’d apologized for his imminent death before giving him a choice as to how he would die.

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Her words were delivered with the same crooning softness, as if she still spoke to the wounded young man, but Ty knew the words were meant for him. “Did your mother never share that tidbit with you?”

“Please,” Jimmy whispered. “Shoot me.”

“Not just yet,” Charlotte replied. “I promise I will give you an easy death, but first you will tell me who hired you.”

“I dunno,” he muttered, his eyes drifting closed. “Pa met him in…”

“Jimmy, wake up, sweetheart,” she sang tenderly.

“What?” his lids lifted and he looked up at her from glassy eyes.

“Where did your father meet the man?”

“The Dakotas.”

“Very good,” she praised. “What is the man’s name?”

“I can’t…please,” he panted, more blood spilling from his lips. “Mean son a’bitch. Knows where we live. My ma’s there all alone.”

“Mean is he?” Charlotte tapped the knife with two fingers and Jimmy’s body twitched as he screamed.

“You haven’t seen mean,” she whispered when he grew quiet once more. “You came to kill my seven-year-old son, an innocent boy who’s never wronged you. I will plant three more knives in your guts and beat out an anthem on their quivering handles. What is the man’s name?”

“Johnston,” he murmured.

“What does he look like?”

“Dunno.”

“Three knives, Jimmy.” Charlotte leaned down until they were nearly nose to nose. “What does he look like?”

“Dark hair…mustache,” he gasped. “Foreign fellow…talks like you.”

If his words surprised her, she didn’t let it show. “Did your father tell the man where we are?”

“Don’t think so…supposed to meet up with ‘im…in Helena after,” Jimmy answered, his eyes pleading.

Charlotte sat back on her heels, her gaze drifting over the man who was little more than a boy, and Ty raised his revolver, ready to end his torment.

“No, I’ll do it.” Charlotte’s voice barely wavered. “I promised him an easy death and I always keep my word.”

Before he could argue, she lurched to her feet and aimed.

Ty barely managed to get to his feet, to step back, before the retort of her revolver broke the silence in the yard.

In the very center of the boy’s forehead, a clean circle welled up and blood slowly ran down between his eyes.

And Charlotte Green stumbled to the rosebushes lining the front porch, fell to her knees and proceeded to lose the contents of her stomach.

Hell, lassie, it ain’t courage or skill or even practice what makes a warrior, it’s heart. And you’ve more heart than any man I’ve ever known.

Magnus McDonough

Charlotte was running on nerves and fear and rage and a horror unlike any she’d ever experienced in all the years she’d been traveling the globe in search of a safe haven.

“I want two men to bury these…these bastards beyond the trees,” she ordered as she came through the door, her hands shaking so badly she could not get her gun belt buckled around her hips. “The rest of your men are to form a perimeter around the house.”

Sully dropped Victoria’s reins and turned away to relay Charlotte’s orders as she got her fingers to cooperate and went on to tie the straps around her thighs, the weight of her revolver and knives on her hips a comfort.

“Charlotte, are you sure you ought to go into town dressed like that?” Daisy asked from where she sat in the rocker in the corner, her arms wrapped around her middle and her face blanched of all color.

“It hardly matters now.”

There was no point in pretending she was simply Jasper’s widowed niece come to live with him in his dotage. If Frederick didn’t already know of her whereabouts, it was only a matter of time.

Eustace Johnston, Frederick Grenville’s trusted man, would find them whether or not she ventured into Mystic dressed in dark trousers and a loose white blouse with a gun and three knives strapped to her hips.

“I’m coming with you.” Ethel rose from the second rocker, her rifle slung over one shoulder.

“You’ve your own child to protect now,” Charlotte argued, taking the steps at a clip, her boot heels loud on the worn boards.

“You cannot go alone.”

“She isn’t alone.” Ty fell into step beside Charlotte as she crossed to the white horse waiting patiently in the yard beside his palomino.

Charlotte ignored his words, ignored his presence beside her, all of her faculties focused on Sebastian.

“Do you need a leg up?”

Again she ignored him, swinging up into the saddle with the ease of years of practice at the hands of Magnus. She checked her rifle in the scabbard, checked her ammunition in the saddle bags before turning Victoria and cantering onto the dirt lane.

Ty caught up with her almost immediately and they rode side by side past the barn where one cowboy was climbing up onto the roof, past two more heading out to establish a perimeter, and through the gates with a pair of Zs carved into the wood.

As they galloped toward Mystic, Charlotte replayed the scene in the yard over and over again in her mind, seeing the two men creeping around the corner of the house just as she came out the door.

All the years of training had flown away on the breeze when she’d seen their guns and realized she was alone in the yard with two men who had no reason to care whether she lived or died. They could kill her where she stood, go into the house to kill Daisy and Ethel, and lay in wait for Sebastian and his guardians to return.

And then the tall man had swept a leering gaze over her, lingering on her breasts, on her ankles as the wind lifted her skirts, and an odd sort of calm had claimed her. It was as if she knew the steps of a dance to which they’d never been introduced.

She’d seen her advantage in that filthy man’s beady little eyes and she’d taken it, dancing around them, putting on a show until they were caught up in the moment. And all the while she’d known precisely what her next move would be.

Tug the fat yellow bow loose.

Toss her skirt in the air.

Take out the tall man with her revolver.

End the second man’s life with a knife.

Except her aim had been off, her blade finding his belly instead of his chest and he hadn’t died. She’d tortured him first, tapping her fingers against the jeweled handle of a knife she’d thrown at targets hundreds, thousands of times.

Targets did not bleed. They did not scream and beg for mercy. They were not boys with their entire lives spread out before them.

“Just a boy,” she murmured, his freckled face filling her mind.

“I won’t let anything happen to your son.” Ty’s voice, dark and raspy, reached across the space between their mounts.

Tears leaked from Charlotte’s eyes and she pulled her hat low as she urged her horse ahead in a turn, wanting, needing solitude so that she could somehow come to terms with the horror of what she’d done to some other woman’s son.

Ty fell back as if he knew instinctively what she needed and she wondered if he’d cried the first time he’d killed a man.

Then she pushed the thought from her mind and focused on what was important.

Sebastian.

Always and forever.

It had been thus since the moment she’d realized she carried George’s babe in her belly. Every thought, every decision, had been centered around the life they’d created together during their few short months of marriage.

Nothing had changed.

Nothing would ever change.

She saw that with startling clarity now.

Frederick had been plotting and scheming to lay claim to the earldom since George had died, all of his considerable resources dedicated to the murderous task.

He’d left nothing to chance, no stone unturned, for more than seven years.

He would never stop hunting Sebastian, not so long as there was breath left in his body. Or Sebastian’s.

If Charlotte wanted a different life for Sebastian, she would have to claim it for him.

***

Ty ate the graceful white horse’s dust all the way into Mystic, his mind filled with the lady who rode her.

Lady Charlotte Marie Alexandra Siegfried Pendergrass Grenville, Countess of Westlockhart, according to the leaflet he’d taken off the old fellow, the third man to die on the Zeppelin Ranch that afternoon.

Christ, a bloody countess with more names than a roomful of whores.

He’d been at her side when she’d taken her first life, watched in an odd sort of wonder as she’d done what needed to be done without so much as a whimper before taking sick in the rosebushes.

Lady Charlotte Marie Alexandra Siegfried Pendergrass Grenville, Countess of Westlockhart was a hell of a woman.

Tyler Morgan’s woman.

She might not know it yet, would likely fight tooth and nail to deny it, but Charlotte belonged to him.

All he had to do was kill a man to claim her.

Ty caught up with Charlotte as she rode past the church. The schoolhouse lay just ahead, a single room structure of whitewashed clapboard surrounded by a rickety fence.

Akeem sat on a chair by the door. The moment he spied his mistress racing down the road, he sprang to his feet and disappeared into the school house.

A piercing whistle rent the air and Ty swiveled in the saddle to find Magnus standing before three saddled horses on the small rise behind the structure. He was up and in the saddle with surprising speed, galloping around the fenced yard with the two rider-less horses following.

Charlotte reined in hard, her mount spinning in a half circle before she gained control once more. The giant Arab barreled through the door with Sebastian tucked against his chest, his long, powerful legs eating up the distance, reaching Ty and Charlotte in the dusty road only seconds before Magnus joined them.

No one said a word as Sebastian was dumped on the saddle of a big bay, a leather bag clutched in his arms. Thin legs in dark trousers and shiny boots hung down on either side of the horse until Akeem vaulted into the saddle, covering the dangling limbs with his own, his body curling around the boy as he reached for the reins. Sebastian scooted back against the man’s chest, squirmed around until his head was tucked beneath his granite jaw.

Sebastian all but disappeared into the shelter of Akeem’s big framem, and Ty realized he was watching a well-choreographed set of moves, one they’d likely practiced countless times, until it came as naturally to them as breathing.

Jesus, what sort of threat loomed over this boy, over his mother and her motley band of servant warriors that would necessitate his learning to hide himself that way when he ought to have been learning nothing more than how to read and ride and perhaps toss a rope with some measure of accuracy?

While Ty grappled with the answer, Charlotte brought her mount beside boy and man and he thought she might hug her son, maybe ruffle his hair and whisper reassuring words to ease his fear. Instead she reached into the saddle bag clutched in the boy’s arms and came out with a small derringer, silver glinting in the sun. Without a word she pressed it into Sebastian’s hand and looked up into Akeem’s drawn face.

Some silent message passed between them before the giant gave a quick nod and signaled his mount forward. Magnus fell in to the right and just ahead of the pair, Charlotte taking the left position.

Ty urged Pocahontas forward, taking the lead, riding out ahead of the others, his eyes scanning the road, the boardwalk, the windows and doorways of the buildings lining the street. Few people were about but those who were watched the spectacle with curiosity.

Ty and Charlotte had been in town for only a couple of minutes, so precisely planned and meticulously implemented was their rescue. In and out with no questions asked and but a handful of witnesses, just as Ty would have planned it had he been in charge.

But he hadn’t been in charge. Even as he lead the group out of town, his gaze racing over the rolling hills, searching for movement that did not belong, his hearing attuned to the slightest misplaced sound, he wasn’t in charge.

The journey to the Zeppelin was completed in silence, Ty looking back every half mile to see the others in their tight formation, their eyes shifting around the countryside same as his. All but Sebastian who only peered carefully around Akeem’s vigilant embrace.

Ty slowed as the house came into view, the windows shuttered, the heavy front door closed. Dropping back to ride just ahead of the others, he nodded to Pete on the roof of the barn.

Sully sat on the porch steps, a rifle resting comfortably over his knees.

“All’s quiet,” he said by way of greeting, lumbering to his feet as the horses stopped in the yard.

The door swung open and Ethel Chang stepped out onto the porch dressed in faded gray trousers and a loose-fitting black shirt, her long-barreled rifle slung over her shoulder. Her gaze went immediately to Sebastian, a smile curling over her lips. She looked to Charlotte who met her gaze, a question hovering in her turquoise eyes.

“Buried in the woods,” Ethel replied to the unspoken query. “And the Palace has been made ready for travel.”

Magnus eased off his mount with a grunt. “I’ll send one of the lads into town to fetch a couple of flatbed carts and round up a few more hands to move the Palace.”

“We cannot afford to send away even one man,” Charlotte said, her voice tight and hollow as she dismounted in one fluid motion and rounded Akeem’s horse’s flank. The dark-skinned man uncurled his body from around the boy and Sebastian slid into his mother’s arms.

She held him close, her eyes slamming shut and her lips trembling as he wrapped his arms around her narrow shoulders and his legs around her hips.

“I’ll see to the horses,” Sully offered.

“Then rotate the hands,” Charlotte told the foreman, her arms tightening around Sebastian. “Pete’s likely sunblind after two hours on the barn roof staring at nothing but the wavering landscape. He’s no good to us if he cannot see properly.”

Surprised by her insight, by her knowledge of the tricks a man’s vision could play on him after hours spent staring at the endless expanse of the landscape in the hot sun, Ty watched as she lowered Sebastian to the ground and took hold of his hand.

“Tomorrow we’ll send one of the hands into town to hire more men and talk to the railway master about the Palace,” she continued, leading a silent, wide-eyed Sebastian up the steps. “Today we have plans to make.”