Outlaw (35 page)

This time it was Mr. Hand's turn to
blush.

"Uh, why don't you come inside, ma'am?" he
said, stammering a bit as he shook her hand. "There's folks 'round
here might find the notion of George Hand reading poems and such
mighty amusing. I'd rather not hand out more ammunition for the
fire than I got to, if you follow my meaning, ma'am."

Amelia glanced around. "I'm not sure I ought
to," she began, noticing yet another pair of ladies pointing in her
direction. At this rate, she'd ruin the good name of J.G. O'Malley
and Sons. "I've never entered a...an establishment such as yours,
and I—"

He saw who she was looking at, and nodded
toward the two ladies. "Them old biddies wouldn't even see you in
here. 'Sides, I'm about to close up anyway, head out to the big
fiesta
down at Levin's Park this afternoon."

Wavering, Amelia peered over his shoulders
toward the saloon's interior. She couldn't see any customers, but
that didn't mean the saloon was empty. There might be a man
drinking at the bar right now, and she'd never know it from where
she stood.

He raised his hand, palm facing. "Word of
honor, ma'am. No harm'll come to ya' in George Hand's place."

Just this one delivery
, Amelia
promised herself.
Then I'll go back to my room and rest for a
while
. She imagined the high double bed back at the Palace, a
nice wash at the fancy porcelain basin and a good long restorative
nap, and made up her mind.

"Very well, Mr. Hand," she said, stepping
between the swinging doors into the saloon's cool interior.
Everything looked black, dimmed as her eyes adjusted to the lack of
sunlight. It smelled of sour whiskey and, oddly enough, stale
lavender perfume.

Amelia turned to her host. "I'm sure you
must be eager to have your volume of poetry," she said, "and
I—"

"Let's just keep this poetry business 'tween
ourselves, ma'am," he interrupted as he hurried in behind her, his
forehead wrinkled into a sheepish look. "Or I won't never hear the
end of it from my friends."

He darted a glance toward a door set into
the saloon's rear wall, then lowered his voice. "I got one boardin'
with me right now, won't never let me live down being a po-e-try
reader."

Smiling, Amelia set her satchels atop a
scarred round tabletop and opened one to withdraw his book. "That's
perfectly fine with me," she told him, squinting to see within her
satchel. "Although if your friend likes books, perhaps he'd like to
see my book catalogue. J.G. O'Malley and Sons has an excellent
variety of reading material for all tastes and—"

"Oh, no, ma'am!" Mr. Hand interrupted,
looking plainly horrified. "He, ahhh—he don't see many folks these
days."

He snapped his mouth closed, his gaze
wandering toward the back door again. Amelia could see well enough
now to realize there were no other customers in the saloon, and the
tightness in her shoulders eased a bit.

"I see," she said, pulling out the slim
volume of romantic poems Mr. Hand had ordered. "That's too
bad."

"Ain't that right," he muttered, shaking his
head. "And that ain't even the half of it, ma'am," he added, his
face brightening as he accepted the book. "My friend, he's had a
bad turn of luck lately. Wife passed on not too long ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Amelia said,
watching as Mr. Hand licked his fingertips and began turning pages
in the book. If his expression of delight was anything to go by,
the rest of her afternoon could be quite profitable, indeed.

"Would you like to view our latest
catalogue?" she offered, drawing it from her satchel and extending
it toward him. At least talking with Mr. Hand would keep her mind
from her other troubles. If only for a little while, it was a
respite she needed.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Damn, it was hot
.

Sunlight pushed at his eyelids, making
Mason's head throb painfully. Even his scalp felt hot, like a poker
growing ever-hotter in the fire—especially in the places where
Curly Top had cut his hair short.

Scowling himself awake at the thought of
her, he cracked open his eyes. Whitewashed adobe and tilting blue
sky filled his vision, then the stench of fresh manure hit him.
Swearing, Mason shut his eyes again. The glimpse he'd had—and
smelled—was enough to remind him of every sorry detail of last
night.

The alley beside Hand's saloon was a hell of
a place to sleep.

Gradually he became aware of the prickly
adobe wall at his back biting through his shirt, the sounds of
horses plodding and wagons clanking on the streets nearby, and the
bells of San Agustín tolling what sounded like a funeral dirge. It
clanged through his head, setting his teeth on edge.

Grimacing, Mason opened his eyes and pushed
his hands into the rocky soil to lever himself further upright. In
his lap, the whiskey bottle tilted and then rolled sideways, the
last reminder he needed of the night he'd just spent. He grabbed
it, scowling at the liquor sloshing inside, and something inside
him got even madder than before.

He'd come out here last night meaning to
forget everything. Meaning to drain that whiskey until oblivion
took him. He'd held the full bottle in his hands and stared it
down, daring himself to take the first drink.

Now Mason turned it, raised it to the light
and gazed through it into a world turned amber. Whiskey brought no
peace. No peace that lasted anyway. And still he kept it always
nearby.

He'd kept a flask in his coat pocket until
Maricopa Wells and a bottle in the wagon since then, and spent a
night watching James and Manuel drink while he sat by thirsting.
Not a drop had passed his lips since they'd taken Ben away. Still
Mason kept the whiskey nearby, ready to take the ease it promised
and the forgetfulness he tortured himself with.

Not anymore.

Still holding the bottle, he hauled himself
to his feet, blinking at the blinding sunlight overhead. What the
hell time was it, anyway? He needed to get busy looking for Ben.
Looking for the Sharpe brothers. Looking for vengeance.

He'd been too long grieving over losing Amy.
It had been his own damned choice to leave her behind, the only
choice he'd had. No use crying over it now, Mason told himself,
propping the whiskey bottle atop an old beer barrel from Levin's. A
woman like Amelia O'Malley didn't belong in the west, especially
not in Mexico. She didn't belong with him. As many times as he'd
told her they'd go their separate ways once they reached Tucson,
she'd never said a contrary word.

A man could only conclude Curly Top had
wanted clear of him, wanted to get on with her own life.

Stepping back a few paces, Mason drew his
Colt and leveled it. He'd only hastened the inevitable with leaving
her behind in Picacho Peak. Never mind the pain of losing her, he
told himself, squinting toward the whiskey bottle. Never mind
loving her.

It was over. He had to move on.

He cocked the hammer. Sunlight glinted off
the whiskey bottle, hurting his eyes. Squinting, he sighted it
again.

"I win," Mason said, and pulled the
trigger.

The red brick, square-faced Palace Hotel was
the most welcome sight Amelia had seen all day. Shadows had already
begun lengthening across the street when she headed toward it,
looking forward to the clean lobby and the temporary haven of her
room after a day spent slogging through the muck-filled Tucson
streets and talking with one customer after another.

Now the streets were nearly deserted, except
for the occasional horse tethered in front of a shop or saloon. The
vendors had retreated—for
siestas
, Mr. Hand had informed
her—and the ladies had apparently finished their calls and gone
home. Stepping beneath the Palace Hotel's porch, Amelia carried her
much-lighter J.G. O'Malley and Sons satchels easily, now that
nearly all of her books had been delivered.

She entered the lobby, breathing deeply of
the roast-beef scented air wafting from the hotel's kitchens. The
success of her book agent ventures today was almost more than she'd
dared hope for. Capped off with Mr. Hand's generous order, Amelia's
log book fairly bulged at the seams with order-filled pages.

"Miss O'Malley!" called a masculine voice
from someplace beside her.

She glanced up to see the hotel's
fat-jowled, bewhiskered proprietor at the lobby desk, waving an
envelope in her direction.

"Oh, Miss O'Malley!" he cried again, leaning
across his gleaming polished-wood counter without a care for its
condition. "A wire's come for you, delivered only a few minutes
ago."

A wire? It could only be from Jacob, Amelia
thought, her stomach sinking with dread. No one else knew she'd
come west. No one else knew she'd booked a room at the Palace over
a week ago, before setting out on her ill-fated stagecoach journey
from the railroad's terminus at Gila Bend to deliver her book
orders to Tucson. No one except Jacob, who'd instructed her in all
those things before his planned elopement with Melissa.

The news couldn't be good. Amelia dragged
her feet across the carpet. Fingers trembling, she accepted the
telegram from the proprietor.

Thanking him in a voice turned whispery with
apprehension, she glanced down at the envelope. The wire was
addressed to her, all right. There'd be no escape via that route.
Crunching it in her fist, Amelia turned down the hall leading to
her room, her heart thumping. Either her scheme to act as a book
agent had been discovered, or something even more awful had
happened.

Either way, Amelia didn't want to open it
and find out.

By the time she got inside it, her room
seemed less a sanctuary than she'd hoped. She sank onto the ivory
coverlet-covered bed, staring sightlessly at the telegram. What
reason could Jacob have had to contact her—and why now, when she
was due to return to Big Pike Lake in little more than a week?

Her stomach flip-flopped as she ripped open
the telegram and slowly unfolded it. Addressed to her from her
father—
her father
?—the message was only a few lines long.
Barely able to breathe, Amelia scanned the text.

'Have learned all from Jacob,' it read.
'More gumption than I expected from you.'

Sighing, Amelia let the telegram, still in
hand, drift to her lap. A small part of her felt pleased at her
father's acknowledgement—however backhanded and grudgingly given.
The rest of her ached at the knowledge of how little he must have
thought her capable of, to have said such a thing.

More gumption than I expected from
you
.

As an admission of admiration for his
daughter's qualities, it lacked much. But as an expression of her
father's disappointment, it was wholly typical—and far more
familiar than she wished. Fingers trembling, Amelia raised the
telegram again.

'Come home immediately,' she read further,
feeling her heart sink as she imagined her red-faced, infuriated
father bellowing those words to the poor telegraph clerk. 'I shall
have your commissions waiting. Regards, your father, J.G.
O'Malley.'

Her commissions? Amelia sat up straighter,
quickly rereading the message. Yes, that's what it said—her
commissions. Stunned into stillness for an instant, she could only
stare at the telegram. A forgery? she wondered suddenly, flipping
it over to examine it. As quickly as she had, Amelia turned it
right-side up again. No, not that—the message bore the unmistakable
imprint of her father's impatient nature. The message had to be
genuine.

I shall have your commissions
waiting
. Why, that meant he'd...that meant he was offering her
the commissions from Jacob's sales!

Clutching the telegram, Amelia leapt from
the bed feeling as though she might soar through her open hotel
room window at the news. She jigged over to the glass-topped
bureau, grinning at her own exuberance, and propped the telegram
behind a perfume bottle. Then she skipped back a few paces to
admire it.

She'd done it! There, in print, was the
proof she'd longed for, the proof that meant her father would allow
her to join J.G. O'Malley and Sons officially. The proof that meant
he believed she could do the job as well as her brothers did—maybe
better! After all, she was the one with
gumption
.

Amelia hugged herself, leaning closer to
reread the telegram. Things would be different when she returned
home. J.G. O'Malley and Sons employed book agents all over the
United States and its territories. She'd have accounts of her own,
an income of her own—maybe her father would even turn over Jacob's
book accounts in the Arizona Territory to her.

The customers she'd dealt with already had
treated her with nothing but kindness and respect. The Territory
itself was beautiful and wild, so unlike everything back home.
Amelia could easily imagine herself setting up housekeeping in
Tucson or nearby, maybe opening a small bookshop of her own.
Skipping back toward the bureau, she rummaged inside for clean
clothes, tossing undergarments onto the bed behind her as she
located them.

She thought of the shops she'd seen since
arriving in Tucson, and decided a book and news depot might do
quite nicely. Her father would likely finance the venture, too.
She'd persuaded him to appoint her an official book agent, after
all. It seemed quite likely, now, that she could persuade him to
help her with other things, too. Smiling, Amelia took her nicest
pale blue baize gown from its peg in the wardrobe and shook it out.
Such grand plans called for a celebration.

Luckily for her, such a celebration was
about to begin. With her books almost entirely delivered, and her
agent's position and her father's respect assured, Amelia was in
exactly the mood to join in it.