Sweetwater Seduction (9 page)

“—there ain't a man likely even to give it a try,” Wyatt finished.

“I disagree,” Kerrigan said quietly. He couldn't have said why he championed Miss Devlin, because he knew from his own little experience with her that she was plain and tall and sharp-tongued. But she hadn't struck him as quite so awful as the members of the Association had painted her. Unfortunately, what the others heard in his statement was something far different than he had intended.

“You'd be willing to bed her?” Cyrus asked.

“That sure would take the starch out of her collar,” Rusty said with a sly grin.

“Rusty's right,” Oak agreed, his eyes narrowed in contemplation. “Miss Devlin could hardly incite our wives to deny us if she was enjoying the pleasures of the flesh herself.”

There was utter silence in the room as the horde of disgruntled husbands considered Oak's words.

“Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting, Oak?” Cyrus asked incredulously.

“I'm merely saying that we've hired Kerrigan to handle the trouble in Sweetwater. Maybe we should add another little bit of trouble to the job. After all, a man of Mr. Kerrigan's considerable talents should be able to seduce a plain-faced spinster like Miss Devlin.” He turned to confront Kerrigan and added, “Especially when we offer him a substantial bonus for the job.”

Everyone waited with sucked-up guts to hear the gunslinger's response to this outrageous proposal. His eyelids were lowered, hiding his reaction, his voice emotionless when he asked, “How much of a bonus did you have in mind?”

“How about a hundred dollars?” Oak said.

“How about a thousand dollars?” the gunman replied.

His voice was curt, and Oak thought perhaps Kerrigan disapproved of the idea, except if he did, why hadn't he just said so instead of bargaining for more money? “That's a lot of cash.”

“As I understand the situation, what you're asking me to do will be well worth every penny,” the gunslinger drawled.

Oak's eyes scanned the room, getting tacit permission from those assembled. “All right,” he said at last. “One thousand dollars for the seduction of Miss Devlin.”

The gunslinger abandoned his negligent slouch by the fireplace and approached Oak. “It's a deal.”

Oak wanted to ask how and when they would know the deed was done, but remained silent in response to the icy coldness of Kerrigan's dark-eyed gaze when they shook hands.

“I'll be in touch,” Kerrigan said. Without taking the least notice of the men who stood gawking at him, he turned and left. They heard the heavy oak front door slamming shut behind him.

“How're we gonna know if he does what we hired him to do?” one man asked in the stupefied quiet that followed Kerrigan's departure.

“I imagine he'll turn the rustlers over to the sheriff,” Oak replied.

The man turned beet red. “No, I meant the other. A woman don't look no different when . . .”

“For crying out loud,” Cyrus said. “What makes you think he's going to be successful? I expect you're underestimating Miss Devlin. That woman would talk a man to death before she unbuttoned the first button.”

There were some relieved looks on the appalled faces of those men who couldn't quite believe to what ends their desperation had driven them. It was something quite out of the ordinary to hire a man to seduce an innocent woman. Their relief was short-lived.

“On the contrary,” Oak countered as hedoor through which the gunman had departed. “I think you're underestimating the persuasive powers of Mr. Kerrigan. To be on the safe side, however, I think we better keep this little bargain to ourselves.”

There was no objection to be heard from the men shifting uncomfortably around their consciences.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the valley, a similar meeting of nesters was under way led by Big Ben Davis. The farmers had gathered at the split-log home of one of the bachelors among them, Levander Early. Although the chinks in the walls had been stuffed with newspaper, the house was drafty. It had a dirt floor and shuttered windows. The single rectangular room served as bedroom, parlor, and kitchen. The farmers who had crowded inside the crude structure leaned against the wall, perched on the brass four-poster bed and straddled the benches at the kitchen table. Levander Early had claimed the rocker by the stone fireplace for himself.

“We cain't trust the Sweetwater Stock Growers Association to deal fair,” Levander said. “I say we don't make up to 'em no matter what.”

“Easy for you to say,” Bevis Ives argued. “You and your friends don't have wives making your lives unbearable.”

Levander glanced quickly at the men who had been a part of his gang in the Montana Territory in the days before he had supposedly become an honest farmer in Wyoming. It hadn't been easy convincing Bud, Hogg, Doanie, and Stick that they could make a dishonest living in Sweetwater. He had carefully explained that being a part of the community was the perfect cover for their life of crime. They had all filed for adjoining land under the Homestead Act, and Levander had browbeaten his cohorts into plowing the land and planting crops, which they had harvested to their profit.

But Levander had greater expectations than could be realized from the pittance the land had rendered up. All his plans of future wealth depended on the upheaval he and his gang had created in the valley. He had no intention of letting the nesters make peace overtures to the ranchers. It served his purpose very well to have one side distrustful of the other. The current state of affairs he and his gang had created offered them the chance to take from both sides with neither being the wiser.

“You cain't knuckle under to your wives,” Levander cajoled, “or you risk losin' everythin'.”

“My wife can make me so miserable I don't
care
if I lose everything,” Ollie Carson muttered.

“Levander's right, Ollie,” Big Ben said. “We can't let our wives get away with this. They don't realize what we stand to lose.”

“I ain't never spent the night apart from my wife—till last night,” Ollie admitted. “I honestly don't think I kin stand it for another night.”

“You'll have to,” Big Ben said, giving Ollie a stern look. “But I agree we gotta find a way to end this foolishness, and fast. I vote we do some investigating of our own to find out who's been doing the rustling that's got the Association so riled up. That oughtta go a long way toward bringing peace to the valley.”

“That's a great idea!” Bevis agreed. “If we can catch the rustlers the 'Sociation'll be happy and we'll get our wives back.”

“Don't know 'bout that,” Levander said with a frown. “How're we gonna catch the rustlers when neither the sheriff nor the 'Sociation can? And it ain't only the rustlin',” Levander reminded. “Them cattlemen have got their eyes on that water we fenced off last summer.”

“I been thinking about that too,” Big Ben said. “Maybe we were a bit hasty there.”

“Never say it!” Levander cried in a horrified voice. “If we hadn't fenced off that water there'd've been steers crossin' our land all summer to get to it.”

“I'm not so sure about that,” Big Ben said.

Levander could see all his fine ambitions about to bite the dust. “Hell, 'fore we make plans to go chasin' rustlers, maybe we better give the idea some more considerin'.”

“I don't need to do any more considering,” Bevis said. “I say we
do
something.”

“Like what?” Big Ben asked.

“Start patrolling for the rustlers.”

Levander snorted in disgust. “More'n likely the 'Sociation is gonna think your patrols
is
the rustlers. And that gunslinger from Texas the 'Sociation hired is liable to shoot somebody right through the gizzard—purely by mistake, o' course.”

Levander was pleased to see from the leery faces around him that his words had struck home. “I heard tell this Kerrigan fellow has killed more'n a dozen men. No sense any of us takin' one of his bullets.”

“But we can't just do nothing!” Ollie protested.

“That's true enough,” Big Ben said. “But Levander may be right. We need to think a little more about the right thing to do. We'll just have to do the best we can to outlast our wives for a while.”

Big Ben was sure that wasn't going to be as easy as it sounded out loud. He and Persia had always had a good time between the sheets, or under a tree, or beside a stream. It hadn't mattered where they were. He always wanted her and she was always willing . . . until last night.

He had thought maybe she had arranged a special welcome home after his release from jail, she had looked so beautiful at the supper table. Her face, surrounded by honey-brown curls, had been lit up with excitement, making her gre eyes sparkle, and her lips had twitched into a stunning smile whenever he had managed to catch her eye. When she had shooed Bliss and Sally to bed early, he had known it was going to be a special evening. And it had been, but not at all in the way he had hoped.

Big Ben hadn't known his wife could be so alluring. In the entire sixteen years they had been married he could never remember a night when she had taken her clothes off one piece at a time, keeping him at arm's length and forbidding him to touch. She had unbuttoned her dress one button at a time, revealing the soft white flesh that was so different from the sun-browned skin exposed to the harsh frontier sun. That was enough by itself to make him hard, but as she unbuttoned her dress she ran her hands across her small breasts, touching herself in the way he wanted to touch her, making her nipples peak. It was exquisite torture.

He would have been inside her an instant later, except she held up a hand and said breathlessly, “Wait. It'll be better if you wait.”

Big Ben hurt, he wanted Persia so bad, but as much as he wanted her, he liked the feeling of wanting her more. So he had obliged her. He watched her strip to nothing more than her pantalettes. She had shoved them down in front, exposing her navel, and her hands were lost deep inside them. His heart was pounding so hard it was all he could do to hear. His mouth was so dry he couldn't swallow.

“Come here, Ben,” Persia had said in a husky voice.

He was on her in an instant, his hands surrounding her breasts, his lips latched onto hers, his tongue deep inside her mouth claiming the siren who was his wife.

A second later he was bereft of the woman who had been in his arms. Persia had backed up against the bedroom wall panting hard, holding a shotgun in her trembling hands that was aimed right at his belly. Flushed and quivering, it was hard for her to speak. But speak she did, in words so unbelievable, his ears had burned.

In sixteen years he had never forced his wife to share herself with him, and he wasn't about to start now, no matter what the provocation. He had left his bedroom and spent the night in the smelly barn. On the itchy hay. In the bitter cold. By himself.

If there was any way he could get this business with the ranchers settled, he wanted it settled. He wanted his wife back. And soon. Because Persia had promised that once there was peace in the valley . . .

Big Ben shook himself from his reverie. “There's no reason why we can't all be on the lookout for rustlers,” he said.

“All right,” Levander reluctantly agreed. “If anyone sees anythin' s'picious, report to me, and I'll see that Bud and Hogg and Doanie and Stick gets the word to the rest of y'all. Agreed?”

Big Ben looked around the room of nodding heads before he said, “Agreed.”

Levander hadn't been completely successful keeping things under control, but at least he would be able to silence any suspi before they got voiced. It was too bad he had to share the spoils from rustling with the gang of men in cahoots with him. But then, there was a lot to share. And having help made everything so much easier. Nobody even suspected the real source of all their troubles in Sweetwater.

Kerrigan was angry with himself. He had done a lot of dirty jobs in his lifetime—rustled cattle and horses, intimidated weaker men, even killed some who had given him no other choice—but he had never sunk to seducing an innocent woman for pay. And while he had often acted outside the law, he had always been able to argue that he was administering his own peculiar brand of justice. But where was the justice in what he had just agreed to do?

The men who'd hired him had to be blind if all they saw in Eden Devlin was a “plain-faced spinster schoolteacher.” Behind her old-maid spectacles, Kerrigan had watched her gray eyes flash with defiance. She might keep her hair bound up in a bun, but he had seen her rich titian curls escaping from that silly nightcap. And they might think her “tall as a pine,” but as far as he was concerned, that just meant she would fit him better in all the right places. So maybe, he realized, the reason he felt so upset was because the money tainted his enjoyment of something he would have found pleasure in doing for nothing.