The Devil's Own Desperado (8 page)

“What are you doing?” The words sounded in the room with the startling quality of gunfire.

Colt straightened. Amelia stood in the doorway, her eyes glittering and her lips compressed into a thin line.

“Looking for my revolver,” he said.

“It’s not in there.” She stalked over to him and snatched the tintype from his hand. Her expression softened for a moment as she gazed down at it. She brushed her fingertips over the glass front before her other hand tightened on the gilt wooden frame.

“Your parents?”

She nodded, her expression hardening again. She carefully set the tintype in the trunk and tossed the comforter back in before slamming the lid with the finality of a coffin. Colt knew he had just been told in very certain terms not to look through the trunk again.

She marched to the window and flung the curtains open, her motions sharp and short. Sunlight flooded the dark, low-ceilinged room. Her shoulders were squared and she held herself as if a ramrod had been sewn into the back of her starched calico dress.

“What were their names?” he asked.

“Mary and Phillip McCollister.”

Maybe it wasn’t old Brimstone Phillips. Colt slid his hand into his trouser pocket. “I’d like my gun back, Amelia.”

“When you leave, I will give it back to you. I will not have a weapon like that in this house.”

She seemed as unwavering as the mountains visible through the windows. Yet pain radiated from her, a pain he knew had nothing to do with physical hurts. Finding that tintype had opened wounds he was willing to bet hadn’t healed.

“What happened to your parents?”

“They died.” She fussed with the curtain over the window.

She could be as close-mouthed as a padlock, Colt decided. “I gathered as much. How?”

“Does it matter how?” Her voice cracked and her hand closed around the hem of the curtain. “It won’t bring them back to Saul and Jenny.”

Colt caught hold of her shoulder. He gently pulled her away from the window and caught her chin in the palm of his hand, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Or bring them back to you, Amelia? How did they die?”

Damn it, he shouldn’t care. All that mattered was getting his gun back and leaving here…leaving her. He couldn’t afford to care about anyone other than himself, and yet, he cared how her parents had died. He cared that she was raising her brother and sister by herself, that she was carrying that weight on her slender shoulders. He cared that the longer he was with her, the greater the odds became that the Matthews brothers would find him here, and that she or those kids could be hurt.

She shook her head, the loose tendrils of her hair brushing her face. “It doesn’t matter how, it just matters that they are dead, and I have to raise Saul and Jenny.”

“Did a gunman kill them? Is that why you’re so opposed to a gun in your house?”

Amelia didn’t answer. Colt brushed several long, wispy tendrils of strawberry-blonde hair from her slender cheeks. “It’s not an easy job you have. Raising kids, especially a boy, can’t be easy.”

She stilled under his light touch, and her eyes widened. Colt trailed his fingertips down the length of her neck, resting them for a moment in the hollow of her throat. Her pulse leaped under his fingers. She scarcely took a breath.

Dear God, she was innocent as a newborn. Colt’s chest tightened and a heavy weight settled in his groin. He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her face up to him. He bent his head to her. He doubted it would have been possible, but she stilled even more.

Colt hesitated. “You’ve never been kissed, have you?”

Her tongue darted out, skimming along her lips. Colt ground his teeth with the effort to keep from claiming her mouth at that instant.

“Yes, I have.” Bright color splashed on her cheeks, matching the defensive tone of her voice.

“Really kissed, or just a peck on the cheek by some sweaty-palmed boy behind the church?” He bent closer, his mouth nearly on hers. “Did some boy press his lips to yours for a second and tell you that you’d been kissed?”

The bedroom door flew open and Saul raced in. “Amy, the cows got out again.”

Amelia leaped back as if scalded. Colt smothered a groan when she slipped from his fingers and brushed past him. “I’ll help you catch them,” she said to Saul.

Colt dropped his head to his chest, ruthlessly quelling the desire firing through him. The tormenting, faint scent of vanilla lingered in her wake.

****

Amelia raced from the bedroom as if a pack of hell’s demons was dogging her heels. Her body tingled and her skin burned along the path his fingers had traced down her neck. Thank heavens Saul had intruded when he did.

As she looped a rope around Buttercup’s horns and dragged her back to the small pasture next to the barn, Amelia wondered what the difference was between being kissed and really being kissed. A kiss was a kiss, wasn’t it? After securing the cow in the enclosure, Amelia leaned her elbows onto the fence and attempted to sort out her cascading emotions. She dropped her head to her hands, admitting in that instant Colt Evans had fully intended to kiss her.

Somehow she knew kissing Colt Evans would not be like the quick, cool kiss Donnie Morris had stolen from her behind the Methodist Church a year ago. Being near Donnie Morris didn’t make her stomach fill with butterflies, or make her ache deep in her core. Donnie Morris certainly didn’t make her insides tremble when he touched her, and holding hands with him had been like holding a cold, dead trout.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like Donnie. She’d known him ever since her parents had moved to the Wyoming Territory. He had been the only one brave—or foolish—enough to try to fulfill all the Reverend Phillip McCollister’s requirements to court his oldest daughter. Even then, it wasn’t until after her parents’ deaths that Donnie had actually announced he wanted to court her. Donnie was sweet on her, she knew that. And he was good-looking, in a boyish manner. But when she compared him to Colt Evans…that was unfair, and she knew it. Donnie Morris was a boy and Colt Evans wasn’t.

Amelia laughed, embarrassed with the direction her thoughts were taking. Colt had asked if she considered a peck on the cheek by some sweaty-palmed boy a kiss. That was Donnie Morris, and Donnie’s kiss, and that honestly was the extent of her knowledge of kissing.

Oh heavens, Colt had to leave. She didn’t need this added difficulty in her life.

A horse trotting into the yard caused her to turn. She was startled to see Marshal Taylor rein in his huge, black gelding and silently regard her. That level gaze reminded her of the day her parents had been killed. He had been so kind and understanding, but there had also been a cool, distant shading to his eyes that day, as if he knew something he would not tell her.

The ever-present Wyoming wind gusted, tugging on Amelia’s skirts and blowing the long strands of the black gelding’s tail to the side. “Marshal, what brings you out here?”

Taylor sat still as a statue. “Everything all right, Amy?”

His question startled her more than his unexpected visit. “Why would you ask that?”

He swung down from the horse, and dropped a rein. Tipping the brim of his hat to her, he said, “Doc Archer tells me you’ve been taking care of a man who wandered in here with a bullet hole in his chest. Doc says his name is Colt Evans. So I’m just checking up to make sure you, Saul, and Jenny are all right.”

“We’re fine, thank you.” She wiped her palms down her skirt and brushed a long strand of hair from her face, the whole while meeting Taylor’s level gaze.

“In my experience, when a woman stands with her head buried in her hands, she’s upset about something. Are you sure everything is all right? You’re all right?”

Amelia glanced at the house and her stomach knotted. Taylor followed her glance.

Colt stood on the top step of the small porch, his face shrouded by the shadow of the overhang, the white sling a stark contrast to his all-black attire. The slash of white accentuated the width of his shoulders and drew attention to the narrowness of his hips.

“Introduce me,” Taylor said, leaving no doubt this wasn’t a request. Under his soft, Kentucky drawl was the strength of railroad-track iron.

Amelia led the way to the cabin. Every line of Colt’s expression was chiseled from the same granite that formed the peaks of the Medicine Bow Range. One corner of his mouth curled in a brief, mocking smile. No January day ever held the bitter cold his eyes did at that moment.

Amelia stopped a few feet from Colt. She tipped her head to the man behind her. “Marshal Taylor, Colt Evans. Mr. Evans, this is our marshal, Harrison Taylor.”

Only Colt’s level, icy gaze shifted, moving from Amelia, to the silver badge on Taylor’s chest, and then up to the man’s face. “Marshal.”

“
The
Colt Evans?”

Amelia had the sensation of standing between two snarling mountain lions sizing each other up. What might have been a smile skated for a second across Colt’s face. He still hadn’t moved, but Amelia sensed there was a coiled, dangerous energy in him just waiting for the slightest misstep to be unleashed.

“If I said no would you believe me?”

“Nope,” Taylor said.

Amelia stepped between the two men. “Marshal, Mr. Evans has assured me it is a simple coincidence—”

“Amy,” Taylor cut her off. “Don’t bother. I’ve seen enough shootists pass through Federal that I could probably pick them out of a crowd.” Taylor’s brutal glare returned to Colt. “Far as I know, you’ve managed to keep your killing legal. But let me find out differently…”

“I’ve never shot any man who didn’t draw on me first.” Colt leaned against a post. “I rather like my neck the length it is. I’d prefer not to have it stretched.” Colt’s brow arched up. “Anything else, Marshal?”

“Yeah, there is, Evans. Some of the folks in Federal feel downright protective toward Amy, Saul, and Jenny. I’m one of those folks. Don’t overstay your welcome.”

In the moment of silence between the two men, a meadowlark near the house trilled liquid notes from the tall grasses bending in the face of the breeze. Captain crowed from his post on the fence. Taylor’s horse shook his head, the bit jangling.

Colt’s frigid gaze slid over to Amelia and thawed. “That’s rather up to the lady, Marshal, not you or anyone else.”

Taylor took a step closer, forcing Amelia out of the way. “You do anything to hurt her or those kids or do anything that puts them in harm’s way, and you will answer to me.”

An insolent smile curled Colt’s mouth. He lifted his brow again and crossed one ankle over the other. With a jolt Amelia realized that even though he was shorter than the marshal, he had forced Taylor to look up at him by not stepping off the porch. “Answer to you, or answer to the badge?”

“Whichever you want, Evans.” The marshal’s voice sharpened. “You do
anything
that threatens any one of the people I care about, and I’ll take it very personally. The last man who pushed me on that point ended up dead.”

Amelia cringed with the arctic quality of Colt’s laugh. “And you despise me for never killing a man unless he’s already drawn on me? Were you wearing that badge when you killed him, just to keep it all legal?”

Taylor’s frame grew rigid. “Yes, I was. He’s dead because he kidnapped my wife.”

Amelia had no idea exactly what it was in Taylor’s words, but some of the chill melted from Colt’s expression. He dipped his head. “Good to know where I stand, then.” Colt turned on a heel and walked into the house.

Taylor hesitated a moment, and then touched the brim of his hat. “You have any trouble, any at all, Amy, and you send Saul or Jenny into town or out to the ranch for me. I’ll be here as fast as I can.”

Amelia forced a smile. “We’ll be fine, Marshal. Mr. Evans is not a danger to me, or to Saul and Jenny.”

Taylor’s brow arched into his hairline. “He’s more dangerous than you can possibly imagine. Take my advice, Amy. Move him along as quickly as you can. He’s trouble for you and the kids, the likes of which you’ve never seen.”

Colt was sitting at the table when Amelia came into the cabin. The white lines at the corners of his mouth matched the white of the sling around his neck. Cold, controlled fury shimmered in his eyes.

Before she could say anything, Colt said, “Let me guess, he told you if you have any trouble with me, he’ll take care of it.”

Amelia took a step back from the bitterness in his voice. “He said something to that effect, yes.”

His laugh was harsh. “I can probably make a better guess than that, Amelia. According to him I’m nothing but trouble to you and he said he’d be here as fast as possible if you needed him, didn’t he?” Colt slammed his fist onto the table. “Damn it, does he really think I picked up a gun because it was how I wanted to spend my life?”

“Doesn’t what you do ever keep you awake at night?” Amelia asked, needing to understand what the fascination with the power of life and death over another was.

“What the hell do you think whiskey is for?”

Amelia recoiled from the vehemence in his voice.

“For nights after I’ve killed a man, I drink myself into oblivion. I learned real quick a conscience was a commodity I couldn’t afford.” Colt shook his head. “No, I sure as hell can’t afford a conscience,” he added, almost to himself.

“Why did you pick up a gun, Colt?”

His shoulders slumped. “Because I didn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice. Even if your stepfather made you leave, surely your mother—”

“Leave my mother out of this.” There was a different pain in his voice at the mention of his mother. “When my stepfather threw me out, I got caught up with the wrong kind. Pretty soon, people were talking about how fast I was on the draw and how accurate. The next thing I knew, I got called out in some little one-horse town down on the Rio Grande.” He clenched his fists. “I was so damn scared I about wet my britches. After that, there was no turning back. I was fourteen the first time I got called out.”

“Colt…” His posture, the tone of his voice and the ravaged expression lining his face allowed her to imagine that terrified fourteen-year-old boy, trying to face down a grown man and knowing the only thing that would keep him alive would be his ability to draw a gun faster and shoot more accurately. And where was his mother when he had been cast into the world, little more than a child? Why that undercurrent of pain at the mention of her?