Tomorrow's Dreams (43 page)

Which was exactly what he was doing, producing his ante … courtesy of Tyler's office safe. Since the bank had been closed the day before in honor of the race, the entire Thursday-night take was in the safe along with the usual saloon cash reserve. From what he'd gleaned eavesdropping on Monty and Tyler yesterday morning, there was over two thousand dollars stashed in there.

Miles's grin turned sly as he stopped at the office door and pulled several oddly bent wires from his pocket. While he knew that most people thought him a complete fool, he was clever at picking locks and adequate at cracking safes, both skills learned from his mother's larcenous lover when he was fifteen. Though he seldom got up the nerve to actually use those skills—much to his mother's displeasure—when he did, he was rarely suspected of the crime, for few people believed him capable of forming a serious thought, much less possessing the cunning for safecracking.

He figured it would be the same here, if anyone even noticed the theft in the confusion that was sure to result when Tyler's mutilated body was hauled into town, probably sometime this morning. Miles giggled as he fitted a wire into the keyhole. He intended to be at Lorelei's side when she saw Tyler's corpse, so he could tell her who was responsible for his death and why. She was bound to be so terrified that the same fate would befall her brat, that she'd do whatever he told her.

Even bed him. He licked his lips in carnal anticipation as he imagined lying between her sweet thighs and shoving himself into her. Undoubtedly she would be tense with reluctance, which meant she would clutch his cock all the tighter. He felt himself harden as the lock clicked open beneath his probing hands.

Shoving his tools back into his pocket, he opened the door and slipped inside, only to stop short. On the corner of the desk was a lamp … a lit one. His throat tightened with alarm. Someone had been here, and recently. Was it possible that Tyler had somehow escaped death and …

Of course not, he chided himself. Mother had promised to kill Seth Tyler, and Mother never broke her promises. No. If someone was here, it was probably Monty. The bartender had been doing the liquor inventory yesterday when he'd overheard Miles talking to Tyler, and it was possible that he'd come in early to finish the task. That being the case, he was probably down in the saloon verifying a count, which meant he might return any moment.

Determined not to be caught with his hands in the till, Miles scrambled toward the safe at the far side of the room. As he rounded the expensive desk, he came to another abrupt stop, this time not from apprehension, but from shock.

There, naked and fast asleep on the floor, were Lorelei and a very alive Seth Tyler. They lay half covered by a black evening cape with his front spooned intimately against her back, their clasped left hands resting on her bare right breast. They were the very picture of satiated lovers.

Miles stood there for a moment, too stunned to do more than gape at the couple. Then his shock erupted into murderous rage.
Lorelei was his! His, damn it!
Snarling his fury, he pulled out his bowie knife, one he always wore concealed in his boot during high-stake card games, and lunged at the sleeping man's exposed back.
Tyler would pay for stealing his woman, and pay big! He'd do exactly what Harley had failed to do, then send the bastard straight to hell where he belonged!

Seth lurched up with a howl, ripped from his dreams by a sudden burning pain branding his back from shoulder to waist. Desperately he tried to focus his eyes, to see who was shouting half-garbled threats and curses, but his head was spinning with blinding speed and he saw only a shadowy blur swooping down on him.

As if through a tunnel, he heard Penelope scream, “No, Miles! Dear God, no!” then her soft body hurled against his, knocking him back down and covering him as if to shield him.

Which was exactly what she was doing, he realized through the clearing mists of his foggy mind. Protecting him from Miles. Gritting his teeth against his mounting nausea, he concentrated on the wavering form above him, willing his gaze to adjust. Damn it to hell! He should be defending her, not the other way around. She could be hurt or worse shielding him like this.

Mercifully, Miles paused in his physical attack to parry Penelope's verbal one, giving Seth the critically needed time to regain his equilibrium. When his sickening dizziness had slowed to a drunken list, he evaluated the situation at hand.

“You're mine, Lorelei! Mine!” Miles was declaring, his voice shrill with rage. “It's time you realized it!”

“I'm not yours. I never was,” she retorted. “I've told you that a thousand times before. Why can't you accept it?”

Miles released a nasty, squealing laugh. “We'll see who accepts what when your lover is carved up like a—uh—Thanksgiving turkey!—and your brat is missing a finger or two. I have a hunch you'll accept whatever I damn well tell you.”

She stiffened. “You harm either Seth or my son, and I'll kill you. I swear I will!”

Her son?
Seth's gaze swerved from Miles's knife-brandishing form to Penelope's scowling profile.
Son? What the …?

One by one the pieces began to fall into place: the tension in her voice when she'd posed her seemingly theoretical questions on the consequences of conceiving his child; her wistful expression when she'd wondered if he would have loved their child; and her visible relief when he'd admitted that he would.

Miles grabbed Penelope by the hair and hauled her to him. “Bitch!” he screeched in response to whatever she'd just said. Before Seth could make his slowed reflexes react, the actor dropped the knife and administered a brutal backhanded slap to her face that sent her sprawling hard against the floor, sobbing.

Propelled by the sheer force of his fury, Seth lunged at the other man, knocking him backward. Ignoring the renewed reeling of his head, he wrestled Miles to the ground, shoving the bowie knife out of reach in the process. When the actor lay restrained beneath him, spitting crude curses and threats, Seth stared him in the eye and hissed, “Lesson number one: A gentleman never strikes a lady.” With that, he viciously slammed his fist into Miles's face. There was a sickening
crunch!
and a splattering of blood as the actor's nose cracked beneath the impact of the blow.

Miles arched up screeching his agony, his elbow connecting sharply with Seth's damaged rib in the process. Half-blind with dizziness and tears of pain, Seth fell off his thrashing opponent, convulsively clutching his side.

As he lay doubled-over, Penelope screamed, “Seth! Look out!”

He glanced up in time to see Miles swooping down on him, the knife catching the gleam of the early-morning sun as it arched toward his chest. Bracing his injured rib, he rolled away, taking the stabbing blow in his raised upper right arm.

As the razor-sharp blade sliced through his flesh, Penelope jumped on Miles's back and began pummeling his head and shoulders, shrieking, “Help! Please … somebody stop this!”

“Shut up, slut!” Miles squealed, dropping the knife to drag her fiercely flailing form off him and slam her to the floor. As he viciously jerked her head up by her hair, she screamed and punched him in his broken nose. He wailed and smashed his fist into her face. She fell back upon the carpet, as limp as a loosely stuffed rag doll.

Howling his rage, Seth sprang at Miles, ramming him with a violence that sent him crashing to the floor. Pinning him beneath his greater weight, Seth rained blow after flesh-splitting blow to his face. Through the oblivion of his mindless fury, and Miles's agonized cries, he heard, “Stop that! Damn it, stop!” Then someone attacked him from behind, slugging him in the kidneys.

Cursing, he rolled off Miles, tackling his new attacker, a blonde in a blue silk night rail, as he moved. It wasn't until he'd completely immobilized the ferociously punching and clawing woman that he identified her. It was Adele du Charme.

“Damn you, Tyler. Let me up,” she hissed, baring her teeth like a viper ready to strike.

From the opposite side of the room came a chorus of gasps. Seth glanced toward the sound, still holding Adele firmly to the carpet. Clustered in the door were three saloon girls, their mouths agape and their gazes obviously trained on his nude body; gazes that darted to the woman beneath him the second she wailed:

“Help me! Please help! He's trying to rape me!”

That accusation was enough to send one of the saloon girls scurrying down the hall, babbling something about the deputy being on the third floor with Titania. The two remaining women stood shuffling their feet, looking at each other uncertainly.

As Seth opened his mouth to denounce Adele for the lying bitch she was, he heard Penelope moan, “S-Seth?”

“Here,” he cried hoarsely, climbing off Adele to crawl over to where Penelope was woozily sitting up. “I'm here, sweetheart. Everything's fine now.” As he tenderly covered her naked form with his cape, he heard a low snarl behind him.

With equilibrium robbing speed, he swung around to see Miles charging at him with the knife. Unable to spring aside for fear of leaving Penelope in direct line of the blade, Seth did the only thing he could do: leap straight at Miles.

Squealing like a wounded pig, Miles flew back beneath the projectile of his adversary's body. In a blur of motion the men tumbled across the floor, thudding against furniture and walls as they wildly grappled for possession of the knife.

At last they came to a crashing stop against the desk.

Not a word passed as the women stared at where a limp Miles lay atop an equally lifeless-looking Seth. From between their bodies seeped a widening pool of blood.

Sobbing her panic, Penelope scrambled over to the men, disregarding her nudity in her desperation to get to Seth. “Seth!” she cried, gently smoothing his hair back from his pale face. The tendrils were sticky with blood, as was the side of his head where the doctor had stitched his scalp the night before. “Please, love. Please don't be dead,” she begged. “I need you.”

His long lashes fluttered once, then his eyes opened. For several seconds he stared up at her as if disoriented. Then one corner of his mouth curved up. “Princess?”

She went weak with relief. “Yes, love. I'm here.”

“Miles!” Adele shrieked abruptly, as if suddenly coming to her senses. Kneeling on the opposite side of the men as Penelope, she began shaking her slack-limbed son as if to wake him, alternately commanding and crooning, “Damn it, Miles! You get up this instant! Come on. Be a good boy and open your eyes now.”

When he didn't respond, she glared first at Penelope, then at the pair of silently gawking saloon girls. “Well? Don't just stand there like stupid cows. Help me turn him over.”

The saloon girls exchanged an apprehensive look, then glanced at Penelope. She nodded, as anxious as Adele to move Miles so she could see how badly Seth was hurt. With visible reluctance, the saloon girls did as ordered, one crossing herself before joining the others in their grisly task. After much tugging and pushing, they rolled Miles off Seth. As he flopped over onto his back, all four women drew back, gasping in unison.

He was dead. Stabbed through the heart with his own knife.

For several seconds the women stood transfixed: the saloon girls with wide-eyed horror, Adele with what appeared to be grief, if the woman was indeed capable of such an emotion, and Penelope with relief that it was Miles, not Seth, who was stabbed.

Penelope was the first to break free of the macabre trance. Ripping her revulsed gaze from Miles's face, now pummeled beyond recognition and frozen into a mask of demonic hatred, she returned her attention to Seth, who was struggling to sit up.

The binding on his ribs was long gone, as was the bandage on his shoulder, though those stitches had miraculously held. Anxiously, she scanned the rest of his body. Despite the profusion of blood on his torso and face, his only real injuries appeared to be his cut arm and the reopened scalp wound.

Still, Penelope wasn't about to take any chances, so she laid her palm against his chest, urging him back down again. “You should lie still until after we have the doctor examine you.”

He lifted her hand from his chest and kissed it. “I'm fine. Just a little bruised and dazed.” He nodded down at himself, as if to prove his point. Then he frowned. “And naked.”

“I'll fetch your trousers.”

“Cover yourself first,” he barked as she moved away.

From down the hall came the pounding of rapidly approaching boots, accompanied by the excited chatter of voices. Hastily Penelope wrapped herself in Seth's cape, then retrieved his trousers. Smiling his thanks, he drew them up over his legs.

As he lifted his hips to pull them the rest of the way up, he flinched violently, expelling, “Jesus!” Clamping his lower lip between his bared teeth, he gingerly shifted his weight to his right hip, tipping up his left one to expose his buttock. It was deeply slashed from his hipbone to the rounded medial curve.

Just then the deputy, wearing only his trousers, boots, and guns, an equally disheveled Titania, and the saloon girl who'd fetched them, erupted through the open door.

Gritting his teeth, Seth shoved his pants the rest of the way up, a gasp escaping him as the woolen fabric scraped over his wounded flank. As Penelope placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, someone grabbed her arm and hauled her from his side.

It was Adele. Her hands and night rail were smeared with Miles's blood; her red eyes glinted with a wild desperation more terrifying than her malice. Digging her sharp nails deep into Penelope's forearm, she dragged her into her embrace, snarling, “If you love your brat, you'll keep your mouth shut and go along with what I say.”

Long months of brutal conditioning made Penelope cringe and nod, the woman's words conjuring up the tormenting visions of Tommy's demise, which had been so cruelly planted in her mind.