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Billy Darling never enjoyed being a wanted man until the day Miss Esmerelda Fine marched into the Tumbleweed Saloon and pointed her derringer straight at his heart. A duke's granddaughter gunning for a notorious bounty hunter.
Instead of killing Darling, Fine hired him to find her runaway brother. Little did Fine know she would be led on a chase in the Wild West.
And little did Darling know in everyman's life comes the time when he's got nothing left to lose...except his heart.
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Chapter One
Calamity, New Mexico
Esmerelda Fine eyed the Wanted poster nailed to the porch post of the stagecoach station with a jaded eye. "Billy Darling," she murmured. "A rather harmless name for such a wicked man, isn't it?"
"Beggin' your pardon, ma'am, but Billy ain't wicked. He's just a man that does what needs to be done. If someone needs killin', he kills 'em." The grizzled cowhand who had overheard her musing spat a fat wad of tobacco on the plank sidewalk, barely missing the pleated hem of her skirt. "You cain't fault a man who enjoys his job. Why, Billy's the only Darlin' since the war to turn his hand to good honest work."
Drawing her skirts close to her legs, Esmerelda cast the man a withering glance. "Which means he kills for profit instead of amusement?"
She turned her attention back to the image of the hired killer glowering down at her from the Wanted poster. The handbill was a weathered twin of the one she'd kept neatly folded in her silk reticule during the long, arduous train and stagecoach journey from Boston. Seeing his ignoble image displayed before all the world gave her some small measure of comfort, reassured her that he wasn't some imaginary devil woven from the fabric of her darkest fears and fantasies.
A thick growth of whiskers obscured the outlaw's features, but the menace in his eyes was palpable How many men had gazed into those steely eyes over the barrel of a pistol and known them to be the last sight they would see on this earth? An invisible cloud shadowed the sun as Esmerelda remembered that her brother had been one of them.
Bitterness tightened her lips as she shifted her gaze from the poster to the cowhand. "So how did such a paragon of industry end up with a price on his own head?"
"Aw, them U.S. marshals got all riled up when Billy brought one in dead that was wanted alive. Seems they needed the feller to testify against a band o' bootleggers that'd been sellin' whiskey to the Comanche."
"But your Mr. Darling saw fit to administer justice himself. How terribly noble of him."
Her sarcasm did not escape the old man. "From what I heard tell, miss, Billy had every right to be riled. The feller shot him in the back. If he hadn't been so all-fired contrary, Billy wouldn't have had to blow his damn fool head off."
Esmerelda felt herself blanch. Alarmed by her fading color, the cowhand jerked off her bonnet and began to fan her with it. "Now, miss, you ain't goin' to swoon on me, are you?" He reached for her reticule. "You got any smelling salts in that there fancy bag?"
Shocked by the stranger's familiarity, Esmerelda clutched the reticule to her bosom, comforted by its solid weight. "I should say not, sir. It's simply the heat. I'm not accustomed to such a brutal climate."
That much was true. The brave little bonnet that had elicited such a pang of yearning when she'd seen it displayed in the window of Miss Adelaide's Millinery Shoppe had done little to deflect the ruthless rays of the sun. The saucy pair of bluebirds affixed to its brim had wilted just west of St. Louis. Esmerelda breathed a sigh of relief at being freed from the bonnet's sweltering confines. A whisper of a breeze, arid yet sweet, teased the damp tendrils of hair at her temples.
But a lady did not match bareheaded into adversity. Snatching the bonnet from the old man's hands, Esmerelda slapped it back into place and secured it with a fastidious bow. "If you would be so kind as to direct me to the livery stable, sir...? I am in need of a mount and a dependable guide. If I'm to locate this outlaw before he reaches the Mexican border--"
"Well, hell, miss," the cowpoke drawled, "there's no need to go to all that trouble just to have a set-down with Billy." He winked at her. "There weren't never a Darlin' born that weren't willin' and eager to oblige a purty lady."
Esmerelda cringed at both his offhand profanity and his leering implication. Her dealings with the male sex had been limited to the wealthy Boston merchants who hired her to teach music to their pampered daughters, but she could still summon a disturbing, if fuzzy, image of the methods a ruffian like Billy Darling might use to oblige a woman.
Dashing a trickle of sweat from her cheek with a gloved hand, she scooped up her violin case and hefted the battered leather trunk that contained the few meager belongings she hadn't sold to finance her journey. "I can assure you that your honorable Mr. Darling won't be quite so eager to have a set-down with me."
"Why don't you ask him yourself?"
Esmerelda's gaze flew to the old man's smirking face. The trunk slid out of her grip, and thumped to the sidewalk. She barely managed to catch her precious violin case before it followed suit. "You've seen him? Where? When? Was he alone? Was he armed? Which direction did he take?"
The cowpoke pointed across the dusty street.
Esmerelda shaded her eyes against the sun, struggling desperately to gauge its position. "West? South? How long ago did he depart? Hours? Days? What color horse was he riding?"
"He weren't ridin' no horse, miss. He just walked out o' Miss Mellie's whorehouse a little after noon and moseyed right on over to the saloon."
The plank sidewalk seemed to buckle beneath her feet, giving Esmerelda cause to regret that she hadn't packed a vial of smelling salts. Her stunned gaze drifted to the weathered facade of the saloon across the street. The tinny notes of a poorly tuned piano spilled out of its swinging doors, barely penetrating the roaring in her ears.
He was there. Now that she knew he was there, she could almost feel him. Coiled. Deadly. Waiting for her.
She swallowed in a vain attempt to stifle the flutter of raw excitement in her throat. She had never dreamed her quest for justice would be fulfilled with such ease. Shock made her voice sound distant and quavery, even to her own ears. "You must fetch the sheriff immediately, sir. I shall insist he march over to the saloon and take the renegade into custody."
The cowpoke scratched his balding head, his expression oddly reticent. "Uh, miss, the sheriff is already at the saloon. Been there since this mornin'."
Esmerelda blinked in confusion. "And what, pray tell, is he doing there?"
"Playin' poker, most likely. He and Billy've had a runnin' game for almost three months now. Ever since Billy got shot up and moved into the whorehouse."
Her eyes widened in disbelief Nearly choking on her outrage, she glanced frantically around, earning nothing but a polite tip of a passing gentleman's hat for her trouble. "What manner of place is this Calamity? Surely the townsfolk aren't content to stand idly by while their sheriff consorts with outlaws!"
"Aw, don't be so hard on Sheriff McGuire. He'd arrest Billy if he thought it'd do any good. But our jail cain't hold him. Before the marshal could come to take him to Santa Fe for trial, his brothers would just bring a bunch o' dynamite and blast him out. You see, miss, Billy's brothers is outlaws to the last man. They come from Missoura after the war and there's some that says they even rode with Quantrill's Raiders and Bloody Bill Anderson, just like them James and Younger boys."
Esmerelda shivered. The exploits of those Confederate desperados who had refused to accept that their cause was lost had reached as far north as Boston. The wild-eyed boys and their ruthless leaders had struck terror in the heart of a nation already ravaged by four years of war.
The cowpoke shook his head. "You don't want to mess with them Darlin' boys. They set a high store by Billy, him bein' the baby o' the family and all."
Esmerelda clenched her teeth against a frisson of rage. How could a cold-blooded killer like Billy Darling be anybody's baby? Her brother's face drifted through her memory as it had so many times in the months since his disappearance--his plump, rosy cheeks pale and sunken, his sable hair dulled by blood, the spark of mischief in his eyes doused by the icy, black waters of death.
Beset by a strange and dangerous calm, Esmerelda gently placed her violin case on top of her trunk and dipped a hand into her reticule to caress its sleek contents,
As she stepped off the sidewalk into the dusty street, the cowhand called after her. "Miss! Oh, miss, you forgot your fiddle and trunk."
"Watch them for me, won't you?" she replied, studying the beckoning doors of the saloon through narrowed eyes. "I won't be long."
Esmerelda Fine's arrival in Calamity on that lazy Wednesday afternoon had garnered more attention than she realized. While the townsfolk had grown accustomed to having the stagecoach pass through, they were not accustomed to seeing anyone actually disembark from it. Especially not a slender wren of a lady garbed in a bustle and bonnet the provincial folk of Calamity assumed was the very pinnacle of city fashion.
When Esmerelda plunged into the dusty street without a visible care for her high-heeled kid leather boots, curtains twitched and children came creeping out of alley-ways. When it appeared her destination was to be none other than the Tumbleweed Saloon, shopkeepers emerged from their deserted stores to sweep the sidewalks, trading curious and wary looks.
They breathed a collective sigh of relief when Esmerelda paused just outside the saloon, obviously realizing her error. No true lady would ever darken the doorstep of such an establishment. The townsfolk nodded and smiled at one another, their faith in the innate nobility of womankind restored.
Until the young woman squared her slender shoulders, thrust open the swinging doors, and disappeared inside.
The sudden shift from sunlight to gloom nearly blinded Esmerelda. Long shadows cut a swath through the interior of the saloon. The isinglass windowpanes admitted only enough light to gild the dust motes drifting through the air.
A garishly painted woman straddled a chair in front of the piano, banging out a rollicking dance-hall tune with her crimson fingernails. A bartender stood behind a long counter, polishing glasses in front of a row of amber-tinted bottles. A handful of stragglers slumped at the bar, but most of the chatter and merriment in the room seemed to be coming from a table situated just below the upstairs balcony.
Two bleary-eyed cowboys flanked a broad-shouldered man whose mouth was dwarfed by a drooping mustache. His silver hair flowed past his shoulders like lustrous waves of corn silk. A tin star was pinned to his satin waistcoat.
The esteemed sheriff McGuire, Esmerelda deduced, fortified by a fresh surge of contempt.
The trail of bills and silver scattered across the table's pitted surface led directly to a fourth man. A man who sat with his back to the wall and his face shadowed by his hat brim. A thin cigar was clamped between his lips. A dimpled whore perched on one knee.
He was watching her, Esmerelda realized, repressing a shiver. His regard might be nothing more than a wary gleam penetrating the shadows, but it was powerful enough to draw every other eye in the saloon to her frozen form. It was almost as if she hadn't existed until the moment he had chosen to take notice of her.
The piano fell mute. The bartender's cloth ceased its circular motions. Curious faces appeared in the saloon windows, struggling to peer through the gloom. Avid eyes peeped over the top of the saloon door, abandoning an pretense of discretion.
Chin up and one foot in front of the other, girl, Esmerelda heard someone say in her head. If you keep putting one foot in front of the other, you'll eventually get where you're going. Although she had never heard her grandfather speak, Esmerelda knew exactly who that clipped British voice belonged to. She might loathe the man for turning his back on her mother, but it was his pitiless scolding that had prodded her to get up off the bed and stop feeling sorry for herself after her parents had died, that had goaded her into drying little Bartholomew's tears when she was still blinded by her own.
Despite her hatred of her grandfather, or perhaps because of it, his gruff, no-nonsense tones never failed to calm her fears.
Until now.
She marched to the table, stopping directly across from the man she had traveled over two thousand miles to find. The woman on his lap wrapped a possessive hand around his nape, surveying her with sloe-eyed amusement.
"Mr. William Darling?" Esmerelda winced when her voice cracked in the unnatural silence.
His only acknowledgment of her presence was the faint twitch of a muscle in his jaw. Smoke wafted from his cigar, curling toward her like tendrils of brimstone.
"I am," he finally drawled, stubbing out the cigar and tipping back his hat with one finger.
Esmerelda had braced herself to confront a bewhiskered fiend. She nearly dropped her reticule when the shadows retreated to reveal lean checks shaded by the barest hint of stubble and a pair of dark-lashed, gray-green eyes that failed to betray even a glimmer of shiftiness. Those eyes assessed her, taking her measure with disturbing bluntness.
Praying that she had practiced in front of the mirror often enough to do it without shooting herself in the foot, Esmerelda fished the derringer from the satin-lined depths of her reticule and leveled it at his heart.
"You're under arrest, Mr. Darling. I'm taking you in."
Copyright © 1998 Teresa Medeiros. All rights reserved.
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