Johanna Lindsey - Angel

Imagine him coming by the ranch just to introduce his duchess to her and her mama the other day. That had been an unexpected surprise, but one that Cassie had appreciated. It gave her the opportunity to mention to him that Angel was in St. Louis. She’d hoped he might know how to reach him there to invite him to the wedding, but Colt hadn’t taken the hint, at least not that she’d noticed, and she wasn’t bold enough to come right out and make the suggestion.

She’d tried talking to him about Angel when her mama wasn’t there, but he kept changing the subject. In fact, now that she thought of it, about all he’d been interested in was knowing if she’d found anyone who needed her special “fixing” skills since she’d been back.

“I think we should go to Mr. Thornley’s office right now if it’s still open, and if not, we’ll hunt him down,” Catherine said as she hopped into the carriage so suddenly she scared the breath out of Cassie. “He’s been my lawyer for years. He can probably work miracles and get those divorce papers delivered to Angel today.”

“I can’t yet, Mama,” Cassie said, adding a pointed reminder. “The baby?”

“Damn, I forgot about that. Well, the very minute we know for sure—”

“What did you mean ‘today’? Is Angel back? Have you seen him?”

Catherine sighed and picked up the reins to get them started down the street. “I saw him,” she mumbled through gritted teeth.

Cassie’s heart picked up its beat with the knowledge that he was back — and near at hand again. “Did you have words with him?”

“None worth mentioning,” Catherine said evasively, keeping her eyes straight ahead, a clear sign she wasn’t going to be any more enlightening than that.

Cassie frowned thoughtfully. It might not be worth mentioning, but something had obviously upset her mama enough for her to start insisting on the divorce again. Cassie wondered if she ought to tell her right now that she wasn’t getting a divorce, possible baby or not. No, that kind of unpleasantness could wait.

She ought to tell Angel first anyway, and that wasn’t going to be pleasant, either. Of course, she could hold off telling him until she knew one way or the other about a baby. That gave her another week or so to figure out how she was going to tell him she wasn’t going to set him free.

They were nearly out of town when Cassie noticed the man standing in front of one of Cheyenne’s more disreputable saloons with two other men. She stared, rubbed her eyes and stared again, and still didn’t believe it.

“I’m seeing a ghost, Mama.”

Catherine turned to look in the same direction, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “There’s no such thing,” she said firmly.

“But that man over there, the tall one,” Cassie said in a shaky voice. “He’s dead. Angel killed him in Texas. I put my own bullet in him, too.”

“Then maybe he didn’t die.”

“They buried him.”

“Then it’s just someone who looks like him,” Catherine said reasonably.

“The spitting image?”

“You’re not seeing him close up, baby,” Catherine pointed out. “If you did, you’d see you’re mistaken. Dead men don’t walk again.”

Cassie’s heart dropped to the seat when one of the men suddenly pointed at her. She recognized him as someone she’d frequently seen around town though didn’t know by name. And he walked off after pointing her out. The other two were returning her stare now.

She might be mistaken in what she’d just seen, but not about the man. She almost couldn’t find her voice to answer, “I know dead men don’t walk, but — but it is him, Mama. He’s not someone I could forget. He broke into my room one night in Caully and would have raped me if Marabelle hadn’t fetched Angel. That’s why Angel called him out and shot him.”

Catherine nearly pulled up on the reins. “How come your papa never told me about that?”

“Because I didn’t mention it to him.”

“What else didn’t you mention to him?”

Her mama was definitely annoyed now, so Cassie did some evading herself. “Nothing that I can recall.”

Catherine snorted. “Well, don’t worry about that fellow. He’s certainly not dead. If anything, maybe he’s a twin brother of the other one.”

“Another Slater?” Cassie said with a groan. “One was one too many.”

It was nearly dark by the time they got home, but that didn’t stop Cassie from saddling up and riding out. She did it without her mama knowing, of course. Only old Mac, who had the care of the Stuart horses, saw her. She asked him to tell her mama that she’d felt the need for a brisk ride before dinner — if her mama asked. If she rode full out, she just might make it back in time before Catherine got around to asking.

She was going back to Cheyenne.

Seeing that man who was the image of Rafferty Slater hadn’t merely shocked her, it had set her to fretting all the way home. Her mama undoubtedly had the right of it. He was probably Slater’s brother, more than likely his twin brother. And his showing up in Cheyenne, where both she and Angel hailed from, was just too coincidental for her peace of mind.

Even if he wasn’t here seeking revenge for his brother’s death, she had to warn Angel about him. Rafferty had tried to shoot Angel in the back, and dirty tactics like that tended to run in the family. At any rate, she wasn’t taking any chances, not where Angel was concerned. She wasn’t about to lose him to a no-account, cowardly back stabber just when she’d decided to keep him.

She reached Cheyenne faster than she ever had before, but it was still dark when she rode in, and the clouds that had been hovering all day were going to hold back the moon, so she wouldn’t be able to ride as fast on the return trip. She might not make it home before dinner after all, but she’d worry about explaining to her mother when the time came.

She knew where to find Angel. It was standard knowledge that he resided at Agnes’s boardinghouse because the old lady was so fond of him, and never rented out his room to anyone else, even when he was gone for months at a time. Whether he was actually in at this time of the evening was another matter. She hoped she wouldn’t have to wait around or go hunting for him in town, but if she had to, she would.

She tied up her mare in front of the boardinghouse. Only a dim light from a parlor window was lighting the porch, but it was enough to keep her from tripping on the steps leading to the door. Cassie didn’t quite get that far.

“Don’t move lessen I tell you to, little lady, and don’t make a sound.”

A gun jabbing against her back reinforced that order. Cassie had no difficulty recognizing it even through the thickness of her jacket. And she wasn’t wearing her own. She never did to Cheyenne, and she hadn’t wasted time to fetch it at home before she’d returned to town.

Obviously she should have. But she hadn’t been thinking of danger, just of getting to Angel to warn him. It was too late to berate herself for not examining Agnes’s porch more closely, too. She knew better. Such carelessness could easily cost a life. It was possible she was going to find that out firsthand.

A hand on her shoulder turned her, so that the gun was now jabbed into her belly. She’d had a feeling she would recognize her accoster, and she did.

“Nice of you to come back to town to make this easy for me.”

She didn’t acknowledge that remark. She knew him, but she had to ask, “Who are you?”

“They call me Gaylen,” he said. “But you know my last name, don’t you? Folks don’t usually forget someone they help to kill.”

Cassie went quite pale, though common sense made her insist, “You’re not Rafferty.”

“ ‘Course I’m not, but no one ever could tell us apart, so if s the same, ain’t it? Lookin’ at me is lookin‘ at the man you killed.”

It wouldn’t do to point out that Rafferty had deserved it. “What do you want?”

“I was gonna take care of that Angel fellow first, then you after, but now that I have you, I’ll have to rethink on it. Come along. My horse is tied up out back.”

Cassie wasn’t given much choice with his hand clamping on the back of her neck and his gun moving to her side. She thought about screaming, but didn’t care to get shot for the effort. And he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. It was dark, with no moon and nothing but flat plain behind the boardinghouse. He’d be gone before the smoke cleared, while she wouldn’t be alive to say who’d done it.

He put her on his horse in front of him. He didn’t holster his gun, so she didn’t consider trying to jump off yet. They rode out onto the plain so he could circle around the town without being seen; then he headed toward the foothills in the east.

It was nearly five hours later before he found the small, one-room cabin. Cassie had a feeling he’d been lost for the past two hours. Smoke curled out the chimney. Another horse stood in the lean-to nearby. Seeing it, she finally remembered that he’d had a friend with him in town earlier.

The friend was sleeping, curled into his bedroll before the fire, when Gaylen pushed her into the cabin. He didn’t bother to wake him yet. The only furniture in the room was a table with one chair. Neither looked very sturdy.

He gave her a brief glance as he set his saddlebags on the table and started to rummage through them. “Your folks got money, don’t they? Lots of it?”

“Yes, why?”

“Some of it might compensate me for my loss.”

“Then you won’t try to kill Angel?”

“Didn’t say that.”

He pulled out a bandana and a strip of rawhide and motioned Cassie into the far corner. The bandana ended up around her wrists, the rawhide around her ankles — after he’d yanked her boots off and tossed them across the room.