Desperado's Gold Read online

  No. All the real men were gone. Where were the knights? The marauding pirates? The conquerors? These days men cared only about how much money they could amass through a minimum of effort. They watched football and basketball and hockey on television, territorial games safely observed from a comfortable chair. Losers. There were no more knights.

  And it wasn’t fair. Why hadn’t she lived in another time? Just a hundred years earlier. As history went, a hundred years was nothing. And everything.

  Catalina realized that she was squeezing the yellow crystal the old Indian had given her, and she unfolded her fingers slowly. A sharp edge had cut into her palm just slightly, and a drop of blood marred one corner of the wulfenite.

  She lifted her head and looked to the tallest of the red rocks in the distance. She’d like to climb that rock, just to see if she could get to the top. It was calling her, and she realized as that thought came to her just how bizarre it was. But true, just the same.

  The wulfenite was burning her hand, and she looked down. The sun struck it so that it shone with a bright light, and it really did seem to burn her palm.

  Catalina dropped the crystal, and as it fell it got tangled in a scrap of the lace that covered her satin skirt. A cloud of sand rose from Catalina’s feet as she tried to shake the crystal free, afraid to touch it again. Then she forgot about the crystal as the cloud grew, churning and whirling, growing wider and taller until it encompassed her completely. She could see nothing but the swirling sand, could hear nothing but the wind that hadn’t been there a moment before.

  And then the whirlwind stole her breath. She couldn’t inhale; she couldn’t move. Her glasses were ripped from her face, and Catalina closed her eyes against the sand that surrounded her.

  A sandstorm. Here? Now? With no warning? If only she could breathe. The lack of air was making her light-headed. She felt almost as if she were floating, or flying, or drifting without control into the air. It was frightening, even though she told herself that she couldn’t be doing any of those things. Her moccasined feet were still firmly on the sand.

  Nerves. It was her last coherent thought before the tightness in her chest and the swimming in her head eclipsed everything else. She’d never been prone to fits of nerves. It was just a simple sandstorm … there was no explicable reason why she couldn’t breathe.

  Just when she was certain she would pass out from lack of oxygen, the whirlwind subsided. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, watching the sand around her fall to the ground like heavy snow.

  The wulfenite was still tangled in a torn scrap of lace, and she disengaged it carefully. It no longer glowed, no longer seemed … alive. Catalina searched the ground around her for her glasses but gave up the search quickly. Buried under the sand, no doubt. No problem; there was a spare pair in the glove compartment.

  She looked again at the red rock in the distance. It was as foreboding as ever, but she didn’t imagine the towering landmark calling her as it had before. It had just been a very long day. Catalina turned around to head back to the station. There was nothing there. Nothing but sand and sun and those ugly little bushes. Surely she hadn’t walked that far! She squinted, cursing the loss of her glasses, and walked in what she was certain was the right direction. Nothing. Not even a speck in the distance.

  She veered a little, changing course, then righted herself again. She had left the station and headed straight for the rocks. It had to be there. It had to be.

  But it wasn’t. She walked, confused and just beginning to be scared, for at least a half an hour. Even if she’d missed the station, she should’ve found the road. She walked a while longer, and still she saw nothing.

  With a resigned sigh, Catalina sat down in the sand and decided it would be quite all right to cry again, if she really wanted to. She was hopelessly lost.

  Two

  *

  She didn’t cry after all, but sat in the sand with her knees drawn up and her arms locked around her legs. The wulfenite, clasped lightly in one hand, was now cool to the touch, so she was almost certain she had imagined its earlier heat.

  Well, this was a fitting end to the day, getting lost in the desert. Surely Stu and Allie would have missed her by now. Surely they would look for her, or call the police, or both. Catalina listened for the sound of someone — anyone — calling her name, but there was nothing but silence. It was complete, deep and strangely comforting, even though she knew she should be terrified.

  This, too, she could blame on Wilson. She should be at her own wedding reception right now, or perhaps leaving for her honeymoon. Instead she was sitting in the sand, lost and alone and feeling sorry for herself.

  The red sun was low in the sky, filling her with an odd kind of peace. Such beauty, all around her. The desert, the towering red rocks, the sky. Sometimes she got into such a rut at the library that she went weeks, months, without seeing anything so beautiful.

  And then she saw the rider. A fuzzy figure on horseback, a dot on the horizon riding away from the setting sun. Catalina didn’t move, but squinted slightly as she hugged her knees to her chest and waited to see if the rider would come her way. If he looked like he was going to turn, she would stand and scream at the top of her lungs.

  But he appeared to be coming straight at her, slowly but surely, a silhouette against the red sunset.

  Catalina stood and brushed some of the sand from her wedding dress. Of course it was in her hair and embedded in her skin, but until she got out of this mess there was nothing to be done for that. Once her Mustang was running maybe she’d head for Phoenix or Tucson. She’d find a hotel, check in, soak in the bath, and order room service. Of course, she’d have to charge it all on plastic, and it would take her months to pay it off, but she deserved to treat herself. She wasn’t expected back at the library for another three weeks.

  She tucked the wulfenite into the satin waistband of her dusty, sandy, asphalt-stained wedding dress and ignored the pop of a couple of stitches giving way to accommodate the stone that marred the once perfect line of her gown.

  Her heart sank a little when she got a good look at the horseman. He probably thought he looked the part of a real cowboy, but he would have been more at home on a Harley. Black boots with shiny silver spurs. Black pants, black duster that hung down to his boots. Black cowboy hat above a shadowed face. All she could see of that face was a closely cropped black beard.

  At least the horse wasn’t black. That would have been carrying things a bit too far. It was a beautiful animal, a reddish brown that complemented the towerlike rocks in the distance.

  He hadn’t said a word. The lazy pace of his horse hadn’t changed even a beat, and he called no greeting, even when he was almost upon her. Catalina wondered, for a moment, if she’d have to step aside to avoid being run over by that beautiful horse.

  “Hello,” she offered hesitantly, wondering if she might not have been better off waiting for Stu and Allie to come for her. This man looked … dangerous. Not mean, exactly, but calculating. Coldly precise.

  “I’m lost,” she added when he brought his horse to a halt not ten feet from her.

  “Do tell.” The voice that answered her was smooth and low.

  “Yes. You see, my Mustang died on the highway, and I walked to a station down the road,” Catalina said quickly. This man made her nervous. He was too quiet. “But then I wandered off and I couldn’t find my way back.”

  The cowboy swung from the saddle gracefully, as if he’d made that move a thousand times. “There’s no station around here,” he said suspiciously, closing the gap between them.

  “Yes, there is. It’s a small place, and not in very good shape, but it’s right on that two-lane road that runs from Indian Springs to the main highway.”

  “Indian Springs?”

  Catalina nodded.

  “Never heard of it.”

  Catalina stepped forward, offering her hand. “I’m sorry. I should have introduced myself. Catalina Lane. I’m a librarian from Ind
ian Springs.”

  The cowboy didn’t take her hand, but looked around suspiciously. There was no place nearby for anyone to be hiding, but that seemed to be exactly what he was looking for. He was apparently satisfied that she was who she claimed to be. Catalina could almost see him relax as he removed his hat from his head.

  “Most folks just call me Kid. Kid Creede.”

  Catalina barely heard him. Above the black beard and a slightly too long nose were a pair of the most gorgeous pale blue eyes she had ever seen. Real blue, without any gray or green. Clear and bright and piercing.

  “Kid?” she repeated, confused. “Oh, like Billy the Kid.”

  “Yeah. Except he’s dead and I’m not.”

  Kid. Kid Creede had black hair to go with the rest of his dark ensemble, hanging to his shoulders and touched at the tips with a reddish brown, where it had been bleached by the sun.

  “But that’s not your real name,” Catalina said almost defensively. “What … ” She grinned as the solution came to her. “Are they filming another movie around here?” Of course. No wonder the man was so gorgeous. He was an actor!

  “A what?” he asked, deadly serious.

  Catalina nodded her head slightly. She could play along.

  He was preparing for a part, immersing himself in the role.

  “Never mind,” she said, waving her hand dismissively.

  “I guess I’ll have to take you to the nearest town,” Kid Creede said, making it clear that it wasn’t going to be a pleasant task. Making it perfectly clear by the tone of his voice that he would prefer to leave her right where she stood. Just her luck, to wish for a knight and get a surly urban cowboy instead.

  “I really would appreciate it.”

  He turned his back on her, placing his hat back on his head. That long duster whipped around his legs, and with every step he took away from her those spurs jingled. His reticence made Catalina want to beat her fists against that stiff back. Really! He could be a little more civil. Chivalry truly was dead. How many more times … that day … did she need to have that fact drilled into her?

  Kid Creede mounted his horse with the same grace he’d displayed when he’d dismounted. He really was at home in that saddle. For a moment Catalina thought he was going to ride off and leave her, and panic welled up inside her. What if no one else found her?

  But once he was seated. Kid Creede offered her his hand, and when she took it and stepped into the stirrup he pulled her up to sit behind him.

  “I really do appreciate this,” Catalina said nervously as she grabbed onto the duster with both hands. She couldn’t bring herself to wrap her arms around his waist, even though she would’ve felt more securely seated if she had. “I feel really stupid, getting lost. I’ve just had … a very bad day.”

  His only answer was a grunt, as low and smooth as his voice. He didn’t ask her about her “bad day,” and he didn’t tell her it was no trouble to take her to the nearest town. At least, she consoled herself, he didn’t pretend to care. He was honest, in his own rude way. If Wilson had been honest a little sooner, she wouldn’t be in this mess.

  “I’ll be happy to pay you for your time. Kid, after I get back to my Mustang.”

  There was a short pause before he spoke. “I thought you said your mustang died.”

  “With any luck Stu will have it fixed before I get back.”

  Without breaking the horse’s stride, Kid Creede turned to look at her. She smiled, just a little, to ease the frown that marred his face.

  “I expect no payment, Miss Lane,” he said quietly, and then he turned his face and those piercing eyes away from her.

  Loco. If he’d known she was loco he would have left her where he’d found her. He tried to tell himself that, though he knew it wasn’t true.

  Catalina Lane was holding on to his duster, trying very hard not to touch him. That was good. He was already much too aware of her. She smelled too sweet, and her skin looked too soft. And that hair … a tangled mess for certain, but it was as golden as the motherlode, and looked as soft as her skin.

  But she was definitely loco. Her mustang had died, and some way-station boss was going to fix it?

  Jackson Cady kept his eyes straight ahead. There wasn’t much light left. Soon they’d have to stop for the night. Hell, he had one bedroll, one tin cup, one tin plate. Tonight there would be nothing but hardtack and coffee, and they would just have to share the cup. She could have the bedroll to herself.

  A potential job had brought Jackson, better known as Kid Creede, to Arizona Territory again. He liked it here. He didn’t have quite the reputation he’d acquired in Colorado, so he felt a little safer. Still, people in the territory knew of him, and many feared him. But Catalina Lane had never even heard of him. If she had, she would’ve run when he’d given her his name. Everybody who knew of Kid Creede knew he was a cold-blooded killer who didn’t even blink as he killed men, women, children … never mind that most of the stories weren’t true. Well, some of them were true, but he’d never shot a woman before, and he didn’t aim to start now. Kids, either, unless you counted that seventeen-year-old who’d drawn on him in Cheyenne. What did it matter that he’d been sixteen himself at the time?

  He’d been Kid Creede since the age of fifteen. Been a gunman for a year more than half his life. Jackson Cady was almost completely gone, now, so few people knew him by his given name. He made his living as a hired gun, and had for years. Land disputes, towns gone wild … Sometimes he fought on the side of the law. Sometimes he didn’t.

  But there was always justice in the battles he fought. It was bad enough that he’d been saddled with a reputation that was unwanted and — at least at first — undeserved. He wouldn’t allow himself to be turned into just another shootist. A gunslinger with no conscience. The day that happened, Jackson Cady would be gone, and Kid Creede would be all alone.

  He brought the horse to a halt and looked around carefully. A rock not much taller than Catalina Lane herself would buffer the wind, were it to rise in the night, and there were no other obstacles. He’d be able to see approaching riders.

  Jackson twisted around to assist his passenger to the ground, taking her hand in his.

  “You’re not going to leave me here, are you?” There was real panic in her voice.

  “No. We’re stopping here for the night.”

  “I can’t spend the night here,” she said stubbornly, refusing to budge from her seat.

  “Fine.”

  Jackson released her hand, grabbed her around the waist, and all but dropped her to the ground.

  “Baxter is thataway.”

  She stepped back as he dismounted. “Baxter is thataway?” she repeated. “Is that all you have to say?”

  “I’ll be headed there in the morning, and you’re welcome to ride along.”

  “I’d be better off trying to find the highway on my own,” she said, turning her back on him and taking three strides in the direction they’d just come from.

  She stopped, and he heard a deep, dejected sigh. It would soon be completely dark, and even the loco Catalina Lane knew that.

  “Tomorrow morning,” she said, resignation in her voice.

  Jackson started a small fire, and then he tended to his gelding. Catalina Lane just stared away from him, lost in her own little world. Loco. Just his luck.

  She didn’t turn back around until he offered her some hardtack and first crack at the coffee in his single tin cup. She took the hardtack but declined the coffee.

  “I can’t drink coffee this late,” she said, taking the canteen he offered her. “Caffeine and I have never gotten along very well.”

  Jackson sat near the fire, sipped at the strong, hot coffee, and watched the woman pace. He wanted to ask her who Caffeine was, wondered if he was a husband or a gentleman friend, and what he had to do with drinking coffee in the evening.

  “Fancy dress,” he said, the words slipping out before he could stop them.

  Catalina Lane grabbed th
e full skirt with one hand and displayed the lace and silk dress. “My wedding dress,” she said wistfully. “It cost me a fortune. I know I shouldn’t say that. Weddings take place only once, or so I hear, and I shouldn’t complain about the cost, even though a librarian doesn’t make much.”

  “What does your husband do? Does he live in … Indian Springs?”

  Catalina capped the canteen and joined him by the fire. Firelight on satin and lace and golden hair almost mesmerized him, it was so oddly … wonderful.

  “No husband. He … ” She stopped and swallowed hard. He could see the gentle workings of her throat. “He stood me up. Changed his mind.”

  Jackson couldn’t imagine anyone leaving this woman at the altar, lunatic or not.

  “Why?” he asked softly, immediately regretting his impulsive question.

  She looked directly at him, unembarrassed, chin lifted stubbornly and defiantly. “He doesn’t love me.”

  “So? What does that have to do with marriage?”

  Catalina smiled. “You’re right, of course. I suppose it would have been an even worse disaster if we had married, and then he’d changed his mind. Thanks, Kid. Right to the heart of the matter.”

  Jackson looked away from her smile and into the fire. How she’d come away with that from his comment about love and marriage, he couldn’t figure.

  “You can have the bedroll,” he said sharply. “I won’t get to sleep for a while, anyway.”

  “Caffeine,” she said knowingly.

  Jackson dismissed her strange comment. “We’ll set out early, at first light, and we’ll probably reach Baxter sometime in the afternoon.”

  “The afternoon?”

  Jackson ignored her distress and tossed the bedroll a good ten feet away from the fire. Best to get this woman a good distance away from him. He didn’t intend to pamper her, or comfort her, golden hair or not.

  She lay on the bedroll, still grumbling to herself. He caught a few words, bits and pieces of her conversation with herself that made sense. The word men was repeated again and again with more vengeance than the rest of her soliloquy, and so he heard those sharp words clearly.