Desperado's Gold Read online

  He could have sworn he heard the angry words blue eyes once, but that didn’t make any sense. Finally she was quiet, and Jackson did his best to forget that she was there. He stared into the fire and thought about the job that awaited him in Baxter. Sounded like Goodman was involved in another land dispute, but he didn’t know much more than that. A letter requesting his presence and accompanied by two hundred dollars had brought him here. More was promised. A lot more.

  Once in Baxter, he’d drop Catalina Lane off at the sheriff’s office, if there still was one, and be about his business. Once she was there, his unwanted responsibility was done.

  “Good night, Kid,” she offered softly. Christ! He had almost managed to forget that she was there.

  “Good night, Miss Lane.”

  “Call me Catalina,” she said almost dreamily. “Every time someone calls me Miss Lane I think of Lois, and I expect Superman to drop down out of the sky and scoop me up.”

  Lunatic.

  “Good night, Catalina.”

  “Good night, Kid Creede.”

  Catalina rolled onto her side and watched Kid Creede. She should have been frightened, or at the very least cautious. He was a stranger, and they were all alone literally in the middle of nowhere. What if he was a serial killer? A mass murderer on the run and hiding in the desert? A sociopath who would kill her in her sleep? None of these possibilities bothered her. They didn’t even cause her heartbeat to quicken. Because she knew they couldn’t be true.

  The fire lit his face, that bearded chin and that sharp nose, but she couldn’t see his eyes. His hair fell across his face as he leaned forward, hair that waved just enough. Not curly, not straight. She knew women who would kill for hair like that.

  If he’d been grinning and super friendly … then she might have panicked. False smiles were the ones a woman had to worry about.

  But Kid Creede was so solitary, so lonely … so distant. He was a reluctant rescuer, a man who would obviously prefer to be alone here in the desert.

  Kid Creede stood and shucked off his duster, the motion as graceful as every other move the man made. Like a cat. But Catalina didn’t have much time to admire his grace before she saw a sight that stole her breath away.

  Two shiny six-shooters, one on each hip, were revealed as the duster was removed. They were as at home there as the silver spurs on Kid Creede’s boots.

  She held her breath as he put the duster on the ground beside his saddle. The saddle he used as a pillow as he stretched out his long body. The holster and pistols were not removed.

  An actor, Catalina reminded herself. They weren’t real weapons, they were props. He wasn’t a real desperado; he was a struggling actor. She knew he was struggling, because she was positive she would have remembered that face if she’d seen it before. Kid Creede — whatever his name was — was simply losing himself in some sort of method acting.

  Well, she’d have all day tomorrow to find out what Kid Creede was all about. An entire day in the saddle to prod him with the questions that suddenly plagued her.

  What was his real name? Where was he from? Was he … married?

  She rolled away to face the black desert. How utterly ridiculous. She was much too sensible to be attracted to any man while she was still reeling from what Wilson had done to her. Kid Creede would take her to Baxter, wherever that was, and she’d call Kim, and she’d get her Mustang, and … and what?

  Three

  *

  “So, where is Baxter, exactly?” Catalina leaned slightly to the side, tightening her grip on Kid Creede’s black duster so she wouldn’t fall. She was tired of looking at his stiff back, tired of enduring the silence. “I mean, what’s it close to?”

  She thought for a moment that he was going to ignore her completely, but after a long pause he answered in that low, smooth voice that was just short of silky.

  “Not close to anything.”

  “Is it a small town?”

  Again there was that pause. “Baxter is a mining town, for the most part, but there are a few ranches in the area. Nothin’ fancy, but it’s a good-sized town.”

  A mining town? Couldn’t this Kid Creede forget his role for a moment and join her in the twentieth century? A thought that made her heart quicken popped into her already distressed mind. What if he dropped her off in some ghost town … and left her there?

  “Are there … people in Baxter?”

  He twisted to look at her, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. That black hat was low over his eyes, shading the upper half of his face, and all she could really see was the short black beard covering his cheeks, and his mouth, full and wide and … very nice, she thought as she pulled her eyes away from those lips.

  “Of course there are people there,” he said, as if he were talking to a child, or a dimwit. “Do you have a problem with that, Miss Lane?”

  “Catalina. And no, I don’t have a problem with that. It’s just that I know I’ve heard of Baxter. It sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it, and I’ve lived in Indian Springs for seven years.”

  He faced front again, and Catalina was actually relieved. What a disconcerting face he had. Whatever movie he was going to be in, it was going to make him a star.

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Kid will do.”

  “But it’s not the name your mother gave you.”

  He didn’t answer her, and Catalina resigned herself to never knowing the man’s real name … unless she saw him at the movies. In the movies. And then no one would believe her.

  He found me in the desert and rescued me, and I never even knew his name. He was preparing for a role, the one that made him famous, and we rode double on a horse across the desert … Kid Creede dressed all in black, me in my wedding dress. The ramblings of a dull spinster librarian no one would ever believe.

  Her failed wedding seemed so distant now, so unclear. There was no more heartache, no more anger. It seemed she had recovered quickly from losing Wilson. Maybe he’d been right in calling the marriage off. Right now — still lost, though no longer alone — Catalina felt a surge of excitement. What if she never went back to the library? What if she started a whole new life? It was possible. She had no obligations, no family. A postcard to Kim would explain her whereabouts, and all she’d have to do was reclaim her Mustang and start fresh.

  “Do you think,” she began hesitantly, “that you could help me get a job in Baxter?” If they were filming a movie there, surely she could get a job doing … something. She could be a gofer. She could make sandwiches, and sweep, and fetch coffee. Maybe she could even powder Kid Creede’s nose.

  “What kind of a job?” Kid Creede asked.

  Catalina stretched out her legs and hiked her skirt almost mindlessly to her knees, allowing a bit of cool air to circulate beneath her skirts. “I don’t know. Really, I’m not particular. I can do anything.”

  Kid Creede looked down at her calf, then quickly raised his head to face front again. “Sorry, I can’t help you. It’s been years since I’ve been there.”

  “Oh.” It didn’t really matter. She could try to get a job there on her own, but it would have been nice to have some help.

  “I just don’t want to go back to Indian Springs right away. My friends will be sympathetic and they’ll try to lift my spirits, and I really don’t think I can take that right now.”

  “You’ll be able to find something in Baxter.”

  “I hope so.” Catalina shifted slightly, trying to ease the discomfort of sitting for so long on horseback. She wasn’t a rider, and even if she had been, it wouldn’t have prepared her for this. Two to a horse was very uncomfortable. She squirmed a little more, shifting a little to the left, and then a little to the right. If she ever had to choose a garment to get lost in the desert in, it wouldn’t be a full-skirted satin-and-lace wedding dress. Not only was the gown ruined, it was far from comfortable. There was too much material to handle, and it was too snug in the arms and the waist. The moccasin
s she had bought from the old man outside the gas station were comfortable, though. She lifted one foot and hiked up the skirt again to admire the shoe. White buckskin, adorned with blue and white beads. She turned her ankle, circling her foot slowly. These were much more practical than the satin pumps she had tossed away as she walked the highway.

  Kid Creede brought the horse to a sudden stop, and Catalina let her leg drop. He helped her roughly to the ground without a word, and then he dismounted himself.

  He wasn’t looking at her. He led the horse to a trickle of a stream, and then knelt beside the stream to splash his face with water.

  Catalina turned away from him to study the desolate land that surrounded them. They’d been riding for hours, and still they’d seen no one, nothing of civilization. The land was changing, a little. It wasn’t sand beneath her feet, but grainy soil. There were white rocks, boulders really, rising from the ground. She could almost imagine that they were only the tips of gigantic buried mountains.

  She turned back to the stream and a silent Kid Creede. “I’m so glad we’re taking a rest stop,” she said, trying to be friendly. “I swear, my butt aches. Even my legs. Of course, I’ve only been on a horse once, and that was years ago.”

  Kid Creede stood slowly, unfolding his tall frame in a smooth way that was almost … poetic. He tossed his hat aside, sending it sailing with a flick of his wrist to land on a flat white rock near the water. His black duster he simply shrugged off.

  Why was he looking at her like that? He stood there, still as a statue, staring at her with those pale blue eyes.

  And then he started walking toward her, long strides that brought him to her quickly. He took her chin in his hand, cool, easy fingers against her skin, and tilted her face up. And she knew that he was going to kiss her.

  And she wanted him to. Heaven help her, she wanted this man, this stranger without a name, to kiss her.

  She parted her lips when they met his, closing her eyes and abandoning all her reservations simply to feel. His warmth, the softness of his lips, the big hands that stole around her softly to rest against her back. Kid Creede was so tall, so big, that she felt dwarfed in his arms. She didn’t feel helpless, but sheltered. Warm.

  When he touched her tongue with his, Catalina wrapped her arms around him, holding on for dear life. She could feel her heart pounding, and the blood rushing through her veins, and a strong and strange sensation grew deep within her. If she didn’t hold on tight, she would surely sink to the ground.

  He took his lips from hers but continued to hold her. Catalina opened her eyes and looked up into his. Those pale blue eyes were still piercing, but softened somehow.

  “I’ve never kissed a man with a beard before,” she whispered, expecting him to release her.

  But he didn’t release her. He smiled, a small and almost wistful smile, and then he kissed her again. Harder this time, more demanding. Catalina wanted to lose herself in this kiss as she had in the last one, but the intensity frightened her. His mouth left hers and trailed across her cheek and down her throat, and the hands at her back expertly and quickly unfastened the first several of the tiny buttons that ran from the back of her neck to well past her waist.

  “Stop that,” she said weakly, and the hands at her back stilled as Kid Creede brought his face back to hers.

  His eyes were half closed, his lips parted slightly, and that sight alone made her insides quicken. She wasn’t completely stupid, though she felt like it at the moment. The kiss had been wonderful, and she had lost herself, and now Kid Creede believed that she wanted to make love to him on the rocky ground. At this moment, with him looking at her like that, she almost did.

  “I can’t,” she said simply.

  He gave her another of those small smiles. “Of course you can, darlin’.”

  He abandoned his efforts at her back and brought his hands to her sides. Catalina gave him a nervous smile, but her relief was short-lived. Kid Creede grabbed her skirt and starting hiking it up.

  “Stop it,” Catalina ordered in her strongest voice, a poor effort that was no more than a rasping whisper. “I’m warning you … ”

  Kid Creede placed his face close to hers again, and now she saw something more than desire in his eyes. She saw anger, and that frightened her. “You’re warning me?” he whispered.

  Catalina didn’t give him another warning. She twisted to the side, grabbed him just as she’d been taught in the self-defense class she and Kim had taken, and flipped a man who was well over six feet tall ass over head to land on his back at her feet.

  Kid Creede stayed on the ground for a long moment. The dust around him settled over his black shirt and pants and in his hair and over his face. It occurred to Catalina, briefly, that if she was going to run, now was the time to do it. But where would she run to?

  When Kid Creede finally moved all he did was sit up and dust off his shirt. “What the hell did you do?”

  “I told you to stop,” Catalina said defensively. “I warned you … ”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I’m not … ” Catalina offered him her hand, but he stayed put and refused to accept her help. “ … I mean, I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.”

  “The wrong impression? You’ve been waving your … your legs in front of me all morning. What was I supposed to think?”

  Catalina was no longer frightened of the man who continued to sit on the ground. The desire and the anger were gone from his eyes, and he looked … resigned, there at her feet.

  “I was just trying to cool off a bit. You have no idea how hot these long dresses can be.”

  Kid Creede hiked up one knee and stared at her with skeptically narrowed eyes. Finally he took her offered hand, and she pulled him to his feet.

  “I didn’t mean to … well, never mind, Kid.”

  “Jackson,” he said, turning his back on her. “Jackson Cady.”

  *

  Jackson stepped into the saddle and grudgingly assisted Catalina Lane into her position behind him. If she would just sit still for the rest of the trip …

  It had been bad enough last night, when he’d thought her to be a lady. A lunatic lady, but still a lady. But today, when she’d squirmed behind him, trying not to touch him but finding that an impossible task, he’d been painfully aware of her. Showing her limbs, as she had, and speaking crudely. Aching butt. Sore legs. No lady would dare say butt or leg aloud in mixed company. For all he knew, a lady didn’t even think of her own butt, or anyone else’s.

  And she’d kissed him back. She’d wanted him to kiss her, and she’d opened up to him like a flower in the desert after the rain … almost.

  He’d been too long without a woman. That was why he felt so strongly attracted to this woman, why he’d believed she was willing. Hell, more than willing. Once he got to Baxter he’d make a stop at Alberta’s place … if it was still there. If the town had survived, he had no doubt that Alberta would have survived as well.

  In a land where few women had settled, but for a handful of miners’ and farmers’ wives, places like Alberta’s were necessary, and they profited and flourished as the towns did.

  How long had it been since his last visit to Baxter? Five years? Maybe longer. Old man Goodman had needed his help fending off squatters. He hadn’t had to do any shooting, just make an appearance and spread his name. An easy job.

  Alberta’s place had been small, but she’d had four girls, a couple of gaming tables, and a stock of strong liquor. Jackson didn’t gamble, and he limited himself to no more than one shot of whiskey. In his business he couldn’t afford to get sloppy.

  But right now he definitely needed an evening with one of the women, an evening in one of the upstairs rooms.

  He wondered if Juanita was still at Alberta’s. Tall and dark and by far the most openly seductive woman he had ever known, she had all but claimed him as her own on his last trip to Baxter. He didn’t hold out much hope that she would still be there. She’d probably snared som
e miner who’d hit it rich and moved back East, or to San Francisco. He seemed to remember Juanita talking an awful lot about going to San Francisco.

  Alberta herself was strictly a businesswoman. From what he remembered, she didn’t even like men much, and he’d never known her to entertain a customer. Not a bad-looking woman, as tall as Juanita and almost as dark, but wider in the shoulders and the hips. Alberta had a distinctive hip-swinging walk that could be spotted a mile away and a coarse voice that didn’t fit her fair face. Not beautiful, but regular and free of scars and deep wrinkles.

  Catalina started squirming again, brushing her thighs against his hips, brushing his back lightly … with her breasts? Christ, the woman was trying to make him as loco as she was.

  “Could you please sit still?” he snapped.

  All movement ceased. “Sorry,” she said in a low voice. “I was just trying to get comfortable.”

  “Well … stop it. You’re not going to be comfortable until we get to Baxter.”

  She sighed deeply but remained still. “Jackson. That’s a nice name. I like it much better than Kid.”

  Jackson made no response, even though she paused, as though waiting for one.

  “Where are you from, Jackson?”

  She just couldn’t leave well enough alone. She couldn’t simply be still and quiet until they reached Baxter.

  “Colorado, mostly.”

  “‘Mostly’?”

  Jackson didn’t feel that question warranted a response, so he didn’t offer one.

  “Where in Colorado?”

  Damn, she was persistent. “I lived in Creede from the time I was eleven or twelve until I was fifteen.”

  “And after that?”

  Jackson shrugged slightly. He didn’t want to be having this conversation with this woman. “I traveled around a lot.”

  “Is that where you got your nickname? Kid Creede? From the town where you lived?”

  Jackson was tired of talking; he was tired of answering Catalina Lane’s endless questions. He was going to have to scare her off.

  “Creede is the place where I killed my first man, when I was fifteen.”