Desperado's Gold Read online

  “No.” Jackson’s hesitation before he answered was brief, but was long enough to give Catalina hope.

  “I’ll earn my keep,” Catalina said quickly. “I’ll cook, and wash your clothes and, if you teach me how, I’ll build a campfire at night and make coffee. It’ll be like having a maid on the trail.”

  Muscular arms rested on the sides of the tub, and that bearded face stared straight ahead. Away from her. “What makes you think Alberta will let you go?”

  “She has nothing to say about it. Alberta doesn’t own me.”

  “I’ll wager she thinks different,” Jackson said softly, and Catalina knew he was right. The madam had told Harold Goodman that she was a gift, for heaven’s sake. Alberta had felt her claim strong enough to auction Catalina off like a slave.

  “We can sneak out … ”

  “We’ll be watched.”

  “Surely the great Kid Creede … ”

  “Is no match for Alberta when she’s got her mind set on something.”

  Catalina tried to roll one aching shoulder. She couldn’t possibly stay in this embarrassing and painful position all night. “You could find a way … ”

  “If I had a mind to.”

  He turned his face to her, and caught her with those piercing pale blue eyes. Heaven help her, she’d never seen eyes like that before. Cold and bright and distant … and incredibly haunting. And in those gorgeous eyes was the truth.

  “You don’t want to take me with you, do you?” she asked, her breathy voice barely carrying across the room.

  Jackson leaned back his head and closed his eyes. He couldn’t seem to bear looking at her for very long. “Not particularly.”

  “So you’re going to leave me here?”

  “Most likely.”

  Catalina sagged back and rested against the headboard. Trapped. Somehow she’d traveled one hundred years into the past, and now she was trapped in a bordello where she was likely to stay for as long as Alberta desired it.

  No way. With Jackson’s help or without it, she was going to get out of this place before the end of the week. She could steal a horse and make her way back to the place in the desert where Jackson Cady had found her. She still had the wulfenite, tucked into one of the moccasins, though she didn’t know if that was necessary or not. She didn’t know, not really, if she could go back. Maybe she was stuck here, in 1896.

  Well, if she was, she wasn’t going to be stuck in a bordello, entertaining miners who probably didn’t bathe more than once a month, if at all.

  While Jackson leaned back in the water and ignored her, Catalina studied him. Even though he had every intention of abandoning her, she couldn’t allow him to be shot down in the street. She likely would’ve died in the desert, waiting for Stu and Allie to rescue her. They weren’t even born yet, and there was no highway, no gas station. She would have died of thirst if he hadn’t found her and carried her to Baxter.

  And he was a beautiful man, all dark and muscled and graceful. She’d never noticed grace in a man before, but Jackson displayed it in every move he made. He was like a cat, slow and strong and deadly certain of himself.

  He twisted his head toward her, just slightly, and barely opened one eye. “How old are you?” he asked gruffly.

  “Twenty-seven, just last month,” Catalina said, refusing to turn her eyes away from his face. He’d been thinking about her, sitting there in the cooling water, just as she’d been thinking of him.

  “How does a woman who looks like you do manage to reach the advanced age of twenty-seven and remain a virgin?”

  “First of all, twenty-seven is hardly an advanced age, Kid.” Catalina shifted on the bed, trying to get comfortable. That was an impossible task. The corset was too tight, her arms ached from wrist to shoulder, and the stockings were beginning to itch. “As for how I managed to remain a virgin … ” She paused and shifted again. She’d had this discussion with a couple of close girlfriends over the years, but never with a man. No man had dared to ask.

  “I was raised by my grandmother,” she looked Jackson in the eye as she began to speak. “My very old-fashioned Southern grandmother. She was my father’s mother, and the only family I had after my parents were killed.”

  “What happened to your folks?” he asked, and Catalina could almost convince herself that he really cared.

  “A plane crash. A small private plane that my father’s company owned. They were going to a football game.”

  Jackson’s wide mouth was tightly closed and he frowned at her. “A … what kind of a crash?”

  “A plane … never mind. It was an accident. Anyway, I was eight, and I went to live with my Grandma Lane. She enrolled me in a private all-girls’ school in Spring Hill, and that’s where I stayed until I graduated.”

  Jackson nodded his head slightly. “Ah,” he said with a wry lilt in his voice. “An educated woman.”

  Catalina ignored him. “So, I really didn’t have much contact with boys until college.”

  “You went to college?”

  Catalina nodded, smiling at his obvious disbelief. “But by then it was already too late. My grandmother had ruined me.”

  His frown was almost back. “How?”

  Catalina tried to ease his frown with a smile of her own. “I grew up hearing fairy tales, stories of true love and happily ever after. Princes and princesses, knights and damsels in distress. Magic.”

  Jackson picked that moment to plunge his head into the bathwater. When he brought it back up it was too quickly, and droplets, of soapy water flew through the air, almost — but not quite — reaching the bed. He leaned his head back and rested it against the rim of the tub, eyes closed and water running in disappearing rivulets down the hard planes of his face. It was almost as if he were avoiding looking at her.

  “Do you believe in magic?” he asked softly when he finally spoke.

  Catalina thought of all that had happened to her in the past two days. Did she believe in magic? Even if she hadn’t before, she certainly did now.

  “Yes. I guess I always have. I waited for years, waited to feel that magic, to find my prince charming, my knight in shining armor … but he never came.”

  “The man you were to marry … wasn’t he your prince?”

  “Wilson? Wilson Ross was no prince. It’s just that I had given up on magic. Given up on the belief that there’s one special man for me. That I would meet my prince charming and fall madly in love and have a fairy-tale wedding and a special wedding night.” Catalina felt suddenly uncomfortable having this discussion with Jackson Cady. She hadn’t even told Kim this much. Kim, who had more than once encouraged Catalina to have a one-night stand and get it over with.

  “Anyway,” she said casually, “that’s why I’m still a virgin at the advanced age of twenty-seven.”

  He cracked one eye open and turned it in her direction. “You don’t look twenty-seven,” he said suspiciously.

  Catalina could only imagine how old some women must look at twenty-seven after living in the West for years. Endless sun, and childbearing, and hard living took its toll. “Well I am. How old are you?”

  Jackson closed that cold eye. “Thirty-one.”

  A smile crossed Catalina’s face, and for a moment she forgot the pain that seemed to attack every bone and muscle in her body. “You don’t look thirty-one. Are you sure you don’t mean forty-one?”

  His wide mouth smiled, though he didn’t bother to open his eyes. “Pretty sure,” he answered.

  Catalina sat up a little taller, trying to ease the increasing ache in her shoulders. “You’re not going to leave me tied up like this, are you?”

  Jackson sat up himself, giving Catalina a clear view of his wide chest, wet and covered with a light sprinkling of black hair. “That depends. Are you going to run?”

  “To where?” she snapped, unnerved by the sight of so much of his skin.

  “Are you going to attack me again?”

  “Attack you? When did I attack you?” Her patien
ce was wearing thin. Jackson lifted his eyebrows, in a manner much too amused for Catalina, and with his hand in the air demonstrated a flip-flop motion.

  “Oh, that,” Catalina said with less venom. “Not if you behave yourself.”

  “Well,” Jackson placed both hands on the sides of the tub and stood without warning. Catalina closed her eyes tightly and turned her head, but not before she’d seen more than she cared to, and not before she’d had her suspicion that Jackson was gorgeous from head to toe confirmed. “I already told you I don’t … ”

  “Bed virgins,” she finished for him, holding her eyes so tightly closed that she saw red stars. “I know.”

  She heard the splash as he stepped from the tub, listened to every step of his bare feet on the floor. Twice he passed close to the bed, and when he was near Catalina squeezed her eyes shut even tighter. Both times she heard him chuckle. She wanted to strike out at him for laughing at her, but she remained silent. He was her best hope for getting out of Baxter alive and with her virginity intact.

  Finally she felt his weight on the bed, and his hands at her wrist.

  “You can open your eyes, Catalina,” he whispered huskily. “I’m decent.”

  “That’s debatable,” she answered, opening her eyes cautiously.

  Maybe he was, technically, decent. He had his pants on, at least. But his chest was bare, and it was so close to her face as he leaned over her to untie her bonds that she could have leaned forward and touched his still damp skin with her lips.

  He was certainly not the first man she had seen without a shirt. Good heavens, there was a pool at the apartment, and it was well used. But she had never seen a body so perfectly formed. Not overly muscular, like those body builders who loved to flex their muscles whenever she and Kim had gone to the pool for a swim, not thin and pale like the more sedentary guys she’d seen — like Wilson. Jackson’s body — and she’d just recently gotten a glimpse of a good bit of it — was perfect.

  His long dark hair was wet, but he’d towel-dried it and it didn’t drip on her. Still, damp strands brushed her face and her indecently exposed cleavage as he leaned to the other side.

  He was no fool. She remained immobile as long as he held his body so closely over hers.

  “There’s stew, if you’re hungry.”

  Catalina closed her eyes to still the rolling nausea that shook her at the mention of food. “No,” she said. “Oh, definitely no.”

  She took a deep breath and opened her eyes. A pale, thin scar on Jackson’s side caught her eye, and a newly freed hand reached out to touch it briefly. “What happened?”

  “I was shot,” he said tersely.

  “Oh.” It was a breath, a whisper in the quiet room. Of course he had been shot.

  “Here, too,” he said sharply, turning his back to her. There was a nasty puckered scar high on his back, inches from his spine.

  “Someone shot you in the back?” Catalina couldn’t stop herself. She reached out and touched the damaged flesh, silently cursing the man who had done this to him.

  “Yep. That was the day I learned never to shoot to wound a man. Always shoot to kill.”

  “When was that?” Catalina pulled her hand away slowly. It seemed so unfair.

  “Fourteen years ago.” Jackson stood, and Catalina was free. She didn’t move but to massage her aching arms.

  “God, Jackson, you were just a baby.”

  He kept his back to her, and she saw the muscles there tense.

  “What happened?” Catalina had seen enough of Jackson Cady to know that he was intelligent, almost human, though he tried very hard to hide that fact. What had brought him to this place? What had turned Jackson Cady into Kid Creede? “Why do you do … what you do?”

  He turned then and looked down at her, and she wished he had kept that stiff back to her. Jackson smiled, but there was no humor in that smile. His narrowed eyes burrowed into her, traveling the length of her body slowly.

  “Are you certain you’re a virgin, Catalina Lane?” he asked silkily.

  Catalina nodded her head, but that didn’t stop Jackson. He leaned over her, trapping her still sore arms above her head and placing his lips over hers. They almost touched, and his mouth hovered just above hers, so she could feel every breath he took, every beat of his heart.

  “How can I know for certain that you’re telling the truth?” he whispered, and then he kissed her, hard lips against her trembling mouth. Catalina tried to push him away, but she had no strength … and she was no match for Jackson Cady when he was wary of her.

  She allowed her pinned arms to relax, and the pressure there lessened. His lips softened as well, and Catalina lifted her chin to taste more of him, forgetting what a threat he was to her.

  Jackson trapped both her wrists with one hand and trailed the other hand down her arm … slowly … his fingers dancing against her skin. She burned where he touched her, and she ached for more of him. Her heart beat so fast, she was certain he could feel it; could hear it, it pounded so hard. There was no way to catch her breath, to ease the pressure that was building inside her. Catalina felt as if she might actually explode.

  He released her wrists and wrapped his arms around her, slipping his big hands under her and clutching her tightly. She was almost certain she heard a low, deep moan coming from somewhere deep inside Jackson, and she captured that sound with her parted lips. Her hands came slowly to the back of his head, and she wound her fingers into his damp hair and pulled him toward her, wanting his lips ever tighter against hers, wanting his sweet tongue to dance with hers all night.

  But Jackson pulled away from her, taking his lips from her as he continued to hold her close. “You don’t kiss like a virgin.”

  “I’m sorry,” Catalina whispered.

  Jackson was gone, his hands and his lips and his weight gone in a flash. He turned his back on her again, and stood at the side of the bed, motionless. Like a cold marble statue. Catalina sat up, her fingers touching her lips tentatively. What was that? What had happened to her?

  *

  Jackson doused the light, careful not to look at the woman lounging on the bed. Unfortunately, he was assured that she was a virgin. Her breath had come so fast after just one kiss, and he had seen the confusion in her whiskey eyes when he’d pulled away from her. She was feeling that confusion for the first time.

  His little plan had backfired. To hear her ask him, in her soft voice, what had made him choose the life he led was more than he could bear.

  A rough kiss, to change her train of thought. A careless hand, to remind her of what her fate could yet be. Confusion, to make her forget her tender questions.

  But he’d been as caught up in the caress as she had. He’d never before touched an innocent, and he wouldn’t start now — except for that kiss. So pure, so unjaded. So open, Catalina Lane was. He could have her, and it wouldn’t be rape. She would give herself to him without a qualm, but he was unwilling to have her.

  She offered too much.

  He’d rather face her questions, were they to come up again, than endure another kiss like that one. Perhaps he’d even tell her — in a weak moment — that he hadn’t chosen this life. It had chosen him.

  “Jackson?” Her voice was uncertain, like that of a lost child afraid of the dark. He could turn, he knew, and see her there on the bed, lit by the moonlight that streamed through the balcony door. He kept his back to her.

  “Where will you sleep?”

  Where will I sleep? Between your legs if you don’t be quiet. “On the floor,” he said shortly.

  “Oh.” He heard the rustle of her dress, another lost sigh, and then she was quiet.

  He waited without moving, standing with his back to the bed for several long moments. Surely no more than a few minutes passed before he heard the deep, even breathing of a sleeping Catalina.

  Then he turned. She was lying on her side, her knees pulled up just slightly. Golden hair, silver in the moonlight, fell over half of her face. How had s
he fallen asleep so quickly? Some nights he didn’t sleep at all, and he never slept for more than an hour or two without waking.

  Catalina slept the sleep of an innocent, and he reminded himself that that’s exactly what she was. She was innocent, and beautiful, and loco … and not for him.

  He placed the blue coverlet over her sleeping form, and she stirred slightly. There was a frown on her face, and she twisted her torso a bit … and then she was deep asleep again.

  Pure. That was the word that came to him as he watched the moonlight on her face. She was pure and good, and she deserved her magic.

  Seven

  *

  Catalina woke in pain. The damn corset was going to have to go, and now. The pinch of the uncomfortable undergarment was almost matched by the pain in her head — from too much of Alberta’s whiskey — and the ache in her arms and shoulders. She wasn’t accustomed to being trussed to a wall or a bed, thank you very much.

  She lifted her head and surveyed the blue room washed with a pale morning glow. It looked different by the light of day, even the faded half light that illuminated the rough texture of the wooden floor and the man who slept upon it.

  Her head was clearer than it had been the night before, in spite of the headache. Still, none of what had happened made any sense. The harder she tried to find some sanity in the events of the past forty-eight hours, the more her head hurt.

  Jackson’s tub still sat near the fireplace, and Jackson himself slept on the floor, as he’d said he would. Even in sleep he seemed aware. Catalina wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d lifted his head and greeted her with a cool and calm good morning. But he didn’t. He slept on, with nothing but a single sheet between his bare back and the wooden floor.

  She slipped her legs over the side of the bed, as slowly and quietly as possible, and stood. Jackson’s slightly too long nose twitched, but that was the only movement he made. Catalina reached behind her and started working the buttons down her back. Why hadn’t she removed the damned corset last night? Too drunk, too scared, maybe both. She hadn’t wondered, when she’d been assisted in dressing, how she would undress on her own. She knew now that Alberta had never intended for Catalina to remove the costume alone.