Cheyennes lady, p.1
Cheyenne's Lady, page 1
Cheyenne’s Lady
Rogues & Desperadoes Series, Book 6
Patricia Rice
Contents
Praise for the novels of Patricia Rice
Author’s Note
BOOK I
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
BOOK II
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
BOOK III
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
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Author’s Note
Excerpt
Cheyenne’s Lady
Copyright © 1989, 2016 Patricia Rice
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portion thereof, in any form.
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Rice Enterprises, Dana Point, CA
Cover design by Killion Group
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Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Thank You.
Praise for the novels of Patricia Rice
Texas Lily
“Ms. Rice is in her element as she gives us a recipe for romance . . . one delicious read.”—Romantic Times (4½ stars)
* * *
Paper Roses (Texas Rose)
“A special gift she gives all her readers.” —Romantic Times (4½ stars)
* * *
Paper Tiger (Texas Tiger)
“Pure romantic fun . . . a sheer delight!”—Mary Jo Putney
* * *
Paper Moon (Texas Moon)
“Ms. Rice uses her delicious, subtle sense of humor to reunite us with her zany cast of characters . . . A definite keeper.”—Romantic Times (4½ stars)
* * *
The Marquess
“Marvelous . . . her mastery of subtle humor will please the most discriminating reader.” —Romantic Times (4½ stars)
“An enthralling story of passion, love, sabotage, and betrayal.”—Rendezvous
“This fast-paced, witty novel will definitely delight.” —Gothic Journal
* * *
Denim and Lace
“An exceptionally well-crafted novel.” —Romantic Times (4½ stars)
Author’s Note
The small towns depicted in this narrative do not exist. They are composites of towns that once were and are no more, victims of the same progress that for one brief moment in history brought them to life.
The descriptions of Santa Fe and other historical details are as accurate as I could make them. If anyone doubts the likelihood of one man controlling an entire town or group of men controlling a territory, they need only read the history of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County Wars, which occurred only a few years after the time of this tale. Truth can be as fascinating as fiction.
To my mother, who is not only responsible for the Irish eyes in the family, but the talents, both good and bad.
BOOK I
THE GUNFIGHTER
* * *
SPRING, 1876
Prologue
Dust blew off the mesa and swirled around the hooves of the sure-footed stallion as it eased down the rocky incline to town. The horse’s rider swept his gaze over the old Spanish mission and the cluster of weathered wood and adobe buildings at the bottom. One hand gripping the reins, the other resting on a muscular thigh, he approached civilization with his gun hand near his holster.
From the town’s lone street, the sheriff eyed the cowboy’s approach with cynicism. Tied to his saddle with the stranger’s bedroll hung an old Spencer rifle, unprepossessing in appearance but a weapon with the ability to fire seven rounds in nearly as many seconds, not the kind of weapon a peace-abiding horseman needed.
A black, low-crowned Stetson shadowed the stranger’s face from view. His heavy sheepskin vest hid the powerful breadth of shoulders and the agile leanness of a man accustomed to long hours in the saddle. The sheriff read the way he rode his horse and wasn’t fooled by the disguise. If he needed further proof of the man’s occupation, the dual Colts riding at the stranger’s hips confirmed any doubt. No cowboy needed two such expensive deadly weapons, nor would he wear them as the stranger did—low and within a flick of a finger.
A few other bystanders drifted into the street to follow the sheriff’s gaze. A rancher in a wide-brimmed sombrero gave a low whistle, and a storekeeper in dark vest and suspenders jerked nervously as the lawman spat a long wad of tobacco into the street.
“Reckon he’s one of Vasquero’s men?” the storekeeper asked, barely hiding his fear.
“Won’t know until he gets here,” the sheriff replied.
“Sure as hell none of the rest of us can afford him.” With a cynical grimace, the rancher swung on his booted heel and strode back into the saloon.
As if that summed up the situation, the others followed his lead, and the stranger arrived to the whistle of a cold wind down an empty street.
Chapter 1
Camille Maria Francesca Connolly glared in frustration at the gaping gray moiré bodice. She had no difficulty fastening the buttons at her waist, but in the three years since her sixteenth birthday her bosom had filled out, and there was no earthly way she could make the gown fit in time for the pageant.
“What am I going to do, Pieta?” The cry was one of wounded femininity as well as disappointment. Once she had had closets full of silks and satins she seldom thought to wear. She had always preferred informal clothes for riding the ranch with her father. Now she dreamed of enchanting the town with her womanliness for a change, and she had nothing that fit.
She had accepted the part of Mary Magdalen in the Easter pageant hoping to wear something besides denims and faded work shirts. She could always wear the black bombazine Pieta had cut down to fit for her father’s funeral, but that ugly, shapeless excuse for a dress was even less feminine than Jose’s Levis.
“Maybe if you use a shaw . . .” Pieta began doubtfully, but her employer’s vigorous shake of disapproval silenced that suggestion.
“A shawl will fall off or slide down or something equally disastrous, I know.” Maria glared at her figure in the tarnished mirror at the back of Jesse’s storeroom. She had slim hips and a waistline so small she needed no corset, so why did she have to be cursed with her mother’s full bosom?
The dress rehearsal was only half an hour away. She couldn’t go like this. She would have to surrender the gown to someone else and make some excuse, tell them an emergency had arisen at the ranch. And never show her face in town again.
Pieta sighed at Maria’s mutinous expression. Irish Connolly’s devastating temper boiled in emerald eyes, and the wide, passionate mouth of Maria’s Spanish mother had set in a grim line only that fine woman had managed gracefully. The combination was deadly. The mother’s aristocratically haughty features and vivid coloring, the father’s brilliant eyes and cutting tongue, and a double dose of both passionate natures—Madre de Dios! Only Irish Connolly could control her, and now he, too, was gone.
Pieta brushed out Maria’s heavy black tresses. Loosed from their usual braid, her hair fell past her hips, more like a wild Indian’s than a young lady’s. With the sudden brilliance of the sun after a storm, Maria’s expression changed, and she swung from her faithful friend’s hands.
“Consuela! Consuela will have the kind of gowns Mary Magdalen would have worn! Why did I not think of it before?” Laughing at the wickedness of her idea, Maria shrugged out of the ill-fitting bodice.
“You ca
“A whore?” Maria finished derisively. “And what was Mary Magdalen?” Stepping out of the gown, she reached for her old work shirt. “Who am I to judge? Besides you, Consuela is my one and only friend. She will help.”
Freshly shaved and bathed after days of dusty travel, Luke “Cheyenne” Walker pulled a fresh shirt from his bedroll and shrugged it on. Shirt laced and topped with a leather vest that left his arms free to move swiftly, Cheyenne reached for the gun belt that never went far from his reach.
A glance in the looking glass over the shaving stand assured him the barber had left his mustache trim, though the golden-brown edges of his sideburns still looked a little rough. The chances of finding a decent barber in these desert outposts were slim, and he had long ago given up any vanity concerning his looks. Brushing the irritating wave of sun-scorched hair from his forehead, he strode toward the door, a parched throat uppermost in his mind.
Stepping into the narrow back hall of the saloon where he had found lodging, Cheyenne attuned his senses to his surroundings and halted at a noise behind him. Too early in the day for a crowd, the saloon produced only the usual noises of clinking glasses and low murmurs.
That was not the direction of the sound that caught his ears.
Hand already halfway to his hip, he swung to watch the stairway. Then with a slow grin he relaxed and lounged against the doorjamb, admiring the vision materializing above him.
Garbed in a vivid red satin that would have shamed the devil in hell, black hair streaming in wanton abandon over dusky, bare shoulders and half-concealed breasts, an enchanting young witch flew toward him. All she needed was a broomstick. Forgetting any thought of thirst, Cheyenne positioned himself in the shadows at the foot of the stairs. He had not expected this kind of luck out in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps doing good deeds had other than monetary rewards.
Late for rehearsal, Maria raced down the back stairway. The men of San Pedro had long ago become accustomed to her coming and goings. Fear of her father's ire had taught them to keep their hands to themselves; inertia kept them from realizing Connolly's wrath had died with him.
She had no warning, no inkling of danger until she reached the bottom of the stairs and collided with a stranger’s solid chest. Steel-like arms wrapped around her, stopping her in mid-flight and taking her breath away. Even then she was only mildly irritated, not in the mood for horseplay while she kept Father Diaz waiting. Not until a stranger’s deep voice murmured passionate phrases in her ear and heated lips sought her own did Maria realize the trap she had entered.
“Querida bruja, let me see if you are real and not a mirage in this desert.”
The man’s words whispered lovingly against her ear, not words to fear. Though they drew her like a moth to a flame, Maria was no fool. Strong arms did not mean safety. She squirmed in his embrace, heart pounding as the smooth chambray of his shirt brushed the near-bareness of her bosom. She opened her mouth to scream. As if waiting for that moment, his lips closed over hers.
The sensation was not unlike that of drowning. Maria went under, gasping for air as his hot breath filled her nostrils and his tongue penetrated her parted lips. Trapped against the stranger’s chest, her hands clawed at his shirt, finally clinging to the loose folds as her knees threatened to collapse under her. Never before had she been kissed like this, and foggily she found herself responding, drawn to the urgency of his demands. Her lips grew soft and welcoming, and he gave a guttural growl of pleasure.
She had been kissed before, but never like this, never with such a hungry yearning that it touched a chord in her soul and sent shivers down her spine. All the fears, all the loneliness, all the pain of these last months dissolved beneath the need of his lips. It was an impossible sensation, a caressing of two lost souls, but she did not have it in her to deny what she found there. She wanted it too much.
Not until strong fingers slid to her hips and pressed her against a hard bulge in his groin did Maria react with an instinct born of self-preservation. Fist knotted as her father had taught her, she swung with all her strength.
Her blow missed the mark and landed solidly against an abdomen made of steel, but the surprise caused her attacker to take a step backward. That was all the leeway she needed. Maria dodged beneath his arm and ran out the back door with the stranger’s muffled curses flying after her.
At the sound of feminine chuckles from above, Cheyenne swung from his intended pursuit of the witch to glare up the stairway to a more earthy beauty.
“That one was not meant for the likes of you, gringo. If you must burn your hands playing with fire, why not play with me for a while?”
And because he had a need that could not be satisfied otherwise, he took the stairs two at a time and swept this second dark-haired beauty through the open door behind her.
He had little respect for women, but this one was good at what she did, and for a while she eased his mind as well as his body.
Chapter 2
Gazing up at a cold March sky, then back to the stirrup-high grasses of this New Mexican valley, Cheyenne pondered a destiny he had never planned, a future that could not be. The loneliness of the empty plain ached within him, and he wondered—not for the first time—why he continued this existence.
“Because you can think of nothing better to do” came the usual reply, spoken with bitter irony inside his head. The only substitute was liquor, and he had seen what that could do to a man. If he courted death, he preferred it to be a swift one.
The news he had received in town had instigated this morose train of thought. He had few friends left from his youth, few ties left with his family. One of those fragile ties had just been severed, and he suffered the loss hard. It had been years since he had thought of Irish Connolly, almost a decade since he had seen him last, but the image of the older man still lingered strong in his memory.
The Connollys had been neighbors and friends of his family years ago. Some of them still lived back there on the Kansas plains. Only Irish stood out in his mind—a more bull headed, hot-tempered man than he had ever known, and broken with a grief stronger than any eighteen-year-old could ever imagine. He had never seen a grown man cry before, but that burly, blustering cowboy had sat there at the kitchen table and wept as he spoke of his wife’s death. The next day Connolly had rode with the rest of them to capture a band of raiding Kiowas, all trace of tears gone, except in the young Luke Walker’s mind.
Cheyenne remembered the image to this day, had reason to remember it because it corresponded with his resolution never to let another woman under his skin again. If a woman could reduce a man like Irish to tears, then females had no place in his life. He’d be a better man today if he’d stuck to that vow.
The occupants of the ranch house had told Cheyenne how to find the little cemetery where Irish lay beside his second wife and the babies that had never lived. The least he could do was pay his last respects before turning east. He hadn’t been to Kansas in years, with good reason, but Irish’s death told him it was time. He felt it in his bones even as he found the small picket fence with its lone tree and weathered crosses.
A horse grazed inside the fence and a boyish figure knelt beside the newest cross. Cheyenne hesitated, not wanting to disturb a stranger at his prayers.
With her long braid wound up and pinned beneath her father’s old felt hat, wearing one of Jose’s discarded shirts and her hands as rough and chapped as any boy’s, Maria cultivated the look of a male. From an early age, eager to be one of the men like the father she worshipped, she had ignored silks and satins and feminine pursuits. Of late, it had been cheaper to continue this costume, and her boyish clothes were second nature to her now, a chameleon-like protection in a man’s world.
