Devil in Texas (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 1) (23 page)

"Now see here, Sid," Baron interceded testily. "Tito was in
my
employ, guarding
my
missus. Are you saying Tito is wanted for murder?"

"Tito's dead," Sid said flatly. "What the coyotes left of him was found this afternoon in a cedar brake, about two miles south of town. Doc says it was the bullet that killed him. But bullets don't make a man's tongue turn black or his eyes go yellow and buggy."

Poppy gasped, pressing a gloved hand to her mouth.

"Collie," Baron barked, "escort my wife to a proper seat. A lady's ears shouldn't suffer such tales."

For once, Poppy didn't argue, but Collie looked madder than a wet hornet to be missing this juicy bit of gossip. He dragged his feet as he herded her away.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" Baron growled at the lawman. "You know better than to talk business in front of a woman."

Sid's flinty gaze was openly speculative as he glanced between Baron and Cass—searching for an incriminating reaction, perhaps? But Baron looked as stunned as Cass felt by the news of Tito's death.

"Tito left a note," Cass volunteered. "He was heading home. He wasn't familiar with these hills. Maybe he was bitten by a copperhead, became feverish, and got lost," he added, recalling how snake venom had nearly snuffed out his own life last year.

Sid grunted, turning to Baron. "You still have this note?"

"Hell, Sid, if I kept every scrap of paper that ever crossed my desk, I'd have to build another barn."

"Uh-huh." Sid didn't look convinced. "I heard Collie had words with Tito. I heard they argued lots of times."

Cass tensed. "Says who?"

"Says a witness, that's who."

Baron was frowning. "Collie's just a kid."

"Age don't make no nevermind. I was riding posse on my thirteenth birthday. Shot my first bank robber that year, too. And I'm not the only one who took to guns young," Sid added, drilling Cass with a dire glare.

Cass's jaw hardened. So much for his assumption that he and Sid were friends. "That hurts my feelings, marshal."

"Cut the crap, Cassidy. Don't you think I contacted a few Kentucky tin-stars? According to the Whitley County sheriff's office, Collie was arrested on murder charges in Blue Thunder Valley about two years ago. Seems like he was stealing coons from a taxidermist, who took exception to the thefts—and wound up dead."

Cass clenched a fist. No one knew better than he did how a youthful crime could ruin a boy's life. "If you wrote to Sheriff Truitt," Cass said acidly, "then he should have told you those murder charges didn't stick. Collie was released for lack of evidence, and the real murderer was shot by a bounty hunter."

"Whom
you
plugged," Sid accused.

"The bastard had just murdered a man! And he was fixing to plug Sera, Lynx, and Collie, whom he was holding hostage!"

Baron clapped a restraining hand over Cass's shoulder. "That bounty hunter had a stack of murder warrants against him, and Cass was exonerated in a court of law," the senator said in crisp, businesslike tones.

Sid's eyes glanced narrowly from Baron to Cass.

"Just so we're clear, Cassidy," the marshal ground out. "I'll be watching you. And that smart-mouthed kid, too."

With a terse nod, Sid turned on his heel and strode into the night.

Cass was so angry, his limbs were shaking.

Baron's beefy hand squeezed his shoulder, half in sympathy, half in reproach. "Simmer town, hotshot. That tongue of yours is going to dig your grave."

"Collie's a good kid!"

"I know, son. But somewhere in town, the boy made an enemy. Maybe even Sterne."

"Sterne?"

"Sure. Everyone knows Sid's in Sterne's back pocket. Sid even admitted it. After he found the corpse, he called in the Rangers. When a body's found outside the city limits, the
proper
procedure is to call in the county sheriff." Grimly, Baron shook his head. "Looks like Sterne found a new way to make things personal between you and him."

Cass was seeing red at that point.

The crowd rippled and parted near the pavilion. Applause swept through the seated members of the audience, who quickly climbed to their feet. Whoops and hollers erupted as the clapping grew louder, rushing like wildfire from couple to couple. Sterne strolled onto the grounds with a stunning, brandy-eyed redhead on his arm.

Sadie.

Cass's heart kicked hard.

Her luscious figure was sheathed in a sleeveless evening gown of breezy, ivory silk. A daring scoop revealed the abundance of freckles on her back, and a golden bow rode flirtatiously above her bustle. A gauzy shawl of matching gold drooped from her shoulders and fluttered over her elbow-length gloves.

Cass was pretty sure he ground his teeth hard enough to crack one.

Baron also noticed the couple. He hiked a bushy eyebrow as Sterne bowed formally, kissing Sadie's knuckles. She laughed at something the ex-Ranger said before she finally—and much too slowly, in Cass's opinion—withdrew her hand from his fist. Patting his craggy cheek, she raised her skirts above velvet shoes and sauntered behind the scarlet curtains of the stage.

Some tenderfoot in swallowtails approached Sterne, slapped his back, and raised his champagne toward Sadie's ass.

By that time, Cass was ready to shoot something.

"Easy, son." Baron handed him a glass. "No need to rush things." An unpleasant little smile curved the senator's lips. "There are plenty of ways to skin a cat."

* * *

Behind the curtains of the stage, Sadie paced like a caged tiger in the early evening shadows, waiting for her musical cue. Beyond the Grecian columns from which the velvet had been strung, she could see the evening star rising against the backdrop of purple-blue dusk.

Unfortunately, no breeze found its way between the columns. The dust of a parched, Texas landscape had invaded everything, including her sinuses. Despite the cooling plunge of her gown's back, her skin glistened with perspiration.

Or maybe it was the charade of being Rex's lover that had her sweating out this performance. Even the thought of Wilma and Jazi in the audience, cheering her on for moral support, couldn't ground the butterflies in Sadie's stomach.

Her breath hitched as a stringed quartet began playing the first, yearning strains of her
introduction. The tender sighing of the cello haunted her. Cellos were considered the instrument most like the human voice, and
Destiny
was a lament. The lyrics had been inspired four years ago by her estrangement from Cass. Sadie had never intended to sing
Destiny
for an audience. However, she had suffered a sentimental bout of lunacy last night, and she'd dragged out the sheet music, reviewing it over a shot of tequila.

All right, over
four
shots of tequila.

Maybe that was why the song had somehow found its way into her music folder. She'd been none the wiser until dress rehearsal that afternoon, when she'd handed her folder to her accompanist. Curious about the title, the pianist had tugged
Destiny
from her stack of compositions. The next thing she'd known, Maestro Lundgren had directed her to "sing the love song."

"But it still needs work," she'd protested in rising panic. She'd been planning to sing
Habanera,
which, in part, compared love to a gypsy child, who had never known the law. Sadie had always related to that message. "I prepared a selection from
Carmen. Habanera
is better suited
—
"

"I
shall decide which music is suitable for tonight's event," the Yankee had interrupted in his testy tenor. "Bizet is passé. Every mezzo-soprano in every two-bit musicale screeches
Habanera. Fresh.
That's what's needed if a singer of your caliber is expected to pull off a gala performance."

Sadie supposed she should be flattered that a conductor from New York's vaunted Academy of Music had arranged her simple tune for stringed accompaniment.

But
Destiny
had been torn from her heart, a catharsis for an old flame that was dying. She quailed to think of parading her pain before dozens of snooty matrons and their bored husbands, who would sit in judgment, sneering up at her through the footlights as she struggled to sing through tears.

"You
will
sing tonight," Wilma had counseled her firmly, "because your love is for music. You will take the stage, because that is your
mission.
The performance will cost three minutes of your life. That is a small price,
chere,
for ending the career of a monster."

The cellist began bowing her musical cue. Sadie squeezed her eyes closed, seeking comfort by reaching for Daddy's button. But of course, the familiar warmth of that battered brass wasn't resting over her heart.

That's another payback I owe you, Cass.

She gulped a fortifying breath. She couldn't remember the last time her stomach had churned before a performance. Hell, she'd jumped out of a burning building, hadn't she? Stage fright should be nothing compared with that.

It's now or never.

She muttered a prayer and forced her feet forward. Pasting on a luscious smile, she sauntered into the blinding haze of gaslights at the front of the stage. The crowd hushed. She dragged her gaze from Cass, sitting arms akimbo at Baron's side in the front row. Rex was standing in the aisle, stage right, as they'd planned. She let her smile drip honey and begged God with all her heart that the vocal seduction she was about to perform wouldn't destroy her friendship with Rex—or worse, get him killed.

Taking the conductor's cue, she began to sing:

"Leave your cares, far from sight.

Heat the chill; burn the night.

Hold me close, let love start;

Touch my soul, free my heart.

"Deep in dreams, every night,

Yearn for you; feels so right.

Don't you know? Can't you see?

Why you're mine, destined be?

"Suns may rise, stars may fail.

Worlds collide; love prevails.

Through all time, you and me,

Heart to heart, destiny.

"Never doubt, you're my man,

Through God's vast, Master Plan.

Always yours, I shall be.

Born for you, destiny."

Cass could scarcely breathe as the last, haunting strains of Sadie's song faded beneath the stars. Wildflowers started sailing over the footlights. Tear-streaked matrons and whiskered Old Farts surged to their feet. In tribute to Sadie's performance, hotel promoters were hurling yellow-rose bouquets onto the impressive little garden growing at her ankles.

But the only roses Sadie deigned to catch were the dozen blood-red blossoms thrown by Sterne.

The applause was deafening.

"Cass?" Poppy was watching him speculatively from Baron's other side. "Are you all right?"

Cass barely heard her as he watched Sadie blow kisses to the grinning Sterne. A crushing weight had settled over his heart. Her lyrics kept reverberating in his skull:
"Never doubt you're my man, through God's vast master plan..."

No! Sadie wrote those lyrics about me, by God. She always writes her love songs about me!

Poppy sidled closer, linking her arm through his. "There now, Cass. Everything's going to be all right. What's this Miss O'Leary to you?"

"Trouble," Collie said harshly.

Baron chuckled at the worried expression on the boy's face. "Redheads. They're the ones you have to watch out for. Right, Collie?"

"You're not helping," Poppy snapped at her husband. Her tone softened as she patted Cass's arm. "Come, Cass. Walk with me. You need a change of scenery."

"You might as well go, son," Baron said with an expansive wave of his champagne glass. "Mother won't quit whining till you do. Me and Collie can hold down the fort. We'll find out what Chantelle finds so jo-fired fascinating about Sterne."

"Chantelle?"
Poppy repeated suspiciously.

"That's her name, ain't it?" Baron boomed jovially. "Collie, go on over and introduce yourself to Miss O'Leary. Tell her I have a request."

"It had better be a singing request," Poppy sniped.

Baron rolled his eyes. "Of course it's a singing request," he lied.

"I'll go," Cass insisted hoarsely, some vague plan forming in his mind that he would drag Sadie off the stage and remind her why he was called the Rebel Rutter.

But Collie had grown more cussid than usual. He shoved Cass back with a force that put the spurs to his already straining temper.

"Your name ain't Collie," the boy snapped.

Cass clenched his fists.

Vandy growled.

"Something wrong with your hearing, boy?" Baron grabbed Cass's closest gun arm in restraint. "My wife asked you to walk with her. Start walking, lest I have to cool that hot head of yours by busting it open."

By that point, Cass was ready to punch out Baron.