The difficulty was in being only a day’s ride away from that jewel-eyed termagant who kept coming to his mind no matter how much he drowned his thoughts in drink. Twice it had even been so bad he’d considered riding back out to the Rocky Valley Ranch. But Rachel wouldn’t welcome him, and Jessie never had.
He got drunk enough to stop those foolish notions whenever they came over him.
He was drunk just then, after hearing that Jessie had come to town. What the hell was it about her that made it so difficult to put her out of his life? She had damn well turned his life upside down already. He had never before had this trouble forgetting any woman he’d gotten involved with. And liquor didn’t seem to help this time, not even a little. With Jessie so close, he needed something more.
His eyes roamed the saloon from where he stood at the end of the bar. He saw Charlie and Clee, Bowdre’s two obnoxious sidekicks, sitting at a table by themselves. Chase could have shot them for telling him Jessie was in town. To get his mind off her, which the drink wasn’t doing, he considered picking a fight with them. But then he spotted Silver Annie crossing the room. She would suit his needs even better than a fight.
Annie was the prettiest of the girls who worked this saloon. Unfortunately, that wasn’t saying much. She got her name from the silver ribbons she always wore in her hair and around her neck, and also from the color of her eyes, more silver than gray, especially because of their glassy appearance. Her eyes hinted at something stronger than drink. Chase didn’t care. He couldn’t judge someone else’s weakness when he was developing one of his own.
She had approached him before, but he hadn’t been tempted. Maybe that was a mistake. What was the old saying about one woman helping you forget another?
A little while later and a lot drunker, he found himself in Silver Annie’s room. The lights were out, and he was inundated by the smell of cheap perfume. Some of him was just sober enough to know he didn’t really want to be there. But he was there, and he vowed he would forget Jessie in the arms of another woman.
But when he finally crawled naked into bed, Chase couldn’t find that other woman. She wasn’t there. He felt all around the bed, but she still wasn’t there.
“Well, where are you, Annie?” he demanded belligerently, determined to go through with it.
He heard her giggle from one side of the room, and then there was a deeper snicker from the other side. Before Chase could make any sense of it, a man spoke.
“You reckon he never got enough from the mama and daughter?”
“Damn you, now he knows we’re here!” growled another man.
“Think I care, when I got this?”
“Shit!”
Chase struggled up from the bed. “What—”
A fiery pain stabbed into his back, driving him facedown on the bed. He tried to rise but couldn’t quite manage it. And then it didn’t matter anymore. A black void engulfed him.
“You dumb asshole!” Charlie swore. “What’d you do that for?”
“I owed him,” Clee said defensively. “ ‘Sides, I weren’t scared of him like you sure as shit were.”
“Were we told to kill him?” Charlie asked on a rising note. “Were we?”
“Ah, what’s the difference?”
“Laton didn’t want no trouble, that’s what, not when the gal will be hearin‘ soon about what he did up north. He means to drive her out without the law comin’ into it. He likes to do things his way, and you sure as hell just messed that up for him.”
“It was stupid, anyway, if you ask me. There was no guarantee the Blair girl would fire this one just ‘cause he was found here, passed out. Laton was just gettin’ worried with him bein‘ in town all these weeks. Fired or dead, he won’t be tellin’ the girl even if he did find out anythin‘ he shouldn’t have.”
“You better hope Laton sees it that way. And what about Annie?”
“Shoot, she won’t say nothin‘, not if she wants the stuff she was promised. Will you, Annie?”
The girl could only barely see the outline of the two men. She felt sorry for the good-looking gambler, but he was dead and she was alive, and she did need that stuff they’d promised her.
“It’s dark in here,” she replied quickly. “I didn’t see nothin‘.”
“That’s a good girl, Annie.” Clee chuckled.
Charlie wasn’t amused. “Well, the sheriff will have to be called. We’d best go through his pockets so they think this was a robbery.”
“Well, shoot, if you’re gonna do it that way, it’d be better just to take his pants with us, wouldn’t it?” Clee suggested reasonably. “See, he’s dead, and she’s screamin‘ her head off, so would a robber stick around long enough to go through the man’s pants?”
“All right, all right,” Charlie grumbled, not liking the way this had turned out. He was just glad that Clee was showing some sense in covering all the angles of the new plan they were now stuck with.
Chapter 26
“DO you know who he is, Ned?” Doc Meddly asked.
The deputy shook his head and looked at Silver Annie. She could hardly sit still.
“He calls himself Chase Summers, but what does that tell you?” she said peevishly, wishing they’d hurry up. “It’s prob’ly an alias. They usually are.”
“Ned, why don’t you get her out of here? She’s a bundle of nerves,” Doc suggested.
“Well, what do you expect me to be, a man gets stabbed in my bed?” Annie shrieked. “And I’m stayin‘. Just hurry up and do what you got to do, then get him out of here so I can clean up this mess. I can’t afford to stop workin’ tonight just ‘cause of this.”
“Callous, isn’t she?” Doc mumbled to the deputy.
“Aren’t they all?” Ned agreed. Annie ignored them both as she yanked a brush through her flaxen hair.
“Where’s he staying, Ned?”
“At the hotel, I imagine.”
“Don’t you know? Where’s the sheriff, anyway?”
“Now don’t get all put out, Doc. There wasn’t any reason to wake him. I can handle this.”
“Find out if this young fellow knows anyone around here. He’s gonna need looking after for a few days.”
“What about Mrs. Meddly? Don’t she usually—?”
“God-fearing folk only, Ned. She’d just have to hear where he got hurt to know he don’t fit in that category. Now I could insist she tend him, but I’d be living with a shrew the whole time, and I’d rather not.”
“He knows the Blair girl,” Annie volunteered. It had been a shock to Annie to find the gambler wasn’t dead after all. Clee might pay her extra if she continued with their original plan. It was worth a try.
“Jessie Blair?” Doc said absently as he continued cleaning Chase’s wound. “She was in town today. See if she’s at the hotel, Ned, and—”
“Get her over here quick,” Annie interrupted shrilly. “So we can get this over with.”
Meddly looked up sharply. “Miss, this is no place for a young lady like her.”
“Why not? I heard she’s tough as nails. Any gal who can pack a gun can come into a saloon without fainting.”
“Not when it isn’t necessary,” the Doc told her indignantly, then turned to Ned. “Just tell Miss Jessie this man has been hurt and have her wait for me at the hotel in Summers’s room. And send up a couple of men to help me get him over there.”
Ned left the saloon for the hotel, but he wouldn’t find Jessie there. She had entered the saloon just moments before, and was listening inattentively to the talk of the robbery. She had her mind on other things. She had come to find Chase. She hadn’t been able to sleep at all after Billy left her, and she had done a good deal of calm, logical thinking. She’d come to a decision that still surprised her.