Desperate Hearts by Alexis Harrington Read Free Book Online

they first rode in—he was
one of the two men who’d sat at the table in the Magnolia Saloon,
obviously conferring about Jace. It wasn’t easy to forget someone
so ugly. His pale eyes bulged like a frog’s and what remained of
his teeth were ocher-colored and overlapped one another behind a
pair of lips that made Jace think of calves’ liver. His stained
buckskins looked as if they’d been on his back since the first day
he put them on. He was unsteady on his feet, and the smell of sweat
and pop skull whiskey radiated from him in waves.
    And Jace had read the shopkeeper’s fear like
a newspaper—the weaselly little bastard did have a gun pulled, but
it was trained on Jace’s own chest.
    “ You’ve been following me.
Who the hell are you?” Jace inquired.
    “ Name’s Hobie McIntyre, not
like it’s your business.”
    Jace looked him up and down. “Well,
McIntyre, it’s my business now. Where’s your partner?”
    “ Lem’s around, don’t you
worry ’bout that.”
    “ I guess nobody taught you
it isn’t polite to point a gun at a man’s back. If you learn it
from me, it’s going to be a hard lesson.”
    As soon as he said the words, the other
customers in the store—two men—looked up and dropped the coil of
rope they’d been measuring, beating a hasty retreat. Only Kyle
stayed put, frozen in place like a rabbit with a hawk circling
overhead.
    The stranger didn’t lower his gun. “Damn, if
this ain’t my lucky day—Jace Rankin. I knew it was you as soon as I
seen you ride by. Where’s the Bailey woman? I know she found you in
Silver City. A saloon girl told me.”
    Jace felt every nerve in his body snap to
attention. He had no clue what the man was talking about, but with
that gun pointed at him he chose his words carefully. "I don’t know
anything about a woman, mister, but I can promise you that you’ll
be sorry you ever walked in here.”
    “ No, I won’t. I heard all
about you and her at the Magnolia Saloon. They say she’s a real
looker, all nice curves and fire-colored hair. Now, there’s folks
lookin’ for her, and I aim to know where you got her.”
    Jace’s senses, focused sharply on all the
details around him, suddenly and completely fixed on the business
of survival. Though he didn’t take his eyes off the man in front of
him, in the periphery of his vision he saw the grime-smudged
windows, the festoons of cobwebs in the rafters, a rag doll on the
shelf. He smelled the coffee behind him, the trail dust on his own
clothes. A cool, detached calm came over him, the same deliberate
control that he’d learned long ago. Hotheads made mistakes;
sometimes they landed in the undertaker’s backroom.
    “ Do you see a woman here?
You’ll just end up with a bullet in your head,” he warned again,
more pointedly this time. “Go sleep it off, and you’ll wake up to
live another day.” He could usually outstare almost any man and
scare the pee out of him, but it wasn’t working with this saddle
bum. Christ, not much was worse than a drunk with a gun. Any kind
of wild shot was likely to fly.
    He felt Kyle still holding his ground, but
he couldn’t risk sparing him even one glance or a word to tell him
to move. Damn-fool kid—didn’t he have the wits to stay back? Jace
had enough to worry about without that boy getting in his way.
    “ Whatsa matter, Rankin? You
scared? Prob’ly no tougher than him.” McIntyre snorted and gestured
at Kyle, then his red eyes narrowed. "Say—now I remember. A
boy—Gracie said she was dressed like—”
    Kyle gasped as McIntyre turned suddenly in
his direction and advanced on him. That was exactly the opening
Jace had been looking for. He leveled his revolver on him. But with
familiar dream-slow movement, he saw Kyle whip out his gun and aim
at the drunk. The man grinned evilly and kept coming. A brief
confusion of close gunfire exploded in the tiny store, combined
with the ping of ricochets and broken glass. Through the smoke Jace
saw McIntyre go