Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About The Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Epilogue

Author Note

Copyright

“Mercy, I want you.

“I want to make love to you, Mercy,” Sam whispered, following her down, leaning on his side and one arm while the other continued to pleasure her. “Let me make love to you, Mercy, honey…”

“No, I don’t think—” She looked around her, away from him. Heavens, it was more of a case of she couldn’t think, not while his mouth was just two inches from hers and while his stroking was making her tingle all over.

“You don’t want me to make love to you out here in the open, under the stars?” he murmured, his breath warm against her ear. “Mercy, I think you’re about the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen in the moonlight—it makes your eyes all silvery and mysterious.” He stopped and kissed her lingeringly. “I just can’t even begin to imagine how pretty the rest of you would look dressed in nothing but moonlight…”

Dear Reader,

Love and loyalty clash in Devil’s Dare by Laurie Grant, a fast-paced Western about a sweet-talking cowboy and a straitlaced preacher’s daughter whom he mistakes for a soiled dove. We hope you enjoy this delightful tale from recent Readers’ Choice winner Laurie Grant.

The Gambler’s Heart is the third book in Gayle Wilson’s Heart Trilogy. This passionate Regency features a warscarred French gambler who acquires a wife as payment for a debt, and must learn to accept her love for him. We are also pleased to bring you the second book in Susan Paul’s medieval Bride Trilogy, The Heiress Bride, the lively story of a rogue knight running from his past and a strong-willed noblewoman running from her future.

Elizabeth Lane’s Lydia, our fourth selection for the month, is the touching story of a former Union spy who moves to Colorado and falls in love with the brother of a man who died as a result of her actions.

Whatever your taste in reading, we hope that Harlequin Historicals will keep you coming back for more. Please keep a lookout for all four titles, available wherever Harlequin books are sold.

Sincerely, Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

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Devil’s Dare
Laurie Grant

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LAURIE GRANT

combines a career as a trauma center emergency room nurse with that of historical romance author; she says the writing helps keep her sane. Passionately enthusiastic about the history of both England and Texas, she divides her travel time between these two spots. She is married to her own real-life hero, and has two teenage daughters, two dogs and a cat.

If you would like to write the author of Devil’s Dare, please use the address below:

Laurie Grant

P.O. Box 307274

Gahanna, OH 43230

With grateful thanks to the Abilene Heritage Center for their invaluable assistance in my research, to Rebecca Brandewyne for providing information on the natural features, flora and fauna of the region, and to Ann Bouricius, tireless critique partner and friend.

And, as always, thanks to Michael, who keeps me going with his love and moral support—and who kept me from using the wrong knife.

Chapter One

“Gentlemen, Abilene is a fine town,” Wyatt Earp, one of Abilene’s premier cardsharps, told them as they sagged against the stock pen that held the three thousand milling, bawling longhorns they’d trailed all the way from Texas. “You may ask why I think so. Well, boys, Abilene is a fine town because there’s so much easy money in it, so much sin and so little law. Why, there’s twenty saloons, twenty gambling houses and ten dance halls—as well as three restaurants, for when you’re all tuckered out from all that carousin’ and just want some tasty vittles. Yessir, I believe you boys are gonna have a high time here, a high time indeed.”

Sam Houston Devlin began to grin as he pushed back his wide-brimmed hat. After endless weeks on the trail, driving the meanest beeves on four hooves over the plains and through the rivers, enduring storms, stampedes and endless dust, dodging Indians and rustlers, he was more than ready for a little fun. In fact, if he looked back on his twenty-five years, it seemed as if he couldn’t remember having fun since he’d left home at eighteen to join the Confederate army.

Following the grim years of war, during which he’d grown to manhood, he’d returned to find the Devlin farm close to ruin. Three dreary years of hard work had followed, until at last he’d realized the only way to recoup their prosperity was by rounding up the hundreds of longhorned cattle, running loose in the brush, and driving them to market in Kansas.

And now he was here at last in Abilene—trail’s end. Once he’d paid the men’s wages and allowed for expenses, he figured he’d have some thirty-six thousand dollars to take home with him. Seemed like he’d earned a good time before returning home to Texas, and it sounded as if Abilene was ready and willing to oblige him.

“And if you’ll join me down at the Alamo Saloon tonight,” the cardsharp continued, “I’ll see that you have the finest time playin’ monte and poker and faro you ever thought of having. And cards, gentlemen, are just the beginning. The liquor flows freely at the Alamo, boys, and the women, well…they ain’t free, but they’re pretty easy.”

A collective guffaw greeted his sally. The “Devil’s Boys,” as Sam’s crew liked to call themselves, were even more eager to begin tasting the delights of Abilene than their trail boss, if that was possible.

“We’ll be there with bells on,” promised one of the drovers, and there was echoed agreement all around him. “And just where is this Alamo Saloon, Mr. Earp?”

“Why, the corner of Cedar and Texas streets, the two streets where all the pleasures a cowboy could hope to have are located,” Earp answered. “I’ll be at my regular table ‘bout seven, okay, gents? Meanwhile, be sure not t’ miss the promenade.”

“Th’ promenade?” questioned one of the younger hands, a baby-faced kid they called “Boy” Henderson for his beardless cheeks.

Earp smiled at the youth, then pulled out an ornate gold pocket watch and flipped the case open, studying it. “Fellas, you’re in luck. It’s just half an hour before the daily ritual unique to this fine town. Every day except Sunday, at nigh onta four o’clock, the sportin girls’ of Hattie’s HotHouse and Saleratus Sal’s Sink of Sin go for a stroll down Texas Street, yonder.” Earp pointed to where the facades of buildings could be seen through the dust raised by the milling, bawling longhorns. “If you’ll walk on up the street, gentlemen, you’ll have plenty of time to select the ideal vantage point, so as not to miss a collection of female pulchritude that will fairly make your mouth water.”

“I sure ‘nough don’t wanta miss any o’ that!” Boy Henderson exclaimed, and spun around, bolting in the direction of the promised spectacle. “Come on, fellows!” he called over his shoulder with a beckoning wave.

“Hey, Henderson, don’t you think you’re forgetting something?” drawled Sam.

The youth looked back, and seeing that none of the other men had moved from where they had been lounging against the stock pens, he halted. “What, Sam?” he asked. None of his crew called him “Mr. Devlin.” Sam was not one to stand on ceremony.

“Aren’t you gonna draw your pay, Boy?” Sam reminded him with a teasing grin. “Lookin’s free, but you got a hundred and twenty dollars comin’ to you after all those weeks on the trail, and I don’t think that these fancy girls are gonna let you do more than look unless your pockets are full. And you do want to do more than look, don’t you?”

“Gosh dang, yes!” he replied with so much enthusiasm that the rest of the cowboys snickered, causing Boy to blush.

“Then come on back and stand still while I divide the money you boys have comin’,” Sam said, wondering if he’d looked that eager the first time he’d been taken to that brothel in New Orleans before the war. Lord, to be that young and innocent again! Compared to Boy, most days he felt a hundred weary years old. But now that he’d have gold jingling in his pocket again, he meant to see if he could reclaim some of his lost spirits. And perhaps Texas Street had a female or two who could help him try.

The pay was soon dispensed. All but one of the hands took their money with smiles and remarks about wanting to work for Devlin on subsequent drives.

“A hunnerd and twenty dollars don’t seem like much fer three months’ work and nearly gettin’ drowned in the Red River,” Tom Culhane mumbled sourly.

“You knew the wage when you signed on, Tom,” Sam Devlin said evenly, hoping an ugly fight wasn’t going to mar their first night in town. “And danger comes with the work. Hellfire, you probably wouldn’t have had any difficulty in the river if you hadn’t ridden the horse I told you was a panicky swimmer. As it was, you got a good cowboy drowned.” Culhane’s lower lip drooped sulkily. It was obvious he didn’t like being reminded that the tragic incident at the Red River was essentially his fault.

“You give Jase Lowry a hunnerd an’ forty,” Tom Culhane retorted.

“Jase Lowry’s my point man, my second-in-command,” Sam reminded him. “If anything had happened to me, it would have fallen to Jase to get the herd to Abilene and take the profits home to my family. He gets paid more for taking more responsibility.” Sam kept his tone neutral.

Tom walked off, grumbling. Sam supposed Tom would either get over his sulk and appear again next spring, looking for work, or he wouldn’t. And if he didn’t, that was just fine by him. Culhane had shown a tendency to bellyache about every little hitch that came up on the drive, and on a three-month drive, that was a lot of bellyaching he’d just as soon not have listened to.

* * *

“Heavenly days, Mercy, just look at them,” said Charity with a sigh, her face enraptured at the sight of so many handsome cowboys lining the opposite side of the street.

“Charity Fairweather, I declare, you’re such a featherbrain! I should have known better than to bring you out on the street with me any time from spring to fall!” snapped her older sister, Mercy, trying in vain to pull Charity away from her vantage point at the window of Moon’s Frontier Store. In the fall and winter Abilene was free of the scourge of Texan invaders. “Come away before one of them sees you!”

“It won’t hurt to look,” the fifteen-year-old girl insisted stubbornly, smoothing her blond corkscrew curls and pinching her cheeks as she continued to study the lined-up men with their tanned faces, leather chaps and red bandannas.

“Well, looking better be all you’re doing,” warned Mercy in an exasperated voice. “Charity, aren’t you ever worried that you’re going to get a reputation for being fast?” she hissed. A wary glance over her shoulder confirmed that Mrs. Horace Barnes, the chief of Abilene’s gossips, had entered the mercantile and was trying not to look as if she were eavesdropping on the conversation. It was clear as day from her smirking expression, however, that she was.

“Oh, pooh! Anything faster than a turtle is considered fast by Papa’s congregation.” Charity sniffed. “And you talk just like them. You’d think you were an old maid, instead of just eighteen! Ooh, just look at the tall one over there, the one with the dark mustache! Doesn’t he look just like a desperado?” she asked in awed tones.

“He probably is, the rest of the year,” Mercy said tartly before repeating, “Come away before he sees you.” Charity ignored her, of course. And Mercy found she couldn’t help looking through the fly-specked, blurry window in the direction her sister’s pointing finger indicated.

The stranger lounged at his ease against a hitching rail, his thumbs hooked through the belt loops of his denims above the black leather chaps. He did indeed look like a dangerous character with the brim of his hat shadowing most of his face. All she could see were high, angular cheekbones and a black, shaggy mustache above an unsmiling mouth.

The cowboy was talking to another man, probably a cardsharp, Mercy guessed after studying the other man’s fancy waistcoat and its hanging watch chain. As she watched, something the cardsharp said must have struck the stranger as funny, for suddenly the tightly held mouth relaxed, parting in a grin. He tipped his head back, and she caught a glimpse of eyes crinkled with merriment.

That grin not only transformed the lean, angular features, but produced some startling changes in Mercy, too. All at once she felt warm all over, as if she’d worn black flannel instead of her light, figured calico everyday dress. Her pulse raced.

How ridiculous, she chided herself, to feel so silly about one of those wild hellions from Texas who swept through Abilene from May to September, drinking tanglefoot, shooting up the town and sending respectable citizens diving for cover. “Hurrahing the town,” they called it. But now that she’d seen this particular cowboy smile, she knew she’d have to make certain that he and Charity never met. He was just the sort of man who could wreck her sister’s tenuous hold on virtue.

Worried, Mercy glanced back at her sister, but with so much walking virility to feast her eyes on, Charity had already been distracted. Her eyes had wandered to a towheaded, somewhat bowlegged cowboy down the street who was tipping his hat to a lady—

Who was no lady, Mercy realized as the first of the working girls strolled past Moon’s Frontier Store.

“The shameless hussies!” hissed Abigail Barnes. The big, homely woman had come up soundlessly behind them and was now peering out the window between the sisters’ shoulders. “They shouldn’t be allowed in the same town as decent women, my Horace always says. Someone should do something!”

The women were indeed a fearsome sight in their gaudyhued dresses with tight, low-cut bodices and two-foot bustles that caused their skirts to sway gracefully behind them like the wakes of ships. As they descended the plank sidewalk to the street, they raised the edges of their spangled skirts to clear the dust. The action revealed layer upon layer of red petticoats and tasseled boots with a single star at the top of each.

Outside, the cowboys lining the street began cheering raucously and throwing their hats up in the air. The man Mercy had been watching, however, did not join in any of the boisterous behavior; he merely continued eyeing the painted women in a speculative sort of way. What was he thinking? she wondered. Was he selecting the one he wanted to buy for the night? The thought made her vaguely heartsick, though she did not know why.

“Why, they’re pretty, in a bold sort of way, aren’t they, Mercy?” Charity said, eyeing the town’s infamous “soiled doves” with curiosity. “What is that sticking out of the tops of some of their boots?”

“Pearl-handled derringers,” Abigail Barnes answered, as if Charity had been speaking to her. “Those Jezebels always carry their pistols in the right boot, and their ill-gotten gains in the left,” Abigail Barnes huffed, her breath smelling of stale onions.

“They carry money in their boots? How do they get the money?” Charity asked, her face a study of puzzled interest.

“Never you mind,” Mercy said quickly. “Come on, we’ve got to go.” She grabbed her sister’s wrist and started pulling her in the direction of the back entrance.

“But Mercy, wait, I wasn’t ready!” wailed Charity.

Mercy ignored her and kept pulling. She didn’t want Abigail Barnes to have time to commence a lecture as to how a fallen woman earned her living. As it was, she’d probably have to contend with the gossipy, shovel-faced woman telling the Ladies’ Missionary Society about Charity Fairweather’s indecorous interest in saloon girls, which was bound to get back to their father.

She couldn’t resist one last look behind, though, at the rangy, dark-featured cowboy across the street. But he was no longer there.

Chapter Two

“A mighty fine supper, girls, mighty fine indeed,” the Reverend Jeremiah Fairweather exclaimed in praise. “You know chicken and dumplings are my very favorite—and it’s not even Sunday!” he added, patting a nonexistent paunch as he favored Mercy and Charity with a benign smile.

“Thank you, Papa,” Charity said, dimpling prettily. “We do like to make you happy.”

“God bless you, child, you are such a comfort to me since your mother passed on,” Fairweather said, reaching out a bony hand to pat his younger daughter’s golden curls.

Mercy, seated opposite, studied her sister with wry amusement. Charity had had little to do with the preparation of dinner beyond keeping her sister company while Mercy had plucked the chicken and cut it up. Then Mercy had rolled out the dumplings, because Charity, whose job that was supposed to be, had been too busy chattering about the charms of the cowboys she had seen lined up on the street. It was just as well, Mercy reflected. Charity was too tenderhearted to wring a chicken’s neck effectively, usually resulting in a hen that pecked and struggled pitifully until Mercy finally took over to put it out of its misery. And Charity’s dumplings were usually heavy as lead, causing the displeasure of their father to descend on both of them. No, as long as Papa was satisfied with his supper, peace would reign in the Fairweather household, at least for the moment.

“And what did you do today, daughters, other than prepare this fine repast for your poor widowed father, that is?” Jeremiah Fairweather inquired with genial interest. Behind his spectacles, his pale blue eyes regarded them with keen attention.

Here was dangerous ground. Mercy remembered she had not spoken to her sister about avoiding a certain subject. “Well, we had to go to the store, since we were out of flour for the dumplings, and I needed some more thread to mend your shirt,” she told her father, then covertly sent a warning look at Charity. Please, Lord, don’t let her bring up the cowboys and get Papa started, Mercy prayed, gripping the scarred old dining table underneath its much-mended, second-best tablecloth.

Perhaps the Lord was busy just now, for Charity’s first words made Mercy’s heart sink.

“Oh, Papa, you just can’t imagine the sight we saw from the store window,” gushed Charity. “The most handsome men I’ve ever seen, and there must have been twenty of them, all cowboys, all dressed in spurs and chaps and wearing two six-guns apiece and throwing their hats up in the air…”

Honestly, how could her younger sister have lived with her father for fifteen years and not learned what set him off? Was she really oblivious to the sudden chill in the room, and the cold fire that blazed up in their father’s eyes?

“Oh? And just what were these handsome cowboys throwing their hats in the air about, Charity?” Jeremiah Fairweather asked with deceptive calm.

Too late, Charity appeared to see the abyss yawning in front of her. Mercy saw her sister swallow hard and try but fail to meet their father’s eyes.

“Oh…nothing…just an excess of good spirits, I guess…” she said, her eyes fixed on a spot on the wall just above their father’s thinning, carrot-colored hair. “I mean, well…they’ve just come in from weeks on the trail, and…”

“Charity Elizabeth Fairweather, you’ve never been a good prevaricator, and I’d strongly advise you not to start now,” her father said in a voice that he had not raised but that somehow seemed to reverberate from all corners of the room. It was the same voice that successfully convicted sinners and usually brought at least one woman to tears every Sunday morning during the services, which they were still holding in their house due to the lack of a proper church building.

“Pre-pre-varicator?” Charity asked. Mercy knew she was playing for time, hoping to find her way out of the maze that was leading straight to their father’s wrath, but she didn’t hold out too much hope her sister would find it. Charity never could think very quickly—she was too intimidated by the basilisk stare her father was so good at training on her when she erred. Mercy watched, fascinated, as beads of perspiration broke out on her sister’s pale brow during the silence.

“You know very well what it means, young lady. It means liar. You are lying to me about what those imps of hell, those Texas demons were cheering so heartily about. I would advise you to tell me at once.”

Charity swallowed convulsively again, and stared into her lap. A tear, illuminated by the lamplight, shone crystalline as it trickled down her white cheek. “They were—” she began, then stopped as a sob erupted from her instead of more words.

“I’m waiting, young lady. They were what?”

Mercy couldn’t stand it any longer. “They were cheering at fallen women, Papa. Saloon girls that were parading past them.”

Once Mercy had blazed the way for her, Charity seemed impelled to confess the rest. “They wore low-cut dresses, Papa, and boots, with a gun in one and their money in the other. Though I don’t really understand how they get the money,” she added miserably.

“And just how did you learn that these…these women had money in their boots?” the reverend asked in sepulchral tones. “Did you, perchance, go out on the street and interview one of these Jezebels?”

“Oh, no, Papa, Mrs. Barnes told me,” Charity hastened to reassure their father, brightening.

Charity had thought she was beginning to climb out of the abyss, but Mercy knew better. If there was anything their father couldn’t stand, it was the thought of his small congregation knowing that he or his children were less than perfect. And evidencing curiosity in prostitutes certainly indicated a want of perfection in the Reverend Jeremiah Fairweather’s eyes.

The reverend placed the spread fingers of one hand over his bowed head for a moment, as if praying for strength, then lowered them. He gazed at Charity, who stared back, much as a cornered rabbit will stare at the hawk who is about to descend on it. “Daughter, the cowboy, especially that species that ascends to us from Texas, has no regard for law, morals or virtue, defying the first, deriding the second and outraging the third. He has no respect for man, no fear of God, no dread of hell.” Mercy recognized the words from a recent sermon, and knew her father was going to wind up to a real diatribe if she didn’t do something.

“Papa, there wasn’t any harm done,” she said hastily. “I got her out of there by the back entrance as soon as I saw the women parading past.”

But the Reverend Mr. Fairweather was warming to his subject, and paid her no heed. “My child, in the words of Scripture, ‘a whore is a deep ditch, and a strange woman is a narrow pit. She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men,’ while a virtuous woman, on the other hand, is ‘worth more than rubies.’ Charity, do you understand what a whore is?”

“No, Papa,” came the soft answer, the voice still choked with tears.

Mercy quickly lowered her eyes to her lap, afraid their father would somehow discern that she did know what the harsh word meant, and would feel the need to go on with his tirade. She’d known ever since she’d overheard the word during their wagon-train trip to Kansas, when some of the bachelors were talking about what they’d do when they next came to a town. She’d gone to her mother, instinctively knowing this wasn’t a word she could ask Papa about. Mama had answered her question matter-of-factly, but had gently confirmed her feeling that this wasn’t something ladies were supposed to know about. Their mother was dead now, though, the victim of pneumonia during their first winter, when they had lived in a soddy, and she couldn’t refer Charity to her to have her questions answered.

“Very well, then we will not say more about them, except to say that they are evil women and evil men, and you are to have nothing to do with them,” the reverend said. “If you are so unfortunate as to encounter them on unavoidable trips to town, you are to look the other way. If one of either group should be so bold as to speak to you, you are to ignore them. Is that clear, Charity Elizabeth Fairweather?” Mercy realized with sudden clarity that their father didn’t understand her younger sister at all. There was no surer way to fix Charity’s interest in a subject than to forbid her to have any interest in that subject. Nothing had really been explained to Charity about why the women were bad, and what they did with the cowboys that made them bad, so she would be all the more determined to find out. She sighed. She’d given her sister an elementary explanation about the birds and the bees a couple of years ago, but now she’d have to go into more detail. She would have to explain the whole matter at night, when they’d gone to bed in the room they shared. Mama, give me the right words.

“Dessert, Papa? I made peach pie,” she said, relaxing somewhat now that the storm had passed over and neither she nor her sister were too wet.

“In a moment, Mercy. I have not finished,” their father said in that precise way of his that told her not to look for any rainbows just yet. “Of course, there must be consequences to every action. Yours, Charity, is that you are to go to your room now and memorize Proverbs chapter thirty-one, verses ten through thirty-one, so that you can recite it at the prayer meeting tonight and so that you will know the qualities of the virtuous woman.”

Charity’s eyes, a deeper blue than their father’s, widened. “But Papa, that’s…let’s see, twenty-one verses! And the meeting starts in an hour!”

“Then you had better get busy, had you not?” her father responded serenely.

“Yessir,” Charity said, her lower lip jutting out, a sure sign, Mercy knew, of incipient rebellion in her sister. But Charity left the table quietly enough and headed down the hall to their bedroom.

Mercy sighed. Charity’s punishment was punishment for her, too, for it meant she had the sole responsibility for cleaning up after dinner, washing and drying the dishes. Drat it! She had intended to see that Charity did most of it, since she’d been so little help during the preparation. Mercy had rather wanted to take time to change her dress and comb her hair in case Ned Webster chanced to come.

Ned, the son of the local blacksmith, became all red-faced and tongue-tied whenever he was around her, but she thought he liked her just a little. And though she despaired of Ned’s ever framing a whole sentence to her, let alone asking if he could come calling, he was the only boy in town who came to Sunday services on a regular basis-which made him the only boy in Abilene Mercy would be allowed to keep company with. And unless another youth could be persuaded to start attending, God only knew who would be allowed to court Charity.

At about the same time that Charity Fairweather was reciting “the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her” to a properly hushed dozen members of the Abilene First Baptist Church, meeting in the Fairweather parlor, Samuel Houston Devlin was leaving his room in the Drover’s Cottage, the hotel set up for the cowboys in off the trail. He had had a bath, a haircut, and a shave, and he felt like a new man. He’d gone to Moon’s Frontier Store and bought himself some new clothes, a new pair of denims and a shirt, eschewing the shirts with the fancy celluloid collars and cuffs and derby hats that some of the boys were buying, for such garb would feel foolish. He didn’t want to look like some sort of Eastern tinhorn. His only concession to vanity had been a brand-new pair of boots, complete with the lone star and crescent stitched in at the top of each. Yessir, he was ready to find the calico queens of Abilene, as the working girls were sometimes called, or to let them find him.

He headed for the Alamo Saloon. Perhaps he’d have a round or two of poker with that cardsharp first, while he looked over the girls and selected the best one. Now that he was here, he did not feel inclined to automatically accept the first sporting woman who approached him. No, he’d do the picking, and he’d be selective.

In addition, he felt quite sure that Earp thought he could take him for all his money, but blacklegs had thought to swindle the Devil before. The cardsharp hadn’t been born that could outbluff Devil Devlin, he thought, breaking into a grin as he sauntered down dusty Cedar Street and into the Alamo Saloon.

Chapter Three

Three hours later Sam Devlin, who was still sitting at Earp’s table in the Alamo Saloon, was feeling heartily glad he’d had the forethought to leave most of the money in the safe at the Drover’s Cottage. It had been a disastrous mistake to think he could play poker with the likes of this cardsharp and pick a woman with whom to spend a few agreeable hours later. Wyatt Earp was a better card player than Sam had ever played with in his life, and had quickly taken possession of the stack of twenty-dollar gold pieces Sam had brought with him.

Several of his crew had joined them at the table, a fact that had pleased him until they’d begun to lose their money. They’d been bragging on their trail boss to Earp, asking the cardsharp how he liked playing cards with “the Devil and his boys.” Well, apparently matching wits with the Devil hadn’t bothered Earp at all. The Devil’s Boys had not only lost the best part of their own money but had seen their trail boss lose his stake, too.

It wasn’t that he hated their teasing, or feared that their seeing him lose would mean the loss of his authority—he just purely disliked to have anyone see him get fleeced. Well, vanity never did anyone any good, Sam reasoned, but if he didn’t learn which cardsharps to avoid, he’d still be herding cattle up the trail when he was fifty.

The way he had figured it before tonight, there would have to be at least one more drive to get the Devlins financially back on their feet and rebuild the stud. He’d known that this drive would only serve to wipe out their present debt, but if he didn’t win back the ten thousand dollars he’d lost it wouldn’t even fully accomplish that. He couldn’t stand the thought of going back to Texas with much less than what he’d been paid just this afternoon. He was going to have to figure out a way to regain his money.

But not tonight. He knew when he was on a losing streak. “I’m out,” he announced, his chair scraping against the plank floor as he rose.

“Hey, what’s your hurry, Devil?” the cardsharp asked him lazily, then called for another round.

“I’ve got no more money to play,” Sam said with a shrug, grinning back as if that fact meant less than nothing. “Perhaps tomorrow night.” Perhaps tomorrow night, yes, but certainly not with you, he thought, without malice. If Earp was cheating, he hadn’t been able to catch him at it. Perhaps he was just good.

“You ain’t goin’ t’ bed, are ya, boss? You ain’t got the other thing ya came for!” Cookie Yates protested. “What about that?”

“Yeah, the night’s young, don’t go yet,” Earp agreed, handing him another half-full glass of whiskey. “The music plays all night here at the Alamo, and so do the girls! Thought you said you were interested in a little, ah, female companionship,” the cardsharp added with a wink.

“Yeah, could be,” Sam admitted, eyes searching the smoky, noisy saloon. At the bar at the south side of the Alamo, a couple of gaudily dressed girls winked at him. He knew the merest nod would have brought either the blonde or the black-haired girl to his side, cooing and eager to please.

“There’s a likely-looking pair—Florabelle and Sukey Jane,” the cardsharp drawled, following his gaze. “It’d be my pleasure to stake you an eagle—you could probably get both of them for that, if you were so inclined.”

“Thanks just the same,” Sam said, shaking his head, “but I’ve got the money. I did have sense enough to keep a few dollars off the table. One girl will be enough, though, I reckon. Two just might kill me, on top of all the tanglefoot I’ve been drinking.”

“Well?” Earp nodded again at the girls lounging at the ornate, brass-trimmed bar, clearly just waiting for his signal.

“I’d take the blonde, boss,” Jase Lowry advised him. “Wouldn’t you like to see if she’s blond all over?”

Sam hesitated, though for the life of him he couldn’t understand why. Both of the girls were pretty, in a bold, hard sort of way, and their tight dresses and low-cut bodices all but shouted that their bodies would be rewarding to explore. Hellfire, what in blue blazes was he waiting for? In five minutes he could be upstairs wrestling on the sheets with either one of them. But he just couldn’t bring himself to move his head or raise his finger to them.

“Then you go ahead and take her, Jase,” he murmured, looking back at Earp. “Any others here?”

“Ah-ha! A man of discriminating tastes,” the other responded with a grin. “Just look about you, my good man. There’s Conchita at the faro table, if you appreciate a little south-of-the-border spice, Kate standing by the roulette wheel if you like ‘em freckled, and Jerusha if you prefer a little cream with your coffee,” he said, pointing at last to a pretty, doe-eyed mulatto girl. “But say, I just got an idea, if you’re interested in a gamble, that is. You could please yourself and get double your money back.”

“Oh?” Sam slid back onto his chair.

“Devil, I’ve seen that you’re a very selective man,” Earp responded, leaning forward. “You came to gamble with the best, didn’t you?” He grinned a smug grin.

“For all the good it did me,” Sam retorted goodnaturedly.

Earp went on. “And you don’t tumble for the first likely-looking pair of bobbers. You want a little something extra for your dollars, even in a whore. You like redheads?”

Sam shrugged, wondering where this was leading. Sure, he liked redheads, but no more than any other color of hair on a soiled dove. It didn’t matter once she blew out the lamp. Most of it came from a bottle, anyway.

“You like a little challenge, too, I’ve seen. I doubled the stakes on you and you didn’t turn a hair—even when I held the winning hand.”

Again Sam nodded.

“All right, here it is—the queen of the Alamo Saloon is one Mercedes LaFleche, a real beauty, with dark red hair and a figure that’ll make you pant just to look at it, my friend.”

“Mercedes LaFleche, hmm?” He looked around, but he saw no such woman.

“It’s a French name,” Earp said with a wink.

Sam knew there was about as much chance that this Mercedes was truly French as there was of snow on Galveston Island, but perhaps she was a Cajun from New Orleans. A lot of sporting women in cattle towns came from there.

“The thing is, she’s so popular in Abilene, she could charge fifty dollars and still pick and choose who she wants to lie down with, and she’d still make a fortune.”

Cookie Yates whistled. “Fifty dollars a night?”

“Nope—that’s just for an hour with her,” Earp said.

“No señorita ees worth fifty dollars for an hour!” Manuel Lopez, the wrangler who’d been in charge of Sam’s remuda, insisted, but Earp ignored him and went on.

“Far as I know, she hasn’t ever given a cowboy a whole night before. Or a cardsharp,” he lamented. “No one has yet gotten the pleasure of waking up next to Miss LaFleche in the morning. I’m willing to bet you can’t talk her into it for that same fifty dollars, either.” Earp lit a cheroot and inhaled deeply.

“Go ‘head, Devil, you kin do it!” urged Clancy McDonnell, another of the boys. “The Devil here could charm a snake outa his skin,” he boasted to Earp.

Sam considered the challenge, rubbing his unaccustomedly clean-shaven chin. “You’ve been with her?”

“That I have, on a couple of memorable evenings,” Earp admitted. “Believe me, friend, she’s worth every red cent of the cash you’ll place on her nightstand. She’s got tricks that will turn you inside out and leave you begging for more.”

“But how do I know you’re not in league with the, ah, lady? You two could have set this up ahead of time,” Sam noted.

“But I didn’t. On that you have my word, Devlin. You gonna take the dare? I’ll even give you the fifty—say, as an advance on your winnings.”

Sam didn’t know why, but he believed the other man. He might be a clever cheat at cards, but he sensed Earp was dealing straight now. “I think I’ll go you one better, Earp.”

“How’s that?” Earp inquired with lazy interest, but his gaze was intent.

“I’ll take the same stakes—twenty thousand, twice what you won from me—but I’ll have the lady between the sheets within three nights without parting with any of your fifty.

She’ll be with me all night—and she’ll do it for free.”

Earp’s jaw fell open. “You’re loco.”

The Devil’s Boys hooted and clapped. “That’s the spirit, boss!”

“I can’t do this,” Earp protested. “It’d be like takin’ candy from a baby!”

He stared at Sam, but Sam kept his gaze steady. All of a sudden he was bursting with confidence. A clever cardsharp might get the better of him with a marked deck, but with women he knew he had the advantage. He knew the secret—which was that all women, even those who made their livings on their backs, wanted to be treated like ladies.

“So…where is the divine Mercedes?” drawled Sam. Now that he’d figured out a sure bet, he was eager to begin the campaign to win his money back.

“I haven’t seen her downstairs for a while. She went upstairs with a cowboy about the time you began losing that last hand,” Earp said, then pulled out a pocket watch, which he flicked open with a well-manicured fingernail. “Hmm…by my calculations she oughta be down in about half an hour, unless the cowboy paid double. How about letting me buy you another drink?”

Sam shook his head. “No, thanks. I’ll just sit around and keep my boys outta trouble.” The whiskey was singing a sweet song inside his head, but he knew better than to drink any more of it. Too much of it, and he’d be just another bleary-eyed, slurred-voice cowboy making importunities to the queen of the calico queens. “But if you’d like me to find another table so you can start a new game…”

Earp shook his head, gracious in victory. “No need for all of you to move. I’m just going to mosey over yonder where those boys’re beckoning for me to join them.” He indicated a table with a trio of cowboys Sam recognized as some of Lee Hill’s hands from San Antone. “But never fear, I’ll keep my eye out for Mamselle Mercedes so I can point her out to you.”

Earp left, and for a few minutes the Devil’s Boys went on drinking, with Sam just watching the stairs.

“Hey, would ya look at what Tom Culhane found, gents?” Jase Lowry said suddenly, pointing toward the entrance.

Six heads swiveled to look up at the swinging doors. Through them sauntered the bowlegged young cowboy who’d groused earlier about his wages, his arm around the waist of a slender, fine-boned blonde who was eyeing him with a mixture of admiration and nervousness.

Spying the table full of familiar faces, Culhane aimed the blonde in their direction, his stumbling gait proclaiming the fact that he’d already been downing a considerable amount of rotgut at another Abilene establishment. “Lookee what I found, boys! A beauty, ain’t she? An’ guesh what? She sh-said she seen me earlier today an’ thought I wuz a han’some fella an’ wanted to meet me! Ain’t that a wonderful turn of events, boys?”

Smacking the table and laughing, the Devils’ Boys all agreed it was. Jase Lowry rose and pulled out a chair.

“Why don’t ya offer the lady a chair, Tom? What’s wrong with yore manners?” He bowed with exaggerated care. “Jase Lowry, ma’am, at your service, if this here saddlebum fails t’ please ya.”

The blonde blinked at the towheaded cowboy she’d come in with, then, blushing, she accepted the chair Jase held for her. “Why, thank you, Mr. Lowry, you’re very kind.”

Cookie guffawed. “Kind? Jase? Ma’am, he’s just hopin’ t’ cut ya out before Tom here gets his brand on ya!”

Sam’s eyes narrowed as he studied the girl sitting by Culhane. She seemed awfully young to be one of Abilene’s soiled doves, though the sidelong glance she was currently bestowing on the goggle-eyed Culhane was full of coquetry and much fluttering of her sandy lashes. Her clothing, compared to the flashy, flounced satin dresses of the other whores, was almost demure. She wore an embroidered Mexican peasant blouse, an innocent enough garment—or at least it probably had been until she had pushed it down so that it revealed slender shoulders and the tops of her breasts swelling above her corset—and a somewhat faded black cotton skirt. Jet black earbobs dangled from her ears. Her face was innocent of paint, though.

“Tom, you haven’t introduced your lady friend,” Sam said, keeping his eyes on her. The blonde giggled at the sight of her companion’s crestfallen face.

“Oh, yeah! Sorry, boss!” Culhane said with a grin, as if the scene this afternoon had not taken place. “Gents, this here’s Miss Charity Fairweather. Miss Charity, these’re the Devil’s Boys—my boss, Sam Devlin, Cookie Yates, Manuel Lopez, Clancy McDonnell and Jase, who ya already met.”

Miss Charity Fairweather dimpled as she acknowledged everyone’s greetings. Then she seemed to start as she saw that Culhane was pouring her a drink of whiskey. As Sam watched, she hesitated, then raised the glass to her lips with a hand that trembled slightly. She sipped, sputtered, giggled, then drank some more.

The boys cheered, and Culhane hugged her with one hand while he whispered in her ear with the other. Then she winked at something Culhane whispered in her ear and was rewarded by an enthusiastic kiss, which she returned with apparent relish.

Well, maybe she was new to the calling, Sam thought, and hadn’t been on the job long enough to dress and paint her face like the others. It sure wasn’t his job to watch out for the calico queens. Chances were this soiled dove was more than up to coping with the likes of Tom Culhane. Maybe she even left off the paint on purpose, so that her customers would be lulled into thinking her just a whore with the proverbial heart of gold. Meanwhile she’d be picking their pockets, or helping herself to the rest of their money while they dozed.

Yessir, if Tom kept guzzling the Alamo’s whiskey at that speed, that was exactly what would happen, and Tom would be grouchy as a gored steer in the morning. But Tom was a man grown, so Sam went back to watching the stairway for the reappearance of Mercedes LaFleche.

Mercy woke with a start in the darkened bedroom, awakened by a sudden sense that something was wrong. It was too quiet. Charity’s snoring was a normal nocturnal accompaniment to her dreams, but now all she could hear was the neighing of a horse in a corral down the street. She reached out a hand, and realized the space next to her on the bed was empty.

Had Charity gone to the outhouse? Usually if nature called in the middle of the night, the girls used a chamber pot that was kept underneath the bed, for both of them were afraid of meeting spiders and snakes in the darkness. But perhaps her sister’s stomach was upset from something she ate, so that she had felt it necessary to brave the terrors of the path to the outhouse.

Mercy went to the window and opened it, staring out into the moonlit darkness at the darkened shape of the little building between the barn and the house. No candlelight showed through the chinks between the boards. She watched, thinking perhaps the candle had blown out in the soft night breeze, and while she waited she heard the distant sounds of tinkling pianos coming from Texas and Cedar streets. The saloons must be doing a good business, as usual. As she listened, a shot rang out, and then another, followed by some drunken shouting, and all was quiet again.

The sound of gunfire at night from the streets where the saloons were was so usual that it didn’t even wake them anymore. She wondered if the darkly handsome cowboy she had seen today was one of the drunken revelers. She hoped not—or at least, if he was, that he wasn’t shot in some pointless brawl.

After five minutes she was forced to realize that Charity wasn’t in the outhouse. Where could she be? Quietly she found the lucifers in the darkness and lit the candle on the bedside stand. Then, tiptoeing so as not to wake their father, she went down the hall to the parlor.

But Charity wasn’t a victim of insomnia, sitting in the parlor, the kitchen, on the porch or even in the barn. She was just…gone!

But where? Mercy only had to think for another moment before she remembered the mulishly rebellious expression on her sister’s face while Papa had reprimanded her for being so interested in the Texans and the town whores. You had only to tell Charity to forget about a thing to guarantee that that was all she could think about, Mercy reminded herself. Dear Lord, could Charity possibly have been so foolish as to go over to the saloons, in search of her towheaded drover?

With a sinking heart Mercy realized that was just where her foolish sister must have gone.

Her heart pounding, she stole back through the darkened house and into their bedroom. A quick check of the nails on the wall revealed that Charity had taken her Sunday skirt and the Mexican blouse Papa had said was too sheer to wear except at home, as well as her high-buttoned Sunday boots.

Charity had no idea what she was getting into! Mercy had had no chance to have that talk she’d promised herself to have with her younger sister, for Charity had gone up to bed while Mercy was still saying good-night to her father’s congregation, and Mercy had found her with her face turned to the wall, apparently asleep. She was going to have to rescue the foolhardy girl from the consequences of her folly, Mercy realized, but to do so would mean braving the vice-ridden dens of depravity herself! And if their father discovered what they’d done, neither one of them would be able to sit down for a week, let alone leave the house. But she couldn’t just leave Charity to her fate, as much as the silly girl deserved it.

She stared at the remaining dresses hanging from the nails on the wall. Which of them would look enough like the garb worn by the whores that she wouldn’t be stopped at the swinging doors of the saloons, yet not encourage drunken cowboys to treat her as fair game while she searched for her sister?

Chapter Four

In the end Mercy settled upon a dress that had been Mama’s, realizing that she had nothing of her own that did not shout the fact that she was the preacher’s daughter and had no business in Abilene’s saloons. But Mama had been the daughter of a banker, and had possessed a great many dresses for events more worldly than those she would attend after she had made her unlikely match with the Reverend Jeremiah Fairweather. She had saved some of these in the large cedar chest at the foot of Mercy and Charity’s bed, thinking the girls might be able to use them someday.

The forest green silk dress had a round neckline that dipped low, and since their mother had been a little smaller in the bust than Mercy was, when Mercy dropped it over her head it revealed a shadowy hint of cleavage. She would have to remember to keep her shawl wrapped around her.

She crept down the short hallway as quietly as she could, freezing momentarily when she forgot which plank in the floor always creaked. But her father’s snoring, audible as usual all over the house, continued unabated.

By the light of her candle the grandfather clock in the parlor showed the time to be ten minutes to midnight. Shivering, Mercy patted her hair, which she’d twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck, and gathered the fringed black paisley shawl tightly over her mother’s dress. Then, murmuring a prayer that Papa wouldn’t hear her and that she’d find Charity before he awoke, she exited the house. She’d try the Alamo Saloon first. It was the biggest, and catered to the Texans. It was the most likely place her sister had gone.

The merriment showed no signs of diminishing as the ornate clock over the door of the Alamo Saloon struck the hour of midnight, but Sam’s mood was far from merry. He’d drifted over to the mahogany-and-brass bar and was leaning on it, nursing a beer. So far he’d seen no signs of Miss Mercedes LaFleche, though he’d kept a steady watch on the staircase. Earp had disappeared at some point. The only thing left to do was watch his cowhands get steadily more drunk, and that was getting old quickly. He was wasting his time. Maybe he ought to call it a night and begin his hunt again after a good night’s sleep.

Tom Culhane had gone out the back door a few minutes ago with his little blonde, “for a stroll,” he’d said, but Sam knew darn well what was on the cowboy’s mind. He’d start by kissing Charity Fairweather, then his hands would start to stray…No doubt by then they’d already be discussing her price. Maybe they’d even consummate the deal right out there in the alley, up against one of the buildings. He’d heard some of the whores had been forced to conduct their business that way the last year before the brothels had been built, and Sam imagined most weren’t averse to doing it that way again if their customers were impatient.

Sam only hoped that Tom wasn’t going to try to sneak the little blonde into his room at the Drover’s Cottage and get them all in trouble. The landlord had already made it quite clear that he didn’t hold with such things—the soiled doves were not to roost in his rooms, he’d said.

“New in these parts?” the bartender asked him as he wiped a glass dry behind the bar.

He barely glanced at the man before replying, “Just in town to sell my herd.”

“Up from Texas?”

“Yeah.” He knew his answer had been curt. It would have been mannerly to extend his hand and give the man his name, but he wasn’t feeling very mannerly right now. And anyway, a man never knew when admitting to being a Texan would land him in a ruckus. He’d already run into some hostile Kansans fussing about their own cattle being endangered by tick-infested Texas longhorns bringing the Texas fever. The danger had been exaggerated out of proportion, of course, and it seemed that the Kansans had forgotten about the boom the drovers were bringing to the area.

But the man, who wore a patch over his right eye and had several scars marring the same side of his face, didn’t seem hostile. “Deacon Paxton’s my name.” He wiped his hand dry with the towel he had over his shoulder, then offered it to Sam.

Sam felt vaguely ashamed as he shook the man’s hand. There was no need to take his sour, suspicious mood out on the bartender. “Sam Devlin. You say your name is Deacon?” he asked, more to make amends for his earlier abruptness than because he was curious.

The man smiled, his expression lightening the somewhat weary, somber side of his face beneath a silvering thatch of hair. “They like to joke with me because I read the Bible when it’s not busy around here. So they call me Deacon.”

“You oughta be a preacher—seems like they’re scarce around here,” Sam commented, nodding toward the street to indicate the whole town.

Deacon Paxton chuckled. “I am—or at least, I was once. There ain’t no church built in Abilene yet. There’s a Baptist preacher who holds services in his house a couple of streets over, though, so I reckon he sees to folks’ souls around here. In addition to informing us that the saloon keepers an’ the cowboys an’ the gals in th’ saloons are bound for perdition, that is.”

Sam snorted. “That’s just about the whole population of Abilene, isn’t it?”

Meeting Deacon and talking about the fire-andbrimstone Baptist preacher had made Sam think about his brother Caleb, who’d been a minister, too. Unlike Sam and the oldest Devlin brother, Garrick, Caleb had been in the Union army, because of his belief that no man should own another—though the Devlins themselves had no slaves. Unlike Sam and Garrick also, Caleb had never returned. Sam barely remembered his older brother’s face now, some seven years after they’d said goodbye. Cal had been a gentle man of the cloth, who spoke of God’s love rather than his wrath. He wondered what had happened to him. Where was the markerless grave that held his elder brother’s body—or had there even been enough of him to bury?

“Say, where in Texas—” the bartender began, then broke off as he saw his customer’s attention was distracted.

Sam had just been about to politely excuse himself and go back to the Drover’s Cottage when an auburn-haired woman had peered over the curved doors, then let herself in.

Could it be…? It had to be. The woman was lovely, though far younger than Sam had imagined she’d be, small boned and dainty. He couldn’t see much of her figure; she kept a shawl clutched tightly about her, but her face would have held his interest in any case—a classic oval with large, deeply green eyes and a mouth that was wider than the rosebud pout favored by the classic beauties of the day, but which looked to him as if it were meant for kissing.

But how had she gotten from upstairs to out in the street? Either Earp was wrong about her going upstairs, or the saloon had a back stairway, which was more likely.

The woman had to squint to see through the haze of smoke that filled the saloon. She looked in all corners of the room, and it was obvious from her frustrated, worried expression that she hadn’t found who she was seeking.

He was not the only man who had spied her. A pair of cowboys, slouched over beers near the door, had straightened and were just preparing to rise when Sam stepped forward, cutting them off at the pass. If this was his quarry, he wanted to get to her first.

“You seem to be looking for someone, ma’am…may I be of service?” he said, going to the door and motioning her through.

She stared at him, clearly startled, as if she had not seen him approach.

“Sam Houston Devlin, ma’am.” He raised his voice a little to be heard over the piano music, and made a little bow. Gallantry was always a good touch. “May I buy you a drink?”

She glanced at the bar, and at Deacon Paxton standing behind it, then looked quickly back at Sam, shaking her head. “No…I…I am looking for someone just now…my sister…”

He was disappointed that she seemed too preoccupied to have noticed his gallantry, but grinned and said, “Well, then, why don’t you tell me your name, ma’am, and then tell me your sister’s name, and I’ll sure help you find her.” He gave her his biggest, friendliest smile, the smile that had melted the hearts of the belles back home, and occasionally their resistance.

“M-Mercy,” she said, her green eyes round as marbles as she stared up at him as if trying to memorize his features.

Mercy. Mercedes! Hot damn, she was the one! He congratulated himself at finding her at last. Earp should have told him she went by a shortened form of her name. Maybe this night wasn’t over yet. Maybe—just maybe—he could even win the bet tonight. He imagined finding Earp tomorrow and telling him he’d already won the bet. She was still studying him, which meant she apparently found him interesting, and that was a good start.

He winked at her. “Are you begging, or is that your name, darlin’?” he asked her, his drawl caressing and honey sweet.

Mercy stared up at the very man who had been haunting her thoughts most of the day—when she hadn’t been worrying about her errant younger sister, at least—the darkhaired, mustachioed Texan she’d glimpsed through the window of the Frontier Store, the one who’d been standing and watching the saloon girls promenade down Texas Street. And now he was standing right next to her, looking down at her!

She’d thought his eyes would be brown, because of his nearly black hair and mustache, but she noted with surprise that they were blue, the deepest, darkest blue she had ever seen. Blue like the ocean’s depths, she thought, remembering a colored illustration in her mother’s Bible, which had been captioned, “Genesis chapter one, verse two: ‘…And darkness was upon the face of the deep…’“

His lean face was bronzed by the sun, and his eyes had crinkles around them at the outer corners, lines that meant a man was used to being out in the blistering glare of the sun. When she had first seen him outside he had not been smiling, and his eyes had been narrowed against the sun, like the eyes of a wolf; yet now, in the dimmer lamplight, his eyes were no less predatory than they had looked then. And the smile he had leveled on her, a smile that was making her heart thump against the confines of her corset, made him dangerous indeed.

She felt herself blushing as she realized he was making a play on words with her name. The realization brought her out of the rosy haze his presence had produced.

“Mercy is my name, Mr. Devlin,” she explained, a trifle sharply, to make it clear she didn’t find his double entendre amusing.

“Have mercy on me and please, call me Sam,” he responded with an easy grin, as if he hadn’t noticed her sharpness. “I’m right pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Mercy. Sure I can’t buy you a drink before we look for your sister?”

Oh, dear, this was just the very thing she had feared, some cowboy thinking she was one of the girls who worked here! But it was too bad it had to be this man who had acted just like the lecherous demon-Texans her father preached against.

“No, I’m afraid I must find my sister, but thanks all the same. Her name is Charity and she’s blond, and about as tall as I am. Have you seen her? It’s important that I find her immediately. She…she really shouldn’t be here—she’s only fifteen, though she looks a little older,” she added, frowning, glancing away from his face to look around the smoke-filled saloon again. She didn’t see Charity, but there were several other females, a couple of them draped around men playing cards, another sitting in a cowboy’s lap as he openly fondled her, still others paired with cowboys dancing recklessly around the room to the tinkling piano music.

The sight made her realize anew how urgent it was to find her sister—before she got herself into trouble. “Have you seen her?” she repeated, allowing the impatience to show in her voice. “If she isn’t here I’ll have to look elsewhere.”

His smile had vanished as if it had never been, and he looked suddenly unsettled. “You don’t mean Charity Fairweather, do you? Little blonde, about so high?” His hand indicated a height just shorter than Mercy’s own five feet five inches.

Mercy gasped. “Yes, but how do you know her last name? Please, do you know where she is? I must find her right away!”

She heard him swear under his breath. “I had a feelin’ in my bones she was trouble,” he muttered. He took her by the arm—gently enough, but without waiting for her assent. “I think I can find her. Come with me,” he commanded grimly, and headed for the door.

In a few rapid strides he had taken her out of the saloon and under the starry midnight sky. But Sam Devlin did not seem inclined to stop and stargaze. He seemed to have caught her sense of urgency, for she had to nearly run to keep up with him as he rounded the corner and went into the alley that ran behind the Alamo. His spurs made a clinkclinking sound as he strode along.

“Mr. Devlin, please!” she said, panting a little. “Where are you taking me?” It was possible he didn’t know where Charity was at all, she realized, and was merely luring her out into the dark for his own nefarious purposes…

He paused and looked back. “Sorry,” he said, and the moonlight lit up his faint smile. “Forgot you didn’t come equipped with long legs, too.” He indicated his own, which were very long indeed.

She started as they neared a mass huddled up against the back of the building, a mass that writhed and shifted, panted and moaned. Devlin hesitated and peered at the shape, which seemed oblivious to their presence. “Just a courting couple,” he reassured her as he walked her rapidly past it.

Then, when they had reached the far end of the alley, she heard something that sounded like ripping cloth, followed by a squeal of outrage and a ringing slap. Then they heard a girl’s voice—a familiar one to Mercy—cry out, “Now, stop that! Stop that right now, you hear me? Gentlemen do not behave that way!”

“Charity?” Mercy started toward the sound, but not before she heard a man laugh and then say in an amused drawl, “Now, honey, jes’ what gave you the idea I was a gentleman? Now, settle down and give me some more o’ those sugar-sweet lips, sugar—”

Devlin lunged forward at the man’s voice, and a second later Mercy saw him pulling a shorter man out of the shadows. “Let her go, Culhane,” he muttered.

“Aw, boss, what d’ you mean, interruptin’ our spoonin’

like that? I was makin’ out jes’ fine till you came along,” whined the cowboy, pushing back a few strands of tousled yellow hair from his forehead.

“It didn’t sound like it,” Devlin retorted. “Sounded like you weren’t pleasin’ the lady a’tall. Miss, are you all right?” he called into the deep shadows that still hid the girl.

“I…I th-think so,” came a quivery voice.

“Charity!” Mercy cried as the younger girl emerged from the indistinct darkness, clutching the torn ends of her ripped bodice together.

Mercy had only a second to stare at her sister’s disheveled hair, swollen lips and frightened face before Charity hurtled into her arms, weeping.

“Hey, what’s goin’ on here?” the cowboy protested. “Me and the gal, we was jes’ havin’ some fun, boss, I swear it!”

“Oh, Mercy, thank God! I’m so glad you camel” Charity cried against her. “Mercy, I was so afraid! That man, he was going to—he was gonna—”

“Shh,” Mercy soothed her sister. “It’s all right, you’re safe now…” Over her sobbing sister’s head she stared at the two men, wondering what would happen next.

“The girl wasn’t what you thought she was, Tom. She’s just fifteen. Now get on back to the Drover’s Cottage and call it a night,” Devlin commanded.

“But boss—”

“You made a mistake, Culhane,” growled Devlin. “Go on, now. You’re disturbin’ the ladies.”

Culhane started moving, but he fired one last parting shot as he stumbled unsteadily past them. “Huh! She ain’t no lady—I guess I know a whore when I see one! She was kissin’ me real sweet till you came along…”

“Culhane, shut up and get out of here!” Devlin snapped, and applied his boot to the cowboy’s backside to add emphasis.

After watching the Texan banish his drover, Mercy busied herself with wrapping her shawl around Charity’s shoulders, covering her torn bodice. She shushed her sister’s tearful efforts to apologize. There’d be time for that later, but not now, not in front of Sam Houston Devlin, who had now turned back to them and was watching her with hooded, speculative eyes.

“We can’t thank you enough, Mr. Devlin,” she said, trying not to betray the trembling she badly wanted to give in to herself. Charity might well have been raped if the Texan hadn’t found her then. And how had he known where to find her? She hoped there’d be time later to discover that, too. But for now all she wanted to do was to escape the Texan’s knowing gaze and get home and into bed before Papa noticed they were missing.

“Sam, Miss Mercy. The name is Sam, and it was my pleasure to assist you,” he added in that rich, Southern drawl that poured like honey over her heart. “Is she—is she all right? I apologize for my drover’s crude behavior, ma’am. He’s just in off the trail and got a little liquored up tonight. He thought…he thought she was…” He hesitated.

“A whore?” Mercy supplied, inwardly flinching at a word she’d never said out loud before. “No, she’s not. She’s just a foolish girl who didn’t know what she was getting into, I’m afraid. And now,” she concluded in brisk tones, “we must say good-night, and thank you again. Charity?” she prompted.

Charity lifted her head from her sister’s breast. “Ththank you, Mr. Devlin…”

They started to walk away, but Sam Devlin started after them. “I’ll escort you back to your rooms, Miss Mercy,” he informed her. “Wouldn’t want you to meet up with any more drunken cowboys on your way.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mercy said quickly. She sure didn’t want to take the chance of having Papa look out the window and see them with a stranger! Why, the clink-clink of his spurs might be just the sort of unfamiliar noise that was liable to wake their father. Then she realized how unfriendly she had sounded, and after Devlin had saved her sister from a fate worse than death, too!

She paused. “That is, I appreciate your offer, Mr. Devlin, but we really don’t live far. Please, don’t let us trouble you any further…”

She had forgotten about the Southern sense of chivalry. “Oh, it’s no trouble, Miss Mercy,” he assured her, that impudent grin back on his face.

“No, really, Mr. Devlin—Sam,” she amended as she saw he was about to correct her. “I—I really don’t want you to. I need to speak to my sister—alone.”

“Well, all right,” he said reluctantly. “Could I—could I just speak to you a moment, before you go?” He looked at her, then at Charity, and while Mercy was trying to find the words that would send him away, yet not rudely, Charity spoke up.

“I’ll just stand over here, Mercy,” she said, pointing to a place a little way up the street. “Go ahead and listen to Mr. Devlin—it’s the least you can do after what he did for us.”

Mercy was too surprised at her sister’s sudden return of composure to argue, and stood still as her sister walked out of earshot, yet where she could still easily be seen in the moonlight.

A wandering night breeze kissed Mercy’s neck as she turned back to Devlin, and she was suddenly aware of her exposed neckline, now that Charity was wearing the paisley shawl. She sensed the Texan was aware of it, too, though she hadn’t actually caught him looking. But he gave her no time to worry about it.

“I’m sorry the evenin’ turned out the way it did, Miss Mercy,” he said. “I’d like to ask you to supper.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she said, looking away from the eyes that had gone gleaming black in the darkness. “There’s no need for any further ap—”

“I’m not askin’ you ‘cause I want to apologize for Culhane,” he interrupted, smiling faintly down at her. “If you’ll remember rightly, I’d just asked you if you wanted a drink when we…when we were interrupted. I was intendin’ all along to work up to askin’ you to supper,” he finished with a boyish grin that made her knees suddenly feel like that jelly she’d made, the batch that had never quite jelled. Like water.

Of course, there was no way she could say yes. Papa would lock her in her bedroom for a month before he’d ever let her spend five minutes in the company of a…a Texas cowboy! To him they were the same as Satan himself.

“Please?” he appealed, actually having the nerve to take her hand and squeeze it a little. “I’d sure like to take you to the hotel and give you a nice supper, if only just to prove all Texans aren’t ravening wolves.”

It was so near the image Papa had painted of them that she had to laugh. And all at once she realized that she very much wanted to go to supper with this Texan with the winning smile and wicked blue eyes. Just once…

“All right, Mr. Devlin—Sam,” she heard herself saying. “I’d be pleased to have supper with you.”

Chapter Five

Sam was whistling as he strolled over to the Drover’s Cottage after watching Mercy and her sister walk away down the street. The night hadn’t turned out so badly, after all. He’d met Mercedes LaFleche, the subject of the cardsharp’s dare, and he had an appointment to take her to supper tomorrow evening at nine o’clock.

This evening, he corrected himself with a grin, realizing it was after midnight. By the time the clock struck midnight again, he would have had an enjoyable supper with a beautiful woman whose sister he had rescued—a chivalrous act that should weigh heavily in his favor—and if his luck held, by the next morning he just might already have won the wager.

“Mercy, Mercy, have mercy,” he mused aloud, grinning all over again as he remembered how her green eyes had flashed sparks at him for making a play on words with her name. So her real name is Fairweather, hmm? Yet she goes by Mercy, rather than Mercedes… The sparks—of anger? of challenge?—hadn’t dismayed him. Sam liked a woman to have some fire in her nature. It usually made the time in bed a lot more worthwhile, and the morning after a hell of a lot more interesting.

So her sister wasn’t a prostitute—yet, he amended. His quick impression of Charity Fairweather, made when she had been sitting at the table with the boys and himself and flirting with all of them, was that the foolish little blonde was the natural harlot, not Mercy. Still, Charity’s distress at Culhane’s pawing had seemed genuine enough. But you could never tell with sporting women. It may have just been a matter of her asking more money than Tom wanted to pay.

What was clear enough to Sam, though, was that Mercy didn’t want her sister in the business, and to him that indicated a basic goodness in her that he found very likable. He thought he would enjoy their little supper tomorrow, quite apart from considerations of winning the bet.

He hoped she’d wear that green dress again, or something like it. The neckline of that dress had been just high enough to make her look like a lady, so that he could take her to dinner at Abilene’s one respectable hotel, and just low enough to hint at the delights that awaited him later. Farther down, its silken folds had clung lovingly to a slender waistline above enticingly feminine hips. He liked the fact, too, that she didn’t seem to paint her face like the other sporting women did; in fact, unless he missed his guess, Mercy’s face was completely clear of paint. But then, some women didn’t need paint to make them appealing, and perhaps this woman was one of the few who realized that fact. Though not classically beautiful, she was pretty in her own way.

She had told him she would meet him at the hotel. She hadn’t wanted him to come and escort her from her rooms above the Alamo, and he wondered why. He didn’t think she was worried about him seeing some other well-satisfied customer leaving her. Most saloon girls didn’t start working, so to speak, until later in the evening.

Was it possible she was attracted to him, and saw his invitation to dinner as romantic, rather than just business? If so, she might not want to remind him of what she was by having him pick her up at her place of employment. He hoped that was the reason, and his hope had little to do with the money he had a chance to regain by succeeding with the lovely Mercedes.

Mercy waited until they’d walked a block from the Alamo Saloon before rounding on her sister. “How could you? How could you, Charity? After all Papa has told us about the things those cowboys get up to! You could have been…well, violated out there, Charity, did you realize that? How do you like your yellow-headed cowboy now?”

Charity shuddered. “He was horrible, Mercy. He said he just wanted to go for a stroll! His breath stank of whiskey and tobacco, and his teeth were yellow. And his hands—I swear, Mercy, he had more hands than that octopus in our old picture book! And the way he kissed me, Mercy—it started out kinda nice, and then all at once he stuck his tongue right in my mouth! It was awful! Mercy, I’m not ever g-going near a m-man again!” Her breath caught on a renewed sob.

Mercy put her arm bracingly around her sister’s shaking shoulders bracingly, and spoke in softer tones. “Yes, you will, honey. They’re not all lecherous beasts like that cowboy. You’ll find a good, decent man someday. But in the meantime, we need to have a talk about men…”

“When we get home?”

“No, silly. It’s going to be tough enough to get us both back inside without waking Papa, if he’s not already awake and waiting up with a switch, that is. No, we’ll have that talk soon, I promise, but tonight we need to get some sleep. That ol’ rooster’s going to crow before you know it.”

“I don’t think I could sleep now,” Charity confessed as they walked through the darkened streets of Abilene. Here and there lamplight spilled through a saloon window, illuminating a patch of the hard-packed dirt beneath their feet, enabling them to see and step around piles of horse droppings and, in one case, a snoring cowboy, obviously the worse for wear after an excess of tanglefoot.

Mercy didn’t think she could sleep tonight, either. As she lay in bed, she was sure she would be thinking about the darkly handsome Sam Houston Devlin, with those dangerous, deep blue eyes and that predatory smile.

She found it difficult to believe she’d agreed to go to supper with him. A frisson of terrified delight tingled all the way down her spine. She knew instinctively that he was dangerous to her, though she could not define what that meant. And yet, she would not have given up trying to see him tomorrow night for the moon and the stars. But how on earth was she going to be able to manage to do it?

She’d almost lost her nerve when he’d asked to come pick her up. He’d raised an eyebrow curiously when she’d refused, and for a moment she’d been afraid he was going to ask her why not. She couldn’t very well tell him that the reason for her reluctance was a fire-breathing papa who’d shoot him on sight rather than let his daughter spend a minute in a Texas cowboy’s company.

But thankfully, he’d accepted her request without further comment, and now she just had to figure out a way to get out of the house tomorrow night, dressed appropriately for supper at Abilene’s Grand Hotel.

She’d wear Mama’s garnet silk dress with the bishop sleeves and the ivory lace trim, she decided, along with Mama’s garnet earbobs and black cameo on black velvet ribbon.

“Mercy…” began her sister, breaking into her thoughts.

“What?”

“What did Mr. Devlin say to you? If…if you don’t mind my askin’, that is.”

Mercy said nothing for several paces, so long that Charity finally spoke again. “Did he…did he say he thought I was an idiot? That I deserved what could have happened? He…he has such a fierce look about him, Mercy. You can’t tell for sure what he’s thinking, can you?”

Her words surprised Mercy. Charity could be such a featherhead so much of the time, and then she’d come up with these perceptions about people that were dead on target.

“No, he wasn’t saying anything about you at all, you silly,” Mercy said, putting her arm around her sister as they walked on toward their house. “I…I shouldn’t even tell you this, Charity, but he was asking me to supper.”

Charity stopped stock-still in the road for a minute, her mouth making an O of astonishment. Then a smile began to play about her lips.

“Are you going to go? Do you want to go?”

Mercy pretended to be concentrating on making her way past a particularly dark stretch between two buildings. “I shouldn’t even consider it for a heartbeat, and you know it, Charity. He’s just the sort of man Papa’s warned us about. He might be just like that Tom Culhane, in spite of the fact he helped me find you just in the nick of time tonight, and got rid of Culhane when he wanted to be ugly about it.”

“But?”

Mercy could hear the grin in her sister’s words, even though she couldn’t see her face just now.

“But I want to go, if there’s a way to get out without Papa knowing.”

Charity let out a whoop of glee, and hugged her sister. Mercy immediately put a hand over Charity’s mouth to smother her outcry. They were passing the house of Horace and Abigail Barnes. The fat would sure be in the fire if that gossipy matron found them out strolling through the streets at a time when respectable ladies were long abed! “

Good for you, Mercy! I’m glad to hear you have some grit, after all! I’ll help you get out of the house, somehow. We’ll think of a way!”

Mercy felt warmed by her sister’s approval, and amused by her choice of words. “You didn’t think I had any grit? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing bad,” Charity assured her sister. “It’s just that…well, you’ve always done what Papa says is right, and you’re always so good about taking care of him an’ me an’ the house. But it seems like you don’t ever do anything for yourself, Mercy. You don’t ever get out of line. I think you should go and have a wonderful time.”

“I don’t know…As you say, there’s something about this Sam Devlin that’s a little, um, scary. Something devilish in those eyes, Charity.”

“I know.” The idea seemed to produce shivers of delight in Charity, rather than the opposite. “He’s the trail boss of that outfit Tom Culhane rode in with, you know. They call him ‘Devil,’ and themselves the ‘Devil’s Boys.’“

“Oh.” All the more reason to think she must have been insane to agree to see him.

“Stop worrying, Mercy—I can practically see what you’re thinking,” Charity told her. “It’s only supper. Even if he does have any dishonorable notions, he can’t exactly carry them out over the supper table, can he?”

“And you thought you were just going for a walk with Tom Culhane, remember?” Mercy retorted.

“Oh, I knew that scalawag wanted to do a little spoonin’,” her sister had the grace to admit. “But I didn’t think he wouldn’t listen when I said no. Devlin isn’t Culhane, Mercy. He may look fierce, but I don’t believe he’d ever hurt a woman, you know? There’s something…something honorable about him, deep down.”

Mercy devoutly hoped her sister was right.

“Now, what are you planning to wear?” Charity asked, then ran on, “I think…” And suddenly they were both just girls again, discussing the age-old feminine concern.

Deacon Paxton was thoughtful as he wiped up spilled liquor with a damp cloth. That Texan—the trail boss who’d stood talking to him until the girl had come in—there was something familiar about him. Had they met before? In the year since Abilene had gotten the railhead and become the end point on the Chisholm Trail, hundreds of Texans had poured into the town and back out again. Maybe he’d been one he’d met last year, or maybe he just resembled one he’d met. They all started to look alike after a while, he mused-tall, lean, with weathered faces and wary, sun-narrowed eyes. And they sounded alike, too, men of few words, generally—though Devlin had been friendly enough once he’d seen Deacon was inclined to be likewise. But he hadn’t been inclined to say much about himself.

He wondered what the Reverend Jeremiah Fairweather’s daughters had been doing in here tonight. The blond one, the one they called Charity, was clearly headed for trouble. Should he tell the preacher about seeing her in here tonight, sitting with the cowboys?

He thought about the time he’d asked the preacher if he could attend his Sunday services, and the Reverend Mr. Fairweather had told him he was welcome—in fact, he’d consider making him a deacon in fact as well as name, soon as he quit his job working in the Alamo. Deacon was in Satan’s employ, didn’t Deacon know that?

Recollecting that conversation, Deacon didn’t think he’d be talking to the preacher about his blond daughter. Or the one with the dark red hair, either, come to think of it. He’d been even more surprised to see Mercy Fairweather show up, and then leave with the Texas trail boss, but she’d looked worried. He supposed she’d been searching for her scapegrace sister, and from his vantage point at the bar it looked as if Devlin had offered to help her find Charity.

But Deacon had also seen the way Sam Devlin had been looking at the preacher’s older daughter before he’d led her out of the Alamo. It was the look of a predator who’d spotted his prey.

Deacon wondered if the Texan knew that his quarry was the daughter of the only preacher in this wild cow town-and if he knew, if he actually gave a damn. But it was none of his business, Deacon decided—unless he actually saw Devlin acting in a shady way.

“Have a good night, Deacon?” a woman’s husky voice asked from the stairs that led right past the bar.

Mercedes LaFleche stood there, lighting a cheroot. Once she was sure of at least one male watching her entrance into the nearly empty main room of the saloon, she descended the final three stairs.

“Yes, Miss LaFleche, how about you?” he asked politely. He liked the woman well enough—Mercedes LaFleche was an amiable person, especially when her customers had paid well.

“Good enough. I haven’t wasted my time, I guess.” She looked around the room, gauging the remaining customers, and turned back to Deacon, obviously deciding that none of the die-hard drinkers was worth her time and attention. “Give me a beer, Deacon, would you?”

“Sure ‘nough, Miss Mercedes. Say, did Wyatt see you? He told me there was a Texan in here hoping to meet you, a drover.”

“Hey, what’s this ‘Miss Mercedes’ stuff? I’ve told you often enough it’s just ‘Mercedes,’ haven’t I?” the woman said with a lazy smile, which showed the dimple in one rouged cheek. “Naw, I didn’t see Wyatt any time I was downstairs, which wasn’t often, if you know what I mean. So some Texas drover wanted to meet me, hmm? How unusual, ” Mercedes said with a wry quirk to her mouth that robbed her sarcasm of any sting.

“He seemed like a real pleasant fella, Miss Mercedes,” Deacon insisted, handing the prostitute her beer and wondering why he bothered to defend the drover to her. “I believe he said his handle was Sam Devlin.”

“I’m sure he was a nice fella, Deacon,” Mercedes said, patting the bartender’s hand. “You’ve never steered me wrong yet. Well, if I see this Devlin, I’ll smile at him real pretty, and listen to what he has to say—if he hasn’t lost all his money to Wyatt by then, that is.”

Chapter Six

Sam woke late the next morning with an enormous sense of well-being. In fact, he felt like a pup with two tails. Tonight was going to go well, he was sure of it. The only difficulty would be in waiting for evening to arrive.

Well, in a cow town like Abilene whose saloons were open twenty-four hours a day, there ought to be plenty he could keep busy with until evening, he reasoned as he rose and dressed and went downstairs. He’d start with breakfast. It would be good to eat his eggs and bacon sitting at a real table, instead of hunkered down by a campfire with hundreds of longhorns lowing nearby. Then he’d check on Buck, his horse, at the Twin Barns, the livery stable beyond the railroad tracks. The buckskin gelding was probably eating his fool head off, but Sam wanted to make sure the liveryman wasn’t neglecting the cow pony that had brought Sam so far from Texas.

Buck was fine, he discovered, and whinnied a greeting when he saw his master coming. Sam scratched underneath the gelding’s jaw, a favorite place, and fed him the apple he’d talked the Drover’s Cottage cook out of.

The horse in the stall next to Buck caught Sam’s attention. The tall black stallion was an unusually fine beast to be found in a livery. Thoroughbred, Sam mused, admiring the stallion who gazed back alertly at him, his ears pricked forward. Someone in Abilene must be boarding the beast here, for the black was certainly not the kind of nag a livery would rent out.

He sure reminded Sam of Goliad, the horse Caleb had ridden away from the Devlin farm when he went to join the Union army. Thinking of Goliad, and the kind of horses that had once filled the Devlin stables, made Sam nostalgic. He was going to fill those barns up again with good horseflesh, he vowed as he left the livery, if it took a dozen trail drives to finance it!

It was still only eleven-thirty. Now what was he going to do?

He was going to stay away from the Alamo, that was certain—not because he thought he’d see Mercedes working this early, but to avoid further poker games with Earp. As likable as the cardsharp was, he was determined not to lose any more money to him.

About noon, therefore, he was firmly ensconced in a rawhide-backed chair in the Longhorn Saloon, holding three aces and a king. Boy Henderson, who had been regaling them with a tale about losing his virginity in the arms of a sloe-eyed harlot the night before, had just stepped out back to relieve himself when Tom Culhane ambled in, saw Sam and scowled.

“Morning, Tom,” Jase Lowry said in greeting. “Pull up a chair and set a spell, and watch me lose some more money to Dev here.”

“I ain’t intr’sted in sittin’ nowhere with that sumbitch spoilsport,” snarled Culhane, glaring at Sam with bloodshot eyes.

Sam sighed. If that cowboy wasn’t careful, he was going to ruin a perfectly good morning—make that afternoon, he thought, noting that it was fifteen minutes past twelve on the clock.

“Aw, come on and sit down, Tom,” he said, motioning to a chair opposite him. “Hellfire, I’ll even buy you a drink to prove there’s no hard feelin’s. That’s why you’re such a sorehead this mornin’, you know—you need a hair of the dog that bit you.”

“You may not have hard feelings, you sumbitch, but I do,” sneered Culhane, pointing a finger at Sam. “You thought you wuz some high-an’-mighty knight in shinin’ armor last night, didn’t you? Showin’ off for the filly you found—an’ at my expense! I hope she gave you some disease that makes your pecker rot off.”

Sam was determined not to let Culhane rile him, though it was clear the cowboy was spoiling for a fight. “Aw, Culhane, what was I supposed to do? Miss Mercedes told me her sister wasn’t in the business. Granted, sashayin’ around cowboys like that, it won’t be long, but I had to let you know you’d made a mistake, didn’t I?”

Sam’s reasonableness apparently only enraged Culhane further. “What you wuz supposed t’ do, Devlin, was mind yer own goddamn business!” shouted Culhane. “You ain’t my boss no more! You don’t tell me what t’ do!”

“C’mon, Culhane. Don’t be yellin’ like that,” pleaded Jase. “I got a headache. B’sides, ya might wanta work for Dev again next spring.”

“I wouldn’t work for that stupid sidewinder if he wuz the las’ trail boss in Texas!” Culhane shouted back, but his eyes remained on Sam. His hands dropped, hovering near the Colts strapped at his hips.

Sam noted the fact. Yep, the pleasant afternoon was definitely about to get ruined. He was armed, too, of course—there was as yet no real law in the wild cow town, so a man had to be prepared to defend himself. But he had no intention of drawing down on the young cowboy. He rose to his feet, slowly and deliberately. “You don’t want to do this, Culhane,” he advised.

The saloon became very quiet as cowboys nearby took note of the explosive situation. Those nearest Sam’s table edged away. A drummer who had come in to wet his whistle backed out the doors, keeping a nervous eye on the two Texans.

Culhane went right on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Fact, when I get done with him, ain’t none o’ you saddlebums gonna work for him. Whenever you’re ready, Devlin,” he said with a meaningful glance at Sam’s pistols.

“Tom! What are you doin’?” shouted Boy Henderson from the back of the saloon. He had come back just in time to see Culhane fixing to draw on the boss.

Involuntarily, Culhane glanced in the direction of the boy’s voice, and Sam took instant advantage of it, launching himself at Culhane with doubled-up fists. A moment later Culhane was out cold on the saloon floor, and the patrons of the Longhorn were going back to their whiskey and cards.

“We’ll get him back to his room, Dev,” Jase Lowry said, gesturing for Boy and Cookie to join him, “so’s he can wake up peaceable. I’ll try an’ talk some sense inta him when he comes to.”

Sam was just finishing a mental thanksgiving that he’d been able to avoid using his gun on his own drover. “Much obliged, Jase. I’m not so sure anyone can talk sense into that mule-headed fool, though,” Sam said with a heavy sigh. He’d made an enemy, and now he was going to have to watch his back.

Jase nodded his agreement. “I can try. But I know what ya mean, Dev. I can explain it to him, but I can’t understand it for him.”

As it happened, all the schemes Mercy and Charity had concocted turned out to be unnecessary. At about four o’clock in the afternoon, when Mercy was just coming in from the barn after having managed to stash her chosen ensemble for the evening there, she noticed George Abels’s buckboard parked in front of the house.

Going inside, she found the middle-aged farmer in the parlor with her father and Charity, telling them that his elderly father-in-law, who lived with them and who had been declining for months, was saying he was going to die again. He wondered if the reverend would come out, and sit up with him for a while, and quiet his doubts about the hereafter.

Mercy did her best to smother a smile. This had happened so many times before that it had become something of a joke between the girls, for their father would go out to the soddy out by the Smoky River, spend all night praying with the cantankerous old man, return home exhausted but triumphant that he had helped save the old, nearly deaf reprobate’s soul, only to have the process repeated in a few months. Mercy suspected the old man used his imminent death as an attention-getting device, or a means of quieting his daughter’s numerous brood when he’d had too much of their noise. Their father never failed to go, however, for old Ike Turnbull was nearing eighty and each time might be the real thing. No, their papa never failed to go; a pastor must tend his flock.

The Reverend Mr. Fairweather said he would go again this time, of course.

“Oh, bless ya, Reverend. I…I think this time he means it,” Abels said, just as he said every time. “He’s been lookin’ might poorly for some time now, laws, yes.”

When they had first moved to Abilene, the reverend would bring Mercy and Charity with him on these calls, volunteering them to help with the farmer’s twelve children, so that the farmer’s wife could be with her father, but after the first couple of times he had told his daughters it wasn’t necessary. Perhaps he suspected the old man was hoaxing him, or perhaps he realized that the older children were perfectly up to watching the younger ones, but in any case Mercy and Charity were relieved not to have to go.

She offered one more time, however, just in case God had decided He had favored her enough by allowing Charity and herself to sneak back into the house undetected last night and was not inclined to bless her any further by permitting the secret supper with Devlin this evening.

“Mr. Abels, would you like Charity and me to come out and watch the children, so your wife can sit by her father’s sick bed?” Give me a sign, she prayed. If you don’t want me to see Sam Devlin tonight, let Mr. Abels take me up on my offer. Then she held her breath. Her heart thumped painfully in her chest, imagining Sam Devlin waiting in vain for her in front of the Abilene Grand Hotel.

The reverend beamed proudly, not noticing Charity’s shocked, dismayed face, or her attempts to get her sister’s attention.

“Oh, bless ya fer offerin’, Miss Mercy, but that won’t be necessary,” Abels replied. “The house is plumb fulla relatives come over from across the Smoky River. They think this might be the end, too, so there’s plenty t’ help. No, I won’t take you girls away from the house, but your papa should be mighty proud of you girls, mighty proud indeed. Laws, yes. You’re good girls.”

“Thank you, George. Yes, I know I’m blessed in my daughters,” said the reverend, rising from his seat. “They’ve been such a comfort to me since their sainted mother went to her reward. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just get my Bible from my bedroom before we go.”

Mercy let Charity handle the small talk while they waited for their father to return. She was too full of relief, and a giddy excitement about how easy it was going to be, to speak. Fortunately Charity handled the task well, inquiring about Abels’s crops and chattering artlessly about the lack of rain.

Moments later their father had departed in the buckboard with Abels, admonishing the girls, “Don’t wait up-it might be morning before I’m back, you know.”

The sisters knew, all right.

He was standing on the planking in front of the Abilene Grand Hotel when she came around the corner, leaning against one of the columns that supported the establishment’s overhanging roof. She knew he had spotted her and was watching her approach, and the knowledge made her pulse quicken.

Was she doing the right thing? She’d been so sure, when she’d left the house, buoyed by Charity’s encouragement. There was no way Charity would have allowed her to back out of going to supper, in fact. She kept reminding Mercy that she owed Devlin that much, at least, for coming to her sister’s aid yesterday.

But now she felt very uncertain as she saw Devlin straighten and push himself away from the post, stepping down off the planking to extend his hand to her.

He looked her up and down. “Miss Mercy, you’re looking pretty as a field of bluebonnets,” he said.

She found it a strange compliment, seeing as how she was clad in garnet silk, not blue, but she figured that must be high praise to a Texan. They were so proud of their oversize state to the south, with all of its unique features. And then his hand touched hers and their eyes met and she almost forgot how to breathe.

His hands were work-worn and callused, but they were warm, and the blood flowing through them called to hers. As Mercy stepped up onto the planking from the dirt of the street, holding his hand as if it were a lifeline, his other hand left his side and she saw that he was holding a small bouquet of red roses.

“For you, Miss Mercy,” he said with a devastating grin. “I had no idea they’d go so well with your dress, too.”

“Too?” she repeated in confusion, her eyes unable to escape his compelling dark blue gaze. She gathered her white lacy shawl more closely around her.

His eyes lowered a few inches. “I was thinking of your lips,” he confessed, handing her the bouquet. “They look soft as these petals,” he said, stroking the edge of one bloom in a circular motion with his thumb.

Mercy felt that caressing thumb as surely as if he had been touching her lips. Involuntarily she licked them, tasting the carmine salve Charity had made her rub on.

She took the bouquet. “You’re…you’re looking very fine yourself, Mr.—uh, Sam,” she said, remembering last night’s command to call him by his Christian name.

It was an understatement. He wore black trousers and a frock coat with a dazzlingly white shirt and a black string tie. Last night she had noted that he had had his hair trimmed so that it just brushed his collar; since then, he had apparently trimmed, ever so slightly, the mustache that made him look so ferocious. He smelled of bay rum. “Shall we go in? I’ve got a table waiting,” he said, and ushered her inside.

A waiter motioned them over to one of the tables away from the window, for which Mercy was grateful, for sitting by the window would increase the chances that someone passing by would see her in there and mention it to her father. She knew from the way that the waiter had eyed her oddly as he handed her a menu that he had recognized her as the preacher’s daughter, but he wasn’t one of the few men who belonged to their congregation, so it didn’t matter. She hoped he wouldn’t refer to her father in front of Devlin, though—she knew he didn’t know her father was a preacher, and she was afraid he might start behaving differently with her if he knew. Mercy just wanted Sam Devlin to be himself.

Sam had noticed the way the waiter had been looking at her, but he’d misinterpreted it. He’d stiffened, thinking the man had recognized his supper companion as Mercedes LaFleche, the sporting woman, and was considering informing him that the Grand Hotel dining room did not serve women “of her caliber,” or some such snobbish euphemism. That would make it awkward as hell for Sam, for then he would want to knock the waiter down, which certainly wouldn’t add a romantic touch to their evening. Mercedes LaFleche probably saw brawling cowboys every night she worked, and was entitled to something a little different when she was taken away from the Alamo Saloon.

But the waiter said nothing, and left them to peruse the grease-spotted menus.

He made his decision quickly, then studied her surreptitiously over the menu. He appreciated the fact that she had worn something tasteful and elegant, rather than the gaudy, multiruffled and flounced gowns a woman of her profession often wore. She apparently disliked flashy gewgaws, too, for the simple red earbobs and a cameo on a black velvet ribbon merely called attention to the slender curve of her white neck, rather than to themselves.

What a different sort of woman she was from the usual run of females who made their living catering to the baser needs of men. She was fine-boned and small, not exactly beautiful—her mouth was too wide for perfect beauty—but she had a quality better than that for which he had no name. Her speech was not “refined,” exactly, but certainly free from the coarse phrases most sporting women used. And she still had the ability to blush. He found that fact incredible, after all she must have seen in her career. No wonder she was such a favorite that she could pick and choose her customers.

There was a blush blooming on her cheeks now, as if she was not unaware of his scrutiny. “Hmm, what looks good to you, Sam?” she asked him.

You do, he thought, but I’ll have to wait till later to see about that. “I don’t know—what do you recommend?”

An anxious frown creased her forehead, and she rescanned the menu. “Umm, I hear the steaks are good,” she offered.

“You hear? Honey, hasn’t anyone ever taken you to supper here?” he said, before he could think.

She shook her head, her eyes still fastened on the menu. “No,” she answered in a small voice. “P—” she began, then stopped. “No,” she repeated. “You’re the first.”

What had she been about to say before she stopped herself? He found it amazing that she had never been here. Maybe the hotel was very recently opened. After all, Abilene had only consisted of a few log cabins before the railroad’s coming brought on the cattle boom only last year. Or perhaps she thought it made a man feel special to have been the first to take her somewhere nice? No, she’d have to be an awfully good actress if the latter was the case—she seemed sincere about what she was saying.

“Well, then—we’ll do our best to make it a memorable occasion, won’t we?” he said with a wink, and was touched to see her blush again. Maybe she did find him appealing. “I don’t think I’ll have the steak, though—I just spent three months eating beef any possible way it could be fixed. We had beef morning, noon and night on the trail. No, I think I’ll have the fried chicken for a change,” he concluded, just as the waiter returned to their table.

“Oh,” she said, “how silly of me. Of course you don’t want steak. I…I think I’ll have the steak, though, if that’s all right,” she said, her eyes glued to the menu. “We—I-don’t eat it too often.”

He was surprised by her meekness. “Honey, you can have anything you want to eat—you can have the whole dang menu if you want it.”

Did he imagine it, or did the waiter frown at him for the endearment that had slipped out? The old sourpuss! What was he afraid of…that next Sam would start making love to Mercedes right at their table? But the waiter scuttled off and they were alone, so that Sam was free to enjoy the color that had invaded Mercedes’s face again—all because he had called her honey?

For a moment there was silence, and then she said, “So—you’re up from Texas. Where, exactly? Do you have a family down there?”

He wondered if she was really asking if he was married, and if he had been, if that would make a difference to a woman of her calling? Probably not, he reasoned. Women like that were used to servicing a man’s needs away from home, knowing that it had nothing to do with the good women they were married to.

“I’m from Brazos County—good blackland prairie country. My father came from Ireland with the clothes on his back and a fine stallion, and started a horse farm there. It was prospering by the time he died. That was before the war, though. The Confederate army requisitioned all our horses, the ones that the Devlin boys didn’t ride to war, anyway. Now the Devlins—or what’s left of us, anyway-are trying to rebuild the stud, but it takes cash. So I’m here in Abilene to sell the herd we rounded up in south Texas. They’re runnin’ loose down there, free for the takin.’“

“’What’s left of us’?” she echoed. “Did you lose family…in the war?”

He nodded. “My mother almost died of grief. My brother Caleb, the middle boy, never came home, and neither did my sister Annie’s husband—but at least we got a letter from his captain telling us where he fell. Garrick, my oldest brother, might as well have died. They cut his leg off after it was shattered by a minié ball, and now he just sits around the house and feels sorry for himself. I guess I would, too,” he added, feeling guilty for criticizing the brother he’d idolized when they’d been growing up together. “There isn’t much he can do around the farm.”

She reached out a hand and touched his wrist. “No, you wouldn’t,” she said with sudden certainty. At his surprised look, she added, “I know, I haven’t known you long enough to say that, but I just know you wouldn’t. You’d find a way to do what had to be done. Did your brothers have wives?”

He allowed himself a bitter laugh. “Garrick’s wife ran off the morning after he came home. Couldn’t face the sight of him, I reckon. Cal hadn’t married yet—fortunately, as it turned out—though every mama in the county wanted her daughter to marry the parson.”

“Your brother was a preacher?”

He nodded, thinking how easy she was to talk to. “Yeah, but not the hellfire-an’-brimstone kind. He said you couldn’t teach people about God’s love that way. He went and fought for the Union army because of his beliefs. Shocked a lot of folks in Brazos County.”

“How did your family feel? Was your father angry?” she asked.

“He was dead by then. Garrick, though, was furious. He thought my brother had shamed the Devlins, even though he knew how Cal felt. The Devlins didn’t own any slaves-Papa didn’t hold with it, either, you see—but Garrick felt a Southerner ought to support his state.”

“And you?”

“I wasn’t real happy about Cal’s choice, either, but I was a green kid then, all excited about what I believed was the glory of war,” he said grimly. “But he was my brother, and I loved him. Before he rode away to join the Yankees, I told him I just wanted him to come home safe.”

She looked thoughtful. “My father’s a preacher, too. Except he’s that other kind you mentioned.”

Now he’d put his foot in it. “Oh, say, Miss Mercy, I didn’t mean any offense…”

“None taken,” she said quickly. “I was just wishing Papa was more like your brother was. I think it works better, too.”

Her face looked wistful. He wondered what had caused a preacher’s daughter to earn her living whoring in a cattle town? Had her father been so harsh that he had driven her away for some trifling offense? Perhaps he’d caught her out in the haystack with some hayseed swain?

Then their meals came, and he ceased wondering about her for a while.

Chapter Seven

“He’s havin’ dinner with her right this very minute,” Cookie Yates announced triumphantly and without preamble as he stood over Wyatt Earp, seated at his usual table in the Alamo Saloon with three other players, one of whom was Tom Culhane. Cookie was relieved to see that Culhane looked a little more amiable than he had earlier in the day. Maybe he had just had a sore head earlier.

“What’re you talkin’ about?” Wyatt Earp growled. He didn’t much cotton to having his game interrupted, especially when he held the winning hand. Giving the other players too much time to think could cause Lady Luck to smile on someone else.

“Devil—Sam Devlin, my trail boss. He and the sportin’ woman you made the bet about was just headin’ into the Grand Hotel’s dinin’ room when I passed by. Sure looked like they was sweet on one another already,” Cookie said with a grin. “Looks like you’re gonna lose your money, Earp. Sure hope you can afford it.”

“Well, lookin’ sweet doesn’t mean much from a sportin’ woman,” Earp replied, a cynical smile on his face. “You don’t know the breed if you think that means she’s gonna give it away—hey, wait a minute, who did you say your trail boss was with?” he asked, his eyes on the man and woman descending the stairway as he spoke.

“That Mercedes gal you made the bet about,” Cookie repeated. “You know, that sportin’ woman you said was so choosy? The one Dev bet you he could poke without payin’? It was her, all right, saw that red hair in the lamplight at the entrance.”

“And when was that?” Earp asked, smirking as he motioned the woman over to their table. She patted the satisfied-looking cowboy she’d been with on the shoulder before separating from him and coming in Earp’s direction.

“Why, just a coupla minutes ago,” said Cookie. “I figure about now they’re lookin’ deeply into one another’s eyes…give my boss an hour and he’ll have her layin’ down for him, all right. She’ll beg him to,” Cookie bragged. “The gals in Fort Worth couldn’t get enough o’ him when we passed through there. Iffen he tells you he can have her for free, you’d best believe it.”

“Oh, I’m not arguin’ his ability to have a woman without payin’,” Earp replied, “just the particular woman we were speakin’ of. Boys, I’d like you to meet Miss Mercedes LaFleche,” he said, rising and holding out his hand to the sultry-looking redhead in a tight gown of turquoise satin, who bestowed a smile on the whole table.

Cookie stared at the woman as if she were a ghost. “But…” he began, pointing at the rich, deep red of her curly hair.

“Is this the gentleman you wanted me to meet, Wyatt?” she asked, eyeing the gray-haired, whiskery Cookie a little doubtfully.

Wyatt was grinning openly now. “No, my dear, it isn’t. But tell me something, Mercedes, honey. Were you just over at the Grand Hotel a couple of minutes ago, meetin’ a Texan for dinner there?”

She looked at the cardsharp as if he had clearly lost his mind. “Wyatt, you just saw me walk down those stairs from my room, I know you did. You saw the cowboy with me. He was a Texan, all right, most of ‘em are, but I didn’t meet him at the Grand Hotel. He bought me a drink right here in the Alamo before we…went upstairs for a while,” she said with a meaningful wink.

Wyatt turned back to Cookie Yates. “Seems like your boss was takin’ some other woman in to dinner, doesn’t it? Could be he found another gal to charm. Maybe he lost interest in the dare, if he found some gal who’s more of a sure thing.”

“But…but she had red hair just like this one,” protested Cookie.

“Is that a fact?” drawled Earp, putting his arm around Mercedes LaFleche, who seemed to enjoy the caress. “Mercedes, you know any other woman in Abilene with red hair that’s as pretty as you?”

Mercedes preened. “Why, Wyatt, you always said I had no equal! But there isn’t any other woman in Abilene with red hair that I know of, anyway—and I know all the sportin’ women and the ‘virtuous ladies,’ too, even if that bunch do cut me dead when we pass on the street,” she said with a little laugh. “Unless you mean the preacher’s daughter, now…her hair’s sorta the color o’ mine, just a little darker red. But I don’t think she’d be out with some cowboy,” she added. “Her father watches over her like a miser watches his money. And she’s kinda, well…innocent lookin’, compared t’ me.” She gestured at the tight-fitting, eyecatching satin dress she wore.

Wyatt hooted and smacked the table. “Cookie, is it possible your boss is out wining and dining the preacher’s daughter, thinking she’s a sporting woman?”

Cookie looked distinctly uncomfortable as he considered the possibility. He glared at Tom Culhane, who obviously found the idea as hilarious as Earp did.

“Aw, stop lookin’ like you was suckin’ a lemon, Cookie,” Culhane said when he could stop guffawing. “I think it’d serve th’ Devil right if he thinks he’s courtin’ a whore and finds out she’s some prissy little preacher’s daughter instead!”

At the moment, however, Mercy was feeling far from prissy. She’d taken a cautious first sip of the wine that their stuffy-acting waiter had brought, not wanting to confess it was the first she had ever drunk. Even when celebrating Communion, Papa served grape juice instead of wine. She found the fermented version very good, too, and as a consequence had been sipping it slowly but steadily as Sam Devlin regaled her with tales of the trail drive.

“No, it doesn’t take much to set off a stampede,” Sam was saying in response to a question she had asked. “At night we took turns singin’ to the herd, soft and low. Some men sang songs from the war, some sang hymns, some even sang nursery rhymes.” His blue eyes were distant and unfocused, as if he was remembering. “It didn’t matter much what we sang, as long as it sounded soothing to the beeves. But somethin’ as sudden as a flash of lightning, or as simple as the snapping of a stick—or sometimes nothin’ at all—could set those longhorns loco, and in a flash they’d be up and runnin’, with all of us gallopin’ hell-for-leather after them an’ tryin’ to turn them. God help any poor cowboy who wasn’t on his horse when they decided to turn in his direction. We lost a good hand that way, just after we crossed the Red River,” he said, his expression somber.

Sam hadn’t been bragging, just telling her matter-offactly what a trail drive was like, but she marveled nonetheless. He painted such a clear picture of it. When Sam talked of his days on the Chisholm Trail, Mercy could almost see the choking cloud of dust—she could hear the constant lowing of the cattle and the thunder of their hooves over rocky ground. She could smell the savory odors of wood smoke and beef stew at the nightly campfires. She could feel the incredible heat that could be generated by a stampeding herd.

What a brave man he was—what brave men all of them were, these Texans who brought the hundreds of stubborn horned beasts a thousand miles from where they ran free among the mesquite in south Texas, crossing swirling rivers, enduring all kinds of weather, danger from hostile Indians and murderous rustlers, disease and the ever-present threat of stampede. No ordinary man—no man she’d ever met until now, anyway—was capable of surviving all that.

No wonder the cowboys were so ready to have a little fun, to…to raise a little hell, Mercy thought, surprising herself by even thinking about that word that Papa reserved for discussions of the hereafter. She noticed Sam had used it, too—”hell-for-leather”—quite unconsciously, not apologizing up and down because he had used that word in the presence of a lady. She found she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind anything, as long as he would keep on talking. That rich drawl was so easy on the ears, so warming…

Or was it the unaccustomed wine? By the time the waiter brought her steak and Sam’s chicken, Mercy was feeling so warm that she wished she had a fan, perhaps one of those black ostrich-feather ones that she and Charity had seen in the Godey’s lady’s book. It would be nice to be fluttering her fan, and flirting over the top of it with the handsome male across the table from her.

“I hear they call you Devil,” she said, feeling very worldly-wise and sophisticated as she said it.

His irresistible smile turned into a chuckle. “Aw, that’s just some funnin’ the boys do with my name. They just like callin’ themselves the Devil’s Boys.”

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