Slocum and the Larcenous Lady Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  SADDER AND WISER

  When the door opened, Tiger Lil threw herself at Slocum. Quite literally.

  He caught her in those amazing arms and kissed her until she almost wilted.

  “Just like in the good old days,” she breathed, once she had a chance.

  He scooped her up in his arms. “Not quite yet, baby.”

  But as he began to stride toward the bed—his bed, which she suddenly ached to be in more than anyplace in the world—she said, “Stop, honey.”

  He did, but he arched a brow.

  “You’d best put me down, Slocum,” she said reluctantly. “I can’t stay. Not now, at any rate.”

  He eased her onto her feet again, took a step back, and crossed his arms. “Why? You goin’ for another buggy ride with David Chandler?”

  It was her turn to cross her arms.

  “Which scam are you pulling this time, honey?”

  He kept smiling that maddening smile. Suddenly, she didn’t know whether to make love to him or slap him.

  “You rat,” she said with a sniff. “You know me too well.”

  Slocum shook his head theatrically. “Only from sad experience, baby.” His hand shot out to cup her shoulder. “Only from sad, sad experience.”

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  SLOCUM AND THE LARCENOUS LADY

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / October 2005

  Copyright © 2005 by The Berkley Publishing Group.

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  1

  It was four fifteen in the morning.

  Slocum was the only one in the place who was awake, and he rolled over restlessly on his narrow bunk.

  He felt strangely naked without his guns. Right now, they hung on the wall across the jailhouse, dimly picked out by the first, thin, mote-filled rays of creeping light that filtered through the front window and the cracks in the door.

  The night deputy slouched back in his chair, snoring softly.

  Slocum was on his first night in the Poleaxe City Jail. If you could call Poleaxe a city. If you could call this rattletrap fire hazard a jail.

  And why, when he had plenty of other places he’d rather be, was he cooling his heels in this tumbledown excuse for a jail in a tumbledown excuse for a town, charged with, of all things, murder?

  A woman, of course.

  A woman who had promptly disappeared once he’d been charged.

  Of course, nobody thought that was odd in the least. Nobody but Slocum, that was.

  He should have known better than to trust Tiger Lil Kirkland. How many times had he told greenhorn kids, “Never buck the tiger, boys. She’ll bite you in the ass every time.”

  Of course, when he’d said that, he was always referring to faro, which was nigh on impossible to win. The odds were always with the house. And just in case it looked like maybe you were going to beat those odds, the dealer usually had a hogleg pointed at you under the table.

  But against his own advice, he’d dallied with Tiger Lil Kirkland and played her game. And true to form, she’d bitten him in the backside with every single one of her sharp little fangs.

  Dammit.

  A few days earlier . . .

  He should have known better, he thought as he crossed the street, making a beeline from the livery, where he’d just stabled Panther, to the saloon.

  He should have known better, but she was pulling him, just as surely as a calf on the end of a roundup cowpoke’s rope. Her big blue eyes stared down at him from
the poster outside the Poleaxe Theater and Saloon. Her frothy blue gown exposed a mile of leg and two round hills of bosom that valleyed into a deep, shadowed décolletage.

  And that was sure a come-hither smile if he’d ever seen one.

  Oh, he knew better than to get mixed up with Tiger Lil Kirkland again, but hell. He just couldn’t help himself.

  He pushed his way through the batwing doors into the shadowy cool of the interior and let his eyes adjust to the dimness.

  There weren’t many men in the place. Just a bored-looking bartender, mindlessly polishing glasses down at the far end of the bar; a couple of cowboys playing poker with an obviously professional gaming man; a lone drinker, nursing a beer at a rear table; and a single, solitary bar girl, who had fallen asleep on the job with her head on the piano keys.

  She was snoring softly.

  At the rear of the establishment was a red velvet-curtained stage. It wasn’t big. Maybe large enough to hold four big men, standing abreast.

  Tiger Lil wouldn’t need more than that, though. All she’d have to do was stand there and sing to drive the locals peach-orchard crazy.

  “What can I get you, mister?” asked the bartender, who had finally noticed him.

  “Beer,” Slocum said, and wandered over to the bar. When the keep slid him his suds, he added, “The Tiger around?”

  The bartender smirked. “Yeah. She’s sleepin’, probably. What’s your business with her, cowboy?”

  By his expression, he didn’t appear to think that a man as full of road—not to mention scar tissue—as Slocum should have any business with her at all.

  Slocum didn’t answer. It wasn’t the barkeep’s business, anyhow. He simply took a mouthful of his warm beer, then a long, satisfying swallow. It wasn’t the best, but he wasn’t too picky at the moment.

  The bartender simply shrugged off his silence and returned to lackadaisically polishing glasses. “When you’re wantin’ another,” he added without looking up, “just holler.”

  Slocum grunted. He was looking at the staircase. He wondered if he should just go up, find her room, and let himself in.

  No, bad idea.

  She’d likely be with some other lucky cowpoke, he told himself and scowled.

  Of course, she could be asleep, dreaming up some new plan to abscond with some wealthy rancher’s bank account. That’s what she’d been doing the last time he’d run into her.

  Well, some women, he reckoned, were just plain rotten and avaricious. However, very few of those were, at the same time, as lovely and utterly charming (and conniving) as Lil.

  It had saved her bacon every damn time.

  Even from him, he thought, and shook his head. He drained his beer and signaled for another, once he got the barkeep’s attention.

  He waited. What else did he have to do?

  The lady in question was, at that moment, languidly stretching her arms in advance of sitting up. She didn’t do it quite yet, though. She nestled her hands behind her head, stared up at the ceiling, and sighed.

  Life was grand, wasn’t it? She’d been in Poleaxe barely a week, and already she’d snagged the best catch in town. Not for marrying, mind you, but for fleecing. She could feel him out there, dancing on the end of her line, eagerly waiting for her to reel him in.

  She smiled. David Chandler was charming and handsome and a widower, but most importantly, he was rich, and he was proud: two attributes Lil looked for in a mark. Because he was rich, he had something worth taking. And because he was proud, he’d be too embarrassed to call the law on her.

  That he was charming and handsome were simply very nice extras.

  Sitting up, she brushed red curls away from her face and glanced at the clock. Still an hour until she had to meet Chandler for their afternoon buggy ride. Plenty of time.

  She began to hum an old Irish lullaby as she slowly vacated her mattress and opened her chifforobe. What to wear, what to wear . . .

  At last, she settled on a frothy pink frock, suitable for afternoon—at least, if you were a saloon singer. Lil was all too aware that she had something to sell, and her mother had always told her to keep the goods in view, and the best in the front window.

  And then she had the strangest feeling, as if someone had walked over her grave. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but suddenly her arms were covered with gooseflesh and she felt a little faint.

  It only lasted half a second, but it was downright strange. She wondered if she might be coming down with the croup or some such.

  No, that was stupid, she thought to herself, then right out loud, said, “Don’t be a ninny!”

  And then she laughed because the sound of her own voice had frightened her.

  Shaking her head, she tossed the pink frock to the bed and sat down at her dressing table. She picked up her hairbrush and began working at brushing some semblance of order into those unruly locks of hers.

  Miles away at his ranch, David Chandler was just climbing into his buggy. He picked up the reins, calling, “Send Morgan and Curly to check on those new calves, Charlie,” to the gaunt man at the head of the rig.

  Charlie took a step back to get out of the way and replied, “Yeah. When you comin’ back? Not that I want to be nosy or anything, but Cookie’s gotta—”

  Shaking his head, Chandler chuckled. Any other time, he’d jump down Charlie’s throat—foreman or not—for asking him a personal question, no matter how he couched it. But he felt too damned good right now to rebuke anybody.

  Tiger Lil was waiting!

  “Sometime later in the week, Charlie,” he said, and added, “Don’t look at me like that,” when Charlie chanced a dubious—and disapproving—expression.

  Gathering the lines, Chandler continued, “You know, Charlie, one of these days you’re gonna object to the wrong lady, and she’s gonna end up being your boss.”

  Charlie scratched at the back of his head, pushing his hat forward in the process. “Not for very damn long,” he grumped. “Ain’t never worked for no woman, ain’t never gonna.”

  “Never say never, Charlie,” David Chandler said and clucked to the mare, who stepped out at a brisk trot, effectively cutting off any reply Charlie might have made. Charlie didn’t know how lucky he was, because sometime this week, Chandler fully intended to ask Miss Lily Kirkland to marry him.

  Lily, Lily, Lily, Chandler thought happily as he drove toward town. Was there ever a creature so beautiful, so talented, so bright, so witty, and well, just so downright perfect as his Lil?

  David knew that Charlie thought the ranch was going to ruin, and so was the bank and everything else. As if old Charlie could possibly know anything about running a bank!

  And hell, Lil had barely been in town a week. Hardly time for the ranch to fall into disgrace.

  Well, Charlie always had been a bit of an alarmist.

  Let him stew in his own juices. It would do him good.

  David Chandler clucked to the horse, pushing it into a faster trot. The mare, Chandler’s Ace in the Hole—also known as Acey—was the champion trotter of the county, and he was proud of her. Proud enough that he’d promised Lil a brisk ride behind the horse.

  He hoped it would impress her enough to say yes to the question he planned to ask.

  He grinned and trotted on.

  2

  Having downed three beers with no Lil in sight yet, Slocum reluctantly hied himself down the street to the barber shop. He could use a bath, he told himself, and a shave wouldn’t hurt, either. So he settled down in the barber’s chair first, the baths being in use.

  The barber proved chatty. At first, he was a little too talkative for Slocum’s taste. But when the subject turned to the one and only Tiger Lil, Slocum started paying attention.

  “Been in town not even six days,” the barber said as he pulled the hot towel from Slocum’s face and went to work with the lather, “and already she’s got half the fellers in town—married or not—dancin’ to her tune. Hell, most of the other half’s fidd
ling it for her.”

  “What do you mean?” Slocum asked and was immediately sorry. He spat out lather.

  “Wouldn’t try talkin’ if I was you,” said the barber, a balding man with a bright red shirt partially covered by his white apron. “Them suds taste nasty. And what I mean is that she’s got ’em all moony-eyed, that’s what. Fred Wilkerson’s wife tossed him out on the street ’cause he called her ‘Lil’ during whatyacall, one’a them private moments.”

  The barber laughed, razor poised. “Would’a liked to seen that, I sure would! That Franny Wilkerson’s one formidable female. Then there’s Zeke McDowell. Hell, he ain’t had a bath in a year and a half, and all of sudden he’s in here every other day.” He nodded toward the back room. “Jess, down at the livery, said Zeke’s own horse don’t know him, what with him smellin’ like witch hazel and soap all of a sudden.”

  Slocum kept his mouth shut this time, but he couldn’t hold back a snort. It seemed like Lil was having her usual effect on the male population.

  He listened to tale after tale of hapless men acting like fools. But then, he was a little apt to act like a lunatic when he was under Tiger Lil’s spell, too, wasn’t he?

  Still, it helped that he wasn’t the only one.

  And then the barber said, “Course, just betwixt you and me, I figure that David Chandler has the worst case of it. Lil-eye-tus, I calls it. Why, that man’s been comin’ to town every day this week, and he usually don’t come in to see to the bank and such but once a week. Sometimes less.”

  He ran a damp towel over Slocum’s newly shaven face and proceeded to moisten his hands with witch hazel.