The Gunfighter and the Heiress

chapter Eleven



“Well, that didn’t work.” Marsh sent the henchman named Fred Jenson a disapproving glower. “I found out what room Natalie was in but your bright idea of luring her husband to the broken window was a disaster. Now they will be suspicious and on guard for a possible attack. Might as well have sent them an engraved invitation!”

“Crow is smarter than I thought,” Fred Jenson said, then spit a wad of tobacco into the dirt.

Marsh made a mental note not to step in it. Scowling, he veered toward the back of the livery stable to reach the spot where his second hired gun, Taylor Green, waited.

“I’m hungry,” Green complained. “We haven’t eaten since this morning. I work better on a full stomach.”

Marsh stared pointedly at Green’s protruding belly that spilled over his belt buckle. He was sure the gunman took outside jobs, just to satisfy his gluttony. The man had talked about the best places to eat in Louisiana most of the trip.

Damn it, Marsh just couldn’t hire good help when he wanted someone murdered—and not be blackmailed for it when the deed was done.

“Might as well feed your face.” Marsh veered toward Turner Hotel, where he and his cohorts rented rooms. “We’ll launch another attack tonight.”

He strode off with Green lumbering behind him and Jenson bringing up the rear. Now he had to round up Kimball. The prancing dandy had gone to a saloon to clean out the pockets of hapless cowboys at the poker table.

Not for the first time, Marsh wished he’d had the good sense to poison Natalie instead of her mother. The cunning female was leading him on a frustrating chase.



Van inched his head up high enough to peer down on the street below. He was sure the flying rock had come from the corner of the livery stable—and no one had better bother Durango, or Van would lift scalps. That horse was reliable, loyal and dependable. Unlike some people he knew. Van glared pointedly at Natalie, who had pushed into a sitting position to grab the rock that had sailed through the window.

“No note attached,” she said. “A shame the person didn’t identify himself so Crow would know who to shoot.”

“Cut the sarcasm, Marquise. Or whatever you call French royalty,” he added snidely.

She rolled her eyes at him, then rose agilely to her feet. “I’ll prowl the streets, dressed as a boy to see what I can find out. You are too high-profile and a much larger target.”

Van stared her down, for all the good it did. And she called him stubborn and bullheaded? Ha! “You aren’t going anywhere, Your Highest of Highnesses.”

She elevated her skinned chin. “You can’t tell me what to do.” She shrugged on an oversize vest that concealed her feminine curves and swells. “I paid you for your completed assignment. We are officially separated—at your insistence. Bart can draw up separation papers before the divorce settlement.”

She crammed her hair beneath her cap and yanked it down until her ears stuck out from the side of her head. Then she smeared soot from the lantern on her face.

With one final burn-in-hell’s-biggest-bonfire glare, she swept from the room. A moment later, she returned to retrieve her piddly two-shot derringer, then tucked it into her waistband and left again.

“A week of married life and look what a disaster it’s become,” Bart remarked. Then grinned.

“As I mentioned earlier, you’re the one who showed up here, waving the newspaper, insisting my wife is a charlatan and criminal,” Van remarked as he bolted to his feet, careful not to stand in front of the window.

“You are my friend,” Bart defended, rising to his feet as he shoved his drooping spectacles back in place. “Naturally I wanted to verify Natalie’s story. If there is as much money at stake as she insists, then she could be in grave danger. This Marsh character sounds ruthless. He might kill anyone standing in the way of the Blair fortune. You first, I suspect.”

Van scowled as he raked the broken glass into a pile using the side of his foot. “The only reason you believe her now is because she offered you a job investigating and trying a case of possible murder.”

“No, I plan to hire you to investigate the allegations of murder,” he commented.

“Ha! No,” Van declined adamantly. “I’m not going anywhere near New Orleans.”

“You should.” A wry grin twitched Bart’s lips. “You’ll own half of Blair Shipping after the divorce settlement.”

“I don’t want her money, if in fact she actually has any beside what she stashed in her clothes and satchels.”

“May I ask you something?” Bart said while using the newspaper to scoop glass into the trashcan.

“No.”

He went on as if Van hadn’t spoken. “What put you and Natalie at each other’s throats? As I recall, you seemed agitated with her before I showed the article to you.”

“I told you, I found the jewelry and excess money,” Van prompted.

“What else?”

He knew Bart, being a lawyer, would keep firing questions until he was satisfied with the answers. He was as relentless in a courtroom as Van was trailing criminals. “I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Van said with finality. “I intend to find out who pitched the rock and why.”

“Could be the Harper brothers,” Bart speculated. “I received another message from them before I boarded the stagecoach to find you. They said your days were numbered.”

“Pfftt!”

“Maybe Marsh and Kimball are here,” Bart suggested. “They could have tracked Natalie, just as she feared they would.”

“I hope it is. They can verify who Natalie is.”

“You would take the word of possible liars, swindlers and murderers over her?” Bart challenged. “I contend Marsh and Kimball will lie through their teeth if they think it will help them get their greedy hands on the Robedeaux-Blair fortune…. Where are you going?”

“Hunting.” Van breezed across the room. “It might take all night but I’ll find the rock thrower. Count on it.”

With that, he shut the door behind him, leaving Bart to deal with the rest of the shards of glass that littered the floor in Natalie’s room.



Natalie skulked down the fire escape of the Wildhorse Hotel, then clung to the shadows as she scurried silently through the alley to find the culprit. She wished she hadn’t been so irritated with Crow, for she might have remembered to ask him for a physical description of the Harper brothers who were out for his blood. They would have to get in line, she mused sourly.

It wouldn’t take the gang long to find out if a high-profile gunfighter like Crow was in town. It made sense the Harpers would attack immediately.

“What was I thinking?” she muttered under her breath as she crept along the side of the livery stable. She should have married a nobody and slipped into anonymity right alongside him. But no, she thought she needed someone capable of defending her in case of trouble.

Her reasoning had been skewed since the beginning, she realized. Worse, she was attracted to the wrong kind of man. Donovan Crow was the biggest mistake she’d ever made. He was also a walking contradiction. One minute he was kind and considerate, and the next minute he was harsh and insulting.

Although granting Crow the divorce he demanded would complicate her situation with Marsh and Kimball, she wouldn’t fight it. She could only hope Bart and her attorney in New Orleans could gather evidence to ensure those two conniving devils paid their dues.

Another solution occurred to her as she tiptoed around the side of the general store to reach the boardwalk. To escape Marsh and Kimball, she might stage her own death and take Natalie Blair completely off the front page—and out of the picture—for good. She could become Anna Jones or anyone else of her choosing. She could leave instructions to place her fortune into a trust that she could use to cover her living expenses while she moved from one locale to another, seeing the sights she had only read about in books.

In time, she hoped to see Marsh and Kimball locked in the penitentiary. Then she would have nothing to fear from them.

Pain stabbed at her heart again. Crow hadn’t wanted her for who she was on the inside. She’d been the time he was killing. The thought prompted feelings of anger and rejection. She thought she had selected the perfect husband, but she was no more than a temporary release for him, a completed assignment with fringe benefits.

Damn him! Besides all that, he refused to believe the truth about her identity. He had hurt her and mistrusted her. Which only proved what she had learned the past few years. Men were a lot more trouble than they were worth—

Natalie snapped to attention when she heard a familiar voice wafting from Rattlesnake Saloon. To her frustration, she saw Thurston Kimball III ensconced at the corner table, engaged in a poker game with three scruffy-looking men wearing ragtag clothing and sombreros. They had tied red bandanas around their thick necks. Since they had their backs to her, she couldn’t identify them. If they were Marsh’s henchmen, she wouldn’t be able to recognize them on sight.

She sucked in her breath and ducked her head when she saw Avery Marsh on the street. With his storklike legs and a goatee that made him look like a billy goat, he was easy to spot. Marsh moved quickly down the boardwalk toward her. He seemed intent on poking his head in the door of each of the three saloons he passed. When he spotted Kimball, he veered inside without giving Natalie more than a passing glance. Thank goodness!

Natalie lingered by the swinging doors to watch Marsh walk up beside Kimball. She was tempted to grab her derringer and blast away at the bastards. Unfortunately, she hadn’t perfected her shooting skills and one of the henchmen might blast her back.

Biding her time, Natalie crammed her hands in the pockets of her breeches and clomped down the boardwalk, calling as little attention to herself as possible. Two men lumbered from the café and collided with her. Natalie reeled sideways but she couldn’t regain her balance. She stumbled off the boardwalk and slammed into the horse tethered at the hitching post. The horse threw its head and leaped sideways when she sprawled facedown in the dirt.

“Serves you right, brat,” said one of the men, smirking.

Natalie kept her mouth shut and glared at the bully. He was tall and lean with baby-fine dark hair, a hawklike nose and dark eyes spaced too close together. He wasn’t dressed like a cowboy. Nor was he wearing the fancy trappings Marsh and Kimball favored. Just worn breeches and a dingy white shirt with an open collar.

“Yeah, stay out of our way, kid,” the second man sneered as he looked down his long nose at her.

She spared the man with the oversize belly, round face and full jowls a quick glance. His gray eyes were dull and flat—to match his intelligence, she suspected.

Tiring of their intimidating game, the twosome swaggered down the boardwalk, then entered Rattlesnake Saloon. Before Natalie could climb to her feet, a firm hand clamped around her forearm, hoisting her upright. She muttered under her breath when she realized Crow had come to her assistance and that he had witnessed the incident.

“I thought you said you could take care of yourself,” he mocked as he ambled along beside her.

“I just did.” She dusted off her clothing and checked to make sure her cap still covered the hair pilled atop her head. Thankfully, it did.

“You have a funny way of showing it,” he replied.

She squared her shoulders and tilted her skinned chin to a proud angle. “I’m in one piece and those bullies didn’t realize I was a woman, so I consider it a smashing success.”

“Come on, kid, let’s get you off the street before some other bully decides to rough you up for sport.”

“What do you care if he does?”

“Didn’t say I did.”

Crow directed her to remain within the shadows of the boardwalk, then nudged her into the alley to use the metal fire escape for the hotel. Natalie decided, there and then, she was leaving town immediately. Darkness had settled over the countryside so she could flit off without being noticed. Plus, being with Crow after he’d hurt her feelings a dozen different ways was too painful. She was entirely too sensitive and vulnerable around him.

In addition, she didn’t need Marsh, Kimball and the three henchmen taking shots at Crow. Aggravated though she was with him for thinking the worst about her, she didn’t want him injured—or worse.

She decided to lead Marsh and Kimball out of town—away from Crow and Bart so they wouldn’t be in danger. This was her battle now, and she was on her own.

“Did you figure out who threw the stone through the window?” Crow asked as he escorted her to her room.

“No,” she lied, but she suspected Marsh, Kimball and the three scraggly looking hombres at the poker table in the saloon were responsible. No doubt, Marsh had hired the men to dispose of Crow so he could focus on finding her and stealing her fortune.

Crow stopped short when he stared at the broken window in her room. “Since the owner hasn’t repaired the pane you’ll have to spend the night with me.”

“No, I won’t. I love fresh air,” she said breezily.

Crow walked over to scoop up her satchel and carpetbag, then clutched her arm. Natalie set her feet—and cursed him soundly when he uprooted her from the spot and quick-marched her down the hall to his suite.

“Fine, I’ll stay with Bart,” she insisted. “He believes I am who I say I am.”

“No, he doesn’t. He’s just being nice. Now me? I believe every word you say,” he replied sarcastically.

Natalie glared daggers at him when he shoveled her into his suite—always the best accommodations available while Crow was in town. Maybe he was more like Marsh and Kimball than she realized, she thought bitterly.

Shaking loose from his grasp, she walked through the sitting room to the bedroom. She peered out the window at the street below, while Crow lit a lantern. She could see Rattlesnake Saloon and she tensed when Marsh, Kimball and five men exited together. Sweet mercy! Marsh had assembled an army of assassins. She couldn’t expect Crow to take on five mercenaries and survive. Granted, Bart was an expert marksman, too, but his arm was still on the mend and he would be useless if it came to hand-to-hand combat.

Natalie quickly closed the curtains when Crow approached. She wheeled around to distract him until the seven men bedded down for the night. She hoped and prayed they hadn’t rented rooms in this hotel. That had disaster written all over it.

“I’m leaving first thing in the morning,” she blurted out. “If you want me to sign papers for legal separation and divorce, then fetch Bart.”

“He hasn’t had time to draw up the documents.”

She flicked her wrist dismissively. “I’ll sign a blank paper. I expect Bart to be fair.”

He gave her The Stare but she looked the other way. “You are not leaving here alone, Nat, and that is that.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, raised an eyebrow, and then met his hard look. “This is not your decision.”

“It is if I decide to take you back to Fort Worth for questioning about a jewel theft in New Orleans.”

Natalie’s temper hit a rolling boil in the blink of an eyelash. She was leaving. Now. Tonight. Scowling, she tried to veer around the solid, immovable object that was Donovan-hardheaded-Crow. He snaked out an arm to latch on to her, causing her to stumble sideways.

“You are staying here, sunshine. Like it or not.”

“Which I don’t.”

“Doesn’t matter. Hell’s Fringe is full of demons lurking in the darkness. You aren’t setting foot on the street again.”

Van stared into her upturned face, watching the sparks fly from her obsidian eyes. His gaze dropped to her lush lips and he felt the fierce, ill-fated attraction bombard him. He’d been fighting one conflicting emotion after another the whole livelong day. He wanted this firebrand but he didn’t trust her. He desired her but he couldn’t forget that she had lied to him—and probably still was.

When she shoved the heels of her hands against his chest to knock him off balance so she could dart off, Van grabbed her with both hands. She raised her knee to gouge him in the groin—exactly as he’d taught her to do, though he hadn’t planned to be the recipient of one of those disabling blows.

He spun sideways so that her knee connected with his hip. She swore at him, then tried to stamp on his foot, but he shifted again to counter every move he’d taught her.

“You won’t win,” he assured her gruffly.

She went perfectly still in his encircling arms. Then she tilted her face to his and stared at him with those black-magic eyes rimmed with long curly lashes. Famous last words, he thought when he felt her body melt provocatively against him. She was forcing him to battle his worst enemy—himself. Van knew before his lips involuntarily slanted over hers that he was about to taste sweet defeat. As angry as he was with her, his uncontrollable desire for her ultimately won out.

Her arms slid over his shoulders and she arched into him. Then she opened her lips to invite him deeper. He closed his eyes, groaned in surrender and plunged his tongue into her mouth to share her breath and savor the pleasure of her kiss. His hands moved with a will of their own as he mapped her luscious curves. He resented the clothing that deprived him of seeing her satiny flesh.

When he felt her fingers working the buttons of his shirt, he shrugged off the garment. “Turnabout is fair play, sunshine,” he said roughly. “Shirt for shirt. Breeches for breeches.”

She smiled impishly and he reacted as he always did—he nearly melted in a fiery pool of desire. She unfastened his breeches, eased them down his hips an inch at a time and then left them in a crumpled heap on the floor. He returned the favor, then savored her curvaceous body with hungry eyes.

“I have a fantasy of my own that I want to play out,” she insisted as she walked him across the room until the back of his knees collided with the edge of the bed.

When she urged him to sit, he sat. Then she knelt between his legs and erotic desire hammered at him. She pressed her lips to his chest as her hand closed around his throbbing erection—and he struggled to draw breath.

“What fantasy do you want to fulfill, sunshine?” he wheezed with what little air was left in his lungs.

She slanted him a sly glance then bit him lightly on the belly. “You’re about to find out….”

Then she kissed and nibbled her way down his abdomen to take him into her mouth. Van groaned in sweet torment when she nipped at him with her teeth, then flicked at him with her tongue. He had never granted a woman intimate privileges with his body, but he granted Natalie her fantasy because he was helpless to stop her when the pleasure she gave him rippled through him in constant waves.

She stroked his aching length with her fingertips while she suckled him lightly. Van swore the top of his head was about to blow off when she kissed and caressed him again and again. Fire blazed across his flesh and sizzled though his bloodstream. He could feel himself drawing ever nearer to the crumbling edge of self-control. When he reached for her, she whispered the same words he had said to her the previous night.

“Don’t distract me.”

He swore he was going to pass out when her fingertips trailed down the inside of his legs, then moved up again to cup him in her hand. Her thumb stroked leisurely from base to tip while she drew him into her mouth and traced his throbbing length with her tongue and teeth.

“Have mercy…” he choked out when wild need blazed through him, burning him alive.

“Give no quarter, show no mercy,” she murmured against his rigid flesh. “We may be celebrating our pending divorce, but I vow you will never forget your first wife. I’m saying my own version of fare-thee-well to my one and only husband.”

Van moaned in sweet torment while she worked her erotic magic on his ultra-sensitive body. She left him blind with need and he swore he was going to die from unappeased desire any minute. Then she straddled his legs. When she settled exactly upon him, he became the flame pulsing inside her.

“You should be against the law,” he growled as he arched helplessly against her.

“You already think I am,” she whispered as she linked her fingers behind his neck and moved in perfect rhythm with him. “I see no crime in enjoying you one last time before we part company. Do you?”

Her voice faded when he twisted sideways, taking her to her back in one swift, fluid motion. She peered into his bronzed face, watching the golden flames from the lantern cast light and shadows on his angular features.

Natalie asked herself why she was so bold and brazen with him. How could she yearn for him beyond reason when she itched to pound him over the head for fueling her temper with his cynicism? She couldn’t explain her fierce, uncontrollable desire for Crow any more easily than she could fly to the moon. Despite his dark suspicions about her, she still wanted him once more before she walked out of his life and lured her enemies away to protect him from harm.

She didn’t know if she would survive Marsh and Kimball’s attempt to dispose of her. But they would not harm Donovan Crow, she promised herself fiercely. He had burrowed into her heart and breathed life into her soul.

Her thoughts sailed away like a ship skimming the sea in a brisk wind. She stared into Crow’s fascinating silver-blue eyes and knew without question that she was experiencing her greatest adventure. The feel of his muscular body moving intimately against her, burning like a living flame inside her, took her higher and higher still.

Sensation after indescribable sensation swamped and buffeted her. She swore she was soaring in motionless flight, flying past the stars to grasp that one spectacular feeling she had discovered only when she was one with this raven-haired warrior she had married.

Her breath lodged in her throat when infinitesimal pleasure exploded around her. She dug her nails into his forearms and held on for dear life as she spiraled out of control. Her body sizzled like a meteor blazing across the heavens to its own fiery destruction as rapture consumed her.

“Damn you, sunshine,” she heard Crow growl against the side of her neck. His muscular body shuddered and vibrated against her while he held her as tightly as she clung to him.

“Damn you, too, Crow,” she whispered back and then she smiled in satisfaction as ecstasy streamed through her.

Impulsively, she pressed a feathery kiss to his shoulder, his high cheekbone. Then she ran her hand down his spine to map his muscular hip. A few moments later, he eased down beside her. Ten minutes later, the sound of his methodic breathing assured her that he had dozed off.

Natalie knew she had a small window of opportunity to escape before Crow woke up. That was all the head start she would need.