Devil in Texas(10)

"What?" she demanded.

Wilma cleared her throat. "There have been... complications, chere."

"Complications?" Sadie narrowed her eyes. "What kind of complications?"

Rex and Wilma locked stares.

Fidgeting, Wilma looked away first.

"I got word last night that Cassidy's murder warrant was cancelled," Rex said grimly. "Courtesy of Baron's attorney, who got him a trial and a not-guilty verdict in under three days. My hunch is, Cassidy's working for Baron now. And that means, he'll be accompanying Baron and Mrs. Westerfield to Lampasas. To keep vigilante grangers at bay."

Good God. Cass is Baron's regulator?

Rex was posing as bait for one of Baron's contract hits. But this plan had just taken a frightening turn. Cass was the only gunfighter still at-large in Texas, who could possibly draw faster than the Ranger.

Suddenly, Sadie didn't feel like eating. She lowered her fork to her plate.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the table, broken only by the trilling of a mockingbird. She could feel Rex's frank, assessing gaze on her face like the heat of the Texas sun. He clearly expected her loyalties to be torn, and the knowledge rankled.

Rex was more than her Ranger liaison. From the first night they'd met, four years ago in Dodge, he'd displayed a protective instinct toward her. She'd never understood why, and she'd resisted his friendship with a great deal of asperity at first, even though he'd known her mother.

Considering all her reasons to hate tin-stars, including the sex acts that Dodge City lawmen used to coerce her to perform for her "protection," the fact that she'd allowed Rex into her confidence said volumes about his character. Until she'd met him, she'd never believed she could trust a lawman. Never once during their acquaintance had Rex propositioned her. Sadie had sometimes wondered at her ally's restraint, but eventually, she'd come to accept his courtesies as an indelible trait of a southern gentleman's good breeding.

Squaring her jaw, she forced herself to withstand the lawman's probing stare. "Anything else I should know?"

Rex reached inside the breast pocket of his frockcoat and withdrew what, at first glance, appeared to be an unmarked envelope. When he slid it under her saucer, she spied the embossed insignia of the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad on the flap.

"It's time you left town," he said gruffly. "Started working a new case."

She felt her temperature rise. She was a Pinkerton, by God, not some hare-brained ninny who swooned over studs in spurs!

Apparently, she still had to prove this fact where Cass was concerned. Rex had accused her of not being forthright about the young outlaw. He'd learned that Cass had entered the Satin Siren 20 minutes before it got torched. In Rex's estimation, that made Cass a prime suspect in her attempted murder.

But lots of people had entered the casino a half hour before it burned to the ground, Sadie thought. The Pinkertons had found no evidence to implicate Cass in the arson. In fact, he'd been playing faro (and griping about redheads) in a casino full of witnesses. His alibi was irrefutable.

Secretly relieved by this knowledge, she ignored Rex's train ticket and reached for her coffee cup. "You don't run at the first sign of trouble, and neither do I."

Rex drilled her with his no-nonsense glare. "The minute Cassidy learns you survived that fire, he'll come looking for you. He made a nuisance of himself with the arson investigators, and he spouted off so many times to Galveston Daily News reporters, they developed a keen interest in his allegations—namely, that Karl Dietrich was an insurance swindler. Do I have to remind you, Pinkerton was forced to reassign your colleague?"

And send him to Denver, Sadie thought smugly. Cass did me a favor.

"If Cass is working for Baron," she argued, "he'll be my best entrée into Baron's organization."

"Cassidy can't keep his mouth shut, drunk or sober."

"About what? He doesn't know I'm a Pinkerton."

"He sure as hell knows you're not Chantelle O'Leary!"

Sadie sipped coffee before replacing the cup in her saucer. "Give me some credit, Rex. Danger and death threats come with my badge. Cass knows singers take stage names. If he asks me why I'm so eager to know Baron, I'll tell him I'm looking for a wealthy patron. Cass has no claim on me. I made it clear in Galveston we're through. Now get that train ticket out of my face. I don't report to you."

A muscle ticked in Rex's jaw.

Wilma broke the tension with a chuckle. Reaching across the table, she retrieved the envelope. "I would say I hate to tell you so, mon ami. But then, I'd be lying." She winked at Rex. "I'll take this nuisance off your hands, and consider us even."

"Wait a minute." Sadie shot a withering glare at her old friend. "You two had a wager?"

As discreet as Wilma was, she'd never tried to hide the fact that Cass used to come to her bed in Dodge, during the days when he'd been green enough to learn something. Wilma had originated his Rebel Rutter legend. Her joke had spread like wildfire, mostly because Cass enjoyed living up to his fame.

"Did you bet against me or Cass?" Sadie demanded in wounded tones.

"My bet was against Baron."

Grinning like the Cheshire cat, Wilma slipped the ticket into her bodice. "Now then. Let us discuss more important matters, like a new paste for your chestnut sideburns. And the code name you will use, when you communicate with Rex..."

* * *

One Week Later

Lampasas, TX

"Well, if it isn't the sweetest little rosebud—"

"Shut-up."

Cass smirked. Hidden by silver sage bushes on the alley side of the swanky Globe Hotel, he craned back his head to watch Collie in a third story window. The kid's ludicrous widow weeds and four-foot mourning veil made him look like a grandma-lumberjack. He was pushing Sterne's darkened casement higher to lower a rope.

"Did you remember to shave?" Cass demanded, sotto voce. "'Cause when we make our getaway, folks in the lobby'll think—"

"Still yakking."

Cass snickered. After riding for a year with the Prince of Lock Picks, Cass was used to Collie's moods, but the boy was more surly than usual, thanks to his pet. Vandy had stolen a trout from the hotel's horrified, French chef and had broken $200 worth of crystal while fleeing out the window. Until Baron "fixed" matters with the manager, Collie was forbidden on the property. He'd been forced to concoct a disguise.

"What did you stuff inside your corset? Watermelons?"

"You gonna climb?" Collie countered in murderous tones.

"Well, I don't know. You gonna make it worth my while, sweetheart?"

"How 'bout I give you a shiner?"

Cass chuckled.

The rope finally swished within reach. He planted his boots on the limestone. To any insomniac, who happened to be peering through his shutters, Cass suspected his all-black attire would make him look like an enormous spider, crawling up the moon-splashed stone. To be caught in the night's cosmic spotlight would have strained the nerves of any self-respecting footpad.

But not Cass. Not anymore.

After Sadie had died, he'd started taking wilder, ever crazier risks. Cheating the devil, that had become Cass's way of coping with guilt. Tonight, he was actually hoping to run into Rexford Sterne. Ever since that pretentious, Scotch-drinking prick had stolen Sadie from his arms four years ago in Dodge, Cass had wanted revenge.

Now Baron had reason to believe Sterne's sudden retirement from the Ranger Force had been a cover up for misappropriation of funds. Everybody knew that Sterne, who'd grown up on a cotton plantation, had a soft spot for sodbusters. Since Ranger pay was notoriously poor, Baron suspected Sterne had been siphoning taxpayer money until he could get sufficient backing from the Farmers Alliance to fund his election campaign.