"Is it Hawkeye Jenkins?" one eager adolescent called from the crowd. "The mean-eyed, ornery varmint who robbed the bank in Belton?"
"No, son. We've got our sights set on another varmint. One who's more of a kitchen thief."
A kitchen thief?
Suspicion flurried through Sadie's mind. She noticed the ever-faithful Vandy wasn't trotting at his boy's heels.
Damn.
Ducking her head inside the train, she hurried back to her stateroom and closed the door. Surely Vandy hadn't stowed away in her portmanteau. She hadn't packed anything remotely tasty!
Except maybe lip paint.
Groaning to envision red, oily stains all over her white unmentionables, she knelt, digging the trunk's key from her overalls' pocket and wrestling with the lock.
It wouldn't open.
Now she was beginning to see the dilemma. Gator had grabbed the wrong portmanteau.
A sleepy snuffling reached her ears. It was followed by muffled scratching.
"Yes, yes, I brought my widdy," she grumbled, tugging the lock pick from a secret pocket beneath her shoulder strap. "You should be more careful. You could have gone to Hatsville. That's right. Suffocated! And who would Collie have blamed? Me! That's who."
Vandy whined to hear his boy's name.
Poor little coon.
At last, the locking mechanism clicked, and the lid popped open. Fifty pounds of wriggling varmint leaped into her arms.
Ugh. Sadie turned her face away from Vandy's eager, slurping tongue. Not so little after all.
"Don't you dare chew my beard, you tubby menace!"
Suddenly, the door crashed open. Cass loomed on the threshold, one great scowling mass of mischief.
"Hands up!"
"Oh, you're a real crack-up, wise-guy."
Her arms were completely encumbered by Vandy, who was now trying to eat her hat brim.
"That's Ranger Wise-Guy to you," Cass retorted, holstering his gun. "Deputy!"
Collie's scowling face bobbed behind Cass's shoulder. "Yeah, yeah. Put a sock in it."
He pushed his way into the room. Vandy squirmed with excitement, reaching a paw for his boy. Suddenly, the flinty gray of Collie's eyes warmed, and a dimpled grin softened the harsh angles of his jaw.
"Dang coon," he said gruffly, stooping to lift Vandy out of Sadie's lap. "Didn't I warn you about lids with locks? And strawberry smells that ain't nothing but perfume?"
Like a toddler, the coon clasped his paws around Collie's neck and whuffed with affection.
Sadie's heart turned over. She sneaked a peek at Cass. The deep blue of his eyes danced like sunshine on water. He was fighting a lopsided grin.
Collie shot them both dagger glares.
Cass cleared his throat, looking official and grave once more. "Lock up the bandit, deputy. I don't want to be hearing any more tales of gingerbread theft. Not for a coon's age!"
Some eavesdropper snickered. A few others guffawed.
Turning beet-red, Collie tugged his hat lower and stalked into the corridor, where he was greeted by whoops, whistles and lively applause. Children wanted to pet his coon. Old-timers thumped him on the shoulder. Even Collie couldn't keep a straight face under that onslaught of adulation.
Sadie suspected Cass had just turned the Kentucky-born thief into a life-long Ranger.
Bracing his weight against the jamb, Cass stuck his head out the door. "Conductor! Find me a stateroom for those trunks I brought along. Then tell the rapper to rattle her hocks! We're burning daylight!"
Sadie arched an eyebrow. Since when had Cass learned to speak railroad slang?
"Yessir, Ranger Cassidy, sir!"
Cass preened.
But the moment he slammed the door and turned to confront her, he wiped the barn-sized grin off his face. "As for you, hotfoot, you're under arrest!"
"Is that a fact?" Pleased that he'd dragged her portmanteau all the way from Wilma's house, Sadie decided to play along. "And what, pray tell, is the charge?"
"Disturbing my piece!"
"Uh... did you just say what I think you said?"
"Damned straight." Merriment lurked in his gaze. "Legs spread, hands over your head. Prepare for a strip search."
"Dog." Her lips twitched. "I think this Ranger business has gone to your head."
"Ranger Cassidy does have a nice ring to it."
"Yes." Wistfulness crept into her tone. "Yes, it does. But I should probably warn you, Rangers don't have deputies."
"Collie will be wearing his own badge soon enough." He cocked his head. Nothing got past those coyote instincts of his. "You have a problem with that?"
"Not me. But a couple of tribal reservations might object after we cross the Oklahoma border."
"Not to worry. My best friend—er, I mean, my other best friend—is a Cherokee."
The long-awaited toots came from the train whistle. Steam hissed. Wheels whined. Sadie braced herself as the sleeper car jolted. The long string of Pullmans began inching their way north like a monstrous black caterpillar.
"Uh... Cass?"
"Yeah, sweets?"
"The train's leaving."
"I can see that."
Donkey butt.
"Don't you have somewhere else to be?"
"Now you're talking." He dragged down her bed, flipped back the blankets, and bounced on the mattress to test the springs. "Not bad. 'Course, anything would beat a bedroll with a tree root jabbing your back." With a wink, he sailed his Stetson onto a hook by the door.
She hid her smile. Always the showboater.
"Come over here, detective."
"I like where I am, thank you."
"Aw. Do beards make you shy?"
She snorted. "Apparently, we're not communicating."
"I noticed that too." Shrugging out of his vest, he tossed it on a chair.
"What I meant," she said dryly, "is that you should be on your way to Ranger Headquarters. To get your next assignment."
"You are my next assignment." He started unbuttoning his shirt cuffs. "Sterne said he'd have my neck in a noose if I let you disappear like that other Pinkie did."
Sadie hiked an eyebrow. "You talked with Rex?"
"In a matter of speaking. You know, that telegraph under Wilma's Voodoo altar sure comes in handy. She wired Sterne, and the station master, and burned some herbs against evil spirits too."
Sadie suspected Wilma would never live down that incident.
"Cass," she said more sternly. "Ranger jurisdiction is limited to Texas. Didn't you rob a stage coach in Denver?"
He removed the .38 from his forearm. "As I recollect, I robbed three."
"Three?!"
"Those were the glory days, eh?" He tossed a stiletto and a Bowie knife onto his growing arsenal.
"You have a bounty on your head! You can't disembark in Denver!"
"Sure I can. The police chief runs the racquets. Besides. I stole the silver for him." With a cheeky grin, he popped off a boot.
She wanted to box his ears.
"Not to rain on your parade, hotshot, but I have news for you. My chief isn't so lax about the law. And since I'm supposed to be meeting with him in four days, I suggest we part ways in Fort Worth."
"Naw. Hell's Half Acre would seem a tad too tame after Dodge." He popped off the other boot. "'Sides. I've got a hankering to meet your chief. I'd like to ask the all-mighty Allan Pinkerton why he sends womenfolk to war."
Uh-oh. Sadie was pretty sure she'd blanched. "Please tell me you're not going to shoot my boss."
"Okay." He indulged her with a fallen angel's smile. "I'm not going to shoot your boss."
She groaned. She was definitely going to have to ditch Cass before they reached Denver.