Devil's Dare. Laurie Grant

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