Outlaw in Paradise

  He chuckled again, stripping off his pants and shrugging out of his shirt. Infuriated, she was really going to slug him this time—but somehow he got hold of her wrists and pressed her down to the mattress on her back. "Cady, would you please stop worrying? Nothing's going to happen to me." She dodged his lips, appalled when the tears started again. "Honey, I'm a much better shot than you think I am."

  "Oh, right, you're—"

  "I am. I had a hangover—you saw me at my worst today. I'm telling you, I'm fast. I'm greased lightning. Gault doesn't stand a chance."

  He looked so confident, so cocky, she felt herself wavering, actually coming close to believing him. "But..." She shook her head, trying to clear it. "You're not an outlaw, you're not a gunfighter. Lord, Jess, you couldn't hit a window in a greenhouse."

  "Wrong." He shook his head right back at her. "You ought to have more faith in me. I'm disappointed in you, Cady."

  She started to sputter; he started to bite her ear-lobe. She squirmed, ready to wrestle in earnest, but he covered her with his naked body and, just as before, the finer points of the argument started to blur. Oh, how could she lose him? She held him tight, tight, lost in the long, strong feel of him, even though she had to keep swallowing down the lump in her throat. They rolled; she landed on top and wrapped him up in her arms and legs. "It was you, wasn't it?" She couldn't stop kissing him, couldn't keep her mouth off his skin.

  "What was me?" He had his hands in her hair, squeezing it, combing it through his fingers. He loved her hair, he told her all the time, and she loved it that he did.

  "You gave the Digbys all that money. Sara saw you."

  "That woman needs glasses."

  "No, it was you. The Sullivans—you gave them money, too."

  "You're losing it, McGill. Been hitting the bottle?"

  Now she did cry. "Oh, God, Jess, how I love you."

  He rolled again, coming on top and parting her legs with his. She guided him with her hand, arching up, urgent, eager to take him. And when she had him she sighed, a deep, satisfied sound. But there was sadness, too. "Don't leave me, Jess."

  "Never."

  "I'm not letting you go."

  "You couldn't get rid of me."

  So softly, he followed the tear trails on her face with his lips, trying to kiss them away. But it was too much, too sweet—he only made her cry harder. So he began to move inside her, to make her forget, make her lose her mind. "Not letting you go," she whispered again, just before sensation blotted out every thought in her mind. Him and her, sex and love, everything came together and it was all mixed, all one. She took him deep and he took her up, up— too high, too fast, how could she bear this? A long, intense lifetime passed, and then she burst. She flew apart, pieces everywhere, she'd never get herself back together. Anyway, there wasn't time—Jesse's hands, Jesse's mouth, Jesse's body inside her body— it all started over again, and this time she let go without a fight. Just let go, gave in and came so gently, so completely. And held him close while he gave her all of himself. A perfect exchange.

  He rolled to his side, not letting her go, and lay like a dead man, motionless except to press his lips to her forehead every few minutes. She had a little more energy; she fluttered her fingers along his backbone, and sometimes she stroked him in that ticklish spot right above his buttocks. His whole body quivered when she did that, which just egged her on. "Quit it," he ordered, and she snickered into his neck, where she had her face pressed. He kissed her again, smiling. Trying to think back to a time when he'd ever felt this happy. Age seven, when his father gave him his first horse; that came the closest. But it was still second. This was it. This. Was it.

  "Say it again, Cady."

  "What."

  "You know. That thing you never said before until tonight."

  "Oh, that." She pretended to yawn. "I already said it two times. You only said it once."

  He laughed, even though he wasn't quite ready to make jokes. That could come later. "I'll say it so often, you'll get sick of hearing me."

  "Impossible." She sat up. The fierceness in her face took him by surprise. "Impossible. I've never felt this way before, never knew I could. Everything's changed. It's you—you're my life, you've become my life."

  "Cady." It felt like she'd punched him in the heart. "I'm the same, exactly the same. I always thought this happened to other people."

  "Yeah."

  "I'm crazy in love with you, and it's for good."

  "Oh, Jess, but if you meet him tomorrow—"

  "Hush." He pulled her close and held her. "It'll be all right, you just have to believe me. You think I'd let anything happen to us? Do anything to spoil this? Listen. Let me tell you how it's gonna be." He tucked her up against his body and drew the sheet over her, so she wouldn't get cold. "First thing we do is get married."

  She squirmed closer. "In church?"

  "Where do you think, in the saloon?" They laughed, but then they both said, "Hmm," in thoughtful tones. Then they laughed again. "Well, wherever we do it, it's going to be a big, happy wedding with all our friends."

  "And Ardelle Sheets can't come. Livvie Dunne, either."

  "Right. No nasty women allowed. Then we go on a honeymoon. Where do you want to go?"

  She burrowed in deeper, muffling a real yawn against her hand. "San Francisco?"

  "Okay."

  "Or Eugene, maybe?"

  "Great. Or Portland."

  "Lovely."

  He smiled into her hair. She didn't care any more than he did where they went. "Or Dubuque."

  "Wonderful." She exhaled a drowsy laugh. "So then what?"

  "So then we buy that farm you like so much. Le Coeur au Coquin. However you say it."

  She went very still. All she did was open her eyes; he knew, because he could feel the tickle of her lashes on his skin. "Oh, Jesse," she breathed, and he knew he'd said exactly the right thing. "Could you really live there?"

  "Sure I could. I'd love to live there. We'll fix the old house up and make it shine. And every night we'll sit out on our big front porch and listen to the river. Tell each other how the day went."

  "In two rocking chairs, side by side."

  "Yeah."

  She sighed with happiness. "Just one question. What do we use for money to buy it?"

  "What do you think? Some of that gold Wylie's been stealing from the Seven Dollar."

  "Oh, mercy, I forgot all about it! I didn't even tell Tommy yet."

  "That's okay, plenty of time to deal with Wylie. Where were we? Oh, yeah, sitting in our rocking chairs. So what are we drinking?"

  "I'm drinking lemonade."

  "I'm sipping a mint julep."

  "I forgot, you're from Kentucky. What are we doing for a living? If I may ask."

  "You raise pears. I raise horses."

  She heaved another deep, contented sigh. "I want apples and peaches, too."

  "Good. I can't stand pears."

  She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it. "I do love you, Jess. So much."

  "I love you, too."

  "Say you won't leave me."

  "I swear I won't."

  "You really swear?"

  "On my honor."

  She fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, her hand lying, open and trusting, on his stomach. Jesse watched the slight smile on her lips soften and fade as she fell deeper and deeper asleep.

  Outside, a warm, drizzly rain made the gutters gurgle. Apart from that and the gentle sigh of Cady's breathing, the only sound was the low whistle of an owl somewhere close by. Through the open window, the odor of damp earth and soggy leaves floated in, heavy and warm, pleasantly dank. Jesse rubbed his face and pinched his nose, trying to banish a seductive urge to close his eyes and drift off with Cady. It was hard to concentrate on trouble, not now when the world had never looked sweeter or the future more hopeful. Still, he had to come up with a plan. Across the room, the clock struck twelve-thirty. Time was running out.

  What was Gault doing right no
w? Sleeping? Doubtful; he'd always been a night owl. Ten a.m. for a shoot-out must seem ungodly to him. And how the hell had he found Jesse in Paradise? Maybe those stories in the Reverberator hadn't been such a hot idea after all. Still, he could've sworn nothing would budge Gault from the cushy life he'd taken to so naturally in Oakland. The last time they'd seen each other, he was living high on the hog in a suite at the Paramount Hotel, smoking cigars and drinking five-dollar whiskey, playing poker and romancing women, getting the most out of his retirement from the gunfighter life. He had his right arm in a sling, and he'd told the whole world his hand was shot up so bad he'd never draw again. In secret, he'd paid Jesse the agreed-upon two hundred dollars for "wounding" him, and thrown in his pearl-handled six-shooters as an afterthought. "Reckon I won't be needing these anymore." Liar. Indian giver.

  Hard to tell if he was really mad or not. Most of the time Gault's face just naturally had that make a wrong move and I'll set you on fire look. Which was undoubtedly what had started him, all those years ago, on a life of crime. An exaggerated life—in fifteen years, he'd only killed three men, he swore, and Jesse believed him. But his inflated reputation always preceded him. In the end he'd had to fake his own incapacitation, or sooner or later some punk would surely have killed him.

  "Yeah, yeah, I'm getting up," Jesse muttered to Boo, Cady's worthless cat, who had jumped up on the bed and was staring sullenly, kneading Jesse's leg through the sheet with his claws. Damn, but he didn't want to get up. He wanted to make love again and then fall asleep in Cady's arms, and not wake up till noon. He wanted them to start living the rest of their lives together.

  He kissed the top of her head. She stirred, turned over, squirmed her bare butt against his hip. He suffered the predictable sexual reaction, and glanced around the room for a distraction. The tasseled lamp shade had a seaside vista handpainted in pastels: VISIT BEAUTIFUL COOS BAY, small print suggested at the bottom. Cady's mail-order spectacles lay on top of an open book. He couldn't read the title, only the last few lines on the near page: "What raft, Jim?" "Our ole raf'." "You mean to say our old raft warn't smashed all to flinders?" Some book about boats, he supposed. She'd nailed a picture to the wall on his side of the bed, and he'd fallen asleep many a night gazing at it. "Anybody you know?" he'd asked her once. It was a watercolor painting, or rather a reproduction of one, of a man and a woman sitting opposite each other at a table in a garden. She was writing a letter; he was watching her over his newspaper, smiling slightly. Affectionately. A red brick, ivy-covered cottage looked cozy in the background. Everything was pretty and soft, idealized. Sentimental. "No, I just like it," Cady had answered. Jesse liked it, too. "Home," he whispered to Boo, who flicked an eyelid at him. "Play your cards right and we might take you with us."

  The clock chimed again. Twelve forty-five. Jesse put his lips on Cady's shoulder and kissed her softly, listening to her sigh in her sleep. Easing out of bed, he found his clothes on the floor and dressed in silence. The light from the tassel lamp didn't reach across the room to her bureau. In shadowy dimness, he silently pulled open the bottom drawer, and riffled through silk stockings and lingerie until he found Cady's nest egg. In a little velvet pouch, as soft and pretty as she was.

  ****

  He was right: Gault hadn't gone to bed yet. Lucky his room at the Dobb House was on the first floor, and even luckier it was in back—nobody saw Jesse tossing pebbles from the alley at the lighted window.

  "What the hell?" Gault threw up the sash and leaned out, wearing only his pants and his eyepatch. "Who's out there?"

  "Shh. Who do you think?"

  He commenced to curse—softly, so Jesse just stood and waited.

  "You finished?"

  "You owe me money, you lying, cheating, double-faced thief."

  "There's a mouthful. How do you figure?"

  "Who said you could be me? That was never part of the deal."

  "It wasn't my idea. It was an accident. Besides," he pointed out, "it wasn't not part of the deal." Before Gault could start up again, he said, "Put your shirt on and come out. We have to talk."

  "Damn right we have to talk. You come up here."

  "No, too risky. Somebody might see us together. You know where the sheriff's office is?"

  "Yeah, I passed it. Why?"

  "Meet me there in about ten minutes."

  "What?"

  "Shh. Ten minutes." He touched his hat and set off down the alley, heading for Doc Mobius's house..

  ****

  Cady wasn't sure what woke her, the sun in her face or the purring in her ear. Either way, when she opened her eyes and focused on the clock across the way, it said nine thirty-five.

  Nine thirty-five. The significance didn't register for a whole minute, while she remembered waking up in the middle of the night just as Jesse crawled into bed beside her. He was naked, but he smelled of the outdoors and his hair was damp. "Have you been out?" she mumbled sleepily, stroking his back to warm him. "Went for a walk," he answered. That brought her wide awake. "Jesse, you're not thinking of—" But that was as far as she got. He kissed her into a hot, sharp arousal, and made love to her until she lay too exhausted to move. She'd drifted to sleep listening to the slow, drowsy sound of his voice, telling her again how happy they were going to be.

  Nine thirty-six. And she was alone, Jesse wasn't beside her. She shot up in bed, scaring the life out of the cat. "Sorry," she muttered, throwing the covers off and joining Boo on the floor. He shook himself resentfully while she barged over to the wardrobe and yanked it open. Pulling out the first three things she saw—an old corduroy skirt and vest, a yellow blouse—she started dragging clothes on with clumsy, fumbling fingers, missing buttons in her haste and having to start over. Her hair was such a tangled mess, she wasted precious minutes getting it up on her head and in some kind of order. Calm down, she commanded, but to no avail. Jesse was gone, and he should've been here. Where was he? She had more than a hunch; she had a deep, dark certainty, and it was scaring the life out of her.

  In the saloon, Levi was rubbing beeswax into the bar, his pride and joy; since the tire fire, he took more pains with it than ever. "You're up early," he greeted her, looking up from the shiny, fragrant surface and smiling at her.

  "You, too." Neither of them wandered in to work much before eleven on weekends.

  "Ham woke me up early. That boy, he got the loudest—"

  "Levi, have you seen Jesse?"

  He stopped polishing. His face turned even gentler. "No, I ain't," he said softly. Sympathetically.

  She tensed. If Levi thought she needed sympathy—

  "Hey, Cady. Hey, Levi. What're y'all doing here so early?" They could've asked Glen the same thing; she rarely showed up before lunchtime, no matter how many times Cady scolded her for tardiness. "I couldn't sleep," she confided, plopping down at Chico's piano and picking out the first five notes of "Beautiful Dreamer." She looked as if she hadn't slept: she had circles under her eyes and a pinched look around her full-lipped mouth. Nerves. About time, Cady thought, without much sympathy. Glen had treated Tommy Leaver like dirt for years. If she was worried about him now, it served her right.

  But Cady's own anxiety intensified. If even sweet but dim Glendoline thought danger to her man was imminent on the streets of Paradise, something terrible must be about to happen.

  "Have you seen Jesse?" she snapped out, interrupting the one-fingered piano recital.

  Glen looked up sharply. She didn't answer, just shook her head, china-blue eyes wide with apprehension.

  Maybe he'd left town. She hoped he had. Feared he had. But—without even saying good-bye?

  Restless, she wandered to the swinging doors. Directly across the street, a knot of men loitered, slouching, spitting; she recognized Stony and a couple of the others. Pushing through the doors, she came out onto the sidewalk. It was a hot, bright blue morning; not a trace of last night's misty drizzle lingered, not even a puddle. She saw other groups of men and even a few women scattered in nervous thr
ees and fours down the length of Main Street. Across the way, in front of the leather and shoe repair, Gunther Dewhurt detached himself from his friends and crossed the street to meet her.

  "Morning."

  "Gunther."

  "So, Cady. You reckon they're really gonna fight?"

  "No," she said reflexively. "They won't fight."

  "How do you know? Jesse say he wouldn't fight?"

  She didn't answer.

  "Who do you think he is, Cady?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, it's looking like he ain't Gault. That other fella, we think he's the real Gault."

  "Oh, what the hell difference does it make?" Frustration made her snap at him, too. She was back to wringing her hands. She saw now what she couldn't see last night, that Jesse was in a winless situation. If he fought Gault, he'd get himself killed. If he didn't, they'd call him a coward the rest of his life. And a fraud.

  Where was he?

  There! Coming out of Jacques', rolling his deer bone toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. His face, abstracted before, lit up when he saw her. He stepped off the curb and sauntered toward her, smiling. "Morning, Gunther," he said cheerfully, but all his attention was on Cady.

  "Hey, Jesse," said Gunther, eager eyes searching, ears pricked.

  Cady moved back, away from Gunther and all the other rapt, covert starers on the street. With his back to them, Jesse grinned at her and stole a kiss on the lips. "Morning, sunshine," he murmured intimately, and she melted. Everything about last night came rushing back, the tenderness, the honesty between them. She rested her hands on his chest. "Jess," she whispered, "what are you going to do? I thought you'd be gone by now. Wouldn't it be better to leave town? Just for a while?"

  "Leave town?"

  "Just for a few days. Gault won't stick around for long."

  "Sweetheart." He put his arm around her—for a hug, she thought, but instead he led her back into the saloon. "Cady, honey, I want you to stay in here. Don't come out till it's over." He looked up at the clock over the bar, and she automatically glanced at it, too. Eight minutes to ten.