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He thanked Joe for the sarsaparilla and took a long drink. “Most of them fine. What’s with Nick? He have a problem with everybody or just me?”
“Oh, Nick. Yes, well, I figured he’d really resent your being here. He thinks everything is just fine the way it is. He seems to live this life twenty-four hours a day. Has nothing else going for him since his wife died some years back, they tell me. Sometimes I watch him. He takes this much too much to heart, but if it’s all a man has, who am I to judge? He’s been very nice to me since I arrived. He was more than willing to show me around when Buck couldn’t be bothered.” She dunked a cookie in her tea and took a bite. Smiling coldly, she added, “Besides, he hates it when a new man…a handsome one, comes on the set and turns the ladies’ heads.”
“I turn heads?”
She laughed and dabbed her lips with a napkin. “Don’t pretend you don’t realize you cut quite a figure in that getup. Even the married ones are making eyes at you.”
He shrugged as he raised the glass to his lips, remembering another woman who had once “made eyes at him.”
Victoria followed the glass to his lips with her gaze. “Most men like that.”
“It is good,” he teased, pretending to examine the dark liquid in the bottom of the tumbler.
“That women like to admire them.” She knew he was playing mental gymnastics with her, but then, he had no way of knowing she knew how to play that game as well as he did. She may have been a smothered Virginia lady, one protected and pampered, but she had worked with veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars…listened to them, cared about them and for them. They were a wily bunch. Stuffed full of emotions and careful who they shared them with.
They were witty, capable, and sharp. She had learned to parry and banter.
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“Are you divorced?” she asked, thinking that might be the reason for his indifference to his appeal.
His eyes snapped back to hers. She was blunt, and he wondered before answering her what about him revealed that to her. “Yep.”
“I’m divorced, too, but I haven’t lost interest in the opposite sex as your shrug would indicate.”
So that was it. He seemed not to be concerned with women in general. Well, she wasn’t that far off, he admitted to himself.
“You weren’t married to my wife. But I have nothing against women. At least not at the moment.” He signaled Joe for another drink.
“It just happened and you’re still hurt, right?” she guessed, somehow feeling a little satisfaction along with it.
When Wes chose not to answer her, she merely smiled. She had learned about silence, too, and how to respect it at times. “It’s about time for the stage to roll in and get rightfully robbed again. The boys and I made some changes but you might still find it needs work.”
“That’s what I’m here for.” He was wondering, now, what had possessed him to stop in to talk to her.
Used to asking questions when she wanted to know something, Victoria didn’t hesitate. “Why did you quit the state police?”
His interested gaze fell on her mouth as she slipped a small sugar cookie between her lips. He wished he didn’t keep wondering what it would feel like for him to be there. This lady just wasn’t his type. He didn’t like pushy. “It was a get-nothing-done job.”
Chuckling, she asked him, “How so? Couldn’t you keep up with your quota of traffic tickets?”
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“Don’t like cops, huh? I’ll save us both a very boring conversation. No matter what an officer does…it doesn’t change anything. The perpetrators just come back in different suits with different reasons. I got tired.”
“I wouldn’t think that to be true. You get criminals off the streets, save lives, assist…”
Glad to hear the heavy creak of wheels and the thunder of horses’ hooves, Wes looked out the window. “Here comes the stage. You coming out?” he asked her as he pushed his chair back.
Victoria rose along with him and took the arm he offered her. So being a cop was a sore spot with him for some reason. She sensed he had a number of tender areas. That was fine with her. But still none of this fit.
Why was he here?
She answered it herself. He was here because Buck jumped the gun. Because Buck wanted to be sure she didn’t go out and hire a man who would do a great job and make her look good.
After the announcement cleared the streets to prevent accidents, the stage thundered into town with “Ghost Riders in the Sky” blaring out over the grainy intercom system. The sidewalks were overflowing. Some of the children still had oversized hats and vests on that they had borrowed from some of the reenactors.
They paused in their mock shootouts. Other children were either on their parents’ shoulders, pulled up and propped on their hips, or swinging from the porch posts. From the looks of the smiles of anticipation, the adults were just as fascinated as the kids.
Wes and Victoria took a place on the walk where they could see everything clearly. Before long the stage was surrounded by the five mounted desperados, kerchiefs hiding their faces, guns waggling in the air. Shots were fired. The ringleader ordered the driver and the man riding shotgun to throw down the strongbox. Randy’s horse reared and spun around when the metal container was
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thrown close to his hooves. One of the other men shouted for the passengers, all convincingly frightened, to get out of the coach and empty their valuables into a pouch he held up. It was nearly a carbon copy of the stage holdup Wes had walked in on. He couldn’t see that much improvement.
Wes murmured. “Eye contact. That’s one of their problems. They’re watching the audience from time to time.”
She nodded. They certainly were. “Hams.”
“The horses should be wired up a little more. They need to get them out and work them a while before riding into town. That one looks like he’s about to go back to sleep. Well, that dude just screwed this one up. He put his gun back in his holster before mounting up. I could have shot him and the leader before they knew what happened. All the men should have kept their guns drawn. A real desperado wouldn’t secure his weapon until he was safely out of town.”
He was talking to himself as much as to her. She nodded. He had a good eye.
A good sense of what she wanted here. She could have looked all day and known it wasn’t quite right but not put her finger on what needed correcting.
Secure his weapon? His terminology amused her.
Again, he arched his eyebrow and looked at her. “Well?”
She tilted her head, stubbornly. “I guess I agree with you. Have a problem with that, Cooper?”
This job was going to prove more interesting than he had ever imagined.
“Nope. No problem.”
As the outlaws rode off,
hooting and hollering, the female passenger fainted dead away into the dust. Wes shook his head.
“What?” she asked him, thinking it was a pretty good swoon.
“Women usually lose it during the holdup, not after all the danger has ridden away. And the whole thing took too long. Should be done quicker. They 38
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couldn’t have taken that much time if they were out on the trail. What if someone came up on them? Just because it’s staged in town for convenience doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be authentic. I think the driver should have taken a shot at them. It’s his job to protect his passengers and their possessions.”
Still, the audience was pleased. A couple of the little kids ran off the sidewalk firing pistols she recognized as being purchased in the general store. Good.
“There’s a jailbreak in half an hour, then a little before dark the cattlemen, in from a trail drive, come rodeoing down the road whooping and hollering. They jump down and sweep up some of the women into the saloon for a little rip-roaring dancing,” she told him as they strolled along amicably. “The crowd loves it.”
He nodded as he looked around. Keeping step with him, she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow. That surprised her as much as him.
She didn’t stop to wonder why she did it. She was growing used to doing what pleased her and she liked it. She smiled to herself. Something weird was happening to her. In one instant she resented the hell out of him and in the next she wanted to touch him. Victoria took a deep breath. She’d have to analyze all this later.
“I’m going to join Lola in the saloon show tonight.”
He looked down at her. “From schoolmarm clothes to wild woman garb.
This I’ve got to see.”
Yes, she had thought of that, too, but it all seemed like so much fun, she promised Lola she’d join her in entertaining the crowd tonight. “I can’t join in the singing because I can’t carry a tune, but I
can
carry a tray laden with glasses filled with lemonade. There’s going to be a barroom brawl that needs your attention.”
“What time?” He checked his watch.
“Ummm. Show starts at 8:15,
so I think the fight is at nine o’clock.”
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They crossed the street, dodging and waving to Buck driving his freight wagon loaded down with happy passengers.
“I have to be somewhere at nine but I’ll plan on catching it another night.”
That was about the same time he had disappeared last night. A date? Why should that surprise her, or send her spirits tumbling down a little? She didn’t think of him that way. Removing her hand from his arm, she excused herself.
“See you later.”
All she wanted was to be busy. Wes Cooper was a chauvinist and a bossy one at that. He aggravated her. As she swept up the stairs of the hotel, she marveled that such exasperation could cause such warmth.
The saloon was filled to capacity. Lola and Roxey were dancing to a bouncy tune. Victoria cast them a small wave as she made her way into the crowd. Their costumes weren’t as revealing as they could have been but this was a family show.
She was glad for that because she felt uncomfortable exposing as much bosom as she did. Her fiery red satin skirt bounced over the white crinoline. Her bright red high heels tapped over the wooden floor. Victoria wore a splash of rhinestones at her throat that refracted the light and warm red rubies on her ears.
Spotting Nick at a corner table, his chair tipped back against the wall, Victoria sidled over as she had seen the saloon women do. She dearly loved this play acting. “Cowboy, you look lonely tonight.”
His face brightened. Nick was a handsome man in a dark way. He was just under six feet, had square shoulders, and was narrow at the hip. He wore an unusually long, droopy mustache in keeping with his image. Though his eyes were blue, it was a midnight blue and he always seemed to have shadows 40
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beneath. He righted his chair and offered her the other one. “Sit down, Vic. You sure look perty in that dress.”
Victoria was mildly amused at the ease with which he used Buck’s nickname for her. Yet, there was something about Nick that unsettled her. She chalked that up to the fact that he was a very moody man. She had caught him looking at her when he didn’t think she could see. She had seen him lose his temper with the other men too quickly, and she knew that he preferred the company of the horses he cared for more than that of humans.
She gracefully accepted his compliment and tried to ignore the fact that he couldn’t keep his eyes off her bust-line. He was just playing the part of the lonesome cowboy and doing it well. They sipped their drinks and chatted through another of the girls’ songs. Looking around, Victoria could see that the tourists, more couples than families tonight, were really enjoying the show and the dancing.
Victoria watched the swinging doors for Wes. When she realized what she was doing, she took Nick by the hand and dragged him to the center of the floor.
Smoothly, they danced.
Other couples came to the dance floor and Lola and Roxey joined them, leaving Tom at the piano punching out honky-tonk. Before they knew it, they were all dancing with each other. The female tourists were elated to be in the arms of dashing cowboys, and the men had no qualms about randy-dancing with saloon girls. Breathless and laughing, Victoria whirled from one partner to the other. Her eye caught a glint of light and she looked back.
Just through the swinging double doors, stood Wes. Missing a step and almost tripping, Victoria couldn’t pull her eyes from him. He was dressed in a gray suit jacket over black jeans. His white shirt had three buttons undone. At his waist a huge rodeo belt buckle glinted in the light. His boots reflected the
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lighting with a high polish. He wore no Stetson tonight, and his hair, wavy and thick, fell outlawishly across his forehead.
Nick grabbed her and twirled her around. It was then that she realized the crowd had stopped dancing and formed a circle around them, clapping them on.
Nick loved it. He yanked her to him, roughly, and then spun her away only to pull her tight against him and spin with her. He was good. No doubt about it.
And she smelled whiskey on his breath. There was no doubt about that either.
From outside the circle, Wes watched. Victoria’s cheeks were flushed a rosy red. Long, sleek, black-stockinged legs peeked out when Nick spun her around.
Her hair, shiny and curly, bounced around her head. Wes felt a tightening in his gut and was amazed to find his palms damp. She looked beautiful and wild.
When he’d first pushed through the doors, he’d heard her laughter. Rolling, throaty, and sexy.
When the dance ended, Victoria looked breathlessly toward the doors. He was gone. There was no explaining the letdown she felt. Had she been hoping he would come in and claim her for his partner?
Nick led her by the hand back to the table in the corner.