Blaze! Spanish Gold (Blaze! Western Series Book 18) Read online

  It took Emma several minutes to regain her emotions. J.D. and the Sheriff looked at paintings, carpet and ceiling patterns with a fascination neither had ever felt before. Mrs. Teller busied herself in the kitchen brewing coffee and tea. Kate simply kneeled next to the girl and cooed in her ear.

  When Emma had settled herself, she said, “Deputy Haskins told me they’re going to kill my husband.”

  Sheriff Gentry said, “Who’s going to kill your husband?”

  “I—” Emma stopped. She looked at Kate.

  “Do you know who is going to kill Stephen?” Kate said.

  The girl’s head trembled. Her eyes wide with tension. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it without any words.

  Kate said, “You can tell us. We’re your friends, Emma.”

  Emma looked from Kate to Sheriff Gentry.

  “Sheriff Gentry?” J.D. said.

  The girl nodded.

  CHAPTER 12

  J.D. made a quick move toward Gentry. His heavy steps shook the floor. “You got something that needs saying?”

  The lawman raised his hands with their palms out. He stepped backwards until the wall halted his progress. “Whatever you’re thinking, J.D., you’re dead wrong. I’m as new in this town as Mrs. Wiley. I’d been looking for an excuse to fire Haskins since I arrived. You shooting him did me a favor.”

  “You have anything to do with what happened to Emma?” J.D. was so close to Gentry his spittle splashed against the other man’s face. “You planning to kill her husband?”

  Gentry dropped his right hand to the knife attached at his belt.

  J.D. held his ground and bent his knees. His feet spread wide as he prepared for a fight.

  “Hold up, Gentry.” Kate eased the Colt from its leather. “You take that knife out and I’ll shoot you dead.”

  The lawman studied Kate with hard eyes, his mouth a narrow slash, before pulling his hand away from the blade. “Okay, but I want to talk. So call off your husband.”

  “You heard him, J.D. Back off.”

  J.D. went perfectly still for several seconds. The room’s temperature seemed to rise as he studied the lawman.

  “J.D.?”

  The gunslinger glanced at Kate, red-hot anger stained his eyes. After what seemed like minutes Kate saw the tension leave his body and he backed away.

  J.D. said, “Let’s talk.”

  The lawman looked from J.D. to Kate. “I’m not sure what just happened.”

  “Good, let’s talk,” Kate said to J.D. She turned to Gentry, “Are you part of the gang that’s planning to kill Stephen Wiley?”

  Gentry grimaced. He shook his head. “That’s crazy. I’d never heard of the Wileys—Emma or Stephen—before tonight.”

  “Bullshit,” J.D. said. “Why’d Haskins call for you when I had him cornered?”

  “J.D.,” Kate said. “Why don’t you go see if Mrs. Teller needs help in the kitchen?”

  J.D. jerked his head towards Kate. “What?”

  Kate motioned for J.D. to leave the room.

  The big man glared at Gentry, then looked back at Kate. “Kill him if he moves.”

  No one spoke until J.D. disappeared around the corner.

  Kate, her eyes never leaving Gentry, said to Emma, “Is that what you meant? That Gentry is part of the plan to murder your husband?”

  The girl gagged on the words. “Yes. No. I—”

  “I have nothing to do with this,” Gentry said.

  “Shut up.” Kate’s voice strong, then to Emma, “You don’t know?”

  The girl nodded. Her face taut with tension.

  “Okay. We’re still friends. All of us. You could have let them tear J.D. apart in that alley, Sheriff, but you didn’t. That tells me something about you. Something good. Why don’t you sit down and we can talk?” Kate holstered the Colt and watched as Gentry found the flower-patterned corner chair again.

  Kate turned to Emma. “Did Deputy Haskins tell you he was going to kill your husband?”

  The girl whispered, “No.”

  “Why do you think he intended to kill your husband?”

  “He— The things he said.” Emma paused and looked at Kate with steady eyes. “He was excited about telling Stephen what he was doing to me.”

  “Raping you?”

  “Yes. I’m sure he planned to kill me.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “He whispered something about our farm. That’s where Stephen is now. He’s building a house for us to live in.”

  “What did Haskins say about it?” Kate’s voice as mild as she could make it.

  “He said, ‘when it was done’ and how much Stephen would enjoy listening to what he was doing to me, how I’d scream.”

  “When what was done?”

  The girl looked at Kate in confusion. Her blue eyes the color of Colorado sky. “The farm. He said, ‘when we’re done with the farm.’”

  Kate pushed down her pulsing anger. She turned to Gentry. “You said you where new in town, Sheriff?”

  A curt nod. “I’ve been here six weeks.”

  “My feeling is you’re not a small-town lawman?”

  “I worked as a detective in Denver for fifteen years.”

  “The fellow back at your office. Where’s he from?”

  “Same place. His name’s Harry Minor. We’ve worked together for years and I coaxed him to come along.”

  “Back at the jail, you mentioned something to me, Sheriff.” J.D.’s voice startled Kate, but its tone gave her comfort that he had calmed himself. “You said something is wrong in Unity. What did you mean?”

  The lawman leaned back in his chair. A mirthless grin on his face. “Something’s not right. Everyone’s scared and not many townspeople will talk to Harry or me.”

  Kate said, “Who hired you?”

  “The Merchant’s Committee. They pay both me and Harry. Haskins and Frank, too.”

  J.D. said, “What did they say about the town when you were hired?”

  “They had a few concerns.” Gentry moved forward in the chair, his hands went still. “A syndicate moved into town a year ago. They opened a whorehouse called the Wanderlust and a few hoodlums began extorting the merchants with threats to their businesses and families.”

  “They hired you to stop the shakedowns?”

  Gentry nodded. “That and the prior sheriff went missing. He went for a ride one afternoon and never came back. The funny thing, not too long after the sheriff disappeared the shakedowns stopped.”

  Kate said, “They stopped? Do you think the prior sheriff had something to do with the extortion racket?”

  “No idea why it stopped, but I think Sheriff Jones got a line on something and he was killed for it.”

  J.D. said, “What makes you think that?”

  “Nothing other than intuition, I’m afraid. But something odd is going on. A week or two after I came to town Mervin Jenkins. He runs the assay shop in town, told me Sullivan and Timmons”—he turned to J.D.—“you met Sully earlier tonight at the jail.”

  J.D. said, “I remember.”

  The lawman looked back to Kate and said, “Those two brought in a gold coin. An inch around. It was stamped and weighted already, but they asked him to assay it for gold content.”

  “What did he find?” Kate said.

  “Ninety percent.”

  Kate looked at J.D. with raised eyebrows.

  J.D. said, “Where do you think it came from?”

  “No idea, other than I’d bet a year’s pay it was stolen.”

  “These men—”

  J.D. interrupted Kate, “Sullivan and Timmons—”

  Kate scowled, which silenced him in a hurry. “They were part of the extortion racket?”

  Gentry nodded and cleared his throat. “They were the racket if what I hear is true.”

  “You think the shakedowns stopped because those crooks found greener pastures?” J.D. said.

  “That’s my guess.” The lawman looked at Kate hard, his pal
e eyes shimmered in the lamplight. “They killed Sheriff Jones, too. Sully all but admitted it earlier tonight at the jail.”

  “One more question,” Kate said, “why didn’t you like Haskins?”

  “A bit off, corrupt maybe. I never saw him do anything untoward, but he had that smell about him. Harry figured he was spying on us.”

  J.D. said, “You think he was in with the syndicate boys?”

  Gentry stood, his hat in his right hand. “Maybe, but I don’t know.” He looked from Kate to J.D. and back again. “I reckon I need to ride out and see if any harm’s befallen Mr. Wiley. You two want to come?”

  “Sure, if it can wait till morning. It’s been a long day and it’s past our bedtime.” J.D. winked at Kate as he said the last word.

  Kate shook her head at J.D.’s presumption. “I am awfully tired.”

  “It’ll be morning before I go,” Gentry said, then to Emma, “You have a map to your property, ma’am?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Good,” Kate said, “I know a guide we can hire.”

  J.D. and Gentry looked at each other, confusion in their eyes.

  * * *

  The room’s darkness suffocated Sully. The air stale. His mouth twitched at the corner, his left foot bounced as he sat on the uncomfortable hard wooden chair across from Guggenheim. The albino’s face a ghost as he leaned against the desk.

  “What did our Emma tell them?”

  Sully fidgeted with a seam on his shirt cuff. He coughed in his hand. Then said, “I don’t know. I couldn’t get close enough to the house because a kid standing out front.”

  “They went back to the hotel?”

  Sully nodded. When Guggenheim kept quiet the second-rate gunman hurried to fill the silence. “They’re leaving no time soon. I waited fifteen minutes. Their room light brightened and stayed that way.”

  Guggenheim’s chair squeaked as he leaned back. “Does Emma know what happened to her father, I wonder?”

  Sully swallowed with a loud wet clack. “Davies?”

  “Who else?” Guggenheim’s voice hard with scorn.

  “I could kill her. The Wiley woman, if you want.”

  “We should assume the Blazes know we killed Davies, and why, which changes things. I think Mrs. Wiley can serve a better purpose now. Something of an insurance policy.”

  Sully said, “What about the Blazes?”

  Guggenheim set his palms flat on the desk separating him and Sully. “As much as I admire Kate Blaze’s beauty I’m afraid she and her husband must die.”

  “What about Gentry?”

  Guggenheim said, “Him too.”

  Sullivan smiled. “I want Gentry for myself.”

  “Your enthusiasm is admirable.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Kate nonchalantly unbuckled her gun belt. She dropped it on the hotel room’s only table with a clatter. A folded newspaper under one leg almost kept it from wobbling, but it rattled against the wall. A smile spread across Kate’s mouth. “I guess I should be more careful, lest I break something or wake up the neighbors.”

  J.D. said, “There are more pleasurable ways to wake up the neighbors.”

  “That’s true.” A wickedness flashed in Kate’s dark eyes. She unfastened her shirt’s top button. She teased the placket between her fingers before going to the next button and the next until the shirt opened wide. She pulled its tails from her tight denims. A pleasant wiggle inspired J.D.’s lust.

  “You old lecher,” Kate said as she dipped first her left shoulder and then her right to escape the shirt’s grasp. It pooled calmly at her feet, but J.D. saw nothing except the miraculous jiggle of breasts held captive by the brassiere. Her pale flesh, the flat stomach widening at the hips.

  J.D. said with wonder, “I’ll never grow tired of you, girl.”

  “Hmmm.” A shadow of tongue moved between her lips. She giggled with a girlish lilt. The downy blonde hair on her arms and shoulders caught the lamplight, causing a misty halo around her flesh that made her appear eternal.

  J.D. felt the familiar heat. He took a tentative step towards his wife, but stopped when her hands went up.

  “Not yet.”

  A coy cast to her jaw, a predatory gleam in her dark coffee eyes. Kate reached behind herself without looking away from J.D. After a few seconds, the brassiere fluttered to the floor, the bounce and sway of her breasts breathtaking as they fell to their natural curve. The pink nipples erect and stunning.

  Kate stood straight with her shoulders back. In a sultry cadence she said, “I want your clothes off.”

  With shaking hands, J.D. fumbled with his shirt’s buttons. When he tore it from his shoulders a button popped from its stitching and rattled across the floor. He unbuckled his belt, unfastened his fly and stepped from his trousers in a single anxious movement.

  “Everything. The hat, too.”

  J.D. felt like a kid with Kate. The flurry of butterflies in his belly, the blood leaving his brain. He tossed his hat across the room and stepped from his underpants like they were on fire.

  “I want to drink you, J.D. Live on your body, devour your soul.”

  J.D.’s breath caught in his throat; he ached with hard desire.

  Kate lowered her hands and whispered, “Don’t move.” She unbuttoned her denim trousers and swiveled her hips to a rhythm only she heard and danced away from their grasp. Her toes curved to the floor and made J.D. think of the mythical. In a single smooth motion, she stepped from her dainty lace panties and left everything in a pile behind. A knowing, cat-like smile on her face, Kate loosened her ponytail, her blonde locks fell shimmering to her shoulders.

  J.D.’s eyes wide with appreciation. Lust’s heat blistered his crotch before rising into his belly as cold anticipation.

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “Hmm,” Kate responded, motioned him to the bed. “On your back.”

  J.D. followed Kate’s instructions. He closed his eyes when she took him into her mouth and moaned with pleasure.

  “I love you, Kate.”

  She replied with a swivel of tongue, a handful of balls, and then drew him deeper into her mouth.

  After a few minutes, J.D. pulled Kate higher. He brought her lips to his and palmed her breasts. He took each nipple between two fingers and alternated from massage to pinch, while circling her areolas with his thumbs.

  Kate pushed J.D. flat against the mattress and wriggled forward until her stomach rubbed against J.D.’s cock. She lifted herself onto him with a moan. A warm wave flooded J.D.’s body and as Kate began moving up and down, her breasts swinging like pendulums across his vision he felt himself loosen and explode with white hot pleasure.

  J.D. pulled Kate against him and kissed her hard on the lips. When she pulled back, J.D. said, “I love you, my sweet Kate.”

  Kate curled into J.D.’s arm crook, her head on his chest, blonde hair splayed in disarray. A few loose strands tickled his nose.

  She smiled warmly. “Happy anniversary, baby.”

  “The best yet,” J.D. said.

  “I should have made you wash up first.” A teasing smile on her face.

  “Water under the bridge.” J.D. rolled away from Kate. He reached for the small bedside table and came back with a flat wooden box. “I have something for you.”

  Kate sat on the bed, her back’s curve, the line of her face made J.D. hard again. Kate smiled knowingly. “First things first, what’s in the box?”

  “Open it.”

  Kate studied the box in the room’s glow. She glanced at J.D. with sparkling eyes. “When did you get this?”

  “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  Kate smiled and carefully opened the box. Inside, a slender gold chain attached to a large diamond that refracted the room’s light into shimmering rainbows. Kate’s smile changed to shock and then excitement.

  Her eyes misted with tears. “It’s beautiful.”

  “I thought you might like it.”

  Kate gave a heartwarming lit
tle laugh. She snuggled up to J.D. and kissed him. Then she pulled the necklace from the box and held it at arms-length before latching it on her neck.

  Her head resting on one hand, an elbow against the bed, Kate said, “How does it look?”

  “A little underwhelming compared to the background.”

  Kate smiled the smile only J.D. ever saw. “This is why you abandoned me in that terrible saloon?”

  J.D.’s stomach lurched. “I’m sorry. I’d meant to bring it with me, but…”

  Kate gave J.D. a severe look before breaking into a smile. She pulled him close. “I love it.”

  J.D. smiled like a fool.

  CHAPTER 14

  The rising sun blistered the sky and bleached the plateau’s semi-arid landscape into a melody of whites, yellows, and washed out reds and browns. The trail dropped into a shallow canyon. A twisting, torn-up dry wash at its center. The trail no more than a few weathered horseshoe prints meandering between greasewood and sage brush and juniper trees.

  After a few hours the canyon’s floor narrowed. The sandstone cliffs began to rise. The dirt turned from white to baked red. With the change in topography J.D. noticed images chipped into the sandstone cliff walls; square-bodied pronghorn, big horn sheep, spiraling eddies of tightening lines. Indian warriors with bows and arrows, gods or chiefs with robes and headdresses. The carved images pale against the varnished sandstone canvas. The narrow canyon a gallery of ancient art, carved by men and women long since gone.

  “What is this place?” Kate said to J.D. with a whispered voice.

  “It’s marvelous.” J.D. pulled up on his horse and whistled at Joshua and Gentry.

  The two, several yards ahead, turned back to join J.D. and Kate.

  Kate dismounted with a swivel and jump. She dropped the reins to hard ground and ran to a rock mural. She called to J.D. over her shoulder, “Come on!”

  J.D., a smile on his face as he watched Kate climb over several small boulders like a young girl, said, “Why would I want to see rock art when I can look at you?”