Angel

Chapter 4

It wasn’t going to work. Cassie had had enough time to consider all the repercussions on the way to town, including the worst, that the Catlins and the MacKauleys would think she intended to fight back. What could a gunman do anyway, except issue threats? And if the threats were ignored, then the shooting would begin. Just what her father needed to come home to — a war.

She should have been firmer with that man. She should have called his bluff and stuck to the “no-thank-you.” She didn’t have the kind of problem that a hired gun was needed for. Well, maybe she did, but that wasn’t the answer — at least, it wasn’t an acceptable answer for her, and she’d have to tell him so as soon as she returned to the ranch.

She wasn’t looking forward to that. She had known he was a gunfighter before she’d heard his name to prove it. But then she’d also known him, or of him. For half her life she’d heard his name, because he came from the same part of the country she did, and he’d been in and around Cheyenne for the past eleven years. But she’d never seen him, even from afar, never met him until today. Because he stayed in Cheyenne between jobs folks around there were quick to brag that Cheyenne was his home. If he had a real home somewhere, no one knew about it.

He wasn’t what she might have imagined the Angel to look like, if she had bothered to try to put a face to the many tales she’d heard of him. He wasn’t that tall, not like the MacKauley men were, at a little over six feet, but you didn’t notice that about Angel unless you were standing right next to him. Of course, Cassie was on the short side herself, so he was still a half foot taller than she was. But height wasn’t what you noticed about Angel.

From a distance you saw a man dressed all in black, except for the yellow mackintosh slicker that framed his sleekly muscled body. You saw the exposed gun on his hip, the silver spurs that flashed in the sunlight, the wide-brimmed hat pulled down low, and the easy way he sat his horse that belied his keen alertness, the quickness he was capable of, the blurring speed Cassie had witnessed firsthand.

But up close, the first thing you noticed was his eyes. You sensed the ruthlessness there, the violence he was capable of. What he was was all in those eyes, black as pitch, soulless, conscienceless, fearless. They were so mesmerizing, it was a while before you saw that he had a starkly masculine face to go with them, a square, clean-shaven jaw, a sharply chiseled nose, and prominent cheekbones. It took even longer to realize his face was ruggedly handsome. Cassie hadn’t realized that fact until she was halfway to town.

But it was a moot point; all that mattered was the kind of man he was, and he wasn’t the kind she wanted anything to do with, for help or any other reason. The plain truth was, he frightened her. There was simply no getting around the fact that he killed people in his line of work, and he was quite good at it.

She could only hope her neighbors wouldn’t find out that the man known as the Angel of Death had paid her a visit. There was the possibility that his notoriety hadn’t reached this far south, but that wouldn’t matter because just the look of him told what he was, if not who, and that was just as bad. So she had to hope no one would learn he’d even been out to the Double C, and to hope he’d be gone before the end of the day.

To that end, she was going to send off another telegram to Lewis Pickens before she left town. She would thank him for his concern— and lie. She’d tell him she no longer had a problem, so his Angel of Mercy wasn’t needed here. Then she’d tell Angel exactly what she’d done and that he no longer had a reason to stick around. He’d go — and she’d be back where she was six weeks ago, only with hardly any time left to figure out what to do about it.

Cassie left the gunsmith’s, where she’d dropped off her gun, her last stop before heading for the stage depot to send her telegram. Today she was forced to carry the rifle that was kept in the boot of the carriage for emergencies. She knew how to use it as well as her Colt, but it was unwieldy, not to mention heavy, to carry around. She should have retrieved her matching six-shooter before leaving the ranch, but she’d left angry and hadn’t even been thinking about it.

Carrying no weapon at all was out of the question, however. Though she hadn’t seen any MacKauleys or Catlins about, nor any of their loyal hired hands, she hadn’t left town yet, and it was rare that she came to town and didn’t run into one or more of them. But it was Rafferty Slater and Sam Hadley who really worried her, the reason she wasn’t going to be found unarmed again.

Those two hadn’t worked for the Catlins all that long, and they�d already gotten into some trouble in town because of their rowdiness. They weren’t the type that Dorothy Catlin usually hired, drifters who never stayed in one place for long, and worked just to have enough money to raise hell on a Saturday night in town. They’d no doubt get themselves fired eventually, but in the meantime they’d taken sides, and Cassie happened to be on the wrong side.

She got nervous just thinking about that day in the livery when they’d cornered her between them, blocking her from escaping, Sam shoving her, Rafferty holding her and touching her in places he had no right to. And there’d been a look in his eyes that said she’d be getting more of the same if he found her alone again. Sam had just been trying to frighten her. Rafferty had enjoyed it.

Nothing like that had ever happened to her before, and it wasn’t going to happen again. If she saw Rafferty Slater in town and he even looked like he was going to approach her, she’d shoot first and ask what he wanted later. That man was not going to get a chance to put his hands on her body again.

The incident even had her leery of using either of the two livery stables anymore. Today she’d left her carriage in front of Caully’s mercantile store, where she’d posted the letter to her mother. She had walked to accomplish the rest of her errands, but as she headed back that way to get to the stage depot, which doubled as the telegraph office, she saw that her carriage was still where she’d left it but now had two horses tied to the back of it.

Upon seeing the horses, Cassie stopped instantly and started searching the area for the gunfighter. She didn’t doubt for a minute that it was Angel’s horse and the one he’d borrowed, even though she was still too far away to get a good look at them. She located him easily enough. It wasn’t hard to spot that yellow slicker.

He was leaning against the wall of the Second Chance Saloon, across the street. With his hat tipped down so low, she couldn’t tell whom he was watching, but she had a feeling he was watching her.

It made her uneasy, that feeling. She didn’t know why he’d followed her to town. And he didn’t come forward now to say why, didn’t move at all from his relaxed position. But just about everyone on the street knew he was there. Caully was a small town, after all, and Angel was a stranger. It would be natural for folks to wonder about him even if he didn’t look like a gunfighter.

Cassie ground her teeth in frustration. So much for keeping his business with her a secret. There was no way she could leave town without speaking to him, not with his horse attached to her carriage. Even if the direction in which he had headed this morning could have gone unnoticed, this wouldn’t. By the end of the day everyone in town would have asked the question: what was the Stuart girl doing with a gunfighter? But her currently hostile neighbors wouldn’t merely wonder about it, they’d be out to the ranch by tonight to demand an explanation, and unless Angel was gone by then, all hell could break loose.

It was her own fault. She shouldn’t have let that man rattle her like she did. She should have called his bluff. But no, she had to go and give him permission to stay, which in turn gave him permission to stick his nose in her affairs. And his following her to town and keeping a close eye on her, as if he had elected himself her personal guardian, said he was going to do things his own way after all, no matter what she had to say about it.

She didn’t look his way again as she continued down the street. But she hurried now, afraid that she would be stopped before she could send off that telegram. And she was stopped. Only it wasn’t by Angel.

Morgan MacKauley stepped out of Wilson’s Saddle Shop right into Cassie’s path. She almost ran into him. And seeing who it was, she tried slipping past him before she was noticed. No such luck.

Morgan considered himself something of a ladies’ man. Whether that was true or not, his eye was drawn to anything in skirts, and it didn’t take him but a second to catch sight of Cassie’s and turn toward her — and step back to block her path. She tried going around him the other way, but he made it dear she wasn’t passing at all by moving into her path again. She finally stepped back to give him a baleful glare, which had no effect whatsoever coming from her.

It galled her that no one down here in Texas took her seriously. They laughed when she wore a gun. They ignored her when she got mad. She was like a ladybug, easily flicked out of the way — unless she had her black panther sitting right next to her. Even the fearless. MacKauleys were wary of Marabelle.

But Cassie never brought her cat to town, and the frown Morgan cast down on her right now was much more effective than hers had been. It was downright intimidating.

Of R. J.‘s four sons, Morgan was the second youngest at twenty-one, but they were all big men, all over six feet tall and hefty for their size. All took after their father with their reddish-brown hair and dark green eyes. Cassie didn’t think for a moment that any of them would actually do her physical harm, but that didn’t stop the fear their animosity engendered. They were hot-tempered, and a hot-tempered man in a fury was capable of doing stupid things he wouldn’t ordinarily do.

“Didn’t think to see you in town this week, Miss Stuart,” Morgan said nonchalantly.

Just two months ago, he had called her Cassie, as most of her friends and family did, rather than Miss Stuart He’d also invited her to Will Bates’s barn dance on a Saturday night, and a Sunday picnic up on Willow Ridge a week later. His intentions had been clear. He’d actually been courting her. And she’d been terribly flattered — and interested. After all, the MacKauley brothers were exceptionally handsome men, every one of them, and as she’d been discovering in recent years, it was hard to find a man willing to marry her and Marabelle.

Morgan hadn’t exactly liked Marabelle, but that hadn’t kept him from courting Cassie— up until she’d meddled in his brother’s life in a way none of them were going to forgive, or forget. And after she’d become the focus of all their anger, he’d let her know that it was only her father’s ranch he’d been interested in.

Whether that was true, or if he’d only said it in anger, it had still hurt Cassie more than she cared to remember. She didn’t have much confidence to begin with when it came to men. Morgan MacKauley had made her confidence drop even lower. And the sorry fact was, she’d really liked him. She’d had such hopes there for a few weeks. Now… there was nothing left, not even the slightest stir of pleasure to be this close to him. Regret was what she felt— and a good deal of annoyance.

She wondered about his casual remark, which from recent experience she thought probably wasn’t casual at all. Warily she asked, “Why’s that?”

“Figured you’d be too busy packing.”

She should have known she couldn’t pass a MacKauley, or a Catlin for that matter, without some unpleasant reminder of her current predicament. It was the MacKauleys who’d set an actual date for her to vacate the area— and threatened, if she refused, to resort to mass destruction of the ranch with lit torches.

“So you figured wrong,” she said in a tight little voice, and attempted once more to step around him. Once more he moved so she couldn’t, prompting her to add, “You’re being obnoxious, Morgan. Let me pass.”

“First you tell me ‘bout that stranger directed out to your place this morning.”

Cassie groaned inwardly. She hadn’t had time to come up with an acceptable reason for Angel’s visit, and she needed time, because when it came to lying and avoiding issues, Cassie was hopelessly inadequate. Unless she devoted a lot of thought and rehearsal to getting it out right, anyone who knew her could spot a lie immediately.

She still had to try with Morgan. “That was nothing. He — he was just a drifter looking for work.”

“You should have sent him over to our place, then,” he replied easily. “You ain’t gonna have work for no one come the end of the week.”

Cassie stiffened at that second allusion to the deadline that had been set for her to depart the area. Somehow she had hoped that the threat to burn down her father’s ranch had been just anger talking, with no substance behind it.

These were people she had socialized with, been friends with; she’d even been courted by one of them. But all that was before she had meddled.

She skipped the subject of Angel, since Morgan had given her another to address. “I need to talk to your pa, Morgan. Tell him I’ll ride over tomorrow—”

“He won’t see you. Fact is, Clayton’s got him madder than ever, and you want to know why, Miss Stuart?”

She started shaking her head as his tone got sharper. She really didn’t want to know, because whatever the reason, she knew the blame would be set at her door whether she was actually to blame or not.

But Morgan was determined to say it, and he did, scathingly. “That fool brother of mine hasn’t been right in the head since he come back from Austin. Can’t get a lick of work out of him these days. And now he’s talking ‘bout ’rights’ and how he’s got some where his ‘wife’ is concerned. He even mentioned that he might go over and collect the Catlin girl, seeing as how they ain’t divorced yet. ‘Course, Pa whipped that notion out of him.”

Cassie was incredulous and didn’t even think to contain her reaction. “Are you saying he wants to stay married to Jenny?”

Morgan flushed bright red at that question, denying it, or the very idea of it. “The hell he does,” he practically growled. “He’s just had a taste of her, thanks to you, and now he wants another. It ain’t no more’n that.”

Cassie was flushing now because of the subject matter, which was outrageously inappropriate for her innocent ears. Morgan knew he’d just stepped over propriety’s line, but he didn’t care. He was furious with her for what she’d done, since it had put an end to his hopes of marrying her, and furious with himself for not having the courage to defy his pa and stick up for her as he’d been inclined to do. The fact was, he still wanted her.

Morgan hadn’t noticed her very much the first time she’d come to visit her father. She had been eighteen then and nothing much to look at, could just barely be called pretty, and Caully had its fair share of pretty women, beautiful women even. And she was much too tiny and childlike for Morgan’s tastes. There was simply nothing passion-inspiring about her, or so he’d first thought.

But there was something damn strange about Miss Cassandra Stuart, something that made her more interesting and attractive each time you saw her. She sort of grew on you — at least her looks did. You began to see that although she might be small in stature, there was nothing childlike in the way she was put together. And the more you saw her, the prettier she actually seemed to become.

Morgan had found himself thinking about her a lot before her visit ended last year, and he’d been in a fighting mood all that summer because he hadn’t realized before she left that he wanted her. Then she hadn’t come last winter and his interests had turned elsewhere, nothing serious, but he’d buried his feelings for Cassie, forgot about them — until she’d showed up again.

Strangely, upon his seeing her again, it was like the first time, nothing much to make a man sit up and take notice. He thought he must have been a bit crazy the previous year to have let her into his thoughts and even his sexual fantasies. But it had taken less than six months for his feelings to turn around this time. He was back to wanting her within the first month of her arrival, and he was serious enough about it to ask his pa’s permission to marry her.

It was telling of R. J. MacKauley’s hold over his sons that his approval was the only one they considered needful for whatever they wanted. Charles Stuart’s blessing on the courtship of his daughter was secondary, Cassie’s not even considered. MacKauley men were unbelievably arrogant when it came to taking some things for granted.

That was one of the things R. J. held against Cassie, that she’d managed somehow to convince his youngest son to break from tradition and do as he damn well pleased, without R. J.‘s permission. That what Clayton “pleased doing” was with an enemy just threw salt on the open wound. But Morgan’s wound was open and festering, too, because he still wanted Cassie and knew he’d never have her now.

He didn’t blame his father, who was too rigid and set in his ways to change. He didn’t blame a feud that he didn’t even know the cause of, but that had been going on for as long as he could remember. He blamed Cassie for butting her nose in where it didn’t belong. If he had married her, he would have broken her of that interfering habit she had. Now he’d never have the chance.

But she’d never know how he still felt about her. Not by look or deed would he let her know. And come the end of the week, she’d be gone, and he could get on with the business of forgetting her again. Looking at her now, he decided it couldn’t happen soon enough to suit him.

Cassie wasn’t paying attention to the fact that Morgan’s green eyes were drifting over her diminutive form as they stood there. Despite the embarrassing way he’d put it, she pounced on the possibility that Clayton MacKauley might be regretting returning his bride to her family. The idea was so unexpected, so guilt-relieving, she grasped it and hugged it to her breast. It meant her instincts hadn’t been so far off the mark after all. It meant her plan to join the two families in marriage to end their feud still might work— eventually. Of course, she wouldn’t be around to see it happen.

“What are you doing with that, Cassie?”

She focused her eyes back on Morgan to see him frowning at the rifle in her hand. He was surprised enough at seeing it that he’d forgotten to call her Miss Stuart. But then, this was the first time she had run into him since she’d started arming herself.

“I had some trouble with… actually… never mind what I’m doing with it,” she ended on a stubborn note.

But she was chagrined with herself for still trying to keep the peace between the two families, as she’d been in the habit of doing before the trouble started, when it was just as likely that Morgan wouldn’t get upset over what the Catlin hired hands had done to her if she mentioned it now. He would probably applaud them instead for the fright they’d given her. So she wouldn’t mention it.

But Morgan’s frown just got deeper as his eyes fixed on hers. “What kind of trouble?”

She didn’t answer him. She tried one more time to walk past him. And he didn’t move to block her this time. He grabbed her arm instead, which was much more effective in stopping her.

“Answer me,” he demanded.

If she didn’t know better, she might think he was displaying some unexpected concern over her welfare. But when his own family intended to come and set fire to the Double C at the end of the week, that just couldn’t be. Perhaps it simply annoyed him that the Catlins had her more worried than the MacKauleys.

At any rate, she didn’t owe him any answers, truthful or otherwise. “You have no right to question me, Morgan MacKauley,” she said stubbornly, and twisted around to free her arm. “Now let me—”

Her demand for release lodged in her throat, her movement having turned her enough so that she nearly faced the street, and was able to catch a flash of bright yellow out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head the rest of the way to see that Angel had come up behind her at some point and was casually leaning a shoulder against one of the posts that supported the saddle shop’s overhanging roof.

He didn’t give the impression that he was with her. In fact, he seemed no more than a casual observer of the interesting scene she and Morgan were enacting. But his casual pose was deceiving if you bothered to look closely. The thumb of his left hand was hooked through a belt loop, his mackintosh was open and tucked back, his right hand rested loosely on his hip — directly over his Colt.45.

He was about seven feet away, close enough to hear — close enough to aid. And Cassie was absolutely horrified, imagining what could happen in the next few seconds.

She jerked her eyes away from him, pretending she didn’t know him, hoping Morgan hadn’t even noticed his presence. No such luck. Morgan was looking directly at Angel now, having followed Cassie’s wide-eyed stare, and his frown hadn’t lightened up any.

“You want something, mister?”

Cassie winced upon hearing the aggression in Morgan’s tone. The trouble with MacKauleys was that their huge size gave them a feeling of superiority as well as invincibility. But a bullet had a way of cutting a man down to size, evening up the odds real quick. Angel would know that from experience, which was probably why he didn’t move a muscle, didn’t seem the least bit impressed by the bigger man, didn’t even seem like he would answer. And no response would be even worse. No man liked to be flat out ignored, and a MacKauley would take exception to that, since no one ever ignored them.

Cassie jumped into the prolonged silence to distract Morgan, saying the first thing that came to mind. “Tell your pa I’m not leaving until he agrees to speak to me.”

That got his eyes back on her instantly. “I told you he won’t—”

“I know what you said,” she cut in anxiously, “but you give him my message anyway, or it’s going to come down to the day of reckoning, Morgan. Will you set the torch to the house with me still in it?”

“Don’t be… now listen here… dammit, woman!” he ended, so flustered he couldn’t get any more words out.

Cassie was pretty flustered herself, not to mention appalled at her own daring. She hadn’t intended to call the MacKauleys’ bluff, if bluff it was. She wouldn’t have had the nerve to do it if she had given it any thought. But she hadn’t thought. She’d just wanted to get Morgan’s hostile attention off Angel — which wouldn’t have been necessary if Angel had kept his distance.

And unfortunately, her ploy gained only temporary results. If Angel had simply left during the time she had distracted Morgan, it would have been worth it. But he was still there, still watching them with those black-as-sin eyes, still provoking with his mere presence. And Morgan, embarrassed over stammering and at a loss as to how to deal with female stubbornness, figured he had a convenient outlet for his current frustration in the form of a nosy stranger. He hadn’t yet made the connection that this was the stranger he’d asked Cassie about.

“Either state your business, mister, or get lost. This here’s a private conversation.”

Angel still hadn’t moved from his relaxed position against the post, but this time he answered. “This here’s a public boardwalk— and I want to hear the lady say she’s not being bothered.”

Morgan puffed up indignantly over the very notion. “I ain’t bothering her.”

“Seems otherwise to me,” Angel replied in his slow drawl. “So I’ll hear her say it.”

“I’m not bothered!” Cassie snapped out with a warning look for Angel to mind his own business, then hissed quietly at Morgan, “Now let go of me and prove it. You’ve detained me long enough.”

Morgan had to drag his eyes away from Angel to look down at Cassie. He showed some surprise at finding his hand still wrapped around her arm and let go instantly. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Cassie just nodded stiffly and walked away. As upset as she was at the moment, considering she’d just taken a stand she hadn’t intended to take that could backfire on her by the end of the week, she didn’t care that she was leaving the two men alone, one arbitrary, one unpredictable. They were welcome to shoot each other, as far as she was concerned.