The Temptress Read online

  Still too stunned to speak, Ty bent and kissed her cheek, then looked up to see three women standing in the hotel lobby looking at him with disapproving eyes. On impulse, he grabbed Chris about the waist and kissed her quite thoroughly.

  When he released her, Chris had to catch a chair back to keep from falling.

  “See you in the morning, sweetheart,” Ty said with a wink, replaced his hat and left the hotel.

  Chris tried to regain her composure. “Oh, my, but he does get carried away,” she said, smoothing her dress front. “Goodnight,” she said to the women who were watching her with their mouths hanging open.

  Chris whistled all the way up the stairs.

  Chapter Nine

  Asher Prescott was waiting for her outside her room. His face was grim. “I feel I must talk to you.”

  “I am rather tired and I…” she began then stopped. When a man got it into his head that a woman needed lecturing, it was just better to let him get it out of his system. Chris had learned years ago that “teaching” a woman seemed to make a man feel much better. “Yes, what is it?” She stood there patiently and waited.

  “I don’t think you’re conducting yourself properly and I believe you’re losing your sense of proportion. I know you like to champion the underdog but sometimes the underdog isn’t deserving of a champion. I believe, Chris, you should know something about the man whose cause you are fighting.

  “When he was sixteen he was already known as a gunslinger. He killed not one but two men in a street shootout. By the time he was twenty, he had more enemies than most people have in a lifetime. Did you know that for a while he rode with the Chanry Gang? Once, he was caught and sentenced to hang but the gang blew up the jail and got him out. He’s taken on jobs that were suicidal, walking alone into towns against twenty outlaws.”

  Asher began to warm to his subject. “And the women, Chris! Hundreds of women! To somebody like him, a woman isn’t someone to love, she’s someone to bed, then leave. You talk of love for this man, well, he doesn’t even know the meaning of the word. He’s a no-good wastrel and he’ll never be anything else.”

  Chris didn’t say a word, just stood there and looked at him.

  “You’re talking of marrying him but I don’t think you understand what marriage is. It’s the day in day out of living together. This Tynan can be charming when he wants to but tonight he was morose and sullen. He can’t talk, he knows nothing about civilized society, and that woman who everyone says is probably his mother…. Well, Chris, I can’t believe you even agreed to eat at the same table with her. I for one—”

  He stopped himself then smiled at her fondly. “You know what I think? I think this Tynan is interesting because he’s a mystery. You solve the mystery and you’ll find he’s just another run-of-the-mill, cheap gunslinger. What you need, Chris,” he said softly, taking a step toward her, “is a husband from your own background. A husband and children.”

  She gave him a wide-eyed look. “Someone like you, Mr. Prescott?”

  “I find you a very attractive woman, Chris.”

  As he leaned forward, his eyelids closing as if to kiss her, Chris opened the bedroom door and slipped inside, closing it firmly behind her. “Kiss that, Mr. Paid-to-Marry-Me Prescott.”

  She went to bed thinking of the coming picnic.

  The next morning, Tynan was waiting for her in the hotel lobby wearing a clean suit, leaning against a window frame reading a newspaper.

  “Good morning,” she said, smiling up at him.

  He smiled too when he looked at her, but he looked as if he were smiling through adversity.

  Chris pulled on her gloves. “Are you ready to go?”

  Ty only nodded, offered his arm to her, and led her out of the hotel onto the street.

  There were several other couples also on their way to church and each one of them stopped to stare openly at Tynan and Chris.

  In church, Chris pulled Tynan to the third pew, away from the back row where he started to sit. Throughout the service, he was silent, listening to the preacher with attention. During the singing, he seemed familiar with the songs and, as Red had said, he did indeed have an excellent voice.

  As they left the church, he seemed relieved that it was over and had gone well. Standing at the door, the minister made an effort to shake his hand and tell him he was welcome.

  As they went down the stairs, they saw Red waiting for them in a beautiful big-wheeled carriage, holding the reins to a sleek black gelding.

  “I brought you baskets of food for the picnic,” she said. “I didn’t want you to go empty-handed. Here, Ty, help me down.”

  “You aren’t going with us?” Chris asked.

  “A church picnic ain’t no place for the likes of me. You two go and have a good time. And, Tynan, you start to look happier or I’ll take a switch to you.”

  That made Ty laugh as he kissed her cheek. “Maybe I need both of you to protect me.”

  Chris slipped her arm in his. “One can handle you. We shall miss you, Red, but we’ll see you tonight. Pray it doesn’t rain.”

  “Honey, I ain’t stopped prayin’ since you came to town. Now get out of here.”

  Ty lifted Chris into the carriage and soon they were speeding down the dirt road with the other couples. Chris moved close to him on the seat and held his arm. “Who are the Chanrys?”

  “Been snooping again?”

  “Of course. Who are they?”

  “A bunch of two-bit crooks. Most of them are either dead now or locked away.”

  “Were you part of them?”

  “They wanted me to be. Even told people I was.”

  “But I thought they broke you out of jail. Tynan, how many times have you been in jail?”

  “Total?” he asked seriously. “Even for being drunk?”

  “Never mind, don’t answer. How did your name get linked with those criminals?”

  “I told you. They wanted me to join and when I wouldn’t, they got angry. They didn’t break me out of jail, a U.S. marshal did.”

  “Explain, please,” she said over the sound of the carriage.

  “The Chanrys didn’t like the way I told them I wouldn’t join their gang no matter what they offered me. You see, they needed a fast gun since their best man had been killed. As revenge, they robbed a bank and kept calling one of the men Tynan. The local sheriff came after me. Only problem was that I was laid up with a broken leg, but he didn’t seem to think that was proof that I was innocent. One of the women where I was staying got in touch with a marshal and he came up to investigate. When he couldn’t persuade the sheriff not to hang me, the marshal blew up the jail. The sheriff told everybody it was the Chanrys—proof that he should have hanged me.”

  “Tynan, you are full of the most awful stories.”

  “When a man lives by the gun, he should expect to be faced with other guns. Here we are. Why don’t you take the baskets over there and I’ll—”

  “No, you have to carry the big one and I have to introduce you to everyone.”

  “But I already know most of these people. They’re the ones—”

  “They are the ones who know nothing about you. Now come along.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, grinning. “You do tie them apron strings to a man, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes, apron strings give a man purpose in life. And they’re a lot less violent than guns.”

  “Hmph! Strangulation is a slow way to die.”

  She ignored his remark as they walked toward the others. The men and women were separating, the women spreading food on bleached and ironed tablecloths, the men walking together toward the river.

  Chris set down a basket of food. “I believe you’ve met my fiancé, Mr. Tynan, haven’t you?” she said. “I’d introduce you by name but I’m afraid I’ve been in town so short a time that I haven’t met you all.”

  Looking as if they’d just been introduced to a coiled rattlesnake, most of the women nodded tentatively in Tynan’s dire