The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,37

Bolin Brothers weren’t known for keeping their word. When he was convinced that the two were really gone, he shifted focus.

“You all right, kid?”

Caitie nodded and looked away. This was the kind of man who would see straight through a short haircut and a pair of man’s breeches to the woman beneath.

“I had them cold, I did,” she muttered. And then felt obliged to add out of courtesy. “But I’ll be thankin’ ye just the same.”

Joe’s eyebrows arched. The lilt to the kid’s voice was unmistakable. He’d known men like him before—from the country of Ireland they called it. Only they hadn’t been as small as this one. And not nearly as pretty.

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. The thought had come out of nowhere, and it shouldn’t have. The kid was a kid. He could be sissy. He could be tough. But he shouldn’t have been pretty!

Joe looked closer. Red-gold eyelashes as long as butterfly wings shaded the upper portion of the kid’s cheeks. His nose was too turned-up. His chin too shapely. A thought occurred. If he could only see the rest of his face.

“Hey!” Joe yelled.

His sudden shout made Caitie look up.

He’d seen a lot of things in his twenty-nine winters, but never a boy with a mouth like that. He considered calling her hand and then shrugged. Her deception was ludicrous, but Joe Redhawk was a man who minded his own business until someone minded it for him. After that, it was a different story. The girl obviously had her reasons.

Caitie pulled the pitchfork out of the ground, suddenly afraid she’d be needing it again. “And why would ye be yellin’ at me now?”

The corner of his mouth tilted. Just a little. Just once.

“Just checking your hearing, I reckon.”

Caitie started to roll her eyes, and then caught herself. That was not a manly behavior.

Joe turned away to hide his grin. Yep. I was right. This here’s a girl and that’s a fact.

“Better watch your back for a day or two,” he warned. “That pair hasn’t got sense enough to pound sand in a rat hole, but that don’t mean they aren’t dangerous, just the same.”

“And I’m already knowin’ that,” she muttered. “I’ve been takin’ care of me’self since I was seven. Swill rats like that can’t be hurtin’ the likes of me.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed. Her defiance touched a long forgotten chord of memory from his own childhood. He’d done all right up until the day two men had called him a half-breed, then beat hell out of him to see if he bled two different colors. Years later, they were the first two men he killed. He shook off the memory. It was time to move on.

“I’m staying at the hotel a couple more days. If you need help, you know where to find me.”

Before she could answer, he disappeared as quietly as he’d come.

Caitie swiped blood from her nose with the sleeve of her shirt and glared after the man who just left.

“May they all be damned,” she muttered. “I’ll not be needin’ any man’s help. I will be takin’ care of me’self, just like me Paddy taught me.”

That night when she went to bed in the loft overlooking the horse stalls, she pulled the ladder up behind her. No one would be sneaking up on her in her sleep unless they could fly.

Meanwhile, Art Bolin sat immersed in a tub of hot water, compliments of Shirley at the boarding house, while his only suit of clothes hung outside the window, drying in the cool night air. Every time Milt came into the room he would look at his brother, then spit and curse and walk away. Art didn’t know what hurt worse, his hands, his ass, or his pride.

And the more Art dwelled on his misery, the more certain he was that they’d been bested by a girl. He didn’t care what old Milt said. He knew a girl when he saw one. And dadgum it all, he was going to prove it. In the morning, when his clothes were dry and his hands didn’t hurt so much, he was going to go back to that stable and show them all.

Down on the street, Joe Redhawk leaned against the post outside the saloon and stared into the darkness toward the livery.

Are you asleep, little one? Or are you lying in the dark alone, afraid to close your eyes?

A loud shout, accompanied by a round of gunfire echoed behind him in the saloon. He looked back at