THREE

oooooooooo

"How far did you say it was to this place of yours?"

The woman, well, girl beside him sniffed. She turned on the padded carriage seat, glared at him, and then faced forward again. "I didn't."

Joe studied her profile in the rising light. She was pretty, with a pert little nose that turned up at the end, creamy white skin, and wide near-black eyes that reminded him a lot of his pa's and a little of Hop Sing's. Her hair was ebony as a desert night without stars and hung about halfway down her back. Her traveling dress was modest, but saucy enough to show him she had a lot going on upstairs.

Just as that thought crossed his mind the horse pulling the carriage shied 'cause a rabbit popped out of the foliage to peer at them. Fighting back a sigh, Joe corrected the animal with a few sharp words and got them back on course and then, with a glance at his annoyed passenger, urged it to give him a little more speed. In his opinion the nag would have been better suited to pulling a plow then people, and the way the horse kept glancin' over its shoulder at him with a baleful look, he thought it probably agreed. After a few hours of rough sleep – him on the ground and Mrs. Jones in the broken down carriage – it had taken him about an hour to fix the wheel and then another hour to get the plow horse hitched up and moving – if what they were doing could be classified as moving.

At this rate he'd be twenty-three before he got to Lee's.

"You keep doing that," Mrs. Jones said.

It seemed ridiculous to call a would-be-twenty year old Mrs. Jones, but she had yet to tell him her Christian name.

"Doin' what?"

"Sighing. It's irritating. You need to stop it."

He wanted to tell her that her less-than-grateful attitude was a sight more irritating, but he resisted the urge.

Instead, he sighed again.

"You're doing that just to annoy me!"

Joe drew a breath as he drew in on the reins. He waited until the rig had rolled to a stop and then turned and looked straight at her.

"You know what?" he asked, his tone sharp. "I'm beginning to understand why Mr. Jones left you sittin' in the middle of nowhere!"

Her nose wrinkled. She blinked. And then she did that thing girls do that makes a man feel about a foot tall.

She started crying.

"Oh, come on. Don't do that!" he protested even as he reached into his coat and scrambled about, trying to find his handkerchief. "I didn't mean it."

"Oh, yes you did!" she wailed. "You think I'm a terrible person!"

Next, she reduced it to an inch.

She began to sob.

"Hey, hey!" The handkerchief miraculously leapt into his fingers. Joe pulled it out and thrust it toward her. "Here! Blow your nose or somethin'!"

The sound made the plow horse turn back and look at him again. He thought about telling it to keep its opinion to itself, but decided it wasn't worth it.

"I'm sorry...I..." Mrs. Jones gasped and then let out a little sigh. She patted her nose before holding the handkerchief out to him. As he shook his head, insisting she keep it, she went on, "I'm sorry. I haven't been entirely honest with you. I... Well, I don't really want to go home."

He'd talked her into it. "You're afraid your husband is still gonna be angry. Is that it?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Then you're afraid he won't be?"

Her head was down. Her thick black lashes brushed her pale cheeks twice – languidly, in a somewhat seductive manner – and then she focused on him. Mrs. Jones looked him up and down, her dark eyes taking in his face and chest before settling on the bits below the belt.

"Not really."

Joe scooted back as far as he could – which was about six inches. "Ma'am – Mrs. Jones – what do you think you're...thinkin'...?"

He hated it when his voice squeaked.

She scooted closer and her hand went to his thigh; her fingers brushing his inseam. "I'm thinking, Joe Cartwright, that I'm all alone in the middle of nowhere with a handsome cowboy from Virginia City who probably wants to have his way with me." Those eyelashes batted again. "You do? Don't you?"

And then, before he could do anything, she kissed him.

Deeply.

The words his pa would have wanted him to say were on his lips when he came up for air. Unfortunately, a second later someone cleared their throat and he felt the barrel of a pistol press into his side. As it did, he remembered he hadn't told her his Christian name either, or where he came from.

Two seconds after that, he knew he had been had.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Several miles away a dark-haired beauty whose lithe body, slender waist, wide blue eyes and long black hair made her appear younger than her years, leaned on the fence at the edge of her property. She had left her bed, pulled her robe on, and come outside in her nightgown to watch the sun rise.

She was completely content.

It wasn't that life had been easy. In fact, it had been downright hard. She and her husband had come out West to build a life together and then he had been taken – suddenly – in the midst of a Typhoid outbreak. Tom Bolden had assured her that day, when he went off to care for the sick, that the Almighty granted a special dispensation to doctors and he'd be fine. She'd watched him pull away in his buggy never suspecting that it would be the last time she would see him alive. Saying 'goodbye' had taken her over three years and it had come at a price. She'd closed herself off from the world, refusing to enter into it, caring little for the living and living on her memories. It had taken the arrival of Ben Cartwright's young son, Joseph, to force her into the open. She'd behaved badly, doing everything she could to drive him away as well, and might have succeeded if a storm had not arisen. Joseph had been forced to take shelter in her barn. While there, he'd been accosted by a desperate man with a gun who had taken him – and her – hostage.

That man held her hostage still.

Paul Throckmorton – his friends called him 'Trock' – was asleep in her bed. He had come back to her as promised. At first she had feared him, and then she had loathed him, and then, finally, loved him. Along with the other men who held her and young Joseph Cartwright hostage for two days, Trock had robbed a bank in Virginia City. He was a wanted man. She'd held a gun on Ben's son at the end, ordering Joe to let the bank robber escape, but he'd returned. Trock stood in her doorway and told her that he had no place to be unless it was to be with her. The judge gave him five years in prison. He'd asked her as he was taken away if she would wait.

She'd waited. God, how she had waited.

A month ago he had returned.

It was the sheriff – an old friend – who had delivered Trock to her place, and it was the sheriff who united them in marriage that very day. They spent the first week in each other's arms and then slowly, Trock began to bring her place back to life.

Just as he had her.

A sound behind her made Lee turn and look. Her handsome husband, with his coal black hair, sparkling blue eyes, and rugged, intelligent face was walking toward her. His navy shirt was open, exposing that muscled chest that she had come to know so well. She could just see the edge of the little white line on his shoulder. It was all that remained of the scar from the surgery she'd performed to keep him alive. As she'd removed that bullet, she'd come to know him – to know the losses he'd suffered. They were as deep as her own and had left him just as lonely as she and her house had become.

Trock had arrived. He circled her waist with his arm and kissed her on the nape of the neck before asking, "No sign of Joe yet?"

He knew she was worried. Joe had been due the night before.

"No," she replied.

"Should I be jealous?" he asked, teasing.

"Joe's a boy," she said as she turned in his arms and pressed her body into his. "You're my man."

"He might have been a boy five years ago, but he's a man now." He smiled. "I saw the way he looked at you. I have every right to defend what is my own."

There was still danger in him. Trock had not been completely tamed. Still, she knew – where Joe Cartwright was concerned – that he was playing with her.

"Just promise me you'll wait and see what kind of a man he has become before you shoot him," she replied in kind even as she kissed his chest.

"You keep me busy enough and I won't care."

Trock caught the back of her head in his hand and crushed her to him with a kind of desperation, and then kissed her hard on the mouth, taking her breath away.

It was at that moment that she heard the rolling noise of approaching wheels.

"Odd that the stage would come all the way out here," he said as he released her.

"A stage coach?" she asked. "How can you tell?"

Her husband frowned. "Practice," he replied as he placed himself between her and whatever was coming.

Sure enough, a moment later a red and black overland stage coach rolled into view.

"It's empty," he said.

"Are you sure?"

Trock opened the gate and moved to stand beside the sign that said 'Bolden'. They hadn't changed it yet. "It's riding too high." Trock lifted a hand to block the sun from his eyes. "Charlie's driving."

She knew Charlie. He was an old campaigner and a friend of her late husband, as well as Ben Cartwright and his boys.

"Joe's not with him?" she asked as she joined him.

Trock shook his head even as Charlie shouted 'whoa!' and reined in the team.

"Mornin' Lee," the blond man said. "Trock."

They didn't go to town much, but Charlie and her husband had met.

The driver wasn't too sure about him.

"Where's Joe Cartwright?" Trock asked without preamble.

"That's what I'm here for," Charlie replied. "I promised the boy I'd bring Lee his regrets."

"Joe didn't make it?" she asked.

The driver shook his head. "He was on the coach. He just took a little detour. He wanted me to tell you he'd he here...eventually."

"What kind of detour?" Trock asked, his tone wary. "What did it have to do with?"

Charlie looked right at her. "What would you expect from Joe Cartwright?"

She grinned. "A pretty girl?"

"Yep!" he laughed. "Leave it to Joe to find one smack dab in the middle of nowhere. She was sittin' by the side of the road. Needed someone to see her back home."

"And Joe volunteered." It didn't surprise her.

"Where did this girl live?" her husband inquired.

"Seems the boy forgot to ask. Don't think he cared particularly." Charlie picked up the reins again. "Well, now that I delivered his message I best be on my way. I'm due back in Virginia City tomorrow morning."

"Are you going to tell Ben?" Lee asked.

The driver shrugged. "Joe said he's old enough to make his own decisions."

She nodded. Then, as a sudden chill shivered through her, she added, "Still, it wouldn't hurt to let his family know."

Charlie nodded. "You take responsibility and I'll do it. That way Joe can be mad at you."

"I do," she replied. "And tell Ben again how thankful I am for all he's done for me..." She reached for Trock's hand. "For us."

"Will do," the blond man said as the coach began to roll. "See you later, Lee. Trock."

As the stage moved off into the distance, she turned to her husband. He had an odd look on his face. Almost as if he'd seen a ghost.

"What is it, Trock? Do you think something's wrong?"

"I knew a man once," he said, speaking slowly. "He had this gambit. He'd choose a mark and then would leave his woman – along with suitcases and trunks – alone beside the road. When the man came along, she claimed she'd been deserted and asked him to take her to town or home. Along the way she'd work him into a compromising position and then..."

Lee's hand went to her throat as the chill returned. "And then?"

Trock looked at her and then, without a word, headed for the house.

"Where are you going?" she called after him.

"To get my gear and then head out to look for Joe," he replied.

"Trock, why? Tell me why!"

He stopped just outside their door and turned back to look at her.

"It looks like Joe Cartwright might just end up owing me his life again."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

He felt like an idiot.

No, twice over an idiot.

First of all he'd failed to notice that the girl in the carriage had used his name when he hadn't told her what it was and, secondly, he'd fallen for one of the oldest ruses known to man.

A pretty face with a sob story.

Joe reeled back from another blow and tasted blood.

His wasn't so pretty anymore.

"Stop it!" the girl shouted. "We need him alive!"

Her name was Jezebel, or she went by Jezebel, or at least that was what the brute she was with called her every time he shoved her or hit her or ordered her around.

Joe remembered Adam telling him that Pa had said there were different kinds of love shortly after Adah Menken had gone back to John C. Regan; the ex-prize fighter who had nearly beaten him to death when he was seventeen.

He didn't want to know anything about this kind.

The bully halted with his hand in mid-air to glare at her. He wasn't a tall man, but he was compact and powerful. He reminded Joe of the sailors he'd seen working the wharves in San Francisco. His hair was curly but, unlike his, the curls were cropped and lay close to his head like a sheep's skin. They were the dull, dirty yellow-gray of unwashed wool. The man's eyes were the color of steel and they sat in a face that was at once ordinary and unsettling. There was something about him – about the way he moved, about his voice – that struck a chord of familiarity, but he couldn't place it.

Probably because the guy kept hitting him and driving it out.

"I want him dead," he growled.

"I know you do," Jezebel agreed. "But later. After we get the money."

Joe couldn't help it. He groaned.

Not again!

"Something wrong, boy?"

His mouth was gagged, which was probably a good thing since it kept him from saying something smart that most likely would have gotten him killed.

So he let his eyes do the talking.

Which earned him another blow that set his head to reeling.

"If not for him I'd already have the money," the brute snarled. "So much for the ties that bind!"

Jezebel was standing with her hands on her hips. She looked from his tormentor to him and back. "You can't blame the old man. If I had a choice, well, anyone with eyes would pick Joe here over you." The dark-haired beauty sashayed over to him. She stared at him a moment and then took hold of his chestnut curls and pulled his chin up. Running a finger along his jaw line, she sighed, "You sure are pretty."

Joe sighed. There were times – they weren't many – but there were times when he wished he was ugly as a mud fence.

"And if I had a choice, I would have left you flat on your back in San Francisco where your 'talents' were appreciated." Joe winced as the man caught Jezebel's arm in his fingers and reeled her around. "Look at him! Do you really think a rich boy like him would have anything to do with a wasted slattern like you?"

The girl was stronger than she looked. She broke free of the brute's grip and, using both hands, shoved him hard so hard he teetered for a moment before finding his footing.

Joe slammed his eyes shut. He didn't want to see the blood.

Riotous laughter opened them a moment later.

The man was bellowing and the girl, instead of being dead, was grinning from ear to ear. She shoved the brute again and then turned back toward him. Crossing the room in a few quick strides, Jezebel stopped in front of him and then – in one graceful if...er...bold move – tossed one leg to either side of him and straddled him and the chair.

As she began to undo his string tie, she leaned back and looked at her companion who was wiping tears from his weathered cheeks.

"Now you be a good boy, and go somewhere else while I see if I can get Mr. Cartwright here to cooperate and write that letter to his pa telling him to bring the money."

They'd demanded he write it before. He'd refused. That was what the beating had been for.

Joe pulled his head back so he could look into Jezebel's eyes as she settled on his lap. Her hands were at his belt now, unbuckling it.

"Do you want to know where I worked in San Francisco, Joe?" she asked, her voice quiet now – sultry and sad. "It was on the waterfront. That's where I met Ahab."

Ahab and...Jezebel. So, most likely, the name wasn't her real one.

"I have certain...talents. He decided I could be useful." Jezebel leaned in until her words were a soft whisper on his lips and her body a weight at his hips that his involuntarily began to respond to. "I learned how to pleasure a man and, do you know what else I learned?" The movement was swift and without warning. Her weight shifted. Her fingers twisted.

Joe gasped.

"I learned just how close pleasure is to pain."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
A second chance. That's what the warden had said when he'd handed him his release papers – one year early – that he had a 'second chance'.

Trock let out a deep sigh. He could see it as if it was happening at that moment. He'd been sent for and ordered to the warden's room with no explanation. Prison was a harsh place. Nearly impossible to survive. There was plenty he'd done while he'd been there that he wasn't proud of. As he walked the corridor, he'd wondered just which offense it was that was to be thrown in his face and how many more months would be tacked onto his sentence.

And whether Lee would wait.

'Paul Edward Throckmorton, you've been an exemplary prisoner. That, along with the testimony given at the parole hearing by Joseph Cartwright of Virginia City concerning not only your change of heart regarding the money you had stolen, but the fact that you saved his life, has earned you an early release.

"You're free."

Free.

Trock eyed the road ahead, which was rosy with the dawning light, and then reined his horse in and reached for his canteen. The night was over and the day was dawning. It had been an unpredictable September, hot as late August one day and cold as early November the next. Today promised to be one of those in the middle and that usually meant a storm – sometimes a wicked one. He wasn't much of a farmer, but it didn't take much of one to know that a hard rain this early in the game was not going to improve his chances of a good crop come spring. He was doing his best, but his...talents...lay far afield from repairing outbuildings, mending fences and tossing seed. He was willing to learn, but as an ex-con, there were few who were willing to teach – or help.

Other than the Cartwrights.

It puzzled him still, Joe Cartwright speaking up for him. The truth was, if Lee had agreed, he would have tied Joe up and left him in her house while he and she rode away with the money from the robbery. He'd had no scruples about taking and using it. That had been Lee.

The truth was, you could take the man out of the business of robbing banks, but it took a whole lot more to take the bank robber out of the man.

Oh, he intended to go straight for Lee. He loved her more than he loved a life of ease – and that was saying a lot. Still, when he watched her working her pretty fingers to the bone, struggling to make ends meet, or waited for her to come out of the mercantile after selling a few dozen eggs, it was almost more than he could take.

One job. One quick job in a town far away and he could take care of her like a queen.

Trock made a face and spit out the tepid water as if cleansing his soul of some taint. No.

No.

He had put that life behind him. He'd promised Lee. Hell, he had even promised Joe Cartwright. He owed not only his life but his marriage – and maybe his soul – to that young man.

And now he was missing.

As he made a kissing sound, Trock put his spurs to his mount's side and urged him on. He didn't know where he was going other than that he was backtracking the route the stage had taken. The story Charlie, the stage coach driver, had told struck a nerve. A while back he'd run with a gang in California. The leader was a former dock worker turned crimper who had to flee the city when the local constabulary busted up his racket. The man was shrewd and a bit off his nut. He went by the name of 'Ahab', though whether that was a reference to the Biblical king or to Melville's Great White Whale he wasn't sure. While on the wharves Ahab had used the same gambit – find a pretty girl, make her his 'partner', and then use her to lure men in so they could be shanghaied. One night he remembered Ahab laughing and saying that stage coaches were just ships of the desert and why shouldn't he try it in the West? Of course, he wouldn't be shanghaiing them. He'd take them and hold them for ransom.

As he moved along, watching the ground for clues, Trock cast his mind back to the time he and Ahab parted. Though he had been somewhat uncomfortable with the man's modus operandi, it worked, and so he had gone along with it. At the time he was desperate for money. A bank heist had gone wrong and the law was on his tail. He'd needed to get out of the country for a while and figured Mexico would do. Jez – Ahab always called his current squeeze 'Jez' – had hooked a big fish the night before; the son of the owner of one of the biggest shipping companies in the city. They'd demanded twenty thousand for him and the kid's old man had paid it without batting an eye. Ahab was supposed to take the boy out of the city and let him go. Stupidly the kid tried to escape and, in the attempt, saw his captor's face. The next night, when he asked Ahab where the boy was, he said he'd put him on a ship and sent him to Jamaica. Two days later the newspapers ran an article about how the young man's body had been fished out of the water by the pier.

Ahab had missed the boat.

That was it. He decided right then and there that it didn't take that much money to live in Mexico and he'd taken off and laid low for nearly two years. The bank robbery Joe Cartwright thwarted in Platt City had been his reintroduction to crime.

Apparently the Almighty intended for him to go straight.

Trock halted his horse and dismounted. After ground tethering it, he moved off the road a little ways and bent to examine the ground. It was plain as the nose on his face that a buggy had been parked there and was listing to one side as if a wheel had come off. Casting about, he found the prints of a woman's shoes and a small pair of men's boots. From what he remembered, Joe Cartwright was on the sleight side compared to a lot of the men in the West and not particularly tall. He thought Ahab was about the same height, but anything he lacked in stature he more than made up for in muscle. They'd gotten into a fight one time and, though he topped the other man by several inches, he'd gotten the worst of it. His former partner was not only explosive but unpredictable. In fact, Ahab was a lot like Gavin, the blond who had worked that last robbery with him.

Gavin who didn't like mouthy kids like Joe Cartwright and would have taken Joe's head off if he hadn't been there to stop him.

Rising to his feet Trock turned and looked in the direction the buggy had gone. Ahab didn't work his schemes on just anybody. They had to have money. Somehow, he must have known Joe Cartwright was on that stage and known the kid was the type to fall for his live 'bait' – which meant he had been watching Joe.

Trock blew out a sigh.

That boy found trouble quicker than Hell could scorch a feather.