Steal Me, Sweet Thief Read online

  Steal Me, Sweet Thief

  By

  Carole Howey

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Epilogue

  DANGEROUS LOVE

  "You've abused and threatened me, you've used me badly under false pretenses, and my career is in shambles—not that I can hold you solely accountable for that. You have created a very dangerous person in me, Mr. Macalester, a person with nothing left to lose."

  Macalester did not even flinch, although her tirade had been intended to shame him.

  "You want to know what dangerous is?" he countered, his tone deliberate. "Dangerous is a wanted man, worth five thousand dollars to a bounty hunter who doesn't much care whether he takes you in sitting in your saddle or across it. Dangerous is knowing for dead certain that your partner will go to prison for twenty years and that you've got another five years of running ahead of you if you don't deliver. Dangerous is doing business with Garland Humble in the first place, and, lady, dangerous—and stupid—is falling in love with his wife!"

  Macalester was breathing hard, and his dark eyes fairly bored into her soul. He had lied to her before, she knew, but he was not lying now. Her heart hammered loudly in her chest. He was magnificent in his rage, and in his declaration. In spite of everything, she knew, with an awful certainty, that she loved him as well, as she had never loved, or ever would love, any other man.

  Other Leisure and Love Spell books by Carole Howey:

  NOBLE AND IVY

  SHEIK'S GLORY

  TOUCHED BY MOONLIGHT

  SWEET CHANCE

  SHEIK'S PROMISE

  A LEISURE BOOK® May 1997

  Published by

  Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  276 Fifth Avenue New York, NY

  Copyright © 1997 by Carole Mrak Howey

  For Florence Berggren:

  Musician, Mentor, Friend

  and

  Riders of The Outlaw Trail

  (You know who you are!)

  Chapter One

  Billy Deal was almost too good-looking to be a man. With his baby-blue eyes, fair skin, dimpled chin and a crop of curly blond hair, he had the look of a cherub, of a Botticellian image perfectly preserved and perpetually youthful. He smiled easily, and his smile left a string of broken hearts in its wake. Women, his friends were fond of repeating, didn't know whether to mother him or take him to bed. And, as he himself was fond of replying, he was fortunate that the result was usually the latter. Just now, in fact, the two fairest tarts in the Fort Worth Saloon, who were only average as most of the outlaw's conquests went, dangled from his arms like Christmas tinsel.

  Kieran Macalester smiled at the sight. In spite of the fact that his friend's good looks drew women like flies to manure—maybe even because of it—Macalester did not envy the younger man. Billy Deal possessed, in equal measure to his outward appearance, a quick mind, a quicker temper and an even quicker hand to the trigger, all of which his friends and adversaries alike tended to overlook, to their eventual misfortune. Still, each of these attributes, Macalester reflected, sipping his whiskey, had worked to his own advantage more than once: having a partner who drew a lot of attention tended to leave one free to operate in obscurity.

  Macalester finished his whiskey and stood up slowly to his full six feet, shaking his head at a girl who approached him, a young whore who couldn't have been more than fourteen. His tastes ran to older women, women who had better sense than to trifle with the likes of Billy Deal.

  Deal was singing a bawdy song with the piano player in his staunch, tone-deaf fashion. Macalester approached him and struck him lightly on the shoulder.

  "Business, William." He cut through the improbable harmonies.

  Deal leveled surprised azure eyes at him, and Macalester could see that he'd had more red-eye than was good for him.

  "Humble business. Remember?" Macalester went on patiently. "Dinner. You can serenade these ladies when it's finished. Unless they find their ears, meanwhile."

  Billy scowled. Even his scowls were pretty.

  "Your damned watch is fast again," he grumbled, but gingerly disengaged himself from the attentions of the giggling, somewhat slovenly girls, who looked to Macalester as though they were but mischievous children who had gotten into their mothers' powders and rouges on the sly.

  "I'll be along later," Billy promised them, bussing each of them full on the mouth while his hands slid to their ample backsides. "You ain't goin' anywheres, mister." A new voice growled from a shadowy corner of the saloon. Billy's sharp eyes instantly focused on the corner from which the bearlike sound had emanated.

  "It's right kind of you to invite me to stay," he replied, and Macalester recognized his polite tone as a precursor of trouble. "But I did say I'd be back."

  From the shadows emerged a rangy man about Billy's age, which was several years younger than Macalester's own, clean-shaven and wearing jeans and a denim shirt similar to Billy's. Macalester noticed that the man's gun was tied down. He was sure Billy noticed, too. A man with Billy's reputation didn't live to Billy's age without keen powers of observation, among other talents.

  Macalester felt a small tightening in the pit of his stomach, with which he was all too familiar. He'd lost count of the number of times Billy had faced men like this one. They were old, young and everywhere in between. So far, miraculously, Billy hadn't killed anyone. He had merely injured his opponents enough to make them think long and hard before challenging anyone again. But it was only a matter of time, Macalester reflected. Only a matter of time until Billy Deal actually killed someone. Or until someone killed him. And then he, Macalester, would have to find himself a new partner—a tedious and uninviting prospect.

  "And I said you ain't goin' nowhere," the other man insisted.

  The challenger's grammar, Macalester noted with wry amusement, was deteriorating with the passage of time. He further noted the man's wet shirtfront rising and falling with each shallow, rapid breath he drew. His lips, which he licked frequently, were parted, and revealed bad teeth. Macalester pursed his mouth and backed away from Billy, who was displaying no such anxiety.

  "Finish this up and let's get going, Deal," Macalester said in a purposely loud and clear tone.

  The two girls, at least one of whom had no doubt been the cause of the debacle in progress, retreated behind the piano, their young, painted features slack. Macalester leaned his broad back against the faded wallpaper not far from the door, and far enough, he hoped, from the action. Sometimes these would-be heroes shot wide. Once one had even put a bullet through the crown of his own hat, ruining a perfectly good twelve-dollar Stetson, not to mention adding a gray hair or two to his mahogany locks. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and felt his jaw clench as he wat
ched the adversaries, standing but ten feet apart. A .45 could do considerable damage at that distance, even if the aim wasn't too good. The challenger was angry, and scared. Billy, to all appearances, seemed more bored than annoyed.

  "You… Billy Deal?" The man tried his voice.

  "What if I am?" was Billy's casual, drawling response.

  The man licked his lips again. He did not move, except to glance at Macalester.

  "Then that makes you… Kieran Macalester?" The bravado waned from the challenger's voice.

  Macalester shrugged, not taking his eyes from the man who was now dangerously close to drawing his weapon.

  "Man like you ought to know better than to ask a question like that," Macalester replied quietly.

  Macalester noticed several things at once from the corner of his eye: the bartender slowly ducked down behind the bar; two men who had been drinking at the bar sidled behind the piano near the terrified girls; and an old man who had been sitting in the back had, with remarkable stealth and agility, slipped out the back way, no doubt to summon the sheriff.

  Billy cleared his throat, drawing Macalester's attention again. The younger man was as motionless as an ivory statue, his sky-blue eyes unblinking.

  "Well, mister? I ain't got all day," he remarked lazily.

  Macalester wanted to close his eyes, but he dared not. He was aware of movement and noises in the street outside. If the sheriff got in there, he reflected grimly, they would never make it to Humble's.

  In the instant it took him to blink, a shot was fired. The stranger's gun clattered to the floor, and he was gripping his bloodied hand with a raw cry of pain. A curl of gray smoke issued from the muzzle of Billy's .45.

  Macalester did not concern himself overmuch with the condition of Billy's latest victim. The foolish man would live. Not well, and not happily, without the use of his right hand, but that was his problem. After all, he had challenged Billy, and what was Billy supposed to do—let the fellow shoot him? Macalester sprang forward and seized Billy's arm, pulling him quickly toward the door.

  Outside, in the September twilight, Macalester deftly unlashed the horses, Billy's and his own, as Billy mounted.

  "Wait." Billy hesitated, looking about. "I gotta—"

  "That's them, Sheriff!" It was an old man's voice across the street. "I saw 'em! They—"

  "Too late," Macalester told Billy, his pulse accelerating. "Save it till we're out of town."

  Before he was completely in the saddle, he reined his Appaloosa away at a gallop without looking back. Billy would follow. The sheriff probably would not, satisfied that the outlaws had left town without further threat to the well-being of his community, or to his own life. There were, Macalester reflected, certain advantages to an unsavory reputation.

  A few miles out of town, Macalester finally reined to a halt. They were only a mile or two from Humble's, and it was nearly dark already. There was little chance that they had been followed. The local sheriff would be content to report that he had run the infamous duo of Kieran Macalester and Billy Deal out of town without ever having fired a shot.

  "You okay, Billy?" Macalester turned his mount to see Billy Deal leaning over the side of his bay mare, retching over an unlucky juniper bush. The sight did not surprise Macalester. He had witnessed it after every showdown in which Deal was involved.

  "Damn," he heard Billy swear softly. "Damn." And the gunman's stomach heaved again.

  Macalester waited, saying nothing. He knew it was not fear that prompted so violent a response from his partner. It was something involuntary, as though Deal's own body were rebelling against the danger in which his mind had placed it. Of course, the red-eye probably didn't help, either. Billy's somewhat petulant stomach was a standing joke among compatriots past and present, although none had ever dared to tease him about it. Macalester himself had certainly never felt the urge to taunt him. In fact, he thought it to be one of Billy's finer qualities, proof of his partner's deeper sensitivity. Besides, he suspected that such a joke would not wear well, even coming from him.

  In a few minutes, Billy appeared at his side, mopping his face with his wadded-up kerchief.

  "Damn," he said again, and Macalester could smell the sour reek of bile around him like a rancid cloud.

  Macalester chucked to his mount and started them on their journey again. Billy, beside him on the bay, stuffed a pinch of tobacco into his cheek. Macalester suspected that the object of this exercise was for Billy to rid himself of the foul taste in his mouth, although the idea of replacing one foul taste with another seemed rather strange to him.

  "What do you guess Humble wants?" Billy asked after a time, his humor apparently restored.

  Macalester swore. "That's only the tenth time you've asked me that since we got his telegram. And I don't know any more now than I did then."

  "Well, hell," Billy grumbled, then spat. "I'm just tryin' to make conversation. Talk. Say something. You're good at it."

  Macalester smiled to himself.

  "Do you remember the last job we did for old Garland Humble?"

  "Don't remind me." Deal sniffed, his gloved hands tightening on the reins. "I thought Wichita was a right nice town, up till then. Now I never want to see it again. Senator, what the hell are we doin' here, now that I think about it? That old bastard's got more money than God, and every dogshit job he hires us for, he tries to welch on. Why do we keep comin' back for more?"

  "Because, William, he has more money than God. And just about as much influence. And he's the best chance we have of getting that amnesty we want."

  "The one you want, you mean." Deal was disparaging. "Seems like it don't much matter now, anyway. How long since our last job? Two years? Three?"

  "Two years and four months." Macalester was laconic. "But the statute of limitations on armed robbery is seven years. In five more years, I'll be closing in on forty. My life's more than half over now, Billy. Hell, in five years, I could be dead."

  Billy grinned at him, an expression he could barely make out in the growing Texas darkness. "You could at that, the way you shoot."

  Kieran Macalester did not mind the insult to his marksmanship. It was the truth, after all. "I'll be all right, I guess, as long as nobody cuts out my tongue."

  Garland Humble's home was anything but homey. The Texas palace rose from the landscape like a pagan temple, complete with devotional lights burning in all of its windows. It always reminded Kieran a little of Monument Valley, where monoliths of rock rose hundreds of feet from the canyon floor like gargantuan pillars rammed into the earth by angry gods. The overdone edifice before them, however, was hopelessly out of place, whereas the Utah version was nothing short of majestic.

  A groom approached to take their horses as they dismounted. Kieran offered a mild jest to the effect that he'd thought slavery to have been abolished, but the man did not respond, whether through insult or lack of understanding, Kieran did not know. In either event, their horses were led away to be cared for as he and Billy Deal were admitted to the house by the butler, an impeccably dressed and utterly humorless man of perhaps fifty, whom Billy enjoyed tormenting at every opportunity.

  "Howdy, Alice!" Billy greeted the man in a jovial tone. "Still whorin' for Gar?"

  The man's name was Hallis, but Billy preferred to drop the H, a habit since adopted by more than one member of Garland's extensive household, no doubt to the butler's dismay. Hallis did not offer a reply, except in the form of a disparaging scowl. He led the two men through the cherrywood-paneled foyer to the accompaniment of such remarks as "Did your mother have any sons, Alice?" and "When are you gonna marry and break my poor heart?" Kieran offered no comment, preferring not to interfere in his partner's fun. Hallis, he had discovered, was capable of holding his own against the younger man.

  The butler paused before a pair of ornately carved oaken doors, knocked softly, then opened them, announcing, "Mr. Macalester and Mr. Dull to see you, sir."

  The dining room was a dozen yards across if i
t was an inch, and featured a banquet table nearly its equal in length. At the far end of the rosewood behemoth, partially obscured behind a towering silver candelabra through which he peered like a duck hunter, sat a large man who compensated for the dearth of hair on his head with a full beard the color of new steel.

  "You're late," he complained in a strident yet lilting voice that had surprised both men the first time they'd heard it, for its lyricism was at odds both with its owner's appearance and personality. "Don't you two ever dress for dinner?"

  Macalester stepped forward in an easy swagger, unmoved by the older man's irritation. He snapped his fingers once.

  "Damned if I didn't leave my opera cape at the Ritz Hotel." He mocked his host's protocol. "Your sheriff had other plans for us. That steak looks good, Gar. But we could do with a wash first."

  "Make it fast," Garland Humble growled. "I don't expect I'll live past a hundred. Hallis!"

  It was not until dinner was well over and the three men sat before a roaring fire in Garland's sitting room with Napoleon brandy and Havana cigars that any serious conversation took place. Garland Humble seemed to enjoy lavishing a fine dinner and all of the amenities upon them before asking—that is, telling—them what he needed them to do, in strictest confidence and for comparatively little compensation.

  Kieran watched the old man over the rim of his Waterford brandy snifter. Humble was like an old, fat spider—a spider spinning web upon web, snaring his hapless prey. "Were he and Billy his prey, as well? Kieran preferred not to think about that. Predator or quarry; where Humble was concerned, neither prospect pleased him. "Watching Humble and Deal laugh together over some jest to which he had not been a part, he grew suddenly apprehensive. Garland Humble would ask much, this time. The stakes would be high. Perhaps too high. Kieran swallowed his brandy and poured himself another from the bottle that Humble had, uncharacteristically, left open on the inlaid table between them.