Chapter 18 #2
“Then sit somewhere else,” I snap at him, wondering when he’s going to leave so I can get some sleep, but given how comfortable he seems sprawled out on his horse’s back, I suspect he has no intention of moving anytime soon. “And don’t be saying my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like we know each other. Just because Maddock gave it to you—”
“Maddock didn’t give it to me. Well, not knowingly.”
“Says the thief,” I mutter in reply to his half-answer.
He smiles again before continuing, “I overheard him say it when you arrived in town. Outside the hotel.”
“Thought that was you,” I say, glaring at him when he appears delighted for some reason. “Why’d you ask me for it then if you already knew it? In the alley?”
“Seemed polite.”
“Polite,” I repeat. “Funny thing to worry about when you have a habit of picking up things that don’t belong to you. Anything else you manage to lift?”
“Yes,” he replies with zero hesitation. “You have a deal with Maddock. That’s the paper he gave you at the saloon.”
“Christ.” I let the bale drop against the wall, raising a hand to lift my hat only to remember it’s not there. A distracted slip-up that seems to amuse him more.
“If it helps, I don’t know all the terms,” he reassures me. “Sadly, the walls of the hotel are only so thin.” He waits. “But if you’d like to tell me—”
“Why the hell would I tell you?”
“Well, perhaps, if you told me,” he says slowly, “I could help…”
“I don’t need your—”
“Pity, I know.” His mouth presses into a tight line as he thinks over his oncoming argument. “But if we were to have, say, aligned interests…”
“We don’t.”
“We might.”
“We do not have aligned anything,” I say, more forcefully this time, and I could almost swear that I see him flinch. “Whatever you’re up to, I want no part in it. All I want is to make it through the end of this week, get paid my share, and get gone.”
“I see,” he says, voice quiet again. “And where exactly are you and…” He gestures toward the mustang who has at last hunkered down in the corner of the stall, clearly having decided to ignore us. “Apologies, I don’t know his name.”
“He doesn’t have one,” I say, tone clipped.
“Why?”
“Hasn’t been given one.”
“You haven’t named your horse?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
You know, maybe Maddock shooting me earlier would have been kinder. “Because…” I say through gritted teeth. “He’s not my horse.”
“Ah,” he says, still frowning. “He’s one of Maddock’s?”
“Yes,” I reply, then because I know he’ll likely ask anyway, I tack on, “Until the end of the week at least.”
“I see. So you agreed to work for Maddock until the end of the week, and in exchange, he will give you No Name there along with your share of whatever money he takes at the table. Do I have all that right?” he asks, continuing without really giving me a chance to deny it.
“And you are to do…what? Act as an enforcer for him? That why you jumped me that first night in the alley?”
“Not entirely,” I say, irritated that my initial refusal to tell him the details of my agreement were, apparently, completely futile. “That was mainly for me.”
His crystalline eyes practically sparkle in response. “Really?”
“Christ, not like that,” I reply, not sure if I’m more exasperated with him for taking the opening or with myself for giving it to him. “I went after you because I knew you were a thief, not because you’re…”
He arches an eyebrow again. “Not because I’m…what?”
“Look,” I say, quickly changing the topic. “There’s no love lost between me and Maddock. Clearly. But I need our deal to get out of here, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t fuck things up with whatever it is you’re doing.”
“Where will you go?” he asks, holding my gaze for a moment too long before looking away and toward the roof. “When the deal is done?”
I exhale, not entirely sure myself. “Home, I guess?”
“And home is…?”
“Somewhere you will never be invited.”
He doesn’t reply for some time, and I start to wonder again if I’ve actually wounded him before he shrugs. “Your loss. I’m a wonderful house guest. You’d hardly know I’m there.”
“Somehow, I doubt that,” I mutter, certain that there would be no way of knowing he wasn’t there in my small cabin. I clear my throat. “What about you? You going home whenever you finish causing chaos here?”
“Trying to.” He sighs. “In your deal, what happens if Maddock loses it all by the end of the week?”
“I still get the horse,” I tell him, dropping to sit on one of the hay bales, not seeing much of a point in hiding that detail from him when he’s already pieced together everything else.
“Well, that is unless he figures out I knowingly let him get played. I take it that is your intention? That he does lose it all by the end of the week?”
“It was initially. My priorities have shifted somewhat,” he replies, frowning as he thinks. “You said in the alley that you knew me, and just now you said you saw me at the hotel. Who did you…what made you notice me?”
“Hard to miss you,” I say without thinking, clearing my throat again when I realize how that might sound. “You’re always dressed like a well-moneyed undertaker.”
Cypress blinks in my direction, then laughs deeply, repeating the words between attempts to stop. “A—well-moneyed—undertaker?”
“Yes,” I say, now also struggling with a smile. “Fuck’s sake, even your damn horse is black. Guarantee all your tack is, too.”
“You would be right.” Cypress grins in further confirmation. “But come now, wolf, I thought you were a cowboy. Surely you know the importance of a distinctive brand.”
Wolf. There’s that same nickname, but I’m too busy huffing out a laugh in spite of myself to ask him about it. “Afraid of someone claiming you, are you?”
The lightness in his gaze shifts to something heavier, to something that makes my blood thrum as his gaze does a slow sweep up and down my body, his eyes locking on mine again as he murmurs, “Not at all. In fact, I think I’d rather enjoy it.”
The space we’re in is suddenly feeling far too small, even as I wonder what would happen if I got to my feet and closed what distance there was. “Don’t you think you ought to be heading to the hotel? It’s…it’s getting late.”
Cypress shrugs, his head lifting slightly before he drops it back down and stares once more at the roof.
His horse barely seems to notice the change as he continues to nose around his feed bucket, not at all bothered by his rider treating him like a feather bed.
Thief or not, he must, at least, take good care of the horse for him to be so trusting.
“It’s raining,” Cypress finally says in answer to my question, making it sound more like an observation than an explanation for why he hasn’t left. “You hear it?”
“Course I can,” I reply, glancing up too as I listen to the raindrops pinging against the roof. “What’s wrong? You afraid a little water won’t agree with the fancy clothes?”
“Can’t see it on the clothes,” he replies, sounding strangely far away as his thumb starts to once again tap out his tell against his thigh. Tap. Tap. Tap. Over and over. “Can’t see it. But it makes it hard to sleep…”
“Cypress.” His hand stills at the sound of his name, those blue eyes finding mine in the dim light. “You really should…” I lean against the stall wall as the tiredness from the day begins to set in. “You should really know if you keep me up snoring, I’ll have to kill you.”
He smiles, softer this time. “You know, wolf, I think I’d let you.”