Chapter Eighteen
Beau
Beau contemplated the swarm of stars swirling in the black sky above Belle’s front step. He’d never gazed at stars before coming to Burning Scrub. In the city, light pollution crowded them out. Here, they gathered so close he could feed them out of the palm of his hand.
He liked ending his evenings this way. Sometimes, Belle joined him.
He’d left her bed earlier than planned because she hadn’t been sleeping especially well, what with everything going on, and he didn’t want his tossing and turning to keep her awake, too. She was due for a kidnapping any day now, and she needed her rest so she could put up a good fight and escape.
The kidnapping was the signal for Jayce to ride into town and cheat Beau at cards.
Beau was half tempted to let her shoot him, like she wanted, but Benny was already riled up enough over script changes.
Beau wasn’t sure he could stand by and do nothing while she had a noose around her neck, either, not even if the hanging was staged.
“Let’s not make more out of this than it is.”
Those words had hit hard. They’d made him think. Was Belle a rebound relationship? His ribs gripped his heart. Not a chance.
Granted, he’d been absorbed in Jen for so many—far, far too many—years that he might have grown confused as to what real love felt like. One thing was for sure, it had never felt with Jen the way it did when he was with Belle.
Belle was so easy to love.
Chemistry factored in—absolutely—but there was so much more to it.
He and Belle talked about things. He liked hearing her go on about the plants and herbs she was researching—not because he found the topic as fascinating as she did, but because of the way her face lit up when she spoke.
And she was interested in his music, not because she knew anything about it, but because it was important to him.
He’d been jealous when he walked in and found Jayce kissing her—for all of two seconds. He was a man, he was possessive, and Belle was his. His. And it wouldn’t be the first time a woman changed her mind about her feelings for him without letting him know.
But he knew Belle, he knew she was kind, and once the hot wave of jealousy passed, he knew what was up.
Since he was arguably the bad guy in this, and he knew how it felt to be in Jayce’s boots, he could hardly blame the guy for making one last attempt, or Belle for the way she chose to handle the situation.
It was her attachment to Burning Scrub and her newfound family that posed the real problem for him, not Jayce.
Even though he was almost sure she was in love with him, too—or she would be if she allowed it—he shouldn’t have asked her to run away.
He couldn’t expect her to choose him over Mavis and Benny, even if they were crazy, when she’d only just found them.
Adam was a whole other issue. Beau didn’t know what to do about that. He really didn’t know how Belle would take it. The first line of a song started up in his head.
The day you came into my life you stole my heart…
If that didn’t have country written all over it. It was definitely time for him to get out of Burning Scrub.
“Howdy,” Sheriff Earp said.
Beau’s ass left the step and leaped about a foot in the air.
The heart he’d accused Belle of stealing proved it was still inside him, although it was kicking and screaming to get out.
What was with people popping out of the woodwork around here?
It was as if none of them had ever been robbed at gunpoint before.
“Oh. Hey.” He tried to come up with an explanation as to why he was sitting on Belle’s front steps in the middle of the night and drew a complete blank since the answer was obvious.
The sheriff struck a match and held the tiny flame in cupped hands to light the cigarette clenched in his teeth. “Beautiful night.”
“It is. I’m, uh…”
“Enjoying your hobby?”
“Something like that.”
The sheriff patted his pocket. He withdrew a small packet and offered it to Beau. “Cigarette?”
“No thanks. I gave up smoking when I was thirteen. Bad for my vocal cords.”
The sheriff smiled faintly. “Walk with me.”
Beau wondered if Adam had worked the sheriff murdering Beau in a dark alley into the script. This guy took his role seriously, and Beau worked for the madam he was at war with.
Since they were headed in the direction he wanted to go, however, he fell into step.
The sheriff didn’t go in much for small talk.
They walked for a few minutes in silence, then stopped in front of the mercantile.
He took a long drag from the cigarette, dropped the glowing remains on the ground, then crushed them into the dirt with his heel.
“I wondered if I could ask a favor of you.”
“Sure,” Beau said, because cooperating seemed like the safe thing to do, whereas running might get him shot in the back.
The sheriff stuck his hand in his pocket, and for a second, Beau’s heart coughed like a flooded engine.
The sheriff withdrew his hand and held up a cell phone. “I’d love to get a selfie with Beau Jones.”
Cell phones weren’t allowed inside the town limits, but the sheriff was armed, and it wasn’t Beau’s business. “Why not.”
The sheriff put his arm around Beau’s shoulders, held up the phone, and took a few photos of them standing like good buddies in front of the store. When he was finished, he shoved the phone into his pocket.
“Have a good evening,” he said, then disappeared into the night with the same stealth he’d used to appear.
Beau tried to make sense of the interaction, but no.
It was weird.
The faint shrieks of some poor small mammal being hauled off in a predator’s clutches gave him the willies. He shivered and thrust his hands in his pockets. Nature was a lot more brutal than New York City streets after dark.
He entered the saloon through the unlocked front door. No batwings for Burning Scrub, like one saw in the movies. They kept things real.
He tried to be quiet, but he hadn’t yet caught the nuances of the staircase’s quirks. The third tread squeaked. The eighth moaned. The final tread at the top sounded like nails being ripped out of a sheet of plywood that had been hammered into a wall made of concrete.
They had nothing on whatever was happening inside Shanda’s room.
It sounded as if someone was being beaten to death.
Beau’s first fear was that whoever she was running from had caught up with her, and where was Tilly in all this? Hiding in her room? Was she already dead?
Because she sure as hell couldn’t sleep through this noise.
He wasn’t dumb enough to barge in on Shanda without first knowing what he would find.
He crept into his room as quietly possible, locked the door behind him—because why make it easy to become the next victim—then made a dash to the window.
He climbed onto the balcony and pressed against the side of the building, trying to blend into the scenery, in case anyone lurking around happened to look up.
Then, he leaned over just far enough to peer through the watery glass of Shanda’s closed window.
He processed a few minor details. An oil lamp on the dresser cast an ominous glow throughout the small room. Shadows hunched in fear in the corners. A bed that was fully displayed.
A naked man sprawled on the bed. His hands and wrists were tied to the four posts, and his bare cherry-red ass was propped up by pillows. Shanda, dressed in garters and stockings, and high heels and a smile, knelt above him.
She held a riding crop in her hands. She said something. The glass muffled the words, but Beau could have sworn she said, “Who’s been a very bad boy?” before her riding crop connected with the bare ass.
Beau’s heart screamed in his chest with each crack of the crop and the moans of its victim.
Okay.
He’d seen enough. He straightened and pressed against the exterior wall.
Process of elimination. It couldn’t be Benny, because gross.
For many reasons. Besides, Benny wasn’t that limber.
Sheik Ali, aka Wyatt Earp, was busy roaming the town taking selfies.
Jayce’s ass was way better toned than what Beau had just witnessed—not that Beau had been actively checking either ass out.
And Beau was almost positive that the guy trussed to Shanda’s headboard had gray hair, although he wasn’t diving in for a second look to confirm.
All of which brought him to the conclusion he’d already reached.
It wasn’t Sheik Ali that Shanda was shagging.
It was Adam.
*
Beau
The better part of an hour had ticked past before the door upstairs opened, then carefully closed with the faintest of clicks. The stairs creaked under the weight of someone who knew intimately where the noisiest boards were.
The mystery man reached the bottom tread of the stairs, where he sat to pull on his boots. The saloon was thick and murky with shadow, so Beau couldn’t say for sure who it was. He needed proof. He struck a match and lit the candle he’d placed beside him on the table.
Adam dropped the boot in his hands and grabbed at his chest. “God almighty, what the hell’s wrong with you? Scaring an old man like that.”
After what Beau had witnessed, playing the weak heart card was not going to cut it.
“You didn’t bring Belle to Burning Scrub because the town needs a doctor.
You brought her for your own selfish sake, you selfish old bastard.
If you don’t tell her that you’re her father, I will,” he said, keeping his voice low, because the last thing he needed was Shanda’s involvement in this conversation. “I mean it.”
“I didn’t bring her here for my sake. I brought her here for Mavis’s. You think I don’t know what a disappointment her daughter turned out to be? Belle makes up for it. In spades.”
He sounded so proud that Beau longed to punch him. He didn’t get to take any credit for the amazing person she’d become.
“Besides, Burning Scrub does need a doctor. Three quarters of the town is approaching old age.”