Chapter Seventeen
Malika
Eli Chamas.
Malika slammed the last of the pies on the table.
The hot sting of Adeel’s latest betrayal burned deep. He had arranged for Eli’s adventure to align with hers. Did Jayce know the true identify of their new guest? Malika didn’t believe that he did. Jayce was as honorable and decent as Adeel was deceptive.
Adeel would arrive at the last minute, slide into his role of her on-the-run brother, and accept Eli’s bid to save her ruined reputation. He would never consider Jayce’s offer for her, because an agreement had already been made. She would become Eli’s second wife.
Unless she changed Eli’s mind before then.
The old Malika, the one who had accompanied Adeel to Burning Scrub, would have been thrilled that her beloved brother had gone to so much trouble and expense to see her properly wed, even if the groom was not ideal.
She would have believed it meant she was as important to him as the rest of his sisters. She was no longer so na?ve.
Fortunately, she no longer had to rely on Adeel.
Whether he would consider Jayce’s offer was no longer important.
Jayce had asked her to marry him according to Western traditions, and she had accepted.
She was a woman of the Wild West now, and according to Mavis, Western women were as tough as their men.
Malika had been tough long before she came West. She descended from a long line of desert nomads who’d survived harsher conditions than this for thousands of years. Whatever Adeel had planned for her in Eli’s adventure, she would ruin it.
Sadly, she couldn’t discuss Eli or his adventure with Jayce. They weren’t married yet. He’d believe he owed his loyalty to the town and Adeel, because he and the town were in Adeel’s employ. Malika understood all too well that Adeel’s money bought loyalty.
Tilly, on the other hand, had no such scruples. She was as tough as Malika, with a bewildering hostility towards marriage. She’d seen the images of Eli online, so she’d recognize him the moment she saw him, the same as Malika.
Tilly would make an excellent ally.
*
“Flirt with him?” Tilly said. “I don’t think so.”
Malika had tracked her friend down in the small schoolhouse, where she was stocking a bookshelf with thin paper booklets and hardcover novels.
Malika didn’t know who Deadwood Dick was, and had no desire to find out, but his stories seemed popular with the Burning Scrub book club that met here most Sunday nights.
Mavis kept far more interesting reading material on her e-reader, which she allowed Malika to borrow. She was also teaching Malika how to knit. Both were excellent activities to while away the long hours on rainy days.
“You’re raising funds to beautify the town. The town only has thirty-six residents. How much do you think you can raise if you don’t flirt with men?” she asked Tilly.
“I don’t have to raise anything,” Tilly said.
“I just have to wander around town with a clipboard and write down names and fake amounts. It’s not like I’m going to collect any of the money.
” She held up the clipboard in question.
“See? I put Andy down for five thousand dollars. He’d have to sell one of his kidneys to come up with that. ”
Interesting. “Is five thousand dollars a lot of money for a kidney?”
“For a kidney? Probably not. For Andy? Depends on the day of the week and who he was grifting.”
“Andy is a grifter?” That gave Malika pause. “How…”
Not in the least surprising when she thought about it.
Tilly tidied the newly arranged books so that the spines were all even. “The whole town of Burning Scrub started out as a grift. Mavis keeps us respectable.”
Not much wonder Adeel was so fond of the place. He loved the whole art of the con and the manipulation that went with it.
“Think of flirting as a type of grift,” Malika said, inspired. “It can be harmless and fun, or you can use it to get what you want. Which can also be harmless and fun.”
“You fit in well here, you flirtatious grifter, you.” Hands on hips, Tilly surveyed the results of her book arranging efforts. Then, satisfied everything was in order, she turned to Malika. “Okay. I’ll do it. But don’t blame me if it doesn’t go the way you think it will.”
“It’s going to go exactly the way I think it will,” Malika said.
Tilly was blond and adorable. Eli couldn’t possibly resist her. Tilly, however, would have no difficulty in resisting him. For some reason Malika could not understand, Tilly disliked men.
“Can I flirt with someone too?”
Startled, Malika and Tilly looked around. Linda peered around the frame of the open door at the front of the room, next to the massive black chalkboard and the sturdy wood teacher’s desk.
“I can’t get you to sit quietly during the school year, and yet here you are, hanging around during summer break,” Tilly said. “Quiet as a mouse.”
“You never talk about anything fun when school’s in,” Linda said. “Malika talks about fun things all the time.”
“Thank you,” Malika said.
“Don’t thank her,” Tilly said to Malika. “It means she’s been spying on you.”
Malika couldn’t think of anything she’d done lately that a child shouldn’t see, but she’d keep that in mind.
“Would you like to play a game with me, instead?” she asked Linda.
Linda perked up. “What kind of game?”
The kind that would drive a man with grown children, and a young wife who desired many, many babies, insane. Linda was also blond and adorable, but not in the same way as Tilly.
“That’s evil,” Tilly said admiringly, once Malika explained.
“I know.”
Malika was quite proud of herself for thinking of it. Now all she had to do was find a way to get into the camp.
*
Jayce
Every night that Burning Scrub had an adventure in progress, the character overseeing the client met up with Benny, Mavis, and Grady for a debriefing and adjustments to the script. Jayce slipped away from the camp once the campfire burned low and Cassidy started to snore.
The walk in the dark took forty minutes. Now, he sat at the long dining room table in the boardinghouse with the team while Pearl slept with the Lovett children upstairs.
“The client wants to kidnap Malika and hold her for ransom until her brother returns. Except Butch Cassidy didn’t kidnap women,” Jayce said.
He’d thought Grady would take his side in this, but he was wrong.
“He didn’t kidnap women,” Grady said slowly. Working changes into the script was part of his job, and he was good at it. “But a woman named Etta Place ran with his gang. Rumor had it that she was more Sundance’s companion than his, and since you’re Sundance, we could make it work.”
Jayce didn’t want it to work. He didn’t like Cassidy’s interest in her. “She’s already been introduced as Malika George.”
“That shouldn’t matter. No one knows for certain what Etta’s real name was, or her occupation. She could have been a music teacher, a prostitute, or a cattle rustler. Whatever else she was, she was a good liar. The physical description fits, too. Beautiful, sophisticated, dark-haired, and wild.”
It really did fit. But she didn’t give the impression of a prostitute or a cattle rustler, or a ruined woman, either—hard as she tried—although he supposed music teacher wasn’t a big stretch.
“It’s not a big deal,” Benny cut in, proving he hadn’t paid much attention to her.
“You’re supposed to be keeping an eye on her for Ali, so the new character role plays into her adventure too.
The Mexicans can keep her out of trouble when you’re not around.
Belle said she had a great time with them when they kidnapped her last year. ”
Which raised another concern.
“About the Mexicans,” Jayce said. “They aren’t very happy.”
Benny brushed that off, as well. “Their mood will improve once payday rolls around.”
Which was easy for him to say, because he didn’t have hostile Natives masquerading as Mexicans sleeping around a campfire with him. They were about two heartbeats from burning Butch Cassidy at the stake, then raiding Burning Scrub and burning it to the ground too.
They weren’t friendly with Jayce anymore, either. They’d been whispering amongst themselves and going silent whenever he came too close. Dave tried to trip him when he was sneaking out of camp to come to the meeting tonight. He smelled a revolt in the works.
“I’ll let Malika in on the kidnapping,” he said, because he knew from personal experience how well that was likely to land if they caught her off guard.
“No. Let the kidnapping play out naturally. It’ll be more realistic that way,” Mavis said, adding her opinion to the discussion. “It will give the Mexicans something to do while Adam sets the robbery in motion.”
Jayce started to explain that Malika didn’t take naturally to being cast as a victim, and acting helpless wasn’t exactly her style, but Mavis lived with her, so she’d already know that.
Dave and his friends might be less antagonistic with her around, so that was a plus.
They might find her flirting with them entertaining, as well.
If she flirted with Cassidy, though, she and Jayce were going to have words.
Jayce trusted him a lot less than he trusted Andy, and he didn’t trust Andy at all.
There was just something about Cassidy that Jayce didn’t like.
The meeting wrapped up shortly before midnight.
Malika was waiting when he stepped outside, looking pretty and fresh in her high-collared blouse, a crocheted cotton shawl, and long cotton skirt. Even though Mavis no longer kept her under close watch, and he was happy to see her, she was taking a risk.
He knew things between them weren’t ideal, and that she had concerns about the depth of his feelings for her.
For all her brazenness, underneath it, she might be a touch insecure.
He wasn’t good when it came to women and romance.
But until he’d had a chance to talk to her brother and formulate some sort of plan regarding the twenty-five million dollars at stake that he didn’t have, it couldn’t be helped.