Page 41 of Love’s Silver Bullet

Sheridan spun to face her aunt. “You would do that, Aunt Libby?”

Libby smiled and gave her a quick hug. “Of course I would, sweetheart. After all, we women have to stick together, right?” She suddenly sat straight up with a gleam in her eyes. “Wait! Finn asked me to hold off on starting a suffragist club in Virginia City till after he runs for Senator William Stewart’s seat in a little over a year, so I’ve agreed.”

She wiggled her brows. “But he never said anything about a suffragist club in the family, now did he?” You know—'unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno’? ‘One for all, all for one,’ like in the motto of The Three Musketeers? Well, that can be our motto, too.”

Maggie silently clapped her hands. “Oooooo, ‘The Three Suffrageteers’—I like that, Libby.”

Sheridan and Maggie exchanged grins. “Oh, me too!” Sheridan agreed, lunging to give her Aunt Libby a hug.

Aunt Libby squeezed back with a squeal. “Oh, and I know—we can call our secret club the Silver Lining independence Platform—code name ‘SLIP,’” she said with a giggle, “since our very first goal will be to give our menfolk ‘the slip’ as to what we are planning on Sheridan’s behalf. Then, hopefully one day, our little club will become the basis for the Nevada Women’s League I hope to start in the future.”

“Oh, Libby, yes!” Maggie said, launching her arms around both Sheridan and Libby in a giddy hug, giggles merging all around.

Sheridan pulled back, eyes wide with hope. “So, when will you talk to Uncle Finn, Aunt Libby?”

“Well …” Libby paused to consider the question. “The timing has to be perfect, of course, so I think after our dinner with Clay, his uncle, Annie Oakley and her husband might be the most opportune time.” Arm hooked to Sheridan’s waist, she bent to press a kiss to her niece’s head. “So, that will be my task, and then we’ll just take it from there, one step at a time.”

“Yes,” Maggie said with an arm to the other side of Sheridan’s waist, giving her sister-in-law a playful pinch, “and my task will be working on Blaze to broaden his perspective on women’s rights, both with his wife and his sister.”

Sheridan could barely contain her excitement, hands pressed to her chin in prayer mode. “Oh, I am soooo excited, and I can’t thank you both enough!” Fairly quivering with anticipation, she grinned at Maggie and then at her Aunt Libby, brows lifted in question. “And what will my task be then?” she asked with a giddy wiggle of feet.

“Oh, that’s an easy one.” Maggie leaned forward to wink at Libby before she sealed it and each other with a unified hug. “It’s your job to pray and look pretty!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Jake could smell the Bucket of Blood Saloon long before he ever entered it, the stench of stale cigar smoke, rotgut whiskey, and grimy men roiling past the swinging doors into the dusty street along with a drunk or two. He’d gone by Deputy Wilcox’s house first, and the kid was sound asleep just as Jake had suspected he’d be, so he’d asked him to meet him at the Bucket of Blood Saloon in fifteen minutes.

The tinny sound of piano music floated on the breeze along with the sour smell of sweat and vomit as Jake surveyed the horses tied up in front of one of Virginia City’s most notorious saloons. He sure in the devil hated the idea of stepping foot in this cesspool where most of the troublemakers in town could be found, but if he was going to find Slick Sikeston, it would be here.

Squinting in the dark lit only by one dim street light, Jake wasn’t ruffled in the least that Sikeston’s mustang was absent out front. The notorious gambler and gunslinger wasn’t called “Slick” for nothing, so Jake and Midnight moseyed around back, where a hodge-podge collection of horseflesh was tied up to the posts.

Including a pretty mustang with tan markings on its rear.

It was a contest over which pulsed through his veins more—adrenaline or anger—as he dismounted and tied Midnight up to a nearby tree in the back. Half-cocking his Colt 45, he spun the cylinder to double-check his load, then slid it back into his holster. Next, he searched Sikeston’s saddlebag on the mustang to make sure the money wasn’t there, although he knew the scum’s gambling habit demanded a rich purse. Moving toward the back door of the saloon like a shadow, he carefully stepped over a drunk snoring in the doorway and slipped into the crowd.

“My-my, now where in tarnation have they been keeping you, sweetheart?” A pretty woman in her thirties or so—or would be if not for the harshly dyed red hair and heavy rouge—eyed him up and down as he entered the main room. The neckline of her red dress was so low, Jake figured his face had to be a close match given the hot rush of blood in his cheeks. She slipped her arm through his and peeked up beneath sooty lashes. “So, what’s your pleasure, Cowboy?”

“I’m looking for Slick Sikeston,” he said, raising his voice over the raucous music and laughter, “so I’d be much obliged, ma’am, if you could show me where he is.”

She caressed his waist with a pretty tilt of her head. “I can show you a whole lot more than that, honey, so when you’re done with Sikeston, you come see me, all right? Name’s Jackpot Janie, and I’ll be more than happy to show you why.” She gave his bicep a seductive squeeze. “And yours is?”

“Jake,” he said in a stiff tone.

“Well, Jake”—she nodded across the room to a table in the back where a poker game was going on—“you’re in luck because that yellow-bellied varmint just wandered in a little while ago, so he’s all yours. But you come back to see me, you hear?”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Jake forced a tight smile as he gave her a nod and eased on past, gaze homing in on Sikeston’s table with a hard clamp of his jaw. “Sikeston,” he said when he stopped in front of his table, voice none too friendly, “been looking for you.”

“Well now, will you looky here.” Cards in hand, Sikeston leaned back with a lazy smile, one arm casually draped over the back of the chair. “It’s the Nevada State Shootout champ three years running, lookin’ to take me on.” He grinned, and a gold tooth gleamed in his mouth. “Hopin’ to weed out the competition, are ya?”

Jake’s jaw felt like it was ready to crack, his dislike of Sikeston as strong as the stink of body odor and beer. He’d beaten the nefarious gunslinger over and over in Nevada’s State Shootout, so it was no secret to Jake that the lowlife braggart had something to prove and made no bones about it. “You robbed the St. Mary Louise Orphanage tonight, you bucket of scum, and I want every single dime back.”

Grinning, Sikeston slowly laid his cards down and began to pick at his teeth, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “You got proof, Sullivan? Because I don’t take kindly to false accusations.”

In a blink of a lash, Jake had his gun drawn, aimed dead-center at Sikeston’s ugly mug, clearing the table real fast. Chairs scraped and conversations hushed as Jake cocked his revolver. “I got all the proof I need, slime mold, right there in your vest pocket, so why don’t you empty it for me?”

The cocky smile on the weasel’s face took a sinister twist as he slowly rose to his feet, greasy strands of dark hair slithering over his collar. “Well, now, why don’t we just settle this outside?”

“No need.” Jake said with a hard smile, rounding the empty chairs to relieve Sikeston of his gun. He slid it across the table away from the lowlife before pointing his Colt straight at the blackguard’s heart. Raise your hands and stand up—now.”