AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ve been thinking about the auction. Are you sure I can’t offer a night with one of my girls.”
Eddy smiled. “Very sure.” They’d had this conversation on one of Eddy’s earlier visits. “I don’t think it’s appropriate.”
“Well okay. I’ll see if me and the girls can come with something else.”
“That would fine.” But Eddy had no idea what that would be.
Behind Eddy a male voice said, “Well, well. Look who’s here. You made it, I see.”
Eddy swung around to the sound of the slurred but familiar voice and looked into the red eyes of the man she knew as Father Nash. Furious, she turned back to Ruby. She had absolutely nothing to say to him.
“You know him, Eddy?” Lady Ruby asked with surprise.
“Just enough to know he’s a thief and a snake. I’ll tell you the story some other time.”
“You trying to ignore me, girl?” Nash snapped.
Eddy said to Ruby, “Let me get my eggs.”
Behind her, she heard the scrape of a chair.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you.” He was now crossing the room.
She still refused to turn around.
Lady Ruby said, “One of you girls go get Phillip. Hurry.” She then snapped, “Mister, go back over there and sit down!”
Phillip was the house bouncer. Eddy saw one of the girls run from the room just as Nash latched onto her upper arm and spun around her to face him. “Did you hear me?”
“Let go!” She tried to jerk free but his hold was tight as a vise.
A different male voice boomed angrily, “Release her now! Or I’ll kill you where you stand.”
Rhine Fontaine stood across the room with ice in his eyes and a Colt in his hand leveled at Nash.
Nash’s eyes bulged and he quickly backed away.
Rhine didn’t lower the gun. “MissCarmichael, are you okay?”
A seething Eddy rubbed at her throbbing arm. “Yes.”
Nash raised his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said, chuckling as if the encounter had been a joke. “I didn’t know she was yours. Had her a few times when she and I crossed the desert. Was just trying to renew an old friendship. She as hot for you as she was for me?”
Eddy saw red. He’d robbed her, left her to die, and was now intimating that they’d been intimate? She was so furious she wanted to shoot him herself, but not having that option, she grabbed a long-necked bottle off the bar’s top and slammed it hard across his jaw. The bottle shattered. Had she been taller she’d have brought it down on his head.
Lady Ruby shouted, “Hey! Who’s going to pay for that!”
It wouldn’t be Nash because he was already out cold before he fell over the table and slumped slowly to the floor. Eddy reached into her pocket, withdrew some coins and slapped them on the bar. “For your whiskey.”
The old madam smiled. “I like your style, Eddy Carmichael.”
But the still furious Eddy was already on her way to the back door. As she passed the stunned Fontaine, she said, “Now, you may shoot him!”
Out back, Eddy went to the coops and gathered the eggs she needed. Placing them in the basket she was carrying, she turned to go home and there stood Rhine Fontaine.
“Thank you for intervening on my behalf. Again. Good day.”
