California Carnage Read Free

make up his mind what he was going to do. If he didn’t accept Stoddard’s proposal, he would return what was left of the hundred bucks. That was the only fair way to handle things.
    Meanwhile, he asked Belinda, ‘‘Are you sure those hombres weren’t after you for . . . other reasons?’’
    She blushed, and her face was even prettier as the warm pink tinge crept across it. ‘‘I suppose that’s possible,’’ she admitted. ‘‘But they know who I am, and I just don’t believe it was their idea to come after me. I think Mr. Stoddard sent them.’’
    ‘‘What were you doing on the street at this time of night?’’
    At that blunt question, her chin came up with a hint of defiance and stubbornness. ‘‘I’m accustomed to walking where I please, when I please.’’
    ‘‘Maybe so,’’ Fargo said, ‘‘but out here on the frontierthat can be dangerous. We’re not back wherever it is you come from.’’
    ‘‘I assure you, there are dangers there, too.’’
    Fargo didn’t doubt it. But he hadn’t gotten an answer to his question, either, so he continued giving her a steady stare as he waited.
    ‘‘I was just trying to get a breath of fresh air,’’ she said after a moment. ‘‘My hotel room was stifling.’’
    His nod encompassed the clothes she wore. ‘‘What’s with the getup?’’
    ‘‘The way these Spanish and Mexican girls dress is very comfortable,’’ Belinda said. ‘‘I bought these clothes at the market the other day and wanted to try them. Besides, they look good, don’t you think?’’
    Fargo thought they looked very good indeed. The shoulders left bare by the blouse were smooth, inviting a man’s touch. And the neckline of the garment was low enough so that the twin swells of her firm young breasts showed above it, along with the upper part of the dark valley between them. That cleft made a man think about what it would feel like to put his face in it and run his tongue over her heated skin.
    ‘‘You look good enough that I’d better walk you back to your hotel,’’ Fargo said, ‘‘just so nobody else who’s out and about tonight will be tempted.’’
    She smiled and asked, ‘‘What about you, Mr. Fargo? Are you tempted?’’
    She was a natural-born flirt, he thought, and she had read what was in his mind without any trouble at all. He growled, ‘‘I’ve had saddles older than you.’’
    Hurt by the words, she blinked her eyes and frowned at him.
    He drank the last of his coffee and got to his feet. ‘‘Come on.’’
    ‘‘Maybe I don’t want to go with you,’’ she said.
    ‘‘You’d be a fool not to. Up to you.’’
    She glanced through the cantina’s open doorway at the dark night outside, and he saw the irritation she felt toward him warring with her nervousness. The nervousness won.
    ‘‘All right,’’ she said as she stood up.
    As they walked out, Fargo called to Pablo, ‘‘I’ll be back later, amigo.’’
    ‘‘A room will be waiting for you when you return, Skye,’’ Pablo promised.
    Fargo and Belinda walked down the street without touching. Los Angeles was a small pueblo, but it was growing. In the eight years since California had become a state, quite a few Anglo settlers had moved in to join the Spanish and Mexican citizens who had populated the place since the founding of Mission San Gabriel, just east of the pueblo that had grown up nearby. The buildings had all been made of adobe at first, but now there were a fair number of frame structures, including the two-story hotel where Belinda and her father were staying.
    That was the same hotel where Fargo was supposed to meet Hiram Stoddard, he noted. He supposed the enmity between Stoddard and Grayson didn’t keep them from staying in the same hostelry, especially since it was the most comfortable lodging in town.
    Fargo and Belinda went up the three steps to the porch that ran along the front of the hotel. He paused and said, ‘‘I reckon you’ll be all right