Love Under Two Gunslingers Read Free Page A

him with confidence. If he’d had his way, he’d take care of fulfilling his lover’s wishes personally. But in this, as in most things, his lover proved clever.
    These ruffians could never be traced to Jamie. And no one would ever remember Liam Larson, as plain a man as ever walked the face of the earth. No one, save Jamie, had ever looked at him twice.
    He pulled out the extra chair at the table. The smell of unwashed bodies assailed him, and it was all Liam could do not to curl his lip in disgust.
    “Guess you’re the dude we’re waiting for.” Morgan turned his head slightly to the side to spit out his chaw, just missing Liam’s foot.
    Liam didn’t shake his head but he knew no amount of willpower would keep the look of contempt from his face. Reaching into his jacket he pulled out an envelope and tossed it down on the table in front of Morgan.
    “Half now, half when the job is done.”
    “How’re you gonna know if we did it right or not?” The question was asked by another man at the table, a man who appeared to be little more than a boy, really.
    No intelligence shining from those eyes .
    Liam knew Morgan’s stepson ran with him, as did his brother and a couple of men he’d met during the war, all of them, of course, fighting on the losing side.
    “I’ll be close by,” Liam said. He turned his attention back to Morgan. “Here’s what’s expected of you and where you’re to make your move.”
    He spoke quietly, quickly. He described the target, and there could be no way even a bunch of no-accounts like Morgan and his gang appeared to be could miss picking out the target.
    Morgan grabbed up the envelope, his callused finger playing over the edge of the bills that filled it. “I don’t trust paper money overmuch. Learned my lesson a few years back. Mr. Davis’s paper money turned out to be worth less than shit. I want the rest of it in gold coin.”
    Liam raised both eyebrows. This was one of the reasons he’d argued with Jamie against using a man like Morgan. The man’s basic lack of professionalism would be the death of him.
    Or it would be if Liam had any say in the matter.
    “Very well. The target doesn’t arrive here until tomorrow. You don’t move for a day after that. Plenty of time to make arrangements for the gold then.” What choice did he have? It wouldn’t be very difficult to get the coin, as Jamie had been very generous and provided Liam with substantial property and cash. But his instincts told him the wisest course of action would be to let Morgan keep his obvious impressions, that Liam was just able to meet the financial demands on top of being an unthreatening ‘dude.’
    He could see no reason to let Morgan know he could put a hole in his forehead from four hundred yards away . Farther if he had his Sharps. In fact, there existed no need to let the man know one damn thing more than he absolutely needed to.
    “Then you’ve got yourself a deal. Me and my boys will get the job done. Now, just one thing we was wondering about. Any reason we couldn’t have us some fun with the…what’d you call it…the target , before we finish the job?”
    Liam got to his feet, revulsion coursing through his veins. He tramped down the twinge of pity that tried to surface by reminding himself that when all was said and done, Jamie would be stronger and safer. And Jamie was all that really mattered.
    Still, he leaned forward and braced his hands on the table. His expression must have revealed a little of the dangerous man he knew he’d become, for Morgan and his men, as one, leaned away from him.
    “You can do whatever you like to Sarah Maddox,” he hissed. “As long as you leave her dead when you are finished with her.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Sarah shivered, the chill unexpected and inexplicable. The day had turned unseasonably hot, making the interior of the train car stifling. Opening the window any wider wasn’t an option because of the steady bombardment of smoke and hot ashes from