“I’m not hiding. I’m an assayer, or haven’t you heard the latest?”
“That takes up an hour a day. The rest of the time you practice being a wastrel.”
“I’m not wasting. I make good money gambling.”
“I know there’s a cost. Isn’t that what the teacher was riding you about?”
“That woman has way too much time on her hands.”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of time. It’s a matter of passion.”
Yeah, Pet had a lot of passion.
“I’d turn it my way if she’d look at me,” Luke mused.
Ace didn’t believe the innocence in that statement for a minute. Any more than he expected Luke to believe the calm distance in his “Have you tried?”
Luke shook his head. “Nah. No point. That lady treats me like the fence post in a corral. Handy when needed but otherwise not worth the attention. Mind telling me where we’re going?”
Ace waved to the end of town. “I’m going to the livery.”
“And after that?”
“For a ride.”
“Would this ride entail a trip by the Winters’ place?”
“Might.”
Luke took a drag on his cigarette. “Going to have one of your infamous chats with him?”
“Might be.”
“You know your chat’s not going to do any good, don’t you? That man’s just soaked in gambling the way other men are soaked in gin.”
“He drinks that, too.”
“Not whiskey?”
“He drinks anything.”
“He hit the boy again?”
Ace nodded. It wasn’t the first time he and Luke had talked about that situation.
“Are you going to kill him?”
“Might.”
Luke shot him a look. “That would be murder.”
“Not if he takes a shot at me first.”
“You plan on being that provoking?”
Ace shrugged. He didn’t really know what he was going to do yet. “If the lay of the land demands it.”
They reached the livery. Ace nodded to the stable hand and went to the stall that contained his sorrel.
“Crusher is getting fat hanging around here,” Luke observed going to the next stall over, which contained his big roan.
Ace shook his head. “Not like Buddy’s wasting away.”
“I take him out every day.”
“I take out Crusher, too, but it’s not the same as riding trail.”
They were all getting soft. Ace shook his head. Respectable. Fuck that.
“No, it’s not.” Luke patted Buddy’s neck before he reached for the saddle. “Do you miss it?”
“What?”
“The old days,” Luke said, tossing the saddle on Buddy’s back, “when all we did was ride from one bad place to the next, one bad fight to the next.”
Ace shook his head and eased the saddle back on Crusher before cinching it up. “That got old.”
“Yeah, it did.” For a moment they were both silent as old memories—old battles—rose to haunt them.
Luke broke the silence first like he always did. Ace often wondered if it wasn’t being alone Luke hated as much as quiet. Holding his smoke in his mouth as he tied the rifle scabbard onto the saddle, he asked, “Can you believe Caine, Shadow, Tracker, hell, even Sam, settled down into business?” He dropped the stirrup down and patted Buddy’s flank. “They’re almost darn right respectable.”
There was that word again. Ace smiled ruefully, checked his own weapons and led Crusher out of the livery. Yeah, they were. They’d achieved something none of them ever thought they would when they’d stood side by side as boys in the aftermath of the Mexican Army’s attack, hands blistered from digging graves for their loved ones and made a promise to follow Caine Allen on the path of revenge. They’d almost starved that first year, all their promises vanishing with them, but they’d found Tia, and she’d healed them body and soul. Over time, they’d settled those debts, become Texas Rangers. And now, respectable.
Ace stubbed out his smoke on the sole of his boot once outside, shaking his head as Luke winced. “I’m making up for the rest of you.”
“Uh-huh.” Luke leaned over and ground his out in the dirt before dusting his fingers off on the saddle blanket. “So what are we planning on doing if Winter meets us at the door with a shotgun?”
“Whatever the hell we want.”
Luke smiled that easy smile he trotted out when he was contemplating mayhem. “More fodder for my next book.”
Ace shook his head at the nonsense. Luke had a penchant for nice clothes and pretty words, but there was no one else Ace would want more by his side in a fight. Luke might dress fancy, but he fought like a cornered badger, with no quit and no mercy.
“What do you think would happen if people actually knew you lived what you wrote in those damn novels?” Ace asked.
Luke shuddered. “We’d be drowning in the frills and bows of all those prim Eastern women who’d want a piece of the real thing.”
“What’s with the we? You can keep all those fancy Eastern women for yourself.”
“Oh, hell, no!”
Ace couldn’t help but smile. Luke did like his women wild.
He waved toward the fancy vest and coat Luke was never without. “You’re dressed for it.”
“Clothes don’t make the man. And under all this I’m the same no-account desperado I’ve always been.” He swung up on Buddy and picked up the reins. “No lady can handle that.”
That was the truth. Ace couldn’t imagine anything worse for Luke than being tied up with something all prim and proper.
He wheeled Crusher around to the north. “Then you best not be saying that too loud. You know fate has a sense of humor.”
Luke shuddered again and kneed Buddy into step beside him. “Even fate wouldn’t be that cruel.”
They passed Pet’s little house next to the school. There was no class on Friday. She was probably inside planning a lesson. Or sleeping. The thought of her all sleep warm and ready made him hard. Fuck.
Shaking his head he muttered, “Don’t bet on it.”
* * *
THE WINTERS’ PLACE was little more than an overgrown mud wasp’s nest, consisting of sawed sticks and logs packed together with dirt to make a home. From somewhere around back came the irregular sound of an ax hitting wood.
Luke pulled up and spat. “You’d have to take a step up to make this a hovel. No wonder Terrance is never clean.”
Ace looked around with the same disgust. “It would be hard to wash this filth off.”
And it wasn’t the filth of the surroundings that Ace was talking about. It was the utter lack of self-respect the home reflected. Brian Winter didn’t think much of himself or much of his prospects. “Might explain why he was at the gambling table every night looking for a miracle.”
“And