Devil in Texas (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 1) by Adrienne deWolfe Page B
Book: Devil in Texas (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 1) by Adrienne deWolfe
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Authors: Adrienne deWolfe
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Baron's business affairs for 20 years. His record's as lily-white as that milk potion he keeps rubbing into his hands."
"Big deal. He just hasn't been caught yet. I'll bet Baron's attorney is part of the conspiracy. Poppy too."
"Tarnation, boy! Do you trust anybody?"
"Nope."
Cass grabbed Sterne's fancy, silver flask. He'd intended to throw it at the kid until he realized the flask was a quarter full.
Well, damn.
Cass screwed off the lid.
So this is what prissy scotch smells like?
He gulped the imported, Irish whisky like the White Trash he was, smiled with perverse pleasure, then hurled the flask at the kid.
"Hey!" Collie caught the vessel with viper-fast reflexes. "You might have saved me some!"
Cass belched and grinned. "Naw. Wouldn't want to undermine all that good religion you got while living with Sera and Doc Jones."
"Bite me."
Vandy, meanwhile, was gleefully tracking cigar ash all over the hotel's plush, Aubusson carpet.
Cass muttered an oath. "Heel! Sit! Confound it. That varmint never listens to me."
"'Course he doesn't listen to you. You don't speak his language. Candytuft," Colliebarked at the coon.
Instantly contrite, Vandy retreated under the bed, dropping his snout to his paws and raising beseeching eyes to his boy.
"Stop being such a baby," Collie scolded.
Vandy growled.
"That's more like it," Collie growled back.
"Lord aw'mighty," Cass groused. "Why can't you just say, 'lie down,' or 'play dead,' like normal folks?"
"'Cause Vandy knows candytuft and grubroot ."
"Well, sure! Those words sound like food!"
The commands Collie had invented to control Vandy were supposed to be Kentucky wildflowers, but half the time, Collie's "secret coon code" sounded like gibberish to Cass. The kid claimed he'd concocted the cipher so Vandy wouldn't get tricked into becoming a hat. The truth was, Collie was the jealous type, who didn't want Vandy loving anyone more than him. Cass had learned the hard way: Don't come between Collie and his coon, and don't talk flowers around Vandy. Especially pansies. Pansies earned you a whole lot of fangs in the face.
Planting his fists on his hips, Cass glowered at the coon's tracks, spreading out in all their circular paths of destruction. "Seems like you could've saved Vandy a whole lot of trouble if you'd just whitewashed the mirror with 'Cass and Collie were here.' "
"You mean, Collie and Cass," the boy retorted, squatting to retrieve a mostly burned scrap of paper from Vandy's mouth. "Looks like he found something."
"Yeah. An ashtray."
"This isn't cig paper." Collie tilted the scrap to catch the moonlight. "There's a symbol here. Looks like a backwards seven with a boot. The words are mostly blacked out."
Cass joined him by the window. "Let's see."
Sure enough, a neatly lettered scrawl had been all but obliterated by Sterne's match. To Cass's mind, the remaining scrap looked like it had been part of the bottom, right-hand corner of the message: 'Trouble... arrived... meet here MN.' The 'MN' was probably shorthand for midnight. But the backwards seven reminded Cass of a musical symbol that Sadie used to write.
"I think the seven is part of a signature," Cass said thoughtfully.
Collie grunted. "A code name?"
"Maybe. What time is it?"
Collie glanced out the window, calculating by the position of the moon. "Midnight, I reckon."
"Damn. If that rendezvous's tonight, Sterne's on his way to this room. We're out of time."
Cass cracked open the hall door. He wanted to make sure no one would witness two vandals and a varmint hotfooting it down the hall.
Gold velvet fleurs-de-lis decorated the rich, burgundy wallpaper, which shimmered in the flickers of the frosted sconces. The matching reds of the carpet amplified the illusion that he'd stepped inside the belly of a dragon. Or maybe a long furnace. The heat of Texas's ongoing drought was barely relieved by the languid breeze that stirred the draperies, framing the windows at each end of the corridor. It wasn't
"Big deal. He just hasn't been caught yet. I'll bet Baron's attorney is part of the conspiracy. Poppy too."
"Tarnation, boy! Do you trust anybody?"
"Nope."
Cass grabbed Sterne's fancy, silver flask. He'd intended to throw it at the kid until he realized the flask was a quarter full.
Well, damn.
Cass screwed off the lid.
So this is what prissy scotch smells like?
He gulped the imported, Irish whisky like the White Trash he was, smiled with perverse pleasure, then hurled the flask at the kid.
"Hey!" Collie caught the vessel with viper-fast reflexes. "You might have saved me some!"
Cass belched and grinned. "Naw. Wouldn't want to undermine all that good religion you got while living with Sera and Doc Jones."
"Bite me."
Vandy, meanwhile, was gleefully tracking cigar ash all over the hotel's plush, Aubusson carpet.
Cass muttered an oath. "Heel! Sit! Confound it. That varmint never listens to me."
"'Course he doesn't listen to you. You don't speak his language. Candytuft," Colliebarked at the coon.
Instantly contrite, Vandy retreated under the bed, dropping his snout to his paws and raising beseeching eyes to his boy.
"Stop being such a baby," Collie scolded.
Vandy growled.
"That's more like it," Collie growled back.
"Lord aw'mighty," Cass groused. "Why can't you just say, 'lie down,' or 'play dead,' like normal folks?"
"'Cause Vandy knows candytuft and grubroot ."
"Well, sure! Those words sound like food!"
The commands Collie had invented to control Vandy were supposed to be Kentucky wildflowers, but half the time, Collie's "secret coon code" sounded like gibberish to Cass. The kid claimed he'd concocted the cipher so Vandy wouldn't get tricked into becoming a hat. The truth was, Collie was the jealous type, who didn't want Vandy loving anyone more than him. Cass had learned the hard way: Don't come between Collie and his coon, and don't talk flowers around Vandy. Especially pansies. Pansies earned you a whole lot of fangs in the face.
Planting his fists on his hips, Cass glowered at the coon's tracks, spreading out in all their circular paths of destruction. "Seems like you could've saved Vandy a whole lot of trouble if you'd just whitewashed the mirror with 'Cass and Collie were here.' "
"You mean, Collie and Cass," the boy retorted, squatting to retrieve a mostly burned scrap of paper from Vandy's mouth. "Looks like he found something."
"Yeah. An ashtray."
"This isn't cig paper." Collie tilted the scrap to catch the moonlight. "There's a symbol here. Looks like a backwards seven with a boot. The words are mostly blacked out."
Cass joined him by the window. "Let's see."
Sure enough, a neatly lettered scrawl had been all but obliterated by Sterne's match. To Cass's mind, the remaining scrap looked like it had been part of the bottom, right-hand corner of the message: 'Trouble... arrived... meet here MN.' The 'MN' was probably shorthand for midnight. But the backwards seven reminded Cass of a musical symbol that Sadie used to write.
"I think the seven is part of a signature," Cass said thoughtfully.
Collie grunted. "A code name?"
"Maybe. What time is it?"
Collie glanced out the window, calculating by the position of the moon. "Midnight, I reckon."
"Damn. If that rendezvous's tonight, Sterne's on his way to this room. We're out of time."
Cass cracked open the hall door. He wanted to make sure no one would witness two vandals and a varmint hotfooting it down the hall.
Gold velvet fleurs-de-lis decorated the rich, burgundy wallpaper, which shimmered in the flickers of the frosted sconces. The matching reds of the carpet amplified the illusion that he'd stepped inside the belly of a dragon. Or maybe a long furnace. The heat of Texas's ongoing drought was barely relieved by the languid breeze that stirred the draperies, framing the windows at each end of the corridor. It wasn't
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