Tender Touch by Charlene Raddon Page A

you?”
    Pratt stuck his ruddy face around the corner and peered through the gloom at his prisoner. Four cells, two on each side, lined the aisle leading to the marshal’s office where Pratt drank coffee and studied wanted posters with his boots propped on a scarred old desk. Wight was the only prisoner, but tomorrow being Saturday, Pratt expected there’d be a few drunks to give the man company along about midnight. Maybe then the sniveling bastard would leave a man in peace. “Waddya want?”
    “Get me out of here so I can use the privy.”
    “Use the damned bucket. Waddya think it’s in there for, bathing?”
    “It’s full, hasn’t been dumped for days. When’s that brat get here? This stinking hole isn’t fit for hogs, let alone men.”
    “He gets here when he gets here. Soon’s we got a man needing one of them cells, we’ll worry ’bout cleaning ’em.”
    Wight growled and rattled the bars with his thick fists. “Blast your vermin-ridden hide, Pratt, when I get out of here, I’ll . . . ”
    “Hold onto yer balls. Boy just got here.”
    For several seconds Wight listened to the murmur of voices from the office as the cleaning boy received his instructions. Annoyed, Wight rattled the bars again. “Hey! Do I have to piss my pants?”
    A squatty fourteen-year-old with pimples and lank blond hair falling over his face, sidled around the open door into the large room. He set his mop bucket on the floor before entering the unused cells to haul out the pee buckets that needed emptying. Not once did he lift his eyes to the prisoner in the far corner. With barely contained patience, Wight waited until the boy came close enough to hear his whisper, “Come here, kid.”
    The boy looked at him insolently. “I ain’t talking to no woman killer.”
    “I didn’t kill anyone and I’m not going to hurt you either. Just want you to do something for me.” Wight growled with frustration as the boy hung back, eyes full of distrust. “You’ll be paid.”
    The boy jerked his head, clearing the hair from his eyes. “How much?”
    “Two bits. You know the tavern at Wight’s Brewery?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Find Stinky Harris, and tell him to get over here or I’m calling in his marker. You got that?”
    The boy scratched under an armpit and his crotch, peering warily at Wight while his hair drifted back over his eyes. “That all?”
    “That’s all, now get.”
    “Soon’s I finish my job.”
    When the boy was gone, Barret threw himself down on the filthy bunk. He folded his arms behind his head, crossed his feet, and smiled. Brianna must have thought herself clever, sneaking off on him that way and making it look like he’d done her in. But he wasn’t as stupid as she thought. His smile spread to a wide grin. The silver had clued him in. No thief would leave something valuable like that behind, especially buried where it was. Yeah, that was what really told on her—and what troubled him most—the silver being buried in that particular horse stall.
    Wight’s smile faded. How had she known? Had she randomly chosen that spot to bury the silver, or had she figured it out ahead of time? And what had she done with the original contents of the hole?
    The slut, the great big Amazon of a slut. She’d left him a message, burying the silver there; that’s what she’d done. But she’d find out it took more than a veiled threat to keep him off her trail. She belonged to him, and what Barret Wight owned, Barret Wight kept. He’d deal with her when he got her back, by Christ! She’d rue the day she ever thought of trying to pull one over on him. Maybe he wouldn’t kill her—killing was too good for the likes of her—but she’d damn well wish he had.
    ***
    Stinky Harris sauntered into the jail about supper time. He wrinkled his nose at the acrid odor of urine that clung to the place like maggots on putrid flesh, as he headed for the rear cell where Barret Wight waited.
    “Good thing you know what’s good for