Free Leather and Lace by DiAnn Mills Page A

him.
    She hated to think his reasons for asking her to stay were to trap Jenkins, to satisfy lust, or to earn a bounty. Certainly the past seven years had taught her to be a better judge of character.
    She shoved her raging thoughts aside and attempted to dwell on the future. Living in the past invited an early grave, and the only way to clear distance between her and Jenkins was to take advantage of the present. She didn’t need Morgan . . . just like she hadn’t needed Franco. Now why did she think of him? He’d been dead over three years.
    Casey shook her head in hopes of dispelling painful regrets. She patted the full saddlebags. Guilt possessed her in one breath for the way Tim got the money, and thankfulness claimed her in another because maybe he cared for her after all.
    My poor wayward brother. How much more I want for you.
    He’d never been able to save much, but then neither did most of the outlaws. Even Jenkins talked about the ranch he’d one day own in Mexico. They all talked big about buying ranches, cattle, and horses, then settling down, but few managed to hold on to anything except their horses and guns—and seldom their lives. Instead, they all spent their money on horses, fancy saddles, guns, liquor, poker games, brothels, and anything else that fed into their lives.
    For Tim, it was always, “I’ll quit after the next job.” But that last job never happened. In the beginning, when she and Tim left home to escape Pa’s beatings, all Tim wanted was to earn a few dollars and take care of Casey.
    “I’m joining up with the Jenkins gang,” he said one night while they camped near the border of Missouri and Kansas. “I talked to a few of his men in town, and they could use another gun.”
    “That’s wrong, Tim. We’re doing fine by ourselves.”
    “We need the money.”
    “But you could get killed or sent to prison.”
    He pressed in close to her as though someone other than the darkness could hear. “I promised Ma I’d take care of you. I’ll ride with ’em for a few jobs, just long enough to save a little money. Then we’ll head to California or Oregon and buy us a pretty stretch of land.”
    Casey stared into the face of her seventeen-year-old brother and searched for the right words to change his mind.
    “Have I ever lied to you?” he said.
    “No. But what would I do while you rode with them?”
    He smiled, that boyish grin that always melted her heart. “They said you could cook for ’em. Nothing else.”
    And she’d believed him.
    When would it end? The blood and the victims of selfish greed haunted her. What did it do to him? The sound of a cocked rifle. The smell of gunfire. The taste of violence. The feeling of fear and despair that twisted her gut. She dug her heels into Stoney’s sides. Keep moving. Soon it will be over. Soon.
    Casey remembered the Bible tucked into the saddlebag. Beginning tonight, she’d read by firelight, and the thought gave her something to look forward to. Surely the answers plaguing her miserable life were written within those pages. Sometimes she felt like a prairie twister, ready to tear up everything in her path. The anger frightened her as though she might end up like Tim.
    “If you can’t handle this, then work for Rose,” Tim had said when she asked him last winter to leave the gang.
    “Sell myself for the next meal?” Casey said. “Working in a brothel? At least here I’m only fighting off one man.”
    “Then quit whining. I’m tired of hearing it. You want a better life? Stop fighting Jenkins, and he’ll take care of you.”
    “I’d rather be dead.”
    “Suit yourself.”
    As twilight crept in around her, much like the old quilt she used to hide under during storms when she was a kid, Casey urged Stoney up through the aged formation of weathered rock. She recalled from past rides through the area how it changed magnificently in color from red and white to yellow and black: the beauty of a land totally suspended in