REMINDER: I write long stories. Many chapters don't have naughty bits, but those that do will be way more fun if you read the others, too! Also, TT2 is a sequel: it has spoilers for Texas Trio, so go read that one first! -Stefanie
-:-:-:-:-:-:- Chapter 3 -:-:-:-:-:-:-
Brody leaned on a paddock gate, watching the sun sink toward the western hills as he reflected on the journey he'd taken to get here. Not to this paddock in particular, but to the point in his life where he thought working at a brothel was as good as anything else.
He could have been safely back in San Francisco by now, instead of leaning on a fence in Liberty Falls, hoping he didn't keel over before the range boss got here to tell him whether or not there was a job to be had. If the answer was no, Brody would be compelled to ask if he could bunk down in the barn or stable for the night, regardless, because there was just no way he'd make it back into town. Hell, Brody doubted he'd make it back into the saddle, he was so damn tired.
Not that he wanted to get back on the bad-tempered, broke-down nag he'd been forced to ride after his horse was stolen. All he wanted was food, rest, and the genuine, grade-A, heavenly blessing of a train ticket home, where he'd be now if it weren't for his partner sending him on a wild-goose chase to Godforsaken, Texas.
Brody had been traveling for almost a year and a half by the time his ship docked in Philadelphia a month ago, and he was tired of sleeping in strange beds, even if most of them had been gilded, padded with goose down, and wrapped in satin and velvet, but when the hotel manager gave him Graham's telegram, he'd changed his plans immediately. Graham Almsted was the closest thing to family he had, and if Graham wanted him to go to Texas and check out a potential investment, Brody had no reservations about accommodating his partner's request.
So here he was, asking for employment on a ranch which revolved around the next best thing to a whorehouse, according to the pair of cowhands who'd sent him out here.
"The women are whores, but the KCW's got a couple thousand head of cattle plus hogs, oxen, corn and alfalfa, so they can always use a hand. And hell, an easy roll in the hay at the end of a long day ain't nothin' to complain about. Ranch hands get a half-price break."
He'd ignored the crude laughter and a jovial elbow to his ribs as he asked for directions to the ranch. Brody didn't care what anyone on the KCW did, as long as they fed him, gave him a bed and some way to earn enough for a railway ticket out of here, because he'd damn sure had enough Texas to last a lifetime. In the two weeks he'd been here, he'd been lied to, beaten, arrested, nearly drowned in a flash flood, bashed in the head, and robbed, all to find out Graham's prospective partner was a scam artist of the first water.
Sour memories scrolled darkly through Brody's mind as he leaned on the fence waiting for the range boss to arrive.
The boss . . .
what the hell had that cowhand called him?
James? Jameson?
No, that wasn't it, either.
Brody shook his head, attempting to clear the fog from his head, but found the move, unsurprisingly, unsuccessful. He hadn't eaten in twenty hours and he hadn't slept in thirty. He went back to staring dumbly at the wispy clouds on the horizon. In the evening light, the ranch wasn't what he'd expected. The KCW looked much like any of the other large ranches he'd seen since arriving in Texas. The fences and outbuildings were well cared for, and the few animals he'd seen looked groomed, well-fed, or both.
He settled his elbows on the top rail of a neatly painted corral to watch the hills turn lavender. The thud-and-scrape of his cane announced the return of the short russet-haired man with the wooden leg, whose name Brody had also forgotten.
"Boss'll be out in a minute, he's just talkin' to the stable-man." He took a spot at the rail, too, which was closer to his bushy red mustache than his chest, where it fell on Brody. The man leaned on his cane instead, and together they watched in silence as the shadows merged and the hills beyond the river became a single curvy silhouette across the horizon.
Footsteps from the barn made both men turn, but instead of the range boss, a woman appeared, with a large basket looped over her arm. Brody tipped his hat as her polite smile slid from him to Clancy. No need to be rude, just because she wasn't what some people called respectable.
"You've been up to the house already?" she asked Clancy.
"Yes, ma'am." He nodded as she passed, headed toward the big white farmhouse topping the rise a hundred yards from where they stood.
The men went back to leaning on the fence. Brody wondered how many of the cowhands took advantage of the women available here. It was an unusual situation- usually comfort-women lived quietly on the outskirts of the main buildings, not right in the center of things- but he'd been on one frontier or another long enough to know that behavior which might be called insanity in a civilized locale often drew nothing but the twitch of an eyebrow on the edge of the wilderness.
"That's Miz Connor," the man with the cane told him.
Brody watched her shapely form disappearing into the shadows beside the house. Neither the woman nor the building were what he'd expected. She was pretty, but not flashy, her gown of silk rather than satin, and the house was quiet in the night, no music or loud voices drifting down the hill, though lights on the porch and in the windows glowed a golden welcome. Brody watched her out of sight, stifling a yawn. The evening was nearly silent now.
Fighting fatigue, he commented idly, "Hnh . . . you'd never know."
"Know what?"
Brody nodded in the direction the woman had gone, not noticing Clancy's sudden stillness or the warning in his tone. He went back to staring at the horizon. "You'd never know from looking at her that . . . well . . . you know . . . ."
"No, I don't. What're ya talkin' about, tenderfoot?"
Ten years past tenderfoot, Brody should have heard the threat inherent in that slow, quiet question, but fatigue and an empty belly had slowed his brain to a dangerously sluggish pace. Brody didn't know Clancy, either.
He answered, "You know . . . that she's a light-"
He never saw it coming.
Clancy's elbow hit Brody square in the nose, knocking him into the dirt. Deciding not to dull his pleasure by beating the ignorant cuss with his cane, Clancy tossed it aside and dove on top of the larger man, ignoring the difference in their sizes. Brody hadn't even pried his eyes open yet when Clancy's meaty fists began to follow up on the blow to his nose. He lost the fight before he had a chance to be in it. The rapid approach of hooves penetrated Brody's daze, but he didn't hear the shouts as he went under.
"What the hell?" Colt thundered, beating Jeremiah to Clancy by half a step and hauling him off the man laying prone and silent in the dust of their front yard.
Clancy sputtered, "That-"
He followed it up with a stream of cuss words so creative that Jem paused on his way to the stranger, impressed.
Colt, a fistful of Clancy's shirtfront in his hand, had an urge to lift Clancy off the ground and give him a hard shake, or at least a kick in the seat, but he knew better. If Cat saw him, he'd never hear the end of it. And he kind of liked the sputtering Irish ass, anyway. Instead he hauled him a foot closer and bent to bellow directly in his face, "SHUT IT, Clancy!"
That worked, and Clancy calmed down enough for Colt to release him. He joined his partner, who was holding a lantern above the big lump in the dust.
"Whadaya think?" Colt asked. "Is he dead?"
"Don't know," Jem replied, looking up. "Clancy, without yelling, could you possibly tell me what the fellow did to deserve-" He gestured. "-this?"
Clancy screwed his face up and spat. "He
