Silver, Gold And Deception: Catalina Wilde Western Adventure (Half Breed Haven Book 4) Read online

  Different women had varied reactions, some the shyness like with Naomi and some were ravenous animals from the get-go when their hidden desires were finally given a chance to live. There were those started out as shy and then became tigers as the experience unfolded and something told Cattie Naomi would be one counted among their number. Before that could happen though she needed to set the woman's mind at ease.

  "It's okay. Don't you worry none…you're gonna be fine. This is what you've wanted, isn't it? Catalina asked in her soft Mexican accent, a carryover from her childhood through her teenage years when her father had sent her to spend summers with her late mother’s family in Mexico. He had always felt she should have ties to her mother’s language and culture which she had embraced.”

  “I…I have wanted it…I do want it!” The woman’s eyes fell to the floor but Cattie didn’t let that stand as she raised her chin up. Those big eyes were looking at her with expectation and hunger. She could see it clearly.

  “Everythin’ you ever might have ever imagined about what this would be like, well, you’re gonna find out it’s a million times better than you ever dreamed. I’ll see to that Naomi.”

  With a deliberate slowness, Catalina brought her oblong face close to Naomi's, gently kissing each side of her mouth in a tease. Naomi gave a tender moan as she opened her mouth to accept the promised kiss. A moment later the two women's lips met and their tongues mingled even as Catalina's searching hand fell on Naomi's right breast. As Catalina gave it a gentle squeeze, Naomi whimpered into Cattie's mouth with pleasure. Somewhere in her sister Noelle's nearby room a clock chimed but it was lost to the two women amidst their passionate lip lock.

  “Noooo” Naomi pleaded in a barely audible voice as Catalina stepped back, their bodies losing all contact with each other. Naomi began breathing deeply again as Catalina lifted one of her legs and tugged off her boot. A second later the other one lay discarded next to its mate as Cattie’s hands worked to undo her jeans and slid them to the floor.

  Catalina only grinned but continued wordlessly as she saw the surprise mirrored in Naomi’s face at the revelations she wore no type of undergarments.

  "Help me," Catalina called out and took the woman's wrists and brought her hands up to start working the buttons on her blouse. When they were all un done, Naomi grabbed the material at the shoulders yanking the blouse backward and down Cattie's arms until it fell into a heap on the floor. Cattie's eyes twinkled, seeing more of that hunger starting to show. No doubt about it, Naomi was going to be an animal in bed once they got started.

  Once more Catalina stepped back, tilted her head with her wavy black hair swinging to one side and held her palms out in front of her in a “what do you think? “gesture. Her form was like that of her three sisters Cassandra, Lijuan and Honor Elizabeth, a figure eight with the generous endowment they had inherited from their paternal grandmother. Cattie’s skin was a lovely shade of copper and almost shone in the sunlight spilling through the window.

  Under that skin were hard and firm muscles that she had developed over her young life working hard cowpunching on her family's ranch starting since she was eight years old learning to lasso a steer for the first time right up until the present day where she ran the Wilde's cattle ranching operation. It made her tough and it made her strong and she took no small amount of pride in the well, honed fit body it had given her. A body her lady lovers and the occasional man she liked to entertain found most desirable. Naomi, it seemed was no different.

  Her blonde host hesitantly reached out, drew her hand back and then reached again and touched Catalina’s wrist lightly. From there she began a journey of exploration that ran down the shapely, contours of Cattie’s arm, her fingers caressing the firm muscles. Finished with her arm Naomi, traced along the Mexican beauty’s clavicle, the whole time their eyes were locked with each other in a wordless mutual attraction.

  Catalina did laugh, however, when Naomi's fingers made large loops around her right breast without touching them. The woman may have been shy but Cattie appreciated that she knew how to tease. Naomi's fingers flowed down between her breasts and then she splayed them out, pushing gently on six, square outlines that made up the muscles of Cattie's stomach. She could see the admiration in Naomi's eyes and Catalina understood why. Of the many women she had laid with very few had them and their uniqueness always made them a curiosity.

  Naomi's hand, still spread out began to move lower towards the jet-black nest beneath Catalina's waist when she stopped and Cattie saw a questioning look in her eyes. Catalina grinned and arched one of her eyebrows before giving a slight nod. Naomi flexed her hand and prepared to cross into a wholly uncharted adventure when a large crash beneath their feet shattered the stillness that had enveloped the two young women.

  There was a second crash that this time sounded like the shattering of glass.

  “What in the blue blazes?” Catalina began to question when the plaintive cry of a woman made its way through the floorboards beneath their feet.

  “Noelle! That was Noelle!”

  Naomi Dorrett made all of two steps towards the door when Catalina reached out grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her backward.

  “Catalina! What are you doing? Something is happening with my sister down in the shop and I must go to her!”

  "Of course you do. But you can't go runnin' all half-cocked into a situation you don't know anythin' about now!" she said letting go of her wrist and scooping up her shirt. "You just wait for me, and get behind me! You understand, Naomi?"

  She could tell the woman didn’t like it, but she nodded in agreement. As Catalina yanked on her jeans and her boots, she fully understood. If it was one of her own beloved sisters in some type of trouble, she would want to be at their side in a hurry.

  Naomi pulled at one of her curls nervously, “It was her turn to run the shop, that’s why I was able … well to invite you over today. I heard there was a robbery at the butcher shop the other day. Oh, my lord, do you think …”

  Catalina pressed two of her fingers to Naomi’s lips silencing her.

  "Don't you all get worked up just yet. Could have been anythin' makin' those noises, and she could have screamed as a reaction. We'll find out right quick," she said as she cinched her signature weapon, a well-worn bullwhip to her waist. Catalina had no plans to use it here, though, as if there was trouble inside it wasn't always practical. Instead, she snatched up her gun belt where it had been hanging on a high-backed chair and strapped it on. No sooner had she done that than she cleared leather, yanking her gun free. Catalina then proceeded to do what a Wilde always did, striding to the door and towards the unknown and any danger that might lurk within it.

  CHAPTER 2

  * * *

  In the hallway, Catalina was very careful to tread lightly as she made her way to the top of the stairwell that led down to the shop below. Looking over her shoulder she saw that Naomi was mimicking her caution and she thought, good girl! She paused at the top of the stairs, wondering just what she would find below. Catalina knew that for certain it wasn’t the butcher shop robber, as her own sister, Cassandra, had captured the thief the prior night. She had picked up his easy-to-follow trail to a hideout in the hill country that separated one side of Alamieda with the Aurora Valley.

  Gingerly she began to descend the stairs thinking how Cassandra had handled the matter, as it had been years since there had been an acting sheriff in Alamieda. To a man, they had all been killed in the line of duty, and no one wished to do the job. Cassie, however, was an ex-Pinkerton who did special assignments for the territorial governor who happened to be their uncle. When she wasn’t off doing that, she enjoyed unofficially upholding law and order in Alamieda. The former jail was now their father’s law office and the bandit had spent the night in the old cell before Cassandra had set out earlier to deliver the robber to her friend, a sheriff in the Aurora Valley.

  Reaching the landing, Cattie hunched down and slowly peaked out in the shop through the
slats of the railing, her Colt .45 at the ready. Her eyes swept over the sight of ornate chairs, tables, and even a canopy bed. It was always an impressive sight. They said it couldn't be done. That was the consensus of the good people of Alamieda when the Dorrett family had transformed their failing general store into a furniture store with fancy imports shipped in by rail from New York, Philadelphia and Boston.

  The family patriarch had reasoned that their general store was a failure because there were already five other ones in town. Alamieda was a prosperous, up and coming community due to the successful cattle ranches, mining operations and other business that were booming in the wake of the Civil War when things began to return to some level of normalcy across the re-United States. With the ever-increasing wealth of some in the town, Dorrett believed there would be a market for fine furniture instead of the pedestrian fair being built at the different carpentry shops around the town. The thriving business was a testament to his good judgment. Now Catalina wondered as she thumbed the hammer on her weapon if that hadn't made it a target on this afternoon.

  She didn’t see anything readily amiss until her eyes ended their journey at the far corner of the room. Catalina saw an overturned chair and a pair of legs sticking out from behind a blue velvet settee. The double doors into the shop gently flapped in the hot breeze rolling down Alamieda’s main street … clearly left open by someone in a very hasty retreat.

  With no further need for caution, Catalina jogged down the remaining stairs from the landing, with Naomi close behind. She jammed her gun back into its holster and knelt beside the unmoving form of Noelle Dorrett who lay on her stomach. Naomi came to a swift halt in her tracks and brought her fist up to her mouth to cover a gasp.

  “Noelle! Oh, Catalina is she … is she …” her voice trailed off, unable to summon the dreaded words. “She just can’t be, she just can’t be.”

  As Catalina gingerly turned the woman over she was fully aware that Noelle was all that Naomi had left in the world. Their parents had been among those killed years earlier when an earthquake had collapsed a quarter-mile stretch of Comanche Canyon. The Dorretts had been on a picnic on the canyon rim as many of the townsfolk had used to do in those days before the tragedy. The two girls had watched as the very land their parents were standing on carved off from the edge of the canyon taking the elder Dorretts to their doom.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay! She’s breathin’!” Catalina called out to her. It was true. Noelle was alive, but the vicious black eye she had on the left side of her face, the cut on her forehead, and the welt on her right jaw stiffened both women’s posture at the sight of her injuries and Naomi gasped again.

  "Help me get her onto that there settee!" Catalina commanded knowing it best to occupy her lover's attention than have it fixated on her sister's injuries. Moments later the two had wrestled Noelle up onto the couch, broken glass from what had once been an overelaborate lamp, handcrafted in Boston's Back Bay area, crunching under their feet.

  To their relief, Noelle’s eyes began to flutter open as Naomi used a silk neckerchief she had plucked from her neck and began to dab away at the blood on her forehead. Cattie looked on at the reviving woman. There was no doubt they were sisters, the same blond hair with the identical blue eyes though one was now swollen shut. Noelle was older, probably 28 or 29, not unlike her own sister Lijuan. Through lips that had been split she began to speak.

  “Naomi … is that you?”

  “Yes, honey, it’s me. I’m here for you. I’ve got Catalina Wilde with me. You’re going to be okay!”

  “Catalina? The Pinkerton? She’s got to stop him.”

  Catalina, who had been standing on the other side of the settee, circled around to stand behind Naomi so Noelle wouldn’t have to turn her head to look at her. It was clear just moving was painful for the woman.

  “No, ma’am,” she said. “Catalina. It’s Cassie that was the Pinkerton.”

  Noelle’s hand flailed about in an attempt to reach out to Catalina, who took her hand with a careful gentleness.

  “It doesn’t matter. Everyone knows about you four. You can … you can … stop him. He couldn’t have gotten too … too far.”

  “Who did this to you?” Naomi cried out. “As if I had to ask!” she said shaking her head all teary-eyed, which caught Catalina by great surprise. “It was him, wasn’t it?”

  “Hold up now! You know who did this to her?”

  Catalina’s chance to receive an answer was cut short as Jake, the young negro boy who worked for Roderick Bauer down at the Western Union telegraph office came charging through the open front doors with his usual gusto of announcing a new telegram. Without fail he always shouted the same thing.

  “Hot off the wire! A message from beyond Alamieda!” and as always he began to read off where it was from, no matter how many times he got in trouble for it. “Looks like another one from your suppliers in Phila …” The young teen’s voice fell silent and his mouth dropped open wide at the sight of the battered woman sprawled across the blue velvet.

  “Jake!” Catalina shouted. “The Dorretts got a pump out back. I need you to kindly fetch Miss Dorrett a drink and then raise dust runnin’ over to get Doc Duncan!”

  "Yes, ma'am!" the rail-thin boy answered charging through the door that led to the back of the Dorrett's Decorum even as Catalina firmly clasped her hand on Naomi's shoulder.

  “You wanna tell me who you were talkin’ about before?”

  “Ian Oaksford from over Halfmoon way! That’s who! He’s her ex-beau! But not in his mind though! He wants to keep it going, but she’s done with him and for good reason. This isn’t the first time he’s laid a hand on her. He hit her once before over at his house!” Naomi was fuming now, her face a pallet of crimson, her fists balled.

  Catalina leaned in close to Noelle. “This jasper hit you before? I know Halfmoon doesn’t have a jail any more than Alamieda was but you could have gone to Sheriff Knox over in Gillespie and have him taken in this jasper.”

  “I … I didn’t want him to get in trouble. At the time I thought maybe I had brought it on myself. I was always asking him when he was going to make a better life for himself. Come up in the world from the menial jobs he was doing. I thought I had insulted him,” Noelle relayed glumly, unable to meet Catalina’s gaze.

  "As my sister, Cassie would say, that's horseshit! No reason for a man to ever raise his hand to a woman! Not a one!" Catalina said, her eyes sparking.

  “I wouldn’t go to the sheriff, but I knew I needed the doctor have a look at the black eye he had given me. Somehow the doctor knew that Ian was courting me, and he asked if he’d done it to me. I was shocked but I made up a story of how it happened, but I did inquire of the dear man why he would ask that. Well, that was when I found out about his trial and his ex-wife beatings. I knew none of this before at all!”

  "By rights, he should have been in jail for what he did to his poor wife, but that slick lawyer that came to town recently, that Killian Kincaid! Back before he moved here he was practicing law over in Halfmoon. Ian hired him and he got him off. That’s why he’s a free man right now!” Naomi was rocking back on her heels in her fury.

  Catalina looked at Naomi’s big eyes that blazed with a cold flintiness as she considered what she had just heard. Her father was a circuit judge and he often regaled the six Wilde siblings with the stories of his more interesting trials once they were over, but she didn’t recall him ever mentioning this case. It must have been another judge on the circuit.

  This Kincaid fellow, however, Whip had mentioned. According to her father the man was making quite a name for himself in the area, sometimes as a defense attorney and sometimes prosecuting cases in trials presided over by William Henry “Whip” Wilde. Cattie had gotten the impression her father had respected the man’s legal skills if not the man himself, and Catalina could certainly agree. What kind of man would help put an abuser back on the streets of the territory?

  Noelle was now able to pull herself u
p in a sitting position in the center of the couch, and the other two women slipped in next to her on either side, with Naomi gripping Noelle’s hand in support. Noelle’s head turned gingerly to Catalina.

  “Please, like I said you have to go after him! You have to go now before he gets away with murder!” This caught both Catalina and Naomi by complete surprise.

  “What are you saying? You’re alive, he didn’t kill you. Did you mean attempted murder? Was he trying to kill you?”

  Just then Jake burst back onto the scene with a large bucket of water, and as he was handing the ladle he carried in the other hand to Naomi, Catalina fished out a gold eagle from her pocket and flipped it to him as he went running off to find the town doctor. Naomi ladled some water, which the grateful Noelle accepted before Naomi urged her to continue. Noelle looked at her sister forlornly.

  “I know you didn’t approve of him. Figuring your older sister could do better, but at first, he was not just handsome … he was fun. And he … he attended to my womanly needs far better than any other man before.” She swung her head to Catalina.

  "It all changed, though, when I started to notice how angry he would get when I didn't do something he liked. It all escalated from there to the day when he beat me in his room when I broke up with him. I still cared for him, but I was afraid to tell him that it was his violence that drove me away. I had to make up something he could accept. You see, I told him I had certain expectations of the kind of lifestyle I wanted. I told him this store provides well for me, and I would be leaving it behind to my sister here to become his wife. There was no way that I could accept his proposal because he could never provide for me in the way that I had become accustomed to. I can see now that was a terrible, terrible mistake, and it cost a man his life."