Deadly Fortune Read online

  “Is that an order?”

  Clint faced her and put his hands on her hips. “Yeah. I’m afraid it is. Less chance of you getting hurt that way.”

  Nodding once, she said, “Then that’s what I’ll do.”

  “That was easy.”

  “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “Because you haven’t struck me as the sort of woman who does anything the easy way,” Clint said.

  “Maybe I just like things to be hard.” Gigi reached between Clint’s legs, felt his erection start to grow, and smiled up at him. “Yes. I do like them hard.”

  “When I say I wanted you to stay here, that meant you’d stay after I left.”

  “I realize that,” she whispered while unbuckling his belt. “And since I might not see you again after this business is through, I thought I’d give you a proper good-bye.” Gigi lowered herself to her knees, taking Clint’s pants down along the way. His rigid cock was directly in front of her red lips as she looked up to him and said, “That is, if you have time for me?”

  “Oh, I think I can spare a moment or two.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Gigi’s lips curled into a sly grin as she opened her mouth and took him inside. Clint only felt the warmth of her breath until he was mostly in her mouth. Then, she closed her lips around him and pressed her tongue against his hard shaft. Clint pulled in a deep breath while placing his hands on the back of her head. That way, he could guide her as she started to bob her head back and forth.

  Her rhythm was slow at first, sliding up and down along his cock. As she sucked him faster, she flicked her tongue on him. Gigi reached around to grasp Clint’s hips and surprised him by taking him all the way down to the back of her throat. Once there, she stayed put while letting out a deep moan that sent chills up Clint’s spine.

  When she pulled back, Gigi looked up at him and allowed him to slip from her mouth. She then pressed her lips together and ran them along his length so he could feel their smooth, wet surface from tip to base. Gigi opened her mouth and sucked him again. This time when she eased up, Clint started pumping. She responded to that by holding her head still and taking every inch that he fed to her.

  Before long, Clint wanted more. He took a step back, helped her stand up, and began peeling off her clothes. Gigi swiftly undressed him at the same time, until they both stood there naked, each probing the other’s body with eager hands. Clint reached between her legs and found her pussy to be warm and slick with moisture. As soon as his fingers touched her there, she let out a deep-throated moan.

  Clint took her in his arms and backed her against a wall. The instant her shoulders hit the wooden slats, Gigi rubbed one leg against him and ground herself against his stiff cock. She was practically climbing up his body by the time Clint reached down to cup her buttocks in both hands and lift her up. As soon as both of Gigi’s feet left the floor, she wrapped her legs around him and held on tight.

  Gigi kissed his neck and chewed on Clint’s earlobe as he reached down to guide his rigid penis to where they both wanted it to be. When he felt her pussy lips against the tip of his cock, he thrust forward to bury himself deep inside her.

  “Yes, Clint,” she moaned while clawing his back. “Give it to me. Give it all to me.”

  Clint pounded into her again and again, handing himself over to every animal instinct that flowed through his body. His hands tightened around her ass, cupping her plump buttocks to hold her steady as he drove into her again. Gigi arched her back as far as she could, rubbing her erect nipples against Clint’s chest.

  Soon, Clint moved away from the wall to hold her in place. She used her entire body to bounce on his rigid cock, wrapping her legs around him with all her strength. Before Clint’s knees buckled, he sat down on the bed and took her right along with him. Gigi wasted no time at all before placing her hands upon his chest and shoving him down to lie on his back.

  She smiled once again, leaning her head back while slowly grinding on his cock. Clint ran his hands along her thighs, feeling the muscles work beneath her skin as she built up to a more urgent pace. Every time she took him inside her, Gigi let out a short grunt. Those sounds built into a quick staccato as she rode him harder and faster.

  For a while, Clint lay back and savored the feel of her weight on top of him, the warmth of her body pressed against his, and the dampness between her thighs, which only grew wetter the more she worked. Then, he let his eyes wander along the front of her body. Gigi’s firm tits bounced in time to her rhythm and her nipples had become fully erect. Little beads of sweat ran between them, and as she let out a groaning breath, she ran the tip of her tongue against her lips.

  “You like that?” she asked.

  Clint wasn’t certain what, exactly, she was referring to but it didn’t really matter. “Yes, I like it,” he growled. “Don’t stop.”

  Grinning with the knowledge that she was making him feel just as good as she felt, Gigi leaned her weight forward to rest it upon her arms. Her hands mashed against his chest, allowing her to pump her hips faster. While her upper body remained mostly still, her lower body moved like a piston as she impaled herself on him again and again.

  Clint could feel every movement flood through his body. Heat from her glistening flesh rolled over him and the air was filled with her scent. He grabbed her hips tighter and stared straight into her eyes as he started to drive up into her.

  Digging her nails into Clint’s chest, Gigi hung on to him as he pounded between her thighs. Before long, her entire body shuddered with a climax, which lasted until Clint’s pleasure reached its peak. With one last thrust, he exploded inside her. Now that both of them were spent, Gigi lay on top of him like a wilted flower, too tired to move.

  “Does making a fortune-teller feel that good grant me special favors from the spirits?” Clint asked.

  “If it does,” she gasped, “you’re going to be one lucky man for a very long time.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  It was just past dawn the following day and Wilhelm Torquelan had been up for hours. He didn’t normally get up so early, but today was a day for conducting business, which meant it would require some extra attention. There would be visitors coming, frightened locals, curious officials, and any number of unforeseen turns to navigate. At the end of it, he would be richer than he was right now. That’s all that mattered to him.

  He smiled to himself in the little round shaving mirror hanging above the wash basin in his bedroom. The straight razor in his hand scraped away another layer of lather and whiskers, leaving only a narrow strip of his chin left to do when someone walked in looking even better than he did.

  “What is it, Darrow?” Torquelan asked.

  “You might want to go down to the Ainsley spread.”

  “That’s quite all right. I’m sure you men can handle the job. It’s best I look fresh to receive any—”

  “No,” Darrow interrupted. “There’s been a problem.”

  Torquelan’s hand froze with the razor poised above his Adam’s apple. “What kind of a problem? Have the packages been delivered?”

  “They’re being held back, sir. That’s the problem.”

  “Held back? How?”

  “It’s Adams,” Darrow replied crisply.

  Resuming the last few swipes of his shave, Torquelan said, “I’m sure you men can handle him. If all else fails, just blow him to hell when you destroy the mine.”

  “That’s just it, sir. The package hasn’t been delivered yet.”

  This time when Torquelan froze, he stopped just short of digging the blade into his own flesh. “It was supposed to have been delivered hours ago.”

  “I know. Adams was there before us. For all we know, he was sleeping there just waiting for us to—”

  “I don’t give a damn if he decided to live in one of those fucking mines! There’s no reason . . . no reason in hell
. . . why you men couldn’t have moved him! I sent at least ten of you out there in case there was trouble.”

  “We lost some when Adams and the sheriff came along,” Darrow reminded him.

  “But that still leaves enough men to handle one. Or is it more than one?” Torquelan let out a labored sigh before asking, “Did your men fail to clear away the goddamn miners as well?”

  “There weren’t any miners around. It’s just Adams.”

  “What about the sheriff? He’s become a pain in the ass as well.”

  “I didn’t see him, sir. When we arrived, Adams was there. He told us to turn back and leave the package where it was. When we tried to clear him out, he brought down two of us. When we tried to bring the delivery any closer to the mines, he threatened to destroy it.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Torquelan howled as he threw his razor with enough force to break it on impact when it hit the wall. “What the hell does this cocksucker want?”

  “I have an idea, sir, but he wasn’t saying for certain. The only way to find out is for you to go there and ask him yourself.”

  “Are you trying to tell me what to do?” Torquelan asked in a low snarl.

  “No, sir,” Darrow replied in the same even tone he used when saying anything else. “I’m just relaying a message. Adams specifically said he wanted you to go out there and have a word with him or he would burn down your entire operation.”

  “He did, did he? Well, I don’t take orders from anyone, especially some stranger who’s barely been here long enough to know one end of town from the other. I pay you and the rest of the men to handle problems like him so you all get your asses back to that mine and handle it!”

  “Yes, sir. Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to handle my end of the business. We all do our jobs no matter what. That’s how jobs get done. Understand?”

  Darrow nodded, turned on his heel, and left.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Clint stood at the top of a small rise overlooking Chuck Ainsley’s claim. Before arriving, he’d had a word with Jeb, who agreed to convince any other miners who might be in the area to find somewhere else to be for a spell. The wagon driven by Mason had arrived a bit earlier than Clint was expecting, but that only meant he had less time to wait before meeting it.

  One man lay dead in the dirt halfway between Clint and the wagon. He’d been the one sent to force Clint to leave or bury him in the mine along with the packages meant for delivery on the back of the wagon. That man had had a fairly fast gun hand, but it wasn’t fast enough. After that man dropped from one shot from Clint’s Colt, Darrow had been willing to hear Clint out.

  “Looks like Darrow’s on his way back,” Clint announced.

  Apart from Mason, who sat in the wagon’s driver’s seat, there were three gunmen remaining. They’d fanned out to gain the best position they could and Clint had let them.

  “He’s riding alone,” Clint added. “Looks like Torquelan wasn’t interested in hearing me out. That also means he wasn’t interested in stopping any more blood from getting spilled.”

  Not one of the men in that standoff was surprised by that.

  “Shows you the sort of man you’re working for,” Clint said. “He’d rather send you to be shot or killed than lift a finger to look out for you.”

  Darrow rode closer. He’d close to within a hundred yards in less than a minute.

  “Then again,” Clint continued, “I suppose none of you are the sort who would look out for anyone. You’ve killed at least three miners, blown up two claims, and for what? To prove a point? To let Torquelan put a few more dollars into his pockets?”

  “Step away from there and let us pass,” Mason said. “I won’t ask again.”

  Clint nodded. “You’re right. This is well past the talking stage. You want to do what you came to do? You’ll have to go through me. Otherwise, turn back and scurry on home.”

  Clint’s choice of words had been well crafted. His intention was to quit waiting for Darrow to arrive and get the others to jump if they were going to jump.

  He succeeded.

  The first one to move was Mason. He snapped his reins and got the wagon’s team moving while barking at the horses in a loud, choppy voice. All of that was more than enough to signal the other three gunmen to make their move.

  Clint watched this unfold while waiting for the last possible moment in which to act. He wanted to give the men a chance to back away from the fight, but he wasn’t about to stand still and allow any of them to get a lucky shot. Fortunately, any dilemmas were cast aside because all of the men went for their guns.

  Two of the three gunmen cleared leather at roughly the same time. Clint pulled his Colt from its holster and sent a round burning through the first one’s chest. Before that one fell over, Clint was taking aim at the next.

  The second of the two quicker draws pulled his trigger when he should have squeezed. His hasty mistake caused his first shot to be pulled down and to the right, where it dug a hole into the ground a few yards behind Clint’s position.

  Clint fired at the next closest target, which happened to be the man who was last to draw his pistol. That shooter had the presence of mind to drop into a one-kneed firing stance, which prolonged his life for another couple of seconds. Clint’s round hissed through the air a few inches away from his left ear as the gunman sent a round back at him.

  Hot lead nipped at Clint’s elbow like an animal’s claw that had snagged his shirt on its way past him. The grazing shot barely registered in his head, but it did manage to send his next shot wide. Clint rolled with the slight impact by shifting into a sideways stance. From there, he straightened his arm and fired his last two rounds in quick succession.

  The first bullet drilled through one gunman’s eye.

  The second blasted apart a large piece of the other gunman’s neck.

  Both men fell straight to their backs, where they took their first steps into the great beyond.

  The wagon was still coming toward the mine and Darrow was swiftly approaching the wagon. Clint calmly strode over to the gunmen he’d just killed, picked up the pistols they’d dropped, and opened fire. Thunder roared from both fists as the pistols bucked against his palms. Accuracy wasn’t much of a concern since his target was damn hard to miss.

  Mason kept hold of his reins and hunched down low once he realized that Clint’s bullets were coming his way. The board behind him was torn apart by incoming lead. Moments later, the first few rounds hit their true mark.

  Stacked in the back of the wagon were three crates filled with dynamite. Clint couldn’t know for certain whether he’d hit one of them square or if his gunfire had sparked a blaze somewhere along the line, but it didn’t really matter. One of the crates exploded, which ignited the rest of the cargo. Within seconds, the entire wagon was engulfed in a fireball and the resulting blast filled Clint’s ears with a powerful ringing.

  Darrow had attempted to veer away from the wagon and had even managed to create a bit of distance between it and him before the crates had gone up. There was no way, however, for him or any horse to outrun the jagged chunks of wood and iron shrapnel that were sent flying in all directions. Even Clint received a good amount of bloody gashes from flying debris. Darrow, on the other hand, had his pretty face separated from his head. He surely had other parts removed in an ugly manner, which didn’t matter in the slightest.

  Dead was dead.

  Clint stood up, dusted himself off, and walked down the other side of the rise, where Eclipse was safely tethered.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Torquelan arrived at a small hotel on the outskirts of town in a rush. He stormed inside, started to go upstairs, and then spotted what he was after in a different location. He passed the front desk and stomped over to a thin, bespectacled man sitting at one of the tables where complimentary breakfast was served to guests.


  “Come on,” Torquelan said. “We’ve got work to do.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Sheriff Wheeler announced.

  The man at the table didn’t know what to do as Torquelan spun around to face the lawman, who stood behind him near the front desk. When the hotel clerk started to speak, Wheeler motioned for him to stand back.

  “You’re Dr. Lumier, right?” Wheeler asked.

  The bespectacled man at the table nodded. “I am.”

  “Let’s see your credentials.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “If you’re a doctor, you must have credentials. Let’s see them.”

  “I am a representative of the Federal Office of Mining Regulations,” Lumier announced.

  “Then you should have even more credentials.”

  Facing the lawman, Torquelan said, “You’d better have just cause for this kind of treatment.”

  “Just cause?” Wheeler growled. “How about fraud, destruction of property, claim jumping, and murder?”

  Lumier slowly rose to his feet. “I think I’ll just go back to my room now.”

  Slapping his hand on the gun at his hip, Wheeler said, “Stay put! You’re in this just as deep as Torquelan.”

  “I . . . I can tell you what Mr. Torquelan wanted to do. I can tell you where those miners are buried. I can—”

  “Shut your goddamn mouth!” Torquelan roared.

  Wheeler grinned. “I already have a real good idea of what Mr. Torquelan wanted to do.”

  “You don’t know shit,” Torquelan said.

  “You make your money collecting gold claims and rights to as many mines as you can,” Wheeler said. “Like any greedy piece of shit, you’re not satisfied with the money you’ve got, so you plan to make more. You do that by bringing in some idiot claiming to have a federally funded machine or study or whatever the hell it is so you can put the scare into the miners around here. You start spreading fear about cave-ins by causing a few cave-ins of your own. That’s fraud.