The Irish Devil Read Online Free Page A

The Irish Devil
Book: The Irish Devil Read Online Free
Author: Diane Whiteside
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boomed. “Maggie became my wife this morning.”
    “Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Good fortune to both of you,” William returned. What the devil was going on here? It was damned early in the day for a wedding. And why was Viola Ross delivering laundry, rather than celebrating with them? “May I ask who your supporters were at the happy occasion, that I might lift a glass with them? Mrs. Ross, perhaps?”
    Maggie blinked rapidly and began to stutter. Jones spoke up quickly, his eyes sliding away from William’s.
    “Oh, no, no, Mrs. Ross went out on some business. We’re traveling with Reverend Chambers’s wagon train as far as Tucson, so we couldn’t wait for her return. Can’t waste time sitting around when there’s Apaches to dodge.”
    William considered Maggie’s nervousness and the strangely empty buckboard. Was it her usual discomfort around Irishmen or something else? The wagon was only lightly loaded, not what he’d expect of a woman who co-owned a small business.
    “Do you need help shipping Mrs. Jones’s belongings to Colorado?” William probed. “I could send one of my men over to pack them up.”
    “No, no!” Jones objected, glaring like a barnyard cat surrounded by hungry dogs. “Sold everything this morning so she’d have a fresh start. Washtub, washboard, all of it. A mouse wouldn’t find anything at that hut.”
    “What about Mrs. Ross’s belongings?” William demanded, going icy cold at the image. “Shouldn’t they be guarded until she returns?”
    Jones shifted slightly on the wagon seat in a move that could free up his gun. It also sent the old prefight stillness over William, who was well aware any of his weapons could kill Jones before the other’s gun cleared leather. Maggie glanced apprehensively from one man to the other and finally uttered a coherent sentence.
    “There’s nothing left, Mr. Donovan. It took everything I could find to pay off Mr. Watson’s debts. Besides”—she began to stammer under William’s glare—“Viola had sold so much when Mr. Ross died that there wasn’t hardly anything left. And she’s going to marry Mr. Lennox anyway, so it doesn’t much matter, don’t you agree?”
    William took a step toward her but brought himself to an abrupt halt. Maggie shrank back against Jones, shaking.
    “Don’t you dare look at my wife that way,” Jones blustered, openly reaching for his Colt.
    William simply looked at the other man, whose fingers quickly returned to the reins. The Irishman smiled mirthlessly then stepped back from the wagon.
    “You’d best be moving on then, Jones. Wouldn’t want the little woman to come to any harm.”
    Jones started to lift the reins but William spoke again.
    “Our current deal runs out in June. It won’t be renewed.”
    “What! But you’re the only freighter who’ll haul ore from my mine, high up as it is.”
    William shrugged.
    “I’ll double your pay.”
    “There’s plenty of money to be made elsewhere with honorable men.” He ignored the ghosts warning of cruel hunger coming to anyone who refused a profit.
    “He’ll be ruined!” Maggie gasped.
    “You should have considered that before you stole a good woman’s life and business. Good day.” He touched his fingers to his hat in a mocking salute and walked on to his freight depot, the one place he could be sure of controlling matters.
    The big depot was full of his men preparing to send out the next wagon train of military supplies. Sentries patrolled the rooftops against an Apache attack, backed by others in the compound’s watchtowers. Some men loaded barrels, while others tied down tarpaulins over heavily laden wagons. The activity spilled out from the depot’s yard and corrals onto the flat desert, where the supply train would assemble.
    Men cleaned and oiled the heavy chains that would link wheels together, thus forming the wagons into an almost unbreakable barricade against attack. Every man had a rifle close at hand, of
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