Bad to the Bone Read Online Free PDF Page B

strength.”
    He sat with his arm around her shoulders, as she felt morbid terror arising from the floorboards of the bedroom. Her mother had nurtured, pampered, and taughther everything she knew. Without her mother, she'd be devastated, for her father had always been remote, and her husband had more important things to do than hold her hand and listen to her babble.
    Doña Consuelo knew that cancer consumed people from the inside, sucking their lives away, causing them to die shriveled and ancient before their time. Tears flowed down her cheeks, as her husband sought to comfort her. “There, there,” he cooed. “People live and die every day, but life goes on, and so shall we.”

CHAPTER 3

    N EXT MORNING, APPROXIMATELY TWO hundred miles to the north, a dusty stagecoach rolled down the main street of Escondido, a bustling town on the American side of the Rio Grande. No one paid special attention to the conveyance, because Escondido was the site of much trading activity, most of it illicit, between Texas and Mexico.
    In the cab, among the other passengers, sat a tall blonde woman named Miss Vanessa Fontaine. She was dressed in a lavender mohair dress trimmed with blue velvet, with a white crepe de chine scarf. She gazed sullenly out the window at adobe buildings lining both sides of the street, and horse manure lying in the middle, along with whisky bottles, scraps of paper, bones of animals picked clean by dogs, and various other items too misshapen to recognize.

    Miss Vanessa Fontaine was a lady of the world, and nothing fazed her, not even a filthy little border town. She pulled her head inside the window and looked at her fellow passengers: a cowboy, a lawyer, and a traveling salesman who'd been her company since Fort Stockton.
    â€œIt's not much,” said the salesman, whose name was Charlie McPheeter, “but you'd be surprised the amount of traffic that passes through a town like this, and they all need hardware to replace somethin’ that's broke. If yer innerested in money, it's a damn fine town, but if yer worried about a stray bullet a-flyin’ over yer head, yer in the wrong damned place.”
    The lawyer replied: “Half the residents are wanted by the Mexican or American authorities, and as far as I know, there are no lawyers in Escondido. It's wide open for a fellow like me.”
    â€œWe'll all be a-suein’ each other inside of a week,” drawled the drunken cowboy, who was sprawled in the corner, a bottle of something in his hand.
    The lawyer sneered at the oafish fellow, but Vanessa considered the cowboy the most interesting passenger on the stagecoach, because he was exactly what he appeared to be, and made no bones about it.
    The stagecoach came to a stop before a large hotel, and on the veranda, a vaquero with a cigar in his mouth strummed a guitar. Someone opened the coach door, and a wave of sundust entered the tiny enclosed cab. A hand grabbed Vanessa's wrist, and before she could do anything, it pulled her out the door.
    â€œHowdy,” said an American cowboy with a stubbled chin, his shirt unbuttoned to his waist. “You're just about the best-lookin’ woman I've ever saw.”

    She looked at him reproachfully, and he released her, took a step backwards, and smiled unsteadily. “I meant no harm, miss. It's just that yer beauty bowled me—”
    She turned away in the middle of his sentence as if he didn't exist. Atop the cab, the stagecoach guard threw down a bag to a gentleman in a green visor. Vanessa looked at the squat desert town while a crowd of beggars formed around the stagecoach. Men gazed at her from the sidewalk, her golden hair catching every ray of sun. “Can anyone help me with my bags?”
    â€œWill I do?” asked her cowboy traveling companion, whose name was Pyle. “I'm a-lookin’ fer a job.”
    â€œDo you think you can carry those bags for me?”
    â€œYes ma'am,” he winked lewdly,