Sweeter Than Honey

  Something’s on the rise in Two-Mule, Texas. And it ain’t just the temperature.

  1880, West Texas

  Honey Cafferty lives a happy, if precarious, existence as a traveling saleswoman. She sells her elixirs and potions while searching for the one thing she hasn’t been able to brew from the back of her colorful wagon—a sense of belonging. She arrives in Two Mule, Texas, with her Elixir of Love, a potion that improves a man’s libido but might just get her run out of town.

  Sheriff Joe Tanner is protective of his little town. Downright hostile toward anyone who might take advantage of the fine folk under his protection. Any snake-oil salesman who rolls into town better just keep right on rolling.

  Honey isn’t what Joe expected, from her vibrant red hair and cat-green eyes to her curvy mouth and hips. And when the men of the town begin to plead exhaustion—and place the blame squarely on her sweet-smelling shoulders—Joe has no choice but to launch an investigation. A very, very deep investigation…

  This book has been previously published.

  Warning: Contains a sheriff who prides himself on keeping his town running as smooth as a well-greased wagon wheel, and a wandering saleswoman who’s more than a bump (and grind) in his road.

  Sweeter Than Honey

  Delilah Devlin

  Dedication

  For you Lone Star Lovers fans, now you know Two Mule’s naughty past…

  Prologue

  1880, West Texas

  The wind whispered softly through the short, scrubby oak trees lining the creek, arriving at last at Honey Cafferty’s back door where it tousled the hollow wooden chimes she’d hung above the stoop of the only home she’d ever known.

  The sound, like half a dozen reed flutes, rose and fell with each stirring of the air, rousing her from her restless slumber. She’d opened the shutters of her windows in hopes of catching a breeze after the stifling white-hot heat of the day. As the warm air drifted over her moist skin, she sighed with relief and let herself drift back to sleep.

  A scrape, like a footstep on sand, came from the side of her wagon. Honey jerked fully awake and snuck her fingers beneath her goose-down pillow for the revolver that was never far from reach.

  She eased up from her mattress, making sure she stayed away from the pools of silver moonlight that shone through her small windows and peered around one casing, her pistol cocked and loaded, ready for whatever trouble awaited her outside.

  She worried for the horses she’d tied to trees next to the shallow creek and wondered why they’d remained quiet. Someone was out there. She could feel it. And she never ignored the intuition her father had said was as much a part of her Irish heritage as her red hair, green eyes and the touch of fey that kept her hitching her wagon to follow the stars.

  A shadow passed in front of the window and another scuff sounded next to the door. She drew back, not wanting to act too quickly. The advantage would come when the intruder slammed through the back door expecting to find her groggy from sleep and unprepared.

  Her eyes narrowed on the door and her arm descended, the butt of the pistol resting in one hand, a finger sliding around the trigger.

  “I bring the plants you want,” a raspy voice said from beside her. A round face rested on the windowsill like a disembodied head.

  Honey stifled a shriek and lowered her weapon. “Señora Garza! Why didn’t you call out to me? You scared me half to death.”

  “Girl like you shouldn’t live in a wagon,” the old woman groused. “You need ground beneath your feet, not wheels.”

  Ignoring the familiar complaint from her old friend, Honey grumbled, “I came by to see you today.”

  “I been walking in the hills. Found somethin’ special for you.”

  Honey set down her pistol on the built-in dresser. “You didn’t have to come all this way. You know I wouldn’t leave without restocking my supplies and visiting a while.”

  The old woman’s index finger appeared above the windowsill. “This is magic plant. Have to pluck at midnight on a full moon.”

  Honey tried one more time—she really did need the sleep. “It can’t keep until tomorrow?”

  “Gotta brew tonight. Fresh. Make very special medicine.”

  Honey groaned inwardly. The heat had sucked the energy right out of her, but she knew the curandera meant well. She believed in the magical properties of the plants she harvested. If brewing her potion by the light of the full moon kept the old woman happy, she wasn’t going to complain. Señora Garza’s “magic” kept them both fed and clothed.

  “I build fire. You get dressed.”

  The curandera squatted in her brightly colored cotton skirt and busied herself uncovering the smoldering embers of Honey’s campfire. While she blew on the coals and slowly added kindling to raise a flame, Honey slipped on a wash-softened pair of blue jeans, tucked in her shift and tied back her hair. Although she would have liked to go barefoot to the fire, she slid on slippers, knowing scorpions might be about.

  Stepping down the folding steps of her stoop, she shivered slightly at the hint of chill in the breeze—a reminder summer waned and she’d soon have to find a place to ride out the winter. Somewhere…needy. A quiet town ready for a little shaking up and whole lot of her healing potions.

  “So what’s so special about this medicine?” Honey asked as she drew near the crackling fire. “What will it cure?”

  Señora Garza muttered a low incantation in an incomprehensible mix of Spanish and Comanche, her graying black braids swaying as she chanted. Honey’s iron stew pot sat in the middle of the flames filled with water that slowly burped as it started to boil. When she’d finished her spell, Señora Garza smiled a wide, toothless grin and dropped gnarled bits of roots into the water. “It no cure illness. It gives fuerza to a man’s parts.”

  Honey shook her head, not understanding.

  The old woman rolled her eyes. “His cojones, mija. Makes his pinga strong and virile.”

  Honey was glad the darkness masked the heat blooming on her cheeks. “What am I supposed to do with something like that?” she whispered fiercely, although no one else was around to hear their scandalous conversation. “Won’t it cure a headache or settle a stomach too? I can’t tell decent folks it makes a man’s…” she cupped her hand and made a gesture at the juncture of her thighs that indicated a lengthening cock, “…his…thing hard,” she sputtered. “’Sides, who needs something like that?”

  The old woman’s shaggy eyebrows waggled and she laughed. “You tell the women what you have. They will buy.”

  Honey wasn’t done with her tirade—the heat in her cheeks fueled a spirited anger that ripped right through her and settled as always on her tongue. “What the hell am I gonna call it?” Images of bottles labeled Miracle Manhood Enhancer and Poker Potion came to mind. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. She’d be run out of the next town, tarred and feathered for her licentious product.

  “Easy, mija. Call it…” Señora glanced back with a wicked grin, “…Elixir of Love.”

  Honey sucked in a deep breath. It had a ring to it all right. “Elixir of Love,” she repeated, liking the soft, romantic sound of it more now. She lifted her arms and practiced her slogan. “Cleopatra’s secret weapon that captured the undying love and devotion of Caesar and Marc Antony.”

  The bruja snorted and started to cackle. “It no makes a man fall in love. Nothin’ to do with the heart. Makes a man horny.”

  “Horny?”

  “Builds his juices. Makes him feel like he will die if don’t find a woman to—” She clapped her hands three times in rapid succession.

  With a mortifie
d blush heating her cheeks, Honey got Señora Garza’s meaning. However, Elixir of Virility was just too crass. Elixir of Love it would remain.

  Nothing excited her like playing with her slogans. When her imagination was engaged, it seemed the sky was the limit for her ambitions. And she had big brass-band-and-Fourth-of-July kinds of dreams. Someday, she’d have enough money saved up to build a house and get the kind of life she’d only seen from the top of her wagon seat as she rolled past the towns.

  Her eyes widened with excitement. “I’ve got it!” She tilted back her head and raised her hands for dramatic flair. “Straight from the bazaars of Zanzibar—” That had a nice ring to it. She hoped like hell Zanzibar was somewhere near Egypt. “I bring you the very potion Cleopatra used to conquer Caesar.” A very nice ring indeed.

  Señora Garza’s excited cackle rose like the twittering of a hoarse bird. “Only you be careful, or you be the one who gets conquered, mija.”

  Chapter One

  “Sheriff, you’ve gotta do somethin’ about that woman.”

  The note of exasperation in Curly Hicks’s voice was one Joe Tanner had heard often in the past couple of days—at least from the unmarried men of the town. He didn’t need to ask which woman Curly was talking about. He already knew who was responsible for Curly’s agitation. Her name was on everybody’s lips, although the tones with which her name was spoken varied widely.

  He was curious what the normally reticent shopkeeper had to say about the lady in question. “Just what do you want me to do about her, Curly?”

  “Send her packin’! She’s up to somethin’. Cain’t tell you ’xactly what, but ever since she came, nothin’s been the same.”

  So he wasn’t the only one to notice. Since the day Honey Cafferty’s fancy-painted wagon had rolled into town, the mood around Two Mule had seemed…expectant, like the town itself was wakening from a long slumber and had suddenly discovered every joyful holiday was all wrapped inside one bright, shining moment.

  Which posed a dilemma for Joe. Two Mule had elected him to keep the peace and things had been riding smooth like a Conestoga over flat land—no bumps, no bone-jarring thuds. So far, the townsfolk had been pretty satisfied with their lives. It was a quiet place—the right kind of town to set down deep roots—and he intended to keep it that way.

  However, Honey Cafferty had a way about her that was anything but quiet. She radiated shimmering sensuality, from her vibrant red hair and cat-like green eyes to her lushly curved lips and body. Everything about her shouted like Fourth of July fireworks and crazily spinning whirligigs, eliciting a restless hunger in him that had no place in his tidy little life.

  Just looking at the woman made his teeth ache, made him want to touch the fire he sensed smoldered just below the surface of her sweet-smelling peaches-and-cream skin.

  “Whatcha gonna do, Sheriff?”

  Not what he really wanted to, that was for damn sure. “Has she committed a crime?”

  Curly’s cheeks reddened. “You’re not list’nin’ to me. Amos Handy didn’t open his smithy shop ’til half past noon yesterday. That ain’t never happened before.”

  “Why do you think Miss Cafferty had something to do with that?”

  “Amos’s wife bought a bottle of her special ee-lixir the day before.”

  “So you think Miss Cafferty poisoned Amos?”

  “I’m not sayin’ she did it on purpose, but Letty was sure lookin’ happy when I came to see what was wrong. And you know that woman has the sourest disposition of any female this side of the Mississippi.”

  “What about Amos? Did he look like he was sickening?”

  “Well, no. But he’s mighty tired, he says. Said he was gonna close his shop for a couple of days—take a vacation. You ever heard such a load of horseshit in all yer born days?”

  “Still don’t see where Miss Cafferty fits in with all this.”

  “Sheriff, you need to open your eyes,” Curly said, his own eyes bugging wide. “Look at all the married folk. The men are lookin’ glassy-eyed and the women are hummin’ like mosquitoes. I tell you, it’s that woman’s fault.”

  “What about you, Curly? Do you have any complaints?”

  “I’m plain tuckered out keepin’ one step ahead of Sally. She’s been tryin’ to get me to stop by for her apple pie, but she has that look in her eye again.”

  “Which one’s that?”

  “That marryin’ look. The one what’s got me too sceert to step outside her mama’s parlor for a kiss. It might be all over for me,” he said dolefully.

  Joe suppressed a smile. Not that he blamed Curly for his skittishness. Despite his longing to set down roots, the thought of marriage made him itch too. “Do you know anything about this special elixir the Cafferty woman’s selling?”

  “Nope. Soon as she sold her dyspepsia cures, she shooed the menfolk away for a private chat with the ladies. They sure as hell aren’t talkin’ about what she give ’em.”

  “Have you asked her straight out what she’s been selling to the womenfolk?”

  Curly’s cheeks grew a fiery red. “I cain’t do that, Sheriff,” he said, his tone mournful. “I open my mouth to have my say, and all she has to do is aim those pretty green eyes my way and I’m meltin’ like ice cream on a hot summer day. Before you know it, she’s done sold me somethin’ else I don’t need.”

  Joe pressed his lips into a straight line to keep from laughing. Yes, siree. Looking into the woman’s eyes did test the mettle of a man. If a man wasn’t on guard against her charm, she’d tie his tongue in knots and swell his…

  Best not let his mind head down that dusty trail. “Tell you what, Curly. I’ll pay a visit to Miss Cafferty. See if there’s anything to your story.”

  “Don’t have to go out to her campsite. She’s in the saloon right now. That was the other thing I was gonna mention. No righteous woman like she claims to be oughta be rollin’ on the floor of a saloon with Paddy Mulligan. It’s just not seemly.”

  Joe stiffened. “She’s in the saloon?” At Curly’s solemn nod, he grabbed his hat and stomped out of his office onto the planked walkway, making a beeline for the Rusty Bucket. Miss Cafferty had seemed so coy, so modest, when he’d sold her the permit to solicit. She’d dressed in an outfit any Eastern-raised schoolmarm would have given the nod. He should have listened to his gut in the first place. No decent woman had ever made him so damn out of control. She was just like the rest of those independent-minded women who thought society’s rules somehow didn’t apply to them.

  The red hair had been a bright, glaring clue to her true nature—no matter that it was always neatly styled and pinned. She’d snookered him just like she had the rest of the townsfolk.

  He slammed his palms against the swinging doors leading into the saloon and came to a halt. A ring of men filled the center of the room. Those on the outer perimeter stood on tiptoe to peer over the shoulders of the men standing at the center of the circle.

  He elbowed his way inside and sucked a slow breath between his teeth to calm the anger that burned hot and fast as a match to gunpowder.

  The sight that greeted him only raised the pressure pounding in his head another notch. The shy and modest Miss Cafferty straddled the barrel chest of the town drunk, her petticoats rising above her knees. Her woolen stockings hugged an expanse of ankle and calf that drew every male eye watching her wrestle the behemoth.

  Paddy Mulligan groaned beneath her, sounding like a cross between a drunken bear and a man in the last throes of lust. Given his sorry state, Joe suspected his moans were due more to the heat from the woman’s open legs rubbing his wide belly and her bottom bumping his private parts than the wicked set of shiny pliers she had shoved inside his mouth.

  Joe’s own body reacted swiftly, urgently. This was the last damn straw. “Woman, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Honey Cafferty blew an er
rant curl of flaming-red hair from her eyes. “Not now,” she said, not looking away from Paddy’s tonsils. “Now, Paddy, if you’d let me give you my special painkiller first—”

  “Smelled like skunk fart,” one of the men in the circle said. “Don’t blame him for refusin’.”

  “Shoulda just let him get drunk first,” another said.

  “Drinking spirits makes a man bleed faster,” Honey muttered and twisted her wrist, eliciting a strangled groan from Paddy.

  “Yeah, but then he wouldn’t give a damn,” said the bartender, who stood with his arms folded over his chest, a glower darkening his usually jovial face.

  “Someone’s standing in my light,” Honey said and looked over her shoulder. When she caught sight of Joe, her eyes blinked and she gave him a weak smile. “If you’d just shift to your left, Sheriff, I’ll be done with this extraction in just a minute.”

  Joe narrowed his eyes, but he moved sideways, taking a deep breath to calm the fury building inside him. He’d bide his time for now, but he and the little lady were gonna have a talk.

  She twisted her hand again, and Paddy’s eyes rolled back in his head.

  “Thank the Lord, he passed right out,” said the bartender, looking as pale as a ghost.

  Both Honey’s hands wrapped around the pliers and she leaned back. Everybody drew a deep breath and more than one man’s face winced as she yanked a blackened tooth out of Paddy’s mouth.

  “Got it!” She raised it high for everyone to see. “When he wakes up, he’ll feel so much better.”

  She plucked the tooth off the end of her pliers and tucked it inside Paddy’s shirt pocket. Then she reached for a tapestry carpet bag lying on the floor beside her. She pulled out a small folded paper and poured a rough yellow-brown powder into her palm. She packed the powder into the bleeding hole she’d left in Paddy’s gum. “That should stop the bleeding and help him some with the pain.”

  She wiped her hands on a bar towel, clambered off his chest and smoothed down her skirts. She pulled her cuffs back down her forearms, cool as a cucumber, while the crowd of fascinated men watched her put herself to rights.