Read Online Longarm Giant #30: Longarm and the Ambush at Holy Defiance by Tabor Evans - Free Book Online Page B

Those who didn’t were overeducated twerps or bankers. One and the same. You could throw attorneys on the same pile. She must have been spawned by one of those, so he’d have to give her a little leeway. Besides, it was hard to take umbrage with one so sexy and downright, soul-searingly beautiful, even if she was fully aware of her assets.
    “As I was sayin’,” Longarm said, trying to keep his impatience out of his voice, “you’re obviously a hardworking agent. Just like hardworking men, includin’ myself, you like to let your hair down once in a while. Nothin’ wrong with it.”
    She drew a frustrated breath and returned her gaze to the soot-stained window.
    Longarm flicked the top off the travel flask and held it out to her. “Here, have a snort o’ rye. Take the knot out of your panties.”
    She scowled at him. “I don’t drink when I’m on the job.”
    “You ain’t on the job. You’re on a train. Have a sip. Take the edge off.”
    “No, thank you. Don’t you think we should perhaps discuss the case we’re on?”
    Longarm took two swallows from the travel flask, exhaled a long, satisfied breath, shoved the cork back in the flask’s mouth, and returned it to his coat pocket. “Let’s do that, though we have a ways to go before we roll into New Mexico. We could see if this combination’s pullin’ a saloon car, have us a couple of snorts back there and play a round of Red Dog.”
    “I neither drink nor gamble when I’m on the job.”
    “Which reminds me—why’d they send you out on this one?” Longarm leaned back in his seat and hiked a boot on his knee. “I assume the Pinkerton ladies mostly work undercover, don’t they? I don’t see much need for ‘assuming a role’ here, as Pinkerton calls it.”
    “True, that’s why Mr. Pinkerton originally began hiringfemale agents, but I do much more than assume roles, Marshal Long. I’m a detective, and I’m very good at it. As good as any of the men I know
inside
or
outside
of the service. Besides, I just happened to be the most indisposed agent closest to Denver at the time of the killings. That’s probably why they gave me the assignment.”
    “I see no reason why you shouldn’t go ahead and call me Longarm, since we know each other better than most folks ever get around to.” He grinned.
    She drew a deep breath and blinked her eyes, coolly tolerant. “Look, you mastodon. You must forget what happened back in Leadville. It certain will not be repeated. Not in the near future, not ever. We are two professionals working together, and that is all we are. So I will appreciate it if you’d respect me for the professional that I am and treat me accordingly. In exchange, I will do the same for you.”
    Longarm plucked the flask out of his coat pocket again, giving a weary sigh. “Oh, all right. I reckon I’ll try to see it your way. There are five lawmen dead, after all.” As he popped the cork on the flask, he glanced at the well-filled corset of her traveling dress made of some shiny, spruce-green material. “But you’ll forgive me if it takes a while for me to forget two nights ago. That there was a tussle and a half!”
    He tipped his head back, let the soothing rye wash down his throat, into his belly and deeper, into the regions where he’d been fighting a hard-on ever since he’d seen her again in Billy Vail’s office, of all places.
    Haven’s cheeks reddened. She fought off the flush, however, and entwined her hands in her lap, beside the feathered green picture hat resting beside her supple left thigh. The manila folder containing the report rested against her opposite leg.
    “Now, then, since our relationship has been clarified, let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we? I read a copy of the ranger’s report on my journey from Leadville, but it’s pretty thin,not to mention nearly illiterate. In your meeting with Marshal Vail, did he mention anything about the rangers having any suspicions as to who might have shot their