Longarm 242: Red-light by Tabor Evans

with an answer.

    True to her word, Nola had a bowl of hot broth waiting for him when he woke up again. Only she didn’t deliver it herself. Instead, when Longarm opened his eyes, he found a young woman with blond hair bending over the bed. “Are you awake?” she asked brightly.
    â€œI reckon I am,” Longarm replied. He shifted and found that the pain in his side, while still there, was not as sharp this time. It didn’t take his breath away.
    But the blond damned near did. She was big—tall, broad-shouldered, heavy-breasted. She looked like the sort of girl who had been raised on a farm or a ranch, and fairly recently, too, since she wasn’t more than twenty years old. Her skin even retained a trace of a tan that working in the sun must have given her. At the moment, however, her working outfit was considerably different than it had probably been earlier in her life. She was wearing a short red dress with a flouncy skirt and black lace stockings. The dress was cut low enough to reveal the upper third of her large breasts. Thick wings of hair a shade lighter than honey framed her lovely face and fell past her shoulders.
    â€œI have some broth here that the cook just brought up,” she said to Longarm. “I want you to eat every bit of it.”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” he said. He wasn’t in the habit of arguing with ladies as pretty as she was, and besides, in his weakened condition, she could hold him down and spoon-feed him if she was of a mind to.
    She helped him sit up in bed, propping several pillows behind him. The quilt slipped, and Longarm grabbed for it out of habit. The blond laughed and said, “Don’t mind about that, honey. There’s nothing under those covers I haven’t seen plenty of times before.”
    â€œThat may be true in general, ma’am,” said Longarm, “but you ain’t seen this particular one.”
    She laughed again. “Don’t be too sure. Somebody had to get those bloody clothes off of you and help clean you up, you know.” She gave him a mischievous smile. “I’ve been looking forward to getting to know you better when you aren’t passed out from a gunshot wound. By the way, my name’s Angie.”
    She stuck out her hand like a man, and Longarm shook with her. “You can call me Custis,” he said.
    â€œI know. Your name’s Custis Parker. Nola heard some of the men talking about you. You rode into town, raised hell, and got shot, all in one day.” Angie suddenly frowned. “Some people say you killed Mrs. Keegan. Is that true?”
    â€œIs that the woman who was shot in the back in an alley?” Longarm suddenly felt even worse about the woman’s death. He hadn’t even known her name when she had saved his life and lost her own in the process.
    â€œShe was shot, all right, and she’d been abused.” Angie was glaring at him now.
    Longarm met her gaze squarely and said, “I didn’t kill the lady, Angie. I was there, but it was the men who were trying to bushwhack me who shot her. They’re the ones who abused her, too, and then sent her to try to trap me.”
    She nodded, and Longarm could tell she believed him without reservation, now that she had heard it from his own lips. She said, “They were Mallory’s men, weren’t they?”
    â€œI reckon so.” Longarm sighed. “I suppose when you get right down to it, I am to blame for Mrs. Keegan’s death. I was trying to stir things up by asking questions about Mallory. I guess I stirred them up a little too good.”
    â€œI think I’d be better off if I didn’t hear about all that,” said Angie. She went to a dresser on the other side of the room. A tray with a bowl on it sat there, and Longarm saw wisps of steam rising from the bowl. He could smell a delicious aroma in the air, too, and the realization hit him suddenly that it had been a long time since