by Candace Camp
Victoria watched tensely as Amy crossed the floor on stealthy feet. She scarcely dared breathe, praying that McBride wouldn’t turn and catch sight of Amy. But his attention was solely on the man outside.
“I’m not coming any farther until I see that she’s all right,” Brody said. “Show her to me.”
“You ain’t calling the shots here, Brody. I am. You’ll see her when you get inside.”
“No. Now. I want to see her now.”
McBride laughed. “You must think I’m a fool. Well, I ain’t. You come in here right quick, or you’ll hear a gunshot, and you’ll know that’s Amy.”
All the occupants of the room were focused on the window where McBride waited, and none of them saw the man slip through the empty window frame at the rear of the room.
“Drop it, McBride.” Slater’s voice was deadly in the quiet room.
Amy and McBride both whirled around at his words, and Victoria twisted in her chair. “Slater!”
McBride pointed his gun at Victoria. “No. You drop it. Unless you’d like to see this little lady splattered all over the room.”
Slater’s mouth twisted, but he reluctantly lowered his weapon to the floor.
“I’d never thought I’d see the day you worked with an outlaw like Brody.” McBride shook his head slowly. “Mr. High-and-Mighty Ranger, and here you are helping that scum, all over a bit of skirt. These girls must be something special. Maybe I should’ve tried them out earlier.” McBride gestured to the front window with his gun. “I’ve never minded an audience—why don’t you get your friend to come join us?”
McBride’s attention was on Slater, and he hadn’t noticed that Amy had crept even closer. As soon as he moved his hand, the gun no longer directly on Victoria, Amy surged forward. She swung the pan with all her might, bringing it down hard on McBride’s gun arm. His shotgun went off as it fell, blowing a hole in the floor. Out in the yard, Brody bellowed Amy's name.
Amy and McBride slammed into the wall, grappling over the skillet. Amy summoned up every bit of anger and fear she’d felt these past days and held on to her weapon with an iron grip. They were too close together for her to swing it again, but she pushed with everything she had until the still-hot bottom of the pan pressed against McBride’s cheek. He howled in pain and Slater charged forward, wrenching Amy free with so much force that she stumbled.
Slater reached out to steady Amy, and McBride took advantage of the diversion, punching Slater in the jaw. Slater staggered backward, and McBride dove for where his shotgun had been lying on the floor. But Amy had already swept it up, and Slater came barreling back and slammed into McBride. The two men went rolling across the floor, struggling.
“There’s no shot left in that one. Get Slater’s gun!” Victoria screamed to Amy. “Get his gun!”
Amy flung the shotgun down and darted across the room to pick up the Colt, but the men were a mass of fists and kicking boots and Amy couldn’t shoot one without hurting the other. They lurched to their feet, and Slater landed a blow to McBride’s chin. The bounty hunter staggered back, crashing into the table. The lit kerosene lamp atop it shattered on the ground, sending fire running up the legs of the table and scorching across the wooden planks of the floor. Amy and Victoria screamed. McBride came back at Slater, punching wildly.
At that moment, Brody burst through the front door, revolver in his hand. “Amy!”
“Sam! Oh, Sam!” She ran to him, and he curled an arm around her, holding her close for an instant.
“For God’s sake, help Slater!” Victoria yelled.
Brody turned to the two men, gun raised, but he couldn’t get a clear shot. He glanced at Victoria, where flames were licking across the floor toward her. Reaching behind him, he pulled his knife from his belt and handed it to Amy. “Here. Cut her loose. We gotta get out of here.”
Then he stepped forward, picking up the empty shotgun by the barrel, and swung the butt of the gun into the back of McBride’s head. The bounty hunter went limp and fell to the floor. Slater staggered to his feet, blood running from his lip and a cut above his eye. “Thanks.”
Brody nodded, and the two men ran across the room to where Amy was determinedly sawing through the ropes that bound Victoria. Slater took the knife from her and sliced through the bonds. The fire was spreading rapidly, racing up the walls.
Slater pulled Victoria to her feet. “Run!”
When the four of them had reached a safe distance from the burning house, Brody wrapped his arms around Amy and buried his face in her hair. “Amy. Oh, God, Amy.”
“Please don’t leave me, Sam. Please don’t leave me again.”
“I won’t. Ever.” He knew he couldn’t, not now. He’d done it once, and that had used up all the nobility in him. He didn’t have the willpower to do it again. “I won’t let you out of my sight.” He squeezed her tightly to him and murmured, “I love you. I love you. I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
She looked up into his eyes. “I knew you’d come for me.”
“Of course I did.”
“I love you.” She went up on her toes and kissed him softly. “Forever and always.”
“Forever and always,” he promised and bent to kiss her again.
So lost was he in Amy that it took Brody a moment to notice the raised voices a few feet away, Slater’s low and Victoria’s sharp. The exchange was capped by Victoria’s scream, “Slater!”
Brody raised his head to see Victoria staring at the house in horror. Slater was running back inside. “What the hell is he doing?”
“The idiot! He went back for McBride. He said he couldn’t let a man burn to death like that.”
They watched, stunned, as Slater disappeared into the smoke and flames. A second later fire burst through the roof of the house, and half the roof collapsed.
For an instant, everything in the world stilled around Brody. This was his chance. Earlier today Brody had given up on the possibility of getting away after this. But fate had just handed him a golden opportunity. He could grab Amy and run. He’d be free, not only of McBride but of the Ranger who had pursued him relentlessly. All he had to do was leave. But his feet stayed rooted to the ground. He turned his face away from the burning house and looked at Amy. His salvation. She was an angel lit in firelight. And he knew she had changed him entirely and forever.
“That goddamn noble son of a bitch,” Sam said bitterly and ran back to the burning house.
The heat hit him like a blow, and the air was filled with smoke. “Slater!”
“Brody?” The surprise in Slater’s voice would have made Sam laugh if he’d been in the mood for humor. “Jesus Christ.”
“Not exactly.” Brody pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and tied it over his mouth and nose, as he made his way toward the sound of Slater’s voice. The smoke was so thick that he couldn’t get beneath it, no matter how low he crouched. The heat seared his lungs. A stray flame jumped out and lit his sleeve, and he beat it out.
He almost stumbled over Slater’s boots before he saw him. A beam had fallen and lay across Slater’s legs. At first he thought the man’s legs had been crushed, but then he saw that the wood rested on another fallen beam, keeping its full weight off Slater.
Slater turned his head to Brody. He, too, had wrapped a bandana over the lower half of his face. “I can’t believe you came back.”
“Neither can I. Can you move your feet?”
“Yeah. My legs aren’t broken.” Slater coughed. “It caught on something over there.” He gestured. “It’s just too heavy for me to move. No leverage.”
Brody crawled beside the beam until he reached a spot where he could get his shoulder beneath the heavy length of wood. “When I lift up, get the hell out. Ready?”
“Yeah.”
Brody tried to stand, shoving with all his strength. The beam moved up by inches. The smoke was all around, blinding and choking. The fire seared his back, stretching toward him with hot
tendrils. He strained upward.
Slater squirmed out from under the beam, and Brody let it drop. Bending over, the two of them stumbled across the room and out the door. The air outside was cleaner, and they sucked it in gratefully, coughing as they ran from the burning house. They collapsed on the grass, gasping and struggling for breath. Behind them, the rest of the house fell in.
“Sam!” Amy dropped down to her knees beside him. “Oh, Sam, I was so worried.”
Tears were running down her face, and as she bent over him, he felt her tears on his cheek. Nothing, he thought, had ever felt better. In between raining kisses all over his face, she wiped the soot from his skin and exclaimed over the hole burned in his sleeve.
He curled his hand around her wrist and caressed her arm. “I’m fine. Don’t worry.” He reached up and wiped her tears away. “Sorry. I’ve gotten you all dirty now.”
“I don’t care.” She sat down beside him, one hand on his chest, as if she could not break the connection.
Brody turned his head to look over at Slater. Slater sat with his arms on his upraised knees as Victoria fussed over him much as Amy had with Brody, though with much sharper words mixed into her kisses and tears. As if feeling Brody’s gaze, Slater turned his head to look back at him.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Brody said. “Running into a burning house to save that piss-ant?”
“I couldn’t leave a man to burn to death, even if it was McBride.”
“Did you find him?”
“Yeah. He was already dead.”
Brody nodded. “That’s good.”
He sat up and gazed at the house, now entirely consumed by fire. He could feel the heat from it even this far away. Not looking at Slater, Brody said, “Will you let me marry her before you take me in? You know, just in case she’s…”
“What?” Amy asked sharply and whirled to look at Slater. “You’re going to arrest him? After he saved your life?” Her eyes flashed in a way that showed her kinship to Victoria. She turned to Sam and tugged at his arm. “Go. Take my horse. He won’t follow you. I still have his gun.” She stretched over and picked up the Colt from where she had dropped it on the ground earlier.
“Amy, no,” Victoria cried out. “Slater…”
Sam smiled faintly at Amy’s fierce face and reached out to cup her face in his hands. “No, darlin’. I’m tired of running. I don’t want to live like this anymore, always looking over my shoulder. And I sure as hell won’t make you do it, too. I want to be with you out in the open. But it’ll be a few years.” Unless that sheriff his men shot had died; that was a hanging offense. But it was better not to mention that to Amy.
“No…Sam…” Amy’s eyes welled with tears.
“You know…” Slater said conversationally, his gaze fixed on the burning house, as Brody’s had been earlier. “I reckon if Amy wanted to marry Cam McBride, nobody’d think a thing about it.”
“What?” All of them turned to stare at Slater.
“What are you talking about? Did you hit your head?” Victoria asked. “Cam McBride’s dead in there.”
“No,” Slater told her, turning his head to lock gazes with Brody. “That’s Sam Brody that’s dead in that house. ‘Course, nobody could recognize him, his body being burned like that, so it’s a good thing there was a lawman there who saw it all.”
Hope surged in Brody’s chest, struggling against his disbelief.
“What happened was this,” Slater went on. “McBride rescued Amy from Brody and killed that outlaw. And, well, I think she just fell in love with him. Understandable, given the situation. Needless to say, McBride, being the fine gentleman he is, did what was necessary to save her reputation after she’d been held hostage all that time. He married her, and they moved away, where nobody knew them or what happened, so they could start fresh.”
For a moment everyone stared at Slater in stunned silence. Then Brody, his throat too tight to speak, gave a nod to Slater. He rose, reaching down to take Amy’s hand and pull her to her feet. “Well, Amy, what do you say? Will you help me make a new life? Will you marry me?”
“Yes! Oh, yes!” Amy’s face glowed as she flung her arms around his neck. “I’ll marry you!”
Sam laughed and swung her in a circle before setting her down with a quick kiss. He glanced at the others. “Well…um, we’d probably better get going then.”
Slater nodded. “Yeah, I’ll have to report this soon. Tomorrow, maybe.”
Brody stood there for another moment. Then with another brief nod, he loped off to get their horses.
“Amy!” Victoria hurried over to her cousin. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
Amy’s broad grin was answer enough, but she added, “I’m sure. I’m surer than I’ve ever been of anything. I know he’s not the sort of man you’d want for me. But Sam is good inside. You saw what he just did.” She gestured toward the house.
“I know. It’s just…it’s all so fast. You’ll be gone and I won’t know where you are.” Victoria’s chest squeezed at the thought.
“I’ll write as soon as we settle someplace,” Amy promised, taking her cousin’s hand. “It’s not like I’ll never see you again. I’ll come to visit.” She grinned. “Maybe bring my children.”
“Oh, Amy!” Victoria squeezed her hand, tears in her eyes. “I’ll miss you so.”
“I’ll miss you, too. But I love him, Tory. He makes me happy. And brave. I have to be with him.”
Victoria nodded. “I know.”
Amy threw her arms around Victoria for a final hug, then turned to Slater. “Thank you, Mr. Slater. I’ll never forget this. Neither will Sam. He doesn’t say much, but…”
The corner of Slater’s mouth quirked up. “Yeah. I know.”
With another bright smile and a wave, Amy turned and ran to Sam.
He hurried forward to meet her, opening his arms. Amy jumped up and wrapped her arms around his neck. Brody caught her and kissed her. When they ended the kiss, he took her hand, walking the few feet to the horses.
“I’m putting you up on McBride’s horse,” he told her. “But I’m going to get you a better one first chance I have.” Quickly he added, “Buy one, not steal it.”
She smiled. “I know.” She reached up to stroke the gelding’s nose. “But this one is a fine boy, aren’t you? I’ll have to think of a name for him.”
Brody’s lips twitched, but he said only, “How about Bounty Hunter?”
“No. He’s better than that. But Bounty’s good. I’ll call him Bountiful.” She looked at him. “Because I’ve been blessed with so much.”
“That’s a wonderful name.” He curled an arm around her and kissed her forehead. Then he stepped back, gazing into her eyes. “Are you sure?” He glanced over to where Victoria and Slater stood. “Do you really want to leave your life?”
Amy reached up to caress his cheek. “I’ve never been so sure of anything. You are my life.”
***
Slater wrapped his arms around Victoria, and she turned into his chest, her arms going tightly around him. She couldn’t hold back the tears. He stroked her back and rested his head against hers, murmuring soft endearments. Gradually she quieted. It was so sweet to be here in Slater’s arms. Victoria would have liked to stay there, but after a moment, she stepped back, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
“I’m sorry.” She drew a shuddery breath. “It’s just that…she’s gone.”
“It’s what she wanted.”
“I know. But what if she’s wrong? What if she’s unhappy?”
“She’s an adult now, Victoria; you can’t keep looking after her. You can’t protect her from everything. No matter how much you love her, she’s going to move on. Just like you will. I wouldn’t have let Brody go if I didn’t think he would follow the straight and narrow. He’s done some bad things, but I don’t think he’s ever been an evil man, just one who took a bad course in life. He loves her; I’d swear to tha
t. He was going to give up his life for Amy. And he came to find me so I could protect your cousin, even though he knew that if he didn’t die, I was going to take him in afterward.”
Victoria nodded. “He risked his life to save you, too.”
“Yeah.” He let out a breath of a laugh. “I have to say, I was a little surprised by that one.”
“He makes her happy,” Victoria said, letting the ache inside her ease a little. “And I think maybe he was good for her, too, in a way. She seemed more…grown up, I guess. Less frightened and more confident.”
“Brody looks at her differently than you or I do. He sees her as a woman. His woman. One thing I know about Brody, good or bad, he's loyal to the bone. He’ll keep her safe. He won’t ever let anything happen to her.”
Victoria smiled at him. “Thank you. That makes it easier, losing her.” She sighed. “Though God only knows what I’ll tell my father.”
“That’s not a conversation I’m looking forward to,” Slater agreed. He took her hand, and they started walking toward the horses. “But I suspect somehow you’ll manage to talk him around.”
“Are you accusing me of being bossy?” Laughter bubbled in her voice. Her spirits were beginning to lighten. Being with Slater made everything easier. Brighter.
“Me? Never.”
“Well, my father will wave his arms around and growl at me about not waiting for him in Austin like he told me to. But then he will calm down quickly because Amy is safe, and so am I, and that’s all that really matters to him. It’ll disappoint him not to see Amy and walk her down the aisle, but he’ll understand that she’s too shy and frightened to face all the people and the notoriety. ”
“Obviously he’s never seen her take a frying pan to someone.”
Victoria burst into laughter and Slater grinned at her. “It’s good to see you laugh.”
“I guess you haven’t seen too much of that.”
“I don’t think there could be too much of it for me.” He came to a stop. “Victoria…I want to ask…to tell you…ah, hell, I guess I’m no better than Brody about talking about things.”