The Unexpected Champion

by Mary Connealy

  Penny looked sideways at Cam. “I feel like we’re talking to a bandit.”

  Cam gave a bark of laughter.

  She turned back to John. “I’m going with you.”

  “I’m going alone.”

  “I just spent a week with you in the woods. You may be the best all-fired detective in Pinkerton history, but you don’t know nuthin’ about frontier life.”

  “Maybe I won’t need to know anything. This outlaw lives in a city, I’d say. If Trace got that far, then I’ll do the rest.”

  “And if he didn’t, you’ll have no choice but to do some trailing. You’ll get lost and starve to death. I’m going.” Penny turned on the toes of her boots and headed for the livery, faster this time.

  “I can find my way.”

  “You’ll die. Not that being a widow wouldn’t be handy for me, but I want to get those men, too.”

  “I reckon I’m coming, too.” Cam sounded grumpy.

  “No, you’re not,” John snapped. “You’re staying home with your wife and Penny. I’m going alone, and that’s final.” He glared at Penny. “You swore to obey not one hour ago. Do you remember that?”

  “Not really. It’s all a blur. I couldn’t even believe it was happening. You probably shouldn’t get your heart set on me obeying you.”

  “You took an oath before God, and you’re ignoring it?” John heard his voice rising and fought to keep it low.

  “I didn’t make any oath. If you heard one, then your ears are mighty creative. And I’ve got a mighty strong suspicion that God wasn’t in favor of today. And since I didn’t say it, and God doesn’t agree with it, I’d say it’s not an oath worth worrying about.”

  Which didn’t make the legal paper work go away.

  “Well, God wasn’t in favor of my being hung, was He?”

  Penny didn’t answer for what seemed like a long time—way too long. “Probably not.” She didn’t sound one bit sure. “But marrying me saved your life. Which to me oughta make you the one who’s obeying me. I reckon no one in the history of the world has ever written that vow.”

  “Since these folks in Dismal stand as witness to your ruin”—John shook his head in disbelief—“and they took the ridiculous step of apparently telling people all over the state about it, along with the fact that we’ve spent the winter together and I’m only marrying you because you are with child—”

  Cam started growling and made a fist.

  “If you take another swing at me, I’m not going to be so nice about it this time. This is all your fault for accusing me of kidnapping your sister.”

  To Penny, John said, “Plan on staying at your homestead. Build your cabin if you’ve a mind to let your brand-new husband ride off without you. I’m going back to Pennsylvania as soon as I’ve solved this crime. When I have Whisper Man in jail, I’ll stop by, and we can talk about Ronnie.”

  Penny grunted.

  “And while we’re heading home,” Cam said, “I want to hear everything about this.” He hesitated for a long moment. “There’s . . . uh . . . not . . . not a chance that . . . that there . . . uh . . . might be a b-baby on the way, is there?”

  Penny slugged him in the shoulder.

  Cam grabbed his arm. “That hurt.”

  “And I can do worse. Nothing happened between us out there.”

  Which, John admitted strictly to himself, was not entirely true.

  “Just being off together was enough to have the sheriff’s wife in a dither.”

  “Sorry, I just had to ask.”

  “Oh no, you did not.” She punched him again.

  Cam looked at John. “She had two brothers and never bothered to pull her punches as a child. You need to be warned.”

  “Next time you ask a blamed-fool question like that”—Penny swung again but Cam dodged her—“you’re going to have a shiner to match John’s. Now, let’s get home.”

  She let him avoid the punch, so John decided she was ready to head home. Maybe she was anxious to tell Cam their story.

  CHAPTER

  11

  “We should’ve waited and told you the whole story after we got home. Now we’ll just have to tell it again.” Penny reined in her horse, astonished at the neat cabin that stood where a pile of logs was less than a week ago. It wasn’t finished, but the walls were up and the roof was framed. “I thought you were searching for me? When did you have time to build a cabin?” She had to admit her feelings were hurt.

  “I hunted, Trace hunted, and Utah hunted for a while. We couldn’t haul all the little ones along.” Cam must’ve realized how she felt because he wasn’t a man to explain himself much, and now he sounded a little desperate. “So, they stayed here. And we couldn’t leave Deb and Gwen alone with two babies, so Utah came home, and he and Adam stayed to guard them and built a cabin while they were guarding.”

  “It makes sense, I reckon,” Penny said, giving John a disgusted look. “It just seems like they’d’ve been a little too worried to carry on so well.”

  “Besides, someone needed to be here for when John sent a ransom note.” Cam jerked his head in McCall’s direction. “We thought he might be planning to hold you until we handed over Ronnie.”

  “You people,” McCall snarled as he swung down, “should stop making up crimes I had no intention of committing. I’m an honest man.”

  “Penny!” Deb ran out of the cabin, Ronnie on her hip.

  Deb was the only one who’d seen the men who’d done the killing last fall. Trace had come along the trail to find the massacre and rescue Deb, Gwen, and the little ones. He’d brought them to his home, where Deb had sent word to Cam and Penny. They’d come to fetch the children home and had been trapped for the winter by the deep snow.

  Deb had married Trace last fall just before Penny had gotten here, and already there was a baby on the way. She and Trace lived a spell from here, but they’d come over to help build the cabins. Cam and Gwen had married right after the spring thaw. They’d all spent the winter fighting off Raddo’s attacks in his efforts to silence the only living witness to his crimes during the massacre, Deb.

  Penny narrowed her eyes at her sister-in-law and wondered if those were tears. She’d thought Deb was made of sterner stuff.

  “You’re alive.” Gwen was a few paces behind. Maddie ran along, holding Gwen’s hand. The little one laughed and jumped up and down, waving. Gwen, too.

  They flung themselves at her until she was almost smothered in hugs. McCall was close enough he put out a hand and kept them from knocking her down.

  It was a decent homecoming.

  McCall called loud enough to be heard over the din, “I didn’t kidnap her. I saved her.”

  Speaking more normally—no one probably heard him but Penny—he added, “There’s a lot more to it, but we can tell the tale later.”

  “Penny!” Trace came jogging from a corral set up just a few yards away, pulling buckskin gloves off his hands. “I’m glad to see you didn’t come to any harm. I’ve been riding trails all week looking for you.” Trace’s eyes shifted to McCall.

  Penny had never realized just how cold those eyes could be.

  “We were kidnapped together. McCall didn’t harm me, in fact he saved me.”

  With a satisfied jerk of his chin, Trace went on. “I found the direction one of the men who was involved took. I came back to get help and go back out.”

  They were standing by Cam’s cabin. He’d chosen a beautiful glen, a broad clearing back in the woods, not far off a wide mountain valley full of lush grass. Before their wedding, Gwen had signed for a homestead right next to Cam’s. They shared a property line, and Penny’s property was nearby so all the acres amounted to an unbroken piece of land. Cam and Gwen built the cabin so their property lines ran right through the middle of it. They could live on both pieces of property—as was necessary to prove up on a homestead—and still share a home. Penny’s cabin would be as close as they could build it and still have it on her own land.

  “Did my
packs survive my absence?” John asked.

  “We were tempted to burn them to a cinder,” Deb said. “But we were too busy.”

  “You carry a lot of baggage,” Cam added. “Leave it to a city fella to not know how to travel light.”

  “Your bags are in the tent on Penny’s homestead. We’re building her cabin now. Do you have things in there that will help you with your investigation?” Deb said.

  “No, well, I do, yes. But that’s not what I want in the pack.”

  “What are you looking for?” Penny asked.

  With a heavy sigh, John said, “I haven’t changed my clothes for the filthiest week of my life. Well, no, during the war I once spent the night in a swamp, buried up to my neck in slimy bayou mud, hiding from Confederate troops. So that was the worst. But this is plenty bad. I’d like to take a bath and clean up, then see to settling in my wife, Penny, somewhere and get back on the trail.”

  “What?” Gwen’s voice startled the horses.

  Penny patted Gwen’s arm. “We were trapped into marriage because we were alone in the wilderness for so long. They thought McCall kidnapped me thanks to my brother’s big mouth, and when I said he didn’t, they thought we’d been in an improper situation for too long. They even hinted that there might be a baby on the way, for the love of Pete. It was either marry him or watch them hang him.”

  “You’re married and—and—and—” Gwen gave Penny’s belly an alarmed look.

  “I’m married, but the rest isn’t true. Good heavens, it was all a mistake.” Penny explained about McCall’s arrest, the threat of hanging, the presence of a noose at their wedding, and the resulting gossip that had already spread to Carson City and was being telegraphed around the state.

  Gwen looked from Penny to McCall and back. “So, you’re married? Is that all right with either of you?”

  McCall shrugged. “I live in Philadelphia. I hope Penny likes the big city.”

  Penny snorted. “And I have a homestead in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and my husband here has little skill for frontier life and no interest in gaining any. So no, it’s not all right with either of us, but we can’t find a solution. In fact, I tend to forget it even happened. At least as a married couple it’s as proper as can be to ride off with McCall here to find and arrest the men who kidnapped us.”

  “You’re not going.” McCall headed for the cabin.

  “Are you leaving now?”

  “No, I’m going to get my pack and clean up before heading out. I’ve got a job to do. I’ll be back to talk about Ronnie once our kidnappers are arrested.”

  Penny shook her head and said to Gwen, “I wonder how long it’ll take to teach him to bust a steer?” She started after McCall.

  “You’re not going with me,” McCall called over his shoulder.

  “If you’re going, I’m going,” Cam hollered from behind Penny.

  Penny walked, careful not to catch up to McCall, but all too glad to leave her brother behind. She couldn’t wait to see McCall’s face when she told him how to hunt and skin an elk.

  CHAPTER

  12

  “I didn’t think we’d ever manage to leave Cam behind.” Penny kicked her horse into a trot.

  “I should have left you behind.” McCall rode along, sullen and overly quiet.

  He was a mighty poor loser.

  “Stop fussin’.” Penny had little patience for a man who pouted. “You know good and well you can’t find those men in this wilderness. We could barely find our way back to Dismal—and you’d’ve never managed it.”

  “Dismal about describes it.”

  “You’re not going to be a grouch of a husband, are you?”

  “I’m not going to be a husband at all. I live in Pennsylvania and you live in Nevada.” Which wasn’t really an answer.

  Penny shrugged. “Suits me.” In truth it didn’t really suit her. She thought they oughta at least try being married . . . in the same state. She probably ought to tell him that, but she decided to wait until right before he left . . . without Ronnie.

  “And you know what else, wife?” He snapped out the word.

  Penny arched a brow and watched him as they left her family behind, heading for the spot where Trace had lost the trail of the man who’d ridden in alone to question Penny and McCall.

  “It sits all wrong with me”—he slashed one arm—“to take you back out into these woods.” He pointed at the dense forest all around them. “Where we know dangerous men lie in wait.”

  He looked at her fully, his jaw clenched, his eyes shining with . . . something. She thought it was worry. Maybe worry for her. But worry buried under grouchiness, so it was hard to tell.

  “But I’d never make it without you.”

  The simple statement said right while she was inhaling made her cough.

  He watched her until she got her breathing going along again.

  “When we track this man to a town, my talents will be handy, but right now, I need you. I learned out in those woods just how much I don’t know. I thought I knew a little about tracking, but now I’m certain I’m nowhere near as good as you. And the sad fact is, I’m no good at all.”

  Penny sat, stunned. She’d been around a lot of men for the last couple of years, traipsing along with Cam while he served in one frontier fort after another. She knew men had the devil’s own time admitting they needed help. Especially in the outdoors. Her brother sure as certain never showed much inclination to ask for a woman’s help with what he considered manly skills.

  Something softened in her heart for a man who’d proven to be strong in the last week they’d spent together. And one to shoulder every ounce of his own load and as much of hers as she’d allow. Yet here he was admitting to a weakness. This wasn’t a kind of man she’d ever known before. And she thought she’d met all kinds. To ask for help struck her as the most confident thing a man could do.

  “We’ll find the trail and find the men together,” she said. “Where the trail’s in the country, I’ll do the reading, and when we get to a town, well, I’ve no notion of how to read signs on a busy street. So, you can teach me how that’s done.”

  “Fair enough.” He adjusted his gun in its holster. He’d dug money out of his packs, and added to Penny’s, it was enough to outfit them with a large stack of supplies.

  “What do you make of finding that gold in Raddo’s saddlebags?” McCall asked.

  Penny liked being consulted. It was just the worst kind of dirty shame that she was no help. “I’ve got no notion. He looked like a man down to his last strip of jerky to me. Clothes worn out and no horse, either. Wonder who he robbed?”

  “I want to give it some thought.”

  Which struck Penny as about the politest way she’d ever been told to shut up, so she did . . . since she had nothing to say anyway.

  Silence stretched as they picked their way along a trail about as wide as a buckboard. The woods had been driven back just far enough for them to pass riding side by side, but they were a bit too close together for comfort.

  The trail was too rough to make good time, and they had a long way to go. The horses were sound, but no sense pushing them and letting them come up lame. The silence gave her plenty of time to think, which she did long enough that her belly twisted into a ball of nerves.

  “What are we going to do about being married?” McCall asked.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “We’ve got days ahead of us on this trail. We’ve got nothing else to do, so we might as well talk this out.” McCall sounded gruff. “How do you feel about actually being married? Do you want to try it? Come back to Philadelphia with me?”

  “I lived back east all my life. I like it out here better.”

  “So, then, you want to stay here on your homestead . . . which I now own. My understanding of the law says all your possessions are now mine.”

  “That’s a stupid law.”

  “I’d have to agree, but until they change i
t, that’s how it is.”

  “You can move out here. You can live on my acres. The law says I have to improve the land, which means build a house—which is in progress—and I have to live in that house at least six months out of every year. You’re welcome to move in.” He wasn’t really all that welcome, but she only realized just what it meant for him to move in when the words came out of her mouth.

  “I don’t care to be a rancher. I’m a Pinkerton agent. So, I’ll go home, and you’ll stay here. And because we’re already married, we’ll both have to remain unmarried for the rest of our lives, not counting each other.”

  The silence stretched again. Penny finally said quietly, “Let’s spend these next days searching for our kidnappers, and just get to know each other better. I don’t like the idea of being unmarried for the rest of my life . . . unmarried not counting you. I’ve always thought I’d want a home and family. I’ve heard of a divorce, but I think a judge needs a better reason than we just didn’t mean to get married and we want to undo it. And besides, it’s a terrible sin. We can’t do that. So, you’re my only chance. And—” Penny faltered.

  “And what?”

  “There was, well, if you . . . uh . . . remember, there was that one k-kiss.” Penny felt her gut twist to mention it.

  Suddenly McCall reined his horse in. Penny did the same just so she didn’t leave him behind. Before she could figure out what he was about, he was on the ground, his hands around her waist, and he pulled her down to stand in front of him.

  “I most certainly do remember.” McCall lowered his head and kissed her again.

  Florence Chilton stepped off the stagecoach in Ringo, Nevada, growling.

  “You sound,” Edmond sniped quietly in her ear, “like a cur hound.”

  Florence didn’t reply, didn’t even look at him. She quit growling, though. When had her weak-spined husband gotten the idea he could talk to her like that?