His heart hammered harder every minute with Blossom beside him.
She couldn’t have expected him to come across her that evening, nor had he expected to find her. And he certainly hadn’t expected to find himself walking and talking with her.
He held her hand carefully in his as though afraid he might break her or hurt her. His hands were so large compared to hers. She had offered it to him so willingly that he almost hadn’t known what to do with it. There was something so sweet about Blossom that he didn’t know what to do. There was nothing he knew how to do but be himself.
Because he was so caught up in his thoughts, he almost didn’t hear the noise.
They were soft footsteps in the grass. Never stepping on an unsteady rock or dry twig, it was the click of a revolver that he heard. A man who had heard the sound before could not forget it. Chester felt the dread turn in his heart as he whirled around to face the darkness.
Though still holding to Blossom, he kept her behind him for protection. His eyes peered into the darkness for the sound. It wasn’t something from nature. It had to be man-made. Someone was there.
He wanted to believe it was nothing, because it would be better than anything else that could be there. The fact that he had come across Blossom in the dark had been a lucky break. Chester was still thinking about this as he looked into the darkness and found a moving shadow.
It grew as it came closer, molding from a vague blob into a man.
Usually he wore a gun around his waist for safety, hiding it under his jacket or vest. It wasn’t because he expected danger, only something that men did in the West. Except it was late and he hadn’t meant to travel for so long and far from his home. Quickly, Chester started thinking about what he might have to use for a weapon when he forgot everything upon seeing the man’s face.
Chester stiffened. “Elijah.”
Five years had come and gone without seeing his brother, Lowry, or anyone from the gang. He supposed if anyone had come back there, he might see his brother. Maybe one of the other men. But he certainly didn’t expect to see Elijah again.
A cold sensation trickled down his spine. His stomach clenched and he remembered the moment he had been introduced to Elijah Cunningham all those years ago. It had been Lowry who had brought the man over to him at the forge, both of them rolling a smoke and laughing about something that wasn’t really that funny. But Lowry had liked him and that made Chester want to like the man.
Until they had joined the gang, at least, and he realized that Elijah didn’t really care.
Elijah Cunningham was a man who had run in the gangs back in Boston as a boy before he made his way West. He had wrestled for money until he accidentally killed a man. Then no one would fight or support him. Others in the gang had joked about what he did in the past until he started his gang, but no one knew for sure. Elijah never spoke of it.
But after a few years, he had started to take a thing or two from people around him. Usually it went unnoticed. It started as a game until he realized he could make a living from it. That’s when he built the gang to take more and more. Chester heard they had robbed a bank back in Nebraska.
He didn’t know how much of it was true or not and he didn’t care. He didn’t really want to know. The mystery used to be exhilarating. But that wasn’t what he wanted anymore.
Chester had been lucky to get out when he did. And he hadn’t wanted to go back. No matter how lonely or isolated he ever felt, there wasn’t a single part of him that had wanted to return. Even when he missed his brother and longed for friends, he hadn’t wanted to go back to them.
As time passed, Chester’s worries about anyone coming after him had started to fade. Part of him hoped that his brother would come to join him. But in the back of his mind, he knew otherwise. Lowry had a wild spirit. It longed for adventure and adrenaline in a way that he never had. The years passed and it became apparent that he would be on his own forever. The gang didn’t miss him or need him. No one would come looking for him.
“Hello, Chester. It’s been a while. Five years, wouldn’t you say?”
Elijah had a new scar on his neck. It was longer than the one on his left cheek below the eye from a broken bottle in a saloon fight. The new scar was crooked, almost curving down inward into his shirt. It puckered his skin in a bumpy manner. The closer Elijah came, the better Chester could see it.
The man’s voice was soft with a hint of his old Boston accent. His shoulders relaxed with the gun hanging down by his side. It pointed at the ground. Chester couldn’t decide whether to keep his eyes on that or on Elijah. He didn’t really want to be looking at either of them.
But now he was there, between Elijah and Blossom. Chester could hear her breathing softly behind him, her hand squeezing his. He gulped as he searched for words. There was no one else around, which meant only Elijah was there.
This was between the two of them.
Whatever Elijah was there for, perhaps Chester could sort this out and the man could go away forever. That had to be it. Elijah wanted something and once he had it, he would be gone. That’s all.
Chuckling, Elijah started to walk around them in a circle.
Chester kept an eye on him, gritting his teeth. He turned as well to keep himself between Elijah and Blossom the entire time. The man was grinning like a fox who had caught a fat rabbit. Chester remembered that smile and hesitated as he realized he was the rabbit.
“Long enough.” Finally he found his voice. “Why? What do you want?”
Elijah tutted. “That’s no way to talk to an old friend, is it? Come now. You’re acting like a child.”
Behind him, Chester heard Blossom shift. He stayed put between them, wishing he could glance back at her to make sure she was all right. But he didn’t want to take his eyes off Elijah. Though he had spent years wanting the man to like him and accept him, Chester had come to realize that Elijah was not a good man and didn’t care what happened to other people. That had been proven in their last couple of days together.
Those were hard memories that Chester tried to put behind him. Some days he could and some days he couldn’t. Many nights he still dreamed of screaming and fear and running away. Every time, the faces were different. He didn’t want anything more to do with that.
Now to have Elijah find him after all that time only chilled him to the gut.
“We’re not friends,” Chester forced himself to say in a measured tone. “We never were and you made sure of that. You know I left a long time ago. What are you doing here now?”
Elijah finally stopped walking around. The man carefully studied him from boots to hair with a frown. “You don’t want to come back, do you? That’s a shame.”
Chester gritted his teeth. He thought he had spent the last couple of years preparing to encounter anyone from the gang again. But now, he didn’t remember any of his words he wanted to say. If anyone had come for him, he thought it would be his brother. Or perhaps another gang member sent to give him a message. To have Elijah there had to mean this was serious.
“What do you want, Elijah?” Chester asked him, refusing to give him anything more.
“You know what I want,” the man snarled. “You owe me for all that I gave you. You owe me big time, Chester.”
His heart hammered as he tried to think of what Elijah could be talking about. All he could remember was the fear of leaving when he could, of remembering an old gang member that had left them but no one talked about. No one said the name. It was an unspoken rule that one didn’t leave the others. They were together, like a family. Someone couldn’t just leave.
Except Chester had gotten out. And when he had, he had only taken the clothes on his back along with his horse. He had some savings that he had kept tucked away.
Then there was the loot that was meant to be his that was kept with the rest in the house loft. But he hadn’t claimed it, instead leaving it for all of them.
That should have been enough to satisfy the gang when he disappeared. C
hester tried to remember how much that would have amounted to, but he couldn’t. He scrambled to think of something to say.
“I don’t.” Chester swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. But you need to go away now.”
That didn’t make Elijah happy. The man took a step forward as he scowled. It made the scar on his face tighten, giving him a rather haunted expression. He had grown thinner over the last couple of years, and Chester couldn’t help but wonder what that meant.
“You know what I’m talking about.” His old gang leader glared at him. “You cannot simply leave your family and not pay the price for it.”
Chester didn’t know what to say to that. He hesitated, shifting his footing as he tried to think. After all, he knew he had been an asset to the gang. In town, he could haggle for anything at nearly any price. His broad shoulders were perfect for intimidation as well. There had been a lot of opportunities for him to simply suggest harm without causing any.
Back then, he had thought it was a joke. He was only teasing people. It had seemed innocent enough in the beginning.
But now a woman was dead and someone had lost a mother. No one had the right to take a life, not even Elijah. Just the memory made Chester nauseated. He regretted stepping outside that evening when he could have stayed safe at home.
Or would he have been safe? If Elijah was coming to him now after all this time, then that meant he had been keeping an eye out and hunting him like the man did to all of his marks. That worried Chester. Elijah would have seen where Chester lived, what he did, and who he was with. It meant that Elijah had picked to approach him at this very moment instead of anywhere else.
He shifted to put Blossom further behind him. He wasn’t going to let her get hurt. Maybe he didn’t have a gun, but there was a chance he could take Elijah. The man had only ever wrestled men he knew he could beat, so they had never wrestled. Everyone in the gang liked to do that to blow off steam and show off their strength. Chester had beaten everyone in the gang at least once, except for Elijah. Maybe he could do it.
Then his eyes shifted down to the gun and he wavered. He couldn’t wrestle his way out of a bullet.
“I paid the price,” Chester managed to say after a moment of thinking. “I left everything behind. I didn’t have anything more to give, Elijah. I don’t know what else you could be talking about.”
Elijah chuckled as he stepped forward. One foot and then another. If Chester leaned forward with a hand out, he might be able to wrap his hands around the man’s throat. But just the thought of such violence brought a sour taste to his mouth.
“Yes, you do. That wasn’t enough payment, and you know it. You owe us much more. Besides, they miss you. Why don’t you grab your horse and come on back? We can put this behind us so we can go back to the good old days. There’s no need for you to work the land and struggle when you could come back with us. Besides, we’re family. Come back with me, and this will all be forgotten.”
He spoke in that soft, convincing tone of his. It had always reminded Chester of a snake with that syrupy sweetness. Just listening to Elijah be persuasive upset his stomach. He didn’t want to listen to Elijah, let alone go anywhere with him. He thought of asking about his brother but worried that would put Lowry in danger. So he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t do anything but hold his ground.
It wasn’t a hard decision for Chester to make.
“No,” he told Elijah firmly. “I’m not going back with you. I won’t become a monster.”
Strength swelled within his chest as though it were a sense of pride over what he had just decided. The sensation reminded him of the conversation he’d had only moments ago with Blossom as they talked about God and not feeling alone.
If Chester could have used a God at any time in his life, that would be the moment. He needed safety and strength against Elijah. All he wanted was the chance to live a better life where he wasn’t hurting people.
Though he hadn’t been to church, there was a Bible in his house now. He couldn’t read it still, but having it there brought him some sense of comfort. Though he still didn’t feel very assured that someone in the heavens could be watching over him or protecting him with all the trouble he had caused in the past, Chester wanted more than anything to know that he wasn’t alone.
There had to be a higher power somewhere. And if he was lucky, that power would protect him.
Elijah scoffed loudly, breaking Chester from his thoughts. Then Blossom shifted in her spot as she squeezed his hand. He could feel her draw closer to him just as he prayed that she would keep quiet. He didn’t want Elijah to call attention to her. This was between the two men, and she had nothing to do with any of it.
But he wasn’t so lucky.
“What a charming young lady you have on your arm,” Elijah chuckled.
“Don’t talk to her,” Chester started.
“What business do you have here?” Blossom interrupted. Her voice started off soft but grew stronger. “Chester has refused you. There’s no reason for you to dally.”
Chester thought quickly. He shifted again to try and keep her hidden behind him. Except she peeked out over his shoulder as he said, “Leave her alone, Elijah. She has nothing to do with this.”
“If she has something to do with you, then she has something to do with me now,” Elijah shook his head. “Like I said, you owe me. I can take it from you or from this pretty lady, if I want.” The threat was clear enough with his smirk.
Blossom stepped out from behind Chester. “We’re not afraid of you.” He saw how her chin raised high from the corner of his eye to show she wasn’t scared. He was impressed with her courage and how her voice never wavered. But the pride was gone in a second as he wished she hadn’t said anything.
She didn’t know what they were talking about, right or wrong. She trusted Chester without knowing the truth about who he was or what he had done in his past. Her words were confident and strong. But she didn’t understand what she was getting herself into. She didn’t know Elijah.
Again Chester blocked her from the other man, inhaling sharply. He glared at Elijah over the man’s threat. “No, you won’t. Leave her alone.”
“Leave us alone,” she corrected him. “Or you’ll be in trouble!”
Elijah’s lips curled upward as his brow lifted. “Isn’t this precious? You have yourself quite the woman, Chester. But that won’t be enough, you know. I know what’s mine and I will take it. One way or another, you’ll give me what is mine.”
He was still thinking of a reply when Elijah stepped back and left. It didn’t take more than a couple of steps for the darkness to envelope the man. Soon he was gone and it was just Chester there watching the night with his chest heaving and his brow damp with sweat.
Chapter Twelve
Blossom’s Courage
Blossom wasn’t certain what had just happened, only that it was wrong.
The strange man with the scars in the darkness had been rude and threatening when neither she nor Chester had done anything wrong. At least, nothing that she knew of.
Her heart was still thumping over what had happened.
She watched the darkness where he had disappeared into for several moments, wondering and waiting for what had happened to him. His name had been Elijah, she believed. A good Bible name that deserved a better person. But whoever this Elijah had been, he had not been kind.
Her eyes strayed back to Chester who had yet to turn around to face her. They still held hands, but his fingers had grown stiff and clammy. She wondered what he was thinking.
Clearly he knew Elijah. The two of them must have been friends or family from the sound of it, and Chester had something the man wanted.
She frowned, shaking her head. It didn’t make any sense.
Chester had been nervous around Elijah but she didn’t see why. The man had wanted to talk, not shoot them. He couldn’t possibly be afraid of him. His words had been rude and impolite.
To make such rem
arks about a woman he didn’t know was uncalled for and he could get in trouble for that. So she had spoken up when Chester said nothing, refusing to be a scared shadow.
Living in the West didn’t allow for feeble minds. The tears on her face had since dried and she wanted nothing to do with someone as crude as Elijah. Bothering them in the middle of the night had been rude enough, but he’d only made it grow worse with every word. Blossom could hardly believe they had managed through the entire conversation.
She wasn’t sure what had come over her, only that she was awfully irritable over the fact that she and Chester had been treated in such a manner. It was impolite enough just to be bothered at such a late hour, and worse still that it went on in the way that it had.
Shaking her head, Blossom huffed in frustration.
A Deal with the Cowboy’s Tangled Heart: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 10