Then his hands were back. With one strong, steady hand, he urged her toward the ladder. “You go first,” he said.
Climbing up was harder than she’d expected, considering she’d flown down and up several times with her hands full. He was only a step below her, his hand still on her back. How could he hold Maggie and her and climb at the same time?
But he did it.
Her husband.
She didn’t deserve him.
But she knew.
Suddenly, in that moment, she knew she was completely in love with him.
She didn’t deserve a man so strong and kind. But she had him and she wasn’t letting him go.
As she reached the kitchen, she saw that the sun was turning the sky to lightest gray. Another night had passed.
This time they couldn’t blame Seth for their exhaustion. He wasn’t here to scream and wake them up. But between the fire and . . . and the way they’d passed the earlier part of the night, Audra had barely slept at all.
She climbed the ladder and turned around to tell Ethan she loved him, and saw his burns.
Chapter
14
“This is where we get out.” Trixie grabbed Jasper’s hand.
They waited until the wagon slowed for a turn and then jumped.
Jasper vibrated with nerves. Now that he’d decided to run, he wanted to run fast and far. Trixie caught his hand and dragged him back the direction they’d come.
“Why did—?”
“Keep quiet . . .” Her voice broke.
It was dark enough he couldn’t see her expression, but she’d killed someone. That knowledge was in her voice. He knew she wanted to clean up her life.
Now, on day one, she’d shot a man.
“Don’t do anything to draw attention,” she whispered.
The street was mostly deserted, but there was an occasional lit-up building. Voices could be heard wafting out the swinging doors along with tinny music and the smell of whiskey. Jasper wouldn’t have minded wetting his throat and steadying his nerves with a swallow or two.
They walked so far that Jasper had to fight to not complain. All he could think was Trixie had planned this—apparently for years.
So, since his only plan was to run for his meager bank account, hope he could empty it without the Hardeseys spotting him, then make a dash for the train—a series of actions that would almost certainly get him killed if the Hardeseys were looking for him—he’d let her lead.
They came to a dry-goods store, and Trixie pulled him into an alley. “Go in there and buy us some things.”
She then gave him a concise list and the money to pay for what she wanted. He listened to the drab clothing she wanted and hated it. But he followed the only plan they had.
They changed into less eye-catching clothes in a little entry built onto the back of a store.
The store, the lean-to, even the clothing was all part of her plan. She’d left nothing to chance.
They got rid of their old clothes and kept on walking. The night began to give way to dawn. They needed to get out of town before daylight, when he’d be much more likely to be spotted. Trixie left him behind at their next destination. She went into a derelict building and came out with a reticule that hung heavy on her wrist.
“My money. I had it hidden under a floorboard in there. Now we buy horses.”
Before the sun was up, they had two horses from a hostler, who was just opening in the predawn hours, along with saddlebags stuffed with provisions. Once they cleared the edge of Houston, he decided it was finally time to talk.
“Stop,” he said.
“No, I want more miles between us and that awful town.”
It wasn’t the town that was awful; it was the life they’d chosen. Jasper grabbed her reins and pulled both horses to a stop.
“Jasper, let go!” She yanked against his hold, but he dismounted and dragged Trixie off her horse.
Looking at her in the full light of morning, he could finally see what was in her eyes. Devastation.
He wanted to demand details, but instead he pulled her hard against him and kissed her.
She struggled long enough that he knew she wasn’t thinking. Trixie never struggled. At last she went limp. He expected the next move to be her throwing her arms around his neck. Instead, she began to cry.
He was manhandling her, yet when the tears came he softened the kiss, deepened it.
Then he quit altogether. This wasn’t a time for kissing. He slid his arms more securely around her waist and pulled her head into his neck and cradled her while she wept.
“I’m sorry.” He rubbed her back.
“I—this is stupid—I didn’t—I’ve never killed anyone.”
“You had no choice, darlin’.”
“Of course I had a choice.” She gave a violent shake of her head and shoved at him.
He held on doggedly. “Not if you wanted to live.”
Her hands came up to cover her face, and she sobbed until it wrenched her body. He held on tight. “That’s just it, Jasper. I could have died. Both of us could have died.”
“That’s no choice.”
“It is. I want to change my life. I’ve known for years I needed to change, to get right with God.”
Jasper couldn’t control the shock. His hands tightened with a spasm on her waist. “Get right with God? Trixie, women who own brothels don’t . . . don’t . . .”
“Don’t believe in God?” Trixie’s head came up. “I do.”
“Well, yes, I’m sure there is a God, but—”
“Then what, Jasper? Women who own brothels don’t go to heaven? Is that what you’re trying to say? There’s a heaven, but we don’t get to go there? I’m getting older. Women in my profession don’t live to a ripe old age. I spent time with . . . with men doing things that make me believe I know what hell will be like.”
“Trixie, I’m so sorry.” And he was. He should have taken her out of that unsavory life and given her . . . another unsavory life . . . with him.
“I don’t want to spend eternity there.” She gripped the collar of his shirt. “I’ve had enough of it in this life. I’ve been looking for a chance to get out for years, and now I’ve done something that will put me beyond the grace of God.”
“No, I don’t believe that.”
“Jasper Henry, you don’t believe in anything except your money and your hired thugs.” The venom in her voice shocked him. She loved him. She’d as good as admitted it. And yet now she sounded like she hated him, held him in utter contempt.
So which was it? Hate or love? And could it possibly be both?
“Don’t waste my time telling me what you believe, because it means nothing.”
Their eyes locked. Jasper saw things in her eyes he’d never noticed before. Her wish to change her life told him a lot of what she was saying had been her true feelings for years.
Which, since he’d never noticed, meant he was as unfeeling and cruel as any man who’d ever lived. But he didn’t have to stay that way. “What do we do now?”
“You mean now that I’m a murderess?”
“It was self-defense.”
“He’s just as dead, and at my hand.”
“To keep me alive. You saved me, Trixie.” Jasper didn’t want to think about heaven and hell. He had managed to live this long by not thinking of what kind of afterlife he was fit for. But right now, Trixie needed him to say the right thing.
And he had no idea what that was. How dare he speak of what is right? It was so far from his life, he couldn’t quite imagine it. So he said, “Let’s get married.”
Her jaw dropped. Well, at least he’d distracted her from this self-flagellation thing she was doing.
“It’ll be a good cover. No one will imagine us as a poorly dressed”—he flicked the ruffled neck of her blue gingham dress—“married couple. They’ll be looking for a wealthy criminal and a . . .”
“Prostitute? Light-skirt? Streetwalker?”
Jasper s
tared at her, then felt a smile creep across his face. “Whatever you were, now you’re a frumpy frontier woman.”
“Frumpy?” Trixie’s eyes flashed with indignation. She was weary and hard-living, but she’d always been attractive.
He kissed her. “Only the dress, darlin’. You’re still the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
She swatted his arm and some of the tight grief eased from her expression.
“Killing a man is a terrible thing.” He held her upper arms and rubbed, trying to help her feel anything but guilt. “But it happened. If you want to change your life, instead of starting last night when we decided to run, start now. From now on, you’re as sweet and innocent as a newborn baby.”
Trixie shook her head, a rueful expression on her face. Her hand let loose of the choke hold on his collar and came up to rest against his cheek. “You always were a sweet-talking devil.”
He bent to kiss her again.
She ducked. “Now you behave yourself, sir. I am a proper woman, and I am saving myself for the man I marry.”
Jasper jerked back and frowned. “Really? We’ve been up all night. I sort of thought we could find a place to camp now and, well, considering the trauma you’ve just experienced, maybe you’d allow me to . . . to comfort you.”
Trixie snorted. “You aren’t going to comfort me until we find a preacher man and say some vows before God and man. Until then, you just behave.”
“You wouldn’t consider changing your ways a couple of days from now, would you?”
Trixie laughed.
The sound gave Jasper hope that she’d be all right. But there were still shadows in her eyes. Killing a man would haunt her. The memory would jump out and slap at her at odd moments for the rest of her life.
He knew it for a fact.
It would be a ghost that followed her like the ghosts of men who had dragged her into a life she considered a lake of fire.
Jasper had more than a few ghosts, beginning with his mother.
“I know a little town that’s a hundred hard miles from here.” Jasper decided it was his turn to plan. “We can make that in a day on a fast horse, if we push. By nightfall we can be in Bryan, a town big enough to have a parson. And we can make this trip our very own honeymoon.”
“Riding hard away from Houston suits me.” Trixie nodded.
They lit out for the West. They’d gone through all the steps of her plan apparently. Changing clothes, getting her money and horses, leaving town and leading a respectable life.
The where didn’t matter.
So she let him pick the direction.
All he could think of was the last message he’d had from his men about a little town called Rawhide, Colorado.
He spurred his horse toward the northwest.
“Ethan, sit down!” Audra grabbed his arm. She acted as if she needed to hold him up. Which was ridiculous. He’d been holding himself up just fine.
“What’s the matter?” Ethan let himself be dragged to the kitchen table. He started to sit when Audra said, “Wait!”
She turned the chair around. “Straddle it.”
“Why? Audra, I have work to do. I need to track the man who did this, and the barn needs to be checked real carefully for sparks.”
“Your arm.”
Ethan straddled the chair, with Maggie wriggling in his arms, all tears forgotten now. Audra’s mention of his arm made him look down, and what he saw on his left arm made his stomach lurch. Ugly. Red. Blisters from his elbow to his shoulder. As soon as he saw the wounds, he felt them and they were agonizing.
In fact, as soon as he realized what he was feeling, he knew they’d been hurting for a long time.
He thought of Seth’s ugly scars. He’d have them now, too. Audra wouldn’t be able to stand to look at him.
“Set Maggie down. She’s not crying anymore.”
Maggie was on his lap. Happy. The little imp needed to be asleep, but it wasn’t her fault she’d been thoroughly disturbed.
He set her down and she giggled. “Make sure and close that trapdoor. Before Maggie takes a tumble.”
Audra shoved the trapdoor forward carelessly so it slapped shut with a loud bang.
Lily jumped in her arms, but Audra bounced her and rushed for the basin.
“We’ll get cold water on the burns while I make a poultice.” Audra was suddenly crackling with energy and purpose. She bounced Lily while she grabbed a washcloth, doused it in the water basin, and wrung it out. The woman was truly an expert at handling children.
“Just get me a clean shirt.” His arm burned, and if he wasn’t mistaken, his back did, too. “That’s all I need. I’ve got work to do.”
He remembered how sick Seth had gotten with the burns. Ethan had been sure Seth would die. The way he’d treated his little brother had made it worse, had hurt Seth on top of the burns.
A sudden sick fear that his burns might be that bad almost made him act like the coward he was. He found he couldn’t summon a smile.
“No time for fussing, Audie, darlin’.”
“If you call me Audie again, I will pour a whole cup of salt on your burns.”
“No you won’t.”
“I might. I hate it. It sounds like odd. Like you’re saying I’m odd. My little sister used to call me that.” She sounded fierce, but she cast him a worried look that took the danger out of her voice.
“I need to get to work.”
“I’m calling Steele in here and sending him for Rafe if you get out of that chair.”
Ethan scowled, but he didn’t want her to tell Steele. It sounded like a threat to tattletale to his mama. And he didn’t want Rafe here. And he didn’t want Seth to see the burns.
He stayed in the chair.
Audie. He decided he’d call her that all the time. Except maybe he’d wait until he had his shirt on, to avoid being salted.
She rushed over and gently, so carefully, pressed the cool cloth on his shoulder.
It felt like heaven.
“I didn’t realize how hot it was. Cold really takes the pain out.”
Audra gave him a smacking kiss on the top of his head, then whirled away to grab the basin and carry it to the table beside Ethan.
“I’ll get more cloths. We’ll cover all the burns and keep them cool until I get the poultice done.” She deftly laid a bigger cloth on his back.
All the burns?
“How bad is my back?” Ethan didn’t really want to know.
“Big blisters down to the middle of your back, mainly on the left side. It’s red all over. The blisters haven’t popped. I think that’s a good sign the damage isn’t too bad.”
Ethan tried to not let his sigh of relief move his shoulders. He remembered the blackened skin on Seth’s back.
Feeling encouraged, he waited until she’d covered his back and shoulders with cold, dripping rags. Chilly water slid down and soaked his pants, but the cold on his burns was worth the discomfort. Then, when she straightened away from her doctoring, he caught her free arm, the one not holding a baby, and pulled her back to kiss her thoroughly.
The kiss went on a lot longer than Ethan had planned, and he only let go when he got kicked in the face.
By Lily.
He backed up a bit to look his little wife in the eye. She didn’t notice because she was focused on his lips. “Thank you for taking care of me, darlin’. It is a wonderful thing to have the soft hands of a woman around when a man is in need.”
She moved first. Back toward him. This time Lily had to kick him and Maggie had to yank on his pant leg and scream quite a while before they were pulled out of the moment.
When Audra straightened, she looked so sweet and kind and worried. “Who was that man, Ethan? Who did that? Who would set a fire and break into our house and bang on that door the way that man did?”
That took Ethan’s mind off the sweet affection of his wife.
“We need to find out if we’ve got any cattle missing. Find out if any wanted men have
been spotted in the area.” Ethan raised his hand and drew one finger down her cheek. Amazed that he’d managed to get himself married to the prettiest woman in Colorado.
Now it was his job to protect her. And instead he sat here, burned, with his wife doing the caretaking when he ought to be hunting tracks. He was good at tracking. Better than most men. And he knew all the tricks to tracking a man in the woods and over rocky ground.
“I know you’re worried about my burns, Audie.”
“Stop that, Ethan. I’m warning you.” She slapped him, but she hit his right shoulder, the one that wasn’t burned, so there was no real venom in the attack. “Of course I’m worried about your burns.”
“But I need you to really look at them. How bad are they? If they’re so awful you’re afraid I’ll die or end up real sick, then fine, I’ll be careful. But honey”—Ethan scooped Maggie up in one arm and hooked the other arm around Audra as he stood—“I need to track that man. If you’re just worried because you know it hurts and you’ve got a heart as soft as a feather pillow, then I need you to tell me. I’m the best tracker in these parts. And it’s my job to protect my wife and my ranch. I don’t trust any of the men to be as thorough as I will be. I need to take charge of this hunt.”
Audra’s pretty, smooth brow furrowed as she looked at his arm. “It looks bad, but I’m sure you’ll be okay. It’ll hurt to wear a shirt, Ethan. And if you break those blisters open, they might get infected. I lost one husband already to a minor injury that turned septic.”
“Not much of a loss.” Ethan only kept from grinning because Maggie picked that moment to wrap her arm around his neck and touch his burns. He flinched and let go of Audra and pulled Maggie away and hated doing it. He liked having the little one hanging from him.
“No, he wasn’t.” Audra leaned forward and kissed him. “But I don’t want anything to happen to you. I like being Mrs. Kincaid a lot more than Mrs. Gill.”
Audra straightened with a little squeak as if she’d gotten jabbed by a pin. “That man, he called me Mrs. Gill.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what your husband called himself in town.”
“Yes, and he called himself Mr. Wendell in Houston. When I married him the parson said, ‘I now pronounce you Mr. and Mrs. Wendell.’ As far as I know—and heaven knows I could be ignorant of many of Wendell’s lies—he only went by the name of Gill in Rawhide.”
In Too Deep Page 15