Little wonder she had feared for her life.
He opened his eyes, blinking rapidly. This was a first. Whenever he’d clawed his way toward consciousness before, he’d been too weak to open his eyes or turn his head and had soon given up, allowing darkness to overtake him once again.
The ceiling above his head was unlike the one he had last seen before falling into a dreamless slumber. A slumber brought about by the loss of blood and the shock of a bullet piercing his torso. That ceiling had been roughly plastered, with a spider’s web of cracks running across it.
This ceiling was smooth. Sun-dappled, the light coming from a window above his head.
There was a different smell in the air. Not the stench of so much cigar smoke, whiskey, sweat. A freshness. A cleanness.
Just where was he?
“There, there.” A cool hand touched his forehead. “Don’t try to exert yourself. You have a great deal of resting ahead of you.”
It took much more effort than it should have to turn his head to the side and regard the person speaking to him. She came into focus, and instantly he knew who she must be. Perhaps not her Christian name, specifically, but he would have bet what was left of his life on the family name. Reed.
“Where am I?” His mouth was so dry. Like sandpaper. He tried to lick his lips, but it was no use. They, too, were cracked and dry. How long had he been asleep?
“I’m afraid you have the dubious honor of being the first guest in my home.” The young woman held a glass of water to his lips, sliding her hand beneath his head and lifting it just enough that he might take a drink. The water was more delicious than the most exquisite champagne he had ever tasted. It revived him, refreshed him. Gave him reason to believe he would live through this after all.
“But just which home is that?” he asked when he’d finished, his head sinking into the pillow again. My, he was tired. More tired than he’d ever been.
“You are in the home of Sheriff Rance Connelly. My name is Phoebe Connelly.”
Phoebe. She was one of Rachel’s sisters, after all. The resemblance was uncanny.
“Why did you bring me here? Why am I not in the hospital, or at the hotel?”
“I’m sorry to say we do not have much of a hospital here. I suppose that’s something the mayor, and perhaps even the governor, ought to see to.” She sat on the edge of the bed, refilling the water glass. “As for the hotel, there was no way of telling how long you would need to convalesce, and the bill might be so high as to be unpayable. As we knew nothing about you, including your means, it was decided you had best heal and rest somewhere you would not be charged.”
How thoughtful of them.
Still, “This is an awful imposition on you. I’m almost ashamed to have taken advantage of your kindness.”
“Nonsense, although I suspect my husband will have more than a few questions for you when I send word that you’re now awake.”
His mind moved so slowly. He couldn’t seem to make sense of anything. “How… where was I wounded?” There was a burning, stinging pain in his midsection. A reminder of the bullet which had pierced his flesh. “My shoulder?”
She grimaced. “Dr. Hawthorne says you are very lucky. A few inches and you might have been shot through the chest. We shall have to keep a close watch on you, while you heal. You lost a great deal of blood, he feared it would kill you, and you’ll be weak for a while. He’ll come and check on the wound, and will keep track of your progress. The best thing you can do is rest.”
“No. No, I can’t rest. There is too much for me to do.” He made the mistake of attempting to sit up in bed, then understood in an instant just how weak and vulnerable he was. Any sudden movement might tear at the stitches he felt tugging at the skin of his shoulder and upper chest, making him bleed all over again.
Somehow, it was the thought of bleeding on this kind woman’s sheets that stopped him. “You say your husband is the sheriff?”
“Yes.”
“I must speak to him immediately. There is so much to be done. And I need to see your sister.”
Her eyes widened, her expression arranging itself into one of surprise. “My sister? How do you know I have sisters?”
“I know quite a bit about your family. Your sister shot me because she thought I was someone I’m not. I came here to help her. I can help all of you. I can’t do it while I’m confined to a bed, and with her elsewhere. If she somewhere safe?”
Phoebe frowned. “She’s locked away in jail. My husband had no choice but to place her in a cell after you were shot.”
At least she was in a safe place, where lawmen would frequent. While it was not ideal, at least no one could get to her there. “She had no choice but to shoot me. At least, that was how she saw it at the time. I don’t know who she thinks I am, but I suspect she knows more than she should.”
“More than she should about what?”
“I’m afraid I can’t share yet, not until I speak with her first. It’s imperative that I speak with her.”
Phoebe grimaced. “You’re beginning to frighten me,” she admitted.
“That was not my intention, though make no mistake. What we’re dealing with is quite serious, and should be kept quiet. Where are the rest of your sisters?” He asked, as an afterthought.
“Why?” She stood, glaring down at him. “And just why do you know so much about my family? You’re beginning to make me question whether my sister was truly in the wrong when she shot you.”
“No, no. I don’t wish to give you that impression. I admit, this is all a bit new to me. I’ve never worked solely on my own, so far from a field office or supervision. I have no one out here to provide assistance, and little way of keeping track of those I believe might have followed your sister to Carson City. This is why it is imperative that I speak to her, just as it is imperative that we know where all of your sisters are.”
She chewed her lip, her chin trembling. “They’ve been staying with me, and with my husband’s sister. None of us wished to ride back to the ranch when Rachel is still sitting in jail. We couldn’t bear to be that far from her.”
He smiled a bit at this. Their sisterly affection warmed his heart, just as it gave him a measure of comfort. They took care of each other. “So long as you know where they are and what they’re doing, there should be no trouble. I would rather they remain unaware of his conversation we’ve just had, until I speak to Rachel and send a telegram to my uncle, in Pittsburgh. How long was I unconscious?”
“Two days.”
How it struck his heart, thinking of Rachel sitting in a cell for two days. While he presumed her brother-in-law would see to her comfort as best he could, it was still a jail cell. Last place in the world he would ever see her if he had his way.
Regardless of whether or not she had shot him.
“Two days. That’s a great deal of time.” He studied her, an idea taking form. “Can I trust you to do a bit of reconnaissance work for me?”
The sheriff had a kind face. That was the first thing Mason noticed about him, and it came as a relief. Surely this was a man to whom one could speak sense, who would be reasonable and thoughtful.
“And that is why I need to see her. I don’t wish to press charges, she did the only thing she saw fit to do. I didn’t get the chance to explain what brought me to Carson City. I can only imagine something must’ve taken place between our last encounter and her final moments in Baltimore. Something which frightened her terribly, which led her to believe her only course of action was violence.”
Rance rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, shaking his head. “These Reed sisters,” he murmured mostly to himself. “They have a talent for getting themselves into trouble.”
“I admit, a lot of this is my fault. I shouldn’t have allowed her to become aware of the content of my messages. By doing so, I left her open to scrutiny from the group I infiltrated back there. Especially since it was I feeding information to the agency all along, they believed she was the o
ne at fault. That might say a great deal for my skills as an undercover agent, but it didn’t do her any favors.”
“No, you’re right about that.” Rance stood, spreading his hands in a shrug. “If everything you told me is true, there is little reason to keep Rachel locked away. I can only imagine the sort of uproar that will cause, a young woman being let go after having shot a man through the shoulder.”
“I survived, didn’t I? And anyone who has a problem with her going free is more than welcome to come and speak to me about it. I’ll set them straight, without revealing too much of the truth, naturally.”
“Naturally.” He appeared unimpressed, however.
Mason suppose he understood, after all, what he had just described was a situation which had placed his sister-in-law, his wife, and the rest of the family in possible danger.
“I’ll see to it Rachel is released and brought here. I’ll escort her myself.”
“Thank you.” He could rest a bit easier knowing she would be out of jail and with him. The poor girl must have been suffering quite a lot of guilt and shame after what she had done, and he would rather spare her that.
Phoebe poked her head into the room mere moments after her husband had left.
He sat up a bit straighter.
“Well?”
“I’m sure my presence caused no end of consternation to those working in the office,” she said as she entered the room, thrusting an envelope into his hand. “But your uncle was as good as gold. It took nearly no time for his reply to come through.”
Mason grinned. “He’s nothing if not efficient,” he explained as he opened the sealed telegram. “Especially upon learning his nephew was shot, I would imagine.”
He looked down at the message. Glad you are healing. The group is one short. Should have arrived by now.
He let out a quiet sigh. Just as he’d feared.
“What is it?” Phoebe murmured, wringing her hands. “You’ve no idea how much I wanted to tear the thing open along the way. This entire situation has got me on tenterhooks.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” he replied, folding the message and returning it to its envelope. “Unfortunately, I have nothing share. This confirms my suspicions that a member of the group I infiltrated has come to Carson City, yet I have no evidence to confirm it. All I can do is hope.”
“Hope for what?”
He hoped no one would ever find Rachel. He hoped the townsfolk had not taken it into their heads to turn his shooting into a scandal involving the entire Reed family. He knew this could not possibly be.
He knew all too well how people tended to talk, he relied on that tendency, after all, when it came to gathering information.
His shooting was a likely source of fodder for every loose-tongued old biddy in Carson City. Especially when the shooter was related to the sheriff.
If Liam’s associate, whoever he happened to be, was aware of Rachel’s name and her family connections? There was no doubt he’d heard the entire story by now and probably much more than that.
Before he had the chance to explain his troubled thoughts—not that he would have known where to begin—the door swung open once again.
A face as familiar to him as his own appeared. He didn’t truly understand until that moment how many times he’d called her face to mind. How many times the warmth in her eyes and in her smile had danced through his memory and caused him no small amount of pleasure and comfort.
And how deeply committed he was to keeping her safe.
He released a deep breath, relieved. “Rachel.”
11
It was all so sudden.
One moment she’d been eating her fill from a bowl of stew brought especially to her by Martha. A kind woman, Martha, and quite talented when it came to cooking.
The next, Rance had entered the jailhouse and told her it was time to leave. He’d answered none of her questions while unlocking the door, leading her away from the cell, and then onward to his home. She’d eventually understood there was no purpose in voicing her questions when there was no chance of him providing a response.
Since then, she had kept her thoughts to herself.
Now, faced with the man she had shot, everything became clear.
She turned her sister. “You never told me he was here.”
“We thought it best you not know.” Phoebe shrugged, her eyes darting back and forth between the man on the bed and her husband. “It seemed better the less you were aware of his condition.”
She clenched her fists, struggling to keep her temper in check. Better? Was it better that she had worried herself sick for two days? Asking after him at every opportunity, demanding someone tell her whether he was recovering, where he had been taken after the bullet was removed and his wound sewn shut. Was it better that she had spent two nearly sleepless nights fretting over his condition, questioning her actions time and again?
Asking herself if the man she had grown quite fond of in Baltimore was a man capable of harming her?
She had all but worn holes in the soles of her boots, pacing back and forth as she had, walking the inside of the cell from one corner to the next, over and over until she had made herself dizzy.
And still, it had not been enough. She had been unable to stop moving, for when she stopped moving, there was nothing left to do but think. And blame herself.
Before she could voice any of her righteous anger, the man in the bed smiled. “It’s been a long time, Rachel,” he murmured. He patted the mattress, beckoning her. “If you don’t think it too forward, I would like if you sat near me. There’s a great deal for us to discuss.”
Rance pulled up a chair. “Here you are,” he said before taking a step back. “I need to get back to the jailhouse. I’m sure there will be more than a few people wondering why I set you free.”
Her heart twisted. She had already put him through so much. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “This is no different than any other time,” he chuckled. “The moment anything happens, word spreads quicker than fire through dry kindling.”
Phoebe shot her a questioning look, and Rachel shook her head slightly in response. It would be better if they had privacy. She hardly believed the man capable of hurting her when confined to a bed.
In fact, she was entirely uncertain whether he had ever intended to hurt her at all.
The door closed behind them as she sat. She made a great deal of the task of arranging her skirts, anything to avoid looking into his disarming eyes. “How are you feeling?”
“How do you think?”
“Like a man who’s just been shot?” She stole a glance his way, and was relieved to find him smiling. How he could find it in himself to grin at her after what she had done was a mystery she’d never understand. She was only glad to see it.
“I had never been shot before,” he confided. “I suspect it could have been much worse.” He drew a deep breath, she heard the hitch in it, the pain he tried so hard to conceal.
“I need to know.” She turned her gaze on him, willing herself to stay strong and not look away. He deserved her attention, at the very least, after what she had put him through. “Are you who you said you are? Are you the man whose name was on that badge?”
“I am at that. Mason Murphy.”
“Were you with this detective agency all along?”
“I was. It was my work with my uncle’s agency which brought me to Baltimore. I normally make my home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, though in the last several years, while working as an agent, I’ve not spent nearly as much time there as I normally would have.”
“When you visited the telegraph office…” She twisted a handkerchief in her hands, uncertain of how to ask her question. In fact, she wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to know. There were so many questions hanging on her heart, but this hardly seemed the time to voice them. “Was it I who brought you there? As it is I who brought you here?”
“No, not at all. I was there to do wha
t anyone would do in the telegraph office, send telegrams. To my uncle, in Pittsburgh. I was reporting my findings. It just so happened that a charming young woman earned her wage in that very office. A young woman who I should have been a great deal more careful around.”
There was no concealing the blush which touched her cheeks at his words.
“I wouldn’t normally tell you the details of my work, but it seems you have the right to know. I was in Baltimore to infiltrate a group of men with ties to the coal region in Pennsylvania. There is a group there, an underground group, very secretive and very dangerous. To the wrong people, that is. People who they believe deserve punishment for crimes against workers.”
This puzzled her more than ever.
He continued. “They go by the name of the Molly Maguires. Have you ever heard of them?”
“It seems I’ve heard something of them, perhaps my older sister would know more about them than I do. She wrote for the newspaper.”
“Yes, I know.” When she shot him a look of surprise, he grimaced. “I made it my business to learn about your family when I learned you might be in trouble.”
Her heart clenched. “Trouble?”
“That’s what brings me here. You see, there was a certain individual from that group in Pennsylvania who cut ties with his friends and left the region. He changed his name, made up a new life for himself, and managed to ingratiate himself with the politically savvy of Baltimore. He made one mistake, however. He allowed himself to become too well-known. There was no hiding once his picture made it to the papers. As word of his notoriety spread, those from whom he had fled back in Pennsylvania learned of his new identity and set about finding and punishing him for his betrayal.”
“He betrayed them?”
“They see what he did as nothing less. Once you’re a member of the group, there’s no leaving. Not ever. Not when there are so many secrets in danger of being revealed. It was my job to disguise myself, to befriend the man who leads the offshoot of this group in Baltimore and learn of their plans for how they would deal with him. I also needed to confirm whether the man in question was, in fact, the one being hunted by the Molly Maguires. I was reasonably certain that the men were one and the same.”
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