Rebel Outlaw
Page 20
“You can all put down your weapons!” Holly Jane came slowly to her feet so as not to startle anyone into shooting. She waved the document the lawyer had drawn up. “I no longer own any property. I’ve donated the carousel land to Friendship Springs. It belongs to all of us now. No one can run anyone else dry.”
That shut everyone up in a hurry. Colt ripped the paper from her hand and stared at it.
“That’s as sweet as one of your chocolate cakes, Miss Holly Jane,” Henry said, but he wasn’t smiling. “What’s to keep me from killing the both of you and taking your grandfather’s ranch for myself?”
“There’s me to keep you from doing it.” Old man Folsom shook his fist. “I’ll kill you before you get an inch of William’s land.”
“And us, Uncle Henry!” Susan Broadhower ran forward to stand between her uncle and Holly Jane. Six other young Broadhowers followed, making a buffer between her, Colt and the guns.
Hyrum laughed, the cackle brittle and demented. “Looks like I win, unless you aim to shoot down your own kin.”
“You don’t win, either, old man.” Billy strode forward with Lettie Coulter on his arm. The pair of them faced the elder Folsom. “We’re tired of your feud. We aren’t participating anymore.”
A rumble of young voices drowned the old man’s cursing. A dozen Folsoms strode from behind a building to stand up to the old man.
Colt sheathed his knife because all of a sudden there were more of them, young folks gathering in the street and mingling, shaking hands and embracing.
Young Folsom mothers cooed over Broadhower babies. Men on both sides lowered their weapons, some to stalk away toward home but more to join the mulling crowd.
The folks of Friendship Springs came out of their homes, bringing their children with them.
Holly Jane glanced about. There had to be near sixty people meeting peacefully.
Billy Folsom stood on top of a box on the boardwalk. He offered a hand to Susan Broadhower, bringing her up to stand beside him.
“On behalf of the Folsom clan, I thank Holly Jane for the gift to Friendship Springs.” He hesitated for half a second then looked at his grandfather. “I hereby declare this feud over. Here’s my handshake on it to Suzie Broadhower.”
He put out his hand. Susan shook it up and down.
“I also declare on behalf of the Broadhower clan that the feud is over and done.”
Cheers went up in the street. People tossed hats in the sky.
Colt hugged Holly Jane to him. Butcher mingled with the revelers, slapping his tail on skirts and trousers.
Over the cheers, Holly Jane almost missed hearing the gunshot. The blast shook nearby windows. Everyone hit the ground.
When she looked up, Henry Broadhower lay dead on the street. Hyrum Folsom stood over him, shaking his fist at the sky, laughing and clearly insane.
Billy leaped from the bench and approached his grandfather, slow and steady.
“Grandfather, put down the gun,” he said quietly, soothingly.
Folsom swung the rife, pointing it at his grandson’s chest.
“You ain’t got no authority to call off nothin’, you worthless whelp. Should have strangled you the day you were born.”
“I know you don’t mean it, Grandfather. Just set the gun on the ground.”
He did mean it. Holly Jane felt it in her bones. Butcher hurried back to her. She felt his low growl under her hand.
Colt dropped his arm from around her back. She felt him rise to his knees, then his weight shift. A second later she watched his blade cut the air, heard the hiss before the blade sliced through Folsom’s shirt and imbedded in his shoulder.
Billy caught the rifle and his grandfather before they hit the ground.
* * *
Colt stood beside the window on Christmas Eve watching snowflakes fall past the window pretty as a blessing.
He couldn’t recall where he’d spent last Christmas. More than likely, he’d had dinner at a hotel then spent the rest of the holiday alone. Or maybe he had worked.
A snowflake swirling light and happy on the breeze hit the window, revealing a delicate pattern before it melted.
Because of William Munroe, blessings fell upon him like the snow in the yard. He lifted his mug of coffee in a silent toast to his late friend. If it weren’t for William, he wouldn’t be here in his own home with his wife in the kitchen, making the house smell like chocolate, cinnamon, mint and love, all in preparation for the guests stopping by tomorrow.
Blessings had fallen upon Friendship Springs, as well. With the cankerous influence of Hyrum Folsom and Henry Broadhower lifted, the town was becoming the one that William had envisioned.
Holly Jane had been a big influence on the healing of the town by donating her carousel land for a park. The carousel remained her personal property, and she was the caretaker of the park. But the land belonged to everyone. It was open on Sunday afternoons and for special events.
Just last week a wedding had taken place. Billy Folsom had married his Lettie with the whole town present to wish them well.
It wasn’t paradise, not quite yet. There were still some hard feelings between the older members of the families, but the young folks were bringing them around. The feud itself had been buried with Henry Broadhower. It had been imprisoned with Hyrum Folsom.
Day by day, Friendship Springs was becoming the place that William had planned for it to be.
Wherever Munroe was in the great hereafter, he was bound to be grinning. He’d been as cunning in his matchmaking as the old ladies had been blatant about it.
Colt inhaled a deep breath of fresh-cut pine. Bringing home the Christmas tree that morning had been something. Holly Jane had been so hopping with pleasure over it that it might have been her first tree.
It was the first tree for him, Grannie and Aunt Tillie. It was hard to recall when he’d seen the ladies so happy...other than a month ago when they had dressed in their finest and stood with him and Holly Jane as they recited their wedding vows.
He couldn’t get over how pretty the tree was, with the candles glowing warm on the boughs and garlands of popcorn strung all about.
“Well, there you are!” Grannie exclaimed, coming into the parlor with an apple tart in her hand.
She went to the fireplace and bent over the dog and the pig where they slept curled about each other. Aunt Tillie followed behind her, carrying a plate of chocolate cookies.
“Here you go, then.” Grannie broke off a piece of pie to feed to the pig then gave the rest to the dog. “Now, you are to leave the cookies for Santa alone.”
Aunt Tillie set the cookies on a table next to the fireside chair.
“I can’t recall when I’ve been so happy.” Grannie crossed the room and hugged him about the waist. “Do you reckon Santa will really leave me a gift. He never has before.”
“He only brings gifts to well-behaved people, Rose,” Tillie answered.
“It makes sense then,” she sighed. A second later her face creased in a huge smile. “I believe I’ve managed it this year.”
“I reckon you both have.” Colt gave each of them a hug and a kiss on the cheek.”
“I probably wouldn’t have seen Santa in the garden a while ago if he didn’t plan on leaving a gift.”
“I’m sure that’s true, sister. We’d best get up the stairs and into bed.”
“Visions of sugarplums,” he said quietly, watching them mount the stairs, arm in arm.
Several moments later, Holly Jane peeked her head out from the dining room. A dab of flour dotted her nose and dusted her cheeks.
“Have they gone up?”
How, he wondered, was it possible to love another person as much as he loved her? This time last year he wouldn’t have believed it to be true.
His beautiful, happy wife had taken his dreary life, shaken it to its core, and then handed it back full of sunshine.
From that first day in The Sweet Treat, he had felt her warmth. She was his Sunshine, just like the engraving on her wedding band.
“I reckon Grannie will spend the night watching out the window, waiting for Santa to come back to the garden,” he said.
“Well—” she stepped into the room with her arms full of gifts “—I hope he does.”
She knelt beside the tree, setting a gift here and a present there, then rearranging them until the look suited her.
He knelt beside her. His gift to her was already under the tree, hidden toward the back so she wouldn’t see it. It was the framed deed to their home, her name on top of his.
“You’d better eat one or two of those cookies, Santa,” she said, gazing at him with brown sugar eyes that seemed even warmer than usual.
“I reckon I’d rather eat you.”
He tipped her chin up then kissed her, long and deep. He came away with the taste of cinnamon on his lips.
“I never figured Christmas would be this much fun.”
“Just wait until tomorrow.”
“I love you, Holly Jane.”
“I love you, too, Colt.”
He glanced down at a small package wrapped in red fabric.
“Is that the one?” he asked, brushing his fingers over the green bow.
She nodded her head, her cheeks flushing pink. She covered his hand with hers.
Together, they stared at the package. He figured her smile went clear to her heart, same as his did.
“Do you suppose they’ll be surprised?” she asked.
“Not too surprised.” He kissed her again, couldn’t help it. “I wonder what their prediction will be, the blue booties or the pink ones?”
“What if it’s both?”
He couldn’t seem to find the words to answer her, to tell her how pleased that would make him so he laid her gently down in front of the Christmas tree to show her.
* * * * *
We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Historical.
You dream of wicked rakes, gorgeous Highlanders, muscled Viking warriors and rugged Wild West cowboys from another era. Harlequin Historical has them all! Emotionally intense stories set across many time periods.
Enjoy six new stories from Harlequin Historical every month!
Connect with us on Harlequin.com for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!
Other ways to keep in touch:
Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com
ISBN-13: 9781460335024
REBEL OUTLAW
Copyright © 2014 by Carol Arens
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com