by Lynda J. Cox
“Fever’s not as high.” The back of her hand brushed across his forehead no heavier than the soft caress of a warm breeze. “Vic, have you really looked at this man?”
“That’s all I’ve done for the last week. Stared at him and tried to piece together what’s left of my—” Anger and something else, something he couldn’t quite put a name to, iced her voice. She stood right outside the cell, judging by the volume and pitch. “He escaped from somewhere, and I’m going to find out where. He’s going right back, too. If anyone thinks he can just show up after all this time, waltz right in here, and take up where he left off when he volunteered with Hood’s Texans...that isn’t happening.”
That wasn’t correct. He wasn’t a Confederate. He’d been with Rosecrans, in the Army of the Potomac. He’d led the second Kentucky cavalry, under the division command of General Jefferson Davis—his commanding officer’s name a perpetual source of amusement for the Union troops.
“And, if you think for one second, I’m going to go back to being his quiet, obedient, meek little wife, you’d better reevaluate that, too, Abigail Knight.”
VICTORIA FLUNG THE door to the jail open and stormed out into the night. She marched several feet from the still open door and then came to a halt. Her heart pounded with painful intensity, and the roaring in her ears deafened her to everything else.
The desire to run as far and as fast as she could from Brokken almost overwhelmed her. Run away from here. Run away from him. Run away from how weak and helpless he’d made her.
She plunged her fingers through her hair and closed her eyes, trying to regain some control.
“Vic.” Abigail’s arms closed around her in a gentle hug. “You can’t send him back to wherever he was. It would be a death sentence.”
“What else am I supposed to do? I have to follow the law. He’s escaped from somewhere.” Victoria pushed her away, staggering her friend. “You don’t know what it’s like, seeing him here, knowing he’s back.”
“I don’t have any idea how difficult this has to be.” Abigail shook her head slowly, her gaze resting on Victoria. “He’s been gone for years, without so much as a single word from him. You’re not the person you were when he left. He has to understand that.”
A chill whispered across the sheriff. “So, you think it is Jonathan, too.”
Abigail shook her head, again. “I don’t know. He certainly looks like Jonathan—a lot thinner, much grayer, a lot more worn. But, I’m not sure.”
“I’m sure.” Victoria managed a step away from the jail, closer to the livery, closer to escape and freedom. A laugh, caustic in its bitterness, broke from her. “I told you he wasn’t dead, that he’d be back.”
“Does saying I told you so make you feel any better?” Abigail extended her hand. “So, he’s back. And I—we, you and me—won’t let him do the things he did before.”
“If he isn’t sent back or turned over to federal authorities as an escaped prisoner, he’s still my husband. Let’s say I ignore everything I promised I’d do as the sheriff and not turn him over. How in the name of heaven do we stop him from turning into a monster, again?” Victoria grabbed her friend’s hand, grasping it hard enough to make Abigail wince, but she couldn’t make herself temper the fierce hold.
“Simple.” The smile breaking over Abigail’s features combined anger, protectiveness, and a cool amusement. “We pass a law for this town that will put him in that jail for a long time if he ever raises his hand to you. I’ll make it very clear to him that if he breaks any law in town, I’ll be the one to send the telegram to the federal garrison in Shreveport.”
Victoria knew every man on the town council and the mayor. Knew them well. Had done her job as sheriff to protect the town’s assets when Fritz returned after he had helped his brothers rob the bank. Yet, she looked the other way when extenuating circumstances revealed exactly why the Brokken brothers broke the law, and Klint and Chance had helped to not only return the funds but rescued the two older Brokkens. If nothing else, half the town council owed her a huge favor. She sucked in a calming breath. “You’ll talk to Mathew?”
Abigail’s smile widened. “I already have. He’s going to propose the new ordinance tomorrow night at the town council meeting.”
Victoria loosened her grip on Abigail’s fingers. An old shame scalded every fiber of her being and she lowered her sight to the ground. “Everyone will know what he did.”
“No, they won’t. Mathew’s going to point out the proposed ordinance is preventative in nature.” Abigail’s hand tightened for a brief second on hers. “You’re not the only one, unfortunately.”
That pulled Victoria up hard. There were other women in Brokken like her? Other women she should have protected with her badge and, if necessary, her gun? “Who?”
“Caroline Brooks was one.”
There had always been a reason for Caroline’s bruises and her broken bones. She had thought when word came Peter died in the Wilderness during the war and Caroline collapsed in the street, it had been out of grief. How had she missed this? Victoria berated herself. She missed it the same way everyone else missed it, the same way everyone missed what Jonathan had done—by looking the other way and not wanting to accept the ugly truth. “Who else?”
“Evie Collins, and Mathew and I suspect Mary Landry.”
“I guess it’s a good thing Father couldn’t convince me to marry someone else.” Victoria tilted her head toward the opened door of the jail. A rising flood of conflicting emotions washed over her. She had wanted him dead. Prayed he died. And yet, now that he was here, alive, albeit not exactly in prime health, she hoped perhaps as the War had changed so many of the men who fought it, Jonathan might also be a changed man. Anger for what she knew to be a baseless hope—he never changed, no matter how many times he said he would—choked that faint glimmer of hope. “Why couldn’t he be dead?”
Chapter Three
Victoria stood outside the closed door of the jail building, her hand on the doorknob, unable to make her feet move.
The meeting of the town council had been an unmitigated disaster. David Landry, when Mathew read the proposed ordinance, had started a shouting match with Fritz Brokken, Chance Hale, and himself. How dare the members of the council and the good doctor Mr. Mayor—she cringed with the recollection of the sneer in Landry’s voice—try to tell him or any God-fearing man how to be a proper husband? Landry had then launched into a diatribe of Fritz’s shortcomings; pointed out not only had Chance been a miserable blue-bellied Yankee, he’d been a Sharpshooter, a coward of the first degree; and Mathew was no more than a butcher with a fancy piece of paper.
Her father hadn’t said a single word, either for or against the proposed ordinance. When Landry turned to Paul Grisson, demanding his thoughts on this intrusion into a man’s privacy, her father had said he needed to pray about it. Disgusted, Victoria walked out of the town hall.
She stared at the doorknob she clutched, willing herself to open the jailhouse door. He was no different than any other prisoner held within the jail.
He was different, though.
The jail had never housed a man as gravely injured as he had been and had certainly never been used to keep her own husband under lock and key.
A snort broke from her. In his condition, he wasn’t a threat to a newborn kitten. She pushed the door open and staggered to a halt. Alexander Jennings slouched in the chair behind the battered, old desk, head flung back, mouth open, and snoring loudly. Jonathan sat with his back pressed against the block wall. He met her gaze, one eyebrow lifting ever so slightly.
Victoria gulped. She turned a glare to Alexander and slammed the door.
Alexander startled awake, leaping to his feet. Before he could say a word, Victoria blurted out, “I pay you to guard the prisoner, and when I come back, I find you asleep?”
“Come on, Sheriff. It’s just Jonathan.” Alexander didn’t even have the decency to appear in the least embarrassed. “‘Sides which, it ain’t
like he could escape. You got him trussed up like a Christmas goose.”
“He has a point.” Jonathan lifted both hands, the chain attached to the manacle around his left wrist chattering with the motion. A teasing grin lifted the corners of his mouth. “I’m rather constrained.”
How many times had she seen that grin when he tried to soothe over the hurt he’d caused when he claimed it was her fault he’d lost his temper? Victoria dropped her gaze to the desk top. A new, different anger washed over her. He was not going to make her feel that kind of shame, that choking helplessness, ever again. She snapped her head up and to Jonathan. “You, be quiet.”
She wasn’t sure because of his heavily, overgrown facial hair, but she thought one corner of his mouth twitched again. The new half-smile left her off balance. Jonathan never smiled when she made the mistake of verbally sparring with him. He snarled the few times she had been foolish enough to trade verbal jabs. Angry with her own confusion, she turned to Alexander. “When I hire you to guard a prisoner, that means you don’t fall asleep. I don’t care how secured that prisoner is. Jail breaks happen because someone was lax.”
“It’s just—”
“I said I don’t care who that prisoner is. I hired you to do a job, and you didn’t do it.” She grabbed Alexander’s upper arm and pulled him out from behind her desk. “Go home.”
“Ain’t you gonna pay me?”
“No. You didn’t do your job.” She pushed him toward the door.
“But—”
She added another push to Alexander’s back. “I said no.”
“That ain’t right,” Alexander muttered as he pulled the door open.
“Maybe the next time—if there is a next time—you won’t fall asleep on guard duty.”
Alexander slammed the door with so much force the glass in the window rattled. That it didn’t crack or outright break surprised her. The Brokken brothers had been good to their word to rebuild the jail better than it had been. Victoria stared at the closed door, debating her next course of action.
The chain clinked and chattered. She clenched her fists to keep from whirling around with her revolver drawn.
“How long are you going to keep me trussed up like a Christmas goose?” His voice lowered and filled with a warm and softly teasing quality.
Victoria stared out the window, willing her stomach to unknot, hating the sudden sweat dotting her palms. Light from the livery across the open area between the jail and the stable danced in the darkness. She unclenched her hands but refrained from dragging her palms down the legs of the trousers she wore. Give him nothing that could be construed as fear or intimidation. It took almost all her fortitude to keep her voice level. “If I have my way, you’ll stay chained in that cell until hell freezes over.”
“What did I do to deserve that punishment?”
There was the dangerous, calm, even tone that she knew all too well. Her insides shuddered with the chill settling on her. She twisted her head over her shoulder, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “Are you going to tell me you don’t remember?”
Something flickered across his expression she couldn’t put a name to. That, more than anything, terrified her. He broke eye contact first, lowering his gaze to the floor at his feet. “Would you believe me if I said I’m not the man you knew?”
Her gaze settled on her desk, where in the upper right drawer she had put a letter and locket Mathew had removed from an improvised pocket in the rags Jonathan wore. A locket she instantly recognized as hers and a letter that bore her handwriting. She dragged her sight from the desk and back to the man studying the floor at his feet. “Skunks don’t lose their stripes.” Even she heard how viciously bitter her words were as they sailed across the distance.
Without lifting his head, he brought his gaze to her again. “That’s harsh. What do I have to do to prove to you I’m no longer that man?”
“There is nothing you can do to prove that to me. Nothing.” She reached for the doorknob, not even sure why she did it, other than to give her a sense of control and the security of being able to get out of the building and away from him.
Before her fingers could close around the knob, Mathew’s tall form appeared in the window. The relief filling her still didn’t allow her rigid form to relax. She pulled the door open, noting Mathew’s gaze skipped across her and settled on Jonathan.
“That answered that question,” he said, softly. His sight came back to her. “In spite of Landry’s extremely loud and derogatory protest, and your father’s inability to take a position, the town council put the new proposition to a vote tonight.”
“It was voted down, wasn’t it?” Victoria held no illusions how the vote went. If her father didn’t approve of it, it wouldn’t pass.
“It’s effective immediately. Thirty-three to one, with one abstaining.”
She should feel elation. Or relief, or something, that maybe, this new law would be able to protect her friends and neighbors from being harmed by their own loved ones. None of those emotions appeared.
The doctor clamped a hand onto her shoulder. “Go home, Vic, and get some sleep. I’ll stay here tonight.”
“I can’t. What about Abby?”
“If she needs me, she can send Ethan. I’m not even a minute away from the house.” He tossed his hat onto the desk. “Go home, now, and get some sleep. Those are doctor’s orders, Sheriff.”
“But, what about—”
“Go.” He gestured out the open door. “He isn’t going anywhere, and in his condition I’m more than a match for him.”
“I’ll go. I want to talk to Abby, first.”
Mathew drew his head back, then nodded. “As long as you promise to go home after that and—”
“And go to sleep. Yes, Mathew, I will do that.”
JON WATCHED HER WALK out the door, more than surprised at how she took orders from the doctor. The relationship seemed more that of siblings or very close friends than a professional one. He became aware the doctor hadn’t moved away from the open door and the doctor’s scrutiny became intense. Rather than confront the man, Jonathan lowered his gaze to the manacle around his wrist. “I don’t know why y’all are bothering to keep guard over me. She’s made sure I can’t leave.”
A single click made its way to him. Jon recognized the sound of the door latching. Knight remained silent as he made his way to the chair recently vacated by Alexander. The man lowered himself to the seat, and then propped his feet on the desk and folded his arms over his chest.
Jon noted the withering of the doctor’s left hand and jerked his chin at the man. “Makes it hard to do surgery, doesn’t it?”
The doctor’s only response was a slight dipping of his head. He wasn’t sure if Knight agreed or simply acknowledged the obvious. Jon forced himself to his feet. His vision blurred, and the world tilted. He gripped a metal bar to maintain his balance until the light-headedness retreated. “Aren’t you worried I might fall over?”
“Nope.”
“You don’t have much of a bedside manner, do you?” What was he expecting from anyone? He was an escaped convict. He heard Victoria make the comment she’d stared at him for the last week. A week. He’d been in and out of consciousness for a week.
“Nope.”
Jon forced himself to walk to the opposite wall, his staggering steps near the bunk in case he did fall over. The length of chain stopped him a few paces from the back wall. He sank onto the thin mattress and dropped his gaze to the manacle all the while very aware of Knight’s continued scrutiny.
He’d put a lot of time and distance between him and any pursuit, three weeks to be exact, but the longer he was held, the less that advantage was. He wasn’t going back there. Not alive, anyway. In a brief outburst of frustration, he jerked his manacled wrist, pulling the chain tight with a ringing chattering of the links.
The doctor didn’t seem to have any reaction at all.
When Jon couldn’t stand the man’s intense study any longer, he snapped,
“What are you staring at?”
“Just trying to figure something out.”
“Why don’t you tell me what’s got you so puzzled, so I can help you figure it out.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his words. He managed to suppress the desire to jerk on the chain again.
“How low do you have to stoop to hit a woman, your own wife?”
If he had injected sarcasm into his voice, it paled in the face of the scathing condemnation in the doctor’s words. His mouth dropped open, unable to form a word.
“Does hitting someone weaker than you make you feel more like a man?”
Jon shot to his feet, and crossed the cell in one, long stride. He caught himself on the bars when the light-headedness returned with a vengeance, buckling his knees. “I would nev—I’m not the man she knew before.”
“That’s doubtful.” Knight finally broke his immobility. He opened a drawer on the desk and pulled out an oft-folded piece of paper and a simple locket, carefully settling the tattered page onto the desktop. He held the locket up by the filthy ribbon and tapped it, setting it slowly spinning. “Twice in less than five minutes, I’ve gotten a rise out of you.”
Jon sank into the bunk again, his gaze fixed on the locket. “Doc, getting a rise out of me where I was would have gotten me killed. Here, I figure, that’s not so likely. It’s just downright frustrating to be both locked in a cell and tethered. Someone took that collar. I hoped my days of being chained up like a hunting dog were over.”
“You want to tell me why you almost said you never hit Victoria before you said you’re not the man she knew?” The doctor lowered the still slowly rotating locket into the drawer. “Or you want to try telling me you don’t remember hitting her?”
Jon stared at a seam between two of the flat stone slabs in the floor. For three years, he’d fought to survive Colbert’s prison. Once again, he found himself in a cell, accused of crimes he didn’t commit and seemingly already condemned. No matter how he answered the doctor’s accusation, he risked putting his neck into a noose. Finally, he said, “I made mistakes. I won’t make the same mistakes, again.”