Sophie's Daughters Trilogy

by Mary Connealy

  “Didn’t you notice he turned around and rode back out with us? He was barely scratched. It wasn’t even a bullet. The bullet hit a tree, and a chunk of bark ricocheted and hit him.”

  “He yelled two names. The Cooters shot two more of your men.”

  “Both dove off their horses when the Cooters opened up. One of ’em knocked himself insensible on a rock. The other took a bullet in the leg. Just grazed him. They’re going to live. They were already up and on horseback when we got out there.”

  “I brought death to you.”

  “The Cooters, not you.”

  “Well, I brought the Cooters. They’ll never stop coming. I just snapped. I wanted to stop them, hurt them, wipe them off the face of the earth.”

  “And you remembered just how good you are with that stupid rifle. Abby told me she saw you in action.”

  “I can barely remember it.” Mandy looked up and locked her gaze on Tom’s. “I’ve got a reputation with that rifle, Tom, but you don’t know—”

  “Don’t know what?”

  Mandy remembered how she’d fought to make herself cold. But her hate had all been red hot. “I don’t even like people to know just how good I am. I probably shouldn’t tell you now, except Abby saw.”

  “She was mighty admiring of your skill. She’s more comfortable with a blade.” Tom said it like he was admiring of a woman who preferred a blade. Well, too bad for him he had a sharpshooter for a wife, and he was stuck with her.

  Because of last night, there was no going back. They were well and truly married. There could even now be a baby on the way. Another fragile life in desperate need of provision and protection.

  In the clear light of day, Mandy was amazed that she’d so recklessly and eagerly seen to her wifely duties.

  “If I don’t know the half of it, why don’t you tell me?”

  “Abby will tell you I’m faster’n greased lighting, but what she can’t see is what’s going on inside me.” Mandy lifted her coffee, clutched the tin cup with both hands as she thought of the cold, and tried to put it into words. “I’m fast and accurate, but there’s more.”

  Glancing at the shining stars overhead, something called to her. She longed for her scope, but more likely she just didn’t want to go on talking. “It’s as if—as if time slows down. I don’t feel like I’m moving fast. I get—calm, deadly calm. So calm it frightens me when I think of it later. I’m firing and aiming, cocking my gun and reloading.”

  “That’s not so unusual. I’ve talked to men who’ve been in the Civil War. They say it’s like that.”

  “But I’m thinking, too. I’m figuring angles, moving to get a better shot if I need to move. All of that and so much more is going on, and the gun keeps firing, keeps hitting what I aim at. I—” Mandy broke off her telling and stared at her boots, not wanting to see what Tom thought of his wife.

  “You’re what?”

  “I’m cold.” She shoved her toe in the dirt. “Ice cold.”

  “Keeping a cool head in an emergency is a good thing. Abby said you did that.”

  “It’s more than a cool head. I don’t feel—sane—” She took a quick glance at Tom then looked down again. “I’m so detached, ruthless. I do whatever I need to do. I feel no guilt, no remorse. And since this last year, hiding from the Cooters—”

  “Abby told me you killed one of them,” Tom said quietly.

  Mandy glared as she raised her coffee cup in a salute. “For a man who was in a hurry to catch me, you sure had time to do a lot of talking and a lot of packing.”

  “Abby talked while I saddled my horse. Wade loaded a saddlebag with provisions while I worked. I ordered her to go to Belle’s, and she obeyed me because it suited her. Red shoved that marriage paper in my hand and assured me we were legally married. I did all of that and still managed to be on the trail five minutes after I heard you’d lit out.”

  Mandy shuddered to think what would have happened if he’d taken ten minutes.

  “So now we go get the children?” Mandy missed them desperately. When she’d set out yesterday, she’d felt as if she were giving them away. If she’d killed those Cooters, she’d’ve hanged most likely, but her children would be safe. And her death would end the feud. The Cooters would quit coming if she was dead, Mandy was sure of it. Now that it looked like she’d dodged the noose, she could hardly bear the fear and love she carried for those little ones who were her whole life.

  “No, now we go home, and we face the Cooters without having the children to worry about. They’ll be safe. Abby’s good. She’ll make sure they aren’t followed. And Belle and Silas will make sure their valley isn’t breached.”

  “While we wait for the next attack?” Mandy felt it again, that sick need to destroy, to fight, to kill.

  God, protect me from this ugliness inside.

  It was the first time she’d prayed since she’d made her decision to hunt down the Cooters. She hadn’t felt that she deserved the help of the Lord, not even the ear of the Lord. Praying now flooded her soul with the life she’d nearly wiped out of it yesterday.

  “God, protect us,” Mandy prayed aloud.

  Tom nodded. “We want God on our side for this, Mandy. How could you be so dumb as to choose a path without any hope of His blessing? It’s an act of insanity.”

  Those blue eyes leveled at her. Asking her a question that she was afraid to answer.

  “You brushed aside what I said about the way I feel when I’m shooting, Tom. But insanity might cover it. I had little sisters growing up.”

  “I met Sally, your sister who dressed like a wrangler.”

  “We were all good shots. None of them was as good as me, though Sally was mighty close. Beth always thought she was second best, but I’d say she was third—though no one was as good at sneaking around in the woods as Beth.” Mandy missed her sisters with the stabbing pain of a bullet wound.

  “We talked about it a lot, worked on our strengths and weaknesses. What we figured out was that none of them reacted like me. None of them knew quite what to make of that crazy coldness that came over me.” Mandy tossed the dregs of her coffee onto the dying fire and watched it sizzle in the flames.

  Then she looked up at her husband and confessed the depths of her ugliness. “I’ve always believed that I have it in me to be a murderer. I think what happens to me when I shoot is what happens to a hired gun, a professional killer. I’m terrified of that part of myself, and that man I killed …” Her eyes fell shut.

  “What about it, darlin’?”

  “I was too good at it. It haunted me later. But when it was happening …”

  “You liked it.”

  Unable to speak, she looked at him, and he looked back until she got control of her tightened throat and clenched jaw. “I felt proud. Proud that I’d beaten him, proud that I’d brought him down hard and fast. It’s a feeling, that pride, that is a terrible sin. God speaks of the sin of pride, and I know it to be true.”

  Tom shrugged. “I’m proud of my Angus herd, proud of my stallion. Proud of my pretty wife and the three beautiful children I have. I’m proud I built a house strong enough to keep you safe from the Cooters. Is that all a sin, too?”

  With a shrug, Mandy said, “I guess it’s a sin if God convicts you of it. And He certainly convicts me. I felt it again yesterday when I was creeping up that rise to get those men in my sights. I don’t know if I’d have done it, but I might have. Worse yet—” She fell silent.

  “Worse yet,” Tom went on for her, “you might have enjoyed it.”

  “I might have, at least right at that moment.” Forcing herself to turn to her brand-new husband and face him with the truth, she said, “I have this callus on my trigger finger.”

  She took Tom’s hand and rubbed her finger against his. His were so strong and work-hardened she wasn’t sure he could even feel it, but he ran his finger gently, carefully over her index finger. In the dark, she knew when he found the right spot. He paused and rubbed the rough skin slowly.<
br />
  “What of it?”

  “It’s a reminder to me of what I am.”

  “You’re a beautiful woman, a loving mother, an obedient wife.”

  Mandy thought Tom didn’t sound all that sure of the last part and smiled despite the deadly serious topic. “I’m a sharpshooter. As good as anyone anywhere, I reckon.”

  “Your hands have calluses other places. Why worry about that one?”

  “It’s like living proof that I’m dangerous, to myself, my children, my parents and sisters, you. I never want to forget that, because it’s who I am.”

  “It’s part of who you are, but not the biggest part.” Then Tom said, “You’re part of me now, too. Anytime you want to run your hands over me to remind you of that fact, I’ll be glad to allow it.”

  Mandy laughed, but it didn’t last. It couldn’t last, not while the cold inside her existed. Except this time, she hadn’t been able to bring the cold, and that made her wonder what it would have done to her to pull the trigger in the heat. Maybe instead of enjoying it, she would have hated it. Loathed it. In fact, been unable to do it.

  Tom shook his head and drew her attention. He looked mighty sad for a man who’d just spent the night in the arms of a woman he claimed to have wanted for five years. “Mandy, honey, I think it’s best for the two of us, just privately here, to admit that you are as loco as a rabid swamp rat.”

  Mandy agreed with him, but she wasn’t all that crazy about hearing him say it out loud. “Tom Linscott—”

  “What, Mandy Linscott?”

  “Good grief, I have a different name. I hadn’t even thought of that yet.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  “You should make a point, if you’re gonna call me a rabid swamp rat, of always having a firm grip on my Winchester.”

  “Already thought of that.” Tom raised it above his head with one hand while he tossed dirt on the campfire with the other.

  Mandy let him keep the rifle while they broke camp. She glanced upward again and tried to figure out what was drawing her eye skyward.

  They were half a mile down the trail when they reached a clearing in the woods where the sky opened wider. The soft gray of dawn was winking out the stars.

  The wide heavens above drew her eye, just as they had earlier. She slowed her horse then slowed it more as she stared and wondered and suddenly knew. The stars!

  Could it possibly be? Could she have, at last, found the key to turn this maddening lock?

  Tom was stretching out his lead, but because they’d been riding single file, not talking, he didn’t notice he was leaving her behind.

  Her eyes darting between the stars and her husband’s receding back, she carefully eased Sidney’s map out of her pocket and unfolded it with terrible care so the paper wouldn’t give a single crackle that might draw Tom’s attention.

  The map was as familiar to her as her own face. Hours upon hours of studying it, wondering about it, looking through Sidney’s books to decipher this stupid map, told her the truth before she looked. With a rush of pleasure so powerful it felt sinful, she compared what she held in her hand to what she saw in the sky. And they matched.

  Which meant that at last she’d found a way to escape the brutal violence of the Cooter clan, without using her Winchester.

  The clearing ended, and the trees swallowed Tom whole. He couldn’t know, not yet. Not when he was still so stubbornly insisting on protecting her. She folded the map as silently as she’d unfolded it then tucked it away without saying a word.

  This plan, well, she’d include him. It wasn’t likely he’d fail to notice when she disappeared. But he didn’t need to know everything, not until it was too late for him to protest.

  She ran her thumb over that little callus on her trigger finger and hoped that this madness could end without a blaze of gunfire and the death of her soul.

  And she wouldn’t even have to tell a single lie. Which wasn’t the same at all as telling the absolute total and complete truth.

  “Beth, I’m going to get Mandy.”

  Beth looked up as her pa slammed her door open. Her eyes snapped with satisfaction. “It’s about time.” She rose from the table where she was eating breakfast with her husband and two children. “Is Ma going?”

  “I tried to leave her, but yes, she’s going. She’s buying supplies right now and sending a telegraph to Luther.”

  Beth went straight for the rifle she kept hung over her front door.

  “Put that gun back. I’m just asking you to watch out for the young’uns.”

  “I won’t be able to, because I’m going with you. Get Adam and Tillie to mind them while you’re gone.” She looked over her shoulder at Alex. “They’ll help you out, too.”

  “You’re not going, Beth.” Pa yanked his hat off his head and slapped his leg.

  “Fine.” With a snort of disgust, Beth wheeled away from her pa and headed for her satchel and the supplies she’d need to pack. “You and Ma go by yourselves to get her, and I’ll go by myself.”

  “I declare I have the most stubborn bunch of womenfolk.” Pa rammed his hat back on his head with fierce disregard for the beating the Stetson was taking.

  Beth headed for her bedroom, but Alex erupted from the table and grabbed her arm before she could get out of the room. “You’re not going without me, Beth.”

  Turning, she saw that he was concerned for her, not afraid of being left. There was a time that the idea of staying here, doctoring the folks in Mosqueros without her, would have sent him into a panic. Resting her hand on his wrist, she felt the slow, steady beat of his pulse. His heart was tied to hers. But she had to help her sister. She couldn’t bear to think of Mandy locked away from them. She’d been chafing to go to Mandy for a long time. Now the waiting was over.

  “Somebody’s got to watch the children.” She looked at her sweet little blond-haired daughter and her sturdy little son who looked so much like Alex.

  “Now, honey—”

  The door snapped shut, and Beth saw that her pa had left. He wasn’t getting away with that. She shut Alex up by kissing him senseless.

  When she had his full attention, she unwrapped her arms from around his neck and said, “I’ve got to go, Alex. I don’t want Pa and Ma facing down an army of feuding gunmen alone, not even with Mandy at their sides. There’s no way to get hold of Sally, wherever she is.”

  “I don’t want you walking into a gunfight, Beth.”

  “There’s not going to be a gunfight.” Beth felt the weight of her rifle on her back and had the good grace to be embarrassed. “I promise to be careful.”

  Alex’s brow lowered. “Fine, if it’s going to be so safe, then there’s no reason for me not to come along.”

  Her stomach pitched when she thought of Alex getting mixed up in shooting trouble. It might be too much for him, considering the scars, both physical and emotional, he still carried from war. Beth shook her head. “You’re not going.”

  “Why if it’s not dangerous?”

  “Because I said so.” Beth jammed her fists on her hips.

  Alex proved right then and there that he’d come a long way from the deeply traumatized man she’d married, the one who avoided any sort of trouble. He proved it by smiling right into her gritted teeth. “Not good enough.”

  “You need to stay and watch the children.” There, that was a solid reason.

  “I’m bringing them along.” Alex had the nerve to smirk.

  “You’re not taking my children to a—” Beth stopped herself before she said—

  “Gunfight?” Alex scowled. “Is that what you were going to say?”

  “No.” Maybe. “Of course not.” Probably not. They could probably just grab Mandy and haul her home, and those awful Cooters would get tired of looking for her.

  “Well, if the children come with us, then we’ll be sure to avoid a gunfight at all costs. Right?”

  Beth couldn’t really come up with a good enough reason for him to stay. Not with
out lying, and she respected him too much to lie. She might possibly not respect him too much to keep from slugging him, but she’d never lie. “You’re not going.”

  “Fine. You go see Mandy and the children, and I will go see Mandy and the children. If we happen to take the same train, you don’t even have to sit with us.”

  She decided that when he’d been so upset, when they’d first met, and not pushy at all, those had been good days. “Come then. If you can keep up.” Beth headed into the bedroom while Alex wiped the mouths of Beth’s precious children.

  Good grief, she was taking her children to a gunfight. Well, maybe she could convince Alex to stay to the side and just doctor the wounded.

  Alex came in before she had her satchel packed and began shoving diapers into a gunnysack.

  It was worse than before. She was taking a baby in diapers to a gunfight.

  “I’d sure like my little sister watching my back. She is pure lobo wolf mean with that rifle of hers. Almost as fast and accurate as I am. Though neither of us can hold a candle to Mandy, of course.”

  God, give me strength to do what I have to do. Give me strength.

  As they swiftly and silently packed, she took a moment to lay her hand on his shoulder, and when he turned to face her, braced for the next round of the fight, she kissed him. When she was done, he held her gaze, and she saw the peace and courage and strength of the man she’d married and couldn’t resist kissing him again.

  “I’m glad you’re coming, Alex.”

  “Me, too. It’ll remind you of why you need to be very, very careful.”

  Give us both enough strength to take care of Mandy. Give me strength.

  Twelve

  Belle Harden saw a woman top the rise that led through the low gap into her valley. More riders came behind her.

  As soon as the first person became recognizable, Belle smiled. A visit from Abby Sawyer was always welcome. It was a good chance for Belle to get her knife sharpened. No one had quite the knack Abby did.

  Then her eyes slid to the others in the group. Two little children. Then one of the riders with a child in his arms twisted in his saddle, and Belle saw a baby slung on that rider’s back. Three children.