by Lisa Plumley
“Good?” Adam scoffed. “What I am is fed up—fed up with chasing you and not catching you. It’s downright wearisome. But this time, everything’s turned out just like I wanted.”
That lie was almost as outrageous as his first. But it had the desired effect. Standing a short distance from Mariana, Wyatt, Curtis and Edward exchanged glances, seeming a little more convinced. But they still kept their guns pointed at him.
“Give it up, Bedell.” Adam gestured for Roy to release Savannah and come with him. “I’m not letting you sneak away this time. The sheriff’s got my proof, and I’ve got you, so—”
“So that don’t matter one whit,” Roy interrupted. He aimed his wild-eyed glance at his brothers. “Me and my boys, I’d say we got you outnumbered, Detective. So why don’t you give up?”
Facing Bedell, Adam tensed. Roy was right. Even with Mose and Mariana on his side, he didn’t have much except authority and bravery to bolster his stance. He scowled to amplify both.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Linus suddenly yelled. He gave a maniacal laugh, then brandished a loaded firearm. He pointed it at Roy. “You ain’t got nobody outnumbered, Roy. Not anymore! Not now that I got back my gun in all that melee. See there?”
He waved the gun. Everyone stepped back. As they did, Linus cast a shy, almost proud-looking glance at Savannah. To Adam’s baffled amazement, he seemed to expect approval from her.
To his further surprise, she gave it. “Thank you, Linus.”
But Roy only rolled his eyes. “You numskull, Linus! You can’t even count. You plus him, plus him—” he pushed his chin toward a looming Mose “—only makes three. And there’s still five of us, ain’t there? ’Sides, you won’t shoot your own brother.”
Seeming uncertain, Linus wavered with his weapon.
“I reckon that’s right,” Mariana said. From the folds of her skirts, she raised a derringer. “But I’d shoot you, Roy.”
Momentarily loosening his grip on Savannah, Roy stared at her. “Mariana? What are you talkin’ about, sweetcakes?”
The expression of incredulity on his face was so complete that Adam would have laughed…had their situation not been so calamitous. As it was, he could only count silently. The numbers were evened out now, but a standoff was of no help to him. Not if it didn’t result in Savannah being released safe and sound.
“I’d shoot you just for bein’ such an inconsiderate pig,” Mariana went on in an even tone. “You was goin’ to take up with another woman whilst you were still with me, Roy. That’s low.”
This time it was Adam’s turn to look askance at her. “Mariana? Tell me you didn’t really get addle headed over him.”
“Me? ’Course not.” Mariana shrugged. “I like my men full growed and capable of kindness. You ain’t neither, Roy.” She nodded at Savannah. “Now let her go. You’re comin’ with us.”
“With you? Hell, I ain’t doin’ nothin’!” Roy yelled, his gaze growing more infuriated. He jerked Savannah forcibly sideways, demonstrating his hold on her. “You’re gonna do what I say, Corwin. And that means watchin’ your little wife here die.”
Savannah whimpered. Adam felt his gut twist. He wanted to reassure her, to help her feel less afraid…but he feared that if he looked into her eyes, he would break down completely. Roy would know how much she meant to him. All would be lost.
“You kill her, I kill you,” Adam told Roy in a rough tone, not thinking about how much it hurt to say the words. “Either way, I don’t care. She’s already served her purpose to me.”
“Oh, yeah?” Roy asked skeptically. “What was that?”
“Bringing you within range to be caught,” Adam said. “She’s done that, pretty providentially, too. Besides, I felt sorry for her. She wanted to get married pretty bad, and I was around.”
Savannah gave another sob. Her wounded gaze felt palpable.
“She was expectin’ me,” Roy pointed out. “The better man.”
Adam shook his head. “You’ll never be the better man.”
“You’re both awful!” Savannah shouted. She squirmed in Roy’s grasp, her skirts a blur of motion. She stomped on Roy’s foot, making the floor tremble. He yelped. Somehow she got free.
The Bedell brothers lunged forward in alarm. But suddenly, Roy stiffened. He held up his hands in surrender—because, as Adam saw to his disbelief, Savannah held a gun to his head.
Roy chuckled, signaling his brothers. “Hold tight there, boys. Let’s not do anything too hasty. This here little lady—”
“Is leaving,” Savannah interrupted in no uncertain terms. “And you’re going to let me.” Defiantly, she jerked her chin toward the rest of the gang. “Tell them to let me go, Roy.”
“Yeah, Roy!” Linus crowed. “Tell ’em to let her go!”
“You seem to be forgettin’ somethin’,” Roy told her in an eerily calm tone. “My boys are willin’ to kill or die for me. I don’t believe you can say the same thing about your people.”
“You’re wrong,” Savannah told him. “Tonight anything is possible. People are capable of things I’d never have expected.” Her gaze flickered to Adam. Hastily he glanced away. “And you’re doubly wrong, because these aren’t my ‘people.’” Her voice broke, then went hoarse as she continued. “Except one.”
With his heart in his throat, Adam finally raised his gaze to hers. The situation here was still dangerous. The stakes were still much too dire. But he felt beyond proud of Savannah at that moment. Even Mariana watched her with grudging admiration.
He was her “people,” Adam knew. He’d never valued the sense of belonging and salvation that Savannah gave him more than he did at that moment. But she didn’t even look at him.
“Come on, Mose,” she said firmly. “Let’s go.”
“Right behind you, girl,” the big man said.
They both edged toward the door, keeping their guns high. Adam stared at them in patent disbelief. His mind whirled.
As she neared the door, Adam spoke. “Savannah, wait!”
She paused. Looked at him. Raised her wobbly chin proudly.
“You can’t—” Mindlessly Adam gestured at the outlaws he and Mariana still held at gunpoint. “Without you and Mose—”
“You won’t be able to nab the Bedells?” Upon finishing his statement for him, Savannah lifted her eyebrows. Her pretty face looked pale. Her voice shook with suppressed emotion, but her gun hand was steady. “Sure you will, Mr. Corwin.”
Mr. Corwin. Her use of that formal address chilled him.
“After all, it’s what you want most in the world, isn’t it?” Savannah went on. “To catch the Bedell gang? At least that’s what you said a little while ago.”
“No!” Adam choked out. He glanced at a smirking Roy, then risked his biggest gamble yet. “I came here to save you—”
“Well, you did a mighty poor job of it, didn’t you?” Savannah asked. “It looks to me as though I saved myself.”
Linus nodded vigorously. “It looks that way to me, too.”
Adam ignored him. Savannah’s words cut him deeply, striking at the core of everything he believed himself to be: a man who saved, a man who cared, a man who protected.
“You’re wrong, Savannah. All I wanted was to protect you—”
“Corwin, hush!” Mariana cut him off. “For the love of God, just quit talking, afore you make it all worse.”
Savannah eyed him sadly. She edged closer to the door. “I never should have looked to a man again—not for anything. I swore not to. I guess forgetting that was my first mistake.”
Protectively Mose hovered near her, scowling. The Bedell brothers only watched the tableau with hushed attention. Even Roy, still pinned under Savannah’s filched pistol, didn’t move.
Inexplicably Adam remembered his and Savannah’s wedding night, when Savannah had mischievously pulled that key from his ear. That explained how she’d snatched Roy’s gun from him. But it didn’t explain why she was leaving Adam now. More than anything, he wanted to go b
ack to that time, when Savannah had been proud to be married to him…and he had loved her fully.
Hello! We’re Mr. and Mrs. Corwin! he recalled her saying. Wistfully he wished she’d say it again. Joyfully, too. But those days were gone, and Adam knew he could never recapture them. This time, he’d lost her for good.
“My second mistake,” Savannah said, “was loving you at all.”
Wounded almost beyond bearing, Adam stiffened. He knew what had happened. Savannah had gotten the wrong idea from the things he’d told Roy. Why shouldn’t she have? he realized with a brutal sense of honesty. He’d gotten very good at lying to her.
He’d told her he was the man she’d been waiting for. That had been a lie. But he hadn’t lied about loving her. Never that.
“Aww, buck up, Corwin,” Roy Bedell piped up. “You won’t be missin’ much. Just an actress and a dancer and a criminal.”
In the doorway, Savannah stiffened. Her gaze whipped to Bedell, then to Adam. He saw truthfulness reflected there…truthfulness and regret. In that moment, Adam recalled why the newspaper article in the sheriff’s office had struck him so.
“Your woman’s nothin’ but a ‘Ruthless Reed,’” Roy went on. “You must’ve heard of ’em. They was all over the city papers a while back.” He laughed. “It’s kinda funny, an upright type like yourself windin’ up with a thievin’ whore like her.”
Linus quivered with rage. “You shut your mouth, Roy!”
Adam felt the same way. But an instant later, Savannah and Mose hustled out the door and all hell broke loose inside.
Chapter Eighteen
Standing safely in the street outside the boardinghouse, Savannah hugged her shawl against her, shaking uncontrollably. She couldn’t seem to quit trembling—couldn’t seem to get Roy’s voice out of her head.
It’s kinda funny, an upright type like yourself windin’ up with a thievin’ whore like her.
Well, in a sense, Roy Bedell was right. It was funny—or would have been, had Savannah felt capable of laughter…then or ever again. Because to anyone who mattered, she was what the tabloids had labeled her. She might as well accept it.
Adam already had. She’d seen it in his eyes.
“Are you all right?” Mose hovered concernedly. His big hand patted over her shoulders, as though seeking reassurance that she was truly unharmed. “I swear, I’ll go back in there and make them all pay if they hurt you.”
“No need for that.” Humorlessly Savannah quirked her lips. “I think there are quite enough people in there by now, Mose.”
For the past few minutes, Morrow Creek residents had been streaming toward the boardinghouse at a run, led by many of the same people whom Savannah had met at the Finneys’ party…a million years ago, it felt. They’d started gathering outside the place a few minutes before Savannah had managed to take away Roy Bedell’s gun. She’d glimpsed them through the window and had known she’d need to buy them a little more time to assemble.
Soon enough, she’d recognized the sheriff outside. She’d made it a point to learn his face—and his deputy’s—upon coming to town, so she would be able to steel herself for the day when he asked her to move on, like the sheriff had in Ledgerville. Instead, inexplicably, he’d come to save her from the Bedells.
By the time Savannah had neared the boardinghouse room’s door, almost the whole posse had managed to gather outside, with Sheriff Caffey, two of his deputies, Jack Murphy, Marcus Copeland, and big Daniel McCabe leading the way. Their arrival had eased Savannah’s qualms about leaving Adam and Mariana behind with the Bedells, but it hadn’t made leaving easy.
Nothing could have done that.
Heartsick and weary, Savannah turned to Mose. “Is the wagon nearby?” she asked. “Would you please take me home?”
“You sure you want to leave?” His gaze met hers. “You might have misunderstood something back there. There’s a chance—”
“There’s no chance. None at all.” Savannah spied a few of the women headed her way, led by Sarah McCabe, Grace Murphy, Molly Copeland and Mrs. Finney. Their serious faces left little doubt of their intentions. Clearly they knew about her past now, too. Her hopes for Morrow Creek were dashed. “Please. Let’s go.”
“All right.” Reluctantly Mose nodded. “We’ll go for now.”
“For forever,” Savannah said firmly.
Then, without so much as a backward glance—a luxury she most certainly could not afford—she raced into the night, leaving behind all her hopes…and her heart at the same time.
Standing by while Sheriff Caffey and his deputies none-too-gently slapped Roy Bedell and his brothers in irons, Adam felt oddly removed from everything. Finally capturing the Bedell gang should have made him happy. But after the night he’d had, he felt as though nothing would ever make him happy again.
Not without Savannah by his side.
“Woowee!” Mariana approached him with her customary vigor. She holstered her trusty derringer without a single thought to the risqué view of her leg she offered the others in the room. “That was some snare, right, Corwin? I’m happy to see you’re still alive and kicking, you stubborn ass, you.”
Gleefully Mariana threw her arms around him in a hug.
Adam knew he must be dreaming. Mariana didn’t like hugging. Hell, in all this time, he hadn’t been one hundred percent certain she liked him, if he were completely truthful.
“Aww, don’t look so down in the mouth.” She slugged him in the arm, returning to her usual tomboyish stance. “I know that gal of yours left in a rush, but this business of ours ain’t for the faint of heart. Most likely, bein’ abducted was a lot for her to take, ’specially at the hands of these miscreants.”
Mariana nodded in the general direction of the newly arrested Bedells. Roy glared daggers at her. Edward, Wyatt and Curtis argued among themselves. Linus gabbed to Sheriff Caffey, talking at a speed that was scarcely comprehendible, doing his best to clear his conscience before it was too late.
“I can give you details of all them crimes, Sheriff,” Linus hastily assured the lawman. “Dates and places and everythin’. I never thought what we was doin’ was right. No sir, not at all. That’s why I want to make amends for all the bad things I done.”
“I think we can come to an arrangement,” the sheriff said.
Linus appeared relieved, if bruised. Beside him, Jack Murphy and Marcus Copeland nodded with evident approval of the goings on. Next to them, Daniel McCabe folded his powerful arms and surveyed the room. Since a few seconds after Savannah had left, the place had been swamped with lawmen and helpful Morrow Creek residents, all of them intent on doing what was right.
After a brief but ferocious scuffle with the Bedells, the makeshift posse had done exactly that. It hadn’t taken long.
Adam had rightfully pinned Roy and handcuffed him himself, but the act had given him no satisfaction. All he wanted was to turn back the clock and take back the lies he’d told—all of them, including the ones from tonight. If there’d been another way to protect Savannah from Roy, he would have done it, but—
But wasn’t that always his excuse? That he had to lie? It had been until now. But starting tonight, Adam couldn’t let himself off that easily. The truth was, he ached with needing Savannah—with loving her and not having her. And he deserved it.
He deserved every ounce of the pain he felt.
“I gotta say,” Mariana said, still standing beside him, “I didn’t think much of that Savannah Reed when we started—”
Adam felt newly wounded. “Don’t—” he began.
But that only made Mariana brighten. “Whoops! Sorry, I mean Mrs. Corwin, don’t I? Anyhow, I didn’t think much of her when we started all this. I thought she was just another dumb female, set to get herself killed or worse. But she surprised me.”
“She surprised me, too.” Adam was still astounded at how much losing Savannah hurt. He guessed he always would be.
“I tried my damnedest to get her off of you,” Mariana yammered
on. “I told her how you was a mean, bad, ornery cuss who was just usin’ her to catch the Bedells. ‘That ain’t no way to treat a lady,’ I told her. But she did not take the bait,” Mariana said emphatically. “She passed all my tests with flyin’ colors! She stuck up for you, Corwin. You shoulda seen her.”
“I wish I could.” Damnation, he felt miserable.
“Not many women would’ve tried to help the people who were holdin’ her captive, you know.” Mariana shook her head, going on to describe how Savannah had consoled Linus and wisely advised the both of them to get away from Roy Bedell if they could. “That’s why old Linus was so keen to help her—that and she’s pretty, besides.” Mariana chuckled. “That woman of yours has got a good heart, Corwin. You done fine. She’s a keeper, I’d say.”
“She is. But she’s somebody else’s to keep now.” Adam spied several of the Morrow Creek residents headed his way, even as the sheriff and his deputies began hauling the Bedells to the jailhouse. Most likely, they wanted him to help secure the gang for good. Adam could not refuse. After all, that was his duty. He gave Mariana’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’m glad you’re safe, too, partner. There’s nobody I’d rather be paired with.”
Appearing suddenly alerted to something, Mariana blinked.
“The hell there ain’t!” She grabbed him as he turned away, then stood up to him—all five feet and four inches of her. “You would rather be paired with Savannah. For life! Wouldn’t you? I know she wasn’t a damn pawn to you, like Roy was to me. You weren’t playin’ at this. You don’t have it in you.”
Wearily Adam yanked himself away. He gave Thomas Walsh a nod to indicate he’d be with the others shortly. “It doesn’t matter what I want. I can’t force myself on Savannah. She deserves better. She deserves the truth, for one thing.”
“Then give her the truth!” Mariana put her hands on her hips, looking as though she’d like to yank out his hair. “That’s what the Adam Corwin I know would do. Would already have done.”