Loner's Lady

by Lynna Banning

  It was Callie all over again. God, he would not have survived without her help. He remembered the way it had felt when he could go on no longer—the despair, the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. She had found him halfway across the meadow behind her father’s house.

  “Jason,” she had said. “Jason, let me help you.”

  “Go back, Callie. They’ll brand you a traitor, helping a Yankee. Go back before they find you with me.”

  “I don’t care. Let me come with you.”

  He’d rolled away from her, let his forehead rest on the cool grass. “I can’t take you with me. You belong here, in Richmond. With your family. With your Southern gentleman, Major John.”

  “I don’t.” Her long, pale face twisted. “I don’t want to marry him.”

  “It’s too late, Callie. He can’t stop talking about it—your wedding next week. The whole prison is sick of hearing him.” He wouldn’t tell her the rest about her precious major, how he taunted the Union prisoners with promises of food, tobacco, fresh water, but never delivered. How he selected officers for special treatment in the cramped, windowless basement room. He could still hear the screams at night. He could still feel the steel chain they’d used on him.

  “Jason, please. Listen to me. John is… I am afraid of him sometimes.”

  Oh, God, not Callie. She’d come to the prison every day, bringing food, bandages, soap. Without her and the other Southern women who braved the surly Confederate guards to help hundreds of enemy prisoners, they all would have died. He owed her his life.

  “Has he hurt you?”

  She didn’t answer for a long time. “You must take me with you.”

  Jess groaned. “He’ll know. He’ll kill us both.”

  She was silent, her slim white hands clenching her skirt. Finally she touched his stubbled cheek. “He will kill me anyway, Jason. I know it as surely as I know my father is unaware of the abuses at the prison.”

  “You have to tell him, Callie. It has to stop. Men are dying.”

  “I know. Yes, I will tell him. Tonight. And then I will have my carriage brought around as if I were going…going to a ladies’ prayer meeting. I will meet you at the end of the lane at midnight.”

  He had had no choice. Callie was not safe, would never be safe with Major John D. Stedman. Jess wasn’t sorry for what he’d done. He was sorry only for what had followed.

  Now, in the kitchen at Ellen’s ranch, J.D. didn’t move a muscle. “Just out of curiosity, Flint, what business is this of yours?”

  “Yeah, Jess,” Dan echoed. “Where do you come into this?”

  “I came for my share of the money. Then—”

  Ellen interrupted. “I fell in the creek and broke my leg. Mr. Flint has been helping me with the chores.”

  J.D. released her wrist. Jess saw the marks where his fingers had bitten into her skin, and for the first time in his life he knew what it would feel like to kill someone in cold blood.

  J.D. curled his lip in a sneer. “Now, that’s real touching, isn’t it, boys? I just wonder how she paid him?”

  Before Jess could react, Ellen whirled and slapped J.D.’s face so hard the crack of her palm against his skin sounded like a pistol shot.

  Dan half rose from the table. “You’re outta line, Ellie.”

  “No,” she said, her voice oddly quiet. “I am not.”

  J.D. lifted his spoon and calmly resumed eating, as if nothing unusual had occurred. “Sit down, Danny Boy.”

  Dan sank back onto his chair.

  Jess struggled to control his rage. At that moment he wanted to pistol-whip the Irishman until he couldn’t flash that baby-faced grin ever again. He glanced across the room and caught Ellen’s gaze. Her eyes were dilated, her cheeks flushed. But her mouth was compressed into a thin, determined line.

  “Mr. Flint?” she said in a low, steady voice.

  Jess nodded his head. “Yes, Mrs. O’Brian?”

  Ellen turned her gaze to study her husband, then she perused Gray, then J.D., and then Dan once more, a thoughtful look on her white face.

  “Mr. Flint.” She pointedly addressed him. “I am ready to retire. Would you assist me up the stairs?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dan shot a narrow-eyed look at Jess. “You watch yourself, boyo.”

  “Always do,” Jess replied in a level tone. That brought a snort of derision from J.D., but Jess ignored him.

  “Just the same,” Dan continued, his mouth half-full of biscuit, “she’s mine. Remember that.”

  “I don’t need you to remind me that Mrs. O’Brian is a married woman.”

  J.D. flexed his fingers and grasped his coffee mug. “That’s a surprise,” he muttered. “Gettin’ old, Jess?”

  “Nope. Just careful.”

  J.D.’s voice turned silky. “I’d watch my back if I were you.”

  Dan swallowed his mouthful of food. “Ellie, honey? I’ll be along in a while. Gotta finish my supper and show the boys where to bed down for the night.”

  Ellen looked at her husband without answering, an expression in her blue eyes Jess had never seen before. She looked as if she’d been walloped in the belly by a bale of hay. Gently he turned her toward the parlor. “Come on. I’ll help you up the stairs.”

  Without a word, she limped on through the doorway and paused at the bottom of the staircase. Jess settled his hands at her waist and lifted her, one laborious step at a time, until they reached the landing. At the door to her bedroom, he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

  “Are you all right?”

  Ellen gave an unladylike snort and twisted toward him. Her eyes looked as if they’d shoot daggers at any moment, and her mouth—her mouth was pursed into a tight little O like a dried-up rosebud.

  “At the moment, I am cross as a bear.”

  “About?”

  “I should think that is obvious. First of all, my husband, it appears, has the spine of a green onion. Then there’s the matter of my kitchen floor, which is getting spur-marked as we speak. And then…” She stopped, tears glittering in her eyes.

  Jess fought the urge to pull her into his arms. “That’s plenty for a good lather, I guess.”

  “And then,” she said with venom in her voice, “there’s you.”

  “Me? Hell, lady, I’m on your side. I’m the only friend you’ve got in this upside-down situation.”

  “Jess, I have to be frank. I don’t know who to trust. I am so tired and rattled inside I don’t know what I think or feel anymore.” With a soft moan she added, “This isn’t what I expected. And none of it makes any sense!”

  “Yeah, it does, Ellen. If you’ve got the sand to look at it head-on.”

  “Look at what?”

  “You and Dan. Dan’s not here for you. He’s here for the money he buried. He’s here to prove to J.D. and Gray, maybe even to himself, that he’s top dog.”

  Her lips twisted. “I…I can’t accept that. I just can’t.”

  Jess drew in a slow breath. “I never thought grit was your short suit, Ellen.”

  “Neither did I. But when it comes to my husband… God in heaven, I’ve waited and hoped and planned for the day he would come home. I’ve worked till my hands ached from plowing and planting, hoeing weeds, hauling water. You’d think he would notice that the farm has been cared for! You’d think he would ask how I managed it alone.”

  “You’d think he’d notice his wife has an injured leg,” Jess murmured under his breath. He didn’t mean for Ellen to hear, but when her shoulder twitched under his fingers he found he wasn’t sorry that she had. He hoped to hell she was strong enough to see Dan for what he really was.

  Ellen knotted her fingers so tightly the knuckles whitened. “I want those men, J.D. and Gray, to leave.”

  “J.D. and Gray are here because Dan is here. Men like that run in a pack.”

  “Do you mean if Dan stays, they will stay as well?”

  Jess sighed and lowered his voice. “To be honest, I don’t know. Wh
en Dan digs up his loot, he could pay J.D. and Gray off, and they might ride out without him. Or they might not.”

  “So everything depends on Dan,” Ellen said, her voice tight.

  “Everything.” Their eyes met and held. Jess couldn’t tell what she was thinking; her usually open-book face was shut up tight and her eyes weren’t giving him any hints. Guess he’d have to live with that for the time being.

  He’d never been good at waiting, but this time the stakes were high enough he figured he’d have to learn how. Either that or learn how to out-gamble a gambler. Maybe both.

  “I’ll sleep on the front porch tonight, Ellen. If Dan… If you need anything, I’ll be within the sound of your voice.”

  She nodded, then reached up to touch his cheek. “Thank you, Jess. I’m sure I will be all right. Dan is my husband, after all.”

  “For now.”

  She tried to smile. “Forever. I took vows, Jess.”

  Vows. Vows never brought happiness. He and Callie had left Richmond to avoid her vows. Callie had brought a hamper of food. “And some of Papa’s whiskey,” she said as the carriage bumped along the packed-earth back road.

  “You’re a good woman, Callie.”

  “Not after tonight. No one in the entire county will ever speak to me again after runnin’ off with a Yankee.”

  Jess had slowed the vehicle to a stop. “Get out, Callie. Go back.”

  Even in the dark he could see her eyes flash. “I surely will do no such thing. Whatever do you take me for?”

  “A kind-hearted woman who’s risking her life, and her good name, helping me escape. There’s a farmhouse up ahead. Get out, Callie. You’ll be safe there until morning.”

  Callie had seized his arm. “You need not worry over my reputation, Jason. I will be ruined anyway. I’ve decided not to marry John after all. Breakin’ my engagement will cause all sorts of talk.”

  Jess snorted. “To say nothing of running away with a Yankee.”

  “When we reach Maryland I will find a perfectly proper hotel. I understand Washington society is positively glitterin’ this time of year.”

  He hadn’t been able to talk her out of it. She’d hastily stitched a dozen silver dollars in the hem of her petticoat, and in her reticule he glimpsed a wad of Yankee greenbacks as thick as his fist.

  “You robbed your father?”

  “Nonsense. I merely took my inheritance out of the library safe. Papa will never miss it. Now, hush up and eat one of Sally’s oat cakes.”

  They had driven all night, resting the horse every few hours, and by midafternoon the next day they’d stumbled onto a Union cavalry unit that had escorted Callie to a hotel in the nearest town and got Jess to a hospital.

  She’d come every day to see him, he remembered. And when he was released, too crippled to rejoin his unit, he’d agreed to serve as surgeon at a post field hospital near Gettysburg. Callie had followed him, had lived in his officer’s quarters. Everyone had assumed she was his wife.

  Now, seven years later, it all seemed like a dream. And when Major John Diamond Stedman caught up with them it had turned into a nightmare.

  When Ellen disappeared into the bedroom, Jess pulled himself out of the past and stood motionless on the landing, opening and closing his hands into fists. Only one thing he could think of might protect Ellen tonight. It might work. Then again, it might not. But it sure as hell was worth a try.

  He tramped back down the stairs, resolve tightening his jaw. In the kitchen, he found Dan at the table, sulking over a mug of cold coffee while J.D. calmly buttered the last of Ellen’s biscuits. Gray had apparently cleared away the dishes and stood by the wash pail, dunking the bowls into the soapy water.

  Dan raised his head. “Leave ’em for Ellie, Gray. She’ll do them up in the mornin.’”

  “Gosh, it ain’t no trouble, Dan. I like to help out.”

  “You just like the smell of a kitchen,” J.D. said without inflection. “You should have been a cook, not an outlaw.”

  Gray cocked his head. “My life ain’t over yet, J.D. Maybe I will be a cook. I got lotsa time left, not like you, or Jess here, both of you all crippled up and gray showin’ in your hair.”

  J.D. snorted. “I’m not so crippled I couldn’t lick the tar out of a young pup like you, one hand tied behind me.”

  Gray dropped the last bowl into the wash water and stood up, his cheeks flushed. “Aw, let’s not argue, fellas. Let’s be grateful we’re ridin’ free instead of rotting away in that jail.”

  “The boy’s right,” Jess interjected. “What about a friendly hand of poker, for old time’s sake?”

  Dan’s eyes lit up like a kid’s at Christmas. “Sure thing! J.D., you got cards, don’tcha?”

  The dark man slipped one hand into his vest pocket and brought out a worn pasteboard carrying case. “You in, Gray?” He shuffled the cards, his long, bony fingers elegant in their movements.

  “Sure. Don’t have much to bet with, but—” he settled back into his chair with a glance at Dan “—maybe I’ll get lucky.”

  J.D. turned his dark, narrowed gaze on Jess. “What about you? You got anything to lose?”

  “Not a damn thing except my saddle,” he said carefully. “Without a horse, saddle’s not much good.”

  J.D. dealt the cards and included the empty place across the table for Jess. Gray picked up his hand. “What happened to your horse, Jess?”

  “Sold it.”

  “What for?”

  “Wanted to eat. Long trip out here from Colorado.” Jess smiled inwardly. They’d nibbled at the bait. Now to jerk the hook. “You boys got any whiskey? Miz O’Brian doesn’t hold with spirits, so I’m pretty near parched.”

  Gray headed for the back door. “I got some Child’s Premium in my saddlebag.”

  Dan rose to retrieve glasses from the hutch, then set four mismatched tumblers and a pitcher of water in the center of the table. Gray burst through the porch, a quart bottle of amber liquid sloshing in his fist. “Miss Ellen won’t mind, will she, Dan?”

  Dan shook his head. “Miss Ellen won’t know.”

  “She’ll smell it on you,” J.D. observed dryly.

  “That she won’t. I always gargle with some of her rosewater before I…you know.”

  Jess clenched his fist under the table. If he planned it right, Danny Boy wouldn’t get within twenty feet of Ellen’s rosewater. Or Ellen.

  At least not tonight. He’d think about tomorrow when it got here.

  “How fortunate you arrived just when Miz O’Brian fell and broke her leg,” J.D. said in a silky voice.

  “Guess so.”

  “Couldn’t be that you helped her fall, could it?”

  All three men looked up from their cards to stare at Jess.

  “Nope.”

  Gray’s pale green eyes widened. “You mean you really did stay to help Miss Ellen out?”

  “Nope,” Jess said again. “I stayed because I couldn’t find the money Danny Boy buried.”

  He shot a look at Dan, to his right. The man had already downed one stiff shot of whiskey; now he was making short work of another—a double, Jess noted. Damn fool Irishman. He hadn’t changed much in the two years since Jess had last seen him. If anything, he thought, watching Dan drain his glass for the second time, Danny Boy had gotten worse.

  Dan reached again for the whiskey. “You’ll never find the money. None of you. An’ that’s ’cuz I was smart.”

  “Not smart enough to keep quiet about it,” J.D. said. “That’s why we’re all here, waiting for a share of that gold.” He cast a quick look at Jess. “Even you, Jess. I take great pleasure in knowing you thought you’d get all of it, until we showed up.”

  “Not gonna get any of it.” Dan was beginning to slur his words. “’Cuz you quit the gang.”

  “A quarter of it’s mine, Dan,” Jess said quietly. “I didn’t ride out until after that job. Or can’t you remember that far back?”

  “That’s right, Danny. Jess earned his s
hare.” Gray looked to Jess for approval.

  J.D. ended the argument with a decisive, “Bets, gentlemen?”

  Dan consulted his cards with one hand, poured himself another drink with the other. “Two dollars.”

  “Raise you twenty,” Gray blurted.

  “Twenty!” J.D.’s black eyebrows pulled downward. “Where’d you get twenty dollars?”

  Dan slurped down a gulp of whiskey. “With his baby face and those blond curls, that calico lassie in Tylerville prob’ly paid him!”

  Everybody laughed, even Jess. Gray was notorious with the ladies.

  “What about you, Jess?” J.D. asked, his tone oily. “Some lady been payin’ you for your services?”

  Dan’s drooping head came up. “Jus’ one damn minute, J.D. Tha’s my wife you’re mal…malign…talkin’ ’bout.”

  J.D.’s black eyes drilled into Jess. “What about it, Jess?”

  “Sure, I get paid. Gonna bet my wages, too.”

  “What wages?” Dan yelled. “Ellie doesn’t have enough money to buy meat, and she’s payin’ you?”

  “Yep.” Jess always did like goading Dan. Now that he was protecting Ellen, he took even more pleasure in it. “I bet one bushel of carrots, two dozen ears of sweet corn and—”

  The men’s laughter drowned out his voice. Even Dan guffawed at the joke. “And what?” he gasped when he could talk.

  “And my saddle.”

  Instantly the table fell silent. Finally Gray let out his breath with a whistle. “Hell, Jess, that’s a sixty-dollar saddle!”

  “You’ve got a good memory, kid.”

  J.D.’s gaze hadn’t left Jess’s face since the discussion of his wages had started. “That mean you’re gonna meet Gray’s twenty and raise him…forty dollars?”

  Jess kept his voice even. “I could make it more by throwin’ in my saddlebags.” He studied the three eights in his hand.

  “I’m out,” Gray said.

  “Okay, make it sixty,” Dan blurted. “By tomorrow, you’ll all be rich.”

  “You bloodsucker,” J.D. snarled at Jess. “You murderin’ bastard. I’m not getting suckered into betting money I don’t have yet.”

  “Bet your horse then,” Jess said carefully. He tipped the whiskey bottle into everyone’s glass but his own.