Loner's Lady

by Lynna Banning

  J.D. looked at him with expressionless eyes. “One of these days I’m going to kill you, Jess.”

  Dan tossed his cards on the table and rose unsteadily. “I’m foldin’. Got better things t’do upstairs.”

  Jess’s entire body went still. His scheme was to keep Dan out of Ellen’s bed tonight. He hadn’t counted on the man’s gambler instinct buckling under to his lust.

  The thought wore a hole into his brain. Sure wish he had the right to go up to Ellen. Imagining the two of them in her neat, pretty bedroom was squeezing his chest in a vise. For his money, Dan had all but forfeited his right to her.

  “You’re one lucky son of a gun,” Gray said with a happy grin.

  “You’re a damn fool,” J.D. declared. “I know a bluff when I smell one.”

  “Nah, sure’s angels fly, Jess isn’t bluffin’. Jess’d never risk losin’ that saddle.” Dan made his way into the dim parlor, but at the bottom of the stairs had to grab on to the banister to keep himself upright.

  “Don’t forget the rosewater,” Gray called with a chortle.

  Jess watched Ellen’s husband lurch up the steps toward her bedroom, and a choking rage closed his throat. Don’t you touch her, you bastard. If you hurt her, I’ll see you in hell.

  J.D. caught Jess’s gaze across the table. “Fine-looking woman,” the dark man observed in a low voice. “Too bad she’s Danny Boy’s wife.”

  Jess swallowed over the rock lodged in his gullet. “Don’t get any ideas, J.D. She’s a good woman.”

  “They all are, at first.” He turned his gaze on Jess. “Even Callie.”

  Jess blinked. He had never heard J.D. mention his lost sweetheart by name. The man’s hawklike face was as closed as he remembered it from Richmond. Maybe even more. Until this moment the name of the dead woman had never been spoken aloud in Jess’s hearing. Knowing J.D. as he did, Jess felt there was a reason why he mentioned her now.

  “Miz O’Brian is different. A real lady, even if she is a farm wife.”

  “A deserted farm wife,” J.D. reminded him. “Seems kinda familiar, doesn’t it? You turning up when she’s alone?”

  Jess ignored the innuendo. His old enemy was trying to get him riled so he’d lose his head and play his cards badly. Lose the poker hand.

  And his saddle. And the horse he needed to win from J.D.

  He sat back, eyeing the half-empty whiskey bottle. The first part of his plan had gone over the fence like a runaway mustang; he’d be damned if he’d give up on the second part.

  J.D.’s voice sent a rusty saw scraping into his belly. “You haven’t changed, Jess. I’ve been waiting for this.”

  Jess studied the masklike face across from him. So that was it. J.D. still smarted because Callie had left him to come to Jess.

  “Cut the table talk, J.D. Call or bet.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jess tipped the kitchen chair back and watched J.D. study the five cards he held in his hand. Most of the poker games he’d played with J.D. over the years had ended in a draw, not because Jess could calculate the odds better, but because he could keep his face expressionless. J.D.’s downfall was his body talk—a twitching jaw muscle, rolling his shirtsleeves up and then reversing the motion. J.D. moved when he was nervous, and he was nervous now. He smoothed one black eyebrow with his thumb and forefinger.

  “Want any cards?” Gray asked, his eyes avid with interest.

  “Nope. I’ll stand,” Jess replied. With well-hidden amusement, he saw his opponent’s long fingers spread the poker hand he’d drawn. J.D. selected two, changed his mind and selected two others, slapped them facedown on the table and dealt himself two more. Jess noted that the discards came from opposite ends of the fan of cards.

  “Raise you another twenty,” J.D. grumbled.

  “Whooee!” Gray sang. “Pot’s up to eighty dollars. Gosh, J.D., I didn’t know you had eighty dollars on ya.”

  “Shut up, Gray.”

  Another giveaway, Jess thought. J.D. didn’t like distractions, especially when he was riding on thin ice. He’d bet the man didn’t have as much as a ten-dollar gold piece in his possession. If he did, he’d have gotten a haircut when they came through Tylerville. J.D. always preferred his straight black hair neatly trimmed around his ears.

  So…J.D. was sweating. That meant he was bluffing.

  But so was he, Jess acknowledged. “Okay, J.D., I’ll throw in my saddlebag and call. Show your hand.”

  J.D. snapped down two kings. “Beat that, mister.”

  With deliberate motions, Jess laid down two of his three eights, then paused.

  “That ain’t gonna beat two kings,” Gray blurted. “You lost your touch?”

  Instead of answering, Jess added his third eight to the two already displayed. “Any way you look at it, three of a kind beats two kings.”

  “You damn bluebelly,” J.D. rasped.

  “War’s over,” Jess reminded him.

  “Yours, maybe. Not mine.”

  Gray gathered up the cards and grinned at both men. “Dagnabit, Jess, you’ve gone and won yourself a horse!”

  For the next hour and a half, J.D. tried to win back his mount, but failed with every hand. The man’s anger grew and he couldn’t keep his body still. He swallowed compulsively. Couldn’t keep his hands quiet. Coughed. And refilled his whiskey glass too often.

  It was so easy to read the man, Jess could keep track of the betting with one ear and keep the other cocked for sounds from upstairs. While J.D. jerked and chewed his lip, Jess listened.

  Nothing. No voices, not even a whisper. He couldn’t stand to think about what was happening up in Ellen’s bedroom. Under his neckerchief, drops of sweat slid down past his Adam’s apple.

  He played his poker hands carefully and downed more whiskey than he usually did. The numbing effect of the liquor helped some, but not enough to keep his thoughts off Ellen. When J.D. finally scooped up the deck and stuffed it back into his vest pocket, Jess inhaled the first steady breath he’d drawn all evening.

  The two outlaws finally stumbled off to spread their bedrolls under the pepper tree beside the house, and Jess folded his body into Ellen’s wicker rocking chair on the front porch to sleep. Shep padded up the steps and flopped at his feet.

  “It’s no good, is it, boy?” Unconsciously he ran his palm over the loaded Colt stuffed in his belt. “Like Christmas in an orphanage—the present’s never for you.”

  He watched the fat orange moon climb over the trees, then closed his eyes and tried not to think. Instead he concentrated on the scrape of crickets and a frog’s deep-throated greedeep from the creek.

  J.D. had reason to hate his guts, Jess acknowledged. What man wouldn’t resent his woman running off with another man? Worse, Callie had fallen ill at the post. Flushed and feverish, she’d insisted it was just her monthly time, and he’d let her beg off an examination. But after another day of throwing up, he’d realized it was more than a female trouble. Food poisoning, maybe. Even cholera.

  But by the time he got her on the operating table, it was too late. Her appendix had burst, and she died under his knife.

  J.D. had found them, deserted his unit and came north looking for her. What he found was a fresh grave and a surgeon who swore he’d never operate again.

  They didn’t part friends, but when Jess met up with him later, in Colorado, J.D. grudgingly rode with him to the bunch holed up in a cabin near Leadville. Wanted to keep his eye on him, Jess thought, so J.D. could pick a time to kill him and not get hanged for it.

  That time had never come. Until now.

  He thought he heard a sound from inside the house. Just one, like a squeaky window sash being forcibly raised, then silence. Again he fingered the smooth butt of his revolver. If he had to shoot someone, it wouldn’t be his old enemy, J.D. It would be Dan.

  At dawn, Ellen slipped out of bed, dressed quietly and inched with clumsy movements down the stairs to start breakfast. In the doorway she paused, surveying her kitchen as if she�
��d never seen it before.

  The rosy light in the east made everything glow with warmth—the clean plates neatly stacked in the hutch, the soot-dusted stovepipe, her white muslin apron on the hook by the door. Even the now spur-scarred floor. But the place smelled like a saloon.

  At the back door sat a pail of foamy milk and a clutch of fresh eggs nestled in a blue bandanna. A whole dozen. She’d scramble them, she decided. She would relish cracking the shells hard against the rim of her mixing bowl.

  Dan lurched into the kitchen a half hour later, his eyes narrowed against the hard sunlight. “Coffee,” he croaked.

  Ellen didn’t look at him. “On the stove.”

  He sank onto a chair and put his head in his hands. “Pour me a cup, Ellie. My head feels like a mule stomped on it.”

  Ellen suppressed a bitter smile just as Gray and J.D. clattered through the back door. She eyed them without moving. The two men sat down without a word, looking considerably more subdued than they had the night before.

  She brandished the speckleware coffeepot and advanced to the table.

  “Much obliged, Miss Ellen,” Gray muttered. Dan and J.D. said nothing, just sipped the purposely overboiled brew.

  When Jess tramped up the back steps and through the wash porch, Ellen noted that he made sure the door slammed noisily behind him. All three men groaned.

  She couldn’t look at Jess. Instead, she splashed milk into the beaten eggs and noisily clunked the bowl against the iron skillet.

  “God, don’t do that, Ellie.”

  She slapped the spatula against the side of the pan once more, listened to the metallic ringing with keen satisfaction. “Do what?”

  She heard Jess chuckle as he moved toward the table. She wanted to see his face, but she didn’t dare raise her eyes. Instead, she let herself look as high as his waist, where his shiny Colt revolver protruded from his belt.

  “Mornin’, Miz O’Brian,” Jess said in an overloud voice. “Mornin’, boys.”

  Ellen stuffed back a hiccup of laughter and concentrated on stirring the eggs. She didn’t need to turn around to know that Dan flinched at the noise and that Jess was smiling. What little boys men could be!

  But it was funny. And just what her husband deserved for his oafish behavior the previous evening. Grinning, she bent her head over the cooking eggs, but managed to wipe the smile off her face as she clunked the frying pan onto the china platter.

  “Ellie,” Dan pleaded.

  “What?” She almost shouted the word. Jess cleared his throat, rose and scraped the coffeepot across the stovetop. Just before he turned back to the table, their eyes met.

  In his gaze she read amusement, anger and a burning question. She hoped her eyes showed the same things.

  Without a word, Jess leaned over the kitchen table, clanked the metal pot against the china mugs and sloshed coffee into them.

  “God almighty, Jess,” J.D. swore when his cup overflowed.

  Ellen drew in a healthy lungful of air. “Breakfast, gentlemen,” she blared. Then she pounded her crutch as heavily as she could across the floor.

  She did not sit next to Dan, Jess noticed. Instead, she took the chair he had just vacated, across from her husband.

  “Won’t you join us, Mr. Flint?” she said, her voice strident.

  Jess choked down a chuckle and sat down next to Dan. Not another word was spoken until the platter of scrambled eggs was scraped clean.

  Ellen pushed her chair back and fitted her crutch under her arm. “I will wash up the dishes now,” she announced in a loud tone. “What chores do you gentlemen intend to address?”

  “Aw, now, Ellie, you be mindin’ your manners. The boys and I have a special job that needs doin’ this mornin’.”

  “Oh?”

  With an inward chortle Jess observed that she feigned interest like a professional actress.

  “Never you mind, lass.” He rose, reached to pat her backside as he passed. Despite her leg, Ellen sidestepped to avoid his hand.

  Dan stopped short, frowning at her.

  “Not enough rosewater, maybe,” Gray murmured.

  Dan’s dark eyes turned to iron. “Come on, boys. We all know what we came for. I’ll just fetch a shovel from the barn.”

  The instant the men trooped onto the back porch and down the steps, Ellen bent her head and bit her tongue to keep from crying. Jess was right. Dan had not come home to her. Or to the farm she had struggled so desperately to keep going. He had come only for the money.

  An engulfing sense of loss swept over her, as if all the air had been sucked out of her, replaced by a cold, black fog of despair.

  What a fool she had been!

  Ellen stood on the front porch, her spine rigid, her gaze riveted on the barn door where Dan emerged, a shovel in one hand. Beside her, Jess watched the Irishman stride across the barnyard toward the far side of the house, where Ellen’s clothesline was attached. When Dan stepped around the corner, Jess laid his hand on Ellen’s shoulder.

  “Are you all right?” he asked in a low voice.

  She wrapped both arms over her middle. “Yes. And no.”

  A jolt of white-hot anger battered his gut. “Last night, did he…?”

  Ellen shook her head, still looking across the yard where Dan had disappeared. “He tried. He was too drunk to…” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know what to think, Jess. He isn’t the same man.”

  “You’re not going to like this, Ellen, but he is the same man. Maybe you’re just seeing him differently.”

  She did not reply for a full minute, and Jess held his breath, wondering if he’d been too blunt. Finally she unwrapped her arms and took a step toward the porch railing. “I am waiting to see what he will do.”

  “You know what he’s going to do,” he said gently. “Soon as he digs up that gold, it’ll burn a hole in his pocket and he’ll—”

  “He won’t,” Ellen snapped. “J.D. and Gray will leave. I want them to leave. But I do not believe Dan will go with them.”

  Jess’s heart twisted. Nothing he could do would protect her from herself. She was going to get hurt.

  “Dammit, Ellen, the trouble with the truth is that nobody believes it until it’s too late.”

  “It won’t be too late, Jess. I am stronger than you think.”

  He looked at her for a long minute, then nodded. “Okay. Let’s go watch act two of this performance Dan is putting on.”

  They moved slowly down the porch steps, Jess shortening his strides to match Ellen’s halting pace. Shep cavorted ahead of them, snapping at butterflies. When they reached the pepper tree in the side yard, the tight look on Ellen’s face made him wish he’d kept his mouth shut.

  The three men took turns with the shovel, slowly digging a hole in the hard-baked ground on the exact spot where Jess had stood four days ago, pinning clean laundry to Ellen’s clothesline. J.D. dug with some stiffness in his motions. Gray took over, attacking the earth with youthful gusto. And then Dan, who whistled happily as his excavation widened and deepened.

  “Ah, ’tis a fine day for findin’ a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, now isn’t it?”

  “Any day with some gold in it is a fine day,” Gray burbled. “Hurry up, Danny. Can’tcha dig any faster?”

  “I cannot, and that’s a fact, laddie.” He handed the spade back to the younger man and stood to one side.

  Jess and Ellen watched in silence as the work progressed. The sun climbed higher. Chickens clucked. The cow lowed from the far pasture. Sparrows chattered from the branches over their heads. As long as she lived, Ellen would remember this day, the hay and manure smell of the air, the sounds of the farm she loved despite everything. The farm she loved even more than Dan.

  And Dan’s flushed, sweaty face smiling his familiar devil-may-care smile while he scavenged for the fortune he’d buried years before.

  There was a time when that smile could set her heart thumping. Now as she watched her husband destroy the top layer of good farmland, she s
aw that he was someone she did not know. Only the look of him was familiar. What went on inside his head she could only guess at, and most of what she deduced she could not stomach.

  Dan was a thief. An outlaw on the run. Perhaps a killer as well, if what Jess had told her was true. Her husband gambled and drank and thought no further than enhancing his self-image in the eyes of his disreputable cohorts. Certainly he did not think of her, did not consider her feelings, or her well-being, even in her own house. To him, she was just Ellie who cooked his meals and scrubbed his dirty dishes, but was otherwise invisible.

  The spade struck something at the bottom of the hole. The dull thudding sound made Ellen clench her teeth.

  “Hurry it up, Gray,” Dan ordered. “You dig about as fast as an Indian smokes a pipe.”

  Gray scrambled out of the hole and buried the blade of the shovel in a mound of soft dirt. “Okay, Mister Big Man, you do it!”

  “I’ll do it,” J.D. rasped. “Can’t be much deeper.” He tossed out spadefuls of dirt, then stopped abruptly and straightened. “There it is! Looks like a leather satchel of some sort.”

  “That’s it!” Dan yelled. “That’s my pappy’s old traveling case. Brought all the way from Ireland, it was.”

  He leaped into the hole and elbowed J.D. out of the way. “Just a few more inches now, and we’ll have it.” The Irishman pitched dirt out of the excavation in a frenzy. “Ah, there ’tis. Look, boys!”

  He tugged a dirt-crusted, mildewed satchel out of the ground and heaved it at J.D.’s feet. Something inside clunked when it landed, and all three men broke into cheers.

  Ellen caught Jess’s gaze and a choking anxiety brought her heart to a stop. What does a man do when he actually finds his pot of gold?

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Lord, Lord, what a morning!” Doc Callahan exulted. He sucked in a huge breath of the warm summer air, pungent with pine and cedar. “Damn, it’s good to be alive!”

  He wanted to share this extraordinary day with someone. He wanted to tell Iona Everett how exceptionally beautiful he found the world, the town, even the fine layer of dust now covering his carefully polished boots. He stepped on down Strawberry Street under the canopy of spreading elms.