Loner's Lady

by Lynna Banning

  He tightened his arm around her. He wanted to touch her, kiss her until she wept with desire for him. He wanted to take her, now. Tonight.

  But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t leave her wondering if she might be pregnant with his child.

  “Ellen,” he whispered against her temple. “Ellen, wake up. I’ve got something to tell you.”

  She cuddled closer. “What is’t?” Her voice sounded like a sleepy child’s and it made Jess clench his jaw. She was not hardheaded and tough as she wanted him to believe. She was vulnerable in ways he couldn’t even think about.

  “Jess? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. Just want to say something that’s been on my mind.”

  “What is’t?”

  He had to smile at her drowsy words. God, he wanted to lie there beside her and hold her, safe and warm in his arms, until morning.

  “Ellen. I want you to know something. Something I’ve been planning to tell you ever since that Sunday at the picnic in town.” He hesitated, then stuffed down his fear. “I’m thinking of trying to change…something.”

  Everything. You’re trying to change everything.

  “Tell me, Jess,” she whispered. She reached up, pulled his head down so his chin rested on her hair. “Tell me.”

  He swallowed hard. “I’m not just in love with you, like a man falls for a pretty woman and down the road he gets over it. I love you. I didn’t want to, but I do. I want to be with you. I want you to be mine.”

  “Oh, Jess,” she breathed.

  He pressed his lips against her forehead. “Thought you’d want to know.”

  “Of course I want to know.” She ran her soft hand down his stubbly cheek. “I feel the same. And the frightening part for me is that it doesn’t feel wrong at all. It feels right, even though I can’t bring myself to break my wedding vows.”

  He stopped her words with his lips, then with a groan hauled her hard against him and kissed her again. He could have gone on all night, with her moaning under his mouth and his blood heating until he couldn’t think straight.

  “Ellen.”

  “Don’t let me go, Jess,” she murmured.

  He pressed his lips into the hollow at the base of her throat and gathered her close. He’d wait an hour, maybe two. He wouldn’t take her, but he couldn’t let her go just yet.

  Dan upended the pitcher on J.D.’s head. The man groaned, opened one eye and shook the water out of his black hair. “What the hell you do that for?”

  “Time’s a-wastin’, J.D. Get up.”

  J.D. grumbled under his breath and unkinked his legs. “What for?”

  “I’ll tell you at breakfast.”

  At that, J.D.’s bruised face lit up. “Breakfast? You mean your wife’s in the kitchen cook—”

  “Nope. Gray’s makin’ flapjacks.”

  “Flapjacks! I didn’t know Gray could—”

  “There’s lots you don’t know, J.D. C’mon.”

  The two men tramped up the steps and into the kitchen in silence. On the table sat a platter piled high with pancakes, surrounded by three oddly shaped fried eggs.

  Gray sent them an apologetic look. “Sorry there ain’t more eggs, fellas. That’s all I could find under them hens this morning.”

  J.D. sneered at the boy. “Maybe Miss Ellen got there ahead of you.”

  “Don’t think so, J.D. Haven’t seen Miss Ellen yet this morning.”

  Dan’s hands twitched. “She’s…she hasn’t come downstairs yet.”

  Gray looked hard at the Irishman. “Kinda late for the missus, ain’t it? Almost noon.”

  “Sure ’tis, boyo. She…had a hard night.”

  J.D. snickered. “About time, Danny Boy. About time.”

  An hour later, full of Gray’s flapjacks and coffee, Dan baited his trap. “Guess you know already, don’t you, J.D.?”

  “Know what?”

  “’Bout Jess takin’ the gold.”

  J.D. swore. “Always knew he was a selfish bastard.”

  Dan smiled. “Makes you want to get even, doesn’t it?”

  J.D. gave him a long look. “Where is he?”

  “In the barn. Where he hid the money.”

  The dark man stood up so fast the table shuddered. One coffee mug tipped onto its side, sloshing the brew over the surface. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

  Gray turned from the sink, the pancake spatula in his hand. “Go where?”

  “To get the money,” J.D. snarled. “And to get Jess, once and for all.”

  The spatula slapped onto the counter. “I got a share comin’, too. Wait for me!”

  Chapter Twenty

  Iona Everett wasn’t the kind of woman you expected to find in a small Oregon farm town. For one thing, every single day she fed and fussed over six persnickety boarders and a lazy gray cat named Chaucer, and she had been doing so ever since she was widowed eight years ago. Iona had mourned, then picked herself up from her heartbreak and her loneliness and marched on with her life.

  She’d been marching ever since.

  Town folks inhaled the pleasing scent of her lavender sachets every time they visited Gundersen’s Mercantile.

  Sheriff DeWitt greeted every new settler and all visitors with the same speech. “Most ev’rybody in Willow Flat smells like lavender, and that’s God’s gift to a town with two livery stables and a tannery within five blocks of each other.”

  Saturday night baths for protesting youngsters were scented with lavender soap, and housewives thanked the widow Everett every time they spread clean, scented sheets on their beds after wash day.

  Iona’s own bed, a handsome mahogany four-poster, smelled like Iona—a bit bacony after cooking and serving breakfast to her boarders, a bit earthy after digging in her herb garden and a bit flowery because she kept a potpourri of dried rose petals in every room of the three-story, eight-bedroom house on Chestnut Lane.

  For another thing, Iona planned her day around Dr. James Callahan’s solitary walk past her front gate at precisely nine o’clock each morning. She took care that her breakfast dishes were washed and dried, her back porch swept, the laundry folded and put away, and her other housekeeping chores for the day completed. Then she would strip off her apron, indulge in a quick spit bath upstairs in her yellow-wallpapered bedroom, and arrange herself prettily in the wicker rocker on her front veranda.

  This particular balmy summer morning, she rocked the runners back and forth in short, jerky arcs, her gray eyes scanning the lane for Doc’s predictable appearance. Iona had done exactly the same thing since her husband had died, and enough was enough. The time had come to help fate along a mite.

  She had a surprise in mind.

  Ellen awoke to Dan’s ringing voice below the loft. “Jess! You up there? We’re thinkin’ you owe us something!”

  She sat up slowly, careful not to rustle the straw.

  “You won’t get away with this, Jess,” another voice grated.

  Ellen pressed her hand over her mouth. They’d come for revenge. Dan had stirred up J.D. and Gray to the point of violence.

  She glanced around the loft. Where was he?

  “Jess,” J.D. yelled. “Show yourself!”

  Ellen crawled quietly to where she could peek over the edge of the loft. Gray paced back and forth, peering into stalls, poking his boot into mounds of straw. “Hell, forget Jess. Let’s find the money.”

  Framed in the open barn door, J.D. snorted, then frowned into the dim interior. “I say we get Jess first.”

  “Before we can do that, we hafta find him, boyo.” Dan surveyed the barn from top to bottom. “Show yourself, you snake!”

  “Bet he’s up in the loft,” Gray said in an undertone.

  Dan started toward the ladder, then paused and glanced toward the tack room. “Wait, laddie. Somethin’ tells me the bastard’s hid my gold in here somewhere. Maybe…” He headed straight for the tack room door.

  Ellen watched him stride forward without the slightest hesitation, and h
er breath caught. Of course. She’d been right. Dan already knew where the gold was hidden because he’d hidden it himself. She saw him yank open the tack room door and stumble over himself in his haste to get to the desk. His body tense, he leaned over, jerked open the middle drawer and jammed one hand inside.

  “It’s gone!” Dan blundered out of the room. “That bloody bastard took it!”

  J.D. waved his fist at the loft. “Come down from there, you scum!”

  Ellen’s stomach went cold at the venom in his voice. She let her gaze move slowly around the loft. Four fresh eggs, wrapped in Jess’s blue bandanna, sat beside a mason jar brimming with fresh milk.

  Then she noticed something else. In the space where Jess’s body had rested beside her lay his Colt revolver.

  Dear God in heaven, Jess really was gone. He’d taken the money and left.

  She shook her head to clear it. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. Tears scalded her eyelids.

  “Jess!” Dan’s shout jarred her shaky control over her emotions, and she clamped her jaw tight.

  “Come down here, you bloody coward.” Dan’s boot clunked on the first run of the ladder and Ellen jerked to awareness. From the corner of her eye she saw the shotgun Jess had arranged, the barrel still pointed toward the barn door. Making no noise, she crept over to it and lifted it to her shoulder.

  A sound from below told her Dan had climbed onto the second rung. She edged forward.

  J.D. and Gray stood motionless near the barn door. Dan’s head was bent as he felt for the next rung.

  She cocked the shotgun. The distinctive metallic snap brought Dan to a halt, his hand reaching upward.

  “Jess?” Dan’s voice had a quiver in it Ellen had never heard before.

  “Jess, don’t shoot. I’m not armed. None of us have sidearms with us. You’ve got all our weapons up there with you.”

  Thank God for that, Ellen thought.

  “Tell him to throw down the money,” J.D. muttered from the barn door.

  Gray gave a small, bitter laugh. “Hell, I bet he’s not even up there. Why would he stay around once he took the gold?”

  “Then tell me this, boyo,” Dan retorted. “Who’s up there in the loft pointin’ a shotgun at me?”

  “Gray’s right,” J.D. said. “Jess’d be long gone. If I’m not mistaken, that would be Miss Ellen in the loft, Danny Boy. Your wife.”

  “Thought you said she was still upstairs in the bedroom,” Gray blurted. J.D. jabbed an elbow sideways and Gray uttered a little grunt.

  Dan’s head tilted up, a questioning expression in his eyes. “Ellie? Is that you up there?”

  She didn’t answer. Tears slid over her cheeks, rolled off her chin and down her neck. Jess had taken the money and left her. She repeated it to herself over and over, struggling to make herself believe it. He’d taken the gold and ridden away.

  Dan’s boot cracked against another rung, and Ellen froze. Deliberately she brought the shotgun up and sighted down the barrel. She had fired it only once before, but she’d seen what it could do at close range. This near, it would blow a man’s face away.

  She couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

  Dan’s fingers appeared at the top of the ladder. “Ye wouldn’t shoot me, now wouldja, lass?”

  She aimed at the opposite corner, away from Dan, and pulled the trigger. The weapon kicked hard against her shoulder, but she managed not to cry out.

  Dan’s hand disappeared from the edge of the loft. With trembling fingers she recocked the gun and peeked over the edge.

  Dan had scrambled down the ladder, thrown himself onto the straw-strewn floor and rolled into a protective ball. Gray stood unmoving near the barn door, both hands in the air. She watched J.D. sidestep behind the boy, then dive for safety.

  “Dan, get outta there,” J.D. shouted from beyond the door.

  It was quiet for a moment. Ellen watched a shower of dust motes swirling in the hot air and tried to grasp what had happened. Dan intended to shoot Jess, but the hired man was gone.

  Suddenly Dan bolted for the door. “We gotta ride after him,” he yelled.

  Gray hunched over and ran like a scared jackrabbit. J.D.’s voice rasped over the sound of scuffling feet. “I’ll bet that damn thief took my horse, too!”

  “Weren’t your horse anymore, J.D.,” Gray yelled. “Jess won it off you, remember?”

  “Shut up, Gray. Dan, know where I can steal me a mount? I don’t fancy ridin’ double with the kid here.”

  The voices faded and Ellen began to shake. She had a cache of weapons. Eggs and milk for food. But Jess was gone.

  Pain cut into her belly, sharp and ruthless as a scalpel.

  She tried to think. J.D. and Gray would ride out after Jess. Dan, too. And one of them would kill Jess. She knew it as surely as if he’d written it all down for her. Dan could never resist the lure of easy money. And he would never want this farm. Or a child. Or anything else she believed had value in life.

  Jess would have wanted it. But Jess was gone.

  The main street of Willow Flat stretched like a wide brown ribbon, bordered on each side with storefronts. Cline’s Millinery, Barbershop & Baths, Svensen’s Mercantile, Wells Fargo Shipping, the Willow Hotel and Dining Room.

  The sheriff’s office.

  Jess drew in a careful breath and kneed the roan forward. It was early yet. The mercantile wasn’t open. Neither was the barbershop. He wondered if the sheriff was even at his desk.

  He tied his mount to the hitching rail, pulled off his saddlebag and clumped up the step onto the board sidewalk. Cold fingers squeezed his belly. He had to be ten times a fool to do this.

  Maybe he was, but it was what he’d decided. Last night, while Ellen slept safe in his arms, he’d thought it all through. Deep down he knew there was no other way.

  The plank door squeaked open and Jess stepped inside.

  The man behind the scarred desk pinned him with sharp gray eyes. “Keep meanin’ to oil that damn hinge,” he said with a smile.

  Jess nodded. “I guess the noise gives you some warning if you’re in the back.” He gestured toward the inner door, marked Jail.

  “Yeah, you could say that. Do somethin’ for you, mister?” The sheriff paused, eyebrows raised in expectation.

  Jess slung the saddlebag onto the single hard-backed chair and unbuckled the flaps. Without a word he hefted two heavy canvas bags and dropped them onto the desk in front of the sheriff. The man studied them, then looked up at Jess with a frown. “You wanna tell me what this is?”

  “Seventeen thousand dollars in gold dust.”

  The sheriff’s eyes didn’t flicker. “Where’d it come from?”

  “Train robbery, back in ’69. Union Pacific outside of Umatilla.”

  The sheriff rocked back in his chair. “You don’t say? Not every day someone drops a bag of gold dust in front of me. You steal it?”

  Jess held the man’s eyes. “I did. Me and three others. The Ryder gang.”

  “Whoo-eee! You ride with those boys, do ya?”

  “I did. Quit them right after that job.” He waited a beat, watching the man behind the desk. “I don’t hold with killing a man just because he gets lippy.”

  Again the sheriff leaned back and surveyed Jess, this time for so long sweat started down his neck. “My name’s DeWitt,” he said slowly. “Reynald DeWitt.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re that new fella I saw at the picnic with Miss Ellen.”

  “Name’s Flint,” Jess stated. He waited for the information to sink in.

  “Name doesn’t mean anything to me, Mr. Flint.”

  Jess glanced at the display board on the wall behind the sheriff. Yep, there it was, his photograph nailed right in the center. He stepped around the desk, ripped it free and laid it in front of DeWitt.

  “Jason Flint,” Jess pronounced carefully.

  The sheriff’s gray eyes didn’t change. “Don’t say.” He studied the picture. “Shaved off your beard, I see.”

  Jess star
ed at the man. Any other sheriff would have him in handcuffs and behind bars faster than he could spit. What was going on here?

  “I shaved it off, yes. Been working as a hired man for Mrs. O’Brian.”

  “Hell, I know all that. How’d you get your hands on all this gold?”

  “Her husband, Dan O’Brian. Some time back he buried it in the barnyard on their farm, and when the gang broke out of Riverton, I knew they’d come for it.”

  “They?”

  “Gray Nichols and J.D. Stedman. And Dan.”

  “I’ve heard of Stedman. Wanted for murder.” The lawman gave Jess a considering look. “Mr. Flint?”

  “Sheriff?”

  “You’re either a damn fool or a man that’s turned honest.” He looked Jess over, head to boots. “Can’t hardly believe either one. What is it you want, Flint?”

  Jess drew his Colt from the holster at his hip and laid it before the sheriff. “First off, I need a friend, DeWitt. Second, I want to make a deal.”

  DeWitt chuckled. “I’ve got your gun, and your gold, and I know who you are and you want to make a deal? Do I look like a lunatic to you?”

  “I know where the Ryder gang is now, and where they’re headed.”

  The sheriff’s chin jerked up. “What do you get out of this, mister?”

  Jess bit his lower lip. “It goes against my grain to betray men I once rode with. But there’s something I want more than that gold. More than my own honor.”

  “And what’s that, Mr. Flint? What would make you risk gettin’ yourself arrested, maybe even hanged from an oak tree?”

  Jess met DeWitt’s hard eyes. “I don’t want Ellen O’Brian hurt.”

  “And you think she might be?” The sheriff’s calm brown eyes studied Jess.

  “She’s out there alone with three Ryder gang members. One is her husband, and he’s a weak-kneed—”

  “Yep, always thought so myself. How come you left her there?”

  “Couldn’t think of another way. I lifted their sidearms and left Ellen in a well-protected place with a shotgun and my other Colt. Figured she would be all right until the law got there.”