“So you figured it was me?”
“I figured I’d look.”
“Look, Luke, I didn’t mean to just ride out like that, but . . .”
“You and Miss Kate had a fight. I know.”
Josh blinked. “She told you that?”
“Not ’zackly. She said it was her fault, that she did something awful to you, so you left.”
The simple explanation hit him hard on the heels of the ghastly story he’d just read. “It . . . wasn’t her fault. Not really.”
“I know.”
Josh blinked. “You know?”
The boy shrugged. “Miss Kate just couldn’t do nothin’ awful. ’Specially not to you.”
“Luke, my friend, you are wise beyond your years,” Josh said softly.
Luke gave him a look that was adult enough to prove his words. “Are you still my friend?”
“I hope so.”
“Are you still Miss Kate’s?”
There was a tone of desperate hope in the boy’s voice that made Josh stiffen. “Why?”
“Are you?”
He thought again of the book and its gruesome tale, of all the times he’d felt Kate had started to tell him something and been unable to bring herself to do it, of the story Luke himself had told him of her attempt to escape . . . and of the vicious bruise that had been Arly’s final legacy. He thought of the scars that marked her body, scars that had made him cringe inwardly at the thought of what she’d gone through. And then he thought of the scars that didn’t show.
She didn’t think she could survive another night like the one Arly had promised her.
She’d had no choice. She’d been utterly, completely desperate, and she’d used the only tool she’d had left to her, a man who, for all she knew, was the heartless killer his reputation bespoke, to whom one more killing would mean less than nothing.
She’d had no choice, but she blamed herself anyway, blamed herself not for the death of her brutal husband, but for what it had done to the man who had killed him.
She’d had no choice.
“Yes,” he said suddenly, “I’m still her friend.” If she’ll have me as one, he added silently.
“She needs help.” It burst from Luke urgently. “O1’ Arly’s brother’s here, an’ he’s bigger and uglier and meaner’n Arly was.”
Josh went very still. “When did he get here?”
“Couple of days ago.”
“What’s he done?” Josh’s stomach knotted. “Has he . . . hurt her?”
“No, but he called her awful names because she let you stay in the store after you killed Arly. And he said some things I didn’t understand, but Miss Deborah says they were really nasty, about Miss Kate and you.”
I’ll just bet he did, Josh thought grimly.
“And he made her leave.”
“Leave?”
“He put a new lock on the door upstairs. And he wouldn’t let her take anything with her, not even her clothes.”
“Didn’t anyone stop him?”
“They tried, Mr. Rankin, and Mr. Hall. But that man, he chased ’em off with Arly’s shotgun.”
“What about the marshal?”
“That man Mr. Rankin hit, turns out he was a deserter. He had to go turn him over to the army. Didn’t get back until today.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s staying with Miss Deborah. But she’s talking about leaving, and I don’t want her to, Josh. Not her, too.”
The implication made Josh flinch. “I’m sorry, Luke. I didn’t . . . want to leave.”
The boy shrugged, in an offhand gesture Josh himself had used so often at that age to mask the hurt inside. “Mr. Meeker—Hatch—told me when you first came I shouldn’t count on you stayin’ around.”
And he’d fulfilled that prediction, hadn’t he? Josh thought bitterly.
“Come on,” he said abruptly. “Help me break camp so we can get back to town.”
They were halfway there before Josh asked, “Does Kate know you came after me?”
Luke gave him a sideways glance, that strangely adult look still in his eyes. “No. She woulda been really mad if I’d told her.”
Of course, she would, Josh thought. How else would she feel? He’d accepted her own assessment of her guilt, when in fact his life was built on far more grievous sins. He’d judged her when he had no right, thought only of his own pain when he should have been remembering hers, and then he’d deserted her when she needed his help the most.
“Mr. Rankin know you have that horse?”
“He lets me ride him,” Luke said defiantly with a deft evading of the question Josh had to admire.
“Better get him back soon as we get in,” Josh recommended.
“I will,” Luke said. Then, after a moment of studying Josh’s face, he asked, “Are you gonna leave again?”
“I don’t know, Luke.” And that was nothing less than the truth, Josh thought.
When they pulled up behind Deborah’s house, out of view of the street, Josh looked over at the boy.
“Do something for me. After you take that horse back, you find out where Dixon is. Keep an eye on him, but stay out of his way, out where I can find you, all right?”
Luke nodded eagerly, as if glad to have something to do. Josh watched him go, then braced himself to knock on the door of Kate’s best friend, an indomitable woman in her own right.
It was only a moment before the door swung open.
“Well,” Deborah said, looking him up and down, “It’s about time. Over your sulking?”
Josh felt himself flush.
“Oh, I’m not saying you haven’t the right. But you cut it a little fine.”
“Is she here?” Deborah nodded. “Is she all right?”
“That’s a matter of opinion,” Deborah said.
“Luke said he hadn’t hurt her—”
“Not physically, if that’s what you mean. But I’d say being told she could stay in her home if she wanted to provide everything she’d provided for Arly, without benefit of marriage, carries its own kind of pain.”
“Son of a bitch,” Josh muttered, then grimaced. “Sorry,” he began, but Deborah waved him quiet.
“Don’t apologize. I quite agree.”
“As do I.”
As he spoke, Alex Hall came up behind Deborah and rested his hands easily on her shoulders. Josh’s gaze flicked from the lawyer’s hands to his face, where he found the distinct glower of a protective male, something he recognized because he was feeling a bit that way himself at the moment. It was yet another new experience for him, as were so many others since Kate had come into his life.
Josh looked at Deborah then, and saw the soft glow of feminine happiness in her eyes. As he’d once seen it in Kate’s eyes. He glanced back at the lawyer.
“Figure out those five years don’t mean as much as you thought?”
Deborah blushed, and lowered her eyes, but Alex met his gaze steadily. “Odd though it may seem,” the lawyer drawled, “considering the mess you’ve made of things, I thank you for that . . . lesson.”
Josh blinked. “The mess I’ve made?”
“Only a fool would ride out on a woman like Kate if, as someone once said to me, he was lucky enough to catch her eye. So what are you going to do about it?”
Josh’s jaw tightened. “What do you expect me to do? I’m a gunfighter. I draw men like Robards and Carter like carrion draws flies. And one day one of them will be faster.”
“Well,” Alex said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, “I suppose getting killed would be one solution.”
As had happened all too frequently lately, Josh had no answer for that. “Where is she?”
“Resting,” Deborah said suc
cinctly and pointedly.
Josh’s eyes narrowed. “Resting? That’s all?”
“I told you she’s not hurt. But she’s very tired. A lot has happened to her, and she’s facing a lot of difficult decisions.”
“Why didn’t anybody stop him?”
Alex flushed, but he met Josh’s gaze head on. “You’ve seen my ineffectiveness with a gun. Against a shotgun I would only wind up dead.”
“Sorry,” Josh wasn’t even reluctant about his admiration for the lawyer anymore. “You’re right . . . Alex. You stick to lawyering. The future’s going to be yours, I think. Men like me are on our way out.”
“Or on your way to change,” Alex suggested, looking pleased at Josh’s switch to his given name.
“Maybe.” Josh turned to Deborah. “You’re not going to let me see her, are you?”
“I will let Kate decide if she wants to see you. Later.”
“Fine,” Josh said, feeling more edgy by the moment. “I’ll go find Will Dixon and explain a few things to him.”
“He doesn’t carry a sidearm,” Alex said in a calm, merely informational tone. “At least not a visible one. Wouldn’t surprise me if he kept a derringer handy, though. And he keeps that shotgun of Arly’s handy when he’s in the store.”
A little surprised at the lawyer’s demeanor—and his realization of what Josh would need to know—he thanked him before he turned on his heel and headed toward the street.
He found Luke across the street from the saloon, watching the doors intently.
“He’s in Markum’s?” Josh asked.
Luke nodded. “You gonna kill him?”
For once the boy didn’t look eager to witness bloodshed, and Josh wondered if what had happened here on the street of Gambler’s Notch had cooled his ardor for violence.
“Not if I don’t have to,” he answered.
Luke hadn’t understated things, Josh thought, as he stepped into the saloon and immediately saw his quarry. Judging by his reflection in the fancy bar’s mirror, Will Dixon was bigger and considerably uglier than his dead brother. He didn’t know who’d given Dixon the scar that slashed across his throat, but Josh had the feeling before this was through he’d regret that the wound hadn’t been fatal.
As for the meanness, he didn’t doubt that, either; he’d seen kinder eyes on a grizzly. If this was what Arly had grown up with, it was no surprise that he’d been what he was, or liked to work out what must have been a lifetime of ineffectiveness on people who were unable to fight back.
Markum groaned as he looked up from behind the bar as Josh walked across the room.
“Easy, Hugh,” Josh said with purposeful cheer, “I haven’t put a hole in your fancy bar yet, have I?”
“No,” Markum agreed, with a quick flicking glance at the hulking man who was slowly turning from the bar to face Josh, “but there’s been five funerals since you’ve been here.”
“I won’t make it six unless someone makes me,” Josh said, still not looking at Dixon, who now had his back to the bar and was watching Josh with beady-eyed curiosity.
Markum had the half shot of whiskey that was Josh’s usual fare already poured by the time he reached the bar.
“Where’ve you been?” Markum asked, still sounding a bit testy.
Josh grinned. “Miss me, did you?”
Markum’s mouth curved reluctantly. “You do liven things up a bit, Hawk.”
Josh sensed Dixon freeze, but ignored him. “Always aim to please,” Josh said affably. “But I came back because I heard you’ve got a new resident here. Big, ugly fellow.”
Dixon stiffened, but again Josh ignored him.
“One who doesn’t know how to treat a lady,” he went on. “And thinks he can get away with it.”
Markum groaned aloud as Dixon pushed away from the bar.
“Fine talk,” the big man said, “from a gunslinger who shoots unarmed men.”
Slowly, Josh turned to face Arly’s brother. He swept his coat back and kept his gun hand clear, just in case the lawyer was wrong about Dixon’s armament.
“You speaking to me?”
Face-to-face, Will Dixon’s eyes were even colder and tinier than his brother’s. And they hadn’t missed Josh’s movements.
“Going to shoot another unarmed man, gunhawk?”
“I don’t know,” Josh said conversationally. “Am I?”
His tone seemed to anger the hulking man even further. “You killed my brother.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t care what that marshal says, Arly never carried no gun.”
Josh couldn’t dispute that, not after what Kate had told him. So he said only, “Defending your brother, even though he hated you?”
Anger flared in the man’s eyes, eyes so dark Josh couldn’t really tell what color they were. His hand crept up to the ugly scar, and suddenly Josh knew who had given it to him. Pity they hadn’t killed each other young, he thought.
“He was still my brother,” Dixon declared.
“Yes. And like you, he preferred beating up women and children who couldn’t fight back.”
“You mean that slut my brother bought, who spread her legs for you before Arly was even cold? She got what she had coming to her. And she’ll get worse before I’m through.”
Josh went very still.
“And your brother got what was coming to him,” he said in that deadly quiet voice the people of Gambler’s Notch had come to know. “And so will you if you do one tiny little thing to harm Kate. If you so much as look at her, I’ll gut shoot you and leave you to die in the street.”
“You’re welcome to try, Hawk.” Dixon puffed out his already considerable chest. “Come by my store anytime. I’ll be waiting. And when you’re dead, I’ll spread that slut’s legs myself, and show her what a real man is like. I’ll use her until there’s nothing left.”
It took every bit of Josh’s self-control to let the man walk out alive. Only the fact that he wasn’t sure he was armed made him do it. But he knew now that what he’d told Luke was a moot point. He would have to kill Will Dixon.
“Make sure he keeps his bar bill paid,” he said to Markum, watching the doors swing after Dixon swaggered out. “He’s not going to be alive long.”
Chapter 22
“HE’S . . . HERE?” KATE stared at Deborah and Alex. “He came back?”
“He never was very far away,” Deborah said, explaining where Luke had found Josh camped.
“And apparently he made it quite clear to Will Dixon this afternoon what would happen to him if he continued to bother you,” Alex added.
“I don’t understand why he came back,” she said, feeling more confused than ever. “Why would he do that?”
“I think you do understand,” Deborah said softly, “but you’re afraid to believe.” Kate glanced from her friend to Alex, then back. “Yes,” Deborah said, correctly interpreting her look, “I was afraid, too.”
Alex, sitting beside Deborah on the sofa, slipped his arm around Deborah’s shoulders. “You and Josh made me realize what a fool I was being, to let such a silly thing stand between us. Don’t let—”
A rap at Deborah’s front door interrupted him.
“I’d guess that’s for you,” Deborah said. “Alex and I were about to go for a walk anyway. A very long walk.”
“We were?”
“Of course we were. Out the back door.”
“Oh.” Alex blinked. “Oh! Of course we were.”
The rap came again, sharper this time, and Kate looked at the door with trepidation. She turned back to Deborah, just in time to see her friend vanish through the kitchen, Alex on her heels.
“Kate!”
Dear Lord, it really was Josh. She hadn’t really believed it, could see no
reason why he would come back, why he would try to help her, after he’d found out what she’d done. But he was here.
He rapped again, sharper yet. She wanted to run. In a very different way, she was more afraid of facing Josh than she’d ever been of facing Arly’s fists. That was only physical pain; this . . . this was something she’d never felt before.
But she couldn’t run. Whatever else she’d done, she couldn’t run. Not from Josh. Taking a deep, steadying breath, she made herself walk to the door. She smoothed down the one dress she now had, only because she’d been wearing it when Will had thrown her out. Deborah had supplied her with fresh underthings, but she was too tall for any of her friend’s dresses. But she should be used to this by now, looking shabby. And Josh had never seen her any other way.
Except naked in his arms. She bit her lip to fight off the stinging, beautiful images that came to her then. And the memory of the morning she’d discovered that she wasn’t carrying his child, further proof that she would never be able to. She had met the realization with sadness rather than relief, despite the awful problems it would have presented.
She forced herself to move. With a hand she couldn’t keep from trembling, she opened the door.
It had only been a week, but she felt as if she hadn’t seen him for months. He stood there on Deborah’s porch, looking at her in a way it took her a moment to recognize. And then it came to her—he was looking at her in a way that matched the way she was feeling inside, as if he’d been hungry for the sight of her in the same way she’d been for him. It seemed impossible, but she couldn’t deny the heat in his gaze. And when he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, she found herself holding her breath.
For a long moment he continued to just look at her. She couldn’t speak; it was taking every bit of her strength to keep from trembling. But when he finally spoke, soft and low, she lost that battle.
“I’m sorry, Kate. I know now you didn’t have any choice. There was nothing more you could have done, any more than I could have done anything to save my family.”
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