by Jodi Thomas
He laughed. “Death threats won’t work. You belong to me. We agreed to marry. You came to meet me alone. No one forced you. I have a room for us at the hotel where you can rest. You’ll see, in a few days everything will be as it should be. You got mixed up, that’s all.”
Andrew had had enough. He opened his good eye and cleared his throat. “I don’t know what your game is, mister, but I’m guessing there’s not a court in the country that’ll find me guilty of shooting a man trying to force my wife to leave my side. Get this straight. She isn’t going anywhere with you.”
Everyone, including Beth, stared at him as Andrew pulled himself up. Every muscle in his body was sore, but they all worked. He circled his arm around Beth’s waist and was relieved to find her Colt still strapped to her side. Smart girl.
“I didn’t put a ring on her finger to give her away to the first man who wants her. If you’re interested in marrying my wife, you’ll have to bury me first.” He leveled Beth’s gun at the senator’s middle.
“Now hold on a minute.” The sheriff took a step backward and looked at LaCroix. “Senator, I thought you were saying that this woman claimed she was engaged to a dying unconscious man. You didn’t say she was married.” He pointed at the ring on her left hand. “I want no part of taking a man’s wife away.”
Lamont no longer looked sure of himself. He stretched his neck like a huge turtle and examined Beth’s face. “There couldn’t be two women who look like her. She’s a liar, Sheriff, and obviously, so is he. The two of them are trying to pull something over on me.”
“Yeah, and I’m starting to think I’m joining their ranks, ’cause damned if I don’t see matching gold bands on their hands. Seems to me like a man playing a joke wouldn’t have time to leave his deathbed to go with his crazy bride to pick out rings.”
“I tell you it’s a trick. She’s not married to him. Just ask anyone who knows her. She’s spoiled and probably figured out she couldn’t get everything she wanted if she married me, so she’s made up this story. I’ve heard tell a hundred men have proposed to her and she’s said no to them all.”
The sheriff nodded as if trying to follow along. “I’m starting to see the light here. It seems to me, Senator, that any man determined to marry a woman he thinks is a babbling liar and spoiled to boot—and doesn’t want to marry him—might have a few spokes missing from his wheel as well.”
He turned to Andrew. “Put down that gun, son. No one is going to take your wife away from you. In fact, I’m real sorry about this whole mess. You look like you two have enough problems with your injuries without having to worry about someone trying to separate you.”
“I tried to tell you both that the woman’s been with him since the train wreck.” The doctor chimed in as if he’d finally been proven right. “She wasn’t waiting for Lamont LaCroix in Dallas; she was by this man when I got to the wreck. She’d been trying to stop his bleeding. If she hadn’t, he might have been dead by the time I got out there.”
The doctor moved around Lamont as if the senator had grown roots. “Except for when she went to take care of her horse, she’s been right here by this man’s side. Seems a strange thing to do if she wasn’t his wife.”
“You got anyone in town who knows you, Mrs. McLaughlin?”
“Only my husband.” She smiled at Andrew. “He knows me quite well.”
Lamont obviously wasn’t a man who ever thought he was wrong. He glared at Andrew as if he knew that somehow they were cheating him.
For a moment Andrew thought of shooting him for simply trying to take his wife, but then he remembered that Beth wasn’t his and this was all some kind of make-believe that she’d invented. If she stayed around after the sheriff left, he planned to ask her a few questions, like Why? and Why him?
He tugged her closer and she leaned her face into him as if no longer even willing to look at Lamont LaCroix.
When the men finally left the ward, he felt her tears on his shoulder. “It’s all right,” Andrew managed. “He’s gone. I don’t blame you for not wanting to marry him. I don’t even know him and I hate his guts.”
“You saved my life again,” she whispered. “I was about to start screaming at him, and if I had, that would have only proven that I needed a caretaker. I’ve never been so angry, or lost. I’ve never had someone try to control me. It’s like he thinks I’m a thing he lost, not a person.”
Andrew moved his hand along her back. “You did fine. He’s nothing but a bully. Some men, once they get a little power, think they run the world.”
She pulled away. “He couldn’t have forced me to marry him, could he?”
Andrew had spent a year studying law once, then hadn’t bothered to take the exam. “I don’t think so.”
She frowned. “If he had, I’d have made every day of his life hell.”
“I have no doubt,” he said, grinning, “but I can’t blame him for trying. You are one beautiful woman.”
She shook her head, telling him she didn’t care for the compliment.
“You were also smart to keep quiet and let me make the threats. I have no doubt you wouldn’t be wearing that Colt if you couldn’t use it, but you showed a great deal of courage to stand silent. No one, not even the sheriff, blamed me for pulling a gun, but if you had, that might have worked against you.”
She nodded. “Are you telling me you’re the better liar?”
“Without a doubt.” Andrew leaned over and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “And don’t you ever forget it, wife.”
The kiss had been playful, meant to help her relax, but the ease of it reminded him to be careful. Don’t get involved. Don’t care, or, more important, don’t allow her to care for him. She was just a person passing through his life. In a few days all she’d be was an entry in his journal, and all he’d be to her was a stranger who’d once helped her.
She mistook the worry in his stare as pretend. “Be careful, sir. I have a derringer tucked away that I also know how to use.”
“I believe you completely, dear.” He leaned back, suddenly exhausted. “I think I’d better lie down before I pass out. I’ve lost so much blood I think my body has given up trying to pump any to my head.”
When she tucked him in, he caught her hand once more. “Promise you won’t leave me yet. I’d like to talk to you some more.”
“I promise I’ll be here when you wake up.” She brushed his hair back. “Only once you’re asleep, I have to go check on my horse.”
“The roan?” he said with his eyes closed.
“Yes, Brandy Blue. I’ve had him for years.”
“I have a horse I need to find as soon as I get out of here,” Andrew whispered almost asleep. “A pinto with front stockings. Everything I care about in the world is packed away in saddlebags tied to that horse’s saddle.”
He closed his eyes, hoping she wasn’t lying about being there when he woke. She was the kind of woman he wanted to know better, not only so he could log her traits into his journal, but also so he could let her slip into his dreams.
As he drifted into sleep, he heard her tell the man in the other bed that she’d get him some water. It crossed Andrew’s mind that she might be married to that fellow by the time he woke again.
CHAPTER 4
AS BETH MCMURRAY WALKED OUT OF THE WARD AFTER making sure Lamont was gone and Andrew slept solid, she almost stepped on a little boy sleeping in the hallway. He jumped up, wide-eyed and afraid.
“What are you still doing here?” She reached to touch his shoulder, but he pulled away. “It’s far too late to visit. Are you lost?” He had a ragged, unkempt look about him.
He gathered his blanket and shoes. “The doc lets me sleep here if I stay out of the way. I go get him if there’s any trouble, and he pays me for sweeping up.”
“It’s after dark. Shouldn’t you be home?” From the look of him, no one ever worried about him.
“My kin knows where I am. If nobody is staying in the ward, I sleep in the barn loft a block
away. It’s warmer in here, but sometimes it’s quieter in the loft.”
“What’s your name?” She’d seen children who managed to live in town on their own. The war and illness had left many families shattered.
“Levi Hawthorne, miss.” He straightened. “I can write my name real proper and can read most of the words in the Bible. My father taught me.”
Beth smiled down at him. “That’s wonderful, Levi. I was wondering if you could do me a favor. I’d pay you, of course.”
“I’ll try, miss.” He tilted his head sideways as if measuring trust out by the ounce.
“Did you see that tall man who came in here yelling at me about an hour ago?”
He nodded. “The one with Sheriff Harris and the doc? Dressed all fancy-like but huffing and puffing like a steam engine.”
“That’s him.”
Levi shook his head. “I don’t trust him any more than I do the doc. He’s got cold eyes, like something’s already dead inside him.”
She decided to let the boy’s judgment of Lamont pass for now. “Why don’t you trust the doc?”
He looked around and whispered. “He don’t doctor to help people, he just does it for the money. If he thought your man couldn’t pay, he’d have him moved down to the nuns’ charity ward.”
“Oh.” Beth didn’t doubt the boy’s words, but tonight she had all the trouble she could handle. “Between me and you, Levi, I’m kind of scared of the big man who huffs and puffs. I was wondering if you’d walk with me to a place where I could eat in peace and stay with me while I have some supper. I’d buy you a meal and pay you two bits for being my bodyguard. If trouble does come, all you have to do is run for the sheriff. You do trust the sheriff, don’t you?”
“I sure do, miss. He’s a hard man, but not cruel.”
“Good, then you’ll come with me?”
“I reckon I could.” He sat down to put on shoes several sizes too big. Then he stored his bedding under a vacant cot, checked on the man tied to the bed half a room away from Andrew, and followed her out. “I know a little place where nobody will bother you. It’s run by a nice girl after dark who gives me and my brother free soup sometimes. Her name’s Madeline, but she hates it so we call her Madie.”
They went to a little café near a run-down livery so badly in need of repair that Beth had walked another two blocks to stable Brandy Blue. The roads were muddy and the boardwalks in need of repair.
Levi offered his arm as if he were a man escorting a proper lady. His kindness made her proud to be by his side. He might be only half-grown, but sometime, someone had taught him manners.
The menu choices in the café were limited, but the place looked clean. Beth didn’t talk to the kid while he ate, so she learned a great deal watching him. It had been a few days since he’d had a regular meal, so he tried to eat slowly and use his napkin each time before he drank his milk. His clothes might be those of a street kid, but he’d had someone who cared about him once.
When she noticed him squirreling away rolls with a bite of meat inside, she motioned for the waitress to bring more rolls. The young, well-rounded girl smiled down and winked at the kid, then set a full basket of rolls on the table.
“Thank you, Madie,” Beth said. It crossed Beth’s mind that the girl might be pregnant, but she didn’t look to be older than fifteen. Surely not. Maybe she ate far too many of her boss’s hot rolls at night while she watched over the customers.
Finally, when Levi sat back to rub his stomach, he said, “You know that pinto your man was talking about losing?”
Beth leaned forward. “The one with front markings like white stockings?”
“Yeah. I know where a horse like that is. I was next door at the livery before dark and I saw a man ride in with several ponies he wanted to sell. When I told him the owner wouldn’t be back for a while, he said he’d wait and put the horses in the corral like he owned the place.”
“How many horses?”
“Six besides the one he was riding. Most looked all broken down, but the pinto was fine stock.”
“Were they all saddled?”
The kid nodded. “Yeah, come to think of it they were. I thought that was strange. Never seen anyone sell a string of saddled horses. My father used to trade horses now and then. He taught me to tell the good ones from the bad.”
“Where are your parents?” Beth knew she was prying, just as she knew they were probably dead. The boy hadn’t answered when she’d asked about them earlier.
“My mom’s buried somewhere near New Orleans, but my father, Theodore B. Hawthorne, is off wandering the great and massive world. Our mother always said if something ever happened to her, finding our father would be a grand quest, and it’s proving to be. Sheriff Harris said he could have been here in town for a while last spring. Thought he heard some drunk say that a gambler with a fancy name moved on to Fort Worth for some big poker game going on in Hell’s Half Acre.”
Levi Hawthorne began to play with the dozen peas left on his plate. “After Mother died, he left us in Jefferson with his half brother. Our uncle was a mean little man who liked nothing better than to swing his cane across our backsides. We stood it for as long as we could, but my mother always said our uncle had mean baked in him to the core.
“When our father didn’t come back after three months, Leonard and me decided to leave and go find him. The day he left he was heading west, so we did too.” He propped his chin on his fist. “We’re on a quest, miss, plain and simple. Like the knights in stories my father read us, except there’s no riches involved. Our father is a good man, he just forgets about us from time to time. With no money for a train, we’re doing odd jobs until we can afford to move on.”
Beth didn’t miss the grown-up way the child talked. When he’d said his family knew where he was, she’d thought the boy meant his parents. Now she realized he’d meant his brother. “Is there anything I can do to help you on your quest?”
“I’ll let you know if an idea comes up.” For a moment Levi looked very old for his ten years. Sometime along his quest, he’d lost the little boy in him. Too small to be a man, too worried to be a kid. Even the way he talked hinted that he wanted to be older than his years, or maybe he thought he needed to be.
“We’re doing all right, miss, but that guy in the bed down from your husband, he could use some help. Would you check on him? But don’t tell anyone I asked you to.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Nothing but a snakebite when he came in, but every morning before dawn the nurse gives him a treatment and he gets weaker. He asked me for water a few days after they tied him to the bed. Even said thanks when I helped him. But the next day he was all mumbles that didn’t make sense. After the next treatment he quit making any sounds.”
“Who is he?”
“Don’t know, and I’ve never seen him have a visitor. Someone said he got bit at the hotel, but I’ve never known a snake that could climb to the third floor, and any cowhand would know the sound of a rattler before it strikes. He looked all beat up. I never heard of a snake beating a man up before he bites him. Nothing makes sense about him. The doc comes in every morning and asks him to sign some papers, but lately they have trouble getting him to listen. I get the feeling that if he could sign they’d leave him alone, but I don’t know if that would be good or bad.”
She remembered how fast the doctor had been to offer something to calm her when Lamont said she was in shock. He’d also known she was with Andrew at the wreck, yet he hadn’t come to her defense until the sheriff questioned Lamont. “I’ll check on the man. I promise.”
Gunfire rattled the night like a line of firecrackers popping in the street. Everyone in the café jumped. A woman screamed. Levi melted under the table, and Beth ran to the window with several others.
They couldn’t see much. A few men running. Gunfire. Shouting. People who’d been on the street hurrying into the café for cover.
“What’s going on?” someone yelled
.
“Sheriff’s got the last of the outlaws from the train robbery cornered in the livery,” a man answered as he ducked for cover. “Bet it’s Chesty Peterson. Old coyote finally got himself caught.”
Everyone started mumbling as more gunfire came, along with shouts for the outlaw to come out with his hands up or be shot. Beth moved back to the table and knelt to see the kid and the waitress huddled low. Even in the shadows she could see he was fighting back tears as Madie tried to comfort him.
“It’s all right. We’re safe in here.” Beth knew her words were little help.
He shook his head. “My brother’s in the barn. He’s not safe, and I made him swear he’d stay put until I came back. I tried to make him come sleep at the hospital with me, but he preferred horse smell to blood smell.”
Beth didn’t argue. “He’ll know to stay down. This will all be over soon.”
The boy didn’t look like he believed her. His round eyes stared up at her as someone in the growing crowd shouted that the sheriff should burn the barn and take no chance of the train robber getting away. Then someone else agreed that the livery was a pile of rotting board anyway, and fire would only improve the value of the lot.
Another yelled that they should shoot the horses in the corral, cutting off any attempt at escape.
“We got to do something.” The kid closed his hand around Beth’s wrist. “I got to do something fast.”
“You’re right.” All the stories her uncles used to tell her of the Texas Rangers floated in her mind. There was no time to be a coward. Sometimes acting and maybe being wrong is better than waiting and doing nothing to try and help. “If I can create a distraction, can you get in the barn and get your brother out?”
“I think so. There’s a few boards loose on one side. I could slip through, but I’d have to go in the corral to get there.” Neither pointed out that if the sheriff’s men shot the horses, the boy would be right in the line of fire.
“Get as close as you can and wait until you hear my voice before you run for the opening. Then, get in and get your brother out as fast as you can. I’ll meet you both back at the hospital.”