by Jill Gregory
Nick Barclay’s cool gaze shifted from one to the other of them. He whistled low as he saw how the dark-haired beauty with those entrancing silver eyes looked at his older brother, and how Clint looked back at her—as if he couldn’t see anyone or anything else.
“Well, big brother,” Nick said slowly, “you’re as loco in love with Miss Spoon here as Wade is with his Caitlin, aren’t you? I never thought I’d see the day when both my brothers—” He broke off and tipped his hat at Emily. “Begging your pardon, ma’am. But it’s a regular shock. I think I need some strong spirits to help me recover.”
“Don’t feel sorry for him, Emily,” Clint said roughly. “He’ll never recover. The very mention of marriage makes my little brother break out in hives.”
Emily laughed at the two of them. Obviously there was strong affection between the Barclay boys—every bit as much as between Pete and Lester. But while Pete and Lester, as cousins, could not have looked more dissimilar, Clint and his brother bore a powerful resemblance to each other. Nick had the same tall, muscular physique as Clint, but his hair was even darker and his eyes were a deep gray, so dark they were almost black.
Dangerously handsome good looks obviously ran in the Barclay family, she thought.
“When is the wedding?” Lissa asked excitedly.
“Next week.” It was Emily who answered her. “Clint sent telegrams to Wade and Caitlin at Cloud Ranch, and he was hoping to get word to you in time as well,” she told Nick with a smile. “So it’s lucky you turned up when you did.”
“How the hell did you happen to become Lissa’s escort?” Clint demanded.
“After the Parkers and Lissa worked out all their differences and settled all their family business, Sam and Lila got in touch with me. They were worried about all the trouble Lissa had in Jefferson City.” Nick’s gaze flicked for a moment to Joey’s rapt face, then he continued, “and they asked if I would get her safely to Colorado and back with her son.”
“Joey, you hear that?” Emily knelt down. “The man who’s going to travel back to California with you and your mama is Sheriff Clint’s brother! Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Are you a sheriff too?” Joey asked, grinning hopefully up at the tall man who looked so much like Sheriff Clint.
“No, I’m not, but I can shoot and ride and track every bit as good as my brother here.” Nick chuckled, then his face grew sober. “And I can protect you and your mother. No one’s going to bother or scare either of you, Joey, I promise you that. And I’ll stay with you until you’re safely home in your grandfather’s house in California.”
“That’s good,” Joey nodded. “But I don’t want to leave till after the wedding. Is that all right, Mama?”
“We’re not going anywhere until after this wedding.” Lissa hugged him and glanced gratefully up at Emily. “I can never thank you enough,” she said, tears brimming in her eyes.
“Guess what, Mama! I’m not so scared now.” Joey let go of her, stepped back, and gazed at her proudly. “’Cuz I’ve learned lots of things from Sheriff Clint and Uncle Jake and Pete and Lester. And John Armstrong was here, but he went away and he’s never going to find us now—”
“He … was here?” Lissa straightened, going pale as she looked at Emily in alarm. Nick frowned and threw his brother a quick glance, but Clint spoke calmly.
“He never saw the boy, Lissa. He didn’t spot Emily either, thanks to some quick thinking on her part.” He threw a swift grin at the woman he was planning to marry, then scooped Joey up and set the boy upon his shoulders, as Joey shouted in delight. “Come on, let’s head back to the Spoon place and we’ll fill you both in.”
“You’re going to sleep in Em-ly’s room, Mama,” Joey explained. “And guess what! She baked a big chocolate cake—and you get to have the first piece!”
“Only if Pete and Lester haven’t gobbled it all up by the time we get back!” Emily muttered ruefully.
It was good to have Lissa there, sharing her room during this visit, helping her to prepare for the wedding. In the days that followed they had a chance to catch up on all that had happened since Lissa had fled Jefferson City and Emily had taken Joey into her care. Lissa told her how her grandparents had wept with joy when she’d explained she wanted to patch up the family quarrel that had separated them from her parents years ago. How they wanted her to come live with them in San Francisco and to help her to raise Joey. And in their three-story mansion, full of servants, and far from the world of John Armstrong, how she had for the first time in many months felt safe.
As for Joey, the boy was excited at the thought of getting to know the great-grandparents he’d never met. Though he was saddened to be leaving Emily and Sheriff Clint and Uncle Jake and Pete and Lester, as well as Bobby Smith and his other friends, Lissa promised him they would come back to visit, and that all of his friends from Lonesome—especially Emily and Uncle Jake—could come visit him in San Francisco, an idea he quickly warmed to.
Then Emily told her friend all about her first meeting with Clint Barclay, about the box lunch social, and about the plot against the Mangley women. She told Lissa how Uncle Jake and Pete and Lester—along with Clint—were now heroes in the town of Lonesome. She reassured a shocked Lissa that Ratlin was dead and Jenks, Frank Mangley, and Rudy Sleech, the mine foreman, were all in jail in Denver awaiting trial. And she told her how Pete seemed more than a little in love with Florry Brown, and that she wouldn’t be at all surprised if Lester was soon walking down the aisle with Carla Mangley—and how she, Emily Spoon, had fallen helplessly in love with a lawman.
“And your uncle—and brother—and Lester—they have accepted him? I mean, Emily, you said he’s the man who sent your uncle to prison!”
“They’re the ones who brought us together,” Emily replied. “Strange as it seems. After working together to trap Ratlin and the others, I think they all came to respect each other, to a point. But Uncle Jake and Pete and Lester would rather jump off a cliff than admit anything other than loathing for a lawman. They just know he makes me happy,” she murmured, a smile curving the corners of her lips.
“Well, any fool can see that,” Lissa laughed. Then she sobered and clutched Emily’s hands in hers. “I get shivers all over when I see the way he looks at you. You’re lucky, Emily, to have found a man like that—a man who loves you so much.”
“I know. But it’s not half as much as I love him,” she replied almost to herself, then she smiled at her friend. “When I came here, I just wanted a fresh start with my family. I didn’t want to be alone any more. But I never thought I’d find a man as wonderful as Clint. He’s strong, but Lissa, he’s so gentle. So caring. And … when Jenks told him that Ratlin had captured me, Clint made him tell where I was. Pete told me about it—he said Clint was ready to kill Jenks on the spot. It would have cost him his badge—he might have even gone to jail—but, according to Pete, Clint didn’t care about anything else at that moment—except finding me. He loves me even when I’m stubborn and hot-tempered and disagreeable.” She laughed. “What do you think of that?”
“That’s how it should be, Emily.” Lissa’s eyes shone. “I’m glad for you. And he’s going to faint with pleasure when he sees you in your wedding gown.”
“He’d better.” Emily’s laughter rang out like softly chiming bells. “Or I’ll be most disappointed.”
The days leading up to the wedding seemed to fly by. Emily awakened every morning thinking that soon she would be waking up next to Clint—and she spent every evening with him talking and holding hands and kissing on the front porch.
All the days were happy ones, brimming with friends coming to visit and offering suggestions for the wedding, while Emily sewed her wedding gown from morning until night. Nettie Phillips and Margaret Smith and Lissa helped her make plans for the reception, which would take place in the big parlor of Nettie’s boardinghouse. Wade and Caitlin Barclay were due to arrive the day before.
And for their honeymoon, Clint wanted to take Em
ily first to Cloud Ranch, to see the home where he’d grown up, and then on to San Francisco, to see the sights and visit again with Lissa and Joey.
The morning before her wedding day dawned clear as crystal. Wade and Caitlin’s stagecoach was due in at three o’clock, and Emily had planned a big fancy dinner to welcome them. Nettie gave her a recipe for lobster patties and Lissa had one for roasted sage hen with raisin and carrot stuffing and they woke up early and began to scour and clean the little ranch house until every floor, lamp, and stick of furniture shone like a jewel. Then they turned their attention to baking two big peach pies.
At noon Uncle Jake and the boys returned for lunch, and Clint and Nick arrived to see how the preparations were going. Emily fixed enough ham sandwiches for everyone, but after lunch shooed them all out of the kitchen as the women set to work on the elaborate dinner.
“Sure smells good in here,” Joey announced after Uncle Jake fetched him home from school. He traipsed toward the windowsill where the pies were cooling, but his mother steered him away, toward the gleaming table instead.
“You must be on your best behavior tonight, young man,” Lissa reminded him as she poured him a glass of milk and set a hunk of bread spread with jam before him. “Sheriff Clint’s brother and his wife are special guests and you need to use your very nicest manners.”
“Joey’s manners are always perfectly lovely,” Emily said quickly, winking at the boy. “But if you play gin rummy with Wade Barclay—or Clint or Nick,” she added suddenly, “remember not to cheat.”
“Cheat?” Lissa’s eyes widened.
“Uncle Jake taught me how—I can do it so no one can tell,” the boy bragged.
Emily nodded grimly at Lissa’s dismayed expression. “Goodness,” his mother said faintly. “Perhaps that’s something you’d best forget about before we reach San Francisco—”
“You ain’t going to San Francisco, you sneaking little bitch. You ain’t going nowhere.”
Emily dropped the carrot she’d been slicing onto the floor. It rolled clear across and landed near the toe of John Armstrong’s dust-filmed boot.
Lissa’s ex-fiancé filled the doorway of the cabin, looking even bigger and more powerful than Emily remembered. He was holding a rifle casually at his side and there was a sheathed knife at his waist. At sight of him, Lissa gave a choked scream, and Joey, seated at the table, froze, his small hand clenched around the milk glass.
Emily felt her heart stop, skip, and start again, thudding fast and furiously in her chest.
Outside the day was lovely, warm, peaceful. A light breeze toyed with the leaves on the aspens, a lark sang merrily, and chickens squawked in the new pen near the barn.
Inside the cabin, the fragrance of the fresh pies was obliterated by the smell of John Armstrong’s hair pomade mixed with the odor of his sweat. Lissa’s tiny, terrified moan was the only human sound.
Armstrong’s lips drew back in a taut, terrifying smile.
“Just happened to hit town, ladies. Passing through on my way to a brand-new job over in Huntsville, and what do you know? The whole town’s talking about some big wedding tomorrow—and all the visitors going to be here for it.”
He stepped into the cabin and kicked the door closed behind him. “Just so happened I heard some names I know. Guests of the bride and groom. Lucky stroke for me.” The smile broadened, growing, if possible, even colder. “Not so lucky for you, bitch,” he told Lissa. “Or your precious brat.”
His eyes shifted to Emily, white-faced at the counter, her hands closed around the chopping knife. “Or your nosy friend here. Not too lucky at all.”
“Something I need to say to you, Barclay.”
Jake Spoon had caught up with Clint and Nick a quarter mile from the ranch. As his horse pranced restlessly, Jake fixed the sheriff with a stern look.
“Can’t it wait, Spoon? I’m on my way to meet my brother’s stage.”
“This won’t take long.” Jake ignored Nick, who sat a big black gelding with ease. Instead he studied the sheriff a moment, his expression unreadable as his eyes pinned the broad-shouldered man who had tracked him down more than seven years before and sent him to jail.
“If I got to pick who my niece gets to marry, you’d be the last man on my list.” Jake spat into the dust of the trail. “But I don’t get to pick—Emily makes up her own mind. And she picked you.”
“So?” Clint’s mouth was a thin line.
“I don’t want anyone ever to say I’m not a fair man. I stole what didn’t belong to me, and I paid for it. Now it’s over.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want you throwing it in her face.”
Beneath the hard words, Clint heard a quaver in Jake’s voice. It struck him, not for the first time, but perhaps stronger than ever, just how much Emily meant to the old man.
“I wouldn’t do that,” he said quietly. “I love her.”
Jake nodded. “Reckon that’s the only reason I’m letting this wedding go forward. Course, there’s Emily—once she’s made up her mind, not the devil or rampaging buffalo can stop her.”
“You’re right, Spoon—but there’s something else you should know. Whatever happened seven years ago between you and me—far as I’m concerned, it’s over. You served your time. That’s good enough for me.”
Jake chewed the end of the cigar clamped between his teeth. “Something else you should know, Barclay. Lester and Pete—once they ran from Jefferson City—they stayed clean. Did a little gunfighting, some line riding, some scout work, but they haven’t held up a stage since the last job we all pulled together in Missouri.”
“I’m not looking to make trouble for them, if that’s what you’re worried about. Damn it, Spoon, I love your niece. She’s going to be a part of me, of my family.” Clint glanced at his brother, who appeared to be studying the floating puffs of clouds in the pristine sky. “And you and Pete and Lester … well, you’re her family, so I guess that, whether we like it or not, that’s going to make you mine too.”
“Hmmmph. Reckon that part remains to be seen,” Jake said gruffly. But a gleam entered his eyes. “Course, you do owe it all to me and I expect you to remember that. If I hadn’t told my son and Pete to lock the two of you up in that jail cell—”
“I suppose you told Pete to wait behind the door and coldcock me too.”
Jake guffawed. “Didn’t seem to be any other way,” he said with a shrug.
Clint’s eyes narrowed. “Take credit if you want for getting Emily to forgive me, Spoon, but you should know, I’d never have let her go. I’d have made Emily listen to me one way or another—”
“Hah!”
“And she’d have forgiven me,” Clint added coolly. “It seems to me, you benefited too. She wasn’t talking to any of you until she got over being mad at me—”
“She was talkin’! Not much, but she was talkin’—”
“Excuse me,” Nick interrupted, “in case you’ve both forgotten, we’ve got a stage to meet.”
“Go on then. Who’s stopping you?” Jake reined his horse around. “Just wanted to make sure we understand each other.”
“We do.” Clint looked at him, a long, measuring look. He nodded. “I’ll take care of her, Spoon—the way she deserves. You don’t have to worry about that.”
Jake said nothing. Merely studied the other man’s hard calm face, and then gave a curt nod.
“See that you do.” He wheeled his horse and started back up the trail toward the ranch.
“You’re going to be sorry,” Joey said. He finally released the glass of milk and pushed back his chair. “You’d better get out of here right now. Uncle Jake told me what he’d do if he ever got his hands on you, and Sheriff Clint said—”
“Yeah, well, they’re not here—none of ’em! I saw ’em all ride off—back to work, back to town.” Armstrong strode toward Joey, but Lissa darted in front of the table so he couldn’t reach the boy.
“No!” she cried. “Leave him alone!”
“You telling m
e what to do?” Armstrong pointed the rifle at her and Lissa went still.
“No, I am.” Emily spoke quietly. She moved forward to Lissa’s side. “Leave us alone. Just clear out of my house while you still can. I’m warning you—”
“And I’m telling you that I’m not going anywhere without this woman and that boy.” He swung the rifle toward Emily. “I’ve searched all over and now that I found ’em, they’re coming with me. But not before I’ve taught them both—and you, too, Miz Spoon—a real good lesson.”
Suddenly Joey dashed around the table and right past Armstrong to the cabin door.
As Armstrong spun around, leveling the gun, Lissa threw herself at him. She tried to wrench the gun from him, but he held it fast and flung her away, even as Joey made it outside. Armstrong charged after him, but Emily sprang into his path.
“No—let him go!” Breathing hard, she faced Armstrong as he aimed the gun at her, his beefy face suffused with rage. “You don’t need him. He’s… just a little boy. It’s me and Lissa you want to talk to.”
“I want to do a hell of a lot more than talk,” he snarled.
“Anything—I’ll do anything you want, John.” Lissa shakily pushed herself away from the wall. Holding her hands before her pleadingly, she moved toward him. “Anything, you hear? Just leave Joey out of this.”
“You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, woman.” Armstrong was watching her through eyes that shone with animosity and a kind of fevered fascination. “You know how long I’ve been searching for you?”
From outside there came a whistling sound. A long, low whistle, followed quickly by several rapid birdlike chirps. Then it began again.
Emily caught her breath. That was the danger signal Clint had taught Joey. As Armstrong turned his head at the sound, Emily began to talk quickly to distract him. “Mr. Armstrong, why don’t you sit down? I’ll cut you some peach pie and we can discuss this. Would you like coffee or—”
“You shut up!” The big man forgot about the whistling and rounded on her, his mouth twisting. “This is between her and me—you’ve done nothing but stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong. She said she’d marry me and then she changed her mind, and I’ve got a notion it’s your fault.”