The batwing doors to the kitchen slammed open. Dare was already talking. “Big John’s back with Audra’s sister?”
John grinned. They were all here. Dare stalked into the room, moving fast, restless as always. John had his own army, and they were a mighty tough bunch.
Dare’s eyes darted around the room and landed on Carrie, then quickly shifted to Isaac.
John said, “Audra’s sister Carrie, and her brother, Isaac.”
Dare didn’t ask the obvious question, but instead accepted the fact that Isaac had needed to come along. John appreciated the confidence.
“I’m glad you stopped by, but I thought you were heading straight for Colorado.” Dare got right to the point.
John filled everyone in on what they were up against and how close Kearse might be to catching up with them. “I didn’t think I could stay ahead of him all the way to Colorado, not with a bounty on us and the chance they might telegraph our descriptions ahead. I tried to throw them off our scent, but I think we were seen in Wilber City. I expect Kearse wired back and put men on our trail. Train tracks head north in a few spots, and that will bring him fast now that he’s sure of where to go.”
“Don’t underestimate him.” Carrie looked between the men. Handsome, outrageous Vince; restless Dr. Dare; Jonas, the parson with the kind eyes who showed no sign of fear; and Luke, the ironhard rancher who claimed her as family without hesitation. All of them listening to John, the strongest, most honorable man she’d ever known. A team closer than brothers who would fight for each other.
But they were family men.
It nearly drove Carrie to despair that they were endangered because of her. “He could be here at anytime.”
Dare nodded briskly. “Good, we can get this thing settled.”
“Good?” Carrie’s stomach lurched.
Jonas stood up from the table. “I’m going to tell Missy what’s going on. We need to do some scouting, post a guard, and make sure we’re ready for trouble.” He left the room, frighteningly determined for a man of the cloth.
“Missy’s his wife,” John whispered. “Vince’s sister.”
Carrie thought she remembered the men correctly, Ruthy’s red hair was memorable, and she’d spent a good stretch of time with Tina. Beyond that, she was losing track.
Chapter Eight
Jonas returned, and the planning began.
John looked at Carrie. “Remember me saying I could make this trip in six days if I took two horses, switched saddles, and pushed hard for long hours every day?”
“I remember.”
“Well, that’s me, alone. The three of us took a lot longer than that. I tried to throw Kearse off our trail in the first town, but he could be close behind us now. We should have stayed up last night, gotten together, and planned what to do next.”
Vince said, “You were exhausted. But we’ll get things set up today.”
“We need to post a—” Luke began.
Horses galloping at full speed tore into town.
Jonas was at the door to the diner, his gun drawn so fast it startled Carrie and made her wonder what the man had been doing before he’d turned to preaching.
John had his back flattened against the wall, gun pointed at the ceiling, looking out the diner windows.
Dare ran for the stairs and vanished. His footsteps pounded overhead.
“Get Carrie upstairs, Vince.” John glanced back. “Isaac, get over here on the opposite side of the window.”
She wanted to protest. Stay and fight or get her brother to safety. Get John to safety. Get everyone to safety.
The swinging kitchen doors slapped open. Two men rushed into the room, guns drawn, just as more riders charged up to the front of the diner.
John grabbed Carrie by the upper arm and dragged her behind him.
Both men raised their guns. John dove sideways, taking Carrie with him to the floor.
Dare appeared at the base of the stairs and slammed the butt of his pistol over the closest man’s head. The other fired as he moved. Carrie felt the impact of something hitting John, who sheltered her with his body.
Dare lashed out with a fist and knocked the man backward, cracking his head against the doorframe. Jonas was on the man, ripping his gun away. John threw a pair of hand shackles at Jonas.
“Get over here,” Isaac shouted. “Three men outside, coming in.”
John scrambled to the front door, his gun raised. She saw bright red on one of his sleeves.
“John, you’re hurt!”
He snapped, “Carrie, upstairs.”
Vince fired two shots at the door, and the men outside jumped back.
Dare rushed for John and ripped the sleeve of his shirt open. Working so fast that Carrie couldn’t see what was happening, Dare drew a knife, cut the sleeve the rest of the way off, and tied it around John’s arm.
“Take Carrie upstairs, John,” Vince said, “and cover us from the window up there.”
“This is my fight.” John didn’t budge.
Dare looked him in the eye. “Go, please. Your arm might slow us down.”
John peered out at the three men, spooked by Vince’s shot. Frustrated, he said, “Let’s go, Carrie.”
“I don’t want Isaac in a gunfight,” Carrie said.
“He’ll be fine. We’ll make sure of it.” Vince sounded so confident, she couldn’t help but believe him.
Jonas was back at the door. “One cuffed and knocked all but insensible. One out cold.”
Carrie felt someone grab her and whirled around to see John. “Let’s get upstairs,” he said. “Now!”
“But your arm—”
“It’s a scratch.” John started heading for the stairs, and she had little choice but to follow him.
Once upstairs, he jabbed a finger at one of the beds and told Carrie, “Now get yourself under that bed and stay there. We don’t want a stray bullet hitting you.”
Carrie remembered then what he’d said in the livery when she’d stayed out of his way so he didn’t have to worry about protecting her. “What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Look, there are only three men outside. With two tied up, we outnumber them. So if we can get these five locked up, we can go ahead and set a trap for whoever’s coming next.” Sounding calm and reasonable, he added, “I think we can end this without much more trouble.”
Carrie saw the vivid red soaking the cloth bandage on John’s upper arm and wondered what kind of trouble it took to get him riled.
“I know you want to help, Carrie, but if you’re at risk, none of us can concentrate. Please let us protect you. Please get under the bed.”
She was grateful he took a minute to explain things. Feeling like the worst kind of coward, she crawled under the bed, glad someone so kind and decent was on her side. Why, he’d probably be able to calm those men outside right down.
John rushed across to the window and looked down on the street below, his back to her. He threw the window open and, in a voice that nearly curdled her blood, yelled, “Get your hands where I can see ’em, you no-good varmints, or I’ll shoot you where you stand!”
So maybe he had an unkind side, too. It should have frightened her, but instead it made her feel safe. She scooted farther under the bed.
If staying out of the way was all she could do to help, then she’d do it well.
Chapter Nine
Big John recognized two of the three riders. One was the sharp-eyed man who’d been watching them back in Wilber City. Another had been in the diner when they were eating their breakfast. John hadn’t seen the third man before, but he thought he recognized him from a wanted poster.
He had them under his gun from above. One by one they threw their weapons down, though John didn’t trust them to hand everything over. He sure wouldn’t have.
“Dare, Jonas, cover me!” Vince’s voice roared from below. “Isaac, you too.”
He knew Carrie would want her brother to hide, but John thought the youngster was might
y brave for a sixteen-year-old. Not good with a gun, of course, but he had courage to spare and an honest soul. Isaac needed to be respected as a man.
The door below flew open. Vince stepped out, gun drawn and aimed at Sharp Eyes. He trusted his Regulator friends to handle the others.
“You’re all three under arrest,” John hollered down.
“For what?” Sharp Eyes shouted. “We ain’t done nuthin wrong.”
The third man’s fingers twitched. He had a hideout gun somewhere, John was sure of it. He didn’t warn Vince because that would be insulting.
“We’re free to ride into town.”
John wanted to get down there, but he had the perfect angle on them. “You’re all hired guns for Damian Kearse. I’m a Texas Ranger and I saw you in Wilber City. And we’ve got your two friends tied up in here.”
“We don’t know who you’re talking about.”
John had been sorting through his memory and finally knew exactly where he’d seen the third man. “And you, doin’ the talking. You’re under arrest for train robbery and murder. I’ve seen the wanted poster. Four men robbed that train south of Fort Worth, and three were arrested. You shot a conductor and got away. Your friends came charging in here with guns drawn, and pulling a pistol on a Ranger is a serious business. We’ll prove you’re hired guns when your boss shows up and admits he came when you telegraphed him from Wilber City. Now, don’t a one of you make a grab for a weapon.”
Movement to his left almost distracted John, but Vince said in a cold voice, “You’re covered from four directions, and we’ve had a talk, so we’ll each pick a different one to shoot if you try anything. One of you stands to get shot twice.”
Dare had gone out the back door and come around.
The sharp click of a gun on John’s right told him Jonas was cocked and ready. Even better, it told the three gunmen.
That seemed to take the starch out of them. They looked defeated, but it’d be a rare man in the West who didn’t carry a knife or a hideout gun. So John didn’t take his eyes off of them for a second.
Dare and Jonas stepped into view. More slowly but looking determined, Isaac came out of the diner and held his six-shooter steady. With the men well covered, John moved toward the stairs. He said to Carrie as he rushed by, “Stay under that bed until I tell you different.”
John emerged from the diner. With his friends close at hand, John searched the three men. The two from Wilber City each carried a knife. He found a small gun shoved into the boot of the train robber and two knives tucked away.
“Start walking across the street. You’re all going to jail.”
After the cell door swung shut on all five men, one of them still unconscious, John said, “Vince, I need to send a wire to the head of the Rangers and ask for someone to come pick these men up. Normally I’d take them in, but I can’t get away right now.”
“Stand still and let me look at your arm,” Dare said, blocking John from his next move, which might have included shaking some answers out of these men.
John’s blood buzzed with energy. He always got this way in a fight. Nothing hurt, nothing stopped him. But the burst of energy lasted after the fight was over, and John knew he needed to stand still for Dare to bandage him better.
“I’ll send the wire,” Vince promised, his eyes wary, even with the men locked up. John appreciated that. They might be safe from these five, but more were most likely to come.
“Thanks, but let me send it. I’ve got a few things to say.” John decided he’d send enough wires with warnings about Kearse, it’d bring a Ranger army to Broken Wheel.
Dare had grabbed his doctor bag from somewhere. “This probably needs stitches.”
John had been doctored by Dare plenty in his life. Still . . . “Probably? You’ve been at this doctorin’ business a while, Dare. Shouldn’t you know for sure?”
Dare looked up and smiled. “Stitches can get infected. A wound like this heals faster when it’s sewed up, but it’s more likely to get infected. It’s a cut is all, and it’ll be an ugly scar if I leave it open to heal.”
John snorted. “I’m not concerned about how pretty my arm is.”
Laughing, Dare said, “I’ll bandage it tight and leave it open to heal then.” Dare looked behind him as if he could see all the way to the diner. “Thought you might be fretting more about how pretty you are here lately.”
“Not you, too.”
“Vince got to you, huh?”
This was probably a talk best left to the parson, but Jonas wasn’t here. “Vince thinks the surest way to protect Carrie is for me to marry her. That way, Kearse can’t marry her.”
With a tilt of his head, Dare bandaged while he considered that. “Not much sense marrying a woman you don’t want to marry. There are other ways to protect her.”
More dangerous ways. More complicated ways. John appreciated that Dare didn’t say that.
“So have you thought of it? Thought of her that way?”
John didn’t answer, which drew Dare’s attention away from his bandaging. “That means yes, that you have.”
“A man alone with a woman sometimes has thoughts. That’s no reason to get married.”
Dare laughed again as he tied off the bandage. “A yes for sure. Well, don’t marry her to protect any of us. Nor her, come to that. I haven’t been in a good fight in years, and I’ve been teaching Glynna and two of the boys how to shoot.”
The thought of Dare’s overactive sons with a firearm almost made John’s knees quake. Not to mention sweet, delicate Glynna. His mind was boggled.
The instant Dare was done fussing with his arm, Big John stepped out the door just as Isaac left the diner with Jonas at his side. Isaac was talking and smiling, gun in hand.
A few moments later, Carrie came out looking shaken, wringing her hands. She was watching Isaac, who seemed comfortable with the gun. Then she spotted John. The worry faded and her hands relaxed.
He made her feel safe. That swept through him with such a sense of pride and pleasure that he wondered if it was a sin. He was just so deeply pleased that he could wipe away her fear. In that moment he knew she was a woman he could spend the rest of his life with.
The bitter regret that came with it was that he was a man always on the road, and she a refined lady who’d grown up in a mansion in the city. It might be true that her life had been a misery because of her father, but that didn’t change the fact that what he could offer her was completely different from what she was used to.
She might be persuaded to join her life with his, and he’d always treat her well. They’d start out happy. She’d see her future as a great adventure. But how long before the reality of frontier life started to wear on her and make her want something better? Someone better?
As he walked toward her, his ears almost echoed with the memory of Vince saying they needed to get married, that Kearse would only be interested in an innocent girl. He’d see her as damaged goods, and making her a widow wouldn’t change anything.
Should he do it? Marry her to save her life? The outlaws Kearse had sent weren’t going to be a patch on the hardened gunmen Kearse could command. Not only would Carrie be in danger, but so would Isaac and all John’s Regulator friends, as well as their wives and children. All because John wouldn’t say “I do” and ruin her life.
He was so tempted to propose, he knew there was little that was noble in it. And to marry her and pretend it was noble when in truth he just wanted her for himself made him bull up inside and get stubborn.
Truth was, his pa had been a Texas Ranger, and although he was a decent man, Pa was a poor excuse for a father. Rarely home and gruff when he was around. John was a lot like his pa.
John didn’t want to do that to a woman, nor to any children they might have together.
The thought of having children with Carrie made him a little dizzy, and it took a moment before his head cleared. He’d always seen himself living and dying as a Texas Ranger, and he’d never inflict tha
t life on a woman.
To change, to walk away from that job, to become a small-town sheriff . . . it was hard to get his thoughts to settle on such a new idea.
Chapter Ten
Carrie couldn’t take her eyes off Big John. He’d saved her! He’d thrown his body between her and a bullet. He’d held those men at bay with his friends.
She met him in the middle of the dirt-packed street, reached out, and took his hand. Gently, hoping not to hurt him. “I thank you and all your friends.” But she didn’t look around to find his friends and include them in her thanks. She was too fascinated by John.
Vince came down off the steps by the jail. “More men will be comin’ and they’ll be a lot tougher than these polecats.”
Gasping, Carrie said, “More are coming?” But of course there were. Kearse himself would come if he had to.
John gripped her hand. “I’m sorry, but at least we’ve thinned the herd, and we have time to plan for Kearse.”
“Not much time,” Vince said. “I know how men like Kearse think. He’s on his way with reinforcements.”
Vince reached John’s side, smiled at Carrie, and very deliberately looked down at their intertwined fingers. “For heaven’s sake, just get married and save us all a lot of trouble.” Then he walked away, not giving them a chance to respond.
Carrie was really starting to be irritated by John’s bossy friend. “Your friend is a bit much.” She didn’t even try to keep her voice down.
“That’s the pure truth,” John said, threading her hand through his arm as he turned her back toward the diner. “But he saved my life a time or two in Andersonville and kept Luke and Jonas from starving to death there, most likely by starving himself. And he took a bullet in the head fighting for Luke’s ranch, so we let him get away with most everything.”
Startled, Carrie said, “He looks pretty good for a man who’s been shot in the head.”
Frowning, John said, “He’s also married.”
Carrie caught his jealous tone. It awakened some womanly side of her that had been sleeping all her life. A side of her that went deeper than a kiss, and the kiss had gone mighty deep.
With This Ring? Page 19