Jesse's Renegade (#3 of the Danner Quartet)

by Nancy Bush

  “He said in the wire that you and he were married,” Lexie added in a voice filled with disbelief.

  Kelsey tried to nod but the pain hiding around the edges shattered into her skull. She closed her eyes and bit back a moan. Lord, her head hurt.

  “I’m going to give you some laudanum for the pain,” Tremaine told her briskly. “Jesse insisted we take you back with us. He doesn’t seem to trust any of the Portland doctors. If you feel well enough, we’ll leave tomorrow morning.

  Thirty minutes later Kelsey felt floaty and detached from her body, and her head seemed stuffed tight with cotton. She didn’t want to go to Rock Springs. She certainly didn’t want to go without Jesse.

  “I… won’t… go…” she struggled to breathe out.

  “There’s a man downstairs, a Mr. Drummond, who explained in no uncertain terms that your life may be in danger,” Lexie said. “He hinted it was Jesse’s fault, which, I must say, comes as no surprise.”

  “Lex…” Tremaine warned.

  “So, we’re taking you away whether you like it or not,” Lexie went on, undeterred. “And sooner or later I’ll get to see my brother again and tell him what a pain in the”—she hesitated a moment—“neck he is,” she finished shortly. “My God, Kelsey, you’re his wife?”

  “Leave her alone,” Tremaine said on a chuckle. “You’re going to be fine, Kelsey. But you’d better be aware that as soon you’re able, you’re going to have to tell the tale of how and why you ended up wedding my brother. We’re all waiting with bated breath.”

  “It was—a bargain,” she murmured. The laudanum was working its pain-killing magic too quickly.

  “Did she say a bargain?” Lexie asked. “Tremaine, she’s fading away again!”

  “It’s all right. Let her. We’ll see you in the morning, Kelsey. Sleep well.”

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  “I had nothing whatsoever to do with your wife’s unfortunate accident,” Gray said with smooth disdain. “We’re business partners, Mr. Danner, and I’d hoped our—past association—wouldn’t interfere with our present dealings. You were the one who suggested we could work together, I believe. What you’re accusing me of is nothing short of criminal.”

  Jesse stood squarely in the center of Montana Gray’s den, his feet planted apart. He seethed with frustration and powerless rage. “Hurt her again, and I’ll kill you. I might just anyway.”

  Gray linked his hands over his expanding girth and leaned back in the creaking chair. “You still have more passion than good sense.” He smiled coldly. “Unfortunate accidents occur all the time.”

  “To the best of us,” Jesse rejoined meaningfully.

  “We do not have a good atmosphere for our business relationship, do we, Mr. Danner?”

  “I suspect our partnership is about to dissolve,” Jesse answered. It was all he could do to keep from squeezing his hands around Montana’s thick neck. But that would serve no purpose except a momentary thirst for vengeance. It might finish Montana, but Lila would step right in and Jesse already knew how ruthless and cutthroat she could be.

  Gray’s smile grew colder. “I’m not responsible for what happened to your wife. I’m very sorry she was injured. Will she recover?”

  “If she doesn’t, you’ll be the first to know.”

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Victor Flynne watched in distaste as the dirty-smelling man at the bar deliberately counted his money. He took an inordinate amount of time about it while Victor fairly squirmed inside with the need for haste. The stupid sod. He probably hadn’t suffered through the least little bit of education.

  The stench of him was almost worse than his appearance, which was disgusting in the extreme. A filthy beard spotted with food from forgotten meals covered his mouth. Close set pig eyes capped a flat, fighter’s nose. His arms were thick as tree trunks and mapped with scars and tattoos.

  But the odor emanating Victor’s way… Lord, he would rather smell an unmucked stable!

  The man, whose name was Pete, moved his lips as he counted the stack of bills. He licked his thumb. Victor shuddered. He found even the man’s tiniest gesture repulsive. But Pete had done the job and now he was leaving Portland.

  “Looks like it’s all here,” Pete pronounced, wadding up the bills, and stuffing them inside his shirt pocket.

  “You’ve been paid handsomely. Now we’re finished.” Victor slid off his stool.

  Pete’s gaze wandered to the back of the bar, riveting on the lusty outline of a woman silhouetted against the thin red curtain covering the doorway to the back rooms. While Pete rubbed his hand over his beard, his tongue darted between his dirty whiskers to lick what Victor could only presume were his lips.

  “Ya didn’t tell me that the whole damn town’d be after me,” he complained. “It weren’t this way with that other lady.”

  His reference to Mary Danner’s death nearly unhinged Victor. Pete knew far too much, and Victor didn’t trust the man’s simple brain to keep his knowledge to himself. Only meticulous weekly payments had kept Pete in line thus far. Victor was growing distinctly tired of this “employment” contract with a man he could barely stand to be in a room with. He’d considered permanently removing Pete, but unfortunately, the other men he sometimes employed would know who had precipitated Pete’s early demise and why.

  No, it was best to send him on his way. Victor had promised him work in Seattle. All he had to do was make certain Pete got there in one piece. Then later, after six months or a year or so, if Pete should say, cease to hang around the usual spots, there might be a bit of talk, but nothing anyone could point back to him.

  For now Victor had to bide his time. And live in fear that he may have made an irrevocable mistake with those god-awful, ubiquitous Danners!

  “I need me a little bit of time, understood?” Pete said with a leer toward the silhouetted figure. “Who were that last one, anyway? The mayor’s daughter?” He guffawed, showing worn-down, brown-stained teeth.

  “It’s better if you don’t know.”

  He slitted Victor a sly look. “The name’s Danner, jes’ like that other one. You got a powerful hatred for that family. I know.”

  Maybe three months, Victor thought, fear stealing through him like a thief in the night. The merest breath of his involvement in Mary’s death and Kelsey’s accident would lay him wide open. Samuel Danner would kill him. An eye for an eye; Victor had never underestimated the youngest Danner. Jesse Danner… He was too unpredictable to even contemplate what horrors might await any man who deliberately set out to frighten and hurt his wife.

  Belatedly, but with true insight, Victor realized attacking the Danner women had been a mistake.

  “Leave tonight,” he ordered Pete harshly. “If the lady’s husband, or brother-in-law, should catch you, they’ll cut off the most well-used and treasured part of your anatomy and stuff it down your throat! Understand?”

  “I ain’t afeared a’ no one.” Pete licked his lips again and swallowed.

  “Then you’re a man waiting for death to find him.” A cold chill cut through Victor as he considered that he’d chosen the same path as his disgusting companion. And he’d heard via one of his sources that Tremaine Danner was in Portland at this very moment. He wished with the fervency of a religious zealot that he’d never embarked on this damned course. He was speeding down the road to ruin at a breakneck pace himself. His crimes loomed up before him: He’d led Ramsey Gainsborough to the Danner farm, putting Lexie and Tremaine and the whole family in mortal jeopardy; he’d arranged the death of Samuel Danner’s wife. A mistake, yes, but none of the Danners would see it that way. And now he’d purposely injured Jesse Danner’s wife. To get them to leave. Leave him alone. All of them! That’s all he wanted!

  And this ugly cur beside him was willing to risk everything—everything Victor had staked his very life on—for a quick tumble with a whore in a dirty back room.

  It was past bearing!

  “If you walk out that door now and onto the late train ton
ight, I’ll pay you double. Wire me from your destination. I’ll send you the money.”

  “Hah! You ain’t sendin’ me nothin’. I know the likes a’ you. As soon as I’m gone, no more cash. I’ll be lucky to have a job waitin’.”

  “I’ll pay you half now.” Victor scrambled through his pockets for the money, stuffing it into the man’s shirt pocket with the rest of his booty. “Wire me from Seattle, that way I’ll know you’re gone.”

  The man looked dazed by his good fortune. “I reckon I might find me a better whore in ‘nother town after all.”

  “At least you’ll have the equipment to do something about it,” Victor pointed out with perfect clarity. “Understand?’

  Pete nodded, his gaze drifting regretfully to the silhouette one last time.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  “Tremaine and Lexie have picked up Kelsey by now,” Jesse told Samuel as they stood side by side down at the docks, gazing out toward where the Lady Leanna was still rocking gently on the water.

  “You didn’t even want to see them?” Samuel shook his head in wonder.

  “I’m going to Rock Springs. Soon.”

  Samuel was surprised. “You are?”

  “I told Kelsey I would.”

  Samuel’s heart twisted with remembered pain. He carefully concealed his feelings, unwilling to share the agony of losing Mary even with Jesse, whom he was growing closer to by the day. His brother’s love for Kelsey was clear as spring rain, and it reminded him sharply, too sharply, of what he’d felt for Mary.

  “I wish I’d found out more about that horse and rider,” Samuel said, narrowing his eyes on the Lady Leanna. “It’s funny, but it didn’t matter who I questioned, or followed, or paid off—everyone adamantly claimed Montana had nothing to do with it.”

  Jesse didn’t respond.

  Samuel flicked him a look. “You’re still going to burn down the shipping company?”

  “It’s not enough.” Jesse’s jaw was hard. “I owe Montana more. For Nell, and now for Kelsey.”

  “Nell?”

  “Zeke’s sister,” Jesse admitted reluctantly. Samuel was staring at him, the same way Tremaine stared at him, the same way his father stared at him when nothing less than the truth would suffice. Briefly, Jesse explained what had happened to Nell.

  “So that’s what this revenge is all about,” Samuel said, shaking his head. “You should tell Kelsey. She deserves to know.”

  “This has nothing to do with Kelsey.”

  “Oh, the hell it doesn’t. You’re so sick in love with her, you’re afraid to let her know you might have some bit of good in you. It’s easier to be the black sheep. Then no one expects anything from you.”

  “You know you have a disturbingly strong resemblance to Tremaine,” Jesse grumbled.

  “You’re the one like Tremaine,” he argued good-naturedly. “I’m more like…”

  “None of us,” Jesse said, frowning at his brother. Samuel was difficult to understand. “Or maybe all of us.”

  Samuel shrugged.

  Jesse trained his gaze on the Lady Leanna. “You don’t think one of Randolph’s crew was the rider?”

  “Hard to say. I’m glad you sent Kelsey to Rock Springs. If Montana was behind her accident, that’s bad enough. But if it’s something entirely different, then we’re completely in the dark. Do you have any other enemies you can think of?”

  “None like Montana.”

  “I don’t know. I have a bad feeling about this.” Samuel drew a long breath. “When are you leaving for Rock Springs?”

  Jesse expelled a breath in frustration. “I can’t leave until I square things with Montana once and for all.”

  “Why don’t you leave that to Zeke? Nell was his sister, after all. He wants Montana as much as you do.”

  “Zeke’s no arsonist,” Jesse said on a humorless smile. “No, I’ve got to take care of things myself.”

  “Let me do it.”

  Samuel stared at his brother through the darkness. Jesse shook his head. “And have that on my conscience too?” he asked softly. “Not a chance.”

  “I can get him legally. I’m this close.” He squeezed his hand into a fist. “I’ve got people willing to testify if they can be promised Montana will be jailed.”

  “You can’t promise them that. Montana’ll find a way to silence them, or their families, first.” Jesse was adamant. “It won’t work.”

  “Have a little faith, brother. Go to Rock Springs. Kelsey needs you.”

  “She doesn’t even like me,” he revealed sardonically.

  Samuel snorted. “Let Zeke and me take care of Montana for a while.”

  “It’s my responsibility. I can’t—”

  “Oh, shut up, Jesse!” Samuel barked in annoyance. “Kelsey’s your responsibility. I was married once. I know. And it was when my wife was alone that she had an accident and died. You want to risk that? You want to take a chance that Montana could get to Kelsey when you’re not there? Then what good will it do you to finally bring the man down? You won’t have anyone waiting for you.”

  “That’s not how it is between Kelsey and me,” Jesse bit out, growing angry with Samuel’s assumptions. “It sounds like you loved your wife.”

  “And you don’t love yours?” At Jesse’s silence, Samuel expelled a furious breath. “For once in your life, get the hell out of it, Jesse. Kelsey loves you. If you can’t see that, you’re blind as well as stupid.”

  Jesse marveled at his brother’s blunt talk.

  “Give me this chance,” Samuel said insistently. “Do it for me. And do it for Kelsey.”

  “Oh, hell!”

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Kelsey examined her splinted fingers, moving them gingerly. It was only her little finger and ring finger and Tremaine had bound them together. They didn’t even hurt. Luckily it was her left hand, she thought. She could still hold a rifle if necessary.

  She sat up in the bed Tremaine insisted she stay in, disgusted that the Danners were treating her like an invalid. Hell’s bells, a concussion wasn’t about to send her to the grave.

  Kelsey closed her eyes and sighed in exasperation. She had been lucky, she admitted to herself reluctantly. She could have been seriously injured or even killed. Being run down by a thousand pounds of horseflesh was no laughing matter. She was grateful that she was still alive.

  But where was Jesse?

  The question entered her mind even though she’d sought for two days to keep it at bay. He’d promised to come to Rock Springs as soon as he could. He’d promised.

  Kelsey threw off the covers and paced around the room: Lexie’s old bedroom at the Danner home. Frustration gnawed at her. Jesse wasn’t coming. He was in Portland, chasing after his ignoble dream, dropping her out of his life like so much garbage.

  Not fair, her conscience argued. He’s only worried about your safety. He’ll be here.

  Kelsey stopped short in the center of the room in dawning horror. She’d asked Samuel to draw up divorce papers. She’d gone to his office specifically for that purpose. Was Jesse even now signing those papers, giving her her freedom, thinking he was giving her what she wanted?

  The door to the bedroom opened. Elsie, one of the Danner housemaids, bustled inside bearing a silver tray with soup and biscuits.

  “Mrs. Garrett—er—Danner!” she cried in surprise. “What’er ya doing outta bed?”

  “Stretching my legs. I really can’t bear another moment in this room.”

  “Oh.” Elsie set the tray on the bedstand, glancing over her shoulder nervously. “I heard ‘em talking, ma’am. Downstairs about you.”

  Kelsey could well imagine. Lexie, Tremaine, Joseph, Harrison, and even Miracle, had besieged her with questions about Jesse and their unexpected marriage. Kelsey had answered as best she could, leaving out the real reason Jesse and she had wed. She couldn’t bear for them to think she’d been a charity case, especially after what had happened with Harrison.

  “What are they saying?”

&nbs
p; “Well, it’s about Mr. Jesse,” she admitted, flustered. “About you being married and all.”

  “And… ?”

  “There’s talk that he forced you into that marriage, ma’am! And I wouldn’t be surprised! He done and got Alice McIntyre with child, didn’t he?”

  Kelsey gazed at her with a mixture of exasperation and sympathy. “Alice McIntyre never had a child.”

  “Only ‘cause the good Lord helped her out. Saved her from having to face all them folks that knowed what happened.”

  Jesse’s reputation was well documented, Kelsey thought tiredly. “Elise, Jesse Danner is not nearly as bad as everyone thinks. He couldn’t have forced me into marriage if I wasn’t willing. Anyway, from all the stories about him, doesn’t it seem like he would try to avoid marriage? He didn’t force me,” she said again, wondering how this somewhat sideways version of the truth had been discovered. “I married him because I wanted to.”

  Elsie’s eyes were full of disbelief. She was still young and impressionable. Remembering her own foolish fantasies from her youth, Kelsey winced.

  “You really married him ‘cause you wanted to?” Elsie looked doubly horrified.

  Kelsey didn’t think she had the strength to continue defending Jesse. He’d sowed his wild oats long ago. He could damn well reap this harvest himself if and when he ever returned to Rock Springs.

  A light knocking sounded at the door, and Elsie hurried to admit the caller. Lexington Danner, wearing mud-spatted boots, a denim skirt and blouse, her blond hair braided down her back, peeked into the room. “Do you know you look absolutely terrible?” she said, frowning when she saw that Kelsey was out of bed.

  “Yes,” Kelsey admitted with a smile, glancing down at the flannel nightgown someone had found for her. Whoever had packed her clothes—Jesse, maybe?—had neglected a lot of necessary items.

  “Are you really feeling all right?” Lexie asked. She smelled of hay and animals and Kelsey knew she’d been working. She was a horse doctor around these parts, as was Harrison. She glanced at the hovering maid and said, “Shoo, Elsie. And mind you don’t eavesdrop at the door.”