Daring to Start Again: An Inspirational Historical Romance Book

by Grace Clemens

  “Pa.” She forced herself to call him that. “You don’t want to shoot us. You don’t really even want to shoot Bobby. Do you? You can’t. You aren’t stupid. I don’t even know why you’re doing this. Didn’t you say we used to be close? You don’t remember saying that?”

  Bruce’s face seemed to melt. He’d been on high alert and tense ever since they saw his face for the first time. Now it seemed more relaxed and he started to look human in her eyes. But she didn’t want to think of him as human.

  She wanted to remember the times he’d tortured her, locking her in the attic or the basement, taking away her meals, forcing her to clean and sew like a slave. The only thing he’d stopped complaining about over the years was her cooking, because she never got any better.

  And she never got any better because she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to be his cook and his maid and his tailor. She wanted to be free to live her life, and that was precisely why she’d left.

  “I don’t want to be indebted to you for any reason, Bruce.” She let his formal name slip before she could stop herself. “I can understand if you want to shoot me, but I really hope you won’t. You can’t get away with it, you know. Steven has gone for help, and more deputies will be arriving any minute. You don’t want to have murder on your hands, do you?”

  “If Bart dies, you will,” Danny said. “You need to let me take him to a clinic.” He turned his eyes to his sister. “Is there a doctor around? Where is it? I hope you have one here. Do you?”

  Sarah didn’t have to answer. Bobby did for her. “Yeah, the Comstock Clinic. Take him up the road six buildings on the right. That’s where it is.”

  “Stay where you are!” Bruce yelled, pointing the gun at his sons and moving it menacingly from one to the other.

  “You need to give me back my gun, mister,” Deputy Clark looked like he was about to pounce. Bruce finally turned the gun in his direction and cocked it, a sneer on his face.

  “Why don’t you come take it from me?” he said, daring the deputy.

  Deputy Clark looked like he was about to take a step forward. Bobby grabbed his arm to prevent him from running at the outlaw.

  “Don’t, Clark. You don’t want to get shot over this. The situation will be resolved soon enough. Back up. It’s okay.”

  Bart yelled out in pain when his brother put pressure on his wound. “I’m sorry, Bart,” Danny said, frantically. “I don’t mean ta hurt ya. But Pa ain’t gonna let me get you help. You see what I’ve been telling you about him? It’s true, ain’t it? Tell me you think it’s true.”

  “What are you talking about, you two?” Bruce asked, his voice taut.

  Danny looked up from his injured brother, his narrow eyes glaring at his father. “I’ve just let him see through my eyes for a while, Pa. I told him about that time in Gatlinsburg and what you did. I told him about Kayden. I told him how you held up that stagecoach and killed that woman. All by yourself, you told me, but that wasn’t true, was it? You were never going to tell him the truth.”

  “I didn’t tell you about that, either,” Bruce growled, steadying his gun on his oldest son. “How do you know about that?”

  “I been lookin’ and talkin’ and doin’ research, Pa. I been suspecting you of being an outlaw for a long time. You never did any work. You always had enough money for us to get by and for you to get plenty drunk whenever you wanted. And us, too, if you were generous enough. You’ve been the worst example for me and my brother and sister. And I remember what you used to do to her when she was little.” Danny glanced at Sarah as he pulled off his shirt and pressed it under his brother’s lower back to catch the blood coming out that way.

  “You might not remember, Sarah,” Danny’s voice was melancholy. “But I do. After he’d keep you locked up or give you a lashing or whatever he did to hurt you, I would come in your room and comfort you. You were so little. You never understood what was going on. It took a long time for you to stop trusting him. I kept trying to tell you, to help you. But you never listened to me. And then when I grew into a rebellious teenager, I wasn’t as concerned about you as I was about myself. I’m sorry I put myself before you, Sarah. I never will again.”

  “It’s all right, Danny. I understand. I really do.”

  “Nice bonding,” Bruce sneered.

  Danny spun on his father in a rage, hopping to his feet, his fists clenched at his sides. “Exactly what are you gonna do, Pa? You really gonna shoot us all? You gonna shoot everyone in Comstock? ‘Cause that’s the only way you’re gonna get any freedom. You’ll be hanging at the end of a rope if you don’t let me take your son to the clinic! Come on, Pa. Didn’t you ever care about us kids at all?”

  Bruce seemed to hesitate. Sarah watched the standoff between her father and brother. While they bantered, she moved to kneel next to Bart to continue the work Danny had abandoned. Her brother had done a good job of sopping up a lot of the blood, but even at first glance, Sarah could tell if he didn’t get proper treatment soon, he would lose all the blood in his body. That would kill him.

  Panic made her heart thump in her chest as she carefully removed the cloth Danny had put over the wound and examined it herself. As she was studying it, a blob of blood came out and seeped down over the blood that had already come out.

  She sucked in a sharp breath and pressed the cloth back down with both hands. Her eyes ran over the area around her, but in her kneeling position, she couldn’t really see the main road, because it was behind the tall bushes that closed this area in so well.

  “Sarah,” Bart’s voice was breathless, and she looked down at him with her brow furrowed.

  “You shouldn’t talk, Bart, not till we get you to the clinic or get a doctor here to attend to you.”

  He shook his head, weakly lifting one arm and placing it firmly on her shoulder. She put her slender hand over his and squeezed his fingers in her own. “I have to tell you something.”

  Sarah leaned closer, touching one of his cheeks with her fingers, stroking it gently. “If you’ve got something to say, then say it,” she encouraged him.

  He shook his head. “I never should have treated you the way I did. Danny was right. It was because we were young and stupid and blind. We thought Pa knew what was right. We were wrong. I’m sorry. I didn’t even really understand until now. I…” He winced. “I can’t believe he shot me.”

  “He might shoot your brother if we aren’t careful,” Sarah said softly, wishing she could do something more for Bart other than hold the cloth against his wound. She turned her eyes up to Danny, who was still taunting their father, bickering with him about things that were done in the past.

  She took one of Bart’s hands and pressed it on the cloth so she didn’t have to. Then she jumped to her feet and grabbed Danny’s arm. “We can’t stay here being afraid,” she hissed. She wasn’t trying to let Bruce hear her, but she knew he did. “We have to go! We have to go now! Bart needs help. I don’t know what’s taking Steven so long!”

  In that moment, her father seemed to notice that Steven had left the scene. He turned his eyes away from the four of them.

  Sarah felt a rush of pride for both her husband and older brother when Danny and Bobby jumped at him, closing the distance in an instant.

  A shot rang through the air.

  Sarah screamed.

  Chapter 30

  All three men fell to the ground. Sarah jumped to her feet.

  “Danny!” Bart yelled out.

  “Bobby!” Sarah screamed at the same time. “Bobby! Bobby!”

  Bart roared in pain when he pushed himself up and turned over to see what was going on. Sarah turned back to him, holding out her hands. “No, don’t get up. I’ll tend to them.”

  She was confused by the gunshot and the fact that all three men fell to the ground until she saw Bobby disentangle himself from the other men and shoot to his feet. He was holding the deputy’s gun. Her concern immediately moved to Danny, but he also appeared to be uninjured as he scooted back
in the dirt away from Bruce.

  Sarah’s eyes settled on her father. He was bleeding. It looked like he’d been shot in the middle of his chest. He was sucking in quick breaths.

  “Now it’s time to go to the clinic,” she said in a determined voice. She looked at Bobby and then Danny. “You boys are strong enough to take him, aren’t you?” Knowing they were, Sarah bent over Bart again, putting her arms on his shoulders. She looked him directly in the eye and asked, “Can you walk?”

  Bart gave her a sour look. “I reckon,” he said in a gruff voice. “But you’re gonna have to help me. You think you can handle my weight?”

  “I think so.”

  “You’re not gonna get away with what you’ve done,” Danny grumbled to his father as he took hold of one of the man’s arms. He and Bobby pulled Bruce to his feet, ignoring his cry of pain.

  “How can you do this, son?” Bruce asked in a voice Sarah had never heard before. “I’m your father. How could you let him shoot me?”

  Danny and Bobby shared a look. Sarah watched them begin to drag Bruce up the street. Bart was holding onto her, his weight heavy and painful but bearable. She had to walk slowly, hunched over in such a way she knew her entire back would be in pain from straining so much.

  But she would do it. She had been wanting to get Bart to the clinic before now. It didn’t matter if she was hurting because of it. She hadn’t been shot.

  “He didn’t shoot you,” Danny replied to her father, his voice hard and angry. He didn’t follow up with anything more. Sarah felt a chill cover her. He had just implied he had been the one to shoot his father, not Bobby. “And how do you know you didn’t shoot yourself? It could have been you.”

  “He grabbed the gun from me!” Bruce wailed, allowing himself to be dragged along, probably because he was too weak and in too much pain to resist.

  “He didn’t. I did.”

  Another wave of chills ran over Sarah’s body from head to toe.

  “You wouldn’t kill me, would you?” Bruce moaned. “You wouldn’t shoot me.”

  “I did. You’re just gonna have to believe it. You sure as hell aren’t blaming it on Bobby. He ain’t got nothin’ to do with this. This is all you, Pa. This is all on you, and you ain’t got no one to blame but yourself.”

  Sarah felt pain through the back of her neck as the weight of her brother came down hard on her. They were nearing the clinic when she spotted Steven coming out of the saloon. Anger split through her.

  Why had Steven gone to the saloon? What could have possibly made him abandon her and Bobby in that situation?

  She would have called out to him, but he was heading straight for them. She saw a panic-stricken look on his face as he got closer and confusion took the place of the anger she’d been feeling.

  “Bobby!”

  Sarah and Bart halted in place. Bobby and Danny swung Bruce around to face the sheriff. Bruce cried out in pain, but Sarah felt no satisfaction from it.

  “Steven!” Bobby replied. “Where did you go?”

  “I went to the clinic, but there’s no one there. I’ve been running all over town looking for the doc or Kay, the nurse. Can’t find either of them. Saloon was a long shot, but they’re not in there, either.”

  A few men followed Steven from the saloon and hurried over to the group. Two of them took Bart from Sarah, giving her a great sense of relief.

  “You bring these men to the clinic,” one of them said. “I have field training and can help with the wounds. Doc’s gone to help Mrs. Abrams give birth. Dunno where Kay is.”

  Sarah pulled in a deep sigh and watched as the men took Bart away from her. He glanced over his shoulder, giving her a sad look. She lifted one hand and waved. He nodded once.

  Bruce had apparently lost consciousness because his chin was on his chest. His body sagged and his feet were dragging on the ground behind the two men who took him from Bobby and Danny.

  Sarah walked to stand between her brother and husband. She folded her arms over her chest, sighing when Bobby put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head on him and closed her eyes. She felt a little hot and was struggling not to let out the tears that were threatening.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured softly.

  She could feel Bobby looking down at her. “For what? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Sarah covered her face with one hand, shaking her head. “I brought him here. I mean, I really brought him here by leaving your letters behind, by not telling you the truth to begin with. If I had only told you…”

  “We’d still be in the same predicament,” Bobby interjected gently. “You didn’t do this. You didn’t cause this. He did it all. He is to blame. I don’t want to hear another word of you blaming yourself.”

  “He’s right, you know,” Danny added. Sarah looked over at her brother, whose eyes were kind and compassionate for what felt like the first time ever but probably wasn’t. “You are the last one to blame for this. Pa is first, since he’s the one who caused everything. Me and Bart could have prevented this from happening if we’d believed what we felt instead of what we were told.”

  “I think Bart might have believed it,” Sarah said softly. “I don’t think he’s liked me for a long time.”

  Danny shook his head, which at first gave Sarah a feeling of sorrow. But when he spoke, that changed. “I’ll be real honest with you here, Sarah. Pa didn’t just treat you like a slave. He acted that way with Bart, too. I was the only one he ever really talked to or did anything fun with. I don’t know why. I thought I was entitled and that it was right for a long time. But that was just because I enjoyed the attention. Especially when you and Bart seemed to be the rejected ones.”

  Pain cut through Sarah’s heart. She dropped her head and the tears threatened once more.

  “Don’t feel too bad, Sarah,” Danny said, leaning down and using the gentlest voice she’d ever heard from him. “Look where we are now. Bart and I have seriously been discussing settling here in Comstock. It’s beautiful in Oklahoma. So much more than New York.”

  Sarah shuddered, remembering the cold, stark bitterness of New York and its people.

  “You’re both welcome to stay,” Bobby told him. Danny gave him a long quiet look.

  “But…”

  Bobby shook his head. “There’s no but, my friend. I mean, my brother-in-law, is that right?”

  Sarah couldn’t help the smile that came to her face. She watched as her brother and husband smiled at each other. Danny held out one hand directly in front of her stomach. Bobby took it and they shook.

  “I guess it’s even more official since we shook in front of Sarah,” Bobby said. “Is that right?”

  Danny laughed, throwing his head back. “I reckon it is, Bobby. So, tell me, there any good jobs around this place?”

  “I’m always looking for hands on the ranch if you’re interested.”

  Again, Danny laughed but this time it was a short, abrupt bark. “Me and Bart don’t know nothin’ about working on a ranch.”

  Bobby gave him a contemplative, friendly look, raising his eyebrows. “You don’t know how to learn? Can’t take instructions?”

  Danny grinned. “Yeah, I can.”

  “Can ya read?”

  Danny looked down at his sister. Sarah felt her chest squeeze with anxiety. She knew he could read but not very well.

  “Uhh, I can read. A little.”