After Sundown

by Shelly Thacker

  “So he’ll... he’ll be all right?”

  “A week or so of rest and he’ll be ornery as ever.” He paused, looking at her curiously. “Are you going to be all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said a little too quickly. “I’m... just fine.”

  “Annie...” Daniel’s voice became quiet. “We haven’t talked about it lately, but I assume our plan is still in place.” His gaze shifted from her to Lucas’s room at the far end of the corridor and back again. “Unless... something’s changed?”

  Annie glanced down, hoping he couldn’t see the color in her cheeks in the darkened hallway. Was it so obvious that her feelings for the marshal weren’t the same as they had once been?

  She hadn’t thought about the escape plan in a long time—not since her experience with the bounty hunter. Not after getting a taste of what it would be like to live on the run, hunted by men who would kill her without a second thought. Always looking over her shoulder, hiding, lying to everyone she met. Feeling afraid.

  And alone.

  She shook her head wearily. “Daniel, I’m so tired, I-I can’t even think right now.”

  “You get some rest.” Daniel laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “There’s a long time yet until spring. When you want to talk, I’ll be here.” He turned to go. “Always.”

  “Thank you.” Annie watched him leave, grateful for his loyalty and understanding. Never in her whole life had she expected to have such good friends.

  She certainly never would’ve expected to find them here, in a half-deserted mining town in a remote corner of the Rocky Mountains.

  But soon she would have to leave Eminence, leave all her friends behind. Whether it was to spend her life on the run... or in a Missouri prison.

  Annie forced the thought away, walking back to Lucas’s room, wanting to reassure herself that he was all right.

  He was still there, still quite alive.

  And he still had that baffled look on his face. “What did Holt mean, ‘they’re here for reasons of their own’?”

  “You’re supposed to be sleeping,” she admonished, looking around. She hadn’t even set foot in here before today. Lucas’s room was spartan, almost empty: just a bed, a chair, a sheet tacked up at the window for a curtain. No rug on the unfinished wood floor. No dresser for his belongings.

  Just his saddlebags in one corner, which probably contained all his worldly possessions. She noticed he kept them near the door. Maybe out of habit. As if he always wanted to be ready to move on at a moment’s notice.

  “How’m I supposed to sleep?” he grumbled. “Tell me what he meant.”

  Annie sighed, recognizing one of his stubborn moods when she heard it, yet not sure how much she should reveal.

  She walked to the window, pulling the makeshift curtain aside to look out at the sun and snow.

  “What he meant...” she said slowly, “is that some people in Eminence aren’t here because they’re hoping to find silver. They’re here because they’re hoping nobody will find them.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Because they have... somewhat shady pasts. A few of them are in hiding.”

  “Are you telling me this town is full of outlaws?” His eyes widened.

  “Not outlaws, exactly. And I wouldn’t say full. But there are a few people with, um, less-than-spotless backgrounds.”

  He blinked. “Those nice farm folks at the dance...”

  “Not all of them.” The look on his face was almost enough to make her laugh. “Just some.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Who?”

  Annie glanced away. Revealing names could have consequences for those involved. Like Mrs. Owens. And Katja. And Camden Fairfax. Their secrets weren’t hers to share.

  “I’d rather not say.” Annie paused. “Some had trouble with the law when they were younger, and they’ve paid their debt to society and they’re here to get a second chance, to start fresh. Others... well... let’s just say that wanted posters never get posted around here. Seeing as there’s no jail.”

  He frowned, saying nothing.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked hesitantly.

  “That it was no accident the jail burned down,” he muttered. “Why was the town council so bent on hiring a new marshal?”

  “Because they need someone to protect people and keep the peace. It’s not an official town policy: ‘If you’re an outlaw, come and hide here.’ Eminence is just a remote, isolated place, and apparently it sort of... happened over the years.” She shook her head. “And not everybody knows about it. Lots of folks have no idea that some of their neighbors aren’t quite as upstanding as they look.”

  “And nobody was going to tell me this?”

  Now he sounded a little angry.

  She glanced down, her fingers toying with the frayed edge of the curtain. “You’re a lawman,” she said simply.

  “And you didn’t trust me.”

  “I’m trusting you now,” she pointed out. “Lucas, these people are trying to make a new life for themselves here. You won’t... I mean, you wouldn’t...”

  “Start hauling all the nice townsfolk off to prison?”

  She looked at him, silently, waiting for his answer.

  “I can’t make any promises,” he said.

  “No. I understand.” It was almost painfully ironic, but she did understand. She respected his sense of honor, admired how protective and devoted to duty he was, how he always wanted to do what was right.

  Even as those very qualities sealed her own fate.

  “Let me get you some tea,” she said softly, heading for the door. “It might help you sleep.”

  “Wait,” he said gruffly. “You don’t have to do that. I... was going to... I have to... ask Travis...”

  She turned, wondering if he was becoming delirious. He was rambling. “It’s no trouble, Marshal. You’re not in any condition to take care of yourself.” Annie studied him. “I think we can declare a brief truce, while you’re recovering. Christmas is supposed to be a time of peace, after all.”

  He held her gaze, his eyes dark with some emotion she couldn’t name. “You are so...”

  She waited for him to say stubborn.

  Troublesome.

  Impractical.

  “Tenderhearted,” he finished quietly.

  Annie looked away, resisting the warmth that flowed through her. She found herself remembering something Katja had told her about the people of Eminence, how so many of them had had their lives broken into pieces by hard times.

  Sometimes, Katja had said, broken lives made for tender hearts.

  “I just don’t want to spend the whole winter at odds,” she whispered, glancing his way again. “Do you want me to go and get Travis for something? It’s early, but I’m sure he’d come right over.”

  Lucas didn’t reply, just kept looking at her, his expression strained. A muscle flexed in his beard-stubbled cheek.

  Then that gentle look came into his gaze, the one that had taken her breath away at the dance.

  “No,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “Changed my mind.”

  “All right.” Annie turned to go. “I’ll make some tea.”

  She went to the kitchen and made a fresh pot, hoping a cup or two would also help soothe her jangled nerves. But by the time she carried the tea back to his room, it looked like he was already asleep.

  “Lucas?” She set the tray on the chair, since there wasn’t anyplace else to put it. She perched on the edge of the bed, worried for a moment. But he was just sleeping.

  He looked so vulnerable, she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to brush his dark hair back from his forehead, suddenly overwhelmed by a rush of emotions.

  He still mystified her, this lawman. He was as hard-hewn and sometimes as unforgiving as the West itself. He could be as harsh as the winter storms that battered these mountains.

  And at other times, he could be as gentle as a spring rain.

  But what surprised her most was how different he was from hi
s brother. Lucas wasn’t anything like James.

  James had been the picture of city-smooth refinement and civility, perfectly at home in a first-class Pullman car on one of the trains he owned, drinking champagne, speeding toward a business appointment in Chicago or New York or Boston. He had been generous to a fault, but he also enjoyed treating himself to the best of everything.

  And there was one other, important difference between the two.

  She had never felt this way about James.

  Her throat tightened. She had felt gratitude for James’s generosity, had admired his good nature, had even cared about him, but she had never felt... this.

  Annie stood up and turned toward the door, quietly picking up the tray, telling herself she was confused, exhausted. She couldn’t even think, much less make sense of these new, unsettling emotions in her heart.

  She left Lucas to sleep, deciding she had better get some rest herself.

  Now that they had declared a truce between them, she wasn’t sure what the coming days might bring.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Shame you went to all this trouble for nothing.”

  The sound of Lucas’s voice calling from the jail’s front room made Annie frown as she took a loaf of warm bread from the oven in the kitchen. On the one hand, she was glad he finally felt well enough to come prowling out of his lair. For the past three days, he had rarely set foot outside his room.

  On the other hand, being ill only seemed to make him moodier than usual. She didn’t know what to expect from him, from one moment to the next.

  “It would be a shame,” she called back, placing the bread in a basket and covering it with a cotton cloth, “if we wasted all this food. So we may as well go ahead and eat.”

  Lucas hadn’t objected when she asked to plan a small Christmas dinner for her closest friends. But Daniel had sent word an hour ago that he was treating a critically ill patient and couldn’t get away, and Rebecca and Mrs. Owens had decided to take dinner to his house, to surprise him when he returned.

  So Annie’s Christmas dinner for five had unexpectedly turned into dinner for two.

  But that was no reason to cancel the entire meal, she thought stubbornly as she headed down the corridor.

  Out in the front room, Lucas stood beside the table she had arranged in front of the fireplace, shaking his head as he looked down at all the bowls and platters. “There’s no way we could eat all of”—he glanced up and his voice shifted, deepened—“this.”

  Annie stopped, waiting for him to make another grumpy, irritable comment about how she was overdoing everything. “Now what’s wrong?” She sighed. “It’s the dress, isn’t it? Or my hair? Or is it all wrong?”

  Katja had loaned her the outfit yesterday: a wine-colored silk dress in an old-fashioned style, with a square neckline and long sleeves and a full skirt. Mrs. Owens had loaned her a pretty cameo to wear on a black ribbon around her throat. To show it off, Annie had pinned her hair up earlier, the mass of curls piled atop her head with a few trailing down her cheeks.

  Lucas glanced away without comment, irritable or otherwise.

  He still looked a bit pale, she thought. Or maybe it was just more noticeable, now that he had shaved the three-day growth of beard that had darkened his jaw. He wore black trousers and a white shirt, the rolled-up sleeves revealing his muscular forearms, a sprinkling of black hair just visible at the open neck.

  She walked over and set the bread down between the plates. “I’ve never served as the hostess for a dinner party before,” she said, feeling uncertain as she looked at the carefully decorated table. “I just wanted everything to be nice.”

  Valentina’s mother had loaned Annie the white damask cloth. The Gottfrieds had offered the place settings of their English china and German crystal.

  “You did just fine,” Lucas said gruffly. “But I told you that you could go over to Holt’s place with Rebecca and Mrs. Owens.”

  “Yes, but Daniel says you shouldn’t be gallivanting around outside just yet. And I couldn’t just leave you alone to spend Christmas by yourself.”

  He lifted his gaze to hers. “I’ve been spending Christmas alone for years.”

  Annie felt a tug at her heart. “Well, not this one.”

  Outside, beyond the windows, the night was silvered by moonlight and softly falling snow. Inside, the candles in the center of the table and the fire on the hearth provided the only light.

  Which made the room feel awfully... intimate, with just the two of them alone together to enjoy the Christmas meal she had prepared: a glazed ham, potatoes with dried herbs, mincemeat, fresh-baked bread, and a plum cake with currants.

  Lucas walked around the table and held out her chair for her.

  “Thank you.” Annie sat down, smiling at his unexpected display of gallantry.

  He returned to his side of the table and took his seat. There was an awkward pause.

  “I suppose we should say grace, right?” he asked.

  “Do you know any?” Annie could count on one hand the number of times she had eaten a meal where the saying of grace had been included.

  “Yeah.”

  Annie bowed her head and waited.

  “May the blessings of God, His peace and love, rest upon our table and all gathered here.”

  “Amen,” Annie whispered. It was a lovely blessing.

  She wondered where he had learned it. But she wasn’t sure he would tell her if she asked.

  For a while, there was only the quiet clatter of silverware on dishes as they passed foods back and forth. Lucas carved the meat and put a slice on her plate. She spooned potatoes onto his. He poured her a glass of wine.

  When he lifted the bottle toward his own glass, she shook her head. “Probably not a good idea just yet.” She pointed with her fork toward the milk she’d placed in a crystal decanter for him.

  He frowned and set the wine bottle down. “I drink any more milk, I’m going to start mooing.”

  She grinned. “Daniel says it’ll help you get better.”

  “I am better. Holt is just taking diabolical pleasure out of turning me into a cow.”

  “Still...”

  Lucas grumbled something under his breath, but gave in and poured himself a glass of milk.

  Every now and then a dark silhouette would pass by the front windows, since various townspeople were still taking turns watching over them. However, according to Travis, who had been investigating the attempt on Lucas’s life with all the zeal of a bloodhound hot on a trail, two prime suspects had already vacated the vicinity.

  The young deputy had questioned everyone who attended the dance, and discovered that of the four men who had been serving at the refreshment tables, two had disappeared: a pair of prospectors who had been in Eminence less than a year. Witnesses had seen one of the two giving Lucas the glass of tainted punch—and nobody had seen the pair since.

  Some suggested they had decided to take their chances in the snowbound passes rather than face Lucas’s wrath.

  Annie shivered and turned her mind to more pleasant thoughts.

  She noticed with approval that Lucas’s appetite had returned in full. He made a sound of appreciation with each new dish he sampled.

  “Who taught you to cook like this?” he asked, looking up at her.

  She couldn’t subdue a giggle.

  He arched one brow. “What?”

  “You have a milk mustache.”

  He frowned at her, which only made the white mustache look even funnier and made her laugh harder.

  He reached for his napkin. “Moo.” After wiping his mouth, he picked up the half-empty glass of milk and set it aside.

  That, Annie realized, still grinning, was clearly the end of that.

  “Is there going to be coffee at the end of this meal?” he asked with a hopeful look in his eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He took another piece of bread. “So who taught you to cook like this?”

  She studied the edge of her
wine glass. “I learned to cook when I was little, in St. Charles,” she said, her smile fading. “Since I wasn’t welcome in school, I had a lot of time to myself. And I... didn’t like to spend it in the rooms that my brother and I shared with Mama.”

  She knew she didn’t have to explain why.

  “I spent a lot of time in out-of-the-way corners of the boarding house,” Annie continued. “One day, the woman who ran the kitchens found me hiding in a pantry. She was French, from New Orleans. And she said I couldn’t stay in her kitchen if I wasn’t going to help. So I helped. Over the years, she taught me how to cook.”

  When she looked up and their gazes met through the candlelight, his eyes seemed thoughtful.

  “What?” she asked softly.

  “Just wondered if we ever met, when we were both younger,” he said haltingly, “back in St. Charles. If maybe we met and neither of us even knew it...”

  Her fingers traced the etched crystal of her glass. “I didn’t spend much time in the part of town where you lived. And I doubt if your folks would have let you spend much time down by the river.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “I’ve told you just about everything about me,” she said quietly, “but you haven’t told me much about your life.”

  He remained silent for a long moment.

  “What do you want to know?”

  Anything. Everything. She tried to think of a safe topic. “What did you like to do when you were a boy?”

  “Hunt.” He kept his gaze on his plate. “Spent a lot of time in the woods. Liked it there because it was...” He seemed to search for the right word. “Quiet. Peaceful. In a big Irish family, that was hard to come by.”

  Annie nodded, imagining Lucas as a boy. Even when he was young, he had been of a quiet, independent nature. It probably hadn’t been easy having three little sisters underfoot. But she had no doubt he had been a very protective big brother to them, even though he liked to get away by himself now and then.

  “Got to be a pretty good shot,” he said with a shrug. “Had to put food on the table in some tough times.”