Lily struggled, but it was useless. Her attacker encircled her waist with one manacle-like arm and held her tightly. He smelted of whiskey and dust and the sweat of many days on the trail, and Lily was revolted.
The leader grinned at her. “Seems like we’ll want more than just water for our horses,” he said, approaching. His gaze shifted to the man grasping her from behind. “Did you see the Indian? He was on his way somewhere, hell-bent for leather.”
“The fort, I reckon. Trouble is, most of the troops are out on patrol. We saw ’em hours ago.”
Lily knew the odious man holding her was speaking for her benefit, not for that of his friend. Even so, her heart sank. Charlie would bring Caleb back if he made it to the fort at all, and Caleb would be outnumbered. These men would probably set a trap for him and kill him.
“We oughta take her with us,” one of the men by the creek said. “She’s a pretty little thing—be mighty entertainin’ of an evenin’.”
“Bet she can cook, too,” said the fat man in the top hat.
“Let her go,” said the leader.
The moment the other man’s hand left her mouth Lily let out a long, shrill scream. There was another hope—that her cry would echo through the trees to Velvet, as it had once before.
“We’ll just go inside a while, you and I.” The leader ignored Lily’s sceam and took her arm, forcing her back through the front door. “You men surround the house and keep a lookout.”
There was grumbling, but the outlaws did as he told them, and Lily was filled with a new fear as she found herself alone in the parlor with the stranger.
“Name’s George Baker,” he said. “What’s yours?”
“This isn’t a church social, Mr. Baker,” Lily pointed out calmly. “I don’t want you here, or your men all over my yard.”
He went to the mantelpiece over the stone fireplace Caleb had built with his own hands and looked at the framed photographs displayed there. “This your husband?” he asked, pointing to a portrait of Caleb seated, wearing his uniform, while Lily stood behind him, one hand on his shoulder.
It seemed a patently stupid question to Lily, since she had been wearing her wedding dress when the photograph was taken. “Yes. And he’ll be back here soon.”
“Alone, probably,” Baker said, turning to look at Lily. “Wont be any trouble to kill him.”
Lily felt the color drain from her face. “Why would you want to do that?”
“He probably wouldn’t let us carry off his woman without a fight.” He glanced back at the photograph. “Looks like a big man.”
“He is big,” Lily said, “and very strong.”
Baker laughed and ran his bold blue eyes over Lily’s body in a brazen sweep. “I reckon he’d seem so to a little thing like you,” he said. He glanced toward an inner doorway, through which the big cook stove was visible. “That the kitchen?”
Lily let her eyes tell him what she thought of the question. “Yes, it is,” she said, with mock politeness. “Why do you ask?”
Baker slapped his stomach. “Got me a real hankerin’ for some woman-cooked food. You get in there and fry me up some eggs.”
Lily could almost feel the weight and wallop of her good iron skillet in her hands. She flexed her fingers and turned to walk into the kitchen.
There was wood in the box beside the stove, so Lily fed the fire and then took the big skillet down from its place on the wall. She hated to set it down, but she did.
Just as she was taking eggs and lard from the fancy icebox Caleb had ordered she heard a shot outside. Her heart stopped beating, but Lily allowed herself only a moment’s terror. Baker, cursing, had forgotten her and rushed to the window in the back door.
After muttering a short prayer for both accuracy and forgiveness, Lily swung the skillet as hard as she could, striking him in the back of the head.
His knees buckled, and he slipped noiselessly to the floor, his eyes glazed over like Caleb’s when she pleasured him.
Briskly Lily took Baker’s gun, checked the chamber, and set it aside well out of his reach, just in case he woke up too soon. She tore a dish towel into strips and tied his hands behind his back.
0em” width=“1em”>Then, taking up the loaded pistol, Lily at last dared to go to the window and look out. Sure enough, Caleb had arrived, but he was alone, and he was being held at gunpoint. Although he was still mounted, there was a red spot on his shoulder where the blood from a wound was seeping through his shirt.
Lily pushed up the window and took careful aim at the man who had probably shot Caleb—the fat man with the funny hat. “Drop that gun and let him pass,” she said clearly, “or I’ll blow you into pieces so small they’ll be able to sweep you up and carry you off in that hat of yours.”
Caleb grinned at that, despite his wound. When the bandit dropped his rifle into the dust Caleb dismounted, strode over to collect it, and entered the house through the back door. If the others were looking on, they were apparently afraid to move—Lily couldn’t see them from where she stood.
Caleb glanced at Baker, still lying unconscious on the floor, his hands bound behind him with a cloth that had part of the word Tuesday embroidered on it. “What happened to him?”
“He met up with the big skillet,” Lily answered, peering at Caleb’s wound. “Let me have a look at that.”
“It’s nothing,” Caleb answered, shuffling her aside. “How many are there?”
“Four, I think,” Lily answered, frowning thoughtfully. “Besides this fellow and the fat man, I mean.”
“What do they want?”
“Me,” Lily said succinctly.
“Can’t blame the poor bastards for that,” Caleb remarked with a wry grin, striding to the gun cabinet and taking out a rifle. “Too bad I’m going to have to kill them.”
“Caleb, you’re hurt—let me take care of you.”
“That’ll have to wait,” Caleb answered, going to the front window to stand just to one side of it, looking out. “Get out of the middle of the room, Lily, before they take a potshot at you.”
Lily ducked behind the wing-backed chair, her teeth biting into her lower lip.
The glass in the window shattered in the next instant, and Caleb fired. “Never pays to stand out in the open!” he called to his victim.
“Is he dead?” Lily’s fingers were digging into the leather of Caleb’s favorite chair.
“No, but his mama will probably never have grandchildren.” Caleb fired again, and there was cursing from outside.
Lily ran her tongue over her lips. She was perspiring under her arms and between her breasts and shoulder blades. In those moments her many differences with Caleb didn’t seem to mean much.
She closed her eyes when she saw her husband taking aim again. “Damn idiots,” he muttered just before another shot exploded in the summer air. Then the air was suddenly filled with the sounds of horses’ hooves beating against hard, dry dirt.
“Is the army here?” Lily said.
Caleb chuckled and set his rifle down. “No. The fellas just decided it might be a good idea to ride out.” He strode outside to collect the two men he’d shot. After binding their hands behind them he threw them into the shed, along with their dazed leader, to await help from the fort.
Lily was dipping hot water from the stove reservoir when Caleb returned to the house. “You couldn’t have done it without me,” she said, pressing him into a chair. She was peeling off his shirt when Velvet and Hank arrived, out of breath.
Hank was carrying his hunting rifle.
“We heard shootin’!” Velvet cried.
Lily was cleaning the wound in Caleb’s shoulder, it looked to her as if the bullet had gone straight through. “It just so happens that we’ve got three outlaws tied up in our shed,” she said matter-of-factly. “Hank, if you could see your way clear to ride to the fort for a doctor, I’d appreciate it”
“I don’t need a doctor,” Caleb protested. But he winced and drew in a sharp breath when Lil
y poured some of his best whiskey onto the wound.
“Well, those men out in the shed do,” Lily answered, preparing to douse the injury again, this time from the back.
When she did, Caleb let out a string of curses that reddened even Velvet’s cheeks.
“I’ll be back in as soon as I can,” Hank said, hurrying out. “I’d better have a look at them outlaws and see if they’re bleedin’ or anythin’,” Velvet put in when her husband was gone.
“Just you keep in mind that they’re dangerous men,” Lily warned, bandaging Caleb’s shoulder with strips of torn sheets. “There’s hot water in the reservoir.”
Velvet nodded and went out.
“You were wonderful,” Caleb said, giving Lily’s bottom a little pat.
“Like I said, if it weren’t for me, you’d probably be dead.” Caleb laughed and pulled her down onto his lap. “Probably so. You win, Lily. You were right to believe you knew how to take care of yourself, no matter what the circumstances.”
“Of course I was right,” Lily said, unbuttoning her fancy shirtwaist, which was now dirty and speckled with blood.
An hour later Lily and Caleb left Fort Deveraux on board the stagecoach.
They spent the first night in Spokane, in the same hotel where they had stayed during their earlier visit, but there was a new peace between them that had never existed before. Facing trouble side by side had apparently served to spawn a deeper closeness between them.
Caleb and Lily arrived in Wyoming Territory after a four-day train ride, and Caleb, his arm in a sling because of the gunshot wound, was pale with exhaustion. Lily took a room at Bolton’s only hotel, a seedy place with dusty potted palms and worn rugs in the lobby, and promised faithfully to remain there while Caleb rested. At the first snore she crept out to go in search of Caroline.
Since Mrs. Daniel Pride, the woman who had originaleb litten to her about Caroline, had turned out to be the marshal’s wife, Lily looked for her to be living in the little frame house directly behind the jail.
Her instincts proved right. The Prides resided there, and the mistress of the house was a buxom dark-haired woman with overlapping front teeth, sharp brown eyes, and heavy brows that came close to meeting in the middle.
“I’m Lily Chalmers Halliday,” Lily announced when the woman stepped out onto her porch to eye her visitor suspiciously. “I wondered if Miss Caroline Chalmers ever returned to Bolton.”
Mrs. Pride shook her head. “No, ma’am. I guess if you want to know all about Miss Caroline, you’d better speak with the Maitland sisters. They’ll tell you the story.”
Lily felt a chill move up and down her spine, but she maintained her dignity. “If you could just point the way to their house, please.”
The marshal’s wife directed her to a large white house at the end of the street. It had green shutters and a picket fence, and roses bloomed in an arbor, giving the place a welcoming look.
Lily opened the gate and moved purposefully up the walk. She was so tense she could barely breathe.
Reaching the front door with its snarling brass lion knocker, she made her presence known.
A tiny, timid-looking gray-haired woman answered. “Yesr
Lily introduced herself, then explained, “I’m looking for my sister Caroline.”
The small woman’s eyes filled with tears, and she stepped back to admit Lily into shady environs smelling of lavender and cinnamon and wood ashes. “Oh, dear It would have meant so much to her to see you.”
Lily swallowed hard, suddenly wishing she hadn’t left the hotel without Caleb. She had a feeling she was going to need his strength very soon. “Would have?” she echoed softly.
The woman dried her eyes with a fussy handkerchief trimmed in lace. “We do fear she’s perished, our Caroline. Kidnapped by a scoundrel who’d been camping out in the hills. Had a drunken dog, you know.”
Lily groped for a chair and sank into it. “Caroline dead? I don’t believe it.” In the next few minutes, she presented dozens of questions, but the old woman’s answers only left her more confused than before.
“Would you like to see her picture?” the old woman asked gently.
“Oh, yes.”
Moments later Lily found herself staring at a small framed photograph of a beautiful dark-haired woman with creamy, flawless skin, a straight little nose, and laughter in her eyes. “I would have known her,” Lily said brokenly. “If I’d seen her, I would have known she was Caroline.”
“You may keep that, if you’d like. Sister and I have many photographs of Caroline—she was our darling girl, you see.”
“Perhaps she’s not dead,” Lily ventured, feeling new hope as she tucked the cherished photograph into her handbag. “My husband and I are ur way to Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania. I’ll write everything down for you, and if—when—Caroline returns, you can tell her I was here.”
Miss Maitland nodded, though there wasn’t much hope in her gentle, crinkly face. “Very well, dear.”
“What is she like?” Lily wanted to know.
“She was pretty, always laughing. She liked to sing, but she had a hot temper.”
“Did she ever speak of me, or of Emma?”
“All the time. It was her dream to find you both. She wrote a little book about the three of you—how you were sent west on that orphan train and everything. She was hoping one of you would see it and get in touch with her. It’ll be published next winter.”
Lily was very near tears, and she longed for Caleb. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d needed his arms around her more than she did at that moment. She rose from her chair. “Thank you for everything, Miss Maitland,” she said, moving uncertainly toward the door.
“That’s Miss Ethel Maitland,” the woman responded. “And my sister is Phoebe.”
“Y-you raised Caroline together?” Lily asked, pausing on the porch of the tidy white house.
Ethel Maitland nodded. “We like to claim the honor, though there are those who say that Caroline raised us.”
Lily smiled at that. Caroline had always been bossy, Lily could easily picture her ordering her kindly guardians about and telling them just what to think about things. “Please give her my message—and my love—when you see her again.”
Miss Maitland looked doubtful, but she nodded once more. “I will,” she promised.
Lily walked back to the hotel in something of a daze, and when she reached the room Caleb was sitting up. The sheets lay across his lean waist, and his chest was naked except for the white sling the doctor had put on before they left home.
“Well?” he asked, making no comment on the fact that she’d left the room without him against his express orders. “Did you find her?”
Lily burst into tears. “Everybody thinks she’s dead,” she sobbed. “She was kidnapped by some awful man with a dog that drinks!”
Caleb’s expression was solemn as he patted the mattress beside him and said gently, “Come here and sit down.”
Lily dragged the back of one hand across both eyes and sniffled. “Would you like to see her picture?”
“Sure,” he answered.
She brought the photograph from her bag and held it out to her husband. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
“Being your sister, she could hardly be anything else,” Caleb replied, studying the lovely, animated face in the picture.
“I left word that she could reach us in Fox Chapel. Caleb, I just know she’s all right, that she’ll be back soo1;
Caleb laid the picture aside and reached out to enfold Lily’s hand in his own and squeeze it reassuringly. “Yes,” he said.
Lily sighed. “Oh, Caleb, I need to be held. I need you to make love to me—to make me give everything so I don’t have to think.”
In answer Caleb drew her close and kissed her thoroughly. “Take off your clothes, Mrs. Halliday, and I’ll be happy to comply.”
It was noon, and the sounds of everyday activities were drifting up from the streets. Lily undressed and crawled
into bed beside Caleb.
The train left Bolton at ten o’clock the next morning, and Lily and Caleb were aboard it. They were on their way to Fox Chapel; after Caleb had met with his brother they would travel to Chicago to see what they could learn from Kathleen Chalmers Harrington’s friends and neighbors.
“Tell me why you and Joss were on opposite sides in the war,” Lily urged as they rolled ever nearer to the confrontation Caleb both needed and dreaded.
Caleb sighed, taking her hand in his. “Fox Chapel is just north of the West Virginia border. There were a lot of people there who sided with the Confederacy.”
Lily nodded, waiting.
“Joss joined up the same day I did.” Caleb shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I didn’t see him again until the day I found him on the ground with his arm blown off.”
“You turned him over to your superior officers?”
Caleb nodded. “It was that or kill him, and I couldn’t do that.”
“Of course not,” Lily answered.
“He’s been furious with me ever since.”
“That doesn’t make sense. You’d think he would be glad to be alive.”
“It was pretty hard for him in prison, according to my sister’s letters.”
Lily nodded. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must have been like to be a prisoner of war on either side. “When he sees you he’ll know what a wonderful man you are, and he won’t hate you anymore.”
Caleb grinned and lifted Lily’s hand to his lips to kiss it lightly. “I’m sure you’re right,” he said with gentle skepticism.
Lily felt a tingle go through her. It had been several days since she and Caleb had been able to make love, as they were sleeping in narrow berths that left no room for two people. She lowered her eyes, hoping Caleb wouldn’t be able to interpret her expression.
He kissed her hand again. “I think we’ll get off the train for a day or two, Mrs. Halliday. I’m feeling like a neglected husband.”
Lily smiled at that. “Something must be done,” she replied earnestly.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
The next stop was a small town in Ohio, and the Hallidas left the train there. After baths and a long, often-interrupted nap in their hotel room they bought tickets to a circus playing on the edge of town.
Lily and the Major Page 35