A Stone Creek Collection Volume 1

by Linda Lael Miller

Lark’s mouth tightened briefly, but her eyes were compassionate. “I told you,” she said, very softly. “Hon Sing is a doctor. A surgeon.”

  “Then why’s he working for Jolene Bell?” Rowdy demanded, as some of the shock subsided, and he began to think a little more clearly.

  “Because he and Mai Lee have to earn a living,” Lark said moderately. “He’d never be allowed to practice medicine here.”

  “I should have been here.”

  “You weren’t. There’s no point in torturing yourself.”

  He thrust out a sigh, rumpled his hair again. Wondered where he’d lost his hat. “If I could be out there on that table, if I could take Gideon’s place, I would,” he said.

  “I know,” Lark replied.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it.”

  “I’m ready. Tell me, Lark, because I’m going to go crazy if you don’t.”

  She told him.

  Gideon had come to the rooming house for supper and birthday cake. Afterward, he’d announced that he had rounds to make, because he, Rowdy, was away. Lark had been unsettled by his going and decided to follow him.

  In an effort to protect Gideon’s pride—the kind of thing only a woman would do—she’d stayed out of sight.

  He’d looked toward the saloons, Gideon had, and, evidently satisfied that all was well there, headed on to the dance at the Cattleman’s Hall.

  Rowdy saw the rearing horse in his mind’s eye, and the rider on its back, just as clearly as if he’d been there himself. Saw the man bend low to ride a panicked horse inside the dance hall. Heard the screams from inside.

  Closed his eyes.

  “Gideon tried to stop him,” Lark finished. “He must have gotten hold of the bridle, on the side where I couldn’t see. And then there was a gunshot, and the man rode out, and Gideon was—Gideon was just lying there….”

  “Who was this rider?” Rowdy asked taut with the need to know.

  “Someone called him Willie,” Lark said carefully.

  “I’ll kill him,” Rowdy said, and he’d never meant a thing he’d said in his life more than he meant that. His brain hitched back to his first day in Stone Creek, when he and Pardner had availed themselves of Jolene’s bathhouse. Two men had come in—one named Harlan, one named Willie.

  The second man’s features came clear in Rowdy’s mind.

  “No,” Lark replied. “You’ll let Sam handle this.”

  “I’m the marshal.”

  “You’re also Gideon’s brother. You can’t possibly be objective.”

  “I don’t want to be objective,” Rowdy protested. “I want to shove a .44 down the bastard’s throat and blow his stomach out through his—” He stopped, remembering that this was Lark he was talking to, not Sam or his pa.

  Her face was pale, her eyes wide. A faint shimmer of gold showed at the roots of her lush brown hair, now falling from its pins.

  “Why did they bring him here, and not to Mrs. Porter’s?”

  “Because of Lydia,” Lark said. “She’s been through a great deal as it is, and she’s very fond of Gideon. I didn’t want her to see him like this. And, anyhow, since you live here, this is Gideon’s real home.”

  Gideon’s “real home” was Ruby’s Saloon and Poker House, but it was miles away and thick with rangers. Ruby might have seen to the boy, but without Pa there to insist, it seemed almost as likely that she wouldn’t have wanted the bother.

  He thought of Rose’s small grave outside the cemetery fence, and imagined a new one being dug beside it for Gideon.

  His stomach threatened to come up, right along with the contents.

  “Why did you have to go back to Flagstaff in such a hurry?” Lark asked. “Gideon said Sam and the major met you on the road, and you rode right out again.”

  I don’t reckon I could go along? Rowdy heard his brother say.

  God, if only he’d said yes.

  If only he’d said yes.

  None of this would have happened. Gideon would be safe.

  “There was another train robbery this morning,” Rowdy said. “Maybe an hour’s ride outside Flagstaff. And old Autry Whitman himself was a witness—”

  Lark’s eyes rounded, and her wan face went white. “Autry Whitman?” she repeated, gripping the sides of her chair with both hands. “He was there?”

  Rowdy watched her, ready to spring off the bed and catch her before she tumbled forward in a swoon and hit the floor, if it came to that. “Do you know him, Lark? Autry Whitman?”

  She shivered at the name, but shook her head violently. “No!”

  She was lying, of course, but Rowdy didn’t call her on it.

  She stood up, sat down again.

  And then tears brimmed along her lower lashes and spilled over.

  Oh, yes. She knew Autry Whitman, all right.

  He might even be the man she was running from.

  Whatever Whitman was to her, she was scared to death of him.

  CHAPTER 16

  SITTING THERE IN ROWDY’S bedroom, precisely the place she shouldn’t have been, Lark reeled at the revelation he’d just made.

  Autry was in Flagstaff—Rowdy had seen him, spoken to him.

  Her former husband would be furious about the train robbery, of course, and because he’d been aboard when it happened, the affront would be magnified to Biblical proportions. Worse, if he was dissatisfied with the investigation, he might well come to Stone Creek, chasing after Sam and the major, meaning to cajole and threaten until they returned, tracked down the criminals and restored whatever had been stolen.

  Rowdy was watching her closely, from where he sat on the edge of the bed, and she knew he wouldn’t buy anything but the truth.

  She had to run.

  But she couldn’t. Because Nell Franks still hadn’t come to fetch Lydia back to Phoenix. And because of Gideon. How could she leave and never know if he’d fully recovered—or even survived?

  She could not go, not even if it meant coming face-to-face with Autry Whitman.

  “Let me help you, Lark,” Rowdy said quietly.

  Tears stung her eyes. “Autry is a dangerous man,” she replied woodenly. “You have no idea how powerful he is, how far his reach extends, and what people will do for him because he pays them—”

  She paused, shuddered.

  Once, in a moment of anger, Autry had grabbed her hard by the hair, pulled her face close to his and spat out the words, “Defy me, Lark. Go ahead. You’ll find yourself inside a pine box, like all the others!”

  Like all the others.

  Lark had known he wasn’t bluffing; Autry had surely ordered murders, and beatings, as well. He employed a network of thugs and never dirtied his own hands. But to cross him was fatal business, especially when money was involved.

  She’d injured him in a far worse way; she’d damaged his formidable pride. If Autry got her alone, cornered her somewhere, he might well kill her, and personally.

  She swallowed, simply unable to contain the secret any longer; whatever the consequences, she had to tell one person, and that person was Rowdy. “Autry Whitman,” she said, “is my former husband.”

  Rowdy leaned forward, rested his forearms on the thighs of his muddy trousers. He did not look horrified, or even particularly surprised, though the look in his blue eyes was as sharp as the point on any of Hon Sing’s needles. “Former?” he asked, very quietly.

  Outside that room, Hon Sing was operating on Gideon, and the boy’s life hung in the balance. Inside, the air seemed to quiver.

  “Former,” Lark confirmed. “I divorced Autry a few days after I left Denver. I’ve been hiding ever since.”

  Rowdy nodded. “I thought it must be something like that,” he said. “It isn’t an easy thing, getting a divorce, especially when it’s the woman who goes after it. How did you manage it so quickly?”

  Lark let out a long breath. Wished she could go and sit beside Rowdy on his bed, feel his arm slip around her, steel
y strong. But she was too afraid he’d shun her. “If you have enough money,” she said evenly, “you can do almost anything.”

  “Were there any children, Lark?” Rowdy put the question gently enough, but she could see by the flicker in his eyes that the answer was important to him.

  “Of course not,” she said, feeling mildly indignant. Given all that had happened during the night, Gideon’s shooting, seeing him moved from the Cattleman’s Hall here, in the back of someone’s wagon, she was mostly numb. “I wouldn’t have left my own child behind. And besides, Autry couldn’t—”

  “Couldn’t what?” Rowdy prompted, when she fell silent. “Couldn’t make love to you?”

  She trembled, bit down so hard on the inside of her lower lip that she tasted blood. “He tried. He put his hands on me—and sometimes, he even—” She closed her eyes.

  “It’s all right, Lark,” Rowdy said, though he still gave no indication that he wanted her beside him, that he’d ever touch her again. “You were married to the man. Naturally, you shared his bed.”

  Lark tried to blink away her tears, but more came, and then more, until her face was wet. She sat rigidly in her chair, yearning to be held, fearing she’d perish, at least on the inside, if Rowdy spurned her. “I didn’t feel—I didn’t feel any of the things I felt with you.” She gave a slight shake of her head, and a bitter little sob of a laugh. “I didn’t even know it was possible to feel those things.”

  The corner of Rowdy’s mouth tilted up, but the grin came nowhere near his eyes. He looked so worn down that, even in her own extremity, Lark suddenly wanted to offer him consolation more than she wanted to receive it from him. She ached to lie down with Rowdy Rhodes and wrap her arms around him, and hold him tightly until everything was all right.

  “Whitman is old enough to be your grandfather,” he said. “What possessed you to marry him in the first place? And don’t say you loved him, because I know you didn’t. Was it the money, Lark?”

  Lark straightened her spine. She’d thought the hardest part of all this would be telling Rowdy that she’d lived two horrid years as Autry Whitman’s wife, a plaything to be fondled and spoiled and petted—and used. But, no, she had yet to say the most difficult truth.

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t the money,” she said. “I was singing in a saloon in San Francisco when I met Autry.”

  “Go on,” Rowdy said. His voice hadn’t changed, nor had his manner, but his eyes were hard as he waited for the rest.

  “I was the ‘swing’ girl,” Lark reflected, looking back in her mind, seeing herself on that ridiculous crimson velvet contraption, suspended from the high ceiling of Cyrus Teede’s show house by golden ropes, soaring out over the upturned faces of leering men in one of several scant costumes, singing and smiling just as though she enjoyed being the center of all that lascivious attention.

  Instead, she’d lived in fear.

  Whenever the box office receipts were down, Teede, a hoodlum in gentleman’s garb, threatened to send men to her room. They’d be willing to pay handsomely for a visit, Teede had said, and she wouldn’t even have to sing.

  Lark had been well paid for performing in the show house, but Cyrus “invested” most of her money. She’d tried to leave twice. On both occasions Cyrus had found her and dragged her back. Slapped her into submission.

  She realized, as she was remembering all this, that she was telling it to Rowdy, too. Saying it right out loud.

  “Then, one spring evening, Autry came to see the show. Everyone kowtowed to him, the famous railroad owner. Teede had already told me he was planning to sell my favors, and I knew that was going to be the night, because I’d seen him talking with some of the regulars, all of them looking at me. I saw money change hands. I was so afraid, I could barely sing—I knew Teede meant what he’d said, and all the doors were being watched by his henchmen. I wasn’t going to get away, and I’d be beaten senseless if I tried—after Teede’s customers had their way with me.”

  Rowdy’s jawline tightened, but he didn’t speak. He simply waited.

  Lark swallowed. “Autry immediately let it be known that he wanted me, the way he might have wanted a bauble in a storefront window. He believed I was a…a prostitute, but he was willing to marry me, just the same.” She blew out a breath. “Oh, he was so noble about it. He must have paid Teede an astronomical sum of money to let me go—”

  Rowdy shifted, watching her, resting his elbows on his thighs now, his fingers tented beneath his chin. “What happened then, Lark?” he asked, his voice as still as deep waters sheltered from the wind on all sides.

  Lark dashed at her cheeks with the back of one hand, raised her chin a notch. “Autry and I were married that same night, by a justice of the peace, in Teede’s back office. I’d escaped being thrown to those men like a carcass to wolves—but I hadn’t escaped. I still spent the night in a rich stranger’s bed.”

  Rowdy closed his eyes against the images, but Lark knew by the bunching of a muscle in his cheek that he hadn’t evaded them.

  Having begun the tale, Lark couldn’t seem to stop. Words tumbled out of her mouth, truths long withheld, even from herself. “I was a virgin when Autry took me the first time, but, like I said, he never believed that, even when he made me bleed. I guess he thought it was some kind of whore’s trick. By morning, I was so raw and bruised, I could barely get out of bed—the only reason I did, the only reason I didn’t just lie there, waiting to die, was the fear that Autry would pounce on me again.”

  Rowdy muttered a curse, and Lark felt condemned by it.

  “Do you know what he did the day after we were married?” she went on, partly out of spite, because she was sure Rowdy was judging her, and partly because she still couldn’t stop the flow of confession. “He bought me a new wardrobe and all sorts of jewelry—oh, I was a showpiece, to be sure. Back in Denver, he installed me in his mansion and presented me as his pristine young bride, who’d married him for love. I played the part until I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

  “And then?”

  She told Rowdy about the funeral she’d attended with Autry. Said how she’d pleaded a sick headache and asked to leave. Then she’d told the carriage driver she’d gotten word that her sister was sick—dear God, how many times had she longed for a real sister, someone like Maddie O’Ballivan, to turn to for help?—and taken the next train out of town.

  She’d gone to San Francisco first, even though it was Cyrus Teede’s territory, because she had a few hundred dollars there, money she’d saved while singing for a living, mostly given to her by men hoping for more than a song, tucked into a safe deposit box in a bank. It had taken every penny to end her marriage to Autry, and she’d paid it gladly.

  She’d gone to a special shop, immediately after securing the divorce, certain that Autry had already hired Pinkertons to search for her, and had her blond hair dyed brown. Then, clutching her copy of the decree of divorcement, she’d boarded another train, the first one leaving San Francisco that day, not caring where it was headed, as long as it wasn’t Denver.

  She’d gotten off in Phoenix, bought a newspaper for a penny and read the classified advertisements. Thus she’d learned there was a teaching position open in Stone Creek, and that Mrs. Porter had clean rooms to let for a reasonable price.

  She’d gone without meals on the long stagecoach ride north from Phoenix, a journey of several days, for her money—now amounting only to what she’d stolen from Autry’s humidor in the study—was nearly gone. It had taken the last of it to secure room and board at Mrs. Porter’s, and even then she hadn’t had enough. Mrs. Porter had taken pity on her and let her pay the rest when she received her first month’s salary.

  Having related all this, Lark felt dry and empty inside. She had nothing more to tell, so she just sat there, her back straight, waiting for some reaction from Rowdy.

  When it came, it startled her so that she nearly bolted.

  He rose off the bed, with a creaking of mattress springs, crossed
to her, and pulled her to her feet. And then he began unbuttoning the bodice of her ruined dress.

  When he’d removed the dress, Rowdy threw back the covers on the bed and laid her down on them. Took off her shoes. Drew the quilt up to her chin and bent to kiss her forehead.

  “Get some sleep,” he told her. “We’ll figure out what to do about Whitman and the rest of it later, when you’re rested. Right now I’m so worried about Gideon, I can’t think about anything else.”

  Lark ached to be held, and at the very same time, she prayed Rowdy would leave her alone. Prayed he didn’t think, as Autry had, that she was a whore, ripe for using. As much as she wanted Rowdy Rhodes, she couldn’t have borne it if he used her.

  Fresh tears sprang to her eyes, and it was all she could do not to reach for Rowdy, not to pull him down onto the bed beside her.

  He left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Lark lay stiff in the cool, wintry light streaming in through the window. She would never sleep again; she was sure of that.

  But in the next moment she nodded off.

  Hours later she awakened, stirred from the depths of slumber by some sound, and knew that Rowdy was back. It must have been early afternoon, she concluded, but she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t slept round the clock, either. If she had, it was Monday, and she was late for school.

  Lark watched, her heart pounding, as Rowdy sat down on the side of the bed to remove his boots.

  “I know you’re awake,” he said. “No sense pretending you’re not.”

  Lark sighed. “Gideon?”

  “He’ll be a while mending, but he’ll be all right. Sam and I brought the cot from the jailhouse, and Gideon’s sleeping on that. Mai Lee came to sit with him, once Hon Sing finished the surgery.”

  Tears of relief rushed to Lark’s eyes, but she blinked them back.

  “What time is it? Is it still Sunday?”

  “It’s about three-thirty in the afternoon, and, yes, it’s still Sunday.”

  “I’m not a whore, Rowdy,” she heard herself say.

  “I know that,” he replied, standing to haul off his shirt, unbutton his pants, strip till he was naked.