A Stone Creek Collection Volume 1

by Linda Lael Miller

  “What?” Owen fairly spat the word. His face took on an obstinate flush, and he ignored his friends as they went by, casting worried, curious glances in his direction.

  “Owen, Mar—your mother—”

  “You are my mother!”

  Some of the children stopped, turned around at Owen’s shout, and Davina appeared on the porch of the schoolhouse, looking troubled.

  “Yes,” Sarah said, putting her hands on his shoulders. “Yes, I’m your mother. But Mrs. Langstreet—”

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” Owen said woodenly.

  “I’m sorry. Yes, Owen. She’s gone.”

  “Good.”

  “Owen!”

  “I don’t care! She locked me in closets—she called me a bastard!”

  Sarah’s heart, already broken over Wyatt, dissolved within her. “Oh, Owen, it’s wrong to say such terrible things, no matter what she did or said. And now your father is back in Stone Creek, and he and I are going to be married, and we’ll all go back to Philadelphia with him—”

  Owen’s freckles seemed to stand out from his face as he first reddened, then went pale again. “You can’t marry him! You’re married to Wyatt—”

  Sarah couldn’t speak. She simply shook her head.

  “I hate you!” Owen screamed. “I hate you just like I hated her!” And with that, he ran from her, dropping his books and his tablet and running harder still.

  “Mrs. Yarbro?”

  Sarah stiffened at the name. Turned and looked at Davina, now standing just on the other side of the fence, watching her. “Please,” Sarah whispered, “don’t call me that.”

  “I’m very worried about Owen,” Davina said.

  “Do you think I’m not?” Sarah snapped.

  Davina put a hand on her arm. It seemed a mature gesture, for one so young and so sheltered. Full of dignity and tenderness. “Of course you are,” Davina said. “Is there anything I can do to help? Either you or Owen?”

  “I wish there were,” Sarah said, regretting the way she’d spoken to the young woman earlier. She just didn’t seem to have the strength to apologize. “I wish there were.”

  “If you think of anything, will you tell me?” Davina asked. “Please?”

  Sarah nodded. Thanked the new schoolmarm and started slowly for home.

  Owen would be there when she arrived. She’d find a way to reason with him, a way to make him understand.

  He’d forget Wyatt.

  He’d forget Lonesome.

  They’d be happy together, he’d see.

  But Owen wasn’t at home when Sarah got there.

  She searched the whole house, and the yard, and even the garden shed and the outhouse.

  No Owen.

  She was standing in the kitchen, barely managing to hold herself together, when she heard the buckboard drive up outside.

  Wyatt.

  That was it! Owen had gone to Wyatt, and Wyatt had brought him home.

  She hurried to the window.

  Wyatt was by himself, except for Lonesome.

  “Sarah,” he began, a few moments later, letting himself in through the back door without knocking, the dog plodding wearily past him to collapse onto the folded quilt still lying next to the stove. “We need to talk.”

  All Sarah’s panic erupted in that one moment, and hysteria wasn’t far behind. The rational part of her brain counseled her to be calm, even reasonable, but she couldn’t. Too much had happened. Too much was wrong. Too much was at stake.

  “I can’t find Owen!” she blurted out. “Wyatt, I don’t know where Owen is!”

  Wyatt said nothing for a long moment. Then a muscle bunched in his jaw. “We’ll find him, Sarah,” he said. He extended a hand to her, and she went to him, and flung herself into his arms, sobbing. “We’ll find him,” he repeated.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ONCE HE’D MADE SENSE of Sarah’s disjointed account of what had happened between her and Owen, in front of the schoolhouse, Wyatt knew exactly where the boy had gone. To Charles. The poor kid probably thought he could reason with his father, make him understand how much he wanted to grow up in Stone Creek, with Sarah.

  From what Wyatt had gathered, though, reasoning with Langstreet would be like reasoning with a cornered rattlesnake.

  So he headed the buckboard straight for the only hotel in town.

  Sarah moved to climb down when he drew in the reins and set the brakes, but Wyatt froze her to the wagon seat with a look.

  “Let me handle this,” he said.

  She swallowed visibly, nodded. Wyatt knew it was despair, not docility, that made her comply. She was emotionally spent, overwhelmed, and while her strength and her spirit would return, because she was that kind of woman right down to the marrow of her bones, for a little while, anyhow, she was willing to obey.

  It wasn’t hard to find Langstreet’s room. It was the biggest one, directly at the top of the stairs, and Owen was in there yelling like a rebel soldier charging the whole Union army all by himself.

  Wyatt took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the ineffectual protests of a desk clerk, and entered the room without bothering to knock.

  Langstreet sat in a chair near the window, his face a mask.

  Owen stood directly in front of his father, his little fists clenched. He stopped in midsentence when he realized Wyatt was there, turned his head and looked at him with such desperation in his eyes that Wyatt had to shore himself up a little before he dared to speak.

  “Ah, the outlaw-lover,” Langstreet drawled. “I knew you’d come.”

  “Owen,” Wyatt said quietly, “your mama is out in front of the hotel, in Sam’s wagon. Go and look after her. She’s been mighty worried about you.”

  Owen hesitated, reddened and then nodded. After hurling one last look of pure hatred at Charles, he left the room.

  Wyatt closed the door. He hadn’t wanted the boy to hear what he knew would be said here.

  “At least you had one night with her,” Langstreet said. “She’s quite the little wildcat in bed, isn’t she?”

  Wyatt had never despised a man, not Billy Justice and his ilk, not even the cruelest guards in prison, the way he despised Charles Langstreet in that moment. “I won’t discuss that with you,” he said evenly, surprised at the dull, painful calm thudding inside him like a second heart.

  “It ought to be quite interesting—not to mention diverting—to woo Sarah back to my bed.”

  “You don’t want Sarah. You don’t even want the boy. What you want is to make everybody around you as miserable as you are. It’ll be a hard life, living with a woman and a boy who hate you half again as much as God hates the devil.”

  Langstreet sighed. Crossed his legs in that effeminate way of so many men of his class. “The boy will be troublesome, all right. But that will be easily remedied. After a few months, when Sarah’s had a chance to get used to being my wife, I’ll send him off to school in Europe. Do him good. He’s turned wild, even in the short time he’s been out here. Dresses like a ruffian. And if he’d been big enough, he’d have taken his fists to me few minutes ago.”

  “I wouldn’t mind doing that myself, right about now,” Wyatt said, taking in the black armband of mourning on Langstreet’s sleeve. “Sarah is my wife. And I’ll kill you before I let you take her back East, use her like a whore and throw her to the wolves. You know your fancy friends aren’t going to accept her.”

  Langstreet shrugged. “They were Marjory’s ‘fancy friends,’ not mine. I’ve never quite met with their approval. Marjory was the one with the genteel pedigree, you see. Philadelphia Main Line, all the way. But I had the money, only son of a filthy upstart industrialist that I am. Do you think I give a damn what they say? I can ruin most of them with a stroke of a pen.”
r />   “And you enjoy that, don’t you? Ruining people?”

  “It’s—amusing. Very interesting, really. Take you, for instance. You’re never going to get over Sarah’s going away. And I’ve been keeping a close eye on things at the bank, from a discreet distance, of course. Thomas proved an able and willing spy. I can call your loan, Mr. Yarbro, and pull that little ranch right out from under you.”

  “You can take that ‘little ranch,’ Mr. Langstreet, and shove it up your dandified ass.”

  Langstreet chuckled, framing one side of his face with a thumb and forefinger as he regarded Wyatt. “Do yourself a favor, Wyatt. Steal a horse and ride out before I crush you like the cheap hoodlum you are.”

  “And miss seeing you try to ‘crush’ me? Not on your life, Charlie.”

  Langstreet’s gaze strayed languidly to the gun on Wyatt’s hip. “Are you challenging me to a gunfight?” he asked, his voice silky with disdain. “You’d probably win. I would be dead, fodder for those wretched hacks churning out dime novels. And you, Mr. Yarbro, would go straight back to prison. Even hang. Where would Sarah and Owen be then? Who would take care of them, with Ephriam lying like a slavering hulk in his sickbed?”

  “Sarah would,” Wyatt said, knowing it was true. “She’d take care of herself and Owen. She doesn’t need me any more than she needs you. But here’s the difference, Langstreet—she wants me. If she marries you, it will only be because she can’t bear being separated from Owen. You wouldn’t understand, but unlike you, and unlike your dead wife, Sarah loves that boy. He’s not an inconvenience to her, not an embarrassment. She loves him enough to forfeit her own happiness to keep him safe.”

  “Love,” Langstreet muttered. “I loved her once, you know. In time, I’ll learn to love her again. I’ll make her happy.”

  “If you loved her so much, why did you desert her? Take her child away? Go back to your wife?”

  “Marjory and I had an agreement when we married—a formal one, written down and duly witnessed. I would have had to sign over half of what I owned if I’d divorced her. So I waited for her to die. She certainly took her excruciating time doing it, though.”

  Bile scalded the back of Wyatt’s throat. “If you want to take Sarah, or the boy, you’re going to have to come through me to do it. Sure, I’ll go to prison if I gun you down, and probably hang, but here’s the thing, Langstreet. Without Sarah and Owen, I’ve got nothing to lose. Nothing at all. Rowdy will look after my dog and my horse. Sarah will mourn a while—not for you, thoroughly dead and six feet under, but for me—and then she’ll marry some lucky bastard and make a life for herself and for Owen.”

  For the first time, Langstreet looked uncertain. “You’d actually do it, wouldn’t you? Challenge me to a gunfight. Put a bullet through my heart. All for Sarah and Owen.”

  “All for Sarah and Owen,” Wyatt said.

  Langstreet arched an eyebrow. “High noon tomorrow?” he taunted. “In the middle of Main Street?”

  “The place of your choosing. One way or the other, Sarah and Owen aren’t going anyplace.”

  “A word to your brother the marshal, the famed Rowdy Yarbro, and you’ll be behind bars before you get the chance to draw on me.”

  Wyatt smiled. “I guess you didn’t hear,” he said. “The jailhouse blew up a few days ago. Dynamite. And Rowdy might be marshal, and a fast gun, but he’s still my little brother, and he’d need a bigger posse than he could gather on short notice to round me up. Anyhow, blood is blood. More likely, he’d take my part.”

  He had the satisfaction of watching the color drain from Langstreet’s face.

  Wyatt tugged at the brim of his hat. Turned to reach for the doorknob. “I’ll be seeing you,” he said. “Where and when? That’s your say, not mine.”

  “He’ll hate you forever, the boy will, if you shoot me,” Langstreet said. “Whatever differences Owen and I have, it’s as you said. Blood is blood. And I’m his father.”

  “Maybe he will,” Wyatt said with an ease he didn’t feel, “but he’ll be with Sarah, and whatever happens to you or me, Owen will grow up to be a fine man, because she’ll see to that. Goodbye, Mr. Langstreet. It’s been—nice talking to you.”

  With that, Wyatt left.

  He went downstairs, climbed up into the wagon seat beside Sarah, and took up the reins. He felt the boy’s gaze burning into his back.

  “What happened in there?” Sarah asked.

  “Mr. Langstreet and I came to an understanding,” Wyatt replied. Then he took Owen and Sarah to the safest place he knew. Sam O’Ballivan’s ranch. He installed them in his cabin, told them both to stay put and saddled up a horse. When Langstreet came to terms with the situation, Wyatt meant to be ready.

  * * *

  AS MUCH AS Sarah didn’t want to believe it, she knew instinctively what was about to happen. Charles Langstreet had money and power. Wyatt had a gun and a reputation. A deadly confrontation was inevitable.

  Wyatt would win, if that confrontation involved pistols, Sarah had no doubt whatsoever of that. But such duels were illegal. In the end, everyone would lose—Charles, herself and Owen, and especially Wyatt. Rowdy, sworn to uphold the law and dead serious about it, would arrest Wyatt. He’d be tried, convicted, and either spend the rest of his life in prison, or be hanged.

  Sarah’s stomach rolled. She had to stop this somehow.

  Get to Rowdy, that was it. Tell him what she suspected.

  But what about Owen? She couldn’t take him to town. He worshipped Wyatt, and as angry as he was with Charles, the man was his father. Dear God, he might even be caught in the cross fire.

  “Stay here,” she told Owen, with only half a hope that he’d obey. She ran for the bunkhouse, found Jody Wexler there, stirring a pot of beans at the stove. Babbled out her story, begged him to keep Owen on Stone Creek Ranch until she returned, no matter what.

  In Sam’s barn she chose a likely looking horse, saddled it up, and rode hard for town. She knew by the peaceful quiet surrounding the main house that no one was at home, or she’d have stopped just long enough to ask for Sam’s help.

  By the time she reached Stone Creek—a strange, frightening silence had fallen over the whole place, and there was no one in sight—she was covered in dust from head to foot, and her hair had long since fallen from its pins, bouncing around her waist as she drew rein in front of Rowdy’s house.

  Lark came out of the cottage, the baby on her hip, her smile of welcome fading when she got a good look at Sarah.

  “Where,” Sarah demanded breathlessly, “is Rowdy?”

  “I don’t know,” Lark answered. “He left in a hurry. Said something about having to find Wyatt before all hell broke loose. Sarah, what’s—”

  Sarah prayed Rowdy had been successful, found Wyatt, talked some sense into him. Maybe they’d gone out to the new place; Wyatt had been working out there.

  She reined the horse in that direction and nudged her lathered horse into a run.

  Wyatt wasn’t at the ranch, and neither was Rowdy.

  And it was getting dark.

  Dismayed, not knowing where else to look, Sarah rode slowly back to Stone Creek to wait. She couldn’t bring herself to go home, so she went to the bank. Locked the door behind her, lit the lamp in her father’s office.

  Wyatt, her heart cried. Where are you?

  If he’d only come back. They could leave town, she and Wyatt and Owen—why hadn’t she thought of that before? Start over, in some faraway place, with new names. And when things settled down, she could send for her father. Get Doc to bring him to wherever they were—

  She sighed, pacing the floor of the office.

  Wyatt wouldn’t run. He’d done enough of that in his life, and Sarah knew he’d had his fill of it.

  Scuffling sounds under the floor stopped Sarah in her tracks. She thought
she heard voices, muffled and hurried.

  She was losing her mind.

  She began pacing again.

  Somebody knocked hard at the front door of the bank.

  Wyatt.

  Sarah rushed to open it, and found not Wyatt, but Owen. And William Smith was right behind him, holding him by the collar with one hand and jamming the barrel of a pistol into the nape of his neck with the other.

  Sarah swayed, and a scream surged up into her throat.

  “One sound,” Smith said, “and I’ll blow this kid’s brains all over your skirts.”

  “I’m sorry,” Owen croaked, looking up at Sarah with terrified, pleading eyes. “I should have stayed with Jody, but I—”

  The armed man shoved Owen over the threshold. Came in and shut the door quietly behind him.

  “Ain’t it peculiar,” Smith said, as Sarah pulled Owen away from him, into her arms. “How things work themselves out? If there’s one man I hate in all creation, it’s Wyatt Yarbro. He sold us out to the vigilantes. He got Carl killed dead. Now how am I going to tell my poor mama that her Carl’s dead and buried?”

  Sarah held Owen close, afraid to speak. The rustling sounds under the floor grew louder.

  “That’s Paddy and the boys,” Smith said, pleased. “They’re laying dynamite down there. In a few minutes, this place will blow like the jailhouse did, and money will be raining down from the sky. Pity you and the boy will go up with it.”

  “Let Owen leave,” Sarah said, willing to beg if she had to. “He’s a child.”

  Smith shoved the pistol barrel hard into the hollow of her throat. “That just makes it all the better. It paid off, hiding out around town for a few days, finding out what Wyatt Yarbro is willing to die for. You and the boy, it turns out. But I’m going to be charitable about this. I’m going to let ole Wyatt live. Live to mourn his woman and this boy the way Ma and me are mournin’ Carl.”

  Sarah saw a movement behind Smith’s shoulder, and he caught the shift of her gaze.

  Charles Langstreet stepped into the bank. “Sarah, I saw the light and—” Seeing Smith with a gun to Sarah’s throat, he stopped.