Renegade Most Wanted

by Carol Arens

  They looked angry, too, waving fists, farming tools and even a few bottles of…Orange Lilly? And they were headed straight for Doc Brown’s front porch.

  Red faced and beginning to sweat, Marshal Deeds stepped back a few paces.

  “You were supposed to stay home,” Matt whispered in Emma’s ear.

  “You were supposed to come home,” she whispered back.

  “Free Suede! Free Suede!” the group of more than fifty folk began to chant.

  Faces that he recognized, and some that he didn’t, moved close to the bottom step. Emma ran her hands lightly over his shoulder, looking for damage. She’d find it, for sure, but his strength seemed to be returning by the second.

  “Where did all these folks come from?”

  “Cowboys aren’t the only ones capable of a roundup. I told some of them what was happening, then they told some others and here we are.”

  Watching the Sizeloffs move forward gave him the strength to stand unaided. Jesse and his girl, flanked by Mr. Rath and Mr. Wright, made the ache in his shoulder ease. The sight of Woody, Sarah and Lenore Pendragon moving toward the front of the crowd gave him hope.

  The ladies of the Long Branch, looking as colorful as a flock of tropical birds, made him a little nervous. He glanced at his wife. If Emma or anyone else was offended by their presence it didn’t show.

  The anger, and there was plenty of it, seemed to be directed at the marshal, Pendragon and Bart.

  “Marshal!” Pendragon roared. “Do something about this!”

  “Throw ’em all in jail.” Bart waved his hand at the group, but lost his balance and rolled down the steps.

  “What do I pay you—” All of a sudden Pendragon shut his mouth. He stared for a moment at the sunlight glinting off the toe of his boot. “Do what you have been elected to do.”

  The marshal looked at Matt, then at Pendragon’s twitching mustache. He shook his head and swallowed hard. Sweat beaded Deeds’s forehead.

  “Marshal Deeds.” Rachael Sizeloff touched his sleeve, inviting him down the steps. “A word with you, please.”

  When Pendragon made a move to stop him, Joseph Sizeloff muscled between them, giving his wife the opportunity to lead the marshal across the street.

  From this distance Matt couldn’t hear the private conversation, but some things didn’t need words. Rachael held baby Maude in one arm while gesturing with the other.

  Head hung low, the marshal listened to the minister. He looked a bit green when she frowned and pointed a firm finger toward the dirt, shaking her head. After that, Deeds seemed to have a few things to say. He talked for a while, sometimes covering his eyes, sometimes wringing his hands. All the while the preacher nodded. When Deeds quit speaking, Mrs. Sizeloff gave him a brilliant smile and pointed toward the sky.

  The marshal looked like a different man, being led back across the street and up the steps. Like a man relieved of a burden.

  Pendragon, though, looked like a bull ready to charge. Only a severe scowl from Joseph Sizeloff held him in his place.

  On the top step of the porch and gazing over the crowd, Marshal Deeds twisted his hat in his hands.

  “I have something to confess to all of you good people,” he announced. Rachael beamed up at him, looking as proud as a mother hen. “Matthew Suede didn’t kill anyone. I did.”

  Pendragon made a leap toward Deeds, but Woody Vance raced up the steps. Joseph and Woody restrained him with one arm looped through each of his.

  “I shot him in the line of duty when he was about to kill Matt and his boy. The only wrong done is to the citizens of this town, by me. I’ve been influenced by power…and money.”

  Every eye in the silent crowd focused on Lawrence Pendragon, who curiously looked a few inches shorter.

  “So I resign.” Deeds took off his badge, looked about for someone to hand it to, then pressed it into the fist of Doc Brown. “I ask your forgiveness before I leave town.”

  With a backward glare at Pendragon, he went down the steps. Mrs. Sizeloff caught his sleeve as he passed.

  “Go with God, Mr. Deeds,” she said.

  “Well.” Doc Brown spoke to the murmuring crowd. “It appears we need a new lawman.”

  “Billy Suede would be a fine choice,” Woody Vance called out.

  Sarah beamed up from the foot of the steps. “Billy! Oh yes, now there’s a man who can be trusted.”

  Murmers of Billy’s name went from the front of the group to the back.

  “I cast my little bitty vote for Billy Suede,” Lulu Frolic sang out, with feathers and satin bouncing.

  Six pairs of red-tipped hands shot into the air. “Oooh, so do we!”

  Giggles twittered. The ladies swept sideways together, their colors a moving rainbow. They circled Bart, who had been creeping toward the edge of the crowd.

  “You vote for Billy, don’t you, Bart?” Lulu asked.

  “Sure, honey, whatever you say.” He looked as nervous as a bug cornered by a flock of hens.

  “What I say,” Lulu announced, “and we all do, is thanks for the vote and you might as well leave town with Mr. Deeds because there won’t be a drop of anything for you at the Long Branch or anywhere else!”

  He backed slowly away while they shooed their skirts at him.

  “I meant to leave here, anyway,” he grumbled. When Lulu took a step forward and clapped her hands in his face, he turned and ran, kicking up mud clods until he was out of sight.

  “So, who else votes for Billy?” Doc Brown raised the badge in the air.

  Every hand shot up except Lawrence Pendragon’s.

  “Well, Billy, do you accept the position?”

  Billy took the badge from the doc and pinned it on his shirt. When he rubbed it to a shine with his sleeve, a cheer went up.

  “Marshal Suede.” Matt beamed at his cousin. “Is my wife free to take me home?”

  Another cheer. Life’s road stretched before him with love and laughter at every mile.

  “Not until later,” the doctor warned, looking at Emma and ignoring his protests altogether. “He’s healing well, but wait until sundown just to make sure there’s no fever.”

  “We’ll stay.” Emma tucked her strong little body beneath his good shoulder and turned Matt toward the door.

  “Marshal Suede.” Pendragon, now free of his captors, blocked the doorway.

  If the land baron had been looking at Emma instead of scowling at the new marshal, he’d have seen her solid little boot toe coming for his shin. Instead he doubled over and grabbed his leg.

  Laughter twittered through the crowd until the man opened his mouth again.

  “I demand that you lock up Matthew Suede for bank robbery. He’s The Ghost and everyone here knows it!”

  “Father!” Lenore Pendragon rushed up the porch steps. A good-size crowd had now gathered on the small veranda. If anyone else had something to say, they would have to do it from below.

  Young Lenore placed her hands on her hips and raised her brows at her father. “Perhaps you would like to take a walk with Preacher Sizeloff, as well.”

  “Lenore Emily Pendragon, I order you to go home without another word.” He faced his offspring, teeth gritted and short of breath. A nerve in his eye jumped in time with a tic in his cheek.

  “Well, then, if you won’t come clean, I’ll have to do it for you.”

  Lenore arched her eyebrows, fluffed her expensive skirt and told every eager ear the sorry tale of Lucy’s father’s death and how her own father had neglected the child’s welfare.

  “And so,” she finished, “I had no choice but to become The Ghost.”

  Even the bird chirruping on the roof fell silent.

  “Someone had to take responsibility for the child,” Lenore said. When her father looked stunned enough to be pushed over with an accusing word, she added, “Marshal, do your duty.”

  She held out her hands, dainty wrists pressed together.

  “There’s no call to do that.” Woody Vance puffed his ch
est, nodded at Matt and winked at Emma. “I’m The Ghost.”

  “No, I’m The Ghost,” confessed Jesse, while his girl beamed her pleasure.

  “So am I,” insisted Mr. Sizeloff.

  “We are, too!” a trio of farm wives called, each hoisting a bottle of Orange Lilly into the air.

  Within a space of four minutes, no less than forty people had confessed to the crime. Only babes in arms had not.

  Lawrence Pendragon’s backside had sunk to the top step some moments past. He looked pale and green all at once.

  Billy lifted his hands to still the murmers washing through the crowd.

  “As marshal, I declare that since I can’t arrest everyone, I won’t arrest anyone.” A cheer went up. “Let it be acknowledged by all that the ghostly spirit has finally passed on to his reward.”

  Matt knew he shouldn’t be grinning, but he had passed to his reward, right here on earth. With Emma tucked here under his good arm, with Lucy on the mend and Red likely cured from his recklessness, he had everything he could ever want.

  He was a rich man without money.

  “One more thing needs to be made clear from the start. Most especially to you, Pendragon,” Billy declared, crossing his arms over his chest. A wink of sunlight glanced off his badge. “Best look up at me while I’m speaking, just so we all know you understand. I’m not a lawman who can be bought. If you want something done in town it had better be legal and gone about like everyone else does. No more threats, no more scaring folks off their land.”

  If Matt had ever heard more cheering in one day he couldn’t recall.

  Billy sat on the step beside Pendragon and spoke in a low tone. “We all expect you to be a model neighbor. A body never knows when The Ghost might be resurrected.”

  * * *

  Land sakes! What did a woman have to do to get her husband to listen to doctor’s orders and rest? Dance naked at the foot of the bed?

  Home could not come soon enough.

  They should have remained in Dodge for another day, but Matt was not proving to be the most restful of patients. Only a wifely scowl had convinced him that she would be the one to drive the wagon home.

  Emma licked the prairie dust from her lips. She jiggled the reins of the rented team and glanced sideways at Matt. He sat tall even with the pain in his shoulder, watching the golden land dim with the sunset.

  A bird dipped low over her land singing to the departing day. Matt’s land, too. He had earned his place here. Mercy, if he hadn’t spilled his blood to protect it and those who lived here.

  Without him, nothing on this 160 acres would mean a thing.

  “What are you smiling about, darlin’?”

  “Going home is against doctor’s orders.”

  “Doc Brown worries too much.”

  “Good thing you’ve got me to keep you in line.” Emma laughed, feeling the joy of it to her toes and back. “Don’t look so stricken, Matt. I’ll take such loving care of you that you won’t even notice that wound.”

  And she knew that Matt would take loving care of her, as well. For the rest of their days there would be the two of them, watching over each other and tending the land.

  In just one summer Matt had turned her notions of happiness upside down. On that first ride to her land she hadn’t understood that a home was not just walls sticking up out of the earth. He had shown her that home was made of the souls living and laughing inside it.

  While the blessings of home and hearth went bone deep, the blessings of family filled her soul.

  Just now lights came into view, shining like a beacon across the darkening prairie.

  The wheels of the buggy creaked across Suede land, bringing them closer to home. From behind, the rising moon illuminated the way.

  From a hundred yards off she spotted Red and Lucy through the parlor window, sitting in the rocking chair together beside the fireplace. They were both laughing, watching Princess and Fluffy cavorting over the furniture.

  Smoke curled out of the chimney, light against the now fully dark sky.

  “We’re home,” she murmured.

  Matt grinned at her and gave her a kiss.

  Then he began to sing.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt of My Fair Concubine by Jeannie Lin!

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  Chapter One

  China, Tang Dynasty—AD 824

  Fei Long faced the last room at the end of the narrow hallway, unsheathed his sword and kicked the door open.

  A feminine shriek pierced the air along with the frantic shuffle of feet as he strode through the entrance. The boarding room was a small one set above the teahouse below. The inhabitants, a man and a woman, flung themselves into the corner with nowhere to hide.

  His gaze fixed on to the woman first. His sister’s hair was unbound and her eyes wide with fear. Pearl had their mother’s thoughtful features: the high forehead and the sharp angles that had softened since the last time he’d seen her. She was dressed only in pale linen underclothes. The man who was with her had enough daring to step in between them.

  Fei Long glanced once to the single wooden bed against one wall, the covers strewn wide, and his vision blurred with anger. He gripped the sword until his knuckles nearly cracked with the strain.

  ‘Bastard,’ he gritted out through his teeth.

  He knew this man he’d come to kill. This boy. At least Han had been a boy when Fei Long had last seen him. And Pearl had been a mere girl. Now she was a grown woman, staring at him as if he were a demon risen from the underworld.

  ‘Fei Long.’ Pearl’s fingers curled tight over her lover’s arm. ‘So now you’ve come.’

  The soft bitterness of the accusation cut through him. Pearl had begged for him to come back a year earlier when her marriage had first been arranged, but he’d dismissed her letters as childish ramblings. If he had listened, she might not have thrown herself into ruin and their father’s spirit wouldn’t be floating restlessly between heaven and earth.

  The young man stretched himself before Fei Long, though he failed to match him in stature. ‘Not in front of Pearl,’ he implored.

  Though he trembled, the boy fought to keep his voice steady as Pearl clung to him, hiding just behind his shoulder. At least the dog managed to summon some courage. If Han had cowered or begged for his life, he would already be dead.

  ‘Step away, Little Sister,’ Fei Long commanded.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Pearl.’

  ‘I’d rather die here with Han than go to Khitan.’

  She’d changed in the five years since he’d seen her. The Pearl he remembered had been obedient, sweet-tempered and pleasant in all things. Fei Long had ridden hard from Changan to this remote province, expecting to find the son of a dog who had stolen her away.

  Now that she stood before him with quiet defiance, he knew she hadn’t been seduced or deceived. Zheng Xie Han’s family lived within their ward in the capital city. Though lower in standing, the Zheng family had always maintained a good reputation. His sister had turned to Han because she’d had no one else.

  The tension drained out of Fei Long, stealing away his rage. His throat pulled tight as he forced out the next word. ‘Go.’

  The two of them stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘Go,’ he repeated roughly.

  Fei Long lowered his weapon and turned away while they dressed themselves. Shoving his sword back into its sheath, he faced the bare wall. He could hear the shuffle of movement behind him as the couple gathered their belongings.r />
  The bleakness of the last few weeks settled into his gut like a stone. When he’d left for his assignment to the north-western garrison, Fei Long had believed his home to be a harmonious place. Upon news of his father’s sudden death, he’d returned to find his sister gone and debt collectors circling the front gates like vultures.

  His father’s presence had been an elaborate screen, hiding the decay beneath the lacquered surface of their lives. Fei Long now saw Pearl’s arranged marriage for what it was: a desperate ploy to restore the family honour—or rather to prolong the illusion of respectability.

  When he turned again, Pearl and Han stood watching him tentatively. Each of them had a pack slung around their shoulder. Off to face the horizon with all their belongings stowed in two small bags.

  Han bowed once. ‘Elder Brother.’

  The young man risked Fei Long’s temper to deliver the honorific. Fei Long couldn’t bring himself to return the bow. Pearl met his eyes as they started for the door. The heaviness of her expression struck him like a physical blow.

  This was the last time he would ever see his sister.

  Fei Long took his money pouch from his belt and held it out. The handful of coppers rattled inside. ‘Here.’

  Han didn’t look at him as he took it.

  ‘Thank you, Fei Long,’ Pearl whispered.

  They didn’t embrace. The two of them had been apart for so long that they wouldn’t have known how. Fei Long watched their backs as they retreated down the stairway; gone like everything else he had once known to be true.

  * * *

  ‘Jilted lover,’ the cook guessed.

  Yan Ling’s eyes grew wide. The stranger had stormed up the staircase only moments earlier with a sword strapped to his side and the glint of murder in his deep-set eyes. She’d leapt out of the path of his charge, just managing to hold on to her pot of tea without spilling a drop.

  She stood at the edge of the main room, head cocked to listen for sounds of mayhem upstairs. Her heart raced as she gripped the handle of the teapot. Such violence and scandal were unthinkable in their quiet town.

  ‘Should someone stop him?’ she asked.