Mac was sweaty from the exertion and his body was still too warm. Blood stained the bandage on his hand.
She’d been no more than ten minutes with the marshal but looking at Mac now, she realized she shouldn’t have stayed even that long. What was it about the marshal that made her forget her responsibilities? Especially to Mac?
Mac’s blue eyes were filled with pain, though she sensed it wasn’t physical but the agony of not being able to protect her. “I’m going to bring you something to eat,” she said. “And I’m going to sit and watch you eat every bite. We’ll get out of here before anyone comes. You’ll have that ranch.”
“The money?” he said.
She knew he meant the funds he’d gotten for the gold. Nearly two thousand dollars. “Safe,” she said. “It’s in your saddlebags.”
“You take it,” he said. “If anyone comes, you take it and get out.” He gave her a forced smile. “Promise me.” His hand tightened around hers. “My life isn’t worth anything if you’re hurt. And one of these days, you’re going to find someone…”
Her thoughts went instantly to the marshal. She rejected the idea just as quickly, couldn’t even understand why it entered her head. He was without joy, without compassion, without understanding. He’d turned justice into vengeance. And yet…maybe there was a saving grace somewhere. Maybe under that lawman’s badge was a heart. She meant to find it.
And she might have to kill him.
“What is it, Sam?” Mac asked.
“I…I just wish you’d married my mother.”
“’Twas not for lack of wanting,” he said, and a wistful look came into his eyes. “Were it not for the price on my head, I would have married her several times over. I just couldn’t do that to her, and it was a mistake to keep you with me and make you a party to the constant danger.”
“You never told me why,” she said. “What… Why are you wanted?”
His gaze met hers and his eyes were full of regret. “You should…know who…what I was.”
“I know you hired out your gun,” she said.
He sighed. “I told myself the federal government owed it to me.”
She didn’t say anything. He’d never talked about his past. Like the marshal.
She was doing it again. Linking the two. Comparing the two.
“You know my family was killed during the war,” he said slowly. “I never told you how. My father and brother were killed in battle, my sister was raped by Yankee troops and killed herself.” He took a deep breath. His voice shook with emotion. “My mother moved in with another family, but died, mostly of a broken heart, I was told. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I was captured and held in Elmira Prison. It was a hellhole.”
He stopped for a moment as if revisiting the memories. She waited, spellbound. Mac had never told her this before, only that he’d fought in the war.
“The north claimed Andersonville was a crime, but so was Elmira. Half of us died. The other half starved and nearly perished from the cold. There was barely enough food, and the yard was nothing more than a putrid swamp that spread disease. When I finally reached home after the war, nothing was left. No family. The land had been confiscated.” He looked at her. “I headed west with some friends, all of us carrying a load full of rage. War is one thing. Rape and murder another.”
His voice was growing weaker. The memories were exhausting him. She wanted to hear more. She wanted an answer to her question. She wanted to hear words that would prove the marshal wrong.
It didn’t matter, though. She loved Mac, regardless. She would protect him with everything in her.
He fell against the pillow. The rest of his story would have to wait.
The marshal said Mac had killed a woman. She hadn’t believed it then and she didn’t believe it now. She remembered how Mac had become her mother’s protector after Pa died, and how he looked after the soiled doves, as well. They were all a bit in love with him, but he’d had no eyes for anyone but her mother. Even at eleven, she’d known that. He’d become a fixture in her world, disappearing from time to time on some job, but always returning with a gift for both her mother and herself. She still had most of them, including a jeweled locket he’d given her mother that had a painted miniature of Sam inside.
He closed his eyes, and she knew he was finished talking.
She studied Mac. There had never been any man-and-woman feelings between them. He was too much a father to her.
She went to the window. Still no Archie in the distance, and it was late afternoon. He should be back. Could something have happened to him? Had the hired killers overtaken him and Jake and Ike? It shouldn’t happen. They could see the approaching riders from far enough away that they could come back and help get Mac to the mine.
Should she ride out to check on Archie? She was growing increasingly worried about him.
If she left again, would the marshal make more noise and alert Mac? She truly couldn’t figure how the marshal could get loose, and Mac had exerted himself into exhaustion.
Maybe she should check on the marshal first. She grabbed a deck of cards from the supply they had under the bar and unlocked his doors.
He was awake, his eyes cool and guarded. The only time she hadn’t seen them like that was when he talked about his wife, Sarah. She couldn’t forget the pain with which each word was spoken, the grief that had frozen all other emotions. He turned toward her, and from the sudden jerk of his body, she knew the wound must still hurt like blazes. She sometimes forgot about his injured leg because he seemed to ignore it.
She put the deck on his bed beside the book. “I haven’t read that one,” she said, and couldn’t keep a note of longing from her voice. “What is it about?”
He shrugged. “Redemption,” he finally said.
Redemption. She liked that. Something in his eyes told her that wasn’t the whole story. Maybe Mac had read it. She would ask him.
“Will you play that game of poker?” he asked.
“No. Solitaire will have to do now.”
“I’m hungry,” he said.
For some reason, she really didn’t believe him. He wanted to annoy her with demands.
Still, she was tempted. She was always tempted by him. It was becoming a curse.
But worry over Archie won out. “Later,” she said, then turned and left before she fell under his spell again.
11
THE RAIN SLACKENED. There was still a drizzle, but the torrents were gone. Still, the creek would be near impassable for the next few days. The trail along the bottom of the pass would be slippery, as well. It was difficult for horses to navigate the path at the best of times.
One thing she knew. Archie should have been back by now.
She should have gone instead of him. Archie could have more easily taken supplies to the cave.
Where was he?
She saddled her horse and headed out. Anything could have happened to him.
It was good to get away from the saloon, from the marshal and her compulsion to cross swords with him, and, God help her, to feel her body against his. Shivers—warm and tingling—ran through her at the remembrance. She was pulled by competing loyalties. A man she had loved like a father, and a man who was showing her how to be a woman.
She reached the trail that twisted through the pass. She didn’t take it but turned onto a barely visible path that ran to the top of the pass. During the Civil War, miners kept watch up there. The gold was abundant then, and miners made weekly trips out with gold and back with supplies. There had been fears of Confederate raiders, and the camp kept sentries posted above.
Her horse stumbled once, then she saw two figures, one on a horse and one on a mule. She waited for them to reach her.
Archie’s face was flushed. From the clenched expression of his mouth, she knew his legs were aching. His eyebrows lifted as she neared.
“Thought you were taking care of Mac,” he said.
She moved her horse next to his as they started down th
e hill. “He fell. I got him up on the bed and he’s all right, but I was worried about you. It was such a long time….”
“Guess I shoulda thought about that,” he said. “Jake and I started talking and decided to get a small surprise ready for anyone coming up that pass. It took longer than I thought.”
“Surprise?” She looked at Burley, who grinned from ear to ear.
“Boulders,” he replied proudly. “We piled rocks and boulders above the pass. Me and Jake and Ike and Archie. If the marshal ain’t lying and a posse comes after Mac, we’ll let them rocks go and block the pass.”
“Then they will know we’re here.”
“Could be,” Archie said, “but maybe not. It’s been raining for several days. Rocks and gravel are loose. If no one sees Jake or Ike, they may think it’s just a natural rock slide.”
“Are there enough rocks to actually block the trail?” she asked dubiously.
“Get some of them big boulders going, and they’re gonna carry a hell of a lot of dirt and rock down with them. They won’t be able to clear it without dynamite.”
Sam thought there were a lot of ifs in the plan.
He saw her hesitation. “Sam, they might have a tracker with them. If so, they would find the mine pretty quick, and we’d be trapped. Even if the slide doesn’t completely block the pass, it will slow them down enough that Jake and Ike can pick them off.”
“I can help.”
“It practically killed you to shoot that marshal fella. I ain’t gonna add any more to that load.”
Maybe he wouldn’t, but she would. And she wasn’t sure she liked the plan. They would still be confined to the valley until the stream became passable. It was clear, though, that Archie didn’t relish the idea of being trapped. She didn’t, either.
“I should have been here to help,” she said.
“You’re doing enough,” he insisted. “But I don’t like leaving that marshal alone. He could start hollering, and Mac would do his best to git down there.”
Sam didn’t think the marshal was the hollering type. He was more of a plotter. He would be lying there trying to figure a way to outsmart them.
And she had been worried about Archie. She knew Burley wouldn’t be much help if they had a problem.
She averted her face from Archie. They had been together so long that he often knew what she was thinking before she thought it, even if it was something he disagreed with. He was better at it than Mac and Reese, who always saw the best in her.
How would Archie feel if he realized she was so…distracted by the marshal?
“How’s the marshal?” he asked suddenly, confirming her suspicion.
“Restless,” she said. “He’s not a man content to do nothing, even with that leg. He…doesn’t seem to mind pain.”
“He minds it all right,” Archie said. “He just chooses not to let his enemies see it.” He eyed her. “I asked you before if he tried anything.”
It was a question more than a statement.
“No,” she lied. “It’s just…disquieting to have him so near Mac.”
She paused. “Jake’s going to stay up there?” she asked, wanting to change the subject.
“Ike, too. They decided to stay together. If they see anyone coming, one of them can start the rock slide while the other warns us. Burley will take food and water up to them.”
She nodded. They had a plan. With luck, they wouldn’t have to use it.
JARED STARED at the cards in front of him. He’d won again, but then he was playing against himself. It was a mindless activity, something to keep him occupied. There was the book, but he seemed to have lost his taste for it.
Javet. The obsessed policeman. Damn it to hell. Jared wasn’t anything like him.
Javet was a loner, too.
Jared had definitely become one. It was easier that way. No one to worry about. No one to be responsible for. No guilt to ride with him other than what was already ingrained in him.
Maybe he hadn’t realized the toll it had taken on him.
Lord Almighty, but he was tired of being alone. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about it before, but Sam’s loyalty to the outlaw made him realize how very empty his life was. No one would give a damn if he died here in a bad-luck town.
His boss might be temporarily inconvenienced, but Jared knew he’d always been an irritant to the marshal service. He’d been told more than once that he pushed independence too far.
But the loneliness he felt now ran deep and painful. Perhaps it had been the open affection between Sam and Archie, or the obviously strong ties between the three: Sam, Archie and MacDonald. She loved with her heart and soul, and he’d felt nothing for years. Even facing Sam in the street, he had felt no fear. He’d had damn little to lose.
He gathered the cards and shuffled them. Because of the chain, he had to twist his body so he could use both hands, and that was both awkward and painful.
He wondered how much it would hurt if Sam was under him. Like hell, but it would be worth it. He told himself that all he felt was a carnal need, but he knew that wasn’t true. His body wanted her—he grew hard and hot whenever she entered the room—but his heart kicked in, as well. It smiled when she did. And something jabbed him in the gut when she fastened those big, earnest eyes on him. He wanted to touch her, hold her tight. He wanted to run his fingers through the short ringlets. He wanted to tease her and make her laugh, awaken the passion that simmered beneath her appealing innocence.
And he wanted to protect her against hurt. He swallowed hard at that.
He couldn’t protect her. Not against Benson’s men if they arrived, and not against himself, when he intended to destroy her world by taking away someone she loved without reservation.
He groaned inwardly. How could he compromise everything he was, everything that had meant anything these past years? The simple fact was, he couldn’t. He honored his badge and, more importantly, he honored the oath he’d made beside Emma’s body. Take those away, and he was nothing.
If only he could make Sam see what MacDonald was, or at least persuade her that he would be safer under Jared’s control than that of paid killers. He needed to convince her that if MacDonald really cared about her, he wouldn’t allow her to be placed in the line of fire.
He worried that she and the old man weren’t taking Benson and his threats seriously. But he was afraid the more he pushed it, the more she would doubt him. He judged that it would take Benson another few days to hire the men he wanted, and then to track him.
How long had it been since she’d left? He couldn’t tell with only the oil lamp for light. There was little difference between day and night except when the door was open. There was a watch in his saddlebags. Something else to ask for. His requests flustered her, and he found it fascinating to watch the changes in her face. She wanted him to think she was as tough as any man, but it was quite obvious that guilt hounded her for shooting him.
Where was she? Had he been left here while MacDonald made his escape? He hadn’t heard any noise for hours. It’s a possibility. It was also a possibility that they’d planned to leave him here to die. But that thought quickly passed. She would never do that.
But would Archie?
The key turned in the lock. He tensed. It was like a story he’d read. Was a lady or a tiger behind the door?
Archie walked in. Alone. He looked more tired than he had before. He was wet, and his breathing was raspy. He limped, but Jared remembered the strength in that wiry body when the old man had helped carry him inside.
“Thought I better check that leg,” he said. “Also thought you might need help in tending to some other needs.”
He did. Jared didn’t say anything as Archie helped him with the chamber pot, then removed the bandages from his leg. Not as gently as Sam did, but expertly. “Looks clean,” Archie said. “Probably don’t need no more of them poultices.”
“I heard a noise upstairs earlier,” Jared said casually. “Sounded like someone fell
.”
Archie shrugged. “I knocked over a chair. My sight ain’t so good these days.”
It wasn’t exactly what Samantha had said. Jared visually searched Archie’s body. No gun or knife visible. The old man had left the key to the door out of reach, but what about the one to the handcuffs? Maybe he had it on him.
“The key to the handcuffs is upstairs,” Archie said as if he’d read his mind.
Jared relaxed slightly. It had been worth a try.
“You get any ideas of escape right out of your head,” Archie said. “I’m an old man and I don’t mind dying. Don’t mind killing, either.”
Jared didn’t even try to protest. Archie was no fool.
Archie looked down at the deck of cards on the bed and raised an eyebrow.
“Sam took pity on me,” he said.
The old man’s eyebrows rose even more at his casual use of Sam’s name.
Jared cursed himself. He should have been more careful. He shrugged. “I don’t know what else to call her,” he explained. “Miss…what?”
The old man glowered at him.
Jared ignored it. “There’s a watch in my saddlebags. Can I hope to get it back?”
Archie gave him an amused look. “I don’t think so. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to a handsome piece like that. Wouldn’t like you to figure that one of them little parts might unlock them irons.”
“Wouldn’t consider it,” Jared replied. “That watch was my father’s.”
Archie smiled. “Then you won’t mind me keeping it nice and safe,” he said just before he left the room, closing the door behind him.
ON THEIR ARRIVAL back at the saloon, Sam had started to go to the marshal’s room.
Archie stopped her. “I think you’d better change those wet clothes. Your mama died of pneumonia. Don’t want the same to happen to you. I’ll check on the marshal, then Mac.”
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