by Pam Crooks
“You were up most of the night with Harriett,” he said, heading back to the stove. “Appreciate you letting me get a few hours of sleep. Sit. Want a cup of coffee?”
“Please.” After a moment’s hesitation, she pulled out a chair and sat. Strange to have a man doting on her in the kitchen. “Harriett coughed a few times last night. The congestion in her lungs seems to be loosening.”
“That vaporizer has been going non-stop. Glad to know it’s working.”
He set two cups of coffee on the table, returned to the stove to fix a plate for himself, then joined her.
“What if it fails, Trace?” she asked, voicing her worst fear. This melancholy that had settled in, taking her down several roads of unease. “The vaporizer, I mean.”
He shrugged with a calm she envied. “We’ll know in a couple of days if she turns the corner, Morgana. Leastways, that’s what Doctor Cooper said.”
“Yes. Or if we get sick by then, too. If we don’t, we’ll know she’s not contagious.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “I feel fine. How about you?”
“Fine. So far, anyway.” She toyed with her eggs. “I’m just worried ... about other things, too.”
“I’d guess one of them is Mustang Mae,” he said with uncanny shrewdness. “She’s come back to Wallace, for one of two reasons. Maybe both.”
“Yes,” she said. “I cheated her out of the ransom when I escaped with Caroline, and she was deprived of my father’s money when the store’s till was empty.”
“Yep. Good chance she thinks she’s entitled to try again. Settle the score, so to speak.”
“But why us, Trace? Why risk coming back here when everyone in Wallace knows what she did to my family? The sheriff will have every right to arrest her, and there must be a thousand other towns she could rob.”
“But only one she wants to avenge.”
Morgana’s blood faltered at the chilling truth.
“Don’t forget we have a special weapon, though,” he added, his tone matter-of-fact.
In unison, their glances swung to the baby carriage.
“Harriett.” Trace made a sweeping gesture around the cabin with his fork. “This quarantine we’re in. Anyone with a lick of sense will keep their distance.”
Morgana took her first bite of egg. She understood his logic, but she didn’t necessarily agree with it. “We can’t stay out here forever, Trace. She’ll only wait us out.”
“Probably. But it buys us some time. Main thing is, it’s time Harriett can use to get better.”
Some of her unease lifted. “And time we can use to take good care of her so she can.”
“Which we will.” He spoke around a piece of bacon before swallowing. “In the meantime, we have the whole day ahead of us.”
Her thinking moved onto a new path. “I’ll need to wash some diapers, if you show me the best way how out here.”
He nodded. “I’ll string you a line to dry them.” He pushed back his plate and crossed his arms on the tabletop. “Guess I could wash windows. Been a while since anyone has.”
She smiled. “They could use a good washing.”
“One more thing.” His dark gaze glittered over her, signaling his thoughts had taken a new road, too.
She cocked her head ... and wondered which direction ...
Lazily, he reached toward her, taking her left hand. With his thumb, he stroked her fourth finger.
“Why no ring, my lovely Morgana?” he asked huskily. “You’re a beautiful woman. Hard to believe suitors aren’t lined up and down the block for you.”
Whatever her mind entertained he’d ask, it wasn’t this. Not even close.
She pulled her hand away. “Should I be offended that you’re much too bold in your questioning of my personal life?”
“Don’t be.” His gaze remained steady. “I want to know why you have no husband by now, that’s all. Unless there’s a suitor in the wings you’ve failed to mention?”
Her eyes widened. “Of course not.”
“Good. Because I’ve kissed you. You’ve kissed me back. Quite pleasurably, I might add. And I know for a fact any red-blooded male would be happy to have you as his if he had even half a chance to win your hand.” He inclined his head with a sardonic smile. “Or half a brain.”
She huffed. “You flatter me, Trace. But the men in this town know of my past. I suspect they’re simply disappointed in ... what happened to me.”
His brows shot up. “Because you were kidnapped?”
Her throat closed. She didn’t need to respond. Her silence revealed the truth.
He muttered a curse. “If they think you’re nothing more than damaged goods, then they’re not worthy of you. Forget ‘em.”
Forget the people who lived in Wallace? Her friends, and her mother’s friends, and her father’s, too, to say nothing of all his customers?
Easy for Trace to say, but practically impossible to abide, though her reputation had plummeted after her ordeal. She’d despaired of the endless gossip and everyone’s pity. She’d hated the notoriety of her experience and deplored the thoughtless questions the townspeople asked to satisfy their macabre curiosity.
All she really wanted was to be normal and respectable again, without the sensationalism of her kidnapping. She was of a marriageable age, eligible for a husband and children who needed and wanted her, as much as she needed and wanted them, not only for herself but to help fill the void that Caroline’s death had left. Thanks to Mustang Mae and her gang, those longings had been stripped away, like old paper off a wall, and would it happen? Ever?
Marriage and children and a respectable reputation?
Only Harriett had given her an inkling of hope. Certainly, she’d resurrected those needs, and yet she’d never be hers ...
“Eggs are getting cold, Morgana. Eat up.” Pushing his chair back, Trace left the table and dropped his empty plate into a basin. “I’ll fill some buckets and get water heated for those diapers.”
He took a final sip of coffee and added the cup to the dishwater. Wordlessly, he stepped to a small table with a Winchester rifle and a gun belt sheathing a Colt revolver on top. He checked the chambers in both weapons, buckled the belt around his hips and strode toward her.
“Don’t stray from the cabin, Morgana.” He trailed a lean finger down the bridge of her nose. “From here on out, I want you where I can see you. Understood?”
“Yes.” This was to be the way of it, then. Being heavily armed until their ordeal ended. Did she want it any other way, though? Trace fully prepared to take care of her, staying close so he could? “Of course.”
An intensity filled his expression, like it had just before he kissed her last night, and her breath held. But, as if he thought better of whatever he’d been thinking, he stepped away. His boot soles trod across the wooden floor, he opened the door and disappeared outside.
Trace found an old rake in the corral’s lean-to and cleaned up dried leaves from around the cabin, more to keep himself busy than to improve the landscaping. After seeing to his horse, repairing a few boards on the porch and stringing the clothesline for Morgana, he tackled the windows next. Took some doing to get them clean, considering they had years’ worth of built-up dirt.
But once he did, his efforts were rewarded with a clear view of Morgana inside, washing dishes, caring for Harriett, and laundering her diapers.
She’d pinned her hair into a pile on her head, revealing the slender column of her throat. The way those tresses contrasted with her red dress, highlighted the delicate bones of her face and the slim curves of her body ... well, she was a woman a man couldn’t forget, no matter what she wore.
She’d gotten under his skin. Into his blood. She’d become part of his soul. His very life. How would he leave her? How could he ride north to Nebraska when she stayed behind in Kansas?
It was a question he’d asked himself a hundred times. Trace wasn’t a man prone to feeble decision-making, but this one threw him into a bad case o
f stalling. He had Harriett to think of, too, and until he figured out what was best for the girl, Trace wasn’t going anywhere.
A glint reflected in the clean glass, and his muscles coiled. Near as he could tell, sunlight flashed on something in the thicket beyond the cabin. Took some control to keep from turning around to identify it. He needed to act absorbed with his window-washing in case someone was out there, watching him. One thing was for sure. If they were, they’d be up to no good. No other reason they’d be there, hiding in the trees. Trace needed them to think he was oblivious.
Taking his bucket and rag, he meandered to the last remaining window, located around the front of the cabin and on the other side. There was a stand of trees close by, too, directly behind him like before, and he swabbed the glass in case something showed up in the reflection.
Nothing did. He shifted his surveillance back toward that thicket. If he looked inside just right, between the edges of the faded curtains, he could see across the cabin to the other side, clear through his sparkling-clean window glass.
But the sudden realization that the place was empty chilled him. He stood taller, raked his gaze from one side to the other, and didn’t find the one person he needed to see.
Morgana was gone.
It would’ve been Dodie who packed the clothespins, and Morgana marveled at her thoughtfulness. Hanging diapers in the sun and fresh air on the line Trace had strung for her proved to be a pleasant task, if not a necessary one, just as mothers through the ages had always done. Given the warm morning, it wouldn’t take long for them to dry, and being outside for a few minutes, well, it was a nice change from the humid, vaporous air inside the cabin.
Morgana bent and plucked another diaper from the wet pile in the wooden crate she used for a basket. A sound slashed through her thoughts, a tune she knew all too well, and her mind latched onto the song she’d heard only yesterday coming from inside the saloon in Wallace ...
The diaper slid from her nerveless fingers, and she straightened. Slowly. Her heart pounded a drumbeat of alarm as she turned toward the horse and rider moseying toward her from a thicket beyond the cabin.
I watch’d her up the stairs.
Where we to supper went,
Upon those tassels on her boots,
My soul was so intent
Mustang Mae sang lazily, as if only to herself. But her revolver, with its barrel pointed at Morgana and her gaze as cold as ever, gave clear indication her thoughts weren’t only on the ditty.
Those tassels on the boots
A style I’m sure that suits,
Our lovely girls with hair in curls,
Those tassels on the boots
She reined in. She hadn’t changed much since Morgana had last seen her. Pale brown hair wind-blown around her shoulders, and her face weathered and tanned, just like before. Morgana would even swear she wore the same split skirt and blue shirt that she’d worn the day of the kidnapping. Certainly, her horse was the same, and oh, it was as if the weeks and months fell away, throwing her right into that awful day all over again.
Morgana drew herself up and projected a calm she didn’t feel. “How dare you come back.” She didn’t even try to keep the contempt from her voice. “Haven’t you done enough?”
“Got unfinished business with you and your pa,” the outlaw said.
Unfinished business. Trace had predicted as much, and Morgana’s stomach tightened. “Everyone around here knows what you did to my sister and me, including the sheriff. No one will let you get away with—with whatever you’re thinking of doing. Especially not my father.”
Mae shrugged. “Ransom talks, honey.”
Morgana drew in an uneasy breath. Trace would never let her be taken away. She’d fight with every breath she owned, and so would he, and then, a sudden, terrible thought rushed in ...
Harriett.
She’d left her sleeping in the carriage while she hung diapers. She had to get to her right away. This moment. She had to keep her safe from this awful, heartless woman who wouldn’t think twice about using an innocent baby to her advantage.
“Throw your gun on the ground, Mae. Get down off that horse when you do.” Trace, tall and lean and looking as ruthless as an outlaw himself, stepped around the corner of the cabin with his revolver leveled and steady. He stood with his feet spread and his jaw set, a bounty hunter every outlaw should fear. “This Colt I’m carrying talks, too.”
Chapter 13
Trace nearly had heart failure when he found Morgana with the outlaw. He didn’t need introductions to know who she was. No female he’d ever met looked as tough as Mustang Mae or as threatening with a gun. Morgana did a fine job of standing up to her, considering what the outlaw had done.
Mae smirked. “Do I look stupid enough to do anything you say?”
“Not going to tell you twice,” Trace said, his voice hard. “I’m not keen on shooting a woman, but in your case, I’ll make an exception.”
A cackle erupted behind him. “Not only did you shoot one, McQuade, you killed her, too.”
Trace whirled toward the rider approaching from the front of the cabin, and his gut sank. Slick-Shot Billy Hayes must’ve been hiding in that stand of trees, after all. He came from that direction, leastways. And not alone. Two more men showed up, one at the front, the other at the back, surrounding them. Outnumbering them, too.
Damn.
“Drop that Colt, McQuade.” Billy cocked his own piece. “You’re a dead man if you don’t.”
Morgana turned wide eyes toward Trace. Her cheeks had paled, and he’d swear a tremble rippled through her. Just about destroyed him to see her this scared. She had to know he’d do everything he could to keep her from getting hurt.
And that meant shucking his Colt, as much as he hated to do it. He wouldn’t take a bet Billy wouldn’t do what he said he’d do. If Trace played hero, he could get himself and Morgana shot.
He tossed the revolver into the grass. Now that he wasn’t armed, he took the liberty of moving toward Morgana and taking her hand to pull her against his side. She came easy and twined her fingers tight with his, staying close.
Trace didn’t need to tell her they still had an ace up their sleeves. As long as they could keep the outlaw gang outside, Harriett would be safe inside.
He leveled Billy with a cold glare. He’d waited a long time to look his brother’s killer in the eyes and see him arrested for what he’d done.
But now wasn’t the time. This wasn’t about Robbie. Billy knew Trace once hunted him for justice. The fact that he risked riding into Wallace meant he wanted something more important than staying out of jail.
“Never figured you for a fool coming up this way. You know you got a bounty on your head, don’t you?” Trace demanded.
“Sure, I know it.” Billy shrugged. “So what?”
Trace swiveled toward Mae, sparing her none of his contempt. “And you. Folks around here are plenty mad over what you did to the Goldwaters. They paid a price no one should have to pay for your crimes. Reward money came together high and fast to see you in the hoosegow for it.”
Mae merely met the harshness of his look with one of her own. “Nobody can pin the girl’s death on me. I didn’t have nothing to do with her dyin’.”
Morgana made a sound of outrage. “Damn you, Mae. If you hadn’t kidnapped us, she’d be alive today. You know she would.”
Trace tightened his clasp, urging her silence. No matter how she felt, no matter how much she hurt over her sister’s death, a war of words with outlaws would only make matters worse.
Better to be in control. To think straight and clear.
“Hell of a chance you’re taking, riding in together.” His glance slid over each of them. He bided his time, hoping to catch them off-guard. “Both with prices on your heads. How’d you hook up?”
“You could say we have the same liking for stagecoaches,” Billy said with a grin.
He still had his long, curly hair. Still rode a flashy palomino. Bu
t no frilly shirt this time. No bright satin sash around his waist. Might be that Billy had fallen on hard times, and that made him desperate. Dangerous, more.
“Yeah?” Trace kept his tone conversational. He’d been acquainted with Billy once. Had even shared a few beers with him down in Texas before things turned sour between them. “You two robbed one?”
Billy crossed his wrists over the saddle horn. Seemed he didn’t mind taking some time for a little catching up, either.
“It’s how we met up,” Billy said. “What are the chances, you know? Me and Mae trying to rob the same stage. Afterward, we got to talking, and lo and behold, found out we had some things in common.”
“You, McQuade, at the top of the list,” Mae said.
Trace’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t say.”
Billy scanned the horizon. He didn’t seem to notice his pearl-handled revolver had sagged in his grip. Then again, maybe he did.
“Met up with Johnny Wesley in Salina,” he said. “Told me about Emma’s girl.”
“Your daughter,” Trace said coldly.
“She’s lying,” Billy shot back. “Ain’t no way she could prove that kid is mine.”
Trace banked a sharp spike of anger. “Emma wasn’t one to bed a man at will. She was smitten with you as soon as you joined up with her father’s cattle rustling operation.” Trace’s belly roiled. What an idiot he’d been. Had they mocked the love he’d once had for Emma? Had they gloated over the livestock Billy had stolen from him? “Wouldn’t make sense for her to say the little girl was yours when she wasn’t.”
“Is that why you’re here, Billy?” Morgana spoke calmer than Trace had a mind to feel himself. “To see your baby?”
“I’m here for the money Emma took from me, that’s why!” he yelled.
Morgana blinked.
Trace stilled. Whatever Billy could have said, he never expected that.
Morgana shook her head. “There’s no money. We would’ve known if there was.”