Issued to the Bride: One Soldier

by Cora Seton

  “There’s one of you and thirteen of us. You aren’t going to get out of here,” Logan said suddenly. “Give up while you still have the chance, Will.”

  “You think I came alone? You really must think I’m stupid. Boys? Get in here!”

  Men streamed in from every doorway, and Alice’s heart sank. She saw Jack’s flash of surprise. Knew what he was thinking—how had they gotten past his defenses?

  “Like I said, I know all about surveillance, too,” Will told him with a grin. “I definitely know how to disarm a system. Don’t forget, I’ve been in your house for weeks. You don’t have many secrets left.”

  “You aren’t taking my daughter,” the General growled.

  “Oh, but I am. Come on, honey.” Will gripped her arm as his men spread out through the room. Alice recognized Paul Ramsey and Beau Ellis among them. Hatred burned in Beau’s eyes. Lena and Logan had killed his twin nephews.

  He was back for blood.

  If it was only Will, he could get off the shot, Jack thought. But it wasn’t only Will. At least ten men had entered the kitchen, the room as crowded as if a party was going on. The quarters were close. If he drew his gun, people would die.

  And they wouldn’t all be his enemies.

  He’d been in tough situations before, but none where the odds were stacked so highly against a happy outcome. Will held Alice’s arm. Had his pistol still pressed against the General’s temple. In the General’s eyes was the knowledge he could very well see his family killed—or die himself first.

  Jack knew every man on the ranch was armed. Probably the General and Emerson, too. Lena certainly was. Logan had told him long ago she wore her shoulder holster constantly. With some element of surprise, they could have taken on the intruders easily, but the intruders had all the surprise on their side.

  Jack couldn’t believe his surveillance network had failed so utterly.

  Of course, it had been flawed from the start. Arriving after Will had started working at the Reeds’ house, he’d failed to consider the man as a possible enemy.

  Now he was going to lose Alice if he didn’t think of something quick.

  He scanned the room, looking for possibilities, no matter how slight or remote. Could he signal the men for a simultaneous attack? Maybe, but Will would take out the General at the very least before they could act definitively.

  Beau Ellis looked like he wanted to murder Logan and Lena with his bare hands. The rest of the attackers looked just as hungry for blood. The Reeds and the men the General had sent had been decimating the ranks of their organization for months.

  What else could he use against them? Could he pit them against each other somehow?

  He didn’t have time.

  Could the men engage them long enough for the women to escape?

  Probably not in these close quarters.

  He turned to Alice, standing so rigid beside him, held in place by Will’s hand, her eyes closed, like she was searching her mind for information—

  No, Jack realized. Not searching her mind—searching the future.

  A chill swept through him.

  She couldn’t see the future.

  Except—all those scores. She’d gotten every single one of them right. That was statistically impossible from sheer luck, and he didn’t think Alice had a way of rigging sports competitions in four different categories.

  What if—what if she really could see what was about to happen?

  What if she could see what these men would do before they did it?

  He remembered what she’d said the night she listed all those scores—that she could show him the future—but it wasn’t allowed. Did she mean—could she send him the images she saw?

  If so—

  “Alice,” he heard himself say. “Show me.”

  Alice opened her eyes. Stared down at him uncomprehendingly.

  “The future. Show me.”

  “What are you saying? Shut up,” Will demanded, his pistol still pressed against the General’s temple.

  Alice glanced at Will, then back at Jack. “It’s not allowed,” she hissed.

  “Sometimes you have to break the rules,” Jack told her.

  “I said, shut up!” Will glared at them.

  Jack held his breath, his gaze on Alice.

  When she nodded, his heart soared.

  Chapter Nineteen

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  The future. Jack wanted her to show him the future. To anticipate what Will would do—

  And put the image in his mind.

  That’s right, Amelia’s voice said.

  But it was wrong—

  Rules are made to be broken.

  Could she do it?

  Alice wasn’t sure. She’d only tried once. It had worked, but…

  Open your mind.

  Alice shut her eyes, gripped the edge of the table, strained to see—

  It wouldn’t come—

  “I’ve waited too long for this,” Beau snarled from the far side of the room. He took two steps and struck the side of Lena’s head with the butt of his gun. Logan roared and caught her as she fell. Half the men leaped to their feet.

  “Goddammit,” Will shouted. “What the hell did I tell you, Beau? Get yourself under control.”

  Rage, clean and pure, shot through Alice like a multi-bladed knife. No one hit her sister. No one—

  “Hold your fire,” Will barked at his men.

  “Fuck that,” Beau said. “I’m here for revenge.” He raised his pistol and pointed it at Logan.

  Time sped forward for Alice and her vision multiplied, images overlaid one on top of each other, the present and the future spinning out at the same time.

  In the future, Beau stepped toward Logan, arm outstretched—

  Alice sent the image to Jack.

  Beau stepped toward Logan. Jack leaped up and over the table, sending dishes flying, hit the ground on the other side and knocked the pistol from Beau’s hand.

  In the future, Ramsey scrambled after it—

  Alice sent the image to Jack.

  Ramsey scrambled after it. Jack kicked the pistol across the floor. Wye grabbed it and leaped to her feet, pointing it at Ramsey.

  Future Beau bellowed with fury, turned around and went for Logan—

  Alice sent the image to Jack.

  Beau roared with fury, turned—

  But Jack couldn’t get there in time. Beau’s fist connected with Logan’s face hard enough to knock Logan down.

  All around Alice, chaos ensued. Will yelled orders, still holding his pistol to the General’s head. The other men ignored him as Brian, Logan, Hunter and Connor all leaped to their feet and joined in the melee.

  In the future, Will shook Alice. “Let’s move, bitch!”

  Alice sent the image to Jack—too late.

  Will shook her. “Let’s move, bitch—fuck!”

  He crashed to the ground as Jo struck him over the head with a chair. Alice fell, too, the floor coming up to slam against her body. The air whooshed out of her lungs. Will swore and scrambled up again. Alice tried to push up, too, but the room swam, and it was all she could do to sit. She saw Emerson tackled by one of the strangers as he pointed a pistol at Will’s prone form. Saw the General struggle to go after the man who’d tackled his corporal.

  “Alice!” Jack shouted.

  She couldn’t do this alone. Jack couldn’t—

  “Alice—show me!” Jack shouted.

  Alice swayed. Straightened. Her head filled with images cascading far too fast for her to catch and sort. The General falling. Emerson tussling with the stranger. Jo bringing her chair down again and again before being knocked down herself—

  Her rage was back—and with it her vision.

  Suddenly it was clear and strong. She was clear and strong. She didn’t have to move. All she had to do was think—and send the images, not just to Jack—but to everyone.

  In the future, Ramsey pointed his pistol at Jo—

  She sent the image to Jack,
and he drew his own weapon, aimed, fired and laid Ramsey out.

  Beau would lunge for Lena.

  Alice sent the image to Logan, who had his pistol in his hand in a flash and killed Beau with a single shot.

  Beau dropped to the ground.

  In the future, a man she didn’t know went for Emerson.

  Alice beamed that image to Wye, who wound up and swung a rolling pin she grabbed from the nearby counter like a World Series hitter and knocked the stranger sideways, his temple hitting the table with a crack.

  Someone else would shoot off several rounds into the heart of the fray.

  Alice sent that image to Connor, who whipped out a pistol of his own and shot the man dead.

  The images came faster and faster, and Alice sent them winging their way with a precision she couldn’t have dreamed of a few moments ago. She didn’t know if she’d sped up or if time had slowed down. All she knew was that Jack figured in most of them.

  He caught the images she sent far faster than anyone else, reacted to them almost instantaneously after she sent them. He disarmed man after man and put them on the ground until he was faced with Will again.

  But Will didn’t aim at Jack. He twisted around and pointed his pistol at the General once more, who clutched the back of a chair for support, Emerson by his side.

  “This is for my dad,” Will growled. “You can join him in hell.”

  “No!” Lena screamed as he pulled the trigger, bringing her pistol to bear on him—too late. The General crumpled in Emerson’s arms.

  “No! No! No!” Lena fired again and again, her shots ripping through Will over and over until he crumpled, too, his body hitting the floor with a sickening thud.

  Lena ran to the General. Alice wanted to go, too, but the fight wasn’t over, and present and future merged into a groaning stream of distorted images in her brain as she kept sorting them. Kept sending them out.

  And when the rest of the strangers had all been disarmed—or killed—she couldn’t seem to stop. Hands were tied, firearms disabled, men sorted, women consoled. Alice went on and on, sending images, directing the scene until she thought she’d be trapped in the slipstream of time forever.

  Let go.

  It was Amelia again.

  Darling, let go.

  But she couldn’t. If she let go, time would stop. The future would become the present.

  Her father would be dead.

  The images went on and on.

  Brian would console Cass. Hunter would tie the wrists of two strange men. Emerson and Wye would bend over the General’s prone form. Logan would call Cab. Cab would grab his gun and his badge, and rush from his office. His secretary would call out a goodbye. An ambulance would drive past the sheriff’s department, sirens blaring. Ellie Donaldson would alter a wedding dress for a customer. Maggie Lawton would hug her daughter. Ned Matheson would shrug into his winter coat and head outside to work on the Double-Bar-K.

  Let go!

  She couldn’t. The weight of all that future was crushing her. Forcing her down.

  Alice, Amelia called. But her mother was slipping away, pushed aside by the images piling and piling up in her mind. A black dog would bark. A cow would low in a distant barn. A crow would wing its way over a meadow—

  “Alice! Alice, come back!”

  Something shook her shoulders, but she couldn’t respond. Everything that was Alice was melting away, diluting in the deluge of futures. She tried to swim back upstream, but the current was too strong.

  Lives spooled out all around her. Movements, dishes, eyes and breaths, stairs and driveways, cars and radios. People kissing, people laughing, drawing breath, reaching, grabbing, stepping—dying.

  “Alice!”

  A hand grabbed hers. Jerked her hard. “Alice—can you hear me?” It pulled again.

  Alice clung to it, knowing it was her only hope. Knowing, too, that returning to the present would cause too much pain.

  Fight, Alice! Amelia cried. Remember your home. Remember your family. Your future.

  She tried to picture her sisters. Her home.

  They were all sliding further and further away.

  The future—

  She didn’t want to see the future.

  “Alice!”

  She knew that voice, but she couldn’t place it. Knew the hand that held hers but couldn’t remember the face that went with it. The images poured down over her, burying her alive until Alice, gasping and choking, flailing and kicking, went under one last time—

  And everything went dark.

  “Alice! Alice!” Jack yelled. “Come on, Alice. Wake up. Someone call an ambulance!”

  “Already did,” Logan called from across the room. He held Lena in his arms.

  Several feet away, Lena knelt over the General’s prone body, Emerson and Wye beside her. Brian joined Jack by Alice’s side. He checked her pulse. Bent down to listen. “She’s still breathing.”

  “Why won’t she wake up?”

  Cass joined them, taking Alice’s hand and bending over her sister. “Is she hurt?”

  “I don’t think so.” Jack kept running his hands over her. “I can’t find any blood. She’s unconscious.”

  “Did she hit her head?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Cass moved to the General. “Dad? Where was he hit?” she asked Emerson.

  “I can’t find the bullet.”

  “I hear sirens,” Jo cried.

  “Dad?” Cass asked again. “Dad, can you hear me?”

  “He’s dead,” Lena said. “He’s dead, and I never got to tell him—”

  “Get away from my daughter!” The General surged up with a shout, thrashing and kicking until Emerson caught him and stopped him from trying to rise.

  “General, it’s okay. Where were you shot?”

  The General pushed him away. “Shot? I wasn’t shot! My damn leg—”

  Relief flooded Jack. When Alice woke up, he wouldn’t have to break bad news to her about her father.

  If she woke up—

  She lay so still on the ground it was as if—

  No. She wasn’t dead, either.

  Lena still crouched by the General. “I thought… I thought you…” Her voice cracked, and tears flooded her eyes.

  The General reached for her hand. Emerson helped him to sit up. “Not a scratch on me, thanks to you. You’re a damn good shot. But that’s because you’re my girl. Come here.”

  Lena moved closer, and the General took her into his arms, supporting her when she began to sob. “That’s my girl,” he said again. “God, I’ve missed you all.”

  As the sirens neared Two Willows, Jack stroked Alice’s hair and bent to kiss her forehead. “Come back,” he whispered. “Please come back. I was wrong,” he added. “So damn wrong. I should have believed you from the start.”

  Cab burst into the kitchen, followed by paramedics.

  “What the hell happened here?” He gestured to the bodies, the men tied together, the scattered inhabitants of Two Willows fighting to recover their equilibrium.

  “We put an end to it,” Brian told him bluntly.

  “Alice put an end to it,” Jack corrected him as the paramedics surrounded them.

  “Sir, we need you to let go now,” one of them—a stocky woman with her hair in a twist and a no-nonsense air—told him.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Sir—”

  “Let’s move,” Jack barked. “This is my fiancée, and I’m not letting her go.”

  Hold on, Amelia said. Alice, you have to hold on.

  She was trying. Clinging to the hand that held hers. That one point of contact was the only thing preventing her from annihilation in the sea of images sluicing through her brain.

  You are you. Inhabit yourself.

  But Alice couldn’t seem to feel where she ended and everyone else’s lives began. So many futures—and pasts—and presents. So many people and lives and problems and joys.

  So much pain.
>
  You are Alice. Remember.

  She tried to remember who Alice was, but there were so many other memories in her mind.

  “Who—?” she tried to say. “Who… am… I?

  Forming the words felt impossible with so many other words cascading through her. Her tongue was thick. Alien to her mouth. Or maybe her body had become the alien, separate from her consciousness.

  “Who… who…?” she whispered, but her voice drowned in a flood of other voices. She wanted to let herself go. Give up the boundaries that kept her separate—

  Allowed her to feel her own thoughts.

  Her own hurts.

  “Alice.” The sound of her name came from very far away, but Alice strained toward it despite herself. Images rushed past her, swirled around her, lifted and floated her, then pulled her down again, and though she tried she couldn’t seem to get closer to that voice.

  Hold on, Amelia said. Just hold on.

  “Alice,” the other voice said again, a little closer this time. “Remember.”

  That was just the problem, though, she didn’t want to remember—and yet she remembered everything. Everything.

  “Your sisters need you,” the voice said. “Cass. Sadie. Lena. Jo.”

  She had a flash of her sisters. Standing with them in the maze. Joining hands and making a promise. Was it past or future?

  She didn’t know.

  “Your father needs you, too. He’s alive, Alice. The General is alive.”

  Alive.

  Her father—alive.

  Her sisters—

  “Remember Two Willows, Alice. Horses. Cattle. Tabitha—”

  Tabitha. A white cat. Her white cat.

  Her father was alive.

  Her sisters—

  “Sitting on the refrigerator. Sewing in your workshop. Costumes. Hoopskirts.”

  Hoopskirts. Alice remembered squeezing through a doorway, bursting out the other side in a lilac gown.

  “The General. He sent you a husband. A soldier.”

  Jack.

  Alice clung to the hand more tightly.

  The General had sent her Jack.

  And she loved him.

  “Alice, do you remember? We made love in the maze—”

  Hold on tight, Amelia urged her. As tight as you can.

  Alice clung to Jack’s hand, because it was Jack’s hand—she knew it. And she needed him. She needed Jack. Needed her sisters.