by Debra Cowan
“You may never get another chance to find this person,” she urged.
And he didn’t give a damn. Staring down into her pale face, her pain-filled green eyes, he knew he wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m not leaving.”
“Just get me to Saul. I can help him and you can go.”
“Get the idea out of your head. I’m not going.”
“But whoever that was might be able to help you solve your parents’ murders.”
“Forget it.” The sound of pounding hoofbeats was fading. He cupped Merritt’s cheek. “You’re more important. The only place we’re going is to the doctor so he can take care of you.”
Bowie pulled his bandanna from the back pocket of his denims.
“Bowie—”
“No.” He made a tourniquet from his kerchief and knotted it tight around the part of her shoulder that curved into her upper arm.
Every time she winced, he felt it like a cut.
“What about Saul?” she asked weakly.
Satisfied he had slowed her blood flow, Bowie brushed a kiss against her forehead. “Going now to check on him.”
He jogged over to the man. Shot in the gut and upper thigh, Saul was alive, but not by much.
Bowie hurried over to the man’s horse and cut off a piece of the rope looped over his saddle horn. After tying it around the injured man’s thigh, he dragged him over to his mount and hefted him across the saddle.
Bowie gathered the reins and walked over to Hobbs’s sorrel, hoisting the dead man facedown over the saddle.
Merritt was too pale for Bowie’s liking. He lifted her onto the back of his horse and swung up behind her. Because of her injuries and Saul’s, too, he was afraid to let the horses run, but he urged them to a brisk walk. He gathered Merritt against him, cursing when he felt her wince.
“Is Saul bad?” she whispered.
He ached at the sadness in her green eyes. “Afraid so.”
“Do you think we’ll make it to Doc Lewis in time?”
He glanced back at the man who hadn’t made a sound since Bowie had loaded him onto his horse. “I don’t know, honey. I’ll try.”
A tear fell down her cheek and she laid her head against his chest.
His throat tightened. He closed his eyes, savoring the reassuring weight of her against him. Still unsteady from seeing her with the former marshal, Bowie’s frantic pulse finally slowed.
He didn’t care how long it took. He would get her to forgive him for doubting her. Because he couldn’t let her go. He wouldn’t.
It was dark, the main part of town quiet, when they reached Ca-Cross. Piano music jangled from the saloons on the other side of the railroad tracks. Voices rose and fell. Cigar smoke hung in the air.
If people started asking questions about Ca-Cross’s former marshal, Bowie might have to give more answers than he wanted. Until he knew who had hired Hobbs to kill Earl and Ruby, he wanted to keep everything as quiet as possible, especially Merritt’s involvement and gunshot wound.
Bowie reined up in the alley between Doc Lewis’s office and the Porter Hotel, trailing the other horses and their riders behind him.
He dismounted and lifted Merritt from the saddle, starting for Clancy’s back door with her in his arms.
“Bowie, I can walk.”
“I know.” He looked down at her, the moonlight gilding her skin to a pearly sheen. And turning the blood on her shoulder black. “I just don’t want to let go of you.”
“Oh,” she said softly, settling against him.
Seeing Hobbs’s arm locked around her had nearly sent Bowie into a rage, but discovering she had been shot had turned his entire body numb. Only now was he able to get a full breath.
He reached the doctor’s back door and tapped it with his boot.
A haggard-looking Clancy answered, letting them inside with a frown. His gaze took in the bloody bandanna on Merritt’s arm and he led Bowie straight to a room set off the front parlor and to the examining table.
As Bowie settled Merritt in a chair, he explained to Doc Lewis what had happened and told him there was a severely wounded man outside. Clancy helped bring in Saul while Bowie told the doctor that Merritt had been caught in a shoot-out between Hobbs and Saul, who was her foster brother. He left out any references to his parents or the fact that they’d been murdered.
The doctor’s brown eyes said he knew there was more, but he didn’t ask. They laid the wounded man carefully on the exam table.
While Clancy tore Saul’s shirt up the front to look at the gunshot in his abdomen, Bowie pulled a chair over beside Merritt. He ripped the seam of her sleeve, peeling it down to check her wound. He didn’t think there was any lasting damage. He hoped Doc Lewis agreed.
He glanced at Merritt, who was watching the proceedings with sad, sober eyes. The doctor’s already-grim expression grew even darker when he cut a hole in Saul’s blood-soaked trousers and ripped them open to get a look at his inner thigh.
He stopped the blood flow with thick bandages, then bowed his head. Running a hand over his nape, he stood and walked to Merritt. “He’s lost too much blood. I’m afraid I can’t help him.”
She stifled a sob and Bowie stroked her hair, feeling helpless.
“Merritt,” Saul croaked.
Wiping her eyes, she got to her feet and went to him.
The doctor laid a hand on Bowie’s shoulder. “You can have the room as long as you want.”
“Thanks,” he said quietly, hating that Merritt was having to go through this.
Bent low over her foster brother, she clutched his hand as he mumbled something to her. With tears streaming down her face, she called Bowie over. “He wants to talk to you.”
Bowie stood across the table from her and leaned down so he could hear Saul’s raspy words.
“One…more…thing.” He stopped, visibly gathering his strength. When he spoke again, his words were slurred, his voice fading away. “Pettit said…Hobbs knew something. About a…Van Slyck and your…folks.”
“I’ll check it out. Which Van Slyck?” Bowie asked, hoping Saul could hang on long enough to tell him if he meant the father or the son.
Saul’s gaze met Bowie’s. “Take…care of her.”
He nodded.
After a rattling breath, Saul went limp.
Merritt bowed her head, shoulders shaking. Bowie moved around the table and took her in his arms, careful of her wounded shoulder.
She leaned into him. “Take me home. Please.”
“I will.” He rubbed her back. “As soon as Clancy looks at your shoulder.”
She sat stoically while the doctor dressed her wound. Twenty minutes later, Bowie set her on her feet beside her bed.
She stood unmoving, her gaze unfocused and distant as if she were remembering something.
The blood staining her pretty dress sent another flash of anger through him. He hated that she’d been hurt. He feathered a kiss against her temple. “Honey, let’s get you out of this dress.”
She nodded, watching him quietly as he unbuttoned her bodice and eased it down over her arms. At his urging, she stepped out of her skirt, then let him unfasten her camisole. He took it off along with her drawers. He tried not to be affected by the sight of her bare curves, the silky skin he had touched only this morning.
He held her nightgown so she could step into it rather than pull it on over her head.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” she said shakily.
Bowie gently sat her down on the edge of her mattress and palmed off her button-up boots.
As he slid them off, her gaze met his, her lashes still spiky from her tears, her eyes deep green. “Did you get what you needed from him?”
Bowie frowned.
“Can you finish your investigation now?”
She was angry, he realized. At him?
Rolling her stockings down her slender legs, he took them off and laid them on the bed. “Saul told me everything he knew, but the investigation isn’t
over.”
“Now what?” She rose, her chin trembling. Anger blazed in her tear-filled eyes. “Hobbs is dead and so is Saul! He’s dead, Bowie.”
He stood, wanting to take her in his arms. Instead, she hit him in the chest.
Shock held him immobile for a moment. Then she punched him again. And again. He stayed her hand and she let out a broken sound. Her head lolled against his chest.
His heart clenched tight. Did she blame him for Saul’s death? Bowie couldn’t stand the thought. He knew she didn’t hold him responsible for the actual killing shots, but maybe she blamed him for Saul being at Triple Creek in the first place.
“Why couldn’t he have turned himself in? Why did he have to run with those outlaws?”
Bowie was too stunned at the idea that she blamed him to answer. He probably deserved it. If he had done his job sooner, tried to bring Saul in a few weeks ago when he had caught him outside the kitchen with Merritt, the man would probably still be alive.
But the thought that she blamed him for Saul’s death broke Bowie in two. She obviously hadn’t forgiven him for this morning and now this.
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely.
She lifted her head, questioning him with her eyes.
“You probably can’t wait to see the last of me, but that won’t be tonight, honey. I’m staying, no matter what you say. Tomorrow, if you’re okay, I’ll leave.”
“Leave? Why?” She clutched at his grimy shirt.
It took all he had not to put his hands on her. He clenched his jaw hard enough to snap bone. “You don’t want me here. It sounds as though you blame me for Saul’s death.”
“No! No, I don’t. I’m angry about it, but not at you.”
“No?” That wasn’t how it felt.
“Oh, Bowie.” Her eyes softened as she reached up with her good hand and caressed his jaw. “I love you.”
A hush came over him. “I love you, too, but what about this morning? You made it real plain that we were finished.”
“I was angry and hurt, but before Hobbs showed up here, I had made up my mind to tell you that I forgave you. That I love you and I don’t want things to end between us.”
“You really forgive me?”
“Yes. I knew you valued what we have more than you do your job, especially when you refused to chase after that sniper and give up the opportunity to catch your parents’ murderers. I’m sorry for saying what I did about you needing tangible evidence to trust my word.”
“You weren’t wrong, Merritt.”
“I was—”
He laid a finger against her lips. “You gave me plenty of evidence of your feelings if I had just seen it for what it was. I’ll do whatever you need me to do so that you can know your word is more than good enough for me. I want your heart.”
“You have it,” she said softly. “If I hadn’t been sure before Hobbs grabbed me, I definitely was when I saw how you tried to save Saul. I know you did that for me.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep him alive.”
“So am I, but I also know that he lived a dangerous life.”
“You should be aware that he agreed to turn himself in.”
She searched his eyes as if to judge whether he was telling the truth or just trying to set her mind at ease.
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “He really did, Merritt.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “Good.”
“He loved you. And so do I.” Bowie’s hands came up to gently frame her face and his mouth covered hers.
She responded immediately, going up on tiptoe to wrap her good arm around his neck.
After a long moment, they drew apart. His smile faded to a frown when his gaze settled on her face. His thumb floated over her jaw, then her cheek.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I got dirt on you.”
She laughed through her tears. “Well, that’s a switch. I’d better keep you around to make sure I stay clean.”
“Now that’s the job I really want. For the rest of our lives.”
“It’s yours,” she murmured against his lips.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8213-1
THE MARSHAL AND MISS MERRITT
Copyright © 2011 by Debra S. Cowan
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