Thinking of his promise to meet Robbie, John pulled back the drapes. His gaze fell on the jagged pines behind the parsonage and then rose to the stars. He usually took strength from the glimmering sky, but tonight he felt sober and sad. Even the crickets sounded lonely.
Lowering his head, he looked down at the desk where he wrote sermons and kept his two Bibles. One was so new the leather creaked when he opened it. The other had been a gift from Silas and was falling apart. The rest of the furniture included a wardrobe he didn’t use and a double bed he truly appreciated. Three years on a prison cot had given him a taste for soft mattresses, and this one was stuffed with feathers and down.
Turning away from the desk, John shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the back of the chair. He had a rule. He never left the parsonage without the coat, and he never wore the coat in this room. He needed a place where he could snore and belch and just be a man. For the same reason, he slept buck-naked. Sometimes a man had to let his skin breathe.
This was one of those times, so he stripped off his clothes and stretched facedown on the bed, shifting his hips to avoid a lump in the sheets. As he tugged on the cotton to smooth it, he thought of Abbie. She’d have a straw tick and the bedsheets would stink of lye. The girl in Kansas had appreciated fine things, like the satin nightgown he’d lifted off her shoulders.
“Ah, hell,” John muttered.
He could still feel Abbie’s lips, soft and unschooled. Her breasts had been round and tipped with rosy nipples that he’d been the first man to kiss. She had explored him, too. Generous by nature, she’d been far too brave for her own good.
As for himself, he’d just been lustful. Except fifteen years had passed, and it was still Abbie’s touch he felt in dreams too personal to share. In time he’d come to believe that he loved her. John clenched the sheets until his fists ached. His thighs tensed and so did his belly. Every nerve in his body was alive and spoiling for a certain kind of fight.
It wasn’t often that John wanted a woman. He’d put that need behind him when he’d put on his black coat for the first time, and he’d kept it there by focusing on women like Emma Dray. They admired his good looks and his passion for heaven. They said his sermons were brilliant and wise and told him he was a good man.
They didn’t know him at all, but Abbie did. She knew he had bad dreams, and she’d understood when he wouldn’t talk about them. John had changed a lot over the years. He wasn’t the same kid who had seduced her, but beneath the coat he was still just a man, and a hot-blooded one at that.
Abbie had been wise to choose the fleas.
You goddamn slut!
Abbie was back in Washington, trapped in her bedroom and using her arms to protect her face from Robert’s blows. Oh, God. Oh, God. He was ripping her hands from her face, squeezing her throat and calling her unspeakable names.
“Bitch!” Only it wasn’t Robert’s voice that thundered through the boardinghouse walls.
Robbie sat up on the pallet next to her bed. “Ma? Who’s shouting?”
Abbie pushed to her feet and put on her wrapper. “I don’t know, but someone needs help.”
“No! Don’t go.”
Her son’s worry tugged at her heart, but she had been on the other side of that wall. Tying her robe, she said, “I’m going to knock on the door while you get Sally. Her room’s at the bottom of the stairs, remember?”
Robbie jumped to his feet and pulled on his clothes. As they entered the hallway, she squeezed her son’s shoulder. “You better hurry.”
After he raced down the stairs, Abbie tapped on the door next to hers. “Hello?”
When no one answered, she pressed her ear to the wood. A whimper penetrated the barrier, followed by a man’s cursing. Abbie was about to twist the knob when the door opened a crack, revealing a young woman she had met at supper. Her name was Beth and she was looking down, trying to hide her face behind a curtain of golden-brown hair.
Abbie stuck her foot in the door. “I can help you,” she whispered.
Just as Beth moved her lips to reply, someone yanked her back into the room. Shrieking, the girl tumbled to the floor as Abbie stepped over the threshold. Sweat and whiskey hung in the air as a man the size of horse grabbed Beth’s forearm and tried to haul her to her feet.
“Get up!” he ordered.
“I can’t.” Clutching her ribs, Beth slumped to the floor.
Abbie knew from experience that provoking a devil made him more violent, so she kept her voice low. “What’s your name, sir?”
He looked over his shoulder and wrinkled his brow as if her good manners had confused him. “It’s Ed.”
“Hi, Ed. I’m Abigail. Are you hungry? I bet Sally has pie and coffee downstairs.”
As he let go of Beth’s hand, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Who the hell are you?”
Abbie’s knees were knocking, but she had to keep Ed talking until help arrived. “My name’s Abbie. I’m no one.”
“Well, Miss No One. You should have minded your own business.”
Abbie prayed Ed would take the easy way out and let both women leave, but he raked her with his eyes, lingering on her breasts and her mouth. She knew all about bullies. They fed on fear, so she swallowed hers as if it were vinegar. She was about to offer to wrap Beth’s ribs when Ed curled his lips into a smirk and lifted a leather sheath off the dresser. Judging by the shape, it held a bowie knife. Weighing the threat to Beth if she ran for help, Abbie eyed the door, only to see Ed slap it shut.
Focusing on the immediate need, Abbie stepped to Beth’s side and helped her to her feet. Leering at them both, Ed unsheathed the knife and turned it back and forth in the moonlight, inspecting the blade for sharpness with his thumb. Because knives left marks that were hard to explain, Abbie felt fairly certain he didn’t intend to use it. The motion was meant to terrify them, just as Robert had terrified her with lit cigarettes.
As long as she and Beth weren’t trapped against the wall, she could buy time. Surely Sally had sent for the sheriff. But what if he wouldn’t come? What if he shrugged off a woman’s bruises as a family matter? Abbie’s shoulder throbbed with the tension. She’d been trapped in this alley before and she still bore the scars.
“Reverend!”
Jarred awake by pounding on the front door, John yanked on his clothes and jammed his feet into his boots. It had to be a stranger. People in Midas knew to come to the back door at night. As he fumbled with a button, the pounding turned into a drumbeat.
“It’s Robbie. Hurry! My ma’s in trouble.”
Not bothering to grab his coat, John raced through the house and flung open the front door. “What happened?”
“She went to help a lady who was crying because a man was yelling at her. I tried to get Sally, but she didn’t open her door.”
The argument had to be between Ed and Beth Davies. John knew that Ed’s wife had left him and moved into Sally’s place this afternoon. Ed had a vile temper, but he had never used more than his fists. Nonetheless, John grabbed the Colt Lightning he kept by the front door and jammed it into his waistband.
“Let’s go,” he said to Robbie.
Together they ran the six blocks, stormed into the boardinghouse and raced up the stairs. After a glance to be sure Abbie wasn’t in her room, John faced Robbie. “Go pound on Sally’s door until she opens it. Tell her I said to get the sheriff and the doctor.”
As Robbie raced down the hall, John sized up the sturdiness of the door. He preferred talk to violence, but Ed had proved he was hard of hearing. Wanting to keep surprise on his side, John hauled back and kicked down the door. In a blink he took in the sight of the two women pressed against the wall and Ed lunging at Abbie.
“He’s got a knife!” shrieked Beth.
As the blade glinted, John threw himself between Abbie and Ed. The blade slashed across his belly. He leaped back and aimed his gun, but Ed had already snaked his arm around Abbie’s waist and was pressing the bloody knife against her throat. In her eyes
, John saw a calm so deep it chilled his blood. This wasn’t the first time she had been in danger.
Bracing against the wall, he cocked the hammer and pointed the barrel at Ed’s nose. “Tell me, Ed. Have you ever heard of ‘an eye for an eye’? It’s the surest cure for meanness I know and it’s biblical, too.”
“You son of a bitch.”
John held his pistol steady. “I don’t believe in turning the other cheek when innocent lives are at stake, but when it’s just my life, I’m a generous man. What’s it going to be, Ed? You can drop the knife or I’ll shoot.”
When Ed squinted like a rat, John decided to give him a lesson in arithmetic. “You’ve got three seconds. One…two…”
“Ah, hell.” Ed dropped the knife to the floor and sent it skittering toward John, letting go of Abbie at the same time. “No woman’s worth dying for.”
John thought Ed was dead wrong. Abbie was worth every drop of blood dripping down his side, but that was his secret to keep.
Still aiming the gun at Ed, he said, “Beth, fetch your things. Abbie, get Robbie and whatever you need for the night. You ladies are coming home with me. Ed, though, is going to jail just as soon as Sheriff Handley gets here.”
“I’m right here, Reverend.” The sheriff strode into the room with a pair of irons in hand. “I don’t tolerate men who use knives on women.”
Only their fists, John thought, but that fight had to wait for another day. Relieved to have the ordeal over, he gave Abbie a reassuring nod as she led Beth into the hallway. As soon as Handley dragged Ed out of the room, John slid down the wall until his buttocks hit the floor.
His side was starting to hurt like the devil. Sucking in a breath, he pulled his shirt out of his waistband. He’d been a fool to leave the parsonage without his coat. The wool would have offered some protection, and Ed might have thought twice about slicing up a preacher. As things stood, the gash felt deep, but it hadn’t penetrated anything vital. As long as the wound didn’t fester, he’d be fine after someone stitched him up.
John stifled a groan. He wasn’t keen on seeing Doc Randall. The old man still talked about the good old days when he’d used leeches. John was considering sewing the cut himself when Abbie hurried into the room. Still clad in her nightgown, she dropped to her knees and pressed a wadded-up petticoat against his side. Pale and soft, it reminded him of her skin.
“Lie down,” she ordered. “Moving makes it bleed.”
“I’m all right.” John nudged her hand away and gripped the cotton. “I’ll do that. You need to get dressed.”
“I’m not going with you and neither is Beth.” Abbie sat back on her knees. “If a woman is the one to leave, a divorce can cost her everything.”
He wanted to ask how she knew such a thing, but first he had to convince her to come home with him. He knew better than to bark orders at her, so he appealed to her common sense. “I don’t trust Handley to keep Ed locked up. You won’t be safe unless I stay here.”
“Then it’s decided.”
Her mind still worked like lightning. His was fogged with pain. “What’s decided?”
“You can sleep in this room and Beth can stay with me. We can take turns looking out for you.”
The plan sounded logical, except John wanted his privacy. No, that wasn’t exactly right. He needed solitude like he needed air. He gritted his teeth. “I’m not staying here.”
Abbie looked down her nose. “Don’t be foolish. That gash doesn’t hurt right now, but tomorrow you’ll be crying like a baby.”
“Want to bet?” He hadn’t shed a tear in thirty years and he wasn’t going to start over an itty-bitty cut, even if it did need two dozen stitches. And he sure as the devil didn’t care for the thought of visitors. He wanted to lick his wounds in private. He also wanted to be sure Abbie and Beth would be safe, and he couldn’t do that here. Half the time Sally didn’t even lock her doors.
A wet cough pulled John’s gaze to the doorway where he saw Doc Randall shuffling into the room with his black bag.
“Hello, Reverend,” he said. “It looks like you’ve been fighting again.”
Abbie glared up at the doctor. “The Reverend saved Beth Davies from a beating. Her husband started the fight.”
Ignoring her, the elderly man hunched forward and let his bag drop the last six inches to the floor. As he crouched, John saw his knees wobble with the effort. “Damn floor gets lower every year,” said the doctor.
Abbie’s brows tightened with concern. “Maybe I can find a stool for you.”
“I’ll manage,” said Randall. “Just give me a minute.”
John glanced at Abbie who looked as worried about the doctor as she was about him. New Mexico generally attracted young men looking to make their fortunes, and she’d probably been expecting someone fresh out of medical college. Instead she’d just met Methuselah.
With a grunt, the doctor dropped to his hips and pushed his spectacles back up his nose. After a hearty throat-clearing, he took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his nose and coughed—right over John’s bleeding belly.
Abbie’s stomach curdled as a mist of spit hit her face. Doc Randall had experience, but she doubted he’d read a medical article in twenty years. He’d probably never heard of Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister, but Abbie had. She read all the time. If Randall didn’t take precautions, an infection was almost certain.
“Doctor, would you like soap and water for your hands? Or maybe you have carbolic in your bag?”
When Randall didn’t look at her, Abbie guessed that he was hard of hearing. If he’d had carbolic, he would have used it by now, so she raised her voice and enunciated each word. “I’ll get Ed’s whiskey. Alcohol kills germs.”
Randall glared at her. “I heard you the first time, missy. All that germ talk is nonsense. Some folks get sick and some don’t. It’s the luck of the draw.”
“It’s not,” Abbie replied. “I do a lot of reading. Cleanliness is important.”
She stood and retrieved the pint Ed had been swigging. After wiping the lip of the bottle with her nightgown, she held it out to the doctor. “You should use it to clean the needle and the wound.”
Randall waved it off and pulled the edges of John’s skin together with his grimy fingers. Clenching the bottle, Abbie dropped to her knees. “Doctor, you have to—”
“Someone get this woman out of my way.”
“Listen to her, Doc,” John said. “I’d rather drink the whiskey, but what can it hurt?”
Doc Randall harrumphed. “It’s gonna hurt plenty. Do you want her to treat this wound, or me?”
Abbie forced herself to sound reasonable. “If you don’t take precautions, that cut will get infected. Even with whiskey, it might go bad.”
“It’s a waste of good liquor,” said Randall.
John shrugged. “It’s my call, Doc. Just do it.”
With a disgusted grunt, the doctor took the bottle and poured the alcohol on the wound without a warning. John cried out and clutched at the floor, but there was nothing to squeeze. Abbie felt his pain as if it were her own. She had learned to tend the injuries that Robert inflicted, and she’d screamed for two days while giving birth to Robbie. She’d been torn nearly in two, but what hurt even more was never having another child. With tears rising in her eyes, she rocked forward and took John’s hand in both of hers. “It’ll be over soon,” she crooned. “Just hang on.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “Don’t let go.”
“I won’t.”
His pupils had dilated with pain. If she could have rocked him in her arms, she would have done it. She hated suffering of any kind, but especially when the victim had been struck down while protecting the innocent.
All sorts of words were pouring from the Reverend’s lips. Some were the prayers she would have expected from a man of the cloth, but others were bitter. In that mix of faith and human failing, she saw both the gunslinger she’d known in Kansas and the man he’d become. She wasn’t sure wh
at to make of the differences.
As the stinging passed, John composed himself, though he didn’t let go of her hand until Doc Randall took the last stitch.
“That should do it,” said the older man. “I’ll check on you tomorrow.”
John pushed to a sitting position. “We’ll be at the parsonage.”
Abbie was about to renew their argument about where to stay when Doc Randall interrupted. “Sally’s got room for you. It’s time you let your friends take care you.”
When John clutched his side and pushed to his feet, Abbie knew that Doc Randall had lost the argument. Wise or not, John was going home alone and Abbie wondered why. Did he still have nightmares, the shaming kind where he cried out in his sleep? Or maybe he couldn’t stand the thought of fleas and scratchy sheets.
Abbie knew in her soul that living under his roof was asking for trouble. It wasn’t just the way his eyes turned hungry when he looked at her. It was knowing she could still sense his thoughts and he could sense hers. A long time ago, they’d been that close…she’d held his hand while he’d told her how his father would beat him with a shovel and his mother had walked away. She had rubbed his back and fed him apple pie…
“Abbie? Did you hear me?” John asked.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I said Doc’s going to drive me home in his buggy. I’d appreciate it if you and Beth would come with me, but I won’t ask twice.”
But he had asked twice in Kansas. He’d asked her for more than she had been ready to give. Would he do it again? She didn’t think so, but it didn’t matter. She’d be a fool to make herself vulnerable to the man with her daughter’s brown eyes.
But she’d be something even worse if she didn’t help him—a coward, and an ungrateful one at that. The blood on the floor would have been hers if he hadn’t kicked down the door. And if the wound became infected as she feared, he’d be suffering for days and even facing death. The thought made Abbie tremble with dread. Susanna had a right to meet her father, and Abbie owed him her life.
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