by Gigi Moore
“We have to go after him, Dakota.”
“No. I will go. Your appearance will just incense him further. Besides, someone must stay here with Little Wyatt.”
“Oh my God!” She gasped and put a hand over her mouth.
Dakota could already see the self-recriminations and shame clouding her eyes and he could not let her carry it any further. The guilt she harbored for revealing the name and allowing Wyatt to leave was enough. He could not have her believing herself a neglectful mother on top of that. “It is all right, Lily. You are upset and not thinking straight.”
“But I forgot about my own son…again.”
Dakota got from the bed and took both her hands in his. “You did not forget him. He is here, in your heart, in this house, and he is not going anywhere. Neither are you.” He grabbed his pants from the foot of the bed and quickly stepped into them.
Lily followed him around the room, wringing her hands as he continued to get dressed and prepared to leave, showing him just how distressed she was.
Dakota allowed her to follow him as far as the great room before he stopped in his tracks and turned around to face her once more before he left. He pulled her close, holding her tight for a brief moment, gently kissing her temple. “I will not let any harm come to him, Lily. I love him like my blood and I will bring him back to us. I promise.”
She nodded and Dakota knew that he would do anything he needed to wipe the defeated and anxious look off her face. He remembered that look all too well in his father’s face.
He turned to go before he could talk himself out of leaving. He needed to go to Wyatt much more than he needed to stay with Lily.
Dakota had to stop Wyatt from killing the wrong man.
* * * *
Now that he had put some distance between himself and the farm, Wyatt was breathing a little easier, the guilt about what he had done and how he had done it drifting away. He told himself he’d done what he’d had to. Lily and Dakota wouldn’t be much the worse for wear once they woke up. They might be a little upset with him for misleading them, but he reckoned he hadn’t put enough of Lily’s laudanum in their tea to cause anything worse than a little hangover. They’d survive.
His largest concern had been leaving Little Wyatt.
Of course he hadn’t drugged the little nipper and darned if the boy wasn’t out of his bed and in the hallway as Wyatt was leaving.
“Where are you going, Daddy?”
Wyatt had stopped in his tracks, turned, and had quickly gone to his son. Despite the laudanum he still had not wanted to risk that Lily and Dakota might wake up.
“It’s a secret and you have to be very quiet so that you don’t wake up Mommy and Uncle Dakota. They worked very hard yesterday and they need their rest.”
“Okay,” Little Wyatt had whispered. “Can I come with you?”
His heart had thundered at the question and at the blue eyes that looked so much like his own probing him. Any other time he would have welcomed the question, would have welcomed his son along, but not then.
“I want you to think about what you are doing before you take Little Wyatt’s father away from him the way my father was taken from me.”
Dakota’s words echoed in his mind and Wyatt swallowed hard at the memory of his friend’s tortured face, his hoarse voice as he had related his tale.
He had to hold firm, though. He told himself he was doing this for Little Wyatt. He did not want his son to grow up with a father who was too much of a coward to do the right thing.
The right thing was to punish the man who had hurt Little Wyatt’s mother.
Dakota thought the law should handle it, but Wyatt didn’t trust the law any more than Dakota’s father had in the end. People with money and power got away with murder. Wyatt was aiming to make sure his rich friend didn’t get away with hurting Lily.
Deep in his gut, he knew Dakota was right and he understood why Lily had not initially told him who’d attacked her. He couldn’t, however, let Brand get away with what he’d done. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself.
He reckoned if something did happen to him, he trusted Dakota enough to take care of Lily and Little Wyatt like he’d been doing for so long.
Wyatt shook his head now at the memory of his son’s innocent, wide-eyed expression. He could have fallen in and drowned in that look, much like he could drown in Lily’s look. Before he could change his mind, though, he’d taken the little boy back to his room and tucked him into bed, spending precious moments reading his son a story before the boy finally fell back to sleep.
The sun had barely been up when he’d left a few minutes later, but he’d still found himself creeping down the stairs and out to the barn to retrieve Gambit.
Once he cleared the first hundred yards from the farm without either Lily or Dakota coming after him, Wyatt knew he was home fr—Son of a bitch! “I’ve made up my mind.”
Dakota emerged from the woods where he had evidently been tracking Wyatt for God knew how long. “I will come with you then.”
“You’re not talking me out of this, injun.”
Dakota just smirked at the insult, which made Wyatt grit his teeth.
“I do not plan to.”
“I can handle this on my own. I’d appreciate it if you’d go back to Lily and Little Wyatt.”
“It is too late for that. I am here now and we will do what we must do.”
Wyatt cursed. He was willing to risk himself for his wife’s honor. He didn’t want Dakota to risk himself, too. Besides, he needed him to stay behind and take care of Lily and their boy.
Dakota fell into step beside Wyatt’s horse, leaving Wyatt to wonder how he had caught up to him so fast and how in tarnation he had found him. He refused to ask though, settling into the surprisingly companionable silence as they advanced toward the cattle ranch where his friend lived. They could have been two friends traveling for sport and not on a deadly hunt.
Soon, however, the silence got to him. As quiet as Wyatt knew he was, Dakota was ten times so, walking with a calm dignity that was all the more critical than if he had come right out to tell Wyatt about himself. It chafed Wyatt’s hide.
“Was Lily okay when you left?”
“No.”
He almost laughed at Dakota’s refusal to lie.
Just one word and Wyatt was almost ready to turn around. He wasn’t falling for it, though. Lily was strong. She had survived the attack and her time with the Kiowas. She would survive…
“You’ll take care of her.”
“I’d rather not make that choice.”
“But you will.” Wyatt paused and turned in his saddle to stare down at Dakota.
“We are here.”
Wyatt scowled at Dakota’s words before he realized what he’d said. He turned to glance at his surroundings, absorbing the lush foliage and the numerous head of cattle grazing in a rich nearby pasture.
How could he have missed it?
Wyatt sat back in his saddle and took a deep breath. He hadn’t been here in a long time, not since he had reached twenty and settled down with Lily.
Had that been when things had changed between him and Brand? How had they changed that much? Brand had been his friend, his best friend.
“Well, if it ain’t the old married man. What are you doing around these parts this time of morning?” Brand greeted, his cheer about making Wyatt’s stomach turn.
Wyatt took his time dismounting Gambit, trying to fortify himself for what he needed to do. “I just want to know one thing, Brand.”
“One thing about what?”
“How could you do that to Lily after all we’ve been through?”
Brand frowned. “What?”
Something in Wyatt’s gut shifted at the genuine look of confusion on Brand’s face, but he soldiered on. “You were like my brother, Brand. How could you do that to the woman I love?”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Wyatt, and I don’t think I appreciate your accusat
ory tone, none.”
“I reckon we’ve got some difficulty then.” Wyatt braced his feet apart, hands poised wide of his sides.
Brand squinted at him. “Are you fixin’ to draw on me?”
“Not unless I have to. But I am fixin’ to take you in to the sheriff.” Damn it, when had he changed his mind between here and the farm and decided to take Brand in to the law?
Wyatt felt Dakota relax beside him, and turned to him an instant before a shot rang out. “Dakota!” He helplessly watched as his friend lurched back, blood cutting a quickly widening path across his shirtfront.
Wyatt turned back to Brand, gun drawn, before he noticed Brand hunkered down and looking back at his house with a hand on the butt of his own gun.
Not a second later, a tall, broad-shouldered figure rounded the house, rifle hoisted and resting on his shoulder.
“Pa, what are you doing?”
Wyatt watched as Avery neared and stood before his son.
“Are you going to defend a red-skinned savage or your daddy, boy?”
“W–What are you talking about?”
“Never were worth the lick and a promise it took to bring you into this world. Wouldn’t expect you to step up and be a man now.”
“It was you,” Wyatt blurted as the ugly realization suddenly dawned on him.
“Did you put it together, or did that little filly finally come clean?”
“You…beat and left her for dead.”
“What’s he talking about, Pa?”
“Me, doing what you wanted to do but didn’t have the gumption to. Stepping up and taking what belongs to you. Wyatt knows what I’m talking about.”
“Pa, you didn’t…”
Wyatt was as flabbergasted as Brand and understood now that he had almost made a fatal mistake. Dakota had been right.
Dakota!
Wyatt knelt beside him, thankful that he was still breathing. He wouldn’t be for long, though, if they didn’t get him to Thayne and soon.
“You oughta be thanking me for getting rid of the competition. From what I’ve seen, he’s been getting a little too cozy with the wife.”
“You shut your mouth! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, but I think I do.” Avery tilted his head to one side and frowned. “Don’t tell me you actually cotton to the Indian.”
“He’s a sight more of a man than you.”
“Then I guess you won’t mind joining him in hell.” Avery cocked his rifle.
“Pa, you can’t.”
“The hell I can’t. These two are on my land without an invitation. Now in my book that constitutes trespassing. A man has a right to protect his land and his person. No one would question my actions, especially not over the death of no redskin.”
“What about Wyatt?”
“Well, you know I’m truly sorry that it had to come to this, but Wyatt, well…”
Wyatt’s gut churned with anger rather than fear when Avery shrugged as if his death wouldn’t be any big to-do.
“Now, do you want to join them, or do I have your backing, boy?”
Brand moved to stand beside Wyatt. “No, Pa.”
“So be it.”
The sound of a horse and wagon, approaching fast, reached them just as Avery took aim at Brand’s chest.
Wyatt released a scream and rushed Avery. He tucked his head, preparing for impact, and hit the larger man low in the gut.
The rifle fired in the air as Avery hit the ground beneath Wyatt with a whoosh.
“Son of a bitch!” Wyatt grabbed the rifle, trying to wrestle it from Avery’s hands. All the while the horse and wagon bore down on them.
“Yah! Yah! Go!”
That was Lily’s voice!
Avery kneed Wyatt in the groin in that second of distraction.
Wyatt pitched back and off of Avery like a sack of flour and watched as his friend’s father stood and aimed his rifle once again.
“You had your chance, boy. Now it’s my turn.” Avery sneered at Brand and pulled back the trigger a moment before Lily steered the horse and wagon right over him.
“Pa!”
Lily pulled back on the reins to bring the horse to an abrupt stop as Brand ran forward.
“Tdaw!” Little Wyatt leaped from the back of the wagon.
Anger and gratitude flowed through Wyatt in equal measure as his son and his wife ran toward him—anger that she’d risked her and Little Wyatt’s lives coming here and gratitude that she’d saved his stupid neck.
Wyatt stood and limped over to them. He scooped his little boy up into his arms and crushed him to his chest for the brief moment it took him to kiss his son’s cheek. “What in tarnation are you doing here?” He glared at Lily over Little Wyatt’s shoulder.
“I couldn’t let you handle this alone.”
And just like that, his anger melted away. He couldn’t stay angry at this woman if his life depended on it. “I wasn’t exactly alone since you sent our friend here to babysit me.” Wyatt put his son down to kneel beside Dakota again.
“Say-gee Dakota! You’re bleeding!”
Dakota struggled to sit up, grimacing as he held his shoulder. “I will be fine. It is just a flesh wound.”
Wyatt peered at him. “Avery shot you. Not just this time, but…”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“It was not my place to make accusations or expose him.”
Wyatt heard the rest, the unsaid words as clear as a bell. It was not Dakota’s place to accuse a white man of a crime. How he must have hated sitting back, holding his tongue, all the while knowing who had attacked Lily and himself.
“I almost killed my best friend,” Wyatt chided.
“I would not have let you.”
Lily knelt down on Dakota’s other side and wrapped an arm around his back. “C’mon, let’s get you into town to see Thayne.”
Wyatt helped his wife get Dakota to his feet and together they half walked, half carried him over to the wagon before helping him up into the buckboard.
A few feet away from them, Brand knelt beside his father’s near- lifeless body.
Wyatt knew his anguish but could not find it in his heart to feel bad for Avery.
Then Brand said the words that shocked them all.
“Lilybelle, he wants you.”
Chapter 25
“Lily, no. I don’t want you near him.”
“I know, but I need to do this, Wyatt.” She peered at him long and hard until he grudgingly nodded his agreement.
Lily rushed to Brand and Avery’s side before she lost her nerve. She knew she didn’t have much time because Avery probably didn’t have much time.
Lily didn’t know how she felt about this. She wasn’t exactly sad, but she wasn’t glad, never glad at the thought of a human life coming to an end. She was glad that he would soon no longer be around to hurt her or her family again.
Lily knelt beside Avery’s trampled body at the back of the buckboard. She cringed at the sight of jagged bone protruding from his right leg and left arm. She averted her eyes from his limbs to look at his face only to be met with the sight of blood streaming from his mouth and nose. Lily knew his ribs were probably broken, his lungs punctured, and he was more than likely bleeding inside as well as outside. She derived no pleasure from this knowledge, did not rejoice in his pain.
I am not a savage like him.
No matter how much she told herself this, her heart pounded with the idea that soon her long nightmare would finally be over.
Avery reached for her hand with his good one.
Lily took it, shocked at his strength when he squeezed her hand as he coughed and gurgled blood.
“You know they’re not good enough for you, Lilybelle. No one is good enough for you except me,” he rasped.
She tried to jerk her hand away but he held fast.
“Don’t run away before I can put your mind at ease, filly.”
“Put
my mind at ease?” How could he possibly…
“Your husband and the redskin…the only ones to have you.”
“The only ones?” Lily choked on a sob as she realized what he meant. She had hoped, she had prayed in those brief moments when she’d first regained consciousness in the woods that he hadn’t…that Wyatt was still her only.
“Lucky bastards.” Avery wheezed and coughed one more time before he closed his eyes and lay still.
Lily stared at his motionless face, her heart expanding in her chest, not with happiness but with a sense of peace and…freedom.
“Lily?”
Distantly she felt Wyatt’s hand on her shoulder, heard his voice speaking to her, but she couldn’t yet move. She was too spellbound by the thought that the man who had caused her family so much pain and agony was dead. “He can’t hurt me anymore,” she murmured.
“No, he can’t.” Wyatt caught her around the shoulders and guided her to her feet.
Lily turned and threw her arms around him. She held tight as he instantly returned her hug. She buried her face against his chest and inhaled the fresh, comforting scent of him. He smelled like safety and security.
After a long moment, Wyatt pulled away slightly to look at her. “Okay?” he asked.
“I am now.”
Lily watched as Wyatt left her side to go to Brand.
He put a hand on Brand’s back. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I reckon I’ll have to be.” Brand turned anguished eyes on Wyatt and Lily’s heart ached for him. He wasn’t such a bad person. He certainly wasn’t his father. “I’m sorry, Wyatt. I didn’t know.”
Lily watched Wyatt nod, not sure what Brand would have done had he known and glad neither her husband nor Brand ever had to find out.
Lily went to Wyatt’s side and put a hand on his shoulder. “Wyatt, let’s get a wiggle on. Time’s a-wasting,” she said.
“Go,” Brand said. “I can handle…this.”
Wyatt nodded and patted him on the shoulder before he took Lily by the hand and led her to the front of the wagon. He helped her up in the front seat then climbed in beside her.