Until Tomorrow

by Rosanne Bittner

  “Me,” came the only reply. She knew the voice.

  “Dear God,” she whispered. She opened the door, and before she could even begin explaining anything, Cole swept her into his arms and kicked the door closed.

  “We can finally be together, Addy,” he told her, kissing her hair. He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, setting her on the bed and sitting down beside her. “Did you hear about the Hard Luck being mine?”

  She met his eyes, saw his grief over Sassy. “Yes. I’m sorry about Sassy, but I’m glad about her giving you the saloon. I do hope you’ll keep it a respectable place.”

  He leaned closer and kissed her cheek. “I intend to start seeing the town’s only female schoolteacher. Of course I’ll keep it respectable. I have to be respected myself if I’m going to start visiting you, marry you.” He got up. “There is something you should know about Sassy, Addy, part of the reason she gave me the saloon.”

  I can’t marry you, Cole. “What’s that?”

  He faced her. “She has a daughter, a little girl about Patty’s age. She lives in Denver with adoptive parents.”

  Addy was surprised and curious. “A little girl? Sassy?”

  Cole nodded. “Unplanned, of course. She couldn’t even be sure who the father was, but she didn’t have the heart to try to get rid of the baby. She wanted to be responsible for one good thing in her life, so she had the baby and let some nuns give her up for adoption. The parents know who her real mother is. They even let Sassy come visiting as just a friend once in a while, so she could see her little girl. Her name is Elizabeth.”

  He came closer, sat beside her again. “I went with her to visit the child, and she’s beautiful, Addy. She’s bright, sweet, outgoing. She sat on my lap and actually put her arms around me, and that’s when I knew I wanted a family again, maybe another little girl. It felt good to hold her.” He sighed. “At any rate, Sassy helped support her, has a bank account set up for her in Denver. She knew what I’d been through with Patty, knew I had a soft spot for little girls, so when she knew she was dying, she made me promise to always keep that savings account going for Elizabeth. Her adoptive father isn’t well and might be dying. Sassy wants to be sure Elizabeth never wants for anything. That’s part of the reason she gave me the saloon, so I’d be sure to have a good income to take care of the girl.”

  Addy listened in astonishment, and with an aching heart. He truly had changed. He was showing his softer side, the side of the family man he’d once been. Why now? It couldn’t be a worse time.

  He got up and paced again. “Sassy loved that child as much as any mother loves her child, but she didn’t want the girl ever to know who her real mother was—what she was. She felt it was too late for her to try to change any of it. She couldn’t erase the past, so she did what she thought was best for her daughter, gave her up to respectable people who could raise her as their own. Everything she did to make money was for that little girl.” He came over and knelt in front of her. “I hope you don’t mind that I would put some of my profits into the bank account in Denver for Lissy. That’s what they call her. She’s the child of a prostitute, but that’s not her fault. I just hope you understand—”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Cole frowned, his smile fading. Only then did he realize something was wrong. “What?”

  Addy looked at her lap. “It doesn’t matter. I … I’m not going to marry you.”

  The room was painfully silent for several seconds. “What the hell did you say?”

  Addy swallowed, twisting her fingers in her lap. “I’m just not sure it would work after all. Your past could catch up with you any time, and you’ll be a saloon owner. That’s not so terrible, I know, but—”

  “Hell, I’m already thinking of turning the saloon into a restaurant that would serve drinks, something like that. I don’t intend to run the wild kind of place Sassy ran. There won’t be any women working in there, if that’s what bothers you. Or is it that the most notorious prostitute in Central gave the place to me? Addy, I told you there was never much between us. We were just friends. If that bothered you, why did you sleep with me the other night? Why were you so open and—” He grasped her arms. “What’s going on?”

  She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes, to see the agony there. “I’ve decided to marry Grant.”

  She felt his grip tighten. “What! Damn it, Addy, what is going on? Why would you marry that bastard! You know he’s no good! He could never love you like I do! He’s a womanizer and a cheat. The sonofabitch stabbed his best friend in the back!” He shook her so that she gasped. “Look at me, Addy! Do you really expect me to believe what you just told me?”

  She swallowed. She had planned to be very cool about this, very convincing. But he had surprised her by coming too soon, before she could figure out the best way to let him know. Her eyes filled with unwanted tears. “Yes,” she answered “because it’s true. I’m marrying Grant Breckenridge. I’ve wrestled with this too long. I decided … our relationship has been too tempestuous, and you have been too undependable. Your past could affect our children’s lives. You might go back to drinking. So many things could go wrong.”

  Cole watched tears slip down her cheeks. “I don’t believe one word you’re telling me. You’re a rotten liar, Addy! Something has happened you aren’t telling me. We love each other. The woman I left the other night was the happiest, most passionate woman I’ve ever held in my arms, and I’ve never loved anybody more, not even Bethanne! This thing with Grant is some kind of goddamn sacrifice, and I want to know why!”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s what I want.”

  He studied her eyes, then leaned closer, pressing his mouth against hers in a desperate kiss. She couldn’t be telling the truth. She wouldn’t do that to him, would she? Not Addy. Not the woman he’d made love to all night long such a short time ago. She resisted at first, but he would not release her, and finally she weakened, whimpering as she threw her arms around his neck and returned his kiss with a kind of desperation that alarmed him. He could taste her tears as he stood up, keeping her in his arms. She broke down then, sobbing against his chest.

  “Don’t cry, Addy. Just tell me the truth.”

  “I … I slept with him,” she sobbed. “I’m pregnant … and it’s his.”

  His grip tightened. “I told you a long time ago that I knew you were a decent woman. I never once lost my respect for you, Addy Kane, and I don’t believe for one minute you slept with that man. Try again.”

  She cried harder. “Dear God, Cole, let it go! Just let it go!” she said, trying to pull away. She gasped when he pushed her back almost violently, keeping a firm hold on her arms.

  “The truth, Addy! It’s me, isn’t it! You’re protecting me! He knows, doesn’t he? He knows who I am, knows about us, and he’s blackmailing you into marrying him! How, Addy? How did he find out?”

  She looked at him pleadingly. “Don’t do something foolish, Cole! I’d rather lose you this way than watch you hang!”

  He shoved her down on the bed and stood back, the same wild fire in his eyes she’d seen the day he robbed the bank in Unionville. “And I’d rather die than see you married to Grant Breckenridge! If that’s what it takes, I’ll do it.”

  “No!” She stood up and grabbed his arm. “You can get away. We can leave together—”

  “And make you a fugitive for the rest of your life? No, ma’am. You don’t deserve that. You came here for peace, to teach school, to have a new life. I won’t let all that be ruined because of me. I figured I’d make something respectable out of Sassy’s place, figured maybe God would let me start over so I could help take care of her little girl, figured He brought you into my life for a good reason. I guess I figured wrong. I’ll get what I’ve got coming, and as long as that’s the case, I’m taking Grant Breckenridge out with me. I’ll kill him before he has a chance to tell the whole town about us for spite and ruin your reputation. That’
s what he’ll do if you don’t marry him, and I won’t let that happen!”

  “Cole, please—”

  “How did he find out?”

  Addy sniffed and turned away. “He wrote Sheriff Page, asked for a description of the men. He thought maybe I hadn’t told the truth about one of them following me here. He said he’d never say a word … if I married him. So far he’s the only one who knows. He said he’d tear up the sheriff’s wire. Oh, Cole, I’m losing you for good this time. I don’t want to lose you.” She wept harder, then trembled with utter grief when his hand touched her shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Addy, for messing up your life like I have. I should have stayed away that first time I rode off, but I just couldn’t. I kept hoping—”

  He took his hand away, and Addy heard his footsteps as he walked slowly toward the front door. “Cole, wait!”

  “I’ve got somebody to see.” He opened the door.

  “Cole!” Addy ran to the door to try to stop him, only to realize he stood there staring at someone.

  “I can drop you before you pull the trigger.” Cole said.

  Addy’s heart pounded when she realized Grant was standing on her porch with a rifle in his hand.

  “Get back inside!” he told Cole.

  Cole glanced at Addy, then back to Grant. “Only for Addy’s sake. I don’t want to bring her scandal by having a shootout on her front porch.”

  “Smart man.” Grant used the rifle to wave him inside.

  Addy stepped back as both men came in and Grant kicked shut the door. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said to Cole. “You weren’t at the Hard Luck, and you weren’t at the boarding house where you stay. It didn’t take long to figure out where you’d probably be. God only knows how many times you’ve been here in the night, me totally oblivious to what was going on.”

  “If you want any respect left for the woman you plan to call your wife, you’d better not pull that trigger in here,” Cole warned. “How would you explain it?”

  “I didn’t come here out of jealousy, and I didn’t come here to kill you.” Grant slowly lowered the rifle, and by the light of the fireplace Addy noticed a wild look of anguish in his eyes. He closed them and rubbed at them, and he seemed oddly subdued, like a beaten man. What had brought on this change? “I came here to ask for your help,” he told Cole. “Everything is changed.”

  Cole eyed him warily, his hand ready at his side. He longed to put a bullet between the man’s eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  To Addy’s astonishment, Grant blinked back tears. “Ed Foley. He’s got my son.”

  Twenty-Eight

  “Your son?” Cole glanced at Addy. She stood shivering, her face tear-stained. She grasped the collar of her robe and pulled it closer around her neck, and Cole could see she was as confused as he was about this strange turn of events.

  “I don’t know just how it happened,” Grant told them, his voice strained, “but Ed Foley has kidnapped my son.”

  Addy thought Grant suddenly looked much older than he had before. He must be telling the truth. Something had affected him deeply.

  “What did you mean about asking for my help?” Cole asked, glancing at the rifle still in Grant’s hand. “Right now I’d like nothing more than to kill you. Fact is, knowing you as I do, I can fully understand Ed Foley’s hatred. You really did cheat him out of that mine, didn’t you? And now you’re blackmailing Addy into marrying you, you bastard! Do you think I’d let that happen? That I’d let her marry you just to save my own neck? I’d rather hang, if that’s what it takes!”

  Grant’s breathing was labored from fear and anger. “I told you, everything is changed!” He laid the rifle across the arms of the rocker. An eerie light filled the room from the fire in the fireplace, and Addy breathed a sigh of relief that Grant had set aside his weapon.

  “I couldn’t get him to believe me, Grant,” she said in a shaky voice. “He figured it out.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Grant replied, keeping his gaze steady on Cole. “None of it matters now. The one person I’d give my life for, the only person in this world I truly give a damn about, is in the hands of a man who hates me and who blames me for his own son’s death. Now he’s threatening to kill my son, and he’ll do it. I need help, and I can’t think of anyone else who has the skills needed to get my son back alive. I’m asking you to help, Cole.”

  Addy listened in surprise, wanting to believe this could be the answer to her prayers, but hating the thought that Grant’s son might have to suffer for it.

  “Why don’t you go to the sheriff?” Cole asked.

  Grant reached inside his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Because he’d botch it. He’d form a posse and go charging in and Foley would probably put a bullet in my son’s head. Nobody knows about this, not even any of my own men. When I got back to my office this afternoon I found this lying on my desk. No one knows who put it there.”

  Cole took the paper and unfolded it to read.

  “I decided not to tell anyone because news spreads too fast in this town,” Grant continued, “and I want to be careful how I handle this. I have no way of knowing who is a spy and who isn’t. Whatever plans I make, word could get back to Ed Foley and ruin any attempts at saving my son.”

  Cole read the letter aloud. “Escorted your son, James, from Denver personally. He’s waiting for his father to come and get him at a little cabin in Chase Gulch. You know the place. We did some exploring there once for Chadwick Mining. If you want to see your son alive again, you bring me fifty thousand dollars. You owe me a lot more than that, but with fifty thousand I can start my own mining company. I have that coming. You don’t bring the money within forty-eight hours, the boy dies. It’s your fault I lost my own son, Grant Breckenridge. You’re lucky I don’t take an eye for an eye. And you’d better come alone with the money and never tell a soul. Your son will be waiting with a noose around his neck. If I see one other man with you, he’ll hang. Revenge is sweet. Ed Foley.”

  Addy moved closer to Cole as he folded the letter and handed it back. “Why should I help you after what you’ve just tried to do to me and Addy?”

  Grant took the paper, agony in his eyes. “Because James Breckenridge is a fine young man who doesn’t deserve this, and because if you help me, I’ll forget about who you really are. I’ll never say a word. You can be with Addy. I won’t give you any trouble about it. Nothing is more important to me than my son. Nothing. Addy says you lost a daughter in the war. You know how it feels to lose a child.”

  Cole remembered the pain, was surprised at this human side to Grant Breckenridge. Apparently when it came to children, most men had the same feelings, no matter how rotten they were about other things. He walked cautiously past Grant, taking a thin cigar from his own jacket pocket. “Why don’t you just go there and give him the money and get your son?” He picked up a piece of kindling and held it to the flames of the fire to light it, then used it to light his cigar while Grant replied.

  “Because Ed Foley is a crazy man. He’s let this fester in his soul until his only desire is to make me suffer. He wants me there because he intends to make me watch him hang my son. The money is just a ruse. He’ll take it and shoot me and go his merry way. The spot he’s talking about along Chase Gulch is well hidden. It would be days, maybe weeks before I was found, and by then Ed Foley would be long gone. He’s crazy enough to think God is on his side and that he can get away with this!”

  Cole threw the kindling into the fire and straightened. “Everyone would know it was Foley. He’d be found and hanged.”

  “Maybe so, but that wouldn’t help me and my son much, would it? The man just wants us dead. He doesn’t even care if he dies for it himself, but he’ll make a grand try at using that money to start a new life someplace else.”

  Cole puffed on the cigar. “I can’t believe an educated man like Foley would stoop so low and do something that crazy.”

>   Grant stepped closer, a pleading look in his eyes. “Just think how you felt when your family was killed. You wanted revenge. You wanted to kill! You damn well know better than most people what a man will do for revenge, including throwing away the good life he once had. You ended up a wanted man yourself, but now you have a chance to have a whole new life! I’ll help you, if you help me with this! I don’t trust Ed Foley. I’m telling you he intends to kill me and my boy! There is only one way to save us, and to do it, I need a man who shoots straight.”

  Cole looked past him at Addy questioningly.

  “Do it, Cole, if not for him, then for us.”

  “I’ll pay you well,” Grant told him.

  Cole studied his eyes. Part of him feared this whole thing was some plan Grant had laid out to get him killed. Maybe his son wasn’t even out there in danger. Still, there was a terrible agony in Grant’s eyes he’d never seen there before, a show of love and desperate fear unusual for a man like Grant Breckenridge. The night had taken a strange turn, from happy anticipation to the horror of learning Grant knew who he was and intended to use that to claim Addy as his own. Now this, a dim light of hope. If this was all true, and he could help, he and Addy could at last be free.

  “What’s your plan?”

  Grant looked hopeful. “I’ll go in, just like Foley asked me to do. I’ll take a briefcase with the money in it. You follow, but stay well back when we get close. Keep to the rocks and underbrush but try to get close once I go in. If Foley takes the money and gives James over to me and we’re able to get out of there with our lives, we’ll leave it at that. I’ll gladly give up fifty thousand dollars for my son. But if Foley makes any move against us, you shoot to kill. I have no idea how many men he might have with him, but I’m guessing it can’t be more than one or two. With too many he’d risk someone talking. He’s not the type of man to form a gang. Most men don’t have the guts for a thing like that and couldn’t be trusted not to tell the law, so I don’t think Foley has many men with him. You shoot him first, because he’s the one most likely to murder us both. Then you go for the others. The way you shoot, you can down them all before they know what’s happening.”