Catch a Fallen Angel

by Maureen Child

  Then he left the room and walked to where Maggie waited at the head of the stairs. After the sunlit brightness of Jake's room, he had to squint to see in the more dimly lit hall. But Maggie was worth the effort. Dressed in a pale yellow dress with lace at the high collar and at the cuffs, she looked like a splash of spring in the middle of autumn.

  His heart lifted, then staggered at the idea of her being threatened by a demon who never should have been allowed to get this close to her.

  "Did you say something?" she asked.

  "No,” he said and cupped her elbow in his palm.

  She gathered up the hem of her dress and started down the stairs. "I swear I heard you talking to someone."

  "There's no one else here," he said and tossed one last glance over his shoulder at the door to Jake's room. "Who would I be talking to?"

  Was it his imagination? Or did the shadows in the hall tremble and sway?

  #

  "You're pushing him too hard," one voice said.

  The gunfighter turned toward his friend. "Don't you think I know that? I have no choice. Before you know it, the two months will be up."

  "Whose idea was this two-month thing, anyway?"

  "Mine," he said glumly "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

  "Uh-huh. And when the two months are up, then what?"

  "Then, I don't know. That depends on Gabe."

  ”And if he fails?"

  Oh, he didn't want to think about that. His superiors were already unhappy with this unorthodox scheme.

  "Gabriel won't fail," he said with determination and reassured himself by remembering the look on Gabe's face when Maggie's soul was threatened.

  "I hope you're right."

  "So do I," the gunfighter said softly and focused his long-seeing gaze on the man in question.

  #

  After church, Maggie stepped out into the sunlight and lifted one hand to shade her eyes. Jake scampered past her, dodging in and out of the crowd as he ran looking for his friends. The rise and fall of the conversations around her went unnoticed as she half turned to look behind her for Gabe.

  As he stepped out of the church, Maggie was sure she saw relief flicker across his features.

  "It wasn't that bad," she said. "I thought the reverend gave a very good talk this morning."

  "The wages of sin?" Gabe asked with a shudder.

  Their preacher wasn't a fire-eater by any means, Maggie thought, but he did have a way with words. So much so in this case that she caught Gabe shifting uncomfortably in the pew every few minutes. As a professional gambler, he must have felt that the sermon was directed especially at him.

  He looked at her and gave her a sheepish grin. "Besides, it wasn't the service I minded so much as keeping a constant eye on the ceiling."

  She chuckled and shook her head. "What?”

  "Been so long since I've been in a church, I figured the roof would come falling down around me."

  "And yet," she pointed out with a quick look at the shingled roof, "you both survived."

  "So far," he agreed and took her elbow to guide her down the steps, "but let's get away from the building. No sense tempting fate."

  Still smiling, Maggie allowed him to escort her through the crowd, and as she passed, she caught more than a few curious gazes directed at her. But that was to be expected, she supposed. A widow attending church services with her handyman would be bound to stir up talk. And for the first time in a long while, she didn't care. Some people would think the worst no matter what. If given the truth, they'd believe a lie because the lie was more interesting.

  The people who knew her wouldn't believe gossip and why should she care what people she didn't know thought of her? And she wasn’t going to let anything spoil the feeling of having Gabe by her side…however temporarily.

  She inhaled deeply and smiled to herself, enjoying this new sense of liberation. Then Patsy O'Keefe stepped in front of her and Maggie's inward smile slipped a bit.

  "Is it true?" the woman asked, reaching up to tilt her black bonnet farther back on her head.

  "Is what true?" Maggie looked at her in confusion.

  “I heard," Patsy was saying, "that the preacher hired you to do some painting in church."

  "Oh.” Maggie shot Gabe a look, then said, "Yes, it's true."

  "What kind of paintin’?” Patsy asked, more puzzled than outraged. "And why would he ask you?”

  "It's difficult to explain," Maggie said, but was interrupted by Gabe.

  "Reverend Thorndyke took one look at Maggie's paintings and hired her on the spot to spruce up your church," he said and Maggie felt warmed by the ring of pride in his voice.

  "Well, for goodness' sake,” Patsy said. "I had no idea."

  Ripples of murmured conversation rolled across the small crowd of people gathered at the foot of the steps. Maggie smiled and hoped she didn't look as nervous as she suddenly felt. Liberation was all well and good, she thought, but what if no one else besides the reverend liked her paintings? Then what?

  Oh, she wasn't at all sure she was comfortable with the idea of people seeing her work and then judging it. She remembered all too well how it had felt, waiting for Gabe's opinion. And now everyone in town would feel as though they had the right to judge her work.

  But then she reminded herself that Gabe had liked her work and remembered, too, how good it had felt to hear his praise.

  “I think it's disgraceful," one woman piped up and Maggie didn’t even have to turn to identify the speaker.

  Only one woman she knew was capable of ruining a perfectly good day with an ill-chosen remark.

  Sugar elbowed her way through the crowd until she was standing directly in front of Maggie. Looking her square in the eye, she went on, just loud enough for everyone to hear.

  “I for one don't want my church decorated with a bunch of folderol paintings and pictures of heaven knows what."

  Before she could stop herself, as usual, Maggie shot back, "I didn't realize it was your church.”

  The crowd around her oohed in approval and moved closer en masse, obviously loath to miss a word.

  Sugar gasped, outraged. "You know very well what I mean, missy.”

  It felt good, standing up to this woman. And now that she'd started, Maggie wasn't going to stop. “I don't think even you know what you mean half the time."

  Someone nearby chuckled and sent a rush of dark red color into Sugar's pasty cheeks.

  Maggie stared into her enemy's eyes and, not for the first time, wondered what she had ever done to make the woman hate her with such a vengeance. Sugar's rail-thin body nearly vibrated with fury and the warm, friendly faces surrounding Maggie only seemed to feed the pool of venom inside her.

  "It's a disgrace, is what it is," Sugar was saying. "You and your fancy man." A gasp from the crowd made the woman smile victoriously. "Coming to church together as bold as brass."

  Well, there it was. Right out in the open, a jab about her and Gabe. Meant to deliver a stunning blow, it had missed its mark. Maggie straightened up, lifted her chin, and gave the other woman a pitying smile.

  "Is that the best you can do, Sugar? If you'd like to take a minute or two to come up with something better, I'm sure we'd all be happy to wait.”

  "Sure would," someone called out from the back of the crowd.

  Another voice shouted, "You tell 'er, Maggie!"

  "You see," Maggie went on, crossing her arms over her chest, "Gabe works for me. That's all. And what you and other petty-minded little people want to think has nothing to do with me.” She almost laughed aloud, it felt so good to be saying what she meant rather than what she thought others would want to hear.

  "Well, I never!" the woman said on another gasp.

  "Never what, Sugar?” Maggie asked sweetly. "Smile? Laugh? Be specific."

  Another snort of laughter sprang up from the crowd, but Maggie hardly heard it now. She wasn't doing this for her audience's sake, but for her own. And it felt wonderful.

/>   "You're just like her, aren't you?" Sugar asked, her voice low and vicious.

  Maggie knew who she meant and lifted her chin another notch. "I hope so."

  Well, there it is," Sugar said loudly, swinging her gaze over the knot of people. "You heard her. Just like her mother and you all know what her mother was.”

  “Don't say it," Maggie warned her as her protective instincts came rushing to the surface. The woman could say what she pleased about her. But she'd better keep her vicious tongue off Maggie's family.

  "A witch," Sugar finished, victory shining in her eyes.

  Maggie squeezed her hands in o such tight fists, her fingernails dug at her palms. This confrontation was her fault, she reminded herself. If she'd simply ignored Sugar's taunts as she used to, none of this would be happening. But she hadn't. She'd made her stand and it was too late to back out now, even if she'd wanted to. Keeping silent all these years hadn’t done a spot of good. Maybe what they both needed was a good clearing of the bad air between them. Heaven knew, she felt better for getting some of this off her chest. If Sugar wanted war, then she could have it.

  "My mother wasn't a witch and you know it." Maggie planted both hands on her hips and said loud enough for everyone to hear. "All she ever tried to do was help people."

  "With her brews and potions," Sugar sneered. "With herbs and remedies."

  "True, true," someone remembered out loud. "You recall the time the croup laid everybody low? Maggie's ma kept this town going, doctoring us all in turn."

  "A good woman," another voice said.

  "She was a heathen and a witch," Sugar said, clearly furious that no one else was agreeing with her. "And I say, like mother, like daughter."

  “Thank you,” Maggie said, a tight smile on her face. "I can't think of a nicer compliment than being compared to my mother."

  A couple of women nearby chuckled and Sugar's features turned to stone. "You're a fool, then," she said, "because this whole town knows what your mother was. What you are.”

  She moved in closer until she and Sugar were standing just a breath apart. From behind her somewhere, Maggie heard Dolly muttering encouragement. But she didn't need it. For the first time in two years, Maggie wasn't backing down from Sugar or from anyone else. From now on, if the gossips in this town wanted to talk about her, they'd have to do it knowing that Maggie would be challenging them openly.

  And if they didn't like her paintings, well, that was their right. Just as it was her right to go ahead and paint anyway, whether they liked it or not.

  As that last thought flitted through her mind, she felt Gabe's hand come down on her shoulder and she drew strength from his warmth. His support.

  She looked into the other woman's eyes and noted a flicker of surprise in the older woman's eyes. Obviously, she'd still expected Maggie to back down. To run away. Well, no more.

  "And we all know what you are, Sugar," she said, her voice a low hum of anger. "A mean-spirited, sour, usedup crone of a woman who wouldn't know genuine kindness if it fell out of the sky and hit her on the head."

  A man laughed outright. A few women gasped in pretended horror, but to Maggie's satisfaction, the majority of the crowd seemed to be on her side. Gabe gave her shoulder a companionable squeeze.

  Sugar huffed and sniffed and reared her head back like a rattler about to strike. What she might have said was lost forever, though, when Redmond pushed his way through the crowd to his wife's side. "That's enough," he murmured, close to Sugar's ear.

  “It's not nearly enough," she retorted and pulled free of his grasp on her arm.

  "Let her be, Redmond," Dolly shouted, "this has been a long time coming."

  Grumbled mutterings from the crowd supported her opinion, but Redmond wasn't listening to any of them. His entire concentration was focused on his wife.

  “You're coming with me," he said flatly. “Now."

  Furious, she tried to pull free of him again, but Redmond hung on like a bulldog. Damn the man, couldn't he see that she finally had Maggie where she wanted her? She was finally going to have her say and half the town would be witnesses to Maggie's comeuppance.

  This girl, who looked so much like her mother, was a thorn in Sugar's side. A constant reminder of what could have been. What should have been.

  But Redmond wouldn't understand that. How could he? He wasn't a woman. A woman who'd been tossed aside for the first twitching skirt that had come along.

  His fingers dug into her upper arm and Sugar shot him a look that should have curled his hair. But he didn't budge, his expression didn't waver. Sugar felt a moment's pause as she stared up into the face of the man she'd married nearly ten years before. She'd never seen him like this before and she wasn't entirely sure she approved. His eyes glittered with banked anger and frustration and she asked herself what in heaven he had to be upset about.

  Her gaze shifted to the faces of the crowd surrounding her. It didn't improve her mood any to note that most of the people—her friends and neighbors, if you please-were siding with Maggie.

  Bitter tears stung the backs of her eyes, but Sugar refused to cry in public. Straightening up, she tugged at her shirtwaist, gave Maggie a brief, barely-there nod, then turned on her heel for home. Redmond kept pace, his hand still keeping a tight hold on her arm.

  Her neighbors, her preacher, even her husband, had taken Maggie's side against her. And the old pain of being second best twisted in her heart again.

  It wasn't right.

  #

  Maggie stepped down from the borrowed buggy and looked at the ramshackle little cabin as if it were a glorious palace. Her features were lit with an inner glow that dazzled his eyes as he watched her. And Gabe couldn't help wondering how he would survive an eternity apart from her.

  She tossed him a quick glance and a brilliant smile that took his breath away, before striding up to the picket fence and the gate hanging crookedly from its hinges.

  After her confrontation with Sugar, Maggie had insisted on making this trip to her former home. It was as though talking about her mother, defending her, had lit a fuse inside her that demanded to be recognized. So, leaving Jake with one of his friends, the two of them had set off on the two-hour drive to Maggie's past.

  Gabe looked around the place then, trying to see it through Maggie's eyes. But what she saw through a veil of love, he saw in bitter reality.

  The picket fence dipped and swayed like a line of old drunks. Each stake had once been a different color and now that paint was peeling and chipping from sun and weather, giving it the look of an aging clown. The cabin itself was small and had once been a bright yellow with a cherry-red door. But again, the paint had faded away, leaving behind a sad echo of its gaudiness. One windowpane was broken and the others were grimy. The roof sagged in the middle and the pine tree at the edge of the house leaned its branches over the sag, as if protecting it.

  The yard was overgrown, weeds and vines clinging to the fence and trailing across the ground as if in search of new life. The whole place looked like what it was. Abandoned. Empty. Lifeless.

  But Maggie, headed for the front porch with a spring in her step, obviously saw it differently. When she opened the door and went inside, Gabe climbed down from the buggy and followed quickly after her. God knew what she might find in there. Skunks, snakes, or an assortment of other creatures looking for a warm place to take up roost.

  Two birds flew out the front door as he approached, and he ducked his head to get out of their way. He took the steps two at a time and called, "Maggie?" as he entered the darkened house.

  "In here," she yelled back and Gabe started for her, glancing around him as he went. The rooms were small and empty now, but for a stick or two of forgotten furniture. Vibrant color splashed across the walls and even the wooden floor had been painted in swirls of reds and blues. And even though he'd been expecting something of the sort, Gabe was overwhelmed and wished he might have seen the place as it once was. Before it had been left behind to molder.


  In the tiny apple-green kitchen, he found Maggie rummaging through shelves, grabbing up jars and crocks and small paper packets.

  "Did you find what you came for?" he asked and walked up behind her.

  She threw him a glance over her shoulder and his chest tightened at the pure joy in her eyes.

  "Yes," she said and turned around, laying her booty on the table. "It's all here. Seed packets, instructions, herbs, oils, everything."

  He glanced down. It looked like a jumble to him, but clearly it meant the world to Maggie.

  "I left them behind, you know," she said as she thumbed through the seed packets like a gambler fingering a worn deck of cards. "When Jake and I moved to town, I thought I had to leave everything I was here." She paused and let her gaze sweep the tired, dusty kitchen. “In this place."

  A bittersweet smile curved her mouth briefly.

  "And now?"

  She looked up at him and he was lost in the shine of her eyes. "Now," she said, "I want to bring my mother's herbs and things back to town. I'll plant a garden behind the restaurant and—“ She broke off and looked at the papers in her hands. "It won't be the same," she murmured, "but I don't want what my mother knew to disappear."

  "It won't," he told her gently, “as long as you remember."

  She nodded to herself, then looked up at him. "She wasn't a witch, you know."

  "I figured that much out for myself."

  Maggie smiled. “But she did know about herbs and healing. She learned from the Cheyenne."

  “Well, now," Gabe said and crossed his arms over his chest. "That's interesting."

  “When she was little, her family died in an accident and a roving band of Cheyenne found her. Raised her."

  Maggie looked at him almost defiantly then, as if she expected him to be put off by her story.

  He wasn't.

  "She was lucky."

  "Yes, she was," she said, clearly relieved at his response. "And so was I, to have had her."

  “As lucky as Jake is," he said, reaching out to smooth a stray lock of hair back from her face, “to have you."