A Touch of Flame

by Jo Goodman

  Indeed, Ridley thought. Why would anyone?

  Ben went on. “What I didn’t understand, what no man at the ranch understood, but what Fiona figured out about ten seconds after being introduced to Ellie, was that my mother was in love with Thaddeus Frost and had been for a very long time.” He looked up at Ridley. “You’re not surprised.”

  She shook her head.

  “Damn, why aren’t women surprised?”

  Ridley was wise enough not to try to answer what was essentially a rhetorical question. She tossed the towel she’d finished in the pile and held out her hand for another.

  He gave one to her. “Fiona wasn’t correct in all her assumptions, but she had the gist of it, and her being at the ranch, being Thaddeus’s New York actress wife, raised about as much stink as sheep huddled in a rainstorm. Ellie did some things that caused their own kind of stink. Thaddeus had to make a decision, choose between his wife and the other woman who loved him. You know what he decided. Ellie’s here. Fiona’s at Twin Star.”

  Ridley said, “Did you leave with her?”

  “No. I stayed back for a while. Didn’t really think about going at first. I loved the ranch. I still do, I guess, but I’m also glad to be here. I have property in my name at Twin Star. Thaddeus settled a big parcel on me, same as Remington, and I could go there, build a homestead, but I’m not ready. Remington and Phoebe made a place for themselves, and it’s good. I’m not sure it suits me any longer. Lately when I’ve been contemplating on it, it’s occurred to me that the land might be something I could pass on to a son or a daughter.”

  “That’s a lot of contemplation,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” He bundled a soiled sheet and pushed it under the water. “That can soak.”

  Ridley looked at the pile of wet linens on the table and the empty space beside Ben. “That’s the last of it.”

  He nodded and rose to his feet, brushed himself off, and rolled his shirtsleeves back into place. “I’ll hang this on the line in the morning.”

  Ridley shook her head. “Mrs. Rushton and I will do it.” She recognized the breadth of Ben’s fatigue when he didn’t argue.

  “I’m going to make some coffee before I head back to the jail,” he said. “You want some?”

  “No, but thank you.”

  He nodded once and went about filling the kettle and measuring the coffee. He stood at the stove, his hip against the oven door, arms folded across his chest. For a long time, he just stared at the floor. When his head finally came up, his clear blue eyes settled on Ridley. “So, are you going to ask?”

  She didn’t pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. “You said that in every way that matters to you and Remington, you’re brothers. That resolves it in my mind. Whether or not you and Remington have the same father is a detail, one you can share with me or not as you like, but I don’t have a need to know.”

  Ben said nothing, went back to staring at the floor. Finally, at the end of a long sigh, he told her, “Truth is, no one knows. There’s no certainty here. Ellie was married to the man she claimed was my father. He may well have been because he came around trying to reconcile with her when she was living at Twin Star. Thaddeus was so deep in grief then that he doesn’t remember the visit, but he’s admitted that he had relations with my mother around that time.” He looked sideways at Ridley. “There you have it.”

  Ridley remained pensive. “I imagine Ellie wants to believe Thaddeus fathered you.”

  “Mm-hmm. Her husband drank too much, came and went in her life, provided financial support when he remembered he was married, and died before she told him he was a father. That’s the way she tells it now. Hard to know if she’s fabricated a new history for herself or if that’s how it really was. Thaddeus never claimed to be my father, but sometimes he called me son in that friendly, affectionate way of his. I was family. Still am, though there’s some awkwardness now. Most of that rests with me. There’s a share that’s Fiona’s. She thinks of Ellie when she looks at me, but I don’t attach any blame to her for that. It’d be hard for anyone to do otherwise, and Fiona, well, she’s not exactly the forgive-and-forget sort.”

  “So you stay away,” said Ridley.

  “Uh-huh. Thaddeus always looks for me at the office when he’s in town. That’s comfortable for both of us. In the last few years, he’s started to ask after my mother. He hasn’t been in the Butterworth since she took a job there. Neither has Fiona.”

  “What would your mother do if they showed up?”

  “What she did when we were there. Make herself scarce.”

  “What does Thaddeus think about you being sheriff? Has he told you?”

  “He’s never had a problem saying that I make him proud.” Ben pushed away from the stove when the water boiled. Once his coffee was made, he sat at the table. “He also never had a problem kicking my ass when he thought I needed it—that’s in the figurative sense. Thaddeus never laid a hand on Remington, or me, but there sure were times when that would have been the easier punishment.” When Ridley regarded him curiously, he explained, “A thrashing hurts, but then it’s done. We all took turns with chores like chopping and mucking stalls except when Thaddeus’s idea of a good lesson was to take everyone else’s name off the rotation except yours. What I learned is that if you chop wood for a week, you can hardly lift the shovel to muck the stalls, and if you have to weed the garden for a month, then your back’s so stiff you can’t keep your seat on a horse. He was diabolical.”

  Ridley smiled. “I had to stand with my nose in a corner, sometimes for hours.”

  “I take it back,” said Ben. “Nothing I had to do was as hard as that.”

  “I’ve never mucked a stall in my life.” She said this in the manner of a confession.

  He laughed. “I can take you down to Hank’s livery. Let you get a feel for it.”

  Ridley’s features sobered. There could be no mistaking her sincerity. “Take me to Twin Star instead.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  “How are you boys doing?” Ben asked when he checked on the Gordon brothers. It wasn’t dawn yet and there was probably no good excuse for waking them up, but he didn’t like thinking about Ridley’s request, so this suited his mood. Besides, he deserved to get a little of his own back after these two troublemakers disrupted the peace and dignity of his town.

  Ben watched Michael Gordon turn over on his cot and huddle under the blankets. It did not appear the man woke, but there was enough movement to assure Ben the man was still alive. Tom Gordon opened one eye, stared at Ben, and then cursed him roundly.

  That was more or less the reaction that Ben was looking for. Whistling softly to himself, he returned to his office and made himself as comfortable as he could in his chair by leaning back and propping his feet on an open drawer. He closed his eyes. His experience rounding up cattle on the range, spending nights in the open if it was clear, or under the chuck wagon if it wasn’t, usually served him pretty well. He was accustomed to being able to fall asleep easily and wake just as quickly when something stirred.

  The sleeping part wasn’t happening now, and every crackling ember in the stove kept him alert. He understood the problem was that his mind was too damn busy for sleep, and that it was Dr. E. Ridley Woodhouse’s fault.

  Her voice still echoed faintly in his mind. Take me to Twin Star instead. She had put it to him sincerely. She understood the gravity of what she was saying. Nothing about her expression changed while she waited for his reply, and he didn’t answer immediately, although he knew what the answer would be.

  That’s why it surprised him when he said, We’ll see. He was sure he’d meant to say no. He’d left the door open on the subject when he’d meant to close it. Hard. Ben rubbed the back of his neck. How the hell had she made him do that?

  He didn’t believe for a moment that she was satisfied with his answe
r, but when she had time to consider it, she’d realize the enormity of what she had wrested from him. He hadn’t given her time to think about it. To avoid any chance of further discussion, he’d swept his coffee cup off the table, dumped the contents in the sink, and asked her rather curtly to make his good-byes to Remington and Phoebe. She didn’t follow him to the door; it only felt as if she were dogging his footsteps.

  Maybe it would have been better if she had. Now she was dogging his thoughts.

  “Hey, Sheriff!”

  Ben sat up, dropped his boots to the floor. He consulted his pocket watch. Almost an hour had passed since he sat down. He didn’t know when he had fallen asleep, only that he had, and now that he realized it, he was not happy about being awakened.

  “What is it?” he called back.

  “My brother. Come see for yourself. Hurry. Somethin’ ain’t right.”

  Ben responded to the thread of panic in Tom Gordon’s voice. He rose and worked out the kinks in his bones as he walked back to the cells. Tom was standing at the bars that separated his cell from his brother’s, all of his weight on his uninjured leg. Michael’s cot was in the middle of his cell, well outside of Tom’s reach. That didn’t stop Tom from trying to get at him. He had twisted one of his blankets so he could put it between the bars and snap it in his brother’s direction. As Ben watched, the tip of the blanket flicked the edge of Michael’s cot.

  “Okay,” said Ben. “Stop that.” He waited for Tom to pull back the blanket and then indicated Tom’s cot. “Toss it over there.” Tom threw it behind him without looking. Most of it ended up draped over the side of his cot. “What do think I can do for him?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Not really. His breathing’s out of rhythm. Short breaths. Long breaths. Rasps when he takes in air. I’ve been sleeping alongside him for a long time, so I know when he’s not right.”

  Just then, Michael Gordon’s lungs seemed to explode with another coughing spell. It had the rat-a-tat speed and power of a Gatling gun. Gordon’s shoulders bounced and he drew his knees toward his chest, but he didn’t throw off the blankets or make an effort to get up. When his coughing subsided, he was as still as stone. His brother said his name several times. It had no effect.

  “Maybe you could bring that doctor here,” said Tom. “Or give him some of that medicine she spooned down his throat earlier. That helped him. At least he wasn’t coughing his fool head off for a while.”

  Ridley had left the codeine elixir in the event Michael Gordon’s coughing returned, but Ben did not tell Tom. He had enough experience under the former sheriff’s watchful eye to tread cautiously. It wasn’t out of the question that the brothers were carrying out the first stage of an escape plan.

  “I’m not going after the doctor,” he said. “She’s already put in plenty of time here with the pair of you.” While he was speaking, he walked around the corner to the supply closet and chose the broom with the longest handle.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Tom asked. He took a step in Ben’s direction, but as soon as he put some weight on his injured leg, his face contorted with pain. He stayed where he was.

  Ben didn’t answer. He’d observed Tom’s effort to walk toward him and considered that the man was overplaying his hand. If he was hurting half as much as his expression seemed to indicate, then it had been a heroic gesture to leave his bed. Ben turned the broom so he was holding the working end of it. He inserted the broomstick through the bars, slipped it under the blankets at the foot of the cot, and used it to maneuver the blankets out of the way. Every part that the prisoner wasn’t clutching to his chest remained where it was; the rest fell over the side of the cot.

  Ben didn’t care about what Michael Gordon was holding. He wanted a good look at his feet. When Ben saw the man wasn’t wearing his boots, he turned his gaze on the brother. “Where are they?”

  “Under his bed.”

  Ben dropped to his haunches and saw the pair was indeed under the cot. Perhaps the brothers were not preparing a quick getaway after all. He stood and poked Michael hard in the center of his arch. The prisoner’s leg recoiled. Ben did the same to the other foot. This time he hit a ticklish spot. He knew that because Michael Gordon began to squirm and tried to kick the broomstick out of the way, but it was the short bark of laughter that was the most telling.

  The laughter didn’t last. It couldn’t. Another spasm of coughing cut it off. Ben withdrew the broom and set it against the wall. He didn’t try to talk until there was quiet. He addressed Tom Gordon, not Michael.

  “So what was your plan? Get me inside your brother’s cell because I’d think he was too weak to be a threat? Maybe he’d knock me out, take my gun, let you out. Where did you imagine you’d be going? Your horses are boarded at the livery, and Hank Ketchum would shoot you as soon as look at you if you tried to take them away. He’s probably already up, looking after his place, and if he’s not, he sleeps with his shotgun.”

  Tom Gordon’s confession was a careless shrug. He limped back to his cot and sat down.

  Ben watched his progress across the cell. “Looks like your leg is already on the mend.”

  Michael Gordon had pushed himself into a sitting position. His shadowed, sunken eyes cast a sardonic sideways look at Ben. When he spoke, his voice was little more than a rough whisper. “Think you’re pretty damn smart, don’t you?”

  “I don’t think much about it. If I can get my left foot in my left boot, I figure the other one’s for my right foot. You decide if that makes me pretty damn smart.” He glanced at Michael’s toes still twitching inside his heavy woolen socks. “I notice you’re not wearing your boots.”

  “Shut up,” Michael said.

  Ben went on as if there had been no interruption. “So why aren’t you wearing them? Did the left foot in the left boot stump you?”

  “Leave him be,” said Tom Gordon.

  “All right,” Ben said. He leaned back against the wall beside the broom and waited.

  Tom Gordon spoke wearily. “Truth is, that deputy of yours helped him out of his boots when the doc was treating him. Doc said to make him comfortable and that’s what the boy did.”

  “Well, there you go. I thought he’d removed them to maybe persuade me he wasn’t trying to bolt. Guess I had it more complicated in my mind than it needed to be.”

  “Guess you did,” said Tom.

  Michael Gordon reached under his cot, yanked out a boot, and pitched it hard at Ben. It bounced harmlessly off the bars and thumped to the floor.

  “Feel better?” asked Ben.

  “Go to hell.” He fumbled for the second boot, couldn’t quite grasp it, and in frustration he leapt from the cot and charged the cell door. “Go to hell!” He managed to spit out the words before a racking cough dropped him to his knees. His hands curled around the bars; he pressed his perspiring forehead against them.

  Ben stared down at the top of the man’s head. “I can give you some of the doc’s medicine if you still want it.” When Michael Gordon nodded tiredly, Ben disappeared into the office to get it. He stopped short when he saw Remington lounging in his chair. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “It sounded as if you were occupied so I thought I’d leave you alone and make myself at home.” He extended an arm. He held a medicine bottle between his thumb and forefinger. “I think this is what you’re looking for.”

  “It is.” Ben took the bottle, measured out two teaspoons into an empty tin cup. “I’ll be right back.”

  Ben returned to the cells and pushed the tin cup through the bars several feet away from where Michael was on his knees. “There’s a dose in there that should help you rest for a few more hours. Take it or don’t. It’s up to you.” He looked over at Tom. “Don’t call me back here again. I won’t come until your breakfast’s arrived. You understand?” He waited until he had affirmative nods from both of them before he rejoined
Remington.

  “You can’t have forgotten your wife gave birth a couple of hours ago,” he said, dropping into one of the visitor chairs. He rubbed the back of his neck. “So naturally I’m puzzled as to what you’re doing here. Does Phoebe know you’re gone?”

  “She kicked me out. Said I was staring at her.”

  “Were you?”

  “I prefer to think I was attentive.”

  “Uh-huh. Probably with a chair pulled right up to her bedside. Hovering like a hummingbird.”

  Remington puffed out his chest. “More like a papa eagle.”

  “Yeah, because you have the beak for it.” Ben grinned because Remington was already self-consciously touching the bridge of his nose. It struck him how childhood taunts could still niggle after so many years. It made him think of Ridley’s mother’s cruelties, and then it made him think of Ridley. “Did the doctor finally go home?”

  “She did. Stayed awhile to look in on Phoebe and the baby. Now there’s someone who hovers like a hummingbird. We were lucky to have her tonight.”

  “This afternoon, too.”

  Remington agreed. He leaned back and looked at Ben down the length of his nose. “So . . . you want to tell me what’s going on with you and the doctor?”

  “No.”

  “Saw you kissing her. Didn’t see her pushing you away.”

  “Answer’s still no.”

  “Thought there was something between the two of you at dinner. Phoebe had the same opinion, but she noticed it in the bank first.”

  “Not talking about it,” said Ben.

  “Well, that won’t stop me from speculating, and you can be sure it won’t stop my wife. Last few years she’s just been itching to put you with some gal.”