The Brides of Evergreen Box Set

by Heather Blanton

  Oh, Lord, please keep Jim safe.

  Finally, Jim threw one mighty punch and Reynolds’ eyes rolled back in his head. The man wilted and lay still. Breathing like a winded stallion, Jim struggled to his feet, bloody and torn. “I’m getting too old for this.”

  Ellie ran up to him and hugged him. “We did it! We did it! You got your man and I get my story!” She hugged him tighter but after a moment realized he wasn’t hugging her back.

  Puzzled, she stepped back. He was looking at her with a mix of disappointment and disgust. He dropped a small, open knife at her feet. “Thank you would have been nice.”

  14

  Summer was going to be hot this year in Wyoming. Tucking the wagon reins between his fingers, Jim pulled off his hat and ran his arm across his forehead. He savored the cool breeze kissing his sweaty brow, before dropping the Stetson back in place. Beside him, Ellie twisted her hair up on top of her head and fitted a brown cowboy hat on to hold it all in place.

  Behind them, handcuffed to the metal eye on the side of the wagon, Reynolds spit. “Me mouth is dry as dead weeds. Can I have some water or are ye intent on torturing me as well as gettin’ me killed? Or at least some whiskey for the pain? Me face and nose hurt.”

  Jim failed miserably at finding no satisfaction in the claw marks, swollen nose, and black eyes Reynolds was sporting. Served him right.

  “We’re only a few miles from town,” he told him. In fact, Evergreen shimmered magically in the distance. “You’re not going to die before we get there.”

  “Are ye so sure? Someone’s trailing us. I assume ye know that.”

  Ellie cut her eyes at Jim. He had not wanted to alarm her. “If they were after you, they would have made a move before—”

  A rifle cracked and an instant later the wood only inches from Reynolds’ hand cuffs exploded. Ellie squealed and Jim slapped the reins. “Get down. Everyone, get down.”

  A rock outcropping the size of a small house loomed a hundred or so yards off. He pushed the horses hard, yelling and smacking the leather across their backs. A good dust cloud rose up behind them. Another shot peeled off, but it missed, merely kicking up dirt to their right.

  Jim drove them around behind the rock then snatched up the brake. “Stay put.” He leaped from the wagon, grabbed his saddlebag from the back and scrambled up the rock. Lying flat, he scanned the rolling, green terrain before him as his right hand sifted through the bag. Momentarily, he produced a small brass telescope and flicked it out with one hand. He brought the lens to his eye, trying not to let it catch the light and signal his location.

  In an instant he had the man spotted and nearly grumbled a curse out loud.

  Patch.

  The new hand had pulled up beside a lone pine and was watching their trail from the saddle, the butt of the rifle resting on his thigh.

  So, Reynolds had been found out. And now the Irish mob was out to finish him off . . . along with any innocent bystanders. Jim glanced over his shoulder. Evergreen shimmered and wavered in the distance, teasing, beckoning. There was no way they could outrun a man on a horse with a rifle.

  A cracking sound from below followed instantly by Ellie’s screams brought Jim scrambling to the ground.

  Reynolds had torn free, the wagon side weakened by the bullet, and now had his arm hooked around Ellie’s neck, the shackles only giving him more leverage on her. “Let me go, lawman. The Murphys are going to kill me if ye don’t. I’ll not walk to me own slaughter.”

  As smooth and fast as lightning streaking across the sky, Jim snatched his .44 free and pointed it at Reynolds. “Let her go or I’ll kill you.” Though that was not his first choice. Ellie squirmed against the man, pleading with her eyes for Jim to rescue her.

  The game had changed now. Dramatically. Ellie was the priority. He would save her. Period. Reynolds needed to understand the turn. “Assess your situation, Reynolds. I will kill you to save her. Even if you get away from me, there’s no cover between here and town. You take off running and that man will drop you.”

  Reynolds’s brow ticked, Jim hoped with uncertainty.

  “Let her go. Let me take you in. The Treasury Department will protect you. Agree to testify against the Murphys and we’ll guarantee your safety.”

  The man started shaking his head, but another shot rang out, nicking the rock above them, causing a fine shower of granite and dirt. They all ducked. Sweat beaded on Reynolds’s forehead. Jim thought the man was wavering and pressed the issue. “You’ll run and hide your whole life. The Murphy gang will never stop looking for you. We can hide you. Give you a new identity. Even move you out of the country if we need to.”

  Another shot rang out, closer this time. “He’s moving through the grass, Reynolds. Trying to sneak up on us.” In a single, fluid movement, Jim collapsed the telescope on his thigh and then lobbed it at Reynolds. It struck the man squarely between the eyes. Ellie squeaked as her captor jerked. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he slithered to the ground. She barely managed to untangle herself from him before he dragged her down into the tall grass with him.

  She rushed to Jim as he lowered his revolver and wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you.”

  He was still stinging from her first words earlier today after capturing Reynolds. We did it! We did it! You got your man and I get my story!

  My story. All she cared about when it came right down to it.

  He hugged her back only lightly, wishing for distance—a continent—between them. “Here,” Jim pulled away and handed her his gun. “If he wakes up shoot him.”

  He strode to the wagon, ignoring her hurt expression, and fished for a minute in the wagon. Eventually, he came out with a rifle case. “Reynolds isn’t the smartest tool in the shed. If he’d found this, it might be me lying on the ground.” He slid the rifle from its cover. Cocked it, ejecting a cartridge. He caught it before it hit the ground and dropped it in his pocket. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Are you going to kill that man?”

  He swiped up the telescope. “Only as a last resort.”

  He jogged to the far side of the rock then dove into the grass. He crawled on all fours for about thirty or forty feet and then used the telescope to carefully survey the sea of grass before him. Movement caught his eye and he swung back a few inches.

  Yes. There. The tops of the needlegrass swayed and jittered unnaturally.

  Patch surely was working his way toward them, but Jim couldn’t take the shot yet. He didn’t want to kill him, but incapacitating the man would require a clear target. Neither could he sit here all day. Ellie was alone with Reynolds.

  Instead, he worked his way closer, moving carefully through a patch of sagebrush and junipers, checking for his enemy every few seconds. The wind in Evergreen never stopped blowing, but a lull convinced Jim to pause as well. A metallic click cut through the still air. He raised his rifle and launched to his feet.

  He and Patch faced each other, separated only by thirty or so feet of bitterroot blooms and the rifles at their shoulders. The man had murder in his steely gray eyes and Jim knew how this was going to play out.

  “The Murphys send you?” A foolish question, perhaps, but he had to hear it. The lawman in him had to hear the confession.

  “Yeah. I was supposed to just watch you till they got here. Kill you if you tried to move O’Dea. Too bad you didn’t wait.”

  Jim didn’t respond. The Murphy gang was coming. Moving Reynolds/O’Dea to Denver had just gotten significantly more complicated. He had to move beyond this situation with Patch now. A building, moaning wind filled the silence between them. Jim fired twice in rapid succession, hitting Patch in the upper shoulder and hand. The man fell backward, his rifle slipping from his grasp. Jim cocked his rifle again and ran up to Patch. “Third one kills ya.”

  For a moment Patch floundered at his bloody arm and for his own weapon, but the barrel pointing down at him quickly convinced him of his next step. Glaring, he raised his hands in surren
der. “You gonna leave me out here to bleed to death?”

  “No. I’m going to arrest you.”

  Ellie struggled to keep up with Jim as he shoved Reynolds and Patch through the crowd on the boardwalk and made their way to the sheriff’s office. She still didn’t understand why Jim seemed so tepid toward her, but now that this investigation was nearly finished, maybe it didn’t matter—maybe it was best. Patch would, most likely, do his recovery from jail. Reynolds would only spend the night, and then he, Jim, and Ellie would take the train to Denver in the morning. She would file her story first thing with the Rocky Mountain News so it could go on the wire. From there, she assumed she would head back to Boston.

  The thought didn’t bring her any joy, though she supposed she would be going home to accolades from her employer and envious stares from the other reporters.

  Yes, Ellie Blair has done it again. A major scoop that will wipe out an organized gang of thieves.

  She should be delirious. And, yet, all she cared about was Jim. Why was he angry with her? What had she done? And would she ever see him again?

  Jim turned abruptly and muscled Patch and Reynolds into the sheriff’s office.

  “Hey,” Reynolds whined, “I’m cooperating, remember?”

  Ellie was about to follow them in when she saw Bill bustling toward her, elbowing cowboys and townsfolk out of his way.

  “One of them him?” The boorish reporter asked. “You got O’Dea?”

  “That’s none of your business, Reese.”

  “If you don’t tell me, somebody else will.”

  “You want this story,” she leaned into him, “You’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers.” Thumping him on the chest, she spun and ducked into the sheriff’s office. Reese automatically followed.

  “—the train to Denver in the morning.” Jim was shoving Patch off into the care of a deputy. He and the sheriff paused at the two reporters bursting in.

  “You can’t come in here,” she said to Bill. How dare he be so forward.

  “Tell her, sheriff,” Reese said to the man with the badge. “She can’t keep me out of here.”

  “No, ma’am, you can’t keep him out of here.” He looked at Reese. “But I can. I’m having a private meeting with this fella.” He pointed at Jim. “You both can wait outside.”

  Reese scowled at the group, but stomped back to the boardwalk. Ellie glared up at Jim waiting for him to clarify things. His eyes darted to Reese. He clearly expected an explanation as well. Her glare, she hoped, said you first.

  “Sheriff, this is Ellie Blair. She is here on behalf of the Treasury Department and is helping me investigate Reynolds, I mean O’Dea.”

  “My apologies, ma’am.” The sheriff ducked his head. “Nice to meet you.”

  Ellie relaxed and smiled. “And that gentleman is also a reporter from the World Daily News. I think he thought he could steal—I mean—scoop a story.”

  Jim’s brow dove. “Is he going to be a problem?”

  Only over my dead body. “No. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “All right. As I was saying,” Jim continued, “lock O’Dea here up overnight and I’ll take him on the train to Denver in the morning.”

  I’ll take him on the train? Ellie and Jim had discussed this. They were both going to Denver. They weren’t separating.

  Or was she merely being too sensitive over a singular pronoun?

  “Sign this for me,” the sheriff handed Jim a clipboard with a form on it. “That way the government will reimburse the fair citizens of Denver for your man’s supper tonight.”

  “Surely.”

  The deputy returned and the sheriff nodded at Reynolds. “Put him in the presidential suite.” The deputy chuckled and led the miscreant off.

  As Jim did the paperwork, Ellie ambled over to the window, fully expecting to see Reese leaning on a post, waiting them out.

  He wasn’t there.

  “I didn’t know there were any female treasury agents, ma’am,” the sheriff said amiably from behind her. “You must be pretty good at your job.”

  “I do my best.” She wasn’t listening, however. Where was Reese? Had he simply melted into the flow of pedestrians, or was he hiding?

  What had Jim been saying when she and Reese had barged in? Something about the train to Denver? Troubled, she stepped outside and searched the teaming walk. Reese was nowhere in sight.

  But Ellie knew he hadn’t gone far. Reese didn’t come all this way to just let the story go, now did he, Lord?

  Her instincts setting off alarms, she didn’t want to ignore this. He’s planning something, isn’t he? The confirmation in her spirit was swift and sharp.

  Ellie wheeled around and rushed back into the sheriff’s office. “Jim, we need to move him tonight.”

  Jim was just handing back the paperwork. He and the sheriff froze. “Reynolds? Why?”

  “Reese is going to try to steal this story.”

  “And that matters to me, why?”

  She was taken aback by his complete lack of concern for her dilemma. Fine. She could make this problem his, too. “How do we know Patch is the only one hired by the Murphys? What if there are others? Reese will blab it all over town trying to get information.” She hesitated, but there was one other piece of information Jim should have. “Besides, I was told there is another agent coming. Which means you might not get to make the arrest.”

  Jim released a long, weary sigh. Pursing his lips, he handed the clipboard to the sheriff. “We’ll move him. Is there a train tonight?”

  The sheriff dropped the clipboard to his desk. “Only train outta here tonight is a cattle car.”

  Jim shrugged. “Even better.”

  15

  Ellie watched silently as Jim secured a shackle around Reynolds’ hand then attached the other end to an iron hook in the train car’s wall, normally used for securing horses. He tugged to make sure the lock was secure, and nodded with assurance.

  “I don’t know why ye’re treating me this way. Did I not say I would cooperate?”

  “I’ve heard enough blarney in my lifetime, Reynolds, to know not to trust a criminal until he says his piece in front of a judge.”

  “Ye’re a jaded man, West, a jaded man.”

  Ellie ignored the feuding men and swaying train and persevered in getting the story down on paper. She sighed with exasperation, though, and penciled through yet another sentence. The swinging lantern overhead barely gave her enough light to see her notepad, but that was not the problem either. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she leaned back on the wall, closed her eyes, and tried to focus.

  What is the matter with me, Lord? Simple, straight forward story. Clear facts. I should be able to write this in my sleep.

  Frustrated, she kicked at the hay. Let her go or I’ll kill you. The words had played over and over in her head all afternoon. She’d tried to ignore them, or at least accept them as part of the adventure she was on. What else could he have said? Women and children always had to be saved first. He hadn’t meant anything . . . permanent by it. Yet, to have a man threaten to kill another man on her behalf—well, it affected her somehow.

  Not to mention the way his kisses haunted her. The adventure with him filled her soul. Taken together, these things had forged a unique bond between them, hadn’t they?

  Oh, but enough of this nonsense. She had to get this story written. Her job—her future—depended on it.

  “Story not coming together?” Jim settled down beside her and Ellie’s heart did the funny, fluttery thing again. Just being near him made her . . . happy.

  “My mind keeps going back to something that happened today.”

  “Normally I might could narrow that down some. Not today. We’ve been pretty busy.”

  “Would you have really killed Reynolds to save me?”

  “Oh, that.” He picked up a piece of straw and twirled it absently in his fingers. “It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I would have done what needed doing.”
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br />   She rolled her pencil back and forth in her fingers. “I guess I shouldn’t make too much out of it then.”

  He looked at her, the dim light casting mysterious shadows on his brow and cheek bones. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. Ellie had the sudden, foolish desire to tell him . . . he mattered to her. And she would miss him fiercely in Boston. She opened her mouth, but like Jim, no words rushed forth.

  “Well, I’ll let you get back to your story. I know how much it means to you.” He rose, dusting hay off his pants, and moved to the other side of the car.

  Ellie’s heart sank. She couldn’t say why. She wasn’t sure what she’d hoped to hear. She just knew she’d miss Jim when this was over. Boston did not hold near the same appeal as it once had. Something would always be missing. For how many years would she find herself staring out an office window, thinking every now and then about the handsome treasury agent who’d stolen her heart?

  Would she ever be able to forget him?

  Too bad she wasn’t Millie Swank. Too bad he wasn’t Clegg Hoyt. Wouldn’t things be simpler then ...

  Of course, these thoughts were ridiculous. She and Jim were never meant to be together. But I find myself . . . hoping, Lord. Please bind up my broken heart and help me get this story written. I want a miracle. I want my byline, and I want Jim, too.

  Either or. Neither nor. Jim didn’t seem to want her. She’d have to settle for the byline.

  It took her all night, but when the train pulled into Denver at dawn, Ellie had her newest, biggest scoop ready to go.

  A cold, gray light was just splitting the eastern sky when the train stopped and Jim rolled open the car’s door. Ellie joined him in the opening and looked with sadness at the dirty, dusty stockyard covered in square pens, some full of unhappy livestock, some empty. Train tracks crisscrossed the yard, a few with solitary cars perched on them.

  Ellie heaved a deep sigh over the impending goodbye, wishing she could be as removed from the pain as the snow-capped Rockies on the horizon. Other doors rumbled open and several cowboys tumbled sleepily from their cars and started opening gates to the corrals and cattle chutes. The herd of cattle on the train mooed and grunted and thudded against their confinement.