by Carole Howey
"I thought you and Bill had settled everything yesterday," Missy said under her breath, not taking her gaze from the rancher who blocked their way.
Flynn muttered something unintelligible.
She leaned closer. "What?"
Flynn's lips barely moved. "I told him he'd better be ready to fight if he crossed my path again."
Although it was hot as hell's kitchens in the midafternoon sun, Missy froze.
"Well, Muldaur?" Bill's taunt was raw and overloud, and his expansive chest rose and fell like the bellows of a blacksmith's forge. "I didn't just cross your path. I'm damned well in it. Now what do you aim to do about it?"
Missy gripped Flynn's arm.
"Flynn, don't." She scarcely breathed the words.
"Go 'head, Flynn," Gideon, in the back, urged, an unmistakable note of excitement in his young voice. "You can whup him, I bet. He ain't nothin' but a big old tree."
"Hush, Gideon!" Missy was aware of the note of panic in her voice, but she could no more prevent it than she could fly. "Flynn, you stay put. If we keep real still, he might just go away!"
That was stupid. That kind of logic worked for stinging bees, she knew, but Bill Boland more closely resembled a wild boar.
Boland hooked his thumbs in his belt, a pose that made him look much younger and much more menacing than previously. Missy's mouth went dry.
"Well, Muldaur?" The rasp became a lazy taunt. Several men came through the creaking bat-wing doors of the saloon, their slow-eyed gazes fixed on Flynn. Missy wondered, detached, how many wagers had been placed behind those doors.
Flynn shifted in his seat, wrenching Missy's attention back to him. His gaze was steeled to the granite figure of Bill Boland, and his jaw was set like cement.
"No guts," Boland pronounced. A smile slithered across his lips and disappeared like a snake under a rock.
"I got a woman and a child here in this wagon, Boland," Flynn said through his teeth, and Missy saw a lick of red creep up from the open collar of his shirt. "What do you expect me to do?"
"I ain't no"
Missy silenced Gideon with a look.
"I expect you to act like a man," Bill drawled, curling his lip in a sneer. "But I guess that's expecting too much from you."
Missy climbed quickly from the wagon. Something had to be done, and she guessed she was the only one who could do it.
"Missy!" Flynn muttered in warning. She ignored him in favor of approaching Bill warily, as if he were a wild animal cornered at a quilting bee.
"Bill, this is senseless," she heard herself say in a quiet voice that sounded worlds more composed than she felt. "Everything's settled between us. If you have something to say"
"You let Missy here fight your battles, Muldaur?" Bill did not even look at her as he asked his question loud enough for it to echo down the street. "She deserves more from a man than that, even if she is a"
"Don't say it, Boland." Flynn's growl was directed at Bill this time, just as his gaze was. Both were ominous.
"Why not? Who's to stop me?"
Missy swallowed a rock. She reached toward Bill with a tentative hand.
"Bill, you mustn't"
His left arm became a whip that caught her on the shoulder and sent her staggering backward several steps. She felt dizzy from the force of the glancing blow, but her vision cleared quickly enough for her to see Flynn leap from the seat of the wagon and fall upon Bill Boland like an avalanche.
The men toppled to the ground. All Flynn knew of Bill Boland as a sparring opponent was that he was big, and at least a decade older than himself. Flynn hadn't used his fists in longer than he cared to remember and, as Bill landed a leaden blow in Flynn's unprotected side, he remembered why he'd always preferred other methods of settling disputes.
He regained his breath after a few quick, stabbing intakes of air that told of bruised ribs, and he used the momentum of the punch to roll himself on top of Boland. Boland's face was contorted in rage; his breath reeked of whiskey.
''You son of a bitch!" he rasped at Flynn, his blue eyes glazed and savage. "I'm gonna kill you!"
As if to back up his threat, Boland wrenched away one of his arms which Flynn had pinned during the roll. Before Flynn could contain it again, Boland had pressed his open palm against Flynn's face, covering his mouth, crushing his nose, fairly puncturing his eyes with big, ramrod fingers.
His eyes burning, Flynn let go and fell back. Boland was strong as a team of oxen. But he was also drunk and therefore, perhaps, slow enough that Flynn might have half a second to recover and regroup.
Boland gave him that half-second, but no more. Flynn doubted, as Boland's bulk landed on him like a full load of bricks, that it had been enough.
His eyes still smarting and tearing, Flynn struck at the undefined shape above him. The shape struck back, and Flynn saw sparks in his head like a fireworks display. He couldn't breathe, and some part of him realized it was because Bill was straddling his chest, preventing him from taking in air. He was going to lose consciousness, he realized, feeling, besides badly pummeled, like a complete idiot. Not five minutes had passed since he'd lain Gideon out for fighting in the street like a hooligan, and now here he was eating dirt.
He hoped he'd at least given Boland a black eye or a bloody nose. He hated to think he was going to be the only one with marks to show from this disgraceful exhibition: Gideon would never let him live it down, nor would the rest of the people of Rapid City. But a second later, not even that mattered anymore.
Missy felt maddeningly helpless, a feeling she detested, watching Bill use Flynn's face as a punching bag. To interfere was to suggest to the spectators, by now
half the town, that Flynn was incapable of taking care of himself. Not to interfere was inhuman.
She stepped forward, not sure what she intended, but certain that she was going to do something to halt the brutality. In an instant someone brushed by her like a stiff breeze. She was vaguely aware that it was Sheriff Garlock moving toward the combatants in something approaching haste, an unusual occurrence for him. Something else had a firm grip on her arm and prevented her from following him.
"I wouldn't, Miss Cannon," said a deep, oddly familiar voice at her ear.
Chapter Twenty-One
Flynn felt as if his whole body were being subjected to some macabre form of torture involving heat, noise, and motion that made him feel sick to his stomach when it wasn't making his head pound in pain. But since the throbbing in his head was pretty much constant, the seasickness remained a mere undercurrent to his discomfort. Small consolation, he thought, waiting for another blow from Bill Boland's fist.
The blow never came.
Curious, he tried to open his eyes but managed only one. He guessed the other was swollen shut. To his surprise it was Missy's outline, not Boland's, above him, eclipsing the late-day sun. He felt around the tender inside of his mouth with his tongue, the only part of him that didn't hurt, for loose or missing teeth. He found none. Small favor, he reflected wryly. "Missy." He tried his voice. It came out like the croak of a parched frog.
There was a cool dampness against his forehead that would probably have felt heavenly were it not for the stinging bruise it aggravated.
"Shh," he heard, and he was not immediately sure whether it was Missy urging him to be still or a party of people whispering in the next room.
Next room? Where the hell was he?
"You're in the wagon. It's all over." Missy seemed to anticipate his questions, bless her. He was in the wagon, and she was with him. The softness under his head must be her lap. He tasted blood in his mouth, but he smelled the faint aroma of roses clinging to Missy's muslin skirt. The wagon, or heaven? He decided there wasn't enough of a difference to worry about.
But the wagon was moving.
Who the hell was driving it?
He tried to turn his head. Gentle fingers arrested his chin, thwarting his attempt.
"We're almost home." Missy was talking again, and her vo
ice was as soothing as a zephyr. "You've taken a bad beating, and we're going to get you into bed."
Who was going to get him into bed? Did Missy think she and Gideon could accomplish that feat alone? He would have laughed, but the breath he drew into his lungs for that purpose burned his side as if he'd been branded. He remembered suddenly that Bill had struck Missy, too.
"You . . ." He paused to try to moisten his swollen lips, and tasted iron. "All right?"
Was that her lips he felt on his forehead, warm and gentle?
"Look at you." There was forced amusement cloaking the anxiousness in her words, and doing a mighty poor job of it. A drop of moisture fell on his brow. He
hadn't known it was raining.
"Lying here half dead and thinking about me," she went on, sounding very far away.
Wait a minute. Wait just a blamed minute.
"Half dead, hell," he managed to mutter, and he summoned all of his strength to try to sit up.
It wasn't enough. She took hold of his shoulders and pulled him back down where he'd been. He was surprised that it took so little to persuade him.
He heard another voice then, one he knew. In fact, it sounded something like his own. He strained hard but could not make out the words. Was he delirious, besides? Now there was an embarrassing notion. . . .
" . . . wouldn't say mud if he had a mouthful of it," the voice declared. Flynn felt his mouth. It hadn't moved. " . . . as bad as when we were kids. He hasn't changed much, I see."
Seamus!
Missy's reply was a polite murmur that Flynn could not decipher, except to hear the shy aloofness of its tone. He heard another voice, blunt, sharp as a blade, tangy as a fresh-dug onion. Gideon. The fact that Seamus and Missy both laughed after whatever Gideon said did little to ease Flynn's disquiet.
That Seamus was here at all was no great cause for celebration, for that matter. Flynn had a greater incentive than ever to sit up and fight for consciousness. What the hell was his brother doing here? Flynn tried to think, but there was a damned free-for-all going on in his head. Seamus was here in Rapid City. Something was wrong, or would be very soon.
The ride back to the C-Bar-C seemed to Missy to take an eternity. Although she was dismayed that Flynn had engaged in a brawl with Bill and was injured, she was glad to be in the back of the wagon with him rather than sitting up front beside his charming and handsome older brother. Seamus had his fair share of the family charisma, she was forced to admit, but she nevertheless found the older Muldaur mysteriously intimidating.
She thought at first that it was because he was a congressman, but she quickly dismissed that notion: Joshua Manners was a congressman as well, and she harbored no such conviction about Allyn's congenial husband. Listening to Seamus Muldaur's seemingly innocuous, if incessant, banter as he drove the wagon, she realized it was because she sensed a hidden purpose behind his every remark, every simple question, an objective at which she could only speculate.
It was a subtle interrogation. He made her feel as if she were being examined under a glass and found wanting, even though it was very obvious that he did not mean for her to know that he was testing her in some way, holding her up against some invisible standard for some unknown end. She was glad when Gideon undertook to regale the elder Muldaur with anecdotes of ranch life from his 12-year-old perspective: for once the boy's garrulousness had a constructive, even agreeable, purpose.
She gave herself a mental shake: she was being foolish. Flynn had not spoken often of his brother, but never had he done so with any rancor, nor with any indication that their relationship was anything but amiable. It was her own suspicious nature as well as, no doubt, her natural shyness around men, that caused her to foster these baseless misgivings. She would tell Flynn about them as soon as he was strong enough, she decided. And he would probably laugh at her in that affectionate way of his. At least she hoped so.
By the time Seamus pulled the wagon to a halt before the front porch at the C-Bar-C, Flynn was trying, despite Missy's urgent pleas, to sit up. He looked like a badly butchered side of beef, although his eyes well, the one eye she could see was astonishingly alert. She jumped down from the wagon without help even as Seamus came around behind it. She did not want him to touch her, for some reason she could not analyze.
"Well, my valiant brother." Seamus's jocularity did not quite ring true to Missy as he positioned himself at the foot of the wagon, arms outstretched in fraternal greeting. "You weren't in much shape to offer a civilized welcome when I saw you in town, but you're looking better already. How little things have changed since the old days: you getting into scrapes, me getting you out of them!"
Missy suspected, eyeing the speaker, that the situation he described was more often than not the reverse, although that was perhaps because of her old contradiction of feelings toward Flynn himself: part angel, part devil. And she had never been certain, until recently, which part she was treating with.
"That sheriff was a trifle reluctant to let us take you along, you know," Seamus continued, reaching for the hand Flynn was using to grip the side of the wagon. "He was all for keeping you there in town in one of his cells along with that brute you were tussling with, but I convinced him that wouldn't be wise, seeing as you two had such, ah, contentious feelings toward one another. He agreed that his jail would be a lot more peaceful if there was some distance between you, and I was able to persuade him that the ranch would be sufficient for that purpose."
Seamus talked on, obviously every bit Gideon's equal in the area of prattle. Missy wanted to tell Seamus to shut up, but she bit down on her lip. The man was Flynn's brother; she had no desire to embarrass Flynn or herself by treating the congressman rudely, even if he was behaving more like a blustering campaigner than a concerned sibling. Instead of making a comment, she looked at Flynn again.
He was glaring at his brother with palpable enmity.
"I think it's best if we get Flynn up to his room as quickly as possible," she ventured, averting her gaze in hopes that Seamus had not noticed his brother's obvious rancor. She guessed the brothers would have out whatever dispute lay between them, but she hoped they would do so in private where she need not be a party to an ugly scene. If Flynn's malevolent stare was any indication, the dispute was a considerable one.
She found herself wondering if it had anything to do with Madeleine Deauville.
"Please help me get him upstairs," she murmured quickly. "Gideon, go fetch Mi and send him for the doct"
"No doctor." Flynn's statement was firm and clear, as if he'd completely recovered. Missy turned to him in surprise to see him raise himself to a crouch on the floor of the buckboard and gingerly make ready to climb over the side. Seamus hurried to his brother's side but Missy got there first, causing the elder Muldaur to keep a distance.
"Flynn, this is not the time to be noble or stubborn," she told him in a low voice, fixing her gaze to his. "You're hurt, maybe more than you know."
"I trust you to take care of me."
"But I'm no doctor!" she pleaded.
Flynn said nothing more. He clenched his stomach muscles and grimaced as he swung his leg slowly over the side. He seemed not to want Seamus to be aware of the pain he was in, and Missy knew better than to believe that it was because of any false sense of pride or shame. Ignoring Seamus, whose gaze she felt upon her like soiled linen, she turned to Gideon again, who was uncharacteristically silent. "All right, no doctor," she said, half to Flynn and half to Gideon, leaving no part at all for Seamus. "Just go inside and tell Mrs. Fedderoff"
"Mrs. Fedderman," Gideon corrected, referring to the temporary housekeeper Mi had hired away from one of the Rapid City hotels late yesterday.
"Mrs. Fedderman to set an extra place for supper and to make up the couch in the study for Mr. Muldaur until more appropriate accommodations may be arranged."
Gideon started off at a sprint, but was halted again by Seamus's rejoinder.
"Oh, there won't be any need for that, Miss Cannon ma
y I call you Missy, since we're to be related? I’m staying in town at the hotel."
That must mean that he'd been in town before today. Did she imagine it, or did Flynn, still poised on the wagon, shoot a look of rage at his brother? Even if it was a product of her imagination, she felt a cold claw grip her stomach.
"Gideon, you go on and do as you're told." Flynn's voice was calm, at odds with the look Missy thought she saw on his battered features. Gideon went. Flynn watched as he raced into the house; then he turned to Missy again. "Let Seamus help me down and take me upstairs. If I'm going to fall down, I'd rather land on him than on you. It would hurt him a hell of a lot less. Maybe even knock some good sense into him."