Preacher

by Dahlia West

  Erin blinked up at him, caught off guard by the soft lilt to his voice. He looked sheepish, almost apologetic, if such a thing were possible for this man.

  “Let me see your arm,” he said in the same soothing tone.

  Erin hesitated, though.

  “I have a lot of experience with broken bones.”

  “I bet you do,” she snorted.

  He didn’t reply to that, just held out his hand, waiting patiently.

  Erin got the distinct impression that this man would wait here all night, perhaps even into tomorrow, until he got what he wanted. This was, she thought not for the first time, a man who was used to getting his way.

  Slowly, reluctantly, she lifted her throbbing arm and extended it.

  He took it gingerly, at the elbow, and turned it. “It’s definitely broken,” he said, stating the obvious. “And I can’t set it.” Then he surprised her. “Get up. I’ll drive you to the hospital.”

  Erin pulled back and shook her head. “I’ll do it. I’m fine.”

  He stood up and gazed down at her sharply. “Erin—”

  “Just go. Just…leave.” She looked up at him and blinked back more tears. “I won’t tell anyone about you. How can I?” she asked miserably, opening her palm again to inspect the ball in her hand.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  Erin sighed, raised her good arm, and bounced it off the floor. He caught it on the rise and frowned.

  “It’s what he had in his pocket yesterday,” she told him. “It’s what he was going to use to take me down. Destroy everything.”

  He examined it, as though he was looking for a clue that wasn’t there. “I don’t…a ping pong ball? How can anyone—?”

  She looked up at him sharply, not angry at him, per se, but still angry in general. About everything. “Horses can only breathe through their noses.”

  “Oh,” he replied. “Oh.”

  “It’s an old insurance scam trick. Nearly impossible to prove and no investigator would even bother, since King, the gray horse, isn’t mine and I wouldn’t be the one collecting. But I’d lose the fee for rehabilitating him. And his owners would undoubtedly sue my ass off. I’d lose the place,” she sighed. “And that, Mr. Man, is what everyone is waiting for. While twirling their mustaches.”

  He glanced at the counter above her. “The loan reminders?”

  She snorted dismissively. “I’ve never even been a day late on my payments. Never. Not once. But the bank manager sends them anyway, just to let me know that he’s there, lurking around, just waiting for me to default. He’ll have to get in line, though, because the cattle rancher down the road has his eye on the place. And my father, who loaned me half the asking price so I could buy the land in the first place… He wants it now, too.

  “I pay the bank on the first and my father on the fifteenth. And they’re both just waiting for the day I can’t make the payments anymore.”

  Jack frowned as he considered her words. “Why now? If your father wanted the place, why give you the money? Why not buy it for himself?” he asked.

  Erin sighed and leaned her head back against the cabinets. “Because once upon a time, actually up until about eight months ago to be exact, this place was nothing but a rundown house, a sagging barn, and a dried up creek bed sprawled across a few dozen acres. It wasn’t worth shit, agriculturally speaking.

  “Water had to be trucked in and that’s way too expensive for a cattle or even a sheep operation. But I’m not raising livestock, I’m only watering a few horses, and I’d added the cost of bringing in water into my monthly cost calculations. It was doable.”

  She looked around at the peeling cabinets, the warped floor, and the stained ceiling and still felt the swell of pride that she always had, despite the look of the place. It was more than just doable. It was hers, goddammit, and it would be until the day she defaulted on the loan. “It’s perfect,” she told him. “For me, anyway. It’s perfect for me.”

  “What happened eight months ago?”

  Erin chewed her lip and debated how much to tell him. It didn’t seem like a big risk, though. The man clearly didn’t have a dollar to his name and no matter how accurate he was with that .38, no one could steal a property with a handgun.

  Right?

  She sniffed. “They’re mining farther north. Silver. They’re using explosives, the whole nine yards. It diverted part of the river. Creek’s not dried up anymore. And now the land’s worth ten times what I paid. Maybe even more. Hank couldn’t have bought it,” she said, speculating now. “He didn’t have the money. But I suppose the bank manager could have offered him some cash to bring me down, so they could foreclose when I couldn’t make the payments.”

  She tapped her fingers on the floor, getting angrier by the second, even though Hank was far beyond any more punishment. “Stuff’s been happening. Truck threw a rod a few weeks ago. Part of the barn roof caved in on one side, even though it wasn’t particularly damaged or failing. Not that I noticed. And I notice everything.”

  He snorted and smirked at her.

  Erin found that teasing look kind of funny, in spite of the circumstances. It wasn’t really a joke, though. Things were serious. A man had died. A bastard who deserved to be in whatever hell he now found himself in, but he’d died, just the same. Not died. He’d been murdered. By her. By her own hand. And no matter how justified Erin had thought she’d been at the time—even now, honestly—the law wasn’t likely to see her side of things, if they ever found out.

  “Where is he?” she asked quietly.

  He shook his head. “Gone. That’s all you need to know.”

  Erin wanted to press him, make him tell her, but she supposed he might be protecting himself, too. From the law. From her. She couldn’t blame him for that. So far all the man had done was tie her up and take a few pills out of her medicine cabinet. That was a slap on the wrist compared to life in prison for being an accessory if she had a sudden bout of remorse and confessed.

  She couldn’t do that, though. She never, ever would. This place was hers and she’d worked hard—so hard—for this dream that she couldn’t lose it now. Not ever. And she found that she didn’t much care what kind of person that made her. “I don’t care,” she whispered.

  “It’s a slippery slope,” he replied, “doing things you know are wrong.”

  She looked up at him with a smirk of her own. “Are you going to tell me you haven’t been down a few of those yourself?”

  He frowned. “You shouldn’t have to.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer. He simply held out his hand.

  Part Two

  Gilead

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‡

  Because you’re clean, Jack thought but didn’t say. Jack Prior had never met a woman like this before. A woman who was making her own way in the world without getting by on tits and ass. She was…clean. And that was the highest compliment he thought he could ever pay a woman.

  He waited, knowing she didn’t have a whole lot of options anyway. Finally, slowly, she held out her good hand. He lifted her off the floor and steadied her on her feet. “I’ll drive you to the hospital,” he told her.

  She started to shake her head, but he cut her off with a look.

  “Your truck’s a stick,” he reminded her. “How exactly do you think you’re going to get yourself there?”

  She blinked at him, hesitating, then bit down on her lower lip.

  “If I was going to hurt you…” he finally told her, “I would have done it already.” He started to turn, but stopped. “Erin,” he said calmly, “you need to clean up a little.”

  They both looked down at her unbuttoned jeans and her ripped shirt.

  Slowly, Jack lifted his hands. He saw her take in a sharp breath but surprisingly, she held her ground. He admired that. Truly. She ducked her head, though, as he buttoned her jeans for her, unwilling to look him in the eye.

  At the truck, he held the pass
enger side door open for her but let her figure out how to get herself in. He’d spare her that much dignity, at least.

  “I’m Jack, by the way,” he told her as he cranked the ancient truck’s engine.

  “Jack,” she repeated, but looked at him skeptically.

  “That’s my real name,” he assured her. “Scout’s honor.” He held up two fingers.

  She scoffed at him. “That’s not even close.”

  Jack frowned. “It’s not?”

  “No.”

  “Well, my name is Jack.”

  She shrugged. “Will you answer to it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then I guess it doesn’t matter.”

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked her as they rambled down the rain-pitted driveway.

  She sighed and considered it. “There’s an urgent care in Highland. That’s fine.”

  Jack nodded and turned in the direction she indicated.

  They rode mostly in silence, neither one all that comfortable with the other’s presence.

  The sun finally made it directly overhead and heat shimmered off the asphalt, creating a blurry haze in front of them. Jack reached out to crank up the air-conditioner, but it whined and thumped and sounded close to giving out altogether.

  As they rolled into Highland and stopped at the only light, he half-expected her to jump out, run screaming for help. When the light changed, he didn’t notice. Another truck honked from behind them, jolting them both out of their thoughts.

  “It’s up there,” she told him. “On the right.”

  He swung into the small lot and into a space tucked away in the corner.

  Erin gave him a strange look, then left him in the truck while she headed inside.

  He thought she was pretty trusting, given the circumstances, but then again, what options did she really have? Here was a woman alone, without a friend in the world. And unfortunately, Jack could relate to that. All too well, in fact.

  He rubbed his palms on his jeans and looked out over the parking lot of the small medical center. He could steal another car, he supposed. But drive it where? He should probably take off, though, hot-foot it out of there before he found himself surrounded by flashing lights and Barney Fife’s with itchy trigger fingers.

  A sheriff’s car did roll by at that moment. It paused at the light, turned, and parked just across the street from where Jack was sitting in the shade of a huge oak.

  “Shit,” he muttered, and hunkered down into the seat.

  There was a diner on the corner and the local flatfoot ducked inside. Jack watched the man take a booth at the window and smile at the middle-aged waitress who appeared with a carafe of coffee.

  Jack glanced at himself in the rearview and didn’t like what he saw. Split lip, black eye. He looked like trouble, and in a place like this, he’d stick out like a sore thumb.

  There was no way to get out of the truck without anyone seeing him. He leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. The thought of being trapped, surrounded and smoked out, wasn’t all that appealing. He still had the gun, though, tucked into his waistband at the small of his back.

  Blaze of glory and all that bullshit.

  He found himself hoping it wouldn’t come to that, though. He had unfinished business back in Rapid City.

  Anger rippled through him as he pictured his former MC brothers taking over his clubhouse, giving orders to his crew. By now they’d probably found the stash of money in his room. They’d probably blown it on whores and booze, celebrating the death of the King. No the assassination of the King.

  Except Jack wasn’t dead yet. Not quite. Despite the haunted gaze of the man looking back at him in the mirror these days. He slumped farther down into the seat and enjoyed the images behind his eyes: Hook and Haze bleeding. Diamond begging on her knees. Their screams sounded like music in his ears.

  “I didn’t think you’d still be here.”

  Jack’s eyes flew open and he saw someone standing over him. Confused for a moment, he almost went for the gun, heart pounding, blood rushing in his ears. Then he remembered where he was. Shit, he thought. He’d fallen asleep in the truck.

  Erin stood at the driver’s side window, looking in at him.

  He sat up, gingerly, squinting at the pounding behind his eyes. Then he rubbed his ribs and tried to stretch a little. The shadows had grown longer. She must have been in there a long time. He checked his watch and it was just past six.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He shrugged, but even that hurt.

  She glanced down at her arm. “I guess we’re a pair,” she mused and slumped against the side of the truck. Her eyes were half-closed as she watched the setting sun.

  Jack peered at her in earnest. “Are you stoned?”

  She looked at him, puzzled. “Ummm…I don’t know.”

  Jack snorted. “Have you ever been stoned?”

  Erin wrinkled her nose. “I smoked a joint at Bobby Slayter’s graduation party.”

  Jack grinned at her. “And?”

  “I didn’t feel anything.”

  He threw his head back and laughed, a solid, genuine laugh like he hadn’t done in ages. It hurt like hell, but he ignored it.

  “They gave me some pain pills,” she told him.

  She had a cast on her wrist, but it didn’t extend to the elbow.

  “Get in,” he told her. “You still can’t drive. Not high. And not with a busted arm.”

  She followed his orders and slid back into the passenger seat. By the time they’d reached the city limits, she was asleep, with her head propped up on her good hand.

  Jack would’ve turned on the radio, but he didn’t want to disturb her. She’d been through hell. Most of it his doing. He could at least let her get some shuteye.

  As he drove, he glanced at her, though, and wondered what she saw, behind her eyes. He kind of hoped it wasn’t the image of a man beaten to death with a rock.

  He found the ranch easily on his own, having already committed the long drive to memory. The sky was turning purple as the sun was setting behind the barn. He rolled to a stop, which finally roused Erin from her sleep.

  She looked around, recognized the place, and slumped back into the seat. “Are you…are you going to take my truck? I kind of need it.”

  Jack looked around at the flapping tarp on the roof of the barn, the sagging steps on the front porch, and the general shabbiness of the place. She wasn’t kidding.

  “No,” he said, sliding the keys out of the ignition and handing them to her. “I can walk.”

  But he couldn’t. He discovered it the moment his boots hit the gravel and his legs nearly gave out from under him. Jack was bone tired and his afternoon nap hadn’t helped much. He frowned up at the darkening sky, not relishing the idea of spending the night in the dirt again. “I’ll sleep in the barn,” he announced.

  He didn’t expect her to like the idea, but neither had he expected the look of anxiety that crossed her face.

  Looking at her expression, Jack felt like one of the piles of horseshit in the barn. “I’m sorry about that, too,” he muttered.

  A long, awkward silence hung between them. Jack broke it by confessing, “I was going to kill myself. Yesterday, when I said I’d shoot your horse. I wasn’t going to. I was going to eat a bullet instead.”

  Suddenly remembering he still had the damn thing, he slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out her little .38. “Here,” he said, passing it to her grip first. “Take it back.”

  Erin took it from him gingerly, eyes wide in surprise.

  “I’ll be gone in the morning,” he told her as he turned away. “Early.”

  He didn’t wait for her to protest. He let himself inside the barn and headed toward the small bunk room. The blond horse greeted him as he moved past her stall.

  It ambled up to the gate, stuck its head out over it, and pushed its nose into his arm. Apparently the horse thought it’d made a new friend. Of course, it
hadn’t understood that Jack had just been scaring the shit out of its owner yesterday when he’d petted it.

  He reached out, hesitantly, and patted its cheek. It nudged him, insistent, and Jack spotted a shelf with a bag of apples in the corner.

  He took one out of the bag and brought it over. He jerked his arm back quickly as the horse nearly took off his finger as well. “Damn,” he hissed.

  The horse dumped the apple in the plastic feed bowl and bit into it with zeal, nodding almost appreciatively.

  Across the way, the large gray horse snorted and kicked the steel gate.

  “You’re kind of an asshole, huh?” Jack mused.

  The horse snorted again.

  Jack shrugged and grinned. “I’m kind of an asshole, too,” he admitted. He plucked another apple out of the bag and headed to the other stall. He had the feeling that this one might actually take his arm off, so Jack tossed the treat into the large plastic bowl that was screwed into the wall of the stall rather than risk trying to hand it over.

  He swore the horse was smirking at him as he moved to retrieve it.

  Jack watched him for a moment as he finished the apple, then moved on to the hay sitting in the rack on the wall, and then he sighed tiredly and turned away. His eyes skittered across the steel cabinet against the wall. In all the chaos, Erin had forgotten to lock it. Jack picked up the large orange bottle he’d left on the counter and the two pills he’d dropped on the ground. He popped the cap off the bottle and peered down into it, but only for a moment.

  Tempting as it was, with his body on fire at the moment just from standing upright, Jack wasn’t going to steal from her or her fucking horse. He reached into his jeans pocket, retrieved the pills he’d stashed there, and slipped them back into the bottle. He dropped the final two inside and twisted the lid on tightly. Then he set it back on the shelf and clicked the small padlock closed.

  His muscles were still in bad shape, though, from the exertion of taking care of Hank. And his ribs weren’t any better. He shuffled to the bunk and turned on the light. In the tiny little bathroom, he shook out four of Hank’s extra strength Tylenols and popped them into his mouth. He cupped his hand in the sink and took a gulp of tap water to wash them down.