by Vanessa Vale
Money. Bills and bills of it were being lifted by the wind and carried a foot or two at a time like fall leaves.
I heard Maddie’s gasp behind me, but I wasn’t sure if it was because the driver was dead or a large sum of her money was blowing away.
“Have something you want to tell us, sweetheart?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Maddie
I should have been distraught over the dead stage driver. Just seeing his worn boots reminded me that the three of us had been lucky. Bruises covered my body and my ribs hurt where I’d hit the sharp edge of the bench seat when the stage tipped. But we’d had the confines of the stage to keep us protected when the stage came to an abrupt halt, unlike the driver.
Landon had given the man some respect and covered him, even if it was with my dress. But he wasn’t what they were looking at now. No. It was the bank money that had been carefully hidden in my things. When I’d put it away, I never imagined the suitcase opening because of a stage accident. The bag had been my father’s, old and worn. I hadn’t needed a trunk to travel to Helena to rob the final bank, but I was sure that would have withstood the tumble with better results.
The men were quiet, only the wind through the grasses and the hard breathing from the horses to be heard. My heart had been frantic from the accident, but I’d been quick to feel relief that it was over. This though, this shock, would linger.
What were they going to do? I glanced at Seth, who had a cut on his forehead. It only oozed a bit of blood and I doubted he even knew it was there. Landon dropped his hand from my elbow and I immediately missed that simple contact.
“I…I, um—”
What could I say? I’d tried to tell them last night, on my own time, but now, being forced to admit the truth, it was hard. I robbed four banks. You’re married to an outlaw.
They were US Marshals. I was about to destroy them, destroy their integrity, for they’d put their trust, their devotion in someone who didn’t hold their values. Their honor.
But I’d been honor driven! Mr. Rollins had taken my integrity. The money was just taking it back the only way possible. Yet, they wouldn’t understand.
“You must think us stupid,” Landon said, moving away from me to begin to collect the money, to make an ever-growing pile in his hand.
I shook my head, but said nothing. Tears blurred him.
“Fuck.” Seth’s curse made me startle. He’d just figured it out. “Did you do it because you thought we’d protect you?”
I closed my eyes, felt the tears slip down my cheeks. I shook my head.
“That taking a ride on our cocks would keep you from a noose?”
My eyes flew open, knowing I’d feel the coarseness of that rope soon enough. I wasn’t upset about that, but what they thought of me. “No! You said you knew me. The real me. You still do.”
“We’re losing our touch, Seth,” Landon said, continuing to pick up the scattered bills. “The clues were all there.”
Seth laughed, but bitterly. He put his hand up to his temple, winced when he felt the cut, glanced at his fingers. “You’re right. She told us first thing she’d come from Rollinsville. The site of the third robbery.”
“Exactly,” Landon added. He stood, stared at me. “She was in Helena at the time of the robbery, come to the town the night before. Even used the time while we were at the meeting to her advantage. This morning, you didn’t seem too keen on returning to Rollinsville. When you told us about what Rollins had done to you, to your father, I’d thought it was because of that.”
“No. She hates Rollins. Obvious reasons, of course,” Seth added. He crossed his arms, stared at me, even though he was talking to Landon. “But she didn’t want to return because she’d robbed the bank. Could be identified.”
“She even sucked my cock to delay our trip.”
Landon’s bitter words finally had me coming out of my stupor. “That is not true!” I said, stomping over to him, grabbing the bills from his hands. He let me, because really, where was I to go? “You had me handcuffed to the headboard. I wasn’t in any position to dictate our departure time.”
I’d woken this morning to Landon’s head between my thighs and I’d been seconds away from coming. Seth seemed to like having me at his mercy, using his handcuffs to secure me to the bed and have his way with me. Seth lifted those restraints and held them up before me. Now, he wasn’t going to restrain me for a quick fuck. Instead, they were going to take me to the nearest sheriff.
“Say it, Maddie. If that is your real name.”
I put my hands on my hips. “My name is Madison Thomas Bane.” Each word was enunciated clearly.
“Say it,” he repeated, his eyes completely devoid of all warmth I’d always seen. He looked at me with a coldness I assumed was for the criminals he hunted. “Say what you did.”
I took a deep breath, let it out. Lifted my chin and looked in Seth’s pale eyes. Held them. “I tried to tell you last night, but you…you had your way with me instead.” I bit my lip, then said the words they wanted to hear. “I robbed Mr. Rollins’ banks.”
There, I’d done it. I’d told someone. Told the two people who meant something to me. But with the truth came the harsh consequences.
Landon swore and ran his hand over his beard. “Why? Why the hell do you have to rob banks? And now? You need the money that badly that it was your only option? We have money—”
“I began before I met you, as you are well aware. This has nothing to do with you.”
Landon stepped closer, his eyes, while not angry, were a little wild. His usual calm demeanor had been weakened. “It has everything to do with us!”
His voice boomed like thunder through the air.
I took a step back and he swore again. “You’re our wife. We’re supposed to bring you in for taking all of Rollins’ money.”
“I didn’t take all his money. I only took $2342.”
Seth was rubbing the back of his neck but his hand stilled. “What?”
I sighed, trying to remain calm, which it seemed, they were trying to do as well.
“I only stole a specific amount of money.”
He repeated the sum I gave. I nodded in confirmation of the amount. “Rollins said you took all the cash not in the safe.”
“Not true,” I countered.
“Then why would he lie?” Seth wondered, then dropped his arm, spun on his heel and began to pace as if he knew the answer. But I told him anyway.
“Because he’s a ruthless bastard and only cares about himself. Perhaps he wanted to give you more reason to bring me in. Perhaps he wanted my crime to look bigger. Perhaps if he told you the truth his own crimes would be discovered.”
“Crimes?” Landon asked. Why had he picked up on that one word? I wasn’t going to tell them about Amanda and Tara. Robbing the man’s banks to get the money we deserved had been my idea all along. They were complicit, but I’d been the one to drag them into this. To get their money back.
“I told you in the stage. My father wouldn’t sell. Rollins offered a fair price, but below value. Daddy didn’t need to sell. He didn’t want to sell. Why would he? It made him a good living, a quiet life. He had everything he wanted, except perhaps my mother.” I sighed, knowing my father had mourned her until the day he died and went to be with her again.
I crossed the grass and picked up a bill I’d missed, added it to the pile in my hand, walked over to Landon and gave them all to him. I didn’t care about the money. I never had. All I cared was that Mr. Rollins didn’t have it. If I was to give it all to Landon and never see it again, so be it.
“Go on,” Landon urged. He was still angry, but his cool reserve had returned.
“I told you, Mr. Rollins didn’t like Daddy’s answer. A week after he said no, we received notice that the terms of the note with the bank changed. A sum each month Daddy couldn’t pay. Within three months, the bank took possession of the ranch. Mr. Rollins came out personally. Told my father he should have sold. He rema
ined while he watched us leave, then set fire to the place.”
My throat clogged with tears but I swallowed hard, willed them back.
“We saw the smoke, turned and saw from the hillside that everything was on fire. He burned it to the ground and then rode away.”
I looked at Landon, held his dark gaze. “He rode right past us as we sat and watched everything burn. Stunned. Lost. Angry.”
“Did he do anything with the ranch?” Seth asked. He’d come up behind me when I’d been talking and startled me.
“You mean ranches? He did this to a few others, those that bordered ours so he could make one large property of his own. He’s done nothing but gobble up land like a swarm of locusts, destroying everything in his way.”
“So you robbed him just as he robbed you,” Seth said, spinning me about to face him.
“How many times do I have to repeat this? I didn’t take all his money. I only took what he originally offered for each of the properties. To the penny.” The tears fell then. The dam I’d built on the growing emotions broke. Tears slipped down my cheeks. “For what belonged to the families he destroyed.”
Seth pulled me into a tight embrace, his strong arms banded about me. His hard chest was warm against my cheek and I cried then. Let it all out. Every bit of it. The upset from the stage, the driver’s death, being caught, what Mr. Rollins had done to my father, the other families, the fact that I’d met not one man who wanted me, but two. Now they’d hate me, turn me away if they didn’t turn me in.
I had no idea how long I cried. I just felt Seth’s steady breathing, the slide of his hand up and down my back. He and Seth spoke quietly to each other, but I didn’t pay it any mind. Not any longer. It was over. It was all over.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Landon
Fuck. I ran my hand over my beard, closed my eyes briefly. Maddie was the bank robber. We married a fucking criminal. No. No! We’d married the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. A woman who was light and laughter, sunshine and damned rainbows all in a simple smile. She’d stopped us in our tracks and both Seth and I had wanted her from that instant. I still did.
She wasn’t the dangerous, ruthless woman Rollins painted her.
“What about murder? Did you kill your husband?” I gripped the money in a tight fist. I didn’t give a shit about the money, whether Rollins saw a dime of it. We were standing in the middle of the prairie, an overturned stage, a dead driver, restless horses. But I had to know it all. I had to know the real woman we married.
Maddie stepped back from Seth’s embrace. He let her, or she’d still be securely within his arms. I wanted to be the one to hold her, but I couldn’t. Was it all an act? A ruse, just like whatever she’d done to coax the money from the tellers at four different banks?
“Did I kill my—oh, you mean the Black Widow?” She sniffed, wiped the tear streaks from her pale cheeks. “Of course I didn’t kill Orville. He died of the ‘flu.”
When I didn’t say anything, she filled in the silence. “That was years ago. Mr. Rollins first approached my father last summer. I only robbed the first bank last month.”
When I still didn’t speak, she added, “Do I really seem like the person who would kill her husband?”
I looked away from her pale eyes. “No, but Seth and I both have reason for concern, don’t we?”
She blanched at that. “You said you knew me. Really knew me when you had me naked and beneath you. Did you marry me just so you could fuck me?”
“No, but you perhaps married us for protection,” Seth added.
“I didn’t even know you were US Marshals until just before we went to the sheriff. If you remember correctly, we didn’t do much talking.”
No, we didn’t. I’d said I wanted her to call me God.
Seth sighed. “Come out of the sun, sweetheart, and tell us everything.”
I could tell by the stiff line of his shoulders he wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t planning on stringing her up either. I was just mad I’d been tricked. Seth was right. Maddie wasn’t our usual suspect and we didn’t have to treat her as one. We’d married her because we knew deep down she was a good person. I had to remember that as I tried not to judge her now.
Seth held out his hand and she took it, let him lead her around the stage and thankfully away from the dead body. He lowered himself to lean against the back of the stage where they were in shadow, pulled her down to sit in front of him, her body settled back against his chest, his arms about her waist.
“Relax,” he told her.
“It’s somewhat hard to do when being interrogated,” she countered.
“Tell us everything. Landon will sit his grumpy ass down and listen.”
I was being the ridiculous one now, so I settled on the ground facing them, my legs sprawled out before me.
“Tell us everything.”
She took a deep breath, went through it all again. She explained what happened with the ranch, how Rollins had ruined other families as well. How she’d formulated a plan to get the money back for herself and the others. How she robbed the bank, all of it. “And so yesterday, before you returned, I gave the money to the friend I spoke of meeting. That had been the truth. It was actually two friends. They collected their portion and left.”
“A tall dark haired woman and a short blond?”
Maddie’s eyes widened. “Yes, how did you know?”
Her voice held brittle tension, as if she was afraid to admit who they were. Were they more than just women who’d had their family ranches taken away? Were they accomplices? But the one teller we’d interviewed had been lovestruck by the robber. No, he’d been lovestruck by Maddie and had been little help. He’d never said anything about accomplices. None of the reports from the other robberies mentioned three gun toting women. One was memorable, but three?
“We held the door for them when they came out of the hotel. While we have made you our bride, Landon and I still notice a pretty face or two.”
“I’m…I’m still yours?”
She sat up, turned so she could look Seth in the eye.
“Why would Rollins make you out to be such a villain?” he asked.
Maddie got up to her knees, but made it no further, because I took hold of the hem of her dress, tugged her back down. “Why Maddie?”
“Because he’s a terrible man!” she cried. “Someone told him no. Because I made a fool of him.”
Maddie sank back to the ground, as if deflated.
That was true. I even felt the fool for marrying her and not knowing what she’d done. But Rollins? He’d been robbed four times, and by a woman. She’d had a gun, but never pulled the trigger. She’d smiled at the teller, told him what she wanted and he’d just given it to her. Each time.
Our wife had charmed all four tellers, and us. As for Rollins, all Maddie had done was make him mad, so mad that he was willing to destroy her.
“Fuck,” I murmured. Seth looked to me. “What would have happened if some other Marshals had been called in?”
I saw the second Seth understood. If we hadn’t been the men sent to meet with Rollins, there was a good chance they’d believe Rollins over Maddie. They’d think she was the ruthless, cunning woman he’d made her out to be.
She was cunning, that was for sure. Smart, too. She’d tricked Rollins and everyone else, including us.
And that meant the Marshals wouldn’t have stood by and let a woman best them either. She’d have gone before the judge and been hung. All for taking what belonged to her and the others Rollins had wronged.
If she’d been a man, she could have confronted Rollins, made it right by threats alone. A broken nose and a busted lip. No man would be arrested for that. No wanted posters would have been made. No US Marshals would have been called in. Just revenge or retribution. Wild west law at play. Nothing else.
But Maddie, sweet, perfect Maddie, would have been destroyed.
Reaching out, I grabbed for her, pulled her easily onto my lap so she straddl
ed my legs. Her skirts rode up and bunched about her thighs as she gripped my shoulders for balance.
“Landon,” she breathed, her eyes wide as she met mine.
God, she was perfect. No, she wasn’t perfect. She was far from it and that’s what I loved about her. She was feisty and determined, tenderhearted and passionate and so fucking daring. Jesus, I wouldn’t even have the balls to rob a damn bank.
All my anger toward her was gone, bled away by the truth. Rollins was a fucking ass and I’d deal with him later. Now, Maddie needed me. Us. She needed to know we would support her, stand behind her in this. We weren’t US Marshals with her. We were her husbands.
Instead of telling her this, I showed her by wrapping my hand about her neck and pulling her down for a kiss. At first, she was stunned and didn’t kiss me back, but I finally felt her melt in my hold. Seth moved up behind her, told her everything I couldn’t because I damn well wasn’t lifting my head.
“You’re ours, sweetheart. We want you. Need you. Landon’s going to show you how much, then it’ll be my turn.”
With my arm about her waist, I spun us about, lowered her to the grass so I hovered over her.
“This is going to be fast.”
Her eyes held no more wariness, only desire. With frantic fingers, she reached down and worked the hem of her dress up, higher and higher until it bunched about her waist. She was bare, just as we liked her. “Hurry. Please,” she begged. “I need you inside me.”
I needed to be inside her, too. I opened my pants in seconds, pulled out my cock, which was throbbing with need to sink deep. Shifting, I settled between her parted thighs, aligned myself and filled her in one stroke.