Luke's Cut

by Sarah McCarty

  That shy innocent was watching him. Luke could feel it. “I’m leaving in a few days.”

  Ace nodded. “I figured. You’ve been restless since Hester announced her wedding.”

  And his tone again implied that Hester’s choice was the reason. And it was, but not in the way Ace thought.

  Luke shrugged and took a sip from his near-empty glass. The liquor slid down his throat in a smooth burn. Not like the days when rot-gut was the best they could buy. “Hell’s Eight can’t trust Tia’s safety to just anyone.”

  Ace cut him a glance. “I wouldn’t exactly call Zach Lopez ‘just anyone.’”

  The Montoya foreman was rattlesnake mean, coyote clever and generally a force to be reckoned with. “True, but I’m riding along.”

  Ace wasn’t soothed. The man had always had a problem leaving things to others. “I don’t like the thought of Tia out there at all. Especially after what happened to Pet…”

  Petunia’s kidnapping had been a near miss. Fortunately they’d gotten to her in time. “Nothing happened that couldn’t be fixed.”

  Luke had to believe that, considering he’d been the one to put Petunia on that stage and straight into the arms of a Comanche raiding party. But it wasn’t something he could just up and ask Ace.

  “I’d feel better if Tia would wait until fall, when preparing for winter will keep the Comanche busy elsewhere,” Ace muttered.

  So would Luke, but as Sam’s wife, Bella was Hell’s Eight. Full of fire, courage and an unlimited amount of sass, she fit into the group as if made for them. He swirled the last swallow of whiskey in his glass. “There’s no way Tia’s going to miss delivering Bella and Sam’s first child. Not after she promised to be there.”

  Ace frowned across the yard at Tia, who’d joined the group around the bride and groom. “She’s not a young woman anymore.”

  Luke echoed his frown as the sun caught the gray in Tia’s shiny black hair. When had Tia decided to get old? “She isn’t in her grave, either. And that’s what I think it would take to keep her away from this birth. Especially since Sam asked her to come.” He attempted to change the subject. “You know, of all of the Eight, he’s her favorite.”

  Ace snorted. “Tia isn’t here to rile with that accusation, so you can just drop it and stop trying to change the subject.” His frown deepened. “What the hell was Sam thinking?”

  Luke didn’t know, but it had to be serious. “That he needs her. He wouldn’t have sent for her if he didn’t. Sam isn’t an alarmist. He knows the traveling risk right now and he loves Tia as much as all of us. Things have to be serious. To the point I’m thinking he left the Montoya ranch all but unprotected with all the men he sent to escort Tia.”

  That was a big thing for Sam. Sam was a wild card. A man who’d ride into a fray of bullets just for the challenge of surviving, but he took his responsibilities seriously. And that included the huge responsibility of the Montoya ranch he’d inherited when he’d married Bella. The ranch sat smack dab in the middle of Comanche country. Luke shook his head. It took a strong man to keep it in one piece. But Sam seemed to be flourishing under the challenge. The man no one thought would ever settle, just might have found his place.

  Ace nodded. “So I heard.”

  “Did you hear when they’re arriving?”

  “Based on the telegram, they should be here any day.”

  “Good. We’re going to need everyone. There’s some rough territory between here and there.”

  Ace cocked an eyebrow. “And yet you’re volunteering.”

  And looking forward to it. Being around so many settled people chafed. “It’ll be a new adventure with which to thrill the readers.”

  “Uh-huh. Do your readers know how much truth is in your novels?”

  It was Luke’s turn to shrug. No one was more surprised than he at the success of his novels, written under the pen name of Dane Savage. More shocking than the money was the notoriety. According to his publisher, Easterners couldn’t get enough of the rumored-to-be-autobiographical tales of the ever-so-honest, bigger-than-life Texas Ranger’s high adventures in the West. As fast as Luke was writing them, they were selling. He adjusted his hat. “I get the feeling they’re more interested in the fiction.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  A new voice entered the fray. “I wondered where the whiskey had gotten to.”

  Only one man of the Hell’s Eight had such a deep voice. Tucker McCade. His tread was heavy on the stairs, his smile broad but tinged with concern.

  Ace held up the nearly empty bottle. “You timed that close.”

  “Still can’t get used to you wearing sleeves,” Luke said, turning to greet Tucker. Nor to seeing him without his knives strapped to his thighs.

  Tucker smiled and tossed his lemonade over the rail. The heavy muscles in his arms rippled under his shirt with the movement. His shoulder-length black hair fell over his face, casting his harsh features in shadow. “Me, neither.” He held out his glass. “But having a wife who turns a jealous eye when other women ogle my manly attributes means I get tailor-made shirts.”

  Ace chuckled and poured. “I’ve heard it’s good to keep a Quaker peaceful.”

  Tucker’s smile reached his brown eyes and his teeth shone white against his dark skin, emphasizing the scar on his right cheek. “I do enjoy smoothing Sally Mae’s feathers when they’re ruffled.”

  “Pacifist or not, that woman has a way of getting what she wants.”

  “Not everything,” Caine pointed out, coming up to join them, a fresh bottle in his hand. “She’s not going to Rancho Montoya.”

  “You heard?”

  “I think everyone within a mile heard you shouting last night,” Caine said, pulling the cork from the fresh bottle with his teeth.

  “That woman has a stubborn streak a mile deep,” Tucker grumbled.

  Luke smiled. Sally Mae was a tall, slim blonde and as cool as a spring day. She never raised her voice. The exact opposite of her dark, big, muscular husband. “Almost equal to yours.”

  “Yeah, but things, they’re not good out there. You know that. I know that. With the cavalry pulled back East and bad blood, travel isn’t safe. I know Sam sent his vaqueros, but I’d feel better if some of Hell’s Eight were traveling with Tia.”

  Caine held up the bottle. Luke held out his glass alongside the others.

  “I’m going,” Luke offered. But he wasn’t staying after he got there. The itch in his feet was too strong. The horizon too enticing.

  Caine frowned and poured them each a measure. “I wish we could spare more.”

  “Sam handled that end.”

  “Yeah.” Tucker took a drink of his whiskey and shook his head. “But I’ve got to tell you, I’m being plagued by a bad feeling.”

  Shit. There was nothing worse than Tucker having a bad feeling.

  CHAPTER TWO

  WITH DAWN JUST PAST, the ground wet with dew, the yard bustling with activity, the time to leave had arrived. Even with two cups of coffee in him, Luke was dragging. With the efficiency of long practice, he tightened the cinch on Chico’s saddle. Thanks to a restless night, his mood was jagged.

  Around him, the sounds of the group preparing for departure joined the sleepy chirps of rousing birds. Leather creaking, horses stomping their feet, people talking, items thudding into the buckboard—it was all familiar. The rightness of it had settled over his unease with a soothing balm. He gave the cinch a firm tug. It was time to go. A man who stayed in one place too long got stale.

  Tia came out of the house, escorted by her husband, Ed. Her dark green traveling dress was impeccably tailored, and the gray-streaked black of her hair was pulled up into a distinguished bun. She was the perfect image of a refined lady, but if he wasn’t mistaken, her dark brown eyes lit with excitement. It occurred to Luke that maybe he wasn’t the only one who’d been feeling the weight of settling down. For Tia to have been out in the back of beyond as she had been when the boys of Hell’s Eight found her, she had to have
a spirit of adventure.

  Funny how he’d never thought on that before. Tia had always just been Tia. The stability in their lives. The one they’d counted on. Behind her trailed Sally Mae. At six months pregnant, her belly led the way. It was her second pregnancy, the first having ended in miscarriage, and everyone was worried because, from the girth of her belly, this child was going to have Tucker’s size.

  “I should be going with you,” Sally said and sighed, supporting her stomach with her hand. Behind Sally Mae came Tucker, carrying another suitcase. With a shake of his head he negated that idea. “Before you got two feet in that wagon, that baby would be bouncing out of your belly.”

  Despite the ease of his tone, there was no doubting the concern in his eyes. Sally brushed it aside with a flick of her hand. “Expecting women have been traveling since the beginning of time.”

  The suitcase landed on the pile in the back of the wagon. “Not my woman.”

  Before Sally Mae could counter, Tucker wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back against him, taking over the supporting of her stomach with his much-larger hands. Placing her hands over his, Sally leaned back and allowed him to support them both.

  Her whispered “It’ll be all right this time” carried.

  Tucker ducked his head to respond. His hair fell forward to blend with hers. Light with dark. They were opposites that somehow formed a perfect whole. His “I know” reflected her conviction.

  Luke didn’t share their confidence. Sally miscarrying the first baby had sent a shock wave through their whole community. The Hell’s Eight wasn’t used to losing, but there’d been no fighting that. Tucker had been devastated. For a time Luke had thought there’d be no more, but Sally Mae, with that implacable quiet resolve of hers, had wanted to try again. Tucker had forbidden it. Clearly in this, Sally Mae had had the stronger resolve.

  Watching them, remembering the devastation of that time, Luke wanted to swear. Never, since the days after the massacre that had stripped Hell’s Eight of their families, had he felt so helpless and angry. Rubbing at the tension in his neck, he fought the feeling. Then and now, Tia was the key to the Hell’s Eight unity. She always had been.

  Then, they had been starving and consumed with anger when they’d stumbled upon the young widow’s home. They’d tried to steal her pies, and she’d paid them back by taking them into her heart. Tia had given them discipline, education and a purpose. Now a mature woman, she gave them stability and love. Sam might need Tia, but Hell’s Eight needed her, too. No matter how spread out they became, Tia was home. “We could just stay here.”

  He knew as he said it, it was a moot point.

  Tia shook her head at him before smiling softly at Sally. “There is no need for worry. I will be back in time for this baby.”

  Sally nodded. “I know. Bella and Sam need you.”

  His “You’re both crazy” went ignored.

  “So do we,” Tucker growled, placing his hand over Sally’s.

  Tia smiled in that knowing way only another woman found comforting. “Your wife is a healer. She knows this time it is good.”

  Tucker’s clenched jaw made it clear he wasn’t feeling any more soothed than Luke.

  “I’d feel better with fact, not fiction,” Tucker growled.

  Sally Mae patted his hand. “You’re going to just have to wait and see like the rest of us.”

  “I hate waiting.”

  Luke could put an amen on that. Fortunately, he didn’t have to sit and wait.

  Zach rode around the corner of the barn, controlling the prance of the powerful stallion with the same calm efficiency he used to manage the Montoya ranch with Sam. Behind, his men followed, all mounted on equally impressive horse flesh and all equally in control. Zach pulled the stallion to a halt at the edge of the yard. With a tip of his black hat, he acknowledged those gathered. In a slow yet somehow unified meander, his men flanked him. They were an impressive sight.

  “We should not wait much longer,” Zach called. “We must cover a lot of trail before dark.”

  Acknowledging the comment with a lift of her hand, Tia encompassed them all in a look. When they were growing up, that look had had the power to rein in their wildness. Now it had the power to convey conviction. “We’re not losing another baby. Not here or at Rancho Montoya.”

  Ed took her hand and raised it to his lips. “We’re not losing you, either.”

  “I’ll be safe, my husband. I feel it.” She stroked his cheek. “You and my boys should not worry. I am not so easily lost.”

  “I’d feel better if you’d wait so more of your ‘boys’ could be going with you,” Caine grumbled.

  “I know, but…”

  “Ah, senora…” Zach came forward, spurs jangling, looking as cocky as always in his black pants, black shirt and black hat adorned with dark turquoise around the brim. “My men and I are not Hell’s Eight, but we are of the Montoya and we have saved Hell’s Eights’ behinds before. You will arrive safely.”

  “One time,” Caine muttered from where he was tying down the canvas on one side of the flatbed. “One time they save the day and we never hear the end of it.”

  Zach flashed a rare grin. “It is relevant.”

  “And we are very grateful,” Tucker drawled with a sharp look at Caine.

  That was the truth. Without the Montoya vaqueros, Sam would not have his Bella. Nor Tracker his Ari. And Desi’s promise, which had started it all, to find her stolen twin and dance together once again in a field of daisies would have gone unfulfilled. He shook his head and stroked Chico’s neck. From the day Hell’s Eight had been hired to find the “runaway” Desi, all of their lives’ paths had taken a pivot from wild to civilized. Caine said because it was time. Tia said because God had plans for them beyond an early demise. And Luke. Luke just didn’t know who was making plans for whom. He only knew he wasn’t fitting the mold.

  “It is important you are reminded that not all that is good is Tejano,” Zach added.

  “Si,” Tia said, patting Caine’s hand this time. “This is true.” She looked over at him. “So stop worrying, Luke. Bella needs me. Sam needs me. The baby needs me.”

  Luke tried one more time. “The baby isn’t here yet.”

  She looked at him from under her brows. “For this reason, Sam sent for me.”

  Luke gave another tug at the cinch. Chico snorted his displeasure, emphasizing it with a stomp of his hoof. “Yeah, I know.”

  “That to the horse or Tia?” Tucker asked.

  “Shut up, Tucker.”

  Luke dropped the stirrup back into place before addressing Tia. “I’m not exactly sure that Sam sent for you. That telegram could have been to keep you apprised.”

  Tia clucked her tongue and pulled her scarf up over her hair. “Do not be silly.”

  And that fast, Luke knew there was no point in talking further. He loved the small, plump woman from the tip of her bun to the soles of her pointy black boots. She was the anchor of Hell’s Eight and now she was leaving the sanctuary. He didn’t have to like it, but he would support her. “Then let’s go.”

  “We can’t yet.”

  “Why not?” he asked, preparing to mount.

  Everyone went silent. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. From the barn came a rhythmic clanking. He knew that sound.

  He looked around. No one would meet his gaze.

  “Oh hell no.”

  A broken-down nag came through the doors, walking like an old man felt, as if every step dragged its past along with the gaudily painted peddler’s wagon. Sitting in the seat, all delicious curves and annoying attitude, was Josie. She met his frown with a smile. The contents of the wagon clanked as it hit a rut.

  Tia smiled. “We are ready.”

  “Why did no one tell me Josie was invited along?” Luke asked.

  Tia looked at Ed. Ed looked at Ace. Ace shrugged. “Jarl made a promise.”

  And Hell’s Eight owed Jarl.

  “I, for one, will be glad to
have another woman on the journey,” Tia said.

  “Well, I’m not.”

  Another woman might be one thing, but Josie wasn’t just any woman. She was the thorn in his side. Trouble walking. A mass of contradictions. He ground his teeth to the rhythm of the wagon’s rattle as she approached. Hell, even her hair was contrary. Neither blond nor brown nor red, it was an ever-changing mix of all three, depending on the light. Right now it was red. A warning to anyone who’d care to harken. He opened his mouth. Caine cut him off.

  “I wouldn’t even bother saying it.”

  Luke turned around to glare at Caine. In many ways, he was the same hard man Luke had grown up with. In others, he was different. Caine had been sent by an unscrupulous bastard to retrieve Desi, and in true Caine form, had ended up keeping her. In Desi, Caine had found everything he’d been searching for. And that hungry, restless wolf inside had settled down.

  “What exactly do you think I’m going to say?”

  There was a smile in Caine’s gray eyes. “That if she goes, you won’t.”

  The thought had crossed his mind. “It’s a thought.”

  “It’s a bad thought. I need to know you’re there, Luke. Zach and his men, they’re good but they’re not Hell’s Eight. I can’t spare more than I have.”

  Yet another change of the last few years. Hell’s Eight had once functioned as a unit. Almost as one man, one thought, but that had changed. Members had married. Settled down. It was as if each man had found the woman who completed him, anchored his restless ways.

  “Hell’s Eight is changing.” Luke sighed.

  “We’re bigger,” Caine countered.

  “And more vulnerable,” Luke added, looking at Tia. Hell’s Eight had grown. More lives. More responsibilities.

  Caine nodded. “I know the photographer irritates you.”

  “She does.”

  “Now, why is that?” Ace asked as the wagon came closer.

  “She’s too flighty. It’s irritating.” That got a raised brow from Ed and a snort from Tia.

  “So irritating you can’t take your eyes off her?” Ed asked.