Fingering the Colt he wore when away from the ranch, Kase said quietly, “Who wants to know?” He hoped he didn’t have to face down another young tough trying to prove himself by drawing on the man who’d brought down the Dawson gang.
Buck heard the warning in the low voice and braced himself. He waited a split second longer, recognized the big half-breed with long hair. It was the man he’d seen at the station in Cheyenne the day he’d taken Annika. It was Kase Storm.
He saw the man’s hand hovering above his holster and knew he was a dead man. There was no way he could throw his knife or lift his rifle before Storm drew on him. Convinced he was about to die, Buck almost welcomed therelease. Might as well get it over with, he thought. “I’m Buck Scott.”
He expected to feel a bullet hit him between the eyes. When Kase Storm launched himself across the room and tackled him to the floor, Buck was felled more by surprise than the other man’s strength. When Kase hit him in the mouth, Buck felt his lip split and instinct took over.
Buck started swinging without thought. Chairs crashed to the floor as they rolled across the room. Both men’s hats went flying. Kase wound up on top and pinned him to the floor. He straddled Buck across the chest and planted his fist against Buck’s jaw.
Buck countered with a right to Kase’s cheek just below the eye.
Kase dodged and Buck unseated him. They rolled beneath a table, knocking three more chairs to the floor. The barkeep was yelling something Buck couldn’t discern. The man’s footsteps sounded on the floorboards near his ear and faded away.
Buck held Kase down by the neck and rammed his fist into the man’s nose. Blood spurted out. When he pulled back for another blow, Kase reached up behind him, grabbed his hair, and bent his head back.
Buck roared with pain and rolled to his side to get away.
Kase wouldn’t release his hair, so Buck grabbed his adversary’s long black queue. Locked in battle like two bull elks, they rolled out beneath the swinging door and onto the boardwalk.
When Kase clinched his fingers around Buck’s ears and pulled, Buck let go and grabbed Kase around the neck with both hands. Kase’s eyes widened, but Buck didn’t see fear behind them. As they stared at each other, both of them were panting heavily. Sweat ran down their brows and dust coated them from head to toe. Buck wondered how in the hell he could get out of this predicament without killing Annika’s brother.
She’d never forgive him if he did.
But he might die if he didn’t.
Kase Storm stared up at the giant from whose lip blood was dripping down onto his clean shirt. Rose was going to give him hell for that. The man’s meaty hands held his throat in an iron grip. Kase wondered how he could extricate himself without killing Annika’s lover.
She’d never forgive him if he did.
Kase’s face was growing redder as Buck’s grip tightened.
Buck wished Storm would let go of his ears.
Suddenly, a shot rang out, deafening them both. Buck closed his eyes and waited for the pain of a bullet to hit him. Kase held his breath. Neither felt a thing.
Another shot went off. Someone stepped up and kicked them both in the ribs. “God dammit, you varmints, let go of each other ‘fore I plug you both! Let go! Break it up!”
Kase recognized Zach’s voice and slowly let go of Buck Scott.
Buck waited a split second longer, frowned down at Kase, then rolled off him. He managed to get to his knees and wiped his bleeding lip on his torn shirt sleeve.
Kase sat up and pressed his hand to his nose. “Hell, I think you broke it,” he grumbled.
Buck didn’t say anything. He found himself staring down the barrel of an old six-shooter held by a time-worn old man who was squinting down at him with one eye. The old codger spit a stream of tobacco and waved the gun in his face.
“Hand me that buffalo knife, son, then tell me who you be and what’s goin’ on?”
“Buck Scott. I was just askin’ directions.” He unsheathed his knife and handed it to Zach handle first.
“Well”—Zach eyed him warily—“you get ’em?”
“Yeah, but I’m not following them.” Buck pinned Kase with a hard, swollen-eyed stare. “I’m looking for the Storm ranch and I’ll whip every man in this town if I have to until I find out how to get there.”
“Stay away from my sister.” Kase finally got to his knees.
“You’ll have to kill me.”
With more speed than either man would have credited him with, Zach reached out and relieved Kase of his gun. With a weapon in each hand, he aimed them at the men on the walk.
“First thing you gotta learn, young man, is not to say that unless you mean it if you don’t know who you’re talkin’ to.”
“I know who I’m talking to.” Buck spit blood on the walk.
“And I know who you are,” Kase growled.
Zach rocked back on his heels. “Now that we’re all acquainted, how about both of you gettin’ up and walkin’ over to the jail with me?”
For the first time, Kase took his eyes off Buck and looked up at Zach. “Aw, Zach, come on.”
“Get up. I’m marshal, not you, and I’m haulin’ you two in to cool off.”
Resigned to his fate, Buck stood up and brushed himself off. Paddie hovered near the doorway, both men’s hats and Buck’s rifle in his hands. He handed one hat to Buck and backed away. “Here, marshal.” He dusted the black hat off before he handed it to Kase.
“I’m marshal here,” Zach reminded him. “Somethin’ this one here must of forgot.” He nodded at Kase. “Now, both of you get movin’, no argument.” He took the rifle from Paddie.
Kase tried to stall. “I gotta get home, Zach.”
Zach prodded him with the barrel of his own gun. “You shoulda thought of that a’fore you jumped this man.”
The sidewalk was crowded with Busted Heel’s more colorful residents. Flossie Gibbs, the madam who ran the Hospitality Parlor next door to the saloon, along with two of her girls, stood sleepy eyed, staring at both of the men.
“Kase Storm, is that you? I would a thought you knew better,” Floss called out. “What’s Rosie gonna have to say about this?”
Head down, rubbing his jaw with one hand while he cupped his bleeding nose with the other, Kase ignored the laughter and led the way to the jail.
Raindrops the size of silver dollars began to fall. Buck followed in his wake, determined never to ride into a civilized place again. “What about my horse, old man?” His bay was loaded down with his bedroll and other belongings.
Zach stopped and unhitched the horse, then handed the reins to Buck. Arms full of weapons, Zach continued to prod the men across the street. When they reached the jail house, he dumped the guns and knife on the desk and searched for the key to the only cell in the building while his prisoners ignored each other. Finally, Zach waved his gun toward the cell and said, “Cain’t find the key. Just go on in and sit down a piece and I’ll keep lookin’.”
Kase led the way. The sooner he went in and sat out his stay, which he hoped would be brief, the sooner Zach would let him go home to Rose. He didn’t bother to see whether Buck Scott followed him or not. He didn’t much care. The bed in the cell was built into the wall like a shelf. Kase sat down on the hard surface that usually served as Zach’s bed and waited to see how long the old man would make him stay.
When Buck Scott walked into the cramped cell, he took a seat at the opposite end of the bed. The old marshal slammed the door shut behind him, but didn’t lock it. Instead, he grumbled something about having lost the key. It seemed they were on their honor not to escape. Annika’s half brother was still bleeding from the punch in the nose he’d given him, but he didn’t much care. His own lip was still bloody, the side of his mouth swollen. Fine sight he would make if and when he saw Annika. He thought of her fancy fiancé from Boston and almost decided to head back home.
He stared at the floor, then the wood door with its small barred window, then the ceili
ng. He refused to acknowledge the man sitting not three feet away. Kase Storm could rot for all he cared.
“What do you want with my sister?” Storm growled.
Buck briefly glanced at his cell mate. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? Why didn’t you come see her before now?”
Buck looked down at his bloodstained plaid flannel shirt. One sleeve had torn away from the shoulder. The three top buttons were gone. The material gaped open to show his chest. “Until two days ago I thought she’d left me of her own free will.” He felt Kase’s eyes on him, so he finally turned to meet the other man’s gaze. The eyes that looked back at him were hauntingly familiar. They were just like Annika’s, a brilliant blue that was almost iridescent.
“She didn’t.” Kase informed him coolly.
“Well, she didn’t come back, either.”
“How was she supposed to get there?”
“I don’t suppose you would have volunteered to take her,” Buck grumbled.
“Damned right.” Kase didn’t bother adding that he might have taken her back into the Laramies if Annika had begged him.
They stared at the door across from them in silence, Kase trying to imagine his refined, beautiful sister in Buck Scott’s bed. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t conjure up the sight. The man was a giant. As tall as Kase himself but a good thirty pounds heavier and all of it muscle. Scott’s hair was nearly as long as his own, and he looked to have a good month’s growth of beard. The man’s blue eyes shone with intensity, but he was clearly lucid, and that much Kase was thankful for, given what he knew of Buck’s family history. While his eye nearly swelled shut, Kase gave up trying to decide what Annika saw in Buck Scott. Hell, he thought, people probably couldn’t figure out why Rose had married him, either.
Shifting uncomfortably, Kase let go of his nose. The bleeding had subsided. He wiped his hand on his leg and leaned back against the wall. “I can’t remember the last time I really let go and brawled.”
Startled, Buck turned to Kase and saw a half smile playing on the man’s lips. He nodded in agreement. “Me either. Most times I have to talk myself out of it. There aren’t a lot of men my size around. I’d hate to kill someone I only meant to maim.”
Understanding completely, Kase laughed, then winced. “Me too.”
A commotion outside the door drew their attention. Kase started to rise, then stepped back when the door swung open and nearly hit him in his already battered face. Richard Thexton stepped inside the cell, stared from Kase to Buck and back to Kase again.
Buck felt the acid churn in his stomach. The man standing in the doorway could be none other than Annika’s Boston fiancé. Exactly as Old Ted described—tall, lean, and so clean he looked like a polished apple. He wore a tweed coat that matched his pants. Even though it was raining out, his half boots shone brightly beneath a layer of dust, his collar was still starched and impeccably clean. A bowler hat clenched in his hands, he ignored Buck and concentrated on Kase. When his initial shock at the sight of the damage wore off, he said to Kase, “Come on, Storm. While you’ve been here tearing up the town, your wife has been having a baby.”
“Already?”
“Not yet. Annika sent me as soon as we knew it had started. Did you get the doctor?” Richard glanced at Buck and then away, dismissing him.
“He’s gone to Cheyenne.”
“What now?”
With his expression nearly as dark as his hat, Kase Storm pushed past Richard and left the cell. Buck followed him out. He watched as Storm holstered his gun and glared at the one-eyed marshal, daring him without words to stop him.
“You fellas cooled off any?” Zach laughed.
“Rose is having the baby, Zach. I’m leaving.”
“’Course, you are. Kiss Rosie for me.”
The city slicker walked out the door with Kase on his heels, but before he could leave the jail, Buck laid his hands on Kase’s arm to stop him.
Kase swung around as if he wanted to hit Buck again for causing the delay. “Get your hand off me, Scott. It’s finished.”
It took every ounce of courage Buck ever possessed to ask, “Is she gonna marry that man?” He nodded toward Richard Thexton.
Toe to toe, Kase looked Buck square in the eye. “No.”
“Then I’m coming with you.”
23
RAIN had been falling steadily for nearly an hour. Annika wiped the sweat from Rose’s brow, smoothed back her hair, and then glanced over at the water-streaked windows that lined the front of the second-story room. The gray pall that darkened her spirits stained the sky outside. Richard should have been back with Kase and the doctor over thirty minutes ago.
Although it was only late morning, she had lit the lamps in the master bedroom to dispel the gloom. The fire in the fireplace in the comer was stoked and roaring to keep the place toasty. Everything was ready for the baby’s imminent arrival. Everything but her.
Under Rose’s direction, Annika had gathered together clean towels and sheets. Tom, the hired hand she commandeered into watching Baby, had water boiling downstairs. When Rose could no longer walk, Annika helped her change into her nightgown and climb into bed. Following instructions had been the easy part; calming her own frayed nerves was impossible. Each time Rose suffered through another contraction, Annika let the woman clutch her hands until she was afraid her own fingers would break. Rose panted between surges of pain, stoically silent, visibly scared. Annika sensed Rose was holding back as she alternately panted, writhed, and then prayed that Kase and the doctor would arrive in time.
Annika didn’t know who was praying harder, she or Rose. If there was one thing she was certain of, it was that she did not relish the thought of delivering the baby alone—not after Rose had already endured so many losses. Annika knew that if she unwittingly harmed the child or Rose through her ignorance, she could never forgive herself.
“Annika?” Rose gasped and clung to her hand again as if she were a lifeline. “I cannot ... I cannot...”
“Yes you can! You are going to do fine. You are doing just fine.” She hoped Rose didn’t notice that her own hands were shaking.
“I want Kase,” Rose moaned.
I do, too. “He’ll be here any minute.”
“Something is wrong. Where is he?”
“On the way, I’m sure of it.” Annika looked over at the windows again. “It’s been raining out. I’m sure that’s what’s slowed them down.”
Rose gritted her teeth and fought against the pain before she sank back against the pillows. She glanced toward the windows and then away. “Rain is bad luck,” she mumbled.
“Absolutely not.” Annika shook her head, hoping to reassure Rose. “It will bring spring flowers. Just think, all your rose bushes will bud soon. Rain is part of spring; it’s a sign of growth and rebirth.”
Rose closed her eyes. “Rain is sometimes bad luck. Evil. You must do something for me.”
“What?”
“Cross the keys.”
Convinced Rose had slipped into delirium, Annika didn’t even ask what she meant.
But Rose persisted. “Cross the keys. They are hanging by the door in the kitchen. Go down and lay them on the table. Cross them, like this.” She held up her hands and positioned her index fingers in an X. “It will keep evil from coming into the house with the rain. They are my Zia Rina’s keys, her gift to me when I come to America.”
Annika’s couldn’t conceal her skepticism. “Really, Rose—”
“Please...” Rose gasped, tightened her grip on Annika’s hand again, as she lunged to a sitting position. She wrapped her hands around her distended abdomen, cradling the child within as if to hold back the inevitable. When the pain subsided, he lay back against the mound of pillows and pressed her sweating palms against the bed. “Go and go quickly.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Rose shook her head. “The baby is not coming. I know.”
“But couldn’t it be any minute now?”
>
Stubborn to the last, Rose shook her head again. “No. Something is wrong. You must go cross the keys.”
Annika stood up beside the bed, hesitant with uncertainty. She dared not leave Rose alone, but the woman insisted she go down and cross the iron keys that hung on a nail beside the back door. The pains were coming closer now, one after the other. She walked to the end of the bed and lifted the sheet that modestly covered the lower half of Rose’s body, hoping to see some sign besides the blood-tinged fluids that stained the towels beneath her, but there was no sign of the baby’s head emerging yet.
Brushing back the wisps of hair that had escaped her upswept hairstyle, Annika wiped her brow with the back of her hand. Before she could argue anymore, she heard the sound of heavy footsteps racing up the stairs and ran for the door. At first she fought with the handle, then flung the door open.
“Kase! Thank God!” Her brother brushed past, but not fast enough to hide the livid purple bruises and cuts on his face. He hurried to Rose’s bedside, threw his hat on the floor, and knelt beside the bed. His hair had come unbound and there was a wildness about him Annika had never recognized before. Seeing him in this state made her realize that her brother was a man to be reckoned with, definitely not one to be crossed.
Annika hovered behind him and then caught her breath when she got a good look at his face. It had been battered far worse than she realized. She watched Rose reach out and tenderly touch the gash across his cheek and then the purple crescents beneath each eye.
“What happened?” Rose whispered. Tears spilled over her lower lashes.
Kase merely shrugged and cupped his hand against her cheek. “You should see the other guy.”
Annika could wait for an explanation about his face. What she demanded to know was, “Where’s the doctor, Kase?” She paced to the door and watched the empty staircase expectantly, furious to think that while she had been agonizing over his arrival, her brother had been brawling in town. She stalked back across the room, her temper overriding her fear. “Well? Where is he?”
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