"And that is?"
"That you ought to marry her."
Brady scowled, and picked up his drink.
"Nope," Sam said, then paused to say “Thanks" when Joe brought him a froth-topped mug of cold beer. He took a long drink, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, then set the glass down, cradling it between his palms. "I came here about something else."
"What?"
"Texas Jack Bigelow."
Shit. Brady'd damn near forgotten all about the would-be bad man. But then in his own defense, it had been a busy two weeks. "What about him?"
Sam looked at his beer for a long moment, before lifting his gaze to Brady. "Got a wire from the sheriff in Las Vegas. Says Jack shot up the saloon after telling everyone that he was on his way here to kill you."
"Jack talks too much," Brady said, dismissing thoughts of the gunfighter. "Always did."
"Yeah, well, talking too much or not, he's going to be here in a few days and I figured you'd want to know."
“Thanks," Brady told him with a nod. "I appreciate it."
"So what're you going to do?"
"Do?” Brady asked. "What am I supposed to do? Leave town?"
Sam's mouth went grim and hard. "I don't want gunfights in the streets of Fortune." He shook his head. "When two men draw on each other, more often than not, it's some bystander that gets shot."
"True enough. But I'm not a gunfighter anymore."
"Your reputation stands, Brady," Sam said. "You know it and I know it. And Jack wants to be the man who killed Brady Shaw."
His gaze sweeping the hard expressions on the crowd surrounding him, Brady choked out a laugh. "Then he'd better hurry. The way folks around here are acting, seems there's a lot of people want my hide."
A reluctant smile tugged at one corner of Sam's mouth. "I did hear of a hemp party being planned," he said.
Brady shot him a look at the mention of a lynching.
"I put a stop to it," his friend said. "Reminded them all that if they failed, all they'd end up with was one pissed-off gunfighter. That cooled 'em down."
Brady's eyebrows lifted. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it," Sam said, and drained the rest of his beer in a few deep swallows. He grabbed his hat, settled it firmly on his head, then stood up. "Before I go…”
Brady frowned up at him. "What?"
"Just thought I'd say that folks around here are real fond of Patience, Brady. Maybe you ought to reconsider."
“Thought you weren't going to talk about her?"
Sam shrugged and smiled. "I lied."
Then he turned and threaded his way through the tables and chairs, nodding and speaking to the occasional man who called out to him. Brady watched him go and knew that his friend, along with everyone else in town, was expecting him to do the right thing by Patience. Damn it, couldn't they see that by not marrying her, that's what he was trying to do?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The noise from the saloon drifted up the stairs and right through the closed door to Davey's room. Ordinarily, he'd like hearing the hum of voices and the out-of-tune piano playing. Usually, it felt real friendly. Made him feel like he wasn't really alone.
But tonight, it wasn't helping.
Not even the magic ring was helping.
He clutched it tight in both hands and hoped the warmth from the metal would seep into his bones. But it didn't. He was still cold, down deep inside.
"It ain't right," he muttered, looking at his own reflection in the mirror across the room from him. "Something's goin' on and nobody's tellin' me nothin'."
Ever since Brady and Patience had come back to town, things were different. Brady was walking around the saloon like he couldn't find a spot to sit He just kept wandering, snapping at people — not Davey, but everybody else. And everybody else seemed pretty dang mad at Brady.
Which didn't make any kind of sense.
"And that's why I got to go see Patience." He swung his hair back out of his eyes and scooted off the edge of the bed. He'd already decided not to go downstairs, because he'd have to walk through the crowded saloon and maybe Brady'd tell him to stay put. And he didn't want to have to disobey Brady. So, he figured to leave without telling him.
Walking to the window, he opened it and shivered as a blast of icy air roared through, pushing at him as if even the wind were trying to keep him in his room. But Davey'd been cold before. Grabbing up his jacket, he pulled it on, then steadied his magic ring on the edge of the windowsill.
"I really need me a long ladder so's I can climb out the window."
Instantly, the metal hummed, heat growing, ring spilling out of its circular shape. His breath caught as he watched. The old brass slid over the sill and down the front of the building, taking on the form of rails and rungs until the metal ladder reached all the way to the ground.
Davey smiled and shook his head in pure admiration. As he scrambled over the sill and stepped onto the ladder, he told himself he just couldn't imagine how he'd ever lived without such a fine magic ring.
#
"Ought to tie that Vonda's tongue into a knot," Treasure muttered. "Imagine her spreading tales about Patience. You know, that woman's gone too far this time."
"The damage is done," Lily told her, disgusted, as she reached for the bottle of Doctor Moore's Female Tonic.
Patience watched her friends and reminded herself that this little get-together was in her honor. She fidgeted in her chair and tried not to think about Brady, alone in the saloon. How he must miss her.
As much as she missed him.
But Treasure and Lily refused to let her move back into the saloon. Instead, they insisted that she remain there, at the Mercantile with them, until Brady "came to his senses and offered marriage."
"I've got to say —“ Treasure said and hiccupped loudly. "Pardon me," she murmured, then continued. “I’m surprised by Brady. Thought sure that man was a good one, deep down."
"Oh, he is," Patience blurted, and both of the women looked at her with sympathy, for heaven's sake.
Lily poured herself another glass of elixir and took a long drink. She shuddered violently as it slid down, then slapped one hand to the base of her throat as if trying to hold it down. When she had her breath back, she shook her head and said, "Brady's not bad, he just doesn't think of himself as the marrying kind."
Treasure snorted. "What man does?"
"Brady is the marrying kind," Patience said, remembering last night and how he'd looked at her. She'd seen love shining in his eyes. Felt it in his every touch. He did love her. She knew it.
They were meant for each other.
And he knew it too. There was an invisible cord binding them together. Why else would he have heard that voice? She frowned to herself as that one word echoed in her mind.
Remember.
Disjointed flashes of images raced through her mind as if summoned. Faces, places, all whirling through her mind at a dizzying rate. Puritans. Pirates. Indians. Nobility. Old. Young. Impossible to single out just one. And the very number of those images terrified her.
How could she possibly have known all those people? The answer was, she couldn't have. Hundreds of years and thousands of miles separated them from her. And yet… the faces had seemed so… familiar. As if she should know them. But how could that be? she wondered. Reaching up, she rubbed at the spot between her eyes, but it did nothing to ease the sudden pounding that settled in there.
"Don’t you worry, hon," Treasure said, reaching over to give her hand a pat. "We'll bring that man to ground if we have to stand over him with shotguns."
"Shotguns?" Patience looked at the two women, each in turn, then shook her head. "I don't want to force him to marry me. I want him to want to."
'No man wants to, honey," the storekeeper told her. "Not until we tell 'em that's what they want, anyway."
Patience inhaled sharply, but didn't bother to argue. She'd been trying all evening and her friends were just too angry at Brady to listen. So inste
ad, she stood up and announced, "I think I need some air."
"Sure, sure you do," Lily said, smiling.
"You go on ahead, honey," Treasure added. "We'll wait for you right here."
Nodding, Patience turned and headed for the stairs. She sailed down them so quickly, she ran headlong into Davey when she reached the bottom.
The boy hit the floor, dropping that metal ring of his as he fell.
"Pestilence," she said on a gasp of surprise as she helped him up. "I didn't see you in the dark."
"I come to see you," he said, dipping his head, then looking up at her again through a fall of hair.
The boy looked so small, so lost, Patience surrendered to her instincts and reached for him. He stepped into her embrace and wrapped his too thin arms around her waist and held on tightly. She felt his warm, solid little body pressed against her and love for him shimmered through her. Smoothing her palms up and down his back, she bent her head to rest it against the top of his.
"I missed you while I was gone," she said softly.
"I reckon I missed you too, Patience," he whispered, then shifted slightly to be able to look at her without letting her go. "Brady missed you, too."
"He did?" Pleasure unwound inside her like a silky ribbon.
"Yes'm. He was cranky as all get-out without you around."
Well, that was nice to know, wasn't it? But it still didn't solve the problem facing her now. And that was making Brady admit how much he loved her. Making him see that they were destined to be wed. To create a family. A family that would include one love-starved little boy.
She ran one hand over his hair, smoothing it back from his face. "We never did get you to the barber, did we?"
"No, ma'am," he said, then added, "But I s'pose I wouldn't mind it too much."
Patience smiled at the concession he was willing to make for her sake.
"Patience," Davey said, "when're you gonna come back to Brady?"
"Soon," she said, putting every ounce of her longing into that one word. "Very soon."
"Good," the boy told her, stepping away long enough to pick up his metal ring. “’Cause he needs you. Real bad."
"I know that," she said wistfully. "And you know it. Now all we have to do is convince Brady."
#
By the next afternoon, Brady was convinced that nothing in his life would ever be the same again.
He sat in the tiny office behind the bar, surrounded by paperwork and towering stacks of liquor boxes. And he sat there alone.
Emptiness crowded him. Even when the saloon was filled with men giving him disgusted glances, he felt more alone than he ever had. And he knew, deep down, it was because he'd turned his back on Patience. It was the hardest thing he'd ever done and maybe the only truly good action he'd ever taken. It was for her sake that he refused to marry her. Why could no one else see what this was costing him?
The door swung open, and without looking up, he muttered, "Go away, Joe. Leave me be."
"It's not Joe,” Lily said softly as she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. "And I'm not leaving until I've had my say."
Tired to the bone, Brady tossed his pencil down onto the cluttered desktop and shifted his gaze to her. She looked so different these days. Like any other proper young widow. Except perhaps for the light in her eyes that was a little too knowing. A little too old for the rest of her face.
He squirmed a bit under that direct gaze, but otherwise sat still. "What is it?"
"I just wanted to tell you what I think of you, is all."
Well, this won't be good, he thought. "I think I already know that, Lily. But thanks just the same."
"Oh no," she said, planting both hands on the desktop and leaning forward. "You're not going to get out of this so easily, Brady."
Anger spurted up from his guts to yank at his heart. "You think this is easy?"
"Must be," she snapped. "Or you'd be doing the right thing instead."
"And just what is the right thing?" he demanded, pushing to his feet so that he was looking down at her.
"Marrying Patience."
"So I marry a good woman and make her the wife of a gunfighting saloonkeeper?" he asked, incredulous. "How is that the right thing?”
"You owe her, Brady," she said, then her voice dropped a notch as she added, "As much as I do."
"Lily…"
"No." She shook her head, sending that blond hair of hers swinging about her shoulders. “She changed everything for us. Don’t you see that? Don’t you realize how much better everything is for us now because of her?"
Of course he did. He'd have to be a fool to not realize it. And Brady Shaw was nobody's fool.
"She gave me back my pride," Lily told him, obviously on a tear and not willing to slow down to let him get in a word. Assuming he could think of anything to say in his own defense. "She gave me a second chance to live the kind of life I should have had."
"I know, and —“
"And she gave you even more." Lily rolled right over his interruption, determined to have her say. "She gave you love, Brady. She made this damn place a home. She looked into your heart and found something there that no one else ever had. She gave you everything."
Her words hit him like tiny bullets, going deep, drawing blood. He swayed with their impact, remembering everything about the last couple of weeks with Patience. Her smile, her laughter, her touch. Agony trickled through his bloodstream, slow but steady. And he stood there in front of Lily, mortally wounded, unable to argue with the simple truth.
"And what have you done for her?" she asked, her upper lip curling in disgust. "You ruined her. Made her the meaty piece of gossip this whole damn territory's chewing on."
He knew that, too, and it shamed him to the core. But it was too late to change anything now — even if he wanted to. And he wasn't at all sure he would change a single moment of his time with Patience.
Jesus, he really was a bastard.
"What do you expect me to do about it now?" he ground out through the pain.
She huffed out a breath and paused long enough to draw more. "I expect you to be the man I thought you were. I expect you to marry her."
Brady kicked the leg of the desk and noticed absently that a couple of piles of papers slid off the stacks to land on the floor.
"Damn it. Lily," he said on a low growl, "I can't marry her. I'm a gambler and worse, for God's sake — and she's a lady."
Lily's eyes narrowed. "Not anymore she's not. Now she's your whore.”
His head snapped back with the blow of that one ugly word. But Lily didn't use that word lightly, he knew. She'd had it hurled at her all too often over the years to use it casually herself. Brady's heart ached and twisted until he thought it might wring itself dry and let him drop dead on the spot.
No such luck.
He rubbed his face with the palms of his hands, and his voice was muffled as he said, "I don't have anything to offer her, Lily."
"You have your name," she said quietly. And without another word, she slipped from the room, closing the door and sealing him inside with his own worst enemy.
Himself.
#
Patience knew exactly where to find him.
When she went to look for him at the saloon and he wasn't there, she hired a carriage from the livery stable and drove out to the knoll she knew he loved.
As she drew up, she pulled the horse to a stop alongside Brady's mount and set the brake. Climbing out of the carriage, she quickly tied the reins to a low hanging branch of a pinon tree, then started up the slope.
Lifting her hem in her hands, she moved clumsily, but determined to reach him. To find him. To tell him again that she loved him and that she knew he loved her. She wouldn't lose the future they could have together. Not to Brady's stubbornness.
At the top of the knoll, she stopped, swaying slightly in the cold wind. Her shoes slipped in a patch of snow and she very nearly tumbled back down the way she'd come, but she dug her heels
in and stood her ground. There, just ten feet in front of her, was Brady. His back to her, he stood silently staring out into the distance, where the gunmetal gray sky kissed the top of the mountains.
Without turning around, he said, "You shouldn't be here. There's another storm brewing.”
"I had to come."
"Of course you did."
"Brady —“
"I've been thinking about this, Patience," he interrupted her neatly, still keeping his gaze locked on the faraway mountains. "And I've come to a decision."
"Yes?" She held her breath, hoping that at last he would admit to their love.
"You'll have to leave town."
She sucked in a gulp of frosty air and felt the chill of it reach down into the very corners of her soul. Disappointment warred with anger and the fury won.
"It's the only way," he said.
"No it's not," she countered, after swallowing hard and bracing her voice so it wouldn't break and betray the pain she felt.
"If you leave, the talk won't follow you," he said and slowly turned to look at her. His pale blue eyes looked as cold as the wind felt. His familiar features were hard, as if carved in stone. "You'll be able to start over fresh, somewhere else."
"Where, Brady?" she asked, meeting his gaze and silently daring him to look away.
"Anywhere, Patience," he said. And though his gaze never left hers, she thought she noticed a crack in his expression. And that told her all she needed to know. He didn't want her to leave. It was tearing him apart, just suggesting it.
The foolish man was so busy trying to do the right thing, he was blind to the fact that the only right thing was for them to be together.
"I'm not leaving,” she said simply and saw him wince.
"You have to."
"No," she said, and walked toward him, one slow step at a time. "I won't leave. You'll have to live here. Seeing me every day. Denying me, every day."
His eyes closed briefly, but not before she saw a dart of pain appear in them. She kept walking. Only a couple more steps now.
"Fine," he ground out. “I'll leave."
She laughed and he stared at her. Shaking her head, Patience asked, "How far can you run, Brady?"
When the Halo Falls, a heavenly romance Page 21