by Danni Roan
Blake nodded as the picture came together. “Where are we?”
“Laramie. Your folks are here.”
“What? Why?” Blake pushed himself up on his elbows in agitation.
“We’ve been taking care of you together,” Darcy said, with a shrug of her shoulders. “Besides, they thought you should have the best doctor available.”
Blake dropped back to the bed exhausted. “How’s my mother taking it all?”
“I think if Pierce weren’t already dead, she’d be hunting him down right now.” Darcy’s light laugh softened the blow, but Blake groaned anyway.
“I don’t suppose I can just go back to sleep and avoid what comes next can I?”
“Nope, you’re in the thick of it now Turnip,” Darcy tittered at his dark scowl. “The new police commissioner will be in soon, and he’ll want your whole story. They haven’t arrested me yet because of my own injury.”
Blake closed his eyes the pain of shame washing over him and dragging him down. “Darcy, I am so sorry.” He looked up capturing her eyes with his own. “You know I’d never hurt you. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Darcy stared down at Blake as sad smile tugging at her lips. Gently she pulled the cloth from his forehead and traced her fingers over his brow. “You did what you had to do. Don’t apologize for that. If you hadn’t done it we would be in a lonely grave somewhere on the high planes with no one to mourn over us but the coyotes.”
“But...”
Darcy’s hand pressed gently against his lips and he clutched at it. “We both did what we had to Blake,” her eyes flickered with a dark light. “I don’t blame you. Just get better. We’ll worry about everything else after that.”
Blake nodded, pulling her hand back to his lips and placing a soft kiss on her palm. “Thank you.”
Chapter 23
Darcy had barely closed the door before it opened again and Reese Middleton stepped in. “Good to see you awake,” the man grinned. “You gave us a bit of a scare.”
“How bad it is Reese?” Blake pushed himself to a sitting position, flinching at the pain shooting through his leg.
“It’s hard to tell. The wound itself is healing well and you seem to be fighting the fever. We’re keeping hot salt water compresses on the wound, but we can’t tell the extent of the damage to the bone.”
Reese moved to the bed taking up the chair that Darcy had been sitting on only moments ago and taking Blake’s wrist in his hand. “How are you feeling?” he asked as he pulled a pocket watch from his vest.
“Tired,” Blake admitted honestly.
“Good that means you’ll be able to rest.”
“How are Ma and Pa taking this whole mess?”
“Better than you might have expected. Clay keeps Meg from hovering, he knows you have the trial ahead yet and then what ever happens to Darcy.”
Blake slouched a little deeper in his blankets. He had been avoiding that aspect of the case. Darcy, for all the help she had given had been a part of the gang. She may not have normally participated in a robbery, or selling liquor, but she was still Pierce’s woman and people still assumed guilt by association.
“I’ll need to see Beckett soon,” he said, looking up to meet his uncle’s gaze. “Can you arrange it?”
“I’ll get word to him,” Reese agreed. “For now drink this, and I’ll be in with your dinner soon.”
Blake took the little cup from his uncle and downed the bitter drink in one gulp.
“Try to sleep. That’s the best thing for you right now.”
Blake nodded, slipping back into the bed and pulling the blankets tight as he tried to ignore the ache in his leg. “Thanks.”
It was nearly a week before Blake was able to move around the rented rooms with the use of a sturdy crutch. He had both reveled in and endured his mother’s fussing over him.
As Blake grew stronger, Darcy became more reserved and when Beckett arrived to discuss the need to testify in the upcoming trial she had withdrawn even more.
“We’ll need both of you,” Beckett said, turning to face them from the small fireplace in the sitting room. The small room felt crowded with only the three of them inside with the door closed, and looking at Darcy, Blake was glad no one else was present. It was going to be a grueling trial and the fact that such a well placed individual was part of it only promised to make it even more public.
“I’ve been working on a deal for you,” Beckett pointed his pipe at Darcy, “you won’t be prosecuted if you cooperate.”
Darcy folded her hands in her lap and nodded once before her eyes lifted meeting Blake’s.
“Don’t worry you’ll be well protected,” Beckett continued. “Blake, your testimony will go a long way to bringing this down. The fact that you were wounded in the line of duty will bring the public to our side. I want you to focus on the bank robbery, and shooting. We won’t focus on the bootlegging since emotions run high on both sides of that issue. Understand.”
“Yes sir.” Blake looked back to Darcy who nodded. He could tell she was frightened. She had already suffered so much in this ordeal. Even now she was still healing from her own wound.
“I’ll fetch you tomorrow at nine then. Wear your uniform.” The older man paused turning to look at Darcy. “I’d find something more modest to wear as well young lady,” he chided. “We want people to empathize with you, not focus on who-what- you were.”
“Yes sir,” Darcy managed, meeting the man’s eyes. “I’ll do my best.”
“Good, then get some rest, you’ll both need it.”
Beckett strode to the door pulling it closed behind him with a snap.
Blake gazed at the door for several seconds as everything seemed to fall into place. Pulling his mind away from the conversation he turned to look at Darcy who sat by the window gazing out into the sunny street.
Standing he hobbled to her side reaching down and taking her hand in his. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“You’ve been very brave.”
Darcy shook her head pulling her hand from his. “No, you are the one who has been brave. If they had discovered who you were that would have been it. I knew where my path was leading all along. At least this way I won’t have to go to jail.”
Blake bent at the middle, reaching out and placing a finger under Darcy’s chin forcing her to look at him. “Darcy, you have a whole life ahead of you yet. You aren’t just escaping jail, or punishment, you have an opportunity to start again.”
Darcy pulled her face away from his piercing eyes to look out the window again. “It’s not that simple,” she said. “I have so much to atone for, so many things to put right.”
“The only thing you need to put right is your heart,” Blake persisted. “All you have to do is ask. Reach out and take the gift that is right in front of you.”
Darcy refused to turn back to see the pain and sorrow in Blake’s eyes. He didn’t know her, what she had done. She needed to make amends and maybe in time God would be able to forgive her. “You’d better get some sleep,” she said softly. “We have a long day ahead of us.”
Blake leaned forward placing his hand on her cheek and turning her face toward him once more. The sound of a rifle shot and the shatter of glass spurred him to drag her to the floor with him as something hot tugged at his sleeve.
“Blake! Blake!” Darcy’s panicked whisper pierced his heart. “Are you hurt, did they hit you?”
“No, no, I’m not hit.”
“Someone found us,” Darcy whispered as sirens blared outside.
“We’d better get out of here,” Blake said, rolling to his knees with a hiss of pain and grabbing her hand. “Come on.”
The door to the sitting room burst open and a dark shadow fell across the floor. Blake could just make out his father’s silhouette pressed against the door frame, a soft glint of light indicating the gun in his hand.
“Move it son,” Clay Allen called. “Are you hit?”
>
“No, we’re fine,” Blake called back as he pulled Darcy through the door and to the side of the hall.
Clay slipped, cat like, into the room and sidled up to the window, twitching the curtains away from the shattered window, but seeing nothing.
“Looks like this isn’t over just yet.” With quick fingers, he reached through the window and jerked the shutters closed. “I’ll take first watch.”
The door down the hall slammed open and Blake reached for a pistol that wasn’t there.
“Allen!” Beckett’s voice carried down the hall. “You better not be dead.”
“We’re safe,” Blake shot back, helping Darcy sit up against the wall.
“I’m having my men button this place up, and I’ve got a sharp shooter on the roof in case they come back for another try.”
“How’d they find us?” Blake spat. “No one knows where we are other than my family and you.”
“I suspect I was followed,” Beckett growled. “I should have been more careful. I should have known that Hawkins contacts go far deeper than we knew.”
Clayton stepped back out of the sitting room a hard glare on his face. “You’d better keep my boy safe,” he hissed, his amber eyes all but glowing in the low light. “He’s done everything you asked of him, now it’s your turn to protect him and Darcy.”
“We will, we will.” Beckett looked up seeing the feral glint in the other man’s eyes and shivered. He could see where Blake got his tenacity. “I’ll hand pick every man on the detail for the drive tomorrow.”
Clay nodded, pulling a pistol from his waistband and handing it to Blake. “Best keep sharp,” he said, then trotted off down the hall to the kitchen.
Beckett ran a hand over his face. “We might have even bigger fish to fry than I suspected. Can you hold it together?”
“We can,” Blake stated wrapping an arm around Darcy and pulling her close. “You just keep us safe and we’ll bring this whole thing crashing down.”
Chapter 24
The drive to the court house was tense, but Blake never let go of Darcy for a second as they were hustled through the noisy crowd of onlookers and reporters.
Beckett lived up to his promise and provided tight security for his star witnesses. When Hawkins was brought to the dock, his steely eyes landed on Blake and his glare of pure hatred nearly reached the young man’s soul.
“Are you ready?” Blake asked Darcy when she was called to the stand.
“I’m ready,” she said, squeezing his hand and rising to her feet.
The whole experience was a whirlwind of words, pictures, statements, and arguments. The jury looked torn between disgust at the behavior of a man like Hawkins and fear of reprisal.
Blake feared that if the gang had gotten to any of the men in the box all he and Darcy had suffered would have been for naught, but when the verdict was returned a resounding guilty verdict finished off the master mind of the outlaw gang.
Blake sagged in his father’s arms as the verdict came in and together they exited the court house.
“I was worried there for a while,” he admitted on the drive back to the boarding house. “Darcy, you were great.” The young lawman lifted her hand brushing it with his lips.
“Thanks Turnip,” Darcy said, her voice droll. “Now that this is over, I guess I’ll be going.”
The car came to a stop at the house and Blake climbed from the back seat reaching in to help Darcy out then hobbling up the stairs to their rented rooms. “What do you mean going?” he asked, his voice low so only Darcy would hear.
“You don’t think I’m hanging around here do you?” Darcy said, her shoulders where stiff as they walked into the house. “I have my freedom, and I plan on making the most of it.”
“But where will you go?” Blake turned the woman to the side of the porch as his parents walked past them. “Will you go home? Where can I find you if, if we need something?”
“Turnip, don’t worry about me. I’ll go somewhere quiet. Find a job or something. There’s honest work out there if I look.”
Blake pulled the hat from his head and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Your picture has been all over the newspapers. How do you think you’re going to find work when everyone knows who you are?”
“I’ll leave the state.”
“Do you think that will make a difference? This was a major case. You won’t find a job out there.”
“What do you expect me to do?” Darcy growled. “I can’t just go home like you. No one there will want to see me. I have some money, I’ll start a shop, or something.”
“Come back to the Broken J with me,” Blake said, his heart burning with sorrow at the thought of her leaving. Darcy was smart, brave, and full of love if only she would let it in.
“Come back and have a rest there for a while before you decide what to do.”
“That’s not my home, it’s yours.” Darcy turned away looking out over the street. “You go home, get better.”
Blake huffed, a derisive sound. “Darcy I might never get better. Reese thinks this limp is permanent. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to return to the force after this. I’m no good for undercover work now since everyone and their brother knows who I am, and what I did.”
Darcy spun around, her dark eyes full of compassion. “That isn’t fair,” she gulped. “You did your job, and they won’t keep you on. You’re a great lawman, a good person, it isn’t right.”
Blake smiled. “No one said life was fair Darcy, it can be hard, but your attitude can make all the difference. If I can’t work in law, I can work on the ranch. I love raising horses and working with my father to make sure the best horses possible come from the Broken J. Come back with me. Just for a little while. Take some time before you decided what you’ll do next.”
Darcy shook her head, but her eyes couldn’t leave his. She wanted to go with him. She wanted to stay with Blake. His big heart had somehow opened up hers, and she knew she loved her hopeless Turnip. He deserved better than this though, and she knew she had to go.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“No,” Darcy turned away again, her heart breaking. “You have a future there, and there’s no part in it for someone like me.”
Blake felt his chest constrict and grasped Darcy’s arms turning her gently to face him once more. “You already have a place in it,” his words were soft. “Darcy, you need to realize that whatever your past God can wipe the slate clean. You’ve been given a second chance, maybe more than one,” he grinned and Darcy’s lips twitched. “What can it hurt to come to the Broken J for a couple of weeks?”
It could break my heart Darcy thought but felt herself weakening. Wouldn’t a couple of weeks to pull herself together be a good idea?
“Why?”
“Because you’re my friend,” Blake persisted. “Besides, who’s going to keep me out of trouble,” he added with a laugh.
“You do seem to find it fast enough don’t you Turnip?” Darcy grinned. “I guess I could ride along to see you get home safe, but I’m not staying.”
Blake smiled, his heart soaring with hope. Maybe once he got Darcy back to the ranch, he could get through to her. Maybe, surrounded by people who he loved and trusted, she could see who he really was and understand that he saw the woman she could be, if she would only surrender her will to a loving God.
“You won’t regret it,” he grinned. “I’ll even take you riding and show you all the places I loved as a kid. It will be a holiday, and we can both take some time to rest and recuperate. There’s nothing like a Wyoming summer at the Broken J to refresh a soul.”
Darcy laughed as Blake gushed about the ranch and something warm fluttered in her life, like a bird stretching its wings in anticipation of flight.
“Alright Turnip, you can show me all the places you like out there in the middle of nowhere. I might even get on a smelly old horse if you ask nice.”
Blake laughed offering Darcy his arm and heading for
the door. He didn’t have to let her go, at least not yet, and if all went the way he hoped, she would see the truth of it all out on the open prairie where God’s hand print rested fresh on each new day.
He wanted Darcy to know the freedom he had grown up with. To feel the sun on her face, and find peace in the wild places. He wanted her to understand true forgiveness that was offered freely to any who would ask. She had been a prisoner of her own desires, and the life she had stepped into so long ago, but tomorrow was a new promise, and she could start over, hopefully at his side.
Darcy glanced over at the handsome man beside her and sighed. She was a fool for going with him, but he had become someone she could depend on, and for just this once, she believed that he would live up to his promises. Two weeks on a ranch, hidden from reporters and the prying eyes of those who saw her as a bad man’s moll, couldn’t hurt. It might be a chance to let things die down before she decided what came next.