by Lynda J. Cox
Jon dropped his head, and his shoulders slumped. Victoria shifted just a little closer to him, until her shoulder pressed up against him.
“When those men came to my house, I let them take a man I knew hadn’t done anything they said he did.” Carroll’s gnarled fingers twisted the hat into an almost unrecognizable shape. He turned to Jon. “They stole three years from you. I let them. There isn’t any way I know to give that time back to you.”
A ragged breath eased from Jon, though he still maintained a study of the floor.
“I sold the ranch a month ago and I got a pretty penny for it. I’m moving Varina into town, somewhere. Varina needs to be with people.” Carroll’s voice grew as ragged as Jon’s breath. “People who won’t take advantage of her and that I can trust will look out for her when I’m gone. I like what I see of the people in Brokken.”
Jon slowly raised his head to Carroll and then grew as still as a statue.
“Mr. Brokken assures me that your sheriff is trustworthy to oversee the money I deposited here for Varina. I put half of what I got for the ranch into that account. You and the sheriff can oversee it once I’m gone.”
Victoria clamped her mouth shut when she realized her jaw dropped. She shot a glance at Colbert and Davis, noting the utterly blank look on the judge’s face. Davis’s poker face failed him this time. Colbert couldn’t have looked more surprised if he had been told he just sprouted wings and could fly.
The old man brought his sight back to Jon. “I know I can’t pay the debt I owe you for what I allowed those men to steal, Ishmael, but I can try. The other half of what I got for the ranch sale, it’s yours.”
“Mr. Carroll, you don’t—”
Carroll cut Jon off. “Don’t tell me what I don’t have to do. Doing this might not silence my conscience, but then again, it might.” The old man turned to Davis. “Your Honor, I’m entrusting this man with my only child. I’m hoping you can find a way to see fit to make sure he stays around to protect her the rest of her natural life.”
As Carroll walked past Victoria, he bobbed his head. “Ma’am,” he said, and walked out of the conference room, pulling the door closed behind him.
The stunned silence in the room held until Davis heaved out a long sigh. “Mr. Colbert, your prisoner is dead. Is that statement correct?”
“Yes, sir.” Colbert stared at the surface of the table.
“Are you certain, Mr. Colbert?” The force in Davis’s voice sent a chill skittering up Victoria’s spine.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?” Jon blurted out. “I’m not complaining, mind you, but why?”
Colbert lifted his head, finally. The cold fury etching harsh lines into his face and freezing his voice dropped the temperature in the room so much Victoria was surprised she couldn’t see her breath. Colbert’s voice dripped icicles. “I do not like to be proven wrong, and I will be in no man’s debt.”
The judge nodded, as if Colbert’s words decided something for him. He looked at Victoria, then Jon, and lastly Colbert. “I will need a few minutes to gather my thoughts. The three of you may go for now, but do not leave the bank.”
JON PACED THE FLOOR, once more reminding Victoria of a caged tiger. Colbert sat in one of the chairs near the door, a coldly amused smirk on his face. More than anything, Victoria wanted to wipe that smirk off the man’s face.
“He could decide that I’m wrong. That puts you back at Watonga,” Colbert shot across the room.
Jon hesitated then resumed pacing.
Victoria whirled to the portly man. “I was raised to be a lady, Mr. Colbert, but I’m going to say something my upbringing usually wouldn’t allow me to say. Shut up.”
If anything, Colbert’s smirk grew. “How much rock do you think you can produce swinging a sledge with one hand?”
Karl emerged from his office, leaned back against the wall, and folded his arms across his chest. Klint emerged from the teller’s-cage to stand by the door.
“You know the rules there, six-seven-five.” Colbert leaned back in the chair. “Keep up with the rest of the crew or suffer the consequences. Fail to produce the daily quota and you don’t eat. How long before you’d starve to death?”
Jon stopped pacing, his back to her, Colbert, Klint, and Karl. His shoulders shook with the shallow breaths rasping across the distance. Victoria’s stomach roiled.
“You’ll have a new name, though. Prison break adds a few years. Six-eight-oh, I think, will be—”
“That’s enough,” Victoria snapped. She scanned the bank for someplace to lock Colbert, someplace where his taunts couldn’t reach Jon. The massive, gleaming black, floor-to-ceiling door of the vault caught her eye. “Klint, if this man says another word, arrest him and lock him the vault.”
“My pleasure,” Klint said.
Victoria hurried over to Jon. He was ashen, his features ravaged. She brought her hand to his face, brushing her thumb along his cheekbone. “You’re not going back there,” she whispered. “No matter what, I won’t let him take you back there.”
“How are you going to stop it?” The bitterness tainting the words should have hurt.
Victoria forced a smile. She kept her voice to a whisper. “When you’ve been sheriff for a while, you figure out how to plan a good escape because to prevent an escape, you have to think like an outlaw. Curt has three horses outside for us. Klint and Karl will keep Colbert and Davis here for a few minutes. Levinson is certain the telegraph lines are down because of the flooding. It’s shoeing day at the livery, so Peter pulled the shoes off all the horses but the three out front. They were reshod this morning. And, strangely enough, Peter ran out of coal. He can’t reshoe anything until the trains can get through again.”
“Are you insane?” Jon met her gaze, his own disbelieving. “You’ll throw your life away. Just put a bullet in me.”
She drew the pad of her thumb along the slope of his cheek again. “I could just as easily put a bullet into my own heart as I could shoot you.”
The door to the conference room opened. Victoria’s breath caught while her stomach knotted. Karl didn’t return to his office, and she noted his more alert, tense posture. Davis scanned the room. “Sheriff, I would like to speak to you and Mr. Andrews.”
Jon audibly gulped. Victoria took his hand. “We do this together,” she said on a soft whisper.
He nodded. “What’s another escape?” he asked, in a low murmur.
Davis as much as ushered them into the conference room, and then gestured to the table. “Please, sit down, both of you.”
Victoria didn’t release Jon’s hand, even when he tried to let go to pull a chair out for her. They sat together. It was going to be all right. It had to be. And, if it wasn’t, she’d been told Mexico wasn’t that bad.
Davis sat across from them. “I’ve been a judge for thirty some years and I’m not sure what the legalities of this whole mess might be.” The judge shuffled a few more papers into the stack on the table. “I want to be completely clear on this before I render any decision. Jonathan English stole the identity of one Ishmael Jonathan Michael Andrews. Jonathan English led the Andrews’ gang. Is that correct so far?”
“Yes, your Honor,” Jon said. How he managed to keep his voice level Victoria didn’t know.
“Ishmael Jonathan Michael Andrews was falsely accused of raping that creature—”
“Careful,” Jon growled. “That creature is a sensitive, very intelligent woman, your Honor.”
Victoria held her breath as Davis absorbed Jon’s words. Davis dipped his head in acquiescence to Jon’s defense of Varina. Davis said, “You pleaded guilty. Why, if you did not rape Miss Carroll?”
“To avoid forcing Miss Carrol to lie and to avoid hanging.”
“Good reasons.” Davis dropped his head to the stack of papers in front of him, but not before Victoria saw a smile twitch a corner of his mouth. “Here is my dilemma. If I petition for a full and unconditional pardon for you, Mr. Andrews, Mr. Colbert opens hims
elf up to accusations of incompetence for not even knowing whether or not the dead man was actually his prisoner.”
Victoria held her breath again when Davis went on. “If I accept the assertion that Jonathan English stole your identity and formed the gang of outlaws under your name, we all accept it could not possibly be you leading that gang because you were wrongfully incarcerated at the prison in Watonga at the time the crimes were committed. However, if I accept the assertion that Mr. Colbert did have the correct man held within his prison and Jonathan English is now dead, we must accept the leader of the Andrews’ gang is still alive and at large. Do you see my dilemma?”
“Yes, sir.” The slightest break entered Jon’s voice.
“Your Honor—”
Davis held a hand up, silencing Victoria. He then leaned his elbows onto the highly polished surface of the table. “Mr. Andrews, I am going to tell you to keep your nose clean and your head down. If I even hear a breath of a rumor based on idle gossip that the Andrews gang is riding and at large again, I will sign an arrest warrant for you so quickly and arrange reward funds so extreme every bounty hunter between the Rio Grande and the Canadian border will be looking for you. There will not be a hole deep enough for you to crawl into and hide. Am I clear on that, Mr. Andrews?”
It was several long seconds before Davis’s words sank in. Victoria sucked in a deep, gasping breath even as Jon almost crumbled. He struggled to speak and finally said, “I’m not going back?”
Davis shook his head. “Not today.”
Jon fell back into the chair, his head tilted to the ceiling, and he gulped in several breaths as if he had been holding his breath forever. The judge smiled. “Sheriff, you can go tell Mr. Brokken and Mr. Caper they can stand down. I’m not sure where your horses are being—”
“Your Honor!” Victoria hoped she sounded sufficiently shocked and outraged.
Davis’s smile deepened. “Victoria, I’ve known you since you arrived in Texas. You have never not had a secondary plan if the first one didn’t work. I’ve also dealt with enough outlaws, scoff-laws, and out-right criminals to know how to think like them, just as you would have learned to think in order to deal with the threats they pose. You cannot tell me you did not have a secondary plan in place.”
“I don’t know if I should be mortified it was that obvious to you,” Victoria said. She leaned closer to Jon, her hand still in his, and brought her other to his arm. “Or, if I should just say thank-you.”
“Both, my dear, both. And thank me for preventing you ruining that beautiful dress you’re wearing with a headlong flight through the country.” Davis collected up the papers scattered across the table and stood them on end. He tampered them into a neat bundle. “There is one other thing...well, perhaps, two.”
Jon lowered his head. Victoria gripped Jon’s arm more tightly.
“I said I have known you since you came to Texas.” Davis slid the stack of papers into a large, brown envelope. “Because I have known you since you were in short skirts and braids, Victoria Regina, and because you will not listen to your father, do you know the damage that has been to your reputation because you’ve had this man living at your house?”
“Marrying her has always been in the plan, your Honor.” Jon glanced at Victoria. “It’s just that until right now, it wasn’t possible.”
“So, you have no objections if I tell you that neither one of you is leaving this room until you’re married?” Davis turned his gaze to Victoria, as if expecting her to refuse.
“I have no objections,” Victoria said, “provided you perform the ceremony.”
“You said there was another thing, your Honor?” Jon finally released Victoria’s hand, simply to wrap his arm around her waist.
“Yes.” Davis stood, tugging his frock coat into place as he did. “As you have recently come into a financial windfall, Mr. Andrews, and I’ve heard so much about Mr. Reed’s culinary expertise, you may buy me a cup of coffee and a plate of his beignets after I’ve married you to the sheriff.”
Jon rose and extended his hand to Victoria. She let him assist her to her feet. Jon said, “My bride and I would consider it our honor if you would allow us to buy your supper, sir.”
IF YOU HAVE ENJOYED this Brokken Road Romance, please consider leaving a review.
The following books are available:
Book 1, This Brokken Road, by Abagail Eldan and Lynda Cox
Book 2, Brokken Arrow, a Novella, by Abagail Eldan
Book 3, Brokken Rising by P. Creeden
Book 4, Brokken Knight by Lynda Cox
Book 5, Brokken Brother by Abagail Eldan
Book 6, Brokken Redeemed by Abagail Eldan
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